Context
One of the important functions of nurses is to prepare a relaxing environment for patients, for whom they look after and fulfill sleep needs. Today, music therapy, one of nonpharmacological treatment approaches, can be used for enhancing the sleep quality of individuals. The increase of individuals' sleep quality by using music therapy will enable nurses to intervene in problems associated with sleep disorders and prevent insomnia and other relevant problems.

Objective
This study was conducted to determine the effect of music therapy on sleep quality of the students.

Design
The research was an experimental pretest-posttest control group design.

Setting
The research was conducted among the students studying in the nursing department at a university in the east of Turkey in the spring term of the academic year of 2015-2016.

Participant
Students who (1) got a total score of 5 and higher according to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), (2) had no neurological/psychiatric disorder, (3) had no hearing problem, (4) received no medical treatment regarding sleep, and (5) volunteered to participate in the study were included in the study. The students who were included in the study were divided into experimental and control groups.

Invention
Students in the experimental group were instructed to keep the volume of the personal MP3 player to be used for listening to the music therapy below 70% and to use it for 1 h/d at most. No intervention was applied to students in the control group. They were asked to sustain their normal sleeping habits.

Outcome Measure
To collect the data, a questionnaire prepared by the researchers for determining sociodemographic characteristics of the students and PSQI were used.

Results
As a result of the study, it was found that the posttest PSQI mean scores of students in the experimental group, listening to music therapy, were lower than the mean scores of the students in the control group, and the difference between the groups was statistically significant.

Conclusions
As a result of this study, it was determined that music therapy increased the sleep quality of students. Being one of the nonpharmacological treatment approaches intended for solving sleep problems, music therapy is a pain-free, safe, and affordable treatment method without any side effect that could be used in every area of health.


Though genre theory has been central to discussions in writing scholarship for 30 years, it is not as central in other academic fields. This poster is based on a Masters thesis project which studies genre theory, genre awareness, and professors' curricular choices via interviews with Writing Intensive (WI) faculty and an analysis of WI course syllabi and writing assignments. Overall data reveals that professors are asking students to write primarily for an audience of their professors and that writing is used primarily to measure their students' understanding of course content, though some faculty do focus on genre and rhetorical awareness to a lesser degree. These findings suggest that classroom practices don't align with composition and genre scholarship, nor with the values professors espouse themselves. Further, writing in this way does not prepare students to write in other contexts for other purposes, audiences, and genres.  This poster seeks to raise genre awareness among faculty, so that they might cultivate such an awareness for students. It also recommends faculty consider using genre analysis that recognizes writing as a dynamic social act of negotiation in the classroom.  Further recommendations are made to help faculty raise genre awareness in the ways they situate writing assignments and feedback for students.


The BL-Lac blazar PKS 0447-439 was detected at very high energy gamma-rays by HESS following the discovery by Fermi-LAT. The lack of both emission and absorption lines in BL-Lacs make the estimation of their redshifts very difficult. Modeling the drop in gamma-ray spectra it was possible to have an estimation of redshift for PKS 0447-439 of z approx 0.2, which is compatible with the value z=0.205 reported by the identification of Ca II absorption lines in optical spectra. By the identification of a weak line of Mg II using spectra with average signal-to-noise S/N approx 80, it has been recently reported a lower limit for the redshift of this blazar of z<=1.246. Triggered by this controversy, we have proposed new optical observations with the Gemini South telescope to perform further spectroscopic analysis with very high S/N ratio (approx 200-500). In this work we present a new optical spectrum of PKS 0447-439, and report on the analysis and results of such observations. Even with this significantly high quality signal we were not able to identify any spectral features to allow an estimation of the redshift. In agreement with other recent studies, we identify the Mg II line reported previously as originated in the Earth's atmosphere, and conclude the lower limit of the redshift is incorrect. More interestingly, we could not identify the Ca II absorption lines used to report a redshift of 0.205.


OE4630 D2. Master Offshore and Dredging Engineering. This part of the Offshore Hydromechanics lecture involves the linear theory of calculating 1st order motions of floating structures in waves and all relevant subjects such as the concept of RAOs, response spectra and downtime/workability analysis.


This paper tries to estimate the effects of reforming European agricultural trade policy on poverty in Europe and in the developing world. After setting out a conceptual framework linking trade and poverty, it describes a detailed computable general equilibrium modelling exercise showing the effects on poverty of a possible agreement in the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization. It then conducts a global simulation on European agricultural liberalisation and by comparing it with the Doha simulations infers the poverty effects in the developing world. These are benign but not very large. This does not change the case for reform, however; the Common Agricultural Policy harms trade relations with developing countries and causes poverty in Europe.


Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with low birth weight and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Women are more likely to quit smoking during pregnancy than at any other time in their lives, but some pregnant women continue to smoke. A recent genome-wide association study demonstrated an association between a common polymorphism (rs1051730) in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene cluster (CHRNA5–CHRNA3–CHRNB4) and both smoking quantity and nicotine dependence. We aimed to test whether the same polymorphism that predisposes to greater cigarette consumption would also reduce the likelihood of smoking cessation in pregnancy. We studied 7845 pregnant women of European descent from the South-West of England. Using 2474 women who smoked regularly immediately pre-pregnancy, we analysed the association between the rs1051730 risk allele and both smoking cessation during pregnancy and smoking quantity. Each additional copy of the risk allele was associated with a 1.27-fold higher odds (95% CI 1.11–1.45) of continued smoking during pregnancy (P = 0.0006). Adjustment for pre-pregnancy smoking quantity weakened, but did not remove this association [odds ratio (OR) 1.20 (95% CI 1.03–1.39); P = 0.018]. The same risk allele was also associated with heavier smoking before pregnancy and in the first, but not the last, trimester [OR for smoking 10+ cigarettes/day versus 1–9/day in first trimester = 1.30 (95% CI 1.13–1.50); P = 0.0003]. To conclude, we have found strong evidence of association between the rs1051730 variant and an increased likelihood of continued smoking in pregnancy and have confirmed the previously observed association with smoking quantity. Our data support the role of genetic factors in influencing smoking cessation during pregnancy.


Abstract Design decision-making in infrastructure tenders is a challenging task for contractors due to limited time and resources. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) promises to support contractors in dealing with this challenge. However, the ability of MCDA to ensure decision quality in the specific context of infrastructure tenders has gained little attention. By undertaking a longitudinal case study on early design decisions in a tender for a design-build project in the Netherlands the relationship between MCDA and decision quality is investigated. The case results show that in the early tender phase the decision making very much relies on the experience and knowledge of engineers. If MCDA is inappropriately used in such a context it can create impressions of soundly underpinned evaluations of design options while neglecting uncertainties and leading to low-quality decision. Although MCDA defines the "what" is required for structuring the decision problem, it does not support decision-makers in the "how" to do it. The explicit consideration of decision quality elements in MCDA can support the "how" and can create awareness for decision makers concerning importance, scope and uncertainty of criteria.


The current standard to diagnose Huanglongbing (HLB) for citrus trees is to take samples from midribs of leaves, which are rich in phloem tissues, and apply quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) test to detect 16S rDNA of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the putative causal pathogen. It is extremely difficult to detect CLas in orange juice because of the low CLas population, high pectin concentration, low pH and possible existence of an inhibitor to DNA amplification. The objective of this research was to improve extraction of DNA from orange juice, and detection of CLas by qPCR. Homogenization using a sonicator increased DNA extraction by 86%, and stabilized quantification of 16S rDNA in comparison to mortar and pestle extraction, which showed wide variability of Ct values of 16S rDNA. Orange juice is rich in pectin, which has similar physiochemical features to DNA: soluble in water and precipitates in ethanol/isopropanol solutions. Thus, it is difficult to separate the DNA from pectin. However, DNA was successfully extracted by adding pectinase to hydrolyze the pectin. Without going through an elution column, the amplification of plant and microbial DNA in orange juice samples was inhibited by an unknown compound. Thus application of an elution column successfully eliminated the inhibitor. To eliminate errors caused by different methods of sampling, DNA extraction and qPCR procedures, Ct of a cytochrome oxidase (COX) to represent citrus plant DNA was detected as a reference, and a relative unit, ΔCt16S rDNA-COX was introduced to express the relative CLas population.


Alzheimer's disease is a neurological disorder in which the death of brain cells causes memory loss and cognitive decline. It is a neurodegenerative type of dementia, the disease starts mild and gets progressively worse. Like all types of dementia, Alzheimer's is caused by brain cell death. The most common presentation marking Alzheimer's dementia is where symptoms of memory loss are the most prominent, especially in the area of learning and recalling new information. Alzheimer's disease is not simple to diagnose for which there is no single test. For this reason, the first thing doctors do is to rule out other problems before confirming whether mental signs and symptoms are severe enough to be a kind of dementia or something else. Genetic test is possible in some settings to indicate the likelihood of someone having or developing the disease but this is controversial and not entirely reliable. There are no disease-modifying drugs available for Alzheimer's disease but some options may reduce its symptoms and help improve quality of life. A different kind of drug, namely memantine, an NMDA receptor antagonist, may also be used, alone or in combination with a cholinesterase inhibitor. This review highlights the several reports that attempt to design and synthesis of some classes of selective Alzheimer's disease inhibitors.


A b s t r a c t Density functional theory (DFT) at B3LYP/6-311G* level was employed to calculate antioxidant activity for Trolox[(+)-6Hydroxy-2,5,7,8-tetramethylchromane-2-carboxylic acid] and Substituted Trolox. Bond dissociation energy (BDE), HOMOLUMO Gap energy, O-H charge differences and O-H bond lengths were calculated. The results are shown that the BDE values of substituated Trolox range from about 74 to 79 kcal/mol, demonstrating that Trolox is an effective chain-breaking antioxidant that prevents lipid peroxidation. Also The small value of gap and the distribution of π-like frontier orbital (HOMO and LUMO) delocalized through the whole molecule (Table 3) corroborate that Trolox and substituted Trolox could be a reactive systems.


Purpose. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact the self-study and accreditation process had on the administration and management of selected accredited Michigan public community colleges. The study investigated the following questions: 1. Does accreditation bring about educational improvements? 2. Does accreditation protect the various publics which educational institutions serve? 3. Is accreditation a catalyst for educational change? 4. Does accreditation provide the spark which results in educational services of superior quality? Five categories of possible improvements and/or change which might result from an accreditation process were investigated: goals and objectives of the institution; curriculum, instruction and/or program services of the institution; organizational and administrative policies or practices of the institution; planning and decision-making practices of the institution; and personnel policies and faculty/staff relations of the institution. The population for this study was all of the Michigan community colleges which were accredited or reaccredited in the years 1975-1979. Thirteen of the twenty-nine Michigan public community colleges were included within these parameters. Data Collection and Analysis. The self-study and on-site examining team reports were analyzed to identify recommendations and concerns and sorted into five categories named above. On-site visits were made to each institution where personal interviews were conducted with each college president, chief instructional officer, dean of continuing education, dean of students, and a faculty representative as well as student representatives. The opinions of the interviewees were recorded as to their perceptions concerning (a) the status of the implementation of each recommendation, and (b) the level of influence that the interviewees felt the self-study and accreditation process had on the implementation of the recommendations. A chi square test of significance was used to determine if the influence of the accreditation procedures on the implementation of recommendations was significant or did it occur by chance. A test was performed to determine the direction of influence from maximum to no influence. School size, years of accreditation, and source of recommendations were compared with the degree of implementation. Again, a chi square was used to determine significance. Of the 702 recommendations identified in the self-studies or visiting team reports, almost 80 percent were either partially or totally implemented as perceived by those interviewed. The institutional self-study appeared to be favored as a reasonable evaluation instrument by all educational leaders. Once problem areas were identified, commitment to problem resolution was very high. In relation to influence the accreditation process had on the implementation of recommendations, educational leaders felt an average of only 34 percent was a direct result of maximum or moderate influence. When coupled with the influence which was considered to be slight, the percentage increased to a range of 52 percent as evaluated by faculty to a high of 82 percent as perceived by deans of continuing education. Institutional accreditation was perceived to be important to the students interviewed. Sixty-three percent indicated they would have chosen another institution if their colleges had not been accredited. Conclusions. Educational leaders recognize that the self study process is a valuable mechanism the results of which, if followed, would enhance the quality of instruction and services provided by educational institutions. Educators generally feel that the achievement of regional accreditation indicates an institution does provide credible services and, therefore, does protect the public which they serve. However, it is not a guarantor of educational excellence. There is agreement that only a quality, well-trained, competent faculty with professional integrity supported by a strong administration can produce educational services of superior quality.


Only a single species of stork, the Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus (= Xenorhynchus) asiaticus, occurs in Australia today, and is known from several fossil localities from the Early Pliocene. Two species of smaller fossil storks are also known, one previously named and one described here. The former, found in the Darling Downs, southeastern Queensland, was named Xenorhynchus nanus De Vis, 1888. Some later authors suggested that this species should be transferred to the living genus Ciconia; this decision is confirmed here, the name for this species becoming Ciconia nana. The second species of small stork comes from several Late Oligocene and Early Miocene sites at Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland. This taxon is referred to the genus Ciconia and distinguished as a new species, C. louisebolesae. It constitutes the earliest record of the Ciconiidae from Australia.


An investigation has been carried out into the effect of wind turbulence on the propagation of sound over open grassland both with, and without, a 2.4m high barrier present.
Sound bursts, derived from a variety of original signals, were generated using a horn loudspeaker and the resulting levels were measured using two variably positioned microphones, the further of which was placed at distances of up to 24m from the source. Simultaneous measurements were made of a variety of meteorological parameters. A microcomputer-based system was developed to control the experiments-and store the measured data for subsequent retrieval and analysis.
As one of the approaches adopted in a search for visible evidence of correlation between various acoustical and meteorological parameters, the measured level difference for each sound burst was displayed graphically against the corresponding value of a particular measure of wind turbulence. For many combinations of measurement geometry and acoustic signal type, the data points fell, with a noticeable degree of consistency, within an envelope of characteristic shape. The shape implied that when the instant of transmission of a sound burst coincided with a low value of the measure of local turbulence, the apparent level difference was subject to considerable statistical fluctuation. This was the case both with and without the barrier present. As the turbulence increased, however, the propagating medium appeared to behave as a progressively more uniform and stable one and the observed scatter correspondingly reduced. The origin of this behaviour remains unclear; however the presence of the barrier, it was concluded, did not appear to modify this effect.
1 to 16 laboratory scale model experiments have been carried out to investigate the replication of the above effects and the results are reported.


Purpose: This paper highlights the importance of using data mining in sustaining development in GCC countries by showing the abilities of data mining techniques of enhancing and improving the discovered knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: This paper studies the role of data mining techniques to support the creation of scientific capacity to reduce digital divide and accelerate the process of sustaining development. This will help making predictions about future trends using both historical and current data and allowing decision makers and policy makers to make effective knowledge based policies. Findings: The paper is concluded with the impact of data mining techniques on future development in GCC countries which have been proved based on the cur- rent potential for knowledge creation driven by data mining in the different arenas.


ABSTRACT This essay examines the contributions of four Caribbean theologians to the disciplines of theology and anthropology, and human rights conversations. Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Haiti), Idris Hamid (Trinidad), Noel Leo Erskine (Jamaica), and D.H. Kortright Davis (Antigua and Barbuda) articulate a common vision of a Caribbean theology of emancipation and decolonization. Arguably, their political theological discourse is an attempt to engage the Caribbean experience within the framework of the postcolonial life and anti-imperial reason. There exist substantial convergences and confluences, as well as ideological parallels and connections in the political theology and contextual theology of freedom and hope in the work of these four thinkers who emerged from four different geographical corners of the Caribbean. Finally, we will make some connections to the revolutionary ideas and political theology of Fidel Castro. Caribbean theology of emancipation, decolonization, and hope emerges out of the labyrinth of European slavery and colonialism, American imperialism, White supremacy, and globalization.


The purpose of this paper (MIF/GN-78-14) is to evaluate a set of projects in the MIF's "Market Functioning" portfolio, which includes 12 projects for a total MIF contribution of US$7.6 million. The MIF projects analyzed here concentrated on four areas of vital importance to the development of the private sector and competitiveness: (i) the quality of the oversight agencies responsible for safeguarding competition in markets; (ii) protection of consumer rights; (iii) the conditions required to protect intellectual property rights; and (iv) rules and mechanisms governing private sector participation in government procurement. The portfolio comprised three competition operations, three consumer protection projects, two combined competition and consumer rights) operations, three government procurement operations, and one intellectual property operation.


ABSTRACT The largest outbreak on record of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) occurred in Uganda from August 2000 to January 2001. The outbreak was centered in the Gulu district of northern Uganda, with secondary transmission to other districts. After the initial diagnosis of Sudan ebolavirus by the National Institute for Virology in Johannesburg, South Africa, a temporary diagnostic laboratory was established within the Gulu district at St. Mary's Lacor Hospital. The laboratory used antigen capture and reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) to diagnose Sudan ebolavirus infection in suspect patients. The RT-PCR and antigen-capture diagnostic assays proved very effective for detecting ebolavirus in patient serum, plasma, and whole blood. In samples collected very early in the course of infection, the RT-PCR assay could detect ebolavirus 24 to 48 h prior to detection by antigen capture. More than 1,000 blood samples were collected, with multiple samples obtained from many patients throughout the course of infection. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR was used to determine the viral load in multiple samples from patients with fatal and nonfatal cases, and these data were correlated with the disease outcome. RNA copy levels in patients who died averaged 2 log10 higher than those in patients who survived. Using clinical material from multiple EHF patients, we sequenced the variable region of the glycoprotein. This Sudan ebolavirus strain was not derived from either the earlier Boniface (1976) or Maleo (1979) strain, but it shares a common ancestor with both. Furthermore, both sequence and epidemiologic data are consistent with the outbreak having originated from a single introduction into the human population.


New oral anticoagulant agents continue to emerge on the market and their safety requires assessment to provide evidence of their suitability for clinical use. There-fore, we searched standard databases to summarize the English language literature on medicine-related problems (MRPs) of direct oral anticoagulants DOACs (dabigtran, rivaroxban, apixban, and edoxban) in the treatment of adults with atri-al fibrillation. Electronic databases including Medline, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstract (IPA), Scopus, CINAHL, the Web of Science and Cochrane were searched from 2008 through 2016 for original articles. Studies pub-lished in English reporting MRPs of DOACs in adult patients with AF were in-cluded. Seventeen studies were identified using standardized protocols, and two reviewers serially abstracted data from each article. Most articles were inconclusive on major safety end points including major bleeding. Data on major safety end points were combined with efficacy. Most studies inconsistently reported adverse drug reactions and not adverse events or medication error, and no definitions were consistent across studies. Some harmful drug effects were not assessed in studies and may have been overlooked. Little evidence is provided on MRPs of DOACs in patients with AF and, therefore, further studies are needed to establish the safety of DOACs in real-life clinical practice.


The end of the cold war has changed world order in terms of the distribution and structure of power in international system. Following the growth of regional powers and international system's shifting from bipolarity to multipolarity, regional powers, undertaking key tasks in the crisis management, are likely to play an active and determining role in new world order and change world management trends with a view to securing their region as well as their own interests. According to this article, the end of the cold war between the East and West and transition to multipolar structure has carried opportunities for the newly emerging regional powers as regards the enhancement of the their capabilities in the management and establishment of regional order as well as entrance to the global decision-making structures. This article reviews the nature of regional powers, their reasons to support regionalism, and the role of the regional order in re-defining the world order.


Virtual reality technologies are considered to be a basis and a promising development trend of telecommunication systems' and services. New opportunities and sci-tech problems that need to be solved are currently undergoing analysis. In the nearest future, the possibility of creating a new segment in the international telecommunication services market that is oriented towards providing communication services to the mass consumer and the entertainment industry, new tools for goods promotion and education content delivery, as well as toward solving experimental problems in managing state structures and social economical systems, is being justified. Within the context of studying the necessary prerequisites to implementing this opportunity the following is being done: an approach to creating and charging for according telecommunication services is being given, opportunities for using the existing national and international cellular connection infrastructure is researched; the prospects of shifting towards new cellular network standards of the fifth generation are being analyzed, employing new ways of connecting to the Internet, as well as new formats of transmitting and processing multimedia, including the provision of immersion in the virtual reality environment; safety aspects of end-user equipment and VR-based telecommunication service exploitation are being updated. As a result of consolidating the given material, the authors are working on building grounds for the rapid development in this direction of telecommunication services and options provided by the Russian national and transnational cellular network operators. The paper was created as part of the project 2.7178.2017/БЧ "Researching Cognitive Semiotics in the Multimedia Virtual Reality Environment".


Abstract RNA structures are hierarchically organized. The secondary structure is articulated around sophisticated local three-dimensional (3D) motifs shaping the full 3D architecture of the molecule. Recent contributions have identified and organized recurrent local 3D motifs, but applications of this knowledge for predictive purposes is still in its infancy. We recently developed a computational framework, named RNA-MoIP, to reconcile RNA secondary structure and local 3D motif information available in databases. In this paper, we introduce a web service using our software for predicting RNA hybrid 2D–3D structures from sequence data only. Optionally, it can be used for (i) local 3D motif prediction or (ii) the refinement of user-defined secondary structures. Importantly, our web server automatically generates a script for the MC-Sym software, which can be immediately used to quickly predict all-atom RNA 3D models. The web server is available at http://rnamoip.cs.mcgill.ca.


A multibasic cleavage site (MBCS) in the haemagglutinin (HA) protein of influenza A virus is a key determinant of pathogenicity in chickens, and distinguishes highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses from low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAI). An MBCS has only been detected in viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes. Here we investigated the phenotype of a human H3N2 virus with an MBCS in HA. Insertion of an MBCS in the H3N2 virus resulted in cleavage of HA and efficient replication in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells in the absence of exogenous trypsin in vitro, similar to HPAI H5N1 virus. However, studies in ferrets demonstrated that insertion of the MBCS into HA did not result in increased virus shedding, cellular host range, systemic replication or pathogenicity, as compared with wild-type virus. This study indicates that acquisition of an MBCS alone is insufficient to increase pathogenicity of a prototypical seasonal human H3N2 virus.


Seven years of carbon dioxide flux measurements indicate that a approximaely 90-year-old spruce dominated forest in Maine, USA, has been sequestering 174±46 g C m-2 yr-1 (mean±1 standard deviation, nocturnal friction velocity (u*) threshold >0.25 m s-1). An analysis of monthly flux anomalies showed that above-average spring and fall temperatures were significantly correlated with greater monthly C uptake while above-average summer temperatures were correlated with decreased net C uptake. Summer months with significantly drier or wetter soils than normal were also characterized by lower rates of C uptake. Years with above-average C storage were thus typically characterized by warmer than average spring and fall temperatures and adequate summer soil moisture. Environmental and forest-atmosphere flux data recorded from a second tower surrounded by similar forest, but sufficiently distant that flux source regions ('footprints'), did not overlap significantly showed almost identical temperature and solar radiation conditions, but some differences in energy partitioning could be seen. Half-hourly as well as integrated (annual) C exchange values recorded at the separate towers were very similar, with average annual net C uptake differing between the two towers by <6%. Interannual variability in net C exchange was found to be much greater than between tower variability. Simultaneous measurements from two towers were used to estimate flux data uncertainty from a single tower. Carbon-flux model parameters derived independently from each flux tower data set were not significantly different, demonstrating that flux towers can provide a robust method for establishing C exchange model parameters.


The aim of this research was to develop a scale that could evaluate an individuals confidence in using the Internet. Web-based resources are becoming increasingly important within higher education and it is therefore vital that students and staff feel confident and competent in the access, provision, and utilisation of these resources. The scale developed here represents an extension of previous research (Cassidy & Eachus, 2002) that developed a measure of self-efficacy in the context of computer use. An iterative approach was used in the development of the Web User Self-Efficacy scale (WUSE) and the participants were recruited from the student body of a large University
in the North West of the United Kingdom, and globally via a web site set up for this purpose. Initial findings suggest that the scale has acceptable standards of reliability and validity though work is continuing to refine the scale and improve the psychometric properties of the tool.


The objective of this paper is to develop a taguchi optimization method for low surface roughness in terms of process parameters when turning the EN-353 steel on conventional lathe machine. Considering the process parameters as Depth of cut, Feed, Spindle Speed, Rake Angle & Pressurized Coolant Jet, a series of turning experiments were performed to measure surface roughness data. Taguchi orthogonal arrays, signal-to-noise(S/N) ratio, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are used to find the optimal levels and the effect of the process parameters on surface roughness. Confirmation experiment with the optimal levels of process parameters was carried out in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the taguchi method. It can be concluded that Taguchi method is very suitable in solving the surface quality problem of turned work pieces.


Abstract. Algeria is a vast country with three climatic types and different water resources. These resources are limited especially in the climatic zone two where most staple crops (e.g. wheat) are cultivated. To manage these water resources efficiently, traditional irrigation systems should be replaced by those based on advanced technological techniques. This paper introduces an irrigation system prototype constructed at the department of Electrical Engineering, University of Setif in Algeria. This prototype allows the control of the amount of water dispensed to the plant according to its soil moisture. The circuit was built around an Arduino microcontroller. A program was developed and burned into the microcontroller which was able to sense the amount of the moisture in the plant soil through a moisture sensor. According to this moisture quantity, the microcontroller is to take decision to on or off a small pump for an optimum time and flow speed. The pump was driven by a direct current motor which was controlled by a pulse width modulation dc chopper. The system is enhanced by a liquid crystal display to inform the operator about the moisture percentage, status of the pump and its speed.


This articles seeks reasons to explain the unusually high number of historical programs, particularly about the history of Catalonia, in the mass media. It attempts to demonstrate that there are specific periods of history which awaken additional interest on the part of the public in their historical past, in accordance with a specific political, socio-economic and cultural conjunction. This essay establishes a certain parallel between the near-unanimous public desire to know the true history of Catalonia and Spain during the so-called political Transition and the recent change of century, with a new statutory process taking place and a new left-wing coalition government. The author argues that recent programs on radio and television have been well done with enormous creative and distribution potential, and establishes a typological identification of the different historical programs on radio and television.


There is a link between the socio-economic outcomes of parents and their children over the life course. Intergenerational transmissions were repeatedly shown for socioeconomic characteristics and (dis)advantage, but recently also for residential neighbourhood status. Previous research from the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US shows that children from disadvantaged parental neighbourhoods experience long-term exposure to similar neighbourhoods as adults. However, there are multiple parallel socio-spatial contexts besides the residential space to which individuals are exposed on a daily basis, such as households, schools, and places of work and leisure, which may also influence their outcomes. For children and adolescents, the school environment may be especially important. This study contributes to the literature by examining the joint influence of the parental background, the parental neighbourhood, and a compositional measure of the school environment, on the neighbourhood trajectories of Dutch adolescents after leaving the parental home. We use longitudinal register data from the Netherlands to study a complete cohort of school-going home-leavers, who were followed from 1999 to 2012. We fit cross-classified multilevel models, in order to split up the variance components of schools and parental residential neighbourhoods over time. We find that poverty concentration in the parental neighbourhood plays an important role in determining their children's residential outcomes later in life. Some variation in individual neighbourhood outcomes at the level of the secondary school remains unexplained.


Drug hypersensitivity reactions (DHRs) are common, and the skin is by far the most frequently involved organ with a broad spectrum of reaction types. The diagnosis of cutaneous DHRs (CDHR ) may be difficult because of multiple differential diagnoses. A correct classification is important for the correct diagnosis and management. With these guidelines, we aim to give precise definitions and provide the background needed for doctors to correctly classify CDHR .


Conventional AC power meters perform at least two distinct functions: power conversion, to supply the meter itself, and energy metering, to measure the load consumption. This paper presents Monjolo, a new energy-metering architecture that combines these two functions to yield a new design point in the metering space. The key insight underlying this work is that the output of a current transformer -- nominally used to measure a load current -- can be harvested and used to intermittently power a wireless sensor node. The hypothesis is that the node's activation frequency increases monotonically with the primary load's draw, making it possible to estimate load power from the interval between activations, assuming the node consumes a fixed energy quanta during each activation. This paper explores this thesis by designing, implementing, and evaluating the Monjolo metering architecture. The results demonstrate that it is possible to build a meter that draws zero-power under zero-load conditions, offers high accuracy for near-unity power factor loads, works with non-unity power factor loads in combination with a whole-house meter, wirelessly reports readings to a data aggregator, is resilient to communication failures, and is parsimonious with the radio channel, even under heavy loads. Monjolo eliminates the high-voltage AC-DC power supply and AC metering circuitry present in earlier designs, enabling a smaller, simpler, safer, and lower-cost design point that supports novel deployment scenarios like non-intrusive circuit-level metering.


A library may procure contents in various sources and forms to serve their clients, particularly in the higher education and research institutes in the developed world to satisfy their urge for vital contents that inspire indigenous research. Libraries and information centres must take adequate measures to save their collection from natural or man-made hazards. To have a strong disaster management commitment for libraries and information centres, the role of digital information is most important. This paper begins with an understanding of disaster – the meaning, types and its groups- and then seeks to identify parameters to design and develop a successful disaster management plan, cited examples with images, provided various sources for digital information to mitigate it. For heralding better tomorrow, a concerted effort is needed in this regard. Bangladesh Journal of Library and Information Science Vol.2(1) July 2012 pp.12-21 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjlis.v2i1.12915


The cultural construction of Roman Catholicism in England shifted in the middle decades of the nineteenth century from being constituted as a series of acts to being understood as a subjectivity experienced as authentic interiority. Even as various British Victorian figures, for example John Henry Newman, engaged in particular ways with both nonmajoritarian religious and sexual identities, Catholicism thus prefigures the admittedly uneven consolidations of sexuality that Michel Foucault has identified in the last third of the century. Thus an understanding of religious history is central to a history of sexuality.


Blind equalizers are widely used in wireless communications for minimizing Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). The Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) is one of the popular blind equalizers used in broad band applications. This master's thesis investigates the Steepest Descent Constant Modulus Algorithm (SDCMA) i.e. CMA (1, 2) and CMA (2, 2), and the Least Square Constant Modulus Algorithm (LSCMA) in the time domain and frequency domain. A Fractionally Spaced Equalizer (FSE) compares them using convergence and Bit Error Rate (BER) vs. Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The second part of the thesis compares the performance of WiMax OFDM PHY (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Physical layer) and Single Carrier LTE (Long Term Evolution) uplink PHY using FD-SDCMA (Frequency Domain-SDCMA) and FD-LSCMA (Frequency Domain- LSCMA). WiMax and Single Carrier LTE uplink are compared using BER vs. SNR. All simulations are done in MATLAB.


In the northern Davis Strait to southernmost Baffin Bay area, offshore West Greenland, deep basins with Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary successions occur and a number of large structures and closures at likely reservoir levels have been found. Mid-Cretaceous, Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene sand-rich deposits are well known onshore east of the study area and in offshore wells, and equivalent deposits may also be present in the structures. Some of the potential structural leads have thick seals of late Cretaceous–Cenozoic deposits and short distances to deep possible kitchens with mid-Cretaceous and Paleocene source rocks, which mainly came into the oil window during the Neogene. Onshore oil seeps and gas shows, together with amplitude anomalies from seismic data, such as possible bright spots, support a live petroleum system in the region. During Early to mid-Cretaceous time a number of large structures and basins formed as a result of extensional faulting, including the Kangerluk Structure, the Aasiaat Structural Trend, structures in the Aasiaat and Sisimiut basins, and in the Nagssugtôq Sub-basin. A period with less tectonic activity followed in the Late Cretaceous, with deposition of thick, basinal mudstone-dominated successions. In the Late Cretaceous to Early Paleocene renewed tectonic activity caused uplift and faulting of large structures, such as the Davis Strait High and partly the Kangerluk Structure. Late Paleocene to Early Eocene strike-slip movements created thrust faults and compressional structures, mainly in the Ikermiut Fault Zone, associated with formation of the Ikermiut Basin. During the Paleocene and mainly the Early Eocene the >200 km long Ilulissat Graben developed. Paleocene and Eocene basalts occur west of Disko and Nuussuaq and narrow in distribution further south. The basalt cover offshore may be more limited than believed earlier. The area was offered for licensing in two periods from 2006 to early 2008.


This paper argues that popular healthcare practice in urban South Africa bears little resemblance to the essentialized descriptions of 'Traditional African Medicine' (TAM) that abound in the literature. It defines several key transitions that have occurred in African medicine, outlining how it can be re-formed on another basis which better matches both the pluralistic-syncretistic logic of current medical practices and the less deferential 'spirit' of those enacting them. We present the search for 'embedded innovation' formulated with Procter & Gamble as a recommended approach for cross-cultural product development (in healthcare and more generally).


Blood circulation is the main distribution route for systemic delivery and the possibility to manipulate red blood cells (RBCs) by attaching nanoparticles to their surface provides a great opportunity for cargo delivery into tissues. Nanocarriers attached to RBCs can be delivered to specific organs orders of magnitude faster than if injected directly into the bloodstream. Another advantage is a shielding from recognition by the immune system, thereby increasing the efficiency of delivery. We present a high-throughput microfluidic method that can monitor the shape of drifting cells due to interactions with nanoparticles and characterize the 3D dispersion of fluorescent silica nanoparticles at the surface of RBCs. The combination of fluorescence microscopy with image analysis demonstrates that the adsorption of silica nanoparticles onto the surface of RBCs is strongly influenced by electrostatic interactions. A reduced number of intact RBCs with increasing nanoparticle concentration beyond a certain threshold points to a toxicity mechanism associated with the nanoparticle adsorption at the surface of RBCs.


Advances in digital electronics over the last decade have made computers faster, cheaper and smaller. This coupled with the revolution in communication technology has led to the development of sophisticated networked appliances and handheld devices. "Computers" are no longer boxes sitting on a desk, they are all around us, embedded in every nook and corner of our environment. This increasing complexity in our environment leads to the desire to design a system that could allow this pervasive functionality to disappear in the infrastructure, automatically carrying out everyday tasks of the users. Such a system would enable devices embedded in the environment to cooperate with one another to make a wide range of new and useful applications possible, not originally conceived by the manufacturer, to achieve greater functionality, flexibility and utility. The compelling question then becomes "what software needs to be embedded in these devices to enable them to participate in such a ubiquitous system"? This is the question addressed by the dissertation. Based on the experience with home automation systems, as part of the AutoHAN project, the dissertation presents two compatible but different architectures; one to enable dumb devices to be controlled by the system and the other to enable intelligent devices to control, extend and program the system. Control commands for dumb devices are managed using an HTTP-based publish/subscribe/notify architecture; devices publish their control commands to the system as XML-typed discrete messages, applications discover and subscribe interest in these events to send and receive control commands from these devices, as typed messages, to control their behavior. The architecture handles mobility and failure of devices by using soft-state, redundent subscriptions and "care-of" nodes. The system is programmed with event scripts that encode automation rules as condition-action bindings. Finally, the use of XML and HTTP allows devices to be controlled by a simple Internet browser. While the publish/subscribe/notify defines a simple architecture to enable interoperability of limited capability devices, intelligent devices can afford more complexity that can be utilized to support user applications and services to control, manage and program the system. However, the operating system embedded in these devices needs to address the heterogeneity, longevity, mobility and dynamism of the system. The dissertation presents the architecture of an embedded distributed operating system that lends itself to safe context-driven adaptation. The operating system is instrumented with four artifacts to address the challenges posed by a ubiquitous system. 1) An XML-based directory service captures and notifies the applications and services about changes in the device context, as resources move, fail, leave or join the system, to allow context-driven adaptation. 2) A Java-based mobile agent system allows new software to be injected in the system and moved and replicated with the changing characteristics of the system to define a self-organizing system 3) A subscribe/notify interface allows context-specific extensions to be dynamically added to the operating system to enable it to efficiently interoperate in its current context according to application requirements. 4) Finally, a Dispatcher module serves as the context-aware system call interface for the operating system; when requested to invoke a service, the Dispatcher invokes the resource that best satisfies the requirements given the characteristics of the system. Definition alone is not sufficient to prove the validity of an architecture. The dissertation therefore describes a prototype implementation of the operating system and presents both a quantitative comparison of its performance with related systems and its qualitative merit by describing new applications made possible by its novel architecture.


Abstract Short-tailed pythons, Python curtus species group, occur predominantly in the Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo. The discovery of an adult female in Mon State, Myanmar, led to a review of the distribution of all group members (spot-mapping of all localities of confirmed occurrence) and an examination of morphological variation in P. brongersmai. The resulting maps demonstrate a limited occurrence of these pythons within peninsular Malaya, Sumatra, and Borneo with broad absences in these regions. Our small samples limit the recognition of regional differentiation in the morphology of P. brongersmai populations; however, the presence of unique traits in the Myanmar python and its strong allopatry indicate that it is a unique genetic lineage, and it is described as Python kyaiktiyo new species.


Having learnt the basic moves, how exactly should a player improve? In this much loved classic, Irving Chernev explains 33 complete games in detail, telling the reader the reason for every single move. Playing through these games and explanations gives a real insight into the power of the pieces and how to post them most effectively.


The initial appearance of the planktonic foraminiferal genus Hantkenina has been used for about fifty years to recognize the base of the Lutetian and middle Eocene. However, probably as a result of incomplete stratigraphic records, discrepant ranges of Hantkenina have been reported by various investigators at many Eocene sections. Here we report the first complete evolutionary transition from Clavigerinella to Hantkenina , from the northwestern Tethyan deep-water section at Holzhausl (Salzburg, Austria). A newly discovered species, Hantkenina nov. sp., is the link between Clavigerinella caucasica and Hantkenina mexicana . This finding unequivocally heralds the initial entry of Hantkenina , which is correlated to the upper part of calcareous nannoplankton Subzone NP15b ( Sullivania gigas Subzone), to be defined. This indicates a mismatch of ∼4.5 m.y. between the base of the Lutetian at the type locality, which has been placed within Subzone NP14b, and the first appearance datum of Hantkenina . Consequently, the first occurrence of Hantkenina can no longer be used as a marker for the base of the middle Eocene.


This paper investigates whether and at what extent private firms reduce the quality of their accruals in order to signal a better portrait to the bank and obtain new or larger bank loans. We measure earnings discretionary accruals of a sample of Italian private firms, testing whether new and larger bank loans are associated with a higher (lower) quality of earnings in borrowers' financial reporting. We study bank loan levels and changes and how they impact discretionary accruals and found that, surprisingly, private firms' discretionary accruals are systematically positively affected by an increase in bank loans, although they are negatively affected by the credit worthiness rating assigned to the borrowers. We find that the monitoring role of the banking system with regard to the adoption of discretionary accruals is effective only when the loan is very large. This paper may have implications for policy-makers as it contributes to the understanding of the shortcomings of the banking regulatory system. This is an extremely relevant issue since the excessive amount of non-performing loans held by Italian banks recently threatened the stability of the European Banking Union as a whole.


Conflicting results have recently emerged from human provocation studies that addressed the possible health hazards of radio frequency (RF) field exposure from mobile phones. Different findings may have resulted from exposures that are poorly defined and difficult to compare. The aim of this study was to develop guidelines to facilitate the development of exposure systems for human volunteer studies which lead to reproducible results and which provide maximum relevance with respect to the assessment of the safety of mobile technology. The most important exposure parameters are discussed such as the signal, field distribution, and field strength, as well as the minimum requirements for the setup and dosimetry. Bioelectromagnetics 25:524–529, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The mathematical content knowledge (MCK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of primary and elementary teachers at all levels of experience is under scrutiny. This article suggests that content knowledge and the way in which it is linked to effective pedagogies would be greatly enhanced by viewing mathematical content from the perspective of the 'big ideas' of mathematics, especially of number. This would enable teachers to make use of the many connections and links within and between such 'big ideas' and to make them explicit to children. Many teachers view the content they have to teach in terms of what curriculum documents define as being applicable to the particular year level being taught. This article suggests that a broader view of content is needed as well as a greater awareness of how concepts are built in preceding and succeeding year levels. A 'big ideas' focus would also better enable teachers to deal with the demands of what are perceived to be crowded mathematics curricula. The article investigates four 'big ideas' of number – trusting the count, place value, multiplicative thinking, and multiplicative partitioning – and examines the 'microcontent' that contributes to their development


OBJECTIVE The use of cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) in spinal practice is controversial. This may be explained by the lack of studies with a large sample size and long-term outcomes. With this survey the authors aimed to evaluate the opinions of spine surgeons on the use of CDA in the current treatment of cervical disc herniation (CDH). METHODS A web-based survey was sent to all members of AOSpine International by email using SurveyMonkey on July 18, 2016. A single reminder was sent on August 18, 2016. Questions included geographic location; specialty; associated practice model; number of discectomies performed annually; the use of CDA, anterior cervical discectomy (ACD), and anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF); and the expectations for clinical outcomes of these procedures. RESULTS A total of 383 questionnaires were analyzed. Almost all practitioners (97.9%) were male, with a mean of 15.0 ± 9.7 years of clinical experience. The majority of responders were orthopedic surgeons (54.6%). 84.3% performed ACDF as the standard technique for CDH. 47.8% of the surgeons occasionally used CDA, whereas 7.3% used CDA as standard approach for CDH. The most common arthroplasty device used was the ProDisc-C. Low evidence for benefits and higher costs were the most important reasons for not offering CDA. The risk of adjacent-level disease was considered smaller for CDA as compared with ACDF. However, ACDF was expected to have the highest effectiveness on arm pain (87.5%), followed by CDA (77.9%), while ACD had the least (12.6%). CONCLUSIONS In this survey, CDA was not considered to be the routine procedure to treat CDH. Reported benefits included the reduced risk of adjacent-level disease and preservation of motion of the neck. Lack of enough evidence on its effectiveness as well as higher costs were considered to be disadvantages of CDA. More research should be conducted on the implementation impact of CDA and the cost-effectiveness from society's perspective.


A qualitative representation of the potential for aquifer recharge for Ocean County, NJ built upon the combination of ground-water recharge value rankings and well-yield-based aquifer rankings.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to test the structure and endorsement of drinking motives and their links to alcohol use among 11- to 19-year-olds from 13 European countries.

METHOD
Confirmatory factor analysis, latent growth curves, and multiple regression models were conducted, based on a sample of 33,813 alcohol-using students from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Wales who completed the Drinking Motives Questionnaire Revised Short Form (DMQ-R SF).

RESULTS
The findings confirmed the hypothesized fourdimensional factor structure. Social motives for drinking were most frequently indicated, followed by enhancement, coping, and conformity motives, in that order, in all age groups in all countries except Finland. This rank order was clearest among older adolescents and those from northern European countries. The results confirmed that, across countries, social motives were strongly positively related to drinking frequency, enhancement motives were strongly positively related to frequency of drunkenness, and conformity motives were negatively related to both alcohol outcomes. Against our expectations, social motives were more closely related to drunkenness than were coping motives, particularly among younger adolescents.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings reveal striking cross-cultural consistency. Health promotion efforts that are based on, or incorporate, drinking motives are likely to be applicable across Europe. As social motives were particularly closely linked to drunkenness among young adolescents, measures to impede the modeling of alcohol use and skills to resist peer pressure are particularly important in this age group.


Using a first-principles approach, we analyze the impact of \textit{DX} centers formed by S, Se, and Te dopant atoms on the thermal conductivity of GaAs. Our results are in good agreement with experiments and unveil the physics behind the drastically different effect of each kind of defect. We establish a causal chain linking the electronic structure of the dopants to the thermal conductivity of the bulk solid, a macroscopic transport coefficient. Specifically, the presence of lone pairs leads to the formation of structurally asymmetric \textit{DX} centers that cause resonant scattering of incident phonons. The effect of such resonances is magnified when they affect the part of the spectrum most relevant for thermal transport. We show that these resonances are associated with localized vibrational modes in the perturbed phonon spectrum. Finally, we illustrate the connection between flat adjacent minima in the energy landscape and resonant phonon scattering through detailed analyses of the energy landscape of the defective structures.


Compressing neural networks by pruning weights with small magnitudes can significantly reduce the computation and storage cost. Although pruning makes the model smaller, it is difficult to get practical speedup in modern computing platforms such as CPU and GPU due to the irregularity. Structural pruning has attract a lot of research interest to make sparsity hardware-friendly. Increasing the sparsity granularity can lead to better hardware utilization, but it will compromise the sparsity for maintaining accuracy. In this work, we propose a novel method, TETRIS, to achieve both better hardware utilization and higher sparsity. Just like a tile-matching game, we cluster the irregularly distributed weights with small value into structured groups by reordering the input/output dimension and structurally prune them. Results show that it can achieve comparable sparsity with the irregular element-wise pruning and demonstrate negligible accuracy loss. The experiments also shows ideal speedup, which is proportional to the sparsity, on GPU platforms. Our proposed method provides a new solution toward algorithm and architecture co-optimization for accuracy-efficiency trade-off.


Introduction: Escherichia coli (E.coli) as a main cause of both nosocomial and communityacquired infections in humans have a relative potential to develop resistance. Nowadays, most infections caused by ESBL-producing E.coli (ESBLEC) had mostly been described as nosocomial acquired or nursing home related. In this study, we employed E-test assay to detect antibiotic resistance of E.coli strains and determine MIC of antibiotics. Materials and methods: Thirty E.coli strains gathered from Imam Khomeini hospital of Ilam, and cultured on TSB and bacterial suspension prepared by 0.5 μF concentration for Etest. Mueller Hinton agar and E-test strips of Amikacin, Cefepime, Ceftazidime, Ceftriaxone, Gentamicin, Meropenem, Nitrofurantoin, Piperacillin/Tazobactam, Tetracycline, Ticarcillin/ Clavulanic acid, Tobramycin, Trimethoprim were used Results: Resistance to Ceftriaxone, Tobramycin, Gentamicin, Ticarcillin/ Clavulanic, Amikacin were 19.8%, 26.4%, 23.3%, 62.7%, 70.3%, respectively. Conclusion: the results indicated, E.coli strains in this study were high sensitivity to Meropenem ,Nitrofuratoin, Ciprofloxacin , Ceftazidime, Cefepime.


An unexpected growth of slum settlement has been happening in most of Indonesian cities. "Kampung Braga" is one of the slum areas located in one of strategic areas in the centre of Bandung city. It is an enclave that lies along the side of Cikapundung river and surrounded by the tourism area. This research analyzed characteristics and untidiness level of "Kampung Braga". The untidiness level assessment was based on dimensions (aspects) stated by Minister of Public Works and Housing's Regulation no. 02/PRT/M/2016 regarding housing and slum area quality development: (1) building; (2) surrounding road; (3) water; (4) drainage; (5) waste management; (6) trash management; and (7) fire security. This research also formulated composite index that can be used in area quality assessment. The index consists of the following aspects or indicators: (1) The buildings' density; (2) people's density per lot; (3) availability of infrastructures and utilities; (4) availability of open public space; (5) inexpediency to area's spatial planning; and (6) lot's ownership. The index was determined or calculated based on weighted average of those indicators. The results show that(1) most of the residents are small (low scale) entrepreneurs in trading, with low level of education and income; (2)most of the buildings are under 45 m2, occupied by 8 people (mostly consists of 2 households), lie on high density location, and in improper condition; (3) Low level infrastructures (road, water, waste treatment facility, drainage, and green area); and (4)spatially, the buildings lie irrelarly, and some of those are also located at the bank of Cikapundung river. The overall condition is also reflected in the result of the quantitative assessment that the quality of "Kampung Braga" is categorized as "Very Low" which score of 0.25 (0.00 – 1.00 scale), and "Very High Slum" (score 88). Therefore, "Kampung Braga" needs to be transformed in order to enhance quality of the area, as well as people's quality of life.


This article compares the industrial relations systems in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany with the aim of exploring the approach to remedies and sanctions in order to find out whether national remedies and sanctions for unlawful industrial action could also be applicable to situations of 'unlawful Collective Action under EU law'. In our opinion, it is crucial for such a comparison to focus not just on the legal remedies at hand in the national legal context, but also to take into account the context of industrial relations in which they function. A comparative study of sanctions and remedies in the Nordic countries and Germany opens up a spectrum of rather complicated rules that have been fine-tuned in legal practice at national level over several decades, including rules on defining lawful collective action, mediation, and interim injunctions. The legislator and the courts have built national systems that are based on an acceptance of Collective Action as a legitimate tool for trade unions, a tool that is not allowed to be misused and that has been developed to support and fit into the national industrial relations system and traditions of collective bargaining. The starting point is that unlawful Collective Action should be subject to economic sanctions, but these sanctions should not endanger continued contractual relations between the labour market parties. Economic sanctions are not primarily calculated on the basis of economic loss on the part of the employers, but many factors are taken into account, such as the size of the trade union as well as any mitigating and aggravating factors in accordance with national law and practice. These aspects should be taken into account also in cases of 'EU-unlawful' collective action.


The paper will describe trade contacts between China and Borneo and then examine three consequences for the indigenous societies of Borneo. The first is the manner in which the trade items became incorporated into some of the indigenous societies as prestige property, and the second the means by which a symbiotic relationship was established in the northern part of Sarawak between the hunter-gatherer collectors of jungle produce and the farming societies which traded with the Chinese. The hunter-gatherers rarely met the Chinese themselves, they exchanged their jungle products with the settled societies for sait, tobacco and cloth. The two types of society maintained a long term association, in which each accepted the autonomy of the other, but where there was no marked tendency for the hunter-gatherers to adopt farming. The third aspect to be considered is the part played by this trade in the process whereby another group, the /ban did adopt farming.


The long-lasting training in medicine (more than 10 years) is still an attraction for many excellent students. Most of the evaluation forms during this training are based on theoretical and practical skills. However, could we be sure that the organizational climate provides the most appropriate environment for study and career development? We did a survey on 22 young doctors, residents in public health and management and/or epidemiology aiming at evaluating the personal management style and the management style within the organization (Adizes questionnaires: "Personal Test" and "Task Demands"). The management styles described by Adizes Producer – Administrator – Entrepreneur – Integrator and their expression as primary or secondary style were analyzed. We found that the young residents generally have a powerful expression of producer and entrepreneur as personal style, but they tend to become administrators within the organization, mostly during their first years of training.


Jaguar and Land Rover are two British premium automobile brands that were acquired by Indian car maker Tata Motors from Ford in the year 2008 for $2.3 billion. Literatures, in the past, have discussed several mergers and acquisition cases from the automobile industry. Although, being one of the largest & successful acquisitions in the industry, this acquisition has not received scholarly attention. What make the acquisition more interesting is the fact that Tata being an Indian low-cost car manufacturer attains success in handling a premiere brands like Jaguar Land Rover, while Ford in spite of its huge experience and size in the industry, failed to live up to the expectation.Since the acquisition has taken place, sales and profits of Jaguar Land Rover have seen a tremendous growth. In 2014, financial experts estimated that the valuation of Jaguar Land Rover increased from $2.3 billion to $14 billion in just 5 years. This paper aims to identify the various factors behind Tata-Jaguar Land Rover's success story by comparing the post-acquisition strategies adopted by the two owners, Ford and Tata and thus, create the opportunity for the following research question:RQ1. What are the reasons behind Jaguar Land Rover's success under Tata's leadership?As Tata is a low cost car manufacturer and Jaguar Land Rover is a premium car maker, literature suggest some major challenges for maintaining the brand image of luxury products after change of such ownerships. In Tata-Jaguar Land Rover case, maintaining the 'Country of origin, manufacturing and design' status was found to be a serious challenge for Jaguar Land Rover. This research aims to identify the branding hurdles for Jaguar Land Rover after the change of ownership from Ford to Tata with the help of the following research question:RQ2. How has Jaguar Land Rover managed the brand image of "Premium British Brands'' after the acquisition despite the new owner being a low cost car maker from India?This paper uses qualitative study primarily based on ten interviews with top management portfolio holders from Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata as well as industry experts to study the differences in post-acquisition strategies adopted by the two owners. The preliminary findings show that market expansion and increased R&D investments are the major drivers behind the success of the Tata's acquisition. The study reveals that Ford used organizational integration strategies, which limited the quality of decision making of Jaguar Land Rover management team. On the other hand, Tata has implemented "Separation strategy" and empowered decentralized decision making to Jaguar Land Rover's managers. That has allowed Jaguar Land Rover to reinvest their profits in technology development and promotion of their brand image. In addition to increased investments and separation strategy, both Jaguar Land Rover and Tata have adopted effective pre and post acquisition communication strategies to develop trust among the internal and external stakeholders, which helped Jaguar Land Rover to sustain its brand image of being a "Premium British Car Maker".


CHOOSING GOD, CHOOSING SCHOOLS: A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARENTAL RELIGIOSITY AND SCHOOL CHOICE by Aimee S. Leukert Claremont Graduate University: 2018 Over the last several decades, school choice – in the context of educational systems that are available to choose from as well as the reasons why parents choose what they do for their child – has become a topic of interest to both educational researchers and the public at large. The Seventh-day Adventist school system, like other faith-based institutions, is uniquely positioned in this subject, as it is an educational organization framed by a religious denomination. In addition to the typical factors such as academic standards, curricular offerings and peer influence, the issue of school choice within this context also involves complex layers of culture and religiosity and spirituality. Are parents able to disengage themselves from the trappings of those expectations and beliefs and objectively choose a school system for their child? Or are religious background and experience simply too embedded into one's psyche – and, as an extension – one's choices to ever fully disentangle that subtext from the decision-making process? This mixed-methods study sought to better understand the relationship between parental religiosity and school choice, specifically within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. In order to assess the influence of Adventist culture, doctrinal commitment and general religiosity, a cultural domain had to first be established. Following the methodology as laid out in cultural consensus theory, free-listing and rank-ordering tasks were given to two separate, geographically representative samples from across the continental United States. Derived from those conversations, statements were then developed that captured characteristics and behavior of a member who adhered to traditional Seventh-day Adventist culture. Those statements were written into the survey instrument, alongside validated scales for general religiosity and Adventist doctrinal commitment. The population for this study targeted any Seventh-day Adventist member in America who had K-12 school-aged children. The survey was developed in SurveyMonkey and distributed through church communiqué (websites, bulletins, announcements, etc.), official administrative channels such as ministerial department newsletters and video announcements, and social media. Over 1,000 responses came in and the data was analyzed through SPSS, specifically examining patterns of school choice among those with high or low general religiosity, doctrinal commitment and Adventist culture. The results of the data analysis demonstrated clear and significant associations between several key variables and the dependent variable of school choice. Several variables, such as Adventist culture, doctrinal commitment and a parent's own educational background, emerged as predictors for school choice when binary logistic regressions were conducted. Adventist culture proved to be a multi-factorial construct, interacting with other variables in different ways. The conclusions from this study point to several implications for K-12 Adventist education, particularly in the area of marketing to Adventist families and further research could certainly explore that more fully.


Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) in deep geological formations has recently emerged as an important option for reducing greenhouse emissions. If CCS is implemented on the scale needed to make noticeable reductions in atmospheric CO2, a billion metric tons or more must be sequestered annually—a 250 fold increase over the amount sequestered today. Securing such a large volume will require a solid scientific foundation defining the coupled hydrologic-geochemical-geomechanical processes that govern the long-term fate of CO2 in the subsurface. Also needed are methods to characterize and select sequestration sites, subsurface engineering to optimize performance and cost, approaches to ensure safe operation, monitoring technology, remediation methods, regulatory overview, and an institutional approach for managing long-term liability.


Database sharing refers to a general architecture for distributed transaction and database processing. The nodes of a database sharing system are locally coupled via a high-speed interconnect and share the common database at the disk level ("shared disk"). We discuss system functions requiring new and coordinated solutions for database sharing. In particular, the most relevant alternatives for concurrency and coherency control are classified and surveyed. We consider the techniques used in existing database sharing systems as well as algorithms proposed in the literature. Furthermore, we summarize previous performance studies on database sharing. Related concurrency and coherency control schemes for workstation/server database systems, network file systems, and distributed shared memory systems are also discussed.


Human rhinoviruses (HRVs; family Picornaviridae), the most frequent causative agents of respiratory infections, comprise more than 100 distinct serotypes. According to previous phylogenetic analysis of the VP4/VP2-coding sequences, all but one of the HRV prototype strains distribute between the two established species, Human rhinovirus A (HRV-A) and Human rhinovirus B (HRV-B). Here, partial sequences of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (3D polymerase)-coding gene of 48 HRV prototype strains and 12 field isolates were analysed. The designated division of the HRV strains into the species HRV-A and HRV-B was also seen in the 3D-coding region. Phylogenetically, HRV-B clustered closer to human enterovirus (HEV) species HEV-B, HEV-C and poliovirus than to HRV-A. Intraspecies variation within both HRV-A and HRV-B was greater in the 3D-coding region than in the VP4/VP2-coding region, with the difference maxima reaching 48 % at the nucleotide level and 36 % at the amino acid level in HRV-A and 53 and 35 %, respectively, in HRV-B. Within both species, a few strains formed a separate cluster differing from the majority of strains as much as HEV-B from HEV-C. Furthermore, the tree topology within HRV-A differed from that for VP4/VP2, suggesting possible recombination events in the evolutionary history of the strains. However, all 12 field isolates clustered similarly, as in the capsid region. These results showed that the within-species variation in the 3D region is greater in HRV than in HEV. Furthermore, HRV variation in the 3D region exceeds that in the capsid-coding region.


Abstract Multispectral visible and near infrared (VNIR) observations from the Mars Exploration Rover Pancam multispectral stereo camera systems are consistent with materials having been subjected to various aqueous processes. Ferric oxides in the form of hematite in the Burns and Grasberg formations of Meridiani Planum have been well characterized by Opportunity on the basis of strong 535 and 864 nm absorptions and positive 754–1009 nm and 934–1009 nm slopes. On the rim of Noachian-aged Endeavour crater, Opportunity has observed light-toned veins with high Ca and S, as determined by the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), and a negative 934–1009 nm slope in VNIR spectra extracted from Pancam data, indicative of a 1000 nm H2O overtone absorption. Together these observations indicate that the veins are composed of gypsum. Rocks overturned by Opportunity on the Murray Ridge portion of the Endeavour crater rim display dark- and light-toned coatings. The dark-toned coatings have a red, featureless slope that is consistent with the slope observed in laboratory spectra of high-valence manganese oxide minerals. Potential Mn oxide coatings may also be associated with some exposures of the Grasberg formation. APXS results for high Mg and S in the light-toned coatings of the Murray Ridge overturned rocks and a negative 934–1009 nm slope are consistent with hydrated Mg-sulfates. Opportunity has also observed spectral features in rocks that are consistent with orbital observations of Fe-smectites, as well as Al-smectites and possible hydrated silica in light-toned fracture-fill materials. The Spirit rover observed sulfate-rich light-toned soils exposed by the rover's wheels. Several of these soil observations contained spectral features, such as a broad absorption centered near 800 nm, consistent with ferric sulfate minerals, a finding confirmed by the rover's Mössbauer spectrometer. Spirit also excavated light-toned Si-rich soils. These soils have a flat near-infrared spectrum with a drop in reflectance from 934–1009 nm that is consistent with free water contained in voids or adsorbed onto the surface of the silica.


The magnetostratigraphy, clay mineralogy, cyclostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy of the estuarine and continental Solent Group (Isle of Wight, Hampshire Basin, UK), which is of Late Eocene–Early Oligocene age, were investigated. A new magnetostratigraphy for the Solent Group is correlated to the chronostratigraphic standard using limited biostratigraphical data, and it is concluded that the base of the Oligocene falls close to the base of the Bembridge Limestone Formation. A long time-series of clay mineral XRD data was generated, which shows striking variation in illitic clay abundance. Illite is interpreted to have formed in gley palaeosols through repeated wetting and drying in response to high seasonality. High illitic clay values are tuned to c. 400 ka eccentricity maxima to develop an age model. In addition to a very strong c. 400 ka signal in the data, spectral analysis of the clay data also confirms the influence of short eccentricity (c. 100 ka) and obliquity (c. 40 ka) cycles. The succession displays seven conspicuous 10–20 m thick sequences, which represent transitions from transgressive estuarine environments through highstand floodplains to freshwater lakes. The sequences correspond exactly to the long eccentricity (c. 400 ka) cycles. A sea-level curve is derived using the amount of incision as a minimum measure of eustatic fall, but there is no evidence of a major eustatic drop of 30–90 m corresponding to the early Oligocene glaciation of Antarctica. It is likely that incision was suppressed by rapid rates of subsidence.


In this paper, a novel Commutative Watermarking and Partial Encryption (CWPE) algorithm based on Discrete Wavelet Transform and Discrete Cosine Transform (DWT-DCT) for watermarking and Multi-Map Wavelet Chaotic Encryption (MMW-CE) is proposed. The original host image is first decomposed into four sub-bands using (DWT), each sub-band coefficients are relocated using Arnold transform to create a noiselike version, then apply partial encryption scheme using chaotic scrambled random number pattern bitwise XOR with the scrambled horizontal coefficients only and the shuffled approximation coefficients are divided into non-overlapping and equal sized blocks. Watermark embedding process is based on extracting the (DCT) middle frequencies of the encrypted approximation coefficients blocks. Comparison based threshold of the extracted DCT mid-band coefficients, watermark bits are embedded in the coefficients of the corresponding DCT middle frequencies. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is robust against common signal processing attacks. The proposed algorithm is able to reduce encryption to one quarter of the image information. Statistical and differential analyses are performed to estimate the security strength of the proposed algorithm. The results of the security analysis show that the proposed algorithm provides a high security level for real time application.


The viability of using microalgae for energy production depends on the overall sustainability (environmental, economic, social). The project FUEL4ME applies a life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) providing scientific indicators for economic (e.g. operational costs, investment cost, trade effects, effects on employment), environmental (global warming potential, cumulated primary energy demand, land use) and social aspects (e.g. regional cooperations, product responsibility, labour practices) of an algae-based biorefinery (production of biofuels and PUFAs). Climate change impacts usually focus only on the bio/chemical contribution (i.e. greenhouse gases) but within FUEL4ME biophysical climate impacts due to albedo change were included in the assessment of the global warming potential. A comparison using the LCSA results of a modelled full scale commercial FUEL4ME process was made to analyse the gap between the current TRL and guiding values for TRL 9. Due to actual demonstrated state of technology (current TRL) further technology development is needed.


The tectonic setting of the southern Menderes Massif, part of the western Anatolide belt in western Turkey, is characterized by the exhumation of deeper crustal levels onto the upper crust during the Eocene. The lowermost tectonic units of the Menderes Massif are exposed in the Çine Massif, where Proterozoic basement orthogneisses of the Çine nappe are in tectonic contact with Palaeozoic metasedimentary rocks of the Selimiye nappe. In the southern Çine Massif, orthogneiss and metasedimentary rocks are separated by the southerly dipping Selimiye shear zone, preserving top-to-the-S shearing under greenschist facies conditions. In contrast, in the western Çine Massif, the orthogneiss is deformed and mylonitic near the contact with the metasedimentary rocks. The geometry of the mylonite zone and the observed shear directions change from north to southwest. In the north, the mylonite zone dips shallowly to the north, with top-to-the-N shear sense indicators showing northward thrusting of the orthogneiss over the metasedimentary rocks. In the southwest, the mylonite zone resembles a steep N–S striking strike-slip shear zone associated with top-to-the-SSW sense of shear. Overall, the geometry of the mylonite shear zone is consistent with northward movement of the orthogneiss relative to the metasedimentary rocks. Different shear senses are attributed to strain partitioning. AFM diagrams and P–T pseudosections with mineral parageneses of metasedimentary rocks of the Selimiye nappe and metasedimentary enclaves within the orthogneiss of the Çine nappe indicate a single Barrovian-type metamorphism. An earlier higher pressure phase is evident from staurolite–chloritoid inclusions in garnets of the Çine nappe, suggesting a clockwise P–T path. A similar path is inferred for the Selimiye nappe. Index minerals and the sequence of mineral parageneses point to a single amphibolite facies metamorphic event affecting metasedimentary rocks of both nappes, which predates Eocene emplacement of the high pressure–low temperature Lycian and Cycladic blueschist nappes. Northward thrusting of the orthogneiss onto the metasedimentary rocks of the Selimiye nappe is coeval with amphibolite facies metamorphism. Recently postulated polymetamorphism cannot be supported by this study. Petrological data provide no evidence for burial of the lower units of the Menderes Massif to depth greater than 30 km during closure of the Neo-Tethys. A major pre-Eocene tectonic event associated with top-to-the-N thrusting and Barrovian-type metamorphism could lend support to the idea of a Neo-Tethys (sensu stricto) suture south of the Menderes Massif and below the Lycian nappes.


Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is an important noninvasive medical imaging technique that can reveal subsurface structures of biological tissue. OCT has demonstrated a good correlation with histology in sufficient resolution to identify morphological changes in articular cartilage to differentiate normal through progressive stages of degenerative joint disease. Current OCT systems provide individual cross-sectional images that are representative of the tissue directly under the scanning beam, but they may not fully demonstrate the degree of degeneration occurring within a region of a joint surface. For a full understanding of the nature and degree of cartilage degeneration within a joint, multiple OCT images must be obtained and an overall assessment of the joint surmised from multiple individual images. This study presents frequency domain three-dimensional (3-D) OCT imaging of degenerative joint cartilage extracted from bovine knees. The 3-D OCT imaging of articular cartilage enables the assembly of 126 individual, adjacent, rapid scanned OCT images into a full 3-D image representation of the tissue scanned, or these may be viewed in a progression of successive individual two-dimensional (2-D) OCT images arranged in 3-D orientation. A fiber-based frequency domain OCT system that provides cross-sectional images was used to acquire 126 successive adjacent images for a sample volume of $6{\times}3.2{\times}2.5\;mm^3$ . The axial resolution was $8\;{\mu}m$ in air. The 3-D OCT was able to demonstrate surface topography and subsurface disruption of articular cartilage consistent with the gross image as well as with histological cross-sections of the specimen. The 3-D OCT volumetric imaging of articular cartilage provides an enhanced appreciation and better understanding of regional degenerative joint disease than may be realized by individual 2-D OCT sectional images.


The objective of this article is to think through the concepts of deep time and enchantment with Caroline Wendling's White Wood (2014), a living artwork in northeast Scotland. The first part of the article establishes the relationship between deep time, ecology, and enchantment and the role of art in exploring this relationship. Concepts that enfold deep time and ecology like the Anthropocene and Timothy Morton's "mesh" have the power to enchant because, in Mark A. Schneider's terms, they expose us to "something both real and at the same time uncanny, weird, mysterious, or awesome." Allied to this, Jane Bennett's claim that an enchanted sensibility can be cultivated strategically, combined with Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin's assertion that artistic strategies offer an important way of engaging with the Anthropocene, establish the context for approaching White Wood. The second part of the article then offers an extended reading of the artistic strategies employed in White Wood. White Wood is a small deciduous woodland conceived by Wendling and created in collaboration with the community of Huntly. Among the many hundred trees planted were forty-nine oak saplings grown from acorns produced by trees planted as part of Joseph Beuys's 7000 Oaks project in Kassel, Germany (begun 1982). I consider Wendling's project through the interrelated themes of regeneration, participation, and the layering of temporalities that it likewise inherits from 7000 Oaks. In this way I demonstrate how the temporal and participatory openness that inheres in White Wood can cultivate the sense of enchantment that Morton identifies as one of the conditions of thinking ecologically across vast spatial, temporal, and agential scales—a thinking that is demanded by the Anthropocenic reframing of humanity.


It has been shown that pregnancy specific beta 1-globulin (SBG) is found in the rat blood serum on the 6--7th day of pregnancy. SBG reaches the maximum by the end of pregnancy and is not detected already at the 3d--4th day after delivery. The placenta is the site of the SBG snythesis. Other organs of the pregnant rat are not able to incorporate radioactive aminoacids into the protein in vitro.


In translating the movie text, the translator faces several problems that are the foreign terms and duration. The issues lead the translator to use some strategies, namely addition and omission. The focus of the researh are what types of addition and omission are used in the translation and the effects of addition and omission in transferring meaning in the English-Indonesia movie texts in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn . The objectives describe the types of addition and omission and describe the effects of the addition and omission on meaning accuracy in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn movie texts. The study employs a method of qualitative and quantitative. The data of this research were sentences and the data sources English-Indonesia movie texts of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn. Furthermore, the main instrument is represented by the researcher and the second a instrument is the data sheets. In addition, to gain trustworthiness of the data, triangulation method is applied. There are two findings obtained from this study. Three types of addition: addition of information specification purpose, amplification from implicit to explicit status, addition of categories. Addition of information specification purpose have the highest frequency with 22 cases (18.97%). Furthermore, the researcher also identifies three types of omissions: simply omitting the information, omission specification of reference, omission of conjunction and transitional. Simply omitting the information has the highest frequency with 40 cases (34.48%). Meanwhile, in case of degree of meaning equivalence, 115 cases (99.14%) are translated with equivalent meanings. Keywords: addition, omission, meaning equivalent, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn


The 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a technique that revolutionalized medical diagnostics over the last two decades. Such spectacular development would not have been possible without the use of paramagnetic contrast agents, GdIII complexes in majority. By reducing the relaxation time of the surrounding water protons, these agents enhance the intrinsic contrast of MR images. The efficacy of a contrast agent is expressed by its molar relaxivity, the longitudinal proton relaxation rate enhancement referred to 1 mM GdIII concentration. Theory predicts a 20-fold increase in the relaxivity (compared to the commercially available contrast agents) of a GdIII complex when its rotation and electron spin relaxation are slow, and the rate of water exchange between the inner sphere and the bulk is in an optimal region. Novel applications in MRI call for very high efficacy contrast agents. It implies not solely high molar relaxivity per GdIII, but high relaxivity per molecular volume/mass. In cell imaging e.g., biological constraints limit the amount of contrast agent deliverable into one cell without destroying it. Consequently, agents with many efficiently relaxing paramagnetic centers confined into a small space are advantageous over large macromolecules with few GdIII. The main objective of this work was to prepare new potential contrast agents displaying not only high molar relaxivities but also concentrated relaxivities, i.e. confined into a small molecular space. In this perspective, we have synthesized and characterized three new ligands and their GdIII complexes. The first contrast agent synthesized is a metallostar self-assembly with six GdIII ions tightly packed around a FeII(bpy)3 core. In the second system, a rigid xylene core was used to hold three GdIII ions via DTTA chelating units. The third complex is a surfactant molecule that upon concentration trigger self-assembles into a micellar aggregate which has been found to be the most rigid micelle ever reported in the context of MRI contrast agents. In the aim of describing the efficacy per unit of mass of a contrast agent, we have introduced the concept of "density of relaxivity". Comparison of the "density of relaxivity" of current contrast agents shows that two of our novel systems described in this work display the highest "density of relaxivity" ever reported. Furthermore, we have also performed an in vivo MRI feasibility study with the metallostar as a potential medical MRI contrast agent. Dynamic γ scintigraphic and biodistribution studies were also carried out on the metallostar to complement the MRI results and to give a better idea of its pharmacokinetics.


This paper investigates extreme biases in group sensemaking through a longitudinal field study in a martial arts community. It is observed that an incremental, self-reinforcing process can cause a group's mental model to drift away from reality. This causes significant problems when the group members interact with people who do not share the biased mental model. More specifically, as the outsiders do not react according to the biased model, the biased insider's actions will result in undesired, harmful outcomes. Specific mechanisms, which together constitute the bias producing process are identified. Key elements include verbal persuasion by believers, social proof bias, placebo effects, and retrospective sensemaking. It is discussed how analogical dynamics can be present in business settings and argued that constant reality checks with outsiders can help groups to avoid this self-harming tendency and, therefore, foster survival and success.


Extracted from text ... others. But, in addition to being locked away,
they experienced the pain of ending relationships
without any proper form of `closure'.
The book covers the whole of Kathrada's life
and the political times he experienced, with a
lot of attention paid to the prison experience,
often amusing, but also treating some of the
ideological divisions which have only recently
been admitted publicly. It is strongest in its
moments of introspection, but is an important
addition to the literature of struggle, providing
new source material for future researchers.
Raymond Suttner
University of South Africa
RACISM. A SHORT HISTORY
George M. ..


EU merger regulations rely on the "significant impediment to effective competition" substantive test. However, the clause that incorporates these tests is not clear regarding implementation criteria. As a result, in many cases assessment and decisions about Mergers and Acquisitions are adopted in an uncertain legal context. Often this situation is justified for two reasons: first, the need to incorporate the economic complexity into the decision; and second, the prospective nature of merger assessment. Nevertheless, from the perspective of Law many questions arise. Prospective decisions are unsuitable to deal with classic theories of regulation and judicial review. As we explain in this paper, the European Commission adopts its decision based on the foreseeable behaviour of an undertaking. European Courts recognize the Commission's ample discretion to assess merger on a case-by-case basis and limit the scope of judicial review. As a result, commentators have criticized the EC merger regulation. In this paper these issues are considered. In the first part, we study the clause that incorporates the substantive test in EC merger regulation. In the second we deal with the scope of judicial review of prospective decisions and appropriate standard of proof. Next, we argue that reform of EC merger administrative procedures will reduce the scope of discretionary authority to reasonable levels and improve the decision-making process. Finally, we suggest tools developed in the risk regulation literature to improve legitimacy and ensure rationality of the European Commission's decisions.