This is an investigation of football as part of everyday life. It is an attempt to move the focus away from the footballing 'other' and concentrate on the mundane ways in which football culture is sustained as an unspectacular part of people's daily lives. It asks how the consumption of football and the enactment of football culture help to make everyday life more, or less, manageable. It explores the ways in which football's ubiquity is felt beyond explicit identifications as fans or supporters. The embedded nature of football as a part of the everyday has an effect on the lives of family members, work colleagues, friends and acquaintances. These relations are reinforced by football's presence within the powerful and ubiquitous contemporary cultural formations of celebrity, family life and social networks, all of which are also fundamental aspects of everyday life.Adopting Bauman's concept of liquid modernity, football is examined as part of a more fluid way of life in contemporary Britain. Questions are asked about how everyday life is made possible in such a world by seeing football culture as both constituted by and constituting of everyday life. The two main aims are to highlight the ordinary ways in which football is embedded in people's daily lives and to explore how football makes use of solid renditions of the world in making it more appealing to liquid modern living.The research utilises an unconventional methodological strategy. Through the creation of a dialogue between the epistemological views of Zygmunt Bauman and everyday life theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, the Surrealists and their contemporaries the topic is explored through the development of a heurmeneutic sociology. This operationalises the concept of the social researcher as flaneur which takes the researcher's own everyday life as a central resource for the exploration of other people's daily lives. The result is an impressionistic account of football culture that shifts between ethnographic description, reflexive narration and sociological analysis to create a montage of daily life that is appropriate to the interpretation of liquid modern living. Football is conceived as an alternative register for exploring everyday life that challenges readers to view in new ways their own everyday lives and their relationships with football culture.The study is contextualised spatially by exploring football's presence in the home, the workplace, the public house and other transitional spaces of the city. It exposes theories of consumption, alienation, interaction, community, identity and power to the (extra) ordinary realm of people's everyday lives.The interpretation this leads to is that football has become so well embedded in daily life because it has the capacity to adapt to individuals' own needs and desires for security and freedom, belonging and individuality, at a level that is reflexively undemanding enough to succeed on a daily basis. The way it achieves this is through a combination of a history rooted in solidly modern tradition that is also celebrated and promulgated through liquid modern forms of consumption. In everyday life of liquid modernity reflexivity has become habitual, the spectacular domesticated, public/private boundaries blurred, the 'other' is a consumerist fetish, the self a commodity and community exists through consumption. Football feeds this situation through its ephemeral presence in everyday life.


This work presents a two-stage model for the data analysis of electricity consumption. The first stage divides the consumption in two parts: weather- and illumination-related, and residual consumption, where weather-related consumption refers to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). Given the hourly total consumption, we obtain the hourly weather-related and illumination-related electricity consumption, and subtract this out to get residual consumption. The second stage of the model is a flexible, agent-based analytical tool that allows disaggregation of residual consumption into a sum of consumptions by different groups of appliances. This tool can be used for a variety of applications including an optimization of demand-side management and/or a development of a set of desirable patterns for schedules of electricity-related activities in households (within an acceptable range of course) in order to minimize negative effects of high peak demand.


Best known as the firm chosen to work on the World Trade Center Memorial, the landscape architecture projects of Peter Walker and Partners vary both in scale and program: urban design and planning, corporate headquarters and university campuses, parks, plazas, museums, and gardens. Exploring the relationships of art, culture, and context, Walker and the members of the firm re-form the landscape challenging traditional concepts of design. Through drawing, model-making, computer graphics, and full-size mock-ups, the office moves from defining the program to experimenting with materials and forming the space. The design process, therefore, faithfully reflects the constant exchange occurring with clients, architects, and consultants. A knowledge of history and tradition and an understanding of contemporary needs and patterns of living, allow the firm to produce landscapes that are both timeless and unique. This extensive monograph opens with a short essay about the organization and history of the office, the importance of apprenticeship in landscape architectural education, and the particular way that PWP artfully practices the craft of landscape architecture. It features nearly 300 images (with 3 gatefolds) of the firm's work since 1997, including 16 built landscape projects in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Seven projects in progress include the American Embassy in Beijing, several university campuses, and the World Trade Center Memorial. The 10 site-planning and urban design projects include Millennium Parklands in Sydney, Australia, and the Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Each section begins with a brief introduction by Walker, and the book concludes with four competition entries, including one for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


This article is citable (as shown above) and is released from embargo once it is posted to the Frontiers e-View site (www.frontiersinecology.org). Please note: This article was downloaded from Frontiers e-View, a service that publishes fully edited and formatted manuscripts before they appear in print in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Readers are strongly advised to check the final print version in case any changes have been made.


Free space optical (FSO) communication has become more exciting during the last decade. It has unregulated spectrum with a huge capacity compared to its radio frequency (RF) counterpart. Although FSO has many applications that cover indoor and outdoor environments, its widespread is humped by weather effects. Fog is classified as an extreme weather impairment that may cause link drop. Foggy channel modeling and characterization is necessary to analyze the system performance. In this paper, we first address the statistical behavior of the foggy channel based on a set of literature experimental data and develop a probability distribution function (PDF) model for fog attenuation. We then exploit our PDF model to derive closed form expressions and evaluate the system performance theoretically and numerically, in terms of average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and outage probability. The results show that for 10-3 outage probability and 22 dBm transmitted power, the FSO system can work over 80 m, 160 m, 310 m, and 460 m link length under dense, thick, moderate, and light fog respectively. Increasing the transmitted power will have high impact when the fog density is low. However, under very dense fog, it has almost no effect.


For oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) with low turn number (<9) positioned in the horizontal direction, the working fluid could not easily flow back to the evaporator due to the absence of gravity. Based on this, copper OHP with superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface was investigated to enhance the heat transfer performance by introducing additional capillary force. OHPs with six turns were fabricated with bare copper and micro-/nanostructured inner surfaces for comparison. Pure water was used as the working fluid. Contact angles of water on the copper and superhydrophilic surfaces were 36.7 and 0 deg, respectively. The filling ratios of water were 50%, 65%, and 80%, respectively. Thermal resistance and liquid slug oscillations of OHPs were investigated at the heat input ranging from 100 to 380 W. Experimental results showed that OHPs with the superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface showed an enhanced heat transfer performance due to the micro-/nanostructure-induced capillary flow in the horizontal direction. The optimum filling ratio was 65% in this work. The superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface could significantly facilitate the backflow of the working fluid to the evaporator section and accelerate oscillating motions of liquid slugs. With the increasing of 0–70% in slug oscillating amplitude and 0–100% in slug oscillating velocity, micro-/nanostructured OHPs improved the heat transfer performance by up to 10% compared with the copper OHPs due to the wicking effect.


This paper addresses the issue of complexity in language creation and the time it takes for 'complex' structures to emerge in the history of a language. The presence of morphological material is often equated to a certain degree of complexity or is taken to signify a certain time-depth in the history of a language (e.g. Dahl 2004; McWhorter 2005). Though this assumption may be seen as trivial in the absence of a theoretically-based definition of complexity (Muysken 1988), or even misleading (Aboh and Ansaldo 2007; Farquharson 2007), we here put it to a test by looking at morphology in a relatively 'young' language, namely Sri Lanka Malay (SLM). SLM is a mixed language which shows considerably more morphological material and other signs of old age than 'prototypical' creoles. We explain this by arguing (a) that structural output in language genesis is closely motivated by the typology of the input languages and (b) that our understanding of rate of change needs to be revised to take into account ecological matters.


Livestock play a crucial role in the livelihoods of a large number of the world's poor. Livestock-related policy decisions, however, are often based on sparse and generalized information. Better information and knowledge on livestock production patterns, and their relationships with structural and environmental realities, is therefore crucial for effective pro-poor policy making. The geographically heterogeneous nature of these factors illustrates the need for an explicit spatial dimension in information and knowledge development. This working paper presents the results of an analysis of spatial data relevant to livestock production Vietnam. The paper introduces the types of spatial data that are relevant and available for Vietnam; provides a geographic overview of livestock holding patterns in Vietnam; presents the results of a spatially explicit explorative analysis of relationships among livestock holding patterns, poverty, environment and infrastructure; and outlines possible directions for further analyses towards enhancing understanding of these linkages.


Privacy preservation is a challenging task with the huge amount of data that are available in social media. The data those are stored in the distributed environment or in cloud environment need to ensure confidentiality to data. In addition, representing the voluminous data is graph will be convenient to perform keyword search. The proposed work initially reads the data corresponding to social media and converts that into a graph. In order to prevent the data from the active attacks Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm is used to perform graph encryption. Later, search operation is done using two algorithms: kNK keyword search algorithm and top k nearest keyword search algorithm. The first scheme is used to fetch all the data corresponding to the keyword. The second scheme is used to fetch the nearest neighbor. This scheme increases the efficiency of the search process. Here shortest path algorithm is used to find the minimum distance. Now, based on the minimum value the results are produced. The proposed algorithm shows high performance for graph generation and searching and moderate performance for graph encryption.


Synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission from a reverse shock has been suggested as the origin for the high-energy component lasting 2 s in the prompt phase of GRB98080923. The model describes spectral indices, fluxes, and the duration of the high-energy component as well as a long keV tail present in the prompt phase of GRB980923. Here, we present an extension of this model to describe the high-energy emission of GRB090926A. We argue that the emission consists of two components, one with a duration less than 1 s during the prompt phase, and a second, longer-lasting GeV phase lasting hundred of seconds after the prompt phase. The short high-energy phase can be described as SSC emission from a reverse shock similar to that observed in GRB980923, while the longer component arises from the forward shock. The main assumption is that the jet is magnetized and evolves in the thick-shell case, and the calculated fluxes and break energies are all consistent with the observed values. A comparison between the resulting parameters obtained for GRB980923 and GRB090926A suggests differences in burst tails that could be attributable to the circumburst medium, and this could account for previous analyses reported in the literature for other bursts. We find that the density of the surrounding medium inferred from the observed values associated with the forward shock agrees with standard values for host galaxies such as the one associated with GRB090926A.


Aeschynanthus rejieae from Panglima Sugala, one of the few remaining forested areas in Tawi-Tawi, Philippines, is illustrated and described as a new species. It resembles A. obconicus and A. ovatus by the ovate leaves and dense indumentum in the external calyx and corolla. However, A. rejieae is distinguished by having leaves that have persistent sparse pubescence, campanulate calyx with dense hirsute indumentum both internally and externally, and ovary with a glandular cilia. This species is named after Rejie Sahali-Generale, who initiated the biodiversity conservation in Panglima Sugala. This new discovery further highlights the urgent need to study and conserve the remaining forests of Tawi-Tawi.


The paper is a short summary of the main archaeological outcomes of an interdisciplinary project in a section of the Drava river crossing the territory of Somogy county, in Hungary. One of the study areas is the vicinity of Berzence where medieval settlement patterns, land use and economy have been reconstructed on the basis of historical sources and an archaeological field survey. A comprehensive review of architectural history and material culture of the Ottoman Period stronghold in Barcs was the other area under investigation. Research there was based on written sources and the archaeological assemblage recovered from the palisaded fort. Zooarchaeological research at this site revealed some significant culture historical aspects of this stronghold. Underwater archaeological investigations carried out in the Drava river itself and aerial exploration of the study areas also supplied valuable archaeological results.


The production of most mass-market software can be grouped roughly according to free and proprietary development models. These models differ greatly from one another, and their associated licenses tend to insist that new software inherit the characteristics of older software from which it may be derived. Thus the success of one model or another can become self-perpetuating, as older free software is incorporated into later free software and proprietary software is embedded within successive proprietary versions. The competition between the two models is fierce, and the battle between them is no longer simply confined to the market. Claims of improper use of proprietary code within the free GNU/Linux operating system have resulted in multi-billion dollar litigation. This article explains the ways in which free and proprietary software are at odds, and offers a framework by which to assess their value - a prerequisite to determining the extent to which the legal system should take more than a passing, mechanical interest in the doctrinal claims now being pressed against GNU/Linux specifically and free software generally.


Summary
1.
R. akari was transmitted rectally and intracoelomically to the body louse by inoculation with peritoneal exudate of mice. In both cases the rickettsiae developed regularly and intensively in the louse. The same result was obtained when the lice were injected rectally with the blood of sick mice.
2.
Multiplication of the rickettsiae was always intracellular in the stomach wall, localized particularly in the basal part of the epithelial cell; it was extracellular in the coelom liquid, from which the organisms in rare cases entered the stomach cells as well.
3.
Multiplication of the rickettsiae in the stomach cells was moderate and did not deform them or cause the premature death of the louse; in the coelom, however, intense multiplication soon produced damage from which the louse died in a few days.
4.
After rectal inoculation the rickettsiae invade and destroy or detach some of the stomach cells. Through the partially damaged walls they may escape into the lumen of the stomach on one side and appear in the feces, or less frequently into the coelom on the other, and by intense multiplication cause the rapid death of the louse.
5.
By rectal transmission of ground stomach or coelom liquid of positive lice, R. akari can be maintained by serial passage in lice without losing virulence and pathogenicity for the mouse. The feces of the lice also contain virulent rickettsiae.
6.
The behavior of R. akari in the louse can best be explained by its close relationship to other rickettsiae, if we suppose that the capacity to develop in arthropods is a fundamental characteristic of all rickettsiae and that the different species of rickettsiae all have a common origin.


There is a rapidly increasing range of research activities which involve the outsourcing of computing and storage resources to public Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), who provide managed and scalable resources virtualised as a single service. For example Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) are two widely adopted open cloud solutions, which aim at providing pooled computing and storage services and charge users according to their weighted resource usage. Other examples include employment of Google Application Engine and Microsoft Azure as development platforms for research applications. Despite a lot of activity and publication on cloud computing, the term itself and the technologies that underpin it are still confusing to many. This note, as one of deliverables of the TeciRes project1, provides guidance to researchers who are potential end users of public CSPs for research activities. The note contains information to researchers on: •The difference between and relation to current research computing models •The considerations that have to be taken into account before moving to cloud-aided research •The issues associated with cloud computing for research that are currently being investigated •Tips and tricks when using cloud computing Readers who are interested in provisioning cloud capabilities for research should also refer to our guidance notes to cloud infrastructure service providers. This guidance notes focuses on technical aspects only. Readers who are interested in non-technical guidance should refer to the briefing paper produced by the "using cloud computing for research" project.


Abstract:  Many different systems are used to assess levels of threat faced by species. Prominent ones are those used by the World Conservation Union, NatureServe, and the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission (now the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). These systems assign taxa a threat ranking by assessing their demographic and ecological characteristics. These threat rankings support the legislative protection of species and guide the placement of conservation programs in order of priority. It is not known, however, whether these assessment systems rank species in a similar order. To resolve this issue, we assessed 55 mainly vertebrate taxa with widely differing life histories under each of these systems and determined the rank correlations among them. Moderate, significant positive correlations were seen among the threat rankings provided by the three systems (correlations 0.58–0.69). Further, the threat rankings for taxa obtained using these systems were significantly correlated to their rankings based on predicted probability of extinction within 100 years as determined by population viability analysis (correlations 0.28–0.37). The different categorization systems, then, yield related but not identical threat rankings, and these rankings are associated with predicted extinction risk.


Introduction. Suicidal behaviour is a public health problem. It has been suggested that impulsive or premeditated personality interferes with aggressive acts such as suicide. Objective. In this study, we identified the socio-demographic differences when attempting suicide, as well as the concomitant depression among individuals characterized by impulsive or premeditated aggression. Methods. We performed a transversal study that included 200 residents of Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, who regularly use the city's General Health Services. The premeditated or impulsive aggression was evaluated using the Impulsive/Premeditated Aggression scale (IPAS). The sample was divided in two groups: impulsive and premeditator individuals. Suicidal attempt, presence of depression and socio-demographic characteristics were evaluated after wards and compared between groups. Results. The psychological evaluation revealed that impulsive aggression is present in 62.71% of the population. We observed that being unemployed and/or being a woman were characteristics associated with premeditated aggression. The premeditators group had the higher proportion of concomitant depression (χ 2 = 18.29, gl = 1, p = 0.001). The proportion of people that had attempted suicide at least once during their lives was similar in both groups (impulsive = 6.06%, premeditators = 6.30%). Discussion and conclusion. This study does not show any association between the personality (impulsive or premeditative) and the frequency of suicide attempts in the Tabascan General Health Services users. Nevertheless, the frame of mind (depression) could be associated with taking decisions when attempting suicide.


The performance of hard-magnetic nanostructures is investigated by analyzing the size and geometry dependence of thin-film hysteresis loops. Compared to bulk magnets, weight and volume are much less important, but we find that the energy product remains the main figure of merit down to very small features sizes. However, hysteresis loops are much easier to control on small length scales, as epitomized by Fe-Co-Pt thin films with magnetizations of up to 1.78 T and coercivities of up to 2.52 T. Our numerical and analytical calculations show that the feature size and geometry have a big effect on the hysteresis loop. Layered soft regions, especially if they have a free surface, are more harmful to coercivity and energy product than spherical inclusions. In hard-soft nanocomposites, an additional complication is provided by the physical properties of the hard phases. For a given soft phase, the performance of a hard-soft composite is determined by the parameter (Ms - Mh)/Kh.


We analyze modulational instability (MI) of light waves in fiber systems with periodically varying dispersion. The dispersion fluctuation generates special waves, called nonconventional MI sidebands, which are shown to be highly sensitive to two fundamental system parameters. The first one is the average dispersion of the system. Surprisingly, the second parameter turns out to be the mean value of the dispersion coefficients of the two types of fibers of the system, which is then called "central dispersion." These two parameters are used to control and optimize the MI process. In particular, we establish the existence of a critical region of the central dispersion at which the power gain of the nonconventional sidebands undergoes a dramatic enhancement.


More than 90 per cent of Italian farms have a usable agricultural area of less than 9 ha, even if over the time there has been a growth of the average agricultural area per farm as a consequence of rural out-migration. This paper compares, using a non-parametric model, the technical efficiency of smallholder family (diretto coltivatrice), co-operative and limited company farms during the period 2000-2011. The diretto coltivatrice farms and the co-operative farms had higher levels of scale efficiency than the limited company farms with a scale efficiency value equal to 100 per cent in ten years out of twelve. The average technical efficiency of diretto coltivatrice farms was higher than those of co-operative and limited company farms. The second part of the quantitative analysis used the self-organising maps (SOM) proposed by Kohonen. The SOMs indicated that the size of the agricultural area has a direct impact on the technical efficiency of farms and on their level of income.


According to their origin, major postharvest losses of citrus fruit are caused by weight loss, fungal diseases, physiological disorders, and quarantine pests. Cold storage and postharvest treatments with conventional chemical fungicides, synthetic waxes, or combinations of them are commonly used to minimize postharvest losses. However, the repeated application of these treatments has led to important problems such as health and environmental issues associated with fungicide residues or waxes containing ammoniacal compounds, or the proliferation of resistant pathogenic fungal strains. There is, therefore, an increasing need to find non-polluting alternatives to be used as part of integrated disease management (IDM) programs for preservation of fresh citrus fruit. Among them, the development of novel natural edible films and coatings with antimicrobial properties is a technological challenge for the industry and a very active research field worldwide. Chitosan and other edible coatings formulated by adding antifungal agents to composite emulsions based on polysaccharides or proteins and lipids are reviewed in this article. The most important antifungal ingredients are selected for their ability to control major citrus postharvest diseases like green and blue molds, caused by Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium italicum, respectively, and include low-toxicity or natural chemicals such as food additives, generally recognized as safe (GRAS) compounds, plant extracts, or essential oils, and biological control agents such as some antagonistic strains of yeasts or bacteria.


Flight testing of a military low bypass turbofan engine involves multitudes of tests to ensure the Engine - Aircraft compatibility across the flight envelope. One of the safety critical tests is to conduct In-Flight restart of the engine. Detailed planning and careful execution is mandated for a single engine aircraft. Accurate modelling of sub-idle performance characteristics of the engine during windmilling conditions enables better prediction of engine behavior during in-Flight shutdown and restart. Typically, Engine manufacturer provides a Performance Cycle Deck (PCD) to predict and assess the performance of the engine across the flight envelope for all throttle positions. However, the PCD does not include sub-idle behavior. The present work focusses on developing a torque based engine behavior model which enables prediction of time dependent fan and compressor characteristics during sub-idle operations. The proposed model is divided into two parts. The first part deals with deceleration characteristics during engine shut-off and spool down, and the second part deals with the acceleration characteristics during spooling up and engine restart. In-flight spool-down (a quick relight without windmilling) restart data obtained through flight tests was used to validate the present model. The model is intended to be used for future flight tests which include windmill restarts under various operating conditions. The model is expected to accurately predict the correlation between aircraft speed and engine windmilling rotor speeds for arriving at a windmill restart envelope for the aircraft.


This paper analyzes Act of Valor (2012) as a Hollywood film and Pentagon PR vehicle produced by a vast and expanding U.S. military-industrial-media-entertainment-complex. As a synergistic coproduction between the Bandito Brothers, a Hollywood film production company, and the U.S. Navy SEALs, a significant arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the film presents mythic depictions of the changing public face of U.S. military policy, personnel and practice in the post-9/11 context of the endless global "war on terror." A close reading of the film's textual content, including the visual and audio strategies, reveals highly constructed imaginings of war and conflict, including a new militainment trope of soldier-as-superhero. Understood to be a "militainment" product and a significant moment in the development of the Hollywood-Pentagon complex, themes in Act of Valor 's are compared and contrasted to Hollywood's cycle of critical war films, particularly the Vietnam War era classic, Apocalypse Now . The final section interrogates Act of Valor 's reality and authenticity claims via a systematic critique of the ways the film misrepresents the "reality" of U.S. military policy (Dirty Wars), personnel (elite special ops soldiers) and practice (terror, torture, clandestine killing and more). Particularly, it focuses on the way the film's representation/aestheticization of war sanitizes and celebrates significant yet contentious transformations in U.S. foreign policy, denies the human, moral and political consequences of these transformations and supports the growth and maintenance of a war society.


UK construction industry faces many challenges such as low performance, high dissatisfaction among clients, low productivity, poor image, high fragmentation etc. Recruiting employees, particularly for senior/ middle level management, to fulfil the skills and labour shortages has also been a challenge faced by the industry for many years. The gender segregation pattern of the construction industry
seems to be highly according to the societal expectations of the traditional gender roles. In evident to that, more than 85% of the women who are attached to the UK construction industry hold administrative or secretarial positions which are not construction specific occupations. This typical gender segregation has led the industry being unable to benefit from the diverse skills that women
could offer. In this context, increasing the number of women managers may have an impact on the typical gender segregation pattern of the industry and in turn may help the industry fulfilling their skills needs. However, it needs to be assured whether the increment in the number of women managers will make the industry better. This research, therefore, explores and investigates the
contribution of women managers towards the construction industry. The contribution of the women managers are analysed based on the leadership styles that woman managers typically exhibit in the construction industry. This research adopted case study as the research strategy and used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as the research techniques. Based on the preliminary analyses of the case studies, all the women managers have demonstrated certain level of leading roles such as commanding, motivating and coaching while maintaining a balance between work and personal life. In terms of gender qualities, all women managers were found to be strong in both their
masculinity and femininity adjectives. Further, the women managers perceive themselves as using transformational leadership styles more often than the transactional styles. The above mentioned preliminary findings of the case studies are presented in this paper.


This study seeks to investigate the relationship between typological universals and second-language acquisition. The question is addressed whether a specific universal, i.e., the hierarchy of expletives (Travis 1984), shapes the interlanguage systems of L2-learners. Data were elicited from 59 learners of Dutch as a second language (23 NSs of Turkish and 36 NSs of German). To test subjects' knowledge of Dutch expletive constructions, two written tests were administered: a grammaticality judgement task and a correction task. Two hypotheses were formulated. First, a prediction was made concerning the order of acquisition: subjects would acquire unmarked constructions before marked ones, such that the hierarchy of expletives was mirrored. Second, it was hypothesized that German learners would have relatively fewer problems with the two less marked constructions than Turkish learners, since the former have similar structures in their L1, while the latter cannot be familiar with such constructions from their L1. The findings provided some support for both hypotheses. The acquisition of the majority of constructions conformed to the universal. Furthermore, German learners showed better performances for two most unmarked constructions than did Turkish learners.


Motivated by concerns that automated decision-making procedures can unintentionally lead to discriminatory behavior, we study a technical definition of fairness modeled after John Rawls' notion of "fair equality of opportunity". In the context of a simple model of online decision making, we give an algorithm that satisfies this fairness constraint, while still being able to learn at a rate that is comparable to (but necessarily worse than) that of the best algorithms absent a fairness constraint. We prove a regret bound for fair algorithms in the linear contextual bandit framework that is a significant improvement over our technical companion paper [16], which gives black-box reductions in a more general setting. We analyze our algorithms both theoretically and experimentally. Finally, we introduce the notion of a "discrimination index", and show that standard algorithms for our problem exhibit structured discriminatory behavior, whereas the "fair" algorithms we develop do not.


Intellectual property law stifles critical research on software security vulnerabilities, placing computer users at risk. Researchers who discover flaws often face IP-based legal threats if they reveal findings to anyone other than the software vendor. This Article argues that the interplay between law and vulnerability data challenges existing scholarship on how intellectual property should regulate information about improvements on protected works, and suggests weakening, not enhancing, IP protections where infringement is difficult to detect, lucrative, and creates significant negative externalities. It proposes a set of three reforms – "patches," in software terms – to protect security research. Legal reform would create immunity from civil IP liability for researchers who follow "responsible disclosure" rules. Linguistic reform would seek to make the term "hacker" less threatening either by recapturing the term's original meaning, or abandoning it. Finally, structural reform would ameliorate failures in the market for software vulnerability data by having a trusted third party act as a voluntary clearinghouse. The Article concludes by describing other areas, such as physical security, where reforming how law coordinates IP improvements may be useful.


Abstract. The ISPRS Geospatial Week 2019 is a combination of 13 workshops organised by 30 ISPRS Working Groups active in areas of interest of ISPRS. The Geospatial Week 2019 is held from 10–14 June 2019, and is convened by the University of Twente acting as local organiser. The Geospatial Week 2019 is the fourth edition, after Antalya Turkey in 2013, La Grande Motte France in 2015 and Wuhan China in 2017.The following 13 workshops provide excellent opportunities to discuss the latest developments in the fields of sensors, photogrammetry, remote sensing, and spatial information sciences: C3M&GBD – Collaborative Crowdsourced Cloud Mapping and Geospatial Big Data CHGCS – Cryosphere and Hydrosphere for Global Change Studies EuroCow-M3DMaN – Joint European Calibration and Orientation Workshop and Workshop onMulti-sensor systems for 3D Mapping and Navigation HyperMLPA – Hyperspectral Sensing meets Machine Learning and Pattern Analysis Indoor3D ISSDQ – International Symposium on Spatial Data Quality IWIDF – International Workshop on Image and Data Fusion Laser Scanning PRSM – Planetary Remote Sensing and Mapping SarCon – Advances in SAR: Constellations, Signal processing, and Applications Semantics3D – Semantic Scene Analysis and 3D Reconstruction from Images and ImageSequences SmartGeoApps – Advanced Geospatial Applications for Smart Cities and Regions UAV-g – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geomatics Many of the workshops are part of well-established series of workshops convened in the past. They cover topics like UAV photogrammetry, laser scanning, spatial data quality, scene understanding, hyperspectral imaging, and crowd sourcing and collaborative mapping with applications ranging from indoor mapping and smart cities to global cryosphere and hydrosphere studies and planetary mapping.In total 143 full papers and 357 extended abstracts were submitted by authors from 63 countries. 1250 reviews have been delivered by 295 reviewers. A total of 81 full papers have been accepted for the volume IV-2/W5 of the International Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Another 289 papers are published in volume XLII-2/W13 of the International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences.The editors would like to thank all contributing authors, reviewers and all workshop organizers for their role in preparing and organizing the Geospatial Week 2019. Thanks to their contributions, we can offer an excessive and varying collection in the Annals and the Archives.We hope you enjoy reading the proceedings.George Vosselman, Geospatial Week Director 2019, General Chair Sander Oude Elberink, Programme Chair Michael Ying Yang, Programme Chair


Today we are sending a clear message to the special interests who used the Council on Competitiveness as a back door to avoid the law. That back door is closed. No longer will special interests receive special favors. No longer will our laws be ignored or undermined. No longer will decisions that should be made in public be made in private. In this administration, everyone will play by the rules and public decisions will be public information. Al Gore, January 21, 1993 With these strong words, Vice President Al Gore announced yet another White House overhaul of regulatory oversight. Gore's statement, made on the first full day of the Clinton presidency, clearly signalled the administration's desire to distance itself from the widely criticized policies and procedures of the Bush White House. But just how different is regulatory review in the Clinton administration? After all, in recent years presidents of both parties have used their executive powers to enhance their control of agency rulemaking. These actions are understandable, given the scope of federal regulatory programs, their potential economic consequences, and the public's propensity to hold presidents accountable for the nation's economic performance. Nonetheless, centralized regulatory review has been controversial because it raises questions about whether the president or Congress has the ultimate power to shape the actions of executive branch actors. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, for example, devised highly centralized review procedures which gave them greater control over rulemaking Congressional Democrats perceived these actions as an attempt to undercut their own control over federal agencies, and regulatory politics became the focus of a pitched partisan and institutional battle. The Clinton presidency thus raises a number of interesting questions for students of regulatory politics. Has the Clinton administration ushered in a less conflictual era of regulatory oversight? Has it, like most recent administrations, sought to control rulemaking through centralized review procedures? Although the Clinton White House has mandated numerous procedural changes, in my opinion, it has not abandoned the concept of centralized review. Indeed, regulatory review in the Clinton administration builds upon previous efforts and its firmly within traditions of the institutional presidency. While rejecting the insulated and secretive practices characteristic of the Reagan and Bush era, the Clinton White House review program is, in many ways, the broadest and most far-reaching yet. Information for this study has been gathered from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) documents, congressional hearings, newspaper accounts, and from interviews conducted with persons knowledgeable about regulatory review procedures. The interviews were open-ended and varied in length. In several cases, individuals requested that their names be withheld. Regulatory Review and the Administrative Presidency Regulatory reform is a common presidential goal. Indeed, White House efforts to gain greater control over federal rulemaking are a logical stage in the development of the modern "institutional presidency." According to Terry Moe, the institutional presidency is rooted in an incongruence, inherent in modern American politics, among structures, incentives, and resources. Simply put, presidents are burdened by expectations that far exceed their institutional capacity for effective action. Presidents seeking to enhance their capacity thus have strong incentives to initiate structural reforms, but the resources for acting on these incentives are usually inadequate, "constrained by political and bureaucratic opposition, institutional inertia, inadequate knowledge, and time pressures."(1) The result has been the emergence of an "administrative presidency," characterized by an increasingly centralized and politicized executive department which allows presidents to pursue their personal and programmatic goals through unilateral executive action. …


This article outlines the foundations of a critical but non-affirmative educational leadership theory. The adopted approach draws on a recognition-based tradition of education and Bildung. It is argued that every theory of educational leadership must deal with two fundamental questions as well as with their internal relations. These questions are, first, how institutional education is related to politics, economy and culture in a democratic society and, second, how leadership as a professional, moral practice is explained in terms of power and influence, that is, as an ethical and epistemological relation between individuals. On the first issue, this non-affirmative educational leadership theory accepts a non-hierarchical view of the relation between societal forms of practice, thus holding to a Western democratic tradition of citizenship and social transformation. Concerning the second problem, a non-affirmative position is adopted, according to which pure intersubjective or subject-centred (egological) approaches to explaining human intentional and cultural action and consciousness are considered insufficient. Rather, a specific version of relationism is advocated. In this theory, the classical pedagogical paradox takes a new form: educational leadership now means paradoxically to recognise the Other as if he or she was already capable of what he or she might become capable of through own activity – and to act accordingly.


Community facilities are at the frontline of service provision for local government, enacting strategy and objectives on a day-to-day basis and forming the cornerstone of performance assessment. The performance of facilities, as judged by their users, is a contested area of governance, with theories on assessment being influenced by economic, social, environmental and business-as-usual advocates. Facility managers, who see users as the source of their reward as well as their day-to-day problems, consider asking users for their opinion as being equally a benefit and a risk. However, measuring customer satisfaction is increasingly emerging as a measure of good performance and facility managers have to find some credible way of gauging this. This research paper takes a broadly consultative approach to survey development and finds that, regardless of the best planning and design, facility managers will be judged based on the limited experiences of their users and evaluators and this is key to successfully embedding new strategy in operations.


Harmony in built environment is based on wholeness with nature through a continuous flow of interactions between values and city form. Wholeness accommodates biomimetic principles that link the natural world to the people in a specific 'place'. Biomimicry looks beyond imitating form and process in ecosystem to include world view that solves built environment problems and gives meaning to people in a particular 'place'. The paper examines the foundation of Yoruba cosmological world view in the determination of biomimetic principles that generates environmental harmony through architecture of 'place'. The research is underpinned by the concepts of mimesis, cosmometry and sense of place. It is phenomenological and adopted qualitative methodology. Data gathered through scoped literature and two hour each interview of seven Ifa educational system sages were analyzed using grounded theory to understand mimetic philosophy of Yoruba urbanism. The study revealed that design template reflected in Yoruba city form is a graphic interpretation of "Ifa" earth creation mythology. Yoruba cosmogram is a 16 sided polygon with dominant four cardinal points that occasionally surface as square or it's variant. The study equally identified '4'and '16' as Yoruba design numerology. Urban 'places' including King's market, quarter spaces, residential units and their court yards are rectangular in forms. Therefore design templates that create "Yoruba atmosphere" are the imitation of her cosmogram super imposed on the landscape where geomantic planning enhances periodic access to earth energy through animism religious belief system. The paper recommends that biomimetic design and planning considerations from the bioregional ecosystem must consciously explore forms and processes reflected by the cosmogram and design numerology. Alignment of such biomimetic design form Design and Nature VI 73 www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and The Environment, Vol 160, © 201 WIT Press 2 doi:10.2495/DN120071 and planning process must also consider meaningful radiant energy on the landscape to enhance harmonious living where the forces of nature are at equilibrium.


The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy (DOE) forecasts US renewable energy supply and demand in the context of overall energy markets using the National Energy Modelling System (NEMS). Renewables compete with other supply and demand options within the residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and electricity sectors of the US economy. NEMS forecasts renewable energy for grid-connected electricity production within the Electricity Market Module (EM), and characterises central station biomass, geothermal, conventional hydroelectric, municipal solid waste, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and wind-powered electricity generating technologies. EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 1998, projecting US energy markets, forecasts marketed renewables to remain a minor part of US energy production and consumption through to 2020. The USA is expected to remain primarily a fossil energy producer and consumer throughout the period. An alternative case indicates that biomass, wind, and to some extent geothermal power would likely increase most rapidly if the US were to require greater use of renewables for power supply, though electricity prices would increase somewhat [1].


Several grapevine viruses were reported in Algeria and especially in grapevine germplasm collection, therefore it is a great challenge to free these varieties from virus infection before any breeding programs. Our study focused on the development of chemotherapy on autochthonous varieties collected in the grapevine germplasm collection of ITAFV. All these varieties were tested by DAS-ELISA and the presence of GLRaV-3 and GFLV was confirmed in all used samples for the sanitation. After 8 weeks of shoot tips in vitro culture in a modified M S medium containing ribavirin, DAS-ELISA test revealed that GLRaV-3 was completely eliminated and GFLV to a significant rate.


Background modeling and subtraction is a natural technique for object detection in videos captured by a static camera, and also a critical preprocessing step in various high-level computer vision applications. However, there have not been many studies concerning useful features and binary segmentation algorithms for this problem. We propose a pixelwise background modeling and subtraction technique using multiple features, where generative and discriminative techniques are combined for classification. In our algorithm, color, gradient, and Haar-like features are integrated to handle spatio-temporal variations for each pixel. A pixelwise generative background model is obtained for each feature efficiently and effectively by Kernel Density Approximation (KDA). Background subtraction is performed in a discriminative manner using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) over background likelihood vectors for a set of features. The proposed algorithm is robust to shadow, illumination changes, spatial variations of background. We compare the performance of the algorithm with other density-based methods using several different feature combinations and modeling techniques, both quantitatively and qualitatively.


Xerostomia is defined as a condition or feeling of dry mouth resulting in biochemical changes in the amount and composition of the saliva which may present further complications in the oral health. Hyposalivation is defined as an objective assessment of a reduced rate of salivary flow. Benzodiazepines and antidepressants constitute the most frequently prescribed drugs with anxiolytic activity that can give rise to hyposalivation.Diabetes mellitus, although a metabolic disorder, usually sent with one of the first oral symptoms such as xerostomia.Taste receptors are permanently exposed in smokers where primary effect is stimulation of saliva from hypersalivation acquired by chronic use of cigarettes to pass in hyposalivation.This paper reviews the current knowledge of the drugs that cause impairment of the creation and flow of saliva and certain conditions that are shipped with the dryness of the mouth. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date of Submission: 08-10-2017 Date of acceptance: 23-12-2017 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CHARLES G. RUSSELL [*] Part II Extending Potential Plays a Role in Transacting TRANSACTING also includes an Extending Potential dimension. The Extending Potential dimension enables us to build on whatever presently exists and create something new. This dimension resembles the scientific method in that it builds on previous knowledge and experience. Just as an individual using the scientific method reviews extant research findings before conducting additional research, individuals can use previous knowledge and experience as a springboard to new outcomes. The Extending Potential dimension allows for a cumulative effect and creativity. It does not necessarily contribute to something better." Some changes diminish rather than enhance the lives of change agents. Robins replicate nests originated by their ancestors. They do not significantly modify the nature and structure of their nests. Robins probably have near zero potential to use an Extending Potential dimension. Most people exhibit at least some potential to use their Extending Potential dimension from time to time. Unfortunately, some people do not use their Extending Potential dimension very much. From time to time most individuals mute their ability to use their Extending Potential dimension. Repeating thoughts, patterns, and behaviors without considering and exploring potential advantages for change can render an Extending Potential ineffective. Individuals who remain fixed in thoughts, patterns, and behaviors have much in common with robins building nests. These people essentially "act just like their parents" or adult role models. For example, if parents behave like bigots, their adult children also behave like bigots. If adult role models enjoy classical or rock music, individuals influenced by them frequently consider no other kind of music and mostly enjoy what their role models played for them. An Extending Potential enables people to consider what exists as subject to change. Whenever something does not meet a need or serves less well than desired, individuals can use their Extending Potential to build on it and change it in ways previously unconsidered. For example, at one point in human history someone probably grew tired of dragging heavy objects on the ground and built on the concept of things moving when the log under them turned. Very likely sometime later another individual built on the observation that things move easier on logs and created the first crude wheel. You probably recognize the progression from the first wheel to present day technology for moving heavy objects. Each change represents someone using the Extending Potential and building on previous discoveries. While methods of moving heavy objects probably rate as desirable improvements, some consequences of the Extending Potential do not. Some changes represent undesirable outcomes. For example, building on the recognition that people tend to act based on expected patterns can contribute to establishing patterns contributing to pleasant outcomes and then using the patterns to harm people. Con artists and "inhumane despots" have used this approach for self-advantage. Among other things, using the scientific method can improve the chances that the Extending Potential will contribute to change. Following guidelines of the scientific method requires us to learn what others have done before embarking on a program of change. This process can help ensure that each discovery becomes the starting point used by the next scientist who wants to discover something. Scientific outcomes combine and can significantly differ from whatever existed before an individual scientist acted. Eighty years after Alexander Graham Bell's "Photophone" carried the human voice on beams of sunlight, an inventor used glass fibers in existence for almost as long as the "Photophone" and combined them with the laser to launch the fiber optic revolution. …


Since the creation of the euro, capital flows among member countries have been large and volatile. Motivated by this fact, I provide a theory connecting the exchange rate regime to financial integration. The key feature of the model is that monetary policy affects the value of collateral that creditors seize upon default. Under flexible exchange rates, national governments can expropriate foreign creditors by depreciating the exchange rate, which induces investors to impose tight constraints on international borrowing. Creating a monetary union, by eliminating this source of currency risk, increases financial integration among member countries. This process, however, does not necessarily lead to higher welfare. The reason is that a high degree of capital mobility can generate multiple equilibria, with bad equilibria characterized by inefficient capital flights. Capital controls or fiscal transfers can eliminate bad equilibria, but their implementation requires international cooperation.


Herbal extracts are gaining widespread acceptance as ingredients in cosmetic and health products. Moringa oleifera Lam. is an interesting candidate as it has multiple biological properties. However, methods for quality control of the use of M. oleifera are still required. This study proposes the use of isothiocyanate compounds and astragalin as chemical markers to standardize M. oleifera extracts. Both of these compounds are known to have anti-inflammation properties, and astragalin is also reported to have antioxidant properties. The HPLC-based cyclocondensation method was further developed and validated specifically for quantitative analysis of the isothiocyanate compounds in the M. oleifera extracts, and the concentration of astragalin in the M. oleifera extracts was determined by the HPLC method. Both methods gave acceptable linearity, accuracy, and precision with the limit of detection of 0.13 μg/ml for total isothiocyanate and 0.10 μg/ml for astragalin. The uses of the methods were demonstrated in the analyses of the components in the extracts taken variously from the leaves, immature seeds, mature seeds, petioles, and pods of the M. oleifera tree. Our results suggest that the methods developed could be used in the quality control of M. oleifera extracts to develop cosmetic and natural health products.


ABSTRACT Four new skates of the genus Notoraja Ishiyama, 1958 are described from the rarely accessed, deep waters off New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji islands, and the Norfolk Ridge. Three of these (N. alisae n. sp., N. longiventralis n. sp. and N. fijiensis n. sp.) are "velcro skates" which are characterised by their velvety dorsal and ventral surfaces, covered with fine denticles. Although similar in shape, they differ by their colour pattern, dermal armature, development of the lateral tail folds, and size of the pelvic-fin anterior lobe and nasal curtain. The description of the fourth species, Notoraja inusitata n. sp., is based on a juvenile male exhibiting some unusual features resembling those of other skate genera.


Qualitative and quantitative data are presented for 21 collections of Berberis and one each of Epimedium, Jeffersonia, and Nandina. Most species of Berberis have large numbers of narrow vessels ~ixed with vasicentric tracheids. Scalariform perforation plates are reported here only for Epimedium, m wh1ch they are occasional. Berberidaceae have living fibers (Berberis), fiber-tracheids plus living fibers (Nandina), or tracheids (Jeffersonia) as imperforate tracheary elements. Axial parenchyma is reported here for Jeffersonia and one species of Berberis. Previous reports of axial parenchyma in Berberis and Nandina likely refer to undivided living fibers, mostly intermixed with vessels, which are slightly shorter and with thinner walls and larger pit apertures than living fibers elsewhere in the wood. Woods of Berberis and other Berberidaceae are remarkably xeromorphic. The wide, tall rays of Berbendaceae, other than Jeffersonia, resemble rays of Clematis (Ranunculaceae) and other Ranunculiflorae. In dimensions, these rays suggest herbaceousness, but abundance of procumbent cells in these rays is not juvenilistic. No consistent differences in wood separate the subgenera Berberis and Mahonia of Berberis: although the two subgenera differ modally in several respects. Wood anatomy of Nandma IS very similar to that of Berberis, and segregation of Nandinaceae is unwarranted on the basis of wood anatomy.


In reinforcement learning (RL), an agent interacts with the environment by taking actions and observing the next state and reward. When sampled probabilistically, these state transitions, rewards, and actions can all induce randomness in the observed long-term return. Traditionally, reinforcement learning algorithms average over this randomness to estimate the value function. In this paper, we build on recent work advocating a distributional approach to reinforcement learning in which the distribution over returns is modeled explicitly instead of only estimating the mean. That is, we examine methods of learning the value distribution instead of the value function. We give results that close a number of gaps between the theoretical and algorithmic results given by Bellemare, Dabney, and Munos (2017). First, we extend existing results to the approximate distribution setting. Second, we present a novel distributional reinforcement learning algorithm consistent with our theoretical formulation. Finally, we evaluate this new algorithm on the Atari 2600 games, observing that it significantly outperforms many of the recent improvements on DQN, including the related distributional algorithm C51.


Traditional web search engines enable users to find documents based on topics. However, in finding entities such as restaurants, hotels and products, traditional search engines fail to suffice as users are often interested in finding entities based on structured attributes such as price and brand and unstructured information such as opinions of other web users. In this paper, we showcase a preference driven search system, that enables users to find entities of interest based on a set of structured preferences as well as unstructured opinion preferences. We demonstrate our system in the context of hotel search.


The changing environment is expected to intensify the challenges that people in developing countries are facing, particularly among the groups whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. The adaptive capacity of livelihoods largely defines the extent to which people can cope with future environmental changes, whether caused by climate change or other factors such as land use changes and water resources development. This article analyses the resilience and adaptive capacity of rural livelihoods around Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, an exceptional lake-floodplain system dominated by flood pulse. The research findings demonstrate that despite the people's tradition of adapting to the remarkable seasonal variation of water and related resources, their capacity to adapt to unusual environmental changes is weak, with the poorest being clearly the most vulnerable group. Reasons for the weak resilience include villages' relatively homogenous livelihood structures, unjust governance practices, increasing inequality and the lack of opportunities for livelihood diversification. It is concluded that while climate change is likely to pose a remarkable challenge to people's livelihoods in the longer term, climate change adaptation activities should also take into account other environmental changes. Equally critical is the understanding of the broader socio-political context and its dynamics in increasing—and decreasing—livelihood resilience.


Macromolecular structures represent an interesting starting point for the design and synthesis of small-molecule mimetics of surface epitopes that mediate protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions. The resulting protein epitope mimetics (PEMs) provide a source of new biologically active molecules that are useful as biomolecular probes in chemical biology, as well as novel drug or vaccine candidates. This is illustrated here through studies on PEMs as synthetic vaccine candidates targeting the malaria parasite and the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1). In addition, various folded PEMs with β-hairpin structures have been designed that target protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, as well as others that interact with cellular receptors such as CXCR4 and the bacterial outer membrane protein LptD. In this last example, the PEMs possess a novel antibiotic activity that has so far not been observed with traditional small synthetic molecules or natural products.


For more than 40 years, oil and gas companies have been able to choose between two competing methods for accounting for exploration activities. The implication is that two otherwise identical companies can report substantially different earnings depending on chosen method. This situation, where oil and gas company managers have discretion to choose between different accounting methods, has transpired because of intense lobbyism towards accounting standard setters by oil and gas companies in favour of one of the methods. The existence of two accounting methods is concerning since investors will struggle to uncover the true underlying performance of oil and gas companies. We conjecture that investors will resort to operating cash flows to evaluate oil company financial performance since cash flows are less affected by managers' discretion than earnings are. In this study, we investigate the relevance to investors of earnings versus cash flow for oil and gas companies. Our results show that cash flow measures, but not earnings, are significantly associated with oil company returns. These findings suggest that the financial markets lack confidence in oil company earnings, irrespective of accounting method used, and investors therefore prefer cash flows as measures of underlying financial performance. *Corresponding author: Bård Misund, Business School, University of Stavanger, N-4036 Stavanger, Norway E-mail: email@example.com Reviewing editor: David McMillan, University of Stirling, UK Additional information is available at the end of the article


Community Bushfire Safety brings together in one accessible and comprehensive volume the results of the most important community safety research being undertaken within the Australian Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). Using perspectives deriving from social science, economics and law, it complements the extensive literature already existing on bushfires, which ranges from ecology and fire behaviour to information about emergency management. In doing so, the book supports the increasing emphasis on community safety and the vital role it has to play in Australian bushfire management.

Managing community safety requires a diversity of knowledge and an understanding of the many social processes that shape and ultimately determine a community's resilience to bushfire. The wide range of issues covered in this volume reflects this diversity, including research into gender and vulnerability; the law and its implications for public/fire agency interactions; the arsonist's rationale; the influence of the media; the role of economics in bushfire management and decision-making; understanding declines in fire brigade volunteerism; bushfire safety policy and its implementation; the effectiveness of community education and risk reduction schemes; and modes of building ignition.

Community Bushfire Safety is accessible to practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and students. While the research reported has been undertaken in Australia, much of the material is generic and is likely to be relevant and useful to those dealing with community bushfire safety elsewhere in the world.


Ubiquitylation of a fungal arrestin is sufficient to activate signaling. Seven-transmembrane domain receptors (7TMRs), many of which are also G protein–coupled receptors, may signal through proteins other than G proteins, such as arrestins. Fungi, such as Aspergillus nidulans, signal through 7TMRs to respond to changes in pH (alkaline conditions). In A. nidulans, alkaline conditions activate a 7TMR, PalH, that is connected to an arrestin-like protein (PalF), which becomes phosphorylated and ubiquitylated. This mediates a series of protein interactions, ultimately culminating in the proteolytic activation of the pH-dependent transcription factor PacC. This pathway is normally not active under acidic conditions. Hervás-Aguilar et al. show that overexpressed PalH is not effectively delivered to the plasma membrane unless PalF is also expressed, suggesting a role for PalF in trafficking of the receptor. Expression of either of two PalF-ubiquitin fusion proteins (PalF-Ub or PalF-UbK48R) promoted PalC cleavage under acidic and neutral conditions, suggesting that ubiquitylation of PalF can bypass receptor activation by pH. Cells in which the pH signaling pathway is active exhibit sensitivity to molybdate and resistance to neomycin, and cells expressing either of the PalF-ubiquitin fusion proteins exhibited these characteristics, consistent with constitutive activation of the pathway. Whereas PalF-deficient cells failed to redistribute PacC under alkaline conditions, the presence of the PalF-ubiquitin fusion proteins promoted the recruitment of PacC to cortical structures, which are believed to be the site of its cleavage, under acidic conditions. Thus, in A. nidulans, ubiquitylated arrestin appears to be the primary mediator of the pH signal. A. Hervás-Aguilar, A. Galindo, M. A. Peñalva, Receptor-independent ambient pH signaling by ubiquitin attachment to fungal arrestin-like PalF. J. Biol. Chem. 285, 18095–18102 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Chromosomal instability (CIN) describes ongoing numerical and structural
chromosomal aberrations in cancer cells, leading to intra-tumour heterogeneity and is
frequently associated with polyploidy and aneuploidy. CIN is a frequent event in solid
tumours and previous evidence has implicated CIN with acquired multidrug resistance,
intrinsic taxane resistance and poor patient prognosis. In this thesis, I have attempted to
explore mechanisms required for the initiation of CIN and the tolerance of this pattern
of genome instability.
Firstly, I have attempted to identify clinically relevant therapeutics that may have
specific activity in CIN+ tumour cell lines. Focusing on a panel of colorectal cancer cell
lines, classified as either CIN+ or CIN-, and treating them individually with kinase
inhibitor and cytotoxic agent libraries, I demonstrated that CIN+ cell lines displayed
significant intrinsic multidrug resistance. Next, I addressed if specific means to target
CIN+ cells could be identified through pharmacological and RNA interference (RNAi)
screens. No compounds were observed to be preferentially cytotoxic towards CIN+
cells in the pharmacological screen. A whole genome RNAi screen was performed to
identify CIN+ specific survival pathways using isogenic cell line models of CIN. No
genes were identified that conferred preferential cell death when silenced in CIN+ cells,
despite sufficient statistical power to detect such targets. Using integrative genomics
techniques and cell cycle data from this RNAi screen, I endeavoured to identify
clinically relevant initiators of aneuploidy in colorectal cancer, that revealed both
known and potential novel regulators of polyploidy.
Finally, I endeavoured to identify a mechanistic basis for the taxane-sensitising
phenotype associated with the silencing of the ceramide transporter, CERT, which may
reveal means to target CIN+ cells. I demonstrated that CERT silencing sensitises
paclitaxel-treated cells to cell death in a LAMP2-dependent manner that is associated
with autophagy flux and may target death of multinucleated cells specifically.


This article discusses "operating asset securitizations," i.e., securitizations of discrete, tangible physical assets such as railcars, shipping containers, rental cars, and aircraft. The originators of these transactions are companies that regularly engage in the leasing of these assets to end users. A distinguishing feature of these securitizations is that the economically useful lives of the assets, and therefore the maturities of the asset-backed securities, will extend beyond the expiration dates of the leases associated with those assets. Such transactions are therefore more dependent than traditional securitizations on the servicer's ability to deploy, maintain, and re-deploy the assets over time. The author discusses some of the unique legal aspects of these transactions and how such transactions are structured to achieve bankruptcy-remote objectives notwithstanding the increased reliance on the servicer and the fact that the assets are not themselves self-liquidating.


User involvement has become a central tenet of government policy regarding health and social care. Likewise, the role of 'evidence' is seen as being at the heart of effective planning and delivery of health services (Our Healthier Nation, 1999). This paper examines the role of user involvement in evaluative research within the provision of an evidence base related to practice development. By focusing on the role of participatory research in the creation of an evidence base for healthcare provision, the authors explore the nature and possibilities of user involvement in providing an evidence base within a community mental health service. The paper identifies factors that may facilitate or inhibit user involvement and participation in evaluative research. It is argued that whilst the effective involvement of users may improve the quality and validity of research evidence, user participation in the research process is both contextual and contingent. For users to participate in the research process in a meaningful way requires changes in the way that research is commissioned and assessed so that the nature of user involvement may become viable. The authors suggest that the creation of evidence in health research is shaped by the social relations of the research process as well as by the methodologies used.


Precise control of the cell cycle allows for timely repair of genetic material prior to replication. One factor intimately involved in this process is checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1), a DNA damage repair inducing Ser/Thr protein kinase that contains an N-terminal kinase domain and a C-terminal regulatory region consisting of a ∼100-residue linker followed by a putative kinase-associated 1 (KA1) domain. We report the crystal structure of the human Chk1 KA1 domain, demonstrating striking structural homology with other sequentially diverse KA1 domains. Separately purified Chk1 kinase and KA1 domains are intimately associated in solution, which results in inhibition of Chk1 kinase activity. Using truncation mutants and site-directed mutagenesis, we define the inhibitory face of the KA1 domain as a series of basic residues residing on two conserved regions of the primary structure. These findings point to KA1-mediated intramolecular autoinhibition as a key regulatory mechanism of human Chk1, and provide new therapeutic possibilities with which to attack this validated oncology target with small molecules.


A novel ring resonator configuration with Bragg gratings is presented. The stability of this configuration is studied by a z-transform technique. A router design with a FWHM of 17 MHz, a -40-dB rejection ratio, and a 15-dB gain at the output port is reported. The influence of temperature and of fabrication tolerance on parameters of this router configuration implemented with fiber technology is reviewed. Deviations in design specification owing to parameter variations are studied and compensated for with a gain control of 2.4% in a specific design.


Among the former Confederate states, Mississippi was a leader in disenfranchising African Americans. The Mississippi Constitution of 1890 was filled with provisions designed "to obstruct the exercise of the franchise by the Negro race" as Mississippi's supreme court explained in 1896. In 1998, the 5th Circuit held that the felon disenfranchisement provision was constitutional in spite of its tainted origins. They found that the plaintiff, an incarcerated prisoner acting pro se, had failed to make his case, and therefore that a provision which disenfranchises 28% of African American men in Mississippi could continue in force. While the court recognized that the provision was unconstitutional when adopted, the court reasoned that two amendments, a restriction on the provision in 1950 and an expansion in 1968, purged any discriminatory intent, and therefore any constitutional infirmity. This essay challenges the reasoning and conclusion.The 5th Circuit treated the amendment process as creating an entirely new provision, with a fresh start to the legislative history. The court, however, did not account for the interpretive principle that amendments do not change the meaning of the unamended portions of a statute, or the tremendous practical problems that would result if technical recodification or revision were deemed to cut off prior understandings of a statute.The 5th Circuit also regarded the acts of the Mississippi legislature in proposing amendments in 1950 and 1968 and of the Mississippi voters in approving them as presumptively non-discriminatory. The problem with this is that Mississippi had the worst record of excluding African Americans from the franchise of any state in the Union; about one percent of voting-age African Americans were registered in 1950; no African Americans served in the legislature between 1892 and 1967; from 1968 to 1975, there was one. As a matter of historical fact, the court's attribution of anti-racist motives to Mississippi decisionmakers in this period seems unjustifiable.There is an additional problem with the court's analysis. They hold that a provision unconstitutionally disenfranchising voters because of their race can be validated in an election in which those voters are unconstitutionally prevented from participating.


Taking the reader far beyond the traditional boundaries, this book presents a broader, more courageous interpretation of economic thinking and the associated tasks of policy making. Based on perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe, the book conceptualizes the fundamentals of economic and managerial thought in the context of today's transformation process, offering a genuine account regarding the pace of adaptation and change in the wake of globalization's latest phase. Studies in Economics and Policy Making asserts that knowledge management has become an essential component in economic policy making beyond previous assumptions, while complimenting and enhancing larger achievements at domestic and international levels. Increasingly, necessary managerial skill levels and abilities - including enhanced leadership skills, effective communication, and capacities for knowledge mobilization - will help lead societies towards greater success amidst greater uncertainty.


Abstract The Panel on Plant Health performed a pest categorisation of Stagonosporopsis andigena, the causal agent of black blight of potato, for the EU. The pest is a well‐defined fungal species and reliable methods exist for its detection and identification. S. andigena is present in Bolivia and Peru. The pest is not known to occur in the EU and is listed in Annex IAI of Directive 2000/29/EC as Phoma andina, meaning its introduction into the EU is prohibited. The major cultivated host is Solanum tuberosum (potato); other tuber‐forming Solanum species and wild solanaceous plants are also affected. All hosts and pathways of entry of the pest into the EU are currently regulated. Host availability and climate matching suggest that S. andigena could establish in parts of the EU and further spread mainly by human‐assisted means. The pest affects leaves, stems and petioles of potato plants causing lesions and premature leaf drop but not the underground parts, including tubers. The disease causes yield reductions up to 80%, depending on the susceptibility of potato cultivars. Early application of fungicide sprays and cultivation of resistant potato cultivars are the most effective measures for disease management. The pest introduction in the EU would potentially cause impacts to potato production. The main uncertainties concern the host range, the maximum period the pest survives on host debris in soil, the maximum distance over which conidia of the pest could be dispersed by wind‐blown rain, and the magnitude of potential impacts to the EU. S. andigena meets all the criteria assessed by EFSA for consideration as potential Union quarantine pest. The criteria for considering S. andigena as a potential Union regulated non‐quarantine pest are not met, since the pest is not known to occur in the EU.


With the practice of medicine becoming more "cook-book" oriented, it is easy for physicians to develop tunnel vision. It is important for us to be reminded that differentials still exist and that certain multi-organ diseases can easily and often mimick more sinister pathology. This case report presents a patient with a history of cervical cancer who presented with a clinical picture of widespread metastatic disease. Workup eventually lead to a diagnosis of multi-organ sarcoidosis, still a serious condition but less ominous than the alternative. A potential relationship between sarcoid and malignancy is also discussed. J Med Cases. 2013;4(6):426-428 doi: https://doi.org/10.4021/jmc1280w


Intensive insulin therapy is frequently complicated by excessive weight gain. The purpose of this study was to determine the cause and composition of this weight gain. Therefore, changes in body composition, energy expenditure, glycosuria, and substrate kinetics were evaluated in patients with IDDM who transferred from conventional insulin therapy to intensive insulin therapy. Six adult patients with IDDM were studied on conventional insulin therapy and after 2 mo of intensive insulin therapy while maintaining constant caloric intake and were compared with a group of 6 matched nondiabetic volunteers. Body composition was determined by underwater weighing. Energy expenditure was measured during 24-h stays in a whole-room calorimeter. Whole-body turnover rates of glucose, glycerol, palmitate, and leucine were determined by isotope dilution methods. Intensive insulin therapy lowered the mean daily blood glucose concentration and HbA1 (14.8 ± 1.6 to 7.7 ± 0.6 mM and 12.9 ± 0.9 to 9.6 ± 0.6%, both P < 0.01) and almost eliminated glycosuria (428 ± 116 to 39 ± 22 mmol/day, P < 0.05). Body weight increased 2.6 ± 0.8 kg with intensive insulin therapy (P < 0.05) as a result of an increase in fat mass (2.4 ± 0.8 kg, P < 0.05). Daily energy expenditure decreased 5% (118 ± 32 kcal/day) with intensive insulin therapy (P < 0.05). The rates of glucose, glycerol, free fatty acid, and leucine turnover, triglyceride/free fatty acid cycling, and nonoxidative glucose and protein disposal were reduced in the diabetic volunteers during intensive insulin therapy. Thus, intensive insulin therapy causes an increase in body fat as a result of the elimination of glycosuria and reduction in 24-h energy expenditure. The elimination of glycosuria contributed 70% to the positive energy balance during intensive insulin therapy, and the reduction in 24-h energy expenditure contributed the remainder. The reduction in 24-h energy expenditure was the result of the decrease in triglyceride/free fatty acid cycling and nonoxidative glucose and protein metabolism.


Abstract The built environment in China is required to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 against the 1980 design standard. A particular challenge is how to maintain acceptable comfort conditions through the hot humid summers and cold desiccating winters of its continental climate regions. Fully air-conditioned sealed envelopes, often fully glazed, are becoming increasingly common in these regions. Remedial strategies involve technical refinements to the air-handling equipment and a contribution from renewable energy sources in an attempt to achieve the prescribed net reduction in energy use. However an alternative hybrid environmental design strategy is developed in this research project. It exploits observed temperate periods of weeks, days, even hours in duration to free-run an office and exhibition building configured to promote natural stack ventilation when ambient conditions permit and mechanical ventilation when conditions require it, the two modes delivered through the same physical infrastructure. The proposal is modelled in proprietary software and the methodology adopted is described. The challenge is compounded by its first practical application to an existing reinforced concrete frame originally designed to receive a highly glazed envelope. This original scheme is reviewed in comparison. Furthermore the practical delivery of the proposal value engineered out a proportion of the ventilation stacks. The likely consequence of this for the environmental performance of the building is investigated through a sensitivity study.


The programmed death-1 (PD-1) and the PD ligand 1 (PD-L1) interaction represents a key immune checkpoint within the tumor microenvironment (TME), and PD-1 blockade has led to exciting therapeutic advances in clinical oncology. Although IFN-γ–dependent PD-L1 induction on tumor cells was initially thought to mediate the suppression on effector cells, recent studies have shown that PD-L1 is also expressed at high level on tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in certain types of tumors. However, the precise role of PD-L1 expression on TAMs in suppressing antitumor immunity within the TME remains to be defined. Using a myeloid-specific Pdl1-knockout mouse model, here we showed definitive evidence that PD-L1 expression on TAMs is critical for suppression of intratumor CD8+ T cell function. We further demonstrated that tumor-derived Sonic hedgehog (Shh) drives PD-L1 expression in TAMs to suppress tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cell function, leading to tumor progression. Mechanistically, Shh-dependent upregulation of PD-L1 in TAMs is mediated by signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, a cascade that has not been previously reported to our knowledge. Last, single-cell RNA sequencing analysis of human hepatocellular carcinoma revealed that PD-L1 is mainly expressed on M2 TAMs, supporting the clinical relevance of our findings. Collectively, our data revealed an essential role for Shh-dependent PD-L1 upregulation in TAMs in suppressing antitumor immunity within the TME, which could lead to the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies for treating cancer.


Part of Professor William Eskridge's mission in Gaylaw (Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet by William N. Eskridge, Jr., Harvard University Press, 1999) is to describe the historical development of the complex legal and, to some extent the cultural, landscape for gays. (pp. 17-137) Though not much of Eskridge's presentation of the history of American law's treatment of gays draws from original research, its synthesis of the available secondary sources is a useful contribution and will likely become a staple of classes treating the subject.The larger part of Gaylaw is the book's greatest challenge and the place where Gaylaw will draw the most fire. Eskridge offers some fairly standard but nonetheless powerfully-reasoned arguments that the right of privacy should be applied to protect individuals from criminal sanction for consensual sodomy. (pp. 152-73) He makes an intriguing but incomplete case that state criminal prohibitions on sodomy run afoul of the First Amendment. (pp. 176-202) On Eskridge's view, the Equal Protection Clause should invalidate a wide range of laws discriminating against homosexuals. (pp. 207-31) Finally, he urges that the similarities between religion and homosexuality should lead to greater constitutional solicitude for the latter. (pp. 296-302)Gaylaw is an admirable attempt to liberate us--gay and straight--from what Eskridge calls in the book's subtitle, "The Apartheid of the Closet." Yet it turns out that in subtle and unintentional ways Gaylaw manages to liberate from a closet what it then confines to a prison. It is an "identity prison", to borrow Eskridge's useful phrase, (p. 7) one that has the virtue of being roomier than the old closet but the vice of being another confinement.Nevertheless, Gaylaw is a clear and soberly written argument, a powerful accomplishment that both reflects and reinforces what have become some of the principal approaches to legal scholarship in the area. It manages to connect contemporary discrimination against gays with the extensive historical record of such discrimination. And it envisions a moral dimension to gay equality that is both provocative and refreshing. For those reasons alone, it cannot be ignored.


The present study aimed to investigate the correlation between certain hormone, vitamin and trace element levels and congenital defects in calves with congenital flexural deformity. The study included 15 calves (study group) which were clinically and radiologically diagnosed with congenital flexural deformity and 15 clinically healthy calves (control group). After obtaining the anamnesis of the calves, general physical, clinical and radiological examinations of the extremities were conducted. The calves were diagnosed with congenital flexural deformity when they partially attained or did not attain normal extension angles during passive joint flexion movements. The congenital flexural deformity in the extremity was categorized based on the cranial angle of the carpal and ankle joints, measured with a radiogram, and the posture of the extremity. Blood samples were obtained from all calves for biochemical analysis and blood serum was extracted. Serum retinol (vitamin A), alpha tocopherol (vitamin E), cholecalciferol (vitamin D), certain trace elements (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, iron, zinc and manganese), T3 and T4 levels were measured. It was determined that the serum zinc levels of the calves with flexural deformity were lower, magnesium, calcium, vitamin E, free T3 and T4 levels were higher in comparison to the healthy calves in the control group. There was no difference between the other vitamin (D, E) and mineral levels. In conclusion, instead of subjective evaluation, objective evaluation criteria were presented in the grading of the deformity. It was also thought that it would be useful to consider objective evaluation in determining treatment options. It was thought that the addition of zinc to animal feeds during pregnancy in farms that the cases are common, can reduce these deformities.


For many people, biotechnology means genetically modified organisms, alien species, toxic weapons, or hormone-treated beef. Yet it is also a tool to control plant and animal pests, preserve species, utilize genetic resources for health and nutrition, and protect the environment. Society's ability to manage, share and regulate advanced biotechnology offers many opportunities and raises many challenges and risks. This book explores the issues of advanced biotechnology and examines the progress made in recent years. It looks at the drivers of medical and pharmaceutical biotechnology development in the United States, the European Union and Japan. It describes the biotechnology tools to fight major global health concerns such as Ebola fever, the human immunodeficiency virus, the SARS virus and the Avian flu virus, as well as regulatory concerns and public perceptions. Professor Sasson also provides a state of the art analysis of the progress of selected developing countries in fostering their own bio-industries. He examines some of the most controversial areas of medical biotechnology, including issues such as stem cell research and gene therapy and some of the ethical issues they raise.


This article explores the relationship between lesbian activists and the "psy professions" (especially psychology and psychiatry) in England from the 1960s to the 1980s. We draw on UK-based LGBTQIA+ archive sources and specifically magazines produced by, and for, lesbians. We use this material to identify three key strategies used within the lesbian movement to contest psycho-pathologisation during this 30-year period: from respectable collaborationist forms of activism during the 1960s; to more liberationist oppositional politics during the early 1970s; to radical feminist separatist activism in the 1980s. Whilst these strategies broadly map onto activist strategies deployed within the wider lesbian and gay movement during this time, this article explores how these politics manifested in particular ways, specifically in relation to the psy disciplines in the UK. We describe these strategies, illustrating them with examples of activism from the archives. We then use this history to problematise a linear, overly reductionist or binary history of liberation from psycho-pathologisation. Finally, we explore some complexities in the relationship between sexuality, activism and the psy professions.


Abstract. Marine stratocumulus cloud properties, and the free-tropospheric environment above them, are examined in NASA A-Train satellite data for cases where smoke from seasonal burning of the West African savannah overlay the persistent southeast Atlantic stratocumulus cloud deck. CALIPSO space-borne lidar observations show that features identified as layers of aerosol occur predominantly between 2 km and 4 km. Layers identified as cloud features occur predominantly below 1.5 km altitude and beneath the layer of elevated smoke aerosol. The diurnal mean shortwave heating rates attributable to the absorption of solar energy in the aerosol layer is nearly 1.5 K d−1 for an aerosol optical thickness value of 1, and increases to 1.8 K d−1 when the smoke resides above clouds owing to the additional component of upward solar radiation reflected by the cloud. As a consequence of this heating, the 700 hPa air temperature above the cloud deck is warmer by approximately 1 K on average for cases where smoke is present above the cloud compared to cases without smoke above cloud. The warmer conditions in the free-troposphere above the cloud during smoke events coincide with cloud liquid water path values that are greater by 20 g m−2 and cloud tops that are lower for overcast conditions compared to periods with low amounts of smoke. The observed thickening and subsidence of the cloud layer are consistent with published results of large-eddy simulations showing that solar absorption by smoke above stratocumulus clouds increases the buoyancy of free-tropospheric air above the temperature inversion capping the boundary layer. Increased buoyancy inhibits the entrainment of dry air through the cloud-top, thereby helping to preserve humidity and cloud cover in the boundary layer. The direct radiative effect of absorbing aerosols residing over a bright cloud deck is a positive radiative forcing (warming) at the top of the atmosphere. However, the greater liquid water path for cases of smoke overlaying cloud contributes an additional negative semi-direct radiative forcing (cooling) of climate in locations such as the southeast Atlantic Ocean owing to the enhanced albedo of the thicker cloud.


The peer-to-peer digital currency Bitcoin has gained increased prominence since its 2008 launch. Economists have not thoroughly studied the currency, however, and researchers have not tested the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) on Bitcoin exchanges despite the abundance of exchanges and trading data. This paper tests for runs in returns and for the day-of-the-week effect that researchers have observed in traditional financial markets as well as whether the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD), relative strength index (RSI), or filter technical trading can outperform a buy-and-hold strategy. Although the trading rules do not outperform the buy-and-hold strategy, a robust day-of-the-week effect emerges and autocorrelation in returns suggestions a violation of the EMH. The mixed results do not definitely answer the question of whether the bitcoin market achieves weak-form efficiency.


Go's contribution to the book forum on Patterns of Empire responds to the critiques of the other commentators in the section. Although Go disagrees with some of the readings of his work, he welcomes future studies—whether comparative, postcolonial, transnational, or otherwise—that interrogate and challenge empire's exceptionalist fantasies of uniqueness, power, and agency. Empires are far too sprawling and devious to be left in the hands of any single discipline, method, or theoretical approach. To this, Go writes, the US empire is no exception.


Galleries of Friendship and Fame is the first comprehensive investigation of the origin, development, and practices of 19th-century American photograph albums. In this fascinating book, the author argues that the album-whether functioning as family record, parlor entertainment, social register, national portrait gallery, or advertisement for photography itself-helped transform the nature of self-presentation at the cusp of modernity. This handsome volume examines carte de visite and cabinet card albums from their introduction in the United States in 1861 through the rise of the snapshot at the century's end. By examining a wealth of previously overlooked primary materials, this study offers a completely new understanding of photograph albums, revealing how they emerged, how they were marketed and sold, and how families displayed and told stories through them. Galleries of Friendship and Fame addresses the history of technology and innovation, the interconnectedness of the commercial and domestic spheres, and the ways photography helped shape notions of identity, family, and nation in a rapidly changing America.


Aim The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of high-intensity aerobic training (AT) and high-intensity aerobic training combined with resistance training (ie, combined training [CT]) on cognitive function in patients with COPD. Methods Twenty-eight Caucasian male patients (68.35±9.64 years; mean ± SD) with COPD were recruited and randomized into two groups, AT and CT. Both groups performed physical reconditioning for 4 weeks, with a frequency of five training sessions per week. The CT group completed two daily sessions of 30 minutes: one aerobic session and one strength session, respectively; The AT group performed two 30-minute aerobic endurance exercise sessions on treadmill. Physical and cognitive function tests were performed before and after the training intervention performances. Results Exercise training improved the following cognitive functions: long-term memory, verbal fluency, attentional capacity, apraxia, and reasoning skills (P<0.01). Moreover, the improvements in the CT group were significantly greater than those in the AT group in long-term memory, apraxia, and reasoning skills (P<0.05). Conclusion CT may be a possible strategy to prevent cognitive decline and associated comorbidities in male patients with COPD.