This thesis studies an inventory-location problem faced by a large manufacturer and supplier of small to medium sized aircraft and their spare parts. The sale of after market spare parts is a major source of revenue for the company, but it is a complex industry with many unique challenges. The original problem is a multi-echelon network design problem, which is decomposed into a facility location problem with consolidated shipping challenges, and a spare parts inventory problem. The facility location problem is solved a number of times under different scenarios to give the company's leadership team access to a wide range of feasible solutions. The model itself is an important contribution to industry, allowing the company to solve a spare parts network problem that will guide strategic decision-making for years. The chapter serves as case-study on how to accurately model a large and complicated service parts supply chain through the use of mathematical programming, part aggregation and scenarios. The company used the scenario results to redesign its spare parts distribution network, opening new hubs and consolidating existing service centres. The costs savings associated with this project are estimated to be $4.4 Million USD annually. The proposed solution does increase the burden of customer freight charges on the company's customers compared to the current network, but the operational savings are expected to more than outweigh the increase in customer shipments costs. The project team thus recommended that the company consider subsidizing customer freight costs to offset the expected cost increase the customers face, resulting in lower costs for both the company and their customers. This solution could set a new standard for aircraft spare parts suppliers to follow. Considered next is an integrated inventory-location problem with service requirements based on the first problem. Customer demand is Poisson distributed and the service levels are timebased, leading to highly non-linear, stochastic service constraints and a nonlinear, mixed-integer optimization problem. Unlike previous works in the literature that propose approximations for the nonlinear constraints, this thesis presents an exact solution methodology using logic-based Benders decomposition. The problem is decomposed to separate the location decisions in the master problem from the inventory decisions in the subproblem. A new family of valid cuts is proposed and the algorithm is shown to converge to optimality. This is the first attempt to solve this type of problem exactly. Then, this thesis presents a new restrict-and-decompose scheme to further decompose the Benders master problem by part. The approach is tested on industry instances as well as random instances. The second algorithm is able to solve industry instances with up to 60 parts within two hours of computation time, while the maximum number of parts attempted in the literature is currently five. Finally, this thesis studies a second integrated inventory-location problem under different assumptions. While the previous model uses the backorder assumption for unfilled demand and a strict time window, the third model uses the lost-sales assumption and a soft time window for satisfying time sensitive customer demand. The restrict-and-decompose scheme is applied with little modification, the main difference being the calculation of the Benders cut coefficients. The algorithm is again guaranteed to converge to optimality. The results are compared against previous work under the same assumptions. The results deliver better solutions and certificates of optimality to a large set of test problems.


Recent work argues that robust training requires substantially larger datasets than those required for standard classification. On CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100, this translates into a sizable robust-accuracy gap between models trained solely on data from the original training set and those trained with additional data extracted from the"80 Million Tiny Images"dataset (TI-80M). In this paper, we explore how generative models trained solely on the original training set can be leveraged to artificially increase the size of the original training set and improve adversarial robustness to $\ell_p$ norm-bounded perturbations. We identify the sufficient conditions under which incorporating additional generated data can improve robustness, and demonstrate that it is possible to significantly reduce the robust-accuracy gap to models trained with additional real data. Surprisingly, we even show that even the addition of non-realistic random data (generated by Gaussian sampling) can improve robustness. We evaluate our approach on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, SVHN and TinyImageNet against $\ell_\infty$ and $\ell_2$ norm-bounded perturbations of size $\epsilon = 8/255$ and $\epsilon = 128/255$, respectively. We show large absolute improvements in robust accuracy compared to previous state-of-the-art methods. Against $\ell_\infty$ norm-bounded perturbations of size $\epsilon = 8/255$, our models achieve 66.10% and 33.49% robust accuracy on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100, respectively (improving upon the state-of-the-art by +8.96% and +3.29%). Against $\ell_2$ norm-bounded perturbations of size $\epsilon = 128/255$, our model achieves 78.31% on CIFAR-10 (+3.81%). These results beat most prior works that use external data.


Objective. To determine psychometric test cut scores for malingering in a sample of depressed patients. Design. A prospective study of depressed persons randomly assigned either to a comparator group that was instructed to feign illness or to a control group instructed to perform optimally on a set of psychometric tests. Setting. The study was conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and the Clinical Psychology Section of the Centre for Student Counselling and Development, both of the University of Stellenbosch. Subjects. Fifty-one patients with depression. Outcome measures. Each subject completed the Dot-Counting Test (DCT), the Rey 15-item Test (Rey 15-item), the 21-item verbal memory Forced Choice Test (FCT), the Word Recognition (WR) test and the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS). Results. The psychometric tests correctly distinguished between simulation and optimal performance in 61 - 75% of subjects. Sensitivity ranged from 54% to 92% and specificity between 36% and 96%. The FCT, WR test and SIMS total score gave the best results for individual tests. A discriminant function that combined FCT, DCT and SIMS total score optimised sensitivity (69%) and specificity (92%). Conclusions. The presence of depression complicates interpretation of psychometric tests for malingering. A combination of screening measures for malingering provides superior results compared with individual tests. The results of this study should help with the generalisation of psychometric tests for malingering to clinical populations.


Rotational spin-up due to outgassing of comet nuclei has been identified as a possible mechanism for considerable mass-loss and splitting. We report a search for spin changes for three large Jupiter-family comets (JFCs): 14P/Wolf, 143P/Kowal-Mrkos, and 162P/Siding Spring. None of the three comets has detectable period changes, and we set conservative upper limits of 4.2 (14P), 6.6 (143P) and 25 (162P) minutes per orbit. Comparing these results with all eight other JFCs with measured rotational changes, we deduce that none of the observed large JFCs experiences significant spin changes. This suggests that large comet nuclei are less likely to undergo rotationally-driven splitting, and therefore more likely to survive more perihelion passages than smaller nuclei. We find supporting evidence for this hypothesis in the cumulative size distributions of JFCs and dormant comets, as well as in recent numerical studies of cometary orbital dynamics. We added 143P to the sample of 13 other JFCs with known albedos and phase-function slopes. This sample shows a possible correlation of increasing phase-function slopes for larger geometric albedos. Partly based on findings from recent space missions to JFCs, we hypothesise that this correlation corresponds to an evolutionary trend for JFCs. We propose that newly activated JFCs have larger albedos and steeper phase functions, which gradually decrease due to sublimation-driven erosion. If confirmed, this could be used to analyse surface erosion from ground and to distinguish between dormant comets and asteroids.


This study sought to assess whether the community care needs of a purposive sample of nine older people aged between sixty-seven and ninety-six years residing in the semi-rural township of Feilding were being met by current service provision. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine client participants and thirteen key informants selected from service providers to the older population of Feilding. Despite the political turmoil of tendering for contracts for specific community care services, providers were delivering a range of services and were aware of the issues concerning quality, access, appropriateness and coordination of services which were enabling these older clients in Feilding to maintain their independence at home. The major incentive for service providers is to keep clients mobile and out of hospital. However, the lack of information to older clients concerning their eligibility for services provided by service providers, may deter potential clients from accessing community care services, thereby decreasing the demand for services. Providers were constrained by their budget and minimum staffing levels to supply services to meet the potential demand. The older disabled clients of community care in Feilding, faced issues of dependency on formal and informal support services, decreasing mobility, vulnerability and concerns relating to cultural sensitivity, safety in their homes, and the quality of the careworking relationship. i i


We all want to make a difference in the world. We want to know that our lives matter, that our presence on Earth has meaning and purpose. I can assure you that you have a Divine assignment -- an important mission to fulfill. The first step in discovering and fulfilling this mission is to take a leadership role in your life. -- from "Stand Up for Your Life" In this book I'll take you on a journey that will provide you with new "self- honoring" strategies to transform your fear and self-doubt into power. You'll learn to trust yourself. You'll build new courage muscles that will increase your self-esteem. And you'll develop the confidence to step out into unknown territory so you can realize your greatest potential. As we go through the program outlined in this book, I'll challenge you to: Know who you are Define your values Stop hiding your power Stand up for yourself Build your courage muscles Pass up good for great Center your life around your values Contribute to others in a meaningful way If you're ready to stand up for your life, you've picked up the right book. Let's get started!"


This thesis presents a learning based approach to speech recognition and person recognition from image sequences. An appearance based model of the articulators is learned from example images and is used to locate, track, and recover visual speech features. A major difficulty in model based approaches is to develop a scheme which is general enough to account for the large appearance variability of objects but which does not lack in specificity. The method described here decomposes the lip shape and the intensities in the mouth region into weighted sums of basis shapes and basis intensities, respectively, using a Karhunen-Loeve expansion. The intensities deform with the shape model to provide shape independent intensity information. This information is used in image search, which is based on a similarity measure between the model and the image. Visual speech features can be recovered from the tracking results and represent shape and intensity information. A speechreading (lip-reading) system is presented which models these features by Gaussian distributions and their temporal dependencies by hidden Markov models. The models are trained using the EM-algorithm and speech recognition is performed based on maximum posterior probability classification. It is shown that, besides speech information, the recovered model parameters also contain person dependent information and a novel method for person recognition is presented which is based on these features. Talking persons are represented by spatio-temporal models which describe the appearance of the articulators and their temporal changes during speech production. Two different topologies for speaker models are described: Gaussian mixture models and hidden Markov models. The proposed methods were evaluated for lip localisation, lip tracking, speech recognition, and speaker recognition on an isolated digit database of 12 subjects, and on a continuous digit database of 37 subjects. The techniques were found to achieve good performance for all tasks listed above. For an isolated digit recognition task, the speechreading system outperformed previously reported systems and performed slightly better than untrained human speechreaders.


In this masterful rebuttal to the prevailing neuroscientific arguments that seek to explain away consciousness, Merlin Donald presents "a sophisticated conception of a multilayered consciousness drawing much of its power from its cultural matrix" (Booklist). Donald makes "a persuasive case...for consciousness as the central player in the drama of mind" (Peter Dodwell), as he details the forces, both cultural and neuronal, that power our distinctively human modes of awareness. He proposes that the human mind is a hybrid product, interweaving a super-complex form of matter (the brain) with an invisible symbolic web (culture) to form a "distributed" cognitive network. This hybrid mind, he argues, is our main evolutionary advantage, for it allowed humanity as a species to break free of the limitations of the mammalian brain. "Donald transcends the simplistic claims of Evolutionary Psychology,...offering a true Darwinian perspective on the evolution of consciousness."-Philip Lieberman


This new interpretation of the history of nursing in the United States captures the many ways women reframed the most traditional of all gender expectations-that of caring for the sick-to create new possibilities for themselves, to renegotiate the terms of some of their life experiences, and to reshape their own sense of worth and power. For much of modern U.S. history, nursing was informal, often uncompensated, and almost wholly the province of female family and community members. This began to change at the end of the nineteenth century when the prospect of formal training opened for women doors that had been previously closed. Nurses became respected professionals, and becoming a formally trained nurse granted women a range of new social choices and opportunities that eventually translated into economic mobility and stability. Patricia D'Antonio looks closely at this history-using a new analytic framework and a rich trove of archival sources-and finds complex, multiple meanings in the individual choices of women who elected a nursing career. New relationships and social and professional options empowered nurses in constructing consequential lives, supporting their families, and participating both in their communities and in the health care system. Narrating the experiences of nurses, D'Antonio captures the possibilities, power, and problems inherent in the different ways women defined their work and lived their lives. Scholars in the history of medicine, nursing, and public policy, those interested in the intersections of identity, work, gender, education, and race, and nurses will find this a provocative book.


Even the humble fruit fly has choices to make and uses a rudimentary brainlike organ known as the mushroom body in the process. Zhang et al. studied choice in Drosophila while the animals were confronted with competing visual cues. Decision-making was based on two processes, one linear and the other nonlinear. The switch from linear to nonlinear decision-making involved dopamine function in the mushroom body. Without the integrity of dopamine-mushroom body circuits, flies could make simple perceptual decisions based on the subtraction of the saliency of the conflict cues (color versus position) but lost the ability to amplify the discrepancy at some crucial points. K. Zhang, J. Guo, Y. Peng, W. Xi, A. Guo, Dopamine-mushroom body circuit regulates saliency-based decision-making in Drosophila. Science 316, 1901-1904 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The relationship between the growth rate of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and its virulence was investigated. A cloned, monomorphic, slow growing, and relatively avirulent line of T. b. gambiense was serially passaged at 3- to 5-day intervals through immunosuppressed mice. The growth rate measured within the first 2 patent days of infection did not vary significantly through the first 25 passages but by passage 50 had decreased significantly from 11.9 +/- 1.1 hr to 9.0 +/- 0.7 hr. A clone from passage 50 and three different second peak heterologous variants all had statistically similar growth rates, indicating that the rate of proliferation was a stable trait. With the faster rate of proliferation there was a corresponding increase in virulence. The inoculum necessary to kill 50% of normal outbred mice in the first peak of parasitemia (LD50) dropped significantly from 3 X 10(6) first passage parasites to 4 X 10(5) passage 50 parasites. The lethal load for both fast and slow growing organisms was the same (greater than 2 X 10(9) trypanosomes/ml of blood). To further link virulence and growth rate, a strong correlation (r = 0.89) was measured when generation times of 10 closely related lines of T. b. gambiense, and 2 lines of pleomorphic T. b. rhodesiense were compared to their LD50 values. While the rate of trypanosomal proliferation was similar between the day of inoculation through the second patent day, it slowed to 64% of that level once parasitemias exceeded 3 X 10(8) organisms/ml of host blood.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Long before the establishment of Medicaid or the passage of the Affordable Care Act, California counties provided their poorest residents with access to comprehensive medical care. This article analyzes the creation and closure of public hospitals in the state of California. It combines both qualitative historical research and event history analysis to assess what led first to the creation of the nation's most comprehensive public health network and then to its gradual demise. Strong evidence is presented that the implementation of Medicaid in California significantly altered the calculus of local governments with regard to the operation of public hospitals. In particular, Medicaid shifted county hospitals from the realm of allocational politics to that of redistributive politics. Subsequently, reforms at the state and federal levels further encouraged this development. Because of this shift, many counties decided to close their hospitals. Moreover, as expected for redistributive policies, the continued operation of public hospitals was driven not by need but instead merely by fiscal capacity: more affluent counties continue to maintain them while poorer, needier counties close their doors.


The Santa Clara River watershed, located in Los Angeles County, has been subject to rapid increases in population and urban development, resulting in channelization, new bridges, and increased demand for utilization of aggregate resources in the area. A comprehensive assessment of the watershed and streams was required in order to establish a basis for developing a master flood and sediment control plan. Detailed evaluation of the watershed's hydrologic, hydraulic, and erosion/sedimentation characteristics was conducted through application of a three-level approach, consisting of qualitative, quantitative, and computer modeling procedures. The study included development of a movable bed sediment routing model to simulate the changing profiles of the stream bed due to the effect of erosion and sedimentation, analysis of floodplain development and sand and gravel mining impacts on the stability of the river, and formulation of technical procedures for design of flood control facilities. This multiple level approach proved successful in developing a thorough understanding of this complex watershed systems and aided in formulating a well-balanced resource management plan.


This project presents the main features of each of the electricity transmission technologies available for
offshore wind power and discusses their advantages and disadvantages in terms of technical, economic and
environmental aspects. The transmission options studied are High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC)
and High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC). Within the HVDC there are two transmission technologies
available, the classical Line Commutated Converter based HVDC and the most recently developed Voltage
Source Converter based HVDC. As technical features, both operational and implementation issues are
analyzed. Flexibility of control of active and reactive power or capacity to provide reactive power support
are examples of the first, and size of offshore substation is an example of the latter. Cost-effectiveness and
system losses are compared to derive a general rule for the best transmission option from the economic point
of view and environmental concerns are also addressed. This enables reader to have a general overview of
the factors that affect the decision of using one transmission technology or the other.
The second part of the project is centered in the modeling and simulation of a particular case study using
HVDC and HVAC. The studied system consists of a Full Scale Converter (FSC) based wind farm which is
located 50 km off the shore. The wind farm has a rated power of 100MW which needs to be transmitted
to the onshore grid either via VSC based HVDC or HVAC. Two models are built in order to learn about
and implement the control systems of the converters. A detailed explanation on the control system design
is included. Special attention is given to control strategies to comply with grid regulations related to fault
ride-through capability and reactive power support. German Grid Codes are chosen as reference. In the
case of HVDC reactive power support is performed by the grid-side VSC of the HVDC system, whereas in
the case of HVAC it is performed by the grid-side converters of the wind turbines. Strategies to reduce the
electrical power generated by the wind farm in case of fault on the onshore grid include a chopper placed
on the HVDC link for the HVDC solution and a chopper placed on the wind turbine converter's DC link
for the HVAC solution.


Growing up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the '70s and '80s, Linda Hammerick knows that she is different. She has strong, almost paralysing associations between words and tastes; she doesn't look like everyone else; and she isn't popular at school. She finds her way through life with the help of her great uncle 'Baby' Harper, who loves her and loves to dance, and her best friend fat-thin-fat Kelly with whom she has been exchanging letters since they were seven. But then a tragedy and a revelation will make her question everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.


Motor imagery (MI), the mental performance of movements, combined with real-time electroencephalogram (EEG) feedback has been suggested a promising add-on therapy to facilitate motor recovery after stroke. Yet to what extend mental training shapes brain function and structure is not well understood. The present investigation explored functional and structural changes using a multimodal framework after four weeks of MI neurofeedback training. Efficient MI training was archived by using a low-density mobile EEG system at the participants' home. Following training functional changes as increased classification accuracies, stronger contra lateral EEG and BOLD activity were observed. Functional plasticity was accompanied by structural changes in gray matter. Together, this proof-of concept investigation provides preliminary evidence that MI training induces systematic changes in brain function and structure.


People with mental health conditions (MHCs) frequently experience participation and functional restrictions. Today, hospitals still serve a significant number of people with MHCs. However, there is little evidence for occupation-oriented interventions to support participation, health, and well-being in these hospital settings. This article describes a newly developed, short-term, structured intervention for the inpatient setting, Occupational Connections (OC), that focuses on promoting everyday functions and participation in daily life and presents preliminary findings for its effectiveness. Ten people with schizophrenia participated in the program during their stay in acute open inpatient units and completed evaluations both pre- and postintervention. Statistics for a small-sample study design were applied to investigate OC's impact. The results showed OC's contribution to participation dimensions, functional capacity, cognitive functioning, and reduction in schizophrenia symptoms. On the basis of this pilot study's results, extended research is now being conducted to strengthen the evidence for OC's effectiveness.


The keynote provides an overview on the field of research data produced by PhD students, in the context of open science, open access to research results, e-Science and the handling of electronic theses and dissertations. The keynote includes recent empirical results and recommendations for good practice and further research. In particular, the paper is based on an assessment of 864 print and electronic dissertations in sciences, social sciences and humanities from the Universities of Lille (France) and Ljubljana (Slovenia), submitted between 1987 and 2015, and on a survey on data management with 270 scientists in social sciences and humanities of the University of Lille 3.
The keynote starts with an introduction into data-driven science, data life cycle and data publishing. It then moves on to research data management by PhD students, their practice, their needs and their willingness to disseminate and share their data. After this qualitative analysis of information behaviour, we present the results of a quantitative assessment of research data produced and submitted with dissertations Special attention is paid to the size of the research data in appendices, to their presentation and link to the text, to their sources and typology, and to their potential for further research. The discussion puts the focus on legal aspects (database protection, intellectual property, privacy, third-party rights) and other barriers to data sharing, reuse and dissemination through open access.
Another part adds insight into the potential handling of these data, in the framework of the French and Slovenian dissertation infrastructures. What could be done to valorise these data in a centralized system for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)? The topics are formats, metadata (including attribution of unique identifiers), submission/deposit, long-term preservation and dissemination. This part will also draw on experiences from other campuses and make use of results from surveys on data management at the Universities of Berlin and Lille.
The conclusion provides some recommendations for the assistance and advice to PhD students in managing and depositing their research data, and also for further research.
Our study will be helpful for academic libraries to develop assistance and advice for PhD students in managing their research data, in collaboration with the research structures and the graduate schools. Moreover, it should be helpful to prepare and select research data for long-term preservation, curate research data in open repositories and design data repositories.
The French part of paper is part of an ongoing research project at the University of Lille 3 (France) in the field of digital humanities and research data, conducted with scientists and academic librarians. Its preliminary results have been presented at a conference on research data in February 2015 at Lille, at the 8th Conference on Grey Literature and Repositories at Prague in October 2015 and published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. The Slovenian research results have not been published before.


In this dissertation an examination of oral style in the Sixteen Vedic Sanskaras with particular reference to the Naming, Marriage and Death ceremonies, has been made. Sanskaras, which originated in the Vedas, have been orally transmitted from teacher (Guru) to pupil from generation to generation. The Introduction outlines the role of Sanskaras in the life of a Hindu and its link with the ancient Vedas.The oral features that facilitate memorisation and transmission of the Mantras are mentioned. The three universal anthropological laws of Marcel Jousse are applied. The first chapter focuses on the theoretical framework of orality where important terms are defined. The contribution of Marcel Jousse and Ong are highlighted . The orality-literacy continuum is elaborated upon. The important role of memory skills as a facilitator of the transmission of knowledge is explained. The second chapter deals with the origin and the classification of Vedic literature . The role of the Sacred Fire (Yajna) in Sanskaras is emphasized. It is around this ritual fire that the ceremony and the oral traditions revolve. The fire is central to all the rites and ceremonies and the litanies constantly refer to the fire as the vehicle of transmitting the aspirations of the devotee to God. The third chapter states the reason for the choice of the topic and summarises each of the sixteen Vedic Sanskaras. This is followed by the identification of oral elements in the Naming ceremony. The evidence of orality in the marriage ceremony features in chapter four I initially establishing the importance of the marriage ceremony and thereafter outlining the essential steps of a Hindu marriage. The death ceremony is described in chapter five with special reference to evidence of oral style expression therein. The conclusion emphasizes the role of orality in keeping alive the Hindu tradition and customs. It also augurs well for further research in Vedic literature.


In the past decades the portion of the population living in urban areas has continuously increased. Due to the high building density, the microclimate in urban areas changed significantly compared to rural areas. The temperatures measured in urban areas are, due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect, higher compared to the rural temperatures. The UHI intensities are increasing with higher building densities and growing cities. Space cooling and heating demands of buildings are strongly affected by the local microclimate at the building sites. Due to the climate change and the limited energy resources, energy saving and sustainability are nowadays important issues. A significant part of the global energy consumption is used for space cooling and space heating of buildings. Thus its minimization for buildings in urban areas has great energy saving potential. Most building energy simulation (BES) models were developed for stand-alone buildings and therefore do not consider effects of the urban microclimate. This can lead to inaccurate predictions of the space cooling and heating demands for buildings in urban areas. The aim of this paper is to investigate the urban microclimate and its potential influence on the energy demand of buildings in an urban context by conducting detailed flow, radiation and building energy simulations at the urban neighborhood scale. CitySim is used for the radiation and building energy simulations. In CitySim detailed radiation models for solar and longwave radiation are implemented that can account for the radiation exchange between neighbouring buildings. The flow around the buildings is modelled by running CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulations using OpenFOAM. As a result it is shown, how the temperatures and wind speeds can strongly differ within different urban areas. Further an approach is presented, to consider the local microclimate in the building energy simulation tool CitySim.


Nonenzymatic glucose sensors employing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) with highly dispersed Pt-M (M = Ru and Sn) nanoparticles (Pt-M@PVP-MWNTs) were fabricated by radiolytic deposition. The Pt-M nanoparticles on the MWNTs were characterized by transmittance electron microscopy, elemental analysis, and X-ray diffraction. They were found to be well dispersed and to exhibit alloy properties on the MWNT support. Electrochemical testing showed that these nonenzymatic sensors had larger currents (mA) than that of a bare glassy carbon (GC) electrode and one modified with MWNTs. The sensitivity (A mM−1), linear range (mM), and detection limit (mM) (S/N = 3) of the glucose sensor with the Pt-Ru catalyst in NaOH electrolyte were determined as 18.0, 1.0–2.5, 0.7, respectively. The corresponding data of the sensor with Pt-Sn catalyst were 889.0, 1.00–3.00, and 0.3, respectively. In addition, these non-enzymatic sensors can effectively avoid interference arising from the oxidation of the common interfering species ascorbic acid and uric acid in NaOH electrolyte. The experimental results show that such sensors can be applied in the detection of glucose in commercial red wine samples.


Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is one of the most important pests of cassava in Africa and several countries of Asia due to the damage caused by direct feeding, the excretion of honeydew, and its capacity as a vector of cassava mosaic geminivirus. There is a general consensus that B. tabaci is a complex of morphologically indistinguishable populations with different biotypes. In the Americas, the polyphagous biotype B does not appear to feed on cassava. Recent studies indicate that it is possible, however, for biotype B to gradually adapt to cassava using phylogenetically related hosts. Therefore, the possibility that some wild species of cassava constitute intermediate hosts in the adaptation process may lead to the establishment of biotype B on commercial varieties of Manihot esculenta. In here, we evaluated Jatropha gossypiifolia, two wild species of cassava (Manihot fl abellifolia and M. carthaginensis) and a commercial cassava variety (MCol 2063) as hosts of biotype B. The highest oviposition rate (2.7 eggs /two days) occurred on M. esculenta, although the development time (44 d) was the longest when compared to M. carthaginensis and J. gossypiifolia. About 60% of the population could reproduce on the wild cassava species vs. 55% on J. gossypiifolia and 27.5% on the commercial variety. Our data suggest that J. gossypiifolia is a suitable host and the wild species M. carthaginensis can constitute a potential intermediate host in the adaptation of biotype B to commercial varieties of cassava.


Transport of desert dust is often accepted as a migration of clay minerals having various size fractions. Smaller fractions are capable of achieving transcontinental or transoceanic transport via prevailing wind systems as well as going deep into respiratory system through inhalation. Dust and cloud interactions assisted by the action of bacterial excretion products can lead to alterations of desert-dust clay fraction within the cloud droplet, which result in the formation of reduced iron and some other essential micronutrient elements within the dust veil, provided there is sufficient solar-light intensity. Here we present on a daily basis a 6-month time series of air-quality measurements, precipitation data and number of patients applying hospitals having respiratory problems. The number of patients correlates with the air-quality deterioration associated with dust pulses, excepted during the precipitation-free season. We therefore tentatively assign this correlation to the effects of in-cloud bacterial interaction with dust, rather than to dust itself.


Twist genes code for regulatory bHLH proteins essential for embryonic development and conserved across the metazoa. There are four genes that constitute the zebrafish twist family: twist1a, twist1b, twist2, orthologs of the mammalian twist1 and twist2 genes; and twist3—a gene from a new clade that does not exist in mammals. Presented here are their embryonic mRNA expression profiles. The study extends the known conservation of twist developmental patterns in tetrapods to the fish, e.g., expression in cephalic neural crest, sclerotome and lateral plate mesoderm. Some other expression domains are unique, like hypochord and dorsal aorta; some, like the notochord, may be ancestral patterns retained from protochordates; and the expression in invaginating/migrating cells may have been retained from the jellyfish. Perhaps this is one of the more ancient functions of twist—conserved from diploblasts to humans—to facilitate cell movement. Developmental Dynamics 236:2615–2626, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The conventional wisdom in law is that a prior conviction is one of the most powerful and damaging pieces of evidence that can be offered against a witness or party. In the legal lore, prior convictions seriously undercut the credibility of the witness and can derail the outcome of a trial. This paper suggests that may not always be true.This paper details the results of an empirical study of juror decision-making that challenges the conventional wisdom about prior convictions. In our study, the prior conviction evidence did not have a direct impact on the outcome of the civil trial or the credibility of the witness with the conviction. Moreover, we tested prior conviction evidence with a white witness and an African-American witness and saw no difference in results.The prior conviction evidence did, however, change the trial in a substantial, but indirect, way. Rather than the direct effect on outcome that we might have expected, the introduction of the prior conviction evidence changed the mental decision-making process of the jurors. Specifically, the evidence seemed to subconsciously lead the jurors to conclude that to decide liability, they had to believe one party over the other. The prior conviction evidence thus turned the trial into a zero sum credibility contest in which believing the plaintiff's story meant disbelieving the defendant's (and vice versa). This "zero sum" effect did not appear in the control version of the trial.In sum, the results of our experiment suggest that while prior convictions are highly noticeable and powerful pieces of evidence, they may not always be the bane that lawyers think they are. Nevertheless, the introduction of this evidence has the potential to change a civil trial by changing the juror decision-making process.


Mar Chiquita is the southernmost in a series of temperate brackish lagoons extending along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean from southern Brazil to northeastern Argentina. These shallow lagoons are fringed by dunes, salt marshes and mud flats, where dense populations of intertidal crabs thrive. This particular type of estuarine habitat (termed cangrejal, from Spanish cangrejo = crab) is dominated by the semiterrestrial and euryhaline species Neohelice (formerly Chasmagnathus) granulata. Through its intense burrowing and omnivorous feeding activities, this ecosystem engeneer influences the biogeochemical conditions, vegetation growth, habitat structure, benthic community composition, and other characteristics of its habitat. Since two decades, this crab has increasingly also been used as a model in studies of ecophysiological and life-history adaptations to transitional environments between the sea, freshwater and land. Numerous investigations have shown adaptions in its osmoregulation, energy metabolism, and other physiological, biochemical, and behavioural traits. In the early life-history stages, most adaptations are related to an export strategy. Hatching rhythms with maximum release at nocturnal ebb tides minimize larval predation by pelagic fish and ensure a rapid downstream transport to lower estuarine or coastal waters, where subsequent zoeal development takes place at higher and more stable salinities. This is later followed by re-immigration of megalopae, whose recruitiment is stimulated by adult odors and other chemical cues associated with the cangrejal habitat. These ontogenetic migrations coincide with genetically programmed changes in larval osmoregulation: hyper-regulation is strong at hatching, lower in the subsequent zoeal stages, and high again in the megalopa and juveniles. In conclusion, there are strong interactions between the key species N. granulata and its coastal lagoon environment, shaping each other like in a process of co-evolution.


In XIX century, Italy represented an essential step for scientists aimed to study its most typical and significant geological sites. The result was the publication of a great number of papers dealing with the geological features of Italy in all the European languages. Among them, the German geologist Otto Hermann Wilhelm Abich was undoubtedly one the most important researchers that worked in Italy between 1833 and 1839, and devoted his research activity on the study of active and extinct volcanoes. Abich carried out several topographical surveys, mineralogical and petrographical analyses, and published several scientific papers, describing the structure, activity and history of Etna, Vesuvius and the other volcanoes in Southern Italy. In 1840, Abich moved to Dorpat, in Estonia, becoming the most important geologist of that region. Nevertheless, he never forgot the time spent in Italy that he visited again in 1856-57. This latter period pushed him to process the new collected data and those saved from the fire that destroyed his St. Petersburg office in 1863. The analysis of papers, private correspondence, and some original watercolours found in the Archive of the Geological Survey of Italy - ISPRA, has emphasized his admiration for Italian geological features and landscapes.


This article surveys two major streams of research concerning the financial aspects of the multinational firm. Specifying, we review and synthesize the literature on multinational firm capital structure and the wealth effects of firm internationalization. The theoretical and empirical literature in these two areas is developed with a special emphasis on the more recent research. An integrated summary is provided along with suggested avenues for future research. Our understanding of the multinational firm (MNF) has undergone significant changes in the last 20 years due to the increasingly greater availability and dissemination of firm level financial information. Paralleling this increase in data availability has been an increase in the standard of rigor applied to international finance research. Early work by Shapiro (1978), and Agmon and Lessard (1977) set the ground work for future inquiry and helped define the research standards in international finance. Now, two decades later, it seems appropriate to identify and synthesize some of the existing research on the financial aspects of the multinational firm. Our goal in this survey is to integrate the literature, summarize the results, and to identify some areas in which future research has great promise. A major problem in synthesizing the research available on the financial aspects of the multinational firm is in developing or defining the relevant boundaries. We have chosen to focus on two activities we feel are at the core of the responsibilities for the international financial manager. This excludes many areas covered in a typical international finance text such as monetary systems, currency exchange markets, and international banking. These items are only introduced tangentially as they relate to or affect the financial characteristics of the multinational firm. Specifically, this survey covers two topics: 1) multinational firm capital structure, and 2) the wealth effects of internationalization. Multinational Firm Capital Structure Modigliani and Miller (1958), in a pioneering article, modeled the optimal mix of debt and equity financing. Further work in this area has led to the agency cost/tax shield tradeoff model (ATT) which is arguably the most prominent capital structure model (Megginson, 1997). The ATT model is predicated on the idea that firms choose their optimal mix of debt and equity financing by trading off the increasing agency costs of debt and equity with the tax benefits of debt. As firm leverage increases, debt holder risk increases as shareholders and managers maintain control of firm investments. Therefore, debtholders are forced to monitor shareholders and their agents, the managers, as the potential for wealth expropriation increases with increases in debt. IMAGE FORMULA8 As leverage increases, the debt tax shield and the expected bankruptcy costs increase and agency costs decrease. The literature on capital structure in the multinational firm concentrates primarily on whether TS, EB, or AC differ between MNFs and DFs. The analysis in this section is predicated on the framework in Equation (1). Theoretical Development A) TS: The Impact of Differential Taxes on Capital Structure Senbet (1979) derives a capital structure model suggesting that international tax differentials play an important role in the MNF capital structure decision. Using the nomenclature of the model specified in Equation (1), his model suggests that TS will be different for multinational firms relative to domestic firms. Shapiro (1978) posits that MNFs will tend to use greater debt. He argues that if foreign tax rates are lower than domestic tax rates then dividends will lead to increased taxes. Furthermore, Shapiro notes that if aggregate foreign taxes are higher than domestic taxes and a withholding tax exists, dividends will also lead to greater taxes. These tax arguments suggest that the optimal capital structure for the multinational firm, holding all else constant, will involve a greater usage of leverage as the MNF gets a larger tax benefit of debt (i. …


Seeing how electric vehicles are the future of automobiles in general, it has become crucial to manage heat
properly, so as to maximize the efficiency and range of the vehicle. Most complex systems use Li-Ion batteries as there are several advantages to this, such as maximize range, minimize weight and space used by batteries. The high power density of Li-Ions batteries allows it to be a perfect candidate for electric vehicles given the current state of technology. One of the conditions that comes with such a battery pack is its optimum operating temperature which lies between 15 and 30 degrees Celsius. The battery must have a thermal management system, either passive or active, wherein it always stays within this range. This paper aims to answer the major questions which deal with how to most effectively manage heat in an EV or HEV by comparing multiple solutions


This dissertation evaluates the activities of the Diocese of Lagos West, Anglican
Communion, Church of Nigeria and its contribution to societal development. Over the years,
the DLW has been involved with the society and has become a major diocese within the
Anglican Communion, Church of Nigeria and in Lagos State, with a substantial numerical
strength as well as a meaningful social, political, economic, and religious influence within the
society. Since its establishment, the DLW has made great achievements in the areas of
education, healthcare, social and political development.
This study aims to show that the DLW in Lagos has been part of society building and it will
explore the impacts of their activities in the society. This study demonstrates that the social
and political involvement of the DLW in the society has a biblical and philosophical
conviction. The research hypothesises that the closer the relationship of the church has with
the state is crucial for the benefit of the people. The research employed an empirical
qualitative approach to test the proposition by analysing the data from the research area. The
findings of the research show that religion and politics can mix as they are both concerned
with the same subject matter –the people, who belong to both camps. The findings also show
the close relationship between the church and the state and the extent to which the church is
involved with the state and politics. However, the ambivalent character of the church like
every other faith was validated. State and church do both impact society, but the DLW's
effective work in the society was quite distinct from the state or its politics. As such, the
church is well positioned for societal transformation both politically and socially. This should
serve as an example to other churches, allowing them to realise that their social and political
actions are means of fulfilling their mission and clear the doubts on the legitimacy of the
Church getting involved in the socio-political realm. Recommendations are made to ensure
that the church maintains its boundaries despite its involvement -whilst sustaining its positive
influence in the society on the one hand, and also challenging the unjust structures and
unfavourable government's policies, on the other hand.


In the period since the 1978-79 revolution, the concerns of Iran's migrant poor have continued to shape discontent and protest in the country's rapidly expanding cities. Despite government attempts to attract individuals to more sparsely populated areas, the post-World War II trend toward urban expansion has not been reversed. Both internal and external factors have contributed to the lack of success. Urban population growth has been the product of continued citywide migration, exacerbated by high rates of natural population increase and the impact of the Iran-Iraq War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Afghan refugee crisis. While Tehran's primacy continues to dominate Iran's urban landscape, the city's rate of growth in percentage terms has slowed considerably. Nevertheless, the city's absolute population growth is explosive, almost doubling between the revolution and 1984.
This paper analyzes the Islamic Republic's attempts to deal with political and social issues that have emerged as consequence of continued rapid urban growth. It assesses the congruence of the regime's ideological pronouncements and its actual economic programs as it tries to cope with the pressing issues that concern the urban poor. The paper concludes that, just as in previous years, cities serve as the locus of protest activity. This time, however, demonstrations have been strengthened by successes experienced during the revolutionary period. Moreover, the issues of marginalized urban dwellers are now combining with the worries of Iran's increasingly youthful population. Unless their central concerns are addressed, further discontent and protests are to be expected.


Abstract Bryophytes are important components of pine forests; however, the bryophyte layer is characterised by the dominance of a small number of taxa. Clear-cut logging changes microclimate conditions, while ploughing before planting young trees disrupts bryophyte patches. This promotes early successional species and can work in favour of species diversity provided that there are simultaneous regeneration of late successional species bryophytes. In the Tuchola Forest (north-western Poland), we investigated the occurrence and abundance of ground bryophytes using a chronosequence method. The study was carried out on plots that represented the following stand age classes: ≤ 10, 11–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, > 80 years. Bryophyte richness was higher in the youngest stands than in the oldest ones. There are distinctive changes of species composition in the course of succession that range from colonists and stress-tolerant perennials to competitive perennials and from species growing in tufts to species growing in wefts. There are not "true" forest species even in the oldest stands. There is only a tendency for the exchange of species that prefer open habitats to species that prefer both forests and open habitats. However, clear cutting contributes to the increase of species richness of ground bryophytes and spatial diversity of plant patches in managed forests. The positive aspects of clear cutting can only be considered in relation to the species diversity in the oldest and managed stands but not with those in natural forests.


The origins of stagflation and the possibility of its recurrence continue to be an important concern among policymakers and in the popular press. It is common to associate the origins of the Great Stagflation of the 1970s with the two major oil price increases of 1973/74 and 1979/80. This paper argues that oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the causal mechanism generating stagflation as is often thought. We provide a model that can explain the bulk of stagflation by monetary expansions and contractions without reference to supply shocks. Monetary fluctuations also help to explain variations in the price of oil (and other commodities) and help to account for the striking coincidence of major oil price increases and worsening stagflation. In contrast, there is no theoretical presumption that oil supply shocks are stagflationary. In particular, we show that oil supply shocks may quite plausibly lower the GDP deflator and that there is little independent evidence that oil supply shocks actually raised the deflator (as opposed to the CPI). The oil supply shock view also fails to explain the dramatic surge in the price of other industrial commodities that preceded the 1973/74 oil price increase and the fact that increases in industrial commodity prices lead oil price increases in the OPEC period.


Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) play essential roles in the control of skin development, postnatal tissue remodelling and tumorigenesis. To explore whether some of the effects of BMP signalling are mediated by microRNAs, we performed genome-wide microRNA (miRNA) screening in primary mouse keratinocytes after BMP4 treatment. Microarray analysis revealed substantial BMP4-dependent changes in the expression of distinct miRNAs, including miR-21. Real-time PCR confirmed that BMP4 dramatically inhibits miR-21 expression in the keratinocytes. Consistently, significantly increased levels of miR-21 were observed in transgenic mice overexpressing the BMP antagonist noggin under control of the K14 promoter (K14-noggin). By in situ hybridization, miR-21 expression was observed in the epidermis and hair follicle epithelium in normal mouse skin. In K14-noggin skin, miR-21 was prominently expressed in the epidermis, as well as in the peripheral portion of trichofolliculoma-like hair follicle-derived tumours that contain proliferating and poorly differentiated cells. By transfecting keratinocytes with a miR-21 mimic, we identified the existence of two groups of the BMP target genes, which are differentially regulated by miR-21. These included selected BMP-dependent tumour-suppressor genes (Pten, Pdcd4, Timp3 and Tpm1) negatively regulated by miR-21, as well as miR-21-independent Id1, Id2, Id3 and Msx2 that predominantly mediate the effects of BMPs on cell differentiation. In primary keratinocytes and HaCaT cells, miR-21 prevented the inhibitory effects of BMP4 on cell proliferation and migration. Thus, our study establishes a novel mechanism for the regulation of BMP-induced effects in the skin and suggests miRNAs are important modulators of the effects of growth factor signalling pathways on skin development and tumorigenesis.


Abstract Data visualizations are often represented in public discourse as objective proof of facts. However, a visualization is only a single translation of reality, just like any other media, representation devices, or modes of representation. If we wish to encourage thoughtful, informed, and literate consumption of data visualizations, it is crucial that we consider why they are often presented and interpreted as objective. We reflect theoretically on data visualization as a system of representation historically anchored in science, rationalism, and notions of objectivity. It establishes itself within a lineage of conventions for visual representations which extends from the Renaissance to the present and includes perspective drawing, photography, cinema and television, as well as computer graphics. By examining our tendency to see credibility in data visualizations and grounding that predisposition in a historical context, we hope to encourage more critical and nuanced production and interpretation of data visualizations in the public discourse.


This paper examines the constraints on subject extraction in Finnish. It is proposed that phi-agreement between the subject and the predicate introduces a freezing effect for the subject argument in a variety of constructions in Finnish. In addition, it is shown that Finnish subject freezing cannot be accounted for by relying on case-assignment or movement to the subject position. Finnish data therefore support the hypothesis that subject extraction is sensitive to subject agreement morphology (e.g. Richards 2001, Boeckx 2003). However, this proposal requires two additional assumptions: first, that the Agree-relation may take place covertly for some subject arguments, and second, that phi-concord does not have a freezing effect.


The great inequities in the distribution of land have mainly been the doing of governments. Thus, it is also incumbent upon governments to dispense lands justly. As such, land reform is a redress for social injustice. Focusing on the issue of land and natural resources reform, this paper examines the relationship between political and economic reform and how they significantly affect the land and natural resources reform agenda; arguing that given a new administration under Cory Aquino, now is the opportune time to proceed with land redistribution. The process of land redistribution requires strong political will. More importantly, the paper argues that the genuineness of a land reform program depends on the extent to which it has managed to render social justice. There are several issues or myths that need to addressed in order for a new land reform program to be properly guided and be rid of the errors of the past. The paper also identifies the elements that define a just land reform and how they can be achieved given our social, political and economic conditions. Finally, it probes the case of Hacienda Luisita and its relevance to the land reform debate. The crux of the issue on Hacienda Luisita is if Cory Aquino and the rest of the high officials in her administration could demonstrate their willingness and commitment to land reform even at the expense of their own land holdings and land concessions.


Modern fashion photography was born when three brothers, Parisian postcard photographers, shifted their lenses to the upper echelon of French society in the early twentieth century. As impromptu portraits of beautiful women in inimitable finery at racecourses, resorts, and cafs began to appear in magazines, courant designers such as Chanel, Herms, and Madeleine Vionnet rushed to send their models to posh watering holes to be photographed with the beau monde. The first-ever showcase of 300 rich black and white Seberger images, this luxe collection is a must-have for fashionistas, Francophiles, and vintage clothing enthusiasts. "Elegance" recalls a bygone era of glamour, and illuminates the candid beginnings of a now highly stylized photographic form.


Since previous studies suggest a relationship between motor and cognitive development in children, a research was conducted in order to examine the differences in motor skills of children with different levels of intellectual ability. In a sample of 88 respondents, boys and girls aged 7, an assessment of motor skills was performed by using the battery of seven motor tests and assessment of intellectual abilities by using the test of Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. Respondents were divided into three groups according to the results of the test. After analyzing the results of the research it was shown that there were no statistically significant differences in the area of motor abilities of children of different intellectual levels, but there were differences at the univariate level regarding the tests Hand Tapping and Seat-and-Reach.


MgF(2) films with a columnar microstructure are obliquely deposited on glass substrates by resistive heating evaporation. The columnar angles of the films increases with the deposition angle. Anisotropic stress does not develop in the films with tilted columns. The residual stresses in the films depend on the deposition and columnar angles in a columnar microstructure.


Home physiotherapy technologies have been prevalent in these recent years as countries move into the development of a smart nation. Individuals will be motivated due to the flexibility of doing the exercises. Despite having the understanding that individuals needs to be motivated, efforts in this direction have been limited to the user interface design of the system itself which will bring boredom to the individuals after a few tries. There has been little work done in developing technologies such that individuals will be able to encourage physiotherapy patients to encourage one another to perform the exercises. In this study, we propose for the individuals to be socially identified. In this way, individuals will have to make progress so as to achieve a sense of pride and respect in the physiotherapy community. To fill the gap of the need for home physiotherapy technologies to be equipped with social identity features, this study draws upon the social identity theory, social categorization theory and trait theory to examine the significance of social identity. As a research in progress, we plan to evaluate the effects of social identity empirically. This study will provide significant theoretical and practical contributions to the existing knowledge about home physiotherapy technologies.


Though literature may be viewed as a document of human experience, yet there are many philosophical implications of it. Philosophy deals with certain very intractable questions related to our life and experience. The analytic tradition of philosophy with its emphasis upon clarity and precision was inspired by science. But there are certain aspects of philosophy which brings it close to literature : its use of rhetoric, metaphors and thought experiments are examples. We find philosophy in literature and also literature in philosophy. There is also a branch of study called philosophy of literature which investigates the nature of literary interpretation and also the presuppositions and foundations of literature. The Platonic view that literature is mere imitation of imitation is unsubstantiated. Here representation goes beyond the particular. The 'representation' is here that of the essences, which explains the universal appeal of literature.


This report presents various governmental and nongovernmental estimates of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces fatalities. The Iraq government is releasing increasingly regular data on these deaths. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) releases the monthly pattern of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces deaths, and it regularly updates total U.S. military deaths and wounded statistics from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), as reflected in CRS Report RS21578, Iraq: U.S. Casualties, by Susan G. Chesser. Because the estimates contained in this report are based on varying time periods and have been created using differing methodologies, readers should exercise caution when using them and should look to them as guideposts rather than as statements of fact.


"Eye Movement Disorders" fills a great void in the ophthalmology and neurology literature by presenting eye movement disorders in a full-color, highly illustrative format This book is for anyone trying to master the intricate relationship between eye movement disorders and their underlying neuroanatomy and pathophysiology, and for everyone who needs a quick reference for the less familiar clinical problems in these areas. It fills a great void in the ophthalmology and neurology literature by presenting the complete range of eye movement disorders in a full-color, highly illustrated format along with concise-yet-comprehensive explanations.


The intention of this paper is to focus on three aspects of the slug test that are not as familiar as the main analysis techniques: the effects of double-porosity formations, the effects of an impermeable linear boundary, and the effects of a variable storage well on the response of the slug test. The intention is to familiarize the reader with the deviations of the response from the standard response of a slug test well in a homogeneous formation. The signature of a double-porosity formation on the slug test is most significant under conditions that provide the transitional matrix flow effects at dimensionless heads greater than 0.0001. From a practical point of view, the interporosity transfer coefficient is the most likely variable to be determined from the slug test, and not the storage ratio coefficient. The effects of an impermeable linear boundary on the slug test can be significant for cases with a large wellbore storage and a small distance to the linear boundary. It is shown that in some cases boundary effects are evident even in the traditional semi-log presentation of slug test responses. The solution technique for the linear boundary slug test is significantly different from the conventional slug test, and employs a two-dimensional formulation. The effects of variable wellbore storage during a slug test have initially been studied as the closed chamber test. In such slug tests, the wellbore storage coefficient is a combination of fluid interface motion and multiphase compression in the wellbore. The nonlinearity of the storage does not provide for simple analytical solutions. Hence, numerical methods are used to study drillstem slug tests such as the air chamber test, or the closed chamber test.


The Saccharomyces cerevisiae CDC25 gene encodes a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for Ras proteins. Its catalytic domain is highly homologous to Ras-GEFs from all eukaryotes. Even though Cdc25 is the first Ras-GEF identified in any organism, we still know very little about how its function is regulated in yeast. In this work we provide evidence for the involvement of the N terminus of Cdc25 in the regulation of its activity. A truncated CDC25 lacking the noncatalytic C-terminal coding sequence was identified in a screen of high-copy suppressors of the heat-shock-sensitive phenotype of strains in which the Ras pathway is hyper-activated. The truncated gene acts as a dominant-negative mutant because it only suppresses the heat-shock sensitivity of strains that require the function of CDC25. Our two-hybrid assays and immunoprecipitation analyses show interactions between the N terminus of Cdc25 and itself, the C terminus, and the full-length protein. These results suggest that the dominant-negative effect may be a result of oligomerization with endogenous Cdc25. Further evidence of the role of the N terminus of Cdc25 in the regulation of its activity is provided by the mapping of the activating mutation of CDC25HS20 to the serine residue at position 365 in the noncatalytic N-terminal domain. This mutation induces a phenotype similar to activating mutants of other genes in the Ras pathway in yeast. Hence, the N terminus may exert a negative control on the catalytic activity of the protein. Taken together these results suggest that the N terminus plays a crucial role in regulating Cdc25 and consequently Ras activity, which in S. cerevisiae is essential for cell cycle progression.


The respiration of Micromonospora vulgaris at 60" was studied by means of the Warburg technique. Various cultural methods and heat treatments were used to separate the different growth phases of this structurally complex organism. Oneto two-day growths bearing aerial mycelium were most active. Spores were inactive. Vegetative mycelium which developed within 24 hr. in the Warburg vessels was active, but similar 1-day or older growth harvested from cultures proved to be inactive.


As the implementation deadlines approach, the electronics industry is focusing significant efforts on compliance with the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) directive and the waste electrical and electrical equipment (WEEE) directive. The intent of the EU RoHS Directive (2002/95/EC) is to restrict the use of six substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBBs and certain PBDEs) in certain electronic products. There are a number of methods that companies are employing to validate restricted substance compliance within the supply chain, including analytical testing. Normative test methods are needed for the industry to determine the concentrations of the regulated substances in electronic products. This paper presents the practical application of a handheld x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer to estimate the concentration levels of restricted elements such as lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) in electronic components. Through this study, handheld XRF was determined to be a suitable screening tool to estimate the concentration of regulated substances in electronic components with some limitations. Being quick and easy-to-use, XRF has shown to be a useful tool for conducting in-house screening analyses of components to reduce testing time and costs.


An optimized amount of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant was used for the first time to fabricate porous TiO2 nanofibers by an electrospinning technique combined with post-annealing at 500 °C for 5 h in air medium. The fabricated porous TiO2 nanofibers were systematically characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, surface area measurements and electrochemical testing. The porous TiO2 nanofibers contained numerous surface pores with an average diameter of ∼80–90 nm. As an anode, the porous TiO2 nanofiber electrode delivered not only a high reversible capacity and excellent cycle stability over 100 cycles but also excellent rate capability at various current rates in comparison to control TiO2 nanofibers (prepared in the absence of CTAB). The rapid transportation of lithium ions and reduced lithium ion diffusion length probably are responsible for the improved electrochemical performances of the porous TiO2 nanofiber electrode synthesized in the presence of the CTAB surfactant.


Rape myths are one way in which sexual violence has been sustained and justified through history and modern times. However, there has been a dearth of scholarship about rape myths concerning male victims. This paper reviews the historical origins, development, and current manifestations of male rape myths prevalent in Western society. Specifically, we review male rape myths and their origins in the areas of medicine, law, media, the military, and incarcerated settings. The paper also delineates possible means for eradicating male rape myths at the individual, institutional, and societal levels.


This working paper integrates the role of entrepreneurship and firms into debates on why Asia, Latin America and Africa was slow to catch up with the West following the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern economic growth. It argues that the currently dominant explanations, which focus on deficient institutions, poor human capital development, geography and culture are important, but not sufficient. This is partly because recent research in business history has shown that several of the arguments are not empirically proved, but especially because the impact of these factors on the creation and performance of innovative business enterprises is not clearly specified. Modern economic growth diffused from its origins in the North Sea region to elsewhere in western and northern Europe, across the Atlantic, and later to Japan, but struggled to get traction elsewhere. The societal and cultural embeddedness of the new technologies posed significant entrepreneurial challenges. The best equipped to overcome these challenges were often entrepreneurs based in minorities who held significant advantages in capital-raising and trust levels. By the interwar years productive modern business enterprise was emerging across the non-Western world. Often local and Western managerial practices were combined to produce hybrid forms of business enterprise. After 1945 many governmental policies designed to facilitate catch-up ended up crippling these emergent business enterprises without putting effective alternatives in place. The second global economy has provided more opportunities for catch up from the Rest, and has seen the rapid growth of globally competitive businesses in Asia, Latin America and Africa. This is explained not only by institutional reforms, but by new ways for business in the Rest to access knowledge and capital, including returning diaspora, business schools and management consultancies. Smarter state capitalism was also a greater source of international competitive advantage than the state intervention often seen in the past.


This article reports on a 4-year study of High School Puente's impact on program participants. Data include approximately 1,000 Puente students and 1,000 non-Puente students from18 high schools to test the impact of the programon aspirations, attitudes toward school, and preparation for college. Data were also collected on 75 matched pairs of Puente and non-Puente students to test the impact of the Puente program on GPA, preparation for college, attitudes and aspirations, and college going. The study found significant differences between Puente and non-Puente students on attitudes toward school, preparation for college, aspirations to attend college, and percentage of students going on to 4-year colleges. Puente students reported going on to 4-year colleges at nearly double the rate of non-Puente students with the same grades and test scores. The article discusses aspects of the programthat probably helped to account for these outcomes.


By alluding to the writing of his 1990 novel Voyage de noces in the course of the narration of 1997 Dora Bruder, author Patrick Modiano invites an examination of the connections between these two works. This paper demonstrates how Voyage de noces and Dora Bruder, when studied together as a sort of diptych, are informed by what commentators have described as Modiano's simultaneous preoccupations with the expression of absence and loss, on the one hand, and with the use of writing to compensate for these, on the other. Specifically, a formal and thematic relationship between these two texts is shaped first by a movement from origins to loss, as developed in Voyage de noces, and then by an inverse movement from loss to recovery as outlined in Dora Bruder. However, just as the fullness of being that typically characterizes the idealized version of origins—here, meaningful parental presence and a sense of personal identity—is always already deflated by the recognition that this fullness is not a given but rather remains to be realized, absolute recovery, too, is impossible. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol29/iss2/7 Origins, Loss, and Recovery in Patrick Modiano's Voyage de noces and Dora Bruder


The overall goal of this study is to quantify interannual trends in oxygen concentrations and their spatial variability in the coastal Pacific Ocean off the southern coast of California, and to examine their relationship to concurrent hydrographic properties. The study focuses on trends within the upper 500 meters of the water column to indicate changes in seasonally upwelled waters over time. The analysis uses the publiclyavailable CalCOFI bottle cast data gathered and distributed by Scripps Institute. At each station, data include oxygen concentration and hydrographic information, such as potential density, depth, temperature, and salinity. This study utilizes data from 30.35° N and 34.21° N. Using MATLAB, data were bin-averaged and interpolated into quarterly time series at 24 stations and at standard depths. Figures were constructed to visualize latitudinal variability and cross-shelf variability of seasonal and interannual oxygen concentrations throughout the water column. Overall trends of oxygen at both standard depths and fixed density surfaces were approximated by a non-parametric linear fit. Observed multi-year trends in oxygen concentration are quantified and compared to those evident in hydrographic data under identical methods. Declining oxygen concentrations occur across the entire study region, peaking in the range of the California undercurrent. Deoxygenation rates maximize at equivalent magnitudes when viewed by both depth and density, reinforcing prior assertions that increasing advection of low oxygen Pacific Equatorial waters into the system is a strong driver of deoxygenation. On isopycnals, oxygen concentrations trends track best with salinity, suggesting salinity trends may be usable to predict oxygen trends.


Objective To compare the longitudinal trajectories of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in children with probable developmental coordination disorder (DCD) with those of typically developing children. Setting School-based study, conducted in a large region of Ontario, Canada. 75 out of a possible 92 schools (83%) consented to participate. Participants A cohort of children, enrolled in grade 4 (mean 9 years 11 months; SD 0.05) at baseline (n=2278) were followed twice-yearly over a 2-year period. Measures The short form of the Bruininks–Oseretsky test of motor proficiency was used to identify children with probable DCD and the Leger shuttle run to measure maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max). Results Mixed-effects modelling was used to estimate the change over time in predicted VO2max for both children with probable DCD and typically developing children. For all children, VO2max declined over time. Children (boys and girls) with probable DCD not only had lower VO2max at baseline compared with typically developing children, VO2max declined among these children at a much steeper rate. Conclusion Although previous research has found children with DCD to have poor CRF compared with typically developing children, most of this work has relied on cross-sectional designs to examine group differences. The results of this study confirm that differences in CRF between children with and without probable DCD persist over time, highlighting the concern that DCD is a risk factor for poor cardiovascular health in children.


Similarity functions are essential to many learning algorithms. To allow their use in support vector machines (SVM), i.e., for the convergence of the learning algorithm to be guaranteed, they must be valid kernels. In the case of structured data, the similarities based on the popular edit distance often do not satisfy this requirement, which explains why they are typically used with k-nearest neighbor (k-NN). A common approach to use such edit similarities in SVM is to transform them into potentially (but not provably) valid kernels. Recently, a different theory of learning with (e,g,t) -good similarity functions was proposed, allowing the use of non-kernel similarity functions. Moreover, the resulting models are supposedly sparse, as opposed to standard SVM models that can be unnecessarily dense. In this paper, we study the relevance and applicability of this theory in the context of string edit similarities. We show that they are naturally good for a given string classification task and provide experimental evidence that the obtained models not only clearly outperform the k-NN approach, but are also competitive with standard SVM models learned with state-of-the-art edit kernels, while being much sparser.


Submitted to the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Namibia, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources


The purpose of clarification in the sugar industry is to remove soluble, insoluble and colloidal matter from cane juice. Efficient clarification is required to produce high quality sugar and to prevent entrainment of solids in downstream equipment. The objective of this study is to produce a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of the Magra Ultrasep clarifier. This was accomplished by: • Modelling the hydrodynamics of a laboratory scale clarifier In the Fluent CFD program. • Incorporating the flocculation process into the CFD model. • Performing experiments on a pilot scale clarifier to obtain parameter values for the flocculation model. The hydrodynamic model of the clarifier showed the presence of a recirculation zone above the baffle plate. Particle injections using Fluent's discrete phase modelling option determined that particles within the size range of IOOj..Lm to 4mm would circulate in this region, forming the bed of floc particles required for the Magra Ultrasep to work efficiently. The flocculation process in Fluent was represented using three different solid phases of different particle sizes. Small and medium sized particles were allowed to combine to form larger particles by changing the volume fractions according to three rate equations. A fibre glass laboratory scale model was set up at Maidstone Sugar Mill and fed the same sugar cane juice that enters the Rapi-Dorr clarifiers. The experimental results were then fed into a simplified flocculation model in MATLAB. An overall rate constant (k) of 5kg.m-.s-) for the flocculation kinetic equation satisfied the experimental result.


Four authors of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, and Dennis Anderson who provided advice and background papers for the Review, make a final rejoinder on the debate about the Review that has occupied recent issues of this journal. They respond to comments in the present issue by Carter et al., by Henderson, and by Tol and Yohe. Carter et al. continue to argue against a growing body of scientific evidence and a growing consensus on that same evidence. The source of their critique is, first, a distinctly partisan, and increasingly untenable, position on the broad range of available scientific evidence and, second, a mistrust of the international consensus-building exercise centred on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Henderson is also largely preoccupied with the latter, procedural issues. Tol and Yohe focus on economic arguments. Their critique is rather narrower in focus and concerns the way in which abatement costs were calculated in the supporting work carried out by Dennis Anderson. It rests on basic confusions and misconceptions, many of which were explained in previous contributions. However, readers of World Economics might be more interested in a broader reflection: how would the Stern team, following the debate of the last eight months, assess the approach, policies and arguments set out in the Review? Their view is that their analyses and policy proposals, and the arguments in support, are sound and have stood up well to scrutiny. In other words, they were right and for the right reasons. Central to many critiques of the Review is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of formal, highly aggregated economic modelling. Nevertheless, the Stern team have argued strongly and in their view convincingly that, even within the confines of formal economic modelling, the concerns raised by a small group of commentators do not overturn their basic conclusion that the cost of action is much less than the cost of inaction. The critics here fall short by failing to simultaneously afford the necessary importance to issues of risk and ethics.


Abstract The present study aims to determine the science and technology pre-service teachers' self-efficacy levels and their opinions about alternative assessment and evaluation approaches. The study was carried out with the participation of 53 science and technology pre-service teachers studying in the Faculty of Education at Celal Bayar University. As the data collection instruments, a self-efficacy scale about alternative assessment and evaluation approaches, a questionnaire form which was composed of open-ended questions about alternative assessment and evaluation approaches, and a semi-structured interview were used. It was found out that most of the pre-service teachers had high self-efficacy levels about alternative assessment and evaluation approaches. The results obtained from the questionnaire form and the interviews revealed that the pre-service teachers wanted to use these approaches in their future careers for different purposes, but they believed they might experience some problems while implementing these approaches. Furthermore, the study also offers some suggestions based on the pre-service teachers' self-efficacy levels and opinions about alternative assessment and evaluation approaches. Key Words Alternative Assessment and Evaluation, Self-Efficacy, Students' Views, Science And Technology Pre-Service Teachers. Certain fundamental changes have been carried out in the learning-teaching notion on the basis of the new curricular reform which has been gradually implemented in Turkey starting from the academic year 2005-2006. These changes have brought to the foreground the constructivist approach, which maintains that individuals construct information upon their previous knowledge using cognitive and social processes. As stated by Kilic, Karadeniz and Karatas (2003), constructivist approach requires that whole learning occurs as a result of mental construction and that individuals take greater responsibility and be more active during their learning process. Kanatli (2008) argues that every novel approach in the field of education influences the teaching methods and techniques used, as well as the assessment and evaluation techniques. In this context, as constructivist approach was introduced in the curriculum, changes were made in the learning-teaching methods, techniques, and strategies used, as well as in the assessment and evaluation notion. In the process of assessing an individual's knowledge, the focus had for long been on assessing factual knowledge, after which assessment of procedural knowledge gained prominence; however, today metacognitive knowledge has become the focal point in assessment (Fourie & Van Niekerk, 2001). Gulbahar and Buyukozturk (2008) suggest that the assessment method selected for learning and teaching process is effective in helping students acquire higher order thinking skills. Conventional assessment and evaluation approaches usually employ classical tests. As a traditional assessment strategy, summative assessment is a conventional method of only assessing learning outcomes at the end of a teaching process, while formative assessment as a part of performance assessment tracks progress during the semester and regularly collects feedback from students by way of responses (Born, 2003, p. 169). Since formative assessment mainly aims to gain insight into what students know and do not know for changes to be made in the learning- teaching process, techniques such as teacher observations and classroom discussions as well as homework and test analyses play a crucial role in this assessment approach (Boston, 2002). Dikli (2003) considers multiple choice tests, truefalse tests and short-answer questions as the commonly used traditional assessment and evaluation instruments. Such tests employed by these approaches include a limited number of options suggested by teachers (DeMauro, Helphrey, Schram, & Spiekermann, 2001) and focus on superficial knowledge assessing lower order skills and removed away from the real source of success (Miesels, 1995). …


Mycoplasma hominis one of the smallest free-living prokaryotes that lack peptidoglycan in the cell wall. It is also a well-known pathogenic Mycoplasmain the human reproductive system that causes abortion, bacterial vaginosis, infertility, and a low birth weight. This research investigated the incidence of preterm rupture of membrane (PROM)inpregnant women due to M.hominis in the Alavi Hospital of Ardabil Province using twocomparative PCR techniques.This study evaluated diagnostic tests on 100 pregnant womenwith rupturedmembraneand 20 healthy women withno symptoms (control) referred to the Alavi Hospital in Ardabil Province. After sampling, the samples were transferredto the laboratoryin tubes containing PBS and PPLO.Using culture ofsamples from 100 pregnant women with PROM, 41 samples (41%) were positive for the presence of M.hominiswhereas PCR revealedpositive results in62 samples (62%). PCR method displayed positive casesin 2 (10%) out of 20patients in the control group. PCR results were not significantly correlatedwith education level, parity, and gestational age. A direct correlationwas observed between the agesof pregnant women with vaginal infections before pregnancy, history of abortion, and in women with PROM.The incidence of PROMin pregnant women caused by infection of the bacterium M.hominis is high. PCR technique is more appropriatecompared with the culture method to detectM.hominis positive cases in pregnant women with PROM.


Title of dissertation: Text Summarization Evaluation: Correlating Human Performance on an Extrinsic Task with Automatic Intrinsic Metrics Stacy F. Hobson Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Professor Bonnie J. Dorr Department of Computer Science Text summarization evaluation is the process of assessing the quality of an individual summary produced by human or automatic methods. Many techniques have been proposed for text summarization and researchers require an easy and uniform method for evaluation of their summarization systems. Human evaluations are often costly, labor-intensive and time-consuming, but are known to produce the most accurate results. Automatic evaluations are fast, easy to use and reusable, but the quality of their results have not been independently shown to be similar to that of human evaluations. This thesis introduces a new human task-based summarization evaluation measure called Relevance Prediction that is a more intuitive measure of an individual's performance on a real-world task than agreement based on external judgments. Relevance Prediction parallels what a user does in the real world task of browsing a set of documents using standard search tools, i.e., the user judges relevance based on a short summary and then that same user—not an independent user—decides whether to open (and judge) the corresponding document. This measure is shown to be a more reliable measure of task performance than LDC Agreement, a current external gold-standard based measure used in the summarization evaluation community. Six experimental studies are conducted to examine the existence of correlations between the human task-based evaluations of text summarization and the output of current intrinsic automatic evaluation metrics. The experimental results indicate that moderate, yet consistent correlations exist between the RelevancePrediction method and the ROUGE metric for single-document summarization. This work also formally establishes the usefulness of text summarization in reducing task time while maintaining a similar level of task judgment accuracy as seen with the full text documents. TEXT SUMMARIZATION EVALUATION: CORRELATION HUMAN PERFORMANCE ON AN EXTRINSIC TASK WITH AUTOMATIC INTRINSIC METRICS


For initial boundary value problems of linear parabolic partial differential equations with random coefficients, we show analyticity of the solution with respect to the parameters and give an apriori error analysis for sparse tensor, space-time discretizations. The problem is reduced to a parametric family of deterministic initial boundary value problems on an infinite dimensional parameterspace by Galerkin projection onto finitely supported polynomial systems in the parameterspace. Uniform stability with respect to the support of the resulting coupled parabolic systems is established. Analyticity of the solution with respect to the countably many parameters is established, and a regularity result of the parametric solution is proved for both, compatible as well as incompatible initial data and source terms. The present results will be used in [6] to obtain convergence rates and stability of sparse space-time tensor product Galerkin discretizations in the parameter space.


Abstract St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, is one of the most forested islands in the West Indies and provides an opportunity to conserve both resident birds and wintering neotropical migrants. We conducted double-observer point counts of landbirds in December 2005 and 2006 in Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots and National Park Service (NPS) trails in Virgin Islands National Park (VINP) to assess population trends of birds in subtropical dry and moist forests. We recorded 2,270 individual birds representing 35 species at 150 point count stations in 2005, and 3,092 individuals of 32 species at 143 of these stations in 2006. The increase in birds per point from 2005 (15.1) to 2006 (21.6) was due to resident species, 17 of which were recorded more frequently in 2006. The 17 species of neotropical migrants composed 11.8% of all registrations in 2005 and 2006. Subtropical moist and dry forest habitats differed strongly in vegetation characteristics and plant species, but no species of birds exhibited a strong affiliation with either habitat type on FIA plots. Data from NPS trails showed that most migrant species were detected more often in moist, mature forest. The resident Bridled Quail-Dove (Geotrygon mystacea) also was correlated with mature forest. Plant and bird species co-occurrence with positive correlations that may carry a signal of preferred frugivory included Guettarda odorata (Rubiaceae) with Bridled Quail-Dove, and Myrciaria floribunda (Myrtaceae) with Pearly-eyed Thrasher (Margarops fuscatus). Migrant species did not exhibit strong long-term changes in relative abundance since founding of VINP in 1957, but four open-country resident species declined significantly between 1957 and 2006 as the forest matured. Forest maturation should continue on St. John, yielding a bright future for most of its landbirds barring catastrophic hurricanes, pathogens, or invasive plants.


The Covid-19 pandemic has plagued various countries in this hemisphere. The spread of this pandemic has  a  significant  impact  on  all  aspects  of  life  in various  countries,  including Indonesia. Various efforts have been made by both the central and regional governments in dealing with this problem, but in the process they are often faced with problems of differences in views and attitudes between levels of government, for example difference understanding that occurs between the Central Government and the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta. This problem occurs because of weak inter-governmental coordination in making public policies. This ineffective inter-governmental relationship, of course, can cause public confusion in complying with all existing policies so that it will lead to not achieving the goal of handling cases. The purpose of this study is to analyze how inter-governmental relations in handling Covid-19 in Indonesia, especially between the Central Government and the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta. The research method used in this research is literature study. While the data from the literature study is coded based on the indicators of the main theory. Result shows that there are a number of problems regarding the relation between central government and the  government of DKI Jakarta Province in which most of the problems lie more on institutional and demographic factors rather than the other four factors.


The incidence of chronic kidney diseases is increasing worldwide at an alarming rate. As this is emerging as a global threat to human health, present efforts are concentrated on the identification of new treatments that slow or even reverse the progression of chronic nephropathies. Endothelin (ET)-1 is a potent vasoconstrictor peptide with proinflammatory, mitogenic, and profibrotic effects, and it contributes to both normal renal physiology and pathology. There is robust experimental and clinical evidence for the role of ET-1and its cognate receptors in many progressive renal disorders. The effectiveness of ET receptor antagonists in improving renal hemodynamics and reducing fibrosis has been largely documented in experimental animals. However, whether selective ET(A) or dual ET(A)/ET(B) receptor antagonists are preferable is still a matter of debate. Combined therapies, including ET receptor antagonists, are promising to maximize partial renoprotection achieved with blockade of the renin-angiotensin system, particularly when treatment is given in the latter phase of the disease. The focus of this review is to explore the role of ET-1 in kidney diseases and to shed light on the novel pharmacological setting in chronic nephropathies.


Too many students acquire statistical knowledge and techniques independent of each other. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the many connections mathematically between parametric statistics and the General Linear Model. With these various connections students will see that parametric statistical analyses are essentially one technique the General Linear Model Parametric inferential statistics include t-tests of hypothesis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), correlation and regression. The ability of analyzing data in a variety of ways and using the General Liner Model (GLM) as a mathematical tool that can be applied for making these inferences are described. This paper shows connections between t-tests, ANOVA's, correlations, and regression. The capabilities of EXCEL to do mathematics, apply the Data Analysis Toolpak, find p-values for these tests and perform matrix algebra operations are demonstrated. Numerous ways of achieving the same results are displayed.