The exhibition explores issues related to participatory photography, including questions of voice (whose voice is represented, recognized and heard?), and the dynamics imbued in the process of working collaboratively, including questions of authorship and relations of horizontality. Specific attention is given, first, to participatory photography as a tool of agency and emancipation through which a different kind of citizenship and community can be enacted, and second, to plants as catalysts for the activation of such citizenship and community.

The exhibition interrogates the often taken-for-granted distinction between photographer, subject and viewer and challenges traditional conceptions of the roles, responsibilities and power relationships that emerge between photographer, subject and viewer. In doing so, it also explores the possibilities for rethinking and re-contextualising photography and the photograph as critical, emancipatory practice that can engender a community grounded not in the self-sameness and closure of essentialised national identities, but in the recognition of unity in difference.

The works in this exhibition address these themes, and hope to act as catalysts for conversation, knowledge sharing and solidarity in relation to issues that concern us all locally and globally.

Works on display in the upper floor gallery explore the relationship between climate change and displacement. Produced as part of a two-part residency at Darat Al Funun Foundation (1) in Amman, Jordan, the works take as a starting point research from Columbia University (2015) that illuminates the connections between crop failure in Syria and immigration into Jordan (and further into Europe). Climate change, caused largely by consumption in the West has, between 2007 and 2011, contributed to the worst drought in Syrian history. The drought led to a mass exodus of rural farm-workers into the city, exacerbating existing social tensions and potentially contributing to the outbreak of civil war, which in turn, lead to further migration from Syria, including to Jordan.

In collaboration with fellow artist Corinne Silva and scientist William Nelson, (who prepared research on the future adaptation of plants to climate change), Sajovic worked with Syrian farmers who are currently living in Informal Tent Settlements in Jordan and provide the work force on neighbouring farms, with Syrian and Egyptian farmers involved in large-scale agriculture, and with those involved in smaller permaculture projects.

Coming into an area of displacement as an outsider, methodological issues around voice, representation and participation were amplified for Sajovic, who in order to process them, subsequently worked in collaboration with Chiara Perini and a group of men (largely migrants from Pakistan and Afganistan) living in 'hospitality apartments' in Cormons, Italy. Participants in this project used photography to narrate their stories, resulting in a collaborative co-production of a series of portraits and texts on display in the lower gallery and on the outside wall.

Photographs of plants interspersed throughout the exhibition space are analogue prints made from slides that the artist took in Jordan. The resulting images are negative impressions, a technique she uses to encourage a different kind of looking. Images of plants juxtaposed with images of a head of the Ain Ghazal (2) statue photographed in the Jordan Archaeological Museum connect with ideas of agency, activation, voice and the importance of considering the past in order to move forward. This is also represented by the image of the Roman city of Gerasa juxtaposed over the modern city of Jerash.

Over the course of both projects, which involved participatory photography and consideration of plant life, it became apparent that both participatory photography and plants can act as catalysts for the activation of communities and citizenship grounded in the not unrelated sharing of knowledge and experience of plant life and the shared experience displacement. Both participatory photography and plant life contributed to the creation of a common space between human beings, bringing the photographer, subject (and eventually viewer) into a social and political relationship, and indeed, a community that functions also as a call to action.

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(1) Darat al Funun is an Art Foundation situated in six renovated historical buildings and a restored archaeological site in the garden, constructed in the 1920s by Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian families. One of the buildings was the official residence of a British Commander of the Arab Legion. The buildings and gardens have a direct link to the history of colonial expansion and designation of territory in the region.
(2) The Ain Ghazal statues are the oldest statues ever made by a human being, made between 6000 and 8000 B.C., Jordan Archaeological Museum (located in the Amman Citadel, built in 1951). They are formed by modelling moist plaster from limestone on a reed core using plants that grew along the banks of the Zarqa River.


This Comment argues that the Sixth Circuit should overrule McDougald. Part I discusses the purpose, process, and problems of the crime generally known as money laundering. Part I also discusses national efforts against money laundering, and in particular, the United States' efforts through Section 1956 of the Money Laundering Control Act. Part I concludes by discussing the Salinas-Citibank Affair and the probable prosecution of Citibank for money laundering violations. Part II reviews the Sixth Circuit's line of cases leading up to and including the McDougald decision. Part II also contrasts McDougald by reviewing the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third and Fourth Circuits in United States v. Carr and United States v. Campbell, respectfully, both of which addressed the same issue as McDougald but differed in their interpretations of Section 1956. Part III argues that the Sixth Circuit should overrule its decision in McDougald. The Court's holding is in direct conflict with the plain meaning of the statute as well as the statute's legislative intent. The Court's holding is also in conflict with the international community's efforts against money laundering. Finally, overruling McDougald will prevent misapplication of Section 1956 in future cases, such as the case that will most likely be born out of the Salinas-Citibank Affair. UNITED STATES v. McDOUGALD: THE ANATHEMA TO 18 U.S.C. § 1956 AND NATIONAL EFFORTS AGAINST MONEY LAUNDERING Mathew Paulose Jr. *


Current practice in vascular surgery utilizes only diagnostic and empirical data to plan treatments, which does not enable quantitative a priori prediction of the outcomes of interventions. We have previously described simulation-based medical planning methods to model blood flow in arteries and plan medical treatments based on physiologic models. An important consideration for the design of these patient-specific modeling systems is the accessibility to physicians with modest computational resources. We describe a simulation-based medical planning environment developed for the World Wide Web (WWW) using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and the Java programming language.


The Seventh Havana Biennial (Septima Bienal de la Habana) Havana, Cuba November 14, 2000-January 5, 2001 November 17, 2000, arrival, Central Havana At first sight, the city appears to be an enormous film noir set. Streets are filled with a still functioning fleet of pre-revolution-era Ford and Chevy motorcars that mingle with water trucks and orange pedicabs. Men, women and children spill over broken sidewalks in between picturesque colonial architecture collapsing at a rate of almost one building per day. This leaves a maze of jagged pastel walls and shadowy apertures. Despite all the apparent poverty and physical decay, the Cubans I meet are well educated and robust looking. Compared to other "third-world" nations I have visited, it is clear that the revolution has succeeded in raising most people's living standards. Many also immediately nail down where I am from, leading some individuals to offer me black market cigars and other goods. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the civility of Havana and its residents as well the city's urban vitality, all qualities that are rapidly receding from public spaces in the United States. This in turn makes some of th e observations that follow all the more disconsolate. November 18, the opening of the exhibitions at Castle El Morro and Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana In a city where North American visitors otherwise appear only in diluted concentrations, we join ranks with several swelling battalions of art tourists unloading like occupation troops from buses and cabs onto the bluff overlooking downtown Havana. Armed with palm-sized digital cameras and hygienic water bottles, most have, for this occasion, forgone heat-trapping black on black for cotton attire that exposes un-tanned legs and necks to the tropical glare. Many wear oversized white t-shirts. Some are imprinted with candy-colored portraits of Che Guevara rendered in a 1960's, retro Cuban poster style. Perhaps it is inevitable that 40 years after the revolution, Cuba markets the iconography of what is the last Marxist-Leninist government in the western hemisphere. After all, dealing in the revolution is already an enterprise of Madison Avenue. Perhaps filmmaker and scholar Jeffrey Skoller put it best when he stated that "Guevara and the Cuban Revolution have become upscale icons for the aging boomer market." [1 ] No doubt Gap Jeans and Taco Bell ads along with cigar bars and Salsa music have helped to make this forbidden island if not exactly radically chic, then at least cut-rate exotic. Skoller goes so far as to ask whether revolutionary iconography itself "has become so much cultural baggage, exhausted, now simply nostalgic, preventing the present from rethinking the past critically and imagining the future in new and original ways?" [2] Meanwhile, like a winding sheet, the still lingering shiver of cold-war politics envelopes Havana in a singular allure, especially vibrant to people who recall the 1960's Missile Crisis, or grew up watching James Bond movies. Meanwhile, to those of us with obsolescent socialist sentiments, Skoller's haunting appraisal is difficult to shake, especially when confronted with the paradoxes that make up contemporary Cuban life and culture. Yet perhaps more than any other kind of strangeness was the way this beautiful, struggling city managed on this occasion to again play a significant role within the international art world. At the same time it became one more occasion for the affirmation of the curatorial class: that transnational detachment of specialized professionals who manage the global spectacle called contemporary art. Perhaps this is the context in which those exhausted signifiers that Skoller alludes to seemed most in play. While there is still something different about the Bienal de Ia Habana when compared to other global art festivals--more artists of color from the southern hemisphere are represented--the same aura of exotica provides a particular status within the larger cultural tourist landscape. …


Modern pump-turbines are subject to frequent switching between the pumping and generating modes with extended operation under off-design conditions. Depending on the specific speed of the pump-turbine, the discharge-speed as well as torque-speed characteristics at constant guide vanes opening can be "S-Shaped". In this case, the machine operation may become strongly unstable at runaway speed and beyond, with a significant increase of structural vibrations and noise. In the present work, hydrodynamics of a low specific speed radial pump-turbine scale model experiencing unstable operation at runaway condition in generating mode for 10° guide vanes opening angle (see Figure 1) is experimentally investigated. Measurements of wall pressure in the stator synchronized with high-speed flow visualizations in the vaneless gap between the impeller and the guide vanes using air bubbles injection are performed. Detailed analysis presented in Hasmatuchi* et al. (2011) is focused on the onset of the flow instabilities when the machine is brought from best efficiency point (BEP) to runaway and turbine brake mode. At these severe operating conditions, one stall cell covering about half of the vaneless gap circumference is found to rotate with the impeller at subsynchronous speed (about 70% of the impeller rotational frequency), being the effect of rotating flow separations developed in several consecutive impeller channels that lead to their blockage. High-speed movies reveal a quite uniform flow pattern in the guide vanes channels at BEP, whereas at runaway the flow is highly disturbed by the rotating stall passage; the situation is even more critical at low positive discharge, where backflow and vortices develop in the guide vanes channels during the stall passage (see Figure 1). Then, a specific image processing technique is detailed and applied to create a synthetic instantaneous view of the flow pattern on the whole guide vanes circumference, for a low positive discharge operating point, using the acquired high-speed visualizations.


Business ethics is a highly discussed and debated subject in today's corporate and business world, as well as in educational and academic circles. There are certain parameters, which influence the extensive level and degree to which ethics has been analyzed by scholars and researchers in recent years, such as globalization, technology, intangible assets, talent management. Meanwhile, organizations that are inclined in performing according to ethical standards, morals, and values, have recognized the importance and significance that ethical procedures and policies are communicated and practiced throughout the entire organization, while at the same time becoming a priority for the administration of the organization. Organizational and educational leadership is responsible for practices such as creating the foundations for the resourceful and ethical performance of the business. It is one of the most powerful and important aspects of human activities in organizations. Given that leaders are the most influential body in any institution greatly impacting the organizational culture, they are the ones who ought to promote and model principles and values in accordance to the objectives, mission, and vision shared with employees. Although ethos as a principle and value was first discussed in the ancient Greek philosophic circles, where it was characterizing the virtuous and moral beliefs, attitudes, and acts, the importance of the principle of ethical behavior had not been "apparent" until recent years that individuals and organizations have been researching to find ways that ethical behavior can be integrated into corporate practices. Moreover, ethics and the notion of ethical behavior and value systems in the organizational setting have become an organizational precedence in the 21stcentury.  While leaders have numerous external factors, which present opportunities and threats, such as keeping up with the technology advancements, globalization's outcomes, threats of the competition, they also have to keep up with internal tasks and practices such as the alignment of mission, vision with the organizational culture, the strategies designed and the goals pursued for their own organization. Although the role of a leader is a complex and multifaceted one, he/she must also integrate ethical practices in their organizations' policies.


Workload generators may be classified as based on a closed system model, where new job arrivals are only triggered by job completions (followed by think time), or an open system model, where new jobs arrive independently of job completions. In general, system designers pay little attention to whether a workload generator is closed or open. Using a combination of implementation and simulation experiments, we illustrate that there is a vast difference in behavior between open and closed models in realworld settings. We synthesize these differences into eight simple guiding principles, which serve three purposes. First, the principles specify how scheduling policies are impacted by closed and open models, and explain the differences in user level performance. Second, the principles motivate the use of partly open system models, whose behavior we show to lie between that of closed and open models. Finally, the principles provide guidelines to system designers for determining which system model is most appropriate for a given workload.


Writings on Freud by Italy's leading psychoanalyst of the twentieth century. Elvio Fachinelli was one of the most original and controversial Italian psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. He viewed psychoanalytic theory as inextricably linked to the concrete experience of everyday reality and as a crucial compass for understanding the social and political turmoil of his era. This compact volume collects Fachinelli's writing on Freud, offering readers both an accessible and engaging introduction to Freud's thinking and an overview of Fachinelli's own main ideas. Written between 1966 and 1989, these essays serve to introduce readers to some of the most provocative aspects of Fachinelli's critiques of psychoanalysis and society.
 On Freud includes a long essay on Freud that weaves the theoretical foundations of psychoanalysis together with a surprising number of idiosyncratic observations about Freud the person. In it, Fachinelli offers a series of parallax perspectives: Freud the conquistador, who leads psychoanalysis to the exploration of new fields of knowledge; Freud the archaeologist, who discovers antithetical and incongruous elements in the territory of the unconscious; and Freud the Victorian, whose bourgeois values clashed with the revolutionary character of his discovery. Other essays include an assessment of psychoanalysis as a general social phenomenon that is increasingly showing its historical limits; a discussion of an encounter between Freud and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke; Fachinelli's pointed account of Freud's view of psychoanalysis for "the poor"; and an examination of the importance of the element of surprise—for both analyst and analysand—in analysis. Without surprise, Fachinelli writes, psychanalysis is just a "ministering and administering of knowledge, a repetition of the already known."
 This edition includes an authoritative survey of Fachinelli's work and insight into how it continues to be relevant today.


This article introduces the themes and the various contributions to the special issue. It describes the evolution of the overall approach and framework for researching education quality used by the Implementing Education Quality in Low‐Income Countries (EdQual) Research Programme Consortium (RPC). The article commences with the background to the RPC including some theoretical starting points. It provides a critique of dominant approaches to researching education quality, namely the human capital and rights based approaches. This provides a basis for setting out the approach and framework adopted by EdQual which is founded on social justice principles. The framework is outlined in relation to three intersecting contexts, namely the policy context, the home/community context of the learner and the context of the school.


Ammonium nitrogen recovery using natural zeolite from the permeates of anaerobic membrane bioreactors was investigated with batch and continuous experiments. Regeneration of exhausted zeolite was compared between mechanical shaking and air stripping, and experimental results showed the superiority of air stripping over the shaking. Liquid circulation and air flow rates were optimized in a continuous zeolite-packed column with a separate recovery system consisting of a regeneration chamber and a stripping column. The liquid circulation rate had significant effect neither on the regeneration efficiency ( RE ) nor the ammonia transfer efficiency ( ATE ), while the ATE significantly increased with increasing air flow rate. The effect of pH on ammonia recovery was also tested and the results showed that both RE and ATE significantly improved at alkaline pH. When pH increased from 9.5 to 12, the RE increased from 9.2% to 84% and the ATE increased from 54% to 92%. The results emphasized that the pH should be higher than 11 for efficient regeneration and recovery of ammonia. The preliminary economic analysis showed the superiority of the alkaline regeneration–air stripping process over the high pH regeneration and the conventional regeneration.


Approximately one in four adults has hypertension, a prevalence that increases with age and may reach to two out of three adults older than 70 years of age. In the Framingham Heart Study 65-75% of hypertension in the elderly is of the isolated systolic hypertension variety. Hypertension causes a two- to threefold increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events. Hypertension clusters with dyslipidaemia, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance and obesity in more than 80% of cases. The great majority of hypertensives thus have additional cardiovascular risk factors. The global cardiovascular risk, of which hypertension is but one component, is best appreciated by the use of risk charts such as the Framingham Risk Score.


Title: All Warfare is Hybrid It has recently been argued that a new form of warfare – hybrid warfare – is fundamentally changing the way our enemies fight against us. This supposedly unprecedented form of warfare is characterized by the mixing of methods and ways of organization, as well as the blurring of the line between war and peace. This article argues that hybrid warfare is just the newest military buzzword around. While the concept highlights fundamental questions regarding war and democratic norms of civil-military relations, it provides no answers. Rather, it harks back to an imaginary past characterized by simpleness and clarity. A thorough reading of the extensive literature on modern warfare would show that the concept describes what has become the norm: all warfare is hybrid. As with other unclear concepts built on shaky foundations, it is difficult to see how hybrid warfare can contribute to better understanding or policymaking.


We consider the task of evaluating a policy for a Markov decision process (MDP). The standard unbiased technique for evaluating a policy is to deploy the policy and observe its performance. We show that the data collected from deploying a different policy, commonly called the behavior policy, can be used to produce unbiased estimates with lower mean squared error than this standard technique. We derive an analytic expression for the optimal behavior policy --- the behavior policy that minimizes the mean squared error of the resulting estimates. Because this expression depends on terms that are unknown in practice, we propose a novel policy evaluation sub-problem, behavior policy search: searching for a behavior policy that reduces mean squared error. We present a behavior policy search algorithm and empirically demonstrate its effectiveness in lowering the mean squared error of policy performance estimates.


This work is about a formulation of abelian gauge theories out-of-equilibrium. In contrast to thermal equilibrium, systems out-of-equilibrium are not constant in time, and the interesting questions in such systems refer to time evolution problems. After a short introduction to quantum electrodynamics (QED), the two-particle irreducible (2PI) effective action is introduced as an essential technique for the study of quantum field theories out-of-equilibrium. The equations of motion (EOMs) for the propagators of the theory are then derived from it. It follows a discussion of the physical degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the theory, in particular with respect to the photons, since in covariant formulations of gauge theories unphysical DOFs are necessarily contained.
After that the Eoms for the photon propagator are examined more closely. It turns out that they are structurally complicated, and a reformulation of the equations is presented which for the untruncated theory leads to an essential structural simplification of the EOMs. After providing the initial conditions which are necessary in order to solve the EOMs, the free photon EOMs are solved with the help of the reformulated equations. It turns out that the solutions diverge in time, i.e. they are secular. This is a manifestation of the fact that gauge theories contain unphysical DOFs. It is reasoned that these secularities exist only in the free case and are therefore "artificial". It is however emphasized that they may not be a problem in principle, but certainly are in practice, in particular for the numerical solution of the EOMs. Further, the origin of the secularities, for which there exists an illustrative explanation, is discussed in more detail.
Another characteristic feature of 2PI formulations of gauge theories is the fact that quantities calculated from approximations of the 2PI effective action, which are gauge invariant in the exact theory as well as in an approximated theory at each perturbative order, are not gauge invariant in general. A closely related phenomenon is the fact that the Ward identities, which are relations between correlation functions of different order, are not in general applicable to correlation functions which are calculated from the 2PI effective action. As an example the photon self-energy is presented, which is transverse in the exact theory as well as perturbatively at each order, but not if it is calculated starting from the 2PI effective action. It is shown that both these phenomena are caused by the complex resummation implemented by the 2PI effective action.
Finally, a concrete approximation of the 2PI effective action is presented, and the self-energies are derived from it in a form which is suitable for the practical implementation on a computer. Some results are shown which have been obtained by the numerical solution of the 2PI EOMs.


In this paper we suggest a multi-start greedy heuristic for a real-life truck and trailer routing problem. The considered problem is a site dependent heterogeneous fleet truck and trailer routing problem with soft and hard time windows and split deliveries. This problem arises in delivering goods from a warehouse to stores of a big retail company. There are about 400 stores and 100 vehicles for one warehouse. Our heuristic is based on sequential greedy insertion of a customer to a route with further improvement of the solution. The computational experiments are performed for real-life data. We also provide a mixed integer linear programming formulation for precise and clear description of the problem.


An interlaboratory study has been conducted using four ASTM rock-property test methods (longitudinal and transverse pulse velocity, indirect tensile strength, unconfined compressive strength, and uniaxial elastic modulus) on four types of intact rock (Barre Granite, Berea Sandstone, Salem Limestone, and Tennessee Marble). There were five replications per test per rock type. The rock testing was preceded by pilot testing on aluminum alloy 6061 T6 test specimens of four sizes, using the two nondestructive ASTM test methods (pulse velocity and elastic modulus) with three replications. The number of laboratories producing data for this report ranged from six to eight. The test results for aluminum are generally more precise than those for rock. The rock-property tests with the largest and smallest precision are longitudinal pulse velocity and indirect tensile strength, respectively. The rock types yielding the greatest and least precise test results are Barre Granite and Berea Sandstone, respectively. Proposed precision statements are presented for the four ASTM rock-property test methods used in this study.


Abstract The iconic moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) from New Zealand continue to attract much scientific scrutiny, as they have done since their discovery in the 1840s. Here, we review moa research since 2001 that advances our knowledge of the biology of these families; in particular, their breeding, diet and phylogenetic relationships. Then we perform a phylogenetic analysis based on morphological characters using a broader range of taxa and many more characters than hitherto used in moa analyses. Finally, we provide revised diagnoses of all moa taxa to reflect current knowledge. In this last decade, molecular analyses have been at the forefront of much of this research. Indeed, moa have become model subjects for advances in ancient DNA technology on account of their preservation and young geological age, and the fact that several of the foremost proponents of ancient DNA research are New Zealanders. Much of this research has been about extending the capacity of ancient DNA technology as much as about answering biological questions, but the resultant insights with regard to the latter have been profound for moa. Complete mitochondrial genomes for three species of moa have been published and extensive datasets of a number of mitochondrial genes are now available for all species over their entire geographic range. Analyses of nuclear DNA is limited to a sex specific gene and some preliminary microsatellite identifications, but it seems likely that improved technology will allow greater use of this resource in the near future. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial molecular data have precipitated several changes to moa taxonomy and nine species are now recognised. The significance of deep phylogenetic structure among populations in some taxa continues to attract debate and likely will require nuclear data and a more profound understanding of natural variation in extant species to resolve. Significantly, molecular data have enabled new insights into diet, with direct identification of species responsible for coprolites, and by its new-found propensity to identify eggshell, foreshadows further advances in understanding their breeding biology and distribution. Our phylogenetic analysis, based on 179 characters scored for 23 ingroup palaeognath taxa and three galloanseres as outgroups, resulted in several strongly supported relationships. Firstly, the Eocene palaeognath Lithornis was either sister to remaining palaeognaths or had a weak affinity towards tinamous. All ratites formed a monophyletic clade exclusive of tinamous. Moa were monophyletic and sister to aepyornithids in the unconstrained analysis. Attempts to constrain moa as sister to tinamous to reflect molecular-based conclusions resulted in moa as sister to all ratites in a clade that was unresolved with respect to tinamous and Lithornis. This relatively basal position of moa was not a significantly worse reflection of the data compared to their more crownward location in the initial analyses. The casuariids were sister to Struthio and the rheas. In our revised diagnoses for Dinornithiformes and all its constituent taxa, we give updated information on the type specimens based on recent research by the authors. We accept three families, six genera and nine species, and make the new combinations of Euryapteryx curtus curtus (Owen) and E. curtus gravis (Owen). Complete or near complete exemplars of the skull of all moa taxa, most not illustrated before, are shown in dorsal, lateral and ventral views.


The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of the mechanism to eliminate the regional detriment in the context of recent changes in Russian legislation and the implementation of public programs in this area. As the object of the study the authors have selected the Rostov region as one of the subjects of the Russian Federation on the territory of which has been the target of accumulated environmental damage. The elimination of this damage will expand the capacity to attract investment and will improve the quality of life of the local population.The article analyzes the institutional, legal and economic conditions of the Russian Federation that allow the regions to implement measures for to reduce and eliminate the accumulated harm to environment. The documents that form the basis include the strategic documents explaining the process of governing of the federal and regional authorities' interaction in implementing the projects dealing with the existing damage.As a result of the study the authors have come to the conclusion that authorities in the Rostov region must form a coherent mechanism that provides efficient interaction for all the affected parties at regional level. Authors propose a contour description of this mechanism, carried out on the basis of the main requirements (targets, aims, objects, subjects and tools of impact) and form the proposals to ensure its effective functioning in the Rostov region.


In this paper, we describe a user study comparing five different locomotion interfaces for virtual reality locomotion. We compared a standard non-motion cueing interface, Joystick (Xbox), with four motion cueing interfaces, NaviChair (stool with springs), MuvMan (sit/stand active stool), Head-Directed (Oculus Rift DK2), and Swivel Chair (everyday office chair with leaning capability). Each interface had two degrees of freedom to move forward/backward and rotate using velocity (rate) control. The aim of this mixed methods study was to better understand relevant user experience factors and guide the design of future locomotion interfaces. This study employed methods from HCI to provide an understanding of why users behave a certain way while using the interface and to unearth any new issues with the design. Participants were tasked to search for objects in a virtual city while they provided talk-aloud feedback and we logged their behaviour. Subsequently, they completed a post-experimental questionnaire on their experience. We found that the qualitative themes of control, usability, and experience echoed the results of the questionnaire, providing internal validity. The quantitative measures revealed the Joystick to be significantly more comfortable and precise than the motion cueing interfaces. However, the qualitative feedback and interviews showed this was due to the reduced perceived controllability and safety of the motion cueing interfaces. Designers of these interfaces should consider using a backrest if users need to lean backwards and avoid using velocity-control for rotations when using HMDs.


Abstract It can be difficult to select from available safety preventative measures, especially where there is limited evidence of effectiveness in different contexts. This paper describes application of a method to identify and evaluate wide-ranging preventative measures for rail suicide and trespass fatalities. Evidence from literature and industry sources was collated and reviewed in a two stage process to achieve consensus among experts on the likely effects of the measures and factors influencing their implementation. Multiple evaluation criteria were used to examine the measures from different perspectives. Fencing, awareness campaigns and different types of organisational initiatives were recommended for further testing. This is the first time evidence has been collected internationally across such a range of preventative measures. Commentary is provided on using this type of approach to select safety measures from a pool of prevention options, including how re-framing the scope of the exercise could identify alternative options for prevention. Practitioner summary: The findings give insight to how different measures work in different ways and how industry can consider this in strategic initiatives. The method could be used in future studies with different frames of reference (e.g. different timescales, level of ambition and safety context e.g. railway crossings or highway fatalities). Abbreviation: RESTRAIL: REduction of Suicides and Trespasses on RAILway property


With the rapid evolution of wireless networking, it becomes vital to ensure transmission reliability, enhanced connectivity, and efficient resource utilization. One possible pathway for gaining insight into these critical requirements would be to explore the spatial geometry of the network. However, tractably characterizing the actual position of nodes for large wireless networks (LWNs) is technically unfeasible. Thus, stochastical spatial modeling is commonly considered for emulating the random pattern of mobile users. As a result, the concept of random geometry is gaining attention in the field of cellular systems in order to analytically extract hidden features and properties useful for assessing the performance of networks.
 Meanwhile, the large-scale fading between interacting nodes is the most fundamental element in radio communications, responsible for weakening the propagation, and thus worsening the service quality. Given the importance of channel losses in general, and the inevitability of random networks in real-life situations, it was then natural to merge these two paradigms together in order to obtain an improved stochastical model for the large-scale fading. Therefore, in exact closed-form notation, we generically derived the large-scale fading distributions between a reference base-station and an arbitrary node for uni-cellular (UCN), multi-cellular (MCN), and Gaussian random network models. In fact, we for the first time provided explicit formulations that considered at once: the lattice profile, the users' random geometry, the spatial intensity, the effect of the far-field phenomenon, the path-loss behavior, and the stochastic impact of channel scatters. Overall, the results can be useful for analyzing and designing LWNs through the evaluation of performance indicators.
 Moreover, we conceptualized a straightforward and flexible approach for random spatial inhomogeneity by proposing the area-specific deployment (ASD) principle, which takes into account the clustering tendency of users. In fact, the ASD method has the advantage of achieving a more realistic deployment based on limited planning inputs, while still preserving the stochastic character of users' position. We then applied this inhomogeneous technique to different circumstances, and thus developed three spatial-level network simulator algorithms for: controlled/uncontrolled UCN, and MCN deployments.


Mast cell activation syndromes (MCAS) are clinically defined disease states with a largely unknown morphological background. Since mastocytosis may be associated with MCAS, it is crucial in every patient to document or exclude mastocytosis by appropriate histological, molecular, and serological investigations of tissues/organs that are commonly involved in mastocytosis like skin, mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract and bone marrow. Accordingly, histopathological investigation including immunohistological stains is crucial to reach the final diagnosis in such patients and to classify MCAS into primary MCAS, which can present with or without evidence of overt mastocytosis, or secondary MCAS, where an underlying disease with or without tissue inflammation is detected. Cases without evidence of mastocytosis, monoclonal mast cells, or any underlying disease should be termed idiopathic MCAS. When the activating point mutant KIT D816V is detectable but criteria for diagnosis of mastocytosis are not completely met, a so-called (mono)clonal MCAS as a subvariant of primary MCAS should be diagnosed.


The structure and interrelationships of formal knowledge produced in the scientific disciplines have long been of interest to academics. One increasingly important domain of Information Systems (IS) research is the study of the creation and evolution of knowledge. Recent discourse about the intellectual structure of IS has revealed Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) as an analytic technique that reduces problems associated with human categorization and citation analysis. This exploratory research positions IS within a 'science of business' using LSA to analyze semantic relationships in 24,841 abstracts from core business journals and begins to chart research concepts around which IS and other business disciplines converge. Results indicate that IS research has greater conceptual similarity to the disciplines of Management, Operations, Strategy, and Marketing than previously thought, and that these disciplines are converging on semantically similar research topics and concepts. This organizational-behavior-technical domain is distinct from an economics focused domain dominated by Finance and Accounting. The convergence suggests that IS is contributing to research and knowledge creation useful to other business disciplines and that strategic and functional dependence among the disciplines is increasing. This potentially leads to more integrated systems-oriented knowledge and greater practical relevance for both IS and other business disciplines.


Abstract A series of clinopyroxenes along the CaMgSi2O6-CaCoSi2O6 join was synthesized by quenching from melts at 1500°C and subsequent annealing at 1250°C (at 0.0001 GPa). This protocol proved to be the most effective to obtain homogenous, impurity-free and stoichiometric pyroxenes. Electron microprobe analyses in energy dispersive mode were conducted and single-crystal X-ray diffraction data were collected on Ca (CoxMg1-x)Si2O6 pyroxenes with x = 0.2, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6. Effects of cation substitution at the M1 site are described. The experimental findings of this study allow us to extend the comparative analysis of the structural features of pyroxenes with divalent cations at the M1 and M2 sites.


Abstract International relations research acknowledges that states can have different security policies but neglects the fact that 'models' may exist in the security policy realm. This article suggests that it is useful to think about models, which it argues can become examples for emulation or be undermined through narrative power. It illustrates the argument by analysing Japan's pacifism—an alternative approach to security policy which failed to become an internationally popular model and, despite serving the country well for many years, has even lost its appeal in Japan. Conventional explanations suggest that Japan's pacifist policies were 'abnormal', and that the Japanese eventually realized this. By contrast, this article argues that narratives undermined Japan's pacifism by mobilizing deep-seated beliefs about what is realistic and unrealistic in international politics, and launches a counter-narrative that could help make pacifism a more credible model in world politics.


We argue that, with an elasticity of substitution in consumption greater than one and higher scale economies in the skill-intensive sectors, the entire volume of world trade matters for wage inequality. This implies that trade integration, even among identical countries, is likely to increase the skill premium. This result can also explain the increase in skill premia in developing countries that have experienced drastic trade liberalizations. Further, we argue that evidence of a falling relative price of skill-intensive goods can be reconciled with the fast growth of world trade and that the intersectoral mobility of capital exacerbates the effect of trade on inequality. We provide new empirical evidence in support of our results and a quantitative assessment of the skill bias of world trade.


In the World today the sea is a vital part of global commerce. Historically the merchant fleet has been a national asset which meant it was the navy's responsibility to protect them. Today however, most commercial shipping is registered under a flag of convenience. The sea, as a trade route, is vital to many countries for economic reasons and the threat to it is a huge issue. Escalating piracy incidents in recent years off the coast of Somalia has resulted in many nations sending their navy's to protect merchant shipping but how prepared are they?The navy should strive for Command at sea or modern sea control. There is however, a discussion on its application during peacetime and this paper aims to support one side or the other by looking at cases of piracy around Somalia. To do this, cases will be looked upon with the concept defence of shipping which exploits sea control. If a navy uses methods that are explained in defence of shipping they also have sea control.The analysis shows that navy's outside of Somalia have used methods that are found in the concept defence of shipping. Therefore, it is possible that sea control can be used in peacetime.


Electronic system reliability over soft errors is very critical as the transistor size shrinks. Many recent works have defined the device error rate under radiation for SRAMs in hold mode (static) and during operation (dynamic). This paper evaluates the impact of running test algorithms on SRAMs exposed to neutron radiation, in order to define their stressing factor. The results that we show are based on experiments performed at the TSL facilities in Uppsala, Sweden using a Quasi-Monoenergetic neutron beam. The evaluation of the test algorithms is based on the calculated device SEU cross section.


Trace elements in arable soils have become an environmental issue that it has to be investigated for sustainable agricultural production. Investigations were carried out in the laboratory to determine some physical, geochemical and mechanical properties of three profiles (A, B, and C) of arable soils. The properties investigated were shear strength, and trace elements status in the surface and subsurface horizons. Shear vane tester was used to measure soil shear strength and atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used to determine the trace elements status of the soils. The three profiles studied were predominantly clay loam in texture across the horizons except the profi le B which was clay in the 30- 40 cm depth layer. The specifi c gravity of the experimental soils ranged from 2.65 to 2.77. The plasticity index of the profi les A, B and C ranged from 8.6 to 10.7, 9.3 to 10.7 and 10.0 to 10.7, respectively. The soils were characterized by relatively low levels of identified trace elements. Results showed that 8.5 mg/kg of lead (Pb) was the highest value of trace elements, while 0.3 mg/kg of Iron (Fe) was the lowest value of the soil trace element observed. The most notable characteristics of the soils were the low organic matter content and the predominantly acidic pH. The bulk density of the sample varied between 1.72 and 1.86 g/cm 3 . The range of the maximum shear strength of compacted soil was 150.75 to 156.14, 154.79 to 160.17 and 162.87 to 166.90 kPa for profi les A, B and C, respectively. The mean moisture content during the study varied from 14.5 to 18.9% (db). The data presented in this study is good for planning and soil management practice.


This dissertation deals with the problems and the opportunities of a semiotic approach to
perception. Is perception, seen as the ability to detect and articulate an coherent picture of the
surrounding environment, describable in semiotic terms? Is it possibile, for a discipline wary of any
attempt to reduce semiotic meaning to a psychological and naturalized issue, to come to terms with
the cognitive, automatic and genetically hard-wired specifics of our perceptive systems? In order to
deal with perceptive signs, is it necessary to modify basic assumptions in semiotics, or can we
simply extend the range of our conceptual instruments and definitions? And what if perception is a
wholly different semiotic machinery, to be considered as sui generis, but nonetheless interesting for
a general theory of semiotics?
By exposing the major ideas put forward by the main thinkers in the semiotic field, Mattia de
Bernardis gives a comprehensive picture of the theoretical situation, adding to the classical
dichotomy between structuralist and interpretative semiotics another distinction, that between
homogeneist and etherogeneist theories of perception. Homogeneist semioticians see perception as
one of many semiotic means of sign production, totally similar to the other ones, while
heterogeneist semioticians consider perceptive meaning as essentially different from normal
semiotic meaning, so much so that it requires new methods and ideas to be analyzed.
The main example of etherogeneist approach to perception in semiotic literature, Umberto Eco's
"primary semiosis" is then presented, critically examined and eventually rejected and the
homogeneist stance is affirmed as the most promising path towards a semiotic theory of perception.


It is apparent that the legal system in the People's Republic of China is in a state of development and it can even be said that the entire system is underdeveloped but discussion and debate can take place freely. One must always keep in mind the traditional suspicion of lawyers and the unfortunate influence of the Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, however, lawyers are held in high esteem by the general public, mostly because of their attempts to improve the quality of human rights. In this they deserve the support of lawyers the world over.


Techniques to determine subarrays when processing elements of VLSI arrays become faulty have been investigated extensively. These tend to identify the largest subarray that is possible without concentrating on the power efficiency of the resulting subarray. In this paper, we propose new techniques, based on heuristic strategy and dynamic programming, to minimize the interconnect length in an attempt to reduce power dissipation without performance penalty. Our algorithms show that notable improvements in the reduction of the number of long interconnects could be realized in linear time and without sacrificing the size of the subarray. Our evaluations show that, for a VLSI array of size 256/spl times/256, the number of long interconnects in the subarray can be reduced by up to 95 percent for clustered faults and up to 50 percent and 73 percent for a random fault with density of 10 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, when compared with the most efficient implementation cited in the literature. The interconnect power saving for a VLSI array of size 512/spl times/512 is by up to 11 percent for a random fault. We have also shown that interconnect power savings of up to 14 percent are possible for the cases investigated. Simulations based on several random and clustered fault scenarios clearly reveal the superiority of the proposed techniques for power efficient realizations. In addition, the lower bound of the performance has been proposed to demonstrate that the proposed algorithms are nearly optimal for the cases considered in this paper.


Photochemical vapor generation (PVG) provides an alternative to chemical vapor generation techniques but suffers severe interference in the presence of oxidizing species, notably nitrate and nitrite. Although the mechanism is not completely understood, scavenging of photogenerated free electrons and hydrogen radicals by NO2− and NO3− likely plays a role in terminating analyte reduction reactions which lead to hydridization, carbonylation or alkylation of analytes. In this study, several strategies for the elimination of nitrate and nitrite from samples prior to PVG were examined. Since the Se(IV)-acetic acid PVG system proved to be extremely sensitive to low levels of these oxidants, wherein 50% loss of generation efficiency is realized at [NO3−] > 2.5 mM, it was used as a test case. To this end, a number of practical approaches to the reduction of nitrate and nitrite were evaluated, including: utilizing sulfamic acid, hydrazine sulfate, sodium thiosulfate and V(III), as well as removal by photo-reduction and quantitative precipitation by nitron. Whereas none of these approaches could be implemented with impunity, a methodology based on UV photolysis of a basic solution containing 2% hydrazine sulfate provided high NO3− removal efficiencies. Residual NO2− was quantitatively eliminated by addition of sulfamic acid to the acidified solution, allowing efficient generation of volatile Se(CH3)2 species. The methodology was tested by application to Certified Reference Material SLRS-3 (river water, acidified to pH 1.6 with nitric acid), achieving 83 ± 2% Se(IV) spike recoveries using PVG sample introduction coupled with ICP-MS for detection, illustrating effective control over interferences and recovery of Se(IV).


OBJECTIVE
The aims of this study were to review the National Spina Bifida Patient Registry (NSBPR) data set to study the rates of tethered spinal cord release (TCR) among patients with myelomeningocele and variability between centers, to compare TCR rates between males and females, and to study the relationships between TCR rates and other condition-specific characteristics.

METHODS
The NSBPR registry was queried to identify all patients with myelomeningocele. TCR rates were calculated over time using survival analyses; rates between centers and between males and females were compared. Cox proportional hazards models were constructed to identify relationships between TCR rates and sex, functional lesion level, ambulation status, treated hydrocephalus, and prior Chiari decompression.

RESULTS
Of 6339 patients with information about their operations, 1366 (21.5%) underwent TCR, with significant variability between centers. The majority (75.8%) underwent a single TCR. The annual TCR rate was linear between birth and 13 years (1.8%/year) but declined sharply from 14 to 21 years (0.7%/year). There was no period of time at which the TCR rate accelerated. There were no significant differences in TCR rates between males and females. TCR rate was not related to functional lesion level but was lower among nonambulators compared with community ambulators (p = 0.005) and among those with treated hydrocephalus (HR 0.30, p < 0.001), and higher among those having prior Chiari decompression (HR 1.71, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
These results extend the results of prior single-institution studies, demonstrate significant treatment variability between institutions, and challenge the traditional concept that tethering is related to spinal cord stretching due to spinal growth.


There seems to be a general consent in the expert community that Hungarian social policy provides poorly targeted benefits and services that are prone to Mattheweffects. Our results confirm this observation but we also find that the data offer an alternative interpretation of what the Hungarian welfare state is actually doing. Instead of supporting the poor it reallocates resources from the working age population to children and elderly people. It functions as an intermediary between overlapping generations that seek to finance their lifecycle by exploiting the opportunity offered by the very overlap, the fact that contemporaries are of different age. In a cross-sectional framework we analyse reallocations by age and income simultaneously and assess the relative importance of these two variables in explaining the access and contribution to public benefits. Our data from 2010 (based on EU-SILC and the Household Budget Survey) covers public transfers (cash and in-kind) and both direct and indirect taxes. We compare the importance of age and income in explaining transfers and taxes in a regression-analysis framework by studying causal importance (comparing coefficients) and dispersion importance of the variables (using Shapley-value decomposition). We find that income is irrelevant in explaining access to benefits and services but age is important. On the contribution side, income proves as important as age. This qualifies our description of the Hungarian welfare system: it serves as a channel through which affluent people in their working age support people in inactive age of all income groups.


Exosomes are of increasing interest as alternative mode of cell-to-cell communication. We previously reported that exosomes secreted by human SOJ-6 pancreatic tumor cells induce (glyco)protein ligand-independent cell death and inhibit Notch-1 pathway, this latter being particularly active during carcinogenesis and in cancer stem cells. Therefore, we asked whether exosomal lipids were key-elements for cell death and hypothesized that cholesterol-rich membrane microdomains were privileged sites of exosome interactions with tumor cells. To address these questions and based on the lipid composition of exosomes from SOJ-6 cells (Ristorcelli et al. (2008) FASEB J. 22; 3358–3369) enriched in cholesterol and sphingomyelin (lipids forming liquid-ordered phase, Lo) and depleted in phospholipids (lipids forming liquid-disordered phase, Ld), we designed Synthetic Exosome-Like Nanoparticles (SELN) with ratios Lo/Ld from 3.0 to 6.0 framing that of SOJ-6 cell exosomes. SELN decreased tumor cell survival, the higher the Lo/Ld ratio, the lower the cell survival. This decreased survival was due to activation of cell death with inhibition of Notch pathway. FRET analyses indicated fusions/exchanges of SELN with cell membranes. Fluorescent SELN co-localized with the ganglioside GM1 then with Rab5A, markers of lipid microdomains and of early endosomes, respectively. These interactions occurred at lipid microdomains of plasma and/or endosome membranes where the Notch-1 pathway matures. We thus demonstrated a major role for lipids in interactions between SELN and tumor cells, and in the ensued cell death. To our knowledge this is the first report on such effects of lipidic nanoparticles on tumor cell behavior. This may have implications in tumor progression.


Abstract This study addresses four hypotheses that may account for differences in the number of insect herbivore species among plant species. These hypotheses are based on the assumption that insect diversity is a function of the number, quantity, and distribution of plant resources used by herbivores. The study investigated predictions that herbivore species richness will increase as a function of increasing the following: (1) host plant distribution over the landscape (host plant geographical distribution hypothesis), (2) host plant density within a habitat (resource concentration hypothesis), (3) size of individual plants (plant size hypothesis), or (4) abundance of resources (resource abundance hypothesis). We tested predictions from these hypotheses by examining the species richness of insect herbivores on five sympatric species of fabaceous plants that varied in their local dispersion of individual plants and plant architecture. Among these five species, plant geographical distribution varied threefold, density varied 38-fold, plant size and food resources available to insect herbivores varied ≈100-fold. Plant geographical distribution, plant size, and the resource concentration hypotheses were not corroborated in this study. Resource abundance, measured as plant dry weight, accounted for the differences in number and abundance of insect species between host plant species. Leaf biomass accounted for 44.15% of the variation in number of insect herbivore species and 51.76% of the variation in abundance of insect herbivores using leaves as resources. Flower biomass accounted for 32.86% of the variation in the number of insect herbivore species using flowers. Therefore, plants that offered a greater quantity of resources, especially leaves and flowers, had greater species richness and abundance in insect herbivores.


Deep latent Gaussian models are powerful and popular probabilistic models of highdimensional data. These models are almost always fit using variational expectationmaximization, an approximation to true maximum-marginal-likelihood estimation. In this paper, we propose a different approach: rather than use a variational approximation (which produces biased gradient signals), we use Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC, which allows us to trade bias for computation). We find that our MCMC-based approach has several advantages: it yields higher held-out likelihoods, produces sharper images, and does not suffer from the variational overpruning effect. MCMC's additional computational overhead proves to be significant, but not prohibitive.


Using national income and expenditure distribution data from 119 countries, the authors decompose total income inequality between the individuals in the world, by continent and by"region"(countries grouped by income level). They use a Gini decomposition that allows for an exact breakdown (without a residual term) of the overall Gini by recipients. Looking first at income inequality in income between countries is more important than inequality within countries. Africa, Latin America, and Western Europe and North America are quite homogeneous continent, with small differences between countries (so that most of the inequality on these continents is explained by inequality within countries). Next the authors divide the world into three groups: the rich G7 countries (and those with similar income levels), the less developed countries (those with per capita income less than or equal to Brazil's), and the middle-income countries (those with per capita income between Brazil's and Italy's). They find little overlap between such groups - very few people in developing countries have incomes in the range of those in the rich countries.


If college is to be the gateway to security and success, then a new financing mechanism is essential, one that lets students take responsibility for the cost of their own educations without burdening their families unduly, forcing them into career choices that push them out of public service, or mortgaging their futures. Our Service Pays proposal is designed to give every student who wants to work hard a means of paying for college - and to give young people an economically viable option to engage in public service for a few years after college. After describing the high costs of college and the risks associated with student debt, the paper outlines the Service Pays program. The federal government would increase the amount students can borrow in the unsubsidized Stafford loan program, offering money for four years of college tuition, fees, and room and board to any student (regardless of family income) on the same terms as current student loans. The dollar amounts of the available loans would be pegged to average prices at public four-year colleges and universities, and students would have four years to work off those loans. The government would forgive students one year of college expenses for each year the student worked in public service after college. The paper then considers the types of service opportunities that would be eligible, the expected benefits of service, and the likely costs of Service Pays.


Key messagesCompeting land claims are the primary cause of conflict between communities and companies in most industrial tree plantation conflicts.Conflicts manifest in different ways. Communities often conduct physical protests and media campaigns, whereas companies frequently avoid dialogue and enlist the services of security forces to suppress conflict.The involvement of security forces should be regulated. Conflicts where external security personnel were involved had fatalities in 32% of the cases, versus none of the cases where external security personnel were not involved. In cases where violence occurred, the violence was mostly conducted by or directed against security personnel, army and police forces. However, we cannot differentiate between whether they were involved in a conflict already about to escalate, or whether their involvement escalated the conflict into violence.Mediation is widely misinterpreted and poorly implemented. However, efforts are being made by government and non-governmental actors to build capacity in principles and practices of mediation.More effort should be made to support communication between parties in conflict and to offer professional mediation services at an early stage of conflict. For the many conflicts that have already escalated to levels of physical violence, efforts to transform how the conflict is expressed or external intervention to enforce a solution may be most appropriate.While communication between conflicting parties may be supported by government, it should not be mediated by government, as government is in itself an actor in most of the conflicts (as it issues the permits to the land). Ideally, mediation services can be provided by professional mediators who are part of the Impartial Mediators Network or registered under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) or the Chamber of Commerce.Concrete actions that signal the parties' commitment to ending or de-escalating the conflict are critical. Local activists and community members report that companies that are RSPO members are more easily held accountable. They also respond faster to complaints, even without direct intervention of the RSPO. Most conflicts with fatalities (67%) occurred on plantations that were not associated with an international sustainability initiative such as RSPO or FSC.


Known for their visibility and tendency to generate controversy, first-person shooter (FPS) games are cultural icons and powder-kegs in American society. Contributors will examine a range of FPS games such as the Doom, Half-Life, System Shock, Deus Ex, Halo, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises. By applying and enriching a broad range of perspectives, this volume will address the cultural relevance and place of the genre in game studies, game theory and the cultures of game players. Guns, Grenades, and Grunts gathers scholars from all disciplines to bring the weight of contemporary social theory and media criticism to bear on the public controversy and intellectual investigation of first-person shooter games. As a genre, FPS games have helped shepherd the game industry from the early days of shareware distribution and underground gaming clans to contemporary multimillion dollar production budgets, Hollywood-style launches, downloadable content and worldwide professional gaming leagues. The FPS has been and will continue to be a staple of the game market.


Intensifying inland valley systems will require the promotion of high value commodity chain system involving rice and vegetable with increased productivity and low per unit cost of production and natural resources. The objective aim to identify the current production systems assesses their constraints and analyzes the profitability of best bet rice and vegetable cropping systems under different levels of input use and access to market. A total of 235 producers selected in Benin and Mali according to input use and access to product market. The value chain approach used to analyze the performance associated with productivity. The results show that four main chain stakeholders operate in the inland valley: producers, processors, trader and consumers. This study specifically focuses on producers and major constraints reported by this group are attacks of the insects and birds, the poor access to products markets and the unavailability of key inputs (seeds, pesticides, small equipment,) in both countries. Other constraints are high costs of transport, post-harvest losses and poor conservation of fresh vegetables and tubers. The most profitable systems in the inland valley are the ones based on rice and vegetable (Gboma: Solanum sp) using improved seeds, follow-up of the system containing rice and `'gboma'' using improved varieties of rice like NERICA associated with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. Rice associated with improved varieties of potato and mineral fertilizers is more profitable in Mali. Rice as sole crop is not profitable in both countries. Women are more involved in the sole cropping of rice in Mali.


The Gricean account of language is at the center of much current work in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. Anita Avramides maintains that Grice's paradigm can be used to defend very different conceptions of mind and of meaning. In this clearly argued book she describes Grice's analysis of meaning and proposes two interpretations of it, one reductive and one nonreductive.Much current work in cognitive science assumes that the content of words and thoughts can be explained in naturalistic terms. A leading idea (advanced mainly by Stephen Schiffer and Brian Loar) is that the naturalistic account of content will proceed in two stages: a reduction of the semantic features of word; to the contents of propositional attitudes and then a reduction of the latter to physical or functional notions. The appeal of Grice's work on meaning to this two stage reductionist strategy is that Gricean definitions seem to provide the only way of reducing the semantic to the psychological, a reduction that is required for a naturalistic account of intentionality.While Avramides defends the method of analysis as one suited to the concept of meaning, she rejects a reductive interpretation of the analysis. She argues that any attempt to reduce the semantic to the psychological leads to a mistaken conception of mind. She exposes the assumptions behind the reductive interpretation and offers fresh and original arguments for the antireductionist position. Against the reductive Gricean she defends the idea that there is a deep epistemological symmetry between semantic and propositional attitude notions, a result of which is that semantically characterized linguistic behavior is central to our concept of belief.Anita Avramides is Lecturer in Philosophy at The Queens College, The University of Oxfor. A Bradford Book


Accounting information system had been widely used by many organizations to automate and integrate their business operations .The main objective s of many businesses to adopt this system are to improve their business efficiency and increase competitiveness. The qualitative characteristic of any Accounting Information System can be maintained if there is a sound internal control system. Internal control is run to ensure the achievement of operational goals and performance. Therefore the purpose of this study is to examine the efficiency of Accounting Information System on performance measures using the secondary data in which it was found that accounting information system is of great importance to both businesses and organization in which it helps in facilitating management decision making, internal controls ,quality of the financial report ,and it facilitates the company's transaction and it also plays an important role i n economic system, and the study recommends that businesses, firms and organization should adopt the use of AIS because adequate accounting information is essential for every effective decision making process and adequate information is possible if accounting information systems are run efficiently also, efficient Accounting Information Systems ensures that all levels of management get sufficient, adequate, relevant and true information for planning and controlling activities of the business organization.


ABSTRACT A survey on expectations for responsible tourism was administered to 201 visitors to the iconic Kruger National Park, comprising 55% South African nationals and 45% international tourists. Using Likert-scale questions, respondents were invited to indicate the level of importance they attached to 38 aspects of responsible tourism. Space was also provided for open comments. Conservation of biodiversity and geological features were rated very highly by both groups while aspects related to the local community, though considered important overall, were ranked lowest overall, with international tourists rating this category as more important than South Africans. Aspects related to traffic and access were rated to be more important by South Africans, probably because they mostly self-drive while international visitors rely more on organised game drives. Visual and aesthetic features of camps, as well as energy, water and waste management were all considered very important by all respondents, with members of both groups making further suggestions for improvement. This suggests that visitors are supportive of low environmental impact tourism in the Kruger National Park. In light of the strategic goal of South African National Parks to increase visitor numbers, it will be important that this goal is achieved without compromising sound environmental performance.


"This paper requires significant editing, as it is not written in sound English and cannot be accepted in its current form." "This sentence does not make any sense." "The authors need a native English-speaking co-author to thoroughly revise the grammar of this manuscript." My heart sank when I received this feedback from a reviewer for the first paper I had ever submitted as a first author. The reviewer didn't say a thing about the underlying science—but isn't that what peer review is supposed to evaluate? Regardless, the reviewer recommended that our manuscript be rejected. This happened about 10 years ago. But as a nonnative English speaker who needs to publish in English, I still think about the experience today.

 ![][1]

ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER

> "You are not a martyr or the savior of people who did not grow up speaking English."

I expected my paper to fare well. I knew the science was strong. I had the resources and backup data to make whatever scientific changes the reviewers suggested. I also knew that my English skills weren't great. But I had a native English-speaking co-author and an adviser who was proficient in English, and they both thoroughly revised the manuscript.

When I received those comments from the reviewer, I was crushed. I felt our work wasn't being judged fairly. Had the reviewer assumed that, because my co-authors and I were all affiliated with the same Mexican research institute, none of us was proficient in English? My co-author told me I shouldn't take the comments personally, and that they did not reflect on the quality of my work, but that didn't make me feel any better. How could I succeed in academia if I could not manage to publish a paper in English?

Luckily, the other two reviewers made useful suggestions about the science, and the editor invited us to submit a revised version. I modified the science based on the helpful reviewers' feedback and made the grammar and style corrections demanded by the rude reviewer, and my first first-author paper was accepted.

Since then, no reviewers have had a problem with my English—maybe because I moved to the United States and started publishing with co-authors who have American-sounding names. I also put a lot of work into improving my language skills, including participating in writing workshops and reading books about writing in English.

But many of my colleagues in Mexico tell me stories of dealing with reviewers who are harsh and patronizing about their English. And I know that other researchers around the world experience similar insults.

Reviewers, you don't need to be rude. Here are three principles for providing constructive reviews, even when you think an article is poorly written.

First and foremost, do not make assumptions about the quality of a paper based on the authors' names and affiliations. This form of bias is rooted in racism.

Second, you are a reviewer—not an editor. Focus on the research. If the English is so poor you cannot review the paper or provide feedback on the science, tell the editor so that they can decide how to proceed.

Third, if the paper is not written in sound English, it is OK to correct grammatical errors and help improve the writing. But remember that you are not a martyr or the savior of people who did not grow up speaking English. Be kind. For example, you can write, "I cannot understand what the authors are trying to communicate here." You can also suggest editing help from someone with "full professional proficiency in English." Don't demand "a native English speaker"; that is not synonymous with being a good writer.

As reviewers, we help ensure that high-quality science gets published. We can—and should—do this without forgetting that behind every paper are people who worked hard to put together a manuscript reporting their cherished research. As scientists, we know that writing is hard. Keep in mind that writing in a second language is even harder.

 [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif


The production of a printed product involves three stages: prepress, the printing process (press) itself, and finishing (post press). There are various types of equipments (printers, scanners) and various qualities image are present in the market. These give different color rendering each time during reproduction. So, a color key tool has been developed keeping Color Management Scheme (CMS) in mind so that during reproduction no color rendering takes place irrespective of use of any device and resolution level has also been improved.


This commentary uses the Norwegian Football Association's COVID-19 crisis communication strategy as an example of how federations can take an active role and use their influence to guide and be proactive in the opening of a society after a lockdown. By paying close attention to the public debate and by interviewing the federation's communication director, the authors outlined the four phases of the strategic crisis communication—and the consequences of them in Norway. While the first consequence was the postponing of the Euro Qualifier against Serbia on March 26 for the European Championship this summer, the lockdown changed the focus quickly, and the strategy became about getting all players back on the football fields. The authors elaborated on how a major federation can (and maybe should) take a leading role by using its "voice" in the media and public and expertise to aid reopening a society after lockdown.


Leptosphaeria maculans and L. biglobosa, which cause phoma stem canker disease, are related pathogens of brassicas that were originally considered as one species but occupy slightly different ecological niches and are now reproductively isolated. Globally, the invasion by the more damaging L. maculans into areas where only L. biglobosa was present occurred in North America in the 1980s and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, whereas there are still areas of the world, such as China, where only the less damaging pathogen L. biglobosa is present. The threat to Chinese oilseed rape production from L. maculans was assessed by using models developed to describe the spread (in space and time) of L. maculans across Alberta, Canada. In addition, the worldwide population of L. biglobosa is much more variable than that of L. maculans. Further evidence is provided by the massive invasion, dated 5-20 million years ago, of the genome of L. maculans by only a few repeated element families. Shortterm strategies to prevent occurrence of severe phoma stem canker epidemics in China include training of extension workers to recognise symptoms of the disease and use of PCR-based diagnostics to detect the pathogen on imported seed. Long-term strategies include the introduction of durable QTL-mediated resistance to L. maculans into Chinese oilseed rape cultivars and exploitation of new genomic information about L. maculans and L. biglobosa as a component of an integrated disease management programme.


Air pollution over the megacity New Delhi has gained significant attention in recent times. Local pollution, along with advection from upwind sources, long-range transport and festivities (e.g., Diwali) contributing large emissions from firecrackers, has led to high loading conditions over the city. In this study, we assess a particulate pollutant event that coincided with the festival of Diwali in 2016 using multiple parameters related to particulate pollution from the ground and satellite based measurements in relation to the observed climatology during the period of 2000 to 2016. Our analysis reveals that the episode of severe air pollution in 2016 was exacerbated by the long-range transport of absorbing fine aerosols emanating from biomass/stubble burning in the adjacent states to the northwest of National Capital Territory (NCT) of India. Based on concentration weighted trajectory (CWT) analysis using the PM2.5 mass concentration and AOD, the high loading conditions were related to trajectories that passed through the northwest of NCT. The period after Diwali in 2016 also coincided with air masses traversing large biomass burning areas. The long-term changes in the fire counts indicate that these events have been increasing at an alarming rate of ~25% per year since 2000, creating the potential for high particulate pollution over downwind cities such as Delhi.


Suddenly, as if on its own, the door opens widely: the holy man "in his Sunday best," with mitre and crosier, stately enters; the headmistress follows with two little angels who carry, besides a basket full of goodies in the middle, a book with locks on the one side and a rod on the other. (Rudolfsz, 1868, p. 548) (1) In 1868, this scene is described in a Belgian teachers' journal as an old, disappearing custom in schools. The "stateliness" and purity of the tradition surrounding Saint Nicholas, so the author stated, were in decline in the "unchildly" times of the late nineteenth century and Saint Nicholas was slowly disappearing from children's lives. He could not have been more wrong. It is true that the ritual of Saint Nicholas' Day has gone on changing ever since: the Saint no longer delivers sermons to children, he stopped citing the bible and--as many of the quoted authors' successors have lamented--became "commercial". Nevertheless, Saint Nicholas remains, especially in the southern Low Countries, one of (if not the) most important and best-known "Catholic" figure in children's lives. The Saint still visits numerous schools, appearing in his Episcopal garb and flanked by playful figures (no white angels but, since the turn of the century, black Moors (2)). The night before the Saint's visit, children still sing the songs that originated in the nineteenth century, hoping that Nicholas will bring them candy and toys, and parents still make great efforts to keep Saint Nicholas alive and hidden from children's eyes. It is therefore surprising that so little has been written on the cultural history of this tradition. Apart from a handful of studies on the protestant, Northern Low Countries (Van Leer, 1995), the history of Saint Nicholas has remained in the hands of various folklorists. (3) Looking for the "origin" of the Saint, these studies have uncovered much of the changing habits and practices regarding Nicholas and along the way, have constructed their own Saint Nicholas story. The older folklorist work, especially, forms a chronicle of the invention of Saint Nicholas' tradition. The first "scientific" work on Nicholas started to appear in the 1830s. From the middle-ages onward, Saint Nicholas of Myra / Bari (4) had been venerated and celebrated as the patron saint of sailors, merchants, students and many others, but in the nineteenth century the holy bishop started to act as the ultimate children's friend. He became (and remains to be) one of the most popular religious figures appearing in households of the Low Countries. In the Netherlands, he turned into a vehicle of middle-class domesticity and family values as he offered an unambiguous model of child-rearing for the entire nation (Van Leer, 1995, p. 67). Simultaneously, various folklorists started to publish on the origins of Saint Nicholas and the development of the traditions accompanying the yearly visitor. (5) Authors such as Eelco Verwijs and Joseph Schrijnen locked many newly invented "traditions" into a perceived national past, (6) thus engaging in the activity of creating a powerful cultural symbol of Dutch society. For the American Santa Claus, a parallel story can be told. His feast-- and especially the "physical" image of Santa--became part of popular practice at the beginning of the nineteenth century. But his middle-class antiquarian inventors immediately propelled him into public memory, thus creating the illusion that Saint Nicholas had traveled from Holland to New Amsterdam with the first migrants (Nissenbaum, 1997, p. 49). In America, too, the child-loving bringer of sweets and gifts went on to act as a quintessentially domestic "Victorian" sentimental symbol of family structures, much in the way that Father Christmas came to embody British family values (Tosh, 1999, p. 146). Significantly, all these mysterious guests lose much--if not all--of their religious connotations throughout the nineteenth century. …


Summary
The prevalence of Aedes aegypti in early summer in Texas cities is very variable. Only in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is the winter climate mild enough to allow this mosquito to survive, without protected hold-over places, in sufficient numbers to produce a high incidence of breeding early in the season every year. In other cities early prevalence of breeding is associated with abundance of protected winter hold-over places, especially cisterns, fire-protection barrels in compresses and warehouses, or shallow wells. In cities having only a few such hold-over places, a high breeding index does not develop until late summer, and in many smaller cities such an index may not develop at all unless the mosquitoes are imported from elsewhere in automobiles or freight cars. In such cities the occurrence and prevalence of Aedes aegypti may vary from year to year depending on whether or not such an importation occurs early in the season. In coastal cities, alternation of cold and warm periods during the winter has a harmful effect on the survival of Aedes aegypti, and may be more important in holding the insect in check than the extremes of cold, or the total amount of cold weather.


We experience various types of radiation accidents. When a radiation accident happens, one of the important aspects that we have to consider is the radiation dose to the victims of the accident. To judge the health effects due to radiation exposure, it is necessary to make a dose assessment. There is a variety of dose assessment methods, of two types: biological dosimetry and physical dosimetry. In this paper, mainly physical dosimetry is reviewed to find out the problems we face at present. We consider (a) personal dosimeters, (b) area monitors, (c) dose reconstruction, (d) Electron Paramagnetic Resonance or EPR (ESR) dosimetry, (e) TL materials, (f) measurement of activated products, (g) whole body counters, (h) thyroid monitors, (i) lung monitors, (j) bioassay, (k) swab methods and (l) survey meters. Some of these are not designed to be used for personal dose assessment and cannot provide accurate dose estimates. Some are very time consuming and cannot provide the estimate within two days. Especially when an exposure occurs with gamma emitters and the victim is not a radiation worker, personal dosimeters are not in place and no trace of the exposure can be observed except through prodromal symptoms, chromosome aberrations or EPR of extracted tooth enamels. Therefore, it is urgently required to find some prompt dose estimation method for gamma exposures. In vivo EPR is now highlighted to be one of the promising prompt dose estimation methods. Based on the present situation of limited physical dosimetry systems, we have to use biological dosimetry as a complementary dose assessment although it cannot provide precise dose estimation.


Globalization is ushering the era of low trade barriers and global competition. Companies can no more entirely depend upon its domestic markets. Besides, many of the developing countries have been opening up their economies to accelerate development and are striving hard to mobilize funds for developing infrastructure and industry through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). A large number of Multinational companies and investment groups are seeking entry to seize the opportunities offered by the emerging economies offer immense opportunities in the areas of telecommunications, power, transport, roads, real estate, manufacturing, banking and insurance etc. Besides, cultural, language barriers and variations in religious beliefs, the decision to go international must be made with care due to the potential risks and obstacles that emerge from the future economic and political developments of the host country. The article presents a comprehensive framework to evaluate the risks of Foreign Direct Investment. The framework facilitates a systematic assessment of the risks faced by Foreign Direct Investment businesses due to the political, economic and social developments at the national (host country), regional and international levels. The framework builds upon the popular PEST model used for strategic planning uses scenario planning method to identify and define the various random future events in the unique context of socio-economic-political-religious milieu of Saudi Arabia. The likely impact of the events considered was analyzed under Pessimistic (Unfavorable), Most likely (Status quo) and Optimistic (favorable) scenarios. Based on the analysis, the risk exposure of FDI businesses was classified into Capital Risk, Business Risk and Operating Risk. The risk factors were evaluated on two dimensions - magnitude (low, medium and high) and probability (low, medium and high). Finally, a Risk Assessment Matrix has been drawn to summarize the risk levels of the various random events considered.


This completely new third volume of Encyclopedia Of Major Marketing Strategies (formerly Encyclopedia Of Major Marketing Campaigns) explores 100 major marketing strategies for some of the top global and emerging brands from 2011-2012. Entries will profile major product/service, mobile app, social media, brand development, packaging, and television strategies amongst other types. Each essay provides a situation analysis, information on the target market, marketing strategy & tactics, and the outcome. Essays are aligned to the strategic marketing framework ensuring that the marketing strategies can easily be utilized in an academic environment as case studies, or illustrative examples often times described as "war stories" by professors.


Animal food, especially meat, has played an important role in the history of mankind. Different meats can be used in the production of meat products. In addition to lean meats, mechanically deboned meat (MDM) and mechanically separated meat (MSM) can also be used in meat products. However, the latter does not qualify as meat due to damage to the muscular structure due to the high pressure applied during the separation, therefore cannot be included in the meat content of products.
 The aim of our experiment was to compare whole, minced meat, MDM and MSM from turkey (raw and in the form of meat paste). Technofunctional tests (water-holding and -binding capacity), color measurement, chemical composition (moisture, protein and fat content), electron microscopic recording, rheological properties show that the quality of MSM is inferior to other meat raw materials. These properties can also result in the production of lower quality products.


Abstract A theoretical model has been developed to predict the behavior of a buoyancy-driven upward co-current two-phase flow in an annular channel with uniform gap size that forms between a hemispherical vessel and its surrounding structure. The vessel is fully submerged in water and is heated from within, leading to downward facing boiling on its outer surface. The problem under consideration is relevant to the so-called in-vessel retention (IVR) of core melt, which is a key severe accident management strategy for some advanced pressurized water reactors (APWRs). One available means for IVR is the method of external reactor vessel cooling by flooding of the reactor cavity with water during a severe accident. Design features of most APWRs have the provision for substantial water accumulation in the reactor cavity during numerous postulated accident sequences. With water covering the lower external surfaces of the reactor pressure vessel, significant energy (i.e., decay heat) could be removed from the core melt through the vessel wall by downward facing boiling on the vessel's outer surface. As boiling of water takes place on the vessel outer surface, the vapor generated on the surface would flow upward through the annular channel under the influence of gravity. The vapor motions would entrain liquid water, thus resulting in a buoyancy-driven upward co-current two-phase flow in the channel. While the flow is induced entirely by the boiling process, the rate of boiling, in turn, can be significantly affected by the resulting two-phase flow. As long as the heat flux from the core melt to the vessel wall does not exceed the critical heat flux limit for downward facing boiling, nucleate boiling is the prevailing regime and the vessel wall can be maintained at relatively low temperatures to prevent failure of the lower head. With this scenario in mind, the problem is formulated by considering the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in the two-phase mixture, along with the use of available information on two-phase frictional drop and void fraction. The resulting governing system is solved numerically to predict the total mass flow rate that would be induced in the channel by the boiling process. Based on the numerical results, the optimal gap size that would maximize the steam venting rate and the rate of downward facing boiling over a range of wall heat fluxes is determined. The effects of system pressure and liquid level in the reactor cavity on the induced mass flow rate have also been identified.


A new NHS leaflet on breast cancer screening is "a disgrace, and should be scrapped," an international screening researcher has said. He is concerned that the information is unbalanced in favour of screening and that the major harms of screening—overdiagnosis and treatment—are not clearly explained.

Peter Gotzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Righospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark, said, "The leaflet is very unbalanced. It includes figures that overestimate the number of breast cancer deaths saved by screening and fails to give sufficient information on the harms to enable women invited for screening to give fully informed consent."

Michael Baum, professor emeritus of surgery and director of clinical trials at University College London, UK, agreed. "The whole thing is self serving," he said. "It aims to encourage women into screening by manipulating the data," he alleged. "The agents of the state are behaving in an almost Stalinist fashion to coerce women into an activity that has marginal benefit."

Hazel Thornton, visiting fellow in health sciences at the University of Leicester also thinks that the leaflet, which was published on 13 December, lacks balance. "It is not a balanced presentation of harms and benefits, and its layout, framing and language still emphasise benefits at the expenses of harms. It is not 'neutral,'" she said.

In a statement, Juliette Patnick, director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes said, "The leaflet was produced independently from the NHS by a team led by Joan Austoker, a leading expert on informed choice [who has since died]. Her team used robust research and testing techniques. Published research on breast screening was reviewed …


The IUCN Urban Alliance, a broad coalition of IUCN constituents concerned with the urban dimensions of nature conservation, has unveiled a new knowledge product for measuring the ecological performance of cities: the IUCN Urban Nature Indexes (UNI). Comprising six themes with five indicator topics nested within each theme, the UNI is intended to help policymakers, stakeholders and local communities understand their impacts on nature, set science-based targets for improvement, and monitor progress using science-based measures. By enhancing environmental transparency and accountability, and by focusing on improvement rather than fixed targets, the UNI aims to catalyse local action for nature in all cities.


The uprisings that led to regime change during the early period of the Arab Spring were initially inclusive and pluralistic in nature, with men and women from every political and religious orientation engaging actively in political activities on the street and in virtual spaces. While there was an opening of political space for women and the inclusion of demands of marginalized groups in the activists' agenda, the struggle to reimagine national identities that balance Islamic roots and secular yearnings is still ongoing in many countries in the region. This paper seeks to deepen understanding of the extent to which the pluralistic sentiments and openness to accepting the rights women have persisted following the uprising. We aim to examine changes in attitudes towards women's equality in countries that underwent regime change through popular uprisings during revolutionary upheavals of the Arab Spring and in countries where regimes have remained unchanged. Using available data from consecutive rounds of the Arab Barometer survey, we examine changes in attitudes in nine countries with two rounds of Arab Barometer during and post Arab Spring (Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine). We find that support for "Muslim feminism" (an interpretation of gender equality grounded in Islam) has increased over the period and particularly in Arab Spring countries, while support for "secular feminism" has declined. In most countries examined, relatively high degrees of support for gender equality co-exist with a preference for Islamic interpretations of personal status codes pertaining to women. We discuss the implications of these findings for academics and activists concerned with women's rights in the Middle East North Africa (MENA).