We propose an empirical mode decomposition (EMD-) based method to extract features from the multichannel recordings of local field potential (LFP), collected from the middle temporal (MT) visual cortex in a macaque monkey, for decoding its bistable structure-from-motion (SFM) perception. The feature extraction approach consists of three stages. First, we employ EMD to decompose nonstationary single-trial time series into narrowband components called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with time scales dependent on the data. Second, we adopt unsupervised K-means clustering to group the IMFs and residues into several clusters across all trials and channels. Third, we use the supervised common spatial patterns (CSP) approach to design spatial filters for the clustered spatiotemporal signals. We exploit the support vector machine (SVM) classifier on the extracted features to decode the reported perception on a single-trial basis. We demonstrate that the CSP feature of the cluster in the gamma frequency band outperforms the features in other frequency bands and leads to the best decoding performance. We also show that the EMD-based feature extraction can be useful for evoked potential estimation. Our proposed feature extraction approach may have potential for many applications involving nonstationary multivariable time series such as brain-computer interfaces (BCI).


The literature proposes that the microbial loop is a key link for ecosystem functioning, particularly in oligotrophic conditions. From original and published data for a period spanning 1986 to 1999, we examined the food web structure of a clear‐water, oligotrophic, high mountain lake. The heterotrophic microbial food web was weakly developed in a grazing food chain dominated by copepods and phytoplankton, the latter mainly composed of mixotrophic flagellates. Bacteria constituted a minor component of the plankton community in terms of abundance, biomass, and production, in contrast to the situation usually reported in oligotrophic conditions. Abiotic and biotic factors that regulate bacterioplankton biomass and production were assessed, including the bacterivory capability of mixotrophic flagellates experimentally quantified by using 3H‐thymidine as a tracer. Algae were the main factor controlling bacterioplankton. Their regulatory effect has a dual nature: (1) a resource‐based control, through the dependence of the bacteria on photosynthetic carbon released by algae, i.e., a commensalistic interaction ("without you I cannot live") and (2) a predatory control, with bacteria as prey for mixotrophs ("with you I die"). Mixotrophic metabolism can constitute an adaptive strategy for algae to overcome ultraviolet (UV) stress, by using bacteria as a source of carbon and mineral nutrients in conditions of inhibited photosynthesis and mineral nutrient uptake. Mixotrophy acts as a bypass of carbon flux toward the grazing food chain, explaining the scarce development of the heterotrophic microbes in this and other high mountain lakes.


The Federal Employers' Liability Act was adopted at the eve of workers' compensation reform and with the same progressive purpose of facilitating compensation for railroad workers. Unlike workers' compensation, however, the FELA is reform with a tort wrap-around. A fault requirement was retained, while the infamous trilogy of defenses that so often prevented recovery were abolished or modified.In 1956, the Supreme Court, in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., addressed the causal requirement adopted by the statute. In words that have reverberated in hundreds of FELA cases since, the Court declared that a defendant was liable if its negligence "played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury." To say that subsequent cases reveal confusion about this language is a considerable understatement.This article attempts to provide some coherence in how causation should be understood in the FELA given its statutory language, its progressive purpose, and the Rogers's interpretation. It begins with an explanation of modern causation doctrine. That doctrine separates two elements that have for too long been combined under the umbrella term "proximate cause," or in early Restatement vernacular, "legal cause." Separate consideration of them, in light of the functions they serve, provides a coherent, straightforward, and comprehensive framework, one adopted in the recently published Third Restatement of Torts. The article proceeds to examine the Rogers opinion, catalog its errors, and canvass the confusion that it has generated for over half a decade.The Supreme Court currently has pending a case, CSX Transportation., Inc. v. McBride, that addresses a significant aspect of Rogers and FELA: whether FELA retains any proximate cause (scope of liability, in Restatement parlance) requirement for a defendant's negligence and, if so, what it is. The Court has an important opportunity to sweep away decades of confusion in it decision. The article concludes with several thoughts about how the Court might reconcile the statutory language, Rogers, and progressive intent of Congress in enacting the FELA.


Fracture conductivity testing is a measure of how proppant will perform downhole when injected. The current American Petroleum Institute (API) procedure for conductivity testing produces results that are difficult to replicate. In one case three commercial labs tested the same sample of proppant, the results varied between labs and the highest spread in data had an 80% variation (Anderson, 2013). The goal of this thesis is to investigate cell loading procedures that reduce the variation in laboratory results. A variety of cell loading techniques were tested including Hoke cylinder injection, guar injection, and cell vibration. Hoke cylinder loading was determined not to be a feasible technique with the current lab equipment at Montana Tech's Research Lab. The guar injection produced a smaller spread in the data when compared to the API loading technique. However, when the results from the guar injection were analyzed it was apparent the guar had not been completely removed from the cell after injection. The remaining guar reduced the overall permeability of the proppant pack, which lead to an unfair comparison with the API Standard procedure. The cell vibration technique produced conductivity values that were very similar to the results produced by the API procedure but with a considerable reduction in the overall variance. From the data, it is recommended to test the effect of cell vibration on long-term fracture conductivity tests.


Dominique Perrault's architecture and urban designs are strictly modern, yet his simple and efficient shapes contain a classical and timeless element. He constantly manages to satisfy the need to be reasonable without sacrificing the aesthetic awareness that breathes life into his buildings. Perrault's work is without a predictable set of standards or style. He gives no specific meaning or system to his designs, but a uniqueness from start to finish. Perrault's portfolio of work includes Biblioth, que nationale de France, APLIX Factory, The Great Greenhouse, Book Technology Centre, Water Purification Plant for S.A.G.E.P., University for Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Olympic Velodrome and Swimming Pool in Berlin.


Objectives We studied the urinary proteome in a total of 623 individuals with and without coronary artery disease (CAD) in order to characterize multiple biomarkers that enable prediction of the presence of CAD. Methods Urine samples were analyzed by capillary electrophoresis coupled online to micro time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Results We defined a pattern of 238 CAD-specific polypeptides from comparison of 586 spot urine samples from 408 individuals. This pattern identified patients with CAD in a blinded cohort of 138 urine samples (71 patients with CAD and 67 healthy individuals) with high sensitivity and specificity (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve 87%, 95% confidence interval 81–92) and was superior to previously developed 15-marker (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve 68%, P < 0.0001) and 17-marker panels (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve 77%, P < 0.0001). The sequences of the discriminatory polypeptides include fragments of alpha-1-antitrypsin, collagen types 1 and 3, granin-like neuroendocrine peptide precursor, membrane-associated progesterone receptor component 1, sodium/potassium-transporting ATPase gamma chain and fibrinogen-alpha chain. Several biomarkers changed significantly toward the healthy signature following 2-year treatment with irbesartan, whereas short-term treatment with irbesartan did not significantly affect the polypeptide pattern. Conclusion Urinary proteomics identifies CAD with high confidence and might also be useful for monitoring the effects of therapeutic interventions.


Binge eating in humans is a complex disorder that often involves discrete, compulsive feeding sessions of highly palatable foods even in the absence of a deprivation state or hunger. Binging can be effectively modeled in rodents by providing subjects with limited access to a palatable food source (Western Diet; WD) as an adjunct to ad lib access to normal chow (Standard Chow; SC). Although this design recapitulates several fundamental characteristics observed in binge eating disorder, the binge eating observed in this paradigm is likely a product of both hedonic and homeostatic drives with the need to balance energy stores still present. To isolate these feeding drives, we have developed a novel feeding regimen that modifies the classic limited access binge model to effectively delineate and separate homeostatic feeding from motivational feeding. This is achieved by entraining male Sprague-Dawley rats to a restricted feeding schedule (two hours per day) of SC followed by a short 15 minute limited access meal of either SC or WD (Restrict FedLimited Access; RFLA). The RFLA paradigm allows for the examination of pituitary adenylate-cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) on palatable food consumption in a fully satiated subject. PACAP has previously been shown to suppress feeding behavior when injected into the hypothalamus. In the current study, PACAP injected into the ventromedial hypothalamic nuclei (VMN) suppressed the two hour homeostatic SC meal, but not the subsequent 15 minute limited access meal of WD. By contrast, PACAP bilaterally administered into the nucleus accumbens (NAc) produced the opposite effect with PACAP suppressing the consumption of WD but not SC. Thus, PACAP mediated signaling in the VMN appears to be involved in homeostatic regulation of energy stores, whereas PACAP signaling in the NAc regulates feeding driven by palatability or hedonic qualities. Disclosures: M.M. Hurley: None. B. Maunze: None. J.M. Resch: None. M.M. Frenkel: None. M.J. Reilly: None. M. Block: None. D.A. Baker: None. S. Choi: None.


We study the welfare implications of scalable price targeting, an extreme form of third-degree price discrimination implemented with machine learning for a large, digital firm. Targeted prices are computed by solving the firm's Bayesian Decision-Theoretic pricing problem based on a database with a high-dimensional vector of customer features that are observed prior to the price quote. To identify the causal effect of price on demand, we first run a large, randomized price experiment and use these data to train our demand model. We use l1 regularization (lasso) to select the set of customer features that moderate the heterogeneous treatment effect of price on demand. We use a weighted likelihood Bayesian bootstrap to quantify the firm's approximate statistical uncertainty in demand and profitability. We then conduct a second experiment that implements our proposed price targeting scheme out of sample. Theoretically, both firm and customer surplus could rise with scalable price targeting. Optimized uniform pricing improves revenues by 64.9% relative to the control pricing, whereas scalable price targeting improves revenues by 81.5%. Firm profits increase by over 10% under targeted pricing relative to optimal uniform pricing. Customer surplus declines by less than 1% with price targeting; although nearly 70% of customers are charged less than the uniform price. Our weighted likelihood bootstrap estimator also predicts demand and demand uncertainty out of sample better than several alternative approaches.


Rising temperatures worldwide pose an increasing challenge for safe and healthy living conditions. Particularly inner cities have been affected by these environmental changes because of the materials used to build houses, streets and infrastructure. The most common building material is concrete. It shows a specific heat capacity, while the heat conductivity for standard concrete is low. Thus, the use of concrete generates a high capacity of heat storage. In addition, extensive soil sealing also contributes to the temperature rise of inner city areas compared to their surroundings. To mitigate this so-called urban heat island effect, a self-cooling concrete paver was developed. This paver is able to store water. The evaporation of the water at elevated temperatures provides a cooling effect. This paper focuses on determination of this new paver's capability to cool the surface and the surrounding. The new paver's cooling qualities were analysed in a series of laboratory tests. To prove the results outside of laboratory conditions, two fields (12 m × 8 m) with self-cooling and reference pavers were installed in Spain. This paper presents and discusses the results of the tests. Correlation between reduced surface temperature of the self-cooling concrete pavers and the air temperature is examined.


Over the last three decades reef corals have been subjected to an unprecedented frequency and intensity of thermal-stress events, which have led to extensive coral bleaching, disease, and mortality. Over the next century, the climate is predicted to drive sea-surface water temperatures to even higher levels, consequently increasing the risk of mass bleaching and disease outbreaks. Yet, there is considerable temporal and spatial variation in coral bleaching and in disease prevalence. Using data collected from 2398 sites along the Florida reef tract from 2005 to 2015, this study examined the temporal and spatial patterns of coral bleaching and disease in relation to coral-colony size, depth, temperature, and chlorophyll-a concentrations. The results show that coral bleaching was most prevalent during the warmest years in 2014 and 2015, and disease was also most prevalent in 2010, 2014, and 2015. Although the majority of the corals surveyed, independent of their size, were found in habitats with low chlorophyll-a concentrations, and high irradiance, these same habitats showed the highest prevalence of coral bleaching and disease outbreaks during thermal-stress events. These results suggest that directional selection in a warming ocean may favor corals able to tolerate inshore, shaded environments with high turbidity and productivity.


Abstract. A variety of coding schemes are available for direct observational assessment of student classroom behavior. These instruments have been used for a number of assessment tasks including screening children in need of further evaluation for emotional and behavior problems, diagnostic assessment of emotional and behavior problems, assessment of classroom ecology in the formulation of academic interventions, and monitoring the progress of medical, psychosocial, and academic interventions. Although this method of behavioral assessment has a high degree of face validity, it is essential to consider the psychometric properties of available coding schemes to select the appropriate instrument for a given assessment. This article reviews the structure, content, training requirements, and available psychometric properties of seven available direct observation codes. Recommendations for the use of each code and future directions for research in observational assessment are provided.


In this paper we propose a design procedure based on comprehensive integer linear programing (ILP) for translucent optical transport networks (OTNs), exploiting an extended version of the so-called "connectivity graph." For the first time to the best of our knowledge, we propose a mathematical approach that covers the manifold challenges of a realistic optical layer OTN design, jointly solving the regenerator placement problem (RPP) and the routing, fiber and wavelength assignment with regenerator problem (RFWA-RP). As a first contribution, we extend the concept of the connectivity graph to a k-path (k-p) connectivity graph. Second, the formulation addresses the problem of planning the number of dense wavelength division multiplexing systems, jointly solving the RPP and placing transponders. Third, we consider regeneration devices as wavelength converters also, showing the benefits arising from that aspect disregarded in the existing impairment-aware (IA) ILP formulations based on the connectivity graph. Finally we compare over different networks the results of our design procedure with those achieved by a hybrid method that combines a simplified IA-ILP formulation with a greedy heuristic. Moreover, an analytical framework to evaluate the network cost in terms of capital expenditure and operational expenditure is also presented. We show that the k-p connectivity graph represents a cost-effective tool for network design, as it allows one to greatly reduce the number of resources needed in both the protected and the unprotected scenarios.


In this paper, we make an attempt to rationalize the strategic behavior of major peanut exporting and importing countries in the framework of imperfectly competitive markets with the focus on the global and inter-American peanut trade. This study is motivated by the fact that liberalizing imperfectly competitive and often distorted markets can have unorthodox effects, in particular increase the incentives to overuse certain trade policies. The results suggest that the South American peanut producers stand to benefit from the reductions in the U.S. peanut production supports but, paradoxically, preservation of a tariff may still be mutually welfare enhancing. In the broader context of global peanut trade, multi-lateral tariff reduction increases the low-cost exporters' incentives to subsidize export production, which benefits the consumers but hurts the higher-cost producers.


This thesis focuses on the derivations of diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta (DIRK)
methods with the capability to be implemented by parallel executions. A few new
methods are proposed by having sparsity patterns which enable the parallelization of
methods. In the first part of the thesis, a fifth order DIRK suitable for two processors
parallel executions and DIRK methods of fourth and fifth orders suitable for three
processors are proposed. The executions of these methods are done by using fixed
stepsizes on a set of nonstiff problems. The regions of stability are presented and
numerical results of the methods are compared to the existing methods. Parallel
computations show significant time reduction when solving large systems of nonstiff
ordinary differential equations (ODEs).
The subsequent part of the thesis discusses on embedded DIRK methods suitable for
two processors implementations. Two 4(3) and also two 5(4) embedded DIRK
methods with adequate stability regions to solve stiff ODEs are proposed. Numerical experiments on stiff test problems are done based on variable stepsize strategy. An
existing code for solving stiff ODEs suitable for embedded DIRK with equal
diagonal elements is modified to accommodate the new methods with alternate
diagonal elements. Comparisons on numerical results to existing methods show a
competitive efficiency when solving small systems of stiff ODEs.
A parallel code is developed with the same capability of the modified sequential code
to handle stiff ODEs, linear and nonlinear problems. All algorithms are written in C
language and the parallel code is implemented on Sun Fire V1280 distributed
memory system. Three large scales of stiff ODEs are used to measure the parallel
performances of the new embedded methods. Results show that speedups increased
as the dimensions of the problems gets larger which is a significant contribution in
reducing the cost of computations.


Vehicle Ad-hoc Network (VANET) has recently received a lot of attention as the fundamental technology of Intelligent Transportation System. Among other characteristics of VANET, the rapid mobility particularly causes the problem of time constraint in delivery of data, thereby resulting in the low data accessibility. Therefore, the requested service is likely to suffer from poor performance. This paper proposes an efficient method to improve data accessibility in VANET by utilizing the data replica of Roadside Unit (RSU). Both data access pattern and driving pattern are utilized to decide which data item should be replicated in RSU. The conducted simulations clearly reveal that the proposed methodology outperforms other schemes in a variety of environments.


The instability of the Kármán vortex street is revisited under a spatio-temporal perspective that allows the taking into account of the advection of the vortices by the external flow. We analyse a simplified point vortex model and show through numerical simulations of its linear impulse response that the system becomes convectively unstable above a certain critical advection velocity. This critical velocity decreases as the aspect ratio approaches its specific value for temporal stability, and increases with the confinement induced by lateral walls. In the limiting unconfined case, direct application of the Briggs–Bers criterion to the dispersion relation gives results in excellent agreement with the numerical simulations. Finally, a direct numerical simulation of the $Re=100$ flow past a confined cylinder is performed, and the actual advection velocity of the resulting vortex street is found to be much larger than the critical advection velocity for convective instability given by our model. The Kármán vortex street is therefore strongly convectively unstable.


Loss of mammal species in Australia in the last 200 years has been attributed to many factors including habitat removal and altered fire regimes. Decline in tree condition could contribute further to the ongoing decline of mammals. Eucalyptus wandoo trees are currently undergoing a decline in condition that can result in a loss of canopy and other changes to the habitat. This paper examines the relationships between E. wandoo tree condition, habitat characteristics and small mammal species richness and abundance. Live-capture trapping was conducted at 24 E. wandoo sites at Dryandra State Forest and Wandoo Conservation Park, Western Australia. Condition and microhabitat variables of E. wandoo were recorded for each site. Generalised additive mixed models revealed a range of habitat and tree condition characteristics that influenced small mammal abundance and species richness, including site litter cover, crown dieback, understorey vegetation cover and tree density. The availability of coarse woody debris played a large role in explaining the abundance of Cercartetus concinnus and Antechinus flavipes, along with other microhabitat and tree condition variables, such as tree leaf litter and crown dieback. Epicormic growth, crown density and the distance to the drift fence from E. wandoo trees were the common variables in the best model for the abundance of Sminthopsis griseoventer. The decline in condition of E. wandoo and the subsequent modifications to the microhabitat are correlated with changes in the small mammal community. A better understanding of how the decline of E. wandoo impacts small mammal communities could improve management practices in E. wandoo woodlands.


This study was conducted in a lighthouse school with a long and successful history of restructuring. In this article we describe our (surprising) impressions of shadowing Jake, one of the highest achieving students in the school. We present a researcher's account of Jake's classroom experience over the first four periods of a single day and an analysis of what happened in terms of the idea of studenting. We employ an actor-oriented view of studenting, comprising four aspects—pacing, attending, conforming, and selecting. We contrast this with a structure-oriented view of studenting and draw parallels with the notions of students-as-participants and students-as-benefciaries in school reform. Finally, we discuss the problems and possibilities of engaging and involving students in the process of reform.


In order to make clear the fundamental resisting mechanisms of composite shear walls, tests are carried out on the composite unit rigid frames with various infilled shear walls. Composite shear walls are classified into the following three fundamental types; (a) reinforced concrete shear panel infilled in composite frame, which are already in common use, (b) steel band bracing embedded in reinforced concrete shear panel, which belongs to the so-called open web panel type, (c) steel panel with or without covering reinforced concrete shear panel, which belongs to the so-called full web panel type. Test results show that the resisting mechanism of reinforced concrete shear panel infilled in composite rigid frame is composed of diagonal compression field of the infilled concrete, therefore the initial stiffness, ultimate resistance become very high. But because of the compression fracture of concrete, deformability is very small (such as 0.005 in story sway angle). Through the formation of diagonal compression field of concrete, the surrounding frames are expanded to outsides. On the contrary, the resisting mechanism of steel panel infilled in rigid frame is composed of diagonal tension field of the buckled steel panel; therefore, the initial stiffness is not so high but through the formation of diagonal tension field the ultimate strength is fairly high. The plastic deformation is generally very large because of tensile yielding of steel. The surrounding frame are contracted into inside through the diagonal tension of the buckled shear panel. The optimum combination of these two fundamentally opposite resisting mechanisms of infilled reinforced concrete or steel shear panel, makes it possible to control the aseismic characteristics of a composite structure.


This paper investigates a multilayer perceptron (MLP) based acoustic feature mapping to extract robust features for automatic speech recognition (ASR) of overlapping speech. The MLP is trained to learn the mapping from log mel filter bank energies (MFBEs) extracted from the distant microphone recordings, including multiple overlapping speakers, to log MFBEs extracted from the clean speech signal. The outputs of the MLP are then used to generate mel filterbank cepstral coefficient (MFCC) acoustic features, that are subsequently used in acoustic model adaptation and system evaluation. The proposed approach is evaluated through extensive studies on the MONC corpus, which includes both non-overlapping single speaker and overlapping multi-speaker conditions. We demonstrate that by learning the mapping between log MFBEs extracted from noisy and clean signals the performance of ASR system can be significantly improved in overlapping multi-speaker condition compared a conventional delay-sum beamforming approach, while keeping the performance of the system on single non-overlapping speaker condition intact.


The effect of supplementing two commercial multienzyme to diets included two barley cultivars (Sararood [71.99%] and Valfajr [66.39%]) on performance, egg quality, and blood parameters of laying hens was investigated in an 8-wk (65 to 73 wk of age) experiment.  The commercial multienzymes were Grindazym™ (with mainly β-glucanase and xylanase activity) and Hemicell® (with mainly β-mannanase activity). Each dietary treatment consisted of five replicates of six hens. Barley cultivar had no significant effect on the measured criteria  and there was no interaction between barley cultivar and enzyme throughout the study. Diet supplementation with enzymes reduced feed intake (P < 0.05). Hens receiving Grindazym-supplemented diets produced more eggs than those receiving diets without enzyme or supplemented with Hemicell (P < 0.05). Conversely, egg weight was higher for hens receiving the Hemicell-supplemented diets than for those fed the other diets (P < 0.05). Hens receiving the Grindazym-supplemented diet showed higher egg mass than those fed the unsupplemented diets (P < 0.05) and egg mass of hens receiving the Hemicell-supplemented diets was intermediate between these two groups. Feed conversion ratio was improved by enzyme supplementation throughout the study (P < 0.05). Serum concentration of triiodothyronine was higher in hens receiving the Grindazym-supplemented diets than that in hens receiving the diets with no enzyme or supplemented with Hemicell (P < 0.05). Overall, the nutritive value of barley could be improved by enzyme supplementation. However, the two enzyme sources had different effects on performance of laying hens probably due to different mechanisms of action.


In the context of the future Internet, all-optical wavelength switched optical networks will play an important role in either evolutionary or revolutionary design paradigms. In any paradigm, dense wavelength domain multiplexing (DWDM) is the most cost-effective technology to increase bandwidth capacity. DWDM provides the basis for a core optical transport infrastructure supporting a wide range of heterogeneous services. However, such all-optical networks raise well-known challenges such as the wavelength continuity constraint (WCC). The WCC is hard to address in a multiarea scenario when provisioning an end-to-end lightpath owing to network topology hiding requirements and the limited exchange of information between areas. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is currently standardizing the path computation element (PCE) architecture, a good candidate to perform multidomain path computation. In such an architecture, the approach named backwards recursive path computation (BRPC), also under standardization at the IETF, aims at overcoming the limitations of the per-domain mechanism. However, although BRPC does provide end-to-end shortest paths, it fails to take into account the WCC, which is the main motivation for this work. We extend the BRPC algorithm and the companion PCE protocol in order to address the end-to-end WCC efficiently. We perform a quantitative comparative analysis of the different approaches, experimentally showing the improvements of the conceived solution, which has been evaluated in a GMPLS-controlled network of the ADRENALINE testbed.


Australian families have changed significantly over the last thirty years but they remain the basic unit in society for caring for each other and raising children, according to this report. At the time Australian Institute of Family Studies commenced operations in 1980, the marriage rate was declining, and although the vast majority of couples were married, increasing proportions were cohabiting (i.e., in a de facto marriage). The divorce rate had peaked when the Family Law Act 1975 came into force in 1976 - the same year in which the fertility rate had fallen to below replacement level for the first time. By 1980, the divorce rate had subsided but was well above pre-1976 rates, while the fertility rate had continued its downward slide. Alarm bells were ringing about where the family was heading and whether it would even survive. In this 30th anniversary year, it is timely to reflect on ways in which Australian families have changed over the life of the Institute and to consider some of the trends that were underway prior to its establishment. This Facts Sheet begins with a brief outline of trends in basic family structure, and then examines transitions that have contributed to these structural changes and some of the key ways in which family functioning has changed.


After independence around 1960, African countries started with high hopes for rapid growth and development. Whereas the initial performance was remarkable, economic development slowed in the 1970s and stagnated in the 1980s. In response, the states' attempts to reinvigorate economic growth through state-led investments and import substitution industrialisation strategies were unsuccessful. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Western donors developed and advocated Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), which emphasised macroeconomic stabilisation, privatisation and free market development. The SAP approach has generated considerable debate within African countries and development circles. While proponents argued that the reforms were essential and without alternatives, critics charged that SAPs paid insufficient attention to the social dimension of development and to the institutional weaknesses of developing countries. The debate continues. This paper discusses the pro and contra arguments of the debate, presents lessons learned, and draws conclusions for future policy priorities.


For many reasons, reflecting on the life of Nelson Mandela is a precarious exercise. If Mandela is a symbol of the resilience of the human spirit under trying conditions, he is also a symbol that is appropriated in various ways – helpful and unhelpful – by various people. This article explores some of the unhelpful ways in which the name and person of Nelson Mandela is invoked. In particular, the article looks at the hagiographical orientation of several reflections on Mandela, cautioning how some of these may have an effect less noble than originally intended. Accordingly, the article asks: How much can the symbol of Mandela bear? How much more can Mandela give? The logic and rationale of Mandela hagiography is explored. Following his death, there has been an explosion of interest in the life and symbol that is Nelson Mandela. Mandela literature, including multi-media, is on the rise. If the symbol of Mandela is in danger of being 'cannibalised', there is also a danger of relegating Mandela to an ahistorical mythical figure. The solution lies in at least two area, namely, the increment of alternative Mandela narratives and the introduction of more critical Mandela narratives. In this regard, Mandela's own self-understanding as captured in his reflections about his life offer several clues which are explored in this article.


Abstract: We report here a concise resume reporting the way of constructing the model of an active site composed of transition metal cation exchanged in zeolites. The main goal was to devise the model of CuZSM-5 capable of describing geometrical and electronic properties of metal sites and adsorption complexes with small molecules. The models were built up starting from simple ring structures encountered in ZSM-5 framework to fused rings' model selected as the representative of α position for hosting the exchanged cation. Geometrical and electronic properties of the basal model, composed of the extended framework cluster with Cu + or Cu 2+ cation, and adsorption complexes with diatomic molecules were extracted from DFT calculations. The stress was put here on direct confirmation of structural changes on copper reduction/oxidation and adsorption. Electron donor/acceptor properties of the sites combined with electronic properties of adsorbed molecules led to the proposal for the mechanism of NO activation by Cu


Laine and Salmelin (2010) described language as dynamic, constantly changing as new words, expressions, and meanings appear and fade away. As a result, all speakers of a language, regardless of years of language use, must be able to update their lexicons to reflect these changes. Recently, there has been a growing literature exploring processes involved in new word learning across the lifespan suggesting that there are age-related differences on behavioral (Simon & Gluck, 2013) and neurofunctional (Cornelissen et al., 2003) levels. The present investigation explored these changes across decades of life, which, to the researcher's knowledge, had not yet been done. In a picture-word verification task, the participants learned eight pairings of novel pictures and nonsense words using feedback provided throughout the task. Results revealed significant changes relating several dynamics of the study, including mastery decision time (DT), cumulative accuracy (ACC), and cumulative DT. In addition, the number of consecutive correct answers, as well as the total number of trials completed, revealed meaningful changes across the lifespan. With the following data, researchers were able to determine that there was a difference in decision time and accuracy in feedback-based associative learning across the lifespan. These data may influence programs designed to facilitate healthy cognitive aging in older adults, which would likely have an impact on overall quality of life. It might also benefit researchers developing future treatments of anomia to lessen signs of aphasia in those with the disorder.


The last decade has seen considerable changes in the field of Early Childhood Development (ECD). This paper focuses on change within and around a single ECD training organisation, Little Elephant Training Centre for Early Education (LETCEE). Established in 1991 in Greytown, LETCEE started as a pre-school, took on training for ECD educators, and later worked in ECD as an aspect of community development. LETCEE has been shaped by the increasing formalization and regulation of the field, on the one hand, and its evolving understanding of ECD as a part of community development, on the other. This historical case study explores LETCEE as a unique organisation with its own contextually specific history, and as a microcosm of the evolving ECD field. It draws attention to the critically important but neglected area of Early Childhood Development within South African educational research.


"The League of Youth" (1869) was Ibsen's first venture into realistic social drama and marks a turning-point in his style. By 1879, Ibsen was convinced that women suffer an inevitable violation of their personalities within the context of marriage. In "A Doll's House", he portrayed the wife struggling to break free: this was unheard of at the time and Ibsen's play caused a sensation. Continuing the theme of tensions within the family in "The Lady from the Sea", Ibsen put forward the view that freedom with responsibility might at least be a step in the right direction.


Feminists have argued that the Barbie doll perpetuates unrealistic standards of feminine beauty and undermines the credibility of women - that her long, slender plastic limbs and tiny waist fetishize the female body in unnatural ways and that her mature, overtly fashionable image promotes consumerism and superficiality over and above womens liberty and intellect. Depending on the viewer, Barbie is either a malign symbol of the strategies of the capitalist system or she is a symbol of glamour, high fashion and style, a fascinating indice of cultural change and nostalgic memory. Yet both Barbies fans and detractors assume that she stands alone.In reality she is the most high profile of a series of iconic dolls that over the past century and a half have been intimately connected to notions of fashionability. The prominence of haute couture in popular culture suggests that the link between fashion marketing and dolls should be an obvious one. Yet to date this connection has not been systematically explored. Doll collecting has been viewed as an enthusiasts or curatorial preserve, while the volumes these artefacts speak about culture and identity has not been adequately interrogated. Peers original and shrewd analysis fills a major gap in cultural studies by examining in depth the dolls associations with concepts of femininity and fashionability.


This article presents the results of research examining the impact of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) on educational accessibility at one university in Ontario, Canada. A longitudinal, qualitative study was conducted to explore how students with and without disabilities, instructors, staff members and administrators perceived the relative accessibility of teaching and learning on campus before, during, and after the implementation of one portion of the AODA legislation. In the first phase of this research, several factors affecting educational accessibility at the study university were noted, including knowledge, attitudes, pedagogical choices, disciplinary features, and institutional practices and characteristics. Participants raised many of these issues in the later phases reported here, although some preliminary changes in awareness and institutional practices are also described. Based on these minimal developments, and on participants' expressed perceptions of the AODA, we conclude that the legislation has had limited impact on the accessibility of teaching and learning on campus to date. Implications of the findings, potentially applicable in many contexts beyond the Ontario setting where the research was conducted, as well as next steps and recommendations for further research are discussed.


The Zagros Orogen, marking the closure of the Neo-Tethyan Ocean, formed by continental collision beginning in the late Eocene to early Miocene. Collision was preceded by a complicated tectonic history involving Pan-African orogenesis, Late Palaeozoic rifting forming Neo-Tethys, followed by Mesozoic convergence on the ocean's northern margin and ophiolite obduction on its southern margin. The SanandajSirjan Zone is a metamorphic belt in the Zagros Orogen of Gondwanan provenance. Zircon ages have established Pan-African basement igneous and metamorphic complexes in addition to uncommon late Palaeozoic plutons and abundant Jurassic plutonic rocks. We have determined zircon ages from units in the northwestern Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone (Golpaygan region). A sample of quartzite from the June Complex has detrital zircons with U-Pb ages mainly in 800-1050 Ma with a maximum depositional age of 547 ± 32 Ma (latest Neoproterozoic¿earliest Cambrian). A SHRIMP U-Pb zircon age of 336 ± 9 Ma from gabbro in the June Complex indicates a Carboniferous plutonic event that is also recorded in the far northwestern SanandajSirjan Zone. Together with the Permian Hasanrobat Granite near Golpaygan, they all are considered related to rifting marking formation of Neo-Tethys. Scarce detrital zircons from an extensive package of metasedimentary rocks (Hamadan Phyllite) have ages consistent with the Triassic to Early Jurassic age previously determined from fossils. These ages confirm that an orogenic episode affected the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone in the Early to Middle Jurassic (Cimmerian Orogeny). Although the Cimmerian Orogeny in northern Iran reflects late Triassic to Jurassic collision of the Turan platform (southern Eurasia) and the Cimmerian microcontinent, we consider that in the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone a tectonothermal event coeval with the Cimmerian Orogeny resulted from initiation of subduction and closure of rift basins along the northern margin of Neo-Tethys.


Every summer for 3 years, hundreds of people in central China came down with an illness characterized by high fever and gastrointestinal distress; as many as 30% of the victims died. By early 2007, scientists had fingered the killer as human granulocytic anaplasmosis, an emerging bacterial infection from tick bites. But last December, a different team identified a new kind of bunyavirus, a family that includes infamous members such as hantavirus and Rift Valley fever virus. The finding unmasks a dangerous new emerging virus—not a bacterial outbreak—and explains why antibiotics failed to stop it. Behind the scenes, however, a fierce argument has broken out over who discovered the virus.


We live in a historical period in which it is necessary and urgent to know and relate to stories. Today, the social function of memory is stronger and more evident than ever. The concept of memory, as well as that of recollection, is widely used, but those who resort to it are not always able to fully grasp its meaning. As a matter of fact, the educational function of memory is also expressed through narration. There is no narration and writing of oneself that does not bring within the testimony of a historical time, of a social group and of a precise epoch that reveals unusual nuances and situations, eager to be discovered and to become part of the social heritage. The oral and written narration allows narrators to feel part of a community, to feel in a "warm" place, in a comfortable area and part of a community rich in mutual interest and able to guarantee the rights of all and a reciprocal recognition. Addressing the question of the memory of a community in an era of fragility, of borders, of spaces shared more and more virtually and less physically, means to contrast isolation and the relational distance between people. Life stories provide us with descriptions and observations of how we live in a place, in a territory, in a family, in a school, in a company, in any situation in which human beings have exchanged stories and have learned from each other. The intent to collect the memories of the community, through life stories, autobiographies, arises from the need to look at the traces left by those who preceded us to better understand and face the future, that is, to pay attention to micro-stories. This contribution aims at reflecting on the educational and social value of autobiographies as important instruments for observation, investigation, analysis and restitution of new insights on the community through the educator's role as a facilitator with autobiographical skills.


BALB-neuT mice expressing an activated rat c-erbB-2/neu transgene under the mouse mammary tumor virus long terminal repeat show enhanced hematopoiesis with hyperproduction of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) because of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) secreted by the tumor. Here, we show that both tumor and stromal cells express matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), thereby increasing the levels of pro–MMP-9 in the sera of tumor-bearing mice. Treatment with amino-biphosphonates impaired tumor growth, significantly decreased MMP-9 expression and the number of macrophages in tumor stroma, and reduced MDSC expansion both in bone marrow and peripheral blood by dropping serum pro–MMP-9 and VEGF. We dissected the role of tumor-derived MMP-9 from that secreted by stromal leukocytes by transplanting bone marrow from MMP-9 knockout mice into BALB-neuT mice. Although bone marrow progenitor–derived MMP-9 had a major role in driving MDSC expansion, amino-biphosphonate treatment of bone marrow chimeras further reduced both myelopoiesis and the supportive tumor stroma, thus enhancing tumor necrosis. Moreover, by reducing MDSC, amino-biphosphonates overcome the tumor-induced immune suppression and improved the generation and maintenance of antitumor immune response induced by immunization against the p185/HER-2. Our data reveal that suppression of MMP-9 activity breaks the vicious loop linking tumor growth and myeloid cell expansion, thus reducing immunosuppression. Amino-biphosphonates disclose a specific MMP-9 inhibitory activity that may broaden their application above their current usage. [Cancer Res 2007;67(23):11438–46]


INTRODUCTION The most controversial Supreme Court decision of the 20092010 Supreme Court Term was, without question, Citizens United v. FEC. (1) The decision has captured the public imagination both for the question it asked and the answer it gave. In an age of much sharp political division and much incipient populism, it is easy to raise emotional flags by asking the question of whether corporations have the same rights as ordinary citizens. And it is easy for emotional involvement to turn to intense distaste in the aftermath of a decision that it is commonly thought to represent a great triumph of the conservative wing of the Court. All too many commentators, from President Barack Obama on down, have voiced their displeasure at a decision that handed corporate interests a powerful tool by which they can dominate the political arena at the expense of ordinary citizens. Or so much of the conventional wisdom goes. In this Article, I examine the many questions that swirl around Citizens United to expose the fundamental errors of its many critics. My interest in so doing does not depend on any affection for or hostility to corporate interests. Rather I was drawn to address this case because it requires us to pull together law from a number of different areas to create a coherent analysis of the constitutionality of the statutorily created system in question. Through the course of this Article, I will explore the justifications for the Court's decision in Citizens United from both constitutional and pragmatic perspectives. On the former question, I conclude that the majority has much the better of the issue insofar as it seeks to fold issues of corporate speech into the general fabric of First Amendment law. On the latter, I conclude that from a pragmatic point of view most corporations have little desire to exercise the constitutional rights which they receive, and this for the simplest of reasons. Over a broad range of issues, business success depends on keeping a low profile in general elections. Corporations do far better to concentrate their energies on specific issues of concern to them. They become sitting ducks to the extent they choose to enter any broader political arena. I. CITIZENS UNITED IN CONTEXT Citizens United addressed the question of whether a corporation or a union may use general treasury funds (free of complex regulatory restrictions) to pay for electioneering communications immediately before an election, (2) (when the communications are likely to be the most salient). The Court in Citizens United invalidated the portions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) (3) that limited such spending. (4) The BCRA, more than perhaps any other statute, requires some predictive assessment to determine how this complex Act, if it had remained effective in its entirety, would have influenced the conduct of our political campaigns. In addition, the case came before the Court at the beginning of 2010, when the economic fortunes of a nation were uncertain at best. Recriminations have alternately laid fault for these economic woes with big business, excessive government, or some complex interaction of the two. (5) The case thus ties into the genuine struggle between the populist and market sentiments that have become ever more polarized in recent years. The BCRA has generated an enormous amount of controversy, and Citizens United clearly counts as one of the most divisive decisions of the Court in recent years. The case did not arise in a void. Citizens United overturned portions of the earlier case of McConnell v. FEC, (6) which had followed Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce. (7) In McConnell, decided some seven years before Citizens United, Justices Stevens and O'Connor tapped into a strong strand of progressive populism when they upheld the same provisions of the BCRA. In a tribute to New York University (NYU), they noted that the great progressive thinker Elihu Root, NYU Class of 1867, had rightly said that corporate money and politics do not mix, (8) and that some effort to separate the two to reduce the effect of the former on the latter was an appropriate way to analyze the overall matter. …


Different substrate characteristic analyses have been studied on rice and triticale straw pretreated with NMMO (N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide) prior to biogas production. Simons' stain, water retention value (WRV), and enzymatic adsorption were used to measure the change in the accessible surface area of the lignocellulosic substrates. FTIR was used to measure the change in cellulosic crystallinity and Time-of-Flight-Secondary-Ion-Spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) to measure the ratio of cellulose to lignin on the sample surface. All methods showed increased accessible surface area and a decrease in crystallinity after the pretreatments. These qualities were linked to improved biogas production. In the future, the tested methods could replace the time-consuming methane potential analysis to predict the methane production of lignocellulosic materials. Simons' stain, enzymatic adsorption, and crystallinity measurement by FTIR can be regarded as the recommended methods for the prediction of the improved biogas production as a result of the pretreatment.


Mr. Lim was born in Masan, Gyeongsangnam-do, in the Republic of Korea. He majored in nautical science at the Korea Maritime and Ocean University (KMOU), Busan, graduating in 1977. He worked on ships as a Korean naval officer and for an international shipping company. He joined the Korea Maritime and Port Administration in 1985, while continuing with further studies at the Graduate School of Administration, Yonsei University, obtaining a Master's Degree in 1990. He then studied maritime administration at the World Maritime University (WMU), graduating with a master's degree. From 1995 he attended a doctoral programme for international law at KMOU, completing course work in 1998. Mr. Lim began attending IMO meetings as part of the Republic of Korea's delegation in 1986 and he engaged in activities to promote maritime safety through effective implementation of IMO conventions in his country and other IMO Member States in the Asian region. He was elected Chair of IMO's SubCommittee on Flag State. Implementation(FSI now III) in 2001 and of the Tokyo Memorandum on Port State Control in 2004. In 2006, Mr. Lim was appointed Director General of the Maritime Safety Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) and then as a Senior Maritime Attaché at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in London and led all IMO work for the Republic of Korea, serving as an Alternate Permanent Representative to IMO up to August 2009. Following that, he was re-appointed Director General for Maritime Safety Bureau (MLTM). In March 2011, Mr. Lim was appointed Commissioner of the Korean Maritime Safety Tribunal (KMST). In July 2012, he assumed the position of President of Busan Port Authority, until January 2016 when he took up his appointment as Secretary-General of IMO.


Analysis of samples collected within the United States after the Chinese atmospheric nuclear weapons tests of 26 September and 17 November 1976 indicates that the radiation dose to the thyroid from iodine-131 in milk was predominant. A U.S. population dose to the thyroid of 68,000 man-rads was calculated for the iodine-131 fallout. The four excess thyroid cancers that are estimated to occur as a result of the September test during the next 45 years will be masked by the 380,000 cases of thyroid cancer which are expected to occur in the United States from all causes during the same interval.


Because of his sudden death in 1613, Traiano Boccalini left unpublished their Comentarii sopra Cornelio Tacito, a work that took more than half a century to appear in print. During this time, the heirs of the lauretano attempted to publish the intellectual inheritance from his father in the major European courts in exchange for some economic benefit. Thanks to the discovery of several previously unpublished documents, this article reconstructs the arduous and vain attempt to publish the Comentarii by his son, Aurelio Boccalini, under the auspices of the Spanish Court. The reconstruction of this process highlights the strategies that are concocted from the Madrid Court to avoid at all costs the publication of a text that was harshly critical of the Spanish monarchy.


Options for treating Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) and other multi-resistant Gram negative bacilli isolated from people with cystic fibrosis (CF) are limited. We assessed the in-vitro activity of tigecycline and eleven other antimicrobial agents against a collection of these organisms. The collection comprised 128 isolates of CF-associated Gram negative bacilli (31 Burkholderia multivorans, 16 Burkholderia cenocepacia, 4 other members of the Burkholderia species, 47 Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, 20 Achromobacter xylosoxidans, and 10 other miscellaneous CF-associated Gram negative bacilli. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of tigecycline and eleven other antimicrobials for each isolate were determined using E-test. Synergy between tigecycline and each of eight other antimicrobials was determined using an E-test overlay method. The epidemiological spread of organisms indicated that the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT) infection control policies have had a measure of success and our work followed the pattern of many other CF units. Tigecycline showed poor in-vitro activity versus all members of the Bcc, with only 13% and 3% of B. cenocepacia and B. multivorans susceptible, respectively. Conversely minocycline showed good activity against these species, with 94% and 91% of isolates being susceptible. Tigecycline showed good activity against A. xyloxidans and S. maltophilia with 85% and 77% of isolates being susceptible, respectively. Tigecycline in combination with other agents mostly resulted in indifference. Although the in-vitro activity of tigecycline is variable, we reviewed the potential and future clinical impact of this study and the likely issues for further study. Whilst the relationship between synergy/MIC testing and clinical success remains unclear, there are a number of promising developments and ideas that may clarify this situation – further studies are warranted.


Two concentration methods for fast and routine determination of caffeine (using HPLC-UV detection) in surface, and wastewater are evaluated. Both methods are based on solid-phase extraction (SPE) concentration with octadecyl silica sorbents. A common "offline" SPE procedure shows that quantitative recovery of caffeine is obtained with 2 mL of an elution mixture solvent methanol-water containing at least 60% methanol. The method detection limit is 0.1 μg L−1 when percolating 1 L samples through the cartridge. The development of an "online" SPE method based on a mini-SPE column, containing 100 mg of the same sorbent, directly connected to the HPLC system allows the method detection limit to be decreased to 10 ng L−1 with a sample volume of 100 mL. The "offline" SPE method is applied to the analysis of caffeine in wastewater samples, whereas the "on-line" method is used for analysis in natural waters from streams receiving significant water intakes from local wastewater treatment plants.


As early stage of video processing, we introduce an iterative trajectory merging algorithm that produces a region-based and hierarchical representation of the video sequence, called the Trajectory Binary Partition Tree (BPT). From this representation, many analysis and graph cut techniques can be used to extract partitions or objects that are useful in the context of specific applications. In order to define trajectories and to create a precise merging algorithm, color and motion cues have to be used. Both types of informations are very useful to characterize objects but present strong differences of behavior in the spatial and the temporal dimensions. On the one hand, scenes and objects are rich in their spatial color distributions, but these distributions are rather stable over time. Object motion, on the other hand, presents simple structures and low spatial variability but may change from frame to frame. The proposed algorithm takes into account this key difference and relies on different models and associated metrics to deal with color and motion information. We show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing hierarchical video segmentation algorithms and provides more stable and precise regions.


This paper proposes evolutionary wall-following control of a mobile robot using an interval type-2 fuzzy controller (IT2FC) with species-differential-evolution-activated continuous ant colony optimization (SDE-CACO). Both the position and speed of a mobile robot are controlled by using two IT2FCs to improve noise resistance ability. A new cost function is defined to accurately evaluate the wall-following performance of an evolutionary IT2FC. A two-stage training approach is proposed that learns a position IT2FC followed by a speed IT2FC to optimize both the wall-following accuracy and the moving speed. The proposed learning approach avoids the time consuming task of the exhaustive collection of supervised input-output training pairs. All fuzzy rules are generated online using a clustering-based approach during the evolutionary learning process. All of the free parameters in an online-generated IT2FC are optimized using SDE-CACO, in which an SDE mutation operation is incorporated within a continuous ACO to improve its explorative ability. The proposed SDE-CACO is compared with various population-based optimization algorithms to demonstrate its efficiency and effectiveness in the wall-following control problem. This study also includes experiments that demonstrate wall-following control utilizing a real mobile robot.


Abstract This study analyzed the influence of the Hwang scandal on the stem cell research community and research governance systems in South Korea. In contrast to the claims of some critics that the fraud scandal might raise doubts about Korean stem cell science, the impact of the Hwang scandal on publications by Korean stem cell researchers in international scientific journals proved limited, with only a temporary halt in research and publications. On the one hand, Korea's scientific community has moved toward the ethical turn through which the Korean government tightened its research-ethics standards and regulations. On the other hand, the government and scientific community remain hopeful about stem cell research. Consequently, the politics of hope have led to the quick recovery of Korean stem cell science from the potential damage caused by the Hwang scandal. The scandal accelerated the South Korean government's efforts toward research ethics reform: it mandated universities and research institutes to create and strengthen institutional review boards and other research-integrity committees. In addition, the Korean government, maintaining its optimism about the economic value of stem cell science, continued to fund stem cell research. Despite the seemingly prompt recovery from the scandal, however, stem cell research governance systems in Korea face a serious new challenge: the ethical and safety concerns associated with the rapid commercialization of stem cell science. Therefore, this article views the changes in the scientific community as a process of conflict and negotiation between the accountability crisis in the Korean scientific community and the politics of hope in science.


As indicated by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 80 per cent of women in Bangladesh experience partner violence (BBS, 2015). Given this prevalence, it is essential to assess factors, transcending the personal, that precipitate such violence. Using the lens of structural violence and supporting studies showing that violence of one form engenders another, we posit that a lack of sanitation that leads to open defecation also contributes to an increased likelihood of partner violence. This study uses data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007 to explicate the association between open defecation and partner violence among women in Bangladesh. Results show that in our sample of 4466 women, almost 9 per cent reported open defecation, 18.4 per cent reported physical violence, and 10.2 per cent reported sexual violence. In the multivariate analyses, the adjusted prevalence ratios indicate that open defecation is significantly associated with sexual violence by partners (APR=1.30, p<0.05) but not physical violence. Implications are discussed.


ABSTRACT Connected speech (CS) is an important component of child speech assessment in both clinical practice and research. There is debate in the literature regarding what size sample of CS is required to facilitate reliable measures of speech output. The aim of this study was to identify the minimum number of word tokens required to obtain a reliable measure of CS across a range of measures. Participants were 776 5-year-olds from a longitudinal community population cohort study (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, ALSPAC). Children's narratives from a story retell task were audio-recorded and phonetically transcribed. Automatic analysis of the transcribed speech samples was completed using an automated transcription and analysis system. Measures of speech performance extracted included: a range of profiles of percentage consonant correct; frequency of substitutions, omissions, distortions and additions (SODA); percentage of syllable and stress pattern matches; and a measure of whole word complexity (Phonological Mean Length of Utterance, pMLU). Statistical analyses compared these measures at different CS sample sizes in increments using averages and weighted moving averages, and investigated how measures performed between CS samples grouped into word tokens of at least 50, 75 and 100, and restricted to samples of 50–74, 75–99 and 100–125. Key findings showed that sample sizes of 75 word tokens and above showed minimal differences in most measures of speech output, suggesting that the minimum requirement for samples of CS is a word count of 75. The exception to this is in the case of pMLU and measures of substitutions and distortions when a word count of 100 is recommended.


Inferring the factors responsible for declines in abundance is a prerequisite to preventing the extinction of wild populations. Many of the policies and programmes intended to prevent extinctions operate on the assumption that the factors driving the decline of a population can be determined. Exogenous factors that cause declines in abundance can be statistically confounded with endogenous factors such as density dependence. To demonstrate the potential for confounding, we used an experiment where replicated populations were driven to extinction by gradually manipulating habitat quality. In many of the replicated populations, habitat quality and density dependence were confounded, which obscured causal inference. Our results show that confounding is likely to occur when the exogenous factors that are driving the decline change gradually over time. Our study has direct implications for wild populations, because many factors that could drive a population to extinction change gradually through time.


The 'design' of any animal signal is affected by at least three selection pressures: (i) the type of information being conveyed (the message); (ii) the transmission properties of the medium; and (iii) the sensory and psychological properties of the receiver. We describe a field study of the bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bifasciatum) and examine the 'circling' display of the male in the light of these three pressures. Analysis of videotape records of the display shows that it carries accurate information about when a spawning dash will occur. The speed with which the pectoral fins are moved increases steadily over the 10 s before spawning so that the exact time of spawning can be predicted. Dark spots (not present when the male is chasing other males) appear on the ends of the pectoral fins and may 'amplify' perception of fin movements. The colour change shown by the male when chasing other males and when courting females was measured in situ by using Munsell colour charts, and was subsequently converted to dominant wavelength and excitation purity equivalents. The circling display appears to be designed to convey information about intention to spawn to a female that is relatively close whilst not conveying this information to other males that are further away.


Education is the most important instrument for human resource development.
Education is becoming a universal human right and an important component of
women empowerment. Gender inequality in education is a serious problem in
Tanzania since independence in 1961. There is still lower enrolment rate for girls and
higher dropout rates than their male counterparts in Tanzania. This study explored
factors causing gender inequality in education in Korogwe district's secondary
schools. The study was conducted in Korogwe District using qualitative design.
Forty three respondents were involved in the study through interview and focus
group discussion. The findings indicated that inequality in access to education in
Korogwe district secondary schools is caused by various factors including poverty,
inadequate school infrastructure such as hostels and dormitories, lack o toilets and
special room for matured girls, long distance from home to school and lack of sex
education and early pregnancies. These are as barriers to equality in accessing to
education. Furthermore sexual harassment of girls by male teachers and community
members, bad socio-cultural practices such as early and forced marriage, dowry,
polygamy, ushashi and kugeleka practices prevent hundreds of girls in Korogwe
district to access education. The study further found that lack of access to education
for girls and women lead to poverty, increase of infancy and child mortality rate,
employment of women in informal sectors as well as increase of fertility rate. The
study established strategies to bring equality in education in Korogwe district
including gender mainstreaming in teacher training colleges, change of negativecultural
beliefs and attitudes through mass education, protection of women and girls from violence by establishment of strict laws, increase of girl's enrolment and
guidance and counseling programs.


In Western society, our institutions of higher learning are a fragmented array of intellectual specialties known as academic disciplines. Academicians are professionals (as distinguished from other occupations) and are thus evaluated and legitimized by fellow professionals whose training and credentials define their competency to do so. Over time, groups of professionals are recognized and accepted as a discipline which gives them a degree of credibility in the larger society as well as mutual acceptance among themselves. Academicians who display a mainstream loyalty to an accepted and institutionalized academic discipline are afforded protection and support; those who do not find themselves somewhat vulnerable inasmuch as publications in mainstream journals and colleague acceptance within the discipline are major factors affecting faculty retention decisions. Professional associations are similarly affected. When any group of professionals ventures outside these traditional alignments and categories of truth (as defined by disciplinary boundaries), it discovers that institutionalized support available to disciplinary-based associations is lacking. In order to survive, it must find alternative means to preserve its identity while at the same time trying to acquire a measure of legitimacy. For a newly defined field of inquiry such as borderlands studies to achieve the legitimacy of a profession and ensure its survival as a professional entity, it must manifest the following five characteristics outlined by Greenwood (1962:207-218): 1. a systematic body of theory and extensive specialty training, 2. professional authority and a monopoly of judgment, 3. a positive sanction from society for its implementation, 4. a code of ethics for peer review and control and 5. a professional culture and acceptable lay stereotypes.


Background/Context This paper arises out of frustration with the results of school reforms carried out over the past few decades. These efforts have failed. They need to be abandoned. In their place must come recognition that income inequality causes many social problems, including problems associated with education. Sadly, compared to all other wealthy nations, the USA has the largest income gap between its wealthy and its poor citizens. Correlates associated with the size of the income gap in various nations are well described in Wilkinson & Pickett (2010), whose work is cited throughout this article. They make it clear that the bigger the income gap in a nation or a state, the greater the social problems a nation or a state will encounter. Thus it is argued that the design of better economic and social policies can do more to improve our schools than continued work on educational policy independent of such concerns. Purpose/Objective/Research Question The research question asked is why so many school reform efforts have produced so little improvement in American schools. The answer offered is that the sources of school failure have been thought to reside inside the schools, resulting in attempts to improve America's teachers, curriculum, testing programs and administration. It is argued in this paper, however, that the sources of America's educational problems are outside school, primarily a result of income inequality. Thus it is suggested that targeted economic and social policies have more potential to improve the nations schools than almost anything currently being proposed by either political party at federal, state or local levels. Research Design This is an analytic essay on the reasons for the failure of almost all contemporary school reform efforts. It is primarily a report about how inequality affects all of our society, and a review of some research and social policies that might improve our nations' schools. Conclusions/Recommendations It is concluded that the best way to improve America's schools is through jobs that provide families living wages. Other programs are noted that offer some help for students from poor families. But in the end, it is inequality in income, and the poverty that accompanies such inequality, that matters most for education.


Objective: The present work was designed to formulate and optimize Orodispersible tablets of Piroxicam using QbD approach. The central composite design tool was used to evaluate the scientific understanding of input and output variables to construct design space for regulatory flexibility. Methodology: The concentrations of super disintegrants were selected as independent variables. The dependent variables selected were in vitro dispersion time and percentage drug release. The quantitative effect of independent variables at different levels on response variables was predicted using polynomial equations. The model was found to be nonlinear and the curvature effect was significant. Therefore study resorted to composite design for optimization. Results and Discussion: DSC studies indicated drug and excipients were compatible. Precompression parameters indicated fairly good flow properties. Tablets were prepared by direct compression method and all the tablets prepared in the above studies were evaluated for pharmacotechnical properties and were found to be within specified limits. Increase in the concentration of Sodium starch glycolate (SSG), Crospovidone (CP) decreased the in vitro dispersion time and increased percentage drug release. Kinetic studies revealed that drug release from all formulations followed first order release. The relationship between independent variables and dependent variables was further elucidated using contour plots. Based on these plots most economical batch was decided which were in desired range. The statistical model is mathematically valid as the experimental values and predicted values suggested by the full model were relatively close to each other. Conclusion: The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed design for development of Piroxicam orodispersible tablets with optimized properties. Key words: Piroxicam, Croscarmellose sodium (CCS), Sodium starch glycolate (SSG), Crospovidone (CP), Central composite design.


The recent emergence of geodesign elicits broad questions about what to teach our students, and how to teach it. Geodesign bridges the geospatial sciences and geographical information system (GIS)-related techniques with the design professions to inform better land-use decisions. With its emphasis on real-world applications, information technologies, and cross-disciplinary problem-solving, geodesign lends itself to a variety of experiential, active learning strategies collectively known as learner-centered education (LCE). This paper explores how LCE, outcomes assessment, and curriculum design can together support geodesign-oriented undergraduate programs. Looking specifically at a new degree program at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, the authors view geodesign education as a platform for promoting learner-centered approaches that at once transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and are becoming increasingly important for employment opportunities. The example discussed herein illustrates how promising practices in curriculum design and LCE can inform geodesign education, thereby enabling other faculties to discover their own educational opportunities in geodesign.


This paper presents part of an action research project which developed a model for assessing credit volume of experiential learning claims. APEL is usually claimed against validated University modules with pre-determined credit level and amount, and used to enable access or progression within standard programmes. WBL students make APEL claims for general credit as a starting point in their WBL programme, which is assessed against a framework of Level Descriptors (Garnett 1998). This research generated criteria to assess credit volume, and the resulting differing value judgements that the academic, the claimant and the university impose upon it are explored in this paper.

The project sought to identify the tacit knowledge (Jarvis 1999) that experienced assessors of general credit use when assessing APEL credit. Usual practice of the notion of 1 credit per 10 hours of study (Walsh & Johnson 2001) does not equate with experiential learning as learning can take an indeterminate length of time, nor do standard modules offer an exact match of learning outcomes against experiential learning from a range of work sources, thus potentially undervaluing the claimant's experience. The WBL approach to APEL aims to widen participation, but boundaries and limits upon learning exist which rely on academic value judgements rather than that of the claimants, who have to negotiate invisible hurdles to gain credit.

This paper discusses the contested nature of such learning (Armsby et al 2006). While APEL may not be perceived as traditional knowledge, valued as equivalent to HE taught programmes, it may represent significant personal learning for an individual.


Although psychological safety research has flourished in recent years, and despite the empirical support for the important role of psychological safety in the workplace, several critical questions remain. In order to address these questions, we aggregate theoretical and empirical works, and draw on 136 independent samples representing over 22,000 individuals and nearly 5,000 groups, to conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis on the antecedents and outcomes of psychological safety. We not only present the nomological network of psychological safety but also extend this research in 4 important ways. First, we compare effect sizes to determine the relative effectiveness of antecedents to psychological safety. Second, we examine the extent to which psychological safety influences both task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors over and beyond related concepts such as positive leader relations and work engagement. Third, we examine whether research design characteristics and national culture alter validities within the nomological network, thus promoting a more accurate and contextualized understanding of psychological safety. Finally, we test the homology assumption by comparing the effect sizes of the antecedents and outcomes of psychological safety across individual and group levels of analysis. We conclude with a discussion of the areas in need of future examination.


Anomalous trichromats have two similar longer wave pigments and thus reduced sensitivity to the reddish-greenish chromaticities carried by their differences. However, a number of studies have found that in some anomalous observers the salience of these hues is much greater than predicted by their sensitivity losses, consistent with a compensatory mechanism that tends to normalize the gamut of their perceptual color space. We explored the possibility that this could result in part from normal processes of contrast adaptation, by examining how normal trichromats would adapt to the reduced range of color signals available to color deficient observers. Images were 1/f noise with perceptually equated random variations in luminance and chromatic (S and LM) contrast. These images were then filtered with the spectral sensitivities of a deuteranomalous observer, and were adjusted for von Kries adaptation so that the mean chromaticity remained gray. Chromatic variations in the resulting images varied primarily in S-cone contrasts. Observers adapted to a rapid sequence of the filtered images shown in a 4-deg field for 5 minutes, and then interleaved with briefly presented test stimuli shown in the same field. The test images had the same luminance contrast but a fixed chromaticity spanning the S vs LM space at 22.5 deg intervals. The hue of the test was matched by adjusting the hue angle of a comparison image presented in an unadapted field to the other side of fixation. Adaptation to the biased chromatic contrasts in the anomalous images produced systematic biases in the perceived hue of the test images, consistent with a selective loss in sensitivity to the adapting colors. Our results suggest that in anomalous trichromats the losses in color contrast may lead to selective contrast adaptation which may act to rebalance and thus partly discount their sensitivity losses from their phenomenal color percepts. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


We describe the first steps in developing an OMERACT magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scoring system for peripheral psoriatic arthritis (PsA). A preexisting MRI dataset (finger joints) from 10 patients with PsA was scored by 4 readers for bone erosion, bone edema, synovitis, tendinopathy, and extracapsular features of inflammation (including enthesitis) according to specified criteria. Scoring reliability between readers was moderate to high for bone edema and erosion, but lower for soft tissue inflammation. Measures to improve reliability for future exercises will include reviewing definitions of pathological features and prior reader calibration.


There has recently been an increased emphasis on reducing energy consumption in manufacturing, driven by the fluctuations in energy costs and the growing importance given to environmental impact of manufactured goods. Lots of attention has been given to the reduction of machine tools energy consumption, as they require large amounts of energy to perform manufacturing tasks. One area that has received relatively little interest, yet could harness great potential, is reducing energy consumption by planning machine activities between manufacturing operations, while the machine is not in use. The intuitive option --which is currently exploited in manufacturing-- is to leave the machine in a normal operating state in anticipation of the next manufacturing job. However, this is far from optimal due to the thermal deformation phenomenon, which usually require an energy-intensive warm-up cycle in order to bring all the components (e.g. spindle motor) into a suitable (stable) state for actual machining. Evidently, the use of this strategy comes with the associated commercial and environmental repercussions. In this paper, we investigate the exploitability of automated planning techniques for planning machine activities between manufacturing operations. We present a PDDL 2.2 formulation of the task that considers energy consumption, thermal deformation, and accuracy. We then demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach using a case study which considers real-world data.


The willful US fiscal crackup of 2012-13 will impose costs unless politicians' change their behavior and return to practicing good governance. In the past, the United States ran deficits, or put off some harder long-term choices, but basic budgetary processes worked. Everyone worldwide, whether a VA patient in Louisville or a US Treasury bondholder in London, could count on the US government making its payments. As a result, the US economy had lower interest rates and greater stability than anywhere else, and the dollar was everyone's envy and safe haven, which brought more investment into the United States. But the repeated failure of Congress to pass budget legislation, or to bring the debt ceiling into line with spending, and ultimately explicitly threatening default on US government debt, has made US fiscal politics no better than anyone else's—and in some ways a lot worse, damaging the US reputation for safety and stability. In fact, there is no other known example of a solvent democracy flirting with default through sheer political stubbornness. While many democracies with fragmented party systems spend themselves into crashes, the crashes only came when they had run out of credit, not as a self-inflicted wound. The essays in this volume make clear that the direct costs of the recent fiscal follies are already substantial. David J. Stockton argues, for example, that the fiscal uncertainty of 2013 took 1 percent off of US real GDP and increased unemployment by 0.5 percent. The continuing uncertainty about US fiscal decision-making, and the recurrent risk of a repeat, has dragged down American productive investment. Worse still, global markets have priced in a default risk on US treasuries, where there had been none. US taxpayers will consequently foot the bill for higher rates demanded by markets on newly issued US government debt from now on. The most overlooked and perhaps most lasting harmful effect of the fiscal follies will be the severely diminished ability of the United States to conclude international economic negotiations. People and their elected representatives can legitimately disagree with each other about the speed and seriousness needed to tackle US public debt problems. There is no room for disagreement, however, that a budget process that threatens recurrent deadlock and even possible default on US government debt is seriously harmful to American wellbeing and international standing.


Originating from a small group of Bible students led by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Society grew into an international society. After Russell's death in 1916, Franklin Rutherford was named his successor and gave the society a new name: "Jehovah's Witnesses." The Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses shows how World War I & II influenced Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations like blood transfusion, as well as to mainstream churches and the development of Jehovah's Witnesses' door-to-door evangelism. The theme of prophecy, the doctrine of the 144,000, end-time calculations, Armageddon, and the Witnesses' denial of hell are all considered in the Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses, which contains a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and 250 cross-referenced dictionary entries relating to key people and concepts.


Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York, offers a course of study leading to the AAS in Optical Technology. This curriculum arose out of a regional need which is really, the author believes, an industry-wide critical area. Background, philosophy, details, and some socioeconomic effects of such a program are discussed.


Two experiments were conducted to determine efficacy of GnRH analogs, Cystorelin (CYS, gonadorelin diacetate tytrahydrate) and Factrel (FAC, gonadorelin hydrochloride), for use in beef timed AI synchronization. In Experiment one 342 beef cows from 7 herds were assigned CYS or FAC treatment as part of the Ovsynch protocol (GnRH d 0 and 9, Lutalyse d 7). Cattle treated with FAC had greater tendency (P=.09) to be pregnant at d 45. One individual herd demonstrated FAC-treated cows had more pregnancies at day 45. In Experiment two, 18 beef cows received either CYS or FAC as part of the Ovsynch protocol, intensive blood samples, from time –30 to 525 min post GnRH, were collected at each GnRH injection. Ultrasounds were conducted daily over the course of the protocol. A treatment by phase interaction (P=.03) was found for the time to maximum LH concentration, where CYS-treated follicular cows had a shorter interval than did FAC treated follicular or luteal cows. The duration of detectable LH response showed a treatment by phase interaction (P = .02) where follicular and luteal CYStreated cows had shorter interval than follicular or luteal FAC-treated cows. The variables maximum LH concentration, and area under LH curve did not differ. Cows treated with CYS had more (P=.02) non-dominant follicles. In Experiment three, 16 ewes randomly received either CYS, FAT or Fertagyl (FER; gonadorelin diacetaate tytrahydrate), and FAT's induced LH maximum concentration occurred sooner (P=.02) than CYS. We conclude that either product may be used in beef cows without compromising fertility.


Abstract A combined 2D, 3D approach is presented that allows for robust tracking of moving people and recognition of actions. It is assumed that the system observes multiple moving objects via a single, uncalibrated video camera. Low-level features are often insufficient for detection, segmentation, and tracking of non-rigid moving objects. Therefore, an improved mechanism is proposed that integrates low-level (image processing), mid-level (recursive 3D trajectory estimation), and high-level (action recognition) processes. A novel extended Kalman filter formulation is used in estimating the relative 3D motion trajectories up to a scale factor. The recursive estimation process provides a prediction and error measure that is exploited in higher-level stages of action recognition. Conversely, higher-level mechanisms provide feedback that allows the system to reliably segment and maintain the tracking of moving objects before, during, and after occlusion. The 3D trajectory, occlusion, and segmentation information are utilized in extracting stabilized views of the moving object that are then used as input to action recognition modules. Trajectory-guided recognition (TGR) is proposed as a new and efficient method for adaptive classification of action. The TGR approach is demonstrated using ``motion history images'''' that are then recognized via a mixture-of-Gaussians classifier. The system was tested in recognizing various dynamic human outdoor activities: running, walking, roller blading, and cycling. Experiments with real and synthetic data sets are used to evaluate stability of the trajectory estimator with respect to noise. (This technical report supercedes TR''s [98-020] and [98-007])


Given a time-harmonic electric-current distribution over a finite planar aperture situated in front of a dielectric half-space, the transmitted field in the dielectric half-space is calculated by the plane-wave-spectrum technique. We concentrate on the current distribution that focuses the electromagnetic energy into a small spot in the dielectric medium, such as in hyperthermia applications. Numerical results are given to illustrate the variation of spot size and of focal-point electric-field intensity as functions of polarization, scanning, and the permittivity of the half-space. We find that (1) the maximum electric-field intensity is not at the focal point but rather at a point closer to the aperture; for a small aperture, this focal shift may be more than one wavelength; (2) when the dielectric half-space is introduced, the 3-dB spot size changes according to the ratio of the wavelength in the half-space to that in the original aperture medium; and (3) the electric-field intensity at the focal point is greatest when the permittivity of the half-space is less than that of the aperture medium, not when the two media are electrically matched.


Purpose: Speakers use auditory feedback to guide their speech output, although individuals differ in the magnitude of their compensatory response to perceived errors in feedback. Little is known about the factors that contribute to the compensatory response or how fixed or flexible they are within an individual. Here, we test whether manipulating the perceived reliability of auditory feedback modulates speakers' compensation to auditory perturbations, as predicted by optimal models of sensorimotor control.Method: Forty participants produced monosyllabic words in two separate sessions, which differed in the auditory feedback given during an initial exposure phase. In the veridical session exposure phase, feedback was normal. In the noisy session exposure phase, small, random formant perturbations were applied, reducing reliability of auditory feedback. In each session, a subsequent test phase introduced larger unpredictable formant perturbations. We assessed whether the magnitude of within-trial compensation for these larger perturbations differed across the two sessions.Results: Compensatory responses to downward (though not upward) formant perturbations were larger in the veridical session than the noisy session. However, in post hoc testing, we found the magnitude of this effect is highly dependent on the choice of analysis procedures. Compensation magnitude was not predicted by other production measures, such as formant variability, and was not reliably correlated across sessions.Conclusions: Our results, though mixed, provide tentative support that the feedback control system monitors the reliability of sensory feedback. These results must be interpreted cautiously given the potentially limited stability of auditory feedback compensation measures across analysis choices and across sessions.Supplemental Material S1. Additional analysis. Niziolek, C. A., & Parrell, B. (2021). Responses to auditory feedback manipulations in speech may be affected by previous exposure to auditory errors. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00263Publisher Note: This article is part of the Special Issue: Select Papers From the 2020 Conference on Motor Speech.


Recent work in fairness in machine learning has proposed adjusting for fairness by equalizing accuracy metrics across groups and has also studied how datasets affected by historical prejudices may lead to unfair decision policies. We connect these lines of work and study the residual unfairness that arises when a fairness-adjusted predictor is not actually fair on the target population due to systematic censoring of training data by existing biased policies. This scenario is particularly common in the same applications where fairness is a concern. We characterize theoretically the impact of such censoring on standard fairness metrics for binary classifiers and provide criteria for when residual unfairness may or may not appear. We prove that, under certain conditions, fairness-adjusted classifiers will in fact induce residual unfairness that perpetuates the same injustices, against the same groups, that biased the data to begin with, thus showing that even state-of-the-art fair machine learning can have a "bias in, bias out" property. When certain benchmark data is available, we show how sample reweighting can estimate and adjust fairness metrics while accounting for censoring. We use this to study the case of Stop, Question, and Frisk (SQF) and demonstrate that attempting to adjust for fairness perpetuates the same injustices that the policy is infamous for.


Background: Despite 60% coverage by Lady Health Worker (LHW) Program, 30% of child deaths in Pakistan are still due to diarrhea and pneumonia. Caregivers are an important stakeholder yet there is little information on their case management practices and utilization of LHW Program. This study explored caregivers' knowledge and practices about childhood diarrhea and pneumonia and utility of LHW services before and after a supportive supervision intervention.
Methods: Cross sectional surveys were conducted with caregivers' (mothers) pre and post intervention in project NIGRAAN. The intervention aimed to improve LHSs clinical and supervisory skills of lady health supervisors in order to improve LHW performance and ultimately impact caregiver practices. 4250 households were surveyed. Questionnaire was adapted from PDHS 2012-13. Differences between intervention and control groups were assessed using chi square test. P-value of <0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Comparing baseline to end line, there were significant overall improvements in caregivers'knowledge of loose motion (62 to 84%) and dehydration (12 to 18%) as signs and symptoms of childhood diarrhea. There was also a significant overall increase in caregivers' knowledge of presenting features of pneumonia- i.e. fever (58 to 86%), cough (51 to 61%) and breathing problems (25 to 57%). The proportion of caregivers seeking advice for diarrhea from public sector significantly improved in intervention arm from 20% to 29%. Private sector however remained overall preferred choice for care seeking. There was significant overall improvement in awareness about LHWs functioning (93 to 99%) and household visits (91 to 98%). Actual care seeking from LHWs however stayed low (≤ 0.3%)
Conclusion: In order to improve utility and expand coverage of LHW Program interventions aimed at providing supportive supervision have the potential to improve caregiver practices and utilization of available services and decrease childhood deaths due to preventable illnesses.