During cultivation, the internal phosphorus cycle of Mollisols (Chernozems) of the Canadian
Prairies is perturbed by crop sequences including wheat phases, tillage practices, and regular
applications of fertilizers. To monitor these changes, a proximate sequential phosphorus (P)
fractionation procedure was developed by Hedley et al. (1982) to extract inorganic and organic P
fractions as very labile (resin-P), labile (NaHCO3-P), slowly available (NaOH-P), and very slowly
available (HCl-P) pools. Models used so far to monitor P pools do not address the interactive
behaviour of P fractions constrained to a closed compositional space. Compositional data analysis
using isometric log ratio (ilr) coordinates is appropriate for modelling the interactive P pools using
sequential binary partitions of P pools. Our objective was to model changes of P pools in Mollisols
in response to management and time using ilr coordinates. We used a dataset with treatments and
another where a Mollisol was analyzed at time zero and 4, 65, and 90 yr after sod breakup. Seven P
fractions were assigned to P reactivity groups to compute six ilr coordinates. The ilr2 contrasting
inorganic (geochemical) and organic (biological) P pools and ilr4 between the most readily available
and less P bioavailable pools were the most sensitive to crop sequence and fertilization. Using
composition at time zero as reference, the Aitchison distance reached a plateau after the 4th year in
the Bm horizon compared to continuous change in the Ah horizon. Time changed the P balance of
cultivated Mollisols primarily in the inorganic vs. organic P pools. The risks of yield loss and
environmental damage can be minimized using soil tests that quantify the rapidly bioavailable
inorganic P pools and crop management strategies that promote biological P pools.


In the above-mentioned article we describe a novel approach to support multilingual verbalization of logical theories, axiomatizations, and other specifications such as business rules. This engineering solution is demonstrated with the Object Role Modeling language, although its underlying principles can be reused with other conceptual models and formal languages, such as Description Logics, to improve its understandability and usability by the domain expert. The engineering solution for multilingual verbalization is characterized by its flexibility, extensibility and maintainability of the verbalization templates, which allow for easy augmentation with other languages than the 11 currently supported. This report presents the German verbalization template file. Given an ORM schema (or an ORM-ML file), and given the verbalization template, a German verbalization of the rules and fact types (in the schema) is generated automatically. A comprehensive example of an ORM schema and its corresponding verbalization is generated and given in this report.


A detailed computer model of a three-phase power network which includes inductive loads, resistance welders and an Adaptive Var Compensator (AVC) has been developed. The system configuration and parameters correspond to an irrdustrial customer served by a large electric utility. Welder operation produces severe cyclic flicker which leads to customer complaints. Computer studies have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the AVC on the reduction of observable flicker at neighboring loads. Flicker severity was determined using the U E 1 E C flickermeter technique adopted for 120-V incandescent lamps. Different control strategies involving the AVC have been considered and compared with respect to flicker reduction. An innovative: Flicker Adaptive Control (FAC) strategy is proposed for the AVC. The control algorithm requires knowledge of the system line impedance; however, it can be used for both power factor correction and flicker reduction, which is an advantage over previous control methods. The measurement technique used in the FAC is accurate even in presence of heavy system distortion.


Centella asiatica or locally known as "pegaga" belongs to the Apiceae family. This
medicinal plant is one of the most important medicinal herbs, and widely used in health
foods, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Twelve accessions of C. asiatica planted
in MARDI, originated from different locations in Peninsular Malaysia, were used for this
study. Phenotypic differences among these accessions are not very distinct, thus this
study is undeitaken to determine whether there are any genetic differences.
DNA markers, unaff ected by environmental or physiological factors, have potential
utility in the characterization of plant species. High discriminating power of this class of
markers demonstrated uniformity and stability within genetically complex cultivars.
Good quality DNA was extracted from leaf samples using conventional
hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method. Two PeR-based DNA markers system. namely Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs) and Long Primer
Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (LP-RAPDs), were employed. This study has
successfully analyzed the genetic relationships among the accessions of C. asiatica. Two
phylogenetic trees bad been constructed from the unweighted pair group method with
arithmatical average (UPGMA) pairwise analyses. Genetic distances was calculated
based on. the Dice similarity index. From both analyses, the CA01 and CA02 as wen as
CA05 and CA06 were closer (D=0.119) within the same cluster indicating that they are
closely related. Based on the genetic distances, CA10 represented as highest distant group
in the LP-RAPDs analyses whereas CA03 represented as highest distant group in the
AFLPs analyses. Furthermore, diagnostic band with highest molecular weight (3000 bp)
was found in CA10 by using long primer PEH A3. The amplification of CA03 genotypes
with AFLP primer pair ACG/CTA has shown a unique DNA profile. In addition, CA03 is
easily distinguish from other accessions morphologically due to its wavy shape of the
plant leaf.


Design is a complex activity and can be viewed as a solution to heterogeneous requirements from different stakeholders including customers, markets, regulators and manufacturers. Traditionally, the environment and society have not been considered as stakeholders. However the impact of the design activity on the environment is extensive and often irreversible. Such impact includes resource depletion and degradation, soil, water, noise and air pollution, and increasing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.In this paper, we present experimental results on specific energy consumption (SEC) in a number of manufacturing processes. We propose a process model of sustainable design and manufacture, the various components that form this paradigm, and energy efficiency metrics based on our measurement of various discrete manufacturing processes. Lifecycle analysis, energy efficiency and material innovation and recovery provide major pathways to enable the transition from business as usual to an environmental and societal cost inclusive economic system. We survey the potential impact of the design of appliances, buildings and ICT products on the environment.


In many big cities, substantial numbers of children enter kindergarten already well behind in their cognitive and social development, presenting a major challenge for public education systems. While it is generally acknowledged that the environment in which children spend their early years is crucial, little is known specifically about how housing conditions in children's own homes and the immediately surrounding areas factor into their school readiness. Drawing on two Integrated Data Systems (IDSs), this longitudinal, population-based study examines the influence of housing and neighborhood conditions since birth on school readiness of all children entering kindergarten over a four-year period in a big city school system. Using marginal structural models that properly account for dynamic housing and neighborhood selection, we find that children exposed to problematic housing and disadvantaged neighborhoods have lower kindergarten readiness scores after accounting for other factors. The negative effects of housing problems on kindergarten readiness are partially mediated by child maltreatment incidences, residential instability, and elevated blood lead levels. Communities are advised to pay more attention to distressed housing as a cause of disparities in early child development and school readiness. IDSs that incorporate detailed housing and property information, especially for the youngest children, can be used to target areas where there is elevated risk and coordinate local efforts to prevent the adverse effects of distressed housing stock on early child development.


Phytophthora species were surveyed from the end of 1997 through July 1998 in oak forests in NE France. Healthy (Amance) or declining (Illwald) forests were compared. The Phytophthora population in both was diverse and locally abundant. At least eight species were present at Amance and six at Illwald. At Amance Phytophthora species had a localized distribution in water and low-lying soils. At Illwald distribution was more uniform apparently due to flooding events. Most often recovered were P. citri- cola, P. gonapodyides and P. quercina. P. gonapodyides was ubiquitous in water and colonized leaf debris. P. quercina was widely distributed in soil but not abundant, and was found in sites that did not otherwise appear to favor Phytophthora. No correlation was detected between presence of Phytophthora in soil and health of trees. Unusual combinations of environmental factors may be


"Beyond the Binary offers a coherently presented collection of uniformly strong essays that speak to what is perhaps the most widely discussed, contested and conflicted topic in the study of US culture. It joins the growing body of work that seeks to move beyond identity politics and racial essentialism to formulate racial identity as a more complex series of social, cultural and political gestures." -Priscilla Wald, author of Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form and Constituting Americans Cultural studies have reached a theoretical impasse. As scholars continue to topple the previously entrenched concept of Eurocentrism, this field has fragmented into works covering many separate cultural enclaves. In the first wave of this "post-Eurocentric" scholarship, a binary model ensued, using the designations of "Self" and "Other: " i.e., black/white, gay/straight. This model, however, also has found disfavor. As a result, recent scholarship has focused on a single group studied in isolation. What is needed is a new critical phase of reconstruction that will bring discussion of these disparate cultural enclaves back into a more organized, critical sphere. Researchers must have the necessary conceptual tools so they can study the ways in which cultures overlap, intersect, or else violently conflict with one another. Beyond the Binary: Reconstructing Cultural Identity in a Multicultural Context addresses this theoretical impasse by proposing new critical models that fully engage the dilemmas posed by multiculturalism. Rather than becoming entangled in the polarizing rhetoric of the culture wars, these essays are firmly grounded in the lived perplexities of specific historical moments. One piece, for example, considers the cultural identity of "freaks" exhibited in P. T. Barnum's circus, the contested place of hemophiliacs within Queer Nation, and "white" working-class musicians who proudly proclaim themselves to be "black lesbians." Beyond the Binary is meant to be read in its entirety as a many-voiced narrative dedicated to bringing the divisions within cultural studies back into contact with one another. By doing so, Powell ushers in a new era of multicultural analysis that recognizes the historical existence of racism, yet also acknowledges the dynamic fluidity of cultural identity.


Ocean ambient noise is a crucial habitat feature for marine animals because it represents the lower threshold of their acoustically active space. Ambient noise is affected by noise from both natural sources, like wind and ice, and anthropogenic sources, such as shipping and seismic surveys. During the ice-covered season, ambient conditions in the Arctic are quieter than those in other regions because sea ice has a dampening effect. Arctic warming induced by climate change can raise noise levels by reducing sea ice coverage and increasing human activity, and these changes may negatively affect several species of marine mammals and other acoustically sensitive marine fauna. We document ambient noise off the west coast of Banks Island near Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, to provide baseline noise levels for the eastern Beaufort Sea. Noise levels were comparable to those found in other studies of the Canadian Arctic and Alaska and were typically much lower than levels reported farther south. Stronger wind increased noise, whereas greater ice concentration decreased it, dampening the effect of wind speed. Future work should expand monitoring to other locations in the Arctic, model the impact of increased human activities on ambient noise levels, and predict the impact of these changing levels on marine animals.


International student mobility (ISM) prepares young people for the challenges of global and multicultural environments. However, disadvantaged students have lower participation rates in mobility schemes and, hence, benefit less from their positive impacts on career progression. Therefore, policymakers aim to make mobility programs more inclusive. Nevertheless, it is far from clear how policy design can achieve this aim. This study investigates factors driving inequality in international student mobility uptake. The study's novelty is twofold: first, in contrast to most existing studies it does not only investigate individual but also university characteristics as possible drivers of unequal uptake. This is possible due to the use of rich graduate survey and administrative data merged with university-level European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) data. Second, the study compares results across four European countries. Results show that the socio-economic mobility gap remains still sizable even when taking university characteristics into account. However, universities matter considerably and especially student compositions in terms of socio-economic background and ability contribute to unequal ISM uptake. As a consequence, intergovernmental policies should aim to distribute grants and mobility opportunities more equally across all universities, independent of their student composition.


An investigation into Statistical Modelling of Data from Longitudinal Studies for the study of Educational Attainment and Development
Social inequalities in educational attainment are widely reported despite educational reforms aimed at providing equal educational opportunities for all. Variation in attainment between different socio-economic groups is apparent in the early stages of . education, at primary level, and continues through compulsory into further and higher education. Many research studies have investigated the effects of social factors at different points in the education system but there is less research into how such influences develop throughout the school career and into adult life. Much education research now focuses on investigating educational progress and the factors that have an impact on attainment and progression throughout the education system.
The research presented here has two related and equally important aims. The first is to investigate appropriate statistical modelling techniques for the analysis of education data, in particular for examining educational attainment and progress. However, progress is a dynamic concept and can only be examined using longitudinal data. The increasing availability of large scale longitudinal data, on a national basis, provides new opportunities to explore the effects of social and other factors on educational progress. Hence the second main aim of this research is to investigate the scope of national longitudinabstudies for examining the changing and developing effects of influential factors, such'as social background and school, on educational attainment and progress. The statistical modelling techniques are applied to data from one such study, the British Cohort Study of 1970, and the analyses provide a case study to illustrate how education data from longitudinal studies can be investigated. The fmdings from the analyses are compared against current and existing research in order to evaluate the potential of data from national birth cohort studies for the investigation and monitoring of socio-economic trends in educational attainment and progression.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Accounting firms aren't all the way back to where they were before the Great Recession, but they are making progress. That's one of the many findings of note in the 2012 National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) survey, sponsored by the AICPA Private Companies Practice Section in association with the Texas Society of CPAs. The biennial benchmarking poll, conducted from May through August, generated responses from more than 2,300 U.S. accounting firms. Those responses paint the picture of a profession slowly but steadily regaining ground lost in the biggest economic earthquake since the Great Depression. The survey results also reveal divergent trends in partner and staff compensation, increased adoption of fixed-fee pricing, and the growing importance of leveraging technology to accounting firms of all sizes. This article and the accompanying charts highlight the top takeaways from the 2012 PCPS/I'SCPA MAP Survey. Full results are available at aicpa.orglpcps/MAP2012. FIRM GROWTH, COMPENSATION, AND STAFFING PATTERNS Nearly two-thirds (66%) of the accounting firms surveyed reported year-over-year growth in client fees, up from 55% in the 2010 survey but short of the 80% that reported client-fee growth in 2008. The magnitude of growth showed the same pattern, with the gains shown in the 2012 survey being larger on average than those recorded in 2010 but not back to the standards set in the 2008 poll, which stands as a good benchmark for recovery because it reflects financial results achieved before the start of the economic downturn. For example, 43% of the firms in the 2008 survey reported revenue growth of 10% or more, compared with 20% in 2010 and 24% in 2012. The look back to 2008 also illuminates a couple of interesting patterns in compensation. * Overall partner compensation jumped 10% from 2010 to 2012 and posted healthy gains in all of the revenue categories tracked in the survey (see Exhibit 1). Partner compensation averaged $188,500, mirroring the $188,572 averaged in 2008. The drop in partner compensation between 2008 and 2010 indicates that partners left some of their profits in their firms to help ensure stability during the height of the economic storm. With their firms now on more stable footing, partners took home more of the "accumulated" profits to compensate for the cutbacks they made in previous years. * Staff compensation slipped a bit in 2012 after posting big gains in 2010 (see Exhibit 2). New professionals took the biggest hit with a 5% drop compared with 2010, though their average salary remains 27% higher than it was in 2008. That pattern, which held true across most firm sizes, appears to indicate that firms raised nonpartner salaries in 2010 to aid in staff retention, then allowed them to drift back down as part of an effort to equalize salaries back to the 2008 standard. Another possible reason for the lower staff salaries is firms moderating pay as they commit to keeping on more employees. While the percentage of firms experiencing turnover remained essentially the same at 30%, the overall turnover rate dropped two percentage points, to 12%, and involuntary turnover including layoffs and terminations dropped by more than half. The biggest change took place at the largest firms, where the voluntary turnover rate was 3.6 times higher than the involuntary turnover rate. That's a reversal from 2010, when involuntary turnover was more common than voluntary turnover at all firms with revenue of at least $1.5 million, and either flat or marginally lower at the smaller firms. Accounting firms, especially the largest ones, also appear to have made a conscious effort to tighten spending on their largest expense item, professional salaries (excluding owners). Firms with $10 million or more in annual revenue spent 29% of their income on professional salaries, down from 33% in 2010. …


High-resolution imaging of live T cells characterizes the early Ca2+ signals required for T cell activation. Calcium signals down to the millisecond Engagement of the T cell receptor (TCR) stimulates Ca2+ signaling, which is required for T cell activation. The earliest Ca2+ signals are short-lived and localized near the sites of TCR stimulation; later events are longer-lasting and more widespread. Wolf et al. used a combination of fluorescent indicator dyes and microscopy to perform high-resolution imaging of Ca2+ signals that occurred within milliseconds of the TCR stimulation of live mouse and human T cells. Microinjection of cells with the second messenger NAADP, which is generated upon T cell activation, produced a similar spatiotemporal pattern of Ca2+ signals in the absence of TCR activation. Both TCR- and NAADP-dependent signals were markedly reduced by depletion of ryanodine receptors, which are localized in the endoplasmic reticulum, implicating this internal calcium store as a source for the early Ca2+ signals required for T cell activation. The activation of T cells is the fundamental on switch for the adaptive immune system. Ca2+ signaling is essential for T cell activation and starts as initial, short-lived, localized Ca2+ signals. The second messenger nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP) forms rapidly upon T cell activation and stimulates early Ca2+ signaling. We developed a high-resolution imaging technique using multiple fluorescent Ca2+ indicator dyes to characterize these early signaling events and investigate the channels involved in NAADP-dependent Ca2+ signals. In the first seconds of activation of either primary murine T cells or human Jurkat cells with beads coated with an antibody against CD3, we detected Ca2+ signals with diameters close to the limit of detection and that were close to the activation site at the plasma membrane. In Jurkat cells in which the ryanodine receptor (RyR) was knocked down or in primary T cells from RyR1−/− mice, either these early Ca2+ signals were not detected or the number of signals was markedly reduced. Local Ca2+ signals observed within 20 ms upon microinjection of Jurkat cells with NAADP were also sensitive to RyR knockdown. In contrast, TRPM2 (transient receptor potential channel, subtype melastatin 2), a potential NAADP target channel, was not required for the formation of initial Ca2+ signals in primary T cells. Thus, through our high-resolution imaging method, we characterized early Ca2+ release events in T cells and obtained evidence for the involvement of RyR and NAADP in such signals.


Light forces induced by scattering and absorption in elastic dielectrics lead to local density modulations and deformations. These perturbations in turn modify light propagation in the medium and generate an intricate nonlinear response. We generalize an analytic approach where light propagation in one-dimensional media of inhomogeneous density is modelled as a result of multiple scattering between polarizable slices. Using the Maxwell stress tensor formalism we compute the local optical forces and iteratively approach self-consistent density distributions where the elastic back-action balances gradient- and scattering forces. For an optically trapped dielectric we derive the nonlinear dependence of trap position, stiffness and total deformation on the object's size and field configuration. Generally trapping is enhanced by deformation, which exhibits a periodic change between stretching and compression. This strongly deviates from qualitative expectations based on the change of photon momentum of light crossing the surface of a dielectric. We conclude that optical forces have to be treated as volumetric forces and that a description using the change of photon momentum at the surface of a medium is inappropriate.


The popularity of social bookmarking sites has made them prime targets for spammers. Many of these systems require an administrator's time and energy to manually filter or remove spam. Here we discuss the motivations of social spam, and present a study of automatic detection of spammers in a social tagging system. We identify and analyze six distinct features that address various properties of social spam, finding that each of these features provides for a helpful signal to discriminate spammers from legitimate users. These features are then used in various machine learning algorithms for classification, achieving over 98% accuracy in detecting social spammers with 2% false positives. These promising results provide a new baseline for future efforts on social spam. We make our dataset publicly available to the research community.


Oral breathing is a respiratory dysfunction that affects approximately 10-15% of child population. It is responsable of local effects and systemic effects, both immediate and long-term. They affect the growth of the subject and his physical health in many ways: pediatric, psycho-behavioral and cognitive. The etiology is multifactorial. It's important the establishment of a vicious circle involving more areas and it is essential to stop it as soon as possible. In order to correct this anomaly, the pediatric dentist must be able to make a correct diagnosis to treat early the disfunction and to avoid the onset of cascade mechanisms. Who plays a central role is the pediatrician who first and frequently come into contact with little patients. He can identify the anomalies, and therefore collaborate with other specialists, including the dentist. The key aspect that guides us in the diagnosis, and allows us to identify the oral respirator, is the "adenoid facies". The purpose of the study is to highlight the importance and benefits of an early and multidisciplinary intervention (pediatric, orthopedic-orthodontic-functional). A sample of 20 patients was selected with the following inclusion criteria: mouth breathing, transverse discrepancy > 4 mm, early mixed dentition, central and lateral permenent incisors, overjet increased, lip and nasal incompetence, snoring and/or sleep apnea episodes. The protocol of intervention includes the use of the following devices and procedures: a maxillary rapid expander (to correct the transverse discrepancy, to increase the amplitude of the upper respiratory airway and to reduce nasal resistances tract) in association with myo-functional devices (nasal stimulator and oral obturator). They allow the reconstruction of a physiological balance between the perioral musculature and tongue, the acquisition of nasal and lips competence and the reduction of overjet. This protocol speeds up and stabilizes the results. The control of the muscles during the growth phase is important: muscular forces influence the direction of facial growth.


With the objective of knowing the preference of young cattle for twelve forage species of the Trujillo State, Venezuela (Chlorophora tinctoria, Morus alba, Pithecellobium pedicellare, Gliricidia sepium, Guazuma ulmifolia, Cordia alba, Trichantera gigantea, Tithonia diversifolia, Leucaena leucocephala, Moringa oleifera, Azadirachta indica and Samanea saman) a cafeteria test was performed through foliage intake measurements, by means of a Latin square design with a 12-day evaluation period. The chemical composition (CP, CE, NDF, Pastos y Forrajes, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2008 256 phenols, condensed tannins, protein precipitable tannins and total sterols) and the in situ ruminal degradability (DMD and OMD) of the forages were determined. The most preferred species were: P. pedicellare (327,98 g DM), L. leucocephala (325,63 g DM), M. alba (293,37 g DM), G. ulmifolia (292,48 g DM), C. tinctoria (277,18 g DM) and C. alba (274, 49 g DM). The foliages of G. sepium (108,05 g DM), T. diversifolia (106,09 g DM), M. oleifera (76,28 g DM), A. indica (76,19 g DM) and S. saman (58,72 g DM) were moderately consumed. However, the biomass of T. gigantea (1,39 g DM) was practically rejected. During the experimental period different trends were observed in the intake of each species. Nevertheless, no significant relationship was observed among the intake and chemical composition, the concentration of secondary metabolites and ruminal degradability. It is concluded that to carry out preference trials with animals for the selection of species with potential for silvopastoral systems is important.


In this study an investigation of heat transfer in air cooled Axial Flux Permanent Magnet (AFPM) electrical machines is carried out. Efficiency of electrical machines is strongly influenced by an effective cooling which is provided by forced convection: air enters the generator through the opening in the machine enclosure and leaves it radially, as it is forced out by the rotating discs. The main goal is the enhancement of the heat transfer from the stator where heat is generated in the copper windings. On the other hand the heat transfer to the rotor needs to be minimised in order to keep the magnets' temperature as low as possible.
The cooling can be improved by acting on design parameters, such as the distance between the stator and the rotors (commonly named running clearance), the magnet depth, and by acting on operational parameters, such as the rotational speed.
The investigation is carried out by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software to model air flow and heat transfer inside the AFPM machines. The experimental validation of the numerical models confirmed the capability of the CFD software in predicting the air mass flow rate and the heat transfer in the AFPM machines.
The thesis describes the effects of the above mentioned parameters on target quantities, such as the heat transfer coefficients on the generator surfaces, the air mass flow rate through the machine, and the resistive torque.
General correlations in non-dimensional form are obtained for the calculation of the heat transfer on the generator surfaces in the AFPM machines as a function of the above parameters. General correlations have also been obtained for the calculations of the non-dimensional air mass flow rate through the machine and for the non-dimensional resistive torque.
It was found that the corresponding relationships between the peripheral Reynolds number and local Nusselt numbers on the generator surfaces and the non-dimensional mass flow rate are linear. However, the dependency of Nusselt number on the non dimensional clearance and the magnet depth is non-linear.
For the investigated range of the parameters the following was established: an increase in the peripheral Reynolds number results in higher Nusselt number on both the rotating and stationary surfaces of machines; an increase in the running clearance results in the reduction of the Nusselt number on the machine surfaces; the magnetic segments installed on the surface of the flat rotor act as blades of a radial compressor increasing the air mass flow rate and the corresponding Nusselt number on the stator surface.
The combination of the non-dimensional running clearance equal to 9 10-3 and the non-dimensional magnet depth equal to 7.3 10-2 was found to be the one which provides the maximum heat transfer from the stator. This piece of information can be used in the design stage for improving the cooling of AFPM electrical machines without increasing the windage losses and contribute in this way to the enhancement of the overall efficiency of this type of machines.


We investigate into a new type of liquid crystal (LC) heterogeneous system that contains hydrogen-bonded polymer-azo-dye complexes at a low concentration. The suspension shows a unique self-orienting property and a spontaneous anchoring transition from planar to homeotropic alignment on a rubbed polyimide surface. We suggest a simple polymer adsorption model to explain the universal homeotropic orienting property. The complex-doped LC suspension can be used as a new liquid crystalline material that does not require any additional alignment processing or treatment.


We apply the process‐based, distributed TOPKAPI‐ETH glacio‐hydrological model to a glacierized catchment (19% glacierized) in the semiarid Andes of central Chile. The semiarid Andes provides vital freshwater resources to valleys in Chile and Argentina, but only few glacio‐hydrological modelling studies have been conducted, and its dominant hydrological processes remain poorly understood. The catchment contains two debris‐free glaciers reaching down to 3900 m asl (Bello and Yeso glaciers) and one debris‐covered avalanche‐fed glacier reaching to 3200 m asl (Piramide Glacier). Our main objective is to compare the mass balance and runoff contributions of both glacier types under current climatic conditions. We use a unique dataset of field measurements collected over two ablation seasons combined with the distributed TOPKAPI‐ETH model that includes physically oriented parameterizations of snow and ice ablation, gravitational distribution of snow, snow albedo evolution and the ablation of debris‐covered ice. Model outputs indicate that while the mass balance of Bello and Yeso glaciers is mostly explained by temperature gradients, the Piramide Glacier mass balance is governed by debris thickness and avalanches and has a clear non‐linear profile with elevation as a result. Despite the thermal insulation effect of the debris cover, the mass balance and contribution to runoff from debris‐free and debris‐covered glaciers are similar in magnitude, mainly because of elevation differences. However, runoff contributions are distinct in time and seasonality with ice melt starting approximately four weeks earlier from the debris‐covered glacier, what is of relevance for water resources management. At the catchment scale, snowmelt is the dominant contributor to runoff during both years. However, during the driest year of our simulations, ice melt contributes 42 ± 8% and 67 ± 6% of the annual and summer runoff, respectively. Sensitivity analyses show that runoff is most sensitive to temperature and precipitation gradients, melt factors and debris cover thickness. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


BACKGROUND
The modern primary healthcare workforce needs to be resilient. Early research framed professional resilience as avoiding 'burnout'; however, more recent literature has introduced the concept of positive adaptation to professional challenges, which results in individuals thriving in their role.

AIM
To explore what primary health professionals working in challenging environments consider to be characteristics of resilience and what promotes or challenges professional resilience.

DESIGN AND SETTING
A qualitative focus group in north east Scotland.

METHOD
Five focus groups were held with 20 health professionals (six GPs, nine nurses, four pharmacists, and a practice manager) based in rural or deprived city areas in the north east of Scotland. Inductive thematic analysis identified emerging themes.

RESULTS
Personal resilience characteristics identified were optimism, flexibility and adaptability, initiative, tolerance, organisational skills, being a team worker, keeping within professional boundaries, assertiveness, humour, and a sense of self-worth. Workplace challenges were workload, information overload, time pressures, poor communication, challenging patients, and environmental factors (rural location). Promoters of professional resilience were strong management support, teamwork, workplace buffers, and social factors such as friends, family, and leisure activities.

CONCLUSION
A model of health professional resilience is proposed that concurs with existing literature but adds the concept of personal traits being synergistic with workplace features and social networks. These facilitate adaptability and enable individual health professionals to cope with adversity that is inevitably part of the everyday experience of those working in challenging healthcare environments.


Abstract. In order to protect man and the environment, long-lasting, passive solutions are needed for the different categories of radioactive waste. In Belgium, three main categories of conditioned radioactive waste (termed A, B and C) are defined by radiological and thermal power criteria. It is expected that Category A waste – low and intermediate level short-lived waste – will be disposed in a near-surface facility, whereas Category B and C wastes – high-level and other long-lived radioactive waste – will be disposed in a deep geological repository. In both cases, the long-term safety of a given disposal facility is evaluated. Different scenarios and assessment cases are developed illustrating the range of possibilities for the evolution and performance of a disposal system without trying to predict its precise behaviour. Within these scenarios, the evolution of the climate will play a major role as the time scales of the evaluation and long term climate evolution overlap. In case of a near-surface facility (Category A waste), ONDRAF/NIRAS is considering the conclusions of the IPCC, demonstrating that a global warming is nearly unavoidable. The consequences of such a global warming and the longer term evolutions on the evolution of the near-surface facility are considered. In case of a geological repository, in which much longer time frames are considered, even larger uncertainties exist in the various climate models. Therefore, the robustness of the geological disposal system towards the possible results of a spectrum of potential climate changes and their time of occurrence will be evaluated. The results of climate modelling and knowledge of past climate changes will merely be used as guidance of the extremes of climate changes to be considered and their consequences.


Open educational practices (OEP) is a broad descriptor of practices that include the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER) as well as open pedagogies and open sharing of teaching practices. As compared with OER, there has been little empirical research on individual educators' use of OEP for teaching in higher education. This research study addresses that gap, exploring the digital and pedagogical strategies of a diverse group of university educators, focusing on whether, why, and how they use OEP for teaching. The study was conducted at one Irish university; semi-structured interviews were carried out with educators across multiple disciplines. Only a minority of educators used OEP. Using constructivist grounded theory, a model of the concept "Using OEP for teaching" was constructed showing four dimensions shared by open educators: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. The use of OEP by educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continually negotiated. These findings suggest that research-informed policies and collaborative and critical approaches to openness are required to support staff, students, and learning in an increasingly complex higher education environment.


The neutral beam injectors of the tokamak experiment TEXTOR produce neutral particle beams in the megawatt range at 55 keV and up to a 10-s pulse length of the light atoms hydrogen, deuterium, 3 He, and 4 He for heating the fusion plasma of TEXTOR. The two injectors are equipped with one 5-MW ion source (plug-in neutral injector, each. The injected power of ∼1.5 MW of each injector can be varied from 0 to 100% by opening the main beam target vertical aperture in steps of ∼2 cm to the full opening of 50 cm. The symmetric truncation of the neutral beam profile at a target position 4.5 m from the ion source leads to no major deformation of the profile downstream at the entrance into the torus plasma at a 6-m distance from the ion source. Whereas usually the particle energy, i.e., acceleration voltage, and beam current or, alternatively, the gas pressure in the neutralizer at fixed energy must be varied to change the injected power, these beam parameters can be kept constant with the reported method to study the effect of different injected neutral beam powers on the fusion plasma. The transmitted power to the torus is detected by the calorimetrically measured remaining power on the beam target. The resulting transmitted neutral beam power as a function of the target aperture is in good agreement with the expected integral of the thus-truncated Gaussianlike beam profile, i.e., the error function. The scaling of the resulting injected neutral beam power, beam profiles, vertical full-width-at-half-maximum, and central power density with variation of the beam target aperture are in good agreement with the beamline simulation code PADET.


This paper investigates the impact of risk taking behavior, institution ownership and performance on bank failure. I predict that risk-taking behavior has positive impact on bank failure, institution ownership and performance have negative impact on bank failure. Result shows that risk taking behavior and institution ownership give little support to hypothesis. Performance has result as predicted. The result suggests that the impact of risk taking behavior and institution ownership needs further investigation. Keyword: risk taking, institutional ownership, performance, bank failure


Nearly half of all countries emerging from civil conflict relapse into war within a few years of signing a peace agreement. The postwar trajectories of armed groups vary from organizational cohesion to dissolution, demilitarization to remilitarization. In Organized Violence after Civil War, Daly analyzes evidence from thirty-seven militia groups in Colombia, demonstrating that the primary driving force behind these changes is the variation in recruitment patterns within, and between, the warring groups. She documents the transition from war to peace through interviews with militia commanders, combatants and victims. Using rich ex-combatant survey data and geo-coded information on violence over fifty years of war, Daly explains the dynamics inside armed organizations and the strategic interactions among them. She also shows how the theory may be used beyond Colombia, both within the region of Latin America and across the rest of the world.


Current massive development of information and communication technologies increases the importance of global communication that is closely linked with changes in value structures of individual and distinct entities. Intercultural relations are mainly based on an exchange of values and life models that create the connection between various cultures, and search for ways of coexistence of distinct cultures with the aim to deepen mutual understanding and minimize the possibilities of communication interferences and ensuing conflicts. For example, the Europeans show a deeply rooted distrust towards foreigners that transforms into hatred in some European destinations (Balkan countries). The counterpart to this is the North American society that was formed thanks to massive immigration and can be considered a fully intercultural society. In order to start communicating in certain social and cultural environments, it is necessary to understand the interconnection of communication activities of different entities with their values and value structures as such understanding helps eliminate conflicts between different cultures. Respect for values and creation of value structures is not expressed only in legal and ethical standards but also in their setup and interpretation. The current intercultural society is strongly influenced by the American culture and so called "consumerism" leading to unjustified overconsumption. The key task here is therefore to perform a fair and factual classification of conditions under which the relationships with foreign cultures are formed with the aim to maintain their identity and cultural power of traditions. The paper therefore focuses on value structure development in globalizing society with the aim to find the most suitable form of functional intercultural relationships among the distinct cultures in modern society. The outcome of this study indicates that the conflicts of current intercultural society are not based on a different level of civilization but mainly result from different values that are connected with the social, economic and cultural poverty and lack of education. Moreover, current society has developed a mechanism of various obtrusive, blatant recommendations and models of consumption people are overwhelmed with and maneuvered by into a life governed by consumption. Marketing and media play a major role in this mechanism. Their tools have shaken the trust of people into fair society (financial crises, war conflicts of 21st century) and resulted in a lack of responsibility and limited development of traditional comfortable value structures of various cultures.


The observable chemical, electrochemical, and morphological features of GaP(111) surfaces after wet chemical etching have been assessed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. HF(aq), NH4F(aq), H2SO4(aq), HCl(aq), HCl-HNO3(aq), and dilute Br-2 in CH3OH (with and without a follow-up alkaline etch) are all potent etchants for GaP(111) but yield distinctly different GaP(111)A and GaP(111)B surface conditions. Freshly etched GaP(111)B interfaces show higher residual oxide coverages and are generally rougher than similarly treated GaP(111)A surfaces. Differential capacitance measurements of n-GaP(111)A and n-GaP(111)B electrodes show that various etchants result in a wide range of apparent values for the conduction bandedge potentials, spanning approximately 700 mV in acetonitrile. These data show that these etched surfaces are not equivalent and that the observable physicochemical and electrochemical properties of GaP(111) are strongly influenced by the choice of wet chemical etchant. Additionally, X-ray photoelectron spectra show that adsorption of (4-fluorophenyl)methanethiol onto GaP(111) is insensitive to surface orientation or etching method, indicating no dominant covalent interaction between organic thiols and GaP(111) interfaces.


A young black woman with a history of Graves disease presented with painful lesions on both legs. She reported chills, bilateral lower extremity swelling, and several small, painful, "pimple-like bumps" appearing on her bilateral lower legs, which ulcerated several days later. The ulcers progressed despite a recent course of trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole for cultures growing methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus. The patient's medications included methimazole and atenolol, which she had been taking since her diagnosis of Graves disease 1 year prior. She had not taken other over-the-counter medications or supplements. Physical examination of her bilateral lower extremities revealed pitting edema and multiple discrete, round, dry ulcers, most with central eschars, dusky gray borders, and collarettes of scale (Figure, A). Results from the initial laboratory workup revealed elevated levels of C-reactive protein and increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate. A punch biopsy specimen of an ulcer edge demonstrated a midand deep dermal marked lymphohistiocytic infiltrate with neutrophils and focal abscess, suggesting a nonspecific infection. The patient was initially treated with cephalexin, mupirocin, and conservative wound care, but the eruption later worsened, with new lesions appearing on her right leg. During follow-up, an intact 4-mm papular lesion was identified on her lower right leg (Figure, B). No pathergy at the previous punch biopsy site was observed. A biopsy of the new intact papule was performed (Figure, C and D). Round, dry ulcers A New papule B


Abstract. We use the EMAC (ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry) global climate–chemistry model coupled to the aerosol module MADE (Modal Aerosol Dynamics model for Europe, adapted for global applications) to simulate the impact of aviation emissions on global atmospheric aerosol and climate in 2030. Emissions of short-lived gas and aerosol species follow the four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) designed in support of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We compare our findings with the results of a previous study with the same model configuration focusing on year 2000 emissions. We also characterize the aviation results in the context of the other transport sectors presented in a companion paper. In spite of a relevant increase in aviation traffic volume and resulting emissions of aerosol (black carbon) and aerosol precursor species (nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide), the aviation effect on particle mass concentration in 2030 remains quite negligible (on the order of a few ng m−3), about 1 order of magnitude less than the increase in concentration due to other emission sources. Due to the relatively small size of the aviation-induced aerosol, however, the increase in particle number concentration is significant in all scenarios (about 1000 cm−3), mostly affecting the northern mid-latitudes at typical flight altitudes (7–12 km). This largely contributes to the overall change in particle number concentration between 2000 and 2030, which also results in significant climate effects due to aerosol–cloud interactions. Aviation is the only transport sector for which a larger impact on the Earth's radiation budget is simulated in the future: the aviation-induced radiative forcing in 2030 is more than doubled with respect to the year 2000 value of −15 mW m−2 in all scenarios, with a maximum value of −63 mW m−2 simulated for RCP2.6.


Wearable electronics capable of recording and transmitting biosignals can provide convenient and pervasive health monitoring. A typical EEG recording produces large amount of data. Conventional compression methods cannot compress date below Nyquist rate, thus resulting in large amount of data even after compression. This needs large storage and hence long transmission time. Compressed sensing has proposed solution to this problem and given a way to compress data below Nyquist rate. In this paper, double temporal sparsity based reconstruction algorithm has been applied for the recovery of compressively sampled EEG data. The results are further improved by modifying the double temporal sparsity based reconstruction algorithm using schattern-p norm along with decorrelation transformation of EEG data before processing. The proposed modified double temporal sparsity based reconstruction algorithm out-perform block sparse bayesian learning and Rackness based compressed sensing algorithms in terms of SNDR and NMSE. Simulation results further show that the proposed algorithm has better convergence rate and less execution time.


This essay deals with the current state of English teaching in Sweden with regards to an international perspective. The first, theoretical, part discusses ways in which a departure from the traditional way of teaching English as a Foreign Language towards more recent theories emphasising communication might be beneficial. A brief overview of these different theories with regards to Swedish conditions is given, followed by a short rundown of the history of the Swedish curriculum.The second part presents deductions on current attitudes towards the study of English in Swedish schools based on a survey conducted among students and teachers at an upper-secondary school. It will be shown that despite changes in the national curriculum over the years, much of the English teaching is still treading the same path as the last decades, due to longstanding sentiments with students and teachers alike. There are also indications to show that traditional teaching has not kept up with the emergence of virtual communities, where students regularly engage in written communication with people from all corners of the world.


Female extra-pair copulations (EPCs) have selected for male paternity guarding strategies in many bird species. In the bluethroat, Luscinia s. svecica, males guard their mates closely during the last 2 d before the start of egg laying, but there is great individual variation in the intensity of mate guarding. Here we show that some of this variation is related to male age. Old males guarded their mates with much lower intensity and sang more than young males, although the latter difference was not statistically significant. Controlling for male age, male and female coloration and size were not significantly related to the intensity of mate guarding. We have previously shown that young and old males had a similar paternity loss in their own broods. On the other hand, old males were far more successful than young males in achieving extra-pair fertilizations. These patterns suggest that young and old males have different trade-offs between preventing paternity loss in own nest and gaining paternity in others, because male skills in obtaining EPCs improve with experience and/or because of female preferences for old males as copulation partners. There were no significant relationships between paternity and male mate-guarding behaviour during the fertile period, indicating that mate guarding is not a very effective paternity-assurance strategy in the bluethroat.


Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are widely used for cable replacement and wireless Internet access. Because the medium access control (MAC) scheme of WLANs has a strong influence on network performance, it should be accounted for in WLAN design. This paper presents AP location models that optimize a network performance measure specifically for the MAC scheme of WLANs that represents the efficiency in sharing the wireless medium. For these models, we propose a solution framework based on an effective integer-linear programming Dantzig--Wolfe reformulation. This framework is applicable to any nonlinear covering problem where the objective function is a sum of contributions over the groundset elements (users in WLANs). Extensive computational results show that our solution strategy quickly yields optimal or near-optimal solutions for WLAN design instances of realistic size.


The ATLAS detector has been built to study the reactions produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ATLAS includes a system of liquid argon calorimeters for energy measurements. The electronics for amplifying, shaping, sampling, pipelining, and digitizing the calorimeter signals is implemented on a set of front-end electronic boards. The front-end boards are installed in crates mounted between the calorimeters, where they will be subjected to significant levels of radiation during LHC operation. As a result, all components used on the front-end boards had to be subjected to an extensive set of radiation qualification tests. This paper describes radiation-tolerant designs, radiation testing, and radiation qualification of the front-end readout system for the ATLAS liquid argon calorimeters.


If a computer game company wants to stay competitive they must offer something extra. For many years, this extra has often been synonymous with better graphics. Lately, and thanks to the Internet, the focus has shifted in favour of more multi-player support. This also means that the requirements of one-player games increases. Our proposal, to meet these new requirements, is that future game AI is made more human-like. One way to achieve this is believed to be the use of learning AI techniques, such as genetic algorithms and neural networks. In this thesis we will present the results from an experiment aiming at testing strategy game AI. Test persons played against traditional strategy game AI, a genetic algorithm AI, and other humans to see if they experienced any differences in the behaviour of the opponents.


Author(s): Shilling, Fraser | Abstract: As roads and other developed land uses proliferate, the resulting habitat fragmentation and loss of wildlife connectivity hinder animals' ability to forage, establish new territories, and maintain genetic diversity. Wildlife crossing structures such as culverts and bridges theoretically can reduce these impacts by allowing species to effectively cross highways. However, previous research has shown that traffic presence and density can disrupt wildlife use of highway crossing structures, and that noise and light from human activities can affect animal behavior. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, Road Ecology Center measured traffic noise and light levels and placed motion- and heat-triggered cameras at 26 bridges and culverts along four interstate highways, 11 state highways and one major county road across California. The presence and behavior of animals at these highway crossing structures were compared to those detected at sites unaffected by roads to understand the effects of noise and light from a highway on wildlife behavior. This policy brief summarizes findings from that research and provides policy implications.View the NCST Project Webpage


We use normal-incidence and wide-angle seismic data recorded on the Faroe Islands to study the crustal structure along two profiles extending east from the islands, across the Faroe shelf and into the Faroe-Shetland Basin. We show that massive basaltic lava flows extend eastward away from the Faroe Islands, having flowed across an older Mesozoic and early Paleocene sedimentary basin, and feathering out near the centre of the Faroe-Shetland Basin. Sediments beneath the basalts reach a thickness of several kilometres in the basin, but do not extend with a resolvable thickness beneath the Faroe Islands. The crustal thickness decreases toward the centre of the Faroe-Shetland Basin, showing that the basement beneath the centre of the basin has been stretched and thinned by a factor of at least two. The Faroe Islands themselves lie on a continental fragment, which had a total thickness of about 10-15 km of igneous rock added as extrusive lavas at the top, and as high-velocity intrusives near the base of the crust at the time of continental break-up in the Paleocene.


This research is an update of the study that we published last year (Bennani et al., 2018) and that explored the impact of ESG investing on asset pricing in the stock market. It extends the original period 2010-2017 by adding eighteen months from January 2018 to June 2019. These new results confirm the previous results as we reach the same essential conclusions once again. ESG investing tended to penalize both passive and active ESG investors between 2010 and 2013. Contrastingly, ESG investing was a source of outperformance from 2014 to 2019 in Europe and North America. Moreover, ESG can be considered as a risk factor in the Eurozone, while it continues to be an alpha strategy in North America. However, the last 18 months exhibit new interesting patterns. First, we observe a transatlantic divide since the results for North America and the Eurozone are different for the recent period. Second, we document a partial ordering between ESG ratings and performance that can be explained by a shift from a static to a dynamic approach to ESG investing. Third, we note some discrepancies between active and passive management. Fourth, the social pillar seems to have gained traction these last years, and is no longer the laggard pillar. Fifth, factor investing and ESG investing are more and more connected. In what follows, we develop and explain these five key findings.


This paper introduces an algorithm inspired from the work of Franceschi et al. (2017) for automatically tuning the learning rate while training neural networks. We formalize this problem as minimizing a given performance metric (e.g. validation error) at a future epoch using its "hyper-gradient" with respect to the learning rate at the current iteration. Such a hyper-gradient is difficult to estimate and we discuss how approximations and Hessian-vector products allow us to develop a Real-Time method for Hyper-Parameter Optimization (RT-HPO). We present a comparison between RT-HPO and other popular HPO techniques and show that our approach performs better in terms of the final accuracy of the trained model. Online adaptation of the learning introduces two extra hyper-parameters, the initial value of the learning rate and the hyper-learning rate; our empirical results demonstrate that the accuracy obtained by RT-HPO is largely insensitive to these hyper-parameters.


When South Carolina left the Union in December 1860, the disintegration of the United States had begun. As politicians cast their eyes toward the heavens in search of a dove of peace, the threat of war filled the air. They were keenly aware that time was running out for them to find a solution to save the country from impending calamity. More than 140 years ago, rhetoric collided with reality at Fort Sumter, and the nation found itself engaged in a fateful encounter. The Civil War, that revolutionary event of the 1860s would bring about phenomenal social, political, and economic changes in America. By 1865, the war had entered its final phase with the outcome no longer in doubt. As General William T. Sherman marched through the Carolinas, he made good on his promise "to wreak vengeance" on the first state to secede from the Union. Although Sherman had moved into North Carolina, he was still burning "with an insatiable desire" to inflict punishment on the Palmetto State. Moreover, the Union general did not want the demoralized Confederate army opposing him in the Tar Heel State as the beneficiary of reinforcements and supplies from South Carolina. Writing to General John G. Foster, commander of the Department of the South from Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 12, 1865, Sherman said: "The enemy still has much railroad stock and munitions on the track about Sumterville and Florence, . . . I want you to reach that road and destroy everything possible and exhaust the country of supplies."1 General Sherman also suggested Georgetown, South Carolina, as a point of departure from which to carry out his directive. During the last days of March 1865, transport vessels from Charleston and Savannah deposited an army there. Georgetown, situated on Winyah Bay near the Atlantic Ocean was a wealthy community with large plantations worked by slave labor. The 54h Massachusetts Volunteer regiment arrived at Georgetown from Savannah on March 31st. The state of South Carolina was the scene of many military operations during the Civil War including several incursions of its interior by Federal soldiers. General Edward A. Potter led the largest of those inland expeditions. He assumed command of the Union force at Georgetown on April 1, 1865. Potter of New York City, served primarily as General Foster's chief of staff during the war.2 The Federal force that had assembled at Georgetown, known as the Provisional Division consisted of six infantry regiments divided into two brigades. Colonel Philip P. Brown commanded the First Brigade and Colonel Edward N. Hallowell the Second. The 54h Massachusetts supplied 700 officers and enlisted men to Potter's 2,700 man army.3 The regiment's participation in Potter's raid was the last campaign of significance for the most celebrated regiment of the 166 black units of the Civil War. Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts was the driving force behind the creation of the 54th infantry. He believed that the participation of black soldiers in the war would serve "as a means of elevating the people of color hereafter."4 At the request of the governor, Robert Gould Shaw accepted the task of commanding the 54 th, the first back regiment raised in the northern states. Born in Boston in 1837, he was handsome, wealthy, charismatic, and well-educated. Colonel Shaw fully understood the challenge of transforming 1,000 civilians into soldiers. On March 5, 1863, General R. A. Pierce, commandant at Meigs, the training camp of the 54th at Readville on the outskirts of Boston, issued General Order No. 1. He enjoined his drill instructors to pay special attention "to the soldierly bearing of the men... as it is easier to form good habits in the beginning than to correct bad ones later."5 Four months after that order, the volunteers of the 54th would have an opportunity to test their training in South Carolina. According to Dudley Taylor Cornish, "it was that on James Island the men of the 54 1h had their first taste of battle, of honorable soldier's work. …


We report the controlled release of immobilized cholesteryl-tetraethyleneglycol-DNA (chol-DNA) from micropatterned SU-8 surfaces by a spreading lipid film. The release of chol-DNA is rapid and on the order of the spreading rate of the lipid film beta = 1-3 microm2/s ( approximately 10(5) molecules of DNA per second). The lipid film serves as a poor solvent for the DNA adduct, which upon contact redistributes into the aqueous phase. Thus, the release of DNA is accompanied by a change in surface hydrophobicity. The method can be used for creating arbitrary concentration profiles of DNA in solution over time or to dynamically change surface properties on demand in, for example, micro- and nanofluidic devices. Examples of DNA release from spiral, comb, meander, and triangular as well as from nanoscale SU-8 lanes are shown.


1. Historical nutrient changes in Grasmere were investigated using a 300-year record derived from six sediment cores. One core was investigated at high resolution for diatoms, total sedimentary phosphorus, and loss-on-ignition (LOI), and was dated using Pb-210 and Cs-137. Six other cores were scanned for magnetic susceptibility, diatoms and LOI to confirm the stratigraphic integrity of the primary record. 2. A rise in nutrient levels occurred after 1855 AD. This event was marked by a shift away from benthic diatom assemblages and a rise in Asterionella formosa. The onset of eutrophication from 1855 corresponds to the expansion of the local and tourist population in the area. 3. The replacement of A. formosa with Cyclotella spp. ca 1945-65 indicates reduced nutrient loads, possibly because of enhanced flushing brought about by the seasonal rainfall distribution. 4. After 1965 a step-wise increase in both absolute and relative amounts of Asterionella was found. High sedimentary P and diatom inferred TP confirmed the high nutrient loading of the lake. Nutrient increase is attributable to problems with the Grasmere village sewage system and the installation of a wastewater treatment works (WwTW) on the River Rothay in 1971. Modifications to the WwTW in 1982 caused an initial improvement, but have not led to a full recovery to pre-1965 ecological conditions. 5. The diatom record indicates a further improvement after 1990 by a return toward Achnanthes minutissima. 6. The sedimentary archive of sensitive sites provides important benchmarks against which to judge the attainment of water quality targets.


We discuss the recently observed `excesses' in cosmic ray electron and positron fluxes which have been widely interpreted as signals of dark matter. By considering the production and acceleration of secondary electrons and positrons in nearby supernova remnants, we predict an additional, harder component that becomes dominant at high energies. The unknown spatial distribution of the supernova remnants introduces a stochastic uncertainty which we estimate analytically. Fitting the prediction for different source distributions to the total electron + positron flux measured by Fermi--LAT fixes all free parameters and allows us to `postdict' the rise in the positron fraction seen by PAMELA. A similar rise in the B/C ratio is predicted at high energies.


A system is presented to detect and match any objects with mobile cameras collaborating with fixed cameras observing the same scene. No training data is needed. Various object descriptors are studied based on grids of region descriptors. Region descriptors such as histograms of oriented gradients and covariance matrices of different set of features are evaluated. A detection and matching approach is presented based on a cascade of descriptors outperforming previous approaches. The object descriptor is robust to any changes in illuminations, viewpoints, color distributions and image quality. Objects with partial occlusion are also detected. The dynamic of the system is taken into consideration to better detect moving objects. Qualitative and quantitative results are presented in indoor and outdoor urban scenes.


Denitrification is a reduction of nitrate by heterotrophic and autotrophic bacteria that may ultimately produce molecular nitrogen (N2) through a series of intermediate nitrogen compounds.Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral (Mg, Fe+2,Fe+3)3[(Al,Si)4O10](OH)2·4H2O with several layers for bacterial immobilization. The goal of this study was removal of nitrate from water with vermiculite and bacterial bio-film. In this process, 2×107 of bacteria were trapped in one gram vermiculite with resting cells and growing cells and nitrate removal were compared by free cells. The data showed that the un-immobilized cell in resting state could only remove 45 mg nitrate in 5 days, however nitrate removal by resting cell on vermiculite was 180 mg in 10 days, while in free resting cells this removal was poor. The maximum removal of 450 mg nitrate occurred after 25 days with feeding of biofilm. The intermediate product of nitrate removal was nitrite and in all data, the end product was nitrogen.

Highlights

Immobilization of P. stutzeri in resting cell status,improved nitrate removal efficiency versus un-immobilized bacteria.
Feeding the immobilized bacteria, improved nitrate removal efficiency.
Vermiculite introduced as a beneficial support media for immobilization of bacteria.


In conducting economic policy, governments generally face conflicts in various objectives, e.g. between efficiency and equity. In Norway, one objective of energy politics has been to reduce electricity consumption, and several tax increases have been proposed. Whether this objective may be in conflict with objectives of efficiency and equity is the focus in this paper. We discuss the effects on household behaviour of three different electricity tax schemes, one proportional and two non-linear. For each household we estimate the reduction in household electricity consumption. As measures of distributional effects and efficiency effects we estimate compensating variation and excess tax burden from the tax schemes. We find that the non-linear tax scheme targeting high electricity consumption is most preferred in order to reduce consumption and least preferred concerning the objective of minimizing excess tax burden. When considering distributional effects, the ranking of tax schemes depends on the weight placed on different household groups.


This chapter provides a snapshot of how international trade and investment law can protect foreign investments in the resources sector. It first considers the applicability to the resources sector of international trade law, primarily found in the law of the World Trade Organization ('WTO') and various bilateral and plurilateral preferential trade agreements. These treaties contain important disciplines on non-discrimination and market access. The recent WTO dispute, China — Raw Materials, which involved export restrictions on bauxite, zinc, and other raw materials, demonstrates how such disciplines can apply to the resources sector. Although trade disputes are officially brought by States rather than by private actors, international investment treaties routinely provide investors with a direct mechanism to bring a claim against a State for breach of an investment treaty before an international tribunal. This chapter examines the typical protections contained in investments treaties, and how these can apply to the resources sector. For example, this chapter gives an assessment of whether increases in taxation affecting investments in the resources sector, or revocations of mining licences and permits, could constitute an unlawful or compensable 'expropriation,' and whether suspect administrative decisions or adverse changes in regulations could breach 'fair and equitable treatment' protections. The chapter also explores the extent to which breaches of contracts, agreements and understandings between investors in the resources sector and host States can be elevated to treaty breaches (and thus pursued before international tribunals). Finally, this chapter considers two examples of Australian investors in the resources sector pursuing international investment claims against India and Pakistan, noting some of the strategic considerations involved in making a claim, such as costs and parallel litigation.


A series of tetravalent uranium terephthalates has been solvothermally synthesized in the solvent N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) at temperature 100-150 °C with different water amounts. Composition diagrams have been determined for the U(4+) metallic cation in the presence of terephthalic acid, and their crystal structures revealed the occurrence of two- or three-dimensional coordination polymers. In the absence of water, a mixture of two polytypes T-U(2)Cl(2)(bdc)(3)(DMF)(4) (1) and M-U(2)Cl(2)(bdc)(3)(DMF)(4) (2) has been identified at low temperature (100-110 °C) for bdc/U = 1-4 (bdc = terephthalate linker). Their structures are built up from isolated uranium centers in nine-fold coordination, surrounded by 6 carboxyl oxygen atoms, 2 oxygen atoms coming from DMF molecules and one chlorine atom. The uranium cations are linked to each other through the bdc ligand in order to generate a 3D framework. By increasing the temperature (130-150 °C), a layered like compound has been isolated, U(2)(bdc)(4)(DMF)(4) (3). It is composed of discrete actinide centers in ten-fold coordination, with 8 carboxyl oxygen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms from DMF molecules. The connection of the UO10 units with the bdc linkers generates 2D sheets. When a controlled amount of water is added to the reaction medium, the crystallization of the UiO-66-like U(6)O(4)(OH)(4)(H(2)O)(6)(bdc)(6)·10DMF solid (containing a hexanuclear sub-unit) is observed for temperature 110-120 °C and the H(2)O/U molar ratio in the range of 2-10. At higher temperature (140-150 °C), a distinct phase appeared, U(2)O(2)(bdc)(2)(DMF) (4), which consists of infinite chains of uranium centers, linked to each other via the bdc ligands. Higher water contents led to the formation of urania UO(2).


From 1968 to 1997, wealthy, advanced democracies generally did not suffer from high levels of chronic terrorism, with two exceptions: (a) advanced democracies that interfered in other countries' affairs through military intervention or occupations were frequent targets of transnational terrorism, and (b) poor democracies with territorial conflicts often experienced related domestic terrorist attacks. Intermediately wealthy and transitioning democracies with internally inconsistent institutions were more likely to experience domestic terrorism than advanced democracies and authoritarian regimes. There is very little agreement about why these trends persist. I identify the competing explanations that have emerged within the literature as well as remaining controversies. I also present preliminary evidence suggesting that since 9/11, terrorism persists in the usual pattern but may be increasingly prevalent in nondemocratic countries. I offer five speculative explanations for this and four suggestions for how...


No nation is as closely identified with the game of soccer as Brazil. For over a century, Brazil's people, politicians, and poets have found in soccer the finest expression of the nation's collective potential. Since the team's dazzling performance in 1938 at the World Cup in France, Brazilian soccer has been revered as an otherworldly blend of the effective and the aesthetic. Futebol Nation is an extraordinary chronicle of a nation that has won the World Cup five times and produced players of miraculous skill, such as Pele, Garrincha, Rivaldo, Zico, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho. It shows why the phrase O Jogo Bonito--the Beautiful Game--has justly entered the global lexicon. Yet there is another side to Brazil and its game, one that reflects the harsh sociological realities of the "futebol nation." David Goldblatt explores the grinding poverty that creates a vast pool of hungry players, Brazil's corrupt institutions exemplified by its soccer authorities, and the pervasive violence that has seeped onto the field and into the stands. Futebol Nation illuminates both Brazilian soccer and Brazil itself; its brilliance, its magic, its style, and the fabulous myths that have been constructed around it; as well as its tragedies, its miseries, and its economic and political injustices. It is the story of Brazil told through its chosen national game.


A comprehensive experimental study of fountain flow has been completed. The study was concerned with the characteristics and effects of the flow domain below an idealised small-scale model of the underside of the fuselage of a vertical take-off or landing aircraft with a pair of matched jets. The fountain flow was generated by the normal impact of the jets with a ground board and it in turn impacted with a rectangular blocking tray representing the undersurface of a fuselage.
A range of test programmes were carried out. After having examined the fountain flow pressure field and conducted simple flow visualisation tests, a series of tests were undertaken on a range of blocking trays to determine the magnitude and variation of the normal forces on the trays due to the effect of impinging fountain flows. A few tray force tests were carried out with a heated compressed air supply to the jets' nozzles. Following these tests, programmes of pressure distribution tests were carried out on a 'long' tray and on a 'short' tray.
Temperature distribution tests were conducted on a long tray, these tests were exploratory only and could form the basis for future experimental studies.
The test facility was appraised for jets flowing at high subsonic velocities and found to be suitable but no further tests were undertaken.
Finally use was made of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) theoretically to solve the governing Navier-Stokes fluid flow equations for domains which simulated the experimental studies just completed and analysed.
The analyses of the data obtained from the test programmes revealed that fountain flow caused towards 20% of jet lift augmentation at maximum with good correlation between direct tray force measurements and integrated tray pressure measurements. A useful plot of the variation of tray force against tray height was obtained from moving ground board tests but the velocity of vertical movement of the board towards the nozzles and tray was found not to make a significant difference for the given range of velocities. The plot displayed a distinct peak when the gap between the tray and the ground board was about 2% jet nozzle diameters. At smaller gaps the tray force fell steeply to a suckdown value approaching 20% of jet lift reduction. A reasoned explanation of this phenomenon is presented.
The tray force tests using hot jets indicated that slightly lower tray forces occurred than for jets at ambient temperature, everything else being equal. For the general configuration of the model it was concluded that hot gas tests were not necessary as tests at room temperature gave more useful results for design purposes.
The CFD computations were particularly effective in obtaining a qualitative impression of the flow patterns in the blocked fountain flow domain. A useful insight was also gained into entrainment into the domain. The tray force computaions were less satisfactory, however, resulting in underestimations of about 30% although the general pattern of pressure distributions across and along the tray were quite similar experimentally determined patterns.
Overall it was concluded that the use of small scale model tests had been shown to be effective for certain design purposes for full-scale aircraft and that a dual approach using CFD and model tests could be more rewarding than either the one or the other technique in isolation.


Bioremediation of petroleum sludge was done by using land farming method in micro scale; the samples were taken from PT Pertamina Musi Banyuasin district of South Sumatra. This process applied Bacillus mycoides bacteria which isolated and selected from the contaminated soil. The research aim is to evaluate the performance of the Bacillus mycoides bacteria in degrading petroleum sludge pollutants. The initial TPH concentrations of soil contaminated sludge samples were set up at; 4.18, 6.60, 9.82, 10.87 and 13.42%, which were diluted from the main contaminated soil sample with a concentration of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) of contaminated soil was 71.16%. Every sample is inoculated by Bacillus mycoides bacteria as much as 10 % v/w and stirred homogeneously. The incubation time was 14 days, and then the samples were analyzed for the TPH content. The results were 3.68, 4.51, 5.91, 6.02 and 8.00% respectively. The rate of the biodegradation process was determined by using differential method. The results of data analyses show that the reaction order is first order. The rate of biodegradation constant was determined by using integral method. The initial concentration of the sample was 9.82 %, and then it had been inoculated by Bacillus mycoides bacteria during 14, 17, 22, 26 and 31 days. The TPH concentrations decreased 5.91, 4.59, 4.05, 3.72 and 3.29% respectively. The results of data analysis show that the biodegradation was a first reaction order with a biodegradation reaction constant of 0.0361 day -1 . The chemical kinetics model of the bioremediation model is y = -0.0362.x + 2.2448. So, by using this model; the bioremediation process will be completed after 62.5 days. The qualitative analysis was done by using GC-MS to investigate the components of compounds changed during the bioremediation process; the samples were analyzed in the initial and final states of process. The results show that the Bacillus mycoides could degrade 99.32% of C 19 H 40 ,C 21 H 44 ,C 24 H 50 , and C 28 H 58 compounds in 31 days.


Abstract This paper offers a contribution to cultures of urban water research through household ethnographies conducted with 16 participants who migrated from Burma to Sydney, Australia. We draw on a strand of corppreal feminism and offer the concept of bathing assemlbages to interpet how watery skin encounters provide clues to how participants washed themselves in their 'home' country may presist, transform or stop. Our analysis maps how dimensions of the self (ethical, gender, class, ethnic, national faith and others) are constituted by, and generative of, the felt intensities of watery encounters through different bathing assemblages. This paper illustrates how bathing practices are shaped as much by emotional and affective intensities as by reasoned activity. We show the utility of corporeal feminism not only for theorising subjectivity, but also for household sustainability politics.


Abstract Recent media accounts have highlighted issues of use and abuse of police force and policing practices targeted at ethnic minorities within inner city areas. To date, little research has focussed specifically on the experiences and perceptions of youth gang members in dealing with police. Using data from 253 in-depth interviews with ethnic minority San Francisco-based youth gang members, we examine perceptions of respectful and disrespectful police behaviour. Premised on a procedural justice model, we explore how frequently disrespectful police behaviour is reported and how these negative experiences shape gang members' attitudes towards the police more generally. We refine our investigation by comparing adverse encounters to examples in which gang members are treated respectfully. Using a data-driven inductive and qualitative theory testing deductive approach, our data revealed that male and female gang members regularly experience disrespectful police behaviour in terms of physical and verbal abuse. Our findings indicate that these exchanges contribute to negative attitudes, fear and distrust of police, while respectful interactions are meaningful and can contribute to positive attitudes towards officers.


The notion of progression in the adoption of Interorganisational Information Systems (IOS) has increasingly received attention from various researchers in the field of technology adoption, but currently there is still a limited understanding of how to address this important concept. Guided by our proposed IOS adoption maturity model, in this study we investigate the IOS adoption progression experienced by organisations within the Australian grocery industry through a multiple case study involving eight dyads. Our model focuses on the two way influence between dyadic relationship and IOS sophistication in the course of IOS adoption progression. This is the first study that provides empirical support for illustrating the notion of IOS progression. This study has important implications to both research and practice.


Establishing causal links between patterns of neuronal activity and perception is crucial for understanding brain function. Electrical and optogenetic stimulation experiments demonstrated that animals can detect activation of a few neurons. However, these methodologies offer very limited control of ensemble activity and yielded highly divergent thresholds. Here, we use holographic two-photon (2P) optogenetic stimulation to probe the detection of evoked neuronal activity at cellular and single action potential resolution, with millisecond precision. We find that mice can detect single action potentials evoked synchronously across <20 olfactory bulb neurons, while ruling out detection of indirect effects using a novel optical sham-photostimulation technique. Our results demonstrate that mice are acutely attuned to sparse, synchronous ensemble activity signals, introducing order-of-magnitude revisions to earlier estimates of perceptual thresholds.


Objective: Curcumin and piperine exibit poor aqueous solubility and dissolution. Solid dispersion technology is a promising way to improve dissolution of lipophilic compounds. Therefore, to investigate the dissolution behavior, an accurate determination of curcumin and piperine concentrations in a sample containing 0.5 wt-% SLS in sodium phosphate buffer as the dissolution medium was required. The goal of research was to investigate whether UV-Vis spectroscopy can be used to accurately determine curcumin and piperine concentrations in aqueous solutions. Method: Stock solutions (1 mg/mL) of curcumin and piperine were prepared in methanol. A series of solutions for calibration were prepared by mixing the stock solutions in various ratios after which they were diluted with dissolution medium (0.5%-wt sodium lauryl sulfate in 20 mM phosphate buffer; pH 6.0). Solutions of curcumin (2μg/mL) and piperine (1 μg/mL were subjected to overlay scan in a UV-VIS spectrophotometer in each λmax of 430 and 335.5 nm for curcumin and piperine, respectively. The method was validated according ICH requirements, such as specificity, linearity, accuracy, precision, limit of detection and limit of quantification. Results: At a concentration range of 0.1 to 5μg/mL, calibration curves of curcumin and piperine showed linearity with R2 = 0.9980 and 0.9982, respectively. Precision and accuracy was confirmed by AOAC. Furthermore, LOD of both compounds was 0.23 μg/mL and LOQ of curcumin and piperine was 0.72 and 0.69μg/mL, respectively. Conclusion: UV-Vis spectroscopy can be used to accurately determine curcumin and piperine concentrations in dissolution samples obtained during screening the dissolution behavior of solid dispersions containing these compounds. Key words: Curcumin, Piperine, Dissolution, UV-Vis spectroscopy.


2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Crime in most urban areas has been falling since 1991. While the decline has been well-documented, few scholars have analyzed which groups have most benefited from the crime decline and which are still on the frontlines of violence-and why that might be. In Unequal Crime Decline, Karen F. Parker presents a structural and theoretical analysis of the various factors that affect the crime decline, looking particularly at the past three decades and the shifts that have taken place, and offers original insight into which trends have declined and why. Taking into account such indicators as employment, labor market opportunities, skill levels, housing, changes in racial composition, family structure, and drug trafficking, Parker provides statistics that illustrate how these factors do or do not affect urban violence, and carefully considers these factors in relation to various crime trends, such as rates involving blacks, whites, but also trends among black males, white females, as well as others. Throughout the book she discusses popular structural theories of crime and their limitations, in the end concentrating on today's issues and important contemporary policy to be considered. Unequal Crime Decline is a comprehensive and theoretically sophisticated look at the relationship among race, urban inequality, and violence in the years leading up to and following America's landmark crime drop.


In mixed-criticality systems, tasks of different criticality share system resources, mainly to reduce cost. Cost is further reduced by using adaptive mode-based scheduling arrangements, such as Vestal's model, to improve resource efficiency, while guaranteeing schedulability of critical functionality. To simplify safety certification, servers are often used to provide temporal isolation between tasks. In its simplest form, a server is a periodically recurring time window, in which some tasks are scheduled. A server's computational requirements may greatly vary in different modes, although state-of-the-art techniques and schedulability tests do not allow different budgets to be used by a server in different modes. This results in a single conservative execution budget for all modes, increasing system cost. The goal of this paper is to reduce the cost of mixed-criticality systems through three main contributions: (i) a scheduling arrangement for uniprocessor systems employing fixed-priority scheduling within periodic servers, whose budgets are dynamically adjusted at run-time in the event of a mode change, (ii) a new schedulability analysis for such systems, and (iii) heuristic algorithms for assigning budgets to servers in different modes and ordering the execution of the servers. Experiments with synthetic task sets demonstrate considerable improvements (up to 52.8%) in scheduling success ratio when using dynamic server budgets vs. static "one-size-fits-all-modes" budgets.


The booming interest in adversarial attacks stems from a misalignment between human vision and a deep neural network (DNN), \ie~a human imperceptible perturbation fools the DNN. Moreover, a single perturbation, often called universal adversarial perturbation (UAP), can be generated to fool the DNN for most images. A similar misalignment phenomenon has also been observed in the deep steganography task, where a decoder network can retrieve a secret image back from a slightly perturbed cover image. We attempt explaining the success of both in a unified manner from the Fourier perspective. We perform task-specific and joint analysis and reveal that (a) frequency is a key factor that influences their performance based on the proposed entropy metric for quantifying the frequency distribution; (b) their success can be attributed to a DNN being highly sensitive to high-frequency content. We also perform feature layer analysis for providing deep insight on model generalization and robustness. Additionally, we propose two new variants of universal perturbations: (1) high-pass UAP (HP-UAP) being less visible to the human eye; (2) Universal Secret Adversarial Perturbation (USAP) that simultaneously achieves attack and hiding.


Euryuridae Pocock 1909 and Eurymerodesmidae Causey 1951, both endemic to the eastern/central United States (US), are incorporated into Xystodesmidae Cook 1895 and reduced to subfamilies and (sub)tribes n. stats. Euryurina and Melaphina Brolemann 1916, n. stats., are sister-taxa that differ primarily in epiproctal configurations and comprise Euryurini; sister-taxa Eurymerodesmina and Nannariina Hoffman 1964, n. stats. , the latter transferred from Xystodesminae, comprise Eurymerodesmini, n. stat., in which plesiomorphic forms exhibit sublinear, "stick-like," and subapically curved/bent gonopodal acropodites with moderately-long to long hairs, often with distal tufts, on their "inner" surfaces. Additional transferrals include Wamokia Chamberlin from the xystodesmine tribe Xystocheirini to Xystodesmini (= Harpaphini), and Macellolophus Attems, from Xystodesmidae to Chelodesmidae. Except for Chonaphini, the term, "prefemoral process," has traditionally been assigned to the secondary and shorter telopodital projection regardless of its position, origin, or configuration. Homology of these different structures has never been demonstrated and requires investigation, but the multitude of differences suggests that they are not such and warrant different names, for example "femoral process," for the similarly positioned branches in Devillea Brolemann and Rhysodesmus Cook (Xystodesminae: Devilleini, Rhysodesmini). The latter tribe may be polyphyletic, and new tribes may be required for components with acicular "prefemoral processes" ( Boraria and Cherokia , both by Chamberlin, Gyalostethus and Erdelyia , both by Hoffman, and Pleuroloma Rafinesque) and the southeastern US genera with small-bodied species ( Caralinda Hoffman and Gonoessa , Parvulodesmus , and Lourdesia , all by Shelley). Taxonomic value is accorded the "prefemoral extension/elongation," which is absent from Eurymerodesmina; complete, encircles the acropodite, and extends for ~1/3 to 1/2 of the latter's lengths in Euryurini; and incomplete and extends for ~1/4 to 1/3 of the "outer" acropodital surfaces in Nannariina and xystodesmine tribes. Other newly recognized taxonomic characters include the "inner" and "outer" acropodital surfaces/margins, the position on the acropodital stem of the "distal curve/bend," and the length of the "distal zone." Rhysodesmus and Sigmoria ( Rudiloria ) t. trimaculata (Wood) (Xystodesminae: Rhysodesmini, Apheloriini) are recorded from, respectively, Chihuahua, Mexico, and Quebec, Canada, as are Xystodesmidae/-inae and, provisionally, Chonaphini, Montaphe Chamberlin, and M. elrodi (Chamberlin), the only plausible taxa for an unidentifiable juvenile from near Yahk and only 2.5 km (1.6 mi) north of the International Border. The southern periphery of interior British Columbia (BC) thus represents the second xystodesmid faunal region in BC and the third in Canada. While incorporation of Euryuridae does not affect the family's overall distribution, that of Eurymerodesmidae fundamentally alters it by joining the formerly separate East-Nearctic and Meso-American regions into a continuous one extending, north-south, from Montreal Island, Quebec, to Santa Ana Department, El Salvador, a distance of around 4,944 km (3,090 mi). Xystodesmidae also inhabit two West-Nearctic regions, one in the interior stretching from southernmost BC to northeastern Oregon and the other running along the Pacific Coast from southern Alaska to southern California. The family also occupies two Palearctic regions, each with three subregions, an eastern one spreading from Hokkaido, Japan, and the southern Maritime Province, Russia, to Taiwan; a point locality in northern Vietnam; and southern/eastern China. The second Palearctic area extends along the Mediterranean and adjoining seas from Morocco, Sardinia, and the southeastern corner of France to Cyprus and southern coastal Turkey. New locality data, references, and maps are provided along with diagnostic accounts of all reconceptualized taxa and new/revived statuses. A simple, sublinear, "stick-like" acropodite with a curve or bend near midlength or subapically and without a secondary telopodital projection is the hypothesized plesiomorphic gonopodal condition in Xystodesmidae. This form has undergone multitudinous modifications/alterations - twists, curls, variably configured thickened and laminate expansions, reductions, bi-/trifurcations, enlargements, ornamentations, etc. that are manifested in today's xystodesmine tribes. When Avalonia collided with Baltica 450 million years ago, ancestral xystodesmoideans on the former dispersed into the latter, penetrated and occupied vacant niches, and evolved into today's Melaphina (Euryurinae: Euryurini) and Devilleina (Xystodesminae). A similar evolutionary burst leading to today's Nearctic and East-Palearctic faunas occurred 10 million years later when Avalonia + Baltica collided with Laurentia to form Euramerica. Ancestral forms of Euryurinae and Xystodesminae again penetrated vacant niches and evolved; the former maintained the general gonopodal structural pattern of Melaphina but changed the epiproct from triangular to broad and spatulate, thereby creating Euryurina. The earliest xystodesmine taxa to evolve in Laurentia were Rhysodesmini and Rhysodesmus , which spread southwestward, penetrated "proto- Mexico, and left relict populations in today's southern Appalachians. Eurymerodesmina and Nannariina arose from ancestral euryurine stock prior to the Cretaceous in western Appalachia in their present area of overlap. The former dispersed to the west and south while the latter expanded to the east and north; consequently, the Western Inland Seaway minimally impacted Nannariina while eradicating Eurymerodesmina from the inundated area. Today's populations in the Plains and south-southeastern states therefore represent secondary dispersion in the past 50-60 million years. The Seaway also eradicated Rhysodesmus from these areas, but enough forms survived in high mountain refugia to replenish the fauna when the embayment receded.