This book is a revised translation of two works by Miroslav Hroch, which together form a pioneering comparative analysis of the various struggles for national identity in nineteenth-century Europe. It is concerned with the decisive phase of 'national renaissance', when small groups of committed patriots successfully generated mass support. When and why was their propaganda effective? The author attempts to answer this fundamental question by locating the patriots within the contemporary social structure, and uses data derived from many different nationalisms. The work is divided into three sections; a theoretical examination of the origins of nationalism and nation-hood, a quantitative survey of the social and territorial structure of the patriots of eight representative national movements, and a comparative analysis of the social and professional groups that formed the milieu of patriotism. Numerous statistical tables and maps illuminate the text, which forms one of the most significant studies of the nationalist phenomenon to be published in recent years.


This paper reports an investigation into the importance of basic skills in literacy and numeracy in the promotion of success on intermediate vocational courses at age 16+. Two measures of attainment in literacy and numeracy are examined; GCSE passes in English and Mathematics analysed by grade awarded and the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) tests in communication and numeracy. The study examines the relationship between prior attainment as attested by GCSE grades and ALBSU scores and course outcome. The extent to which a consistent relationship is found between GCSE grades and ALBSU scores is also examined. The study uses a random sample of 142 students drawn from a population of all first year 16/7 year old students who enrolled at a London Further Education college in 1994. A sub-sample of students on GNVQ Intermediate and NVQ level 2 courses is examined in greater depth. Data on course outcomes was collected at three points in time, 1995, one year after enrolment and on two occasions in 1996. It was therefore possible to chart the progress of students in the sample who took more than one year to complete an Intermediate (G)NVQ. Initial analysis found that at the GCSE middle grade range (Grades C,D,E,F) there was a wide range of literacy and numeracy outcomes as measured by the ALBSU literacy and numeracy tests. GCSE Maths and English passes at these grades do not appear to guarantee threshold attainment levels in basic numeracy and literacy. No significant relationship is found between prior attainment as measured by GCSE Maths and English grades and course outcomes. The ALBSU test scores proved to be more helpful in predicting student outcomes on the Intermediate GNVQ but were still fairly weak predictors. The high proportion of leaves from the sample, probably influenced by 'pull' factors from the labour market, gives cause for concern. There is no evidence to indicate that weaker students leave Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ courses early, if anything, the reverse is true. A significant proportion of Intermediate GNVQ students gained their awards after the prescribed one year study period. Commitment and motivation to succeed appear to be as - if not more - important than academic qualifications for success on Intermediate GNVQ. The study offers evidence that, for those motivated to persist with the studies, GNVQ can offer a valuable 'bridge' to further and higher education opportunities to students who have performed poorly on 'academic' GCSEs.


This Essay examines pre-modern European credit networks to question a fundamental assumption of private ordering scholarship that a good reputation is so critical to the functioning of a private system that its maintenance incentivizes members of the community to keep their promises and act honestly. Pre-modern credit networks, which involved the whole society in interlocking webs of credit and debt, arose from the actions of individuals who offset the lack of sufficient specie by inventing credit mechanisms to solve the problem of purchase and sale. Governments played little to no role in creating these solutions. Reputation, to some extent, did drive lending decisions, but reputation did not reliably parallel a good history of timely repayment. Default, it turns out, was not a simple binary concept in the past, and, consequently, neither were the decisions about extending credit. The article argues that reputation, or at least reputation in the sense we might understand it today, did not bear quite the weight which private ordering theory assigns to it. This appears to be due in part to a more expansive pre-modern sense of what it meant to keep a promise, in part to the role of higher-level notions of confidence and reciprocity that transcended individual debtors to encompass whole communities of lenders and borrowers, and in part to the availability of public institutions, both lay and ecclesiastical, to sanction nonpaying debtors.


Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" was the first comprehensive treatment of political economy. Originally delivered in the form of lectures at Glasgow, the book's publication in 1776 co-incided with America's Declaration of Independence. These volumes include Smith's assessment of the mercantile system, his advocacy of the freedom of commerce and industry, and his famous prophecy that "America will be one of the foremost nations of the world".


Background – Psychological research on witness interviewing focuses on the cognitive interview (CI) and the enhanced cognitive interview (ECI), as developed in the eighties and refurbished in the early nineties. It is argued that the CI/ECI techniques outperform the standard interview (SI) approach. Given the complex structure of human memory and psychology, the interviewing techniques best suitable for witness interviewing have remained controversial among the academia since that time. Aims – This scholarly paper aims to contrast the standard interview, the cognitive interview and the enhanced cognitive interview approach in order to make recommendations for further psychological research and police interviewing practice. Furthermore, the approaches are evaluated in light of vulnerable witnesses like children, persons with intellectual disabilities and the elderly. Methodology – The settings of witness interviewing, the problems surrounding investigation officers' and criminal court practice, as well as the interviewing techniques are assessed by the way of literature review. Laboratory and field studies covering the period of 1984 to 2013 are discussed, representing previous research. Results – The CI/ECI techniques help in obtaining more information of higher accuracy from invulnerable and vulnerable witnesses (save for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interviewees) as compared to the SI approach. Conclusion – As the CI/ECI techniques require training and the development of social skills, more educative efforts are necessary to establish the CI/ECI approaches among the investigation officers. From the viewpoint of future research, supporting the implementation in the field can be considered a worthwhile task.


Two themes that surface in the articles in this collection are: Visual knowledge and the means of acquiring it—the ability of pilgrims to see and read signs while overlooking or avoiding other sources of knowledge that are visible or readily available; and the issue of authority: who propagates and gains from the teaching, images, and practices of pilgrimage? The articles demonstrate that distance from pilgrimage sites and ignorance of local knowledge is important in intensifying pilgrims' experience and maintaining the power of traditional authorities. While some shrines readily adopt new technologies to diffuse their messages, activities and images, pilgrimages continue to rely on embodiment and sociality to solidify communities and commitments. The variety of engagements of pilgrimages with changing media and emerging historical realities testifies to the viability of the forms and practices of pilgrimage in transmitting other kinds of knowledge.


In 2006 Philadelphia, graduate student Jonathan Love sued the organization that publishes the Law School Admissions Test. Love had attained average scores on the test, but claimed he should have been given extra time because he qualified as a person with a disability - and allowances provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act - due to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The case, which drew in author psychologist Michael Gordon as an expert witness for the defense, reached federal court and resulted in a precedent-setting ruling still as controversial as the disorder that triggered the trial. In this work, Gordon takes us into the courtroom and behind the scenes with attorneys and experts to look not only at this trial, but more than a dozen others that have involved ADHD or other psychiatric diagnoses, and the questions they raise, including what the real meaning of disability is, how malingering can be an issue with psychological disorders, and what the more far-reaching effects for the public can be if accommodations are provided to people who do not have a legally-defined disability. When does deference to an individual with a disorder like ADHD begin to invade the rights of the non-disabled?
 Controversy fills these pages, from discussion of ADHD and the debate over its justifiability as a disability to public reactions regarding the ruling in Love's case and others. Comparisons and contrasts are also raised between the Love trial and earlier cases involving people claiming psychological disabilities who fought actions by The National Board of Medical Examiners, United Airlines, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, the Georgia State Board of Veterinary Medicine, and other organizations. Do the decisions help or harm disability rights and people with disabilities? Gordon offers the insights not only of a psychologist, but a seasoned legal insider who has testified as an expert witness at many of the trials.


The static and dynamic properties of semiconductor optical parametric oscillators (SOPOs) are studied by merging the rate equations of the diode pump laser with those of the OPO while taking into account the phase and, hence, chirp performance. The static analysis of the SOPO shows two stable regimes of operation, namely, an efficient and an inefficient regime akin to the case for conventional intracavity OPO. The large signal dynamic properties of the SOPO are studied in the two static operating regimes. The study shows that there exists enormous negative and positive frequency chirp in the signal and idler in the order of a few terahertz upon large signal modulation. These characteristics are explained through the well-known properties of the nonlinear gain medium of the OPO. The limitations on using these devices in a directly modulated fashion are discussed. Such limitations are found to be determined largely by the SOPO rise time in certain bias conditions.


Don Dunstan Oral History Project interview transcripts. The transcript of this interview is not available online. Conditions of use: Anyone wanting to edit, reproduce, publish (including electronic publication on the Internet), broadcast, transmit, perform or adapt the interview in the interviewee's lifetime must get the interviewee's written permission first. Applications for access should be made to the Special Collections Librarian, Flinders University Library, email@example.com


There is considerable evidence showing that age of acquisition (AoA) is an important factor influencing lexical processing. Early-learned words tend to be processed more quickly compared to later-learned words. The effect could be due to the gradual reduction in plasticity as more words are learned. Alternatively, it could originate from differences within semantic representations. We implemented the triangle model of reading including orthographic, phonological and semantic processing layers, and trained it according to experience of a language learner to explore the AoA effects in both naming and lexical decision. Regression analyses on the model's performance showed that AoA was a reliable predictor of naming and lexical decision performance, and the effect size was larger for lexical decision than for naming. The modelling results demonstrate that AoA operates differentially on concrete and abstract words, indicating that both the mapping and the representation accounts of AoA were contributing to the model's performance.


This paper demonstrates that the dependability of generic, evolving J2EE applications can be enhanced through a combination of a few recovery-oriented techniques. Our goal is to reduce downtime by automatically and efficiently recovering from a broad class of transient software failures without having to modify applications. We describe here the integration of three new techniques into JBoss, an open-source J2EE application server. The resulting system is JAGR-JBoss with application-generic recovery - a self-recovering execution platform. JAGR combines application-generic failure-path inference (AFPI), path-based failure detection, and micro-reboots. AFPI uses controlled fault injection and observation to infer paths that faults follow through a J2EE application. Path-based failure detection uses tagging of client requests and statistical analysis to identify anomalous component behavior. Micro-reboots are fast reboots we perform at the sub-application level to recover components from transient failures; by selectively rebooting only those components that are necessary to repair the failure, we reduce recovery time. These techniques are designed to be autonomous and application-generic, making them well suited to the rapidly changing software of Internet services.


We materialize the common understanding that calculi with explicit substitutions provide an intermediate step between an abstract specification of substitution in the lambda-calculus and its concrete implementations. To this end, we go back to Curien's original calculus of closures (an early calculus with explicit substitutions), we extend it minimally so that it can also express one-step reduction strategies, and we methodically derive a series of environment machines from the specification of two one-step reduction strategies for the lambda-calculus: normal order and applicative order. The derivation extends Danvy and Nielsen's refocusing-based construction of abstract machines with two new steps: one for coalescing two successive transitions into one, and the other for unfolding a closure into a term and an environment in the resulting abstract machine. The resulting environment machines include both the Krivine machine and the original version of Krivine's machine, Felleisen et al.'s CEK machine, and Leroy's Zinc abstract machine.


Understanding the inhibitory mechanism of thymoquinone targeting proteins involved in lung cancer. Thymoquinone were reported as possible anti-cancer drug targeting the gene containing protein like GTPase KRas in the cancer inducing pathways and we have used molecular docking in order to understand the underlying mechanism. The target proteins were preferred from various studies in cancer inducing pathways were docked by thymoquinone and also with its analogue poloxime. Protein-ligand complexes were selected based on the binding energy ranked from lowest to highest according to thymoquinone. Our results identified that thymoquinone inhibiting GTPase KRas, Sir-2, ALK5 and β-Catenin,. The docking study also establishes the multifaceted role of thymoquinone as a chemo preventive anti-cancer agent against lung cancer. These in-silico study report would be the substantial platform for the drugs to be focused in future for in-vitro and in-vivo studies for exploring its multitude function for providing a functional strategy for using as a therapeutic agent against cancer.


In situ, high-temperature Raman spectroscopy was used to study the Qn speciation in binary Nasilicate glasses and melts. Over 300 Raman spectra in the compositional range from 25 to 40 mol% Na2O were collected at room and high temperatures between 800 and 1200 K. Quantitative information on the relative abundances of species in melts was obtained from the Raman spectra through a quantification procedure that does not require any a priori assumptions about the line shapes or external calibration of the Raman scattering efficiencies for the various Qn species. The ΔH° associated with the speciation reaction 2Q3 = Q4 + Q2 was found to be 20.3 ± 7.9 kJ/mol. For a given temperature, the speciation is more disordered in sodium than in potassium silicate melts. Because of the smaller temperature dependence of the speciation in the sodium silicate system, the difference in the speciation for the sodium and potassium silicate system decreases with increasing temperature. In addition to the speciation data, the partial Raman spectra for the different species were obtained. The experimentally observed variation of the partial Raman spectra with temperature, and, to a minor extent, with composition, should stimulate future theoretical studies on the vibrational properties of silicate glasses and melts.


We all have a role to play in supporting Mason students as they become engaged citizens and well-rounded scholars who are prepared to act. With this holistic image in mind, UNIV Courses and Programs has continued over the last twenty years to expand its offering of undergraduate transition, career readiness, student leadership, research and scholarship, and academic success courses.  We now offer 40 courses with a total of 138 section offerings for the fall 2018 semester.  Nationally-recognized student transition professionals have noted that they know of no other program as robust in supporting student success as our UNIV Courses and Programs at George Mason University.
Our goal is to help students navigate key transitions during and after their time at Mason.  We conceptualize a developmental process of acclimation, exploration, preparation, and pursuit.  In tandem with academic studies and co-curricular experiences, our UNIV courses offer knowledge and resources that help shape new global leaders who embody vision, justice, clarity, tolerance, and respect and are prepared to move out into the world.
UNIV courses are open to all undergraduate students at any time during their college career.  With improved understanding of the range of courses available, faculty will be prepared to recommend specific UNIV courses to promote student learning and student success.


Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) are an important class of chemical carcinogens formed as a result of incomplete combustion; it is therefore found in grilled foods, tobacco smoke and in general, the environment. Previous studies have shown exposure of smokers and second hand smokers (SHS) towards a whole host of PAHs and more than 500 of these have been demonstrated in tobacco smoke. As it is ubiquitous in the environment, exposure may result from various sources; for cigarette smokers a number of these PAHs markers have been correlated to tobacco smoke exposure while others like benzo(a)pyrene has been associated with environmental and occupational exposures. Tobacco smoke from narghile or "shisha" has been shown to contain approximately 50 times more PAHs compared to cigarette smoke; this phenomenally high exposure can significantly increase risks of narghile smokers towards the toxic carcinogenic effects of this class of compounds. In this study, the smoke condensates in shisha water was extracted and analysed for 16 targeted PAHs using Selected Ion Monitoring (SIM) mode on the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GCMS). As part of the establishment of a validated quantitated method, the LOD (limit of detection), LOQ (limit of quantification), linearity, reproducibility and precision as well as robustness were determined for all 16 PAHs. The PAHs were quantitated in 20 shisha water collected from 20 different locations; as PAHs in shisha water may be directly related to the amount of charcoal and flavourings as well as amount of condensate, the profiles were found to be vastly/relatively different. Included is a discussion of these relative differences and their implications for shisha users. Finally, preliminary work is presented for the discovery of more toxic nitrated PAH in the shisha water condensate.


We present optical experimental results for a high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) holographic display system based on dense ray sampling and integral imaging capture. Holograms are generated based on re-sampling the rays from 2D images captured by an integral imaging system. In addition, we demonstrate a depth of field extension technique during the integral imaging capture by combining an amplitude modulated lens technique and a blind convolution approach. The optically reconstructed images of the holographic display system are shown and compared with conventional integral imaging-based holographic displays for different scenes.


We describe a transient electromagnetic survey to image the resistivity structure of the hydrate vent CNE03, offshore Mid-Norway which located approximately 10 km north of the Storegga Slide sidewall. The experiment is unique in that the electric dipole transmitter has two polarizations for each transmission station. Furthermore, the newly designed transmitter is deployed in a pogo-style acquisition, which is suitable for a detailed investigation of a small scale seafloor target. The geometry of the experiment makes conventional interpretation methods difficult so that we simplify the data by creating a single rotationally invariant quantity from the original four electric field measurements (two electric field measurements for two transmitter polarizations). This invariant is further reduced to an apparent resistivity, which is useful for rapid resistivity mapping of the seafloor. Results show that CNE03 is characterized by increased apparent resistivities which correlate well with increased P-wave velocities determined from ocean bottom seismometer measurements.


The loss of foods in the post-harvest system is not new; it has always been a problem for mankind. In these days of rapidly enlarging population in the developing countries of the world where food is already short, there is an increasing urgency to do a better job of conserving mankind food supply in order to alleviate hunger and malnutrition. Losses of fruit and vegetables are occurring from the field to the fork and even pre-harvest practices are strongly affects the magnitude of losses that occur at a later stage. Postharvest loss is the issue of food security in many developing countries like Ethiopia and it is the concerns of all people. Severe fruits and vegetables postharvest loss and quality deterioration mainly occurred during harvesting, marketing, transporting, processing and storage which leads to reduction in producers out puts, unavailability of food, malnutrition, effects on the economy of the people and the country. There is high magnitude of loss in fruits and vegetables crops as compared to other due to the nature of the crops. Many scientific studies were reported that numerous causes and the extent of the loss particularly, in fruits and vegetables. This might be because of financial, managerial and technical knowledge limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions, infrastructure, packaging and marketing systems. In order to minimize these problems, the appropriate agricultural techniques such as the general principles of extending shelf-life of these crops must be put in place. There should be proper management of temperature, humidity and effective methods for preventing these losses. Since most national governments acknowledge that postharvest food losses is complex, therefore, it requires a commitment to an integrated approach, involving numerous organizations, including local communities and groups. As a general, this can be used as a good indication as all concerned bodies should aim for development of effective and efficient policies and strategies to solve existing problems. So the main objective of this review is to find out the concepts and problems of post-harvest food losses in perishable crops. Keywords : Ethiopia, Fruits, Postharvest loss, Quality deterioration, Vegetables DOI : 10.7176/FSQM/87-01 Publication date :May 31 st 2019


The application of psychophysiology in human-computer interaction is a growing field with significant potential for future smart personalised systems. Working in this emerging field requires comprehension of an array of physiological signals and analysis techniques.
Event-related potentials, termed ERPs, are a stimulus- or action-locked waveform indicating a characteristic neural response. ERPs derived from electroencephalography have been extensively studied in basic research, and have been applied especially in the field of brain-computer interfaces. For ecologically-valid settings there are considerable challenges to application, however recent work shows some promise for ERPs outside the lab. Here we present a short review on the application of ERPs in human-computer interaction.
This paper aims to serve as a primer for the novice, enabling rapid familiarisation with the latest core concepts. We put special emphasis on everyday human-computer interface applications to distinguish from the more common clinical or sports uses of psychophysiology.
This paper is an extract from a comprehensive review of the entire field of ambulatory psychophysiology, including 12 similar chapters, plus application guidelines and systematic review. Thus any citation should be made using the following reference:
B. Cowley, M. Filetti, K. Lukander, J. Torniainen, A. Henelius, L. Ahonen, O. Barral, I. Kosunen, T. Valtonen, M. Huotilainen, N. Ravaja, G. Jacucci. The Psychophysiology Primer: a guide to methods and a broad review with a focus on human-computer interaction. Foundations and Trends in Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 9, no. 3-4, pp. 150--307, 2016.


Aquaculture is an increasingly expanding industry driven both by economic opportunity and necessity, as countries seek contemporary solutions to food security. However there are risks with unchecked or poorly managed expansion, including the potential to harm natural ecosystems in the vicinity of aquaculture farms. It is unknown exactly how sensitive estuarine biogeochemistry is to a major input of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) from finfish aquaculture. DIN is the limiting nutrient in autotrophic growth in temperate Australian estuaries, and increase in DIN loading has the potential to greatly increase primary phytoplankton production with possible consequences ranging from general decrease in water quality to harmful algal blooms and a trophic shift to eutrophication.
The present work investigates the impact of salmon farming on the marine environment and key ecological processes in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon Estuary in Tasmania. This study uses purpose built ecosystem models to assess the increase of nutrients in the region due to the nutrient input from fish farms. The results indicate a need to develop strategies to deal with nutrient loading from salmon aquaculture, particularly if the industry were to increase production beyond current levels. One method gaining increasing interest worldwide is Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) in which species that utilize the waste products from the primary species are farmed alongside the focus species. Here I construct an IMTA process model to identify the most suitable macroalgae, from a set of potential species for this region, and present a thorough uncertainty analysis of the model. The model is then used within larger estuary models to quantify the potential benefits of IMTA at the system level. The thesis comprises separate chapters for the General Introduction, General Conclusion and four standalone chapters that focus on quantifying the potential of using macroalgae as an agent for IMTA in conjunction with finfish aquaculture in southeast Tasmania.
In Chapter 2 the aim was to identify a suitable species of macroalgae for IMTA in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon Estuary. To achieve this aim, a macroalgae growth model was developed and then applied in a simulation of IMTA in a near field experiment, whereby macroalgae are grown close to a point source of nutrients. The model was used to compare the capacity of three species of macroalgae (Macrocystis pyrifera, Ulva lactuca and Porphyra umbilicalis) to remove 'waste' DIN under a range of scenarios. The species were selected based on certain assumptions about their intrinsic worth; M. pyrifera is a species that has largely disappeared from the region and so has environmental and conservation value, P. umbilicalis has high economic value in the seafood industry, while U. lactuca has the highest absolute growth rate of these three rapidly-growing algae and so is an obvious candidate as a potential 'nutrient pump'. The model distinguishes between the species based on parameters representing sub-processes that control growth. An allometric growth term was developed to allow M. pyrifera to vary its height and thus exploit its ability to occupy the water column. The results show that M. pyrifera vastly out-performs the other two species in terms of its ability to remove the DIN output from the finfish cages in the near field case, largely as a result of its size advantage over the other species. Quantifying the potential optimization of IMTA considering cultivation depth, site selection and harvesting, suggests that varying cultivation depth up to a maximum of 5m impacts M. pyrifera production but has no effect on the other two species; DIN removal varied with flow rate (for all 3 species) and the appropriate harvesting scheme can improve bioremediation by a factor of 15 compared to non-harvested crops.
In Chapter 3 a thorough uncertainty analysis of the model was conducted and a method to incorporate empirical data to improve model performance was also developed. A Bayesian inference method was used to quantify uncertainty in the IMTA model with M. pyrifera used as the extractive species. The deterministic model was reformulated into a stochastic form through the representation of sub-processes (e.g. mortality and maximal growth rate) as time varying, using first order auto-regressive processes. Parameter uncertainty was accounted for using prior distributions. We used data from three empirical growth experiments to test the effect of seeding density on ropes supporting M. pyrifera grown around salmon pens. The data were assimilated into the model using a Sequential Monte Carlo method. Through conditioning the state variables on the parameter priors alone we obtained a comprehensive uncertainty analysis of the model, and were able to constrain the model output to observed values. The results showed learning in a subset of model parameters, and overall the data assimilation method resulted in a 90% reduction in model uncertainty in both the state and parameters. These results will assist in future applications of the model by providing a more realistic parameter set. We were also able to show that low to medium density as an initial seeding of M. pyrifera resulted in best uptake of DIN. This approach offers a method by which empirical data from IMTA experiments can be used to improve IMTA process models.
The next two chapters incorporate the model into a three-dimensional coupled hydrodynamic, sediment and biogeochemical model. The 3D model, which was used in the original study that prompted this work, has been developed through numerous case studies to offer a realistic simulation of estuarine dynamics. In chapter 4 an idealized 'test' estuary was created as the setting of finfish aquaculture. Firstly, through incremental increases in DIN output from finfish aquaculture a relationship between nutrient loading rates and water quality as determined by chlorophyll concentration, was obtained. Through the simulation of IMTA farms adjacent to the finfish sites, the capacity of M. pyrifera to remediate the estuary was then established. The results showed that M. pyrifera could effectively bioremediate the output from the finfish aquaculture as loading increased. This ensured a classification of 'good' water quality based on chlorophyll concentrations, was retained within the estuary. The hydrodynamic conditions was determined to be the primary driver of both the distribution of chlorophyll and successful IMTA. Farms in the southern section of the estuary achieved the highest biomass of macroalgae, but had little impact on the reduction of primary production due to this area being well flushed from strong river flow; which limited phytoplankton growth in this area. A region of freshwater influence was responsible for the high productivity observed in the northern region of the estuary, and IMTA in this section was solely responsible for reducing chlorophyll concentration.
The last phase of the study (Chapter 5) focused on a more realistic simulation of macroalgae-based IMTA by incorporating the stylized model into a model of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon Estuary - a region of intensive salmon aquaculture in southeast Tasmania. In this chapter the aim was to estimate phytoplankton production in this region stimulated from 'waste' DIN from finfish aquaculture, and investigate the effectiveness of IMTA in remediating any increase in production. We identify the spatial pattern and magnitude of phytoplankton production in the region under a range of outputs from finfish aquaculture. Scenario analysis showed that the most productive area to grow M. pyrifera is in the immediate vicinity of the salmon farms, and that growing giant kelp in this way can mitigate undesirable effects on chlorophyll concentration of DIN loading from the farms if activity expands beyond current levels. However, mitigation using IMTA is non-linear and there are limits to the magnitude of salmon aquaculture activity beyond which significant declines in water quality seem inevitable, even if M. pyrifera is grown extensively around farms.
This study provides a thorough investigation of the potential of macroalgae-based IMTA to prevent the potentially damaging waste DIN output from finfish aquaculture from adversely affecting water quality (as assessed by chlorophyll concentration). It provides important baseline information that will help both management and future studies into IMTA by: (i) identifying vertical distribution as the most important feature for potential macroalgae culture species in near field IMTA; (ii) showing the impact of farm arrangement on DIN uptake by macroalgae for a range of potential IMTA species; (iii) describing a method for data assimilation to improve the validity of model results and reduce uncertainty, and (iv) providing a general guide to considerations for the successful implementation of macroalgae-based IMTA to mitigate reduction in water quality resulting from the addition of anthropogenic nutrification in estuaries.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Let's say that you run a small, independent bank located in the heart of the Dakotas. Your lines of business are as traditional as they are well-defined: loans to local farmers and ranchers as well as farm-related businesses. Like the fortunes of the farmers that you lend to, your bank's profitability depends in part upon the cooperation of Mother Nature, and getting a good price at market. Unlike some other banks, however, let's say that your institution is located near an Indian reservation. You don't have branches or other facilities like an ATM there. However, you find that your institution is making more loans to farmers and ranchers located on the reservation. They are good customers, and you are eager to do more business with members of the tribe. Then the inevitable happens: a harsh winter leaves local ranchers reeling. The cold weather makes no distinction between reservation and non-reservation ranching operations, and most lose the majority of their herds to the extreme cold. Some of the ranchers with loans at your bank are in big trouble. One of your customers, a family-run operation located within the tribal area, is especially hard hit. They cannot repay their loans, so you work with them. You hope to keep their operation afloat. In lieu of foreclosure, the ranchers deed over to your institution some of the property that is located on the reservation. In exchange, you lease the property back to the ranchers and provide them with additional operating loans. But even this attempt eventually fails, and your bank reluctantly takes steps to evict the ranchers and sell the property. Desperate, the ranchers sue, alleging that your institution discriminated against them because your bank offered to sell the property to nonmembers of the tribe on terms more favorable than the bank offered to sell to the ranchers, who were tribe members. The lawsuit is brought in the local tribal court. You and your lawyers are very uncomfortable with this development. There is very little written guidance to help you navigate the tribal judicial system, and the discrimination claim against you is based on unwritten tribal tradition and custom that reflects the tribe's sense of justice, fair play, and decency to others. The tribal court ultimately rules against you, finding that the bank discriminated against the tribe members. When banks cross tribal borders These facts-admittedly in somewhat simplified form-provide the setting for the Supreme Court's controversial 5-4 decision last term in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land and Cattle Co. The case was controversial in the sense that the Court was called upon to address two highly-charged legal issues: (1) tribal sovereignty and the ability to control matters that affect their lands and the treatment of its citizens, and, (2) the terms and conditions under which non-Indian banks and other businesses may be expected to resolve disputes arising from their dealings on the reservation. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, overturned a decision by the Eighth Circuit that held that a tribal court may entertain a discrimination claim over a non-tribe member who regularly conducts business on the reservation. (Roberts was joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito.) In reaching its decision, the Court focused on the status of the ownership of the land in question-whether it is owned "in fee simple" (absolute and unencumbered title) by a non-tribe member, or whether it was tribal land. …


We investigate the effects of macroeconomic announcements made in the United States on trading activity of stocks listed in Borsa Istanbul. The influence of these releases on the selected variables are an important source of information for market participants. Results show a clear negative impact on weighted bid, ask and mid-prices in the five-minute period post-release. Available liquidity measured by pending orders in limit order book decreases with the news arrival. These results present implications for market dynamics and signal that liquidity consumption (through market orders) largely dominates liquidity provision (through limit orders) in the five-minute period following the release.


The socialisation of women into self-silencing by religion has complicated pastoral care interventions for the victims of domestic violence, particularly within the context of marriage. This article is written from an intercultural approach to pastoral care and applies the theory on silence. The aim of this article is to explore the way pastoral caregivers can extend caregiving to the victims of marital domestic violence who have silenced the self. The article draws from qualitative data that were collected through autobiographical narratives, in-depth interviews and observations, and analysed through thematic analysis. The findings indicate that women are forced to silence the self in contexts of domestic violence by not speaking about the abuse that takes place in marriage. The self-silencing is justified by those who interpret Biblical texts that address marriage naively; in this case one of the two women who participated in this study confirmed that Proverbs 21:9 is used to justify self-silencing. Thus, the article concludes that pastoral care interventions in such contexts should include a circle of the significant others that women interact with such as the perpetrator and the broader community, including her social networks.


Preface and Acknowledgments (J. D. Pinter) 1. Global Optimization in Solvent Design (L. E. K. Achenie, G. M. Ostrovsky and M. Sinha) 2. Feeding Strategies for Maximising Gross Margin in Pig Production (D. L. J. Alexander, P .C .H. Morel and G. R. Wood) 3. Optimized Design of Dynamic Networks with Heuristic Algorithms (S. Allen, S. Hurley, V. Samko and R. Whitaker) 4. A New Smoothing-based Global Optimization Algorithm for Protein Conformation Problems (A. M. Azmi, R. H. Byrd, E. Eskow and R. B. Schnabel) 5. Physical Perspectives on the Global Optimization of Atomic Clusters (J. P. K. Doye) 6. Efficient Global Geometry Optimization of Atomic and Molecular Clusters (B. Hartke) 7. Computational Analysis of Human DNA Sequences: An Application of Artificial Neural Networks (A. G. Hatzigeorgiou and M. S. Megraw) 8. Determination of a Laser Cavity Field Solution Using Global Optimization (G. Isenor, J. D. Pinter and M. Cada) 9. Computational Experience with the Molecular Distance Geometry Problem (C. Lavor, L. Liberti and N. Macaulan) 10. Non-linear Optimization Models in Water Resource Systems (S. Liberatore, G. M. Sechi and P. Zuddas) 11. Solving the Phase Unwrapping Problem by a Parameterized Network Optimization Approach (P. Maponi and F. Zirilli) 12. Evolutionary Algorithms for Global Optimization (A. Osyczka and S. Krenich) 13. Determining 3-D Structure of Spherical Viruses by Global Optimization (O. Ozturk, P. C. Doerschuk and S. B. Gelfand) 14. A Collaborative Solution Methodology for Inverse Position Problem (C. S. Pedamallu and L. Ozdamar) 15. Improved Learning of Neural Nets through Global Search (V. P. Plagianakos, G. D. Magoulos and M. N. Vrahatis) 16. Evolutionary Approach to Design Assembly Lines (B. Rekiek, P. De Lit and A. Delchambre) 17. Agroecosystem Management (R. Seppelt) 18. Finding the Minimal Rootof an Equation - Applications and Algorithms Based on Lipschitz Condition (Ya. D. Sergeyev) 19. Optimization of Radiation Therapy Dose Delivery with Multiple Static Collimation (J. Tervo, P. Kolmonen, J. D. Pinter and T. Lyyra-Lahtinen) 20. Parallel Triangulated Partitioning for Black Box Optimization (Y. Wu, L. Ozdamar and A. Kumar) 21. A Case Study: Composite Structure Design Optimization (Z. B. Zabinsky, M. E. Tuttle and C. Khompatraporn) 22. Neural Network Enhanced Optimal Self-tuning Controller Design for Induction Motors (Q. M. Zhu, L. Z. Guo and Z. Ma)


Binding sites for the D-2-selective antagonist (3H)-spiroperidol were characterized in human retina. Nonspecific binding, measured in the presence of 2 microM (+)-butaclamol, made up 20% of total binding. Scatchard analysis of the binding of (3H)-spiroperidol resulted in linear plots and yielded a Kd value of 87 pM and a Bmax value of 1500 fmol/mg protein. In studies of the inhibition of the binding of (3H)-spiroperidol, (+)-butaclamol was approximately 1000-fold more potent than the (-)-stereoisomer. The inhibition curve for dopamine was shifted to the right and the Hill coefficient was increased by the addition of 300 microM GTP. This effect was agonist-specific and suggests that some of the receptors are coupled to stimulation or inhibition of the enzyme adenylate cyclase. The inhibition curves for most of the antagonists had Hill coefficients between 0.6 and 0.8. Hill coefficients were also consistently less than 1.0 for agonists even in the presence of GTP. Nonlinear regression analysis of untransformed data revealed that these shallow inhibition curves were best explained by the presence of two populations of binding sites, 40% of the sites having a high affinity for dopamine in the presence of GTP and domperidone and the remaining 60% having a lower affinity for these ligands. The larger population of sites had a higher affinity for sulpiride, fluphenazine, and N-propylnorapomorphine in the presence of GTP. The possibility that either of these classes of sites consisted of serotonin receptors was ruled out by the finding that the 5-HT2 antagonist ketanserin had a low affinity for both classes of sites.


This thesis studies survival analysis techniques dealing with censoring to produce predictive tools that predict the risk of endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) re-intervention. Censoring indicates that some patients do not continue follow up, so their outcome class is unknown. Methods dealing with censoring have drawbacks and cannot handle the high censoring of the two EVAR datasets collected. Therefore, this thesis presents a new solution to high censoring by modifying an approach that was incapable of differentiating between risks groups of aortic complications. Feature selection (FS) becomes complicated with censoring. Most survival FS methods depends on Cox's model, however machine learning classifiers (MLC) are preferred. Few methods adopted MLC to perform survival FS, but they cannot be used with high censoring. This thesis proposes two FS methods which use MLC to evaluate features. The two FS methods use the new solution to deal with censoring. They combine factor analysis with greedy stepwise FS search which allows eliminated features to enter the FS process. The first FS method searches for the best neural networks' configuration and subset of features. The second approach combines support vector machines, neural networks, and K nearest neighbor classifiers using simple and weighted majority voting to construct a multiple classifier system (MCS) for improving the performance of individual classifiers. It presents a new hybrid FS process by using MCS as a wrapper method and merging it with the iterated feature ranking filter method to further reduce the features. The proposed techniques outperformed FS methods based on Cox's model such as; Akaike and Bayesian information criteria, and least absolute shrinkage and selector operator in the log-rank test's p-values, sensitivity, and concordance. This proves that the proposed techniques are more powerful in correctly predicting the risk of re-intervention. Consequently, they enable doctors to set patients' appropriate future observation plan.


Use of diverse sources of Fusarium head blight (FHB)-resistant germplasm in breeding may significantly improve wheat resistance to FHB. Wangshuibai is an FHB-resistant Chinese landrace unrelated to cv. Sumai 3, the most commonly used FHB-resistant source. In all, 139 F(6) recombinant inbred lines were developed from a cross between Wangshuibai and an FHB-susceptible cultivar, Wheaton, to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for wheat resistance to initial infection (type I resistance), spread of FHB symptoms within a spike (type II resistance), and deoxynivalenol (DON) accumulation (type III resistance) in infected grain. The experiments were conducted in a greenhouse at Manhattan, KS from 2003 to 2005. More than 1,300 simple-sequence repeat and amplified fragment length polymorphism markers were analyzed in this population. Five QTL for type I resistance were detected on chromosomes 3AS, 3BS, 4B, 5AS, and 5DL after spray inoculation; seven QTL for type II resistance were identified on chromosomes 1A, 3BS, 3DL, 5AS, 5DL, and 7AL after point inoculation; and seven QTL for type III resistance were detected on chromosomes 1A, 1BL, 3BS, 5AS, 5DL, and 7AL with the data from both inoculation methods. These QTL jointly explained up to 31.7, 64, and 52.8% of the phenotypic variation for the three types of FHB resistance, respectively. The narrow-sense heritabilities were low for type I resistance (0.37 to 0.41) but moderately high for type II resistance (0.45 to 0.61) and type III resistance (0.44 to 0.67). The QTL on the distal end of 3BS, 5AS, and 5DL contributed to all three types of resistance. Two QTL, on 7AL and 1A, as well as one QTL near the centromere of 3BS (3BSc), showed effects on both type II and type III resistance. Selection for type II resistance may simultaneously improve type I and type III resistance as well. The QTL for FHB resistance identified in Wangshuibai have potential to be used to pyramid FHB-resistance QTL from different sources.


Over the last several years, the U.S. capital markets have witnessed a palpable rise in the number and influence of so-called "activist investors", meaning large, institutional investment funds employing an investment strategy of acquiring relatively large blocs of stock in publicly traded companies and wielding their legal rights as stockholders to effect some sort of policy change within the company but without attempting to acquire control. This fact concomitantly has engendered a heated debate as to whether activists' rising influence is normatively "good" or "bad". One thing in particular that makes this debate so contentious is activism's resistance to easy characterization: on the one hand, stockholder activists primarily wield only the legal rights that the corporation law (and specifically the Delaware General Corporation Law (the "DGCL"), as Delaware is the State of incorporation for the majority of the U.S.'s publicly traded corporations) confers on investors to protect their investments, but, on the other hand, activist campaigns may cause collateral damage to the companies involved, implicating boards of directors' fiduciary duties to protect the enterprise against threats to the corporate bastion. Simply put, does stockholder activism merely represent "dissent within the forum" that Delaware law is designed to safeguard, or are activists the proverbial "barbarians at the gate" that Delaware law entrusts corporate directors to repel? Whatever the answer to these and related questions, the extent to which stockholder activism primarily implicates the legal rights and duties of investors and directors vis-a-vis each other means that the DGCL and the Delaware courts necessarily serve an important intermediary role. And yet, the public policy of the State of Delaware as to matters of corporate internal affairs is to enable private ordering and eschew "one size fits all" approaches to the innumerable ways in which market participants may choose to deploy their capital as efficiently as possible in their respective circumstances. In other words, the intent of Delaware corporation law — and the function of Delaware courts in interpreting and enforcing that law — is not to take a position on the outcome of the debate surrounding stockholder activism, but to safeguard the debate itself. In this chapter, we highlight through practical examples the Delaware courts' core competency in deciding these sometimes vexing questions in context with the tools available.


Effective communication and advocacy activities are essential components in initiating change in education practices and policies. ACER, through the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre provided support to OMAES (Oeuvre Malienne d'Aide a l'Enfance du Sahel), a non-governmental organisation in Mali, for the development of an internal monitoring and evaluation system for the Beekunko assessment in Mali. Beekunko is a household-based assessment of children's learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy for children in Mali whether currently attending school or not, and who are six to 14 years of age. OMAES' primary aim through Beekunko is to motivate stakeholders at various levels to take action in schools and communities, and become engaged in education policy reform with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. Its main strategy is to improve awareness among stakeholders about the actual learning outcomes of children in Mali.


Earth observation satellites provide a valuable source of data which when conveniently processed can be used to better understand the Earth system dynamics. In this regard, one of the prerequisites for the analysis of satellite image time series is that the images are spatially coregistered so that the resulting multitemporal pixel entities offer a true temporal view of the area under study. This implies that all the observations must be mapped to a common system of grid cells. This process is known as gridding and, in practice, two common grids can be used as a reference: 1) a grid defined by some kind of external data set (e.g., an existing land-cover map) or 2) a grid defined by one of the images of the time series. The aim of this paper is to study the impact that gridding has on the quality of satellite time series. More precisely, the impact of the so-called gridding artifacts is quantified using a time series of 12 images acquired over The Netherlands by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS). First, the impact of selecting a reference grid is evaluated in terms of geolocation errors and pixel overlap. Then, the effect of observation geometry is studied as nongeostationary satellites, like MERIS, can acquire images from the same area from a number of orbits. Finally, a high-resolution land-cover data set is used to account for temporal information consistency (pixel homogeneity in terms of land-cover composition). Results have shown an average pixel overlap with the nearest pixel between 20% and 41% depending on the selected reference grid and on the differences in observation geometry. These results indicate that inappropriate gridding might result in collocated time series that are not adequate for temporal studies at pixel level (particularly over nonhomogeneous areas) and that, in any case, it is interesting to identify areas with low pixel overlap in order to further analyze the reliability of the products derived over these areas.


This book brings together up-to-date findings on the regional dimensions of European labour markets. It provides a conceptual and empirical study of the interactions between the European economy and its regions, paying particular attention to the issue of the transition of Central and Eastern European countries to a market economy. The topics analysed include: the structure of the shocks affecting employment (regional, industrial, national), the relationships between labour market efficiency and the regional distribution of unemployment, wage flexibility in EU member countries or in their regions, the role of active labour market policies in affecting the regional distribution of employment and unemployment.


The reaction of the anilines RNH2
[R = C6H4(o-CN), C6H4(p-CN), C6H4(m-CN), C6H4(o-C6H5), C6F5 and C6H4(o-CF3)] with Ph2PCl and inorganic or organic bases in differing stoichiometry and in different solvents has been studied. The electronic properties and steric effects of the substituent groups, the base employed, the stoichiometry and the solvent all influence the outcome of the reaction and a series of aminophosphines, diphosphinoamines and iminobiphosphines have been isolated and characterised. The structures of three diphosphinoamines and three iminobiphosphines have been established using single-crystal X-ray diffraction.


The fast growing deployment of mobile information technologies in the healthcare sector presents valuable opportunities to explore the impact of mobile technologies in this industry. As the demand on the health dollar increases, many healthcare providers throughout the world are starting to take advantage of mobile technologies as part of their key initiatives to provide better quality of service. The purpose of this study was to identify the critical factors that contribute to the success of the MARGE Wireless Bed Management System (WBMS) in a New Zealand hospital. The study found that factors, such as Hardware Selection, System Usability, Mobility, Integration, Information Quality, Efficiency, Improved Patient Care and Positive Organisational Image all contributed to the success of the MARGE WBMS.


The main objective of this project is to provide an online website which was developed for a personal trainer Carol. It enables the user to use the website to track their fitness online. To begin using the website the user will need to sign up and become a member to avail of the full range of services on offer. Each user will have their own profile page and they can follow (similar to Twitter) other users of my application. The website was built using Ruby on Rails 3 running on Ubuntu Operating system.

The website offers the following features:
• Online fitness programme designed by a personal trainer based on the users age.
• A section on nutritional information, sample menu's for breakfast, lunch , dinner and snacks
• An interactive diagram of the muscles in the body and an explanation of how to exercise each body part correctly
• BMI(Body Mass Index) and BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate) calculators
• Availability to link progress to social network sites – Twitter and Facebook
• Videos of different exercises that do not require equipment
• A feedback survey


Objective The objective was to use syndromic surveillance data from the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool NCDETECT and from BioSense to quantify the burden on North Carolina (NC) emergency departments of oral health-related visits more appropriate for care in a dental office (ED). Calculations were sought in terms of the Medicaid-covered visit rate relative to the Medicaid-eligible population by age group and by county. Introduction Concern over oral health-related ED visits stems from the increasing number of unemployed and uninsured, the cost burden of these visits, and the unavailability of indicated dental care in EDs [1]. Of particular interest to NC state public health planners are Medicaid-covered visits. Syndromic data in biosurveillance systems offer a means to quantify these visits overall and by county and age group. Methods Using BioSense data received from NCDETECT, 60.8 million records from 12.9 million ED visits were collected, covering all NC visits for state fiscal years (SFY) 2008–2010. Roughly 4% of visits were dropped because of patient residence zip codes missing or outside NC. A careful multi-step procedure involving both dentist consultants and data analysis was used to derive classification criteria for visits whose main reason was a nontraumatic oral health problem [2]. This procedure yielded 243,970 visits by ∼174,600 patients based on hospital-specific patient identifiers. Nontraumatic oral health-related visits were collected in a study set with added fields for method of payment, patient residence county, and age group. Based on previous studies, consultant preferences, and NC Medicaid eligibility guidelines, selected age groups were 0–14, 15–19, 20–29, 30–49, 50+ years. Stratified counts of Medicaid-eligibles were obtained from the NC Dental Director by study year. Using these tables and the ED visit study set, rates of nontraumatic oral health-related Medicaid visits per 10,000 eligibles were tabulated by county and age group for each study year. Demographics of multiple-visit patients were also studied. Results Rates of ED oral health-related visits were substantially higher for young adults than for other age groups. From statewide rates in Table 1, this age factor was consistent across study years. County-level rates showed the same age pattern to varying degrees. Detailed analysis showed problem areas, with rates in 21 of 100 counties exceeding 60 per 10,000 eligibles for the 20–29 year age group. Plots and tables complemented understanding of the ED oral health visit burden by age and county. The state total ED burden for oral health problems was ∼2% (0.2% – 9.7% by county). Conclusions Judicious use of syndromic data with external information, such as the detailed Medicaid denominators and the Method of Payment codes for each visit above, can give quantified estimates for policy-related public health issues. In the current study, the derived oral health visit rates gave numerical detail to concerns about the use of NC EDs for nontraumatic oral health problems by low-income persons affected by the economic recession. Results also show rate variation by county and can be combined with access-to-care data to inform planning of effective local measures to improve access to dental services and thus reduce the ED visit burden.


Performance of two new air sampling bags [the transparent bag (TP bag) and the semi-transparent bag (ST bag)] was examined as possible surrogates for the traditional PVF bag (the Ref bag). Solvent vapor mixture of butyl acetate, chloroform, ethyl acetate, isopropyl alcohol and toluene at administrative control levels were introduced to each bag (n=5 for each of the three types), and the decay in the concentrations (by%) was followed by use of a gas auto-sampler - FID-GC system. A trend of time-dependent decay was noted for all types including the Ref bag. When the performance was compared, the TP bag was equal to or even better than the Ref bag. In contrast, the performance of the ST bag was comparable to that of the other two types of bags with regard to toluene and chloroform when the storage time was short, but poorer than others for the other three solvents throughout the test period. The TP bag may be a bag of choice when the storage time is extended (e.g., up to 48 h) although this bag is physically less robust and requires careful handling. The ST bag may be used when analysis will be completed within 24 h.


Software reusability is an important aspect of software development process. Reusable components can be used to build high quality and reliable software with reduced cost. These reusable components may have different granularity levels like methods, classes, packages and modules. Reusability can be enhanced by making information of these components available to a large developer's community. In this paper we present a model to represent, store and link structured software engineering data on web. More than 18 open source projects are selected for this study. Data of the chosen projects is extracted, stored and linked using PDCML. We find that PDCML can significantly enhance the productivity of developers and can help to meet the time and cost challenges in software development.


In Mali, the deficiency of agricultural soils in phosphorus is one of the limiting factors in crop production. They respond well to phosphorus fertilization, but the high price of imported chemical fertilizers limits their use by the producers. However, Mali has large deposits of natural phosphate in the Tilemsi Valley (PNT) in northern Mali. Faced with this situation, the Government encouraged the use of local fertilizing resources including the PNT. Despite the satisfactory results of several years of research and popularization, the PNT was poorly adopted by the producers because of its powdery appearance, which made it difficult to apply in the field, its low solubility in the soil, which made its effect noticeable on crops in the second year of its application and its brown color reminiscent of that of earth made the producers believe that it had no fertilizing value. Faced with these problems relating to the physical appearance and the low solubility of the PNT, the laboratory work of GREAT QUEST Fertilizer SA resulted in the development of simple formulations based on enriched granular PNT 27% P2O5 (average content) and 35% P2O5 (high content) for direct application and NPK complex formulations based on granulated enriched PNT 35% P2O5 mixed mainly with urea, potassium, and sometimes with other nutriments like sulfur and boron (NPK 15-15-15; NPKSB 14-18-18-6-2) with a solubility in citric acid of 71.1%. The results of four years of experimentation of enriched granular PNT in the research stations and in the peasant environment showed a greater or equal effect than the other popular fertilizers. This project aims to improve phosphate nutrition and crop production by using granulated formulations of enriched PNT 27% P2O5 and 35% P2O5.


Poor public service provision and government accountability is commonplace in low-income countries. Although mobile phone–based platforms have emerged to allow constituents to report service deficiencies to government officials, they have been plagued by low citizen participation. We question whether low participation may root in low political efficacy to politically participate. In the context of a text message–reporting platform in Uganda, we investigate the impact of adding efficacy-boosting language to mobilization texts—(a) citizen name personalization and (b) politician encouragement—on citizens' willingness to report service deficiencies to politicians via text messages. Both treatments, designed to increase internal and external efficacy, respectively, have a large, positive effect on participation. The results are driven by traditionally less internally efficacious constituents (females) and less externally efficacious constituents (those represented by opposition party members), respectively.


Environmental, biological, social, economic and political values influence the creation of protected areas. In some instances, the main aim of protected areas is to conserve a particular threatened species. The pignosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta) in Papua New Guinea is a typical example of a species that would benefit from the introduction of small protected areas aimed to reduce overharvest. This species is highly prized as food and it is the most exploited turtle in the country. This study aims to identify priority areas for C. insculpta conservation in the Kikori region, taking into account the data available on biology, demography and harvest, as well as the distribution and demography of the Kikori human population. We identified seven potential priority areas for conservation and no-take areas, which comprise remote nesting sandbanks and feeding grounds. The conservation goals of these protected areas should be clearly linked with the local community aspirations of maintaining and increasing the number of eggs and adult turtles for future harvest. Monitoring of human and C. insculpta populations inside and outside priority areas are crucial to ensure that the vital areas for C. insculpta life cycle are maintained and protected, since feeding and nesting areas, as well as hunting areas, are likely to change in response to food and sandbank availability. The method presented in this paper has the potential to be adapted and applied while defining priorities in remote locations, where the implementation of protected areas are likely to affect communities livelihoods. © 2015 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.


Preface. Part 1. GIS to Manage and Distribute Climate Data. Chapter 1. GIS, climatology and meteorology (Antonio Perdigao). Chapter 2. SIGMA: a Web-based GIS for environmental applications (Carlos Frederico Angelis, Fabiano Morelli, Luiz Augusto Toledo Machado and Cintia Pereira de Freitas). Chapter 3. Web mapping: different solutions using GIS (Pawel Madej, Malgorzata Barszczynska and Danuta Kubacka). Chapter 4. Comparison of geostatistical and meteorological interpolation methods (what is what?) (Tamas Szentimrey, Zita Bihari and Sandor Szalai). Chapter 5. Uncertainty from spatial sampling: a case study in the French Alps (Pierre Dumolard). Part 2. Spatial Interpolation of Climate Data. Chapter 6. The Developments in spatialization of meteorological and climatological elements (Ole Einar Tveito). Chapter 7. The spatial analysis of the selected meteorological fields in the example of Poland (Izabela Dyras and Zbigniew Ustrnul). Chapter 8. Optimizing the interpolation of temperatures by GIS: a space analysis approach (Jean-Christophe Loubier). Chapter 9. Daily winter air temperature mapping in mountainous areas (Remi Lhotellier). Chapter 10. Aspects concerning the spatialization of radiation balance components (Cristian Valeriu Patriche). Part 3. Demo Projects. Chapter 11. The use of GIS applications in meteorology and climatology: a need for the application of regional ecological modeling approaches (Martin Wegehenkel). Chapter 12. GIS application to daily fire risk mapping (Alvaro Silva). Chapter 13. Application of GIS technology on the comparisons of climatological databases: an overview of winter precipitation over Spain (M.Y. Luna, M.L. Martin, M.G. Sotillo, C. Almarza, F. Valero and J. de la Cruz). Chapter 14. Drought sensitivity research in Hungary and influence of climate change on drought sensitivity (Sandor Szalai, Szabolcs Bella and Akos Nemeth). Chapter 15. First steps towards a new temperature climatology of the Greater Alpine Region (GAR) (Wolfgang Schoner, Ingeborg Auer and Reinhard Bohm). Chapter 16. XRWIS: a new GIS paradigm for winter road maintenance (John E. Thornes, Lee Chapman and Steve White). Part 4. Climate-related Applications. Chapter 17. The use of GIS in climatology: challenges in fine scale applications: examples in agrometeorological and urban climate studies (Claude Kergomard). Chapter 18. Climate impact on the winter land use and land cover management in Brittany (S. Corgne, H. Quenol, O. Planchon and T. Corpetti). Chapter 19. A tool for the integrated use of remote sensing with ground truth data: DEMETER Project (A. Perdigao, A. Jochum, A. Calera, L. Pessanha, A. Chinita and J. Maia) Chapter 20. Assessing population exposure to odorous pollution from a landfill over complex terrain (Caroline Riesenmey, Charles Chemel, Herve Vaillant and Mireille Batton-Hubert). Chapter 21. Disaggregated estimation of N2O fluxes from agricultural soils of the Italian region by modelization in GIS environment (Anna Carfora, Simona Castaldi, Marco Vigliotti and Riccardo Valentini). List of Authors. Index.


An association of more than 30 dinosaur footprints and four hand-foot tracks was collected from Triassic sandstones on the eastern border of the Massif central (Payzac, Ardeche, France). Vertebrate footprints and tracks from the Upper Triassic (Rhaethian excluded) of France are described in detail for the first time. The level containing the prints is fitted into regional stratigraphy and dated to early Carnian on the evidence of palynological assemblages at the base and top of the foot-print levels in the study area. Statistical analysis indicates that all the prints belong to a single new tridactyl ichnospecies Coelurosaurichnus grancieri, Prints and tracks are characteristic of small dinosaurs of the theropod group. Trunk length of the animal was about 75 cm and the anterior autopod did not generally leave an imprint on the deposition surface.


A generalized algorithm is developed for studying the sound wave propagation in a system of interconnected rigid walled acoustic filter elements. The algorithm is based on the transfer matrix approach of analysis. Interconnection between various elements is represented by a connectivity matrix. Equations of mass velocity continuity and pressure equilibrium at the interconnections are. generated using this connectivity matrix and are solved to get the overall transfer matrix of the system. The algorithm used for generalized labeling of the network and computation of transmission loss is discussed. The algorithm is applied to investigate multiply connected automobile mufflers as a network of acoustic elements. Results for some configurations have been compared with those from the finite element model analysis and experiments cited in the literature. A parametric study with respect to some geometric variables is carried out. While the results are illustrated here for a few configurations, the approach holds for all kinds of combinations of acoustic elements with any degree of complexity. The acoustical similarity between apparently different networks is discussed. The approach is flexible to incorporate any other acoustic elements; provided the acoustic variables at the junctions of the element can be related by a transfer matrix a priori. 0 2005 Acoustical Society of America.


Over the past several years, we have undertaken a series of analysies of the effect of IRA and 401(k) contributions on net personal saving. Saver hetero- geneity is the key impediment to determining the saving effect of these plans We emphasize that no single method can provide sure control for all forms of heterogeneity. Taken together, however, we believe that the analyses address the key complications presented by heterogeneity. In our view, the weight of the evidence, based on the many non-parametric approaches discussed here provides strong support for the view that contributions to IRA and 401(k) represent largely new saving. Some of the evidence is directed to the IRA program, some to the 401(k) plan, and some to both plans. Several other investigators have used different methods to consider the effect of these retirement saving programs on personal saving and in some cases have reached very different conclusions from ours. Thus we have devoted particular effort to trying to reconcile the results, explaining why different approaches, sometimes based on the same data, have led to different conclusions. In some instances, we believe the limitations of the methods used by others have undermined the reliability of the results. Particular attention is devoted to a recent paper by Gale and Scholz [1994] that is widely cited as demonstrating that IRAs have no saving effect. Based on our analysis of the data used by Gale and Scholz, we find that their conclusions are inconsistent with the raw data and their formal model does not provide reliable information on the extent of substitution.


An elusive objective for tumor immunologists has been the development of an effective tumor vaccine capable of inducing potent immune responses to eliminate established tumors and induce long-term protective antitumor immunity. Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent inducers of immunity and represent a promising tool for the purpose of immune-based tumor therapies. However, DC-based vaccines have enjoyed only limited success in clinical trials, probably due to the use of immature/intermediate mature DCs that maintain tolerance during the steady state, or to the use of non-polarized DCs which lack the proper cytokine production that favors cellular immune responses needed to eliminate established tumors. The failure of past tumor vaccines demonstrates a need to examine and enhance immunization strategies on multiple levels. The underlying hypothesis for these studies was that combining a DC1 polarization signal with an effective antigen-loading strategy will result in enhanced tumor immunotherapy. Our first aim was to compare cytosolic and membrane-bound antigen presentation of tumor-derived proteins by DCs following three different antigen-loading strategies; coculture of DCs and tumor cells, feeding DCs with tumor lysate, and fusion of DCs and tumor cells. We demonstrated that both DC-tumor coculture and fusion result in a higher level of tumor-derived peptide presentation compared to feeding DCs with tumor lysate. Our second aim was to develop a murine DC1 polarization model to evaluate DC1-based tumor immunotherapy. Herein, we described the synergistic affect of TLR3 and TLR9 ligation on IL-12p70 production by murine DCs, characterizing the timing and exhaustion of IL-12p70 production. Furthermore, we examined the ability of polarized DCs to stimulate T cell proliferation and cytokine secretion in response to a model antigen in vitro. For our third aim we examined the capacity of DC1s to stimulate immune responses to a model antigen as well as native tumor antigens in vivo and tested the therapeutic effect of tumor-loaded DC1 vaccines. These studies demonstrate the ability of antigen-loaded polarized DCs to induce strong Th1-mediated anti-tumor immunity characterized by tumor infiltrating CD4+ T cells and macrophages, but not CD8+ T cells, resulting in tumor growth inhibition.


Without PTEN to restrain Akt activity, Notch signaling is inhibited and neural progenitor cells become depleted. Nervous system development requires balance between the regeneration of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) through proliferation and the specification and differentiation of NPCs, and this balance is likely controlled by both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Premature differentiation or excessive proliferation of the NPCs results in aberrant tissue development. Jo et al. used the mouse retina as a model to study the effect of loss of function of the lipid and protein phosphatase Pten, which results in excessive activation of the kinase Akt. Postmitotic retinal neurons showed enhanced phosphorylation (activation) of Akt compared with retinal progenitor cells (RPCs). Targeted deletion of Pten in distal RPCs (and the cells that differentiate from these progenitors) (Pten-cko) resulted in a larger region of Pten-cko cells in the embryonic retina than was predicted and was associated with reduced numbers of apoptotic cells and increased numbers of proliferating cells in the embryonic retina, suggesting that both cell survival and proliferation contributed to this expansion of the Pten-cko cells beyond the expected boundary. However, in postnatal animals, there was a reduction in the number of proliferating cells in the Pten-cko retinas compared with retinas from control animals, suggesting that hyperproliferation of RPCs occurred during embryonic development and then the ability to proliferate was lost postnatally. Although by postnatal day 8, neurons that differentiated earlier during development appeared unaffected, there was a reduction in the number of later-developing neurons in the Pten-cko retinas. During embryonic stages, there was an increase in the numbers of early- and late-developing retinal neurons and premature detection of a neuronal marker in RPCs in the Pten-cko retinas. Notch signaling, which involves cleavage of Notch to form the transcriptional regulator fragment the Notch intracellular domain (NICD), is one pathway that regulates specification of neuronal identity in RPCs. Akt activity and the presence of the product of Notch target gene Hes1 were mutually exclusive, suggesting that Akt may suppress Notch signaling. Indeed, analysis of retinal lysates from Pten-cko and control mice showed that the formation of the active NICD transcriptional complex was reduced in the Pten-cko samples. Ectopic expression of NICD restored the numbers of late-developing neurons in the postnatal Pten-cko retinas. Furthermore, in rat retinal progenitor cells in culture, introduction of a constitutively active Akt reduced the expression of a Notch reporter gene in response to coexpressed NICD. Thus, the phosphoinositide 3-kinase–Akt pathway appears to limit Notch signaling to maintain the proper balance of RPCs during retinal development. H. S. Jo, K. H. Kang, C. O. Joe, J. W. Kim, Pten coordinates retinal neurogenesis by regulating Notch signalling. EMBO J. 31, 817–828 (2012). [PubMed]


This article presents the case for using mobile technologies to facilitate the integration of classroom and outside-of-classroom learning experiences designed to enhance the ecological literacy of primary school students and their parents. There is growing evidence supporting the transformative potential of mobile learning technologies and tools within education settings to deliver meaningful learning experiences. We argue here that this potential could extend to integrating learning between the classroom and education outside the classroom (EOTC). We further argue that this mobile learning potential can mediate learning between students and their parents, visitors and educators at free-choice learning settings. We situate our argument within learning to enhance ecological literacy and call for studies that can consider the possibilities offered by mobile technology and related pedagogical frameworks, the reinforcement of learning experiences post a visit to a free-choice setting, and the integration with hands-on and non-technology mediated learning instances. Here we present some key theoretical considerations as a prelude to a study being funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative to examine these possibilities.


[1] Iodine 129 discharged from nuclear fuel reprocessing plants in France and the United Kingdom is transported into the Nordic Seas on timescales of 3–5 years. Tracer 129I is subsequently injected into intermediate waters that overflow the sills between Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland and ventilate the North Atlantic Deep Waters (NADW). During the early 1990s, discharges of 129I increased by 600%, resulting in a large, well-resolved tracer "front" whose passage through the Nordic Seas is presently being observed by a time series of 129I measurements on the WOCE (AR7W) section in the Labrador Sea. The highest 129I levels were measured below depths of 3000 m in Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW). These levels increased by about 300% between 1997 and 2001 to values >40 × 107 atoms/L, indicating that the leading edge of the tracer "front" from the early 1990s was being observed entering the NADW. Using a simple mixing/advection model, 129I and CFC 11 results were used to calculate transit times of 0.4–2.6 years for the flow of DSOW from formation regions in the Nordic Seas to the Labrador Sea. Measurements on samples collected in the Irminger Sea in 2001 gave transit times of 0.3 years for core DSOW immediately south of Denmark Strait and about 2 years for locations off the southern tip of Greenland. An increase in DSOW transit times observed in the Labrador Sea between 1999 and 2001 probably reflects a more general weakening in the subpolar gyre of the North Atlantic during the 1990s.


The aim of the study presented here was to investigate whether, in patients showing immediate graft function after renal transplantation, cold-ischemia and reperfusion lead to damage of the glomerular basement membrane and consequently to a loss of heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Loss of these heparan sulfate proteoglycans is a major cause of proteinuria. Time-dependent changes in urinary excretion rates of heparan sulfate proteoglycans but also of total protein, albumin, low- and high-molecular-weight proteins were analyzed quantitatively and by polyacrylamid-gel-electrophoresis in eight patients. Immediately after renal transplantation, severe proteinuria with an excretion rate of up to 251 +/- 108 mg/min was apparent and rapidly declined within 24 h to 4.11 +/- 2.80 mg/min. The gel-electrophoretic pattern showed a nonselective glomerular and tubular proteinuria. The excretion rate of heparan sulfate proteoglycan was increased in this initial reperfusion phase (up to 7 h), most probably because of ischemia- and reperfusion-induced damage of the glomerular basement membrane. The initial nonselective glomerular proteinuria disappeared within 48 h, changing to a mild selective glomerular proteinuria. In this second phase (7 to 48 h), lower levels of heparan sulfate proteoglycan excretion were observed (0.54 +/- 0.54 microgram/min versus 1.66 +/- 1.93 micrograms/min, P < 0.05). However, during the repair process of the glomerular basement membrane, heparan sulfate proteoglycan is synthesized de novo, leading to an increasing heparan sulfate proteoglycan content of the glomerular basement membrane. This second phase is paralleled by the change from a nonselective to a selective glomerular proteinuria. In the third phase, when the heparan sulfate proteoglycan content of the glomerular basement membrane normalizes, glomerular proteinuria was abolished in most of the patients.


As the U.S. banking industry continuously evolves, changes in industry composition have a direct impact on the aggregate performance of the industry. This paper presents a new decomposition framework for commercial banks and shows that both firm-level changes and dynamic reallocation effects--due to increased market share of successful banks, exit of poor performers, and new entrants--made substantial contributions to changes in profitability and capitalization of the U.S. banking industry from 1976 to 1998. In periods of declining profits, these reallocations were particularly important, increasing industry return on equity by several percentage points in the late 1980s and stabilizing industry performance. In the late 1990s, however, the reallocation effects turned negative and lowered industry profits as growing banks showed declining profits on net. These results provide a new perspective for understanding the impact of changes in competition on the performance of the U.S. banking industry.


With aid of computing power, EDA has made remarkable advancements especially in visualization, clustering, and dimension reduction. We examined the characteristics of survey non-respondents using standard EDA tools such as classical multidimensional scaling (MDS), spectral clustering, and topological networks. In addition, we applied classification and regression tree methods to identify the important variables which could better assess and interpret nonresponse rates. We applied these tools to analyze non-respondents' characteristics at the initiation stage in the U.S. International Price Program Survey.


In some fields like forensic research, experts demand that a found sample of an individual can be matched with its full counterpart contained in a database. The found sample may present several characteristics that make this matching more difficult to perform, such as distortion and, most importantly, a very small size. Several solutions have been presented intending to solve this problem, however, big computational effort is required or low recognition rate is obtained. In this paper, we present a fast, simple, and efficient method to relate a small sample of a partial palmprint to a full one using elemental optimization processes and a voting mechanic. Experimentation shows that our method performs with a higher recognition rate than the state of the art method, when trying to identify palmprint samples with a radius as small as 2.64 cm.


Multi-project scheduling problems are characterized by the way resources are
managed in the problem environment. The general approach in multi-project
scheduling literature is to consider resource capacities as a common pool that
can be shared among all projects without any restrictions or costs. The way
the resources are used in a multi-project environment is called resource management policy and the aforementioned assumption is called Resource Sharing
Policy in this study. The resource sharing policy is not a generalization
for multi-project scheduling environments and different resource management
policies maybe defined to identify characteristics of different problem environments.
In this study, we present a resource management policy which prevents sharing of resources among projects but allows resource transfers when a project starts after the completion of another one. This policy is called the Relaxed Resource Dedication (RRD) Policy in this study. The general resource capacities might or might not be decision variables. We will treat here the case where the general available amounts of resources are decision variables to be determined subject to a limited budget. We call this problem as the Resource Portfolio Problem (RPP). In this study, RPP is investigated under RRD policy and a modified Branch and Cut (B&C)procedure based on CPLEX is proposed. The B&C procedure of CPLEX is modified with different branching strategies, heuristic solution approaches and valid inequalities. The computational studies presented demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution approaches.


Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) describes any inherited lysosomal storage disorder resulting from an inability to catabolize glycosaminoglycans. MPS III (or Sanfilippo syndrome) is an autosomal recessive disease caused by a failure to degrade heparan sulphate. There are four subtypes of MPS III, each categorized by a deficiency in a specific enzyme involved in the heparan sulphate degradation pathway. The genes mutated in three of these (MPS IIIA, MPS IIIB, and MPS IIID) have been cloned for some time. However, only very recently has the gene for MPS IIIC (heparin acetyl CoA: α‐glucosaminide N‐acetyltransferase, or HGSNAT) been identified. Its product (previously termed transmembrane protein 76, or TMEM76) has little sequence similarity to other proteins of known function, although it is well conserved among all species. In this study, a group of MPS IIIC patients, who are mainly of Italian origin, have been clinically characterized. Furthermore, mutational analysis of the HGSNAT gene in these patients resulted in the identification of nine alleles, of which eight are novel. Three splice‐site mutations, three frameshift deletions resulting in premature stop codons, one nonsense mutation, and two missense mutations were identified. The latter are of particular interest as they are located in regions which are predicted to be of functional significance. This research will aid in determining the molecular basis of HGSNAT protein function, and the mechanisms underlying MPS IIIC. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We develop a framework for post model selection inference, via marginal screening, in linear regression. At the core of this framework is a result that characterizes the exact distribution of linear functions of the response $y$, conditional on the model being selected (``condition on selection" framework). This allows us to construct valid confidence intervals and hypothesis tests for regression coefficients that account for the selection procedure. In contrast to recent work in high-dimensional statistics, our results are exact (non-asymptotic) and require no eigenvalue-like assumptions on the design matrix $X$. Furthermore, the computational cost of marginal regression, constructing confidence intervals and hypothesis testing is negligible compared to the cost of linear regression, thus making our methods particularly suitable for extremely large datasets. Although we focus on marginal screening to illustrate the applicability of the condition on selection framework, this framework is much more broadly applicable. We show how to apply the proposed framework to several other selection procedures including orthogonal matching pursuit, non-negative least squares, and marginal screening+Lasso.


There is much discussion and debate about how to improve the security and privacy of mobile communication systems, both voice and data. Most proposals attempt to provide incremental improvements to systems that are deployed today. Indeed, only incremental improvements are possible, given the regulatory, technological, economic, and historical structure of the telecommunications system. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, caused renewed calls for government abilities to monitor communications. In this paper, we conduct a "thought experiment" to redesign the mobile communications system to provide a high level of security and privacy for the users of the system. We discuss the important requirements and how a different architecture might successfully satisfy them. In doing so, we hope to illuminate the possibilities for secure and private systems, as well as explore their real limits.


Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among Portuguese women and it is associated with high hospitalization rates. Therefore, this study aims to characterize the BC hospital admission rate (HAR) in women in the period of 2002–2016, with an additional focus on spatiotemporal patterns of hospitalizations by BC (main code). Methods: After a descriptive analysis of all BC hospitalizations, the main BC code HAR was studied using mapping techniques, analysis of spatiotemporal clusters, and analysis of spatial variations in temporal trends. Results: The BC-HAR was 118.72/105 women, showing a growth of 3.109% per year in this period. The median length of stay (LOS) in these patients was 5 days, and most cases were programmed surgical admissions. Several spatiotemporal clusters and spatial variations in temporal trends were detected. The seaside area of the country showed 4 high HAR clusters in the spatiotemporal analysis. Additionally, the seaside north of the country and 2 isolated counties presented significantly different temporal trends in BC-HAR versus the rest of the country. These clusters suggest regional asymmetries, as they showed differences in terms of: demographic characteristics (age at admission and rurality of county of residence), the type of admission, LOS, and outcomes of hospitalization. Conclusion: This study identified key areas of high BC-HAR and increasing trends for female HAR, providing evidence of spatial heterogeneities in this health indicator.


We consider the multiple-scattering and forward-scattering corrections to the transmission measurements in the case of a detector with a variable field of view. The transmission functions for predicting the angular distribution of forward-scattering transmittance are proposed. We present results of measurements of transmission functions for polystyrene spheres. Numerical estimations of the forward-multiple-scattering corrections are in good agreement with the experimental results.


BACKGROUND
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified consistent associations with obesity. However, the mechanisms remain unclear.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to determine the association between obesity susceptibility loci and dietary intake.

DESIGN
The association of GWAS-identified obesity risk alleles (FTO, MC4R, SH2B1, BDNF, INSIG2, TNNI3K, NISCH-STAB1, MTIF3, MAP2K5, QPCTL/GIPR, and PPARG) with dietary intake, measured through food-frequency questionnaires, was investigated in 2075 participants from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) clinical trial. We adjusted for age, sex, population stratification, and study site.

RESULTS
Obesity risk alleles at FTO rs1421085 significantly predicted more eating episodes per day (P = 0.001)-an effect that persisted after adjustment for body weight (P = 0.004). Risk variants within BDNF were significantly associated with more servings from the dairy product and the meat, eggs, nuts, and beans food groups (P ≤ 0.004). The risk allele at SH2B1 rs4788099 was significantly associated with more servings of dairy products (P = 0.001), whereas the risk allele at TNNI3K rs1514176 was significantly associated with a lower percentage of energy from protein (P = 0.002).

CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that obesity risk loci may affect the pattern and content of food consumption among overweight or obese individuals with type 2 diabetes. The Look AHEAD Genetic Ancillary Study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01270763 and the Look AHEAD study as NCT00017953.


Applications of optimal matching analysis in the social sciences are typically based on sequences of specific social statuses that model the residential, family, or occupational trajectories of individuals. Despite the broadly recognized interdependence of these statuses, few attempts have been made to systematize the ways in which optimal matching analysis should be applied multidimensionally—that is, in an approach that takes into account multiple trajectories simultaneously. Based on methods pioneered in the field of bioinformatics, this paper proposes a method of multichannel sequence analysis (MCSA) that simultaneously extends the usual optimal matching analysis (OMA) to multiple life spheres. Using data from the Swiss household panel (SHP), we examine the types of trajectories obtained using MCSA. We also consider a random data set and find that MCSA offers an alternative to the sole use of ex-post sum of distance matrices by locally aligning distinct life trajectories simultaneously. Moreover, MCSA reduces the complexity of the typologies it allows to produce, without making them less informative. It is more robust to noise in the data, and it provides more reliable alignments than two independent OMA.


This thesis uses models drawn from innovation theory to define a construct and conceptual
model of the National Skilling System as an alternative to conventional equilibrium models
of the creation and deployment of skill in the economy. The model incorporates and
provides a framework for locating ideas developed in European institutional economics
since the 1980s and in the tradition of labour market economics particularly associated with
SKOPE in the UK and the Workplace Research Centre in Australia. The model is built
around a dynamic interaction between supply, demand and deployment, with the key output
being the amount and type of skill that is converted into productivity across the economy at
any point in time.
Based on this model, a specification and metric are proposed for tracking the skills
trajectory of a national or sub-national economy, a concept extensively used by earlier
authors but hitherto lacking an unambiguous or operational definition. The metric is based
on separate but linked indices of skill-intensity and task discretion, derived from Spenner
and modelled on the structure of the UK Skills Surveys, but with substantial modification
to accommodate the less rich data available for Australia.
As a first step towards operationalising the model, data from HILDA, an annual panel
survey of 8,000 Australian households, are used to analyse patterns of skill-intensity in
Australian jobs over the six waves of data currently available and the influences behind
them. Australian respondents appear from these data to be more satisfied than their UK
counterparts with the degree of skill they exercise in their jobs, the opportunities their work
provides for on-the-job learning, and the amount of control they have over their work.
However, there is no evidence over this period of aggregate growth in skill-intensity. The
significant changes in the key indicators of skill-intensity have been small but uniformly
negative, while the trend for task discretion has been flat, slightly declining or slightly
positive depending on the measurement method. The analysis examines the distribution of
these trends by workforce category and age cohort, and finds significant discrepancies
between skill-intensity and task discretion in individual occupations, especially at the
higher-skilled end. Possible explanations and policy implications are considered, together
with recommendations for follow-up research