This report reviews the water planning process in the Gulf of Carpentaria undertaken between 2003 and 2007 by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water. The context of the water planning process for the region is briefly summarised,through reference to the social and economic profile compiled as part of the planning process and other profiling processes for the region. The history of cultivation of water resources in the Gulf is then examined. A description of the water planning process is also provided. This process is then evaluated in section four against a series of criteria based on the literature review in Volume 1 of this report (Tan et al 2008). These criteria, derived from recent literature on the evaluation of collaborativeprocesses, examine the effectiveness of collaboration: • as a mechanism for improved decision-making, including governance arrangements, due process and the reconciliation of competing knowledge claims; • as a facilitator of social process; including improved relationships, conflict resolution • as a means of obtaining improved outcomes, including efficiency, equity, and wider social perception of the process; and • as a pathway for catalytic changes in the community. The analysis presented here finds that water resource planning in Queensland is conducted according  to a clear, transparent and well-articulated framework that is defined by both the legislation and  supporting policy documents. After more than a decade of an adaptively managed planning program  which has been subject to internal and external review, current water planning attempts to  accommodate the best available scientific and technical analysis, comprehensive information provision and policy considerations to the production of water plans. Through this planning program, the scope of public participation is delineated, and considerable effort is made by the state agencies to render the outcomes of the stakeholder input apparent to all stakeholders. In the  conduct of the Gulf water resource planning process, the legislative requirements for public participation and due process were observed, and in a number of facets the planners involved in the preparation of the water resource plan exceeded the requirements of the legislation to facilitate public involvement and stakeholder contribution. However, due to the fact that the WRP process has been developed primarily to address issues of  water resource planning in the southern regions of Queensland, the planning framework itself is less suited in application in Northern Australia. This created a number of issues with regards to its effective application to the distinct environs of Northern Australia. Firstly, effective  participation was constrained by the scope of the planning area and the logistical difficulties in undertaking a planning process for an area larger than the State of Victoria, with limited human resources. Secondly, the different hydrology of Northern Australia meant that heavy reliance upon hydrological modeling and other technical assessments as decision-support were not as suited, particularly in the notable absence of appropriate data and information upon which to make apposite planning decisions. Thirdly, the water planning framework had been developed to correct the legacy of over-allocated systems and state investment in water resources. In the Gulf, where there has been limited cultivation of water resources, and where the majority of the major water supply infrastructure has been privately funded, the application of the framework was not as appropriate. In the Gulf region, the planning process was less about correcting the legacy of past water development, and more about providing a platform for the aspirations of the region for future development within ecological limits. The resulting plan, in using historical development as a framework for determining future directions of the region, is seen by a number of stakeholders in the region to inadequately incorporate the aspirations of the community for the future of the region. There is a demonstrable reluctance on behalf of the State government to articulate a water resource plan as a catalyst for the future development of the region. Notably, the impact assessment process was insufficiently developed for the planning process, and failed to assess the impacts of the conduct of the planning process itself – particularly the impact of the moratorium on the region in terms of demand for water resource cultivation and industry development. In response to previous review processes, administrative limitations and requirements to meet the obligations of the National Water Initiative, the water resource planning process in Queensland had been streamlined. This has led, in turn, to an expedited role for public participation in the process, and a reduced role for the key community engagement mechanism, the Community Reference Panel. As a result, significant elements of effective collaboration and community involvement, such as the development of trust and greater understanding of the values of participants in the process, were not given sufficient opportunity to be fostered. Of particular concern at present is the lack of appropriate engagement mechanisms for Indigenous participation in water planning. This is highlighted in the Gulf WRP, where the Indigenous population is as high as 66% in some of the catchments. Although specific Indigenous engagement has been undertaken for water resource plans in Queensland, such as the establishment of Indigenous Working Groups and the production of cultural assessment reports, this was notably absent in the Gulf WRP process and in general is not consistently or uniformly applied across the state. Processes for culturally appropriate Indigenous engagement have been subject to rigorous development in the field of cultural heritage management (for example, Wet Tropics WHA), and there is a high degree of opportunity for the current best-practice in this field to inform engagement for water resource planning. Given the high degree of emergent interest in the water resources of the Gulf, and of Northern Australia, there was significant opportunity to build wider community capacity in understanding and contributing to decisions about the future of region's water resources. There remains a high degree of divergence in the vision of the future prospects of northern Queensland, with significant opposition between visions of environmental preservation and economic development. The water resource planning processes presented a useful opportunity for these competing visions to be mediated, but this was not pursued. In turn, residual tensions between the competing visions persist, and these tensions will continue to permeate through a wider range of policy-making and community engagement initiatives in the region. Water planners have expressed a desire to better incorporate community knowledge, aspirations and values. However, the opportunity to do this is limited within the existing scope of the planning processes as applied in Queensland. Embedding local and Indigenous knowledge, expressed community values and socio-economic information into the decision-support and prioritisation systems, and providing greater clarity to the community about the relationship between the public participation and the production of the WRP all remain key impediments to the effective collaboration. This is coupled with increasingly high demands on both regional and central water planning staff to effectively facilitate community engagement practice, in conjunction with a myriad of other legal, compliance, licensing, implementation, monitoring and policy development roles, with limited training and support in the practice of community engagement. These findings confirm the need and utility for the advancement of community engagement methodologies in water planning, including: • Communication strategies and techniques to address the specific information requirements of diverse constituencies; • Capacity-building tools to increase community understanding of water planning, and the ability to contribute meaningfully  to conduct of planning process; • Training and professional development for agency staff and science providers to better facilitate community collaboration planning  and research; •Specific engagement strategies for Indigenous Australians, to identify the implications of water plans for cultural heritage, values   and practice and the economic development opportunities provided by water planning; • Participatory impact assessment methodologies with best-practice scenario projections and predictive modeling; • Data, knowledge and information systems with the capability to handle multiple epistemological frameworks; and • Decision-support systems for rigorous and transparent trade-off analysis in decision-making.


Abstract: Active Power Filter (APF) is capable of changing the size and frequency of harmonics as well as changes in reactive power compensation. It is important to control the stability of the DC-link capacitor voltage stability for it. For DC voltage controls of APF, there are two important achievements. First, it is indicated that the control of DC voltage directly affects the compensation performance of APF. Second, the value of DC voltage influences the power loss of APF. This paper firstly introduces the design of the DC voltage controller. Then the relationship between DC voltage and the power loss as well as the compensation performance of APF is analyzed. Finally, a new control scheme with a droop controller is developed to regulate DC voltage.


ONE OF THE MOST significant discoveries of the Corinth Computer Project, as a part of the study of the city and landscape of the Roman colony of Corinth, Greece, has been the identification and discussion of two systems of centuriation, Roman urban and rural land planning.2 This work was carried out by teams of Roman agrimensores, or land surveyors, who are known to have been active in various parts of the Roman Empire over many centuries.3 We know that they worked at Corinth in connection with the planning for the two Roman colonies that were established there, Colonia Laus lulia Corinthiensis, established by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and Colonia lulia Flavia Augusta Corinthiensis, established by Vespasian in the seventies AD. The urban grid of the Roman city of Corinth is largely the product of the Caesarian colony, and in addition there are two chronologically distinct, and geographically overlapping, rural systems of centuriation identified from the land that surrounds the city. It was common for a Roman colony to have under its control agricultural land outside the urban center, the territorium of the colony, and it was typically divided up in a regular manner to facilitate both the distribution of land to the colonists and the assessment of taxes from them.4 In Corinth, both the urban and the rural centuriation have been described based on the combination of topographical maps, satellite images, high- and low-level air photographs, and balloon photographs together with the electronic total station survey of above-ground architecture in and around the city.5 AGRIMENSORES Much is known about the work of the Roman agrimensores from archaeological remains from different areas of Europe and North Africa. There also exist extensive literary accounts of the agrimensores, known collectively as the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum.6 The Corpus is a collection of ancient land surveyors' manuals originally compiled in the fifth century AD, but it includes texts that are as early as the first century AD. The surveyors' manuals give very specific information about the training of the agrimensores, their method of work, and the kinds of problems and issues they would have encountered during the course of their daily activities. There are also fragments of ancient stone maps from Orange (ancient Aurasio) that illustrate the Roman agricultural division of land-limitatio or centuriation.7 More commonly, perhaps, ancient maps depicting the work of the agrimensores would have been made on perishable materials that have not survived. The agrimensores used as their principal surveying instrument the groma, a simple device, composed of a vertical staff with two horizontal crossbars, connected by a bracket. From each end of the cross-bars hung a cord, which was held vertical by a plumb bob (fig. 1). Roman surveyors were skilled at using the groma, together with sighting rods (decempeda), to create straight lines and right angles.8 The agrimensores sighted along the groma to the survey rods, hammered wooden stakes in the ground at every actus (see below), then drew a straight line on the ground connecting the stakes. Following this procedure, the surveyors created a furrow or a shallow ditch to represent the line.9 These furrows, or vestiges of these shallow ditches, have been found in various parts of the Roman world. In some places, vast areas of centuriated land have been recognized, for instance in the Po Valley of Italy or in portions of North Africa where hundreds of square kilometers of centuriated land are known.10 Elsewhere only fragments of organized land systems have been discovered. The urban planning of many Roman cities is noted for its organization and regularity, and the vestiges of this Roman planning with orthogonal plans are seen in such modern cities as London, Paris, Florence, and Barcelona.11 The Romans used as their primary unit of measurement the actus, or 120 linear Roman feet (1 Roman foot = 0. …


This master's thesis aims to study the relationship between two publiclibraries and Berattarministeriet, a foundation that offers free writingworkshops for children in areas with high levels of unemployment. Theworkshops are located in spaces that formerly belonged to the libraries.Questions posed in this thesis are How can the relationship between thelibraries and Berattarministeriet be described?, Why did the relationship turnout differently in the two places? and How does the library see itself, inrelation to Berattarministeriet?The theories used are Ogland's taxonomy for relationships between librariesand local organizations, and Folkesson's theory on interaction betweendifferent professional groups, and this was studied through interviews. Theresults showed a relationship without much interaction, beyond a "handover"of children from one place to the other, with time and shortness of staff beingcontributing factors to the low level of collaboration. Regarding the differentrelationships in the two places the results were not conclusive, butnevertheless showed tendancies of issues in the legitimacy dimension, fromthe library towards Berattarministeriet. This may be due in part to a lack ofconcrete evidence of success, a high staff turnover, and not having naturalspaces in which to meet. As for the libraries' self-image, it showed aninstitution and a profession that sometimes feel overlooked. Several repliesbring up how libraries need to make themselves heard and let people knowhow important they are.


Introduction Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α, part of the heterodimeric transcription factor that mediates the cellular response to hypoxia, is critical for the expression of multiple angiogenic growth factors, cell motility, and the recruitment of endothelial progenitor cells. Inhibition of the oxygen-dependent negative regulator of HIF-1α, prolyl hydroxylase domain-2 (PHD-2), leads to increased HIF-1α and mimics various cellular and physiological responses to hypoxia. The roles of PHD-2 in the epidermis and dermis have not been clearly defined in wound healing. Methods Epidermal and dermal specific PHD-2 knockout (KO) mice were developed in a C57BL/6J (wild type) background by crossing homozygous floxed PHD-2 mice with heterozygous K14-Cre mice and heterozygous Col1A2-Cre-ER mice to get homozygous floxed PHD-2/heterozygous K14-Cre and homozygous floxed PHD-2/heterozygous floxed Col1A2-Cre-ER mice, respectively. Ten to twelve-week-old PHD-2 KO and wild type (WT) mice were subjected to wounding and ischemic pedicle flap model. The amount of healing was grossly quantified with ImageJ software. Western blot and qRT-PCR was run on protein and RNA from primary cells cultured in vitro. Results qRT-PCR demonstrated a significant decrease of PHD-2 in keratinocytes and fibroblasts derived from tissue specific KO mice relative to control mice (*p<0.05). Western blot analysis showed a significant increase in HIF-1α and VEGF protein levels in PHD-2 KO mice relative to control mice (*p<0.05). PHD-2 KO mice showed significantly accelerated wound closure relative to WT (*p<0.05). When ischemia was analyzed at day nine post-surgery in a flap model, the PHD-2 tissue specific knockout mice showed significantly more viable flaps than WT (*p<0.05). Conclusions PHD-2 plays a significant role in the rates of wound healing and response to ischemic insult in mice. Further exploration shows PHD-2 KO increases cellular levels of HIF-1α and this increase leads to the transcription of downstream angiogenic factors such as VEGF.


The $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k emission line is a good indicator of the level of chromospheric activity in late-type stars. We investigate the dependence of this activity indicator on fundamental stellar parameters. To this purpose we use IUE observations of the $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k line in 225 late-type stars of luminosity classes I–V, with different levels of chromospheric activity. We first re-analyse the relation between $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k line luminosity and stellar absolute magnitude, performing linear fits to the points. The ratio of $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ surface flux to total surface flux is found to be independent of stellar luminosity for evolved stars and to increase with decreasing luminosity for dwarfs. We also analyse the $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k line surface flux-metallicity connection. The $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k emission level turns out to be not dependent on metallicity. Finally, the $\ion{Mg}{ii}$ k line surface flux-temperature relation is investigated by treating separately, for the first time, a large sample of very active and normal stars. The stellar surface fluxes in the k line of normal stars are found to be strongly dependent on the temperature and slightly dependent on the gravity, thus confirming the validity of recently proposed models. In contrast, data relative to RS CVn binaries and BY Dra stars, which show very strong chromospheric activity, are not justified in the framework of a description based only on acoustic waves and uniformly distributed magnetic flux tubes so that they require more detailed models.


In real-world information retrieval (IR) tasks, the searched items and/or the users' queries often have implicit information associated with them—information that describes unspecified aspects of the items or queries. For example, in web search tasks, web pages are often pointed to by hyperlinks (known as anchors) from other pages, and thus have human-generated succinct descriptions of their content (anchor text) associated with them. This indirectly available information has been shown to improve search effectiveness for different retrieval tasks. However, in many real-world IR challenges this information is sparse in the data; i.e., it is incomplete or missing in a large portion of the data. In this work, we explore how to discover and use implicit information in large amounts of data in the context of IR.
We present a general perspective for discovering implicit information and demonstrate how to use the discovered data in four specific IR challenges: (1) finding relevant records in semi-structured databases where many records contain incomplete or empty fields; (2) searching web pages that have little or no associated anchor text; (3) using click-through records in web query logs to help search pages that have no or very few clicks; and (4) discovering plausible geographic locations for web queries that contain no explicit geographic information.
The intuition behind our approach is that data similar in some aspects are often similar in other aspects. Thus we can (a) use the observed information of queries/documents to find similar queries/documents, and then (b) utilize those similar queries/documents to reconstruct plausible implicit information for the original queries/documents. We develop language modeling based techniques to effectively use content similarity among data for our work. Using the four different search tasks on large-scale noisy datasets, we empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. We further discuss the advantages and weaknesses of two complementary approaches within our general perspective of handling implicit information for retrieval purpose.
Taken together, we describe a general perspective that uses contextual similarity among data to discover implicit information for IR challenges. Using this general perspective, we formally present two language modeling based information discovery approaches. We empirically evaluate our approaches using different IR challenges. Our research shows that supporting information discovery tailored to different search tasks can enhance IR systems' search performance and improve users' search experience.


M3, a project blending a MUVE (Second Life) the Moodle VLE and a Microblogging tool (Twitter) , set out to explore the use of emerging technologies within the context of a pre-arrival online course for international students coming to live and study in the UK. The objective was to create an immersive learning experience for students by adapting and extending some of the Moodle course activities ( 'learning objects', vidcasts and discussion offered through the VLE) for use in the virtual world environment of Second Life. The project also aimed to gauge the educational potential of the microblogging service, Twitter, in linking students together during the course for both social networking and vidcast discussion purposes. A technical aspect of the project was to develop Twitter plug-ins or 'blocks' for Moodle allowing students to view a Twitter feed from within Moodle. Work was also needed to adapt existing course resources and activities for in-world use in a designated course area within Second Life. The M3 project then explored the combined use of Moodle, Twitter and Second Life with three separate sets of learners/users. These were: a group of students - professional and experienced teachers from countries outside the UK - learning about the educational use of new technologies on a face-to-face Masters course at the University of Southampton; international students on a pre-arrival course delivered wholly online through Moodle, who were preparing to come to the UK ; an external group of educators and practitioners taking part in JISC Emerge conferences. During and after user engagement in the project, data was gathered from questionnaires, interviews and observations. A number of practical factors impacted on participation levels of different groups but the affordances offered by these new technologies were widely appreciated even if the technologies themselves can still present challenges for new users unless significant levels of support are given. Their scope for enhancing social presence within a learning context was found to complement students' interest in meeting people and sharing pictures and personal information, and reflects their own use and interest in Web 2.0 technologies. The developed Twitter blocks for Moodle and Second Life learning resources are being taken forward and future projects building on these outputs are planned. This presentation will present the M3 project and its findings. The Moodle online course and Second Life learning resources will also be demonstrated.


People's expectations play an important role in their reactions to events. There is often disappointment when events fail to meet expectations and a special thrill to having one's expectations exceeded. We propose that expectations influence evaluations through information-theoretic principles: less expected events do more to inform us about the state of the world than do more expected events. An implication of this proposal is that people may have inappropriately muted responses to morally significant but expected events. In two preregistered experiments, we found that people's judgments of morally-significant events were affected by the likelihood of that event. People were more upset about events that were unexpected (e.g., a robbery at a clothing store) than events that were more expected (e.g., a robbery at a convenience store). We argue that this bias has pernicious moral consequences, including leading to reduced concern for victims in most need of help.


The recent contributions in directed technological change theory show that technological progress in clean industries (i.e. industries which do no produce CO2 emissions) lead to emission decline only if clean and dirty goods are sufficiently substitutable. The result raises a question whether a government could design a policy which increases this substitutability. In this paper I show that elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty goods increases with the number of varieties of clean good. This is shown in the theoretical model, which combines the insights from the directed technological change literature and discrete choice literature. The policy implications of the finding is that environmental policy which promotes development of clean industries should be supplemented with a policy which ensures the diversity of clean goods. For example a subsidy for R&D in clean transport should support a wide range of alternative technologies rather than selected few.


Capsaicin, a transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) ligand, regulates nerve-related pain-sensitive signals, inflammation, and cancer growth. Capsaicin suppresses interleukin-1-induced osteoclast differentiation, but its roles in bone tissues and bone diseases are not known. This study examined the effects of capsaicin on inflammatory bone resorption and prostaglandin E (PGE) production induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro and on bone mass in LPS-treated mice in vivo. Capsaicin suppressed osteoclast formation, bone resorption, and PGE production induced by LPS in vitro. Capsaicin suppressed the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and membrane-bound PGE synthase-1 (mPGES-1) mRNAs and PGE production induced by LPS in osteoblasts. Capsaicin may suppress PGE production by inhibiting the expression of COX-2 and mPGES-1 in osteoblasts and LPS-induced bone resorption by TRPV1 signals because osteoblasts express TRPV1. LPS treatment markedly induced bone loss in the femur in mice, and capsaicin significantly restored the inflammatory bone loss induced by LPS in mice. TRPV1 ligands like capsaicin may therefore be potentially useful as clinical drugs targeting bone diseases associated with inflammatory bone resorption.


In a series of cases culminating in Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court has limited the extent to which juveniles may be exposed to the harshest criminal sentences. Scholars have addressed discrete components of these recent Court decisions, from their Eighth Amendment methodology to their effect upon state legislation. In this Article, I draw upon that scholarship to make a broader claim: the Miller trilogy has revolutionized juvenile justice. While we have begun to see only the most inchoate signs of this revolution in practice, this Article endeavors to describe what this revolution may look like both in the immediate term and in years to come. Part I demonstrates how the United States went from being the leader in progressive juvenile justice to being an international outlier in the severity of its juvenile sentencing. Part II examines the Miller decision, as well as its immediate predecessor cases, and explains why Miller demands a capacious reading. Part III explores the post-Miller revolution in juvenile justice that is afoot. Specifically, Part III makes the case for two immediate corollaries that flow from Miller, each of which is groundbreaking in its own right: 1) the creation of procedural safeguards for juveniles facing life without parole ("LWOP") comparable to those recommended for adults facing the death penalty; and 2) the elimination of mandatory minimums for juveniles altogether. Finally, Part III identifies ways in which juvenile justice advocates can leverage the moral leadership of the Miller Court to seek future reform in three key areas: juvenile transfer laws; presumptive sentencing guidelines as they apply to children; and juvenile conditions of confinement.


Background Mater and Padi6 are maternal effect genes that are first expressed during oocyte growth and are required for embryonic development beyond the two-cell stage in the mouse. We have recently found that PADI6 localizes to, and is required for the formation of, abundant fibrillar Triton X-100 (Triton) insoluble structures termed the oocyte cytoplasmic lattices (CPLs). Given their similar expression profiles and mutant mouse phenotypes, we have been testing the hypothesis that MATER also plays a role in CPL formation and/or function. Methodology/Findings Herein, we show that PADI6 and MATER co-localize throughout the oocyte cytoplasm following Triton extraction, suggesting that MATER co-localizes with PADI6 at the CPLs. Additionally, the solubility of PADI6 was dramatically increased in Matertm/tm oocytes following Triton extraction, suggesting that MATER is involved in CPL nucleation. This prediction is supported by transmission electron microscopic analysis of Mater+/+ and Matertm/tm germinal vesicle stage oocytes which illustrated that volume fraction of CPLs was reduced by 90% in Matertm/tm oocytes compared to Mater+/+ oocytes. Conclusions Taken together, these results suggest that, similar to PADI6, MATER is also required for CPL formation. Given that PADI6 and MATER are essential for female fertility, these results not only strengthen the hypothesis that the lattices play a critical role in mediating events during the oocyte-to-embryo transition but also increase our understanding of the molecular nature of the CPLs.


Exercise and improvements in physical fitness have been found to correlate positively with changes in psychological well-being, particularly with regard to the variables of anxiety and depression. The present investigation attempts to distinguish between central fitness (increased cardio-respiratory functioning) and peripheral fitness (increased strength or flexibility) while considering other factors which may contribute to the psychological improvements often associated with exercise and physical fitness. -- Forty-five members of a large psychiatric hospital served as subjects for this study. Ages in the sample ranged from 21 to 55 with a mean age of 27.9. Professional and non-professional staff members were evenly represented, as was the sex distribution. -- Subjects were randomly assigned to either an Aerobic group (jogging), a Calisthenics group (calisthenics and non-aerobic exercise) or a Recreation group (non-exercise, recreational activity). A Waiting List Control group was also chosen who were not required to participate in any structured activity. -- Psychological and physiological measures were taken to evaluate the relative effects of the various conditions. Heart rate (after a standard stepping exercise) and a measure of flexibility served as physical indicators of change while standard tests of depression, trait anxiety and happiness were administered to assess psychological change. These measures were taken on three separate occasions (pre-program, mid-program and post-program). -- As an additional feature, the effect of fitness on state anxiety was evaluated. State measures were taken immediately before and immediately after sessions on three occasions (at the first session, the middle session and at the end). -- The experimental program ran for 6 weeks with 3 one-half hour sessions per week (for a total of 18 sessions). -- Physical changes occurred as expected. The joggers made the most significant gains in cardio-respiratory fitness while the calisthenics subjects became more flexible. Unexpectedly, all groups (including the Waiting List subjects) improved significantly over time on the psychological measures, but a conditions or interaction effect was not observed. More consistent with earlier work, subjects who became more fit (based on the aerobic indicator) were observed to have greater decreases in state anxiety after engaging in an activity, than those who made marginal or no gains in cardio-respiratory fitness. -- The implications of these results were discussed with reference to earlier experimental findings.


Summary: Active miR171a* complexes are common in Arabidopsis and trigger silencing of SUVH8, a new microRNA target that was acquired very recently in the Arabidopsis lineage. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are produced from double-stranded precursors, from which a short duplex is excised. The strand of the duplex that remains more abundant is usually the active form, the miRNA, while steady-state levels of the other strand, the miRNA*, are generally lower. The executive engines of miRNA-directed gene silencing are RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISCs). During RISC maturation, the miRNA/miRNA* duplex associates with the catalytic subunit, an ARGONAUTE (AGO) protein. Subsequently, the guide strand, which directs gene silencing, is retained, while the passenger strand is degraded. Under certain circumstances, the miRNA*s can be retained as guide strands. miR170 and miR171 are prototypical miRNAs in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) with well-defined targets. We found that the corresponding star molecules, the sequence-identical miR170* and miR171a*, have several features of active miRNAs, such as sequence conservation and AGO1 association. We confirmed that active AGO1-miR171a* complexes are common in Arabidopsis and that they trigger silencing of SU(VAR)3-9 HOMOLOG8, a new miR171a* target that was acquired very recently in the Arabidopsis lineage. Our study demonstrates that each miR171a strand can be loaded onto RISC with separate regulatory outcomes.


Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is often accompanied by infection with other pathogens, in particular herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). The resulting coinfection is involved in a vicious circle of mutual facilitations. Therefore, an important task is to develop a compound that is highly potent against both viruses to suppress their transmission and replication. Here, we report on the discovery of such a compound, designated PMEO-DAPym. We compared its properties with those of the structurally related and clinically used acyclic nucleoside phosphonates (ANPs) tenofovir and adefovir. We demonstrated the potent anti-HIV and -HSV activity of this drug in a diverse set of clinically relevant in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo systems including (i) CD4+ T-lymphocyte (CEM) cell cultures, (ii) embryonic lung (HEL) cell cultures, (iii) organotypic epithelial raft cultures of primary human keratinocytes (PHKs), (iv) primary human monocyte/macrophage (M/M) cell cultures, (v) human ex vivo lymphoid tissue, and (vi) athymic nude mice. Upon conversion to its diphosphate metabolite, PMEO-DAPym markedly inhibits both HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and HSV DNA polymerase. However, in striking contrast to tenofovir and adefovir, it also acts as an efficient immunomodulator, inducing β-chemokines in PBMC cultures, in particular the CCR5 agonists MIP-1β, MIP-1α and RANTES but not the CXCR4 agonist SDF-1, without the need to be intracellularly metabolized. Such specific β-chemokine upregulation required new mRNA synthesis. The upregulation of β-chemokines was shown to be associated with a pronounced downmodulation of the HIV-1 coreceptor CCR5 which may result in prevention of HIV entry. PMEO-DAPym belongs conceptually to a new class of efficient multitargeted antivirals for concomitant dual-viral (HSV/HIV) infection therapy through inhibition of virus-specific pathways (i.e. the viral polymerases) and HIV transmission prevention through interference with host pathways (i.e. CCR5 receptor down regulation).


Preface. A journeyer to the spiritual mount. 1. The Origins of Role. Hamlet's soliloquy and the paradox of drama Role ambivalence The origins of role in drama/theatre The origin of role in the social sciences The origin of role in art and literature From role metaphor to role concept. 2. The Development of Role. The human being as role recipient The human being as role-taker The human being as role-player The role system. 3. The Drama Therapy Role Method. The invocation of the role The naming of the role The playing out/working through of the role Exploring alternative qualities in sub-role Reflecting upon role-play: discovering role qualities, functions and styles inherent in the role Relating the fictional role to everyday life Integrating roles to create a functional role system Social modeling. 4. The Case of Michael. The treatment: Beginnings The three bears The Lawyer Black rage The boy who learned to burn Fathers and sons The judge and the raincoat The mask of the actor The critic The blind girl An integration. 5. The Case of Michael Part II. The kiss The wooden clogs and the rubber boots The marriage proposal The glass heart Bugs More glass Me vida abajo (My life down there) The confused searcher The beat of black wings My father's body Mickey and Jake: you dream at your own risk Victor/victim The ring Postscript. 6. The Case of Hansel and Gretel: An Example of a Drama Therapy Group. Implications of the role method for diagnosis Evaluation. 7. Role in Everyday Life. Role type and archetype Somatic roles Cognitive roles Affective roles Social/cultural roles Spiritual roles Aesthetic roles. 8. A Taxonomy of Roles: Building a Theatrical Archetype System. The form of the taxonomy: The taxonomy of roles. 9. The Taxonomy: Cognitive and Affective Domains. Domain: cognitive Domain: affective. 10. The Taxonomy: Social Domain Domain: social. 11. The Taxonomy: Spiritual and Aesthetic Domains. Domain: spiritual Domain: aesthetic The use and significance of the taxonomy. 12. Conclusion. References. Appendix.


Importance The appropriate duration of antibiotics for staphylococcal bacteremia is unknown. Objective To test whether an algorithm that defines treatment duration for staphylococcal bacteremia vs standard of care provides noninferior efficacy without increasing severe adverse events. Design, Setting, and Participants A randomized trial involving adults with staphylococcal bacteremia was conducted at 16 academic medical centers in the United States (n = 15) and Spain (n = 1) from April 2011 to March 2017. Patients were followed up for 42 days beyond end of therapy for those with Staphylococcus aureus and 28 days for those with coagulase-negative staphylococcal bacteremia. Eligible patients were 18 years or older and had 1 or more blood cultures positive for S aureus or coagulase-negative staphylococci. Patients were excluded if they had known or suspected complicated infection at the time of randomization. Interventions Patients were randomized to algorithm-based therapy (n = 255) or usual practice (n = 254). Diagnostic evaluation, antibiotic selection, and duration of therapy were predefined for the algorithm group, whereas clinicians caring for patients in the usual practice group had unrestricted choice of antibiotics, duration, and other aspects of clinical care. Main Outcomes and Measures Coprimary outcomes were (1) clinical success, as determined by a blinded adjudication committee and tested for noninferiority within a 15% margin; and (2) serious adverse event rates in the intention-to-treat population, tested for superiority. The prespecified secondary outcome measure, tested for superiority, was antibiotic days among per-protocol patients with simple or uncomplicated bacteremia. Results Among the 509 patients randomized (mean age, 56.6 [SD, 16.8] years; 226 [44.4%] women), 480 (94.3%) completed the trial. Clinical success was documented in 209 of 255 patients assigned to algorithm-based therapy and 207 of 254 randomized to usual practice (82.0% vs 81.5%; difference, 0.5% [1-sided 97.5% CI, −6.2% to ∞]). Serious adverse events were reported in 32.5% of algorithm-based therapy patients and 28.3% of usual practice patients (difference, 4.2% [95% CI, −3.8% to 12.2%]). Among per-protocol patients with simple or uncomplicated bacteremia, mean duration of therapy was 4.4 days for algorithm-based therapy vs 6.2 days for usual practice (difference, −1.8 days [95% CI, −3.1 to −0.6]). Conclusions and Relevance Among patients with staphylococcal bacteremia, the use of an algorithm to guide testing and treatment compared with usual care resulted in a noninferior rate of clinical success. Rates of serious adverse events were not significantly different, but interpretation is limited by wide confidence intervals. Further research is needed to assess the utility of the algorithm. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01191840


Barbara Fuchs. The Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Pp. 186. $45.00. Reading this book is like the academic equivalent of watching a cat fight, or perhaps RAW professional wrestling on the television Monday nights. Barbara Fuchs takes on no less a heavyweight than Stephen Greenblatt and wins. Personally, I'm cheering her on. Normally, I would not leap immediately to the last chapter while reviewing a scholarly book. But this volume turns enough received assumptions on their end that somehow, that strategy seems appropriate in this case. So let's start at the end. In the bold final chapter of her book--which is the closest thing this slender tome has to a conclusion--Professor Fuchs unmasks Greenblatt's Cardenio Project as an intellectually dishonest, opportunistic piece of showmanship with no other real purpose or effect than to further the career of its founder. The sheer fraud factor here is palpable: how could Professor Greenblatt market as derived from Shakespeare a plot which he clearly borrowed from Cervantes? And why would references made to Miguel de Cervantes in the propaganda for his project, purportedly designed to acknowledge some degree of indebtedness, instead send the reader on a wild goose chase by allusion to the wrong part of Cervantes's lengthy two-volume novel? The reader can only conclude that there is a shocking amount of confusion here, or else some (perhaps deliberate) obfuscation. Either way, one has to ask: what in the world is going on? At this point perhaps a little background is in order. Cardenio is not merely tangential to the book being reviewed here; in fact, two out of five chapters deal with this "lost" Shakespeare play allegedly based upon Spanish source material. Stephen Greenblatt's Cardenio Project was an effort first, to collaborate with a living playwright (as Shakespeare was thought to have done with John Fletcher?) to produce a modern-day recreation of this "lost" work, and then, to commission additional plays from playwrights all over the world whose productions would be funded if they conformed to certain predetermined specifications. Think the dramatic equivalent of that child's game of telephone. As with so many of Greenblatt's projects, there's a germ of genius in it, really. The idea that we should study textual transmission by replicating the circumstances under which Renaissance collaboration occurred sounds, at the outset, incredibly fresh and innovative. But even Renaissance authors often made at least some token effort to give credit where credit was due. The problem is that Greenblatt claims to recreate Shakespeare, except he really recreates Cervantes, whom he barely mentions, and when he does, he does not even manage to cite the right source for his borrowings. His new play is based upon the interpolated tale "El curioso impertinente" which does not form a part of the Cardenio episode at all. One wonders: did he bother to reread Don Quijote before sallying forth on this bold adventure? Curiosity, even of the pertinent sort, hardens to consternation once the realization dawns that this ill-conceived journey was not his maiden voyage into Spanish-language material. No less opportunistic, perhaps, was his decision to capitalize upon the Columbus quincentennial in 1992 with a book titled Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (1991). When asked about some of the primary sources he used for that study, including early chronicles and accounts penned by conquistadores, this Shakespeare professor responded honestly that his Spanish was a little wobbly. Not that this stopped him ... one can only admire his audacity before becoming perturbed at the question of how far we dare trust his conclusions. Now all of this chicanery suits Barbara Fuchs and her purposes in The Poetics of Piracy to a T. Her real objective in this book, as in her earlier Exotic Nation (which I also reviewed for this journal), is to lay bare the subtle biases and anti-Hispanic prejudice of scholars like Greenblatt who are writing today. …


For some time now, the therapeutic alliance has served as a clinically significant "common factor" in positive outcomes for adult clients in most all types of psychotherapy. Yet among adolescents, the alliance has garnered interest among clinicians and researchers only relatively recently, particularly in cases of "high-risk" adolescents--teens who need mental health treatment services for a variety of disorders peculiar to this age group (e.g., anxiety disorders, depression, externalizing/disruptive behavioral disorders, etc.) but do not have access to these services or drop out of treatment prematurely. The more recent interest in the alliance with adolescents appears to be driven by myriad forces: interested researchers, frustrated clinicians, concerned parents, and policymakers engaged in healthcare reform. Elusive Alliance examines the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical bases of these myriad forces, presenting some of the highly promising work that has been accomplished over the past two decades on engaging high-risk adolescents in psychotherapy. By getting a picture of the current state of the field while also getting an in-depth analysis of a few specific programs of research supported by evidence examining adolescent engagement, researchers and clinicians alike will be able to establish a more robust knowledge base that serves to advance future treatment process research on how to engage the challenging and underserved population of high-risk adolescents. Beyond the practical appeal to researchers and clinicians, this book will be of vital interest to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers at all levels who are involved in making mental health service delivery for youth more accessible and more cost-effective.


BACKGROUND
Conventional rabies pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and Japanese encephalitis (JE) primary series vaccination regimens each require up to 4 weeks to complete and, thus, may not be feasible for individuals who need these immunizations on short notice. This Phase 3b, randomized, controlled, observer-blind study evaluated the immunogenicity and safety of concomitant administration of a purified chick embryo cell culture rabies vaccine and an inactivated, adsorbed JE vaccine according to an accelerated (1 week) regimen when compared with the conventional regimens (4 weeks). This report describes the kinetics of immune responses up to 1 year after vaccination.

METHODS
A total of 661 healthy adults (18 to ≤65 years) were randomized into the following accelerated or conventional vaccine regimens: Rabies + JE-Conventional, Rabies + JE-Accelerated, Rabies-Conventional and JE-Conventional. Immunogenicity was assessed by virus neutralization tests. Safety and tolerability were also evaluated.

RESULTS
Irrespective of rabies vaccination regimen, ≥97% of subjects had adequate levels of rabies virus neutralizing antibody (RVNA) concentrations (≥0.5 IU/ml) up to Day 57, with percentages of subjects with RVNA concentrations ≥0.5 IU/ml at Day 366 ranging between 68% in the Rabies + JE-Accelerated group and 80% of subjects in the Rabies-Conventional group. The Rabies + JE-Accelerated group revealed high JE neutralizing antibody titers at all-time points. At Day 366, the percentage of subjects with antibody titers indicative of seroprotection (PRNT50 titers ≥1:10) remained high across JE vaccine groups (86-94%).

CONCLUSIONS
The accelerated PrEP rabies and JE vaccination regimens, once licensed, could represent a valid alternative in the short-term to currently recommended conventional regimens. The concomitant administration of these two vaccines does not compromise immune responses to any of the vaccine antigens particularly when aiming for short-term protection. Further evidence will clarify the need for and timing to administration of rabies vaccine booster doses in subjects primed with an accelerated PrEP regimen. (NCT01662440).


The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented development and growth in global wireless communications systems, technologies and network "traffic" generated over network infrastructures. This book presents state-of-the-art energy-efficient techniques, designs and implementations that pertain to wireless communication networks such as cellular networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs) and wireless ad hoc networks (WAHNs) including mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) as they are deployed across the world to facilitate "always on" reliable high-speed wireless access from anywhere, at anytime to accommodate the new paradigm of the "Internet of Things" (IoT). The pervasive and exponential growth of Wi-Fi and the impact of bandwidth-intensive applications on the energy consumption of WiFi-enabled devices are discussed along with energy harvesting as an advantageous option to power WAHNs. The book aims to serve as a useful reference for researchers, students, regulatory authorities, and educators.


Patterns in the mesoscale distribution of larval fish in the coastal waters of central Greece, an area of high topographic and bathymetric complexity, were analysed using samples collected during two ichthyoplankton surveys in July 1998 and June 1999. Salinities were lower in the eastern (Aegean) part of the study area due to the influence of waters originating from the Black Sea. In this region, larvae of many epipelagic and benthopelagic (typically summer spawning) species were less abundant in June 1999, when waters were significantly cooler, compared to July 1998. Multivariate analyses identified 'neritic' and 'pelagic' groups of stations dominated by larvae of epipelagic/bethopelagic (typically shelf dwelling) and mesopelagic species. In the west (Ionian Sea), a prominent third group of stations located in the deep and highly enclosed Korinthiakos Gulf was also defined with very high abundances of mesopelagic fish larvae. However, the genera Cyclothone and Vinciguerria that dominated the neighbouring offshore assemblage of the Ionian Sea were absent from this gulf. In the study area, Korinthiakos Gulf ( > 900 m) and North Evoikos ( > 400 m) Gulf comprise unique 'fjord-like' ecosystems in the Mediterranean with increased productivity and significantly cooler deep waters compared to adjacent open sea basins.


Data access control in a cloud storage system is regarded as a promising technique for enhanced efficiency and security utilizing a ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) approach. However, due to a large number of data users as well as limited resources and heterogeneity of data devices in Internet of Things (IoT), existing access control schemes for the cloud storage are not effectively applicable to IoT applications. In this article, we construct a new CP-ABE-based storage model for data storing and secure access in a cloud for IoT applications. Our new framework introduces an attribute authority management (AAM) module in the cloud storage system functioned as an agent that provides a user-friendly access control and highly reduces the storage overhead of public keys. Then, we propose a novel secure and efficient multiauthority access control scheme of the cloud storage system for IoT, namely, SEM-ACSIT, which obtains both backward security and forward security when an attribute of a user is revoked. By exploiting encryption outsourcing, simplified key structuring and the AAM module, the computational overhead of a user is immensely decreased. Moreover, a user access control list (UACL) in the cloud server is constructed newly to support authorization access for a specific user. The analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our SEM-ACSIT scheme achieves powerful security with less computational overhead and lower storage costs than the existing schemes.


We collect and analyze stated preferences for long-term care insurance that pays income in poor health states instead of reimbursing formal care costs. Around 75% of the sample of 1008 pre-retirees chose to purchase at least some long-term care income insurance from a menu that also included liquid wealth and a life annuity. Our results show that long term care income insurance is complementary to informal care and is attractive to seniors who plan to rely on family members for extensive care. Those who have access to extensive informal care demand 25-37% more health- contingent income per year than those who do not. Females who expect to rely exclusively on extensive care from family members are willing to buy more cover than males. We also find that if long-term care income insurance were available, many healthier seniors would release funds set aside to self-insure long-term care risk and purchase additional longevity insurance.


Ubiquitination is a protein modification used by eukaryotic cells to regulate a broad range of cellular functions. So far, E3-ubiquitin ligases have only been known to catalyze the formation of an isopeptide bond between ubiquitin and a lysine (or the N terminus) of the substrate. Cadwell and Coscoy show that MIR1, a virally encoded E3-ubiquitin ligase, promotes ubiquitination of its substrate by a novel and unexpected mechanism. Ubiquitination of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) molecules by MIR1 does not involve an isopeptide bond but rather a thiol-ester bond at a unique cysteine residue encoded within the MHC-I intracytoplasmic domain. This finding broadens the range of candidate substrates for a potentially reversible form of ubiquitination. K. Cadwell, L. Coscoy, Ubiquitination on nonlysine residues by a viral E3 ubiquitin ligase. Science 309, 127-130 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Given the extent of the subject, the present text merely provides a list of topics, striking features and references relevant to the kinetic theory of high-frequency wave propagation and absorption in inhomogeneous plasmas. The discussion focuses on tokamak geometry.


Abstract A simulation model is developed to predict the performance of a tubular digestion process of a low alumina/silica ratio diaspore bauxite type. The electrolyte – NRTL property method is used to calculate the equilibrium and thermodynamic properties of the slurry. The Aspen Plus simulator has been employed to solve the reaction and thermodynamic submodels. The model was validated with several sets of the industrial experimental data in terms of the flash tanks temperatures and close agreement was found. The simulation model has been utilized by the R&D department to predict the digestion process behaviour at various operation conditions. One practical output of this work is suggestion for a new design to increase the vapour and thermal energy recovery in the digestion process unit. As a result, the exhaust vapour from the last flash tank was directed to a new pre-heater section. The industrial output has been confirmed by the energy department that has decreased 8% in the furnace fuel consumption and leads to an increase of water recovery in the digestion unit.


We study the impact of a reform that increased the regulatory burden on temporary agency work (TAW) in Chile. Using a panel of manufacturing plants, we show that the use of TAW fell immediately after the regulation, with differential effects by plants' size and volatility. Differencein-differences estimates suggest that plants using TAW substituted away from agency workers after the regulation, increasing regular work by 9.2%. Despite this substitution effect, total employment decreased by 8.6% in these plants. We report less precise evidence of negative scale effects on output and profits.


Projections of amplified climate change in the Arctic are attributed to positive feedbacks associated with the retreat of sea ice and changes in the lapse rate of the polar atmosphere. Here, a set of idealized aquaplanet experiments are performed to understand the coupling between high-latitude feedbacks, polar amplification, and the large-scale atmospheric circulation. Results are compared to CMIP5. Simulated climate responses are characterized by a wide range of polar amplification (from none to nearly 15-K warming, relative to the low latitudes) under CO_2 quadrupling. Notably, the high-latitude lapse rate feedback varies in sign among the experiments. The aquaplanet simulation with the greatest polar amplification, representing a transition from perennial to ice-free conditions, exhibits a marked decrease in dry static energy flux by transient eddies. Partly compensating for the reduced poleward energy flux is a contraction of the Ferrel cell and an increase in latent energy flux. Enhanced eddy energy flux is consistent with the upper-tropospheric warming that occurs in all experiments and provides a remote influence on the polar lapse rate feedback. The main conclusions are that (i) given a large, localized change in meridional surface temperature gradient, the midlatitude circulation exhibits strong compensation between changes in dry and latent energy fluxes, and (ii) atmospheric eddies mediate the nonlinear interaction between surface albedo and lapse rate feedbacks, rendering the high-latitude lapse rate feedback less positive than it would be otherwise. Consequently, the variability of the circulation response, and particularly the partitioning of energy fluxes, offers insights into understanding the magnitude of polar amplification.


Background The consequences of a corneal transplant are evaluated and classified by care providers, but understanding and interpretation of the results varies between patients, and creates different views for them and influences their lives in different ways while these influences are largely unknown. Aim This study aimed to explore understanding of new life in patients after corneal transplantation. Methods This qualitative study was conducted using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach in Tehran in 2016. Twelve corneal transplant recipients (7 men, 5 women) who were chosen purposefully from penetrating corneal transplant recipients, participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The content of the interviews was transcribed and analyzed using Van Manen's methodology. Results Data analysis led to the emergence of several main themes, among which "having a new sense" and "fear and hope" were two of the most important themes. Conclusion It can be inferred from the overall participants' experiences that corneal transplant has brought about a new look at life for patients. However, transplant-related issues are endless and continuous, and a sense of fear and hope has always surrounded them.


The work reports the preparation of antimicrobial spine-bone-cement with a highly controlled release formulation that was subjected to tests, involving in vitro and in vivo biological assessments such as antimicrobial effects, a cytotoxicity test, a bacterial reverse mutation (Ames) assay, a micronucleus assay, and implantation analysis. Two kinds of acrylic bone-cements were tested for the expression of antimicrobial and antibiotic activity. For these tests, new antimicrobial bone-cement was prepared using a caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) compound from natural propolis, and an antibiotic bone-cement was prepared by the inclusion of gentamycin (GM). The antimicrobial ability and controlled release property of both CAPE-loaded and GM-loaded bone-cements were demonstrated as a function of time, concentration and optimization to maximize their antimicrobial effects against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The compressive strengths of both bone-cements, at various CAPE and GM concentrations, were over 130 MPa and 80 MPa for CAPE-and GM-loaded bone-cement, respectively. Moreover, the CAPE-loaded antimicrobial bone-cements showed a controlled release pattern better than that of the GM-loaded antibiotic bone-cement due to their homogeneous loading. Through various in vitro and in vivo biological assessments, the CAPE-loaded antimicrobial bone-cements showed positive results in all assessments, without any inflammatory response.


In this paper, we consider online learning in generalized linear contextual bandits where rewards are not immediately observed. Instead, rewards are available to the decision maker only after some delay, which is unknown and stochastic, even though a decision must be made at each time step for an incoming set of contexts. We study the performance of upper confidence bound (UCB) based algorithms adapted to this delayed setting. In particular, we design a delay-adaptive algorithm, which we call Delayed UCB, for generalized linear contextual bandits using UCB-style exploration and establish regret bounds under various delay assumptions. In the important special case of linear contextual bandits, we further modify this algorithm and establish a tighter regret bound under the same delay assumptions. Our results contribute to the broad landscape of contextual bandits literature by establishing that UCB algorithms, which are widely deployed in modern recommendation engines, can be made robust to delays.


Large‐scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs) have proliferated in recent years, now accounting for most of the world's MPA coverage. However, little is known about LSMPA outcomes and the factors that affect them. Here we argue that policy interactions—the cumulative effect of co‐existing policies for an issue and/or geographical area—can play a critical, but under‐recognized, role in influencing LSMPA design and outcomes. We analyze interactions between national LSMPAs within Palau and Kiribati, and regional fisheries management established by the Nauru Agreement to show how policy actors can account for policy interactions in LSMPA design, and to demonstrate the profound influence that policy interactions can have on the economic and conservation outcomes of LSMPAS. We draw on our analysis to distill lessons for our case studies and LSMPAs globally. We emphasize that policy interactions are dynamic and malleable: they should be proactively managed to stimulate synergy and address conflict. Understanding and managing policy interactions is complex and context‐specific, requiring dedicated resources, cross‐sectoral coordination, and sophisticated scientific and practical policy expertise. To avoid undesirable consequences and capitalize on opportunities to secure multiple benefits, we recommend that policy actors systematically evaluate, monitor, and adapt to policy interactions throughout LSMPA design and implementation.


Spinel LiMn2O4 (LMO)-based composites, due to their combination of low toxicity, abundant natural resources, and excellent electrochemical performance, are regarded as promising candidate cathode materials for lithium ion batteries. Current energy storage demands are not being met with existing materials, however, because of their defects, such as fast capacity fading, low rate capability, and low specific capacity in practical applications. Manganese dissolution during electrochemical processes bears the major responsibility for capacity loss, apart from the electrolyte factor. Low electrical conductivity, low ionic diffusion efficiency, and large structural variation have adverse effects on the electrochemical performance of materials. With respect to these drawbacks, significant progress has been made recently on optimizing the performance of LMO-based cathode materials. In this work, we review recent progress in 1 structural design, designing composites with graphene/carbon nanotubes, crystalline doping, and coatings for improving the electrochemical performance of these cathode materials.


The study examines the incidences of building collapse in Nigeria. Data for the study were derived from both primary and secondary sources. The method of collection of primary data included field investigation and site inspection. Relevant qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis of data were employed. The study attributes building collapse to structural defect, poor supervision/workmanship, use of substandard materials, faulty structural design or absence of structural design, carelessness, rainstorm or heavy downpour, weak and faulty foundation, excessive loading, illegal conversion/ non compliance with approved building plans/ disregard for building regulations/plans, hasty construction/ faulty construction, ignorant/greedy clients, and dilapidation and absence of drainage. The study also reveals that one hundred and forty (139) are the recorded number of buildings that have collapsed between 1974 and 2012. Over seven hundred and ninety eight (798) lives have been lost during the period.  54.17% of the reported cases of collapsed buildings are residential buildings 15.83% are residential buildings under construction. 10.00% of the buildings are used for commercial purpose. 8.33% of the buildings are educational institutions. 5.00% are used for religious purpose (churches and mosques). Hotels, courts, hospitals and sport buildings account for 2.50%, 1.67%, 1.67% and 0.83% respectively. The locational distribution of the collapsed building shows a high prevalence in Lagos and Abuja. The study concludes by suggesting appropriate possible measures to avert the growing incessant cases of building collapse. Keywords: Housing, Building Collapse and Structure


Abstract Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) is the most effective means of extending the lives of people living with AIDS – yet only 25% of those in South Africa estimated to need it are receiving HAART. Those who cannot access HAART (or choose not to take it) may opt to use 'traditional' healing instead. Some people will do both. This article reviews the emerging South African literature exploring the interface between biomedical and traditional healing in this age of AIDS. It includes a discussion of recent relevant biographies and books. Particular attention is paid to the contrasting experiences of Edwin Cameron who took HAART and continues to live a productive life, and Fana Khaba, who rejected HAART in favour of untested substances. The paper notes how the diagnosis of AIDS as being caused by witchcraft may have psychological benefits (it shifts blame and responsibility to others) it can also exacerbate social tensions and undermine the health of those living with AIDS. It is argued that the state has an obligation to provide information to AIDS patients about the best scientifically tested medications.


Technology is more and more providing planners and designer with tools and methods to collect and communicate spatial data and assist spatial analysis. When we think about new technologies supporting planning we mainly think about GIS, urban modelling, simulation models and virtual reality. But many other challenges to the planning practice need for tools to support and improve planning activities. In this paper we discuss the need of new tools to support knowledge representation and knowledge sharing in participatory planning processes. The paper describes the use of a hypermedia and sensemaking tool (Compendium) to structure the knowledge produced in a real participatory planning process. In the present application Compendium has been used not for real-time capturing but for a post-hoc analysis of a real participatory planning experience.
Compendium has been used to represent and reconstruct the group memory of consultation meetings in order to allow both the planning team and the citizens to navigate into the contents of those meetings. Moreover the paper describes the main features and potential of the use of Compendium in Participatory Planning domain, and it describes the results of the group memory reconstruction. Finally the case study opens reflections on the need of new planning technologies supporting participatory knowledge generation, representation and management.


Population change is dramatic in many parts of the world mainly because of economic reason on the one hand, the society and culture also reshapes quite rapidly as a result of continuous improvement in human capital, social development, technological improvement and proper utilization of modern health care on the other. The success of a country is largely embedded with clear targeted visions and long-term policy actions. This requires rigorous action plans based on population information and thus a regular cycle of data collection along with high quality assurance is necessary. While referring to the recent Arab Spring one might say that this is due to the huge youth bulge in the Gulf population. Demographic challenges are often embedded with socio-economic, cultural and political system of a country.

Although the dynamics of population and socio-economic linkages are evident for developed countries, however, it is a bit unclear for some oil rich wealthy countries particularly in the Middle-East. Yet little is known about the socio-demographic changes of Middle-Eastern countries and its human resources. Therefore, this talk is to examine the level and trends of population in six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries - Saudi, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait and its continuous growth of human resources and development. Secondary sources of data are used and our attempt is to make a comparative study among all six neighboring nations. The mechanisms of population change are reviewed in the paper and it is revealed that fertility is falling dramatically in all GCC countries and so does the life expectancy. They are the main determinants of future population changes and ageing in GCC countries. The paper indicates how the GCC countries can utilize its large bulge of youth and older population for nation building purposes by investing in people for capacity building. It has clearly indicated that in the long term the problem of the region is an "aging population" and for which it is even less prepared. GCC countries should seriously take its future ageing issues and should act now on its policy programmes. Finally, the talk briefly lays out some policy implications.


Determination of target engagement following drug administration under physiological conditions is essential for understanding clinical outcomes of therapeutic candidates. While the list of potential techniques that enable studies of target engagement is continuously expanding, identification of the best method to evaluate interactions between a ligand and its cellular binding partner(s) remains far from straightforward. We developed and compared the applicability of two label-based techniques; inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (IED-DA) ligation-based pull-down and TR-FRET assays for in-cell determination of target occupancy of c-Src kinase and p38-α kinase by the reversible inhibitor Dasatinib. Significantly, none of the assays required engineering proteins-of-interest. Moreover, cellular TR-FRET assay emerged as a very promising platform for the determination of target occupancy of specific protein in a high-throughput manner. Our studies suggest that both IED-DA assay and TR-FRET assay should be considered as methods of choice for the determination of target engagement of small molecule protein binders in live cells.


A scalar figure of merit is presented that characterizes how well two or more object classes are separated for classification purposes. This scalar, the Hotelling trace criterion (HTC), can also be used as a measure of the performance of an imaging system in maintaining object-class separability. As an example, the HTC is applied to finding the optimum placement of pinholes in a simple coded-aperture system. Such a system could be used for tomographic imaging in nuclear medicine.


ABSTRACT Working during the night can disrupt the normal circadian rhythm by altering the melatonin level. A low level of melatonin is associated with an increased risk of cancer, possibly by decreasing the expression of tumor-suppressor genes, such as p53. To determine whether nighttime work is associated with melatonin level in serum as well as the expression of related genetic markers, we enrolled 100 female nighttime medical technologists employed at a hospital in South Korea. Melatonin concentration and melatonin receptor 1 (MT1) expression were significantly lower in nighttime than in daytime workers (1.84 pg/mL versus 4.04 pg/mL; 1.16 versus 1.61, respectively). However, p53 expression showed no difference between the groups. In summary, nighttime work could be an important risk factor for circadian disruption, but not a direct risk factor for cancer in medical technologists in South Korea.


A novel, high-performance, cosmetic, rugged, appropriately-costed, mass-manufacturable prosthetic foot for use in low-income countries was designed and field tested. This ruggedized foot was created to accommodate the unique economic, environmental, and cultural requirements for users in India. A previous prototype that enabled able-bodied like gait was modified to include a durable cosmetic cover without altering the tuned stiffness of the overall foot. After undergoing mechanical benchtop testing, the foot was distributed to prosthesis users in India to for at least 5 months. Afterwards, participants underwent clinical tests to evaluate walking performance, and additional benchtop testing was performed on the field-tested feet to identify changes in performance. The ruggedized foot endured one million fatigue cycles without failure and demonstrated the desired stiffness properties. Subjects walked significantly faster (0.14 m/s) with the ruggedized foot compared to the Jaipur foot, and the feet showed no visible sign of damage after months of use. Additionally, the field-tested feet showed little difference in stiffness from a set of unused controls. Anecdotal feedback from the participants indicated that the foot improved their speed and/or walking effort, but may benefit from more degrees of freedom about the ankle. The results suggest that the foot fulfills its design requirements; however, further field testing is required with more participants over a longer period to make sure the foot is suitable for use in developing countries.


The history of the relationship between philosophy and education has been a long and troubled one. In part, this stemmed from the problematic nature of philosophy itself, but this difficulty was compounded by controversy as to the age at which training in philosophy should begin. Although Socrates seemed indifferent to whether he conversed philosophically with young or old, his pupil, Plato, was inclined to restrict philosophy to mature students, on the grounds that it made the younger ones unduly contentious. Since philosophers in those days had the reputation of being 'friends of wisdom,' and since being a friend of wisdom seemed to require extensive experience, it came to be taken for granted, generation after generation, that philosophy was not for the young. It has sometimes been made available, on a limited basis, at the secondary school level, but almost never to students in the lower grades. To the suggestion that this prevented children from having access to ideas, theories and abstract concepts, the stock response was that children were mired in the 'concrete' level of experience and had no interest in abstractions. To the report that very young children almost invariably greeted opportunities to discuss philosophy with joy and delight, the standard reply was that this proved that the children could not be doing philosophy, since the study of philosophy is a serious and difficult matter. The recent career of philosophy in elementary and secondary education has been a matter of overcoming precisely these objection and misconceptions. Unfortunately, a listing of the advantages to be derived by the young from the study of philosophy—its strengthening of reasoning and judgment, its fostering of concept-formation skills, its clarification of values and ideals—is likely to obscure the intrinsic satisfactions that children derive from their classroom communities of philosophical inquiry. But even here there are signs of change, and a new appreciation of the educational possibilities of philosophy is at last beginning to surface in the schools.


Freshwater ecosystems and their associated biota are among the most endangered in the world. Key disturbances, such as water extraction, dams, and modifications to riparian and in-stream habitats, invasive species, and impacts on water quality have heavily altered these ecosystems. Escalating human pressure on, and disturbances to, water resources requires well-informed decision making and effective on-ground management to conserve and restore freshwater ecosystems. Systematic conservation planning offers the tools needed to address these issues, providing a strategic and scientifically defensible framework. Systematic conservation planning was pioneered in the terrestrial realm and has, with time, become the most commonly recommended approach to marine planning and management because it can ensure the selection of multiple protected areas that together achieve explicit objectives. However, in comparison to the terrestrial and marine realms, the adoption of systematic methods to inform decision making for the protection and/or restoration of freshwater ecosystems remains in its infancy. The principal focus of this thesis is on spatial conservation prioritisation applied to both protected area and off-reserve management decision making. It focuses on two areas in the field of freshwater systematic conservation planning that have been identified as research priorities: 1) assessing the sensitivity of conservation planning outcomes to different surrogates and objectives; and 2) enhancing applicability of systematic conservation planning to inform on-ground management decisions.

The aim of this thesis is to advance the scientific basis and application of systematic conservation planning for fresh waters. I address key questions in the field of systematic conservation planning in freshwater ecosystems, which are both novel contributions to the field and influential in informing conservation decisions both on and off-reserves, using the Wet Tropics of Queensland bioregion as a case study. My objectives were to 1) determine the occurrence of disturbances, and the incidental protection of fresh waters in terrestrial protected areas; 2) identify the effectiveness of using coarse-filter surrogates for representing freshwater fish diversity in systematic conservation planning; 3) develop methods to evaluate the effectiveness of invasive species management; and 4) integrate management costs into systematic conservation planning for invasive species.

There is a need for assessments that quantify the effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas for representing freshwater ecosystems and their dependent species, and that determine areas of vulnerability from human-induced disturbances. In Chapter 3, I used data on the spatial distribution of freshwater ecosystems and fish, human-induced disturbances, and the Wet Tropics protected area network to assess how well freshwater ecosystems and fish species are protected within this network. I identified human-induced disturbances likely to influence the effectiveness of freshwater protection measures and I evaluated the vulnerability of these ecosystems to human-induced disturbances within and outside protected areas. The representation of freshwater ecosystems and species in the protected areas of the Wet Tropics is poor: 83% of streams, 75% of wetland types, and 89% of fish species have less than 20% of their total lengths and areas in IUCN category II protected areas. Higher-order streams and their associated wetlands are influenced by the greatest number of human-induced disturbances and are also the least protected. My results indicate poor representation of freshwater ecosystems and fish species in protected areas, and high numbers of human-induced disturbances impacting on these systems both within and outside of protected areas despite the high level of protection of terrestrial areas in the Wet Tropics. My findings demonstrate the need for greater consideration of protection status and off-reserve management of freshwater systems.

Abiotic and biologically informed classifications are often used in conservation planning as coarse-filter surrogates for species. The relationship between these surrogates and the distribution of species is commonly assumed, but rarely assessed by planners. In Chapter 4, I derived four abiotic and eight biologically informed classifications of stream reaches to serve as surrogates for biodiversity patterns in the Wet Tropics. I used stream reaches as planning units and, as conservation targets for each surrogate, I used two percentages – 10% and 30% – of the total number of stream reaches occupied by each class. I then derived minimum sets of planning units to meet targets for each surrogate and tested the effectiveness of the surrogates by calculating the average achievement of the same targets for predicted distributions of 28 fish species. My results showed that neither abiotic nor biologically informed classifications were good at representing freshwater fish species; in fact none of the surrogates led to average representation of species better than randomly selected planning units. There were two main reasons for this poor performance. First, none of the surrogates had high classification strength or informativeness about compositional change in fish species within the study region. Second, frequency distributions of probabilities of occurrence for most fish species were strongly right-skewed, with few stream reaches having high probabilities. Combined, these results meant that selection of stream reaches to achieve surrogate targets were effectively random with respect to probabilities of fish species occurrence, leading to poor representation of fish species.

Often ecologists and natural resource managers can easily access data on invasive species occurrence across a region. Yet, collecting species abundance data over a large area is arguably more important for decision making, but inherently costly, so methods which can provide robust information at low-cost are particularly valuable. In Chapter 5, I tested the relationship of environmental suitability with local abundance of an aquatic invasive species, olive hymenachne (Hymenachne amplexicaulis) in the Wet Tropics. Least squares and quantile regressions revealed a positive relationship between environmental suitability and local abundance of olive hymenachne. I used the relationship between environmental suitability and local abundance to quantify the effectiveness of management (reduction in local abundance) under four different management investments. I showed that the upper limit of abundance can be used to evaluate management effectiveness based on varying investments, and that ongoing management is the most effective at reducing local abundance.

The successful management and eradication of invasive species is often constrained by insufficient or inconsistent funding. Consequently, managers are usually forced to select a subset of infested areas to manage. In Chapter 6, I present a spatially explicit decision method that can be used to identify actions to manage invasive species while minimizing costs and the likelihood of reinvasion. I apply the method to a real-world management scenario, aimed at managing an invasive aquatic macrophyte, olive hymenachne (Hymenachne amplexicaulis).

The approaches I developed in this thesis allowed me to overcome several challenges related to the conservation and management of fresh waters, advancing the field of freshwater systematic conservation planning by: 1) quantifying conservation gaps for fresh waters, 2) identifying the effectiveness of surrogate methods and invasive species management investments, and 3) advancing the application of systematic approaches to address resource allocation questions for invasive species management. I was able to achieve these outcomes by integrating systematic approaches and spatial models of native and invasive species distributions. The results of my work can be used to inform conservation decision makers about the limitations of 1) protection afforded to fresh waters and their dependent species and 2) surrogates for representing freshwater biodiversity in regional scale conservation plans. Further, using the method I developed for monitoring the effectiveness of invasive species management, and implementing actions at the sites that I identified as priorities for weed management, would provide more cost-effective solutions to managers in the region.


Regression testing is an important activity in the software life cycle, but it can also be very expensive. To reduce the cost of regression testing, software testers may prioritize their test cases so that those which are more important, by some measure, are run earlier in the regression testing process. One potential goal of test case prioritization techniques is to increase a test suite's rate of fault detection (how quickly, in a run of its test cases, that test suite can detect faults). Previous work has shown that prioritization can improve a test suite's rate of fault detection, but the assessment of prioritization techniques has been limited primarily to hand-seeded faults, largely due to the belief that such faults are more realistic than automatically generated (mutation) faults. A recent empirical study, however, suggests that mutation faults can be representative of real faults and that the use of hand-seeded faults can be problematic for the validity of empirical results focusing on fault detection. We have therefore designed and performed two controlled experiments assessing the ability of prioritization techniques to improve the rate of fault detection of test case prioritization techniques, measured relative to mutation faults. Our results show that prioritization can be effective relative to the faults considered, and they expose ways in which that effectiveness can vary with characteristics of faults and test suites. More importantly, a comparison of our results with those collected using hand-seeded faults reveals several implications for researchers performing empirical studies of test case prioritization techniques in particular and testing techniques in general


Rehabilitating Lars von Trier: The power of von Trier's Breaking the Waves lies exactly in its irreducibility to a fixed interpretation. The director reconceptualizes the themes of spiritual devotion, faith and love in an unorthodox tale of the human struggle to find meaning and purpose in the world. The character of Bess allows us to penetrate into the innermost regions of the mind and affirms a humanistic approach to our relationship to ourselves and others. Von Trier places an individual's actions as a form of development, a gesture towards transcendence that nonetheless exists within the mixture of banality and profundity that constitutes the world of man. This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol15/iss1/8


A horizontal spectrograph having a maximum detectable momentum of 200 GeV/c was constructed and used to measure the charge ratio of cosmic muons as a function of energy and zenith angle. The effect of the earth's magnetic field on muon propagation in the atmosphere was evaluated and the observed ratios were corrected for this effect. The corrected ratios together with the results from the Japanese spectrograph, Kamiya et al. (l969), were examined in an investigation of the peaking in the charge ratio at muon energies ~20GeV as observed in the results from the previous Durham spectrographs, Kelly et al. (1968). The results of this investigation do not lend support to the existence of a fine structure at a unique energy of 20 GeV but high values of the charge ratio in the results from the present spectrograph at 40 GeV do indicate the possibility of a fine structure at an energy dependent oh the azimuthal arrival direction of the muons. If this peaking is not of statistical origin then it would point to some further propagation effect. From the various possibilities considered, if such a fine structure is subsequently verified, it would appear that a further, detailed examination of the effect of Coulomb scattering on muon propagation in the atmosphere might profitably be pursued. It was concluded, however, that although there exists the possibility of an azimuthal effect, the results point to those muons arriving at sea level with energies < 150 GeV having been produced as a result of high energy nucleon interactions in the upper atmosphere with interaction characteristics conforming to the models discussed by MacKeown and Wolfendale (1966). The spectrograph was also used in a subsidiary experiment to investigate the anomalous increase in the energy loss of relativistic charged particles in a plastic scintillation material as indicated by the results of Crispin and Hayman (l964), Smith and Stewart (1966) and Jones et al. (1968),The results from this experiment point to normal behaviour of muons in the context of the Sternheimer energy loss theory.


A panel of librarians and library educators presented at the 2019 Association of College and Research Libraries conference in Cleveland, OH about initiatives that provide a variety of opportunities for student library workers to enhance their skills. These projects include workshops for student employees, collaborations with faculty to provide experience with digital projects, and a partnership between the Libraries and the Library and Information Studies Department to offer students applied experiences. The panel discussed the strategic directions behind these programs as well as best practices to implement them and offer professional enhancement for students to prepare them for future careers or graduate education.


This paper outlines a cognitive map for variation in language attitudes, metalinguistic beliefs about language, and language ideological frameworks — grouped together as "language regard." After establishing input, processing, and response models, it goes on to examine experimental findings that show variability in regard that are consistent with this map and to outline the importance of that variability to more general concerns of sociolinguistics, touching in particular on its explanatory position in studies of variation and change.


The home automation becomes important, because it gives the user the comfort and ease for using the home devices. The implementation and design of wireless home automation control use two methods, WLAN technology and RF remote control handheld to control selective home devices with integral security and protected system. The devices have been distributed in two rooms, each room has own board, these boards are connected to the desktop personal computer (PC) through one serial port RS-232 via microcontroller. The software consists of Assembly Language for programming microcontroller (AT89C51and AT89C2051) and Visual Basic Language that use to communicate between PC and two boards, also it use to design Graphical User Interface (GUI) which involving all devices needed to display in Home PC screen . The system is low cost and flexible with the increasing variety of devices to be controlled.


Simonson (2015) addresses marketing scholars trained in psychology who focus on behavioral decision theory. He encourages those scholars to shift some attention from traditional BDT topics to analyze substantive issues such as how the Internet changes consumer decision making. I agree with and I expand upon his call to action. I analyze sociology of science forces that I expect to cause those young BDT researchers to be resistant to wise Uncle Itamar's generally excellent advice.


The interaction of optical beams in bidispersive nonlinear media with self-focusing nonlinearity is numerically investigated. Under proper conditions, the interaction of spatially separated beams can lead to the creation of two prominent filaments along the other spatial or temporal dimension and, thus, to an effective spatiospatial or spatiotemporal exchange. This X-wave generation-based effect could potentially be exploited in optical realizations of spatial or spatiotemporal filtering.


This paper argues that the Dutch road from aloofness to NATO-membership was not primarily about the experience of failed neutrality, or about fear of the Soviet Union or a new war: it was not, as it has often been depicted, a sacrifice of (peace-time) sovereignty for (war-time) security. On the contrary, it claims that the changed course was in fact about retaining sovereignty, not only in wartime but in times of peace. A close comparison with the Swedish case reveals that the Dutch decision to ally was based on the same considerations that caused the Swedish government to opt for non-alignment. Both were motivated by the endeavour to maintain as much margin for manoeuvre as possible in a world where small states were no longer expected to be able to survive independently. The desire to safeguard regional stability and cooperation as a prerequisite to maintaining margin for manoeuvre underpinned the decisions of both governments. In other words, the Dutch policy of alliance was an expression of the same ambition that underpinned the policy of aloofness.


A typical photovoltaic (PV) power system is composed of multiple strings of PV arrays with one central inverter or a combination of PV modules with micro-inverters. Per-module DC-DC converter and series connected multilevel inverter topologies are possible candidates. In this paper, the analyses of common mode voltages and currents in the afore-mentioned PV topologies are detailed. The grid integration of PV power employs a combination of pulse width modulation (PWM) DC-DC converters and inverters. Due to their fast switching nature a common mode voltage is generated with respect to the ground, inducing a circulating current through the ground capacitance. Common mode voltages lead to increased voltage stress, electromagnetic interference and malfunctioning of ground fault protection systems. This paper analyzes the common mode voltages and current present in high and low power PV systems with different topologies. Mitigation strategies such as common mode filter and transformer shielding are proposed to minimize common mode voltages and currents. A practical rooftop PV system rated at 2.76 kW per string is used in the analysis.


How do people of faith use language to position themselves, and their beliefs and practices, in the contemporary world? This pioneering and original study looks closely at how Christians and Muslims talk to people inside and outside of their own communities about what they think are the right things to believe and do. From debates, to podcasts and YouTube videos, the book covers a range of engaging texts and contexts, showing how doctrine and beliefs are not nearly as fixed and static as we might think, and that people are prone to change what they say they believe, depending on who they are talking to. From abortion, to hell, to whether it's okay to sell alcohol, Pihlaja investigates how Christians and Muslims struggle with different elements of their own faith, and try to make decisions about what to do when there are so many different voices to believe.


The problem of automatic extraction of sentiment expressions from informal text, as in microblogs such as tweets is a recent area of investigation. Compared to formal text, such as in product reviews or news articles, one of the key challenges lies in the wide diversity and informal nature of sentiment expressions that cannot be trivially enumerated or captured using predefined lexical patterns. In this work, we present an optimization-based approach to automatically extract sentiment expressions for a given target (e.g., movie, or person) from a corpus of unlabeled tweets. Specifically, we make three contributions: (i) we recognize a diverse and richer set of sentiment-bearing expressions in tweets, including formal and slang words/phrases, not limited to pre-specified syntactic patterns; (ii) instead of associating sentiment with an entire tweet, we assess the target-dependent polarity of each sentiment expression. The polarity of sentiment expression is determined by the nature of its target; (iii) we provide a novel formulation of assigning polarity to a sentiment expression as a constrained optimization problem over the tweet corpus. Experiments conducted on two domains, tweets mentioning movie and person entities, show that our approach improves accuracy in comparison with several baseline methods, and that the improvement becomes more prominent with increasing corpus sizes.