This report summarises preliminary research undertaken in New Zealand during 2006-07 to investigate the ability of intelligent transport system (ITS) treatments, such as adaptive signal control (eg, SCATS) and variable message signs (VMS), to detect and respond to serious traffic incidents, and to determine the most appropriate traffic management strategies (in terms of overall network reliability) to apply when such incidents are detected. The study involved a literature review of techniques and software/systems currently used to manage traffic congestion and respond to incidents, and an exploratory microsimulation study modelling incident detection and response in an urban network. The research found few attempts to bring together research in the three areas of incident detection/management, ITS methods such as adaptive signal control, and network reliability measures. There is also a lack of robust incident detection available at present in New Zealand. Preliminary modelling found that SCATS can be modified to better meet additional demand due to diversions after an incident, and modelling can help to identify which particular journey paths benefit most from such incident management interventions. The findings highlighted the need for more work to be undertaken in this area in New Zealand. (a)


Reversible control of the spin state of an organic molecule is significant for the development of molecular spintronic devices. Here, density functional theory calculations have been performed to study the adsorption of atomic nitrogen on a single manganese phthalocyanine (MnPc) molecule, three-layered MnPc, and MnPc on an Fe(100) surface. For all three cases, the N atom strongly adsorbs on top of the Mn atom and induces a significant variation of the geometric, electronic and magnetic properties. After N adsorption, an energy gap appears and the electronic states become unpolarized. Different functionals including three hybrid functionals are used in these calculations, and all yield a switchable spin state.


A bacterial effector protein acts as an artificial scaffold for a GTPase and kinase at the Golgi. Bacterial pathogens secrete effector proteins that take over the host cellular machinery to create conditions conducive to survival and proliferation. In a screen for effector proteins that alter vesicular trafficking through the general secretory pathway, Selyunin et al. found that expression of the type III effector EspG encoded by the enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 inhibited exocytosis of ectopically expressed human growth hormone from HeLa cells. Fluorescently tagged EspG localized to the Golgi and induced fragmentation of this organelle. A yeast two-hybrid screen revealed that EspG interacted with the GTPases ARF1 and ARF6 (which are involved in vesicle transport) and p21-activated kinases (PAKs) 1, 2, and 3 (which are effectors for the GTPases Cdc42 and Rac1). In vitro binding assays indicated that EspG interacted with the ARF GTPase domain and with the Iα3 helix in the autoinhibitory domain of PAKs. In the crystal structure of EspG in complex with the ARF6 GTPase domain, EspG selectively engaged the switch I loop of GTP-loaded (but not GDP-bound) forms of ARF6, which enabled EspG to block access of ARF-GAP (GTPase-activating protein) to ARF6 and prevent GAP-stimulated GTP hydrolysis. The crystal structure of EspG in complex with the PAK2 Iα3 helix compared with that of the Iα3 helix in the autoinhibited PAK1 homodimer suggested that EspG binding disrupted the interaction of the kinase and autoinhibitory domains to allosterically activate PAK, a finding that was confirmed by kinase activity assays. The binding sites for ARF6 and PAK2 on EspG were distinct and nonoverlapping. ARF1GTP recruited EspG, which then recruited PAK2 to the membrane surface of Golgi mimetic liposomes. In HEK293A cells, transfected ARF1 and EspG colocalized at the Golgi, and a construct encoding fluorescently tagged PAK2 Iα3 helix colocalized with wild-type EspG but not with an EspG mutant unable to activate PAK2. The authors suggest that the artificial scaffold created by EspG enables the bacterium to subvert the ARF and PAK signaling pathways without interference from endogenous regulatory systems. A. S. Selyunin, S. E. Sutton, B. A. Weigele, L. E. Reddick, R. C. Orchard, S. M. Bresson, D. R. Tomchick, N. M. Alto, The assembly of a GTPase-kinase signalling complex by a bacterial catalytic scaffold. Nature 469, 107–111 (2011). [PubMed]


The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provided community health workers (CHWs) with new opportunities, and current efforts develop evidence-based guidelines for CHW integration into clinical teams. This qualitative study documents CHW roles and activities in 3 federally qualified health care centers in southern Arizona. Community health worker clinical roles, activities, and integration varied by health center and were in flux. Integration included complementary roles, scheduled and everyday communications with team members, and documentation in the electronic health records. These findings contribute to evidence-based guidelines for CHW integration into clinical teams that are critical to maximizing CHW contributions to patient health improvements.


This innovative study demonstrates how Japanese empire-builders invented and appropriated the discourse of overpopulation to justify Japanese settler colonialism across the Pacific. Lu defines this overpopulation discourse as 'Malthusian expansionism'. This was a set of ideas that demanded additional land abroad to accommodate the supposed surplus people in domestic society on the one hand and emphasized the necessity of national population growth on the other. Lu delineates ideological ties, human connections and institutional continuities between Japanese colonial migration in Asia and Japanese migration to Hawaii and North and South America from 1868 to 1961. He further places Malthusian expansionism at the center of the logic of modern settler colonialism, challenging the conceptual division between migration and settler colonialism in global history.


Background: Primary surgeries such as cheiloplasty and palatoplasty interfere with the morphology and physiology of the maxillofacial complex, causing alterations in its growth and development in unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) patients. The aim of the present study was to perform a preliminary analysis of the effects of surgery on maxillofacial growth through an examination of dental arch relationships. Methods: Forty-five patients with UCLP who underwent primary surgery for the repair of cleft lip and palate were evaluated. Comparative analysis of plaster models of dental arches was performed by two orthodontists using the Atack index. Results: Some patients (44.4%) analyzed showed scores of 1 and 2, representing the most favorable maxillofacial growth conditions. The intermediate score (score 3) was found in 40% of patients, while 15.6% showed unfavorable maxillary growth tendencies (scores 4 and 5). The mean score at 4 years of age was 2.62 + 0.98. A correlation between scores 1 and 2 in the present study with those of previous studies resulted in a significant difference (P = 0.23) in comparison to Bongaarts' series, which obtained the best results. Our results for scores 3, 4, and 5 were similar to those of 3 related studies in terms of the percentages obtained, which were better than those of the first study that used the Atack index for the evaluation of primary surgeries. Conclusions: The Atack index enabled the analysis of the effects of primary surgery on maxillofacial growth and a comparison with the results obtained by other centers for the treatment of UCLP.


Convergence acceleration techniques for the iterative solution of system of equations arising in the discretisations of compressible flow problems governed by the steady state Euler or Navier-Stokes equations is considered. The system of PDE is discretised using a finite difference or finite volume method yielding a large sparse system of equations. A solution is computed by integrating the corresponding time dependent problem in time until steady state is reached. A convergence acceleration technique based on semicirculant approximations is applied. For scalar model problems, it is proved that the preconditioned coefficient matrix has a bounded spectrum well separated from the origin. A very simple time marching scheme such as the forward Euler method can be used, and the time step is not limited by a CFL-type criterion. Instead, the time step can asymptotically be chosen as a constant, independent of the number of grid points and the Reynolds number. Numerical experiments show that grid and parameter independent convergence is achieved also in more complicated problem settings. A comparison with a multigrid method shows that the semicirculant convergence acceleration technique is more efficient in terms of arithmetic complexity. Another convergence acceleration technique based on fundamental solutions is proposed. An algorithm based on Fourier technique is provided for the fast application. Scalar model problems are considered and a theory, where the preconditioner is represented as an integral operator is derived. Theory and numerical experiments show that for first order partial differential equations, grid independent convergence is achieved.


Discover the latest models and methods for robotic microassembly from around the world This book presents and analyzes new and emerging models and methods developed around the world for robotic microassembly, a new and innovative way to produce better microsystems. By exploring everything from the physics of micromanipulation to microassembly to microhandling, it provides the first complete overview and review of this rapidly growing field. Robotic Microassembly is divided into three parts: Part One: Modeling of the Microworld Part Two: Handling Strategies Part Three: Robotic and Microassembly Together, these three parts feature eight chapters contributed by eight different authors. The authors, internationally recognized experts in the field of robotic microassembly, represent research laboratories in Asia, Europe, and North America. As a result, readers get a remarkable perspective on different approaches to robotic microassembly from around the world. Examples provided throughout the chapters help readers better understand how these different approaches work in practice. References at the end of each chapter lead to the primary literature for further investigation of individual topics. Robotic microassembly offers a new, improved way to manufacture high-performance microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Therefore, any professional or student involved in microrobotics, micromechatronics, self-assembly or MEMS will find plenty of novel ideas and methods in this book that set the stage for new approaches to design and build the next generation of MEMS and microproducts.


Utilities are continuously investigating methods to economically reinforce their overhead line (OHL) networks by reconductoring with larger conductors or with novel high-temperature low-sag (HTLS) conductor technologies. To further optimise the OHL design, conductor creep ageing is calculated and mitigated at installation, which economically improves an OHLs' performance. An already established methodology is used to investigate common and HTLS conductors ageing effect on sag and tension in order to highlight the benefits and risks that could result from existing creep mitigation methods particularly on HTLS conductors. The study aims to identify the impact of important design factors such as ice loading and emergency operation events and their frequency of occurrence on creep mitigation as well as to highlight the creep variation of the same materials used particularly on different HTLS conductors. The analysis presented here indicates that pre-tensioning could be more beneficial on soft aluminium HTLS conductors while over-tensioning can result in extensive durations of conductor over-stressing on steel supported and Gap-type conductors. Furthermore, the conductor technology majorly affects the creep of steel core which cannot be considered always as zero. The accuracy of the methodology is also re-validated using recent experimental data from Gap conductor.


Blowback, my biography of the international drug smuggler Michael Forwell, has, since its publication, been marketed within two commercially and culturally recognised categories, namely true crime and biography. In a commercial sense these titles act as signifiers of content, communicating in broad strokes what the reader can expect from the work, where it might lie within their own view of the cultural landscape and therefore whether or not they find engagement with the work appealing. In a practical sense (i.e. from the point of view of the practitioner, the writer), these categorisations bring with them expectations of both form and content, which influence the work produced within that category to varying degrees, either by their inclusion or their absence. I intend to look at these generic and cultural expectations in relation to my own book Blowback, as well as true crime's most consistently popular, influential and lauded texts, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry's Helter Skelter, in order to examine the extent to which these expectations shape the work. I will also engage with the work of relevant theorists, including Christian Metz, Steve Neale and Mark Seltzer.

I also intend to provide context for both my own creative practice prior to writing Blowback and the extent to which the fiction I wrote went on to influence the 'true' crime described within the book.

Any study of true crime must wrestle with the genre's relationship with truth, a relationship I will contextualise via a history of the genre which examines its long, complex and symbiotic relationship with fiction. The true crime shelves are where we store our monsters, and I aim to investigate how those monsters' brushes with true crime (and with fiction) alter our relationship with them. Interesting notions of truth exist within the study of biography too, and I will look at these where they apply to my portrayal of Michael and his world and where I, the writer of somebody else's story, might be located within that world.


We describe the Degrees of Grounding model, which tracks the extent to which material has reached mutual belief in a dialogue, and conduct experiments in which the model is used to manage grounding behavior in spoken dialogues with a virtual human. We show that the model produces improvements in virtual human performance as measured by post-session questionnaires.


According to the Leveling Down Objection, some, if not all, egalitarians must concede that leveling down can make things better in a respect—in terms of equality. I argue, first, that if this is true, then it is hard for such egalitarians to avoid the even more disturbing result that leveling down can be better all-things-considered. I then consider and reject two attempts to take this particular sting out of being an egalitarian. The first is Tom Christiano's argument that the egalitarian is not forced to concede that the leveled down state is better with respect to equality, on the grounds that if equality with respect to any X matters, e.g. welfare, then value must be assigned to X, rendering the leveled down state inferior even with respect to equality. This is insufficient, I argue, to justify his requirement that Pareto-inferior states cannot be better with respect to equality. The second, offered by both Ingmar Persson and Campbell Brown, is to argue that prioritarianism—a central rival to egalitarianism—is also subject to the Leveling Down Objection. Persson and Campbell fail, I claim, because their arguments turn on increases in measures in leveled down states that have no value on the prioritarian view.


The two groups I studied in this dissertation are Diff(S1), the group of orientation-preserving C∞-diffeomorphisms of the circle, and Sp(∞), an infinite-dimensional symplectic group arising from certain symplectic representation of the group Diff(S1). In Chapter 1, I constructed Brownian motion on Diff(S1) associated with a very strong metric of the Lie algebra diff(S1). In Chapter 2, I first studied the relationship between Diff(S1) and Sp(∞) and found that they are not isomorphic with each other, then I constructed a Brownian motion on the group Sp(∞). In Chapter 3, I computed the Ricci curvature of the group Sp(∞) associated with a certain inner product on the Lie algebra sp(∞). Stochastic and Geometric Analysis of Two Infinite-dimensional Groups


Current conventional lawn mowers have the following drawbacks; high initial costs, increasing engine noise levels, high operating costs due to high fuel consumption rates, the need to implement perimeter wires across the desired lawn mowing field, and high exhaustion of the operator in the long operating time. Hence, the need for a system that can achieve the same cutting effect of the existing lawn mowers with little or no operator's fatigue, minimized noise pollution and running cost has risen. In present work, design of an autonomous solar lawn mower, a robotic vehicle that cut grass automatically with little human intervention, is discussed. The robotic vehicle is powered by Lithium-Ion batteries and depend on solar power delivered from a solar base station for charging the batteries. The mechanical design of the vehicle is flexible with the ability to control the height of the vehicle during grass mowing. Differential steering, with the implementation of multiple sensors is presented for obstacle avoidance. Also, a Raspberry Pi microcontroller for the image processing application through a camera is used for path planning. Furthermore, a solar based station structure is designed for charging the robotic vehicle batteries with minimized running cost, utilization of renewable energy source, no health hazards, not having any effect on the environment, and human's effort and time are saved.


Abstract This paper examines the historical origins of gallo pinto (spotted rooster) to show how a plebeian dish of black beans and rice came to be embraced as a symbol of Costa Rican national identity. Beans have been a basic staple in Central America since pre-Hispanic times, but although Spaniards planted rice in the sixteenth century, it became a significant part of the diet only in the nineteenth century as a result of the transition from subsistence agriculture to coffee exports. The combination of rice and beans was introduced in the nineteenth century by Afro-Caribbean migrant railroad workers. Notwithstanding elite self-perception of Costa Rica as a white, European nation, economic necessity during the Great Depression helped gallo pinto gain middle class acceptance. This case illustrates both the importance of social and economic history in shaping cultural symbols and also the ways that lower-class foods can become central to national identities.


The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the world, with far-reaching social, political and economic consequences. Terrorists and security services alike have been forced to adapt. However, we still have relatively limited understanding of the changes that have occurred and what they mean for counterterrorism (CT). This report presents the findings of an exploratory survey, completed by 100 security practitioners, in order to shed light on how terrorism and CT have been affected by the pandemic. Results suggest that, for the most part, terrorists appear to have gained relatively little in the short term. At the same time, although many practitioners have experienced additional challenges in CT, most of these problems have not been insurmountable. Looking to the future, there is significant concern that terrorism will increase in response to the social and economic fallout from the pandemic. As a result, most survey respondents agreed that countries will need to cooperate more closely with each other on CT, and that greater US support for CT in the Indo-Pacific will be needed.


DNA barcoding is the molecular identification of species using short, standardized gene sequences. Numerous applications of DNA barcoding in taxonomy, ecology, bioconservation, and biosafety contributed to a spectacular development of this initiative administered by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL). Reference databases that assign DNA barcodes to particular morphospecies have been developed for almost all groups of animals, plants, and fungi, as well as some groups of protists (i.e., diatoms, ciliates, amoebae). However, such a database does not exist for foraminifera, despite large numbers of DNA sequences being available.

To fill this gap, we initiated the Foram Barcoding (FB) project, whose objective is to create a curated molecular database for modern foraminifera. Each species included in our database is represented by one or several specimens, from which DNA was extracted and sequenced. Species entries include photos of processed specimens, taxonomic references, and DNA barcode sequences. A fragment of the 18S rRNA gene, commonly used in foraminiferal molecular studies, was chosen as the DNA barcode. We believe that the FB project will help resolve at least some misidentification problems that plague foraminiferal taxonomy. We also foresee its further applications in such domains of foraminiferal research as diversity assessment, ecology, biogeography, and biomonitoring. However, we are aware that the impact of the FB database depends mainly on its completeness and accuracy, and thus we appeal to the community of foraminiferologists to support this project by providing material for genetic studies and by contributing their taxonomic expertise in species identification and documentation.


The ISIF represents the most important and visible conference which focuses on the integration of advanced oxide materials into microelectronic and microtechnical devices. In order to further strengthen its international character it was decided for the first time by the Advisory Board to hold the ISIF outside the United States in this, its 12th year. Aachen, Germany, was selected as the conference site because of the comprehensive research programs in the area of integrated ferroelectncs at the RWTH Aachen University and the nearby Research Center Jiilich (FZJ), because of the vicinity of the Interuniversity Microelectronic Center (IMEC) Leuven, because of the internationally operating European companies as well as the small and medium sized industries of our region which are active in integrated ferroelectrics and, last but not least, because of Aachen's geographically centered position in Europe, at the triple border between Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The 3rd European Meeting on Integrated Ferroelectrics (EMIF) has been incorporated into the 12" ISIF. Substantial progress has been made over the last few years in the science and technology of ferroelectric thin films, promising a bright future for new devices. The applications of integrated ferroelectrics have achieved sufficient maturity to be recognized by industry as a highly attractive field for further development and commercialization. The spectrum of applications is enormous and besides ferroelectric and high-permittivity thin films (for nonvolatile semiconductor memories and integrated capacitors respectively) we see that the field of piezoelectric materials is experiencing considerable growth due to their potential applications in MEMS technologies. Other important fields attracting attention are pyroelectric sensors, electro-optical components, and with a strong increase of activities integrated high frequency devices based on tunable dielectrics. In addition to these areas, which are already traditional in the scope of the ISIF, "hot topics" such as nanotechnology and the exploitation of nano-size effects as well as novel gate-oxides for field effect devices have been specifically emphasized at the 12" ISIF in Aachen. The combination of the scientific and social program and the location have been highly attractive. The number of participants has increased to approximately 500 in Aachen, compared with approximately 300 at the ISIF as the


Extracted from text ... ESR Review ? Vol 3 No 1 3 The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Time for South Africa to ratify Judge Ariranga G. Pillay Covenant due to a lack of resources or technical know-how, the Cov- enant provides for a country to call for support and assistance from members of the international com- munity, for example, the various United Nations (UN) agencies. Secondly, when a country is required to implement a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) de- signed by one of the world?s finan- cial institutions, it can resist some of the harshest conditions of the programme ..


Abstract In the present paper, I assume that the notion of "truth" in philosophy would not have been clarified and tackled properly, if philosophers did not take into account earlier Arabic Medieval research contributions and build upon previous research findings. In the first place, I embark on the scrutiny of the rich aspect (or nature) of the Arabic Lexicon in terms of the "truth" meaning. In the second place, I take on the assumption that Arabic linguistic traditions imply different kinds of truths, depending on various spheres of human thoughts and actions based on the logical approach to "truth" (from Al-Kindi up to Averroes via Al-Farabi and Avicenna) and the term "al-haqiqha" as transliterated from Arabic, remain central. In conclusion, I take on an approach to "truth" that gives worth to logical perspectives at the very heart of Medieval Arab traditions in the light of what I would label as the "Omni-cultural Universality of Logic and Science".


Feedback Circulation Control (CC) is a promising technology that improves the control of instabilities in flow fields. CC uses Reduced Order Models (ROMs) to simplify the high-dimensional equations in order to make it easier to work with them. In this project the modeling of the non-linear dynamics of the flow is done via ROMs based on Proper Or-thogonal Decomposition (POD) functions, these equations are obtained with the method of Galerkin Pojection (GP), which works with a ROM of the Navier-Stokes Equations (NSE), creating a suitable model for representing the separated and transient flow dynamics helped with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This model is compared
with 5 different methods: ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks), LSE (Linear Stochastic
Estimation), mLSE (modified Linear Stochastic Estimation), QSE (Quadratic Stochastic Estimation) and mQSE (modified Quadratic Stochastic Estimation). These methods use data mapped from pressure and shear stress signals with separated and transient flow field to obtain the temporal coefficients which are compared with the original POD coefficients. The comparison of the pressure and shear stress correlation methods of the flow fields on an airfoil has been done with several sensors located equidistant on the flap surface. The obtained results demonstrate that ANNs and QSE are the best correlation
methods. Then both methods have been optimized and finally QSE has been chosen as
the strongest correlation compared to the other 4 methods, because of its reliability.


Although the Moine Thrust has been well studied on land in northwestern Scotland, the subject of its deep crustal structure and regional continuation offshore remains controversial. Here, we use post-stack migration and filtering of deep seismic reflection profiles crossing the projection of the Moine Thrust and coincident Caledonian orogenic front around the western margin of the Shetland Platform in order to characterize the crustal structure of the thrust in an area not substantially affected by basin formation and extension, and where onshore geological constraints can be more readily applied. This study provides for the first time seismic reflection constraints on middle and lower crustal structure down to the level of the Moho discontinuity underlying the thrust. The seismic data reveal a thick wedge of east-dipping reflections in the lower crust capped by a highly coherent reflection which can be correlated to the postulated Moine Thrust as previously mapped on Shetland. The continuation of this wedge from the middle crust down to the Moho, against which individual reflections are abruptly truncated, suggests a 'thick-skinned' interpretation for the Caledonian orogen beneath the, western flank of the Shetland Platform. The available seismic data from around Shetland imply that the Moine Thrust/Caledonian front forms a boundary between an upper plate which is relatively featureless structurally and a lower plate composed of interpreted northwest-verging thrusts, possibly a crustal duplex, structurally below the level of the Moine nappe. Our observations are thus in contrast with previous interpretations made from seismic data in the West Orkney Basin north of the Northwest Highlands that describe a highly reflective Moinian upper plate.


Within the framework of the EU project Small Craft Emergency Response and Survival Training for Arctic Conditions (SMACS) a unique 30 hour exercise in collaboration between Chalmers and the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS) was held. On May 26, 2014 the exercise was commenced in an area northwest of Gothenburg. Here 11 participants got to experience, as realistically as possible, an emergency situation at sea and to see which elements of risk that exists. On board the life raft, only the equipment and emergency supplies that life rafts must contain under the current regulations was allowed. This study documents the participants' feelings, perceptions and experiences with the ambition to thereby draw conclusions that can benefit the design of future education and exercises in the field of maritime emergencies.
The method used was grounded theory based on semi-structured interviews with six of the 11 participants. The interviews were then transcribed and coded in a computer program designed for analysis of qualitative data.
The most common risks addressed in the current literature relating to survival at sea, and also the risks that were most anticipated by the participants, were not a major factor in this exercise. Instead, the participants experienced problems with space in the life raft and difficulties to urinate. In one case the problems where so serious that the participant had to end its participation. The other participants managed to successfully complete the exercise, most of them without major impact on either their physical or mental condition. The reason for this success can be summarized in success factors including but not limited to: high level of knowledge, high motivation, good cooperation and good leadership. The absence of the stress that comes with a real emergency situation was most likely also a factor to why the participants were relatively unaffected.
The study came to be a lot about the stressors impact on the individual and how this affected the perceived realism.
The study is written in Swedish.


The fracture surface records past events that occur during the fracture process by leaving characteristic markings. The application of fractal geometry aids in the interpretation and understanding of these events. Quantitative fractographic analysis of brittle fracture surfaces shows that these characteristic markings are self-similar and scale invariant, thus implying that fractal analysis is a reasonable approach to analyzing these surfaces. The fractal dimensional increment, D*, is directly proportional to the fracture energy, γ, during fracture for many brittle materials, i.e., γ = ½ E a0 D* where E is the elastic modulus and a0 is a structural parameter. Also, D* is equal to the crack-size-to-mirror-radius ratio. Using this information can aid in identifying toughening mechanisms in new materials, distinguishing poorly fabricated from well prepared material and identifying stress at fracture for field failures. Examples of the application of fractal analysis in research, fracture forensics and solving production problems are discussed.


Folger, Napatsi.  Joy of Apex .  Iqaluit:  Inhabit Media, Inc., 2011. Print. This is a first novel from Napatsi Folger, who grew up in Iqaluit, moved to Vancouver and then returned as an adult to work in Iqaluit.  She has given us a bright new heroine in Joy, a ten-year old girl who lives in Apex, just outside of Iqaluit in Nunavut.  Joy, who tells the story in the first person, is quite a normal pre-teen.  She generally wants to do well, but occasionally does silly things like calling little sister, Allusha, by the nickname "ALLA SUCKS". From the beginning of the novel, it is clear that Joy has a heavier than normal family workload for a ten-year old.  Her dad is doing most of the cooking and cleaning and Joy and her older brother, Alex, are looking after each other and Alla.  They look out for each other at school, make their own Halloween costumes and solve their own problems.  Their mother, Mary, who spends most of her time with her sisters, does come home occasionally. When she does, she and her husband fight, with predictable effects on the children. "They are fighting again.  This time it sounds like a big one. The yelling wakes Allusha and we are so frightened that we creep into Alex's room and crawl into bed with him.  After Alex and I calm Allusha's quite sobs, the three of us sleep together in a little nest for the rest of the night." Joy's voice is authentic for a ten year old, who is doing her best to cope while her parents' marriage falls apart.  It is hard not to be moved by her humiliation, anger and pain when her best attempts fail and there is no mom to prevent the disaster or pick up the pieces. Folger's humour often provides some relief from the weight of the difficulties that Joy faces.  For example, when Allusha eats too much candy, throws up and bursts the capillaries in her face, she tells her mother, "Don't worry, Mama.  It's just burst caterpillars in my face." This is a well-written volume and an engaging read.  The work is clearly rooted in the author's personal experience growing up in the Eastern Arctic. Pre-teens through adult readers will enjoy this book.  Highly recommended for public libraries and school libraries everywhere. Reviewer:  Sandy Campbell Highly recommended:  4 stars out of 4 Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.


Abstract. Comprehension monitoring is considered a key issue in current debates on ways to improve children' reading comprehension. However, processes and mechanisms underlying this skill are currently not well understood. This article describes one of the first attempts to study comprehension monitoring using eye-tracking methodology. Students in fifth grade were asked to read sentences for comprehension while also checking whether the meaning of the sentence was generally correct or incorrect. Items required the processing of conjunctive relations between two clauses that were either causally consistent or inconsistent. In addition, the polarity of the relation was varied by replacing the conjunction "because" with "although, " creating an additional level of processing difficulty. Inconsistency played a minor role and was dominated by polarity effects that were also modulated by the correctness of the answer. The present task represents an effective tool to study local comprehension monitoring and highlights the importance of conjunctive relations for maintaining textual coherence during reading.


We introduce the package HighestWeights for Macaulay2. This package provides tools to study the representation-theoretic structure of free resolutions and graded modules over a polynomial ring with the action of a semisimple Lie group. The methods of this package allow users to consider the free modules in a resolution, or the graded components of a module, as representations of a semisimple Lie group by means of their weights, and to obtain their decomposition into highest-weight representations.


Beamforming is vital to overcome the high attenuation in wireless millimeter-wave networks. It enables nodes to steer their antennas in the direction of communication. To cope with complexity and overhead, the IEEE 802.11ad standard uses a sector codebook with distinct steering directions. In current off-the-shelf devices, we find codebooks with generic pre-defined beam patterns. While this approach is simple and robust, the antenna modules that are typically deployed in such devices are capable of generating much more precise antenna beams. In this paper, we adaptively adjust the sector codebook of IEEE 802.11ad devices to optimize the transmit beam patterns for the current channel. To achieve this, we propose a mechanism to extract full channel state information (CSI) regarding phase and magnitude from coarse signal strength readings on off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11ad devices. Since such devices do not expose the CSI directly, we generate a codebook with phase-shifted probing beams that enables us to obtain the CSI by combining strategically selected magnitude measurements. Using this CSI, transmitters dynamically compute a transmit beam pattern that maximizes the signal strength at the receiver. Thereby, we automatically exploit reflectors in the environment and improve the received signal quality. Our implementation of this mechanism on off-the-shelf devices demonstrates that adaptive codebook optimization achieves a significantly higher throughput of about a factor of two in typical real-world scenarios.


We report on the design and exploitation of a real-field laboratory demonstrator combining active polarimetric and multispectral functions. Its building blocks, including a multiwavelength pulsed optical parametric oscillator at the emission side and a hyperspectral imager with polarimetric capability at the reception side, are described. The results obtained with this demonstrator are illustrated on some examples and discussed. In particular it is found that good detection performances rely on joint use of intensity and polarimetric images, with these images exhibiting complementary signatures in most cases.


The swirl of concerns about and criticisms of the cost of higher education and the debt burdens taken on by students masks a deeper confusion over the goals student aid should pursue and over reforms to enable achievement of those goals. This Article explores how the rhetoric used in public discussion of college cost and student borrowing can get in the way of what would be a difficult but critically important debate over goals. Higher education is a personal, private "investment" that must be "worth it" to the student; student "aid," flexible loan repayment plans, even debt forgiveness, all aim to make the financing of this investment easier but also may "unfairly favor" certain career choices over others. The very words used in these descriptions have consequences for how higher education is understood. They invoke assumptions about the values higher-education policy should pursue and get in the way of seeing choices implicitly already made, choices that should be explicitly analyzed and debated. Reform efforts in this area will turn on politics—a field highly susceptible to rhetoric—and ignoring the implications of choices of words runs a grave risk of foreclosing possibilities.


The relationship between liver enzymes and clustered components of metabolic syndrome (MetS) is explored and the predictive power of γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT) for the diagnosis of MetS in an adult population in Beijing is investigated. A total of 10,553 adults aged 20–65 years who underwent health examinations at Beijing Tongren Hospital in 2012 were enrolled in the study. Multivariate logistic regression analysis is conducted to determine the associations between the levels of various liver enzymes and clustered components of MetS. A receiver operating characteristic analysis is used to determine the optimal cut-off value of GGT for the diagnosis of MetS. A high level of GGT is found to be positively associated with clustered components of MetS in both men and women after adjusting for age, body mass index (BMI), history of alcoholic fatty liver, and the presence of taking anti-hypertensive, anti-dyslipidemic, and anti-diabetic drugs. Among all components of MetS, GGT is more predictive of triglyceride, and BMI. The area-under-the-curve values of GGT for discriminating MetS from normal metabolic status in men and women are 0.73 and 0.80, respectively. The optimal cut-off value of GGT for men is 31.50 U/L, demonstrating a sensitivity of 74.00% and specificity of 62.00%. For women, it is 19.50 U/L (sensitivity 76.00% and specificity 70.00%). GGT is therefore recommended as a useful diagnostic marker for MetS, because the test is inexpensive, highly sensitive, and frequently encountered in clinical practice.


We compared functional attributes of streams draining catchments burned by wildfire 20 years previously to those of streams in unburned catchments. Long-term analyses of channel profiles indicated most channel change occurred within the first 10 years after fire with little subsequent change the following 10 years. Much of the standing dead timber had fallen, and its effect on stream morphology was directly related to stream size, with important ramifications for future years as decay progresses. The volume of wood in the active channel was 5X higher in a 3rdorder burn stream than in other burn or reference streams, but > 80% of this wood was still bridging the stream. Retention of leaves was strongly associated with channel morphology and location of debris dams. Sediment respiration was significantly greater (1.7X) in streams of burned catchments, resulting from greater amounts of loosely attached organic matter in the sediments of these streams. In concordance with respiration results, coefficients of exchange (k ex ) were almost 5X higher in burn streams than in reference streams, although estimates of transient storage were similar between stream types. We expect the input of large woody debris to increase in the next 10 years in fire-impacted streams as bridging trees collapse into the stream, thereby enhancing channel complexity and habitat heterogeneity, instream metabolism and retention, and consequently stream function. The results emphasize the importance of landscape history, such as large-scale wildfires, on present patterns and processes in stream ecosystems.


Barack Obama's election as the first black president in American history forced a reconsideration of racial reality and possibility. It also incited an outpouring of discussion and analysis of Obama's personal and political exploits. Paint the White House Black fills a significant void in Obama-themed debate, shifting the emphasis from the details of Obama's political career to an understanding of how race works in America. In this groundbreaking book, race, rather than Obama, is the central focus. Michael P. Jeffries approaches Obama's election and administration as common cultural ground for thinking about race. He uncovers contemporary stereotypes and anxieties by examining historically rooted conceptions of race and nationhood, discourses of "biracialism" and Obama's mixed heritage, the purported emergence of a "post-racial society," and popular symbols of Michelle Obama as a modern black woman. In so doing, Jeffries casts new light on how we think about race and enables us to see how race, in turn, operates within our daily lives. Race is a difficult concept to grasp, with outbursts and silences that disguise its relationships with a host of other phenomena. Using Barack Obama as its point of departure, Paint the White House Black boldly aims to understand race by tracing the web of interactions that bind it to other social and historical forces.


Canine Leptospirosis in Southern Germany

In this study, data of 337 dogs with clinically suspected leptospirosis was evaluated. The dogs were presented to the Clinic for Small Animal Medicine (Medizinische Kleintierklinik) of the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany, between 1990 and 2004. In all dogs, a microagglutination test used to detect leptospiral antibodies against eight different Leptospira serovars was performed. The aim of the first study was to determine the presence of antibodies against various Leptospira serovars in dogs with clinical leptospirosis in Southern Germany and to compare serovars in regard to history, clinical signs, laboratory findings and survival rate. The purpose of the second study was to identify the Leptospira serovars predominantly inducing antibodies in dogs in Southern Germany and to determine which serovars mainly cause disease. Furthermore, possible predisposition in respect to breed, sex, and age was investigated.
48 % (162) of 337 dogs had antibodies against at least one Leptospira serovar. With the exception of antibodies against the vaccinal serovars copenhageni (70 %) and canicola (38 %), antibodies against grippotyphosa (33 %), bratislava (19 %) saxkoebing (10 %) and sejroe (8 %) were detected most frequently.
Of the dogs with antibodies, 26 % (42) had the disease leptospirosis. These dogs most frequently tested positive for antibodies against grippotyphosa (31 %), followed by antibodies against saxkoebing (24 %), copenhageni (17 %), canicola (12 %) and bratislava (7 %). Thus, while antibody titers against vaccinal serovars were found in many dogs, the disease leptospirosis was mainly caused by the serovars grippotyphosa and saxkoebing.
Previous studies have suggested that certain serovars are commonly associated with particular clinical symptoms and laboratory findings. However, this was not confirmed in the current study.
The ratio of dogs having antibodies against leptospirosis without clinical leptospirosis to dogs with the disease leptospirosis was considerably lower in the serovar saxkoebing (1.6:1) than in other serovars (bratislava 10:1, grippotyphosa 4:1). This may be indicative of a higher pathogenicity of saxkoebing compared to other serovars.
Presence of antibodies was diagnosed significantly more often in Bernese Mountain dogs than in other breeds. Also, the disease leptospirosis was significantly more often in this breed.
Increasingly, nonvaccinal serovars are the cause of the disease leptospirosis. Leptospirosis vaccines currently available in Europe only contain copenhageni and canicola strains. Since these vaccines are not cross-protective against other serovars, they offer no protection against grippotyphosa and saxkoebing, the serovars most commonly associated with clinically manifest leptospirosis in Germany. A recently developed vaccine, licensed in the USA, contains grippotyphosa and pomona strains, either as a bivalent or as a quadrivalent product in combination with copenhageni and canicola. This study suggests that serovars grippotyphosa and saxkoebing should be added to leptospirosis vaccines available in Germany.


In the past, refugee status was considered a shortterm consequence of conflict. Today, protracted refugee situations (PRS) are the norm rather than the exception. This shift has forced humanitarian actors to develop new strategies to handle the challenges of working with refugees in the longterm. This project examines the protracted refugee crisis of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Using interviews conducted in the summer of 2015 in Amman, Jordan, this paper asks (1) what are the implication of the PRS for Syrians in Jordan and (2) how can solutions implemented in past PRS provide answers on how to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan? Syrians in Jordan face barriers to leaving camps, cuts in humanitarian aid, and are not able to work legally. As a result, refugees have resorted to child labor, early marriage, and have even left Jordan to return to Syria or seek resettlement in Europe. After examining past responses to PRS, this research suggests that opening up special economic zones for Syrian employment in Jordan and shifting Sphere Standards would better meet the needs of refugees and host communities in the longterm.


We study the problem of inferring time-varying Gaussian Markov random fields, where the underlying graphical model is both sparse and changes sparsely over time. Most of the existing methods for the inference of time-varying Markov random fields (MRFs) rely on the regularized maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), that typically suffer from weak statistical guarantees and high computational time. Instead, we introduce a new class of constrained optimization problems for the inference of sparsely-changing Gaussian MRFs (GMRFs). The proposed optimization problem is formulated based on the exact `0 regularization, and can be solved in near-linear time and memory. Moreover, we show that the proposed estimator enjoys a provably small estimation error. We derive sharp statistical guarantees in the high-dimensional regime, showing that such problems can be learned with as few as one sample per time period. Our proposed method is extremely efficient in practice: it can accurately estimate sparsely-changing GMRFs with more than 500 million variables in less than one hour.


This paper shows how the manufacturing department of a multinational company (MNC) attempts to capture sales forecast data. These sales estimates are meant to reduce uncertainty on future production rates. The first research question is: May sales forecast data be trusted or not? Reli-able sales forecast data would improve corporate performance by reducing inventory and showcase the benefit of the cooperation between manufacturing and sales. The second research question and at the same time the header of this paper is whether cultural differences have an impact on forecast quality or not. We have tapped two sources of literature to find adequate theories: One is the literature on information quality (IQ). It defines the dimensions of IQ and describes methods how these dimensions may be measured. The other source is literature on cultural influences on information and its interpretation. The case study itself consists of an anonymized data set created in the con-text of a consulting project. We correlated subjective probability estimates with objectively measured won/loss rates and applied the concept of calibration. The estimate bias among the eleven investigated countries widely varied. While the majority of Western countries were over-confident on the outcome of sales opportunities the majority of East Asian countries was under-confident. Both the outcome of this case study and literature suggest that both a well-founded shared understanding and the application of adequate calibration are necessary to guarantee the objectivity and believability of information.


Based upon a review of corporate performance, corporate financial performance and corporate social performance, we propose that the concept of "triple bottom line" (TBL) as "sustainable corporate performance" (SCP) should consist of three measurement elements, namely: (i) financial, (ii) social and (iii) environmental. TBL as SCP is proposed to be derived from the interface between them. We also propose that the content of each of these measurement elements may vary across contexts and over time. Furthermore, TBL as SCR should be interpreted to be a relative concept that is dynamic and iterative. Continuous monitoring needs to be performed, adapting the content of the measurement elements to changes that evolve across contexts and over time in the marketplace and society. TBL as SCP may be seen as a function of time and context.


Cortical mapping techniques using fMRI have been instrumental in identifying the boundaries of topological (neighbor-preserving) maps in early sensory areas. The presence of topological maps beyond early sensory areas raises the possibility that they might play a significant role in other cognitive systems, and that topological mapping might help to delineate areas involved in higher cognitive processes. In this study, we combine surface based visual, auditory, and somatomotor mapping methods with a naturalistic reading comprehension task in the same group of subjects to provide a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the cortical overlap between sensory-motor maps in all major sensory modalities, and reading processing regions. Our results suggest that cortical activation during naturalistic reading comprehension overlaps more extensively with topological sensory-motor maps than has been heretofore appreciated. Reading activation in regions adjacent to occipital lobe and inferior parietal lobe completely overlaps visual maps, whereas most of frontal activation for reading in dorsolateral and ventral prefrontal cortex overlaps both visual and auditory maps. Even classical language regions in superior temporal cortex are partially overlapped by topological visual and auditory maps. By contrast, the main overlap with somatomotor maps is restricted to dorsolateral frontal cortex.


Abstract Investigations of tokamak dynamics, especially as they relate to the challenge of burn control, require an accurate representation of energy and particle confinement times. While the ITER-98 scaling law represents a correlation of data from a wide range of tokamaks, confinement scaling laws will need to be fine-tuned to specific operational features of specific tokamaks in the future. A methodology for developing, by regression analysis, tokamak- and configuration-specific confinement tuning models is presented and applied to DIII-D as an illustration. It is shown that inclusion of tuning parameters in the confinement models can significantly enhance the agreement between simulated and experimental temperatures relative to simulations in which only the ITER-98 scaling law is used. These confinement tuning parameters can also be used to represent the effects of various heating sources and other plasma operating parameters on overall plasma performance and may be used in future studies to inform the selection of plasma configurations that are more robust against power excursions.


Intensive pine plantation management may provide opportunities to increase carbon sequestration in the Southeastern United States. Developing management options that increase fiber production and soil carbon sequestration require an understanding of the biological and edaphic processes that control soil carbon turnover. Belowground carbon resides primarily in three pools: roots, necromass (litter, roots), and soil. There is little evidence that intensive management affects mineral soil carbon. Conversely, perennial root systems contribute to carbon sequestration through formation of long-lived belowground biomass and carbon in root necromass and woody debris that may persist for years following harvest. Due to their large mass and physicochemical composition, these dead coarse roots require decades to decompose. If the length of the decay process extends beyond the length of the next harvest rotation, it will result in an accumulation of soil carbon. Increasing productivity and shortening rotation length may accelerate carbon sequestration over successive rotations. Further, management activities that retain forest floor and slash material or incorporate organic materials into the soil during site preparation may also increase soil carbon.


The key challenge for enablement of a 2nd node of single-expose EUV patterning is understanding and mitigating the patterning-related defects that narrow the process window. Typical in-line inspection techniques, such as broadband plasma (291x) and e-beam systems, find it difficult to detect the main yield-detracting defects post-develop, and thus understanding the effects of process improvement strategies has become more challenging. New techniques and methodologies for detection of EUV lithography defects, along with judicious process partitioning, are required to develop process solutions that improve yield. This paper will first discuss alternative techniques and methodologies for detection of lithography-related defects, such as scumming and microbridging. These strategies will then be used to gain a better understanding of the effects of material property changes, process partitioning, and hardware improvements, ultimately correlating them directly with electrical yield detractors .


In contrast to the amount of research that has been performed on linguisticconvergence in language contact, this paper focuses on the possibility of linguisticsystems remaining stable, or even diverging, in language contact settings. Itcarves out multiple relevant mechanisms and factors that influence linguisticstability and divergence (e.g. degree and type of multilingual competence, sociolinguistic,socio-economic and socio-political factors, cognitive mechanisms,etc.) and gives an account of contact situations where structural divergence andstability can be observed. Based on these examples, we suggest a classification ofdivergence and stability that builds on the assumption that these developmentsmay take place either due to, or despite, language contact.


Vowel harmony results from a set of restrictions that determine the possible and impossible sequences of vowels within a word. The study of syntax begins with the observation that the words of a sentence cannot go in just any order, and the study of phonology begins with the same observation for the consonants and vowels of a word. In this book, Andrew Nevins investigates long-distance relations between vowels in vowel harmony systems across a range of languages, with the aim of demonstrating that the locality conditions that regulate these relations can be attributed to the same principle that regulates long-distance syntactic dependencies. He argues that vowel harmony represents a manifestation of the Agree algorithm for feature-valuation (formulated by Chomsky in 2000), as part of an overarching effort to show that phonology can be described in terms of the principles of the Minimalist program. Nevins demonstrates that the principle of target-driven search, the phenomenon of defective intervention, and the principles regulating the size of the domain over which dependencies are computed apply to both phonological and syntactic phenomena. Locality in Vowel Harmony offers phonologists new evidence that viewing vowel harmony through the lens of relativized minimality has the potential to unify different levels of linguistic representation and different domains of empirical inquiry in a unified framework. Moreover, Nevins's specific implementation of the locality of dependencies represents a major advance in understanding constraints on possible harmonic languages.An online tool on the MIT Press Web site demonstrates the algorithm for calculating vowel harmony with the derivations exemplified in the book.


The biosorption of heavy metals, radionuclides, uranium and thorium for the recovery or removal from aqueous systems using various micro-organisms and biological substances has been investigated by several groups of workers. In this paper, the uptake of uranium (VI) from aqueous systems by a marine sponge, Sarcotragus foetidus (Schmidt, 1862) has been investigated. S. foetidus samples were collected from Babakale/Ayvacık/Canakkale in Turkey. Uranium (VI) uptake experiments were carried out by the batch technique. The affecting parameters were analyzed using Central Composite Design (CCD) as the experimental method. Four independent variables such pH, temperature, contact time, and initial uranium concentration were selected for this study. The influences of initial pH, contact time, and initial uranium concentration on the biosorption process were considered statistically significant as main effects. On the other hand, interaction effects of pH and contact time, as well as pH and initial uranium concentration, were considered as significant parameters on the biosorption process. The optimum condition of biosorption process was found to be at init"ial pH: 4, temperature: 35°C, initial uranium concentration: 20 mg/L, and contact time: 31 minutes. At these conditions, the biosorption yield of uranium (VI) ions was obtained to be 93.29±2%.


[enter Abstract Body]The CSIRO In-Situ Laboratory has been a world first injection of CO2 into a large faulted zone at depth. A total of 38 tonnes of CO2 was injected into the F10 fault zone at approximately 330 m depth and the process monitored in detail. The site uses a well, Harvey-2, in SW Western Australia (the South West Hub CCS Project area). The top 400 m section of Harvey-2 was available for injection and instrumentation. An observation well, ISL OB-1 (400 m depth) was drilled 7 m to the north east of Harvey-2. ISL OB-1 well was cased with fibreglass to provide greater monitoring options. The CSIRO In-Situ Laboratory was designed to integrate existing facilities and infrastructure from the South West Hub CCS Project managed by the West Australian Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. While new equipment was deployed for this specific project, the site facilities were complemented by a range of mobile deployable equipment from the National Geosequestration Laboratory (NGL).
The geology of the area investigated poses interesting challenges: a large fault (F10) is estimated to have up to 1000 m throw overall, the presence of packages of paleosols rather than a contiguous mudstone seal, and a 1500 m vertical thickness of Triassic sandstone as the potential commercial storage interval. This unique site provides abundant opportunities for testing more challenging geological environments for carbon storage than at other sites.
While details of this first project are described elsewhere, lessons were learned during the development and execution of the project. A rigorous risk register was developed to manage project risk, but not all events encountered were foreseen. This paper describes some of the challenges encountered and the team's response.
Relocation of the project site due to changes in landholder ownership) and other sensitivities resulted in the need for rapid replanning of activities at short notice resulting in the development of the site at Harvey-2. The relocation allowed other research questions to be addressed through new activities, such as the ability to consider a shallow/controlled release experiment in an extensive fault zone, but this replanning did cause some timing stress. The first test at the In-Situ Laboratory was reconfigured to address some of those knowledge gaps that shallow/controlled release experiments had yet to address. Novel approaches to drilling and completing the monitoring well also threw up unanticipated difficulties. Loss of containment from the wellbore also posed significant challenges, and the team's response to this unintended release of gas and water from the monitoring well at the conclusion of the field experiment will be discussed. Other challenges that we encountered, their impacts, and our response are also catalogued here (Table 1 and below) to enable broad knowledge exchange.


"Signs, Streets, and Storefronts" addresses more than 200 years of signs and place-marking along America's commercial corridors. From small-town squares to Broadway, State Street, and Wilshire Boulevard, Martin Treu follows design developments into the present and explores issues of historic preservation. Treu considers "common" architecture and its place-defining business signs as well as influential high-style design examples by taste-making leaders. Combining advertising and architectural history, the book presents a full picture of the commercial landscape, including design adaptations made for motorists and the migration from Main Street to suburbia. The dynamic between individual businesses and the common good has a major effect on the appearance of our country's Main Streets. Several forces are at work: technological advances, design imagination and the media, corporate propaganda, customer needs, and municipal mandates. Present-day controls have often led to a denuding of traditional commercial corridors. Such reform, Treu argues, has suppressed originality and radically cleared away years of accumulated history based on the taste of a single generation. A must-read for city planners, town councils, architects, sign designers, concerned citizens, and anyone who cares about the appearance and vitality of America's commercial streets, this heavily illustrated book is equally appealing to armchair historians, small-town enthusiasts, and lovers of Americana.


The increasing usage of smart embedded devices in business blurs the line between the virtual and real worlds. This creates new opportunities to build applications that better integrate real-time state of the physical world, and hence, provides enterprise services that are highly dynamic, more diverse, and efficient. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approaches traditionally used to couple functionality of heavyweight corporate IT systems, are becoming applicable to embedded real-world devices, i.e., objects of the physical world that feature embedded processing and communication. In such infrastructures, composed of large numbers of networked, resource-limited devices, the discovery of services and on-demand provisioning of missing functionality is a significant challenge. We propose a process and a suitable system architecture that enables developers and business process designers to dynamically query, select, and use running instances of real-world services (i.e., services running on physical devices) or even deploy new ones on-demand, all in the context of composite, real-world business applications.


A probe light in a squeezed vacuum state was injected into cold 87Rb atoms with an intense control light in a coherent state. A sub-MHz window was created due to electromagnetically induced transparency, and the incident squeezed vacuum could pass through the cold atoms without optical loss, as was successfully monitored using a time-domain homodyne method.


This paper reports on part of a longitudinal study of a Faculty of Education's online masters program. A multi-phased evaluation based upon Stufflebeam's CIPP model (Context, Input, Process and Product) is underway. The first phase, completed in 2004, revealed pockets of active lifelong learners who highly valued the learning communities/alliances developed during the course of their candidature (Reushle & Cleary 2004). Student comments indicated that these communities were not merely class-based learning communities, but as connections were formed and strengthened through re-acquaintance in subsequent classes, the 'community' developed richer characteristics associated with communities of practice. On the whole, students were not content to absorb knowledge, learning to become competent practitioners. Instead many were driven by a desire to be proponents of change in their local settings, forging directions, challenging the status quo inscribing meaning from reflecting on the richness of ideas fed into their transnational classes paralleled by reflections on their own contexts. We were seeing indications of students straddling two communities, feeding insights from one into the other.

Fostering these communities and the study-work linkages were dual aims in the 2005 re-design of the Faculty's online programs. A belief that learning is situated in personal, social and organisational contexts underpinned the structure of the program and orientation of courses. A program model drawing upon communities of practice (Yamagata-Lynch, 2001), lifelong learning (Kerka 2000), workplace learning (Billett 2002) and Terry Mayes' Learning Cycle (Mayes, 2002) was developed. One aspect of the 2006 phase two evaluation seeks to establish the relevance of the new program to the learners' workplace and their broader career aspirations through an interpretative, participant-orientated study. A survey available to all enrolled online students and those who have graduated or dropped their study in the past year sets the broad parameters for subsequent focus groups and interviews.

This paper investigates and illuminates the manner in which online postgraduate students [co]construct meaning in their transnational course environments and in their workplaces. Students skillfully traverse their personal continuums between their formal and informal learning contexts through a bi-directional flow of engagement (Glastra, Hake & Schedler, 2004) where the fluidity of discourse in the formal setting at one end of the continuum is enriched, transformed and applied in the various workplaces. By applying the lens of lifelong and lifewide learning (Grace 2004, Illeris 2003) the program team aims to gain a better understanding of how students mesh the formal educational requirements of masters study with their non-formal workplace learning. Interdependencies and relatedness between the students' practice and participation in these communities are examined under the lens of Bourdieu's concept of habitus and Wenger's communities of practice (Wenger, 2000), to illuminate students' movement across these worlds.


A new variable tortuosity definition is introduced that is based on the immiscible fluid (air–water) interfacial area. Unsaturated media tortuosity (τa) is defined as the ratio of aaw to aaw,o where aaw is the estimated air–water interfacial area in a real unsaturated medium (i.e., a soil sample), and aaw,o is the same variable for the corresponding, idealized capillary bundle. The air–water interfacial area for both real and idealized media is directly proportional to the area under their respective retention curves. With τ being the saturated tortuosity, we relate the variable tortuosity ratio (τ/τa) to the Seε term in Mualem's (ε = 0.5) and Burdine's (ε = 2) pore‐size distribution models. Thus, instead of using tortuosity and pore connectivity formulations, which have empirical exponents of either 0.5 or 2, the new model depends on a variable interfacial area for varying saturation and soil texture, as reflected in the measured retention data. We tested the new definition of tortuosity to predict unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, K, as a function of volumetric moisture content, θ, for 22 repacked Hanford sediments that are comprised of mostly coarse and fine sands but some also contain a sizeable fraction (as high as 27%) of fines (silt and clay). Replacing the Seε term in van Genuchten–Mualem (VGM) model by the tortuosity ratio τ/τa, and still using saturated hydraulic conductivity and moisture retention parameters as used in the conventional approach, we obtained τa‐based K(θ) predictions that are nearly identical to the conventional VGM model predictions. We also compared the τa‐based K(θ) predictions with the standard Brooks–Corey–Burdine (BCB) model predictions. In comparison to the VGM model predictions, τa‐based BCB K(θ) predictions appear to be less biased relative to the measured K for the coarse‐textured samples.


This study was aimed to evaluate the performance of different cotton genotypes at Chishtian District, Bahawalnagar region. Four cotton genotypes (IUB-2013, FH-142, FH-LALAZAR and MNH-886) were sown under two different sowing times i.e., normal sowing S1 (20th April) and late sowing S2 (20th May 2016). The experiment design was split plot design with three replications in which genotypes were kept in main plot and sowing dates were in sub plot. Different agronomic practices were applied timely to insure healthy crop stand.  Total yield and yield contributing parameters like number of bolls plant-1, boll weight (g), and seed cotton yield (kg/ha) were recorded. Genotype FH-142 showed best result for the trait number of bolls per plant (81.67) followed by genotype FH- Lalazar (80) under normal sowing condition. For number of bolls per plant under late sowing condition, FH-Lalazar depicted highest value (59.33) followed by FH-142 (55.67). For bolls per plant, FH-Lalazar depicted highest value (23.33 g) followed by FH-142 (22.67 g) and IUB-2013 (18.67 g) under normal sowing conditions. While under late sowing condition, FH-Lalazar dominated among all genotypes and displayed high value of boll weight (19.67 g). Genotype FH- LALAZAR showed highest seed cotton (5496 kg/ha) followed by FH-142 (5424.3 kg/ha) under normal sowing (S1). However, in case of late sowing (S2), FH-LALAZAR exhibited greater value of seed cotton yield followed by FH-142. The data regarding varying genetic diversity of the genotypes can be helpful to take measures for improving cotton yield per hectare.


CVD is the leading cause of death in patients with CKD.
The risk of CVD increases as CKD progresses to ESRD.
Clinicopathological manifestations of CVD in CKD are:
accelerated atherosclerosis
left ventricular hypertrophy
systolic hypertension.
'Uraemia-related' risk factors add to the increased CVD risk.
Exercise electrocardiography is a suboptimal test for the diagnosis of CVD.
Coronary angiography is still the gold standard for diagnosis of CAD.
Achieving targets for risk factors in CKD slows progression of CKD and lowers CVD risk.


"Ralph J. Bunche: Selected Speeches and Writings" is the only collection currently available of speeches and writings many unpublished and previously unavailable of one of this century's foremost African-American political and intellectual leaders.Bunche was a pioneer in every sense of the word. The first black American to hold a doctorate in political science, Bunche established the political science department at Howard University and co-founded the National Negro Congress. He served as the first African- American section head in the Office of Strategic Services and later moved to the State Department. He played a major part in the delegation that established the United Nations and, when he retired as Under Secretary General, was the highest- ranking black in that organization. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and thus became the first black Nobel laureate.Bunche's thinking and writing was broad, ranging from the political left to the center. Early works flirt with socialist or even Bolshevist ideas, while later works maintained that a flawed American democracy was better than an impending threat of Nazi-influenced fascism. Bunche was one of the first African Americans to do academic work in Africa, forcing him to think through notions of colonialism and class that would influence his work at the United Nations. Although his passion for peace and civil rights never faltered, his relationship with American black movements vascillated from an early embrace of radicalism to a significant distancing during the mid-sixties to a final rapprochement during the last years of his life. A monumental contribution, "Ralph J. Bunche: Selected Speeches and Writings" reasserts the thinking of a great American whose views are entirely relevant to a generation still striving for the world Bunche envisioned.Charles P. Henry is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.From the book: "I abhor racism as a dangerous virus, whether it is spread by white or black peoples. I seek total integration, which to me means the Negro taking his place in the very mainstream of American life . . . . My ancestors have contributed very much to the development of this country and therefore I have a vested interest in it that I intend to realize and protect.""It seems painfully clear to me that there is no possibility in the affluent, highly industrialized and technological white-majority American society for anyone to be at once black, separate and equal.""The colonial system in its modern version, implicitly arrogant and self-serving, was instituted and perpetuated chiefly by self-righteous and superior- minded Europeans. Its positive achievements notwithstanding, colonialism's evil legacies will bedevil the world for years to come."


The completion of this thesis is due mostly in thanks to ACCY 420, a class designed by the Patterson School of Accountancy and taught by Dr. Victoria Dickinson that gives accounting students a structured process for designing their theses on purposeful accounting topics. During my Junior and Senior years, there was a whirlwind of activity surrounding accounting students: accounting classes step into a new realm of difficulty, internship recruiting begins, and eventually my peers and I departed for multi-month internships. All of that activity left us with far less time to work on our theses than students in other academic arenas.
Luckily, ACCY 420 provided us with an effective process to write our theses. During both semesters of our Junior year, this class would meet once a week, beginning every other week with a new case study addressing an ambiguous situation or problem in financial reporting. In these case studies, we were presented with more complex accounting problems than normally encountered in standard accounting classes. Each case required a large amount of background detail on the company (or companies) being studied in the case and the solution was usually never cut-and-dry. That lack of a "right" answer was perhaps the most helpful part of the class: whereas tests always have one right answer, my peers and I often found that we had come to different conclusions on how to handle certain situations in the case, which was good exposure to how problems are tacked in the real world.
As far as knowledge gained from this class, I feel that ACCY 420 was beneficial for me in multiple areas as I prepare to move into the real world. The first and most obvious area that I improved in was knowledge of financial reporting as well as the process of reporting those findings using technical skills (Excel) as I wrote my professional reports. As I said before, ACCY 420 presented my classmates and I with contextualized problems that were not so easily solved; there were not only multiple variables in the problem, but also multiple approaches on what those variables meant and how they affected the final solution. Encountering more difficult problems forces you as a student to truly understand the accounting concepts behind the problem; otherwise, you have no groundwork to solve the problem with. In this sense, ACCY 420 absolutely enhanced my understanding of accounting principles in the areas our case studies pertained to. Also, reporting my findings in a professional manner meant using some of the tools in Excel that have always evaded me. As I later found out in my internship, Excel will be my best friend in the coming years, so I was thankful for this class' introduction to its usefulness.
However, my favorite part of the ACCY 420 experience (the part that I believe is most important moving forward in my career) is working on complicated problems with other people, all of whom exercise their critical thinking in different ways. The critical thinking process can be difficult when you are dealing with a problem alone that you do not fully understand; with a team, I was able to bounce ideas off of my teammates and see the problem from other points of view that may have never even crossed my mind. Then, after discovering each person's point of view, we worked together to come to a common agreement on the correct solution, which can also be a process if people are adamant about their answer being the right one. Ultimately, it was this human element of ACCY 420 that I enjoyed the most and believe is the most applicable to my future. No matter how easy or complicated the problem, accounting is a team effort in every aspect and requires as much social skill as it does technical skill. As I move forward into a career in accounting, I will remember the different team dynamics encountered in ACCY 420 and the lessons I took from those experiences.


This paper presents a method for plug-and-play distributed MPC of a network of interacting linear systems. The previously introduced idea of plug and play control addresses the challenge of performing network changes in the form of subsystems that are joining or leaving the network during closed-loop operation, while maintaining stability and constraint satisfaction. This work extends these ideas to an iterative distributed MPC scheme for systems with strong coupling by employing a recently proposed method for distributed MPC that takes the coupling dynamics into account in the form of time-varying terminal sets and distributed optimization. A distributed synthesis procedure for the update of the local control laws is proposed together with a transition scheme preparing the system for the upcoming modifications. This enables automatic plug-and-play operation, including rejection if the new network topology is infeasible. Both the synthesis and online control are entirely distributed and are only based on local information on the subsystems and their coupled neighbors. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to the problem of frequency control in a power network.


Bone marrow stem cells have the ability to self-renew and differentiate into a multitude of different cell types. Of the various cell potentials, the endothelial differentiation process has been the least understood due to highly context dependent methods of regulation. It was previously found that following mesodermal induction, endothelial precursors emerged in association with inhibited transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signalling. To better understand the role of TGFβ signalling in the differentiation process, we treated bone marrow mononuclear cells with either a TGFβ pathway inhibitor, GW788388, or exogenous activating ligand, TGFβ1, and characterized the expression levels of various cellular markers. We demonstrate that neither treatment leads directly to an endothelial phenotype. Instead, we propose a two-step process of TGFβ and bone morphogenic protein (BMP) signalling cross-talk, that could potentially be responsible for endothelial differentiation of bone marrow derived stem cells. Our ability to derive functional endothelial cells from postnatal stem cells may impact multiple fields of research, including the study of vascular regeneration and understanding the mechanisms underlying vascular disease.


Synopsis The alluvial gold at Glengaber Burn in the valley of the Megget Water is of interest because of its coarse size and historical working. A total of 350 alluvial gold grains from 17 sites in Glengaber Burn and the vicinity have been studied using the technique of microchemical characterization, and two major types of gold have been identified, each with well defined geographical distribution. Type 1a gold contains only pyrite inclusions, and has an Ag content of between 8% and 11%. Type 1b has a similar Ag content, but the inclusion assemblage contains galena together with pyrite. Type 2a gold typically contains between 3% and 7% Ag, and a suite of inclusions comprising chalcopyrite, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, arsenopyrite and gersdorffite. Type 2a gold occurs in a SW–NW trending zone which contains the catchments of the Glengaber and Craigierigg Burns. Type 2b gold is confined to the catchment of the Cramalt Burn and contains an inclusion suite similar to Type 2a, but is more silver-rich. The abundance of alluvial gold of all types falls dramatically to the south of Megget Water, although the occurrence to the north of the Glengaber Burn and Craigierigg Burns has not been established. The distribution of Type 1a gold is mutually exclusive with Type 2a and flanks the zone of Type 2a and 2b to both east and west suggesting zonation in a single mineralizing event. Type 1b gold occurs to the west of Type 1a and is probably unrelated to the other gold types. The mineralization acting as the source for the alluvial gold could be controlled by deep structures roughly perpendicular to the regional strike, revealed by prominent gravity lineaments, and their intersections with other structural features.


Some problems in applying traditional welding methods to modern high strength steels are described. Because of its potential for good penetration, submerged arc welding can allow relatively heavy sections to be welded with low consumable consumption. However, the high dilution that this implies means that when welding lean parent materials, ever higher wire alloy contents must be used to generate the high strength sought in the weld metal, and an investigation into new, high-alloy compositions is described. Consumable development must also go hand in hand with process development, in pipe mills and in the field, and some tests with synergic cold wire welding are reported. Mainline girth welding with mechanised gas metal-arc systems can make use of downhill welding in very narrow compound bevel joint preparations, which extract heat from the weld so fast that lean weld metals can be produced for very high strength steels. Tie-ins are another matter. In this case, beveling and fit-up are less precise and uphill welding must often be used. Combining good weldability with strength, toughness and resistance to hydrogen cracking is not easy but great progress has been made over the last few years. New developments such as laser and hybrid laser welding for pipes may be closer to commercialisation than we think, and consumable manufacturers have been busy for some years working on consumables for these.


Recently, reflectionless or low‐reflection surfaces made of subwavelength structures have been of broad interest in practical engineering. Here, a single‐layer terahertz metasurface is proposed to produce ultralow reflections across a broad‐frequency spectrum and wide incidence angles by controlling the reflection phases of subwavelength structures. To enable full control of the phase range in a continuous band, a combination of two different subwavelength elements are employed, both of which exhibit weak interactions with the incident terahertz waves, thereby showing high local reflectivities near the operating frequency. An optimization method is utilized to determine the array pattern with the minimum overall reflections under the illumination of plane waves. Both numerical simulations and experimental results demonstrate ultralow reflections of terahertz waves by the metasurface over a broad frequency band and wide incidence angles. By using the proposed metasurface, the far‐field scattering patterns of metallic objects can be efficiently controlled, which opens up a new route for low‐reflection surface designs in the terahertz spectrum.


In this theory article, we discuss the virtual dimensions of the human, the avatar, in relation to ontological assumptions within nursing science. Assumptions in nursing science promote a 'wholistic' perspective of the human in terms of body, mind and spirit in relation to the environment. However, due to the enhanced technological development and the invention of cyberspace, we pose the critical question of whether the virtual dimension of identity really implicates a 'wholistic' view of human kindness or if this has been neglected. Furthermore, we suggest an ontological understanding that grasps new dimensions of humanity. In the article, we discuss the virtual dimensions of the human in relation to ontological assumptions within nursing science under the three headings of The techno-self and virtual identities, Techno-therapy and cyber nursing, and Becoming homo technicus. Due to these reflections, this article contributes to the debate on a postmodern understanding of human living conditions in society. We suggest further theoretical discussions to explore the conceptual and theoretical levels of nursing knowledge as new realities of human existence are introduced in the field. The transition into the digital age of the Internet, with the existence of cyborgs and avatars, is an ontological and epistemological challenge for nursing science that needs to be further investigated.


Plume rise is the height smoke plumes can reach. This information is needed by air quality models such as the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to simulate physical and chemical processes of point-source fire emissions. This study seeks to understand the importance of plume rise to CMAQ air quality simulation of prescribed burning to plume rise. CMAQ simulations are compared between fire emissions as area and point sources. For point source, Daysmoke is used to calculate plume rise. A burn day in Florida is examined. The results indicate significant sensitivity of simulated PM 2.5 (particulate matter with a size smaller than 2.5 μm) concentrations to plume rise. The air quality effects, measured by PM 2.5 concentrations at the burning area, are more significant by specifying fire emissions as an area source. The implication of the results for the uncertainty in evaluating the contribution of prescribed burning to regional air pollution is discussed.


Despite popular images of priests seeking enlightenment in snow-covered mountain temples, the central concern of Japanese Buddhism is death. For that reason, Japanese Buddhism's social and economic base has long been in mortuary services - a base now threatened by public debate over the status, treatment, and location of the dead. "Bonds of the Dead" explores the crisis brought on by this debate and investigates what changing burial forms reveal about the ways temple Buddhism is perceived and propagated in contemporary Japan. Mark Michael Rowe offers a crucial account of how religious, political, social, and economic forces in the twentieth century led to the emergence of new funerary practices in Japan and how, as a result, the care of the dead has become the most fundamental challenge to the continued existence of Japanese temple Buddhism. Far from marking the death of Buddhism in Japan, Rowe argues, funerary Buddhism reveals the tradition at its most vibrant. Combining ethnographic research with doctrinal considerations, this is a fascinating book for anyone interested in Japanese society and religion.


Objectives: Mast cells (MCs) and nerves play an important role in allergic rhinitis (AR), but little is known about their crosstalk in AR. The aim of this study was to investigate MC-nerve interaction in the human nasal mucosa during AR. Methods: The association between MCs and nerves, the expression of neuropeptide receptors (neurokinin 1 receptor [NK1R], neurokinin 2 receptor [NK2R], calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor [CGRPR], and MrgX2) on MCs, and protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR2) and tyrosine receptor kinase A (TrkA) on nerve fibres in the human nasal mucosa were investigated with immunofluorescence and real-time PCR. Results: The association between MCs and nerves was found to be significantly increased, although the numbers of MCs and nerve fibres were unchanged during AR. MCs expressing tryptase-chymase (MCtc) were frequently associated with nerve fibres and these contacts increased significantly in AR. Neuropeptide receptors NK1R, NK2R, and CGRPR were firstly found to be largely localised on MCs. The number of MCs expressing NK1R and NK2R, but not CGRPR, was significantly increased in AR. Interestingly, MCtc mostly expressed these neuropeptide receptors. The newly discovered tachykinin receptor MrgX2 was not expressed on nasal MCs, but was expressed on gland cells and increased in AR. Additionally, tachykinergic nerve fibres were found to express PAR2 or TrkA as receptors for MCs. Conclusions: This study revealed for the first time an increase of MC-nerve association and neuropeptide receptor expression on MCs during AR as well as nerve fibres containing receptors for MCs. These results suggest that targeting or controlling airway sensory nerve function as a modulator of MCs may prevent allergic airway inflammation such as AR.


Fatty Acid Desaturase7 (FAD7) is a chloroplast-localized enzyme that converts 16 and 18 carbon dienoic fatty acids to trienoic fatty acids. The suppressor of prosystemin-mediated response2 (spr2) mutant in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and the fad7-1 mutant in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) result in the loss of function of FAD7, which alter the fatty acid profiles of chloroplast membranes and enhance resistance against aphids. This research contributes toward the long-term goal of identifying factors that determine aphid resistance in FAD7 mutants. Previous data suggested constitutive differences between spr2 and WT including increased expression of genes associated with photosynthesis and differences in redox status in chloroplasts suggested by lipid profiles. The objective of this study was to validate these previous data. This study reports that the spr2 mutant enhances photosynthetic efficiency constitutively compared to wild-type (WT) plants. While no constitutive differences in intermediates and products of photosynthesis were detected, the spr2 mutants showed increased growth, suggesting increased photosynthesis may be translated in to growth. Moreover, glutamate levels were constitutively higher in spr2 compared to WT and could be important in defense signaling for aphid resistance. Also, the spr2 mutants were able to maintain the enhanced photosynthesis under potato aphid (Macrosiphum lycopersicum) pressure. One-day after aphid infestation, aphids triggered a short-term increase in the energy directed towards photosynthesis. The enhanced photosynthesis could also be channeling energy towards defense compound production for the resistance mechanism or could be the plant adapting to adverse environmental stress, indicative of tolerance. Furthermore, to study the redox status in chloroplasts, Arabidopsis fad7-1 lines containing roGFP2 transgene were developed as a useful tool. Preliminary results indicated the fad7-1 mutant is as or more reduced than WT (Col-0), but further studies are needed to confirm this. The redox status depends on the relative balance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidants. The plants could potentially have more ROS due to enhanced photosynthesis, but they could also have more antioxidants. Further work is necessary to detect individual ROS species. This study aids in identifying potential links between primary metabolism and plant defenses against insects.


The forensic use of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is demonstrating significant success as a crime-solving tool. However, numerous concerns have been raised regarding the potential for DNA use to contravene cultural, ethical, and legal codes. In this article the expectations and level of knowledge of the New Zealand public of the DNA data-bank and the surrounding processes are discussed. A questionnaire was developed in consultation with key stakeholders, comprising a combination of open and closed questions. The ensuing survey comprised a sample of 100 participants. Although participants initially appeared in favor of the forensic use of DNA, particularly in regard to the collection of DNA from sex offenders, perceptions and attitudes were based on limited knowledge of processes, policies, and implications. Upon further discussion and reflection a number of concerns were raised, such as ownership of DNA samples and the potential for misuse.


Student engagement is a student's emotional, behavioural, and cognitive connection to their studies. Evidence suggests engagement is vital to both success and satisfaction at university. A conceptual framework of student engagement, developed from research in psychology, sociology, and education, argues that engagement does not occur in isolation; rather it is embedded within a complex network of antecedents and consequences. This paper presents a case study of a 47 year old solo mother's first semester at university. An interpretive analysis uses the framework to illuminate how student engagement changes throughout the semester and how the various university and student factors influence that process. Interviews at each end of the semester plus fortnightly video diaries were used to collect rich detailed data about the student's experiences. The embedded nature of student engagement is apparent, with emotion as a key mechanism by which student and university factors influence engagement. In particular, the student's interest in the topic triggers a high level of engagement resulting in deep integrated learning. At other times, difficulties with university processes and poor support from staff trigger negative emotions that reduce engagement.


We characterize skyrmions in ultrathin ferromagnetic films as local minimizers of a reduced micromagnetic energy appropriate for quasi two-dimensional materials with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction. The minimization is carried out in a suitable class of two-dimensional magnetization configurations that prevents the energy from going to negative infinity, while not imposing any restrictions on the spatial scale of the configuration. We first demonstrate the existence of minimizers for an explicit range of the model parameters when the energy is dominated by the exchange energy. We then investigate the conformal limit, in which only the exchange energy survives and identify the asymptotic profiles of the skyrmions as degree 1 harmonic maps from the plane to the sphere, together with their radii, angles and energies. A byproduct of our analysis is a quantitative rigidity result for degree ± 1 harmonic maps from the two-dimensional sphere to itself.