This paper is about the velocities of the minimum escaped savings and of the financial liquidity. This means that we analyze the behavior of cycle of money in normal circumstances subject to the velocity of escaped savings and the velocity of minimum financial liquidity. Therefore we determine how the economy works based on its cycle of money. Thence, it is plausible to extract conclusions about the consumptions and the investments in each economy. For the purposes of this analysis is used a Q.E. method approach.


Investment into Africa is often made against a background of perceived (if not actual) political risk. There are also perceptions that the domestic courts in Africa lack the commercial focus, propriety and efficiency that investors are ordinarily used to; fears that decisions of African courts may not be enforceable in other jurisdictions; and the perception that African host states sometimes act in an unpredictable or arbitrary fashion (consider for example Algeria's recent reversal of its 2005 hydrocarbons law, and Zimbabwe's expropriation of its agricultural industry - a matter which has recently been resolved in favour of the claimants by the World Bank's arbitration forum, ICSID).


Current game music systems typically involve the playback of prerecorded audio tracks which are crossfaded in response to game events such as level changes. However, crossfading can limit the expressive power of musical transitions, and can make fine grained structural variations difficult to achieve. We therefore describe an alternative approach in which music is algorithmically generated based on a set of high-level musical features that can be controlled in real-time according to a player's progression through a game narrative. We outline an implementation of the approach in an actual game, focusing primarily on how the music system traces the game's emotional narrative by periodically querying certain narrative parameters and adjusting the musical features of its output accordingly.


Background and Objective: It has been proposed that anti-annexin V as a novel proposed mechanism for the increased prevalence of atherosclerosis among patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). Here we aimed to compare anti-annexin V levels between SLE patients and healthy controls and to determine the correlation of anti-annexin with various cardiovascular risk factors. Materials and Method: Sixty patients with SLE and 30 healthy sex and age matched persons included in the current cross sectional study that was selected from outpatient Rheumatology clinics in the city of Mashhad-Iran. Anti-annexin V and the other parameters including cardiovascular risk factors(age, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, lipoproteins levels, previous history of documented or clinically suspected atherosclerosis, obesity, premature ovarian failure, high sensitive C-reactive protein, vascular cell adhesion protein 1 and homocystein) measured using enzyme linked immuno-assay. Results: Anti-annexin V had a significant positive correlation with LDL levels in the SLE group (p=0.03). Anti-annexin V levels were not significantly different between the two groups (p=0.40). Conclusion: We could not show the role of anti-annexin V as a predictor of atherosclerosis risk in patients with lupus under study.


Water frogs inhabiting Cyprus represent a distinct evolutionary species of Messinian origin that is formally described in this paper. The systematic status of Cypriot frogs is evidenced by specific characters in their mitochondrial (mt) and nuclear (nu) DNA sequences, and the fact that they form a well supported monophyletic clade in both mtDNA and nuDNA phylogenies. While genetic data revealed clear and reproducible differences between this new taxon and all other western Palearctic water frog species including Pelophylax bedriagae in the Levant and two Anatolian water frogs lineages (P. cf. bedriagae -1 and P. cf. bedriagae -2), there is no diagnostic morphological or morphometric character that allows a clear discrimination between Cyprus frogs and frogs from the adjacent mainland. If several morphometric indices are combined as predictor variables in a discriminant analysis, however, both females and males of Cypriot water frogs are correctly distinguished from the other eastern Mediterranean lineages. While phylogenies based on concatenated sequences of two mitochondrial genes (ND2 + ND3) suggest a sister group relationship of Cypriot and Anatolian water frog lineages, our nuclear data hypothesize a sister group relationship between Cypriot frogs (sp. n.) and Crete frogs (P. cretensis), thus speaking for the same isolation time of both island populations (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


A recent Graph Neural Network (GNN) approach for learning to branch has been shown to successfully reduce the running time of branch-and-bound algorithms for Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). While the GNN relies on a GPU for inference, MILP solvers are purely CPU-based. This severely limits its application as many practitioners may not have access to high-end GPUs. In this work, we ask two key questions. First, in a more realistic setting where only a CPU is available, is the GNN model still competitive? Second, can we devise an alternate computationally inexpensive model that retains the predictive power of the GNN architecture? We answer the first question in the negative, and address the second question by proposing a new hybrid architecture for efficient branching on CPU machines. The proposed architecture combines the expressive power of GNNs with computationally inexpensive multi-layer perceptrons (MLP) for branching. We evaluate our methods on four classes of MILP problems, and show that they lead to up to 26% reduction in solver running time compared to state-of-the-art methods without a GPU, while extrapolating to harder problems than it was trained on. The code for this project is publicly available at this https URL.


Several active contour models have been proposed to unify the curve evolution framework with classical energy minimization techniques for segmentation, such as snakes. The essential idea is to evolve a curve (in 2D) or a surface (in 3D) under constraints from image forces so that it clings to features of interest in an intensity image. Recently the evolution equation has been derived from first principles as the gradient flow that minimizes a modified length functional, tailored to features such as edges. However, because the flow may be slow to converge in practice, a constant (hyperbolic) term is added to keep the curve/surface moving in the desired direction. The authors provide a justification for this term based on the gradient flow derived from a weighted area functional, with image dependent weighting factor. When combined with the earlier modified length gradient flow they obtain a PDE which offers a number of advantages, as illustrated by several examples of shape segmentation on medical images. In many cases the weighted area flow may be used on its own, with significant computational savings.


Abstract Titanotrichum oldhamii has been variously placed in Gesneriaceae or Scrophulariaceae, although most recent taxonomic treatments treat it as a monotypic tribe within Gesneriaceae. In this study, we reconstructed a broad-scale phylogeny containing Titanotrichum using gene sequences from four sequence regions (chloroplast trnL-F intron and spacer and atpB-rbcL spacer, nuclear 26S ribosomal DNA, and the low-copy developmental gene CYCLOIDEA, CYC). The phylogenies inferred from each individual data set and the combined data are congruent in placing Titanotrichum inside Gesneriaceae. The phylogenetic tree based on combined chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequences grouped Titanotrichum with subfamilies Gesnerioideae (New World) and Coronantheroideae (South Pacific and Chile). We have isolated CYC, from most of the species of Gesneriaceae and Scrophulariaceae represented in this study, and this gene phylogeny suggests the same placement of Titanotrichum. CYC was found to evolve three times faster than the trnL-F intron and spacer, 3.3 times faster than the atpB-rbcL spacer, and eight times faster than nuclear 26S rDNA. Although there is considerable phylogenetic information in this fast evolving gene, analysis is problematic because of high levels of homoplasy and paralogy. In addition to a duplication predating a split between New World and Old World taxa (Gcyc1 vs. Gcyc2), there are several subsequent lineage-related duplications (mainly within Gcyc1).


Physiotherapy as an independent curriculum has existed only one decade in Estonia. During this period the curriculum has changed and developed remarkably due to the Bologna Process. Specific feedback about the curriculum from the students who have graduated has not been received. Thus, the aim of the study was to estimate how the physiotherapy students who have graduated from University of Tartu assess the physiotherapy curriculum (theoretical knowledge, practical skills and generic competences). Altogether twenty-nine former students (females=25; males=4) participated in this study. All the participants filled in an anonymous questionnaire. Most of them graduated from the University of Tartu in 2010. 82.2% of the participants had gained Bachelor's and 17.8% Master's Degrees. Approximately 80% of the participants work as physical therapists, mostly in hospitals (37.9%). According to the participants the strengths of the curriculum are: highly qualified professionals are included in the study process; lecturers are also professional physical therapists; strong theoretical basis and versatile practical trainings in school and in clinical environment; modern practical training placements all over Estonia. Weaknesses of the curriculum are as follows: basic subjects are sometimes superficial and there is a lack of specialization (due to lack of time in the three-year study program); lack of external lecturers; connection between theory and practice is not always sufficient. In spite of this fact that the curriculum offers basic knowledge, practical skills and generic competences (communication skills, team work, sense of duty), the study period is still too short to provide in-depth theoretical knowledge and diverse professional skills. Therefore, there is a need to study more independently during the study process and after graduation (in-service training). It was revealed that some suggestions made by graduates have already been implemented in the course of the recent three years. It means the developments of the curriculum have been adequate and have supported the focus groups' expectations. In conclusion, 180 ECTS are not enough to offer in-depth specialized knowledge and practical skills. According to this result, there is a great need to study further on Master level and/or continue training – lifelong learning.


This paper seeks to examine the topic of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism that is currently present in reports of mainstream media and the implications it has on the lives of people in the Muslim community in Canada. The Western media has played a major role in both reviving historical Orientalist depictions of the 'other' and shaping the views of many ordinary Canadians about Muslims and people from the Middle East. Negative portrayals of Islam, and more specifically Muslims, have often been defended in the West under the principle of freedom of speech and the press, and this type of racism has been allowed to continue to exist in society under the contentious pretext of security. This paper draws on examples from two mainstream Canadian media outlets: The Toronto Star and Maclean's Magazine. The analysis of the Toronto Star is limited to articles that were published between June 2nd, 2006 and July 29th, 2008 about the Toronto 18 case. The Maclean's magazine analysis focuses on articles that were written between January 2005 and July 2006, many of which have also been at the center of a complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.


Humans display a remarkable capacity to use tools instead of their biological effectors. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms that support these behaviors. Here, participants learned to grasp objects, appearing in a variety of orientations, with a novel, handheld mechanical tool. Following training, psychophysical functions relating grip preferences (i.e., pronated vs. supinated) to stimulus orientations indicate a reliance on distinct, effector-specific internal representations when planning grasping actions on the basis of the tool versus the hands. Accompanying fMRI data show that grip planning in both hand and tool conditions was associated with similar increases in activity within the same regions of the anterior intraparietal and caudal ventral premotor cortices, a putative homologue of the macaque anterior intraparietal–ventral premotor (area F5) "grasp circuit." These findings suggest that tool use is supported by effector-specific representations of grasping with the tool that are functionally independent of previously existing representations of the hand and yet occur within the same parieto-frontal regions involved in manual prehension. These levels of representation are critical for accurate planning and execution of actions in a manner that is sensitive to the respective properties of these effectors. These effector-specific representations likely coexist with effector-independent representations. The latter were recently reported in macaque F5 [Umiltà, M. A., Escola, L., Intskirveli, I., Grammont, F., Rochat, M., Caruana, F., et al. When pliers become fingers in the monkey motor system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 105, 2209–2213, 2008] and appear to be established by tool use training through modification of existing representations of grasping with the hand. These more abstract levels of representation may facilitate the transfer of skills between hand and tool.


Introduction Sustainable development is increasingly becoming a goal to which numerous countries throughout the world aspire. Overall sustainability has been defined in many ways, and is often considered to have three distinct components: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability. These three factors when considered separately usually pull society in different directions (e.g., economic sustainability may be achieved at the expense of environmental and social sustainability). Overall sustainable development in general requires the simultaneous achievement of environmental, economic and social sustainability. Achieving this balance is indeed a challenging task. Although energy is not directly one of the three components of sustainability cited above, it is indirectly linked to each. That is, energy resources drive much if not most of the world's economic activity, in virtually all economic sectors, e.g., industry, transportation, residential, commercial, etc. Also, energy resources, whether fossil fuels or renewables, are obtained from the environment, and wastes from energy processes (production, transport, storage, utilization) are typically released to the environment. Finally, the services provided by energy allow for good living standards, and often support social stability as well as cultural and social development. Given the intimate ties between energy and the key components of sustainable development, it is evident that the attainment of energy sustainability is a critical aspect of achieving sustainable development, in individual countries and globally. The fact that all countries utilize energy resources, and that the impacts on the environment of energy processes are both local and global, and given that the world's economy Is becoming increasingly globalized, it has become increasingly apparent that the quest for energy sustainability is indeed global in extent. Energy sustainability is taken here not just to be concerned with sustainable energy sources, but rather to be much more comprehensive. That is, energy sustainability is taken to involve the sustainable use of energy in overall energy systems. Such systems include processes and technologies for the harvesting of energy sources, their conversion to useful energy forms, energy transport and storage, and the utilization of energy to provide energy services such as operating a computer, lighting an office or keeping a person warm in winter. Thus, energy sustainability goes beyond the search for sustainable energy sources, and implies sustainable energy systems, i.e., systems that use sustainable energy resources, and that process, store, transport and utilize those resources sustainably. The objective of this article is to identify and examine the key factors that need to be addressed to achieve energy sustainability in a global context. An engineering perspective is taken to be pragmatic, and an illustration is presented to provide an example of a practical future sustainable energy option. Approach The focus of this article is on technical aspects of the quest for energy sustainability. In many ways, it is evident that the author takes an engineering approach, which is likely influenced by his being or having been a professional engineer, an engineering educator and administrator and the head of engineering societies. This approach is taken to be pragmatic, which is often at the centre of engineering activities. Also, this approach focuses on the technical necessities to achieve energy sustainability, and less on the roles of economics, politics and other non-technical factors. Consequently, the present article is not the approach that would likely be taken by economists, business and industry leaders, politicians or sociologists, who have different foci and different paradigms through which they view energy sustainability. Although these other perspectives can be useful and informative, the approach taken here is intentional and is considered by the author to be critical for addressing the fundamental issues and challenges relating to energy sustainability. …


Building a two degree-of-freedom (2 DOF) MEMS nanopositioner with decoupled X-Y motion has been a challenge in nanopositioner design. In this paper a novel design concept on making the decoupled motion of the MEMS nanopositioner is suggested. The suggested nanopositioner has two electrothermal actuators and employs a fully nested motion platform with suspended anchors. The suggested MEMS nanopositioner is capable of delivering displacement from the electrothermal actuator to the motion platform without coupled motion between the two X-Y axes. The design concept, finite element analysis (FEA) results, fabrication procedures and the performance of the 2 DOF nanopositioner is presented. In order to test the nanopositioner moving platform decoupled motion, one actuator moves the platform by 60 μm, while the other actuator is kept at the same position. The platform position cross talk error was measured to be less than 1 μm standard deviation.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


The main objective of this study is to review the role of phosphorus in fertilizers, emphasizing in phosphate rock which is the primary source for phosphate fertilizer, with reference to harmful heavy metals as a consequence of their use. Simultaneously, this study examined the use of P-Adsorption agents as a potential application in agriculture, as the adsorbed phosphorus can be used as fertilizer or enriching soil conditioners. Therefore, it is generated a sustainable cycle taking into account a renewable resource-based Phosphorus Adsorption Agent (P-AA) leading to environmental protection and conservation of natural resources. Finally, this study highlighted new aspects that support P bioavailability of Humic-metal-P (HMP) in soils, correlating with novel materials in water purification.


In a distributed system using message logging and checkpointing to provide fault tolerance there is always a unique maximum recoverable system state regardless of the message logging protocol used The proof of this relies on the observation that the set of system states that have occurred during any single execution of a system forms a lattice with the sets of consistent and recoverable system states as sublat tices The maximum recoverable system state never decreases and if all messages are eventually logged the domino e ect cannot occur This paper presents a general model for reasoning about recovery in such a system and based on this model an e cient algo rithm for determining the maximum recoverable sys tem state at any time This work uni es existing ap proaches to fault tolerance based on message logging and checkpointing and improves on existing methods for optimistic recovery in distributed systems


Vehicles with internal combustion (IC) engines fueled by hydrocarbon compoundshave been used for more than 100 years for ground transportation.During these years and in particular the last decade, the environmental aspectsof IC engines have become a major political and research topic. Followingthis interest, the emissions of pollutants such as NOx, CO2 and unburnedhydrocarbons (UHC) from IC engines have been reduced considerably.Yet, there is still a clear need and possibility to improve engine efficiencywhile further reducing emissions of pollutants. The maximum efficiency ofIC engines used in passenger cars is no more than 40% and considerably lessthan that under part load conditions. One way to improve engine efficiencyis to utilize the energy of the exhaust gases to turbocharge the engine. Whileturbocharging is by no means a new concept, its design and integration intothe gas exchange system has been of low priority in the power train designprocess. One expects that the rapidly increasing interest in efficient passengercar engines would mean that the use of turbo technology will become morewidespread.The flow in the IC-engine intake manifold determines the flow in the cylinderprior and during the combustion. Similarly, the flow in the exhaust manifolddetermines the flow into the turbine, and thereby the efficiency of theturbocharging system.In order to reduce NOx emissions, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is used.As this process transport exhaust gases into the cylinder, its efficiency is dependenton the gas exchange system in general. The losses in the gas exchangesystem are also an issue related to engine efficiency. These aspects have beenaddressed up to now rather superficially. One has been interested in globalaspects (e.g. pressure drop, turbine efficiency) under steady state conditions.In this thesis, the flow in the exhaust port and close to the valve as wellas in the exhaust manifold is studied. Since the flow in the port can be transonic,we study first the numerical modeling of such a flow in a more simplegeometry, namely a bump placed in a wind tunnel. Large-Eddy Simulationsof internal transonic flow have been carried out. The results show that transonicflow in general is very sensitive to small disturbances in the boundaryconditions. Flow in the wind tunnel case is always highly unsteady in the transonicflow regime with self excited shock oscillations and associated with that also unsteady boundary-layer separation. The interaction between separationzone and shock dynamics was carried out by one-, and two-point correlationsas well as dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). A clear connection betweenseparation bubble dynamics and shock oscillation was found. To investigatesensitivity to periodic disturbances the outlet pressure in the wind tunnel casewas varied periodically at rather low amplitude. These low amplitude oscillationscaused hysteretic behavior in the mean shock position and appearance ofshocks of widely different patterns.The study of a model exhaust port shows that at realistic pressure ratios,the flow is transonic in the exhaust port. Furthermore, two pairs of vortexstructures are created downstream of the valve plate by the wake behind thevalve stem and by inertial forces and the pressure gradient in the port. Thesestructures dissipate rather quickly. The impact of these structures and thechoking effect caused by the shock on realistic IC engine performance remainsto be studied in the future.The flow in a heavy-duty exhaust manifold was studied under steady andengine-like boundary conditions. At all conditions, significantly unsteady flowis generated in the manifold and at the inlets to the turbine and EGR cooler.The inflow to the turbine is dominated by a combination of the blow-downpulse coming from one cylinder, and the scavenging pulse from another at thefiring frequency.


The rapid development of virtual reality systems and their increasing acceptance result in a high demand for 3D content, in particular, content that can be viewed in 360°. The acquisition of monoscopic 360° videos is straightforward and is typically done with a single camera in combination with panoramic optics or an arrangement of two 180° fisheye cameras. Stereoscopic 360° videos support the perception of depth but are considerably more challenging to capture. They require sophisticated multi-camera arrangements, which leads to heavy, bulky and expensive systems. Furthermore, they need computationally demanding post-processing. For telepresence applications, where the user wears VR glasses to get a 3D view of the scene in front of a mobile telepresence platform, such a vision system must be real-time capable. Another challenge is the network-induced delay, which leads to motion sickness. In this paper, we present a stereoscopic vision system that captures stereo video content for VR displays and consists of only two cameras, a pan-tilt-unit and a visual delay compensation algorithm. With our approach, the user is allowed to rotate his head by 360°. The proposed system compensates the perceived delay when the user rotates the head around the z-axis by streaming a larger field-of-view (FoV) than needed by the VR display. We provide an analytical solution for the required camera FoV as a function of the FoV of the HMD and the communication delay. Our experimental evaluation for typical head motions shows that the proposed system achieves a mean compensation rate of up to 95% for the tested communication delays of 0-500ms.


This volume deals with the reconstructed morphology of Proto-Romance. It is the third in a series by this author. The first volume (1974, Elsevier) deals with the external history of the Romance languages: the conditions under which they developed, were used, and (in some instances) went out of use. The second volume (1976, Elsevier) treats the phonology of their common source, Proto-Romance. Together these three volumes aim to cast light, not only on Popular Latin speech by means of its surviving elements in the Romance languages, but also on the extent to which the comparative method can be regarded as valid and useful in instances where no attestations are available for a language as closely related to the reconstructed proto-language as high Classical Latin was to Proto-Romance.


Automated citation sentiment analysis is a newly emerged research topic inspired by traditional citation context analysis in scientometrics and applied linguistics. The main goals of current citation sentiment analysis are to develop new tools to model scientific literature and provide authoring support for researchers in tasks like literature review. In terms of developing authoring support tools, however, current studies have not taken into consideration the behavioral patterns of researchers' literature review practice, leaving user need assessment as a missing piece in current interdisciplinary research effort. This paper analyzed biomedical researchers' need by reviewing their publications on using manual citation sentiment analysis for detecting citation bias, and discussed the differences between biomedical researchers' approach and current automated citation sentiment analysis model. These differences are expected to inform the modeling of automated citation sentiment analysis.


The Long Journey takes us into the heart of Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the site of the Benedictine Dormition Monastery, a place where pilgrims, seekers, and peacemakers come for liturgies, prayer, and conversation. Our guide on this journey is James Paharik, who in nine closely woven essays, leads us through the labyrinthine spaces of Jerusalem, al the while digging through the layers of history to expose the rich stories that are the foundation of the city. We meet not only Jews and Palestinians but also Armenian and Ethiopian Christians, +--migr+--s and expatriates, living and working in this polyglot place. Paharik reveals hearts damaged by violence but also brimming with hope that Israel will one day soon live up to her calling, as expressed in Psalm 76: In Judah God is known, his name is great in Israel. His abode has been established in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion. There he broke the flashing arrows, &nbspthe shield, the sword, and the weapons of war. James G. Paharik, PhD, is a member of the sociology faculty at Seton Hill University. He writes and teaches in the areas of comparative genocide and peace studies. Paharik is director of research and curriculum design for Beit Benedict Peace Academy and an oblate of Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem.


Background. Recent randomised trials carried out in South Africa and on the African continent have rekindled the debate on male circumcision for preventing conditions that may or may not occur in the future. Method. The recent literature on adult male circumcision for the prevention of HIV transmission was reviewed and the traditional, religious, ethical, and public health issues of introducing male circumcision as a public health
measure are discussed. Conclusion. Male circumcision should be regarded as another strategy in the fight against the HIV pandemic. The main HIV strategies of single-partner relationships and consistent condom use should remain the main strategic policy against the HIV pandemic. South African Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology Vol. 14 (2) 2008: pp. 66-68


Within the current privacy sensitive environment, an understanding of consumers' information privacy concerns is critical. The objective of the study is to establish whether there is a difference between victims and non-victims of information privacy invasion, and whether this has an influence on their privacy concerns and protective behaviour. A probability (systematic) sampling design was used to draw a representative sample of 800 households where-after 800 telephone interviews were conducted with adults from these households. The findings show that victims had increased concern about information misuse by, and solicitation practices of, organisations, and they exhibit more protective behaviour than non-victims. This suggests that organisations should recognise that consumers believe that they have ownership of their personal information. Furthermore, organisations should share information of consumers in a way that is respectful, relevant and beneficial. D18,�L86,�M14


This fully revised and updated third edition of the Oxford Handbook of Gastroenterology and Hepatology provides up-to-date, pragmatic advice on the management of common conditions and emergencies. It is an essential resource for all those involved in the care of patients with gastroenterological and hepatological disease, both for specialists and trainees in gastroenterology and hepatology, as well as clinicians from other specialties. The handbook includes a problems-based approach, a unique A to Z compendium of conditions, and sections on therapeutic drugs and emergencies. Thoroughly revised and updated, it now includes such updates as new approaches for the management of eating disorders, and post-liver transplant patients, the latest advances in endoscopy, new therapies, refined advice on how to select between therapeutic options, as well as additional emergency topics on abdominal trauma, bowel obstructions, and major haemorrhage.


The foundations that are laid through pregnancy and the first years of life have a profound influence on health both through childhood and into adult life. Public health approaches—those that seek to promote good health and prevent ill health—which, for example, effectively support poverty reduction, immunisation, good nutrition, safe sleeping and nurturing parenting—have had a considerable impact on reducing poor health outcomes. They continue to be critical to tackling preventable ill health in children and reducing inequalities. Alongside their role in treating child ill health, paediatricians can play a key role in promoting primary prevention efforts, aimed at preventing ill health from occurring in the first place, and secondary prevention or early intervention, identifying issues early on and addressing them before they have had more lasting impact. Paediatricians' role can be as powerful advocates across the public system arguing for policy change, as local professionals working hand-in-hand with a wide range of other early childhood professionals and as clinicians recognising where prevention, both primary and secondary, can enhance the health and well-being of their patients.

The strength of association between early childhood experiences and later life outcomes is shown vividly by the large number of longitudinal cohort studies which follow children from birth throughout their lives. Across different countries, a deep and persistent link has been shown between early childhood adversity and poor outcomes in adulthood. Childhood poverty is associated with poor health in adulthood; poor health in childhood is associated with poorer health and worse socioeconomic outcomes in later life.1 2 For example, lower fetal growth and low birth weight have been shown to be associated with adult coronary health outcomes and a range of related risk factors.3 ,4 Higher levels of childhood obesity and rapid infant growth are associated with later life obesity.5 The Adverse Childhood …


Military commanders are not just officers leading soldiers into battle. In the military justice system, they also serve quasi-prosecutorial roles and decide what charges to bring and whether to accept a plea. With this responsibility comes the potential for misconduct, no different than with civilian prosecutors. Commanders too can improperly coerce witnesses or withhold favorable evidence. Enter the "unlawful command influence" doctrine, the military's response to combating this misconduct. While routinely associated with civilian prosecutorial misconduct, the military standard turns out to be very different and seems to better protect against improper influence than its civilian counterpart. What accounts for this difference, given that both standards are designed to ensure a fair and impartial trial?This Article is the first to raise this varying treatment and explore potential explanations. It ultimately teases out the concepts of "systemic integrity" and "individual autonomy" from the respective stories. The military's focus on procedural protections and concern for the appearance of impropriety reveals a value for systemic integrity, whereas the civilian emphasis on defendant choice and finality of proceedings reveals a value for individual autonomy. This is not simply an academic exercise. These concepts can help frame current controversies surrounding prosecutorial and commander discretion. On the civilian side, scholars and judges alike have widely criticized courts for not doing enough to combat prosecutorial misconduct. On the military side, legislators have railed against commanders for their lack of prosecution of sexual assault crimes. Recognizing which value — individual autonomy or systemic integrity — underlies these practices can better assist necessary reforms.


It is believed that Scotland has been inhabited for over 12 000 years. These early settlers were hunter-gatherers, sustaining regular physical activity in their search for food. Scots take pride in their proud history of innovation and invention. To medicine, we have contributed penicillin, insulin and the ECG. Scots also contributed the three best friends of the couch potato; the telephone, the refrigerator and the television, unwittingly sowing the seeds for one of the biggest public health challenges of the 21st century: physical inactivity.

Steven Blair's research has shown that low cardiorespiratory fitness is responsible for the largest attributable fraction of all-cause mortality.1 Karim Khan framed these data to emphasise that deaths attributable to low fitness exceeded those due to obesity, diabetes and smoking ('smokadiabesity') combined.2 The WHO looked at global health risks and found that over 3 million people each year die due to physical inactivity making physical inactivity the fourth leading cause of preventable death.3 It is accepted that increasing physical activity levels is beneficial both to preventing and managing cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, cancer and depression as well as promoting a better quality of life.

Is this global problem relevant to Scotland, or do we have bigger fish to fry in our infamous deep fat fryers? WHO data from 2008 show that the UK is one of only seven countries worldwide, where fewer than 40% of adults reach minimum recommendations for physical activity.4 The 2010 Scottish Health Survey found that 39% of adults achieved a minimum of 30 min activity five times per week, while 72% of children reached 60 min of activity daily.5 These figures were based on self-reported activity levels. Scottish …


Abstract It is shown that Urban Airshed Model (UAM-IV) calculated air pollutant concentrations during photochemical smog episodes in Atlanta, Georgia, depend strongly on the numerical parameterization of the daytime vertical diffusivity. Results found suggest that vertical mixing is overestimated by the UAM-IV during unstable daytime conditions, as calculated vertical diffusivity values exceed measured and comparable literature values. Although deviations between measured and UAM-IV calculated air pollutant concentrations may only in part be due to the UAM-IV diffusivity parameterization, results indicate the large error potential in vertical diffusivity parameterization. Easily implemented enhancements to UAM-IV algorithms are proposed, thus improving UAM-IV modeling performance during unstable stratification.


The emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, Earstern Europe, the former Soviet empire, and elsewhere continue to be exciting places to be—exciting for creditors that is. Many high-profile defaults and restructurings tend to be the norm rather than the exception. This article explores the ways that creditors can test the waters with debtors, to better understand the chances for success in obtaining an effective operating plan to save the affected entity. Seven specific actions are noted to alert creditors to the probability of good working relationships with debtors.


Economists' principal tool for studying household behavioral responses to changes in tax and other government policies, and the magnitude and determinants of private saving, is the life-cycle model. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to incorporate into that model one of the most conspicuous changes in the U.S. economy in the last 50 years, the rise in labor market participation for married women. The increased presence of married women in the labor force has obvious benefits: women now earn much more income than they did in the past. On the other hand, working women presumably spend less time doing housework and other types of home production, and the forgone value of time at home reduces the net benefit of their work in the market. Conventional accounts do not provide measurements of the costs of lost home production, but we attempt to use comparisons of household net worth at retirement to deduce valuations indirectly. This paper modifies a standard life-cycle model to include women's labor supply decisions, estimates key parameters of the new specification, and attempts to assess the significance of rising female labor market participation for aggregate national saving in the U.S. Using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, we find that the difference between measured labor market earnings for married women and earnings net of the value of lost home production seems moderately small - about 30 percent - and that the corresponding long-run effect on the overall rate of private saving is minor.


Nerve tissue contains a high density of chemical synapses, about 1 per µm3 in the mammalian cerebral cortex. Thus, even for small blocks of nerve tissue, dense connectomic mapping requires the identification of millions to billions of synapses, of which about 80-90% are excitatory synapses. While the focus of connectomic data analysis has been on neurite reconstruction, synapse detection becomes limiting when datasets grow in size and dense mapping is required. Here, we report SynEM, a method for automated detection of excitatory synapses from conventionally en-bloc stained 3D electron microscopy image stacks. The approach is based on a segmentation of the image data and focuses on classifying borders between neuronal processes as synaptic or non-synaptic. SynEM yields 98% precision and recall in binary excitatory cortical connectomes with no user interaction. It scales to large volumes of cortical neuropil, plausibly even whole-brain datasets. SynEM removes the burden of manual synapse annotation for large densely mapped connectomes.


Why the "nature versus nurture" debate persists despite widespread recognition that human traits arise from the interaction of nature and nurture. If everyone now agrees that human traits arise not from nature or nurture but from the interaction of nature and nurture, why does the "nature versus nurture" debate persist? In Beyond Versus, James Tabery argues that the persistence stems from a century-long struggle to understand the interaction of nature and nurture—a struggle to define what the interaction of nature and nurture is, how it should be investigated, and what counts as evidence for it. Tabery examines past episodes in the nature versus nurture debates, offers a contemporary philosophical perspective on them, and considers the future of research on the interaction of nature and nurture. From the eugenics controversy of the 1930s and the race and IQ controversy of the 1970s to the twenty-firstcentury debate over the causes of depression, Tabery argues, the polarization in these discussions can be attributed to what he calls an "explanatory divide"—a disagreement over how explanation works in science, which in turn has created two very different concepts of interaction. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of science, Tabery offers a way to bridge this explanatory divide and these different concepts integratively. Looking to the future, Tabery evaluates the ethical issues that surround genetic testing for genes implicated in interactions of nature and nurture, pointing to what the future does (and does not) hold for a science that continues to make headlines and raise controversy.


The public assembly buildings like outdoor and indoor stadiums are prone to acoustical defects arising out of multifold reasons observed during many stage events.This investigation was carried out with an aim todo away with the obstructions interveningduring the gala events. The factors identified to influence the acoustics of buildings are geometrical properties of the building, materials used for construction and interiors, openings in buildings, orientation and positioning of sound systems, number and capacity of sound systems and so on. Considering all these parameters into account, an investigation was made with a scientific approach of setting up of sound systems that suits well for any building geometry built with the conventional construction materials. The results of the study proposed non-linear polynomial equations for orientation and positioning of surround sound systems to generate a highly audible and ambient atmosphere.


Legal Writing Contest. International Association of Defense Counsel Committee members prepare newsletters on a monthly basis that contain a wide range of practical and helpful material. This section of the Defense Counsel Journal is dedicated to highlighting interesting topics covered in recent newsletters so that other readers can benefit from committee specific articles The following articles originally appeared as a four-part series in the September-December 2012 Environmental and Energy Law Committee Newsletters. Introduction to Hydraulic Fracturing Natural Gas Exploration (September 2012) A. What is Hydraulic Fracturing? HYDRAULIC FRACTURING was first used more than 100 years ago in 1903, but the first commercial fracturing treatment was performed in 1949. During the next forty years George Mitchell and other geologists developed use of the hydraulic fracture in North Texas. By 1988, it had been applied more than one million times. Now, fracturing is used not only to stimulate production in old wells, but to jump start the production process in unconventional formations and in unfavorable locations. Operators now fracture about 35,000 wells each year. Improvements in two technologies have made production of oil and gas from shale formations feasible: hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Hydraulic fracturing is a formation stimulation practice that creates additional permeability in a producing formation, allowing natural gas to flow more readily to a well bore. Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping of fracturing fluid into formation: * At predetermined rate and pressure; * To generate fractures or cracks in target formation; and * Fluid includes proppant to hold cracks open. B. Why Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas is Important? Natural gas provides 220/0 of U.S. energy demands. Natural Gas is affordable at one fourth the cost of oil. Natural Gas production is clean compared to Oil or Coal (or will be if the new EPA air pollution regulations go into effect). Natural Gas is plentiful as unconventional sources have dramatically increased U.S. reserves. It is estimated that the US has more than 1,744 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable Natural Gas, a 120 year supply. (Energy Information Administration -EIA estimate). Shale gas will grow from 16% of U.S. production in 2009 to 47% by 2035. (EIA estimate) Technological improvements have begun to reverse over three decades of declining U.S. crude production. Increases in U.S. crude production through at least 2020, primarily due to new on-shore production, are projected by the EIA. U.S. Natural Gas production is increasing dramatically. In 2009, the U.S. surpassed Russia to become the world's largest natural gas producer. Benefits from hydraulic fracturing in unconventional shale plays include: * Energy security-reduced imports of foreign oil. * A 2009 Barnett Shale Economic Impact Report estimated that the shale play contributed $11 billion to the local economy and supported over 111,000 permanent jobs in the region in 2008. * Revenue to governments. The State of Texas received approximately $275 million in severance revenue in 2009 from Barnet Shale activities. Eagle Ford Shale contributed $25 billion in economic output to the region in 2011 according to a University of Texas at San Antonio's Center for Community and Business Research Study. (1) * Shale development activity paid $3.1 billion in worker salaries and benefits, provided $12.6 billion in gross regional product, added $358 million in state revenue and spurred triple-digit sales tax revenue increases in some local counties. * Leasing of lands also helps struggling farmers, land owners by providing bonus payments and royalties. C. Location of Shale Gas Fields and the Infrastructure of Shale Gas Production I. …


Abstract A number of states are faced with the challenge of ensuring the harmonious development of rapidly expanding cities and of offering a growing population public services worthy of the name in the fields of security, health, and education. That challenge is even more difficult and more pressing because violence may erupt (hunger riots, clashes between territorial gangs or ethnic communities, acts of xenophobic violence directed against migrants, and so on) – violence that does not generally escalate to the point of becoming an armed conflict but that is murderous nevertheless. On the basis of the experience of the International Committee of the Red Cross and of its partners, as well as reports by academic specialists, this article describes the vulnerability of the poorest and of migrants in urban areas. It presents the difficulties with which humanitarian organizations, which are often accustomed to working in rural areas, have to contend. Lastly, it describes innovative responses, from which much can be learned: income-generating micro-projects, aid in the form of cash or vouchers, urban agriculture, and the establishment of violence-prevention or health-promotion programmes to protect those affected by armed violence in disadvantaged areas.


Modern science is increasingly data-intensive, multidisciplinary, and network-centric. There is an emerging consensus among the members of the academic research community that the practices of this new science paradigm should be congruent with "open science". This entails that the bonanza of research data, the wide availability of algorithms, data tools, and data services produced by the members of the research community must be discoverable, understandable, and usable by overcoming all kinds of heterogeneity and logical inconsistencies. The main concept for coping with the many dimensions of heterogeneity and logical inconsistency is mediation. Mediation is achieved by mediators or brokers. These are software modules that exploit encoded knowledge about certain datasets, data services, and user needs in order to implement an intermediary service. A mediating environment is an environment that provides a core set of intermediary services. Mediation should be a distinct functionality of future research data infrastructures. This paper surveys the different levels of interoperability, i.e., exchangeability, compatibility, and usability, their properties and relationships, mediation concepts, functions, and intermediary services. The current interoperability landscape is also illustrated. Finally, the paper advocates the need for mediating environments to be supported by future research data infrastructures and envisions that one of the most important features of future research data infrastructures will be mediation software.


Fish passage through road culverts is poorly understood, particularly for small-bodied fishes, despite this information being integral to the restoration of waterway connectivity. We assessed the prolonged swimming performance of a small-bodied fish, empire gudgeon (Hypseleotris compressa; 3.2-7.7cm total length, TL), and juvenile Australian bass (Percalates novemaculeata; 3.5-7.8cm TL). Swimming trials were conducted in a hydraulic flume across a range of fixed and increasing velocities in response to acute and long-term thermal treatments. A new statistical approach (Tobit analysis) was used to relate the thermal dependence of swimming endurance to hydraulic characteristics of culverts, providing estimates of maximum water velocity allowing upstream fish passage. Reductions in water temperature of 10°C, similar to those caused by cold-water releases from dams, significantly impaired critical swimming speeds of both species. Traversable water-velocity models identified H. compressa as a weak swimmer, requiring very low water velocities (≤0.10ms-1 or 2.86 body lengths (BL) s-1) for unrestricted passage, whereas P. novemaculeata was predicted to traverse water velocities of ≤0.39ms-1 or 12.12BLs-1. Culvert designs can be improved by limiting water velocities to accommodate weak-swimming fishes and by accounting for the thermal sensitivity of swimming performance.


Let n > 1 be an odd natural number and let r (1 < r < n) be a natural number relatively prime to n. Denote by χn the principal character modulo n. In Section 3 we prove some new congruences for the sums T r,k (n) = n r ] i=1 (χn(i) i k) (mod n s+1) for s ∈ {0, 1, 2}, for all divisors r of 24 and for some natural numbers k.We obtain 82 new congruences for T r,k (n), which generalize those obtained in [Ler05], [Leh38] and [Sun08] if n = p is an odd prime. Section 4 is an appendix by the second and third named authors. It contains some new congruences for the sums Ur(n) = n


This study determined the demographic profile of the senior citizens of Barangay San Juan in Calamba City and the occurrence of their physiological health problems. The study used descriptive research design. Sixty (60) senior citizens were selected using the convenient sampling method. In conducting the study, an adapted-modified questionnaire was given and data were treated using relative frequency, weighted mean, and chi-square test. Results showed that majority of the respondents are still married and that they do not experience water-drinking related sickness, food-related sickness, and sleep-related sickness. It was also found out that age and educational attainment do not significantly affect any of the occurrences of the physiological health problems among the senior citizens of Barangay San Juan in Calamba City. It was recommended that continuous support should be given to the senior citizens for them to further minimize the occurrence of any form of sickness and that further studies should be done to find out the other physiological problems of the senior citizens.


Probiotics may be useful as part of a multipronged strategy to confront malnutrition in the developing world and may be combined with prebiotics, micronutrients, and other foods in global health programs. Future descriptions of probiotics are likely to describe entirely novel classes of microbes as fundamental discoveries are made in the international microbiome project. Beneficial effects of probiotics include the provision of key nutrients for the intestinal mucosa, regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation, and immunomodulation. While probiotics have been studied for the prevention of infections and the suppression of inflammation, new applications and refinements of existing strategies will be based on the science of systems biology. Next-generation probiotics may be selected or engineered to contain such bioconversion features as part of solutions in preventative medicine and therapeutics. Exciting new developments in the understanding of probiotics and the regulation of mucosal immunity are pointing to new directions with respect to selection and engineering of beneficial microbes. Probiotics may also suppress immunity in disorders of chronic inflammation, and such effects may reflect the activation of different immune signaling pathways requiring different types of probiotics for disease amelioration. Advances in comparative and functional genomics are creating new opportunities for rational engineering of different probiotic species. A more detailed understanding is emerging regarding the respective roles of different indigenous and symbiotic microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. Comparative genomics of symbiotic bacterial species has highlighted molecular evolution and its role in niche and habitat adaptation of Bacteroidetes in the distal human intestine.


Structured prediction from bandit feed-back describes a learning scenario where instead of having access to a gold standard structure, a learner only receives partial feedback in form of the loss value of a predicted structure. We present new learning objectives and algorithms for this interactive scenario, focusing on convergence speed and ease of elicitability of feed-back. We present supervised-to-bandit simulation experiments for several NLP tasks (machine translation, sequence labeling, text classification), showing that bandit learning from relative preferences eases feedback strength and yields improved empirical convergence.


A simple method for estimating thermal inertia using daily amplitude of surface soil heat flux and temperature is proposed. Based on an analytical solution of the diffusion equation where the soil temperature is idealized as a sinusoidal function, the thermal inertia is expressed as a proportional coefficient in a linear equation relating the amplitudes of surface soil (ground) heat flux and temperature. Tests of the proposed method demonstrate that this simple method is potentially useful in the Earth and extra‐terrestrial remote sensing.


Published Abstract -

Many people with aphasia retain residual language impairments to varying degrees
of severity following rehabilitation. Currently there is no theory of rehabilitation
that explains the therapeutic process involved in the restoration of a damaged
language system. Therefore it is not possible to discern what approaches/tasks
would be most successful at restoring particular language functions. Does rehabilitation
facilitate the accessing of the damaged language system or could it involve
new learning resulting in the creation of new language representations? The main
objective of this study was to investigate whether adults with aphasia could learn
new vocabulary. The methodology incorporated procedures based on evidence from
the literature in order to facilitate and promote optimum learning. The novel stimuli
(20 new words) were taught to 12 adults (<65 years) who presented with varying
degrees of severity of aphasia. The training procedure incorporated learning theory
and a cognitive neuropsychological model of language. The immediate and delayed
recall of this vocabulary was investigated using a range of assessments to facilitate
the capture of new learning which was measured not only in terms of the accurate
production of the stimuli but also the recognition and knowledge of the word
forms and meanings. Overall findings of this investigation with the presentation
of select case studies demonstrate the ability of people to learn new language
representations despite severe language impairment. The findings, which strongly
suggest that language rehabilitation could incorporate the process of new learning,
have significant clinical relevance in terms of developing a theory of rehabilitation
and to the procedures employed in speech and language therapy.


Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) rely heavily on complex routing architectures. The routing structures use programmable switches and account for a significant share in the total area, delay and power consumption numbers. With the ability of being monolithically integrated with CMOS chips, Resistive Random Access Memories (RRAMs) enable high-performance routing architectures through the replacement of Static Random Access Memory (SRAM)-based programming switches. Exploiting the very low on-resistance state achievable by RRAMs as well as the improved tolerance to power supply reduction, RRAM-based routing multiplexers can be used to significantly reduce the power consumption of FPGA systems with no performance compromises. By evaluating the opportunities of ultra-low-power RRAM-based FPGAs at the system level, we see an improvement of 12%, 26% and 81% in area, delay and power consumption at a mature technology node.


Temporal databases added a new dimension to traditional transaction databases. This dimension is the life time of each item, i.e. exhibition period, starting from the partition when this item appears in the transaction database to the partition when this item no longer exists. Mining temporal association rules became very interesting topic in many applications nowadays. In this paper, an efficient technique is proposed for indexing temporal databases in order to facilitate support counting process during mining operation. Some experiments were conducted using well-known real datasets to show the performance of the proposed indexing technique with respect to index size and running time of the mining algorithm. The results show that the proposed indexing technique saves a lot of running time and works efficiently with different databases characteristics.


Forty five male New Zealand White rabbits aged 5 weeks with an average body weight 574±2.32 g were divided randomly into five equal experimental groups (9 animals in each) and used in a feeding trial lasted 56 days to investigate the response of rabbits to diets diet containing fat with or without herbal mixture formulation consisting of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) seeds or oregano leaves (Origanum vulgare L.) and mixture of them on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass characteristics, blood constituents and economical evaluation of growing rabbits. The experimental groups were classified to: group 1 fed the basal diet and served as control group (R1); group 2 fed the basal diet + 2% sunflower oil (R2); group 3 fed the basal diet + 2% sunflower oil + 1% Fennel seeds (R3); group 4 fed the basal diet + 2% sunflower oil + 1% Oregano leaves (R4) and group 5 fed the basal diet + 2% sunflower oil + 0.5% Fennel seeds + 0.5% Oregano leaves (R5). The results showed that, tested rations were isonitrogenous but not isocaloric. Dietary treatments had no significant effect on feed intake, CP and EE digestibilities. While DM, OM and CF digestibilities were significantly (P<0.05) improved. Rabbits received R5 diet recorded the highest value of OM, CF, EE digestibilities and TDN value. On the other hand, dietary treatments improved both TDN and DCP values. Dietary treatments significantly (P<0.05) improved final weight, body weight gain and average daily gain. Final weight was improved by 3.45, 12.37, 9.71 and 13.38% for R2, R3, R4 and R5, respectively, compared to the control R1; while both body weight gain and average daily gain were improved by 4.37, 16.37, 12.46 and 17.48% for the same experimental groups compared to control. Adding medicinal plants (fennel seeds or oregano leaves) to rabbit diets significantly (P<0.05) improved feed conversion ratio. Rabbit fed on R5 diet recorded the best feed conversion ratio. Dietary treatments significantly decreased (P<0.05) only EBW (R3), total cholesterol (R3, R4 and R5) and LDL (R5). Rabbits received R5 diet recorded the best total cost, total revenue, net revenue, economical efficiency, relative economic efficiency and feed cost / kg LBW. It can be concluded that adding 0.5% fennel seeds with 0.5% oregano leaves as feed additives to rabbit diets contained 2% oil improved daily gain; both nutrient digestibility coefficients and nutritive values as well as realized the highest value of relative economic efficiency and lowered value of feed cost/ kg live body weight. H.A.A. Omer, Y.A.A. EL-Nomeary, R.I. EL-Kady, Azza M.M. Badr, F.A.F. Ali, Sawsan M. Ahmed, H.M.H. EL- Allawy and Sh. A.M. Ibrahim. Improving the Utilization of Rabbit Diets Containing Vegetable Oil by Using Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) And Oregano (Origanum vulgare L) as Feed Additives. Life Sci J


A method for extraction of high quality DNA from four Opuntia sp. and other cacti using a hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method is described. These plants typically contain high levels of mucilages, complex polysaccharide compounds that bind water, thus preventing DNA extraction by common miniprep methods. The method involves adjusting the amount of tissue used according to species and age, followed by processing in an extraction buffer to separate coarse material. Extended centrifugation and digestion time in a separation buffer with CTAB (2%) was used. Exposing tissue to both buffers maintained polysaccharides in solution and allowed easier recovery of the aqueous phase that contains the DNA. We found that 5-8 g were needed to obtain up to 153 μg.g -1 of DNA from tender tissue. Old tissue yielded 26% less. Extraction of DNA from 5-g samples of tender tissue of the ornamental cacti Stenocereus sp., Cleistocactus sp., and Echinocereus sp. was successful. For these species, average yields ranged from 25 to 53 μg per sample. The DNA obtained was suitable for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, producing clear, distinctive, and reproducible banding patterns useful for a variety of applications.


Relics and images of the Buddha and of other awakened beings occupy important places in ritual practice throughout the Buddhist world. Their significance and sacrality are evidenced by the numerous written and oral narratives that have been composed by Buddhist authors and storytellers to describe how they were obtained and what makes them special. Buddhist narratives on relics and images are mainly found outside of the tradition's canonical literature, either as discrete texts or as sections in larger works. These narratives often supply explanations as to why certain relics shrines and images are worthy of veneration and can be sites for authorizing power and political status. The written and oral narratives about these allegedly extraordinary objects typically include material concerning the origins of revered relics and images linked to the Buddha or other awakened saints, as well as narratives that prophesy and recount how such special objects were found in their present locations and came to be worshipped by devotees. Such textual sources also often associate particular relics and images with the authority of a ruler or a monastic community that possessed them. It seems clear that the more important a given relic or image is for a Buddhist community, the more likely that it will have a narrative that is used to help locate this object in time and space for devotees to understand and worship it properly. In sum, these narratives play a critical role in endowing relics and images with their extraordinary natures and important roles in the devotional and political spheres of Buddhist communities across Asia.


Allergic airway disease, i.e. allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma, is a common health problem. The prevalence is increasing in most countries of the world. Traffic-related air pollution has been found to induce and enhance allergic airway disease, but the underlying mechanisms are not known.Oxylipins are fatty acid metabolites, of which several have been linked to asthmatic airway inflammation. Oxylipin profiles have previously been investigated in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), mainly reflecting the peripheral lung, but not in bronchial wash (BW), which better reflect the proximal airways.The airway epithelium is covered by a respiratory tract lining fluid (RTLF) The RTLF contains antioxidants to protect from oxidative stress, which may be caused by exposure to air pollution. Previous studies have reported diminished levels of the antioxidant ascorbate (vitamin C) in the RTLF of patients with asthma. Little is known about the regulation of vitamin C in the lung.The aim of this thesis was to investigate airway inflammatory responses to diesel exhaust exposure in patients with AR and allergic asthma; to evaluate oxylipin profiles in different regions of the lung in patients with allergic asthma; and to study the distribution of vitamin C transporters in the airways of patients with allergic asthma.Diesel exhaust (PM10 100 μg/m3 for 2 h) induced a neutrophilic airway inflammation in healthy individuals evaluated 18 h after exposure. Patients with AR and asthma did not respond with an enhanced airway inflammation. However, a small increase in myeloperoxidase was found in BAL from patients with AR, as well as decreases in epithelial tryptase and BW stem cell factor. This indicates that other mechanisms than classical inflammation are responsible for the increased sensitivity to traffic-related air pollution in patients with allergic airway disease.Oxylipin baseline profiles differed between peripheral and proximal airways in both allergic asthmatics and healthy individuals. Total oxylipin concentrations, and five individual oxylipins, primarily from the lipoxygenase (LOX) pathway, were elevated in BW from asthmatics compared to healthy controls, supported by immunohistochemical staining of 15-LOX-1 in the bronchial epithelium. This suggests that lung compartment-specific sampling should be considered in future studies.Sodium dependent vitamin C transporter 2 (SVCT2) was, for the first time, found present in the human lung epithelium, localised mainly within goblet cells. A negative correlation between SVCT2+ goblet cells and vitamin C suggests that these cells may play a hitherto unknown function in ascorbate re-uptake and recycling at the air-lung interface.


Little Calumet Headwaters Nature Preserve is a 108-acre tract of woodland and wetland areas that comprise the headwaters of the Little Calumet River in northwestern Indiana. The preserve, consisting of upland hardwood forests, groundwater seeps, and wetland complex, is an area of high diversity due to its topographical variation. A floristic inventory, plot sampling, and seed bank analysis were used to determine the structure and composition of the plant communities. The flora consists of 298 species (27 exotic) representing 188 genera and 84 families. Dominant vegetation of the forest includes Liriodendron tulipifera, Prunus serotina, Packera aurea and Podophyllum peltatum. Each groundwater seep contains similar plant communities with variant species that depend on water flow and topography. They include species such as Symplocarpus foetidus, Impatiens capensis, and Caltha palustris and lack an extensive woody overstory except for occasional Salix spp. or Cornus spp. The wetland complex contains three distinct areas: an open fen dominated by Leersia oryzoides and Cornus spp.; a marsh dominated by Typha latifolia and Carex lasiocarpa; and a shrub-carr portion dominated by Symplocarpus foetidus, Cornus alternifolia, and Salix nigra. A wetland seed bank study resulted in a total of 46 species representing 33 genera and 22 families. A similarity of 71.7% was determined between the seed bank samples and the above-ground vegetation. The entire preserve has a high floristic quality index (FQI) of 70.1 and average mean coefficient of conservatism of 4.1. The high FQI value is influenced by property size and the number of communities in the preserve.


This paper investigates unemployment and labour market rigidities in OECD countries in 1983?1994. The central issue is the taxation-unemployment relationship and whether this relationship is exogenous or simultaneously determined. Hausman specification tests indicate that the impact of taxation on short-term unemployment is positive and exogenous whereas the relationship between taxation and long-term unemployment is simultaneously determined. Correcting for this simultaneity results in a much higher, significant and positive regression coefficient for the impact of taxation. Thus, high taxation seems to be one of the main determinants of long-term unemployment.


Spatial abilities determine our approach to a variety of everyday tasks. Previous research has mainly compared the spatial performance of different groups of participants, regardless of the underlying processes. The aim of this study was to explain individual differences by means of the different strategies employed in spatial problem solving.
The performance of university students (n=256) was measured in small scale tests using the Vandenberg-Kuse Mental Rotations Test, The Paper Folding Test, and The Card Rotations Test. Twenty-three of the highest and 25 of the lowest performers were selected and further tested with computerized mental rotations- and Stroop interference tests. In addition, their large scale spatial abilities were explored in an indoor navigation task.
We predicted that individual performance on the small scale tests may depend on selective decoding allowing successful performers to ignore irrelevant information in the navigation task. The task did encourage the use of a holistic spatial strategy. Nevertheless, the results revealed alternative strategy based on the detail knowledge from the route. This strategy appeared to be independent from the holistic strategy, and unrelated to successful navigation performance.


Article type: Original Article Background: Parkinson's disease as a progressive disorder of the nervous system leads to the disability of postural control system. Objectives: In the present study the effects of Pilates exercises on functional balance in patients with Parkinson's was investigated. Materials and Methods: This control trial included 30 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease who were selected as subjects randomly and assigned into either exercise groups or control group. Participants in exercise and control groups attended an 8-week Pilates program or walking program respectively. Functional balance, core stability and lower limb strength were evaluated by Fullerton Balance Scale (FAB), valid functional core stability and strength tests respectively, before and after interventions. In order to analyze the data paired samples t-test and independent samples t-test and SPSS version 22 were used. Results: Attending an eight-week Pilates exercise was associated with a significant improvement in functional balance, core stability indicators and lower limb strength (p=0.000), while the difference of the variables in control group was not significant. Also the difference between the results of functional balance, core stability and lower limb strength of two groups in post-test was significant (p=0.000). Conclusion: Given that Pilates exercises involve both musculoskeletal system and nervous system, can be an effective intervention to improving balance in patients with Parkinson's disease.


The aim of this study in Curaça, Bahia, Northeast Brazil was to explore possible factors associated with the infestation of human dwellings by Triatoma brasiliensis or Triatoma pseudomaculata, two sylvatic triatomine species. We use multiple logistic regression analysis to show how structural features of the peridomiciliary area combine with the number of animals and sociological factors to allow infestation of some dwellings. It is suggested that T. brasiliensis is associated with human activities, while T. pseudomaculata is associated with vegetation and animals. Peridomiciliary farm animals are a strong risk factor for triatomine infestation.


The effect of growth conditions on both the appearance and the antigenic profile of cells of Enterococcus faecalis was investigated using electron micrographs of ruthenium red stained and sectioned cells and SDS-PAGE and blotting techniques respectively. Three specific antigens of molecular weights 73, 40 and 37 kdaltons were of particular interest being expressed most strongly after growth in serum. This medium was deemed to most closely mimic jn vjvo growth conditions reflecting an environment similar to that which the microorganisms would encounter during bacteraemia, preceding the colonisation of the endocardium and the development of infective endocarditis. The 40 and 37 kdalton antigens were shown by immunoqold labelling to be exposed on the surface of the cells although they did not appear to be connected with the fimbriae shown to exist on some of the E. faecalis cells examined by negative staining. The 73, 40 and 37 kdalton antigens were crudely purified using sarkosyl and ammonium sulphate precipitation, and used as the basis of a serodiagnostic test for E. faecalis endocarditis using an ELISA system. This was tested in a blind trial and the success rates were 94% for positives, 90% for negatives with endocarditis caused by other organisms and 80% for E. faecalis infections other than endocarditis. The binding of E.faecalis cells to the serum proteins fibronectin and albumin was investigated using 125I labelled proteins, followed by Scatchard analysis. This showed that· E.faecalis cells do loosely bind large amounts of both of these proteins, thus surely affecting the way in which the host's immune system perceives the cells. The E.faecalis receptor for fibronectin was partially characterised and appeared to involve protein and/or carbohydrate containing components. but did not involve LTA or the 40 and 37 kdalton species specific antigens.


In this article, we evaluate the performance of a commercially available lifetime-based optode and compare it with data obtained by other methods. We performed a set of 10 different tests, including targeted laboratory evaluations and field studies, covering a wide range of situations from shallow coastal waters and wastewater treatment plants to abyssal depths. Our principal conclusion is that, owing to high accuracy (± 2 µ M), long-term stability (more than 20 months), lack of pressure hysteresis, and limited cross-sensitivity, this method is overall more suitable for oxygen monitoring than other methods.


Sharing is said to be fast becoming the new approach to consuming. For example, what is the
rationale for purchasing an electric drill for a simple DIY job if it is for drilling only one hole if one
could be shared within a community? What is the benefit of having a car or vehicle that spends
much of its time in a garage when it could be utilised by others? Also, why not offer an allocated
room for guests seeking temporary accommodation on a more regular basis? These are all
questions that are pertinent to the sharing or peer-to-peer (P2P) economy.
Within the last decade, online P2P platforms have been launched by creative and innovative
start-ups that bring the different parties into contact (i.e. private owners and users) to undertake
a transaction with each other. Unlike car rental companies or hotels/guest houses, such
platforms offer products or services without the need for a central mediator, which makes the
transaction a less expensive alternative.
The following paper explores the concept of the sharing economy in terms of its emergence and
how it is funded, how it has been defined and classified, existing and important trends, how it
compares with traditional models, and what existing examples of sharing economy businesses
look like. We also explore whether or not the sharing economy poses a threat or opportunity to
existing businesses, the challenges that the sharing economy sector faces, along with
implications for business and how the sharing economy could look in the future.


Samuel L. Clemens lost the 1882 lawsuit declaring his exclusive right to use "Mark Twain" as a commercial trademark, but he succeeded in the marketplace, where synergy among his comic journalism, live performances, authorship, and entrepreneurship made "Mark Twain" the premier national and international brand of American humor in his day. And so it remains in ours, because Mark Twain's humor not only expressed views of self and society well ahead of its time, but also anticipated ways in which humor and culture coalesce in today's postindustrial information economy--the global trade in media, performances, and other forms of intellectual property that began after the Civil War. In Twain's Brand: Humor in Contemporary American Culture, Judith Yaross Lee traces four hallmarks of Twain's humor that are especially significant today. Mark Twain's invention of a stage persona comically conflated with his biographical self lives on in contemporary performances by Garrison Keillor, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. The postcolonial critique of Britain that underlies America's nationalist tall tale tradition not only self-destructs in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but also drives the critique of American Exceptionalism in Philip Roth's literary satires. The semi-literate writing that gives Adventures of Huckleberry Finn its "vernacular vision"--wrapping cultural critique in ostensibly innocent transgressions and misunderstandings--has a counterpart in the apparently untutored drawing style and social critique seen in The Simpsons, Lynda Barry's comics, and The Boondocks. And the humor business of recent decades depends on the same brand-name promotion, cross-media synergy, and copyright practices that Clemens pioneered and fought for a century ago. Twain's Brand highlights the modern relationship among humor, commerce, and culture that were first exploited by Mark Twain.


This paper develops cooperative communication strategies based upon linear stochastic approximation algorithms for the Gaussian relay channel with several configurations of perfect and noisy feedback. In addition to being simple, the strategies can be shown to provide doubly exponential error decay in the case of perfect feedback and appealing tradeoffs between effective transmission rate and reliability in the case of noisy feedback. By contrast, straightforward application of the classic Schalkwijk-Kailath schemes offer enhanced rate or reliability in the presence of noisy feedback, but do not provide a tradeoff between the two.


In this research, a novel methodology based on the simulation of a call for research projects was applied for the training of STEM secondary school teachers, with results raised and analyzed to determine the response of the students to this new methodology. The activity was applied in the same course during two academic years with student groups from very different teaching specialties such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, biology and geology, technology and health processes who were studying the Master's Degree in Secondary Education, specifically, the 3 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) course of Initiation to Educational Research (IER), this Master's course being mandatory for working as a secondary professor. The Master's students are asked to write their own research project proposals for a fictitious call on a topic freely chosen by them, which might have been related to the research line of the final Master's thesis. In it, they had to propose all the contents studied in the course (such as writing a brief state of the art, establishing a research team, setting objectives, a description of the methodology for educational research, instruments, a plan for the dissemination of the results, the needed resources, etc.). The students' perceptions of the usefulness and reality of what they had learned for their professional development and for writing their final theses were assessed. The results based on the perceptions of the students demonstrate that the activity had been useful for assimilating concepts related to educational research in the context of secondary education (research skills), which will be useful for improving the critical sense of the students (teacher candidates) and for their professional future in the context of applied research in day-to-day secondary teacher activities. Furthermore, the results show the activity was useful for the development of the final Master's thesis. The difficult aspects that the activity presented for them were analyzed. The results were statistically compared for the students of the different specialties, deducing, in all cases, a homogeneous good acceptance with slight differences between them.


Over the last two decades, tremendous progress has been made in vitrectomy surgery, most importantly the significant reduction of the gauge and implementation of microincision vitrectomy surgery (MIVS). At the same time, the introduction of wide-viewing systems and the utilization of vital dyes to better recognize structures like the vitreous and membranes have taken place. This volume starts with the fundamentals of MIVS, introducing both the mechanics and the physics of the latest generation of vitrectomy devices, followed by a description of the discrete gauge systems (i.e. 23-, 25-, and 27-gauge). Individualized but mandatory settings, techniques, and technology are also discussed in detail. There are also more than ten chapters outlining concrete surgical strategies that give surgeons a thorough overview of the procedures. Encompassing an overview of the recent advances in the field, this publication provides a valuable tool for general ophthalmologists as well as vitreoretinal specialists to easily review and master up-to-date information and surgical pearls.


A large part of the literature published in the 'Global South' is barely covered by bibliographic databases. Institutional policies increasingly require researchers globally to publish in 'international' journals, draining local infrastructures. The standard-setting power of 'Global South' scholars is minimised further. My main aim is to render visible the ways in which European academic libraries contribute to this situation. It is explained as a consequence of specific features of current world society, referred to as coloniality, social injustice, and quantified communication. The thesis analyses peripherality conceptually and scientometrically: based on a sample, how is Southeast African basic social sciences and humanities (SSH) research integrated in global scholarly communication, and how do local dissemination infrastructures develop under these conditions? Finally, how are professional values, specifically neutrality, and workflows of European academic libraries, interrelated with these developments? The methodological approach of the thesis is multi-faceted, including conceptual analyses, scientometrics, and a short survey of collection managers and an analysis of the corresponding libraries' collection policies. The off-mainstream decolonial scientometric approach required the construction of a database from multiple sources. Southeast Africa was selected as a field for some of the empirical studies included, because out of all rarely studied local communities to which a peripheral status is commonly attributed, the large majority of Southeast African authors use English as their primary academic language. This excludes linguistic reasons for the peripheral attribution.The theoretical and conceptual point of departure is to analyse scholarly communication as a self-referential social system with global reach (Luhmann). In this thesis, an unorthodox understanding of social systems theory is developed, providing it with cultural humility, inspired by decolonial thinking. The value of the approach lies in its in-built capacity for social change: peripheries are constructed communicatively, and culturally humble communication avoids adding to the accumulation of peripheral references attributed to the 'Global South', for instance by suspending the incarceration of area studies which tends to subsume any research from and about Africa as African studies, remote from the core of SSH. While centrality serves the necessary purpose of reducing the overwhelming complexity of global research, communicative centres can just as well be constructed as topical, and do not require a spatial attachment to be functional. Another advantage of this approach is its awareness of different levels of observation, differentiating, for instance, between whether the academic librarian's neutrality is imagined as playing out in interaction with the user (passive neutrality), as representing the diversity of the research system (active neutrality), or as balancing social bias running through society at large, and hence furthering social justice (culturally humble neutrality). (Less)


This essay considers the overlap between ͑Ali Shari'ati's ethical reflections and his discussion of insurrectionary violence. Davari argues that the earlier lectures discussing bāzgasht be khishtan (a return to self) formed the conceptual foundation for his advocacy of shahādat (martyrdom) as a model of self-formation. These intellectual tendencies were rooted in a tradition of anticolonial and insurgent political thought, exemplified in Shari'ati's case by an engagement with the writings of Frantz Fanon. Shari'ati's borrowing of Fanon's notions of return and decolonial violence involved alterations within a shared framework. Most notably, Shari'ati emphasized the prospect of a return to a religious self, redefined as political ethics. Whereas Fanon privileged an embodied experience of racialization as the most fundamental constraining and enabling factor in the realization of a new humanism, Shari'ati's presentation of the "new man" as shahid involved a hermeneutic relationship with a collective self imagined across historical time. In Shari'ati's hands, Fanon's eschewal of history became an engagement with historical memory in the present tense. In the process, the body was reimagined as that which dies, its physical death marking the future where Fanon's new man was said to be found. The shahid's choosing to die—as opposed to the colonized's need to kill the colonizer—led to the revision of two central conclusions pertaining to the process of decolonization: the discussion of means as ends, and the critique of a hierarchical relationship between revolutionary leaders and the led.


While large feedlots commonly hedge corn and fed cattle prices, weather remains the largest uncontrollable component of production risk. This research examines the economic losses to cattle feeding associated with extreme weather. Profit losses are assessed using nonlinear regressions that relate weather outcomes, based on the Comprehensive Climate Index ( Mader, Johnson, and Gaughan , 2010 ), and their impact on production variables. Actuarially fair insurance premium rates are derived for an insurance product designed to mitigate the potential cost of extreme weather. Finally, we discuss additional issues associated with using weather-index insurance products and insuring feedlot cattle against adverse weather.


Feed restriction is a common tool utilized in broiler breeder production. The period of most severe feed restriction is during the rearing phase. In order to feed at the proper requirements the maintenance requirements of the birds must be estimated. Biometric models have been previously developed, however these estimates may loose accuracy due to changes in genetic selection criteria. In order to verify the estimates of metabolizable energy of maintenance (MEm), a study was conducted from 0-20 weeks with a total of 8,500 Ross 308 females placed at two separate commercial farms. The study also examined the effect of temperature on maintenance requirements of commercial broiler breeders. Although the effect of temperature was inconclusive, the estimates of maintenance requirements were consistent with other experimental findings in the literature.


Increased ocean acidification from fossil fuel CO 2 invasion, from temperature-driven changes in respiration, and from possible leakage from sub-seabed geologic CO 2 disposal has aroused concern over the impacts of elevated CO 2 concentrations on marine life. Discussion of these impacts has so far focused only on changes in the oceanic bulk fluid properties (ΔpH, Δ[∑ CO 2 ], etc.) as the critical variable and with a major focus on carbonate shell formation. Here we describe the rate problem for animals that must export CO 2 at about the same rate at which O 2 is consumed. We analyse the basic properties controlling CO 2 export within the diffusive boundary layer around marine animals in an ocean changing in temperature ( T ) and CO 2 concentration in order to compare the challenges posed by O 2 uptake under stress with the equivalent problem of CO 2 expulsion. The problem is more complex than that for a non-reactive gas, since with CO 2 the influence of the seawater carbonate acid-base system needs to be considered. These reactions significantly facilitate CO 2 efflux compared to O 2 intake at equal temperature, pressure and fluid flow rate under typical oceanic concentrations. The effect of these reactions can be described by an enhancement factor, similar to that widely used for CO 2 invasion at the sea surface. While organisms do need to actively regulate flow over their surface to thin the boundary layer to take up enough O 2 , this seems to be not necessary to facilitate CO 2 efflux. Instead, the main impacts of rising oceanic CO 2 will most likely be those associated with classical ocean acidification science. Regionally, as with O 2 , the combination of T , P and pH/ p CO 2 creates a zone of maximum CO 2 stress at around 1000 m depth.


Although a rather shy, private man, William Burroughs gave a good many interviews during his lifetime, some in prominent publications, others in obscure forums. The interviews collected here provide an aperture into the philosophies, methods, and quirks of a man who wrote Queer, Junky, Naked Lunch, Nova Express, Cities of the Red Night, My Education, and many other works. When he died in 1997, Burroughs was likely one of the most widely recognizable figures in contemporary American literature. His image circulated on album jackets, in Nike commercials, and in films, as though proving his notion that pictures and words are viruses, invading any receptive host, taking hold, and replicating themselves. Not surprisingly, the topics Burroughs touches upon are wide-ranging: his relationships to the Beats, legends surrounding his personal life, drugs, gay liberation, collaboration, the cut-up technique, science fiction, politics, conspiracy theory, censorship, cats, guns, David Cronenberg's movie adaptation of Naked Lunch, shotgun art, dreams, and life in Lawrence, Kansas, where he spent his last years. From these interviews emerges a full, undiluted portait of a writer who is difficult to capture in biography. Speaking of the Paris Review interview Alfred Kazin calls Burroughs ""an engineer of the pen, a calmly interested specialist of the new processes. When Burroughs makes philosophic and scientific claims for his disorderly collections of data, we happily recognize under the externally calm surface of the interview, the kind of inner frenzy that is his genius--and which, in all of us, his books make an appeal."" Kazin's view applies as well for the other interviews in this collection. Allen Hibbard is an associate professor of English and the director of graduate studies at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of Paul Bowles: A Study of the Short Fiction and of many articles.