The cornerstones of Singaporean foreign policy towards the United States and China are constituted by security considerations, economic liberalism and a dedication to pragmatic non-alignment. Above all, pragmatism has led the Singaporean approach to the Eastern and Western powers. Diplomatically, Singapore aims to be neutral and free from alliances, even in its close relations with both the US and China. Security-wise, Singapore has called for the involvement of the US in Asia Pacific across the Cold War and Post-Cold War periods as a hedge to local regional powers, particularly in light of China's military modernisation. Access to the large American consumer market has been considered crucial to Singapore's economic 'miracle' but the American share of trade has declined in recent years as trade with Asian partners, and particularly with China, has accelerated. Singapore maximises economic opportunities through growing market ties with China, while avoiding bandwagoning. Singapore hedges its cultural, spatial and economic proximity to China with robust diplomatic, military and economic relations with the US and through regional participation in ASEAN and international organisations. By doing so, Singapore pursues its grand desire to remain uniquely Singaporean.


Nicotine and serotonin modulate the innate and adaptive immune responses and the inflammatory states. Several nicotinic cholinergic and serotonergic receptor subtypes have been characterized in B and T lymphocytes, monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells. The use of knockout mice has allowed a better characterization of nicotinic receptors and their role in anti‐inflammatory processes in these cells. Cytokines play a crucial role in controlling inflammatory reactions. Nicotine and serotonin have been reported to regulate cytokine release. Cholinergic mechanisms also play an important role in inflammation through endogenous acetylcholine. Nicotine mimics this effect by activating the cholinergic anti‐inflammatory pathways. New concepts of reciprocal interactions between nicotine and serotonin are emerging. The role of nicotine as an anti‐inflammatory agent has been established, whereas that of serotonin remains more controversial.


The dynamics of two-dimensional small-polaron formation at ultrathin alkane layers on a silver(111) surface have been studied with femtosecond time- and angle-resolved two-photon photoemission spectroscopy. Optical excitation creates interfacial electrons in quasi-free states for motion parallel to the interface. These initially delocalized electrons self-trap as small polarons in a localized state within a few hundred femtoseconds. The localized electrons then decay back to the metal within picoseconds by tunneling through the adlayer potential barrier. The energy dependence of the self-trapping rate has been measured and modeled with a theory analogous to electron transfer theory. This analysis determines the inter- and intramolecular vibrational modes of the overlayer responsible for self-trapping as well as the relaxation energy of the overlayer molecular lattice. These results for a model interface contribute to the fundamental picture of electron behavior in weakly bonded solids and can lead to better understanding of carrier dynamics in many different systems, including organic light-emitting diodes.


The author offers an overview of the most important inscriptions in Early Old Georgian and classifies these according to graphical, linguistic and textual features per period. The result is in accord with the development of the Georgian script and the Georgian historiographical traditions.


Working from the formal model of population growth, Pt = P0e, we use population change in the U.S. Great Plains between 1900 and 1930 to demonstrate the efficiency of an alternative approach to estimating population change, r: growth curve modeling (GCM). Through this method, the researcher treats processes of change as a trajectory rather than a series of panels, resulting in a more efficacious and parsimonious analysis. Three general aspects of population growth can be addressed through linear and non-linear GCM techniques, namely (1) establishing a mean growth rate that represents the general pattern of change across all units, (2) estimating the degree of local level variation around the average rate, and (3) analyzing the relative contribution of factors influencing this variation. Our findings reveal that the non-linear cubic model most appropriately suits the early years of development on the Great Plains, indicating that the rate of population change varied over the period with rapid growth at the outset followed by a decreasing rate of growth in the middle decade and an accelerating rate during the later portion. In addition, we observed considerable variation around the average growth rate, and attribute much of this to county settlement date, urban proximity, and economic base, each to a varying extent across the different models.


Spartina alterniflora Loisel. is a major grass species of Atlantic coast tidal marshes which contributes heavily to the primary productivity of estuarine ecosystems. As human activity increases in marsh areas, the capability of marsh vegetation to withstand disturbance must be understood and constitute the basis for formulating sound management programs. Toward this end, the seasonal distribution of photoassimilated carbon was studied in S. alterniflora growing under natural conditions. Single culms were exposed to ¹⁴CO₂ at various times during the 1970 and 1971 growing seasons. Plants were harvested 1, 3, and 7 days following exposure to ¹⁴CO₂. subdivided into leaves, culm, rhizomes, and roots; and each portion assayed for ¹⁴C. Assimilate translocation reached a more or less stable distribution pattern within 24 hours. Throughout much of the growing season, most photosynthate was retained in leaf and culm tissue with less than 10% translocated to roots and rhizomes. Only during early autumn was substantial photosynthate translocated into rhizomes. This and seasonal carbohydrate levels within perennial organs indicate that the stability of S. alterniflora stands may be adversely affected by summer disturbance especially defoliation.


The effect of microwave treatment on the surface roughness and wettability of chalcopyrite (CuFeS2 ) and on the chemical composition of its surface was studied. The microwave source was a conventional multimodal oven with frequency of 2.45 GHz and maximum power of 900 W. Pure chalcopyrite specimens and purified chalcopyrite concentrate were used in this study. Analysis using atomic force microscopy showed a decrease in the surface roughness of the chalcopyrite after microwave radiation. This decrease may be due to oxidation of the surface and formation of iron oxide. Moreover, the surface wettability of the chalcopyrite mineral increased with increasing duration of microwave radiation, which was in good agreement with the micro-flotation mass recovery results. The increased wettability of the surface may be attributed to the decreased surface roughness by microwave radiation. Analysis using scanning electron microscope/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy indicate that after microwave radiation, the contents of sulfur and iron increased whereas that of copper decreased on the surface of the chalcopyrite, significantly changing the average atomic number of the chalcopyrite surface.


Title of dissertation: INSPIRAL-MERGER-RINGDOWN MODELS FOR SPINNING BLACK-HOLE BINARIES AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN ANALYTICAL AND NUMERICAL RELATIVITY Andrea Taracchini, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Alessandra Buonanno Department of Physics The long-sought direct detection of gravitational waves may only be a few years away, as a new generation of interferometric experiments of unprecedented sensitivity will start operating in 2015. These experiments will look for gravitational waves with frequencies from 10 to about 1000 Hz, thus targeting astrophysical sources such as coalescing binaries of compact objects, core collapse supernovae, and spinning neutron stars, among others. The search strategy for gravitational waves emitted by compact-object binaries consists in filtering the output of the detectors with template waveforms that describe plausible signals, as predicted by general relativity, in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. In this work, we modeled these systems through the effective-one-body approach to the general-relativistic 2-body problem. This formalism rests on the idea that binary coalescence is universal across different mass ratios, from the testparticle limit to the equal-mass regime. It bridges the gap between post-Newtonian theory (valid in the slow-motion, weak-field limit) and black-hole perturbation theory (valid in the small mass-ratio limit, but not limited to slow motion). The project unfolded along two main avenues of inquiry, with the goal of developing faithful inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms for generic spinning, stellar-mass blackhole binaries. On the one hand, we studied the motion and gravitational radiation of test masses orbiting Kerr black holes in perturbation theory, with the goal of extracting strong-field information that can be incorporated into effective-one-body models. On the other hand, we worked at the interface between analytical and numerical relativity by calibrating effective-one-body models against numerical solutions of Einstein's equations, and testing their accuracy when extrapolated to different regions of the parameter space. In the course of this project, we also studied conservative effects of the 2-body dynamics, namely the periastron advance, and devised algorithms for generating realistic initial conditions for spinning, precessing black-hole binaries. The waveform models developed in this project will be employed in dataanalysis pipelines and gravitational-wave searches of advanced LIGO and Virgo. In the near future, natural extensions of this work will be the inclusion of tidal effects in the comparable-mass regime (relevant for neutron-star/black-hole binaries), and spin precession in the test-particle limit. INSPIRAL-MERGER-RINGDOWN MODELS FOR SPINNING BLACK-HOLE BINARIES AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN ANALYTICAL AND NUMERICAL RELATIVITY


RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICAL SOCIAL ETHICS: AN ASSESSMENT AND FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL CHALLENGES Andrew Thomas Walker, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2018 Chair: Dr. Russell D. Moore Based on a review of the academic literature, evangelical public theology often lacks a systematic, theologically grounded social ethic concerning religious liberty. The resulting impasse is one where religious liberty lacks distinctly evangelical contours. Modern and contemporary religious liberty discussions have been ceded, almost exclusively, to political and legal philosophy. At the same time, religious liberty is a foundational principle for evangelical public theology because it addresses issues of how evangelicals enter the public square as a religious people. Additionally, a doctrine of religious liberty is vital for establishing the relationship between the church and state in society. Theological warrant is needed to establish a doctrine of religious liberty on evangelical grounds, and, correspondingly, the lack of consensus or framework around religious liberty jeopardizes the possibility of developing a truly evangelical understanding of religious liberty for public theology. This dissertation seeks to remedy this gap in evangelical public theology and social ethics by grounding religious liberty in the biblical categories of eschatology, anthropology, and soteriology. Chapter one examines the literature surrounding evangelical proposals around religious liberty. Chapters 2 through 4 offer a constructive proposal for religious liberty oriented around the themes of the kingdom of God (eschatology), the image of God (anthropology), and the mission of God (soteriology). Chapter 5 concludes by offering concern that secular ideologies lack sufficient explanatory power to extend a principled account of religious liberty.


The FAMILY Cohort is a longitudinal study of health, happiness and family harmony (the '3Hs') at individual, household and neighbourhood levels in Hong Kong. Using a family living in the same household as the sampling unit, the study (n = 20 279 households and 46 001 participants) consists of a composite sample from several sources, including: a population-representative random core sample (n = 8115 households and 19 533 participants); the first-degree relatives of this sample (n = 4658 households and 11 063 participants); and oversampling in three new towns (n = 2891 households and 7645 participants) and in three population subgroups with anticipated changes in family dynamics (n = 909 households and 2160 participants). Two household visits and five telephone- or web-based follow-ups were conducted over 2009-14. Data collected include socio-demographics, anthropometrics, lifestyle and behavioural factors, measures of social capital, and standardized instruments assessing the 3Hs. We also intend to collect biomaterials in future. The analytical plan includes multilevel inter-relations of the 3Hs for individuals, households, extended families and neighbourhoods. With Hong Kong's recent history of socioeconomic development, the FAMILY Cohort is therefore relevant to global urban populations currently experiencing similarly rapid economic growth. The FAMILY Cohort is currently set up as a supported access resource.


The Web Mashup Scripting Language (WMSL) enables an end-user (you) working from his browser, e.g. not needing any other infrastructure, to quickly write mashups that integrate any two, or more, web services on the Web. The end-user accomplishes this by writing a web page that combines HTML, metadata in the form of mapping relations, and small piece of code, or script. The mapping relations enable not only the discovery and retrieval of the WMSL pages, but also affect a new programming paradigm that abstracts many programming complexities from the script writer. Furthermore, the WMSL Web pages or scripts that disparate end-users (you) write, can be harvested by Crawlers to automatically generate the concepts needed to build lightweight ontologies containing local semantics of a web service and its data model, to extend context ontologies or middle ontologies, and to develop links, or mappings, between these ontologies. This enables an open-source model of building ontologies based on the WMSL Web page or scripts that end users (you) write.


The number of organizations adopting the Data Warehouse (DW) technology along with data analytics in order to improve the effectiveness of their decision–making processes is permanently increasing. Despite the efforts invested, the DW design remains a great challenge research domain. More accurately, the design quality of the DW depends on several aspects; among them, the requirement-gathering phase is a critical and complex task. In this context, we propose a Natural language (NL) NL-template based design approach, which is twofold; firstly, it facilitates the involvement of decision-makers in the early step of the DW design; indeed, using NL is a good and natural means to encourage the decision-makers to express their requirements as query-like English sentences. Secondly, our approach aims to generate a DW multidimensional schema from a set of gathered requirements (as OLAP: On-Line-Analytical-Processing queries, written according to the NL suggested templates). This approach articulates around: (i) two NL-templates for specifying multidimensional components, and (ii) a set of five heuristic rules for extracting the multidimensional concepts from requirements. Really, we are developing a software prototype that accepts the decision-makers' requirements then automatically identifies the multidimensional components of the DW model.


AIM
Recent literature suggests that some human cancer cell lines possess a calcium cation receptor. Human myeloma cell lines have demonstrated stimulated cell proliferation by the gadolinium cation through this receptor, and osteosarcoma cell lines possess the same cation receptor. Although enhanced MRI is a very useful diagnostic tool for the treatment of sarcoma in the orthopedic area, incorporating the use of MRI contrast agents based on gadolinium raises the possibility of the stimulation of cancer cell growth.

METHODS
Human myeloma (RPMI 8226), osteosarcoma (Saos-2) and rat osteosarcoma (UMR-106) cell lines were exposed to various concentrations of common MRI contrast agent gadodiamide Omniscan (5 microM, 50 microM, 500 microM, 5 mM, 50 mM) in a culture medium. The response of the cells was then assessed by measuring cell proliferation and DNA synthesis.

RESULTS
Treatment with 5 microM to 5 mM gadodiamide did not stimulate cell proliferation; only cells exposed to 50 mM gadodiamide showed suppressed proliferation rates.

CONCLUSIONS
Since intravenously injected gadodiamide is diluted from 500 microM to 1 mM by patient blood flow at enhanced MRI examinations, the results of the present study suggest that gadodiamide has not effect on these types of cancer cells.


OBJECTIVE
The authors assessed the efficacy and safety of combination treatment with varenicline and sustained-release bupropion for smokers who, based on an assessment of initial smoking reduction prior to the quit date, were deemed unlikely to achieve abstinence using nicotine patch treatment.

METHOD
In a randomized, double-blind, parallel-group adaptive treatment trial, the authors identified 222 cigarette smokers who failed to show a reduction of more than 50% in smoking after 1 week of nicotine patch treatment. Smokers were randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of varenicline plus bupropion or varenicline plus placebo. The primary outcome measure was continuous smoking abstinence at weeks 8-11 after the target quit date.

RESULTS
Both treatments were well tolerated. Participants who received the combination treatment had a significantly higher abstinence rate than those who received varenicline plus placebo (39.8% compared with 25.9%; odds ratio=1.89; 95% CI=1.07, 3.35). Combination treatment had a significantly greater effect on abstinence rate in male smokers (odds ratio=4.26; 95% CI=1.73, 10.49) than in female smokers (odds ratio=0.94; 95% CI=0.43, 2.05). It also had a significantly greater effect in highly nicotine-dependent smokers (odds ratio=3.51, 95% CI=1.64, 7.51) than in smokers with lower levels of dependence (odds ratio=0.71, 95% CI=0.28, 1.80).

CONCLUSIONS
Among smokers who did not show a sufficient initial response to prequit nicotine patch treatment, combination treatment with varenicline and bupropion proved more efficacious than varenicline alone for male smokers and for smokers with a high degree of nicotine dependence.


For restaurants, the provision of coupons is a usual way of attracting people to the restaurant. Today, many restaurants consider how to use mobile advertising to promote their coupons (i.e., mobile coupons) in order to attract people and enhance its popularity. The purpose of this research is to identify what factors that affect customers' willingness to use mobile coupons in a restaurant setting. Five key factors that affect customers' willingness to use mobile coupons in a restaurant setting have been identified, from a base of 14 factors regarding customers' willingness to accept mobile advertising. The identified factors include price, customisation, promotion, entertainment, and sending time. This means that when customers use mobile coupons, the five identified factors will affect their willingness to use them. Restaurants can use the identified factors as a reference, when they try to develop new marketing strategies or want to enhance the effectiveness of mobile coupons.


The aims of this study were to determine whether the equine distal phalanx changes in shape in response to exercise and to relate any osseous changes to those in the hoof capsule. Eighteen mature Standardbred horses were randomly divided into exercise and control groups. Exercised horses were jogged on a straight track at individual mean speeds between 4 and 8 m s − 1 for 10–45 min, 4 days per week for 16 weeks. Both groups were similarly shod and pastured on the same field. Before and after the training period, each horse had digital photographs and magnetic resonance images (MRI) made of the right forehoof. Five linear measurements of the distal phalanx were recorded from the MRI and 24 measurements of the hoof capsule were made on the digital photographs. Small but significant changes in bone width ( P  = 0.039) were found in the controls and in two sagittal measurements of bone length ( P  = 0.039, 0.001, respectively) for the exercise group. These changes were slight and did not correlate with changes in shape of the hoof capsule, suggesting that the bone acts as a stable platform for supporting the capsule and withstanding loads.


The author looks into the stimulations and constraints with regard to the utilization of Hydro-Quebec' s surplus power in the light of the public choice theory. The study tries to establish the merits of four main propositions. Firstly, the reason behind the significant surplus of electrical energy produced lies more with the means of production of hydro-electricity itself ' than with the decision-makers of Hydro-Quebec. Secondly, due to the stimulations and constraints generated by the institutional arrangements, the Quebec decision-makers tend to prefer a strategy of internal consumption to one of exportation. Thirdly, the exportation strategy is adopted only to make up for the impossibility to get rid of all the surplus on internal markets. Finally, the strategy opted for by the decision-makers in Quebec results in sub-optimal conditions which are more to the advantage of those holding the means of production to the detriment of the consumer.


Drug abuse among the youth is a widespread problem in many countries including the Philippines. Thus, thisstudy was conducted to determine the root causes of drug abuse among students in colleges as an avenue in looking for possiblesolutions. Mere law enforcement activities will be ineffective in curbing the prevalent drug abuse if its root causes will not beproperly addressed. With this, there is a need to know the causes of drug abuse as a framework in re-aligning the prevention andrehabilitation programs to ensure its effectiveness. Survey instruments and interview were employed as techniques in gatheringdata. The respondents includes the law enforcement agencies handling drug related cases such as the police and drug enforcers.College faculty and staff whose function is related in handling cases of students were also included. The result of this studyrevealed that the top ten causes of drug abuse among students in colleges are peer influence, lack of attention from parents, seriousproblems in the family, lack of guidance from parents, weak foundation on moral values, suffering frustrations, absence of schoolanti-drug abuse council, lack of drug abuse prevention activities, means to temporarily forget problems, and lack of concern fromfaculty and staff.


Background Osteoporosis is a global disease with a 30–40% lifetime risk of associated fractures according to the World Health Organisation. Osteoporosis incidence is likely to rise with ageing populations. Risk factor modification and medical treatments may reduce fracture risk. This work aimed to investigate the time to second fracture of patients receiving medical secondary prevention following index fracture compared to those that did not. Methods An observational study design involved the formation of an anonymised e-cohort utilising linked records. All low impact fractures in patients aged >60 years were identified from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage database between 01/04/2009 and 31/12/2014. Index and secondary fractures were identified from the emergency department and inpatient data sets. Linkages were made to censor for migration and mortality. Linked primary care records identified patients that had received prescriptions for fracture prevention medications. Statistical analysis involved regression models with accelerated time adjustments. Results Over 49,000 cases were included. Of these, 8,033 (16.1%) had received medical treatment, the median age was 78 years (range 60–108) and 14,120 (28.4%) were male. Receiving medical treatment was significantly associated with increasing age (OR 1.02, 95% CI: 1.017–1.022, p < 0.001) and female gender (p < 0.001). Secondary prevention was significantly and independently associated with lower hazard of second fracture (HR 0.25, 95% CI: 0.15–0.41, p < 0.001). Conclusions Secondary medical prevention was associated with a 75% reduction in the hazard of sustaining a second fracture. However, fewer than a fifth of patients received such treatment. Study limitations include selection bias and potential residual confounding as patients were not randomised. Future work should focus on groups most likely to benefit from secondary prevention treatment to better inform clinical practice.


We present measurements of the radial profiles of the mass and galaxy number density around Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ)-selected clusters using both weak lensing and galaxy counts. The clusters are selected from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 5 and the galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data set. With signal-to-noise ratio of 62 (45) for galaxy (weak lensing) profiles over scales of about 0.2–20 h−1 Mpc, these are the highest precision measurements for SZ-selected clusters to date. Because SZ selection closely approximates mass selection, these measurements enable several tests of theoretical models of the mass and light distribution around clusters. Our main findings are: (1) The splashback feature is detected at a consistent location in both the mass and galaxy profiles and its location is consistent with predictions of cold dark matter N-body simulations. (2) The full mass profile is also consistent with the simulations. (3) The shapes of the galaxy and lensing profiles are remarkably similar for our sample over the entire range of scales, from well inside the cluster halo to the quasilinear regime. We measure the dependence of the profile shapes on the galaxy sample, redshift, and cluster mass. We extend the Diemer & Kravtsov model for the cluster profiles to the linear regime using perturbation theory and show that it provides a good match to the measured profiles. We also compare the measured profiles to predictions of the standard halo model and simulations that include hydrodynamics. Applications of these results to cluster mass estimation, cosmology, and astrophysics are discussed.


Several large scale data mining applications, such as text categorization and gene expression analysis, involve high-dimensional data that is also inherently directional in nature. Often such data is L2 normalized so that it lies on the surface of a unit hypersphere. Popular models such as (mixtures of) multi-variate Gaussians are inadequate for characterizing such data. This paper proposes a generative mixture-model approach to clustering directional data based on the von Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution, which arises naturally for data distributed on the unit hypersphere. In particular, we derive and analyze two variants of the Expectation Maximization (EM) framework for estimating the mean and concentration parameters of this mixture. Numerical estimation of the concentration parameters is non-trivial in high dimensions since it involves functional inversion of ratios of Bessel functions. We also formulate two clustering algorithms corresponding to the variants of EM that we derive. Our approach provides a theoretical basis for the use of cosine similarity that has been widely employed by the information retrieval community, and obtains the spherical kmeans algorithm (kmeans with cosine similarity) as a special case of both variants. Empirical results on clustering of high-dimensional text and gene-expression data based on a mixture of vMF distributions show that the ability to estimate the concentration parameter for each vMF component, which is not present in existing approaches, yields superior results, especially for difficult clustering tasks in high-dimensional spaces.


Instances of cultural remembering have three terms: an event in the world, sensorially apprehended; a private, mental image of that event; and public depictions of it. Historians sift through representations in newspapers, diaries, artifacts, and interview materials in order to understand, through triangulation, to understand a now-vanished moment—to answer the question, "What happened?" However, analyzing the process of remembering requires a different question, "What is happening?" That is, how are references to the past currently created, circulated, and understood? Using data from sots-art visual parodies, nostalgic discourses in rural Siberia, and Soviet bloc sketch comedy competitions, this article examines the ways  in which historical images are reworked both in everyday interaction and global media contexts. This article fi rst describes how Peircean semiotics concretizes the mechanisms linking personal experiences and public representations, then uses this lens to examine how two ways of transmitting information about the past—interpersonal and mass-mediated—differ in their implications for meaning making, resigni fi cation, and censorship. In English , extended summary in Russian .


The orientational assembly of glass rods (3 x ~15 µm) in nematic, twisted nematic, and cholesteric liquid crystal cells was observed and quantified with optical microscopy. At this size, the rods were affected strongly by gravity and sedimented to the bottom of the cells. Temporal visualization of the sedimentation process (induced by flipping the cell over) shed insight into the effect the liquid crystal order had on the glass rod orientation. For nematic and twisted nematic geometries, the glass rods were aligned parallel to the local director orientation. Control experiments indicate that the rod alignment is not due to capillary flow induced artifacts from fabrication of the sample or due to interactions with the buffed substrates. As evidence, the glass rods rotated 90 degrees as they fell from the top to the bottom of a twisted nematic cell. More complex behavior was observed for cholesteric cells depending on the pitch length. A computational model was developed to predict the elastic energy of the system as a function of the angle between the long axis of the glass rod and the cholesteric liquid crystal director. The model predicted that the elastic energy of the system was minimized when the glass rods remained parallel to the cholesteric liquid crystal director when the pitch was sufficiently long, which agrees with experimental results.


In recent years, co-operation between teachers belonging to different teaching traditions or "cultures", has become common in Sweden, particularly within the first years of primary school, where teachers from a pre-school tradition (pre-school teachers, recreational pedagogues) work alongside primary school teachers. The thesis explores the relation between two different yet related professional cultures, teachers and recreational pedagogues, in their collaborative work in the Swedish primary school. It is an ethnographic case study of development of collaboration between the two teaching traditions, in two schools with somewhat different organisational structure. The emphasis is on the intersection between these two professions and their two professional cultures. The two categories of teachers have different conceptions of their professional identity, depending on which tradition they belong to. The primary school teacher focuses her function as a mediator in children's learning, while the pedagogue, from the pre-school tradition, sees herself mainly as a model for the child. Teachers and recreational pedagogues also build and shape the physical and mental environment for their work with the children from different perspectives. These are summarised in the metaphors of "school as a work place" and "recreational centre as a home". These differences in turn are mirrored in different strategies in collaborative situations, strategies that sometimes give rise to misunderstandings and overt or covert conflicts between the two groups, since the underlying conceptions of the professional identities are not brought to the surface. The teachers' professional culture is here described as a culture with relatively strong classification and framing. A line of indicators point in the same direction in relation to their professional history. Correspondingly we can discern parallels between the weaker classification and framing that characterises the professional culture of the pedagogues and factors in the historical background and development of their professional practice.


Shrinking public sectors and limited opportunities for gaining formal wage employment in the private sector have resulted in entrepreneurship being promoted as a means of generating youth employment. This discourse is being widely promoted within sub-Saharan Africa despite little being known about how best to support youth employment and entrepreneurship. This paper focuses on two of the main trades which young women in sub-Saharan Africa have typically entered: hairdressing and dressmaking. Through drawing on a qualitative case study of hairdressers and seamstresses in Ghana, it is shown how the two professions have fared quite differently in recent years: whereas hairdressing has boomed, dressmaking has been stagnating. The paper shows how these diverging trajectories can be attributed to three related factors. First, globalisation has affected the two trades differently; second, their respective trade associations have reacted differently to the new constraints and opportunities generated by globalisation and their training systems have undergone different degrees of professionalisation; and third, the prestige associated with the two professions has changed affecting the aspirations of young women to enter the professions and the experiences of those that do. As the paper shows, geographers potentially have much to contribute to employment and entrepreneurship debates by providing more contextualised studies which recognise the complex interplay between globalisation, institutions and individuals in particular places and acknowledge the ensuing diverse employment experiences. Such studies are highly relevant for policymakers who are facing the difficult challenge of how to create employment and stimulate entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa.


With the rapid growth of opinionated contents, e.g. product reviews, sentiment analysis has drawn much attention from the researchers. The most fundamental task of sentiment analysis is document sentiment classification which aims to predict the overall sentiment (e.g. positive or negative) towards the opinion target in a review. There are usually various opinion sentences towards different aspects with different sentiments. Among them, the overall opinion towards the whole target should be more deterministic in document sentiment prediction. However, most existing methods treat all the sentences equally, thus, they may encounter difficulty especially when the sentiments of most aspect opinion sentences differ from the overall sentiment. To address this, we propose a novel method for document sentiment classification which adequately explores the effect of overall opinion sentences. The method is extended from structural SVM, and the overall opinion sentences are taken as the hidden variables for document sentiment. Experiments on several standard product review datasets show the effectiveness of our method.


The problem of designing optical receivers that are robust against uncertainty in the statistics of the observation process in photodetection is investigated. In particular, a modification in the design of the postdetection matched filter is proposed to account for possible uncertainty in the rate function of the incident light, the rate of the dark current, and in the statistics of the additive noise present at the input to the optical receiver. This design is based on a game-theoretic approach in which a filter is sought that has the maximum worst case output signal-to-noise ratio possible over the class of allowable statistics; that is, the design criterion is maximin signal-to-noise ratio. A general characterization of maximin robust matched filters for observed Poisson processes is presented in this context, and specific solutions for several useful uncertainty models are obtained. Numerical results are presented for a specific example to illustrate the performance of the proposed technique.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate and compare the anesthetic effects of alfaxalone-ketamine-midazolam (AKM) and alfaxalone-ketamine-dexmedetomidine (AKD) in black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus).

ANIMALS
9 male black-tailed prairie dogs.

PROCEDURES
Prairie dogs were anesthetized with AKM (6 mg/kg alfaxalone, 30 mg/kg ketamine, and 1.5 mg/kg midazolam) and AKD (6 mg/kg alfaxalone, 30 mg/kg ketamine, and 0.15 mg/kg dexmedetomidine) in a prospective, complete cross-over study. Atipamezole (1.5 mg/kg) after AKD or flumazenil (0.1mg/kg) after AKM was administered 45 minutes after induction of anesthesia. Onset of general anesthesia, physiologic parameters, depth of anesthesia, and time to recovery after reversal administration were evaluated for each treatment.

RESULTS
Both AKM and AKD produced a deep plane of anesthesia in black-tailed prairie dogs that varied in duration. The median induction times for AKM and AKD were 82 and 60 seconds, respectively. The median recovery times for AKM and AKD were 27 and 21 minutes, respectively. There were no significant differences between protocols for induction (P = .37) and recovery (P = .51) times. All measured reflexes were absent in all animals at 5 minutes postinduction, with hindlimb reflexes returning prior to forelimb reflexes. Heart rate was lower but respiratory rate was higher in the AKD treatment. Body temperature decreased significantly for both protocols (P < .001) and was significantly lower with AKM than AKD (P < .001).

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Both AKM and AKD produced a deep plane of anesthesia in black-tailed prairie dogs. For both protocols, heat support and oxygen support are indicated.


The performance characteristics of two cross-flow axis hydrokinetic turbines were evaluated in UNH's tow and wave tank. A 1m diameter, 1.25m (nominal) height three-bladed Gorlov Helical Turbine (GHT) and a 1m diameter, four-bladed spherical-helical turbine (LST), both manufactured by Lucid Energy Technologies, LLP were tested at tow speeds up to 1.5 m/s. Relationships between tip speed ratio, solidity, power coefficient (Cp ), kinetic exergy efficiency, and overall streamwise drag coefficient (Cd ) are explored. As expected, the spherical-helical turbine is less effective at converting available kinetic energy in a relatively low blockage, free-surface flow. The GHT was then towed in waves to investigate the effects of a periodically unsteady inflow, and an increase in performance was observed along with an increase in minimum tip speed ratio at which power can be extracted. Regarding effects of turbulence, it was previously documented that an increase in free-stream homogenous isotropic turbulence increased static stall angles for airfoils. This phenomenon was first qualitatively investigated on a smaller scale with a NACA0012 hydrofoil in a UNH water tunnel, using an upstream grid turbulence generator and using high frame-rate PIV to measure the flow field. Since the angle of attack for a cross-flow axis turbine blade oscillates with higher amplitude as tip speed ratio decreases, any delay of stall should allow power extraction at lower tip speed ratios. This hypothesis was tested experimentally on a larger scale in the tow tank by creating grid turbulence upstream of the turbine. It is shown that the range of operable tip speed ratios is slightly expanded, with a possible improvement of power coefficient at lower tip speed ratios. Drag coefficients at higher tip speed ratios seem to increase more rapidly than in the non-turbulent case.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


Temporal brain changes such as those in development, plasticity, ageing and neurodegeneration are best studied using longitudinal data. For example, the within-subject trajectory of the brain over the lifespan can differ from that inferred purely from cross-sectional data due to effects of birth-year (nutrition, etc.) in the latter. Serial imaging is also important for experimental studies that test the effects of treatments or training (e.g. Draganski et al., 2004). The most efficient methods for processing (e.g. spatially registering) longitudinal images capitalise on their withinsubject nature; however, doing so invokes a risk of bias from asymmetries or inconsistencies (Fox et al., 2011). Temporally-correlated data also require more sophisticated statistical analysis, and unbalanced data (with unequal numbers of time-points and/or uneven intervals) bring additional challenges (Bernal-Rusiel et al., in press). We have recently developed a longitudinal image registration framework (Ashburner & Ridgway, under review) that can precisely and consistently model structural change over time, allowing a set of images to be spatially warped to an iteratively-refined within-subject template with average shape and intensity (accounting for inhomogeneity or intensity non-uniformity present in MRI). Characteristics of these longitudinal warps (such as maps of their voxel-wise volume change, as illustrated in the figure) can then be spatially normalised to a between-subject template, for statistical parametric mapping analysis (or other statistical modelling, such as multivariate machine learning approaches). Methods for flexible and efficient spatio-temporal modelling of the processed data will be discussed. References Ashburner J, Ridgway GR (under review). Symmetric diffeomorphic modelling of longitudinal structural MRI. Bernal-Rusiel JL, Greve DN, Reuter M, Fischl B, Sabuncu MR (in press). Statistical analysis of longitudinal neuroimage data with Linear Mixed Effects models. NeuroImage Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, May A (2004). Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427(6972):311-2 Fox NC, Ridgway GR, Schott JM (2011). Algorithms, atrophy and Alzheimer's disease: Cautionary tales for clinical trials. NeuroImage 57(1):15-18


This is a historical and factual commentary on Herodotus book 6, which aims to assess the reality behind Herodotus' account of the years from the Ionian revolt to Miltiades' death. Further related material is discussed in a series of appendices.


Flash floods are among the deadliest weather phenomena in the world. Unfortunately people continue to move to risky areas resulting in high losses due to flash floods. Because of the short lead times associated with these events it is important that those in danger understand their risk in order to respond quickly and appropriately to watches and warnings. There are however many factors involved in one's likelihood to respond. To assess these factors a mail survey was conducted for a random sample of the general public in flash flood-prone Boulder Colorado. Indices including antecedent knowledge about flash floods risk perception and warning receptiveness in addition to past flash flood experience location and socio-demographic indicators were included in the analysis. These variables predict both the likelihood to take protective action in a flash flood warning (REACT) and whether or not the respondent had already taken measures to prepare for flash flooding (PREPARE). Older respondents females and respondents with more imminent risk perceptions and higher antecedent knowledge about flash floods are more likely to react in a flash flood warning. Many respondents cited that they would not respond to a flash flood warning because they feel safe from flash flooding. PREPARE is positively correlated with length of residence real and perceived location in the floodplain antecedent knowledge and warning receptiveness. The most common form of preparation is planning an evacuation route. Results from this research can be used to target at-risk populations and provide information to help prepare them for flash flooding.


Simulation-based optimisation carries the burden of computationally expensive fitness calculations. It is very often used to tackle large-scale optimisation problems with a relatively high level of complexity. Therefore, it is of interest to have optimisation techniques dedicated to simulation-based optimisation. This paper proposes a simulation-based optimisation approach, called Constructive Cooperative Coevolutionary (C3) search procedure, to optimise the control of interacting production stations. An optimisation algorithm is embedded in the C3 search procedure to optimise subproblems separately. It includes a novel constructive heuristic that creates a feasible solution for the considered problem efficiently. It also incorporates an extended version of the existing cooperative coevolutionary method that can handle large-scale optimisation problems. Furthermore, this paper presents a case study considering a sheet metal press line as an example of interacting production stations. In this case study, the performance of the proposed C3 search procedure is evaluated and compared with other optimisation algorithms. This shows that the C3 search procedure is able to successfully optimise the press line within a given number of fitness calculations, outperforming existing algorithms. Also, it is shown that C3 can be embedded with either stochastic or deterministic optimisation algorithms, without sacrificing performance.


Background. Hand hygiene noncompliance is a major cause of nosocomial infection. Nosocomial infection cost data exist, but the effect of hand hygiene noncompliance is unknown. Objective. To estimate methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)-related cost of an incident of hand hygiene noncompliance by a healthcare worker during patient care. Design. Two models were created to simulate sequential patient contacts by a hand hygiene-noncompliant healthcare worker. Model 1 involved encounters with patients of unknown MRSA status. Model 2 involved an encounter with an MRSA-colonized patient followed by an encounter with a patient of unknown MRSA status. The probability of new MRSA infection for the second patient was calculated using published data. A simulation of 1 million noncompliant events was performed. Total costs of resulting infections were aggregated and amortized over all events. Setting. Duke University Medical Center, a 750-bed tertiary medical center in Durham, North Carolina. Results. Model 1 was associated with 42 MRSA infections (infection rate, 0.0042%). Mean infection cost was $47,092 (95% confidence interval [CI], $26,040–$68,146); mean cost per noncompliant event was $1.98 (95% CI, $0.91–$3.04). Model 2 was associated with 980 MRSA infections (0.098%). Mean infection cost was $53,598 (95% CI, $50,098–$57,097); mean cost per noncompliant event was $52.53 (95% CI, $47.73–$57.32). A 200-bed hospital incurs $1,779,283 in annual MRSA infection-related expenses attributable to hand hygiene noncompliance. A 1.0% increase in hand hygiene compliance resulted in annual savings of $39,650 to a 200-bed hospital. Conclusions. Hand hygiene noncompliance is associated with significant attributable hospital costs. Minimal improvements in compliance lead to substantial savings.


Much of the world's genomic data are available to the community through networked databases that are accessed via Web interfaces. Although this paradigm provides browse-level access and has greatly facilitated linking between databases, it does not provide any convenient mechanism for programmatically fetching and integrating data from diverse databases. We have created a library and an application programming interface (API) named AcePerl that provides simple, direct access to ACEDB databases from the Perl programming language. With this library, programmers and computer-savvy biologists can write software to pose complex queries on local and remote ACEDB databases, retrieve the data, integrate the results, and move data objects from one database to another. In addition, a set of Web scripts running on top of AcePerl provides Web-based browsing of any local or remote ACEDB database. AcePerl and the AceBrowser Web browser run on Unix systems and are available under a license that allows for unrestricted use and redistribution. Both packages can be downloaded from URL. A Microsoft Windows port of AcePerl is in the planning stages.


This paper deals with longshore current theories. Introductorily it gives a brief review of wave theories for breaking waves including theoretical, laboratory as well as field results. Next the longshore current theory based on the momentum inflow over a uniformly sloping beach and bottom (Putnam, Munk and Traylor, 1949) is discussed with special reference to its friction factor. The following chapters deal with two new longshore current theories - both based on the continuity principle. One of them called the rip current approach assumes that all water thrown in by wave breaking runs out in rip currents and will probably be valid for profiles with well developed bars and waves approaching the shore almost perpendicularly. The other theory considers the fact that water from a wave breaking under an angle with the bar flows in with a certain phase difference in time longshore and this will create a longshore slope of the average water table, therefore also a longshore current. The water may return to sea uniformly as undertow or in rip currents or by a combination of both. This theory is particularly valid for waves breaking under a certain, not too small, angle with the bar. In both cases the momentum in the breaking waves is ignored because field observations show that in a well developed bar profile most of the momentum has disappeared inside the bar after wave breaking.
Examples of computation of current velocities for one bar as well as multi-bar profiles are given. Next the possible relation between longshore currents and littoral drift is discussed.


This richly illustrated book is a lucid introduction to a largely neglected manifestation of Modernism that came out of fin-de-siecle Sweden. Michelle Facos presents the first study in English to seriously examine the movement known as Swedish National Romanticism. Her work is especially valuable in showing how the movement's primitivist tendencies were related to, but different from, similar cultural forces in Germany and other parts of Europe at that time. Facos shows how a small group of Swedish artists espoused a politically progressive, culturally conservative form of nationalism. These artists - among them Carl Larsson, Bruno Liljefors, and Hanna Hirsch Pauli - produced a specifically national Swedish art by focusing on indigenous history, legends, and folk tales as well as uniquely Swedish-Nordic values, geography, and ethnography. Their breathtaking images of the Nordic landscape shaped a communal 'Folk' identity that accented regionalism, solidarity, and attachment to the past and protested against the perceived dangers of capitalist industrialism and urban expansion. By 1900 Sweden was on its way to realizing a society of social, economic, and political equality, and the National Romantic painters were no longer renegades. Facos' portrayal of their movement will attract readers in the arts, historians, folklorists, cultural anthropologists, and sociologists.


This paper examines the corporate governance and audit law reforms wrought in the wake of recent corporate scandals such as the HIH collapse. It considers the cost of these reforms and, using HIH as a principle reference point, the likely benefits. In particular, it questions reforms in the areas of auditor independence and audit standards. Do the new independence requirements go far enough? Does audit practice regulation now go too far? Indeed, is the audit function inherently susceptible to legislated sanction – or does this denigrate the very essence of auditing as a profession?


BACKGROUND
Previous studies of task-specific skills have suggested that a loss of technical performance occurs if the skill is not practiced for a six-month period. The aims of this study were to objectively demonstrate the learning curve for a complex arthroscopic task (meniscal repair) by means of motion analysis and to determine the impact of task repetition on the retention of this skill.

METHODS
Nineteen orthopaedic residents with experience in routine knee arthroscopy but not in arthroscopic meniscal repair were recruited into a randomized study. During the initial learning phase, all subjects performed twelve meniscal repairs on a knee simulator over a three-week period. A validated motion analysis tracking system was used to objectively record the performance and learning of each subject; the outcomes were the time taken, distance traveled, and number of hand movements. The subjects were then randomized into three groups. Group A performed one meniscal repair each month, Group B performed one meniscal repair at three months, and Group C performed no repairs during this interim phase. All three groups then returned at the six-month point for the final assessment phase, during which they carried out an additional twelve meniscal repairs over three weeks.

RESULTS
All subjects demonstrated a clear learning curve during the initial learning phase, with significant objective improvement in all motion analysis parameters over the initial twelve episodes (p < 0.0001). Although some residents had reached a learning plateau by twelve episodes, others continued to make further improvements for up to another nine episodes. Importantly, Group C did not display any loss of skill between the initial learning phase and final evaluation phase despite a six-month break in task repetition (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
In contrast to previous studies, residents did not lose any skill over a six-month interruption in task performance, and other residents took longer to produce a more consistent performance.


We study the spatial-temporal sampling of a linear diffusion field, and show that it is possible to compensate for insufficient spatial sampling densities by oversampling in time. Our work is motivated by the following issue often encountered in sensor network sampling, namely increasing the temporal sampling density is often easier and less expensive than increasing the spatial sampling density of the network. For the case of sampling a diffusion field, we show that, to achieve trade-off between spatial and temporal sampling, the spatial arrangement of the sensors must satisfy certain conditions. We provide in this paper the precise relationships between the achievable reduction of spatial sampling density, the required temporal oversampling rate, the spatial arrangement of the sensors, and the bound for the condition numbers of the resulting sampling and reconstruction procedures.


We compare atomic gas, molecular gas, and the recent star formation rate (SFR) inferred from Hα in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). By using infrared dust emission and local dust-to-gas ratios, we construct a map of molecular gas that is independent of CO emission. This allows us to disentangle conversion factor effects from the impact of metallicity on the formation and star formation efficiency of molecular gas. On scales of 200 pc to 1 kpc (where the distributions of H2 and star formation match well) we find a characteristic molecular gas depletion time of τmoldep ∼ 1.6 Gyr, similar to that observed in the molecule-rich parts of large spiral galaxies on similar spatial scales. This depletion time shortens on much larger scales to ∼0.6 Gyr because of the presence of a diffuse Hα component, and lengthens on much smaller scales to ∼7.5 Gyr because the Hα and H2 distributions differ in detail. We estimate the systematic uncertainties in our dust-based τmoldep measurement to be a factor of ∼2–3. We suggest that the impact of metallicity on the physics of star formation in molecular gas has at most this magnitude, rather than the factor of ∼40 suggested by the ratio of SFR to CO emission. The relation between SFR and neutral () gas surface density is steep, with a power-law index ≈2.2 ± 0.1, similar to that observed in the outer disks of large spiral galaxies. At a fixed total gas surface density the SMC has a 5–10 times lower molecular gas fraction (and star formation rate) than large spiral galaxies. We explore the ability of the recent models by Krumholz et al. and Ostriker et al. to reproduce our observations. We find that to explain our data at all spatial scales requires a low fraction of cold, gravitationally bound gas in the SMC. We explore a combined model that incorporates both large-scale thermal and dynamical equilibrium and cloud-scale photodissociation region structure and find that it reproduces our data well, as well as predicting a fraction of cold atomic gas very similar to that observed in the SMC.


Interest in the concept of organizational culture has been growing since the 1980s when textbooks, journals, etc that omitted culture as a topic of study was considered obsolete. This interest is now pervasive in the academia and the business world. Today numerous business articles carry issues that tout culture as the central key to an organization's success, and suggest that managers who are able to manage through their organization's culture almost certainly would rise to the top. It is on this premise that organizational culture has emerged as a common topic in management, and as organizations extend their branches to other nations, the study of organizational culture will continue to gain increasing prominence. It is believed that values drive a business and as such managers should develop management philosophies that will drive the organization to prosperity. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational culture equilibrium in organizations. Emotional intelligence helps organizational leaders to cultivate an organizational culture that produces organizational citizenship behaviors. It is also critical for the development of significant cultural identity for organizations and instills high levels of trust and cooperation throughout the organization while maintaining the flexibility needed to respond to changing conditions. Johnson & Johnson's credo provides a classic example of the efficacy of emotional intelligence on organizational culture balance. A sample (n=294) was taken in Aba. Data were obtained through a questionnaire on seven dimensional factors of emotional intelligence, designed along the Like rt-type scale based on the Schutte scale. The result was obtained using Pearson's correlation analysis, which indicated, r,=.99. Therefore, the study found a strong positive association between emotional intelligence and organizational culture equilibrium.


We propose that the source water for some abyssal undular vortices cored by cool, low-salinity water identified at depths in excess of 2,500 m in the deepwater region of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin may be related to conversion of natural gas hydrate (NGH) in abyssal marine sediments.  The conditions for extensive formation of NGH in the gas hydrate stability zones (GHSZ) of the upper seafloor sediments existed in this region during previous glacial episodes when colder water supported a thicker GHSZ.  Seafloor warming during the most recent interglacial caused thinning of the GHSZ at its base and has driven endothermic NGH dissociation that would have released large volumes of low-salinity water and gas that would tend to pond below the base GHSZ.  Periodically, trapped low-salinity water and gas would be released into the sea through the overlying sediments.  Buoyant low-salinity water masses, supersaturated with gas and locally containing free gas would ascend and introduce a dynamic element into an otherwise generally static environment.  As a result of the interaction of the rise of this buoyant plume and Coriolis acceleration the ascending mass would begin to rotate and form a vortex tube in midwater.  NGH conversion within the seafloor introduces large coherent masses of low-salinity, lower-temperature water containing a buoyant free gas fraction from near-surface reservoirs into the abyssal depths even where there may only be a weak natural gas petroleum system.


The profound changes which led to the social, physical and economic separation of the classes and changed Manchester from a small market town to a sprawling metropolis with a deeply damaged environment caused the loss of the town garden, the rise of the suburban villa and the demand for agreeable leisure surroundings. This story of gardens is an element of Manchester's history which has been neglected despite fundamentally reflecting the social and economic changes accompanying the industrial revolution.
Manchester was once renowned for its horticulture and floriculture. At one time it was able to host as many as eight flower shows each year and it lay at the very centre of the gooseberry-growers' world for more than a hundred years. Professional and amateur growers of plants were known – and their introductions disseminated – nationwide.
Examining the various ways in which the love of plants and gardens were experienced reveals how, as in many other areas of life, class divisions grew and were aggravated. The middle classes attempted to impose their values upon the workers, whether through fear or altruism. Leisure was indivisible from gardens and the wider appreciation of nature, whether this was the private grounds of the wealthier, the public gardens with their range of activities, or places visited by the poor during Whit Week. Such activities also led to friction – theft of plants from private gardens; rowdy behaviour in public ones.
Gardens exist within a social and economic framework and their story cannot be told without reference to this and how they and it altered over time. Personal and civic prosperity and poverty, social, legal and environmental changes and different philosophical ideas lie behind the story of Manchester's horticultural heritage.


In Erik Skjoldbjaerg's adaptation of Ibsen's En folkefiende ( An enemy of the people) , another Ibsen play serves as a crucial intertext: In the film, the protagonist and his family watch a Chinese production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt at the National Theatre in Oslo. This article examines Skjoldbjaerg's film as an Ibsen adaptation in which a second Ibsen play serves as a significant intertext, or play-within-the-film, by examining the status and the function of the play-within-the-film. The conclusion is twofold: (1) The theatre sequence in the film indicates that protagonist Tomas Stockmann, by identifying with the Peer Gynt of the Chinese play, is given a motto – "Straight through!" – that, however, is not really Peer Gynt's motto in Ibsen's Peer Gynt , but very similar to that of his counterpart in Ibsen's oeuvre, namely Brand, and Brand's " Intet eller alt ", " All or Nothing ". In the film Stockmann is made to share Brand's idealism and heroism via a Peer Gynt that resembles Brand more than Peer Gynt, insisting as he does on fighting his way through. The complexity of the protagonist of the film is thus reflected in two opposed Ibsen characters, two opposites in Ibsen's oeuvre, Brand and Peer Gynt. (2) This does not unambiguously support the adapter intention, that according to the director is to present a new, critical interpretation of the protagonist, but also challenges, or even undermines it: The critique of Tomas Stockmann as an extreme idealist, a destructive radical and an impossible hero, is confronted by the likewise obvious necessity of his kind.


Abstract Background: In patients with absent pulmonary valve syndrome, the relief of the pulmonary regurgitation at the time of primary repair improves both the early and late results. Though homograft and heterograft valves and conduits have been used for this purpose, both are not easily available and are known for late failure. Monocusp and bicuspid semilunar valves made out of pericardium have their own problems. Hence, a technique of reconstructing an autologous competent 3‐cusp valve from the native tissues was developed. Methods: Two posterolateral semilunar cusps were fashioned from the anterior wall of the main pulmonary artery. The anterior cusp was made from autologous pericardium stitched to the autologous pericardial patch used to widen the right ventricular outflow tract. Results: This method of reconstruction was used in two patients aged 9 and 22 years, respectively. Visual assessment and passive testing after reconstruction revealed well functioning neopulmonary valves in both patients. The second patient, who had an unevenful hospital course, showed only mild pulmonary regurgitation at 5 years postreconstruction. Conclusions: As 2 of the 3 cusps are fashioned from the pulmonary arterial wall as a pedicled graft, we believe that they will retain their viability and grow with the pulmonary artery. Simultaneous reduction in the size of the pulmonary arteries will relieve bronchial compression when present. The anterior pericardial cusp, even if it eventually shrivels up, is unlikely to produce serious hemodynamic derangements.


Nowadays, plastic pollution has become one of the major concerns of the society. As a result of that, bisphenol A, a chemical plasticizer used for the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, has caught the attention of great many scientific studies. Besides the capacity of this toxicant to interfere with the endocrine system, it has also been reported to exert both genotoxic and epigenotoxic effects. Bearing in mind that the spermatogenesis is a coordinated process that relies on several steroid hormones and that entails deep changes in the chromatin, such as DNA breaks and epigenetic remodelling, it might well be affected by bisphenol A exposure. Hence, there is a great deal of evidence to show that bisphenol A has detrimental effects on male reproductive health. Most of these works are focused on the alterations caused in sperm quality, sexual function and the development of gonads; however, the consequences of paternal bisphenol A exposure for future generations remain still unknown. In this regard, spermatozoa have long been considered as mere vectors to deliver the paternal haploid genome on the oocyte. Only recently have they been stated to harbour more information than just the nuclear DNA and, what is more, this information has been claimed to play a remarkable role in offspring health. Any alteration triggered by bisphenol A during male germline formation may affect the information contained in the spermatozoa, thus being transmitted to the progeny. For this reason, the First Chapter of this Ph.D. Thesis tackles the impact of paternal bisphenol A exposure on embryo development, using zebrafish (Danio rerio) as model species. Adult males were exposed to high doses of bisphenol A during the mitotic phase of spermatogenesis: two weeks of exposure and one week under standard conditions. After treatment, males were mated with non-treated females to obtain the F1 and also the F2 embryos. The evaluation of the embryo development was carried out by routine histology and by using the transgenic line Tg(fli1:EGFP;mlc2a: mCherry). Moreover, some spermatic information, such as global DNA methylation and sperm-borne transcripts, was analysed by UPLC-MS and qPCR, respectively. The results showed that, when treating males with 2000 µg/L BPA, the percentage of malformations, mainly consisting of cardiac edema, increased in both F1 and F2 larvae, a generation who was never in contact with the toxicant. Even though no differences in global DNA methylation were found either in testicles or sperm cells, bisphenol A exposure triggered a decrease in the sperm transcripts encoding insulin receptors in F0 and F1 males. Since the expression of the β subunit of insulin receptor was repressed in F1 and F2 embryos, we concluded that the alteration of spermatic transcripts induced by bisphenol A is transgenerationally inherited. The results derived from this chapter have been published in Environmental Pollution (IF: 4.839). The Second Chapter of this Ph.D. Thesis is focused on finding out the most vulnerable period of male germline formation to bisphenol A exposure. For this purpose, zebrafish were treated with this toxicant during different windows of exposure. The first one entailed the embryonic life, covering the process of primordial germ cell migration to the genital ridge (the first 24 hours of development in this species). The second one affected the same period that chapter I: the mitotic phase of spermatogenesis. And the third one also occurred during adult life, but it included also the meiotic phase and the spermiogenesis (three weeks of exposure). After embryonic exposure, the migration of primordial germ cells as well as their epigenetic status were analysed by whole mount immunostaining. Once embryos reached the adulthood, we assessed the development of the gonads and the breeding capacity of males. Concerning adult exposure, sperm DNA fragmentation and sperm epigenetic profile were evaluated by comet assay and cell immunostaining, respectively. In the F1 progeny, we assessed the percentage of mortality, the DNA repairing capacity and the epigenetic landscape (by whole mount immunostaining) as well as the apoptotic activity (by flow cytometry). The results showed that embryonic exposure to 2000 and 4000 µg/L bisphenol A during the first 24 hours of development alters the expression of two genes involved in primordial germ cell migration (sdf1a and cxcr4b), thus hindering the colonisation of the genital ridges in exposed embryos. However, the histological and morphometrical studies revealed that the impairment of primordial germ cell migration has no long-term effects in the development of the testicles. Regardless of the lower levels of histone acetylation displayed in the spermatozoa of males exposed to 4000 µg/L bisphenol A during embryonic life, they show a proper breeding capacity and generate a normal progeny. Regarding adult male exposure, the treatment with 2000 µg/L bisphenol A during mitotic phase and with 100 and 2000 µg/L bisphenol A during the whole spermatogenesis led to high levels of sperm DNA damage, which have fateful consequences for embryonic development. On the contrary, when males were exposed to 100 µg/L bisphenol A only during mitotic phase, the levels of DNA damage were not that high, so F1 embryos were able to activate DNA repair, showing basal levels of apoptosis. As far as the epigenetic profile of spermatozoa and F1 embryos is concerned, although no changes were observed in the pattern of sperm DNA methylation, males exposed to bisphenol A during the mitotic phase of spermatogenesis showed higher levels of H3K27ac, whereas males treated with the highest dose of the toxicant during the whole spermatogenesis had higher levels of H3K9ac. It is noteworthy that these alterations in the sperm epigenetic marks triggered by male bisphenol A exposure are inherited by F1 embryos, which displayed also an increase in H3K27ac and H3K9ac. In this chapter, it has been proved that the effects of bisphenol A on male germline depend on the window of exposure and that they are much more detrimental when meiosis and spermiogenesis periods are affected. The results obtained from embryonic exposure have been published in Biomolecules (IF: 4.694), whereas those concerning adult male exposure have been submitted to Scientific Reports. The Third Chapter of this Ph.D. Thesis aims to determine the mechanisms by which direct and paternal exposure to bisphenol A impairs heart development. For this purpose, three different experiments were performed: in vitro exposure was performed in rat embryonic cardiomyoblasts, whereas in vivo exposure to bisphenol A was carried out during early embryonic development and adult male life (early spermatogenesis). An immunostaining was performed to assess the levels of histone acetylation, whereas the acetylation of specific gene promoters was assessed by ChIP-qPCR. The expression of a set of genes, which involved heart transcription factors, estrogen receptors and a histone acetyltransferase was analysed by qPCR. The results showed that the treatment with bisphenol A in all these models alter some histone acetylation marks and the expression of the studied genes as well. Nevertheless, there were some differences between embryonic and paternal exposure. The levels of H3K9ac in the promoters of hand2 and esr2b in embryos exposed to bisphenol A were similar to those of control embryos, so in this case, estrogenic effects of bisphenol A, which affect the expression of specific genes, may be more likely related to heart defects than epigenetic changes. On the other hand, we did find out an increase in the enrichment of H3K9ac in the promoters of kat6a, hand2 and esr2b in embryos obtained from males exposed to 2000 µg/L bisphenol A, so the increase in histone acetylation promoted by paternal exposure underlies the overexpression of these three genes. Taking all this data into account, we decided to treat exposed embryos and embryos obtained from exposed males with epigallocatechin gallate. This compound is the major catechin of green tea and it has already been proved to act as an anti-estrogenic substance and as a histone acetyltransferase inhibitor. Our findings showed that the treatment with epigallocatechin gallate successfully counteracted the overexpression of estrogen receptors and histone acetylation, decreasing the levels of hand2 and, thus reducing the cardiac malformations induced by embryonic and paternal bisphenol A exposure. Therefore, in this chapter we have demonstrated not only the mechanisms by which changes in sperm promoted by paternal exposure to bisphenol A have long-term effects on cardiac health of the progeny, but also that epigallocatechin gallate is able to counteract these alterations, allowing a proper heart formation. The results derived from the embryonic exposure to bisphenol A and the neutralisation of direct effects with EGCG have been published in Environmental Pollution (IF: 5.714).


Extreme events are of interest worldwide given their potential for substantial impacts on social, ecological, and technical systems. Many climate‐related extreme events are increasing in frequency and/or magnitude due to anthropogenic climate change, and there is increased potential for impacts due to the location of urbanization and the expansion of urban centers and infrastructures. Many disciplines are engaged in research and management of these events. However, a lack of coherence exists in what constitutes and defines an extreme event across these fields, which impedes our ability to holistically understand and manage these events. Here, we review 10 years of academic literature and use text analysis to elucidate how six major disciplines—climatology, earth sciences, ecology, engineering, hydrology, and social sciences—define and communicate extreme events. Our results highlight critical disciplinary differences in the language used to communicate extreme events. Additionally, we found a wide range in definitions and thresholds, with more than half of examined papers not providing an explicit definition, and disagreement over whether impacts are included in the definition. We urge distinction between extreme events and their impacts, so that we can better assess when responses to extreme events have actually enhanced resilience. Additionally, we suggest that all researchers and managers of extreme events be more explicit in their definition of such events as well as be more cognizant of how they are communicating extreme events. We believe clearer and more consistent definitions and communication can support transdisciplinary understanding and management of extreme events.


Fallback authentication, the process of recovering access to an account if the primary authenticator is forgotten or lost, is of significant importance in real-world applications. A variety of mechanisms are deployed, ranging from secondary channels (such as email and SMS), over personal knowledge questions (such as the "mother's maiden name") to social authentication (such as vouching-based approaches). One central difference with primary authentication is that the elapsed time between enrollment and authentication can be much longer, typically in the range of years. However, few of the mechanisms used today have been studied over such long time-spans, making claims about their usability difficult to generalize to real-world applications. Additionally, most past studies have considered one or two mechanisms only, and deriving a meaningful comparison of a relevant number of mechanisms from the individual datapoints is not easy. In this work in progress paper, we report on the design of a usability study that we will use to study the usability of authentication mechanisms over a more realistic time-frame of up to 18 months, and will provide a fair comparison of the four most widely used fallback authentication schemes. We present results of a pre-study with 74 participants that ran over 4 weeks and indicates that schemes based on email and SMS are more usable. Mechanisms based on designated trustees and personal knowledge questions, on the other hand, fall short, both in terms of convenience and efficiency.


In this project a flat antenna array on Substrate Integrated Waveguide technology (SIW) has been designed, simulated and built to be used in automotive radar at 24 GHz. The software used in the simulation, configuration and optimization was Ansoft HFSS. It is one of several commercial tools used to design the antenna and RF elements. SIW technology consists of integrating a waveguide within a dielectric substrate by using rows of metalized vias. The proposed antenna consists of two substrates, the first will have the rows of metalized vias and one of its metal plates is edged and the second substrate includes patch antenna elements that are aperture coupled to the other substrate. The array will consist of two rows of radiating elements joined by a divider in SIW technology that has a microstrip-SIW taper transition. More specifically, the divider joins two linear arrays of 4 radiating elements separated λ / 2. Each of these linear arrays of 4 elements are formed by slot coupled patch antennas where the slots are shifted with respect to the center of the waveguide to compensate for the 180o offset that appears in the standing wave and separated λ / 2. These individual radiating elements consist of slots in the first substrate shifted a distance relative to the center of SIW waveguide and a patch on the second substrate coupled to the slot. The planar array has been built using a milling machine and characterized in an anechoic chamber in order to check its performance. The proposed antenna has gain levels of 13.53 dB at 24 GHz, a beam width of 25o in the H plane, a beam width of 48o in the E plane, a front-to-back ratio of 35.44 dB and a ratio of primary to secondary lobe of 13.71 dB. The work performed during this project has give rise to an international conference paper that appears in the Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements & Applications (CAMA), 16-19 November 2014, Antibes (France).


Abstract Baffin Island (Nunavut, Canada) is located in the remote arctic where geological exposure is high, terrain is expansive, and field seasons are short. Metacarbonates in the Lake Harbour Group, southern Baffin Island, are considered to be prospective for sapphire (corundum), lapis lazuli (lazurite), and spinel gem deposits. This research is an investigation of the hyperspectral signature of rocks from the Beluga sapphire occurrence near Kimmirut, Nunavut. Thirty-five rock and thin section offcut samples from the Beluga corundum occurrence were studied in a laboratory setting using high spatial resolution imaging spectroscopy in the shortwave infrared region (SWIR, ∼975 to 2500 nm). Analysis of hyperspectral imagery successfully reproduced mineralogical and textural information relevant to gem mineralization previously assessed through thin section petrography and scanning electron microscopy. Scapolite, phlogopite, and muscovite from these rocks are shown to have distinct spectral responses from the host marble that is dominated by calcite. Furthermore, spectrally distinct prehnite and zeolite, both locally associated with corundum mineralization, are readily distinguishable. From the perspective of regional exploration, the small footprint of colored gemstone deposits in combination with their unique mineralogical makeup, unusual settings, and unfamiliarity to most geoscientists has resulted in very few discoveries in this remote but otherwise fertile area. These factors, in combination with the unique spectral responses observed from hand samples and thin section offcuts, provide a positive case for mapping and exploration of gem corundum targets by high spatial resolution hyperspectral imaging as part of regional surveys.


The study of language in relation to society is defined as sociolinguistic. One of the most important currents of sociolinguistic research focuses on language change since languages as social phenomena have always changed in the past and they defiantly continue to change today. Some social contexts are the places where languages come into contact with each other. Iran as a multicultural country which is replete with numerous languages and dialects brings some non – official languages like Azerbaijani Turkish or Arabic (which are official languages in other countries) into contact with the only official language of Iran namely Persian. The current study aims to consider the multilingual context of Iran and report any probable language changes on the first hand and argue against Rezvani & Asadpour (2008) on the other hand. The framework used in this study is 'change in apparent time' introduced by Lindguist (2009). Regarding the first part of the study, the results show that the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 has entered some words into the languages investigated in this study mostly Arabic or Islamic terminology. Also, lexical change has been accrued in Kurdish since it borrowed some words from Turkish and Persian. The other finding of the current study is that both Turkish and Persian have exchanged some words thanks to the contact they have. Arabic as the language of Islam has an impact on both Persian and Turkish as well as Kurdish. Regarding the second part of the study, no change has occurred in Turkish structure and what Rezvani & Asadpour (Rezvani & Asadpour, 2008) report about Turkish and Persian for most part is not reliable.


With the rapidly growing trend in urbanization, sustainable planning and management of urban engineering systems is gaining more importance. The evolution of engineering infrastructure that is related to transportation, built-space, energy, and environment in an urban area fits the classic definition of multi-scale and multi-layered complex systems. It involves understanding the human behaviour in the context of decision-making and mutual-interactions, influences of externalities, two-way asynchronous interactions between various systems, treating them as integrated systems, and designing large-scale simulation frameworks to forecast the evolution. Only then is it possible to analyze and understand the social, economical, and environmental sustainability of these systems and thus to help policy makers in evaluating and implementing suitable policies. In this context, I will first introduce the research that I have been involved in for the past few years. The focus will then shift to the technical details of two case studies in which behavioural modelling and large-scale microsimulation have been used to assess the sustainability of engineering systems. First case study will focus on the models developed for Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and the second on Greater Brussels Area. In the end I will talk about the direction of my future research agenda.


With the explosive growth of camera devices, people can freely take photos to capture moments of life, especially the ones accompanied with friends and family. Therefore, a better solution to organize the increasing number of personal or group photos is highly required. In this paper, we propose a novel way to search for face images according facial attributes and face similarity of the target persons. To better match the face layout in mind, our system allows the user to graphically specify the face positions and sizes on a query "canvas," where each attribute or identity is defined as an "icon" for easier representation. Moreover, we provide aesthetics filtering to enhance visual experience by removing candidates of poor photographic qualities. The scenario has been realized on a touch device with an intuitive user interface. With the proposed block-based indexing approach, we can achieve near real-time retrieval (0.1 second on average) in a large-scale dataset (more than 200k faces in Flickr images).


This paper presents an account on how bare declarative sentences in Indonesian receive their temporal references. I follow Lin's (2003) proposal of covert tense selectional restriction in Mandarin that governs the selection of an appropriate aspectual viewpoint or aktionsart as the complement of the tense node. Covert present tense can only select imperfective aspectual viewpoint which is denoted by the atelic predicates, and covert past tense can only select perfective aspectual viewpoint which is denoted by telic predicates.  Thus, it is suggested that the temporal references of bare declarative sentences in Indonesian can be indirectly indicated by the telicity properties of the predication. That is, if the predicate is telic, bare declarative sentences in Indonesian are inferred to take place in the past. On the other hand, atelic predicate covertly indicates a present eventuality. A discussion on pedagogical contribution of the findings and suggestions for further study are given at the end of this paper.


Recently, a class of stochastic processes known as piecewise deterministic Markov processes has been used to define continuous-time Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms with a number of attractive properties, including compatibility with stochastic gradients like those typically found in optimization and variational inference, and high efficiency on certain big data problems. Not many processes in this class that are capable of targeting arbitrary invariant distributions are currently known, and within one subclass all previously known processes utilize linear transition functions. In this work, we derive a process whose transition function is nonlinear through solving its Fokker-Planck equation in hyperspherical coordinates. We explore its behavior on Gaussian targets, as well as a Bayesian logistic regression model with synthetic data. We discuss implications to both the theory of piecewise deterministic Markov processes, and to Bayesian statisticians as well as physicists seeking to use them for simulation-based computation.


Low mechanical index perfusion imaging relies on the detection of signals produced by microbubble oscillation at low acoustic powers that results in minimal microbubble destruction. We hypothesized that the optimal acoustic power for real-time imaging would differ for microbubbles with different shell characteristics. Three microbubble agents with varying shell elastic properties according to their polymer composition were studied. Differences in the elastic properties of these microbubbles was demonstrated by: (1) measurement of their bulk modulus and (2) evaluation of their acoustic lability by microscopic visualization of microbubble destruction during insonification at incremental acoustic powers. The ultrasound signal generated by these microbubbles at various mechanical indexes and the degree of microbubble destruction during continuous imaging was determined both in an in vitro flow system and during in vivo imaging in an open-chest canine model. Both studies indicated that optimal power for achieving maximal signal intensity with minimal microbubble destruction was influenced by the shell elastic properties. We conclude that the acoustic power for maximizing acoustic signal without destroying microbubbles during low mechanical index imaging varies according to shell characteristics.


The University of Huddersfield-funded 'Video Enhanced Response in Feedback Loops' Project (VERiFy) is using a participatory action research methodology to explore the potential of asynchronous video to promote closer learner engagement in the assessment and feedback process. The initial stage of the project has seen the involvement of academic practitioners at two Higher Education Institutions and from three subject disciplines, Computing, Psychology and Business. This paper presents the interim findings from the first evaluative cycle of an ongoing project, highlighting examples of how learners from Computing and Business disciplines engaged with and responded to the use of asynchronous video to enhance assessment and feedback, and how effective strategies are being developed for its use as a tool to promote dialogue.


Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma has had few new improvements in the last 10 years, with encouraging results in the past year.
The treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) follows well established guidelines. For patients who are not candidates for curative treatments, the oral multikinase inhibitor sorafenib is the only systemic treatment that has shown improvement in overall survival. Since 2007, sorafenib is the standard of care for the first-line reatment of advanced HCC patients, being, in general, well tolerated, with a manageable toxicity profile. The most common drug-related adverse events are diarrhea, hand-foot skin reactions, fatigue, rash and anorexia.


We fabricate microchannels in fused silica by femtosecond laser irradiation followed by etching in diluted hydrofluoric acid. We show a dramatic dependence of the etch rate on the laser polarization, spanning 2 orders of magnitude. We establish the existence of an energy-per-pulse threshold at which etching of the laser-modified zones becomes highly polarization selective. The enhanced selective etching is due to long-range, periodic, polarization-dependent nanostructures formed in the laser-modified material.


We consider the problem of remotely controlling an unstable first-order noiseless linear plant over a discrete symmetric memoryless channel using anytime source-channel coding. We propose a transmission scheme, exploiting unequal error protection (UEP) based on Luby transform (LT) codes under sequential belief propagation (BP) decoding. Sufficient conditions on mean square stability of the linearly controlled closed-loop system are derived for the anytime UEP-LT codes.


This paper estimates Taylor rules featuring instabilities in policy parameters and switches in policy shocks' volatility for the post-World War II (WWII) U.S. economy. We contrast a rule embedding a fixed-inflation target with another featuring trend inflation, i.e., a time-varying inflation target. The rule embedding trend inflation turns out to be (a) empirically superior according to a marginal likelihood-based comparison and (b) more able to pin down some relevant episodes of the post-WWII U.S. monetary policy history. Estimates conducted with Greenbook data confirm the empirical superiority of the rule featuring a time-varying inflation target. A comparison with recently published estimates of trend inflation is also conducted.


In recombination-proficient organisms, chiasmata appear to mediate associations between homologs at metaphase of meiosis I. It is less clear how homolog associations are maintained in organisms that lack recombination, such as male Drosophila. In lieu of chiasmata and synaptonemal complexes, there must be molecules that balance poleward forces exerted across homologous centromeres. Here we describe the genetic and cytological characterization of four EMS-induced mutations in teflon (tef), a gene involved in this process in Drosophila melanogaster. All four alleles are male specific and cause meiosis I-specific nondisjunction of the autosomes. They do not measurably perturb sex chromosome segregation, suggesting that there are differences in the genetic control of autosome and sex chromosome segregation in males. Meiotic transmission of univalent chromosomes is unaffected in tef mutants, implicating the tef product in a pairing-dependent process. The segregation of translocations between sex chromosomes and autosomes is altered in tef mutants in a manner that supports this hypothesis. Consistent with these genetic observations, cytological examination of meiotic chromosomes suggests a role of tef in regulating or mediating pairing of autosomal bivalents at meiosis I. We discuss implications of this finding in regard to the evolution of heteromorphic sex chromosomes and the mechanisms that ensure chromosome disjunction in the absence of recombination.


The traditional Mediterranean diet is characterised by an abundance of plant foods (fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes); olive oil is the principle source of fat. Dairy products, mainly yoghurt and cheese, are eaten in low to moderate amounts, as well as fish and poultry. Red meat is eaten only in small amounts. The Mediterranean diet contains wine in moderation, usually consumed with meals. These food patterns lead to a nutrient composition with low contents of unfavourable or undesirable nutrients (saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, cholesterol), with high contents of desirable and health-beneficial nutrients (dietary fibre, complex carbohydrates, monounsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, minor components), and with a low energy density. Due to its specific food patterns and its favourable nutrient composition the Mediterranean diet has undoubtedly contributed to the low rates of numerous chronic diseases observed in the Mediterranean region and has been proven as a model for healthy nutrition. In particular, a large body of evidence documents the beneficial relationship between the traditional Mediterranean diet, cardiovascular risk factors, such as hyperlipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes and obesity, and coronary heart disease. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Mediterranean diet plays a role in cancer prevention.


The objective of this study was to examine the level of technical efficiency of smallholder maize producers and identify its determinants in Horo Guduru Wollega zone of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. A Cobb-Douglass stochastic production function model was used for the analysis. To specify technical inefficiency effects of socioeconomic variables, Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) technique using data collected from 120 randomly selected sample farmers in 2011 was applied. The MLE results reveal that farm size under maize cultivation, chemical fertilizer (DAP) and maize seed are the major factors that are associated with changes in the maize output. The effect of land area on output is positive and the coefficient is found to be significant, implying the economies of scale. The test result indicates that there is inefficiency in the production of maize in the study area. The relative deviation from the frontier due to inefficiency is 85 percent. The average estimated technical efficiency for smallholder maize producers ranges from 0.06 to 0.92 with a mean technical efficiency of 0.66 (66%). The analysis also reveals that the educational level of the farmer, age of household head, land fragmentation, extension services, engagement in off-farm/non-farm activities, and total land holding of the farmer are the major socioeconomic factors influencing farmers' technical efficiency and maize output. The implication of the study is that technical efficiency in maize production in the study area could be increased by 34 percent through better use of available resources, given the current state of technology. Keywords: Food security, Maize, Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Horo Guduru Wollega


Giardia duodenalis, a protozoan parasite, is the most common intestinal parasite of humans in the world today. The disease is of particular importance amongst children in developing countries in whom recurrent infection can lead to malabsonption and failure to thrive. Treatment with the currently used antigiardial agents is not completely satisfactory as side effects are fairly common and the parasite is not always eliminated from the host. Therefore the discovery that albendazole, a member of the benzimidazole group of anthelmintics, was effective against C. duodenalis was a significant finding as these drugs are very safe and are also effective against several other intestinal parasites of humans. It is believed that the benzimidazoles exert their effect in helminth parasites by binding to tubulin and disrupting its polymerisation into microtubules. This study was conducted in order to determine the mode of action of albendazole against G. duodenalis. Techniques used included drug binding and displacement studies involving C. duodenalis proteins. It was found that tritiated albendazole bound most strongly to the tubulin protein of C. duodenalis (confirmed using an anti-tubulin antibody) and binding was most concentrated amongst the smaller microtubule fragments. Binding of tritiated albendazole could be displaced from tubulin using unlabelled albendazole and other benzimidazoles. The order of displacement by the various compounds corresponded to the order of potency of the drugs against the parasite. The results of this study suggest that the benzimidazoles bind to and disrupt C. duodenalis tubulin but further work is required to determine whether this is the primary mode of action of this drug.