A novel touch-trigger probe system is proposed in this paper. The probe houses the stylus shaft on a special diaphragm spring that is exclusively designed with the utilization of Finite Element Analysis (FEA). In the probe system, Giant Magneto-Resistive (GMR) sensors are employed to measure the motion of the stylus shaft in the principal directions. The proposed (and implemented) probe is tested on a three-axis CNC electrical discharge machine (EDM) and the results acquired from those experiments are discussed. The preliminary work presented in this paper demonstrates the capabilities of GMR based probing technology in dimensional metrology.


PageRank is a classic measure that effectively evaluates the node importance in large graphs, and has been applied in numerous applications ranging from data mining, Web algorithms, recommendation systems, load balancing, search, and identifying connectivity structures. Computing PageRank for large graphs is challenging and this has motivated the studies of distributed algorithms to compute PageRank. Previously, little works have been spent on the distributed PageRank algorithms with provably desired complexity and accuracy. Given a graph with n nodes and if we model the distributed computation model as the well-known congested clique model, the state-of-the-art algorithm takes O(√logn) communication rounds to approximate the PageRank value of each node in G, with a probability at least 1−1/n. In this paper, we present improved distributed algorithms for computing PageRank. Particularly, our algorithm performs O(log log√n) rounds (a significant improvement compared with O(√logn) rounds) to approximate the PageRank values with a probability at least 1−1/n. Moreover, under a reasonable assumption, our algorithm also reduces the edge bandwidth (i.e., the maximum communication message size that can be exchanged through an edge during a communication round) by a O(logn) factor compared with the state-of-the-art algorithm. Finally, we show that our algorithm can be adapted to efficiently compute another variant of PageRank, i.e., the batch one-hop Personalized PageRanks, in O(log logn) communication rounds.


Most critical raw materials, such as the rare-earth elements (REEs), are starting products in long manufacturing supply chains. Unlike most consumers, geoscientists can become involved in responsible sourcing, including best environmental and social practices, because geology is related to environmental impact factors such as energy requirements, resource efficiency, radioactivity and the amount of rock mined. The energy and material inputs and the emissions and waste from mining and processing can be quantified, and studies for REEs show little difference between 'hard rocks', such as carbonatites, and easily leachable ion-adsorption clays. The reason is the similarity in the embodied energy in the chemicals used for leaching, dissolution and separation.


This study explores how corruption impacts the failure of government projects in developing countries with evidence from the Ghanaian context. This study solicits the perceptions of project management practitioners (14), contractors (6), government officials (clients; 5), and the general public (5) on the subject. The findings indicate that corruption influences government project failure on all the failure criteria that were used for the evaluation. However, corruption influences failure at two different levels: project management and product phase. At the project management level, corruption has direct influence, while at the product phase level, the influence is indirect.


As one of the largest protein families, protein kinases (PKs) regulate nearly all processes within the cell and are considered important drug targets. Much research has been conducted on inhibitors for PKs, leading to a wealth of compounds that target PKs that have potential to be lead anthelmintic drugs. Identifying compounds that have already been developed to treat neglected tropical diseases is an attractive way to obtain lead compounds inexpensively that can be developed into much needed drugs, especially for use in developing countries. In this study, PKs from nematodes, hosts, and DrugBank were identified and classified into kinase families and subfamilies. Nematode proteins were placed into orthologous groups that span the phylum Nematoda. A minimal kinome for the phylum Nematoda was identified, and properties of the minimal kinome were explored. Orthologous groups from the minimal kinome were prioritized for experimental testing based on RNAi phenotype of the Caenorhabditis elegans ortholog, transcript expression over the life-cycle and anatomic expression patterns. Compounds linked to targets in DrugBank belonging to the same kinase families and subfamilies in the minimal nematode kinome were extracted. Thirty-five compounds were tested in the non-parasitic C. elegans and active compounds progressed to testing against nematode species with different modes of parasitism, the blood-feeding Haemonchus contortus and the filarial Brugia malayi . Eighteen compounds showed efficacy in C. elegans , and six compounds also showed efficacy in at least one of the parasitic species. Hypotheses regarding the pathway the compounds may target and their molecular mechanism for activity are discussed.


We combine personnel records of the United States federal bureaucracy from 1997-2019 with administrative voter registration data to study how ideological alignment between politicians and bureaucrats affects the personnel policies and performance of public organizations. We present four results. (i) Consistent with the use of the spoils system to align ideology at the highest levels of government, we document significant partisan cycles and substantial turnover among political appointees. (ii) By contrast, we find virtually no political cycles in the civil service. The lower levels of the federal government resemble a "Weberian" bureaucracy that appears to be largely protected from political interference. (iii) Democrats make up the plurality of civil servants. Overrepresentation of Democrats increases with seniority, with the difference in career progression being largely explained by positive selection on observables. (iv) Political misalignment carries a sizeable performance penalty. Exploiting presidential transitions as a source of "within-bureaucrat" variation in the political alignment of procurement officers over time, we find that contracts overseen by a misaligned officer exhibit cost overruns that are, on average, 8%higher than the mean overrun. We provide evidence that is consistent with a general "morale effect," whereby misaligned bureaucrats are less motivated. Jorg L. Spenkuch MEDS Department Kellogg School of Management 2001 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 firstname.lastname@example.com Guo Xu Haas School of Business University of California at Berkeley 2220 Piedmont Avenue Berkeley, CA 94720 and NBER email@example.com Edoardo Teso Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Departm Evanston, IL firstname.lastname@example.com A data appendix is available at http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w28673


Australian teenagers are increasingly drinking at risky levels, defined as consuming seven or more alcohol drinks on a single day for males, and five or more for females (White and Smith, 2012). Alcohol consumption by adolescents presents serious health and social problems unique to their age group (Lubman, Yucel and Hall, 2007; National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2002). A significant factor contributing to underage drinking is the 'secondary supply' of alcohol to minors (i.e. the supply of alcohol to minors by persons other than licensees/staff employed by licensed premises, such as parents, siblings and older peers). In a recent survey of NSW students aged 12-17 years, parents were reported as the most common source of alcohol supply for those who had consumed alcohol in the past seven days (NSW Department of Health, 2008). Secondary supply by parents for consumption in private settings is legal in most states of Australia including New South Wales (NSW) (Liquor Act 2007 No 90). We undertook a survey in three Local Area Commands (LACs), in collaboration with NSW Police, to identify knowledge, awareness and attitudes of parents and young people towards the supply of alcohol to minors and to explore the extent to which secondary supply laws act as a barrier to supply to minors.


Terrestrial net primary (plant) production provides a measurable boundary for human consumption of Earth's biological resources. Forty years ago, Meadows et al. published a landmark first analysis of global limits to human activity (1). Based on a primitive computer model of the Earth system, they concluded that by the early decades of the 21st century, tangible limits to key global resources would begin to emerge. A reanalysis of the original results in 2008 found that the original global resource depletion projections were remarkably accurate (2). Since then, Rockström et al. (3) have defined a new term—planetary boundaries—to describe nine variables of high importance to habitability of Earth, including climate change, ocean acidification, land-use change, and biodiversity loss. These metrics are compelling conceptually, but many are not easily measured globally; explicitly defining a critical boundary is even more challenging. I suggest a new planetary boundary, terrestrial net primary (plant) production (NPP), that may be as compelling conceptually, integrates many of the currently defined variables, and is supported by an existing global data set for defining boundaries.


Abstract. Three years (2006–2008) of ground-based observations of the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) in the urban environment of Athens, in the Eastern Mediterranean, are analysed in this work. Measurements were acquired with a Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer at five wavelengths. The daily average AOD at 500 nm is 0.23, and the mean Angstrom coefficient calculated between 415 and 867 nm is 1.41. The annual variability of AOD has a spring maximum dominated by coarse dust particles from the Sahara (AOD 0.34–0.42), while the diurnal pattern is typical for urban sites, with AOD steadily increasing throughout the day. The greatest contribution to the annually averaged AOD, accounting for almost 40%, comes from regional and local sources (namely the Istanbul metropolitan area, the extended areas of biomass burning around the north coast of the Black Sea, power plants spread throughout the Balkans and the industrial area in the Po valley, with average daily AOD in the range of 0.25–0.35). An additional important contribution (23%) is dust from Africa, whereas the rest of Europe contributes another 22%. The geographical distribution of the above sources in conjunction with the prevailing synoptic situation and contribution of local sources, lead to mixed types of aerosols over Athens, with highly variable contribution of fine and coarse particles to AOD in the range 10%–90%. This is the first long-term, ground based data set available for Athens, and it has also been used for the validation of satellite derived AOD by MODIS, showing good agreement on an annual basis, but with an overestimation of satellite AODs in the warm period.


Identifying and discerning the function of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) is an important goal of genetic research. Much evidence suggests that ncRNAs play an important role in the aetiology of many complex genetic diseases. Therefore the task of developing methods to identify these elements in genomes has become increasingly urgent. In this research my focus was to use a Bayesian approach to identify putative functional non-coding genomic sequences contributing to various diseases. The analysis was mainly carried out using a Bayesian segmentation model, implemented in the software package changept, designed to segment discrete genomic data. In the first phase of the research, I developed methods to expand the capabilities of changept. One simple but powerful innovation was to develop several ways of encoding an alignment of sequences using a D-character representation (D is a positive integer). This enables sequence alignments to be segmented based on multiple data types: specifically conservation, GC content and transition/transversion ratio and significantly generalizes the capacity of changept, which previously could only segment on the basis of one of these characteristics at a time. Incorporating multiple data types greatly helped to clearly identify complex segmentation patterns and functional signatures among species, especially between closely related species. A second methodological innovation was a new model selection procedure to decide the optimal model for the data. A third, and most important, methodological innovation was to build a process for systematically discovering genome- wide putative ncRNAs, including data selection, cleaning, encoding, analysis and post-processing. To validate these findings, both experimental methods and currently available bioinfomatics resources were used. In the second phase of the research, my focus turned to application of changept, and the new methods developed, to identify genome-wide putative non-coding elements that may be associated with diseases. I was able to discover more than a thousand highly conserved non-coding sequences in human, mouse and zebrafish genomes. A complementary analysis focused on a set of genes involved in muscle development. Some of these elements identified may contribute to muscle diseases. Discovery of putative small ncRNAs in the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis is another successful application of the new methods; this work was undertaken as part of the eradicate dengue project. Application to malaria genomes revealed genetic mechanisms important in infecting multiple hosts. I also identified putative regulatory sequences in 3' UTRs in 3 closely related Drosophila species. Although this work focussed on Drosophila rather than human diseases, mutations in 3' UTRs have been shown to play a crucial role in human health and diseases.


As part of an assessment of the performance of a potential deep repository for intermediate- and some low-level radioactive wastes at Sellafield, numerical models of the regional scale groundwater flow were built. Quaternary sediments play an important role in the flow because they control recharge to the deeper groundwater system. This paper outlines research carried out under the Nirex Quaternary Characterization programme at Sellafield and shows how lithological and structural characterization of the sediments has enabled the development of Quaternary Hydrogeological Domains which have been used in the regional groundwater models. The Quaternary sediments in the Sellafield area are very varied and result from more than one ice advance. Sediments include glaciogenic diamictons, coarse glaciofluvial gravels probably deposited as sandar and silts of probable glaciolacustrine origin. These sediments are locally glacitectonically deformed. Recent alluvial, marine and lacustrine sediments are also present. The lateral extent of many of the sediment bodies is expected to be small, and therefore their complete characterization by the traditional approach of interpolating between measurements in boreholes and at outcrop is likely to be difficult, without an impracticably large number of boreholes. Thus the hydrogeology was characterized on the basis of the geology, supported by a relatively small number of boreholes and hydraulic measurements. Quaternary Geological Domains defined by distinctive landform-sediment associations and structural characteristics were mapped. Distinctive vertical profiles of sediments were identified from subsurface data (e.g. borehole data). This enabled the Geological Domains to be refined to Hydrogeological Domains. The overall performance of the system can be confirmed by reference to detailed field scale measurements in specific areas. The behaviour varies between providing little impediment to recharge to, or discharge from, the underlying strata of the Sherwood Sandstone Group over most of the area, but with local areas where recharge or discharge is considerably impeded. Locally, the Quaternary deposits contribute a significant part of the transmissivity of the regional aquifer. The hydraulic characteristics of individual sediment types are known from laboratory data and limited field data. These data have been integrated and upscaled using analytic calculations based on the lithological profiles recognized in the Hydrogeological Domains. This has enabled the derivation of effective properties, which were used in the regional-scale flow models. The resulting parameter values are consistent with those independently derived from regional aquifer modelling.


This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy's opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the limits of the exhaustion requirement as a matter of logic, law, and policy. We focus on the necessity and exhaustion prongs of narrow tailoring with respect to the use of race in admissions. We will complicate the necessity analysis by illustrating the practical difficulties of employing race-neutral alternatives and by highlighting how this inquiry is fraught with administrative and conceptual challenges. Part III underscores the challenges presented in Part II by attempting to navigate the distinction between general race-consciousness and the use of individual racial classifications. We will explore the possibilities for university admissions committees to pursue racial and socio-economic diversity, including the opportunity-enrollment model. As a reference, we will survey integrative alternatives used in the wake of the Parents Involved decisions and suggest how colleges and universities could apply a similar set of principles and methods. We will also note the challenges facing such approaches on the scale of university admissions. We will conclude by arguing that race-conscious admissions are necessary, yet increasingly administratively challenging. The standards for narrow tailoring demand expertise beyond the skills and the resources of university admissions committees and call for more administratively cumbersome university standards. Given the extant realities of our educational system, courts should provide more leeway, not less, to universities pursuing the compelling interests of promoting student body diversity and reducing racial isolation. In the absence or relative unavailability of such resources and technical expertise, and until such deference from courts is forthcoming, universities should rely on the Supreme Court's safe harbor by aggressively pursuing viable race-neutral alternatives with promising outcomes.


In this study of the daily linguistic practices of Brazilian black activists, we draw on Jane Hill's well-known research on voice to interrogate how speakers metalinguistically invoke "competing" points of view. Bringing together research conducted at the height of politically conscious hip hop's success in the late 1990s in Rio de Janeiro and fieldwork conducted with race-based community organizations in Salvador, Bahia in 2009–2010, we argue that speakers actively counterpose "racist" and "anti-racist" voices – often within a single translinguistic word – in their quest to display racial consciousness. Embracing similar linguistic processes, political opponents of race-based policies draw different battle lines within the same words, interpreting the struggle as one between North American and Brazilian understandings of race and racism.


How trade liberalization affects women's position in the labour market and what role public policy should play to make the process work better for women are among some of the most debated issues in academic communities and in policy-making arenas. This work sheds light on these contentious issues by analysing the trends in labour market outcomes of women and men in China in the decade after its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The publication reviews the changes associated with China's economic reforms and opening to international trade and investment since the process started in the late 1970s. Since the early 2000s, a wide range of policy measures have been introduced to strengthen labour market regulations, reduce inequality and increase social security. However, most of these policy initiatives were 'gender neutral', paying inadequate attention to the institutional constraints that disadvantaged women in the labour market.


A Stokes polarimetry imaging (SPI) system was developed and utilized to detect tendon tears by constructing the degree of linear polarization (DOLP) image maps after linearly polarized light illumination. The micro and partial-thickness tears of turkey tendons were made and imaged by the SPI system at different incident polarization angles (IPA) with different mechanical loads on the tendon. The micro and partial-thickness tendon tears were detected by the DOLP images due to weak birefringence around the tears. The tendon tears were detected by a highest DOLP contrast at longest visible wavelength (Red, 650 ± 50 nm). All polarized images showed modulated DOLP as the incident polarization angle (IPA) was varied. The varying DOLP allowed the optimal detection of the micro and partial-thickness tendon tears at a certain IPA. The SPI system with variable IPA and spectral information can improve the detection of the tendon tears by higher visibility of fiber orientations, and thereby improve diagnosis and treatment of the tendon related injuries.


In this paper, the design of fuel cells for the main energy supply of passenger transportation aircraft is discussed. Using a physical model of a fuel cell, general design considerations are derived. Considering different possible design objectives, the trade-off between power density and efficiency is discussed. A universal cost–benefit curve is derived to aid the design process. A weight factor w P is introduced, which allows incorporating technical (e.g., system mass and efficiency) as well as non-technical design objectives (e.g., operating cost, emission goals, social acceptance or technology affinity, political factors). The optimal fuel cell design is not determined by the characteristics of the fuel cell alone, but also by the characteristics of the other system components. The fuel cell needs to be designed in the context of the whole energy system. This is demonstrated by combining the fuel cell model with simple and detailed design models of a liquid hydrogen tank. The presented methodology and models allows assessing the potential of fuel cell systems for mass reduction of future passenger aircraft.


Objective: The purpose of the present study is to empirically examine the relationship between brand-level alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption in the South Africa. The effect that price has on alcohol consumption is also investigated in the analysis. Method: Using secondary quantitative time series data that include observations of brand-level sales volume, segment volume, brand-level market share, brand-level retail selling price (RSP) and brand-level advertising expenditure (spanning a 32 month period), statistical techniques such as tests for stationarity and co-integration were conducted to assess the association between the various constructs. Results: It was found that between January 2007 and August 2009, a period that included an economic downturn, own-brand advertising had little or no effect on brand-level sales volume (or consumption), segment sales volume and brand level market share. Conversely, price had a significant effect on sales volume, explaining between 48% and 56% of the variation in sales volume at brand-level and between 21% and 31% of the variation in brand-level market share. Conclusion: The results suggest that brand-level advertising has no significant immediate effect on consumption levels in the South African liquor industry, while the price of alcoholic beverages does have a significant immediate effect.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of recombinant glycoprotein (rgp) 120, a candidate vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), formulated with a novel adjuvant, MF59, with or without a biological response modifier, MTP-PE.

DESIGN
Multicenter, double-blind, randomized trial.

SETTING
University medical centers.

PARTICIPANTS
49 healthy, HIV-seronegative volunteers 18 to 60 years of age who were at low risk for HIV type 1 (HIV-1) infection.

INTERVENTIONS
In part A of the study, 32 participants were randomly assigned to receive either 15 micrograms of rgp 120 in MF59, 15 micrograms of rgp 120 in MF59 plus 50 micrograms of MTP-PE, 50 micrograms of rgp 120 in MF59, or 50 micrograms of rgp 120 in MF59 plus 50 micrograms of MTP-PE. Participants were vaccinated at 0, 1, 6, and 12 to 18 months. In part B, 17 participants were randomly assigned to receive five monthly injections of either 50 micrograms of rgp 120 in MF59 or MF59 alone followed by a booster injection at 12 to 18 months.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Local and systemic reactions; laboratory measures of hepatic, renal, immunologic, and bone marrow toxicity; and HIV-specific serologic and cell-mediated immune responses.

RESULTS
13 patients in part A received 50-micrograms doses of rgp 120; type-specific neutralizing antibody responses against the SF-2 strain of HIV-1 (HIV-1/SF-2) were induced in all 13. Nine of the 13 had crossreactive neutralizing activity against the MN strain of HIV-1 (HIV-1/MN), and 2 had crossreactive neutralizing activity against the IIIB strain of HIV-1 (HIV-1/IIIB). Twelve patients had typespecific fusion inhibition activity; only 1 had crossreactive fusion inhibition activity against HIV-1/MN. The monthly vaccination schedule used in part B resulted in decreased antibody titers, indicating that a rest period in the schedule is necessary for maximal immunogenicity. Lymphoproliferative responses against gp120 were induced in all vaccine recipients. The stimulation index to gp120 was persistently greater than 15 for 6 months after the last booster vaccination was given. CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte activity was detected in 1 of the 11 participants tested. Vaccine that contained MTP-PE caused a greater number of moderate or severe local and systemic reactions (of 16 participants, 4 had local reactions and 13 had systemic reactions) than did vaccine formulated with MF59 alone (of 16 participants, 7 had local reactions [P < 0.01] and 0 had systemic reactions [P < 0.001]).

CONCLUSIONS
The SF-2 rgp120 vaccine is safe and immunogenic. Three vaccinations with rgp120 in MF59 can induce type-specific and crossreactive neutralizing antibody against B-subtype laboratory strains of HIV-1. Human immunodeficiency virus-specific lymphoproliferative responses were induced in all vaccinated participants, and CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte activity was shown in one participant. A trend toward the augmentation of lymphoproliferative and humoral responses by MTP-PE was seen in the participants receiving 15 micrograms of rgp120. However, MTP-PE caused a statistically significant increase in the incidence of local and systemic side effects, which was felt to outweigh the small increase in immunogenicity provided by this biological response modifier in an otherwise well-tolerated vaccine.


BACKGROUND
With increasing experience, we have encountered patients with complex aortofemoral prosthetic infections in whom extra-anatomic bypass (EAB) is not an option.

HYPOTHESIS
Autogenous superficial femoropopliteal vein (SFPV) aortic reconstruction provides a limb-saving and lifesaving alternative with acceptable morbidity and mortality.

DESIGN
Retrospective review.

SETTING
University-based county, private, and Veterans Affairs hospitals.

PATIENTS
Seventeen patients with infected aortofemoral bypasses in whom conventional EAB was impossible because of infection of previously placed EAB, massive groin and/or thigh sepsis, or both.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Morbidity and mortality.

RESULTS
Multiple previous operations were common (mean, 4 per patient) and included EAB (n = 11), replacement aortofemoral bypass (n = 4), prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass (n = 7), and thoracobifemoral bypass (n = 1); all bypasses became infected. Overall, 11 patients had sepsis at the time of presentation. Of the patients with massive groin infection, 7 had extensive deep infections involving most of the proximal thighs or retroperitoneum, 4 had enterocutaneous fistulae, and 2 had necrotizing fasciitis of the lower abdomen and thigh. Polymicrobial infections were common (n = 9). Four patients (24%) died in the perioperative period, 8 (47%) suffered major complications, and 4 (24%) underwent major amputations. Mortality in this group of patients was 3 times that of all other patients undergoing autogenous SFPV aortic reconstruction for prosthetic infection (8%). Amputation rates were also increased (24% vs 6%). The mean+/-SD follow-up time is 23+/-21 months. All patients maintained patent SFPV reconstructions.

CONCLUSIONS
In the setting of complex aortofemoral prosthetic infections, autogenous SFPV aortic reconstruction is a useful option for patients in whom EAB is impossible and limb loss and/or death would be inevitable without revascularization.


What's changing: population size or land-use patterns? Archaeology of Upper Mangrove Creek, Sydney Basin By Val Attenbrow Terra Australis 21, 2004. Pandanus Books, Australian National University, Canberra. ISBN 1 74076 116 2. Pp. xxxii + 380. $49.50. I like books which put a question in the title. The classic for archaeology is C.K. Brain's The hunters or the hunted?, and long before the days of Eats, shoots and leaves I always felt that Gordon Childe's What happened in history should have been What happened in history? I admire the courage that before you have opened the covers the author has already promised the reader an answer. In a discipline hedged by the probable and the possible, the might and the maybe, to have a clear question is both welcome and refreshing. The question that Attenbrow poses goes to the heart of much systematic fieldwork in the past forty years. Across every continent archaeologists have trudged in ordered lines scouring ploughed and unploughed landscapes for lithic artefacts and the rock-shelters that might, once excavated, serve as chronological tent pegs to anchor the surface scatters. As a result, prehistoric field survey has replaced excavation as our primary means of recovering data. But sadly, many of these data have disappeared into the black hole of the grey literature; a global archive of unknown proportions and one to which Australia has made a major contribution, especially in unpublished PhDs and client reports. Field survey rose to prominence as archaeologists sought not only to be systematic but also to lift their eyes from the trench and consider the region as the unit of analysis. The lasting legacy of processual archaeology will always be that to understand the local you must investigate the regional. Site histories cannot be divorced from regional narratives since cultural variants, and variation in the patterns they display in time and space, can only be adequately interpreted, by whatever theoretical standpoint, once a scale has been considered that is demonstrably larger than the unit under investigation. Regional analysis replaces local pleading and allows archaeologists to ask more interesting questions of their data. Attenbrow's book is concerned with changes in the regional record of a small catchment in the Sydney basin. Her survey was intensive, systematic and long term. By the end of her fieldwork based on a random sampling strategy she had 80 archaeological traits (deposits, images and grinding areas) at 59 archaeological sites. In overall terms this produced densities of 6 sites and 8 traits per k[m.sup.2] in the catchment. At all stages in the analysis she pays attention to the description of terms and quantifies the data in accessible ways. The detailed presentation of results in Chapters 4 and 6, the consideration of sampling bias in Chapter 5 and the wealth of information from her subsequent excavations in the technical Appendices makes the Upper Mangrove Creek a model of regional reporting. Terra Australis are to be congratulated on their commitment to publishing such fine grained detail. It is even more commendable since Upper Mangrove Creek is occupied in the un-flashy Holocene and the major changes occur in only the last three millennia. The great value of Attenbrow's study is how she sets about using her demonstration of change through time in artefact densities and variants to address the question in her title. Most of us have wrestled with that final interpretation. Do the quantifiable changes at the regional scale reflect more people or just a different way of distributing people around the landscape? …


Railway urban systems are complex interconnected systems combining heterogeneous components (Control system based on some hardware and software components, communication devices and physical plant)
One important maintenance function for Alstom is to update a coherent configuration in a secure manner. In this work, this function is performed by the SODA-IIoT infrastructure developed within IRT SystemX.
The configuration parameters (firmware, OS, drivers, applications, operation parameters...) of these computational nodes are updated through a blockchain infrastructure (with redundant nodes) and secure gateways (manage access rights and secure communications). In this manner, the integrity of a new configuration is ensured and with high availability.


A review of the barriers for building renovation has revealed a lack of methodologies, which can promote sustainability objectives and assist various stakeholders during the design stage of building renovation/retrofitting projects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a Holistic Multi-methodology for Sustainable Renovation, which aims to deal with complexity of renovation projects. It provides a framework through which to involve the different stakeholders in the design process to improve group learning and group decision-making, and hence make the building renovation design process more robust and efficient. Therefore, the paper discusses the essence of multifaceted barriers in building renovation regarding cultural changes and technological/physical changes. The outcome is a proposal for a multi-methodology framework, which is developed by introducing, evaluating and mixing methods from Soft Systems Methodologies (SSM) with Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). The potential of applying the proposed methodology in renovation projects is demonstrated through a case study.


Succession of aspen stands to conifer in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and Nevada, USA, is
being interrupted by forest managers thinning conifers to sustain aspen stands in situ. However, patterns of stand density, species composition, and regeneration prior to management intervention have scarcely been described. We established a grid of sample plots throughout nine aspen stands encircling Lake Tahoe in the central Sierra Nevada. The degree of succession to conifer throughout each aspen stand was spatially heterogeneous. Patches of pure aspen were rare. Stand density index (SDI) reached an upper limit of 1700 in pure aspen. As composition shifted in favor of conifer, SDI approached or attained a maximum of 2500 in some plots. Stand density and species composition data were tested as predictors of conifer and aspen regeneration densities in each plot. Conifer seedlings had an average density of 3261 ha-1; they were most abundant in aspen-dominated areas of any density, and in conifer-dominated areas of higher density. Aspen regeneration had an average density of 3211 ha-1 and was one order of magnitude less frequent in areas of pure conifer versus areas of pure aspen, but remained relatively abundant in most areas. Aspen saplings were rare (average density of 42 ha-1 for saplings 10-15 cm DBH), especially at high stand densities or in areas where conifers dominated. Our findings suggest that forest managers interested in sustaining aspen stands in situ will need to control stand density to promote recruitment of younger aspen to the overstory.


The thesis examines the process by which sustained reform became possible in Argentina between 1989 and 1995 after some fifty years of cyclical crisis and ungovernability. It argues that the first administration of Carlos Menem broke the earlier 'logic' of Argentine politics, characterised by the suffocation of economic policy coherence by organised political interests. What needs to be explained, in this light, is not why reform happened in Argentina (- this is explained readily with reference to the crisis of 1989), but rather how it was sustained. The central contention is that the consolidation of reform can be explained convincingly with reference to international influences from around 1991/2 onwards. These influences are identified as (a) globalisation, (b) conditionality, and (c) regionalisation. In this way, the theoretical agenda of the thesis feeds into the study of International Political Economy and the prevalent debates in the study of globalisation. The international influences on change at the domestic level worked in two ways. First, they acted to 'rescue' the Argentine state from its conditions of crisis in the late 1980s by providing the political and economic space for a radical reform of both the economy and society. Second, the consolidation of this restructuring process was achieved from 1991/2 onwards through the 'internationalisation' of the state, which led to significant changes in the nature of state power. The impact of the three dimensions of international influence generated a 'paradox of state power', in which the state became simultaneously more and less 'powerful': while its autonomy diminished in the international context in terms of the available policy options, there was a marked increase in its autonomy in the internal arena vis-a-vis domestic political and economic actors. The result was an opportunity for the consolidation of the government's political and economic reform agenda in Argentina.


The Weber Deep—a 7.2-km-deep forearc basin within the tightly curved Banda arc of eastern Indonesia—is the deepest point of the Earth's oceans not within a trench. Several models have been proposed to explain the tectonic evolution of the Banda arc in the context of the ongoing (ca. 23 Ma–present) Australia–Southeast Asia collision, but no model explicitly accounts for how the Weber Deep achieved its anomalous depth. Here we propose that the Weber Deep formed by forearc extension driven by eastward subduction rollback. Substantial lithospheric extension in the upper plate was accommodated by a major, previously unidentified, low-angle normal fault system we name the "Banda detachment." High-resolution bathymetry data reveal that the Banda detachment is exposed underwater over much of its 120 km down-dip and 450 km lateral extent, having produced the largest bathymetric expression of any fault discernable in the world's oceans. The Banda arc is a modern analogue for highly extended terranes preserved in the many regions that may similarly have "rolled open" behind migrating subduction zones.


Designed for the general reader and students of law, this is a concise history and analysis of the civil law tradition, which is dominant in most of Europe, all of Latin America, and many parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This new edition deals with recent significant events& such as the fall of the Soviet empire and the resulting precipitous decline of the socialist legal tradition& and their significance for the civil law tradition. The book also incorporates the findings of recent important literature on the legal cultures of civil law countries.


While research on the design of heterogeneous concurrent systems has a long and rich history, a unified design methodology and tool support has not emerged so far, and thus the creation of such systems remains a difficult, time-consuming and error-prone process. The absence of principled support for system evaluation and optimization at high abstraction levels makes the quality of the resulting implementation highly dependent on the experience or prejudices of the designer. This is particularly critical when the combinatorial explosion of design parameters overwhelms available optimization tools. In this work we address these matters by presenting a unified design exploration framework suitable for a wide range of different target platforms. The design is unified and implemented at high level by using a standard dataflow language, while the target platform is described using the IP-XACT standard. This facilitates different design space heuristics that guide the designer during validation and optimization stages without requiring low-level implementations of parts of the application. Our framework currently yields exploration and optimization results in terms of application throughput and buffer size dimensioning, although other co-exploration and optimization heuristics are available.


Growing up on a Midwestern farm while Marx worked on the final draft of Capital, Vol. I, was a boy who, as a man, would have a very different take on the relationship of workers to the products of their labor. Thorstein Veblen would become famous for what he wrote about the fetishized commodities of consumers.…For Veblen, all the nonessentials that we purchase as consumers reflect standards of respectability established by the upper class. The "motive that lies at the root of ownership is emulation," he wrote, not just of others but of wealthy and powerful others. Under capitalism, one's property "becomes the conventional basis of esteem," by which Veblen meant both the high regard of others and self-esteem.…Over the past few decades, however, standards for personal appearance have been transformed in ways that seem to turn Veblen's conspicuous consumption idea inside out This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Thailand's rapid economic growth has brought health challenges as well as benefits, namely a rise in life expectancy to 6.5 years above the global aver- age, and an 'epidemiological transition' from infectious and deficiency diseases, to chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes. Previous research in Northeast and South Thailand by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC Research Group (WeD) demonstrates the importance of health to people's subjective quality of life and wellbeing, and suggests that ill health is a significant problem - nearly a fifth of households in WeD sites experienced severe health-related 'shocks' during the past five years, and a third of household heads defined themselves as chronically ill. In 2001 the Government of Thailand introduced the Universal Health Coverage scheme (UHC) to offer near-universal health care coverage. However, while this has reduced 'out of pocket' expenditures for healthcare and impoverishment through 'cata- strophic expenditures', the perceived quality of its services mean it is in danger of becoming little more than a safety net and failing to ameliorate existing inequalities. This proposition is explored using the results of large-scale qualitative health study carried out by WeD with 245 men and women from different age groups and socio- economic statuses in Northeast and South Thailand, supplemented by WeD household survey data. The paper is divided into three parts; the first briefly introduces Thailand and the WeD sites, and describes the sampling and methodology. It also reviews current discourses about health and health issues in Thailand, and outlines the context to health and health services. The second presents data from the qualitative health research covering health risks, and the incidence and impacts of chronic illness and disability. The final section looks at the health seeking behaviour of people in the WeD sites (illustrated with case studies), focusing particularly on use of the UHC and traditional medicine.


This article focuses on the distribution and interpretation of resumption in Jordanian Arabic with respect to a well-known distinction: weak (clitics and doubled pronouns) versus strong (strong pronouns and epithets) resumption. We propose an analysis of resumption and reconstruction that relates two major asymmetries with respect to that distinction, (i) strong resumption banning QP antecedents in non-island contexts, contrary to weak resumption, and (ii) strong resumption banning reconstruction in strong island contexts, contrary to weak resumption. Our main conclusion is that weak (functional) resumptives support two distributive readings, either bound variable or e - type, whereas strong (lexical) resumptives can only get an e -type interpretation. The asymmetries stated above then just follow from further constraints on the two distributive readings.


Abstract The question of what enables some militaries to innovate effectively is of great interest to both scholars and commanders. However, the traditional models of military innovation fail to capture the complex innovation process. This study develops a new analytical framework that examines the pressures on and incentives for military innovation in the international, civil/military, organizational, and cultural planes and uses it to evaluate Israel Defense Forces (IDF) innovation between 2000 and 2009. Based on interviews with Israeli commanders and extensive research in Israel, this work finds that the IDF struggled to innovate before the 2006 war against Hizballah, but innovated effectively after the conflict once military and civilian leaders understood threats similarly. New models are needed to analyze the contemporary multi-dimensional innovative process.


A connected sum is a topological way of joining two Riemann surfaces which results in another surface. It is used in the classification of all connected closed orientable surfaces as being homeomorphic to either the sphere, or a connected sum of tori. The reverse operation, here referred to as a splitting, decomposes a surface as a connected sum. It was recently shown by Curtis McMullen that any translation surface of genus two can be written in infinitely many ways as a connected sum of two flat tori. His method was to find a certain straight saddle connection J , and perform a splitting along J ∪ η(J), where η is the hyperelliptic involution (the unique degree-two automorphism on the surface which fixes exactly six points). In this dissertation, we give an elementary argument for existence of such J and show that for all surfaces of genus two on which the vertical flow is minimal, the same kind of splitting is possible along a parallel pair of paths with the straight saddle connection replaced by an L-cut: a broken line with one horizontal and one vertical segment. As a direct consequence of this L-cut splitting, it is shown that a homeomorphism on a genus-two surface which is conjugated to a hyperbolic toral automorphism restricted to an invariant subset (if any such situation even exists) can only be pseudoAnosov with non-orientable foliations. This makes progress toward addressing an old question of Stephen Smale about the existence of an invariant set of a hyperbolic toral automorphism which is itself a compact surface.


Two areas of affine Toda field theory are explored in this thesis. First the introduction of a boundary into the real coupling affine Toda field theory. It has been shown by other authors that affine Toda field theory stays an integrable theory for certain boundaries. One such theory is the one corresponding to Its integrable boundary condition is described by two continuous parameters. Also, it is continuously connected to the natural Neumann condition, i.e. vanishing space derivative of the fields at the boundary. Classical reflection factors of incoming plane waves in the background of a static soliton solution are calculated for this theory. They fulfil a classical reflection bootstrap equation which is the classical limit of the reflection bootstrap equation for reflection matrices. The second part is concerned with the the αη(^1) affine Toda field theory with imaginary coupling. The behaviour of oscillatory solitonic solutions, breathers is investigated. Explicit construction for breather solution are given. They originate from two soliton solutions. It is found that there are two different types of breathers depending on their constituent solitons. The constituent solitons are either of the same species or are anti-species of each other. Also, the topological charges of breather solutions are calculated and they are either zero or equal to a certain one soliton solution. These topological charges lie in the tensor product representation of the fundamental representations associated with the topological charges of the constituent solitons. The breather masses are, as expected, less than the sum of the masses of the constituent solitons.


What is the effect of performers' experienced emotions on the auditory characteristics of their performances? By asking performers to play a music phrase in response to three different instructions we attempted to answer this question. Performers were instructed to do the following: 1) play while focusing on the technical aspects of their playing; 2) give an expressive performance; and 3) focus on their experienced emotions, prior to which they were subjected to a sadness-inducing mood induction task. Performers were interviewed after each playing condition. We analyzed the tempo, articulation, dynamics, timbre, and vibrato of the performances obtained as well as the interview data. A focus on technique resulted in technically appropriate performances, a focus on expressivity in more extraverted and externally projected performances, and a focus on experienced emotions in more introverted and personal performances. The findings of this exploratory study are valuable for both research and artistic practice and pedagogy.


Bark damage resulting from elephant feeding is common in African savanna trees with subsequent interactions with fire, insects, and other pathogens often resulting in tree mortality. Yet, surprisingly little is known about how savanna trees respond to bark damage. We addressed this by investigating how the inner bark of marula (Sclerocarya birrea), a widespread tree species favoured by elephants, recovers after bark damage. We used a long‐term fire experiment in the Kruger National Park to measure bark recovery with and without fire. At 24 months post‐damage, mean wound closure was 98, 92, and 72%, respectively, in annual and biennial burns and fire‐exclusion treatments. Fire exclusion resulted in higher rates of ant colonization of bark wounds, and such ant colonization resulted in significantly lower bark recovery. We also investigated how ten common savanna tree species respond to bark damage and tested for relationships between bark damage, bark recovery, and bark traits while accounting for phylogeny. We found phylogenetic signal in bark dry matter content, bark N and bark P, but not in bark thickness. Bark recovery and damage was highest in species which had thick moist inner bark and low wood densities (Anacardiaceae), intermediate in species which had moderate inner bark thickness and wood densities (Fabaceae) and lowest in species which had thin inner bark and high wood densities (Combretaceae). Elephants prefer species with thick, moist inner bark, traits that also appear to result in faster recovery rates.


We thank Dr. Palma for the interest in our article about the role of susceptibility-weighted MR phase imaging (SWI) for the evaluation of patients with cerebral cavernous malformation and for the additional comments about the potential false-positives in these patients. Although the clinical information and the careful evaluation of the SWI images reconstructed with the minimum intensity projection (mIP) technique could suggest the diagnosis of pneumoencephalus in the case reported, false-positives are not uncommon on SWI. As stated in the letter and also properly discussed in a previous study, because SWI has extremely high sensitivity for the detection of magnetic susceptibility effects, many paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, and diamagnetic substances can cause inhomogeneities on the magnetic field and, as a result, loss of signal intensity on SWI. We recently had a 44-year-old female patient who underwent MR imaging for "follow-up of brain tumor." She had multiple extra-axial low signal intensity foci on SWI, similar to the case shown by Dr. Palma. In fact, the review of previous examinations and additional sequences demonstrated that these foci represented fat because of the rupture of an epidermoid tumor (Fig 1). One option to avoid false-positives when evaluating the SWI sequence is to study not only the mIP reconstructed images, but also the magnitude and phase images. Nowadays, we evaluate these images in all of the patients with positive imaging findings on SWI sequence, and in several instances, they have been useful in doubtful cases.


The nature of Lukan christology has been much debated in recent years, with scholars claiming the pre-eminence of such categories as Lord, Prophet, Christ, or Isaianic Servant. In the present work the author examines one major theme within Luke's christology, that of the coming king from the line of David. A study of the Lukan birth narrative and the speeches in Acts reveals that Luke shows a strong interest in this royal-messianic theme, introducing it into passages which are introductory and programmatic for his christology as a sermon, portraying Jesus in strongly prophetic terms. The author seeks a synthesis of these seemingly conflicting royal and prophetic portraits in Luke's interpretation of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. When Isaiah is read as a unity, the eschatological deliverer is at the same time Davidic king (Isa. 9.11), suffering servant of Yahweh (Isa. 42-53), and prophet herald of salvation (Isa. 61), leading God's people on an eschatological new exodus. On the basis of this synthesis the christology of Luke-Acts is seen to be both consistent and unified, forming an integral part of Luke's wider purpose in his two-volume work.


Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) share a common route of transmission so that about one third of HIV infected individuals show HCV co-infection. Highly active antiretroviral therapy has offered a longer and better life to infected patients. While has removed AIDS-related diseases from the list of most common causes of death their place has been taken by complications of HCV infection, such as cirrhosis, end stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HIV/HCV co-infection requires complex management, especially when HCC is present. Co-infected patients with HCC undergo the same therapeutic protocol as their mono-infected counterparts, but special issues such as interaction between regimens, withdrawal of therapy and choice of immunosuppressive agents, demand a careful approach by specialists. All these issues are analyzed in this minireview.


Recently published botanical floras provided an opportunity to develop operational systems for identifying in the field in France of species of the difficult genus Ophrys. Its specific and infra-specific taxonomy is extremely complex because of conflicting points of view and/or insufficient knowledge about specific biological features. In order to produce an identification key based on observable morphological criteria we developed a pragmatic taxonomy suitable for non-expert botanists, which includes "morphospecies" that are unambiguously identifiable based on a number of unique or a combination of diagnostic criteria and "subspecies" that are sets of populations sharing the same geographical and ecological adaptations but not distinctly differing morphologically. The taxonomic scheme reviewed here for the section Pseudophrys is well correlated with the floral chemical signatures of all the French taxa. This intermediate position, between splitters (mainly orchidologists) and lumpers (mainly geneticists), will hopefully enable us to revise the taxonomy of this genus at the Euro- Mediterranean level.


In this paper, we experimentally study the propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) along gold–ZnS–air interfaces and their diffraction at the surface edge. The SPPs were launched by the waveguide method using monochromatic radiation of the Novosibirsk Free-Electron Laser, operated at the wavelength 140 μm. SPP characteristics were studied via examination of the electromagnetic field of diffracted waves employing two terahertz sensors: a movable Golay cell and an optical system, consisting of a TPX lens and a 320×240 microbolometer focal plane array (MBFPA) recording images with a rate of 17  frames/s. The experimentally recorded intensity distribution of the diffracted wave in the direction normal to the surface differed from the evanescence wave distribution in the SPP, but their characteristic widths were practically the same and coincided with the theoretical calculations made within the Drude model [Phys. Rev. A87, 023828 (2013)]. Diffracted wave characteristics drastically changed when ZnS-layer thickness increased from 0 to 0.75 μm. The angular distributions grew from 0.16 to 3.6 deg, but the characteristic beam width decreased from 8 to 0.35 mm, which is promising for a number of applications. The propagation length of SPPs therewith decreased from 31 to 11 mm, which is 3 orders of magnitude less than the Drude theory predicts. Prospects for further studies are discussed.


Limited natural resources and landfill space and increasing amounts of ash produced from incineration of bio fuel and solid wastes have created a demand for useful applications of ash of which road construction is one. Here the environmental impact of a fly ash layer in a reconstructed road was evaluated by studying the soil solution chemistry in the ash layer, at two depths in the soil below and at two depths in the ditch using a centrifugation drainage technique. The road was situated about 20 km west of Solleftea, (63˚ 16� 33�N, 17˚12�52�E) in the middle of Sweden. Two years after the application of the ash the concentrations of zinc were increasing in the ash layer solutions while concentrations of cadmium were stabilising. Below the ash layer in the road an initial increase of the pH was observed and the concentrations of potassium, sulphate and cadmium showed an increase while copper and mercury showed decreasing concentrations in the road and the ditch soil solutions. The concentrations in the ditch soil solutions were generally much lower compared to the road. Concentrations of calcium in the ash layer solutions indicated that hardening had taken place.


The task of distinguishing material changes from shadow boundaries in chromatic images is discussed. Although there have been previous attempts at providing solutions to this problem, the assumptions that were adopted were too restrictive. Using a simple reflection model, we show that the ambient illumination cannot be assumed to have the same spectral characteristics as the incident illumination, since it may lead to the classification of shadow boundaries as material changes. In such cases, we show that it is necessary to take into account the spectral properties of the ambient illumination in order to develop a technique that is more robust and stable than previous techniques. This technique uses a biologically motivated model of color vision and, in particular, a set of chromatic-opponent and double-opponent center-surround operators. We apply this technique to simulated test patterns as well as to a chromatic image. It is shown that, given some knowledge about the strength of the ambient illumination, this method provides a better classification of shadow boundaries and material changes.


chapter Abstract Neurodevelopmental syndromes, a continuously growing issue, are impairments in the growth and development of the brain and CNS which are pronounced in a variety of emotional, cognitive, motor and social skills. Early assessment and detection of typical, clinically correlated early signs of developmental abnormalities is crucial for early and effective intervention, supporting initiation of early treatment and minimizing neurologi- cal and functional deficits. Successful early interventions would then direct to early time windows of higher neural plasticity. Various syndromes are reflected in early vocal and motor characteristics, making them suitable indicators of an infant ' s neural development. Performance of the computerized classifiers we developed shows approximately 90% accuracyon a database of diagnosed babies. The results demonstrate the potential of vocal and motor analysis for computer-assisted early detection of neurodevelopmental insults.


Olive oil extraction generates a large quantity of wastewater which is a strong pollutant due to its high organic load and phytotoxic. However, its content in antibacterial phenolic substances displays to be resistant to biological degradation. The discharge of olive mill wastewater (OMWW) is not allowed through the municipal sewage system and/or in a natural effluent. Unfortunately, the current technologies for the treatment of OMWW are expensive and complicated to be operated in a mill factory where the objective of this study. We have designed and implemented a process that permitted both the treatment of agro-food processing water and the recovering of compounds of market interest. The process was applied in the effluents of olive oil mill factories to recover polyphenols with a possible significant reduction of organic waste. The nanofiltration fraction obtained from a sequential treatment involved coagulation, photocatalysis, ultrafiltration and nanofiltration was performed to separate the most valuable compounds using column adsorption runs. Competitive adsorption and the selectivity were obtained for phenol and hydroxytyrosol onto macro-reticular aromatic polymer (FPX66) and macroporous polystyrene cross-linked with divinylbenzene (MN202), respectively. The investigations were followed by a single component of phenol or tyrosol, binary phenol and tyrosol and ternary components in NF concentrate of OMWW for valuable compounds recovery conducted in a fixed-bed adsorber of resins. During the intermediate stage of the column operation, adsorbed tyrosol molecules were replaced by the incoming phenol molecules due to the lower tyrosol affinity for FPX66 resin and the tyrosol concentration was higher than its feed concentration.


Metamorphic testing is a testing technique that can be used to verify the functional correctness of software in the absence of an ideal oracle. This paper extends metamorphic testing into a user-oriented approach to software verification, validation, and quality assessment, and conducts large scale empirical studies with four major web search engines: Google, Bing, Chinese Bing, and Baidu. These search engines are very difficult to test and assess using conventional approaches owing to the lack of an objective and generally recognized oracle. The results are useful for both search engine developers and users, and demonstrate that our approach can effectively alleviate the oracle problem and challenges surrounding a lack of specifications when verifying, validating, and evaluating large and complex software systems.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Occupational engagement is shaped by a person's history and the environment in which they live. Alcohol consumption as occupation may provide meaning for some, and may develop and change over a lifetime as shaped by environmental and historical context. The influence of contextual factors on alcohol consumption during pregnancy is explored in the current paper by exploring whether maternal alcohol consumption is an  occupation of choice, or if the context presses for excessive alcohol consumption during pregnancy for certain communities. Methodology: A qualitative, instrumental case study was undertaken to focus on the occupational engagement of three black female participants within a rural community of low socio-economic status in the Western Cape, South Africa. Data were collected using extensive naturalistic observation and semi-structured interviews. A three-stage inductive thematic analysis was done. Findings: Four themes emerged from the study; nothing comes easy, trying to make this life bearable, rekindling hope, and baking bread with little. These themes demonstrate the manner in which cultural, economic and political conditions play a pertinent role in the lives of these three women and how maternal alcohol consumption emerges within context, and as part of motherhood. Conclusions: The interplay between the context and occupation demonstrates how through structural entrenchment imposed occupations may arise. Historical, cultural, economic and socio-political factors perpetuate occupational inequities, and can translate into alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Generational poverty and the entrenchment of excessive drinking practices contribute equally to the prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Keywords: generational poverty; maternal alcohol consumption as occupation; imposed occupations; Fetal Alcohol Syndrome The South African Journal of Occupational Therapy http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2310-3833/2015/v45n1a6


The Oil-For-Food program was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 986 in 1995 as a means of providing humanitarian relief to Iraq, which had been under U.N. economic sanctions since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. After the invasion of Iraq, considerable evidence emerged suggesting that Saddam Hussein was able to subvert the Oil-For-Food program to obtain hard currency as well as items on the United Nation's prohibited transfer list. In this paper, I use recently available data to examine how the Iraqi government used illicit contracts for underpriced oil to reward supporters. Although it may never be possible to prove conclusively that the Iraqi government used oil contracts as a mechanism to trade bribes for votes in the U.N. Security Council, I demonstrate that nations with seats on the Security Council received a greater number and a greater value of these contracts and that receipt of the contracts was positively associated with pro-Iraqi votes. I also find that Iraq was more likely to give contracts to countries on the Council that had exhibited prior support for the Iraqi regime.


Nowadays, consumption is not an activity made for only to meet basic consumer needs. It is believed that, some of the purchased products or brands reflect the lifestyle, the style, trend or the status of consumers'. These products or brands can define as lux products or brands. Also, the perception of the haute couture products as symbols of status or power, and the economic developments in the world, increase the interest and the demand for lux products or brands too. Luxury can be described as a lifestyle. After democratization, luxury brands start to be more accessible and start to create lover cost designs and distribution channels. Given these circumstances, it can be said that democratization of luxury can be described as a revolution in luxury sector. So, starting from this point, it can be said that, some one can perceive luxury as equal to rarity or some one perceive luxury as quality, special, prestigious or something like else. Another revolution in luxury industry can be called as digital revolution. Although there are traditional marketing applications for luxury brands, brands should not to ignore that new media channels have emerged. These channels can be described as internet and social media. At the present time, the internet is using in every place and every area of our lives and it is also using as a new shopping environment. And consumers start to use the internet and social media as a new shopping tool intensively too. So luxury brands have to recognize that they start to take place in the internet and social media according to the situations mentioned above. Using the internet and social media as a shopping channel provides a number of advantages to producers, brands and consumers. These advantages can be listed as follows; Internet and social media provide brands, producers and consumers to establish an interactive communication with each other. Internet and social media, help customers to participate in the development process of products.Customers' ideas and experiences about brands and products can be measured faster Thanks to the Internet and social media.Thanks to the Internet and social media, people beyond the country's borders can exchange ideas with each other and have an opportunity to be able to follow brands they want.In addition, accessing the products from anywhere anytime, reducing costs and opportunities to build customer databases can be counted as the benefits of internet and social media too.Judging from the advantages mentioned above, in order to adapt to today's conditions, it can be said that, the luxury brands have to develop digital strategies by necessity. Also to reach generation z, who are the potential customers of the future, it can be mentioned that, luxury brands need to improve digital strategies too. In addition, when people searching luxury goods on the internet, for not to encounter counterfeit products, it is important that luxury brands should make their own online environments, such as social media accounts or websites.To attract consumers' attention, luxury brands can create innovative campaigns over social media. Besides, creating an online magazine, creating mobile applications or mobile games include adwergames can be beneficial for luxury brands. Also, creating vblogs or using celebrities or celebrity bloggers can be useful for luxury brands. Especially luxury brands in beauty industry can create innovative mobile apps and games.


ABSTRACT Tropical acid soils are highly weathered as they exist under tropical environment with high rainfall and temperature throughout the year, which affects nitrogen availability. Soil organic nitrogen is important in estimating soil nitrogen availability. The combined use of urea and compost in this study was carried out to decrease sole dependence on urea, buffer soil acidification, and reduce nitrogen losses through leaching. Thus, soil buffering capacity, incubation, and organic nitrogen fractionation studies were conducted to determine soil buffering capacity, availability of total nitrogen, organic fractions nitrogen, and inorganic nitrogen in soil after 90 days of incubation following compost. Soil pH, buffering capacity, total nitrogen, organic nitrogen fractions, exchangeable ammonium, and available nitrate were higher in all treatments with compost and combined use of urea and compost. Total hydrolyzable nitrogen, ammonium-nitrogen, (ammonium + amino sugar)-nitrogen, amino sugar-nitrogen, and amino acid-nitrogen were higher in soils with urea and compost suggesting that decomposition of soil organic fractions nitrogen into inorganic nitrogen (ammonium and available nitrate was affected by the addition of urea and compost. Urea can be amended with compost to regulate availability nitrogen in soil for crop use.


Research has shown that changes in nutrition can have an effect on reproductive performance. Our objective was to determine the effect of post-AI nutrition on BCS, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), progesterone, and pregnancy rates. Forage-developed Angus-cross bred heifers (n = 336) were synchronized with the Select Synch+ Controlled Internal Drug Releasing device (CIDR) protocol (d -7 100 μg GnRH and CIDR; d 0 25 mg PG and removal of CIDR). Estrus was detected for 72 h and heifers bred by AI 12 h after being detected in estrus; heifers not in detected in estrus were bred by AI and given an injection of GnRH at 72 h. Each breeding period was equally divided into three treatments: 1) heifers returned to feedlot (LOT), 2) heifers were moved to pasture (PASTURE), or 3) heifers were moved to pasture and supplemented with 5 lb/hd/d of dried distillers grains plus solubles (SUPP). Blood samples were collected on d -7, 0, 2, 14 and 42 (pregnancy determination; d 0 = AI). Body condition scores were determined on d -7 and 42. All heifers were in similar BCS (5.4 ± 0.05) on d -7, but on d 42 SUPP (5.9 ± 0.04) were in better condition than LOT (5.8 ± 0.04) which were in better condition than PASTURE (5.4 ± 0.04). All treatments had similar BUN concentrations on d -7 (129 ± 1), but on d 2, 14, and 42 SUPP had greater BUN concentrations compared to both LOT and PASTURE. There was no difference in BUN concentrations between pregnant and open heifers. Progesterone concentrations were similar among all heifers on d 0 and 2. On d 14, SUPP had greater progesterone concentrations compared to LOT, and on d 14 and 42 PASTURE had greater progesterone concentrations compared to LOT. Progesterone was similar for open and pregnant heifers on d 0 and 2, but greater in pregnant heifers on d 14 and 42. There was no difference among treatments in pregnancy rates (57, 56, and 59% for SUPP, LOT, and PASTURE; analyzed by chi-square). In summary, supplementing forage-developed heifers after insemination increased BCS and BUN concentrations but had no effect on pregnancy rates.


The article looks for providing a model to explain the fosterage of the organizational leaders in Oil Company. To obtain the data according to the field of the study; the qualitative method of data base theory was used. The data was gathered through interview with 21 middle and top managers and experts of Oil Company. By classifying concepts, subordinate and central categories, and finding a central category by using open, central, and optional coding method, categories forming the fosterage of organizational leaders in Oil Company and relationships between them appear in the format of a paradigm which included causal conditions (4 categories), the central category (3 categories), strategy (1 category), intervening factors (2 categories), context factors (4 categories), and consequences (1 category). In the research, the qualitative method was used in order to achieve a deep understanding of phenomenon under study. Therefore, to conduct the plan, in the first stage, to identifying a system for fostering organizational leaders in Oil Company, undetermined situation, different dimensions of the system were known by using the context theory-systematic plan and conducting interview based on the theoretical sampling. This research improvement a model to foster organizational leaders according to data-base theory in Oil Company.


Purpose/Background: The scalp is the part of the body, which frequently presents with a wide variety of lesions, which may range from congenital, inflammatory, post traumatic, and neoplastic. Swellings and cysts are common occurrences. Both benign and malignant tumors are located in the scalp and correct diagnosis is needed for appropriate management. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study, where we reviewed surgically excised swellings in the scalp, over a duration of 6 years. The data were obtained from the records in pathology department, in a tertiary care hospital in South India and clinical inputs were obtained from the hospital records. These were categorized primarily into benign and malignant lesions. The benign lesions were further classified as cystic lesions, vascular lesions, epidermal proliferations, and skin adnexal tumors. The malignant lesions were sub categorized as primary or secondary (metastatic). Results: One hundred cases of histopathologically proven diverse cases of scalp swellings were included. Majority of them were benign, accounting for 77% with rest of them being malignant (23%). Among these 100 cases, 99 cases primarily originated in the scalp and only one case was a secondary tumor. Pilar cysts accounted for about 18 cases, of which 6 cases showed calcification. Vascular tumors and skin adnexal tumors played a major role. The most common malignant tumor was squamous cell carcinoma. Excision with clear margins was the mode of treatment for majority of the cases, with follow-up oncologist referral, when required. Conclusions: Recognition of the correct diagnosis aids in appropriate management of the patient, allaying the fears and concerns of the patient.


To achieve low write current in high density Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (STT-MRAM) arrays, it is important to understand and co-optimize the different kinds of device switching currents, governed by different materials parameters. We demonstrate that double magnetic tunnel junctions (DMTJs) lower the switching current threshold Ic0 by a factor of two when compared to conventional single MTJs. In single MTJs, the overdrive required to reach a write-error rate (WER) of 1E-6 was reduced by materials optimization from 53% to 29% a write-error rate (WER) of 1E-6 by materials optimization. Ultra-low switching current of 8 µA at WER = 1E-9 was achieved in an 11 nm MTJ with 10 ns write pulses.


The intense process of internationalization of the food market is giving rise to new competitive scenarios. Growing market shares on the part of new export countries, along with other consumer and retail issues, impose different marketing policies for agri-food products. In particular, greater consumer awareness of environmental and health issues is changing the structure of demand for fresh products. In the past, the country of origin and a good quality/price ratio were the main strategic strengths for gaining and maintaining international market shares. Nowadays, market shares are gained by moving towards new product attributes, namely environmental friendliness and food safety. This paper draws attention to new, more successful marketing strategies. The case study is the German cherry tomato market. Our analysis of German consumer prefere nces on stated choice data produces interesting insights. Product attributes related to the environment are found to be relevant to forming consumer preferences. As these are termed "faith" attributes, we speculate that German consumers refer to product or igin country as a proxy of its environmental aspects. Two separate competitive segments emerge, one with a higher level of environmental quality, namely Germany and Italy, and the other comprising Turkey, Spain, France and Holland.


[1] Three-dimensional (3-D) aerosol-cloud interaction is examined by analyzing two images containing cumulus clouds in biomass-burning regions in Brazil. The research consists of two parts. The first part focuses on identifying 3-D cloud impacts on reflectances for the pixels selected for the MODIS aerosol retrieval based purely on observations. The second part of the research combines the observations with radiative transfer computations to identify key parameters in the 3-D aerosol-cloud interaction. We find that 3-D cloud-induced enhancement depends on the optical properties of nearby clouds as well as on wavelength. The enhancement is too large to be ignored. Associated bias error in one-dimensional (1-D) aerosol optical thickness retrieval ranges from 50 to 140% depending on wavelength and the optical depth of nearby clouds, as well as aerosol optical thickness. We caution the community to be prudent when applying 1-D approximations in computing solar radiation in clear regions adjacent to clouds or when using traditional retrieved aerosol optical thickness in aerosol indirect effect research.


The unfolding cautionary tale of Southern Cross illustrates the fundamental problems with the outsourcing of public services to corporate bodies ( BMJ 2011;342:d3535, doi:10.1136/bmj.d3535). Its crisis originated when it was bought by private equity firms, which buy companies, like Southern Cross, that own unmortgaged land and buildings. After selling, leasing back, or borrowing against these assets, they dispose of the company, now saddled with debt. Their aim is to extract rather than to add value. Any publicly listed company may be a target because its shares can be acquired on the stock market.

Southern Cross is now threatened by insolvency. Despite pre-existing concerns about inadequate staffing levels, it claims it can cut 3000 frontline posts without harming quality of care. If this is true, the company has previously been charging councils, and residents who fund their own care, for unnecessary staff. The directors have announced cuts in nursing, catering, and cleaning jobs, but not in management pay rates, where savings would not further prejudice care standards.

The reason that any commercial enterprise exists is to make profits, and the over-riding duty of the directors, enshrined in company law, is to maximise the money the company generates for its …


New safety challenges are emerging as agriculture evolves within the complexity of serving a growing world population. The nation's most hazardous industry is struggling to provide safe working environments in the face of demographic changes in the agricultural work force, new technologies, new kinds of enterprises, pushback against regulation, and other forces. Such changes introduce new forms of occupational risk and create greater need for appropriate safety communications. This study examined potentials for improving engagement of the agricultural media, which serve as primary information channels for farmers. Those who teach agricultural communications are key gatekeepers in preparing skilled professional agricultural journalists and other agricultural communicators. Therefore, the study focused on potentials for strengthening skills in farm safety communications through teaching programs in agricultural journalism and communications. The second and related purpose involved advancing understanding of conceptual linkages between farm safety communications and risk communications, using a safety-oriented framework of risk communications. A mixed methods research design involved quantitative and qualitative approaches using an online survey among faculty representatives in 23 agricultural communications programs at universities throughout the nation. Responses identified encouraging potentials and useful direction for integrating farm safety into agricultural communications courses. Findings also shed helpful light on conceptual linkages between risk communications and a seemingly "lost cousin" — farm safety communications. They pointed to new potentials for agricultural communications teaching and scholarship in strengthening connections between theory and practice in risk communications (including farm safety communications) related to agriculture.


Abstract NB: This section presents a series of non legislative actions and legislative acts directly or indirectly linked to contract law, which were adopted at European level between end October 2005 and January 2005.


Continuous-flow organic synthesis naturally requires continuous-flow separation of reaction components. The most common continuous-flow separation approach is liquid-liquid extraction based on differential distribution of molecules between organic and aqueous phases. This approach has limited selectivity; it can hardly separate different hydrophobic organic molecules from each other. Continuous-flow electrophoresis can facilitate much more selective separation in a single phase, but it is currently limited to aqueous electrolytes which are incompatible with many hydrophobic organic molecules. Further, water electrolysis in aqueous electrolytes results in generation of large volumes of gas making steady-state operation a major technical challenge. Here, we introduce non-aqueous continuous-flow electrophoresis (NACFE) in which the electrolyte is a solution of an organic salt in an aprotic organic solvent. We demonstrate that NACFE can maintain stable separation of multiple species during 10 hours. The non-aqueous nature of NACFE and its ability to support steady-state operation make it suitable for its incorporation into continuous-flow organic synthesis.


Differences in seed maturity during harvest have been a
conmon problem in groundnut. The present study was conducted
to look into different factors in order to obtain viable
information that could define optimum harvest for Mat jam
groundnut. These characters include: (a) percentage of nature
pods per 100 pads, (b) weight of kernels per plant, (c) oil,
protein, and carbohydrate contents, (d) keeping quality, and
(e) germination rate.
The groundnut was grown in the field in 1986 and 1987 and
harvested at 17 different harvest dates from 68 days after
planting (DAP) to 100 DAP.
The percentage of mature pods per 100 pods in both years
was about 65.6% at 88 DAP. Later harvests did not show
significant increase in percentage of mature pods. Highest
kernel weight of 8.18 g/plant was obtained at 100 DAP but was
not significantly different from the 92 and 96 DAP with 7.78
am 6.55 g/plant, respectively. The number of nodes on the
main axis between 88-96 DAP ranged from 26 to 28. This plant
character was easy to identify and to count because even when
the leaves had fallen, the scars could still be seen.


1. Forearm venous plasma noradrenaline, heart rate and intra-arterial blood pressure were measured sequentially during and after upright bicycle exercise in five normotensive and six hypertensive patients. 2. Plasma noradrenaline increased significantly between 4 and 8 min during exercise. 3. On stopping exercise blood pressure and heart rate decreased rapidly whilst plasma noradrenaline increased in each subject to reach a maximum at a median time of 108 s after exercise. 4. Plasma noradrenaline decreased in five of six normotensive patients between the end of exercise and 2 min after exercise performed in the supine position. 5. Evidence in favour of a reflex increase in sympathetic activity after upright exercise is discussed.


"Etch and coat" methods, potentially useful for large scale production of superhydrophobic surfaces on metals, have been extended by introduction of a thin 20 nm Au interlayer which allowed thiol surface modifiers to be investigated. Fe, Ti and Zn surfaces modified in this way with a polyfluorothiol generally had lower contact angles, θ, than their silane modified equivalents but were more uniform and reproducible. The higher θ values for silanes appear to be associated with an increased effective roughness that is not seen in the thiol coatings, which follow the underlying surface. For Fe, Ti and Zn, θ increased to a maximum with etching time but then decreased significantly. Electron microscopy of samples etched for long times showed fewer grain boundaries, suggesting that the loss of hydrophobicity was related to reduced roughness. This was confirmed through quantitative measurements of roughness parameters which were directly correlated with the observed contact angles through the Wenzel equation. The observation of this behaviour for 3 different metals suggests it is a general effect and the assumption that increased etch times will give increased roughness is incorrect. Although etching, Au coating and thiol modification did not provide sufficient roughness for superhydrophobicity, electrodeposition of a Cu layer onto the metal substrates followed by electroless deposition of silver gave uniform surfaces with very high contact angles (up to θ = 168.9°) and low roll-off angles (α < 1°). This method is sufficiently simple and inexpensive to be suitable for application on industrial scales, for example in marine or aeronautical engineering.


When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the eighteenth-century version of Little Red Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton answers in this classic work of European history in what we like to call The Age of Enlightenment.


We studied systematically aqueous suspensions of amorphous well-characterized silica particles by potentiometric titration, electrophoretic mobility, and time-resolved light scattering. Their charging behavior and aggregation rate constants were measured as a function of pH and ionic strength in KCl electrolytes for three types of particles of approximately 30, 50, and 80 nm in diameter. The charging behavior was consistent with the basic Stern model; the silica particles carry a negative charge, and its magnitude gradually increases with increasing pH and ionic strength. On the other hand, their early-stage aggregation (or coagulation) behavior is complex. The aggregation of the largest particles shows features resembling predictions of the Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey, and Overbeek (DLVO) theory. On one hand, the rate constant decreases sharply with increasing pH at low ionic strengths and attains fast aggregation conditions at high ionic strengths. On the other hand, we observe a characteristic slowing down of the aggregation at low pH and high ionic strengths. This feature becomes very pronounced for the medium and the small particles, leading to a complete stabilization at low pH for the latter. Stabilization is also observed at higher pH for the medium and the small particles. From these aggregation measurements we infer the existence of an additional repulsive force. Its origin is tentatively explained by postulating hairy layers of consisting of poly(silicilic acid) chains on the particle surface.


Purpose Atopy is an important cause of asthma. Few data on the prevalence of atopy or comparisons with clinical characteristics of asthma in Korean patients have been published. We evaluated the effects of atopy on clinical profiles and airway inflammation in Korean asthmatics. Methods We retrospectively enrolled 1,492 asthmatics from the Cohort for Reality and Evolution of Adult Asthma in Korea (COREA) cohort who had undergone skin prick tests for aeroallergens. The patients' clinical characteristics, lung function, PC20, and sputum and blood inflammatory cell counts were compared based on the presence or absence of atopy. Atopy was defined as one or more positive reactions (A/H ratio >1) on a skin prick test. Results Among 11 aeroallergens, house dust mites (Dermatophagoides farinae and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) were the most prevalent cause of a positive skin prick test. As compared with non-atopic asthmatics, atopic asthmatics showed early onset of the disease. Atopic patients with asthma had a higher FEV1, FVC, and FEV1/FVC as compared with non-atopic patients with asthma. In addition, asthmatics without atopy had more uncontrolled asthma (P=0.001) and severe rhinitis (P<0.05) as compared with atopic asthmatics. Smoking, as measured in pack years, was higher in the non-atopic asthmatics than in the atopic asthmatics. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate was higher in non-atopic asthmatics than in the atopic asthmatics and patients with non-atopic asthma had a higher sputum neutrophil count than did those with atopic asthma. Conclusions Our data indicate that atopic asthmatics had an early onset of disease and high IgE levels, while the non-atopic asthmatics had decreased lung function and a high sputum neutrophil count, suggesting that a different approach is needed to treat atopic asthma.


The treatment of cis-[Pt(dpa)(RCN)2][SO3CF3]2 {dpa = 2,2′-dipyridylamine, R = Me, Et, CH2Ph, Ph; [2a–d](OTf)2} (OTf = SO3CF3) with 2 equiv. of N,N′-diphenylguanidine [NH=C(NHPh)2] in CH2Cl2 solutions at room temp. for 16 h gives [Pt(dpa){NH=C(R)NC(NHPh)=NPh}][SO3CF3] {[3a,b,d](OTf)} as the addition products and [Pt(dpa){NH=C(R)NHC(R)=NH}][SO3CF3]2 {[4a,b](OTf)2} as the tailoring products. The formulation of complexes [3a,b,d](OTf) and [4a,b](OTf)2 was supported by satisfactory C, H, and N elemental analyses and agreeable high-resolution ESI-MS, IR, and 1H (including 1H–1H COSY experiments) and 13C{1H} NMR data. The structures of all of the platinum species were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The resultant complexes are nonemissive in solution, mainly because of the interaction between the empty d z 2 orbital in a square-planar configuration and solvent molecules. However, in the solid state, complexes [3a,b,d](OTf) exhibit strong phosphorescence with quantum yields (peak wavelength) of 0.23 (490 nm), 0.27 (483 nm), and 0.20 (532 nm), respectively.


Because automobiles cause harmful effects on the environment, the United States should encourage bicycling as an alternative means of transportation to automobiles. Many Americans elect not to cycle as a means of transportation out of fear of a collision with an automobile. Such collisions can be devastating physically and financially, and yet, after a bicycle-automobile collision, cyclists often bear the burden of proving negligence in a suit against the driver, and are often left without a remedy for their injuries. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, use a form of strict liability in lawsuits concerning bicycleautomobile collisions, which shifts the cost of such accidents to automobile drivers. U.S. courts should apply strict liability—as currently used in U.S. tort law—to collisions between cyclists and automobiles. Shifting the cost of bicycle-automobile accidents to automobile drivers will even out the consequences between cyclists and drivers, encouraging drivers to drive more safely, creating safer roads, and encouraging cycling—an environmentally friendly method of transportation—in place of driving a carbon emitting automobile.


The flowers' activity in the saying of Jesus about anxiety indicates an interest in cloth production across the socio-economic spectrum. I demonstrate that wool-working is a central feature of the multiform tradition of this saying and that spinning in particular was associated with women. I further note that the activity of gazing at flowers was an activity that was connected with the iconography of the goddess Spes, the Roman personification of Hope. These two cues render the entire saying an exhortation toward the feminine.


A simple model for absorption and refraction of a laser beam by a bounded nonlinear medium and for diffraction during the beam's subsequent free-space propagation is used to calculate analytically the steady-state transverse-field profile in the far-field limit using a number of different laser input profiles. Good qualitative agreement with features found in experiments with indium antimonide at cryogenic temperatures is obtained when the input amplitude is assumed to possess a parabolic cross section. Power-transfer curves for a simple and entirely passive power-limiting device operating below the saturation level for nonlinear absorption have been calculated numerically, and it is concluded that the mechanism for limiting is largely determined by the ratio of nonlinear refraction to nonlinear absorption coefficients. Applications to the protection of sensitive optical components are envisaged.


The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of employee's organizational commitment on the relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance. This study was descriptive and correlational research that was conducted through the survey method. The study population consisted of all employees in education office of Kerman province and 190 persons were selected as volume of sample by using Cochran's formula. The data gathering tools were organizational culture, organizational commitment, and organizational performance questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics (structural equation modeling through path analysis) were used to analyze the data. The data was analyzed using SPSS and AMOS softwares. The findings of the research indicated that suggested model had appropriate fit and organizational culture beyond its direct impact exerted indirect impact on organizational performance through the mediation of employee's organizational commitment that the extent of indirect impact was significantly higher than direct impact.


The incidence of depressed mood is high in women before hysterectomy. This finding is usually the effect of prolonged heavy periods, chronic pelvic pain, and severe premenstrual syndrome that warrant the surgical treatment. The therapeutic effects of hysterectomy thus include both the cure of physical symptoms and improvement of mood. However, in women with preexisting psychiatric illness or predisposing personality problems, depressed mood may persist or occur with the stress of hysterectomy. Hysterectomy is commonly performed in the perimenopausal age but also results in a premature ovarian failure. Thus, ovarian hormone deficiency following hysterectomy may be responsible for the negative effect on mood. The cyclical nature of such hormone-related depressed states often remains unrecognized in the absence of menstruation; without routine endocrinologic monitoring the need for estrogen replacement following hysterectomy is often missed. Associated bilateral oophorectomy results in the depletion of endogenous androgens, which also has a significant effect on mood. Estrogen plus testosterone replacement following hysterectomy with or without bilateral oophorectomy has been shown to reduce the incidence of depressed state. The compliance with hormone replacement following hysterectomy is high in the absence of withdrawal bleeding and the depressant effect of progestins on mood. Therefore, a practice of regular endocrinologic monitoring following hysterectomy to detect the need for estrogen replacement and a near-routine replacement of combined estrogen and testosterone following bilateral oophorectomy should be adopted to reduce the incidence of posthysterectomy depression.