B lymphocytes with receptors specific for the hapten fluorescein (FLU) were prepared from the spleens of mice of various ages. For most experiments, a one-step fractionation procedure based on the adherence of FLU-specific cells to FLU-gelatin was used. For some experiments, a subset of higher FLU-binding capacity was prepared from the FLU-gelatin binding population through the use of the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). FLU-specific B cells were placed into microculture with either FLU(3.6)-human gamma globulin (FLU(3.6)HGG) or FLU(12)HGG usually for 24 h at 37 degrees C. The tolerogen was then removed and 0.1 μg/ml of a T-independent antigen, FLU-polymerized flagellin, was substituted. 3 days later, cells were harvested from the microcultures and assayed for FLU-specific plaque-forming cells to determine any reduction in clonable hapten-specific B cells which the tolerogenesis treatment might have induced. The results showed that with FLU(3.6)HGG, hapten-specific newborn B cells could be tolerized at 1,000-fold lower tolerogen concentrations than adult splenic B cells of equal antigen-binding capacity. The high-avidity subset was even more susceptible to tolerance induction. Tolerance could be induced within 8 but not within 2 h, and at lower tolerogen concentrations, longer periods of tolerogenesis were required for a given effect. Using a 24-h tolerogenesis phase, 50 percent reduction in clone frequency among newborn FLU-gelatin fractionated cells was achieved at 0.08 μg/ml of FLU(3.6)HGG. Tolerance induction in immature B cells was inhibited by the concomitant presence of a polyclonal B-cell activator, Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) but tolerance once induced, was stable to challenge with LPS. Tolerogenesis was hapten specific. The proportion of tolerizable cells in spleens decreased with increasing age, reaching 50 percent at around 9 days. FLUI(12)HGG proved a more powerful tolerogen than FLU(3.6)HGG. It had an effect on adult cells, 50 percent reduction in clone frequency being noted at around 1 μg/ml. However, and in contrast to results claimed for other T- independent systems, there still was a major difference between immature and mature B cells, the immature cells displaying much greater sensitivity to tolerogenesis.


Total sediment and water organic carbon and nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) concentrations of different environment types of a Mediterranean coastal wetland (temporary and brackish, temporary and freshwater, semi-permanent and brackish, and permanent and brackish basins) were analysed during two hydroperiods. A nitrogen limitation was found for both sediment and water. The total organic carbon concentration of the water was significantly related to the water level, which varies throughout the hydroperiods. In contrast, the total organic carbon concentration of the sediment was not related to water level. However, significant differences in total organic carbon of the sediment were found between hydroperiods. On the other hand, total organic carbon of the sediment varied spatially, being higher in temporary brackish basins with lower sand content, and lower in permanent and semi-permanent brackish basins with higher sand content.


One of the main aims of the green building movement has been a desire to create a healthy indoor environment for building occupants. In terms of improving or enhancing occupant well-being, a unique case emerges for healthcare facilities, whose main existence is based on the principles of improving the health of their patients. In the U.S., the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system has become the most widely recognized and used certification system for green buildings, including green hospital buildings. However, hospitals with high total scores may be green buildings but not necessarily the optimal green healthcare environment from a patient's wellbeing perspective. The goal of the study was to identify whether hospitals and healthcare facilities actually value the specific criteria that influence the health of patients and their recovery period. In-depth analysis of LEED healthcare specific credits revealed general tendencies and practices for green healthcare buildings. Based on a statistical analysis, the mean of percent healthcare specific scores were calculated as 48% for those certified under LEED Healthcare, 62% for hospitals certified under LEED New Construction v3, and 52% for hospitals certified under LEED New Construction v2 rating systems. While hospitals included in the Healthcare category were initially expected to be the most successful ones in terms of achieving patient recovery and wellbeing related credits, they proved to earn the lowest percent of relevant points in this analysis. The result may be attributed to heightened restrictions and requirements of credits in the Healthcare scorecard, or hospitals may be valuing the level of certification more than those credits that were deemed relevant for patient wellbeing and rate of recovery, either due to lack of information or due to economic constraints. A high correlation coefficient was calculated among total scores and healthcare specific scores for the Healthcare dataset. On the other hand, correlation coefficients calculated for the other two datasets indicate a more random pattern among the two variables. For hospitals certified under the New Construction rating system, there seem to be weak support to claim that hospitals that receive high total scores and thus certification levels have high healthcare specific points as well.


I propose a waveform inversion scheme that estimates three-dimensional basin structure, in particular, the depth of the boundary between sediment and bedrock. This study is an extension of the boundary shape waveform inversion scheme (Aoi et al. , 1995, 1997) to a three-dimensional structure. The idea is to directly parameterize the basin topography and invert it by using long-period strong ground motions including basin-induced waves and direct waves. The depth of the topography is represented by a series of model parameters and basis functions that are rectangular (boxcar) functions. By this choice of basis functions, the inversion determines the average depth of the bedrock inside rectangles with the constraint that the observation equation, which is nonlinear in the model parameters, be satisfied best in the sense of least squares. The observation equation is linearized by omitting higher-order terms and is solved iteratively by singular value decomposition. To solve this equation, sensitivity functions (differential seismograms) are required, as well as the synthetic waveforms themselves. In this study, the finite-difference method (FDM) is used to calculate waveforms. Sensitivity functions are obtained numerically by taking the difference of waveforms from perturbed and unperturbed models. The positions of the discontinuity of the medium are required to lie on, not between, the finite-difference (FD) grid points to maintain the accuracy of FD calculation. The basis functions having rectangular domain are chosen to overcome this limitation. Since the basis functions take a constant value in a particular rectangle, inside the rectangle the perturbed model is just one grid deeper than the unperturbed model. The inverted correction values of the parameters for each iteration are rounded to the nearest multiple of the grid spacing of the FD calculation. I show the formulation of the proposed scheme and demonstrate its validity by performing a numerical experiment.


A large-scale study is reported whose purpose was to elucidate the historical development of the European major and minor modes. The study involved 455 musical works by 259 composers sampled across the years 1400 to 1750. Beginning with the period 1700-1750, a series of statistical studies was carried out on the distribution of scale tones, progressively moving backward in time. The method utilized a modified method of key determination – generalized to handle an arbitrary number of modal classifications. The results from cluster analyses on this data are consistent with the view that the modern major and minor modes have changed over time and were preceded by a system in which there were more than just two modes.


The enormous number of questions needed to acquire a full preference model when the size of the outcome space is large forces us to work with partial models that approximate the user's preferences. In this way we must devise elicitation strategies that focus on the most important questions and at the same time do not need to enumerate the outcome space. In this paper we focus on adaptive elicitation of GAI-decomposable preferences for top-k recommendation tasks in large combinatorial domains. We propose a method that interleaves the generation of top-k solutions with a heuristic selection of questions for refining the user preference model. Empirical results for a large combinatorial problem are given.


A patent "pool" is an arrangement under which patent holders in a common technology commit their patents to a single holder, who then licenses them out to the original patentees and perhaps also to outsiders. The payoffs include both revenue earned as a licensor, and technology acquired by pool members as licensees. Public effects can also be significant. For example, technology sharing of complementary patents can improve product quality and variety. In some information technology markets pools can prevent patents from becoming a costly obstacle to innovation by clearing channels of technology transfer. By contrast, a pool's aggregate output reduction or price fixing in a product market can produce cartel profits. A traditional justification for patent pools is that they facilitate improved products by uniting complements Sharing of complementary patents means that licensees can then employ all the patents in their product, rather than creating silos in which each manufacturer incorporates only its own patented features. Pools created for this purpose can reduce problems of royalty stacking and holdup, as well as problems involving blocking patents. A more robust explanation for pooling in many markets comes out of the economics of transaction costs, which emphasizes the role of limited information and the costs of obtaining it, as well as uncertainty in bargaining and sharing. Pooling is an efficient solution to problems of technology development and transfer when determining patents' validity or identifying their boundaries is costly. In this sense, patent pools function much as traditional common pool resources. An individual patent's boundaries distinguish its protected technological embodiments from noninfringing technology. But when multiple patents are aggregated what really matters are the outer boundaries that separate the portfolio as a whole from outside patents or the public domain. So long as the relevant rights are somewhere in the portfolio, the parties do not need to delineate the boundaries of individual patents in order to strike a deal. While most patent pools are socially beneficial, certain practices or structures can pose competitive problems. The biggest antitrust risk from pooling is collusion, and its threat depends on two things. First is the market structure and the power of the pool within its market. Second is the nature of pricing and exclusivity arrangements within the pool. Pool "exclusivity" can take several forms. First, it can refer to the contract that each licensor has with the pool, asking whether that licensor is free to license to others outside of the pool. Second it can refer to the pool's willingness as licensee to accept an offered technology from an outsider for inclusion in the pool. Third it can refer to the pool's willingness as licensor to license to outsider manufacturers. Fourth, it can refer to field-of-use or other restrictions given to licensees from the pool. A large but inconclusive literature considers the relationship between pooling and innovation. Conclusions are sensitive to assumptions about patent strength and quality, about the relationship among the patents in a pool and the strength of alternatives outside the pool, about the impact on innovation of insiders vs. outsiders to the pool, and finally, about the strategic responses of participants. Most of the literature concludes that most pools increase innovation rates. A pool should increase the demand for innovation of complements to the pool. First of all, access to the existing technology by pool members should be guaranteed and cheaper. To the extent the pool reduces licensing costs and eliminates royalty stacking the cost of further improvements should decline. When innovation is cumulative the development of new technology may require the licensing of existing technology with multiple patent holders. Pooling can reduce these costs and thus facilitate cumulative innovation.


School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves 29 million lunches daily, and nearly half of those are served free to low-income students. ERS researchers found that two-thirds of students receiving free lunches were in households that did not participate in the Food Stamp Program or in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), even though their income levels were sufficiently low to qualify for benefits. The National School Lunch Program makes free lunches available to children in households with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty line—$26,000 for a family of four in 2006. The program does not have some of the restrictions that may discourage participation in the Food Stamp Program and TANF, such as asset limits and proof of income. Schools also encourage families to apply for NSLP certification by sending home application forms with students. Schools have an incentive to increase participation because higher participation helps the school cafeteria cover fixed costs. Researchers also found that participation in the NSLP, for free meals as well as reducedand full-price meals, is lower among high school students than among children ages 8-13. This finding is partly related to younger students' being more likely to have lower household incomes and thus more likely to qualify for free and reduced-price meals. Researchers found that 34 percent of students ages 8-13 came from families below 130 percent of the poverty line while only 30 percent of students ages 15-18 did. A focus group study also found lower participation among older students to be linked to greater concerns about stigma, both over being poor enough to receive a free meal and over the perception of school meals as "uncool," compared with food from the a la carte line or off campus. Greater use of electronic payment methods to prevent free meal recipients from being identified by their peers has increased participation, as have changes in menu and meal presentation, such as the introduction of salad bars and improved cooking techniques.


Uranium (U) is a heavy metal used in military and industrial settings, with a large portion being mined from the Southwest region of the United States. Uranium has uses in energy and military weaponry, but the mining process has released U into soil and surface waters that may pose threats to human and environmental health. The majority of literature regarding U's human health concern focuses on outcomes based on unintentional ingestion or inhalation, and limited data are available about its influence via cutaneous contact. Utilizing skin dermis cells, we evaluated U's topical chemotoxicity. Employing soluble depleted uranium (DU) in the form of uranyl nitrate (UN), we hypothesized that in vitro exposure of UN will have cytotoxic effects on primary dermal fibroblasts by affecting cell viability and metabolic activity and, further, may delay wound healing aspects via altering cell proliferation and migration. Using environmentally relevant levels of U found in water (0.1 μM to 100 μM [UN]; 23.8–23,800 ppb [U]), we quantified cellular mitosis and migration through growth curves and in vitro scratch assays. Cells were exposed from 24 h to 144 h for a time-course evaluation of UN chemical toxicity. The effects of UN were observed at concentrations above and below the Environmental Protection Agency threshold for safe exposure limits. UN exposure resulted in a dose-dependent decrease in the viable cell count; however, it produced an increase in metabolism when corrected for the viable cells present. Furthermore, cellular proliferation, population doubling, and percent closure was hindered at levels ≥10 μM UN. Therefore, inadvertent exposure may exacerbate pre-existing skin diseases in at-risk demographics, and additionally, it may substantially interfere in cutaneous tissue repair processes.


This essay deals with Dutch theater history of the second half of the 19th century (1860—1916). It statistically tests, whether the dominant opinion in Dutch theater writing, that after 1870 the stage recovered from a half century of decline, due to a renewed interest in it by the city elite, occupying the first ranks with a taste for civilized modern drama, and that, hence, a sharp cleft became visible between lower-rank tastes and upper-rank tastes. We test the tenability of this position on the basis of the Rotterdam Grand Theater archives, which contain ticket sales per rank per performance from 1776 till 1916, and the play bills of the performances. We analyze aggregated behavior of an anonymous theater consumers subdivided into price classes, hypothesizing that differences in attendance to high and low quality plays (as the critics judged them) over the different ranks, might reveal class-based divisions of taste. A long-memory time series analysis confirms that there is a significant gradual change of quality in the theater during the period 1860—1881, but this change is hardly rank- (and by implication likely class-) based. A second time series analysis, analyzing the impact of the repertoire and companies controlled for season and dynamics of the time series over the years 1860—1887 and 1887—1916, hardly sustains the narrative of recovery for most products as related to ranks. Only in a few telling instances, there was a clear opposition between low-rank tastes and upper-rank tastes. Hence, the recovery thesis must on the whole be rejected. This research will be followed-up by a prosopographical analysis of season-ticket and coupon holders in the Rotterdam theaters from 1773—1916, in which more detailed information on the social backgrounds and particularly on social class division of not anonymous theater audiences in `the long 19th century' is central. Social classes -- Netherlands -- Rotterdam -- History.


Current acoustic survey protocols for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) abundance estimation are principally dependent upon 38-kHz backscatter data. This can constitute a substantial problem for robust stock assessment when 38-kHz data are compromised. Research vessels now typically collect multifrequency data during acoustic surveys, which could be used to remediate such situations. Here, we investigate the utility of using 18- and 120-kHz data for herring abundance estimation when the standard 38-kHz approach is not possible. Estimates of herring abundance/biomass in the Celtic Sea (2007–2010) were calculated at 18, 38, and 120 kHz using the standard 38-kHz target-strength (TS) model and geometrically equivalent TS models at 18 and 120 kHz. These estimates were compared
to assess the level of coherence between the three frequencies, and 18-kHz-derived estimates were subsequently input into standard 38-kHz-based population models to evaluate the impact on the assessment. Results showed that estimates of herring abundance/ biomass from 18 and 38 kHz acoustic integration varied by only 0.3–5.4%, and acoustically derived numbers-at-age estimates
were not significantly (p . 0.05) different from 1:1. Estimates at 120 kHz were also robust. Furthermore, 18-kHz-derived estimates did not significantly change the assessment model output, indicating that 18-kHz data can be used for herring stock assessment purposes.


What special protections, if any, should religious organizations receive from local land use controls? The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA")—a deeply flawed statute has been a magnet for controversy since its passage in 2000. Yet until recently, RLUIPA has played little role in debates about "religious institutionalism," a set of ideas that suggest religious institutions play a distinctive role in developing the framework for religious liberty and that they deserve comparably distinctive deference and protection. This is starting to change: RLUIPA's magnetic affinity for controversy has begun to connect conflicts over religious land use with larger debates about religious institutionalism. But as this Article will show, there are many good reasons to reject an institutional interpretation of RLUIPA. An institutional interpretation of the statute is inconsistent with RLUIPA's stated purpose, and will create two tiers of religious claimants, thereby providing unnecessary advantages to existing religious institutions while denying those advantages to new religious institutions. Moreover, reading and applying RLUIPA through the lens of religious institutionalism threatens to exacerbate existing problems that surround what is already a very difficult statute. In short, an institutional interpretation of RLUIPA would not fix the statute's many flaws; rather, it would make a bad statute much worse.


This paper assesses how the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory (the idea that ethnically homogeneous populations in European nations are being 'replaced' by people of non-European origin) is articulated online by three different actors. By analyzing argument patterns and multimodal features of the cases, the paper shows that the conspiracy theory is a flexible political discourse that can be used strategically by both far-right and mainstream right-wing actors. It highlights the role of affect in online communication, and particularly how anti-immigration actors feed off circulating emotions such as insecurity and fear among the citizenry. The results show that processes of demographic change, caused by immigration, are negatively politicized through the use of pseudoscientific sources, historic narratives of ethnic homogeneity, threat frames, visual fear appeals and other elements that constitute the wider conspiracy theory of an ongoing 'replacement' of native populations. The paper argues that the mainstreaming of conspiracy claims and theories related to immigration poses a threat, not only to democratic institutions and societies, but also to people of immigrant backgrounds.


The widespread use of measures and indices associated with the head for racial analysis suggests that such measures have a strong relationship with the underlying bone structure. Few studies analyse the variability of the bones of the head and the relationship with their external expression. The objective of this work was to identify and measure the magnitudes of the main skull parameters in Suffolk Down adult sheep. This study was carried out on sixteen adult Suffolk Down sheep skulls at INIA Butalcura. Their skeletons were obtained and digital morphometry was performed. Each skull was photographed from dorsal, ventral, lateral and nuchal views with a total of 28 parameters evaluated (10 dorsal, 5 ventral, 6 lateral and 6 nape). The results indicate that the externally observable variability in the cranial zone of a sheep cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the bony components of the cranial zone, either in length, width or height. It was observed that the variability of a cephalic dimension can be contrasted with the variability of individual bones that participate in a certain dimension as part of a plasticity adjustment mechanism independent of the genetic variability of each bone separately. The cranial dimensions are still useful in defining the productive potential of a sheep population; however, they should be taken cautiously for racial definitions, where the individual variability of the bones could be a better reflection of the genetic structure of the population and the dimensionality could be biased by adaptive plasticity.


In recent years extensive research has been conducted on the development of different models that enable energy trading between prosumers and consumers due to expected high integration of distributed energy resources. Some of the most researched mechanisms include Peer-to-Peer energy trading, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models. To ensure the stable and reliable delivery of electricity as such markets and models grow, this paper aims to understand the impact of these models on grid infrastructure, including impacts on the control, operation, and planning of power systems, interaction between multiple market models and impact on transmission network. Here, we present a comprehensive review of existing research on impact of Local Energy Market integration in power systems layer. We detect and classify most common issues and benefits that the power grid can expect from integrating these models. We also present a detailed overview of methods that are used to integrate physical network constraints into the market mechanisms, their advantages, drawbacks, and scaling potential. In addition, we present different methods to calculate and allocate network tariffs and power losses. We find that financial energy transactions do not directly reflect the physical energy flows imposed by the constraints of the installed electrical infrastructure. In the end, we identify a number of different challenges and detect research gaps that need to be addressed in order to integrate Local Energy Market models into existing infrastructure. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: email@example.com (V. Dudjak).


To determine the potential impacts of the Cuban terrestrial Greenhouse Frog, Eleutherodactylus planirostris, on native invertebrates in Hawaii, we conducted a stomach content analysis of 427 frogs from ten study sites on the island of Hawaii. At each site, we also collected invertebrates with two sampling methods, leaf litter collection and sticky traps, to determine if diets were representative of the available resources. Dominant prey items consisted of Hymenoptera: Formicidae (32.4% of total diets), Acari (19.2%), and Collembola (17.4%). Non-native invertebrate categories comprised 43.2% of their diet (Amphipoda, Isopoda, and Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Invertebrate orders that contain native species in Hawaii found most often in the stomachs included Acari (mites; 19.2%), Araneae (spiders; 3.1%), Collembola (springtails; 17.4%), and Psocoptera (booklice; 2.3%), although it is unknown whether native species of these groups were present in the stomach samples. Eleutherodactylus planirostris predominantly consumed leaf litter invertebrates and selected proportionately more Formicidae than was available in the environment. A total population density of 12,500 frogs ha−1 was estimated at one study site. With this density estimate and number of prey consumed, E. planirostris may consume 129,000 invertebrates ha−1 night−1 at some sites. This research highlights the need to understand the direct and indirect effects of predation by E. planirostris on invertebrates in Hawaii.


We observe that object-oriented (OO) formalisms and specification languages are popular and obviously useful, and, in particular, that they are increasingly used even for systems that change over time. At the same time, however, the system specification is not precise enough in these approaches. This thesis presents a formal approach to modelling OO dynamic systems using a logic-based framework. The UML which is an OO standard language, and the Statecharts formalism which is a leading approach to modelling dynamic systems, have been formalized in the framework. In addition, formal reasoning from the system-in-run perspective has been put forward, focusing on business goals. Business goals, an emerging issue within systems engineering, are reasoned with as a systematic way to check whether the goals are achieved or not in real business activities, and to cope with the situation where the goals are violated.


A recent editorial in Nature concerning therapy deficit and the urgent need to invest in research to enhance the effectiveness of psychological treatment is timely and may prove influential for our field. The piece used the example of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme and the lack of resources to establish the causes of variation in outcome across a service that provides access to support to more than 600 000 people. We wish to alert interested researchers to a slightly more positive example: the Stop Smoking Services in England. These were established in 1998 to help address the single largest preventable cause of premature death in the country and now treat 800 000 smokers each year. Research has begun on establishing the aspects of support that account for the very large variation that exists between local services and specialist practitioners within services. The research has found, for example, that group-based treatment is linked to higher success rates than one-to-one treatment or drop-in clinics, and that services which use particular 'behaviour change techniques', such as showing smokers their expired-air carbon monoxide readings to boost motivation to stop, have higher success rates. This work has led to the development of competence assessment and training programmes (e.g. www.ncsct.co.uk), but it is only a beginning. Because it can make use of routinely collected, national data, this kind of research can continue to be carried out extremely costeffectively and save many thousands of lives. However, significant additional funding is required to evaluate improved treatment programmes, based on findings such as these, by means of randomised controlled trials. We hope researchers who are interested in enhancing the psychological treatment provided by IAPT and similar programmes can learn from the early progress made on optimising the Stop Smoking Services.


Event synopsis: This conference will examine the relationship between literature and silence. The literary text is often charged with the duty of speaking on matters otherwise silenced. In the moving testimonies of war-survivors, literature combats death in giving voice to the silenced. What is at stake when literary criticism renders eloquent the gaps and silences of the literary text?

One reference point for the conference will be the implications of the change in the law in England and Wales regarding the right to silence on arrest. While the individual may choose to remain silent, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 curtailed the right to remain silent. Silence on arrest may therefore be subject to interpretation.

To what extent is silence desirable? The mechanisms of silencing, in acts of deliberate, state-sanctioned censorship as well as those of unconscious and guilty suppression, will be identified in a range of literary texts from any period to the present day.

Proposal for papers are invited on literature and silence in any period. Any related topic is welcome but papers may explore any of the following:

Silent witnesses: making the evidence speak; vocal bodies
Censorship and taboos: from silent correction, the blue pencil to legal prohibition
Silencing literature (especially in legal trials and public fora) Howard Brenton, Radclyffe Hall, D. H. Lawrence, Satanic Verses, Oscar Wilde, Behzti
Silence and war-time patriotism (keeping mum; careless talk costs lives)
Official secrets and spy stories
Historic silences
Uncanny silences
Silent approval and disapproval
Quiescence, quietude
The power of silence: silence as a rhetorical strategy
Degrees of silence; absolute silence


Intravascular low intensity laser therapy (ILILT) was popular in Russia in 1980s and in China in 1990s, respectively. There is photobiomodulation on blood cells and blood in vitro if the radiation intensity is so low that the photodynamic effects of endogenous photosensitizer can not damage membrane or cell compartments and the cells are not in health or normal states. The present in vivo research is of problem as the tip intensity of the fiber-optic used in ILILT might induce the apoptosis or necrosis of the blood cells near to the tip. Obviously, the in vivo research should be further done.


This article is actually a story, a story of our experiences of transforming teacher education. In this story I (Aileen) narrate a journey that led to the development of a completely new two-year initial teacher education programme: the MSc Transformative Learning and Teaching. The story traces my first intellectual connection with the concept of transformative professional learning, and charts how that understanding has grown and subsequently come to shape my work in teacher education in an explicit way. The story goes on to discuss key concepts from research on teacher education, and on assessment, that shaped the MSc programme; a programme influenced heavily by a social justice perspective. My narration, as the then programme director for the MSc programme, forms only part of the story: in an effort to gain multiperspectivity, my story is interspersed by conversations in which Lizzie (a recent graduate of the programme) and Becca (a current year 2 student) discuss their experiences with each other.


Inhaled corticosteroids are known to reduce components of the airway inflammation characteristic of asthma and improve airway hyperresponsiveness. However, the effect of inhaled corticosteroids on ozone-induced airway responses is unknown. Eight dogs inhaled budesonide [2.74 +/- 0.25 (SE) mg/day] or lactose powder twice daily for 7 days before inhaling ozone (3 ppm for 30 min) or dry air. Acetylcholine airway responsiveness was measured before and 1 h after ozone, followed by a bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). The response to acetylcholine was expressed as the concentration causing an increase in lung resistance of 5 cmH2O.l-1.s above baseline (acetylcholine provocation concentration). Budesonide pretreatment significantly attenuated the ozone-induced increase in pulmonary resistance (P = 0.003) and neutrophil influx into BAL (P = 0.001) and significantly reduced BAL eosinophils (P = 0.026). However, budesonide pretreatment had no significant effect on ozone-induced airway hyperresponsiveness. After budesonide, the acetylcholine provocative concentration fell from 5.96 mg/ml (%SE 1.46) before to 1.11 mg/ml (%SE 1.63) after ozone (P = 0.006). After lactose, the acetylcholine provocative concentration fell from 5.34 mg/ml (%SE 1.40) before to 0.50 mg/ml (%SE 1.85) after ozone (P = 0.001). Dry air inhalation did not cause airway hyperresponsiveness (P = 0.68). These results suggest that ozone-induced airway hyperresponsiveness is steroid resistant and that airway neutrophils or eosinophils are not important in its pathogenesis.


Introduction: Body liposuction and abdominoplasty are surgeries often performed together to obtain superior results in body modeling. Since associated surgeries often increase spoliation, being aware of the evolution of hemoglobin (Hb) in the postoperative period and during the recovery of the patients undergoing these associated surgeries is important for their safety. This study aimed to analyze the decrease in Hb and the clinical and laboratory results throughout the recovery of patients undergoing body liposuction associated with lipoabdominoplasty. Methods: A prospective study was conducted with patients undergoing body liposuction and lipoabdominoplasty. CBCs were collected before anesthetic induction, at the end of the surgery, before hospital discharge, after the 1st, 2nd, and 4th postoperative weeks, and during their clinical follow-up period. Results: The average Hb values at the end of surgery and hospital discharge were 10.4 g/dL (standard deviation (SD) 0.76) and 8.92 g/dL (SD 0.86), respectively. The average values during the recovery of Hb after the 1st, 2nd, and 4th weeks were 2.4% (SD 18.07), 41.6% (SD 18.4), and 74% (SD 15.2), respectively. This is in relation to the reduction between the initial Hb and at hospital discharge. Complaints of weakness and lipothymia were frequent until the second day. Conclusion: Clinical improvement was observed until the second postoperative day (PO day). Hemoglobin required approximately 1 month to normalize in most patients. These patients were treated only with oral iron replacement and did not require blood transfusions. ■ ABSTRACT


We present the realisation of near-field spectroscopic measurements with fibre-tip-based scanning near-field microscopy. It allows the simultaneous acquisition of near-field images in a broad spectral range (400 nm to 1000 nm), thus recovering local spectroscopic information. This technique is essential in order to understand the resonant interaction of light with nanostructured material as the far-field and near-field spectral response can differ significantly, e.g., in the case of plasmonic nanostructures. Several example applications of hyperspectral near-field imaging are given for visualisation of Bloch modes in plasmonic crystals and plasmon-assisted transmission through a slit.


A data set comprising of the selectivity index of pentachlorophenol-imprinted polymers against 53 pentachlorophenol and related compounds was obtained from the excellent work of Baggiani et al. Molecular descriptors of the phenol compounds were calculated with EDRAGON to obtain a total of 1,666 descriptors spanning 20 categories of molecular properties. Multivariate analysis of the data set was performed using multiple linear regression, partial least squares regression, and principal component regression. Partial least squares regression was found to deliver an excellent predictive model and was chosen for further investigation. The descriptor dimension was reduced by the combined use of partial least squares and Unsupervised Forward Selection algorithm. The obtained Quantitative Structure-Property Relationship (QSPR) model based on the smaller subset of the molecular descriptors displayed substantial gain in predictive ability when compared to the model of Baggiani et al. Such QSPR model can help in the computational design of MIPs with predefined selectivity toward template molecules of interest.


Keith P., Marquet G. & Pouilly M. 2009. — Stiphodon mele n. sp., a new species of Freshwater goby from Vanuatu and New Caledonia (Teleostei, Gobiidae, Sicydiinae), and comments about amphidromy and regional dispersion. Zoosystema 31 (3): 471-483. ABSTRACT Stiphodon mele n. sp. is described on the basis of material collected from Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It is distinguished from all other congeners in having 9 segmented rays in the second dorsal fin, usually 13 pectoral rays, 36–41 fine tricuspid premaxillary teeth, 2 small symphyseal teeth in female vs. 2–4 stout teeth in males, predorsal scales absent, and low number of scales in transverse back (3–7) and lateral series (14–21). This new species spawns in freshwater, the free embryos drift downstream to the sea where they undergo a planktonic phase, before returning to the rivers to grow and reproduce: it is an amphidromous species. As many other Sicydiinae, Stiphodon mele n. sp., is endemic to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Numerous factors occur to control the dispersion of the amphidromous species. It is necessary to consider all of these factors to explain the existence of many endemic species and the broad or small distribution of the species in the Indo-Pacific area. The management and the conservation of Stiphodon mele n. sp. have to be necessarily regional.


This study aimed first to determine whether there is a delay associated with processing words in an unfamiliar regional accent compared to words in a familiar regional accent, and second to establish whether short-term exposure to an unfamiliar accent affects the speed and accuracy of comprehension of words spoken in that accent. Listeners performed an animacy decision task for words spoken in their own and in an unfamiliar accent. Next, they were exposed to approximately 20 minutes of speech in one of these two accents. After exposure, they repeated the animacy decision task. Results showed a considerable delay in word processing for the unfamiliar accent, but no effect of short-term exposure.


The cashew apple (Anacardium occidentale L.) contains phenolic compounds usually related with antioxidant properties. Then, the aim of this study was to investigate its antioxidant capacity. The antioxidant capacity of the hydroalcoholic extract of the cashew apple pulp (EHAlc.) was assessed for the scavenging of the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) by in vitro method and by an in vivo essay. For this essay a 30-day oral (gavage, EHAlc. 200 and 400 mg/kg) study was conducted in Wistar male rats, evaluating hepatic, plasma and brain tissues. In DPPH model, the extract demonstrated antioxidant activity of 95 % (largest concentration, 1000 µg/ mL). There were found no relevant peroxidation comparing the treated animals with the control group. However, the treated group presented a lower level of brain lipoperoxidation. Also in the treated animals brain tissue was found the largest amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), mainly docosahexaenoic (DHA). Therefore, the analyzed extract from cashew apple pulp clone CCP-76 contains effective natural antioxidants, responsible for free radical scavenging in vitro and also for decreasing the brain lipoperoxidation and keeping the PUFAS levels in Wistar rats.


Peacekeeping and peacebuilding have been a major issue in International Relations scholarship, especially since the end of the Cold War. Once the Cold War was over, the United Nations found itself drawn into conflicts with different characteristics and for different reasons. This dissertation examines the contours of second generation peacekeeping operations from a standpoint informed by postcolonial theory and other critical theoretical perspectives. It examines the emergence of widened peacemaking and peace enforcement activities in Somalia and Haiti, and also examines alternative approaches to conflict transformation by examining networked social movement responses. In particular, it explores and expounds the postcolonial view that peacekeeping interventions silence and disempower Southern (or Third World) populations, operating as a form of crisis management. It explores the hypothesis that the duty to protest is another form of colonialism, coinciding with structural destabilisation to produce unequal power.


The relation between motivated social cognition and the religiosity dimensions, which Wulff (1991, 1997) described (Exclusion vs. Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal vs. Symbolic), was investigated in a Flemish speaking Belgian student sample (N=330). The Need for Closure Scale (NFC, Webster & Kruglanski, 1994) was used to measure motivated social cognition and the Post-Critical Belief Scale (Duriez et al., 2000) was used to measure Wulff's religiosity dimensions. Although NFC was expected to relate to the Literal vs. Symbolic dimension only, results also revealed a relation between NFC and the Exclusion vs. Inclusion of Transcendence dimension. However, whereas the former relationship is due to the NFC facets, Discomfort with Ambiguity and Closed-Mindedness, the latter relation can be attributed to the facets, Order and Structure and Predictability. Results obtained in a second Flemish speaking Belgian student sample (N=392) confirm these findings. Thus, apparently, whereas religious belief as such seems to be associated with a preference for order and structure as well as predictability, it is those who deal with religious content in a literal way who are incapable of dealing with alternative opinions.


This is a collection of policy briefs created and disseminated over the course of PRIME's grant period of eight years.Contained in this collection are the following policy briefs:PRIME Policy Brief 2. May 2013. Scale up of services for mental health in low-income and middle-income countries. Julian Eaton, Layla McCay, Maya Semrau, Sudipto, Chatterjee, Florence Baingana,Ricardo, Araya, Christina Ntulo,Graham, Thornicroft, Shekhar Saxena.

PRIME Policy Brief 3. May 2013. Human Resources for mental health care: current situation and strategies for action. Ritsuko Kakuma, Harry Minas, Nadja van Ginneken, Mario R Dal Poz, Keshav Desiraju, Jodi E Morris, Shekhar Saxena, Richard M Scheffler.

PRIME Policy Brief 4. November 2013.The acceptability and feasibility of task sharing for mental healthcare in low and middle income countries: a systematic review. Prianka Pamanathan, Mary J De Silva.

PRIME Policy Brief 7. December 2014. Setting priorities for mental health care in Nepal: a formative study by Mark J D Jordans, Nagendra P Luitel, Mark Tomlinson and Ivan Komproee.

PRIME Policy Brief 8. January 2015. Demand and access to mental health services: a qualitative formative study in Nepal by Natassia F Brenman, Nagendra P Luitel, Sumaya Mall and Mark J D Jordans.

PRIME Policy Brief 9. March 2015. Psychiatric stigma and discrimination in South Africa: perspectives from key stakeholders by Catherine O Egbe, Carrie Brooker-Sumner, Tasneem, Kathree, One Selohilwe, Graham Thornicroft and Inge Petersen.

PRIME Policy Brief 10. October 2015: British Journal Of Psychiatry Supplement. Integration of mental health into primary care in low- and middle income countries: the PRIME mental health care plans.

PRIME Policy Brief 11. October 2017. A collaborative integrated package for common mental disorders as part of chronic care in South Africa.by Inge Petersen, Arvin Bhana, Lara Fairall, One Selohilwe, Tasneem Kathree, Emily Baron, Sujit D Rathod, Crick Lund.

PRIME Policy Brief 12 November 2017 Proactive community case-finding to facilitate treatment seeking for mental disorders in Nepal by Mark JD Jordans, Brandon A Kohrt, Nagendra P Luitel, Crick Lund & Ivan H Komproee

PRIME Policy Brief 13. May 2018. Social determinants of mental disorders and the Sustainable Development Goals: a systematic review of reviews by Crick Lund, Carrie Brooke-Sumner, Florence Baingana, Emily Claire Baron, Erica Breuer, Prabha Chandra, Johannes Haushofer, Helen Herrman, Mark Jordans, Christian Kieling, Maria Elena Medina-Mora, Ellen Morgan, Olayinka Omigbodun, Wietse Tol, Vikram Patel, Shekhar Saxena.

PRIME Policy Brief 13. July 2018. Bridging the gap: the way forward for intersectoral provision of mental health services.by Carrie Brooke‑Sumner, Crick Lund & Inge Petersen.

PRIME Policy Brief 16. August 2018. Treatment gap and barriers for mental health care: a cross-sectional community survey in Nepal. Nagendra P Luitel, Mark J D Jordans, Brandon A Kohrt, Sujit D Rathod & Ivan H Komproee

PRIME Policy Brief 17. August 2018.Validation of the Brief Mental Health Screening Tool (BMH) Arvin Bhana, Ntokozo Mntambo, Gugu Gigaba, Merridy Grant, Dianne Ackerman, Zamasomi Luvuno, Ellen Ntswe & Inge Petersen.

Implementation of PRIME mental health care plan in Sehore district, Madya Pradesh, India: outcomes and learnings.

Scaling up mental health services in Madhya Pradesh through the 'Mann-Kaksha' model.


Rifaximin is an oral nonsystemic antibiotic with minimal gastrointestinal absorption and broad‐spectrum antibacterial activity covering both gram‐positive and gram‐negative organisms. Rifaximin is currently used worldwide in patients with cirrhosis for preventing recurrent HE because its efficacy and safety have been proven by large randomized clinical trials. In the last decade, experimental and clinical evidence suggest that rifaximin could have other beneficial effects on the course of cirrhosis by modulating the gut microbiome and affecting the gut‐liver axis, which in turn can interfere with major events of the pathophysiological cascade underlying decompensated cirrhosis, such as systemic inflammatory syndrome, portal hypertension, and bacterial infections. However, the use of rifaximin for prevention or treatment of other complications, including spontaneous bacterial peritonitis or other bacterial infections, is not accepted because evidence by clinical trials is still very weak. The present review deals in the first part with the potential impact of rifaximin on pathogenic mechanisms in liver diseases, whereas in the second part, its clinical effects are critically discussed. It clearly emerges that, because of its potential activity on multiple pathogenic events, the efficacy of rifaximin in the prevention or management of complications other than HE deserves to be investigated extensively. The results of double‐blinded, adequately powered randomized clinical trials assessing the effect of rifaximin, alone or in combination with other drugs, on hard clinical endpoints, such as decompensation of cirrhosis, acute‐on‐chronic liver failure, and mortality, are therefore eagerly awaited.


Well-tempered metadynamics has proven to be a practical and efficient adaptive enhanced sampling method for the computational study of biomolecular and materials systems. However, choosing its tunable parameter can be challenging and requires balancing a trade-off between fast escape from local metastable states and fast convergence of an overall free energy estimate. In this article, we present a new smoothly convergent variant of metadynamics, transition-tempered metadynamics, that removes that trade-off and is more robust to changes in its own single tunable parameter, resulting in substantial speed and accuracy improvements. The new method is specifically designed to study state-to-state transitions in which the states of greatest interest are known ahead of time, but transition mechanisms are not. The design is guided by a picture of adaptive enhanced sampling as a means to increase dynamical connectivity of a model's state space until percolation between all points of interest is reached, and it uses the degree of dynamical percolation to automatically tune the convergence rate. We apply the new method to Brownian dynamics on 48 random 1D surfaces, blocked alanine dipeptide in vacuo, and aqueous myoglobin, finding that transition-tempered metadynamics substantially and reproducibly improves upon well-tempered metadynamics in terms of first barrier crossing rate, convergence rate, and robustness to the choice of tuning parameter. Moreover, the trade-off between first barrier crossing rate and convergence rate is eliminated: the new method drives escape from an initial metastable state as fast as metadynamics without tempering, regardless of tuning.


This paper draws on extensive theoretical research and literature reviews, from two cases, and presents one case to illustrate practical application. It seeks to define and understand how lean product development integrates with current lean manufacturing strategies, and how the principles of the lean product development process can successfully be applied to improve the operations of a high variable-low volume product mix business. This work aims at delivering a unique conceptual model that demonstrates how businesses can improve their profitability through the utilisation of lean product development concepts. Through our conceptual model, business firms achieve the systemic integration of lean product development concepts with their downstream operations. The case presented of a high variable-low volume business organisation offers useful insights into how to implement this in practice.


The genus-group taxon Megatrigon Johnson, 1898, stat. nov., is revised and treated as a valid genus within the Merodontini (= Eumerini). Extensive diagnoses are given for the genus and for its three constituent species groups: argenteus group [11 spp.], nivalis group [monotypic], sexfasciatus group [3 spp.]. Five new generic combinations are proposed within Megatrigon : M. argenteus (Walker, 1852) comb. nov., M. flavimarginatus (Hull, 1964) comb. nov., M. jacobi (Herve-Bazin, 1913) comb. nov., M. nivalis (Hull, 1964) comb. nov. and M. ochreatus (Hull, 1964) comb. nov. All species of the argenteus group are revised and nine new species are described: Megatrigon apiformis sp. nov., M. argentifrons sp. nov., M. argentimaculatus sp. nov., M. cooksoni sp. nov., M. immaculatus sp. nov., M. magnicornis sp. nov., M. natalensis sp. nov., M. sexmaculatus sp. nov., M. tabanoides sp. nov. Within the sexfasciatus group, M. jacobi (Herve-Bazin, 1913) comb. nov. is treated as a senior synonym of Eumerus connexus Hull, 1964 syn. nov., but no further work is done at the species level due to insufficient material.


What makes an expert software designer? It is more than experience or innate ability. Expert software designers have specific habits, learned practices, and observed principles that they apply deliberately during their design work. This book offers sixty-six insights, distilled from years of studying experts at work, that capture what successful software designers actually do to create great software. The book presents these insights in a series of two-page illustrated spreads, with the principle and a short explanatory text on one page, and a drawing on the facing page. For example, "Experts generate alternatives" is illustrated by the same few balloons turned into a set of very different balloon animals. The text is engaging and accessible; the drawings are thought-provoking and often playful. Organized into such categories as "Experts reflect," "Experts are not afraid," and "Experts break the rules," the insights range from "Experts prefer simple solutions" to "Experts see error as opportunity." Readers learn that "Experts involve the user"; "Experts take inspiration from wherever they can"; "Experts design throughout the creation of software"; and "Experts draw the problem as much as they draw the solution." One habit for an aspiring expert software designer to develop would be to read and reread this entertaining but essential little book. The insights described offer a guide for the novice or a reference for the veteran -- in software design or any design profession. A companion web site provides an annotated bibliography that compiles key underpinning literature, the opportunity to suggest additional insights, and more.


We examine the general form of the generators of time evolution on density matrices of damped oscillators and clarify the conditions that must be fulfilled by them. The generators must be adjoint-symmetric to preserve the hermiticity of density matrices and trace-preserving to conserve probability. The conditions lead to a set of basis generators where generic ones are formed by taking linear sums of the basis over real coefficients. The requirement on the positivity of density matrices then limit the range of the coefficients. In ordinary symmetry on state vectors (pure states) in the Hilbert space, symmetry operators are unitary and factorized. The symmetry on density matrices is more general in the sense that it is not limited to unitary and factorized transformation. The time evolution operators of quantum systems are examples of general transformation that form semigroups, but the generic general transformation is not limited to semigroup.


This report illustrates the potential of the optic subarachnoid space to dilate selectively with various disease processes involving the orbit, optic canal, sella, and parasellar regions. According to the concept of optic hydrops, isolated papilledema, in the absence of increased intracranial pressure, may be caused by focal disease of these regions.


Topological analysis of the Internet is needed for developments on network planning, optimal routing
algorithms, failure detection measures, and understanding business models. Accurate measurement, inference and modelling techniques are fundamental to Internet topology research. A requirement towards
achieving such goals is the measurements of network topologies at different levels of granularity. In this
work, I start by studying techniques for inferring, modelling, and generating Internet topologies at both
the router and administrative levels. I also compare the mathematical models that are used to characterise
various topologies and the generation tools based on them.
Many topological models have been proposed to generate Internet Autonomous System(AS) topologies. I use an extensive set of measures and innovative methodologies to compare AS topology generation models with several observed AS topologies. This analysis shows that the existing AS topology
generation models fail to capture important characteristics, such as the complexity of the local interconnection structure between ASes. Furthermore, I use routing data from multiple vantage points to show
that using additional measurement points significantly affect our observations about local structural properties, such as clustering and node centrality. Degree-based properties, however, are not notably affected
by additional measurements locations. The shortcomings of AS topology generation models stems from
an underestimation of the complexity of the connectivity in the Internet and biases of measurement techniques.
An increasing number of synthetic topology generators are available, each claiming to produce
representative Internet topologies. Every generator has its own parameters, allowing the user to generate
topologies with different characteristics. However, there exist no clear guidelines on tuning the value of
these parameters in order to obtain a topology with specific characteristics. I propose a method which
allows optimal parameters of a model to be estimated for a given target topology. The optimisation
is performed using the weighted spectral distribution metric, which simultaneously takes into account
many the properties of a graph.
In order to understand the dynamics of the Internet, I study the evolution of the AS topology over a
period of seven years. To understand the structural changes in the topology, I use the weighted spectral
distribution as this metric reveals differences in the hierarchical structure of two graphs. The results indicate that the Internet is changing from a strongly customer-provider oriented, disassortative network, to
a soft-hierarchical, peering-oriented, assortative network. This change is indicative of evolving business
relationships amongst organisations.


The pervasive demand and desire for an ideal body evident in today's society has led to the normalisation of beautification and enhancement treatments. Unlicensed weight loss (UWL) drugs which comprise of 2,4 dinitrophenol (DNP), sibutramine and rimonabant are just one method used in enhancing and improving the body in line with social expectations. However, previous research exploring the use of these drugs has been confined to male dominated bodybuilding communities, despite women experiencing increasing pressures to look a certain way. This doctoral research explores the use of UWL drugs by women, focusing specifically on attitudes and perceptions of UWL drug use, motivations for use, experiences of use and self-reported adverse effects. This qualitative research involved an online forum analysis. Online discussion forms (n=10) were selected based on their levels of popularity, the proportion of female users accessing them and because they contained relevant UWL drug discussion. All threads (470) relating to UWL drug discussion were downloaded and analysed using thematic analysis conducted through the software package NVivo version 10. Four forum moderators and three female UWL drug users were also recruited, with their interviews presented as case studies. Online communities can provide a raft of knowledge concerning hidden or hard to reach populations. This research however advocates for greater consideration to be given to the methodological and ethical implications of online research and reflects on what is public information, the protection of anonymity and protecting online users from harm. This research also identified that removal of a license from a drug does not prevent use, but once outside regulatory control or medical supervision, UWL drugs are often purchased online with risks to the user of potential drug interactions, adulteration and contamination. UWL drug user engagement needs to be reclaimed as part of a wider health agenda, something that has been lacking due to the unlicensed status of the drugs. However, the findings highlighted the diverse motivations for why women use UWL drugs as well as differences in experiences, drugs used, willingness to take risks and adverse effects and argues against there being a typical female UWL drug user. Given this heterogeneity, a one size fit all model for harm reduction may be ineffective. Additionally the rapid changes in online communities as well as the diffusion of these drugs into different populations creates another challenge for public health in identifying and targeting specific groups. Online discussion of these drugs focuses on user experience and anecdotal evidence. Education on the different types of drugs as well as the risks and harms of using them is therefore warranted for all online communities as well as a focus on specific harm reduction strategies including harm minimisation, engagement with health care practitioners and peer to peer education. However, further consideration is needed concerning how this information should be disseminated, identifying those who have authority within the community, but also have the appropriate credentials, knowledge, skills and desire to offer advice.


While recent advances in graphics, display, and computer hardware support ultra-scale visualizations of a tremendous amount of data sets, mechanisms for interacting with this information on large high-resolution wall displays are still under investigation. Different issues in terms of user interface, ergonomics, multi-user interaction, and system flexibility arise while facing ultra-scale wall displays and none of the introduced approaches fully address them. We introduce HIPerPaper, a novel digital pen and paper interface that enables natural interaction with the HIPerSpace wall, a 31.8 by 7.5 foot tiled wall display of 268,720,000 pixels. HIPerPaper provides a flexible, portable, and inexpensive medium for interacting with large high-resolution wall displays.


Depression is a mood disorder that is usually addressed by outpatient treatments in order to favour patient's inclusion in society. This leads to a need for novel automatic tools exploiting speech processing approaches that can help to monitor the emotional state of patients via telephone or the Internet. However, the transmission, processing and subsequent storage of such sensitive data raises several privacy concerns. Speech deidentification can be used to protect the patients' identity. Nevertheless, these techniques modify the speech signal, eventually affecting the performance of depression detection approaches based on either speech characteristics or automatic transcriptions. This paper presents a study on the influence of speech de-identification when using transcription-based approaches for depression detection. To this effect, a system based on the global vectors method for natural language processing is proposed. In contrast to previous works, two main sources of nuisance have been considered: the de-identification process itself and the transcription errors introduced by the automatic recognition of the patients' speech. Experimental validation on the DAIC-WOZ corpus reveals very promising results, obtaining only a slight performance degradation with respect to the use of manual transcriptions.


The Russian conquest of Central Asia was perhaps the nineteenth century's most dramatic and successful example of European imperial expansion, adding 1.5 million square miles and at least 6 million people –most of them Muslims – to the Tsar's domains. Alexander Morrison provides the first comprehensive military and diplomatic history of the conquest to be published for over a hundred years. From the earliest conflicts on the steppe frontier in the 1830s to the annexation of the Pamirs in the early 1900s, he gives a detailed account of the logistics and operational history of Russian wars against Khoqand, Bukhara and Khiva, the capture of Tashkent and Samarkand, and the bloody subjection of the Turkmen, as well as Russian diplomatic relations with China, Persia and the British Empire. Based on archival research in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and India, memoirs and Islamic chronicles, this book explains how Russia conquered a colonial empire in Central Asia, with consequences that still resonate today.


In today's competitive environment, there is a continual need for organisations to invest substantial amounts of resource into the development and manufacture of products and processes, and Automotive Manufacturing Organisations are no exception to this. However, if the success rate of the projects undertaken by these organisations could be increased, then the level of resources invested in these projects could potentially be reduced. The management of risk offers a method through which the success rate of projects can be increased. However, as yet, many organisations within the Automotive Manufacturing Sector have not undertaken to integrate a rigorous method of managing the risks to their projects.
This work focuses on the development and implementation of a project Risk Management Methodology into the Automotive Manufacturing Industry. The methodology was developed from a rigorous examination into the use of project and risk management into the Automotive Manufacturing Industry, as well as an investigation of risk management and project risk management processes within both the industrial and academic domains. Therefore, the Risk Management Methodology was designed to fit the needs of the users within the Automotive Manufacturing Industry, and as such, is compatible with the project management methods used within this industrial sector. The deliverables of the Risk Management Methodology were compared to 9 risk management processes and were found to give additional benefits to these processes. These were identified as the realisation of quality benefits, improvements to the technology and changes to working practices from reactive to pro-active management, which indicate that the Risk Management Methodology is more suited to Automotive Manufacturing Organisations than the other risk management processes.
The Risk Management Methodology is a cyclic process, consisting of 5 stages; identification, assessment, analysis, reduction and/or mitigation and monitoring of the risks. Various tools have been developed as part of the Risk Management Methodology. They are the Front-End Assessment Tool to determine if there is a potential need to use the Risk Management Methodology, a Risk Register Database System to document the identified risks irrespective of geographical location, and the Risk Assessment Tool to enable the level of risk within the project to be reported. In addition to this, a Tracking Tool for Research and Technology Projects, based on the requirements of Rover's Technology Strategy Team, was developed to enable the probability of success of technology projects to be determined and tracked throughout their lifespan.
The application of the Risk Management Methodology into 7 projects within the Rover/BMW group enabled the methods through which the assessment of the risks as well as the use of numbers within the tools themselves to be critiqued, as well as benefits of the use of the methodology and the tools to be ascertained. What was determined from its implementation was that it enabled the risks to be made visible through their identification, assessment, analysis and management. Deviations from the proposed plan could be identified, and an effort made to reduce and/or mitigate against the effects of the risks. In addition, the decision making process was improved, through increasing the amount of relevant information within the project and that there was identified a change in the working practices of the individuals and teams, from reactive, firefighting to pro-active management of the project.
In conclusion, the Risk Management Methodology and its associated tools and techniques provides the means by which the risks and potential problems within projects in the Automotive Manufacturing Sector can be actively managed and as such, enables the projects to be completed successfully.


The High Plains Aquifer is the source of nearly all agricultural irrigation water in the Texas High Plains, and its resources are being depleted due to withdrawals that greatly exceed recharge; therefore, expanding the use of deficit irrigation in this region. Some drought-tolerant crops, including cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), can adapt well to deficit irrigation, but this adaptation might be cultivar- and environment-specific. The objective of this study was to determine if the response of commercially available cultivars to differential irrigation was influenced by the environment. Seven cotton cultivars (DP0912B2RF, DP0924B2RF, DP0935B2RF, DP1028B2RF, DP1032B2RF, DP1044B2RF, and FM9160B2F) were evaluated in 2010 and 2011 at three irrigation levels, ranging from severe-deficit to full irrigation in West Texas. In-season soil moisture content, yield, and water use efficiency were compared by cultivar and irrigation level. In 2010, which was wet and cool, the earlier-maturing cultivars, particularly DP0912B2RF, performed favorably compared to the later-maturing cultivars at the highest irrigation levels. In 2011, which was hot and dry, later-maturing cultivars, such as DP1044 and DP0935, had the highest yields. There was also a strong interaction between study year, irrigation rate, and cultivar performance. In 2010, later-maturing cultivars such as DP0935 and DP1044 had lower yields at the highest irrigation, but higher yields in the deficit treatments. DP1044, the latest maturing cultivar in the study, was a top yielding cultivar in both seasons, suggesting that a cultivar with later maturity characteristics can be successful in both hot and heat-limited environments on the Texas High Plains.


This study examined the influence of the rheology of fresh concrete on the settlement of aggregate. Fresh concrete exhibits a yield stress that, under certain conditions, prevents the settlement of coarse aggregate, although its density is larger than that of the suspending mortar. Calculations, based on estimates of the yield stress obtained from slump tests, predict that aggregate normally used in concrete should not sink. To test this prediction, the settlement of a stone in fresh mortar is monitored. The stone does not sink in the undisturbed mortar (which has a high yield stress), but sinks when the mortar is vibrated, presumably because of a large reduction in its yield stress. This implies that during placement of concrete, the aggregate settles only while the concrete is being vibrated. A unique experimental method for measuring aggregate settlement is also introduced and demonstrated.


"Die Buffel Struikel: 'n Storie van 32 Bataljon en Sy Mense" (The Buffalo Stumbles: A Story of 32 Battalion and Its People) was written originally in Afrikaans. The author is an Afrikaans-speaking white South African who, as a member of the well-known South African 32 "foreign legion" Battalion, participated in the Namibian Border War in the 1970s and 1980s. The war was fought by an army whose operational language for the major part was Afrikaans. However, two reasons call for a review of this book in English. Firstly, with the Western powers facing a serious insurgency threat in Iraq and elsewhere, the world has an urgent need for a new understanding, thinking and perspectives about counter-insurgency. Secondly, the book can be seen as a watershed contribution to the so-called Border War literature that, until now, has been dominated by contributions of journalists and writers with questionable motives.


To test the hypothesis that lead (Pb) content of rice grain may be related to its transport and subcellular distribution in rice plant, the present study was conducted with six rice cultivars of different types under different soil Pb levels. The results showed that grain Pb concentrations were correlated positively and significantly (P 0.05) with the DR from roots to shoots. The DR from shoots to ears/grains were correlated positively and significantly (P<0.05, or 0.01) with subcellular distribution ratios (SDR) of Pb in soluble fraction of shoots, but negatively and significantly (P<0.05, or 0.01) with the SDR in cell wall fraction of shoots. In conclusion, Pb transportation from shoot to grain was the key factor in determining Pb content of rice grain. The Pb distributed in soluble fraction of shoot tissue was the key source of Pb for transferring into the grain. The Pb precipitated in cell wall fraction was the key sink of Pb in shoot tissue for restricting the transport of Pb from shoot to the grain


This paper describes a methodology for the segmentation of blood vessels in digital images of human eye retina. The proposed method is based on the background subtraction between a filtered retinal image by anisotropic diffusion and an approximation of the retinal background, obtained by a median filtering. The subtraction operation results in an image of differences, which is enhanced by a local histogram stretching and thresholded to detect the blood vessels. Finally, the obtained binary image is filtered aiming to remove small signals and false responses which are related to retina pathologies. We evaluated the proposed method using STARE and DRIVE image sets, in which the results have shown higher accuracy rates when compared with similar approaches.


Ankara : The Department of Communication and Design and the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent University, 2010.


The need exists for educational methods which can positively influence self-esteem, especially in demanding military healthcare settings. Warrior Transition Units (WTU's) are tasked with the challenging mission of caring for seriously injured or ill U.S. Army Soldiers. This paper explored the hypothesis that an educationally-based Mental Skills Training (MST) intervention can enhance self-esteem in members of a Warrior Transition Unit in the U.S. Army. The sample was comprised of 27 WTU cadre members who participated in an Army Center for Enhanced Performance (ACEP) MST educational workshop at a large Army installation on the West Coast. Instruments included the Ottawa Mental Skills Inventory (OMSAT-3; Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2001) and the Self-Esteem Rating Scale (SERS; Wagnild, 1993). Results showed that SERS scores were significantly higher following the intervention. Furthermore, the ACEP instructional components of self-confidence, imagery, and mental practice were significant predictors of self-esteem. Results suggest that MST might be a viable educational approach for enhancing self-esteem in the WTU cadre. Introduction Although the U.S. military is responsible for fighting and winning the nations' wars, caring for and rehabilitating Soldiers who become seriously injured or ill while serving their country is also of prime importance. To address this concern the Army has developed "Warrior Transition Units" (WTU's) to aid wounded warriors through their recovery process and their transition either back to Army units or to civilian life. Not surprisingly, as engagement in the War on Terror continues, the number of injuries to Soldiers, and therefore the number of Soldiers being assigned to WTU's, is increasing. For example, approximately 6000 Soldiers were assigned to WTU's in 2007, but this number is projected to grow to over 20,000 in 2008 (Kennedy, 2008). This greater than three-fold rise in Soldiers assigned to WTU's substantially increases the workload and the associated amount of job-related adversity experienced by the WTU cadre members (Kennedy, 2008). Positive self-esteem is an important attribute for workers wishing to cope effectively with worksite adversity in any demanding situation (Folkman, 1998). This is especially true in healthcare settings as workers with high self-esteem are likely to affect patient care in positive directions (Abraham, 1999; Browning, et al., 2006; Chen, Thomas and Casper 2004). Having high self-esteem means healthcare providers feel good about themselves. As individuals become more positive about themselves, they generally become more positive about others, resulting in a more positive "bedside manner" which is essential for caregiver success (Andersson 1993). While it is difficult to argue the need for good self-esteem among healthcare workers, little is known about how to enhance this attribute within the military healthcare community, and more specifically, with members of Warrior Transition Units. Mental Skills Training (MST), developed primarily for enhancing mental fitness and performance in sport settings, represents a potentially innovative educational approach for enhancing attitude-related cognitions such as self-esteem. However, to date, no studies have investigated its potential for impacting cognitions within military healthcare environments. Therefore, the focus of this study was to explore the possible utility of using this type of instructional approach to enhance self-esteem among the WTU cadre. Warrior Transition Units In October of 2007 the Army established 35 WTU's at major installations across the force to streamline care for wounded, injured, and seriously ill Soldiers. The WTU mission is to facilitate the healing and rehabilitation of Soldiers, return them to duty when possible, or to prepare them for a successful life as a veteran in their community. A typical WTU company will have a Commander, Executive Officer, First Sergeant, six Platoon Sergeants and 18 Squad Leaders. …


Experimental procedures used in this study are the same as those developed by Sakai and Dickson (1978). 0.005 M Na(2)S(2)O(3) solutions were heated to 400℃ under 1000 bar water pressure in a gold bag of Dickson gold-bag equipment (Fig. 1). At an elevated temperature Na(2)S(2)O(3) quickly and completely decomposed into 1:1 mixture of SO(4)(2-) and H(2)S (eq. (1)) and subsequent isotope exchange (eq. (2)) was monitored by consecutively withdrawing aliquots of solution for chemical and isotopic analyses at desired time intervals. For the preparation of SO(2) for isotope analyses, 2 to 5 mg BaSO(4) was thoroughly mixed with silica glass powder of 10 times the BaSO(4) in weight and heated to 1400℃ or so in sealed, evacuated silica glass tubings (see Fig. 2 and equation (4)). The technique is a modification of Holt and Engelkemeir (1971). The (18)O/(16)O ratios of SO(2) thus formed stayed constant by exchange with silica glass powder (Fig. 3). Numerical data of the three runs performed in this study are summarized in Tables 1 to 3. In runs 2 and 3, a small aliquot of (34)S- enriched H(2)SO(4) was added into the starting solution and thus equilibrium was approached from above the quilibrium value (see Fig. 4). When isotope exchange occurs between two molecules, X and Y, the reaction rate, r, is related to the extent of exchange, F, at given time, t, by equation (17), where X and Y indicate concentrations of given species, α(e), α(o) and α denote the fractionation factor at equilibrium, at time t=0 and at an arbitrary time t, and F = (α - α(o))/(α(e) - α(0)) or the extent of isotope exchange. Assuming the exchange rate is of the first order with respect to both X and Y and to the β'th power of hydrogen ion activity, a(H)(+), eq. (17) reduces to eq. (19), where k(1) denotes the rate constant. If X, Y and pH of solution stayed constant during the run, the half-time, t(1/2), of the exchange reaction can be obtained graphically as shown in Fig. 5. The t(1/2) for runs 1, 2, and 3 are determined to be 5.8, 5.5 and 6.1 hrs,
respectively. Introducing F=0.5 and t=t(1/2) into eq. (19), we obtain eq. (20) which is graphically shown in Fig. 6 using the data by the present work and those by Sakai and Dickson(1978). The numerical values of log k(1) + 0.16 may be obtained by extrapolating the lines to pH=0 and, from these values, the rate constant, k(1) , may be calculated for temperatures of 300° and 400℃. From these two values of k(1) and from the Arrhenius plot, the activation energy of the exchange reaction was calculated to be 22 kcal/mole, a much smaller value than 55 kcal/mole obtained by Igumnov (1977). The value of β is found to be 0.29 at 300℃ and 0.075 at 400℃, although the physico-chemical nature of β is not clear to the present authors. Using these values, eq. (24), where C is a constant, is derived which would enable us to calculate the t(1/2) of any system of known ΣS and pH. However, as we do not know yet how β varies with different systems, eq. (24) is applicable only to limited systems in which temperature, total sulfur contents and pH are similar to those of the present study. Fig. 7 illustrates how t(1/2) varies with pH and total sulfur content at 300° and 400℃ and predicts t(1/2) for some solutions obtainable by hydrothermal reactions of seawater with various igneous rocks. The average equilibrium fractionation factor at 400℃ obtained by this study is 1.0153, in good accord with 1.0151 given by Igumnov et al. (1977). Theoretical fractionation factors between SO(4)(2-) and H(2)S have been calculated by Sakai (1968) , who gives too high values compared to the experimental data obtained by this and other researchers (Fig. 9). In the present study, the reduced partition function ratio (R.P.F.R.) of SO(4)(2-) was recalculated using two sets of the vibrational frequencies of SO(4)(2-) (shown in Table 5) and the valence force fields of Heath and Linnett (1947), which reproduces the observed frequencies of SO(4)(2-) better than Urey-Bradley force field used by Sakai (1968). The results of new calculation are shown in Table 6. This table also includes the R.P.F.R. of H(2)S which was calculated by Thode et al. (1971). Using these new R.P.F.R. of SO(4)(2-) and H(2)S, the fractionation factors between SO(4)(2-) and H(2)S were calculated and are listed in the last column of Table 6 and plotted in Fig. 9. Fig. 9 indicates that the new calculation gives values more shifted from the experimental values than before. The major sulfate ions in our solution at 300° and 400℃ exist as NaSO(4)(-) (Sakai and Dickson, 1978; see also Table 4 of this paper) and, therefore, the measured fractionation factors are those between NaSO(4)(-) and H(2)S. The discrepancy between the theory and experiments may, at least, be partially explained by this fact, although other more important reasons, which are not known to us at the moment, may also exist.


The study of the climate of the Sudan is important as it helps in understanding many socio-economic activities, particularly agriculture, as well as helping to understand the role of climate in the formation of physical features. Chapter one outlines the scope of the study and the methods and techniques used. Chapter two describes the physical environment of the Sudan to provide a background for the study of climate and its relationship with agriculture. The climate of the Sudan is described in Chapter three and the different climatic elements, together with the factors affecting them are analysed. Distribution maps of the climatic phenomena over the Sudan are shown. Following the description of the individual climatic elements over the Sudan, climatic regionalizations of the Sudan are attempted in Chapter four. Amongst these classifications factor analysis is applied to the Sudanese climatic data. Chapter five deals with the assessment of daily rainfall in the Sudan from satellite imagery. The importance of daily rainfall to many aspects of life in the Sudan, particularly agriculture, led to this trial. This study pays a special consideration to the relationships between climate and agriculture. The importance of agricultural phenomena and the key role played by climate in it necessitate the investigation of such relationships. Chapter 6 explores agriculture in the Sudan as an introduction to the detailed study of the climate-agricultural relationships made in the consecutive chapters. Chapters seven, eight and nine give a detailed study of the relationships between climatic variables and cotton, sorghum, sesame and groundnut yields as examined by using a variety of statistical methods.


This series of studies reports on the prospective and concurrent relation of
attachment to a narrative based assessment of the five year old child's internal world. It
relies on the exploration of a relatively new research measure designed to explore the
internal world of the young child. No published studies have yet investigated the validity
of this measure in relation to thoroughly tested measures of attachment patterns in infants
and parents. Additionally, this study will investigate the independent contributions of
mother and father.
The first two chapters review the literature and introduce the instruments to be
used. The initial chapter examines the theoretical points of view regarding the internal
world and mental representations from the perspective of psychoanalytic, cognitive and
attachment theory. It then discusses the move to a level of representation in attachment
research that has made the current study possible. Chapter Two considers the history of
the technique of doll play as a research tool and examines the scant research that has been
published using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery.
Chapter Three responds to a need for psychometric information regarding the
MacArthur Story Stem Battery and the corresponding MacArthur Narrative Coding
System by reporting on the construction of reliable and valid factors/scales. Subsequent
chapters present these scales associations to demographic variables collected before the
birth and during the infancy of the target children. Later chapters report on the
longitudinal and concurrent associations between the scales with categories of infant-parent,
child-parent and parental representations of attachment security and with parental
assessments of child problem behaviours utilizing the reliable and validated Child
Behaviour Checklist (CBCL). In addition, an attempt is made to construct theoretical
profiles of secure and insecure children's responses to the story stem battery and to apply
these profiles to the four groups of attachment patterns in the sample.
The discussion focuses upon the creation of psychometrically valid scales relevant
to important aspects of the child's internal world. It also concentrates upon discussing the
confirmed and unconfirmed results of the application of these scales to this low-risk,
non-clinical sample of the London Parent-Child Project.


The mammalian SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex is a key player in multiple chromatin transactions. Core subunits of this complex, including the ATPase, Brg-1, and various Brg-1-associated factors (BAFs), work in concert to maintain a functional remodeling complex. This intra-complex regulation is supervised by protein-protein interactions, as stoichiometric levels of BAF proteins are maintained by proteasomal degradation. We show that the mechanism of BAF155-mediated stabilization of BAF57 involves blocking its ubiquitination by preventing interaction with TRIP12, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. Consequently, as opposed to complexed BAF57, whose principal lysines are unavailable for ubiquitination, uncomplexed BAF57 can be freely ubiquitinated and degraded by the proteasome. Additionally, a BAF57 mutant, which contains no lysine residues, was found to retain its ability to be stabilized by interaction with BAF155, suggesting that in addition to the ubiquitin-dependent mechanism of BAF57 degradation, there exists a ubiquitin-independent mechanism that may involve the direct interaction of BAF57 with the proteasome. We propose that this regulatory mechanism exists to ensure functional fidelity of the complex and prevent the accumulation of uncomplexed proteins, which may disrupt the normal activity of the complex.


Many real-world datasets can be naturally described by multiple views. Due to this, multiview learning has drawn much attention from both academia and industry. Compared to single-view learning, multi-view learning has demonstrated plenty of advantages. Clustering has long been serving as a critical technique in data mining and machine learning. Recently, multi-view clustering has achieved great success in various applications. To provide a comprehensive review of the typical multi-view clustering methods and their corresponding recent developments, this chapter summarizes five kinds of popular clustering methods and their multi-view learning versions, which include k-means, spectral clustering, matrix factorization, tensor decomposition, and deep learning. These clustering methods are the most widely employed algorithms for single-view data, and lots of efforts have been devoted to extending them for multi-view clustering. Besides, many other multi-view clustering methods can be unified into the frameworks of these five methods. To promote further research and development of multi-view clustering, some popular and open datasets are summarized in two categories. Furthermore, several open issues that deserve more exploration are pointed out in the end.


Gait is a basic cognitive purposeful action that has been shown to be altered in late stages of neurodegenerative dementias. Nevertheless, alterations are less clear in mild forms of dementia, and the potential use of gait analysis as a biomarker of initial cognitive decline has hitherto mostly been neglected. Herein, we report the results of a study of gait kinematic time series for two groups of patients (mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer's disease) and a group of matched control subjects. Two metrics based on permutation patterns are considered, respectively measuring the complexity and irreversibility of the time series. Results indicate that kinematic disorganisation is present in early phases of cognitive impairment; in addition, they depict a rich scenario, in which some joint movements display an increased complexity and irreversibility, while others a marked decrease. Beyond their potential use as biomarkers, complexity and irreversibility metrics can open a new door to the understanding of the role of the nervous system in gait, as well as its adaptation and compensatory mechanisms.


The Souris River Basin is a 24,600-square-mile basin located in southeast Saskatchewan, north-central North Dakota, and southwest Manitoba. The Souris River Bilateral Water Quality Monitoring Group, formed in 1989 by the governments of Canada and the United States, is responsible for documenting trends in water quality in the Souris River and making recommendations for monitoring future water-quality conditions. This report presents results of a study conducted for the Bilateral Water Quality Monitoring Group by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the North Dakota Department ofHealth, to analyze historic trends in water quality in the Souris River and to determine efficient sampling designs for monitoring future trends. U.S. Geological Survey and Environment Canada water-quality data collected during 1977 -96 from four sites near the boundary crossings between Canada and the United States were included in the trend analysis. A parametric time-series model was developed for detecting trends in historic constituent concentration data. The model can be applied to constituents that have at least 90 percent of observations above detection limits of the analyses, which, for the Souris River, includes most major ions and nutrients and many trace elements. The model can detect complex nonmonotonic trends in concentration in the presence of complex interannual and seasonal variability in daily discharge. A key feature of the model is its ability to handle highly irregular sampling intervals. For example, the intervals between concentration measurements may be as short as 10 days to as long as several months, and the number of samples in any given year can range from zero to 36. Results from the trend analysis for the Souris River indicated numerous trends in constituent concentration. The most significant trends at the two sites located near the upstream boundary crossing between Saskatchewan and North Dakota consisted of increases in concentrations of most major ions, dissolved boron, and dissolved arsenic during 1987-91 and decreases in concentrations of the same constituents during 1992-96. Significant trends at the two sites located near the downstream boundary crossing between North Dakota and Manitoba included increases in dissolved sodium, dissolved chloride, and total phosphorus during 1977-86, decreases in dissolved oxygen and dissolved boron and increases in total phosphorus and dissolved iron during 1987-91, and a decrease in total phosphorus during 1992-96. The time-series model also was used to detennine the sensitivity of various sampling designs for monitoring future water-quality trends in the Souris River. It was determined that at least two samples per year are required in each of three seasons--March through June, July through October, and November through February--to obtain reasonable sensitivity for detecting trends in each season. In addition, substantial improvements occurred in sensitivity for detecting trends by adding a third sample for major ions and trace elements in March through June, adding a third sample for nutrients in July through October, and adding a third sample for nutrients, trace elements, and dissolved oxygen in November through February.


Introduction This chapter reviews specific aspects of the Children's Protection and Welfare Act 2011 of Lesotho, insofar as they pertain to the situation of orphans and vulnerable children. The chapter commences with a brief outline of the context in which the legislation was adopted, including a brief overview of relevant country data. The substantive aspects of the Act pertaining to orphans and vulnerable children are thereafter discussed. Notably provisions relating to non-discrimination, to health, to registration of orphans and vulnerable children, to protection of surviving children's property and provisions concerning fostering and adoption are featured. Finally an overall assessment of the scheme of the Act in addressing the plight of orphans and vulnerable children is given.


Silica sprays (Na 2 SiO 3 or SiO 2 .nH 2 O) markedly reduced the incidence and severity of bract necrosis (BN) of Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. cv. Supjibi Red compared to plants not sprayed with silica. BN has been associated with low Ca concentrations or high K: Ca ratios in tissues ofbract margins. Silica had no effect on Ca or K concentrations in bract margin tissues, and BN was not associated with the macro- or micronutrient composition of bract margin tissues. Sixteen days after initial anthesis, nontreated and deionized-water-sprayed poinsettias developed a higher incidence of BN than did plants sprayed with Na 2 SiO 3 or CaCl 2 . However, sprays of 3.56, 5.34, and 7.12 mM Na 2 SiO 3 were as effective as 9.98 mM CaCl 2 sprays in protecting against BN of 'Supjibi Red' and 'Angelika White' bracts for up to 30 days after initial anthesis. 'Supjibi Red' developed a higher incidence of bract necrosis than did 'Angelika White', but both cultivars showed a similar response to the treatments and similar symptoms of necrosis. In both cultivars, initial symptoms appeared as small necrotic lesions on bracts at the looped ends of lateral veins that displayed a closed-vein pattern after the plants reached initial anthesis.


Slip in centrifugal compressors arises from imperfect guidance of the flow by the impeller blades and reduces the work input delivered by the impeller, and slip models are typically used to predict slip in preliminary design. However, slip models are typically calibrated with data that are not representative of modern aerospace compressors (i.e. pumps, turbochargers, or industrial compressors) and do not account for the variation of slip factor with operating condition. A generalized meanline model for centrifugal compressors is developed to interrogate slip in centrifugal compressors from a one-dimensional design perspective. The meanline model is used to investigate the efficacy of slip models for predicting the slip factor and work input of modern, high-speed impellers at design and off-design conditions. Three slip models are used to predict the performance of five impellers, four of which are documented in the open literature. All three slip models generally overpredict the slip factor, and the largest error in the prediction of slip factor typically occurred near design speed. In addition, the analysis shows a close correlation between slip factor and two key design parameters of machine Mach number and loading coefficient over the entire compressor operating range. Finally, error propagation analysis shows that the error in impeller work input is proportional to the error in slip factor scaled by the square of machine Mach number and reveals the inherent challenge of accurate prediction of work input for high-speed machines.Finally, a new method of modeling slip factor and work input for centrifugal compressor impellers is presented. Rather than using geometry to predict the behavior of the flow at the impeller exit, the new method leverages governing relationships to predict the work input delivered by the impeller with dimensionless design parameters. The approach incorporates both impeller geometry and flow conditions and, therefore, is inherently able to predict the slip factor at design and off-design conditions. Five impeller cases are used to demonstrate the efficacy of the method, four of which are well documented in the open literature. Multiple implementations of the model are introduced to enable users to customize the model to specific applications. Significant improvement in the accuracy of the prediction of slip factor and work input is obtained at both design and off-design conditions relative to Wiesner's slip model. While Wiesner's model predicts 17 the slip factor of 52% of the data within ±0.05 absolute error, the most accurate implementation of the new model predicts 99% of the data within the same error band. The effects of external losses and flow blockage on the model are considered, and the new model is fairly insensitive to the effects of both phenomena. Finally, detailed procedures to incorporate the new model into a meanline analysis tool are provided in the appendices.