In the tropics, rain tends to be organized along concentrated rain bands, with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) over the ocean and monsoonal convergence zones over tropical land masses being particularly prominent features affecting hundreds of millions of people. What fundamentally controls the spatial and temporal distribution of these tropical rainbands remains an outstanding question in the literature. This thesis aims to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of seasonally migrating convergence zones over the ocean and in the South Asian monsoon region. First, we explore to what extent energetic arguments that have provided insight into the position and shifts of the annual and zonal mean ITCZ can also be applied on shorter timescales. Idealized aquaplanet simulations show that the energy flux equator (EFE) always leads the ITCZ, leading to a breakdown of the commonly assumed anti-correlation between the ITCZ position and the cross-equatorial energy transport. At times during which the EFE and the ITCZ reside on opposite sides of the equator, the required energy transport is in fact achieved by the Hadley cell, in which the ITCZ is embedded, changing its vertical structure into one of negative gross moist stability. One way in which this is accomplished is through the development of a shallow return flow at levels near minimum moist static energy. While the relationship between the EFE and the ITCZ in the observed seasonal cycle is more complex than what is seen in the idealized simulations, the development of bottom-heavy circulations is a common feature both in the zonal mean and in individual longitudinal sectors at times when the EFE and the ITCZ are in opposite hemispheres. In the last chapter of this thesis, we explore changes in the South Asian monsoon as topography over Africa is removed in the full-physics GFDL AM2.1 GCM. Against expectations, the removal of the African topography is accompanied by a strengthening of the precipitation over India despite a weakening of the Somali jet. This counter-intuitive precipitation increase is associated with the development of a lower-level cyclonic wind anomaly, and associated meridional moisture flux convergence, over the Indian peninsula. Potential vorticity (PV) budget analyses following air parcel trajectories show that this cyclonic anomaly arises because, in the absence of the blocking effect of the African topography, air particles that reach the Arabian Sea originate at higher latitude and hence have a higher background planetary vorticity.


Single layers of carbon (graphene) and hexagonal boron nitride may be grown on transition metal surfaces. The substrates take the role of the support and allow due to their catalytic activity the growth of perfect layers by chemical vapor deposition. The layers are sp2 hybridized honeycomb networks with strong in plane σ- and weaker out of plane π-bonds to the substrate and to the adsorbates. This hierarchy in bond strength causes anisotropic elastic properties, where the sp2 layers are stiff in plane and soft out of plane. A corrugation of these layers imposes a third hierarchy level in bond energies (α-bonds), with lateral bonding of molecular objects with sizes between 1 and 5 nanometer. The lateral extra bond energies due to the polarizability α of the adsorbates are in the range of thermal energies kTR at room temperature and are particularly interesting for nanotechnology. The concomitant template function will be discussed. The peculiar bond hierarchy also imposes intercalation as another property of sp2 layer systems. Last but not least sp2 layer systems are particularly robust, i.e. survive immersion into liquids, which is a promise for sp2 layers being useful outside ultra high vacuum. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2010.62]


In this paper, we investigate the use of event models for automated planning. Event models are the action defining structures used to define a semantics for dynamic epistemic logic. Using event models, two issues in planning can be addressed: Partial observability of the environment and knowledge. In planning, partial observability gives rise to an uncertainty about the world. For single-agent domains, this uncertainty can come from incomplete knowledge of the starting situation and from the nondeterminism of actions. In multi-agent domains, an additional uncertainty arises from the fact that other agents can act in the world, causing changes that are not instigated by the agent itself. For an agent to successfully construct and execute plans in an uncertain environment, the most widely used formalism in the literature on automated planning is "belief states": sets of different alternatives for the current state of the world. Epistemic logic is a significantly more expressive and theoretically better founded method for representing knowledge and ignorance about the world. Further, epistemic logic allows for planning according to the knowledge (and iterated knowledge) of other agents, allowing the specification of a more complex class of planning domains, than those simply concerned with simple facts about the world. We show how to model multi-agent planning problems using Kripke-models for representing world states, and event models for representing actions. Our mechanism makes use of slight modifications to these concepts, in order to model the internal view of agents, rather than that of an external observer. We define a type of planning domain called epistemic planning domains, a generalisation of classical planning domains, and show how epistemic planning can successfully deal with partial observability, nondeterminism, knowledge and multiple agents. Finally, we show epistemic planning to be decidable in the single-agent case, but only semi-decidable in the multi-agent case.


Accuracy assessment of forest type maps is essential to evaluate the classification of forest ecosystems quantitatively. However, map users do not understand in which regions those forest types are well classified from conventional static accuracy measures. Hence, the objective of this study is to unveil spatial heterogeneities of accuracies of forest type classification in a map. Four forest types (deciduous broadleaf forest (DBF), deciduous needleleaf forest (DNF), evergreen broadleaf forest (EBF), and evergreen needleleaf forest (ENF)) found in the JAXA's land use / cover map of Japan were assessed by a volunteered Site-based dataset for Assessment of Changing LAnd cover by JAXA (SACLAJ). A geographically weighted (GW) correspondence matrix was applied to them to calculate the degree of overall agreements of forest type classes (forest overall accuracy), and the degree of accuracy for each forest class (forest user's and producer's accuracies) in a spatially varying way. This study compared spatial surfaces of these measures with static ones of them. The results show that the forest overall accuracy of the forest map tends to be relatively more accurate in the central Japan, while less in the Kansai and Chubu regions and the northern edge of Hokkaido. Static forest user's accuracy measures for DBF, DNF, and ENF are better than forest producer's accuracy ones, while the GW approach tells us such characteristics vary spatially and some areas have opposite trends. This kind of spatial accuracy assessment provides a more informative description of the accuracy than the simple use of conventional accuracy measures.


The main body and the New Fork and upper tongues of the Wasatch Formation and the Fontenelle, middle and upper tongues of the Green River Formation are recognized in the Cumberland Gap area. The main body of the Wasatch Formation corresponds to Oriel9s La Barge Member of the Wasatch Formation. The main body is a flood plain deposit derived from tectonically active areas to the W. of the basin. Both the New Fork and the upper tongues of the Wasatch Formation are delta deposits that extend from their source areas, the Wind River Mountains and the Uinta Mountains respectively. The upper tongue and probably the New Fork are divisible into beds deposited in terrestrial areas and areas of lacustrine fluctuation. The terrestrial beds (nearest the source) are brilliant red beds, and the beds deposited in areas of lacustrine fluctuation (furthest from the source) are drab-green and variegated red and green beds. The New Fork and upper tongues of the Wasatch Formation were deposited in response to tectonic uplift and not in response to a retreat of the lake shore. During Green River time, the first significant uplift was in the Wind River Mountains (as marked by the New Fork tongue) and this was followed by major uplift in the Uinta Mountains (as marked by the upper tongue of the Wasatch Formation).


This dissertation analyses the uses of the concept of nationalism in Russia from a historical perspective. It is based on four empirical studies examining textual material produced between the years 2000 and 2020. During this time, and after the so-called "conservative turn" in particular, the state leadership in Russia adopted increasingly authoritarian policies vis-à-vis society, and started to portray Russia as being under an external threat. The annexation of Crimea and the onset of the war in Ukraine in 2014 solidified the way in which recent political changes in Russia were characterised as "growing nationalism".

In this temporal context, the study suggests that nationalist discourses are currently shifting, and traces these shifts in scholarly and everyday language. The negative connotations of nationalism in everyday language affect its scholarly use, which is why the aspects of nationalism as an analytical concept, as well as the complex relationship between the concept and the term itself, are expounded in the study. Following the tradition of critical nationalism studies, the dissertation approaches the 'nation' as a political claim that results from a constructive process in language. The dissertation draws on the rhetorical tradition of conceptual history in analysing specific concepts, metaphors and narratives within nationalist discourses as a means of framing politics. The way language is used simultaneously defines the boundaries of actual policies. More specifically, the rhetorical choices of politicians map the conditions of belonging to a nation, duly having real implications for people's lives.


The interplay between uni-directional charge and spin stripe correlations in copper oxide-based high-temperature superconductors is a matter of long-standing debate . While static magnetic stripe order has been shown to compete with superconductivity, fluctuating stripes have been argued to play an important role in the pairing mechanism of unconventional superconductors. By probing the magnetic correlations of hole-doped layered copper oxide superconductors using inelastic neutron scattering, a universal spectrum has been resolved whose shape in momentum-energy resembles an hourglass. Its origin or even if the system should be considered in the local-moment or itinerant framework has been the subject of debate for some time.
I shall present our research into the insulating, layered cobalt oxide La2-xSrxCoO4—an isostructural analogue of the copper oxide superconductors. Our measurements have revealed that it also has a characteristic hourglass dispersion that we could explain using a parameter-free model based on a stripe-ordered magnetic ground state. However, direct evidence for stripe-order was missing and led to some studies to propose a stripe-free scenario to explain the dispersion. I shall present our polarised neutron diffraction results to examine the magnetic order in La2-xSrxCoO4 and discuss its implications on the role of stripes forming an hourglass spectrum.


Abstract. Jiuzhaigou earthquake led to the collapse of the mountains and formed lots of landslides in Jiuzhaigou scenic spot and surrounding roads which caused road blockage and serious ecological damage. Due to the urgency of the rescue, the authors carried unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and entered the disaster area as early as August 9 to obtain the aerial images near the epicenter. On the basis of summarizing the earthquake landslides characteristics in aerial images, by using the object-oriented analysis method, landslides image objects were obtained by multi-scale segmentation, and the feature rule set of each level was automatically built by SEaTH (Separability and Thresholds) algorithm to realize the rapid landslide extraction. Compared with visual interpretation, object-oriented automatic landslides extraction method achieved an accuracy of 94.3 %. The spatial distribution of the earthquake landslide had a significant positive correlation with slope and relief and had a negative correlation with the roughness, but no obvious correlation with the aspect. The relationship between the landslide and the aspect was not found and the probable reason may be that the distance between the study area and the seismogenic fault was too far away. This work provided technical support for the earthquake field emergency, earthquake landslide prediction and disaster loss assessment.


The paper develops an economic framework for network neutrality regulation. Network neutrality rules forbid network operators to discriminate against third-party applications, content or portals or to exclude them from their network. The analysis shows that calls for network neutrality regulation are justified: In the absence of network neutrality regulation, there is a real threat that network providers will discriminate against independent producers of applications, content or portals or exclude them from their network. This threat reduces the amount of innovation in the markets for applications, content and portals at significant costs to society. While network neutrality rules remove this threat, they are not without costs. Due to the potentially enormous benefits of application-level innovation for economic growth, however, increasing the amount of application-level innovation through network neutrality regulation is more important than the costs associated with it. Apart from advancing the debate over network neutrality, the paper highlights important limitations of the 'one monopoly rent' argument: It shows that there are more exceptions to the 'one monopoly rent' argument than have previously been identified and that these new exceptions may be quite common in the Internet context. It shows that exclusion may be a profitable strategy, even if the excluding actor does not manage to drive its competitors from the complementary market. It also shows that competition in the primary market may not always be sufficient to remove the ability and incentive to engage in exclusionary conduct.


Introduction to Magnetic Materials, 2nd Edition covers the basics of magnetic quantities, magnetic devices, and materials used in practice. While retaining much of the original, this revision now covers SQUID and alternating gradient magnetometers, magnetic force microscope, Kerr effect, amorphous alloys, rare-earth magnets, SI Units alongside cgs units, and other up-to-date topics. In addition, the authors have added an entirely new chapter on information materials. The text presents materials at the practical rather than theoretical level, allowing for a physical, quantitative, measurement-based understanding of magnetism among readers, be they professional engineers or graduate-level students.


In the gripping new novel from America's Queen of Suspense, a young woman is haunted by two murders that are closely linked -- despite the one hundred and ten years that separate them. Following the acrimonious breakup of her marriage and the searing experience of being pursued by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to leave Albany and work in a major law firm in Manhattan. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home, a restored Victorian house in the historic New Jersey seaside resort town of Spring Lake. Her family had sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then still a young girl, disappeared. Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the skeleton of a young woman is found. She is identified as Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared from Spring Lake over four year ago. Within her skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it -- a Shapley family heirloom. In seeking to find the link between her family's past and the recent murder, Emily becomes a threat to a devious and seductive killer, who has chosen her as the next victim.


Traumatic brain injuries constitute a significant portion of injury resulting from automotive collisions, motorcycle crashes, and sports collisions. Brain injuries not only represent a serious trauma for those involved but also place an enormous burden on society, often exacting a heavy economical, social, and emotional price. Development of intervention strategies to prevent or minimize these injuries requires a complete understanding of injury mechanisms, response and tolerance level. In this study, an attempt is made to delineate actual injury causation and establish a meaningful injury criterion through the use of the actual field accident data. Twenty-four head-to-head field collisions that occurred in professional football games were duplicated using a validated finite element human head model. The injury predictors and injury levels were analyzed based on resulting brain tissue responses and were correlated with the site and occurrence of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). Predictions indicated that the shear stress around the brainstem region could be an injury predictor for concussion. Statistical analyses were performed to establish the new brain injury tolerance level.


National parks have complex relationships with local communities that impact both conservation success and community well-being. Integrated conservation and development projects have been a key approach to managing these relationships, although their effectiveness has been increasingly questioned. Park-people relationships of the Armando Bermudez National Park in the Dominican Republic were studied, focusing on forests, aquatic resources, community well-being and development, and ecotourism. The park, established in 1956, is well respected by the community, based on its long history and its role in protecting water resources that are critical to the community. However, management of riparian vegetation and local fisheries present challenges in terms of finding a balance between conservation and development. Hiking and trekking opportunities attract both national and international tourists to the park, and community members benefit from employment as tour guides and providing mule rentals. At the same time, tourism activities also present continuing challenges related to: (1) the distribution of tourism benefits between local people and outsiders, and within the local community, (2) maintaining the local economic benefits of tourism while protecting park resources, and (3) developing park- or conservation-related economic opportunities to complement tourism. The results highlight the need to develop site-specific strategies to manage park-people relationships through interdisciplinary analysis.


Metagenomic methods provide the veterinary and public health sciences with the promise of new and improved diagnostic tools with unprecedented ability to detect a plethora of known and unknown viromes in clinical samples. Successful metagenomics is based on three main activities where each one must be consistent and reliable for the method to be useful, these are (1) wet-lab preparation, (2) sequencing, and (3) bioinformatics analysis of the results. The aim of the work is to provide insight into the feasibility of using the metagenomics approach for detection of emerging viruses, monitoring wildlife for known pathogens as well as providing a tool for rapid characterization of viral pathogens in outbreak situations from a veterinary standpoint.


We describe the approach that we submitted to the 2015 PAN competition [7] for the author identification task. The task consists in determining if an unknown document was authored by the same author of a set of documents with the same author. We propose a machine learning approach based on a number of different features that characterize documents from widely different points of view. We construct non-overlapping groups of homogeneous features, use a random forest regressor for each features group, and combine the output of all regressors by their arithmetic mean. We train a different regressor for each language. Our approach achieved the first position in the final rank for the Spanish language.


This study is part of a broader effort to characterise the autecology of the Wenge, Millettia laurentii de Wild., a tree species of major importance for the timber sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This article describes the relevant aspects of the foliar and reproductive phenology of the species and their management implications. The phenology of 774 trees distributed across three timber concessions licensed to the SODEFOR ( Societe de Developpement Forestier ) in the Mai-Ndombe region (258 trees in each site) was monitored on a monthly basis for 15 months. The foliar phenology of Millettia laurentii is highly seasonal. Leaf fall and the appearance of new leaves occur twice a year, during the dry season and at the start of the rainy season. Reproductive phenology (blossoming and fruiting) is also highly seasonal, although differences emerge between sites. The trees blossom at the start of the rainy season, at the same time as new leaves appear. Full maturity, when seed pods burst open and the seeds can be harvested, occurs between the end of the dry season and the start of the rainy season. Blossoming is typically annual. Individuals blossom in groups, but each group only blossoms once a year. However, blossoming and fruiting events are occasionally observed outside peak periods, especially in the wettest and least seasonal site. Millettia laurentii is an early fruiting species, at a minimum diameter of 10 cm or less, but effective fruiting nevertheless depends on the diameter and social status of each tree. The minimum legal felling diameter in the DRC (60 cm) is higher than the regular fruiting diameter of 40-50 cm, which is necessary to maintain seed trees in stands after felling.


Recently, foreign direct investment in land, also termed 'land grabbing', has increased significantly in developing countries. In response to growing concerns about its detrimental impacts, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank and other multilateral organizations have come forward with two proposals, namely the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (FAO 2012, FAO guidelines), to protect people's rights, and the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihoods and Resources (FAO et al. 2010, RAI principles), to make such investments more responsible. One of their central tenets is that investors and host governments respect local people's existing property rights over land by formalising them in a transparent and participatory manner. The article challenges the two proposals – and thus much of the recent land grab debate – from a legal pluralism perspective, by showing that they do not adequately consider the existence of plural legal orders over land and the dynamics of power and everyday practices inherent in property relations. Referring to empirical evidence from Tanzania, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan, we raise three fundamental concerns about the formalization of property rights. First, we demonstrate that the recognition of customary rights is a very complex and delicate endeavour, which risks neglecting existing property claims and rights. Neither of the proposals addresses this in a satisfactory way. Second, we understand that formalization by state intervention is sometimes necessary, but in those circumstances we cannot recommend the centralist approach of formalizing property rights, as proposed in the RAI principles. In many contexts, this approach has resulted in adverse effects for local communities rather than strengthening their rights. Third, a more rights-based vision as brought forward by the FAO guidelines still bears the risk of reinforcing unequal local power structures. Yet, this vision leaves it to local communities to decide whether their land should become a marketable good to outsiders or not. However, the introduction of such a property regime requires fundamental changes in governance. This cannot be addressed adequately within the framework of guidelines alone. Instead, more long-term strategies for the protection of customary rights are required. Thus, from an analytical perspective, a moratorium on 'land grabs' would be most appropriate. From a more pragmatic perspective though, we acknowledge the FAO guidelines and – to a much lesser extent – the RAI principles as more immediate efforts to reduce negative effects of 'land grabs'. However, investors and host governments should not mistake these guidelines as guarantors of ostensibly harmless land acquisitions. Finally, this article concludes that employing a legal pluralism perspective is very helpful in gaining a more holistic understanding of potential effects and proposed measures in the context of 'land grabs'.


Emphasis on the association between relative sea-level lowstand and the formation of sandy deep-water fans has tended to downplay the significance of high sediment supply and its potential to create deep-water fans, even during sea-level highstands. The Lance– Fox Hills–Lewis shelf margin in southern Wyoming suggests that high supply was critical in causing the accretion of this moderately wide Maastrichtian shelf margin, at a minimum rate of 47.8 km/m.y., and the generation of large, sand-rich fans during every shoreline regression across the shelf. It is surprising that fans developed from shelf-margin clinoforms that show systematically rising shelf-edge trajectories (proxy for rising relative sea level) as well as from those that show flat trajectories (stable to falling relative sea level). However, the latter, producing more sediment bypass, resulted in bigger and thicker fans, whereas the former produced somewhat smaller and thinner fans. We term the former highstand fans and suggest caution in using the lowstand model for high-supply systems.


This book consists of papers presented at the International Conference on "China: The Next Decade", organized by the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore in 2007 to commemorate the Institute's 10th anniversary. With eight papers covering China's economic, social and political development, this volume offers a balanced yet in-depth assessment of the challenges facing China in the next decade. Featuring contributions from internationally renowned scholars, this timely volume analyzes key aspects of China's reforms and development, such as the financial reform, international trade, leadership succession, social protests, health care reform and ethnic relationships. It is suitable for China scholars as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in China's polity, economy and society.


Acute appendicitis is the most common surgical disease presented in ED. Ongoing evidence in the literature, in the last 20 years, shows a lot of benefits in favor of conservative treatment. Despite that conservative treatment does not gain the correct position at the daily practice up to day. A large number of parameters related to acute appendicitis, present diversity in their appearance, so the final estimation of the disease may by unclear and the decision for treatment may be incorrect. We analyze these parameters, aiming to clarify their role in correct diagnosis and decision making on appropriate treatment. In the present study a review of the literature is performed, regarding the etiology, pathology, clinical presentation, laboratory, and imaging data of acute appendicitis. The collection and correct estimation of these parameters, is the key for the correct diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Complicated or uncomplicated cases should be diagnosed preoperatively. The next step is the appropriate treatment, conservative or by surgery. At the present time, excluding generalized peritonitis and sepsis, the majority of patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis and selected complicated cases can by treated successfully by conservative treatment. The majority of patients do not benefit from appendectomy.


For over two centuries, the classic case of Calder v. Bull has stood for the proposition that the term "ex post facto" prohibits passage of criminal laws with retroactive effect, but does not apply to civil laws, because ex post facto had a commonly accepted and restricted meaning in legal circles. This article makes the heretical claim that the four Justices who decided Calder v. Bull likely never read the pleadings, the act of the Connecticut legislature at issue in the case, or the leading American legal treatise of the day - all of which use "ex post facto" to apply in a civil context - contrary to the decision.For the case to have been correctly decided, four odd things must be true: (i) Bull's two respected counsel misused "ex post facto" in pleadings; (ii) a legislature full of lawyers replicated this mistake when it drafted its act; (iii) two respected counsel for Calder made a specious argument that flew in the face of accepted usage even though they followed a suggestion in the leading legal treatise of the day; and (iv) the Connecticut appellate court must have thought these repeated and allegedly aberrant usages of technical, legal language merited no comment whatsoever.The path of the law would have differed radically if the shear implausibility of all these things being true had been noticed because their falsity suggests a contrary result. Yet, no Justice or commentator noticed this inconsistency. If the Court had upheld the core rule of law principle against retroactive laws, and not committed the original sin of restricting the prohibition against ex post facto laws to criminal statutes, a plethora of retroactive laws would be unconstitutional because a legislature could not mandate retroactive application by express statutory language. Either deficiencies in the craft of lawyering or a vision of textual analysis completely alien to modern sensibilities led to the creation of a doctrine with truly breathtaking consequences for the structure of our legal system. The story of Calder reveals the legal process as intensely human, contingent and fallible.


The symbols of royal power look like being similar to each other in various cultures of the Ancient World, but this resemblance may hide the regional specifics from the researchers. Early Greek sceptre and Hittite kalmus are considered to be equivalents of mace and of shepherd's crook. However, this theory is not very convincing. Analysing the textual attestations of the Ancient Greek sceptre and Hittite kalmus, we have found out that these objects were considered as close to throwing weapon and therefore associated with a bolt of lightning, the symbol of the storm god. Archaeological evidences make clear that the symbols of power like sceptre have their origin in a weapon similar to spear.


As one of the most common gear failure modes, tooth wear can produce nonlinear modulation sidebands in the vibration frequency spectrum. However, limited research has been reported in monitoring the gear wear based on vibration due to the lack of tools which can effectively extract the small sidebands. In order to accurately monitor gear wear progression in a timely fashion, this paper presents a gear wear condition monitoring approach based on vibration signal analysis using the modulation signal bispectrum-based sideband estimator (MSB-SE) method. The vibration signals are collected using a run-to-failure test of gearbox under an accelerated test process. MSB analysis was performed on the vibration signals to extract the sideband information. Using a combination of the peak value of MSB-SE and the coherence of MSB-SE, the overall information of gear transmission system can be obtained. Based on the amplitude of MSB-SE peaks, a dimensionless indicator is proposed to assess the effects of gear tooth wear. The results demonstrated that the proposed indicator can be used to accurately and reliably monitor gear tooth wear and evaluate the wear severity.


From the late third millennium BCE on, the adventures of the hero Gilgamesh were well known throughout Babylonia and Assyria, and the discovery of Akkadian-language fragments of versions of his tale at Boğazköy, Ugarit, Emar, and Megiddo demonstrates that tales of the hero's exploits had reached the periphery of the cuneiform world already in the Late Bronze Age. A century of excavation at the Hittite capital of Hattusa (mod. Boğazköy) has yielded more textual sources for Gilgamesh than are known from all other Late Bronze Age sites combined. The Gilgamesh tradition was imported to Hattusa for use in scribal instruction, and has been of particular importance to modern scholars in reconstructing the epic and analyzing its development, since it documents a period in the history of the narrative for which very few textual witnesses have yet been recovered from Mesopotamia itself. And it is this very Middle Babylonian period to which scholarly consensus assigns the composition of the final, "canonical" version of the epic. The Hittite Gilgamesh offers a full edition of the manuscripts from Hattusa in the Hittite, Akkadian, and Hurrian languages recounting Gilgamesh's adventures.


For years the subject of human disability has engaged those in the biological, social and cognitive sciences, while at the same time, it has been curiously neglected within the humanities. "The Body and Physical Difference" seeks to introduce the field of disability studies into the humanities by exploring the fantasies and fictions that have crystallized around conceptions of physical and cognitive difference. Based on the premise that the significance of disabilities in culture and the arts has been culturally vexed as well as historically erased, the collection probes our society's pathological investment in human variability and "aberrancy." The contributors demonstrate how definitions of disability underpin fundamental concepts such as normalcy, health, bodily integrity, individuality, citizenship, and morality--all terms that define the very essence of what it means to be human.The book provides a provocative range of topics and perspectives: the absence of physical "otherness" in Ancient Greece, the depiction of the female invalid in Victorian literature, the production of tragic innocence in British and American telethons, the reconstruction of Civil War amputees, and disability as the aesthetic basis for definitions of expendable life within the modern eugenics movement. With this new, secure anchoring in the humanities, disability studies now emerges as a significant strain in contemporary theories of identity and social marginality.Moving beyond the oversimplication that disabled people are marginalized and made invisible by able-ist assumptions and practices, the contributors demonstrate that representation is founded upon the perpetual exhibition of human anomalies. In this sense, all art can be said to migrate toward the "freakish" and the "grotesque." Such a project paradoxically makes disability the exception "and" the rule of the desire to represent that which has been traditionally out-of-bounds in polite discourse."The Body and Physical Difference" has relevance across a wide range of academic specialties such as cultural studies, the sociology of medicine, history, literature and medicine, the allied health professions, rehabilitation, aesthetics, philosophical discourses of the body, literary and film studies, and narrative theory.David T. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English, Northern Michigan University. Sharon L. Snyder teaches film and literature at Northern Michigan University.


Knowledge discovery programs in the biological sciences require flexibility in the use of symbolic data and semantic information. Because of the volume of nonnumeric, as well as numeric, data, the programs must be able to explore a large space of possibly interesting relationships to discover those that are novel and interesting. Thus, the framework for the discovery program must facilitate proposing and selecting the next task to perform and performing the selected tasks. The framework we describe, called the agenda- and justification-based framework, has several properties that are desirable in semiautonomous discovery systems: It provides a mechanism for estimating the plausibility of tasks, it uses heuristics to propose and perform tasks, and it facilitates the encoding of general discovery strategies and the use of background knowledge. We have implemented the framework and our heuristics in a prototype program, HAMB, and have evaluated them in the domain of protein crystallization. Our results demonstrate that both reasons given for performing tasks and estimates of the interestingness of the concepts and hypotheses examined by HAMS contribute to its performance and that the program can discover novel, interesting relationships in biological data.


BACKGROUND
Gastrointestinal surgery has been at the forefront of advances in minimally invasive surgery (MIS). In the low resource settings of the developing countries, despite the benefits of MIS, its uptake in sub-Saharan African countries has been slow.

OBJECTIVE
The present study reports the process of developing a minimally-invasive surgery service line as well as surgical outcomes in LASUTH. METHODS. We reviewed medical records of all patients who underwent minimally invasive surgery at LASUTH between March 2011 and March 2012. During each of three training missions in LASUTH patients with Gastrointestinal and gynaecological surgical conditions were carefully selected, and prepared for surgery. All patients were admitted a day prior to surgery. A description of the surgical technique and the skills training used is also presented.

RESULTS
A total of 24 laparoscopic procedures were performed between March 2011 and March 2012. There were more females 17(70.8%) than males 7(29.2%), with a female to male ratio of 2.5:1. The age range was from 18 yrs to 75 yrs with a peak in the age group between 21-30 yrs. The chief complaints were right hypochondrial pain in 9 cases (37.5%) and right iliac fossa pain in 6 cases (25%) whilst others were right groin swelling, dysphagia, infertility and intersex state.

CONCLUSION
The results presented in respect of conversion rate, length of post operative stay and complications rate are similar to the pattern in more established centers. The use of team training as done in LASUTH helps to accelerate the rate of learning and ensures sustainability.


Anubis is a simple state monitoring service that supports coordinated action among distributed management agents. It uses a temporal consistency model that addresses symmetric and asymmetric network partitions. We have used Anubis to support distributed management of adaptive applications in grid and utility computing environments and our experience has shown that the abstraction and properties provided by the service simplify the task of programming distributed management behavior. We support this claim by examining three common use cases that our developers encountered, namely: resource management, lifecycle coordination, and compositional failure management.


Grieving the deaths of immediate and extended family
members as well as friends is a common experience among traditional-age college
students. The overarching
purpose of this study was to provide a more nuanced understanding of how
various family grief communication factors (i.e., frequency, quality,
willingness to communicate—personal/perceived family, reasons for grief
communication avoidance—self-protection/relationship-protection) and self-construal might
be related to the post-loss functioning of grieving traditional-age college
students. Using hierarchical multiple regressions, I analyzed survey data from
369 grieving college students who were between ages 18 and 24 and had
experienced the death of at least one individual they considered as family
member within the last two years. First, the current findings indicated
that the more frequent grieving students communicated about their grief with
their family, the stronger their grief reactions. Second, the more students
reported family grief communication of high quality, the weaker their grief
reactions and the higher their post-loss family satisfaction. Third, there were
no relationships between grieving college students' personal willingness or their
perceived family willingness to communicate about grief and their own grief
reactions. Fourth, grieving students' post-loss family satisfaction levels were
similar regardless of how personally willing they were to communicate their
grief, but increased as they perceived their family members as more willing to
communicate about their grief. Fifth, the more grieving students avoided family
grief communicate for self-protection reasons, the stronger their grief
reactions and the lower their post-loss family satisfaction. Sixth, college
students reported similar levels of grief reactions and post-loss family
satisfaction regardless of how much they reported avoiding grief communication
to protect their family relationships. Seventh, quality, personal and family
willingness to communication, and reasons for grief communication avoidance did
not moderate the
relationship between the frequency of family grief communication and grieving
students' post-loss functioning. Eighth, grieving students reported
similar levels of grief reactions and post-loss family satisfaction regardless
of how much they identified with interdependent self-construal, independent
self-construal, or a combination of both. Finally, the relationships between
grieving students' reasons for grief communication avoidance (i.e.,
self-protection, relationship protection) and their post-loss functioning (i.e., grief reactions, post-loss
family
satisfaction) remained similar regardless of how much they identified with
independent or interdependent self-construal. The results of this study may be
used to inform clinical interventions and outreach efforts for grieving
traditional-age college students and their family members.


In this Article, I identify and critique a phenomenon I call Free Exercise Lochnerism. In promoting corporate religious exemptions from employment and consumer protections, litigants, scholars, and courts are resurrecting Lochner v. New York — a case symbolic of the courts' widely criticized use of freedom of contract to strike down economic regulation at the turn of the last century. Today, in their interpretations of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, courts replicate the commitment to private ordering and resistance to redistribution that were at the heart of Lochner. While this phenomenon is exemplified by Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, its reach is wider.The comparison to Lochner offers two insights overlooked in contemporary debates over business religious liberty. First, in resisting compliance with antidiscrimination laws, pharmacy regulations, and insurance mandates (most prominently, the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate), businesses make claims more reminiscent of market libertarianism than of religious freedom. In siding with these businesses, courts have begun to incorporate the premises of Lochner into religious liberty doctrine. In the contraceptive mandate litigation in particular, courts — from the trial level to the Supreme Court — defined a business's right to free exercise of religion by reference to its ability to contract. They postulated private market ordering as a legally and economically neutral baseline and regulation as an unnecessary and unfair redistribution. Second, comparing business religious liberty doctrine to Lochner-era freedom of contract lays bare the implications for the regulatory state beyond contraception and same-sex marriage. While scholars have recognized a link between Lochner and the Free Speech Clause, this Article establishes that free exercise has taken on a similar role with potential to undermine the regulation of business more broadly.


Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive pulmonary vasculopathy with significant morbidity and mortality. Bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 2 (BMPR2) has been well recognized as the principal gene responsible for heritable and sporadic PAH. Four unrelated Chinese patients with PAH and their family members, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, were genetically evaluated by sequencing all exons and the flanking regions of BMPR2. Functionality of the aberrant mutations at the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of BMPR2 in the families with PAH was determined by site mutation, transient transfection, and promoter-reporter assays. Four individual mutations in the BMPR2 gene were identified in the 4 families, respectively: 10-GGC repeats, 13-GGC repeats, 4-AGC repeats in 5–UTR, and a novel missense mutation in exon 7 (c.961C>T; p.Arg321X). Moreover, we demonstrated that (1) these 5′UTR mutations decreased the transcription of BMPR2 and (2) the GGC repeats and AGC repeats in BMPR2 5′UTR bore functional binding sites of EGR-1 and MYF5, respectively. This is the first report demonstrating the presence of functional BMPR2 5′UTR mutations in familial patients with PAH and further indicating that EGR-1 and MYF5 are potential targets for correcting these genetic abnormalities for PAH therapy.


The State of Assam in the Union of India has a peculiar history of the movement of people from across India's international borders into Assam. There is no credible way to arrive at specific numbers. Arrival of people in Assam has become a point that has been abused by those in power to utilise local sentiments regarding the dilution of 'Assamese culture'. This article briefly discusses the timelines leading up to the preparation of the Assam's National Register of Citizens that presently excludes approximately 1.9 million residents. The citizenship status of those excluded is to be determined by Foreigners Tribunals ('FT') functioning under the Foreigners Act, 1946 — a post-Second World War and pre-Constitution legislation whose validity is also in doubt. This article examines the Foreigners Act, 1946, as well as the constitution and performance of the FTs with reference to the yardsticks of the rule of law and constitutional values. Towards this end, the article analyses the law discernible from the judgments of the Indian Courts as well as some judgments of the Assam High Court and the FTs. It concludes by stating that the framework of adjudication by FTs is not able to keep up with the promise of effective adjudication under the Constitution of India. It calls for an urgent need for academic scrutiny of all aspects of the citizenship verification process in India.


American Sign Language shares with spoken languages derivational and inflectional morphological processes, including compounding, reduplication, incorporation, and, arguably, templates. Like spoken languages, ASL also has an extensive nonderivational, noninflectional morphology involving phonological alternation although this is typically more limited. Additionally, ASL frequently associates meaning with individual phonological parameters. This association is atypical of spoken languages. We account for these phenomena by positing "ion-morphs," which are phonologically incomplete lexical items that bond with other compatible ion-morphs. These ion-morphs draw lexical items into "families" of related signs. In contrast, ASL makes little, if any, use of concatenative affixation, a morphological mechanism common among spoken languages. We propose that this difference is the result of the comparative slowness of movement of the manual articulators as compared to the speech articulators, as well as the perceptual robustness of the manual articulators to the visual system. The slowness of the manual articulators disfavors concatenative affixation. The perceptual robustness of the manual articulators allows ASL to exploit morphological potential that spoken language can use only at considerable cost.


Terrestrially derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) impacts the optical properties of coastal seawater and affects carbon cycling on a global scale. We studied sequential long‐term photochemical and biological degradation of estuarine dissolved organic matter from the Satilla River, an estuary in the southeastern United States that is dominated by vascular plant‐derived organic matter. During photodegradation, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) loss (amounting to 31% of the initial DOC) was much less extensive than colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) or fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM) loss (50% and 56% of the initial CDOM and FDOM), and analysis of kinetics suggested a reservoir of DOC that was resistant to photodegradation. In contrast, CDOM photodegradation closely followed first‐order kinetics over two half‐lives with no indication of a nondegradable component. FDOM loss was slightly biased toward fluorophores considered representative of terrestrial humic substances. Additional changes in optical properties included increases in spectral slope and shifts in fluorescence excitation/emission maxima that were generally consistent with previous observations from field studies of photobleached DOM. Biological degradation of photobleached DOM was more rapid than that of unbleached material, and this net positive effect was evident even for extensively photodegraded material. Bacterial degradation caused shifts in the opposite direction from photochemical degradation for both spectral slope and excitation/emission maxima and thus dampened but did not eliminate changes in optical properties caused by photobleaching.


ABSTRACTThis study characterizes and compares the chemical composition of fog water at four sites in Taiwan. Fog was sampled with identical active fog collectors (modified Caltech design) using identical sampling strategies at all four sites. While the sites varied largely in terms of altitude above mean sea level (asl), type of fog, and the potential sources of constituents in fog water, the chemical composition of fog water was in all cases clearly dominated by H+, NH4+, NO3– and SO42–, making up more than 85% of the total ion concentrations. The pH ranged from 2.27 to 5.95.    Sulfur dioxide emissions from coal combustion in Mainland China and Taiwan as well as nitrogen oxide emissions from urbanized central-west Taiwan and the greater Taipei region were the main precursors of fog acidity. Ammonia, originating from agriculture emissions, was the main neutralizer. The Kinmen site (48 m asl), situated on an island close to Mainland China, exhibited the lowest pH and the highest sulfate concentrations. At the Xitou site on the western slopes of the Taiwan Central Mountain Range (1150 m asl), ammonium from agriculture dominated and lead to relatively high pH. At the same time, the nitrate/sulfate ratio was highest at this site (> 1 in equivalent units), resulting from relatively large contributions from street traffic. The ion concentrations at the Chilan site (1650 m asl) and the Lulin high mountain site (2862 m asl) were much lower than those at Xitou and Kinmen. While the ion concentrations at Chilan were considerably lower than at Lulin, the ion loadings, which is the amount of dissolved ions per volume of air, were similar at Chilan and Lulin.


Summary The objective of this study is to evaluate preferences for time paths of outputs arising from alternative forest management practices. A discrete choice framework using logit and mixed logit models is used to evaluate stated choices by Public Advisory Committee members over attributes regarding inter-temporal forest management options. Results of the study indicate a relatively strong preference for physical sustainability, or even flow choices. However, respondents appear to be more accepting of uneven flows in recreation services than they are of uneven flows of timber harvests. Results also provide yet another illustration of a difference in implied rates of discount over the goods involved (i. e. timber versus recreation). The paper illustrates a mechanism for use in public involvement exercises that may identify inter-temporal preferences over forest management plans and strategies.


Dysphagia due to tumor ulcers and stomatitis induced by chemoradiotherapy is painful; it is therefore crucial and urgent to establish a surgical enteral feeding route in patients with head and neck cancer to avoid malnutrition and improve treatment compliance [1]. However, common trismus caused by surgical resection, reconstruction, and, mostly, radiation fibrosis often compromise flexible endoscope passage; furthermore, an oral tumor would raise concern of cancer contamination and inoculation upon percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) [2, 3]. Herein, we demonstrate the use of an ultrathin endoscope (5.3mm diameter; Olympus VISERA Transnasal Esophagovideoscope, PEF-V; Olympus Medical Systems, Tokyo, Japan), via the transnasal route as a good alternative for better instrument passage in patients with head and neck cancer with trismus or when buccal reconstruction integrity would be a concern. Patients were placed under transoral or transnasal endotracheal intubation general anesthesia. The transnasal approach would be preferred in patients with an inter-incisor distance of less than two fingers for both endotracheal intubation and PEG. The pull method was our procedure of choice owing to greater control of stomach puncture and less premature extrusion [4, 5], and we routinely used a 20 Fr tube (Flow 20 Pull Method; Cook Medical Inc., Bloomington, Indiana, USA) (▶Video1). The puncture site chosen was the most transilluminated area over the gastric antral portion under a dark setting. Our tip to avoid nostril trauma upon passage of the PEG bumper is to squeeze the bumper with one hand while gently pressing the ipsilateral nose alae with the other hand to provide proper counter-support (▶Fig. 1). After the PEG procedure, the pressure of the bumper on the gastric mucosa was checked to avoid buried bumper syndrome, and 2–30mL distilled water was irrigated Video 1 Steps in the pull-method transnasal ultrathin endoscopy for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG). (i) Confirmation of successful passage of a 5.3mm endoscope. (ii) Inflation of the stomach and localization of the puncture site at the most transilluminated area. (iii) Puncture and insertion of the guidewire. (iv) Pulling the PEG tube via the transnasal route. (v) Irrigation with distilled water, and checking the pressure of the PEG bumper against the gastric wall. ▶ Fig. 1 Demonstration of our tip to avoid nostril trauma: gentle finger pressure on the ipsilateral nose alae provides proper counter-support, with simultaneous squeezing on the bumper to facilitate passage of the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube. E-Videos


Background Maternal nutrition in preconception and early pregnancy influences fetal growth. Evidence for effects of prenatal maternal nutrition on early child development (ECD) in low-income and middle-income countries is limited. Objectives To examine impact of maternal nutrition supplementation initiated prior to or during pregnancy on ECD, and to examine potential association of postnatal growth with ECD domains. Design Secondary analysis regarding the offspring of participants of a maternal multicountry, individually randomised trial. Setting Rural Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, India and Pakistan. Participants 667 offspring of Women First trial participants, aged 24 months. Intervention Maternal lipid-based nutrient supplement initiated preconceptionally (arm 1, n=217), 12 weeks gestation (arm 2, n=230) or not (arm 3, n=220); intervention stopped at delivery. Main outcome measures The INTERGROWTH-21st Neurodevelopment Assessment (INTER-NDA) cognitive, language, gross motor, fine motor, positive and negative behaviour scores; visual acuity and contrast sensitivity scores and auditory evoked response potentials (ERP). Anthropometric z-scores, family care indicators (FCI) and sociodemographic variables were examined as covariates. Results No significant differences were detected among the intervention arms for any INTER-NDA scores across domains, vision scores or ERP potentials. After adjusting for covariates, length-for-age z-score at 24 months (LAZ24), socio-economic status, maternal education and FCI significantly predicted vision and INTER-NDA scores (R2=0.11–0.38, p<0.01). Conclusions Prenatal maternal nutrition supplementation was not associated with any neurodevelopmental outcomes at age 2 years. Maternal education, family environment and LAZ24 predicted ECD. Interventions addressing multiple components of the nurturing care model may offer greatest impact on children's developmental potential. Trial registration number NCT01883193.


The service sector is an avenue for economic transformation as not all countries have a competitive edge in manufacturing. The growing literature on service sector primarily focuses on its development in the US and Europe and on Asian emerging service economies like India. Not as much attention has been paid to the role that services can play in the economic growth of African countries primarily due to the high prevalence of agriculture in these countries. But with avenues of structural adjustments and globalization, some African countries have become service-based economies. Services are considered as an alternative to manufacturing-led development in Rwanda since its aims is to become a service-based hub to serve countries in the East African Community (EAC). Recently, the growth rate of the service sector has been impressive in the Rwandan economy. The present study is an attempt to study in detail the development of the service sector over the years in Rwanda's economy and empirically estimate its determinants by using an econometric methodology. The empirical results are based on micro-data collected during the Rwanda Enterprise Survey 2011 and the 2014 Establishment Census. The survey has data on 241 firms and establishments. Linear and limited dependent variable techniques are employed to investigate the factors behind the development of the service sector. Models are specified and estimated to assess the factors contributing to sales growth, innovation and turnovers of service firms. The results show the factors that have contributed to the development of the service sector. These factors can be used in forming public policy with the aim of using the service sector as a vehicle for speeding up the shift from a low income to a middle income state.


Physiological and vegetative performances of three prairie grasses were investigated to assess their adaptation to soil conditions at two strip mine sites and a nearby railroad prairie. Additionally, rhizomes of the species were transplanted to a pot experiment and grown in both field soil and greenhouse potting medium to investigate the extent to which plants are limited under field conditions. Field measurements of photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance to water vapor were made on the three species monthly from May to late August. Gas exchange measurements on potted plants were made biweekly from early May to mid-July. In September, vegetative and flowering characteristics were measured on both field and potted plants. Field gas exchange rates were highest at one of the mines. Sorghastrum nutans had the highest rates at the mine sites, whereas Panicum virgatum had the highest rates at the prairie site. Potted plants from the prairie site usually exhibited the highest gas exchange rates, and Sorghastrum nutans had higher rates than Panicum virgatum and Andropogon gerardii. Potted plants in field soil generally had higher gas-exchange rates than plants growing in greenhouse potting medium, and potted plants had higher gas-exchange rates than field-grown plants. Vegetative and reproductive performance of field plants was highest at one of the mine sites. Potted plants in greenhouse medium had up to twice the vegetative and reproductive output as potted plants in field soil or plants growing in the field. The physiological and vegetative performance of these species indicates that they are well adapted to the soil conditions at these strip mine sites, and that they are a viable alternative to nonnative plantings for restoration.


People are an important part of many business processes. Current workflow-based implementations of business processes constrain users to the desktop environment; require them to periodically check for pending tasks; and do not support direct or synchronous people-to-people interaction. On the other hand, the wide spectrum of people collaboration tools ranging from telephones to instant messaging and to email have no provision for structured collaboration and are separate from business processes. We have designed and implemented a system, dubbed PerCollab that integrates workflow and collaboration technologies. It allows people to participate in business processes from anywhere using a traditional collaboration mechanism. It proactively engages users in business processes by pushing interaction to a convenient device of the users. PerCollab uses an extended BPEL to formally define business processes with human partners and exploits dynamic user context to solve the personal mobility problem. Our prototype implementation integrates a variety of collaboration tools: instant messaging, email and e-meeting.


Background Placebo-controlled trials have shown that caffeine is highly effective in treating apnoea of prematurity and reduces the risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI). Objective To identify, appraise and summarise studies investigating the modulating effect of different caffeine dosages. Methods A systematic review identified all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing a high versus a standard caffeine treatment regimen in infants with a gestational age <32 weeks, by searching the main electronic databases and abstracts of the Pediatric Academic Societies. Studies comparing caffeine to placebo or theophylline only were excluded. Primary outcomes were BPD and mortality at 36 weeks postmenstrual age. Secondary key-outcome was neurodevelopmental outcome at 12 and 24 months corrected age. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3. Results Six RCTs including 620 infants were identified. Meta-analysis showed a significant decrease in BPD, the combined outcome BPD or mortality, and failure to extubate in infants allocated to a higher caffeine dose. No differences were found in mortality alone and NDI. The quality of the outcome measures were deemed low to very low according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation guidelines. Conclusions Although this review suggests that administering a higher dose of caffeine might enhance its beneficial effect on death or BPD, firm recommendations on the optimal caffeine dose cannot be given due to the low level of evidence. A large RCT is urgently needed to confirm or refute these findings and determine the optimal dose of caffeine.


[From the Introductory chapter]: If you have lived in coastal Australia, the geography of Toowoomba is a bit of an enigma when you first arrive. There is no visible water. All of Australia's major cities are located on bodies of water which first drew the European colonisers together. They grew around strong and swift coastal rivers or deep and scenic harbours and bays; even Canberra; although inland, has its artificial Lake Burleigh Griffin at its centre. Yet Toowoomba spreads itself across the escarpment, a town of over 90,000 people without any apparent body of water to unite its people in common need.

Toowoomba is the first sign that the inland hydrology of Australia operates quite differently to its coastal streams. Toowoomba's fresh water lies underground. When Europeans first arrived they found a number of
small creeks and large wetlands which were fed and recharged by underground freshwater aquifers. The Europeans soon disturbed and resented 'the Swamps' and they were drained and covered over in the nineteenth century.

Toowoomba sits on Gowrie Creek, one small sub-catchment of the Condamine River, but one which behaves in a very similar pattern to the entire river system. Despite its reputation, the Condamine often disappoints coastal visitors. For much of its length it appears as a small
creek dwarfed by its vast plains. Other than where it rises in the eastern escarpment, it seeps as much as it flows, through aquifers and wetlands, through myriad small creeks and brooks and soaks, until it reaches its main channel. Much of its power thus lies hidden to a superficial eye until a sudden downpour reinvigorates it; then the river reclaims its floodplain irrespective of human wishes and plans. Its full power is briefly apparent before it soaks back into the ground or is flushed downstream many hundreds of kilometres to the Balonne and the Darling River systems.

In the last two decades the impacts on the river have increased dramatically and the availability of water has been one of the most contentious issues facing the local economy. Pressures on local water users have been compounded by national concern about the Murray-Darling Basin. Despite its remoteness from the Murray's river mouth in South Australia, the Condamine is one of this national river system's most important northern headwaters.

Although the debate over the Condamine's waters has been a very public one, it has been expressed in the language of economic demands and modern resource management terms. Those unfamiliar with WAMPs, or E.coli and turbidity readings have few reference points to appreciate the
changes that the river is currently facing.

It was for this reason that Sarah Moles, co-ordinator of the Toowoomba and Region Environment Council, first proposed that we talk to older people who had lived along the river all their life. We needed to find out what these changes really meant in terms of people's actual
interaction with and appreciation of the river. In the midst of conflicting scientific and user evidence, she urged us to listen to what older residents knew about the river and its processes.


Since the beginning of the 1990s, Europe has been struggling to establish a competitive as well as a fully integrated internal energy market. Until the early 1990s, the European energy markets consisted of national monopolies possessing vertically integrated structures. They were also still nationally segregated. Since, the EU has made the decision to open European energy markets to competition and subsequently establish an internal energy market.
 The European energy markets are currently controlled by a dual structure consisting of two different regulatory frameworks: competition law and sector-specific regulations. The primary goal of these legal instruments is the establishment of an internal energy market.
 This book aims at analysing the development of the European energy markets and policies from the perspective of competition law as well as sector-specific regulations and, hence, identifying the problems regarding the introduction of competition into the energy markets.


The study investigated theeffect of modification on the physicochemical and drug release properties ofstarches extracted from African rice (Oryzaglaberrima Steud) (AR) and Fonio (Digitariaexilis Stapf) (FR). The starches were modified by pregelatinization andcarboxymethylation.  The morphology andphysicochemical properties of the produced grades of starches were analysedusing SEM, RVA, FTIR, P-XRD and DSC. Dissolution was also conducted using amodel poorly-soluble drug with low melting point (Ibuprofen). SEM images showeda distinct change in the morphology of the modified starches. Native starchforms had the highest solubility while the carboxymethylated starch forms hadthe highest water absorbing capacity and swelling index. FTIR and P-XRDconfirmed the characteristic functional groups of the starches with theirthermal properties demonstrated by DSC. Ibuprofen release from the starch tabletsin phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) showed that native AR starch demonstrated similarrelease profiles with its carboxymethylated form (f2 = 57.5), however, different from the pregelatinisedform (f2 = 32.8). Native FRstarch demonstrated a different release profile to the carboxymethylated (f2 = 8.6) and the pregelatinisedstarch forms (f2 = 35.3). Fickiandiffusion was the main kinetics of drug release. Modification of these starchescan generate polysaccharides with different properties and improvedfunctionalities with a potential for use as alternative pharmaceuticalexcipients.


With the trend towards sustainability, society is increasingly calling for organisations to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility (CSR). In response, more and more Australian companies are engaged in CSR reporting. The literature shows differences in the quantity and quality of CSR reporting and also includes ongoing debate as to why companies engage in voluntary corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED). This thesis aims to use the context of the adoption of Global Reporting Initiatives Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (GRI Guidelines) by Australian mining and banking companies to explore why and how CSED differs in organisations within and between industries.
The literature in relation to why companies make CSED contains many ideas but it lacks a coherent theoretical framework. This study views these explanations as possible rationales, on which a model based on the notion of institutional logic is adopted to explore legitimacy management in CSED from a micro-level aspect.
In order to understand the rationality behind CSED decisions, a comparative case study approach is utilised, using the banking and mining industries, to explore how these rationales exist and interact in the decision-processes leading to CSED. At the operational level, this study re-examines the relationships about the perceptions of managers of social and environmental pressures, the motivation for CSED, disclosure strategies and outcomes of CSED. Interview and archive data are collected and analysed to facilitate an understanding of the phenomena as well as providing corroborating evidence from different sources.
Results indicate that motivations for CSED generally stem from legitimacy risk management. This is consistent with the results of much of the extant literature, which asserts that CSR reporting is a response to pressures exerted by various stakeholders. However, how to respond to the need for legitimacy management can be different. The CSED variations between and within sectors provide evidence that institutional and strategic approaches are used in the decision making of CSED.
This study, in contributing to and extending the body of CSED and voluntary disclosure research, provides an understanding of the why and how of CSED from a multi- theoretical perspective and uses the adoption (or not) of the GRI Guidelines as the main vehicles on which the investigation is based.


The corrosion behaviour of zirconium based alloys has been primarily investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). In-situ autoclave EIS experiments were performed in simulated primary coolant conditions in order to study the high temperature water corrosion of zirconium alloys in PWRs. In-situ impedance response of the corroding material was recorded throughout first kinetic transition.A physical model of the zirconium oxide was proposed in accordance with the microstructural observation made by SEM analysis. Electrical properties of the oxide was evaluated with equivalent circuit model (ECM) which was constructed accord- ing to the physical oxide model. Evolution of various oxide parameters obtained from ECM was analysed in accordance with the microstructure observation made by SEM.A two layer structure consists of a outer porous oxide and an inner barrier oxide, was found to be the most accurate description for the autoclave formed oxide. Support- ing evidence from the SEM cross-section and surface analysis of the oxide had shown cracks and pores that were linked and connected with the environment. This observation is also confirmed by the in-situ EIS measurement which has shown porous electrode behaviour throughout the course of oxidation. The porous oxide behaviour was also confirmed by the ex-situ soaking experiment on samples with incremental exposure time.Evolution of inner barrier layer oxide thickness was found to be correlated with kinetic transition which was determined from weight gain measurement. This indicated that barrier layer maybe the oxidation rate controlling layer and its thickness maybe reduced during transition. Thus, a thinner barrier layer would resulted in a rapid corrosion of zirconium alloys. Furthermore, maintaining the barrier layer thickness maybe the possible route to improve zirconium alloy corrosion resistance.


In the present day world, online shopping using WAP enabled mobile phone has widely come into use. Credit cards serve as the currency during e-business and e-Shopping. As technology has advanced in the negative side also hackers and spoofers steal misuse credit card numbers, even though the network has been made secure. So, in this paper, we have proposed a multi-biometric model (integrating voice, fingerprint and facial scanning) that can be embedded in a mobile phone, this making e-transactions more secure. The model is very cost effective as we have tried to use the hardware already present in the phone. This paper uses for image processing or facial recognition and finger print. We have also simulated a few graphs for voice recognition and facial verification using MATLAB 6.0.


Correctly modeling snow is critical for climate models and for hydrologic applications. Snowpack simulated by six land surface models (LSM: Noah, Variable Infiltration Capacity, snow‐atmosphere‐soil transfer, Land Ecosystem‐Atmosphere Feedback, Noah with Multiparameterization, and Community Land Model) were evaluated against 1 year snow water equivalent (SWE) data at 112 Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) sites in the Colorado River Headwaters region and 4 year flux tower data at two AmeriFlux sites. All models captured the main characteristics of the seasonal SWE evolution fairly well at 112 SNOTEL sites. No single model performed the best to capture the combined features of the peak SWE, the timing of peak SWE, and the length of snow season. Evaluating only simulated SWE is deceiving and does not reveal critical deficiencies in models, because the models could produce similar SWE for starkly different reasons. Sensitivity experiments revealed that the models responded differently to variations of forest coverage. The treatment of snow albedo and its cascading effects on surface energy deficit, surface temperature, stability correction, and turbulent fluxes was a major intermodel discrepancy. Six LSMs substantially overestimated (underestimated) radiative flux (heat flux), a crucial deficiency in representing winter land‐atmosphere feedback in coupled weather and climate models. Results showed significant intermodel differences in snowmelt efficiency and sublimation efficiency, and models with high rate of snow accumulation and melt were able to reproduce the observed seasonal evolution of SWE. This study highlights that the parameterization of cascading effects of snow albedo and below‐canopy turbulence and radiation transfer is critical not only for SWE simulation but also for correctly capturing the winter land‐atmosphere interactions.


Abstract:"Democratic responsiveness" occurs when the democratic process induces the government to form and implement policies that the citizens want. The linkages that connect citizens' preferences, electoral choices, selecting policymakers and policymaking can be subverted at each stage. There are also serious conceptual difficulties created by the complexity of citizen preferences and by uncontrollable factors that shape policy outcomes. The subversions include control over information, incoherence of party policy discourse, unrepresentative election outcomes, officials switching parties after elections, use of executive decrees, bait and switch campaign tactics, and corruption in policymaking. I offer some suggestions about the measurement of democratic responsiveness.


Many Asian countries are expected to undergo structural transformations in their economies and rapid urbanization over the next 25 years. The changes in tastes and lifestyles engendered by urban living are likely to have significant influences on food demand. Changes in marketing systems and occupational changes, closely linked with increasing GNP per capita, also may influence the demand for food. In this paper, estimates presented for Taiwan demonstrate that structural changes in food demand (as distinguished from changes due to income and price effects) have been significant factors driving the rapid changes in dietary patterns seen in East Asia over the past three decades. Because most previous demand studies have ignored the possible influence of structural shifts which are highly correlated with increases in per capita income over time, the effects of income on food demand have been overestimated. © 200 1 Elsevier Science B. V. All rights reserved.


The present study is concerned mainly with partial purification and
characterization of cytosolic GST from livers of Malaysian catfish and Malaysian
red tilapia as both species are of economic and commercial importance in
Malaysia being the major freshwater fishes consumed. This study hopes to
establish the patterns of cytosolic glutathione S-transferase isoenzymes in the
catfish and red tilapia. This may be useful to further achieve an understanding
toward this enzyme in view of using it as a tool in environmental monitoring. The
hepatic GST enzyme from catfish and red tilapia was partially purified 15X and
27X respectively in comparison to the ultra-centrifuged cytosolic fraction by
affinity chromatography. Specific GST activity of 12.69 unitlmg protein and 33.42
unitlmg protein was obtained from livers of catfish and red tilapia using l-chloro-
2,4-dinitrobenzene (CDNB) as a substrate. Isolation of GST isoenzymes from
affinity purified fractions was achieved by preparative isoelectric-focusing. Two
isoenzymes; one major isoenzyme designated Cil and one minor isoenzyme
designated Ci2 were isolated from catfish liver with an apparent pl of 6.20 and
8.73 respectively. One isoenzyme designated Ti1 was isolated from red tilapia
liver with an apparent pi of 9.14. SDS-PAGE analysis suggests that the isolated
isoenzymes appear to be homodimeric in nature with subunit molecular weight
of 29.7 21.7 kDa (Cil), 27.7 21.3 kDa (Ci2) and 29.9 +0.9 kDa (Til). As has
been found for most GSTs, highest catalytic activity was obtained with CDNB.
With the exception of the isoenzyme from cytosol and affinity purified fractions of
red tilapia, none of the catfish fractions displayed enzyme activities towards 1,2-
dichloro-4-nitrobenzene (DCNB) and ethacrynic acid (EA). Therefore, both
catfish and tilapia possess hepatic glutathione S-transferase activity, indicating
that they are capable of conjugating endogenous or xenobiotic
metabolites/compounds as a result of foreign exposure or oxidative metabolism
with glutathione, thereby making it a useful tool as a effective biomarker of
aquatic contamination.


A first of its kind resource for clinicians, researchers, educators, graduate students, and policymakers, this authoritative four-volume Handbook is a ground-breaking reference work on both the profession and the practice of systemic family therapy. The Handbook integrates the scholarly literature on systemic interventions focused on children, couples, and families into a single resource. Volume 1 includes critical information on the theoretical, practice, research, and policy foundations of the profession of systemic family therapy and its roles in an integrated health care system. Topics in Volume 2 (children and adolescents), Volume 3 (couples), and Volume 4 (family over the lifespan) reflect established and emerging interventions for the core difficulties in relationships that impact the mental and physical health of individuals, couples, and families. Contributors provide a balanced, integrative, and forward-looking analysis of the research, theory and interventions related to their topic illustrated with clinical examples. Particular attention is paid to cultural and family diversity throughout the work.


Computational and experimental results provide support for defined protein folding pathways. Experimental and theoretical studies have provided a framework for understanding protein folding, and computational advances have allowed millisecond-long simulations of specific folding pathways. However, experimental methods have not had the resolution to validate these pathways (see the Perspective by Sosnick and Hinshaw). Stigler et al. used ultrastable high-resolution optical tweezers to monitor at submillisecond resolution for tens of minutes the fluctuations of full-length calmodulin as it transitioned between unfolded and folded states. Lindorff-Larsen et al. used the supercomputer Anton and a single force field to simulate reversible folding and unfolding of 12 protein domains over periods ranging between 100 µs and 1 ms. The proteins, which represent the major structural classes (α helix, β sheet, and mixed αβ), folded to their experimentally determined structures by following a single dominant route in which the backbone adopted a native-like structure early in the folding process. J. Stigler, F. Ziegler, A. Gieseke, J. C. M. Gebhardt, M. Rief, The complex folding network of single calmodulin molecules. Science 334, 512–516 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text] K. Lindorff-Larsen, S. Piana, R. O. Dror, D. E. Shaw, How fast-folding proteins fold. Science 334, 517–520 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text] T. R. Sosnick, J. R. Hinshaw, How proteins fold. Science 334, 464–465 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Support for massive investments in transportation infrastructure, possibly with a change in the share of spending on transit, seems widespread. Such proposals are often motivated by the belief that our infrastructure is crumbling, that infrastructure causes economic growth, that current funding regimes disadvantage rural drivers at the expense of urban public transit, or that capacity expansions will reduce congestion. In fact, most US transportation infrastructure is not deteriorating and the existing scientific literature does not show that infrastructure creates growth or reduces congestion. However, current annual expenditure on public transit buses exceeds that on interstate construction and maintenance. A careful examination of how funding is allocated across modes is suggested by the evidence. Massive new expenditures are not.


Research has demonstrated a greater understanding of the needs of terminally ill patients and their families, but it also has been found that the palliative care is not optimal. Because of a lack of quality indicators in palliative care, the quality of the care is often not assessed. The aim of this systematic review was to give an overview of published quality indicators for palliative care in all patient groups and settings, to determine whether these quality indicators cover all domains of palliative care, to describe the different types of quality indicators, and to determine the methodological characteristics of the quality indicators. Relevant studies were identified by searching computerized databases up to December 2007. Publications describing the development process or characteristics of quality indicators for palliative care were selected by two reviewers independently. An additional selection criterion was that numerators and denominators were either defined or could be deduced from the descriptions. The data extraction involved the general description and type of the quality indicator, target population, and applicable setting. We identified 650 publications, of which 16 met the inclusion criteria. These publications described eight sets of quality indicators. These sets contained 142 overlapping quality indicators, covering all but one domain (cultural aspects) of palliative care. Most quality indicators referred to the outcomes or processes of palliative care. The methodological characteristics of the quality indicators varied considerably. We conclude that a substantial number of quality indicators for palliative care are available, but most have not been described in detail. More detailed methodological specifications are needed to accurately monitor the quality of palliative care. (aut. ref.)


The Authorship Analysis task has become a determining tool for the analysis of digital documents in forensic sciences. We propose a neighborhood classification method of Authorship Verification analyzing the similarities of a document of unknown authorship between samples documents of one author, without estimating parameters values from a training data, we implemented two strategies of representation of the documents of an author, an instance based and a profile based one. We will evaluate the methods in different data collections according to the number of samples, the textual genres and the topic addressed. We perform an analysis of the contribution of each function of comparison and each feature used to take as final decision a combination by majority of the votes of each function-feature pair used in the similarity between documents. The tests were carried out using the public data sets of the Authorship Verification PAN 2014 and 2015 competitions. The results obtained are promising and allow us to evaluate our proposal and the identification of future work to be developed.


We propose Path Disruption Games (PDGs), which consider collaboration between agents attempting stop an adversary from travelling from a source node to a target node in a graph. PDGs can model physical or network security domains. The coalition attempts to stop the adversary by placing checkpoints in intermediate nodes in the graph, to make sure the adversary cannot travel through them. Thus, the coalition wins if it controls a node subset whose removal from the graph disconnects the source and target. We analyze this domain from a cooperative game theoretic perspective, and consider how the gains can be distributed between the agents controlling the vertices. We also consider power indices, which express the influence of each checkpoint location on the outcome of the game, and can be used to identify the most critical locations where checkpoints should be placed. We consider both general graphs and the restricted case of trees, and consider both a model with no cost for placing a checkpoint and a model with where each vertex has its own cost for placing a checkpoint.


Part II Undergraduate Thesis2009InstitutionDepartment of Biochemistry, University of CambridgeSupervisor: Paul DupreeBench Supervisor: Jenny MortimerXylans are a major component of plant secondary cell walls and their understanding is vital to the optimisation of bio-fuel production. Despite this, the biosynthesis of these polysaccharides is still poorly understood. I have investigated the xylans of root and etiolated hypocotyl tissue and shown significant amounts to be present in both tissues. Previous studies have shown that two genes, GGL4 and GGL5, are responsible for adding glucuronic acid to the xylan backbone of glucuronoxylan in Arabidopsis thaliana stem cell wall (Mortimer, unpublished data). In this study, I investigated the functions of these and related genes, GGL1, GGL3 and GGL6, for addition of glucuronic acid to glucuronoxylan and glucurono-arabinoxylan in root and etiolated hypocotyl secondary cell wall. This was done by structurally characterising the xylan of mutants in these genes by polysaccharide analysis using carbohydrate gel electrophoresis in root and etiolated hypocotyl tissue and high-performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection. This paper provides evidence that GGL4 and/or GGL5 are responsible for the addition of some glucuronic acid to glucuronoxylan in root and etiolated hypocotyl tissues but are not the sole glucuronic acid transferase in these tissues. In both root and etiolated hypocotyl GGL3 is also required for addition of glucuronic acid. High-performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection, however, showed no detectable change in the relative monosaccharide composition of the hemicellulosic cell wall. In addition, I report that there is significantly poorer digestion of root xylan than in stem or etiolated hypocotyl which may indicate the presence of glucuronoarabinoxylan in the root.


As "music of commitment," in the period from the late 1970s to the late 1980s rock music in Yugoslavia had an important purpose of providing a popular-cultural outlet for the unique forms of socio-cultural critique that engaged with the realities and problems of Yugoslav society. The three "music movements" that embodied the new rock'n'roll spirit – New Wave, New Primitives, and New Partisans – used rock music to critique the country's "new socialist culture," with the purpose of helping to eliminate the disconnect between the ideal and the reality of socialist Yugoslavia. This paper examines the New Partisans as the most radical expression of music of commitment through the works of its most important rock bands: Bijelo dugme, Plavi orkestar, and Merlin. The paper's argument is that the New Partisans' socio-cultural engagement, animated by advocacy of Yugoslavism, was a counter-logic to the nationalist dissolution of a distinctly Yugoslav fabric of a socialist community in crisis. Thus, the movement's revolutionary "spirit of reconstruction" permeating its "poetics of the patriotic" was a mechanism of socio-cultural resistance to political, cultural and moral-ethical de-Yugoslavization of Yugoslav society. Its ultimate objective was to make the case that the only way into the future – if there was to be any – rested on strategic reanimation of the Partisan revolutionary past as the only viable socio-cultural foundation of the Yugoslav socialist community.


The trend of retail concentration across the European Union has raised concerns on the buyer power that retailers may have in the relation with their suppliers. Specifically, due to the alleged increasing pressure on producer and supplier margins in various distribution chains, but the increased focus on consumer welfare in EU competition policy, various stakeholders call for demands for a change in the current substantive legal framework of EU competition law. In this discussion, reference is often made to initiatives at the national level that are specifically designed to deal with disparities in market power in business-to-business relations, such as prohibitions on so-called 'abuse of economic dependency' or 'abuse of superior bargaining position'. This Law and Economics research addresses the underlying premise for these requests and therefore analyses whether there is a 'gap' in the current substantive legal framework of EU competition law, which may cause the underenforcement of the potential harmful effects of buyer power. That is, by applying the conceptual apparatus of economics to the field of EU competition law, it has been assessed from an economic efficiency perspective whether the competition rules provide for a legal basis to address the potential competition concerns of buyer power.
The results show that the EU competition rules are readily applicable to buyer conduct and moreover provide for a legal basis to address the potential competition concerns of buyer power. The analysis therefore does not indicate that that the current substantive legal framework of EU competition law is unfit to address the potential harmful effects of buyer power. However, a critical comment is in place with regard to the application of the consumer welfare standard that appears to be used in EU competition policy. While the consumer welfare standard will generally not lead to very different decisions than its alternative, the total welfare standard, and may moreover be preferable due to mitigate regulation costs and undesirable lobbying, it has a specific disadvantage in the context of buyer power. Since buyer power may under specific circumstances harm economic efficiency but does not necessarily directly affect consumer welfare, application of the consumer welfare standard might lead to underenforcement of anti-competitive buyer conduct. There are, however, various indications that the European Commission is aware of this risk and may moreover refrain from the application of the consumer welfare standard in specific buyer power cases. Because this suggests that there is a discrepancy between the actual treatment of buyer conduct and the approach outlined in the European Commission's guidelines, it seems advisable that these guidelines are clarified.


Plant cells inhibit viral infection using a process which targets double stranded RNA (dsRNA), a necessary intermediate in viral infection. This process is known as RNA silencing. Many plant viruses, and some animal viruses, encode a suppressor of RNA silencing (a VSR) which interferes with this process, thereby allowing infection to occur. In animals, cells also protect themselves against viral infection by shutdown of protein production in the invaded host cell. The production of viral dsRNA in vertebrate cells activates Protein Kinase R (PKR), which phosphorylates the alpha subunit of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2α). Phosphorylation of eIF2α interferes with protein production by the host cell, and consequently viral replication.

It has been found that certain vertebrate-infecting viruses encode inhibitors of PKR activity which function in a number of ways, one of which is the activation of Inhibitor of Protein Kinase R (IPK), a host-encoded inhibitor of PKR. By inhibiting the ability of PKR to phosphorylate eIF2α, virus replication can proceed. Recently, some inhibitors of PKR were also shown to be VSRs. It is unknown if VSRs encoded by plant viruses can also affect phosphorylation of eIF2α.

This research had two aims; firstly to determine whether or not eIF2α phosphorylation is triggered upon infection of Arabidopsis thaliana with the viruses Turnip vein clearing virus (TVCV) and Turnip yellow mosaic virus (TYMV), and if IPK activity alters this potential kinase activity. To determine this, wild-type A. thaliana and A. thaliana mutants lacking a functional IPK gene were infected with TVCV and TYMV and sampled over a time period of two weeks. Total plant protein was extracted from the sampled tissue and phosphorylated eIF2α detected via western blot. No eIF2α phosphorylation was seen in wild-type or mutant A. thaliana upon infection with either TVCV or TYMV.

Secondly, to determine whether or not plant VSRs can also inhibit eIF2α phosphorylation by suppressing the function of plant eIF2α kinases. VSRs were transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana plants, eIF2α phosphorylation by the eIF2α kinase GCN2 (general control nonrepressible 2) was triggered by amino acid starvation, and the quantity of phosphorylated eIF2α present measured via western blot to determine whether or not VSRs directly inhibit eIF2α kinase activity. No decrease in eIF2α phosphorylation levels was seen in plant tissue expressing any of the VSRs used, although expression of the p19 gene from Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) appeared to cause an increase in eIF2α phosphorylation upon amino acid starvation.

From this, it was concluded that neither infection with the viruses TVCV or TYMV or expression of the VSRs used in this study altered eIF2α kinase activity, with the exception of the VSR p19 from TBSV, which when expressed in N. benthamiana appears to increase eIF2α phosphorylation upon glyphosate treatment of the plant. The fact that no other VSR caused an increase in eIF2α phosphorylation upon glyphosate treatment suggests that the effect of p19 on eIF2α phosphorylation is not due to its ability to function as a VSR, and plant viruses have not developed a mechanism of inhibiting the phosphorylation of eIF2α. The lack of phosphorylation of eIF2α in A. thaliana upon infection with the viruses TVCV and TYMV suggests that eIF2α phosphorylation is not an antiviral mechanism utilised in plants, although further research in this area is required to determine if this is representative of all A. thaliana ecotypes.