In this investigation, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) ultrathin films are prepared on a variety of solid surfaces by a simple and fast spin coating method, and patterned with the natural biopolymer cellulose via lithographic methods. Two surface patterning methods are developed to create coatings of hydrophilic cellulose, regenerated from trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC) on the PDMS thin films. In method 1, spin coated TMSC films on PDMS are covered with a lithographic mask and exposed to vapors of hydrochloric acid, which results in spatially separated cellulose pads surrounded by TMSC. Subsequent selective dissolution of TMSC with organic solvents results in a direct anchoring of cellulose pads on the PDMS. In method 2, PDMS thin films covered with a lithographic mask are exposed to UV/ozone, spray coated with TMSC and regenerated to give cellulose. The conversion of hydrophobic TMSC into hydrophilic cellulose coatings is confirmed by wettability and fluorescence measurements. The developed structures are highly transparent and stable in aqueous solutions (pH 3–9) and organic solvents. The surface properties of the polymer films are characterized using a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D), ellipsometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle and streaming potential measurements.


Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed 'sceptics' claim to be unbiased analysts combating 'junk science'. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 per cent of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are linked to conservative think tanks (CTTs). Further, we analyse CTTs involved with environmental issues and find that 90 per cent of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection.


A small group of individuals with mental illness is repeatedly involved in violence. Little is known about how often and how consistently these high-risk individuals experience delusions or hallucinations just before a violent incident. To address these questions, data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study were used to identify 305 violent incidents associated with 100 former inpatients with repeated violence (representing 50% of incidents and 9% of participants) and test whether psychosis-preceded incidents cluster within individuals. Results indicated that (a) psychosis immediately preceded 12% of incidents, (b) individuals were "fairly" consistent in their violence type (ICC = .42), and (c) those with exclusively "non-psychosis-preceded" violence (80%) could be distinguished from a small group who also had some psychosis-preceded violence (20%). These findings suggest that psychosis sometimes foreshadows violence for a fraction of high-risk individuals, but violence prevention efforts should also target factors like anger and social deviance.


This article proposes an account of how two teachers' labour federations have been reacting to austerity measures in public education. Current austerity measures have coincided with the renewal of collective agreements, thus allowing the study of how unions link bargaining stances to wider issues of service quality and accessibility. Union responses are the result of at least three influences: the institutional framework for public sector collective bargaining and worker representation, the previous orientation of members and their organisations towards social and work relations, and ongoing innovations for renewal and member engagement. We posit that union responses can contribute to renewal if they are guided by concerns to redefine union purpose, union organisation and building capacities. Under these conditions, unions are able to engage members and push forward an alternative agenda to that of the government. In doing so, they may be able to forge temporary alliances with outside stakeholders, namely parents. Analysis of union responses should consider the dialectic between union renewal effort and the opportunities and constraints of the institutional framework for public sector collective bargaining. The challenge for these two labour federations is in sustaining member engagement and activism beyond the current context of collective bargaining.


Machinery condition monitoring techniques are carried out based on the knowledge of the characteristics of signals obtained from a machine or plant. These signals are often non stationary signals whose frequency changes over time due to the time-varying natures of machine operations and fault effects. Conventional signal processing techniques are developed based on stationary signals and cannot reveal the time information of the frequency changes. The work undertaken in this research presents a generic study of non-stationary signal processing for machinery condition monitoring.

Starting with examining the concept of non-stationary signals, it can be identified that most condition monitoring signals fall into two main categories: weak non-stationary signals, such as motor electrical current signal and strong non-stationary signal such as machinery vibration and acoustic signals.

For developing techniques to process these two typical non-stationary signals, two experiments were carried out to obtain these them. Firstly, an induction motor drive system was set up based on a two-stage reciprocating compressor; the motor current signals were then acquired for compressor fault detection and diagnosis. Secondly, a set of vibration and acoustic measurement instrumentation was set up based on a diesel engine test system. The engine vibration and acoustic signals were collected for further analysis for engine combustion condition monitoring. The engine was fuelled by different biofuels during data collection allowing a new and efficient method of verifying different sustainable fuels to be developed based non intrusive vibro-acoustic measurements in conjunction with non-stationary signal analysis methods.

A time domain based method, dynamic time warping, was validated and improved for analysing the motor current signal to detect and classify the common faults of reciprocating compressors. Based on the limitations of classical dynamic time warping, a phase estimation and compensation approach is developed to reduce the singularity effect of classical dynamic time warping in order to obtain accurate diagnostic results. A sliding window was also designed to improve computing efficiency. The diagnostic results show that the accuracy and reliability of detection and classification by the proposed dynamic time warping method is higher than that from Fourier transform spectrum and envelope analysis. In addition, the fault detection and classification is based on a root mean square (RMS) linear classifier processes combined with the proposed dynamic time warping method, and is based entirely on time domain analysis which is easier to apply to a real-time condition monitoring system. It was proved that the proposed dynamic time warping is a novel and efficient method for cyclostationary/weak non-stationary analysis.

Various non-stationary signal processing techniques based on time-frequency domain analysis, including Wigner-Ville distribution, fractional Fourier transform and continuous wavelet transform, are investigated to process the engine vibration and the acoustic signals for the condition monitoring of engine combustion. A sound pressure level (SPL) indicator is designed based on the Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) analysis and the fractional Fourier transform filtering of the engine vibro-acoustic signals. The processing results demonstrate that the combustion induced acoustics can be extracted for the diagnostics of engine combustion process and for condition monitoring.

A root mean square (RMS) linear classifier is developed based on the engine acoustic analysis by time synchronous average and continuous wavelet transform, the classification demonstrates that the root mean square (RMS) values of the continuous wavelet transform coefficients can be used to evaluate the fuel for engine combustion and indicate the engine operating conditions. The analysis results verify that the engine vibro-acoustics have the potential to be used to diagnose the engine combustion process and to monitor the engine operating conditions with the application of suitable non-stationary signal processing techniques. This can be used instead of the cylinder pressure data which is both intrusive and costly to obtain.

Finally, the conclusions and achievements are given based on the entirety of this research work, and suggestions are presented for further research.


OBJECTIVES:Although cigarette smoking is the most well-established environmental risk factor for pancreatic cancer, the interaction between smoking and other risk factors has not been assessed. We evaluated the independent effects of multiple risk factors for pancreatic cancer and determined whether the magnitude of cigarette smoking was modified by other risk factors in men and women.METHODS:We conducted a hospital-based case-control study involving 808 patients with pathologically diagnosed pancreatic cancer and 808 healthy frequency-matched controls. Information on risk factors was collected by personal interview, and unconditional logistic regression was used to determine adjusted odds ratios (AORs) by the maximum-likelihood method.RESULTS:Cigarette smoking, family history of pancreatic cancer, heavy alcohol consumption (>60 mL ethanol/day), diabetes mellitus, and history of pancreatitis were significant risk factors for pancreatic cancer. We found synergistic interactions between cigarette smoking and family history of pancreatic cancer (AOR 12.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.6–108.9) and diabetes mellitus (AOR 9.3, 95% CI 2.0–44.1) in women, according to an additive model. Approximately 23%, 9%, 3%, and 5% of pancreatic cancer cases in this study were related to cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, heavy alcohol consumption, and family history of pancreatic cancer, respectively.CONCLUSIONS:The significant synergy between these risk factors suggests a common pathway for carcinogenesis of the pancreas. Determining the underlying mechanisms for such synergies may lead to the development of pancreatic cancer prevention strategies for high-risk individuals.


When scientists engage in public advocacy, or indeed in any public comment on controversial issues, there is a risk they will come under attack. To reduce the possibility of reprisals, it is worthwhile preparing, in several ways, including learning from the experience of others and making mild comments to see the reaction. If there is a serious risk, reducing expenditures and transferring assets can provide extra financial security. Building networks for personal support is crucially important, including family and friends, work colleagues and various others. When coming under attack, it is important to document actions, seek advice and behave sensibly. The most powerful counter to attacks is mobilisation of support. It is important to support scientists who come under attack, as this protects scientific freedom for all.


This document contains definitions of a wide range of concepts specific to and widely used within temporal databases. In addition to providing definitions, the document also includes separate explanations of many of the defined concepts. Two sets of criteria are included. First, all included concepts were required to satisfy four relevance criteria, and, second, the naming of the concepts was resolved using a set of evaluation criteria. The concepts are grouped into three categories: concepts of general database interest, of temporal database interest, and of specialized interest. This document is a digest of a full version of the glossary1. In addition to the material included here, the full version includes substantial discussions of the naming of the concepts.The consensus effort that lead to this glossary was initiated in Early 1992. Earlier status documents appeared in March 1993 and December 1992 and included terms proposed after an initial glossary appeared in SIGMOD Record in September 1992. The present glossary subsumes all the previous documents. It was most recently discussed at the "ARPA/NSF International Workshop on an Infrastructure for Temporal Databases," in Arlington, TX, June 1993, and is recommended by a significant part of the temporal database community. The glossary meets a need for creating a higher degree of consensus on the definition and naming of temporal database concepts.


To promote forest landscape restoration (FLR), national governments have embarked on far reaching policy reforms to reclassify lands targeted for restoration, designate legitimate forest stewards and define acceptable land use practices, responsibilities and benefits. Policy reforms intended to influence forest management behavior face complex challenges but policy makers can learn from past experience to better design forest restoration initiatives that address forest governance. This paper attempts to distill lessons by examining national reform processes and their local manifestations in diverse socio-political and environmental contexts. Specifically, we compare local dynamics in Nepal, China and Ethiopia to illustrate how distinct policy reform processes intended to promote FLR changed governance institutions and encouraged local participation. These cases demonstrate how policy reforms, particularly those targeting property rights, have influenced local participation in forest restoration efforts, and modified land use behavior to increase forest cover as well as the benefits local households received from forests.


Estonia has adopted the one of the most radical programs of stabilization and transformation amongst not only the former Soviet Union countries but among previously centrally planned economies as well. The commodity and service markets were balanced mainly through the price liberalization and introduction of the internally convertible national currency. This was supplimented with the austerity in public consumption and surpluss in the state budget. The changes were also associated with a radical shift in the foreign trade rearientation. The economy that previously was oriented to almost costless recources from the former Soviet Union and work mostly for the Soviet "markets" seems to be very well adjusted to western markets and broad participation in the world economy.


"Interprofessional Education occurs when two or more professionals learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care" (CAIPE 2002). Interprofessional education forms part of the Standards for the Initial Education and Training of Pharmacists. Working with and understanding the role of another profession has been shown to positively impact on the quality of care of the patient. Following positive pharmacy student feedback from visits to podiatry clinics an interprofessional learning workshop with case - based scenarios was developed. These were based on patients with high risk medical conditions that would impact on the work of both professions. Data from the feedback forms was evaluated and analysed to determine whether the workshop increased knowledge of the British National Formulary (BNF), the prescribing process and gave an insight in to the role of other healthcare professionals. We discuss how the student's learning has been enhanced by the contribution of another professional group. The workshop was positively received. Students were observed working together discussing the patients' conditions and issues relating to their care. This initially revolved around the students' area of knowledge; however, as the session progressed it became apparent that the students were learning with, from and about each other for the benefit of patient care.


Background: This thesis aims to ascertain the extent and nature of institutional discrimination against people with mental illness in specialist health care settings in Romania. The hypothesis is that such discrimination exists. Building on the definition in EU directives, discrimination is defined, for the purposes of this thesis, as harm that is caused to individuals or groups on the basis of identifiable characteristics bearing negative connotations. Harm is defined as the receipt of care that is less good than, inequitable in comparison to that received by others with similar needs, (long-term physical and mental illness), on grounds of stigma against people with mental illness. To assess the presence of discrimination, two groups were identified suffering from disorders that, although at first sight quite different, actually have much in common. They are schizophrenia and type 1 diabetes. Methods: The research method was Rapid Assessment, involving initial assessment, study area profile, contextual assessment, and health intervention assessment. The presence of horizontal inequity was determined by means of a de jure and a de facto assessment of specialist health care for people with schizophrenia and type 1 diabetes, using a set of criteria for aspects of care that are equally applicable to the management of both conditions, namely: 1) accessibility of specialist services; 2) availability of evidence-based treatment and care; 3) delivery of care; 4) quality of facilities; 5) protection of human and civil rights. The presence of stigma was determined the by ascertaining whether those in a position of authority and influence, namely the health professionals interviewed during the fieldwork, displayed stigmatising of attitudes and beliefs, language or approaches to treatment. The research triangulated data collected using a range of methods that include systematic review and comparative analysis of laws, policy documents and other literature, interview strategies (focus groups, group interviews and semi-structured interviews) and observations of practice. Analysis of the data involved three methods: content analysis, narrative structure analysis, and critical appraisal. For the fieldwork, a total of 228 participants (service users and health professionals) were selected using multi-stage sampling, covering each condition in each specialist setting (mental health acute and chronic inpatient services and outpatient services as well as inpatient and a comparative analysis o f schizophrenia and diabetes in Romania outpatient services for type 1 diabetes) in two selected locations in Romania (Bucharest and Slatina). Data collection took place between the 19th of September 2007 and the 8th of January Findings: In assessing equity, weaknesses were found in management of both conditions, particularly poor access to medication for associated health problems and lack of follow-up after discharge, poor continuity of care. In many areas, treatment and care for people with schizophrenia was worse generally, though some aspects were equitable: access to care in community-based settings, geographical accessibility of services, access to services when needed (temporal access), access to different parts of the system, as needed (referral system), financial access to appropriate care, access to social care, availability of enough staff in all settings, involvement of service users in shaping the services, involvement of families and carers, protection of service users' privacy and safety, decent living environment and hygiene of health facilities. Patients with schizophrenia were significantly disadvantaged in: access to a comprehensive range of evidence-based specialized services and to qualified and competent multidisciplinary staff, the quality of health facilities, access to care for other health conditions and, availability of individual treatment plans developed for each patient, empowerment of service users to care for themselves and live as independent a life as possible, and respect of all human and civil rights on health facilities and a number of patient rights. In assessing stigma, I found that all types of mental health professionals, in all settings, stigmatised people with schizophrenia, manifest through their attitudes and beliefs, language and approaches to treatment. Conclusions: This research found that people with schizophrenia suffer direct institutional discrimination in Romania, manifest inequities in both the legislation that applies to them and the specialist care delivered when compared with people with type 1 diabetes, and that these inequities arise in a context of stigmatising attitudes to people with severe mental health problems by those in a position of authority and influence (health professionals).


This study explores the implementation of an integrated capital budgeting visual mapping framework comprised of both Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Real Options Analysis (ROA) techniques. Physical asset investment decisions are based largely on rigid discounted cash flow tools which provide untimely and incomplete decisional criteria. While literature outlines the widespread use of traditional DCF techniques, it nevertheless reveals extensive limitations, including its static inflexibility and slow-to-evolve framework. ROA is a more recent valuation tool based on stock option theory. It brings into account added value found in the flexibility of managerial decision-making and uncertain conditions. This study implements a combined DCF and ROA capital budgeting tool within a Physical Asset Management (PAM) environment. The validity of the framework is realised through an industry-relevant case study presented by a South African mining company.


Twenty-three species of cheilostome bryozoans are described from the Malaysian islands of Penang and Langkawi based on a brief reconnaisance survey of shore localities. These are the first bryozoans to be formally described from either island and they demonstrate the potential for further research on these neglected suspension feeders. Of the 23 species recorded, 12 are anascans, half of which are malacostegines, and 11 are ascophorans. The new combinations Acanthodesia falsitenuis (Liu, 1992), A. perambulata (Louis & Menon, 2009) and A. irregulata (Liu, 1992) are introduced. Most of the species recorded are widespread in the Indo-Pacific, and some are apparently globally distributed in the tropics and subtropics, including the invasive fouling species Bugula neritina , Hippoporina indica and Schizoporella japonica , as well as the coral reef associates Cranosina coronata and Hippopodina feegeensis . Plastic debris and glass bottles were encrusted by Jellyella eburnea , a coloniser of floating biological and man-made objects that is becoming widespread in the tropics and subtropics of the world's oceans.


Taking as its focus the 'actor-creator's' process in devising practices, this study explores the notion of the 'poetic body' developed by French theatre pedagogue Jacques Lecoq (1921 - 1999) and the writings of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884 - 1962) on the 'poetics of imagination.' The overarching aim is to originate a new 'embodied poetics' whereby the sensate, feeling body actively explores correspondences with the 'material elements' of earth, air, fire and water. These are experienced as 'poeticising substances' – catalysts and conductors for an embodied imagination. More specifically, this thesis asks the following question: What new understandings can a relational encounter between Lecoq's pedagogy and Bachelard's 'poetic imagining' reveal about the 'poetic body' and how might these new understandings originate a devising process? I combine three solo practical projects with accompanying written analysis, to first interrogate the working methods I have inherited as a practitioner and teacher since my time as a student at the Lecoq School, from 1987 to 1989. This is followed by an embodied exploration of Bachelard's 'poetic imagining' process through my own practice. In the final project, I develop an 'embodied poetics' for devising, based on the 'actor-creator's' active participation with the world and a recognition that the poeticising 'I' is intimately entwined with the material elemental substances that comprise it. In considering the material elements as originating substances for an imagining body, their dialectic qualities offer infinite possibilities for a permanent renewal, expansion and transformation of practice. This study also proposes a new reading of Lecoq's notion of the 'poetic body' from an embodied perspective. Equally, in applying Bachelard's 'poetic imagining' to the devising process, I seek to revivify and reposition his philosophical standpoint from a contemporary perspective within the field of interdisciplinary practices.


Science at the Theater: Berkeley Lab scientists reveal the latest research on how to reduce your carbon footprint at home, work, and when you shop. Learn how even small choices can have a big impact. Iain Walker's research focuses on optimizing the energy use and comfort of buildings. He's a staff scientist in the Energy Performance of Buildings Group, which is part of Berkeley Lab's Environmen...tal Energy Technologies Division. He's also executive editor of Home Energy Magazine. Cindy Regnier is a Project Manager in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab. She has over 13 years of mechanical engineering design experience, with a focus on low-energy buildings. Her projects have included several LEED Platinum buildings and the design of a 200,000 sf carbon neutral, net-zero energy science museum in San Francisco. Eric Masanet is Acting Deputy Leader of the International Energy Studies Group at Berkeley Lab. His research focuses on life-cycle assessments and energy efficiency analysis. He holds a joint research appointment in the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley.


The development of Java has seen increasing attention as the most popular platform for distributed computing. However, despite Java's advantages in the area of portability and rapid prototyping, its efficiency is unavoidably compromised through its commitment to portability. In this paper we present performance analysis and comparisons of evaluation results for both Java and C/Fortran on three different message-passing parallel platforms-a shared memory multi-processor (Sun E4000), a Linux cluster, and a distributed memory computer (IBM SP-2). The NAS Embarrassingly Parallel and Integer Sort benchmarks were selected for this evaluation. Both the original Fortran/C codes and Java versions of these two kernels were used for obtaining the performance measurements as part of our project. The evaluation results demonstrate the feasibility of message-passing computing with Java on a wide range of computer platforms. Depending on the system and the software components installed, significant impact on the message-passing performance will have the efficiency of the native MPI library and the version of the Java platform.


We examined how spawning Pacific salmon (genus Oncorhynchus) affect streamwater concentrations of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus and dissolved organic matter in Peterson Creek, a stream in southeast Alaska. When spawning salmon were present, concentrations of ammonium (NH4‐N) increased by more than 100 times over prespawning levels and concentrations of soluble reactive phosphorus increased by more than an order of magnitude. In contrast, concentrations of nitrate (NO3‐N) increased by only two to three times during spawning and were not significantly higher than at an upstream reference site with no salmon. During spawning, concentrations of dissolved organic carbon and dissolved organic nitrogen were significantly higher in the spawning reach compared with the upstream reference site. The influx of salmon‐derived dissolved organic matter (DOM) altered the fluorescence index (FI), which has previously been used to distinguish between terrestrial and aquatic sources of DOM, with the FI increasing significantly during the salmon run. Salmon DOM was rich in protein compared with the DOM derived from the terrestrial portion of the watershed. Spawning salmon may be an important source of labile DOM in Peterson Creek.


The purposes of the study were to obtain and analyze data on the need for, and desired characteristics of, faculty in deaf education at American institutions of higher education (IHEs), and to assess the present and projected status of doctoral-level teacher preparation programs in deaf education at American IHEs. Program directors and coordinators provided information on current and projected faculty openings, the number of active doctoral students, faculty research interests, program strengths, and needs in the field. Results indicated a pending shortage due to faculty retirements and a paucity of doctoral-level graduates. Most faculty listed literacy and language as a primary research interest as well as a program strength. The ability to generate new knowledge through research was found to be less desirable for future faculty than teaching ability. Suggestions for improving doctoral preparation and moving the field to evidence-based practices are provided.


In a number of disciplines, the data (e.g., graphs, manifolds) to be analyzed are non-Euclidean in nature. Geometric deep learning corresponds to techniques that generalize deep neural network models to such non-Euclidean spaces. Several recent papers have shown how convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be extended to learn with graph-based data. In this work, we study the setting where the data (or measurements) are ordered, longitudinal or temporal in nature and live on a Riemannian manifold -- this setting is common in a variety of problems in statistical machine learning, vision and medical imaging. We show how recurrent statistical recurrent network models can be defined in such spaces. We give an efficient algorithm and conduct a rigorous analysis of its statistical properties. We perform extensive numerical experiments demonstrating competitive performance with state of the art methods but with significantly less number of parameters. We also show applications to a statistical analysis task in brain imaging, a regime where deep neural network models have only been utilized in limited ways.


Perhaps one of the world's most important groups of fish are the species within the Pacific trout complex, due to their harvest in fisheries and use in aquaculture. This dissertation consists of an in-depth evaluation of this group at different scales, from the assessment of biological traits throughout the reconstruction of pedigrees in two populations to a phylogeographic examination of multiple largely undescribed species. Here, a combination of novel molecular techniques allowed me to address critical ecological questions for the management and conservation of this group.In chapter one, I describe the discovery, characterization and development of single nucleotide polymorphisms for O. mykiss for the study of ecological interactions, phylogeography, and conservation status. These tools have great power for population genetic analysis, and for individual identification and pedigree reconstruction. The last allows the tracking of families, and an unprecedented level of evaluation of natural and hatchery populations.Chapter two expands the scope of these molecular tools to provide a powerful means of understanding of biological traits for steelhead hatchery programs in the Russian River, California. Reconstruction of cohort age distributions revealed a strong component of fish that spawn at age two, in contrast to program goals and distinct from naturally spawning steelhead. Correlations between family members in the day of spawning revealed a strongly heritable component to this life history trait and demonstrated the potential for selection to alter life history traits. These results demonstrate the promise of SNP-based pedigree reconstruction for providing biological inference in high-fecundity organisms.Chapter three describes how the molecular tools developed were applied to population genetics of trout inhabiting northwestern Mexico, to elucidate biodiversity, and evolutionary history, and measure introgression from hatchery rainbow trout. Here, I confirmed the vast genetic diversity present in northwestern Mexican trout and provided evidence that trout inhabiting the Sierra Madre Occidental correspond to independent lineages separated from O. mykiss . Introgression from non-native trout was detected, but the genetic integrity of native trout is still maintained. All the information presented in this document will help to guide effective conservation strategies for this globally important group of fishes.


Abstract:Max Weber's interest in East Asia starts as early as 1898, but it comes to fruition only after 1910. Instead of continuing his essays on ascetic Protestantism, as promised to the public, he embarked on a comparison of world religions, in which he included Confucianism, although he did not regard it as a religion in the strict sense of the term. As a matter of expediency, he used Confucianism, however, as the most pronounced counterexample to ascetic Protestantism, seemingly similar from the outside, but totally different from the inside. So Confucianism is included in his attempt to provide a sociology and typology of religious rationalism. Confucianism is also used as a backdrop to understand the singularity of the Western development. The sketch, as he calls it, is not meant as a full-fledged analysis of this intellectual and social movement nor of Imperial China at large. Therefore, it is very dangerous to apply Weber's analysis to the current situation in China (after the 'Cultural Revolution' and the one-child policy). I call this the fallacy of misplaced application. This does not rule out, however, using Weber's methodology and conceptual tools to a certain extent for such an analysis. How this can be done, is shown in the last section of this presentation.


The most common accounts of what constitutes theological knowledge emphasize the need to hold to true theological propositions. Such accounts ignore an important feature of knowledge, namely that the manner in which one comes to hold a particular belief is a significant factor in saying that the belief that one holds to actually counts as 'knowledge'. Drawing upon T. F. Torrance's theological epistemology as well as Jewish philosophical work on the topic of 'awe,' this essay argues that if a theologian is to accomplish her task, she must cultivate her sense of awe for God. The essay concludes with some recommendations for cultivating awe that justifies theological knowledge.


Molecular imaging of the breast using either SPECT or PET based radiopharmaceuticals is a relatively new area of focus for nuclear medicine and has grown in importance over the last few years with the development of specialized small field of view gamma cameras and small PETsystems designed to provide high resolution functional images of the breast. Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) / Breast Specific Gamma imaging (BSGI): MBI and BSGI are currently performed with Tc‐99m sestamibi and have shown a high sensitivity for the detection of small breast lesions, with reported sensitivities of ∼90%. Sensitivity is lowest for tumors < 5 mm in size. This talk will review the technology behind both MBI and BSGI and the primary clinical applications. It will also review the potential use of MBI as a screening technique. Recent studies have shown that it may be considerably more sensitive than mammography in women with dense breast tissue. A significant issue with MBI / BSGI is radiation burden and this talk will review efforts to increase the sensitivity of these technologies to allow a reduction in the administered dose of radiopharmaceutical, and thereby achieve a comparable radiation burden to mammography. Positron Emission Mammography(PEM):PEM is currently performed on a dual detector system incorporating 2 scanning arrays of BGO crystals providing limited angle tomographic imaging. Studies using F‐18 FDG have shown PEM to have comparable sensitivity to MRI for the detection of breast cancer. It is a useful tool in the preoperative assessment of disease extent and in evaluating response to neoadjuvant therapy. As with single photon systems, sensitivity is lowest for tumors < 5 mm in size. Current systems employ doses of 10 mCi F‐18 FDG. Recent technical developments have seen the emergence of systems using small ring detectors or rotating planar detectors that provide full tomographic views of the breast. Clinical studies are expected to show improvements in spatial resolution and a reduction in the administered dose of F‐18 required. COI: The author and Mayo Clinic receive royalties from patents licensed to Gamma Medica Ideas, a manufacturer of MBI systems. Learning Objective:1) Understand the different technologies (PEM ,MBI, BSGI) and detector configurations now available for molecular imaging of the breast. 2) Understand the potential applications for molecular imaging of the breast in both the diagnostic and screening environments. 3) Compare the strengths and weakness of molecular imaging techniques with other breast imaging modalities. 4) Appreciate the potential future applications of this technology in the understanding of breast disease. 5) Demonstrate understanding of the radiationdose implications of current radiopharmaceuticals and how the dose can be reduced with new technologies and radiopharmaceuticals.


Judged by population size and distribution, Homo sapiens are clearly the most successful primates. A close second, however, would be rhesus macaques, who have adapted to - and thrived in - such diverse environments as mountain forests, dry grasslands, and urban sprawl. Scientists have spent countless hours studying these opportunistic monkeys, but rhesus macaques have long been overshadowed in the public eye by the great apes, who, because of their greater intelligence, are naturally assumed to have more to teach us about other primates and about humans as well. Dario Maestripieri thinks it is high time we shelve that misperception, and with "Macachiavellian Intelligence" he gives rhesus macaques their rightful turn in the spotlight. The product of more than twenty years studying these fascinating creatures, "Macachiavellian Intelligence" caricatures a society that is as much human as monkey, with hierarchies and power struggles that would impress Machiavelli himself. High-status macaques, for instance, maintain their rank through deft uses of violence and manipulation, while altruism is almost unknown and relationships are perpetually subject to the cruel laws of the market. Throughout this eye-opening account, Maestripieri weds his thorough knowledge of macaque behavior to his abiding fascination with human society and motivations. The result is a book unlike any other, one that draws on economics as much as evolutionary biology, politics as much as primatology. Rife with unexpected connections and peppered with fascinating anecdotes, "Macachiavellian Intelligence" has as much to teach us about humans as it does about macaques, presenting a wry, rational, and wholly surprising view of our humanity as seen through the monkey in the mirror.


Using the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a case study, this Article explores the merger of legal cultures at the ICTY. The ICTY was crafted in a high-stakes international environment and brings together lawyers and judges who have been trained and inculcated typically in a common law/adversarial system or a civil law/non-adversarial system. Lawyers and judges come to the ICTY not only with a distinct understanding of their roles within their home jurisdictions, but also with different skill sets. Merging the legal cultures has not always been smooth. By comparing how attorney-conduct norms are created in the United States - socialization, malpractice, market controls, regulatory processes, and procedural rules - with the practice at the ICTY, it becomes evident that the judges are the dominant source of norm creation in this international court. These norms are created, however, in an environment in which it appears that most of the substantive interaction between the judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel occurs in formal court settings. Future international courts would benefit from additional discussion among the judicial, prosecutorial, and defense functions as norms are created, including shared discussion about codes of conduct for judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel.


We directly visualize the response of nematic liquid crystal drops of toroidal topology threaded in cellulosic fibers, suspended in air, to an AC electric field and at different temperatures over the N–I transition. This new liquid crystal system can exhibit non-trivial point defects, which can be energetically unstable against expanding into ring defects depending on the fiber constraining geometries. The director anchoring tangentially near the fiber surface and homeotropically at the air interface makes a hybrid shell distribution that in turn causes a ring disclination line around the main axis of the fiber at the center of the droplet. Upon application of an electric field, E, the disclination ring first expands and moves along the fiber main axis, followed by the appearance of a stable "spherical particle" object orbiting around the fiber at the center of the liquid crystal drop. The rotation speed of this particle was found to vary linearly with the applied voltage. This constrained liquid crystal geometry seems to meet the essential requirements in which soliton-like deformations can develop and exhibit stable orbiting in three dimensions upon application of an external electric field. On changing the temperature the system remains stable and allows the study of the defect evolution near the nematic–isotropic transition, showing qualitatively different behaviour on cooling and heating processes. The necklaces of such liquid crystal drops constitute excellent systems for the study of topological defects and their evolution and open new perspectives for application in microelectronics and photonics.


An approach for performing improved commissioning tests on gas-distribution mains is presented. It covers the background theory to the problems involved, which include both the discrimination of leaks from creep in polyethylene, and temperature change during pressure-decay tests. The production of models to predict the creep behaviour is outlined, along with the development of novel acoustic technology to provide temperature compensation. These have been incorporated into a software/hardware package, and illustrations and practical experience of the use of this new pressure-testing package in the gas distribution environment are presented.


Research on the effects of oxytocin on social cognition and behavior is constantly growing. Moreover, oxytocin is already discussed to be used as a drug supporting common therapies for a range of disorders displaying deficits in social cognition. Although, the knowledge about its neurophysiological mechanisms lacks in particular regarding its functioning in the non-social domain of behavior, cognition and related brain responses. Therefore, the present thesis had the aim to explore whether the neuropeptide oxytocin has an effect on non-social cognitive processes and their underlying neural correlates, how the neural mechanisms of oxytocin are modulated by additional social input and which basal changes are driven by the effects of oxytocin. I addressed these questions by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with task-based and resting-state designs and with a neuroimaging genetics approach.
Oxytocin is synthesized in subnuclei of the hypothalamus and was originally known for its involvement in inducing labor. The oxytocin receptor is distributed largely across the brain, covering areas of the mesolimbic system such as the ventral striatum (vStr), the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the amygdala, but also frontal areas and regions which are not prominently involved in social cognition. Generally, oxytocin is thought to affect social behavior and cognition, including parenting, affiliative behavior, but also emotion-regulation. It is also assumed to be sensitive for context, gender and personality characteristics. Whereas many studies explored the impact of oxytocin on socio-emotional actions such as on emotion-processing in the amygdala, only very few studies focused on the non-socioemotional domain, as for example memory processing or reward-related decision-making. With regard to the aims of this thesis, two of the three experiments employed a non-social decision making paradigm to reveal effects of oxytocin on non-social behavior and related brain activity. Indeed, oxytocin also modulated neural circuits during non-social tasks and even during the resting-state paradigm in the third experiment. This indicates that a social context might not be required to observe changes in neural activity and connectivity by oxytocin.
Several theories have been proposed to explain the mechanisms by which oxytocin might function. The social cognition theory suggests that oxytocin might modulate prosocial affiliative behaviors and self-referential processing, the fear/stress approach emphasized its anxiolytic and stress reducing effects, the general approach-avoidance hypothesis of oxytocin assumes that oxytocin acts on approach and avoidance motivation and the social salience hypothesis implies that oxytocin regulates the salience of social stimuli. In conclusion, currently there is no general theory accounting for all the social and non-social effects of oxytocin as described in the literature. In the same perspective, the overall results from the current thesis contradict aspects of each theory, while specific patterns of effects may be best reconciliated with the framework of the approach-avoidance theory and the social salience hypothesis.
In the first study a neuroimaging genetics approach was applied to investigate whether common variants of the oxytocin receptor gene influenced behavior and neural responses in a non-social reward-based decision-making paradigm. Specifically, due to dopaminergic-oxytocinergic interactions oxytocin-induced changes were expected in bottom-up reward-related and in top-down cognitive control-related activity. Two of the three candidate single-nucleotide-polymorphism (SNP) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) were associated with a modulation of reward-related activity during desire and reason situations in the paradigm used. The desire context was formed by allowing to obtain a presented reward, whereas in the reason context the same reward had to be rejected. Participants who were homozygous for the major allele of the OXTR SNP rs1042778 expressed more bottom-up related activity in the vStr in the desire context. In contrast to this, minor allele carriers showed a greater suppression of the reward-related activity in the reason context. This might have led to better cognitive control and therefore to significantly better performance in the rejection of reward stimuli in reason situations. According to this, major allele carriers had a stronger coupling between the vStr and the VTA in desire contexts. Moreover, minor allele carriers displayed an enhanced connectivity between the vStr and the anteroventral prefrontal cortex (avPFC) in reason situations. For the OXTR SNP rs237897 an interaction of gender with the activity in the VTA could be detected. Female participants, homozygous for the major genotype, presented more activation in the left VTA compared to males. Altogether, this study could show that OXTR polymorphisms are able to modulate reward-related as well as control-related activity even in a non-social decision-making paradigm.

 In study 2 a neuroimaging experiment was performed with the application of intranasal oxytocin and a modified reward-based decision-making paradigm including non-social as well as social stimuli. The main question was whether exogenous oxytocin alters behavioral and neural processes during the non-social condition in this task. Additionally, I was interested in possible changes of oxytocin effects by the presentation of emotional stimuli. Furthermore, by the additional use of both positive and fearful stimuli, I wanted to shed light on the ongoing discussion whether oxytocin acts valence-dependent or irrespective of valence on the activity of the amygdala. An opposite modulation of activity and functional connectivity regarding non-social compared with social context was shown after oxytocin treatment. In the non-social desire situation oxytocin reduced bottom-up activity within the vStr, probably by enhancing top-down control due to strengthening the negative coupling to a frontal region. In contrast, in non-social reason contexts the vStr was less deactivated, maybe due to decreased top-down control. By presenting fearful faces in the social condition, the pattern of neural responses and functional connectivity reversed. In this condition, oxytocin increased the activation in the vStr in desire situations, while it reduced the activation in reason situations. This change in activity was paralleled by stronger positive coupling in the desire context and less coupling as well as negative coupling in the reason context. Furthermore, depending on valence oxytocin decreased amygdala activation for fearful faces and increased amygdala activation for positive faces. The altered activity within the reward system by oxytocin might be the reason for an impaired performance during both desire and reason trials. After oxytocin treatment participants were less accurate in selecting target stimuli than in rejecting the reward stimulus and vice versa for the placebo. This suggests rather an impaired working memory than disturbed stimulus-association learning. To sum up, the comparison between the effects of oxytocin in the non-social and social condition yielded that oxytocin influences corticomesolimbic regions in a context-sensitive manner.

 The last study used a resting-state fMRI technique with additional administration of intranasal oxytocin. Of particular interest was the possible alteration of functional connectivity within and between large-scale networks by oxytocin. The analysis focused on functional networks indicated to play a major role in salience processing (the salience network - CO), social cognition and self-referential processing (the default mode network - DM) and attention processing (the ventral attentional network - VA). Thereby, basal changes by which oxytocin might influence neuronal responses were shown providing results for the ongoing debate on the underlying function of oxytocin. Although, I expected significant changes of functional connectivity within the DM network. The modulation of the CO and the VA networks were seen. Indeed, oxytocin changed the functional connectivity within and between large-scale networks even without engagement in a task. Oxytocin mainly influenced the VA by decreasing the cross-talk to regions typically part of the DM nodes; and oxytocin strengthened the functional connectivity to the edges of the CO, involving regions linked to salience processing. Additionally, oxytocin directly impacted the functional connectivity within the CO. Therefore, one basic effect of oxytocin might be to redirect attention (VA) from self-referential processing (DM) to the external environment, preparing for reception of salient information (CO).

Taken together, the purpose of the present thesis was to extend the knowledge about the effects of oxytocin as well as basic mechanisms of oxytocin's influence on cognition, behavior and neural activation and connectivity in non-social, social and task-free conditions. The results clearly demonstrated effects on neural activation, functional connectivity and on behavior in all three studies; supporting the claim that oxytocin does not only play an important role in socio-emotional processing.


In spoken dialog systems, information must be presented sequentially, making it difficult to quickly browse through a large number of options. Recent studies have shown that user satisfaction is negatively correlated with dialog duration, suggesting that systems should be designed to maximize the efficiency of the interactions. Analysis of the logs of 2,000 dialogs between users and nine different dialog systems reveals that a large percentage of the time is spent on the information presentation phase, thus there is potentially a large pay-off to be gained from optimizing information presentation in spoken dialog systems. This article proposes a method that improves the efficiency of coping with large numbers of diverse options by selecting options and then structuring them based on a model of the user's preferences. This enables the dialog system to automatically determine trade-offs between alternative options that are relevant to the user and present these trade-offs explicitly. Multiple attractive options are thereby structured such that the user can gradually refine her request to find the optimal trade-off. To evaluate and challenge our approach, we conducted a series of experiments that test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Experimental results show that basing the content structuring and content selection process on a user model increases the efficiency and effectiveness of the user's interaction. Users complete their tasks more successfully and more quickly. Furthermore, user surveys revealed that participants found that the user-model based system presents complex trade-offs understandably and increases overall user satisfaction. The experiments also indicate that presenting users with a brief overview of options that do not fit their requirements significantly improves the user's overview of available options, also making them feel more confident in having been presented with all relevant options.


Although the wave-front correction provided by an adaptive optics system should be as complete as possible, only a partial compensation is attainable in the visible. An estimate of the residual phase variance in the compensated wave front can be used to calibrate system performance, but it is not a simple task when errors affect the compensation process. We propose a simple method for estimation of the residual phase variance that requires only the measurement of the Strehl ratio value. It provides good results over the whole range of compensation degrees. The estimate of the effective residual phase variance is useful not only for system calibration but also for determining the light intensity statistics to be expected in the image as a function of the degree of compensation introduced.


A principal's perceptions of the realisation of Christian values at a South African Primary School: A case study . Many South African schools are facing the challenge of establishing a school culture that is conducive to teaching and learning. The school culture has a far greater impact on living and learning than any other factor in the life of a school. The research question in this study is: How did a primary school principal view the actualisation of Christian values in the school culture? An investigative, qualitative research design, and more particularly a case study, was considered to be the most appropriate approach to the research question. In a number of previous investigations in the school, the author has shown that the school principal treasured the inculcation of Christian values in the school. Data in this study were collected by means of various semi-structured interviews with the principal; paragraphs written by the principal; documents about school activities; a DVD of the school; and field notes taken during the interviews. The findings show the role of the principal in inculcating values in a school and the effect of a vision and mission to realise these values. Inculcating values in a school is best actualised in a positive, inviting school culture that focuses on continuing growth conducive to human development.


People around the world are on the move, pushed by external events such as civil war, political upheaval, and increasingly environmental disasters and pulled by the lure of a better life, a better job, a better way to provide for their families. The United States has created an inconsistent legal framework for responding to the exploitation of immigrants. The degree to which we offer protections against exploitation depends on the degree to which we recognize victimhood, with the label of victim only frugally bestowed upon those who are also viewed as essential to sustaining the US economy. Trafficked persons are not useful to legitimate US businesspersons, and are accordingly protected, while agricultural and factory workers are very useful to businesspersons whom we regard as legitimate. This paper looks at the psychology of migration and migration theory, and the human rights framework as a protection tool designed for migrants. It explores the notion of exploitation, and in particular the extent to which people in transit, migrants, are particularly vulnerable due to the very human nature that drives them to wish to improve their circumstances. It looks at the characteristics of exploitation, from the perspective of the exploiter and the exploited, and proposes that part of the reason migrants are so vulnerable to exploitation is the private sphere nature of the movement through and into new cultures and legal systems in which the migrant lives and works on the fringes of society, not fully embraced by it. The author then identifies two specific forms of exploitation, human trafficking and the labor abuse of agricultural laborers and guestworkers, and examines the international and domestic US legal responses to exploitation in those two contexts, theorizing that Americans and countries adhering to free market economies have very mixed feelings about exploitation. On the one hand we believe that exploitation is morally and past a certain degree even legally wrong, but on the other accepting it as a necessary characteristic of doing business in the global market. The article then looks into principles of democracy and capitalism to search for answers, suggesting that legal responses to exploitation alone will never be sufficient, and that civil society, wielding human rights arguments and tools may be the most effective counterforce to exploitation. Finally, the author offers a prescription for change, recommending in part that civil society and immigration law responses be bolstered to protect against exploitation and create a culture of concern for exploitated persons.


Alexandra Kollontai-the only woman member of the Bolshevik central committee and the USSR's first Minister of Social Welfare-is known today as a historic contributor to the international women's movement, and as one of the first Bolshevik leaders to oppose the growth of the bureaucracy in the young socialist state. Her Selected Writings discuss the social democratic movement before the First World War, the history of the Russian women's movement, and the debate between "feminist" and "socialist" women; the effects of the war on European socialism; the revolutions; the part played by women in the revolutionary events; the early manifestations of bureaucracy and Kollontai's role as spokeswoman for the "workers' opposition"; and morality, sexual politics, the family, and prostitution. It also includes writings from her later life as a Soviet official. Each section is introduced by a commentary in which Alix Holt explains the background and critically sets Kollontai's unique lifework in its historical and biographical contexts, demonstrating both its necessary limitations and its extraordinary range.


This paper explores a Latourian approach in addressing the challenge for Design Management to integrate design strategically within small, medium enterprises (SMEs). Design thinking's positioning towards providing an accessible and open process for organisational change is argued to currently manifest a rhetorical detour around the role of design practice. The proposal is that the role of design can be expressed in the repeated interactions between participants and design artefacts, and how these are then translated into the organisation.

The paper uses a case-‐study method to produce a situated account of design work within a strategic design intervention with an SME. Drawing on Latourian principles around actor-‐network theory (ANT), observations and accounts of the intervention are grounded in the use of tools, artefacts and activities deployed. This allows for analysis exploring the traceable influences design artefacts have on the work being performed and a reflective space for designers to assess their performative agency.

The paper proposes an approach to the constraints and opportunities that design management encounter around the matters of concern for organisational change; and in so doing, how this can inform reflective design practice.


Shirley Clarke's reputation as a filmmaker is as secure as anybody's, and any history of film that omits her is lacking. Her work in video is as startling and creative as her work in film, yet she has been repeatedly overlooked in histories of the early video movement. She pioneered video installations (her "Video Ferris Wheel" at the 8th Annual Avant-Garde Festival of New York, 1971, for example) and video technology (she designed, with Parry Teasdale, a wrist-watch camera by taking apart a portable camera and separating its components). But her most extraordinary use of video was not a performance, a tape, or an installation, was in the context of her unique workshops. The workshops were live and evanescent events; what remains are fragments.... Midnight 7972 or 1973. A group of about 15 people have gathered inside the base of a pyramid, originally erected to support a flagpole on the roof of the Chelsea hotel, on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. Some time ago the pyramid, a permanent structure, was divided into several spaces on several levels. It had windows, furniture, plumbing-ana now a network of audio and video cables running to and from each interior and exterior space. It was also Shirley Clarke 's home/studio, and on this evening she introduced the group members to each other and to what lay ahead in an eight or nine hour video workshop: video game-playing, portrait painting, tape-making-all to culminate in a grand four-channel playback at dawn. Five feet tall and with the trim body of dancers half her age, Clarke always wore something on her head, and, favoring black and white, that something could be a small cap, Mickey Mouse ears, or a silk top hat. The Totem A top hat also crowned the Totem, now standing and facing the group. Clarke had built a human-like, totempole like form using four bw two 11 " monitors were arms; and one small monitor with spherical casing was the head (the "ball"). Each of the four monitors could have a unique image, and the images could be live or from videotape. Clarke constructed a bank of four cameras in front of one person, whose head, arms, torso, and legs became the source of the four (live) images. Next, four people contributed one body part each to create a new composite, and then live body parts were combined with recorded ones. Members of the workshop played with a variety of totem images; and whatever or whosever arms, legs, heads, and torsos were on screen, this Totem could dance in ways no human being could. Then Clarke explained that the Totem facing the group was only one of many in her studio. THE BEGINNING DISCOVERY In 1970 Clarke received a government grant, via a program sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, with the understanding that the grant was to enable an established artist familiar with one medium to work in another. Clarke, a filmmaker, wanted to use the grant to invent a new protocol for editing film, by using video technology. She took the money and bought a studio-full of the just-developed 1/2" Sony and Panasonic video hardware: cameras, Portapaks, edit decks, monitors. Immediately, she discovered the technical impossibility of her project-that of editing videotape. It should not even be attempted. But Clarke discovered that video offered something new and exciting: live, moving images, which could be transmitted to several discrete architectural locations simultaneously. Moreover, the images could travel in two (or more) directions: two people in different rooms, for example, could each have a camera and two monitors so that each could see the other camera's live image as well as a live image of the other person. Video could dissolve the distinction between creator and audience; anyone could use a camera and create live moving images. The images were immediately available to be combined with other people's images on adjacent or nearby monitor displays. …


The genus Yersinia comprises 19 species of which three are known as human and animal pathogens. Some species display toxicity toward invertebrates using the so-called toxin complex (TC) and/or determinants that are not yet known. Recent studies showed a remarkable variability of insecticidal activities when representatives of different Yersinia species (spp.) were subcutaneously injected into the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella. Here, we demonstrate that Y. intermedia and Y. frederiksenii are highly toxic to this insect. A member of Y. Enterocolitica phylogroup 1B killed G. mellonella larvae with injection doses of approximately 38 cells only, thus resembling the insecticidal activity of Photorhabdus luminescens. The pathogenicity Yersinia spp. displays toward the larvae was higher at 15°C than at 30°C and independent of the TC. However, upon subtraction of all genes of the low-pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strain W22703 from the genomes of Y. intermedia and Y. frederiksenii, we identified a set of genes that may be responsible for the toxicity of these two species. Indeed, a mutant of Y. frederiksenii lacking yacT, a gene that encodes a protein similar to the heat-stable cytotonic enterotoxin (Ast) of Aeromonas hydrophila, exhibited a reduced pathogenicity toward G. mellonella larvae and altered the morphology of hemocytes. The data suggests that the repertoire of virulence determinants present in environmental Yersinia species remains to be elucidated.


Lake Taihu (Taihu) is the third largest freshwater lake in China and an important drinking water, fishing, and tourism resource for Jiangsu Province. Recent toxic cyanobacterial blooms caused by excessive human nutrient loading have focused attention on arresting blooms and restoring the lake to acceptable water quality conditions by reducing nutrient inputs. Field sampling and in situ nutrient enrichment bioassays were conducted to determine seasonal patterns of nutrient limitation and nutrient thresholds for phytoplankton growth. The TN: TP and TDN:TDP mass ratios in the ambient water showed high seasonal variation and changed from 33‐80 : 1 and 52‐212 : 1, respectively, in winter and spring, and both declined to below 20 : 1 in summer. In spring and winter, total phytoplankton biomass and growth rates increased significantly with additions of P, with no primary effects from N, suggesting P limitation of phytoplankton growth. During the summer and fall bloom periods, however, N additions alone revealed a significant positive effect on phytoplankton growth, and P additions only stimulated phytoplankton growth once N had been added, suggesting that N was the primary limiting nutrient, with P being a secondarily limiting nutrient. When P enrichment was ≤ 0.20 mg P L−1 and N enrichment ≤0.80 mg N L−1, growth of the toxin‐producing, dominant bloom‐forming cyanobacteria Microcystis spp. was not nutrient limited. This study suggests that availability of N during the summer is a key growth‐limiting factor for the proliferation and maintenance of toxic Microcystis spp. blooms. Therefore, although P load reduction is important, N load reduction is essential for controlling the magnitude and duration of algal booms in Taihu.


Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common childhood disability, with an incidence around 2-2.5 in every 1,000 live births in Europe. It results from damage to the developing brain and adversely affects motor control. The limitations in motor control range from an inability to even hold the head erect and an inability to self-feed, to cases where for example walking is hampered by spasticity in one limb.
The cornerstone of current treatment is physiotherapy in which the aims are to maintain and improve mobility and to prevent limitation of the range of joint movement. Specific forms of physical therapy include Conductive Education and Bobath treatment. Other interventions include botulinum toxin injections, intrathecal baclofen, selective dorsal rhizotomy and multi-level orthopaedic surgery. Despite these varied and concerted inputs, improvements in motor skills are very limited – motor skills tend to plateau around the age of seven and in fact deteriorate in adolescence.
Of the four classifications of CP (Spastic, Athetoid or Dyskinetic, Ataxic and Mixed), the spastic type is the most common. Around 75% of all cases are spastic and around 60% of these are diplegic (meaning it affects both limbs, usually the legs). Spastic diplegia results from periventricular leucomalacia, where oligodendrocytes are damaged by hypo-perfusion of the periventriucular areas predominantly affecting the corticospinal tracts supplying the legs. This results in a deficit in the development of the white matter forming the insulation around those nerves and consequently compromises the signal transduction to the legs. As spastic diplegia is the most common type of CP, and the presenting symptoms are considered less complex than the other types, patients with spastic diplegia were chosen for participation in the current studies.
The main symptoms presenting in spastic diplegia are reduced gross motor function, increased reflex response to muscle stretch, reduced range of ankle movement and shortened calf muscle/tendon units, evident in equinus.
Whilst the main cause of spasticity in conditions other than CP is considered to be the neuropathology, altered muscle properties are considered to be the main problem in CP. Masseurs contend that they bring about a healthy response in damaged muscle by altering the resting state of the muscle, although this has not been scientifically proven until now.
The initial aim of the present series of studies was to test if a specific massage sequence could increase the range of movement at the ankle joint by altering the mechanical properties of the muscle in adolescents with spastic diplegia. However the investigations indicated that instead, this type of massage changed sensory feedback from the spastic muscles, which led to significant improvements in motor skills. The physical limitations of the 12 participants with CP range from habitual wheelchair users to one participant who is able to run. Their abilities classified by the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) ranged from level I to IV. The investigation involved the use of goniometry to measure change in the active and passive range of movement at the ankle joint and EMGs to measure incidence of stretch reflex contractions. Motor skills were assessed by an independent physiotherapist, using the Gross Motor Function Measure-66 (GMFM-66).
In chapter 3, three passive ankle dorsiflexions at a controlled rate were carried out before and after massage which was given twice weekly for 5 weeks. The incidence of stretch reflex contractions during passive dorsiflexion was reduced from 40% in the first 5 massage sessions to 22% in the last 5 sessions, in the 5 participants tested. After massage the resistance of the calf muscle to stretch was not reduced as expected; in fact the muscles were stiffer (more force was needed to take the ankle through the same range of movement). However, the resting angles of the ankles often changed, indicating alteration of the resting length of the calf muscles. The change was not always in the one direction, although, on the whole, muscles lengthened after massage (shown by an average increase in dorsiflexion of 1.4o). It is argued that thixotropic properties of muscles were responsible and that the massage changed the mechanical properties of the calf muscles.
In chapter 4, Gross Motor Function Measure-66 scores for all 12 adolescent participants who received the specialised massage were shown to be improved by an average of 5.8. Five of the 7 participants showed improvements in their ability to descend stairs, which is recognised to be particularly difficult in spastic diplegia. The range of voluntary ankle movement improved in some participants in some tests.
Despite a lack of scientific evidence, masseurs also contend that their intervention brings about change by altering the blood flow. In the current studies, near infrared spectroscopy was used to measure oxygenation of the muscles and changes in the skin temperatures were also recorded. In chapter 5, temperature recorded from the skin over the calf muscle after massage was increased in both the CP group and the controls. Both finished with comparable temperatures although the CP group's temperatures started 1-1.5°C below those of the control group. Contralateral effects of raised skin temperature were also observed. It was confirmed that the extent of change in skin temperature over the massaged muscles could be used to determine the effectiveness of a trainee using the massage technique. Additionally, the oxygenation of the tissue was altered significantly at some stage during massage for all participants. It is proposed that spastic muscles in CP may sometimes operate in oxygen debt, particularly in cold conditions.
The improvements in GMFM-66 with massage are at least as effective as other current therapies and the massage has none of the adverse side effects of surgery and drug interventions. The mean improvement in GMFM-66 score after massage was 5.8, whereas treatments using selective dorsal rhizotomy and baclofen showed improvements of only 2.7 and 3.8 respectively.
It is proposed that the mechanical properties and the feedback from spastic muscles are altered by the massage and that the CNS is able to accommodate the change in feedback to produce improved motor function.
It is recommended that the massage used here be incorporated into the physiotherapy regime for individuals with CP.
Author's contact details: e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com


ABSTRACT End joining of double-strand breaks (DSBs) requires Ku proteins and frequently involves base pairing between complementary terminal sequences. To define the role of terminal base pairing in end joining, two oppositely oriented HO endonuclease cleavage sites separated by 2.0 kb were integrated into yeast chromosome III, where constitutive expression of HO endonuclease creates two simultaneous DSBs with no complementary end sequence. Lack of complementary sequence in their 3′ single-strand overhangs facilitates efficient repair events distinctly different from when the 3′ ends have a 4-bp sequence base paired in various ways to create 2- to 3-bp insertions. Repair of noncomplementary ends results in a set of nonrandom deletions of up to 302 bp, annealed by imperfect microhomology of about 8 to 10 bp at the junctions. This microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) is Ku independent, but strongly dependent on Mre11, Rad50, and Rad1 proteins and partially dependent on Dnl4 protein. The MMEJ also occurs when Rad52 is absent, but the extent of deletions becomes more limited. The increased gamma ray sensitivity of rad1Δ rad52Δ yku70Δ strains compared to rad52Δ yku70Δ strains suggests that MMEJ also contributes to the repair of DSBs induced by ionizing radiation.


A large collection of hydrothermal sulphides from the Broken Spur hydrothermal vent site, including representative samples of mound sulphide materials, has been characterized using optical mineralogy and sulphur isotope analysis. Young mound sulphides from Broken Spur have a pyrrhotite-dominated mineralogy unusual for bare ridge vent systems. However, pyrrhotite is metastable and is ultimately converted to iron disulphides. Mature sulphides are indurated, recrystallized and contain abundant quartz. Sulphide mound materials are developed by three major processes: (i) coalescing of chimney structures; (ii) accumulation of talus from mass wasting and (iii) precipitation and growth in response to hydrothermal flow. Progressive maturation of mound materials is by modification of primary textures, development of mineralogical zoning and replacement of metastable phases. Sulphur isotope analysis of 35 mineral separates returned δ34S values of – 0.5 to +3.2‰. These values are similar to those previously measured for Broken Spur and Snakepit, but are distinctly 32S enriched compared to the TAG active mound and some Pacific sites. Seawater entrainment and sulphate reduction within the subsurface feeder zone below Broken Spur mounds do not appear to be important processes at Broken Spur, in contrast to the TAG active mound.


A group of children was identified as "late talkers" (LT) on the basis of small expressive vocabulary size at 20–34 months of age and matched to a group of normally speaking age-mates. The subjects were followed yearly throughout the preschool period in order to track growth in language and related skills. Results showed that although significant improvement in speech and language skill occurred during the preschool period in the late talkers, a substantial minority of children retained deficits throughout the preschool years. By kindergarten age, these children, as a group, scored within, but at the low end of the normal range in terms of reading readiness. Data suggest that the longer a language delay persists into the third year of life, the less the chance of spontaneous recovery during the preschool period. Late talking girls seem to have less chance for spontaneous recovery than do late talking boys. The implications of these findings for making early intervention decisions will be discussed.


'Yes, what is Dionysian? - This book provides an answer - "a man who knows" speaks in it, the initiate and disciple of his god.' The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still of concern today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


In recent years, the prevalence of network devices such as smartphones, smart appliances, and various sensors has increased. As a result, interest in and demand for home networks has steadily increased. So, auto-configuration problems in home networks are very important and must be addressed, because some household members will not be familiar with the Information Technology (IT) devices and thus find it difficult to use home networks. Many studies have been undertaken in a variety research fields and standards for the home network auto-configuration problem. However, the conventional research and standards have a significant problem in that each home device requires middleware to be installed and must follow a standard configuration for home gateways. In this paper, we propose a new method for the auto-configuration of home networks in home cloud environments using the Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller. The SDN controller has two key roles for home network auto-configuration: auto-recognition and registration of home devices, and management of home devices according to the home network connection state. It allows the home network to be automatically configured without middleware and home gateways, which are required in the existing standards. In addition, home networks can be configured to utilize SDNs that satisfy the various network requirements and functions required by each of the home services. The experimental results verify the home network auto-configuration, the usability of the proposed method, and the SDN use case satisfy the requirements of each home service.


In Scotland we have carried out surveys of beekeepers since 2006, mainly by post. Since 2008 we have used geographically stratified random sampling of the membership records of the Scottish Beekeepers' Association, excluding those who opted out of surveys, to select the invited participants. In 2013 our survey was conducted online, as far as possible, using the LimeSurvey software (http://www.limesurvey.org/ ) for the first time. This was repeated in 2014. In 2013, 300 participants were selected from 1094 possible participants, of whom 218 (73%) had email contact details. Postal questionnaires were used for the others, those whose email failed or where there were technical problems: 94 questionnaires were posted and 3 sent electronically for postal return. Analysis of the 2012-2013 loss data gave 108 beekeeper respondents with valid loss data, of whom 56.5% experienced winter losses. The overall loss rate was 31.6% (158 colonies lost out of 500 colonies wintered). There were differing winter loss rates of 19.3% for the postal respondents and a much higher 36.6% for the online respondents. This difference is highly significant (Fisher's exact test gives a p-value of 0.0001297). Eleven (50%) of the 22 postal respondents and 50 (58.1%) of the 86 online respondents with valid loss data experienced losses, though this difference was not significant. The profile of the beekeepers differed between the two groups: the postal respondents were typically much more experienced beekeepers than the online respondents. It is therefore important for us to include the postal element for beekeepers not contactable by email, even though the response rate for the online survey was higher (65% online; 36% postal; 55% overall). In the 2014 survey, 350 participants were chosen randomly from 1224 possible participants, 273 (78%) had email contact details, and 95 questionnaires were posted, allowing for 17 failing emails and one person with difficulty accessing the survey. Preliminary results, based on 118 valid responses collected so far in LimeSurvey from beekeepers, are that 41 (34.7%) experienced losses over winter 2013-14, and that the loss rate was 13.2% (74 colonies lost from 560 wintered colonies). The final loss rates including postal responses may be expected to be lower. The 2012-13 winter loss rate of 31.6% was the highest since our surveys began, the next highest being 30.9% over winter 2009-10. It seems likely that the much lower loss rate this last winter can largely be attributed to the different weather conditions.


I was initially assigned the working title, "Pursuing Equality in Health Care for the Elderly Is Futile." I prefer to think of that particular dead end of health policy as one of listening to the wrong music for too long. Hence, this article reprises and revises the title song of the early 1980s movie, Urban Cowboy, but with Johnny Lee's original lyrics adapted as "Looking for better health [rather than either 'love' or 'love of equality'] in all the wrong places." The better goal is to achieve more progress in improving health for more people, including (but not limited to) the elderly. It need not be as futile as the pursuit of the elusive abstraction of "equality" for all — but only if we first move away from a path-dependent approach of recent times that remains too narrowly focused on statistical disparities in health care services received by particular groups.


Orlistat is a selective inhibitor of gastric and pancreatic lipase indicated for the treatment of obesity. It is also known to significantly reduce risk of associated co-morbidities such as heart attack, type-2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and stroke. Recent reports have raised concerns on the possible occurrence of serious adverse effects with prolonged use. Orlistat has been shown to inhibit carboxylesterase-2, a major detoxification enzyme, predisposing to severe liver, pancreatic and kidney damage. Orlistat alters the pharmacodynamic response of some drugs when co-administered leading to severe toxicity and reduced efficacy. Safety is a major concern considering the widespread use of this drug both as a prescription and over-the-counter medication. There is need for large-scale observation studies on orlistat use to generate appropriate data that will guide the regulatory agencies in taking relevant decision on continued use of orlistat as anti-obesity drug.


The Job Demands-Control-Support Model: Understanding the Implications of Age Elyssa Besen Dissertation Chair: Rebekah Levine Coley, Ph.D. In recent decades, the average age of the United States workforce has been on the rise, a trend that is expected to continue as the Baby Boomer generation, which constitutes the largest segment in the workforce in this country, reaches older adulthood. The aging of the workforce has raised concerns from researchers, policy-makers, and organizations. As a result, there have been calls for research regarding how experiences at work vary across the life-span, although few studies have addressed this topic. To begin to address this gap in the literature, this dissertation aims to explore the association between job demands and well-being and how the processes employees use to cope with job demands vary with age. Using data from two waves of Midlife in the United States: A National Study of Health & Well-Being, with a sample of over 7,000 working adults ranging from ages 20 to 83, I attempt to integrate the Job Demands-Control-Support Model with the Life-Span Theory of Control in order to examine how multiple factors influence the relationship between job demands and well-being outcomes across the lifespan. Results of random effects linear regression models show that job demands were negatively related to job satisfaction and mental health and that the relationship between job demands and job satisfaction was weakest at younger ages and remained constant after midlife. With regard to the factors that moderate the relationships with job demands, findings indicated that job control and job support buffered the relationship with job satisfaction, while job support buffered the relationship with mental health. The buffering roles of job control and job support were found to vary based on levels of primary and secondary control for workers of different ages. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for both workplace theory and developmental theories, which help to provide a better understanding of how work experiences vary across the life-span.


Background: Rural residents have been reported to have poorer health and shorter life expectancies. Limited access to healthcare services due to geographical limitations is a significant causal factor and many efforts have been made to break these barriers. However, the health requirements of rural residents may be dissimilar to urban residents due to genetic makeup, culture, and environment. Thus, it is important to include rural residents in health research.
Objectives: The first objective of this study is to assess the existing literature and determine the prevalence of rural residents' inclusion in Canadian physiotherapy studies. The second objective is to determine the specific health areas that have been studied using rural residents. The field of physiotherapy is chosen as it is an important part of healthcare with physiotherapists playing integral roles in prevention, management, and treatment of illnesses.
Methods: Three major electronic databases PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO were searched using the following keywords: physiotherapy OR physical therapy AND rural AND Canada. Information regarding the area of research, the percentage of rural participants, and the main results were extracted.
Results: In total, 94 articles were retrieved and after screening them against the inclusion criteria, a total of eight studies were selected. The health areas investigated in these eight studies were arthritis, stroke, cardiac rehabilitation in children, pain management, and cardiometabolic syndrome.
Discussion: Eight is an alarmingly low number of studies that have included rural participants and a large number of areas remain unstudied in this population. Future researchers are recommended to realize the potential differences between rural and urban residents and to include both types of dwellers in their studies or to explicitly indicate which type was recruited.


Fully revised and updated, this book combines a theoretical background with examples and references to R, MINITAB and JMP, enabling practitioners to find state-of-the-art material on both foundation and implementation tools to support their work. Topics addressed include computer-intensive data analysis, acceptance sampling, univariate and multivariate statistical process control, design of experiments, quality by design, and reliability using classical and Bayesian methods. The book can be used for workshops or courses on acceptance sampling, statistical process control, design of experiments, and reliability. Graduate and post-graduate students in the areas of statistical quality and engineering, as well as industrial statisticians, researchers and practitioners in these fields will all benefit from the comprehensive combination of theoretical and practical information provided in this single volume. Modern Industrial Statistics: With applications in R, MINITAB and JMP:Combines a practical approach with theoretical foundations and computational support. Provides examples in R using a dedicated package called MISTAT, and also refers to MINITAB and JMP. Includes exercises at the end of each chapter to aid learning and test knowledge. Provides over 40 data sets representing real-life case studies. Is complemented by a comprehensive website providing an introduction to R, and installations of JMP scripts and MINITAB macros, including effective tutorials with introductory material: www.wiley.com/go/modern_industrial_statistics.


Code comments improve software maintainability, programming productivity, and software reliability. To address the comment scarcity issue in many projects and save developers' time in writing comments, we propose a new, general automatic comment generation approach, which mines comments from a large programming Question and Answer (Q&A) site. Q&A sites allow programmers to post questions and receive solutions, which contain code segments together with their descriptions, referred to as code-description mappings. We develop AutoComment to extract such mappings, and leverage them to generate description comments automatically for similar code segments matched in open source projects. We apply AutoComment to analyze 92,140 Java and Android tagged Q&A posts to extract 132,767 code-description mappings, which help AutoComment generate 102 comments automatically for 23 Java and Android projects. The number of generated comments is still low, but the user study results show that the majority of the participants consider the generated comments accurate, adequate, concise, and useful in helping them understand the code. One of the advantages from mining Q&A sites for automatic comment generation is that human written comments can provide information that is not explicitly in the code. In the future, we would like to focus on improving both the yield and quality of the generated comments. To improve the yield, we can replace the token-based clone detection tool with one that can detect addition and reordering of lines to increase the number of code matches. To improve the quality, we can apply advanced natural language processing techniques such as semantic role labeling to analyze the semantics of the sentences, or typed dependencies to analyze the grammatical structure of the sentences.


We present a diagnostic glacier flowline model parameterized and constrained by new velocity data from ice-surface GPS installations and speckle tracking of TerraSAR-X satellite images, newly acquired airborne-radar data, and continental gridded datasets of topography and geothermal heat flux, in order to better understand two outlet glaciers of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Our observational data are employed as primary inputs to a modelling procedure that first calculates the basal thermal regime of each glacier, then iterates the basal sliding coefficient and deformation rate parameter until the fit of simulated to observed surface velocities is optimized. We find that the two glaciers have both frozen and thawed areas at their beds, facilitating partial sliding. Glacier flow arises from a balance between sliding and deformation that fluctuates along the length of each glacier, with the amount of sliding typically varying by up to two orders of magnitude but with deformation rates far more constant. Beardmore Glacier is warmer and faster-flowing than Skelton Glacier, but an up-glacier deepening bed at the grounding line, coupled with ice thicknesses close to flotation, lead us to infer a greater vulnerability of Skelton Glacier to grounding-line recession if affected by ocean-forced thinning and concomitant acceleration.


Recent advances in technologies for speech, touch and gesture recognition have given rise to a new class of user interfaces that does not only explore multiple modalities but also allows for multiple interacting users. Even so, current declarative multimedia languages e.g. HTML, SMIL, and NCL?support only limited forms of user input (mainly keyboard and mouse) for a single user. In this paper, we aim at studying how the NCL multimedia language could take advantage of those new recognition technologies. To do so, we revisit the model behind NCL, named NCM (Nested Context Model), and extend it with first-class concepts supporting multiuser and multimodal features. To evaluate our approach, we instantiate the proposal and discuss some usage scenarios, developed as NCL applications with our extended features.


Essam Kosba Using Student and Group Models to Support Teachers in Web-Based Distance Education The paper illustrates how student modeling and advice generation methods can be used to address problems experienced in Web-based distance education courses. We have developed the TADV (Teacher ADVisor) framework which builds student models based on the tracking data collected by a course management system and uses these models to generate advice to the course instructors, so that they can improve their feedback and guidance to distance students. The paper introduces TADV, describes how student, group, and class models are used for generating advice to the teachers, and discusses the viability of this approach based on an evaluative study with users.


Abstract. We document the first version of the Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Earth system model (CNRM-ESM1). This model is based on the physical core of the CNRM climate model version 5 (CNRM-CM5) model and employs the Interactions between Soil, Biosphere and Atmosphere (ISBA) and the Pelagic Interaction Scheme for Carbon and Ecosystem Studies (PISCES) as terrestrial and oceanic components of the global carbon cycle. We describe a preindustrial and 20th century climate simulation following the CMIP5 protocol. We detail how the various carbon reservoirs were initialized and analyze the behavior of the carbon cycle and its prominent physical drivers. Over the 1986–2005 period, CNRM-ESM1 reproduces satisfactorily several aspects of the modern carbon cycle. On land, the model captures the carbon cycling through vegetation and soil, resulting in a net terrestrial carbon sink of 2.2 Pg C year−1. In the ocean, the large-scale distribution of hydrodynamical and biogeochemical tracers agrees with a modern climatology from the World Ocean Atlas. The combination of biological and physical processes induces a net CO2 uptake of 1.7 Pg C year−1 that falls within the range of recent estimates. Our analysis shows that the atmospheric climate of CNRM-ESM1 compares well with that of CNRM-CM5. Biases in precipitation and shortwave radiation over the tropics generate errors in gross primary productivity and ecosystem respiration. Compared to CNRM-CM5, the revised ocean–sea ice coupling has modified the sea-ice cover and ocean ventilation, unrealistically strengthening the flow of North Atlantic deep water (26.1 ± 2 Sv). It results in an accumulation of anthropogenic carbon in the deep ocean.


The Internet is becoming an increasingly prominent medium for the administration of surveys. Although individual findings vary, the majority of the literature agrees that the appropriateness and response rates of web surveys is expected to rise in the future as we enter a generation of "digital natives" and mail-based communication becomes increasingly antiquated. Just about every aspect and tenet of traditional survey methodology has received attention in academic literature, positioning it as one of the most mature data collection techniques and a mainstay in all areas of research. While much of this accumulated knowledge is applicable and relevant to web surveys, there are numerous issues that arise specifically when surveys are delivered online. Such issues concern the overall design, delivery and administration of web surveys and the accessibility, structure, presentation and layout of their questions. The decisions made in these areas can influence the efficacy of a web survey in a number of ways, including the rate, integrity and quality of responses. This paper discusses such issues, and makes a number of recommendations to assist researchers in manually developing an effective and accessible web survey and in evaluating survey creation products and services.