Several parallel east verging thrusts with Quaternary tectonic activity have been identified in the eastern piedmont of Cordon de Las Osamentas, Central Precordillera of Argentina. We grouped these structures into the Maradona Fault System (MFS). The main morphostructural units, called mountainous and transitional, were analyzed. The form and evolution of these units are closely related to the geological structure of the area. With the morphotectonic analysis, we estimated the length of MFS and the affected alluvial levels. Besides, the morphology of the escarpments was determined through detailed transversal topographic profiles made in a sector where the alluvial levels are affected by the faults. This analysis allowed the recognition of several fault segments and the selection of the points that would present the best natural exposures of the fault- sedimentary deposits relationships. Topographic profiles performed with differential GPS let to identify centimetric fault scarps through slope changes observed in each transect orthogonal to the direction of the structures. Five natural exposures were identified allowing determination of the kinematics of the different fault sections and the deposits affected by these structures. In all the analyzed exposures, faults are reverse with low angle (thrust), dipping to the west and affecting Neogene deposits and alluvial units assigned to the late Pleistocene-Holocene. The Maradona fault system affects younger alluvial levels to the east, showing the gradual migration of the Andean deformation eastward. The progression of the deformation in this sector of Central Precordillera would have evolved according to a pattern of thrusts with angles in surface near 45°, with sequences of internal deformation and reactivation during the Pleistocene-Holocene. Finally, the SFM is regarded as a potential seismogenic source capable to produce earthquakes with magnitude >Mw 6 and hit the main populated centers of the province of San Juan (>700,000 inhabitants), and several dams built along the San Juan River.


The annual world PV cell/module production is growing at almost an exponential rate and has reached 1727 MW In 2005. Building Integrated PV (BIPV) projects are emerging as the strongest part of the PV market and grid Interactive Inverters are a key component in determining the total system cost. Module Integrated Converter (MIC) technology is one approach that may assist In driving down the balance of system costs to secure an Improved total system cost. This paper concentrates on the topology study of the photovoltaic MICs In the power range below 500 W and covers most topologies recently proposed for MIC applications. The MIC topologies are classified into three different arrangements based on the dc link configurations. A systematic discussion is also provided at the end of the paper that focuses on the major advantages and disadvantages of each MIC arrangement. These are considered in detail and will provide a useful framework and point of reference for the next generation MIC designs and applications.


The paper revives an older approach to acoustic modeling that borrows from n-gram language modeling in an attempt to scale up both the amount of training data and model size (as measured by the number of parameters in the model), to approximately 100 times larger than current sizes used in automatic speech recognition. In such a data-rich setting, we can expand the phonetic context significantly beyond triphones, as well as increase the number of Gaussian mixture components for the context-dependent states that allow it. We have experimented with contexts that span seven or more context-independent phones, and up to 620 mixture components per state. Dealing with unseen phonetic contexts is accomplished using the familiar back-off technique used in language modeling due to implementation simplicity. The back-off acoustic model is estimated, stored and served using MapReduce distributed computing infrastructure. Speech recognition experiments are carried out in an N-best list rescoring framework for Google Voice Search. Training big models on large amounts of data proves to be an effective way to increase the accuracy of a state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition system. We use 87 000 hours of training data (speech along with transcription) obtained by filtering utterances in Voice Search logs on automatic speech recognition confidence. Models ranging in size between 20-40 million Gaussians are estimated using maximum likelihood training. They achieve relative reductions in word-error-rate of 11% and 6% when combined with first-pass models trained using maximum likelihood, and boosted maximum mutual information, respectively. Increasing the context size beyond five phones (quinphones) does not help.


Purpose
Drawing on sensemaking and emotion regulation research, the purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize core contributor withdrawal (CCW) in the context of online peer-production communities (OPPCs). To explain the underlying mechanisms that make core contributors withdraw from these communities, the authors propose a process theory of contributor withdrawal called the core contributor withdrawal theory (CCWT).

Design/methodology/approach
To support CCWT, a typology of unmet expectations of online communities is presented, which uncovers the cognitive and emotional processing involved. To illustrate the efficacy of CCWT, a case study of the English version of Wikipedia is provided as a representative OPPC.

Findings
CCWT identifies sensemaking and emotion regulation concerning contributors' unmet expectations as causes of CCW from OPPCs, which first lead to declined expectations, burnout and psychological withdrawal and thereby to behavioral withdrawal.

Research limitations/implications
CCWT clearly identifies how and why important participation transitions, such as from core contributor to less active contributor or non-contributor, take place. By adopting process theories, CCWT provides a nuanced explanation of the cognitive and affective events that take place before core contributors withdraw from OPPCs.

Practical implications
CCWT highlights the challenge of online communities shifting from recruiting new contributors to preventing loss of existing contributors in the maturity stage. Additionally, by identifying the underlying cognitive and affective processes that core contributors experience in response to unexpected events, communities can develop safeguards to prevent or correct cognitions and emotions that lead to withdrawal.

Originality/value
CCWT provides a theoretical framework that accounts for the negative cognitions and affects that lead to core contributors' withdrawal from online communities. It furthers the understanding of what motivates contributing to and what leads to withdrawal from OPPC.


The development objectives of the Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway Development Project for Vietnam are to construct an expressway that will enhance efficiency and safety for road users traveling between Da Nang city and Quang Ngai province and build institutional capacity for expressway development in the Ministry of Transport. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) affected person (AP) will be compensated by land for land with similar use purpose or compensated in cash at full replacement cost for the affected land area; (2) vocational training and job creation allowance for households (HHs) who lose more than 20 percent of total agricultural land area or lose less than 20 percent but the remaining land is unviable for continued production; (3) cash at full replacement cost for entire land plus additional allowance for self-relocation equivalent to unit cost of investment per HH at the resettlement site; (4) perennial trees (timber trees and fruit trees): to be compensated at replacement cost; (5) costs for repair of works shall be compensated in cash or follow the agreement between client and CARB; (6) compensation in cash, equivalent to 50 percent of compensation value for garden land, pond land; 40 percent of compensation value for agricultural land; and (7) workers in production and business units and state agencies affected by land acquirement will receive allowance equivalent to the minimum salary according to provincial regulations in the maximum conversion time of 6 months and will be assisted to find out the replacement jobs.


Title: CIRCULATING BIOMARKERS OF NITROOXIDATIVE STRESS IN YOUNG AND OLDER ACTIVE AND INACTIVE MEN Lori Beth Bjork, M.A., 2010 Directed By: Professor James M. Hagberg, PhD Department of Kinesiology Oxidative stress markers may be novel factors contributing to cardiovascular (CVD) risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of long-term exercise, age, and their interaction on the plasma levels of the oxidative stress markers oxidized LDL (ox-LDL), nitrotyrosine, and myeloperoxidase (MPO), and to investigate whether these levels correlated with plasma NOx levels. Older (62 ± 2 yr) active (n=12) men who had exercised regularly for over 30 years and young (25 ± 4 yr) active (n=7) men who had exercised regularly for over 3 years were matched to older (n=11) and young (n=8) inactive males. Young subjects showed lower plasma nitrotyrosine levels than older subjects (P = 0.047). Young inactive subjects had higher ox-LDL levels than either the young active (P = 0.042) or the older active (P = 0.041) subjects. In addition, plasma oxidative stress levels, particularly ox-LDL, were correlated with various conventional CVD risk factors, and in older subjects were associated with Framingham risk score (r = 0.49, P = 0.015). The study found no relationships between plasma markers of oxidative stress and plasma NOx levels. The findings suggest that a sedentary lifestyle may be associated with higher ox-LDL levels and that the levels of oxidative stress markers may contribute to CVD risk. CIRCULATING BIOMARKERS OF NITRO-OXIDATIVE STRESS IN YOUNG AND OLDER ACTIVE AND INACTIVE MEN


The availability of various photo archives and photo sharing systems made similarity searching much more important because the photos are not usually conveniently tagged. So the photos (images) need to be searched by their content. Moreover, it is important not only to compare images with a query holistically but also to locate images that contain the query as their part. The query can be a picture of a person, building, or an abstract object and the task is to retrieve images of the query object but from a different perspective or images capturing a global scene containing the query object. This retrieval is called the sub-image searching. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for retrieving database images by their similarity to and containment of a query. The novelty of it lies in application of a sequence alignment algorithm, which is commonly used in text retrieval. This forms an orthogonal solution to currently used approaches based on inverted files. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on a real-life data set containing photographs where images of logos are searched. It was compared to a state-of-the-art method and the improvement of 20\% in average mean precision was obtained.


Abstract Populations of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) have declined significantly over the past 50 years, and the primary factor contributing to this decline has been the loss of habitat. Forest landowners who are concerned with providing bobwhite habitat as well as generating revenue from timber should balance the silvicultural requirements of timber production with the biological needs of the bobwhite. The goal of this study was to determine the economic tradeoffs between bobwhite and timber management and how to minimize loss or maximize profit when managing for bobwhite and timber simultaneously. I performed discounted cash flow analyses, calculated land expectation value, and determined the financially optimal rotation age and optimal timing and intensity of thinnings for loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations under specific management objectives. My results show that the annual per-hectare economic gains of managing for both bobwhite and timber ranged from US$19.27 to $41.37 on site index 50 land, and ranged from $32.63 to $50.02 on site index 90 land. My analysis indicates that bobwhite management provides an investment opportunity to landowners whose low-productivity sites would be unprofitable if timber is the only product. My study provides an example of integrating multiple uses of goods and services in a way that maximizes economic returns and aids land managers in producing better habitat for bobwhite.


An increasing number of countries are adopting open government reforms, driven, in part, by the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a global effort dedicated to advancing such initiatives. Yet, there is still wide variation in openness across countries. We investigate the political, administrative, and civic factors that explain this variation, using countries' fulfillment of OGP eligibility criteria as a proxy for minimum standards of openness. We find that countries with strong constraints on the executive and high levels of citizen education have governments that are more open. A dense network of civil society organizations is associated with more budget transparency and higher civil liberties, but not with access to information or asset disclosure laws. The results suggest that if the value of openness is to be translated in practice, it is not enough to have capable bureaucracies—countries also need informed citizens and strong oversight of executive agencies.


Modernist ideas were written into the building code of 1931 and increased over time where traditional cities were banned and supposed to be turned down. How managed modernists this in the critical juncture. One of their proponents was Stockholms Byggnadsforening, where builders, contractors and private and public planners and architects meet. My questions are how modernist architects could impose the views of Byggnadsforeningen and if their activities in this organization could explain why modernist ideas so fast could impose building code and legislation. I found that it was a self-amplifying process where central modernist architects managed to reach leading positions after 1924 when the organization implemented short periods for members of the board. This was preceded by a decline of the organization during WWI and a self-eroding process for ideas of traditional city-planning where modernist architects challenged them with efectivity-arguments that clamed modernist ideas were scientific and traditional ideas outdated.


In the first part of this thesis millimetre-wave interferometric imagers are considered for short-range applications such as concealed weapons detection. Compared to real aperture systems, synthetic aperture imagers at these wavelengths can provide improvements in terms of size, cost, depth-of-field (DoF) and imaging flexibility via digitalrefocusing. Mechanical scanning between the scene and the array is investigated to reduce the number of antennas and correlators which drive the cost of such imagers. The tradeoffs associated with this hardware reduction are assessed before to jointly optimise the array configuration and scanning motion. To that end, a novel metric is proposed to quantify the uniformity of the Fourier domain coverage of the array and is maximised with a genetic algorithm. The resulting array demonstrates clear improvements in imaging performances compared to a conventional power-law Y-shaped array. The DoF of antenna arrays, analysed via the Strehl ratio, is shown to be limited even for infinitely small antennas, with the exception of circular arrays. In the second part of this thesis increased DoF in optical systems with Wavefront Coding (WC) is studied. Images obtained with WC are shown to exhibit artifacts that limit the benefits of this technique. An image restoration procedure employing a metric of defocus is proposed to remove these artifacts and therefore extend the DoF beyond the limit of conventional WC systems. A transmission optical microscope was designed and implemented to operate with WC. After suppression of partial coherence effects, the proposed image restoration method was successfully applied and extended DoF images are presented.


Foraminiferal oxygen isotopes from deep-sea sediment cores suggest that a rapid expansion of the Antarctic ice sheet took place in the Middle Miocene around 13.9 million years ago. The origin for this transition is still not understood satisfactorily. One possible cause is a drop in the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide ( pCO2) in combination with orbital forcing. A complication is the large uncertainty in the magnitude and timing of the reconstructed pCO2 variability and additionally the low temporal resolution of the availablepCO2 records in the Middle Miocene. We used an ice sheet-climate model of reduced complexity to assess variations in Antarctic ice sheet volume induced by pCO2 and insolation forcing in the Middle Miocene. The ice-sheet sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 was tested for several scenarios with constantpCO2 forcing or a regular decrease in pCO2. This showed that small, ephemeral ice sheets existed under relatively high atmospheric CO 2 conditions (between 640– 900 ppm), whereas more stable, large ice sheets occurred whenpCO2 was less than∼600 ppm. The main result of this study is that thepCO2-level must have declined just before or during the period of oxygen-isotope increase, thereby crossing apCO2 glaciation threshold of around 615 ppm. After the decline, the exact timing of the Antarctic ice-sheet expansion depends also on the relative minimum in summer insolation at approximately 13.89 million years ago. Although the mechanisms described appear to be robust, the exact values of thepCO2 thresholds are likely to be model-dependent.


Accidents occur when the circumstances (i.e. the inputs) leading up to an accident map through the physical processes involved, to produce an undesirable result, namely the accident (i.e., the outputs). What the accident reconstructionist has to work with is the evidence left behind, and he then strives to determine the circumstances that led to the accident, based upon that evidence. In accident investigation there is often a deficit of physical evidence, and it is impossible, based on the available physical evidence alone, to pinpoint the circumstances that led to the accident. In practice, computer programs are often used to run simulations to find a set (or sets) of circumstances that is consistent with the evidence, and then the discovered set (or sets) of circumstances is presented as the answer. But this approach ignores some important questions related to whether the mapping being used (e.g., the computer simulation) is invertible and whether the circumstances leading to the evidence can be identified in a unique way, or whether the mapping is not invertible and the most that can be achieved is to identify whole sets in the input space of circumstances that might have led to the accident. Analysis offers the tools to probe such questions.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


Gynogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction that is used to obtain all-female fish stocks. In this study, we were interested in studying gender-specific differences in gene expression profiles in gynogenetic teleosts, using a carp species. The four-month old gynogenetic Pengze crucian carp F1 (Carassius auratus var. pengzensis, Pcc) showed a high ratio of males under laboratory culture condition. The present study aimed to investigate the differences between males and females. The gonadosomatic index of the females was significantly higher than that of the males. Moreover, the hepatosomatic index of the females was significantly lower than that of the males. Vitellogenin B mRNA was abnormally highly expressed in male hepatopancreas and testes compared to females. Similarly, zona pellucida 2 expressed at a significantly high level in the testes. For the sex related genes, dosage-sensitive sex reversal, adrenal hypoplasia congenital critical region on the X-chromosome gene 1, doublesex and mab-3 related transcription factor 1a, nuclear receptor subfamily 5, group A, member 1b and SRY-box containing gene 9a had significantly higher expression levels in the males than in the females, whereas there was no difference in expression of anti-Mullerian hormone, cytochrome P450 family 19 subfamily A member 1A and forkhead box L2 transcripts between the two genders. The females showed higher levels of estrogen but no significant difference in testosterone compared to the males. The data suggest remarkable differences between the two genders of the Pengze crucian carp.


Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the most common cause of ESRD in the United States. Podocyte injury is an important feature of DKD that is likely to be caused by circulating factors other than glucose. Soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) is a circulating factor found to be elevated in the serum of patients with FSGS and causes podocyte αVβ3 integrin-dependent migration in vitro. Furthermore, αVβ3 integrin activation occurs in association with decreased podocyte-specific expression of acid sphingomyelinase-like phosphodiesterase 3b (SMPDL3b) in kidney biopsy specimens from patients with FSGS. However, whether suPAR-dependent αVβ3 integrin activation occurs in diseases other than FSGS and whether there is a direct link between circulating suPAR levels and SMPDL3b expression in podocytes remain to be established. Our data indicate that serum suPAR levels are also elevated in patients with DKD. However, unlike in FSGS, SMPDL3b expression was increased in glomeruli from patients with DKD and DKD sera-treated human podocytes, where it prevented αVβ3 integrin activation by its interaction with suPAR and led to increased RhoA activity, rendering podocytes more susceptible to apoptosis. In vivo, inhibition of acid sphingomyelinase reduced proteinuria in experimental DKD but not FSGS, indicating that SMPDL3b expression levels determined the podocyte injury phenotype. These observations suggest that SMPDL3b may be an important modulator of podocyte function by shifting suPAR-mediated podocyte injury from a migratory phenotype to an apoptotic phenotype and that it represents a novel therapeutic glomerular disease target.


Markov random fields with higher order potentials have emerged as a powerful model for several problems in computer vision. In order to facilitate their use, we propose a new representation for higher order potentials as upper and lower envelopes of linear functions. Our representation concisely models several commonly used higher order potentials, thereby providing a unified framework for minimizing the corresponding Gibbs energy functions. We exploit this framework by converting lower envelope potentials to standard pairwise functions with the addition of a small number of auxiliary variables. This allows us to minimize energy functions with lower envelope potentials using conventional algorithms such as BP, TRW and α-expansion. Furthermore, we show how the minimization of energy functions with upper envelope potentials leads to a difficult minmax problem. We address this difficulty by proposing a new message passing algorithm that solves a linear programming relaxation of the problem. Although this is primarily a theoretical paper, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on the binary (fg/bg) segmentation problem.


People earn just enough to get by' is a phrase often used to explain the low personal saving rate in the United States. The implicit presumption is that households simply do not earn enough to pay for current needs' and to save. We show in this paper that at all levels of lifetime earnings there is an enormous dispersion in the accumulated wealth of families approaching retirement. It is not only households with low incomes that save little; a significant proportion of high income households also saves little. And, a substantial proportion of low income households save a great deal. We then consider the extent to which differences in household lifetime financial resources explain the wide dispersion in wealth, given lifetime earnings. We find that very little of this dispersion can be explained by chance differences in individual circumstances largely outside the control of individuals' that might limit the resources from which saving might plausibly be made. We also consider how much of the dispersion in wealth might be accounted for by different investment choices of savers some more risky, some less risky given lifetime earnings. We find that investment choice is not a major determinant of the dispersion in asset accumulation. It matters about as much as chance events that limit the available resources of households with the same lifetime earnings. We conclude that the bulk of the dispersion must be attributed to differences to in the amount that households choose to save. The differences in saving choices among households with similar lifetime earnings lead to vastly different levels of asset accumulation by the time retirement age approaches.


The complex topography and variability in surface roughness in the Bergen valley affects the flow conditions in a multitude of ways. The steep mountains give shelter during strong synoptic flow, but the orography of Bergen can also lead to problems, such as accumulation of pollutants. A network of seven automatic weather stations has been installed to represent the horizontal and vertical variety of meteorological conditions in the Bergen valley. More than 17 months of data from 2010-2012 have been evaluated to give a general overview of the flow conditions. Case studies covering the local effect of strong synoptic wind and thermally induced circulation have also been investigated. Numerical simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) have been compared with the observations for the two case studies covering the thermally induced flow, namely the land-sea breeze circulation and an inversion. The quality of the WRF model has also been tested, which showed that the model's accuracy was good when simulating the sea breeze, but less accurate during inversions. The dense network and long time series have resulted in some new and interesting results. The results show that a typical vertical extension of the sea breeze exceeds the height of Løvstakken, and at the Ulriken side of the valley, anabatic flow is enhanced by the sea breeze. There are also strong local differences in the directional distribution of the flow, as the station downstream of Isdalen reveals a completely different wind distribution than at Florida, located only 1.7 km apart. The results also show that the wind speed at the lower elevated stations exceeds the wind speed at Ulriken for particular wind directions at Ulriken. This is linked to the direction of the large-scale flow and the local topography. Typical wind directions and wind speeds for inversions to develop are found, revealing that southerly and easterly directions are the most common ones. Observations of fronts passing a location confirm well established theory on the subject. The numerical simulations have led to new results for the sea breeze in the Bergen valley, for example the existence of a stronger sea breeze on a larger scale outside the coast of Bergen. Numerical simulations also show the reason for the strong inversion during southeasterly flow in November 2011, as warm air was transported toward the valley during high atmospheric stability. This study has resulted in a broader understanding of the flow conditions in the Bergen valley, but it has also resulted in more questions to be answered in the future.


The 70kDa members of the heat shock protein family (eg. Hsp70) function as
molecular chaperones by binding to exposed hydrophobic patches on nascent
polypeptides forming non-covalent interactions, thereby preventing their aggregation
and facilitating their proper folding. The folding reaction comprises of cyclic binding
and release of the unfolded substrate powered by ATP hydrolysis. Hsp70 requires the
assistance of a co-chaperone, generally provided by the Hsp40 group of proteins, for
the cycle of protein folding. Biochemical analyses have mapped the possible sites of
interaction between the Hsp70 and Hsp40 proteins and predicted a bipartite mode of
interaction between Hsp70 and Hsp40. However, structural investigations into the
mechanistic features of the folding cycle have been hampered by the transient nature of
interaction. The underlying theme for this work was to therefore structurally
understand the assembly of Hsp70 proteins with the Hsp40 co-chaperones as a
complex during the Hsp70-assisted folding cycle. This study was carried out using
human Hsc70 and HSJ1b as representatives of the Hsp70 and Hsp40 families
respectively. The first step to understand this co-operation was to develop a strategy to
isolate a complex of Hsc70 and HSJ1b suitable for structural studies. Previous studies
have reconstituted the Hsp70/Hsp40 complex in vitro by combining the two proteins in
molar ratios in the presence of ATP. In this work a co-expression system was
developed and a recombinant form of the human Hsc70/HSJ1b complex was
successfully purified using a bacterial expression system. Biochemical characterisation
revealed that this chaperone complex can protect ~85% of substrate protein from
thermal aggregation. Gel filtration analysis revealed that the complex was composed of
a heterogenous mix of ~220 kDa and hetero-oligomeric co-polymer species. Analytical
ultracentrifugation confirmed that these hetero-oligomeric co-polymer species were
not aggregates, and molecular weight for this species was estimated to be 1.1 MDa.
These two species represent potentially two different states of association between
Hsc70 and HSJ1b. ATP and heat treatment at 42oC with luciferase were identified as
factors which promote the conversion of the oligomeric Hsc70/HSJ1b species to the
~220 kDa Hsc70/HSJ1b species. Domain variants of Hsc70 were then generated and
their ability to complex with HSJ1b was investigated. Using these Hsc70 domain
variants, the region on Hsc70 paramount for polymerisation was identified. The C-terminal 10 kDa lid region was found to be essential for the chaperone/co-chaperone
interaction, since the removal of this zone alters binding, function and conformational
properties of the Hsc70 and HSJ1b interaction. X-ray crystallography studies on the
full length and the domain complexes were carried out, leading to the structure of the
apo form of the nucleotide binding domain of Hsc70. Preliminary electron microscopy
(EM) analysis was undertaken of the recombinant Hsc70/HSJ1b complex. The
preliminary results from negative staining revealed mostly circular particles and were
extremely encouraging. Currently work is being carried out to improve sample
homogeneity, which will facilitate further EM studies. Thus the recombinant complex
generated in this study is an attractive tool to further our understanding of the
functional and structural features of the interactions of Hsp70 with Hsp40.


Given his energetic involvement in practical initiatives and extensive lecturing, Rudolf Steiner had little time to write books. Of those he did write - belonging almost entirely to the earlier years of his work - four titles form an indispensable introduction to his later teaching: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Occult Science, The Philosophy of Freedom and Theosophy. Theosophy focuses on a psychology based not on the usual duality of body and mind, but on the more ancient division of body, soul and spirit. Steiner describes in detail the functions and organs of these three aspects of the human being, and the objective realms to which they belong. Just as the body derives from and belongs to the material world, so do the human soul and spirit belong to their own specific realms. These are the dimensions through which all human beings travel in the life after death, and in which - after passing the 'midnight hour' - we prepare to seek our destiny, or karma, in a new life. Theosophy features one of the most comprehensive and condensed of all Steiner's accounts of these realms, and of the experiences which our immortal being undergoes in passing through them. The book ends with a chapter on the modern 'path of knowledge', in which Steiner describes the exercises through which every person may develop the latent powers of perception which are necessary for a knowledge of metaphysical worlds.


Cost estimating and cost modelling for building projects have attracted the attention of many scholars. Previous research has laid emphasis on the product physical variables and did not explicitly include the economic variables. This study aims at investigating the impact of the performance of the economy on the cost of building projects by explicitly considering the relevant economic indicators in the cost estimating process. The unique attributes of the National Project for Building Schools in Egypt that is running since 1992, provided the opportunity to focus the light on the economic variables due to the standard design applied to thousands of school buildings. The study started by reviewing the current practice in cost estimating for building projects in Egypt seeking to identify the influential cost factors and to further investigate the level of awareness of the impact of the economic changes on the cost of buildings as perceived by the experts. In addition, the study aimed at developing an explanatory cost model illustrating the relationship between the relevant economic indicators and the cost of school buildings in order to quantify the impact of the economic changes on the costing of buildings. This research adopted a mixed methodology in a triangulation approach that was conducted in two stages. A set of 18 interviews with experts from the industry was followed by a survey covering a sample of 400 schools. The results indicated that the quantity surveyor's method is the prevailing cost estimating technique in Egypt. Practitioners in general, showed a blurred understanding of the fundamentals of economic and did not explicitly consider the economic indicators in the cost estimates for building projects. The cost modelling of the survey data adopted a multiple regression technique and factor analysis. Two sets of Cost Models including 6 economic indicators as independent variables, besides other product variables, were developed. The results indicated that the economic indicators were significant cost variables. Hence, the impact of the economic changes on the cost estimates of buildings can be quantified. The produced models indicated that the cost of school buildings, expressed in real terms, tend to increase during periods of economic recession. The produced model is useful to cost estimators working for government clients as well as contractors, given the rising application of standard design in various sectors within the construction industry in Egypt. Further work is required to gauge this impact across various sectors of the construction industry.


The electrical power generation from conventional thermal power plants needs to be interconnected with natural resources like solar, wind, hydro units with all-day planning and operation strategies to save mother nature and meet the current electricity demand. The complexity and size of the power network are increasing rapidly day by day. The enhanced power transfer from one section to another section in the existing grid system is the subject of available transfer capability (ATC), which is the modern power system's critical factor. In this paper, the minimization of power generation cost of the thermal power units is achieved by incorporating renewable sources, says hydro, winds, and solar plants for 24 h scheduled, and ATC calculation is the prime objective. In recent literature, the Mayfly algorithm (MA) optimization approach, which combines the advantages of evolutionary algorithms and swarms intelligence to attend better results, is successfully implemented. In this article, optimum power flow-based ATC is enforced under various conditions with hydro-thermal-solar-wind scheduling concept on the IEEE 9 test bus system to check the performance of the proposed chaotic MA. The chaotic MA is a hybridized format of the MA and chaotic map (CHMA) method. It is noted from the simulation study that the suggested CHMA approach has a dominant nature over other well-established optimization algorithms. In case of single objective function, the value of the cost function is improved by 14% and that of for multi-objective, it is improved by more than 20% and ATC value is enhanced by near about 55% and more.


By inducing the abundance of neurotrophins, statins enhance memory in Alzheimer's disease. Statins are drugs that inhibit the enzyme HMG-coA reductase in the mevalonate pathway to lower cholesterol and suppress inflammation. Roy et al. found that statins additionally induce the production of neurotrophins that improve memory in mice but do so through a mechanism independent of the cholesterol-lowering and anti-inflammatory effects. In cultured mouse and human astrocytes and microglia, various statins induced the expression of genes encoding the neurotrophins BDNF and NT-3. Pretreating cultured astrocytes with increasing concentrations of metabolites in the mevalonate pathway did not abrogate the neurotrophin-inducing effects of simvastatin, and inhibiting the mevalonate pathway through RNA interference or the expression of dominant-negative mutants of key pathway enzymes did not induce neurotrophin abundance, although each had the expected effects on inflammatory markers. Simvastatin increased the abundance of all three isoforms (α, β, and γ) of the peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor (PPAR) and the activity of a reporter containing a PPAR-response element (PPRE), but only astrocytes lacking PPARα failed to show BDNF and NT-3 induction after simvastatin exposure. In contrast, simvastatin induced the HMG-coA reductase inhibition–mediated anti-inflammatory effects in astrocytes lacking PPARα. Simvastatin increased the abundance of BDNF in the cortex of wild-type but not Pppara-null mice. As predicted by in silico docking models and confirmed by mass spectrometry–based pulldown, time-resolved fluorescence resonance, and site-directed mutagenesis studies in cultured mouse astrocytes, statins bound two amino acids in the ligand-binding domain of PPARα, and this interaction was required for simvastatin-induced increase in the abundance of BDNF and NT-3. The promoters for BDNF and NTF3 (encoding NT-3) did not contain PPRE; however, both contained cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB)-response element (CRE) sequences, and the promoter for CREB contained PPRE sequences. Accordingly, statins induced the recruitment of PPARα to the CREB promoter and, hence, the expression of CREB in wild-type but not Ppara-null microglia and astrocytes in culture and in the cortex of wild-type but not Ppara-null mice. Knocking down CREB in cultured mouse astrocytes inhibited the increase in BDNF and NT-3 by simvastatin. Simvastatins improved memory associated with a maze performance in both wild-type mice and a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, but not in mice lackingPPARα. The findings reveal a new mode of action for statins and suggest that they may help improve memory in Alzheimer's patients. A. Roy, M. Jana, M. Kundu, G. T. Corbett, S. B. Rangaswamy, R. K. Mishra, C.-H. Luan, F. J. Gonzalez, K. Pahan, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors bind to PPARα to upregulate neurotrophin expression in the brain and improve memory in mice. Cell Metab. 22, 253–265 (2015). [PubMed]


Recognizing the historical loss of habitats and the value and opportunities for their recovery is essential for mobilizing habitat restoration as a solution for managing ecosystem function. Just 200 years ago, Sydney rock oysters (Saccostrea glomerata) formed extensive reef ecosystems along Australia's temperate east coast, but a century of intensive harvest and coastal change now confines S. glomerata to encrusting the hard‐intertidal surfaces of sheltered coastal waters. Despite the lack of natural reef recovery, there appears enormous potential for the restoration of intertidal S. glomerata ecosystems across Australia's east coast, with large anticipated benefits to water quality, shoreline protection, and coastal productivity. Yet, no subtidal reefs remain and the potential for subtidal restoration is a critical knowledge gap. Here, we synthesize historical, ecological, and aquaculture literature to describe a reference system for the traits of S. glomerata reefs to inform restoration targets, and outline the barriers to, and opportunities and methods for, their restoration. These reefs support extremely biodiverse and productive communities and can ameliorate the environmental stress experienced by associated communities. Rock oyster restoration, therefore, provides an ecosystem‐based strategy for assisting the adaptation of marine biodiversity to a changing climate and intensive human encroachment. Though an estimated 92% of S. glomerata ecosystems are lost, there remains great potential to restore these valuable and resilient ecosystems.


Three new extinct taxa of the genus Stephanodiscus Ehrenberg (S. williamsii sp. nov., S. princeps sp. nov., S. yukonensis var. antiquus var. nov.) and four new extinct species and two new extinct varieties of the genus Cyclotella (Kutzing) Brebisson (C. iris var. insueta var. nov., C. tempereiformica sp. nov., C. distincta sp. nov., C. comtaeformica sp. nov., C. comtaeformica var. spinata var. nov. and C. praeminuta sp. nov.) are described from Upper Cenozoic lacustrine sediments of Lake Baikal (boreholes BDP-96-1 and BDP-96-2). The narrow biostratigraphic ranges of the new taxa warrant their use as index-fossil species for defining a diatom zonation, for accurate correlation and age control of Lake Baikal sediments. The comparative morphological analysis of the newly described Cyclotella taxa allowed us to trace the evolution of morphological features in these diatoms through time. The short time intervals during which the Stephanodiscus taxa existed in ancient Baikal imply that these species were unable to adapt to rapidly changing paleoecological and paleolimnological conditions caused by abrupt Pleistocene climatic fluctuations.


K. C. Das is deservedly one of the most celebrated writers in India today. He writes primarily in Oriya, the language of his native state of Orissa, where he was born in 1924. A civil servant by profession, Das pursued a second career as a writer of stories, poems, and essays.The stories in this collection take place in an urban setting. The characters are mainly middle class, making them more accessible to North American readers than other examples of contemporary Indian fiction. These are not simple stories. They are about "divides," about gaps between realities and imagination. In complex shifts between direct dialogue, interior monologue, and interior or imagined dialogue, Das lovingly but mercilessly exposes his characters' thoughts, self-deceptions, and the games they play with each other. These are stories about human weaknesses, the fallibility of human relationships, and the strategies we adopt to cope with our failures. They are about coming to terms with unpleasant, sometimes shocking truths about ourselves and others.Phyllis Granoff teaches in the Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University. She edits the "Journal of Indian Philosophy" and has published a translation of Jain stories.


Taurine, a sulphur amino acid found endogenously in human and in several others. It is significantly in higher concentration in mammals and has a number of physiological and pharmacological actions and also used in the therapy of important organ dysfunctions. It is essential for cat and conditional for humans. A patient on parenteral nutrition (PN) may develop taurine deficiency which may hamper proper growth and development. Taurine biosynthesis is limited to early stages and with advancing of age, synthetic capability further reduced to negligible, providing diet as only alternative source. Most of the marine and meat products generally contains considerable high amount of taurine but it is almost absent in plants, thus vegetarian may constitute a risk group. Its beneficial effects range from cardiotonic to antiprovide the answers [1,2]. Now, we know taurine is essential for cats, and conditionally essential for humans. It is regarded as preventive medicine and also behaves as a vitamin-like molecule. The involvement of taurine to cell welfare started even in the embryonic developmental stage where taurine deficiencies have been linked to various lessons, e.g. cardiomyopathy, retinal degeneration, growth retardation, disease of fetus origin like diabetes, making taurine as an essential amino acid for neonates. Taurine supplementation seems to be working well for neonates on PN [3,4]. However, significance of it is not confined to neonates only, it is further extended to children, adults, and elderly, due to its greater involvement in bile salt formation for reducing some symptoms associated with aging. On the clinical front, taurine utility has been patented for many; to name a few, epilepsy, congestive heart failure, hypertension, anti-alcoholic and antismoking; currently it is a part eye/ear drops, health drinks, antiaging and antidiabetic supplements. Perhaps taurine is the only endogenous biomolecule involved in so many actions to prevent and protect variety of organs, such as brain, eye, heart, and liver. In this mini review, we have tried to see every aspect where taurine has a role. From the Department of Pharmacology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea (Drs. Ramesh C. Gupta and Sung-Jin Kim). Address requests for reprints to: Sung-Jin Kim, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Pharmacology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, KOREA 130-701. Tel. 82-2-961-0868; Fax: 82-2-957-5309 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com convulsant and protection of retina to liver from diseases. Being a constituent of bile salt, taurine also helps in reducing cholesterol content. It helps in alleviating hypertension, too. Taurine has been found to be effective in metabolic diseases like diabetes and metabolic bone diseases. Taurine has special role in preterm neonate care, and so also linked to disease of fetus origin. Apart from its special role in neonates and PN, taurine is a part of combination therapy as a nutritional supplement, in varieties of diseases. As everyone hate to like aging, the happiest addition is that taurine has a role in alleviating aging symptoms. Taurine along with its analogues may provide a hope to cope with this situation. Hence, taurine having this much beneficial action deserves to be compiled and reviewed, yet requires regular update.


Agricultural policy reform is one of the major challenges facing India today. Such reform is required in order to reduce poverty through faster agricultural growth and to promote more sustainable use of natural resources while ensuring food security. Subsidy policies that promote the use of fertilizer and of electricity for groundwater irrigation are in particular need of reform. While subsidies for these two inputs played a crucial role in achieving India's Green Revolution, they have been criticized during the past decade for benefiting large-scale farmers more than smallholders, placing a fiscal burden on the state, and having negative environmental effects. By analyzing the evolution of these input subsidy policies and examining the political processes involved in efforts to reform them, this study throws new light on the factors that have so far prevented a move toward more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable agricultural input policies in India. The authors show that electoral politics, institutional factors, and policy paradigms or belief systems all play an important role in blocking reform. They identify several policy reform options, as well as political strategies that can overcome past obstacles to reform. Community-based policy solutions, new coalitions for policy reform, fresh approaches to the policy debate, innovative and consensus-oriented forms of deliberation, and effective use of research-based knowledge can all make positive contributions to Indian policy reform. The analyses and proposals presented in this study will be a valuable resource for policymakers and stakeholders concerned with the politics of agricultural development.


There is increasing evidence that stress plays a role in the pathophysiology of chronic intestinal disorders, but the mechanisms remain unclear. Previous studies in rats have revealed that stress decreases gut barrier function and allows excessive uptake of luminal material. Here, we investigated whether chronic psychological stress acts to induce sensitization of intestinal tissues to oral antigens. Rats were subjected to 1 hour per day of water avoidance stress or sham stress daily for 10 days, and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was delivered by gavage on day 5. Studies to determine sensitization were conducted on day 20. All stressed rats developed HRP-specific IgE antibodies, antigen-induced intestinal secretion, and increased numbers of inflammatory cells in gut mucosa. Luminal HRP was absorbed more readily by enterocytes of stressed animals. In addition, stressed rats had increased expression of interleukin-4 and decreased expression of interferon-gamma in gut mucosa, a cytokine profile that is typical of allergic conditions. Treatment of stressed rats with an antagonist to corticotropin-releasing hormone (previously shown to inhibit stress-enhanced gut permeability) eliminated the manifestations of intestinal hypersensitivity. Our results indicate that the presence of oral antigen during chronic psychological stress alters the immune response (to sensitization rather than oral tolerance) and causes subsequent antigen-induced gut pathophysiology.


In this rich ethnographic study, Kelly D. Alley sheds light on debates about water uses, wastewater management, and the meanings of waste and sacred power. "On the Banks of the Ganga" analyzes the human predicaments that result from the accumulation and disposal of waste by tracing how citizens of India interpret the impact of wastewater flows on a sacred river and on their own cultural practices.Alley investigates ethno-semantic, discursive, and institutional data to flesh out the interplay between religious, scientific, and official discourses about the river Ganga. Using a new outward layering methodology, she points out that anthropological analysis must separate the historical and discursive strands of the debates concerning waste and sacred purity in order to reveal the cultural complexities that surround the Ganga. Ultimately, she addresses a deeply rooted cultural paradox: if the Ganga river is considered sacred by Hindus across India, then why do the people allow it to become polluted?Examining areas of contemporary concern such as water usage and urban waste management in the most populated river basin in the world, this book will appeal to anthropologists and readers in religious, environmental, and Asian studies, as well as geography and law.Kelly D. Alley is Associate Professor and Director of Anthropology at Auburn University. In addition to being a prolific writer, she has conducted research on public culture and environmental issues in northern India for over a decade. Alley is currently overseeing a project to ameliorate river pollution problems in India.


This study was performed to demonstrate the transportation of an engineered MSC-produced intracellular anticancer gene product between mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and cancer cells.  MSC-mediated anticancer strategy has held great promise owing to MSCs' capacity of tumor-directed migration and the availability of specific anticancer genes.  All anticancer genes that have been used in previous MSC-mediated anticancer studies were limited in functioning via extracellular mechanisms, mainly because of the restriction by cell membrane to macromolecules including proteins.  In order to apply the majority of potent anticancer genes to the MSC-mediated anticancer system, a specifically designed expression vector which bears an intracellular anticancer gene, PTEN, is utilized to demonstrate the feasibility of the system in cancer therapies.  A transacting activator of transcription (TAT) was introduced into an expression vector followed by a segment for PTEN-RFP fusion protein.  A direct demonstration of PTEN-RFP transportation between MSC and cancer cells was obtained from direct co-cultures.  A marked cancer cell death was observed in indirect co-cultures with conditioned media from PTEN-transfected MSCs.  The demonstration of PTEN-engineered MSC-produced PTEN transportation indicates the feasibility of applying intracellular anticancer gene expression system in MSC-mediated strategies for cancer therapy.


Joseph Nye coined the term "soft power" in the late 1980s. It is now used frequently-and often incorrectly-by political leaders, editorial writers, and academics around the world. So what is soft power? Soft power lies in the ability to attract and persuade. Whereas hard power-the ability to coerce-grows out of a country's military or economic might, soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. Hard power remains crucial in a world of states trying to guard their independence and of non-state groups willing to turn to violence. It forms the core of the Bush administration's new national security strategy. But according to Nye, the neo-conservatives who advise the president are making a major miscalculation: They focus too heavily on using America's military power to force other nations to do our will, and they pay too little heed to our soft power. It is soft power that will help prevent terrorists from recruiting supporters from among the moderate majority. And it is soft power that will help us deal with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states. That is why it is so essential that America better understands and applies our soft power. This book is our guide.


The STATS19 system used by all police forces in Great Britain to report road accidents applies a 30-day criterion for recording deaths, so the official statistics for road accidents include not only those who died during or immediately after an accident but also those who died up to a month later. The actual date of death is not included in the STATS19 form, so TRL has recently carried out research to identify the date for those who are known to have died as a result of the road accidents that occurred in 1997. This report presents various detailed analyses of the survival time that were calculated from the data. The survival time distributions are compared with the distributions found in an earlier investigation of the fatal accidents in this country in 1985, and with the distributions from several other countries. A common feature of these distributions is that over 80 per cent of fatalities die within 24 hours of the accident, and this percentage has tended to rise over the years. The reasons for the rise are examined - as far as the available data permit. (A)


We broadly review the challenges encountered and choices made in the national assessments of consumption poverty using the 1996/97, 2002/03, and 2008/09 budget surveys. Efforts to maintain consistency with the previous survey imply that prior choices tend to be adopted in subsequent analyses. However, because 'best practice' evolves, there arises a natural tension between the desire to follow best practice and the desire to maintain consistency with previous analyses. New estimates produce qualitatively very similar results. We conclude that the principal conclusions of the poverty assessments are robust. The results also highlight the value of a consistent and reproducible approach.


This thesis analyses the relationship between tourism and the natural environment and explores ways in which the imbalance between the two may be redressed, with a view to achieving environmentally sustainable tourism. This involves a critical examination of the legal framework currently in place, so as to ascertain the relative effectiveness of presentday structures and organisations. First, both the tourism industry and the natural environment - as conceptual elements - are explored, including a review of their historical and comparative development over recent years. This provides a context within which the thesis can be placed and establishes the foundations upon which subsequent analysis may be built. Next, tourism is assessed in the context of the international legal system, in an attempt to evaluate how the international community has responded to the tourism phenomenon and, moreover, how the international legal system might apply to the various participants within the tourism industry. This provides a platform from which to evaluate, in greater detail, the applicability of international environmental law to tourism, assessing the relevant law currently regulating marine and atmospheric pollution, as well as species protection and habitat preservation. The final part of the thesis recognises the present ad hoc approach of international environmental law towards tourism, and questions whether there might exist some specific obligation for sustainable tourism within the international legal system. In order to assess this theory, the principle of sustainable development is employed as the framework concept from which sustainable tourism emanates, and allows for those various concepts which collectively constitute sustainable development to be analysed in light of sustainable tourism obligations. It is concluded that there are two primary areas where efforts to address tourism-generated environmental degradation should be concentrated. First, the World Tourism Organisation must adopt a stronger leadership position in respect of sustainable tourism and develop its role as a centralised mechanism for coordinating international and regional efforts to regulate and manage tourism activities. Secondly, there must be a concerted effort to further promote and develop the principle of `sustainable tourism', incorporating the legal rights and responsibilities embedded within this concept.


Rad5 is a decisive protein in S. cerevisiae due to its role in the Post-replication repair (PRR) pathway, in which Rad5 is necessary for at least one error-free and one error-prone repair subpathway. In addition, Rad5 plays a role in other repair pathways; for instance, Rad5 regulates the balance between the double strand break (DSB) repair pathways, favoring the Rad52-dependent Homologous Recombination (HR) over the yKu70-dependent Non-Homologous-End Joining (NHEJ). Furthermore, since UV-induced damages are substrates for Rad5 but also for Base Excision Repair (BER) proteins, Rad5 is possibly involved directly or indirectly in the BER pathway.

To get a deeper insight into the interaction of Rad5 with HR, NHEJ and BER proteins, survival curves, plasmid assays, and mutagenicity experiments were carried out in this work. In addition, a new software tool has been developed for the quantification of DSB. This software, called Geltool, allows the quantification of DSB in haploid cells from PFGE gels, even if the number of DSB is small. This represents a decisive advantage in comparison with previous programs. The sensitivity of Geltool has permitted the quantification of DSB repair during the stationary growth phase in haploid cells, detecting a repair of 46 %- 57 % of the gamma-induced DSB in HR proficient strains against 6 % - 16 % in HR deficient strains.

Studies of the functional interactions of Rad5 with HR and NHEJ proteins revealed a synergistic effect between Rad5 and Rad52 proteins for the repair of DSB at chromosomal and plasmidial level. Differences in the repair of plasmids from the rad52 and the rad5 mutants revealed different end joining mechanisms for gap repair. Severe degradations found in plasmids from rad52 and rad52rad5 mutants could indicate an end protection function for Rad52 and also for Rad5, when Rad52 is absent. Moreover, the regulatory role of the Rad5 protein is confirmed, since the additional deletion of YKU70 suppresses the rad5 phenotype and forces the yku70rad5 mutant to repair by HR.

The further study of the interplay of Rad5 with BER proteins shows that while BER only plays a minor role for the repair of gamma-induced damage, the rad5 phenotype is suppressed in the BER deficient apn1ntg1ntg2rad5 mutant. The same phenotype of suppression is also found for survival after UV irradiation. An enhanced mutagenicity of the apn1ntg1ntg2rad5 mutant indicates a possible repair through the REV3-dependent Translesion Synthesis Repair (TLS) pathway, suggesting that an error-prone tolerance of UV-induced damage can be very effective for survival.


Using a narrative approach we construct a unique dataset of pension reform measures for a broad sample of OECD countries over the period since 1970 and explore the determinants of those reforms based on information available at the time of legislation. We distinguish three potential reform regimes: expansion of pension arrangements through increased coverage, eligibility or higher benefits; contraction aimed at enhancing financial and fiscal sustainability or stimulating work incentives; and a regime that combines expansionary and contractionary reform measures occurring in the same year. Over time the expansionary regime has become less prevalent. The incidence of the other two regimes has increased over time. None of the three regimes are affected by current or projected future demographic changes. This finding is remarkable, as we would a priori expect reform measures to be closely linked to long-run financial sustainability considerations. By contrast, business cycle indicators play a substantially larger role. A worsening of the business cycle enhances the likelihood of the contractionary and combination regimes, and reduces that of the expansionary regime during the second part of the sample period. We present a simple theoretical model with an adjustment cost of changing the pension arrangement that can account for the responsiveness to the business cycle and the non-responsiveness to demographic forecasts.


Abstract Overwintering is a challenging period in the life of temperate insects. A limited energy budget characteristic of this period can result in reduced investment in immune system. Here, we investigated selected physiological and immunological parameters in laboratory‐reared and field‐collected harlequin ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis). For laboratory‐reared beetles, we focused on the effects of winter temperature regime (cold, average, or warm winter) on total haemocyte concentration aiming to investigate potential effects of ongoing climate change on immune system in overwintering insects. We recorded strong reduction in haemocyte concentration during winter; however, there were only limited effects of winter temperature regime on changes in haemocyte concentration in the course of overwintering. For field‐collected beetles, we measured additional parameters, specifically: total protein concentration, antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, and haemocyte concentration before and after overwintering. The field experiment did not investigate effects of winter temperature, but focused on changes in inducibility of insect immune system during overwintering, that is, measured parameters were compared between naïve beetles and those challenged by Escherichia coli. Haemocyte concentration decreased during overwintering, but only in individuals challenged by Escherichia coli. Prior to overwintering, the challenged beetles had a significantly higher haemocyte concentration compared to naïve beetles, whereas no difference was observed after overwintering. A similar pattern was observed also for antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli as challenged beetles outperformed naïve beetles before overwintering, but not after winter. In both sexes, total protein concentration increased in the course of overwintering, but females had a significantly higher total protein concentration in their hemolymph compared to males. In general, our results revealed that insect's ability to respond to an immune challenge is significantly reduced in the course of overwintering.


Abstract. Navigating in unfamiliar environments is a complex task that requires considerable cognitive resources to memorize (and eventually learn) a route. In general, virtual environments (VEs) can be useful tools in training for route learning and improving route recall. However, the visual information presented in VEs, that is, what we choose to present in a virtual scene, can strongly affect the ability to recall a route. This is especially relevant when we consider individual differences, and people's varying abilities to navigate effectively. Taking various cognitive processes involved in route learning into account, we designed a multi-level experiment that examines route recall effectiveness in a navigation context. We conceptualized that the participants would have to recall information related to the route that is demanding on primarily visual, spatial, or visuospatial memory systems. Furthermore, because there is a clear link between memory capacity and ageing; we conducted our experiment with two different age groups (total 81 participants: 42 young people aged 20–30 yo and 39 older people aged 65–76 yo). We also measured participants' spatial abilities and visuospatial memory capacity for control purposes. After experiencing a pre-determined route in three different VEs (that we varied in levels of visual realism, and named as AbstractVE, MixedVE, and RealisticVE), each participant solved a list of tasks that was designed to measure visual, spatial, and visuospatial recall of the scene elements and information about the route. Participants solved these tasks immediately after experiencing the route in each VE, as well as after a week, thus we could measure 'learning' (delayed recall). Results from our study confirm the well-known decline in recall with age (young vs. older), provide new information regarding memorability of routes and VE scene elements over time (immediate vs. delayed), and most importantly demonstrate the crucial role the visual design decisions play in route learning and memorability of visuospatial displays.


Understanding the degree of demographic connectivity among population segments is increasingly recognized as central to the fields of population ecology and conservation biology. However, delineating discrete population units has proven challenging, particularly for migratory birds as they move through their annual cycle. In this study, radio telemetry was used to assess movement rates among habitats by harlequin ducks Histrionicus histrionicus during the non-breeding season in Prince William Sound, Alaska. A total of 434 females were outfitted with radio transmitters over six years of data collection, and their signals tracked by aircraft. Using a spatially nested design, it was determined that 75% of radioed females remained in the bay or coastline area where they were originally trapped, 94% remained on the same island or mainland region of Prince William Sound where they began the winter period, and 98% remained within the 4500 km2 study area as a whole. Home range analyses corroborated these findings, indicating that the scale of individual movements was small, with 95% kernel home range estimates averaging only 11.5±2.2 km2. A simple demographic model, which incorporated estimates for population size, survival, and movement rates, was used to infer the degree of independence among population segments. Immigrant females were found to contribute little to population numbers in most areas, accounting for only 4% of the adult female population at a scale of approximately 100 km2. These results have important implications for the scale of conservation action for the species and demonstrate that winter movements can have a strong influence local population dynamics.


Introduction I. Fan Fiction A. What Is Fan Fiction? 1. Fan Fiction Type 1: Referential Works 2. Fan Fiction Type 2: Participatory Works B. Fan Fiction: Commercial or Non-commercial? II. Courts' Treatment of Fan Fiction: Application of Fair Use A. Courts' Treatment of Referential Works: A Trend 1. The Court's Discussion of Twin Peaks Productions, Inc. v. Publications International Ltd. 2. The Court's Discussion of Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Carol Publishing Group 3. The Court's Discussion of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. v. RDR Books 4. Trend Established by These Fan Fiction Cases B. Courts' Treatment of Participatory Works: Stay Tuned III. Proposed Model: a Parody-Like Treatment of Participatory Works A. Why Fan Fiction Deserves Protection 1. Referential Works as Commentary 2. Participatory Works as Archontic Conclusion INTRODUCTION Ever heard that a picture is worth a thousand words? Most likely you have. However, does anyone follow up with the question of whose one thousand words is it worth? Is it worth a thousand words to only its artist? How about the viewers? Do they each get a thousand words, too? Any person willing to offer a thousand words for that picture will have a different thousand words than the next person and the next person and so on because of the varying interpretations of the picture. Literary works, in many respects, are like an artist's picture, as the very words of a novel may create images in the reader's mind. Each reader may invest new meaning in the work conjured up by the author. The author invites the reader into the world she creates, but the author cannot limit where her world takes the reader. A reader may write a different ending to the original work, or a reader may collect all the information and arrange it in a new reference source. The reader's new works create the genre of fan fiction. This is wonderful, right? Now we have an author inspiring her readers to become authors themselves! But wait, the original author wanted readers to enter her world, not readers inviting her into their worlds spurred from her world. To end the existence of the reader's world, and thus fan fiction, the author needs only to speak two magic words: copyright infringement. A fan fiction author facing a copyright infringement claim will most likely seek refuge in the fair use doctrine. The fair use doctrine, a complete defense to an allegation of copyright infringement, (1) is at the heart of the tension between private rights and public use, both interests that benefit the public. (2) Scholars and litigants are continuously challenging courts to analyze the purpose and function of the fair use doctrine because of this tension. The District Court for the Southern District of New York acknowledged that the fair use doctrine "mediates" between the competing interests of protecting copyrighted material and secondary works by determining the extent of each protection. (3) However, while a court may have the four factors of the fair use doctrine to assist in its decision as to which way to strike the balance, there is no bright-line rule; instead, the doctrine imposes a case-by-case analysis. (4) This Comment discusses the tension a court faces each time it encounters a fair use doctrine analysis by focusing on the treatment of fan fiction. Although very few fan fiction works have risen to the litigation level, the authors of those fan fiction works that have reached litigation have asserted fair use, and it is likely that fan fiction authors will continue to do so. (5) First, this Comment describes the nature of fan fiction, the two types of fan fiction, and the potential commerciality of fan fiction. Second, this Comment analyzes courts' treatment of referential works and explains why courts have not encountered participatory works. …


This paper examines some of the issues that arise in the process of XML publishing of mixed-storage proprietary data. We argue that such data will reside typically in RDBMS's and/or LDAP, etc, augmented with a set of native XML documents. An additional challenge is to take advantage of redundancy in the storage schema, such as mixed materialized views that are stored for the purpose of enhancing performance. We argue that such systems need to take into consideration mappings in both directions between the proprietary schema and the published schema. Thus, reformulating queries on the (published) XML schema into executable queries on the stored data will require the effect of both composition-with-views (as in SilkRoute and XPERANTO) and rewriting-with-views (as in the Information Manifold and Agora). Using any of the simple encodings of relational data as XML, the mappings between schemas and the materialized views can be expressed in XQery, just like the queries on the published schema. For query reformulation we give an algorithm that uses logical assertions to capture formally the semantics of a large part of XQuery. We also give a completeness theorem for our reformulation algorithm. The algorithm was implemented in an XML query rewriting system and we present a suite of experiments that validate this


Optimization is an appealing way to compute the motion of an animated character because it allows the user to specify the desired motion in a sparse, intuitive way. The difficulty of solving this problem for complex characters such as humans is due in part to the high dimensionality of the search space. The dimensionality is an artifact of the problem representation because most dynamic human behaviors are intrinsically low dimensional with, for example, legs and arms operating in a coordinated way. We describe a method that exploits this observation to create an optimization problem that is easier to solve. Our method utilizes an existing motion capture database to find a low-dimensional space that captures the properties of the desired behavior. We show that when the optimization problem is solved within this low-dimensional subspace, a sparse sketch can be used as an initial guess and full physics constraints can be enabled. We demonstrate the power of our approach with examples of forward, vertical, and turning jumps; with running and walking; and with several acrobatic flips.


This work proposes a biologically inspired system for the coordination of multiple and possible conflicting behaviours in an autonomous mobile robot, devoted to explore novel scenarios while ensuring its internal variables dynamics. The proposed Evolutionary Artificial Homeostatic System, derived from the study of how an organism would self-regulate in order to keep its essential variables within a limited range (homeostasis), is composed of an artificial endocrine system, including two hormones and two hormone receptors, and also three previously evolved NSGasNet artificial neural networks. It is shown that the integration of receptors enhance the system robustness without incorporating to the three evolved NSGasNets more a priori knowledge. The experiments conducted also show that the proposed multi-hormone evolutionary artificial homeostatic system is able to successfully coordinate a multiple and conflicting behaviours task, being also robust enough to cope with internal and external disruptions.


Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy was applied to three distinct types of plant tissue. Reflectance microspectroscopy of nutshells highlighted the differences between the chemistries of the inner and outer surfaces and the tissue as a whole. The outer surfaces were suberized, while the inner surfaces contained absorbances indicative of lignin or tannins or both. Transmission microspectroscopy was used to follow the changes in cell wall structure and composition of flax epidermal cells during development and showed that initial development was accompanied by suberin and lignin deposition, which was followed by polysaccharide deposition characteristic of secondary cell wall formation. These results were compared with those obtained from bamboo. Transmission microspectroscopy was also used to study the infection of potato tubers by Erwinia carotovora ssp. carotovora in aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The spectra suggested that both infective conditions produced cell wall degradation, whereas anaerobic infection was accompanied by extensive breakdown of starch and plasma membrane.


After industrial revolution, the increases of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are resulted from the consumption of huge amounts of fossil fuels; hence causes global climate changes including temperature increasing and ocean level rising. Technologies on the mitigation of carbon dioxide emission have been developed, and CO2 removal from gas mixture by washing with solvent is one of the most widely practiced industrial gas-absorption processes. Wet scrubber requires large amount of water, resulting in decreasing the thermal efficiency of the system, hence the high temperature carbonation by dry techniques, such as adding sorbents of calcium and magnesium in the gasifier to react with carbon dioxide and form metal carbonate, is a trend for related fields. Therefore, reducing the cost of sorbents is of important in this technique. Consequently, two types of metal waste (slag and fly ash) are used to absorb carbon dioxide and identified their utilization under various conditions.


Recent technological advances have resulted in the production of safe subunit and synthetic small peptide vaccines. Unfortunately, these vaccines are weakly or non-immunogenic in the absence of an immunological adjuvant (agents that can induce strong immunity to antigens). In addition, in order to prevent and/or control infection at the mucosal surface, stimulation of the mucosal immune system is essential. This may be achieved via the common mucosal immune system by exposure to antigen at a mucosal surface remote from the area of infection. Initial studies investigated the potential of multiple emulsions in effecting oral absorption and the subsequent immune responses to a lipopolysaccharide vaccine (LPS) after immunisation. Nasal delivery of LPS was carried out in parallel work using either aqueous solution or gel formulations. Tetanus toxoid vaccine in simple solution was delivered to guinea pigs as free antigen or entrapped in DSPC liposomes. In addition, adsorbed tetanus toxoid vaccine was delivered nasally free or in an aerosil gel formulation. This work was extended to investigate guinea pigs immunised by various mucosal routes with a herpes simplex virus subunit vaccine prepared from virus infected cells and delivered in gels, multiple emulsions and liposomes. Comparable serum antibody responses resulted but failed to produce enhanced protection against vaginal challenge when compared to subcutaneous immunisation with alhydrogel adjuvanted vaccine. Thus, immunisation of the mucosal surface by these methods may have been inadequate. These studies were extended in an attempt to protect against HSV genital challenge by construction of an attenuated Salmonella typhimurium HWSH aroA mutant expressing a cloned glycoprotein D-l gene fused to the Es-cherichia coli lac z promoter. Preliminary work on the colonisation of guinea pigs with S. typhimurium HWSH aroA mutants were carried out, with the aim of using the guinea pig HSV vaginal model to investigate protection.


The IEEE 802.15.4 standard specifies that a radio's PHY layer must provide an 8-bit integer value as an estimate of the received signal power. This value is commonly known as the Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) in the wireless sensor networks (WSN) community. While many protocols directly use the measurements that the radios provide, the standard only requires that the reported RSSI values should be linear and within ±6 dB of the actual RSSI values. However, ±6 dB is a wide error margin. For example, Packet Reception Ratio (PRR) can decrease from 100% to 0% with a 2 or 3 dB difference in the received signal strength. We examined two 802.15.4 compliant radios, the widely used TI CC2420 and Atmel AT86RF230, and discovered that they indeed introduce systematic errors when providing the RSSI readings. Therefore, we also developed a calibration scheme to effectively minimize the adverse effects associated with inaccurate RSSI values.


Our understanding of food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been hampered by limitations in the temporal and spatial representativeness of data. Food balance sheets provide scalable estimates of per capita food availability, but fail to represent food access, stability and their causal linkages. In contrast, rural household surveys represent detailed conditions for one or multiple points in time, but are influenced by survey timing and are often limited in geographical coverage. This study draws on a large sample of rural land-holding households in SSA (n = 6,353) to identify household level food access deficiencies and to understand the associations with rural livelihoods and food sourcing behavior throughout the year. Food access deficiencies were identified using food security of access and diet diversity indicators. Dietary diversity and channel of access (farm or purchased) were enumerated for the "flush" and "lean" periods and food security of access was enumerated for the lean period only - making the results of this study independent of survey timing. As many as 39% of households were classified as severely food insecure (in terms of food access) and as many as 49% of households were likely to be deficient in micronutrients in the lean period. Vulnerability to food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies differed by household composition, agricultural livelihood characteristics and agro-ecological zone. Dairy, fruit and vitamin A-rich produce were predominantly accessed through the farm channel. Households with a livestock component to their farm had a lower prevalence of severe food insecurity and higher diet diversity scores. These findings have implications for the development of nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions. Interventions need to be tailored to agro-ecological zone, household composition, scale of operation and production mix. Increasing income will not necessarily result in improved diet diversity or healthy dietary choices. Interventions focused on income generation should monitor and promote crop and livestock production diversity and provide nutrition education.


The foraminiferal and ostracod faunas from two East Anglian, Holocene cores are described. Together they add further environmental evidence to the lithological alternation between peat and alluvial mud sedimentation observed in these sections resulting from local changes in sea-level. Sedimentological and micro-faunal differences between the two sections reflect their relative positions in the estuary with respect to the local palaeogeography. Foraminifera are abundant, the Ostracoda less so, nevertheless a comprehensive environmental interpretation is given and a foraminiferal ecological zonation proposed. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions are based upon both microfossil groups which complement each other.


Purpose: Interleukin-11 (IL-11) is a thrombopoietic cytokine that attenuates postchemotherapy thrombocytopenia at doses of 50 g/kg/d subcutaneously. Very little is known about the activity of IL-11 in patients with bone marrow failure states. Patients and Methods: Our preliminary experience with IL-11 at doses of 50 g/kg/d suggested that patients with bone marrow failure developed significant peripheral and pulmonary edema after the prolonged dosing necessary for treating these conditions. We, therefore, initiated a study of low-dose IL-11 (starting dose, 10 g/kg/d). Results: Sixteen patients were assessable for response. Six patients had diploid cytogenetics; the others had a variety of chromosomal abnormalities. Six (38%) of 16 patients showed a platelet response to IL-11, and two had a multilineage response (to IL-11 alone, n 1; to IL-11 plus G-CSF and erythropoietin, n 1). The median increase in peak platelet counts was 95 109/L above baseline in the responders (range, increase of 55 109/L to 130 109/L above baseline). Responders included five of 11 patients with myelodysplasia and one of four patients with aplastic anemia. Response durations were 12, 13, 14 , 25, 30, and 30 weeks. Side effects of IL-11 were mild (peripheral edema, n 7; conjunctival injection, n 7; myalgia, n 1; all grade 1). Seven patients had no side effects. Conclusion: Our pilot study suggests that administration of low-dose IL-11 (10 g/kg/d) can raise platelet counts without significant toxicity in selected thrombocytopenic patients with bone marrow failure. J Clin Oncol 19:4165-4172. © 2001 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


Ground-based measurements of atmospheric parameters have been carried out for more than 20 years at the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) station at Thule Air Base (76.5°N, 68.8°W), on the north-western coast of Greenland. Various instruments dedicated to the study of the lower and middle polar atmosphere are installed at Thule in the framework of a long standing collaboration among Danish, Italian, and US research institutes and universities. This effort aims at monitoring the composition, structure and dynamics of the polar stratosphere, and at studying the Arctic energy budget and the role played by different factors, such as aerosols, water vapour, and surface albedo. During the International Polar Year (IPY), in winter 2008-2009, an intensive measurement campaign was conducted at Thule within the framework of the IPY project "Ozone layer and UV radiation in a changing climate evaluated during IPY" (ORACLE-O3) which sought to improve our understanding of the complex mechanisms that lead to the Arctic stratospheric O 3 depletion. The campaign involved a lidar system, measuring aerosol backscatter and depolarization ratios up to 35 km and atmospheric temperature profiles from 25 to 70 km altitude, a ground-based millimeter-wave spectrometer (GBMS) used to derive stratospheric mixing ratio profiles of different chemical species involved in the stratospheric ozone depletion cycle, and then ground-based radiometers and a Cimel sunphotometer to study the Arctic radiative budget at the surface. The observations show that the surface radiation budget is mainly regulated by the longwave component throughout most of the year. Clouds have a significant impact contributing to enhance the role of longwave radiation. Besides clouds, water vapour seasonal changes produce the largest modification in the shortwave component at the surface, followed by changes in surface albedo and in aerosol amounts. For what concerns the middle atmosphere, during the first part of winter 2008-2009 the cold polar vortex allowed for the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) which were observed above Thule by means of the lidar. This period was also characterized by GBMS measurements of low values of O 3 due to the catalytic reactions prompted by the PSCs. In mid-January, as the most intense Sudden Stratospheric Warming event ever observed in the Arctic occurred, GBMS and lidar measurements of O 3 , N 2 O, CO and temperature described its evolution as it propagated from the upper atmosphere to the lower stratosphere.


Aerodynamic roughness height ( Z om ) is a key parameter required in several land surface hydrological models, since errors in heat flux estimation are largely dependent on optimization of this input. Despite its significance, it remains an uncertain parameter which is not readily determined. This is mostly because of non-linear relationship in Monin-Obukhov similarity (MOS) equations and uncertainty of vertical characteristic of vegetation in a large scale. Previous studies often determined aerodynamic roughness using a minimization of cost function over MOS relationship or linear regression over it, traditional wind profile method, or remotely sensed vegetation index. However, these are complicated procedures that require a high accuracy for several other related parameters embedded in serveral equations including MOS. In order to simplify this procedure and reduce the number of parameters in need, this study suggests a new approach to extract aerodynamic roughness parameter from single or two heat flux measurements analyzed via Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) that affords non-linearity. So far, to our knowledge, no previous study has applied EnKF to aerodynamic roughness estimation, while the majority of data assimilation study have paid attention to updates of other land surface state variables such as soil moisture or land surface temperature. The approach of this study was applied to grassland in semi-arid Tibetan Plateau and maize on moderately wet condition in Italy. It was demonstrated that aerodynamic roughness parameter can be inversely tracked from heat flux EnKF final analysis. The aerodynamic roughness height estimated in this approach was consistent with eddy covariance method and literature value. Through a calibration of this parameter, this adjusted the sensible heat previously overestimated and latent heat flux previously underestimated by the original Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model. It was considered that this improved heat flux estimation especially during the summer Monsoon period, based upon a comparison with precipitation and soil moisture field measurement. For an advantage of this approach over other previous methodologies, this approach is useful even when eddy covariance data are absent at a large scale and is time-variant over vegetation growth, as well as is not directly affected by saturation problem of remotely sensed vegetation index.


OF DISSERTATION TEACHING SOCIAL SKILLS TO INDIVIDUALS WITH COMORBID DOWN SYNDROME AND AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER: A SINGLE-SUBJECT DESIGN STUDY Social skills are important for building and maintaining relationships, effective communication, and providing appropriate responses within social contexts. Deficits in social skills are often exhibited in individuals with comorbid Down syndrome (DS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Peer-delivered interventions and other behavioral techniques for teaching specific social skills show effectiveness; however, the paucity of intervention research including individuals with DS-ASD has resulted in little guidance for how best to teach social skills and ensure generalization and maintenance. In the present study, a multiple probe study across behaviors, replicated across participants, assessed the effectiveness of peer-delivered simultaneous prompting in teaching socials skills to four adults with DS-ASD. The overarching purposes of this project were (a) to explore whether peer-mediators with DS-only can use simultaneous prompting reliably for teaching social skills, and (b) to examine the influence of simultaneous prompting to teach social skills to adults with dual-diagnoses of DS and ASD. Study findings add to the DS-ASD literature base on intervention design and implementation as well as the literature base for intervention delivery by peers with identified developmental and intellectual disabilities.


Computational methods in quantum mechanics (QM), density functional theory (DFT) and molecular mechanics (MM), and the fast increase in computer power have opened up a new avenue for solving various vital chemical problems besides conventionally experimental measures. This thesis aims at deeper understanding of the mechanism in organocatalytic transformation and studying factors influencing the activity and selectivity of nucleophilic organocatalysts by theoretical methods. First, the concept of methyl cation affinity (MCA) is introduced and the methodology is discussed about how to calculate the MCA values accurately. The identified theoretical procedure MP2(FC)/6-31+G(2d,p)//B98/6-31G(d) is shown to provide accurate MCA values even for large molecular system. Then, it is used to calculate the MCA values of a set of commonly used N- and P-based organocatalysts. The currently known catalytic activities of nitrogen and phosphorus bases are much more readily correlated with MCA values than with proton affinity (PA) or pKa values. Thus, the MCA can be used as a guideline for the optimization of organocatalytic transformations. Later on, we extend these studies to include affinity values towards a prochiral cation. The so-called "Mosher's Cation" (MOSC) is used to develop a new chiral descriptor for stereoselective organocatalytic transformations. By taking the example of cinchona alkaloids the energy difference between the adducts formed by re and si face attack to Mosher's cation (MOSCAre-si) is taken as a measure of stereoinductive potential. Other properties such as continuous symmetry measures and dipole moment are also estimated and correlated with MOSCAre-si values. In many organocatalytic transformations neutral electrophiles react with neutral nucleophiles to give zwitterionic adducts at some stage of the catalytic cycle such as in the Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reaction. A series of theoretical methods have been studied systematically in order to identify theoretical methods appropriate for the reliable description of the formation of zwitterionic adducts. Geometry optimizations at the mPW1K/6-31+G(d) level provide a reliable basis for the development of compound energy schemes for the accurate description of the formation of zwitterionic adducts between neutral nucleophiles and electrophiles. Accurate energetics can be obtained using modified G3 schemes as well as double-hybrid DFT methods such as B2K-PLYP or B2-PLYP-M2.
 The issues concerning the reactivities and selectivities of organocatalysts in acylation reactions are further explored. The conformational properties and the stability of acylpyridinium intermediates formed in pyridine-catalyzed acylation reactions have been studied at the SCS-MP2(FC)/6-311+G(d,p)//MP2(FC)/6-31G(d) level of theory. It has been shown that stacking interactions can play a decisive role in the stability as well as the conformational preferences of these transient intermediates. The kinetic resolution of racemic 1-(1-naphthyl)ethanol catalyzed by atropisomeric derivatives of 4-dialkylaminopyridines is used as a model system for deeper understanding the mechanism of organocatalytic transformations and the factors controlling the selectivities of catalysts. Similar to other acylation reactions, the commonly accepted nucleophilic mechanism is more favorable than the general base mechanism for reactions with isobutyric anhydride. The conformational properties of the Transition State (TS) determining the selectivities are analyzed carefully. The key TS models are identified and studied to be used for rationalization of the selectivities of catalysts, and help new catalyst design. A new highly selective catalyst is suggested.
 From the perspective of catalysis research, 3-amino-1-(2-aminoimidazol-4-yl)-prop-1-ene, which is often used in natural product synthesis, may be used as an ideal starting point for the development of new organocatalysts due to the existence of its potentially four different active sites, based on the assumption of the comparable stability of its various tautomeric forms. Our results show that this assumption is not justified because some of the proposed tautomers are of rather low thermodynamic stability. The protonated form of the 2-aminoimidazole moiety, which is present in many synthetically used derivatives of 3-amino-1-(2-aminoimidazol-4-yl)-prop-1-ene, may act as electrophiles much more comfortably and with much less thermodynamic effort.


The reinvestment of rural agrarian surplus is driving capital accumulation in Zimbabwe's countryside, providing a scope to foster national (re-) industrialisation and job creation. Contrary to Bernstein's view, the Agrarian Question on capital remains unresolved in Southern Africa. Even though export finance, accessed through contract farming, provides an impetus for export cash crop production, and the government-mediated command agriculture supports food crop production, the reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of agricultural commodities is now driving capital accumulation. Drawing from empirical data, gathered through surveys and in-depth interviews from Hwedza district and Mvurwi farming area in Mazowe district in Zimbabwe, the findings of this study revealed the pre-eminence of the Agrarian Question, linked to an ongoing agrarian transition in Zimbabwe. This agrarian capital elaborates rural-urban interconnections and economic development, following two decades of de-industrialisation in Zimbabwe.


This paper offers the initial design for a functional theory of morphology and addresses the question of how much unification or separation of domains and units is required in such a theory. Given that morphology is largely driven by principles that also rule syntax and semantics, the main thrust of this proposal is that the interaction between morphology and other areas of the theory can be adequately accounted for by the combination of three descriptive-explanatory resources: layered structures, templates and constructions. Other descriptiveexplanatory principles such as feature percolation and the characteristics of bases and adjuncts remain specifically morphological. Unification and separation in morphology must be carried out on functional grounds. Moreover, Old English evidence shows that no strict separation can be postulated, either between morphology and the rest of the theory or among the different morphological processes.