According to the Navajos, the holy people Spider Man and Spider Woman first brought the tools for weaving to the People. Over the centuries Navajo artists have used those tools to weave a web of beauty a rich tradition that continues to the present day. In testimony to this living art form, this book presents 74 dazzling color plates of Navajo rugs and wall hangings woven between 1971 and 1996. Drawn from a private southwestern collection, they represent the work of sixty of the finest native weavers in the American Southwest. The creations depicted here reflect a number of styles revival, sandpainting, pictorial, miniature, sampler and a number of major regional variations, from Ganado to Teec Nos Pos. Textile authority Ann Hedlund provides an introductory narrative about the development of Navajo textile collecting including the shift of attention from artifacts to art and a brief review of the history of Navajo weaving. She then comments on the shaping of the particular collection represented in the book, offering a rich source of knowledge and insight for other collectors. Explaining themes in Navajo weaving over the quarter-century represented by the Santa Fe Collection, Hedlund focuses on the development of modern rug designs and the influence on weavers of family, community, artistic identity, and the marketplace. She also introduces each section of plates with a description of the representative style, its significance, and the weavers who perpetuate and deviate from it. In addition to the textile plates, Hedlund's color photographs show the families, landscapes, livestock, hogans, and looms that surround today's Navajo weavers. Navajo Weaving in the Late Twentieth Century explores many of the important connections that exist today among weavers through their families and neighbors, and the significant role that collectors play in perpetuating this dynamic art form. For all who appreciate American Indian art and culture, this book provides invaluable guidance to the fine points of collecting and a rich visual feast.


Introduction: First described by Sheen in 1984, the use of spreader grafts has become increasingly routine. Spreader grafts are indicated for recovery or maintenance of the internal nasal valve and correction of septum deviation with improvement in the anatomical lines of the nasal dorsum. This study avaluated the anatomical lines of the middle nasal third (MNT) of the nasal dorsum after the use of spreader grafts in open rhinoplasty. Methods: A series of 17 patients who underwent rhinoplasty with the inclusion of spreader grafts between March 2013 and November 2014 were analyzed. Spreader grafts were removed from the septum or costal cartilage based on an anthropometric comparison between the medial intercanthal distance and the caudal width of the MNT. Results: Spreader grafts were effective for septum correction without causing excessive enlargement in 12 patients (70.6%). Three patients (17.6%) had undesirable results with local bulging and 2 patients (11.8%) retained their pre-surgery non-standard measures. In the majority of cases (41.2%), there was a local increase of 3 mm, with a mean of increase of 2.67 mm. Conclusion: In the author's point of view, even in cases where there was bulging of the anatomical lines of the nasal dorsum, spreader grafts promoted long-lasting satisfactory results, and prevented open-roof deformities and stigmas inherent to the surgery itself. ■ ABSTRACT


Global warming, combined with an increasing influence of Atlantic Waters in the European Arctic, are causing a so-called Atlantification of the Arctic. This phenomenon is affecting the plankton biomass and communities with potential consequences for the upper trophic levels. Using long-term data (2005-2020) from a high Arctic zooplanktivorous seabird, the little auk (Alle alle), we tested the hypothesis that the Atlantification affects its diet, body condition and demography. We based our study on data collected in three fjords in West Spitsbergen, Svalbard, characterized by distinct oceanographic conditions. In all three fjords, we found a positive relationship between the inflow of Atlantic Waters and the proportion of Atlantic prey, notably of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, in the little auk chick diet. A high proportion of Atlantic prey was negatively associated with adult body mass (though the effect size was small) and with chick survival (only in one fjord where chick survival until 21 days was available). We also found a negative and marginally significant effect of the average proportion of Atlantic prey in the chick diet on chick growth rate (data were available for one fjord only). Our results suggest that there are fitness costs for the little auk associated with the Atlantification of West Spitsbergen fjords. These costs seem especially pronounced during the late phase of the chick rearing period, when the energetic needs of the chicks are the highest. Consequently, even if little auks can partly adapt their foraging behaviour to changing environmental conditions, they are negatively affected by the ongoing changes in the Arctic marine ecosystems. These results stress the importance of long-term monitoring data in the Arctic to improve our understanding of the ongoing Atlantification and highlight the relevance of using seabirds as indicators of environmental change.


As the information technologies develop, the use of digital media can be seen as standard in many design fields today. Like in all other professions, this rapid alteration makes revisions and updates in interior design education ineluctable. Concerning the fact that interior architectural design education favors a dominance of final presentation over the design process in the studio environment, the evaluation discomforts caused by the computer generated presentations become much more critical. The main intention of this paper is to question, whether the attitudes of the students and the instructors on the subject is coherent with what they put into practice and discuss the reasons of these discrepancies. While majority of the instructors say that they positively approach to combined hand and computer techniques, the analysis of the final grade distribution for each technique displays another fact. Success ratio of the computer only presented projects are much greater than both hand drawn and hand and computer combined technique used projects. The results arise some major questions for the design education community to discuss.


For accurate printing (reproduction), two important appearance attributes to consider are color and gloss. These attributes are related to two topics focused on in this dissertation: spectral reproduction and specular (gloss) printing.
In the conventional printing workflow known as the metameric printing workflow, which we use mostly nowadays, high-quality prints -- in terms of colorimetric accuracy -- can be achieved only under a predefined illuminant (i.e. an illuminant that the printing pipeline is adjusted to; e.g. daylight). While this printing workflow is useful and sufficient for many everyday purposes, in some special cases, such as artwork (e.g. painting) reproduction, security printing, accurate industrial color communication and so on, in which accurate reproduction of an original image under a variety of illumination conditions (e.g. daylight, tungsten light, museum light, etc.) is required, metameric reproduction may produce satisfactory results only with luck. Therefore, in these cases, another printing workflow, known as spectral printing pipeline must be used, with the ideal aim of illuminant-invariant match between the original image and the reproduction. In this workflow, the reproduction of spectral raw data (i.e. reflectances in the visible wavelength range), rather than reproduction of colorimetric values (colors) alone (under a predefined illuminant) is taken into account. Due to the limitations of printing systems extant, the reproduction of all reflectances is not possible even with multi-channel (multi-colorant) printers. Therefore, practical strategies are required in order to map non-reproducible reflectances into reproducible spectra and to choose appropriate combinations of printer colorants for the reproduction of the mapped reflectances. For this purpose, an approach called Spatio-Spectral Gamut Mapping and Separation, SSGMS, was proposed, which results in almost artifact-free spectral reproduction under a set of various illuminants.
The quality control stage is usually the last stage in any printing pipeline. Nowadays, the quality of the printout is usually controlled only in terms of colorimetric accuracy and common printing artifacts. However, some gloss-related artifacts, such as gloss-differential (inconsistent gloss appearance across an image, caused mostly by variations in deposited ink area coverage on different spots), are ignored, because no strategy to avoid them exists. In order to avoid such gloss-related artifacts and to control the glossiness of the printout locally, three printing strategies were proposed. In general, for perceptually accurate reproduction of color and gloss appearance attributes, understanding the relationship between measured values and perceived magnitudes of these attributes is essential. There has been much research into reproduction of colors within perceptually meaningful color spaces, but little research from the gloss perspective has been carried out. Most of these studies are based on simulated display-based images (mostly with neutral colors) and do not take real objects into account. In this dissertation, three psychophysical experiments were conducted in order to investigate the relationship between measured gloss values (objective quantities) and perceived gloss magnitudes (subjective quantities) using real colored samples printed by the aforementioned proposed printing strategies. These experiments revealed that the relationship mentioned can be explained by a Power function according to Stevens' Power Law, considering almost the entire gloss range. Another psychophysical experiment was also conducted in order to investigate the interrelation between perceived surface gloss and texture, using 2.5D samples printed in two different texture types and with various gloss levels and texture elevations. According to the results of this experiment, different macroscopic texture types and levels (in terms of texture elevation) were found to influence the perceived surface gloss level slightly. No noticeable influence of surface gloss on the perceived texture level was observed, indicating texture constancy regardless of the gloss level printed.
The SSGMS approach proposed for the spectral reproduction, the three printing strategies presented for gloss printing, and the results of the psychophysical experiments conducted on gloss printing and appearance can be used to improve the overall print quality in terms of color and gloss reproduction.


High efficiency heat transfer tubes play a major role in industrial applications due to its benefits in recovering more energy, smaller footprint and lower operational costs. Given the importance of enhanced heat transfer tubes, an experimental investigation was carried out to compare the performance of the Vipertex 1EHT tube with an equivalent smooth tube using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). For the experimental setup a Dantec Dynamics PIV system was considered, and both tubes used had an outer diameter of 19.05 mm and inner diameter of 17.09 mm. Heat transfer experiments were conducted at 100% of the heater power capacity, i.e. 750 W, and observations were made in terms of boiling visualization, particle velocity vector field, and seeding particle velocity. The results obtained from the visualization showed higher density of bubble formation on the surface of 1EHT tube compared to the smooth tube, as well as a more frequent formation of bubbles. Moreover, the high-speed camera films recorded for comparison between smooth and enhanced tubes, showed that the dimples provided nucleation sites. Additionally, the average particle velocity for the 1EHT tube was 0.300 m.s−1 and for the smooth tube it was only 0.230 m.s−1, as a result of the higher heat transfer of the enhanced tube. These results suggest that the 1EHT tube performs better in boiling heat transfer application, which can be attributed to the enhanced heat transfer area produced by the series of dimples/protrusions and petals distributed over its surface.


According to the traditional state sovereignty view in the ethics of immigration literature, societies have a great deal of latitude in determining and implementing their immigration policies. This view is typically defended by appealing to the rights of members of societies, for instance to political self-determination. Opponents of the view have often criticized its partiality to members, arguing that nonmembers can also make stringent demands on societies to be admitted and given the same treatment in matters of immigration policy as other nonmembers. In this paper, I take a different approach to responding to the state sovereignty view. I argue that even if we grant the premise that the rights of members generally trump the rights of nonmembers in matters of immigration policy, societies are greatly constrained in setting their immigration policies by considerations of domestic justice. The considerations that I focus on involve relationships between members and nonmembers that hold due to a shared quality or set of qualities on the basis of which members identify with nonmembers. The argument appeals to premises and principles that defenders of the state sovereignty view are committed to but concludes that this view cannot serve as a satisfactory framework for the normative assessment of immigration policies.


Cobalt and Zinc ferrites CoxZnyFe2O4,(x=0.7,0.3,0.4,0.2 and y=0.3,0.7,0.6,0.8) were prepared by solid state reaction technique. The crystalline structure of the sample was investigated by X-ray diffraction(XRD). All samples show cubic spinel structure. The lattice parameter decreases with increasing cobalt content. Magnetic properties shows that the prepared sample exhibit ferromagnetic behaviour at room temperature. The saturation magnetization increases with increasing cobalt content. Curie temperature of various samples were calculated. The Curie temperature increases with increasing content of Cobalt ions. The variation of initial permeability and magnetic loss with frequency are explained with the help of established models. Edited by: Mahima Chaudhary


The characterization of invisible hydrocarbon micro-seepage intensities in surface sediments is used to evaluate subsurface hydrocarbon potential. A cost-effective multidisciplinary surface prospecting method, termed "BIG", is employed as a supplementary instrument to conventional exploration tools to assess the remaining prospectivity of a licence tract in the Dutch North Sea. Microbial investigations, molecular and isotopic gas characterization as well as UV fluorescence measurements are utilized for direct hydrocarbon detection in surface sediments. The definition and distribution of anomalous intensities is used as an index for the hydrocarbon potential in the deeper sub-surface. In combination with seismic information the BIG method can help to reduce exploration risk. It proves to be an effective instrument to determine the lateral extent of liquid hydrocarbon migration and to localize areas of prospective potential. This case history covers a successful application of the BIG method to investigate undetected hydrocarbon potential in an established producing province.


Recent results in supervised learning suggest that while overparameterized models have the capacity to overfit, they in fact generalize quite well. We ask whether the same phenomenon occurs for offline contextual bandits. Our results are mixed. Value-based algorithms benefit from the same generalization behavior as overparameterized supervised learning, but policy-based algorithms do not. We show that this discrepancy is due to the \emph{action-stability} of their objectives. An objective is action-stable if there exists a prediction (action-value vector or action distribution) which is optimal no matter which action is observed. While value-based objectives are action-stable, policy-based objectives are unstable. We formally prove upper bounds on the regret of overparameterized value-based learning and lower bounds on the regret for policy-based algorithms. In our experiments with large neural networks, this gap between action-stable value-based objectives and unstable policy-based objectives leads to significant performance differences.


In this paper I explore the relationship between the UK New Public Health Policy and one of its enactments. I outline a crucial policy document, Saving Lives (Department of Health, 1999, HMSO, London), and consider the practices that constitute a localised initiative called The Heart of the Shire. This initiative aims to train all members of a rural community in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation in order to prevent deaths from cardiac arrest. I argue that Saving Lives promises a new approach to public health that transgresses traditional boundaries and collapses conventional dualisms. Yet, at the same time it privileges biomedical interventions and conventional modes of care. I argue that the policy is full of incompatibilities but that these incompatibilities are not destructive. Rather, they create a series of tensions that, in turn, expose the fluidity of boundaries and work against the stability of categories and in doing so afford the promise of the policy. I go on to describe the key practices of The Heart of the Shire, focusing on how the tensions of the policy are played out in practice. It seems that the promise of the New Public Health Policy does not survive its practices. The practices are creative and varied and are deeply embedded within the community in ways that make them 'new', yet they also enact 'old' boundaries and conventional dualisms. They smooth out the incompatibilities that characterise the policy and thereby solidify boundaries and stabilise categories. Hence, my argument is that it is the making of consistencies that leads to the (re)construction of conventional categories and boundaries. I conclude by suggesting that Saving Lives offers us a glimpse of the conditions of possibility for a promising approach to public health but that the practices that constitute The Heart of the Shire suggest the tremendous amount of work that would be required to enact it. Drawing upon Helen Verran's insight about 'hardening of the categories' I suggest that the practices of The Heart of the Shire are lazy in their refusal of the vulnerability (and the promise) of tensions and that consequently the approach to public health that is enacted is characterised by stabilised categories and impermeable boundaries.


Advances in total factor productivity (TFP) are important for sustaining economic growth in modern economies, in particular in the face of a declining working-age population. In this Policy Brief, we identify investment in research and development, good governance, the capital intensity, a high share of information technology in the total capital stock, and the number of industrial robots per employee as conducive for TFP growth. Based on the empirical results, policies that are beneficial for capital formation in general, investment in computer technology, research and development as well as the use of industrial robots could boost TFP in Europe.


Exposure to vibration induced in and around underground m ine's exploration is a m ajor concern to vehicles operators. Most of these drivers over time develop serious spinal musculoskeletal and discs problems causing low back injuries. The first purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance and dynamic response of driver/operator when subjected to different levels of vibration due to rough road conditions depicted in a mine field. The second purpose of the paper is to quantify the energy transmission in the presence of seat padding with special characteristics and active suspension. Using experimental testing data collected at NIOSH/PRL (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health/ Pittsburgh Research Laboratory) along with model simulation algorithms developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago we investigated how acceleration transfer functions as well as absorbed power affects the different parts of the body. To this end, we used a previously validated human model which includes the head, torso segments and legs. The connective forces between body segments were modeled through modal analysis techniques from previous experimental data at the UIC Vehicle Technology Laboratory. The absorbed power and energy transmitted to the body are used as an index measure to assess the viability of the different seat padding's and active seat suspension control strategies.


This paper estimates the size of the union membership wage premium by comparing wage outcomes for unionised workers with 'matched' non-unionised workers. The method assumes selection on observables. For this identifying assumption to be plausible, one must be able to control for all characteristics affecting both union status and wages. This requires very informative data. We illustrate the value of the rich data offered by the linked employer-employee Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS) 1998 in implementing this methodology. We estimate the union membership premium for the whole private sector, among workers in workplaces where at least some workers are covered by collective bargaining, and in occupations with pay set by collective bargaining. We find a raw 17-25% union premium in gross hourly wages for the private sector in Britain, depending on the sub-group used. However, post-matching this difference falls to between 3% and 6%. This indicates that the higher pay of unionised workers is largely accounted for by their better underlying earnings capacity, which is associated with their individual characteristics, the jobs they do and the workplaces they find themselves in.


A metallic cylindrical resuspension chamber (V = 0.437 m3, S = 0.35 m2, S/V = 8.38) was constructed to disperse samples of soil and various kinds of dust. The chamber allows on-line determination of number/mass size distribution of aerosol particles formed by dispersion and subsequent sampling of size-segregated particles on filter media. The samples tested were lignite, power plant flue ash and overburden soil from the Nastup coal strip mine in Northern Bohemia. About 20 mg of the individual samples were pneumatically dispersed by 0.5 liter of pressurized air inside the chamber under defined temperature and humidity conditions. Then the dynamics of aerosol size distributions was recorded using an aerodynamic particle sizer with a frequency of 5 seconds. The lignite and flue ash contributed most to the mass of atmospheric aerosol particles smaller than 10/2.5 micrometer – PM10/ PM2.5. The re-suspended mass of the samples varied between 0.001% for overburden soil and 0.32% for mine road soil. The aerosolized lignite and flue ash samples, sampled by a Harvard Impactor and a Personal Cascade Impactor Sampler, revealed that the ash contained higher amounts of fine particles than the lignite and subsequent chemical analyses, carried out using SEM-EDX, reveals that the PM2.5 fraction formed by dispersion of the ash samples had the highest content of sulphur, and PM10 was dominated by Si. PM10 was closest to mullite, while the PM2.5 fraction contained sulphides, pyrites, pyrrhotites and polytypes of sulphide. The PM1 fraction was dominated by quartz glass. The fractions of sizes 2.5–1 μm and 0.5–0.25 μm were dominated by Si and S, respectively.


David Bradford is a 28-year-old freelance writer who is gradually losing his sight as a result of the genetic condition retinitis pigmentosa. He was recently approached by Channel 4 about the prospect of making a television documentary on the subject of his sight loss. In weighing up this proposition, David sought the opinion of the blind academic, John Hull. This is a transcript of the emails between David and John, in which they discuss the difficulties of dealing with blindness in a visual medium. Specifically, they share their frustration at the documentary maker's insistence on representing blindness as a condition of deprivation in which the subject is compelled to seek solace from a nostalgic celebration of sight rather than exploring the phenomenology of blindness itself.


Unfavorable weather currently ranks among the major challenges facing agricultural development in many African countries. Impact mitigation through access to reliable and timely weather forecasts and other adaptive mechanisms are foremost in Africa's policy dialogues and socio-economic development agendas. This paper analyzed the factors influencing access to forecasts on incidence of pests/diseases (PD) and start of rainfall (SR). The data were collected by Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and analyzed with Probit regression separately for East Africa, West Africa and the combined dataset. The results show that 62.7% and 56.4% of the farmers from East and West Africa had access to forecasts on start of rainfall, respectively. In addition, 39.3% and 49.4% of the farmers from East Africa indicated that forecasts on outbreak of pests/diseases and start of rainfall were respectively accompanied with advice as against 18.2% and 41.9% for West Africa. Having received forecasts on start of rainfall, 24.0% and 17.6% of the farmers from East and West Africa made decisions on timing of farming activities respectively. Probabilities of having access to forecasts on PD significantly increased with access to formal education, farm income and previous exposure to climatic shocks. Furthermore, probabilities of having access to forecasts on SR significantly increased (p < 0.05) with access to business income, radio and perception of more erratic rainfall, among others. It was recommended that promotion of informal education among illiterate farmers would enhance their climatic resilience, among others.


Since the establishment of the Society of Industrial Artists (SIA) in 1930, the
professional identity of the designer has been a subject of critical debate. This
thesis uncovers the histories of this debate, paying particular attention to the
structures, organisations and social practices that have governed, represented
and given meaning to the identity of the designer in Britain, 1930-2010.
Principally informed by close scrutiny of the archive of the Chartered Society
of Designers, (CSD), the thesis argues that the design profession is
constructed through reflexive social practices, in which the designer has been,
and remains, an active agent. It contends that the structure, organisation and
identity of the design profession is not fixed or immutable, but fluid,
responsive and contingent upon shifting dynamics, internal and external to
the profession.


BACKGROUND. Little is known about educational attainment, agricultural jobs and income among graduates from Historically Black Land-Grant College and Universities. In this study, we examined the impact of educational attainment on type of jobs among former students and determine if controlling for income, educational attainment has a positive impact on the type jobs after graduation. METHODS. Data are from a study of graduates from three Historically Black Land-Grant Colleges and Universities in Alabama and Tennessee. The questionnaire included questions on educational attainment, career mobility, college curriculum competencies and skill, opinions about agricultural careers, actual salaries, fringe benefits, and other personal characteristics. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square statistics were used for the analysis. RESULTS. The higher the level of education, the greater the tendency for these college of agriculture graduates to remain in agriculture-related careers. To these former students, the extent to which the work is intellectually satisfying appears to be more important than the income it yields. CONCLUSIONS. Graduate related work associated with an advanced degree is highly satisfying even within low incomes. Introduction The purpose of this paper was to assess the impact of educational attainment on agriculture-related jobs held by former African American students trained in colleges of agriculture at Historically Black Land-Grant College and Universities. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that, controlling for income, the level of educational attainment will has a positive impact on the type jobs after graduation. Despite a number of studies that have examined the aspirations and expectations of African American agricultural students in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Lyson, 1979; Molnar & Dunkelberger 1981; Molnar, Dunkelberger & Salter, 1981), there is much about actual career outcome of African American colleges of agriculture graduates from the south that is not fully understood. The number of research and policy analyses focusing on African American agricultural graduates has been limited. Past research efforts had limited scopes regarding explanations of African American student compensation after college (Zekeri 1994). To a significant degree, the debate regarding the explanation of agricultural alumni career outcome and income have focused on white agricultural students (Molnar & Dunkelberger 1981; Molnar, Dunkelberger & Salter, 1981). Therefore, determining factors that influence occupational attainment and employment compensations among African American students after college is a worthy enterprise, especially for increasing our understanding of African Americans' success in their careers. To this end, the present study extends the existing body of agricultural student research by utilizing longitudinal rather than cross-sectional data to assess differences in educational attainment and full-time jobs of alumni after leaving college. Method Data for this analysis were drawn from a panel study of students from land-grant universities in the south. The study started in the spring of 1977 with 1,382 African American students of 1862 and 1890 land-grant universities who responded to self-administered questionnaires dealing with their aspirations, family backgrounds, and expectations. Through the years, intermittent contact was maintained with 275 of these students from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tennessee State University, and Tuskegee University for whom current addresses and places of work could be obtained from the university placement offices, parents and other alumni. Three waves of questionnaires, explanatory cover letters, return self-addressed envelope, interspersed with two postcard reminders were sent to these former students who were involved in the earlier study (Zekeri 1994; Zekeri and Wheelock 1995). …


When using the web, large response times are bones of contention for users, i.e. they damp the Quality of Experience (QoE). Though, if one knew the cause of a large response time, one can examine what can be done about this obstacle. In this paper, we determine the weak point of the Extensible Authentication Protocol Method for GSM Subscriber Identity Modules (EAP-SIM) with the OpenID service with regards to excessive authentication times, which determine the response times. In order to provoke controlled raises of latter, we emulate bad network performance by introducing bi-directional delay between the supplicant (client) and the authenticator (server). Based on a recent, exponential relationship between QoE and response time, we then identify, quantify and compare the decisive factors for QoE reduction as functions of the components of the authentication times. The results we obtain clearly show that one task of the authentication contributes significantly more to the total response times than the other task, which points out the direction for future optimisation of user perception of authentication times.


We hypothesized that doxorubicin (DR) induced chronic kidney disease (CKD) could trigger the intrinsic and the extrinsic renal cell apoptotic pathways, while treadmill exercise could help prevent adverse effects. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to treadmill running exercise at a speed of 30 m/min, 30 or 60 min/day, 3 times per week, for a total period of 11 weeks. The physiological and biochemical parameters were seen substantially improved (DR-CKD control, 30 min, 60 min exercise): the ratio of kidney weight/body weight (0.89, 0.74, and 0.72); the WBC (1.35, 1.08, and 1.42 × 104 cells/μL); RBC (5.30, 6.38, and 6.26 × 106 cells/μL); the platelet count (15.1, 12.8, and 11.3 × 105/μL); serum cholesterol (659, 360, and 75 mg/dL); serum triglyceride (542, 263, and 211 mg/dL); BUN (37, 25, and 22 mg/dL). Bcl-2 and intramitochondrial cytochrome c were upregulated, while the levels of Bax, SOD, MDA, cleaved caspases 9, 3, 8, 12, and calpain were all downregulated in DRCKD groups with exercise. CHOP (GADD153) and GRP78 were totally unaffected. FAS (CD95) was only slightly suppressed in the 60 min exercise DRCKD group. Conclusively, exercise can ameliorate CKD through the regulation of the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways. The 60 min exercise yields more beneficial effect than the 30 min counterpart.


Boulders from the Grūda Moraine, which is associated with the maximum extent of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS) during the last glaciation, and the Baltija (also referred to as the South Lithuanian), the Middle and North Lithuanian moraines, which are associated with recessional stages of the SIS, were sampled for surface exposure dating using 10Be. By combining these data with existing radiocarbon ages, we developed a chronology for the retreat of the SIS margin in Lithuania. Our new 10Be ages suggest that the SIS margin began to retreat from its maximum extent at 18.3 ± 0.8 10Be kyr. Based on a probable correlation of the Baltija Moraine with the Pomeranian Moraine in Poland, we infer that the Baltija Moraine was formed following a re‐advance of the SIS margin. The ice margin retreated from the Baltija position at 14.0 ± 0.4 10Be kyr. The SIS‐margin retreat paused at least two more times to form the Middle Lithuanian Moraine at 13.5 ± 0.6 10Be kyr and the North Lithuanian Moraine (tentatively correlated to the Pajūris Moraine) at 13.3 ± 0.7 10Be kyr. Subsequent ice‐margin retreat from the North Lithuanian Moraine represented the final deglaciation of Lithuania. Direct dating of these moraines better constrains the relation of ice‐margin positions in Lithuania to those in adjacent countries as well as the SIS response to climate change.


The ultrasonic velocity and density measurement of s-triazine and triazinothiocarbamides were carried out in two different solvents, ethanol and dioxane, respectively for investigating solute-solvent interactions. The measurements of 0.01M solutions were carried out at 303.15 K. The aim of the study was to find the effect of protic/aprotic nature, polarity/non-polarity, dielectric constant, hydrogen bonding of solvent with resonance stabilization, structure, different substituents and their effect on ligands in solutesolvent interactions. The data obtained during the study were used for determining the most significant acoustic parameters like adiabatic compressibility (βs), apparent molar volume (Φv) and apparent motor compressibility (Φk). These parameters explore solute-solvent interactions in different solvents. In this investigation, the comparative study of effect of solvent and effect of substituents in the solute are studied on molecular interaction of matter.


Lignin primarily composed of methoxylated phenylpropanoid subunits is an abundant biomass that can be used to produce aromatics. Herein, a series of non-precious bimetallic Ni–Fe/AC catalysts were prepared for efficiently depolymerizing lignin. When organosolv birch lignin was used to determine the efficiency of the catalysts in methanol solvent, the Ni1–Fe1/AC (the ratio of Ni and Fe was 1 : 1) achieved the highest total yield of monomers (23.2 wt%, mainly propylguaiacol and propylsyringol) at 225 °C under 2 MPa H2 for 6 h. From GPC analysis, it is also proved that lignin was efficiently depolymerized. The Ni–Fe alloy structure was formed according to XRD, HRTEM, H2-TPR and XPS characterization. Based on the model compounds' tests, the Ni1–Fe1/AC catalyst showed high efficiency in ether bond cleavage without hydrogenation of aromatic rings which could be attributed to the synergistic effect of Ni and Fe on the alloy structure. The total yield of monomers by using the Ni1–Fe1/AC catalyst reached 39.5 wt% (88% selectivity to PG and PS) when birch wood sawdust was used as the substrate.


Many foreign observers of the "Land of Smiles" are familiar with a narrow range of gender relations and sexual practices in Thailand, from the fanciful portrayal of 19th-century harem life in The King and I, to recent media coverage of sex tourism and AIDS. Yet serious study of patterns of sexuality, femininity, and masculinity in Thailand is relatively new. This book is a rare collection by scholars from around the world and across social disciplines who are tackling these issues. The essays urge the reader to look beyond fantasies of Thailand as an "oriental sexual paradise" or "land of sexploitation" to historical and contemporary forms of gender and eroticism. Studies of the changing opinions and practices among villagers and urbanites, the creative expressions of novelists and aristocrats, and the concerns of early women's magazines and recent AIDS-prevention campaigns, reveal the extraordinary diversity of debates about gender and sexual issues in 20th-century Thailand. Avoiding simplistic approaches to gender studies and sexuality research, the authors discuss how interpretations of gender roles, marriage, and intimate relationships differ between men and women; cultural regions; Thai and immigrant Chinese communities; and heterosexually and homosexually active groups-as well as between residents of Thailand and their foreign observers. By questioning accounts of Thailand as a place where gender is fluid and sexuality is free, the book unravels the complex processes by which Thai men and women understand themselves, appealing to both general readers and scholars of Thai society.


Physical layer security is a promising approach to establish secure communications based on the characteristics of wireless channels. A spatial signature based secure multiple-input single-output (MISO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is proposed to disrupt the reception of a passive eavesdropper by holding two practically relevant assumptions: a limited feedback link for legitimate node and the unavailability of channel state information of eavesdropper. The proposed algorithm achieves a higher average secrecy rate than the conventional secure MISO-OFDM systems in presence of a limited feedback link.


The limestones of the upper Katian Boda mud mounds (Ordovician) of the Siljan district in central Sweden are deeply fractured. The fissures were partly synsedimentary and are often lined with stromatolite-like crusts. These crusts thus far are the only known subaerial Ordovician speleothems. They reach depths of up to 30 m below the former mound top. Macroscopically the crusts form decimetre-sized, cone-shaped domal aggregates, stalactites and stalagmites. Microfabric and morphology identify them as microbially mediated speleothems in a dark environment. Combined Sr and C isotope values indicate a formation of the speleothems from meteoric waters without influence of a significant soil horizon. For the first time the age of the speleothems can be precisely constrained by δ13C whole-rock and brachiopod shell isotope data to the mid-Hirnantian. Repeated and/or prolonged subaerial exposure of the Boda mud mounds during the Hirnantian is evident from karst surfaces and early cements in the mound capping carbonates. The speleothems and the karst surfaces record an estimated sea-level fall in the range of 80–130 m within the time window of the Hirnantian Isotopic Carbon Excursion. This massive regression coincides with maximum ice sheet extent inferred from sections in West Gondwana. Supplementary material: 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratio of selected brachiopod shells and results of Energy-dispersive-X-ray spectroscopy are available from http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18809


Due to the complexity embedded in the socio-technical system and associated long planning periods, system innovation has become a research topic to remain mainly in the science and technology policies area and not much effort has been put into investigating the means of involving companies and product development teams in planning for system innovation. This paper presents results of ongoing research which proposes to develop a scenario method to help companies and product development teams in planning for system innovation. This paper presents the criteria which need to be met by the scenario method. Firstly, a brief overview of the theory around system innovation is given. This is followed by a critical analysis of dynamics and levels of innovation to set a background for criteria development. Then, a discussion clarifying the relevance of companies and product development teams to system innovation is provided prior to criteria development. Following this discussion, five criteria which must be met by the scenario method being developed are identified.


To make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively evident) definition identifies genomic complexity with the amount of information a sequence stores about its environment. We investigate the evolution of genomic complexity in populations of digital organisms and monitor in detail the evolutionary transitions that increase complexity. We show that, because natural selection forces genomes to behave as a natural "Maxwell Demon," within a fixed environment, genomic complexity is forced to increase.


Sukuk and bonds are two kinds of financial instruments that share the Malaysian capital market. Sukuk are Sharia- compliant financial instruments referred as "Islamic bonds" in the Malaysian market (Note 1). The aim of this paper is to diagnose the performance of Sukuk portfolios compared with bond portfolios. For this purpose, we use the series of indices TR BPAM ALL BOND INDEX . Those indices cover the whole Sukuk and bond Malaysian market. We collect historical data of those indices from the website of Bond Pricing Agency of Malaysia (BPAM) for a period of six years from 2007 to 2012. We first study the significance of the difference in the portfolios' mean return. Secondly, we address the portfolios' return correlation. Comparing indices shows that Sukuk index outperformed the bond index and market index. Furthermore, the results confirm a significant and positive correlation between returns of Sukuk and bond portfolios.


Serogroup C meningococcal conjugate vaccines, first launched in the UK in 1999, have been used successfully in Australia, Canada and several other European countries. Combination conjugate vaccines, containing more than one meningococcal polysaccharide, have been developed to broaden protection against the disease. A tetravalent meningococcal A, C, Y and W-135 conjugate vaccine was licensed for use in 11–55 year old adolescents and adults in the US in January 2005, and subsequently also in 2–11 year old children in Canada in May 2006. This article discusses the different glycoconjugate meningococcal vaccines which have been developed and the potential for their use to control disease caused by serogroups A, C, Y and W-135 of Neisseria meningitidis.


The Gourmantche people of South Eastern Burkina recognize Sclerocarya birrea as a locally important agroforestry tree because of its cultural, agricultural, and nutritional value. Although it is understood to provide hydrologic benefits to surrounding crops by local farmers, the larger scientific community had not yet documented its benefits. Using an easily deployable network of wireless meteorological stations, we observe the effect of these agroforestry trees on the local water balance. Sclerocarya birrea trees are found to promote deep infiltration of the surface precipitation into the deep ground water, promoting recharge. On a patch scale, the highly vegetated surface is shown to conserve soil moisture after the rainy season and thus allows for longer crop cycles. In addition to the hydrologic services, the increased quantity of vegetation allows for marketable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration or food production diversity. The scientific study was bracketed by a participatory mapping workshop that launched the project and guided research directions and a set of interviews that assessed the importance of Sclerocarya birrea to the local community, local perception of climate change, local history and reasoning of land use, traditional knowledge of farming and rain practices, local technological needs, and local perception on current development, specifically over the time period of the project. The goal of these interviews was to understand the local community's perspective on the scientific questions, basis, and propositions of our research project. By framing the project within two different organized dialogues with the village, we are able to make conclusions of the social importance and potential impact of this research. In this paper, we compare the results of the scientific measurement effort with the local perception of this tree, and propose how innovative technology can be used for on going monitoring of the ecosystem services. Such a monitoring effort could be beneficial to set up additional incentive schemes to encourage farmers to maintain agroforestry trees, thus promoting a more diverse subsistence base, increasing carbon storage, and creating a more resilient social-agricultural system.


Volume 1 - Introduction by Andrew Pyle "Philosophical essays on Various Subjects" volume 2 - "Discourses of the Love of God and the Use and Abuse of the Passions in Religion" volume 3 - "Horae Lyricae, Poems, Chiefly of the Lyric kind - with a memoir of the Author" volume 4 - "Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and Verse on Natural, Moral, and divine Subjects" volume 5 - "Logick: or, the Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth" volumes 6 and 7 - "The Improvement of the Mind: or, a Supplement to the Art of Logic" volume 8 - "The Strength and Weakness of Human Reason".


Teamwork is now recognized as important for safe, high-quality perioperative care. The relationship in each surgeon-anesthesiologist dyad is perhaps the most critical element of overall team performance. A well-functioning relationship is conducive to safe, effective care. A dysfunctional relationship can promote unsafe conditions and contribute to an adverse outcome. Yet, there is little research about this relationship, about what works well or not well, what can be done to optimize it. This article explores functional and dysfunctional aspects of the relationship, identifies some negative stereotypes each profession has of the other and calls for research to better characterize and understand how to improve working relationships. Suggestions are given for what an ideal relationship might be and actions that surgeons and anesthesiologists can take to improve how they work together. The goal is safer care for patients, and more joy and meaning in work for surgeons and anesthesiologists.


Abstract. In September 2015 one of the severest and most unusual dust events on record occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean. Surprisingly, operational dust transport models were unable to forecast the event. This study details the reasons for this failure and presents simulations of the event at convection-permitting resolution using the modelling system ICON-ART. The results allow for an in-depth analysis of the influence of the synoptic situation, the complex interaction of multiple driving atmospheric systems and the mineral dust radiative effect on the dust event. A comparison of the results with observations reveals the quality of the simulation results with respect to structure and timing of the dust transport. The forecast of the dust event is improved decisively. The event is triggered by the unusually early occurrence of an active Red Sea trough situation with an easterly axis over Mesopotamia. The connected sustained organized mesoscale convection produces multiple cold-pool outflows responsible for intense dust emissions. Complexity is added by the interaction with an intense heat low, the inland-penetrating Eastern Mediterranean sea breeze and the widespread occurrence of supercritical flow conditions and subsequent hydraulic jumps in the vicinity of the Dead Sea Rift Valley. The newly implemented mineral dust radiation interaction leads to systematically more intense and faster propagating cold-pool outflows.


In this article, we examine, through the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), some of the features that inform user acceptance of a digital library system implementation at agricultural universities in two developing countries: Kenya and Peru. This is a study not only examining factors contributing to adoption of this offline digital library, but also a cross‐site comparison, meant to examine the functionality in the developing world of a theoretical model developed in and based on conditions in the developed world. As we unravel predictors of technological acceptance of a digital library implementation in the developing world, we simultaneously investigate a broader question: not just questions regarding improved research in the developing world, but on it as well.


Using register data from the IAB employment sample, this paper studies the wage structure in the German labor market throughout the years 1992-2001. Wage dispersion has generally been rising. The increase was more pronounced in East Germany and occurred predominantly in the lower part of the wage distribution for women and in the upper part for men. Censored quantile wage regressions reveal diverse age and skill patterns. Applying Machado/Mata (2005)-type decompositions I conclude that differences in the composition of the work force only had a small impact on the observed wage differentials between East and West Germany, but changes in the characteristics captured better parts of the observed wage changes over time.


Abstract. A process-based methodology is applied to estimate land-surface evaporation from multi-satellite information. GLEAM (Global Land-surface Evaporation: the Amsterdam Methodology) combines a wide range of remotely-sensed observations to derive daily actual evaporation and its different components. Soil water stress conditions are defined from a root-zone profile of soil moisture and used to estimate transpiration based on a Priestley and Taylor equation. The methodology also derives evaporationfrom bare soil and snow sublimation. Tall vegetation rainfall interception is independently estimated by means of the Gash analytical model. Here, GLEAM is applied daily, at global scale and a quarter degree resolution. Triple collocation is used to calculate the error structure of the evaporation estimates and test the relative merits of two different precipitation inputs. The spatial distribution of evaporation – and its different components – is analysed to understand the relative importance of each component over different ecosystems. Annual land evaporation is estimated as 67.9 × 103 km3, 80% corresponding to transpiration, 11% to interception loss, 7% to bare soil evaporation and 2% snow sublimation. Results show that rainfall interception plays an important role in the partition of precipitation into evaporation and water available for runoff at a continental scale. This study gives insights into the relative importance of precipitation and net radiation in driving evaporation, and how the seasonal influence of these controls varies over different regions. Precipitation is recognised as an important factor driving evaporation, not only in areas that have limited soil water availability, but also in areas of high rainfall interception and low available energy.


a. Background: The decision to place an older relative in institutionalised care is always a difficult one, regardless of cultural background. Despite the abundance in quantitative and qualitative research on attitudes towards placement, there is little understanding of cultural influences and outcomes of placement on caregiver burden and family relationships. In particular, little is known about caregiver perceptions in South-East Asian societies where traditionally held social expectations are increasingly challenged by demands of rapid industrialisation, modern economies and the changing family structure.

b. Objectives: This abstract paper aims to review the literature on caregivers' decision to place an older relative in an institution and to understand the factors associated with caregiver involvement following placement.

c. Methods: A. systematic review of the literature from 1990 to 2011 was performed using the search terms Caregivers and Institutionalisation via PsydNFO.

d. Results: There is a foundation of strong family-oriented values in South-East Asia; with the family identified as the most important social circle and as one of the top priorities in life. Within the Asian context, unique pressures, such as stigmatisation, filial obligations and social expectations, add a notable dimension to the burden of deciding to institutionalise a family member. Nonetheless, Asian attitudes towards institutionalisation are changing. Further, evidence suggests that families may limit involvement following placement of an elder family member despite this being an important aspect of the residents' well-being.

e. Conclusion: The current literature suggests changing trends and attitudes towards institutionalisation. Yet the specific reasons and mechanisms behind the decision and the influences of subsequent involvement remain unclear. This review concludes with recommendations for future research directions.


Prof. Solomon Aronson (Figure 1), the Executive Vice Chairman of Anesthesiology Department in Duke University Medical Center, who gave an impressive speech on "From the evidence to the best practice" in the cardiovascular anesthesiology session in 2014 China Heart Congress" and got applausive response from audience. After the meeting, the Annals of Translational Medicine (ATM) was honored to have the chance to meet Dr. Aronson. With the enthusiasm to Anesthesiology, Dr. Aronson impressively shared his resourceful expertise in this area.


Burton as hero of a transcultural myth? The Collector of Worlds (2006) by Ilija Trojanow
This article investigates mythical structures in Ilija Trojanow's The Collector of Worlds which can be contextualised within processes of transculturalism and hybridity. The assumption is that in The Collector of Worlds, transcultural transformations are staged through mythical structures. This is demonstrated in two examples : first, the motif of 'metamorphosis', which is closely related to initiation processes and rites of passage, and secondly, a mythical 'revelation structure'. The protagonist of The Collector of Worlds, Sir Richard Francis Burton, is characterized by his ability to transform himself while the novel itself follows the structure of a text of revelation. But Trojanow does not only create a literary figure that features hybridity by using mythical systems. Through intertextual references to other literary works, such as Nomade auf vier Kontinenten (Nomad on four Continents), or Mumbai to Mecca (An den heiligen Quellen des Islam), Burton is also stylized into a transcultural hero with whom Trojanow identifies as his interviews show, thus contributing to the self-dramatization of the author.


Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the opening of the mandibular notch angle (MNA) as a possible tool for predicting sex and estimating age so as to contribute to forensic anthropological studies. Material and Methods:  For this, 60 cone beam computed tomographs (CBCT) belonging to the UNESP ICT Radiology archive, were selected: 5 female and 5 male for each decade of life, beginning on twenties until there seventies, totalizing 30 female and 30 male. Three-dimensional models were generated for each exam and measurements were performed with three-dimensional angular measuring tools using OnDemand 3D software (Cybermed Inc., Tustin, CA, USA) on the MNA. The MNA was measured considering the posteriormost portion of the coronoid process, the lowest point of the mandibular notch, and the anteriormost point of the condylar process of the mandible. The Mann-Whitney test was performed with the intention of establishing the possible comparative relationships between the values of angular measurements and sex. Results: No statistically significant differences were found between mandibular incision measurements in both sexes, as well as when comparing the angular measurements of the mandibular incisions and the different age groups studied, when a Kruskall-Wallis test was performed. Conclusion: It was concluded that the structure being evaluated did not appear to be an instrument capable of contributing to forensic anthropology evaluations.Keywords: X-ray computed tomography; Forensic anthropology; Legal dentistry; Determination of age by skeleton; Analysis for determination of sex.


Many I-type granitoid magmas are generated through partial melting of older metaigneous rocks, and the compositions of such melts are broadly calc-alkaline and metaluminous. These melts are granitic to tonalitic, and result from thermal extremes in their lower crustal source regions. Data on the experimental partial melting of common crustal rocks suggest that high-K, I-type granitoid magmas can be derived only from the partial melting of hydrous, calc-alkaline to high-K calc-alkaline, mafic to intermediate metamorphic rocks in the crust. Because of their low K2O contents, metabasaltic rocks of all kinds are unsuitable as sources, and models that propose mixing of mantle-derived basaltic magmas and crustal melts are also inadequate. There is no requirement that I- type calc-alkaline magmatism be related in any way to subduction processes.


ABSTRACT This paper aims to redress the under-appreciated significance of rent for political ecological analysis. We introduce the notion of value grabbing, defined as the appropriation of (surplus) value through rent. A concept that is analytically distinct from accumulation, rent is both a social relation and a distributional process that is increasingly central to the reproduction of contemporary capitalism. Emphasis is placed on the "grabbing" of value in order to shed light on the processes at work by which surplus value is distributed unevenly between different classes and fractions of classes. A focus on rent within political ecology, we argue, can help us distinguish between two organically related but analytically distinct "moments": (a) the creation of property rights that establish rent relations and (b) the struggle over the appropriation and distribution of surplus value generated by the rent relation itself. We explore some of the implications of this perspective for understanding new forms of socio-ecological struggles and their varied relations to the state. We maintain that a value-grabbing perspective has far-reaching consequences for political ecology, as it provides a sharp conceptual tool for situating a wide range of socio-ecological conflicts and movements as class struggles over value appropriation and distribution.


Utilising a large representative data set for Germany, this study contrasts absenteeism of self-employed individuals and paid employees. We find that absence from work is clearly less prevalent among the self-employed than among paid employees. Only to a small extent, this difference can be traced back to differences in health status and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the gap in absenteeism is apparently not driven by different behaviour in case of sickness as we find no difference in the prevalence of presenteeism between the two groups. We suspect that different behaviour in case of healthiness plays a role, highlighting potential shirking and moral hazard problems in paid employment.


ABSTRACT Salt was a common trading commodity in a post-medieval Europe of expanding horizons and populations. It was, however, expensive and laborious to produce in northern Europe and foreign supplies were vulnerable to disruption. Its importance was especially pronounced in countries such as Ireland, which failed to industrialize on the scale of Britain, and relied on its agricultural produce and exports. This paper explores the changing fortunes of salt in Ireland by examining a complex of sites at Ballycastle. In operation for three centuries, it was one of the more enduring and resilient sites of manufacture. The authors identify individual agency, innovation and legislation as key factors for its relative success. Conversely, the business was periodically jeopardized by social and political unrest, factionalism and incompetence. As part of the wider Atlantic world, Irish salt and salted provisions exploited emerging colonial networks of trade; however, these market forces perpetuated social inequalities with attendant risks to food security.


We present two related algorithms for reducing noise in Computerized Tomography images. The algorithms are based on a recently developed technique for image representation called a polynomial transform. With this technique it is possible to decompose the image into local components, perform nonlinear and adaptive processing on these components, and resynthesize the image from the processed components. In this paper we describe how this can be applied to adapt the amount of noise reduction to the local image content. In the first algorithm, a single polynomial transform is used to perform the noise reduction. A critical parameter of this algorithm is the size of the local components. No single size is optimal for the entire image, so a compromise has to be made. An alternative approach is adopted in the second algorithm, where several polynomial transforms are used in parallel at different resolutions. This allows for a better adaptation of the size of the image components used in the reconstruction to the original image. For instance, uniform regions containing only noise are described with large-sized components. Low-contrast edges are restored with medium-sized components, while high-contrast edges contain high-resolution components.


Abstract The aim of this paper consists in providing a general overview of the notion of intellectual capital as a key to maximizing the corporate performance. Following the researches carried out, we present the delimitations of the intellectual capital in relation with human capital, relational capital and structural capital. In terms of its measurement, we focus on a question which could be a solid base for the next studies: "Can intellectual capital be evaluated?" In this regard, a number of methods (direct and methods based on assets returns), generic model and individual company models were presented, concluding in this way with a hierarchy in terms of utility and their importance.


A three-layered Ag-low-permittivity (LP)-high-permittivity (HP) nanoshell is proposed as a plausible meta-atom for building the three-dimensional isotropic negative refractive index metamaterials (NIMs). The overlap between the electric and magnetic responses of Ag-LP-HP nanoshell can be realized by designing the geometry of the particle, which can lead to the negative electric and magnetic polarizabilities. Then, the negative refractive index is found in the random arrangement of Ag-LP-HP nanoshells. Especially, the modulation of the middle LP layer can move the negative refractive index range into the visible region. Because the responses arise from the each meta-atom, the metamaterial is intrinsically isotropic and polarization independent. It is further found with the increase of the LP layer thickness that the negative refractive index range of the random arrangement shows a large blue-shift and becomes narrow. With the decrease of the filling fraction, the negative refractive index range shows a blue-shift and becomes narrow while the maximum of the negative refractive index decreases.


Background . Critical care transfers (CCT) refer to the high level of care given during transport (via ambulance, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft) of patients who are of high acuity. In South Africa (SA), advanced life support (ALS) paramedics undertake CCTs. The scope of ALS in SA has no extended protocol regarding procedures or medications in terms of dealing with these CCTs. Aim . The aim of this study was to obtain the opinions of several experts in fields pertaining to critical care and transport and to gain consensus on the skills and scope-of-practice requirements of paramedics undertaking CCTs in the SA setting. Methods . A modified Delphi study consisting of three rounds was undertaken using an online survey platform. A heterogeneous sample ( n =7), consisting of specialists in the fields of anaesthesiology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, critical care, critical care transport and paediatrics, was asked to indicate whether, in their opinion, selected procedures and medications were needed within the scope of practice of paramedics undertaking CCTs. Results . After three rounds, consensus was obtained in 70% (57/81) of procedures and medications. Many of these items are not currently within the scope of paramedics' training. The panel felt that paramedics undertaking these transfers should have additional postgraduate training that is specific to critical care. Conclusion . Major discrepancies exist between the current scope of paramedic practice and the suggested required scope of practice for CCTs. An extended scope of practice and additional training should be considered for these practitioners.


Purpose: Students often have passive or counterproductive responses to feedback. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate a feedback training module containing online learning and live simulation. It was hypothesized that 1) student confidence in feedback skills would increase following the module, and 2) compared with a control group who undertook the module after their clinical placement, the feedback group who undertook the module before their placement would perform better on clinical placement on the sections of the Assessment of Physiotherapy Practice related to communication, but those related to clinical skills would not be affected. Methods: A convenience sample of all 68 students in the first of two years of a masters graduate-entry physiotherapy program in Australia was recruited for the study. The feedback group (N=46) received the module before their 5-week orthopaedic clinical placement, and the control group (N=22) received the module after their placement. The module included two-hours of online independent learning and three-hours of simulated learning activity. Students provided and received feedback and were facilitated in developing skills to explore the understandings and attitudes underlying behaviours. Results: All students rated the module as having a large impact on their feedback abilities. The increased confidence in feedback skills was significant for the feedback group. Compared with the control group and with the previous two cohorts undertaking the same placement, the feedback group had improved performance at the mid-point, but not at the end of their five week placement. Conclusions: A focussed feedback module, including a simulated learning activity, increased student confidence and was perceived by students as having a positive impact on their feedback skills. There was a positive impact of the module on student performance during but not at the end of their clinic placement. An incidental finding was the suggestion that a time gap between on-campus learning and the related clinical placement may have a detrimental effect on student performance.


The present study contrasts heavy construction companies' theoretical frameworks for sustainable development with their actual practices and decision models. The study is conducted by analysing company-published documents and sustainability reports. The study uses resource methodological content analysis to develop prescriptions for sustainability in the management of the companies analysed. The results point to three main findings: 1) the social, economic, and political forces that impelled the companies to implement sustainable business practices; 2) the development of people who follow the traditional model of training and development; 3) endeavours to balance the economic goals of making a profit with social responsibility practices as a way of characterising the company's commitment to sustainability.


In the past four decades the field of Asian American literary and cultural studies has grown enormously, expanding its areas of inquiry beyond the reflections on national identity and citizenship to encompass such issues as transnational and diasporic identities and communities; the workings of imperialism; the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality; and social justice/human rights in a global context. This project is the largest and most comprehensive collection of scholarship on Asian American literature and culture to date. From Asian American literary classics to experimental theater, from K-pop to online gaming, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture guides both established scholars and readers new to this study through the extensive landscape of Asian American writing and cultural production. More than one hundred essays on varied historical periods, geographical locales, and artistic modes offer an extensive examination of racial representation and activism, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to literary work, ethnic communities, space and place, transnational and transpacific flows, and genres such as speculative fiction, the detective novel, and melodrama. Along with literary works from the late-19th century to the 21st century, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature and Culture covers a wide-ranging selection of Asian American theatre, dance, music, visual arts, film, television, and media. With its illuminating and profound commentary on Asian American writing and artistic practice, the volumes survey the historical foundations of this rich field, showing the exciting and profound new directions that currently drive the study of Asian American literary and cultural traditions.


1. The effect of vasopressin on the tubular reabsorption of phosphate was studied in both water-restricted and water-loaded man at different baseline rates of phosphate excretion. The latter was varied by altering phosphate intake or by administering aluminium hydroxide to reduce phosphate absorption from the gut. 2. It was found that when phosphate excretion was high, vasopressin had no consistent effect on the phosphate/creatinine clearance ratio. However at low rates of phosphate excretion, vasopressin significantly increased the phosphate/creatinine clearance ratio, suggesting a decrease in net tubular reabsorption of phosphate. 3. This effect of vasopressin was also demonstrated in a patient with hypoparathyroidism, indicating that it is not mediated by release of parathormone. 4. It thus appears that vasopressin has a small parathormone-like effect on the renal tubules, which may result from the common action of both hormones on the adenyl cyclase system.


Abstract : As security issues dominate news headlines and affect our daily lives, organizations need to improve their ability to protect and sustain their business-critical assets -- people, information, technology, and facilities -- using human and financial resources efficiently and effectively. Traditional activities such as security and business continuity must not only be effective at achieving these goals, but also must offer the organization increased capabilities for managing and controlling operational resiliency. Unfortunately, organizations often manage these activities in a reactive posture fraught with stove-piped organizational structures and poorly defined and measured goals. The result: potentially less-than-adequate operational resiliency to support business objectives. But organizations can vastly improve operational resiliency by viewing it as an engineering-based process that can be defined, managed, measured, and improved. This view ensures collaboration between security and business continuity activities toward common goals and considers the role of supporting activities such as governance, asset and risk management, and financial control. This report introduces the CERT Resiliency Engineering Framework as a foundational model that describes the essential processes for managing operational resiliency, provides a structure from which an organization can begin process improvement of its security and business continuity efforts, and catalyzes the formation of a community from which further definition of this emerging discipline can evolve.


This collection of original essays focuses on issues of international trade and trade policy in a world that is undergoing structural adaptation and in the face of a serious increase in the US trade deficit. They bring a new consolidation of analytical perspective to a wide variety of current trade policy issues.In their overview chapter, Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern discuss developments in trade and protectionism, review the case for free trade and address the arguments in favor of trade intervention. Rudiger Dornbusch and Jeffrey Frankel analyze the macroeconomic setting in which changes have been made in US tariffs and NTBs.Stephen P. Magee and Leslie Young develop a model of endogenous protection and use it to search for microeconomic and macroeconomic variables that may help to explain changes in tariff and nontariff protection in the US since 1900. Paul Krugman takes up the question of identifying strategic sectors and the extent to which international competition and national government policies may affect the returns to such sectors under conditions of imperfect competition or when externalities are present. Avinash Dixit analyzes the responses that the US might make to other countries' trade policies in terms of how these policies affect US real national income and national security. He concludes that the US could use strategic advance responses to alter other countries' trade policies in a mutually beneficial way.Richard N. Cooper evaluates trade policy as foreign policy by looking at changes through three periods of US history. T.N. Srinivasan scrutinizes the national defense argument for government intervention in foreign trade. John H. Jackson in discussing alternative negotiation approaches for the conduct of US trade policies observes that the pursuit of multilateralism may be frustrating and that what may be needed instead is a "minilateral" approach to trade liberalization. In conclusion, W. Max Corden offers a package of rules that he believes may be both desirable and possible for the international trading system to attain.Robert M. Stern is Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan and Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies. He is coauthor with Allan V. Deardorff of The Michigan Model of World Production and Trade (MIT Press 1985.)


Generally genetic algorithm (GA) has disadvantage of taking a lot of computation time, and it is worth reducing the execution time while keeping good quality and result. Comparative experiments are conducted with one CPU and four GPUs using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) and generational GA. We implement the fitness functions of the GA which are suitable for the each environment of the CPU and the GPUs for performance comparison. When experimenting with the CPU, we handle the individual one by one. On the other hand, when experimenting with the GPU, we handle all individuals concurrently. And then we compare and analyze each result of our GA and each time required to process fitness function. There was not a huge difference between the results of the CPU experiment and the GPU ones. In the case of the analysis of computation time, the memory bandwidth of the GPU affects the computation time of fitness evaluation. The numbers of genes that can be processed at the same time are increased by the growth of the clock rate and the number of cores of GPU.


This paper presents an efficient algorithm for high-quality speech capture in applications such as hands-free teleconferencing or voice recording by personal computers. We process the microphone signals by a subband adaptive filtering structure using a modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT), in which the subband filters are adapted to maximize the kurtosis of the linear prediction (LP) residual of the reconstructed speech. In this way, we attain good solutions to the problem of blind speech dereverberation. Experimental results with actual data, as well as with artificially difficult reverberant situations, show very good performance, both in terms of a significant reduction of the perceived reverberation, as well as improvement in spectral fidelity.


A new nonlinear Galerkin method based on finite element discretization is presented in this paper for semilinear parabolic equations. The new scheme is based on two different finite element spaces defined respectively on one coarse grid with grid size H and one fine grid with grid size $h \ll H$. Nonlinearity and time dependence are both treated on the coarse space and only a fixed stationary equation needs to be solved on the fine space at each time. With linear finite element discretizations, it is proved that the difference between the new nonlinear Galerkin solution and the standard Galerkin solution in $H^1 (\Omega )$ norm is of the order of $H^3 $.


Rimbawan Muda Indonesia (RMI) is an independent non-profit organization (NGO) that focuses on natural resources and environmental issues. This NGO aims to develop the conservation of natural resources. In order to achieve the vision and mission, the organization is not compatible with conducting the business model optimally, hence new strategies are needed to fix the business model. The aim of this research: (1) To identify and obtain the map (portrait) of the current RMI business model; (2) To analyse the SWOT of each element in RMI's business model; (3) To design an alternative strategy as an improvement on the current business model. This research used the combination of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) approach and SWOT matrix analysis. According to the analysis results, it could be concluded that RMI needs to conduct a business model improvement on nine BMC elements that consists of eight formulation alternative strategies including: 1) creative fund-raising strategies to the donor(s) that focus on youth and women issues, 2) one issue focus, 3) live-in community organization, 4) a fund-raising strategy by self-promotion space roadshows and attending donor events, 5) Capacity building through knowledge sharing amongs staff both internal and inter-network, 6) Outside Java Networking development, 7) Improvement on relationship to donors through e-mails intensively and on roadshows, 8) Donor visit due to the stop of collaboration. Mentioned strategy alternatives are elaborated on the form of improvement programs that will be described in each element of business model canvas. Keywords: business models, BMC, NGO, SWOT, RMI


We investigated the roles of food shortage and predation in anticipated breeding failure of black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla at Great Island, Witless Bay, Newfoundland, Canada in 1992 and 1993, following widespread failure in 1991. Reduced and delayed availability of capelin Mallotus viIlosus, plus elimination of previously plentiful fish offal and discards following an eastern Canadian groundfish moratorium in 1992, induced food-stress on kittiwakes and on large predatory Larus gulls. Breeding was late, a low proportion of pairs laid eggs, and egg and clutch sizes were small, indicating that feeding conditions for kittiwakes were poor early in the season. Extreme food-stress resulted in low breeding success of Larus gulls that turned to kittiwake eggs as an alternate food source. Forced egg predation by great black-backed gulls Larus marinus was the primary cause of low hatching success (10 to 11%) in both years. Durations of incubation and chick-rearing shifts decreased following the inshore arrival of capelin, and chicks that hatched after capelin arrival survived longer than earlier hatched chicks. Unattended nests were uncommon, probably in response to predation. In 1992, earlier hatching, later capelin arrival, and apparent lack of alternate prey resulted in many chicks starving and poor fledging success (7%). In 1993, food appeared to be more available both before and after capelin arrival, parents were able to provision chicks, and fledging success was normal (68%). The interactive effects of food shortage and predation have important implications for the use of kittiwakes as indicator species and for the indirect effects of fishery activities on seabird interactions. Kittiwake productivity also reflects the resource base of their predators and caution is required when linking kittiwake breeding success to prey abundance. Moreover, fishery activities, such as the eastern Canadian groundfish moratorium that eliminated fish discards and offal for large scavenging gulls, can have profound second-order effects on other seabird species that are preyed on by scavengers.


Naruto is a ninja-in-training with a need for attention, a knack for mischief, and sealed within him, a strange, formidable power. His antics amuse his instructor Kakashi and irritate his teammates, intense Sasuke and witty Sakura, but Naruto is serious about becoming the greatest ninja in the village of Konohagakure! Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura have passed the final test to become junior ninja - but now the real challenge begins. Tired of menial tasks, the young ninja ask for a tougher assignment and find themselves - together with their teacher, Kakashi - bodyguarding a cranky old man from the Land of the Waves. But Tazuna the bridgebuilder is in more danger than anyone realizes: he's the target of elite ninja assassins, including Zabuza, 'the demon,' and our heroes are about to face a trial by fire...


The ultimate goal of audiovisual speech synthesis is to create a machine that is able to articulate human-like audiovisual speech from text. There has been much interest in producing such a system over the last few decades and current state-of-the-art systems can generate very realistic synthesised speech. This paper presents a broad overview of audiovisual speech synthesis and considers possible future directions.


This study analyzes Sub-Saharan Africa through the framework of globalization. The study's objective is to determine whether globalization is a significant factor when associated with economic growth in the region. Using panel data from 1995-2005 for 41 countries and the KOF globalization index, an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model was employed to examine the relationship between globalization and other traditional factors of economic growth such as trade, foreign direct investment, loans, aid, natural resources, corruption, and rule of law. The study shows that globalization has a positive, though statistically insignificant impact on the economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, globalization is positive and statistically significant for countries with scarce natural resources. I interpret these results as proving that the leading causes of slow economic growth in Sub-Saharan African countries is due to heavy dependence on natural resources, low investment in human capital, and the negligence of other industries—all of which suggest that these countries are unable to effectively manage critical processes of globalization. Indeed, in order to reap the net benefits of globalization, I argue, African countries need to work towards economic stability by developing better macroeconomic policies for their future.


Recent developments - including greater taxpayer sophistication in structuring and locating international financing arrangements, increased government concerns with the role of debt in sophisticated tax avoidance techniques, and disruption by decisions of the European Court of Justice of member states' regimes limiting interest deductions - have stimulated new laws and policy controversies concerning the international tax treatment of interest expenses. National rules are in flux regarding the financing of both inbound and outbound transactions. Heretofore, the question of the proper treatment of interest expense has generally been looked at from the perspective of either inbound or outbound investment. As a result, the issues of residence countries' limitations on interest deductions on borrowing to finance low-taxed, exempt or deferred foreign source income, on the one hand, and of source countries' restrictions on interest deductions intended to limit companies' ability to strip income from a higher-tax to a lower-tax country, on the other, have generally been treated as separate issues. A fundamental contribution of this essay is to demonstrate their linkage and to call for a multilateral solution that would address both of these problems. The complexity, the incoherence, and the futility of countries acting independently to limit interest deductions are now clear. Worldwide allocation of interest expense by both source and resident countries would eliminate a host of problems now bedeviling nations throughout the world - problems that have produced varying, complex, and inconsistent responses among different countries, responses that frequently may result in zero or double taxation. Given the flexibility of multinational corporations to choose where to locate their borrowing and the difficulties nations have in maintaining their domestic income tax bases in the face of such flexibility, achieving a multilateral agreement for the treatment of interest expense based on a worldwide allocation should become a priority project for both source and residence countries.


Efforts to address infectious diseases have long been hindered by the failure to take into account the social aspects of these diseases. Gender is a fundamental dimension of these social aspects. There is currently a focus in international health on the import ance of addressing diseases of poverty. Attention to gender is a crucial part of a poverty-focused response to the challenges posed by infectious disease. In this article we provide a framework for analysing gender inequities in infectious disease in developing countries, and briefly draw implications for policy and practice. Gender identities, status, roles and responsibilities influence vulnerability to dis ease, access to health care, and the impact of disease for women, men, girls and boys. Women's and men's roles affect their risk of infection with specific diseases, whilst gender relations influence their ability to protect their own health. Gender differences in access to and control over resources, in decision-making power in the household and in roles and activities can limit women's ability to access health care for them selves and their children. Gendered norms and identities influence both women's and men's willingness and ability to seek care. The social consequences of infectious disease are often more severe for women than for men, and illness imposes a parti cularly heavy labour burden upon women. Health services need to adjust their practices to improve the appropriateness of preventive and curative services for infectious disease control for both women and men amongst the poor and disadvantaged. However, measures to reduce gender inequities in health cannot be limited to the health sector alone.


We combine unique administrative and survey data to study the match between firms and managers. The data include manager characteristics, firm characteristics, detailed measures of managerial practices, and outcomes for the firm and the manager. A parsimonious model of matching and incentives generates implications that we test with our data. We use the model to illustrate how risk aversion and talent determine how firms select and motivate managers. We show that empirical links between firm governance, incentives, and performance, which have so far been studied in isolation, can instead all be interpreted within our simple unified matching framework.


Children's fear of a car accident occurring to parents or themselves has been used as a concrete example to illustrate one of the symptoms of anxiety disorders such as separation anxiety and generalized anxiety. However, its usage across countries may be questionable where the prevalence of this specific type of injury differs. This cross-sectional study compares samples from seven diverse European countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Turkey) to see if an environmental exposure, car accident death rate per 100,000 people (country-wide from WHO data), is associated with children's self-report of car accident fears. In this study, 6–11 year-old children were surveyed by a diagnostic instrument (Dominic Interactive) about several situations and asked if they believed they were similar to a fictional child depicted in said situations. Mothers were surveyed for additional sociodemographic information. Multivariable logistic regression was used to adjust for covariates including mother's age, mother's education, single parenting, and mother's professional inactivity. We report a monotonic relationship between higher car accident death rates and the prevalence of children reporting fear of parent's or own accident. Relative to a reference of 3.9 deaths per 100,000 people, children's odds of reporting fear of parent's accident ranged from 1.99 (95% CI 1.51–2.61) times to 4.84 (95% CI 3.68–6.37) times as the risk of death by car accident increased across countries. A similar result arose from fear of child's own accident, with significant ORs ranging from 1.91 (95% CI 1.53–2.40) to 2.68 (95% CI 2.07–3.47) alongside increased death rates. Given that reporting of these fears accompanies correspondingly high accident death rates, the pertinence of using fear of car accidents as an illustration for some diagnostic item for mental disorders cross-nationally appears to be an issue.


Service Robots in real world environments need to have computer vision capability for detecting a large class of objects. We discuss how freely available 3D model databases can be used to enable robots to know the appearance of a wide variety of objects in human environments with special application to our Assistive Kitchen. However, the open and free nature of such databases pose problems for example the presence of incorrectly annotated 3D models, or objects for which very few models exist online. We have previously proposed techniques to automatically select the useful models from the search result, and utilizing such models to perform simple manipulation tasks. Here, we build upon that work, to describe a technique based on Morphing to form new 3D models if we only have a few models corresponding to a label. However, morphing in computer graphics requires a human operator and is computationally burdensome, due to which we present our own automatic morphing technique. We also present a simple technique to speed the matching process of 3D models against real scenes using Visibility culling. This technique can potentially speed-up the matching process by 2–3 times while using less memory, if we have some prior information model and world pose.


: Seeds of 14 commonly found plant species from 3 different families (Brassicaceae, Dipsacaceae, and Asteraceae) were investigated for 1000-seed weights (g), total oil (%), total protein (%), total soluble sugar contents (TSS; mg g -1 ), and fatty acid compositions (%). Correlation coefficients of fatty acids from different families were investigated, as well. Palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, linolenic, eicosenoic, and erucic acids were present in varying amounts. Within the family Brassicaceae, only Cardaria draba did not contain eicosenoic and erucic acids, while species of the Asteraceae and Dipsacaceae did not contain linolenic, eicosenoic, or erucic acids. The 1000-seed weights ranged between 0.17 and 32.71 g among the examined species. Species from Brassicaceae generally had high oil content, with the exception of C. draba. The highest oil content was found in Boreava orientalis (36.87%). Total protein content was higher in members of families Brassicaceae and Dipsacaceae than in Asteraceae, and total protein content was found to be between 9.4% and 32.6%. TSS contents of seeds varied widely, ranging from 4.98 to 26.65 mg g –1 . Palmitic and stearic acid contents of the species showed significant positive correlations, but erucic acid content negatively correlated with both linoleic and linolenic acids in Brassicaceae. Significant negative correlations were found between linolenic acid to both palmitic and oleic acids in Asteraceae and Dipsacaceae. Further studies are needed for a better understanding of seed quality parameters, as well as oil and seed yield, to detect promising genotypes of selected species.


Mainstream Growth Economists and Capital Theorists provides a historical survey and ideal introduction to modern economics, arguing that due to significant changes in recent years, a re-evaluation is in order. Marin Muzhani presents an informed study of the debates regarding economic growth and development that began in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. He argues that in the wake of that crisis, the challenge for economists was to understand how to generate stable economic growth in order to prevent future crises. The theories of John Maynard Keynes, in particular, sought to explain the reasons for unemployment and recessions, paving the way for the field of macroeconomics and challenging the basic premises of neoclassical economics. In the late 1930s and 1940s, economists began to extend Keynes' ideas, synthesizing them with neoclassical ideas in order to explain economic growth. This "neoclassical synthesis" would dominate mainstream macroeconomic thought for the next forty years until the mid-1980s with the introduction of endogenous growth theories. Taking into account the historical background, the multitude of interpretations of modern growth models, and the geography of mainstream economists, Mainstream Growth Economists and Capital Theorists will simplify the structure of growth theory for the next generation of economists.


In the 1980s, the Andean region appeared to be implementing the recipe for success: market reforms plus democratic opening. However, the dream unraveled. This article describes the malaise regarding democracy that has enveloped the region and connects it with neoliberal adjustments. On the one hand, it claims that the expectation that economic and political liberalism buttress each other naturally is wrong. On the other, it shows that there is no direct relation between democratic vulnerability and neoliberalism. Instead, the global forces behind neoliberal programs simultaneously block exit from democracy and the possibility of articulating voice within it – which explains the proliferation of "semi-democratic" forces and forms of governance.


This paper examines the interday and intraday dynamics of the euro area overnight money market on the basis of an original set of market activity and liquidity proxies constructed from both pre- and post-trade data. The empirical literature provides extensive evidence supporting the rejection of the martingale hypothesis both between days and within days, primarily for interest rates and volatility. We extend this analysis and investigate the seasonality of market activity and liquidity in a market dominated by utilitarian traders. We provide evidence that the Eurosystem's operational framework and calendar effects cause the observed regular patterns. We additionally show that utilitarian trading intensifies at the turn of the reserve maintenance period. The increased uncertainty associated with greater information asymmetry between market participants when reserve requirements become binding lead to a deterioration of market liquidity. Our analysis additionally turns out to be sensitive to the implementation in March 2004 of structural changes to the operational framework and to the more frequent occurrence of fine-tuning operations since October 2004. JEL Classification: E43, E58, C22, C32