This paper examines the issues related to the implementation of e-Learning at the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), one of the best higher education institutions in Thailand. e-Learning at NIDA offered a promise of enhancing the quality of both teaching and learning, benefiting both faculty and students alike. For example, e-Learning would provide collaborative tools in order to facilitate the communication of both professors and students. Professors could assign assignments on e-Learning websites. A webboard would enable students to post questions and allow professors to respond to each student, and lectures would be recorded and posted on the e-Learning website so that students could review or even download them into a portable device, such as an iPod and/or cell phone. Despite the promises of e-Learning, there were significant obstacles to the implementation of the project. For example, there was a limited budget for its implementations, and the cost-benefit justification was not clear. Also, the e-Learning project faced resistance from some (old) professors that did not want to use e-Learning since they were comfortable with their old style of teaching. Some professors were also afraid of putting their materials online since it was felt that other professors might steal the content. The data collection methods for this study include in-depth interviews, focus groups, and observation, and the results indicate that e-Learning can dramatically change the process of learning and teaching. Also, e-Learning implementation involves not only technology but also people, teaching and the learning process. The issues investigated in this study can be used as a guideline for other e-Learning implementations.


Over the past century, development of the Colorado River Basin for water resources changed a dynamic river into a managed system. Seasonality in flow, temperature, and turbidity is reduced, and formerly riverine habitats are now reservoirs. These changes have played out in the fish fauna. Native species have declined and non-natives have increased. The key alteration, relative to the past, is increased competition and predation, especially at juvenile stages, which is likely mediated by more stable flow and resource regimes. A dataset (SONFISHES) assembled by W. L. Minckley and covering 150 years of fish occurrence in the Lower Colorado River (below Glen Canyon Dam) has provided insight into patterns in extirpation among native fishes and range expansion among non-native fishes. Several studies have combined these data with measures of extinction risk to explain how range fragmentation and species' traits correlate with observed extinctions or threats in native species. Another study analyzed range shifts within a strategy space of potential fish life histories (originally introduced by K. O. Winemiller and K. A. Rose) to understand how human activity has created and removed ecological niches. Together, these studies support a causal link between environmental and faunal change. This strongly suggests that continuing the status quo will result in further extirpation and extinction of native fishes. I argue, however, that current knowledge is not yet sufficient to quantitatively forecast the magnitude and timescale of the response in fish biodiversity to any projected future environment. Such forecasting requires a model that quantitatively relates the environment to persistence in the strategy-space of fish life histories. Unfortunately, we do not need such a model to make the qualitative prediction: threatened "big-river" fishes will eventually go extinct without intervention.


Nursing practice conducted in a clinical setting remains within the facility, giving no opportunities to be shared widely. This study was conducted to record practical knowledge of clinical nursing, to build a video database for nursing skills education to share that knowledge, and to assess the systematic operation of such a database. We conducted pilot practice for simplified creation of teaching material contents and for evaluation of the Saei system operation. Saei means "to scrutinize self-made videos". In Saei, as regular submissions for academic journals, we presupposed that nursing skill videos of one's own creation would be submitted to make them available to others. We assumed that the skill videos to be submitted are "mainly video manuals for nursing or medical care skills, recognized their safety and reliability, and shot to be a reference for clinical nursing, nursing skills training and nursing education using methods to satisfy ethically considered Nursing Art". This report describes relevant results.


In this paper, a new paradigm of clustering is proposed, which is based on a new Binarization of Consensus Partition Matrix (Bi-CoPaM) technique. This method exploits the results of multiple clustering experiments over the same dataset to generate one fuzzy consensus partition. The proposed tunable techniques to binarize this partition reflect the biological reality in that it allows some genes to be assigned to multiple clusters and others not to be assigned at all. The proposed method has the ability to show the relative tightness of the clusters, to generate tight cluster or wide overlapping clusters, and to extract the special genes which bear the profiles of multiple clusters simultaneously. A synthetic periodic gene dataset is analysed by this method and the numerical results show that the method has been successful in showing different horizons in gene clustering.


O2O, an acronym of online-to-offline or vice versa, is a new business model blending online retailing with offline retailing. This new model improves an existing method of shopping by either integrating the online components for traditional shoppers or the traditional shopping for Internet or mobile shoppers. Few studies have examined consumers' acceptance of new O2O business model. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate consumer acceptance of O2O business model from the status quo bias and habit perspectives that have been used to examine new system acceptance by past research. Using a sample data collected from 230 respondents, this study applies a structural equation model (SEM) to examine the relationships of the proposed research model. The results reveal that behavioural-based inertia positively impacts perceived ease of use and cognitive-based inertia positively impacts relative advantage, and consequently impacts consumers' intention to use O2O shopping. In addition, subjective norm positively impacts perceived ease of use and relative advantage, and self-efficacy positively impacts perceived ease of use. Because O2O shopping is a consumer's adoption of a new business model which involves information technologies and retailing services, this study thus provides in depth insights into enhancing the acceptance of both new information technologies and new business model. Particularly, inertia can facilitate consumers O2O shopping acceptance as opposed to inhibit new system acceptance found in past research. Perceived ease of use and relative advantage fully mediate the relationships between external variables (such as inertia, subjective norm, and self-efficacy) and O2O shopping intention. Implications are drawn for electronic commerce, mobile commerce, and retailing.


Summary

1. Some biosecurity systems aimed at reducing the impacts of invasive alien species that employ sentinel trapping systems to detect the presence of unwanted organisms. Once detected, the next challenge is to locate the source population of the invasive species. Tools that can direct search efforts towards the most likely sources of a trapped invasive alien species can improve the chance of rapidly delimiting and eradicating the local population and may help to identify the original introduction pathway. Ground-based detection and delimitation surveys can be very expensive, and methods to focus search efforts to those areas most likely to contain the target organisms can make these efforts more effective and efficient.

2. An individual-based semi-mechanistic model was developed to simulate the spatio-temporal dispersal patterns of an invasive moth. The model combines appetitive and pheromone anemotaxis behaviours in response to wind, temperature and pheromone conditions. The model was trained using data from a series of mark–release–recapture experiments on painted apple moth Teia anartoides.

3. The model was used to create hindcast simulations by reversing the time course of environmental conditions. The ability of the model to encompass the release location was evaluated using individual trap locations as starting points for the hindcast simulations.

4. The hindcast modelling generated a pattern of moth flights that successfully encompassed the origin from 86% of trap locations, representing 95% of the 1464 recaptures observed in the mark–release–recapture experiments.

5. Comparing the guided search area defined using the hindcast model with the area of a simple point-diffusion search strategy revealed an optimized search strategy that combined searching a circle of 1 km radius around the trap followed by the area indicated by hindcast model predictions.

6. Synthesis and applications. Incorporating this novel moth dispersal model into biosecurity sentinel systems will allow incursion managers to direct search effort for the proximal source of the incursion towards those areas most likely to contain a local infestation. Such targeted effort should reduce the costs and time taken to detect the proximal source of an incursion.


In Malardalen, Sweden a work is on-going to drive the region towards becoming fossil fuel free. To get rid of coal a decision has been made to build a waste combustion plant. The plant will have a fuel capacity of 200 MW thermal. There are also a number of biogas plants. One is recycling all the organic waste in the region, and combining with crop residues from the farmers. With planned expansions we will produce some 7 million Nm3/y, corresponding to some 9-10 MW HHV. This would make a total of some 500 GWh/y. Today the total consumption of fuels for vehicles is 2 TWh. With new technologies for cars and other vehicles we could take the consumption down to at least some 1 TWh/y. The methane then would cover 50% of the need. To this we add some 0.25 TWh extra electricity for cars used primarily in cities. Possibilities to reduce energy consumption and build renewable power like wind and solar power for both Sweden and EU27 is also discussed, where a special emphasis is made on possibilities to reduce energy consumption in process industries like metal, pulp and paper and cement. This includes increasing production efficiency by using on-line applications of simulation models. This also includes power plants. The conclusion is that it is possible to reach a balance in Malardalen region including Stockholm, and with a total of 3 million people, but also all Sweden.


The purpose of this draft is to describe a methodology specific to the
benchmarking of MPLS forwarding devices. The scope of this
benchmarking will be limited to various types of packet-forwarding and
delay measurements. It builds upon the tenets set forth in RFC2544
[RFC2544], RFC1242 [RFC1242] and other IETF Benchmarking Methodology
Working Group (BMWG) efforts. This document seeks to extend these
efforts to the MPLS paradigm.


Japan and Korea are close countries in terms of economic interaction as well as geography. To quantify the impact of changes in the yen-dollar exchange rate on the Korean economy before and after the crisis in 1997, the sample period has been divided into two sub-periods and the causal relationships examined by using vector autoregression analysis. Our estimates show that while the response of Korean industrial production to changes in the yen-dollar exchange rate was not significant during the pre-crisis period, it became significant during the post-crisis period. The forecast error variance decomposition also confirms that the yen-dollar exchange rate shocks have almost negligible explanatory power with regards to Korean industrial production during the pre-crisis period, but they have some significance for the postcrisis period. These empirical results show that the free floating exchange rate regime adopted since the crisis cannot insulate the Korean economy from external nominal shocks such as the yen-dollar exchange rate shocks.


Lemon is a curious fruit. The Lemon Test, derived from Lemon v. Kurtzman, is a three-pronged test to determine whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This article will focus on the first prong of the Lemon Test, which queries whether a statute has a "secular purpose." While many other articles have focused on the secular aspect of this prong, few have considered what exactly purpose means. Before piercing the citric skin of the purpose prong of the Lemon test, I consider intentionalism and purposivism as jurisprudential schools of thought. What is the purpose behind a law? Does a law even have a purpose? Should purpose even matter in the Lemon test? I argue that the purpose prong forces Judges to rely on unreliable extrinsic sources, like legislative history.By tracing the evolving nature of the courts' reliance on legislative history, and applying a commonly used evidentiary principle this article advances a novel theory of legislative analysis and argues that older legislative history is more reliable than modern legislative history, and applies this dynamic to originalism and interpreting founding era documents. Forging a novel research trail, this article chronicles every case in which the Supreme Court has struck down a statute for violating the purpose prong, and dissects the methodology the Court used to divine purpose. Based on this inquiry, I conclude that the Supreme Court has not taken a principled approach to interpreting these sources, and as a result, the purpose prong consistently yields inconsistent results, and allows savvy politicians to manipulate the record to avoid Establishment Clause challenges. For these reasons, I propose two modest proposals to the purpose prong. First, I recommend that judges follow the Lemon test, and actually focus on the purpose of the statute in question, rather than some metaphysical and largely unknowable purpose of the legislature. Second, I seek to replace the "objective observer" standard announced in McCreary with an original public meaning analysis. These two suggestions will allow courts to engage in a more robust establishment clause jurisprudence, and further the purpose of the Lemon test in rooting out excessive entanglement of religion in government, and keeping the wall between church and state high, impregnable, and resolute. Much like the proverbial wolf who comes not in sheep's clothing, but in wolf's clothes, this lemon comes as a lemon.


Abstract This study explores the historical relationship between the languages of Basarwa of Botswana and Setswana, in order to understand the dynamics underpinning their appropriation of the Setswana language, as they adjust to their changing livelihoods. The study contributes towards the promotion of a better understanding and awareness of the issues of language shift and language use amongst Basarwa. Basarwa occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder in Botswana. Due to the close association between the status of the people and the status of their language, the Basarwa languages accordingly rank low in use and status nationally (Andersson & Janson, 2004, p. 118; Batibo, 2005, p. 71). Like the other minority languages, the Basarwa languages also have a low status and a low prestige in education and in written discourse. Moreover, the study observes that in their quest to mediate their socio-economic marginalisation, Basarwa have had to appropriate Setswana, the dominant national language for survival. However, their appropriation of the Setswana Language has had deleterious effects on their languages and overall socio-cultural identity. In this context, the nationally dominant Setswana language not only dominates public discourse, but also official spoken discourse as well, while English dominates official written discourse (Andersson & Janson, 1993, pp. 83–84). The sources used to guide this analysis include secondary material, official and unofficial documents, as well as the author's own observations, as a Motswana and an educationist.


The study was conducted to determine the attitude of farmers towards the use of urea super granule (USG) in rice cultivation and explore relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers. Data were collected through personal interview from 84 randomly selected USG users in rice cultivation of the three villages under Sadar Upazila of Netrakona district during October to December 2008. A five point Likert scale was used to determine the attitude of farmers. The majority (73.81%) of the farmers had moderately favourable, 21.43% slightly favourable and 4.76% highly favourable attitude towards use of USG in rice cultivation. Level of education, farm size, annual income, farming information, agricultural training exposure and rice farming knowledge of the farmers' had significant positive relationship but family subsistence pressure had significant negative relationship with their attitude towards the use of USG.


Abstract. In this study we investigate the impact of mid- and late Holocene orbital forcing and solar activity on variations of the oxygen isotopic composition in precipitation. The investigation is motivated by a recently published speleothem δ18O record from the well-monitored Bunker Cave in Germany. The record reveals some high variability on multi-centennial to millennial scales that does not linearly correspond to orbital forcing. Our model study is based on a set of novel climate simulations performed with the atmosphere general circulation model ECHAM5-wiso enhanced by explicit water isotope diagnostics. From the performed model experiments, we derive the following major results: (1) the response of both orbital and solar forcing lead to changes in surface temperatures and δ18O in precipitation with similar magnitudes during the mid- and late Holocene. (2) Past δ18O anomalies correspond to changing temperatures in the orbital driven simulations. This does not hold true if an additional solar forcing is added. (3) Two orbital driven mid-Holocene experiments, simulating the mean climate state approximately 5000 and 6000 yr ago, yield very similar results. However, if an identical additional solar activity-induced forcing is added, the simulated changes of surface temperatures as well as δ18O between both periods differ. We conclude from our simulation results that non-linear effects and feedbacks of the orbital and solar activity forcing substantially alter the δ18O in precipitation pattern and its relation to temperature change.


The history of the Caribbean is a history of migrations. The peoples of the region came as conquerors and planters, slaves and indentured laborers from all parts of the globe. Each group contributed to the social fabric, culture, and commerce of the region. The Chinese diaspora has spread Chinese people and culture around the world, including to the Caribbean, where Chinese exist both as distinct ethnic groups within Caribbean societies and as shapers of unique Caribbean cultures. This book describes not merely the arrival and experience of Chinese in the Caribbean but also the ways in which Chinese have adapted to and altered the region. Included are the histories of Chinese people in Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, and the British West Indies, their arrival as indentured laborers, the discrimination they suffered and overcame, their slow rise to economic independence and success, their contribution to art, theater, cuisine, and literature, their roles in the region's national revolutions, their place in post-colonial politics, and the subsequent remigrations of individuals, families, and entire communities to North America.


This article presents a descriptor-free method for estimating library compounds with desired properties from synthesizing and assaying minimal library space. The method works by identifying the optimal substituent ordering (i.e., the optimal encoding integer assignment to each functional group on every substituent site of molecular scaffold) based on a global pairwise difference metric intended to capture smoothness of the compound library. The reordering can be accomplished via a (i) mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model, (ii) genetic algorithm based approach, or (iii) heuristic approach. We present performance comparisons between these techniques as well as an independent analysis of characteristics of the MILP model. Two sparsely sampled data matrices provided by Pfizer are analyzed to validate the proposed approach and we show that the rearrangement of these matrices leads to regular property landscapes which enable reliable property estimation/interpolation over the full library space. An iterative strategy for compound synthesis is also introduced that utilizes the results of the reordered data to direct the synthesis toward desirable compounds. We demonstrate in a simulated experiment using held out subsets of the data that the proposed iterative technique is effective in identifying compounds with desired physical properties. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2010


Dramatic advances in understanding mechanisms of aging have recently been made in model systems. Interventions have been devised that successfully enhance survival. Major issues still in need of resolution include whether these interventions not only increase survival but also enhance function, delay frailty, and can be translated into clinical application. It seems there are basic biologic findings close to being ready for translation. However, a number of barriers exist to translating these findings into realistic clinical interventions. Steps and resources needed include measuring not only survival but also impact of interventions on age-related disability, frailty, and onset of disease in model systems; development of clinically relevant measures of disability, frailty, and disease for each animal model and genetically tractable animal models of frailty; training and career-long funding mechanisms for geriatricians in basic science research and for basic scientists in geriatric issues; translationally capable review and funding mechanisms; emphasis on studies of interventions that can be initiated in later life for preventing or reversing disability; genetic association studies in humans to identify new candidate genes and pathways that correlate with disability, frailty, and age-related disease onset as well as longevity; study of exposure to environmental agents or toxins early in life on survival, disability, frailty, and disease in later life.


Mesoporous materials feature ordered tailored structures with uniform pore sizes and highly accessible surface areas, making them an ideal host for functional organic molecules or nanoparticles for analytical and sensing applications. Moreover, as their porosity could be employed to deliver fluids, they could be suitable materials for nanofluidic devices. As a first step in this direction, we present a study of the hydration of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) model lipid membranes on solid mesoporous support. POPC was selected as it changes the structure upon hydration at room temperature. Mesoporous films were prepared using two different templating agents, Pluronic P123 (PEO–PPO–PEO triblock copolymer where PEO is polyethylene oxide and PPO is polypropylene oxide) and Brij 58 (C16H33(EO)20OH where EO is ethylene oxide), both following the conventional route and by X-ray irradiation via deep X-ray lithography technique and subsequent development. The same samples were additionally functionalized with a self-assembly monolayer (SAM) of (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane. For every film, the contact angle was measured. A time resolved structural study was conducted using in situ grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering while increasing the external humidity (RH), from 15 to 75% in a specially designed chamber. The measurements evidenced that the lipid membrane hydration on mesoporous films occurs at a lower humidity value with respect to POPC deposited on silicon substrates, demonstrating the possibility of using porosity to convey water from below. A different level of hydration was reached by using the mesoporous thin film prepared with conventional methods or the irradiated ones, or by functionalizing the film using the SAM strategy, meaning that the hydration can be partially selectively tuned. Therefore, mesoporous films can be employed as "interactive" sample holders with specimens deposited on them. Moreover, thanks to the possibility of patterning the films using deep X-ray lithography, devices for biological studies of increasing complexity by selectively functionalizing the mesopores with biofunctional SAMs could be designed and fabricated.


In postural reconstruction in kinetotherapy, the assessment of the morphological balance starts with the analysis of observable surface indicators, i.e. visual information of patient morphology. The various elements of this balance may provide information that will contribute to the early detection of risks associated with the apparition of spine deficiencies in school-aged children. The assessment of the apparition and the early detection of these deficiencies demands the development of a system based on objective standards to monitor the detection of such problems. The purpose of this transverse pilot study is the experimentation with processes of standardization for a limited number of somatometric indicators based on measurements and data obtained on a sample of 114 subjects aged between 7 and 10 years (65 boys and 49 girls), using common statistical methods for the distribution of observations and the generation of standards. Preliminary results produced by our study reveal that 39 (34.2%) of 114 subjects display multiple spine posture flaws. Based on these results, the main conclusion of the study is that more attention needs to be paid to the normal development of the spine in children of school age between 7 and 10 years old.


Much public discourse surrounding the modern global food system operates on the assumption of the primary agency of individual consumers in ensuring an equitable and sustainable food supply. However, this approach fails to account for the larger structural forces of the system which frame the limits of how we interact with and are affected by our food system. Taking a closer look at the global economic, political, cultural, and environmental forces that have collectively shaped historical food regimes reveals the deeper structural patterns that currently determine how we produce, distribute, and consume food around the world. Due to the underlying structural processes of increasing distancing and standardization, we have become highly disembedded from our food system and will need to look for clues from past periods of transition between food regimes to better position ourselves to work towards a global restructuring of, and human reembedding in, the modern global food system.


The Loulé salt diapir grew through the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, when tight subvertical curtain folds were developed. It was then squeezed during the Alpine orogeny in the Oligocene and Miocene. This produced an intense array of brittle faults, veins and brittle–ductile shear zones through most of the diapir. The diapir exhibits more localized shear and brittle structures than any other previously described diapir. The most unusual deformation structures are 'streaky shear vein' zones (a new term), with an average spacing of 1 – 5 m, and usually less than 30 cm wide. They consist of a central coarse-grained halite vein surrounded by parallel zones of wispy discontinuous shale streaks and recrystallized halite. A new mechanism is proposed for the development of these zones, where repeated pulses of fluid flow have caused extensive halite recrystallization and streaking-out of unlithified mud intercalated with crystalline halite. This explains the formation of wide zones of well-aligned mud streaks (now lithified to shale), but with only small amounts of simple shear offset observed across these zones (<0.2 m). The lower tips of the streaky shear vein zones exhibit splaying mud injection veins, which indicate that fluid overpressures preserved liquid mud from salt deposition at 200 Ma to the Alpine collision at 20 Ma.


Consumer-generated restaurant review sites offer a wealth of information about dining options. These sites are based on consumers' experiences; therefore, it is useful to assess the relevance between restaurant review (for food quality) and retail food facilities (RFFs) inspection results (for sanitation) from health departments. This study analyzed New York City restaurant ratings on Yelp.com to determine if there was a relationship to RFFs' violation scores for those same facilities found on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene web pages. In addition, we assessed differences between RFFs defined on Yelp as quick service versus full service, and chains versus nonchains. Yelp ratings were found to be correlated only with sanitation in chain RFFs.


It is widely accepted that property rights are a prerequisite for economic growth. In fact, economists and legal scholars stress the ability of property rights to solve collective action problems, such as the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anticommons. More direct contributions have also been noted. For instance, it has been argued that formal land ownership plays a central role in economic development, and that formal property titles are correlated with an increase in social well-being. When assessing the economic functions of property, it is generally assumed that financial property is as beneficial for economic growth as property over tangible assets. The public policy recipe in this respect would then be to respect property claims over financial assets to the greatest possible extent. However, it is evident that perfect compliance with financial property raises special problems. While natural catastrophes (such as floods, earthquakes, or tsunamis) can damage land holdings and real estate, the working of a market economy by itself cannot annul or reshape real property. By contrast, financial property is subject to the vagaries of economic and political markets. In fact, the respect for financial property can become impossible in the event of a microeconomic crisis (insolvency, bankruptcy, etc.), or a macro-economic one (bank run, crash of stock markets, financial fallout, etc.). In this essay I will discuss five paradigms that can be used in order to restructure financial property under economic crises, particularly those affecting emerging market economies: the emergency paradigm, the monetary paradigm, the valorist paradigm, the social justice paradigm, and the bankruptcy paradigm. The former two have been heavily influenced by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. The valorist paradigm is of German origin, and the social justice paradigm can be regarded as an application of the doctrine that private property has a social function, espoused by socialist and Catholic social thought. The last paradigm is a theoretical construct, and has never been used. I will expose the inadequacies of the first four paradigms, both in light of doctrinal analysis and political economy. Finally, I will argue that the bankruptcy paradigm coheres with rule of law principles and minimizes costs in terms of long-term economic growth. More specifically, I will claim that the bankruptcy paradigm can maintain a separation of powers, reduce rent-seeking by small interest groups, and mitigate the overall damage to the financial system caused by the crisis. This paradigm is especially helpful to respond to bank runs in countries that have a currency board or formal dollarization.


Rather than a conclusion, the texts in the volume are a new start in working towards understanding the complexities of working with archaeological documentation and information. The intricacies of managing archaeological information and documentation have been acknowledged for a long time, but the rapid changes in premises, tools and the idea of how archaeology should be conducted in the digital age have shifted many of the parameters of the process.The aim of this small book is to briefly discuss some of the premises for studying the implications and opportunities of the digitalisation of information and information work in the domain of archaeology and material cultural heritage. This book has been written under the auspices of the research project Archaeological Information in the Digital Society (ARKDIS) funded by the Swedish Research Council as a part of the work of the project to set the stage for researching the production and use of archaeological knowledge.


In this paper, we examine how the design of cash transfer schemes influences household welfare outcomes with particular reference to the influence of transfers on conditioned outcomes, such as schooling, health and investment. We do this by examining two innovative cash transfer schemes initiated by the Mexican government in the last decade: PROGRESA, which is a national antipoverty scheme directed at chronic rural poverty, and PROCAMPO, which is a scheme designed to compensate farmers for the negative price effects of NAFTA. The schemes differ in that PROGRESA is targeted at women and conditioned on schooling and health outcomes and PROCAMPO is generally targeted at men and conditioned on land use. The analysis of data collected for an evaluation of PROGRESA suggest that the overall effects of the programs, as measured by total and food consumption expenditure, are not different. However, PROGRESA leads to greater schooling expenditure and school attendance as well as increased health outcomes. On the other hand, PROCAMPO is found to lead to increased investment in agriculture. The results suggest that conditionality may have little effect in terms of short-term welfare outcomes, but do influence both longer-term (human capital) and medium term (productive) investment. Policy makers must consider both whether or not conditions should be placed on a program, and the type of condition, depending on what they perceive to be the desirables outcomes of the transfer scheme.


We propose an unsupervised method for learning multi-stage hierarchies of sparse convolutional features. While sparse coding has become an increasingly popular method for learning visual features, it is most often trained at the patch level. Applying the resulting filters convolutionally results in highly redundant codes because overlapping patches are encoded in isolation. By training convolutionally over large image windows, our method reduces the redudancy between feature vectors at neighboring locations and improves the efficiency of the overall representation. In addition to a linear decoder that reconstructs the image from sparse features, our method trains an efficient feed-forward encoder that predicts quasi-sparse features from the input. While patch-based training rarely produces anything but oriented edge detectors, we show that convolutional training produces highly diverse filters, including center-surround filters, corner detectors, cross detectors, and oriented grating detectors. We show that using these filters in multistage convolutional network architecture improves performance on a number of visual recognition and detection tasks.


Birth characteristics predict a range of major physical and mental disorders, but findings regarding eating disorders are inconsistent and inconclusive. This total-population Swedish cohort study identified 2,015,862 individuals born in 1975–1998 and followed them for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and eating disorder not otherwise specified until the end of 2010. We examined associations with multiple family and birth characteristics and conducted within-family analyses to test for maternal-level confounding. In total, 1,019 males and 15,395 females received an eating disorder diagnosis. Anorexia nervosawas independently predicted bymultiple birth (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.33, 95% confidence interval: 1.15, 1.53) for twins or triplets vs. singletons) and lower gestational age (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.96, 95% confidence interval: 0.95, 0.98) per extra week of gestation, with a clear doseresponse pattern. Within-family analyses provided no evidence of residual maternal-level confounding. Higher birth weight for gestational age showeda strong, positive dose-response associationwith bulimia nervosa (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.15, 95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.22, per each standard-deviation increase), again with no evidence of residual maternal-level confounding. We conclude that some perinatal characteristics may play causal, diseasespecific roles in the development of eating disorders, including via perinatal variation within the normal range. Further research into the underlying mechanisms is warranted. Finally, several large population-based studies of anorexia nervosa have been conducted in twins; it is possible that these studies considerablyoverestimate prevalence.


This paper reports on a study concerned with exploring staff perceptions on improving the design and delivery of e-learning provision for students and staff with disabilities in a higher education institution in the Republic of Ireland. The study aims to clarify understanding on how aspects of e-learning affect some of the key stakeholders in an institution of higher education – a disability liaison team, a learning technology team and an academic development centre. Essentially this paper is an example of research for learners with disabilities by people without disabilities. The language used in this paper is consistent with the social model of disability. The objective of the research is to improve the design and delivery of e-learning curriculum with a view to enabling the potential of e-learning work towards inclusivity for the institution's students and staff with physical and learning disabilities. The specific context in which this takes place is in the area of academic development, which is charged with assisting in the provision of e-learning support to academic staff who in turn facilitate the learning of students with disabilities. The research consisted of a qualitative study conducted with the collaboration of academic colleagues in the institution. The data were collected from an audio-taped focus group interview. The main findings show that initial collaborations need to be consolidated between the key stakeholders of Disability Services, Learning Technology Team and Academic Development to ensure that further training and piloting of online learning materials take place in order to support staff and students with disabilities in participating in e-learning courses and initiatives across the institution. The study concludes with a series of recommendations including a possible framework devised by participants in order that the e-learning approach be adopted into the training and development initiatives taking place each academic year in the institution. An evaluation strategy is also proposed to measure any impact of the changes to practice.


Abstract The granting of scheduled tribe status to the Kuki-Chin people eroded their allegiance to clan and linguistic/dialectal identities. While they do not have any problem with a pan-ethnic identity, their primary loyalty is to their own clans and communities. Invocation of kinship ties by different groups does not necessarily translate into a common political agenda. There are at least 15 armed groups among them that have combined into two larger groups—the United People's Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO)—and signed a peace agreement with the state and central governments. Whereas the militant groups deviated from the macro-nationalist project of the Indian state, their micro-nationalist struggle is not informed by any coherent ideology. The root motivation of their armed struggle clearly originated in their fear of being marginalised by ethnic competition among various peoples of Northeast India in general and of Manipur in particular.


Background Aerobic capacity has been shown to be inversely proportionate to cardiovascular mortality and morbidity and there is growing evidence that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) appears to be more effective than moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in improving cardiorespiratory fitness within the cardiac population. Previously published systematic reviews in cardiovascular disease have neither investigated the effect that the number of weeks of intervention has on cardiorespiratory fitness changes, nor have adverse events been collated. Objective We aimed to undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) within the cardiac population that investigated cardiorespiratory fitness changes resulting from HIIT versus MICT and to collate adverse events. Methods A critical narrative synthesis and meta-analysis was conducted after systematically searching relevant databases up to July 2017. We searched for RCTs that compared cardiorespiratory fitness changes resulting from HIIT versus MICT interventions within the cardiac population. Results Seventeen studies, involving 953 participants (465 for HIIT and 488 for MICT) were included in the analysis. HIIT was significantly superior to MICT in improving cardiorespiratory fitness overall (SMD 0.34 mL/kg/min; 95% confidence interval [CI; 0.2–0.48]; p<0.00001; I2=28%). There were no deaths or cardiac events requiring hospitalization reported in any study during training. Overall, there were more adverse events reported as a result of the MICT (n=14) intervention than the HIIT intervention (n=9). However, some adverse events (n=5) were not classified by intervention group. Conclusion HIIT is superior to MICT in improving cardiorespiratory fitness in participants of cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness are significant for CR programs of >6-week duration. Programs of 7–12 weeks' duration resulted in the largest improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness for patients with coronary artery disease. HIIT appears to be as safe as MICT for CR participants.


For isothermal physical aging, a few simple tests to characterize the aging shift factors allow reasonable prediction of the mechanical response. In this paper, a new technique is developed to extract aging shift factors from creep data during a nonisothermal history. Previous methods have generated discrete experimental shift factors by a series of short-term creep tests, in which the load portion alone is used for evaluation; this is particularly time consuming for nonisothermal histories, since many data points ( requiring several tests) may be needed for an adequate characterization of the response. This paper presents a new continuous shift factor (CSF) method, based on the validity of effective time theory, which generates a continuous experimental shift factor curve from a single test. Results are presented for this method when applied to a polyimide/carbon fiber composite material tested in shear under temperature jump conditions; this nonisothermal aging data for a polymer matrix composite is shown to exhibit similar response to that of homogeneous polymers. The new CSF technique will be useful in the development of models to predict the shift factor due to coupled aging and thermal history.


Principal component analysis is performed on Birkeland or field‐aligned current (FAC) measurements from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment, to determine the response of dayside and nightside FACs to reversals in the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and the occurrence of substorms. Dayside FACs respond promptly to changes in IMF BY, but the nightside response is delayed by up to an hour and can take up to 4 hr to develop fully, especially during northward IMF. Nightside FAC asymmetries grow during substorm growth phase when the IMF has a significant BY component, and also promptly at substorm onset. Our findings suggest that magnetotail twisting and/or BY penetration into the magnetotail, due to subsolar reconnection with east‐west orientated IMF, are the main cause of these nightside FAC asymmetries and that asymmetries also arise due to magnetotail reconnection of these twisted field lines.


Cargo selectivity is a hallmark of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. A wide range of structurally unrelated internalization signals specify the preferential clustering of transmembrane cargo into clathrin coats forming on the plasma membrane. Intriguingly, the classical endocytic adaptor AP-2 appears to recognize only a subset of these endocytic sorting signals. New data now reveal the molecular basis for recognition of other internalization signals, including post-translationally appended ubiquitin, by clathrin-coat-associated sorting proteins (CLASPs). Curiously, structurally related ubiquitin-recognition modules are shared by select CLASPs and the 26S proteasome, and recent work indicates that both display similar requirements for ubiquitin binding. During endocytosis, these modules engage oligoubiquitylated cargo in the form of polyubiquitin chains and/or multiple single ubiquitin molecules appended to different acceptor lysines. Functional separation between clathrin-mediated endocytosis and proteasome-dependent proteolysis is probably ensured by temporally regulated, local assembly of ubiquitin-tagged membrane cargo at sorting stations on the cell surface, shielding ubiquitin sorting signals from the proteasome. Thus, an expanded repertoire of CLASPs couples the process of clathrin-coat assembly with high-fidelity incorporation of assorted, cargo-specific sorting signals.


We study the effects of bursty Internet Traffic through simulations. Both short-range dependency (SRD) and long-range dependency (LRD) traffic with self-similar behavior are simulated over different burst parameters. The results are collected for 10 different 24 hour periods in order to study day-to-day statistical fluctuation. The performance fluctuation from day to day is measured. Effects of employing different traffic admission constraints are examined. An alternative to improve network throughput and utilization is proposed. Finally, a case when arrival patterns of traffic are correlated is explored.
Our results show that when traffic behavior and service rate are probabilistic a network has very little control of the situation and the best thing to do is to drop packets when a network experiences too many "late" packets. However, different restrictions used to manage traffic admission yield different trade-offs.


Studies on developments in pronominal gender agreement often focus on the semantic guidelines that are used instead of grammatical agreement. However, pragmatic factors contribute to the competition between syntactic and semantic agreement as well. This paper analyzes two prominence factors contributing to the overall discourse salience of the antecedent noun and their impact on grammatical agreement in personal pronouns. First, the results will reveal that the antecedent's referential status i.e. the assumed cognitive status the antecedent has in the mind of the addressee (cf. the Givenness Hierarchy) exerts influence on the use of gender-marked pronouns. Secondly, this study will indicate that antecedents in subject position trigger more syntactic agreement than antecedents with other grammatical functions.


OBJECTIVE
In 2012, the James Lind Alliance, together with the Craniofacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the Cleft Lip and Palate Association, set priorities for unanswered questions in cleft management. One of these priorities included postoperative fluid management. The authors' postoperative regimen does not include intravenous fluids unless the child fails to achieve adequate oral intake by the first evening postoperatively. This audit evaluated whether this is appropriate and safe practice.

METHODS
All patients undergoing cleft-related surgery by a single surgeon in a single center during August 2011 to August 2012 were included. Patient age, weight, and surgery type were recorded together with fluid requirement, length of stay, and any returns to theater or readmissions.

RESULTS
Of the 79 patients included, none required readmission or return to theater, and the mean length of stay was 1.72 days. Nineteen patients (24%) required intravenous fluids, but these tended to be the older children in the group (P value .034). In the youngest patients undergoing primary lip repair, only 1 of 20 required intravenous fluids.

CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that, especially in the younger patients, omitting intravenous fluids as a postoperative routine is associated with a shorter length of stay without an increased complication rate. The authors advocate early postoperative feeding and the return to physiological fluid balance.


This paper describes the use of a new consolidation testing method, known as the "zero controlled gradient" (zero CG) test, to measure the one-dimensional (1-D), end-of-primary (EOP) consolidation behavior of soft soils. The conventional incremental loading (IL) consolidation test remains the most common test method for measuring 1-D consolidation behavior; however, data reduction requires graphical constructions to obtain key consolidation parameters. In addition, the IL test provides data only at intervals dictated by the loading increments used, leading to discontinuous stress-strain data that may mask or distort true soil consolidation behavior. The zero CG test mimics the EOP behavior by maintaining approximately zero excess pore pressure throughout the soil specimen as it is being continuously loaded, and thus avoids the problem of strain rate selection in the constant rate of strain (CRS) test. Zero CG tests were performed on three natural soils using a computer-automated Rowe consolidation cell, and these results were compared to conventional IL consolidation tests on the same soils. In general, for a given soil, the results from the two tests were consistent. However, the zero CG results had these advantages: defining the compression curve more accurately and continuously around the preconsolidation stress (σ′p), and giving higher, more realistic compression index values beyond σ′p. The major drawback of the zero CG test is that coefficient of consolidation (cv) data cannot be obtained due to the lack of excess pore pressure. The zero CG test offers both a practical and research tool for determining EOP consolidation states, and can eliminate strain rate problems inherent in both IL and CRS tests.


BACKGROUND
HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB) is common in South Africa. The optimal time for initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) in co-infected patients is a clinical challenge. AIM. We aimed to compare clinical outcomes of patients with HIV-associated TB who commenced ART at different stages of TB therapy.

METHODS
A retrospective chart review was conducted of 458 patients who initiated ART at ≤ 28 days (immediate), 29 - 56 days (early) and ≥57 days (delayed) after commencing TB therapy, and clinical outcomes after 6 months of ART were compared.

RESULTS
There was a higher mortality in the immediate group, although this was not significant. Renal impairment (hazard ratio (HR) 2.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3 - 4.9; p=0.004) and inpatient ART initiation (HR 3.7; 95% CI 1.6 - 8.2; p=0.001) were risk factors for HIV-associated TB mortality. A baseline haemoglobin concentration ≥10 g/dl (HR 0.2; 95% CI 0.1 - 0.6; p=0.003), extrapulmonary as opposed to pulmonary TB (PTB) (HR 0.3; 95% CI 0.1 - 0.7; p=0.005) and extrapulmonary plus PTB as opposed to PTB (HR 0.3, 95% CI 0.1 - 0.6; p=0.002) were significantly associated with decreased mortality.

CONCLUSION
The timing of initiation of ART after commencing TB therapy was not significantly associated with increased mortality or survival. Patients with more advanced disease were more likely to die. Early HIV testing and ART initiation is recommended to decrease mortality.


The security of civil aviation, likemany human activities, is regulated by a series of international standards and recommended practices. The quality of these documents is a prerequisite to reach an acceptable security level. The EDEMOI project aims at investigating different techniques to analyse these standards. The techniques that we have used, such as Requirements Engineering (RE) and formal methods, have been fruitfully tried and tested in computer science. During the first step of the project, properties were extracted from standards written in natural language and a conceptual model of the underlying system was elaborated. Since none of the existing requirements engineering methods were able to consider the specifics of our project, we turned to situational method engineering, and have defined a new RE method based on this approach. The standard considered in the article is Annex 17 of the Convention of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). We present several adaptations/extensions to relevant RE techniques necessary to take into account the specific features of our project. Finally, we describe how we have applied this new method to the analysis of Annex 17.


Discover the Office option every business can affordNow your business can benefit from sophisticated communication and collaboration services fully integrated with Microsoft Office products. Once limited to companies large enough to afford data centers and the expensive IT staff to support them, these services can now be yours, and this book shows you how. Each chapter begins with a common business problem you've most likely faced, followed by the Office 365 solution. You'll learn to share documents, secure your communications, manage and share calendars and tasks, conduct video meetings, and give your business the edge it deserves.Teaches you how your business, large or small, can benefit from Office 365 Explains how to take advantage of Exchange Online, Lync Online, and SharePoint Online Shows you what makes Office 365 so affordable and why it doesn't require an IT staff Highlights what constitutes successful collaboration and how to facilitate it Explores specific Office 365 solutions for familiar business issues Addresses how to conduct video conferences, schedule meetings, set up discussions, and make remote PowerPoint presentations with Office 365With this book, you'll discover how Office 365 can benefit your business every day of the year!


This article gives the overview of the implementation of strategic planning system in Lithuania and identifies the problems that were posed while implementing the mentioned system. The reforms were practically implemented in 2000 when the Strategic Planning Manual was adopted by the Government of Lithuania. The Manual provides instructions for the preparation of strategic plans. In 2000 for the first time ministries' and Government agencies' strategic plans were prepared following the budget formation cycle for the year 2001. Following the Manual the ministries and Government agencies pointed out expected results they wanted to achieve. In this way the activity transformed from process oriented into result oriented. Monitoring and reporting is a fundamental part of a good planning process and in 2002 for the first time ministries and Government agencies have reported on the results achieved against their planning targets. This article also includes analysis of experience as well as suggestions for future improvement. Progress is required at two levels: first, the political level (the Prime Minister and Ministers) needs to be more actively involved in the deliberations on priority setting. Second, the administrative level needs to improve decision–making process.


This thesis addresses several classic problems in algebraic and symbolic computation related to the solvability of systems of polynomial equations. We develop a parallel algebraic procedure for deciding when a set of multivariate polynomial equations with coefficients in an arbitrary field $K$ have a common solution in an algebraic closure of this field. All computation required by these algorithms takes place over $K$, the field of definition, and hence does not require explicit construction or approximation of solutions. The decision procedure is subsequently extended to yield an algorithm for deciding when solutions exist for arbitrary Boolean combinations of polynomial equations over an algebraically closed field. Modifications are introduced to compute projections of algebraic and semi-algebraic sets, producing an exponential-space algorithm for determining the truth of sentences in the theory of an arbitrary algebraically closed field. In addition, this algorithm can be executed in polynomial space (PSPACE) when restricted to sentences with a bounded number of quantifier alternations. The algebraic nature of the construction also allows us to develop naturally a quantifier elimination procedure for formulas in this theory within similar time and space bounds. Finally, we show that these results are nearly optimal in a common model of parallel arithmetic computation.
We also show how these methods can be used to compute the dimension of an arbitrary algebraic set. A variety of other applications--including the construction and approximation of solutions for systems of multivariate polynomial equations and the isolation of real zeros--are investigated.


Paul Chan Pang Siu's article "The Sojourner", which appeared in 1952, belongs to the classical texts in the sociology of migration. Paul Siu, the son of a Chinese laundryman and later student of sociology at the University of Chicago under Ernest Burgess and Louis Wirth, attempted to investigate, using scientific means, the reality which determined his father's life, and over and above that, the lives of a whole ethnic group. Siu understands the sojourner as a special type of sociological form of stranger, deliberately setting himself apart from the then famous "marginal man" of Robert E. Park. Unlike the marginal man, the sojourner is not between the cultures. Rather, he lives with his countrymen together in a culturally homogenous colony. He is socially isolated and would like, when he has finished his job and achieved success, to return to his home country as soon as possible. Although Siu's concept of the sojourner originates from 1952, it in fact proves to be very relevant nowadays in unexpected ways. Siu already thought about migration not from the individual perspective, but from that of the social and cultural fields. He described the migration movement as a movement within the framework of complex network structures which have their own reality, over and above national and cultural borders. In this way, he places himself right in the center of the present discussion on migration, which is concerned with the phenomena of globalization, trans-nationalism, and transmigration. And in addition, there are clear references in his work to the concepts of transculturality and transdifference. But the most important thing is that Siu constantly worked with precise sociological terms. From this we can still learn in our present time.


The focus of this book is the P-versus-NP Question and the theory of NP-completeness. It also provides adequate preliminaries regarding computational problems and computational models. The P-versus-NP Question asks whether or not finding solutions is harder than checking the correctness of solutions. An alternative formulation asks whether or not discovering proofs is harder than verifying their correctness. It is widely believed that the answer to these equivalent formulations is positive, and this is captured by saying that P is different from NP. Although the P-versus-NP Question remains unresolved, the theory of NP-completeness offers evidence for the intractability of specific problems in NP by showing that they are universal for the entire class. Amazingly enough, NP-complete problems exist, and furthermore hundreds of natural computational problems arising in many different areas of mathematics and science are NP-complete.


This dissertation is a study of insular contact and artefacts found in Viking age (800 to 1050 AD) burials in Trondelag in central Norway. Despite of the quantity of material previously recognised, very little research has been done on the subject for this area. An updated review as part of this study, has shown that there are a great many more insular finds in Trondelag than previously thought. This gives a new basis to review contacts with Britain and Ireland, and to see how these developed over the period.The archaeological evidence indicates that contact between Trondelag and the British Isles was well established at an early stage during the Viking age. The insular artefacts found in several of the earliest burials dated to around 800 or before, seem to reflect a different form of contact than random, plundered loot. During the 9th century, the amount of insular finds in Trondelag increases significantly and the majority of the material can be dated to this century. On the basis of the archaeological material, there seem to have been a close relationship between societies in the Trondheimfjord and Norse colonies in the British Isles. The discovery of a Viking woman in northern England, who on the basis of isotopic analysis has been traced to the area around Trondheim, seems to confirm the wider Trondelag evidence. This extensive contact may also be reflected in the few known cases of burials in stone cists of this date in Trondelag. During the 10th century there appear to be several significant changes in the network of contact with Britain and Ireland. Around AD 900 there is a considerable decrease of insular finds in several areas which seemed to have a strong link to the British Isles in the previous century. The insular contacts which still exist with the Trondheimfjord area in the 10th century appear to be centralised to the inner part of the fjord.The majority of insular artefacts have been found in women graves. Traditionally such items are often interpreted as exotic and attractive gifts or souvenirs from men returning from overseas expeditions. By analysing the functions of these items and the meaning these objects could have been given in their new setting, this dissertation has emphasised how many objects may be considered as active expressions of the buried women's social and cultural background and of their role in networks with overseas contacts. This might especially have been the case for those women buried with insular equipment for serving food and drink. These items may have been significant symbols for the buried women's important role in alliance-building activities within communities and networks with relations to the British Isles.


RATIONALE
The organic content of speleothem calcite is a well-recognized component of their chemical composition. To date, the techniques for interpretation of this material include UV fluorescence, FTIR spectroscopy and biomarker analysis using gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS). However, investigation of the minute concentrations of molecules in speleothems demands careful sampling and laboratory controls.

METHODS
To be certain extracted molecules were encapsulated at the time of speleothem growth and do not represent contamination, we submitted three pieces of speleothem calcite to a rigorous extraction procedure. Based on sequential digestion and analysis by GC/MS, we measured concentration profiles of individual compounds with increasing distance from sample surfaces.

RESULTS
Declining concentrations toward interior extracts identified cholesterol, phthalates, and n-alkanes as surface contaminants. In contrast, iodo organic compounds had homogeneous concentration profiles and were also significantly above laboratory background levels, consistent with an indigenous origin. However, further laboratory testing demonstrated that iodo organics were produced by the reaction of iodine derived from the speleothem with solvent additives and other impurities of the extraction procedure. Sitosterol and some fatty acids demonstrated distributions which were probably indigenous to the speleothem archive, thus recording environmental conditions commensurate with time of growth.

CONCLUSIONS
We do not aim to provide an environmental interpretation of extracted molecules, but highlight the caution necessary before doing so. We ultimately establish a framework for differentiating between organic constituents that are introduced to the speleothems during storage, handling and as artifacts of extraction, and those encapsulated in situ at the time of growth.


The tectonic, structural and depositional history of 19 Sub-Andean foreland and eight southern Caribbean basins has been synthesized and is summarized by regional geohistory charts. These charts recapitulate the subsidence regimes recognized and have been used to evaluate correlations between genetically related stratigraphic sequences. Based on spatial and temporal changes in palaeo-depositional setting, the Sub-Andean region can be subdivided longitudinally into several tectonostratigraphic domains. The differential amount of subsidence between two adjacent tectonostratigraphic provinces or sub-provinces relies on the presence of a transverse zone of structural accommodation. The location of these transfer zones correlates with a number of known and several newly identified zones of intracontinental deformation. Combined with changes in the structural geometry of the Andean Fold and Thrust Belt and the relative dominance of basement fault systems along the length of the Andean foreland, it is suggested that the Andean Belt can be separated into five tectonic domains (which are themselves bounded by transverse, structural accommodation zones). Representing the multiphase reactivation of pre-existing basement fault systems, the influence of these broad zones of transcontinental deformation is most apparent during the Triassic–Jurassic period, suggesting that they were intimately associated with accommodating intraplate stresses during the breakup of the Gondwana Supercontinent.


Ingestion of carbohydrate (CHO) before exercise and after exercise enhances
subsequent endurance exercise capacity when compared to a fasting state. However,
the optimal type of CHO meal to be consumed is still unclear. Glycaemic and
insulinaemic responses to a meal during the postprandial period may play an
important role in subsequent exercise metabolism and performance. This thesis
examined the influence of ingesting high and low glycaemic index (GI) CHO meals three hours before exercise and during four-hour recovery on substrate metabolism and exercise
capacity in men. [Continues.]


This paper develops a new approach to regulating group insolvencies: procedural consolidation. Under this approach, multiple proceedings over the assets of group companies are consolidated in one proceeding. However, there is no 'substantive consolidation', i.e., assets and liabilities of the group companies are kept distinct. The paper demonstrates how that approach could be implemented in the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR) and also in the domestic insolvency systems of European Member States such as Germany. The current proposals of the European Commission for a reform of the EIR and of the German Justice Ministry for a reform of the German Insolvency Code ('Insolvenzordnung') are evaluated against this background.


Nucleolar involvement in the regulation of the activity-rest-quiescence cycle of the vascular cambium was assessed by determining the seasonal variation in number, diameter, and volume of nucleoli in fusiform cells of Abies balsamea (L.) Mill. The cells were isolated from 1- and 19-yr-old cambia and stained with either silver nitrate or Feulgen + naphthol yellow-S. The ability of fusiform cells to incorporate [5-3H]-uridine into nuclei and nucleoli was also determined. In the 1-yr-old cambium, the activity of the nucleoli, as evidenced by their diameter, total volume per cell, and intensity of staining with silver nitrate, exhibited two maxima during the year-a large one during cambial reactivation in April-May and a small one during the rest-quiescence transition in October. Incorporation of radiolabeled uridine at 20 C was low at the end of the active period and increased during the rest-quiescence transition, suggesting that the quiescent, but not the resting, cambium can rapidly resume nucleolar activity when the temperature is permissive. The number of nucleoli per cell varied between two and eight, and was higher during the dormant than the active period. The increase in number took place during the autumnal activity-rest-quiescence transition, when cambial cells were arrested in the G, phase of the cell cycle. Similar seasonal changes in nucleolar morphology were observed in the 19-yr-old cambium. Nucleolar diameter and total nucleolar volume were larger in the 19-yr-old cambium than in the 1-yr-old cambium, whereas nucleolar number was lower. The results suggest that repression of rRNA genes underlies the development of rest when the cambium will not produce new cells.


In Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes (1998), the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of an Independent congressional candidate from a televised debate organized by Arkansas's taxpayer-funded public television network. By a vote of six to three, the majority reversed the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and affirmed the state's power to sponsor the general election debate closed to all but the Democratic and Republican candidates. To resolve the case, the Court grappled with two key questions. The first was whether the debate on a state-controlled station constituted a 'public forum' for First Amendment purposes, and, second, whether the exclusion of Ralph Forbes from the debate constituted 'viewpoint discrimination.' The Court determined that the debate was a 'nonpublic' forum. The majority also saw no viewpoint discrimination in Forbes's exclusion. Justice Kennedy, who authored the majority opinion, was principally moved by the trial jury's finding that Forbes was rejected as a participant by the debate managers not because they disliked his politics but because they correctly deemed his candidacy to be 'not viable.' Thus, the AETC's exclusion of Forbes was not political viewpoint discrimination but a 'reasonable, viewpoint neutral exercise of its journalistic discretion.' In his dissent, Jamin Raskin concludes that the Court decided both of these questions erroneously and that the Court should have found that Arkansas was required to permit Forbes, a balloted candidate who had nearly become lieutenant governor in the prior election, to participate in the debate.


Although eutely in nematodes was known, giant neurons in several taxa and unique motor neurons to leg muscles in decapod crustaceans, the idea that many animals have many identifiable neurons with relatively consistent dynamical properties and connections was only slowly established in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This has to be one of the important quiet revolutions in neurobiology. It stimulated a vast acquisition of specific information and led to some euphoria in the degree and pace of understanding activity of nervous systems and consequent behavior in terms of neuronal connections and properties. Some implications, problems and opportunities for new discovery are developed. The distribution of identifiable neurons among taxa and parts of the nervous system is not yet satisfactorily known. Their evolution may have been a case of several independent inventions. The degree of consistency has been quantified only in a few examples and the plasticity is little known. Identified neurons imply identifiable circuits but whether this extends to discrete systems, functionally definable, seems likely to have several answers in different animals or sites. Very limited attempts have been made to extend the concept to cases of two or ten or a hundred fully equivalent neurons, on all kinds of criteria. These attempts suggest a much smaller redundancy and vaster number of types of neurons than hitherto believed. Theory as well as empirical information has not yet interpreted the range of systems from those with small sets of relatively reliable neurons to those with large numbers of parallel, partially redundant units. The now classical notion of local circuits has to be extended to take account of and find roles for the plethora of integrative variables, of evidence for neural processing independent of spikes and classical synapses, of spatial configurations of terminal arbors and dendritic geometry, of modulators and transmitters, degrees of rhythmicity (regularity varying several orders of magnitude), and of synchrony. Adequate language and models need to go beyond 'circuits' in any engineering sense. Identifiable neurons can contribute to a broad spectrum of issues in neurobiology.


A worldwide shift from a fossil based to biobased economy is slowly underway. Even if fossil resources will be still be used in foreseeable future, an increased use of biomass as resources, not least for fuels, can be expected. A systematic, worldwide increase in demand of bioresources will inevitably put larger potential pressures on ecosystems and the environment. To be able to minimize or fully avoid damage, or at least unnecessary damage to human welfare, we among other things need the increased understanding of including ecosystem services into life cycle assessment of products and services. Such a combination of understanding basic responses from impacts on ecosystems by technical systems, and environmental interactions of technical systems over the whole value chain of a product or service will give possibilities to identify important hot spots as well as optimizing technology use to minimize damage to important ecosystem services. Yet we have not achieved this. We argue that important reasons are that we still need to understand how to include ecosystem services in LCA, and that this is complicated by the fact that there are two main paradigms regarding ecosystem services – the donor value approach and the receiver value approach. Approaching the problem through the case of an expected increased forest bio fuel production from the boreal forests of the Mid Sweden region, we demonstrate the different approaches. We argue that for now we will probably need to use the two approaches in parallel.


We study a two-country setting in which leveraged investors generate fire-sale externalities, leading to financial crises and contagion. Governments can affect the incidence of financial crisis and the degree of contagion by injecting public liquidity and, additionally, by segmenting the countries' liquidity markets. We show that segmentation allows a country to avoid contagion and fend off mild financial crises caused by a small shock to its liquidity demand, at the cost of exposing it to more severe financial crises caused by a large shock. We derive a "pecking order" result, whereby segmentation is a second-best measure that coordinated governments should use only when tax capacity constrains them from injecting liquidity. Even when segmentation is welfare-enhancing, it should be applied to public liquidity alone, never restricting the free flow of private liquidity across countries. Uncoordinated governments tend to use segmentation excessively.


Increasing the acceptor strength of the widely used acceptor benzothiadiazole (BT) by extending the heterocyclic core is a promising strategy for developing new and stronger acceptors for materials in organic electronics and photonics. In recent years, such heteroannulated BT acceptors have been incorporated into a wide variety of materials that have been used in organic electronic and photonic devices. This review critically assesses the properties of these materials. Although heteroannulation to form acceptors, such as benzo[1,2-c:4,5-c′]bis[1,2,5]thiadiazole (BBT), does result in materials with significantly higher electron affinity (EA) relative to BT, in many cases the extended BT systems also exhibit lower ionization energy (IE) than BT. Both the significantly higher EA and lower IE limit the efficacy of these materials in applications such as bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaics (BHJ-OPV) based on C60. Although the relatively high EA may enable some applications such as air stable organic field effect transistors (OFET), more widespread use of heteroannulated BT acceptors will likely require the ability to moderate or retain the high EA while increasing IE.


This paper builds on trajectories in PD that attend to designers' situatedness within the broader systemic contexts in which they work. It proposes (re)considering infrastructuring, understood as a range of approaches to designing socio-material systems, through attention to designers' locations, as one way to imagine what is at stake when designing with people. The paper draws upon a reflective analysis of long-term design research with a social justice organization. The local context of the group and the larger socio-political-historical context of systems of policing with which the group contends shaped our understandings of what was necessary, possible and strategic. Working at the intersections of these infrastructures, in turn, shaped how we designed together. I propose "relational practice" as a framework for critically engaging designers' dynamic positions in infrastructuring and argue that how we design relational practices, and how we understand them, is critical for how we approach infrastructuring as on-going work toward shared, if complex and difficult to imagine, social and political possibilities.


Abstract. The Black Sea coastal nowcasting and forecasting system was built within the framework of EU FP6 ECOOP (European COastalshelf sea OPerational observing and forecasting system) project for five regions: the south-western basin along the coasts of Bulgaria and Turkey, the north-western shelf along the Romanian and Ukrainian coasts, coastal zone around of the Crimea peninsula, the north-eastern Russian coastal zone and the coastal zone of Georgia. The system operates in the real-time mode during the ECOOP project and afterwards. The forecasts include temperature, salinity and current velocity fields. Ecosystem model operates in the off-line mode near the Crimea coast.


Libraries are not doing all they should to protect users' privacy. Several sections of the USA PATRIOT Act potentially encroach on this privacy. To preserve intellectual freedom and the flow of information in a democratic society, libraries must adopt privacy policies that tell library users their rights and demonstrate the library's willingness to be held accountable for such protections. The current privacy policy at the Livingston Lord Library at Minnesota State University Moorhead does not take into consideration the various ramifications of the PATRIOT Act because the policy predated the Act by more than 20 years. An updated policy is a recommendation of this study. The study was conducted using research from two previously conducted surveys given to libraries regarding the PATRIOT Act as well as investigating and analyzing 30 library privacy policies posted on their academic library web sites. In developing this proposed privacy policy, guidelines and recommendations from the American Library Association were used whenever possible. Results indicate that while libraries and librarians think the right to privacy is important, librarians do not have the time, the understanding, or the means to involve themselves in a complete privacy audit of their library.


Perhaps surprisingly, all electron microscopy (EM) data collected to date is less than a cubic millimeter – presenting a huge demand in the materials and biological sciences to image at greater speed and lower dosage, while maintaining resolution. Traditional EM imaging based on homogeneous raster scanning severely limits the volume of high-resolution data that can be collected, and presents a fundamental limitation to understanding physical processes such as material deformation and crack propagation.,,,,,, We introduce a multi-resolution data fusion (MDF) method for super-resolution computational EM. Our method combines innovative data acquisition with novel algorithmic techniques to dramatically improve the resolution/ volume/speed trade-off. The key to our approach is to collect the entire sample at low resolution, while simultaneously collecting a small fraction of data at high resolution. The high-resolution measurements are then used to create a material-specific model that is used within the "plug-andplay" framework to dramatically improve resolution of the low-resolution data. We present results using FEI electron microscope data that demonstrate super-resolution factors of 4x-16x, while substantially maintaining high image quality and reducing dosage.


Abstract Migrant heritage, as a grassroots practice seeking to commemorate pre- and post-war migrant communities and their contributions, emerged in Australia from the 1980s. Since that time, its appeal has continued to grow. It now receives, in some form, state sanction and is policed by the same state and national legislation as other cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. This article seeks to complicate understandings of migrant heritage as a marginal practice, specifically by interrogating the use-value of particular narratives in the Australian context – that is, how do individuals, communities and other groups (the grassroots) draw on sanctioned and publicly circulating narratives to mark their site as heritage-worthy? Ideas of what constitutes official and unofficial heritage can be mutually inclusive – a dialectical process. I analyse this in relation to the commemoration of former post-war migrant reception centres in Australia.


A depth-age scale and an accumulation history for the Holocene have been established on the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) deep core, providing the most continuously dated record of annual layer accumulation currently available. The depth-age scale was obtained with the use of various independent techniques to count annual layers in the core. An annual record of surface accumulation during the Holocene was obtained by correcting the observed layer thicknesses for flow-thinning. Fluctuations in accumulation provide a continuous and detailed record of climate variability over central Greenland during the Holocene. Climate events, including "Little Ice Age" type events, are examined.


Background:
Pain is a ubiquitous problem in patients with chronic leg wounds. Recent studies have reported that 17 - 65% of patients experience severe or continuous pain that, associated with other characteristics of chronic ulcers such as odour, have debilitating effects on the patients including both their mental and psychological wellbeing. The aim of this work is to develop advanced wound dressings for local delivery of an analgesic drug that can help to manage pain associated with chronic leg ulcers in older adults. The addition of hyaluronic acid (HA) in the composition added beneficial and well recognized HA properties in the wound healing process.

Methods:
Advanced dressings loaded with an analgesic drug (lidocaine) were formulated as lyophilised xerogels (wafers) by freeze-drying. Different HA ratios by weight were used to improve the wafer characteristics. The dressings were tested for functional characteristics including mechanical strength, porous microstructure, stability, polymorphic/amorphous transitions, hydration, swelling and in vitro mucoadhesion. An HPLC method was developed to assess lidocaine release from wafers.

Results:
On the basis of feasibility study of the use of analgesic dressings in older adults with leg ulcers, an advanced dressing loaded with lidocaine was formulated. Wafers, due to their porous nature, have proved to be suitable for medium to high exuding wounds (common in leg ulcers), whilst still maintaining their physical integrity. Both blank and drug-loaded wafers were soft, flexible, elegant in appearance and non-brittle in nature. The addition of HA had an influence on wafer structure changing their properties, but mechanical characterisation demonstrated that the wafers were strong enough to withstand normal stresses but also flexible to prevent damage to newly formed skin tissue. The lidocaine release from the optimised dressing showed continuous release for over 12 h.

Conclusions:
Wafer seems to be a very promising system for delivery of analgesic drug to the wound. Further studies are in progress to evaluate in vitro activity of the dressings and role of HA in the wound healing process.


The Internet has given researchers a convenient and accessible tool for collecting data. It enables researchers to find natural occurring language that gives them the opportunity to save time and partake of various advantages the Internet has to offer. Web forums are deep and complex message boards occupied by online communities. These web forums are a rich source for collecting naturally occurring language that can be used for various sorts of research. Several researchers have shown that these web forums have a generous amount of advantages when used as data (Yates, 1996; Hsiung, 2000; Joinson, 2001; Im & Chee, 2006; Newhagen & Rafaeli, 2006; Misoch, 2015). However, it is equally important to understand the nature of the flaws that web forum texts as data may have. The notion of anonymity and the overrepresentation of a certain demographic groups may mislead incautious researchers collecting data from web forums.This paper aims to analyse several research articles which uses web forum texts as data within two different disciplines, health and social care and linguistics, in addition to classifying them as either high-stakes or low-stakes research. The goal is to investigate how researchers handle possible limitations and risks of such data. Initial results showed that high-stakes are more thorough when discussing and reporting concerns regarding their data. Evidently, health and social care high-stakes research articles reported more concerns than linguistics research articles. Several recommendations based on these results were made in the end of the paper for researchers to use when conducting research based on web forum texts.


We introduce a new learning method for network motifs: interesting or informative subgraph patterns in a network. Current methods for finding motifs rely on the frequency of the motif: specifically, subgraphs are motifs when their frequency in the data is high compared to the expected frequency under a null model. To compute this expectation, the search for motifs is normally repeated on as many as 1000 random graphs sampled from the null model, a prohibitively expensive step. We use ideas from the Minimum Description Length (MDL) literature to define a new measure of motif relevance. This has several advantages: the subgraph count on samples from the null model can be eliminated, and the search for motif candidates within the data itself can be greatly simplified. Our method allows motif analysis to scale to networks with billions of links, provided that a fast null model is used.


Performing third-harmonic-generation (THG) microscopy with a cylindrically focused Gaussian beam results in significant differences from standard THG microscopy owing to the different phase-matching geometry. These differences are characterized analytically in the slowly varying envelope approximation. It is shown that THG is not observed in samples with normal dispersion even for line illumination. We use this to perform video-rate THG microscopy.


In an autonomous driving system, drift can affect the sensor's position, introducing errors in the extrinsic calibration. For this reason, we have developed a method which continuously monitors two sensors, camera, and LIDAR with 16 beams, and adjusts the value of their cross-calibration. Our algorithm, starting from correct values of the extrinsic cross-calibration parameters, can detect small sensor drift during vehicle driving, by overlapping the edges from the LIDAR over the edges from the image. The novelty of our method is that in order to obtain edges, we create a range image and filter the data from the 3D point cloud, and we use distance transform on 2D images to find edges. Another improvement we bring is applying motion correction on laser scanner data to remove distortions that appear during vehicle motion. An optimization problem on the 6 calibration parameters is defined, from which we are able to obtain the best value of the cross-calibration, and readjust it automatically. Our system performs successfully in real time, in a wide variety of scenarios, and is not affected by the speed of the car.


Ocean acidification caused by the increased uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the oceans is likely to have serious impacts on marine organisms that make shells and exoskeletons from calcium carbonate. The consequences for the provision of marine ecosystem services such as fisheries and services generated by coral reefs are uncertain but potentially severe. In this chapter we set out a framework for the economic assessment of impacts from ocean acidification. We review the existing economic literature on ocean acidification, which is nascent and sparse. To date only a partial set of the potentially impacted ecosystem services have been assessed with a focus on the direct use values that can be more easily addressed. Gaps in the current knowledge are identified and avenues for future research are discussed. Comparing the existing impact estimates for ocean acidification with those for climate change show them to be an order of magnitude lower. Due to the relatively proximate impacts of ocean acidification, however, the implications for optimal mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions may be substantial.


Ocean acidification (OA) caused by the anthropogenic induced climate change via increasing CO2 release may be one of the main threats to the marine realm. OA will be a challenge to most marine calcifiers, but cold water corals are thought to be particularly affected owing to the nature of their cold and often deep habitat. The 'Fjordo Comau' (Chilean Patagonia) already today exhibits pCO2 values that are predicted for the year 2100 in the IPCC scenarios, comprising pH gradients up to 0.6 within the first? 225 m. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous cold water coral Desmophyllum dianthus thrives apparently unimpaired along these gradients. It forms dense banks along the fjord and moreover occurs as a member of a deep water emergence community as shallow as 12 m. Herein we present results of an in situ experiment cross-transplanting corals between two sites with a pH difference of ~ 0.15 (pH of 7.93 ± 0.09 and 7.78 ± 0.11). Growth was measured with the buoyancy weight method and two weeks were sufficient to show clear weight increase, still rates were relatively variable (5.75 ± 3.26 [mg CaCO3 cm-2 d-1] and 0.29 ± 0.19 [% d-1]). No differences of short-term growth rates between the two sites could be detected. Either there are factors that outbalance the adverse effects of low pH and/or cold water corals in general or Desmophyllum dianthus in particular may have a great ability to acclimatize or even adapt to a broad range of environmental conditions including pH. Nevertheless there may be limiting boundaries that restrict distribution, especially in the future when pH values will further decline.


The interpretation of the separation of federal judicial power derived from Chapter III of the Constitution is as hotly debated as it is fundamentally important. Two key viewpoints have emerged in this debate, formalism and functionalism. A formalist test focusing on definitional characteristics governs the permissible powers of federal courts. A functionalist testlooking to whether a power is incompatible with institutional independence and integrity limits the powers of State courts and of judges personae designatae. A rare point of consensus between the two viewpoints, and the central pillar of my critique, is that Chapter III is purposive and should be interpreted to achieve judicial independence and impartiality. This paper queries which method of interpretation can best achieve the independence and impartiality of the federal judicature. The analysis highlights the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each approach and ultimately leads to the identification of a preferred approach I call 'purposive formalism'. Purposive formalism is a two-tiered method harnessing the strict formalist framework and a compatibility test. It is proposed as a legitimate and signifi cant step forward in the interpretation of Chapter III to achieve the independence and impartiality of the federal judicature.


The impact of assimilating temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate and nitrate observations on marine ecosystem modelling is assessed. For this purpose, two 10-yr (1970–1979) reanalyses of the Baltic Sea are carried out using the ensemble optimal interpolation (EnOI) method and a coupled physical-biogeochemical model of the Baltic Sea. To evaluate the reanalyses, climatological data and available biogeochemical and physical in situ observations at monitoring stations are compared with results from simulations with and without data assimilation. In the first reanalysis, only observed temperature and salinity profiles are assimilated, whereas biogeochemical observations are unused. Although simulated temperature and salinity improve considerably as expected, the quality of simulated biogeochemical variables does not improve and deep water nitrate concentrations even worsen. This unexpected behaviour is explained by a lowering of the halocline in the Baltic proper due to the assimilation causing increased oxygen concentrations in the deep water and consequently altered nutrient fluxes. In the second reanalysis, both physical and biogeochemical observations are assimilated and good quality in all variables is found. Hence, we conclude that if a data assimilation method like the EnOI is applied, all available observations should be used to perform reanalyses of high quality for the Baltic Sea biogeochemical state estimates.


Many Christian feminists wonder if they can simultaneously maintain their commitment to principles of gender equality and their faith in the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament. Writing in response to feminist biblical scholars who approach the Old Testament with a hermeneutic of suspicion, Jacqueline Lapsley offers Christian feminists strategies to hear the subtle ideas and voices of the less powerful within the Old Testament texts. Reading and interpreting a number of Old Testament narratives in which women are prominent, Lapsley considers how these stories may reflect God's word for us. In doing so, she demonstrates how the narrative often attempts to shape the moral response of the reader by revealing the intricacy and complexity of the moral world evoked. In this gentle shaping of the reader's ethical sensibilities, she argues, is where God may be whispering a word for us.


This study aims at evaluating the performance of the Maximum Entropy method in assessing landslide susceptibility, exploiting topographic and multispectral remote sensing predictors. We selected the catchment of the Giampilieri stream, which is located in the north‐eastern sector of Sicily (southern Italy), as test site. On 1 October 2009, a storm rainfall triggered in this area hundreds of debris flow/avalanche phenomena causing extensive economical damage and loss of life. Within this area a presence‐only‐based statistical method was applied to obtain susceptibility models capable of distinguishing future activation sites of debris flow and debris slide, which where the main source of failure mechanisms for flow or avalanche type propagation. The set of predictors used in this experiment comprised primary and secondary topographic attributes, derived by processing a high resolution digital elevation model, CORINE land cover data and a set of vegetation and mineral indices obtained by processing multispectral ASTER images. All the selected data sources are dated before the disaster. A spatially random partition technique was adopted for validation, generating 50 replicates for each of the two considered movement typologies in order to assess accuracy, precision and reliability of the models. The debris slide and debris flow susceptibility models produced high performances with the first type being the best fit. The evaluation of the probability estimates around the mean value for each mapped pixel shows an inverted relation, with the most robust models corresponding to the debris flows. With respect to the role of each predictor within the modelling phase, debris flows appeared to be primarily controlled by topographic attributes whilst the debris slides were better explained by remotely sensed derived indices, particularly by the occurrence of previous wildfires across the slope. The overall excellent performances of the two models suggest promising perspectives for the application of presence‐only methods and remote sensing derived predictors. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.