Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), like many other technologies, is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, this automatic identification technology would enable entirely unobstructed visibility into the supply chain, and would dramatically cut down on industry's costs. On the other hand, RFID carries less glamorous prospects for the other end of the supply chain, and raises consumer privacy issues both in, and outside of, the retail surroundings. Not only are there extended capabilities of data collection furnished by RFID technology, a new threat of tracking individuals has appeared. Inherent drawbacks in the Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) that were developed in an attempt to address these concerns make it impossible, at least at this stage of development, for the technologies to independently provide a satisfactory response to the privacy concerns. Therefore, in order to achieve adequate privacy protection, industry's behavior should not only be directed by technology, but must also be regulated otherwise. This paper calls to embrace self-regulation measures, and argues that at this point, legislation or other governmental regulation are not yet warranted, as it may deny businesses and consumers of the benefits of the technology. For this purpose, existing Fair Information Practices (FIPs) offer a good baseline, but cannot be adopted as-is to RFID technology. The paper attempts to assess what fair information practices are to be adopted and how some of the existing principles should be adapted and tailored to the distinctive characteristics of RFID technology and its repercussions. The end result is a set of ten RFID-customized principles of fair information practices that could serve as the foundation of a strong privacy policy with respect to the usage of RFID tags, hopefully to be adopted by the industry.


Abstract. Global observations of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) columns have been shown to be feasible from space, but consistent multi-sensor records do not yet exist, nor are they covered by planned activities at the international level. Harmonised, multi-decadal records of NO2 columns and their associated uncertainties can provide crucial information on how the emissions and concentrations of nitrogen oxides evolve over time. Here we describe the development of a new, community best-practice NO2 retrieval algorithm based on a synthesis of existing approaches. Detailed comparisons of these approaches led us to implement an enhanced spectral fitting method for NO2, a 1°  ×  1° TM5-MP data assimilation scheme to estimate the stratospheric background and improve air mass factor calculations. Guided by the needs expressed by data users, producers, and WMO GCOS guidelines, we incorporated detailed per-pixel uncertainty information in the data product, along with easily traceable information on the relevant quality aspects of the retrieval. We applied the improved QA4ECV NO2 algorithm to the most current level-1 data sets to produce a complete 22-year data record that includes GOME (1995–2003), SCIAMACHY (2002–2012), GOME-2(A) (2007 onwards) and OMI (2004 onwards). The QA4ECV NO2 spectral fitting recommendations and TM5-MP stratospheric column and air mass factor approach are currently also applied to S5P-TROPOMI. The uncertainties in the QA4ECV tropospheric NO2 columns amount to typically 40 % over polluted scenes. The first validation results of the QA4ECV OMI NO2 columns and their uncertainties over Tai'an, China, in June 2006 suggest a small bias (−2 %) and better precision than suggested by uncertainty propagation. We conclude that our improved QA4ECV NO2 long-term data record is providing valuable information to quantitatively constrain emissions, deposition, and trends in nitrogen oxides on a global scale.


In the wake of the movie Lincoln and the 150th anniversary of events such as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Battle of Gettysburg, more attention and discussion in 2013 is likely to be directed to the causes, effects, and legacy of the Civil War, in law and social impact. This article contends that there is one historical time and moment which should not be overlooked – the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and period of time with events relating to Kansas from approximately 1854-1856 which preceded the onset of the Civil War.This Article applies Professor Friedman's framework of popular legal culture to appeals for emigration to Kansas made by abolitionists and Northeasterners in response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Instruments of popular culture, including circulars, handbooks, music, poetry, speeches, and especially newspaper heavily influenced migration to Kansas from 1854 to 1856 as a direct response to the notion of popular sovereignty embraced by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.This article concludes that by engaging in a close reading of Kansas rhetoric from 1854-1856 in the instruments of popular culture which responded to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the significant change in tone helps to explain how popular culture and the response to the legislation led to the growing polarization between North and South prior to the onset of the Civil War.


The torsion problem of a rectangular prismatic bar is solved using the Saint-Venant's warping function method and analytic solutions to the twisting moment and the non-vanishing shear stresses are presented. Approximate solutions to the torsion problem are derived by curve-fitting the analytic solutions using a power fit model with the lengths of the rectangle sides as parameters. Errors observed did not exceed 0.6%. The study successfully presents a solution to the maximum non-vanishing shear stress at the narrow side of the rectangular section. Such a solution will be useful for the assessment of the critical points on a section that experiences combined bending and torsion loads. Keywords: torsion, rectangular section, Saint-Venant, warping function, twisting moment, shear stress


With the increased usage of social media services data streams have become of growing importance.
However applications that access information from these data streams often use REST API's that
provide them with easy access to a pre-filtered set of the data they are interested in. Accessing the
information in the "raw" data stream could give administrators more control and insight over their
data. This paper researches the question: How can administrators be assisted in defining effective
filters for social media data streams? The answer to this question information is used to create an
application with similar ease of use as current applications relying on the REST API's while giving the
administrator the insight and control over their data that is lacking from these existing applications.
Literature research and user needs analyses are performed in order to discover the requirements for
such an application and based on this several features proposed that should assist users in defining
effective filters for social media data streams. These features are "suggestions", "insight into
removed data" and "separation". These features were then implemented in a prototype application
which allowed an administrative user to filter a Twitter data stream and display the results. This
application was evaluated with several participants in order to determine if these proposed features
did indeed assist administrators in defining effective filters. The results of this evaluation indicate
that these features are effective in their goal. Further research is necessary in order to determine
whether these results are also true for other social media platforms or possibly unstructured user
generated data streams in general.


TGF-β1, 2 and 3 cytokines are involved in many cellular processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration and survival. Whereas TGF-β2 and 3 play important roles in embryonic development, TGF-β1 is mostly implicated in controlling immune responses after birth. The production of TGF-β1 is a tightly regulated process, occurring mostly at a post-translational level. Virtually all cells produce the latent, inactive form of TGF-β1. In latent TGF-β1, the mature TGF-β1 dimer is non-covalently associated to the Latency Associated Peptide, or LAP, which prevents binding to the TGF-β1 receptor. Activation of the cytokine implies release of mature TGF-β1 from LAP. Only a few cell types activate latent TGF-β1, via mechanisms that are cell type specific. Proteins such as integrins, proteases and thrombospondin-1 activate TGF-β1 in epithelial cells, fibroblasts and dendritic cells. More recently, the protein GARP was shown to be involved in TGF-β1 activation by regulatory T cells (Treg), a subset of CD4+ T lymphocytes specialized in suppression of immune responses. GARP is a transmembrane protein that binds latent-TGF-β1 and tethers it on the Treg surface. The role of GARP was studied mostly in Tregs, and this was recently reviewed in L. Sun, H. Jin and H. Li, Oncotarget, 2016, 7, 42826-42836. However, GARP is also expressed in non-immune cells. This review focuses on the roles of GARP in latent TGF-β1 activation by immune and non-immune cells.


The term prabandha simultaneously means very many things in the context of premodern Indian
literature and music. The prabandha as a musical meta-genre has occupied the attention of musicologists
from Matanga (8th c. AD?) to Venkatamakhin (16th c. AD). There is much variety in the number, description
and details of the various types of prabandha songs found in the musicological sources, and it is fortunate
that there are a few examples of prabandha-s available, even if they are from the late medieval period.
Here, a specific sub-category – the Śrīranga Prabandha is considered, its genealogy through the
musicological literature studied and also an example to understand the life trajectory of the concept of a
prabandha is examined. By studying the structural, textual and musical content of the two songs, it is
tried to sketch the identity of the musical prabandha vis-a-vis its literary namesake, its literary sources,
and its successors in the history of musical genres. Also, the essay explores the overlapping yet distinct
spheres of production, reception and circulation of the musical and literary prabandha-s. The available
examples are used to discuss the methodological issues of studying genres that straddle the categories of
the literary and the performative.


Spitzer observations of the young star CoKu Tau/4 reveal a disk with a 10 AU hole that is most likely caused by a newly formed planet. Assuming that the planet opened a gap in the viscous disk, we estimate that the planet mass is greater than 0.1 Jupiter masses. This estimate depends on a lower limit to the disk viscosity derived from the timescale needed to accrete the inner disk, creating the now detectable hole. The planet migration timescale must at least modestly exceed the time for the spectrally inferred hole to clear. The proximity of the planet to the disk edge implied by our limits suggests that the latter is perturbed by the nearby planet and may exhibit a spiral pattern rotating with the planet. This pattern might be resolved with current ground-based mid-infrared cameras and optical cameras on the Hubble Space Telescope. The required submegayear planet formation may challenge core accretion formation models. However, we find that only if the planet mass is larger than about 10 Jupiter masses, allowing for a high enough surface density without inducing migration, would formation by direct gravitational instability be possible.


Recently, mobile Social Network Game(SNGs) including characters have emerged in the game market. Basically, it is based on not only the mobile environment and technology but also the form and concept of SNG. Most characters of mobile SNG take characters which have the role of avatar or non-player character. This kind of characters allows own their characteristic to create and design them based on the mobile and SNG system. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to analyze character design with the elements of mobile graphic such as visual, sound, motion and so on. Then we would discuss the features of character design for mobile SNG and comment the limits and consideration for effective design. For this research, the first of all we would discuss the concept and theory of mobile SNG and the design elements for the game characters b the publications, including thesis, articles, and books. Secondly, this paper will be focused on character examples in 20 mobile SNGs which are selected in top selling and analyze them. Finally, we would discuss the characteristics of mobile SNG character and the methods of possibilities and considerations for effective design.


The hypothesis of this paper is that a specific urban identity can be traced back to the residential spaces of the city. The concept of referential housing type, defined as the archetypal and most ordinary residential type in a specific place throughout its urban history, is the most effective tool to disclose the identity of cities. Its benefits are threefold. It reveals the socio-cultural character of a place, enables a better understanding of other forms of housing, and sets a basic vocabulary from which it is possible to interpret new forms of housing. Utilizing the case study of Brussels, this paper aims to adopt an innovative approach that can further investigate the transformations and identity of cities. Although there can be a foundation type for each historical period, a city is characterized by a single referential type. Therefore, the referential type allows a dynamic analysis and understanding of the built environment's evolutionary mechanisms, providing a basis for addressing future changes. The referential type deals with both housing legacies and new housing typologies, which are designed to meet current challenges of sustainability and social changes. It can provide new suggestions for housing design, concerning, for instance, urban densification and living quality. The investigation of urban identity thus plays an important role in the design of the 21 st century city.


Research has shown that afterschool programs are effective in improving academic performance, helping children develop better work habits and social skills, reducing the likelihood of at-risk behaviors, and decreasing school-based crime. Many agree that such results would not be prominent if it weren't for the supportive nature of children's relationships with staff. This manuscript presents a theoretical understanding of the connection between relationships and human growth and development. Observations of outstanding youth workers will show how relationships are used to leverage the development of young people. The author also provides a model of adult-as-community-builder that elaborates the specific methods by which youth workers create what is being called here, developmentally-responsive relationships. The manuscript ends with suggestions for enhancing the vitality of adult-youth connections and supporting the growth of youth professionals.


This study tests a conceptual model of the effects of number superstitions and price on perceived price fairness and purchase intentions in Taiwan. The mediating effects of perceived price fairness on purchase intentions are also explored. The experimental results indicate that, for auspicious mobile numbers with a price premium, consumers will perceive price fairness which positively influences their purchase intentions. On the other hand, consumers show low purchase intentions with regards to inauspicious mobile numbers with a price discount because they may believe in using inauspicious mobile numbers will bring bad luck. Thus, number superstitions are significant in the Taiwan mobile telecommunication market. Through a discussion of the integration of number superstition and price in consumers' purchase process, this research helps the mobile telecommunications industry understand the phenomenon and adopt a suitable price policy. The work concludes with suggestions for future research.


Bacteriocins produced by Indonesian lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus plantarum IIA-1A5, IIA-1B1, IIA-2B2 were purified and characterized. Plantaricin W gene had been successfully amplified from all strains. This amplicon showed the expected 200 bp size of plantaricin W gene. This bacteriocins purified from L. plantarum IIA-1A5, IIA-1B1, and IIA-2B2 were named plantaricin IIA-1A5, IIA-1B1, and IIA-2B2. Purification by cation exchange chromatography increased the purity (fold) and activity of plantaricins. Purity of plantaricin IIA-1A5 was increased by 3.13 fold with specific activity 13.40 AU/mg. Plantaricin IIA-1B1 had 2.98 fold purity with specific activity 5.12 AU/mg, while purity of plantaricin IIA-2B2 was 1.37 fold with specific activity 7.70 AU/mg. All plantaricins could inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Bacillus cereus, and Staphylococcus aureus . Plantaricins could be digested by trypsin. Stability of plantaricins at 80 o C for 30 min and at 121 o C for 15 min were affected by type of plantaricin and species of pathogenic bacteria. Generally, plantaricin IIA-1A5 was better as antimicrobial agent than plantaricin IIA-1B1 and plantaricin IIA-2B2.


Fetal mesenchyme-derived factors are likely to play an important role in pancreatic islet development and growth. We have used primary cultures of human fetal pancreatic tissue to identify growth factors that have morphogenic, mitogenic, and insulinotropic activity. The formation of islet-like cell clusters (ICCs) during a 6-day culture was stimulated two- to threefold by hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (HGF/SF) basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2, and to a lesser extent by keratinocyte growth factor (FGF-7) and insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II). In contrast, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) had a strong inhibitory effect. The ICCs formed during HGF/SF stimulation consisted mainly of epithelial cells, whereas FGF-2-induced ICCs were predominantly nonepithelial. Furthermore, although both FGF-2 and HGF/SF increased the total insulin content of the cultures, only HGF/SF increased the insulin content per DNA. Quantitatively, HGF/SF stimulated a 2.3-fold increase in the proportion of insulin-positive cells and a 3-fold higher number of replicating β-cells. Blocking of the IGF-I receptor inhibited ICC formation but did not affect their insulin content. Immunoneutralizing TGF-β resulted in increased cell growth and insulin content, indicating the presence of an endogenous inhibitory TGF-β activity in the model system. Our results suggest that HGF/SF may be an important component of the fetal mesenchyme-derived factors responsible for pancreatic islet development. HGF/SF also may prove valuable for supporting the in vitro growth of islet cells.


Background/Aims: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infections cause chronic infection, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, we aimed to demonstrate that the Serum Prolidase Activity (SPA) is one of the indicators of chronic hepatitis B related liver fibrosis.
Materials and Methods: Diagnosis of prolonged hepatitis B (CHB) was determined with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity for more than 6 months. All CHB cases were followed up with liver enzymes (ALT, SAT, GGT, bilirubin), HBV DNA and sonography at least once a year. Patients, who were pregnant, or taking sclerosing treatment or cancer treatment and treatment of diabetes were excluded from the study. The control group was designated randomly from individuals' not caring hepatitis B surface antigen. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. A p value was <0.05 was used meaningful.
Results: A total 30 patients CHB (the average age 38.53 ± 8.99; 19 female/11 male) and 30 healthy controls (the average age 35.80 ± 9.31; 14 female/16 male) were included in the study. While ALT (38.1 versus 23.3 U/L), ALP (71.4 versus 48.7 U/L), PLT (213.2 versus 269.2 unit/ml) and SPA levels (1263.8 versus 784.6 U/L) were found expressively diverse in the study group than in control group (p=0.049, p=0.0001, p=0,037 and p=0.0001, respectively).
Conclusions: SPA activity is considerably increased in CHB patients having liver damage. So, we think that SPA can be candidate as a non-invasive biomarker for liver fibrosis.


With a scope at once broad and comprehensive, the International Encyclopedia of Economics examines the discipline's wide range, covering topics that are as specific as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and as theoretical as the measurement of consumer satisfaction. The 393 articles are drawn from 12 areas of the economic sciences, extending from monetary theory to international trade, from welfare economics to the history of economic thought. There are 175 contributors.


We investigate the formation process of self-gravitating protoplanetary disks in unmagnetized molecular clouds. The angular momentum is redistributed by the action of gravitational torques in the massive disk during its early formation. We develop a simplified one-dimensional accretion disk model that takes into account the infall of gas from the envelope onto the disk and the transfer of angular momentum in the disk with an effective viscosity. First we evaluate the gas accretion rate from the cloud core onto the disk by approximately estimating the effects of gas pressure and gravity acting on the cloud core. We formulate the effective viscosity as a function of the Toomre Q parameter that measures the local gravitational stability of the rotating thin disk. We use a function for viscosity that changes sensitively with Q when the disk is gravitationally unstable. We find a strong self-regulation mechanism in the disk evolution. During the formation stage of protoplanetary disks, the evolution of the surface density does not depend on the other details of the modeling of effective viscosity, such as the prefactor of the viscosity coefficient. Next, to verify our model, we compare the time evolution of the disk calculated with our formulation with that of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. The structures of the resultant disks from the one-dimensional accretion disk model agree well with those of the three-dimensional simulations. Our model is a useful tool for the further modeling of chemistry, radiative transfer, and planet formation in protoplanetary disks.


Value creation analysis is a critical element yet often disregarded by the financial management as one of the important elements in an organization, including Malaysian Government Linked Companies (GLCs).The creation of use value is essential for sustaining the firm.Without this component, firms would have no added value and there would be no reason for firms to exist.These use values are recognized when someone perceives the resources or products of a firm as valuable and people might perceive values differently.GLCs hold a main profit-making objective, in which the Malaysian Government possesses a direct controlling stake and serves as the backbone of the Malaysian economy.By possessing the value creation element, GLCs are expected to create sustainability, have a competitive advantage and produce a better business performance in order to enhance the interest of shareholders, creditors, employees, suppliers, customers, governments and communities. Prior studies have shown that value creation can be created through strategy formation. Strategy formation is the core of strategic management and is related to the effectiveness of the firm's strategy, which leads to better performance.An effective strategy formation capability is valuable because it enables the firm to create
strategies that increase its effectiveness or efficiency and when it matches the firm's environment that eventually leads to a competitive advantage. This paper tried to ascertain the influence of strategy formation capability on
value creation, which then improves a firm's reputation, product differentiation and process innovation in GLCs.The strategy formation capability tends to provide an empirical review that enables the top management and policy makers to review the strategy formation capability in order to create the firm's value, achieve sustainable growth and improve GLCs competitiveness in the global market.


The purpose of this research was to examine eighth grade male students' conceptions of body image, sociocultural influences, and the extent to which conceptions of body image influence physical activity preferences. Grounded on Foucault's (1977) Panopticon and Bernstein's (2000) body perfection code theories, this study examined students in two middle schools in the southeastern region of the United States. Specifically, three research questions were addressed: (1) how did adolescent males describe their body image; (2) what sociocultural factors affected the development of adolescent males' body image; and (3) how did particular conceptions of body image impact adolescent males' physical activity preferences. Participants were eight, eighth grade adolescent males who completed the Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS), pilot interview, pre-visual diary interview, visual diary, and post-visual diary interview. The pilot interview was used to refine interview questions, and the pre- and post-visual diary interviews were used to collect information about conceptions of body image. Participants took thirty photographs to complete the visual diary. Dependent t-tests were used to compare the DMS scores for the attitude and behavior subscales. Interview and visual diary data were analyzed inductively and deductively using the qualitative software, NVivo 10. Photographs were categorized using post-visual diary interview data to generate integrated individual profiles. Triangulation of data sources was conducted using a constant comparison approach. The results were discussed in relation to Foucault's (1977) Panopticon and Bernstein's (2000) body perfection code theories and previous research examining body image. The findings of this study indicated male students' conceptions of body image differ with some students being satisfied with their bodies while others were dissatisfied. More specifically, some participants revealed they wanted to be strong, but not overly muscular, while others were comfortable with the way they looked. Secondly, conceptions of body image were influenced by sociocultural factors such as media, parents, and peers. Lastly, conceptions of body image seemed to have an impact on physical activity preferences. Based on the analysis of participant interviews and visual diary photographs, five themes consistent with the construct of the Panopticon and body perfection code emerged: Adonis Complex (body dissatisfaction), Dionysian (body satisfaction), Hidden Acceptance (an unconscious acceptance of sociocultural influences to fit socially produced norms), Lack of Concern (an indifference to sociocultural influences), and Critical Awareness (an ability to be aware of sociocultural influences critically). Expanding the body image research pertaining to adolescent males may give better insight into bullying behaviors, body acceptance, physical activity preferences, and the use of innovative curricula to increase critical awareness of body image. In addition, physical education teachers and administrators could use the results from this study to select appropriate strategies to help adolescent male students understand the impact that media-distortion and significant others may have on their body image.


Aquatic macroinvertebrates are frequently used to evaluate river system conditions and restoration project performance. A better understanding of macroinvertebrate community responses to multiple stressors is a primary challenge for river science. In this paper, macroinvertebrate responses to hydrological and water quality variability were studied in the regulated Oglio River (northern Italy). We hypothesized that in regulated rivers the hydrological, rather than the physico-chemical conditions, would affect macroinvertebrate communities and biomonitoring tools (taxonomic metrics and functional indices). Repeated sampling (six times a year) was performed at four sites downstream of four dams in a 30 km river stretch during 2014 and 2015. Data were analysed using a linear mixed effect framework, to take into account random variation due to site and sampling date, and with multivariate analysis to track changes in community structure. A total of 69 families and 134,693 organisms were identified. The investigated metrics were mainly affected by the coefficient of variation of discharge, minimum discharge, ammonium, and temperature. The short-term dynamics of hydrological and physico-chemical variables were generally less important than the overall random effects as drivers of macroinvertebrate-based metrics. However, the relevance of a random effect (site, time, their interaction) differed depending on the biological metrics analysed. Understanding potential differences in response to short term and short stretch conditions would benefit biomonitoring and restoration procedures in both regulated and natural rivers.


The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of women's migration on the lives of the men left-behind. Based on a qualitative research methodology the study consists of twenty interviews conducted with men across three different areas in Nicaragua. These interviews were used to understand changes to household decision making and how the man perceives his own sense of masculinity. The results suggest that in contrast to previous studies which have shown a reluctance of men to partake in work traditionally associated with women, the men in this study did not avoid partaking in domestic work or childcare. It was also found that none of the men - even those in receipt of remittances - stopped working and instead placed even greater symbolic importance on their work, allowing them to maintain their identity as the main breadwinner in the house. The study proposes that more work needs to be done to better understand the challenges and changes faced by men (an understudied group of the left-behind) as the number of women migrating for work continues to rise.


We report on the modeling of a photopolymerizable hydrogel and its application as a replacement of the interior of the intervertebral disc (so called Nucleus Pulposus). The hydrogel is initially injected in its liquid form and then photopolymerized via a small catheter. Therefore, also the light necessary for the photopolymerization is constrained to a small light guide to keep the surgical procedure as minimally invasive as possible. Hence, the hydrogel is photopolymerized inside. For applications with restricted physical access and illumination time, such as an Nucleus Pulposus replacement, photopolymerization of volumes with a large volume/illumination-area ratio becomes highly challenging. During polymerization, the material's absorption and scattering coefficients change and directly influence local polymerization rates. By understanding and controlling such polymerization patterns, local material properties can be engineered (e.g. elastic modulus, swelling ratio), to match the set of mechanical requirements for the implant. Thus, it is essential to better understand and model photopolymerization reactions. Experiments were conducted by polymerizing a hydrogel in a column-like volume using an optical fiber for light delivery. Quantitative scattering and absorption values as well as monomer conversion rates of the hydrogel sample were validated using a newly established Monte Carlo model for photopolymerization. The results were used to study and predict 3D polymerization patterns for different illumination configurations. In particular, we show an example of a lumbar intervertebral disc replacement where the jelly core of the intervertebral disc (Nucleus Pulposus) is replaced by an in situ photopolymerized hydrogel. The results provide insights for the development of novel endoscopic light-scattering polymerization probes paving the way for a new generation of implantable hydrogels.


Previous studies of symbiotic associations between scleractinians corals and Symbiodinium have demonstrated that the consortium of symbionts can change in response to environmental conditions. However, less is known about symbiont shuffling during early coral development, particularly in brooding species. This study examined whether Symbiodinium consortia (1) varied in Porites astreoides on shallow (10m) and upper mesophotic (30m) reefs, (2) changed during coral development, and (3) influenced growth of juveniles in different environments. Symbiodinium ITS2 sequences were amplified using universal primers and analyzed using phylotype-specific primers designed for phylotypes A, B, and C. Adults from both depths were found to host only phylotype A, phylotypes A and B, or phylotypes A, B, and C and the frequency of the phylotype composition did not vary with depth. However, phylotype A was the dominant symbiont that was vertically transmitted to the planulae. The presence of phylotypes B and C was detected in the majority of juveniles when transplanted onto the shallow and upper mesophotic reefs whereas only phylotype A was detected in the majority of juveniles reared in outdoor aquaria. In addition, growth of juvenile P. astreoides harboring different combinations of Symbiodinium phylotypes did not vary when transplanted to different reef zones. However, juveniles reared in in situ reef environments grew faster than those reared in ex situ outdoor aquaria. These results show that Symbiodinium consortia change during development of P. astreoides and are influenced by environmental conditions.


This study extends two ideas of the minimalist program in linguistic theory (Chomsky 1992, 1994, 1995a) (LF feature decomposition and elimination of D-structure), and explores various consequences of this extension. First, Chomsky (1995a) proposes the Move F(eature) hypothesis which implies that feature decomposition of a lexical item (or a syntactic object consisting of lexical items) is possible in covert syntax (LF). Assuming that LF Copy is a syntactic operation to construct a phonologically missing element in ellipsis structures, I propose the subset copy principle to the effect that a (proper) subset of the . antecedent features can construct the contents of a phonologically missing element under LF Copy; the feature composition of a copy can be less than the feature composition of the original. I argue that the subset copy principle plays a significant role in LF construction and interpretation of both verbal morphology (Chapter 2) and nominal expressions (Chapter4) in the elliptic site. A certain asymmetry in verbal morphology construction in VP-ellipsis receives a natural account under the subset copy principle, and a new theory of interpretation of nominal expressions in VP-ellipsis is developed, which gives an account of possible interpretation of VP-ellipsis when a full copy of the original cannot provide an appropriate LF representation. The second part of this work discusses the nature of Selection in the minimalist program. Selection has been stated as a D-structure property (e.g., Chomsky 1965, (981) but it cannot be stated in such a way in the minimalist framework. since one of the characteristics of the minimalist program is its attempt to eliminate D-structure (and Sstructure). Extending B~kovi~ and Takahashi's (1998) theory ofLF Lowering movement into a 6-pOsition, I propose that selectional properties of a head are syntactic features to be checked during the derivation, and that some selectional features are weak in the sense that they can be checked in covert syntax. Some properties of Japanese null arguments receive an account based on exactly the same theory of Japanese predicates as the one proposed in Bo~kovi~ and Takahashi. Consequences of the selection theory on English VP-ellipsisIVPfronting are also explored. Copyright by


Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic and complex disease, requiring continued lifelong management aimed at reducing premature mortality and the high morbidity caused by chronic complications, one of the main causes of chronic renal failure is diabetic nephropathy. The responsive filtering system in the kidney becomes progressively destroyed after many years of diabetes. This study was conducted to establish relationship of Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA_S) level with increased risk factor of kidney damage in diabetic, diabetic nephropathy and control men. Eighty one subjects were divided in three groups were incorporated in this study, 32 were healthy control ,with mean age ( 54±0.34) years , 30 diabetic men with mean age (55±0.9) years, and 19 diabetic men with nephropathy with mean age ( 65±0.57) years. They were attended at Baquba Teaching Hospital. This investigation was carried out on serum sample to measure the concentrations of DHEA-S by using [Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbents by Assay [ELISA]] test using commercially available kits. In addition to that, serum creatinine, blood urea, albumin, fasting serum glucose (FSG), Glycohemoglobin (Hb1AC), systolic blood pressure (SBP), body mass index (BMI), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) , and the duration of disease were identified in the control and patients. The experimental results revealed that the mean value of DHEA-S concentration was none significantly decreased in diabetic comparing to the control group (p>0.005), while the The level of Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate hormone in Iraqi Diabetic patients with Nephropathy Ekhlas Abdallah Hassan, Alzahraa Ibrahim Abdulmajeed and Shaymaa Ibrahim Khaleel 282 Vol: 13 No:3 , July 2017 DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.24237/djps.1303.282C P-ISSN: 2222-8373 E-ISSN: 2518-9255 level of DHEA-S concentration were decreased significantly in diabetic with nephropathy compared to healthy control subject (p<0.005). Also, low mean concentration of serum DHEA-S noticed in all groups of diabetic patients, and highly significant decrease in DHEAS levels with advancing age in the studied groups. This finding had been proved by multiple regression model used in this study, which showed that the negative correlation found between age, and serum DHEA-S level. The concentration of the other parameters (blood urea and creatinine) increases in the serum of patient groups as compared to the control group, on other hands decreased albumin in patient groups as compared to the control group. In summary, there is a major association between DHEA-S levels and diabetic nephropathy. These conclusions promote that DHEA-S level inversely correlated with the progression of diabetic nephropathy in diabetic men. Also decrease in DHEA-S levels with advancing age in the studied groups suggest that apart from age being diabetic is related with lower mean value of this hormone.


Abstract. Severe storms have affected European coast lines in the past but knowledge on changes in storminess for the last decades is still sparse. Climate change is assumed to be a main driving factor with the potential to induce changes on the intensity, duration and frequency of powerful marine storms, including a long-term influence on peak wind speeds, surges and waves. It is, therefore, important to investigate whether in the last decades changes in the magnitude of storms, their duration and frequency could be observed. Understanding trends in storminess in the last decades will help to better prepare coastal managers for future events, taking into account potential changes on storm occurrence and magnitude to improve planning of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The purpose of this study was to focus on the evolution of extreme wind conditions, wave height and storm surge levels in the North Sea Region, especially in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). Based on the analysis performed it is concluded that no clear trend can be observed for the occurrence of significant increasing extreme wind speeds over the BPNS. Furthermore, one can conclude that not enough scientific evidence is available to support scenarios with increased wave height or storminess.


We explore the presentation technique of visual abstraction as a form of mediation to manage content generated by the public in order to maintain a respectful discourse. We identify technological and social mediation as two dimensions within the space of content mediation, and discuss different solutions based on related work in public interactive displays and art installations. We further discuss a novel approach to technological mediation by describing our interactive artwork Objective Meaning - an installation that invites the audience to express themselves through anonymous text messages. The design of this system mediates discourse by visually abstracting the presentation of messages on a display by breaking messages apart into decontextualized words. We briefly discuss the public response during a one-month deployment of the installation in a library setting.


Certain nonlinear binary codes contain more codewords than any comparable linear code presently known. These include the Kerdock (1972) and Preparata (1968) codes that can be very simply constructed as binary images, under the Gray map, of linear codes over Z/sub 4/ that are defined by means of parity checks involving Galois rings. This paper describes how Fourier transforms on Galois rings and elementary symmetric functions can be used to derive lower bounds on the minimum distance of such codes. These methods and techniques from algebraic geometry are applied to find the exact minimum distance of a family of Z/sub 4/. Linear codes with length 2/sup m/ (m, odd) and size 2(2/sup m+1/-5m-2). The Gray image of the code of length 32 is the best (64, 2/sup 37/) code that is presently known. This paper also determines the exact minimum Lee distance of the linear codes over Z/sub 4/ that are obtained from the extended binary two- and three-error-correcting BCH codes by Hensel lifting. The Gray image of the Hensel lift of the three-error-correcting BCH code of length 32 is the best (64, 2/sup 32/) code that is presently known. This code also determines an extremal 32-dimensional even unimodular lattice.


Despite the climate of economic and political uncertainty that pervades most African countries, there is an urgent need for governments to incorporate environmental policies with efforts to liberalize markets and reform political systems and institutions. Agriculture must be the main engine of future sustainable development and, as a consequence, the role of education must be modified to reflect this new imperative. Human capital theory impels cash-strapped governments to expand education, a situation which contrasts radically with the need to moderate and manage the demand for education suggested here. At the same time, the income-earning options of smallholder fanners who make up the majority of the agricultural production system must be increased. This will have the effect of mitigating the pressure on families to send their children to school, thus reducing overall demand. Within this context, there is a variety of ways to reconfigure the formal and nonformal education sectors as a means to improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers, thus bringing about a more appropriate correspondence between education and the economy.


Clancey (1992) proposed the model-construction framework as a way to explain the reasoning of knowledge-based systems (KBSs), based on his realization that all KBSs construct implicit or explicit situation-specificmodels(SSMs). An SSM is a rational argument that explains the solution produced for a specific problem situation pertaining to a target application task (e.g. SSMs constructed for typical diagnosis tasks are causal arguments having the structure of a proof). From a knowledge engineering perspective it makes sense that the notion of an SSM should play a major role in the modeling of tasks. Motivated by this view, we present a structured knowledge modeling methodology calledSSM-directed knowledge modeling(SSM-DKM). In SSM-DKM, an SSM is a central structure that drives the entire modeling endeavor. In light of this fact, we explain how SSM-DKM supports three main stages in the knowledge engineering process?conceptualization, formalization and validation and instantiation?and illustrate the application of SSM-DKM to a medical diagnosis task. The knowledge model that SSM-DKM produces for a target application task has two appealing traits. First, the model embodies explicit knowledge about the ontology of SSMs that the task entails creating as solutions, thus enabling the construction of a KBS that makes these SSMs explicit. Second, the model captures strategic (or problem-solving) knowledge in declarative terms pertaining to the ontology of SSMs created for the task. Both these beneficial traits have been illustrated in the context of ACE-SSM, a KBS architecture that constructs explicit SSMs (Benaroch, 1998).


Along the northern Upper Rhine ephemeral wetland vegetation is not confined to primary habitats such as the fringes of backwaters and river banks, but is also found in irregularly flooded arable fields. Within these highly variable environments, where disturbance is not only by flooding but also by agricultural management, we assessed the role of seedbanks for the persistence of ephemeral vegetation. In order to achieve this, we analysed the floristic composition of the above-ground vegetation and the correspond- ing soil seedbank of arable fields after a long-lasting spring and early summer flood in 2001. Moreover, we compared our vegetation data with other phytosociological studies from primary and secondary habitats along the northern Upper Rhine. The comparison between primary and secondary habitats of mudflat species revealed differences in species composition. While primary habitats were characterised by the pre- dominance of species of Isoeto-Nanojuncetea and B identetea, secondary habitats contained additionally species of the classes Agrostietea and S tellarietea. The studied soil seedbanks were dominated by species typical of both, mudflat and agri- cultural habitats. Most species found in the seedbank were characterised by short life cycles and the ability to rapidly exploit periods of favourable conditions for germination and growth. The flooding treatments that were applied prior to the third season of seed- bank analysis almost generally resulted in a high proportion of additional germination of mudflat species, even two years after the start of the analysis. The emergence of some mudflat species such as Gnaphalium uliginosum, Veronica peregrina and semi-aquatic helophytes such as Alisma lanceolatum and A. plantago-aquatica was actually confined to the flooding treatment. Seed densities were exceptionally high and increased with the duration and frequency of inundation at the sampling sites. Juncus bufonius, Ranunculus sceleratus and Veronica catenata were the most abundant species. For Juncus bufonius we found a maximum seed density of 707,072 seeds m Ð2 , which is to our knowledge the highest seed concentration that was ever found in a higher plant. The large persistent soil seedbanks proved to be of outstanding importance for the emergence of ephemeral wetland vegetation after flood disturbances in arable fields. This was also reflected by the relatively high similarity be- tween the seedbank and the established vegetation directly after flooding. Our study highlights the importance of irregularly flooded arable fields as a secondary habitat for the conservation of ephemeral wetland species. At these sites, not only im- proved drainage and landfill threatens the occurrence of mudflat vegetation but also the replenishment of the seedbank is often prevented by early re-ploughing of the fields.


ABSTRACT. Anthropogenic flooding to create wetlands is a management option intended to compensate for historical loss of natural wetlands in the Dry Mixedgrass Prairie of western Canada. It may help moderate or reverse declines in density of breeding Northern Pintails (Anas acuta L.) and other waterfowl. Little information exists, however, on breeding waterfowl use of created wetlands flooded at different seasons and frequencies. This study assessed the effects of 2 flooding seasons (fall and spring) on abundance of breeding Northern Pintails and other ducks within newly created wetlands. Additionally, we compared breeding waterfowl use of sites with spring and fall flooding by using 2 treatments (1 year vs. 2 years of flood cessation) intended to alter vegetation composition and density (measured as visual obstruction) on older wetlands currently dominated by cattail (Typha latifolia L.). Vegetation density was assessed across the landscape in all treatments. While recently initiated fall and spring flooding each increased breeding duck densities compared to naturally flooded wetlands, spring flooding led to a greater density of Northern Pintails and other ducks in 1 of 3 years. Within established wetlands, 2 years of flood cessation led to a marked decline in duck abundance, while removal of flooding for one year led to the greatest duck abundance, even compared to wetlands with sustained fall flooding. Finally, vegetation density (i.e., visual obstruction) varied by flooding treatment and year of sampling, and was an important predictor of use of created wetlands by both Northern Pintails and other duck species. Collectively these results indicate that duck use of managed wetlands in the Dry Mixedgrass Prairie of western Canada can be maximized with carefully planned flooding treatments that include spring flooding in newly created wetlands and intermittent flooding in established wetlands.


Accelerating environmental change is perhaps the greatest challenge for natural resource management; successful strategies need to be effective for decades to come. Our objective is to identify opportunities that new environmental conditions may provide for conservation, restoration, and resource use in a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot in southwestern Australia. We describe a variety of changes to key taxonomic groups and system-scale characteristics as a consequence of environmental change (climate and land use), and outline strategies for conserving and restoring important ecological and agricultural characteristics. Opportunities for conservation and economic adaptation are substantial because of gradients in rainfall, temperature, and land use, extensive areas of remnant native vegetation, the ability to reduce and ameliorate areas affected by secondary salinization, and the existence of large national parks and an extensive network of nature reserves. Opportunities presented by the predicted environmental changes encompass agricultural as well as natural ecosystems. These may include expansion of aquaculture, transformation of agricultural systems to adapt to drier autumns and winters, and potential increases in spring and summer rain, carbon-offset plantings, and improving the network of conservation reserves. A central management dilemma is whether restoration/preservation efforts should have a commercial or biodiversity focus, and how they could be integrated. Although the grand challenge is conserving, protecting, restoring, and managing for a future environment, one that balances economic, social, and environmental values, the ultimate goal is to establish a regional culture that values the unique regional environment and balances the utilization of natural resources against protecting remaining natural ecosystems.


Keyloggers are powerful tools that can perform many task. Standard security measures for machine-to-machine interfaces do not protect computer systems from keylogger attacks. Human-to-machine interfaces must be considered to combat keylogger intrusions. The judicious use of keyloggers by employers and computer owners could, in some situations, improve security, privacy, and efficiency. But the possible positive effects must be balanced against the possible negative effects on employees, users, and children.


Marine geoscience data indicate that during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) grounded ice extended to the shelf edge along most, if not all, of the 2500 km-long continental margin from the northern Antarctic Peninsula to the Amundsen Sea. Past extent of grounded ice is indicated by swath bathymetry data from the outer parts of cross-shelf troughs, which reveal relict elongated subglacial bedforms. The bedforms show that the troughs were paths of fast-flowing (streaming) ice. Geomorphological evidence regarding the nature of ice flow over intervening outer shelf banks has been erased through pervasive post-glacial ploughing by icebergs. However, seismic profiles across the banks reveal widespread shelf edge progradation and numerous glacial unconformities that indicate grounded ice has extended across them many times during the Pleistocene, and before. Subglacial tills in the outer parts of shelf troughs are overlain by up to 2 m of postglacial sediments, which are no older than the LGM in any core yet dated. A layer of soft, intermediate shear strength (12¬25 kPa) till, interpreted as deformation till, underlies the postglacial sediments in cores in the troughs. These observations are consistent with the interpretation that streaming ice extended along the troughs during the LGM, but the duration of such flow, and whether or not it spanned the entire period when ice extended to the outer shelf remains undetermined.To determine when, and how rapidly, ice retreated from the continental shelf, ages of core samples from near the base of postglacial sediments in several troughs have been determined by AMS radiocarbon dating. Samples to constrain glacial retreat have been taken from either the base of muds deposited in seasonally open-marine conditions similar to today, or underlying sandy muds interpreted as having been deposited close to the grounding line. Modern sea-floor sediments on some parts of the margin contain sufficient calcareous microfossils for dating to constrain the local marine 14C reservoir correction. However, even where they occur, contents of planktonic foraminifera decrease downcore, and most deglaciation ages have been obtained from acid insoluble organic material (AIOM). In some areas these ages are significantly affected by reworked fossil carbon, as shown by apparent ages from AIOM in modern sea-floor sediments that range up to ~6000 years. Thus radiocarbon results from this margin must be treated with caution and there is a clear need for development of alternative dating methods.Notwithstanding these uncertainties, deglaciation ages obtained thus far suggest variable retreat histories along the margin. Results from the Antarctic Peninsula shelf and Amundsen Sea embayment suggest relatively rapid post-LGM ice retreat from the outer and middle shelf, followed by slower Holocene retreat to the present day ice margin. However, initial results from the Bellingshausen Sea (Belgica Trough) suggest a slower, progressive retreat commencing about 25 ka (corrected radiocarbon years). These results show that local factors are important in controlling the rate of ice retreat, and this needs to be taken into account in numerical models that attempt to predict the dynamic behaviour of large ice sheets.


This paper defines electronic reading (e-reading) and then continues to discuss the diverse definitions of the main resource of e-reading, which are, electronic books (e-books). It then proceeds to describe the formats and standards of existing e-book initiatives, which are gaining wider interest since the introduction of portable electronic reading devices and software-based readers that provide users with a more realistic book reading experience. Advantages, disadvantages, and problems with paper-based reading are also explained. In addition, a study concerning an evaluation of e-reading satisfaction is described. Three different e-book formats (LIT, PDF, and HTML) were utilised to accomplish the primary aims of the study, which were to identify the most preferred format, associated software-based reader (Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer), and the potential of e-reading in the workplace. Based on a proposed preferred index, the results seem to suggest that Microsoft Reader is more preferable when compared to the other two. However, most participants preferred reading on paper rather than on screen. Although this was the case, some participants would e-read depending on resources and situations.


In this work, we introduce a new kind of spatial partition trees for efficient nearest-neighbor search. Our approach first identifies a set of useful data splitting directions, and then learns a codebook that can be used to encode such directions. We use the product-quantization idea in order to make the effective codebook large, the evaluation of scalar products between the query and the encoded splitting direction very fast, and the encoding itself compact. As a result, the proposed data srtucture (Product Split tree) achieves compact clustering of data points, while keeping the traversal very efficient. In the nearest-neighbor search experiments on high-dimensional data, product split trees achieved state-of-the-art performance, demonstrating better speed-accuracy tradeoff than other spatial partition trees.


In accordance with the colour, the honey samples were divided in groups, stored in different conditions and analized according to the rules adopted by the Instituto Adolfo Lutz, Laboratorio Nacional de Referencia Animal e Official Analytical Chemists. The samples were packed in recipients of glass and polypropilene and they were stored at room temperature . A group of samples were stored at room luminosity while the other group was stored at room without natural light. Chemical analyses for moisture, pH, acidity, colour, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and the determinations for the index of Lugol, Lund, Fiehe and diastase were made for one year of storage. The results obtained show that the samples analyzed maintened their characteristics among the acceptable standards and that the producers have to be orientated how to use the techniques of packing and storing their honey samples for assuring the quality of their products.


Microfossils recovered from sediment used to construct a putative English Civil War defensive bastion at Wallingford Castle, south Oxfordshire, provide a biostratigraphical age of Cretaceous (earliest Cenomanian) basal M. mantelli Biozone. The rock used in the buttress – which may have housed a gun emplacement – can thus be tracked to the Glauconitic Marl Member, base of the West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation. A supply of this rock is available on the castle site or to the east of the River Thames near Crowmarsh Gifford. Microfossils provide a unique means to provenance construction materials used at the Wallingford site. While serendipity may have been the chief cause for use of the Glauconitic Marl, when compacted, it forms a strong, almost 'road base'-like foundation that was clearly of use for constructing defensive works. Indeed, use of the Glauconitic Marl was widespread in the area for agricultural purposes and its properties may have been well-known locally.


ABSTRACT Junctin, a non-catalytic splice variant encoded by the aspartate-&bgr;-hydroxylase (Asph) gene, is inserted into the membrane of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ store where it modifies Ca2+ signalling in the heart and skeletal muscle through its regulation of ryanodine receptor (RyR) Ca2+ release channels. Junctin is required for normal muscle function as its knockout leads to abnormal Ca2+ signalling, muscle dysfunction and cardiac arrhythmia. However, the nature of the molecular interaction between junctin and RyRs is largely unknown and was assumed to occur only in the SR lumen. We find that there is substantial binding of RyRs to full junctin, and the junctin luminal and, unexpectedly, cytoplasmic domains. Binding of these different junctin domains had distinct effects on RyR1 and RyR2 activity: full junctin in the luminal solution increased RyR channel activity by ∼threefold, the C-terminal luminal interaction inhibited RyR channel activity by ∼50%, and the N-terminal cytoplasmic binding produced an ∼fivefold increase in RyR activity. The cytoplasmic interaction between junctin and RyR is required for luminal binding to replicate the influence of full junctin on RyR1 and RyR2 activity. The C-terminal domain of junctin binds to residues including the S1–S2 linker of RyR1 and N-terminal domain of junctin binds between RyR1 residues 1078 and 2156.


Virtual Screening is a technique in chemo informatics used for Drug discovery by searching large libraries of molecule structures. Virtual Screening often uses SVM, a supervised machine learning technique used for regression and classification analysis. Virtual screening using SVM not only involves huge datasets, but it is also compute expensive with a complexity that can grow at least up to O(n2). SVM based applications most commonly use MPI, which becomes complex and impractical with large datasets. As an alternative to MPI, MapReduce, and its different implementations, have been successfully used on commodity clusters for analysis of data for problems with very large datasets. Due to the large libraries of molecule structures in virtual screening, it becomes a good candidate for MapReduce. In this paper we present a MapReduce implementation of SVM based virtual screening, using Spark, an iterative MapReduce programming model. We show that our implementation has a good scaling behaviour and opens up the possibility of using huge public cloud infrastructures efficiently for virtual screening.


With the ever-increasing complexity of neural language models, practitioners have turned to methods for understanding the predictions of these models. One of the most well-adopted approaches for model interpretability is feature-based interpretability, i.e., ranking the features in terms of their impact on model predictions. Several prior studies have focused on assessing the fidelity of feature-based interpretability methods, i.e., measuring the impact of dropping the top-ranked features on the model output. However, relatively little work has been conducted on quantifying the robustness of interpretations. In this work, we assess the robustness of interpretations of neural text classifiers, specifically, those based on pretrained Transformer encoders, using two randomization tests. The first compares the interpretations of two models that are identical except for their initializations. The second measures whether the interpretations differ between a model with trained parameters and a model with random parameters. Both tests show surprising deviations from expected behavior, raising questions about the extent of insights that practitioners may draw from interpretations.


Because the extent to which multinational companies (MNCs) benefit from foreign subsidiaries depends on how effectively MNCs manage their foreign subsidiaries' workforce, the international management literature has long focused on how MNCs transfer Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. However, the literature has only vaguely dealt with institutional differences between host and home countries, often simplifying these differences under the umbrella of institutional or cultural distance. This article investigates how MNCs use expatriates to adjust subsidiaries' employment modes to different market economies. We define employment modes as bundles of HRM and industrial relations (IR) practices implemented at the firm level and examine the employment modes of 76 subsidiaries of US MNCs in a coordinated market economy (Germany), a hybrid market economy (Switzerland) and a liberal market economy (UK). Our results reveal substantial differences in the expatriation strategies of MNCs that depend not only on the international focus of the MNC but also on the differences in IR between the parent and subsidiary's environment. Our findings qualify the role of expatriates in adjusting subsidiaries' employment modes to different market economies and highlight the boundary conditions of integrating HRM with IR practices in the management of foreign subsidiaries.


Polished metallic surfaces exhibit a high degree of specularity, which makes them difficult to reproduce accurately. We have applied two different techniques for modelling a heritage object known as the Islamic handbag. Photogrammetric multi-view stereo enabled a dense point cloud to be extracted from a set of photographs with calibration targets, and a geometrically accurate 3D model produced. A new method based on photometric stereo from a set of images taken in an illumination dome enabled surface normals to be generated for each face of the object and its appearance to be rendered, to a high degree of visual realism, when illuminated by one or more light sources from any angles. The specularity of the reflection from the metal surface was modelled by a modified Lorentzian function.


"Is this the problem?": the question that haunts many information systems (IS) researchers when they pursue work relevant to both practice and research. Nevertheless, a deliberate answer to this question requires more than simply asking the involved IS practitioners. Deliberately formulating problems requires a more substantial engagement with the different stakeholders, especially when their problems are ill structured and situated in complex organizational settings. On this basis, we present an engaged approach to formulating IS problems with, not for, IS practitioners. We have come to understand engaged problem formulation as joint researching and as the defining of contemporary and complex problems by researchers and those practitioners who experience and know these problems. We used this approach in investigating IS management in Danish municipalities. In this paper, we present the approach to formulating problems in an engaged way. We discuss it in relation to ideas and assumptions that underpin engaged scholarship, and we discuss the implications for IS action research, design science research, and mixed approaches.


Deep convolutional neural networks have achieved great success in various applications. However, training an effective DNN model for a specific task is rather challenging because it requires a prior knowledge or experience to design the network architecture, repeated trial-and-error process to tune the parameters, and a large set of labeled data to train the model. In this paper, we propose to overcome these challenges by actively adapting a pre-trained model to a new task with less labeled examples. Specifically, the pre-trained model is iteratively fine tuned based on the most useful examples. The examples are actively selected based on a novel criterion, which jointly estimates the potential contribution of an instance on optimizing the feature representation as well as improving the classification model for the target task. On one hand, the pre-trained model brings plentiful information from its original task, avoiding redesign of the network architecture or training from scratch; and on the other hand, the labeling cost can be significantly reduced by active label querying. Experiments on multiple datasets and different pre-trained models demonstrate that the proposed approach can achieve cost-effective training of DNNs.


On the first page of How to do Things with Words,
Austin claims that `making a statement" is primary, and
`statement" derivative – a `logical construction", as he calls
it, out of the makings of statements. Wittgenstein, in
similar vein, takes `explaining the meaning" to be primary
with `meaning" a derivative notion. He says that
`[m]eaning is what an explanation of meaning explains
(Wittgenstein 1974, 68). Part of Wittgenstein"s point is that
giving explanations of meaning is, like the making of
statements, a perfectly common, everyday occurrence, but
asking what meaning is is a perverse question of the sort
that gives philosophy a bad name – Austin makes the
same point in his paper `The Meaning of a Word" (Austin
1961, 23-43). Wittgenstein"s diagnosis of why
philosophers are misled is very simple: the mistake lies in
supposing that, for every noun there is an object named
(unum nomen, unum nominatum) and so coming to believe
that there is something – some thing – named by the noun
`meaning". He says that he wants to cure us of the
temptation to look about us for some object which you
might call `the meaning" (Wittgenstein 1958, 1). This is
hardly a new insight. Kant famously argued, in the
Transcendental Aesthetic, that the noun `time" does not
name a thing and one consequence of this conclusion is
that talk of the Big Bang as marking the beginning of time
is nonsensical. Are there some comparably important
conclusions that can be drawn from the thesis that the
nouns `meaning" and `statement" do not name objects?
The answer, as I hope to demonstrate, is `Yes".


Isolated small populations typically have reduced genetic variation and are more susceptible to local extinction. Examining the relationship between genetic variability and survival is important for conservation because it provides insight on evolutionary potential and population viability. We studied genetic associations of survival from egg to metamorphosis in the largest population of critically endangered dusky gopher frogs Lithobates sevosus. This approach allowed us to examine whether heterozygosity‐fitness correlations (HFCs) existed in an r‐selected species with large effect size, whereas previous research on HFCs has largely focused on k‐selected species often with low effect sizes. Our objectives were to determine if genetic‐fitness associations exist, if associations are a result of inbreeding and if natural selection against inbreeding has occurred. Specifically, we examined averaged population responses and HFC in relation to (1) mortality within egg clutches and (2) differential survival of offspring through metamorphosis. To do so, we used eight microsatellite DNA markers to compare genotypes across three life‐history stages from a single year in the following temporal order: adults, eggs and metamorphs. We discovered a strong genetic association with survival in early life stages. In terms of average population responses, we documented a within‐cohort decrease in FIS with life‐history stage progression (adults: FIS = 0.067; eggs: FIS = 0.063; metamorphs: FIS = −0.134), high FST between eggs and metamorphs (FST = 0.113), and a locus that had larger than expected FST. We found positive genetic‐fitness associations for survival of egg clutches and for survival to metamorphosis. We believe that inbreeding is the primary cause; however, we also found evidence suggesting existence of purging selection against a deleterious mutant linked to a microsatellite locus. Survival of individuals with greater genetic variability should prolong persistence of this isolated population. Our study underscores the importance of species management focused on preservation of genetic diversity.


VR is certainly the buzz word of the year, with companies offering new applications and also much in the way of small refinements and extensions. There seemed to be increased emphasis on games last year, as well as increasing specialization with tiny niche areas. As usual, choosing 10 software products as the "best" was a daunting task, and my selections necessarily reflect my personal biases and my familiarity (or lack thereof) with various graphics subspecialties. With these caveats, I offer the 10 products below for your consideration.


It is of great importance to exploit and design efficient and low-cost alternatives to platinum-based electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this work, we report novel well-defined 0D/2D heterojunctions of uniform molybdenum carbide-tungsten carbide quantum dots ((Mo2C)x–(WC)1−x–QDs, ∼3–5 nm)/N-doped graphene (NG) nanosheets with a two-dimensional layered structure obtained via a nanocasting method using KIT-6/graphene (G) as a template. By controlling the molar ratio of the Mo and W precursors, (Mo2C)x–(WC)1−x–QDs (0 < x < 1)/NG nanohybrids with different Mo/W molar ratios can be obtained, which exhibit superior activity in the HER to individual Mo2C/NG and WC/NG nanohybrids. The superior activity in the HER may be attributed to redistribution of the valence electrons of Mo and W elements, nitrogen-coordinating sites, and highly dispersed Mo2C–WC nanocrystals, as well as strong coupling between Mo2C–WC nanocrystals and NG. Excitingly, the optimal electrocatalyst, namely, (Mo2C)0.34–(WC)0.32/NG, exhibited low overpotentials (100 and 93 mV) to achieve a cathodic current density of 10 mA cm−2, small Tafel slopes (53 and 53 mV dec−1), and high exchange current densities (0.419 and 0.804 mA cm−2) in acidic and alkaline media, respectively. More importantly, it also displayed excellent long-term durability for 25 h of stable catalytic current at different pH values. This work is expected to provide a feasible route for the fabrication of 0D/2D earth-abundant nanocomposites for the HER.


Horton+ is a graph query processing system that executes declarative reachability queries on a partitioned attributed multi-graph. It employs a query language, query optimizer, and a distributed execution engine. The query language expresses declarative reachability queries, and supports closures and predicates on node and edge attributes to match graph paths. We introduce three algebraic operators, select, traverse, and join, and a query is compiled into an execution plan containing these operators. As reachability queries access the graph elements in a random access pattern, the graph is therefore maintained in the main memory of a cluster of servers to reduce query execution time. We develop a distributed execution engine that processes a query plan in parallel on the graph servers. Since the query language is declarative, we build a query optimizer that uses graph statistics to estimate predicate selectivity. We experimentally evaluate the system performance on a cluster of 16 graph servers using synthetic graphs as well as a real graph from an application that uses reachability queries. The evaluation shows (1) the efficiency of the optimizer in reducing query execution time, (2) system scalability with the size of the graph and with the number of servers, and (3) the convenience of using declarative queries.


In view-based 3D shape recognition, extracting discriminative visual representation of 3D shapes from projected images is considered the core problem. Projections with low discriminative ability can adversely influence the final 3D shape representation. Especially under the real situations with background clutter and object occlusion, the adverse effect is even more severe. To resolve this problem, we propose a novel deep neural network, View Discerning Network, which learns to judge the quality of views and adjust their contributions to the representation of shapes. In this network, a Score Generation Unit is devised to evaluate the quality of each projected image with score vectors. These score vectors are used to weight the image features and the weighted features perform much better than original features in 3D shape recognition task. In particular, we introduce two structures of Score Generation Unit, Channel-wise Score Unit and Part-wise Score Unit, to assess the quality of feature maps from different perspectives. Our network aggregates features and scores in an end-to-end framework, so that final shape descriptors are directly obtained from its output. Our experiments on ModelNet and ShapeNet Core55 show that View Discerning Network outperforms the state-of-the-arts in terms of the retrieval task, with excellent robustness against background clutter and object occlusion.


Increasing worker participation in decision-making can often increase productivity, but remains uncommon in the US. This paper reviews theories of why the market may produce less than the efficient amount of worker participation. A novel policy intervention in which tax subsidies are tied to multiple imperfect measures of participation is proposed.


This study examines how articles covering social issues are highlighted on top online daily newspapers' websites and how that influences the audiences' emotionality and willingness to help the corresponding social issue as identified in the websites' comment sections. The articles have been gathered from five of the top online daily newspaper media outlets: USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle. Three social issues are highlighted as key topics that are relevant to today's American society and typically require a need for orientation: gun control, cancer and animal rights. The method for conducting this research is a quantitative content analysis of 200 online daily newspaper articles containing audience comments. This content analysis reveals that the negative emotions of anger and anxiety relate significantly to the commenters' tendency to express an intention to act in favor of a social issue. Articles covering the issues of gun control and animal rights had more expression of the emotion of anger in the comments than articles covering cancer. However, the data revealed that no significant relationship is present between the three social issues and the number of engagement or action comments. Surprisingly, this content analysis reveals that the placement of an article on an online daily newspaper does not relate to media audiences' level of engagement as identified by the number of audience com-


Motivation could be characterized as internal state, that it enlivens, directs and sustains behavior. With regard to schooling, the concept of student motivation is used to explain the extent to which students pay attention to the activities or different exercises, regardless of teaching, or not. Therefore, in the recent years there have been several researches, which among other things are also intended to review and analyze the impact of cognitive and affective aspects of the teachers in raising motivation to the students. The hypotheses are: Effectiveness of teachers only on the cognitive aspect is not enough on increasing student's motivation. While another hypothesis is: A good teacher in affective aspect increase positively the student's motivation. Regarding to the methodology, this study uses quantitative method, specifically descriptive-correlational method and this study belongs to cross-sectional design, as a measuring instrument is used in questionnaire and data processing was done through PSPP. This study included 26 students, conveniently selected from XI/3 grade. The results lead to: The cognitive factor of teachers has an impact on in-creasing student's motivation. However it does not act alone. It interacts with affective factor in this direction, and affective factor of teachers also has an impact on increasing student's motivation but even here we have its interaction with cognitive factor. So a good teacher should have these two aspects developed to be effective in raising student's motivation, while, with regard to gender and residence it has not yet significant differences, although to gender there exists an upward tendency towards them.


Likelihood-to-evidence ratio estimation is usually cast as either a binary (NRE-A) or a multiclass (NRE-B) classification task. In contrast to the binary classification framework, the current formulation of the multiclass version has an intrinsic and unknown bias term, making otherwise informative diagnostics unreliable. We propose a multiclass framework free from the bias inherent to NRE-B at optimum, leaving us in the position to run diagnostics that practitioners depend on. It also recovers NRE-A in one corner case and NRE-B in the limiting case. For fair comparison, we benchmark the behavior of all algorithms in both familiar and novel training regimes: when jointly drawn data is unlimited, when data is fixed but prior draws are unlimited, and in the commonplace fixed data and parameters setting. Our investigations reveal that the highest performing models are distant from the competitors (NRE-A, NRE-B) in hyperparameter space. We make a recommendation for hyperparameters distinct from the previous models. We suggest a bound on the mutual information as a performance metric for simulation-based inference methods, without the need for posterior samples, and provide experimental results.


Purpose: Available tools for prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis are suboptimal and novel biomarkers are urgently needed. Here, we investigated the regulation and biomarker potential of the GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 genomic locus. Experimental Design: GABRE/miR-452/miR-224 transcriptional expression was quantified in 80 nonmalignant and 281 prostate cancer tissue samples. GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 promoter methylation was determined by methylation-specific qPCR (MethyLight) in 35 nonmalignant, 293 prostate cancer [radical prostatectomy (RP) cohort 1] and 198 prostate cancer tissue samples (RP cohort 2). Diagnostic/prognostic biomarker potential of GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 methylation was evaluated by ROC, Kaplan–Meier, uni- and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Functional roles of miR-224 and miR-452 were investigated in PC3 and DU145 cells by viability, migration, and invasion assays and gene-set enrichment analysis (GSEA) of posttransfection transcriptional profiling data. Results: GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 was significantly downregulated in prostate cancer compared with nonmalignant prostate tissue and had highly cancer-specific aberrant promoter hypermethylation (AUC = 0.98). Functional studies and GSEA suggested that miR-224 and miR-452 inhibit proliferation, migration, and invasion of PC3 and DU145 cells by direct/indirect regulation of pathways related to the cell cycle and cellular adhesion and motility. Finally, in uni- and multivariate analyses, high GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 promoter methylation was significantly associated with biochemical recurrence in RP cohort 1, which was successfully validated in RP cohort 2. Conclusion: The GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 locus is downregulated and hypermethylated in prostate cancer and is a new promising epigenetic candidate biomarker for prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Tumor-suppressive functions of the intronic miR-224 and miR-452 were demonstrated in two prostate cancer cell lines, suggesting that epigenetic silencing of GABRE∼miR-452∼miR-224 may be selected for in prostate cancer. Clin Cancer Res; 20(8); 2169–81. ©2014 AACR.


The purpose of this research project was to study the effects of incorporating scientific literacy into a high school environmental science classroom. The methods used assessed students' content knowledge, attitudes, and confidence. Students were provided with a variety of ancillary methods relating to content material and real-world applications. The overall treatment incorporated three units of study. The first unit of study was on the human population and incorporated basic textbook content material. The second unit of study was on environmental health. The second unit used the pedagogy of the first unit. In addition, students collaborated on ancillary textbook materials which facilitated the connection between content knowledge and real-world applications. The third unit of study was on soil and agriculture. The pedagogy in this unit included all teaching methods from the first two units. Additional ancillaries were incorporated into this unit in the form of a case study, a documentary, and a current event. The purpose of additional ancillaries beyond the text was to further the connection of environmental science content material to real-world applications, and to improve students' attitudes and confidence. Data were collected using student pre-treatment and post-treatment assessments, surveys, and interviews. In addition, teacher data were collected using classroom teacher and colleague observations. Observations were employed to gain understanding of students' interest and academic needs and to assess teacher pedagogy practices. The data indicated an overall improvement of students' understanding of content material. Data also indicated an overall decline in students' attitudes and confidence at the conclusion of this research project.


New regulatory restrictions have been placed on the use of some second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in the United States, and in some situations this action may be offset by expanded use of first-generation compounds. We have recently conducted several studies with captive adult American kestrels and eastern screech-owls examining the toxicity of diphacinone (DPN) using both acute oral and short-term dietary exposure regimens. Diphacinone evoked overt signs of intoxication and lethality in these raptors at exposure doses that were 20 to 30 times lower than reported for traditionally used wildlife test species (mallard and northern bobwhite). Sublethal exposure of kestrels and owls resulted in prolonged clotting time, reduced hematocrit, and/or gross and histological evidence of hemorrhage at daily doses as low as 0.16 mg DPN/kg body weight. Findings also demonstrated that DPN was far more potent in short-term 7-day dietary studies than in single-day acute oral exposure studies. Incorporating these kestrel and owl data into deterministic and probabilistic risk assessments indicated that the risks associated with DPN exposure for raptors are far greater than predicted in analyses using data from mallards and bobwhite. These findings can assist natural resource managers in weighing the costs and benefits of anticoagulant rodenticide use in pest control and eradication programs.


Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) accounts for about half of the energy consumption in buildings. HVAC energy consumption can be reduced by changing the indoor air temperature setpoint, but changing the setpoint too aggressively can overly reduce user comfort. We have therefore designed and implemented SPOT: a Smart Personalized Office Thermal control system that balances energy conservation with personal thermal comfort in an office environment. SPOT relies on a new model for personal thermal comfort that we call the Predicted Personal Vote model. This model quantitatively predicts human comfort based on a set of underlying measurable environmental and personal parameters. SPOT uses a set of sensors, including a Microsoft Kinect, to measure the parameters underlying the PPV model, then controls heating and cooling elements to dynamically adjust indoor temperature to maintain comfort. Based on a deployment of SPOT in a real office environment, we find that SPOT can accurately maintain personal comfort despite environmental fluctuations and allows a worker to balance personal comfort with energy use.


Much attention has been paid to the sharp fall in world trade associated with the economic crisis during the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. Alarming forecasts have been published for the whole year of 2009 and several explanations have been offered. In particular, beyond the credit crunch and the global drop in demand, it has been argued that, due to globalisation and the fragmentation of supply chains, world trade will inevitably overshoot the shock in world GDP. We contest this view using both simple accounting calculations and a simulation of the multi-region, multi-sector Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, which explicitly models input-output relations within and between sectors. Using the CGE MIRAGE, we ask whether the most recent forecasts of GDP change, together with a twist in the composition of demand (to the detriment of capital goods), a halt in the trend towards the reduction in trade costs and a collapse in the oil price can replicate a very similar multiplier effect on world trade to that currently being experienced. Firstly, we find that, when trade flows are deflated by the price of the world GDP, the order of magnitude for trade decline in 2009 is 8.9 percent in our exercise. However, when trade flows are deflated by the sector-specific trade prices computed by the model, the drop in world trade is much more limited (-2.4 percent). Hence a large part of the fall in trade predicted by the model comes from a relative price effect. Secondly, while this fall is still more than the –1.3% drop in world GDP forecast by the IMF in April 2009, even this magnification effect disappears when GDPs are aggregated using current exchange rates, which is the appropriate reference, rather than PPP weights. Thirdly, while, our paper does not support the hypothesis of a systematic over-shooting of trade due to globalisation and the fragmentation of supply chains, it seems likely that additional factors such as the credit shortage must have played a role in the short run to explain the sharp fall in world trade.


The Sedimentary Life of Earthquakes Estimating the hazards associated with possible large earthquakes depends largely on evidence of prior seismic activity. The relatively new global seismic networks installed to monitor earthquakes, however, have only captured the very recent history of fault zones that can remain active for thousands of years. To understand the recurrence of large earthquakes along the Alpine Fault in New Zealand, Berryman et al. (p. 1690) looked to the sediments near an old creek for evidence of surface ruptures and vertical offset. Along this fault segment, 24 large earthquakes seem to have occurred over the last 6000 years, resulting in a recurrence interval of ∼329 years. The activity is more regular than other similar strike-slip faults, such as the San Andreas Fault in California. Evidence of past earthquakes from sediments along New Zealand's Alpine Fault improves seismic hazard estimates. The scarcity of long geological records of major earthquakes, on different types of faults, makes testing hypotheses of regular versus random or clustered earthquake recurrence behavior difficult. We provide a fault-proximal major earthquake record spanning 8000 years on the strike-slip Alpine Fault in New Zealand. Cyclic stratigraphy at Hokuri Creek suggests that the fault ruptured to the surface 24 times, and event ages yield a 0.33 coefficient of variation in recurrence interval. We associate this near-regular earthquake recurrence with a geometrically simple strike-slip fault, with high slip rate, accommodating a high proportion of plate boundary motion that works in isolation from other faults. We propose that it is valid to apply time-dependent earthquake recurrence models for seismic hazard estimation to similar faults worldwide.


Those involved in end-of-life decision making must take into account both legal and ethical issues. This book starts with a critical reflection of ethical principles including ideas such as moral status, the value of life, acts and omissions, harm, autonomy, dignity and paternalism. It then explores the practical difficulties of regulating end-of-life decisions, focusing on patients, healthcare professionals, the wider community and issues surrounding 'slippery slope' arguments. By evaluating the available empirical evidence, the author identifies preferred ways to regulate decisions and minimise abuses at the end of life, and outlines an ethical theory which can provide practical guidance for those engaged in end-of-life decisions.


Although commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) product integration presents clear advantages in a variety of engineering fields, several problems can arise in part due to their heterogeneous nature. Little research addresses the integration of particular COTS to specific domains. A University of Vigo project for reusable software development in the engineering domain adopted this approach. The underlying hypothesis was that making COTS integration easier would facilitate the development of domain-specific applications. The solution consists of a two-layer wrapping approach. The first layer captures the COTS domain model, facilitating integration of general-purpose functionality. A second layer provides better integration of more domain-specific functionality. Several real software development projects have used the proposed solution, and the results yielded notable effort savings, showing the approach's utility in reducing COTS integration efforts.


Deep neural networks are a focus of artificial intelligence and big data analysis in recent years. The monitor of the converter mouth is essential to the quality of the steel material production while the requirement of the steel material production is increasingly higher in China. The end-point control of converter blowing is the ultimate regulation of the carbon content and temperature. The severity of carbon-oxygen reaction and the temperature of molten steel can be reflected by the converter mouth flame. Operators judge the end of the steel by watching the converter mouth flame, the converter mouth spark and the time of oxygen supply. So, it is very important to offer a quantitative analysis to converter mouth flame characteristics. We quote the deep neural network into the intelligent extraction of the flame characteristics of the furnace mouth and construct a flame color recognition algorithm based on the deepness letter neural network. This paper belongs to the data science problem in the intelligent research of steel production. By observing the converter flame during the steel flame changes, this paper records the data of light intensity and end-point carbon content of each steel making furnace. When this paper then uses the temperature of flame emission spectrum to deduce and the absorption of the molten steel to judge the contents of the carbon during the converter steel blew process, it is more feasible and accurate than watching by operators. At the same time, by using deep learning algorithm, this paper makes the control process get automatic learning ability and achieve intelligent production so that we can provide a basis for solving the problem of predicting the end-point carbon content in molten steel during the blowing process.


Recent typological studies of clausal negation not only focus on the basic standard negation strategies that languages use to negate declarative verbal main clauses but also discuss typology of asymmetric negation in declaratives. Asymmetric negatives may have changes in the form of the lexical verb, tense and aspect marking or other clausal modifications while symmetric negatives differ from the affirmatives only due to the addition of (a) negative marker(s). Here it is shown that asymmetric negatives in Metta (Narrow Grassfields Bantu), similar to a majority of other languages, include modifications of the perfective forms; symmetric negative constructions are prevalent, another cross-linguistically common phenomenon in negation. This paper supports findings of cross-linguistic studies on negation by showing that Metta extends its standard negation strategy to other environments such as subordinate, existential, locative, possessive, and non-verbal clauses but uses non-standard negation strategy in imperatives.


Millions of long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) have been distributed as part of the global malaria control strategy. LLIN ownership, however, does not necessarily guarantee use. Thus, even in the ideal setting in which universal coverage with LLINs has been achieved, maximal malaria protection will only be achieved if LLINs are used both correctly and consistently. This study investigated the factors associated with net use, independent of net ownership. Data were collected during a household survey conducted in Ebonyi State in southeastern Nigeria in November 2011 following a statewide mass LLIN distribution campaign and, in select locations, a community-based social behavior change (SBC) intervention. Logistic regression analyses, controlling for household bed net ownership, were conducted to examine the association between individual net use and various demographic, environmental, behavioral and social factors. The odds of net use increased among individuals who were exposed to tailored SBC in the context of a home visit (OR = 17.11; 95% CI 4.45–65.79) or who received greater degrees of social support from friends and family (ptrend < 0.001). Factors associated with decreased odds of net use included: increasing education level (ptrend = 0.020), increasing malaria knowledge level (ptrend = 0.022), and reporting any disadvantage of bed nets (OR = 0.39; 95% CI 0.23–0.78). The findings suggest that LLIN use is significantly influenced by social support and exposure to a malaria-related SBC home visit. The malaria community should thus further consider the importance of community outreach, interpersonal communication and social support on adoption of net use behaviors when designing future research and interventions.


With a Foreword by Jose David Saldivar

Since its first publication in Spanish nearly a decade ago, Julio Ramos's Desenucuentros de la modernidad en America Latina por el siglo XIX has been recognized as one of the most important studies of modernity in the western hemisphere. Available for the first time in English—and now published with new material—Ramos's study not only offers an analysis of the complex relationships between history, literature, and nation-building in the modern Latin American context but also takes crucial steps toward the development of a truly comparative inter-American cultural criticism.

With his focus on the nineteenth century, Ramos begins his genealogy of an emerging Latin Americanism with an examination of Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento and Chilean Andres Bello, representing the "enlightened letrados " of tradition. In contrast to these "lettered men," he turns to Cuban journalist, revolutionary, and poet Jose Marti, who, Ramos suggests, inaugurated a new kind of intellectual subject for the Americas. Though tracing Latin American modernity in general, it is the analysis of Marti—particularly his work in the United States—that becomes the focal point of Ramos's study. Marti's confrontation with the unequal modernization of the New World, the dependent status of Latin America, and the contrast between Latin America's culture of elites and the northern mass culture of commodification are, for Ramos, key elements in understanding the complex Latin American experience of modernity.

Including two new chapters written for this edition, as well as translations of three of Marti's most important works, Divergent Modernities will be indispensable for anyone seeking to understand development and modernity across the Americas.