Abstract The number of Hispanic people in the United States with diagnosed diabetes mellitus is projected to increase by 107% by 2020. The author presents the case of a 62-year-old obese Hispanic man, with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), diabetic peripheral neuropathy, background retinopathy, and diabetic nephropathy. The patient also had diagnosed hypertension, peripheral vascular disease, and hyperlipidemia. The treatment plan for this patient included the following medications: pioglitazone hydrochloride (a thiazolidinedione, 30 mg/d); irbesartan (an angiotensin receptor blocker, 150 mg/d titrated to 300 mg/d); hydrochlorothiazide (an antikaliuretic agent, 12.5 mg/d); and aspirin (325 mg/d). Sitagliptin phosphate (a dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitor, 50 mg/d) was added to the treatment regimen to improve glycemic control. Simvastatin (20 mg/d) and niacin (1 g/d) were used for lipid management. Therapy also included a low-protein diet and walking program. At 6-month follow-up, the patient showed substantial improvement in his glycosylated hemoglobin level, lipid profile, blood pressure, creatinine clearance rate, and urine albumin level. There were also improvements in his peripheral vascular disease and diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Furthermore, the patient demonstrated encouraging progress in diet and lifestyle modification and in mental attitude.


Although motion blur and rolling shutter deformations are closely coupled artifacts in images taken with CMOS image sensors, the two phenomena have so far mostly been treated separately, with deblurring algorithms being unable to handle rolling shutter wobble, and rolling shutter algorithms being incapable of dealing with motion blur. We propose an approach that delivers sharp and undistorted output given a single rolling shutter motion blurred image. The key to achieving this is a global modeling of the camera motion trajectory, which enables each scanline of the image to be deblurred with the corresponding motion segment. We show the results of the proposed framework through experiments on synthetic and real data.


This study was designed to take LANDSAT-I multispectral scanner digital data and use digital image processing techniques to highlight linears. Two computer processing techniques were used on the data: (1) two dimensional high-pass filtering of MSS bands 5, 6, and 7 and (2) the horizontal derivative of MSS band 6. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate structural reconnaissance of an arid area in southwestern Jordan. Interpretive analyses indicate that the structural pattern appears to be much more detailed and complex than indicated by presently available maps. The types of lines that were identifiable as lineaments include faults, joints, fractures, topographic crests, lithologic contacts, bedding traces and flexures. A noticeable difference between published maps and maps from the highpass filtered images is the number of long lineaments that have never been mapped as faults. High-pass filtered images displayed the largest linears in various lithologies. The horizontal derivative image proved to be an excellent data source for obtaining a perspective for the structural fabric. 2B-5 LINEAR ATMOSPHERIC TRANSFORM ON LANDSAT MEASUREMENTS Richard K. Kiang GTE Information Systems Goddard Institute for Space Studies New York, N.Y. 10025 William E. Collins Goddard Institute for Space Studies New York, N.Y. 10025


Professional service providers who wish to organize as multi-person firms have historically been limited to the partnership form. Such organizational forms trade the benefit of risk diversification off against the costs of diluted incentives and liability exposure in choosing their optimal size. More recently, states have permitted limited-liability entities that combine the simplicity, flexibility and tax advantages of a partnership with the liability shield of a corporation. We develop a game theoretic model of professional-firm organization that integrates the provision of incentives in a multi-person firm with the choice of business form. We then test the model's predictions with a new longitudinal data set on American law firms. Consistent with our predictions, initial firm size is a strong positive predictor of subsequent conversion to a new limited-liability form. Also consistent with our theory, growth rate of small converters substantially exceeds that of larger adopters; large converters grow more robustly than non-adopters, however. These findings suggest that while the promulgation of new organizational forms has stimulated growth in the legal services industry, the principal beneficiaries of this growth have been large, well established firms rather than small, entrepreneurial, boutique practices.


Mixed matrix membrane (MMM) is a new class of membrane materials that offers the significant potential in advancing the current membrane-based separation technology. As an attractive material that demonstrates outstanding separation properties, MMM has been the subject of worldwide academic studies conducted by many researchers especially those related to membrane technology. In this study, MMMs were prepared from polyethersulfone (PES) containing embedded with two different inorganic fillers such as zeolite 4A and carbon molecular sieve. The effect of different inorganic filler was studied in order to identify the suitable types of inorganic filler and the performance of MMM membranes. The polymer solution contains Polyethersulfone (PES) as the polymer, NMethyl Pyrrolidone (NMP) as the solvent and distilled water (14 20) as the non-solvent. The zeolite concentration valued 25 wt % was applied. To increase the compatibility of zeolite with the polymer, 3-Aminopropyl-Trimethoxysilane (APTMOS) was used to treat the zeolite prior to dope formulation to modify the zeolite surface. For both membranes, the dry/wet phase inversion method was used to produce the asymmetric flat sheet membrane. The prepared membrane was coated with silicone and N-Hexane to decrease the surface defect of the membrane. In order to determine the membrane performance, the membranes were tested using and N2 as the test gases using permeability test rig. The surface and cross section image of the prepared membrane was identified by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results show that the MMMs with CMS had the highest selectivity of 3.61 while the zeolite MMMs selectivity is 1.44 and the optimum pressure was found at 3 bar. As a conclusion the CMS particles discussed in this paper seemingly offer several advantages over zeolites as possible molecular sieving entities for incorporation into mixed matrix membranes.


In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late 18th Century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers' language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements - from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia. Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.


Background: The aim of this research is to find a connection of certain behavioural risk factors and lifestyle with occurrence of so called legal (alcohol, tobacco) and illegal (cannabis, opiates, psycho stimulants) addictive substance abuse and to test which behavioural risk factors are more connected to certain addictive substances among Zagreb adolescents. The purpose of this research is to try to assist in designing preventive programmes which could lower behavioural risk factors for the purpose of decreasing abuse prevalence, i.e. to help adjust preventive programmes to the real needs of the environment we live in regarding the constant and dynamic changes of addictive substance abuse predictors.
Subjects and methods: The research was conducted on 2516 students of 8th grade elementary school and 1st through 4th grade of high school in the Zagreb area. The data was collected via standardized and validated questionnaire of the Service which was used in researches in the years 2001, 2005 and 2009.
Results: The results of the research point to existing connection between certain behavioural factors and lifestyle with the occurrence of addictive substance abuse as well as the differences between the consumption of so called legal and illegal addictive substances. In fact, it can be seen that the significant protective factor in legal addictive substances abuse was spending leisure time doing structured activities, compared to illegal addictive substances abuse where significant protective factor was a close relationship with parents. It has been confirmed that religion is an important protective factor and that the use of electronic media like watching TV, computer use, internet use and playing videogames were not significant factors for addictive substances abuse. The research also proved that adolescents who use addictive substances more often engage in delinquent and antisocial behaviour.
Conclusions: From the results of the research it is visible that there are some differences between the predictive factors in consumption of legal and illegal substances. The conclusions highlight the importance of structured leisure time filled with quality content as the protective factor in so-called legal addictive substances consumption prevention, which adolescents tend to experiment with first and also to help the parents in their role to achieve a higher quality relationship with their children through preventive programmes, which has also proven to be a protective factor in substances abuse.


From the Publisher:
Can humans compute? This is the question to which H. Christopher Longuet-Higgins, one of the founding figures of cognitive science, has devoted his research over the past twenty years. His and his field's intellectual odyssey from the fringe to the center of the scientific world's attention is recounted with wit and grace in this wide-ranging collection of previously published and original essays.
The volume begins in the late 1960s, when the author had moved from theoretical chemistry to what was then known as theoretical biology. It traces his search for new concepts with which to establish a science of the mind, and it includes Longuet-Higgins's famous comment on the 1971 Lighthill Report in which he introduced the term "cognitive science" and sketched the possible components of the field.
The essays are divided into five parts. The first, Generalities, explores the basic philosophical questions at the root of the new science. The essays on Music show the importance of the musical sense as a testing ground for understanding cognitive processes in general. The author's forays into Language describe some of the major early achievements in the now very active field of computational linguistics.
The studies of Vision are all directed to the problem - crucial for the development of machine-vision systems - of inferring the structure of a scene from two views. The author suggests that the chapters on Memory "be treated indulgently as the first attempt of a physical scientist to climb out of the mindless world of atoms and molecules into the real world of subjective experience."
H. Christopher Longuet-Higgins is Royal Society ResearchProfessor at the University of Sussex. Mental Processes inaugurates the series Explorations in Cognitive Science, edited by Margaret Boden and co-sponsored by The MIT Press and The British Psychological Society. A Bradford Book.


Background: Removal of the microbial organisms from the root canal system is a prerequisite for the successful outcome of any root canal treatment. Use of an effective intracanal medicament will assist in the disinfection of the root canal system. Intracanal medicaments have been used to disinfect root canals between appointments and reduce interappointment pain. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and awareness about the principal choice of intracanal medicaments among general dental practitioners and nonendodontic specialists. The questionnaire consisted of 11 questions related to intracanal medicaments in Endodontics. It was distributed to 75 general dental practitioners and 75 other specialists (nonendodontists). Results: In the present study, the authors observed that the knowledge level among the study participants was moderately satisfying. However, the need for more education of the dentists with regard to the intracanal medicaments was perceived. Discussion: Correct knowledge of intracanal medicaments would help the practitioners to decide the apt material of choice as intracanal medicaments in different clinical situations. Conclusion: The present study highlighted the need for more continuing dental education programs with active participation of general practitioners and nonendodontic specialists to update themselves.


Realistic rendering is the process of generating a 2D image from an abstract description of a 3D scene, aiming at achieving the quality of a photo. The quality of the generated image depends on the accuracy with which the employed render method simulates the behaviour of the light particles through the scene. According to the current practice, it is up to the user to choose optimal settings of input parameters for these methods in terms of time-efficiency, as well as image quality. This is an iterative trial and error process, even for expert users. This paper describes a novel approach based on techniques from the field of data mining and genetic computing to assist the user in the selection of render parameters. Experimental results are presented which show the benefits of this approach.


This paper contends that the role of a philosophy of history in the twenty first century is as a meta-discourse which explains and attempts to understand the role of history as part of human being-in-the-world.  Such a philosophy of history will not, as in the past, take the form of a universal history. Instead it will take a phenomenological approach which seeks to explore the historical enterprise as a means through which human beings attempt to come to terms with the fact that, despite their craving for being, they live in a world which is marked by becoming.  Change and its implications are at the core of any philosophy of history.  History is an attempt to master change and to keep its somewhat frightening consequences under control.  Humans both crave being and stability and appreciate that change is their constant companion.  That is part of the tragic nature of human existence


This study investigates the applicability of the J-integral test procedure to test short crack specimens in the temperature region below the initiation of ductile tearing where J 1 c cannot be measured. The current J-integral test procedure is restricted to determining the initiation of ductile tearing and requires that no specimen demonstrates brittle cleavage fracture. The J 1 c test specimen is also limited to crack-depth to specimen-width ratios (a/W) between 0.50 and 0.75. In contrast, the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) test procedure can be used for testing throughout the entire temperature-toughness transition region from brittle to fully ductile behavior. Also, extensive research is being conducted to extend the CTOD test procedure to the testing of short crack specimens (alW ratios of approximately 0.15). The CTOD and J-integral fracture parameters are compared both analytically and experimentally using square (cross-section) three-point bend specimens of A36 steel with a/W ratios of 0.50 (deep crack) and 0.15 (short crack). Three-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element analyses are conducted on both the deep crack and the short crack specimens. The measured J-integral and CTOD results are compared at various levels of linear-elastic and elastic-plastic behavior. Experimental testing is conducted throughout the lower shelf and lower transition regions where stable crack growth does not occur. Very good agreement exists between the analytical and experimental results for both the short crack and deep crack specimens. Results of this study show that both the J-integral and the CTOD fracture parameters work well for testing in the lower shelf and lower transition regions where stable crack growth does not occur. A linear relationship is shown to exist between J-integral and CTOD throughout these regions for both the short and the deep crack specimens. These observations support the consideration to extend the J-integral test procedure into the temperature region of brittle fracture rather than limiting it to J 1 c at the initiation of ductile tearing. Also, analyzing short crack three-point bend specimen (a/W < 0.15) records using the load versus load-line displacement (LLD) record has great potential as an experimental technique. The problems of accurately measuring the CMOD of short crack specimens in the laboratory without affecting the crack tip behavior may be eliminated using the J-integral test procedure.


We investigate the statistical efficiency of a non-parametric Gaussian process method for a nonlinear tensor estimation problem. Low-rank tensor estimation has been used as a method to learn higher order relations among several data sources in a wide range of applications, such as multitask learning, recommendation systems, and spatiotemporal analysis. We consider a general setting where a common linear tensor learning is extended to a nonlinear learning problem in reproducing kernel Hilbert space and propose a non-parametric Bayesian method based on the Gaussian process method. We prove its statistical convergence rate without assuming any strong convexity, such as restricted strong convexity. Remarkably, it is shown that our convergence rate achieves the minimax optimal rate. We apply our proposed method to multi-task learning and show that our method significantly outperforms existing methods through numerical experiments on real-world data sets.


The focus of this thesis is to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of NREL S809 airfoil (widely used airfoil for wind turbine blades) with a trailing-edge flap by numerical simulations. In the simulations, the geometry of the flap and the gap between the main element and the flap are varied. The airfoil geometry is created in Design Modeler and structured mesh around the airfoil is generated using meshing software ICEM. Simulations are performed using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with SST k-ω, Spalart-Allmaras (SA) and Wray-Agarwal (WA) turbulence models at Reynolds number 10 6 at angles of attack of 0, 5 o , 10 o , 15 o , and 20 o . First, numerical solutions are validated against the experimental data for S809 airfoil without flap. Then the numerical simulations are conducted with a triangular Gurney flap at various angles of attack. The lift coefficient and the drag coefficient are calculated and are compared with S809 airfoil without flap to evaluate the effect of flap on the airfoil performance. The pressure contours, turbulent kinetic energy contours, and streamlines are plotted and compared for airfoil without and with flap to analyze the details of the flow field. Computed results show that the presence of trailing-edge flap provides higher lift and lift-to-drag ratio compared to original airfoil demonstrating its promise for larger wind energy extraction.


Placebo treatments and opiate drugs are thought to have common effects on the opioid system and pain-related brain processes. This has created excitement about the potential for expectations to modulate drug effects themselves. If drug effects differ as a function of belief, this would challenge the assumptions underlying the standard clinical trial. We conducted two studies to directly examine the relationship between expectations and opioid analgesia. We administered the opioid agonist remifentanil to human subjects during experimental thermal pain and manipulated participants' knowledge of drug delivery using an open-hidden design. This allowed us to test drug effects, expectancy (knowledge) effects, and their interactions on pain reports and pain-related responses in the brain. Remifentanil and expectancy both reduced pain, but drug effects on pain reports and fMRI activity did not interact with expectancy. Regions associated with pain processing showed drug-induced modulation during both Open and Hidden conditions, with no differences in drug effects as a function of expectation. Instead, expectancy modulated activity in frontal cortex, with a separable time course from drug effects. These findings reveal that opiates and placebo treatments both influence clinically relevant outcomes and operate without mutual interference.


We present an alternative method for the complete characterization of linear passive optical devices using the measurement of the spectral power density of an intermediate interferometric transfer function. Important advantages of this method compared to other published methods are the simplicity of the interferometric setup and the fact that iterative algorithms are not required. This method makes use of spectral interferometry to implement an intermediate transfer function which is mathematically related to the optical device transfer function and whose phase response is proven to be minimum. This last fact permits the unique retrieval of the phase response from the magnitude response using the Hilbert transform (in particular, minimum-phase reconstruction algorithms). Therefore, the whole intermediate transfer function (amplitude and phase responses) can be obtained using only power measurements. Once the intermediate interferometric function has been fully established, the complete optical device transfer function is reconstructed by inverting the mathematical relation between them. We have applied the proposed method to the characterization of fiber Bragg gratings, obtaining results that are in close agreement with the original transfer functions.


MOTIVATION
Many important problems in cell biology require dense non-linear interactions between functional modules to be considered. The importance of computer simulation in understanding cellular processes is now widely accepted, and a variety of simulation algorithms useful for studying certain subsystems have been designed. Expansion of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSC/HPC) in ex vivo culture with cytokines and small molecules is a method to increase the restricted numbers of stem cells found in umbilical cord blood (CB), while also enhancing the content of early engrafting neutrophil and platelet precursors. The efficacy of the expanded product depends on the composition of the cocktail of cytokines and small molecules used for culture. Testing the influence of a cytokine or small molecule on the expansion of HSC/HPC is a laborious and expensive process. We therefore developed a computational model based on cellular signaling interactions that predict the influence of a cytokine on the survival, duplication and differentiation of the CD133(+) HSC/HPC subset from human umbilical CB.

RESULTS
We have used results from in vitro expansion cultures with different combinations of one or more cytokines to develop an ordinary differential equation model that includes the effect of cytokines on survival, duplication and differentiation of the CD133(+) HSC/HPC. Comparing the results of in vitro and in silico experiments, we show that the model can predict the effect of a cytokine on the fold expansion and differentiation of CB CD133(+) HSC/HPC after 8-day culture on a 3D scaffold. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Graft and corruption is considered to be one of the biggest threat to development. Several studies had shown the tremendous impact of corruption in the economy. For a number of developing countries, a huge portion of government resources are lost and wasted due to corrupt activities, further plunging the country to poverty and underdevelopment. Various efforts to combat this social ill have been explored. However, the problem continues to persist. This short paper revisits the issue and aims to contribute to the growing literature of understanding corruption in developing economies and creating the necessary policy response. It answers the following questions : What are the different forms of corruption? What drives corruption? What has been done to address the issue? The Philippine case is also briefly discussed.


Data-parallel co-processors have the potential to improve performance in highly parallel regions of code when coupled to a general-purpose CPU. However, applications often have to be modified in non-intuitive and complicated ways to mitigate the cost of data marshalling between the CPU and the co-processor. In some applications the overheads cannot be amortized and co-processors are unable to provide benefit. The additional effort and complexity of incorporating co-processors makes it difficult, if not impossible, to effectively utilize co-processors in large applications.
 This paper presents CUBA, an architecture model where co-processors encapsulated as function calls can efficiently access their input and output data structures through pointer parameters. The key idea is to map the data structures required by the co-processor to the co-processor local memory as opposed to the CPU's main memory. The mapping in CUBA preserves the original layout of the shared data structures hosted in the co-processor local memory. The mapping renders the data marshalling process unnecessary and reduces the need for code changes in order to use the co-processors. CUBA allows the CPU to cache hosted data structures with a selective write-through cache policy, allowing the CPU to access hosted data structures while supporting efficient communication with the co-processors. Benchmark simulation results show that a CUBA-based system can approach optimal transfer rates while requiring few changes to the code that executes on the CPU.


Effective simulation of manual assembly operations considering ergonomic load and clearance demands requires detailed modeling of human body kinematics and motions, as well as a tight coupling to powerful algorithms for collision-free path planning. The focus in this paper is a unified solution that automatically creates assembly motions for manikins taking kinematic constraints, balance, contact forces, collision avoidance and comfort into account. The manikin used in this work has 162 degrees of freedom - six exterior fictitious joints determine the position of the lower lumbar and the remaining ones are interior joints. The inverse kinematic problem leads to an underdetermined system allowing us to pick a solution that maximizes a scalar valued comfort function. The comfort function offers a generic way to give preference to certain poses while avoiding others, typically by considering joint limits, forces and moments on joints, and magnitude of contact forces. In order to avoid collisions, poses close to collision are penalized. The method is implemented and demonstrated on two challenging assembly operations taken from the automotive industry.


The Institute of Marine Research in Norway collects marine data from all national waters. Data are primarily collected from vessels, but observation buoys, manual measurements, and oceanographic gliders are also used. The most valuable long-term data for elucidating decadal hydrographic variability in the Skagerrak and along the Norwegian coast are the time-series from the transect between Norway and Denmark, and observations carried out at eight fixed coastal stations in the region. The time-series date back to the 1950s and the 1930s, respectively, and the observation frequencies range from approximately once a month to 3–4 times per month. The hydrographic data and their long-term fluctuations have been used in several studies, with particular emphasis on the increased salinity and temperature of the 1990s. Trends during the past decade, however, indicate that warming has continued but that a salinity increase is less evident, implying signs of regional warming in parallel with the global warming observed both on land and in the sea. The overall temperature increase off the Norwegian coast at deeper layers from the 1961–1990 period to the 2000–2009 decade is 0.88C, but some of this can be related to natural variability in the North Atlantic circulation pattern.


Fetuin-A (also known as alpha 2-HS-glycoprotein), secreted by the liver into circulation, interacts with the insulin receptor, and is a physiological inhibitor of insulin receptor tyrosine kinase activity in vitro, in intact cells and in vivo in animals. Serum fetuin-A levels have been shown to be associated with insulin resistance, obesity, and metabolic syndrome in animals and humans. Fetuin-A null mice demonstrate improved insulin sensitivity and resistance to diet-induced obesity. Phosphorylation status of fetuin-A has been shown to be critical for its inhibitory activity on insulin action. However, there are no reports on fetuin-A phosphorylation status in insulin resistant conditions or on the molecular characterization of two phosphorylation sites (Ser120 and Ser312). This study examines serum total fetuin-A and Ser312-fetuin-A phosphorylation status in individuals with metabolic syndrome, both before and after treatment with the lipid-lowering drug, Niaspan, and correlates these with changes in serum lipids and markers of
insulin sensitivity and inflammation. Additionally, using mutation analysis, we have examined the role of phosphorylation on Ser312-fetuin-A on insulin action. Fifteen sedentary, male participants, who met the NCEP ATP III criteria for metabolic syndrome, were treated with extended-release niacin (Niaspan) for 6 weeks. Serum concentrations of phosphorylated (Ser312) fetuin-A were positively correlated with triglycerides in MetS. Serum total fetuin-A and phosphofetuin-A concentrations decreased significantly following Niaspan treatment. Changes in fetuin-A concentrations were correlated with changes in triglyceride concentrations after Niaspan treatment. Additionally, the change in high density lipoprotein cholesterol following Niaspan intervention was negatively correlated with the change in serum fetuin-A and phosphorylated fetuin-A concentrations. Interestingly, serum cortisol levels were significantly elevated following Niaspan intervention. The change in cortisol was significantly correlated with the change in serum non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), suggesting that increased cortisol and NEFA concentrations may contribute to the mild hyperglycemia and insulin resistance observed in niacin-treated individuals. Molecular characterization using Ser312Ala-fetuin-A mutant, which was devoid of phosphorylation, suggested that phosphorylation on Ser312-fetuin-A is critical for fetuin-A's inhibition of insulin signaling through MAPK and Akt. This is the first report demonstrating that serum total- and phosphorylated Ser312-fetuin-A levels are amenable to intervention by Niaspan treatment and are correlated with changes in serum lipids. We demonstrate that while phosphorylation on Ser312 site of fetuin-A is critical, phosphorylation on Ser120 may be required for fetuin-A's full inhibitory activity.


This paper considers the degree to which Venezuela was able to exercise autonomy in foreign political and economic spheres over a 60 year period from the 1930s to the 1960s. An oil rich but relatively weak state, Venezuela succeeded, over time, in carving out increased levels of economic autonomy from foreign multi-nationals, often in return for political support for the regional hegemon. Venezuela's success in this regard was somewhat dependent on external events; World War II and the Cuban revolution in particular, providing changing the opportunity structures facing the country in such a way as to facilitate economic gains by enterprising local leaders as a quid pro quo for a relatively dependent position in the foreign political sphere.


There are few quantitative studies on the benefits of animal-assisted therapy (AAT). Information about this modality consists mainly of anecdotal statements, testimonials, and case reports. However, recent research has demonstrated that the use of therapy dogs, integrated with more traditional forms of therapy, can improve therapeutic results. This case report describes the treatment of a 10-year-old girl with posttraumatic stress disorder and a history of physical and sexual abuse. AAT was used as part of a broader cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention. The patient's behavior during therapy sessions was observed before and after the introduction of the therapy dog. There was a dramatic change in behavior and a subsequent report from her foster mother that behavior in the home improved.


This is the final report of the project "Visitor Monitoring Methods in the Nordic and Baltic Countries". The goal of the project was to develop visitor monitoring methodologies for Nordic and Baltic land management agencies, the work of which is related to visitor management in protected and recreational areas. The report provides an overview of the visitor monitoring methods and guidelines currently available, including state-of-the-art reports and case studies from the Nordic and Baltic countries. The report concludes that there are certain common variables related to monitoring outdoor recreation that are important to all the Nordic and Baltic countries and that could be standardized. Therefore, the project group continues its work in order to produce recommendations for a common visitor monitoring methodology in protected and recreational areas in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. These recommendations will be published in the form of a Nordic-Baltic manual on visitor monitoring practices.


The aim of the Nordic SYMBERED project - funded by NUH (the Nordic Development Centre for Rehabilitation Technology) - is to develop a user friendly editing tool that makes use of concept coding to produce web pages with flexible graphical symbol support targeted towards people with Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) needs. Documents produced with the editing tool will be in XML/XHTML format, well suited for publishing on the Internet. These documents will then contain natural language text, such as Swedish or English. Some, or all, of the words in the text will be marked with a concept code defining its meaning. The coded words/concepts may then easily be represented by alternative kinds of graphical symbols and by additional text representations in alternative languages. Thus, within one web document created by the author with the SYMBERED tool, one symbol language can easily be swapped for another. This means that a Bliss and a PCS symbol user can each have his/her preferred kind of symbol support. The SYMBERED editing tool will initially support a limited vocabulary in four to five Nordic languages plus English, and three to four symbol systems, with built-in extensibility to cover more languages and symbol systems.


Growth and ripening effects of Polaris [N,N-bis (phosphonomethyl) glycine] and CP 70139 were examined in early-adult sugarcane. Both materials, products of the Monsanto Company, were tested at concentrations of 100, 300, 900 and 2700 p/m, applied until runoff as aqueous foliar sprays. Similar responses were obtained relative to foliar injury symptoms, growth repression, juice quality improvement, acid invertase inhibition, and tissue sugar and protein changes. Optimal Polaris responses were at 2700 p/m. CP 70139 produced comparable effects at 300 or 100 p/m. The magnitude of invertase repression and juice quality improvement was identical for the two compounds, suggesting that CP 70139 is more efficient rather than more active than Polaris. It is suggested that, at concentrations equal to Polaris. CP 70139 should produce a greater degree of ripening under field conditions where chemical penetration of the closed-in canopy is limited. Both materials gave evidence that growth repression and ripening occur as independent processes.


A simple procedure to simulate the important kinetic features of counter-current processes in pulsed columns has been developed. The overall mass transfer coefficient was simplified to be constant along the column, and the stripping of Pu4+ by hydroxylamine is assumed to be instantaneous to avoid complex reaction rate calculations. The number of calculation cells can be determined by making calculations with an increasing number of cells until its influence becomes small enough. The validity of these simplifications was confirmed by comparing the calculation results with a wide range of measured data from extraction and stripping as well as Pu partition tests with laboratory, engineering, and pilot scale columns. This procedure is intended for use in a conceptual design study of a future fast breeder reactor (FBR) reprocessing plant. An example of its application in a flow sheet calculation was demonstrated, where a coextraction process of U and Pu was simulated to find the conditions to obtain a solution with Pu/(U + Pu) ratio being 30% from a typical feed of FBR spent fuel solution.


A new book for a new generation of engineering professionals, Visualization, Modeling, and Graphics for Engineering, Introduction was written from the ground up to take a brand-new approach to graphic communication within the context of engineering design and creativity. With a blend of modern and traditional topics, this text recognizes how computer modeling techniques have changed the engineering design process. From this new perspective, the text is able to focus on the evolved design process, including the critical phases of creative thinking, product ideation, and advanced analysis techniques. Focusing on design and design communication rather than drafting techniques and standards, it goes beyond the "what" to explain the "why" of engineering graphics.


Familial British Dementia (FBD) is caused by an autosomal dominant mutation in the BRI2/ITM2B gene (Vidal et al., 1999). FBDKI mice are a model of FBD that is genetically congruous to the human disease, because they carry one mutant and one wild-type Bri2/Itm2b allele. Analysis of these mice has shown that the British mutation causes memory impairments due to loss of Bri2 function (Tamayev et al., 2010b). BRI2 is a physiologic inhibitor of processing of the Aβ-precursor protein (APP; Matsuda et al., 2008), a gene associated with Alzheimer's disease (Bertram et al., 2010). Here we show that APP haploinsufficiency prevents memory dysfunctions seen in FBDKI mice. This genetic suppression is consistent with a role for APP in the pathogenesis of memory deficits. Moreover, it provides compelling evidence that the memory dysfunctions caused by the British BRI2 mutant are dependent on endogenous APP and that BRI2 and APP functionally interact. This evidence establishes a mechanistic connection between Familial British and Alzheimer's dementias.


Abstract. Observations at surface sites show an increase in global mean surface methane (CH4) of about 180 parts per billion (ppb) (above 10 %) over the period 1984–2012. Over this period there are large fluctuations in the annual growth rate. In this work, we investigate the atmospheric CH4 evolution over the period 1970–2012 with the Oslo CTM3 global chemical transport model (CTM) in a bottom-up approach. We thoroughly assess data from surface measurement sites in international networks and select a subset suited for comparisons with the output from the CTM. We compare model results and observations to understand causes for both long-term trends and short-term variations. Employing Oslo CTM3 we are able to reproduce the seasonal and year-to-year variations and shifts between years with consecutive growth and stagnation, both at global and regional scales. The overall CH4 trend over the period is reproduced, but for some periods the model fails to reproduce the strength of the growth. The model overestimates the observed growth after 2006 in all regions. This seems to be explained by an overly strong increase in anthropogenic emissions in Asia, having global impact. Our findings confirm other studies questioning the timing or strength of the emission changes in Asia in the EDGAR v4.2 emission inventory over recent decades. The evolution of CH4 is not only controlled by changes in sources, but also by changes in the chemical loss in the atmosphere and soil uptake. The atmospheric CH4 lifetime is an indicator of the CH4 loss. In our simulations, the atmospheric CH4 lifetime decreases by more than 8 % from 1970 to 2012, a significant reduction of the residence time of this important greenhouse gas. Changes in CO and NOx emissions, specific humidity, and ozone column drive most of this, and we provide simple prognostic equations for the relations between those and the CH4 lifetime. The reduced lifetime results in substantial growth in the chemical CH4 loss (relative to its burden) and dampens the CH4 growth.


Eugerres brasilianus is an appreciated commercial species in the market of the northeastern region of Brazil. The purpose of this study was to analyze and determine the diet, reproductive period, and management of carapeba in recirculating aquaculture systems. The fishes were caught with a gillnet at two different places near the Sao Francisco River mouth. The stomach content was analyzed according to the frequency of occurrence method, using the index of relative importance, assessing the degsubjectedree of stomach repletion. The reproductive period was established by determining the gonadosomatic index and gonad maturation stages. The behavior and management of the fish were observed in captivity when subjected to artificial diets in cultivation tanks. The striped carapeba is best feed at dusk, mainly Crustacea Amphipoda, Insecta Chironomidae and Crustacea Tanaidacea. The species has parceled spawning, which occurs from February to March and from July to September. There are morphological differences between males and females, especially in the urogenital papilla, size and color. In captivity, the best fish density was between 7 and 8 fish m /-3 , showing a good rates of centesimal composition, adapting well to the supplied diet.


Pioneers-- those innovative "first movers" who enter markets before competitors are often defined as engines of economic growth while imitators are generally scorned as copycats and shameful followers. But who most often wins? Drawing on seven years of research, Steven Schnaars documents that, in sharp contrast to conventional beliefs, imitators commonly surpass pioneers as market leaders and attain the greatest financial rewards. How do they do it? In this ground-breaking book-- the first to formulate imitation strategies for managers-- Schnaars systematically examines 28 detailed case histories, from light beer to commercial jet liners, in which imitators such as Anheuser-Busch and Boeing prevailed over pioneers. He describes the marketing wars, court battles, and even personal vendettas that often resulted, and shows that imitators have several clear advantages. Pioneers are forced to spend heavily on both product and market development. They also risk making costly mistakes. Pioneers often aid in their own destruction, thrown into confusion by rapid growth, internal bickering, and the neverending search for expansion capital. Moreover, imitators do not have to risk expensive start-up costs or pursuing a market that does not exist, enabling them to quickly outmaneuver pioneers once the market is finally shaped. By patiently waiting on the sidelines while the innovator makes the mistakes, imitators can also usurp benefits from the test of time-- major defects in the product having been removed by the pioneer at an earlier stage in the game. Schnaars discusses the three basic strategies that successful imitators such as Microsoft, American Express, and Pepsi have used to dominate markets pioneered by others. First, some imitators sell lower-priced, generic versions of the pioneer's product once it becomes popular, as Bic did with ballpoint pens. Second, some firms imitate and improve upon the pioneer's product; for example, WordPerfect in the case of word processing software. Third, building on their capital, distribution, and marketing advantages that smaller pioneers cannot hope to match, imitators use the most prevalent strategy of all-- bullying their way into a pioneer's market on sheer power. In several cases a one-two-punch, or combination of strategies, is often utilized by the imitator to remove any doubt regarding their dominance in the market and in the eyes of the public. Schnaars concludes that the benefits of pioneering have been oversold, and that imitation compels recognition as a legitimate marketing strategy. It should be as much a part of a company's strategic arsenal as strategies for innovation.


Agroforestry systems are part of the history of the European Union rural landscapes, but the regional increase of size of agricultural parcels had a significant effect on European landuse in the 20th century, thereby it has radically reduced the coverage of natural forest. However, this cause conflicts between interest of agricultural and forestry sectors. The agroforestry land uses could be a solution of this conflict management. One real – ecological - problem with these forests is the partly missing of network function without connecting ecological green corridors, the other problem is verifiability for the agroforestry payment system, monitoring the arable lands and plantations. Remote sensing methods are currently used to supervise European Union payments. Nowadays, next to use satellite imagery the airborne hyperspactral and LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) remote sensing technologies are becoming more widespread use for nature, environmental, forest, agriculture protection, conservation and monitoring and it is an effective tool for monitoring biomass production. In this Hungarian case study we made a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) to create agroforestry site selection model. The aim of model building was to ensure the continuity of ecological green corridors, maintain the appropriate landuse of regional endowments. The investigation tool was the more widely used hyperspectral and airborne LiDAR remote sensing technologies which can provide appropriate data acquisition and data processing tools to build a decision support system.


Humans have always been fascinated by the landscape. Aspects of the
landscape that are intriguing play an important role in people's
preferences for landscapes. Since classical times philosophers such as
Plato and Socrates, have made inquiries about aesthetics; and numerous
theories have emerged. These theories can be categorized into two
paradigms. Even though both paradigms focus on the role of landscape in
determining landscape preferences one group believes that the aesthetic
qualities of a landscape are inherent in the landscape, the other argues
that landscape aesthetics lies in people's cognition or mental
understanding of the landscape. However, beginning with the seminal work
of Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (1960) and his classification of
landscape elements that are important to the imageability of urban
landscapes, attention has been given to the later paradigm that emphasizes
the role of human evolution and cognition in shaping landscape
preferences and thus aesthetics. However, this paper argues that, after
several decades, no central theory related to landscape preference or
aesthetics has emerged, even though many researchers who subscribe to
the later paradigm based their theory on the same assumption; human
well-being. Therefore, the recognition of the relationship between
landscape preference and human well-being should be redeveloped and
strengthened by bringing in new evidence.


Integrin binding to extracellular matrix proteins induces formation of signaling complexes at focal adhesions. Zyxin co-localizes with integrins at sites of cell-substratum adhesion and is postulated to serve as a docking site for the assembly of multimeric protein complexes involved in regulating cell motility. Recently, we identified a new member of the zyxin family called TRIP6. TRIP6 is localized at focal adhesions and overexpression of TRIP6 slows cell migration. In an effort to define the molecular mechanism by which TRIP6 affects cell migration, the yeast two-hybrid assay was employed to identify proteins that directly bind to TRIP6. This assay revealed that both TRIP6 and zyxin interact with CasL/HEF1, a member of the Cas family. This association is mediated by the LIM region of the zyxin family members and the SH2 domain-binding region of CasL/HEF1. Furthermore, the association between p130Cas and the two zyxin family members was demonstrated to occur in vivoby co-immunoprecipitation. Zyxin and Cas family members may cooperate to regulate cell motility.


The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with a number of human malignancies. Following primary infection, the virus persists lifelong in the infected host by latently infecting B cells and occasional cycles of reactivation, virus production and re-infection. Adoptively transferred EBV-specific T cells, generated by repeated stimulation with autologous lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL) in vitro, are able to cure post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD). However, the generation of these vaccines is labor and cost intensive precluding their general availability for all patients at risk. Novel insights into the mechanisms of protective antiviral immunity is expected to provide a better understanding of the pathogenesis of EBV-associated diseases and to facilitate the development of novel and generally available immunotherapeutic options.
The aim of this work was to assess specificity and breadth of the EBV-specific T helper cell response, using two different experimental strategies.
To define specificity, LCL-stimulated CD4+ T cell lines were established from 23 EBV-negative and -positive donors. The T cell lines generated from EBV-negative donors responded poorly against LCL and failed to show EBV-specificity. By contrast, all T cell lines established from healthy virus carriers were EBV-specific. Half of the lines from acutely EBV-infected patients with infectious mononucleosis (IM) were also EBV-specific, while the other half recognized EBV-positive and EBV-negative target cells. Unexpectedly, the EBV-specific T cell lines did not recognize latent antigens of EBV expressed in all LCL. Instead, these lines were specific for lytic cycle antigens predominantly derived from virion proteins. Several of the T cell lines recognized BNRF1, a viral tegument protein. Most T cell lines, however, recognized different virion antigens, suggesting that the family of virion proteins forms the immunodominant targets of the EBV-specific T helper cell response.
Studies on the breadth of the EBV-specific T helper response demonstrated that all healthy virus carriers maintain CD4+ T cell memory to lytic cycle antigens. T cells specific for virion antigens recognized EBV-positive cells directly and, surprisingly, a much higher percentage of target cells than those expressing lytic cycle proteins. Antigen was efficiently transferred to bystander B cells by receptor-mediated uptake of released virions, resulting in recognition of target cells incubated with less than one virion per cell. T cell recognition did not require productive infection and occurred early after virus entry before latency was established. By secreting perforin and granzyme B upon antigen recognition, virion-specific T helper cells inhibited proliferation of LCLs and suppressed the outgrowth of LCLs following infection of primary B cells with EBV.
These results established a novel role for virion-specific T helper cells in the control of EBV infection, and identify virion proteins as important immune targets. The findings have implications for the treatment of diseases associated with EBV and potentially other coated viruses infecting MHC class II-positive cells.


The influence of maternal health problems on child's worrying status is important in practice in terms of the intervention of maternal health problems early for the influence on child's worrying status. Conventional methods apply symmetric prior distributions such as a normal distribution or a Laplace distribituion for regression coefficients, which may be suitable for median regression and exhibit no robustness to outliers. This paper develops a quantile regression on linear panel data model without heterogeneity from a Bayesian point of view, and examines the influence of maternal health problems on child's worrying status. Upon a location-scale mixture representation of the asymmetric Laplace error distribution, this paper provides how the posterior distribution can be sampled and summarized by Markov chain Monte Carlo method. Applying for the 1970 British Cohort Study data, we find and that a different maternal health problem has different influence on child's worrying status at different quantiles. In addition, applying stochastic search variable selection for maternal health problems in the 1970 British Cohort Study data, we find that maternal nervous breakdown, in our work, among the 25 maternal health problems, contributes most to influence the child's worrying status.


The National Screening Committee has stated that "All people with diabetes aged 12 years and older should be offered screening for sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy using digital photography."1 Digital imaging offers several advantages such as archiving, ease of viewing evidence of progression, quality assurance, patient education and immediate indication of ungradable images. Knowledge of key aspects of digital imaging technology and performance therefore underpin screening for diabetic retinopathy in the UK. This article aims to discuss aspects of digital imaging related to diabetic screening as well as provide an indication of how computers can be used to automatically screen for sight threatening retinopathy. We live in a digital world but to start at the beginning, what is "digital"? Analogue signals vary continuously in that they can take any value e.g. sound or light. Photographic film is analogue in that the darkening of silver halide crystals increases continuously with light exposure. Digital devices represent signals using discrete levels and this is necessary if we are to exploit digital computers and display devices. Following some historical context, the remainder of this article will consider the steps in the process of imaging a diabetic funuds in some detail before finally examining automatic screening methods for diabetic retinopathy using image processing. The process of converting an analogue signal such as light variations in an image and converting it to a digital representation is known as sampling (fig. 1). Sampling has two important parameters: the spatial resolution and how many digital levels or "steps" are used to represent the light. The former is determined by the sensor resolution and the latter relates to the bit-depth of the image. Both will be considered in separate sections
below.


A generalized semitoric system F:=(J,H): M --> R^2 on a symplectic 4-manifold is an integrable system whose essential properties are that F is a proper map, its set of regular values is connected, J generates an S^1-action and is not necessarily proper. These systems can exhibit focus-focus singularities, which correspond to fibers of F which are topologically multipinched tori. The image F(M) is a singular affine manifold which contains a distinguished set of isolated points in its interior: the focus-focus values {(x_i,y_i)} of F. By performing a vertical cutting procedure along the lines {x:=x_i}, we construct a homeomorphism f : F(M) --> f(F(M)), which restricts to an affine diffeomorphism away from these vertical lines, and generalizes a construction of Vu Ngoc. The set \Delta:=f(F(M)) in R^2 is a symplectic invariant of (M,\omega,F), which encodes the affine structure of F. Moreover, \Delta may be described as a countable union of planar regions of four distinct types, where each type is defined as the region bounded between the graphs of two functions with various properties (piecewise linear, continuous, convex, etc). If F is a toric system, \Delta is a convex polygon (as proven by Atiyah and Guillemin-Sternberg) and f is the identity.


In Protestant Ethics, the Old Testament is frequently seen as a collection of moral rules of which the main points are summarised in the Decalogue. By way of contrast, this contribution would like to call attention to the various challenges concerning ethical reflections in the OT. Examples for that are the problem of the knowledge of good and evil, the problem of implementing what is perceived as good in the conduct of life, the meaning of feelings and intuition for morals, the problem of guiltiness (or sin) and how it is processed, the question of justice in the course of the world, the ratio of morals and law, morals and culture, as well as morals and religion. Protestant Ethics (assisted by OT Study with its historical-critical approach) should therefore rather not adopt the OT as a teaching book in morals, but as a learning book in ethics.


This paper explores the status and function of English among gay men in Hong Kong through the analysis of postings about English on a popular gay internet forum. The forum, gayhk.com, while mainly featuring discussions about sex, fashion, entertainment and relationships, also contains a surprising amount of discussion about the English language, mostly taking the form of what Cameron refers to as 'verbal hygiene' – the enforcement of language 'standards' through the criticism of the language use of particular individuals or groups. The analysis of these postings sees them not just as evidence of language attitudes within the gay community, but also as tools with which Chinese gay men in postcolonial Hong Kong position themselves in relation to one another, in relation to 'foreign' gay men, and in relation to the wider population of Hong Kong.


We assess the response of monetary policy to developments in asset markets in the Euro Area, the US and the UK. We estimate the reaction of monetary policy to wealth composition and asset prices using: (i) a linear framework based on a fully simultaneous system approach in a Bayesian environment; and (ii) a nonlinear specification that relies on a smooth transition regression model. The linear framework suggests that wealth composition is indeed important in the formulation of monetary policy. However, the attempts of central banks to mitigate undesirable fluctuations in say, financial wealth, may disrupt housing wealth. A similar result can be found when we assess the reaction of monetary authority to asset prices, although concerns about "price" effects are smaller. The nonlinear model confirms these findings. However, the concerns over wealth and its components are stronger once inflation is under control, i.e. below a certain target. Some disruptions between financial and housing wealth effects are still present. They can also be found in the reaction to asset prices, despite being less intense.


Significant genotype (G) × environment (E) effects for cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) seed quality traits have been identified in previous studies. Significant G × E interactions necessitate multiple-location tests to evaluate seed quality traits, which add cost to the tests. Reduction of testing locations could trim costs if the analysis of G × E interactions and the efficiency in breeding are not dramatically affected. The objectives of this study were: 1) to determine an appropriate reduction of testing locations without significant loss in power for detecting G × E effects; 2) to determine an appropriate reduction of testing locations without significant loss in accuracy for estimating strain means; and 3) to identify a possible mega-environment for evaluation of seed traits using GGE biplot. Historical data of Regional High Quality (RHQ) tests from 2005 through 2013 were used to address the objectives for three seed quality traits including oil content, N content, and free-gossypol. Significant G × location (L) interactions were detected in most cases. However, with averages of the three traits, less G × L interactions were detected with 7.3% and 9.1% non-significance, when two and three locations were omitted, respectively. Reduction of locations up to three, increased standard error to 25% of those with zero locations omitted. There was no clear mega-environment identified for seed traits. However, the locations of Lubbock, TX, Stoneville, MS, Florence, SC, and Portageville, MO were identified as being more representative than others for evaluation of the N content.


In order to understand and decode the message of a sentence, it is necessary to understand its basic argument structure. This implies e.g. that one must be able to identify the subject and distinguish this from the other elements of the sentence, in particular from the direct object. As linguistic patterns provide the speakers or writers with different types of construction with more or less transparency, it should be possible to identify the linguistic clues ensuring communication; e.g. the clues helping to distinguish the subject and the object. This distinction is in fact one of the crucial distinctions in syntax, and I will focus only on that distinction. I want to consider the following three factors, belonging to different grammatical levels, which may help to identify the elements of the sentence: the organising power of verbal valency: the nominal and verbal inflection and the word order. It will be shown that these factors cooperate in order to facilitate the identification of the subject and the direct object.


DNA methylation is involved in the regulation of gene expression and plays an important role in normal developmental processes and diseases, such as cancer. DNA methyltransferases are the enzymes responsible for DNA methylation on the position 5 of cytidine in a CpG context. In order to identify and characterize novel inhibitors of these enzymes, we developed a fluorescence‐based throughput screening by using a short DNA duplex immobilized on 96‐well plates. We have screened 114 flavones and flavanones for the inhibition of the murine catalytic Dnmt3a/3L complex and found 36 hits with IC50 values in the lower micromolar and high nanomolar ranges. The assay, together with inhibition tests on two other methyltransferases, structure–activity relationships and docking studies, gave insights on the mechanism of inhibition. Finally, two derivatives effected zebrafish embryo development, and induced a global demethylation of the genome, at doses lower than the control drug, 5‐azacytidine.


The potential applicability of the leaf radiative transfer model PROSPECT (version 3.01) was tested for Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) needles collected from stress resistant and resilient trees. Direct comparison of the measured and simulated leaf optical properties between 450–1000 nm revealed the requirement to recalibrate the PROSPECT chlorophyll and dry matter specific absorption coefficients k ab(λ) and k m(λ). The subsequent validation of the modified PROSPECT (version 3.01.S) showed close agreement with the spectral measurements of all three needle age‐classes tested; the root mean square error (RMSE) of all reflectance (ρ) values within the interval of 450–1000 nm was equal to 1.74%, for transmittance (τ) it was 1.53% and for absorbance (α) it was 2.91%. The total chlorophyll concentration, dry matter content, and leaf water content were simultaneously retrieved by a constrained inversion of the original PROSPECT 3.01 and the adjusted PROSPECT 3.01.S. The chlorophyll concentration estimated by inversion of both model versions was similar, but the inversion accuracy of the dry matter and water content was significantly improved. Decreases in RMSE from 0.0079 g cm−2 to 0.0019 g cm−2 for dry matter and from 0.0019 cm to 0.0006 cm for leaf water content proved the improved performance of the recalibrated PROSPECT version 3.01.S.


This paper discusses the growth of commercial sponsorship in the United Kingdom and the way in which it served to legitimate the routine presence of commercial involvement in the public sector, paving the way for the development of PPP (Public Private Partnerships) and PFI (Private Finance Initiative). The establishment of the welfare state ethos during the 1940s included the principle of public support for cultural activity, although the actual degree of funding grew only slowly. Commercial sponsorship of sport grew dramatically from the mid-1960s and, during the 1970s, arts organisations — short of state funding — were encouraged to seek commercial sponsorship. Gradually, sponsorship became a routine source of funding, seen as an essential form of support for a whole range of cultural activities. Once the Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, came to power, the utilisation of sponsorship funding became a more integral part of public policy. Sponsorship began to colonise new areas such as education and health, moving from peripheral to central elements of the public sector. Benefiting from the image of corporate benevolence that sponsorship provided, the 1997 Labour government initiated a widespread expansion of private investment in the public sector, through PPP and PFI. The paper argues that sponsorship served to legitimate this colonisation of the public sector by private capital.


Stereoscopic video content is usually being created by using two or more cameras which are recording the same scene. Traditionally, those cameras have the exact same intrinsic camera parameters. In this project, the exposure times of the cameras differ, allowing to record different parts of the dynamic range of the scene. Image processing techniques are then used to enhance the dynamic range of the captured data. A pipeline for the recording, processing, and displaying of high dynamic range (HDR) stereoscopic content, acquired using inexpensive low dynamic range (LDR) cameras, is proposed. Two different approaches to obtain stereoscopic HDR content are presented and compared. In the temporal approach, different parts of the luminance range of the scene are recorded by temporally changing the exposure time of both cameras. Information from adjacent frames captured by the same camera is then used in order to increase the dynamic range. In the spatial approach, both cameras are assigned a distinct, fixed exposure time. Here, the dynamic range is increased by combining data from the cameras. It is found that the intrinsic problems of the spatial approach are much more difficult to deal with than the ones of the temporal approach. In particular stereo matching, the critical component to combine data in the spatial approach, is more difficult than traditionally because the two cameras have different exposure times. The results are evaluated for both static scenes and scenes with object movement using an objective quality metric of the visible differences of the stereoscopic pair independently, and visual evaluation on a stereoscopic display to evaluate the stereoscopic quality.


Abstract Climate change is happening and people have begun to feel its impacts on their daily lives. Clear indications of these impacts can be seen on Himalayan glaciers, which are melting at rapid rates and consequently form massive glacial lakes (Figure 1), with a risk of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). GLOFs result in loss of lives, property, and costly infrastructure, as well as displacement of local people. They represent a particular threat in Nepal, where resources are already scarce. In least developed countries (LDCs) like Nepal, where poverty reduction is a national priority, the impact of climate change appears to be an obstacle to the process of sustainable development. Institutionalizing the climate change issue in national policies has now become an urgent need rather than a choice. As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Nepal has agreed to take climate change considerations into account in its national development agenda. The first step was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol; the second is building the necessary institutional services such as a Designated National Authority (DNA), which is in the process of establishment. Moreover, climate change policies and strategies, the interconnections between different sectors, and coordination among different line ministries and government departments are issues to be addressed in the near future. WWF has initiated a Climate Witness Project to raise national and international awareness, and supports national efforts to shape adequate institutional responses to climate change.


Case 1. A 10-year-old female intact German shepherd dog, presented with a six-month history of progressive neck pain and ataxia of all four limbs. Neurological examination was consistent with a C1-C5 myelopathy. Atlanto-occipital cisternal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis was unremarkable.

MRI of the neck using a 1.5 T magnet (Echospeed; GE Medical Systems) revealed degeneration of the C5-C6 intervertebral disc with mild dorsal protrusion causing mild right-sided ventro-lateral spinal cord compression; additionally, a 5 mm×6 mm×7 mm oval cystic structure dorsolateral to the spinal cord was noted, causing moderate right-sided dorso-lateral spinal compression at the same level. This lesion was T2 hyperintense, T1 hypointense, T2 FLAIR hypointense (all when compared with the spinal cord) and non-contrast enhancing.

A right-sided dorsal laminectomy was performed at C5-C6. The cystic lesion, originating from the dorsal nerve root lateral to the dorsal root ganglion, was fenestrated and a biopsy was obtained, taking care to avoid dorsal nerve root damage. Recovery was uneventful and the dog was neurologically improved at the time of discharge, but was lost to follow-up thereafter.

The biopsy consisted of a folded cystic structure consisting of a wall of moderately cellular fibrous tissue showing an orderly arrangement of parallel bundles of fibroblasts. There was no distinct epithelial lining. There was some pale amorphous basophilic material within some parts of the cystic cavities. In places, there were very small numbers of lymphocytes in the cyst wall and little hemosiderin deposition. No nerve fibres or ganglion cells were present. Localisation of the lesion and histopathology were consistent with a perineurial cyst.

Case 2. A 10-year-old female intact Labrador retriever, presented with a two-month history of intermittent but progressive non-weight-bearing lameness of the right pelvic limb and pronounced radicular pain. Orthopaedic examination was considered normal. Neurological examination was unremarkable except for marked discomfort on palpation of the lumbo-sacral …


The article analyses police preparation systems in different European countries considering European Union perspectives to establish a common system for education and training of the police. The first part of the article discusses the differences of police preparation systems models in European countries and the arguments regarding relationships among professional preparation and academic education in a common police preparation system. The author of the article comes to a conclusion that for modern police officers it is not enough to get only the professional education, to formulate special skills, but they also need an additional college or a university degree. The second part of the article introduces and discusses factors making influence to the police preparation systems in different European countries. The author comes to the conclusion, that historically different conditions of development, geopolitical and cultural factors in European countries created huge diversity of police preparation systems, which means that in order to make them closer there is a need for a deeper analysis of police structures and their preparation systems at a national level. http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.10.1.235


The drought of 1988-89 was one of the most severe on record for many regions of the United States. Its severity can be measured in terms of the areal extent of hydrologic impact, the record low streamflows, and the earliness in the year of the drought's onset. Problems with navigation in the open water portions of the Mississippi River for example, began to surface in early June 1988 and reached their peak in July 1988 with numerous closures at several different locations. Because of the limited amount of reservoir storage in the basin relative to its size, man's ability to deal with the effects of such extremely low water are greatly limited. When low water conditions arise in the Mississippi, lower basin states look longingly at the available storage in tributary reservoirs, particularly in the Ohio and Missouri Basins. Increased releases from the mainstem Missouri River Dams were studied. In the Ohio River basin, reservoir operations provided significant flow throughout the summer and fall.


We propose a dielectric rod waveguide antenna (DRW) integrated with a photomixer as a THz emitter. This represents a different approach as opposed to the classical solution of a substrate lens. Main goals are an inexpensive alternative to substrate lenses, reduction of both reflections on the semiconductor-air interface and scattering of terahertz-generated power into the substrate. A radiation pattern measured at 137 GHz is shown as a proof-of-concept. In order to increase radiated power, the improvement of the rod antenna is discussed. Finally, as an application example, evanescent coupling of the DRW into a high index whispering gallery mode resonator is shown.


A 79-year-old man was referred to our hospital for removal of an adenoma in the afferent loop of a Billroth II anastomosis. Thirty-nine years earlier, he had undergone subtotal gastrectomy with Billroth II anastomosis because of gastric ulcer bleeding. His laboratory findings were unremarkable. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed a subtly yellowish, elevated lesion 10 mm in diameter in the afferent loop of the Billroth II anastomosis. (Fig. 1A) The polyp was located in the distal portion approximately 3–4 cm apart from the anastomosis site. We resected the polyp by endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), and the resection site was clear (Fig. 1B). No immediate adverse event related to the procedure was observed. After 2 days, however, the patient visited the emergency department because of severe epigastric pain. Abdominal computed tomography revealed fluid collection and free air around the afferent loop and right colon (Fig. 2A). Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed a sharp foreign body penetrating the EMR site (Fig. 2B). We meticulously examined the penetrating site using grasper forceps and found that the foreign body was directly penetrating the EMR-induced ulcer (Fig. 2C). We removed the foreign body using grasper forceps and closed the perforation site with endoclips (EZ Clip; Olympus, Tokyo, Japan), using single closure methods. The foreign body was a suture material used in the previous gastric surgery (Fig. 2D). The patient received conservative medical treatment without surgery. At 6-week follow-up, he had recovered completely without any symptoms. Endoscopic resection is becoming the first choice of treatment for superficial duodenal epithelial neoplasia. However, exposure to pancreatic juice or bile, thin duodenal wall, and retroperitoneal location increase the risk of perforation. To prevent delayed perforation, complete closure of the mucosal defect after endoscopic resection is proposed, with favorable clinical outcomes. We report a rare case in which a suture material used in the previous surgery caused delayed perforation of the EMR site. Complete closure of the mucosal defect after endoscopic resection is required to prevent delayed complications, even in the case of small duodenal polyps.


The purpose of this study was to prepare antimicrobial silk fibroin nanofibers from the aqueous formic acid solutions of silk fibroin and hydroxytyrosol with the in situ hydrolysis of oleouropein present in olive leaf extract using electrospinning method. With the use of aqueous formic acid solution of olive leaf extract and silk fibroin resulted in more uniform and beadless nanofibers. Morphological properties of electrospun nanofibers were investigated using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The diameter of electrospun nanofibers ranged between 70 nm to 150 nm. The nanofiber diameter did not changed much with increasing concentration of olive leaf extract added into silk fibroin solution to be used in electrospinning process. The increase in olive leaf extract concentration resulted in beadless and uniform nanofiber structures. The average diameter of the nanofibers prepared with fibroin solution having 10 % olive leaf extract was determined as 85 ± 10 nm. Results revealing the formation of smoother and uniform nanofibers was attributed to the crosslinking effect of oleuropein and polyphenols present in olive leaf extract with certain functional groups in silk fibroin structure. Antibacterial properties of hydroxytyrosol loaded nanofibers against Staphylococcus epidermidis (Gram +) and Escherichia coli (Gram -) were confirmed with the clear inhibition zones observed in disc diffusion tests. Silk Fibroin nanofibers loaded with hydroxytyrosol may offer a new alternative biomaterial to be used in wound dressing or medical textile applications.


Mercurial is the easiest system to learn when it comes to distributed revision control-ideal whether you're a lone programmer working on a small project, or part of huge team dealing with thousands of files. This definitive guide takes you step by step through ways to track, merge, and manage both open source and commercial software projects with Mercurial, using Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and other systems. Mercurial permits a countless variety of development and collaboration methods, and this book offers several concrete suggestions to get you started. This guide will help you: Learn the basics of working with a repository, changesets, and revisions Merge changes from separate repositories Set up Mercurial to work with files on a daily basis, including which ones to track Get examples and tools for setting up various workflow models with Mercurial Manage a project that's making progress on multiple fronts at once Find and fix mistakes by isolating problem sources Use hooks to perform actions automatically in response to repository events Customize the output of Mercurial Like the revision system it describes, Mercurial: The Definitive Guide maintains a strong focus on simplicity to help you learn Mercurial quickly and thoroughly.


Eocene rocks of the Waseiyit Formation are exposed at Gebel Hammam Faraun, on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Suez in west central Sinai (Egypt). The formation represents gravity flow sediments deposited in response to early Eocene tectonic activity. Three species of the genus Nummulites were encountered in this formation: Nummulites burdigalensis de la Harpe 1926, Nummulites alpinus Schaub 1951 and Ruetimeyerina murchisoni (Rütimeyer 1850) n.gen. The three species assign the Waseiyit Formation to the Early Eocene, at the base of the Late Ypresian (shallow benthic zone SBZ 10). These findings show that granulated Nummulites such as N. burdigalensis first occurred at the base of the Late Ypresian, just after the appearance of non-granulated Nummulites in the earliest Ypresian. The Nummulites assemblage recorded by Boukhary et al. (1998) differs from assemblages previously collected from the Monastery of St. Paul area (Eastern Desert, Egypt). The St. Paul assemblage contains Nummulites praeatacicus, Nummulites sahariensis and Bassiounina sanctipauli and is therefore older than the material recorded by Boukhary et.al. (1998) from theWaseiyit Formation. Biotic differences between the two sites suggest that specific faunal elements are indicative for early and late Ypresian deposits.


One of the famous canal cities of the world and a former center of culture, trade, transportation, and fashion, the old town of Yangzhou evokes romantic bridges, beautiful courtesans, fine gardens, and eccentric painters. It is also remembered as a war-torn ruin aft er the Qing conquest and the Taiping Rebellion, and as a city in decline as trade shift ed to seaports and railways. Yangzhou, A Place in Literature , the first anthology to center on a Chinese city and its local region, offers a wealth of literary, semi-literary, and oral texts representing social life over three hundred years of dramatic change between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. The selections in this volume represent a wide range of literary forms and styles, both elite and popular, with subjects ranging from literature, history, theater, and art to the history of architecture and gardening, and of material culture at large. Readers will come across rarely found details of everyday life, the sights, smells, and sounds of the lanes and teahouses, a world of taverns, pilgrimages, communal baths, fi sh markets, salt merchants, acting troupes, and food in one of the wealthiest cities of imperial China. Each text has an introductory essay and rich textual notes by an expert in the relevant field. The general introduction provides an in-depth discussion of the roles of the local in historical, cultural, literary, and linguistic terms, as mirrored by the wide range of translated sources collected in this volume. The selected texts are historically andintellectually important in their own right, but the volume greatly enhances their collective value by combining them, arranging them in historical sequence, and providing a dense network of cross-references that invite comparisons and reveal contrasts in style, form, focus, and topic. With its compelling accounts of material culture, urban spaces, entertainment, and gender, Yangzhou, A Place in Literature will fascinate scholars and students alike by opening a window to the rich cultural history of Yangzhou. Th e volume can serve as a textbook for courses on traditional and modern Chinese literature, popular culture, the city, or social history. It will be of great interest to scholars of East Asian studies, as well as to those in a variety of comparative fields, such as urban studies, theater studies, and gender studies.


This study develops a framework to investigate the optimal allocation of a country's fiscal resources to help equalize opportunities for human development. The author argues that the proper role for policy is the pursuit of equality of opportunities as opposed to equality of outcomes. Because outcomes reflect the combination of a person's socioeconomic background and effort, the role of public policy is then to equate results conditional on effort. A stylized model formalizes this argument and provides insights on policy rules to equalize opportunities within a one country framework. The paper provides interesting reflections on political economy issues and suggests extending the framework to provide guidance to development institutions on the optimal allocation of lending resources across member countries with different socioeconomic conditions as to equate their opportunities.


In the digital world, technological protection measures (TPMs) are increasingly used by authors to safeguard against copyright infringement. TPMs mainly control access to copyright works and/or the use of such works (for example, by limiting copying of these works). The international framework for protection against the circumvention of TPMs is found in the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) of 1996. This article examines this framework, and how the international obligations have been discharged in the United States and Europe. In this context the extent of the protection, and possible exceptions and limitations, are considered. It is noted that overbroad protection would be particularly prejudicial to research and education in developing countries, and in this way would deny them the benefits of access to information and learning through global information networks. Finally, the position in South Africa is considered with reference to the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act of 2002, which adopts a level of protection far stricter than that adopted in any of the developed countries surveyed.


This thesis examines themes reflecting the reign, the decline, and the aftermath of Christian faith as manifested in selected twentieth century Newfoundland fiction. It concentrates first on fictional depictions of life in pre-Confederation Newfoundland, and then on fictional depictions of Newfoundland since 1949, with Percy Janes' Requiem for a Faith, because of its multi-generational scope, serving as a bridge between the two. What is revealed through this approach is a thematic continuity in the fiction suggestive of a perennial preoccupation, on the part of Newfoundland authors, with both the necessity and the damaging effects of religious belief in Newfoundland life. -- The study explores the tendency of certain authors, particularly those writing about early twentieth century Newfoundland, to link the harshness of the outport environment with a correspondingly harsh interpretation of Christian doctrine. It reveals, however, that belief in a merciless and vindictive deity is not restricted to outport people nor the pre-Confederate era; fiction depicting post-Confederation and urban Newfoundland continues to feature characters who either sustain and practise a faith devoid of love and charity or suffer because they are subjected by others to the emotionally crippling effects of such a faith. -- The thesis examines, as well, the phenomenon of the progressive decline of Christian faith in twentieth century Newfoundland as presented in its fiction. This decline is shown by Newfoundland authors to stem from a number of causes, among them a rebellion against religion's excessive harshness, a perception that doctrinal form is being practised without attention to its content, the ever-encroaching influence of North American society on Newfoundland culture, and a dawning sense that the maintenance of religious faith is incompatible with the mindset of contemporary times. -- The fiction also reveals that characters who relinquish traditional forms of faith tend either to replace them with alternative belief systems or to meet with psychic vertigo, because of what seems to be an inherent human need to believe in an ordered and meaningful universe. Thus, the thesis concludes that twentieth century Newfoundland fiction presents its readers with a paradox. On the one hand, it reveals the hollowness of a Christianity devoid of the observance of Christ's injunction to love God and to love one's neighbours as oneself. On the other hand, it points to the psychic wasteland that ensues when humankind, for whatever reason, turns its back on faith.


The major immediate-early (IE) gene region mapping at coordinates 0.71 to 0.74 in the genome of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) gives rise to a series of overlapping spliced IE mRNAs that are all under the transcriptional control of the complex IE68 promoter-enhancer region. We show here that one of the phosphorylated nuclear proteins encoded by this region behaves as a powerful but nonspecific trans-activator of gene expression. In transient chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) assay experiments with Vero cells all relatively weak heterologous target promoters tested, including those of herpes simplex virus IE175 and delayed-early genes, adenovirus E3, the enhancerless simian virus 40 early gene, and the human beta interferon gene, were stimulated between 30- and 800-fold by cotransfection with the HindIII C fragment of HCMV (Towne) DNA. In contrast, expression of the homologous HCMV IE68-CAT gene but not SV2-CAT was specifically repressed. Inactivation mapping studies of the effector DNA, together with dose-response comparisons with subclones from the region, revealed that an intact 7.1-kilobase sequence encompassing both the IE1 and IE2 coding regions (exons 1 to 5) in the major IE transcription complex was required for both the nonspecific trans-activation and autoregulatory responses. The IE1 coding region alone (exons 1 to 4) was inactive, but both functions were restored by insertion of the IE2 coding region (exon 5) in the correct orientation downstream from the IE1 coding region. Internal deletions or inserted terminator codons in IE1 (exon 4) still gave efficient trans-activation and autoregulation, whereas the insertion of terminator codons in IE2 (exon 5) abolished both activities. Finally, IE2 (exon 5) sequences only (under the direct transcriptional control of the strong simian CMV IE94 promoter) were still able to specifically down regulate IE68-CAT expression but failed to exhibit trans-activation properties. Therefore, the IE2 gene product(s) of HCMV appear likely to be key control proteins involved in gene regulation during HCMV infection.


Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a diverse disease of type I collagen, the main structural protein in the body. It has been well documented that related individuals harboring the same OIcausing mutation can have very different clinical outcomes. However, the relationship between genotype and clinical outcome remains unclear. The goal of this study was to further examine the genotype-phenotype relationship with the long-term goal of identifying modifier genes that impact the quality of bone. Modifier genes influence clinical outcome by interacting with genes known to impact bone quality such as the type I collagen genes. As gene expression changes throughout development, we sought to determine if age-related changes in bone quality occurred. To this end, the same OI-causing mutation was studied on two genetic backgrounds, one with reduced bone strength (C57) and one with variable bone strength (outbred). Wildtype and oim animals of each strain were then analyzed at one, two and four months of age to assess bone shape and strength as well as biochemical parameters. This work showed strain related differences at all ages examined, but the presence of the oim mutation overrides these differences. Bones from oim animals of either strain have altered bone geometry and reduced biomechanical strength as compared to wildtype, with C57-oim animals having a more severe phenotype than outbred oim animals. Oim animals also had altered mineral composition and reduced amounts of type I collagen, which were strain specific. Taken together, these data indicate a role for genetic background in determining phenotypic severity, although some parameters are more affected by genetic background than others.


U.S. prices of fertilizer nutrients began to rise steadily in 2002 and increased sharply to historic highs in 2008 due to the combined effects of a number of domestic and global longand shortrun supply and demand factors. From 2007 to 2008, spring nitrogen prices increased by a third, phosphate prices nearly doubled, and potash prices doubled. The price spike in 2008 refl ects low inventories at the beginning of 2008 combined with the inability of the U.S. fertilizer industry to quickly adjust to surging demand or sharp declines in international supply. Declining fertilizer demand, disruption in fall applications, increased fertilizer imports (July to August), and tightening credit markets for fertilizer purchases contributed to the decline of fertilizer prices in late 2008. The prospect for strong fertilizer demand in early 2009, high raw material costs for the manufacture of fertilizers, production cutbacks, and decreasing supplies from fertilizer imports, however, could put upward pressure on U.S. fertilizer prices in spring 2009.


Description: An empirical study was undertaken to identify the influence of strategic choices on the organisational performance of start up IT companies in New Zealand. The findings indicate that the organisations that exhibited moderate levels of strategic particularity and holistic strategic balance realising moderately simple strategies achieved profitability and incremental business growth. These organisations were able to sustain or increase their employee base. However, the organisations that exhibited a lack of strategic particularity and holistic strategic balance realising excessively complex strategies faced negative cash-flow issues and reduced employee levels. These organisations were generally downsized, went into receivership or were sold. The findings of this study were also


Based on sex-stratified genome-wide association study (GWAS) of Han Chinese, 2,178 centenarians and 2,299 middle-aged controls, we identified 11 male- and 12 female-specific independent loci that are significantly associated with longevity (P-5), replicated in independent North and South regions in one sex, but are not significant (P>0.05) in the other sex. We found that the association of rs60210535 at LINC00871 with longevity replicated well between Chinese females (P=4.6x10-5) and U.S. females (P=9.0x10-5), but was not significant in both Chinese and U.S. males (P>0.05). We discovered that 11 male-specific and 34 female-specific pathways are significantly associated with longevity (PFDR) P-5 in one sex, P>0.05 in other sex), 44/58 male/female strong loci (10-5≤P-4 in one sex, P>0.4 or P>0.35 in other sex), and 191/311 male/female moderate loci (10-4≤P-3 in one sex, P>0.75 or P>0.7 in other sex) are jointly and highly associated with longevity exceeding a significance level P10-8 in one sex, but not jointly associated with longevity in the other sex (P>0.05). Our integrated PRS and novel sex-specific genetic relative benefit/loss ratio analyses indicate that females' genetic constitution favors longevity more than males'. Further interdisciplinary collaborative efforts are warranted, such as replications from other populations, international meta-analyses with much larger sample size, lab tests, and in silico functional validations. Significance Statement: On average, women live significantly longer lives than men but they have lower physical performance and more adverse health outcomes at older ages compared to men: patterns that signify the male-female health-survival paradox (1). Research on sex differences in health and mortality has proliferated, but has yet to achieve a good understanding of the effects of genetic variants on the sex gap in longevity and health. Based on sex-stratified genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) of Han Chinese including centenarians with a sample size 2.7 times as large as other published largest single GWAS on longevity involving centenarians (2), the present study aims to contribute a better understanding of sex differences in genetic associations with longevity.


Multidielectric polyethylene is a material that is generally employed as insulation for the HVDC isolations. In this paper, the influence of temperature on space charge dynamics has been studied, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene (FEP) sandwiched between two electrodes were subjected to voltage application of 5kV (14.3 kV/mm) for extended duration of time and the space charge measurements were taken using bipolar model is one-dimensional, taking into account trapping, detrapping and the rencommbinaison in order to determine the charge density and electric field of the sample depending on the thickness. The simulation was carried out at three different temperatures (20, 40, and 60°C). The results of this model going to compare with experimental space charge measurements . Finally, simulation results demonstrated that the temperature has many effects on the dynamic space charge and of influences the charge injection, charge mobility, electrical conduction, trapping and detrapping.


This article reports on action research conducted at a primary school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research responded to an expressed school aspiration to foster greater understanding of local Aboriginal culture, historical perspectives and knowledge systems within the school. An exploratory model was developed using a mixed methods approach to investigate nonAboriginal teacher perceptions and self-efficacy with teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content specified in the Australian Curriculum. A Bush Tucker Garden was established as a 'Pathway of Knowledge' acting as a vehicle for collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal stakeholders. Through their participation in this project the teachers were brought together with local Gumbaynggirr Elders, creating a space for the sharing of social capital. Teacher cultural knowledge and understanding was strengthened, enriching the student's learning experience. The findings are of relevance to primary school teachers, curriculum stakeholders and education providers in the broader field of Aboriginal education.