"This report introduces new estimates of food insecurity based on food acquisition data collected directly from households as part of national household expenditure surveys (HESs) conducted in 12 Sub-Saharan African countries. The report has three objectives: (1) to explore the extent and location of food insecurity across and within the countries; (2) to investigate the scientific merit of using the food data collected in HESs to measure food insecurity; and (3) to compare food insecurity estimates generated using HES data with those reported by FAO and explore the reasons for differences between the two. The overall purpose is to investigate how the data collected in HESs can be used to improve the accuracy of FAO's estimates, which are being used to monitor the MDG hunger goal. The study is based on both diet quantity and diet quality indicators of food insecurity. The two main indicators of focus are the share of people consuming insufficient dietary energy, or the prevalence of "food energy deficiency" and the share of households with low diet diversity. The study finds these to be valid indicators of food insecurity and to be reasonably reliably measured. They are also comparable across the study countries despite differing methods of data collection." from Authors' Abstract


Interactive gallery installation which playfully re-contextualised online news feeds from CNN's website with a soundtrack of found music in order to comment on an online environment where 'serious' news and trivial 'infotainment' often occupy the same

space. 'CNN Interactive just got more interactive' aimed to investigate the balance between information and 'info-tainment' on the web.

It demonstrated how the authority and presence of global news corporations online could be playfully subverted by enabling the

audience to add a variety of emotively titled soundtracks to the monolithic CNN Interactive website. The project also explored

how a work could exist dually as website and gallery installation.

'CNN interactive' contributes to the taxonomy of new media art as a new form of contemporary art. One of the first examples in

the world of a gallery installation using live Internet data, it is also one of the first attempts in a new media art context to address

how individuals respond to and comprehend the changed nature of the news as an immediate phenomenon as relayed by

network communications systems. 'CNN interactive' continues Craighead and Thomson's research into how live digital

networked information can be re-purposed as artistic material within gallery installation contexts but with specific reference to

online-international news events, rather than arbitrary data sources (see e-poltergeist, output 1).

'CNN Interactive' was commissioned by Tate Britain for the exhibition 'Art and Money Online'. This was the first gallery

exhibition in Tate Britain featuring work that utilised and explored new media as an artistic area, and the first work

commissioned by the Tate to operate simultaneously as an online gallery artwork. Selected reviews and citations include 'Digital

Art' by Christiane Paul, 2003; 'Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce' by Julian Stallabrass. (2002); 'Thomson

& Craighead' by Lisa Le Feuvre for Katalog Journal of Photography and Video, Denmark.

All work is developed jointly and equally between Craighead and her collaborator, Jon Thomson, (Slade).


Residential mobility has been associated with a host of negative outcomes for children. For low-income families, the context of the move is often unrelated to significant gains; instead, mobility is driven by negative external forces. The term "residential instability" has been used to describe this type of mobility pattern, yet the concept is vague and poorly defined in extant literature. Three separate studies were conducted. Study 1 was a systematic review using The Guidelines for Meta-Analyses and Systematic Reviews of Observational Studies. Study 2 used the Wilsonian method to develop a definition of residential instability. Study 3 was an empirical study to examine the effect of residential mobility and housing instability on delinquent behaviors among at-risk sample of adolescents with prenatal exposure to cocaine and/or opiates who participated in the longitudinal Maternal Lifestyle Study (MLS). The systematic review of 23 studies supported the research aim of Study 3. The Wilsonian analysis resulted in a definition of residential instability. Secondary analysis of 736 adolescents in the MLS demonstrated an association between residential mobility and housing instability and delinquent behaviors among adolescents across the sample, including crimes against people, vandalism, and school delinquency. Together, these three studies present a synthesis of the science, clarification of concepts, and demonstrate that housing problems are a compelling risk factor for delinquent behaviors among youth. Findings from these studies highlight the critical contextual influences that vulnerable families routinely encounter. These findings inform clinical practice and emphasize the role of housing as an important determinant for adolescent wellbeing.


Purpose
Although social exchange theory has long been used to explain employees' positive work attitudes in response to perceived investment in employee development (PIED), few studies have examined this theoretical mechanism by introducing a direct measure of social exchange between employees and their personified organization. Furthermore, most studies have focused solely on one type of exchange (i.e. social exchange) and have ignored another type of exchange characterized as economic exchange. The purpose of this paper is therefore to uncover the process by which PIED affects employees' attitudes, including affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction, by examining the mediating roles of both social and economic exchanges.

Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypothesized mediating model, this study conducted a three-phase, time-lagged questionnaire survey and collected data from 545 full-time employees. The model was tested based on structural equation modeling with a bootstrap test of indirect effects.

Findings
In line with social exchange theory, the findings showed that social exchange perceptions positively mediated the relationships between PIED and affective commitment/job satisfaction, whereas economic exchange perceptions negatively mediated them. Additionally, social and economic exchange perceptions were found to partially mediate the relationship between PIED and affective commitment but fully mediate the relationship between PIED and job satisfaction.

Practical implications
These results suggest that employers would benefit from investing in employee development, provided workers see the training investment as the employer's side of social exchange, which in turn leads to increased affective commitment and job satisfaction. When employers do not achieve the expected returns from the training investment, they should check not only hard data (e.g. training attendance rate, hours of training, etc.) but also soft data (e.g. employees' perceptions of training investment, social exchange, etc.) by conducting employee surveys and communicating with line managers.

Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is that it provides important empirical support for social exchange theory in the context of organizational training investment and employees' attitudinal outcomes, by directly testing the positive mediating role of social exchange and the negative role of economic exchange.


About the book: Part of the well-known Staff and Educational Development Series, this practice oriented book brings together leading research and evaluation approaches and supporting case studies from leading educational researchers and innovative teachers.
With much emphasis on change, innovation and developing best practice in higher education, it is essential that those involved in actually developing, researching or implementing approaches to teaching, learning or management, are informed by the experiences of others. The emphasis of this book is on changing practice in HE; how developments come about; what research underpins desirable development; and the impact of development of student learning, staff expertise and institutional practice and policy. Specifically, the book is developed in two themed parts: Part A, Supporting change within subjects and departments. Part B, Supporting change within institutions and the wider environment.


Reaching an apogee of 6,000 members in the years just before the Civil War, the Shaker movement was the most extensive, enduring, and successful utopian society ever established in America. Leaving Manchester, England, in 1776 to avoid persecution, the Shakers crossed the Atlantic and during the next 50 years established 19 villages from Maine to Kentucky. The Shakers were guided by the principles of utility, honesty, and order in both their work and worship, and this belief system influenced the physical expression of the goods they produced for use at home and for sale outside their communities. This lovely book presents a wide array of extraordinarily fine examples of Shaker furniture, household objects, textiles, religious drawings, and items made to sell to the "world's people" (non-Shakers). The book's expert contributors discuss Shaker design in relation to the furniture they constructed, the products they sold, their gift drawings and spirituality, and their rejection of American Fancy design. The book also considers the powerful inspiration Shaker design has provided for diverse modern and contemporary designers, including George Nakashima, Roy McMakin, Thomas Moser, and Scandinavian furniture makers.


This paper presents the analysis of core journals and subject-wise coverage of journals in the field of Vascular Diseases in Children for the period from 2012 to 2016 in the MEDLINE data which are covered in the Pubmed. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the core journals and its subject-wise coverage of journals in the field of Vascular Diseases in Children. It is found that the maximum number of records (6223) was published during the year 2015. The majority of the records were journal articles. 43 journals grouped in zone-1 published 4122 journal articles. In the second zone comprises of 263 journals published 4253 journal articles and 1749 journals published 3964 journal articles grouped in third zone. In zone-1, 15 journals are associated with Pediatrics, 8 with Cardiology, 4 with Cardiovascular Surgery, 3 with Neurology, 2 each with Neurosurgery, Surgery and Thoracic Surgery and 1 each with Dermatology, Genetics, Medicine, Nephrology, Oncology, Physiology and Radiology. In zone-2; 68 are General Medicine out of 263 journals covered, 44 in Cardiology, 25 in Pediatrics, 18 in Radiology, 15 in Surgery, 11 in Neurology, 9 in Neurosurgery, 8 in Genetics, 7 each in Anesthesia, Hematology and Rheumatology, 4 each in Endocrinology, Ophthalmology and Physiology, 3 in Cardiovascular Surgery, 2 each in Dermatology, Nephrology, Nutrition, Orthopedics, Pathology, Perinatology, Public Health, Urology and Vascular Surgery and 1 each in Biochemistry, Cancer, Dentistry, Epidemiology, Forensic Medicine, Gastroenterology, Oncology, Otorhinolaryngology, Plastic Surgery, Respiratory Medicine and Thoracic Surgery. 306 journals have been identified as core journals in the field of Vascular Diseases in Children.


A computational pipeline for identifying copy number variation from single nucleotide polymorphism data and applications to congenital heart disease Daniel Seung Kim Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor and Chair, Patrick J. Heagerty Department of Biostatistics Copy number variants (CNVs) are duplications or deletions of regions of the genome. CNVs, similar to single nucleotide variants (SNVs), range in frequency and severity in their effects on human disease. Despite the likely importance of CNVs in pathophysiology, comparatively fewer studies have examined the effect of CNVs on human disease as compared to SNVs. In this work, I first review the methods used for determination of CNVs from widely available SNV chip data and present data from a cohort of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) that finds that increased positive predictive value can be derived from looking at the overlap in CNVs called by two divergent methodologies (94.6%, 35/37). I then compare the prevalence of these validated CNVs and find that children with nonsyndromic CHD have a higher burden of large, geneoverlapping CNVs compared to controls (12.1% vs. 5.0%, P=0.00016). Moreover, through use of Cox proportional hazards regression, I present data that the presence of a CNV is associated with significantly decreased transplant-free survival after surgery (HR=3.42, 95% CI: 1.66-7.09, P=0.00090) with confounder adjustment. These data suggest CNVs can be determined with high accuracy and that CNV burden is an important modifier of survival after surgery for CHD.


Soya foods may protect against the development of breast cancer. Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 is under investigation as a possible link between nutrition and cancer. We examined the effect of soya foods on circulating IGF-1 and IGF binding protein (BP)-3 levels among 196 healthy premenopausal women in a 2-year randomised nutritional trial. The intervention group consumed two daily servings of soya foods including tofu, soya milk, soya nuts and soya protein powder (equivalent to 50 mg isoflavones and 5–22 g soya protein per serving); the controls maintained their regular diet. Five serum samples at baseline, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months were collected in the morning during the luteal phase and analysed for IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 by double-antibody ELISA. We applied mixed models to investigate the intervention effect and predictors of serum levels while considering the repeated measurement design. Adherence with the study regimen was high and dropout rates were acceptable. Randomisation resulted in similar mean IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 levels by group. We did not observe a significant intervention effect on IGF-1, IGFBP-3, and their molar ratio during the entire study period. However, urinary isoflavone excretion during the study period was positively associated with IGF-1 (P=0·04) and the IGF-1:IGFBP-3 ratio (P=0·06). The effect was consistent over time. Adding soya foods to the diet of premenopausal women does not appear to lower serum levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3; if anything, the greater protein intake from soya may lead to a small increase in IGF-1 serum levels.


The signalling molecule WNT4 has been associated with sex reversal phenotypes in mammals. Here we show that the role of WNT4 in gonad development is to pattern the sex-specific vasculature and to regulate steroidogenic cell recruitment. Vascular formation and steroid production in the mammalian gonad occur in a sex-specific manner. During testis development, endothelial cells migrate from the mesonephros into the gonad to form a coelomic blood vessel. Leydig cells differentiate and produce steroid hormones a day later. Neither of these events occurs in the XX gonad. We show that WNT4 represses mesonephric endothelial and steroidogenic cell migration in the XX gonad, preventing the formation of a male-specific coelomic blood vessel and the production of steroids. In the XY gonad, Wnt4 expression is downregulated after sex determination. Transgenic misexpression of Wnt4 in the embryonic testis did not inhibit coelomic vessel formation but vascular pattern was affected. Leydig cell differentiation was not affected in these transgenic animals and our data implies that Wnt4 does not regulate steroidogenic cell differentiation but represses the migration of steroidogenic adrenal precursors into the gonad. These studies provide a model for understanding how the same signalling molecule can act on two different cell types to coordinate sex development.


Optimization problems in HEP often involve maximizing a measure of how sensitive is a given analysis to an hypothesis with respect to another hypothesis; the latter is referred to as null hypothesis and in a frequentist framework is tested against the former, which is referred to as alternative hypothesis. In most cases, it is desirable to fully compute the expected frequentist significance, accounting for all sources of systematic uncertainty and interpreting the result as the real sensitivity of the analysis to the effect sought. Sometimes, however, either computational or conceptual reasons can favour the use of different or approximate figures of merit, often collectively called "pseudosignificances", which exhibit different properties depending on the relationship between the hypotheses being tested. This work will review the most common definitions of sensitivity (pseudosignificances), and compare them with the fully frequentist significances computed in toy analyses spanning a spectrum of typical HEP use cases. A connection will be made with the concept of Bayes Factor, and evidence values from Bayesian significance tests will be studied and evaluated in the same toy cases, attempting to build an improved approximate condition-aspecific figure of merit. Finally, an attempt will be made at transporting to the typical HEP cases a Bayesian solutions to the on-off problem developed in an astrophysics context.


I. Introduction It seems hardly necessary to emphasize how important the concept of the unreliable narrator has been in literary studies since it was introduced by Wayne C. Booth in 1961. Booth's classic definition of the unreliable narrator has survived in nearly all narratological textbooks: "I have called a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say the implied author's norms), unreliable when he does not" (158-59). Recently, however, in the wake of an increasingly critical attitude toward this traditional understanding of unreliable narration, e.g., in the works of Tamar Yacobi ("Fictional Reliability"), Kathleen Wall, or James Phelan and Mary Patricia Martin, the German scholar Ansgar Nunning has shown in a whole series of articles on the subject (1) that the existence of an implied author is neither a necessary nor a sufficient requirement of unreliable narration. (2) Instead, he has offered a reader-centered approach to unreliable narration. According to Nunn ing ("Unreliable"), unreliable narration can be explained "in the context of frame theory as a projection by the reader who tries to resolve ambiguities and textual inconsistencies by attributing them to the narrator's unreliability." In consequence, unreliable narration can be understood "as an interpretive strategy or cognitive process of the sort that has come to be known as 'naturalization"' (54). (3) Within the theory of unreliable narration such a cognitive turn represents a first paradigm shift. It allows a radical rethinking of the whole notion of narrative unreliability. Instead of relying on the device of the implied author and a text-centered analysis of unreliable narration, narrative unreliability can be reconceptualized in the context of frame theory and of readers' cognitive strategies. In the following, however, I will argue that we need a second fundamental paradigm shift, one toward a greater historicity and cultural awareness. Such a second paradigm shift--a historical and cultural turn--goes beyond Nunning's cognitive approach and leads to a cultural-narratological theory of unreliable narration. (4) The central thesis of my approach rests upon the realization that, because unreliability is the effect of interpretive strategies, it is culturally and historically variable. It reflects a number of prominent synchronic and diachronic developments within philosophical, scientific, psychological, social, or aesthetic discourses of the last two centuries. Unreliable narration can therefore be considered as a phenomenon on the borderline between ethics and aesthetics, between literary and other cultural discourses. Furthermore, if we include historical and cultural aspects in the theory of unreliable narration, the concept of narrative unreliability can ultimately serve as an important categor y in the wider field of cultural studies. After a brief sketch of the cognitive turn and its implications for our understanding of what exactly constitutes unreliable narration, I will formulate a set of four theses. These theses highlight the central features that I believe to be the minimal conditions of unreliable narration and suggest the necessity of a historical and cultural turn in the study of narrative unreliability. They will be followed by four diachronic theses concerning the history of unreliable narration. Within this historical framework, I will focus on the different cultural discourses that have been reflected in narrative literature by the use of unreliable narration since the phenomenon came into being with the realist novel of the eighteenth century. II. The Cognitive Turn in the Theory of Unreliable Narration: Unreliable Narration as a Result of Interpretive Strategies Until quite recently, Booth's definition of the unreliable narrator had hardly been questioned. On the contrary, it served as the basis for almost all works on unreliable narration. …


We present a system for image-based modeling and rendering of real-world scenes containing reflective and glossy surfaces. Previous approaches to image-based rendering assume that the scene can be approximated by 3D proxies that enable view interpolation using traditional back-to-front or z-buffer compositing. In this work, we show how these can be generalized to multiple layers that are combined in an additive fashion to model the reflection and transmission of light that occurs at specular surfaces such as glass and glossy materials. To simplify the analysis and rendering stages, we model the world using piecewise-planar layers combined using both additive and opaque mixing of light. We also introduce novel techniques for estimating multiple depths in the scene and separating the reflection and transmission components into different layers. We then use our system to model and render a variety of real-world scenes with reflections.


Economic globalization, welfare state transformation as well as political and social change on national and supranational level impact on national labor markets in advanced societies in complex ways. From a gender perspective, these dynamics of change entail deregulation as well as re-regulation of employment systems and at the same time are triggered by shifts in gender relations. Addressing this complexity poses challenges to scholarly research comparing employment systems and systemizing cross-national variations of labor market regimes which tend to neglect gender relations as a relevant factor of change. This context sets the framework for our question on how ongoing changes in employment systems and in gender relations are taken up in recent scholarship. We focus on three approaches prominent in the mainstream scholarly debate which address the current state of employment systems in advanced economies in comparative perspective spanning from political economy to micro economics and economic sociology, namely the Varieties of Capitalism (VOC) approach (Hall/Soskice 2001), Marsden's micro-economic theory of employment systems (1999) and Fligstein's work 'The architecture of markets' (2001). The approaches differ in the assignment of agency (to firms, employees and the state) as well as in the assessment of the role of educational institutions for shaping employment systems. They thus dispose of different pitfalls and potentials for analyzing the gendered character of change of employment systems.


Introduction and background: World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breast feeding for at least 6 months and thereafter until the child is 2 years of age. The success of introduction and sustenance of any health initiative depends upon the knowledge and attitudes towards those health practices. This study was undertaken to assess the baseline knowledge, attitudes and anticipated practices of MBBS students and help in framing policies towards inclusion of breast-feeding training in regular curriculum. Methodology: A cross sectional survey was carried on at a private medical college on 137 medicos comprising of Final year MBBS and Interns. Using Google Forms, a survey questionnaire was prepared, comprising of 37 items assessing the knowledge, attitude and anticipatory practices towards breastfeeding and infant nutrition. Results: The mean overall score of Final MBBS participants was 64.5% and that of Interns were 71.2% (P value = 0.002). In all 3 domains the Interns scored higher than Final MBBS participants and the differences were statistically significant. There were positive correlations between knowledge and attitude (r= 0.36, P value < 0.001), knowledge and practices (r= 0.53, P value < 0.001) and attitude and practices (r = 0.44, P value < 0.001). Conclusion: This study highlights the knowledge, attitude and practice level of students among Final MBBS and Interns at our institute. The overall knowledge level was average. As tomorrows practitioners and policy makers it is mandatory to shape this group of young doctors in order to ensure that future of our nation that is current generation of childrenare in safe hands.


Sharing research data is becoming increasingly important as it enables peers to validate and reproduce data driven experiments. Without original raw data at hand, serious peer review is impossible. Also exchanging data allows scientists to reuse data in different contexts and gather new knowledge from available sources. But with increasing volume and iteratively enhanced data sets, researchers need to reference exact versions of data sets. Until now access to research data often based on single archives of data files where versioning and subsetting support is limited. In this paper we introduce a mechanism that allows researchers to create versioned subsets of research data which can be cited and shared in a lightweight and secure manner. We demonstrate a prototype that supports researchers in creating subsets based on filtering and sorting source data. These subsets can be cited for later reference and reuse. The system produces evidence that allows users to verify the correctness and completeness

of a subset based on cryptographic hashing. We describe a replication scenario for enabling scalable data citation in dynamic contexts.


The demographic changes in the Western world in the last two decades have led to rapid growth in the number of children being raised bilingually, and in many locations they represent a majority of the school population. With this increase in the number of bilingual children, researchers as well as educators and practitioners, face a diagnostic dilemma which arises from similarities in the linguistic manifestations of child second language (L2) acquisition and of Specific Language Impairment (SLI). This dilemma has motivated a new field of research, the study of bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment (BISLI), which aims at disentangling the effects of bilingualism from those of SLI, making use of both models of bilingualism and models of language impairment. The majority of the studies are currently focused on morphosyntax as a key direction of research. The present issue, which originated in papers presented at a scientific workshop funded by the Israel Science Foundation and The Hebrew University's Center for Advanced Study, held in February 2009, aims at broadening this area of research to other linguistic domains.


Mix or influence of vegetation signal on soil information decrease the performance of soil identification and mapping. This paper describes a simple transformation to eliminate the mix or influence of vegetation reflectance on s011 reflectance, and to enhance the soil information. The usefulness of the transformation were investigated and shown by the channel selection based upon the statistical distance between soil classes and by multispectral pattern recognition. The simple transformation was considered to sensitive to the degree of the soil organic matter contents.


Abstract Arable weeds are a key component of the biodiversity of agroecosystems, but have faced a marked decline due to agricultural intensification. Recently, the crop edge has been considered as a potential refugia for many species. Indeed, weed species richness and abundance are higher in the crop edge than in the field margin and the field core. In this study we question whether weed functional diversity also varies among field elements and whether it is higher in the crop edge. We studied the interspecific and intraspecific variation of three functional traits (specific leaf area, canopy height and above-ground biomass) related to the response of weeds to competition and to agricultural practices, for seven weed species sampled in the crop edge, the field margin and the field core area in four winter-wheat fields. We show that trait values varied significantly with the species, the field element and their interaction. Within the field, all species had high specific leaf area, low canopy height and biomass, suggesting a shade-tolerance syndrome that could be a strategy in response to both competition with the crop and the disturbances induced by agricultural practices. In the crop edge, where the functional variation was the highest, two distinct functional strategies were observed, suggesting a resource partitioning under the predominance of weed–weed competition. In conclusion, the crop edge plays a key role in sustaining weed diversity, mostly because of its intermediate environmental properties that allow the coexistence of weeds with different ecological strategies.


Volterra series have been in the engineering literature for some time now, and yet there have been few attempts to measure Volterra kernels. This paper discusses techniques for measuring the Volterra kernels of weakly nonlinear systems. We introduce a new quick method for measuring the second Volterra kernel which is analogous to pseudonoise testing of a linear device. To illustrate the discussion we present an experimental example, an electro-acoustic transducer. Throughout the paper we emphasize the practical aspects of kernel measurement.


The Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project is currently developing Bt maize for Kenya. So far, Bt genes with resistance to Ch ilo partellus, Chilo orichalcociliellus, Eldana sacharina , and Sesamia calamistis , four of the five major stemborers were successfully incorporated into elite CIMMYT maize inbred line (CML216) and tested in insect bioassays in Kenya. Participatory Rural Appraisals showed that stem borers are indeed major pest problems for farmers. Four seasons of on-farm crop loss assessment showed an average crop loss of 13.5%, or 0.4 million tons, valued at US$ 80 million. If the project manages to find a Bt gene that is effective to the fifth stemborer, Busseola fusca, adoption rates are likely to be high, and therefore the returns. Under standard assumptions, the economic surplus of the project is calculated at $ 208 million over 25 years (66% of which is consumer surplus) as compared to a cost of $5.7 million. Geographically, the project should focus on the high production moist-transitional zone. However, if such gene cannot be found, Bt maize technology would only be effective in the low potential areas, and adoption rates would be fairly low, although benefits would still exceed costs. Key words : Maize, genetically modified crops, Bacillus thuringiensis, adoption, economic impact.


Rapid urban expansion is a significant contributor to land cover change and poses a challenge to environmental sustainability, particularly in less developed countries. Insufficient data about urban expansion hinders effective land use planning. Therefore, a high need to collect, process, and disseminate land cover data exists. This study focuses on urban land cover change detection using Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing methods to produce baseline information in support for land use planning. We applied a supervised classification of land cover of LANDSAT data from 1987, 2002, and 2017. We mapped land cover transitions from 1987 to 2017 and computed the net land cover change during this time. Finally, we analyzed the mismatches between the past and current urban land cover and land use plans and quantified the non-urban development area lost to urban/built-up. Our results indicated an increase in urban/built-up and bare land cover types, while vegetation land cover decreased. We observed mismatches between past/current land cover and the existing land use plan. By providing detailed insights into mismatches between the regional land use plan and unregulated urban expansion, this study provides important information for a critical debate on the role and effectiveness of land use planning for environmental sustainability and sustainable urban development, particularly in less developed countries.


Actual or apparent corruption can seriously undermine any democratic system. This Article examines two approaches to tackling this problem in South Africa. The libertarian approach, used in the United States, embodies a strong presumption against regulation of campaign financing on the basis that it is a violation of the constitutional rights to free speech and association. The weak regulations that result from this system do little to stem the influence of a powerful few on the outcomes of national elections. A better approach for South Africa is the egalitarian model, used in both the United Kingdom and Canada. This model focuses on leveling the playing field for participants. Under this model, rights are subject to greater regulation so long as the government can provide sufficient justification. South Africa's current system, by requiring proportional national funding of political parties, but leaving private financing largely unregulated, has resulted in a virtual one-party state in which private funding dominates. To solve these problems, South Africa should embrace the egalitarian model by implementing spending caps and increasing transparency.


This book provides a thorough introduction to the Texas Instruments MPS432™ microcontroller. The MPS432 is a 32-bit processor with the ARM Cortex M4F architecture and a built-in floating point unit. At the core, the MSP432 features a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F CPU, a RISC-architecture processing unit that includes a built-in DSP engine and a floating point unit. As an extension of the ultra-low-power MSP microcontroller family, the MSP432 features ultra-low power consumption and integrated digital and analog hardware peripherals. The MSP432 is a new member to the MSP family. It provides for a seamless transition to applications requiring 32-bit processing at an operating frequency of up to 48 MHz. The processor may be programmed at a variety of levels with different programming languages including the user-friendly Energia rapid prototyping platform, in assembly language, and in C. A number of C programming options are also available to developers, starting with register-level acce s code where developers can directly configure the device's registers, to Driver Library, which provides a standardized set of application program interfaces (APIs) that enable software developers to quickly manipulate various peripherals available on the device. Even higher abstraction layers are also available, such as the extremely user-friendly Energia platform, that enables even beginners to quickly prototype an application on MSP432. The MSP432 LaunchPad is supported by a host of technical data, application notes, training modules, and software examples. All are encapsulated inside one handy package called MSPWare, available as both a stand-alone download package as well as on the TI Cloud development site: dev.ti.com The features of the MSP432 may be extended with a full line of BoosterPack plug-in modules. The MSP432 is also supported by a variety of third party modular sensors and software compiler companies. In the back, a thorough introduction to the MPS432 line of microco trollers, programming techniques, and interface concepts are provided along with considerable tutorial information with many illustrated examples. Each chapter provides laboratory exercises to apply what has been presented in the chapter. The book is intended for an upper level undergraduate course in microcontrollers or mechatronics but may also be used as a reference for capstone design projects. Practicing engineers already familiar with another microcontroller, who require a quick tutorial on the microcontroller, will also find this book very useful. Finally, middle school and high school students will find the MSP432 highly approachable via the Energia rapid prototyping system.


The authors analyze innovations in data processing as a result of developments such as 'big data' and the 'Internet of Things' and discuss why these developments undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of the current as well as upcoming EU data protection regime, thereby focusing on the private sector. The authors undertake a detailed analysis of key data processing principles used in the European data protection regime (purpose limitation, informational self-determination and data quality) and argue that due to social trends and technological developments the principle of purpose limitation should be abandoned as a separate criterion. Also, other principles (such as consent and the performance of an agreement) should no longer be recognised as independent legal grounds to legitimize data processing. The authors propose, instead, a test based on whether there is a legitimate interest for data collection and processing (as well as further processing) of data. The authors argue that such a test will provide for a more effective data protection regime that will have more legitimacy than the assessment under the existing legal regime that is primarily based on the purposes for which data may be collected and further used. Based on their analysis, the authors develop a framework to be used by companies as the principal (and only) test for the whole life cycle of personal data processing (collection, use, further use and destruction of data). This test has been drafted in such a way that it enables companies to comply with the new requirements under the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation, that will become effective in 2018. The authors conclude their analysis with proposals to increase the (effectiveness of) enforcement of the data protection rules.


The colonisation by Greylag Geese Anser anser of a new autumn migration staging area was studied on the island of Schiermonnikoog, The Netherlands. Over 500 Greylag Geese first visited the island in 1991. During subsequent years, peak numbers rose to 700-900 birds. The geese most likely originated from the neighbouring staging area on the mainland, the Lauwersmeer, where goose numbers had levelled off since 1985. Because of the time-lag between saturation of the source population and colonisation of the island, changes on the island itself were investigated as a possible trigger for the arrival of the geese. Potential food availability on the island had increased for the geese as a result of vegetation succession. Two food-plants, Sea Club-rush Scirpus maritimus and Common Cord-grass Spartina anglica have increased over the last four decades. Greylag Geese fed mostly on Scirpus tubers and Spartina rhizomes. The soluble-carbohydrate content of the latter two food items did not differ significantly, and was approximately 25% on a dry weight basis. Negative effects of grubbing by Greylag Geese on stands of both Scirpus and Spartina appeared limited during the study period. Although Greylag Geese now spend most of the year in agricultural areas, our study indicates that natural habitats are still of importance for migrating Greylag Geese as staging areas.


US-China Law Review is an international, scholarly and peer-reviewed journal (print and online), published bimonthly by David Publishing Company, USA which was founded in 2001. The Journal serves as a bridge between worldwide scholars and public researchers. It publishes research by legal scholars and provides valuable educational experiences for the student members. The Law Review strives to publish articles that will be useful research tools for students, attorneys, judges, and legal scholars, and to provide commentary on issues that will facilitate growth and development of the law. In addition to publishing articles in all branches of the law, it contains sections devoted to recent legislation and reports, to case analysis, and to review articles and book reviews. The journal is published in English. The e-journal provides free and open access to all of its content on our website. Accepted papers will immediately appear online followed by printed in hard copy.


This work is a study of multivariate simulations of pollutants to assess the sampling uncertainty for the risk analysis of a contaminated site. The study started from data collected for a remediation project of a steel- works in northern Italy. The soil samples were taken from boreholes excavated a few years ago and analyzed by a chemical laboratory. The data set comprises concentrations of several pollutants, from which a subset of ten organic and inorganic compounds were selected. The first part of study is a univariate and bivariate sta- tistical analysis of the data. All data were spatially analyzed and transformed to the Gaussian space so as to reduce the effects of extreme high values due to contaminant hot spots and the requirements of Gaussian simulation procedures. The variography analysis quantified spatial correlation and cross-correlations, which led to a hypothesized linear model of coregionalization for all variables. Geostatistical simulation methods were applied to assess the uncertainty. Two types of simulations were performed: correlation correction of univariate sequential Gaussian simulations (SGS), and sequential Gaussian co-simulations (SGCOS). The outputs from the correlation correction simulations and SGCOS were analyzed and grade-tonnage curves were produced to assess basic environmental risk.


This paper investigated reliability of a postbuckled composite isogrid stiffened shell structure under a compression load. The outside diameter of the isogrid cylinder was 624.8 mm, the length was 368.3 mm and the total weight of the cylinder was 3.24 kg. A finite element buckling analysis result was compared with the axial compression experimental data. The average critical buckling load of 186.56 kN was obtained by using the Patran finite element analysis (FEA). The isogrid shell was modeled using 3-node triangular elements and the stiffeners were modeled using 4-node quad elements with a total of 504 nodes and 900 elements. The postbuckled isogrid cylinder was compression tested to the failure load of 177.35 kN. The postbuckled cylinder continued to resist compression loading even after one or more stiffeners had fractured. The testing evaluation revealed that the stiffener buckling was the critical failure mode and it has been demonstrated to be tolerant to structural damage due to the multiplicity of load paths. The lower experimental bucking load was due to the small imperfections in the cylinder but this problem can be overcome by advancement in the manufacturing methods.


The fruit of a lifetime's reading and thinking about literature, its delights and its responsibilities, this book by acclaimed poet and critic Anthony Hecht explores the mysteries of poetry, offering profound insight into poetic form, meter, rhyme, and meaning. Ranging from Renaissance to contemporary poets, Hecht considers the work of Shakespeare, Sidney, and Noel; Housman, Hopkins, Eliot, and Auden; Frost, Bishop, and Wilbur; Amichai, Simic, and Heaney. Stepping back from individual poets, Hecht muses on rhyme and on meter, and also discusses St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and Melville's "Moby-Dick." Uniting these diverse subjects is Hecht's preoccupation with the careful deployment of words, the richness and versatility of language and of those who use it well. Elegantly written, deeply informed, and intellectually playful, "Melodies Unheard" confirms Anthony Hecht's reputation as one of our most original and imaginative thinkers on the literary arts.


As economists have increasingly accepted the notion that non-equilibrium behavior may be a reflection of the "real world," interest has grown in modeling the emergence of turbulence as well as equilibrium. It is well established that competitive actions and the associated reactions can destabilize a previously stable market. Earlier work by two of the authors used simulation to conduct a non-equilibrium competitive analysis of a market where consumer reaction followed the market share attraction model. These simulations demonstrated that even the relatively simple competitive behavior of optimizing ones own spending levels while assuming stable competitive behavior can lead to surprising instability. The basic logic of the market share attraction model is easy to accept. Given the amount of work done to fine-tune applications of this model, we believe the logic of the model helps determine the behavior of real firms. As shown in earlier work, however, application of the logic may lead to dynamic instability when the number of competitors exceeds a threshold level of three or four. This study provides an analytical explanation for the emergence of this instability when the number of competitors exceeds three or four. This work will also extend the original model formulation to identify other conditions that may affect the existence or level of the instability thresholds.


By observing that the faces at close ages are similar, some Label Distribution Learning (LDL) methods have been proposed to solve age estimation tasks that they treat age distributions as the training targets. However, these existent LDL methods are limited because they can hardly extract enough useful information from complex image features. In this paper, Sparsity Conditional Energy Label Distribution Learning (SCE-LDL) is proposed to solve this problem. In the proposed SCE-LDL, age distributions are used as the training targets and energy function is utilized to define the age distribution. By assigning a suitable energy function, SCE-LDL can learn distributed representations, which provides the model with strong expressiveness for capturing enough of the complexity of interest from image features. The sparsity constraints are also incorporated to ameliorate the model. Experiment results in two age datasets show remarkable advantages of the proposed SCE-LDL model over the previous proposed age estimation methods.


The extent to which originalism can be harmonized with precedent is an issue I have confronted regularly during my tenure as a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court. This article outlines several observations that have informed my thinking on this topic, drawn from my decade or so on that court. (1) I view myself as an originalist judge, sometimes lapsing into self-descriptions as a "textualist," an "interpretivist," a believer in "original meaning," or even a "judicial conservative." Nuances of differences in these terms aside, I take seriously what I view as my obligation to give reasonable meaning to the language of the drafters of constitutions, statutes, contracts, and deeds. I have taken oaths to the United States Constitution and to the Michigan Constitution, and I take these oaths seriously. On the other hand, I have not taken an oath to abide by the judgments of my predecessors. Yet, on a number of occasions, I have sustained precedents I have disagreed with, and which did not, in my judgment, conform to the intentions of the lawmaker. Despite this, the primary criticism of my court during the eight years when I served with three other originalists as a majority of our seven-member court, was that we were insufficiently respectful of precedent. (2) Throughout my time on the court, I have approached my obligation to reconcile originalist jurisprudence with stare decisis through consideration of the following precepts. First, the burden of proof rests with the party seeking to overturn precedent (3) because precedent reflects existing law and the status quo. Moreover, a judge is obligated to demonstrate some reasonable measure of institutional humility in the face of interpretations of the law that may have their pedigree in past judicial decisions, and which have withstood the scrutiny of ensuing generations of judges. (4) It is hubristic and injudicious to approach precedents in any other manner, if only because precedents are likely to assist a court in getting the law right. (5) Earlier decisions deserve deference, and to think otherwise--essentially to begin the analysis of each case de novo--is judicial solipsism. (6) Second, an originalist understanding of the court's "judicial power" in Michigan--the only power that my court wields--reinforces these views. (7) Although dispute concerning the precise extent to which the judicial power encompasses a reasonable regard for precedent is possible, (8) based upon the historical evidence thoroughly amassed by Professors McGinnis and Rappaport, (9) such regard is implicit. There are approving references to precedent, for example, in the Federalist Papers when addressing the role of the judiciary, (10) and similar references can be found in cases interpreting the Michigan Constitution. At the federal level, certain forms of judicial self-restraint, such as the avoidance of "political questions," and the preconditions of standing and ripeness, are part of Article III's Case or Controversy Clause. (11) Although Michigan does not have an analogous clause, such constraints are fairly understood as a function of the judicial power, (12) as is the constraint of precedent, a practice so engrained in the judicial history of our state that early interpretive decisions by the Michigan Supreme Court routinely focused on the existence of relevant precedents. (13) Third, a responsible court must not unnecessarily unsettle the law, or wreak chaos upon that law. (14) If there is any realm within which the values of stability, predictability, and continuity must be held in high regard, and in which such values should most certainly be maintained and preserved, it must be within the realm of our legal institutions, which define the rights and obligations of our citizens. Not only does regard for precedent serve these values, but by assuring that equivalently situated persons are treated in a reasonably equivalent manner, precedent also serves to promote the equal rule of law. …


The use of a fiber Fabry–Perot filter for detecting the wavelength shift of a fiber Bragg grating sensor or network of sensor elements along a commonfiber path is described. Results obtained by using a system with four sensor elements are presented.


Pain is common among elderly. Very sick elderly persons living in nursing homes often have communication problems because of dementia or stroke, which causes problem to judge pain and evaluate effects of pain treatment. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence, localisation and expressions of pain and to evaluate the usefulness of some pain assessment methods for nursing home residents. The study included 66 elderly living in a nursing home of which 49% had dementia as main medical diagnosis. A specially trained registered nurse (RN) performed pain assessment by • presenting a set of pain assessment tools • interpreting the nursing home residents' reactions during activity and • interviewing the resident about perceived pain. Two physiotherapists (PTs) performed physical examination including assessment of joint motion and palpation of joints and muscles. Contractures and ambulating status were noted. Cognitive Performance Scale (CPS) assessed cognitive capacity. When assisted by the RN 61% of the residents used independent or by assistance a verbal rating scale. The RN made an estimation of pain in all the nursing home residents and the PTs examined 92% of the residents. Pain was identified in 88% of the residents, 42% of the residents were treated with analgesics and pain was documented in the nurses' daily notes in 27% of the patient records. All residents with contractures had pain in the engaged joint. This study indicates that it is possible to assess pain by combining interview and interpretation of the residents' reactions during activity. Detection of pain by physical examination is a valuable complement especially for persons with decreased ability to communicate.


Optical parametric oscillators (OPO's) have evolved to operate and be pumped by increasingly shorter pulses, so modeling them with a quasi-stationary approximation has become inappropriate. We derive a nonstationary model of an OPO and an optical parametric amplifier that takes into account the first-derivative terms of second- and third-order nonlinearity. We have rewritten this model entirely in the spectral domain. We applied the model to a KTP OPO and found good agreement with a well-characterized experiment. Further calculations were performed with a large diversity of parameters such as reflectivity of the output coupler, length and nonlinear index of refraction of the nonlinear crystal, length of the resonator, and duration of the pump pulse.


Objectives Cell-based therapy has been reported to repair or restore damaged salivary gland (SG) tissue after irradiation. This study was aimed at determining whether systemic administration of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hAdMSCs) can ameliorate radiation-induced SG damage. Methods hAdMSCs (1×106) were administered through a tail vein of C3H mice immediately after local irradiation, and then this infusion was repeated once a week for 3 consecutive weeks. At 12 weeks after irradiation, functional evaluations were conducted by measuring salivary flow rates (SFRs) and salivation lag times, and histopathologic and immunofluorescence histochemistry studies were performed to assay microstructural changes, apoptosis, and proliferation indices. The engraftment and in vivo differentiation of infused hAdMSCs were also investigated, and the transdifferentiation of hAdMSCs into amylase-producing SG epithelial cells (SGCs) was observed in vitro using a co-culture system. Results The systemic administration of hAdMSCs exhibited improved SFRs at 12 weeks after irradiation. hAdMSC-transplanted SGs showed fewer damaged and atrophied acinar cells and higher mucin and amylase production levels than untreated irradiated SGs. Immunofluorescence TUNEL assays revealed fewer apoptotic cells in the hAdMSC group than in the untreated group. Infused hAdMSCs were detected in transplanted SGs at 4 weeks after irradiation and some cells were found to have differentiated into SGCs. In vitro, a low number of co-cultured hAdMSCs (13%–18%) were observed to transdifferentiate into SGCs. Conclusion The findings of this study indicate that hAdMSCs have the potential to protect against irradiation-induced cell loss and to transdifferentiate into SGCs, and suggest that hAdMSC administration should be viewed as a candidate therapy for the treatment of radiation-induced SG damage.


Hypersonic aircrafts suffer from heat management problems caused by the air friction produced at high speeds. The supercritical catalytic cracking of fuel is endothermic and can be exploited to remove heat from the aircraft surfaces using specially designed heat management systems. Here, we report that an acid/base-treated activated carbon (AC) catalyst shows superior performance to the conventional ZSM-5 catalyst at 4 MPa and 450 °C. Further, under these conditions, coke formation is thermodynamically avoided. Of the prepared catalysts, the AC catalyst treated with NaOH and subsequently with HNO3 (denoted AC-3Na-N) was the most active catalyst, showing the highest selectivity toward light olefins and best heat sink capacity. The acid/base-treated ACs and ZSM-5 catalysts were characterized by scanning transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, NH3 temperature-programmed desorption, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy measurements. Characterization reveals the importance of acid strength and density in promoting the cracking reaction pathway to light olefins observed over the acid/base-treated AC catalysts, which show comparable activity at 450 °C to that of the ZSM-5 catalyst operated above 550 °C. The low-temperature activity suppressed coke and aromatic compound (coke precursors) formation. The stability of the acid/base-treated activated carbon catalysts was confirmed over a time-on-stream of 30 min.


Since way back in the 1970's, academic research has attempted to improve forecasting practice. Unfortunately, this process is still incomplete and ongoing.
There has been little research in the forecasting area in incorporating forecasting techniques, systems and administration (Mentzer and Kahn, 1997). Several other
problems have been identified upon reviewing the literature, such as the limited use of modern forecasting practices (Flores and Duran, 1998). In particular, quantitative methods were slow to gain acceptance in practice, whilst forecasting techniques are
little known and little used. The purpose of our investigation is to find out if the findings from various related studies persist or have changed over time and whether there are any other factors
involved in forecasting that should be highlighted in the current practice. The motivation for this research is to bridge the gap between theory and practice in order
to improve forecasting practices and enhance the quality of forecasts. We carry out four types of study, namely pilot study, postal survey, case study and follow-up survey, and we base our work on several related publications
(Wheelwright and Clarke, 1976; Sparkes and McHugh, 1984; Dalrymple, 1987; Winklhofer et al, 1996; Mahmoud et #/., 1992). We explain our findings using statistical analysis and we offer different ways of explaining the behaviour patterns of the factors involved in forecasting. We demonstrate links between particular variables by offering basic mathematical functions to describe the effects of changes and by presenting an application of methods for improving point predictions and
cost functions (Goodwin, 1996 and Percy, 1993).
This research contributes to the present literature on forecasting in which behavioural issues have not been as thoroughly explored as have quantitative
methods. It is intended that our findings will strengthen principles and enhance strategies within organisations towards achieving the ultimate goal of accurate
forecasting.


The Highway Travel Information System (HTIS) is a long-term pre-trip information system providing information about expected events, such as road construction. The HTIS can be beneficial to both highway travelers and roadway project schedulers. Project schedulers can use the HTIS to check the forecasted traffic impacts of a proposed construction project schedule. If the schedule would cause unacceptable delays, a scheduler can try new schedules to reduce the delay. Travelers who have flexible schedules and would like to do pre-trip planning can obtain knowledge of traffic conditions in the near future from HTIS to avoid unnecessary delays. An approach called Workzone Delay Equilibrium Estimation (WDEE) is used by the HTIS to predict traffic conditions as construction zones age. Two extreme values of link volumes are calculated based on two scenarios: "no information", in which no drivers know about a new road capacity reduction, and "complete information", in which all drivers have adequate information about road construction zones. A relationship between link volumes and the age of a construction project has been hypothesized and applied to the two extreme cases to estimate link volumes during construction periods. Finally, the expected delays on links under construction are estimated based on the estimated link volumes. The HTIS is divided into three subsystems for the purpose of meeting the needs of different groups of users. They are the modeling, project scheduling, and web access subsystems. The modeling and project scheduling subsystems are for management purposes and the web access subsystem is for use by the traveling public. The modeling subsystem is built using Excel VBA and TransCAD GISDK interfaces. The main function of the modeling subsystem is to model traffic conditions and generate a delay database. The project scheduling subsystem is built on the TransCAD GISDK interface. The major tasks for the project scheduling subsystem include scheduling database management and assisting project scheduling. The web access subsystem is built on several scripting languages, including Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), JavaScript, VB-script, and Active Server Pagers (ASP). With the web access subsystem, travelers may input their proposed departure times and receive information about expected delays at workzones that are expected to be active during their trips. Motorists can use the information to plan their trips up to two months in advance.


This dissertation compiles evidence and offers analysis for all known buildings along the Yangtze River in China that were built during the Yuan dynasty, a short-lived dynasty ruled by Mongols from 1271 to 1368, and often considered a transitional period in Chinese architectural history. Investigated areas include Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai, which are grouped in to three major areas: Sichuan, the Middle Yangtze River and Jiangnan. Through this research, the author attempts to find out how individual Yuan buildings in south China differ and resemble one another, how they are distinct from contemporary buildings in the north, and how they can help us understand the transformation of architecture from Song to Ming. In order to elaborate the construction history, religious functions, and structure of each building, I surveyed textual as well as physical evidence by studying gazetteers and inscriptions, and measuring, drawing and photographing every building. This documentation of individual buildings is also combined with comparative studies involving Yuan buildings in the northern provinces of China. Through my investigations, I demonstrate that Yuan architecture in Sichuan can be described as a branch developed on the basis of Jin (1115-1234) architecture in the north. Yuan architecture in Jiangnan, on the other hand, follows the archaistic regional style ever since the Northern Song (960-1127) and also reflects the reinforcement of the twelfth-century architectural manual, Yingzao fashi. The regional disparity in Jiangnan and Sichuan is due to the transformation of the political situation that are caused by migration waves and the imbalanced development of economy ever since the fall of the Northern Song. The Yuan dynasty is undoubtedly a transitional period in two significant ways: old tradition generated under different pre-Yuan regimes, such as Song and Jin, developed separately under the rule of Mongols in different regions; and those regional styles of Yuan that were later absorbed by the new Ming official style that tried to revive of Song tradition as well as to establish a new powerful dynastic style to legitimate its rule. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group East Asian Languages & Civilizations First Advisor Nancy S. Steinhardt Second Advisor Victor H. Mair This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/102 Third Advisor Frank L. Chance,


Some bacteria think plastic is fantastic Bacteria isolated from outside a bottle-recycling facility can break down and metabolize plastic. The proliferation of plastics in consumer products, from bottles to clothing, has resulted in the release of countless tons of plastics into the environment. Yoshida et al. show how the biodegradation of plastics by specialized bacteria could be a viable bioremediation strategy (see the Perspective by Bornscheuer). The new species, Ideonella sakaiensis, breaks down the plastic by using two enzymes to hydrolyze PET and a primary reaction intermediate, eventually yielding basic building blocks for growth. Science, this issue p. 1196; see also p. 1154 Two specialized enzymes from a newly isolated bacterium break down plastic into its simplest building blocks. [Also see Perspective by Bornscheuer] Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is used extensively worldwide in plastic products, and its accumulation in the environment has become a global concern. Because the ability to enzymatically degrade PET has been thought to be limited to a few fungal species, biodegradation is not yet a viable remediation or recycling strategy. By screening natural microbial communities exposed to PET in the environment, we isolated a novel bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, that is able to use PET as its major energy and carbon source. When grown on PET, this strain produces two enzymes capable of hydrolyzing PET and the reaction intermediate, mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalic acid. Both enzymes are required to enzymatically convert PET efficiently into its two environmentally benign monomers, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol.


In serrated chips of difficult-to-machining materials such as medium carbon steel and titanium alloy during metal cutting process at high strain rates, the fine grain structure of the narrow shear bands which results from thermal softening due to severe deformation have been observed. However, the theories which have been developed to analyze continuous chip formation and most FEM analyses based on the conventional models such as Johnson-Cook and Zerilli-Armstrong flow stress model fail to explain the adiabatic shear band formation and the serrated chip formation. This paper discusses the characteristic of the new flow stress model in the previous investigation [1,2] and FEM simulation results to predict the serrated chip formation results are shown.


Energization overvoltages are among the severest overvoltages stressing insulations of EHV power system components. Since these overvoltages have a statistical nature, the insulation level should be determined with the use of a statistical approach by which the distribution of overvoltages is calculated. Literature has properly studied the distribution of energization overvoltages in purely OHL or cable systems, but such a study is not available for hybrid systems consisting of both OHLs and cables. It is expected that the overvoltage distributions change substantially when both OHLs and cables are used in a transmission line. This paper tackles this issue by analyzing the overvoltage distributions due to the energization of a 380 kV hybrid OHL-Cable circuit, in which the cable length is variable. The study includes various sensitivity analyses to find out the impact of system parameters and topology on overvoltages. By the statistical analysis, it has been discovered that energization overvoltages of a hybrid OHL-Cable circuit are higher than those of a fully-cable circuit and very likely lower than those of a fully-OHL circuit with the same transmission lengths.


This paper describes MSVMpack, an open source software package dedicated to our generic model of multi-class support vector machine. All four multi-class support vector machines (M-SVMs) proposed so far in the literature appear as instances of this model. MSVMpack provides for them the first unified implementation and offers a convenient basis to develop other instances. This is also the first parallel implementation for M-SVMs. The package consists in a set of command-line tools with a callable library. The documentation includes a tutorial, a user's guide and a developer's guide.


Background: personalised health care has been claimed to play an outstanding role in the future health services. In fact, health care systems will have to face changes in their work flows and processes due to the implementation of personalised technologies. Health Technology Assessment provides information to decision makers at any level on the introduction and exclusion of health technologies from the health care systems. Methods: the definition of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and the concepts and questions raised in the EUnetHTA core model, were used as a framework to analyse the impact of these new services in health care provision. Results: personalised health care services and products are health technologies, mainly diagnostics that have a broad impact in the health care systems. Although, safety, clinical effectiveness and economical aspects and consequences have been described, ethical, social and organisational issues raised questions that should be answered before considering their implementation in the health systems. Special attention should be paid on new requirements for regulation, data protection and the empowerment of citizen and health professionals. Conclusions: the benefits and harms of personalised health-care technologies should be decided on a "case by case" rather than a "one size fits all" basis and has to be analysed under its many aspects. The combination of genetic, clinical and environmental factors is crucial for the correct understanding of personalised medicine and its implementation. Personalised health care will require a fine-tuned revision of existing HTA and Pharmacoeconomic's guidelines to address its characteristics.


Two large explosions were detonated in the North Sea about 80 km east of
Aberdeen on 29 September, 1987, as part of a collaborative project between
the British Geological Survey and the Admiralty Research Establishment.
Both charges were deployed and detonated on the sea bed by RMAS Goosander
at 57°06.98'N 00045.04'Y in water depth 76.125 m. The 4500 lb
(2041.27 kg) TNT charge was detonated at 11h 52m 33.225s GMT and the
900 lb (408.2 kg) TNT charge at 15h 22m 30.591s GMT.
The majority of offshore recording equipment was deployed and retrieved
by RMAS Salmaster. Shock waves from both explosions were recorded by a
variety of instruments, both offshore and onshore.
Vertical arrays of pressure gauges and shot timing equipment recorded
the shock waves in the water near to the shot point, ranges being about
550 m and 230 m respectively for the two shots. Five Pull-up Shallow
Yater Seismometers (PUSSes) were deployed at ranges from about 10 to
85 km. Each PUSS contained one three-component geophone and one
hydrophone and operated independently of any ship but was restricted to
recording within nine pre-set time windows, each of 10 minutes duration.
At 60 km range three instrument packages were deployed and connected by
cable to RMAS Salmaster: two vertical strings of hydrophones, sensitive
to higher and lower frequencies respectively and the BGS sea-bed package
containing a three component accelerometer and one hydrophone. Four
onshore near coastal seismograph stations were installed and recorded at
"soft" sites to investigate sediment to hard rock propagation effects of
the seismic waves. Seismic recordings were obtained at land stations in
the UK and Eire, the latter by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies
for investigations into the deep crust and lithosphere.
Predicted pressures from a 4500 lb explosion detonated at 5m above the
sea-bed were 818kPa at 0.5km range, 28kPa at 10km (closest planned PUSS
site) and 2kPa at 85km (furthest planned PUSS site). The pressures
observed at 0.55km over a range of depths were 210-660kPa; 8kPa was
observed on the sea-bed at 9.98km and .09kPa at 85.29km.
Seismic local magnitude estimated from onshore seismic stations are
2.9 ML and 2.3 HL for the 4500 lb and 900 lb TNT charge respectively.


As society evolves, so does the variety of housing models, which were traditionally distinguished by location, components, and type of dwelling. Currently, lifestyle plays a large part in differentiating housing choices, and the right-sizing movement, which optimizes physical space in conjunction with lifestyle goals, is a new housing model that is gaining interest. Since the first-time home buying process can be overwhelming, a creative decision-making tool may offer direction into choosing the right home that is a suitable fit for individuals and families. The key contributions of the research include a home buying preparation aid and a right-sizing teaching tool as well as an organizational approach to designing a decision-making tool. The preliminary results suggest that a decision-making tool could prepare and facilitate the home buying process and create a platform for evaluating one's lifestyle objectives leading to right-sizing embodiment.
Keywords: Right-sizing; first-time homebuyers; creative decision-making tools; lifestyle choices


The innovative water reactor for flexible fuel cycle (FLWR) is an advanced reactor concept based on the well-developed light water reactor (LWR) technology. It is to be introduced in two stages to achieve effective and flexible utilization of the uranium and plutonium resources. In the first stage, the high-conversion-type reactor concept (HC-FLWR) is to be introduced, with a core that achieves a fissile Pu conversion ratio of 0.84. Then, in the second stage, the reduced-moderation water reactor (RMWR) concept can be introduced, with a breeder-type core that achieves a fissile Pu conversion ratio of 1.05. From the viewpoint of effective introduction of the high-conversion-type reactor, such as the introduction capacity of the reactor, HC-FLWR is required to further raise the fissile Pu conversion ratio to [approximately]0.95. This study aims to develop a new core design concept for the high-conversion-type core, HC-FLWR+, to achieve the higher fissile Pu conversion ratio of [approximately]0.95 under the framework of UO2 and U-Pu mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel technologies for LWRs. For raising the fissile Pu conversion ratio and controlling the void reactivity characteristics of the core, the concept of FLWR/MIX fuel assembly, which uses MOX and enriched UO2 fuel rods, is utilized. The relationships between the main design parameters and the core performance index parameters are clarified in this study. When the fuel rod diameter and the clearance range from 1.23 to 1.28 cm and 0.25 to 0.20 cm, respectively, under the same pitch of 1.48 cm, the fissile Pu conversion ratio and the core average discharge burnup range from 0.89 to 0.94 and 53 to 49 GWd/tonne, respectively (the fissile Pu conversion ratio and the burnup are subject to a trade-off). Furthermore, when 235U enrichment in the UO2 fuel rods is increased from 4.9 to 6 wt%, the fissile Pu conversion ratio improves to 0.97. From these relationships, two representative core designs with fissile Pu conversion ratios of 0.91 and 0.94 and one optional design with a ratio of 0.97 were obtained. Hence, the flexibility of HC-FLWR+ concept to achieve a higher fissile Pu conversion ratio of [approximately]0.95 has been revealed. Together with the standard HC-FLWR design, the concept covers a wide range of needs on fissile Pu conversion ratio from 0.84 up to 0.97, with design variations that are expected to be within the scope of current boiling water reactor and MOX fuel technologies.


The transformed domain fearures of images show effectiveness in distinguishing salient and non-salient regions. In this paper, we propose a novel deep complex neural network, named SalDCNN, to predict image saliency by learning features in both pixel and transformed domains. Before proposing Sal-DCNN, we analyze the saliency cues encoded in discrete Fourier transform (DFT) domain. Consequently, we have the following findings: 1) the phase spectrum encodes most saliency cues; 2) a certain pattern of the amplitude spectrum is important for saliency prediction; 3) the transformed domain spectrum is robust to noise and down-sampling for saliency prediction. According to these findings, we develop the structure of SalDCNN, including two main stages: the complex dense encoder and three-stream multi-domain decoder. Given the new SalDCNN structure, the saliency maps can be predicted under the supervision of ground-truth fixation maps in both pixel and transformed domains. Finally, the experimental results show that our Sal-DCNN method outperforms other 8 state-of-theart methods for image saliency prediction on 3 databases.


Large number of users are shifting to the cloud system for their different kind of needs. Hence the number of applications on public cloud are increasing day by day. Handling public cloud is becoming unmanageable in comparison to other counterparts. Though fog technology has reduced the load on centralized cloud resources to a remarkable extent, still load handled at cloud end is significantly high. Geographic partitioning of public cloud can resolve these issues by adding manageability and efficiency in this situation. Dividing public cloud in smaller partitions opens ways to manage resources and requests in a better way. But, partitioned clouds introduce different ends for submission and operations of tasks and virtual machines. We have tried to handle all these complexities in this paper. Proposed work is focused upon load balancing in the partitioned public cloud by combining centralized and decentralized approaches, assuming the presence of fog layer. A load balancer entity is used for decentralized load balancing at partitions and a controller entity is used for centralized level to balance the overall load at various partitions. In the proposed approach, it is assumed that jobs are segregated first. All the jobs which can be handled locally by fog resources are not forwarded to the cloud layer directly. Those are processed locally by decentralized fog resources. Selection of an appropriate Virtual Machine (VM) for filtered set of job, which are forwarded to cloud environment, is done in three steps. Initially, selecting the partition with a maximum available capacity of resources. Then finding the appropriate node with maximum available resources, within a selected partition. And finally, the VM with minimum execution time for a task is chosen. Results are compared with the results produced in this work with First Come First Serve (FCFS) and Shortest Job First (SJF) algorithms, implemented in same setup i.e. partitioned cloud. This paper compares the Waiting Time, Finish Time and Actual Run Time of tasks using these algorithms. After initial experimentation, it is found that in most of the cases, while comparing above parameters, the proposed approach is producing better results than FCFS algorithm. But results produced by SJF algorithm produce better results. To reduce the number of unhandled jobs, a new load state is introduced which checks load beyond conventional load states. Major objective of this approach is to reduce the need of runtime virtual machine migration and to reduce the wastage of resources, which may be occurring due to predefined values of threshold. The implementation is done using CloudSim.


IP over optical is being envisioned as one of the most attractive architectures for the new Internet. There have been various proposals in IETF and other international standards organizations regarding the interaction of IP routers and optical core networks. This paper describes the architectural alternatives for the integration of IP and DWDM networks using Multiprotocol Lambda Switching (MPLambdaS). The paper also addresses the issues of routing, signaling, control and survivability in an all-optical network.


In this article I consider the white British and Australian schoolgirl through a notionally comparative study of Enid Blyton's The Naughtiest Girl in the School (1940–1952) series and the contemporary Go Girl (2005–2012) series, texts span-ning my lived experience as girl, mother, and teacher. Through incendiary fragments of memory and media, I, as researcher and writer, seek the girl addressed by these texts and consider the struggles, denials, and ambivalences that produce and are produced by reading the schoolgirl. This girl resists historical determinism, coalescing as contemporaneous past, present, and future as the reader performs her own girlhood through reading and writing. This creative analytical article notices the visual and physical manifestations of texts, as well as their linguistic discourses. Through this work, we perceive postfeminist entanglement in the ongoing re-configuration of the schoolgirl, with implications for policy and prac-tice in education and for cultural and girlhood studies.


This dissertation proposes a novel gaze-driven approach for dynamic discomfort glare assessments as a first step towards understanding human responsive comfort with respect to daylight. The objective was to observe the natural gaze behaviour in relation to glare for office spaces with the conditions implicitly constrained by real world luminous conditions. In the existing visual comfort models human behaviour is not sufficiently considered. These models employ only subjective assessments, which lack an objective understanding of the factors affecting the perceptual mechanism of light-induced visual discomfort. They so far have not integrated the inter-dependencies of visual discomfort perception and human gaze responses and have been limited to a fixed-gaze assumption directed towards the office task area. In this dissertation, a gaze-driven approach is developed and adopted in the discomfort glare assessments. The assessments were done in a series of experiments in simulated office setting under different lighting conditions where participants' gaze responses with means of mobile eye-tracking as well as their subjective assessments were recorded while monitoring photometric quantities relevant to visual comfort using high dynamic range luminance imaging. Integration of the luminance images coupled with eye tracking enabled us to obtain the gaze-centred luminance fields, which gives a better estimate of actual luminance values perceived by the eye, used as a basis to investigate the gaze direction dependencies of visual comfort. This PhD dissertation describes different stages of conception of this novel dynamic discomfort glare assessment method. In the experimental phase, two pilot studies were made for proper integration of the adopted methods and techniques into discomfort glare assessments. Development of several routines, algorithms and tools to identify and translate the gaze directions in order to derive the actual luminance field perceived by the participants were needed to achieve this goal. A final comprehensive experimental phase was realised to investigate gaze behaviour in response to light. As a first validation step, the gaze-driven approach was compared to the fixed-gaze approach. Then the effects of different luminance levels as well as different view outside the window on the dynamic shifts of the gaze were investigated.The developed approach demonstrates the need to integrate gaze direction patterns into visual comfort assessments, which move us beyond the existing assumption of a fixed-gaze direction towards a gaze responsive comfort.


Much current research fails to provide in-depth explanations as to how and with what resources frontline employees deal with incidents where customers display dysfunctional behaviour. By drawing on theory of implicit knowledge and practical judgement this paper aims to explain this and conceptualize inherent structures and sub-mechanisms, central to service marketing. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews and narratives from four different industries, each representing service provision wherein customer misbehaviour is found to be frequent. The results display linkages between the central dimensions of dealing with customer misbehaviour. When incidents of misbehaviour occur they are met by tactics ranging from routinized action to more analytical and strategic approaches. These tactics are guided by underlying mechanisms in the form of practical judgements based on rules, balanced adjustment or reflection, with the judgements in turn being informed by implicit knowledge based on norms, schemes, or multi-perspective thinking. The study reveals patterns of linkages between these.


This study attempts to identify and quantify factors that adversely affect the growth and development of emerging contractors in the construction industry of Limpopo Province in South Africa. The study is based on a stratified random sample of 229 emerging contractors who operate in the construction industry of Limpopo Province. The degree of entrepreneurial skills in emerging contractors was assessed by using a composite index defined by Beck and DemirgucKunt (2012). Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used for data collection and analysis. The study found that 139 of the 229 emerging contractors selected for the study (60.70%) lacked entrepreneurial skills by the standards of Beck and Demirguc-Kunt (2012), whereas 90 of them (40.18%) had adequate entrepreneurial skills by the same standards. The study also showed that 141 of the 229 emerging contractors in the study (61.57%) lacked basic skills in construction engineering. More than half of the contractors in the study had disadvantaged backgrounds in terms of technical and entrepreneurial skills as well as capital and access to finance. The study found that 122 of the 229 emerging contractors (53.28%) were viable financially while the remaining 107 emerging contractors (46.72%) were not viable financially. Results obtained from the study showed that viability in emerging contractors was significantly influenced by barriers such as lack of construction engineering skills, lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of access to finance, inability to network with well-established contractors, inability to draw up business plans, and delay in payment for services rendered, in a decreasing order of strength.


Concepts of asset valuation based on the martingale properties of shadow (or marginal utility) prices in continuous-time, infinite-horizon stochastic models of optimal saving and portfolio choice are reviewed and compared with their antecedents in static or deterministic economic theory. Applications of shadow pricing to valuation are described, including a new derivation of the Black-Scholes formula and a generalised net present value formula for valuing an indivisible project yielding a random income. Some new results are presented concerning (I) the characterisation of an optimum in a model of saving with an exogenous random income and (ii) the use of random time transforms to replace local by true martingales in the martingale and transversality conditions for optimal saving and portfolio choice.This paper was also published in the ¶Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control¶ #24 (2000). Pages 1641-1701.


Abstract. With the drastic development of low-altitude UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) technology, UAV will be used for long-distance logistics in the near future. Many countries begin to develop UTM (UAV Traffic Management) system, and one of the objectives for the system is preparation of UAV-logistics era. In that era, hundreds of drone will simultaneously fly at one area. To prevent UAV collision in the air, UAV air road should be designed. The Korean government have supported research projects related with UAV air roads. This paper deals with development of UAV air roads by using 3D grid system. First, detail 3D spatial information for UAV air roads is constructed. In many cases, 3D digital map does not include transmission towers, utility poles, power lines, or trees, since the interests of 3D digital map are focussed on digital elevation model and digital surface model with buildings. The transmission towers, utility poles, and power lines could be obstacles when UAV perform its logistics mission. Therefore, detail 3D information should be constructed for UAV air roads. We constructed such detail 3D information by using MMS (Mobile Mapping System) and aerial survey with Lidar and digital photograph. Next, 3D grid system is proposed to present such detail 3D information. Usual object based 3D information is huge size and hard to control. To provide 3D information to a flying UAV, data should be light. Therefore, light-weight 3D grid system is effective to provide air road information to UAV. Proposed 3D grid based air roads can be used for UAV flight plan, traffic management etc.


There have been several studies that detect, measure, analyze, and visualize the undersea features by using technologies in multiple disciplines including geography and oceanography. However, definitions of the undersea features often vary among the existing leading literature. Due to this reason the geographical boundary for a certain undersea feature is sometimes not identical among the definitions. In this study, we explore semantic uncertainty in the definitions of some undersea features and apply approaches from fuzzyset theory and geographic information science on empirical bathymetric data to visualize the uncertain boundaries of the undersea features. Results from this study demonstrate that the representation based on the fuzzy-set approach can be useful for dealing with the semantic uncertainty of the undersea features.


How does the law of the European Union affect health law and policy? At first sight, it seems limited. However, despite its restricted formal competence, the EU has recently become increasingly involved in the health field. Litigation based on EU law has resulted in a 'right to receive health care services' across national boundaries which may have huge practical implications for national health systems. The EU has promulgated legislation regulating clinical research, and the marketing of pharmaceuticals; patients' rights are affected by EU legislation on data protection and product liability; the qualifications of health care professionals are legally recognised across the EU; and the EU has acted to promote public health. This book explores the various impacts of measures of EU law on national health law and policy. Through elaboration of selected examples, the authors show that, within the EU, health law cannot be regarded as a purely national affair.


The aim of this text is to indicate possible senses of development of some of the ideas exposed previously in my studies on the literary poetry of the Catalan artist and writer Joan Brossa. In particular, I refer to the concept of "contact poemˮ interpreted in terms of a semiological analogy of photography that we consider as a modern technique and art par excellence, being probably the most radical and influential invention for culture of the last two centuries. In this sense, it is interesting to see if the consequences of the predominance of visual codes for the development of modern poetry can rather be perceived as a norm beyond the Brossian experiments of an avant-garde nature. Following a theoretical approach based on the ideas of V. Flusser and A. Rouille, some of Brossa's texts are analysed from the perspective of visualisation techniques and linked to another literary example, the novel Pale Fire by V. Nabokov.


It is hard to explain why it is necessary to defend globalization even in the 21st century. Why globalization becomes the necessary evil every twenty years? And why there are plenty of organized movements against globalization, but no one for it? Answering these questions has become a kind of strange sport, because there are a few decent more than reasonable arguments that must be given every time globalization is under attack, and maybe other argument can't be invented. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance to be certain that people are able to find out these arguments and understand them, even they describe some situations that are apparently unfavorable for some people. However, the main cause of the continuing bombardment of globalization is in fact its destroying effect on states authority. As long as we are heading to a more global world, the power of governments over their modern subjects (not citizens as they wrongly believe they are) is falling apart. This fact is felt by all those who take a benefit from government protection and funding. As long as an individual can travel around the world and choose where to stay easier than 50 years ago, it is more difficult for the state to tax this citizen. And therefore, it is more difficult to provide funding to those who depend on the state help (and are a source of political power).


Background Transgender individuals may have complex medical and psychosocial needs. Prior studies have reported an increased incidence of STIs including HIV. Low self esteem, social isolation, self-harm and suicide have been observed with greater frequency. Additionally, a greater likelihood of being subject to relationship violence and sexual assault is recognised. Discrimination in school or the work-place, and even in healthcare settings adds to psychological burden. Healthcare seeking behaviour of transgender individuals may, therefore, be adversely affected. Cases: We share experiences of two transgender patients and their health concerns. The first underwent gender reassignment 20 years ago (aged 19). She reported psychological problems including depression, anxiety attacks and a prior suicide attempt. In 2010 she was diagnosed with HIV when presented with pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) management has been challenging with regards to exacerbation of psychological ill-health thought due to the ART agent, efavirenz. This was, therefore, substituted with rilpivirine, with favourable outcome. Reluctance to disclose her HIV status to her partner persists. Additionally, self-purchased 'hormonal' medication remains concerning with regards to unsupervised use and potential ART interactions. The second patient underwent gender reassignment 15 years ago. She is HIV negative and presents with unusually frequent recurrences of anogenital warts, bacterial abscesses and herpetic ulcers. She also has a psychosexual disorder thought resulting from prior sexual abuse. Discussion Concern remains regarding lack of awareness amongst health care professionals (HCPs) with regards to the above complexities and the need for appropriate, empathic and non-judgemental management. Surveys of medical school curricula highlight that transgender health needs are often omitted, with limited professional information resources. Conclusion HCPs must remain aware of the increased risk of mental and sexual ill-health. This will allow timely recognition of such problems and prompt intervention. Intervention may require collaborative interagency approaches with HCPs from mental health services.


The structure of a steady planar Chapman–Jouguet detonation, which is supported by a direct first-order one-step irreversible exothermic unimolecular reaction, subject to Arrhenius kinetics, is examined. Solutions are studied, by means of a limit-process-expansion analysis, valid for Λ, proportional to the ratio of the reaction rate to the flow rate, going to zero, and for β, proportional to the ratio of the activation temperature to the maximum flow temperature, going to infinity, with the product Λβ1/2 going to zero. The results, essentially in agreement with the Zeldovich–von Neumann–Doring model, show that the detonation consists of (1) a three-region upstream shock-like zone, wherein convection and diffusion dominate; (2) an exponentially thicker five-region downstream deflagration-like zone, wherein convection and reaction dominate; and (3) a transition zone, intermediate to the upstream and downstream zones, wherein convection, diffusion, and reaction are of the same order of magnitude. It is in this transition zone that the ideal Neumann state is most closely approached.


The article investigates the dialectics between homeland and identity in the poetry of the Sudanese poet, Mohamed Al-Fayturi and his literary master, Langston Hughes in order to underline their attitudes toward crucial issues integral to the African and African-
American experience such as identity, racism, enslavement and colonisation. The article argues that – in Hughes's early poetry – Africa is depicted as the land of ancient civilisations in order to strengthen African-American feelings of ethnic pride during the Harlem Renaissance. This idealistic image of a pre-slavery, a pre-colonial Africa, argues the paper, disappears from the poetry of Hughes, after the Harlem Renaissance, to be replaced with a more realistic image of Africa under colonisation. The article also demonstrates that unlike Hughes, who attempts to romanticize Africa, Al-Fayturi rejects a romantic confrontation with the roots. Interrogating western colonial narratives about Africa, Al-Fayturi reconstructs pre-colonial African history in order to reveal the tragic consequences of colonisation and slavery upon the psyche of the African people. The article also points out that in their
attempts to confront the oppressive powers which aim to erase the identity of their peoples, Hughes and Al-Fayturi explore areas of overlap drama between the turbulent experience of African-Americans and the catastrophic history of black Africans dismantling
colonial narratives and erecting their own cultural mythology. Keywords : Slavery, colonisation, racism, identity. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Vol. 45 (1) 2008: pp. 42-74


Bacillus thuringiensis is the source of the most widely used biological pesticide, through its production of insecticidal toxins. The toxin genes are often localized on plasmids. We have constructed a physical map of a Bacillus thuringiensis chromosome by aligning 16 fragments obtained by digestion with the restriction enzyme NotI. The fragments ranged from 15 to 1,350 kb. The size of the chromosome was 5.4 Mb. The NotI DNA fingerprint patterns of 12 different B. thuringiensis strains showed marked variation. The cryL-type toxin gene was present on the chromosome in four strains, was extrachromosomal in four strains, and was both chromosomal and extrachromosomal in two strains. A Tn4430 transposon probe hybridized to 5 of the 10 cryL4-positive chromosomal fragments, while ciyL4 and the transposon often hybridized to different extra- chromosomal bands. Ten of the strains were hemolytic when grown on agar plates containing human erythrocytes. Nine ofthe strains were positive when assayed for the presence of Bacillus cereus enterotoxin. We conclude that B. thuringiensis is very closely related to B. cereus and that the distinction between B. cereus and B. thuringiensis should be reconsidered.