Cleavage of influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) by host proteases is essential for virus infectivity. HA of most influenza A and B (IAV/IBV) viruses is cleaved at a monobasic motif by trypsin-like proteases. Previous studies have reported that transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) is essential for activation of H7N9 and H1N1pdm IAV in mice but that H3N2 IAV and IBV activation is independent of TMPRSS2 and carried out by as-yet-undetermined protease(s). Here, to identify additional H3 IAV- and IBV-activating proteases, we used RNA-Seq to investigate the protease repertoire of murine lower airway tissues, primary type II alveolar epithelial cells (AECIIs), and the mouse lung cell line MLE-15. Among 13 candidates identified, TMPRSS4, TMPRSS13, hepsin, and prostasin activated H3 and IBV HA in vitro. IBV activation and replication was reduced in AECIIs from Tmprss2/Tmprss4-deficient mice compared with WT or Tmprss2-deficient mice, indicating that murine TMPRSS4 is involved in IBV activation. Multicycle replication of H3N2 IAV and IBV in AECIIs of Tmprss2/Tmprss4-deficient mice varied in sensitivity to protease inhibitors, indicating that different, but overlapping, sets of murine proteases facilitate H3 and IBV HA cleavages. Interestingly, human hepsin and prostasin orthologs did not activate H3, but they did activate IBV HA in vitro. Our results indicate that TMPRSS4 is an IBV-activating protease in murine AECIIs and suggest that TMPRSS13, hepsin, and prostasin cleave H3 and IBV HA in mice. They further show that hepsin and prostasin orthologs might contribute to the differences observed in TMPRSS2-independent activation of H3 in murine and human airways.


BACKGROUND
Cochlear implant in children, speech perception and oral language, hearing and oral language performance in children with pre-lingual profound sensory-neural hearing impairment, users of cochlear implant.

AIM
To study the hearing and oral language performance of children with pre-lingual bilateral profound sensory neural hearing impairment, users of multi-channel cochlear implant considering the following aspects: age of the child when the research was carried out, time of hearing sensorial privation, time of cochlear implant use, type of cochlear implant, type of speech coding strategy used, familial permeability level in relation to the therapeutic process and cognitive style of the child.

METHOD
Participants of this study were 60 children who were assessed according to hearing and language categories. All of the variables were statistically analyzed. Psycho-social aspects, considering the child's cognitive style and the family's permeability level were also assessed.

RESULTS
Regarding the hearing and language performance with the use of cochlear implant, the intermediate and advanced hearing categories were accomplished by more than half of the children. The statistically significant aspects in the performance of hearing and oral language were: the age of the child upon evaluation, time of hearing sensorial privation, time of cochlear implant use, type of implant, speech sounds coding strategy and familial permeability.

CONCLUSION
The cochlear implant as a treatment for children with pre-lingual sensory-neural hearing impairment is highly effective, although complex, owing to the interaction of variables which interfere in the implanted child's performance. Further studies are needed for the understanding of the implantation complexity in young children.


The class and social structure of developing nations has undergone profound transformation in recent decades as each nation has incorporated into an increasingly integrated global production and financial system. National elites have experienced a new fractionation. Emergent transnationally-oriented elites grounded in globalized circuits of accumulation compete with older nationally-oriented elites grounded in more protected and often state-guided national and regional circuits. This essay focuses on structural analysis of the distinction between these two fractions of the elite and the implications for development. I suggest that nationally-oriented elites are often dependent on the social reproduction of at least a portion of the popular and working classes for the reproduction of their own status, and therefore on local development processes however so defined whereas transnationally-oriented elites are less dependent on such local social reproduction. The shift in dominant power relations from nationallyto transnationally-oriented elites is reflected in a concomitant shift to a discourse from one that defines development as national industrialization and expanded consumption to one that defines it in terms of global market integration.


Abstract Like photonic crystals have revolutionized the way of manipulating optical waves at the sub-micron scale, phononic crystals have more recently played similar decisive role for sound waves, or more generally elastic waves. Then, the idea of coupling light and sound in purposely designed microstructures is now emerging. In this respect, the periodic, wavelength-scale (for both optic and high-frequency acoustic waves) transverse air-hole microstructure of photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) provides additional degrees of freedom for light-sound interactions. PCFs can indeed exhibit photonic and phononic bandgap effects, allowing for tight confinement and joint waveguiding of both types of waves [1]. Electrostriction-driven Brillouin phenomena, namely backward Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) and forward Guided Acoustic Wave Brillouin Scattering (GAWBS), constitute an important category of such opto-acoustic coupling. The geometry of PCFs can dramatically modify the Brillouin spectrum, the gain and the stimulated Brillouin threshold, globally yielding much richer opto-acoustic dynamics and spectral features than in conventional fibers [2-11]. Specific transverse or longitudinal guided acoustics modes in the 100 MHz - 10 GHz range can thus be selectively excited, resonantly enhanced and tightly confined within the microstructure, with an intimate dependence on its µm or sub-µm geometry. All these specific features have great potential for developing novel PCF-based distributed Brillouin sensors [6,7,12-14], for high-resolution longitudinal mapping of the intrinsic fluctuations of the fiber microstructure [15], and more generally for developing original tools of optical signal processing [1-4,9,16,17]. This talk will give a comprehensive overview of these original behaviors in a range of PCFs.


The purpose of this research was to clarify the definition of University Citizenship Behavior (UCB), and to make UCB more applicable in practical use. Exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was selected for this study to describe behaviors typically associated with UCB, and to develop UCB's measurement which can be used in both Thai and U.S. learning cultures. This study was comprised of two phases. The qualitative method was conducted in the first phase. The in-depth interview technique was used to survey experts to confirm that UCB could be reasonably developed from Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). Then, the in-depth interview technique was undertaken with undergraduate students from both Thailand and the U.S. in order to elicit what shared behavioral indicators reflect UCB. All indicators were subsequently integrated as dimensions, definition, and items for UCB's measurement. Phase two consisted of the development of UCB's measurement. After this study's UCB measurement was developed, the quantitative method was used to validate it.


This report discusses the potential immigration consequences of criminal
activity. "Criminal activity" generally refers to conduct for which an alien has been
found or plead guilty before a court of law, though in limited circumstances
consequences may attach to the commission of a crime or admission of acts
constituting the essential elements of a crime. Consequences may flow from
violations of either federal, state or, in many circumstances, foreign criminal law. Some federal crimes are set out in the INA itself — alien smuggling, for example.
However, not all violations of immigration law are crimes. Notably, being in the
U.S. without legal permission — i.e., being an "illegal alien" — is not a crime in and
of itself.
 Thus, for example, an alien who overstays a student visa may be an "illegal
alien," in that the alien may be subject to removal from the U.S., but such an alien
is not a "criminal alien."


Conclusions and Definitions Note: Before one delves into any defense issue one must first begin with the underlying question: "What is our strategy?" What the Clinton Administration is doing with regard to strategic offensive systems provides an instructive context for what we're now trying to do on the strategic defensive side. To begin with, the Clinton Administration believes, fundamentally, that deterrence still matters. Why? Is it because we think that Russia is going to attack us today, tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month? No, of course not. We're working very hard--across the board--in many areas, not the least of which are arms control, denuclearization and the Nunn-Lugar initiatives, to make sure that we continue to strengthen strategic stability and assist Russia in its democratic and economic reforms. But, a strategic partnership with Russia is not a "for sure" conclusion yet. Thus, it is fundamental to this Administration's strategy that we are hedging against the requirement to reconstitute strategic deterrence in full form. This hedging strategy drives many decisions, and each of them carries a price tag. These include: * a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that established a requirement for 3,500 strategic warheads, with a premium on the flexibility to upload and reconstitute. * a decision to keep the ICBM leg of the triad, to modernize the Minuteman III, and to keep three Minutemen wings deployed in ICBM silos. * a decision to complete the D-5 Trident missile purchase, keep 14 Trident boats, and backfit the D-5 into 4 of those 14 submarines to make sure we have 14 D-5 armed Trident boats. * a decision to ask Congress for a very challenging stockpile stewardship program, to make sure that our nuclear weapons are reliable, safe, and mission-capable absent full-scale nuclear testing. * a decision to commit this Administration to solving the tritium problem. * a decision to spend a lot of money on START verification and monitoring of Russia's strategic offensive modernization. If you don't think maintaining a deterrent hedge matters; if you think it's "over, over there;" that Russia could never again constitute a nuclear threat to the United States, and all we have to deal with are missile threats from regional outlaw regimes, then you can take a different approach and you can save a lot of money. But that's not what the Clinton Administration thinks. ABM Treaty Remains Important In this context, I would argue that the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty matters as well. Why is that? Well, it is axiomatic that we must include, as part of our calculation of the sufficiency of deterrence, the threat we will face on the other side in terms of defenses. Without the ABM Treaty, we would require more RVs (Re-entry Vehicles) than the 3,500 level set in START II. So the ABM Treaty is key to our ability to ask the United States Senate to ratify this Treaty. And if you believe we should go below 3,500, and we're continuing to discuss that question within the Administration now, then the ABM Treaty matters even more. Furthermore, within the limits of the Treaty itself you have to ask yourself what are the defenses that STRATCOM would have to confront and penetrate if we ever had to retaliate; not just the 100 authorized ABMs, but the thousands of SAMs that could be upgraded and, increasingly, the whole new possibility of dedicated Russian Theater Missile Defenses (TMDs). So does that mean, then, that what we want to do is expand the ABM Treaty and transform it through some sort of aggressive outreach effort into a "TMD Treaty," to capture and eliminate any strategic defensive threats from Russia below the level of their authorized ABMs? Of course not. The ABM Treaty is not a "TMD treaty." Does that mean "anything goes," though? …


Crustal structure in Southern California is investigated using travel times from over 200 stations and thousands of local earthquakes. The data are divided into two sets of first arrivals representing a two-layer crust. The Pg arrivals have paths that refract at depths near 10 km and the Pn arrivals refract along the Moho discontinuity. These data are used to find lateral and azimuthal refractor velocity variations and to determine refractor topography. In Chapter 2 the Pn raypaths are modeled using linear inverse theory. This enables statistical verification that static delays, lateral slowness variations and anisotropy are all significant parameters. However, because of the inherent size limitations of inverse theory, the full array data set could not be processed and the possible resolution was limited. The tomographic backprojection algorithm developed for Chapters 3 and 4 avoids these size problems. This algorithm allows us to process the data sequentially and to iteratively refine the solution. The variance and resolution for tomography are determined empirically using synthetic structures. The Pg results spectacularly image the San Andreas Fault, the Garlock Fault and the San Jacinto Fault. The Mojave has slower velocities near 6.0 km/s while the Peninsular Ranges have higher velocities of over 6.5 km/s. The San Jacinto block has velocities only slightly above the Mojave velocities. It may have overthrust Mojave rocks. Surprisingly, the Transverse Ranges are not apparent at Pg depths. The batholiths in these mountains are possibly only surficial. Pn velocities are fast in the Mojave, slow in Southern California Peninsular Ranges and slow north of the Garlock Fault. Pn anisotropy of 2% with a NWW fast direction exists in Southern California. A region of thin crust (22 km) centers around the Colorado River where the crust bas undergone basin and range type extension. Station delays see the Ventura and Los Angeles Basins but not the Salton Trough, where high velocity rocks underlie the sediments. The Transverse Ranges have a root in their eastern half but not in their western half. The Southern Coast Ranges also have a thickened crust but the Peninsular Ranges have no major root.


Future wireless systems will be a collection of symbiotic and hierarchical networks that address different aspects of communication needs. This architectural heterogeneity constitutes a network level diversity, where wireless domains can benefit from each other's spare resources in terms of bandwidth and energy. The dissertation investigates the network diversity through particularly interesting scenarios that involve capacity-limited multi-hop ad hoc networks and high-bandwidth wired or wireless infrastructures.
Heterogeneity and infrastructures not only exist at the level of networking technologies and architectures, but also at the level of available services in each network domain. Efficient discovery of services across the domains and allocation of service points to individual users are beneficial for facilitating the actual communication, supplying survivable services, and better utilizing the network resources. These concepts together define the service level diversity, which is the second topic studied in our dissertation.
In this dissertation, we first focus on a large-scale hybrid network, where a relatively resource abundant infrastructure network overlays a multi-hop wireless network. Using a random geometric random graph model and defining appropriate connectivity constraints, we derive the overall transport capacity of this hybrid network.
In the sequel, we dwell upon hybrid networks with arbitrary size and topology. We develop a Quality of Service (QoS) based framework to utilize the joint resources of the ad hoc and infrastructure tier with minimal power exposure on other symbiotic networks that operate over the same radio frequency bands. The framework requires a cross-layer approach to adequately satisfy the system objectives and individual user demands. Since the problem is proven to be intractable, we explore sub-optimal but efficient algorithms to solve it by relying on derived performance bounds.
In the last part of the dissertation, we shift our attention from network level diversity to service level diversity. After investigating possible resource discovery mechanisms in conjunction with their applicability to multi-hop wireless environments, we present our own solution, namely Distributed Service Discovery Protocol (DSDP). DSDP enables a highly scalable, survivable, and fast resource discovery under a very dynamic network topology. It also provides the necessary architectural and signaling mechanisms to effectively implement resource allocation techniques.


More than 40 non-native species have been registered in the zoobenthos of the Black Sea. Only, five alien species, the Crustacea, Rhithropanopeus harrisii (Gould, 1841) and Rhithropanopeus harrisii (Gould, 1841), and the Mollusca, Rapana venosa (Valenciennes, 1846) , Mya arenaria (Linne, 1758) and Anadara kagoshimensis (Tokunaga, 1906), were recorded in the benthos on the Crimean shelf  between 1999-2014. The blood-cockle A. kagoshimensis had settled on many sites of the Black Sea shelf in the past forty years. The first detection (1999) at the Crimean coast and the temporal variability of this mollusc's population coincided with the tendency in variability of the water temperature in the area. The five alien species had spatial aggregation and their occurrence did not exceed 23 % in the boundaries of the distribution sites. An increasing trend for their abundance in the last five - seven years was observed. These years were characterized by temperature rise in the surface layer of coastal waters . Similar patterns have been observed in the interannual variability of the biomass and abundance ratio of aliens to native for all zoobenthic taxonomic groups, i.e. of dominance index of alien species. The low level of the dominance index of the introduced species is indicative of low impact on the diversity of the benthic communities of the Crimea coast, i.e. on the scale of the metacommunity. With the exception of the R. venosa , they exhibited lower biomass and abundance along the Crimean coast shelf as opposed to other areas of the Black Sea shelf. Occasionally, the dominance index for the barnacle Amphibalanus improvisus (Darwin, 1854) could be high, a fact attributed to the low biomass and abundance of other benthic species.


BACKGROUND
Dysfunction is an integral part of chronic insomnia. Despite this, very little effort has yet been made to design and psychometrically validate an insomnia-specific measure of dysfunction.

AIMS
The purpose was to examine the psychometric properties of the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS) as a measure of dysfunction in chronic insomnia.

METHOD
Seventy-three patients with chronic insomnia from three subsamples participated. All the patients completed the WSAS, the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and sleep diaries over one week.

RESULTS
An exploratory factor analysis suggested a one-factor solution for the WSAS, determining dysfunction, accounting for 73.7% of the variance. The internal consistency of the WSAS was α = .91. The test-retest reliability for the WSAS items was high at .90-.99 and for the entire scale .99. A cut-off at 17 points was established, discriminating those with subclinical versus moderate or severe clinical insomnia (88% sensitivity and 78% specificity). Evidence of convergent and criterion validity was documented via (1) a significant, positive association between the WSAS and ISI and (2) a higher WSAS score among those with severe clinical insomnia, relative to those with moderate clinical and subthreshold insomnia, as well as a higher WSAS score among those with moderate clinical insomnia relative to those with subthreshold insomnia. The WSAS was also shown to be a treatment-sensitive measure for insomnia patients.

CONCLUSIONS
The WSAS appears as a reliable and valid measure of dysfunction in chronic insomnia. Additional advantages are its shortness, easiness, and treatment-sensitivity.


Estimating Kullback Leibler (KL) divergence from samples of two distributions is essential in many machine learning problems. Variational methods using neural network discriminator have been proposed to achieve this task in a scalable manner. However, we noted that most of these methods using neural network discriminators suffer from high fluctuations (variance) in estimates and instability in training. In this paper, we look at this issue from statistical learning theory and function space complexity perspective to understand why this happens and how to solve it. We argue that the cause of these pathologies is lack of control over the complexity of the neural network discriminator function and could be mitigated by controlling it. To achieve this objective, we 1) present a novel construction of the discriminator in the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS), 2) theoretically relate the error probability bound of the KL estimates to the complexity of the discriminator in the RKHS space, 3) present a scalable way to control the complexity (RKHS norm) of the discriminator for a reliable estimation of KL divergence, and 4) prove the consistency of the proposed estimator. In three different applications of KL divergence : estimation of KL, estimation of mutual information and Variational Bayes, we show that by controlling the complexity as developed in the theory, we are able to reduce the variance of KL estimates and stabilize the training


Dispersion of diamond in metal matrices is expected to improve friction and wear properties. In this paper, cluster diamonds (average grain size: 5nm) are dispersed in pure copper matrix by a P/M method. A mechanical milling method is employed for the composite powder mixing. First, the change in morphology after milling and sintering is observed by SEM. Next, the influence of milling time and cluster diamond content on the friction coefficient and the specific wear rate of the composite are examined. The friction coefficient measured by a ring-on-disk method decreases with the increase in both milling time and diamond content. About 30% reduction of friction coefficient compared with the pure copper is achieved for the composite (diamond content: 1vol%) after a milling time of 40 hours. The specific wear rate also decreases with the milling time. However, the rate increases significantly as the diamond content increases. The experimental results show the possibility of a solid lubricant of diamond-dispersed metal matrix composites.


We show that on-policy policy gradient (PG) and its variance reduction variants can be derived by taking finite difference of function evaluations supplied by estimators from the importance sampling (IS) family for off-policy evaluation (OPE). Starting from the doubly robust (DR) estimator (Jiang & Li, 2016), we provide a simple derivation of a very general and flexible form of PG, which subsumes the state-of-the-art variance reduction technique (Cheng et al., 2019) as its special case and immediately hints at further variance reduction opportunities overlooked by existing literature. We analyze the variance of the new DR-PG estimator, compare it to existing methods as well as the Cramer-Rao lower bound of policy gradient, and empirically show its effectiveness.


Labour mobility is an important condition for entrepreneurship. Present policies call for deregulation of the labour market institutions as the preferred mechanism to stimulate entrepreneurship. However, in Deliverable 2.5 we argue that an a-historical one-size-fits-all approach is likely to be misguided in the much more diverse European setting compared to a country like the United States.


Based on a comparative study of New-Pudong (East Shanghai) and Old-Puxi (West Shanghai) in their respective ability to absorb rural migrants, the very essence of urbanization, this paper finds that, constrained by the current hukou (household registration) system and land tenure system, although New-Pudong has emerged as one of the most modernized urban areas in the world, it did so under an urbanization model that is government-dominant and characterized by high land-intensity and capital-intensity. This model represents a serious mismatch in terms of Chinai¯s factor endowment that is characterized with a large but relatively poor rural population. In sharp contrast, guided by the market mechanism under private land ownership and free migration, Old-Puxi emerged as an urbanization model that was very adaptable to Chinai¯s factor endowment and stage of development. Therefore, as a model of endogenous urbanization, Old-Puxi is more efficient and inclusive, at the same time more sustainable economically and environmentally, and for this reason more applicable to China at a time when China needs to urbanize most of its rural population urgently to avoid the further worsening of the rural/urban divide and income disparity.


Extracted from text ... Mennen U, MBChB, FRCS (Glasg), FRCS (Edin), FCS (SA) Orth., MMed (Orth), MD (Ort) Pret
Head: Department Hand- and Microsurgery Medical University of Southern Africa, RSA
(SA Fam Pract 2004;46(2): 34)
Burns to the Hand
SA Fam Pract 2004;46(2) 34
Clinical skills
Dear Colleague
RE: Your patient with burns
to the right hand
Thank you, for the referral of me S J
S a right-handed eighteen year old
matric girl, who burned her right
hand whilst boiling fudge at home.
She sustained first and second degree
burns to the palmar and dorsal
aspect of her right hand. The burns
are ..


Background Debates and controversies have shaped the understanding and the practices related to death determined by neurological criterion (DNC). Confusion about DNC in the public domain could undermine this notion. This confusion could further jeopardise confidence in rigorous death determination procedures, and raise questions about the integrity, sustainability, and legitimacy of modern organ donation practices. Objective We examined the depictions of 'brain death' in major American and Canadian print media to gain insights into possible common sources of confusion about DNC and the relationship between expert and lay views on this crucial concept. Methods We gathered 940 articles, available in electronic databases, published between 2005 and 2009 from high-circulation Canadian and American newspapers containing keywords 'brain dead' or 'brain death'. Articles were systematically examined for content (eg, definitions of brain death and criteria for determination of death) using the NVivo 8 software. Results Our results showed problematic aspects in American and Canadian media, with some salient differences. DNC was used colloquially in 39% (N=366) of the articles and its medical meaning infrequently defined (2.7%; N=14 in the USA and 3.6%; N=15 in Canada). The neurological criterion for determination of death was mentioned in less than 10% of the articles, and life support in about 20% of the articles. Organ donation issues related to DNC were raised more often in Canadian articles than in American articles (33.5% vs 21.2%; p<0.0001). Interpretation Further discussion is needed to develop innovative strategies to bridge media representations of DNC with experts' views in connection with organ donation practices.


The relationship between civil society organisations and donors in South Africa is dynamic, and takes different forms over time. This is attributed to a number of factors, including political landscape, domestic government policies and donor policies. These factors then affect the manner in which donors relate to civil society organisations and disburse development project funds. Prior to 1994 civil society organisations enjoyed abundant financial support from foreign donors, mainly due to the illegitimacy of the apartheid government policies and humanitarian crisis. This situation changed after the election of democratic government in 1994, as most of the donor funds were channelled through the government to support its policies and programmes, and partly because of bilateral agreements with some of the developed countries across the world. In this study the impact of donor policies, processes, and management systems on the work of civil society organisations was explored, using the United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID) South Africa, Nelson Mandela Children's Fund (NMCF) and Sibambisene partnership. Themes explored included policies, processes, management systems and tools, partnership and power relations. The research methodology used included semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, emailed questionnaires and telephone discussions. Theories on power, policy management frameworks, and partnership were reviewed, drawing on, for example, the views from the views of Lukes (1974), Parsons (1995), Brinkerhof & Cosby (2002), Howell & Pearce (2002) and Nchabeng (2001). The results of the study highlighted a number of issues. Firstly that there is unequal power within the partnership relationship and donor agencies, and this is mainly caused by the fact that donors control policies, management processes and systems, as well as the disbursement of project funds. Secondly, civil society organisations, particularly NGOs, are dependant on their donors, and as a result prioritise their programmes at the expense of communities they serve. Thirdly, both parties value and


According to Jones, Wells, Peters, and Johnson (1993), being political is a necessary part of a coach's repertoire, because a coach's effectiveness and longevity may depend not only on a favorable win–loss record but also on an individual's ability to gain the approval of contextual power brokers (e.g., athletes, other coaches, or owners). Although only limited research has been done examining power and interpersonal relationships in coaching, there remains a paucity of work investigating the micropolitics inherent in such relationships. The aim of this article is to make the case for how the adoption of a micropolitical perspective could serve to further our understanding of the power-ridden, contested nature of sports coaching. After an introductory examination of the concept of micropolitics in the educational literature, a discussion of how such practice is beginning to emerge in recent ethnographic coaching research is presented. The literature addressing the micropolitical nature of teachers' interactions and relationships with other pedagogical stakeholders is then explored in terms of providing future avenues of critical investigation into the social complexity of coaching. Finally, a concluding section summarizes the main points and highlights their implications for future work.


Abstract Two new species of marine Gastrotricha, Musellifer reichardti sp. nov. and Musellifer tridentatus sp. nov. (Chaetonotida: Paucitubulatina: Muselliferidae), are described from the Atlantic coast of Florida (USA) and the west coast of Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago), respectively. Both new species are peculiar in that they lack a muzzle bearing the mouth, which is a diagnostic character of the genus. They correspond well to the diagnosis of Musellifer in other morphological features, and genetic data from the 18S rDNA gene of M. reichardti sp. nov. further support the inclusion of the new species in the genus Musellifer. Musellifer reichardti sp. nov. is distinguished by the following combination of characters: blunt head with reduced muzzle; dorsal patches of naked cuticle bearing sensory cilia on either side of the head; ventral locomotory cilia restricted to the pharyngeal region; spined scales; caudal furca with naked adhesive tubes. The new species is a simultaneous hermaphrodite with posterior paired ovaries, paired testes located at mid-body length, and a posterior frontal organ. M. tridentatus sp. nov. is the first species within the genus exhibiting two types of dorsal/lateral scales: anteriormost dorsal and lateral trident-shaped scales and smooth strongly overlapping dorsal scales. The systematic placement of Musellifer within the Paucitubulatina is discussed and emended diagnoses are given for Muselliferidae and Musellifer.


In recent years traditional liberal humanist foundations for respect for others
have been challenged on the basis that universalist grounds have resulted in the
exclusion of particular others from moral consideration or respect. This current
questioning of the concept of universalism is of enormous significance, in that
universalism has been one of the central assumptions of modern western
philosophy and a foundational key to its moral and political theory. This thesis
attempts to answer the question of what grounds are needed in order to justify
respect for others; whether these grounds can be said to be universalist or
particularist. In attempting to answer this question, past and current arguments
for and against universalism are assessed as to the scope of their moral inclusion
and the adequacy of their justificatory grounds. Current arguments for
particularism – as represented by posthumanism – are discussed in order to
gauge whether they do indeed represent a viable alternative to universalism. It
will be shown that even scholars who have ostensibly rejected humanism on the
grounds that it marginalises others, still rely on implicit assumptions and appeals
to humanist concepts regarding the universal equality and unconditional worth –
and therefore respect – owed to human beings. Given such reliance, it is
concluded that some form of universalism is needed to justify respect for others;
that universalism and particularism are indeed mutually dependant. The thesis
then concentrates on gauging the efficacy of current critical liberal and humanist
arguments for respect. These include an assessment of present day
utilitarianism, where it is shown that the inclusion of animals within the realm of
moral consideration results in the exclusion of certain humans from the same realm; in short, that utilitarianism's foundational assumptions do not adequately
justify respect. It is also shown that other current humanist scholars who have
attempted either to reconceptualise traditional grounds for respect or to broaden
the scope of moral consideration to those traditionally excluded from such
consideration with arguments based on self-determination, rationality or
intuition, also prove inadequate. It is concluded that an ontological
understanding of human being is needed in order to provide an adequate
foundation for the justification of respect for others. Such a foundation, albeit
partial in its conception, is subsequently offered; one that emphasises a
communal, as opposed to an atomistic, conception of human being and that
seeks to balance the tension between particularism and universalism by showing
a common structure of human ethical practice that does not occlude difference.
It is suggested that this common structure is the universal human practice of
communal accountability, which itself is inextricably linked to communal
standards of value and justice. As these communal practices are foundational
both to human being and to ethics itself, it is finally concluded that communal
practices provide the universal grounds needed in order to justify respect for
others.


Radial glial cells are a widespread non-neuronal cell type in the developing central nervous system (CNS) of all vertebrates. In the cortex, distinct subsets of radial glial cells coexist that are either multipotent or specified towards the generation of neurons or glial cells (Malatesta et al., 2000). Radial glial cells in the cerebral cortex are also the source of a second type of neurogenic progenitors, called basal progenitors. However, whether the generation of basal progenitors occurs in a stochastic manner or whether a specific lineage of radial glial cells is specified towards the generation of these progenitors has not been previously known. To identify functionally distinct lineages of cortical radial glial cells, I developed a new strategy using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate them and study their progeny. I isolated radial glial cells by FACS from a transgenic mouse line in which green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression is under the control of the human GFAP promoter. Strikingly, GFP intensity was correlated with cell fate. Selective enrichment of cells with a higher GFP intensity separated a largely non-neurogenic from a neurogenic (low GFP-intensity) subsets of radial glial cells. Notable differences on the progeny of these distinct sets of radial glia were found. The neurogenic radial glial cells subset generated neurons directly and those that are largely non-neurogenic also gave rise to a small proportion of Tbr2-positive basal progenitors that are then neurogenic. Thus, this last subset comprises an indirect neurogenic population of radial glial cells present in the developing cortex. Microarray analysis of these distinct sets of radial glial cells revealed profound differences in their gene expression. Genes related to gliogenesis, proliferation and cell-cycle regulation were expressed at higher levels in the largely non-neurogenic set of radial glia while genes related to neurogenesis, cell adhesion, neurotransmitter secretion and axon guidance were expressed mostly in the neurogenic subset. Moreover, the set of genes expressed at higher levels in the neurogenic radial glia was down-regulated at later stages (cortical radial glia at E18). Thus, this analysis reveals differences at the transcriptional level between direct neurogenic and largely non-neurogenic radial glial cells, supporting their intrinsic lineage differences. The functional analysis of a key fate determinant for neurogenesis from radial glia discovered in this transcriptome analysis will also be presented. This gene is the transcription factor AP2γ which was expressed at significantly higher levels in radial glial cells generating basal progenitors. AP2γ is restricted to the ventricular zone (VZ)/subventricular zone (SVZ) regions of the developing cerebral cortex in the entire nervous system and is also highly expressed in primate and human cortical progenitors. Its genetic deletion within the mouse cerebral cortex results in the molecular misspecification of basal progenitors with decreased levels of Tbr2 and Math3 expression, as well as their overproliferation associated with increased cell death specifically in the occipital cortex. This causes a reduction in upper layer neuron generation with intriguing functional defects in visual acuity. Gain-of-function studies also revealed the important role of AP2γ for the adequate specification and development of basal progenitors in the cerebral cortex, while apical progenitors were not affected by the loss- and gain-of-function of this transcription factor.
Thus, I show for the first time the prospective isolation of distinct radial glia subtypes in the mouse developing cortex demonstrated at the molecular and functional level.


This paper presents a method of improving the performance of TCP (Transfer Command Protocol) based shortlived connections, such as web transfers. The characteristics (throughput and round trip time) experienced while communicating to a selection of Internet sites were examined, revealing that path constancy can be observed over extended periods of time. The research identified a temporal correlation between the three-way handshake and subsequent measurements of the RTT; by using this correlation, the algorithm is able to detect the signs of a packet loss and retransmit the affected segment before a standard implementation of TCP is able to recover the lost segment. Following the proposal of the algorithm, simulations were performed to study the performance of the proposed algorithm. In summary, during these simulations it was found that use of the Preemptive Retransmission algorithm provided enhanced performance, with the average duration of a connection 8% shorter than when compared to TCP Reno.


Percentiles estimation plays an important role at the stage of making decisions in many scientific fields. However, the up-to-now research on developing estimation methods for percentiles has been based on the assumption that the data in the sample are formed independently. In the current paper we suppress this restrictive assumption by assuming that the values of the variable under study are formed according to the general linear process. After deriving the asymptotic distribution of the Maximum Likelihood estimator for the 100×Pth percentile, we give the general form of the corresponding asymptotic confidence interval. Then, the performance of the estimated asymptotic confidence interval is evaluated in finite samples from the stationary AR(1) and ARMA(1,1) through Monte-Carlo simulations by computing two statistical criteria: (a) the actual confidence level, (b) the expected half-length as percentage of the true value of the percentile. Simulation results show that the validity of the estimated asymptotic confidence interval depends upon the sample size, the size of the 1st order theoretical autocorrelation coefficient, and the true cumulative probability P related to the percentile. Finally, an application example is given using the series of the CO2 annual emissions intensity in Greece (kg per kg of oil equivalent energy use) for the period 1961-2010. Confidence intervals for percentiles are constructed on this series and discussion about the validity of the estimation procedure follows according to the findings from the simulation experiments regarding the values of the aforementioned criteria.


Khovanov homology associates to any link in three-dimensional space a bigraded chain complex of Z[c]-modules, whose graded Euler characteristic (after normalization) is the Jones polynomial of the link. The complex is invariant up to homotopy equivalence under ambient isotopy of the link. Hence, the isomorphism class of the corresponding homology module is a link invariant. If the indeterminate c is set to zero, the resulting chain complex of abelian groups is finite, and the graded Euler characteristic is still the Jones polynomial. In this thesis, we prove that these latter homology groups are functorial under link cobordism. More precisely, every link cobordism induces a group homomorphism between the homology groups of its boundary links, invariant (up to sign) under any ambient isotopy which leaves the boundary links set-wise fixed. This proves (with a necessary modification) part of a conjecture by Khovanov (Duke Math. J. 101 (1999)). We then introduce some derived invariants of link cobordisms from a link to itself. These are graded Lefschetz numbers of the induced homomorphisms above. They can be computed directly on the chain level. The Jones polynomial appears as the graded Lefschetz number of the identity cobordism. We further prove that the statement of functoriality for homology with coefficients in Z[c] is false. This disproves the rest of the above-mentioned conjecture. Finally, we provide an elementary description of the Khovanov homology of tangles.


Polarization-insensitive 640 Gbit/s demultiplexing for OTDM data signals is demonstrated using a 100 m polarization-maintaining highly non-linear fibre. The scheme is based on four wave mixing (FWM) in a polarization-maintaining fibre loop (PMFL) with bidirectional operation. Less than 0.2 dB polarization dependence is obtained. The FWM efficiency is about -6 dB if the passive loss of the PMFL is not included. The flatness characteristic of the FWM efficiencies allows for the OTDM demultiplexing of a high speed signal with a bandwidth of 1.2 THz. Error free performance with low penalty for the demultiplexed 10 Gbit/s signal is achieved for the polarization scrambled 640 Gbit/s data signal. BER measurements and eye-diagrams show that the demultiplexed 10 Gbit/s signals with and without polarization scrambling have almost identical performance.


This article originates from a thesis that is, today, developed by feminist theory, namely that the gender hierarchy in postmodern, post-patriarchal societies is being »renewed« and certainly not abolished. Although there is no doubt that institutional conditions in individual countries, conditions such as access to education, employment and economic autonomy, have a significant impact on the positions of girls and young women, their realization is still in the range of cultural factors such as »gender culture« and »gender arrangements.« Existing gender arrangements can be properly analyzed only if we consider existing power relations, both overt and, especially, covert. We have to take into consideration that gender arrangements in particular societies can seem very balanced although power relations between both genders are, in fact, unsymmetrical. And it seems that this is precisely what is happening in contemporary society. In the article, we will analyze covert mechanism, on the basis of statistical and research data, that have an impact on new gender discrimination throughout the process of childhood and early adult development. We will derive from the thesis that today's discriminatory gender divisions of educational and occupational roles are based on invisible, »natural« everyday discriminatory practices and on gender-desensitized discourses, which are directed by the power of capital as the central motive of society.


We examined habitat factors related to reach-scale brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis counts of four size classes in two headwater stream networks within two contrasting summers in Connecticut, USA. Two study stream networks (7.7 and 4.4 km) were surveyed in a spatially continuous manner in their entirety, and a set of Bayesian generalised linear mixed models was compared. Trout abundance was best described by a zero-inflated overdispersed Poisson model. The effect of habitat covariates was not always consistent among size classes and years. There were nonlinear relationships between trout counts and stream temperature in both years. Colder reaches harboured higher trout counts in the warmer summer of 2008, but this pattern was not observed in the cooler and very wet summer of 2009. Amount of pool habitat was nearly consistently important across size classes and years, and counts of the largest size class were correlated positively with maximum depth and negatively with stream gradient. Spatial mapping of trout distributions showed that reaches with high trout counts may differ among size classes, particularly between the smallest and largest size classes, suggesting that movement may allow the largest trout to exploit spatially patchy habitats in these small headwaters.


Many older bridges in Washington State contain split reinforced concrete columns as common members between adjacent bridge sections. The split detail was incorporated in columns to allow for movements in the bridge due to temperature and shrinkage effects. It is expected that these split columns will perform poorly in the event of a significant earthquake. This study investigated retrofitting measures for improving the seismic performance of existing split columns. Experimental tests were conducted on one-third scale split column specimens which were representative of the split columns present in the Spokane Street Overcrossing near Seattle. Various retrofit measures were evaluated. Specimen performance was evaluated on the basis of load capacity, displacement ductility, and hysteretic behavior. Tests on specimens representing as-built conditions revealed vulnerabilities that have previously been observed in the field or are expected to occur during a major earthquake. Poor performance evident in the as-built specimens included crack propagation from the base of the split, lap splice degradation, and shear failure in the split sections. Retrofit design focused on enhancing the column seismic performance while at the same time preserving as much of the gap between the split sections as possible. Procedures were developed for the design of steel jacketing as a retrofit measure for the split columns. Circular jacketing was used for the section below the split and for retrofitting a deficient lap splice. "D" shaped jackets were used for the split sections to provide confinement in flexural hinging regions and to increase shear strength. Tests on specimens retrofitted with the steel jacketing showed significant improvements in performance when compared to that for the as-built specimens. Three companies who manufacture composite retrofit systems were invited to participate in this project. Each company was provided with unretrofitted specimens for which they designed and installed their company's retrofit system. While some differences in performance were obtained with the various retrofit systems, all retrofitted specimens showed significant improvements in performance when compared to that for the as-built specimen.


The minimum wage in EU countries is applied either by law or through agreement between social partners. The aim of this paper is to create a typology of EU countries with respect to the amount of the statutory minimum wage and selected characteristics (economic level, educational level of the population and rate of unemployment). The analysis draws on official statistical data which have been processed using statistical methods. After the evaluation of the values of the calculated coefficients of correlation, only two characteristics were included in the cluster analysis (economic level and educational level). The reason for this, is that it was shown that the amount of the minimum wage and the rate of unemployment were independent variables. On the basis of the results of the cluster analysis, seven clusters were identified. From the description and analysis of the individual clusters it was not possible to draw any definitive conclusion on whether a particular level of minimum wage is bound to a certain educational level. Even the statement that higher statutory minimum wages are found in countries with higher economic level can only be made with considerable caution. It was also evident that "old" EU countries showed much greater homogeneity in these characteristics than was found in the "new"ones.


Background/Aim: Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a frequent complication of liver cirrhosis, and its development heralds a poor prognosis as it is associated with shortened patients' survival. Reversibility of the precipitating factors of HE is of prognostic significance. This work was designed to study the precipitating factors of HE in patients with liver cirrhosis at Mansoura Specialized Medical Hospital, Egypt. Materials and Methods: A total of 237 consecutive known chronic liver disease patients, presented with signs and symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy, were admitted in the hepatology unit of Mansoura Specialized Medical Hospital from September 2009 to September 2010. The precipitating factors of hepatic encephalopathy were identified with the aid of clinical examination and appropriate investigations. Grades of HE and Child-Pugh scores were determined. Results: The precipitating factors of HE in our studied cases were upper GI bleeding in 87 patients (36.7%), advanced HCC in 43 patients (18.14%), infections in 37 patients (15.61%), excess protein intake in 27 patients (11.39%), electrolyte imbalance in 7 patients (2.95%), and altered bowel habits in 33 patients (13.92%). Males were commonly affected by HCC (P < 0.05) and upper GI bleeding more than female patients (P < 0.05). Male patients were commonly presented with HE (63.29%), and this gender difference reached a statistical significance among those presented with upper GI bleeding (P < 0.05) and HCC (P < 0.05). Upper GI bleeding, advanced HCC, and infections were the leading causes of death with a higher prevalence in grade IV comatose (P < 0.05), child C (P < 0.05), male patients (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Our data revealed that upper GI bleeding, advanced HCC, and infections are the main precipitating factors of HE as well as the major leading causes of death in patients with liver cirrhosis. Priority should be given to control these factors by allocation of the hospital funds, medications, and human efforts. Implementation of an effective screening program for early HCC detection all over the country should be on the top of the official health concerns.


Linked Data (LD) is supplementing the World Wide Web of documents with a Web of data. This is becoming apparent from the number of LD repositories available as part of the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud. At the instance-level, LD sources use a combination of terms from various vocabularies, expressed as RDFS/OWL, to describe their data and publish them to the Web. However, LD sources do not organise their data under a specific structure analogous to a relational schema; instead data can adhere to multiple vocabularies. Expressing SPARQL queries over LD sources -- usually over a SPARQL endpoint that is presented to the user -- requires a knowledge of the predicates used, to allow queries to express user requirements as graph patterns. Although LD provides low barriers to data publication using a homogeneous language (i.e., RDF), sources organise their data with different structures and terminologies. We would like to have a synopsis of how such data are organised in LD sources to inform the expressing of queries over such sources. With this paper we make the case that structural summaries over LD sources can inform query formulation and provide support for data integration and query processing over multiple LD sources. To fulfil this aim we propose an approach, that builds on a hierarchical clustering algorithm, for inferring structural summaries over LD sources. We have conducted an experimental evaluation using various LD sources to ascertain the extent to which our technique can successfully infer structural summaries from LD sources.


"The Selby Is in Your Place" was conceived when Todd Selby began taking portraits of dynamic and creative people - authors, musicians, artists, designers and other cultural tastemakers - in their home environments and posting them on his blog. Nosy by nature, he was interested in seeing how someone's personal style is reflected in their private spaces. Lucky for us, he found his answer in the colour-rich, eclectic and varied spaces he visited while photographing a diverse group of subjects in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney and London. Some of his subjects are famous and some are not. Some are rich, others aren't. Some are photographed in their apartments or houses, while others are shown in their studios or offices. What they have in common are unique spaces bursting with energy and personality that together create a colourful hodgepodge of inspirational interiors. Each profile is accompanied by Selby's watercolour portraits of the subjects and their illustrated questionnaires, which reveal their answers to questions about homes, possessions and personal style. This book consists of over thirty profiles: half of which are favourites from his web site, the other half are never-before-seen shoots selected exclusively for the book.


Coccidioides immitis and C. posadasii are soil dwelling dimorphic fungi found in North and South America. Inhalation of aerosolized asexual conidia can result in asymptomatic, acute, or chronic respiratory infection. In the United States there are approximately 350,000 new infections per year. The Coccidioides genus is the only known fungal pathogen to make specialized parasitic spherules, which contain endospores that are released into the host upon spherule rupture. The molecular determinants involved in this key step of infection remain largely elusive as 49% of genes are hypothetical with unknown function. An attenuated mutant strain C. posadasii Δcts2/Δard1/Δcts3 in which chitinase genes 2 and 3 were deleted was previously created for vaccine development. This strain does not complete endospore development, which prevents completion of the parasitic lifecycle. We sought to identify pathways active in the wild-type strain during spherule remodeling and endospore formation that have been affected by gene deletion in the mutant. We compared the transcriptome and volatile metabolome of the mutant Δcts2/Δard1/Δcts3 to the wild-type C735. First, the global transcriptome was compared for both isolates using RNA sequencing. The raw reads were aligned to the reference genome using TOPHAT2 and analyzed using the Cufflinks package. Genes of interest were screened in an in vivo model using NanoString technology. Using solid phase microextraction (SPME) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography – time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS) volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were collected and analyzed. Our RNA-Seq analyses reveal approximately 280 significantly differentially regulated transcripts that are either absent or show opposite expression patterns in the mutant compared to the parent strain. This suggests that these genes are tied to networks impacted by deletion and may be critical for endospore development and/or spherule rupture in the wild-type strain. Of these genes, 14 were specific to the Coccidioides genus. We also found that the wild-type and mutant strains differed significantly in their production versus consumption of metabolites, with the mutant displaying increased nutrient scavenging. Overall, our results provide the first targeted list of key genes that are active during endospore formation and demonstrate that this approach can define targets for functional assays in future studies.


Healthcare organizations are now engaged in Delivery System Transformation (DST), whereby performance-based incentive payment programs are used to support and reward hospitals for investing in projects that advance care and population health while lowering costs. In these efforts, it becomes critical to understand causes of patient handling and mobility workers' compensation injury claims. Until now, programs that are self-administered or utilize a Third Party Administrator (TPA) have differing, if any, codes to determine employee injury trends. Unfortunately, these coding structures, particularly when it comes to causes, lack any real, actionable data to establish investment needs for safe patient handling interventions. Healthcare organizations are left to drill down to the accident-description level and extract key causes of the patient handling injury, a time-consuming and unrealistic option given the human resources demand within healthcare. This paper proposes a condensed, yet powerful, sub-level coding structure for safe patient handling claims that any claims reporting system can easily adopt. As a result, this coding structure will eliminate the need to manually sort through lines and lines of data for relevant trends. Adopting this proposed coding structure nationally will reward the safe patient handling community with a consistent and transparent approach to claims. As a result, it will enable facility-level comparison of key functions and tasks associated with patient handling claims, peer-to-peer benchmarking of these causes and return on investment calculations at the fingertips of the end user.


Bioactivity-guided fractionation and purification of Cistus parviflorus led to the isolation of two flavan-3-ol derivatives; gallocatechin (1) and epigallocatechin (2) and two flavonoid glycosides; avicularin (3) and trans-tiliroside (4). The structures of the compounds were elucidated on the basis of NMR and ESIMS data. All compounds were isolated from C. parviflorus for the first time. Compounds 2 and 3 exhibited antiinflammatory activity through decreasing the NOS2 and COX2 levels on LPS+IFN-γ treated RAW 264.7 cells. Molecular docking studies of avicularin, the most potent compound, were carried out in the active sites of NOS2 and COX2 to predict the most plausible binding modes and support the experimental data.


Generation and transmission of millimeter-wave data-modulated optical signals is presented using an optical injection phase-lock loop (OIPLL). Millimeter-wave signal generation is demonstrated with wide locking range, 30-GHz low phase noise level, -93 dBc/Hz, and a wide frequency tuning range, 4-60 GHz generation demonstrated using optical injection locking only, verified by using OIPLL in the 26-40 GHz range. The OIPLL is also used to transmit error-free 140-Mb/s amplitude shift keying and 68-Mb/s differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) modulated millimeter-wave signals over up to 65 km of uncompensated standard singlemode fiber. The DPSK system uses reference frequency modulation, eliminating the need for optical amplification.


We present CYCLADES, a general framework for parallelizing stochastic optimization algorithms in a shared memory setting. CYCLADES is asynchronous during shared model updates, and requires no memory locking mechanisms, similar to HOGWILD!-type algorithms. Unlike HOGWILD!, CYCLADES introduces no conflicts during the parallel execution, and offers a black-box analysis for provable speedups across a large family of algorithms. Due to its inherent conflict-free nature and cache locality, our multi-core implementation of CYCLADES consistently outperforms HOGWILD!-type algorithms on sufficiently sparse datasets, leading to up to 40% speedup gains compared to the HOGWILD! implementation of SGD, and up to 5x gains over asynchronous implementations of variance reduction algorithms.


Corporate governance is of primary importance in Private Banking. Since the client needs to ensure that the bank acts in his best interest, the choice of the banking institution to manage his wealth is primordial. In this paper, we argue that current business models in the wealth management industry show considerable discrepancies when it comes to corporate governance efficiency. Following a review of various governance mechanisms our results suggest that, some business models in the private banking industry are more efficient than others to align the interests of the bank with those of the clients. Eventually, a careful due diligence has to be undertaken before the client chooses its wealth management services provider regarding governance issue. We conclude that the best business model in private banking is dependent both on governance efficiency and on the client's characteristics.


Rare earth metals are used as hydrogen isotope occluders and function as electrodes in neutron generator tubes. In this study, erbium dideuteride thin films have been quantitatively measured for purity in order to establish the deleterious effects resulting from film processing. These processes include deposition, hydriding, and neutron tube vacuum anneal. The data taken reveal that ∼0.02 mg/cm2 erbium metal is unavailable as the hydride due to surface oxidation and interfacial interactions between occluder metal and substrate.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the levels of athletic identity influenced the relationships among college experiences, career self-efficacy, and the career barriers faced by semi-professional student-athletes in Taiwan.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data of athletic identity, college experiences (involvement in social, academic, career orientation activities, etc.), career self-efficacy, and career barriers (inherent difficulties in career exploration in a dual student-professional role) were collected from 345 varsity student-athletes in Taiwan sport universities. The conditional process analysis was conducted to test whether the mediating role of career self-efficacy in the association between college experiences and career barriers was dependent on athletic identity levels.

Findings

The results indicated that enriching college experiences contributed to fewer barriers regarding career exploration post graduation through high levels of career self-efficacy. Particularly for assorted and social experiences, the indirect effect reduced as the levels of athletic identity increased.

Practical implications

These findings may be applied to athletes who pursue early specialization and students who engage heavily in a specific sport or other co-curricular activities while neglecting the importance of scholastic learning and career exploration. Career counseling practitioners and sport psychologists are advised to take account of athletic identity and contextual specificity while providing career interventions to student-athletes.

Originality/value

This study extends the understanding of the impacts of athletic identity on college student-athletes' career explorations within a specific sport context.


We compare prominent global energy scenarios of organisations and companies. We supplement the analysis with four own scenarios, which were derived from structured analytic techniques in combination with a numerical global energy and resource market model (Multimod). Our study provides three central contributions: (i) a compact survey of selected outlooks with meta characteristics (conceptual nature, numerical framework, qualitative elaboration) and quantitative energy system indicators at the global and regional (Europe, Asia-Pacific region, North America) level; (ii) numerous observations from a verbal analysis intended to stimulate future research; and (iii) the discussion of our own outlook. Among other conclusions, we find that scenarios essentially carrying forward current policies and/or trends lead to future worlds that do not meet the 2°C target of the Paris Agreement. Interestingly, there are both normative and exploratory scenarios reaching the Paris Agreement, and there is no consensus between outlooks on how to attain low-emission futures towards 2050. Some scenarios rely on a very strong role of renewables, others on a substantial role of negative emission technologies with fossil fuel use, yet others on assuming decreasing energy demand. There is a strong variation between outlooks with respect to transparency on scenario generation, modelling approach, and data. We argue that, in addition to transparency, the actual inclusion of a qualitative analysis of drivers and storylines helps ensure the political, social and technological feasibility of scenarios.


The chapter explores how Anthony Giddens's theory of structuration can inform the study of practices in international law. The chapter suggests that rules are implicated in practices in three ways: they constitute patterns of action as 'practices', regulate the conduct that makes up a practice, and provide formulae for extending and adapting the practice to ever new situations. At the same time, the rules instantiated in practices are potentially transformed by those very practices. To capture this mutually constitutive relationship between rules and practices, the chapter develops a definition of practices as simultaneously rule-generated and rule-generative patterns of action. The chapter then employs this definition to explore the relationship between international law and practices. Since the practices of a wide array of actors are involved in the constitution of international law, the chapter next discusses the responsibility of those actors whose practices can have an impact on the what international law is, focusing on the role of academics. The chapter concludes by outlining three challenges that empirical research of practices confronts: accessing information about practices, analytically separating the effects of agency and structure, and developing research designs which do not simply overlay familiar debates with a practice vocabulary.


The frequency and the consequences of binding and neutralizing antibodies (BAbs and NAbs) against Interferon beta (IFNbeta) in Turkish multiple sclerosis (MS) patients have not been determined yet, which could differ in such a country which is between Europa and Asia. The aim of the study is to assess the frequency of these antibodies, and to evaluate the impact of NAbs, from the clinical and radiologic aspects in Turkish patients with MS. One hundred and two MS patients were included. BAbs were screened using capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA), and NAbs were detected via Myxovirus protein A (MxA) messenger RNA (mRNA) induction assay (real-time polymerase chain reaction-PCR) at the beginning and one year later. Relapse rate and expanded disability status scale (EDSS) were used to assess the clinical impact. Gadolinium enhanced lesions and T2 lesion volume were used as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters. Persistent NAb positivity defines to be positive both at first and then one year later. NAbs were detected in 12.2% (6/49) of IFNbeta-1b treated patients, and in 7.5% (3/40) of IFNbeta-1a SC treated patients, but none of the IFNbeta-1a IM treated patients had detectable NAbs. It was found that the mean relapse rate difference was significantly higher in persistent NAb negative patients (p = 0.024). Persistent NAb positivity had no effect on T2 lesion volume and contrast enhancing lesions. 60% of the persistent NAb positive patients had at least one relapse during one-year of follow-up. On the other hand, 32% of persistent NAb negative patients were detected to have at least one relapse. Data from this study suggest that patients may become unresponsive to IFNbeta therapy even when the frequency of NAbs does not prove to be as high as those in the literature. Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that disease activity is not always equal to NAb positivity.


Background Fermentation of dietary fiber in the colon results in the production of short chain fatty acids (mainly propionate, butyrate and acetate). Butyrate modulates a wide range of processes, but its mechanism of action is mostly unknown. This study aimed to determine the effects of butyrate on the transcriptional regulation of human colonic mucosa in vivo. Methodology/Principal Findings Five hundred genes were found to be differentially expressed after a two week daily butyrate administration with enemas. Pathway analysis showed that the butyrate intervention mainly resulted in an increased transcriptional regulation of the pathways representing fatty acid oxidation, electron transport chain and oxidative stress. In addition, several genes associated with epithelial integrity and apoptosis, were found to be differentially expressed after the butyrate intervention. Conclusions/Significance Colonic administration of butyrate in concentrations that can be achieved by consumption of a high-fiber diet enhances the maintenance of colonic homeostasis in healthy subjects, by regulating fatty acid metabolism, electron transport and oxidative stress pathways on the transcriptional level and provide for the first time, detailed molecular insight in the transcriptional response of gut mucosa to butyrate.


Lithostratigrafic analysis of Cerro Azul Formation (Upper Miocene), La Pampa. Cerro Azul Formation was defined in 1980 to include the Pliocene continental sedimentary rocks (sandy silt and silty sand) that appear in discontinuous outcrops in al- most all La Pampa province. Nevertheless, several paleontological investigations carried out starting from the second half of the decade of the 80' have allowed establish the geochronology of this unit between10 Ma to 5,8-5,7 Ma. The objective of the work is to carry out litostratigraphic studies of the Cerro Azul Formation to fit whit the Stratigraphic Argentinean Code. It intended a lectoestratotipe for the unit; include the profile Algarrobo del Aguila and auxiliary profile in Cerro El Morro. The stra- tigraphic relationships with other formations are analyzed. A dominant aeolian paleoaenvironmental is interpreted, composed of alternating loess deposits with paleosol horizons, being detected scarce lacustrine deposits at the base and few fluvial courses.


This paper describes a procedure for unification in extensional higher
order logics. The procedure is due to Gerard Huet and was described in
 . In this paper we consider unification in extensional theories,
which is a significantly simpler problem and is not described in detail in
Huet's paper. In addition, the description here focuses on computation of
substitutions rather than deciding unifiability, as in Huet's paper. To
this some explanatory and clarifying material has been added.


Lagrangian models, which track the movement of fluid parcels in their moving frame of reference, have gained in popularity and sophistication over the past few decades. More recently, Lagrangian models have demonstrated their great potential in the context of inverse emission estimation as the Lagrangian framework provides a simple means to establish the relationship between receptor (measurement) locations and upstream sources. In this presentation I will show several examples of inverse modeling of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances focusing on halogenated hydrocarbons and methane. Measurements have been obtained from the high Alpine research station Jungfraujoch, from aircraft, and from diverse sites in the Swiss Plateau and elsewhere in Europe. The main transport modeling tool is the Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model (LPDM) FLEXPART which we run either on meteorological fields of the global IFS model of ECWMF or, in an adapted and augmented version, on high-resolution fields from the regional weather forecast model COSMO. I will first present the basic concepts of LPDMs, their application in forward and backward mode, and our inverse modeling approaches. I will then show a number of results including estimates of European emissions of halocarbons and the sometimes large discrepancies from bottom-up inventories, and estimates of regional methane sources deduced from aircraft observations and a new measurement network in Switzerland.


To supply high-speed digital circuits with stable power, power/ground noise, such as simultaneous switching noise (SSN) and ground bounce noise caused in multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs) and packages need to be sufficiently suppressed. The electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) is widely recognized as a good solution for suppressing the propagation of SSN in the gigahertz range. However, a typical coplanar EBG structure etched onto the power and ground planes may degrade the quality of high-speed signals passing over the perforated reference plane. In this paper, a novel method of arranging EBG unit cells on both the power/ground planes in multilayer PCBs and packages is proposed, not only as a means of sufficiently suppressing the propagation of power noise, but also as a means of minimizing the effect of EBG-patterned reference planes on a high-speed signal. On the assumption that noise sources and noise-sensitive devices exist only in specific areas, the proposed method partially positions EBG unit cells only near these critical areas. The SSN suppression performance of the proposed structure is verified by conducting simulations and measurements in the time and frequency domains. Furthermore, signal quality is investigated to verify whether the proposed EBG-patterned reference planes are superior to conventional EBG-patterned planes in terms of signal integrity.


This thesis explores the social acceptability of multimodal interaction in public places with respect to acceptance, adoption and appropriation. Previous work in multimodal interaction has mainly focused on recognition and detection issues without thoroughly considering the willingness of users to adopt these kinds of interactions in their everyday lives. This thesis presents a novel approach to user experience that is theoretically motivated by phenomenology, practiced with mixed-methods, and analysed based on dramaturgical metaphors.

In order to explore the acceptance of multimodal interfaces, this thesis presents three studies that look at users' initial reactions to multimodal interaction techniques: a survey study focusing on gestures, an on-the-street user study, and a follow-up survey study looking at gesture and voice-based interaction. The investigation of multimodal interaction adoption is explored through two studies: an in situ user study of a performative interface and a focus group study using experience prototypes. This thesis explores the appropriation of multimodal interaction by demonstrating the complete design process of a multimodal interface using the performative approach to user experience presented in this thesis.

Chapter 3 looks at users' initial reactions to and acceptance of multimodal interactions. The results of the first survey explored location and audience as factors the influence how individuals behave in public places. Participants in the on-the-street study described the desirable visual aspects of the gestures as playful, cool, or embarrassing aspects of interaction and how gestures could be hidden as everyday actions. These results begin to explain why users accepted or rejected the gestures from the first survey. The second survey demonstrated that the presence of familiar spectators made interaction significantly more acceptable. This result indicates that performative interaction could be made more acceptable by interfaces that support collaborative or social interaction.

Chapter 4 explores how users place interactions into a usability context for use in real world settings. In the first user study, participants took advantage of the wide variety of possible performances, and created a wide variety of input, from highly performative to hidden actions, based on location. The ability of this interface to support flexible interactions allowed users to demonstrate the the purposed of their actions differently based on the immediately co-located spectators. Participants in the focus group study discussed how they would go about placing multimodal interactions into real world contexts, using three approaches: relationship to the device, personal meaning, and relationship to functionality. These results demonstrate how users view interaction within a usability context and how that might affect social acceptability.

Chapter 5 examines appropriation of multimodal interaction through the completion of an entire design process. The results of an initial survey were used as a baseline of comparison from which to design the following focus group study. Participants in the focus groups had similar motives for accepting multimodal interactions, although the ways in which these were expressed resulted in very different preferences. The desire to use technology in a comfortable and satisfying way meant different things in these different settings. During the 'in the wild' user study, participants adapted performance in order to make interaction acceptable in different contexts. In some cases, performance was hidden in public places or shared with familiar spectators in order to successfully incorporate interaction into public places.


There are substantial knowledge gaps regarding both the bioacoustics and the responses of animals to sounds associated with pre-construction, construction, and operations of offshore wind (OSW) energy development. A workgroup of the 2020 State of the Science Workshop on Wildlife and Offshore Wind Energy recommended priority studies for the next five years to help stakeholders better understand potential cumulative biological impacts of sound and vibration to fishes and aquatic invertebrates as the OSW industry develops. The workgroup identified seven short-term priorities that include a mix of primary research and coordination efforts. Key research needs include the examination of animal displacement and other behavioral responses to sound, as well as hearing sensitivity studies related to particle motion, substrate vibration, and sound pressure. Other needs include: identification of priority taxa on which to focus research; standardization of methods; development of a long-term highly instrumented field site; and examination of sound mitigation options for fishes and aquatic invertebrates. Effective assessment of potential cumulative impacts of sound and vibration on fishes and aquatic invertebrates is currently precluded by these and other knowledge gaps. Filling critical gaps in knowledge will improve our understanding of possible sound-related impacts of OSW energy development to populations and ecosystems.


Abstract Interrupting ongoing activities whilst intending to resume them later is a natural response to pain. Whereas this response facilitates pain management, at the same time it may also disrupt task performance. Previous research has shown that activity interruptions by pain impair subsequent resumption of the activity, but not more than pain-irrelevant interruptions. Ongoing task complexity and pain threat value might influence interruption effects. In this experiment, we adjusted a paradigm from outside the field of pain to investigate how activity interruptions by pain affect task performance. Healthy participants (n = 69) were required to answer a series of questions, in a specific sequence, about presented letter-digit combinations. This ongoing task was occasionally interrupted by painful electrocutaneous or nonpainful vibrotactile stimulation (between-subjects), followed by a typing task. On interruption completion, participants were required to resume the ongoing task at the next step of the question sequence. Results indicate impaired sequence accuracy (less frequent resumption at the correct step of the sequence) but preserved nonsequence accuracy (similarly frequent correct responses to question content) immediately after an interruption. Effects were not larger for interruptions by pain compared with nonpain. Furthermore, participants in the 2 conditions reported similar task experience, namely task motivation, perceived difficulty, and confidence to resume the interrupted task. Pain catastrophizing did not influence the results. As in previous studies, activity interruptions by pain were shown to impair the resumption of a task that requires keeping to a step sequence, but not more than interruptions by nonpainful stimuli. Potential explanations are discussed.


When it was first released in 1962, The Shape of Time presented a radically new approach to the study of art history. Drawing upon new insights in fields such as anthropology and linguistics, George Kubler replaced the notion of style as the basis for histories of art with the concept of historical sequence and continuous change across time. Kubler's classic work is now made available in a freshly designed edition. "The Shape of Time is as relevant now as it was in 1962. This book, a sober, deeply introspective, and quietly thrilling meditation on the flow of time and space and the place of objects within a larger continuum, adumbrates so many of the critical and theoretical concerns of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It is both appropriate and necessary that it re-appear in our consciousness at this time."-Edward J. Sullivan, New York University This book will be of interest to all students of art history and to those concerned with the nature and theory of history in general. In a study of formal and symbolic durations the author presents a radically new approach to the problem of historical change. Using new ideas in anthropology and linguistics, he pursues such questions as the nature of time, the nature of change, and the meaning of invention. The result is a view of historical sequence aligned on continuous change more than upon the static notion of style-the usual basis for conventional histories of art. "A carefully reasoned and brilliantly suggestive essay in defense of the view that the history of art can be the study of formal relationships, as against the view that it should concentrate on ideas of symbols or biography."-Harper's. "It is a most important achievement, and I am sure that it will be studies for many years in many fields. I hope the book upsets people and makes them reformulate."-James Ackerman. "In this brief and important essay, George Kubler questions the soundness of the stylistic basis of art historical studies...The Shape of Time ably states a significant position on one of the most complex questions of modern art historical scholarship."-Virginia Quarterly Review.


Policy context:
 - All countries in Europe are experiencing an ageing of their populations, with a decrease in the number of people of working age per retiree.
 - Health trends among the elderly are mixed: severe disability is declining in some countries but increasing in others, while mild disability and chronic disease are generally increasing.
 - A declining working-age population will generate less income for health and pension systems.
 While expenditure on long-term care is certain to increase with the ageing of the population, the effects on health care expenditure are disputed. It is clear that if appropriate measures are implemented in time, population ageing does not inevitably lead to significantly higher health care expenditure.
 Policy options:
 Ensuring an adequate response from health systems.
 - A better coordination of care across health and social services, as well as across different levels of health care is seen as crucial.
 - As many older people remain in hospital inappropriately, a number of measures can be applied to allow for more treatments out of hospital.
 - Measures that reduce the risk of disease and promote the maintenance of function, confidence and engagement can support healthy ageing and ease the pressure on health care systems. Most notable are health promotion and disease prevention programmes that target the main causes of morbidity and premature mortality, in particular obesity and hypertension, as well as mental health.
 - These measures should include physical exercise and social involvement. The period from middle age onwards is particularly important for these activities and interventions.
 Building adequate systems of long-term care.
 Ensuring an appropriate combination of settings for long-term care that includes both formal and informal care is regarded as crucial.
 Supporting economic and social integration.
 - The decline in the share of the population of working age that will have to finance the health system can be addressed by measures that enable more older people to remain in the labour force.
 - Policies in support of healthy ageing also need to address the need for the continued social engagement of elderly people.


Abstract. The Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic within the Operational Programme Information Society from 2012, is digital documenting selected national cultural monuments of the Slovak Republic. Within this project 1,855 architectural objects in Slovakia has been digitized by internal component of the The Monuments Board SR and external suppliers. For measurement there were used the most modern surveying technologies - digital photogrammetry (DP) of land and aerial images and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The outputs of digitization are point cloud, highly detailed polygon models, orthoimages, gigapixel images and 2D drawing documentations. During the project, arose the need to process the huge number of images (thousands or tens of thousands) and also need a TLS connection to DP. For this reason, started Slovak commercial firm developing of new software which enable this processing and connection. The outcomes are unique spatial models of large architectural complexes (castles, monasteries, churches...) with high detail and accuracy up to 1 cm. Article is devoted to the project description and the method of digitization for the specific types of the cultural monuments.


After more than 20 years of research and development, a combination of technological, regulatory, and competitive forces are finally bringing fiber-based broadband access to commercial fruition. The three main approaches-hybrid fiber coax, fiber to the cabinet, and fiber to the home-are each vying for dominance in the industry, and each has significant future potential to grow customers and increase bandwidth and associated-service offerings. Further technical advances and cost reductions will be adopted, eventually bringing performance levels and bandwidth to gigabits-per-second rates when user demand warrants while keeping service costs affordable


Evolutionary theory has yet to offer a detailed model of the complex transitions from a living system of one design to another of more advanced, or simply different, design. Hidden within the writings of evolution"s expositors is an implicit appeal to AI-like processes operating within the "cosmic machine" that has hitherto been evolving the plethora of functional living systems we observe. In these writings, there is disturbingly little understanding of the deep problems involved, resting as they do in the very heart of AI. The end-state requirements for a system, device, or "machine" with intelligence capable of design are examined. The representational power must be sufficient to support analogical thought, an operation demanding transformations of events in imagery, in turn a function of perception, both dependent on a non-differentiable flow of time. The operational dynamics of the device must inherit this fundamental property of the dynamically transforming matter-field. Whether the evolutionary mechanisms or algorithmics thus far envisioned by biology or AI are coordinate with such requirements is left seriously in doubt.


Despite the recent proliferation of literature on nationalism and on social policy, relatively little has been written to analyse the possible interaction between the two. Scholars interested in social citizenship have indirectly dealt with the interaction between national identity and social programs, but they have seldom examined this connection in reference to nationalism. Specialists of nationalism rarely mention social policy, focusing instead on language, culture, ethnicity, and religion. The main objective of this book is to explore the nature of the connection between nationalism and social policy from a comparative and historical perspective. At the theoretical level, this analysis will shed new light on a more general issue: the relationships between identity formation, territorial politics, and social policy. The cases at the centre of this study are three multinational states, that is, states featuring strong nationalist movements: Canada (Québec), the United Kingdom (Scotland), and Belgium (Flanders).The book looks at the interplay between nationalism and social policy at both the state and substate levels through a detailed comparison between these three cases. In its concluding chapter, the book brings in cases of mono-national states, like Germany and the United States to provide broader comparative insight on the meshing of nationalism and social policy. The original theoretical framework for this research is built using insight from selected scholarship on nationalism and on the welfare state.


Every day a large amount of text is produced during public discourse. Some of this text is produced by actors whose political colour is very obvious. However, though many actors cannot clearly be associated with a political party, their statements may be biased towards a specific party. Identifying such biases is crucial for political research as well as for media consumers, especially when analysing the influence of the media on political discourse and vice versa. In this study, we investigate the extent to which political party affiliation can be predicted from textual content. Results indicate that automated classification of political affiliation is possible with an accuracy better than chance, even across different text domains. We propose methods to better interpret these results, and find that features not related to political policies, such as speech sentiment, can be discriminative and thus exploited by text analysis models.


This document extends RFC 1958 by outlining some of the philosophical guidelines to which architects and designers of Internet backbone networks should adhere. We describe the Simplicity Principle, which states that complexity is the primary mechanism that impedes efficient scaling, and discuss its implications on the architecture, design and engineering issues found in large scale Internet backbones.


Summary Desertification in Northern China degrades air quality in China's eastern cities by causing frequent dust storms. To stop desert expansion, China's government initiated the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, a large-scale reforestation project. Many issues with the project have been raised, from the choice of ill-adapted species to planting methods. Recently, the government implemented "natural reforestation"—closing former pastures to let vegetation regrow naturally. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to estimate the large-scale success of natural reforestation because measuring arid ecosystem productivity is a challenge for optical remote sensing. Here, we use satellite data to monitor vegetation water content and photosynthetic activity, thereby quantifying changes in vegetation biomass and productivity in Northern China. These satellite data corroborate official reforestation data. Our results show that vegetation activity is strongly correlated with both natural and traditional active reforestation, indicating opportunities for new natural reforestation techniques combined with satellite monitoring in other semi-arid regions.


Point load testing is used to determine rock strength indexes in geotechnical practice. The point load test apparatus and procedure enables economical testing of core or lump rock samples in either a field or laboratory setting. In order to estimate uniaxial compressive strength, index-to-strength conversion factors are used. These factors have been proposed by various researchers and are dependent upon rock type. This study involved the extensive load frame and point load testing of coal measure rocks in six states. More than 10,000 individual test results, from 908 distinct rock units, were used in the study. Rock lithologies were classified into general categories and conversion factors were determined for each category. This allows for intact rock strength data to be made available through point load testing for numerical geotechnical analysis and empirical rock mass classification systems such as the Coal Mine Roof Rating (CMRR).


The increased use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin among private users and some businesses has opened a new avenue of research in the field of digital forensics involving cryptocurrencies. Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2008, cryptocurrencies have begun to make a presence in the world of ecommerce. Cryptography serves as the underlying foundation for Bitcoin, which gives it the benefits of confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation and authentication. Having been designed and built upon the foundation of these four objectives makes Bitcoin an attractive alternative to mainstream currency and provides users with the benefits of payment freedom, security, very low fees, and fewer risks for merchants. Tools such as Internet Evidence Finder have the capability to recover some Bitcoin artifacts. However, because the cryptocurrency technology is relatively new, very little research has been dedicated to what other forensic artifacts are left on a user's system as a result of Bitcoin, what those artifacts mean and how to recover them in order to build a successful case involving Bitcoin. This research seeks to ascertain what forensic artifacts are recoverable from a user's system with Bitcoin wallet applications installed and actively used. Furthermore, this research seeks to recover any evidence of Bitcoin mining that would be present on a user's system due to the use of such software or applications. A Forensic Look at Bitcoin Cryptocurrency 2 Michael Doran, firstname.lastname@example.com


Cutleaf coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata var. digitata) is an ozone sensitive native wildflower growing within Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) where ozone pollution is often a problem. Individual coneflowers exhibit substantial variation in ozone sensitivity, yet the causes for this are not yet known.
The purpose of my study was to evaluate whether differences in leaf anatomy and morphology between sensitive and tolerant individuals of coneflower were responsible for this variation in ozone susceptibility. I hypothesized that sensitive individuals would have thinner leaf and mesophyll layers, greater internal airspace, greater exposed cell surface, and thinner cell walls.
Leaf samples were collected in June, July and August of 2004 from both sensitive and tolerant individuals for analysis. Micrographic measurements were made on thin prepared sections using light microscopy and included cuticle thickness, leaf and mesophyll thickness, internal airspace, exposed cell surface, cell area, live and dead cell number and cell wall thickness.
There were few effects on any parameters related to sensitivity and the majority of differences found were related to season and habitat effects. Leaf anatomy and morphology did not differ between sensitive and tolerant plants, and therefore, these attributes do not appear to be the cause of sensitivity differences.


Most of the timber traded in Africa's Great Lakes originates in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and either ends up in Uganda or transits through Uganda to the region. This trade is set to expand, largely driven by a growing regional and international demand. It is a difficult trade to regulate, in part because it involves many smallto medium-scale operators and in part because the lines that separate the formal trade from the informal and the illegal are not clear cut. Less is known about this regional trade than about the global timber trade and it is also less well regulated. The briefing is based on a larger report that discusses the international, regional and local dimensions of the timber trade in this region, and focuses specifically on demand-side factors driving this trade. Here lessons are extracted from the larger report for policymakers in Uganda and the region.