During the late eighteenth century, Portugal and Spain sent joint mapping expeditions to draw a nearly 10,000-mile border between Brazil and Spanish South America. These boundary commissions were the largest ever sent to the Americas and coincided with broader imperial reforms enacted throughout the hemisphere. Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met considers what these efforts meant to Indigenous peoples whose lands the border crossed. Moving beyond common frameworks that assess mapped borders strictly via colonial law or Native sovereignty, it examines the interplay between imperial and Indigenous spatial imaginaries. What results is an intricate spatial history of border making in southeastern South America (present-day Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay) with global implications.
Drawing upon manuscripts from over two dozen archives in seven countries, Jeffrey Erbig traces on-the-ground interactions between Ibero-American colonists, Jesuit and Guaraní mission-dwellers, and autonomous Indigenous peoples as they responded to ever-changing notions of territorial possession. It reveals that Native agents shaped when and where the border was drawn, and fused it to their own territorial claims. While mapmakers' assertions of Indigenous disappearance or subjugation shaped historiographical imaginaries thereafter, Erbig reveals that the formation of a border was contingent upon Native engagement and authority.


Abstract. Rainfall-runoff modelling in ungauged basins is still one of the greatest challenges in hydrological research. The lack of discharge data necessitates the establishment of new innovative approaches to guide hydrological modelling in ungauged basins. Besides the transfer of calibrated parameters from similar gauged catchments, the application of distributed data as a hydrological response in addition to discharge seems to be promising. A new approach to guide hydrological modelling based on explicit simulation of the spatial stream network was tested in four different catchments in Germany. In a first step we used a simplified version of the process-based model Hill-Vi together with regional climate normals to simulate stream networks. The calculation of gravity driven lateral subsurface and groundwater flow is used to identify patterns of stream cells, which were compared to reference stream networks and their degree of spatial agreement was evaluated. Significant differences between good and poor simulations could be distinguished and the corresponding parameter sets relate well with the hydrogeological properties of the catchments. The optimized parameters were subsequently used to simulate daily discharge using an observed time series of precipitation and air temperature. The performance was evaluated against observed discharge and water balance. This approach shows some promising results but also some limitations. Although the model's parsimonious model structure could be further improved regarding discharge recession and evapotranspiration, the performance was similar to regionalisation methods. Stream network modelling, which has minimal data requirements, seems to be a reasonable alternative for model development and parameter evaluation in ungauged basins.


Pharmaceutical and Natural (Exercise) Mechanisms to Mitigate the Negative Impact of PTSD and Chronic Stress on Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Roxanne M. Miller Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Synapses can be altered due to experiences in a process called synaptic plasticity, which causes memory formations. Synapses can be strengthened through methods known as long-term potentiation (LTP) or weakened through long-term depression (LTD). Stresses can cause changes by altering synapses through either LTP or LTD. Rats were used to study the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-like symptoms and a prophylactic treatment using pharmaceuticals. The first model used was the single prolonged stress (SPS) with two weeks of chronic light, which was not as effective for causing changes in synaptic plasticity. The second model, seven days of social defeat (SD) with two weeks of chronic light was more effective at inducing PTSD-like behavior symptoms and causing changes in LTP levels in the ventral hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex between stressed and non-stressed rats. For the prophylactic treatment, propranolol and mifepristone were administered one week prior to and throughout the two weeks of the social defeat protocol. The drugs were able to prevent the changes due to stress on LTP in the three aforementioned brain regions, but did not change the anxious behavior of the rats. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to determine corticosterone and norepinephrine levels between the different groups of rats. No significant differences were detected between SD and control rats, but SD injected rats were different from controls indicating that the injections were causing added stress. Reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to detect changes in the adrenergic, corticoid, AMPA, and NMDA receptors. There were a few significant changes to some of the targets indicating that the stress protocol and drugs were having an effect on the mRNA expression. Propranolol and mifepristone could possibly be used as a prophylactic treatment for traumatic stress. In a separate study, techniques were used to determine the negative effects chronic stress (non-PTSD-like) has on synaptic plasticity in the dorsal hippocampus and to show how exercise was able to mitigate some of those negative stress effects. Electrophysiology showed differences in LTP between four groups of mice: sedentary no stress (SNS), sedentary with stress (SWS), exercise with stress (EWS), and exercise no stress (ENS). SWS had the lowest amount of LTP, whereas ENS had the highest. SNS and EWS had similar levels of LTP, which were in between the SWS and ENS groups. Corticosterone blood levels measured by an ELISA showed significant increases in the stressed groups compared to the non-stressed groups. The radial arm maze showed that both groups of exercise mice made fewer reference memory errors the second week of testing compared to the sedentary groups. RT-qPCR determined that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and corticoid and dopamine 5 receptors were likely causing some of the memory changes.


Fair discriminative pedestrian finders are now available. In fact, these pedestrian finders make most errors on pedestrians in configurations that are uncommon in the training data, for example, mounting a bicycle. This is undesirable. However, the human configuration can itself be estimated discriminatively using structure learning. We demonstrate a pedestrian finder which first finds the most likely human pose in the window using a discriminative procedure trained with structure learning on a small dataset. We then present features (local histogram of oriented gradient and local PCA of gradient) based on that configuration to an SVM classifier. We show, using the INRIA Person dataset, that estimates of configuration significantly improve the accuracy of a discriminative pedestrian finder.


Microsatellite markers have assumed a significant importance as molecular markers over the past few years. They are currently used extensively in population genetic studies,
management and in conservation biology. This study aims to utilize microsatellite loci in order to investigate, assess and document the genetic diversity of the local pineapple
varieties. Microsateillites were isolated from a single individual of the Sarawak variety obtained from Beaufort, Sabah. DNA was extracted from the plant and 5' anchored PCR
was performed in order to isolate microsatellites using six degenerate primers LR1 [5'KKVRVRV (CT)�₀�3'], UMS2 [5'-KKVRVRV (GT) )�₀�3'], PCT1[5'-KKYHYHY (GA) )�₅�3'], LR7
[5'-KKVRVRV (AG) )�₀�3'], UMS1 [5'- KKYNSSH (ATG) )₈�3']and PCT6 [5'-KKBNVSS (GATA)₆�3'], to capture different repeat motifs. The resultant PCR products were then cloned into
the pCR 2.1 TA TOPO vector and transformed into E. coli TOP10 competent cells. A total of 69 plasmid samples were sequenced of which 57 gave acceptable and clean DNA
sequences. By using the 5' anchored PCR technique, a total of 123 distinct microsatellite loci were isolated, comprising of, 45 with dinucleotide repeats, 28 trinucleotide repeats, 48 with tetranucleotide repeats and two with hexanucleotide repeats. Twelve cryptic
simple repeats were also identified. A total of 57 DNA sequences were deposited into GenBank and the accession numbers were obtained. A total of 35 microsatellite primers
were designed based on the DNA sequences. Out the total, only 20 markers were found polymorphic and were used to characterize various pineapple varieties. These markers
were used to screen 180 pineapples samples collected from Sabah and Sarawak representing the Sarawak, Madu and Mauritius varieties. Analysis data from the 20 loci
revealed that the number of alleles per locus ranged from two to four and the average effective number of alleles, n of 2.1896. The Ho value ranged from 0.1705 to 1 with a
mean of 0.7869. The FST value 0.1680 revealed high genetic variations among the populations and the gene flow, Nm was 1.2384. There was no evidence for significant
linkage disequilibrium among the 20 loci examined. The Ewens-Watterson test for neutrality revealed that the majority of the loci were neutral and the pineapple
populations investigated were deviates from HWE. The genetic distance value revealed that Kuching (Sarawak variety) and Miri (Sarawak variety) had the lowest genetic distance of 0.0263, while Beaufort (Sarawak) and KPD (Mauritius) had the highest of 0.4533. Next, the use of RAPD and SCAR markers were exploited to identify diagnostic markers that could be used to differentiate pineapple varieties. For this purpose, 80 pineapples representing the Sa rawak, Madu, Mauritius and Paun pineapple varieties were used. A total of five RAPD primers OPA3, OPA4, OPA8, OPA13 and OPA 15 were used to differentiate between these varieties. Primers OPA3, OPA4 and OPA13 generated polymorphic bands. Primer OPA3 generated distinct amplicons within the size range of 623 bp and 533 bp in the Mauritius variety and also 1018 bp in the Paun variety. Primer OPA4 generated an amplicon with the size of 480 bp in Mauritius variety and OPA13 generated an amplicon with the size of 700 bp in the Sarawak variety. The DNA
fragments amplified by OPA3 for the Madu variety (768 bp, 623 bp and 523 bp) and the Paun variety (1018 bp) samples were excised purified and cloned using the TOPO TA
Cloning kit (Invitrogen). Clones DSP1, DSP2, DSP9, DSP20, DKPD7 and DKP17 were sequenced. The DNA sequences were deposited into GenBank and the accession numbers were obtained. A total of six primers were designed DMAcSP1A, DMAcSP2A, DMAcSP9B, DMAc20B, DMAcKPD7 and DMAcKPD17. Out of the six, only DMAcSP2A amplified distinct loci at 606 bp in Paun variety and at 640 bp and 495 bp in Madu variety. A single RAPD polymorphism segregrating for varieties was used to derive a molecular single locus SCAR marker (DMAcSP2A, GenBank accersion number DQ875606) associated with the Paun variety. This SCAR marker can be applied for the identification of pineapple varieties and has potential for use in marker assisted selection. Microsatellite markers provide important data for the characterization of the local
pineapple populations which are useful for germplasm management for the improvement of this important agronomic crop.


The article addresses the problem of the computer monitoring of rare (orphan) diseases of the lungs in children. Creating a computer register allows you to monitor and optimize patient monitoring systems with different rare bronchopulmonary diseases, organize rare form of chronic lung disease in children to determine their course of modern features of the dynamics of the disease and prognosis of various therapeutic effects. Register creates the conditions for the analysis of the main causes of diagnostic errors at various stages of specialized medical care, which improves the effectiveness of treatment. The article describes the structure and functions of the register are presented on-screen form.


We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: exporters are more productive than non-exporters when observed and unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for, and these exporter productivity premia tend to increase with the share of exports in total sales; there is evidence in favour of self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but nearly no evidence in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. We document that the exporter premia differ considerably across countries in identically specified empirical models. In a meta-analysis of our results we find, consistently with theoretical predictions, that productivity premia are larger in countries with lower export participation rates, with more restrictive trade policies, lower per capita GDP, less effective government and worse regulatory quality, and in countries exporting to relatively more distant markets. Understanding cross-country differences in exporter premia – Comparable Evidence for 14 Countries The International Study Group on Exports and Productivity* [Revision – 1. July 2008] Abstract: We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: exporters are more productive than non-exporters when observed and unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for, and these exporter productivity premia tend to increase with the share of exports in total sales; there is evidence in favour of self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but nearly no evidence in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. We document that the exporter premia differ considerably across countries in identically specified empirical models. In a meta-analysis of our results we find, consistently with theoretical predictions, that productivity premia are larger in countries with lower export participation rates, with more restrictive trade policies, lower per capita GDP, less effective government and worse regulatory quality, and in countries exporting to relatively more distant markets.


Clustering methods have been extensively used in many Information Processing tasks in order to capture unknown object categories. However, clustering has been scarcely used as a sense labeling method for Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD), that is, as a way to identify groups of semantically related word senses that can be successfully used in a disambiguation process. In this paper, we present an unsupervised disambiguation method relying on word sense clustering that also reveals the implicit relationships (not asserted in WordNet) existing among these word senses.We also investigate in depth the role of clustering and its contribution to WSD. Experimental results demonstrate the usefulness of clustering for unsupervised WSD.
Keywords: Word Sense Disambiguation, Clustering


Background: According to recent statistics, cancer accounts about marked percentage of total deaths in the world, although there are many therapeutic approaches. Unfortunately, the cytotoxicity properties of most chemotherapy drug are nonspecific and therefore do not distinguish between normal healthy cells and tumor cells, these events have led to inappropriate and toxic therapeutic agents with a wide range of side effects. However, several experimental and epidemiological studies have suggested that fruits and vegetables are associated with low risk of various types of cancer. Anthocyanins are natural pigments that provide intense purple to red color in plants. Anthocyanin possess the ability to inhibit oxidative stress and to induce apoptosis in malignant cells, thus may prevent carcinogenesis. Methods: Antiproliferative properties of purified anthocyanin extract from elicited cell suspension cultures of Begonia malabarica and Begonia rex-cultorum 'Baby rainbow' was investigated in terms of MTT assay. Anthocyanin extracts were tested for their ability to inhibit the growth of HT29 (colon cancer cells), MG63 (Osteosarcoma), HeLa (Cervical cancer cells) and L929 (Mouse Fibroblast L929) cell lines. Results: Cell viability decreased in a dose dependent manner in all the considered cell lines treated with anthocyanin extracts. The extract of Begonia rex-cultorum 'Baby rainbow' exhibited significant cytotoxic activity against all tumor cell lines than Begonia malabarica extract. Begonia malabarica and Begonia rex-cultorum 'Baby rainbow' anthocyanin extract exhibited the highest cytotoxicity towards HT29 and HeLa cell lines respectively. But, MG63 resulted in comparatively higher percentage of viability of cell lines at the same concentrations. The anthocyanin extract produced significant morphological alterations on cell lines in culture. Meanwhile, the extracts showed poor cytotoxicity against the normal cell line. Conclusion: The morphological alteration of the treated cancer cells presented clear evidence of significant cytotoxicity of anthocyanin extracts of both Begonias in all the three cell lines. Thus, anthocyanin may act as chemopreventive agents for various cancer cell lines.


Pretraining on human corpus and then finetuning in a simulator has become a standard pipeline for training a goal-oriented dialogue agent. Nevertheless, as soon as the agents are finetuned to maximize task completion, they suffer from the so-called language drift phenomenon: they slowly lose syntactic and semantic properties of language as they only focus on solving the task. In this paper, we propose a generic approach to counter language drift called Seeded iterated learning (SIL). We periodically refine a pretrained student agent by imitating data sampled from a newly generated teacher agent. At each time step, the teacher is created by copying the student agent, before being finetuned to maximize task completion. SIL does not require external syntactic constraint nor semantic knowledge, making it a valuable task-agnostic finetuning protocol. We evaluate SIL in a toy-setting Lewis Game, and then scale it up to the translation game with natural language. In both settings, SIL helps counter language drift as well as it improves the task completion compared to baselines.


We consider the motion planning problem for arbitrary articulated structures with one or more closed kinematic chains in a workspace with obstacles. This is an important class of problems and there are applications in many areas such as robotics, closed molecular chains, graphical animation, and reconfigurable robots. We use the kinematics-based probabilistic roadmap (KBPRM) strategy proposed in [Han, L and Amato, NM (March 2000)] that conceptually partitions the linkage into a set of open chains and applies random generation methods to some of the chains and traditional inverse kinematics methods to the others. The efficiency of the method depends critically on how the linkage is partitioned into open chains. The original method assumed the partition was provided as input to the problem. We propose a fully automated method for partitioning an arbitrary linkage into open chains and for determining which should be positioned using the inverse kinematic solver. Even so, the size (number of links) of the closed loops that can be handled by this method is limited because the inverse solver can only be applied to small chains. To handle high dof closed loops, we show how we can use the iterative relaxation of constraints (IRC) strategy proposed by Bayazit to efficiently handle large loops while still only using inverse kinematics for small chains. Our results in 3-dimensional workspaces both for planar and spatial linkages show that our framework performs well for general linkages. We also use our planner to simulate an adjustable lamp called Luxo. Using IRC, our planner can handle a single loop of up to 98 links.


Hepatic homeostasis and metabolism are essential for survival in critically ill and severely burned patients. Silymarin, the major component of thistle milk has been shown to have hepatoprotective effect. In this study the effect of silymarin on the liver of burned rats was investigated. Wistar Albino rats were exposed to 900C bath for 10 seconds to induce skin burn. Silymarin either locally (30 mg/kg) applied on 4 cm2 area or locally+systemically (50 mg/kg p.o) was administered after burn and repeated twice daily. Rats were decapitated 48 h after injury and blood was collected for tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF- α) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. In liver tissue samples, total protein, tissue factor activity (TF) and activities of carbonic anhydrase (CA), glutathione- S-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), alkalen and acid phosphatase (ALP, ACP respectively) enzymes were determined. In addition polyacyrlamid gel electrophoresis was carried on liver tissue samples. Burn caused a significant increase in blood TNF- α and LDH levels. Total protein levels and ALP activity increased and SOD activity decreased in the liver tissue at 48h after burn. Both local and systemic silymarin treatment significantly reversed this parameters except ALP. Silymarin treatment significantly increased ALP activity. Local silymarin treatment increased, CAT and ACP activities and decreased TF activity compared to control and burn group; and increased CA activity compared to systemic+local silymarin treatment. Addition of systemic silymarin treatment to local silymarin treatment reversed these effects of local treatment to control group levels. Non significant differences were found between protein bands obtained in electrophoresis. Minor liver damage was obvious 48 h after thermal skin burn. Both local and systemic silymarin treatment were effective to reverse the effects of burn induced liver injury. Key Words: Burn, liver enzymes, liver tissue factor activity, SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, silymarin


For the first time the synthesis of poly($N$-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone)-stabilized cobalt-palladium nanoparticles by an easy method, their characterization, and their use as active catalysts for hydrogen release from hydrolysis of ammonia borane and hydrazine borane is reported here. The catalyst is prepared by simultaneous reduction of suitable cobalt and palladium ions by sodium borohydride in the presence of poly($N$-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) as a stabilizer. They are characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, TEM analysis, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. They provide average turnover frequencies of 30 min$^{-1}$ and 45 min$^{-1}$ in the hydrolysis of ammonia borane and hydrazine borane. They also provide activation energies of 48.6 $\pm $ 2 and 50.6 $\pm $ 2 kJ mol$^{-1}$ in the hydrolysis of ammonia borane and hydrazine borane.


Smart Dust is the network of small devices (also called as Sensor Nodes) with many electronic components such as memory, CPU, radio and sensor and each of these components consumes power. Sensor nodes have a battery and can work only as long as the battery lasts. In other words, it is very important to optimize every computation in order to increase the sensor's lifetime. To achieve this, an energy efficient protocol called as ZigBee protocol is analyzed. Analysis is done using two different topologies (Random and Clustered Topology). Both topologies are properly analyzed in terms of number of nodes and in terms of number of nodes/cluster respectively. Parameters used for analysis are Total Packets Transmitted, Total Packet Loss, Packet Loss Rate and Bit Rate.


Abstract: In this paper we deal with the study of the traffic flow model that is governed by two hyperbolic equations. By analysing the equations we obtain two real and distinct eigen values which enables us to determine the wave structure of the possible solution to the Riemann problem set up. We then obtain the numerical solution to the Riemann problem that we set up using the Godunov scheme and the relaxation scheme. Finally, we compare the results obtained from these two schemes graphically and explain in details.


The nine different fungicides were evaluated in the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad during 2013 to identify the best chemical and required concentration of fungicides against Alternaria carthami. Systemic fungicides viz., hexaconazole, difenconazole were equally effective with 100 per cent inhibition at all the concentration tested which was on par with propiconazole (100%) at 0.15 per cent concentration and least effective chemical was found to be carbendazim (33.89%) at 0.05 per cent concentration. Among non-systemic and combi products, Zineb 68% + Hexaconazole 4% 72 WP was effective with 100 per cent inhibition at all the concentrations tested and Carbendazim 25% + Iprodione 25% 50 WP (100%) at 0.25 per cent concentration were significantly highest inhibition over other chemicals and concentrations and least mycelia growth was observed in Mancozeb 80% WP (47.78%) at 0.1 per cent concentration. The present result indicated that systemic fungicides and combi product fungicides are more effective than non-systemic fungicides under in vitro condition.


Asia and the Middle East examines crisis areas in the nations of the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. This set applies a broad definition to "Middle East" to encompass the predominantly Muslim nations of both the eastern Mediterranean region and North Africa. This definition corresponds closely with the U.S. State Department's definition of "Near East." The thirty-four articles in World Conflicts: Asia and the Middle East are updated versions of articles that appeared in Salem Press's World Conflicts and Confrontations. Two of the articles cover broad regions (Middle East and Asia); the rest cover individual nations. Designed to meet the needs of students, faculty, and others seeking clear explanations of and background to what has been going on in the region's many troubled countries, the set identifies the "hot spots" and offers in-depth analyses of the countries facing difficult and dangerous problems that are of vital concern to the entire world. The nations covered in individual essays have been selected because of the intensity of their recent and current conflicts, as well as the roles they play in the world as a whole. The essays on Asia and the Middle East explore regional patterns, analyzing why some countries within the regions have been more prone to conflict than have others, and pointing up trends that may have implications for the future. Each essay opens with a statement summarizing the most pressing problems of the country, followed by an analysis of the origins, nature, and history of these problems. Basic facts and statistics pertaining to each country are summarized in boxed profiles. Moreover, every essay contains at least one map, a detailed time line of modern events, and a discussion of sources of further information, with special attention to the growing availability of the valuable online resources of the World Wide Web. Appendices include an article on U.N. Peacekeeping Operations; a glossary; a list of print and broadcast news sources that provide up-to-the-minute news on Asian and Middle Eastern affairs; and a list of nations arranged by conflict types.


The glycophorin A (GPA) assay is a human mutation assay that is potentially useful for large epidemiological studies. The assay is rapid and requires a minimal amount of blood, which can be stored before analysis. The data presented here were collected from workers exposed to styrene in a boat manufacturing plant. This study was the first to apply the GPA assay to an occupationally exposed population. Subjects with a mean styrene exposure of 30 ppm had a higher frequency of GPA N phi variant cells than subjects with mean exposure of 1 ppm, but the subjects differed in respect to smoking and age distribution. Results indicate that the original 1-W-1 version of the assay may not be suitable for studies of small numbers of exposed subjects due to variability and artifacts. The newer BR6 version, however, has much lower variability and shows promise for use in the occupational setting.


In this paper, we reported a numerical solution of laser induced thermal effect in the bio-tissue. The model of photothermal effect and classical Pennes bio-heat transfer equation were introduced. Finite element method (FEM), which was realized by Matlab software, was used to calculate the temperature distribution. He-Ne laser (633 nm) was used to simulate the physical therapy in in vivo skin tissue. Under the cylinder coordinates, the three-dimension (3-D) geometry of tissue was reduced to two-dimension (2-D) computation. The results contained the radial, axial and temperature 3-D color plot. Combining the time animation display was possible. By changing the laser and tissue parameters we can get different results. This will be the initial and indispensable work of the non-destructive evaluation of the laser induced injury.


In this paper we will first discuss cryptography
from a historical point of view in order to
understand the motivation behind this science. We
will discuss the earliest form of cryptography
before fast forwarding to the current modem forms
of cryptography.
We will then mention issues surrounding current
modem cryptographic methods before introducing
chaos based cryptography. The relationship
between chaos and cryptography makes it natural
to employ chaotic systems to design new
cryptosystems. It is based on the facts that chaotic
signals are usually noise-like and chaotic systems
are very sensitive to initial conditions. Their
sensitivity to initial conditions and their spreading
out of trajectories over the whole interval seems to
be a model that satisfies the classic Shannon
requirements of confusion and diffusion [1] From 1989 onwards, many different chaotic
encryption systems have been proposed. The most
celebrated chaotic cryptosystem is based on the
ergodicity property of chaotic maps [2] and has
received more and more attentions in the past
literature [3-17]. Introduced by Baptista in 1998, it
is able to produce different ciphers for the same
plaintext.
It was cracked by Alvarez in 2003 via the one-time
pad attack. In 2008, M.R.K.Ariffin and
M.S.M.Noorani [22] engaged the attack and
devised a counter measure against it.


Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71), the renowned goldsmith and sculptor of the late Renaissance in Italy, claimed in his autobiography that he directed artillery fire at rain clouds, thus stopping the rain. The occasion was the festive entrance into Rome (on 3 November 1538) of the Duchess Margaret of Austria, natural daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, who was also King of Spain Charles V. She came to Rome to be wedded to the grandson of the reigning Pontiff, Paul III. Since Cellini tended to be boastful, we checked three independent contemporary sources describing Margaret's reception. None of the three mentions firing at clouds; they do not even say that there was rain on that day. It must be added, however, that all three accounts are very brief, and that in the past, records of events usually put emphasis on actions of rulers and other important personages, paying little attention to environmental (and even to social) conditions. Thus, the most that we can say in regard of Cellini's claim is that we cannot ...


Narayan Chandra Rana, a person with extraordinary potential from a remote village of Bengal, India, came into the limelight of the international scientific world through his exceptional talent, zeal and courage. In his very short life-span, he excelled not only into various branches of astrophysics, but also took a leading role in science popularization, text book writing etc. In this paper, life and works of that budding scientist of India have been discussed from multifarious viewpoints.


Homotrema rubrum is a (sub)tropical, sessile foraminiferan that reinforces the coral-reef framework by calcifying in cracks, crevices and on the cryptic undersides of coral colonies and other reef substrata. It secretes a pigmented carbonate skeleton that can be well preserved in the fossil record and, thus, has the potential to influence paleoecological analyses. In an effort to gain insights about the ecology and laboratory maintenance of this species, we studied its distribution in the field as well as its survival in the laboratory under different environmental conditions. The distribution of H. rubrum along transects across Tennessee Reef (Florida Keys, USA) revealed an abundance of encrusting, knobby and hemispherical morphologies on the reef flat, and all five of the morphotypes delineated by others were identified. The highest abundances of H. rubrum occurred on the reef flat, shoreward of the living reef, attached to non-living, detrital coral, most of which was covered by a veneer of coarse carbonate sediment. Direct observation of living individuals and epifluorescence microscopy of specimens incubated with calcein demonstrate that H. rubrum can calcify under controlled laboratory conditions. Calcification is not limited to chamber formation, but rather occurs differentially over the surface. Of the five distinct designs tested for laboratory maintenance of this species, the quasi-static aquarium in indirect natural light proved the most effective. Together, these findings help establish H. rubrum as a useful model for studying natural environmental changes and anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems.


Soil salinity is a serious environmental problem that has negative impacts on growth and production of plants. On the other hand, application of chitosan has recently been increased to enhance the resistance to different stresses, such as salinity. In order to study the effect of chitosan seed-priming on alleviation of salinity stress in fenugreek ( Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) a factorial experiment, based on completely randomized design with three replications, was conducted in 2014 in the Research Greenhouse of University of Zabol. Chitosan pretreatment, taken as the first factor, was applied at three levels (0, 0.5 and 1 g/l) and sodium chloride (NaCl) was the second factor at four levels (0, 50, 150 and 250 mM). Before planting, the seeds were soaked for 6 hours in the chitosan solutions. NaCl was applied to the plants by irrigation water (after 2-leaf stage), with 3-day intervals. Results indicated that increasing salinity stress reduced growth characteristics, content of photosynthetic pigments, leaf relative water content, chlorophyll index and increased the amount of anthocyanin and proline. Seed-pretreatment by application of 0.5 mg/L chitosan, under salinity stress, increased plant dry weight, length of stem and roots, and leaf relative water content, as compared to the control treatment. In addition, under the salinity level of 250 mM, application of 1 g/L chitosan increased chlorophyll a , chlorophyll b and carotenoids content by 43.7, 65.4 and 28 percent, respectively, as compared to the control treatment. highest amount of anthocyanin was found in the 1 g/L chitosan treatment. In general, these results suggested that in salt-affected areas, seed pretreatment by application of chitosan could be utilized efficiently for reducing the salinity stress on leaf relative water content and photosynthetic pigments, and better growth and stablishment of fenugreek plant.


Synaptic pathology is proposed to be integral to the clinical expression of Alzheimer disease (AD). Most studies have assessed only the vesicle protein synaptophysin as a measure of synaptic integrity. The interrelationships of synaptophysin, other presynaptic proteins, the cholinergic system, and severity of dementia in AD remain unclear. We studied the presynaptic proteins synaptophysin, syntaxin and SNAP-25, along with choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity in prefrontal cortex (BA 46) samples from 18 subjects with AD and 16 controls. Mean values of presynaptic protein immunoreactivities were significantly reduced, by 21%–28%, and ChAT activity was reduced by 41% in the AD groups. Synaptic protein immunoreactivity and ChAT activity were correlated with Mini-Mental State Examination scores obtained 1 yr prior to death. When AD cases were subgrouped into mild/moderate and severe illness at time of death, all differences in presynaptic proteins and ChAT activity were significant between controls and severe cases. However, no significant differences were detected in BA 46 between controls and mild/moderate cases. Considerable synaptic reserve or plasticity remains in BA 46 until the late stages of AD. Synaptophysin and ChAT appear to be more vulnerable in severe AD than are syntaxin or SNAP-25.


New medicines for treatment of osteoporotic bones have developed. In the previous studies, there were lots of pre-clinical experiments on animals to analyze the virtue of new medicine. However, the previous methods sacrificed a number of animals. They induced lots of expenses and ethical problems. In the present study, to investigate the effect of a medicine for osteoporosis by using in-vivo micro computed tomography (In-vivo Micro-CT, skyscan 1076, skyscan, Belgium) and micro finite element (*FE) analysis, morphological and mechanical characteristic changes of rat bone were detected and tracked. The 8 female Sprague-Dawley rats, used in the experiment, were randomized into 3 groups (Control, Sham and Risedronate group). The Risedronate (actonel, 0.58mg/Kg and 5days/week) for 8 weeks was administered in RIS group. The 4th lumbar vertebrae of rats were scanned by In-vivo Micro-CT with 35*m at week 0 (just before dose) and week 8 (after dose). Three-dimensional (3D) structural parameters were calculated. Simulated compression tests of 3D FE models were carried out to investigate the mechanical characteristics in the whole vertebral bone model of the 4th lumbar vertebra. The change rate of quantity and structure in Risedronate (RIS) group was smaller than that of control (CON) group. The change rate of structural modulus in RIS group was also smaller than that of CON group. This result shows the virtue of risedronate quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The study introduced the improved noninvasive biomechanical evaluation method, combined with In-vivo Micro-CT and *FE analysis, which was more effective and useful than the previous pre-clinical experiments.


This article pays homage to E. K. Hunt who was a founding member of URPE who helped build chapters on several campuses in western states. Much of the author's own research work over the past forty years was an attempt to strengthen criticisms Hunt voiced long ago about markets and blind spots in mainstream economic theory. The article reviews work inspired by Hunt regarding externalities, endogenous preferences, the Coase theorem, and an alternative to the market system known as participatory planning.


This paper proposes a new price test for evidence of active adverse selection in the insurance market for longevity risks: the annuity market. The test is applied to the exogenous change in taxation of annuity payments following the UK's 1956 Finance Act using a unique dataset of individual annuity contracts, and provides a natural experiment of whether the fall in annuity prices caused by the tax change induced marginal annuitants with higher mortality into the market after the tax change. We find some evidence to support an adverse selection story that mortalities of the pool of annuitants after the change increased. However, we also find that the story is more complicated because the tax change stimulated the development of annuity products that allowed higher mortality individuals to signal their mortality to annuity providers, creating a separating equilibrium, where previously there had only been a pooling equilibrium.


Supervision training and practice has evolved from a uni-professional based approach, where counsellors provided supervision for counsellors, and coaches provided supervision for coaches, to what I term, cross-professional supervision (a term I coined in 2010). While the practice of supervision is commonplace in most clinical and counselling training contexts, a culture that values supervision has not yet developed in many professions, such as adult education, spiritual direction, the police force, health care and
hypnotherapy. Drawing on my own training in counselling supervision, and the learning gained through the design and delivery of professional products, including a supervision text The Soul of Supervision, the following research project traces the leadership role I have taken as a senior practitioner and trainer in setting up and directing the first Master's programme in supervision in Ireland. A consequence of this development has been what I term an emerging cross-professional supervision practice (CPS) in which
trained supervisors from differing professional and disciplinary backgrounds supervise practitioners from various professions, and the consequential need for a new professional supervision organisation which I founded in 2005.

The practice of CPS has grown and to date there appears to be little research concerning the possible strengths and challenges of this practice for supervisors, supervisees or clients. Using a qualitative phenomenological inquiry, this study explores the experiences of eight purposively chosen co-researchers, supervisors practicing CPS, and in that sense knowledgeable about the field. Using qualitative interviewing techniques, analysing the
data thematically, reflecting the reflexive methodology of supervision, the interviews focused on the co-researchers' experience of CPS training and practice. Themes were grouped together in related clusters and fell naturally into two related major themes 1) evolving identities and 2) emergent professional knowledge. One of the most striking and consistent themes from the interviews was the impact of transformational learning theory and ways of knowing, foundational to the training and practice, thus core elements for the final product – a draft for a manual on CPS. The study suggests that the uni-professional approach across professions and accreditation requirements within counselling supervision, if left unchallenged, may limit the practice of CPS and the development of the profession of supervision. The study also suggests a need for ongoing training in CPS and further research into this emerging practice.


The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among Baumrind's three parenting styles (as perceived by the student) and the mastery and performance goal orientations of undergraduate college students. In addition, parent educational attainment and parent involvement were included in the analysis for the purposes of controlling the effects of these variables on student goal orientation. The sample consisted of 311 undergraduate students enrolled in education or psychology courses. Many expected relationships appeared in line with the parenting and goal theory literature. The differential findings for parent involvement, and student gender and ethnicity are also discussed. Overall, conclusions are tempered by limitations of a relatively narrow sample and moderately strong raw correlations. The study of students' goal orientations focuses on the types of learning goals students adopt in academic situations. The first goal has been labeled a mastery goal (Ames & Archer, 1988), learning goal (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) or task involved (Nicholls, Patashnick, & Nolen, 1985). Students who are oriented toward mastery goals are interested in learning new skills and improving their understanding and competence. The second is a performance goal (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Leggett) or ego involved (Nicholls, et al., 1985). Students who orient towards performance goals are more concerned with proving their ability or avoiding negative judgments of their competence. Research done with children prior to adolescence (Dweck, 1986 & Dweck & Leggett, 1988) indicates that students with mastery goals seek out challenge and persist in the face of difficulty, view errors as opportunities to learn, see competence as malleable, and are more likely to be intrinsically motivated. Students with performance goals see intelligence as fixed, avoid challenging tasks in an effort to avoid negative evaluations, are less likely to be intrinsically motivated, and view errors as indicative of a lack of ability. Studies in high school (Ames & Archer, 1988) and college (Archer, 1994; Hagen & Weinstein, 1995; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991) have led researchers to conclude that older students are possibly using both goal orientations simultaneously. The mere presence of performance goals does not necessarily lead to maladaptive achievement behaviors. However, the use of mastery goals is associated with more beneficial achievement behaviors like: employment of better learning strategies, more positive attitudes, selection of challenging tasks (Ames & Archer, 1988; Archer, 1994), self-regulation strategies (Hagen & Weinstein, 1995), and the practice of deeper processing strategies like elaboration and organization (Pintrich & Garcia, 1991). The goals students adopt clearly relate to the way they approach potential learning situations. It may be that parenting styles in the home environment are strongly related to the development of student goal orientations. Blumenfeld (1992) stated that "current thinking about goals would profit from classroom climate and cross-cultural research concerning the influence of teachers and parents on student motivation and learning" (p. 276). Because of recent interest in college students' goal orientations, this study will focus on these ages. Baumrind's research proposes three parenting styles: (a) authoritative, (b) authoritarian, and (c) permissive. Authoritarian parenting is associated with an emphasis on obedience and a tendency to favor more punitive measures of discipline management. Authoritative parents tend to take time to explain rules with children, place less emphasis on strict obedience and are more likely to encourage autonomy. Permissive parents use little apparent control over their children's behavior, rarely use punishment in their homes and allow children to make their own decisions. Research (Baumrind, 1967, 1971; Baumrind & Black, 1967; Maccoby & Martin, 1983) has shown that children from authoritarian homes tend to exhibit more anxious and withdrawn behavior, have a high chance of relying on authority figures to make decisions, and are less likely than those raised in authoritative homes to engage in exploratory and challenge seeking behavior. …


Abstract The article presents the development of Łódź murals in the 21st c. and the opinions of the participants of tours organized in 2014 by the Urban Forms Gallery. Their objectives include saturating the urban fabric with street art and promoting this form of artistic expression. Having analysed memories registered and shared on YouTube, information published by local, national and foreign media, opinions posted by tourists and street-art lovers in online blogs and galleries, as well as the information about some artists on their websites, the author studied the opinions of tour participants as well and established the significance of Łódź murals. The analysis enabled her to look for the answer to the question whether murals can be a tourist attraction in a post-industrial city like Łódź.


In engaging critically with the history of the Sweden-Ceylon Family Planning Programme, the author brings in both local and global debates on population, development, the welfare state, and Swedish neutrality in Cold War politics to show that these were not necessarily one-way processes but reciprocal processes. The methodology included the analysis of secondary sources, archival records, and contemporary debates that were published in Sri Lankan newspapers. It is clear that global debates did not simply transfer to Third World countries; this encounter (global and local) allowed space for negotiations and translations of global and local politics of development. These were reciprocal processes in many ways. On the one hand, for example, a social engineering project cemented the population and national development plans of postindependence Sri Lanka, while on the other hand Sweden was acting strategically so as to maintain its neutrality in Cold War politics.


Abstract Zircon geochronology and geochemistry are increasingly important for understanding metamorphic processes, particularly at extreme conditions, but drivers of zircon dissolution and regrowth are poorly understood. Here, we model Zr mass balance to identify P-T regions where zircon should dissolve or grow. Zirconium contents of major metamorphic minerals were assessed from published data and new measurements, and models were constructed of mineralogical development and zircon abundance for hydrous MORB and metapelitic compositions along representative P-T paths. Excluding zircon, the minerals rutile, garnet, and hornblende strongly influence Zr mass balance in metabasites, accounting for as much as 40% of the whole-rock Zr budget. Clinopyroxene and garnet contain more Zr than plagioclase, so breakdown of plagioclase at the amphibolite to eclogite facies transition, should cause zircon to dissolve slightly, rather than grow. Growth of UHP zircon is predicted over a restricted region, and most zircon grows subsequently at much lower pressure. In metapelites, zircon is predicted to undergo only minor changes to modal abundance in solid state assemblages. Partial melting, however, drives massive zircon dissolution, whereas melt crystallization regrows zircon. From a mass-balance perspective, zircon growth cannot be attributed a priori to the prograde amphibolite-eclogite transition, to UHP metamorphism, or to partial melting. Instead, zircon should grow mainly during late-stage exhumation and cooling, particularly during oxide transitions from rutile to ilmenite and melt crystallization. As predicted, most zircons from HP/UHP eclogites of the Western Gneiss Region and Papua New Guinea substantially postdate eclogite formation and maximum pressures.


Floristic composition of boxwood (Buxus hyrcana Pojark) stands in the forests of Western Haraz, distributed at the altitudinal range of 250 to 1,200 m asl, was investigated by field-walk method. Results showed that the flora of this area includes 50 families, 69 genera, and 78 plant species. Rosaceae, Orchidaceae, Dryopteridaceae, Lamiaceae and Aspleniaceae are the greatest families in this area. Chorological studies showed that the largest proportion of the flora is related to Euro-Siberian region (56.4%). Cryptophytes (32 species), Phanerophytes (26 sp.) and Hemicryptophytes (16 sp.), which are compromising 44%, 33.3% and 20.5% of the flora, were the most important structure groups of the biological spectrum. Abundance of Cryptophytes with Phanerophytes and Hemicryptophytes in these forests implys that there is a temperate climate with cold winter, frequently rainfall and relatively cool summer, which are suitable for growing temperate forest. Frequent occurrence of Prunus Laurocerasus trees with Daneae racemosa as a woody understory species especially in the upper parts of the studied area accompany by absence of Therophytes and relatively well distribution of ferns species, especially Asplenium scolopendrium, also implys high, favorable, moisture conditions without any disturbances in Box tree stands of these forests.


Thyme is a perennial shrub with greenish-gray aromatic leaves. It originates from Southern Europe and countries bordering the Mediterranean but now can be found in many areas of the world with temperate climates. There are numerous varieties of the plant, which differ in their flavor profiles. Thyme essential oil is a commercial product prepared by distillation of its leaves used commercially in the manufacture of chewing gum, candy, and ice cream. Thymol, 1 of the principal constituents of this oil, is used in perfumes, food flavorings, mouthwashes, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, and in feed additives and pesticides. Traditional remedies associated with thyme include alleviation of depression, epilepsy, nightmares, and headaches and treatment of coughs. The possible health effects of thyme and its constituents, particularly thymol and carvacrol, include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, respiratory, and neurological benefits.


Face detection has been around for ages. Taking a step forward, human emotion displayed by face and felt by brain, captured in either video, electric signal (EEG) or image form can be approximated. Human emotion detection is the need of the hour so that modern artificial intelligent systems can emulate and gauge reactions from face. This can be helpful to make informed decisions be it regarding identification of intent, promotion of offers or security related threats. Recognizing emotions from images or video is a trivial task for human eye, but proves to be very challenging for machines and requires many image processing techniques for feature extraction. Several machine learning algorithms are suitable for this job. Any detection or recognition by machine learning requires training algorithm and then testing them on a suitable dataset. This paper explores a couple of machine learning algorithms as well as feature extraction techniques which would help us in accurate identification of the human emotion.


The primary objective of this research was to explore the relationship between employee performance appraisal satisfaction and the motivation to improve performance among Irish hotel employees. To accomplish this, the author examined the impact of organisational justice as encompassed by four constructs, namely procedural, distributive, interpersonal and informational on employee satisfaction with performance appraisals.

The research design was explanatory in nature with the author undertaking a positivistic deductive approach and a quantitative method to answer the research questions and test proposed hypotheses. The study adopted a survey strategy and used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from employees working in three Dublin city four star hotels. A total of 113 managerial and non-managerial employees have participated in the survey.

The research revealed positive and significant relationships between variables illustrating that all four dimensions of organisational justice form the basis for employee appraisal satisfaction. The findings supported the hypotheses that procedural, distributive, interpersonal and informational justice have significant positive influence on employee appraisal satisfaction in the organisation. Likewise, a strong positive correlation was established between employee satisfaction with the performance appraisals and motivation to improve performance.

The findings highlighted the need for Irish hotels to adopt and implement a fair and effective performance appraisal system that positively influences employee performance and their future development. Employees must experience positive appraisal reactions to be satisfied with the system. Generating and cultivating those reactions should be the focal point of every HR practitioner and manager in Irish hotels.

Based on the findings of the research, a number of recommendations were suggested to HR practitioners and managers to make the appraisal systems more efficient in service-oriented industries such as the hotel sector.


This article is written as a hypothetical dissenting opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates v. Allstate Insurance Co. In that case, the Court held that a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction must apply Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 -- the federal class action rule -- and not a New York state statute forbidding the use of class actions to enforce statutory penalties, the underlying issue in the Shady Grove litigation. In general, the Supreme Court's so-called "Erie" jurisprudence has been aimed at avoiding "vertical" forum shopping -- i.e., shopping between state and federal court -- while tacitly encouraging "horizontal" forum shopping -- i.e., shopping between courts in different states. In Shady Grove, however, the risk of horizontal forum shopping was small, because there was little chance that a court outside of New York would have applied the New York state statute. Therefore, the Court should have focused here on the risk of vertical forum shopping. By a 5-4 vote, however, the Supreme Court held that the federal rule trumps the state rule, thus creating the risk of divergent results as between state and federal courts. Continuing an unfortunate trend in important procedural areas, the Court did not produce a majority opinion. The plurality opinion written by Justice Scalia gave a nearly conclusive presumption that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure displace state procedural rules. Justice Stevens's concurrence was more nuanced and did not accept the nearly automatic presumption of application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but nevertheless concluded that the federal class action rule must win out. Justice Ginsburg's dissent treated the issue as essentially one of election of remedies. Either the plaintiff must choose between the class action procedure in federal court or forgo the statutory penalty. This hypothetical opinion sides with Justice Ginsburg, but for different reasons. It argues that on the particular facts of this conflict between Federal Rule 23 and the state statute, the Court should have found that Federal Rule 23 exceeded the scope of the Rules Enabling Act, which authorizes the creation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.


This thesis comprises two parts. In the first part, we study classical, parameterized and kernelization complexities of edge modification problems. In the second part, we introduce and study a new graph parameter named as chromatic discrepancy, which has relations to optimal coloring, local chromatic number and perfect coloring of graphs. For a graph H, the H-free Edge Deletion problem is to check whether there exist at most k edges whose deletion from the input graph results in a graph without any induced copy of H. The H-free Edge Completion problem and the H-free Edge Editing problem are defined similarly where only completion (addition) of edges are allowed in the former and both completion and deletion are allowed in the latter. Though studied for the last four decades, a complete classical complexity classification of these problems has not been known. We settle this by proving that H-free Edge Deletion is NP-complete if and only if H is a graph with at least two edges-H free Edge Completion is NP-complete if and only if H is a graph with at least two non-edges and H-free Edge Editing is NP-complete if and only if H is a graph with at least three vertices. Our result on H-free Edge Editing resolves a conjecture by Alon and Stav (Theoretical Computer Science, 2009). Parameterized complexity is a refinement over classical complexity. The idea is to explore the complexity of a problem based on an additional input known as the parameter. We study the parameterized complexity of these NP-complete problems with a parameter k. We prove that, these NP-complete problems cannot be solved in parameterized sub exponential time, i.e., in time 2o(k)·|G|O(1), unless Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails, where ETH is a widely believed complexity theoretic assumption.


Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) germplasm of one hundred accessions were evaluated for days to emergence, days to heading, days to maturity, number of tillers plant-1, Plant height (cm), spike length (cm), number of spikelets spike-1, grain yield plant-1(gm), 1000-grain weight (gm) and Yield (Kg ha-1). Mean, range, standard deviation and coefficient of variation were computed for each quantitative trait to estimate the extent of genetic diversity present in the local wheat germplasm. Corelation coefficient, cluster and Principal component analysis were carried out. The whole set of germplasm was subjected to SDS-PAGE analysis to investigate genetic variation for high HMW glutenin subunits. To study the genetic variability of one hundred wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) entries, an experiment was conducted during the growing season 2004-2005 in augmented field design at research area of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, NWFP, Pakistan. All the germplasm was evaluated and characterized for the traits days to emergence, days to heading, days to maturity, number of tillers plant 1, Plant height (cm), spike length (cm), number of spikelets spike-1, grain yield plant-1, 1000-grain weight and grain yield (kg ha-1). Genetic diversity was found satisfactory for all the traits. Variation was statistically found for all the parameters. Days to emergence varied from 7.10 to 20.10 days having 24.03% coefficient of variation. Days to heading ranged from 79.15 [PARC/NIAR 00203 (05)] to 130.25 [PARC/MAFF 004271 (01)] days with coefficient of variation 9.35 %. Minimum days to maturity (136) were taken by the entry PARC/NIAR 00203 (05) while the maximum days to maturity (193) were taken by PARC/MAFF 004271 (01). The entry PARC/NIAR 002809 (01) produced maximum number of tillers plant-1. PARC/NIAR 00203 (05) has a maximum plant height (125.6 cm), while the entry PARC/MAFF 004270 (03) had the shortest plant height of (53.2 cm). Days to emergence have positively significant correlation with number of tillers plant-1 while, negatively significant correlation with days to maturity. Days to heading have a significant and positive correlation with days to maturity. Days to maturity have negative correlation with xx plant height and number of tillers plant-1. Plant height has a significant correlation with number of tillers plant-1. The frequency distribution shows that spike length ranged from 6.2 to 22.1 (cm). Variability was observed among the accessions for spike length (cm), which varied from 6.50 to 21.90 (cm) with mean value of 12.23 ± 2.28 (cm) and coefficient of variation for this parameter was 18.63 %. The results of formal analysis revealed that distant variability in spikelets spike-1 was detected which ranged from 8.50 to 29.80 numbers of spikelets spike-1 with the mean value of 16.35 ± 3.00 and coefficient of variation is 8.32%. The frequency distribution for number of spikelets spike-1 showed the variability from 7.1 to 31.00. The variation for grain yield plant-1 ranged from 1.26 to 4.58 (g) with mean value of 2.36 ± 0.52 and coefficient of variation 21.89 %. Frequency distribution for grain yield plan-1 ranged from 1.26 to 3.32 (g). 1000- grain weight (g) varied from 15.74 to 46.65 (g) with the mean value of 34.20 ± 8.05 and coefficient of variation for this parameter was 23.55%. The frequency distribution for 1000-grain weight (g) ranged from 15.20 to 47.19 (g). The variation for grain yield (kg ha-1) ranged from 2610 to 5058 (kg ha-1) with mean value of 4165 ± 504.45 (kg ha- 1) and coefficient of variation for this character was 12.11%. Frequency distribution for grain yield (kg ha-1) ranged from 2610 to 5065.9 (kg ha-1). Spike length revealed significant and highly positively correlation with number of spikelets spike-1 (r = 0.20), grain yields plant-1 (r = 0.16) and grain yield (kg ha-1) (r = 0.18), while this trait has negative correlation with 1000-grain weight (r = -0.02). Highly significant and positive correlation was reviewed in number of spikelets spike-1 with grain yield plant- 1 (r = 0.49) and grain yield (kg ha-1) (r = 0.34). While positive correlation of this trait was noted with 1000-grain weight (r = 0.02). Grain yield plant-1 had highly significant positive correlation with 1000-grain weight (r = 0.30) and grain yield (kg ha-1) (r =
 0.62). Highly significant positive correlation was observed of 1000-grain weight with grain yield (kg ha-1) (r = 0.44). The clustering of accessions on the basis of morphological similarities grouped the accessions into fifteen and thirteen clusters for the year 2005 and 2006 respectively. Whereas a scatter diagram on the basis of altitude and latitude shows that accessions collected from 1200 ~ 2000masl and 30o 39 to 34o 40N latitude have more morphological similarities than with the other group. xxi The principal component having greater than 1 eigenvalue contributed more than 61.62% genetic variation among wheat accessions. The contribution of genetic diversity by first three PCs was above 51.65% as compared to PCs of the total accessions during both the years. The PC1 accounted for 25.62% variation and was positively associated with majority of the traits. The character, which contributed more positively to PC1, was days to maturity. A considerable variation in total 12 different HMW glutenin subunit
compositions was found. The frequency of 7+8 and 2+12 was the highest in the entire set of germplasm. During the present investigation fifteen accessions (PARC/MAFF 4272 (01), PARC/MAFF 4269 (01) PARC/MAFF 4358 (01), PARC/MAFF 4355 (02), PARC/JICA 3835 (05), PARC/MAFF 4358 (03), PARC/MAFF 4292 (01), PARC/MAFF 4354 (02) PARC/MAFF 4354 (01), PARC/MAFF 4264 (03), PARC/MAFF 4280 (03) PARC/MAFF 4269 (02), PARC/MAFF 4279 (01), PARC/MAFF 4277 (01), PARC/MAFF 4277 (02)) possessing 5+10 allele, which is a known source for good bread making quality, have been identified. According to experiment the research material containing four wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties i.e. Bhakker-2002, Takbeer, BWP-2000 and Uqab-2000 with twelve hybrids each of F1 and F2 generations were analyzed in a randamize complete block design to observe the genetic analysis, genetic advance, combining ability, heritability and heterotic effects for different quantitative and qualitative parameters. The cultivars were crossed in a complete diallel fashion according to Hayman's diallel analysis and Griffing's approach for identification of useful recombination's in segregating generations which could be used in any hybridization program. The adequacy of additive-dominance was proved by Hayman Jinks modle, which proved that the modle was adequate for all the parameters in F1 and F2 generations.The parents along with hybrids indicates significant differences for maximum parameters presenting the genetic segregation. In F1 generation, the additive and dominant variances were found significant for all the parameters, except 1000-grain weight. While the parameters i.e. days to to heading, spikelets spike-1 and 1000-grain weight indicates non significant values for dominant components. In F2 generation among all the parameters only four parameters xxii i.e. days to heading, days to maturity, plant height and 1000-grain weight were found to be non significant for additive variance. The dominant variance was non significant for all the parameters, except spike length in F2 generation. Hence it was proved that majority of the parameters both in F1 and F2 generations were governed by additive type of gene action. While degree of dominance also proved by the results of F2 generation values which were found lower than F1 generation values. Broad sense and narrow sense heritability along with genetic advance was also noted both in F1 and F2 generations for qualitative and quantitative parameters indicating the importance of genetic variance. On the basis of experimental research work it is cleared that the hybrids showing significance for all the parameters indicating the genetic divergence of the parents used in the wheat breeding program. Acocording to general combining ability, specific combining ability and reciprocal effects in F1 and F2 generations revealed significant for all the parameters, except number of spikelets spike-1 which was non significant for general combining ability and of number of tillers plant-1, spike length, spikelets spike-1, number of grains spike-1 and grain yield plant-1 were non significant for specific combing abilty in F1 generation. The combining ability analysis indicates that maximum parameters were governed by partial dominance with additive gene action in F1 and F2 generations. However, maximum hybrids proved as best general combiner. Therefore it was cleared that comparatively low and high valus of the parents performed best in specific combinig ability determination. Acoording to hetrotic analysis it was cleared that heterosis over mid parenta was much pronounced than heterosis over batter parents in F1 generation and along with inbreeding depression in F2 generation. On the basis of research findings due to additive gene effect, dominance gene effect, specific gene effect, maternal effect, genetic advance, broad sense heritability, narrow sense heritability, general combining ability, specific combining ability and hetrotic analysis with inbreeding depression, it was cleared that among all the hybrids only the hybrids Takbeer x Uqab-2000, Bhakker-2002 x BWP-2000 and Bhakker- 2002 x Uqab-2000 were found best potential with all the desirable parameters for further wheat breeding program under different agro climaticconditions in the area of Dera Ismail Khan, NWFP, Pakistan for general cultivation


The issue of summer session organizational models continues to be of interest to summer session deans/directors and university administrators. The University of Victoria surveyed Canadian universities on this
 issue in 1994. Based on a similar survey done in 2009, this paper updates the status of Canadian university summer session organizational models, and looks at changes that have occurred over the last decade and a half. It appears that the predominance of more centralized models of summer session administration at Canadian universities has continued. Nevertheless, closer examination suggests that the predominant model is actually a hybrid model wherein responsibilities are vested in a centralized summer session unit with selective responsibilities devolved to faculties and/or departments.


However its popularity has been rising recently, the root of Turkish REITs industry backs to mid-1990s. Representing the critical linkage between finance and real estate, the industry has special importance in Turkish financial and real estate sectors. In this study, the performance of REITs return, in Istanbul Stock Exchange for the period 2008-2013, is analyzed by defining its determinants and comparing the efficiency of single index and Fama-French three factor models. There are three main contributions in this study. As the first in Turkish REITs literature, a major contribution of the study is to show differences of the return variability on individual stock returns based on single index and Fama- French models. From a practical contribution perspective, this study may have wider application and provide a tool for critical decision-making in the REITs portfolio management. The study also provides information to the investors who are willing to get benefit from diversification by investing in REITs. Initial outcomes suggest that REIT return may show difference according to proposed model and macroeconomic and real estate market related variables may have specific effects on return variability.


There is no consensus in the economic literature as to the appropriate measure of prejudgment interest to apply to damages. In this article, we review various proposed alternative methods for determining prejudgment interest rates: the claimant's ex post or hindsight cost of capital; the claimant's ex ante or opportunity cost of capital; the respondent's borrowing rate; and the risk-free interest rate. Upon examining each method's economic rationale and merits we conclude that where the objective is full compensation to the claimant the risk-free interest rate is the appropriate measure of prejudgment interest. Our examination of awards in international arbitration shows a prevalence of rates that are not associated with the claimant or the respondent, but rather are consistent with a risk-free rate approach or estimates of what arbitrators deem to be reasonable commercial rates.


A method for producing mass quantities of Meloidogyne incognita males free from other developmental stages was developed. Host plants were grown hydroponically to facilitate nematode harvest. Pruning stress was shown to cause a higher percentage of juveniles to develop as males vs. a no-stress control. Application of pruning stress in the first 48 hr post-inoculation was also shown to be more effective at driving male development than at later times.


Abstract. A recent CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) chamber study showed that
sulfuric acid and dimethylamine produce new aerosols very efficiently and
yield particle formation rates that are compatible with boundary layer
observations. These previously published new particle formation (NPF) rates
are reanalyzed in the present study with an advanced method. The results
show that the NPF rates at 1.7 nm are more than a factor of 10 faster than
previously published due to earlier approximations in correcting particle
measurements made at a larger detection threshold. The revised NPF rates agree
almost perfectly with calculated rates from a kinetic aerosol model at
different sizes (1.7 and 4.3 nm mobility diameter). In addition, modeled
and measured size distributions show good agreement over a wide range of sizes (up to
ca. 30 nm). Furthermore, the aerosol model is modified such that evaporation
rates for some clusters can be taken into account; these evaporation rates
were previously published from a flow tube study. Using this model, the
findings from the present study and the flow tube experiment can be brought
into good agreement for the high base-to-acid ratios ( ∼  100)
relevant for this study. This confirms that nucleation proceeds at rates
that are compatible with collision-controlled (a.k.a.
kinetically controlled) NPF for the conditions during the
CLOUD7 experiment (278 K, 38 % relative humidity, sulfuric acid concentration between
1  ×  10 6 and 3  ×  10 7  cm −3 , and dimethylamine
mixing ratio of ∼  40 pptv, i.e., 1  ×  10 9  cm −3) .


This thesis examines the development of human resource management in three UK public sectors local government, the health service and higher education. The focus of the study is the problem of the lack of use of computerised personnel information systems by personnel specialists to develop the human resource management function. The literature of strategic management, human resource management and the fit between them are reviewed together with the history and the development of personnel systems in the UK. Senior personnel practitioners and their organisations in the three sectors were evaluated with respect to the stage of development of organisational planning and the contribution made by personnel practitioners using questionnaires, and in-depth interviews. The backgrounds and management styles of the practitioners were examined in order to evaluate their perceptions of: human resource management, computer systems and organisational planning. The degree to which practitioners made use of their computerised information systems for administrative and strategic purposes and the problems they perceived were evaluated in order to judge their degree of evolution from 'traditional personnel practice' to 'human resource management'. The research findings indicated that, although there were are number of significant differences between the three sectors studied, these had little effect when considering
the broad issues embedded in the six hypotheses. The evaluation of these hypotheses indicated that the practitioners were making substantial use of their systems for administrative but not for strategic purposes. The number of perceived forces discouraging use and development of computerised personnel information systems was found to outnumber the perceived encouraging forces and were aggregated into a forcefield diagram. Furthermore it was shown that most practitioners had not yet evolved into proactive human resource managers. Suggestions for 'best practice' with respect to choice, use and development of CPIS are provided.


In 1995, as part of Bhaktapur, Nepal's Cow Procession, the new suburban neighborhood of Suryavinayak celebrated a ?forged? goat sacrifice. Forged religious practices seem enigmatic if one assumes that traditional practice consists only of the blind imitation of timeless structure. Yet, the sacrifice was not mechanical repetition; it could not be, because it was the first and only time it was celebrated. Rather, the religious performance was a conscious manipulation of available ?traditional? cultural logics that were strategically utilized during the Cow Procession's loose carnivalesque atmosphere to solve a contemporary problem—what can one do when one lives beyond the borders of religiously organized cities such as Bhaktapur? This paper argues that the ?forged? sacrifice was a means for this new neighborhood to operate together and improvise new mandalic space beyond the city's traditional cultic territory.


OBJECTIVE To determine whether walking at specific ranges of absolute and relative (V*) velocity would aid efficient capture of gait trial data with low ground reaction force (GRF) variance in a heterogeneous sample of dogs. ANIMALS 17 clinically normal dogs of various breeds, ages, and sexes. PROCEDURES Each dog was walked across a force platform at its preferred velocity, with controlled acceleration within 0.5 m/s2. Ranges in V* were created for height at the highest point of the shoulders (withers; WHV*). Variance effects from 8 walking absolute velocity ranges and associated WHV* ranges were examined by means of repeated-measures ANCOVA. RESULTS The individual dog effect provided the greatest contribution to variance. Narrow velocity ranges typically resulted in capture of a smaller percentage of valid trials and were not consistently associated with lower variance. The WHV* range of 0.33 to 0.46 allowed capture of valid trials efficiently, with no significant effects on peak vertical force and vertical impulse. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Dogs with severe lameness may be unable to trot or may have a decline in mobility with gait trial repetition. Gait analysis involving evaluation of individual dogs at their preferred absolute velocity, such that dogs are evaluated at a similar V*, may facilitate efficient capture of valid trials without significant effects on GRF. Use of individual velocity ranges derived from a WHV* range of 0.33 to 0.46 can account for heterogeneity and appears suitable for use in clinical trials involving dogs at a walking gait.


A popular current topic for urban as well as for transport planning is e-mobility. In the foreseeable future, the electro vehicle will be used mainly for short distances, making it particularly interesting for urban mobility. Therefore, e-mobility seems to be the future path for a sustainable urban and transport development. The contribution challenges this assumption by presenting the results of a recent research project in Berlin. Within this project, the decisionmaking process of establishing the charging infrastructure was analysed. By combining a discourse analysis and a policy study, the proponents for e-mobility, as well as their intentions can be shown. The contribution will further show that particular interests promoting e-mobility do not necessarily coincide with a comprehensive planning strategy presenting a concept leading to sustainable urban and transport development.


Medicaid was intended from its inception to provide financial access to health care for certain categories of impoverished Americans. While rooted in historical welfare programs, it was meant to afford the "deserving" poor access to the same sort of health care that other, wealthier Americans received. Yet despite this seemingly innocuous and laudable purpose, it has become a front in the political and social battles waged over the last several decades on the issues of welfare and the safety net. The latest battleground pits competing visions of Medicaid. One vision seeks to transform Medicaid from a health care program into something sharing key trappings of cash welfare programs. Despite the delinkage of Medicaid in most respects from cash welfare with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, some states sought to tie access to Medicaid benefits to adherence to particular healthy behaviors, completion ofpreventive care measures, and assumption of increased financial responsibility. This trend has increased in the post-Affordable Care Act environment. A competing vision in states seeks to include within Medicaid's auspices various means of ameliorating not merely medical problems, but also socioeconomic determinants ofhealth. States taking this route are heeding data supporting the premise that, in order to better and more cheaply address the health care needs of everyone, we need to address not only financial access to health care but also environmental, economic, and social factors that can lead to bad health. I will examine these competing visions of Medicaid, and consider the extent to which the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can arguably grant lawful waivers to these states for these expansions or constrictions. I will further consider the implications of these visions, and their success or failure, on Medicaid's longer-term prospects, as well as on the greater health care system.


Self-fertilization is a reproductive technique that allows a plant to produce offspring even when pollinators may be scarce. Utilizing the process of delayed selfing, a species is with the benefits of both cross-pollination and self-fertilization as it has the opportunity to cross-fertilize early on in the flowers life and self-fertilize in the later stages. Research conducted on Triodanis perfoliata, a winter annual species, was designed to determine the timing of self-fertilization. Additionally, the study shed light on the species' ability to produce a full seed set through self-fertilization. Plants used in these experiments were grown from seeds collected from two populations: a wooded roadside in Pitt County, NC (arboretum population) and a disturbed grassy area in New Bern, Onslow County, NC (New Bern population). The plants were grown in standard potting medium containers with subirrigation and inspected every day for flower opening. Styles of various ages were collected (after flower opening) and placed in a solution. The pollen tubes that penetrated the stigma and entered into the style were counted. This helped determine that self-fertilization usually occurs towards the late stages of anthesis. / After the application of four treatments to randomly selected flowers, seed set count among the Triodanis perfoliata populations was compared. The first two treatments both included hand self-pollination on the first day of the female phase; however in one treatment the style was cut to prevent selfing late in anthesis while the style in the other treatment remained uncut. In the third and fourth treatments no hand-pollination was applied but once again in one treatment the style was cut off and remained intact in the other. Comparing the unpollinated treatments with the cut and uncut style confirmed that self-pollination did occur in late anthesis. The lower seed production within the cut style treatment indicated that selfing is at least somewhat delayed. Furthermore, the treatments comparing the cut and uncut style indicated that the removal of the style only prevented delayed selfing and had no additional effects on the experiment. The third experiment illustrated the relationship between pollination of stigma lobes and senescence of the flower. The timing between the two indicated early cross-pollination triggered senescence of the flower, preventing self-fertilization from occurring. However, if cross-pollination was not to occur early on, the flower would live a longer life, awaiting the chance to self-pollinate. Together, this research suggests that Triodanis perfoliata uses delayed selfing to reproduce.


None of the major roles assigned to the Highland Boundary Fault, such as a transcurrent fault with an orogen-parallel, sinistral displacement of several hundred kilometres, or terrane boundary, are confirmed. The Highland Boundary Fault can be traced NE–SW across Scotland for >240 km and defines the northern margin of the Midland Valley. Except for small outliers of Late Palaeozoic rocks on the NW side, it separates the Highland Border Ophiolite and Dalradian rocks of Neoproterozoic–Early Ordovician age (Grampian terrane) to the NW from Late Silurian–Early Carboniferous rocks (Midland Valley terrane) to the SE. The present Highland Boundary Fault is a steep, NW-dipping, post-Early Devonian, reverse fault that probably terminates SW of Bute. Stratigraphical and provenance links, and palaeostress data, limit post-Early Devonian lateral displacement to <30 km. The fault formed in conjunction with the Strathmore Syncline (to the SE) during the Acadian (Middle Devonian) Orogeny, in a transpressive regime that caused uplift of the Grampian block and a small sinistral movement on the Highland Boundary Fault. The location and orientation of the present-day Highland Boundary Fault may have been controlled by rejuvenation of an unseen, steeply inclined, strike-slip fault formed 460–420 Ma ago, a period for which no geological record is preserved in the Highland Border.


When the social sciences parted company from evolutionary biology almost exactly a century ago, they did so at a time when evolutionary biology was still very much in its infancy and many key issues were unresolved. As a result, the social sciences took away with them an understanding of evolution that was in fact based on 18th- rather than 19th-century biology. I argue that contemporary evolutionary thinking has much more to offer the social sciences than most people have assumed. Contemporary evolutionary research on human behaviour focuses on two main issues at the micro-social scale: understanding the trade-offs in individual decision-making and understanding the cognitive constraints that limit flexibility of decisions. I offer examples of both of these approaches. Finally, I consider the broader question of the macro-social scale.


Resistance and tolerance represent two general strategies of plant defence against herbivores. Since resources available for allocation to defence are limited and resistance and tolerance are likely to serve the same functions for plants, the occurrence of trade offs between these two strategies has been assumed. We review the empirical evidence for tolerance-resistance tradeoffs by means of meta-analysis of genetic correlations between resistance and tolerance obtained from 31 ecological and agricultural studies published during 1980-2003 and conducted on 17 different plant species. The sign of the relationship between tolerance and resistance differed depending on the type of plants examined. Tolerance and resistance tended to be positively correlated in crops and negatively correlated in wild plants, but the mean correlation coefficients in both plant types were not significantly different from zero. The magnitude of correlations was affected neither by the tolerance measure (reduction in growth or in fitness in damaged plants) nor by the resistance measure used (inverse of damage, antibiosis, antixenosis, or specific resistance trait). In wild plants correlations between resistance and tolerance were significantly negative (r = -0.069) only in studies where resistance was assessed as a specific chemical or mechanical resistance trait, but this correlation is based only on two studies. No difference in the mean resistance-tolerance correlations was found between studies conducted in the field and in the greenhouse; in both cases mean correlations tended to be positive. The results of our analysis indicate that conditions under which a negative association between resistance and tolerance occurs and, thus, the evolution of multiple defensive strategies in plants is constrained, are much more restrictive than previously assumed. However, the currently available studies are still scarce and taxonomically skewed to allow a thorough analysis of sources of variation in resistance-tolerance relationship. Specifically, we need more studies examining the relationship between specific resistance and tolerance traits, studies on perennial plants and under different environmental conditions.


People of South Asian ethnicities in the UK are at a high risk of obesity and related illnesses. This thesis tests predictions derived from the developmental origins literature regarding adiposity in British Pakistanis in middle childhood. Based on previous research, it was
predicted that British Pakistani children would be more adipose and have lower birth weights compared to white British children. It was also predicted that second generation British Pakistani children would be more adipose and have lower birth weights than the third
generation. White British children (n=211) and British Pakistani children (n=137), including second generation (n=82) and third generation (n=51), aged 7-11 years were measured for body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses, blood pressure, and resting heart rate. Birth weight data were collected from one hospital in Middlesbrough (n=184). In addition, a pilot study was conducted on lifestyle, which explored potential differences in British Pakistani children's lifestyle that may affect adiposity. Dietary
data (n=30) were gathered by multiple-pass recall interviews. Physical activity data were collected by accelerometry (n=27) and also by multiple-pass recall interviews (n=30). A questionnaire was developed for the lifestyle pilot to gain an understanding of parents'
(n=24) knowledge and practices of healthy lifestyles. Focus group interviews were conducted in one school with children (n=18), which explored children's knowledge and practices of
healthy lifestyles. The same focus groups also explored the issue of child participation in the study to understand different motivations between ethnicities and sexes.

Compared to white British children, British Pakistani children were significantly fatter by standard deviation scores for triceps (p=0.003) and subscapular skinfolds (p<0.000), but not by BMI (p=0.599) or waist circumference (p=0.253). British Pakistani children had significantly lower birth weights (p<0.001), and were more frequently classified as low birth weight (p=0.01) and small-for-gestational age (p<0.001). These results may support the foetal origins hypothesis, which is that early life influences can adversely affect later health, by
linking foetal development with adiposity in childhood. There was a higher proportion of overfat by subscapular skinfold thickness (p<0.001) in second generation British Pakistani boys compared to the third generation. The two generation groups did not differ significantly
in any measure of birth weight. The lifestyle pilot sub-study suggests that differences in lifestyle patterns may exist between the British Pakistani and white British families who participated, and it could provide a basis for a full study on this topic. Methods implemented in public health research should reconsider using the body mass index alone as a predictor of body fatness, especially in populations including British Pakistanis. Qualitative
methodologies should be used to inform study design as a way of illuminating complex and interrelated issues such as obesity and ethnicity.


President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 with no Republican support. The ACA has been politically divisive ever since, with the House repeatedly voting for repeal. Earlier this year, Congress successfully passed a repeal, with the Senate using a legislative process called "reconciliation," which requires only a simple majority for certain tax and spending bills. However, Congress failed to override a presidential veto.President-elect Donald Trump pledged to "repeal and replace" the ACA, but would keep the most popular features: (1) guaranteed issue — health plans must enroll applicants regardless of pre-existing conditions; and (2) dependent coverage — health plans must keep dependent children on their parents plan until age 26. Although his reform package has not been announced, it will likely include health savings accounts (HSAs), cross-border insurance sales, Medicaid block grants to states, and a cap on non-economic damages.In this Viewpoint, we examine potential reforms of the ACA through the lens of empirical evidence to find whether they are likely to be effective, particularly in ensuring access to health insurance at a reasonable cost, and in a stable insurance market. We conclude that the public has a right to expect their representatives to find common ground and adopt evidence-based policies that expand coverage at a reasonable cost.


Chickadees produce many vocalizations, including chick-a-dee calls which they use as a mobbing call in the presence of predators. Previous research has shown that chickadees produce more D notes in their mobbing calls in response to high-threat predators compared to low-threat predators, and may perceive predator and corresponding mobbing vocalizations as similar. We presented black-capped chickadees with playback of high- and low-threat predator calls and conspecific mobbing calls, and non-threat heterospecific and reversed mobbing calls, to examine vocal and movement behavioural responses. Chickadees produced more chick-a-dee calls in response to playback of calls produced by a high-threat predator compared to calls produced by a low-threat predator, and to reversed high-threat mobbing calls compared to normal (i.e., non-reversed) high-threat mobbing calls. Chickadees also vocalized more in response to all playback conditions consisting of conspecific mobbing calls compared to a silent baseline period. The number of D notes that the subjects produced was similar to previous findings; chickadees produced approximately one to three D notes per call in response to low-threat mobbing calls, and produced more calls containing four to five D notes in response to high-threat mobbing calls, although this difference in the number of D notes per call was not significant. The difference in chickadees' production of tseet calls across playback conditions approached significance as chickadees called more in response to conspecific mobbing calls, but not in response to heterospecific calls. General movement activity decreased in response to playback of conspecific-produced vocalizations, but increased in response to heterospecific-produced vocalizations, suggesting that chickadees may mobilize more in response to predator playback in preparation for a "fight or flight" situation. These results also suggest that chickadees may produce more mobbing calls in response to high-threat predator vocalizations as an attempt to initiate mobbing with conspecifics, while they produce fewer mobbing calls in response to a low-threat predator that a chickadee could outmaneuver.


Chris Lowney, formerly a Jesuit seminarian, later served as a Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co in New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London until leaving the firm in 2001. He served on J.P. Morgan's Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Investment Banking Management Committees.  His first book, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, was the #1 ranked bestseller of the CBPA and was named a finalist for a 2003 Book of the Year Award from ForeWord magazine. It has been translated into ten languages.  He is also author of Heroic Living: Discover Your Purpose and Change the World , and A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain , which was nominated for La Coronica award. Chris was featured in the PBS-aired documentary, Cities of Light , which echoed many of the book's key themes.  He currently serves on the board of Catholic Health Initiatives, a healthcare system comprising more than 70 hospitals across the United States. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Fordham University, where he also received his M.A. He is holder of five honorary Doctoral degrees. In 2009, Lowney was asked to serve as the Volunteer President of Jesuit Commons, a start up project that attempted two pioneering initiatives, one to serve refugee communities through online-enabled university education, and the second, to create a  "virtual commons" online, where different parts of the Jesuit network could collaborate, share resources and generate financial resources for worthy projects.  In 2012, Lowney has stepped away from his leadership of Jesuit Commons.  Marie Friedemann, General Editor of Jesuit Higher Education , asked Chris Lowney to reflect on the Jesuit Commons and Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins, as well as the future of the two initiatives.