For a time, Tanzania enjoyed a reputation for mostly free elections and public debate. But after President John Magufuli was elected in 2015, he introduced measures to stifle the media and tilt the electoral playing field in favor of the longtime ruling party. The turn toward authoritarianism is not due to any one personality or stereotypical "mad dictator," however (notwithstanding Magufuli's pandemic denialism, which may have cost him his life). It is part of the legacy of the early postcolonial period and the revered founding president, Julius Nyerere, who set the foundations of one-party rule and wielded the rhetoric of economic nationalism.


Current machine translation (MT) systems are still not perfect. In practice, the output from these systems needs to be edited to correct errors. A way of increasing the productivity of the whole translation process (MT plus human work) is to incorporate the human correction activities within the translation process itself, thereby shifting the MT paradigm to that of computer-assisted translation. This model entails an iterative process in which the human translator activity is included in the loop: In each iteration, a prefix of the translation is validated (accepted or amended) by the human and the system computes its best (or n-best) translation suffix hypothesis to complete this prefix. A successful framework for MT is the so-called statistical (or pattern recognition) framework. Interestingly, within this framework, the adaptation of MT systems to the interactive scenario affects mainly the search process, allowing a great reuse of successful techniques and models. In this article, alignment templates, phrase-based models, and stochastic finite-state transducers are used to develop computer-assisted translation systems. These systems were assessed in a European project (TransType2) in two real tasks: The translation of printer manuals; manuals and the translation of the Bulletin of the European Union. In each task, the following three pairs of languages were involved (in both translation directions): English-Spanish, English-German, and English-French.


ZnO tetrapod nanostructures have been prepared by the evaporation of Zn in air (no flow), dry and humid argon flow, and dry and humid nitrogen flow. Their properties have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL) and photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopies (at different temperatures), and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy at –160 °C and room temperature. It is found that the fabrication conditions significantly influence the EPR and PL spectra obtained. While a g = 1.96 EPR signal is present in some of the samples, green PL emission can be observed from all the samples. Therefore, the green emission in our samples does not originate from the commonly assumed transition between a singly charged oxygen vacancy and a photoexcited hole [K. Vanheusden, C. H. Seager, W. L. Warren, D. R. Tallant, J. A. Voigt, Appl. Phys. Lett. 1996, 68, 403]. However, the green emission can be suppressed by coating the nanostructures with a surfactant for all fabrication conditions, which indicates that this emission originates from surface defects.


Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is characterized by joint inflammations that is dependent on CD4 T-cells producing Th1 and Th17 cytokines. Activation and differentiation of CD4 T-cells to become Th1 or Th17 cells is regulated by dendritic cells. CD1c (BDCA-1) myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs) have a strong capacity to activate CD4 T-cells. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the inflammatory potential of thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) to activate natural occurring CD1c mDCs and subsequently the regulation of CD4 T-cell responses in RA as well as the capacity of T-cell-targeting therapy (abatacept) to influence TSLP-driven immunopathology in RA. Compared with CD1c mDCs from peripheral blood (PB), increased numbers of intra-articular CD1c mDCs expressed an activated phenotype and secreted a unique set of T-cell-attracting chemokines and spontaneously induced Th1, Th17, and Th2 cell activity. TSLP levels were significantly increased in synovial fluid (SF) of RA patients versus osteoarthritis patients. TSLP selectively stimulated production ofT-cell-attracting chemokinesas well as TNFα by CD1c mDCs. TSLP-primed mDCs from PB and SF potently stimulated proliferation of autologous CD4 T-cells compared with unstimulated mDCs. Enhanced proliferation was associated with increased Th1, Th17, and Th2 cell activity. TNFα produced by TSLP-stimulated mDCs inhibited Th2 responses by favouring Th1-attracting chemokine production and preventing T-cells to secrete Th2 cytokines. Considering the immunoregulatory capacity of Th2 cells in RA this suggests that TNFα might contribute to TSLP-induced immunopathology in RA. Activation of PB-derived naive and memory T-cells by (TSLP-primed) mDCs was completely blocked by the anti-rheumatic drug abatacept. IL-7 strongly increased T-cell activation and overruled the inhibitory capacity of abatacept. Similarly, CD4 T-cell proliferation induced by TSLP-primed mDCs from SF of RA patients, mainly consisting of memory T-cells, was strongly blocked by abatacept and vigorously overruled by IL-7. This indicates that the presence of T-cell-activating cytokines, like IL-7, in RA joints reduce the inhibitory capacity of abatacept on mDC-driven T-cell activation that might explain lack of response to abatacept therapy. In contrast to PB-derived T-cells, an evident hypo-responsiveness of SF-derived CD4 T-cells upon (TSLP-primed) mDC activation was observed and we investigated the involvement of inhibitory PD-1/PD-L1 interactions. Synovial T-cell hypo-responsiveness upon (TSLP-primed) mDC stimulation in RA joints was partially dependent on PD-1/PD-L1 interactions as PD-1 and PD-L1 were highly expressed on synovial T-cells and mDCs, respectively, and PD-1 blockade during memory T-cell and (TSLP-primed) mDC cocultures from RA patients significantly enhanced but not fully recovered T-cell proliferation. The potential of IL-7 to overrule this hypo-responsiveness suggests that such proinflammatory cytokines in RA joints strongly contribute to memory T-cell activation. Finally, we described that levels of the naturally occurring soluble IL-7Rα (sIL-7Rα) were strongly increased in SF of RA patients compared with osteoarthritis patients and correlated with markers of inflammation. Increased sIL-7Rα might be associated with an increased IL-7-driven immune activation. This thesis demonstrates an important role for in vivo activated CD1c mDCs to drive T-cell activation in RA and that prevention of TSLP- and IL-7-driven mDC/T-cell activation seem to have therapeutic potential.


This book explains in the purpose and concepts of System Administration in the Oracle e-Business Suite. It is explained via step-by-step examples, with lots of screenshots. Most parts of System Administration is not difficult, as long as you have good examples. And this book is packed with clear examples that you can easily copy for your purpose. The content is valid both for Oracle eBS R11i and R12.


ABSTRACT The recent influx of foreign fighters into Syria, particularly those aligning with the Islamic State, has brought renewed attention to the security threat posed by people who cross borders to participate in armed conflict. Although foreign fighters have rarely, if ever, constituted the majority of combatants in a war or insurgency, understanding their role is critical for conflict analysis and prevention. This review focuses on behavioral aspects of the foreign fighter phenomenon. Although other books and articles have focused wholly, or in part, on historical dimensions, the behavioral and social science literature on foreign fighters is much more limited. This review first explores the definitions of "foreign fighter" terminology, then analyzes what is known about their motivations and their pathways toward engaging in armed conflict on foreign soil. It examines recruitment strategies and the role of "radicalization" in feeding the transnational insurgent supply, and finally describes more specifically, the nature of foreign fighter involvement in more recent armed conflicts (e.g., Syria, Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan), and speculates about the prospects for their future involvement.


This legal-literary essay engages the current social and jurisprudential moment, encapsulated by the hashtag #metoo. It focuses on the allegations, made in the first week of December 2017, that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski verbally sexually harassed former law clerks Emily Murphy and Heidi Bond. I wrote the lioness's share of the piece during December 10–11—that is, in the days before news outlets reported that other women complained of Kozinski touching them on the thigh or breast while propositioning them for sex or discussing recent sexual encounters—and concluded that Kozinski was unlikely to face impeachment or meaningful judicial censure, but that he should nevertheless resign because his maintenance of his judicial position was untenable.

What occurred next proved a shocking installation in the annals of American judicial history: After hiring feminist icon Susan Estrich as counsel and asserting that the claims against him were "not true," Judge Kozinski did retire on December 18, 2017, explaining that he could not "be an effective judge and simultaneously fight this battle. . . . Nor would such a battle be good for [his] beloved federal judiciary."

Beyond qualifying me, for the first time in my life, more as a baffled Hildegard von Bingen than as a grouchy Cassandra, the most notable aspect of my essay is its form. It is auto-fiction, composed in the style of a letter of recommendation that an unnamed U.S. law professor attempts to write for a student who seeks a clerkship with Judge Kozinski during those frenzied and confusing first weeks of December. The "letter" also contains editorial comment flags, written by an unidentified colleague.

The "foul papers" style of this letter permits an expression of the intense emotion catalyzed by the allegations against Judge Kozinski, and also allows us to consider the double bind that law professors and law students find themselves in with regard to clerkship applications tendered within a legal culture shaped by male dominance and white supremacy. Further, the document's footnotes denote the copious subtext that can lie beneath the surface of oppressed people's sometimes strangled speech. The employment of the comment flags allows for a certain amount of "cross talk" to this outpouring, critiques that mainly express the position of the hegemonic power structure (except for some gadfly citations to Janet Halley, Jacob Gersen, and Jeannie Suk). In these comment flags, we can see how even the most basic aspects of legal discourse (Bluebook conventions; formatting;professionalism) encourage denial of the emotional disorganization and rage that flow from sexual harassment and other kinds of oppression. We also can discern how legal discourse's obsession with "relevance" stymies the engagement of racial, class, and queer intersectionalities. Additionally, it is worth noting that some of these comment flags ask hard and valuable questions.

Together, this contest of voices and perspectives interrogates why calls for Kozinski's resignation were "off the wall" on December 8—that is, that they were so unthinkable that he could gleefully brush them off during that first week of the month—but legitimate on December 18. N.B.: The piece is written as if it is still December 11, just after the allegations of verbal harassment were reported, but before the complaints about physical touching came out in national news. That is, it is "written" in the moments before Judge Kozinski's reputation suffered irreparable blows, and his remained a sought-after clerkship despite longstanding rumors and complaints of his misogyny.

In my efforts to harness the legal-literary style to uncover the effects and constructions of oppression, I take inspiration from Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1993), Richard Delgado's Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative, 87 Michigan Law Review 2411 (1989), and Patricia Williams' the Alchemy of Race and Rights (1992). I also build upon Kathryn Abrams and Hila Keren's Who's Afraid of Law and the Emotions? 94 MINN. L. REV. 1997 (1998).


Criminologists and criminal justice researchers have neglected the behavior of regulatory agencies. Furthering the goal of focusing on the behavior of regulatory agencies, this article analyzes the reporting practices of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on its activities as found in two publications produced by that agency: FDA Enforcement Report, its official data report, and FDA Consumer, a public information magazine. Results suggest that the FDA uses these mediums to construct different images of its activities. The authors examine reasons why the FDA engages in image management and the differences across different FDA publications. The authors also introduce the idea of public health justice to identify the social control concerns of agencies ostensibly charged with protecting the public's health.


The present work describes a theoretical investigation of the near-field thermal radiation between doped Si plates coated with a mono-layer of graphene. It is found that the radiative heat flux between doped Si plates can be either enhanced or suppressed by introducing graphene layer, depending on the Si doping concentration and chemical potential of graphene. Graphene can enhance the heat flux if it matches resonance frequencies of surface plasmon at vacuum-source and vacuum-receiver interfaces. In particular, significant enhancement is achieved when graphene is coated on both surfaces that originally does not support the surface plasmon resonance. The results obtained in this study provide an important guideline into enhancing the near-field thermal radiation between doped Si plates by introducing graphene.


Objective. To estimate the development and potential disproportional distribution of longterm productivity costs (PC) and their determinants leading to work absenteeism and permanent work disability in working-aged patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. A cohort of subjects with early RA was created by identifying the new cases of RA from the national drug reimbursement register that had been granted a special reimbursement for their antirheumatic medications for RA from 2000–2007. The dataset was enriched by cross-linking with other national registries detailing work absenteeism days and permanent disability pensions. In the base case, the human capital approach was applied to estimate PC based on subjects' annual number of absenteeism days and incomes. Hurdle regression analysis was applied to study the determinants of PC. Results. Among the 7831 subjects with early RA, the mean (bootstrapped 95% CI) annual PC per person-observation year was €4800 (4547–5070). The annual PC declined after the first year of RA diagnosis, but increased significantly in subsequent years. In addition, the PC was heavily disproportionally concentrated in a small fraction of patients with RA, because only around 20% of patients accounted for the majority of total annual PC. The initiation of active drug treatment during the first 3 months after RA diagnosis significantly reduced the cumulative PC when compared with no drug treatment. Conclusion. The longterm PC increased significantly in parallel with years elapsing after RA diagnosis. Further, the majority of these PC are incurred by a small proportion of patients.


In this paper, the performance of nanofiltration membrane process in removing Pb(II) from aqueous solution was modeled by the pore flow-concentration polarization model. The model was fabricated based on the simultaneous resolving of Extended Nernst–Planck equation(ENP), film theory, and osmotic pressure model. The effects of various operational parameters such as the applied pressure, feed concentration, and cross-velocity on lead Pb(II) ion rejection and solvent flux were investigated. The applied pressure, feed concentration, and cross-velocity varied between 10-50 bar, 5-15 ppm, and 0.2-1.2 m/s, respectively. It was found that lead rejection increased initially and reached the maximum value; then, it decreased with a further increase in pressure, while solvent flux increased linearly within the whole pressure range. This phenomenon is attributed mainly to the developed concentration polarization layer. This effect was significantly decreased with increasing cross-velocity to 1.2 m/s. Ultimately, the proposed model successfully predicted the filtration process in terms of real and observed rejections as well as solvent flux.


The Report offers an overview of the lighting fixtures industry in Turkey, providing trends in lighting fixtures production and consumption, imports and exports, distribution and prices for residential, commercial, industrial and outdoor lighting. A breakdown of lighting fixtures exports and imports is provided by country and by geographical area of destination/origin. Data on consumer/residential lighting are broken down by style (classic, modern, design) and positioning of the lamp (floor, table, wall/ceiling, chandeliers/suspensions), while data on architectural/commercial lighting are broken down by product (downlights, fluorescence/track systems, low voltage spotlights and professional projectors, wall ceiling panels, high bays, decorative lighting for commercial use) and application (hospitality, office, retail/luxury shops, museums, schools and public infrastructures). Industrial lighting consists of lighting for industrial sites, emergency, hospital, explosion/weather proof and marine lighting. Outdoor lighting includes residential outdoor lighting, lighting for urban landscape, major roads, tunnels, sport plants and other large areas, Christmas/event lighting. Lighting fixtures sales are broken down by light sources: incandescence, fluorescence, gas discharge, LED. The analysis of lighting fixtures distribution in Turkey covers the following distribution channels: project dealers, lighting specialist stores, DIY and furniture chains, wholesalers and electrical stores, e-commerce. Reference retail prices of lighting fixtures in Turkey are given in the two different segments (residential, technical) by category, application, light source, style and manufacturer/distributor. An overview of the leading developers, architects, lighting designers and project dealers in Turkey is provided, as well as some information on the main magazines, associations and trade fairs. Sales data and market shares are given for the major lighting companies present on the Turkish market for each segment (residential, commercial, industrial, outdoor lighting), as well as data on lighting fixtures exports for a sample of around 50 leading Turkish exporters. Short company profiles for the main players are also included. Macroeconomic indicators with information on Turkish economy, population, real growth of GDP and data on construction activity are also provided. A list of around 120 addresses of lighting fixtures companies present on the Turkish market is also available.


OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of occurrence and long term evolution of subclinical carditis in patients with acute rheumatic fever. DESIGN Valvar incompetence was detected by clinical examination and Doppler echocardiographic imaging during the acute and quiescent phases of rheumatic fever. Patients were followed prospectively and submitted to repeat examinations at one and five years after the acute attack. Persistence of acute mitral and aortic lesions detected solely by echocardiography (subclinical disease) was compared with that of disease detected by clinical examination as well (thereby fulfilling the latest 1992 Jones criteria for rheumatic carditis). SETTING Three general hospitals with a university affiliation in Chile. PATIENTS 35 consecutive patients fulfilling the revised Jones criteria for rheumatic fever. Clinical and echocardiographic examination was repeated in 32 patients after one year and in 17 after five years. Ten patients had subclinical carditis on admission, six of whom were followed for five years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Auscultatory and echocardiographic evidence of mitral or aortic regurgitation during the acute attack or at follow up. RESULTS Mitral or aortic regurgitation was detected by Doppler echocardiographic imaging in 25/35 rheumatic fever patients as opposed to 5/35 by clinical examination (p = 0.03). Doppler echocardiography revealed acute valvar lesions in 10 of 20 rheumatic fever patients who had no auscultatory evidence of rheumatic carditis (subclinical carditis). Three of these subclinical lesions and three of the clinical or auscultatory lesions detected on admission were still present after five years of follow up, emphasising that subclinical lesions are not necessarily transient. CONCLUSIONS Doppler echocardiographic imaging improves the detection of rheumatic carditis. Subclinical valve lesions, detected only by Doppler imaging, can persist. Echocardiographic findings should be accepted as a major criterion for the diagnosis of rheumatic fever.


Deep convolutional neural networks (ConvNets) have rapidly grown in popularity due to their powerful capabilities in representing and modelling the high-level abstraction of complex data. However, ConvNets require an abundance of data to adequately train network parameters. To tackle this problem, we introduce the concept of stochastic receptive fields, where the receptive fields are stochastic realizations of a random field that obey a learned distribution. We study the efficacy of incorporating layers of stochastic receptive fields to a ConvNet to boost performance without the need for additional training data. Preliminary results showing an improvement in accuracy ( 2% drop in test error) was achieved by adding a layer of stochastic receptive fields to a ConvNet compared to adding a layer of fully-trained receptive fields, when training with a small training set consisting of 20% of the STL-10 dataset.


Globalization and the spread of advanced information and communication technologies have encouraged a transition to distributed, virtual work practices. By reducing the costs of communication, these technologies now make it possible for more people than ever before to collaborate and compete in real time on different kinds of work from anywhere in the world - using computers, email, networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software applications. Thus, according to Thomas Friedman in his book, The World is Flat, "The global competitive playing field has being leveled" (Friedman, 2005, p.8). Connected to the flattening of the world is the increase in the diffusion of offshoring of knowledge intensive work towards emerging countries, such as India, China, and Romania. Although offshoring is becoming a part of our everyday social lexicon, we find little empirical evidence in the academic literature on the implications of offshoring for organizations and knowledge workers, or on the disruptive forces that offshoring brings to local, day-to-day work practices. Certainly, the literature on geographically dispersed or globally distributed teams (GDTs) shows the many organizational challenges of distributed collaboration, exploring issues like compatibility with existing hierarchical structures, awareness of other team member's activities, increased coordination costs, trust between distant members, status differentials, and leadership (e.g., Mohrman, 1998, Paul and McDaniel, 2004, Metiu, 2006, Weisband, in press). Moreover, previous studies explain how distance limits some of the important benefits that come from collocation, such as spontaneous conversation, collaborative social environments, mutual learning and influence (e.g. Hinds and Kiesler, 2002; Cummings, 2004). Some of this research was conducted in situations involving offshoring, but much of it reflects distributed work that remained onshore and does not distinguish between different types of globally distributed work arrangements (Saunders and Ahuja, 2006). Many of the conclusions and insights from these studies, therefore, may apply to the case of offshoring, but more work is needed to better define the specific upsetting effects of offshoring on knowledge workers and organizations.


An ML = 3.5 earthquake near Santa Maria, California, was recorded by the Southern California Seismic Network and a TERRAscope station at Santa Barbara (SBC) on 31 January 1991. The waveform of this event is dominated by 2- to 5-sec waves, and is different from that of ordinary events with similar size. Inquiries into operations in several oil fields in the area revealed that hydro-fracturing at a pressure of about 80 bars was being done at a depth of 100 to 300 m in the Orcutt oil field in the Santa Maria basin from about 9 to 11 a.m. on 31 January and the earthquake occurred in the afternoon. Field evidence of 30-cm displacement to a depth of 300 m was reported. The field evidence as well as the first-motion data indicates that the event had a thrust mechanism with the P axis in the NNE - SSW direction, which is in agreement with the regional stress field. From the analysis of the SBC record and the field evidence, we conclude that the source must be shallower than 1 km and the ratio of the radiated energy to the seismic moment is about 6.2 × 10−7, one to two orders of magnitude smaller than that of ordinary earthquakes. The occurrence of this earthquake demonstrates that release of regional tectonic stress in shallow sediments can yield significant seismic radiation at periods of a few seconds, the period range of engineering importance for large structures, and has important implications for excitation of long-period ground motions from large earthquakes in sedimentary basins.


Everything within the learning setting holds the potential for learning and teaching. A significant, often overlooked source for accessing new information lies in the learner's knowledge and use of cultural values, habits and norms. In addition to listening and reading texts, learning takes place through daily interaction with building and communication structures. These structures are representations of cultural values that are read by all who inhabit learning settings. They are structures that teach. The messages of these structures remain with students long after they leave learning settings. Like language, knowledge of culture serves as an everyday and ever-ready resource for information about how to gather and share knowledge and ideas about how learning proceeds. This article describes the value of documenting some of the environmental messages of these structures using a semiotic interpretive research approach. Semiotics explores the signs and systems of signification that are used to engage learners. Messages are organized and expanded using four main categories: 1) Architectural Messages; 2) Text and Curriculum Messages; 3) Social/Behavioral Messages and 4) Policy Messages. The study suggests that a semiotic consideration of learning settings allows identification and critique of ineffective environmental messages and suggests the creation of messages that will lead to more effective knowledge, habits and routines.


Eutrophication is a serious problem in Lake Victoria as a result of enrichment by nutrients transported by the rivers draining into it. River Nzoia is one of the main rivers draining into the lake. The main aim of this study was to simulate the level of nitrates using MIKE 11 and to establish relationship between nitrogen and phosphorus. The model was calibrated using water quality data for 2009 and validated with March 2013 data and then it was used to simulate nitrate concentration for the wet month of April 2013. The model performance was good with R 2 values of between 0.87 and 0.98 and EF values of between 0.73 and 0.96. From the simulations, the effluent discharge from municipal and industrial wastewater ponds elevated the concentration of the nitrates in the river. Analysis of the concentrations of nitrates for wet and dry periods showed significant variations indicating significant contributions from the catchment through run-off. The relationship between total nitrogen and total phosphorus was analysed and found to have a strong positive correlation (r = 0.714, p


Employment has shifted from a relatively stable and secure relation in which shareholders bore the risks associated with the market and firms buffered the risks vis-a-vis workers to a dynamic relation characterized by employment insecurity and individual responsibility. Modern businesses face new management challenges stemming from decreased employee loyalty and difficulties in supervising and controlling the workforce. Firms have responded by implementing internal branding programs that parallel consumer marketing programs but target workers rather than consumers. The goal of such programs is to re-align employees' self-interest with that of the firm, persuading employees to internalize the firm's brand so that they "live the brand" and react instinctively "on-brand." Identity-based brand management, the most aggressive and potentially effective of the internal branding programs, aims to induce employees to view their employment as a personal relationship akin to a family tie, imbuing the economic transaction with emotional significance. In this psychological framework, workers' decisions to invest in the firm - by staying and rejecting other labor market alternatives, and by purchasing company stock in their individual retirement plans - signify emotional attachment and faith rather than reflecting a cognitive process of choice. Understanding how identity-based brand management programs work sheds light on why employees consistently ignore conventional advice against over-investment in company stock in their individual retirement accounts, with potentially disastrous effects should the firm fail. The recent wave of "stock drop" litigation triggered by the recession reveals an even more disturbing trend: As the recession deepened, employees invested more, not less, in their firms. Despite its willingness to regulate consumer advertising and dissemination of information to shareholders, the law has steadfastly refused to regulate internal branding or the investment choices that it influences. The traditional justification for the law's refusal to intervene to protect employees from losses stemming from over-investment in their firms has been that employees unilaterally choose to make these investments: They choose employment at a particular firm, they choose to remain at the firm, and they choose to invest in company stock. Drawing on research by management theorists, economists and sociologists concerning the potential for manipulation of employees' psychological framework through identity based brand management, I argue that the law's matrix of unilateral choice to invest at a particular moment in time is only half the story. Though employees are not mindless victims or dupes, their vulnerability to brand management programs that influence their frame of reference over time fundamentally alters the lens through which they view investment choices. Branded employees come to see their relationship with the firm in affective terms rather than as a market transaction, and their investments signify faith and loyalty rather than reflecting a reasoned choice between investment options. I contend that the absence of regulation is unsustainable, and sketch the contours of possible legal responses.


A faun carrying an umbrella; a hobbit who lives in a hole; a mysterious name - Lyra; an ill-treated schoolboy with a scar and a secret. Children's fantasy books often begin with resonant images. However, they also begin in an author's reading practices. How do children's authors incorporate myths and legends into their work? And how do myths and legends change as a result? In this richly illustrated collection of essays a team of academic experts trace the magical tales from Norse myth, Arthurian legend and medieval literature which have inspired the finest writers for children, including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Alan Garner. Drawing on collections of manuscripts and rare books in the Bodleian Library, additional chapters put the spotlight on spell books, grimoires and books that do magic, as well as exploring stunning examples of pop-up books, harlequinades and concertina panoramas from the Opie Collection of Children's Literature. Other writers under discussion include children's authors of the Victorian era, such as George MacDonald, Rudyard Kipling and E. Nesbit, and twentieth-century writers Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones and Philip Pullman. Through wide-ranging analysis these essays show how literature and tales from the Middle Ages and earlier still have been reinterpreted for each generation and continue to have a profound impact on writers of fantasy books for children today.


In the field of software engineering, software architecture plays an important role particularly in areas of critical and large-scale software system development and over the years it has evolved as an important sub-discipline within the field of software engineering. However, software architecture is still an emerging discipline mainly attributed by the lack of standardized way for architectural representation and also due to lack of analysis methods that can determine if the intended architecture translates into correct implementation during the software development [HNS00]. Architecture compliance checking [KP07] is a technique used to resolve latter part of the problem and Fraunhofer SAVE (Software Architecture Visualization and Evaluation) is a compliance-checking tool that uses fact extraction. This master's thesis provides fact extraction support to Fraunhofer SAVE for a system developed using Ruby on Rail framework by developing a fact extractor. The fact extractor was developed as an eclipse plug-in in Java that was integrated with SAVE platform, it consists of a parser that parses Ruby source code and then generates an abstract syntax tree. The architectural facts are extracted by analyzing these abstract syntax trees using a visitor pattern from which architecture of the system are generated. It is represented using the internal model of the SAVE platform. The fact extractor was validated using two reference systems of differing sizes developed using Ruby on Rails framework. A reference system with smaller size, which contains all the relevant Ruby language constructs, was used to evaluate correctness and completeness of the fact extractor. The evaluation result showed the correctness value of 1.0 or 100% and completeness value of 1.0 or 100%. Afterwards, a larger application with more complex architecture was used to validate the performance and robustness of the fact extractor. It has successfully extracted, analyzed and build the SAVE model of this large system by taking 0.05 seconds per component without crashing. Based these computations, it was concluded that the performance of the fact extractor was acceptable as it performed better than C# fact extractor.


Motivation: Magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) are a class of nanomaterials with outstanding features for biomedical applications. A novel diagnostic method for the visualization of the spatial distribution of MNP is magnetic particle imaging (MPI). Long-term stable phantoms with defined geometry and MNP content are mandatory for resolution determination, for cross-comparison of MPI scanners, or as fiducial markers to verify the spatial position of the body under analysis. The aim of our work was to produce stable and homogeneous magnetic composites consisting of photopolymers with embedded MNP.
Materials and Methods: A fast and cost-effective way to manufacture phantoms is generative printing, commonly called 3D-printing. This additive technique allows manufacturing of customized parts with complex shapes out of specific photopolymers solidifying layer by layer under ultraviolet radiation. We produced homogeneous magnetic composites consisting of photopolymers (R05 red, E-Shell) with embedded MNP (EMG 700 Ferrtec). For the process development a systematic quality evaluation was performed, which fully considers the magnetic properties, the homogenization procedure, the polymer cross-linking, the mixture ratio, and the subsequent analysis of the resulting parts (structurability, magnetism).
Results and Discussion: We found a linear scaling of the magnetic moment with nominal MNP amount as well as stable magnetic properties of 3D printed magnetic composites. This enabled the production of MPI phantoms with defined MPI signaling at different concentrations. Additionally, the documented long-term stability of the phantoms made them suitable for calibration purposes, quality assurance as well as round robin test phantoms in MPI. Furthermore, the processability significantly improved for magnetic composites compared to the photopolymer, alone. Finally, the magnetic composites were properly visualized by MPI which qualifies 3D printed magnetic composites for future MPI applications.
Conclusion: With the developed procedure, we advanced the characterization of MPI scanners by providing defined, long-term stable magnetic composite phantoms that could also resemble body-like parts.


Ancient lakes are often collectively viewed as evolutionary hot spots of diversification. East Africa's Lake Tanganyika has long been the subject of scientific interest owing to dramatic levels of endemism in species as diverse as cichlid fishes, paludomid gastropods, decapod and ostracod crustaceans and poriferans. It is the largest and deepest of the African rift lakes, and its endemic fauna has been presented with a stable inland environment for over 10 Myr, offering unique opportunities for within–lake diversification. Although astonishing diversification has been documented in the endemic cichlid fauna of the lake, similar patterns of rapid diversification have long been assumed for other groups. In contrast to this hypothesis of rapid speciation, we show here that there has been no acceleration in the rate of speciation in the thalassoid gastropods of the lake following lake colonization. While limited within–lake speciation has occurred, the dramatic conchological diversity of gastropods presently found within the lake has evolved from at least four major lineages that pre–date its formation by as much as 40 Myr. At the same time, a widespread group of African gastropods appears to have evolved from taxa presently found in the lake. While Lake Tanganyika has been a cradle of speciation for cichlid fishes, it has also been an important evolutionary reservoir of gastropod lineages that have been extirpated outside the basin.


Today's complex logistics and supply chain management demands the continuous monitoring and managing of ever increasing shipment chains. This motivates the need for goods-centric tracking and tracing of logistics items, which ensures the opportunity to increase visibility and control in different logistics operations of a company. Recent technological developments enable manufacturing companies to trace and track goods over their entire life cycle and manage supply chain operations across organisational boundaries. The available auto-ID technologies such as barcodes, QR (quick response) codes, RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, etc., are widely used for monitoring the material flow in the logistics chain. However, a gap exists in evaluating performance and feasibility before implementing such technologies in respect to logistics and supply chain tracking and tracing network. Based on this research gap, this paper presents a methodology to measure the performance evaluation of available tracking and tracing technologies. An experimental set up was established and conducted with the objective of measuring the performances of the tracking technologies and tools. This research study would be a supportive roadmap for manufacturing companies before implementing suitable tracking and tracing technologies and tools in future everyday business operations.


Additions of platinum to aluminium oxide forming alloys are known to imporve their high temperature corrosion resistance. This is known as the "precious metal effect". In this study the effect of platinum on the oxidation mechanism was investigated by comparing the oxidation mechanism of p-NiAl and Pt20Ni30A150 This composition agrees with the average composition of a platinum modified aluminide coating. The alloys were oxidized at temperatures from 1000 to 1200 OC. The growth of the oxide scale on the NiAl alloy proceeds both by aluminium and by oxygen diffusion through the scale resulting in growth within the scale. However, on Pt20Ni30A150 the growth of the scale is limited to the oxide/gas interface due to a predominant aluminium transport through the scale. Therefore the growth stresses are reduced. Another difference is the extensive void formation at the p-Nimoxide interface. This was not observed on the Pt20Ni30A150 samples. The phenomena mentioned above are the two likely reasons for the improved oxide scale adherence.


The theory of internationalization of state contracts poses some of the hardest questions that relate to both public and private international law. The theory suggests that, no matter what law the parties to such a contract choose as the proper law of the contract, international law superimposes their choice and applies automatically as the overriding governing law. Thus where the law of the host state applies as the sole applicable law either by virtue of the parties' express choice or by the conflict of laws rule of closest connection in the absence of such choice, the theory of internationalization triggers off not only the theoretical controversies of monism versus dualism of public international law but also the issues of party autonomy and the doctrine of the proper law of the contract in private international law. Besides theoretical interest, the matter has great practical importance in the real world of foreign investment dispute settlement. While critically examining these issues in the context of international commercial arbitration, the article also looks at other relevant issues such as the authority of private international arbitral tribunals to deal with public international law remedies for breach of state contracts.


In this article, we explore the interaction between female and male employment, parenting responsibilities and family policy in Russia and Sweden. The study is based first on indicators of public social services, assistance for families and labour force data; and second, on the ISSP modules on Family and Changing Gender Roles (years 1994, 2002). The results show that both Sweden and Russia facilitate the `dual-earner' family model, but that Sweden places a greater emphasis on dual-caring and flexible work arrangements for women. The support for traditional gender roles was much higher and more uniform in Russia than in Sweden. The proportion of `dual-earner' and female-led families was nevertheless higher in Russia than in Sweden, especially in 1994 when major restructuring in the social and economic sphere was occurring. The findings suggest that family policy is instrumental in facilitating female employment, but does not necessarily bring changes in gender-role attitudes.


Automated planning and scheduling are increasingly utilised in solving evsery day planning task. Planning in domains with continuous numeric changes present certain limitations and tremendous challenges to advanced planning algorithms. There are many pertinent examples to the engineering community; however, a case study is provided through the urban traffic controller domain. This paper introduce a novel hybrid approach to state-space planning systems involving a continuous process which can be utilised in several applications. We explore Model Predictive Control (MPC) and explain how it can be introduce into planning with domains containing mixed discrete and continuous state variables. This preserves the numerous benefits of AI Planning approach by the use of explicit reasoning and declarative modelling. It also leverages on the capability of MPC to manage numeric computation and control of continuous processes. The hybrid approach was tested on an urban traffic control network to ascertain it practicability on a continuous domain; the results show its potential to control and optimise heavy volumes of traffic.


The authors provide activities through which teachers can share experiences in the outdoors with young children and teach them about herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles. Outdoor activities include observation, classification, and mapping. The authors also include activities for the classroom, including connections between the science projects and art.


In this paper, an integrated fractionation with a switchable ionic liquid (SIL), pulp hydrolysis, and lactic acid fermentation is carried out. For this, SO2‐swithced SIL is used for fractionation of sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) bagasse and giant cane (Arundo donax, AD). SIL is able to extract ≈2/3 of lignin when relatively large wood chips (≈4 mm) are used without any mechanical agitation and just 1 h of treatment time for AD. Furthermore, SIL reuse is successfully demonstrated for four runs. Subsequently, the produced pulps are hydrolyzed within 15 min in a microwave reactor, producing a glucose rich hydrolysates. Finally, these hydrolysates are used as a carbohydrate source for Lactobacillus delbrueckii fermentation, which selectively transform all glucose present into optically pure d‐lactic acid. Hence, the whole chain for lactic acid production from biomass is successfully demonstrated.


Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) and Forward Filtering Backward Sampling (FFBS) are the two most often seen algorithms for Bayesian state space models analysis. Various results regarding the applicability has been either claimed or shown. It is said that SMC would excel under nonlinear, non-Gaussian situations, and less computationally expansive. On the other hand, it has been shown that with techniques such as Grid approximation (Hore et al. 2010), FFBS based methods would do no worse, though still can be computationally expansive, but provide more exact information. The purpose of this report to compare the two methods with simulated data sets, and further explore whether there exist some clear criteria that may be used to determine a priori which methods would suit the study better.


. We integrate molecular, bioacoustic and morphological data to provide a systematic revision of the frogs classified in the Gephyromantis asper clade (Anura: Mantellidae), endemic to Madagascar. Based on concordant differentiation in a mitochondrial and a nuclear gene (16S rRNA and Rag1) we distinguish six different species in this clade: G. ambohi tra, G. asper, G. tahotra, G. spinifer, G. ceratophrys bona species, and an undescribed species. Gephyromantis ceratophrys (Ahl, 1929) is resurrected from the synonymy of G. asper and refers to the southernmost populations previously assigned to that species (i.e., from Ranomafana National Park in the southern central east of Madagascar). We provide several new geographical records verified by molecular sequence identity: G. asper is confirmed from the localities Anjozorobe, Mandraka, and Tsinjoarivo; G. spinifer is confirmed from Pic Ivohibe, a record previously considered questionable and representing the northernmost locality known for this species; G. ambohitra is recorded from the Masoala Peninsula, ex-tending its known distribution range eastward; and G. tahotra (previously only known from its type locality Marojejy) is confirmed for the Tsaratanana and Sorata Massifs. An undescribed species of the group occurs at sites south and south-west of the Tsaratanana massif. It is differentiated in mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, but no bioacoustic and insufficient morphological data are thus far available for its formal taxonomic description. Because species in the G. asper clade, within Gephyromantis , are phylogenetically distant from other species of the subgenus Duboimantis , we propose a new subgenus Asperomantis for this clade of Malagasy rainforest frogs. Most individuals belonging to this subgenus are easily dis-tinguished from other species in the genus Gephyromantis and most other mantellids by the presence of a light spot in or near the centre of the tympanum.


The objects of my research were two. To describe ungrazed vegetion of thirty sites well dispersed along the 500 mile length of the Yellowstone River. And to measure the effects of gazing on this vegetation by describing/comparing vegetation of these ungrazed 'control' sites with the vegetation of nearby grazed sites. Vegetation of the Yellowstone consists of three lateral bands on open shore (gravel or sandbar), willow thicket, and cottonwood forest. Their appearance on successively older deposits suggests control both by decreasing water availability (greater depth to water on inland sites with 'over deposits') and increasing age (overtopping, first by willow and then by cottonwood, and accumulation of shrubs). The primary longitudinal (downstream) change between foothill and plains sites, probably driven by decreasing rainfall, was the change of forest dominant from P. angustifolia to P. deltoides. The apparent failure of P. deltoides reproduction could eventually eliminate the forest zone. Grazing affects all of the five communities identified. With grazing, overall cover decreased in every vegetation type, with the greatest losses in sandbars, willow thickets and P angustifolia forests. Cottonwood seedlings were grazed on bars and in willow thickets. Cover of hydric (Salix spp., Cornus, Ribes spp.) and mesic (Symphoricarpos) native shrubs was significantly reduced. Rosa spp. lost cover with trampling. Invasive shrubs Russian olive and tamarisk, downstream, are apparently unaffected by grazing, except indirectly as grazing reduces their competition. Forb cover was most affected in Populus forests, with natives declining and non-natives increasing with grazing. Non-native grasses, the dominant herbs in cottonwoods, become more dominant with grazing. Observation of the exotics present emphasized the equal or greater impact of their invasion. Cover of exotics rises laterally from shore (50% with equal grass/forb composition) through willow thicket (70%, mostly exotic grass) to cottonwood forest (76-78%). The diversity of exotic herbs increases (laterally and downstream.). In the shrub layer Russian olive and tamarisk, pests in the American Southwest, increased greatly in the Plains in the 1980-2000 period and have a potential to dominate the forest and willow zones respectively. The ecosystem impacts of exotic increase will likely modify aesthetics, wildlife, and ranching drastically.


For an autonomous vehicle, detecting and tracking other vehicles is a critical task. Determining the orientation of a detected vehicle is necessary for assessing whether the vehicle is a potential hazard. If a detected vehicle is moving, the orientation can be inferred from its trajectory, but if the vehicle is stationary, the orientation must be determined directly. In this paper, we focus on vision-based algorithms for determining vehicle orientation of vehicles in images. We train a set of Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) classifiers to recognize different orientations of vehicles detected in imagery. We find that these orientation-specific classifiers perform well, achieving a 88% classification accuracy on a test database of 284 images. We also investigate how combinations of orientation-specific classifiers can be employed to distinguish subsets of orientations, such as driver's side versus passenger's side views. Finally, we compare a vehicle detector formed from orientation-specific classifiers to an orientation-independent classifier and find that, counter-intuitively, the orientation-independent classifier outperforms the set of orientation-specific classifiers.


One major factor impeding more widespread adoption of deep neural networks (DNNs) is their lack of robustness, which is essential for safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving. This has motivated much recent work on adversarial attacks for DNNs, which mostly focus on pixel-level perturbations void of semantic meaning. In contrast, we present a general framework for adversarial attacks on trained agents, which covers semantic perturbations to the environment of the agent performing the task as well as pixel-level attacks. To do this, we re-frame the adversarial attack problem as learning a distribution of parameters that always fools the agent. In the semantic case, our proposed adversary (denoted as BBGAN) is trained to sample parameters that describe the environment with which the black-box agent interacts, such that the agent performs its dedicated task poorly in this environment. We apply BBGAN on three different tasks, primarily targeting aspects of autonomous navigation: object detection, self-driving, and autonomous UAV racing. On these tasks, BBGAN can generate failure cases that consistently fool a trained agent.


While historians have tended to accord the Celts a place of minor significance in comparison to the Romans, The Celts firmly aligns the Celtic peoples as the primary European precedent to the Greco-Roman hegemony, restoring this culture to its true importance in the development of European civilization. An expert in Celtic studies, Markale regards myth as a branch of history, and explores mythological material to reveal the culture that gave rise to it. The alternative historical vision that emerges is both convincing and exciting. One of the most comprehensive treatments of Celtic civilization ever written. A cornerstone of Western civilization and the major source of its social, political, and literary values, Celtic civilization occupied the whole of Western Europe for more than a millennium. Unlike the Middle Eastern forerunners of the Greco-Roman world, Celtic civilization is still alive today.


Gene transfer from a fungus to an ancestral aphid is responsible for the insect's red and green coloration. Many animals recognize and respond to the environment, foods, and enemies by making use of visual cues. Hence, animal body color is an ecologically important trait, often involved in prey-predator interactions through mimicry, aposematism (colors that warn), and crypsis (camouflage) (1). In the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, an insect that destroys plants by feeding on the sap, red and green color insects frequently coexist in natural populations (see the figure). Among its major natural enemies, lady beetles preferentially attack red aphids on green plants (2), whereas parasitoid wasps deposit eggs in green aphids more frequently (3). It has been hypothesized that these opposite predation and parasitism pressures maintain the color variation in natural aphid populations. This represents one of the classical views on the evolutionary ecology of animal color polymorphism (1). On page 624 of this issue, Moran and Jarvik (4) report an unexpected layer interwoven under this well-known evolutionary scenario: Genes transferred from a fungus to the aphid genome underlie the red and green coloration.


Objective: No data exists about the perceptions of Turkish hereditary angioedema patients regarding the use of C1 inhibitor concentrate that has been used in the treatment of acute attacks for the last 7 years. Our aim was to evaluate patient opinions about the C1 inhibitor (C1-inh) concentrate and determine the level of satisfaction with this drug. Materials and Methods: Fifty-seven hereditary angioedema (HAE) patients who used C1-inh concentrate for their angioedema attacks were asked to complete a questionnaire which contained various questions related to demographic information, clinical features, and experiences with C1-inh concentrate use. Results: Sixty-five % of the patients were female and 94.7% of the patients had type 1 HAE. The mean curent age and age of diagnosis were 38.11±12.6 and 29.95±13.85 years, respectively. Thirteen patients did not have a family history. Forty patients were under prophylaxis (danazol n=39, tranexamic acid= 1). The mean duration of the C1-inh concentrate usage was 4.07±1.76 years. The patients had taken this drug 6 times over the past year on average. All patients stated that they experienced difficulties during injections with this medication in the emergency units due to a lack of awareness by health care professionals regarding both HAE and C1-inh concentrate. While 61.4% of the patients reported overall satisfaction about the efficacy of drug, 43.8% stated that this medication should have a more practical application; 52.6% proposed that the drug should be more accessible in hospital emergency rooms. Conclusion: Patients with HAE generally considered that C1-inh concentrate was effective in their attacks. However, this group of patients expressed concerns related to the medical personnel's awareness about HAE as well as access to the medication.


We examined the acute and chronic dose-response relationships between intravenously infused angiotensin II (A II) and the resulting changes in arterial pressure and plasma aldosterone concentration at varying levels of sodhira intake. Sequential analysis of plasma aldosterone at each A II Infusion rate resulted in an acute dose-related increase in plasma aldosterone which was markedly attenuated after the first 24 hours of infusion, the final level being directly related to the dose of A II and inversely related to sodium intake. A II infused at 5, 15, and 23 ng/kg per min was associated with an initial increase (2nd to 8th hour) in plasma aldosterone to 2, 6, and 9 times control values, respectively, in dogs receiving 40 mEq Na+/day. But, after the 1st day, aldosterone averaged only 1, 1.7, and 3 times control values for he next 2 weeks at the same rates of A II infusion. Dogs receiving 120 mEq Na+/day during A II infusion exhibited only a transient increase in plasma aldosterone during the 1st day. Sustained hypertension developed over a period of a week at all doses of A II at normal and high sodium intake, but did not occur at any dose of A II in sodium-depleted dogs. Increasing sodium intake from 40 to 120 mEq/day resulted in higher levels of hypertension, 125% compared to 140% of control values for dogs infused with A II, 5.0 ng/kg per min. We conclude that primary angiotensin-induced hypertension need not be associated with increased levels of plasma aldosterone, which appears to remain elevated only with amounts of A II greater than those required to sustain a significant degree of hypertension.


With the growth and development of social networks and emerging cloud computing networks, social network users will be able to share their intended data, in data centers from various places all over the worlds which belong to cloud, with one another and additionally use others data simultaneously. Since with the passage of time, sharing the services and data sources through social networks in Tourism industry would be more complex for clients, it could be possible to facilitate the usage and sharing the Tourism resources with designing a social cloud platform. Initially, social cloud in Tourism area collects clients' information their inter-connected relationships from social networks. Afterwards, with the utilization of artificial bee colony algorithm, it can make an adjustment and balance in Tourism resources that have been shared as of yet and the comments and friendly relationships obtained from social networks. Finally, implementing such a social cloud in Tourism field can lead to an increase in the level of satisfaction of users when they want to have an access to useful documents and can achieve progress in the Tourism industry and develop it within the country.


1. Mammalian predators are controlled by poison baiting in many parts of the world, often to alleviate their impacts on agriculture or the environment. Although predator control can have substantial benefits, the poisons used may also be potentially harmful to other wildlife.

2. Impacts on non-target species must be minimized, but can be difficult to predict or quantify. Species and individuals vary in their sensitivity to toxins and their propensity to consume poison baits, while populations vary in their resilience. Wildlife populations can accrue benefits from predator control, which outweigh the occasional deaths of non-target animals. We review recent advances in Australia, providing a framework for assessing non-target effects of poisoning operations and for developing techniques to minimize such effects. We also emphasize that weak or circumstantial evidence of non-target effects can be misleading.

3. Weak evidence that poison baiting presents a potential risk to non-target species comes from measuring the sensitivity of species to the toxin in the laboratory. More convincing evidence may be obtained by quantifying susceptibility in the field. This requires detailed information on the propensity of animals to locate and consume poison baits, as well as the likelihood of mortality if baits are consumed. Still stronger evidence may be obtained if predator baiting causes non-target mortality in the field (with toxin detected by post-mortem examination). Conclusive proof of a negative impact on populations of non-target species can be obtained only if any observed non-target mortality is followed by sustained reductions in population density.

4. Such proof is difficult to obtain and the possibility of a population-level impact cannot be reliably confirmed or dismissed without rigorous trials. In the absence of conclusive evidence, wildlife managers should adopt a precautionary approach which seeks to minimize potential risk to non-target individuals, while clarifying population-level effects through continued research.


-, Copper-based fungicides are extensively used in the control of coffee pests and diseases because they are relatively cheap and effective. This practice has serious environmental implications owing to the toxic nature of copper. An assessment of the effects of the use of copper-based fungicides is carried out on River Kamiti, which flows along coffee growing areas of Kiambu District, Kenya. Water samples were collected at various points along the river from Thika Road Bridge (TRB) to Kamiti Road Bridge (KRB). The levels of copper in the river were determined with total copper being obtained using flame atomic absorption spectrophometry (FAAS) and the labile fraction by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV) at a glassy carbon electrode. Also Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), Fluoride (F), Chloride (Cl'), and pH were determined using the standard analytical methods. Total copper was found to range from 0.3 to 2.20 x 10-2ug/ml with the labile fraction being 49%. The concentration of copper was found to depend on the rainfall, which carried copper to the river from the fields and coffee-harvesting season thus amount of factory discharge. The levels of DOC were found to range between 5.26 9.7 x 10 x 1O-2Ilg/ml, F0.4-2.2 x 1O-21lg/mland cr 8.5-17.4 x 1O-21lg/mltherefore can be said to be generally low. Taking glycine, catechol and proline as typical ligands in a water system, speciation modeling showed that at pH<6.5, the fraction of "free" and labile copper species, were observed to increase with decrease in pH. The pH of this water system was found be between 7.4 and 8.14. This implies that copper in the river will be complexed by the host of ligands contributed by the DOC but there will be toxic traces contributed by simple complexes that could easily dissociate. Based on the results obtained in this work, it is concluded that the use of copper compounds in the coffee industry is of environmental concern.


Abstract The island of Bonaire is a long-established Marine Protected Area (MPA), the reefs of which were extensively mapped in the early 1980s. Satellite remote sensing techniques were used to construct reef maps for 2008–2009. Metrics describing the spatial structure of coral habitat at the landscape scale – including coral cover, fragmentation, patch size and connectivity between patches – were calculated and compared between these two time periods. Changes were evaluated in and out of the MPAs and in areas exposed and sheltered from storm damage. Overall, coral cover has declined during the past three decades, being replaced by sand, but the decline has not been as drastic as elsewhere in the Caribbean. Fragmentation of the reef habitat has occurred, resulting in smaller and more disparate patches, but these changes were not associated with exposure along the coastline. However, total coral cover was maintained in sheltered areas, whereas it declined along exposed shorelines. Human protection of reefs by marine reserves had variable effects on coral cover and fragmentation. One of two no-diving marine reserves showed increases in coral cover accompanied by decreases in the number of patches of coral and an increase in the size of individual patches over the time period, while the second reserve exhibited the opposite trend. Advances in satellite remote sensing techniques allow for a more rapid assessment of changes in reefs at the landscape level, which can be used to identify spatial changes in the reef environment, including areas of coral decline.


An efficient scheme for the robust topology optimization considering hybrid bounded uncertainties (RTOHBU) is proposed for the graphene platelets (GPLs) reinforced functionally graded materials (FGMs). By introducing the concept of the layer-wise FGMs, the properties of the GPLs reinforced FGMs are calculated based on the Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model. The practical boundedness of probabilistic variables is naturally ensured by utilizing a generalized Beta distribution in constructing the robust topology optimization model. To address the issue of lacking the information of critical loads in existing topology optimization approaches considering hybrid uncertainties, a gradient-attributed search is carried out at first based on the hypothesis of linear elasticity to determine the critical loads leading to the worst structural performance. Subsequently, the statistical characteristics of the objective structural performance under such critical loads are efficiently evaluated by integrating the univariate dimension reduction method and the Gauss-Laguerre quadrature, the accuracy of which is verified by the comparison analysis utilizing the results of Monte Carlo simulation as references. Furthermore, a novel realization vector set is constructed for the bounded probabilistic uncertainties to parallelize the sensitivity analysis and accelerate the optimization process. All the proposed innovations are integrated into the robust topology optimization scheme, the effectiveness and efficiency of which are verified by three illustrative examples.


As an applicaton of sonification, a simulation of the early universe was developed to portray a phase transition that occurred shortly after the Big Bang. The Standard Model of particle physics postulates that a hypothetical particle, the Higgs boson, is responsible for the breaking of the symmetry between the electromagnetic force and the weak force. This phase transition may have been responsible for triggering Baryogenesis, the generation of an abundance of matter over anti-matter. This hypothesis is known as Electroweak Baryogenesis. In this simulation, aspects of bubble nucleation in Standard Model Electroweak Baryogenesis were examined and modeled using Mathematica, and sonified using SuperCollider3. The resulting simulation, which has been used for pedagogical purposes by one of the authors, suggests interesting possibilities for the integration of science and aesthetics as well as auditory perception. The sonification component in particular also had the unexpected benefit of being useful in debugging the Mathematica code.


Music is inherently an auditory art form, rooted in sound, and generally analyzed in terms of its acoustic properties. However, as the process of hearing is affected by seeing, visual information does in fact play an important role in the musical experience. Vision influences many aspects of music - from evaluations of performance quality and audience interest to the perception of loudness, timbre, and note duration. Moreover, it can be used to achieve musical goals that are in fact acoustically impossible. As such, understanding the benefits of embracing (and the costs of ignoring) vision's role is essential for all musicians. Furthermore, since music represents a pervasive and ubiquitous human practice, this topic serves as an ideal case study for understanding how auditory and visual information are integrated. Given that some musically-based studies have challenged and even contributed to updating psychological theories of sensory integration, this topic represents a rich area of research, relevant to musicians and psychologists alike. Submitted 2008 Aug 15; accepted 2008 Aug 29.


This chapter reviews recent theoretical and empirical literature regarding teachers' uses of the target (TL) and first (L1) languages in second (SL) and foreign (FL) language classrooms. Theoretically, the article explores several issues related to teachers' use of the L1 and the TL in the classroom: exposure to TL input, student motivation, cognitive considerations, code-switching, and appropriate teacher use of the L1. A review of recent discourse analysis studies examines how much, when, and why FL and SL teachers use the L1 and TL in their pedagogy. The article also presents findings from studies that have considered teachers' self-reports and teachers' and learners' beliefs and attitudes regarding the use of the L1 and the TL in FL and SL classrooms. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.


Any theory of water vapor in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) must explain both the abundance and isotopic composition of water there. In previous papers, we presented a model of the TTL that simulated the abundance of water vapor as well as the details of the vertical profile. That model included the effects of "overshooting" convec- tion, which injects dry air directly into the TTL. Here, we present results for the model after modifying it to include water's stable isotopologue HDO (where D represents deu- terium, 2 H). We find that the model predicts a nearly uni- form HDO depletion throughout the TTL, in agreement with recent measurements. This occurs because the model de- hydrates by dilution, which does not fractionate, instead of by condensation. Our model shows that this dehydration by dilution is consistent with other physical constraints on the system. We also show the key role that lofted ice plays in determining the abundance of HDO in the TTL. Such lofted ice requires a complementary source of dry air in the TTL; without that, the TTL will rapidly saturate and the lofted ice will not evaporate.


Community water supply programmes are seen as instrumental in achieving the goal of 'safe' water for all. Women, a principal target group of these programmes, are to be benefited with greater convenience, enhanced socio-cultural opportunities and better health for themselves and their families, provided through improved water facilities. Water supply programmes largely consist of three essential components, namely: technology, people and institutions. Although such programmes are intended to benefit women members of local communities, scant attention is paid to the impacts of the socio-cultural context of the community on these programmes. This article explores the influence of social and cultural intricacies on the implementation of community water supply programmes, and assesses their effectiveness. The article offers important lessons for the design and implementation of this type of programme. It concludes that the local sociocultural context sets the stage for programme implementation, being a dynamic factor that determines actual access to water sources, more so than mere physical availability, which is often used as a criterion for programme performance. The article stresses the urgent need to integrate socio-cultural factors as a fourth dimension in designing community water supply programmes, and suggests practical measures for enhancing the effectiveness of such programmes.


This densely argued essay offers an original approach to the study of Israel-Palestine through the lens of colonial studies. The author's argument rests, inter alia, on the distinction between colonialism, which succeeds by keeping colonizer and colonized separate, and settler colonialism, where ultimate success is achieved when the settlers are "indigenized" and cease to be seen as settlers. Referring to the pre-1948 and post-1967 contexts, the author shows how and why Israel, itself a successful settler colonial project emerging from the British mandate, has failed to create a successful settler project in the occupied territories; indeed, and paradoxically, the occupation's very success (in terms of unassailable control) renders the project's success (in terms of settler integration/indigenization) impossible. Also addressed are the consequences of occupation, particularly what the author calls Israel's "recolonization," and the implications of the approach outlined for the Israel-Palestine conflict and its resolution.


Newly updated and expanded, this classic work is a product of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America during the 1960's. Black Theology & Black Power is James H. Cone's initial attempt to identify liberation as the heart of the Christian gospel, and blackness as the primary mode of God's presence. As he explains in an introduction written for this edition, "I wanted to speak on behalf of the voiceless black masses in the name of Jesus whose gospel I believed had been greatly distorted by the preaching and theology of white churches."


A pluralistic nation like Malaysia needs an extremely organised and sensible society in order to be fruitfully tolerant. Living in a plural community demands a strong willingness to accommodate different ethnic expectations. Tolerance is crucial for the achievement of the right kind of community. It takes a collective voice among all the communities on the character of the nation they want to live in, and the respective rights and obligations within it to overcome the challenge of managing a diverse society, more so in a multiethnic one. The nature of a tolerant society inclined its members to be attentive and open to form a relationship that is continuous and reliable. To understand youth's life experience in regards to growing up amidst a multi-ethnic milieu, we have to explore their experiences to see how they are able to adapt and assimilate. This is an important aspect of fostering understanding with the different ethnic groups with motives that contribute to the formation of social citizenship and a participatory democracy. This research will focus on how Malaysian youth make sense of the seemingly calm and peaceful nation and how their negotiations and resolutions relate to their qualitative citizenship in a multi-ethnic society.


In 2002, our group and collaborators began initial investigations on the use of rare-earth carboxylates as non-toxic and environment-friendly corrosion inhibitors for mild steel. This was followed by a more comprehensive study, reported in 2004 by Blin et al., in which a range of such carboxylate compounds were investigated. This study identified lanthanum 4-hydroxycinnamate, La(4-OHcin)3 as a promising compound. In the review presented here our more recent investigations on mild steel corrosion inhibitors with structures closely related to La(4-OHcin)3 are presented. In another study, Lee investigated the effect on corrosion of subtle changes to the La(4-OHcin)3 structure. Seter et al. found that small structural changes could have a major effect on the inhibition performance. Nam et al. investigated cerium, lanthanum and praseodymium 4-hydroxycinnamate as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in carbon dioxide atmospheres in sodium chloride solution. In this particular situation, Pr(4-OHcin)3 led to the largest reduction in corrosion current. A totally organic complex, imidazolinium 4-hydroxycinnamate (Imn 4-OHcin) has been investigated with the aim of developing a compound that can inhibit both corrosion and microbial growth. This compound was found to inhibit mild steel corrosion across a wide pH range and was particularly effective at a pH of 2. We have also been investigating a rare-earth compound with an alternative carboxylate structure to the cinnamate; 3-(4-methylbenzoyl)propionate(mbp). This ligand differs from 4-hydroxycinnamate by having a carbonyl group present, which may give an extra anchor point to a metal surface when forming a barrier coating. A range of rare-earth mbp complexes was investigated, with Nd(mbp)3 resulting in the largest reduction in corrosion current density at a concentration of 0.125 mM.


In recent years, research has focused on understanding how learners can benefit from tools that can assist in the development of informal reasoning skills when constructing arguments in collaborative learning with web-based learning environments. A common approach taken by each of these systems is to use support mechanisms (scaffolding) to facilitate student learning through the development of improved reasoning and argumentation skills. The authors of this paper have been developing computer-based learning environments for the past ten years, and have developed several award winning CD-ROM packages that feature a range of cognitive tools designed to assist learning. The development of these products has provided a rich source of information about learner use of cognitive tools. Our research has shown that two recurring issues keep emerging: 1. There is a need to develop generic cognitive tools that assist learners to understand and solve problems that relate to different knowledge domains. 2. There is a need to help learners to analyse and structure information gathered, when they use cognitive tools. This paper reports on the outcomes of a study into the reasoning and argumentation skills of pre-service education students engaged in problem solving within a computer-based learning environment. The implications for the design of a support framework to assist in this process will also be discussed.


ABSTRACT For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is a bittersweet story. Between 2003 and 2015, the Europeans played an important role in facilitating US-Iran nuclear diplomacy and eventually the agreement itself. After former US President Trump decided to exit the deal and revert to maximum economic pressure in 2018, the Europeans tried to recreate room for US-Iran engagement. While unsuccessful, they have nonetheless managed to remain relevant for both sides. The prospect of normalised economic relations with Europe has provided Iran with an incentive not to pursue nuclear weapons. As for the US, the nuclear deal – which still exists formally thanks to Europe – is the only framework available for re-engaging Iran in nuclear diplomacy, a prospect the new administration of Joe Biden has pledged to consider. Dismissing Europe's efforts as ineffectual is therefore inaccurate since, in defending the nuclear deal, the Europeans have preserved a diplomatic bridge for US-Iranian re-engagement.


Requirements for the use of computer-based scenarios as training tools are investigated. The first part of the text deals with the validity of computer-based scenarios as representations of real-life situations. Using the scenario "Motivator One", the complex situation of a manager is represented. Several studies argue for a sufficient validity of this scenario. Part two of the text focuses on the topic of polytelie in computer-based scenarios. In complex fields of action, actors develop idiosyncratic representations of goals, according to which they guide their activities. Therefore the use of computer-based scenarios for training-purposes often does not ensure comprehensive learning experiences. In an experimental setting, it is examined how this deficit can be compensated by providing objectives. Sixty students were to lead a virtual company in the computer-based scenario "Motivator One". During a training phase, character and sequence of objectives are varied. The aquisition of knowledge during this training phase and during the following transfer-phase is registered using different process indicators. Sentence verification tasks, teaching-back tasks and self estimations are used as additional knowledge diagnosing procedures. It can be shown that objectives are perceived as helpful. Nevertheless they do not become objectives exclusively guiding the participants actions but are integrated into the individual's structure of objectives. Though area specific knowledge is increased during training phase, objectives do not foster the knowledge acquisition process, which in contrast is affected by interindividually stable behaviour biases. The findings show very cleary that both action and knowledge aquisition process are heavily influenced by current indiosyncratic goals, which derive from individual objectives and prevailing situative conditions. Objectives are only one of several components in this field. Consequences for the use of computer-based scenarios as training tools are discussed.


Distinguishing the manner in which dispersal limitation and niche requirements control the spread of invasive pathogens is important for prediction and early detection of disease outbreaks. Here, we use niche modeling augmented by dispersal estimation to examine the degree to which local habitat conditions vs. force of infection predict invasion of Phytophthora ramorum, the causal agent of the emerging infectious tree disease sudden oak death. We sampled 890 field plots for the presence of P. ramorum over a three-year period (2003-2005) across a range of host and abiotic conditions with variable proximities to known infections in California, USA. We developed and validated generalized linear models of invasion probability to analyze the relative predictive power of 12 niche variables and a negative exponential dispersal kernel estimated by likelihood profiling. Models were developed incrementally each year (2003, 2003-2004, 2003-2005) to examine annual variability in model parameters and to create realistic scenarios for using models to predict future infections and to guide early-detection sampling. Overall, 78 new infections were observed up to 33.5 km from the nearest known site of infection, with slightly increasing rates of prevalence across time windows (2003, 6.5%; 2003-2004, 7.1%; 2003-2005, 9.6%). The pathogen was not detected in many field plots that contained susceptible host vegetation. The generalized linear modeling indicated that the probability of invasion is limited by both dispersal and niche constraints. Probability of invasion was positively related to precipitation and temperature in the wet season and the presence of the inoculum-producing foliar host Umbellularia californica and decreased exponentially with distance to inoculum sources. Models that incorporated niche and dispersal parameters best predicted the locations of new infections, with accuracies ranging from 0.86 to 0.90, suggesting that the modeling approach can be used to forecast locations of disease spread. Application of the combined niche plus dispersal models in a geographic information system predicted the presence of P. ramorum across approximately 8228 km2 of California's 84785 km2 (9.7%) of land area with susceptible host species. This research illustrates how probabilistic modeling can be used to analyze the relative roles of niche and dispersal limitation in controlling the distribution of invasive pathogens.


Context Autopsy is a useful tool for understanding the manner and cause of death in unexpected patient death. The information about the opinions of physicians and risk managers in Japan regarding autopsy is limited. Objective To describe and evaluate the opinions of physicians and risk managers at Japanese teaching hospitals regarding forensic autopsy. Design, setting and participants Cross-sectional study of all residency programme directors and risk managers completing a survey in January 2009. Specific clinical scenarios where autopsy would be essential to determine whether medical error occurred and whether medical care contributed to the death of the patient were presented. Respondents gave their opinion regarding the necessity of autopsy and their beliefs about if they would actually recommend it. Results Of 1113 eligible physicians and 1113 eligible chief risk management officers, 466 physicians (41.9%) and 599 risk managers (53.8%) responded. The majority of physicians and risk managers reported they would recommend an autopsy in cases of unclear medical error or unclear cause and effect relationship of medical care and patient death; however, 10% or more of physicians and 25% or more of risk managers (depending on the situation) reported that they would not recommend an autopsy. Risk managers were less likely than physicians to recommend and believe that autopsy was necessary. Conclusions The majority of physicians and risk managers in Japan would recommend autopsy and believe in its necessity in cases of unexpected patient death.


Croplands are vital ecosystems for human well-being and provide important ecosystem services such as crop yields, retention of nitrogen and carbon storage. On large (regional to global)-scale levels, assessment of how these different services will vary in space and time, especially in response to cropland management, are scarce. We explore cropland management alternatives and the effect these can have on future C and N pools and fluxes using the land-use-enabled dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS (Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator). Simulated crop production, cropland carbon storage, carbon sequestration and nitrogen leaching from croplands are evaluated and discussed. Compared to the version of LPJ-GUESS that does not include land-use dynamics, estimates of soil carbon stocks and nitrogen leaching from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems were improved. Our model experiments allow us to investigate trade-offs between these ecosystem services that can be pro- vided from agricultural fields. These trade-offs are evaluated for current land use and climate and further explored for future conditions within the two future climate change scenarios, RCP (Representative Concentration Path- way) 2.6 and 8.5. Our results show that the potential for carbon sequestration due to typical cropland management practices such as no-till management and cover crops proposed in previous studies is not realised, globally or over larger climatic regions. Our results highlight important considerations to be made when modelling C-N in- teractions in agricultural ecosystems under future environmental change and the effects these have on terrestrial biogeochemical cycles.


Andrographis paniculata is a herbal plant in the Acanthaceae family with potential to treat diabetes and cardiovascular and as
an antifertility agent. The purpose of this study was to determine the reversible antifertility effect of methanol extract A.
paniculata on sperm quality and spermatogenesis. A total of 28 male Sprague Dawley rats were assigned into two groups;
control group (K1) and treated group (K2) with 14 rats in each group. The treated group was force-fed with a dose of 800
mg/kg for 14 days. On day 15, seven rats from each group were sacrificed. There was significant decrease (p<0.05) in sperm
count, viability and sperm motility grade in K2 compared to K1, however, the percentage of normal sperm morphology in
both groups showed no difference. Histologically, the lumens of seminiferous tubule were seen less packed with sperm and
the Leydig cells were regressed. The damaged Sertoli cells were seen and spermatogenesis was also inhibited in K2. The
study was proceeded for another 14 days without treatment to determine the reversible effect of the extract. On day 29, the
remainder seven rats from each group were sacrificed for the same parameter analysis. Data showed the sperm count, viability
and the sperm motility grade in K2 increased significantly (p<0.05). The testes histology showed that normal spermatogenesis,
seminiferous tubule filled with sperm and normal Leydig and Sertoli cells. It appeared that the methanol extract of A. paniculata
have an antifertility effect on sperm quality and possess spermatoxic feature in spermatogenesis activity and the effect was
reversible.


There is increasing pressure on governments and industries to make significant reductions in carbon emissions. In the UK, 11% of electricity is consumed by the food industry and in some sectors a substantial portion of site energy, up to 90%, is consumed by refrigeration systems. The aim of this work was to: identify the major primary chilling energy requirements in the UK; calculate or make a best estimate of their efficiency; and determine which chilling processes have the highest energy saving potential. In terms of the heat energy to be extracted during the primary chilling process, the six most important categories in rank order were milk (532 GWh/year), meat (114 GWh/year), potatoes (59 GWh/year), other vegetables (36 GWh/year), fish (6.5 GWh/ year) and fruit (5.9 GWh/year). There is little published data on the measured energy consumption of commercial primary chilling processes in the UK or that is directly applicable to the UK. From the data that is available, the energy efficiency (useful heat extracted from material/measured electrical energy used) varies from 0.138 to 5.337, with cooling of milk being far more efficient than that of the next two most important categories, meat and potatoes. Using the best of existing technologies it is estimated that 154 GWh could be saved per year in potato cooling, 128 GWh in milk and between 51 and 80 GWh in the cooling of carcass meat. Savings in other commodity areas are likely to be more than an order of magnitude less.


Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is a slowly progressive vascular disease characterized by abnormal narrowing of peripheral arteries through atherosclerosis. PAD often goes unnoticed and is heavily under diagnosed due to its initially asymptomatic features and if not detected early enough can lead to critical limb ischemia or limb amputation. Current PAD screening options are limited to the clinical setting and require specialized equipment, specialized training in operation, specialized training for interpretation of the results, and lack the ability to screen for PAD in a simple, cost effective point-of-care manner. In this study, our objective was to create a novel, non-invasive, point-of-care screening patch for the early detection of PAD. To attain our objective, we tested our hypothesis that electromagnetic changes in the permittivity and permeability of blood can be used to detect blood-flow abnormalities of PAD with a simple wireless biosensor - applied like a small adhesive bandage. When activated by an external RF wave, the skin patch developed an electromagnetic field that penetrates into its surroundings. Using a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), we were able to quantify the skin patch's electromagnetic field interactions with its surroundings. Using a human arm phantom with vascular network, synthetic blood, and heart pump the skin patch was able to measure pulsatile blood flow as shifts in the sensor's resonant frequency. The results were validated using an ultrasound pulse wave Doppler which detected 50 bpm on the arm phantom. The smart skin patch was able to detect pulsatile flow with 100% accuracy when compared to ultrasound. These results strongly suggest that the patch may be capable of measuring pulsating blood-flow in a point-of-care fashion which does not require specialized training or expensive equipment. What's more, is that this biosensor does not have batteries, no electrical components, and has wireless communication.


Purpose To demonstrate the reproducibility of the diffusion properties and three-dimensional structural organization measurements of the lower leg muscles by using diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) assessed with ultra-high-field-strength (7.0-T) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and tractography of skeletal muscle fibers. On the basis of robust statistical mapping analyses, this study also aimed at determining the sensitivity of the measurements to sex difference and intramuscular variability. Materials and Methods All examinations were performed with ethical review board approval; written informed consent was obtained from all volunteers. Reproducibility of diffusion tensor indexes assessment including eigenvalues, mean diffusivity, and fractional anisotropy (FA) as well as muscle volume and architecture (ie, fiber length and pennation angle) were characterized in lower leg muscles (n = 8). Intramuscular variability and sex differences were characterized in young healthy men and women (n = 10 in each group). Student t test, statistical parametric mapping, correlation coefficients (Spearman rho and Pearson product-moment) and coefficient of variation (CV) were used for statistical data analysis. Results High reproducibility of measurements (mean CV ± standard deviation, 4.6% ± 3.8) was determined in diffusion properties and architectural parameters. Significant sex differences were detected in FA (4.2% in women for the entire lower leg; P = .001) and muscle volume (21.7% in men for the entire lower leg; P = .008), whereas architecture parameters were almost identical across sex. Additional differences were found independently of sex in diffusion properties and architecture along several muscles of the lower leg. Conclusion The high-spatial-resolution DTI assessed with 7.0-T MR imaging allows a reproducible assessment of structural organization of superficial and deep muscles, giving indirect information on muscle function. ©RSNA, 2018 Online supplemental material is available for this article.


In this paper, we examine the application of simple neural processing elements to the problem of dynamic branch prediction in high-performance processors. A single neural network model is considered: the Perceptron. We demonstrate that a predictor based on the Perceptron can achieve a prediction accuracy in excess of that given by conventional Two-level Adaptive Predictors and suggest that neural predictors merit further investigation.


The present study reviewed the current trends of interventions focused on the physical activity environment for reducing sedentary behavior among children. Multiple international and domestic databases were searched to identify studies that involved changes to the physical activity environment, measured sedentary behavior, were specific to childhood populations, and published in a peer-reviewed journal. After studies were carefully assessed for inclusion by examining the title, abstract, and full text, the characteristics of the included studies (i.e., participants, study design, environmental intervention, measurement of sedentary behavior, and results) were summarized. A total of 31 studies (randomized controlled trial: n=25; quasi-experimental design: n=3; within-subject design: n=3) met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies (n=23) were conducted using school-based interventions focused on the playground environment, involving either one or a combination of the following changes: improved markings, providing play equipment, or offering built facilities. Other studies included in the summary focused on behaviors at home and in the community like using electronic time managers while watching the television and providing low-cost or free entry to safe and easily accessible sports facilities. The measurement of sedentary behavior included an accelerometer, self-report, and direct observation. Twenty studies had a positive effect on reducing sedentary behavior among children. All but two of the studies were conducted in foreign nations. The present findings suggest that improving the physical activity environment to children can reduce sedentary behavior; therefore, further interventions focused on the physical activity environment for reducing sedentary behavior among Japanese children should be conducted. Jpn J Phys Fitness Sports Med, 65(4): 357-366 (2016)


This paper is based on findings from an exploratory study carried out during 2004/05 among members of the London Providers Mentoring Group. Qualitative data from nine teacher education partnerships working with a significant proportion of the schools in London was subjected to interpretative analysis. The paper explores how the London Providers Mentoring Group, a community of practice adopting an 'inquiry as stance' philosophy, has worked towards a pedagogy of mentor education. The paper outlines tensions the group has faced resulting from the changing nature of provision for initial teacher education in England. The main purpose here is to present an analysis of activities designed by mentor educators to enhance learning in mentors and to begin to describe a pedagogy of mentor education. Findings reveal that there are two main types of activities engaged in by London communities of mentoring practice, which are based on divergent principles. Both are necessary for successful mentor development and lead to different types of knowledge. The paper explores and distils principles relating to the nature of the participatory learning processes within these communities and how they are planned and enabled through increasingly collaborative processes as mentors become more experienced. The nature of these communities of mentoring practice is also discussed.