Giant quartz veins associated with the South Armorican Shear Zone record important fluid circulation during the Hercynian period. Regional-scale mapping of veins allows two groups of veins to be identified, on the basis of their geometric relationship with the South Armorican Shear Zone. Veins in the first group are parallel to the shear zone, whereas those in the second group developed in a direction oblique to it. The former probably record infiltration of fluids along permeable pathways in highly deformed zones; the latter may represent crustal-scale tension gashes in the regional context. Most quartz veins have δ18O values between 10 and 16‰ indicating a mid-crustal origin for the fluids. Microthermometry on fluid inclusions from euhedral quartz indicates that late fluids were mostly aqueous with very low salinity (0–1.7 wt% eq.) and with homogenization temperatures ranging between 150 and 270 °C. Together with very low δ18O values of some euhedral quartz, down to −2‰, these features argue for a surface origin. Corresponding δ18Ofluid values estimated near −11‰ are probably related to the high palaeo-elevation of meteoric precipitation. Scarce, but significant, H2O–CO2 fluid inclusions in euhedral quartz indicate a metamorphic contribution. These were probably sourced from the exhumed metamorphic basement in the southern part of the region.


Doping of strongly layered ionic oxides is an established paradigm for creating novel electronic behavior. This is nowhere more apparent than in superconductivity, where doping gives rise to high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates (hole doped) and to surprisingly high Tc in HfNCl (Tc = 25.5 K, electron doped). First-principles calculations of hole doping of the layered delafossite CuAlO2 reveal unexpectedly large doping-induced shifts in spectral density, strongly in opposition to the rigid-band picture that is widely used as an accepted guideline. These spectral shifts, of similar origin as the charge transfer used to produce negative electron affinity surfaces and adjust Schottky barrier heights, drastically alter the character of the Fermi level carriers, leading in this material to an O-Cu-O molecule-based carrier (or polaron, at low doping) rather than a nearly pure-Cu hole as in a rigid-band picture. First-principles linear response electron-phonon coupling (EPC) calculations reveal, as a consequence, net weak EPC and no superconductivity rather than the high Tc obtained previously using rigid-band expectations. These specifically two-dimensional dipole-layer–driven spectral shifts provide new insights into materials design in layered materials for functionalities besides superconductivity.


Detail, pilotis at North Hanover St. entrance; City of Glasgow College was created from the 2009 merger of three Glasgow colleges, and currently uses the building. At the start of the 1960s the Glasgow Corporation commissioned a new home for the College of Building at North Hanover Street. The new building was one of the first commercial high rise structures in Glasgow and took four years to build. It was officially opened in 1964 by Harold Wilson, who later went on to become UK Prime Minister. By Wylie, Shanks & Underwood, 1958-1964; with podium/millennium block by Wylie, Shanks & Partners 1969. The building is a 13-storey with rooftop plant, 24-bay, hexagonal-plan, flat-roofed, horizontally-proportioned tower block with Le Corbusier style elements of pilotis, sculptural rooftop gymnasium and plant. A historical listed building since 2002. Source: Urban Glasgow Collection [website]; http://urbanglasgow.co.uk/ (accessed 7/7/2012)


Cordyceps militaris is a traditional herbal ingredient, which has been used for patients suffering from cancer in Oriental medicine. In the present study, we investigated the biochemical mechanisms of anti-proliferative effects by aqueous extract of C. militaris (AECM) in human leukemia U937 cells. It was found that AECM could inhibit cell growth of U937 cells in a dose-dependent manner, which was associated with morphological change and apoptotic cell death such as formation of apoptotic bodies and DNA fragmentation. We observed the down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 expression and proteolytic activation of caspase-3 in AECM-treated U937 cells. However, AECM did not affect the pro-apoptotic Bax expression and activity of caspase-9. Furthermore, Western blotting and RT-PCR revealed that AECM treatment caused a dose-dependent inhibition of cyclooxygenase-2 and prostaglandin E2 accumulation. Taken together, these results indicated that the anti-proliferative effects of AECM were associated with the induction of apoptotic cell death through regulation of several major growth regulatory gene products such as Bcl-2 family expression and caspase protease activity, and AECM may have therapeutic potential in human leukemia treatment.


We study the relationships between ageist stereotypes – as reflected in the language used in job ads – and age discrimination in hiring, exploiting the text of job ads and differences in callbacks to older and younger job applicants from a resume (correspondence study) field experiment (Neumark, Burn, and Button, 2019). Our analysis uses methods from computational linguistics and machine learning to directly identify, in a field-experiment setting, ageist stereotypes that underlie age discrimination in hiring. The methods we develop provide a framework for applied researchers analyzing textual data, highlighting the usefulness of various computer science techniques for empirical economics research. We find evidence that language related to stereotypes of older workers sometimes predicts discrimination against older workers. For men, our evidence points to age stereotypes about all three categories we consider – health, personality, and skill – predicting age discrimination, and for women, age stereotypes about personality. In general, the evidence is much stronger for men, and our results for men are quite consistent with the industrial psychology literature on age stereotypes.


Remote detection by camera offers a versatile means for recording people activities. Relying principally on changes in video images, the method tends to fail in presence of shadows and illumination changes. This paper explores a possible remedy to these problems by using range cameras instead of conventional video cameras. As range is an intrinsic measure of object geometry, it is basically not affected by illumination. The study described in this paper considers range detection by two state-of-the art cameras, namely a stereo and a time-of-flight camera. Performed investigations consider typical situations of pedestrian detection. The presented results are analyzed and compared in performance with conventional results. The study shows the effective potential of range camera to get rid of light change problems like shadow effects but also presents some current limitations of range cameras.


INTRODUCTION
  This article reports the findings from an international research workshop, held over 2 days in October 2014 in Bairnsdale, Australia, which brought together 19 clinician teachers and medical educators who work in rural primary care. The objectives of the workshop were to clarify and identify the key aspects of the development of clinical reasoning in students and junior doctors, particularly as a result of longitudinal immersion in rural community practice.

METHODS
  Delegates were asked to prepare a 55-word vignette related to their experience of teaching clinical reasoning, and these case studies formed the basis of identification of key issues, further refined via a modified Delphi process.

RESULTS
  The workshop identified four key themes: the patient's story, the learner's reasoning, the context of learning, and the role of the supervisor. Exposure to undifferentiated patient presentations is increasingly common in medical education, particularly in longitudinal integrated placements.

CONCLUSIONS
  This research explored clinicians' perspectives of how students develop their clinical reasoning: by learning from patients, from their supervisors and by understanding the context of their clinical interactions.  .


Hybrid Nd:YAG/MAG welding of ultra high strength steel is studied for 1.5 mm thick sheets in I-, T-and overlap joint type configuration. Untreated and zinc-coated steels were compared, causing distinct differences in terms of process stability and welding result.For zinc coating it can be distinguished between domains of trapped zinc layers like in overlap and T-joints and free surface zinc coatings. While the former situation is critical for violent evaporation and in turn spatter in the absence of a gap, in the latter case a zinc domain outside the weld pool area evaporates due to its low boiling point, thus not disturbing the laser welding process. However, during hybrid welding arc instabilities and short circuiting were observed when changing to zinc coated steel, even for butt joints. One hypothesis is an impact of the zinc vapour atoms on the plasma, with an ionisation energy 20% higher than iron, but 40% lower than Ar. The influence was calculated by Saha's equation.The process window is much narrower than for uncoated steel. Moreover, an enhanced generation of spatter and fume can be observed. A theory for the impact of zinc-coating on hybrid welding is postulated.Hybrid Nd:YAG/MAG welding of ultra high strength steel is studied for 1.5 mm thick sheets in I-, T-and overlap joint type configuration. Untreated and zinc-coated steels were compared, causing distinct differences in terms of process stability and welding result.For zinc coating it can be distinguished between domains of trapped zinc layers like in overlap and T-joints and free surface zinc coatings. While the former situation is critical for violent evaporation and in turn spatter in the absence of a gap, in the latter case a zinc domain outside the weld pool area evaporates due to its low boiling point, thus not disturbing the laser welding process. However, during hybrid welding arc instabilities and short circuiting were observed when changing to zinc coated steel, even for butt joints. One hypothesis is an impact of the zinc vapour atoms on the plasma, with an ionisation energy 20% higher than iron, but 40% lower than Ar. The influence was calculated by Saha's equation.The process window is much narr...


For non-omnidirectional sonic anemometers like the Kaijo-Denki DAT 600 TR61A probe, it is shown that separate planar-fit rotations must be used for the undisturbed (open part of the sonic anemometer) and the disturbed sector. This increases the friction velocity while no effect on the scalar fluxes was found. In the disturbed sector, irregular values of−uw < 0 were detected for low wind velocities. Up to a certain extent these results can be transferred to the CSAT3 sonic anemometer (Campbell Scientific Ltd). This study was done for data sets from the Naqu-BJ site on the Tibetan Plateau.


Vehicle seat suspension is one of very important components to provide ride comfort, in particular, commercial vehicles, to reduce driver fatigue due to long hours driving. This paper presents a study on active control of seat suspension to reduce vertical vibration transmitted from uneven road profile to driver body. The control problem will be firstly studied by proposing an integrated seat suspension model which includes vehicle chassis suspension, seat suspension, and driver body model. This is a new concept in the field of study because most of the current active and semi-active seat suspension studies only consider seat suspension or seat suspension with human body model, and road disturbance is generally assumed to be applied to the cabin floor directly. Controller design based an integrated model will enable the seat suspension to perform in a scenario where vibration caused by road disturbance is transmitted from wheel to seat frame and ride comfort performance is evaluated in terms of human body instead of seat frame acceleration. A static output feedback controller is then designed for the seat suspension with using measurement available signals. Driver mass variation and actuator saturation are also considered in the controller design process. The conditions for designing such a controller are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, numerical simulations are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy. It is shown from the driver body acceleration responses under both bump and random road disturbances that the newly designed seat suspension can improve vehicle ride comfort regardless of driver body mass variation.


This document reports on the discussions during the dinner event held in November 2008. We believe that these discussions and the conversations with the co-applicants set clear directions for next phases of this project. In the first half of 2009, the researchers will be invited to help write evidence-based inputs. In the second half of 2009, we hope to meet all participants again for bilateral discussions. At the beginning of 2010 we aim to organise a final conference on the results of this search for coherencies and synergies between business, policy, practice and research.


Between August 2011 and December 2012 the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) used date-based forward guidance to help stimulate the U.S. economy and promote its objectives of maximum employment and price stability. Some have argued that the formulation of the guidance that the FOMC used may have reduced interest rates primarily by signaling a weak economic outlook rather than by signaling a more accommodative stance of monetary policy. I examine the impact of the date-based guidance, with the principal goal of discerning the extent to which it altered investors' views of the FOMC's policy reaction function. I show that one seemingly straightforward way to address this question--using estimates of the sensitivity of money market futures rates to macroeconomic data surprises--is confounded by the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, a point that has more general implications for the analysis of the effects of monetary policy at the zero bound. I demonstrate that the problem can be overcome using distributions of investors' short-term interest rate expectations constructed from interest rate options. Using PDFs constructed from these options, along with survey measures of macroeconomic surprises, I find the date-based guidance led to a statistically significant and economically meaningful change in investors' perceptions of the FOMC's reaction function. This finding is robust to various regression specifications and the use of alternative options contracts and PDF fitting methodologies.


Copyright for articles published in Communications in Information Literacy is retained by the author(s). Author(s) also extend to Communications in Information Literac y the right to redistribute this article via other scholarly resources and bibliographic databases. This extension allows the authors' copyrighted content to be included in some databases that are distributed and maintained by for-profit companies. All other rights of redistribution are licensed by Communications in Information Literacy under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).


We describe, for the first time, hydrogel-forming microneedle arrays prepared from "super swelling" polymeric compositions. We produced a microneedle formulation with enhanced swelling capabilities from aqueous blends containing 20% w/w Gantrez S-97, 7.5% w/w PEG 10,000 and 3% w/w Na2CO3 and utilised a drug reservoir of a lyophilised wafer-like design. These microneedle-lyophilised wafer compositions were robust and effectively penetrated skin, swelling extensively, but being removed intact. In in vitro delivery experiments across excised neonatal porcine skin, approximately 44 mg of the model high dose small molecule drug ibuprofen sodium was delivered in 24 h, equating to 37% of the loading in the lyophilised reservoir. The super swelling microneedles delivered approximately 1.24 mg of the model protein ovalbumin over 24 h, equivalent to a delivery efficiency of approximately 49%. The integrated microneedle-lyophilised wafer delivery system produced a progressive increase in plasma concentrations of ibuprofen sodium in rats over 6 h, with a maximal concentration of approximately 179 µg/ml achieved in this time. The plasma concentration had fallen to 71±6.7 µg/ml by 24 h. Ovalbumin levels peaked in rat plasma after only 1 hour at 42.36±17.01 ng/ml. Ovalbumin plasma levels then remained almost constant up to 6 h, dropping somewhat at 24 h, when 23.61±4.84 ng/ml was detected. This work represents a significant advancement on conventional microneedle systems, which are presently only suitable for bolus delivery of very potent drugs and vaccines. Once fully developed, such technology may greatly expand the range of drugs that can be delivered transdermally, to the benefit of patients and industry. Accordingly, we are currently progressing towards clinical evaluations with a range of candidate molecules.


Power efficiency is an important design issue in mobile devices with limited power supplies. In this paper, we study a reward-based packet scheduling problem in wireless environments. We consider a general scenario in which a transmitter communicates with multiple receivers periodically. To guarantee timely transmission of data, each packet is associated with a delay constraint. The periodic data streams have different importance levels, power functions, and levels of data sizes. The more data a transmitter delivers, the more rewards it obtains. Our objective is to develop schemes that selectively transmit data streams of different data sizes at different transmission rates so that the system reward can be maximized under given time and energy constraints. We show that the problem is NP-hard and develop a dynamic programming algorithm for the optimal solution in pseudopolynomial time. A fast polynomial-time heuristic approach based on clustering of states in state space is presented to achieve close approximation. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the optimal solution and show that the proposed polynomial-time approach can achieve near-optimal results. Both approaches make a significant improvement over other approaches adapted from existing studies at a marginal runtime overhead.


Finding new or improving existing opening solutions for a package are important at Tetra Pak since the development of new polymers films influence the present package opening solutions. Knowing the general mechanical and fractural behavior of the package material is crucial for the understanding and prediction of the overall opening performance. This thesis presents a study of two different polymer materials, Polypropylene (BoPP) and Low-density polyethylene (LDPE). Single layer of BoPP, single layer of LDPE, BoPP with both sides laminated by LDPE with full adhesion(LDPE/BoPP/LDPE) and with no adhesion(LDPE//BoPP//LDPE) are analyzed under Mode I tensile loading. The study is based on physical test together with Finite Element analysis using computer software ABAQUS. The physical test and calibration is done for continuum and fractured (center crack) test specimen. Comparison of the physical test and the numerical analysis showed a convincing match between the two results for every test cases, continuum and fracture, both in machine and cross direction. Fracture toughness calculated using theory of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), Modified Strip yield model (MSYM) and Experimental test (using global force) and all compared together to determine the possible range of the fracture toughness of BoPP and LDPE.


A novel noninvasive acousto-optic device for polarization coupling and frequency shifting in optical fiber based on bulk-shear acoustic waves is reported. By use of a coupled-mode theory, an expression is obtained to predict the amplitude coupling efficiency. An elliptical-core-fiber polarization modulator is demonstrated at a center acoustic frequency of 75 MHz. An amplitude coupling efficiency of 14.3% and a 3-dB bandwidth of 3.6 MHz were observed, comparing well with the predicted results and also comparing favorably with similar devices based on longitudinal strain waves.


Extractive solvent addition was combined with immobilization cultures of Nicotiana tabacum cells to produce scopoletin. Using various solvents, the partition coefficients of scopoletin between the solvent and water phases and the solvent toxicity to the cell viability were investigated. The effect of the solvent addition on cell growth and scopoletin production was elucidated in the suspension cultures. Coconut oil, one of the natural vegetable oils, was selected as the most suitable extractive solvent. The cells were immobilized in the calcium alginate gel bead coated with a cell‐free gel film and then the batch cultures with the addition of various volumes of the coconut oil were performed. The total scopoletin production increased with the solvent volume according to the amount of scopoletin transferred from the medium to the solvent. The maximum productivity obtained in the batch immobilization cultures was about 16 times larger than that in the suspension culture without solvent. A continuous production system, in which the fresh solvent was supplied to the culture system and the solvent containing scopoletin was recovered from it, was constructed. The integrated scopoletin production in the effluent oil attained 2.21 mg/gDCW for 30 days at 100 cm3/day without cell leakage.


Abstract The study was aimed at evaluating microbial contamination on the premises of the sewage treatment plant by determining the concentrations of selected groups of airborne microorganisms. Another objective was to determine the antibiotic sensitivity patterns of isolated strains of staphylococci. The research was conducted in a seasonal cycle, by the impaction method using Merck MAS-100 air sampler. Samples were collected at six sites, each representing a different stage of sewage treatment. The susceptibility of isolated staphylococci was assessed with the disc-diffusion method, following the recommendations of the EUCAST. The results indicate that the microbial population in the air of the investigated area was dominated by mold fungi, whose highest average concentration was recorded at site IV located near the final clarifier (7672 CFU•m-3). Heterotrophic bacteria and mannitol-positive staphylococci were the most numerous at locations where sewage undergoes primary treatment. In each subseuqent stage the number of microorganisms emitted into the air from the sewage was lower. Antibiograms show that more than 50% of Staphylococcus spp. exhibited resistance to penicillin and 20% to rifampicin. In addition, 90% of the analyzed strains were sensitive to other antibiotics. The fungal community included the following genera: Cladosporium, Fusarium, Alternaria, Penicillium, Aspergillus, Aureobasidium, and Acremonium.The highest air contamination with all studied groups of microorganisms was recorded at the locations where mechanical sewage treatment was performed. During the subsequent stages lower numbers of heterotrophic bacteria were emitted into the air. The air in the investigated sewage treatment plant did not contain multidrug-resistant staphylococci.


Abstract Pollen, a regular component of tropical ice cores, has been shown to have great potential as a sensitive paleoenvironmental proxy in ice-core research. However, questions remain as to the modern dispersal and depositional patterns of pollen on high-alpine tropical ice caps. This information is vital to the accurate interpretation of the environmental reconstructions being derived from fossil pollen. In this study, 11 surface snow samples were collected around the caldera rim at the summit of Mt. Parinacota along the Bolivian-Chilean border. Results show that pollen concentration and assemblage are uniform in samples taken from the southwestern quadrant and the entire eastern half of the mountain. However, the pollen signatures are significantly different in the northwestern quadrant, probably due to long-distance transport of xerophytic Compositae shrub pollen from the prevailing winds. The sections of the mountain not directly impacted by the prevailing northwesterlies reflect a more locally influenced pollen assemblage dominated by grasses. These results are consistent with previous findings from the Quelccaya Ice Cap and confirm the importance of the prevailing winds in the dispersal and deposition of pollen on these high-alpine tropical ice caps.


OBJECTIVES
To determine whether expression of thrombospondin-1 (TSP1), an endogenous inhibitor of angiogenesis, is downregulated during progression of uveal melanoma and whether administration of TSP1 and/or its antiangiogenic peptides attenuate tumor growth.

METHODS
Tyrosinase-SV40 T-antigens (Tyr Tag) transgenic mice were used for evaluation of TSP1 expression during tumor progression using immunohistological methods. The therapeutic potential of TSP1 on tumor progression was evaluated either by crossing Tyr Tag mice with a line of transgenic mice overexpressing TSP1 in the eye or by administration of TSP1-mimetic peptide with known antiangiogenic, antitumor activity. Tumor areas were measured in histological sections using Optima software (Media Cybernetics, Inc).

RESULTS
The Tyr Tag tumors from 3-week-old mice showed significant TSP1 expression, which was dramatically downregulated in tumors from 12-week-old mice. Furthermore, the development and progression of tumor was significantly delayed in Tyr Tag TSP1 transgenic mice or Tyr Tag mice receiving TSP1-mimetic peptide (100 mg/kg/d).

CONCLUSIONS
Expression of TSP1 was decreased with the angiogenic switch during progression of uveal melanoma, and TSP1 and/or its antiangiogenic peptides were effective in attenuation of tumor growth.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Modulation of TSP1 expression and/or activity may be beneficial in treating uveal melanoma.


This report provides a Guidebook of nighttime construction best practices concerning 1) implementation of new or innovative ideas to convert necessary work activities to effective nighttime production; 2) proven safety processes; 3) development of communication strategies (both external and internal); and 4) work-zone illumination methods, including a list of new and innovative lighting equipment with associated advantages and disadvantages. Also listed are activities that may increase or decrease productivity when performed during the nighttime period, as well as methods for conducting work-zone risk analysis planning and implementation for different types of work. This information is presented as a hands-on, user-friendly resource with hard-to-miss color icons that indicate key (not-to-forget) information, tips for proper use of the information, and additional sources of useful information. This Guidebook will be of interest to contractor and transportation agency personnel involved in night work, both in planning and in on-site activities.


INTRODUCTION Bottom samples obtained by means of a Van Veen grab during the 1972 Saba Bank Expedition (CICAR cruises 34 and 35) appeared to comprise many samples with Foraminifera. This material was kindly put at my disposal by Dr. D. van Harten of the Geological Institute of the University of Amsterdam, where the material had been deposited. Complementary to this, a large amount of samples from many stations of the Saba Bank area were obtained from the residues in containers with larger material stored in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie at Leiden, but many of these residues contained only few Foraminifera. Dr. W. Vervoort of the Leiden Museum asked me to identify all the Foraminifera from both collections. As a result 1360 cardboard slides could be added to the collection of Caribbean Foraminifera in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie. Dr. D. van Harten, Dr. W. Vervoort, and Messrs. J. C. den Hartog and M. Slierings are kindly thanked for their help and advise. As the author already described numerous species from the Caribbean region (Hofker, 1956, 1964, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1976), he will only describe here some of the species found in so far as they are new or were imperfectly known. THE SABA BANK The Saba Bank (fig. 1) seems to be a submerged island to the south-east of the island of Saba; the sea-floor between Saba and the Bank is rather deep, and the submerged island seems not to have had any connection with Saba. Like the other islands around the Bank, both are of volcanic origin. The platform of the bank itself, found between 17°12'N to 17°45'N and


A significant fraction of the total photospheric light in nearby galaxy clusters is thought to be contained within the diffuse intracluster light (ICL), which extends hundreds of kpc from cluster cores. The study of the ICL can reveal details of the evolutionary histories and processes occurring within galaxy clusters; however, since it has a very low surface brightness, it is often difficult to detect. We present here the first measurements of the ICL as a fraction of the total cluster light at z ∼ 1 using deep J-band (1.2 μm) imaging from a high-acuity wide-field K-band imager on the Very Large Telescope. We investigate the ICL in six X-ray selected galaxy clusters at 0.8 ≤ z ≤ 1.2 and find that the ICL below isophotes μ J = 22 magarcsec -2 constitutes 1-4 per cent of the total cluster light within a radius R 500. This is broadly consistent with simulations of the ICL at a similar redshift and when compared to nearby observations suggests that the fraction of the total cluster light that is in the ICL has increased by a factor of 2-4 since z ∼ 1. We also find the fraction of the total cluster light contained within the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) to be 2.0-6.3 per cent at these redshifts, which in five out of six cases is larger than the fraction of the ICL component, in contrast to the results from nearby clusters. This suggests that the evolution in cluster cores involves substantial stripping activity at late times, in addition to the early build-up of the BCG stellar mass through merging. The presence of significant amount of stellar light at large radii from these BCGs may help towards solving the recent disagreement between the semi-analytic model predictions of BCG mass growth and the observed large masses and scale sizes reported for BCGs at high redshift.


Within the herpes simplex virus type 1 particle, a complex compartment termed the tegument is sandwiched between the nucleocapsid and envelope. Interactions between tegument components and the cytoplasmic tails of viral envelope glycoproteins are thought to play some role in the poorly defined process of tegument assembly. Here, virion incorporation of a major tegument protein, VP22, and the immediate-early transactivator of gene expression ICP0 was studied to improve our understanding of herpesvirus morphogenesis. In infected cells VP22 was found to bridge the viral glycoproteins gE and gM to form an assembly complex that also incorporates ICP0. VP22 is the major determinant for ICP0 packaging, although both gE and gM were shown to be required for optimal recruitment of ICP0 into the complex and virion. The glycoproteins are redundant for VP22, but not ICP0, assembly. A conserved region of VP22, and N-terminal sequences known to facilitate VP22 oligomerisation, contribute to complex formation. ICP0 domains important for VP22-ICP0 association and ICP0 assembly include the functionally essential RING finger motif and ICP0's C-terminus. The immediate-early protein ICP27, known to be required for ICP0 assembly, was shown for the first time to be recruited into virions, independently of VP22 and ICP0. A mutant that packages enhanced levels of ICP0 exhibited augmented growth kinetics, implying that virion ICP0 performs important functions in infection. No impact of VP22 on ICP0 function could be determined, although a new role for VP22 in modulating gene expression was identified. Nevertheless, VP22 mutation modified ICP0 localisation in infected cells. Interestingly, ICP0 was shown to enhance late stages of virus replication. ICP0-mediated ubiquitination within putative cytoplasmic assembly domains was characterised to further investigate this late function. This work significantly improves our understanding of how glycoprotein-tegument interactions lead to the formation of multicomponent assemblies involved in herpesvirus morphogenesis.


The rate of gas exchange between air and water is an essential quantity in a number of contexts, from mass balances to the calculation of whole‐system metabolism. The exchange of a gas between water and the atmosphere is controlled by differential partial pressures of gases in air and in water (both straightforward to measure) and by the amount of turbulent energy exchange between the air‐water interface, the measurement of which is neither simple nor direct. This physical exchange is often expressed as a piston velocity (k). We compared four methods for estimating k in a series of small (0.3 to 45 ha), low‐wind (mean wind < 3 m s−1) lakes: 1) floating chambers using ambient CH4; 2) whole‐lake SF6 additions; 3) three wind‐based models from the literature; and 4) C mass balances constrained by whole‐lake 13C additions. All of the methods, with the exception of one wind‐based model, converged on values for k600 of between 0.35 and 0.74 m d−1 with no biases among methods. The floating chambers, if designed properly, are a cost‐effective way of obtaining site‐specific values of k for low wind lakes over fairly short time frames (hours).


The synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance of offretite with four distinct crystal morphologies (oval, hexagonal, broccoli-like, and spherical) are presented. As a member of the ABC-6 family of zeolite structures, offretite is likely to form intergrowths which can affect its shape-selective properties. Herein, a combination of experiments (SC-XRD, PXRD, benzene uptake and the methanol-to-hydrocarbon conversion) allows the determination of the mechanism and fraction of twinning. It is demonstrated that the catalysts with the same crystal aspect ratio (AR = 3) yield product spectra dominated by C2–C4 aliphatics. Such product selectivity is associated with zeolites with an 8-ring channel system. Interestingly, a significant production of bulky aromatics is seen for the catalyst with the spherical morphology (AS = 1.1) which is a manifestation of the 12-ring pore system of the OFF framework topology. This constitutes the first report of this behavior. The particular display of product shape selectivity can be ascribed to the catalyst particle morphology.


This year we have received many inquiries about potato leafhopper (Photo 1) in soybean and alfalfa. Although they are present in Iowa every year, populations are higher than in 2018 and 2019. Usually, potato leafhoppers are only considered a pest of alfalfa in Iowa, but they do feed on soybean, too. Potato leafhoppers prefer smooth leaves and are usually repelled by varieties with pubescence (hairs). Disciplines Agricultural Science | Agriculture This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cropnews/2641 9/4/2020 Potato Leafhoppers Abundant in Soybean and Alfalfa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2020/07/potato-leafhoppers-abundant-soybean-and-alfalfa 1/4 Integrated Crop Management Potato Leafhoppers Abundant in Soybean and Alfalfa July 10, 2020 This year we have received many inquiries about potato leafhopper (Photo 1) in soybean and alfalfa. Although they are present in Iowa every year, populations are higher than in 2018 and 2019. Usually, potato leafhoppers are only considered a pest of alfalfa in Iowa, but they do feed on soybean, too. Potato leafhoppers prefer smooth leaves and are usually repelled by varieties with pubescence (hairs). Photo 1. Potato leafhopper adult (top) and nymph (bottom). Photo courtesy of Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. 9/4/2020 Potato Leafhoppers Abundant in Soybean and Alfalfa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2020/07/potato-leafhoppers-abundant-soybean-and-alfalfa 2/4 In soybean, potato leafhopper nymphs can be mistaken for soybean aphid because they are similar in size and color. These hoppers have white eyes, tapered abdomens and do not have cornicles (Photo 1). Potato leafhoppers inject a toxic saliva into the plant while feeding with a piercing-sucking stylet. This style of feeding destroys plant cells and inhibits the transport of fluids within leaves. In soybean, potato leafhoppers feed along the midveins, causing the leaf to curl or twist. In severe cases, soybean and alfalfa can exhibit "hopper burn" (Photo 2). Feeding injury creates stunted plants with leaves that turn yellow along the margins and may eventually fall off. Soybean usually outgrows symptoms of hopper burn, but new alfalfa stands and regrowth following cutting may be severely affected. Since hopper burn in soybean can be similar to potassium deficiency, it is important to scout to confirm the presence of potato leafhopper. Photo 2. Potato leafhopper feeding is known as "hopper burn." Note the characteristic v-shaped yellowing along the margins of the leaves (ignore hole). Photo by Rebecca Vittetoe. While walking through soybean, hoppers are easily disturbed and will attempt to hop or fly away from you. We recommend using a sweep net to estimate the number of potato leafhoppers per sweep and assess population changes over the growing season. Treatment options in alfalfa are based on stand size, market value, and hopper density. See this ICM News article for an economic threshold table. No such thresholds exist for potato leafhoppers in soybean. 9/4/2020 Potato Leafhoppers Abundant in Soybean and Alfalfa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2020/07/potato-leafhoppers-abundant-soybean-and-alfalfa 3/4 Typically, potato leafhopper injury is not enough to warrant an insecticide treatment in soybean. Field evaluations have only been able to document yield loss from this pest when heavy infestations cause severe stunting on very young plants. However, when heavy infestations occur, plants are more susceptible to severe injury when: Planting is delayed into June and soybean is still in the early vegetative stages Variety has smooth leaves or has little pubescence Drought conditions occur We do not typically recommend treating soybean for potato leafhoppers alone. The exception is if severe hopper burn is present AND plants are under additional stress, such as drought. In these cases, many foliar insecticides are labelled for use against potato leafhopper in soybean. The greatest concern for soybean and alfalfa growers in Iowa at this point in the season is potato leafhopper injury combined with dry conditions. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 7% of Iowa is in a moderate drought and 42% of Iowa is abnormally dry (Figure 1). Figure 1. The western half and the eastern "nose" of Iowa are abnormally dry. Data courtesy of the United States Drought Monitor (droughtmonitor.unl.edu). 9/4/2020 Potato Leafhoppers Abundant in Soybean and Alfalfa | Integrated Crop Management https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2020/07/potato-leafhoppers-abundant-soybean-and-alfalfa 4/4 Make sure to scout for potato leafhopper while dry conditions persist to minimize their impact. Adults and nymphs can be managed with pyrethroid insecticides, but exercise caution when applying pyrethroids in areas where soybean aphid is present. Some soybean aphid populations have evolved resistance to pyrethroid insecticides. Check the insecticide label and follow all labelled rates to ensure effective management. Category: Insects and Mites Links to this article are strongly encouraged, and this article may be republished without further permission if published as written and if credit is given to the author, Integrated Crop Management News, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. If this article is to be used in any other manner, permission from the author is required. This article was originally published on July 10, 2020. The information contained within may not be the most current and accurate depending on when it is accessed. Crops: Soybean Biomass and Forage Tags: potato leafhoppers management of potato leafhoppers scouting potato leafhoppers Authors: Ashley Dean Extension Program Specialist III Ashley is an extension program specialist for field crop entomology at Iowa State University. She coordinates the Iowa Moth Trapping Network, develops educational resources for field crop pests in Iowa, and aids in the research efforts of the Erin Hodgson Professor Dr. Erin Hodgson started working in the Department of Entomology at Iowa State University in 2009. She is an associate professor with extension and research responsibilities in corn and soybeans. She has a general background in integrated pest management (IPM) for field crops. Dr. Hodgson's curre...


This project explores the qualities and values built through self-organised communities that are lost in the resettlement process. It is about providing alternative digital platforms - another experience that connects people, in a way that creates ownership and authorship. Enabling people to create their own protocols for connection, as existing ones are not designed for their needs. Using these dimensions as an interface to connect fractured communities, the project aims to explore new hybrids of digital space and how the boundaries of space are shifting as we look toward the future. What might new systems of engagement look like? What will multi-dimensional spaces look like psychologically, physically, digitally and ecologically? How can these be understood through co-creation and collaboration? Produced by: Claire McAndrew - The Bartlett UCL, Swati Janu - Architect Delhi, Paul Sermon - University of Brighton


A major concern with addressing the negative externalities of gasoline consumption by regulating fuel economy, rather than increasing fuel taxes, is that households respond by driving more. This paper exploits a discrete threshold in the eligibility for Cash for Clunkers to show that fuel economy restrictions lead households to purchase vehicles that have lower cost-per-mile, but are also smaller and lower-performance. Whereas the former effect can increase driving, the latter effect can reduce it. Results indicate these households do not drive more, suggesting that behavioral responses do not necessarily undermine the effectiveness of fuel economy restrictions at reducing gasoline consumption.


Initially requested by Emperor Joseph II as entertainment for visiting Russian royalty, Mozart's singspiel Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail represents the first comic opera of the composer's mature career in Vienna. For Mozart, the honor of having his opera performed in such company would have presented an opportunity to present his work to the Viennese court, an important event that, if successful, could potentially ensure royal patronage for years to come. Therefore, it is understandable that he wished to edify Joseph II before his guests. To achieve this end, Mozart and Johann Gottlieb Stephanie created in the role of the Turkish Pasha an "Enlightened Renegade," a character of great nobility who displays the ultimate show of power, that of mercy toward his worst enemies. By insisting on changes to Stephanie's libretto - including a new scene for the Pasha that shows him wrestling with himself over how forceful to be with his captive Konstanze, and the final scene which depicts his noble act of clemency – Mozart can be seen as attempting to curry favor with Joseph II and espouse ideals of the Enlightenment. However, since the opera's premiere in 1782, scholars have debated the merit of the Pasha's act of clemency, and have considered its artistic implication within the Singspiel genre, and its philosophical implication within the framework of the Enlightenment. While the motivations for the composition of the opera and the portrayal of an enlightened, magnanimous ruler may appear conflicting, the role of the Pasha undoubtedly offers a study of extreme power.


This paper provides a critical perspective to the debate on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We do this by reviewing a) the science which proves that land-use change is a key contributor of greenhouse emissions globally, particularly in developing countries; b) the assumptions that halting deforestation may be competitive in terms of costs in comparison to other emission reduction options; c) the studies analyzing the complex drivers of deforestation d) the measures that developing countries have undertaken so far to address deforestation and e) the nature of the current policy proposals being discussed. Such review allows us to argue that current REDD policy proposals may become an additional source of funding to build technical and institutional capacities and to provide incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation in some developing countries, but will not be able to solve the deforestation issue at a large scale in the short term. However, ensuring synergies between international processes and sources of funding for development and environment, and promoting tools for the exercise of private authority in global forest governance, may help to speed up this process.


Few studies have examined the role that fathers play in the development and wellbeing of their sons. This paper examines the relationships, father memories and wellbeing of 194 young, heterosexual men who completed self-report questionnaires as part of a broader study of men's relationships. Five groups of men with different patterns of relationships Secure, Anxious, Resilient, Foreclosed or Fearful were identified on the basis of a cluster analysis of their relationships with their mothers and fathers, their best male friend, their approach to romantic relationships with women, and their masculinity ideologies. Differences between the groups of men suggest that close relationships with fathers are associated with higher levels of wellbeing, with lower depression and social anxiety, with the ability to experience intimacy in non-verbal ways, and to have closer relationships with male friends. An analysis of men's father memories indicated that positive and intimate fathering generally involved both verbal and non-verbal components, and included recreation and sport, emotional and practical availability and support, consistency and reliability, approval and guidance, and appropriate boundary setting.


Abstract Objective: Pregnancy complications such as intra-amniotic infection, preeclampsia, and fetal intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) account for most cases of preterm birth (PTB), but many spontaneous PTB cases do not have a clear etiology. We hypothesize that placental insufficiency may be a potential cause of idiopathic PTB. Methods: Secondary analysis of 82 placental samples from women with PTB obtained from a multicenter trial of repeat versus single antenatal corticosteroids. Samples were centrally reviewed by a single placental pathologist masked to clinical outcomes. The histopathologic criterion for infection was the presence of acute chorioamnionitis defined as neutrophils marginating into the chorionic plate. Placental villous hypermaturation (PVH) was defined as a predominance of terminal villi (similar to term placenta) with extensive syncytial knotting. Idiopathic PTB comprised a group without another known etiology such as preeclampsia, IUGR or infection. Results: Acute chorioamnionitis was observed in 33/82 (40%) cases. Other known causes of PTB were reported in 18/82 (22%). The remaining 31/82 (38%) were idiopathic. The frequency of PVH in idiopathic PTB (26/31 = 84%) was similar to cases with IUGR or preeclampsia (16/18 = 89%), but significantly more common than PVH in the group with acute chorioamnionitis (10/33 = 30%) (p < 0.001). Conclusions: PVH, which is a histologic marker of relative placental insufficiency, is a common finding in idiopathic PTB.


Clinical visual electrophysiology, such as electroretinograms (ERG) and visual evoked potentials (VEP) have been available clinically for decades. The tests are often ordered as adjuncts to more typical clinical examination and offer the ability to determine the site(s) in the visual pathway that are affected by ocular pathology (i.e. retinal versus cortical). Suspected retinal dystrophies and cases of unexplained vision loss are often referred for visual electrodiagnostic testing. A full-field ERG, for instance, is necessary to definitively describe and diagnose retinitis pigmentosa as the clinically visible retinal findings are not always typical (e.g. retinitis sine pigmento).


The growth of iron borides over the surface of different steels is of high anisotropy. It was determined that the anisotropy of borided phases reveals a significant instability of properties in service. One of the techniques to determine the effect of anisotropy on the mechanical properties of boride layers is the induced-fracture by Vickers microindentation. During the present work, the fracture toughness (KC) of the Fe2B hard coatings has been estimated at the surface of AISI 4140 borided steels. The force criterion of fracture toughness was determined from the extent of brittle cracks originating at the tips of an indenter impression. The indentation loads were established between 1.9 to 9.8 N at three different distances from the borided surface. The KC values were expressed as a function of temperature, treatment time and the indentation distances from the surface. Likewise, the adherence of the coated system was evaluated by Rockwell-C indentation, where the borided steel showed sufficient adhesion.


The juvenile justice system is charged with the welfare of the children it serves, yet less is known about the prosocial behaviors of adolescent youthful offenders. This study identifies patterns of prosocial behavior for 7 years among serious adolescent offenders, the correlates of each pattern, and associated patterns of secure placement. Using 7 years of monthly data from the Pathways to Desistance Study (N = 1,354), we used group-based trajectory models to identify longitudinal patterns of positive youth behaviors related to school and work among serious adolescent offenders and a joint trajectory model to assess the relationship between trajectories of institutional placement and positive youth behaviors. Four groups were identified that demonstrated a high, low, medium, and dips-then-rises likelihood of gainful activities throughout the study period. Gainful activities were negatively associated with risk for delinquency across multiple domains. Juvenile justice interventions should consider prosocial promise in addition to risk for delinquency.


From the chain gang to the electric chair, the problem of how to deal with criminals has long been debated. What explains this concern with getting punishment right? And why do attitudes toward particular punishments change radically over time? In addressing these questions, Philip Smith attacks the comfortable myth that punishment is about justice, reason, and law. Instead he argues that punishment is an essentially irrational act founded in ritual as a means to control evil without creating more of it in the process."Punishment and Culture" traces three centuries of the history of punishment, looking in detail at issues ranging from public executions and the development of the prison to Jeremy Bentham's notorious panopticon and the invention of the guillotine. Smith contends that each of these attempts to achieve sterile bureaucratic control was thwarted as uncontrollable cultural forces generated alternative visions of heroic villains, darkly gothic technologies, and sacred awe. Moving from Andy Warhol to eighteenth-century highwaymen to Orwell's 1984, Smith puts forward a dazzling account of the cultural landscape of punishment. His findings will fascinate students of sociology, history, criminology, law, and cultural studies.


Music teaching formed an important source of income for many musicians in the nineteenth century, whether as part of a 'portfolio' career, to support composing or performing activities, or as part of the 'flood' of private teachers in the expanding market of the last quarter of the century. As such, however, it hads a reputation as a low-status part of the profession. This was particularly true given its association with female teachers, many of whom were part-time, unqualified and often ill-equipped. Sources from throughout the century suggest music teaching was a thankless task, with musicians such as William Sterndale Bennett working extensive hours in order to make ends meet, and other teachers complaining of being undercut by young ladies charging as little as 6s an hour. The first part of this chapter will explore the nuances of status and practice in the music teaching profession, using published sources on the profession as well as reports and stories from the press.

Attempts to professionalise music teaching in the last decades of the nineteenth century cast a new light on the status of this part of the music profession, and this case study forms the second part of the chapter. The Union of Graduates in Music and the Incorporated Society of Musicians were both involved in a scheme to introduce registration for music teachers, largely in response to government plans to register all secondary school teachers. While many were in favour of ousting 'bogus' music teachers, the practicalities of developing a formal scheme for accreditation or establishing basic professional standards were significant obstacles.

Responses to formal inquiries reveal the complexities of managing professional identity, this time from the perspective of senior members of the music profession. The ongoing difficulties in the relationship between the UGM and ISM also expose fractures within the profession, especially where formal accreditation and class identity were at stake. The ultimate failure to secure registration for music teachers was predominantly due to the lack of recognised accreditation, as well as the problems of identifying bona fide professionals among the mass of part-time and unqualified practitioners.


Aims: The study aimed to review the outcomes of pregnancy of unknown location (PUL) in EPAU at Yeovil District Hospital and determine the PUL rate and correlate the serial beta hCG with the predicted outcome and review the further management. Methods: A retrospective study over a year period reviewing the cases diagnosed as PUL between 1st November 2014 to 31st October 2015. Those patients between 6 and 15 weeks turning up at EPAC for the 1st visit were included and those patients less than 6 weeks and those for rescans were excluded. Results: The total number of pelvic scans done in EPAC unit at YDH during the study period was 1093. The total number of PUL cases was 96 giving the PUL rate of 9%. Of all the PUL patients the most common outcome was failing pregnancy (53%) and the ectopic pregnancy rate was 9%. PUL patients that ended up with ectopic pregnancy (11%) behave like intrauterine pregnancy (IUP). Among those PUL ended up with IUP, 21 % had suboptimal changes in serial beta hCG. Conclusions: PUL rate in our unit is 9% which is similar to the reported rate in the literature. The predicted outcomes like failing pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, IUP and persistent PUL are comparable to those reported in the literature. Majority of outcome of PUL is not ectopic. Further management for each outcome of PUL should be based upon good history taking, clinical assessments, haemodynamic stability and patient's informed choices. *Corresponding author: Wynn Thida, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Higher Kingston, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 4AT, UK, Email: email@example.com Citation: Thida, W., et al. Review on Outcome of Pregnancy of Unknown Location and Further Management – A Retrospective Study. (2017) J Gynecol Neonatal Biol 3(1): 14. J Gynecol Neonatal Biol | Volume 3: Issue 1 www.ommegaonline.org


In this paper, we consider a security market in which two investors on different information levels maximize their expected logarithmic utility from terminal wealth. While the ordinary investor's portfolio decisions are based on a public information flow, the insider possesses from the beginning extra information about the outcome of some random variable G, e.g., the future price of a stock. We solve the two optimization problems explicitly and rewrite the insider's additional expected logarithmic utility in terms of a relative entropy. This allows us to provide simple conditions on G for the finiteness of this additional utility and to show that it is basically given by the entropy of G.


What can arts‐based learning offer to adult, work‐related education? A study was undertaken that explored the benefits of learning with the arts for professional development of an adult learner in Australia. The individual experiences of nine adults who participated in arts‐based workshops to build work‐related skills were examined using the contextual model of learning where the personal, socio‐cultural and physical contexts were considered. To determine the potential for professional development, the participants' perceived learning outcomes were examined against the list of the skills valued in the modern workplace. The adult learners who participated in this research found learning with the arts to be engaging, enjoyable and productive. The study highlighted the potential benefits that learning with the arts could bring to the workplace which included increased motivation to learn, creativity, strengthened confidence and improved communication skills.


M. Christine Boyer Not Quite Architecture: Writing around Alison and Peter Smithson Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2017, 483 pp., 25 color and 80 b/w illus. $44.95 (cloth), ISBN 9780262035514

Robin Hood Gardens (1972), the London housing estate that realized the urban principles of Peter and Alison Smithson, is now in the process of being literally and figuratively deconstructed. As would suit a pair of architects whose professional careers began with musings over the "as found" rubble of postwar London, the Victoria and Albert Museum has stepped in to salvage a three-story section of the structure from the demolition site. The segment, despite the curatorial conservation of its fittings and cabinetry, is no arbitrarily, or even programmatically, determined fragment: it represents a full iteration of the repeated graphic sequence that once formed the building's facade. This pattern of prefabricated parts preserves the centrality of the representational method that was as fundamental to the Smithsons' practice as were off-the-shelf materials.

The graphology of this reliquary also encapsulates the spirit of the disproportionate quantity of historical research into the Smithsons and their work that has been conducted over the past few decades. Much has been made of the Smithsons' commentary on the compilation of advertisements, as well as their affection for raw industrial materiality. Scholars, myself included, have deployed interactions of the couple with the politics of the discipline at home and abroad to preserve a portrait of an era that is both peculiarly British and central to the devolution of mainstream modernism. The universality of the particular was a strong theoretical suit of the Smithsons …


The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a new method of analyzing life story interviews. According to this method, interviewees are asked to title their life story at the end of the main interview. These titles are analyzed as texts by the researcher, in order to identify the central storyline. Comparison of storylines enables us to define the supercode of the interviewee's life stories. In this article, the author uses titles that battered women give to their life stories to demonstrate the process of analyzing titles, and discusses the advantages as well as the limitations of this method.


Early visual processing is subject to binocular interactions because cells in striate cortex show binocular responses and ocular dominance (Hubel & Weisel, 1968). The work presented in this thesis suggests that these physiological interactions can be revealed in psychophysical experiments using normal human observers. In the region corresponding to the blind spot, where binocular interactions differ from areas of the visual field which are represented by two eyes, monocular contrast sensitivity is increased. This finding can be partially explained by an absence of normal binocular interactions in this location (Chapter 2). A hemianopic patient was studied in an attempt to discover whether the effect in normal observers was mediated by either a mechanism in striate cortex or via a subcortical pathway. However, the results were unable to distinguish between these two explanations (Chapter 3).In a visual search task, no difference in reaction time was observed for targets presented to the region corresponding to the blind spot compared with targets presented to adjacent binocularly represented areas of the visual field. Since performance was unaffected by the monocularity of the region corresponding to the blind, pop-out for orientation may be mediated beyond striate cortex where cells are binocularly balanced (Chapter 5). Further support for this contention was provided by studies of orientation pop-out in central vision which found that dichoptic presentation of stimuli did not affect the degree of pop-out obtained and that in general, visual search for a target based solely on eye of origin is impossible (Chapter 6). However, a task that measured orientation difference sensitivity more directly than the search experiments, found that thresholds were higher for dichoptically presented stimuli. This suggests the involvement of neurons that receive a weighted input from each eye. A model of orientation difference coding can account for the results by assuming that the range of inhibition across which orientation differences are coded is narrower for dichoptic stimuli leading to a greater resolvable orientation difference (Chapter 7).


A comparative analysis of the privacy policies of federal and provincial political parties in Canada reveals that these policies are often difficult to find, their scope is often unclear, and with a couple of exceptions, they do not address all the privacy principles. Accountability and complaints mechanisms are often not clearly publicized. Many are silent on procedures for the access and correction of data, and unsubscribing from lists. Vague and expansive statements of purpose are quite common. However, parties could comply with all ten principles within the CSA's National Standard of Canada, upon which Canadian privacy law is based, without difficulty. But it will require a thorough process of self-assessment and a commitment across the political spectrum to greater transparency. The early experience in British Columbia, where parties are regulated under the BC Personal Information Protection Act, suggests that this process is beneficial for all concerned. So there is no inherent reason why parties could not be brought within the coverage of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). In an era of heightened publicity and concern about the role of voter analytics in elections in light of the revelations concerning Cambridge Analytica, parties in Canada need to enhance their privacy management practices and commit to complying with national privacy principles to all their operations.


A new emergency escape system has been implemented into the coal industry in the Southern Districts of New South Wales. It has eventuated from a long process of trials and risk assessments and has involved every facet of the mining industry. A team of over 20 people had direct input into the development of this system, as well as the countless others who have helped refine initial ideas and avail themselves of a series of tests and trials. This paper The culmination of their combined efforts is presented.


In view of the competing demands on land to feed people adequately, sustain biodiversity and ecosystem services and mitigate climate change, there is a clear need for a systematic basis for allocating land use with respect to economic and environmental objectives. This study formulates an integrated environmental and economic assessment of the global consequences of changing current land use in the UK with different land-use strategies for food, feed, fuel, timber and carbon sink. Novel operational approaches are proposed for resolving the associated methodological issues, which are applied in the characterisation of the main land-use strategies in the UK. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used for the environmental assessment, with emphasis on ecosystem carbon balances as the contribution to both global climate change and ecosystem services and biodiversity impacts. A parallel economic assessment is integrated with LCA. The results indicate that changing land use and management on current cropland generally does not deliver improvements in all three criteria of mitigating climate and impacts on ecosystem service and biodiversity, while creating additional economic value. There are a few exceptions, of which wheat and barley for feed and under organic management are the best. Expanding cropland onto set-aside and permanent grassland is more beneficial when crops are used for fuel (CHP) or for carbon sink (in the case of Douglas Fir and Ash, Sycamore and Silver Birch). Expansion onto set-aside is largely undesirable if by arable cropping, but desirable by energy and forestry crops. The former are best used for CHP whereas the latter as carbon sinks, even though no economic value is generated in the foreground system. The consequential assessment showed that indirect effects (i. e. those in the background system) are relevant and ought to be considered when assessing land-use strategies.


The professorship I held was denoted "Pedagogy with a focus on the development and learning of younger children". It was a newly instituted professorship at the Teacher Education Program at the newly founded university college in Malmo. The purpose was dual - to further develop research related to children's development and learning in pre-school as well as to contribute to the academization of the pre-school teacher education. It was initiated by the director of the Teacher Education Program, and was placed at the department responsible for preschool teacher education.
In this article, the professorship´s purpose and orientation will be discussed in a historical perspective. It considers significant aspects of the development of the program for pre-school education, such as practical pedagogy, knowledge traditions, and gender. In addition, it suggests that the development of this program was characterized by a complicated relationship to the state as well as the academy, involving efforts to reconcile both sides. The article also discusses the late nationalization of this program and why a professorship was established in 1999 to support research and academic development. Other themes discussed, with examples from my own work as researcher, expert, and teacher, are the terms and conditions of the research area, special initiatives, and continuity and discontinuity.


Title: ACCURACY AND CONSISTENCY IN DISCOVERING DIMENSIONALITY BY CORRELATION CONSTRAINT ANALYSIS AND COMMON FACTOR ANALYSIS Rochelle Elaine Tractenberg, Ph.D., 2009 Directed By: Professor Gregory R. Hancock, Department of Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation An important application of multivariate analysis is the estimation of the underlying dimensions of an instrument or set of variables. Estimation of dimensions is often pursued with the objective of finding the single factor or dimension to which each observed variable belongs or by which it is most strongly influenced. This can involve estimating the loadings of observed variables on a pre-specified number of factors, achieved by common factor analysis (CFA) of the covariance or correlational structure of the observed variables. Another method, correlation constraint analysis (CCA), operates on the determinants of all 2x2 submatrices of the covariance matrix of the variables. CCA software also determines if partialling out the effects of any observed variable affects observed correlations, the only exploratory method to specifically rule out (or identify) observed variables as being the cause of correlations among observed variables. CFA estimates the strengths of associations between factors, hypothesized to underlie or cause observed correlations, and the observed variables; CCA does not estimate factor loadings but can uncover mathematical evidence of the causal relationships hypothesized between factors and observed variables. These are philosophically and analytically diverse methods for estimating the dimensionality of a set of variables, and each can be useful in understanding the simple structure in multivariate data. This dissertation studied the performances of these methods at uncovering the dimensionality of simulated data under conditions of varying sample size and model complexity, the presence of a weak factor, and correlated vs. independent factors. CCA was sensitive (performed significantly worse) when these conditions were present in terms of omitting more factors, and omitting and mis-assigning more indicators. CFA was also found to be sensitive to all but one condition (whether factors were correlated or not) in terms of omitting factors; it was sensitive to all conditions in terms of omitting and mis-assigning indicators, and it also found extra factors depending on the number of factors in the population, the purity of factors and the presence of a weak factor. This is the first study of CCA in data with these specific features of complexity, which are common in multivariate data. ACCURACY AND CONSISTENCY IN DISCOVERING DIMENSIONALITY BY CORRELATION CONSTRAINT ANALYSIS AND COMMON FACTOR ANALYSIS


We consider dense networks of surveillance cameras capturing overlapped images of the same scene from different viewing directions, such a scenario being referred to as multi-view. Data compression is paramount in such a system due to the large amount of captured data. In this paper, we propose a Multi-view Distributed Video Coding approach. It allows for low complexity / low power consumption at the encoder side, and the exploitation of inter-view correlation without communications among the cameras. We introduce a combination of temporal intra-view side information and homography inter-view side information. Simulation results show both the improvement of the side information, as well as a significant gain in terms of coding efficiency.


This paper discusses conceptual and methodological issues that arise when educational researchers use data from large-scale, survey research to examine the effects of teachers and teaching on student achievement. Using data from Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of Educational Growth and Opportunity 1991–1994, we show that researchers' use of different statistical models has led to widely varying interpretations about the overall magnitude of teacher effects on student achievement. However, we conclude that in well-specified models of academic growth, teacher effects on elementary school students' growth in reading and mathematics achievement are substantial (with d-type effect sizes ranging from .72 to .85). We also conclude that various characteristics of teachers and their teaching account for these effects, including variation among teachers in professional preparation and content knowledge, use of teaching routines, and patterns of content coverage, with effect sizes for variables measuring these characteristics of teachers and their teaching showing d-type effect sizes in the range of .10. The paper concludes with an assessment of the current state of the art in large-scale, survey research on teaching. Here, we conclude that survey researchers must simultaneously improve their measures of instruction while paying careful attention to issues of causal inference.


SCOPE
The aim of this research was to explore whether the tea-polyphenol (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) could be used as a potential agent for blocking smoking (nicotine, Nic)- or hormone (estradiol, E2)-induced breast cancer cell proliferation through inhibition of a common signaling pathway.

METHODS AND RESULTS
To explore whether Nic (>0.1 μM, 24 h) and E2 (>1 nM, 24 h) significantly increased α9-nicotinic acetylcholine (α9-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR)) mRNA and protein expression levels, real-time PCR and immunoblotting analysis experiments were performed in human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells. Luciferase promoter activity experiment was performed to test the α9-nAChR promoter activity affected by Nic, E2 or EGCG. The results indicate that treatment with EGCG (1 μM) profoundly decreases Nic- and E2-induced MCF-7 proliferation by down regulating α9-nAChR expression. The α9-nAChR promoter activity is significantly induced by 24-h treatment with Nic (10 μM) or E2 (10 nM) (>1.8 and ∼2.3-fold, respectively) in MCF-7 cells. Pretreatment with EGCG eliminated the Nic- and E2-induced α9-nAChR promoter-dependent luciferase activity. We further demonstrate that combined treatment with EGCG profoundly inhibits [3H]-Nic/ α9-nAChR binding activity in breast cancer cells.

CONCLUSIONS
We found that the EGCG could be used as an agent for blocking smoking (Nic)- or hormone (E2)-induced breast cancer cell proliferation by inhibiting of α9-nAChR signaling pathway. This study reveals the novel antitumor mechanisms of EGCG, and these results may have significant applications for chemopreventive purposes in human breast cancer.


Microwave planar filter topologies based on ring resonators with coupled-lines combination / Sameh Kh M Khanfar

This research is divided into two topics, where ring resonator and coupled line will be, either, integrated or cascaded. In the first topic, quarter-wavelength coupled line ring resonator integration will be developed, which will result in a single mode resonator with two transmission zeros on both sides of the passband. The new filter will be presented by its equivalent circuits in order to derive the mathematical modeling and extract the controlling parameters which determine the position of the transmission zeros. Several filters are designed using the new synthesis to show its advantages and new applications. The synthesis of the new topology could be generalized to design higher order filters, which facilitates the design of such filter. Moreover, the filter will be cascaded to offer higher orders and more selective filters. 2nd, 3rd , 4th and 5th order filters will be designed and simulated to show the feasibility of the new topology. In the second part, the concept of the ring resonator and coupled lines will be further explored, where the quarter-wavelength coupled line will be cascaded with the ring resonator. Such a topology will offer high selective and wideband filter compared to conventional coupled line filter. Furthermore, the new topology reduces the number of controlling parameters, thereby, achieving ease of designing and fabrication. Several techniques are proposed to miniaturize the filter size by using curved coupled line cascaded with curvy ring resonator or by adding a square patch to the inner corner of the ring resonator. Moreover, the same concept is used where the quarter-wavelength coupled lines are cascaded with multiple ring resonators to achieve high selective, wideband and shorter circuitry filters, when compared with conventional coupled line filter. Eleven filters will be designed and fabricated using planar circuitry technology, where measurements using vector network analyzer show the agreement of measured and simulated results.


We demonstrate that photon motion in a random laser medium with spatially nonuniform gain is, strictly speaking, not diffusion. In this regime, the effective photon residence time in a scattering medium decreases with the increase of gain, which causes a number of interesting features in the random laser behavior.


The purpose of this study was to explore the application of servant leadership principles to community college instructional administration. The study conducted was a multicase research design. The conceptual framework for the study was based on Greenleaf's work in servant leadership as expressed in 10 characteristics of servant leaders defined by Spears: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community.
Three community college chief academic officers were selected through a nomination process. Chief academic officer participants were selected because they were identified by their presidents and peers as displaying characteristics that appeared to be consistent with servant leadership. The three chief academic officers participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, observation, and document analysis. In addition, five or six direct reports of each chief academic officer participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews regarding their supervisor's leadership.
The major findings of the study affirmed that all three chief academic officers displayed all 10 characteristics of a servant leader identified by Spears, with three of those characteristics being identified more frequently than the others and one characteristic being identified less frequently than the others. The varied strengths were reflective of the chief academic officers' diverse backgrounds, interests, and passions. Characteristics displayed by the three chief academic officers in addition to the 10 characteristics identified by Spears included honesty, courage, commitment to family, dedication, flexibility, and informality. The study also revealed that the direct reports attributed many positive experiences to their supervisor's leadership philosophy and behaviors. One criticism was the amount of time consumed by the collaborative effort that is a hallmark of the three CAOs' leadership.
The study concluded that there are servant leaders who occupy positions as community college chief academic officers. It was further concluded that those who report to servant leaders who occupy positions as community college chief academic officers have very positive and satisfying work experiences that largely stem from their supervisor's leadership style.
The study concluded with recommendations for community college administrators, servant leaders, and future researchers.


A recent spate of election laws tightened registration rules, reduced convenient voting opportunities, and required voters to show specific types of identification in order to vote. Because these laws make voting more difficult, critics have analogized them to Jim Crow Era voter suppression laws.

We challenge the analogy that current restrictive voting laws are a reincarnation of Jim Crow Era voter suppression. While there are some notable similarities, the analogy obscures a more apt comparison to a different form of voter suppression — one that operates to effectively disfranchise an entire class of people, just as the old form did for African Americans. This form of suppression excludes the poor.

To account for the effective disfranchisement of the poor, we develop a more robust theory of voting than currently exists in the legal literature. Drawing on rational choice and sociological theories of voting, we show how information, affiliation with formal organizations, and integration into social networks of politically active individuals are far more important to the decision to vote than the tangible costs of voting associated with the new voter suppression.

Using this expanded account of voting, we identify the role of political parties and their mobilization activities in the effective disfranchisement of the poor. Relying on the same proprietary data as the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012 (and hundreds of campaigns since), along with other public sources of data, we show how campaigns employ a "calculus of contact" to decide whom to mobilize. That calculus leads campaigns to disproportionately neglect the poor when canvassing, calling, and sending political mailers to potential voters — mobilization activities that have a sizeable turnout effect. In our view, the most significant voter suppression tactics of the twenty-first century are therefore not what legislatures are doing, but what campaigns are not doing.

We argue that a first step in combating this passive voter suppression should involve changing the information environment of campaigns: the amount and type of information about potential voters that the state makes available to campaigns. Such a change could force campaigns to adjust their calculus of contact and contact more low-income people during election season. Including the poor as targets of campaign mobilization would be an important first step toward a more egalitarian democracy.


Sp. Char.-Corallum composed of fasciculate to sub-compound corallites, forming more or less large globose colonies. Corallites radiating from a common centre, comparatively short, but the heighth of the corallum increased by repeated gemmation; straight or slightly flexuous, often laterally united into clusters by a partial union of the walls, but without exothecaloutgrowths, circular when single, imperfectly polygonal when united, and with an average diameter of eight millimetres; walls thin; calices deep. Septal area as a very distinct peripheral ring, from a quarter to one fifth the width of a corallite, forming a flat border around each calice; septa 30 40, all primary, proximally straight, distally flexuous, delicate, and at times laterally denticulate, extending inwards for about one quarter the width of the corallites. Interseptal loculi occupied either by complete transverse dissepiments forming several cycles, particularly towards the distal portions of the loculi, or incomplete, forming irregular vesicles within the transverse dissepiments, peripheral portions of the loculi sometimes quite devoid of dissepiments, leaving clear spaces. Tabulate area comparatively large; tabulre very variable both in their distance apart and in character; they may be moderately close, very close, or distant from one another, horizontal, ratheli/oblique, slightly concave, or inosculating, when vesicles are formed, semilunate, lenticular, or even globular in form. Gemmation parietal and frequent.


ABSTRACT
 Multiple-choice and no-choice tests were conducted at the Florida Department of Agriculture quarantine facility to determine the host specificity of the South American flower bud weevil, Anthonomus tenebrosus Boheman, intended for biological control of the exotic weed tropical soda apple (TSA), Solanum viarum Dunal in Florida, USA. Ninety-one plant species in 21 families were included in multiple-choice feeding and oviposition experiments, including the target weed and the 6 major cultivated Solanaceae: bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), chili pepper (C. frutescens L.), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.), eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), and potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). Plant bouquets with flower-buds of 8 to 10 randomly selected plant species, always including TSA (S. viarum) were exposed to 10–20 A. tenebrosus adults for 1 to 2 weeks. Oviposition and feeding were observed twice a week. No-choice host-specificity tests were also conducted with A. tenebrosus adults using potted flowering plants. Ten adults were exposed to 29 plant species individually tested for 1 to 2 weeks. Plant species in each test were replicated 3 or 4 times. All tests showed that A. tenebrosus fed and laid eggs only on the target weed. No eggs were deposited on any of the other of the 91 plant species tested. Host-specificity tests indicated that a host range expansion of A. tenebrosus to include any of the crops, and native Solanaceae, and non-solanaceous plants tested is highly unlikely. A petition for field release in the USA was submitted to the Technical Advisory Group for Biological Control Agents of Weeds (TAG) in Oct 2007.


In this paper, we present a novel classification method called deep diffusioninvariant Wasserstein distributional classification (DeepWDC). DeepWDC represents input data and labels as probability measures to address severe perturbations in input data. It can output the optimal label measure in terms of diffusion invariance, where the label measure is stationary over time and becomes equivalent to a Gaussian measure. Furthermore, DeepWDC minimizes the 2-Wasserstein distance between the optimal label measure and Gaussian measure, which reduces the Wasserstein uncertainty. Experimental results demonstrate that DeepWDC can substantially enhance the accuracy of several baseline deterministic classification methods and outperforms state-of-the-art-methods on 2D and 3D data containing various types of perturbations (e.g., rotations, impulse noise, and down-scaling).


The stories behind the greatest scientific controversies are more than entertaining. They provide windows into the evolution of scientific thought, scientific method, technological achievements and their research applications, and the influence of individuals and personalities on a community's acceptance of a theory Epic controversies surround the theories for Earth's mass extinction events, and none is more spectacular than the continuing polemic over the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) mass extinctions and ultimate demise of the dinosaurs.

In contrast to other great scientific debates, we tend to view the K/T event in the context of a crime scene, where the spectacularly diverse flora and fauna of a primordial Eden were unwittingly slain by one or more ruthless and efficient killers. A "foreign" suspect has been fingered; an intruder that killed suddenly and randomly has become the principal suspect. The main clues uncovered in the case include a global K/T iridium anomaly; shock-deformed minerals in K/T boundary sediments; the ˜6 5 m.y-old Deccan flood-basalt province, which covered an area roughly the size of France; and the ˜6 5 m.y-old Chicxulub impact crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which seems to be among the largest to have formed in the inner solar system over the past billion years.


Abstract. A detailed analysis is presented in order to determine the sensitivity of the estimated short-term cloud feedback to choices of temperature datasets, sources of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) clear-sky radiative flux data, and temporal averaging. It is shown that the results of a previous analysis, which suggested a likely positive value for the short-term cloud feedback, depended upon combining all-sky radiative fluxes from NASA's Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) with reanalysis clear-sky forecast fluxes when determining the cloud radiative forcing (CRF). These results are contradicted when ΔCRF is derived using both all-sky and clear-sky measurements from CERES over the same period. The differences between the radiative flux data sources are thus explored, along with the potential problems in each. The largest discrepancy is found when including the first two years (2000–2002), and the diagnosed cloud feedback from each method is sensitive to the time period over which the regressions are run. Overall, there is little correlation between the changes in the ΔCRF and surface temperatures on these timescales, suggesting that the net effect of clouds varies during this time period quite apart from global temperature changes. Given the large uncertainties generated from this method, the limited data over this period are insufficient to rule out either the positive feedback present in most climate models or a strong negative cloud feedback.


We argue that political scientists can provide additional evidence for the predictive validity of observational and quasi-experimental research designs by minimizing the expected prediction error or generalization error of their empirical models. For observational and quasi-experimental data not generated by a stochastic mechanism under the researcher's control, the reproduction of statistical analyses is possible but replication of the data generating procedures is not. Estimating the generalization error of a model for this type of data and then adjusting the model to minimize this estimate --- regularization --- provides evidence for the predictive validity of the study by decreasing the risk of overfitting. Estimating generalization error also allows for model comparisons that highlight underfitting: when a model generalizes poorly due to missing systematic features of the data generating process. Thus, minimizing generalization error provides a principled method for modeling relationships between variables that are measured but whose relationships with the outcome(s) are left unspecified by a deductively valid theory. Overall, the minimization of generalization error is important because it quantifies the expected reliability of predictions in a way that is similar to external validity, consequently increasing the validity of the study's conclusions.


This paper examines techniques that have been used to estimate potential output and finds them wanting. We suggest a simple multivariate-filtering technique that is a generalization of the Hodrick-Prescott univariate filter. In univariate filters, only information about a variable itself is used in eliminating noise in order to obtain an estimate of the underlying trend. […]


Recent research on discourse has shown that Appositive Relative Clauses (ARCs) can be defined positively in spite of a long tradition in which they are defined asymmetrically with respect to Determinative Relative Clauses (DRCs). Particularly, Loock (2007) has shown that ARCs fulfill specific discourse functions, and distinguishes three categories: Relevance, Subjectivity and Continuative ARCs. This paper aims to show that, for the same syntactic structure, different functions in discourse correspond not only to specific morphosyntactic and semantic criteria, but also to different prosodic realisations. Using attested examples taken from electronic corpora and analysed using semi-automatic procedures within Praat, this paper suggests that a distinction can be made between ARC types such as defined in Loock's study, with for instance higher onset values for subjectivity ARCs, a cue of stronger discourse discontinuity. This paper also addresses the prosodic realization of ARCs as opposed to the general category of parentheticals, which generally include ARCs.


I. INTRODUCTION"What we have here is a failure to communicate."1 With these words, Administrative Law Judge Brian K. Hayes summed up the relationship between a mother and school district after the mother sued the district when a teacher broke her son's arm. At the time, her son, a seventeenyear-old student with a severe cognitive disability and oppositional defiant disorder, was having a violent outburst and the teacher was attempting to restrain him. Following the incident, the mother filed for a due process hearing because the school district refused to comply with her request that her son be transferred to a different school within the district. During the due process hearing, it became clear that the mother and the district officials not only disagreed about what disciplinary measures were appropriate for the student, but they had completely different understandings of the nature of the student's disability. At the end of the hearing, Judge Hayes determined that while the teacher broke the student's arm, the district did not break any laws; therefore, the student should attend the school chosen by the district officials. After months of battling the district, the mother lost the case.Between 2000 and 2011, another 209 special education disputes in Wisconsin and Minnesota resulted in due process hearings. In all 210 cases, a failure to communicate and cooperate led parents and school districts to seek a third party ruling on their conflict. All of these cases shared a commonality: the parties could not reach an agreement without resorting to the final and most legalized form of dispute resolution available in special education conflicts. Most of the cases also shared a second commonality: the school district prevailed in the due process hearing.Is due process the best way to guarantee that children with disabilities receive a good education? In the United States, we understand education to be both a fundamental and legal right. Until 1975, however, many states had laws barring disabled children from attending public schools.2 In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990), which required states to educate disabled children in public schools. In an effort to guarantee that schools respected the law, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act also gave parents of disabled children the right to challenge "inadequate" schools by pursuing a due process hearing. Now, thirty-eight years later, we need to reevaluate due process as the mechanism for dispute resolution in special education conflicts.In this article, I argue that due process is not a fair mechanism for special education dispute resolution. Due process fails to consistently ensure that students receive a good outcome and that parents and school districts feel fairly treated by the process. Ultimately, the system fails to hold school districts accountable for providing a good education to all disabled children, and along the way due process exacts a heavy emotional toll on all parties involved.I begin by offering a framework for interpreting fairness as a multidimensional concept. Building on the existing literature, I identify three types of fairness (objective, subjective, and outcome) and analyze due process hearings with regard to those three. After considering the hearings with respect to objective fairness (the traditional procedural elements of due process), subjective fairness (the parties' perceptions of fairness), and outcome fairness (the fairness of the outcome for the student), I conclude that due process hearings are not a fair mechanism for dispute resolution in the context of special education.II. A CONTEXT FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION DUE PROCESSBefore discussing the fairness of special education due process hearings, it is necessary to understand the sphere in which these hearings take place. In the highly regulated world of special education, rules dictate not only which procedures must be followed but also which people must follow them. …


We studied time variability and spectral evolution of the Galactic black hole transient Swift J174510.8-262411 during the first phase of its outburst. INTEGRAL and Swift observations collected from 2012 September 16 until October 30 have been used. The total squared fractional rms values did not drop below 5% and QPOs, when present, were type-C, indicating that the source never made the transition to the soft-intermediate state. Even though the source was very bright (up to 1 Crab in hard X-rays), it showed a so called failed outburst as it never reached the soft state. XRT and IBIS broad band spectra, well represented by a hybrid thermal/non-thermalComptonisationmodel, showed physical parameters characteristic of the hard and intermediate states. In particular, the derived temperature of the geometrically thin disc black body was about 0.6 keV at maximum.We found a clear decline of the optical depth of the corona electrons (close to values of 0.1), as well as of the total compactness ratio lh/ls. The hard-to-hard/intermediate state spectral transition is mainly driven by the increase in the soft photon flux in the corona, rather than small variations of the electron heating. This, associated with the increasing of the disc temperature, is consistent with a disc moving towards the compact object scenario, i.e. the truncated-disc model. Moreover, this scenario is consistent with the decreasing fractional squared rms and increasing of the noise and QPO frequency. In our final group of observations, we found that the contribution from the non-thermal Comptonisation to the total power supplied to the plasma is 0.59+0.02/-0.05 and that the thermal electrons cool to kTe<26 keV.