This book is a case study of the way in which ethnic identities are created and shaped by literature, focusing on the American image of the Pole from the 1830s to the present. Using a vast range of writings, some well known and others long neglected, Thomas S. Gladsky shows how the 19th-century view of the Pole as kindred spirit or "beau ideal" was supplanted by other literary models - anarchist, peasant, proletarian, antisemite - and culminated in the present-day idea of ethnicity as the heart of "Americanness". Part 1 traces the history of Polish ethnicity through the literary inventions of "host-culture" American writers, showing how these surrogates of "otherness" served the needs of a developing national literature. Gladsky deals with the delicate relationship between Poles and Jews in an extended chapter on Isaac Singer and other Jewish American writers. He also offers extensive treatments of the writings of William Styron, Nelson Algren, Tennessee Williams, James Michener, and Jerzy Kosinski. In Part 2, Gladsky explores the Polish self through the lens of contemporary "descent" writers such as Gary Gildner, Anthony Bukoski, Stuart Dybeck, Richard Bankowsky, and Anne Pellowski, who have created their own literary images while reflecting on their ethnic heritage. Throughout the book Gladsky links changing perceptions of Polish ethnicity to broader social and historial currents, showing how the Polish literary self has been a repository of American cultural history.


We investigated the effect of polystyrene (PS) addition on the freezing behavior of a very dilute alumina/camphene slurry with an initial solid loading of 5 vol% for the fabrication of ultra-high porosity ceramics with aligned pore channels. To accomplish this, slurries with various PS contents (10, 20, and 30 vol% in relation to the alumina powders) were prepared by ball milling at 60°C and then cast into molds at a constant temperature of 20°C. After removing the frozen camphene, the samples were heat treated to burn out the organic phases and sinter the alumina walls. The addition of the PS binder remarkably enhanced the green strength of the sample, making it possible to handle it without difficulty. All of the sintered samples showed ultra-high porosities of >88% without the collapse of the porous structure, wherein the pore channels were completely interconnected. Three distinctive zones having different pore structures were observed, viz. the outer shell with elongated pores, the inner zone with long aligned pore channels, and the center with equiaxed pores. The content of the PS polymer significantly affected the pore morphologies in the three distinctive zones. In addition, it was found that the addition of the PS polymer was highly beneficial to the alignment of the pore channels.


In this letter, a joint detector for cooperative communication networks is proposed when the destination has limited hardware processing capability. The transmitter sends its symbols with the help of L relays. As the destination has limited hardware, only U out of L signals are processed and the energy of the remaining relays is lost. To solve this problem, a joint preprocessing based detector is proposed. This joint preprocessor based detector operate on the principles of minimizing the symbol error rate (SER). For a realistic assessment, pilot symbol aided channel estimation is incorporated for this proposed detector. From our simulations, it can be observed that our proposed detector achieves the same SER performance as that of the maximum likelihood (ML) detector with all participating relays. Additionally, our detector outperforms selection combining (SC), channel shortening (CS) scheme and reduced-rank techniques when using the same U. Our proposed scheme has low computational complexity.


Guanabara Bay is characterized as a tropical system of estuarine nature and high biological productivity, that undergoes serious environmental problems. Despite its advanced state of degradation, it still is a life resource area of great ecological and socio-economic importance. Therefore, it has become the target of academic studies of several university research centers, among them the UFRJ/Institute of Biology which studies its water quality and plankton dynamics since 1984. At Coastal Zone 89, the UFRJ/IB presented a synthesis of the hydrobiology of the bay (Mayr et al., 1989 - CZ 89). The sampling strategies to monitor the water quality of the bay proposed here are based on this characterization, and it intends to contribute to the project of gradual recovery of this ecosystem, currently in progress at the Rio de Janeiro State environmental agency (FEEMA). This monitoring program takes into consideration that pollution focuses associated to a tidaly induced current pattern, determine areas of different degrees of deterioration in the bay. Thus, the sampling strategy is divided into two complementary projects. The first project, which works on a macro-scale approach, includes four field trips during neap tide (corresponding to the four seasons of the year), and a horizontal stratified random sampling. The second, which works on a micro-scale approach, proposes two field trips during spring tide (summer and winter), with simultaneous sampling of five strategic fixed points during 24 hours. Through these combined strategies, we intend to evaluate the general seasonal trends of the bay itself, as well as the influence of the cleaner coastal water contribution on waste dilution. Therefore, it will be possible to follow up the eventual changes on the water quality of this ecosystem.


Being a woman and a winemaker can be a useful point of difference, says Fran Austin, owner and winemaker at Delamere Vineyards in partnership with husband Shane Holloway. While some people are cynical about it, she and many other women in the industry accept that it can generate marketing. The Fabulous Women in Wine Society and Women in Wine Awards testify as much


Abstract  A photograph-based monitoring system was developed to involve citizen scientists in monitoring sites in western North Carolina and northern Georgia where the predators Sasajiscymnus tsugae (Sasaji & McClure) and Laricobius nigrinus Fender had been released as part of the U.S. Forest Service's biological control program for Adelges tsugae Annand (hemlock woolly adelgid). The study was divided into an initial phase conducted during 2006 and 2007 in Jackson and Macon counties, NC, and Rabun County, GA, and a second phase conducted from 2008 to 2010 in Fannin, Gilmer, Lumpkin, and Union counties, GA. Over the course of the study, 32 volunteers monitored 27 predator release sites and provided 4,356 photographs from which data were obtained. Data from photographs included the number of A. tsugae ovisacs present at each sample site and hemlock needle loss on photographed branches. To ensure accuracy in counting A. tsugae and assessing hemlock needle loss, personnel from Clemson University's A. tsugae insectary evaluated each photograph for data collection. The citizen scientist volunteers participating in this study allowed us to obtain a large amount of quality data from across the wide geographic range of predator release sites. Obtaining that amount of data would not have been possible using only our laboratory personnel. This study shows that including dedicated and properly trained volunteers in large-scale forest surveys was an effective way to dramatically increase the amount of data we could obtain for use in assessing trends in both the numbers of A. tsugae present and hemlock needle loss at predator release sites.


Radish (Raphanus sativus L.), a salad vegetable, and shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Med.), a common annual or biennial weed, are plants of similar height, leaf area and root biomass which often occur together in early summer. To assess the effects of the weed on the crop, plants were grown in well-watered and fertilized monocultures and mixtures in the greenhouse. Growth of both species in monoculture decreased, per plant, as planting density increased, particularly in radish which had a high relative monoculture response. In mixtures, at a range of planting densities, and in different proportions, radish was much the stronger competitor, its total dry matter and tuber production being affected only slightly, and not at all in some experiments, by mixture with C. bursa-pastoris. Thus the relative mixture response of radish ranged from 0.1 to 0.0, and the relative crowding coefficient of radish over Capsella was high, indicating that radish was strongly aggressive in the mixture. Although the two species had similar leaf areas in monoculture, that of C. bursa-pastoris was greatly reduced in mixture. The advantage displayed by radish in intercepting light was further enhanced when it was grown in mixtures because radish increased the height of the greatest part of its leaf area, so increasing its shading of the weed. Withholding water from plants increased dry matter partitioning to the root systems in both species, and slightly increased the competitive advantage of radish over C. bursa-pastoris. It is concluded that the weed poses little threat to the yield of radish crops in the field.


You can refer to Amiri Baraka as a poet if you like. But truth be told, he's a conjure-man of sorts. His inclinations for black magic are quite apparent in his live performances. What are billed as poetry readings actually become opportunities for Baraka to invoke the spirits of the dead. He eschews conventional epigraphs and introduces many of his poems through hummed melodies of jazz tunes. Baraka regularly, or perhaps ritually, summons Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and, of course, "the heaviest spirit," John Coltrane in his readings by dramatizing their music. And when Baraka is really feeling it, as he was during a performance with musicians Archie Shepp, Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman, and Roswell Rudd, he departs from the printed text of his poems, moves his body dramatically, and shouts and screams wordless phrasings. (1) Who knows what conventional academic discourse would make of Baraka's presentadon? But in the cosmos of black church-talk, his acts would more than likely be classified as a form of catching the Holy Ghost. Interestingly enough, catching holy ghosts or embodying the spirits of others has become as integral to the tradition of black verse as jazz poetry, though without the critical fanfare. Typically referred to as "persona poetry," these poems are written from the first-person perspectives of characters other than the poet-authors. According to M. H. Abrams, "persona was the Latin word for the 'mask' used by actors in the classical theater," and by referring to the speakers in poems as personae, "we stress the fact that they are all part of the fiction, characters invented for a particular artistic purpose" (131). The entry on "persona" in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics notes that the "mask permits the poet to say things that for various reasons she could not say in her own person" (901). Epic poetry regularly features varied personae and dramatic monologues, and persona poems by John Milton, William Wordsworth, Walt Whitman, and Robert Browning hold an important place in English and American literature. Although African American persona poems relate in a general sense to these broader, largely Eurocentric traditions and writers, black poets tend to also fulfill alternative and distinct cultural imperatives in their works. Notably, the personae or masks that black poets regularly choose to adopt allow them to provide commentary on African American history and society and participate in a longstanding tradition of speaking in the tongues of various black people. Unlike epic poetry, most individual persona poems by black writers are relatively short, usually focus on a brief episode in the lives of central speakers, and often appear in venues that privilege African American writings and audiences interested in black personalities and topics. Persona poems or poems with prevalent masking elements by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, and Gwendolyn Brooks, to name just a few, have become their more canonical texts, an indication that generations of publishers, editors, and general readerships have actively participated in the increased circulation and favorable receptions of these types of poems. As a result, an examination of persona poetry by black poets would need to move beyond conventional Eurocentric traditions and definitions of verse in order to appreciate fully the acts of masking, passing, catching holy ghosts, speaking in tongues, and sampling that occur in the compositions of African American artists. Black poets of the contemporary era have advanced the practice of wearing the masks of varied characters and historical figures in their works. Camille Dungy explains in an article in Black Issues Book Review that several poets, including A. Van Jordan, Natasha Trethewey, and Tyehimba Jess, utilize persona poetry in their volumes published at the beginning of the twenty-first century: "These young black poets often employ personae to create more fully fleshed out characters, and they frequently include explorations of the past and various ties of kinship or community" (16). …


Learning from human behaviors in the real world is important for building human-aware intelligent systems such as personalized digital assistants and autonomous humanoid robots. Everyday activities of human life can now be measured through wearable sensors. However, innovations are required to learn these sensory data in an online incremental manner over an extended period of time. Here we propose a dual memory architecture that processes slow-changing global patterns as well as keeps track of fast-changing local behaviors over a lifetime. The lifelong learnability is achieved by developing new techniques, such as weight transfer and an online learning algorithm with incremental features. The proposed model outperformed other comparable methods on two real-life data-sets: the image-stream dataset and the real-world lifelogs collected through the Google Glass for 46 days.


Gamification is a potential approach to foster motivation and engagement in different contexts which popularity in recent years has encouraged its application in a diversity of domains, including health, education, business, society, or tourism. However, although all their promising benefits and rapidly developing, the gamification community should face a variety of theoretical, empirical, and technological challenges. Focusing on technological challenges, we can observe a need that claims for suitable gamification software tools that offer system-independence and flexibility, support the gamification design, implementation, and monitoring activities, and experiment with more game elements than only points, badges, and leaderboards. For that reason, this paper deals with the identified technological challenges by introducing a gamification software tool to cover the main lacks found. An analysis of the advances in gamification domain and their recent literature was conducted to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular gamification software tools in order to design and develop a flexible system-independent gamification software solution that goes beyond the implementation of the classic game elements. As a result, we created GoRace, a multi-context and narrative-based gamification suite that supports the entire gamification process, provides flexible and system-independent gamification solutions, and allows the creation of tailored and reusable gamification solutions that go beyond the classic game elements to immerse participants in a fun, engaging, and challenging narrative-based gamification experience.


Do urban gardens restored with native shrubs contribute towards conservation of birds? Portland, Oregon, is a mid-sized city with many restored yard habitats and nearby regional natural areas, with yards varying in the degree of native plantings and the sizes and groupings of the yards involved. We studied several of the purported ecological benefits attributed to these widespread, but small-scale, urban gardens. We measured the relative success of yard habitats in contributing to diversity and abundance of forest-habitat birds. We studied how the abundance and diversity of shrubs, arthropods, and birds were related. We compared two neighborhoods; one having high, native tree cover, and the second having lower, non-native tree cover. Both neighborhoods had nearby greenspaces. We selected 6 replicate yards in each neighborhood, each with at least a minimum number of native shrubs. We also measured bird species richness using citizen science data. The abundance of arthropods significantly predicted the bird species richness. Both the amount of regional and local tree cover had a stronger statistical signal than shrub cover. The presence of native species of shrubs in these yards was not a good predictor for abundance of arthropods.


SummaryPhenol residue levels in honey collected using a phenol board were found to be higher when there was a larger surface area of honeycomb exposed, a higher surface temperature of the phenol board, closer proximity of honeycomb to the phenol solution applied to the underside of the board, and longer overall exposure. Capped honey contained lower residue levels than uncapped honey, owing to absorption of phenol by the wax cappings and probably to the smaller surface area of capped honey. It is unlikely that phenol residues can be removed from honey without affecting the flavour. Residues could be greatly reduced by limiting exposure of the hive to the phenol board to the time required to repel the bees.


Web2.0 tools (blogs, social bookmarking, feeds, Twitter etc) offer great potential for both libraries and learners and yet usage for academic purposes remains relatively low. This presentation contrasts the possibilities with the reality and looks at some of the challenges that need to be overcome for the wider adoption of these tools. In particular the talk will focus on the need for appropriate staff development for Library staff and will report on digital literacy sessions run by the presenter and his colleagues.


In orthopaedics, outcome evaluation is currently recognized as a major challenge to improve the knowledge both about injuries and treatments. For anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, various evaluation tools are available for routine uses: clinical examinations, static knee joint laxity measurements and scores. Although these tools can diagnose an ACL rupture and evaluate the results of a surgery, they are inadequate to answer the current therapeutic issues. Therefore, since two decades, gait analysis was investigated as an objective evaluation approach to quantify more subtle kinematics modifications. However, these analyses need dedicated laboratories including complex and expensive devices for motion capture. Consequently, only few studies focusing on ACL were conducted up to now. These studies enrolled a limited number of patients and reported partly divergent results. Thus, nowadays, surgeons lack a reliable, objective and simple method to evaluate the three-dimensional (3D) knee joint function in field during daily activities and conditions. In this thesis, we propose and assess new devices and algorithms to fulfil these needs. The contributions are driven by four main objectives: to provide appropriate measurement systems, to ensure repeatable quantification according to clinical descriptions, to determine the suitability of the kinematic parameters for outcome evaluation, and to use these new tools in clinical applications, both to show their relevance and provide new insights about the lower limb 3D function. Measurement systems. Three devices are designed in this thesis. The first device consists of a portable data logger and two 3D gyroscopes fixed on the thigh and the shank segments. It quantifies the 3D function of the knee joint. The second system fuses 3D gyroscopes with 3D accelerometers in order to measure the orientations during short periods. By strapping several of these sensors units on the lower limb segments, this system allows ambulatory measurement of 3D kinematics. Finally, an original system combining a portable magnetic tracker and inertial sensors is proposed to measure body segments orientation over long durations. The performances of all systems are assessed against high level reference devices. Functional calibrations. In order to quantify the 3D function of the knee joint independently of the sensors location on the segments, calibration methods suitable for the inertial-based systems are proposed. These methods follow the recommendations of the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) and avoid the localization of anatomical landmarks. They rely on predefined movements and posture measurements. The angular displacements obtained through these functional calibration procedures when collecting the data with one of the proposed system are positively comparable to previous systems in the literature. Kinematic parameters characterisation. Before using any data to quantify kinematics changes induced by an injury or a treatment, it is essential to evaluate their reliability. The propagation of both, anatomical-based and functional calibration procedures errors to 3D kinematics is investigated. The repeatability of the parameters is also evaluated. Finally, the effects of soft tissues artefacts are estimated using an exoskeleton harness. Clinical applications. The evaluation methods proposed here are involved in three different clinical protocols, both to evaluate their convenience of use and to contribute to the increase of clinical knowledge. Two applications enrol ACL-deficient patients prior and following reconstructive surgery, and a third one considers four groups of patients with various ankle conditions. During these studies, long distance ground level, and incline walking activities are monitored. This thesis proposes original inertial-based methods to evaluate the 3D function of the knee joint. The measurement errors are comparable to those of standard in lab devices, while the new systems allow ambulatory monitoring in clinical field. The characterization of the kinematic parameters confirms the value of the literature when existing. Finally, the clinical applications report promising results and validate the suitability of the methods for routine uses.


We provide pilot data from a satellite-tracked great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokar- ran in the Atlantic, representing the first such data on this species in the literature. The 250 cm shark was tagged off the coast of the middle-Florida Keys (USA) and transmitted for 62 d. During this time it migrated a minimum distance of ~1200 km northeast from the coast of Florida, into pelagic interna- tional waters of the Northwest Atlantic. When compared to the primary literature, this migration rep- resented a northeasterly range extension for this species off the continental slope in the Atlantic. The significance of this range extension is discussed in terms of the vulnerability of S. mokarran to target and non-target fisheries.


Present guidance on levels of vibration generated by pile driving is primarily empirical, conservative and often contradictory. The objective of this research was to model the ground waves generated by pile driving using the ABAQUS finite element program in order to predict the free ground surface response resulting from installation by both impact and vibratory hammers. New procedures including infinite element and quiet boundary formulations have been developed for the computation of ground surface vibrations caused by impact and vibratory driving of pre-formed piles. The procedures do not require a detailed knowledge of site conditions and are therefore particularly useful as a preliminary design tool and for modelling the large amount of site data that currently exists in order to assist in the development of more rational guidance. The work has brought together research from several areas of study in order to produce computational procedures for modelling vibrations from pile driving. The new models have been validated by comparisons with measurements from various piling sites. The new methods now need to be applied to a large number of varied sites in order to develop site specific guidance. It is envisaged that this guidance could be in the form of design charts or simple formulae for incorporation into the relevant British Standards or Eurocodes. A range of common building forms has been incorporated into the models. The results indicate that slender frames can be analysed by transient displacements imposed on the foundations; however, a full three-dimensional analysis with soil-structure interaction is required for walls and infilled panels so that the reduced foundation displacements are modelled correctly. The techniques developed during this project could be usefully extended to model the effects of pile driving on various geotechnical structures and pipelines and also other forms of excitation, such as vibrocompaction.


This chapter provides an assessment of the extent to which the Toxoplasma gondii genome has fulfilled its promise. It describes the available genomic resources, and provides an overview of those aspects of toxoplasmosis research that have grown most as a consequence of genomic resources. To provide an estimate and description of the "attributable fraction" of progress owed to genomic biology, most of this chapter reviews the hundred (or so) papers that acknowledge several key developments in Toxoplasma gondii genomics. The chapter discusses some additional perspectives intended to expand upon and supplement the documented record of developments made possible by genomic biology, including a discussion of literature that may only indirectly establish that causal link. Finally, the chapter considers the impact that genomics has made on our understanding of T. gondii toxoplasmosis, and broader issues in eukaryotic Microbiology. Recombinant vaccine candidates for N. caninum have been identified by searching T. gondii genomic and expressed sequence tags (ESTs) databases. A genomewide survey of SNP polymorphism provided a means to more fully substantiate and explain earlier observations, that most isolates of T. gondii studied to date can be classified as members of one of three multilocus types, and that only a few ancestors could have contributed all of the diversity represented among them. In the case of T. gondii, the genomic data have encouraged the engagement of a creative and inquisitive cadre of research scientists.


Abstract. Atmospheric dispersal of a gas denser than air can threat the environment and surrounding communities if the terrain and meteorological conditions favour its accumulation in topographic depressions, thereby reaching toxic concentration levels. Numerical modelling of atmospheric gas dispersion constitutes a useful tool for gas hazard assessment studies, essential for planning risk mitigation actions. In complex terrains, microscale winds and local orographic features can have a strong influence on the gas cloud behaviour, potentially leading to inaccurate results if not captured by coarser-scale modelling. We introduce a methodology for microscale wind field characterisation based on transfer functions that couple a mesoscale numerical weather prediction model with a microscale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for the atmospheric boundary layer. The resulting time-dependent high-resolution microscale wind field is used as input for a shallow-layer gas dispersal model (TWODEE-2.1) to simulate the time evolution of CO2 gas concentration at different heights above the terrain. The strategy is applied to review simulations of the 1986 Lake Nyos event in Cameroon, where a huge CO2 cloud released by a limnic eruption spread downslopes from the lake, suffocating thousands of people and animals across the Nyos and adjacent secondary valleys. Besides several new features introduced in the new version of the gas dispersal code (TWODEE-2.1), we have also implemented a novel impact criterion based on the percentage of human fatalities depending on CO2 concentration and exposure time. New model results are quantitatively validated using the reported percentage of fatalities at several locations. The comparison with previous simulations that assumed coarser-scale steady winds and topography illustrates the importance of high-resolution modelling in complex terrains.


This paper advocates a rigorously formal and compositional style for obtaining key performance and/or interface metrics of systems with real-time constraints. We propose a hierarchical approach that couples the independent and different by nature frameworks of Modular Performance Analysis with Real-time Calculus (MPARTC) and Parametric Feasibility Analysis (PFA). Recent work on Real-time Calculus (RTC) has established an embedding of state-based component models into RTC-driven performance analysis for dealing with more expressive component models. However, with the obtained analysis infrastructure it is possible to analyze components only for a fixed set of parameters, e. g., fixed CPU speeds, fixed buffer sizes etc., such that a big space of parameters remains unstudied. In this paper, we overcome this limitation by integrating the method of parametric feasibility analysis in an RTC-based modeling environment. Using the PFA tool-flow, we are able to find regions for component parameters that maintain feasibility and worst-case properties. As a result, the proposed analysis infrastructure produces a broader range of valid design candidates, and allows the designer to reason about the system robustness.


Three commercial oil samples were analyzed with the use of the selectivity of resonance CARS. No fractionation procedures were used; the oil samples were simply dissolved in an appropriate solvent and pumped from 365 nm to 480 nm. All three samples could be differentiated by characteristic Raman bands at various pump wavelengths. In addition, comparisons between the CARS spectra of the oil samples and the CARS spectra of pure PAHs at the same pump wavelength yielded tentative identifications of perylene and benzo(ghi)perylene in two of the samples.


Microcapacitors for Manufacture Capacitors can store small amounts of charge, and as they can charge and discharge quickly, they work well with batteries for recovering power, such as in regenerative braking in hybrid cars. For very small power requirements, capacitors have not been competitive with microbatteries, but using monolithic carbon films to store the charge, Chmiola et al. (p. 480) demonstrate the feasibility of such applications. The small pores in the carbon films are sufficiently large to allow electrolyte transport and can be made using a processing technique compatible with current chip manufacturing. Such microcapacitors can thus be integrated with electronics to make autonomous sensors or implantable devices. The power density of small-scale capacitors can be increased by using monolithic carbon films. Microbatteries with dimensions of tens to hundreds of micrometers that are produced by common microfabrication techniques are poised to provide integration of power sources onto electronic devices, but they still suffer from poor cycle lifetime, as well as power and temperature range of operation issues that are alleviated with the use of supercapacitors. There have been a few reports on thin-film and other micro-supercapacitors, but they are either too thin to provide sufficient energy or the technology is not scalable. By etching supercapacitor electrodes into conductive titanium carbide substrates, we demonstrate that monolithic carbon films lead to a volumetric capacity exceeding that of micro- and macroscale supercapacitors reported thus far, by a factor of 2. This study also provides the framework for integration of high-performance micro-supercapacitors onto a variety of devices.


Importance Stress cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) is not widely used in current clinical practice, and its ability to predict patient mortality is unknown. Objective To determine whether stress CMR is associated with patient mortality. Design, Setting, and Participants Real-world evidence from consecutive clinically ordered CMR examinations. Multicenter study of patients undergoing clinical evaluation of myocardial ischemia. Patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) underwent clinical vasodilator stress CMR at 7 different hospitals. An automated process collected data from the finalized clinical reports, deidentified and aggregated the data, and assessed mortality using the US Social Security Death Index. Main Outcomes and Measures All-cause patient mortality. Results Of the 9151 patients, the median (interquartile range) patient age was 63 (51-70) years, 55% were men, and the median (interquartile range) body mass index was 29 (25-33) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). The multicenter automated process yielded 9151 consecutive patients undergoing stress CMR, with 48 615 patient-years of follow-up. Of these patients, 4408 had a normal stress CMR examination, 4743 had an abnormal examination, and 1517 died during a median follow-up time of 5.0 years. Using multivariable analysis, addition of stress CMR improved prediction of mortality in 2 different risk models (model 1 hazard ratio [HR], 1.83; 95% CI, 1.63-2.06; P < .001; model 2: HR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.60-2.03; P < .001) and also improved risk reclassification (net improvement: 11.4%; 95% CI, 7.3-13.6; P < .001). After adjustment for patient age, sex, and cardiac risk factors, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed a strong association between an abnormal stress CMR and mortality in all patients (HR, 1.883; 95% CI, 1.680-2.112; P < .001), patients with (HR, 1.955; 95% CI, 1.712-2.233; P < .001) and without (HR, 1.578; 95% CI, 1.235-2.2018; P < .001) a history of CAD, and patients with normal (HR, 1.385; 95% CI, 1.194-1.606; P < .001) and abnormal left ventricular ejection fraction (HR, 1.836; 95% CI, 1.299-2.594; P < .001). Conclusions and Relevance Clinical vasodilator stress CMR is associated with patient mortality in a large, diverse population of patients with known or suspected CAD as well as in multiple subpopulations defined by history of CAD and left ventricular ejection fraction. These findings provide a foundational motivation to study the comparative effectiveness of stress CMR against other modalities.


By taking full advantage of Computing, Communication and Caching (3C) resources at the network edge, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is envisioned as one of the key enablers for next generation networks. However, current fixed-lo-cation MEC architecture may not be able to make real-time decision in dynamic environments, especially in large-scale scenarios. To address this issue, in this article, a Heterogeneous MEC (H-MEC) architecture is proposed, which is composed of fixed unit, i.e., Ground Stations (GSs) as well as moving nodes, i.e., Ground Vehicles (GVs) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), all with 3C resource enabled. The key challenges in H-MEC, i.e., mobile edge node management, real-time decision making, user association and resource allocation along with the possible Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions, are discussed. In addition, the AI-based joint Resource schEduling (ARE) framework with two different AI-based mechanisms, i.e., Deep neural network (DNN)-based and deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based architectures, are proposed. DNN-based solution with online incremental learning applies the global optimizer and therefore has better performance than the DRL-based architecture with online policy updating, but requires longer training time. The simulation results are given to verify the efficiency of our proposed ARE framework.


That higher levels of national income per capita are associated with better health conditions and lower fertility is more than evident; recent analyses provide quantification of the magnitude of the effects and adduce strong evidence for its causal nature (at least for health). This paper extends prel'ious analyses by assessing regional and temporal differences in the income - health/fertility relationship (differences are pronounced) and by using deviations from this estimated relationship it constructs measures of performance at five year intervals from 1960 to 1990 for 19 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Performance for each country on under-5 mortality and total fertility rates. relative to other Latill American countries and controlling for income levels. Changes in performance, from one five-year period to the next, are highlighted in order to pose questions about the response of performance to changes in policy. Some results are expected (e.g. the relatively good performance of Colombia and Costa Rica for much of the period); other results are surprising (e.g. the sharp deterioration in performance of Argentina and Chile in the late 1980s). Health expenditures are then used to predict performance levels in 1990; for under-5 mortality rates, public sector expenditures on health are found to have a significant beneficial effect. The magnitude of the estimated effect is substantial: Over 10,000 child deaths in 1990 would have been averted in Latin America if public sector expenditures on health increased from 3.5% to 4.0% of CDP while holding total expenditures constant.


It is well known when it comes to well planning that ECD management is an important topics. This is to avoid problems like kick, losses, fluid influx into the well and fracturing the formation among others. As more complex and deeper wells are encountered ECD management gets more excessive. While drilling a well cuttings will be generated. Dependent on different parameters like ROP, pumprate, rheology and viscosity the amount of cuttings created will fluctuate and make the cuttings concentration vary throughout the wellbore. The purpose of this diploma thesis is to see how the generated cuttings will effect the ECD. This is done by looking at different parameters which has an impact on the amount of cuttings generated and the cuttings concentration. Chapter 2 to Chapter 4 in this diploma thesis has are published knowledge on different parameters of ECD and cuttings. The primary emphasis of chapter two is ECD theory in general. Pore and fracture pressure, cuttings contained in the annulus and other factors influencing ECD are all presented in chapter two. Chapter 3 gives a short introduction of ECD problems regarding ER wells. The last theory chapter gives an overview of cuttings transport in both vertical and deviated wells. Chapter 5 is an overview of how the ECD model works. What assumptions has been taken into consideration, what calculations has been done, what input data has been used and how does the excel sheet work are questions that all will be answered in this part of the thesis. In Chapter 6 the results from the calculations done in this thesis are presented, and verified against field data. Results are eventually to be discussed in Chapter 7, and finally in Chapter 8 conclusions are drawn. From the steady state ECD model it has been found that ECD will increase for high ROPs, since a high amount of cuttings will be produced. A high pumprate will over time lower the ECD since cuttings will be transported faster out of the well. When the effective viscosity is kept high, the mud will have a greater ability to carry the cuttings out of the well, hence the ECD – Effect Of Cuttings IV ECD will be low. The mud density has probably not that large an effect of the cuttings concentration in the well, on the other hand is has a great impact on the ECD. If the ROP is really high, the effective viscosity and the pumprate should be kept high to get a sufficient hole cleaning. In some cases it is enough with either a high pumprate or a high viscous mud. If a low pumprate is combined with a low viscous mud it can be difficult to exceed the settlings velocity even for low ROPs.


Despite the booming of cloud computing, people will be using PCs for various good reasons including connecting to the cloud server. According to a 2009 report, more than two million people in every month have had their computer affected by malware, etc. although about 95% people use antivirus software. Recent studies warn that two most terrifying facts regarding malware attacks are (i) attacks intensified by 68% in year 2011 than in year 2010 and (ii) targets shifted towards end-point systems. However, 'there is no legal solution to malware'. Current software-based solution (like anti-virus software) to secure a system from malware attacks or restore a system after attacks is expensive and becomes obsolete very quickly. Contemporary state-of-the-art hardware security modules (HSMs) are not adequate to protect and restore end-user's computer systems from malware attacks in a hassle-free costeffective way. In this work, we propose an USB memory based solution to restore a full system including operating system (OS), application software, and data files, if needed due to malware attacks. Proposed easysteps solution is suitable for most systems (old or new), most OSs (Windows or Linux), and all users (novice or moderate or advanced level). Based on our preliminary experience, we are convinced that the proposed system recovery solution is feasible. In fact, proposed user friendly solution has potential to save big money and reduce distress for most users.


Ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) granulite metamorphism is documented predominantly in the Neoarchean to Cambrian rock record, but UHT granulite metamorphism also may be inferred at depth in Cenozoic orogenic systems. The first occurrence of UHT granulite metamorphism in the record signifies a change in geodynamics that generated transient sites of very high heat flow. Many UHT granulite metamorphic belts may have developed in settings analogous to modern continental backarcs; on a warmer Earth, destruction of oceans floored by thinner lithosphere may have generated hotter backarcs than those associated with the modern Pacific ring of fire. Medium-temperature eclogite–highpressure (EHP) granulite metamorphism is documented in the Neoarchean rock record and at intervals throughout the Proterozoic and Paleozoic record. EHP granulite metamorphic belts are complementary to UHT granulite metamorphic belts in that they are generally inferred to record subduction-to-collision orogenesis. Blueschists become evident in the Neoproterozoic rock record, but lawsonite blueschist–eclogite metamorphism (high pressure [HP]) and ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism (UHP) characterized by coesite or diamond are predominantly Phanerozoic phenomena. HP-UHP metamorphism registers the low thermal gradients and deep subduction of continental crust during the early stage of subduction-to-collision orogenesis. A duality of metamorphic belts—reflecting a duality of thermal regimes—appears in the record only since the Neoarchean Era. A duality of thermal regimes is the hallmark of modern plate tectonics, and the duality of metamorphic belts is the characteristic imprint of plate tectonics in the rock record. The occurrence of both UHT and EHP granulite metamorphism since the Neoarchean marks the onset of a ''Proterozoic plate tectonics'' regime, which evolved during a Neoproterozoic transition to the modern plate tectonics regime, characterized by colder subduction as chronicled by HP-UHP metamorphism.


Pontocerebellar hypoplasia is a group of autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorders with prenatal onset. The common characteristics are cerebellar hypoplasia with variable atrophy of the cerebellum and the ventral pons. Supratentorial involvement is reflected by variable neocortical atrophy, ventriculomegaly and microcephaly. Mutations in the transfer RNA splicing endonuclease subunit genes (TSEN54, TSEN2, TSEN34) were found to be associated with pontocerebellar hypoplasia types 2 and 4. Mutations in the mitochondrial transfer RNA arginyl synthetase gene (RARS2) were associated with pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 6. We studied a cohort of 169 patients from 141 families for mutations in these genes, of whom 106 patients tested positive for mutations in one of the TSEN genes or the RARS2 gene. In order to delineate the neuroradiological and clinical phenotype of patients with mutations in these genes, we compared this group with 63 patients suspected of pontocerebellar hypoplasia who were negative on mutation analysis. We found a strong correlation (P < 0.0005) between TSEN54 mutations and a dragonfly-like cerebellar pattern on magnetic resonance imaging, in which the cerebellar hemispheres are flat and severely reduced in size and the vermis is relatively spared. Mutations in TSEN54 are clinically associated with dyskinesia and/or dystonia and variable degrees of spasticity, in some cases with pure generalized spasticity. Nonsense or splice site mutations in TSEN54 are associated with a more severe phenotype of more perinatal symptoms, ventilator dependency and early death. In addition, we present ten new mutations in TSEN54, TSEN2 and RARS2. Furthermore, we show that pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 1 together with elevated cerebrospinal fluid lactate may be caused by RARS2 mutations.


BACKGROUND
The incidence of invasive fungal infections has increased globally as a result of several factors. Conventional amphotericin B (sodium deoxycholate) has been used as standard therapy for the treatment of invasive fungal infections; however, it is associated with adverse drug reactions, including acute kidney injury (AKI). New formulations of amphotericin B have aimed to improve the safety profile of the conventional formulation.

OBJECTIVES
This review aimed to assess the effects of amphotericin B deoxycholate versus liposomal amphotericin B on kidney function.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched Cochrane Kidney and Transplant's Specialised Register to 10 March 2015 through contact with the Trials' Search Co-ordinator using search terms relevant to this review.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared amphotericin B sodium deoxycholate with liposomal amphotericin B.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently assessed studies for eligibility and conducted risk of bias evaluation.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 12 studies (2298 participants) in this review. Of these, 10 were meta-analysed (2172 participants). Liposomal amphotericin B was found to be significantly safer than conventional amphotericin B in terms of serum creatinine increase (RR 0.49, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.59). There was significant decrease in all infusion-related reactions in the liposomal group compared with the conventional group: fever (4 studies, 1092 participants): RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.55; I(2) = 32%); chills and/or rigours (5 studies, 1081 participants): RR 0.27, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.48; I(2) = 75%); fever and/or rigours (2 studies, 720 participants): RR 0.68, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.90; I(2) = 58%); nausea (6 studies, 1187 participants): RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.72; I(2) = 0%); and vomiting (3 studies, 1019 participants): RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.95; I(2) = 61%). Overall, risk of bias in included studies was low or unclear for most domains. However, blinding of participants and personnel, blinding of outcome assessment and other bias (funding) tended to have a high risk of bias. The sensitivity analysis performed did not change the significance of difference in favour of the liposomal formulation. Assessment for publication bias found that review results were robust.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Current evidence suggests that liposomal amphotericin B is less nephrotoxic than conventional amphotericin B (when the effect on kidney function is measured as an increase in serum creatinine level equal to or greater than two-fold from the baseline level). We also found that there were fewer infusion-related reactions associated with the liposomal formulation.


PURPOSE
Ego-integrity in Erikson's stage theory is used frequently among health team members related to the care of the elderly and has specific meanings within the context of quality of life in later life. However, the concept of ego-integrity in the elderly has not been well articulated in the literature. This study was conducted clarify and conceptualize the phenomena of ego-integrity in the elderly.

METHOD
A Hybrid Model of concept development was applied to develop a concept of ego-integrity, which included a field study carried out in Seoul, South Korea using in-depth interviews with old adults who were admitted as a right person for research subject according to attributes of ego-integrity analysed in the theoretical phase.

RESULTS
The concept of ego-integrity emerged as a complex phenomenon having meanings in several different dimensions which encompassed several attributes.

CONCLUSIONS
Ego-integrity is a concept having needs that should be treated in a specific way and it is possible to enrich the meaning and methods to manage ego-integrity in nursing interventions for promoting quality of life so that its application may have effects that have positive impacts on the elderly's well being.


The reflections in this article were instigated by the repeated and brutal clashes since 2007 between peasants and the state government's militias—both official and unofficial—over the issue of industrialization. A communist government engaging peasants violently in order to acquire and transfer their lands to big business houses to set up capitalist enterprises seemed dramatically ironic. Despite the presence of many immediate causes for the conflict, subtle long-term change to the nature of communist politics in the state was also responsible for the present situation. This article identifies two trends that, though significant, are by themselves not enough to explain what is happening in West Bengal today. First, the growth of a culture of governance where the Communist Party actively seeks to manage rather than politicize social conflicts; second, the recasting of radical political subjectivity as a matter of identity rather than an instigation for critical self-reflection and self-transformation.


Nowadays, many authors suggest that business rules are a special class of information system requirements. Business rules should have a special handling, from the earliest analysis phases to the implementation. The related literature states many ways for business rule specification, among them, the UML Object Constraint Language (OCL). OCL is an adequate choice for formal representation of business rules. Business rules stated in OCL can be translated into pieces of code that implements the desired capability. Moreover, the system can automatically infer the events where this code must be evaluated. This paper presents the design and implementation of Athena, an OCL constraint enforcement engine built on the top of a commercial relational DBMS (Oracle). In addition, we evaluated the use of the Athena in a real application. The enforcement engine was designed to offer the highest functionality at the minimum impact in the style of database design and access. As a result, it was possible to couple a business rule layer to an existing application with little effort, in an incremental approach. The ability to quickly create and maintain business rules was greatly improved, resulting in a large improvement of productivity. The overall programming effort spent on enforcing business rules was greatly reduced, and the business rules were stated declaratively. The system automatically discovers the events where the rules must be fired. To bring this functionality to existing RDBMS represents a great progress in the evolution of relational technology. Moreover, the main result is that the business rule system assures that a buggy or ill-programmed function in the application will not accidentally violate a business rule.


This study evaluates the effects of environmental variables on traditional and alternative agroecosystems in three Ejidos (communal lands) in the Chiapas rainforest in Mexico. The tests occurred within two seasonal agricultural cycles. In spring-summer, experiments were performed with the traditional slash, fell and burn (S-F-B) system, no-burn systems and rotating systems with Mucuna deeringiana Bort., and in the autumn-winter agricultural cycle, three no-burn systems were compared to evaluate the effect of alternative sowing with corn (no-burn and topological modification of sowing). The results show a high floristic diversity in the study area ( S S = 4 - 23%), with no significant differences among the systems evaluated. In the first cycle, the analysis of the agronomical variables of the corn indicated better properties in the fallowing systems, with an average yield of 1950 kg ha ‑1 , but there was variation related to the number of years left fallow. In the second cycle, the yields were positive for the alternative technology (average yield 3100 kg ha ‑1 ). The traditional S-F-B systems had reduced pests and increased organic matter and soil phosphorous content. These results are the consequence of fallow periods and adaptation to the environment; thus, this practice in the Chiapas rainforest constitutes an ethnocultural reality, which is unlikely to change in the near future if the agrosystems are managed based on historical principles.


This text, extracted from research, aims to analyze the "Education in Gender and Sexual Diversity" prescribed in National, State and Municipal Education Plans in Brazil. Due to this objective, we are anchored in techniques of qualitative methodology, which, in the field of legal sciences, incurs the analytical-dogmatic approach, having as its purpose analysis from a deductive-epistemological perspective.
We establish as categories for comparison the provisions on basic education (Brazil, 1996) and relate directly or indirectly to the issues of gender and sexual diversity, portrayed in the document, named as: "education", "gender" and "diversity". sexual". These categories are closer to the exercise of citizenship and propose the inclusion in the daily life of the classrooms and the school space. In this context, education becomes an instrument for social transformation and citizenship building, aimed at respecting differences.
An approach of gender and sexual diversity means educating on human rights (Brazil, 2018, p. 19), expanding citizenship for social justice purposes, and inserting values, attitudes, and behaviors into the classroom that derive from "[...] educational policies directed towards the constitution of a culture of human rights "(Brasil, 2018, p. 13).
The Educational Plans are constitutionally mandated to "articulate the national education system in a collaborative manner and define guidelines, objectives, goals and implementation strategies to ensure the maintenance and development of education [...]" (Brasil, 1988) in periods of ten years; aiming, among others, the "universalization of school attendance" (Brazil, 1988) and the "humanistic promotion" (Brasil, 1988).
We highlight what is provided in item II, article 206, of the Federal Constitution (Brazil, 1988), which appears as the principle of Brazilian education "[...] the freedom to learn, teach, research and disseminate culture, thought, art and knowledge". The concern with plural and inclusive education led to the replication of the same wording as set out in section II, article 3, of the Basic Education Guidelines Law (Brazil, 1996). With this referral foresees that "Education, [...], will be promoted and encouraged with the collaboration of society, aiming at the full development of the person, their preparation for the exercise of citizenship and their qualification for work" (Brazil, 1988 ).
Considering that the school environment must be based on the democratization of sources of education and freedom of chair / learning. We realize that the guarantee of democracy is also given by access to a plurality of information that is provided educationally represents a significant step in the construction of a truly "free, fair and solidary" society (art. 3, item I, of the Federal Constitution , Brazil, 1988). In this sense, Ranieri (2013, p. 56) also states: "[...] education enables the diffusion of democracy and human rights, 'crucial values' in the contemporary world".
We emphasize that the PEE-MS (Mato Grosso do Sul, 2014) and PME-CG (Campo Grande, 2015) have greater depth in addressing issues, structuring Gender Education and Sexual Diversity at different levels of basic education.
The suppression of the term "gender" of the PNE (2014-2024) does not represent the limitation / prohibition of the approach of the theme in classrooms (Brasil, 2018, p. 126). The "fight against exclusion" (Brazil, 2014, Goal 3, Strategy 3.13), which is advocated in the document, indicates that education for recognition / respect for differences is one of the strategies defined for education at national headquarters. Despite the suppression that led States and Municipalities to repeat this practice in their education plans, the PNE (2014-2024) has as its guideline "eradicate all forms of discrimination" (Brazil, 2014, art. 2), the which must be imperative in the educational exercise of all federative entities.
According to the law authorizing the PNE, "[...] any attempt to restrict state and municipal plans or other local laws must be considered unconstitutional and illegal" (Brasil, 2018, p. 127). Regarding the PNE (2014-2024) (Brazil, 2014), the main criticism lies in the suppression of the term "gender".
Through the approach of PEE-MS (2014-2024), we highlight the relationship established between the multiculturalism evidenced in the formation of the State and the concern with the formatting of an educational system that meets the diversity and that is established in the difference. It also prescribes education for the purpose of promoting a culture of respect and acceptance of others (Mato Grosso do Sul, 2014, goal 3, guideline 3.6); It provides for the development of teaching materials on gender and sexual diversity that reach family environments and recognizes the gap in the capacity of educators to deal with gender differences and sexual diversity.
The PME-CG (2015-2025) (Campo Grande, 2015) stands out for its robust approach to gender and sexual diversity issues. It presents goals and guidelines that dialogue with the problems of gender and diversity evidenced in the school environment, expressing the concern with violence; the discrimination that affects students, staff and education professionals, the need to develop educational campaigns for school awareness of LGBTI public and to invest in continuing education specific to gender and diversity relations.
In the speeches organized around the areas chosen for comparison, there is a "prescribed" concern with gender and sexuality relations in the Plans (national, state and municipal). By respecting the competence of their application, they only incur the prediction of goals and strategies established as educational guidelines for a period of ten years, pursuant to article 214 of the Federal Constitution (Brazil, 1988). We add to this that the representativeness of the achievement in Human Rights, with the express prediction of Gender and Sexual Diversity Education in classrooms, also sharpens around the political and religious clashes of / in Brazilian society.
Although this scenario, the forecast for the next decade represents that the respective federative entities should recognize as constitutional the education that proposes to disseminate, among children and adolescents who are members of basic education, information about the themes under analysis, which make up a robust and complex set of information on biological gender, gender representations and sexual orientation; by understanding it as an education for / for equality and social transformation, an education in / for Human Rights, aimed at respecting diversity and building social peace.


Statistical techniques play a major role in contemporary methods for analyzing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. In addition to the central role that classical statistical methods play in research using MRI, statistical modeling and machine learning techniques are key to many modern data analysis pipelines. Applications for these techniques cover a broad spectrum of research, including many preclinical and clinical studies, and in some cases these methods are working their way into widespread routine use. In this manuscript we describe a software tool called TractoR (for "Tractography with R"), a collection of packages for the R language and environment, along with additional infrastructure for straightforwardly performing common image processing tasks. TractoR provides general purpose functions for reading, writing and manipulating MR images, as well as more specific code for fitting signal models to diffusion MRI data and performing tractography, a technique for visualizing neural connectivity.


1. Renal involvement in progressive systemic sclerosis is characterized by hypertension, grade III or IV hypertensive retinopathy, rapidly progressive renal failure and enhanced plasma renin activity. 2. Of 70 patients with progressive systemic sclerosis involving the kidneys seen since 1955, 48 died within less than 3 months and 16 are alive or survived longer than 1 year. 3. Aggressive antihypertensive therapy was the principal factor that prevented early death in the 16 survivors. 4. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition with captopril appears to be the treatment of choice at present, but methyldopa or minoxidil may be successful in certain patients whose response to captopril is not satisfactory.


A Lyot-type liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) suitable for high-definition Raman chemical imaging has been developed. The LCTF has been incorporated into an efficient Raman imaging system that provides significant performance advantages relative to any previous approach to Raman microscopy. The LCTF and associated optical path is physically compact, which accommodates integration of the LCTF within an infinity-corrected optical microscope. The LCTF simultaneously provides diffraction-limited spatial resolution and 7.6-cm-1 spectral bandpass across the full free spectral range of the imaging spectrometer. The LCTF Raman microscope successfully integrates, in a facile manner, the utility of optical microscopy and the analytical capabilities of Raman spectroscopy. In this paper the LCTF Raman imaging system is described in detail, as well as results of initial studies of polymer and corrosion product model systems.


Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as estrogens, is a growing issue for human and animal health as they have been shown to cause reproductive and developmental abnormalities in wildlife and plants and have been linked to male infertility disorders in humans. Intensive farming and weather events, such as storms, flash flooding, and landslides, contribute estrogen to waterways used to supply drinking water. This paper explores the impact of estrogen exposure on the performance of slow sand filters (SSFs) used for water treatment. The feasibility and efficacy of SSF bioaugmentation with estrogen-degrading bacteria was also investigated, to determine whether removal of natural estrogens (estrone, estradiol, and estriol) and overall SSF performance for drinking water treatment could be improved. Strains for SSF augmentation were isolated from full-scale, municipal SSFs so as to optimize survival in the laboratory-scale SSFs used. Concentrations of the natural estrogens, determined by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), revealed augmented SSFs reduced the overall estrogenic potency of the supplied water by 25% on average and removed significantly more estrone and estradiol than nonaugmented filters. A negative correlation was found between coliform removal and estrogen concentration in nonaugmented filters. This was due to the toxic inhibition of protozoa, indicating that high estrogen concentrations can have functional implications for SSFs (such as impairing coliform removal). Consequently, we suggest that high estrogen concentrations could impact significantly on water quality production and, in particular, on pathogen removal in biological water filters.


The zero-mean circular complex Gaussian field statistics of a random medium are experimentally demonstrated in the optical domain, thus verifying this key assumption of statistical optics. Using a frequency-tunable laser source in a fixed-path-length interferometer, we obtain optical field fluctuations in the time and frequency domains that clearly show that the ensemble-averaged temporal intensity converges to the photon transit time distribution, which for the samples used is in excellent agreement with a diffusion model.


This paper addresses the mass balance error ob- served in runoff hydrographs in urban watersheds by intro- ducing assumptions regarding the contribution of infiltrated rainfall from pervious areas and isolated impervious area (IIA) to the runoff hydrograph. Rainfall infiltrating into per- vious areas has been assumed not to contribute to the runoff hydrograph until Hortonian excess rainfall occurs. However, mass balance analysis in an urban watershed indicates that rainfall infiltrated to pervious areas can contribute directly to the runoff hydrograph, thereby offering an explanation for the long hydrograph tail commonly observed in runoff from urban storm sewers. In this study, a hydrologic analysis based on the width function is introduced, with two types of width functions obtained from both pervious and impervious areas, respectively. The width function can be regarded as the di- rect interpretation of the network response. These two width functions are derived to obtain distinct response functions for directly connected impervious areas (DCIA), IIA, and pervious areas. The results show significant improvement in the estimation of runoff hydrographs and suggest the need to consider the flow contribution from pervious areas to the runoff hydrograph. It also implies that additional contribu- tion from flow paths through joints and cracks in sewer pipes needs to be taken into account to improve the estimation of runoff hydrographs in urban catchments.


The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. By Philip Pullman. New York: Canongate, 2010. 256 pp. Pullman retells the story of Jesus Christ as that of two twins, but, rather than cast as opposites, or, as the title suggests, as good and evil twins, both Jesus and his brother, Christ, are complicated, interdependent, and ambiguous. More importantly, Pullman uses this split as a device to interrogate the process of narrativization, the role of storytelling: Jesus is a charismatic iconoclast whose teachings and life are retold by Christ to accommodate the needs of a budding religious institution. At the encouragement of a mysterious stranger, Christ begins to record and interpret Jesus's life. As the force behind the story, "knot [ting] the details together neatly to make patterns and show correspondences" (244), Christ embodies the ideological work of mythologization - the process by which events become the story. To a modern readership, for whom the standardized story of Jesus Christ has been naturalized, Pullman's rendering is a "subversive retelling" that "challeng[es] the events of the gospels" (front cover flap). However, almost all of what Pullman develops in a modern, psychological manner is derived from gospel or apocryphal tradition. The very core premise of the two twins is not only widespread in mythological tradition, but it is also specifically anticipated in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, written in the third century, in which Didymos Judas Thomas is Jesus's twin and scribe. Pullman does subvert the content of these gospels, however: The Gospel of Thomas consists of the sayings of Jesus, with no narratives, and is therefore thought by some to be a more historical representative of the man than subsequent narratives of his life. In Pullman's version, however, Christ records the events in Jesus's life from instand secondhand observation, embellishing and editing to make the story more like Truth. Additionally, the purpose of this narrativization in Pullman's version is the establishment of an institutional canon for the worldly Church. In contrast, the Gospel of Thomas, emphasizing the mystical tradition of seeking the "inner light," was marginalized in mainstream Catholicism. Pullman playfully weaves Thomas into the very story line as well. Pullman's story of the twins Jesus and Christ roughly falls into two parts: the events leading up to their births and early lives, derived from the apocryphal stories in circulation; and the stories of the life and death of Jesus the preacher and the foundation of the Church, deriving from the four gospels. Modern readers of classical mythology as well as those raised in Christianity will be accustomed to the unexplained childhood of the hero, and yet, for Christians of the Middle Ages, these stories circulated as popular tales, and the iconography of the lives of Mary, St. Ann, John the Baptist, and Jesus in churches not only informed the faithful but also are the sediments of that knowledge into the present day. Pullman merely taps into that reservoir: the miraculous conceptions of Mary and John the Baptist, both to old, barren parents; the selection of the aged Joseph as Mary's husband by virtue of the sign of the flowering rod; the miracles of the child Jesus, making clay birds fly, sorting out the dyed yarn, and so on (see The Infancy Gospel of St. Thomas). These may seem new and novel to contemporary readers, but Pullman has adapted them into his story of the twin brothers - Jesus gets into trouble by virtue of his miraculous child's pranks, and Christ, the favorite of Mary, sorts things out. These short vignettes disrupt the conventional good-bad twin scenario, rendering the Holy Family average, ambiguous, and ordinary. …


The Photovoltaic (PV) industry is seeking to increase efficiency and functional lifetime of PV modules manufactured on polymer substrates. High resolution and high speed surface inspection for the quality control of the manufacture of large area flexible PV modules are necessary to guarantee maximum quality, longer lifetime and enhanced product yield. Flexible PV films are the newest development in the renewable energy field and the latest films have efficiencies at or beyond the level of Si-based rigid PV modules. However, they are at present highly susceptible to long term environmental degradation as a result of water vapor transmission through the protective encapsulation to the active layer. To reduce the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) the PV encapsulation includes a barrier layer of amorphous Al2O3 on a planarised polymer substrate. This highly conformal barrier layer is produced by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Nevertheless water vapour transmission is still facilitated by the presence of micro and nano-scale defects in these barriers which results in decreased cell efficiency and reduced longevity. The main aim of this research paper is to use surface metrology techniques including: White Light Scanning Interferometry (WLSI), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to characterise the water vapor barrier defects which are seemed to be responsible for the water vapor permeation. A real surface texture parameter analysis allows the efficient separation of small insignificant features from significant defects. This parametric analysis is then correlated with the water vapour transmission rate as measured on typical sets of films using standard MOCON test. The paper finishes by drawing conclusions based on analysis of WVTR and defect size, density and distribution, where it is postulated that small numbers of large features have more influence on the deterioration of water vapor transmission rates than large numbers of small features. This result provides the basis for developing roll-to-roll in process metrology devices for quality control.


Physiological Effects of Nitrate, Light, and Intertidal Position on the Red Seaweeds Mazzaella flaccida and Mazzaella splendens by Stephan A. Bitterwolf Master of Science in Marine Science California State University Monterey Bay, 2017 California's intertidal seaweeds Mazzaella flaccida and Mazzaella splendens reside in different intertidal zones. The yellow-green M. flaccida is found in the highand midintertidal, while the brown-purple M. splendens is found in the midand low-intertidal. These differences in intertidal position and blade color, in addition to minute differences in morphology, are typically used to differentiate these species in the field. However, a reciprocal transplant study by Foster (1982) found that, not only can M. flaccida and M. splendens reside in each other's zone, but the color of M. splendens can change to the yellow-green of M. flaccida. Thus, Foster (1982) suggested that these two species may be conspecifics. Presently, genetic evidence supports the separation of both species, however, little progress has been made towards determining the cause, mechanism, and impact of this chromatic plasticity on thallus physiology. The present study serves to further our understanding of this chromatic plasticity in Mazzaella through a series of field and laboratory experiments. In the field experiment, 360 individuals (180 of each species, 90 controls and 90 experimental) were reciprocally transplanted within the intertidal zones of 3 central California sites. Thereafter, transplants were monitored monthly from June – October for blade size and presence. In October, all transplants were removed for pigment analysis. In the laboratory experiments pigment concentrations of both species were quantified from seaweeds cultured in reduced or replete irradiances and nitrate concentrations. Differences in blade size, pigment composition, and survival between site, intertidal zone, species, and culture treatment were investigated with 2-way ANOVAs and non-parametric tests. In these experiments: 1) greening was documented only for seaweeds in the culture experiments, 2) survival was greatest in the low intertidal zone, 3) high intertidal seaweeds contained greater photoprotective pigment content, 4) M. flaccida exhibited increased capacity to regulate photoprotective pigments, and 5) M. splendens exhibited increased capacity of phycobilin pigments. The results of this study illustrate how these intertidal seaweeds can survive adverse conditions such as nutrient limitation or increased light stress/desiccation by cannibalizing phycobiliproteins and increasing photoprotective pigments. The differing extent of each species to regulate photoprotective and phycobilin pigments supports their current classification as separate species.


Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterised by focal lesions of inflammation and demyelination, with subsequent axonal damage. Although the cause is not yet known, it is thought to be autoimmune in origin. Antibodies are implicated in the disease process, as these are detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) seen as oligoclonal bands (OCBs) following isoelectric focussing. However, the target antigen of these antibodies has not yet been fully characterised. Post-translational modification of myelin basic protein (MBP) and other CNS-specific proteins, including citrullination of arginine residues, results in conformational changes in the protein. This leads to increased degradation by proteases and exposure of new epitopes, which may then cause the production of autoantibodies targeting the myelin sheath. The process of citrullination is carried out by a family of enzymes known as peptidylarginine deiminases (PADs) with PAD2 and PAD4 expressed in the brain. Excess citrullination occurs in MS, with MBP isolated from MS white matter being more highly citrullinated than in healthy control white matter. This thesis aimed to investigate the in vitro expression of PAD2 and PAD4 by cells of the CNS to gain a better understanding of how these enzymes might be regulated and their possible role in the pathogenesis of MS. Cells were treated with pro-inflammatory cytokines in vitro, to mimic in vivo inflammatory conditions, and following this, PAD2 and PAD4 mRNA expression was determined using real-time PCR. PAD2 mRNA was significantly decreased in the presence of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma in three preparations of primary human astrocytes, a human foetal microglial cell line (CHME3) and a brain endothelial cell line (hCMEC/D3). Furthermore, treatment of CHME3 cells with antiinflammatory cytokines IL-4, IL-10 and TGF-? also resulted in the down-regulation of PAD2 mRNA. PAD4 was undetectable. Thus pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines down-regulate expression of PAD2 mRNA in vitro, which indicates that increased citrullination of CNS proteins in MS is not due to the inflammatory milieu in the CNS, suggesting additional mechanisms must be involved in the up-regulation of PAD2 and PAD4 enzymes reported in MS tissue.Subsequently, in vivo studies were carried out investigating the distribution and expression of PAD2 and PAD4 enzymes, and citrullinated proteins, in post-mortem control, MS normal appearing white matter (NAWM) and MS lesional brain tissue by immunohistochemistry. Higher levels of citrullinated proteins were observed in MS lesions compared to control and NAWM brain tissue, and were associated with areas of myelin thinning with on-going demyelination, and was co-localised to GFAP-positive astrocytes. PAD2 expression was difficult to detect. Western blotting of proteins extracted from these MS brains showed citrullination of multiple proteins, two of which were identified as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and MBP, the latter also confirmed by mass spectrometry. This agrees with previous studies implicating citrullination in the pathogenesis of MS. Lastly, an enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) method was developed to detect anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPAs) against citrullinated MBP peptides in the CSF and serum of patients newly diagnosed with MS, other neurological diseases (ONDs) and controls, to determine whether higher levels of antibodies were observed in individuals with MS. No significant increases in the levels of ACPAs were found in the CSF and serum of individuals with MS compared to ONDs and controls. Although not significant, increased reactivity of MS patient CSF immunoglobulins towards citrullinated MBP peptides was observed. Furthermore, an association was found between reactivity towards citrullinated MBP peptides and patients testing positive for OCBs. Evidence presented in this thesis demonstrates an important role of citrullination in the pathogenesis of MS. The results of this thesis indicate that further investigations into the role of citrullination in MS, particularly with regards to assessment of further citrullinated peptides as antigenic targets in ELISA assays, are warranted.


The development of an exponential transformation of measure not restricted to independent identically distributed data is presented for a class of semi-Markov processes known as Markov-additive (MA) process. The MA measure transformation is applied to obtain a new form of the Wald identity. To demonstrate the utility of this extension to MA processes, the application of sequential tests with Markov data to error probability performance analysis is investigated. In particular, it is demonstrated how previous work dealing with robust error probability evaluation in the presence of uncertain serial dependency can be applied to sequential tests. >


Allied health practitioners who are also educators understand their dual responsibility to educate students and to serve as gatekeepers to their profession. They are challenged with selecting and preparing students to practice in a skilled, competent manner. During the formal educational process, the academic and clinical aspects of allied health education are equally important. However, the assessment of the students' clinical skills is usually left to clinical instructors who are not members of the core faculty, and whose clinical skills and expectations may vary widely. While not minimizing the role of clinical faculty in the education of health care professionals, an argument can be made for the increased involvement of core faculty in this process. To accomplish that objective, the Howard University physical therapy faculty developed and implemented a course module with core-faculty assessment of students' clinical performance as its foundation. That course module was an effective educational tool, which may have wider implications and applications in the education of allied health students. Purpose The purpose of this intervention was to develop a model and module of clinical education to facilitate the development of competent and confident physical therapy practitioners. Cognitive flexibility theory was the conceptual framework used in the development of this course module. Background


1. Mathematical models are frequently used to make predictions of the response of a population to management interventions or environmental perturbations, but it is rarely possible to make controlled or replicated tests of the accuracy of these predictions. 2. We report results from replicated laboratory experiments on populations of a soil mite, Sancassania berlesei, living in 'constant' or 'variable' environments. We experimentally perturbed vital rates, via selective harvesting, and examined the population-level responses. The response depends on the stage manipulated and whether there is environmental variability. Increased mortality usually decreased population size and increased population variability. However, egg mortality in a variable environment increased total population size. 3. We used time-series analysis to construct a stage-based population model of this system, incorporating the responses to both density and variation in food supply. 4. The time-series model qualitatively captures the population dynamics, but does not predict well the way the populations will respond to the change in mortality. Elasticity analysis, conducted on the model's output, therefore did not lead to accurate predictions. 5. The presence of indirect positive population effects of a negative perturbation, but only in a variable environment, suggests that predicting the population response will require the incorporation of density dependence and environmental stochasticity. That the considerable biological complexity of our time-series model did not allow accurate predictions suggests that accurate prediction requires modelling processes within a stage class rather than trying to make do with simple functions of total density.


This study focuses on the early administrative history of the National Park Service (NPS) science education and interpretation programs. In particular, it examines 1) how publicists, academics, and park rangers initiated science and natural history programming in the early years of the National Park Service; 2) how these three approaches eventually gave way to the more pragmatic NPS emphasis on hiring ranger naturalists with training in the sciences to implement park educational programs; and, briefly, 3) how the establishment of the NPS education division in 1925, as equal to the engineering and landscape divisions, effectively institutionalized the ranger naturalist approach to science education of park visitors. The study relies primarily on documents from the National Park Service, including reports, proceedings, correspondence, training manuals, and materials produced for the visiting public to document the evolution of science education within the service as evidenced in Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks. While every effort has been made to understand the economic, social, and political context of this particular chapter of NPS history, the study does not attempt to look beyond the administrative history of the National Park Service itself. Rather, it is meant to serve as a baseline for additional research into how these early science education programs can be viewed in the context of other social and cultural movements, as well as the history of science and science education in early twentieth century America. 1 CHAPTER


Aspirations vary for different sections of the population both in terms of parents' educational and occupational goals for their children and the ambitions of the young people themselves. In this report, we review the current research literature across a range of disciplines to set out these differences and consider how educational and career aspirations are formed and developed in response to different environments and circumstances. We also examine the extent to which aspirations are related to eventual outcomes and discuss the implications for current policies and practices. Research indicates that aspirations begin to be shaped early in a child's life, but are modified by experience and the environment. Aspirations tend to decline as children mature, in response to their growing understanding of the world and what is possible, and to constraints imposed by previous choices and achievements. This decline is particularly marked for those facing multiple barriers. Girls, young people from minority ethnic groups and those from higher socio-economic backgrounds tend to hold higher aspirations than their counterparts. Parents from these groups also tend to have higher aspirations for their children. Conversely, socially disadvantaged groups such as teenage parents tend to have low aspirations for themselves and for their children. In general, those who have, or whose parents have, high aspirations have better outcomes, even when taking into account individual and family factors, but this is not a universal effect. For some groups, high aspirations do not lead to higher achievement. In particular, there is a gap between educational aspirations and achievement for young people from some minority ethnic groups and a gap between girls' occupational aspirations and career attainment. Practical and attitudinal barriers to the formation of high aspirations are evident. Financial constraints may limit some groups' access to opportunities and enabling resources such as computers and private tuition. Equally, some individuals are limited by earlier achievement and choices such as leaving school or becoming a parent at a young age. But attitudes are also important. Young people who believe they have the ability to achieve and who attribute their success to hard work, rather than luck or fate, tend to have higher aspirations than their peers. The early years of a child's life are a key time in the formation and development of aspirations. During this time, parents may need support to overcome both attitudinal and practical barriers to high aspirations. Schools can play a part in maintaining and realising ambitions, and the support they provide becomes more important when family resources are limited. Later, young people need easy access to advice and guidance and the involvement of professionals or volunteers – for example in a mentoring role – when necessary. Involvement in positive activities may also provide important socialising experiences that encourage high aspirations.


Borch, A. (2015). Problem gambling—a Lacanian Real.  The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4 (1), 71-76. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.197 The concept of addiction has been criticized for being mainly based on self-reporting in therapeutic and research settings, and that it is functional for people in these settings to report that they are addicted—driven by forces beyond their capacity to control. In this paper, I take this criticism seriously into account and argue that problem gambling belongs to the Lacanian Real, in short, referring to those parts of our existence that might be sensed and even acknowledged, but that never can be wholly grasped. Based on qualitative research of households with reported gambling problems, I argue that neither problem gamblers nor their spouses seem to know why the person gambles and why he or she keeps on gambling even though s/he knows it is damaging. The unknown and incomprehensible aspects of problem gambling (the Real) tend, as part of the gambler's process of 'recovering,' to be repressed and replaced with the concept of addiction. This repression mechanism is observed in other contexts as well, not least in scientific milieux studying gambling, and reflects interests and power in society. Exploring the addiction concept from a critical point of view is necessary to sort truth from myth and make scientific enhancements.


Body composition assessment has become an integral part of athletes' training schedules. Questions remain concerning the accuracy of various methods to track body composition changes over a competitive year cycle. The purpose of this study was to compare various methods of tracking body composition across a college women's basketball season. Fourteen Division II women (age = 20.1 ± 1.2 y) were measured prior to the season (T1), after pre-season conditioning (T2), at mid-season (T3), and at the end of the season (T4) using skinfolds (SKF), two bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) devices, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). BIA devices were hand-to-hand (H-BIA) and foot-to-foot (F-BIA) single-frequency models. SKF were used to estimate %fat using four prediction equations. A method × trial factorial ANOVA on %fat with repeated measures over the second factor indicated that all methods except the Durnin-Womersley SKF equation were significantly lower than DXA. Across trials, DXA %fat at T1 (25.3 ± 4.7%) was significantly higher than at T2 (24.3 ± 4.6%), T3 (24.6 ± 4.6%), and T4 (24.4 ± 5.1%). Agreement between DXA and the other methods were moderate (r = 0.48 - 0.86). Rank-order correlations of DXA with the other methods to compare team order indicated H-BIA (rho = 0.67 - 0.78) and F-BIA (rho = 0.62 - 0.77) provided comparable agreement, with SKF methods having lower agreement for team order (rho = 0.46 - 0.73). Compared to the DXA standard, a foot-to-foot BIA device may provide adequate but significantly lower relative tracking of %fat across a women's basketball season.


In the policy world, elected officials often consider anything more than one year long term. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, likes to quip I don't buy green bananas when asked to comment on policies for 2010 or beyond. But consider the other end of the spectrum. Orthodox history traces civilization itself back only 5,000 or 6,000 years (e.g., Sumer, Persia, China, Egypt); even 3,000 years ago, few people led what we'd call civilized lives, despite the beginnings of kingships under King David or the Zhou dynasty in China or the advances of the Mayan civilization. From this perspective, most of us alive today will live through 1 percent or more of civilization. And while each year's changes may seem small or marginal, they compound profoundly over a lifetime.


The central features of the English criminal law's approach to the liability of principal offender are fairly clear, coherent, and settled. By contrast, the English law of criminal accessorial liability is notoriously lacking in these qualities. In this paper, I
attempt to correct this imbalance by developing a philosophically enriched exegesis (and where appropriate, critique) of the English law on criminal accessorial liability, by reference to the structures of responsibility underpinning English criminal law. I take
the relatively settled state of the English criminal law of principal liability to suggest that it is a good guide to these underlying structures. Therefore, using these rules (as adjusted for the differences in context between liability as a principal and liability as an
accessory) as a template, I evaluate the English law of criminal accessorial liability.


From an intimate and moving letter to his grieving wife on the death of their daughter, to elegant writings on morality, happiness and the avoidance of anger, Plutarch's powerful words of consolation and inspiration still offer timeless wisdom and guidance today. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.


Contemporary development debates in Latin America are marked by the pursuit of economic growth, technological improvement and poverty reduction, and are overshadowed by growing concerns about the preservation of the environment and human rights. This collection's multidisciplinary perspective links local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry into the interaction of state and non-state actors involved in promoting or opposing natural resource development. Taking this approach allows the book to contemplate the complex panorama of competing visions, concepts and interests grounded in the mutual influences and interdependencies which shape the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in the region.


This report presents an evaluation of a number of projects that have been developed under the
auspices of the 'Support Our Sisters' (SOS) programme, initially funded in 2012 by the Henry Smith
Charity and hosted by New Steps for African Communities (NESTAC), a third sector organisation based
in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. While the initial SOS project was funded by the Henry Smith Charity,
subsequent funding was secured from Comic Relief, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)
and Manchester City Council to continue and expand the initial work. This work continues to date. The
evaluation has been carried out by two researchers at the University of Salford; Professor Sue
McAndrew and Dr Eunice Ayodeji.

The evaluation takes account of six projects; (1) The SOS Clinic (adult service); (2) The Guardian Project
(a service aimed at children and young girls); (3) Peer Mentoring Project; (4) Youth Peer Mentoring
Project; (5) FGM Education; (6) FGM Community Engagement Initiatives; a Health Advocacy Project.
The evaluation provides statistical information and qualitative data regarding the experiences of a
number of people involved in the projects: women who have received counselling for FGM and its
implications; female peer support workers (peer mentors), male peer support workers (peer mentors)
and those staff who have been managing the various projects.

This evaluative report is divided into eight sections; section 1 offers the reader an overview of FGM;
section 2 gives a brief outline of how the evaluation was conducted; section 3 reports on the statistical
evidence emerging from the six projects; section 4 presents vignettes of four of the women who,
through the project, have received counselling; section 5 focuses on the experiences of two male peer
mentors; section 6 reports the experiences of a groups of female peer mentors, and section 7 offers
the lived experience of staff managing the projects. The final section, 8, offers a summary of the
strengths of the projects, makes recommendations based on the evidence presented and considers
what the future holds in terms of building on what has already been achieved.


This paper presents the recent enhancements to Tarrant Regional Water District's (TRWD's) geographic information system (GIS)-based structural evaluation tool, how this tool is used to improve asset management capabilities, and lessons learned from development of TRWD's GIS for use in pipeline asset management. TRWD now utilizes a GIS and a GIS-based tool capable of performing structural evaluation of non-distressed pipes, failure margin analysis and repair prioritization of each distressed pipe, and pipeline diagnostics as a part of their asset management program. TRWD recently updated their GIS and enhanced their existing tool to be able to identify pipes that have high rates of distress progression, add flexibility for projection of distress into the future, and plot analysis results for easy visualization. TRWD periodically performs electromagnetic inspection of their pipelines, and the GIS-based tool provides the ability to update the risk of failure of distressed pipes based on the latest electromagnetic inspection results and identify the pipes at highest risk of failure for remediation. A GIS and customized GIS-based structural evaluation tools provide TRWD with the ability to effectively aggregate pipeline data and perform the analyses needed to evaluate the structural safety of each section of the pipeline system and failure margin and repair priority of individual distressed pipes.


Polymer nanocomposites offer the opportunity to bridge properties of nanomaterials to the macroscale. In this work, layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly is used to demonstrate nanocomposites of 2D titanium carbide nanosheets (MXene) and clay nanoplatelets (montmorillonite) to fabricate freestanding thin films with unique multifunctional properties. These thin films can be tuned by adjusting the thickness to exhibit a tensile strength of 138 MPa-225 MPa, EMI specific shielding effectiveness normalized to thickness and density up to 24 550 dB cm2 g-1, and sheet resistance from 855 Ω sq-1-3.27 kΩ sq-1 (corresponding to a range of conductivity from 53 S m-1 to 125 S m-1). This composite is the strongest MXene-based LbL film prepared to date, in part due to the nacre-like brick-and-mortar structure. Ultra-strong, multifunctional films of this nature are desirable for many applications ranging from membranes, to structural and multifunctional composites, energy harvesting and storage, and materials for aerospace.