An analysis of the response of surface acoustic wave sensors coated with polymer film based on new coating deposition (self-assemble and molecularly imprinted technology) is described and the response formulas are hence deduced. Using the real part of shear modulus, the polymer can be classified into three types: glassy film, glassy-rubbery film and rubbery film. Experimental results show that the attenuation response is in better consistence with the simulation than in Martin's theory, but the velocity response does not accord with the calculation exactly. Maybe it is influenced by the experimental methods and environment. In addition, simulations of gas sorption for polymer films are performed. As for glassy film, the SAW sensor response increases with increasing film thickness, and the relationship between the sensor response and the concentration of gas is pretty linear, while as for glassy-rubbery film and rubbery film, the relationship between the sensor sensitivity and concentration of gas is very complicated. The ultimately calculated results indicate that the relationship between the sensor response and frequency is not always linear due to the viscoelastic properties of the polymer.


Takesi Sibata, the pioneer of sociolinguistic dialectology, anticipated several developments that we now apply internationally in the discipline of sociolinguistics. I outline Professor Sibata's accomplishments from a Western perspective, but I am mainly interested in promoting wider appreciation of his work in the study of language variation. To do that, I review some of his analyses and show how Professor Sibata developed concepts that persist in contemporary sociolinguistics. I show that, for instance, about fifteen years before the inception of Western sociolinguistics, Professor Sibata was already engaged in studying sound change in apparent time, identifying linguistic innovators, eliciting folk concepts about dialects, and seeking empirical evidence for the critical period in dialect acquisition, as well as other pursuits that are now integral to our discipline.


Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) became a fast moving eld of research in the last decades, in particular in the context of continuously growing mobility and a high employment of resources starting from energy and material consumption to travel time and nally the human life. As it has already been experienced in other application areas, the introduction of communications technology is able to bring a revolutionary change in structures and behaviors long-believed to be carved in stone.
The main idea behind this thesis is the usage of information not as a mere placeholder, e.g. a eld in a static message, but actively utilizing its content and dependencies. This requires an estimation of the actual worth of a single piece of information for the entity itself and the entities which are in communication range. This worth has to be the essential driver for the cooperative situation estimation. The active utilization of information and its cooperative dissemination provides the entities the opportunity to become situation aware and detect hazardous or inefficient situations early in advance.
Since information always has a degree of uncertainty which is inherent to information in the real-world problem domain, as we are confronted with in ITS, probabilistic methods will be applied to model situation-relevant information. Conditional probability distributions in state transition models make for the evolvement of the situational information with the progress of time and handle causal dependencies between situational information. Together with a utility-based decision-making process dynamic probabilistic causal decision networks provide the functionality to select optimal actions given sequences of
inaccurate and incomplete evidences.
This thesis provides concepts and strategies that push forward the exploitation of information in a cooperative way within a probabilistic framework that allows to make various kinds of decisions with maximum utility. For the evaluation of the proposed concepts, the exemplary application Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) has been implemented on the basis of a particle lter which is used for the situation estimation. Initial simulations provided promising results and hence constitute a solid basis for future work in the eld of Cooperative Situation Awareness in Transportation.


Purpose - This paper aims to investigate empirically the common alternative methods of measuring annual report narratives. Five alternative methods are employed, a weighted and un-weighted disclosure index and three textual coding systems, measuring the amount of space devoted to relevant disclosures. Design/methodology/approach - The authors investigate the forward-looking voluntary disclosures of 30 UK non-financial companies. They employ descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, mean comparison Findings - The results reveal that while the alternative methods of forward-looking voluntary disclosure are highly correlated, important significant differences do nevertheless emerge. In particular, it appears important to measure volume rather than simply the existence or non-existence of each type of disclosure. Overall, we detect that the optimal method is content analysis by text-unit rather than by sentence. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the extant literature in forward-looking disclosure by reporting important differences among alternative content analyses. However, the decision regarding whether this should be a computerised or a manual content analysis appears not to be driven by differences in the resulting measures. Rather, the choice is the outcome of a trade-off between the time involved in setting up coding rules for computerised analysis versus the time saved undertaking the analysis itself.


OBJECTIVE
To determine historical and clinical findings, treatment, and outcome for cattle with small intestinal obstruction caused by a trichobezoar.

DESIGN
Retrospective case series.

ANIMALS
15 cattle.

PROCEDURES
Medical records of cattle with a diagnosis of small intestinal obstruction by a trichobezoar from 1992 to 2002 were reviewed. Information pertaining to various aspects of diagnosis, treatment, and outcome was collected from records.

RESULTS
Trichobezoars were more common in young cattle, and affected cattle did not deteriorate clinically as rapidly as cattle with other types of intestinal obstruction. The most common initial owner complaints included decreased or absent fecal output, inappetance, abdominal distension, and signs of abdominal pain. Common clinical findings were dehydration, decreased or absent rumen motility, signs of depression, splashing sounds during succussion of the abdomen, and a pinging sound on percussion of the abdomen. The jejunum was obstructed in 10 cattle. Hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis and chronic inflammation were common laboratory findings. All 4 cattle that underwent abdominocentesis had peritonitis. The obstructing trichobezoar was removed surgically in 9 cattle, of which 7 survived and 2 died. The 6 cattle treated medically died or were euthanized.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Obstruction of the small intestine by a trichobezoar is uncommon, but it should be considered as a differential diagnosis in cattle with signs of intestinal obstruction, particularly if they are younger than 4 years of age and have a history of nonacute signs of intestinal obstruction. Surgical removal appears to be a favorable method of treatment and should be considered when this condition is suspected.


The changing nature of family life has become a major issue in contemporary Britain. Concerns that change will bring moral decline and social fragmentation are countered by a more optimistic view which focuses on a future of more equitable and flexible family ties. Research drawing on area-based data in Luton amongst older, middle-aged and younger people with experience of family change suggests that so far as inter-generational relations, caring, and transfers of family wealth are concerned, traditional attitudes towards blood ties, household independence and care and support survive alongside new step relationships. The research also suggests that although several respondents had more than one generation of experience of family change, the language of step relationships is still one which is not yet completely accepted, or one with which people feel completely at ease.


Written by Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin, this book offers an important and insightful examination of the basic philosophical questions involved in the relation between evolutionary theory and the Christian religion. It is made more valuable by its serious study of Pope John Paul II's message about evolution issued in 1996. The book begins with a discussion of the biological and metaphysical aspects of Darwin's own conception of evolution. It goes on to reject two versions of "fundamentalism" - the Christian anti-evolutionism of authors such as Phillip Johnson and the anti-Christian scientism of authors such as Richard Dawkins - and to explore the possibility of a dialogue between evolution and Christian thought from the perspective of Pope John Paul II. Next, Zycinski calls into question the classical opposition between the teleological and the causal interpretation of evolutionary processes. He attempts to overcome that opposition by reliance on the concepts of supervenience and an evolutionary attractor. In this way, he proposes a new approach in which teleological anthropomorphisms as well as reductionist metaphors are avoided. The author then presents a theology of nature in which particular attention is given to the immanence of God and to Divine kenosis. Finally, the book offers a theological anthropology, including chapters on the harmonization of paleontology and theological anthropology, the limits of sociobiology, and original sin in relation to scientific knowledge of the human person.


The twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris was a good COP in contrast to COP15 in Copenhagen, which will remain in history as the low point in climate policy. COP21 demonstrated unprecedented global collaboration when divisions were deep and stakes were high and resulted in the Paris Agreement, the first legally binding document to articulate a clear global temperature goal and a commitment to reach global net-zero emissions after 2050. The agreement is also universal, with developed and developing countries alike expected to act. This article outlines key outcomes and explains what led to the shift from a bad to a good COP. It also examines the threats and opportunities as the world moves from making commitments to implementing them and draws parallels to the global agenda-setting process on sustainable development that is also unfolding in the United Nations at the same time.


The primary objectives of the present study were: (a) to gain a comprehensive understanding of the epidemiological and demographic variables associated with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in New Zealand, (b) to investigate the relationship between history of head injury and risk and recovery from future head injuries, (c) to investigate the outcomes of assessment and treatment after Concussion Clinic attendance, and (d) to evaluate the quality of service provided by the Massey University Concussion Clinic. Data was gained in two stages which involved firstly a review of the cover sheets of clients referred to the Concussion Clinic and secondly, the circulation of a questionnaire and a standardised measure of client satisfaction with services (the Service Satisfaction Survey 30). Results indicated that the epidemiological and demographic variables associated with concussion found in our New Zealand sample mirror those trends identified in the international literature. With regards to evaluation of the Concussion Clinic, clients were generally satisfied with the services they received. However, clients did identify some aspects of the service which could be improved. This study demonstrated the need for an increase in the amount of available literature concerning the incidence and outcomes of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in New Zealand. It also reinforced the need for ongoing evaluation as means of monitoring service delivery and client satisfaction in health care settings.


Does the security of women influence the security and behavior of states? Existing evidence linking the situation of women to state-level variables such as economic prosperity and growth, health, and corruption is fairly conclusive. Questions remain, however, concerning the degree to which state security and state security-related behavior is linked to the security of women. The women and peace thesis draws upon evolutionary biology/psychology for ultimate causes of this linkage, and sociological theories of social diffusion and psychological theories of social learning for more proximate causal mechanisms. Together, a new data resourcethe WomanStats Databaseand conventional methodology find a robust, positive relationship between the physical security of women and three measures of state security and peacefulness. In addition, a comparison of this proposition to alternative explanations involving level of democracy, level of economic development, and civilizational identity shows that the physical security of women is a better predictor of state security and peacefulness. Although these results are preliminary, it is still possible to conclude that the security of women must not be overlooked in the study of state security, especially given that the research questions to be raised and the policy initiatives to be considered in the promotion of security will differ markedly if the security of women is seriously considered as a significant influence on state security.


Most large-scale change efforts fail to meet their expectations. A major problem is that even the most advanced change models will stumble when they face organizational designs and management practices that are inherently anti-change.

The truth is that the effectiveness of change efforts is largely determined by organizational design, or how a company?s structure, processes, reward systems and other features are orchestrated over time to support one another as well as the company?s strategic intent, identity and capabilities. In a world that is perpetually changing, an organization?s design must support the idea that the implementation and reimplementation of a strategy is a continuous process. However, a number of traditional organizational design features tend to discourage ? and not encourage ? change. Thus, to transform themselves into organizations that are ?built to change,? companies need to rethink a number of these basic design assumptions with respect to managing talent (forget about job descriptions and redefine the relationship between company and worker), reward systems (implement a ?person-based? pay system), structure (redesign the organization to maximize its ?surface area?), information and decision processes (scrap the annual-budget process and move decision making closer to the front lines), and leaders (replace hierarchical command-and-control with shared leadership).


Creating rose rosettes and other similar interlace patterns is an old form of creative expression. Rope rosettes is rooted in the seafaring tradition, where they were made both for decoration, to protect the sailors from slipping on the deck and to limit wear and tear of the wood. The creation of new patterns was quite time-consuming with no guarantee of success. In recent years, Nils Kristian Rossing at Trondheim Science Center has developed a method to analyze rope rosettes and describe them mathematically. His approach is based on the Fourier analysis rooted in signal theory. With the new mathematical description, rosette patterns can be synthesized easily. Rossing's work also includes extensive work in describing rosette properties and categorizing them, as well as studies on the impact of different parameters in the rosette description. Based on Rossing's findings, the goal of this thesis is to build a software tool to automatically analyze and synthesize rope rosettes. I name this tool Rosette Analyzer (RosAna), and it is built using the modern tools of Qt(C++) and OpenCV. The tool has three distinct parts: image analysis to extract the rosette pattern; Fourier analysis to determine the mathematical parameters; and pattern synthesis.


The nature of oblique plate interactions is not yet well understood. The oblique interaction of Pacific and N American plates has resulted in large scale migration, rotation and accretion of microplates. Intervening basins are ephemeral, individually filled and deformed. Oblique motion results in zones of both compression and extension. The latter may be sufficient to generate new oceanic crust and the former to obduct it. Both subduction and collision are restricted in time and space. The resulting orogen is extraordinarily complex in detail. The far more complicated Hercynides are the result of dextral interaction between continental plates—Europe and Africa. The lateral variability of the orogen, the major and long-lived strike-slip faults, the bimodal volcanism and related ore deposits of the European trough, the Lizard ophiolite and its mélanges, the NW Spanish ophiolites and the Iberian Pyrite Belt are all explained using an oblique collision model. In particular the generation, deformation and obduction of ophiolites in oblique-slip mobile zones is discussed.


The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between self-compassion and relational-interdependent self-construal. The participants were 338 university students. In this study, the Self-Compassion Scale and the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale were used. The relationships between self-compassion and relational-interdependent self-construal were examined using correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. In correlation analysis, self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness factors of self-compassion were found positively related to relational-interdependent self-construal. On the other hand, self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification factors of self-compassion were found negatively correlated to relational-interdependent self-construal. Multiple regression analysis showed that relationalinterdependent self-construal was predicted positively only by common humanity. However, relational-interdependent self-construal was negatively explained by isolation, self-judgment, and over-identification. According to standardized beta coefficients, the most significant predictor of relational-interdependent self-construal was isolation. Results were discussed in the light of the related literature.


The inhibition of the corrosion of carbon steel in seawater by diethylene triamine pentamethylene phosphonic acid (DTPMP) and Al 3+ has been investigated using weight loss and electrochemical measurements. The results show that 65% inhibition efficiency is achieved with binary system consisting of 250 ppm of DTPMP and 50 ppm of Al 3+ . Polarization curves indicate that the system is a mixed inhibitor. The surface morphology of the metal surface is examined using the scanning electron microscope.


In the field crops are subject to a wide variety of biotic and abiotic stresses. In order to manage crop protection effectively it is important that we understand not only the way plants respond to these stresses, but the way in which these responses interact. High levels of fertilisers and pesticides are often applied to maintain soil nutritional status and prevent disease in modern intensive farming systems. Potassium (K) is an essential element for plant growth and development, and is required for a wide variety of processes within the plant. These processes can be broadly divided into biophysical processes such as stomatal opening and cell extension and biochemical processes such as protein synthesis and enzyme activation. K starvation has been shown to lead to increased levels of the stress hormone jasmonate (JA) and related compounds in Arabidopsis thaliana plants which in turn modulates the plant's defence against herbivorous insects and probably other pests or pathogens (Armengaud et al., 2004; Troufflard et al., 2010). In order for these results to be applicable to agriculture it is important to assess whether crop plants respond to K in a similar manner as the model plant. In this project the effect of K-deficiency on growth, metabolite concentrations, transcript levels and pathogen susceptibility of barley were investigated. Plants were grown in full-nutrient (control) or K-free hydroponic culture. The physiological, biochemical and transcriptional effects of K-deprivation were accessed over a time course of 20 days. Roots and shoots from plants grown in K-free nutrient solution had significantly lower K concentration than those grown in the control solution after 3 and 6 days respectively. A significant reduction in growth was seen as early as 6 days after K withdrawal. K-starvation led to a slight decrease in nitrogen metabolism, while hexose sugars strongly accumulated. By day 9 a significant increase in the expression of JA marker genes was seen in plants grown in K-free nutrient solution. Thus, despite possible differences in downstream events an induction of JA biosynthesis in response to K-deficiency occurs in both Arabidopsis and barley. Detached leaf segments were used to assess the effect of K-deficiency on infection of barley by two fungal pathogens with different strategies for nutrient acquisition. K-deficient barley plants were less susceptible to the biotroph Blumeria graminis f. f. sp. hordei (powdery mildew) and more susceptible to the hemi-biotroph Rhynchosporium secalis. Treatment of detached leaves with methyl-jasmonate (Me-JA) also led to less B. graminis infection, but had no effect on the R. secalis infection, indicating that JA increase in response to K-deficiency influences B. graminis but not R. secalis infection. The study therefore provides strong evidence that the effect of K-deficiency on pathogen susceptibility is determined by the JA-sensitivity of the pathogen.


The DVD focuses on a site-specific work created for the opening of the artsdepot building in North London. A central research focus of the dance work is explored and articulated by the DVD: the preoccupation with disrupting the perspective and role of the viewer; as well as the investigation of physical responses to specific environments and the associated spatial alignments. In addition, the DVD references a debate between the organic and the artifice of art, which is both a debate sparked by internal discussion at ResCen, and a concern manifested in dance work in Britain today. The DVD also illustrates the ways in which my work consistently seeks to challenge the construction and negotiation of contemporary identity. The combination of dialogues between myself and the collaborators together with images of the building itself, aims to allow the viewer to obtain detailed insight into the creative process of the artist.

Collaborators include: architect John Thornberry; writer - Sanjoy Roy; performance footage editing - Richard Coldman; Manu Luksch - performance video, Jane Watt - Editor. Footage of the performance is featured, but this DVD makes no claims to provide a documentation of the performance: instead, it seeks to allow the viewer to understand creative process in a contemporary practitioner whose work is widely reviewed and subject to public academic analysis and criticism.


Abstract. The first geostationary Earth observation satellite of Korea – the Communication, Ocean, and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) – was successfully launched on 27 June 2010. After arrival at its operational orbit, the satellite underwent an in-orbit test (IOT) that lasted for about 8 months. During the IOT period, the main payload for the weather application, the meteorological imager, went through successful tests for demonstrating its function and performance, and the test results are introduced here. The radiometric performance of the meteorological imager (MI) is tested by means of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the visible channel, noise-equivalent differential temperature (NEdT) for the infrared channels, and pixel-to-pixel nonuniformity for both the visible and infrared channels. In the case of the visible channel, the SNR of all eight detectors is obtained using the ground-measured parameters with the background signals obtained in orbit. The overall performance shows a value larger than 26 at 5% albedo, exceeding the user requirement of 10 by a significant margin. Also, the relative variability of detector responsivity among the eight visible channels meets the user requirement, showing values within 10% of the user requirement. For the infrared channels, the NEdT of each detector is well within the user requirement and is comparable with or better than the legacy instruments, except for the water vapor channel, which is slightly noisier than the legacy instruments. The variability of detector responsivity of infrared channels is also below the user requirement, within 40% of the requirement, except for the shortwave infrared channel. The improved performance result is partly due to the stable and low detector temperature obtained due to spacecraft design, i.e., by installing a single solar panel on the opposite side of the MI.


Software engineering always cares to provide solutions for building applications as close as possible to what they should be, according to the requirements and the final users needs. Systems behavior simulation is a very common application to virtually reproduce and often predict the real-world behavior. Simulation is one of the most operational research tool in a large variety of engineering and scientific domains: Transport, telecommunication, medicine, chemical processes, physics, etc. The complexity of such application is relative to the increasing complexity of the systems. In this context, it is relevant to bring together different tools and formalisms such as markovian chain, Petri nets, etc., to improve the existent approaches and so to answer the simulations performances needs. The principle objective of this thesis is to bring together techniques from software engineering and safety engineering in order to improve the state of the art of modeling and simulation of dynamic systems in the industrial context. In addressing this objective, this work initially involves defining the essential limitations of the used formalisms, methods and tools regarding from one hand the software engineering modeling and simulation techniques and from the other hand the existent risk analysis methodologies. This work is conducted with respect to the problem of danger identification, considering the context of the complex systems behavior and their interaction with the human operator. In software engineering, it is well known that Petri/high-level nets have attractive characteristics to be used in systems simulation and behavior prediction such as the natural graphical representation, and their well-defined semantic. They are well-suited for the description of complex situations with concurrency (interleaving and true concurrency depending on the underlying semantics), conflict and confusion. However, the absence of structuring capabilities has been one of the main criticisms raised against Petri nets/high-level nets. Thus, there have been many attempts to introduce structuring principles in nets of this kind [BCM88] [Kie89] [JR91]. The attractive characteristics of Petri/high-level nets have prompted researchers to enrich these formalisms with object-oriented features. CO-OPN (Concurrent Object-Oriented Petri Net) approach, brings together the power of both Petri/high-level nets and object-orientation techniques, it has been devised so as to offer an adequate framework for the specification and design of large scale concurrent system [BG91]. CO-OPN, as a powerful modeling tool, has been used in a limited way to simulate systems. This work aims to provide a CO-OPN extension to allow a more realistic systems' simulation. Actually, its simulator semantic uses to be a suitable approach for modeling near closed systems and software components, because they need to loose coupling with external world. But, when we model more realistic problems like industrial processes, where human interaction is a relevant event, this approach is not sufficient to catch all system activity attributes. Moreover, the CO-OPN interpretation process does not allow interaction with the object internal states. This work provides a new solution to overcome CO-OPN simulation limitations and a set of prototypes to assist dynamic systems simulations. Furthermore, this work has been conducted in a Risk Analysis (RA) context, a domain where computer-based simulations research are of utmost interest. Actually, classical approaches used to address complex workplace hazard in a limited way, using checklists or sequence models. Moreover, the use of single oriented methods, such as AEA (man-oriented), FMEA (machine oriented) or HAZOP (process oriented), is not satisfactory to overcome the increasing sophistication of industrial processes. The automation of a part of the analysis process as well as the multiple-oriented approach allowed by dynamic modeling may indeed enhance significantly the analysis completeness and reduce the time analyzing time. This work, based on Object Oriented Petri net formalism (CO-OPN), propose an alternative multi-oriented approach where existent methods limitations have been criticized to develop a dynamic model, MORM (Man-machine Occupational Risk Modeling). A real industrial system (metal wire making process) has been specified to implement the different approach steps (system identification, model application, system simulation, system analysis).


Tonal, textural and contextual properties are used in manual photointerpretation of remotely sensed data. This study has used these three attributes to produce a lithological map of semi arid northwest Argentina by semi automatic computer classification procedures of remotely sensed data. Three different types of satellite data were investigated, these were LANDSAT MSS, TM and SIR-A imagery. Supervised classification procedures using tonal features only produced poor classification results. LANDSAT MSS produced classification accuracies in the range of 40 to 60%, while accuracies of 50 to 70% were achieved using LANDSAT TM data. The addition of SIR-A data produced increases in the classification accuracy. The increased classification accuracy of TM over the MSS is because of the better discrimination of geological materials afforded by the middle infra red bands of the TM sensor. The maximum likelihood classifier consistently produced classification accuracies 10 to 15% higher than either the minimum distance to means or decision tree classifier, this improved accuracy was obtained at the cost of greatly increased processing time. A new type of classifier the spectral shape classifier, which is computationally as fast as a minimum distance to means classifier is described. However, the results for this classifier were disappointing, being lower in most cases than the minimum distance or decision tree procedures. The classification results using only tonal features were felt to be unacceptably poor, therefore textural attributes were investigated. Texture is an important attribute used by photogeologists to discriminate lithology. In the case of TM data, texture measures were found to increase the classification accuracy by up to 15%. However, in the case of the LANDSAT MSS data the use of texture measures did not provide any significant increase in the accuracy of classification. For TM data, it was found that second order texture, especially the SGLDM based measures, produced highest classification accuracy. Contextual post processing was found to increase classification accuracy and improve the visual appearance of classified output by removing isolated misclassified pixels which tend to clutter classified images. Simple contextual features, such as mode filters were found to out perform more complex features such as gravitational filter or minimal area replacement methods. Generally the larger the size of the filter, the greater the increase in the accuracy. Production rules were used to build a knowledge based system which used tonal and textural features to identify sedimentary lithologies in each of the two test sites. The knowledge based system was able to identify six out of ten lithologies correctly.


This article provides an independent cost estimate for uranium production from seawater through the braid-type adsorbent recovery system proposed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). Production costs were developed with standard engineering cost estimation techniques using vendor data and plant design and operational data. The analysis includes life cycle discounted cash flows, economies of scale, and propagation of uncertainties. A reference case based on the Japan Atomic Energy Agency assessment, with a fresh adsorbent capacity of 2 kgU/t ads and 6 recycles, yielded a production cost of $1230/kg uranium with a 95 percent confidence interval of [$1030/kg U, $1430/kg U] when component cost uncertainties alone were considered. Sensitivity studies confirmed that adsorbent capacity, number of recycles, and capacity degradation are major cost drivers. If capacity and number of recycles increases to 6 kg U/t ads and 20, respectively, with no degradation and unchanged adsorbent production costs, the uranium production cost drops to $299/kg U. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Science & Global Security to view the free online appendix with additional tables and figures.


This article takes a closer look at the Tea Party by adding a transatlantic perspective. Its aim is to show that the Tea Party is a genuine right-wing movement with strong affinities to the Republican Party which revives particular American traditions of conservatism and the radical right. Its support base is not 'the mainstream' but a particular cross section of the white middle classes. In this, it is the American mirror image of many European parties and movements of the populist radical right which share the Tea Party's anti-establishment message, its ultra-patriotism and ethnocentrism. It also shares some of its characteristics with the Christian Right with which it competes and cooperates when aiming at influencing the Republican Party and Washington while marking the merger of the Christian Right with Southern conservatism.


One of the important effects of insulin on intracellular metabolism is its ability to stimulate the synthesis of glycogen in muscle and liver. It does this by promoting a net decrease in the extent of phosphorylation of glycogen synthase, the rate-limiting enzyme in the pathway of glycogen synthesis, which increases its activity. Several years ago glycogen synthase was shown to be phosphorylated and inactivated by cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase in vitro, suggesting that the effect of insulin on glycogen synthesis, and perhaps other intracellular processes, might be explainable in terms of the ability of the hormone to decrease the concentration of tissue cyclic AMP. However, the subsequent failure to detect a decrease in cyclic AMP concentration in muscle under conditions where glycogen synthase activity was stimulated by insulin, coupled with the discovery of a second glycogen synthase kinase whose activity is unaffected by cyclic nucleotides, now suggests the possibility that insulin may regulate the activity of a different class of protein kinase, through its own "second messenger". The identification and characterization of glycogen synthase kinase-2 and recent information about the regulation of glycogen synthase by phosphorylation-dephosphorylation in vitro and in vivo are presented.


Special transport services are designed to meet the needs of people who are for various reasons unable to use conventional means of transport. Examples are elderly people or people with disabilities going to a day centre or children visiting special needs schools. In general the special transport used by these groups should be flexible and does not follow fixed routes or schedules. Planning of these transport services is difficult because of all the constraints that need to be taken into account. All persons that need to be transported have their own pickup and destination location, a time window at pickup and/or at arrival and a maximum ride time.

In a mathematical context the planning problem of special transport services is called the "dial-a-ride problem". The dial-a-ride problem is a generalization of the pickup and delivery problem with time windows, in which people are transported instead of goods. Since the travel time between each two locations, as well as the arrival of requests, are both not exactly known in advance, stochastics are included to deal with these uncertainties.


Due to increased globalisation of markets and liberalisation of local economies, businesses all over the world are developing increasingly competitive strategies. Management development is central to the success of these strategies. Therefore there is an increasing interest in management development and human resources development in Libya. The hope being that these forms of development can improve, and upgrade, the performance of Libyan human resources to achieve the required level of effectiveness, and to attain competitiveness in the world economy. The main objectives of this research are to develop the framework to implement management development programmes and to analyse the current management development practices in Libyan organisations and explore the extent to which transference of Western management development practices, if such transference is possible, has in fact occurred. The study carried out was essentially an evaluation to assess the value of management development; the specific focus of this evaluation was on two comparative cases in the Libyan oil Industry. The research project was carried out in the oil sector which has a particular importance to Libya's economic prosperity and should be the first place that management development takes place, but equally would be the best place for the transfer of Western management practice to occur.
A case study design was used which involved an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence. The main data collection tool was a questionnaire which meant that all the completed responses could be collected within a short period of time and any initial doubts that the respondents might have on any question were clarified on the spot. This also allowed the introduction of the research topic and meant the respondents could be motivated to offer their frank answers. Telephone interviews were used in retrospectively to gather specific information regarding management development within the companies which allowed triangulation. Reliability analyses using Cronbach's alpha as well as univariate analysis were carried out as were multivariate analyses such as factor analysis (FA) and multiple logistic regression. The non parametric Mann-Whitney test was used to evaluate the association between the instruments (scale).
The results of this study show that there is no priority given to manager development at a strategic level in either of the companies. There is no senior endorsement of management development via a written management development policy and no systematic mechanisms for accurately diagnosing group/individual training needs nor any evaluation processes to ensure training remains high quality and business-focused in place at Waha or Repsol either. The Libyan environment and Arab culture have negative effects on perceptions of training in general, and management development in particular, which leads to no serious attention being given to the implementation of management development activities.


Introduction: Root resorption is a pathological process that results in loss of cementum, dentin and bone. It is triggered by an imbalance between osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Diagnosis usually occurs through radiographic examination and/or CT scan. Objective: This study reports the treatment of a case of external cervical resorption with a multidisciplinary approach involving Endodontics, Orthodontics, Periodontics, and Prosthodontics. Methods: CT image revealed external cervical resorption in the palatine root, extending from distal, following to palatal and mesial. After opening, and placing of intracanal dressing, the endodontist referred the patient for orthodontic evaluation. Orthodontic traction was suggested, and an attempt was made to expose the area of lesion. To reach the final position of the tooth between the second and third order and occlusal adjustments, the orthodontic stage lasted eleven months, including three months of retention. One month before removing the orthodontic appliance and one year after the beginning of traction, root canal filling was performed. While keeping the orthodontic appliance in place, surgery was performed to correct the bone and gingival levels, which tended to follow the tooth, allowing visualization of the entire resorption area. One month after clinical coronary augmentation surgery, the orthodontic appliance was removed and prosthetic treatment performed with a gold alloy-fused metallic core and a ceramic crown with a zirconia infrastructure. Conclusion: The authors therefore concluded that by employing a multidisciplinary approach it is possible to treat cases of external cervical resorption.


Multi-view clustering aims to leverage information from multiple views to improve clustering. Most previous works assumed that each view has complete data. However, in real-world datasets, it is often the case that a view may contain some missing data, resulting in the incomplete multi-view clustering problem. Previous methods for this problem have at least one of the following drawbacks: (1) employing shallow models, which cannot well handle the dependence and discrepancy among different views; (2) ignoring the hidden information of the missing data; (3) dedicated to the two-view case. To eliminate all these drawbacks, in this work we present an Adversarial Incomplete Multi-view Clustering (AIMC) method. Unlike most existing methods which only learn a new representation with existing views, AIMC seeks the common latent space of multi-view data and performs missing data inference simultaneously. In particular, the element-wise reconstruction and the generative adversarial network (GAN) are integrated to infer the missing data. They aim to capture overall structure and get a deeper semantic understanding respectively. Moreover, an aligned clustering loss is designed to obtain a better clustering structure. Experiments conducted on three datasets show that AIMC performs well and outperforms baseline methods.


Canadians today are very much concerned about corporate crime and about corporations that do not comply with regulatory requirements, especially those related to the environment, securities law and occupational health and safety regulations. This increased concern has led to proposals to extend liability for illegal corporate conduct (by making directors personally liable for the actions of their companies, for example); it has also led to arguments in favour of greatly increasing the sanctions on corporations (and individual wrongdoers within those corporations) for wrongful conduct. The recent academic literature reflects a lively debate as to the effectiveness of such proposals in reducing illegal behaviour in corporations and their consequences for the functioning of the corporation as an economic institution. With some notable exceptions, the focus of the debate on sanctions and liability rules has resulted in the relative neglect of an essential ingredient in effective deterrence; the capacity to monitor and detect wrongdoing within the corporation. The lack of attention to the potential for increased compliance through improved monitoring and detection is surprising for several reasons. First, as Jennifer Arlen notes, "[m]any corporate crimes such as securities fraud, government procurement fraud, and some environmental crimes cannot be readily detected by government". Second, there is a significant body of literature on regulatory reform that relates the ineffectiveness of many traditional "command and control" forms of regulation to the costs and difficulties which are inherent in government monitoring and detection of wrongdoing. Third, one of the most generally held tenets of contemporary criminology is that increasing the likelihood of detection and prosecution tends to be a more effective means of strengthening deterrence than making sanctions more severe. In other words, it is better to put another cop on the beat than to build more jail cells. This study is intended to help redress the inadequate emphasis on monitoring and detection in the current debate on corporate criminal and regulatory responsibility. Accepting the proposition that direct monitoring of corporate conduct by government as a means of detection is unlikely to be cost-effective, our concern is to identify agents within the corporation who can be enlisted in the cause of monitoring and detection, and to consider how public policies can provide stronger incentives, and make it easier, for these agents to identify and disclose wrongdoing within the corporation. In conducting this analysis, we begin by considering one such policy that has generated sustained public attention and controversy over the last decade: so-called "whistleblower protection."


The Onfp class of rotationally broadened, hot spectra was defined some time ago in the Galaxy, where its membership to date numbers only eight. The principal defining characteristic is a broad, centrally reversed He ii λ 4686 emission profile; other emission and absorption lines are also rotationally broadened. Recent surveys in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) have brought the class membership there, including some related spectra, to 28. We present a survey of the spectral morphology and rotational velocities, as a first step toward elucidating the nature of this class. Evolved, rapidly rotating hot stars are not expected theoretically, because the stellar winds should brake the rotation. Luminosity classification of these spectra is not possible, because the principal criterion (He ii λ4686) is peculiar; however, the MCs provide reliable absolute magnitudes, which show that they span the entire range from dwarfs to supergiants. The Onfp line-broadening distribution is distinct and shifted toward larger values from those of normal O dwarfs and supergiants with >99.99% confidence. All cases with multiple observations show line-profile variations, which even remove some objects from the class temporarily. Some of them are spectroscopic binaries; it is possible that the peculiar profiles may have multiple causes among different objects. The origin and future of these stars are intriguing; for instance, they could be stellar mergers and/or gamma-ray-burst progenitors.


Those creative professionals seeking the fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn Adobe Premiere Pro CC choose Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2015 release) Classroom in a Book from Adobe Press. The 19 project-based lessons in this book show readers step-by-step the key techniques for working in Premiere Pro. Readers learn to take a project from beginning to end where theyll get the basics on things like organizing media, using audio, creating transitions, producing titles, and adding effects. Once they have the basics down, they'll learn how to take their projects further by sweetening and mixing sound, compositing the footage, adjusting color, compressing and exporting files, and much more. (( Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2015 release) offers many new capabilities to the editor who needs quick results and this book covers the workflows required to get the job done. Best of all, the companion DVD (also available as an online download) includes lesson files so readers can work step-by-step along with the book. The online companion files include all the necessary assets for readers to complete the projects featured in each chapter as well as ebook updates when Adobe releases new features for Creative Cloud customers. And new to this release, all buyers of the book get full access to the Web Edition: a Web-based version of the complete ebook enhanced with video and interactive multiple-choice quizzes. As always with the Classroom in a Book, Instructor Notes are available for teachers to download.


Aim/Purpose The aim of this article is to discuss a PhD student's experience of working with unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, amidst a rapidly changing global situation. The focus is on how the research process influenced the novice PhD student, and how the student's subject position influenced the research. Background The incentive for this article comes from an examiner's comment, which argued that the student's thesis did not clarify her subject position, or allow her voice to be heard. Paulo Freire's (2005) concept of "pedagogical love" is used in unpacking these dimensions. Methodology The paper adopts an autoethnographic approach. The data, consisting of 48 pages of field notes written during the doctoral study, are analyzed abductively (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012), in dialogue with theory. Contribution The paper brings to the fore the ways in which the doctoral research processes may influence students, especially those working closely and intensively with participants in emotionally challenging situations and within a research field in flux. This knowledge is rarely included in doctoral training, but is relevant in today's world where migration and refugees have become a popular theme. Secondly, the paper contributes to the already well-established body of literature about how doctoral student's positionality influences the research. Findings The article utilises the ideas of storytelling (Weir & Clarke, 2018) and communicates findings in the form of three intertwined journeys: that of the author through her PhD process; the journey of her research participants from their countries of origin to Finland; and the journey of the PhD research within the historical turbulence of 2015 in global refugee situation. The findings show that acknowledging and reflecting one's own emotional stance is required for the Journeys of a PhD Student and Unaccompanied Minors 348 wellbeing of the student, as well as for an ethical research process resulting in a trustworthy outcome. The findings also suggest that although the love-rhetoric may sit awkwardly within our current academic perspectives, a focus on emotions does not diminish rigor in research. Instead, it enables ethical relationships and processes that are meaningful for all participants. Recommendations for Practitioners The paper recommends that practitioners in academia (including doctoral supervisors) encourage doctoral students to "know with [their] entire body, with feelings, with passion and also with reason" (Freire 1997, p. 30), and to reflect on their positionality, as well as map their doctoral journeys in the intersection of others. Recommendation for Researchers The paper highlights that researchers working with people in challenging situations must continuously question their biases, show interest in the research participants as individuals, and create trust through long involvement in the research field. Impact on Society By highlighting the complexities encountered in this research project, the paper aims to disrupt the simplistic, often deficit-focused assumptions about people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds. Future Research The scope of the findings leaves open a discussion on critical moments during the shared journeys: how to enter the research field ethically, and how to exit after creating trust and building relationships?


This thesis covers different problems concerning the evaluation of DNA evidence. It is mainly divided into two parts: the
first regards the DIP-STR genotyping techniques. It addresses the imperative need of developing a model to assign the likelihood ratio for DIP-STR results, and compares, from a statistical and forensic perspective, the advantages of this novel marker system compared to traditional marker systems, such as STR and Y-STR.
The second part deals with several more general statistical aspects involved in the evaluation of DNA evidence. It aims at defining the differences between full Bayesian methods and ad
hoc plug-in approximations, and at solving the rare type match problem for Y-STR data.
The issues of the different reductions of data and of the levels of uncertainty involved in frequentist solutions are also discussed.
These two parts are connected in the
final project, by developing a Bayesian solution for the rare type match problem for DIP-STR marker system. Moreover, the initial model for DIP-STR data is improved in the light of the statistical discussion of the second part: any ad hoc solution is avoided to obtain a full Bayesian approach.


Problem-based learning (PBL) is an internationally recognised pedagogical approach that is implemented within a number of disciplines. The relevance and uptake of PBL in psychology has to date, however, received very limited attention. The aim of this paper is therefore to review published accounts of how PBL is being used to deliver psychology curricula in higher education and to highlight psychological research that offers practical strategies for PBL theory and practice. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, we discuss the principles of PBL and provide examples of how it can be used within psychology curricula, alongside a consideration of its advantages and disadvantages. In the second section, we outline the results of a systematic literature review of published examples of PBL used within psychology undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Finally, in the third section, we examine some of the ways in which psychological research can provide practical guidance for PBL teaching practice. We conclude this paper with some recommendations for future research across all these areas, and call for the further development of PBL curricula in psychology higher education course provision.


Today's students, known as digital natives, are living a paradox. Although they grew up with technology, there are many studies which underline that students' digital skills are not what they might seem. Thus, even if they are more familiar than professors or parents with functions and options available on the most used social networks and applications like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube etc., they still need "support with some areas of digital practice, particularly in an academic context" (JISC, 2015). But are these perceptions / expectations of students' digital skills based on reality? Moreover, what should we do as their professors? Firstly, we should not forget that not all students have equal access to digital resources. Some of them need to be trained more concretely/effectively and most of them need to refine and update their digital skills and competencies in order to become more employable, ready to cope with the digital jobs of the future. Secondly, they need to benefit from staff well equipped with digital skills, who can design and deliver courses with technology integrated, able to pass on the relevant digital skills to their students and colleagues. Thirdly, they need a proper and adequate digital environment. Given this approach, we formulated our research questions as follows: • What are the challenges in creating the right environments for digital learning? • What are institutions doing in order to equip professors with digital skills? The aim of the present paper is to review existing evidence on what a digital university means. What is it? What actions should we take towards becoming a digital university? Thus, we conducted a small-scale study within the Romanian higher education space in order to investigate the aforesaid research questions and to emphasize what concrete steps, actions, responsibilities and measures should be taken to drive forward a digital university vision.


The physiological condition of larval Antarctic krill was investigated during austral autumn 2004 and winter 2006 in the Lazarev Sea. The condition of larvae was quantified in both seasons by determining their body length (BL), dry weight (DW), elemental and biochemical composition, stomach content analysis, and rates of metabolism and growth. Overall the larvae in autumn were in better condition under the ice than in open water, and for those under the ice, condition decreased from autumn to winter. Thus, growth rates of furcilia larvae in open water in autumn were similar to winter values under the ice (mean, 0.008 mm d−1), whereas autumn underice values were higher (0.015 mm d−1). Equivalent larval stages in winter had up to 30% shorter BL and 70% lower DW than in autumn. Mean respiration rates of winter larvae were 43% lower than of autumn larvae. However, their ammonium excretion rates doubled in winter from 0.03 to 0.06 µg NH4 DW−1 h−1, resulting in mean O:N ratios of 46 in autumn and 15 in winter. Thus, differing metabolic substrates were used between autumn and winter, which supports a degree of flexibility for overwintering of larval krill. The larvae were eating small copepods (Oithona spp.) and protozoans, as well as autotrophic food under the ice. The interplay between under‐ice topography, apparent current speed under sea ice, and the swimming ability of larval krill is probably critical to whether larval krill can maintain position and exploit suitable feeding areas under the ice.


Serum is generally regarded as an essential component of many eukaryotic cell culture media, despite the fact that serum composition varies greatly and may be the source of a wide range of artefacts. The objective of this study was to assess serum-free growth conditions for the human embryonal carcinoma cell line, NT2/D1. These cells greatly resemble embryonic stem cells. In the presence of retinoic acid (RA), NT2/D1 cells irreversibly differentiate along the neuronal lineage. We have previously shown that the early phases of neural induction of these cells by RA involve the up-regulation of SOX3 gene expression. Our goal was to compare RA-induced differentiation of NT2/D1 cells in serum-containing and serum-free media, by using SOX3 protein levels as a marker of differentiation. We found that NT2/D1 cells can be successfully grown under serum-free conditions, and that the presence or absence of serum does not affect the level of SOX3 protein after a 48-hour RA induction. However, six days of RA treatment resulted in a marked increase in SOX3 protein levels in serum-free media compared to serum-containing media, indicating that serum might have an inhibitory effect on the expression of this neural differentiation marker. This finding is important for both basic and translational studies that hope to exploit cell culture conditions that are free of animal-derived products.


Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common, frequently occurring disease with increasing incidences every year. House dust mite is one of the common indoor allergens that causes allergic rhinitis. So this study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Allergopharma house dust mite vaccine in the treatment of allergic rhinitis. A case self-control method was used to compare the total symptom using visual analog scale (VAS), nasal symptom score, as well as medication changes in 68 cases of patients with house dust mite-induced allergic rhinitis before and after receiving one year of immunotherapy. Out of 68 patients, 55 completed immunotherapy. After treatment, the total symptom VAS and nasal symptom score of 55 patients were significantly reduced compared with before treatment (P<0.01), and medication dosage was also lowered. Among a total of 1683 injections, local adverse reactions appeared 134 times, and mild systemic adverse reactions 17 times. However, no fatal systemic adverse reaction was observed. Allergopharma house dust mite vaccine is an effective and safe method of treatment for house dust mite-induced allergic rhinitis.


In arable landscapes, the airborne detection of archaeological features is often reliant on using the properties of the vegetation cover as a proxy for sub-surface features in the soil. Under the right conditions, the formation of vegetation marks allows archaeologists to identify and interpret archaeological features. Using airborne Laser Scanning, based on the principles of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to detect these marks is challenging, particularly given the difficulties of resolving subtle changes in a low and homogeneous crop with these sensors. In this paper, an experimental approach is adopted to explore how these marks could be detected as variations in canopy biomass using both range and full waveform LiDAR data. Although some detection was achieved using metrics of the full waveform data, it is the novel multi-temporal method of using discrete return data to detect and characterise archaeological vegetation marks that is offered for further consideration. This method was demonstrated to be applicable over a range of capture conditions, including soils deemed as difficult (i.e., clays and other heavy soils), and should increase the certainty of detection when employed in the increasingly multi-sensor approaches to heritage prospection and management.


Abstract Delayed vascularization and resultant resorption limits the clinical use of tissue engineered bony constructs. The objective of this study is to develop a strategy to accelerate the neovascularization of tissue-engineered bony constructs using endothelial differentiated adipose-derived stem cells (ASC). The authors harvested ASC from inguinal fat pads of male Lewis rats (n = 5) and induced toward endothelial and osteoblastic lineages. The authors created critical size calvarial defects on male Lewis rats (n = 30) and randomized the animals into 4 groups. For the repair of the defects the authors used hydroxyapatite/poly(lactide-co-glycolide) [HA-PLG] scaffolds in group I, HA-PLG scaffolds seeded with ASC in group II, HA-PLG scaffolds seeded with ASC-derived endothelial cells in group III, and HA-PLG scaffolds seeded with ASC-derived osteoblasts in group IV. The authors evaluated the bone healing histologically and with micro-computed tomography (CT) scans 8 weeks later. Adipose-derived stem cells exhibited the characteristics of endothelial and osteogenic lineages, and attached on HA-PLG scaffolds after differentiation. Micro-CT analysis revealed that highest bone mineral density was in group IV (1.46 ± 0.01 g/cm3) followed by groups III (1.43 ± 0.05 g/cm3), I (1.42 ± 0.05 g/cm3), and II (1.3 ± 0.1 g/cm3). Hematoxylin–Eosin and Masson Trichrome staining revealed similar results with the highest bone regeneration in group IV followed by groups II, III, and I. Regenerated bone in group IV also had the highest vascular density, but none of these differences achieved statistical significance (P > 0.05). The ASC-derived endothelial cells and osteoblasts provide a limited increase in calvarial bone healing when combined with HA-PLG scaffolds.


Abstract Previous research suggests that English monolingual children and adults can use speech disfluencies (e.g., uh) to predict that a speaker will name a novel object. To understand the origins of this ability, we tested 48 32-month-old children (monolingual English, monolingual French, bilingual English–French; Study 1) and 16 adults (bilingual English–French; Study 2). Our design leveraged the distinct realizations of English (uh) versus French (euh) disfluencies. In a preferential-looking paradigm, participants saw familiar–novel object pairs (e.g., doll–rel), labeled in either Fluent ("Look at the doll/rel!"), Disfluent Language-consistent ("Look at thee uh doll/rel!"), or Disfluent Language-inconsistent ("Look at thee euh doll/rel!") sentences. All participants looked more at the novel object when hearing disfluencies, irrespective of their phonetic realization. These results suggest that listeners from different language backgrounds harness disfluencies to comprehend day-to-day speech, possibly by attending to their lengthening as a signal of speaker uncertainty. Stimuli and data are available at .


In 2013, the Supreme Court of India gave finality to the decision of Madras High Court by narrowly construing 'efficacy' under §3(d) of the Patent Act, 1970 as 'therapeutic efficacy'. This paper comprehensively deliberates upon the impacts of 'therapeutic efficacy' in a law and economics framework. The focus lies on the patent breadth or scope and its link with such an interpretation, in light of the indigenous pharmaceutical industry's dependence on incremental innovation. Finally, this paper highlights the crucial nature of State funding and its importance for the effectiveness and efficiency of this judgment. Such funding shall help to fill in the void created by the judgment and a successful indigenous pharmaceutical industry would be able to emerge out of the vicious circle of reverse engineering, generics and me-too drugs.


This paper analyses the possible adoption and commercial introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops in Finland. It is divided into two main parts. First and foremost, based on the available literature, the economic and policy factors which influence the rate of adoption and diffusion of GM technology in agriculture are examined. Secondly, the potato is used as a case study to provide further insights into economic and strategic issues plus the implications of adopting GM technology within the Finnish agri-food chain. The case study is based on interviews with key players involved in farming, processing, trade, and the administration of the production of potato.The results suggest that GM technology will not alter the basic structure of agri-food industry, but will create changes in the cost and benefit distribution. In addition, an increased use of contractual arrangements will lead to greater vertical integration and co-ordination in the value chain of potato.


Indawgyi Lake in Kachin State, located in the northern part of Myanmar, is the largest inland freshwater lake in the country, with rich aquatic flora and fauna, high biodiversity and a (largely) intact ecosystem. Since 1999 the "Indawgyi Wetland Bird Sanctuary" has been declared a conservation area. Still, it is a peripheral region and lagging behind in its development. At present the three main economic activities are agriculture, fishing and gold mining. Zin Mar Than offers an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic situation of the area and identifies its future development potentials using the SWOT approach (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). In this context the author discusses concepts of endogenous development and sustainability. Special emphasis is placed on developing ecotourism as a fourth economic activity in the area and to meet the needs of long-term conservation.


Data from animal‐borne inertial sensors are widely used to investigate several aspects of an animal's life, such as energy expenditure, daily activity patterns and behaviour. Accelerometer data used in conjunction with machine learning algorithms have been the tool of choice for characterising animal behaviour. Although machine learning models perform reasonably well, they may not rely on meaningful features, nor lend themselves to physical interpretation of the classification rules. This lack of interpretability and control over classification outcomes is of particular concern where different behaviours have different frequency of occurrence and duration, as in most natural systems, and calls for the development of alternative methods. Biomechanical approaches to human activity classification could overcome these shortcomings, yet their full potential remains untapped for animal studies. We propose a general framework for behaviour recognition using accelerometers, and develop a hybrid model where (a) biomechanical features characterise movement dynamics, and (b) a node‐based hierarchical classification scheme employs simple machine learning algorithms at each node to find feature‐value thresholds separating different behaviours. Using triaxial accelerometer data collected on 10 wild Kalahari meerkats, and annotated video recordings of each individual as groundtruth, this hybrid model was validated in three scenarios: (a) when each behaviour was equally represented (EQDIST), (b) when naturally imbalanced datasets were considered (STRAT) and (c) when data from new individuals were considered (LOIO). A linear‐kernel Support Vector Machine at each node of our classification scheme yielded an overall accuracy of >95% for each scenario. Our hybrid approach had a 2.7% better average overall accuracy than top‐performing classical machine learning approaches. Further, we showed that not all models with high overall accuracy returned accurate behaviour‐specific performance, and good performance during EQDIST did not always generalise to STRAT and LOIO. Our hybrid model took advantage of robust machine learning algorithms for automatically estimating decision boundaries between behavioural classes. This not only achieved high classification performance but also permitted biomechanical interpretation of classification outcomes. The framework presented here provides the flexibility to adapt models to required levels of behavioural resolution, and has the potential to facilitate meaningful model sharing between studies.


In the Western Brazilian Amazon, interactions of boto (Inia geoffrensis) and tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis) dolphins with fishing activities are common, but the prevalence of incidental/intentional catches is not known. This article describes incidental mortality events and intentional killing of I. geoffrensis and S. fluviatilis entangled in artisanal fishing gear and the opportunistic use of carcasses as bait. Between October 2010 and November 2011, surveys were conducted in waters of the lower Japura River, between the Mamiraua and Amana sustainable development reserves. In order to obtain information on interactions and to try to establish a stranding/entanglement response program (SERP), informal conversations were exchanged with local inhabitants (n = 174). Intense carcasssearch surveys (n = 171) along the river in the four hydrological seasons (e.g., low, rising, high, and falling waters) were conducted, comprising a total of 1,197 h of sampling effort. Twenty-five dolphin– fishing interaction events were recorded (11 I. geoffrensis and 14 S. fluviatilis), 19 in 2011 and six in 2012 (through SERP). A total of 11 necropsies (three I. geoffrensis and eight S. fluviatilis) were performed. Four individuals (two I. geoffrensis and two S. fluviatilis) exhibited evidence of physical violence before death, and two (one I. geoffrensis and one S. fluviatilis) died in abandoned gillnets. Two intentional killing events of I. geoffrensis incidentally entangled for bait use in the piracatinga (Calophysus macropterus) fishery were reported by fishermen, while three carcasses (two I. geoffrensis and one S. fluviatilis) with gillnet marks were also used in that activity. At least six of the S. fluviatilis entanglement events occurred in fishing gear used for tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) and pirapitinga (Piaractus brachypomus) (90/100-mm mesh-size gillnet), two of the most important commercial fish species in the Amazon Basin. As seasonal fishing constitutes the main income for riverine human populations, the negative reactions that cetacean presence causes to people could have a catalyst effect for the transition from "inciden- tal capture" to "intentional capture and competi- tor removal." Law enforcement and precautionary measures through good fishing practices inside dolphin critical foraging areas should be taken together with fisheries' managers and fishermen to start to develop multiple-species management and ensure sustainable fishing practices.


Leukaemia is a complex form of blood malignancy characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of haematopoietic cells and progressive accumulation of these cells within the bone marrow (BM) and secondary lymphoid tissues. The exact cause of leukaemia remains unknown. Leukaemia is a major problem worldwide affecting many people each year. However, current treatment options still have several limitations not least, the cytotoxicity of these therapies to normal cells and the fact that certain chemotherapy agents may cause bone marrow toxicity and organ damage. Several epidemiological studies have shown that high intake of fruit and vegetables are associated with low incidence of a number of human cancers. Researchers suggest that pomegranates contain bioactive chemicals with potential for treatment and prevention of cancer. Pomegranate juice (PJ) have been shown to inhibit cellular proliferation and tumor growth and induce cell death via apoptosis in a number of cancer cell lines. However, to date, few studies have investigated the potential of PJ in the treatment of Leukaemia. Here, PJ significantly induced apoptosis in 8 leukaemia cell lines and non tumour control cells although the lymphoid and 2 myeloid cell lines were affected to a greater extent than non-tumour control cells and 2 of the myeloid cell lines. Furthermore, PJ induced cell cycle arrest. These results provide evidence that PJ contain bioactive compounds that could be used in the treatment of Leukaemia.Treatment of four Leukaemia cell lines with five fractions obtained from PJ by solid phase extraction demonstrated that only the acetonitrile fractions decreased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels in all Leukaemia cell lines. Acetonitrile fractions also significantly activated caspase-3 and induced nuclear morphology characteristic of apoptosis. S phase arrest was induced by acetonitrile fractions which matched S phase arrest seen previously following whole PJ treatments. The acetonitrile fractions contained higher phenol content than whole PJ whereas only low levels of phenols were seen in any other fraction. Liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS)analysis demonstrated that acetonitrile fractions were enriched in ellagitannins, ellagic acid, and hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives but depleted in anthocyanins.The potential protective effect of a number of pure compounds that were either identified in the acetonitrile fraction of PJ were present in the other fractions of PJ or have been identified as PJ components in previous studies were studied on ATP levels in four human leukaemia cell lines. Among the 26 naturally occurring pomegranate compounds investigated, only seven compounds: delphinidin; cyanidin; pelargonidin; EGCG; gallic acid; ellagic acid; quercetin; and punicalagin induced 50% decrease in ATP levels in the studied leukaemia cell lines.To compare the chemoprotective properties of anthocyanins found in PJ and to understand the relationship between anthocyanin chemical structure and chemoprotective activity, the inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis in leukaemia cell lines was measured. Anthocyanins activity was found to be dependent on the ortho-hydroxyphenyl structure and the most potent glycosidic form of the anthocyanins with proliferation and apoptosis effects seen in anthocyanins with greatest hydroxyl groups and least glycosidic form, namely delphinidin. Delphinidin induced apoptosis through intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Suggesting that delphinidin may have potential for use as a chemotherapeutic agent against leukaemia. Furthermore, EGCG, gallic acid, quercetin, and punicalagin induced apoptosis and resulted in cell cycle arrest in the majority of the leukaemia cell lines. Together this study has shown that PJ is a rich source of bioactive compounds which could hold promise for treatment of leukaemia. The most promising compounds found within PJ were delphinidin, gallic acid, and punicalagin. Further investigation into these agents in the treatment and prevention of leukaemia are essential to develop these potential agents as future treatments.


The process of plant speciation often involves the evolution of divergent ecotypes in response to differences in soil water availability between habitats. While the same set of traits is frequently associated with xeric/mesic ecotype divergence, it is unknown whether those traits evolve independently or if they evolve in tandem as a result of genetic colocalization either by pleiotropy or genetic linkage. The self-fertilizing C4 grass species Panicum hallii includes two major ecotypes found in xeric (var. hallii) or mesic (var. filipes) habitats. We constructed the first linkage map for P. hallii by genotyping a reduced representation genomic library of an F2 population derived from an intercross of var. hallii and filipes. We then evaluated the genetic architecture of divergence between these ecotypes through quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping. Overall, we mapped QTLs for nine morphological traits that are involved in the divergence between the ecotypes. QTLs for five key ecotype-differentiating traits all colocalized to the same region of linkage group five. Leaf physiological traits were less divergent between ecotypes, but we still mapped five physiological QTLs. We also discovered a two-locus Dobzhansky–Muller hybrid incompatibility. Our study suggests that ecotype-differentiating traits may evolve in tandem as a result of genetic colocalization.


Abstract The critical period for weed control (CPWC) is a period in the crop growth cycle during which weeds must be controlled to prevent yield losses. Knowing the CPWC is useful in making decisions on the need for and timing of weed control and in achieving efficient herbicide use from both biological and economic perspectives. An increase in the use of herbicide-tolerant crops, especially soybean resistant to glyphosate, has stimulated interest in the concept of CPWC. Recently, several studies examined this concept in glyphosate-resistant corn and soybean across the midwestern United States. However, these studies presented various methods for data analysis and reported CPWC on the basis of a variety of crop- or weed-related parameters. The objectives of this study are (1) to provide a review of the concept and studies of the CPWC, (2) to suggest a common method to standardize the process of data analysis, and (3) to invite additional discussions for further debate on the subject. Wide adoption of the suggested method of data analysis will allow easier comparison of the results among sites and between researchers. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; corn, Zea mays L.; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr.


Parallel structured adaptive mesh refinement methods decrease the execution time and memory usage of partial differential equation solvers by adaptively assigning computational resources to regions with large solution errors. These methods result in a dynamic grid hierarchy. To get good parallel performance, the grid hierarchy is frequently re-partitioned and distributed over the processors. Optimally, the partitioner should minimize all performance-inhibiting factors like load imbalance, communication volumes, synchronization delays, and data migration. No single partitioner performs well for all hierarchies and parallel computers. Because the partitioning conditions change during run-time, dynamically selecting a partitioner is non-trivial. In this thesis, we present the Meta-Partitioner: a partitioning framework that autonomously selects, configures, invokes, and evaluates partitioning algorithms during run-time. For the implementation, we use component-based software-engineering. We predict the performance of the candidate partitioning algorithms with historical performance data for grid hierarchies similar to the current hierarchy. We focus the partitioning effort on the most performance-inhibiting factors — the load imbalance and the synchronization delays. At re-partitioning, a user-specified number of partitioning algorithms is selected and invoked. The performance of each partitioning is evaluated during run-time and the best one is selected. The performance of the selected partitioning algorithms was compared both to the average performance of 768 algorithms and the global minimum at each re-partitioning. The results showed huge improvements both for the load imbalance and the synchronization delays. Compared to the average partitioning, the load imbalance was decreased by 28.2%. The synchronization delays were decreased by 21.5%. Compared to the global optimum, the load imbalance was increased by only 11.5%. For the synchronization delays, the increase was 13.6%. Often, the Meta-Partitioner selected the best algorithm among all candidate algorithms.


This review focuses on the clinical interactions between patients and the dental team, not on caries prevention at a public health level. Many dentists no longer take a narrow surgical view seeking to apply interventive treatment as a one-off event at a certain trigger point of disease severity and the evidence that caries is an initially reversible, chronic disease with a known multi-factorial aetiology is being appreciated more widely. The caries process should be managed over time in an individualized way for each patient. Very few individuals can be considered to be truly 'caries free' when initial lesions as well as more advanced dentine lesions are considered. It is now very clear that, by itself, restorative treatment of the disease does not 'cure' caries. The caries process needs to be managed, in partnership with patients, over the changing challenges of a lifetime. The answer to the question posed in the title should be, in many cases, that we are ready to move to non-operative/preventive care (if we have not done so already). However, this should be for appropriate stages of lesion extent and in patients who respond to advice on recall frequency and preventive behaviours.


Fossil seed distributions of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) from dated sediment cores in tributaries of the upper Chesapeake Bay show prehistoric changes in species composition and abundance and reflect the response of SAV species to human disturbance since European settlement. The interval of time spanned by the cores includes several centuries prior to, and three centuries following, European settlement. Species diversity is greatest in the low-salinity northern and upper tributaries, while areas of higher salinity and extensive salt marshes are characterized by low diversity or absence of SAV. Mapped distributions of seed abundances show the migration from upstream to downstream in some tributaries of the brackish species Potamogeton perfoliatus, Zannichellia palustris, and Ruppia maritima following deforestation. The largest increase in SAV, represented by the highest abundance of fossilized seeds, occurred during the 1700s after Europeans first cleared the land for farms, and the largest and most widespread decline took place in the 1960s and 1970s after most of the watershed had been at one time or another cleared and heavily fertilized for agriculture. Distributions of SAV are highly variable both temporally and spatially, reflecting the dynamic nature of estuarine habitats. Despite high environmental variability, local and regional extinctions occurred only in the most recent decades, indicating a threshold response to land use changes and nutrient loading which had begun at least two centuries earlier and intensified in the mid- to late 19th century.


Abstract Trade in wildlife is increasingly moving online, which creates significant challenges for monitoring. Numerous reports have highlighted the extent of the trade but they rarely present a methodology to facilitate replication or any form of meta-analysis. Here we present a systematic approach to surveying online trade in wildlife that builds on the well-established systematic evidence review approach. We apply this approach to investigate the online trade in saiga antelope Saiga tatarica horns on Russian-language websites. Of the 419 advertisements, the majority (217, 52%) were from Ukraine, followed by Russia (122, 29%), and were largely offers to sell (254, 61%), and represented one-off advertisements. Trade was identified on 89 websites, with the majority being on classified ads websites (68, 76%), auction.violity.com being the most popular site (156, 37%). Prices varied significantly depending on the country and how the horn was being offered (i.e. by weight or length). It is clear that saiga horn is being traded over the internet, with Ukraine and Russia comprising c. 80% of advertisements on Russian-language websites. Individuals with single advertisements dominate, suggesting website fidelity, although website usage is country-specific, potentially reflecting domestic trade. This suggests country-specific interventions could be particularly effective. A systematic approach for investigating online wildlife trade provides a clear and transparent methodology, and, given data collection is resource-intensive, allows studies to be replicated so that trends can be identified. However, this is only possible if published studies report the methodology used.


In this Letter, we present a single-shot approach to quantitatively retrieve x-ray absorption and phase shift in grating interferometry. The proposed approach makes use of the energy-resolving capability of x-ray photon-counting detectors. The retrieval method is derived and presented and is tested based on numerical simulations, including photon shot noise. The good agreement between retrieval results and theoretical values confirms the feasibility of the presented approach.


Although shared piped water supply systems are an increasingly popular way of providing "improved water sources" in developing countries, little rigorous evidence exists on the benefits of such systems. To fill this gap, the research presented in this paper assesses a large-scale infrastructure project implemented in rural Kyrgyzstan. Using data on the scoring system designed to select villages for the project, this paper exploits a non-linearity that exists in the likelihood of being selected to identify the impacts of these improved water sources on village, household, and individual-level health-related outcomes. In doing so, the paper overcomes endogeneity concerns due to non-random village selection. The infrastructure project did improve water access in villages that are selected to receive a water supply system; households in such villages are less likely to use an unprotected source for their household water and are more likely to use a primary water source that is located less than 200 meters from the house. This results in a significant decrease in the village-level incidence of two water-related diseases, acute intestinal infections and Hepatitis A, in children 5 years old and younger. An analysis of impacts on incidence of a disease less likely to be directly affected by water access, specifically acute respiratory infections, was performed as a robustness check. As was hypothesized, there is no evidence that the improved water supply systems reduce acute respiratory infections.


Background In August 2010, a tamper-resistant formulation of controlled-release oxycodone (OxyContin-OP) was introduced in the United States but not in Canada. Our objective was to determine whether introduction of OxyContin-OP in the United States influenced prescription volumes for the original controlled-release oxycodone formulation (OxyContin) at Canadian pharmacies near the international border. Methods We conducted a population-based, serial, cross-sectional study of prescriptions dispensed from pharmacies in the 3 cities with the highest volume of US–Canada border crossings in Ontario: Niagara Falls, Windsor and Sarnia. We analyzed data on all outpatient prescriptions for OxyContin dispensed by Canadian pharmacies near each border crossing between 2010 Apr. 1 and 2012 Feb. 29. We calculated and compared monthly prescription rates, adjusted per 1000 population and stratified by tablet strength. Results The number of tablets dispensed near 4 border crossings in the 3 Canadian cities remained stable over the study period. However, the rate of dispensing at pharmacies near the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel increased roughly 4-fold between August 2010 and February 2011, from 505 to 1969 tablets per 1000 population. By April 2011, following warnings to prescribers and pharmacies regarding drug-seeking behaviour, the dispensing rate declined to 1683 tablets per 1000 population in this area. By November 2011, the rate had returned to levels observed in early 2010. Our analyses suggest that 242 075 excess OxyContin tablets were dispensed near the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel between August 2010 and October 2011. Conclusions Prescribing of the original formulation of controlled-release oxycodone rose substantially near a major international border crossing following the introduction of a tamper-resistant formulation in the United States. It is possible that the restriction of this finding to the area surrounding the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel reflects specific characteristics of this border crossing, including its high traffic volume, direct access to the downtown core and drug-trafficking patterns in the Detroit area. Our findings highlight the potential impact of cross-border differences in medication availability on drug-seeking behaviour.


The large scale structure of the universe has been shown to be a powerful probe of cosmology and fundamental physics. In order for future surveys to continue to improve and constrain our model of the Universe we rely on predictions from N-body simulations regarding the cosmological matter density field. First, we examine the effect of baryons on the cluster mass function in an effort to ameliorate the apparent tension in cosmological parameters determined from the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and cluster number counts in the Planck survey. It is shown that ignoring baryonic depletion causes a decrement in the number of galaxy clusters of a fixed mass and an artificial shift in the inferred cosmological parameters. While this effect is not sufficient to completely resolve the tension in the Planck collaboration (2014) results, it will be an important factor in measurements from future cluster surveys.In order to investigate the effects of modified gravity on the matter power spectrum we present an f(R) gravity extension to the massively parallel N-body GADGET-2 code. After validating our multigrid enabled Newton-Raphson-Gauss-Seidel relax- ation solver we investigate two different f(R) models, namely the designer and Hu & Sawicki (2007) models. We find that the designer model power spectrum is well ap- proximated by the models of He et al. (2014) and He, Li & Hawken (2015) to 0.2 per cent. Furthermore, the power spectrum found when using the exact functional form of the Hu & Sawicki (2007) model is in excellent agreement with the power-law approximation. Finally, we have performed simulations with the Hu & Sawicki (2007) model with n > 1. It is shown that increasing n decreases the overall amplitude of the fractional power spectrum. Future measurements of large scale structure should beable to constrain both n and f_R0.


This paper discusses the problem of increasing remittances. It is often argued that the remittance fee needs to be lowered to increase remittances. We show that remittances become larger by increasing the receiving fee whereas they become larger by reducing the sending fee. We also show that, by transferring the sending fee from the migrant to the household, remittances become larger than those without the transfer. It is shown that for this purpose the home country's government can collect the sending fee from the household as taxes, and to pay it to the migrant as a subsidy.


"Waldren's engaging book is carefully crafted ...a superior guide to both the structure and meaning of community and the pleasures of daily life." * Choice "...solid accounts of the concepts and social practices related to the casa ...patronage, and social hierarchy ...[Waldren] also devotes attention to some less traditional concerns, such as gender, conceptions of social space, tourism, and economic development." * American Anthropologist The indigenous population of Deia has lived side by side with increasing numbers of foreigners over the past century, and what has occurred there over this period offers an example of how the population of one Mediterranean village has gained full advantage from the economic opportunities opened up by foreign investments, without losing the fabric of social relations, the meaning and values of their culture. Deia has been able to continue as a community with its own symbolic boundaries and identity, not in spite of the outsiders (some of whom are well-known literary personalities, artists and musicians) but because of their presence. This study shows how, under the impact of wars, migration, national politics, global economic and technological developments and especially tourism, the categories of Insider and Outsider are contracted and expanded, and reinterpreted to fit the constantly changing "reality" of the society; they assume different meanings at different times. The conflicts and resulting compromises over a hundred-year period have provided a sense of history that allows each group to define, develop, adapt and sustain their sense of belonging to their own communities.


The increasing and continuous presence of software products and services consumed daily by the society is gaining momentum with the development of the mobile device market. In this scenario, the demand for trained professionals in specific technologies for mobile platforms like Google Android and Samsung BADA, is growing rapidly. The Problem Based Learning method was used to solve practical and real problems inside a Program for teaching Software Engineering techniques to develop Mobile Devices; this program was inspired in the Medical Residency concept, and is called "Software Residency", in which students learn by doing mobile applications in a real working environment implemented by a software factory. To execute this approach, a teaching and learning method was defined and applied based on authentic environment and authentic assessment, approach that brought relevant results towards the learning effectiveness in this context.


Extracting attribute-values related to entities from web texts is an important step in numerous web related tasks such as information retrieval, information extraction, and entity disambiguation (namesake disambiguation). For example, for a search query that contains a personal name, we can not only return documents that contain that personal name, but if we have attribute-values such as the organization for which that person works, we can also suggest documents that contain information related to that organization, thereby improving the user's search experience. Despite numerous potential applications of attribute extraction, it remains a challenging task due to the inherent noise in web data – often a single web page contains multiple entities and attributes. We propose a graph-based approach to select the correct attribute-values from a set of candidate attribute-values extracted for a particular entity. First, we build an undirected weighted graph in which, attribute-values are represented by nodes, and the edge that connects two nodes in the graph represents the degree of relatedness between the corresponding attribute-values. Next, we find the maximum spanning tree of this graph that connects exactly one attribute-value for each attribute-type. The proposed method outperforms previously proposed attribute extraction methods on a dataset that contains 5000 web pages.