The behavior of fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-stabilized 980-nm pump lasers is experimentally and theoretically investigated. The subkilohertz noise in the emitted power is related to the coexistence and oscillation between coherence collapsed state and narrow linewidth single-mode (SM) operation. These findings are theoretically discussed by using a multimode time-domain model that accounts for spatial harmonics and includes nonlinear gain. One additional result is an indication that kinks in the L-I curve can be explained by nonlinear mode competition.


National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) seeks to objectively quantify the performance of forward-looking advanced technologies such as Crash Imminent Braking (CIB) and Dynamic Brake Support (DBS) on the test track. Since these evaluations are expected to result in collisions between the subject vehicle (SV) and a principal other vehicle (POV) positioned directly in front of it, safety necessitates that the POV be a surrogate. However, to insure the tests will provide an accurate assessment of the SV's CIB and/or DBS capabilities, the surrogate must present as realistic. One way "realism" must be quantified involves a surrogate's radar return characteristics. The tests described in this report were performed to assess the radar return characteristics of NHTSA's Strikeable Surrogate Vehicle (SS_V), a test target visually similar to a small hatchback. This work was performed by Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) and the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) on August 5, 2012 and October 11, 2012 under U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT)/NHTSA contracts DTNH22-12-P-0158 and DTNH22-12-P-01638, respectively. The tests performed indicate the SS_V is a viable surrogate for automotive safety tests where the SV approaches a POV from the tail-aspect.


This narrative inquiry explores personal and professional stories of two educators, nurtured and supported by their school leadership, in a rural school setting, who have had diverse experiences with the contemplative practice of mindfulness. Our research primarily focused on the following wonders: How does the experience of mindfulness practice shift teacher identity and awareness, and the quality of time educators spend with children and youth? As educators, how can the practice of mindfulness expand our experience of listening, loving kindness, and compassion within educational spaces? We explore how their unique experiences of mindfulness are woven into the fabric of their school and a mindful pedagogy.


The symbols and special characters used in the original abstract could not be transcribed due
to technical problems. Please use the PDF version to read the abstract. The Roberto gold deposit represents one of the most significant gold discoveries of the
past 10 years in Canada. The latest resource estimation (publicly released in February 2010)
indicated a total of more than 9 million ounces (280 t) of inferred (6.25 Moz, 194 t) and indicated
resources (3.15 Moz, 98 t). The geology of the Roberto deposit differs from most Archean gold
deposits of the Superior Province. After initial inspection of the deposit prior to this study, it was
recognized that it could not clearly be identified as a typical quartz-carbonate gold deposit or as
a gold deposit that formed at shallower depth. It was also recognized that the geological context
of the deposit is complex, being characterized by stockwork and replacement-style
mineralization hosted within highly deformed and metamorphosed turbiditic metagreywacke and
paragneiss. The Roberto deposit is a landmark for future gold exploration within the under-explored northern part of the Superior Province. However, being an atypical gold deposit, the
key geological parameters involved in its genesis need to be identified in order to understand its
formation and define exploration criteria that will help discover similar gold deposits in the James
Bay territory and elsewhere in amphibolite-grade terranes of the Superior Province.
The purpose of this thesis is to present a geological description of the Roberto gold
deposit and provide insights on geological features that played a role in its formation. Using
regional and local geological mapping, structural analysis, 3D modelling, core logging,
petrography, and geochronology, efforts are focused on acquiring an understanding of the
regional geology, the relative ages of the main lithological units, the geochemical characteristics
of the deposit, and the relative timing between gold mineralization, deformational events, and
magmatic phases.
The Roberto deposit is located on the Eleonore property which straddles the contact
between the Archean metasedimentary Opinaca Subprovince and the volcano-plutonic La
Grande Subprovince. The main deformation responsible for regional metamorphism and the
predominant east-west structural fabric is attributed to D2 within both subprovinces. The Opinaca
Subprovince is a migmatite terrane with metamorphic grade reaching the granulite facies. The
metamorphic grade in the La Grande Subprovince ranges from greenschist to amphibolite
facies. The presence of widespread conglomeratic sequences within the La Grande indicates
that an important uplift (potentially associated with D1) occurred in the area. Such conglomeratic
sequences may mask important deformation zones that may have played a role in the
metallogenic history of the region. Further work is required in to determine whether such
deformation zones juxtaposed the two terranes or whether the current terrane distribution
reflects the original setting of the area.
The bulk of the auriferous system primarily occurs in a series of sub-parallel decametre-
scale auriferous zones globally confined to a km-scale steeply-plunging polyfolded geometry
that has been traced to more than 1500 meters below surface. Two principal auriferous zones,
referred to as Roberto and East-Roberto, can be distinguished from one another based on their
structural style, mineralogy, gold content, and stratigraphic position. The Roberto auriferous
zone (typically averaging 12 g/t Au over 10 meters) represents the main phase of gold
mineralization and consists of stockworks of K-bearing veins and veinlets and Ca-bearing quartz
veins contained within K-altered thinly-bedded greywacke. The K-bearing veinlets are typically
composed of quartz, microcline, dravite (Mg-rich tourmaline), biotite, arsenopyrite/lollingite, and
pyrrhotite. Ca-bearing quartz veins of the Roberto zone are typically composed of quartz,
amphibole, diopside, titanite, carbonate, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite/lollingite, and locally visible
gold. The East-Roberto auriferous zone (up to 8 g/t Au over 6 m) is composed of several
mineralogical assemblages that have different texturai characteristics including hydrothermal
breccias, veins, and zones of silica replacement. In terms of mineralogy, the Ca-bearing
alteration of the Roberto and East-Roberto zones in association with microcline, tourmaline,
arsenopyrite, and pyrrhotite shares analogies with the mineralogical assemblage that
characterizes the gold-skarn hydrothermal signature of amphibolite-facies gold deposits such as
those found in hypozonal orogenic settings.
Geochronological work indicates that a wide span of maximum ages occurs within
Roberto's sedimentary sequence suggesting the presence of two sedimentary sequences. The
greywacke host rock of the Roberto zone, dated at <2675 Ma (Geochron-ELE-05-08), is
significantly younger than the phase of the EII Lake diorite dated at ca. 2705 Ma (David, 2005),
which rules out the hypothesis that Roberto is genetically related to the dated phase of the EII
Lake intrusion.
The Roberto deposit is affected by polyphase folding but is not hosted within a shear zone.
Field observations indicate that the main part of the gold mineralization has been overprinted by
D2 and D3. Only in one specific location has our structural analysis enabled us to generate
arguments supporting syn-D2 ore deposition. The argument consists in the presence of a meter-scale F2Z-fold where Roberto's auriferous stockwork is preferentially developed in the short limb
of the fold and is primarily composed axial-planar and bedding-parallel auriferous veins and
veinlets, suggesting that its formation was controlled by folding. However, since field
observations commonly suggest that auriferous bodies have been overprinted by D2 rather than
being generated during active F2 folding, it can only be concluded that the main auriferous event
either occurred before of very early during D2. At deposit-scale, auriferous zones are confined to
the F2/F3 refolded geometry which suggests that auriferous zones were preserved in fold hinges
as opposed to being destroyed and remobilized on highly stretched limbs. F2 and F3 folds control
the finite deposit-scale geometry of the main auriferous zones and the attitudes of ore shoots
within those zones.
The mineralogy and the metamorphic textures of auriferous material suggest that the
veins and disseminated ore have been generated before or during the peak of metamorphism,
which agrees with the pre- to early-D2 timing established from the structural analysis. A study of
sulphide minerals with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) confirms that gold mineralization
either occurred before the peak of metamorphism in association with pre-peak arsenopyrite, or
precipitated with lollingite at near peak conditions.
Geochronology constrains the absolute age of the main stage of gold mineralization to
occur between ca. 2675 Ma and 2603 Ma, the maximum age of Roberto's host rock and the age
of a pegmatite dyke that crosscuts the main auriferous zones, respectively. Some of the
pegmatite dykes that crosscut the mineralized zones are auriferous, which is interpreted to result
from a contamination process caused by emplacement of dykes through mineralized material.
Other pegmatite dykes are in petrogenetic continuity with auriferous quartz-feldspar veins, and
crosscutting relationships between two aplite dykes and an auriferous quartz vein indicate that
such dykes were broadly coeval with a part of the gold mineralization which occurred between
ca. 2615 Ma and 2607 Ma. Pegmatite magmatism was therefore contemporaneous with a part of
the gold mineralization and/or represents a second stage of gold mineralization.
Even though geochronological data from the EII Lake diorite and Roberto's host rocks
rules out the hypothesis that Roberto's hydrothermal system is genetically related to the EII Lake
intrusion, the potential input from magmatic fluids in generating the main part of the gold
mineralization should not be discarded, as indicated by the presence of feldspar porphyry dykes
dated at ca. <2680 Ma in the vicinity of the deposit.
The contrasts between the various styles of gold mineralization, from early stockwork to
late pegmatitic veins, indicate that Roberto was affected by a long-lasting tectono-metamorphic
event during which gold mineralization was generated, deformed, metamorphosed, and
remobilized. The tectonic setting of the area represents an important clue in understanding the
genesis of the Roberto deposit, and even though the origin of the low-P high-T metamorphism is
unknown, a "deep-earlier" type model explains the early timing of gold mineralization relative to
deformation and metamorphism. Accordingly, the potential input of metamorphic fluids should
not be ruled out on the basis that gold mineralization was introduced early relative to tectono-metamorphic events. This could further suggest that Ca-bearing veins and replacement
represent metamorphosed equivalents of quartz-carbonate veins and carbonate alteration
typical of orogenic deposits, respectively. Targeting regions affected by large-scale folds,
especially near the contact between the Opinaca and La Grande Subprovinces, might prove to
be a valuable prospecting criterion.


Current accepted tools in risk assessment include techniques such as Fault and Event Tree analysis to predict the level of safety risk. To date, use of these tools at Grade Crossings has been limited and analysis has reverted to safety performance statistics to correlate results. There has been a missing link in modeling to be able to provide meaningful estimates of safety risk. Until now practitioners have been unable to use factors such as sighting, conspicuity, train speed, and human behavior characteristics within their numerical techniques. Working for Network Rail, the Railway operation company in the United Kingdom (UK) Halcrow has been using theoretical techniques to quantify safety risk at grade crossings. During this work we have applied a new tool in modeling safety risk, the Event Window. Using this concept, we have been able to relate variables such as sighting, user perception and predict human error against a timeline. The nearer a moving train to a grade crossing the less likely a user will cross in error. The advantage of this technique is that it takes into account the one common factor in past accidents, how users incorrectly judge train speed. In this paper we shall address the following questions: 􀂃 What is the benefit of quantifying the safety risk at a grade crossing? 􀂃 How do these risk assessments help organizations responsible for risk at grade crossings discharge their duties? 􀂃 What is the quality or usefulness of different types of evidence in building up these models? 􀂃 How can we improve on existing risk assessment techniques to make more informed and location specific decisions on grade crossing safety? 􀂃 How does the Event Window assist us in predicting safety risk? Tim Hess, AIMechE, Halcrow Group Ltd Jim Haile BSc CEng MIMechE, Halcrow Group Ltd


We propose a combinatorial algorithm to track critical points of 2D
time-dependent scalar fields. Existing tracking algorithms such as Feature
Flow Fields apply numerical schemes utilizing derivatives of the data,
which makes them prone to noise and involve a large number of computational
parameters. In contrast, our method is robust against noise
since it does not require derivatives, interpolation, and numerical integration.
Furthermore, we propose an importance measure that combines the
spatial persistence of a critical point with its temporal evolution. This
leads to a time-aware feature hierarchy, which allows us to discriminate
important from spurious features. Our method requires only a single,
easy-to-tune computational parameter and is naturally formulated in an
out-of-core fashion, which enables the analysis of large data sets. We apply
our method to a number of data sets and compare it to the stabilized
continuous Feature Flow Field tracking algorithm.


Iron is the most abundant element on Earth and the most frequently utilized transition metal in the biosphere. It is a component of many cellular compounds and is involved in numerous physiological functions. Hence, iron is an essential micronutrient for all eukaryotes and the majority of prokaryotes. Prokaryotes that need iron for biosynthesis require micromolar concentrations, levels that are often not available in neutral pH oxic environments. Therefore, prokaryotes have evolved specific acquisition molecules, called siderophores, to increase iron bioavailability. Acquisition of iron by siderophores is a complex process and is discussed in detail by Kraemer et al. (2005).

Here we focus on prokaryotes that generate energy for growth by oxidation or reduction of iron. In both processes single electron transfers are involved. Hence, for a significant extent of energy generation, turnover of iron in the millimolar rather than the micromolar range is necessary. Iron metabolizing organisms have therefore a strong influence on iron cycling in the environment. Microbial iron oxidation and reduction will be discussed, with emphasis on circumneutral pH environments that prevail on Earth. The active metabolic processes outlined above have to be distinguished from indirect biologically induced iron mineral formation in which prokaryotic cell surfaces simply act as passive templates ("passive iron biomineralization") (e.g., Konhauser 1997).

### General aspects of the iron cycle

On our planet, iron is ubiquitous in the hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and atmosphere, either as particulate ferric [Fe(III)] or ferrous [Fe(II)] iron-bearing minerals or as dissolved ions. Redox transformations of iron, as well as dissolution and precipitation and thus mobilization and redistribution, are caused by chemical and to a significant extent by microbial processes (Fig. 1⇓). Microorganisms catalyze the oxidation of Fe(II) under oxic or anoxic conditions as well as the reduction of Fe(III) in anoxic habitats. Microbially influenced transformations of iron are often much faster than the …


The complementary and genomic DNA segments of the alpha-L-iduronidase gene from two Chinese mucopolysaccharidosis type I Hurler/Scheie (MPS IH/S) patients were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing was done to study their molecular lesions. Patient W3 has heterozygous mutations; the maternal allele has M1I (G to A transition in the initiation codon ATG) and the paternal allele has Y343X (C to G transversion in exon 8 leading to in frame deletion of codons 325-343 from the mRNA owing to false splicing). Patient W2 is homozygous for mutation T364M (C to T transition in codon 364). The mutation was paternally inherited. A de novo deletion or gene conversion event may have resulted in apparent homozygosity for T364M. Expression of Y343X and T364M showed trace amounts of alpha-L-iduronidase activity compared to that of normal cDNA upon transfection into COS-7 cells.


Decadal trends of sea surface fCO2 are investigated in the Southern Ocean (SO) based on two synthesis products, the LDEO-V07 and the international SOCAT data set (Surface Ocean CO2 ATlas developped in the frame of the SOLAS-IMBER-Carbon Surface Ocean Systems group). At latitude 50-55°S linear fCO2 trend in winters 1991-2007 is +1.74 (±0.26) µatm.yr-1 close to (or slightly above) the atmospheric CO2 growth rate of +1.69 (±0.01) µatm.yr-1 during the same period, suggesting that the ocean carbon uptake is not increasing. This is consistent with the positive phase of the SouthernAnnular Mode. The trends are also evaluated following two periods, 1991-2000 and 2000-2007, and for different latitudinal bands and regions. Preliminary results suggest that in the SO, fCO2 increased faster in recent years, but the decadal trends also highly depend on data selection (winter versus summer), regions and collection.


Introduction Since December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has rapidly spread throughout the world with a large medical and economic impact. On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified SARS-CoV-2 as a pandemic. As a result of this worldwide public health crisis, politicians, elected officials, and healthcare professionals emergently began trialing hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in efforts to treat and prevent the transmission of the virus. This meta-analysis was performed to assess the effects of HCQ on patients with COVID-19. Methods This meta-analysis adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRIMA) guidelines. Selected articles published between December 2019 and July 2020 were found utilizing the following search engines: PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, DisasterLit, Clinicaltrials.gov, Medrxiv, and Embase. Two independent physician reviewers screened eligible articles that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the analysis. The outcome measures analyzed were mortality rate, rate of disease progression/improvement, rate of disease severity, and adverse effects of treatment. Six out of 14 studies that met the study's eligibility criteria were selected and further analyzed, with a total of 381 participants (n= 381). Conclusion From the studies analyzed, it was found that groups treated with HCQ had an overall mortality rate that was 2.5 times greater than that of the control group. HCQ treated patients had higher rates of adverse clinical outcomes and side effects compared with the control populations. Lastly, there was a 1.2 times higher rate of improvement in the group of HCQ treated patients with mild to moderate symptoms as compared to the control group.


Niche formation allows evolutionary algorithms to be used when the location and maintenance of multiple solutions appertaining to diverse areas of the phenotypic space is required. Consequently the application field can be extended to multiobjective optimization, simulation of complex systems and multimodal function optimization. In this later case a conventional evolutionary algorithm tends to group the final population around the fittest individual. Thus, other areas of interest in the search process are lost. Niching methods permits the maintenance of solutions located around these areas of interest. This contribution briefly describe problems preventing niche formation in conventional genetic algorithms, a crowding method for niche formation and analysis of results when optimizing two multimodal functions.


Exacerbations of bronchiectasis can result in a decline in lung function, a poorer prognosis and a reduction in quality of life. Three female patients aged 57, 41 and 40 presented with recurrent exacerbations of bronchiectasis despite optimal conservative and antibiotic (maintenance) treatment. In one patient the underlying cause of the bronchiectasis could not be identified; in the other two patients there was a post infectious cause. Surgical procedures were performed on account of the presence of localised bronchiectasis. No major complications were observed. All three patients experienced an impressive reduction in symptoms and exacerbations. Moreover, there was only a slight decline in lung function in two patients and an improvement in lung function in one patient. In patients with localised bronchiectasis, recurrent exacerbations and persistent symptoms despite optimal conservative and antibiotic treatment, surgical resection of affected areas could reduce the number of exacerbations and improve quality of life.


As the narrowest stretch of land in the Central American isthmus, Panama's geographical location has for millenia made it the crossroads for traders, travelers, European pirates, and world superpowers. Panamanian history is replete with explicit or tacit domination by others. In the post-Columbus period, Panama was first a Spanich colony, then a province of Colombia, and then finally a quasi-territory of the United States during the 20th century. Suffering invasion by the United States in 1989 to oust dictator Manuel Noriega and then receiving full ownership of the Panama Canal at the end of 1999, Panama has rebuilt itself into a strong, if contentious democracy. This work chronicles and highlights the key events and figures in the country's past 500 years of history, from Columbus to current day. It begins with Panama's colonial period, demonstrating how even in its early day, the isthmus was seen by the Spanish as merely a transshipment point. It then examines the post-Spanish period when the Colombian province of Panama became a forgotten backwater until European powers began vying for canal rights, leading to an ill-fated French effort. The main portion of the book details the events, figures, and intricacies of the Panama-U.S. relationship, which dominated Panama's history for the entire 20th century. It closes with an examination of the gains and challenges the country has faced in the post-U.S. invasion years.


This Article seeks to alter basic perceptions of Erie v. Tompkins. Everyone knows Erie's requirement that federal courts apply state substantive law in diversity cases. But for some scholars and judges, Erie means much more. The case has been enlisted to serve such wideranging causes as positivism, federalism, and separation of powers. And in 2004, the Supreme Court used Erie to restrict the availability of human rights lawsuits in U.S. courts. My goal is to limit exaggerations of Erie's importance and forestall resultant threats to judicial power. This critique of Erie's myth has three parts: First, I attack the old myth (espoused by Brandeis, Friendly, John Hart Ely, and others) that Erie is based on constitutional federalism. Second, I criticize the new myth claim (advanced by Curtis Bradley, Jack Goldsmith, and Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain) that Erie is based on separation of powers. In this analysis, I compare Sosa with Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which denied the new myth's broadest consequences. Third, I offer a new model for federal common law, which analyses common-lawmaking consistently with other judicial work. My model parallels Jackson's account of executive power in Youngstown Steel. Specifically, I suggest that federal common law should (i) be favored when authorized by Congress, (ii) be disfavored when proscribed by Congress, and (iii) occupy a zone of twilight when Congress has not addressed the issue. Erie is a fine ruling in its original context, but it is implausible as a general theory of judicial power. Only by seeing Erie for what it is can one resist modern efforts to draw strong anti-judicial ideas from this iconic case's shadows.


A beautifully crafted set of four tea towels sporting a series of authentic search engine results returned to a user when the criteria, 'Please Help Me', 'Is Anybody there?', 'Please listen to me' and, 'Can you hear me?' were entered into the search field, while using Google in Netscape 4.7 on Mac OS 9.2 or Netscape 6 on Windows 98.


Spores of Bacillus cereus pose a threat to food safety due to their high resistance to the heat or acid treatments commonly used to make food microbiologically safe. Spores may survive these treatments and later resume growth either on foodstuffs or, after ingestion, upon entering the gut they are capable of producing toxins, which cause either vomiting or diarrhea. The outer layers of the spore, the spore coat and exosporium, consist primarily of proteins that may serve as potential biomarkers for detection. The major morphogenetic protein CotE is important for correct assembly and attachment of the outermost layer, the exosporium, and by extension retention of many proteins. However, characterization of the proteins affected by deletion of CotE has been limited to electrophoretic patterns. Here we report the effect of CotE deletion on the insoluble fraction of the spore proteome through liquid chromatography–Fourier transform tandem mass spectrometry (LC–FTMS/MS) analysis. A total of 560 proteins have been identified in both mutant and wild-type spore coat isolates. A further 163 proteins were identified exclusively in wild-type spore isolates indicating that they are dependent on CotE for their association with the spore. Several of these are newly confirmed as associated with the exosporium, namely BC_2569 (BclF), BC_3345, BC_2427, BC_2878, BC_0666, BC_2984, BC_3481, and BC_2570. A total of 153 proteins were only identified in ΔCotE spore isolates. This was observed for proteins that are known or likely to be interacting with or are encased by CotE. Crucial spore proteins were quantified using a QconCAT reference standard, the first time this was used in a biochemically heterogeneous system. This allowed us to determine the absolute abundance of 21 proteins, which spanned across three orders of magnitude and together covered 5.66% ± 0.51 of the total spore weight. Applying the QconCAT methodology to the ΔCotE mutant allowed us to quantify 4.13% ± 0.14 of the spore total weight and revealed a reduction in abundance for most known exosporium associated proteins upon CotE deletion. In contrast, several proteins, either known or likely to be interacting with or encased by CotE (i.e., GerQ), were more abundant. The results obtained provide deeper insight into the layered spore structure such as which proteins are exposed on the outside of the spore. This information is important for developing detection methods for targeting spores in a food safety setting. Furthermore, protein stoichiometry and determination of the abundance of germination mediating enzymes provides useful information for germination and outgrowth model development.


In this paper, we consider a spatial-autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances, where we allow for endogenous regressors in addition to a spatial lag of the dependent variable. We suggest a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) and instrumental variable (IV) estimation approach extending earlier work by, e.g., Kelejian and Prucha (1998, 1999). In contrast to those papers, we not only prove consistency for our GMM estimator for the spatial-autoregressive parameter in the disturbance process, but we also derive the joint limiting distribution for our GMM estimator and the IV estimator for the regression parameters. Thus the theory allows for a joint test of zero spatial interactions in the dependent variable, the exogenous variables and the disturbances. The paper also provides a Monte Carlo study to illustrate the performance of the estimator in small samples.


Directionally solidified superalloy, which has elongated large grains, is used for gas-turbine blade application because of its high creep strength. Since the grain size is not small enough in comparison with the component size or the crack size, the inhomogeneous microstructure strongly affects the crack propagation behavior in such a structure. The authors investigate the effect of microstructural inhomogeneity on crack propagation morphology and crack propagation rate (da/dN) under a creep-fatigue condition. The macroscopic direction of the main crack is perpendicular to the loading axis, though the path is microscopically bumpy due to the effect of inhomogeneous multi-grains. Several subcracks are found around the main crack, and they occasionally coalesce with each other. In order to understand the local fluctuation of (da/dN) due to the inhomogeneous multi-grains, the grain shape and its crystallographic orientation are identified by means of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD). The subcracks tend to initiate at the high angle grain boundaries oriented nearly perpendicular to the loading axis. The local fluctuation of da/dN is influenced by two factors. One is the cracking path; the intergranular crack shows higher da/dN. The other factor is the magnitude of Young's modulus of the grain (in loading direction) at the crack tip. The higher Young's modulus leads to a lower da/dN in transgranular cracking. The detailed observation of local displacement near the crack tip clarified that the magnitude of cyclic displacement inversely related to the Young's modulus of the grain in the loading axis, and results in the high strain concentration at the crack tip in the grain with low Young's modulus. The experiment result suggests that the strain around the crack tip governs the crack propagation rate though it is affected by the inhomogeneous microstructure.


Abstract. We present intercomparison results for formaldehyde (HCHO) slant column measurements performed during the Cabauw Intercomparison campaign of Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI) that took place in Cabauw, the Netherlands, in summer 2009. During two months, nine atmospheric research groups simultaneously operated MAX-DOAS (MultiAXis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) instruments of various designs to record UV-visible spectra of scattered sunlight at different elevation angles that were analysed using common retrieval settings. The resulting HCHO data set was found to be highly consistent, the mean difference between instruments generally not exceeding 15% or 7.5 × 1015 molec cm−2, for all viewing elevation angles. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the uncertainties in the HCHO slant column retrieval when varying key input parameters such as the molecular absorption cross sections, correction terms for the Ring effect or the width and position of the fitting interval. This study led to the identification of potentially important sources of errors associated with cross-correlation effects involving the Ring effect, O4, HCHO and BrO cross sections and the DOAS closure polynomial. As a result, a set of updated recommendations was formulated for HCHO slant column retrieval in the 336.5–359 nm wavelength range. To conclude, an error budget is proposed which distinguishes between systematic and random uncertainties. The total systematic error is estimated to be of the order of 20% and is dominated by uncertainties in absorption cross sections and related spectral cross-correlation effects. For a typical integration time of one minute, random uncertainties range between 5 and 30%, depending on the noise level of individual instruments.


This thesis deals with the evaluation of measurements of water vapor transport and sorption in wood. It mainly concerns measurements of the weight response of a sample after a step change in relative humidity. The thesis consists of an introduction and eight papers. The eight papers have the following contents: 1. A description of the instrumentation and its performance characteristics. 2. Some first results on sorption in spruce wood. Non-Fiction behavior is seen above 75% relative humidity. 3. In this part the main experimental results are presented. At lower relative humidity (absorption from 54 to 75%) the normally used Fiction approach can describe the major part of the sorption process. At higher relative humidity (from 75 to 84%), however, the major part of the sorption is very slow and governed by non-Fiction effects, which are not dependent on direction of flow, sample size or wood species. The slow sorption of water vapor in the cell wall is believed to cause this phenomenon. 4. A test of the effect of different disturbances (e.g. the surface resistance) on the normally used methods of evaluating sorption measurements is presented. 5. In this paper problems concerning measurements of surface mass transfer coefficients are discussed. 6. A discussion of how non-Fickian behavior in wood could be measured and modelled. 7. An error analysis of a transient sorption measurement is developed. 8. The error analysis is applied on two measurements. (Less)


We analyze the storage and recall of factual associations in autoregressive transformer language models, finding evidence that these associations correspond to localized, directly-editable computations. We first develop a causal intervention for identifying neuron activations that are decisive in a model's factual predictions. This reveals a distinct set of steps in middle-layer feed-forward modules that mediate factual predictions while processing subject tokens. To test our hypothesis that these computations correspond to factual association recall, we modify feed-forward weights to update specific factual associations using Rank-One Model Editing (ROME). We find that ROME is effective on a standard zero-shot relation extraction (zsRE) model-editing task, comparable to existing methods. To perform a more sensitive evaluation, we also evaluate ROME on a new dataset of counterfactual assertions, on which it simultaneously maintains both specificity and generalization, whereas other methods sacrifice one or another. Our results confirm an important role for mid-layer feed-forward modules in storing factual associations and suggest that direct manipulation of computational mechanisms may be a feasible approach for model editing. The code, dataset, visualizations, and an interactive demo notebook are available at https://rome.baulab.info/


The peeled onion or the poetry and truth of Gunter Grass
The revelation in Gunter Grass' book of memoirs, Beim Hauten der Zwiebel (Peeling the Onion), that he had served as a 17-year old in the Waffen-SS in the last months of World War II caused such a storm in the media worldwide that it dominated the debate sparked by the publication of the book in August and September 2006 to the virtual exclusion of any other considerations. And indeed, both the author's public utterances at the time and the attitude displayed in the book indicate that he was at pains to disguise perhaps more than he was prepared to admit about past guilt or complicity. This paper suggests that one way to approach Beim Hauten der Zwiebel is to read it as a meta-textual picaresque novel based on Grass' experiences in the period 1939-1959. Various literary devices employed to achieve this are examined, primarily the use of roles adopted from literary tradition, e.g. Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus or elements of Goethe's biography. Thus reality and fiction, historical truth and subjective memory are juxtaposed to produce a constant tension and openness characteristic more of fictional than of historical discourse.


Alveolar osteitis which is also known as dry socket, is an inflammation of the alveolar bone. Usually, this occurs after a postoperative complication of tooth extraction.Alveolar osteitis can occur where the blood clot fails to form or is lost from the socket and this leaves the empty socket where bone is exposed to the oral cavity, causing a localized alveolar osteitis limited to the lamina dura . This most specific type is known as dry socket and is associated with increased pain and delayed healing time.The aim of the study is to compare the prevalence of dry socket and age as a risk factor in patients who visited Saveetha Dental College.The objective was to find the base in Saveetha Dental college by the data collected for the theoretical framework for research proposal.In materials and methods , there are certain requirements that were necessary such as case control study for a better understanding , patients details who visited saveetha dental college for a background check , data obtained from the outpatient record was to ensure that the data can be supported , followed by analytics of dry socket patients to know the total number of patients involved ,the sample size obtained and the tabulation of data was done in excel sheet and finally a satisfied analysis is done with the proper data.The majority of patients that are with dry socket were around the age range from 28 years to 47 years and is more common in females than in males and majority of them are non-smokers.Even in the gender prevalence , the total number of females are more than males by numbers and it is obtained with the confirmed data.The mean age group from the age range of 28 years to 47 years is the age group 50 years and the positive statistically significant correlation between the age and dry sockets.The type of test used in this study is this chi square test and the P value of the test is <0.05 which is significant.We can observe the graph showing distributions such as age where the age group from 28 years to 47 years has a total value of (9 with 53.1%) and we also can conclude that the age group from 55 years to 74 years have a total value of 46.9%.In gender we can tell from the graph that the male group has a total value of (8 with 47.1%) and that the female group has a total value of (52.9%).From smoking we can conclude that a total of (76.5%) of the obtained patients are non-smokers and a total of (23.5%) of the obtained patients are smokers


Abstract : Air traffic controllers are responsible for directing air traffic based upon decisions made from traffic activity depicted on 2Dimensional (2D) radar displays. Controllers must identify aircraft and detect potential conflicts while simultaneously developing and executing plans of action to ensure safe separation is maintained. With a nearly 100% increase in traffic expected within the next decade (FAA, 2012a), controllers' abilities to rapidly interpret spacing and maintain awareness for longer durations with increased workload will become increasingly imperative to safety. The current display design spatially depicts an aircraft's position relative to the controller's airspace as well as speed, altitude, and direction in textual form which requires deciphering and arithmetic to determine vertical separation. Since vertical separation is as imperative to flight safety as lateral separation, affording the controller an intuitive design for determining spacing without mental model creation is critical to reducing controller workload, and increasing awareness and efficiency. To examine this potential, a stereoscopic radar workstation simulator was developed and field-tested with 35 USAF controllers. It presented a view similar to traditional radar displays, (i.e. top-down), however, it depicted altitude through the use of 3D stereoscopic disparity, permitting vertical separation to be visually represented.


Warp knit fabrics are recently being used in technical applications. This paper critically reviews the recent research trends in warp knit spacer fabrics intended for various technical applications. When considering areas of applications such as sofas, seat covers, and cushions, warp knit spacer fabrics could offer a good substitute for polyurethane foams due to their advantages of combining compressive characteristics, air permeability, and thermoregulation arising out of their 3D structure. The compressive behavior of warp knit spacer fabrics has been analyzed under both static and dynamic conditions so as to determine their suitability for protective applications. The sound absorption behaviour of both warp and weft knitted fabrics have been studied. The study reveals that fabric surface structure and thickness, spacer yarn type and their connecting ways, fabric combinations and their arrangement methods have significant influence on the sound absorbability. The findings also show that good sound absorbability could be achieved by using knitted spacer fabrics when suitable fabric structures and combinations are used. Attempts have been made to study the relationships among the stab resistance and fabric density, thickness and the spacer structure. The results indicate that the thickness and the density of warp knitted spacer fabric and the compressive of the spacer layer structure are the main influencing factors on the stab resistance. The three layer composite structure of warp knitted spacer fabric was able to resist the penetration by stages during the penetration process and thereby achieved the objective of multiple protection through the knife self locking, energy dissipation and friction damping.


This article examines the association between job security and intention to stay for those who are employed in Turkey. There is a high level of unemployment in the country and many workers there are concerned about their job security. Job security refers to the objective dimensions of continuous contract, working full-time hours and paid and unpaid overtime. Job security also refers to the subjective dimension of perceived job security. We surveyed 407 employees in banking and related sectors' call centres, five-star hotel front-line staff and airline cabin crews. Results show that objective dimensions of job security are not associated with intention to stay. However, perceived job security is significantly and positively associated with intention to stay. We recommend that human resource managers focus on the perceived job security aspect of employment to keep valuable employees with the company.


HOPE AMONG RESILIENT AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS Jessica B. McClintock, M.S. Marquette University, 2015 African American youth have historically been disproportionately affected by an array of environmental stressors that have put them at higher risk for poor adjustment outcomes (Adams III et al., 2003; Mcloyd, 1990). Despite their hardships, not all of these youth fall victim to negative environmental influences (Miller & MacIntosh, 1999). Many exceed expectations and their lives take positive trajectories that lead to positive adaptation (Hunter, 2012; Miller & MacIntosh, 1999). This positive adaptation in spite of significant risk is referred to as resilience (Cicchetti, 2010). While the importance of resilience has been well documented in European Americans, the majority of the scholarship on resilience has ignored African American youth. Therefore, little is known about the factors that contribute to resilience in this population. The literature has suggested that one source of resilience is the construct of hope (Ong, Edwards, & Bergeman, 2006). Hope, as conceptualized by C.R. Snyder (1991), consists of "a cognitive set that is based on a reciprocally-derived sense of successful agency (goaldirected determination) and pathways (planning to meet goals)" (p. 571). Hope has been linked to several positive outcomes in adolescents, but research focused on hope and African American youth is limited. Moreover, there are no published studies that have investigated hope as a resilience factor with African American youth. Therefore, more needs to be understood about how hope may support resilience in this population. The purpose of this study was to explore how resilient African American youth use hope in their lives. Grounded Theory research methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) was used to analyze this construct from the perspective of African American high school students. Seventeen adolescents (5 male, 12 female) participated in individual interviews where they were asked to discuss goals as well as how they generated pathways and maintained movement towards their pursuits in the face of obstacles. Results revealed that participants used hope to: (a) facilitate academic and longterm goals, (b) formulate goals influenced by family role models as well as aspirations for an improved quality of life, and (c) call upon multiple support systems (e.g., family, friends, teachers) and use personal coping strategies (e.g., perseverance) to combat a variety of obstacles (e.g., racial discrimination, procrastination). Additionally, participants also offered ideas for other youth to reach their goals. Limitations of the study, as well as implications of the present study, and future directions for research are also discussed.


For those on the outside of the curtain of computing, there is much mystery behind the matter of software-intensive systems. To some, it looks like magic; to most, its inner workings are irrelevant in so far that it simply works. To those of us behind the curtain, however, we know that such systems are filled with chaos, regularity, and beauty. The first Web extra at http://youtu.be/HfGVE3kt8Og is an audio podcast of author Grady Booch reading his On Computing column, in which he peers behind the curtain of computing into the mystery behind software-intensive systems. To some, such systems look like magic; to most, the inner workings are irrelevant insofar that they simply work. To those of us behind the curtain, however, we know that such systems are filled with chaos, regularity, and beauty. The second Web extra at http://youtu.be/52ztwEAcmAA is a video in which Tim O'Reilly, CEO and founder of O'Reilly Media, and Grady Booch, IBM Fellow, IBM Chief Scientist for Software Engineering, and author of On Computing in IEEE Software magazine, speak with James Governor about the next stage of development of mobile apps and the focus on development practitioners prior to the IBM Impact 2013 Unconference, sponsored by IEEE Software magazine.


Objective The present study aims to use a statewide population-based registry to assess the prevalence of low acuity emergency department (ED) presentations, describe the trend in presentation rates and to determine whether they were associated with various presentation characteristics such as the type of hospital as well as clinical and demographic variables. Design and setting This was a retrospective analysis of a population-based registry of ED presentations in New South Wales (NSW). Generalised estimating equations with log links were used to determine factors associated with low acuity presentations to account for repeat presentations and the possibility of clustering of outcomes. Participants Patients were included in this analysis if they presented to an ED between January 2010 and December 2014. The outcomes of interest were low acuity presentation, defined as those who self-presented (were not transported by ambulance), were assigned a triage category of 4 or 5 (semiurgent or non-urgent) and discharged back to usual residence from ED. Results There were 10.7 million ED presentations analysed. Of these, 45% were classified as a low acuity presentation. There was no discernible increase in the rate of low acuity presentations across NSW between 2010 and 2014. The strongest predictors of low acuity ED presentation were age <40 years of age (OR 1.77); injury or musculoskeletal administrative and non-urgent procedures (OR 2.96); ear, nose and throat, eye or oral (OR 5.53); skin or allergy-type presenting problems (OR 2.84). Conclusions Low acuity ED presentations comprise almost half of all ED presentations. Alternative emergency models of care may help meet the needs of these patients.


The thesis is an examination of the impact of the personality and policies of Bismarck on three contemporary novelists Pontane, Preytag and Spielhagen and the presentation of Bismarck in their novels. Of the three writers Spielhagen, a radical democrat, was the most sustained critic of Bismarck. Spielhagen believed passionately in individual liberty and held that this would only be fully realised for all members of society in a democratic republic. The political and social order that Bismarck sought to perpetuate was the antithesis of his ideal. Spielhagen's opposition to Bismarck was, thus, fundamental and highly political. He also objected to the demise of humanism and the consolidation of authoritarian attitudes that resulted from Bismarck's despotic regime. In his novels Spielhagen's political commitment is reflected in the considerable space that is given over to the discussion of Bismarck's political aims, methods and influence. Within the detailed panorama of German society that he paints Spielhagen is concerned to gauge the destructive influence of Bismarck on humanist values. Preytag, a moderate constitutional liberal, was also a life-long opponent and critic of Bismarck. He was in the van-guard of the liberal struggle to remove Bismarck and bring down the monarchical system of government in Prussia in the 1860's and he bitterly resented Bismarck's ruthless defence of monarchical and aristocratic power. None of Bismarck's later achievements, not even the unification of Germany, quite reconciled Preytag to the illiberal Bismarck system and he continued to hope that Bismarck and his autocratic regime would in time give way to a truly liberal system of government. There is no discussion of Bismarck in Preytag's novels: on the defensive after 1866 he resorted to the historical novel in order to propagate values and ideals which he saw threatened by Bismarck's influence. Pontane confessed to being an admirer of Bismarck as statesman, orator, humorist and personality. Bismarck's despotism was, in Pontane's view, fully justified by his achievements for Germany. Only later in life - after Bismarck had resigned – did Pontane's dislike of Bismarck's petty autocratic style and growing megalomania escalate into outright rejection of Bismarck, Prom the more radical democratic view-point he assumed in the latter years of his life he judged Bismarck to be a petty autocrat. Even his achievements were devoid of moral significance for the progress of mankind. Pontane's concern with a detailed evocation of the political and intellectual atmosphere that prevailed in the Berlin upper class of his day resulted in a number of memorable portraits of conservative and liberal opponents of Bismarck, but only in the figure of Innstetten in 'Effi Briest' did he begin to explore the implications of Bismarck's despotic regime for human values in German society.


The overall objective of the XtreemOS project is the design, implementation, evaluation and distribution of an open source grid operating system (named XtreemOS) with native support for virtual organizations (VO) and capable of running on a wide range of underlying platforms, from clusters to mobiles. The approach we propose is to investigate the design of a grid OS, XtreemOS, based on the Linux existing general purpose OS. A set of system services, extending those found in the traditional Linux, will provide users with all the grid capabilities associated with current grid middleware, but fully integrated into the OS. The underlying Linux will be extended as needed to support VOs spanning across many machines and to provide appropriate interfaces to the Grid OS services. Installed on each participating machine, the XtreemOS system will provide for the grid what an operating system offers for a single computer: abstraction from the hardware, and secure resource sharing between different users. It would thus considerably ease the work of users belonging to VOs by giving them (as far as possible) the illusion of using a traditional computer, and releasing them from dealing with the complex resource management issues of a grid environment. By integrating grid capabilities into the kernel, XtreemOS will also provide a robust, secure and easy to manage infrastructure for system administrators


Recently, hybrid solar cell, which is a combination of organic and inorganic material, has been developed to produce better performance especially in power conversion efficiency of solar cell. Organic material based on conjugated polymer such as Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) attracted much attention because P3HT shows the highest hole mobility among the series of Poly(3-alkylthiophene). On the other hand, it is well known that ZnO nanoparticles are an inorganic material with high electron mobility that can be acted as electron acceptor to dissociate excitons formed in organic material. The existence of ZnO nanoparticles in active layer of solar cell will lead to dissociation of excitons in P3HT via rapid electron transfer to ZnO. To understand the mechanism of charge carrier transport in blend of P3HT and ZnO nanoparticles, we have been conducted an experiment using muon spin relaxation (µSR) at low temperature of 10 K with variation of longitudinal field from 2 to 395 mT. We also investigated the effect of light irradiation to the charge carrier transport in blend of P3HT and ZnO nanoparticles. Without light irradiation, it is clearly observed that depolarization rate (λ) was proportional to linier field of H-0.5, indicating one-dimensional intra-chain transport of charge carrier. With light irradiation, it is found that asymmetry data changed slightly indicating the trace of any changing of charge carrier transport to increase in the amount of exciton in samples causing by light irradiation.


Two types of superposition, i.e., the superposition of the intensity and the superposition of the cross-spectral density function of off-axis partially coherent beams propagating through atmospheric turbulence, are analytically and numerically studied. The Gaussian-Schell model beam is taken as a typical example of the partially coherent beam, and analytical propagation equations for the resulting beam in turbulence are derived. The mean-squared beam width, the power in the bucket, and the β parameter are taken as the characteristic parameters of beam quality to compare the results of the two types of superimposed partially coherent beams in turbulence. It is shown that for the two types of superposition the smaller the coherence parameter α is, the less the resulting beam is sensitive to the effects of turbulence. The resulting beam of off-axis partially coherent beams for the superposition of the intensity is less affected by the turbulence than that for the superposition of the cross-spectral density function. The results are physically interpreted.


Background. The benefits of breastfeeding are well documented and the World Health Organization (WHO) specifically recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months and up to two years with complementary food. The UK and Ireland continue to report the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world. Ireland has the lowest reported rate of 'having ever breastfed' (55%) and the UK has the fifth lowest (81%). Aim. This review was conducted to evaluate interventions that aimed to improve breastfeeding initiation rates in the UK and Ireland as a foundation for developing breastfeeding initiatives in Northern Ireland (NI). Method. A systematic literature review was conducted using the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Study design (PICOS) Model to define the review question: Which interventions have been tested in the UK or Ireland to improve Breastfeeding initiation rates? The following electronic databases were searched: CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, MIDIRS, Medline, ProQuest, PsycInfo and Scopus. Groups of search terms were combined relating to 'breastfeeding' and 'initiation' over the time period (2005-18). Intervention studies were eligible for inclusion if breastfeeding initiation was the primary outcome and they were conducted in the UK or Ireland and published in English. Hand searches of article reference lists were also undertaken to ensure no relevant studies were missed. Each paper was independently assessed by five members of the team and verified for inclusion by consensus. A risk of bias analysis of the included studies was also completed. Findings. In total, 2055 papers were retrieved: 2029 were not eligible. A further 13 duplicates were removed leaving 12 papers for review. Three papers, involving 3316 participants, met the full inclusion criteria. The evidence from these papers of the impact on breastfeeding initiation rates in response to peer, group and one-to-one support interventions conducted was inconclusive. Conclusion. This review highlights the small number of intervention studies conducted in the UK and Ireland evidencing the need to invest in future research focused on improving breastfeeding initiation rates. Future studies should also examine the contextual issues alongside the development and implementation of interventions.


For several years now, the question of "trademark use" has taken center stage in the debate over trademark liability of online intermediaries. Doctrinally, the debate addresses whether the Lanham Act places any limit on the types of "use" of trademarks that can subject one to a claim of infringement. The real conflict, however, has occurred at the normative level: whatever the Lanham Act says or does not say about trademark use, should trademark law limit the definition of infringement to situations in which the defendant has used the mark to brand its own products?The Second Circuit appears to have settled the issue, at least temporarily, in its recent opinion in Rescuecom v. Google. The Rescuecom court held that the Lanham Act contains virtually no limitation on the type of "use" of a mark that can qualify as direct trademark infringement. Although cloaked in terms of statutory interpretation, the Rescuecom opinion was clearly driven by normative concerns. The court - like most scholars who oppose a trademark use requirement - worried that a trademark use requirement would give search engines carte blanche to adopt advertising practices that purposefully deceive consumers.This assumption, however, is mistaken. A trademark use requirement would not provide complete immunity from trademark liability for search engines or anyone else. But it would treat them differently than run-of-the-mill infringers based on their status as intermediaries, rather than sellers who brand their products under a protected mark. Confusing branding uses, under a trademark use approach, would constitute direct infringement. Intermediaries like Google could face liability for facilitating such infringement, but as contributory rather than direct infringers.This Essay makes two points. First, it reiterates why a trademark use doctrine offers the best hope for a rational and coherent framework for evaluating the trademark liability of intermediaries. Despite its appeal, however, the courts have shown little sympathy for a trademark use doctrine in practice. The second part of this essay therefore grapples with the increasingly likely reality of a world without a requirement of trademark use. If courts are unwilling to use contributory infringement doctrine as a platform to develop a law of intermediary liability, I contend that they must adapt direct infringement doctrine to accommodate the unique concerns raised by this new kind of defendant. I close with some tentative suggestions for how they might do so.


Background: The discipline of health or medical informatics is relatively new in that the literature has existed for only 40 years. The British Computer Society (BCS) health group was of the opinion that work should be undertaken to explore the scope of medical or health informatics. Once the mapping work was completed the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) expressed the wish to develop it further to define the knowledge base of the discipline and produce a comprehensive internationally applicable framework. This article will also highlight the move from the expert opinion of a small group to the analysis of publications to generalise and refine the initial findings, and illustrate the importance of triangulation. Objectives: The aim of the project was to explore the theoretical constructs underpinning the discipline of health informatics and produce a cognitive map of the existing understanding of the discipline and develop the knowledge base of health informatics for the IMIA and the BCS. Method: The five-phase project, described in this article, undertaken to define the discipline of health informatics used four forms of triangulation. Results: The output from the project is a framework giving the 14 major headings (Subjects) and 245 elements, which together describe the current perception of the discipline of health informatics. Conclusion: This article describes how each phase of the project was strengthened, through using triangulation within and between the different phases. This was done to ensure that the investigators could be confident in the confirmation and completeness of data, and assured of the validity and reliability of the final output of the 'IMIA Knowledge Base' that was endorsed by the IMIA Board in November 2009.


Cost-benefit analysis is often troubling to consumer advocates. But this article argues that in some circumstances it may help consumers. The article gives several examples of supposed consumer protections that have protected consumers poorly, if at all. It also argues that before adopting consumer protections, lawmakers should first attempt to determine whether the protections will work. The article suggests that because lawmakers are unlikely to adopt multiple solutions to the same problem, one cost of ineffective consumer protections is a kind of opportunity cost, in that ineffective consumer protections might appear to make unnecessary adoption of effective ones. Ironically, such an opportunity cost is unlikely to be taken account of in cost-benefit analysis. Among the protections that especially risk failing to benefit consumers are laws that require consumers to perform certain tasks, such as disclosure laws that presuppose consumers will pay attention to and act on the disclosures; if consumers instead generally ignore the disclosures, the consumer protection will be largely illusory. Accordingly, before adopting measures that depend on consumers to do something, lawmakers should try to verify that consumers will in fact undertake those actions. The article also makes some suggestions for ascertaining whether consumer protections will work — i.e., benefit consumers — and concludes with a brief critique of the proposed Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act.


Abstract. Groundwater closely interacts with surface water and even climate systems in most hydroclimatic settings. Fractal scaling analysis of groundwater dynamics is of significance in modeling hydrological processes by considering potential temporal long-range dependence and scaling crossovers in the groundwater level fluctuations. In this study, it is demonstrated that the groundwater level fluctuations in confined aquifer wells with long observations exhibit site-specific fractal scaling behavior. Detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) was utilized to quantify the monofractality, and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) and multiscale multifractal analysis (MMA) were employed to examine the multifractal behavior. The DFA results indicated that fractals exist in groundwater level time series, and it was shown that the estimated Hurst exponent is closely dependent on the length and specific time interval of the time series. The MF-DFA and MMA analyses showed that different levels of multifractality exist, which may be partially due to a broad probability density distribution with infinite moments. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the underlying distribution of groundwater level fluctuations exhibits either non-Gaussian characteristics, which may be fitted by the Levy stable distribution, or Gaussian characteristics depending on the site characteristics. However, fractional Brownian motion (fBm), which has been identified as an appropriate model to characterize groundwater level fluctuation, is Gaussian with finite moments. Therefore, fBm may be inadequate for the description of physical processes with infinite moments, such as the groundwater level fluctuations in this study. It is concluded that there is a need for generalized governing equations of groundwater flow processes that can model both the long-memory behavior and the Brownian finite-memory behavior.


Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise provides an overview of how small and medium business enterprises (SMEs) can use flexibility, agility, and anticipation strategies to better utilize information technology and knowledge management. Because small and medium businesses tend to be late technology adopters, they could miss versatile and strategic workforce advantages that enable them to achieve higher efficiency and effectiveness through technology. This book shows these SMEs new technology trends that can transform the nature of their operations both in an evolutionary business path and through revolutionary opportunities. Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise applied correctly to small and medium business can be used as a strategic tool to reach growth and profit goals for the SMEs competing in a very dynamic and global marketplace. Examples include: identifying ways that IT can be used to develop strong relationships with customers and suppliers, and how to select the best technologies for business needs. Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise targets SME owners, educators, and practitioners working in the related fields of management, IT, IS, and CS-related disciplines. Advanced-level students and policy makers focusing on SMEs will also find this book valuable in terms of main concepts for discussion.


Generally, investigating changes in mangrove shorelines is an important step to evaluate whether mangrove ecosystems are expanding or contracting. In this study, the rates of change of mangrove boundaries were investigated along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea, over a 30-year period. Seaward edges of mangrove forests were extracted from Landsat images of the years 1986, 2000 and 2016 and the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) Software was used to implement the Linear Regression Rate (LRR) method to quantify the rates of boundary changes. On average, areas that experienced boundary expansion progressed by 2.55 m yr-1 and those that experienced contraction regressed by -0.38 m yr-1. The maximum rate of expansion was 25.91 m yr-1 and the maximum rate of contraction was -22.45 m yr-1. Mangroves located on the coasts of the Persian Gulf exhibited differential rates of progression and regression at their borders, with expansion rates increasing in an eastward direction toward the coasts of the Oman Sea. However, on the eastern coasts of the Oman Sea, mangroves are characterized by contraction and erosion.


The aim of this special thematic section is to bring together recent social psychological research on the topic of citizenship with a view to discerning the emerging trends within the field and its potential contributions to the broader interdisciplinary area of citizenship studies. Eight papers spanning diverse theoretical traditions (including social identity, social representations and discursive approaches) apply an array of methods to consider different aspects of citizenship across a variety of cultural and national contexts. Some focus on individuals' perceptions and discussions of citizenship, others examine the group dynamics which flow from these understandings, and the rest examine the potential for citizenship to exclude as well as include marginalised communities. While diverse, the contributions share some core commonalities: all share a concern in trying to understand citizenship from the perspective of the citizen; all conceptualise citizenship as an active and reflective process occurring between members of a community; and all highlight the irreducibly social and collective nature of the experience and practice of citizenship in everyday life. We propose that these elements of convergence have the potential to give the social psychology of citizenship a solid basis and recognisable profile in order to contribute to the broader arena of citizenship studies.


An algorithm is proposed for the pose estimation of ad-hoc mobile camera networks with overlapping views. The main challenge is to estimate camera parameters with respect to the 3D scene without any specific calibration pattern, hence allowing for a consistent, camera-independent world coordinate system. The only assumption about the scene is that it contains a planar surface patch of a low-rank texture, which is visible in at least two cameras. Such low-rank patterns are quite common in urban environments. The proposed algorithm consists of three main steps: relative pose estimation of the cameras within the network, followed by the localization of the network within the 3D scene using a low-rank surface patch, and finally the estimation of a consistent scale for the whole system. The algorithm follows a distributed architecture, hence the computing power of the participating mobile devices are efficiently used. The performance and robustness of the proposed algorithm have been analyzed on both synthetic and real data. Experimental results confirmed the relevance and applicability of the method.


Current trends in design research suggest that future interactive artefacts will return to communicating through their intrinsic physical and sensory characteristics, through their shape, inherent kinematics, tactile, and acoustic responses to manipulation. In sonic interaction design (SID), several disciplines are at work to shape the acoustic appearance of objects, to convey information through sound, and to enrich the experience of artefacts through sharable use. Basic research in the foundation of SID is aimed at developing an up-to-date curriculum, effective tools, and grounded practices. Inspired to the post-Bauhaus tradition and pedagogy, basic sonic interaction design traces systematic explorations in formgiving and formthinking issues of sounding objects. A research through design approach leverages the evidence, emerging from the development of exercises and progressive accumulation of physical sketches, to the status of design knowledge and theory.


In The Accademia Pontaniana: A Model of a Humanist Network Shulamit Furstenberg-Levi explores the intellectual networks which developed around the fifteenth century humanist Pontano. She applies recent sociological theory to investigate links between the various Italian humanist circles.


Results of recent trials highlight the risks of hormone therapy, increasing the importance of identifying preventive lifestyle factors related to menopausal symptoms. The authors examined the relation of such factors to vasomotor symptoms in the multiethnic sample of 3,302 women, aged 42-52 years at baseline (1995-1997), in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN). All lifestyle factors and symptoms were self-reported. Serum hormone and gonadotropin concentrations were measured once in days 2-7 of the menstrual cycle. After adjustment for covariates using multiple logistic regression, significantly more African-American and Hispanic and fewer Chinese and Japanese than Caucasian women reported vasomotor symptoms. Fewer women with postgraduate education reported vasomotor symptoms. Passive exposure to smoke, but not active smoking, higher body mass index, premenstrual symptoms, perceived stress, and age were also significantly associated with vasomotor symptoms, although a dose-response relation with hours of smoke exposure was not observed. No dietary nutrients were significantly associated with vasomotor symptoms. These cross-sectional findings require further longitudinal exploration to identify lifestyle changes for women that may help prevent vasomotor symptoms.


Motivated by real-time advertising exchanges, we analyze the problem of pricing inventory in a repeated posted-price auction. We consider both the cases of a truthful and surplus-maximizing buyer, where the former makes decisions myopically on every round, and the latter may strategically react to our algorithm, forgoing short-term surplus in order to trick the algorithm into setting better prices in the future. We further assume a buyer's valuation of a good is a function of a context vector that describes the good being sold. We give the first algorithm attaining sublinear (O(T2/3)) regret in the contextual setting against a surplus-maximizing buyer. We also extend this result to repeated second-price auctions with multiple buyers.


The work described in this thesis aims to conduct a systematic study of the two stage turbocharging system to improve the Diesel engine transient performance as well as NOX and CO2 emissions with a focus on the improved turbocharger matching and the control of the charging system, through the use of high fidelity engine models backed by experimental results. To perform the analytical study, commercial 1D simulation software has been used in the process of system characterisation and control strategy design. To validate the analytical results, a two stage turbocharging system was installed on a production diesel engine and tested on a transient engine test bench. The test results were then used to further calibrate the 1D engine/turbocharger model. Several other technologies were also investigated in simulation to explore their potential to further improve the system. Unlike most studies in the literature, this project focused on the system benefit of the engine and turbochargers, instead of conducting optimisation solely at the component level. The engine global parameters, such as the engine fuel consumption, emission levels and the transient response were the main parameters to be considered and were also best suited to the strengths of the 1D simulation method. The interactive use of both the analytical and experimental methods was also a strong point of this study. A novel control strategy for the system was proposed and demonstrated in the simulation. Experiments confirmed the validity of this control strategy and provided data for further model calibration. The comparison of the test results of the baseline engine to those obtained with the two stage turbocharged engine system verified the benefits of the novel turbocharging arrangement and control scheme. Transient response (T1090) was improved, with a 50% faster torque rise at 1000 rpm; the fuel consumption over the NEDC was 4% lower and NOx emissions over the NEDC were 28% lower. In the meantime, the study also revealed shortcomings of the system, such as the lack of EGR control at low speed, low load condition and a mid-speed fuel consumption deterioration of 13% on average at 3000 rpm due to excessive back pressure. With a novel 1D model corroborated using test results, exploratory simulation was done to rectify the aforementioned shortcomings and to further improve the system. Simulation results showed that by implementing VGT and ball bearing technology in the high pressure stage of the two stage system, the EGR controllability at low speed was regained and the excessive back pressure at high speed was improved. Consequently, the fuel consumption was only increased by 1.3% compared to the baseline NEDC operation and the transient response was on par with the original two stage system, with only 0.05s slower in torque rise at 1000 rpm, and still 48% faster than the baseline VGT system. Furthermore, the NOx emission can be expected to be greatly improved in the upcoming more intensive drive cycles compared to the NEDC cycle, with simulation showing NEDC NOX emissions dropped by 1%, comparing to a substantial reduction of 11% in WLTC.


Title Impact of Grey Imports on Brand New Car Dealers: The Case of Malawi and Botswana Background Rapid change in technology causes frequent improvements in durable goods like cars. Planned obsolescence and strict legislation make most car owners in rich countries like Japan to dispose off their cars and get new ones. This has led to growth of the market of gray imports in many Third World countries like Malawi and Botswana because the main consideration in purchasing a car by average income earners is affordability. Purpose The purpose of this paper was to find out if the increase in gray imports market has affected the brand new car dealers negatively by being substitute products to brand new cars. The study sought to answer the following questions. It sought to answer the following questions, a) What is the impact of grey imports on brand new car dealers' sales in Malawi and Botswana?, and b) If the impact is negative, what strategies are they using in reaction to that impact? Findings The market for brand new cars is mainly fueled by bank loans, government loans and the government is the main customer (in Malawi and Botswana). OEM and OCM have great influence in South Africa that treacles down and affects the market of gray imports. Gray imports did not have a huge negative impact on brand new cars. Conclusion Gray imports affected sales of volume brands because gray imports have positive cross elasticity of demand and are therefore substitutes to low-level volume brands. Economy and premium brands have hardly been affected. Dealerships that have been affected mainly engage in strenuous marketing of back-up services to convince people to buy entry level (volume brand) brand new cars than going for gray imports that do not have back-up service and warranties.


Abstract This article examines the effect of high school civic education on voter turnout in adulthood by integrating extensive academic transcript data on social studies and civic coursework into a large-scale, longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of adolescents. In an initial series of regression models, civics courses appear to have an effect on turnout in adulthood. However, after accounting for individual and family attributes, civic education has a fairly limited effect on turnout, though several measures have statistically significant effects even in the presence of controls. Interestingly, the study finds no support for the idea that high school courses that focus on service learning, civic skills development or political issues increase turnout in adulthood, which is contrary to expectations from the resource model of participation. After subjecting the civic effects that persist after accounting for controls to additional scrutiny by using family fixed-effects models that account for all observed and unobserved influences shared by siblings in the same family (for example, socialization, predispositions, etc.), the evidence suggests that there is a null relationship between civic education and turnout; the best-case scenario is that any civic education effects that do exist are likely very small. The idea that additional civics training will help to substantially elevate voter turnout appears to be overly optimistic.


WHIM (warts, hypogammaglobulinemia, infections, and myelokathexis) syndrome is an immune deficiency linked in many cases to heterozygous mutations causing truncations in the cytoplasmic tail of CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4). Leukocytes expressing truncated CXCR4 display enhanced responses to the receptor ligand CXCL12, including chemotaxis, which likely impair their trafficking and contribute to the immunohematologic clinical manifestations of the syndrome. CXCR4 desensitization and endocytosis are dependent on beta-arrestin (betaarr) recruitment to the cytoplasmic tail, so that the truncated CXCR4 are refractory to these processes and so have enhanced G protein-dependent signaling. Here, we show that the augmented responsiveness of WHIM leukocytes is also accounted for by enhanced betaarr2-dependent signaling downstream of the truncated CXCR4 receptor. Indeed, the WHIM-associated receptor CXCR4(1013) maintains association with betaarr2 and triggers augmented and prolonged betaarr2-dependent signaling, as revealed by ERK1/2 phosphorylation kinetics. Evidence is also provided that CXCR4(1013)-mediated chemotaxis critically requires betaarr2, and disrupting the SHSK motif in the third intracellular loop of CXCR4(1013) abrogates betaarr2-mediated signaling, but not coupling to G proteins, and normalizes chemotaxis. We also demonstrate that CXCR4(1013) spontaneously forms heterodimers with wild-type CXCR4. Accordingly, we propose a model where enhanced functional interactions between betaarr2 and receptor dimers account for the altered responsiveness of WHIM leukocytes to CXCL12.


For biomass fuelled CHP in sizes below 100 kW, Stirling engines are the only feasible alternative today. Using wood powder as fuel, the Stirling engine can be heated directly by the flame like when using a gaseous or liquid fuel burner. However, the combustion chamber will have to be much larger due to the slow burning of the fuel. To avoid sintering of ash the flame temperature in a biomass burner has to be quite low. The flame temperature can be lowered by using a high excess air rate; however this will lower system efficiency and needs a large air preheater. By using combustion gas recirculation (CGR) a smaller air preheater can be used, while system efficiency will increase compared with using excess air for flame cooling. In a three-year project, a wood powder fuelled Stirling engine CHP unit will be developed and run in field test. The project will use the double-acting four-cylinder Stirling engine SM3D with an electric output of 35 kW. This engine is a further development of the engine SM3B that has been developed at the Technical University of Denmark. The engine heater is being adapted for use with wood powder as fuel. During a two-year period a combustion system for this engine, using wood powder as fuel will be developed at Lund University, Sweden, in cooperation with the Technical University of Denmark and with the wood powder boiler manufacturer VTS AB. The unit is to be run in CHP operation by Vattenfall - the largest electric power company in Sweden - in a one-year field test in Alvkarleby, Sweden, and the operation of the unit will be evaluated at the end of the field test period. The unit is intended for blocks of flats, schools, local heat production plants and the wood industry. (Less)


Large Solutions to Semilinear Elliptic Equations with Hardy Potential and Exponential Nonlinearity, C. Bandle et al.- Stability Estimates for Resolvents, Eigenvalues, and Eigenfunctions of Elliptic Operators on Variable Domains, G. Barbatis et al.- Operator Pencil in a Domain with Concentrated Masses. A Scalar Analog of Linear Hydrodynamics, G. Chechkin.- Selfsimilar Perturbation near a Corner: Matching Versus Multiscale Expansions for a Model Problem, M. Dauge et al.- Stationary Navier-Stokes Equation on Lipschitz Domains in Riemannian Manifolds with Nonvanishing Boundary Conditions, M. Dindos.- On the Regularity of Nonlinear Subelliptic Equations, A. Domokos, J.J. Manfredi.- Rigorous and Heuristic Treatment of Sensitive Singular Perturbations Arising in Elliptic Shells, Y.V. Egorov et al.- On the Existence of Positive Solutions of Semilinear Elliptic Inequalities on Riemannian Manifolds, A. Grigor'yan, V.A. Kondratiev.- Recurrence Relations for Orthogonal Polynomials and Algebraicity of Solutions of the Dirichlet Problem, D. Khavinson, N. Stylianopoulos.- On First Neumann Eigenvalue Bounds for Conformal Metrics, G. Kokarev, N. Nadirashvili.- Necessary Condition for the Regularity of a Boundary Point for Porous Medium Equations with Coefficients of Kato Class, V. Liskevich, I.I. Skrypnik.- The Problem of Steady Flow over a Two-Dimensional Bottom Obstacle, O. Motygin, N. Kuznetsov.- Well Posedness and Asymptotic Expansion of Solution of Stokes Equation Set in a Thin Cylindrical Elastic Tube, G.P. Panasenko, R. Stavre.- On Solvability of Integral Equations for Harmonic Single Layer Potential on the Boundary of a Domain with Cusp, S.V. Poborchi.- Holder Estimates for Green's Matrix of the Stokes System in Convex Polyhedra, J. Rossmann.- Boundary Integral Methods for Periodic Scattering Problems, G. Schmidt.- BoundaryCoerciveness and the Neumann Problem for 4th Order Linear Partial Differential Operators, G.C. Verchota.


The understanding that humans are relational beings is central to the development of an ethical perspective that is built around the significance of care in all our lives. Our survival as infants is dependent on the care we receive from others. And for all of us, in particular, in older age, there are times when illness, emotional or physical frailty, mean that we require the care of others to enable us to deal with everyday life.
With this in mind, this book presents the findings of a project that seeks to understand what wellbeing means to older people and to influence the practice of those who work with older people. Its starting point was a shared commitment amongst researchers and an NGO collaborator to the value of working with older people in both research and practice, to learn from them and be influenced by them rather than seeing them as the 'subjects' of a research project.
Theoretically, the authors draw upon a range of studies in critical gerontology that seek to understand how experiences of ageing are shaped by their social, economic, cultural and political contexts. By employing a broad body of work that challenges normative assumptions of 'successful' ageing,' the authors draw attention to how these assumptions have been constructed through neo-liberal policies of 'active ageing.' Notably, they also apply insights from feminist ethics of care, which are based on a relational ontology that challenges neo-liberal assumptions of autonomous individualism.
Influenced by relational ethics, they are attentive to older people both as co-researchers and research respondents. By successfully applying this perspective to social care practice, they facilitate the need for practitioners to reflect on personal aspects of ageing and care but also to bridge the gap between the personal and the professional.


This paper contributes to the business ecosystem literature by offering a classification model that allows for the differentiation of intercompany connections. The researchers found that the definition of a business ecosystem lacks separation in the types of connection between companies. Business ecosystems were found to differentiate significantly, from loosely coupled to highly regulated and organised company relationships. Work with practitioners has shown that some may even result in newly founded business ventures. The authors are therefore proposing a classification model for business ecosystems that allows further classifications in studies. The outcome of this study has helped practitioners to operationalise product service and service business ecosystems.


Inhibitors of PI3K/Akt signaling are being actively developed for tumor therapy owing to the frequent mutational activation of the PI3K-Akt-mTORC1 pathway in many cancers, including glioblastomas (GBMs). NVP-BEZ235 is a novel and potent dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor that is currently in phase 1/2 clinical trials for advanced solid tumors. Here, we show that NVP-BEZ235 also potently inhibits ATM and DNA-PKcs, the two major kinases responding to ionizing radiation (IR)-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). Consequently, NVP-BEZ235 blocks both nonhomologous end joining and homologous recombination DNA repair pathways resulting in significant attenuation of DSB repair. In addition, phosphorylation of ATMtargets and implementation of the G(2)/M cell cycle checkpoint are also attenuated by this drug. As a result, NVP-BEZ235 confers an extreme degree of radiosensitization and impairs DSB repair in a panel of GBM cell lines irrespective of their Akt activation status. NVP-BEZ235 also significantly impairs DSB repair in a mouse tumor model thereby validating the efficacy of this drug as a DNA repair inhibitor in vivo. Our results, showing that NVP-BEZ235 is a potent and novel inhibitor of ATM and DNA-PKcs, have important implications for the informed and rational design of clinical trials involving this drug and also reveal the potential utility of NVP-BEZ235 as an effective radiosensitizer for GBMs in the clinic.


Root cultures of Plumbago rosea Linn. were established from young leaf explants on solid Gamborg's B5 (B5) medium supplemented with the combination of α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and kinetin in the concentration ranges of 0.5-2.0 mg/l and 0.1-0.5 mg/l, respectively. The production of plumbagin, determined by TLC-densitometry was higher [0.016 ± 0.0030% dry weight (DW)] in cultured roots obtained from B5 medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/l NAA and 0.1 mg/l kinetin. Plant selection increased the plumbagin production to 0.129 ± 0.0139% DW, while variation of sucrose and nitrogen (as (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 ) concentration in B5 media slightly increase the plumbagin synthesis to 0.023 ± 0.0017 and 0.020 ± 0.0015% DW, respectively.


A series of infectious-like events are characterised within the geographical area of the Scottish NHS Health Boards. Each event leads to a relatively sudden 3% increase in total deaths (around 3,500 extra deaths for Scotland) which lasts for around two to three years. The onset and shape of the time trend is slightly different in each Health Board area and it is this which suggests an infectious spread. There is a general north to south movement in each outbreak with initiation always occurring in Scotland before England. The number of medical admissions and emergency department attendances also rise at roughly the same time as the onset of these events. A similar phenomena has been documented in Australia, Canada and the USA and the effects appear to extend to general practitioner (GP) referrals, occupied beds in hospitals, the trajectory of incidence for specific cancers and a cycle in the gender ratio at birth. The possibility that the ubiquitous immune modifying herpes virus, cytomegalovirus, may be involved in these events is discussed.


Bryophytes are of great importance in their ecosystems and for human well-being. They stabilise soil crust through colonisation of bare grounds and rocks; they are essential in nutrient recycling, biomass production, and carbon fixing; they control water through an effective retention mechanism; and they have economic value as peat for fuel, horticulture, oil absorption, and as sources of a wide variety of chemical compounds. Bryophytes have long been used for medicinal purposes and provide a food-source for reindeer, geese, ducks, sheep, musk-ox, lemmings, and other rodents. Threats include deforestation, cultivation of forests, reclamation of land, urbanisation, roads, dam-building, mining, drainage of wetlands and over-grazing. This plan reviews the situation world-wide and proposes a variety of initiatives. It is aimed at those who work with and care about nature conservation, including governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as politicians and the general interested public.


Mediation is a process wherein a third party, or mediator, attempts to assist two conflicting parties in dealing with their dispute. Research has identified party trust in the mediator as a key element required for mediator effectiveness. In online video-based mediation, the addition of technology to the mix poses both challenges and opportunities to the capacity of the mediator to build trust with the parties through nonverbal communication. While authors researching the field of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) have often focused on trust, their work has typically targeted text-based processes. As ODR embraces video-based processes, nonverbal communication becomes more salient. Nonverbal communication research has identified examples of specific actions that can contribute to trust. This paper combines that research with current scholarship on trust in mediation and on nonverbal communication in mediation, to map out the landscape mediators face while seeking to build trust through nonverbal communication in online video-based mediation. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are noted, holding relevance to researchers and practitioners in any field in which trust, nonverbal communication and technology converge.


An aircraft observation of atmospheric pollutants was made over the western part of the Sea of Japan based on the IGAC/APARE/PEACAMPOT Program on Nov. 11 and 12, 1992. High concentrations of SO2 and NOx were observed, and their distribution showed a clear dependence on wind direction. When wind blew from the west or north west, a very high concentration of SO2 (up to 10 ppb) was observed. The result of back trajectory analysis points to the contribution from industrialized areas of Korea.


The point of departure for this new edition, as it was for the first, is the unacceptable reality that, for students of color, school is often not a place to learn but a place of low expectations and failure. In urban schools with concentrations of poverty, often fewer than half the ninth graders leave with a high school diploma. This second edition has been considerably expanded with chapters that illuminate the Asian American, Native American, and Latina/o experience, including that of undocumented students, in our schools. These chapters offer insights into the concerns and issues students bring to the classroom. They also convey the importance for teachers, as they accept difference and develop cultural sensitivity, to see their students as individuals, and avoid generalizations. This need to go beneath the surface is reinforced by a chapter on adopted children, children of mixed race, and hidden minorities .White and Black teachers, and teachers of different races and ethnicities, here provide the essential theoretical background, and share their experiences and the approaches they have developed, to create the conditions in both urban and suburban settings that enable minority students to succeed. This book encourages reflection and self-examination, and calls for recognizing and reinforcing students ability to achieve. It also calls for high expectations for both teachers and students. It demonstrates what it means to recognize often-unconscious biases, confront institutional racism where it occurs, surmount stereotyping, adopt culturally relevant teaching, connect with parents and the community, and integrate diversity in all activities. This book is replete with examples from practice and telling insights that will engage teachers in practice or in service. It should have a place in every classroom in colleges of education and K-12 schools. Its empowering message applies to every teacher working in an educational setting that recognizes the empowerment that comes in celebrating diversity. Each chapter concludes with a set of questions for personal reflection or group discussion."


Experiments were performed using a Light-Duty, single-cylinder, research engine in which the emissions, fuel consumption and combustion characteristics of two Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) Diesel fuels derived from natural gas and two conventional Diesel fuels (Swedish low sulfur Diesel and European EN 590 Diesel) were compared. Due to their low aromatic contents combustion with the F-T Diesel fuels resulted in lower soot emissions than combustion with the conventional Diesel fuels. The hydrocarbon emissions were also significantly lower with F-T fuel combustion. Moreover the F-T fuels tended to yield lower CO emissions than the conventional Diesel fuels. The low emissions from the F-T Diesel fuels, and the potential for producing such fuels from biomass, are powerful reason for future interest and research in this field.