Abstract This study investigates the intonation in the read speech of two males with hypokinetic dysarthria resulting from idiopathic Parkinson's disease and compares them with two age-matched male controls. The investigation was carried out within the autosegmental-metrical framework (AM), which analyzes intonational contours as a sequence of abstract, discrete pitch targets (high or low tones) and permits analysis on two levels: the intonational phonology and its phonetic realisation. Despite its potential for revealing patterns of disordered usage, the AM approach has seldom been deployed in the analysis of disordered speech, and has never been used to investigate the intonation patterns of people with Parkinson's disease. Results showed that there were no differences between the participants with parkinsonian dysarthria and the healthy controls in the inventory of pitch accents and boundary tones (i.e., the phonological elements of intonation). Both groups used the same range of pitch accent types and boundary tones. However, there were differences in the phonetic realization of them. In particular, the speakers with parkinsonian dysarthria on average produced shorter intermediate and intonational phrases, used fewer pitch accents per intonational phrase, and had a narrower pitch range. Furthermore, their boundary tones did not always coincide with syntactic boundaries. The finding of preserved categorical elements of intonation suggests that the abstract representations of intonation are unaffected in these participants with parkinsonian dysarthria. However, the findings of problems with the distribution and phonetic realization suggests that there may be a disruption in the instantiation of those abstract representations either at the initial planning level or at the level of phonetic implementation.


Viral hemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV) is an important viral pathogen in European rainbow trout farming. Isolates from wild marine fish and freshwater trout farms show highly different virulence profiles: isolates from marine fish species cause little or no mortality in rainbow trout following experimental waterborne challenge, whilst challenge with rainbow trout isolates results in high levels of mortality. Phylogenetic analyses have revealed that the highly virulent trout-derived isolates from freshwater farms have evolved from VHSV isolates from marine fish host species over the past 60 years. Recent isolates from rainbow trout reared in marine zones show intermediate virulence. The present study aimed to identify molecular virulence markers that could be used to classify VHSV isolates according to their ability to cause disease in rainbow trout. By a reverse genetics approach using a VHSV-related novirhabdovirus [infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV)], four chimaeric IHNV-VHSV recombinant viruses were generated. These chimaeric viruses included substitution of the IHNV glyco- (G) or non-structural (Nv) protein with their counterparts from either a trout-derived or a marine VHSV strain. Comparative challenge experiments in rainbow trout fingerlings revealed similar levels of survival induced by the recombinant (r)IHNV-VHSV chimaeric viruses regardless of whether the G or Nv genes originated from VHSV isolated from a marine fish species or from rainbow trout. Interestingly, recombinant IHNV gained higher virulence following substitution of the G gene with those of the VHSV strains, whilst the opposite was the case following substitution of the Nv genes.


The past few years have witnessed a rapid growth in the use of fuzzy logic
controllers for the control of processes which are complex and ill-defined. These
control systems, inspired by the approximate reasoning capabilities of humans
under conditions of uncertainty and imprecision, consist of linguistic 'if-then' rules
which depend on fuzzy set theory for representation and evaluation using
computers. Even though the fuzzy rules can be built from purely heuristic
knowledge such as a human operator's control strategy, a number of difficulties
face the designer of such systems. For any reasonably complex chemical process,
the number of rules required to ensure adequate control in all operating regions
may be extremely large. Eliciting all of these rules and ensuring their consistency
and completeness can be a daunting task.
An alternative to modelling the operator's response is to model the process
and then to incorporate the process model into some sort of model-based control
scheme. The concept of Model Based Predictive Control (MB PC) has been
heralded as one of the most significant control developments in recent years. It is
now widely used in the chemical and petrochemical industry and it continues to
attract a considerable amount of research. Its popularity can be attributed to its
many remarkable features and its open methodology. The wide range of choice of
model structures, prediction horizon and optimisation criteria allows the control
designer to easily tailor MBPC to his application. Features sought from such
controllers include better performance, ease of tuning, greater robustness, ability
to handle process constraints, dead time compensation and the ability to control
nonminimum phase and open loop unstable processes. The concept of MBPC is
not restricted to single-input single-output (SISO) processes. Feedforward action
can be introduced easily for compensation of measurable disturbances and the use
of state-space model formulation allows the approach to be generalised easily to
multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. Although many different MBPC schemes have emerged, linear process models derived from input-output data are
often used either explicitly to predict future process behaviour and/or implicitly to
calculate the control action even though many chemical processes exhibit
nonlinear process behaviour. It is well-recognised that the inherent nonlinearity of
many chemical processes presents a challenging control problem, especially where
quality and/or economic performance are important demands.
In this thesis, MBPC is incorporated into a nonlinear fuzzy modelling
framework. Even though a control algorithm based on a 1-step ahead predictive
control strategy has initially been examined, subsequent studies focus on
determining the optimal controller output using a long-range predictive control
strategy. The fuzzy modelling method proposed by Takagi and Sugeno has been
used throughout the thesis. This modelling method uses fuzzy inference to
combine the outputs of a number of auto-regressive linear sub-models to construct
an overall nonlinear process model. The method provides a more compact model
(hence requiring less computations) than fuzzy modelling methods using relational
arrays. It also provides an improvement in modelling accuracy and effectively
overcomes the problems arising from incomplete models that characterise
relational fuzzy models.
Difficulties in using traditional cost function and optimisation techniques
with fuzzy models have led other researchers to use numerical search techniques
for determining the controller output. The emphasis in this thesis has been on
computationally efficient analytically derived control algorithms. The performance
of the proposed control system is examined using simulations of the liquid level in
a tank, a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) system, a binary distillation
column and a forced circulation evaporator system. The results demonstrate the
ability of the proposed system to outperform more traditional control systems. The
results also show that inspite of the greatly reduced computational requirement of
our proposed controller, it is possible to equal or better the performance of some
of the other fuzzy model based control systems that have been proposed in the
literature.
It is also shown in this thesis that the proposed control algorithm can be
easily extended to address the requirements of time-varying processes and
processes requiring compensation for disturbance inputs and dead times. The
application of the control system to multivariable processes and the ability to
incorporate explicit constraints in the optimisation process are also demonstrated.


Earthquakes in megacities such as Tehran and Los Angeles pose huge risks that could jeopardize national prosperity and social welfare. Quantifying urban seismic risk is a di cult problem because it requires detailed knowledge of the natural and the built environments, as well as an understanding of both earthquake and human behaviors. Risk assessments can be improved through international collaborations that combine the expertise of earthquake scientists and engineers. The most e ective strategies are seismic safety engineering, enforced through stringent building codes and disaster preparations informed by realistic scenarios of large earthquake cascades. These strategies rely on the ability to forecast earthquakes and their e ects and to monitor earthquake cascades in near real time. The practical problems of risk reduction are, thus, coupled to the basic problems of earthquake system science: the interseismic dynamics of fault systems and the coseismic dynamics of fault rupture and groundmotion excitation. In the United States, the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) coordinates an extensive research program in earthquake system science, which includes major e orts to improve time-dependent earthquake rupture forecasts through better understanding of earthquake predictability and to develop attenuation relationships that correctly model the physics of seismic wave propagation. Earthquake system science relies on the premise that detailed studies of fault systems in di erent regions can be synthesized into a generic understanding of earthquake phenomena. Achieving such a synthesis will depend on international partnerships that facilitate the development and comparison of well-calibrated regional models, and it will require the deployment of a cyberinfrastructure that can facilitate the creation and ow of information required to predict earthquake behavior. In the not-too-distant future, we will be able to incorporate much more physics into seismic hazard and risk analysis through physics-based, system-level simulations.


Wind power has the primary potential among renewable energies. Because Japan consists of little flat land and little shallow coast, floating wind turbine must be developed to make wind farms in Japan. Therefore, Japanese national demonstration project of Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) was started in 2010FY by Ministry of the Environment and a SPAR-type FOWT is under construction at present.The floater is planned to be hybrid, consists of upper part by steal and lower part by pre-stressed concrete. Four fins are attached around the floater to suppress yaw motion. The floater is moored by three catenary chains.In order to confirm the safety of the FOWT in storm condition, experiments of a scale of 1/34.5 model were carried out at Ocean Engineering Basin of National Maritime Research Institute (NMRI), Japan. The draft of SPAR, the height of hub above sea level and the diameter of rotor of the model are 1.07m, 0.68m and 0.64m, respectively. In all experiments, blades are fixed to the hub under feathering condition and the hub is irrotational and fixed to the tower because this wind turbine is assumed to be under the storm condition, but wind blows transversely to the nacelle to give the maximum wind force. Water depth of the basin is smaller than the planned sea area on a reduced scale of model, therefore, springs and wires were used instead of chains in order to correspond to characteristics of horizontal mooring tension.Environmental forces are wind, wave and current in 50-year return period. Tensions of the 3 moorings and the motion of the model are measured in condition of wind and/or wave and/or current. Three kinds of direction of wind are adopted. One is the same direction as the wave and current, another is perpendicular to the wave and current, and the other is against to the wave and current.Besides the intact conditions a mooring-line-cut experiment in a storm condition was also conducted. Moreover, the effect of vortex induced motion (VIM), which occurs in current, was discussed. The results of the model experiment are reported to show the sufficient safety of this FOWT.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


In floriculture design, "shaping" is the use of floral materials as media for expressing ideas. Common floriculture techniques include tying, pasting, winding, connecting, overlapping, and weaving. Shaping is also a key factor in the appeal of the final product. Therefore, this study recruited 149 university students to explore how their floriculture material-shaping skills are affected by factors such as creative personality traits, spatial abilities, and shaping creativity. Students were allowed to use three different leaf materials in their floriculture works: planar leaf, linear leaf, and amorphous leaf materials. Representative planar, linear, and amorphous floriculture materials used in the current study were yellow palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens), veitch's screw pine (Pandanus baptistii), and tree fern (Asparagus virgatus), respectively. The average score for creativity in shaping floriculture material was (±sd) 3.26 ± 0.84 (range, 1.33–4.67). Comparisons of the three leaf materials showed that the score for shaping creativity was highest for the planar leaf material (3.70 ± 1.23), followed by the amorphous leaf material (3.18 ± 0.99) and the linear leaf material (2.91 ± 0.94). The chi-square test results indicated that creative personality traits affected the number of shaping skills used, and that spatial abilities and floriculture material-shaping creativity further enhanced skills in floriculture material-shaping. Suggestions for floriculture educators and practitioners are provided accordingly.


The articles included in this issue take into consideration the relationship between television and education in its broadest sense, offering historical studies of television programming, national policies, audience attitudes and evolving socio-political contexts. It includes case studies of different broadcasters, specific educational programming initiatives, government or state education policy delivered through the television medium, the intersections between broadcast programmes and what is retained in television archives. They cover Turkey, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Finland and map the period from the 1960s to the present day. All of this material helps situate educational provision on television within broader histories of both television as a form and education as an overarching idea or objective.


One of the many goals of wetland restoration is to promote the long-term storage of carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere. Unfortunately, soil C reservoirs in restored wetlands are slow to accumulate even after hydrology and plant communities are reestablished. Oftentimes wetland restoration changes the soil matrix and thus can dramatically alter how soil C is stored and processed. Our research investigated whether soil organic matter (SOM) preservation theories derived from studies in non-wetland soil systems can be extended to wetland soils. We examined C associated with water-stable soil aggregates, minerals, and metal oxides within habitats of one natural and one restored tidal freshwater wetland. This study revealed that a majority of the soil C in the natural site was associated with large macroaggregates (>2000 μm), and soils from the restored site stored more C in small macroaggregates (≥250 to <2000 μm). Despite these different associations, the chemical composition of SOM followed similar patterns across each aggregate-size class. Results from the sequential extraction procedure suggest organo-metal oxide complexes do not contribute to C stabilization in these habitats. This research is one of the few studies that have examined C stabilization related to soil structure in wetland soils. Our results suggest soil aggregate formation may be an important mechanism driving C stabilization, and that disruption to macroaggregates may limit C accumulation in restored wetlands. Additional empirical research and long-term field monitoring are needed to confirm linkages between aggregate-C stabilization and accumulation in wetland soils.


Noriega's odd journey through the U.S. legal system provides insight into an issue that has been consistently avoided in connection with the current "war on terror": the consequence of granting wartime captives prisoner of war status and its impact on the ability of the United States to use its criminal law system to hold such captives accountable for their pre-capture conduct. Ironically, Noriega's saga also triggered a legal battle over the effect of a law enacted by Congress to provide for the trial by military courts of captured al Qaeda and Taliban personnel, the Military Commission Act of 2009. In what can only be considered the final ironic twist of fate for the General, his effort to fight extradition turned on the validity of the MCA's provision limiting access to judicial remedies for a class enemies captured in a war radically different from the one in which Noriega was captured. Nonetheless, like so many other legal issues related to his status as a U.S. captive, the MCA nullified the last modicum of value Noriega sought to derive from his status as a Prisoner of War prevented him from invoking that status as a barrier to his extradition. As America's longest held Prisoner of War (POW), Noriega's capture, detention, prosecution, and ultimate extradition provide many important lessons in the balance between the protection of POWs and the flexibility afforded to detaining States to address pre-capture misconduct committed by these captives. It is therefore somewhat ironic that in the post-September 11th debates over the relative merits of extending POW status to captured al Qaeda and Taliban personnel, so little attention has been paid to the plight of General Noriega. His ouster from power, capture, trial, conviction, twenty years of incarceration, and most recent efforts to block extradition offer a fascinating insight into the intersection of national security and law, both domestic and international. What was his status upon capture? If a POW, what was the scope of his lawful immunity, and what was his status upon conviction in a domestic criminal court? How did Congress criminalize his conduct in Panama? Did an invasion to bring him to justice implicate due process concerns? Would his extradition violate the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention, and if so, what remedy did the Convention provide for the General? Through General Noriega's journey, this article will survey each of these legal issues and the law relied on to resolve them. The authors offer this survey in order to highlight how Noriega's POW status never really impeded the ability of the United States to address the misconduct it sought to sanction him for. Because the authority to prosecute wartime captives is as important today as it was when the U.S. took Noriega into custody, the authors believe the lesson of Noriega's experience deserves greater attention, because in many ways it rebuts the flawed assumption that POW status and protection of the nation from individuals who commit pre-capture misconduct directed against the national security interests of the nation are somehow incompatible. Instead, General Noriega's legal saga will offer insight into the viability of existing law to address the challenge of such captives, even in the context of the contemporary struggle against international terrorism. While the authors do not intend to suggest that these lessons mandate reconsideration of the status of captured al Qaeda and Taliban personnel, it does indicate the fallacy of asserting that extending POW status (or perhaps only combatant immunity) to such enemy belligerents will disable the ability of the nation to address their pre-capture misconduct.


Academic reading for knowledge building is under-researched in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP); a field that foregrounds academic writing above all other skills. Alongside this dearth of literature, a relative wealth of literature exists which identifies the 'troublesomeness' of academic reading. This paper argues that reading for knowledge building is one way to ease the troublesomeness of academic reading within the field of EAP, with a focus on reading to build knowledge of theory and theory use. This paper reports on findings from a study which explores how taught postgraduates on a presessional course acquire the threshold concept of 'theory knowledgeability' (Cowley-Haselden 2020) through reading and discussion. 'Theory knowledgeability' can be defined as not just acquiring knowledge of how to use theory in academic practice, but also acquiring knowledge of particular theory/ theories themselves. This knowledge is one key to unlocking success in postgraduate level education. Through the analysis of knowledge practices within academic reading circles performed by postgraduate presessional students from a range of disciplines within the social sciences, it is argued that acquiring the threshold concept of theory knowledgeability allows students to emerge as a more legitimate knower in the UK higher education context.


'Poverty itself is a violation of numerous basic human rights.' (Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights) The idea that freedom from poverty is a basic human right that gives rise to moral and legal obligations of governments and other actors has received increased international attention in recent years. Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has pushed the international agenda on poverty and human rights forward by characterizing extreme poverty as one of the key human rights problems that the world faces. The recognition of poverty as a human rights issue is also increasingly reflected in the work of international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and of campaigning organizations such as Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. In Poverty and Human Rights Vizard analyses the importance of the work of the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen for contemporary debates about poverty and human rights. Bringing together perspectives from ethics, economics, and international law, Vizard provides a detailed and concise analysis of Sen's contributions and examines the ways in which his work has promoted cross-fertilization and integration across traditional disciplinary divides. She demonstrates that Sen has made a major contribution to the development of an 'interdisciplinary bridge' between human rights and theoretical and empirical economics, and to the establishment of poverty as a human rights issue. Vizard demonstrates that Sen's work has deepened and expanded human rights discourse in important and influential ways. In ethics, Sen is shown to have challenged the exclusion of poverty, hunger, and starvation from the characterization of fundamental freedoms and human rights, and to have contributed to the development of a framework in which authoritatively recognized international standards in this field can be meaningfully conceptualized and coherently understood. In economics, Sen is shown to have set out a far-reaching critique of standard frameworks that fail to take account of fundamental freedoms and human rights, and to have moved the economics and human rights agenda forward by pioneering the development of new paradigms and approaches which focus on these concerns.


The service life of Virginia's concrete bridge decks is generally controlled by chloride-induced corrosion of the reinforcing steel as a result of the application of winter maintenance deicing salts. A chloride corrosion model accounting for the variable input parameters using Monte Carlo resampling was developed. The model was validated using condition surveys from 10 Virginia bridge decks built with bare steel. The influence of changes in the construction specifications of w/c = 0.47 and 0.45 and w/cm = 0.45 and a cover depth increase from 2 to 2.75 inches was determined. Decks built under the specification of w/cm = 0.45 (using slag or fly ash) and a 2.75 inch cover depth have a maintenance free service life of greater than 100 years, regardless of the type of reinforcing steel. Galvanized, MMFX-2, and stainless steel, in order of increasing reliability of a service life of greater than 100 years, will provide a redundant corrosion protection system. Life cycle cost analyses were conducted for polymer concrete and portland cement based overlays as maintenance activities. The most economical alternative is dependent on individual structure conditions. The study developed a model and computer software that can be used to determine the time to first repair and rehabilitation of individual bridge decks taking into account the time for corrosion initiation, time from initiation to cracking, and time for corrosion damage to propagate to a state requiring repair.


1. The successful introduction of the red fox Vulpes vulpes into Australia in the 1870s has had dramatic and deleterious impacts on both native fauna and agricultural production. Historical accounts detail how the arrival of foxes in many areas coincided with the local demise of native fauna. Recent analyses suggest that native fauna can be successfully reintroduced to their former ranges only if foxes have been controlled, and several replicated removal experiments have confirmed that foxes are the major agents of extirpation of native fauna. Predation is the primary cause of losses, but competition and transmission of disease may be important for some species.

2. In agricultural landscapes, fox predation on lambs can cause losses of 1–30%; variation is due to flock size, health and management, as well as differences in the timing and duration of lambing and the density of foxes.

3. Fox control measures include trapping, shooting, den fumigation and exclusion fencing; baiting using the toxin 1080 is the most commonly employed method. Depending on the baiting strategy, habitat and area covered, baiting can reduce fox activity by 50–97%. We review patterns of baiting in a large sheep-grazing region in central New South Wales, and propose guidelines to increase landholder awareness of baiting strategies, to concentrate and coordinate bait use, and to maximize the cost-effectiveness of baiting programs.

4. The variable reduction in fox density within the baited area, together with the ability of the fox to recolonize rapidly, suggest that current baiting practices in eastern Australia are often ineffective, and that reforms are required. These might include increasing landholder awareness and involvement in group control programs, and the use of more efficient broadscale techniques, such as aerial baiting.


The conditions to observe and excite electromagnetic surface modes at the interface between a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal (PC) and bulk metal are studied. It is shown that these modes can exist in the region where bandgaps of the PC overlap with the region below the plasma frequency of a metal in the dispersion diagram in both polarizations. The dispersion relation of these electromagnetic surface modes is determined numerically by considering a system of a thin metallic layer in contact with a finite PC of some periods. The reflectance is computed by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. With this method, it is shown that these modes can be excited and observed even under normal incidence from a vacuum. For the studied system, the cell in contact with the metallic layer must be truncated in order to observe the interface mode. It is shown that we can select the frequency of the mode inside the bandgaps by properly choosing the truncation parameter.


We present an experimental study of parallel algorithms for solving the single source shortest path problem with non-negative edge weights (NSSP) on large-scale graphs. We implement Meyer and Sander's Δ-stepping algorithm and report performance results on the Cray MTA-2, a multithreaded parallel architecture. The MTA-2 is a high-end shared memory system offering two unique features that aid the efficient implementation of irregular parallel graph algorithms: the ability to exploit fine-grained parallelism, and low-overhead synchronization primitives. Our implementation exhibits remarkable parallel speedup when compared with a competitive sequential algorithm, for low-diameter sparse graphs. For instance, Δ-stepping on a directed scale-free graph of 100 million vertices and 1 billion edges takes less than ten seconds on 40 processors of the MTA-2, with a relative speedup of close to 30. To our knowledge, these are the first performance results of a parallel NSSP problem on realistic graph instances in the order of billions of vertices and edges.


Statistical analyses of the glacio-morpho metric parameters show a spatial variation across Himalaya. Glacier density varies across Himalaya: it is maximum in the Sutlej and Tista basin and moderate in the Jhelum and Bhagirathi basin, while least density area is in Arunachal Pradesh basin. Most of the glaciers are simple type while some glaciers are big in size and composite in nature. The single biggest glacier contributes about 30% of the total glacier cover in the respective basins. Length and width change from west to east and consequently the elongation, relief ratio and relief area gradient. These indices suggest that the west glaciers are stream type, while eastern glaciers are patch type and occupied in high relief region. Health of glaciers can be inferred using Accumulation Area Ratio (AAR) and the average AAR value of the Indian glaciers is 0.48; a state of negative mass balance. A comparative analysis of glaciers' AAR shows that the glaciers having zero AAR constitute about 34% of total glaciers, while glaciers having near 100 AAR constitute about 9% of total number of the glaciers. Correlation matrix between various glacio-morpho metric parameters suggests that the AAR is closely related to accumulation area, length, mean elevation and area. The accumulation zone is gentler slope area of the glaciers and a slight shift in zero isotherms on the accumulation surface will result in quick shrinkage in accumulation area. It will further contribute to more negative mass balance and development of supraglacial and moraine dammed lake in glaciated region. Present study clearly indicates the high susceptibility of the glacier shrinking in Indian Himalaya in the present climatic change regime.


Aim: To establish the efficacy of rural outreach
programme in reducing blindness caused by cataract by
comparative analysis of visual outcome. Materials and
Methods: Records of patients attending outreach camps
conducted during 10 years i.e., 2001-02 to 2010-11 were
studied. The total number of patients attending the camp and
those who were detected to have visually significant cataract
were noted. Similarly, the number of patients attending the
outpatient department of the department of Ophthalmology
and the number detected with visually significant cataract
were noted. Data was tabulated and analyzed. Result: Out of
1, 16,615 patients visiting the outpatient department during
those ten years, 3,014 were detected to have cataract (2.58%).
744 camps were conducted during the period of ten years,
screening 60,086 patients and 6711 (11.17%) of them were
detected to have cataract and were operated. These results
were statistically significant. Conclusions: High numbers of
cataracts were detected in the rural parts of South India with
the help of outreach camps, while compared to tertiary care
centres. They were given treatment in the form of cataract
extraction and implantation of intraocular lens. Hence,
conducting outreach camps forms an integral part in
decreasing the visual morbidity due to cataract.


The distribution of Virgulinella fragilis and the hydro-environment of Aso-kai Lagoon, central Japan, were studied to clarify the foraminifer's adaptation to low-oxygen conditions. The hypolimnion of the lagoon is oxygen-poor during much of the year. Two faunas (A and B) are recognized, based on cluster analysis. Cluster A fauna consists of species common in brackish lagoons, such as the genera Trochammina and Ammonia, and occurs in seasonally oxygenated waters. Virgulinella fragilis, the predominant species of Cluster B fauna, dominates the central part of the lagoon. This species can tolerate more severe oxygen deficiencies than the typical brackish foraminifers (e.g. Trochammina spp.) and can adapt to long periods of oxygen-poor conditions in coastal lagoon environments, as well as in pelagic to hemi-pelagic settings. In order to survive in the near-anoxia of Aso-kai Lagoon, V. fragilis may have adapted to environments in which little reactive iron is available in the sediment, leaving pore-water and bottom-water sulphide available for symbionts, or may utilize sulphur denitrification processes.


Why do we have emotions? What are the bases of social behaviour? What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? How, and why, do we appreciate art? How do we make decisions? Are there biological foundations to ethical behaviour? Why do people follow religions, or believe in life after death? These wide-ranging, but important questions are just some of those considered in this exploration of the field of neuroscience, and how it can crucially inform our knowledge across a range of seemingly unrelated disciplines. 'Neuroculture' considers the implications of our modern understanding of how the brain works, how it was shaped by evolution, and how it can help us understand many mental issues central to everyday life. The book starts with a look at emotions and how they are important in our behaviour. It then considers social behaviour, looking at the adaptive differences between men and women. The next chapter considers emotion and rationality, and the mechanisms of decision making. In the following chapter, the author looks at philosophical issues, considering the relationship between the mind and brain, and considering whether the hardware/software distinction in a computer might tell us something about mind-brain interactions. The following chapter considers neuroaesthetics - the biological foundations of our appreciation of art - including visual art, literature, and music. Is art a useless ornament? Is music, to quote Steven Pinker, really just 'auditory cheescake'? After this, the author looks at the field of neuroeconomics - how neuroscience is informing us about how we make economic choices. The wide-ranging chapters that follow consider neuroethics - the biological foundations of ethical behaviour, neuropsychiatry - the connection between neural functioning and psychiatric disorders, neuroreligion - the possible biological foundations of religious belief, and neuropolitics - how our knowlege of the emotion and rational reasoning systems might help us develop strategies to solve political problems. Written to appeal to students and researchers across the biological sciences and humanities, Neuroculture will be fascinating reading for those in neuroscience, psychology, biology, medicine, economics, animal behaviour, psychiatry, philosophy, the arts - indeed anyone interested in why we behave as we do.


The potential of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) time-series in monitoring crop condition was examined in the Weishan Irrigation Zone along a downstream reach of the Yellow River, China. First, MODIS-derived spectral indices, including the normalized difference water index (NDWI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), were employed to retrieve the crop physiological parameters (such as vegetation water content and dry matter) during the winter wheat growing season. NDWI was found to be less susceptible than NDVI to the directional effects induced by the changes of illumination and view angles. NDWI1640 and NDWI2130, which were based on the shortwave infrared (SWIR) 1640 nm and 2130 nm bands, showed great potential for vegetation water content (VWC) estimation and performed better than NDVI and NDWI1240. Both NDWI1640 and NDWI2130 had a significant positive correlation with dry matter content before the blooming stage. A significant negative correlation between NDWI2130 and dry matter content was found after the blooming stage. Second, NDWI was also employed to assess the canopy water deficit during the same period as a direct indicator of crop water content. The strong correlation between NDWI and soil moisture after the jointing stage showed that NDWI can also be utilized as an indicator of soil moisture changes. An integrated analysis of the temporal variation of NDWI and the observed VWC demonstrated that the wheat was under water stress to some extent during the later part of the growing period in 2006, and this was supported by a field experiment.


I analyzed data on stomach contents of sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka and oceanographic variables collected during 1956 to 1964 in order to assess the spatial and temporal pat- terns of salmon feeding and growth in the Gulf of Alaska. A 2-stage statistical model was used to develop a feeding index, calculated as the product of feeding probability (assessed using the pres- ence/absence of gut contents of individuals collected at each site) and stomach fullness (prey weights transformed to account for temperature-dependent gastric evacuation and allometry). Combining these results with simple bioenergetic principles, I conclude that the reduction in salmon biomass during spring observed along the southern periphery of the Gulf can be explained by an equally sharp reduction in growth potential. This feature demarcates a region (between latitude 58 and 55° N) that is favorable to sockeye growth, as demonstrated by an order of magnitude change in salmon growth potential over a narrow range of sea surface temperatures (ca. 6 to 7°C). This pattern results from the combined effects of trends in feeding probability and stomach fullness across this temperature gradient. I documented a significant trend of larger fish in cooler water during spring, which might have been related to body size dependent competitive interactions. The trend was reversed in summer, with larger fish in warmer water, perhaps due to the availability of preferred prey (e.g. squid) and directional swimming behavior characteristic of sockeye spawning migration. Assuming salmon are growth-optimizers in this environment, my results suggest that winter resi- dency for sub-adults is restricted to north of latitude 54° N. Furthermore, peaks in feeding and growth shifted from a central position in the gulf during spring toward the southeast during summer, with an attendant increase in forage quality. I hypothesize that these patterns are likely to be important in drawing maturing British Columbia salmon toward their natal rivers and providing the energy needed to fuel their costly river migration during mid-summer.


Recent years have seen recurrent calls for bridging the "gap" between the worlds of policy-makers, practitioners, and academic scholars concerned with forced migration and humanitarian aid. This has resulted in growing partnerships between international organisations, governments, businesses, foundations, and universities with the aim of harnessing market economic thinking to create new practice-oriented knowledge rather than out-of-touch theories. This intervention responds critically to these developments and questions the seemingly common-sense logic behind attempts to forge ever closer collaborations across institutional lines. Rather than benefitting displaced communities, bridging divides has often served as a way of consolidating the hegemony of humanitarian actors and inadvertently delegitimized more critical scholarship. Scholars in refugee and forced migration studies have hereby been engulfed in a tightening "humanitarian embrace". This paper argues that in order to fulfil a scholarly commitment to social justice, anti-violence and pro-asylum politics, it is time to again demarcate the boundaries between the practices and institutions that reproduce humanitarian power and their critics.


Too often historical writing on the Russian War of 1854-56 focuses narrowly on the land campaign fought in the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea. The wider war waged at sea by the British and French navies against the Russians is ignored. The allied navies aimed to strike at Russian interests anywhere in the world where naval force could be brought to bear and as a result campaigns were waged in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the White Sea, on the Russian Pacific coast and in the Sea of Azoff. Yet it is the land campaign in the Crimea that shapes our understanding of events. In this graphic and original study, Peter Duckers seeks to set the record straight. He shows how these neglected naval campaigns were remarkably successful, in contrast to the wretched failures that beset the British army on land. Allied warships ranged across Russian waters sinking shipping, disrupting trade, raiding ports, bombarding fortresses, destroying vast quantities of stores and shelling coastal towns. The scale and intensity of the naval operations embarked upon during the war are astonishing, and little appreciated, and this new book offers the first overall survey of them.


The development of nuclear weapons by the Manhattan Project during World War II was one of the most dramatic scientific/technological episodes in human history. This book, prepared by a recognized expert on the Manhattan Project, offers a concise survey of the essential physics concepts underlying fission weapons. The text describes the energetics and timescales of fast-neutron chain reactions, why only certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium are suitable for use in fission weapons, how critical mass and bomb yield can be estimated, how the efficiency of nuclear weapons can be enhanced, how the fissile forms of uranium and plutonium were obtained, some of the design details of the 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' bombs, and some of the thermal, shock, and radiation effects of nuclear weapons. Calculation exercises are provided, and a Bibliography lists authoritative print and online sources of information for readers who wish to pursue more detailed study of this fascinating topic.


It is sometimes suggested that one or another constitutional or supreme court -- for example, the Indian, U.S. or German -- is the "most powerful in the world." And yet it is far from clear (a) what such power or "strength" of courts consists in; i.e., what measure or metric of power/strength is (usually implicitly) employed, (b) what the sources or components of judicial power are under the given measure, and (c) what explains why some courts are more powerful than others. Is strength exclusively or mostly a function of formal legal powers, so that, for example, a court with the authority to invalidate a constitutional amendment on substantive grounds is ipso facto more powerful than one that may only invalidate statutes, which in turn is more powerful than a court that can do neither? Yet, both the U.S. and Japanese supreme courts are in this middle category, indeed have roughly similar sets of legal powers overall, but while the former is often considered among the most powerful courts in the world, the latter is often considered among the weakest. So it seems clear that formal powers do not tell the whole story, but what part do they play, if any, and what else helps to fill in the picture? Although looking to how courts actually use their legal powers is obviously also relevant, it too falls short of fully completing the picture. For what we are additionally in search of are factors that help to explain why, for example, the U.S. and Japanese courts use their powers in such different ways.

This article seeks to shed light on all three parts of the uncertainty surrounding claims as to the strength or weakness of constitutional courts: the measure, sources, and explanation of judicial power. It begins by arguing that the proper measure of the power of a constitutional court is its consequential nature as an institutional actor in terms of affecting the outcomes of important constitutional and political disputes. Although more diffuse and harder to quantify, this conception of judicial power is more inclusive and realistically nuanced than commonly employed uni-dimensional alternatives such as international influence or strike-down rate. The article then suggests that the consequential nature of a constitutional court is a function of three broad variables: (1) formal legal rules and powers, (2) legal and judicial practice, and (3) the immediate electoral and political context in which it operates. Through a process of mutual interaction, each of these three helps to shape and constitute the more specific components of a court's institutional power, which include the nature, scope, and content of the constitution it enforces, the jurisdictional and remedial powers it has and employs, the ease or difficulty of constitutional amendment, and its composition and tenure. Moving from measuring to explaining the strength or weakness of constitutional courts, the article next identifies and discusses three explanatory variables: (1) deliberate constitutional design choices, (2) legal culture, and (3) general or structural political context. The article concludes with case studies of the supreme courts of India and Japan that illustrate the role and interaction of these multidimensional evidentiary and explanatory factors.


High prices of prawn (Penaeus monodon) fry, profitability of hatchery operations, and a low• cost hatchery design introduced by the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center attracted millions of dollars of investments in the mid·1980s. 'When export prices for prawn fell dramatically in 1989, demand for fry dropped as most prawn growers stopped operations or reduced stocking densities. Natural calamities • typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions • further depressed conditions in the hatchery sector. This paper presents an economic analysis of hatchery operations in the Philippines using data gathered through interviews and structured questionnaires in 1992. Economic indicators estimated include: investment requirements, unit cost, benefit over cost ratios, and internal rates of return. Breakeven and sensitivity analyses of operating hatcheries were employed to determine the degree of risk and changes in profitability levels associated with different scales of operation given changes in output price, input price and production level. Results indicate that net income per production run was positive for all scales of hatchery operation in spite of the current adverse market conditions. New hatchery investments, however, should be made in medium- and small-scale facilities because these have a better chance to survive worsening market conditions and periodic spawner shortages. Medium-size operations provide the best returns, and large-scale operations showed negative returns. Large-scale hatcheries are operating below capacity due to scarcity of spawners and low market demand.


The thought behind this publication is to continue to develop an active research community dedicated to explore how Smart Homes and Health Telematics can foster independent living and offer an enhanced quality of life for ageing and disabled people. As we begin to witness the effects of changing demographics on today's society we begin to appreciate that the increase in the number of elderly and in the prevalence of those suffering from chronic disease and disabilities are likely to further increase in the next two to three decades. To react to the needs of this cohort - to provide an environment in which the people can reside for as long as possible, whilst maintaining their quality of life and independence - is a widespread concern for all. As such, there is real benefit to further investigate the role of technologies to address these changes and subsequently offer practical solutions to support independent living. The editors feel that within the realms of Smart Homes and Health Telematics real, affordable and useful services can be developed, which will have the necessary underlying technological and service delivery infrastructures to allow seamless integration into existing care delivery paradigms. The introduction of technology can provide a positive impact. However, it is necessary to avoid any detrimental effects if reliance upon technology within the home environment becomes so great that people will not leave their own home in fear of losing the support once outside of the home, or its close proximity. This publication focuses on promoting personal autonomy and extending the quality of life by considering including smart services inside and outside of the home.


An increasing amount of electricity is used by equipment that is neither fully ''on'' nor fully ''off.'' We call these equipment states low power modes, or ''lopomos.'' ''Standby'' and ''sleep'' are the most familiar lopomos, but some new products already have many modes. Lopomos are becoming common in household appliances, safety equipment, and miscellaneous products. Ross and Meier (2000) reports that several international studies have found standby power to be as much as 10 percent of residential energy consumption. Lopomo energy consumption is likely to continue growing rapidly as products with lopomos that use significant amounts of energy penetrate the market. Other sectors such as commercial buildings and industry also have lopomo energy use, perhaps totaling more in aggregate than that of households, but no comprehensive measurements have been made. In this paper, we propose a research agenda for study of lopomo energy consumption. This agenda has been developed with input from over 200 interested parties. Overall, there is consensus that lopomo energy consumption is an important area for research. Many see this as a critical time for addressing lopomo issues. As equipment designs move from the binary ''on/off'' paradigm to one that encompasses multiple power modes, there is a unique opportunity to address the issue of low power mode energy consumption while technology development paths are still flexible.


The phospholipid phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate defines important physical properties of the cell membrane. To study the roles of phosphoinositides in the plasma membrane of mammalian cells, Hammond et al. (see the Perspective by Fairn and Grinstein) engineered phosphatase molecules that could be targeted to the membrane on demand, where they would alter the concentrations of the phospholipids phosphatidylinositol (4,5)-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2] and phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PI4P). PI4P was thought to provide a major source for the synthesis of PI(4,5)P2, but depletion of PI4P did not have much effect on synthesis of PI(4,5)P2. Instead, PI4P appears to help to establish the negative charge at the membrane and thus promote electrostatic interactions with positively charged amino acids in membrane-associated proteins and influencing function of ion channels. G. R. V. Hammond, M. J. Fischer, K. E. Anderson, J. Holdich, A. Koteci, T. Balla, R. F. Irvine, PI4P and PI(4,5)P2 are essential but independent lipid determinants of membrane identity. Science 337, 727–730 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text] G. D. Fairn, S. Grinstein, Precursor or charge supplier? Science 337, 653–654 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We present a conceptually simple, flexible, and general framework for object instance segmentation. Our approach efficiently detects objects in an image while simultaneously generating a high-quality segmentation mask for each instance. The method, called Mask R-CNN, extends Faster R-CNN by adding a branch for predicting an object mask in parallel with the existing branch for bounding box recognition. Mask R-CNN is simple to train and adds only a small overhead to Faster R-CNN, running at 5 fps. Moreover, Mask R-CNN is easy to generalize to other tasks, e.g., allowing us to estimate human poses in the same framework. We show top results in all three tracks of the COCO suite of challenges, including instance segmentation, bounding-box object detection, and person keypoint detection. Without bells and whistles, Mask R-CNN outperforms all existing, single-model entries on every task, including the COCO 2016 challenge winners. We hope our simple and effective approach will serve as a solid baseline and help ease future research in instance-level recognition. Code has been made available at: https://github.com/facebookresearch/Detectron.


Michael Walzer is one of the world's most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics. Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise.The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer's responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time.Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.


Ultracompact explosive-driven shock wave ferroelectric generators (FEGs) were used as autonomous primary power sources for charging capacitor banks of different capacitance. The FEGs utilized longitudinal (when the shock wave propagates along the polarization vector P) shock wave depolarization of Pb(Zr52Ti48)O3 (PZT) polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramic. PZT disks having diameters ranging from 25 to 27 mm and three different thicknesses: 0.65, 2.1, and 5.1 mm. It was experimentally shown that during the charging process the FEGs were capable of producing pulsed power with peak amplitudes up to 0.3 MW. Results for charging voltage, electric charge transfer and energy transfer from the FEGs to the capacitor banks of capacitances CL = 2.25, 4.5, 9.0, 18.0, and 36.0 nF are presented. Analysis of the experimental data shows that the maximum energy transfer from the FEG to the capacitor bank differs for each type of ferroelectric energy-carrying element, and is dependent upon the capacitance of the capacitor banks.


Scores of scholars, practitioners and reporters assert that the United States Supreme Court, or at least its conservative majority, is business friendly. This claim gained new traction when Justice Posner, a known conservative jurist himself, wrote an article asserting that Justice Scalia is "incoherent" and that his alleged principles of construction are really excuses to "bend the law" to fit his conservative views on abortion, guns, homosexuality and other topics. But are the claims true? And if it is true that the conservative majority reaches decisions that help businesses, how does this happen? Why does it happen? This article attempts to answer these questions by relying upon cognitive science. It coins the phrase "intuition rationalization," or "IR" for short – a phenomenon the article defines as decision making that is driven by intuition first, followed by reasoning that is used to justify the decision rather than inform it. The article develops a first of its kind litmus test for IR, identifying "markers" in the cognitive science research that indicate that intuition is driving reason, rather than the other way around. These markers are: confirmation bias, substitution, strained reasoning, creation of "my-side" arguments, persistence and overconfidence. Using two split decisions issued by the conservative majority as specimens - Stolt-Nielsen and Concepcion - the article engages in detailed legal analysis of the opinions, then scours the majority rationale for the indicia of IR. After several sections of careful analysis, the article concludes that IR is present in the conservative majority decisions. The article considers the real world impact of these decisions, relies upon hard data and scholarly literature to offers a reasonable explanation for how the majority got the answers so wrong, and provides brief suggestions for improvement.


Proposition 71, was a ballot initiative proposed by California voters in 2004 to allocate three billion dollars of state funds for stem cell research over ten years. Endorsed by California scientists and patient-advocates, Prop 71 passed on 2 November 2004, amending the state constitution to make stem cell research a constitutional right. In addition, Prop 71 led to the creation of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), in San Francisco, California to allocate funds and oversee stem cell research in the state.


By the early twentieth century, Schumpeter had already stressed the importance of innovation for a sustainable development of enterprises. Innovation is especially important for information and communication technology (ICT) companies as their business model is based on rapidly changing technology. They therefore often profit from innovation developed in intra-company research organizations. However, ICT research organisations often face a special challenge: the integration of research results into existing ICT architectures. This challenge has neither been analysed in literature on information systems nor on innovation management. In order to gain a deeper understanding of this challenge, we analysed case studies in four intra-company research organisations, among them one in-depth case study. Our research shows that an intra-company ICT research organisation can make a decision based on three important strategic parameters: (a) the desired degree of innovativeness, (b) the desired degree of integrability into existing architecture, and (c) the desired degree of orientation towards prospective users' needs. Based on our case study analysis, we argue that these three strategic goals are concurrent, i.e. to achieve one of them makes it difficult to achieve the others. Adhering to contingency theory, we believe that there is not one best strategic position, but that the quality of a strategic position depends on environmental contingency factors. In addition to the development of the framework, we consider contingency theory and formulate two hypothetical propositions. They describe stable strategic positions of intra-company ICT research organisations in our framework, dependent on contingency factors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research publication dealing with the special requirements of intra-company ICT research organizations and the challenge of integration. Nevertheless, our research is limited by its exploratory nature and by the relatively small number of case studies taken. For generating more hypotheses, further explorative research in the field has to be done. Moreover, in order to confirm the assumptions our framework is based upon and the hypothetical propositions generated, further confirmative research is necessary.


Aim To determine relative effects of habitat type, climate and
spatial pattern on species richness and composition of native
and alien plant assemblages in central European cities.
Location Central Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands. Methods
The diversity of native and alien flora was analysed in 32
cities. In each city, plant species were recorded in seven 1-ha
plots that represented seven urban habitat types with specific
disturbance regimes. Plants were classified into native
species, archaeophytes (introduced before ad 1500) and
neophytes (introduced later). Two sets of explanatory variables
were obtained for each city: climatic data and all-scale
spatial variables generated by analysis of principal
coordinates of neighbour matrices. For each group of species,
the effect of habitat type, climate and spatial variables on
variation in species composition was determined by variation
partitioning. Responses of individual plant species to climatic
variables were tested using a set of binomial regression
models. Effects of climatic variables on the proportion of
alien species were determined by linear regression. Results In
all cities, 562 native plant species, 188 archaeophytes and 386
neophytes were recorded. Proportions of alien species varied
among urban habitats. The proportion of native species
decreased with increasing range and mean annual temperature,
and increased with increasing precipitation. In contrast,
proportions of archaeophytes and neophytes increased with mean
annual temperature. However, spatial pattern explained a larger
proportion of variation in species composition of the urban
flora than climate. Archaeophytes were more uniformly
distributed across the studied cities than the native species
and neophytes. Urban habitats rich in native species also
tended to be rich in archaeophytes and neophytes. Main
conclusions Species richness and composition of central
European urban floras are significantly affected by urban
habitat types, climate and spatial pattern.Native species,
archaeophytes and neophytes differ in their response to these
factors.


This paper investigates how a designer of an organization (referred to as the regulator) should organize a production activity in which two different units produce components and where each unit has private information about its costs. Three organizational structures are analyzed. In the first (informational consolidation), the regulator contracts with a consolidated unit that produces both components. In the second (informational decentralization), the regulator independently contracts with the producer of each component. In the third (informational delegation), the regulator contracts with one of the units, which in turn subcontracts with the other. In each case, the regulator's optimal mechanism consisting of payment and output schedules is fully characterized. Informational consolidation and informational decentralization yield different output schedules. Under informational decentralization, the optimal output schedule may not depend on the sum of the marginal costs of each component, but when it does, the regulator strictly prefers informational consolidation to informational decentralization. Informational delegation is shown to be equivalent to informational decentralization when the regulator can observe the contracting between the units.


We investigated 1920s-era four-story wood-frame corner buildings common to San Francisco, many of which were damaged in the city's Marina District during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Such buildings can have relatively weak and flexible first stories and are referred to as soft-story buildings. We calibrated two building computer models to simulate actual earthquake response. We then performed computer analysis to assess collapse performance under 22 hypothetical pounding situations of both as-built and retrofitted soft-story buildings. For this building type, we found that a typical pounding situation increased the collapse rate by 14%, and for retrofitted versions, pounding slightly decreased the collapse rate. However, there were factors that appear to significantly increase the rate, especially in combination: negligible building separations and multiple adjacent buildings having low effective damping and large mass. Based on the results, we outline an approximate way to account for pounding within the context of current design procedures. An upper bound on the pounding effect was found to be equivalent to about a 30% increase in demand.


The objective of this study was to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of several linear visco-elastic rheological models applied to the unmodified and polymer-modified bitumens. It was found that all the models studied can be used to predict the linear visco-elastic of unmodified bitumens, aged and unaged samples reasonably well. In contrary, this condition was not really applicable on polymer-modified bitumens particularly for the unaged samples. The measured and predicted data was assessed using the discrepancy ratio (Ri), Mean Normalized Error (MNE) and Average Geometric Deviation (AGD) goodness of fitting statistical analysis. From the study, the modified Sigmoidal and Generalized Logistic Sigmoidal models were observed to be the most outstanding models, followed by the Christensen Anderson and Marasteanu (CAM), Christensen and Anderson (CA) and 2S2P1D (2 springs, 2 parabolic elements and 1 spring) models. The presence of semi-crystalline waves and elastomeric structures in the mixtures render the breakdown of time temperature equivalency principle.


This research was specially to test impact of Return On Investment's (ROI), Insider Ownership (INSD), Debt to Equity Ratio (DER) to dividend payout ratio (DPR) by the use of free cash flow (FCF) as moderating variable on manufacturing firm listed on Indonesian Stock Exchange (ISE) period 2005 until 2011. This research hypothesized that moderating variable had a positive influence to dividend payout ratio (DPR). Hypothesis testing was done by the use of linear regression model (OLS). Empirical result on panel A (without moderating variable) and panel B (with moderating) were simultaneously ROI, INSD, DER, FCF and moderated variable (FCF*ROI) had a significant impact to DPR. Meanwhile panel A showed an evident that DER variable and FCF had an impact to dividend payout ratio (DPR) and panel B pointed out that DER, FCF, FCF*ROI and FCF*INSD had a significant impact to dividend payout ratio (DPR). Based on moderated regression analysis (Panel B) FCF as moderating variable had an influence on the relationship between insider ownership and dividend payout ratio (DPR). It was seen in increasing R2 and Adjusted R2 in regression model before being moderated and after. It meant that FCF as moderating variable increased the contribution on model one which was proposed.


The term "pagan monotheism" was coined to describe monotheistic tendencies in Greco-Roman religion. Its usefulness has been strongly disputed on various grounds: for introducing a cognitive perspective on ancient religion, which was basically ritualistic; for implicitly taking Christianity as the norm by which to measure classical religion; and for confusing scholarly categories by classifying phenomena as monotheistic that are much better described as henotheistic. This article suggests that these arguments have been attempts to create a supposedly objective and universal scholarly vocabulary, while that new vocabulary would serve to obscure the history and ideological origin of the concepts it promoted. Arguing for a reflective, hermeneutical approach that incorporates an awareness of the origin and charged meanings of our concepts into scholarship, the author proposes methodological pluralism as a way out of these unfruitful terminological debates. Each concept sheds light on some aspects of reality while obscuring others. In particular, the often-criticized ambiguity and fuzziness of the term "pagan monotheism" may help us to formulate questions that otherwise would remain marginal in studies of ancient religion.


We generate synthetic observations of three-dimensional, self-gravitating MHD simulations of the interstellar medium (ISM) to evaluate the ability of principal component analysis (PCA) to measure the scale dependence of turbulent velocity fluctuations in molecular clouds. Scaling exponents, α, observationally obtained from the coupled characteristic scales for line profile variability in velocity, δv, and in space, L, where δv ∝ Lα, are compared with the intrinsic scaling exponents of the MHD velocity fields. We determine the approximate structure function order at which PCA operates in order to then verify a previously established calibration of the PCA method. We also analyze the statistical properties of projected velocity line centroid fields, including effects of intermittent velocity fluctuations, density inhomogeneity, and opacity, and examine the relationship of the projected two-dimensional statistics to the intrinsic three-dimensional statistics. Using PCA, we infer steep three-dimensional energy spectra in the molecular ISM, generally steeper than can be accounted for by Kolmogorov turbulence or possibly even shock-dominated turbulence.


This volume contains the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Frontier Computing (FC 2015), Bangkok, Thailand, September 9-11, 2015, and brings together state-of-the-art results covering many aspects of emerging computer science and information technology from international academic and industrial researchers. FC 2015 aimed at providing an open forum to reach a comprehensive understanding of the recent advances and developing trends in information technology, computer science and engineering, with themes under the scope of communication networks, business intelligence and knowledge management, web intelligence, and any related fields that prompt the development of information technology. Contributions cover a wide spectrum of topics: database and data mining, networking and communications, web and internet of things, embedded system, soft computing, social network analysis, security and privacy, optics communication, and ubiquitous/pervasive computing. Many papers have shown great academic potential and value, and in addition indicate promising directions of research in the focused realm of this conference series. Readers, including students, researchers, and industry professionals, will benefit from the results presented in this book, and it provides indicators for emerging trends for those starting their research careers.


A magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) cavity-resonance model is developed to study the ultra low frequency (ULF) response in the magnetosphere to an external compressional impulse. It is assumed that the magnitude of the impulse is small enough such that non-linear terms remain negligible. The MHD differential equations are derived in a cold, non-uniform plasma imbedded in a cylindrical ambient field geometry and are solved using numerical finite difference integration methods. The crucial feature of the model is that it allows for the investigation of the response within the magnetospheric cavity to an impulse that has both temporal and spatial form. There is strong observational evidence that low-latitude Pi 2 pulsations have, or are associated with, a global propagation mechanism. Evidence alluding to the global nature of low-latitude Pi 2 is the characteristically low azimuthal (or axial) wavenumbers, (Irnl ;S 1 ). Further evidence of the global nature of Pi 2 is the lack of arrival time difference between globally separate events, as well as the similarity in the spectral content of globally separate events. As an application, the cavity-resonance model is applied to investigate the Pi 2 pulsation event. The cavity-resonance waves are. excited by an impulsive perturbation at the magnetopause which is centred about the midnight meridian. The excitation signal is chosen representing the causal Pi 2 mechanism thought to be associated with the sudden, short circuiting of the cross-tail current to the auroral oval. Various aspects of the cavity-resonance wave modes are investigated and the appropriateness of this type of modelling for -the study of Pi 2 is evaluated. Numerical integration and well as Fourier and Laplace methods are used to investigate the transmission of the impulsive signal through the magnetosphere. Coupling between the isotropic (cavity) and the transverse Alfven (resonance) mode is studied. The effect of the plasmapause is considered. Longitudinal variations of polarization as well as the latitudinal phase variations of the perturbed fields are computed. Computational results are compared with observational features of the Pi 2 event.


About 24% of the Arctic land area is underlain by permafrost with the largest areas located in Russia. The vast tundra landscapes are considered to play an important role in the Arctic ecosystem as transient storages and processors of carbon and other nutrients. In total, about 1200 to 1600 Gt C are estimated to be stored in permafrost landscapes. The stability of this massive carbon storage and other nutrient pools sensitively depends on biogeochemical conversion and exchange processes with the hydrosphere and atmosphere. Water bodies such as ponds, lakes, streams, and rives are closely related to the permafrost energy and water budget and play an integral role in the carbon cycle. In turn, these processes are largely controlled by the physical stability of permafrost which is highly vulnerable to climate change. In order to investigate the impact of climate change on Arctic ecosystems, environmental observatories which measure a comprehensive set of climatological, biochemical and hydrological parameters are highly needed.
Due to the remoteness of most permafrost region satellite based permafrost monitoring is an indispensable tool for global permafrost monitoring. For most of the cryosphere components such as glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice, satellite monitoring and change detection is well established since several decades. For permafrost, however, which represents the largest component of the Arctic cryosphere operational satellite monitoring schemes do not exist so far. One of the biggest challenges for a satellite based monitoring is that permafrost is a subsurface thermal phenomenon which cannot be directly observed by remote sensing techniques. Modeling techniques can be applied in order to bypass the limitations of satellite sensors. Multi-satellite and weather reanalysis data such as surface temperatures, snow water equivalent, and surface moisture can be assimilated into a transient permafrost model which calculates the subsurface temperature dynamics. The development and validation of such schemes require long-term meteorological and soil physical datasets which are only sparsely available in permafrost regions. Based on the established monitoring systems on Samoylov Island, first proof of concept studies for a satellite based permafrost motoring schemes are currently under investigation. So far, our investigations focus on the surface temperature, snow water equivalent, soil moisture, and thaw depth. Future investigations will include the validation of radar products which show promising results in freeze-thaw and frost heave detection from which subsurface ice contents might be inferable.
In addition to past and recent change detection, permafrost has received increased attention in earth system modeling. The next generation of global climate models will include permafrost-carbon modules in order to improve climate predictions. However, the implementation of permafrost into climate models requires thorough knowledge about the physical processes determining the thermal dynamics of the frozen soils. This implies comprehensive knowledge about (i) the energy turnover at the soil-atmosphere interface and (ii) the heat transfer within the ground. In order to develop and validate permafrost schemes of modern earth system models, it is desirable to obtain regional process studies, which deliver important information about the landscape-specific energy balance characteristics and their determining factors. On Samoylov Island comprehensive energy and water balance investigation are conducted. Our studies include year around measurements of atmospheric heat and water fluxes, the radiation balance, the sub-surface heat and water flux, as well as investigations on spatial variabilities of the energy balance.
With future augments the Samoylov observatory has the potential to serve as as a benchmark, validation, and development site for earth system models and satellite based permafrost monitoring.


Modeling of development in the fruit fly yields an algorithm useful in designing wireless communication networks. Computational and biological systems are often distributed so that processors (cells) jointly solve a task, without any of them receiving all inputs or observing all outputs. Maximal independent set (MIS) selection is a fundamental distributed computing procedure that seeks to elect a set of local leaders in a network. A variant of this problem is solved during the development of the fly's nervous system, when sensory organ precursor (SOP) cells are chosen. By studying SOP selection, we derived a fast algorithm for MIS selection that combines two attractive features. First, processors do not need to know their degree; second, it has an optimal message complexity while only using one-bit messages. Our findings suggest that simple and efficient algorithms can be developed on the basis of biologically derived insights.


While previous research has analysed the links between drinking water access and health, and to some extent between health and agriculture, the direct impact of household water access on agricultural productivity has hardly been studied. We address this research gap, using survey data from Tanzania. Regression models show that water access constraints significantly decrease labour productivity for households that require more than the median time for water collection, doubling the time required for water collection reduces labour productivity by over 20%. For these water-constrained households we also identify a negative effect of water collection time on crop yield. Since we control for differences in irrigation, input use, crop type and other factors, we conclude that the productivity effects are mainly due to poorer health in water-constrained households. These results suggest that there are important linkages between drinking water access and agricultural growth which have often been overlooked in the past. Improving water access for rural households should receive higher policy priority not only from a health perspective but also from an agricultural growth perspective.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether sequelae of infection differed among single versus double infection with Anaplasma phagocytophilum or Anaplasma marginale, with and without tick salivary extract, in cattle.

ANIMALS
Eighteen 13-month old steers.

PROCEDURES
Treatment groups of 3 cattle each included A marginale inoculated ID followed on day 35 by A phagocytophilum without tick saliva, A phagocytophilum followed on day 10 by A marginale without tick saliva, A marginale followed on day 35 by A phagocytophilum with tick saliva, A phagocytophilum followed on day 10 by A marginale with tick saliva, tissue culture control injection, and tick saliva control injection. Infection was monitored via clinical observations, CBC, serologic testing, and PCR analysis of blood and tissues.

RESULTS
Infected cattle had significantly reduced weight gain. Anemia occurred 25 to 32 days after A marginale infection, which was attenuated by tick saliva. Parasitism was greater if cattle had not previously been inoculated with A phagocytophilum. Nine of the 12 treated cattle had positive results of PCR analysis for A phagocytophilum from at least 1 blood sample. Five tissue samples had positive results of PCR analysis for A phagocytophilum; PCR results for A marginale were positive in spleen, lung, lymph node, heart, and ear skin of infected cattle.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Results indicated an important biological interaction between A marginale and A phagocytophilum infection as well as with tick saliva in disease kinetics and severity in cattle, which may be important for interpretation of diagnostic tests and management of disease in areas where both pathogens occur.


This dissertation studies the problem of the inhuman in relation to human nature in philosophy from antiquity to the present, highlighting the interrelationship between science and philosophy in the development of concepts of monstrosity in France from mid-sixteenth century to late twentieth century thought. By means of constraint, it focuses on Ambroise Pare (1509/10–90) and Gilles Deleuze (1925–95) as representatives of early humanism and posthumanism, respectively. The study is divided into four chronologically ordered parts. In part I, four teratological traditions of philosophical import are discerned in antiquity: the naturalist, the humanist, the metaphysical, and the hermeneutical (each associated with a set of key names: in particular, Empedocles, Lucretius; Socrates, Protagoras; Plato, Aristotle; and Pliny, Augustine). Part II follows these traditions into the Renaissance where they intersect in the 'books of wonder', among which Pare's Des monstres et prodiges (1573) is viewed to have had a lasting influence on the development of the science of teratology. Criticizing the positivistic conventions of interpretation of the book in question, notions of order, causality, diversity, and novelty are analyzed for the purpose of excavating from Pare's work a natural philosophy which hinges on man's capacity for knowledge; in such a humanist conception, monsters are not so much naturalized as nature becomes monstrous, while man is taken to reflect and encompass all the properties of natural things, thereby incorporating monstrosity in his singular variability. Part III provides an overview of the development of a scientific teratology from Cartesian mechanicism and rationalism, through theories of preformation, epigenesis, and transformation, to the materialist and vitalist debates of the early nineteenth century, when Etienne and Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire create the discipline of teratology, and its aftermath in developmental and evolutionary biology. The general theme is the place of anomalies in the normal scheme of nature (and culture), as man becomes progressively taken as the norm for thought, ultimately rendering the inhuman as such unthought. Finally, part IV looks to Deleuze as an attempt in the late 1900s to construct a posthumanist philosophy of nature where monstrosity is the problem which rather generates thought; it thus chronologically traces formulations of a concept of monstrosity in his body of work, from the 1940s to the 1990s. In Difference et repetition (1968), Deleuze is found to furnish three interconnected theses to define monstrosity, regarding problems of determination, synthesis, and differentiation, where the problematic as such (the nature of difference itself) is conceptualized as the 'idea' of monstrosity, not any particular physical shape. After analyzing the concept of the 'body without organs' as an issue of identity and materiality, tracing it back to its formulation in Logique du sens (1969), these theses of monstrosity are then applied to a study of Deleuze's later philosophy, emphasizing Mille plateaux (1980), Logique de la sensation (1981), and Cinema 1–2 (1983–85), as side-stepping the human norm in order to think its anomaly (the inhuman) as the condition for creativity. This is evidenced in his ideas of technology and the arts as experimental practices of becoming inhuman. The monster is thus regarded as a 'conceptual persona' in a Deleuzian philosophy of the virtual Figure—challenging all actual forms—of an inhuman time for the experience of difference in itself.


The principal objectives of this project were to test and evaluate technologies that would result in improved characterization of fractured natural-gas reservoirs in the Appalachian Basin. The Bureau of Economic Geology (Bureau) worked jointly with industry partner Atlas Resources, Inc. to design, execute, and evaluate several experimental tests toward this end. The experimental tests were of two types: (1) tests leading to a low-cost methodology whereby small-scale microfractures observed in matrix grains of sidewall cores can be used to deduce critical properties of large-scale fractures that control natural-gas production and (2) tests that verify methods whereby robust seismic shear (S) waves can be generated to detect and map fractured reservoir facies. The grain-scale microfracture approach to characterizing rock facies was developed in an ongoing Bureau research program that started before this Appalachian Basin study began. However, the method had not been tested in a wide variety of fracture systems, and the tectonic setting of rocks in the Appalachian Basin composed an ideal laboratory for perfecting the methodology. As a result of this Appalachian study, a low-cost commercial procedure now exists that will allow Appalachian operators to use scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of thin sections extracted from oriented sidewall cores to infer the spatial orientation, relative geologic timing, and population density of large-scale fracture systems in reservoir sandstones. These attributes are difficult to assess using conventional techniques. In the Henderson Dome area, large quartz-lined regional fractures having N20E strikes, and a subsidiary set of fractures having N70W strikes, are prevalent. An innovative method was also developed for obtaining the stratigraphic and geographic tops of sidewall cores. With currently deployed sidewall coring devices, no markings from which top orientation can be obtained are made on the sidewall core itself during drilling. The method developed in this study involves analysis of the surface morphology of the broken end of the core as a top indicator. Together with information on the working of the tool (rotation direction), fracture-surface features, such as arrest lines and plume structures, not only give a top direction for the cores but also indicate the direction of fracture propagation in the tough, fine-grained Cataract/Medina sandstones. The study determined that microresistivity logs or other image logs can be used to obtain accurate sidewall core azimuths and to determine the precise depths of the sidewall cores. Two seismic S-wave technologies were developed in this study. The first was a special explosive package that, when detonated in a conventional seismic shot hole, produces more robust S-waves than do standard seismic explosives. The importance of this source development is that it allows S-wave seismic data to be generated across all of the Appalachian Basin. Previously, Appalachian operators have not been able to use S-wave seismic technology to detect fractured reservoirs because the industry-standard S-wave energy source, the horizontal vibrator, is not a practical source option in the heavy timber cover that extends across most of the basin. The second S-wave seismic technology that was investigated was used to verify that standard P-wave seismic sources can create robust downgoing S-waves by P-to-S mode conversion in the shallow stratigraphic layering in the Appalachian Basin. This verification was done by recording and analyzing a 3-component vertical seismic profile (VSP) in the Atlas Montgomery No. 4 well at Henderson Dome, Mercer County, Pennsylvania. The VSP data confirmed that robust S-waves are generated by P-to-S mode conversion at the basinwide Onondaga stratigraphic level. Appalachian operators can thus use converted-mode seismic technology to create S-wave images of fractured and unfractured rock systems throughout the basin.


Well, why not? Is it because elephants are too large or heavy (after all, they say hippos and rhinos can play hopscotch)? Or is it because their knees face the wrong way? Or do they just wait until no one's looking? Read this brilliant new compilation to find out. This is popular science at its most absorbing and enjoyable. That is why the previous titles in the New Scientist series have been international bestsellers and sold over two million copies between them. Like Does Anything Eat Wasps? (2005), Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? (2006) and Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? (2008), this is another wonderful collection of wise, witty and often surprising answers to a staggering range of science questions, from 'why is frozen milk yellow?' to 'what's the storage capacity of the human brain in gigabytes?'.


A modified Green–Ampt model (MGAM) was proposed to simulate infiltrations into layered soil profiles with the entrapped air under unsteady rainfall conditions. To account for the effects of the air resistance, the saturation coefficient, actual water content, air bubbling pressure, and water bubbling pressure were introduced in the model. One-dimensional infiltration-runoff experiments were then conducted in multi-layered soil columns, under unsteady rainfall conditions, to evaluate the performance of the MGAM model. The cumulative infiltration, runoff rate, and water content of the soil, calculated by MGAM, were compared with the observed data and the results, calculated by the traditional Green–Ampt model (TGAM), the Bouwer Green–Ampt model (BGAM), and the Mein–Larson model (MLGAM), respectively. The results indicated that the cumulative infiltration, runoff rate, and soil water content, calculated by MGAM, were in better agreement with the observed results than previous models. A parameter sensitivity of MGAM was also analyzed. It was found that the sensitivity of the saturated coefficient was high in the first soil layer, and those of the air bubbling pressure and initial moisture deficit were high or medium in the first and second layers, while those of the other parameters were relatively low.


Albugo candida is a plant pathogen that has been reported on many host species. While multiple host-specific races have long been recognized in A. candida, the genetic variation of these races has never been explored in nature and little is known about how the pathogen has adapted to its many hosts.
Recently, evidence of genetic exchanges between races suggested that hybridization played an important role in the evolution of A. candida races. The authors also demonstrated that host-specific races of A. candida can co-occur, provided the immune system of the host is compromised by a compatible race. This immunosuppression by A. candida had previously been shown to allow growth of other pathogens.
To study both these phenomena (the evolution of and the host immunosuppression imposed by A. candida), a capture array was designed to sequence 187 loci (~660,000 bp) from A. candida and loci from 47 other plant pathogens. In Chapter 3, I explain the rationale and methodology behind this approach. I show that it is cost-effective and that it may be used to identify microorganisms directly from a leaf and make inference about pathogen abundance within samples. In Chapter 4, genetic diversity of A. candida is analysed at a 400 kb contig and 32 diversity-tracking genes. Races are identified based on genetic divergence and recombination is investigated within and between races. In Chapter 5, I investigate genetic diversity at heterozygous sites to study the ploidy level and the reproductive mode of A. candida races as well as to detect mixed A. candida infections and loss-of-heterozygosity events.
In this thesis, I demonstrate that A. candida races adapt to their hosts using complex mechanisms and that some may, in the long term, speciate. I also provide a novel method which may be used to interrogate microbial diversity directly from the field.


The aim of this session is to share the authors' experiences of a case study that looked at the student learning experience using reflective practice both as a formative and summative assessed component in a postgraduate marketing
module with an internationally diverse student body.
As part of the Higher Education policy in developing personal development plans (PDPs) and transferable skills, students were asked to reflect on their learning at different points throughout the module.
Reflection and PDPs are concepts with which many international students are unaccustomed.
There are also cultural stereotypes attached to international students regarding their ability to reflect. When teaching on the module first began, students did not understand
what 'reflection' meant, were not sure what was required of them, and were apprehensive
about sharing personal reflection.
The aim of the study was to introduce reflection, practice reflection, and improve reflection as part of the learning experience and ultimately incorporate this into the PDP. Students were given the opportunity to practise
reflection at key points within the module both on an individual and group basis and were given appropriate feedback. At the end of the module, students prepared a reflective statement
on learning as part of a group project, which was assessed.
The session will explore the main findings, what enabled practice to work, challenges faced and lessons learned.


In chapter 10, "Wittgenstein on Private Experience" [pp. 241ff.], of their book Investigating Wittgenstein Merrill and Jaakko Hintikka try to elaborate a view according to which the late Wittgenstein adopts a Cartesian point of view with respect to metaphysics. The remarks on "physiognomic language-games", which are also in some respect a topic of chapter 11, "Differences and Interrelations among Language-games in Wittgenstein" [pp. 272f.], play an important constructive part in the argumentation in favour of this thesis. In this paper I shall discuss these remarks on "physiognomic language-games" and attempt both an internal (I) and an external critique (II).


Background: Congenital malformations are defects in morphogenesis during early fetal life. The objective was to study the profile of gross congenital malformations among live newborns and its associated risk factors from a tertiary care rural teaching hospital of north India. Methods: It is a cross- sectional, descriptive. All the babies born in the hospital (live births) during January 2014 to December 2014 formed the baseline population and those with gross congenital malformations were included in the study. Antenatal records were assessed and mothers were interviewed for socio-demographic variables. Results: There were 6143 live births out of which 109 had gross congenital malformations giving an incidence of 1.7%. Central nervous system was most commonly affected (48%) followed by musculoskeletal (28%) and gastrointestinal system (13%). Incidence of congenital malformations was more among multi-parous females, preterm and low birth weight babies. Conclusions: A relative increase in the incidence of congenital malformations once again implies the importance of public health education and regular antenatal screening. We also, strongly recommend mandatory screening of all newborns by pediatrician after birth for timely detection and best possible treatment of these congenital malformations


Sports are one of life's greatest gifts. People love watching, discussing and participating in sports. Kenya has a rich and successful history in certain sports, notably in athletics (track and field). Since the 1960's, Kenyans have won several gold medals and numerous world champions. In addition, Kenyans have dominated the world marathons since the 1980's. Kenya has some of the best yet simplest training areas, some of the best coaches, and some of the hardest working athletes in the world. However, people do not realize that many Kenyan athletes only shine for a few years before they vanish in the light of other athletes. The turnover rate is so high yet so unnoticed. A major reason for this is because of the poor overall understanding and application of Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) and Physiotherapy. Physiotherapy is offered to the elite athletes, yet the concept of SEM and the doctors specializing in SEM is essentially non existent. One injury can end an athletes career, especially an amateur athlete with no access to services, and this contributes to the high turnover rate. Football, however, does not have a prosperous history, and currently Kenya's domestic league is far worse than the leagues in Europe and South America. Unlike athletics, football in Kenya has poor facilities, poor coaching, a lack of equipment and insufficient funding. Many people are aware of these issues and realize this as a problem. However, nothing is done in the field of of SEM and physiotherapy. Footballers tend to receive much more serious injuries than athletes, due to football's high amount of contact, and many footballers end their career early. The potential of footballers in Kenya is incredibly high, however, one simply injury that could be dealt with in Europe or the United States is overlooked in Kenya, and the results are devastating for the footballer. This project will aim to study the available and affordable treatment for Kenyan athletes and footballers, while also looking at different aspects such as ways to improve the accessibility and methods of treatment, the influence of the government and media, and reasons why athletics in Kenya still thrives while football is struggling.


The aim of this note is to explain how potential impacts on cultural heritage should be addressed in the context of IDB projects. The note sets out basic steps for the management of cultural heritage sites and objects that may be encountered during implementation of Bank- financed projects. It considers why the protection of cultural heritage is important, what kind of expertise is required to identify and evaluate cultural heritage, and what level of effort is required to ensure that concerns for cultural heritage are effectively integrated into the social, environmental, institutional, and financial analysis of a project. Above all, this note is intended to ensure that concerns about cultural heritage are addressed systematically as an integral part of the Bank's social and environmental impact assessment procedures.


The mining industry, minerals processing, transport and export infrastructure sectors are facing increasingly difficult challenges in the near future, such as sustainable development and operation (e.g. environmental emissions, social/ cultural impacts, economics). This paper describes some of the new technologies that are being researched, developed and employed to minimise dust emissions by addressing dustability and dust generation mechanisms. It also presents some results from the research being undertaken on the measurement of the dustiness of bulk materials.