Introduction: The sacroiliac joint (SIJ) may be a source of chronic low back pain in 15 -22% of patients. Over the past four years MIS is an emerging standard of care for SI joint fusion. The International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS) and Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (SMISS) conducted a survey of their members to examine current preferences in surgeon practice of MIS SI fusion. Methods: To qualify for survey participation, the surgeon had to perform at least one open or MIS SIJ fusion procedure between 2009 and 2012. All surgeons were instructed to review their records. This included the number of surgical procedures performed annually from 2009-2012, site of service where each procedure was commonly performed, and average length of stay for each approach. Results: Twenty four percent (121/500) of the eligible members participated in this survey. This survey revealed that the percentage of MIS procedures increased from 39% in 2009 to over 87% in 2012. The survey showed a significant increase in average number of MIS surgeries and a significant difference between open and MIS surgeries in 2012 (p<0.0001). In addition, 80% of the survey respondents indicated a lack of preference toward open approach if that was the only available option. Conclusions: According to performed survey, MIS SIJ fusion is preferred over open technique. Incorporation of the MIS technique into the spine surgeon's specter of skills would allow an increased number of surgical options as well as possible increase in outcome quality.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To determine whether oncology practitioners assess for alcohol consumption rates and usage patterns among young adult cancer survivors, and to determine drinking patterns and frequency of alcoholic beverage consumption among young adult cancer survivors.

DESIGN
Retrospective chart review.

SETTING
Two outpatient cancer clinics.

SAMPLE
77 young adult survivors of childhood cancer aged 18-30 years.

METHODS
Charts were selected from June to December 2009 and data were extracted using a structured questionnaire.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Oncology practitioner assessment of alcohol use and alcohol consumption of young adult cancer survivors.

FINDINGS
Alcohol screening was conducted for 48 participants. No significant differences were noted in most variables between those not screened for alcohol use and those screened for alcohol use. Of the 48 screened for alcohol use, 30 reported "no use." For the 18 who reported alcohol use, the terms used to describe the frequency varied and were vague.

CONCLUSIONS
The key finding of the study was that screening and documentation of alcohol consumption was poorly and inconsistently performed in the authors' sample of young adult cancer survivors.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Similar to healthy young adults aged 18-30 years, young adult cancer survivors are at a developmental age where it is likely they will engage in unhealthy drinking; therefore, they should be screened for alcohol use and binge drinking. Practitioners can incorporate simple, short questions into health assessment visits that allow them to screen for unhealthy alcohol use.


Abstract : Another kind of war within the context of a clash of civilizations is being waged in various parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world. Some of the main protagonists are those who have come to be designated as first-, second-, and third-generation street gangs, as well as their various possible allies such as traditional Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). In this new type of war, national security and sovereignty of affected countries is being impinged every day, and gangs illicit commercial motives are, in fact, becoming an ominous political agenda. Rather than trying to depose a government with a major stroke (golpe or coup) or in a prolonged revolutionary war, as some insurgents have done, gangs and their allies (the gang phenomenon) more subtly take control of territory and people one street or neighborhood at a time (coup d street) or one individual, business, or government office at a time. Thus, whether a gang is specifically a criminal or insurgent type organization is irrelevant. Its putative objective is to neutralize, control, or depose governments to ensure self-determined (nondemocratic) ends. This objective defines insurgency, a serious political agenda, and a clash regarding the authoritative allocation of values in a society. The purposes of this monograph are to (1) introduce the gang phenomenon as a major nonstate player and a serious threat in the global and regional security arenas;( 2) examine the gang phenomenon in Central America in general and in El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil more specifically; and (3) summarize the key points and lessons and make brief recommendations. These cases demonstrate the analytical commonalities of various types of gang activities as they contribute to the instabilities that lead to the erosion of national security, nation-state sovereignty, the processes of state failure, and the struggle between democratic and criminal values.


Because there are few obvious dispersal barriers in the open ocean, pelagic organisms are typically expected to experience gene flow over long distances. However, very little empirical work has been done to understand gene flow in pelagic holoplankton on a global scale. In this study, we investigated population genetic structure within and between ocean basins in the common mesopelagic copepod, Haloptilus longicornis, using the mitochondrial marker cytochrome oxidase subunit II (mtCOII, 43 locations, n = 1059). We found highly significant genetic structure among ocean basins (global FST = 0.20; p < 0.00001), with the exception of relatively weak genetic divergence between the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Strong genetic breaks also were observed between populations in the northern and southern subtropical gyres of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Atlantic: FCT = 0.21, Pacific: FCT = 0.15, AMOVA, p < 0.00001 for both oceans). In the Atlantic, a region of low abundance for H. longicornis in equatorial waters coincided with the location of the observed genetic break (~012 o N), suggesting the presence of a physical or biophysical barrier that effectively limits migration among subtropical gyre systems for this species. Using oceanographic data from a basin-scale transect, we provide the first environmental portrait of an open-ocean dispersal barrier for the marine plankton. Within all four Atlantic and Pacific subtropical gyres, we found a general lack of genetic subdivision among sites, as has been observed in a few other globallydistributed plankton species.


The morbidity and mortality of neonatal herpes simplex virus infection remains unacceptably high despite antiviral therapy. A better understanding of factors that might contribute to this poor outcome is needed but has been hindered by a lack of a good animal model. The recently described guinea pig model of neonatal HSV‐2 infection was used to explore the effect of age and route of inoculation on the outcome of infection. After intranasal inoculation the onset, extent, and severity of the primary disease, as well as the number of recurrent lesion days, varied inversely with age. The route of inoculation also affected the outcome. Newborn animals were inoculated either intradermally on the scalp or by the intranasal, oral or corneal route. Animals inoculated on the scalp had the best outcome with no deaths or evidence of neurologic disease while the intranasal route produced the most severe disease, 88% mortality. Neurologic disease was common after oral (41%) and corneal (56%) inoculation but resolved spontaneously whereas following intranasal (39%) inoculation all animals with neurologic disease died. Recurrent disease manifest by cutaneous lesions was observed in all survivors of each group but also differed by the route of inoculation. The guinea pig model of neonatal HSV‐2 disease appears to mimic human disease. The studies presented here show that the outcome of infection is influenced by the age and route of inoculation. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Much of the free speech jurisprudence under Article 10 of the ECHR has been developed with the traditional mass media in mind. As a result, the courts have often emphasized the duty and responsibility of publishers to follow the ethics of professional journalism when exercising this right. This article argues that such an approach may not be appropriate for at least some of the digital media. To illustrate this point, this article looks at the public interest defences in defamation and privacy law. It is argued that imposing the norms of the professional journalism as a condition of such defences may under-protect much valuable speech. First, many amateur and small-scale digital speakers may not be in a position to meet the standards devised for the professional. Secondly, the traditional standards and processes of investigative journalism may be ill-suited to new collaborative and transparent ways of producing valuable information. The balance that was struck between freedom of expression and competing rights in the previous century may need to be reconsidered for the digital era. The article concludes that the Article 10 jurisprudence needs to step out of the shadow of the big media and ensure that all speakers, regardless of professional status, enjoy the protection for political speech.


This thesis has two integrated components, one theoretical and one investigative.
The theoretical component considers human reason about categories of objects. First, it
proposes that the standards of argumentation in everyday life are variable, with emphasis on
direct generalisation, whereas standards in mathematics are more fixed and require
abstraction of properties. Second, it accounts for the difficulty of the transition to university
mathematics by considering the impact of choosing formal definitions upon the nature of
categories and argumentation. Through this it unifies established theories and observations
regarding student behaviours at this level. Finally, it addresses the question of why Analysis
seems particularly difficult, by considering the relative accessibility of its visual
representations and its formal definitions.
The investigative component is centred on a qualitative study, the main element of which is
a series of interviews with students attending two different first courses in Real Analysis.
One of these courses is a standard lecture course, the other involves a classroom-based,
problem-solving approach. Grounded theory data analysis methods are used to interpret the
data, identifying behaviours exhibited when students reason about specific objects and
whole categories. These behaviours are linked to types of understanding as distinguished in
the mathematics education literature. The student's visual or nonvisual reasoning style and
their sense of authority, whether "internal" or "external" are identified as causal factors in
the types of understanding a student develops. The course attended appears as an
intervening factor. A substantive theory is developed to explain the contributions of these
factors. This leads to improvement of the theory developed in the theoretical component.
Finally, the study is reviewed and the implications of its findings for the teaching and
learning of mathematics at this level are considered.


Qatar Biobank "QBB" is a large-scale, long term medical research initiative for the population of Qatar, which will serve as a platform and driver of biomedical research to achieve benefits for Qatar's communities. Following on from the announcement of the Qatar Genome Project in 2013 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation "QF", a National Genome Committee "NGC" is tasked with the role of driving and advising the development of the Genome Project in Qatar. To ensure the successful implementation and completion of a project of this complexity, it was important to consider carefully the organizational structure of Genome Qatar to enable success, so the decision was to establish QG project within the existing framework of the government of QBB. A road map constitutes of seven key building blocks, were identified to address the critical success factors and be managed and overseen by the Board of Trustee for both QBB and QG program. The seven building blocks are 1-Develop a National Health Information System, 2-Enhancement of the National Biobank, 3-Develop Genomics Infrastructure,4Develop Policy Framework for genomics and precision medicine, 5-Workforce Development ,6Research and Partnership and 7Clinical/Medical implementation. To successfully accomplish this ambitious role a road map is initiated through a pilot phase to establish the infrastructure and human capacity for 12-18 months in order to tackle problems, identify loopholes, analyze the needs and optimize systems that are needed for the entire Qatar Genome project. The aim is to sequence 1000-3000 genomes to develop a good model of practice for regulatory compliant, sample collection and storage, high quality data generation, analysis and annotation pipeline development and data warehouse establishment. Journal of Tissue Science & Engineering J o u r n a l o f T iss ue S cience &ngine e r i n g


A considerable body of literature takes a deficit perspective and shows that children who experience a parental separation have more disadvantages than children who live in a two-biological-parent family. This article argues that not all children respond identically to their parents' separation, and examines whether there are heterogeneous effects based on parent-child relationship quality. We expect that having a good relationship with the resident parent can buffer the potentially negative effects of parental separation on a child's well-being. Using longitudinal data from waves 2 to 13 (2009/2010 – 2020/2021) of the German Family Panel pairfam, we estimate fixed-effects models based on a sample of 2,057 children aged 7 to 15, 99 of whom experienced the separation of their parents. We find that children who had a high level of conflict with the resident parent had significantly more emotional problems after parental separation, whereas children who had few conflicts with the resident parent had significantly fewer emotional problems after separation. Similarly, we find that only children in a parent-child dyad with a low level of intimate disclosure had more behavioral problems after parental separation than before.


Nuclear transcription assays were performed with isolated nuclei from human peripheral blood T lymphocytes stimulated with phytohemagglutinin and phorbol myristate acetate to determine the kinetics of transcriptional activity of various genes occurring in T cell activation. Although silent in resting T cells, the genes encoding c- myc and the interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptor were induced early, preceding gamma interferon (IFN-gamma), IL-2, and transferrin receptor gene transcription. Transcriptional activity of these genes fell after their respective peaks, indicating that the expression of these genes is a transient event during T cell activation. With the exception of the transferrin receptor gene, the kinetics of induction of these genes were not altered by concentrations of cycloheximide that inhibited protein synthesis. These data indicate that the induction of genes encoding c-myc, IL-2, IL-2 receptor, and IFN-gamma occur independently of the sequential production of the proteins they encode.


Survey data suggest that unemployed teenagers look for work in ways that differ significantly from the ways which proved successful for teenagers who found work. This paper examines what factors affect the way teenagers look for work in order to explain why we observe this behaviour. We find that the single most important characteristic for explaining the job-search method choices of Australian teenagers is whether they receive unemployment benefits. Receiving benefits increases the probability of teenagers using the government employment agency as the main job-search method by almost 20 percentage points, and decreases their probability of using direct methods (such as contacting employers or friends and relatives) or newspapers by around 10 percentage points each. Personal characteristics and family background are also important for understanding the job-search methods chosen by unemployed teenagers. Another interesting finding is that the local environment, especially the state of the local labour market, is important for explaining job-search method choice. Higher local unemployment rates decrease the probability that an unemployed teenager will use direct search methods, and increase the probability that they will use the government employment agency. These results may help to explain the recently documented evidence that unemployment has become increasingly concentrated in low-socioeconomic-status neighbourhoods (Gregory and Hunter 1995).


Assistance is one of the subcultures of the country and since it is considered as one of the categories of culture, it is of great position; moreover, this culture is more prevalent in rural areas. Since this symbolic system still exists in many villages of the country; considerate research is necessary to strengthen this subculture. Gilan Rural Heritage Museum is one of the natural museums that is a clear example of local and rural traditions in this region. The research method of this research is qualitative and, in this regard, the ethnographic method with a sociological approach has been used. The technique of data collection was interview, note-taking and observation (field research). In this regard, the study population in Gilan province included farmers from eleven villages. Based on this, the selected samples are as follows: 24 villagers participating in the interview were selected from Gilan province. In a sense, purposive sampling is used; the results are based on the findings in Gilan province, the consequences of cooperation with social capital indicators, such as participation, sense of commitment and friendship, based on the existence of social capital as a valuable asset in subcultural villages. Also, the results obtained from the findings regarding the category of exchange, show the existence of diversity and breadth of relationships among cooperative villagers and the use of emotional and economic benefits as a result of cooperation.


Emergency medical services personnel are involved in more transportation accidents and have higher fatality rates than do other professions, and traveling with light-and-siren is particularly risky. One factor that might contribute to transportation accidents is driver distraction. We investigated what kind of manual secondary tasks – distractions that require the driver to take at least one hand off the steering wheel – ambulance drivers face and compared the relative frequency and proportion of time spent in manual operations not related to driving for light-and-siren travel vs. non-light-and-siren travel. The results indicate that ambulance drivers face more manual distractions when traveling with light-and-siren than non-light-and-siren. In particular, operating the light-and-siren system is causing most of the manual distractions. We discuss the results and potential implication for practice.


Bridget Somekh's contributions to the debate on the theory and practice of action research and associated methodologies have often been gained through leadership of innovative action and research with computers in education. A review of her work provides evidence of the journey that starts with an appreciation of the wonders of technology before moving through critical reflection on socio‐cultural processes within and across organisations, and out into twenty‐first‐century knowledge generation. This paper argues that recognition of the construction of individual identities can inform innovation with computers in education. The growing maturity of Bridget's views required increasingly complex designs for ambitious action research projects that aimed to empower and add the voices of children as researchers to those of teacher‐researchers. Perhaps most importantly, Bridget has helped to uncover the socio‐cultural processes and power relationships to empower new styles of collaborative leadership. In 2009, she applied her 'art of innovation' to inform the birth of a new regional network for the Collaborative Action and Research Network, namely the New Zealand Collaborative Action and Research Network.


In this study, an image and video processing platform (IVPP) based on field programmable gate array (FPGAs) is presented. This hardware/software co-design platform has been implemented on a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA using a high-level synthesis and can be used to realise and test complex algorithms for real-time image and video processing applications. The video interface blocks are done in Register Transfer Languages and can be configured using the MicroBlaze processor allowing the support of multiple video resolutions. The IVPP provides the required logic to easily plug-in the generated processing blocks without modifying the front-end (capturing video data) and the back-end (displaying processed output data). The IVPP can be a complete hardware solution for a broad range of real-time image/video processing applications including video encoding/decoding, surveillance, detection and recognition.


Phase sensitive amplification (PSA) is a remarkably powerful tool if implemented correctly - it allows amplification with a noise figure lower than quantum mechanics normally dictates, and also allows the development of systems that coherently process the phase of their optical inputs. PSA at infrared wavelengths can be achieved using second or third order optical nonlinearities - indeed the first demonstrations of PSA utilised degenerate three photon mixing in bulk crystals, allowing the observation of effects such as quantum quadrature squeezing. This PhD research project was aimed at translating the fascinating science of PSAs into applications, based on Kerr nonlinearity in optical fibres, capable of being deployed in modern core optical networks runnning at 40 Gbit/s and higher. This objective was an integral part of the European Union FP7 project PHASORS. Studies, both theoretical and experimental, were carried out on wideband non-degenerate PSAs. The inline cascaded fiber optic parametric amplifier (FOPA), in which a first phase insensitive FOPA is used to generate phase locked signal-idler pairs, followed by a second FOPA in which PSA takes place, was used to experimentally demonstrate PSA gain characteristics in linear and saturated modes of operation, with PSA obtained over 20 nm in the telecom C-band. Focus was then re-directed towards applying a dual pump PSA to DPSK regeneration. The amplitude and phase limiting characteristics of these devices were experimentally studied, in particular revealing that amplitude saturation arises due to an interplay between input phase and nonlinear phase matching along the nonlinear fibre. This feature was used to identify a regime of operation for DPSK regeneration combining simultaneous phase and amplitude regeneration. A practical DPSK regenerator based on a degenerate dual pump phase sensitive FOPA was built. The device advanced the state of the art by incorporating a pump synthesis stage that allowed black-box operation. Detailed measurements using noise sources with varying frequency distributions in both amplitude and in phase, are presented, and the ability of the system to improve the phase and amplitude characteristics of signals at its input was verified. Also presented are results showing the regenerator installed in the middle of an 800 km dark fiber link. Finally, a novel scheme was proposed and demonstrated that utilised parametric mixing to perform arbitrary phase quantization. This relied on the coherent addition of an M-level PSK signal with a conjugated (M-1)th phase harmonic, scaled by a coefficient m, to achieve M-level phase quantization. The concept was successfully demonstrated with QPSK data signals at 56 Gbaud, as well as used to quantize lower bandwidth test signals from 2 to 6 phase levels.


Overview: Japan is quintessentially by geography a maritime country. Maritime surveillance capabilities – underwater, shore-based and airborne – are critical to its national defence posture. This book describes and assesses these capabilities, with particular respect to the underwater segment, about which there is little strategic analysis in publicly available literature. Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese oceanographic and navy vessels have intruded into Japanese waters with increasing frequency, not counting their activities in disputed waters such as around the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and Okinotorishima where China and Japan have overlapping territorial claims. These intrusions have increasingly involved warships, including submarines, sometimes acting quite aggressively. Japan maintains an extraordinary network of undersea hydrophone arrays, connected to shore-stations which are typically equipped with electronic intelligence (ELINT) systems, for monitoring, identifying and tracking submarine and surface traffic in its internal straits and surrounding seas. Some parts of this network are operated jointly with, and are of crucial importance to, the US Navy. Japan's superlative submarine detection capabilities would be of decisive advantage in any submarine engagement. But the relevant facilities are relatively vulnerable, which makes them very lucrative targets in any conflict. This introduces compelling escalatory dynamics, including the involvement of US forces and possible employment of nuclear options.


German has three different kinds of verb-first integrated parentheticals (VIPs), which differ from other kinds of parentheticals in several respects: (i) VIPs have verb-first order; (ii) they form one focus-background-structure with their host; (iii) the proposition expressed by the host is linked to the implicit propositional argument of the parenthetical predicate; (iv) VIP-constructions are hybrid structures with two clauses mutually depending on each other, and (v) declarative VIP-constructions are subject to embedded root restrictions. In this paper, I argue that non-canonical licensing is the basic property of all three kinds of VIPs. Especially property (v) provides an argument against analyses assuming canonical argument linking and topic-drop in declarative VIPs. As a consequence, declarative VIPs turn out to be genuine verb-first structures.


Spectral band differences between sensors can complicate the process of intercalibration of a visible sensor against a reference sensor. This can be best addressed by using a hyperspectral reference sensor whenever possible because they can be used to accurately mitigate the band differences. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using operational Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) large-footprint hyperspectral radiances to calibrate geostationary Earth-observing (GEO) sensors. Near simultaneous nadir overpass measurements were used to compare the temporal calibration of SCIAMACHY with Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer band radiances, which were found to be consistent to within 0.44% over seven years. An operational SCIAMACHY/GEO ray-matching technique was presented, along with enhancements to improve radiance pair sampling. These enhancements did not bias the underlying intercalibration and provided enough sampling to allow up to monthly monitoring of the GEO sensor degradation. The results of the SCIAMACHY/GEO intercalibration were compared with other operational four-year Meteosat-9 0.65-μm calibration coefficients and were found to be within 1% of the gain, and more importantly, it had one of the lowest temporal standard errors of all the methods. This is more than likely that the GEO spectral response function could be directly applied to the SCIAMACHY radiances, whereas the other operational methods inferred a spectral correction factor. This method allows the validation of the spectral corrections required by other methods.


In the four Pama-Nyungan languages Umpithamu, Morrobolam, Mbarrumbathama and Rimanggudinhma there is a core set of impersonals centred around experiencer object constructions. They describe involuntary physical processes, and are formally characterized by lack of nominative pronominal cross-reference, and optional absence of ergative agent nominals. In addition, systematic lack of nominative cross-reference is found in constructions with inanimate agents in all four languages, and in experienced action constructions in Umpithamu, in both cases with ergatively-marked nominals. It is argued that nominative cross-reference is the basic criterion
for subject status, with ergative marking merely indicating agent status.
Given the lack of any specific valency-changing morphology, impersonals with ergatively-marked nominals are functional equivalents of a voice mechanism, with agents demoted from subject status. This process has developed furthest in Umpithamu where the experienced action construction is systematically available as an alternative construal for a subset of transitive clauses.
Keywords: impersonal; experiencer object; inanimate agent; passive; Umpithamu; Lamalamic


Located in the Urubamba mountain range, the Chicon glacier is the third highest tropical glacier of this area and the source of water for the Chicon watershed. Moreover, from this watershed four communities obtain water for human consumption and agriculture, which is their main economic activity. In the last years glacier retreat is evident in the area and threatens the livelihoods of the people because it affects the availability of fresh water.

The general objective of this research is to analyse the perception of people living in this watershed to climate change, disaster risk, and ecosystem-based solutions. The specific objectives are to identify natural hazards and climate change effects in the community, to recognise potential ecosystem services suitable for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) and Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR), and to assess to which climate change effects and disasters the communities are vulnerable based on their own perception. The methodological steps are based on literature review, expert interviews, questionnaires to the community, a workshop and field observations.

The results show that people perceive changes in the climate such as increase in temperature, less precipitation and shifts of the rainy and the dry season. The climate-related disasters that were identified are Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), droughts, frosts and hailstorms. However, GLOFs are not frequent in the area and drought is the hazard that people consider will be more frequent. Additionally, pests were identified as biological hazards. Several ecosystems services can be obtained for EbA and Eco-DRR from forests, especially if native trees such as Qiwina (Polylepis spp.), Chachacoma (Escallonia resinosa) and Aliso (Alnus jorullensis) are used in ecosystem management. Finally, the hypothesis was partially accepted since people in the study area are to some extent aware of climate change impacts, but only partially understand causes and effects. Further, they recognize most of the ecosystem services that forests provide. Therefore they are starting to implement ecosystem-based solutions in the watershed with the support of external institutions.


Rotation of functions represented by spherical harmonics is an important part of many real-time lighting and global illumination algorithms. For some of them a per-vertex or even per-pixel rotation is required, which implies the necessity of an efficient rotation procedure. The speed of any of the existing rotation procedures is, however, not able to meet the requirements of real-time lighting or fast global illumination. We present an efficient approximation of the spherical harmonic rotation applicable for small rotation angles. We replace the general spherical harmonic rotation matrix by its truncated Taylor expansion, which significantly decreases the computation involved in the rotation. Our approximation decreases the asymptotic complexity of the rotation---the higher the order of spherical harmonics, the higher the speed-up. We show applications of the proposed rotation approximation in global illumination and real-time shading. Although the rotation approximation is accurate only for small rotation angles, we show this is not a serious limitation in our applications.


Discovery of a new hominin (Homo naledi) in the same geographical area as Australopithecus africanus creates the opportunity to compare developmental dental stress in higher latitude hominins with low that in latitude apes, among whom repetitive linear enamel hypoplasia (rLEH) recurs seasonally at about 6 or 12 months. In contrast to equatorial Africa, a single rainy/dry cycle occurs annually in non-coastal southern Africa. It is predicted that LEH will recur annually but not differ in duration between ancient and more recent hominins. Data were collected from epoxy casts of anterior teeth attributed to H. naledi (18 incisors, 13 canines) and A. africanus (29 incisors, 8 canines) using a digital microscope, surface scanner and scanning electron microscope. The location, number, width, depth and distance between defects (including perikymata counts and spatial measurements) of 136 LEH events were compared among crown moieties (deciles 4–6 and 7–9), tooth types and taxa. Enamel defects are concentrated in the cervical half of anterior crowns, and in similar numbers in each taxon. Contrary to expectations, H. naledi show bimodal LEH durations reconstructed at about 2 and 8 weeks compared to just 4 weeks in A. africanus. Both taxa show bimodally recurrent episodes of LEH centring on 2 and, more commonly and severely, 6 months. A combination of two independent annual stressor types, one disease and one seasonal, could explain the observations. These estimations of duration and recurrence of developmental stress require evaluation using actual perikymata periodicity for H. naledi and more refined understanding of palaeoenvironments for both taxa.

Significance:

Seasonal stress is a central concern in the biological and health sciences. Because of the innate way that enamel is deposited, the timing of stress in the childhood of apes, modern humans and their fossil ancestors can be measured with a precision of about 1 week.
Application of this method to South African Pliocene Australopithecus africanus and Mid-Pleistocene Homo naledi reveals that, unexpectedly, both forms show semi-annual stress – a finding that is tentatively attributed to two independent annual stressors, possibly disease and malnutrition.


Quantum computing exploits quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to realize a form of parallelism that is not available to traditional computing. It offers the potential of significant computational speed-ups in quantum chemistry, materials science, cryptography, and machine learning.
 The dominant approach to programming quantum computers is to provide an existing high-level language with libraries that allow for the expression of quantum programs. This approach can permit computations that are meaningless in a quantum context; prohibits succint expression of interaction between classical and quantum logic; and does not provide important constructs that are required for quantum programming.
 We present Q#, a quantum-focused domain-specific language explicitly designed to correctly, clearly and completely express quantum algorithms. Q# provides a type system; a tightly constrained environment to safely interleave classical and quantum computations; specialized syntax; symbolic code manipulation to automatically generate correct transformations of quantum operations; and powerful functional constructs which aid composition.


Public displays have the potential to reach a broad group of stakeholders and stimulate learning, particularly when they are interactive. Therefore, we investigated how people interact with 3D objects shown on public displays in the context of an urban planning scenario. We report on an elicitation study, in which participants were asked to perform seven tasks in an urban planning scenario using spontaneously produced hand gestures (with their hands) and phone gestures (with a smartphone). Our contributions are as follows: (i) We identify two sets of user-defined gestures for how people interact with 3D objects shown on public displays; (ii) we assess their consistency and user acceptance; and (iii) we give insights into interface design for people interacting with 3D objects shown on public displays. These contributions can help interaction designers and developers create systems that facilitate public interaction with 3D objects shown on public displays (e.g. urban planning material).


The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, NGI, has recently developed and tested a new automatic precipitation gauge for rain and snow which can measure accumulated precipitation with a resolution better than 0.1 mm. The gauge, which is a direct weighing device, is based on the use of vibrating-wire strain gauges. NGI's prototype instrument has a capacity of up to 300 mm precipitation before the gauge must be emptied. A new improved version designed by Geonor has a capacity of 600 mm precipitation. A diagram showing the relationship between the automatic observations and the manual measurements is included.

In the NGI prototype the precipitation container is suspended from three small steel wires, each of which is in effect the sensing element in a vibrating-wire type strain gauge. When these gauge wires are set into vibration by an electromagnetic exciter, their resonant frequency of vibration is proportional to the square of the tension in the wire. Thus change in the frequency signals is a measure of the change in tension in the wires and correspondingly a measure of the accumulative weight of precipiation in the container.

The distance between the precipitaion gauge and the monitoring station can be up to one kilometre without any loss in performance.


New production technologies, consumers who are more discriminating, and the need for improved coordination are among the forces driving the move from spot markets to contracts. Some worry that this tendency will result in the disappearance of spot markets, or at least that they will become too thin to be of help for an efficient price discovery process. Other authors point to the reduction in welfare of independent producers resulting from contracting in oligopsonistic industries. While a large body of literature is available tackling the contract versus spot market decision, much less is known about the reasons that lead to procurement in both markets. This paper provides a simple model to study how fundamental economic factors influence the contracting behavior of farmers and processors. In the model, processors contract upstream with price-taking farmers. Participation in both markets arises as a Nash equilibrium for a wide range of parameterizations. Numerical methods are used to examine the effects of fundamental economic factors on the relative size of the spot and contract markets.


Ripeness uniformity and berry size are thought to be key determinants of fruit quality, and hence crop price, for winemaking, but there is little objective data to confirm the relationship between both variables and crop price. In order to test for a relationship between crop price and uniformity, three California Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards each of a high ($9,000–10,000/ton), a medium ($4,000–5,000), and a low ($500–1,000) crop price were selected and fruit uniformity at commercial harvest was measured for two consecutive years. Substantial differences in crop price were associated with differences in vineyard size and crop management styles. Higher priced vineyards were managed more intensively with more hand versus machine operations and with more dropped crop at veraison. There were no differences in mean values of Brix, pH, berry weights, or anthocyanin concentration for different crop prices. Surprisingly, there were also no measureable differences in fruit uniformity using Levene's test. Moreover, high crop price fruit numerically had lower uniformity in Brix and pH compared to medium and low crop price fruit. Average fruit anthocyanin concentration was 0.95, 1.08, and 0.88 mg/g in high, medium, and low crop price fruit, respectively, and was independent of berry size (0.6 to 1.8 g) for high crop price fruit. However, anthocyanin concentration of low and medium crop price fruit ranged from 2.2 mg/g in small berries, which is substantially above that of high crop price fruit, to 0.6 mg/g in large berries, which is substantially below that of high crop price fruit. The data demonstrated that the environments and production practices in high priced vineyards do not produce highly uniform fruit compared to low priced vineyards.


In recent years American colleges and universities have become the locus of impassioned debates about race-conscious social policies, as conflicting theories clash over the ways to distribute the advantages of higher education in a fair and just manner. Just below the surface of these policy debates lies a complex tangle of ideologies, histories, grievances, and emotions that interfere with a rational analysis of the issues involved. As never before, the need for empirical research on the significance of race in American society seems essential to solving the manifest problems of this highly politicized and emotionally charged aspect of American higher education. The research evidence presented in this book has a direct relevance to those court cases that challenge race-conscious admission policies of colleges and universities. Though many questions still need to be addressed by future research, the empirical data collected to date makes it clear that affirmative action policies do work and are still very much needed in American higher education. This book also provides a framework for examining the evidence pertaining to issues of fairness, merit, and the benefits of diversity in an effort to assist courts and the public in organizing beliefs about race and opportunity.


Block recursive least square (BRLS) algorithm for dictionary learning in compressed sensing system is developed for surveillance video processing. The new method uses image blocks directly and iteratively to train dictionaries via BRLS algorithm, which is different from classical methods that require to transform blocks to columns first and then giving all training blocks at one time. Since the background in surveillance video is almost fixed, the residual of foreground can be represented sparsely and reconstructed with background subtraction directly. The new method and framework are applied in real image and surveillance video processing. Simulation results show that the new method achieves better representation performance than classical ones in both image and surveillance video.


Although business forecasting is a young function, it has grown by leaps and bounds in the last two decades or so. Prior to 1985, very few companies had dedicated forecasters. The forecasters were basically economists who were primarily concerned about the state of the economy and its impact on the overall health of a company. Also, their forecasts were more strategic and less operational. The kind of growth we see today is primarily in the area of operational forecasting. Our survey confirms both the youngness and growth of this function. On the average, the forecasting function is 5.6 years old, meaning it was 5.6 years ago when the average company hired one or more full- time forecasters. The industries that are pioneers in starting a forecasting function are Pharmaceutical, Automotive and Oil/Petroleum with an average age of 7 years and more. The youngest industries to introduce a forecasting function are Retail and Service, with an average age of a little over 2 years. One way to get an idea about the growth of this function is to look at the percent of companies that first hired one or more full-time forecasters only during the last 5 years - about 61 % of the companies across all industries hired one or more full time forecasters only during the last 5 years. The largest growth has been in Computer/Tech, Gas/Electric, Healthcare, Retail and Service where more than 70% of the companies first hired one or more full-time persons for this function only during the last 5 years. The average company has 4.6 persons in the forecasting area, though the number varies from one industry to another. The industry with most forecasters per company is Service (9.3), followed by Transportation and Healthcare with 6.3 persons each. (See Figure 1) The other way looking at the growth of the forecasting function is by the number of companies with 5 or more full-time forecasters. Across all industries, 35.74% of the companies have 5 or more full- time forecasters. At the top is Service, where 66.67% of the companies have 5 or more forecasters, followed by Transportation, 62.5% and Pharmaceutical, 52.6%. The survey of US Labor Department also shows growth in jobs in this area. The 1998-1999 Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, states, "Those skilled in quantitative techniques and their application to economic modeling and forecasting, using computers, coupled with good communications skills, should have the best opportunities." The spring 1996 issue of Occupational Outlook Quarterly states, "for economists and marketing research analysts, faster than average growth is expected ... due to increased reliance on quantitative methods of analyzing business trends, forecasting sales, and planning." VENDORS OF FORECASTING SOFTWARE AND SYSTEMS The emergence of a new multi-billion dollar industry (vendors of forecasting software and systems) that provides support to the forecasting function is another evidence of growth in the forecasting function. The forecasting software is a stand-alone package. It generates forecasts either by the model selected by the forecaster or by the model selected by the software package. Most of the forecasting software packages have a built-in automatic system that selects the best model for each set of data based on pre-defined criteria. The forecasting system, on the other hand, does much more than preparing forecasts. Depending on the sy stem, it can, in addition to preparing forecasts, help in generating plans for distribution, manufacturing, transportation, sales and marketing. Most of the vendors in the area started their business in 1985 or after. The key players in forecasting software are SAS, John Galt Solutions, Smart Software, and Business Forecasting System. Although SAS started up in 1976, it introduced its forecasting component only in 1980. John Galt Solutions was founded only in 1996. Both Smart Software and Business Forecasting System started up in 1986. …


We flew specimens of eight different optical coating materials in low earth orbit as part of the Long Duration Exposure Facility manifest to determine their ability to withstand exposure to the residual atomic O and other environmental effects at those altitudes. We included samples of Al, Au, Ir, Os, Pt, Al + MgF(2), Al + SiO(x), and chemical-vapor-deposited SiC, representing reflective optical applications from the vacuum ultraviolet through the visible portions of the spectrum. We found that the majority of the materials suffered sufficient reflectance degradation to warrant careful consideration in the design of future space-flight instrumentation.


We propose a novel, analytically tractable, scenario of the rogue wave formation in the framework of the small-dispersion focusing nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation with the initial condition in the form of a rectangular barrier (a 'box'). We use the Whitham modulation theory combined with the nonlinear steepest descent for the semi-classical inverse scattering transform, to describe the evolution and interaction of two counter-propagating nonlinear wave trains—the dispersive dam break flows—generated in the NLS box problem. We show that the interaction dynamics results in the emergence of modulated large-amplitude quasi-periodic breather lattices whose amplitude profiles are closely approximated by the Akhmediev and Peregrine breathers within certain space-time domain. Our semi-classical analytical results are shown to be in excellent agreement with the results of direct numerical simulations of the small-dispersion focusing NLS equation.


The use of a database service to allow employers to vet potential employees should be checked for Data Protection Act compliance as the use of data in an incompatible manner may expose your organisation to enforcement action from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and damaging public relations. If an organization wishes to carry out 'vetting' of potential employees, it is key that the whole process is open and transparent and is only carried out where it is justified.
This article explains why and sets out steps which any data controller wishing to vet potential employees should consider.


An epidemiological and molecular investigation of a cutaneous suppurative infection with Staphylococcus aureus in a dairy farmer, occurring concurrently with an outbreak of clinical mastitis in his herd, was carried out. A common aetiology for the diseases in the farmer and his cows was established by combining clinical evidence with a molecular genomic analysis of the bacterial isolates using pulsed field gel electrophoresis of DNA macro-restriction fragments. This case indicates the possibility of the emergence and circulation of anthropozoonotic clones of S. aureus in dairy herds. It also provides further evidence of the severe impact of infection with highly virulent clones on dairy lactating cattle.


Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important tools for managing marine ecosystems. MPAs are expected to replenish nearby exploited populations through the natural dispersal of young, but the models that make these predictions rely on assumptions that have recently been demonstrated to be incorrect for most species of fish. A meta-analysis showed that fish reproductive output scales "hyperallometrically" with fish mass, such that larger fish produce more offspring per unit body mass than smaller fish. Because fish are often larger inside MPAs, they should exhibit disproportionately higher reproductive output as compared to fish outside of MPAs. We explore the consequences of hyperallometric reproduction for a range of species for population replenishment and the productivity of exploited species. We show that the reproductive contribution of fish inside MPAs has been systematically underestimated and that fisheries yields can be enhanced by the establishment of reservoirs of larger, highly fecund fish.


We propose here a class of numerical schemes for the approximation of weak solutions to nonlinear hyper-bolic systems in nonconservative form —the notion of solution being understood in the sense of Dal Maso, LeFloch, and Murat (DLM). The proposed numerical method falls within LeFloch-Mishra's framework of schemes with well-controlled dissipation (WCD), recently introduced for dealing with small-scale dependent shocks. We design WCD schemes which are consistent with a given nonconservative system at arbitrarily high-order and then analyze their linear stability. We then investigate several nonconservative hyperbolic models arising in complex fluid dynamics, and we numerically demonstrate the convergence of our schemes toward physically meaningful weak solutions.


Linsker has reported the development of center-surround receptive fields and oriented receptive fields in simulations of a Hebb-type equation in a linear network. The dynamics of the learning rule are analyzed in terms of the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of cell activities. Analytic and computational results for Linsker's covariance matrices, and some general theorems, lead to an explanation of the emergence of center-surround and certain oriented structures. We estimate criteria for the parameter regime in which center-surround structures emerge.


Acromioclavicular joint dislocation is a common shoulder joint injury, reported in the literature. Its incidence in the population is of about 0.15%, shoulder injury accounts for about 12%. For Rockwood type, who belong to type I and type II injuries, the coracoclavicular ligament injury is not obvious and can be a conservative treatment; type III (in dispute) and above injury i.e., acromioclavicular ligament, joint capsule and coracoclavicular ligament tear, all complete dislocation of the distal and the proposed surgical treatment. Acromioclavicular joint dislocation treatment methods such as grams of needles, coracoid screws, clavicular hook plate, micro-plate and so on. However, there are few articles about the treatment of old acromioclavicular joint dislocation. Recently, our hospital admitted to the old acromioclavicular joint dislocation. In 1 case, the patient through the reconstruction of the oblique, conical ligaments, and at the same time reconstruction of the acromioclavicular ligament and the upper joint capsule. No. 5 cherish line as a protection line, and then use a No. 5 line of love as a tension zone with acromioclavicular joint to further maintain Acromioclavicular joint stability. The patient underwent a small incision reconstruction coracoid and acromioclavicular ligaments shoulder function recovered well. Now, reporting as follows.


Mexico and Spain have had a long and complex relationship since the former achieved independence from the latter at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1836, yet it took almost a century before relations became meaningful and mutually beneficial. The establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 signified a new era in Spanish politics, and Spain's foreign policy towards the Americas adopted a more pragmatic and progressive approach. In particular, this led to a new era in transatlantic relations towards Mexico. During the next five years, Spain and Mexico developed amicable and cooperative social, economic and political ties. The military uprising in Spain in the summer of 1936 put the Spanish Republic's international relations to the test, revealing her true friends and allies. Mexico proved to be, beyond any doubt, Spain's firmest supporter, although the relationship was unable to counterbalance the influence of European Non- Intervention, and American neutrality. Mexican efforts to gather sympathy and support for the Republican cause in the League of Nations had little effect. Mexico, along with the Soviet Union, and the contribution of the International Brigades, represented the legitimate Spanish Government's only hope of international support. Other Latin American countries did not follow the example set by Mexican foreign policy towards Spain during the civil war. Nevertheless, Mexico's stance demonstrated its commitment to democracy, whilst at the same time, showing its independence from the United States. There was an intense interest in the fate of the Spanish Republic, and after its defeat in 1939, Mexico opened the doors to nearly 30, 000 Spanish Republican exiles. They made an important contribution to Mexican cultural life, and became a constant reminder that the Second Republic was truly a significant, though thwarted, step towards the establishment of a democratic regime in Spain.


Bridges and viaducts are vital structures ensuring ways of communication, so they must be protected from dynamic loads from traffic or seismic activity. For this reason are embedded in their structure dynamic isolation systems for damping and isolating the shocks and vibration to which they are subjected. For a correct choice, from the dynamic point of view of viscoelastic type systems and to estimate their optimal lifetime is required thorough knowledge of the dynamic loads to which they are subjected. In this paper will be analyzed from the experimental point of view, the disturbing signals stemming a heavy vehicle from passing at different speeds over an obstacle positioned transversely to the travel position.


Increased salinity in irrigation water due to seawater intrusion has resulted in salinization of large part of agricultural lands in Oman. Government efforts are geared towards restoring water balance to improve groundwater quality with the ultimate aim of leaching the salts from soil profile. Some of these efforts include: controlling digging of new wells and rehabilitation of older wells, construction of recharge dams, reduction of cultivated land, and providing incentives for modern irrigation systems. Research on introduction of salt tolerant crops is also taking place both at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) and Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) research stations. Efforts have also been made to develop mathematical models to predict soil salinity under Omani conditions from readily available data.


A numerical conditioning analysis for mineral recovery estimation was performed for industrial flotation plants, considering the copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo) and iron (Fe) separability. A modified relative condition number, χ, was presented that allowed sensitivity analysis to be evaluated for the component recovery by means of an analytical formula. This closed form made it possible for the error propagation to be determined from feed, concentrate and tail grades with different orders of magnitude. The χ parameter can be evaluated using available grade data from the design criteria or historical mass balances, in which the variability is typically unknown. Reconciled data from different Cu/Mo concentrators were employed to evaluate the effect of small numerical disturbances in the grade data on the mineral recovery estimation. Higher error propagation was typically observed for Fe. The Mo minerals presented numerical problems, mainly in second cleaners and in the first cell of rougher banks. Lower condition numbers were observed for Cu due to the higher flotation rates.Mass-balance data reconciliation without redundancy was evaluated for a typical Cu/Mo flotation circuit using relative error minimization. Significant relative errors in the mineral recovery estimation were obtained with nonreconciled data in ill-conditioned problems. Negligible improvements in the mineral recovery estimation because of the data reconciliation with regard to the nonreconciled approach were obtained in well-conditioned problems. In addition, the improvements in mineral recovery estimation by using Cu, Mo and Fe in the data reconciliation were nonsignificant with respect to using only the best-conditioned component in well- and ill-conditioned problems.Despite the effort in data reconciliation and data repetition, poor performance may be obtained in ill-conditioned problems, which can deteriorate the flotation rate characterization. The error propagation has a negative impact on the mineral recovery of the first cell, which may significantly bias the flotation rate characterization of both valuable and nonvaluable elements.


People can be forgiven for growing weary of the headline "Hurricane Katrina, the Costliest Natural Disaster in U.S. History." Compassion fatigue has set in among caring people who are desperate for a headline that announces a return to "normal." And then there are the inevitable questions about what the new normal may be, why people would live in such an environmentally endangered place in the first place, and what insanity would cause them to want to rebuild in the same location. The purpose of this brief essay is to comment on what happened to the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, to look at why such a tragedy was hardly unexpected, and to speculate on some of the geographical possibilities of a post-Katrina New Orleans. These comments are by necessity preliminary and incomplete, based on early reports from journalists and researchers and on personal experience. WHAT HAPPENED? By the morning of Friday, 26 August, Hurricane Katrina was heading northward into the Gulf of Mexico, with a predicted landfall on the Florida Panhandle. Throughout the day, the projected course of the storm shifted to the west, so that by Friday evening the target zone was approaching the New Orleans area. This was far from the first time that New Orleans had been in the bull's-eye, but earlier storms had veered away from the city at the last minute or turned out to be only a nuisance. This time felt different. Given the category 5 status of the storm--meaning that winds of more than 155 miles per hour and a storm surge generally of at least 18 feet could be expected--and the steering currents guiding it, a growing sense of dread descended on New Orleans that Katrina might be the "Big One." New Orleans has every reason to fear the Big One. Much of the city lies below sea level and is surrounded by hurricane-protection levees. The only areas above sea level within the city itself are on the natural levees along the Mississippi River, on old river distributaries such as the Gentilly and Metairie Ridges, and on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, much of which is artificially created land. In most of these locations "high ground" is defined as anything above sea level; the truly "alpine" parts of the city rise to about 15 feet next to the river (Figures 1 and 2). The remainder of the city was built by draining wetlands and clearing land for development, which led to soil subsidence and life below sea level for many neighborhoods. Rainstorms are a constant threat; rainwater is removed from below-sea-level areas using 180 miles of canals, 22 pumping stations, and a water-removal capability of 30 billion gallons a day (Campanella 2002; Lewis 2003; Colten 2005; Pittman 2005,12). It has long been feared that the Big One would not only exceed pumping capacities but disable the pumps altogether. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] By Saturday, 27 August, New Orleans was implementing its evacuation plans. All interstate-highway lanes were converted to outbound only to help the hundreds of thousands of motorists who were fleeing the metropolitan area. For those without vehicles, evacuation was much more problematic. Public transportation was extremely limited, if it existed at all. Perhaps 150,000 people either could not evacuate or simply refused to leave (Kent 2005, 3; Renne 2006). Evacuation exacted hardships not only on evacuees but also on the surrounding communities to which evacuees relocated. The city of Baton Rouge swelled to nearly double its population (Dyer 2006); virtually every motel room in southern Mississippi, southern Alabama, eastern Texas, and inland Louisiana was taken; and highway rest stops became makeshift evacuation areas. On 29 August Katrina made a direct strike on the coast of Mississippi, which experienced massive devastation even though what was initially a category 5 storm had weakened to a strong category 3 by landfall--with winds of 111-130 miles per hour and a storm surge generally of 9-12 feet for a category 3 storm. …


Due to the dramatic expanse of data categories and the lack of labeled instances, zero-shot learning, which transfers knowledge from observed classes to recognize unseen classes, has started drawing a lot of attention from the research community. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised max-margin learning framework that integrates the semisupervised classification problem over observed classes and the unsupervised clustering problem over unseen classes together to tackle zero-shot multi-class classification. By further integrating label embedding into this framework, we produce a dual formulation that permits convenient incorporation of auxiliary label semantic knowledge to improve zero-shot learning. We conduct extensive experiments on three standard image data sets to evaluate the proposed approach by comparing to two state-of-the-art methods. Our results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework.


Child abuse is one of the most important health issues world wide. Teachers play an important role in identifying and reporting cases of child abuse since they are in direct confrontation with educational and behavioral issues, parent-child relationships, and support, care and development of childrenand can pursue the matter in case of family dysfunction.Thus, the current study is aimed at investigating knowledge, attitude and performance of Teachers of Elementry Scools regarding child abuse in Tabriz. In this descriptive study, stratified sampling was carried on elementaryschool teachers in 2015-2016 in Tabriz. Three hundered and thirty teachers employed in primary schools participated in the present study. Questionnaire was used to collect data. Data analysis was carried using SPSS, Vol. 23 through descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and analytical (Two Independent Samples Ttest and analysis of variance) statistics. The findings showed that 57.5 percent of teachers had moderate andless than moderateknowledge regarding child abuse causes,45 percent of participants had good knowledge of the signs, symptoms and complications of child abuse, and their total knowledge was moderate and less than moderate (55%). The participants had a favorable attitude toward dealing with child abuse (95.0 %), and their performance in dealing with child abuse was moderate and less than moderate(81.3 %). Teachershad moderate and less than moderateknowledge regarding child abuse, favorable attitude towards child abuse, and average performance in dealing with child abuse. This may be due to taking less training courses, fear of side issues of dealing with child abuse, or lack of clear legal guidelines for dealing with child abuse.


In this occasion the IDB presents the latest edition of the IDB`s flagship publication, Development in the Americas (DIA): "Room for Development: Housing Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean" edited by Cesar P. Bouillon. It takes an in-depth look at the opportunities countries have to improve urban housing markets and pave the way for solutions that involve the private sector. The executive summary is available in this brochure.


BACKGROUND
Patients diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during childhood require transfer to an adult gastroenterologist, in Ontario usually just before their 18th birthday. Pediatric onset IBD is a complex phenotype with demonstrated noncompliance risk that may require targeted measures to optimize health care outcomes in the adult care setting.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of posttransfer health care setting (academic versus community gastroenterologist) on emergent health resource utilization.

METHODS
This was a population-based retrospective cohort study using health care administrative data from Ontario, Canada. A cohort of patients with Pediatric onset IBD was identified and health resource utilization during a 2-year pretransfer period, transfer of care period and 2-year posttransfer period was analyzed. Posttransfer health care setting was defined as academic (i.e., gastroenterologists providing care in a university affiliated tertiary care center) versus community. A third comparator group, loss to follow-up, was also identified. The primary outcome of this study comprised emergency department utilization. Secondary outcomes included hospitalizations, surgeries, ambulatory visits, endoscopic investigations, and radiological investigations.

RESULTS
Overall, there were no significant differences found in emergency department use, ambulatory care visits (aside from the expected drop in the lost to follow-up group), hospitalizations, endoscopic procedures, or radiological procedures between exposure groups.

CONCLUSIONS
Posttransfer health care setting does not seem to significantly impact emergent health resource utilization in the posttransfer period.


Male nurses are but a small percentage of the total nurse population in the United States, and most certainly have potential to increase in numbers if the profession appeared more attractive as a career option for men. The purpose of this research was to discover the decision factors used by males that led them to enroll in Associate Degree nursing programs in Illinois community colleges. To set the background and context, the study explored the history of community colleges and that of nursing. Included was nursing as a profession, nursing in the United States, the country's impending nursing shortage and the role of men in nursing. Using a qualitative case study method of design, the study adapted a multi-theoretical framework encompassing gender theory (GT) and career developmental theory (CDT). These theories were further broken down by discussing, in particular, Holland's Theory (HT) of Personality and Vocational Choice and Krumboltz's Social Learning Theory (KSLT) under CDT. Nine first year male ADN students from three separate Illinois community colleges were individually interviewed. Findings discovered that the first year male students experienced a distinctive decision making process with eight emerging themes revealing the males' decision making about their ADN enrollment process. As a result of the study's findings, MURSE: Resurreccion's Male Nursing Student Decision Making Pyramid model was developed to elaborate the steps of how males make decisions about their ADN enrollment. An understanding of these factors can provide opportunities for community colleges, and perhaps universities, to improve recruitment and retention of males in nursing programs. A result would be increased numbers of males enrolling in Associate as well as Baccalaureate nursing programs. Such knowledge held by colleges may help to address a manpower solution to the impending worldwide nursing shortage.


The structural and magnetic properties of Ni nanowires (NWs) electrodeposited in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes with diameters in the range from 35 to 75 nm and an interpore distance of 105 nm have been investigated. The expected interplay between the shape anisotropy and the dipole-dipole interactions between the NWs of different aspect ratios and packing density is analyzed. The growth rate, crystallinity, and magnetic properties of the NWs with diameter 45 nm are compared as a function of different electrodeposition potentials (-0.8V to -1.5V vs. the Ag/AgCl) to optimize the deposition process. It is observed that the average growth rate of the synthesis increases nearly linearly by increasing the deposition potential. The synthesized NWs with different deposition potentials are uniform and mostly polycrystalline but with larger grain sizes up to 50 nm for nanowires synthesized at -1 V and -1.1 V. The magnetic properties (coercivity and remanence) of the NWs (fcc structure) with the same aspect ratio are independent on the deposition potentials. It is found that for NWs with 40 nm diameter, the shape anisotropy dominates the magnetic properties. Annealed Ni NWs (650◦C under Ar atmosphere for 24h) show a smaller coercivity than as-prepared samples which suggests a lower defect density inside the nanowires. The FMR measurements on two samples of Ni NWs with different diameters (35 nm and 45 nm) but with the same length (1.6 µm), and the interpore distance of 105 nm reveal the effect of the magnetic dipole-dipole interactions between the nanowires on the effective anisotropy field. The effective field of 35 nm diameter, with the dipolar field of 68.5 mT, is µ0Heff=215 mT, while for 45 nm diameter, with the dipolar field of 109.5 mT, is µ0Heff=160 mT. In a second study, hybrid nanowires consisting of Ni and Ag segments have been synthesized and characterized by structural, magnetic, and optical techniques. The electrodeposition process was optimized to create Ni-Ag NWs with sharp interfaces. It is demonstrated that the localized surface plasmon resonance transverse mode of the Ag segment (75(±5) nm diameter and the length of 210(±20) nm) changes by 12 nm with the wavelength of 438 nm due to the contact to ferromagnetic Ni. It is also revealed that higher order transverse plasmon modes of the Ag segment can clearly be identified as a distinct peak at 366 nm in the hybrid of Ag/Ni NWs rather than for individual Ag NWs that appeared as a shoulder at 375 nm. In addition, one high intensity plasmon peak at 313 nm related to Ni segments is observed. In a third study, a new approach for the design, synthesis and optimization of complex Ni capped Ag nanohybrids, was investigated. This technique is carried out using a multi-step process combining electrochemical deposition and partial removal of the membrane.


Abstract. Afforestation of former agricultural land is a means to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The objectives of this study were (1) to assess the effect of oak (Quercus robur) and Norway spruce (Picea abies [L.] Karst.) stands of different stand ages (13–17 and 40 years after afforestation, respectively) on N2O and CH4 exchange from the soil under these species and (2) identify the environmental factors responsible for the differences in gas exchange between tree species of different ages. N2O and CH4 fluxes (mean ± SE) were measured for two years at an afforested site. No species difference was documented for N2O emission (oak: 4.2 ± 0.7 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1, spruce: 4.0 ± 1 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1) but the youngest stands (1.9 ± 0.3 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1) emitted significantly less N2O than older stands (6.3 ± 1.2 μg N2O-N m−2 h−1). CH4 exchange did not differ significantly between tree species (oak: −8.9 ± 0.9, spruce: −7.7 ± 1) or stand age (young: −7.3 ± 0.9 μg CH4-C m−2 h−1, old: −9.4 ± 1 μg CH4-C m−2 h−1) but interacted significantly; CH4 oxidation in the soil increased with stand age in oak and decreased with age for soils under Norway spruce. We conclude that the exchange of N2O and CH4 from the forest soil undergoes a quick and significant transition in the first four decades after planting in both oak and Norway spruce. These changes are related to (1) increased soil N availability over time as a result of less demand for N by trees in turn facilitating higher N2O production in older stands and (2) decreasing bulk density and increased gas diffusivity in the top soil over time facilitating better exchange of N2O and CH4 with the atmosphere.


We present a combination of searches for the standard model Higgs boson using the full CDF Run II data set, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 9.45--10.0 fb−1 collected from s√=1.96 TeV pp¯ collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron. The searches consider Higgs boson production from gluon-gluon fusion, vector-boson fusion, and associated production with either a W or Z boson or a tt¯ pair. Depending on the production mode, Higgs boson decays to W+W−, ZZ, bb¯, τ+τ−, and γγ are examined. We search for a Higgs boson with masses (mH) in the range 90--200 GeV/c2. In the absence of a signal, we expect based on combined search sensitivity to exclude at the 95% credibility level the mass regions 90<mH<94 GeV/c2, 96<mH<106 GeV/c2, and 153<mH<175 GeV/c2. The observed exclusion regions are 90<mH<102 GeV/c2 and 149<mH<172 GeV/c2. A moderate excess of signal-like events relative to the background expectation at the level of 2.0 standard deviations is present in the data for the mH=125 GeV/c2 search hypothesis. We also present interpretations of the data within the context of a fermiophobic model and an alternative standard model incorporating a fourth generation of fermions. Finally, for the hypothesis of a new particle with mass 125 GeV/c2, we constrain the coupling strengths of the new particle to W± bosons, Z bosons, and fermions.


Recently, Neri et al have introduced an efficient method to obtain endo-cavity complexation and through-the-annulus threading of large calixarenes exploiting the inducing effect of a weakly coordinating anion, tetrakis [3,5-bis (trifluoromethyl) phenyl]borate (TFPB). In this PhD thesis this approach has been used for the synthesis of [2]rotaxanes, which showed an unprecedented inversion of the wheel orientation. Subsequently, it was extended to the synthesis of pseudo[3]rotaxane systems in which two calix[6]arene macrocycles are threaded by a bis(benzylalkylammonium) axle. Because of the three-dimensional nonsymmetrical nature of the calix[6]arene wheels, in these instances three sequence stereoisomers could be obtained, which were termed as headto-head (H,H), head-to-tail (H,T) and tail-to-tail (T,T). Taking advantage of these systems, it was possible to obtain the stereoprogrammed synthesis of the first examples of calixarene-based [3]rotaxane architectures. The base/acid treatment demonstrated that these systems act as molecular shuttles, which move on a nanometer scale level. The directionality of the threading and the observed high stereoselection have enabled the synthesis of directional calix[6]arene-based catenane. All these aspects represent interesting peculiar features of calixarene threading, which could be exploited for designing molecular machines with new properties or functions. [] a) Gaeta, C.; Troisi, F.; Neri, P. Org. Lett. 2010, 12, 2092. b) Gaeta, C.; Talotta, C.; Farina, F.; Camalli, M.; Campi, G.; Neri, P. Chem.−Eur. J. 2012, 18, 1219. [] Pierro, T.; Gaeta, C.; Talotta, C.; Casapullo, A.; Neri, P. Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 650. [] Talotta, C.; Gaeta, C.; Pierro, T.; Neri, P. Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 2098. [] Talotta, C.; Gaeta, C.; Neri, P. Org. Lett. 2012, 14, 3104.


Collaborating in engineering design is taking place increasingly across technical disciplines, departments and organisations. When collaborating, participants confront issues about how to share understanding and foster aligned project expectations. A review of literature suggests there is limited research about the process of collaborating in engineering design and how collaborating is influenced by context. Collaborating is distinguished as a relational concept (involving at least two parties) that is a social process occurring in both pairs and a group. Studies currently focus on group effectiveness, one or two processes (e.g. communication), and either a group (e.g. a collaboration) or pairwise relations (e.g. inter-organisational relationships). A framework of relevant concepts was adopted from literature on collaboration practice to organise empirical data. Collaborating in engineering design is explored in sixty semi-structured interviews focusing on participants' interaction and shared understanding (as pairs and groups) in their activities. This is complemented by observations of group meetings and project documentation. Empirical data is presented from four industry-based case studies classified by design type (adaptive or original) and design setting (intra or inter-organisational). Cross-case comparisons draw attention to an increase in ambiguity and uncertainty in combining tasks, roles, expertise and participants in original design type or inter-organisational cases. Findings from cross-case analysis highlight seven new conceptual categories. Four features (Opportunity, Dependence, Results, Adjustments) are used to present a dilemma that participants face which is more acute where organisational and knowledge boundaries are crossed. Three mechanisms (Familiarising, Associating, Regulating) describe how pairwise relations influence a group and individuals in collaborating. These show that through pairwise relations individuals recognise, establish and maintain expectations of how to collaborate in engineering design. This reveals that pairwise relations both help and hinder individuals and a group in how they adjust to foster aligned expectations of collaborating.


Embick and Noyer (2001) develop an analysis of definiteness marking in Danish and Swedish employing the central assumptions of Distributed Morphology (DM) together with the syntactic operation of head movement of N to D. We expose some theoretical and empirical shortcomings of the analysis and conclude that the assumption of N-to-D movement is incompatible with the central assumptions of DM. We further show how these shortcomings are avoided by the lexicalist analysis proposed by Hankamer and Mikkelsen (2002) and compare it with an alternative DM analysis that does not rely on head movement in the syntax. We conclude that while a lexicalist or a DM analysis is viable, with interesting trade-offs, neither of the viable analyses involves any movement.


Scientific evidences suggest that increased intake of added sugar is one of the major causes for dental caries, glucose intolerance, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, hypertension and behavioural complications such as hyperactivity in children. In many parts of the world, consumption of added sugar is much higher than the dietary recommendation from health organizations. Several researchers have used dried fruits to sweeten the traditional foods as the functionality of the sugar incorporated within the structure of intact fruits is different than added sugar in human health. Date fruits have also been used in several forms such as syrups, spread, sugar and flour as a sweetener in food. The objective of this study was to develop acceptable idli (traditional Indian breakfast) with chopped dates, date paste and date syrup, and determine their sensory and chemical properties. Total phenol and vitamin C contents of dates idli were significantly higher than control idli with added sugar. The sensory properties of four idli products (idli with date paste, idli with date syrup, idli with chopped dates and control idli served with white sugar) were evaluated by 40 untrained panelists. The sweetness and aroma of the idli with chopped dates got significantly higher scores than other three idli products with no difference among them. Similarly the overall acceptability score of the idli with chopped dates was higher than other idli products. Panelists from a regular eaters group gave higher scores for the overall acceptability of developed idli products than first time consumers. In all sensory attributes and consumer types, idli with dates scored higher preference or at least equal preference with control idli and white sugar combination. There are ample opportunities to educate people and create awareness about preparation and consumption of traditional foods with dates in order to reduce added sugar intake.


Abstract During the past decade, housing markets across the United States experienced dramatic upheaval. Housing prices rose rapidly throughout much of the country from 2000 until the start of 2007 and then fell sharply during the next 2 years. Many households lost substantial amounts of equity during this downturn; in aggregate, U.S. homeowners lost $7 trillion in equity from 2006 to 2009. Aggregate home equity holdings had fallen back to 2000 levels by early 2009. Whereas this intense volatility has been well documented, there remain unanswered questions about the variation in experiences across racial groups, particularly among those who purchased their homes before the boom and kept them through the collapse of the market. Did this housing market upheaval widen the already large racial and ethnic gaps in housing wealth? Using the American Housing Survey, we analyze differences in the changes in home equity experienced by homeowners of different races and ethnicities between 2003 and 2009. We focus on homeowners who remained in their homes over this period, and find that blacks and Hispanics gained less home equity than whites and were more likely to end the period underwater. Black–white gaps were driven in part by racial disparities in income and education and differences in types of homes purchased. Latino–white disparities were most dramatic during the market's bust.


Fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) are an efficient and inexpensive method of repairing deteriorating infrastructure. FRP sheets can be applied to spalling bridge sections and columns to prevent further deterioration and increase stiffness. However, the effect of the environment on the long-term durability of FRP and how the various damage mechanisms initiate and develop are not known. Systems for structural health monitoring are being sought as a means of managing important components in transportation systems as assets in light of modern life cycle cost concepts. This study characterizes a fiber optic sensor for use in detecting acoustic emissions (AE) in FRP. The results of AE analysis (signal amplitude, frequency spectra, MARSE, and in-plane displacement) caused by simulated fiber fracture experiments and other types of mechanical loading in FRP test coupons are reported. The applications to the development of FRP structural health monitoring systems are also discussed.


The AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR) development partnership is a world-wide initiative aiming to jointly develop and establish an open industry standard for automotive E/E software architectures. This standard is rapidly being adopted by the automotive industry and therefore it is important to understand the attack surface of AUTOSARbased electronic control units (ECU). In this paper we describe several scenarios how software and hardware attacks can compromise the security of AUTOSAR-based ECUs. We consider an attacker with physical access to the ECU who is capable of exploiting both software and hardware vulnerabilities. We discuss how an attacker can use different attack techniques to exploit these vulnerabilities. Moreover, we describe a case study in full detail where we execute arbitrary code on an AUTOSAR-based demonstration ECU by performing a voltage fault injection attack on the AUTOSAR communication stack. Several automotive threats may materialize if an attacker is able to execute arbitrary code on an ECU. For example, it will be possible to persistently modify the ECU's functionality if its code is not authenticated using secure boot.


We report how different zooplankton groups (doliolids, cladocerans and copepods) are able to influence the coastal pelagic food web, including the microbial food web, in waters of the NW Mediterranean. We studied the effect of grazing and of grazing-induced nutrient recycling mediated by different types of zooplankton grazing on a natural phytoplankton community. Experiments were conducted in semicontinuous 2-stage chemostats. The 1st stage vessels contained seawater from Blanes Bay, Spain (NW Mediterranean) including its natural phytoplankton community; the 2nd stage vessels contained the same seawater and copepods, cladocerans or doliolids. At daily intervals we transferred part of the medium from the 2nd to the 1st stage flasks, which contained ungrazed algae and excreted nutrients. In this way, the zooplankton could influence phytoplankton dynamics both by selective grazing and by differential excretion of limiting nutrients. In the 2nd stage flasks grazing changed the algal community composition. Doliolids and cladocerans promoted the growth of large algae and copepods shifted the size spectrum towards small sizes. This effect was transferred to the 1st stage flasks. Doliolids, cladocerans and copepods also affected the microbial food web in different ways. Size-selective grazing led to differences in the nanoplankton concentrations. These in turn affected bacterial concentrations in a trophic cascade. The potential to modify a given algal population increased with increasing selectivity of the grazer.


The behavior of a suggested concrete precast beam-column connection with two different plain and high performance fiber HPFRCC concretes under increasing cyclic loading and constant axial loading are analyzed and investigated in this paper. The internal precast concrete beamcolumn connection was initially designed based on ACI 318 design code and modeled with finite element method and the analytical results was verified with experimental results and then there was appropriate collaboration between both results. The numerical models with congested and non-congested stirrups in the critical zone were created and the behavior of connection under cyclic reversal loading were compared with considering two different concrete as regular and HPFRCC. The results from non-linear finite element analysis indicated that with increasing concrete strength, the stiffness and ultimate strength of connections increased up to 10% and the ductility of connection cast with HPFRCC concrete was significantly increased up to 35% with congested stirrups.


On 28th July 2010, in a speech on anti-social
behaviour, the Coalition Home Secretary Theresa May
declared that, "It's time to move beyond the ASBO". In
what appeared to be a radical departure from the (old)
New Labour approach to anti-social behaviour, she
went further in stating that, "For 13 years, politicians
told us that the government had the answer; that the
ASBO was the silver bullet that would cure all
society's ills. It wasn't. Life is more complex than that." Theresa May called for "a complete change in emphasis". For a new government there are certainly political gains from being seen as different to the previous administration. In
this short article I consider what the Coalition's approach to anti-social behaviour (ASB) might be. There are some surprises in the rhetoric, but also some familiar Conservative themes.


A solution has been obtained for the complete tunnel-interference flow for a lifting vortex in a two-dimensional slotted tunnel. Curves are presented for the longitudinal distribution of tunnel-induced downwash angle for various values of the boundary openness parameter and for various heights of the vortex above the tunnel center line. Some quantitative discussion is given of the use of these results in calculating the tunnel interference for three-dimensional wings in rectangular tunnels with closed side walls and slotted top and bottom.


For the last two terms, the United States Supreme Court has been rocked by the aftershocks of two independent yet equally significant criminal sentencing revolutions. The first, brought on by the Court in the 1970's, was the constitutionalization of capital sentencing procedures pursuant to the Eighth Amendment. This death-penalty jurisprudence had the laudable goal of attempting to reduce discrimination in the selection of those defendants to receive the ultimate penalty. A concurrent revolution with a similar goal occurred in the non-capital area. In 1984, Congress passed the Federal Sentencing Act to reduce discrimination and other disparities in criminal sentencing for non-capital cases. These efforts to enhance equality in capital and non-capital criminal sentencing have not been discussed together in the academic literature. We trace this parallel development in the capital and non-capital arenas and evaluate their success in ensuring equality. We conclude that for non-capital sentencing this revolution has enjoyed considerable success in ensuring similar treatment for similarly situated defendants. Moreover, a determinate sentencing system fosters democracy and transparency in sentencing decisions. The capital sentencing revolution, on the other hand, has been a dismal failure. State schemes have not significantly reduced sentencer discretion at the penalty phase of capital trials, and the results of such schemes have not been demonstrably more consistent than those obtained in the era preceding federal judicial regulation. The most recent threat to equality in sentencing in the non-capital context was the Court's decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, that any fact, other than a prior conviction, increasing the prescribed maximum penalty for an offense must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The broadest application of this rule would have foreclosed the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and their state guideline counterparts, because it is too cumbersome to have juries make all factfindings necessary to apply the guidelines, and because juries cannot be relied upon to implement such guidelines in a consistent fashion. The Court's rejection of this broad Apprendi theory last term in United States v. Harris insures the continued viability of determinate sentencing in the non-capital context. On the capital side, a guideline-like approach is unlikely to secure meaningful equality across cases. Thus, the Court's extension of the Apprendi rule, in Ring v. Arizona, to aggravating circumstances in capital cases will not undermine reform. Additionally, there are independent reasons in the capital arena to prefer jury to judge sentencing, such as sustaining the connection between the community and those imposing the death penalty. We conclude with comments regarding the tension between equality norms and jury sentencing. The Court's decisions in Apprendi, Harris, and Ring reflect an appropriate accommodation of these competing norms.


Highway work-zone safety is a major concern for government agencies, the legislature, and the traveling public. Several work zone intelligent transportation systems (WZITS) have been developed as a safety countermeasure to warn drivers of dangerous traffic conditions. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of a WZITS is diminished if the actual traffic flow conditions do not correspond with the sensor information leading to false warnings; these confuse drivers and reduce the credibility of the system, which is often ignored. This can lead to situations where drivers crash into work-zone areas because they are unprepared to stop. The national cost of crashes due to this was estimated to be nearly $2.5 billion. Such "dangerous" traffic conditions are typically characterized by unpredictable queue formations that propagate rapidly into higher speed traffic immediately upstream from the active work zone. False positives or missed warnings could be reduced if the location of queue tails in addition to vehicle speeds in proximity to the active work zone can be accurately detected. In this study, a low-cost rapidly deployable and portable queue detection WZITS warning system is proposed. To demonstrate WZITS feasibility, a queue detection algorithm was designed and tested using widely available, field proven, machine vision hardware that can be integrated into the current portable system prototype, using video data collected in the field from the portable device. The warning trigger generated by the algorithm can then be transmitted to a remote upstream location for triggering roadside emergency warning devices (such as VMS, flashers, etc.).


In 2007 a joint writing project was established between groups of second year BA Education Studies students working collaboratively across the universities of York and Plymouth. The project would involve students in the production a book for which they would collectively have responsibility for compiling, editing and producing. The York tutor has a special interest in the history of the book, experience of publishing previous books of student work and a National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of these projects. The Plymouth tutors have also held two Teaching Fellowships, the first of which explored the value of conflict in learning and the second enabled the collaboration between York and Plymouth. This paper tells the story of the collaborative project from the Plymouth perspective. At intervals throughout the project, semi-structured conversations between the tutors and students at Plymouth were recorded. Drawing on some of the themes identified in these conversations, this paper focuses on critical insights into cultures of knowledge, learning and assessment that emerged over our rich time together. Our students acted as peer reviewers of the original paper compiled by their tutors. Their review takes the form of a series of comments on the tutors' manuscript, written at the end of the year and enabling them to look back on the whole experience. All reviewer comments have been incorporated into the body of the paper. The extracts from the structured conversation data, presented here in text boxes, were selected by the tutors to highlight the issues that arose during the course of the project. This multi-layered presentation reflects the spirit of the project, illustrating the rich impact of our collaborative work.


The term 'intranet' began to to enter corporate vocabularies around 1995 (van der Linden, 1998). It is used to describe an 'in-house' computer network, normally based on Internet technology, which facilitates information and file sharing within a closed group of used in an educational setting to enhance student access to the range of information relating to their studies. We developed a pilot intranet that was introduced to Brighton Business School in Autumn 1997. After the pilot, we went on to develop a second version using industry-standard software that was released to the school in September 2000.

In this chapter we try to convey a sense of the impact that an intranet can have on staff and students. We describe the context into which the School's intranet was first released and compare it with the context in 2001. We trace the changes in the system's conceptual design and the underlying technology. We examine student and staff reaction at the two release dates and the evaluation data gathered then. Finally, we discuss how such a project, in an established school with established learning and teaching methods, can be evaluated.


In this paper, the automation of calibration of liquid-in-glass thermometers (LiGTs) is discussed. Temperature readings are taken automatically with the use of a measuring system that consists of a standard calibration setup, a video camera and illumination, an image acquisition module and a computer that executes the algorithm for image processing and analysis. Once the reading of the temperature is extracted from the acquired image, this value can be passed to any other data processing program, which includes the comparison with the values from the reference thermometer and determination of correction and combined uncertainty. Data achieved in this way can be directly used to prepare the calibration certificate.