W ild lif e Po lic y N um be r 8, A ug us t 20 04 The sale of bushmeat has been referred to as both a 'safety net' and 'stepping stone to greater prosperity' for households at the lowest end of the income scale. This paper proposes a closer look at the local bushmeat economy in order to understand how livelihood strategies vary between those involved. Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) tend to focus on the suppression of commercial bushmeat hunting whilst encouraging alternative incomes for hunters. Based on anthropological research undertaken in the Dja Reserve, Cameroon, the paper looks at the economic behaviour of different local 'hunter types' as well as the role played by the local non-hunter bushmeat traders, proposing a more targeted approach to conservation and development activities relating to the bushmeat economy. Number 8, August 2004


Large, multinational corporations typically have to process hundreds and thousands of vendor invoices every day coming from hundreds or thousands of vendors in different currencies from many countries. This has forced the adoption of simple and fast rules of thumb to accept and pay invoices below a chosen value cutoff without further scrutiny. This has invited fraud, which is hard to detect and react to, as the transaction data sets are very large. Fuzzy C-means has turned out to be effective to identify and sort out transactions, which are similar to typical fraud cases.


OBJECTIVES
The causative agent of tularemia Francisella tularensis is highly infectious and lagomorphs are important reservoirs and a source of human disease. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that sublethal exposure to pesticides increases the susceptibility of hares to F. tularensis and modulates the course of the infection.

METHODS
Experimental hares were allocated to a) control, b) paraoxon-treated, c) F. tularensis-treated, and d) paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated groups of five specimens on a random basis and subcutaneously inoculated with a wild F. tularensis subsp. holarctica strain (a single dose of 9 × 108 CFU pro toto) and/or injected a sublethal dose of paraoxon (100 μg/kg). Group differences were evaluated using survival curves, oxidative stress responses as well as caspase-3 and acetylcholinesterase activities in whole blood samples collected on day 2 post exposure.

RESULTS
The paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated group showed a rapid onset of clinical signs and all deaths occurred on days 2 and 3 post exposure. F. tularensis-inoculated hares survived from 3 to 10 days, while only one hare died on day 12 in the paraoxon-treated group. Survival curves in the three exposed groups were significantly different from the control and median survival in F. tularensis-inoculated and paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated hares amounted to 7 and 2 days, respectively. Compared with controls, significant responses included an eight- and seven-fold activation of caspase-3 in F. tularensis-inoculated and paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated hares, respectively, and a 1.5-fold decrease of blood acetylcholinesterase activities in the paraoxon-treated and paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated groups. There was a 1.3- to 1.4-fold decrease of the ferric reducing antioxidant power in blood of F. tularensis-inoculated hares and the paraoxon-and-F. tularensis-treated group, respectively. The blood lipid peroxidation levels were of no differences among the four experimental groups.

CONCLUSIONS
Results of this study can help understand the pathogenesis of tularemia and mortality of hares in agricultural habitats. Use of anticholinesterase agents in agriculture can pose a threat of infectious disease outbreaks and higher mortality in wildlife populations.


British children enter school earlier than their European counterparts. According to
statutory guidelines they must commence school in the term following their fifth
birthday. In reality Local Education Authority policy has fostered a trend towards
earlier admission, with most children in school at four or four and a half. Research
suggests that this disadvantages boys who may be unready for formal literacy
instruction and in particular summer-born boys, the youngest cohort in the year group.
This longitudinal study explores the effect of age of entry to school on boys' reading
development, focussing on attitudes as well as achievement. Adopting both
quantitative and qualitative methodologies the study examined this development
within a sample of 60, summer-born boys as they moved through Key Stage One. The
boys were drawn randomly from 18 schools within six Local Education Authorities
operating different admissions policies. Comparisons were drawn between 31 boys
with part-time Nursery education before Year One, and 29 with full-time Reception
class experience. Collection of data commenced in 1998, so that the National Literacy
Strategy governed the sample's school literacy experiences in Years One and Two.
Data was collected from the boys and their parents on three occasions: before entry to
Year One, at the end of Year One and the end of Year Two. The study illustrates the
impact of commencing school on boys' reading attitudes both directly and through the
triadic relationship established between school, parents and children. It traces the
development of boys' reading attitudes over time as the sample's experiences became
more uniform and analyses the long-term impact of early entry into school. Contrary
to parental belief as examined through parental interview and questionnaires, boys
who commenced school earlier were not advantaged in terms of reading achievement.
The data suggest that an early start to school was accompanied by heightened adult
expectations (both parents' and teachers'), of which the boys became keenly aware.
This affected the boys' attitudes toward reading and their reading routines, often
acting detrimentally on their reading development. The study examines the
implications of these findings for school admission policies.


Under the North Star: Canadian national identity in school readers This thesis examines constructions of English Canadian national identity in school readers approved for use in Grades Four to Six in Ontario Public Schools from 1909 to 1970, schoolbooks used throughout English‐speaking Canada during the mid‐twentieth century. While the lavishly illustrated readers comprise collections of prose, poetry and exposition designed to improve reading comprehension, the accompanying Teachers' Guides reveal the editors' intentions to reinforce Canadian identity through the creation of a common cultural heritage and values based upon a British settler past. The emerging metanarratives of wilderness and multiculturalism mark the shift from a concertedly British colonial identity in the early twentieth century to a distinctly Canadian identity after World War II. Wilderness is constituted as the site for the construction of this uniquely Canadian identity, not only through brave pioneer ancestors creating homes but also as the location for contemporary adventures and encounters with Aboriginal Others. The readers were children's first official introduction to Canada, effectively children's handbooks for Canadian citizenship, modelling their duties and responsibilities as 'young Canadians.' Children imagined their nation, not only by taking part in the communal ritual of reading in the classroom but also through virtual tours of Canada, visiting other children 'from sea to sea'. The thesis establishes school readers as a valuable but neglected resource in discussions of the development of Canadian national identity, revealing largely unresolved tensions between traditional antimodern values and occupations and the realities of twentieth‐century Canada urban industrial society.


Mixtures of experts probabilistically divide the input space into regions, where the assumptions of each expert, or conditional model, need only hold locally. Combined with Gaussian process (GP) experts, this results in a powerful and highly flexible model. We focus on alternative mixtures of GP experts, which model the joint distribution of the inputs and targets explicitly. We highlight issues of this approach in multi-dimensional input spaces, namely, poor scalability and the need for an unnecessarily large number of experts, degrading the predictive performance and increasing uncertainty. We construct a novel model to address these issues through a nested partitioning scheme that automatically infers the number of components at both levels. Multiple response types are accommodated through a generalised GP framework, while multiple input types are included through a factorised exponential family structure. We show the effectiveness of our approach in estimating a parsimonious probabilistic description of both synthetic data of increasing dimension and an Alzheimer's challenge dataset.


The reception of social support is a known predictor of psychological and physical wellbeing, with research suggesting that increases in recipient well-being are more likely to ensue when a support provider offers high quality support (Bodie & Burleson, 2008). Although much research has examined predictors and outcomes associated with social support, little work has assessed whether increases in provider support quality can be achieved. The reception of high quality support is particularly important for populations already at an increased risk of morbidity/mortality (Cohen, 1988). Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) cancer survivors consist of one such population with prevalent late-onset and long term health effects post-cancer treatment (Sryjala, Martin, & Lee, 2012). In addition, research suggests that HSCT survivor well-being is strongly associated with the social support they receive from partners (Rini et al., 2011). Research has also determined that a support provider's own well-being is predictive of the quality of support s/he provides (Revenson & Majerovitz, 1990), but that caregivers/support providers of HSCT cancer survivors can experience decreased well-being due to prolonged stress associated with the cancer experience (Bishop et al., 2007). This suggests it is important for researchers to find ways to improve support quality via increasing caregivers'wellbeing, as this would potentially benefit both interactants. As such, a primary goal of this dissertation was to determine whether increases in HSCT spousal cancer-survivor caregivers' well-being, and thus their support provision quality, would ensue following an expressive writing intervention. Participants (N = 64) consisted of spousal caregivers of HSCT survivors who were 1–3 years post-transplant. Participants completed a 17-day intervention in which a pretest survey captured baseline levels of psychological functioning and support quality (measured via reported responses to a hypothetical scenario, as well as descriptions of naturally-occurring support interactions). They were then randomly assigned to one of two expressive writing conditions (expressive disclosure [ED] or benefit-finding [BF]), or to a time-management [TM] control condition, and they completed these writings three separate times, at one-week intervals. After completing the intervention, participants were surveyed on posttest levels of psychological functioning and support quality. Postt© 2016 National Association for Poetry Therapy JOURNAL OF POETRY THERAPY, 2016 VOL. 29, NO. 2, 125–133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08893675.2016.1176633 est reports were then used to predict changes in support provision quality. Results suggest that, for this population, support quality (measured via naturally-occurring support situations) may be improved upon through the use of particular ways of writing. Results also suggest that aspects of caregiver well-being may be positively, and sometimes negatively, affected by expressive writing.


The following dissertation argues that our current educational system should be improved for the benefit of the individual and society through the addition of what may be referred to as aspects of holistic education. Holistic Education for the purpose of this paper is defined as an approach, as well as a curriculum style, applied to our general education that integrates matters pertaining to our existential affairs with our educational material. Some topics that are applicable to this approach, and that will be discussed in this dissertation, include mindfulness, critical consciousness, communication techniques, and conflict resolution. The purpose for the addition of these matters to our curriculum are to enhance our abilities to function with a greater understanding of our lives outside of the classroom and to approach the classroom materials with less ambiguity as to education's goals. Within this dissertation I assert that students and educators sense a distance between the current mandated curriculum and its applicability to their lives. I discuss in detail how I believe that by creating our curriculum to be more meaningful to our daily existence that we may ameliorate what some may call our existential vacuum. This dissertation will include an example of a current alternative education process through the use of semi-structured structured interviews with some of this program's participants. The interviews will provide a deeper sense of a holistic educational experience while a sample course structure will also be detailed in order to exemplify how such a class could operate within our public education.


In 2014, the Law Practice Program (LPP) was introduced in Ontario, creating an alternative to the traditional articling process. The authors consider the demographic make-up of the first cohort of the French LPP and its access to justice implications. Their survey showed that French LPP candidates were overwhelmingly racialized. Moreover, a high percentage of the candidates were 1) born outside of Canada, 2) older than the average law student and 3) male. While the statistical pool is small and although these are very early days for the LPP, the survey results suggest that the traditional articling avenue may not be fully accessible to candidates with certain personal characteristics, and that the LPP may play an important role in addressing some of those barriers. At the same time, however, the authors are concerned that unless special care is taken, the LPP could reinforce some of the existing challenges that racialized lawyers face within the legal profession.


Robert Wilson had broad scientific interests that ranged from laboratory and solar plasmas to quasars. In his early career at Harwell he made fundamental studies of the plasma device Zeta, and discovered a group of extreme ultraviolet emission lines that were also present but unidentified in the solar spectrum. Subsequent work at Culham showed that these were due to highly ionized iron. He initiated a programme of observations using stabilized Skylark rockets that led to the discovery of many important emission lines in the solar ultraviolet spectrum and gave new information on the structure of the solar transition region. He was the founder of ultraviolet astronomy in the UK and led the team that provided the S2½68 instrument on the TD–1 satellite. Ultraviolet astronomy became his main interest after his move to University College London. He was the intellectual driving force that eventually led to the outstandingly successful International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), which was the first satellite to be easily accessible to the astronomical community. His interests in astronomy were diverse and, using results from both TD–1 and the IUE, he made significant contributions through his studies of the interstellar medium, hot stars, binary X–ray sources and quasars.


'The Millbank Atlas' brings together researchers, students and residents to trace the neighbourhood of Chelsea College of Arts (University of the Arts London). The ongoing project creates meaning through conceptualising this local as comprised of reciprocal relations among the College and surrounding businesses, residential blocks, civil society groups, infrastructure, amenities and further aspects of this built and natural environment.

This paper considers how the creative happenings and artifacts that comprise the Atlas help to reinforce relations among the College and other local communities. We aim to understand the potential of live learning in the form of locally-engaged projects to produce a 'community of communities'. This includes the student body and its high number of international students. Their transient status contrasts with Millbank's large population of senior citizens. What the students and seniors share is an intercultural and intergenerational proximity to local issues that demand attention out of necessity, owing to rampant cuts in social services.

Our paper proposes the art and design university as a space for education that addresses these and other local issues. We will consider this with reference to a growing body of practice-based research on 'civic education for civil society'. [1] Central here are examples of alternative schools and curricula that piggyback on more formal institutions. [2] We will consider this dynamic with reference to Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's understanding of communities of practice to appreciate the potential and complexity of learning environments for fostering more empowered, heterogeneous and resilient communities. [3] The live projects that drive the civic university address real-world needs, not of a distant other but of our neighbours and neighbourhood. Key here are the day-to-day interactions through which seniors/students/staff together produce Millbank as a particular part of London and how through coordinated action, creativity can enrich our shared experience.


Measurements of the CaCO3 content and the CaCO3 size index on a core from the equatorial Atlantic's Ceara Rise reveal a pronounced dissolution event associated with the transition between MIS 5e and 5d. We tentatively correlate this event with the dramatic drop in atmospheric CO2 content that occurred at the end of MIS 5e. Attempts to quantify the carbonate ion concentration drop associated with this event failed because the shells in this zone had been largely destroyed by dissolution. By leaving out the sonification step in our cleaning procedure, we were able to "rescue" enough shells to weigh, but they showed no dramatic weight loss. We attribute this to the survival of the hardiest shells.


Autoantibodies to components of the nucleolus are a unique serological feature of patients with scleroderma. There are autoantibodies of several specificities; one type produces a speckled pattern of nucleolar staining in immunofluorescence. In actinomycin D and 5,6-dichloro-beta-D-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole-treated Vero cells, staining was restricted to the fibrillar and not the granular regions. By double immunofluorescence, specific rabbit anti-RNA polymerase I antibodies stained the same fibrillar structures in drug-segregated nucleoli as scleroderma sera. Scleroderma sera immunoprecipitated 13 polypeptides from [35S]methionine-labeled HeLa cell extract with molecular weights ranging from 210,000 to 14,000. Similar polypeptides were precipitated by rabbit anti-RNA polymerase I antibodies, and their common identities were confirmed in immunoabsorption experiments. Microinjection of purified IgG from a patient with speckled nucleolar staining effectively inhibited ribosomal RNA transcription. Autoantibodies to RNA polymerase I were restricted to certain patients with scleroderma and were not found in other autoimmune diseases.


Tourism represents a strong economic opportunity for many developing countries to earn foreign exchange, create jobs, investment and alleviate rural poverty. In Uganda, East Africa tourism features strongly in the key national development plans and strategies, often described as an untapped economic sector. Despite these sound plans and strategies, the sector is failing to alleviate rural poverty and to engender economic transformation. The performance of the sector is below par despite its enormous potential. This paper discusses key strategic issues in Uganda's tourism development, and shows what needs to be done to ensure that tourism contributes positively to Uganda Vision 2040. The paper identifies theoretical, policy and practical issues which need to be dealt with in order to develop the tourism sector in Uganda. Useful recommendations are also presented.


This paper theorises, articulates and demonstrates how performative pedagogies can be employed to engage participants (both sighted and non-sighted) with haptic, gustatory, olfactory and aural sensorial-immersive encounters as part of an ongoing mixed-method project You Don't Need Eyes to See You Need Vision that aims to develop pedagogic practices, enhance learning experiences for students who are visually impaired and improve public awareness of the need for new practices. Using performative pedagogy and 'deprivation strategies', this project has opened up new ways of thinking about how we engage our bodies (for both sighted and non-sighted persons) to experience a multitude of senses beyond the visual, carving out revised ways of thinking about bodily affect in space and time. In recognition of this work, I was a recipient of the University of Lincoln Best Practice Award in Promoting Equality in 2017.


This paper presents the results of the out-of-plane testing phase of the National Science Foundation Grant BCS 9102347. This project addresses the out-of-plane response to lateral loading of unreinforced, unanchored brick infill panels. The program consisted of the destructive testing of infill panels in two buildings and included three configurations of unreinforced masonry walls and one hollow clay tile wall partition. In all cases the loads were applied as point loads distributed by a bearing plate. The loads were generated using hydraulic jacks which were alternately loaded, unloaded, and reloaded in a manner which allowed the load deflection characteristics to be monitored under successive load cycles. Basic load deflection results are presented and correlated with a linear three hinged arch theory. The goal of this phase of the test program was to generate full scale test data from actual buildings which could be used to formulate requirements for retrofit standards.


Abstract. Landslide inventory mapping is essential for hazard assessment and mitigation. In most previous studies, landslide mapping was achieved by visual interpretation of aerial photos and remote sensing images. However, such method is labor-intensive and time-consuming, especially over large areas. Although a number of semi-automatic landslide mapping methods have been proposed over the past few years, limitations remain in terms of their applicability over different study areas and data, and there is large room for improvement in terms of the accuracy and automation degree. For these reasons, we developed a change detection-based Markov Random Field (CDMRF) method for landslide inventory mapping. The proposed method mainly includes two steps: 1) change detection-based multi-threshold for training samples generation and 2) MRF for landslide inventory mapping. Compared with the previous methods, the proposed method in this study has three advantages: 1) it combines multiple image difference techniques with multi-threshold method to generate reliable training samples; 2) it takes the spectral characteristics of landslides into account; and 3) it is highly automatic with little parameter tuning. The proposed method was applied for regional landslides mapping from 10 m Sentinel-2 images in Western China. Results corroborated the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method especially the capability of rapid landslide mapping. Some directions for future research are offered. This study to our knowledge is the first attempt to map landslides from free and medium resolution satellite (i.e., Sentinel-2) images in China.


Problem In 2012-13, there were 5.3 million emergency admissions to hospitals, an increase of 47% over the last 15 years, costing approximately £12.5 billion and occupying 67% of hospital beds. In an attempt to reduce these admissions, lists of potentially avoidable admissions (termed ACSCs) have been developed based on consensus opinions of expert physician panels drawn from secondary and primary care, examining diagnostic disease codes. We aimed to compare this list of ACSCs used in the NHS with the conclusions of GP practice teams using significant event analysis (SEA) on emergency admissions. Approach We performed a study in 20 practices in East Anglia. We trained each practice to carry out SEAs in a systematic way. Hospitals randomly selected emergency admissions (one per week per practice) and practices approached patients for consent. The practice used SEA to examine (1) details of what happened before the admission (2) the people and systems that were involved (3) what might have been done differently to avoid the admission and (4) develop specific action points to promote change in practice that might help reduce future unplanned admissions. The practice reached a consensus as to whether the admission contained avoidable factors. The ICD 10 disease code for the primary cause of admission was used to identify ACSCs. An inter-rater reliability analysis using the Cohen Kappa statistic was performed to determine consistency between the lists of potentially avoidable admissions determined using SEA with those identified by the ACSC list. Findings SEAs were carried out on 26% of selected admissions (132 cases). Practice teams identified 13% (17) of cases as potentially avoidable, and the ACSC list categorised 28 % (36) as potentially avoidable. The inter-rater reliability was found to be Kappa = 0.253 (p=0.001), which represents only fair agreement. The ACSC list mainly comprised of respiratory admissions, Pneumonia 14 cases (39%), COPD 7 (19%), Asthma 3 (8%) and Bronchiectasis 1 (3%). Practice teams identified fewer respiratory cases as potentially avoidable, Pneumonia 4 (24%), Asthma 1 (6%), COPD 1 (6%), and Bronchiectasis 1 (6%). Practices identified a wider range of cases including admission with constipation, anxiety, cancer and intracranial haemorrhage. Consequences There was only a fair level of agreement on which admissions might be avoidable when comparing the ACSC list used by the NHS with the list generated by the practice team using SEA. It is plausible that case-based analysis of actual admissions may be more sensitive in detecting factors that might be associated with an avoidable admission than simple diagnostic labels. We propose further work is done using a case-based approach to review the ACSC list and to produce an updated list of conditions and factors (practitioner, patient and systems) which might identify potentially avoidable admissions.


The history of a people, be they Native Americans or pioneer settlers, can be uncovered in their landscape. The Euro-American settlers who moved onto the prairies of Nebraska and the Great Plains faced an environment unlike the wooded regions of the East. Native American traditions and land use patterns were replaced by those of the settlers. Nebraska's Native landscape was altered under the hand of this new dominant culture. Physical alterations included the breaking of the prairie sod for farming and the construction of towns and railroads. Johnson County, Nebraska, which sits among the southeastern counties of the state, was established soon after the organization of the Nebraska Territory. Tecumseh, Johnson County's seat o f government, was founded before railroads were built into the area. Its downtown commercial district has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places and the Victorian style brick buildings which surround the courthouse square create the timeless image of a tum-of-the century community. Tecumseh had three phases of construction by 1900. Log shanties dominated the area's first building period. These humble structures were superseded by false-front and planed wood buildings, which were in turn replaced by brick and stone construction. Each of these time periods witnessed the building of a courthouse in the community. The first structure was a rough, unplastered building used for storage of county documents. A second courthouse was built in 1868 and a third in 1888-89. Still presiding over Tecumseh's public square, this third building provides an example of the boosterism and pride Johnson County citizens expressed during the late 1880s. Understanding the alteration of the area, however, requires more then a study of architectural changes. Newspapers, pioneer memoirs and letters help give this history life and provide information on the land. Trees, fences, electric poles, evolving agriculture and modem highways obscure our view of what this land once looked like. Seeing beyond these barriers may help us to understand how we have changed the land and perhaps how those transformations still affect the lives of Johnson County citizens.


Seismic signals can be extracted from ambient noise wavefields by the correlation technique. Recently, a prominent P‐type phase was observed from teleseismic noise correlations in the secondary microseism period band. The phase is named Pdmc in this paper, corresponding to its origin from the interference between the direct P waves transmitting through the deep mantle and the core (P and PKPab waves). We extract the phase by correlating noise records from two seismic networks in the Northern Hemisphere and locate the microseism sources that are efficient for the Pdmc construction in the South Pacific. We investigate the spatiotemporal links of the Pdmc signal with global oceanic waves and microseism sources. Interestingly, the correlation with wave height is higher in several regions surrounding the effective source region, rather than in the effective source region. The Pdmc amplitude is highly correlated with the power of the effective microseism sources. Also, it is apparently correlated with ineffective sources in the Southern Hemisphere and anticorrelated with sources in the Northern Hemisphere. We ascribe the correlation with the ineffective southern sources to the spatiotemporal interconnections of the southern sources. The anticorrelation with northern sources can be explained by the reverse seasonal patterns between the southern and northern sources and by that the northern sources impede the signal construction. The signal construction from noise correlations relies on the competition between the effective and ineffective sources, not just on the power of the effective sources. This principle should be valid in a general sense for noise‐derived signals.


Sodium is an essential dietary element and preferential foraging for high concentrations of sodium by inland herbivorous and omnivorous ants suggests it may be limiting. If so, increased sodium availability through altered deposition and anthropogenic sources may lead to increased colony and population growth and cascading ecological impacts. For red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta Buren, the present study tests: (i) whether colonies from coastal and inland sites differ in their responses to NaCl baits; and (ii) whether supplemental NaCl increases growth of fire ant colonies in the laboratory. Fire ants in inland sites with low sodium deposition responded roughly an order of magnitude more strongly to high concentrations of NaCl baits than did fire ants in coastal sites with high sodium deposition. Laboratory colonies of fire ants, however, showed no signs of sodium limitation or benefits of increased sodium. The link between behavioural responses to baits in the field and effects on colony growth deserves further investigation to assess the ecological impacts of altered sodium availability.


From Black Liberal to Black Conservative: George S. Schuyler, 1923-1935Since the early 1980's, the group of African American intellectuals labeled "Black Neo-Conservatives" have become a vocal component within the larger American conservative movement of the 1980's and 1990's. Though their white counterparts have received more attention, the Black Neo-Conservatives have gained considerable attention since the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Their platform consists of challenging civil rights programs based on race and social programs they claim encourage dependency. Instead, Black Neo-Conservatives encourage "self-help" as a means for the African American community to solve its problems and a return to "traditional" values. One intriguing fact about Neo-Black Conservatives is that many profess of having liberal origins. Conservatives such as Stanley Crouch, Shelby Steele, Robert Woodson, and Glenn Loury, discuss their sympathies with the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960's and 1970's. Assuming that Black Neo-Conservatives are sincere in their beliefs, one must wonder the reasons for their conversion. One may find clues in analyzing the early career of George Samuel Schuyler.George Schuyler, journalist, critic, novelist, satirist, and conservative, was one of the most outspoken and productive African American writers during the 1920's and 1930's. Appearing in several publications of the day, Schuyler proceeded to tell the world his view of life. With acidic wit and dogmatic cynicism, he went against the grain of American society and bitterly chastised white and black Americans for failures and mistakes real and imagined. His articles evoked the extreme of emotions from readers. Schuyler also managed to publish two novels in 1931 that brought him critical acclaim (Black No More and Slaves Today). During this productive period, Schuyler was categorized as a radical socialist, yet his writings held conservative philosophies that were more pronounced in the 1950's and 1960's. Unfortunately, little has been written of Schuyler's life and career. In order to analyze the early career and shift from radical socialist to conservative, Schuyler's works from 1923-1935 are examined. These years are chosen because they tend to be Schuyler's most prolific and formative years as a writer. Several factors are observed in order to understand Schuyler's conversion. Among them are the following: 1) A conservative upbringing during his childhood, 2) His prominence as a critic during the Harlem Renaissance, 3) Schuyler's tutelage under critic H.L. Mencken, and 4) His desire for mainstream acceptance.George Samuel Schuyler was born February 25, 1895 in Providence, Rhode Island and reared in Syracuse, New York. Schuyler contends that his ancestry was free from any experience with slavery. He claimed that "my folks have just been free black citizens of New York state for the last 125 years."(2) Schuyler's maternal ancestry is traced back to a great-grandmother who was an indentured servant in New Jersey, originating from Madagascar. Later she married a Saxe-Coeburg sea captain named Leidendraught. Out of this union came Schuyler's grandmother Helen Louisa Leidendraught, born in 1831. Leidendraught later married Philip Todd Fisher, and out of this union came Schuyler's mother, Eliza Jane Fisher.(3) As for his paternal ancestry, Schuyler boasted of a great-grandfather who fought with Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler. He also speculates that his ancestors may have been servants of General Schuyler. Schuyler's father was George Francis Schuyler, who died when he was three. Later, his mother married Joseph Brown, who became his stepfather.(4)Reared in Syracuse during the early 1900's, Schuyler grew up in an industrial and manufacturing city with a population of 100,000. Within the population, African Americans numbered approximately 1,000.(5) Competition with larger numbers of European immigrants, coupled with the harsh racial segregation of the day, greatly limited the opportunities of African Americans in Syracuse. …


Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes. BPR is also known as a major approach widely used in facilitating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems implementation. In addition it has been suggested that an awareness of cultural differences is critical to ERP success. In this paper we examine the impact of human and management organizational subsystems on business process change and performance. We use a comparative study of four Chinese organizations with and without ERP systems. The findings of this study prove the importance of soft aspects in business process change through implementation of ERP systems.


It is often forgotten that anthropology--the scientific study of cultural difference--arose from situations that required a practical management of cultural differences. Out of the practical contexts of colonial contact--administration, mission, nationalism, policing, settler cultivation, tourism, warfare--emerged methods, and images of otherness, that inform anthropological notions of cultural difference to this day.The essays in this volume share the assumption that "ethnography," far from being the unique purview of anthropology, is a broader field of practice out of which and alongside which anthropology attempted to distinguish itself as a scientific discipline. They explore a variety of situations in colonial South and Southeast Asia and Africa and in the treatment of the indigenous inhabitants of North America and Australia to provide genealogies of present-day anthropological practices, tracing them back to the subjects of colonial ethnography.This book introduces into the history of anthropology many of the insights developed in recent studies in history, cultural studies, and the anthropology of colonialism. It can serve as a course book in the history of anthropology and the anthropology of colonialism, while at the same time addressing a much larger audience of students of colonial history, of the history of science and modernity, and of globalization.Peter Pels is Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. Oscar Salemink is Program Officer for Social Sciences and Humanities, The Ford Foundation-Vietnam.


Design science research (DSR) has staked its rightful ground as an important and legitimate Information Systems (IS) research paradigm. We contend that DSR has yet to attain its full potential impact on the development and use of information systems due to gaps in the understanding and application of DSR concepts and methods. This essay aims to help researchers (1) appreciate the levels of artifact abstractions that may be DSR contributions, (2) identify appropriate ways of consuming and producing knowledge when they are preparing journal articles or other scholarly works, (3) understand and position the knowledge contributions of their research projects, and (4) structure a DSR article so that it emphasizes significant contributions to the knowledge base. Our focal contribution is the DSR knowledge contribution framework with two dimensions based on the existing state of knowledge in both the problem and solution domains for the research opportunity under study. In addition, we propose a DSR communication schema with similarities to more conventional publication patterns, but which substitutes the description of the DSR artifact in place of a traditional results section. We evaluate the DSR contribution framework and the DSR communication schema via examinations of DSR exemplar publications.


Abstract For many Hong Kong Chinese elderly, depression and financial strain are quite common occurrences. This study examines the impact of financial strain on depressive symptoms. The data came from a longitudinal study of a representative community sample of the elderly population in Hong Kong. Using multiple regression models, the authors found that elderly persons with higher financial strain reported more depressive symptoms three years later, even after controlling socio-demographic, physical health status and social support variables. In addition, financial strain influenced the depression equally among men and women. The data do not show evidence of a stress-buffering effect of social support on the negative consequences of financial strain on depression. Among women, poor physical health aggravated the adverse effect of financial strain on depressive symptoms. But among men, poor health moderated the impact of financial strain on depression.


In recent years, Generative Adversarial Networks have become ubiquitous in both research and public perception, but how GANs convert an unstructured latent code to a high quality output is still an open question. In this work, we investigate regression into the latent space as a probe to understand the compositional properties of GANs. We find that combining the regressor and a pretrained generator provides a strong image prior, allowing us to create composite images from a collage of random image parts at inference time while maintaining global consistency. To compare compositional properties across different generators, we measure the trade-offs between reconstruction of the unrealistic input and image quality of the regenerated samples. We find that the regression approach enables more localized editing of individual image parts compared to direct editing in the latent space, and we conduct experiments to quantify this independence effect. Our method is agnostic to the semantics of edits, and does not require labels or predefined concepts during training. Beyond image composition, our method extends to a number of related applications, such as image inpainting or example-based image editing, which we demonstrate on several GANs and datasets, and because it uses only a single forward pass, it can operate in real-time. Code is available on our project page: https://chail.github.io/latent-composition/.


Thermally robust and chemically inert Ag@SiO2 nanoprobes are employed to provide the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect for an in situ/operando study of the early stage of carbon deposition on nickel-based solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) anodes. The enhanced sensitivity to carbon enables the detection of different stages of coking, offering insights into intrinsic coking tolerance of material surfaces. Application of a thin coating of gadolinium doped ceria (GDC) enhances the resistance to coking of nickel surfaces. The electrochemically active Ni-YSZ interface appears to be more active for hydrocarbon reforming, resulting in the accumulation of different hydrocarbon molecules, which can be readily removed upon the application of an anodic current. Operando SERS is a powerful tool for the mechanistic study of coking in SOFC systems. It is also applicable to the study of other catalytic and electrochemical processes in a wide range of conditions.


Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) is a Gram-positive commensal of the nasopharyngeal tract of both children and healthy adults. However, S. pneumoniae is also a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, being responsible for non-invasive and invasive diseases such as acute otitis media, pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis. Despite the unquestionable efficacy of the available pneumococcal glycoconjugate vaccines, the limited coverage, along with the observed phenomenon of serotype replacement, could reduce their long-term effectiveness. For these reasons, the development of a serotype-independent vaccine relying on the use of surface-exposed protein antigens represents a valid alternative. In this context, pneumococcal pilus-1 components, and in particular the pilus backbone RrgB, demonstrated significant efficacy in protecting mice from lethal challenge.
The S. pneumoniae pilus-1 is encoded by pilus islet 1 (PI-1), which has three clonal variants (clade I, II and III) and is present in about 30% of clinical pneumococcal isolates. Since a combination of the three RrgB variants could broad the efficacy of a pilus-based vaccine, a fusion protein (RrgB321) containing the three RrgB variants in a head to tail organization was constructed. It was recently reported that RrgB321 elicites an antibody response against each of the variants and protectes mice against piliated pneumococcal strains of the three clades both by active and passive immunization, supporting the validity of this candidate as a potential antigen for the generation of a multi-component protein-based vaccine against S. pneumoniae.
The data reported in this work contribute to the characterization of pilus-1 expression regulation in in vitro and in vivo experiments providing evidence that pilus expression is biphasic and demonstrating that the pilus expression level does not impair the protection induced by RrgB321 immunization in mouse models of infection.
Analyzing the strains at the single-cell level, two phenotypically different sub-populations of bacteria (one that expresses the pilus, while the other does not) could be identified. The proportions of these two phenotypes are variable among the strains tested and are not influenced by genotype, serotype, growth conditions, colony morphology or by the presence of antibodies directed toward the pilus components. Two sub-populations, enriched in pilus expressing or not expressing bacteria were obtained by means of colony selection and immuno-detection methods for five strains. PI-1 sequencing in the two sub-populations revealed the absence of mutations, thus indicating that the biphasic expression observed is not due to a genetic modification within PI-1. Microarray expression profile and western blot analyses on whole bacterial lysates performed comparing the two enriched sub-populations, revealed that pilus expression is regulated at the transcriptional level (on/off regulation), and that there are no other genes, in addition to those encoded by PI-1, concurrently regulated across the strains tested. Moreover, evidence that the over-expression of the RrlA positive regulator is sufficient to induce pilus expression in pilus-1 negative bacteria, was reported. Overall the in vitro data presented suggest that the observed biphasic pilus expression phenotype is an example of bistability in pneumococcus.
Additionally, in this study, the ability of RrgB321 antibodies to kill both H and L S. pneumoniae populations in the opsonophagocytosis assay, as well as the ability of RrgB321 to confer protection in vivo against both populations were analyzed.
The results obtained demonstrate that: i) the opsonophagocytic killing mediated in vitro by RrgB321 antisera is strictly dependent on the pilus expression ratio of the strain used; ii) during the opsonophagocytosis assay pilus-expressing pneumococci are selectively killed, and iii) no switch towards the pilus non-expressing phenotype can be observed. Furthermore, in sepsis and pneumonia models, mice immunized with RrgB321 are significantly protected against challenge with either the H or the L pilus-expressing population of strains representative of the three RrgB variants. This suggests that the pilus-1 expression is not down-regulated, and also that the expression of the pilus-1 could be up-regulated in vivo. In conclusion, these data provide evidence that RrgB321 is protective against PI-1 positive strains regardless of their pilus expression level, and support the rationale for the inclusion of this fusion protein into a multi-component protein-based pneumococcal vaccine.


Many problems of mathematical physics can be formulated in terms of the operator equation Ax = y , where A is an integro-differential operator. Given A and x , the solution for y is usually straightforward. However, the inverse problem which consists of the solution for x when given A and y is much more difficult. The following questions relative to the inverse problem are explored. 1) Does specification of the operator A determine the set \{y\} for which a solution x is possible? 2) Does the inverse problem always have a unique solution? 3) Do small perturbations of the forcing function y always result in small perturbations of the solution? 4) What are some of the considerations that enter into the choice of a solution technique for a specific problem? The concept of an ill-posed problem versus that of a well-posed problem is discussed. Specifically, the manner by which an ill-posed problem may be regularized to a well-posed problem is presented. The concepts are illustrated by several examples.


The Act provides that contracts in partial restraint of trade that are reasonable are valid and enforceable. The Act establishes rules for determining when a restrictive covenant is reasonable and establishes procedures for identification, clarification and reformulation of such covenants. Courts must enforce restrictive covenants independently of the enforceability of any other covenant, or part of a covenant, contained in a non-compete agreement. A post-employment loss or forfeiture provision conditioned upon the occurrence of subsequent competition does not constitute a restraint of trade and is enforceable regardless of the unenforceability of non-compete covenants contained in the same contract.


Acoustic data transmission is a technique to embed the data in a sound wave imperceptibly and to detect it at the receiver. This letter proposes a novel acoustic data transmission system designed based on the modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT). In the proposed system, data is embedded in an audio file by modifying the phases of the original MCLT coefficients. The data can be transmitted by playing the embedded audio and extracting it from the received audio. By embedding the data in the MCLT domain, the perceived quality of the resulting audio could be kept almost similar as the original audio. The system can transmit data at several hundreds of bits per second (bps), which is sufficient to deliver some useful short messages.


Our population corresponds to the total of individuals of the university community from Almeria. The subjects were 2.088, to select the subjects we assumed ± 2% of sample mistake and a level of reliable equal to 95.5 %. The procedure to select the subjects has been a stratified sampling with proportional affixment. We used a stratification by groups of age and sex for the staff of University. We used a stratification by Faculties and Schools by studies, courses and sex. This investigation pretend to know the availability and occupation for the leisure, attitudes and behaviors with respect to the physical activity and sport practice of leisure, evolution about the participations in the Sports Service, behaviors of the current practitioners in the Sports Service and in other offer and the demand activities. To stand out in the results: Few availability of free time in the occupational days, with respect to the weekend or holidays; high interest toward physical and sport practice; low percentage of those who never they have practiced; the principal motive of those who have abandoned it is the lack of time; the current practitioners develop their physical and sport activity outside of the University; demand for the future offer of the Sports Service of the University of Almeria emphasizes the offer in weekend, continued activities, courses, on holidays and the Rector Trophy. KEY WORDS: phsycial and sports leisure activities, university, demand.


"The overall purpose of my research was to develop culturally appropriate nutrition education for Latino immigrants. In phase one, a needs assessment was conducted with the low-income Latina population (N=166) in Guilford County, North Carolina. Seventy-six percent were overweight/obese. Eighty-nine percent were living in food insecure households. Forty percent living in food insecure households with moderate hunger were obese compared to 73% of respondents with severe hunger. Severe food insecurity was related to less positive nutrition beliefs (χ2 (9,N=166)=17.56, p<.05). Forty-five percent had received nutrition education previously. Having had previous nutrition education was related to positive nutrition beliefs, self-efficacy and knowledge [χ2 (9, N=166)= 29.04, p < .001, χ2 (2, N=154)= 4.89, p < .05, χ2 (3, N=157)= 10.36, p < .05, respectively]. Highly traditional diets were related with less weight increase and better diet quality (χ2(12,N=104)=21.94, p<.05, χ2 (9, N=155)= 18.79, p< .05, respectively. The purpose of phase two was to better understand the dietary acculturation process. Observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires were conducted with one family in Mexico. In-depth interviews and questionnaires were conducted with families (N=4) in Guilford County, North Carolina. Decreases in fruit and vegetable intakes and increases in snack and processed food had occurred. Availability, food displacement and cost were identified as reasons changes occurred. Because of school children's diets adopt faster thus becoming the primary driver of the families' dietary acculturation. In phase three, nutrition theater education was developed to address knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of Latino youth. Pre and post surveys were conducted with an intervention group (N=19) and with a matched non-intervention group (N=19). The traditional Latino diet was promoted. Seventy percent reported learning about nutrition. Respondents thought the American diet (group defined as hotdogs, hamburgers, pizza and French fries) was less healthy (P< .05). They also liked vegetables more and were planning to or trying to eat more beans, fruits and vegetables and less sugar after the intervention (P <.05). No changes occurred in the non-intervention group. Theater education with nutrition information appears to be effective at increasing knowledge, promoting positive attitudes and behaviors of Latino youth."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


In light of the increasing attention for 'integration' in multinational societies, it seems 'important to have a good understanding of what 'integration' means, and what it takes. By way of preliminary analysis the different models to deal with population diversity are discussed. Subsequently, the concept integration is analysed, both in terms of scope (the population groups it applies to) as in terms of content. An analysis of an overarching meaning of the concept 'integration' (and its relationship to assimilation, integration as a two way process and citizenship), is followed by the identification of the relevant themes, which are translated in terms of the minority condition. In light of this conceptual framework both the text of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), its commentary and the related supervisory practice are analysed. Considering the focus of the FCNM on the protection of minorities, the baseline of the FCNM is bound to be 'integration without forced assimilation'. A closer analysis of the supervisory practice confirms the central importance of effective protection against discrimination, effective participation and also education. Notwithstanding the various important clarifications on integration in the supervisory practice, some themes are missing, like the pros and cons of private minority education. Further research seems warranted.


The prohibition against insider trading is becoming increasingly anachronistic in markets where derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS) operate. Lenders use these instruments to trade the credit risk of the loans they extend. By design, CDS appear to subvert insider trading laws, insofar as lenders rely on what looks like insider information to transfer or externalize the risk of a loan to another institution. At the same time, the harm caused by using insider information in CDS markets can depart radically from the harms envisioned under existing case law. In the traditional account of insider trading, shareholders systematically lose against informed insiders. However, with CDS trading, shareholders of the debtor company can emerge as winners where this company enjoys access to cheaper credit and lower funding costs. A thorough re-thinking of traditional theory is thus required, as well as a more robust, theoretical account of the efficiency and welfare implications of insider trading in a world animated by complex derivatives markets. This Article shows that trading on insider information in CDS can improve at least the informational, if not also the allocative efficiency of financial markets in ways traditional accounts have scarcely anticipated. However, in doing so, CDS markets reveal that this informational gain can render markets "too" efficient where they impound new information selectively and with such force that market stability itself can suffer. Collectively, these observations suggest a need to revisit the insider trading prohibition itself – and to explore whether consistency can (and should) be brought to supervisory approaches in U.S. equity and derivatives markets.


The Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia and 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons marked a significant new direction in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. This Article explores the Court's emerging conception of proportionality under the Eighth Amendment, which also is reflected in its 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana. The Article analyzes the application of this emerging approach in the context of severe mental illness. It argues that the Court can extend Atkins and Roper to severe mental illness even in the absence of a legislative trend away from using the death penalty in this context. The strong parallels between severe mental illness at the time of the offense and mental retardation and juvenile status make such an extension of the Eighth Amendment appropriate. Severe mental illness would not justify a categorical exemption from the death penalty; rather, a determination would need to be made on a case-by-case basis. The major mental disorders, like schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder, could qualify in appropriate cases, but not antisocial personality disorder, pedophilia, and voluntary intoxication. The Article discusses the functional standard that should be used in this context, and proposes that the determination be made by the trial judge on a pretrial motion rather than by the capital jury at the penalty phase. Future implications of the Court's emerging approach also are examined.


The present research examined age differences in self-liking (an important component of self-esteem) across a broad range of the population in Japan, from elementary school students to the elderly. Previous research in the U.S. has shown that self-esteem levels in childhood are high, decline during adolescence, rise gradually in adulthood and drop in old age. However, it was unclear whether this pattern holds for other cultures. As self-esteem is significantly affected by culture, it is important to reveal its developmental trajectory not only in European American cultures, but also in other cultures. Therefore, the current research analyzed a large, highly representative cross-sectional dataset from Japan. Results showed that levels of self-liking were high for elementary school students, declined among middle school and high school students, and rose gradually among adults, replicating the developmental trajectory of self-esteem found in prior research.


Collaborating is a strategy frequently adopted by senior managers in organisations to achieve cost savings or access new markets. Collaboration provides a social, interactive context for knowledge creation and transfer. Knowledge is valuable and emphasised by organisational strategists to leverage diverse intellectual capabilities and human capital, which may contribute to sustainable competitive advantage. To maximise the opportunities to learn and innovate arising from a collaborative venture, the role of strategic intent may be significant. Strategic intent provides an objective focus for senior managers in organisations to assist the strategy process.
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role of strategic intent in collaborations on knowledge creation, its transfer and absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity is a critical component of an organisation's ability to exploit knowledge creation and transfer. The definitions, elements, effects and interdependencies of these key concepts are the focus of continuing development within the academic and practitioner literature. There is a rich, conceptual literature with diverse perspectives that have little convergence and low levels of relevant empirical research. Additionally the comprehensive literature review highlights that cross-pollination of ideas or frameworks from diverse perspectives is lacking. Being able to offer insights to senior managers to inform their strategising is difficult in this complex domain.
A multi-theoretical approach to this exploratory study has been adopted to assist in reducing complexity, drawing together key elements of diverse perspectives and clarifying the interdependencies between the concepts. A key theory is a model of knowing which shows the knowledge processes at work in an organisation. . The key concepts from the literature are explored with a mixed methods study of 32 senior managers in the Australian logistics industry. This industry is significant to the national economy and contains inter-organisational networks with many opportunities to collaborate. In Australia, the logistics industry is competitive, dynamic yet fragmented. Forming collaborative ventures becomes a potential strategic solution in this environment, an action strongly supported by the respondents.
This thesis suggests strategic intent is important to senior managers and their daily practices connected with collaboration. Strategic intent provides a frame of reference that is regularly adapted to changes in the environment. Collaboration generates strategic benefits as a way of doing business, facilitating growth and enabling solutions from which knowledge creation and transfer occur. Staff development practices to further absorptive capacity improve the knowledge effects of collaboration, with personal interaction essential. The roles of strategic intent and absorptive capacity have been incorporated into the knowing model. With senior managers heavily involved in collaboration, strategic intent creates an important framework for their daily practices, contributing to knowledge creation and transfer in collaborations. Little significant difference to the findings is evident from organisational size or senior managers' experience, qualifications or maturity. Future opportunities for further research include improved knowledge of the dynamic interplay of the central concepts, including multiple levels of management and utilising a longitudinal study.


The political and legal issues relating to the tax and criminal proceedings against Yukos – a major petroleum company - and its owners and mangers in Russia since 2003 have led to many debates. This paper is using the example of the various legal proceedings before international courts and arbitral bodies in order to study the question of institutional or legal overlap. I analyses the various proceedings to this stage tries to answer the question whether the various institutions involved have engaged in judicial dialogue or other mechanisms to create coherence within a fragmented international system in the application and interpretation of international law. In order to do so it does leave aside purely procedural questions (like the use of MFN clauses in BITs) and focuses on the factual and legal findings as to whether the tax assessment of Yukos as well as the insolvency and liquidation proceedings in Russia constituted an unlawful expropriation: as it will be shown this involves the more detailed questions as to whether in these proceedings the due process of law and the principle of non-discrimination were observed.While it may be too early to answer these questions in view of the fact that so far only one arbitral tribunal has handed down its final award with at least three other instances being currently treating the matter one can certainly conclude that the existence of various venues increases the debate and analysis regarding certain legal questions and thereby reduces the risk that potentially dangerous developments go unnoticed. It comes to the conclusion that investor-State arbitral tribunals have developed a strong tendency in recent years to make use of similar awards in the field although not always doing full justice to each other and certainly being far from completely coherent. This is seen as the lesser problem in comparison to a perceived lack of judicial dialogue between human rights tribunals, such as the ECHR and investor-State arbitral tribunals when it comes to questions involving the taking of property where a better integration of the two fields may be wanted. As an example it is shown that the issue of "good faith" regarding the Yukos by the Russian authorities in the first final investor-State award (RosInvestCo UK Ltd. v. The Russian Federation, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Case No. Arb. V079/2005, Final Award, 12 September 2010) had absolutely no effect on the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, Khodorkovskiy v. Russia, Application No. 5829/04, Judgement of 31 May 2011.


SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION Scientific interest in managing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in the United States dates back more than a century because of its importance to soil fertility (Allison 1973), and the importance of the soil-climate nexus was advanced early on by Jenny through his iconic book Factors of Soil Formation (Jenny 1941, 1980). However, intensive research on SOC and climate change mitigation really started during the 1990s (Barnwell et al. 1992; Lal et al. 1998c; Paustian et al. 1997). Since then, rates of SOC sequestration through adoption of best management practices have been assessed for diverse land uses and eco-regions throughout the country, including for a wide variety of management practices on cropland (Paustian et al. 1997; Lal et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2005; Franzluebbers 2005; Ogle et al. 2005; Causarano et al. 2006; Balkcom et al. 2013; Lal et al. 1998c; Martens et al. 2005), such as the inclusion of cover crops (Causarano et al. 2006; Olson 2013; Lal 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Poeplau and Don 2015; Sainju et al. 2006, 2008); for conversions to perennial grass biofuel plantations (Liebig et al. 2008; Follett et al. 2012); and for improved management on grazing lands (Conant et al.


This thesis presents two studies related to head injury. The study presented in Chapter 1 reviewed findings of cranial movement in animal and human specimens and evaluate the validity of cranial movement due to manual manipulation in humans through engineering analysis. The study had two parts. In Part I, the literature was reviewed to determine the cranial motion in animals and humans. Engineering analysis was done in Part II to determine the amount of force necessary to cause cranial motion in the studies from Part I using skull stiffness values from published studies. Chapter 2 explored data collection methodologies used in frontal sled tests. Several data collection methodologies exist for collecting kinematic data, such as Vicon motion analysis, video analysis, and sensors. Head trajectories from motion data and accelerometer data were plotted up to maximum forward excursion of the head for eight frontal sled tests, four conducted at Virginia Tech and four at the University of Virginia. In addition, the percent difference between maximum forward excursion values from sensor and motion data were calculated. Finally, Chapter 3 discusses the literary contributions of each study and to which journals they will be submitted.


China is experiencing an urban revolution, powered in part by hundreds of millions of migrant workers. Faced with institutionalised discrimination in the housing system and the lack of housing affordability, migrants have turned to virtually uninhabitable spaces such as basements and civil air defence shelters for housing. With hundreds of thousands of people living in crowded and dark basements, an invisible migrant enclave exists underneath the modern city of Beijing. We argue that in Chinese cities, housing has been adopted as an institution to exclude and marginalise migrants, through: (a) defining migrants as an inferior social class through the Hukou system and denying their rights to entitlements including housing; (b) abnormalising migrants through various derogatory naming and categorisations to legitimise exclusion; and (c) purifying and controlling migrant spaces to achieve exclusion and marginalisation. The forced popularity of basement renting reflects the reality that housing has become an institution of exclusion and marginalisation. It embodies vertical spatial marginalisation, with exacerbated contrasts between basement tenants and urban residents, heightened fear of the 'other', even more derogatory naming, and the government's more aggressive clean-up of their spaces. We call for reforms and policy changes to ensure decent and affordable housing for basement tenants and migrants in general.


To the Editor: Ningxia is the smallest provincial autonomous region on the Loess Plateau in central China, with a population of ≈5.5 million persons composed of 35 ethnic and various religious groups. The natural environmental conditions and socioreligious ethnic status in Ningxia, particularly the southern region, are conducive to sheep farming, an important part of the agricultural economy. Both cystic echinococcosis (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE) (1) are endemic in the northwest part of China; high prevalences have been reported in several provinces (1), including Gansu (2,3) and the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region (4). Little information is available about the extent of human echinococcosis in Ningxia; this is the first report of a provincial investigation for both human CE and AE there.

We conducted a retrospective survey of clinical records from 7 local county hospitals and 4 other hospitals in Yinchuan to determine the epidemiology of human echinococcosis in southern Ningxia. All surgical and clinical records were checked, and diagnoses were confirmed based on imaging, surgical reports, and histopathologic reports. Data concerning age, sex, domicile, ethnicity, occupation, year of diagnosis, cyst or lesion numbers and anatomical location, type and duration of anthelminthic treatment (if given), and the nature and number of surgeries performed for echinococcosis were recorded for each confirmed CE and AE patient.

From 1985 to 2002, a total of 2,216 cases of echinococcosis were recorded, most of which were due to CE (96%). The incidence of combined CE and AE from 1994 to 2001 was 7/100,000 persons for southern Ningxia, compared with 1/100,000 persons for Yinchuan in the north (Table). Human AE cases were reported only from the 3 southern counties of Xiji, Haiyuan, and Guyuan; CE cases occurred throughout Ningxia, with a mixed endemic focus for both human CE and AE in the south. A variable distribution of AE and CE cases from 1994 to 2001 was evident from hospital records. Both AE and CE were recorded in Xiji (6/100,000 persons), Guyuan (5/100,000 persons), and Haiyuan (11/100,000 persons) counties. CE incidences for Tongxin (13/100,000 persons) and Pengyang (5/100,000 persons) were substantially higher than for Longde (0.5/100,000 persons) and Jingyuan (0.15/100,000 persons). This heterogeneous distribution of echinococcosis may reflect different patterns of parasite transmission in different areas of Ningxia. CE and AE incidence (Table) were compared for 1994 and 2001 by chi-square test. Apart from a substantial increase in Haiyuan (p<0.05) and a substantial decrease in Xiji (p<0.05), no other substantial incidence changes were apparent (Table).

Table

Average incidence of human echinococcosis (AE/CE combined), 1994–2001, and incidence compared for ethnicity (Han/Hui) in southern Ningxia and Yinchuan City*

Patients' ages ranged from 1 to 80 years for men and from 3 to 77 years for women (mean age 35.7 years). The patient sex ratio was 0.72 (916 men, 1,268 women), whereas the population sex ratio was 1.05, indicating significant differences in echinococcosis case numbers between men and women (p<0.05). Farm laborers accounted for 66.1% (1,464/2,216) of cases, students 12.4% (275/2,216), workers and self-employed 5.2% (116/2,216), village leaders 4.8% (106/2,216), teachers and housewives 0.9% (21/2,216), butchers 0.2% (4/2,216), and others 0.1%. A comparison of the ethnic composition ratio (5) with an average incidence from 1994 to 2001 showed a substantial difference between the Hui and Han nationalities in Yinchuan, Haiyuan, and Pengyang, and for Ningxia as a whole. No substantial difference was shown in Longde, Tongxin, Guyuan, and Xiji for the 2 ethnic groups by incidence risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (Table).

Radical surgery to remove CE cysts was performed for 83.3% of patients; only 7.3% of patients received combined albendazole or mebendazole chemotherapy pre- and post-surgery. Recurrences of CE cysts that required surgery were high (30%), suggesting inadequate surgical and medical care. Most AE patients received only chemotherapy treatment and were at an advanced stage of infection.

The retrospective data of human AE and CE infection rates in the current study suggest that disease transmission was more pronounced 10–15 years earlier. The landscape of woods and scrub cover was greater then, domestic sheep and dog populations were larger, and red fox and rodent species densities were likely higher, providing optimal transmission conditions for both Echinococcus granulosus and E. multilocularis.

The incidence data (2001) for human CE and AE are likely underestimated for several reasons. Access to medical treatment for villagers is problematic and many asymptomatic cases (6) would be excluded. An age and sex bias also exists, as generally older persons and women receive most of the limited medical attention. Furthermore, the high surgical costs for treatment (CE and AE), especially in the past 10 years, coupled with poor economic development, preclude access to treatment in many rural communities. Because abdominal ultrasound examinations for CE and AE can identify clinically silent infections (7,8), comprehensive community-based studies are needed to identify asymptomatic or early-stage cases.

Our study provides accurate data to determine the true prevalence and incidence of CE and AE, which contributes to better treatment outcomes. These data can help determine the reasons for the heterogeneity of disease distribution in Ningxia to better prepare for future echinococcosis control strategies throughout the region.


Premise of the study: Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers based on Competitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASPar) were developed from sequences of three Citrus species. Their transferability was tested in 63 Citrus genotypes and 19 relative genera of the subfamily Aurantioideae to estimate the potential of SNP markers, selected from a limited intrageneric discovery panel, for ongoing broader diversity analysis at the intra- and intergeneric levels and systematic germplasm bank characterization. Methods and Results: Forty-two SNP markers were developed using KASPar technology. Forty-one were successfully genotyped in all of the Citrus germplasm, where intra- and interspecific polymorphisms were observed. The transferability and diversity decreased with increasing taxonomic distance. Conclusions: SNP markers based on the KASPar method developed from sequence data of a limited intrageneric discovery panel provide a valuable molecular resource for genetic diversity analysis of germplasm within a genus and should be useful for germplasm fingerprinting at a much broader diversity level.


The aim of this study was to develop a self report measure to assess the core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as they apply to depressed individuals in the interest of further assessing the role of these processes in mediating depression. One hundred and twenty clinically depressed participants and a control sample of 121 first and second year psychology university students participated. Participants in both groups completed a battery of questionnaires including demographic and mental health history, Acceptance and Avoidance Questionnaire for Depression (AAQ-D), Acceptance and Avoidance Questionnaire II (AAQ-II), Mindfulness Attention and Awareness Scale, White Bear Suppression Inventory, Outcome Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition (BDI-II), Reasons for Depression Scale, and a modified version of the Automatic Thought Questionnaire. One hundred and forty eight participants completed a two week follow up including the AAQ-D, AAQII and the BDI-II. The results of this study suggest the AAQ-D is a reliable and valid measure of ACT processes relevant to depression. The factor analysis of the AAQ-D produced a three factor structure with a general factor assessing psychological flexibility, and two second order factors measuring Mindfulness and Defusion and Values and Committed Action.


The Woodlark Rift of southeastern Papua New Guinea is among the fastest evolving plate boundaries on Earth. Rapid extension led to formation of metamorphic core complexes ahead of the westward-propagating Woodlark basin spreading center, but it is unknown whether all core complexes are still active. We assess the spatial pattern and recent history of rock and surface uplift in the subaerial portion of the Woodlark Rift using stream profile analyses on the D9Entrecasteaux Islands and eastern Papuan Peninsula. Most stream profiles are characterized by prominent convexities, or knickpoints, many of which occur at the heads of inner gorges and likely formed from transient stream erosion in the Quaternary due to an increase in rock uplift rate. The amount of transient incision and rock uplift (∼200–800 m) correlates with channel slopes below knickpoints normalized for drainage area. Recent erosion lags behind rock uplift; hence, the region of study has undergone net surface uplift, elevating a relict landscape upstream of knickpoints by an average of 450 m, and increasing basin relief by an average of 60%. On a local scale, stream slopes, transient incision, and uplifted relict stream channels provide independent quantitative evidence for patterns of active uplift in the D9Entrecasteaux Islands and Papuan Peninsula consistent with available geologic and thermochronologic data. Surface uplift increases from east to west on a regional scale, in a region of active lithospheric extension. Rising topography in thinned crust occurs over low-density asthenosphere, indicating that mantle buoyancy and flow contribute to active surface uplift and landscape evolution in the Woodlark Rift.


Previous research has shown that labour supply – especially of partnered women with supplemental incomes – is positively associated with homeownership status. This literature is advanced by testing whether wanting to move into homeownership before the actual entry into homeownership affects individuals' labour supply in couples. The empirical analysis is based on longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2008). Fixed-effects panel regression models are used to predict the labour supply of women and men separately. Labour supply changes associated with homeownership are found to mainly occur when individuals want to move into homeownership and prior to the actual entry into homeownership. When wanting to move into homeownership, women and men increase their labour supply, where women are more likely to take up work and men to increase work hours. For women, the association between wanting to move into homeownership and labour supply is moderated by regional house price changes.


ABSTRACT In the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus, cell division is regulated by a circadian clock. Deletion of the circadian clock gene, kaiC, abolishes rhythms of gene expression and cell division timing. Overexpression of the ftsZ gene halted cell division but not growth, causing cells to grow as filaments without dividing. The nondividing filamentous cells still exhibited robust circadian rhythms of gene expression. This result indicates that the circadian timing system is independent of rhythmic cell division and, together with other results, suggests that the cyanobacterial circadian system is stable and well sustained under a wide range of intracellular conditions.


The reflectance and optical constants of evaporated osmium films were measured in the wavelength region from 300 to 2000 A. The films were evaporated by electron bombardment in an ion-titanium-pumped vacuum system and deposited at a rate of about 50 A/s onto glass and super-polished quartz substrates that were at 40 and 300 °C. The optical constants were determined from reflectance measurements made at several angles of incidence. Reflectance losses during extended exposure to air were rather small, indicating that oxide films formed at room temperature are very thin. Films made on substrates at 300 °C had only slightly higher reflectances than those made at 40 °C. Owing to interference effects, semitransparent films 150–250 A thick on glass or quartz substrates showed higher reflectances than opaque films, throughout most of the vacuum-ultraviolet region. Osmium films prepared under optimum conditions had a reflectance of 34% at 584 A. The fact that high reflectance can be obtained with films deposited onto unheated substrates makes osmium a very useful coating material for replica gratings, which cannot be heated.


In this article we evaluate the economic and legal implications of allowing ISPs to avoid paying for interstate access by taking advantage of the FCC's access-charge exemption for enhanced service providers (ESPs). We agree with the FCC's conclusion that the dramatic growth of Internet usage and Internet services create significant benefits for the economy and the American people. We discuss, however, that the ESP exemption creates traffic jams at the on-ramps to the information superhighway- what we call a cyberjam.In Part II, we examine the role that competitive prices play in influencing supply and demand in the market for access to Internet services over the PSTN. In Part III, we examine the economics of network congestion. In Part IV, we examine the pricing of access to ISPs over the PSTN. In Part V, we consider property rights issues associated with the costs of the FCC's tentative conclusion to continue the temporary ESP exemption. In Part VI, we argue that is unlawful for the FCC to order incumbent LECs to continue subsidizing ISPs through the perpetuation of the currently temporary ESP exemption from interstate access charges, or through any other artifice.


MANAGING INTEREST RATE RISK: A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FORECASTING AND VOLATILITY MODELS lnterest rate risk is one of the most important types of risk to which banks are inherently exposed. lnterest rates determine a bank's profitability and have an effect on a bank's liquidity and investment portfolio. It is, therefore, extremely important to be able to predict interest rates accurately and manage interest rate risk effectively. In trying to manage interest rate risk, banks rely on Asset and Liability Committees (ALCOs). They also make use of several strategies, which are described (Gap, Earnings Sensitivity Analysis, Duration Gap and Market Value of Equity sensitivity analysis). The first step for these strategies, on which later steps depend, is to make interest rate forecasts. Forecasting plays such a crucial role because many significant decisions depend on the anticipated future values of specific variables. Forecasts may be produced in various different ways. The method chosen depends on the reason for and the importance of the forecasts as well as on the costs of alternative forecasting methods. In an attempt to manage interest rate risk by being able to predict the next rates correctly, several different models are used to try and predict interest rates for two data sets, namely: BA (Bankers' Acceptances, which is money market data) and Esc (Eskom, which is capital market data). They each have their place in the South African financial system, which is described in general. The chosen simple forecasting models that are used are: na'ive, moving average and exponential smoothing models. The aim is to try to predict the direction of the next interest rate (UP, CONSTANT, or DOWN) while supplying a point prediction of the next rate (one-step ahead). The "best" simple forecasting models are determined by specific set criteria (percentage of correct direction predictions, mean squared error and tracking signals). For the same time series, more advanced models are taken into account where the aim is to try to find an interval wherein the future interest rates (not only in the shortterm but in the longer-term as well) are most likely to lie, using models based on the data, as well as first differences. For the long-term forecasts, two types of more advanced models are used, namely: Box-Jenkins models (where, specifically, nonseasonal second-order autoregressive or AR(2) models are examined); and volatility models that are found using a new technique that creates an interval by using different volatility estimates. The word 'volatility' used throughout the study refers to models with a fixed volatility function and not dynamic volatility as in models such as the ARCH and GARCH types. In this study, the range from simple to more complex time series models with constant volatility are considered. The former, simple models and AR(2) models are referred to as forecasting models, the latter more advanced models are referred to as volatility estimates. Shortand long-term predictions are, thus, made for each time series, at different specifically chosen points. A comparison of the effectiveness of the forecasting and volatility models is made. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Queridos: papa Manuel, mam3 Adelia e irrn5 Manuela Sern votes n8o seria possivel.


Background. There is a paucity of published research with regard to dominant preference and school readiness in preschool children, and what is available has become somewhat outdated. Objectives. To determine the dominant preference among grade 1 learners in Bloemfontein, and to determine whether the establishment of a dominant profile had an influence on school readiness of grade 1 learners in Bloemfontein. An additional purpose was to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in obtaining school readiness between children with a mixed dominant preference profile and those with a pure dominant profile.  Methods. The Aptitude Test for School Beginners, which measures school readiness, and performance tests to determine the child's dominant eye, ear, hand and foot, were conducted on each of the 353 grade 1 learners who participated in the study. There were 161 boys and 192 girls from five different primary schools in Bloemfontein involved in this study.  Results. The results found that 62% of the children preferred their right eye, 68% preferred their right ear, 92% preferred their right hand and 90% preferred their right foot. A total of 54% of the children exhibited a mixed lateral preference, while only 46% exhibited a pure lateral preference of which only 4.2% had pure left dominance. Insignificant differences were found between the dominant profiles of boys and girls. Conclusion. Most of the participants were right-side dominant; gender did not influence dominant preference and dominant preference had no significant influence on school readiness.


Hybrid flows comprising both turbidity current and submarine debris flow are a significant departure from many previous influential models for submarine sediment density flows. Hybrid beds containing cohesive debrite and turbidite are common in distal depositional environments, as shown by detailed observations from more than 20 modern and ancient systems worldwide. Hybrid flows, and cohesive debris flows more generally, are best classified in terms of a continuum of decreasing cohesive debris flow strength. High-strength cohesive debris flows tend to be clast rich and relatively thick, and their deposit extends back to near the site of original slope failure. They are typically confined to higher gradient continental slopes, but may occasionally form megabeds on basin plains, in both cases overlain by a thin turbidite. Intermediate-strength cohesive debris flows typically contain clasts, but their deposits may be <1 or 2 m thick on low-gradient fan fringes, and are encased in turbidite sand and mud. Clasts may be far-traveled, and meter-sized clasts can be rafted long distances across very low gradients if they are less dense than surrounding flow. Low-strength cohesive debris flows generally lack mud clasts, and as cohesive strength decreases further there is a transition into fluid mud layers that do not support sand. Intermediate- and low-strength cohesive debrites are consistently absent in more proximal parts of submarine systems, where faster moving sediment-charged flows are more likely to be turbulent. Intermediate-strength debris flows can run out for long distances on low gradients without hydroplaning. Very low strength cohesive debris flows most likely form through late-stage transformations near the site of debrite deposition, and emplaced gently to avoid mixing with surrounding seawater. The location and geometry of cohesive debrites in hybrid beds are controlled strongly by seafloor morphology and small changes in gradient. Debrites occur as fringes around raised channel-levee ridges, or in the central and lowest parts of basin plains lacking such ridges. Small variations in mud fraction produce profound changes in cohesive strength, flow viscosity, permeability, and the time taken for excess pore pressures to dissipate that span multiple orders of magnitude. Reduction in flow speed can also cause substantial increases in viscosity and yield strength in shear thinning muddy fluids. Small amounts of sediment can dampen or extinguish turbulence, especially as flow decelerates, affecting how sediment is supported or deposited. This ensures that cohesive debris flows and hybrid flows have a rich variety of behaviors.


We compare the performance of a subset of CBO's economic forecasts against that of an unrestricted vector autoregression (VAR) model. We evaluate forecasts of real economic indicators as well as budget-related nominal statistics. We find that under most specifications, the VAR performs competitively with, if slightly worse than, the corresponding CBO forecasts at up to 20 quarters. Therefore, a simple VAR is unlikely to be able to contribute directly to improving budget forecasts. The only series for which the VAR outperforms the CBO forecast is the growth in real consumption.


We examined the role of cultural representations of self (i.e., interdependence and independence) and positive relationships (i.e., trust for teachers) in academic performance (i.e., self-reported grades) for Native American (N = 41) and European American (N = 49) high school students. The Native American students endorsed marginally more interdependent representation of self and marginally less trust for teachers than did the European American students. While interdependent representations of self and trust for teachers were positively related for the Native American students, neither cultural representations of self were related to trust for teachers for the European American students. However, with respect to academic performance, interdependent representations of self and trust for teachers were positively related to academic performance for the Native American students. Conversely, independent and interdependent representations of self were positively related to academic performance for the European American students, but trust for teachers was not associated with academic performance. Finally, as predicted, culturally congruent representations of self predicted academic performance. Specifically, trust for teachers and interdependent representations of self positively predicted academic performance for Native American students, whereas only independent representations of self predicted academic performance for European American students. Implications for culturally congruent models of education are discussed.


Recent plastid phylogenomic studies have helped clarify the backbone phylogeny of angiosperms. However, the relatively limited taxon sampling in these studies has precluded strongly supported resolution of some regions of angiosperm phylogeny. Other recent work has suggested that the 25,000-bp plastid inverted repeat (IR) region may be a valuable source of characters for resolving these remaining problematic nodes. Consequently, we aligned all available angiosperm IR sequences to produce a matrix of 24,702 aligned bases for 246 accessions, including 36 new accessions. Maximum likelihood analyses of the complete data set yielded a generally well-supported topology that is highly congruent with those of recent plastid phylogenomic analyses. However, reducing taxon sampling to match a recent 83-gene plastid analysis resulted in significant changes in bootstrap support at some nodes. Notably, IR analyses resolved Pentapetalae into three well-supported clades: (1) superasterids (comprising Santalales, Caryophyllales, Berberidopsidales, and Asteridae), (2) superrosids (comprising Vitaceae, Saxifragales, and Rosidae), and (3) Dilleniaceae. These results provide important new evidence for a stable, well-supported phylogenetic framework for angiosperms and demonstrate the utility of IR data for resolving the deeper levels of angiosperm phylogeny. They also reiterate the importance of carefully considering taxon sampling in phylogenomic studies.


Well-lithified, deep-water, periplatform limestones of late Miocene age occur at subsurface depths from 113 m to total depth of 283 m at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 632 in Exuma Sound, Bahamas. This occurrence, marked by a dramatic increase in compressional wave velocities up to 5.0 km/s, represents the most rapid transformation of ooze to limestone yet discovered in either periplatform or open-ocean settings. The burial diagenetic pathway is similar to those for meteoric and deep-burial diagenetic environments: aragonite dissolves, magnesian calcites exsolve or dissolve, low-Mg calcite precipitates as cement, and secondary moldic/vuggy porosity develops. Stable isotope ratios suggest precipitation of low-Mg calcite from cold, marine-derived pore waters. Accelerated diagenesis is a response to the influx of large quantities (up to 80%) of bank-derived, metastable carbonates and rapid burial via high accumulation rates (up to 210 m/m.y.). Our findings (1) document carbonate mineral stabilization and lithification in a seawater-mediated, shallow-burial diagenetic environment; (2) highlight the very high diagenetic potential of periplatform carbonates; and (3) call into question the use of seismic velocities as support for the Bahama megabank hypothesis.


We have reported in this journal in vitro susceptibilities of clinical isolates to antibiotics every year since 1992. In this paper, we report the results of an analysis of in vitro susceptibilities of 12,919 clinical isolates from 72 centers in Japan to selected antibiotics in 2007 compared with the results from previous years. The common respiratory pathogens, Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis and Haemophilus influenzae maintained a high susceptibility to fluoroquinolones (FQs). The resistance of S. pyogenes to macrolides has been increasing every year and this was especially clear this year. Most strains of Enterobacteriaceae except for Escherichia coli showed a high susceptibility to FQs. Almost 30% of E. coli strains were resistant to FQs and the resistance increased further this year. FQs resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was approximately 95% with the exception of 45% for sitafloxacin (STFX). FQs resistance of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) was low at about 10%. FQs resistance of methicillin-resistant coagulase negative Staphylococci (MRCNS) was higher than that of methicillin-susceptible coagulase negative Staphylococci (MSCNS), but it was lower than that of MRSA. However, FQs resistance of MSCNS was higher than that of MSSA. FQs resistance of Enterococcus faecalis was 22.5% to 29.6%, while that of Enterococcusfaecium was more than 85% except for STFX (58.3%). In clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa derived from urinary tract infections, FQs resistance was 21-27%, which was higher than that of P. aeruginosa from respiratory tract infections at 13-21%, which was the same trend as in past years. Multidrug resistant strains accounted for 5.6% in the urinary tract and 1.8% in the respiratory tract. Acinetobacter spp. showed high susceptibility to FQs. The carbapenem resistant strains, which present a problem at present, accounted for 2.7%. Neisseria gonorrhoeae showed high resistance of 86-88% to FQs. The results of the present survey indicated that although methicillin-resistant Staphylococci, Enterococci, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and N. gonorrhoeae showed resistance tendencies, and other species maintained high susceptibility rates more than 90% against FQs, which have been used clinically for over 15 years.