Dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever are transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, with an observed 30-fold increase in global incidence the last 50 years. Despite the tremendous efforts invested anti-dengue virus research, no clinically approved vaccine or antiviral chemotherapeutics are available for humans, and disease treatment is limited to supportive care. Over the years there has been a continuous interest in the chemistry of metal complexes with biological activity, including platinum complexes with antitumor activity and silver complexes with antimicrobial action. Aim of the project was to investigate [Cu(2,4,5-triphenyl-1H- imidazole)2 (H2O)2].Cl2 as antiviral compound that was further tested for inhibitory effect on the replication of dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) in Vero cell. DENV-2 were infected in Vero cells and replication of virus was measured by Viral ToxGlo with selectivity index value (SI) and determined as the ratio of cytotoxic concentration 50 (CC50) to inhibitory concentration 50 (IC50) for com- pound. The standard curve between concentration of compound (μg/mL) and %viability of cells was analyzed by logarithmic cor- relation regression with regression equation. For infection rates, t-test was used to exam- ine the statistical significances among the concentrations of compound. P < 0.05 was considered to be significant. The maximum inhibitory concentration (IC50) of [Cu(2,4,5- triphenyl-1H-imidazole)2 (H2O)2].Cl2 against DENV-2 was 98.62 μg/mL. The cytotoxic concentration (CC50) of compound against Vero cells was 300.36 μg/mL. The SI values for [Cu(2,4,5-triphenyl-1H-imidazole)2 (H2O)2].Cl2 1.86. Based on selectivity index values, [Cu(2,4,5-triphenyl-1H-imidazole)2 (H2O)2].Cl2 can inhibit the growth of DENV- 2 and has low toxicity values for Vero cells.


Agricultural growth corridors (AGCs) have begun proliferating across the
actual and policy landscapes of southeastern Africa. Cast as an emerging megaproject strategy, AGCs combine the construction of large-scale logistics (i.e., roads, railways, ports) with attracting investment in commercial agribusiness and smallholder farming. While scholars have long attended to spatial development schemes in the Global South, literature on the rising AGCs of Africa's eastern seaboard has only recently shifted from anticipatory to empirical studies as policy implementation reaches full force. The article reflects on a new crop of studies that confront the problem of tracing policy imaginaries to the people, places, practices, and ecologies shaped by AGC schemes. In contrast to scholarship that accepts corridors as given entities, we explore directions for research that interrogate the grounded yet provisional becoming of these megaprojects. At such sites, the return of high modernist development logics encapsulated by the corridor concept may be questioned.


\(Part\) \(A\) \(Karst\) \(Systems:\) \(A\) \(Tasmanian\) \(Context\)
Tasmania's karst areas offer a variety of economic, scientific, educational and recreational resources, and, carefully managed, can continue to do so. The essential characteristics of karst stem from the fact that particular types of rock, commonly limestone or dolomite, have the capacity to be dissolved by natural waters, allowing seepage water and streams to be diverted underground. In the most fully expressed karst, integrated cave systems form the focus of underground drainage networks that are highly efficient. Karst areas offer a variety of heritage values but also pose a range of geomorphic hazards that include soils that are sometimes vulnerable to erosion or sudden collapse, and vulnerable aquifers.
Streams in underground solution channels often flow in directions that cannot be predicted from the surface topography. These streams have the capacity to rapidly transfer localised impacts to the wider karst system and, hence, the aqUifers are easily polluted. This can have important implications both for the protection of nature conservation values and for sustainable land management. The need to safeguard hydrological regimes and the soil and vegetation systems that condition water quantity and chemistry must be taken fully into account in developing and implementing management strategies if important heritage values are to be safeguarded and society's exposure to most of the geomorphic hazards that exist in many karst areas is to be minimised. The three-dimensional world beneath our feet is not a separate world. Rather, it is an extension of the surface world, and one highly integrated with the surface world.
Karst environments result from a complex interplay between climatic, topographic, hydrologic, biologic and temporal factors and trends. Hence, a systems approach provides the most adequate means of seeking to come to terms both with the karst environment and with the requirements for determining appropriate uses and sustainable management of karst environments. The focus of this study is upon the maintenance of geodiversity in karst environments. A karst area classification system has been developed to facilitate the identification of sites of geoconservation Significance. This involves analysis at four levels: the Karst Systems level, or the mix of basic environmental controls that condition the evolution of any karst; the Karst Landform and Landform Communities level, or the individual species and communities of landforms that exist in any area; the Landform Contents level, which includes the various geological, biological and other phenomena found in caves and sinkholes; and Human Use and Aesthetics.
The environmental systems that form the broad parameters within which Tasmania's karst has evolved are addressed in Chapter 2. These systems have largely controlled the nature of the landforms and landform communities that have developed, and the variations within them. In a sense, the system determinants can reasonably be utilised in a manner similar to that in which bio-regions are used to identify the broad environmental contexts from which representative examples of species and communities appropriate for conservation can be identified and selected. The principal difference is that while the karst environmental systems provide the framework from within which examples should be selected, the karst system controls are seldom spatially exclusive; rather, they overlap and interact with one another. Herein lies the origin of Tasmania's karst geodiversity, and the challenge to developing a comprehensive yet workable geoconservation strategy for karst phenomena.

\(Part\) \(B\) \(An\) \(Atlas\) \(of\) \(Tasmanian\) \(Karst\) \(Areas\)
Chapters 3 to 8 provide a brief overview of the 300 carbonate rock areas recorded in, respectively, the north-west, west, south-west, south-east, and north-east of Tasmania, and on some Bass Strait islands. Each area and its catchment has been depicted on maps at 1:100,000 scale that have been photo-reduced for presentation here but are available at the original scale for digitising to Geographical Information Systems, or for other purposes. The broad systems context of each area is tabulated and a very brief summary of any known karst phenomena is appended. A brief introduction to each chapter provides a regional setting.

\(Part\) \(C\) \(Discussion\) \(and\) \(Conclusions\)
Chapter 9 provides a brief synthesis of management issues that arise in Tasmania's karst, including the vulnerability of soil and groundwater systems, accelerated sinkhole collapse affecting agricultural land and sometimes roads, refuse dumping in sinkholes, the risk of agricultural chemicals entering groundwater systems, the need for improved streamside management, issues related to limestone quarrying and forestry activities, and the management of caves used for recreational caving and commercial tourism. The inadequacy of managing arbitrarily-defined land parcels that have been superimposed on a highly interactive and systemic environment, is discussed: there is a need for a trans-tenure perspective on management of such systems. The desirability of developing community-based karstcare programs is addressed, together with the need to upgrade the system of formal reservation to protect some phenomena of major geoheritage significance.
Initial steps towards the development of predictive modelling as an aid to strategic planning are discussed, together with approaches to the management of individual karst areas including the desirability of karst inventory and sensitivity mapping processes. General principles in geoheritage conservation are discussed and a preliminary list of karst landform species recorded to date from Tasmania's karsts is appended. The assessment of conservation status at the systems, landform assemblage, and individual landform species levels are addressed, using examples.


The antagonist pharmacology of glutamate neurotoxicity was quantitatively examined in murine cortical cell cultures. Addition of 1- 3 mM DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate (APV), or its active isomer D-APV, acutely to the exposure solution selectively blocked the neuroexcitation and neuronal cell selectively blocked the neuroexcitation and neuronal cell loss produced by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), with relatively little effect on that produced by either kainate or quisqualate. As expected, this selective NMDA receptor blockade only partially reduced the neuroexcitation or acute neuronal swelling produced by the broad-spectrum agonist glutamate; surprisingly, however, this blockade was sufficient to reduce glutamate- induced neuronal cell loss markedly. Lower concentrations of APV or D- APV had much less protective effect, suggesting that the blockade of a large number of NMDA receptors was required to acutely antagonize glutamate neurotoxicity. This requirement may be caused by the amplification of small amounts of acute glutamate-induced injury by subsequent release of endogenous NMDA agonists from injured neurons, as the "late" addition of 10–1000 microM APV or D-APV (after termination of glutamate exposure) also reduced resultant neuronal damage. If APV or D-APV were present both during and after glutamate exposure, a summation dose-protection relationship was obtained, showing substantial protective efficacy at low micromolar antagonist concentrations. Screening of several other excitatory amino acid antagonists confirmed that the ability to antagonize glutamate neurotoxicity might correlate with ability to block NMDA-induced neuroexcitation: The reported NMDA antagonists ketamine and DL-2-amino- 7-phosphono-heptanoate, as well as the broad-spectrum antagonist kynurenate, were all found to attenuate glutamate neurotoxicity substantially; whereas gamma-D-glutamylaminomethyl sulfonate and L- glutamate diethyl ester, compounds reported to block predominantly quisqualate or kainate receptors, did not affect glutamate neurotoxicity. The present study suggests that glutamate neurotoxicity may be predominantly mediated by the activation of the NMDA subclass of glutamate receptors--occurring both directly, during exposure to exogenous compound, and indirectly, due to the subsequent release of endogenous NMDA agonists. Given other studies linking NMDA receptors to channels with unusually high calcium permeability, this suggestion is consistent with previous data showing that glutamate neurotoxicity depends heavily on extracellular calcium.


This report contains an account of the status of the PhD project and plans for the remaining study period. It was handed in prior to the author's qualifying exam om the 17th of December 2018. The PhD project forms part of the national research project  ReVALUE which focuses on promoting a more holistic approach to assessment of value in energy renovation.
The PhD project is based on the hypothesis that energy renovation can be seen as a lever for promoting well-being for the residents in social housing areas. There is, however, an identified barrier when it comes to addressing traditionally more qualitative values as part of interdisciplinary renovation projects.
Consequently, the PhD project focuses on identifying, articulating and assessing potentials for added value for the residents when performing energy renovation. The project applies a combined re-search design including a hermeneutic, an empirical and an action research approach.
The report presents and discusses a tentative draft for a framework for articulating potential synergies between well-being and energy concerns. Lastly, it brings up for discussion how to assess the iden-tified themes as part of a holistic approach to assessment of value in building renovation.


Copy number variation (CNV) is a relatively novel source of genetic variation, involving the duplication or deletion of segments of genomic DNA (gDNA) sequence, thereby changing the original number of DNA copies. It is currently gaining widespread recognition from the scientific community, and it is anticipated to play a major role in the aetiology of human diseases. However, the extent of its contribution to phenotypic diversity, in terms of individual susceptibility to disease, remains to be elucidated. Nonetheless, recent studies have indicated that common complex disease phenotypes, such as osteoporosis, might be highly susceptible to CNV.

Osteoporosis is a common and debilitating skeletal condition, imposing significant clinical and socioeconomic consequences. The disease is characterised by fragile bones that are susceptible to fracture due to deregulated bone remodelling, where bone loss exceeds bone formation. Being a common complex disease, osteoporosis risk is largely determined by the effect of environmental factors on genetic variants. Moreover, identification of the genetic variants associated with osteoporosis is widely anticipated for the contribution it will make towards the development of improved measures of disease intervention.

Recent genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified that the genes oestrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) and Axin 1 (AXIN1) potentially play major roles in bone regulation. In addition, evidence highlights their involvement in key biological processes that regulate bone turnover. Specifically, ESR1 mediates the response of bone marrow-derived cells to oestrogen and it has been demonstrated that oestrogen inhibits bone loss, while AXIN1 inhibits Wnt signal transduction and it has been demonstrated that Wnt proteins promote bone growth. Furthermore, several large-scale analysis projects firmly implicate genetic variations of both genes with bone marrow density (BMD), which is the surrogate phenotype of osteoporosis. Therefore, ESR1 and AXIN1 are both recognised candidates for the genetic regulation of osteoporosis risk.

This study investigated the potential effect of two novel CNVs of the genes ESR1 and AXIN1, Variant_4512 and Variant_4912, respectively, in relation to BMD in a population cohort study of Caucasian women, between the ages of 18 and 83, from Australia and the UK. Subjects were genotyped for both CNVs, respectively, using real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) combined with TaqMan chemistry, and the copy number (CN) quantitation software, CopyCaller. Subjects were then examined for evidence of association between both CNVs and three different BMD phenotypes, 1) raw measurement (g/cm2), 2) age-adjusted Z-score, and 3) controlled for several covariates, at three common skeletal locations of osteoporotic fracture, 1) lumbar spine, 2) total hip, and 3) femoral neck.

This study confirmed the presence of ESR1 CNV and AXIN1 CNV in the analysed subject cohort, as indicated by the observation of three distinct CNV genotypes for each, representing CN loss (CN1) and CN gain (CN3) from the expected wild-type CN in the human diploid genome (CN2). This study found no evidence of association between both CNVs and BMD (p = > 0.05) in the analysed subject cohort. Therefore, the hypothesis tested in this study, that CNV is associated with BMD, was not supported. As a result, it would appear that the ESR1 CNV Variant_4512 and the AXIN1 CNV Variant_4912 are unlikely to play a major role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis in Caucasian women. However, replication studies and further research would be required to accurately validate this, since this study was subject to numerous limitations which may have influenced the findings, such as low statistical power, technical difficulties, limiting experimental reagents, and time constraints. In addition, there is evidence from previous studies implicating intron 1 and the 5' end of ESR1 and intron 2 of AXIN1 with BMD. Variant_4512 and Variant_4912 encompass the 5' end of their respective genes, thereby implicating the promoter sequence and regulatory elements, which in turn implicates the control of gene expression. Therefore, despite the lack of statistically significant findings in this study, the ESR1 CNV Variant_4512 and the AXIN1 CNV Variant_4912 both still remain as promising candidates for involvement in BMD and the risk of osteoporosis. Moreover, other CNVs in the same genomic regions may also be relevant for future research.

Further research would benefit from addressing the potential effect of environmental risk factors on CNV. It is possible that the ESR1 CNV Variant_4512 may be modified in an environment-specific manner, which influences its effect on BMD, as indicated by the almost statistically significant association between ESR1 CNV and BMD observed in this study when controlled for covariates at the femoral neck (p = 0.052). Moreover, previous studies highlight that the majority of known genes subject to CNV are not even located within the identified region of genomic variation, and also that osteoporosis may be more susceptible to genetic variation affecting the CN of non-coding regions. Therefore, further research should also focus on gene expression studies to determine whether the ESR1 CNV Variant_4512 exerts position effects on the transcriptional control of another gene, which may in turn be the primary gene associated with osteoporosis.


Fortunately, teaching practices help shape the learning experiences and increase motivation and achievement for students. In addition, it has been revealed that when teachers collaborate well together they also tend to work better with students. This new informative publication clearly identifies and arranges profiles in relation to two connected areas of professional teacher practices: classroom teaching practices and participation in professional learning communities.
This practical book enables a more comprehensive understanding of teaching practice and participation in professional learning communities nationally and internationally. It provides policy makers and other key stakeholders with the relevant information they need for educational system monitoring.


The main objective of the paper is to propose a framework in which fiscal health conditions can be assessed and the main determinants affecting fiscal health can be identified, inspite of severe data constraints. The paper draws on big urban agglomerations in India as well as smaller cities as a sample and attempts to identify the difference, if any, in the main determinants for variations in fiscal health conditions across different size classes of cities. To compensate for the lack of statistical rigor in the estimations of expenditure needs and revenue capacities, we propose a framework which analyses the ratio of expenditure needs to revenue capacity by fitting an econometric model. It is a two-step method, in the first stage we estimate the expenditure need and revenue capacity separately by simple methods discussed above. In the second stage we take the ratio of expenditure need and revenue capacity as an indicator of financial performance of a ULB and fit an econometric model to explain the performance of ULBs on the basis of factors which are likely to affect the performance of the ULBs. We find that the role of the higher tiers of the government is important in bigger and smaller size class of cities in their financial management. However, for bigger cities we find that the own source revenues can also play an important role in bringing down the fiscal ratio. In the smaller ULBs the role of the demand indicators is not that prominent but the cost indicators play a relatively prominent role. In case of bigger agglomerations, the demand indicators are more prominent than the cost indicators.


Purpose: to study the potential utility of 1-thio-D-glucose labeled with 99mTc for cancer imaging in laboratory animals. Materials and method: the study was carried out in cell cultures of normal CHO (Chinese hamster ovary cells CHO) and malignant tissues MCF-7 (human breast adenocarcinoma MCF-7). To evaluate the uptake of 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose in normal and tumor tissue cells, 25 MBq of 1-thio-D-glucose labeled with 99mTc was added to the vials with 3 million cells and incubated for 30 minutes at room temperature. After centrifugation of the vials with cells, the supernatant was removed. Radioactivity in vials with normal and tumor cells was then measured. In addition, the study included 40 mice of C57B 1/6j lines with tumor lesion of the right femur. For neoplastic lesions, Lewis lung carcinoma model was used. Following anesthesia, mice were injected intravenously with 25MBq of 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose. Planar scintigraphy was performed 15 minutes later in a matrix of 512x512 pixels for 5 minutes. Results: when measuring the radioactivity of normal and malignant cells after incubation with 99mTc-1-thio-D- glucose, it was found that the radioactivity of malignant cells was higher than that of normal cells. The mean values of radioactivity levels in normal and malignant cells were 0.3±0.15MBq and 1.07±0.6MBq, respectively. All examined animals had increased accumulation of 99mTc-1-thio- D-glucose at the tumor site. The accumulation of 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose in the tumor was on average twice as high as compared to the symmetric region. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose is a prospective radiopharmaceutical for cancer visualization. In addition, high accumulation of 99mTc-1-thio-D-glucose in the culture of cancer cells and in tumor tissue of animals demonstrates tumor tropism of the radiopharmaceutical.


The Internet occasionally experiences large disruptions, arising from both natural and manmade disturbances, and it is of significant interest to develop methods for locating within the network the source of a given disruption (i.e., the network element(s) whose perturbation initiated the event). This paper presents a new approach to realizing this logical localization objective. The proposed methodology consists of three steps: 1.) data preprocessing, in which publicly available measurements of Internet activity are acquired, "cleaned", and assembled into a format suitable for computational analysis, 2.) event characterization via tensor factorization-based time series analysis, and 3.) localization of the source of the disruption through graph theoretic analysis. This procedure provides a principled, automated approach to identifying the root causes of network disruptions at "whole-Internet" scale. The considerable potential of the proposed analytic method is illustrated through both computer simulation studies and empirical.


Abstract Idiopathic progressive hemifacial atrophy, or Parry-Romberg syndrome, is a rare entity, seldom described in medical texts. Though first described in 1825, as yet there are no clear-cut diagnostic criteria. It is of interest mainly because of the numerous features with which it may be associated, which are largely in the central nervous system, and, more importantly, because it can easily be confused with localised scleroderma en coup de sabre. Some classify it as one of the trophoneuroses; others believe it is a variant of localised scleroderma. Most of the sufferers present because of the attendant cosmetic loss from the facial disfigurement. Treatment is multifactorial, and includes facial reconstructive surgery and immunosuppressants. Here we present the case of a 21-year-old Nigerian with idiopathic progressive left hemifacial atrophy. To the best of our knowledge, it is probably the first case from Nigeria to be reported in literature.


Identifying where animals come from during population recovery can help to understand the impacts of disturbance events and regimes on species distributions and genetic diversity. Alternative recovery processes for animal populations affected by fire include external recolonization, nucleated recovery from refuges, or in situ survival and population growth. We used simulations to develop hypotheses about ecological and genetic patterns corresponding to these alternative models. We tested these hypotheses in a study of the recovery of two small mammals, the Australian bush rat and the agile antechinus, after a large (>50,000 ha), severe wildfire.

The abundance of both species was severely reduced by fire and recovered to near or above pre-fire levels within two generations, yet we rejected a hypothesis of recovery by external recolonization. While the agile antechinus showed genetic evidence for far greater dispersal capacity than the bush rat, neither species showed gradients in abundance or genetic diversity with distance from unburnt forest during population recovery.

Population recovery was driven by local-scale processes. However, the mechanisms differed between species, resulting from the spatial impacts of fire on habitat suitability. Agile antechinus populations recovered through population growth from in situ survivors. The bush rat followed a model of nucleated recovery, involving local recolonization from micro-refuges in topographic drainage lines.

Nucleated recovery by the bush rat was associated with changes in dispersal, and fine-scale patterns of genetic admixture. We identified increased dispersal by females during recovery, contrasting with male-biased dispersal in unburnt forest. Such flexibility in dispersal can potentially increase recovery rates compared to expectations based on dispersal behavior within undisturbed populations.

Our study shows how the initial distribution of survivors, determined by fire effects on resource distribution, determines the subsequent scaling of population recovery patterns, and the sensitivity of population distribution and genetic diversity to changing disturbance regimes.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


In the wild, giraffes live complex social lives exhibiting fission-fusion social systems.  They have sophisticated communication which likely forms a crucial component regulating subgroup dynamics.  They spend a large part of their day browsing and traveling over large distances.  In captivity, lack of continuous browsing opportunities and limited space can lead to various abnormal and stereotypic behaviours.  These stereotypic behaviours can have cascading detrimental health consequences.  A behavioural analysis of stereotypic behaviours in giraffes under human care was conducted to evaluate sources of variation within a population and provide management recommendations.  The aim of this investigation was threefold: 1. to examine current behaviour of giraffes in Zoological Garden Alipore, Kolkata to advise on their enhanced management; 2. to highlight any behavioural abnormalities and recommend enrichment mechanisms; and 3. to compare the observed stereotypic behaviours with behaviour described in other zoological institutions and in the wild to provide a focal trajectory in the development of guidelines.  Four individuals (two adult males, one adult female, and one male calf) were observed outdoors for seven days, three times a day for 30 minutes by instantaneous scan sampling method.  During the observation period, the giraffe exhibited oral stereotypy more than any other behaviour recorded, though this was recorded disproportionally between individuals.  The giraffe spent a larger amount of time exhibiting oral stereotypy compared to feeding/foraging activities.  The study suggests incorporating diet and feeding strategies with provision of natural browse as well as offering enrichment methods to increase the foraging time using various time-engaged feeding devices to mitigate the observed abnormal stereotypic behaviour.  Additionally, recommendations are made for expanding the size of the open enclosure to meet guidelines by the Central Zoo Authority, as a minimum.


Location Based Identification (LBI) can be defined as a string of numeric or alphanumeric characters that are used to define a specific location. Virtually, it is the most compact data element capable of specifying the location of a mail addressee with high precision (Raper, Rhind, & Shepherd, 1992; Zandbergen, 2008). LBI is an essential element of communication between people, public, governmental organisations and business sectors. It plays a significant role in postal services and consequently it is a significant element of social communication and economic development. LBI is a significantly important concept that has been implemented in developed countries. Examples include the American zip code and the UK postcode. LBI is used by governments, organisations, institutions and retailers to keep track of their customers and participants. Today, as a result of continuous development and expansion, LBI needs to be devised to include a more robust sense of adaptation for the growing urban sprawl.

The lack of use of LBI in developing countries is the key point of this research. However, an issue surrounding the designed LBI systems in developed countries is the non-existence of justified design techniques. Hence, the designed LBI systems around the world lack intelligent features such as directional impressions of the codes. In this regard, this study presents a new technique to design LBI systems, where the codes give a view of how far a point is from the centre, in addition to the direction with respect to the centre. The technique is based on a transverse division of the area being designed. Each area is classified numerically, with respect to the four main directions or the compass (North, South, East and West). Moreover, the method indicates the approximate distance from the central point of the area being designed, by dividing the area into concentric zones.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has been chosen as a case study to validate the technique. The study begins with a quantitative study and many factors have been considered and examined, which may affect the adoption of LBI in developing countries - specifically within the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Furthermore, empirically, the main effective factors of LBI adoption have been found. In this regard, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) have been used as base models to test the factors that cause the adoption of LBI system in the region. The latent variables used in this study are government support (GS), self-efficacy (SE), perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), compatibility (COM), family and friends (FF), attitude (A), subjective norm (SN), perceived behaviour control (PBC) and behaviour intention (BI). Then another study has been conducted based on an open-ended questionnaire. The aim of this study is to ascertain the impacts of the LBI system in daily life. The study focused on five important points related to the accepted design of the LBI system by the users. The code format, the impact on technology, the necessity of having the system, the impact on the economy and the impact of policy, have all been studied and analysed based on the participants' views. The final study was based on interviews to assess the outcomes of the current research. The participants have been chosen based on their experience and career position. Experts and decision makers in fields related to LBI systems have been chosen. The assessment is based on four different aspects, which are novelty, applicability, scalability and the flexibility of the proposed ideas of this research.

The study is based on the positivism philosophy to observe individuals behaviour toward using the LBI system. However, a deductive research approach has been applied to provide the research hypothesis. In the first and second questionnaire, 236 and 153 respondents are involved respectively. In addition, 7 interviewers have been participated for the study assessment.

The results encourage the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) decision makers to develop strategies that may lead to the adoption of LBI in the region. The selection of the design has been analysed to be based on the impact of the proposed system on the different sectors of the daily life. Furthermore, this proposed SR_LBI has been positively assessed by the interviewees and will be beneficial for developing countries that have the desire to start designing their own system.


A defining characteristic of democratic regimes is that they depend on widespread popular approval of domestic and foreign policy choices made by their elites. This article examines the sources of East European public support for NATO membership. It argues that citizens' attitudes in favor of participation in the North Atlantic defense system are affected, at the individual level, by their own values and characteristics, and at the aggregate level, by the national past experience and the domestic political context. The hypothesized effects of micro- and macro-level factors are tested through logistic regression analysis of data from the 1995 Central and East European Barometer Survey. The results suggest that perceptions of threat from Russia developed in nations occupied by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II and the ex-Communists' access to government are factors which mould public opinion and explain differences across countries. Pro-integration and pro-market attitudes emerge as influential determinants of NATO approval which account for the variation observed between individuals. These findings and their theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the context of the recent eastward expansion of NATO and the Kosovo crisis, demonstrating the need to study the dynamics in East European popular appreciation of foreign policy choices over time.


An efficient algorithm is presented for the calculation of the inverse kinematic accelerations for a six-degree-of-freedom manipulator with a spherical wrist. The inverse kinematic calculation is shown to work synergistically with the inverse dynamic calculation, producing kinematic parameters needed in the recursive Newton-Euler dynamics formulation. Additional savings in the dynamic computation are noted for a class of kinematically well-structured manipulators, such as spherical-wrist arms, and for manipulators with simply structured inertial parameters.


How can we help policy makers choose better exams? This question was the focus of the Assessment Working Group at the 2010 ISDDE Conference in Oxford. The group brought together high-level international expertise in assessment. It tackled issues that are central to policy makers looking for tests that, at reasonable cost, deliver valid, reliable assessments of students' performance in mathematics and science with results that inform students, teachers, and school systems. This paper describes the analysis and recommendations from the group's discussions, with references that provide further detail. It has contributed to discussions, in the US and elsewhere, on "how to do better". We hope it will continue to be useful both to policy makers and to assessment designers.


Bacterial infections in the central nervous system (CNS) can be life threatening and often impair neurological function. Biofilm infection is a complication following craniotomy, a neurosurgical procedure that involves the removal and replacement of a skull fragment (bone flap) to access the brain for surgical intervention. The incidence of infection following craniotomy ranges from 1% to 3% with approximately half caused by Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). These infections present a significant therapeutic challenge due to the antibiotic tolerance of biofilm and unique immune properties of the CNS. Previous studies have revealed a critical role for innate immune responses during S. aureus craniotomy infection. Experiments using knockout mouse models have highlighted the importance of the pattern recognition receptor Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and its adaptor protein MyD88 for preventing S. aureus outgrowth during craniotomy biofilm infection. However, neither molecule affected bacterial burden in a mouse model of S. aureus brain abscess highlighting the distinctions between immune regulation of biofilm vs. planktonic infection in the CNS. Furthermore, the immune responses elicited during S. aureus craniotomy infection are distinct from biofilm infection in the periphery, emphasizing the critical role for niche-specific factors in dictating S. aureus biofilm-leukocyte crosstalk. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge concerning innate immunity to S. aureus craniotomy biofilm infection, compare this to S. aureus biofilm infection in the periphery, and discuss the importance of anatomical location in dictating how biofilm influences inflammatory responses and its impact on bacterial clearance.


An increasing diversity of imaginative new academic libraries are being constructed around the world, successfully combining exciting architectural expression, inspiring internal spaces and good functionality. Library managers must have a strong vision for the new library and this should inspire the design and the whole building process. This paper explores the key qualities of good learning space, whether in new or refurbished buildings. It is suggested that, ideally, learning space should be functional, adaptable, accessible, varied, interactive, conducive, environmentally suitable, safe and secure, efficient and suitable for information technology. New space should also have "oomph", capturing the minds of users and the spirit of the university. These indicative issues should be discussed in the brief and throughout the planning process, and the priority given to them will depend on the mission and culture of the library. Greater attention is being given to daylight, natural ventilation, cultural artwork, noise management, security, disabled access, information skills training and provision for e-services. Planning is increasingly centred on people or the learner, emphasising the need for social, interactive and collaborative learning spaces as well as for traditional spaces for quiet study and reflection. Some libraries are joined-up with other services. The academic library is an enduring physical 'place', providing a blended, hybrid environment of traditional and electronic services crucial for the future of our universities and their communities.


Individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) have a greater risk of becoming justice-involved due to the role that many TBIs play in impulse control and judgment. Attorneys assigned to represent this cohort may not have encountered individuals with TBI before, and may not be familiar with behavioral manifestations that could be relevant as a defense or as mitigation in individual cases. In this regard, TBI is grossly misunderstood.

A grave example of this point, and a foundation for this article, is the case of Lisa Montgomery, who despite evidence of serious mental illness and significant brain damage, was convicted, sentenced to death, and ultimately executed for the murder of a pregnant woman and the kidnapping of the woman's unborn child. Her case reflects all that is wrong with the way we treat criminal defendants with traumatic brain injuries.

In this paper, we discuss common ways that individuals with traumatic brain injuries become involved in the criminal justice system, and how attorneys can better prepare an effective defense or mitigation. We consider, in some depth, several of the substantive areas of criminal law and procedure in which an understanding of TBI is especially significant (including, but not limited to, competency status, the insanity defense and the death penalty), and assess the quality of counsel –and experts -- in such cases, again, in some instances, using the Montgomery case as a prism.

We believe that one (at least partial) remedy for the current situation is a turn to therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) The TJ doctrine emphasizes giving an individual client dignity, voice, validation and voluntariness of action and decision. This is particularly important for an individual with TBI, who will likely have the capacity to make the majority of decisions about his case, but who may still need behavioral treatment or interventions for symptoms of the TBI. We will discuss the ways that TJ plays into these issues, and how TJ must be the grounding of any representation of this population. We conclude with some modest suggestions as to how we can begin to make needed changes in the criminal justice system to take all of these issues into account.


Bayesian deep learning seeks to equip deep neural networks with the ability to precisely quantify their predictive uncertainty, and has promised to make deep learning more reliable for safety-critical real-world applications. Yet, existing Bayesian deep learning methods fall short of this promise; new methods continue to be evaluated on unrealistic test beds that do not reflect the complexities of downstream real-world tasks that would benefit most from reliable uncertainty quantification. We propose the R ETINA Benchmark , a set of real-world tasks that accurately reflect such complexities and are designed to assess the reliability of predictive models in safety-critical scenarios. Specifically, we curate two publicly available datasets of high-resolution human retina images exhibiting varying degrees of diabetic retinopathy, a medical condition that can lead to blindness, and use them to design a suite of automated diagnosis tasks that require reliable predictive uncertainty quantification. We use these tasks to benchmark well-established and state-of-the-art Bayesian deep learning methods on task-specific evaluation metrics. We provide an easy-to-use codebase for fast and easy benchmarking following reproducibility and software design principles. We provide implementations of all methods included in the benchmark as well as results computed over 100 TPU days, 20 GPU days, 400 hyperparameter configurations, and evaluation on at least 6 random seeds each.


This paper is about the magnitude of association between two crude oils, the UK Brent and the Texan WTI. Practice presumes and theory predicts a unitary and a proportionate association, especially for the log-log specifications. A battery of cointegration tests are conducted to test whether the slopes, or the cointegrating vectors, are statistically significant and are statistically higher than +1. All cointegrating vectors are found to be statistically higher than +1 whatever the sample frequency selected, monthly, weekly, or daily, and whatever the functional forms or the econometric procedures adopted. Subsidiary results are that the samples chosen do not contain calendar structural breaks, and that regionalization of the oil market is strongly denied. These results reject the underlying intuition and theory, and set the stage for a possible financial anomaly. Keywords : Brent and WTI crude oil spot prices, cointegration, error-correction models, GARCH methods, bias in the association, three data frequencies, oil market integration. JEL Classifications: C22, C12, G15, Q41


Exponential random graph models (ERGMs) are a popular tool for modeling social networks representing relational data, such as working relationships or friendships. Data on exogenous variables relating to participants in the network, such as gender or age, are also often collected. ERGMs allow modeling of the effects of such exogenous variables on the joint distribution, specified by the ERGM, but not on the marginal probabilities of observing a relationship. In this article, we consider an approach to modeling a network that uses an ERGM for the joint distribution of the network, but then marginally constrains the fit to agree with a generalized linear model (GLM) defined in terms of this set of exogenous variables. This type of model, which we refer to as a marginalized ERGM, is a natural extension of the standard ERGM that allows a convenient population-averaged interpretation of parameters, for example, in terms of log odds ratios when the GLM includes a logistic link, as well as fast computation of marginal probabilities. Several algorithms to obtain maximum likelihood estimates are presented, with a particular focus on reducing the computational burden. These methods are illustrated using data on the working relationship between 36 partners in a New England law firm. Supplementary materials for the article are available online.


Within the group of individuals with ASD there are a number of people who interact well with the new technologies, which makes them the main beneficiaries of this project. The project described in this paper consists of designing and implementing a multimedia application within the framework of Serious Games. The main aim is to create a system composed of a set of Serious Games oriented to first aid education: what to do in certain situations, basic knowledge about healthcare, medical specialties… all employing the use of new technologies such as the Android operating system implemented on mobile phones or tablets. Not only technological results have been analyzed, but the opinions of users and specialists taking part in the application's validation and initial testing have also been taken into account.


The purpose of this dissertation is to develop a pedagogical framework for applying a critical discourse methodology in the analysis of film as a multimodal, narrative construct of social discourse. This orientation is grounded in a cultural studies perspective that recognizes the significance of popular culture and allows me to situate film as a discursive practice, pedagogical resource, and (re)producer of social knowledges. Once situated, the need arises for a systematic method of critical analysis that controls for the rich, discursive landscape of multimodal artifacts without succumbing to over-reduction. My original contribution the Active Critical Engagement (ACE) framework – addresses a gap in methodological applications for scholars interested in using critical discourse analysis and visual artifacts. The ACE framework builds on multimodal critical discourse analysis to structure the interrogation of three films: My Name is Khan, Bhaji on the Beach, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – films chosen because they allow for transnational considerations of Othering, orientalism, and situated experience. The key modal elements of text, imagery, and narrative are used to control for the semiotic richness offered in films. These elements are then filtered through analytic foci to identify and interrogate primary and secondary narratives for problematic iterations of power and marginalization. Finally, a post analysis functions as a reflective practice to allow for deeper interrogation of the interpreter's experience. The analysis generated by application of the ACE framework demonstrates the possibilities for facilitating a critical orientation an orientation that questions dogmatic constructions of social knowledge that (re)produce discriminatory social practices. As a pedagogical tool, ACE finds its theoretical support in both critical and semiotic pedagogical methodologies. This reflects the v centering of social justice issues and the impact of social discourses on the (re)production of social knowledges. This type of transformative teaching does diverge from most methods of standardized education and several practical concerns are considered. It is hoped that this research provides additional support for teachers incorporating critical analysis in their courses.


[1] Daily global measurements from NASA's Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) allow comprehensive investigation of interhemispheric and interannual variations in chemical and transport processes throughout the lowermost stratosphere (LMS). We analyze nearly seven years of MLS O3, HNO3, HCl and ClO measurements along with meteorological analyses to place chemical processing in and dispersal of processed air from the winter polar lowermost vortex and subvortex in a global context. The MLS data, the first simultaneous observations of HCl and ClO covering much of the LMS, reveal that chlorine activation is widespread in the Antarctic subvortex and can occur to a significant degree in the Arctic subvortex. Unusually low temperatures and strong, prolonged chlorine activation in the lowermost vortex and subvortex promoted large ozone losses there in the 2006 (and 2008) Antarctic and 2004/2005 Arctic winters, consistent with reported record low column ozone. Processed air dispersing from the decaying vortex in spring induces rapid changes in extravortex trace gas abundances. After vortex breakdown, the subtropical jet/tropopause becomes the major transport barrier in the LMS. Quasi-isentropic transport of tropical tropospheric air into the LMS, associated with the summer monsoon circulations, leads to decreases in extratropical O3, HNO3, and HCl in both hemispheres. Strong mixing in the summertime LMS homogenizes extratropical trace gas fields. MLS measurements in the tropics show signatures of monsoon-related cross-equatorial stratosphere-to-troposphere transport. Observed seasonal and interannual variations in trace gas abundances in the LMS are consistent with variations in the strength of transport barriers diagnosed from meteorological analyses.


Cell immobilization is a promising approach to create efficient photosynthetic cell factories for sustainable chemical production. Here, we demonstrate a novel photosynthetic solid-state cell factory design for sustainable biocatalytic ethylene production. We entrapped cyanobacteria within never-dried hydrogel films of TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofibers (TCNF) cross-linked with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to create a selfstanding matrix architecture. The matrix is operational in the challenging submerged conditions and outperforms existing alginate-based solutions in terms of wet strength, long-term cell fitness, and stability. Based on rheological investigations, the critical strength of wet TCNF matrices is three times higher than in the existing immobilization matrices of alginate cross-linked with Ca. This is due to the rigid nature of the colloidal nanofiber network and the strong cross-linking with PVA, as opposed to polymeric alginate with reversible ionic Ca bonds. The porous and hygroscopic nanofiber network also shields the cyanobacterial cells from environmental stress, maintaining photosynthetic activity during partial drying of films, and when submerged in the nutrient medium for long-term cultivation. Finally, TCNF matrices allow the ethylene-producing Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 cells to operate in submerged conditions under high inorganic carbon loads (200 mM NaHCO3), where Ca -alginate matrices fail. The latter show severe cell leakage due to matrix disintegration already within 20 min of NaHCO3 supplementation. In contrast, TCNF-based matrices prevent cell leakage to the medium and restrict culture growth, leading to improved ethylene production yields. Furthermore, the operational capacity of the self-standing TNCF cell factory can be maintained long-term by periodically refreshing the nutrient medium. All in all, the results showcase the versatility and potential of cell immobilization with the never-dried colloidal TCNF matrix, paving the way towards novel biotechnological pathways using solid-state cell factories designed for efficient and sustainable production of e.g., monomers and fuels.


AIMS--To propose a computerised image analysis based method for measuring, on paper mounted lung sections, the area macroscopically occupied by emphysema. METHODS--The study was based on the assessment of 69 lung sections prepared following a modified Gough-Wentworth technique. The results obtained from image analysis, point counting, and panel grading methods were compared, as was the repeatability of image analysis and panel grading. RESULTS--The results from image analysis and from point counting were not significantly different (p = 0.609) and significant quadratic regressions (r = 0.96, p < 0.001) were found between measurements from image analysis and from panel grading, the computerised technique being shown to be the most reproducible. CONCLUSIONS--Image analysis is a valuable and reproducible method to measure the area of lung macroscopically involved by emphysema.


A profound understanding of charge transfer (CT) at semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and nanoclusters (NCs) interfaces is extremely important to optimize the energy conversion efficiency in QDs and NCs-based solar cell devices. Here, we report on the ground- and excited-state interactions at the interface of two different bimolecular non-covalent donor–acceptor (D–A) systems using steady-state and femtosecond transient absorption (fs-TA) spectroscopy with broadband capabilities. We systematically investigate the electrostatic interactions between the positively charged fullerene derivative C60-(N,N dimethylpyrrolidinium iodide) (CF) employed as an efficient molecular acceptor and two different donor molecules: Ag29 nanoclusters (NCs) and CdTe quantum dots (QDs). For comparison purposes, we also monitor the interaction of each donor molecule with the neutral fullerene derivative C60-(malonic acid)n, which has minimal electrostatic interactions. Our steady-state and time-resolved data demonstrate that both QDs and NCs have strong interfacial electrostatic interactions and dramatic fluorescence quenching when the CF derivative is present. In other words, our results reveal that only CF can be in close molecular proximity with the QDs and NCs, allowing ultrafast photoinduced CT to occur. It turned out that the intermolecular distances, electronic coupling and subsequently CT from the excited QDs or NCs to fullerene derivatives can be controlled by the interfacial electrostatic interactions. Our findings highlight some of the key variable components for optimizing CT at QDs and NCs interfaces, which can also be applied to other D–A systems that rely on interfacial CT.


Abstract. Climate change is expected to impact the water cycle and severely affect precipitation patterns across central Europe and in other parts of the world, leading to more frequent and severe droughts. Usually when projecting drought impacts on hydrological systems, it is assumed that system properties, like soil properties, remain stable and will not be affected by drought events. To study if this assumption is appropriate, we address the effects of drought on the infiltration behavior of forest soils using dye tracer experiments on six sites in three regions across Germany, which were forced into drought conditions. The sites cover clayey-, loamy- and sandy-textured soils. In each region, we compared a deciduous and a coniferous forest stand to address differences between the main tree species. The results of the dye tracer experiments show clear evidence for changes in infiltration behavior at the sites. The infiltration changed at the clayey plots from regular and homogeneous flow to fast preferential flow. Similar behavior was observed at the loamy plots, where large areas in the upper layers remained dry, displaying signs of strong water repellency. This was confirmed by water drop penetration time (WDPT) tests, which revealed, in all except one plot, moderate to severe water repellency. Water repellency was also accountable for the change of regular infiltration to fingered flow in the sandy soils. The results of this study suggest that the drought history or, more generally, the climatic conditions of a soil in the past are more important than the actual antecedent soil moisture status regarding hydrophobicity and infiltration behavior; furthermore, drought effects on infiltration need to be considered in hydrological models to obtain realistic predictions concerning water quality and quantity in runoff and groundwater recharge.


Developers can use Scalable Network Technologies' latest software release, QualNet 3.8, to design and test a wide variety of communication networks , including ad hoc wireless networks. The new Real-Time Interfaces Module directly supports hardware-and software-in-the-loop simulation by accepting packet data traffic from a real network. QualNet 3.8 also includes a new 3D GUI for realistic visualizations. The new release features more than a dozen new network models, including a model for background traffic and randomly occurring interface faults; AVX Corporation's new series of feedthrough filters offers automotive engineers a way to significantly reduce noise in digital circuits up to 5 GHz. The W2F4 and W3F4 feedthrough arrays contain four elements with a common ground connection for mul-tiline designs. The capacitor provides low parallel inductance and offers excellent broadband EMI attenuation for all circuitry in need of passing SAE, FCC, and IEC EMC requirements. Applications include data lines to dashboard and diagnostic units, as well as RGB lines to LCD displays within entertainment centers such as DVD players or GPS units; www. avxcorp.com. National Semiconductor's LM3557, a fixed-frequency current-mode step-up DC-DC converter, is suitable for white-LED applications. An external feedback resistor sets a constant current through the LEDs. The LM3557 can drive up to five LEDs in series with a 20-mA current and has a fixed 24-V overvoltage protection option, eliminating the need for an extra protection diode. Other key features include a 2.7 V to 7.5 V VIN range, a 1.25-MHz constant-switching frequency, and input undervoltage protection. The LM3557 converter is available in an eight-lead LLP package and costs 96 cents in 1,000-unit quantities; Lonopono is a new client-side Web-browsing technology designed to collect , organize, share, and display information from Web pages as well as other sources such as RSS feeds, photos, videos, OPML lists, and documents. Lonopono runs on any platform , including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Unix, and it includes an integrated knowledge base (using the Web Ontology Language) and advanced scripting support. TAL Technologies has released version 3.1 of its data collection program, WinWedge Pro, designed to interface RS232 and TCP/IP devices to any Windows application. Different instruments can simultaneously send data to different applications or " fields " within the same application. The new version supports 32-bit features such as preemptive multitasking, up to 100 com ports simultaneously, and up to 56,000-baud data rates, and it is 30 percent faster than 16-bit …


The Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI) was a bold experiment with the goal of providing greater access to higher education for traditionally underrepresented groups of students. Since 2002, the early college high school (ECHS) concept has resulted in the creation or restructuring of more than 280 schools nationwide. Students who attend ECHS have the opportunity to earn a diploma and a college degree during the four or five years that they attend high school. The schools are typically located on the campus of a college or university. North Carolina's first ECHS programs opened in 2004. Today, there are 83 ECHS programs in North Carolina, more than any other state. Early college high schools are among the state's top performing schools, with above average graduation rates and high levels of student success in high school and college courses. While there is a growing body of research related to the Early College High School Initiative, much of the existing literature pertains to the school design and implementation process, the evaluation and success of Early College High School programs, the perceptions of students and teachers, and the unique culture of these schools. Few studies have focused on the leadership of the Early College High School. The purpose of this study was to examine the leadership practices of early college high school principals. Five principals from five different Early College High Schools were included in this multi-site case study. In addition, each principal selected one of his/her colleagues who was also included in the study. The goal of my research was to understand how the early college high school principal balances the various demands of the position while serving as the only administrator in his/her school. In addition, I sought to identify the practices, strategies and behaviors the principals used which they and/or their colleagues believed to positively impact the graduation rate and/or student achievement at the school. The results of this study found that Early College High School principals were student-centered leaders who demonstrated several characteristics of servant leadership. They worked collaboratively with teachers and others to monitor and support students. These principals had high expectations, focused on building relationships, empowered teachers to take on leadership roles, and communicated a clear vision for their schools.


In coherent optical communication systems, the transmitter usually employs an optical in-phase and quadrature (IQ) modulator to perform electrical-to-optical up-conversion. However, some environmental factors, such as temperature and mechanical stress, strongly influence the stability. To stabilize the quality of the transmitted signal, auto bias control (ABC) is essential to keep modulator in optimum bias. In this paper, we present a novel method of ABC for the optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) signal. In the proposed scheme, a small cosine/sine wave dither signal is added on to the I/Q baseband signal, respectively. Based on the power monitoring of the 1st and 2nd harmonics of the dither signal, the biases of the optical IQ modulator for O-OFDM system can be adjusted very precisely. The simulation and experimental results show good performance on locating the optimum bias voltages for the IQ modulator with high precision.


The work presented here focuses on the investigation and further development of simple mass estimators for early-type galaxies which are suitable for large optical galaxy surveys with poor and/or noisy data. We consider simple and robust methods that provide an anisotropy-independent estimate of the galaxy mass relying on the stellar surface brightness and projected velocity dispersion profiles. Under reasonable assumptions a fundamental mass-anisotropy degeneracy can be circumvented without invoking any additional observational data, although at a special (characteristic) radius only, i.e these approaches do not recover the radial mass distribution. Reliable simple mass estimates at a single radius could be used
(i) to cross-calibrate other mass determination methods;
(ii) to estimate a non-thermal contribution to the total gas pressure when compared with the X-ray mass estimate at the same radius;
(iii) to evaluate a dark matter fraction when compared with the luminous mass estimate;
(iv) to derive the slope of the mass profile when combined with the mass estimate from strong lensing;
(v) or as a virial mass proxy.

Two simple mass estimators have been suggested recently - the local (Churazov et al. 2010) and the global (Wolf et al. 2010) methods - which evaluate mass at a particular radius and are claimed to be weakly dependent on the anisotropy of stellar orbits. One approach (Wolf et al. 2010) uses the total luminosity-weighted velocity dispersion and evaluates the mass at a deprojected half-light radius, i.e. relies on the global properties of a galaxy. In contrast, the Churazov et al. technique uses local properties: logarithmic slopes of the surface brightness and velocity dispersion profiles, and recovers the mass at a radius where the surface brightness declines as R^{-2} (see also Richstone and Tremaine 1984, Gerhard 1993).

To test the robustness and accuracy of the methods I applied them to analytic models and to simulated galaxies from a sample of cosmological zoom-simulations which are similar in properties to nearby early-type galaxies. Both local and global simple mass estimates are found to be in good agreement with the true mass at the corresponding characteristic radius. Particularly, for slowly rotating simulated galaxies the local method gives an almost unbiased mass-estimate (when averaged over the sample) with a modest RMS-scatter of 12% (Chapter 2). When applied to massive simulated galaxies with a roughly flat velocity dispersion profile, the global approach on average also provides the almost unbiased mass-estimate, although the RMS-scatter is slightly larger (14-20 %) than for the local estimator (Chapter 4). A noticeable scatter in the determination of the characteristic radius is also expected since the half-light radius depends on the radial range used for the analysis and applied methodology.

Next I tested the simple mass estimators on a sample of real early-type galaxies which had previously been analyzed in detail using state-of-the-art dynamical modeling. For this set of galaxies the simple mass estimates are in remarkable agreement with the results of the Schwarzschild modeling despite the fact that some of the considered galaxies are flattened and mildly rotating. When averaged over the sample the simple local method overestimates the best-fit mass from dynamical modeling by 10% with the RMS-scatter 13% between different galaxies. The bias is comparable to measurement uncertainties. Moreover, it is mainly driven by a single galaxy which has been found to be the most compact one in the sample. When this galaxy is excluded from the sample, the bias and the RMS-scatter are both reduced to 6%. The global estimator for the same sample gives the mean deviation 4% with the slightly larger RMS-scatter of 15% (Chapter 4).

Given the encouraging results of the tests I apply the local mass estimation method to a sample of five X-ray bright early-type galaxies observed with the 6-m telescope BTA in Russia. Using publicly available Chandra data I derived the X-ray mass profile assuming spherical symmetry and hydrostatic equilibrium of hot gas. A comparison between the X-ray and optical mass estimates allowed me to put constraints on the non-thermal contribution (sample averaged value is 4%) to the total gas pressure arising from, for instance, microturbulent gas motions. Once the X-ray derived circular speed is corrected for the non-thermal contribution, the mismatch between the X-ray circular speed V_c^X and the optical circular velocity for isotropic stellar orbits V_c^{iso} provides a clue to the orbital structure of the galaxy. E.g., at small radii V_c^X > V_c^{iso} would suggest more circular orbits, while at larger radii this would correspond to more radial orbits. For two galaxies in our sample there is a
clear indication that at radii larger than the half-light radius stellar orbits become predominantly radial. Finally, the difference between the optical mass-estimate at the characteristic radius and the stellar contribution to the total mass permitted the derivation of a dark-matter fraction. A typical dark matter fraction for our sample of early-type galaxies is 50% for Salpeter IMF and 70% for Kroupa IMF at the radius which is close to the half-light radius (Chapter 3).


This paper reports on a comparative analysis of accentuation strategies within Italian and Dutch NPs. Accent-patterns were obtained in a (semi-)spontaneous way via a simple dialogue-game with 8 Dutch speakers and 4 Italian ones. In this way, target descriptions of all speakers were obtained in the following four contexts: all new, single contrast in the adjective, single contrast in the noun, and double contrast. It was found that the two languages both signal information status prosodically, but in a rather different way. In Dutch, accent distribution is the main discriminative factor: new and contrastive information are accented, while given information is not. Newness and contrastive accents were not intonationally different, yet a post-hoc test revealed that listeners could distinguish a contrastive intonation from a newness one, because contrastive accents generally were the sole accent in the phrase and always had the shape of a nuclear accent even in non-default positions. In Italian, distribution is not a significant factor, since within the elicited NPs both adjective and noun are always accented, irrespective of the status of the information. However, there is a gradient difference in that "given accents" are perceived as less prominent than the other two, while there is no overall perceptual difference between contrastive and newness accents.


Breast cancer is the leading cancer among women in Malaysia. Genetics,
experimental and epidemiological data suggest that breast cancer develops from
complex interaction between inherited susceptibility and environmental factors.
Accumulating evidence suggests that the PI3WAkt signaling pathways play a
causative role in tumorigenesis of breast cancer.
By employing the immunohistochemical method, the expression of several key
regulators or related biomolecules of the PI3WAkt signaling pathways in 43 archived
formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissues of surgically resected breast carcinoma
specimens from 1999 to 2002, were studied. A hnctional assay was performed to
determine the expression of Akt related molecules when treated with SDF-la
recombinant protein.
iii
The results showed that: 1) The expression rates in tumour tissue of ERa, ERP, cerbB2,
p-~ktm08p-, p - ~ ~ ~ S S1D3F-61 ,a nd Ki67 were 25.6%, 4.7%, 5 1.2%,
81.4%, 48.8%, 67.4%, 93.0% and 26.8%, respectively. In contrast, in the apparently
normal adjacent tissue, the expression rates of these molecules were 23.1%, 53.8%,
0%, 7.7%, 7.7%, 53.8%, 92.3% and 15.4%, respectively. 2) Correlation of
biomolecules with tumour tissues and apparently normal adjacent tissues was seen in
the following biomolecules: ERP (p=0.001), c-erbB2 (p<0.001), p-~ktT30(p8= <0.001)
and Ki67 (p=<0.001). 3) In tumour tissue, significant correlation was found between
ERP with p - (~p=0.00~4), p -~~ kSt47 3 with p-BAD (p=0.006), c-erbB2 with
p-Akt and Ki67 (p=0.014 and p=0.000 respectively) and c-erbB2 with SDF-1
(p=0.047). In the apparently normal adjacent tissue, a significant correlation was
found between ERa with p - ~ ~ ~ S ('p3=06.0 42), ERP with p-Akt S473 and p-BAD
(p=0.009 and p=O.OOl respectively), and c-erbB2 with p - ~ kTt3 08 (p=0.042).
Our study also showed that SDF-la protein had a different effect on the expression
of biomolecules, namely p-AktT308p, - AktS473a nd p - ~ ~ ~ S ' I3n 6th. i s hnctional assay,
we found that SDF-la could possible induce cell survival by inducing
phosphorylation of Akt at Thr308 and Ser473 as well as phosphorylation of BAD at
Ser136 which are anti-apoptotic signals. Similar patterns were observed with all
three cell lines, namely MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and MCFIOA but the level of
expression differed from each other.
This study had provided three important information for researchers and clinicians in
terms of: (1) evidence of the involvement of the SDF-la in the PI3WAkt signaling
pathway in breast carcinoma tumourigenesis with detection of p-Akt. 2) For the first

UW:m Rmh Mu46hm4
time, we found cerbB2 was inversely correlated with SDF- 1 a expression. 3)
Identification of potential targets for therapeutic intervention of breast carcinoma.
On the basis of our data, we conclude that PI3WAkt signalling pathway is involved
in tumorigenesis of breast cancer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
report from Malaysia. PI3WAkt pathway might act with upstream molecules such as
estradiol, SDF- 1 a, c-erbB2 independently in promoting tumour growth and
inhibition of apoptosis. This study has also provided useful information for the
search or design of antitumour interventions.


Motivation Antimicrobial resistance has become a major worldwide public health concern, calling for a better characterization of existing and novel resistance mechanisms. GWAS methods applied to bacterial genomes have shown encouraging results for new genetic marker discovery. Most existing approaches either look at SNPs obtained by sequence alignment or consider sets of kmers, whose presence in the genome is associated with the phenotype of interest. While the former approach can only be performed when genomes are similar enough for an alignment to make sense, the latter can lead to redundant descriptions and to results which are hard to interpret. Results We propose an alignment-free GWAS method detecting haplotypes of variable length associated to resistance, using compacted De Bruijn graphs. Our representation is flexible enough to deal with very plastic genomes subject to gene transfers while drastically reducing the number of features to explore compared to kmers, without loss of information. It accomodates polymorphisms in core genes, accessory genes and noncoding regions. Using our representation in a GWAS leads to the selection of a small number of entities which are easier to visualize and interpret than fixed-length kmers. We illustrate the benefit of our approach by describing known as well as potential novel determinants of antimicrobial resistance in P. aeruginosa, a pathogenic bacteria with a highly plastic genome. Availability and implementation The code and data used in the experiments will be made available upon acceptance of this manuscript. Contact email@example.com


In the philosophy of the universe, nature, and is seen as an important name in the systematic thought due to address the human presence in one philosophy and history's most obscure philosopher, one evaluated as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in terms contributions offered by the dialectic of development, is named as the source of modern dialectics. Acknowledged as the most obscure philosopher and an important name in systematic thought due to his addressing the nature and human presence in his philosophy, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is named as the source of modern dialectical due to the contributions he offered to the development of dialectic. Addressed by many thinkers within the history of philosophy and used under different meanings, use of dialectics in Hegel's philosophy suggests a concept integrating with Hegel thought both in terms of showing the development form of thought and presence and a method shaping Hegel's philosophy. Thus, Hegel philosophy and dialectic are regarded as having an equivalent meaning. In this regard, the study has focused on two main problems. Hegel's Aufhebung concept and aufhebung action in the perception of artists were examined and has been associated with the sampled works of the artists. Descriptive research as the model of the study and qualitative research design in the method were used. Intentional scanning in the collection of the data, description of the idea in the analysis of the data, the analog sampling, one of intentional sampling methods, was used for the sampling. The cosmos of the study is limited with Leonid Tishkov and Almagul Menlibayeva. In analyzes of the paintings, concept of aufhebung in Leonid Tishkov and Almagul Menlibayeva's works was utilized.


Abortion and women's reproductive rights have reemerged as front-page news. As popular culture grapples with election rhetoric, states continue to engage in aggressive anti-abortion regulation of first-term abortions. In the first half of 2011, more abortion bills have passed to restrict abortion than ever before. The 162 new abortion bills passed by 19 states in the first six months of the year dwarf the average number of abortion bills for the last three decades of 15 per year. Even more, these bills propose significantly more stringent limits on abortion than in the past, including mandatory ultrasound viewings, intensive counseling, and bans after the first fetal heartbeat at six weeks. These restrictions seem blatantly to defy the holding of Roe v. Wade permitting abortion in the first trimester, yet they continue to proliferate.This Article provides the historical context for the current onslaught of proposed abortion bills by returning to two of the earliest Supreme Court cases of indirect regulation of abortion in the first term. It offers a legal history of the case, City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, and its follow-on case, Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health. For before the dust had even settled in the Supreme Court's 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, legislators had moved to restrict its impact by passing laws to 'protect women's health and voluntary and informed consent.' In the Akron cases, the Court first rejected such attempts to limit abortion in the first term, but then subsequently upheld a first-term regulation, casting doubt upon its continued commitment to Roe. This legal history offers insights and analyses into the legislation of abortion gleaned from a review of the historical record in the Akron cases found in archives and long-forgotten files in dusty basements. It relies on interviews with key players in the cases to provide a fuller explanation of the political and social motivations behind the legal disputes. Revisiting the legal and factual details of these foundational cases of first-term abortion regulation offers a more nuanced understanding of the opposition to abortion and the unsatisfactory nature of the judicial compromises. For only one thing is clear: "The decision in Roe v. Wade neither started nor ended the debate over abortion."


How has urban life in Jakarta changed in the past decades? This paper will discuss life in Menteng, a Jakarta residential area built during the Dutch East Indies colonial times as an extension of Batavia. After independence it became an elite area with residents coming from various parts of Indonesia, mostly working in the civil service. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with former Menteng residents. Fifteen respondents, now in their 60s and 70s, shared what they remembered most about living in Menteng in the past and how they view urban life in present-day Jakarta. Secondary data were also obtained from the social media homepage of GAMENT, a community of ex-Menteng residents. The most dominant response shared were their views of Jakarta being a peaceful place where neighbours of diverse backgrounds lived in harmony. Respondents compared this to contemporary Jakarta which in their views is becoming more conservative and primordial. This paper is part of a larger project to document collective memories of GAMENT members. Keywords: Urban Living, Collective Memory, Jakarta


Abstract:  To conserve biological diversity, protected‐area networks must be based not only on current species distributions but also on the landscape's long‐term capacity to support populations. We used spatially explicit population models requiring detailed habitat and demographic data to evaluate the ability of existing park systems in the Rocky Mountain region (U.S.A. and Canada) to sustain populations of mammalian carnivores. Predicted patterns of extirpation agreed with those from logistic‐regression models based only on park size and connectedness (or isolation) for the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) in developed landscapes (northern U.S. Rocky Mountains) and semideveloped landscapes (southern Canadian Rocky Mountains). The area‐isolation model performed poorly where the landscape matrix contained large amounts of suitable habitat (northern Canadian Rocky Mountains). Park area and connectedness were poor predictors of gray wolf (Canis lupus) occurrence because of this species' broader‐scale range dynamics and greater ability to inhabit the landscape matrix. A doubling of park area corresponded to a 47% and 57% increase in projected grizzly bear population persistence in developed and semideveloped landscapes, respectively. A doubling of a park's connectedness index corresponded to a 81% and 350% increase in population persistence in developed and semideveloped landscapes, respectively, suggesting that conservation planning to enhance connectivity may be most effective in the earliest stages of landscape degradation. The park area and connectivity required for population persistence increased as the landscape matrix became more hostile, implying that the relatively small combined area of parks in the boreal forest and other undeveloped regions may fall below the threshold for species persistence if parks become habitat islands. Loss of carnivores from boreal landscapes could further reduce the viability of temperate populations occupying refugia at the southern range margin. Spatially realistic population models may be more informative than simpler patch‐matrix models in predicting the effects of landscape change on population viability across a continuum of landscape degradation.


By the end of the nineteenth century Belgium was enjoying considerable economic success. However, the economic experience has proved significantly less stable in the twentieth century. In The Belgian Economy in the Twentieth Century Professor Andre Mommen describes and analyzes the changing fortunes of the Belgian economy throughout this century. He traces the Belgian experience from the state regulation of the inter-war period to its current difficulties. Central to the discussion is the innate problem of Belgian dependence on international trade due to her small domestic market. This volume explains how a small but industrialized European nation succeeded in preserving its competitiveness only to succumb to a devastating debt crisis in the last decade.


This book seeks to elucidate the concept of justice, not so much as it is expressed in law courts (retributive and procedural justice) or in state budgets (distributive justice), but as primary justice – what it means and how it can be grounded in the inalienable rights that each human being possesses qua human being. It draws inspiration from two recent works of philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, but also from the groundbreaking Islamic initiative of 2007, the Common Word Letter addressed by 138 eminent Muslim scholars and clerics to the Pope and all Christian leaders. This document affirmed that the two highest commandments in both Judaism and Christianity are also at the heart of the Islamic tradition – love of God and love of neighbor. In a style that lends itself to the classroom and beyond, the book's seven chapters all begin with a case study of justice, so as to emphasize that justice must also be embodied in righteous social, political and economic practices. Along the way, leading contemporary scholars and activists from both traditions urge the reader – Muslim, Christian, or whatever – to look afresh at an age-old conundrum: how do justice and love interact so as to create a world in which everyone finds his or her rightful place?


Continuous applications such as device monitoring and anomaly detection often require real-time aggregated statistics over unbounded data streams. While existing stream processing systems such as Flink, Spark, and Storm support processing of streaming aggregations, their optimizations are limited with respect to the dynamic nature of the data, and therefore are suboptimal when the workload changes and/or when there is data skew. In this paper we present AdCom, which is an adaptive combiner for stream processing engines. The use of AdCom in aggregation queries enables pre-aggregating tuples upstream (i.e., before data shuffling) followed by global aggregation downstream. In contrast to existing approaches, AdCom can automatically adjust the number of tuples to pre-aggregate depending on the data rate and available network. Our experimental study using real-world streaming workloads shows that using AdCom leads to 2.5–9× higher sustainable throughput without compromising latency.


Climate change has been linked to an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events. This will expose hospital infrastructure to new risks which are poorly understood. Traditional approaches to risk identification and analysis produce linear, narrow and static risk profiles which fail to consider complex sub-system interdependencies that may assist or hinder healthcare delivery during an extreme weather event. The ability to create resilient hospitals depends on new risk management methodologies which provide an understanding of these complex relationships. To this end focus groups with key stakeholders in three major tertiary hospitals in Australia, are used to construct Rich Picture Diagrams (RPDs) of hospital infrastructure interdependencies under different extreme weather event scenarios. They show that the risks posed to hospitals by extreme weather events cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding infrastructure, emergency management systems, health systems and communities in which they are imbedded. The new insights provided have major governance and policy implications for those agencies who are responsible for ensuring hospital infrastructure can continue to support the delivery of effective health services during extreme weather events.


Olivenite-Adamite Solid Solution From Oxidation Zone in Rędziny (West Sudetes, Poland) An extensive hydrothermal polymetallic mineralization with a well developed oxidation zone rich in secondary minerals occurs in dolostones several hundred meters from the Karkonosze granite at Rędziny. Using XRD and FTIR methods, mineral phases representing transitional members of the olivenite-adamite solid solution have been identified. Electron microprobe analyses reveal the most common varieties to be zincian olivenite and cuprous adamite with compositions ranging from (Cu1.17Zn0.83)(AsO4)(OH) to (Zn1.38Cu0.62)(AsO4)(OH). The two minerals are subordinate in the weathering zone which can be characterized as having been a zone of low Cu2+ and Zn2+ activity and with mineralizing solutions of increased pH. A high Ca2+ concentration due to the ubiquitous presence of carbonate rocks resulted in the expansion of the stability field of another arsenate, conichalcite (or Zn-bearing conichalcite), which is a common mineral there.


Although employment law in America generally operates under the presumption that employment for an unspecified term is at-will, recently courts have been creating exceptions to this rule in order to afford employees more legal protections. This paper will focus on the judicially created handbook exception under which courts find that an employee handbook can be contractually binding on an employee and, therefore, may transform an employment relationship from one that is at-will to one that is for-cause. Specifically, the paper will examine cases where courts have analyzed employee handbooks which include a disclaimer enunciating that the handbook is, indeed, not a contract, despite the fact that the handbook, itself, contains terms seemingly creating an employment contract. American courts handling such cases have come to very different conclusions as to the legal effect of these disclaimers. This paper will focus on six pairs of matched cases with similar fact patterns, but which ultimately conclude differently on the issue. I will try to parse out what I believe to be the courts' underlying rationales in these cases in an attempt to see if there is any unifying theory under which courts either decide in favor of the employee or employer in such cases. Ultimately, I will conclude that courts whose decisions favor employers seem to focus on the intent of the employer in including the disclaimer in the handbook, while courts who find for employees seem to focus on the reasonable expectations of the employee as influenced by the entirety of the handbook. I will conclude by discussing recent studies on employee understanding of the at-will regime and how employees' apparent misunderstanding of the concept of employment at will may necessarily have to affect the courts' future reasoning in these cases.


The study aims to argue that the humanist model of medicine approaches the practice of self-care, the latter being an actualization of the former concerning all those ideas and issues in which they overlap. The humanisitic model covers pacient-centred medicine and offers a holistic approach to the patient which involves treating him/her as a patient, not as a body (as in biomedicine), emphasizes the doctor-patient partnership atmosphere, a relational, communicational and informational environment. The concept of spatialization in philosophy came out as an empirical mecanicist model in sciences and influenced the appearance of the biomedical model. In the humanistic model, the patient can be, to a certain extent, the factor making decisions with regard to the chronic disease. Self-care matches especially the human medicine with regard to the outlook on the patient as a person (holism), the long-term partnership in the communication, information and correct decision-making for the disease, the empathic environment, the responsibility shared between two people, the assistance provided when making decisions for the patient's "friendship"with the chronic disease.


A recent development in scholarly discourse in the fields of early Judaism and early Christianity is an increased awareness of the influence that the publication of unprovenanced material has on the illicit trade in antiquities. The primary concerns are that publications legitimize artifacts that are potentially looted, forged, or illegally imported, and that such material has the capacity to contaminate the academic corpus of ancient texts. As a consequence, a number of scholarly societies, most recently the Society of Biblical Literature, have enacted policies that reject any initial announcement, presentation, or publication of unprovenanced material in their venues. This article discusses an ethical issue not considered thoroughly under these policies: the ethics of publishing unprovenanced material following the initial publication. Though technically permitted, do subsequent publications help or harm? In order to explore this topic, this article utilizes as a case study the publication of DSS F.Instruction1, an unprovenanced fragment formerly published as part of 4Q416 that was reconsidered in a new edition.


Objectives To examine family planning outcomes among women living in military camps in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and compare these outcomes with a representative sample of non-military women in Kinshasa. Participants Women of reproductive ages, 15–49 years. We compare two populations: women living in military camps and the general (non-military) population in Kinshasa. Study design For sampling, we used a two-stage cluster sampling design, where we first randomly selected enumeration areas (EA), and then randomly selected women within each EA (separately for each of the two populations). We administered a survey on contraceptive use and family planning to all participating women. We use bivariate and multivariate analysis to compare these populations for a range of family planning outcomes. Results We find many statistically significant differences between women in military camps and general female population of Kinshasa. Although they do not have more children, women in military camps are less likely to be using contraception (all methods OR 0.24, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.53; modern methods OR 0.25, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.79; traditional methods OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.71) and less knowledgeable about many family planning methods (less likely to have heard of implants (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.48), injectables (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.44), condoms (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.47), withdrawal (OR 0.05, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.17) and rhythm (OR 0.12, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.44) methods), while at the same time they are more likely to want to limit their births (OR 5.17, 95% CI 2.52 to 10.62), and less likely to have obtained their preferred family planning method (OR 0.14, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.64). Conclusions Women in military camps in Kinshasa appear to be an important and underserved population with regard to family planning. Our results suggest that women in military camps have limited access to modern family planning methods.


The attached Joint Staff Advisory Note (JSAN) of the Annual Progress Report on Implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Burkina Faso, prepared jointly by the staffs of the World Bank and the IMF, was distributed with the member country's Annual Progress Report on Implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) to the Executive Boards of the two institutions. The objective of the JSAN is to provide focused, frank, and constructive feedback to the country on progress in implementing its Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS).


Highlights
• Government intervention to stabilise financial systems in times of
banking crises ultimately involves political decisions. This paper
sheds light on how certain political variables influence policy
choices during banking crises and hence have an impact on fiscal
outlays.
• We employ cross-country econometric evidence from all crisis
episodes in the period 1970-2011 to examine the impact political
and party systems have on the fiscal cost of financial sector
intervention.
• Governments in presidential systems are associated with lower fiscal
costs of crisis management because they are less likely to use
costly bank guarantees, thus reducing the exposure of the state to
significant contingent and direct fiscal liabilities. Consistent with
these findings we find further evidence that these governments are
less likely to use bank recapitalisation and more likely to impose
losses on depositors.


Two different spectroscopy light sources are used to observe the spectrum of six-times-ionized argon, Ar vii, in the vacuum ultraviolet range, 300–1100 A. Fifty-eight transitions are identified as combinations between levels of the 2p6(3s2+3p2+3s3d) and 2p6(3s3p+3p3d+3s4p) configurations. For 44 of these transitions the classification is new. Twenty-nine levels are determined that belong to these configurations, where 14 of these are new. The energy parameters are obtained with Hartree–Fock relativistic calculations. The energy levels of the configurations are interpreted by fitting the theoretical energy expressions to the experimental levels with the least-squares approach. Isoelectronic comparisons along the Mg i sequence are used to support the experimental results.


The Amazon region is the final frontier and central focus of Brazilian hydro development, which raises a range of environmental concerns. The largest project in the Amazon is the planned Belo Monte Complex on the Xingu river. If constructed it will be the second biggest hydroelectric plant in Brazil, third largest on earth. In this study, we analyse the private and social costs, and benefits of the Belo Monte project. Furthermore, we present risk scenarios, considering fluctuations in the project's feasibility that would result from variations in total costs and power. For our analysis, we create three scenarios. In the first scenario Belo Monte appears feasible, with a net present value (NPV) in the range of US$670 million and a rate of return in excess of the 12% discount rate used in this analysis. The second scenario, where we varied some of the project costs and assumptions based on other economic estimates, shows the project to be infeasible, with a negative NPV of about US$3 billion and external costs around US$330 million. We also conducted a risk analysis, allowing variation in several of the parameters most important to the project's feasibility. The simulations brought together the risks of cost overruns, construction delays, lower-than-expected generation and rising social costs. The probability of a positive NPV in these circumstances was calculated to be just 28%, or there is a 72% chance that the costs of the Belo Monte dam will be greater than the benefits. Several WCD recommendations are not considered in the project, especially those related to transparency, social participation in the discussion, economic analysis and risk assessment, and licensing of the project. This study underscores the importance of forming a participatory consensus, based on clear, objective information, on whether or not to build the Belo Monte dam.


Interviews with 42 Prison Governors, an analysis of job descriptions from 98 Governors, and original material reveal that their role and duties have changed in recent years. The introduction of New Public Management (NPM) into the Prison Service has made Governors far more accountable for the operation of their prisons. They are now expected to achieve performance targets, deliver efficiency savings, and to compete with other prisons. Line management of Governors has become robust. More is now delegated to Governors, but at the same time scope for local discretion has diminished. The administrative burden on Governors has increased significantly. Changes in the environment in which Governors operate have also had an impact on their work. In particular, recent years have seen a more punitive approach by the media, politicians, public and judiciary, and an increase in the ability and willingness of prisoners (and pressure groups) to challenge a Governor's decision. Governors today are at the same time: general managers (managing budgets and people, undertaking strategic planning, auditing and monitoring); leaders (acting as a figurehead, representing their establishment, providing vision and direction); operational commanders (dealing with incidents); and prison specialists (maintaining security, achieving order through effective control, and providing positive regimes). A key aspect of Governors' work has however remained unchanged over the years. This sui generis element involves balancing and regulating their prisons by exercising power, authority, influence and discretion in a way that protects individuals and mitigates the negative aspects of a closed institution. Governors must craft prison culture, blend the various approaches to maintaining order, and demonstrate clear moral and ethical standards. Governors still require 'grounded professionalism'. They manage their institutions based on their accumulated knowledge, practical experience and personal judgment. In doing so, they seek to ensure that prisoners are treated in a decent and humane way, their institutions are safe and clean, and opportunities exist for rehabilitation.