Abstract We describe a language-based, dynamic information flow control (IFC) system called LIO. Our system presents a new design point for IFC, influenced by the challenge of implementing IFC as a Haskell library, as opposed to the more typical approach of modifying the language runtime system. In particular, we take a coarse-grained, floating-label approach, previously used by IFC Operating Systems, and associate a single, mutable label—the current label—with all the data in a computation's context. This label is always raised to reflect the reading of sensitive information and it is used to restrict the underlying computation's effects. To preserve the flexibility of fine-grained systems, LIO also provides programmers with a means for associating an explicit label with a piece of data. Interestingly, these labeled values can be used to encapsulate the results of sensitive computations which would otherwise lead to the creeping of the current label. Unlike other language-based systems, LIO also bounds the current label with a current clearance, providing a form of discretionary access control that LIO programs can use to deal with covert channels. Moreover, LIO provides programmers with mutable references and exceptions. The latter, exceptions, are used in LIO to encode and recover from monitor failures, all while preserving data confidentiality and integrity—this addresses a longstanding concern that dynamic IFC is inherently prone to information leakage due to monitor failure.


Investment decision making is a common occurrence for any engineering company. These investments include any possibility from relative inexpensive to extremely costly equipment. When power generation turbine procurements are considered for energy recovery plants, these may typically be viewed as expensive and long-term investments. Such an investment cannot merely be discarded and replaced under suboptimal conditions.If energy recovery takes place under fluctuating process flow conditions, investment choices for power generation turbines may, however, prove challenging to determine. Under conditions where resource availabilities are fluctuating to such an extent that, at times, supply outside a turbine's operating limits are present, a number of factors need to be considered. Such decisions typically include questions regarding a turbine's operating limits, efficiency, allowable trips, procurement cost and quantity thereof.This paper demonstrates how investment choices are influenced through the use of an optimisation investment model. A number of scenario simulations are shown, where results indicate not only what turbine investment decisions need to be exercised, but also the power generation that can be expected over time, and therefore, the true payback period. Results are presented in the form of power generation and the predicted net present value of possible investments to be made.


Multiproxy pollen, sediment, plant macrofossil and subfossil insect analyses are used to explore environmental change at Stóra-Mörk in southern Iceland between ad 500 and 1500. Previous palaeoecological studies in Iceland have indicated that vegetation and landscape change rapidly succeeded the initial settlement of the island around ad 871, with strong environmental consequences. However, recent high-resolution studies in western and northern Iceland suggest that the timing and amplitude of these changes may be less uniform than previously assumed. The palaeoecological evidence from Stóra-Mörk shows an initially muted anthropogenic signal. Before the early tenth century, the area was characterized by damp birch and willow woodland. Large-scale human impact did not begin until after ad 920 when a change in land use to grazing and crop production is observed in the pollen, insect and plant macrofossil records. Shifts in vegetation and insect taxa and in aeolian deposition indicate that this activity resulted in woodland reduction, increased soil instability, eutrophication and land surface drying. The relatively late appearance of large-scale human impact at Stóra-Mörk is consistent with the tenth-century farm establishment suggested by the historical record, and the delay in settlement at the location may relate to an initial avoidance of labour-intensive woodland clearance and/or management of woodland resources. This paper adds to the emerging body of evidence that suggests that the scale and timing of the initial effect of the human presence on Icelandic environments was influenced by complex and varied climatic, landscape, vegetational and cultural factors.


Abstract Though there is comprehensive literature on the effectiveness of school feeding in increasing school enrollment and school attendance, little is known about its potential effect on child labor. This paper takes advantage of the 2007 Core Welfare Questionnaire Indicator survey conducted between August and September 2007 in Liberia to assess the causal impact of the School Feeding Programme (SFP) on child labour. Using the propensity score-matching technique, we find that the SFP leads to a statistically significant decrease in child labour estimated at between 14 and 17%. This result is robust to the use of different matching techniques and the choice of covariates used in the estimation of the propensity score. In addition, the analysis reveals that the SFP is mainly effective in reducing child labour for male children, children living in war-displaced households, and children living in households in which the head is literate. Overall, the study shows that the detrimental effect of conflict on child labor can be mitigated by school feeding interventions.


[1] In this study, a data assimilation scheme is developed on the basis of the ensemble Kalman filter algorithm and the common land model (CoLM); soil moisture and model parameters are simultaneously optimized to improve the estimates of turbulent fluxes. Land surface temperature (LST) is retrieved from geostationary operational environmental satellites (GOES) data, validated, and then assimilated into the model. The data assimilation results are validated at six observation sites in the United States that include grassland, cropland, and forestland cover types. Data assimilation results indicate that in addition to improvements in the prediction of turbulent fluxes, model uncertainties are also reduced as a result of the assimilation of GOES LST retrieval data. The average reductions in root mean square error (RMSE) values are 47.5 and 31.1 W m−2. The effects of simultaneous optimization of soil moisture and model parameters are compared with those resulting from separate optimization; simultaneous optimization is found to yield smaller RMSE values. Further, in this study, the effects of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and GOES temporal resolution data on data assimilation results are studied. The assimilation results indicate that the average RMSE values for GOES temporal resolution data are smaller than that for MODIS temporal resolution data. During the assimilation time period, the soil moisture obtained from assimilation closely agrees with the observed values, and the four vegetation parameters show distinct seasonal variations. However, the lack of sufficient information makes it difficult to estimate the true value of these variables and parameters.


Atherosclerosis can lead to formation of plaques in the arterial wall. Plaque rupture is a frequent and life-threatening event, resulting from complex degradative processes, especially when occurring in the coronary or carotid arteries where it can lead to myocardial infarction or stroke. The relation with plaque morphology and its mechanical characteristics has been elaborated extensively. However, from a mechanical point of view, most clinical research — especially in the carotid arteries — has been focused on noninvasive ultrasonic assessment of wall kinematics (distension) and, to a lesser extent, to strain and stresses in the radial direction.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


Summary
1.
In Jamaica, Hippelates pallipes feed on yaws lesions in enormous numbers.
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Hippelates pallipes show a marked preference for feeding on lesions on the lower extremities.
3.
Hippelates pallipes will crawl underneath scabs to feed and thus frequently obtain fresh material containing living T. pertenue.
4.
These flies, if fed on highly infectious lesions, will take in large numbers of spirochaetes, some of which may later be regurgitated in "vomit drops."
5.
Hippelates pallipes often feed intermittently on different persons or different ulcers.
6.
Male flies feed only on very rare occasions on ulcer material.
7.
Hippelates pallipes caught in an area where there are no infectious cases of yaws do not naturally contain T. pertenue or any other spirochaetes resembling this organism.
8.
the technic of dissecting Hippelates flies is described.
9.
The majority of the Treponema pertenue ingested by Hippelates pallipes from framboesia lesions on patients, remain actively motile for about seven hours in the oesophageal diverticulum. In the stomach, however, they loose their motility very rapidly.
10.
The majority of the ingested spirochaetes are found in the oesophageal diverticulum for the first eight hours following the infecting feed, after which time they have passed over into the stomach.
11.
Very few spirochaetes remain in the proboscis of the flies, and those that do lose their motility quickly.


We demonstrate a new scheme for measuring different tensor elements of the optical Kerr effect response. A dual-ring, polarization-dependent Sagnac interferometer is used to create two copropagating probe pulses that arrive at the sample at different times but that reach the detector simultaneously and collinearly. The tensor element of the response that is measured is determined by the polarization of the pump pulse. By controlling the relative timing of the probe pulses it is also possible to perform optical subtraction of two different tensor elements of the response at two different times, a strategy that can be used to enhance or suppress particular contributions to the OKE response.


It is now widely accepted that errors in spreadsheets are both common and potentially dangerous. Further research has taken place to investigate how frequently these errors occur, what impact they have, how the risk of spreadsheet errors can be reduced by following spreadsheet design guidelines and methodologies, and how effective auditing of a spreadsheet is in the detection of these errors. However, little research exists to establish the usefulness of software tools in the auditing of spreadsheets. This paper documents and tests office software tools designed to assist in the audit of spreadsheets. The test was designed to identify the success of software tools in detecting different types of errors, to identify how the software tools assist the auditor and to determine the usefulness of the tools.


We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which the Jacobian of a graph is generated by a divisor that is the difference of two vertices. This answers a question posed by Becker and Glass and allows us to prove various other propositions about the order of divisors that are the difference of two vertices. We conclude with some conjectures about these divisors on random graphs and support them with empirical evidence.


The detrimental effects of increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and other greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution has led to a concerted international effort to control their release and abate the environmental and human health impacts. CO(2) is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis of plants in the terrestrial environment and by aquatic sequestration. In the Middle East and other arid countries, terrestrial removal is minimal. The most likely removal pathway for CO(2) in arid regions around the world is by aquatic sequestration. In the Middle East the major sink is the Arabian Gulf which leads to acidification of the marine environment. Biweekly pH concentration measurements in surface waters of the northern Arabian Gulf over a four year period in this study suggest that the Arabian Gulf waters are becoming increasingly acidic with time. Supporting evidence for increased CO(2) sequestration comes from increased marine primary productivity over the past decade. Biological effects, such as coral bleaching, observed during this period suggest that urgent action is required to reverse the trend and protect marine life. The data highlight the fact that this semi-enclosed sea is undergoing a rapid degradation which may affect the oceanic chemistry and biogeochemical cycle much earlier than predicted for most oceanic waters.


The stability of numerical time integrators, and of the physical systems to which they are applied, are normally studied independently. This conceals a very interesting phenomenon, here termed inconsistent stability, wherein a numerical time marching scheme predicts a stable response about an equilibrium configuration that is, in fact, unstable. In this paper, time integrator parameters leading to possible inconsistent stability are first found analytically for conservative systems (symmetric tangent stiffness matrices), then several structural arches with increasing complexity are used as numerical case studies. The intention of this work is to highlight the potential for this unexpected, and mostly unknown, behavior to researchers studying complex dynamical systems, especially through time marching of finite element models. To allow for direct interpretation of our results, the work is focused on the Newmark time integrator, which is commonly used in structural dynamics.


The high stakes of emergent environmental crises, from climate change to widespread toxic exposures, have motivated STS practitioners to innovate methodologically, including leveraging STS scholarship to actively remake environmental scientific practice and technologies. This thematic collection brings together current research that transforms how communities and academics identify, study, and collectively respond to contaminants engendered by the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries, including air contamination from hydraulic fracking, marine pollution from petroleum-derived plastics, and hydrocarbon derivatives such as formaldehyde that intoxicate our homes. These interventions make inroads into the "undone science" and "regimes of imperceptibility" of environmental health crises. Authors, most of whom are practitioners, investigate grassroots methods for collaboratively designing and developing low-cost monitoring tools, crowdsourcing data analysis, and imagining ways of redressing toxicity outside of the idioms of science.  Collectively, these articles work towards remaking how knowledge is made about and across industrial systems by networking community grounded approaches for accounting for environmental health issues created by the fossil fuels and allied petrochemical industries.


Telecommunications development has significant impact on the spread of intellectual property as well. Electronic form not only induced, diversified creation of intellectual property but also caused a boom in circulation of illegal content. Regulation became an important means of state intervention into economy. It constitutes one of complex instruments and strategies of public administration. As the development of regulation demonstrates, this form of intervention replaces other state intervention forms. The more powers were granted to the regulators as strategic instruments, the more urgent issue concerning regulation regime became. Assignment of individual state functions to a certain institution, and in particular, development of certain normative acts of compulsory nature, is a manifold issue. Regulation is a convenient form for fulfilment of branch functions of the state, but this form has a lot of deficiencies: issues are handled through concentration on narrow branch interests, unnecessary bureaucracy and excessive regulation in order to justify the need for a regulator may occur, etc. It would not be true to state that state regulation has only deficiencies, as a regulator has a possibility of specialisation and acting as the key expert of the branch under regulation, a regulator has special knowledge, can efficiently respond to market changes and needs, what is highly important in dynamic business fields (e.g. telecommunications). The state must have a properly balanced system of supervision of regulator's activities, in order to prevent the regulator's practice from moving away from general principles of law and public administration, it must ensure presence of the following prerequisites in determining on application of a specific regulation: (a) objective need for regulation, (b) it will be the most efficient medium for achievement of a specific target of regulation. Discussion about the possibility of complete deregulation of telecommunications does not imply that this field must be free of any regulation. Deregulation of telecommunications must be understood as follows: is there a possibility to regulate telecommunications by applying general public relations regulating instruments that already are in place in the market. Upon completion of a very abstract assessment of regulator's activities, the following key directions of the activities of existing regulators can be distinguished: competition promotion and protection of consumers' rights. In nearly all developed countries, these fields are regulated by special legislation, while their supervision is carried out by appropriate interbranch institutions. Having determined a precise need for telecommunications regulation in an appropriate market, a necessary regulation may be properly selected and a need for a regulator may be determined at a certain period. Proper selection of a necessary market regulation is indispensable in order the state could perform its functions in the field of telecommunications in a consistent way, to prevent waste of state resources for inefficient regulation of telecommunications, promote competition, develop services, ensure protection of consumers' rights in the market, etc.


Collaboration has been a topic of discussion for over 20 years. Managers are consistently calling for better collaboration and researchers have argued that managing tightly coupled relationships creates a co-mingling of complementary competencies that establishes distinctive advantages for firms. Even though there have been a few exemplar companies that have been capable of truly developing these complementary competencies, few companies truly understand the dynamics of a collaborative capability. This dissertation reviews the theoretical conceptualization and operationalization of tightly coupled relationships and through an interpretive analysis, begins to provide clarity to the following questions: • Under what conditions are tightly coupled relationship strategies justified? • What are the elements that constitute effective relationship strategies? • How can these elements be dynamically configured to deliver superior value and firm performance? Essay 1 sets up the theoretical foundation for the dissertation through an in-depth review of the current collaboration/integration literature and delineates and summarizes contrasting dimensions in supply chain relational strategies. An orienting conceptual framework is developed to provide clear insights for the analysis that is conducted in essay 3. Essay 2 focuses on the ontological and epistemological aspects of hermeneutics and promotes the use of this methodology for future research in the supply chain field. Because this methodology is new to the supply chain field a full methodological guideline is described and explained. Through a hermeneutical analysis, Essay 3 evaluates the operationalization of tightly coupled relationships using interview data from a combination of 11 manufacturers and retailers who practice collaborative behavior. The literature review and the orienting conceptual framework from Essay 1 are used to set the stage for the hermeneutical analysis. From the analysis, a framework is developed for use in future research.


This paper discusses a method for converting time issue into space issue in the design process. During the design process, we often determine something that can be evaluated only after the design process has proceeded for a while. However, in some cases, this kind of a problem (the back and forth problem) can be converted into a spatial problem. In this paper, the author approaches the design space forming process in which the function is decomposed, as an example of the back and forth problem, by extending our previous mathematical discussion and using computer simulation. The author shows that conserving the similarity between the space for the required function description and the space for the decomposed function description is a key to solve the back and forth problem. This result indicates that forming an appropriate space for the decomposed functions for searching the design solution in an efficient manner is replaced by the criterion of similarity conservation. In other words, it is possible to analyse the back and forth problem in the design process by converting it into a spatial problem.


When people plan their motions for dexterous work, they implicitly consider the next likely step in the action sequence. Almost without conscious thought, we select a grasp that meets the implicit constraints related to the task to be performed. A robot tasked with dexterous manipulation should likewise aim to grasp the intended object in a way that makes the next step straightforward. In some cases, lack of consideration of these implicit constraints can result in situations in which the object cannot be manipulated in the desired manner. While recent work has begun to address task dependent constraints, they require direct specification of task constraints or rely on grasp datasets with manually defined task labels. In this thesis, we present a framework that leverages human demonstration to learn task-oriented grasp heuristics for a set of known objects in an unsupervised manner and defined a procedure to instantiate grasps from these learned models. Equating distinct motion profiles with the execution of distinct tasks, our approach leverages the motion during human demonstration in order to partition the accompanying grasp examples into tasks in an unsupervised manner through the incorporation of unsupervised motion clustering algorithms into a grasp learning pipeline. In order to evaluate the framework, a set of human demonstrations of real world manipulation tasks were collected. The framework with unsupervised task clustering produced comparable results to the semi-supervised condition. This translated to the discovery of the correct relationship between the tasks and objects, with the distributions of the resultant grasp point models following intuitive heuristic rules (e.g. handle grasps for tools). The grasps instantiated from these grasp models followed the learned heuristics, but had some limitations due to the choice of grasp model and the instantiation method utilized. Overall, this work demonstrates that the inclusion of unsupervised motion clustering techniques into a grasp learning pipeline can assist in the production of task-oriented models without the typical overhead of direct task constraint encoding or hand labeling of datasets. Thesis Supervisor: Julie A. Shah Title: Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics


IVANOVA, S., I. NACHEVA, D. MITEVA, K. LOGINOVSCA and Ts. TSVETKOV, 2009. Effect of gamma sterilization on the fatty acid profile of lyophilized buffalo cheese. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 15: 494-500 The changes in the fatty acid profile of buffalo cheese after lyophilization and gamma rays treatment at 2 kGy and 4 kGy doses have been studied with the objective of its shelf-live prolongation. The results of the experiments show a decrease of the content of the saturated fatty acids after irradiation at the aforesaid gamma rays doses. A favorable effect on human organism has the decrease of the quantity of the short-chain fatty acids – by 13.16 % on irradiation at 2 kGy and by 18.73% on irradiation at 4 kGy, compared to the control sample. A satisfactory correlation between the essential fatty acids omega-6/omega3 has been observed in the lyophilized buffalo cheese. In the process of irradiation this balanced correlation changes and increases up to 7.32 and 8.31 at 2 kGy and 4 kGy respectively.


Considering the implications of moral leadership on corporate accounting practices and agency problems in male dominated financial services, we tested relations between ethical leadership behaviours and agency problems and examined the role played by gender. The literature generally supports that the relationship between ethical leadership and agency problems is negative. This relationship however may vary due to stereotypes and different expectations of female and male leaders. Data was collected from 119 full-time employees of Cyprus' financial services for six female and thirteen male managers/supervisors. The findings indicated that the agency problems - ethical leadership relationship depends significantly on the gender of the managers/supervisors. Specifically, female leaders exercise more ethical leadership and self-regulation, compared to their male counterparts. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.


INTRODUCTION Sustainability can be visualized as a state in which the use of resources in consumption does not pollute and undermine the functioning of basic life-support ecosystems. To limit unfavorable ecosystem impacts and move towards sustainability, consumer societies have generally relied on the regulation of business facilities and processes as the primary ways and means of controlling waste, the antecedent of pollution. Through the mid-1990s, business interests generally dismissed voluntary initiatives to lessen pollution as unprofitable, altruistic exercises in social marketing. However, as we enter the 21st Century, the dimension of sustainability is exerting a much more direct influence on revenues and costs; the evaluation of sustainable marketing strategies under the standard "Total Profit = Total Revenues-Total Costs" equation is yielding more attractive results. Given marketing strategy is defined as the traditional "marketing mix[right arrow]target market" model, this suggests that the voluntary developmen t of sustainable marketing mixes by private sector firms can play a much larger role in achieving environmental improvements in the future. MARKETING MIX: THE DELIVERY VEHICLE The marketing mix is the delivery vehicle through which strategy is actualized. Using available information and expertise, managers customize the marketing mix in relation to given target markets by making decisions concerning (1) product, (2) place (channels), (3) promotion (communications), and (4) pricing; a systems perspective is utilized to maximize effectiveness. The inclusion of ecosystem impact as a design factor (criterion) in this process is still somewhat novel to many marketing managers. However, in order to understand the direct linkage between marketing mix decisions and ecosystem impacts, one need only observe the former cause the latter. This cause[right arrow]effect assumption is valid because marketing mix decisions directly trigger conversions of natural capital/ resources, and all such conversions generate consumption waste. And, given the resource-intensive lifestyles of the western world's consumer societies, marketing mix-induced consumption waste represents a worthy target for environmental improvement. Sustainable marketing is defined as "... the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the development, pricing, promotion, and distribution of products in a manner that satisfies three criteria: (1) customer needs are met, (2) organizational goals are attained, and (3) the process is compatible with ecosystems" (Fuller 1999, p. 4). Its environmental goal is to operationalize "low-waste, no-negative-discharge" product systems. Under the "marketing mix[right arrow]target market" model, this means that marketing mixes must be designed with the objectives of (1) significantly reducing the generation of waste, and (2) properly managing all remaining waste discharges into ecosystems. When this is the case, the production-consumption cycle becomes sustainable because it can be replicated over time without degrading ecosystems (i.e., the process is compatible with ecosystems/moderates pollution). This important result is necessary even if the broader goal is de-consumption (i.e., achieving a reduction in co nsumption level). However, sustainable marketing mixes must concurrently deliver genuine benefits to customers and financial rewards to firms; achieving compatibility with ecosystems is not an end in itself. DECISION FRAMEWORK: PRODUCE SYSTEM LIFE-CYCLE (PSLC) In order to capture a true picture of how marketing mixes impact ecosystems, and therefore be in position to implement decisions that support sustainability, a broad cradle-to-grave interpretation of where product systems begin and end is required. The product system life-cycle (PSLC) defines the appropriate decision framework. It represents the merger of two complimentary concepts: (1) the resource life-cycle (Tchobanoglous et al. …


This paper provides an overview of a new database that uses intellectual property data to track the innovative activity of firms in the UK. The paper looks at the extent and nature of patenting activity, focusing on micro firms and SMEs. Over the period 2000 to 2007, SME patenting has increased whereas large firm patenting has fallen and micro firm patenting has been roughly con- stant. Most micro and SMEs patent while relatively young (aged ten or less) and this tendency is becoming more pronounced over time. The paper provides a descriptive analysis on micro firms and SMEs that become high growth firms (defined as having greater than 20 percent growth per annum). Overall, 28.0 percent of young micro and SMEs achieve high growth (over 2002 to 2007). In comparison, 29.4 percent of young micro or SMEs that patent achieve high growth. This difference is much greater for firms in the high-tech industries. Moreover, the analysis shows that due to the skewed nature of the firm-level growth distribution, standard conditional mean estimators may fail to uncover important differences in the association between patenting and firm growth across the conditional growth distribution.


Cytokines are secreted immune signaling molecules, and regulating their release is an important mechanism for controlling their activity. The long form of interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a glycosylated protein that is secreted through the classical secretory pathway from endoplasmic reticulum to Golgi to cell surface. However, in some cells the mRNA for IL-15 is present, yet IL-15 is not secreted. In these cells, the receptor that binds IL-15, IL-15Rα, is not expressed. By expressing IL-15 with or without its receptor IL-15Rα or with variants of the receptor that could not bind IL-15 or were not membrane-associated in COS-7 cells, Duitman et al. showed that transit of IL-15 from the endoplasmic reticulum through the Golgi to the surface required IL-15Rα. When the IL-15 binding site was mutated, IL-15 was retained in the cells in a form that was sensitive to the glycanase Endo H, indicating that it did not proceed through the Golgi but had reached the endoplasmic reticulum. When IL-15 was expressed with an IL-15Rα that lacked a transmembrane domain, the proteins were secreted into the supernatant and did not associate with the cell surface. Monocytes stimulated with interferon-γ (IFN-γ) showed increased transcription of both IL-15 and IL-15Rα and increased secretion of IL-15. Release of IL-15 from the surface of cells cotransfected with IL-15 and IL-15Rα, or from IFN-γ-stimulated monocytes, required proteolysis, which was inhibited by general matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor GM6001. Secretion of IL-15 from cells coexpressing the transmembrane-lacking mutant IL-15Rα was unaffected by GM6001. IL-15 acts as a cell surface-associated juxtacrine signal, and this receptor-mediated mechanism of cell surface delivery explains how the cytokine may be presented to adjacent cells. E. H. Duitman, Z. Orinska, E. Bulanova, R. Paus, S. Bulfone-Paus, How a cytokine is chaperoned through the secretory pathway by complexing with its own receptor: Lessons from interleukin-15 (IL-15)/IL-15 receptor α. Mol. Cell. Biol. 28, 4851-4861 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Banks in India have invested heavily on deployment of information technology (IT) in the past one decade. IT over the years has become business driver rather than a business enabler. Sustainable development of banks depends heavily on effective use of IT. This calls for measuring the effectiveness of IT in these banks. This paper identifies the economic methods of measuring IT effectiveness on the basis of review of literature on the subject.


Refugees face significant challenges in accessing higher education. It is clear that new and diverse solutions are needed that both understand and address the contextual barriers to higher education access for refugees. In keeping with new approaches in the wider humanitarian community, which recognize the role communities can play in creating new education solutions, our organization sought to employ participatory design methods in the development of a new program to support access to higher education for refugees in the Middle East (mainly in Jordan and Lebanon). This note provides insights into the implementation of the participatory process and details the impact the participatory approach had on the design of our programs. Finally, we highlight the need for gender-balanced recruitment strategies through our reflection on the impact of the design of the participatory process on those participating. Finally, we highlight the need for gender-balanced recruitment strategies and reflect on how the design of the participatory process benefited the participants and the initiating organization.


A novel sulfate-reducing bacterium, strain S606T, was isolated from a sulfide sample collected at a depth of 2764 m from a deep-sea vent chimney wall in the Indian Ocean. Phylogenetic 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses placed strain S606T within the genus Thermodesulfatator, with highest sequence similarity of 98.2 % to Thermodesulfatator indicus DSM 15286T, followed by Thermodesulfatator atlanticus AT1325T (97.4 %). The average nucleotide identity (ANI) values between S606T and the two other type strains (T. indicus DSM 15286T and T. atlanticus AT1325T) were 79.2 % and 71.5 %, respectively. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization estimate values between S606T and these two type strains were 22.7±2.4 % and 18.1±2.3 %, respectively. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, anaerobic, motile rods (1-1.8×0.5-0.7 µm). The novel isolate grew at NaCl concentrations ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 % (optimum 2.5-3 %), from pH 5.5 to 8 (optimum 6.5-7.0) and at temperatures between 50 and 80 °C (optimum 65-70 °C). S606T grew chemolithoautotrophically in an H2/CO2 atmosphere (80 : 20, v/v; 200 kPa), used sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor, but not sulfur, sulfite nor thiosulfate. The predominant fatty acids were C16 : 0 (24.2 %), summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω6c and/or C18 : 1ω7c, 26.3 %), C18 : 0 (22.2 %) and C18 : 1ω9c (9.2 %). The DNA G+C content of the chromosomal DNA was 43.1 mol%. The combined genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic traits show that S606T should be described as representing a novel species of the genus Thermodesulfatator, for which the name Thermodesulfatator autotrophicus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S606T (=DSM 101864T=MCCC 1A01871T).


In response to widespread brownand black-outs, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005. Under this Act, the Department of Energy must conduct a nationwide study of congestion in transmission lines every three years. Because the results of these studies may affect rights traditionally reserved to the states, DOE must prepare each study in consultation with affected states. In California Wilderness Coalition v. U.S. Department of Energy, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that DOE failed to consult with affected states and applied a broad test to find an error that violated the harmless error doctrine. The dissent would have applied a more technical test thus concluded that a harmless error occurred. This Comment explores various harmless error tests and suggests that litigation on this issue would be more predictable if the Supreme Court were to provide additional guidance for substantive and


As academia increasingly turns to bibliometric tools to assess research impact, the question of which indicator provides the best measure of research quality is highly debated. Much emphasis has been placed on the value of the h-index, a new bibliometric tool proposed in 2005 which has quickly found favour in the scientific community. One of the first applications of the h-index was carried out by Kelly and Jennions (2006), who found a number of variables could influence the h-index scores of ecologists and evolutionary biologists. To test these findings, this study calculated the h-index scores of New Zealand and Australian researchers teaching in the field of library and information science (LIS). Publication and citation counts were generated using the Web of Science (WoS), where a number of limitations with using the database to calculate h-index scores were identified. We then considered the effect that gender, country of residence, institutional affiliation, and scientific age had on the h-index scores of LIS researchers in New Zealand and Australia. The study found a positive relationship between scientific age and h-index scores, indicating that the length of a scientist's career should be considered when using the h-index. However, analysis also showed that gender, country of residence, and institutional affiliation had no influence on h-index scores.


Most mucosal surfaces of the mammalian body are colonized by microbial communities ("microbiota"). A high density of commensal microbiota inhabits the intestine and shields from infection ("colonization resistance"). The virulence strategies allowing enteropathogenic bacteria to successfully compete with the microbiota and overcome colonization resistance are poorly understood. Here, we investigated manipulation of the intestinal microbiota by the enteropathogenic bacterium Salmonella enterica subspecies 1 serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm) in a mouse colitis model: we found that inflammatory host responses induced by S. Tm changed microbiota composition and suppressed its growth. In contrast to wild-type S. Tm, an avirulent invGsseD mutant failing to trigger colitis was outcompeted by the microbiota. This competitive defect was reverted if inflammation was provided concomitantly by mixed infection with wild-type S. Tm or in mice (IL10−/−, VILLIN-HACL4-CD8) with inflammatory bowel disease. Thus, inflammation is necessary and sufficient for overcoming colonization resistance. This reveals a new concept in infectious disease: in contrast to current thinking, inflammation is not always detrimental for the pathogen. Triggering the host's immune defence can shift the balance between the protective microbiota and the pathogen in favour of the pathogen.


Learning and knowledge sharing are of paramount importance at Oxford Health Foundation Trust which has recently embarked on a wide scale Apprenticeship program as well as other training courses. Oxford Health Library staff piloted the project with an initial purchase of three games and held a Games Day at Warneford Hospital along with other game events.  For evaluation, we sent a survey to all team leaders who borrowed the games and phoned a sample of participants. We also collected comments from those attending drop in sessions and loan statistics from our library catalogue. Awareness of the games is evidenced by increasing usage statistics.  Responses from the feedback survey were positive. These experiences demonstrate how interactive learning through board games provided by NHS Library Services can improve learning for patients and staff.


Agriculture employs three-quarters of the population of Malawi. It makes up more than forty percent of the economy and sixty percent of all exports. Yet productivity in agriculture—measured as the amount of output for a given amount of inputs—is considerably lower than it could be, given Malawi's agricultural resources. Efforts to expand the economy and reduce poverty must involve agriculture. Where should the Government of Malawi invest?


Catastrophic rupture of onboard hydrogen storage in a fire is a safety concern. Different passive, e.g. fireproofing materials, the thermally activated pressure relief device (TPRD), and active, e.g. initiation of TPRD by fire sensors, safety systems are being developed to reduce hazards from and associated risks of high-pressure hydrogen storage tank rupture in a fire. The probability of such low-frequency highconsequences event is a function of fire resistance rating (FRR), i.e. the time before tank without TPRD ruptures in a fire, the probability of TPRD failure, etc. This safety issue is "confirmed" by observed recently cases of CNG tanks rupture due to blocked or failed to operate TPRD, etc. The increase of FRR by any means decreases the probability of tank rupture in a fire, particularly because of fire extinction by first responders on arrival at an accident scene. This study of socio-economic effects of safety applies a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methodology to an example of hydrogen vehicles with passive tank protection system on roads in London. The risk is defined here through the cost of human loss per fuel cell hydrogen vehicle (FCHV) fire accident and fatality rate per FCHV per year. The first step in the methodology is the consequence analysis based on validated deterministic engineering tools to estimate the main identified hazards: overpressure in the blast wave at different distances and the thermal hazards from a fireball in the case of catastrophic tank rupture in a fire. The population can be exposed to slight injury, serious injury and fatality after an accident. These effects are determined based on criteria by Health and Safety Executive (UK), and a cost metrics is applied to the number of exposed people in these three harm categories to estimate the cost per an accident. The second step in the methodology is either the frequency or the probability analysis. Probabilities of a vehicle fire and failure of the thermally activated pressure relief device are taken from published sources. A vulnerability probit function is employed to calculate the probability of emergency operations' failure to prevent tank rupture as a function of a storage tank FRR and time of fire brigade arrival. These later results are integrated to estimate the tank rupture frequency and fatality rate. The risk is presented as a function of fire resistance rating. The QRA methodology allows to calculate the cost of human loss associated with an FCHV fire accident and demonstrates how the increase of FRR of onboard storage, as a safety engineering measure, would improve socio-economics of FCHV deployment and public acceptance of the technology.


The radiant energies per square centimeter of six capacitor discharge lamps, with and without reflectors, were measured by the heating effects they produce in a standard graphite cylinder exposed to the flash. Energies as high as 26 joules cm−2 for a single flash are reported. Irradiances were estimated from oscilloscope intensity-time data, and shown to be as high as 66 kw cm−2. This is at least an order of magnitude greater than the irradiances obtainable in solar and arc image furnaces. The usefulness of capacitor discharge lamps as rapid heat sources is discussed.


Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) has been proposed as a way to stem the loss of land resources globally. To date, LDN operationalization at the country level has remained a challenge both from a policy and science perspective. Using an approach incorporating cloud‐based geospatial computing with machine learning, national level datasets of land cover, land productivity dynamics, and soil organic carbon stocks were developed. Using the example of Botswana, LDN and proportion of degraded land were assessed. Between 2000 and 2015, grassland lost approximately 17% of its original extent, the highest level of loss for any land category; land productivity decline was highest in artificial surface areas (11%), whereas 36% of croplands show early signs of decline. With the use of national metrics (NM), degraded areas were found to be 32.6% compared to 51.4% of the total land area when global default datasets (DD) were used. Estimates of degraded land computed with NM and DD were validated in Palapye, an agro‐pastoral region in eastern Botswana, where Composite Land Degradation Index (CLDI) field‐based data exists. Comparing land degradation (LD) in the three datasets (NM, DD, and CLDI), NM estimates were closest to the field data. The extra efforts put into developing national level data for LD assessment in this study is, thus, well‐justified. Beyond demonstrating remote sensing viability for LD assessment, the study developed procedures for generating and validating national level datasets. Using these procedures, LD monitoring will be enhanced in Botswana and elsewhere since these remote sensing datasets can be updated using freely available satellite datasets.


Accumulation of major and trace elements in the stream sediments of the Itagunmodi area southwestern Nigeria was investigated with a view to ascertain the levels of the elements that occur as contaminants in the study area. A total of nine stream sediments and a soil sample from the mining site were collected from the study area. The samples were geochemically analyzed, using the ICP-AES instrumentation techniques. From the result, some major and trace elements were selected for study, and they include; Aluminum (Al), Manganese (Mn), and Iron (Fe) with mean concentration values of {2.02 %, 1226.6% and 4.70%} respectively; They are known to have high anomalous value in all the locations in the order; Mn > Fe> Al. Cobalt( Co),Copper( Cu),Vanadium( V) , and Chromium(Cr) with mean concentration values of {23.13ppm, 71.61ppm, 133.80ppm and 108.24ppm} respectively amongst others are known to be the most distributed trace elements contaminants in the area The result of the contamination factor shows that Co, Cu, V and Cr have high contamination values of 60.55, 74.99, 53.89 and 56.68 respectively. It can therefore be concluded that some major part of the area are highly contaminated with these elements


This paper reports on the early stages of the STROLL project, which set out to document and research into learners' own views of their experiences of learning within what is seen as a technology-rich environment and to consider a range of learners' experiences of learning recorded during their 'journeys' at the University of Hertfordshire (UH) and Hertford Regional College (HRC). Undergraduates reflecting a diversity of race, age, gender and nationality were recruited to the project as volunteers. Creating their own video or audio diaries with webcams or camcorders or using digital voice recorders, the students reflected on questions set by the research team in line with the Learners' Journeys project aims. The project team will bring to the symposium examples of the early results from the first sets of diaries, including some sample video clips of the students' reflections. These indicate students' enthusiasm for using technology both for learning and leisure and a widespread use of social networking tools in line with findings from the Phase 1 outcomes. There has been relatively little research into the use of video diaries to capture student reflection on learning and the symposium will provide an opportunity to discuss this methodology.


Chaetonotus is the most speciose genus of the family Chaetonotidae within Gastrotricha, a small phylum of aquatic acoelomate invertebrates. The freshwater gastrotrich fauna of Sweden has been studied during the last five years and so far 44 species have been reported in the literature from the country. This study describes the new species, Chaetonotus (Primochaetus) veronicae n. sp., and reports 9 species new to the Swedish fauna raising the known number of freshwater species from the country to 54. Some records stand out from a biogeographic point of view: Chaetonotus (Primochaetus) soberanus is reported for the first time from Europe and Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) arethusae, Chaetonotus (Chaetonotus) naiadis and Chaetonotus (Hystricochaetonotus) euhystrix are reported for the first time outside the countries from which they were originally described.


A compact multi band slotted two elements MIMO antenna is designed on FR4 substrate with the dimensions 60×60×1.5 mm3 and an εr of 4.4. To achieve high isolation between the radiation elements, a Defected Ground Surface (DGS) technique is applied. The isolation between the elements and gain both increased considerably. In the simulated and measured return loss vs frequency results, multi bands are obtained. The maximum isolation is obtained as −36.32 dB at 8.8 GHz in the measured results.


Abstract Laser cleaning of bronze artefacts is a very promising conservation approach and its wider distribution would benefit from further studies of its advantages and drawbacks. Some important references are available, yet laser cleaning cannot be considered a traditional method for bronze surfaces. In this paper, we report on the evaluation of cleaning tests performed on an important statue of Napoleon, depicted as Mars the Peacemaker, cast by Righetti in 1811 after a model by Antonio Canova. The sculpture is exposed to the outdoor environment in the main courtyard of the Brera Gallery, Milan, Italy. An analytical survey of corrosion products was carried out using X-ray diffraction, micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (μFTIR), and μRaman spectroscopy; and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis was applied to cross-sections. The results showed the ubiquitous presence of brochantite Cu4(SO4)(OH)6. Antlerite Cu3SO4(OH)4 is also occasionally present. Residues of an past conservation treatment (Incralac®) and of proteins were detected by μFTIR. Laser cleaning tests were carried out with an El.En. Combo laser, both in long Q-switched and short free-running regimes. Evaluation of the effects of cleaning was carried out with a portable microscope and a reflectance colorimeter. Moreover, a portable FTIR spectrometer was used in order to evaluate the presence of coating residues and corrosion products after cleaning. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used in situ on a selection of the tested areas in order to characterize the effect of laser cleaning on the rate of corrosion. A specially designed contact probe was used for measurements in the frequency range 100 kHz–10 mHz both before and after cleaning.


Realistic modeling of the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of scene objects is a vital prerequisite for any type of physically based rendering. In the last decades, the availability of databases containing real-world material measurements has fueled considerable innovation in the development of such models. However, previous work in this area was mainly focused on increasing the visual realism of images, and hence ignored the effect of scattering on the polarization state of light, which is normally imperceptible to the human eye. Existing databases thus only capture scattered flux, or polarimetric BRDF datasets are too directionally sparse (e.g., in-plane) to be usable for simulation. While subtle to human observers, polarization is easily perceived by any optical sensor (e.g., using polarizing filters), providing a wealth of additional information about shape and material properties of the object under observation. Given the increasing application of rendering in the solution of inverse problems via analysis-by-synthesis and differentiation, the ability to realistically model polarized radiative transport is thus highly desirable. Polarization depends on the wavelength of the spectrum, and thus we provide the first polarimetric BRDF (pBRDF) dataset that captures the polarimetric properties of real-world materials over the full angular domain, and at multiple wavelengths. Acquisition of such reflectance data is challenging due to the extremely large space of angular, spectral, and polarimetric configurations that must be observed, and we propose a scheme combining image-based acquisition with spectroscopic ellipsometry to perform measurements in a realistic amount of time. This process yields raw Mueller matrices, which we subsequently transform into Rusinkiewicz-parameterized pBRDFs that can be used for rendering. Our dataset provides 25 isotropic pBRDFs spanning a wide range of appearances: diffuse/specular, metallic/dielectric, rough/smooth, and different color albedos, captured in five wavelength ranges covering the visible spectrum. We demonstrate usage of our data-driven pBRDF model in a physically based renderer that accounts for polarized interreflection, and we investigate the relationship of polarization and material appearance, providing insights into the behavior of characteristic real-world pBRDFs.


Consider a set of trips where each trip is specified a priori by a place of origin, a destination, a duration, a cost, and a time interval within which the trip must begin. The trips may include visits to one or more specific points. Our problem is to determine the number of vehicles required, together with their routes and schedules, so that each trip begins within its given time interval, while the fixed costs related to the number of vehicles, and the travel costs between trips, are minimized. The problem is a generalization of the m-traveling salesman problem. We use column generation on a set partitioning problem solved by simplex and branch-and-bound; columns are generated by a shortest path algorithm with time windows on the nodes. Numerical results for several school bus transportation problems with up to 151 trips are discussed.


Vormsi is a small island that belonged to the Oesel-Wiek bishopric during the Middle Ages. There is a church on the island that is dedicated to St Olaf, the Norwegian king who was undoubtedly the most popular saint among the Scandinavians. A short article written by Villem Raam in the anthology Eesti Arhitektuur ( Estonian  Architecture , 1996) is the only one worth mentioning that has appeared to date on the architectural history of the Vormsi church. The Vormsi church is comprised of a sanctuary and nave. Only the sanctuary was completed during the Middle Ages, and the stone nave was not completed until 1632. During the restoration of the church between 1989 and 1990, fragments were found of the foundation of the wooden church that predated the stone one. It is possible that the wooden church was utilised throughout the Middle Ages as a congregation room. Currently, it is believed that the Vormsi sanctuary was built during the 15th century. This dating is based on the pyramid-shaped vault consoles – a similar shape also appears in the chapel of the gate tower in the Padise Cistercian monastery. Actually, the Padise consoles have been reused. Their original location is unknown and their completion is impossible to date even within the time frame of a century. The most significant is the eastern wall of the Vormsi sanctuary, where a spacious niche with pointed arch is located. This Cistercian composition was also used in the Haapsalu Cathedral and apparently that was the model for the Vormsi church. The Haapsalu Cathedral is a surprisingly simple single-nave church with three bays. The church has richly decorated capitals on its wall pillars, on which both Romanesque and Early Gothic motifs have been used. At least some of the capitals have been hewn by a master who previously worked on the construction of the capital hall in the Riga Cathedral. The northern section of the Haapsalu Cathedral was apparently built in the 1260s. In the vicinity of Riga there is a church with a floor plan that is an exact counterpart to the one in Haapsalu – the Holme / Martinsala Church that dates back to about the 13th century. Considering both the floor plan and the sculptured decorations, it is believable that the designers and builders of the Haapsalu Cathedral came from the Riga environs. Parnu is also on the Riga-Haapsalu route. Actually, two towns existed there during the Middle Ages. For a short time, Old-Parnu on the right bank of the river had been the centre of the Oesel-Wiek bishopric before Haapsalu. However, the left bank of the river was controlled by the Livonian Order. There is very little information about the Old-Parnu Cathedral that was completed around 1251 and destroyed by the Lithuanians in 1263. However, one thing is known – it also had a single-nave with three bays. There is no information about the design of the eastern wall of the cathedral. However, the sanctuary of St Nicholas' Church in New-Parnu had an eastern niche similar to the one in Haapsalu. It is not impossible that the motif was borrowed from the cathedral across the river or its ruins. Attention should also be paid to the fact that the design of the northern and southern walls in the sanctuary of Parnu's St Nicholas' Church are similar to the Vormsi church. Therefore, there is no doubt that these two sanctuaries are architecturally and genetically related. Apparently the Vormsi sanctuary was built immediately or soon after the completion of the Haapsalu Cathedral – not later than 1270. It is not impossible that the vaults were constructed sometime later. The vault painting in the Vormsi sanctuary is probably inspired by the "paradise vaults" in Gotland. The Vormsi painting is strikingly primitive. In Estonia, this primitive style can also be seen in the churches in Ridala and Poide. There is a squint (hagioscope) on the southern wall of the Vormsi church sanctuary, and an unusual sacrament niche with a light shaft in the eastern wall. This does not date back to the time when the sanctuary was built, but was added later. There have been at least eight such sacrament niches in Estonia, most of which were built in the 15th century.


The paper deals with the notion of the feeling of aliveness in existential psychology. The feeling of aliveness is understood as a structural part of a broader concept—experience of being or sense of being. It its said that sense of being is a many folded construct, which includes: a) physical aliveness b) psychological experience of aliveness c) authenticity. In this article we concentrated on psychological experience of aliveness due to its importance to psychological counselling and psychotherapy.Three qualitative unstructured interviews were analyzed. Two women and one man between the ages of 35 and 45 years participated in the research. At the time of research all of them were working for middle or big international business companies as head-managers. The same research question was given to all participants: "What does it mean for you to feel alive?" Further interview was conveyed according to the method requirements recommended for such kinds of qualitative research. Interview transcriptions were analyzed using Interpretative- Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 2008, 2009). The goal of the reserch is to describe the phenomenological structure of the feeling of aliveness and to explicate communalities in experience of aliveness. The feeling of aliveness was defined as subjective experience of emotional involvement. It is concluded that physical dimension dominates in the head-managers experience of aliveness. Their experience of aliveness is primarily based on physical activity, sensual experience and ability to use their bodies as a means of emotional self-regulation. Interpersonal relationships as well were found to be one of the main sources of experience of aliveness. It is stated that mutual emotional devotion to a relationship is one of the main criteria that gives rise to the experience of aliveness.


In the interphase nucleus of mammalian cells the U1, U2, U4/U6, and U5 small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), which are subunits of spliceosomes, associate with specific subnuclear domains including interchromatin granules and coiled bodies. Here, we analyze the association of splicing snRNPs with these structures during mitosis and reassembly of daughter nuclei. At the onset of mitosis snRNPs are predominantly diffuse in the cytoplasm, although a subset remain associated with remnants of coiled bodies and clusters of mitotic interchromatin granules, respectively. The number and size of mitotic coiled bodies remain approximately unchanged from metaphase to early telophase while snRNP-containing clusters of mitotic interchromatin granules increase in size and number as cells progress from anaphase to telophase. During telophase snRNPs are transported into daughter nuclei while the clusters of mitotic interchromatin granules remain in the cytoplasm. The timing of nuclear import of splicing snRNPs closely correlates with the onset of transcriptional activity in daughter nuclei. When transcription restarts in telophase cells snRNPs have a diffuse nucleoplasmic distribution. As cells progress to G1 snRNP- containing clusters of interchromatin granules reappear in the nucleus. Coiled bodies appear later in G1, although the coiled body antigen, p80 coilin, enters early into telophase nuclei. After inhibition of transcription we still observe nuclear import of snRNPs and the subsequent appearance of snRNP-containing clusters of interchromatin granules, but not coiled body formation. These data demonstrate that snRNP associations with coiled bodies and interchromatin granules are differentially regulated during the cell division cycle and suggest that these structures play distinct roles connected with snRNP structure, transport, and/or function.


This paper addresses the reconstruction of high resolution omnidirectional images from a low resolution video acquired by an omnidirectional camera moving in a static scene. In order to exploit the additional information provided by the side images in the video sequence, the ego-motion of the camera must be accurately estimated in a first step. The reconstruction can then be modeled as a plenoptic sampling problem that has to encompass the change of viewpoint between each position of the omnidirectional sensor and the specific discretization of the real scene observed from each position. We formulate this problem as an ill-posed inverse problem that incorporates a regularization term based on a Total Variation (TV) prior. A graph variational formulation is used in order to ease the representation of omnidirectional data and to adapt the discretization of differential operators to the omnidirectional geometry. Experimental results on synthetic images demonstrate the relevance of this approach and its superiority compared to standard super-resolution using a single image.


The field of image processing, image quality assessment is a fundamental and challenging problem with many interests in a variety of applications. Dynamic monitoring, adjusting image quality, optimizing algorithms and parameter settings of image processing systems are benchmarking in image processing system and algorithms. In this paper using such techniques we are going to analysis the detection of diseases like tumour for the ease in medical use.


Abstract. Aerosol composition and mixing state near anthropogenic sources can be highly variable and can challenge predictions of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). The impacts of chemical composition on CCN activation kinetics is also an important, but largely unknown, aspect of cloud droplet formation. Towards this, we present in-situ size-resolved CCN measurements carried out during the 2008 summertime August Mini Intensive Gas and Aerosol Study (AMIGAS) campaign in Atlanta, GA. Aerosol chemical composition was measured by two particle-into-liquid samplers measuring water-soluble inorganic ions and total water-soluble organic carbon. Size-resolved CCN data were collected using the Scanning Mobility CCN Analysis (SMCA) method and were used to obtain characteristic aerosol hygroscopicity distributions, whose breadth reflects the aerosol compositional variability and mixing state. Knowledge of aerosol mixing state is important for accurate predictions of CCN concentrations and that the influence of an externally-mixed, CCN-active aerosol fraction varies with size from 31% for particle diameters less than 40 nm to 93% for accumulation mode aerosol during the day. Assuming size-dependent aerosol mixing state and size-invariant chemical composition decreases the average CCN concentration overprediction (for all but one mixing state and chemical composition scenario considered) from over 190–240% to less than 20%. CCN activity is parameterized using a single hygroscopicity parameter, κ, which averages to 0.16 ± 0.07 for 80 nm particles and exhibits considerable variability (from 0.03 to 0.48) throughout the study period. Particles in the 60–100 nm range exhibited similar hygroscopicity, with a κ range for 60 nm between 0.06–0.076 (mean of 0.18 ± 0.09). Smaller particles (40 nm) had on average greater κ, with a range of 0.20–0.92 (mean of 0.3 ± 0.12). Analysis of the droplet activation kinetics of the aerosol sampled suggests that most of the CCN activate as rapidly as calibration aerosol, suggesting that aerosol composition exhibits a minor (if any) impact on CCN activation kinetics.


Organizations bring together people with various access to and understanding of the work at hand. De-spite their different stocks of background knowledge, most of them engage in documentation, whether as writers or readers. This paper explores how documents serve such diverse users by building a framework articulating the characteristics of documents supporting collaborators with asymmetric access to knowledge versus people with symmetric knowledge. Drawing on document-centric approaches we hypothesize that documents supporting asymmetric groups are likely to be more prescriptive and explicate their own use compared to documents supporting symmetric groups. Through exploratory analysis of two kinds of documents, used across three FLOSS projects, we find that documents supporting collaborators with asymmetric knowledge do appear to explicate their own use in more detail. They do so by prescribing their own 1) purpose, 2) context of use, 3) content and form in greater detail than documents used by core community members with symmetric access to project knowledge.


participation in the following group exhibition:

Michael Jackson: On the Wall,a landmark exhibition exploring how Michael Jackson has inspired some of the leading names in contemporary art. Curated by Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, this major new exhibition spanning several generations of artists across all media.
Jackson is one of the most influential cultural figures to come out of the 20th century and his legacy continues into the 21st century. His significance is widely acknowledged when it comes to music, music videos, dance, choreography and fashion, but his impact on contemporary art is an untold story; one that has not been recognised with an international loan exhibition such as this.
Almost a decade after his death, Jackson's legacy is as strong as ever: his record sales, now in excess of one billion, continue to grow; his short films are still watched; and his enormous fan base remains loyal. His impact and fame show no signs of diminishing and the questions raised by him as a social phenomenon are still relevant.
In addition to breaking records for the most albums sold, awards won, philanthropic achievements and cultural barriers overturned, Michael Jackson has become the most depicted cultural figure in visual art by an extraordinary array of leading contemporary artists since Andy Warhol first used his image in 1982. For the first time, Michael Jackson: On the Wall will bring together the works of over 40 of these artists, drawn from public and private collections around the world, including new works made especially for the exhibition.
Artists featured include: Rita Ackerman, Dara Birnbaum, Candice Breitz, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Mark Flood, Isa Genzken, Maggi Hambling, David Hammons, Lyle Ashton Harris, Jonathan Horowitz, Gary Hume, Rashid Johnson, Isaac Julien, David LaChapelle, Louise Lawler, Klara Liden, Glenn Ligon, Paul McCarthy, Rodney McMillian, Dawn Mellor, Lorraine O'Grady, Catherine Opie, Yan Pei Ming, Grayson Perry, Paul Pfeiffer, Faith Ringgold, Donald Urquhart, Kehinde Wiley, Hank Willis Thomas, Andy Warhol and Jordan Wolfson, among many others. The exhibition will not only ask why so many contemporary artists have been drawn to Jackson as a subject, but also why he continues to loom so large in our collective cultural imagination. It will explore the impact and influence of Jackson on contemporary artists and the continued interest in him as a major cultural figure.
The selection embraces works by some of the most important contemporary artists working today, but also includes emerging artists. This innovative exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly publication with essays by Nicholas Cullinan, Margo Jefferson and Zadie Smith.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London said: "Michael Jackson: On the Wall takes an entirely new and quite radical approach by exploring the cultural impact of a unique figure through contemporary art. All the artists included - despite coming from different generations and parts of the world, and employing a range of media – are fascinated by what Jackson represented and what he invented. It is rare that there is something new to say about someone so famous, but here that is the case. The exhibition breaks new ground for the National Portrait Gallery in its subject matter and the breadth and profile of the artists who have been invited to participate. It will open up new avenues for thinking about art and identity, encourage new dialogues between artists and invite audiences interested in popular culture and music to engage with contemporary art. Like its subject, we hope this exhibition will be inclusive in appeal, uncompromising in artistic integrity and in the process break down barriers."
Michael Jackson: On the Wall is curated by Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, together with Lucy Dahlsen, Associate Curator. Nicholas Cullinan took up his position as the Director of the National Portrait Gallery in spring 2015 following his role as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Prior to this, from 2007 to 2013, Nicholas was Curator of International Modern Art at Tate Modern where he co-curated an exhibition of Henri Matisse's cut-outs with Sir Nicholas Serota in 2014.
Michael Jackson: On the Wall is produced with the co-operation of the Michael Jackson Estate.


This work presents a visualization system and its application to space missions. The system allows the public to disseminate the scientific findings of space craft and gain a greater understanding thereof. Instruments' field-of-views and their measurements are embedded in an accurate 3 dimensional rendering of the solar system to provide context to past measurements or the planning of future events. We tested our system with NASA's New Horizons at the Pluto Pallooza event in New York and will expose it to the greater public on the upcoming July 14th Pluto flyby.


The difference principle, introduced by Rawls (1971, 1993), is generally interpreted as leximin, but this is not how he intended it. Rawls explicitly states that the difference principle requires that aggregate benefits (e.g., average or total) to those in the least advantaged group be given lexical priority over benefits to others, where the least advantaged group includes more than the strictly worst off individuals. We study the implications of adopting different approaches to the definition of the least advantaged group and show that, if acyclicity is required, several seemingly plausible approaches lead to something close to leximin. We then show that significant aggregation is possible, if the least advantaged group is defined as those with those with less benefits than some strictly positive transform of the lowest level of benefits. Finally, we discuss the implications of requiring that, in comparing two alternatives, the cutoff for the least advantaged group of one alternative be the same as that for the other alternative.


The mammalian carotid body (CB) senses decreases in blood oxygen (hypoxia) to increase breathing within seconds. In hypoxia, neuroendocrine cells in the CB called glomus cells are activated to signal to afferent nerves that are a branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve (cranial nerve IX). Signals ascending through this nerve are ultimately transmitted to respiratory rhythm generators in the brainstem to regulate breathing.


In the recent past, data handling has been neglected at secondary school level, perhaps partially due to the strong emphasis on developing arithmetic, algebra and geometry. For the first time, the South African curriculum includes substantial amounts of data handling at all grade levels. The introduction of more data handling in the secondary school curriculum in South Africa and the prevalence of many problems in the teaching of probability and statistics argues for a serious reconsideration of the way it is taught to the pupils. Currently this concern has been the focus of a call for reform in mathematics education by a body like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) at all levels of schooling (NCTM, 1989; 2000). The importance of visualisation in mathematics, at all levels of mathematical problem solving is well documented in the literature (Bishop, 1989; Maher & Alston, 1989; Moses, 1982; Wheatley, 1991) but almost nothing was done to appreciate visualisation in the learning of data handling. The paper therefore provides a qualitative examination from a Masters dissertation (Makina, 2005) of the role of visualisation in the learning of data handling. This is done through examining the thought processes involved by Grade 9 learners during visualisation while solving data handling tasks. Several roles of visualisation were identified and most were found to improve the critical and creative thinking of pupils during their learning of data handling. The results show that learners are likely to improve their performance in data handling if the awareness of the need to use visualisation creatively as a tool for understanding are highlighted.


This Article introduces the phenomenon of "privacy asymmetries," which are privacy statutes that permit courts to order disclosures of sensitive information when requested by law enforcement, but not when requested by criminal defense counsel. In the United States adversarial criminal legal system, defense counsel are the sole actors tasked with investigating evidence of innocence. Law enforcement has no constitutional, statutory, or formal ethical duty to seek out evidence of innocence. Therefore, selectively suppressing defense investigations means selectively suppressing evidence of innocence. Privacy asymmetries form a recurring, albeit previously unrecognized, pattern in privacy statutes. They likely arise from legislative oversight and not reasoned deliberation. Worse, they risk unnecessary harms to criminal defendants, as well as to the truth-seeking process of the judiciary, by advantaging the search for evidence of guilt over that for evidence of innocence. The number of these harms will only increase in the digital economy as private companies collect immense quantities of data about our heart beats, movements, communications, consumption, and more. Much of that data will be relevant to criminal investigations, and available to the accused solely through the very defense subpoenas that privacy asymmetries block. Moreover, the introduction of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools into the criminal justice system will exacerbate the consequences of law enforcement's and defense counsel's disparate access to data. To avoid enacting privacy asymmetries by sheer accident, legislators drafting privacy statutes should include a default symmetrical savings provision for law enforcement and defense investigators alike.


This chapter highlights some of the findings of a qualitative research study which was undertaken in four areas in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. The study collected information on some of the critical barriers to community participation in HIV and antiretroviral services. One urban and one rural community or municipality was chosen in each province for the study.
Respondents included health care workers at clinic and hospital level, community workers, people living with HIV, traditional healers, community leaders, non-governmental organisations and community based organisations in the geographic area, clinic committees and support groups.
Findings indicate that poverty and stigma operate as significant barriers to accessing HIV and AIDS care and treatment services in the public health sector. Women and youth face particular challenges in participating and accessing services and bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic. Socio-economic constraints (e.g. travel costs) coupled with perceptions that access to treatment is fraught with difficulties and delays were cited as compelling barriers at facility level which impact on uptake of treatment. Human resource shortages contribute to the poor acceptability and responsiveness of health services. Social security for people living with HIV is inequitable and the current eligibility criteria for disability grants can result in unintended outcomes. Nutritional support and food insecurity have a powerful impact on adherence and treatment stability. Sustained gains in broadening access to treatment and care are likely to remain elusive without the full support and participation of communities. NGOs have a key role to play in assisting communities to identify their strengths and available resources as well as areas of need. Transparent and credible mechanisms such as forums for dialogue and discussion between communities and other stakeholders must be created at local level. Finally, successful models of community involvement must be disseminated and popularised.


This Article examines the question of what role international law should play in domestic courts through the lens of the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS") and points to the next battlegrounds for transnational litigation under state and foreign law. The Article provides clarity as to why federal appellate courts have limited ATS cases. In light of federal retrenchment, this Article uniquely explores the potential for a new wave of international law litigation under state and foreign law and the potential for that wave to reach state courts. The Article analyzes forthcoming issues of federalism, choice of law, preemption, and due process that will arise as part of the next wave of international law litigation. After critically evaluating these areas, the Article provides a scholarly agenda for further study related to the question of international law in domestic courts. The Article seeks to apply the rich academic literature produced to date by such eminent scholars as Curtis Bradley, Jack Goldsmith, Harold Koh, and others to this new wave of transnational litigation. In so doing, it creates a new legal and normative framework for further studies regarding the role of international law in U.S. courts. The Article concludes by proposing a congressional fix that uses the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 as a model for alleviating federalism concerns that exist when international law cases are brought in domestic courts.


This volume collects a series of essays that I have written over the last decade on multi-sided platform businesses that create value by providing products that enable two or more different types of customers to get together, find each other, and exchange value. Part I presents background pieces on the economics of multi-sided platforms and industries in which these platforms are common. Part II examines the antitrust economics of two-sided markets including the difficult problem of defining the boundaries of competition. Part III comprises several papers that apply two-sided market analysis to web-based businesses. Part IV does the same for payment cards which is the industry that attracted much of the early two-sided analysis — in part because this framework was helpful for understanding the hotly debated issue of interchange fees. Part V collects several article and book chapters on software platforms. These platforms have become especially important in the last several years because they are now the basis for revolutionary developments with mobile devices (e.g. the iPhone and Android), social networking (Facebook in particular), and payments (PayPalX).


There is strong evidence that the year 1540 was exceptionally dry and warm in Central Europe. Here we infer 1540 summer temperatures from the number of dry days (NDDs) in spring (March–May) and summer (June–August) in 1540 derived from historical documentary evidence published elsewhere, and compare our estimates with present-day temperatures. We translate the NDD values into temperature distributions using a linear relationship between modeled temperature and NDD from a 3000 year pre-industrial control simulation with the Community Earth System Model (CESM). Our results show medium confidence that summer mean temperatures (TJJA) and maximum temperatures (TXx) in Central Europe in 1540 were warmer than the respective present-day mean summer temperatures (assessed between 1966–2015). The model-based reconstruction suggests further that with a probability of 40%–70%, the highest daily temperatures in 1540 were even warmer than in 2003, while there is at most a 20% probability that the 1540 mean summer temperature was warmer than that of 2003 in Central Europe. As with other state-of-the-art analyses, the uncertainty of the reconstructed 1540 summer weather in this study is considerable, for instance as extrapolation is required because 1540-like events are not captured by the employed Earth system model (ESM), and neither by other ESMs. However, in addition to paleoclimatological approaches we introduce here an independent methodology to estimate 1540 temperatures, and contribute consequently to a reduced overall uncertainty in the analysis of this event. The characterization of such events and the related climate system functioning is particularly relevant in the context of global warming and the corresponding increase of extreme heat wave magnitude and occurrence frequency.


The construction industry contributes one in six industrial fatalities per year with approximately
60,000 deaths on construction sites around the world. Undeniably, health and safety in the UK
construction industry has improved significantly; however the industry is still considered as one
of the most dangerous, responsible for 39 fatalities in 2012/13. Unfortunately, Small and
Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in construction account for 90% of these fatalities at work.
However, some may assert although not at zero accidents, large companies have got health and
safety 'just as good as it can get'.
Arguably, an average SME's health and safety performance is often undermined by a rigid
dichotomy between perceived need for commitment to health and safety and profitability. Some
proponents of commitment to health and safety claim that upholding safety best practice is,
without doubt, the most crucial investment that can be made. However, there is substantial
cynicism by most SMEs as to this claim; and it is often the case that financial pressure and the
disbelief about returns on commitment to safety make SMEs cut corners. Attempts by past
studies to measure commitment to health and safety against the profitability of organisations,
seem to be scarce. Thus, this study aim is to explore the role of organisations' commitment to
health and safety in the profitability of construction organisations. Construction firms that are
committed to health and safety may reap the benefits of: having cleaner sites, better-motivated
workers, reduced insurance premiums, avoid unexpected cost of safety, better productivity and
thus better profitability.
The study employed a mixed methods research design over two phases. The first phase was
conducted using key SMEs operating in the UK to derive the influence of SMEs' commitment to
health and safety best practice against profitability. Eighty seven participants representing
various firms completed a questionnaire. The profitability over five years of companies for whom
the participants worked was determined by reference to company's accounts published at
Companies House Ltd. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten
industry practitioners and two academics; in order to support the development of discussion and
conclusion. The research findings show that SMEs' commitment to health and safety is good but
falls short of being very good, excellent or outstanding. The study conclude that, there is a
relationship between percentage commitment to health and safety and the profitability of
organisations; in addition the study also inferred that remedial costs of safety (depending on
severity of adverse safety incident) is likely to negatively affect the profitability of organisations


Wetlands are valuable natural resources that provide many benefits to the environment, and thus, mapping wetlands is crucially important. We have developed land cover and wetland classification algorithms that have general applicability to different geographical locations. We also want a high level of classification accuracy (i.e., more than 90%). Over that past 2 years, we have been developing an operational wetland classification approach aimed at a Newfoundland/Labrador province-wide wetland inventory. We have developed and published several algorithms to classify wetlands using multi-source data (i.e., polari- metric SAR and multi-spectral optical imagery), object-based image analysis, and advanced machine-learning tools. The algorithms have been tested and verified on many large pilot sites across the province and provided overall and class-based accuracies of about 90%. The developed methods have general applicability to other Canadian provinces (with field validation data) allowing the creation of a nation-wide wetland inventory system.


Electron microscopy of heteroduplex DNA molecules, composed of one strand of Escherichia coli phage λ+ DNA annealed to the complementary DNA strand of a λ deletion or substitution mutant, permits visualization, as well as precise measurements and mapping, of the unpaired single-stranded regions of nonhomology in the otherwise double-stranded molecules. In the λb2 mutant, the central segment (13 percent) of the λ+ DNA molecule is shown to be deleted. In the hybrid phages λi434 and λi21 a segment of the right arm of the λ+ genome (5.5 or 7.6 to 9 percent) is replaced by the corresponding immunity regions of phage 434 (3.3 percent or phage 21 (4 percent) DNA. The b5 region in the λb5 mutant appears to be identical to the i21 segment. From these data it is possible to estimate the size and posiion of those λ genes which are replaced by the i434 and i21 segments. The method permits preparing complete physical maps of viral genomes with a precision heretofore unattainable.


OBJECTIVE: In the present study, in thorax ultrasonography (USG) Doppler images obtained from cases with occult pneumothorax, we investigated the status of pulsatile pleural sounds over the pleural line and called these as the pleural sound sign (PSS). The purpose of the present study was to identify the efficacy of the proposed PSS in diagnosing pneumothorax and to compare it with the other USG findings including the sliding lung sign (SLS) and seashore sign (SSS). METHODS: The present study included 66 consecutive patients who were referred to the emergency unit with a blunt trauma from October 2009 to January 2010 at a tertiary university hospital. RESULTS: Of the 66 patients, 34 were in the patient group, and 32 were in the control group. Males accounted for 66.7% (n=44) of the study population. In predicting pneumothorax, the areas under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of PSSmax and PSSdifference were 0.989 and 0.990, respectively. While the sensitivity of the SLS was 88% and the sensitivity of the SSS was 56%, the specificities of the SLS and SSS were 100%. Based on our findings, accuracy ranking was as follows: PSSmax = PSSdifference > SLS > SSS. CONCLUSION: New applications of thorax USG are rapidly growing. Our findings have to be confirmed in a large patient series. PSS is not a novel method, but it enhanced the importance of USG in the diagnosis of pneumothorax. We can stipulate that it can replace thorax computed tomography imaging particularly for the diagnosis of occult pneumothoraxes.


Despite of our increasing understanding of the molecular, genetic and phenotypic progression of cancers, treatments that can effectively combat most malignant cancers remain suboptimal [1]. A major challenge with current therapies is that they focus on existing genetic abnormalities but usually become ineffectual due to cancers becoming resistant or not expressing the specific mutation. Advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing of various cancers before and after treatment and after recurrence, has provided researchers with comprehensive collections of driver and passenger mutations that can be utilised to develop novel therapies. However, these sequencing techniques can be costly and usually results in the output of large and complex datasets that require specialised knowledge of different computational analysis [2].


Abstract Introduction: Angiogenesis has been associated with Gleason score, tumor stage, progression, metastasis and survival in prostate cancer. Furthermore, obesity has been associated with aggressive prostate cancer in most studies. However, the effect of the interaction between variants in genes in the angiogenesis pathway and obesity on the risk of aggressive prostate cancer is not well studied. We hypothesized that (i) variants in angiogenesis-related genes will associate with prostate cancer aggressiveness and (ii) obesity will modify the association between the variants and prostate cancer aggressiveness. Methods: We conducted a two-stage analysis in two independent study populations to evaluate the role of variants in the angiogenesis pathway and their interaction with body mass index (BMI, as a measure of obesity) on prostate cancer aggressiveness. In our discovery stage, we compared genotype frequencies of 2,177 SNPs in 161 angiogenesis-related genes between 659 aggressive and 492 non-aggressive cases derived from existing Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) prostate cancer genome-wide association study data. In the replication stage, we attempted to validate initial findings from the discovery stage in a historical cohort of 437 aggressive and 603 non-aggressive prostate cancer patients treated at the Moffitt Cancer Center from 1986 to 2003. In both data sets, aggressive disease was defined as a Gleason score≥7 or stage≥III (all others were considered non-aggressive) and obesity was defined as BMI≥30kg/m2 (all others were considered non-obese). Associations between aggressive prostate cancer and individual SNPs were evaluated using logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). We evaluated cumulative effects of validated SNPs by summing the number of risk alleles (risk score) for each subject in the replication dataset. Interactions between validated SNPs and obesity were evaluated in the replication dataset using logistic regression models that included a product term for the ordinal coding of genotype and a binary obesity variable, as well as main effects of these variables. Associations at SNPs with statistically significant interactions were then stratified by obesity. Results: In the discovery dataset, 279 SNPs in 75 angiogenesis related-genes had a raw p-value < 0.05. Among these 279 SNPs, 160 (57.3%) had data available in the replication dataset. Four of these SNPs (COL4A3 rs10498214, PDGFD rs488753, COL4A3 rs6436661 and ELK3 rs2268509) were significantly associated with aggressive disease in the replication dataset. A meta-analysis of the two datasets revealed an increased risk for COL4A3 rs10498214 (OR=1.58, 95%CI=1.17-2.13), PDGFD rs488753 (OR=1.46, 95%CI=1.14-1.87) and ELK3 rs2268509 (OR=1.41, 95%CI=1.17-1.70) and a reduced risk for COL4A3 rs6436661 (OR=0.73, 95%CI=0.59-0.90). In risk score analyses, patients carrying 5-8 (OR=1.63, 95%CI=1.20-2.21, P=0.007), but not 4 (OR=1.31, 95%CI=0.95-1.81, P=0.86), risk alleles of these four SNPs had a significant increased risk for aggressive disease compared to patients carrying 0-3 risk alleles. We observed an increased risk of aggressive disease for obese cases (OR=1.35, 95%CI=1.02-1.80, P=0.039) compared to non-obese cases and a statistically significant interaction between COL4A3 rs10498214 and obesity (Pinteraction=0.0098). The per minor allele (rs10498214) risk for aggressive prostate cancer increased among obese cases (OR=1.79, 95%CI=1.24-2.58, P=0.002), but not non-obese cases (OR=0.97, 95%CI=0.75-1.24, P=0.78). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that angiogenesis gene variants influence the risk of aggressive prostate cancer and obesity may modify this association. Further studies are warranted to validate these initial findings. Citation Format: Ernest K. Amankwah, Hui-Yi Lin, Thomas A. Sellers, Hyun Park, Selina Radlein, Julio Pow-Sang, Ardeshir Hakam, Xiaotao Qu, Ya-Yu Tsai, Jong Park. Interaction between obesity and variants in angiogenesis-related genes and prostate cancer aggressiveness. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Post-GWAS Horizons in Molecular Epidemiology: Digging Deeper into the Environment; 2012 Nov 11-14; Hollywood, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(11 Suppl):Abstract nr 10.


The precondition of a health conscious behaviour in a community is establishing a healthy development of the community, an important part of which is the community's attitude to sports and health. A basic manifestation of this is whether the leadership of a specific settlement is committed to developing sports facilities and, on the other hand, to what extent residents make use of these facilities. The aim of our research was to point out the number of sports facilities currently available for catering everyday physical education introduced in 2012, leisure sports and competitive sport events in two different regions of Hungary. We also examined the resources available for maintaining the facilities and the degree to which existing facilities are exploited. Existing sports halls of the Northern Great Plain and Central Transdanubia were included in the research. We wish to emphasise, in regards to the infrastructural developments of the coming few years, that it is essential to consider the fact, even in the planning phase of facilities, that sport events in themselves do not make the facilities economically sustainable.


For the reduction of the equations of radiative transfer, the most convenient representation of the state of polarization is by a one-column intensity matrix of the four coherency-matrix elements or their linear combinations, derived from the electric-field components parallel and perpendicular to the plane through the local vertical and the direction of the light beam. A particular law of scattering is then expressed by a four-by-four (Mueller) scattering matrix which connects the intensity matrices of the incident and scattered light. The form of such scattering matrices for various representations of the state of polarization, as well as the corresponding reciprocity relationships, are derived with the use of the matrix formalism recently introduced by Marathay. The reciprocity relationships, i.e., the pertinent relationships when the incident and scattered beams are interchanged or when their directions of propagations are reversed, can be expressed in terms of a transposition of the original scattering matrix accompanied by pre- and post-multiplication by certain diagonal matrices that incorporate the changes in the sign of some elements of the scattering matrix after transposition. The derived reciprocity relationships are new except for those which govern the reversal of directions when the state of polarization is represented by the Stokes parameters and their modifications (used by Chandrasekhar) and which have been given earlier by Chandrasekhar and van de Hulst.


A multiyear study was conducted to determine if soil amendment combined with topical application of elemental sulfur could be employed to reduce deer browse damage to four conifer species. Fertilizer and sulfur were applied to conifer seedlings at seven sites near Corvallis, OR. Growth and browse damage data were collected for all seedlings over a period of 17 months. Additionally, foliar concentrations of monoterpenes and simple carbohydrates were assessed in western redcedar (Thuja plicata) seedlings over a period of three years. Fertilization and sulfur treatments had a moderate impact on growth and no influence on browse damage or the chemical responses. Over the course of the study, browse damage diminished while foliar monoterpene concentrations increased in redcedar. It appears that silvicultural manipulation via sulfur application and/or soil amendment cannot accelerate or alter the ontogenetical changes that may naturally defend seedlings against mammalian herbivores. In a brief trial with captive deer, redcedar browse resistance was influenced by seedling maturation, but not monoterpene content. Other maturation effects may yield significant browse protection to young seedlings.