This thesis provides an account of the application of uncooled microbolometer technology in two different fields; astronomy and conservation ecology. Uncooled microbolometers are readily available as low-cost, commercial detectors for imaging in the 7.5 − 13.5μm spectral region. Their affordable price and coverage of the wavelengths at which the the spectral energy distribution of animals that use metabolic heat to maintain a stable internal temperature peaks, has popularised these systems for use in ecology. However, their use as the primary detectors in conservation surveys suffers from a data analysis bottleneck due to the large volumes of data and the manual approach to detecting and identifying animal species. As a result, the efficiency and efficacy of these systems is limited by the volume of data and the lack of resources and experience in handling infrared imagery. In contrast, astronomical techniques are well developed for infrared wavelengths and the analysis of large quantities of data has been successfully automated for many years. Apart from observations of solar system objects with very small (<200mm aperture) telescopes and some high altitude experiments, microbolometers have not been deployed in astronomy for ground-based observing. Although observing in this spectral region is key to understanding the cold, dusty and distant universe, resources for mid-IR observing are not as readily available as those for other wavelengths due to the very high thermal background and the requirement for specialist detector systems. Through our work, we attempt to discern whether microbolometers, and standard astronomical infrared observing and data analysis techniques, can be applied successfully in these two fields. In part I three analogous, standard astronomical instrumentation techniques are applied to characterise the random and spatial noise present in a FLIR Tau 2 Core microbolometer to determine the systematics and sources of statistical noise that limit read-out accuracy. Flat fielding, stacking and binning are used to determine that the focal plane array is dominated by large structure noise, and demonstrate how this can be corrected. An NEdT of < 60mK is isolated and recorded for the system. Part II introduces Astro-Ecology, a field that couples microbolometers and astronomy instrumentation techniques for application in conservation biology to monitor vulnerable species. Several investigations are presented to determine the feasibility of developing an astronomy based, fully automated reduction pipeline for mid-IR data collected using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology From these investigations the efficacy of microbolometers for animal surveys was found to be highly dependent on ground and ambient air temperatures, and to fully automate a pipeline would require more than standard astronomical techniques and software. In part III, a small, passively cooled, prototype, N -band (∼ 10μm) instrument is developed and tested. The optical and mechanical design of the instrument is described, with the instrument constructed from commercially available components and an uncooled microbolometer focal-plane array. The incorporation of adjustable germanium reimaging optics rescale the image to the appropriate plate scale for the 2-m diameter Liverpool Telescope on La Palma. A week-long programme of observations was conducted to test the system sensitivity and stability, and the feasibility of using this technology in 'facility' class instruments for small telescopes. From observations of bright solar system and stellar sources, a plate scale of 0.75′′ per pixel is measured, with this confirming that the optical design allows diffraction limited imaging. A photometric stability of ∼ 10% is recorded with this largely due to sky variability. A 3σ sensitivity of 7 × 103 Jy for a single, ∼ 0.11 second exposure is measured, which corresponds to a sensitivity limit of 3 × 102 Jy for a 60 second total integration. Recognising the need for improved sensitivity, the instrument was upgraded to be optimised for mid-IR observations using a chopping system. The instrument was deployed for a week on the 1.52m Carlos Sanchez Telescope on Tenerife alongside a regime of chopping and nodding. Observations of several very bright mid-IR sources with catalogue fluxes down to ∼ 600 Jy are presented. A sensitivity improvement of ∼ 4 magnitudes over previous unchopped observations is recorded, in line with sensitivity predictions.


We show, taking dispersion into account, that second-harmonic generation in a cavity can be modulationally unstable. In the monostable mode of operation this instability might predominate with respect to self-pulsing instabilities, leading to the generation of stable solitarylike pulse trains.


WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED begins in 1960 when American women actually had to get their husband's permission to apply for a credit card. In the years since, American women have witnessed exciting changes, expectations about what their lives could be smashed in just a generation. The story ends in the 21st century, with a woman winning a Presidential primary. This book tells us how women got from there to here, in politics, fashion, economics, sex, families and work. A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins's keen research, WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED is the definitive book on five crucial decades of progress, told with the down-to-earth, amusing and agenda-free tone for which this beloved New York Times columnist is known. Collins spoke with the women who lived these transformative years, including an advertising executive in the 60s who was not allowed to attend board meetings that took place in the all-male dining room and an airline stewardess who was required to bend over to light her passengers' cigars on a men-only 'Executive Flight'. Picking up where her highly-lauded book America's Women left off, WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED is the dynamic story of cataclysmic change, a story Gail Collins seems to have been born to tel


Strong planning under full or partial observability has been addressed in the literature. But this research line is carried out under the hypothesis that the set of observation variables is fixed and compulsory. In most real world domains, however, observation variables are optional and many of them are useless in the execution of a plan; on the other side, information acquisition may require some kind of cost. So it is significant to find a minimal set of observation variables which are necessary for the execution of a plan, and to best of our knowledge, it is still an open problem. In this paper we present a first attempt to solve the problem, namely, we define an algorithmthat finds an approximateminimal set of observation variables which are necessary for the execution of a strong plan under full observability (i.e. a state-action table); and transforms the plan into a strong plan under partial observability (i.e. a conditional plan branching on the observations built on these observation variables).


Distributed computing remains inaccessible to a large number of users, in spite of many open source platforms and extensive commercial offerings. While distributed computation frameworks have moved beyond a simple map-reduce model, many users are still left to struggle with complex cluster management and configuration tools, even for running simple embarrassingly parallel jobs. We argue that stateless functions represent a viable platform for these users, eliminating cluster management overhead, fulfilling the promise of elasticity. Furthermore, using our prototype implementation, PyWren, we show that this model is general enough to implement a number of distributed computing models, such as BSP, efficiently. Extrapolating from recent trends in network bandwidth and the advent of disaggregated storage, we suggest that stateless functions are a natural fit for data processing in future computing environments.


It is commonly recognized that the Internet routing and addressing
architecture is facing challenges in scalability, multihoming, and
inter-domain traffic engineering. This document presents, as a
recommendation of future directions for the IETF, solutions that could
aid the future scalability of the Internet. To this end, this document
surveys many of the proposals that were brought forward for discussion
in this activity, as well as some of the subsequent analysis and the
architectural recommendation of the chairs. This document is a product
of the Routing Research Group. This document is not an Internet
Standards Track specification; it is published for informational
purposes.


The concept of aging has quite contradictory characteristics and interpretations in the academic literature. The most developed are biological (gerontological), chronological, and sociological approaches. In the social sciences the phenomenon of aging has a complex structure—it cannot be studied outside the social, cultural, and historical factors existing in a particular society.  Following the notion of social construction of aging, I believe that in order to analyze aging and old age not only as socially constructed phenomena but as individual strategies and practices, we must investigate how individuals themselves subjectively explain their age and actions related to it and how they present their own discourse of aging and perception of age-related changes. According to the adopted methodological framework, narrative interviews with informants aged 63 to 83 years became the main method of collecting data for this study.  As the results of the study demonstrate, individuals who by the criteria of age are assigned to the category of the "elderly" manifest an ambivalent attitude toward the process of aging. Assessing the current period of their life, informants associate it with wisdom, experience, and the possibility of self-realization, including in those areas where before they could not prove themselves due to the burden of professional and family responsibilities.  Advanced age is characterized by informants, first of all, as a time of assessing one's life, summing up its results, while the number of years lived is perceived rather as a given that has only a formal meaning but does not directly affect their inner sense of self. Informants who continue working see it as an opportunity to remain useful, in demand, rather than purely as a source of (albeit not unimportant) additional income. The main things that the elderly value, as the study revealed, are self-satisfaction, family, health, having friends, and various kinds of activities (labor, civic, or family) that allow them to feel needed.
Article in Russian
DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2020-12-2-22-44


ABSTRACT The world's need for industrial wood is expected to greatly increase in coming decades. Somatic embryogenesis (SE) is a way in which an almost unlimited number of genetically identical plants (clones) can be produced from a single mother plant/seed, and it offers an effective way to convey the genetic gain obtained in breeding to the planting stock. As cultures or methods of SE, for example in Norway spruce (Picea abies), may become the subject of intellectual property rights (IPRs), a legal conflict may arise between the right holder and the rights of the general public covered by the Every man's rights to freely sample, for example, forest genetic resources (FGRs). Various IPR systems may be relevant for the protection of SE material in forestry, but they possibly differ in how well sufficient genetic variation can be encompassed by protection claims. We therefore specifically advocate awareness of genetic variation in future SE-related IPR claims in forestry, and argue that process patents are most applicable. In face of the bioeconomy, it is mandatory to be aware of the possible conflicts between IPRs and rights of the public to FGRs, and the genetic variation of future IPR-protected SE material in forestry.


Inventory of records of Hood County housed in the Hood County Courthouse in Granbury, Texas. Begins with an introduction and explanation of the roles of various county government offices. Describes the records of the County Clerk, District Clerk, Justice of the Peace, Tax Assessor-Collector, Sheriff, Treasurer, County School Superintendent.
Also provides an index.


Plants produce a vast array of secondary metabolites. A group of phenolic compounds, the flavonoids, are metabolites ubiquitous among plants and are known to aid in processes such as plant reproduction, UV defense, pigmentation and development. In relation to human health, flavonoids have been found to possess anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and antioxidant properties. Flavonoid's ability to participate in so many interactions is due in part to their subclass variation and further chemical modification. One such modification is glucosylation, where a glucose molecule is added to the flavonoid substrate. The enzymes that catalyze these reactions are known as glucosyltransferases (GT). Citrus paradisi contains a glucosyltransferase that is specific for adding glucose to the 3-O position of flavonols (Cp-F3-O-GT). To further understand the reactions it catalyzes, Cp-F3-O-GT structure was modeled against an anthocyanidin/flavonol 3-O-GT found in Vitis vinifera to identify candidate amino acids for mutations. Mutants were then generated using site-directed mutagenesis, and one mutant, D344P, was constructed by an aspartate being replaced with a proline. Biochemical characterization of the mutant D344P protein was performed in order to determine whether the mutation has an effect on the substrate specificity of Cp3O-GT. An initial quick-screening assay using radioactive UDP-glucose as a sugar donor suggested there may have been an expansion of substrate acceptance. The time course assays did not support observation. Additionally, results show that D344P protein has decreased activity with flavonols as compared to the wild-type Cp3-O-GT. with no expansion of substrate specificity. Homology models supported experimental results.


Taftan volcano, is located in about 100 Km South to Southeast of Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan province in southeast of Iran. On geological point of view, it is located at the end of Nehbandan-Khash flysch and North Makran structural zones. Field, petrographic and geochemical studies from different samples of rocks show that the volcano mostly composed of andesitic and dacitic rocks. These rocks have no variety in mineralogy and mainly composed of plagioclase, biotite, hornblende and pyroxene minerals. Microanalyses on these minerals show that plagioclases are common minerals with reversal, oscillatory and normal zoning and are andesine to labradorite in chemical composition. Plagioclases have 57.2 to 60.2 wt% Silica contents in composition. These mineral shows variation in composition from the core to rim that is correlative with the microscopic evidence and may be resulted by changes in magma composition accompanied with pressure changes during the ascent of magma, magma mixing and variation in water pressure in magma. Structural formulate indicate that amphiboles, micas and pyroxenes minerals are magnesiohornblende, biotite, diopside and hypresthene composition, respectively.


Although climate change has largely been removed from the federal policy agenda of the United States in the near term, the continued reliance on fossil fuels as a dominant energy source leaves many analysts to conclude that climate policy will eventually reappear on that agenda. We present a review of recent research related to the design and implementation of one instrument for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction: offsets. As these are implemented, policy makers must understand the way these programs work. In this review, we describe the basic features of carbon offset markets, along with the potential supply of offsets from agricultural sources and associated cost considerations. In this discussion we highlight the role of institutional design of contracts and transactions costs. We then turn to the benefits of including offsets in policies to reduce GHGs and complete the review with a discussion of the challenges in implementing the programs.


The majority of visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approaches consider feature correspondences as an input to the joint process of estimating the camera pose and the scene structure. In this paper, we propose a new approach for simultaneously obtaining the correspondences, the camera pose, the scene structure, and the illumination changes, all directly using image intensities as observations. Exploitation of all possible image information leads to more accurate estimates and avoids the inherent difficulties of reliably associating features. We also show here that, in this case, structural constraints can be enforced within the procedure as well (instead of a posteriori), namely the cheirality, the rigidity, and those related to the lighting variations. We formulate the visual SLAM problem as a nonlinear image alignment task. The proposed parameters to perform this task are optimally computed by an efficient second-order approximation method for fast processing and avoidance of irrelevant minima. Furthermore, a new solution to the visual SLAM initialization problem is described whereby no assumptions are made about either the scene or the camera motion. Experimental results are provided for a variety of scenes, including urban and outdoor ones, under general camera motion and different types of perturbations.


OBJECTIVE
To identify key characteristics of psychologically distressed general practitioners and whether these GPs volunteered for a "GP health" educational program.

SETTING
Eight Australian divisions of general practice responding to an invitation to participate in the research in 1999, representing 1356 GPs.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), together with demographic and practice questions.

DESIGN
Observational study of GPs invited to participate in a voluntary education program on GP health offered through each division of general practice.

PARTICIPANTS
819/1356 GPs responded to the baseline questionnaire (60%). Of these, 233/819 (28%) scored above the GHQ-12 threshold indicating psychological distress. Ninety GPs enrolled in the program, data were available for 69 GPs.

RESULTS
General practitioners who were identified as being psychologically distressed were over-represented in the 35-49 years age group (p=0.02) and were more likely to be the practice principal (p=0.04). Over 62% of enrolled GPs had scores that indicated none to mild distress. Of those GPs who were distressed, 42% were from the identified at risk age group, and 44% were practice principals.

DISCUSSION
Alternative targeted interventions may be needed to reach GPs with high levels of psychological distress.


Blogs are a medium to express thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Once published, blog articles potentially become persistent and can be read by non-intended audiences, causing hurt feelings and other troubles. In part these problems are due to the lack of access control in blogs. We propose an access control framework for group blogs. Compared to the typical access control in blogging tools, our system differs in a few aspects. First, the system enables bloggers to grant different access privileges to different audiences over a single blog article. That is, it associates access privileges to people rather than to artifacts (e.g., articles, blogs). Second, the system allows a blogger to create a collaborative space with other bloggers, for example by allowing others to edit his or her articles. Third, the management of access control is integrated with the process of writing and editing blog articles, facilitating the main workflow of the user. We conducted a usability study to evaluate our system and get constructive feedback from users. In this article, we present the proposed access control system, the results of the study, and analysis of the results.


The tectonothermal evolution of a polyorogenic terrane in the Variscan belt of NW Spain has been constrained by 40Ar/39Ar laserprobe incremental heating experiments on mylonitic fabrics developed in major structures. Transitional levels between HP–HT and IP upper units in the Órdenes Complex where metamorphic and structural records demonstrate two cycles of burial and exhumation were selected for dating. Two groups of ages have been defined: (1) Silurian–Early Devonian, obtained from mylonites of the Fornás extensional detachment, here considered as the minimum age for the start of tectonic exhumation of the HP–HT units and an upper age-limit for the HP–HT event itself; (2) Early to Mid-Devonian, from structures related to the Variscan convergence in the area, which include top-to-the-east thrusts and extensional detachments. A single, younger Carboniferous age obtained from the uppermost allochthonous sequences possibly reflects the final stages of emplacement of the allochthonous complexes. Our data indicate a polyorogenic character for a part of the Iberian allochthonous complexes, including Variscan (sensu stricto) and Early Variscan convergence, as well as an older, Early Palaeozoic cycle.


Performing an orthodontic treatment based only on hard tissue references can lead to unfavorable aesthetic results due to the great variability that exists in soft tissues that cover them. In 1999, W.Arnett, presented an analysis based on soft tissues and determined norms that define a harmonious face. However, these standards that were obtained from North Americans and Chilean aesthetic concepts could be different. The aim of the study was to determine the values of facial harmony for the Chilean population, using the cephalometric analysis of soft tissues presented by Arnett, and compare them with the values previously established for the Caucasian population. In this study 200 photographs were analyzed, and the profiles were classified in balanced and unbalanced according to the criteria of a group of specialists. Subsequently, teleradiographs corresponding to the classified profiles were analyzed, with the cephalometric analysis of soft tissues. The values of the different variables were analyzed separately by sex, skeletal class and facial biotype, and the differences between the variables presented by Arnett et al., and those obtained in the present study. For this purpose, statistical significance tests such as the t test and other nonparametric tests were used. There were only significant differences in two variables: inferior lip variables in both sexes, and a greater prominence of the cheekbone in Chilean women, therefore we consider that the values of harmony of Arnett, can also be applied as an aesthetic parameter for the Chilean population.


Light extraction from InGaN/GaN-based multiple-quantum-well (MQW) light emitters is enhanced using a simple, scalable, and reproducible method to create hexagonally close-packed conical nano- and micro-scale features on the backside outcoupling surface. Colloidal lithography via Langmuir-Blodgett dip-coating using silica masks (d = 170-2530 nm) and Cl2/N2-based plasma etching produced features with aspect ratios of 3:1 on devices grown on semipolar GaN substrates. InGaN/GaN MQW structures were optically pumped at 266 nm and light extraction enhancement was quantified using angle-resolved photoluminescence. A 4.8-fold overall enhancement in light extraction (9-fold at normal incidence) relative to a flat outcoupling surface was achieved using a feature pitch of 2530 nm. This performance is on par with current photoelectrochemical (PEC) nitrogen-face roughening methods, which positions the technique as a strong alternative for backside structuring of c-plane devices. Also, because colloidal lithography functions independently of GaN crystal orientation, it is applicable to semipolar and nonpolar GaN devices, for which PEC roughening is ineffective.


The major causes of death are not infectious diseases any more, but chronic, noninfectious causes of death are prevalent and increasing not only in affluent countries, but also in lower-income and middle-income countries. RAND corporation scanned the challenges for public health over the next 20 years and summarized that although integration of data will play a significant role, there is no single technology or capability that dominates the field. In the coming decade, advanced therapies, such as genome editing techniques, are expected to deliver cures for a variety of inherited genetic diseases. However, in this era of unprecedented optimism and increasing efforts toward making advanced therapies standard treatment in developed countries, it is also a common reality for those living in lower-income and middle-income countries that the path from vaccine licensure to vaccination has been long and uncertain. For example, pneumococcal vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in preventing lower respiratory diseases, but the potential of the vaccine has not been fully realized due to lack of widespread use. Through China's efforts of co-building public health capacity in the coming decades with its partners around developing and developed countries, these spatial and temporal dynamics of public health challenges of infectious, noninfectious, and genetic diseases require an arduous balancing act in setting priorities. Particularly, we public health practitioners should remind ourselves that the greatest global health achievements in the previous century are all population-level interventions. The general public and policy makers should be reminded that the global public health capacity must be adequate to sustain global health achievements and prepare well for future challenges.


Spore traps are widely used in plant pathology, but less so in plant biosecurity. Potentially they can be used to determine the geographical extent of a plant pathogen incursion, to track the active spread of an incursion, and to declare area freedom following an eradication program. This review discusses the abilities and constraints of spore traps in the context of plant biosecurity, and highlights the problems that need to be overcome before spore traps can be routinely used for detection and eradication of plant pathogen incursions. To meet biosecurity requirements, spore traps must be efficient, mechanically reliable and any spores captured must be rapidly identified and quantified. At present, there is significant variation in types of spore traps, and in the methods used to capture and identify spores. Standard spore traps are generally inefficient for surveillance because they do not sample large volumes of air or capture samples that are representative of entire crop growing regions. If spore traps are to become routinely used for plant biosecurity purposes, improved designs, novel applications and standard operating protocols must be developed. A better understanding of background atmospheric data and the spatial and temporal characteristics of pathogen spores will be required to design trapping systems and protocols so that incursions can be readily detected, and presence/absence data can be confidently reported.


The whelk, Buccinum undatum, is a commercially important shellfish species found throughout the North Atlantic. Many problems face fisheries scientists attempting to assess and monitor populations of this species, due to several life history traits such as highly variable growth rates and sizes at maturity both between and within populations. One major problem has been the lack of a reliable ageing tool, limiting the ability of scientists to develop accurate population age structure estimates for stock assessments. This thesis focuses on three major areas of research: the reproductive assessment, growth and age of Buccinum undatum collected from three geographically distinct populations from the Shetlands, North Wales and the Jersey Islands.
Reprodictive assessments of several B. undatum populations across the UK were undertaken by utilising several previously published maturity estimation techniques to ascertain the most accurate and reliable methods. It was found that size (total shell length) at maturity was highly variable, even over relatively small geographical distances. The timing of the reproductive cycle was assessed in a whelk population from the Menai Strait (North Wales, UK) to investigate changes in maturity assessments over an annual seasonal cycle. It was discovered that size at maturity varied throughout an annual cycle, suggesting an optimal season for maturity assessments.
Spatial variations in shell morphology between populations highlighted clear differences driven by the shape of the aperture and the angle of the shell apex. The crystalline structure of B. undatum shells was also investigated for the first time; using a combination of analytical techniques a multi-layered aragonite shell structure was uncovered. The shells of B. undatum were also assessed for their potential as environmental recorders. The oxygen isotope ratio contained within B. undatum shells was found to be a reliable proxy for seawater temperature, allowing the development of a species-specific palaeotemperature equation that will greatly aid future studies of this species where seawater temperature reconstructions are required. Population growth rates were also assessed, using the isotope data, uncovering clear differences in patterns of shell growth between populations.
A novel age determination technique for B. undatum was developed that utilised growth rings present in in a pair of calcium carbonate statoliths contained within the foot matrix of each whelk. An annual periodicity of the growth rings was determined by measuring growth in monthly samples of statoliths removed from laboratory reared juvenile whelks of known provenance and age. Cutting edge analytical techniques were also used to assess the structure and seasonal variations in the chemical composition of the statoliths. Following this, the use of statolith growth rings for fisheries monitoring purposes was assessed and compared to the currently used age determination method, operculum growth rings. Using data on size at age, population growth curves were constructed for a range of whelk populations across the U.K. It was confirmed that counting the annual rings in statoliths providea a more reliable assessment of the age of B. undatum, delivering a new more reliable tool for fisheries scientists to assess population age structure.


I am a current student researching the findings from the QNRF NPRP grant, "Media Use in the Middle East" (NPRP 7-1757-5-261), a seven-nation survey by Northwestern University in Qatar. I am particularly interested in the issue of privacy related to social media use in Qatar. Over the last decade, social media has significantly changed the way people interact with their friends and family members, especially in the sheer number of people that we can interact with, including by sending our messages out to thousands or even millions of people. Although social media, like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube, now plays a big role in our day-to-day lives, use of these applications could also cause serious privacy concerns. Most of the social media sites have personal information that is required, like your name, birthday, status, email address, and sometimes even your location. These data normally reveal the user's information to all of the people within a particular social media network. Thus, when you use social media, you are basically posting your personal information online, changing the nature of the information from private to semi-public, and it may end up falling into wrong hands. This information can be used by burglars, stalkers, cyberbullies, sexual experimentation and hackers to cause harm to the users and to society as a whole. (O»Keeffe & Pearson 2011). Thus, it is important to further explore the level of privacy concerns regarding social media use in Qatar, as well as steps that users are taking to protect themselves. In particular, my research is informed by a study that provides an integrated framework for cultural values and information technology use in the Middle East, which helps us with "understanding privacy and related issues that arise when personal information is shared or exchanged using information technology" (Norhayati, Jeffrey, Shreya 2003). The study's research can help understand and predict individuals' culturally linked reactions to various social media sites in diverse cultural contexts. In my research, I am placing Qatar in comparative context with the other countries surveyed, but focusing in-depth on Qatar specifically, both nationals and expatriates. I am interested in Qatar in particular because Qatar is one of the highest countries when it comes to having concerns of privacy in social media. I want to look at both nationals and expats in Qatar because online privacy affects both sets of people, and it is important to understand why expats have even higher concerns than nationals about privacy in social networking. I am interested in exploring two sets of questions. First, I analyze an overall question, which asks respondents to agree or disagree with the following statement, "Concerns about privacy have changed the way I use social media." Then, I look in depth at specific ways in which people report changing the way they use social media, including adjusting privacy settings, how often do they post, whether they stopped using their real name on social media and whether they connect with fewer people on social media. I am interested both in understanding the levels of privacy concern in Qatar versus the other countries, as well as which specific types of people in Qatar express concerns or choose to modify their behavior, and why they do so. My beginning research shows how residents and nationals of Qatar view privacy concerns on social media compared to the other countries. The seven countries can be ranked from the highest to the least regarding those who have changed the way they use social media because of privacy concerns: UAE (41%), Qatar (33%), KSA (26%), Jordan (24%), Egypt (19%), Tunisia (16%) and Lebanon (14%). As you can see, Qatar has the highest privacy concerns after UAE. Looking specifically at who in Qatar expresses concerns about privacy, I was surprised to find that there isn't a gender difference when it comes to privacy concerns in social media. It is frequently assumed that men have more freedom than women and that men don't have to be concerned about what other people think of them. However, men and women in Qatar were equally likely to express privacy concerns, demonstrating that this is not a gender issue. When comparing age groups, both nationals and expatriates in Qatar express the highest levels of concern in the age group of 25-34 years old (See Fig. 1.) This is a particularly interesting finding, but we need more research to tell the full story. One possible reason for the increase in privacy concerns at this age level might be because of the impact of reputation on opportunities for marriage and employment. A last interesting finding is that Western, Arab, and Asian expatriates in Qatar are more worried about privacy on social media than Qatari nationals are, 36% expats are concerned about privacy while only 21% nationals are worried. Is there something about the expatriate experience here in Qatar that makes expatriates more concerned about their online privacy? Again, we need more research to find out. I am now continuing my research by interviewing Qatari expatriates and nationals, specifically those in the age group of 25 to 34, to discover whether they are concerned about privacy on social media and, if so, why, and what they have done to change their behavior to protect themselves online (and how these behaviors relate to the survey results on this topic). This additional information will connect the dots together and create a complete story of the importance of privacy on social media, and how people in Qatar are handling privacy concerns related to their social media use. References: O»Keeffe, G. S., & Pearson, K. C. (2011). The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families. American Academy of Pediatrics. Norhayati Zakaria, Jeffrey M. Stanton, Shreya T.M. Sarkar-Barney, (2003) «Designing and implementing culturally-sensitive IT applications: The interaction of culture values and privacy issues in the Middle East», Information Technology & People, Vol. 16 Issue: 1, pp.49-75, https://doi.org/10.1108/09593840310463023


The production of hydrocarbons from deepwater reservoirs requires the fabrication and installation of massive infrastructure. As the global energy industry targets hydrocarbon reservoirs in ever deeper water, the use of remote subsea wells to access the reserves and deepwater flowlines to transport the produced hydrocarbons back to floating production platforms will increase. Technip pipeline engineers utilize a number of simulation tools, including ABAQUS, to ensure that the deepwater pipelines and subsea equipment are designed, fabricated and installed to meet the demanding environmental and operating conditions. Some of the various simulations Technip performs with ABAQUS include: global pipeline thermal buckling and fatigue simulations; analyses of the installation of the pipeline end termination (PLET) structure and its connection to the suction piles that restrain the pipeline (these simulations provide the highly nonlinear force deflection curve for use as the boundary conditions in the global pipeline thermal buckling simulation); cavity radiation simulations of the heat transfer between multiple flowlines/umbilicals in the turret of floating production platforms; and thermal management simulations to ensure that the pipelines insulation design will maintain adequate hydrocarbon temperatures during shut-down conditions.


The effects of parental care on reproductive success is well studied. Nest building is an important aspect of parental care in birds, but it is not well understood how variation in nest building behavior impacts their reproductive success. In this study, I address the effects of nest dimensions on incubation behavior and reproductive success in female Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis). In Carolina chickadees, only females build nests, incubate eggs, and brood young nestlings. Larger, well-constructed nests can reduce the negative effects of cooling on eggs and nestlings as extensive cooling can result in delayed embryonic development, hatching asynchrony, or failure to hatch. However, larger nests are more energetically demanding for females to construct. Females therefore face tradeoffs between self-maintenance and incubation. In this study, I tested my hypothesis that nest quality would change incubation behavior and that investment in high quality nests would result in higher reproductive success in Carolina chickadees, a common breeding bird in western North Carolina. Throughout spring and summer 2016, I monitored nest boxes in Jackson and Macon counties, N.C. for reproductive activity. I quantified nest height, nest cup depth, and the amount of moss underneath the nest cup as nest dimensions. Incubation periods (on-bouts and off-bouts) were measured using iButtons (thermal data loggers) located both inside the nest cup and inside the nest box that collected nest temperature and ambient temperature every 5 minutes. Incubation behavior was quantified as total off-bout time and mean off-bout time. Reproductive success was quantified as the number of nestlings that fledged from individual nest boxes. I found statistically significant relationships between nest dimensions and reproductive success as well as non- statistically significant relationships between nest dimensions and incubation behavior. Together, my results suggest that females that invest in building high quality nests benefit by fledging more young and that females that build poor quality nests do not compensate by increasing incubation behavior.


The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and
practit
ioners. The term has been used differently
;
either a psycho
logical state
or a state of mind. This
research aims to study employee engagement antecedents wi
thin the Nigerian banking industry
with a
unique con
tribution of
identifying evolutionary
waves in th
e development of the concept. Drawing on
relevant literature, some basic employee engagement antecedents were selected and analysed using
a
correlational coefficient as well as
thematic content analysis
process. While much has been written on
the topic, li
ttle is known about the engagement of administrative workers in most of the
developing
countries
especially in the banking industry of Nigeria. This research fills this gap. Though a lot of
research on the antecedents of employee engagement has been carrie
d out with different findings,
there is considerable confusion about the meaning of employee engagement.
The thesis objectives include: (i)
To
study selected antecedents of
the
employee engagement concept
within the Nigeria banking sector
,
(ii)
To
study an
d analyse the overlaps between employee
engagement and other work attitude concepts (Job satisfaction, motivation, employee involvement,
employee commitment and organi
s
ation citizen
ship behaviour
with a view to provide more clarity on
the overlaps between
the concepts.
The study was conducted using a mixed methods sequential design involving quantitative
(questionnaires) and qualitative (
i
nterview exercise) collection of data. 800 employees were selected
as the sample population for the study.
Empirical fin
dings show a positive correlation between employee engagement and other work attitude
concept
s
(Job satisfaction, motivation, employee involvement, employee commitment and
organi
s
ation citizen behaviour) and define employee engagement as a cultural, multi
-
faceted concept
,
that is
,
a combination of different constructs put together to form a concept.
Additionally, this study
uncovered few other employee engagement antecedents
such as target setting, employee union,
economic situat
ions ,job security
within t
he Nigeria banking sector, however, further investigation is
recommended to clarify these results and explore the possibility of other variable
influences. Finally
,
the
knowledge gained from this thesis will be use
d by students who are interested in the to
pic of
employee engagement
, as well as in human resource management reviews
,
to address issues regarding
the
employee
engagement

Keyword: Employee engagement, Commitment, Motivation, organization citizenship
behaviour, Job satisfaction, employee involvement.


In modern digital still cameras, noise-reduction is a more and more important issue of signal processing, as the customers demand for higher pixel counts and for increased light sensitivity. In the last time, with pixel counts of ten or more megapixel in a compact camera, the images lack more and more of fine details and appear degraded. The standard test-methods for spatial resolution measurement fail to describe this phenomenon, because due to extensive adaptive image enhancements, the camera cannot be treated as a linear position-invariant-system. In this paper we compare established resolution test methods and present new approaches to describe the spatial frequency response of a digital still camera. A new chart is introduced which consists of nine siemens stars, a multi-modulation set of slanted edges and Gaussian white noise as camera target. Using this set, the standard methods known as SFR-Siemens and SFR-Edge are calculated together with additional information like edge-width and edge-noise. Based on the Gaussian white noise, several parameters are presented as an alternative to describe the spatial frequency response on low-contrast texture.


Recent spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana [Clem.]) infestations have resulted in widespread areas of balsam fir (Abies balsamea [L.] Mill.) mortality in Ontario, and there is growing interest in reestablishing these areas quickly as productive forests. One technique being used is prescribed fire after a salvage and bulldozer tramping operation. A 445-ha prescribed burn was carried out under moderate fire danger conditions in northern Ontario. The site, which was covered by balsam fir fuel that had been killed by spruce budworm, was tramped to improve fire spread. Weather, fuel consumption, and fire effects are reported. The burn effectively reduced heavy surface fuel loadings and consequently planting on the site was easier. Key words: Prescribed burning, fire, spruce budworm. Choristoneura fumiferana, balsam fir, Abies balsamea, fuel consumption, site preparation, tramping, stand conversion.


The museum, the mausoleum, and the memorial are key concepts for theorizing beaches and ports in twenty-first-century literature and cinema. On the littoral, these constructions suggest the very opposite of a sealed off monumentality to become living museums of women's labor in modern and contemporary France (Sciamma, Varda), bodily mausolea of migration on the Senegalese shoreline (Diop), and shapeshifting war memorials in Atlantic and Pacific tidelands (Darrieussecq, Rolin, Virilio). Examples of anamorphic seascapes, especially in photography, underscore the reversibility of sand and cement in Japan (Narahashi, Ono), as well as the dereliction of Cuban beach architecture and American industrial harbors (Morales, Sekula). In art as in criticism, the waterfront stages gender and class crossings (Dumont) and tangles fields. The afterword thereby weaves the major threads of the special issue: textures, labor, and ruins; social mobility and migration; marine life, geological time, and the history of sensation.


Traditional azimuth-elevation ("az-el") stages are used to point a variety of devices ranging from large optical telescopes to tank guns. Such a stage typically has an elevation stage having a horizontal axis mounted on an azimuth stage with a vertical axis. Both stages are often motorized. Optical communications transceivers often require two-axis motorized control, as when the communications link is between a ground station and an aircraft or satellite. In such applications, the traditional azimuth-elevation stage has two important drawbacks: a gimbal lock exclusion zone at zenith and susceptibility to pointing errors caused by backlash. Az-el stages in which the azimuth stage cannot rotate a full 360deg have the additional drawback of an azimuth exclusion zone. The diagonal-axes stage described here mitigates or eliminates all of these problems. Instead of one vertical axis and one horizontal axis, a diagonal-axes stage has two horizontal axes, both oriented at 45 to the trajectory of the target. For example, a ground station located on the equator tracking a satellite with an equatorial orbit would have one axis parallel to northeast and southwest, and the other axis parallel to northwest and southeast. The diagonal-axes stage is considerably less vulnerable to backlash. If it is correctly oriented, its axes rotate in only one direction during an overhead pass by a satellite. As a result, the effects of backlash may be inherently eliminated. If the gravity-induced torque on either axis changes during the pass, then backlash may become important during the part of the pass where the gravity torque, instead of opposing the motion of the stage, pushes the stage in the direction of motion. This can result in the loss of gear-to-gear contact in one or more stages of the gear reduction mechanism. In this case, a preload spring used to eliminate backlash need only be sufficiently strong to overcome the gravity torque, i.e. it need not overcome friction in the gear train. The diagonal-axes stage is not backlash-free for arbitrary target trajectories such as an aircraft might execute. If properly oriented for any particular satellite, however, it is backlash-free for all passes of that satellite, which will trace out parallel paths on the sky, and for all passes of any other satellite that are perpendicular to the first. It will also be backlash-free for some fraction of other satellite trajectories.


The ASCAT instrument onboard MetOp is a real aperture vertically polarized C-band radar with high radiometric stability. It has two sets of three fixed fan beam antennas, each set pointing at either side of the sub-satellite track. Because of the similarities of both the ERS (scatterometer) and ASCAT measurement systems, we have the opportunity to use the ERS geophysical model function (GMF) as a calibration tool for ASCAT. A method, based on the visualization of the 3-dimensional measurement space, will be used to determine and remove beam-to-beam biases and verify the GMF. This work is expected to contribute to the ASCAT calibration activities during the commissioning phase. As such, a calibration report will be delivered by the end of such phase. After calibration and in order to improve the interpretation of the ASCAT data, the effect of a variety of geophysical parameters, such as wind variability or wave age, will be investigated. For such purpose, the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) magnitude and sign and the ASCAT-derived winds will be compared against numerical model output. A final report, which will also include the calibration results, will be delivered at the end of the project.


Abstract The widely distributed genus Codium is a major component of the marine macroalgal flora and has its largest species diversity in warm-temperate regions. Along the South coast of Australia, Codium is a diverse group, but the species diversity in the easternmost region of Victoria is not well-documented. In this study, we characterized the species diversity of Codium from Croajingolong National Park, Gabo Island Lighthouse Reserve and Cape Howe Marine National Park. The specimens were collected from a wide range of microhabitats during an expedition of the Bush Blitz program, and Codium species were delimited through a combination of molecular analyses of the chloroplast markers tufA and rbcL, and morphological observations. Six species-level clusters were found, corresponding to the native C. australicum, C. harveyi, C. lucasii.1 and C. fragile subsp. novae-zelandiae; and the exotic C. fragile subsp. fragile and C. tenue. The specimens of C. australicum showed variability in the architecture of the thallus that was attributed to the different habitats where they were collected. The utricles of C. harveyi were unusual in having a thick apical cell wall that protruded inwards and had internal projections. The species found in eastern Victoria are typical of the Flindersian and Peronian biogeographic provinces, and the low diversity of Codium species in this region is comparable to that of New South Wales.


Canada—and Ontario, in particular—is proud to be characterized as one of the most equitable education systems in the world. However, diversity poses unique challenges for Canadian education systems. This study presents findings from an environmental scan of equity policies across the 72 school boards in Ontario, which yielded 785 equity policies for analysis. Data extraction focused on five dimensions of knowledge mobilization:structures, brokering, co-production, dissemination, and exchange. Findings show that many topics remain under-represented in school board policy coverage, including religious accommodation, antiracism and ethno-cultural discrimination, anti-discrimination procedures for LGBTQ2+ students, gender identity, and socio-economic status.


An accurate cost estimate not only plays a key role in project feasibility studies but also in achieving a final successful outcome. Conventionally, estimating cost typically relies on the experience of professionals and cost data from previous projects. However, this process is complex and time-consuming, and it is challenging to ensure the accuracy of the estimates. In this study, the bivariate and multivariate transfer function models were adopted to estimate and forecast the building costs of two types of residential buildings in New Zealand: Low-rise buildings and high-rise buildings. The transfer function method takes advantage of the merits of univariate time series analysis and the power of explanatory variables. In the dynamic project conduction environment, simply including building cost data in the cost forecasting models is not valid for making predictions, because the change in demand must be considered. Thus, the time series of house prices and work volume were used to explain exogenous effects in the transfer function model. To demonstrate the effectiveness of transfer function models, this study compared the results generated by the transfer function models with autoregressive integrated moving average models. According to the forecasting performance of the models, the proposed approach achieved better results than autoregressive integrated moving average models. The proposed method can provide accurate cost estimates that can help stakeholders in project budget planning and management strategy making at the early stage of a project.


Medical and dietetic students often co-author a column for the Daily Reflector under Dr. Kolasa's byline. The students research the topic a reader or patient has asked. Dr. Kolasa reviews their draft for technical accuracy, patient friendly language, people first language. She fact checks the study or other evidence-based reference the student provides. If a physician review is appropriate, Dr. Kolasa requests a colleague from ECU physicians to review the article. The final draft is submitted to the Reflector with the editor having the final say. The headline is written by the Reflector headline writer. The food and nutrition column has run weekly since 1987. Starting in 2020, in addition to the Daily Reflector, the article is published in daily and weekly papers owned by the Adams Publishing Group East (https://adamspg.com)


Infant directed speech (IDS) has different characteristics than adult directed speech (ADS). Studies of acoustic-phonetic aspects of IDS show, by measures of the first two formant frequencies, that vowels have more extreme articulations in IDS than ADS (Burnham, Kitamura & Vollmer-Conna, 2002; Kuhl, Andruski, Chistovich, Chistovich, Kozhevnikova, Ryskina, Stolyarova, Sundberg, Lacerda, 1997; Bernstein Ratner, 1984). Research has shown that stop consonants are articulated with a shorter VOT in IDSt han in ADS (Sundberg & Lacerda, 1999; Malsheen, 1980). In addition, Sundberg (1998) propose that IDS contains adaptations to the infant's development. An experimental setting may not convey natural IDS. In addition, no studies have been made of the acoustic-phonetic content of Norwegian IDS. In a longitudinal production study using a natural interactive setting with 10 recordings per infant over a period of six months, recordings were made of mothers alone with their infants (IDS) and in adult conversations (ADS). Both to accommodate the families that participated in the study and to secure a natural setting for the productions, both IDS and ADS recordings were made in the participants' homes. An IDS recording was typically made in the bathroom when the mother changed infants' nappies and a typical ADS recording was made in the living room during a conversation between the mother and the experimenter. From words within these productions, segments were selected from both ADS and IDS recordings at each point in time, and acoustic analyses carried out for the vowels /a:/, /i:/ and /u:/, and their short counterparts /a/ /i/ and /u/, the voiced stop consonants /b/, /d/, /g/ and the voiceless /p/, /t/, /k/, as well as for the fricative /s/. Statistical analyses were based both on data for each segment that was merged across time points and on analyses of the change in acoustic-phonetic attributes of segments between different points in time.Repeated measures analyses show Norwegian IDS from a natural setting to be different than results from comparable previous research. In Norwegian IDS, formant frequencies in back vowels show that articulation of the back vowels /a:/, /a/, /u:/ and /u/ are articulated more front compared to ADS, while the front vowel quality /i:/-/i/ does not differ between speech types. For vowels, only the difference in duration between IDS and ADS changed over time, but duration was nonetheless longer in IDS than ADS throughout the six months. In addition, also contrary to previous research (Sundberg & Lacerda, 1999), voice onset time (VOT) in Norwegian IDS is longer than in ADS for alveolar and velar voiced and unvoiced stops as well as an unvoiced bilabial stop, but the voiced bilabial stop /p/ has a similar VOT across speech types. The results from the production study show that Norwegian IDS is different from Norwegian ADS, possibly corresponding to an enhancement of speech to infants. Further, in addition to enhancing auditory cues to the infant, IDS could contain specifications that also enhance visual cues to the infant.To address this as a possible explanation for the results from Norwegian IDS, a perception study was carried out with 23 infants from 2-8 months old. Infants' perception of audio-visually matching (congruent) or audio-visually mismatching (incongruent) syllables in ADS and IDS was tested to see whether the possible visual enhancement in IDS is important for perception of audio-visual processing. Enabling testing of infants in their homes, an adapted method with a visual fixation task was used. To obtain visual fixation time, infants were video-recorded while they were watching a video where a woman was speaking to her infant and to an adult. She articulated the CV-syllables (/pi:/, /pa:/ and /pu:/). The syllables were analysed acoustically to ensure that the vowels /a:, i:, and u:/ had the same formant frequencies for F1, F2 and F3 as the mean formant frequencies resulting from the production study. An auditory syllable (/pa:/) was either paired with the corresponding visual syllable (/pa:/) or one of the other visual syllables (/pi:/ or /pu:/) produced in the same speech type. This audio-visual matching was done for both ADS and IDS. Infants watched the resulting eighteen trials, and their visual fixation time was logged. Results from a repeated measures analysis showed that infants from 2 to 8 months old looked longer at IDS than ADS but unexpectedly longer at incongruent than congruent syllables in the study. While it is uncertain why incongruent syllables are preferred to congruent syllables, infants possibly prefer audio-visual IDS to ADS due to both auditory and visual characteristics of IDS vowels. By investigating production and perception of IDS in natural settings, the current research may be a step forth in uncovering how the characteristics of IDS may be connected to infants' perception of speech.


BACKGROUND
The importance of recruiting and retaining women from diverse populations is well recognized; however, the recruitment process often presents greater challenges at higher costs than initially anticipated.

OBJECTIVES
To describe recruitment strategies and costs from a study evaluating women's preferences regarding tamoxifen use for primary prevention of breast cancer.

DESIGN
Description and analysis of recruitment strategies, outcomes, and costs for a cross-sectional interview study.

SETTING
University hospital and community sites.

PARTICIPANTS
932 racially and ethnically diverse women respondents, of whom 771 completed the screening process (aged 27-87).

INTERVENTION
Women were recruited and screened by using the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Program (BCRA version 1, National Cancer Institute). Eligibility required an estimated five-year breast cancer risk of at least 1.7%. Recruitment goals targeted a high percentage of ethnic minorities.

METHODS
Recruitment strategies included direct mail, flyers, newspapers, media advertising, and community outreach.

RESULTS
Of the 771 screened women, 341 (44%) met eligibility criteria and 255 (33%) completed interviews (76.9% White, 10.6% Latina, 7.0% Asian, 3.9% African American, 1.6% Native American). Recruitment costs averaged US $113/screened participant. Direct mail and community contact yielded the largest number of participants (312 screened, 205 eligible). Radio advertising provided few participants (one screened, one eligible) at high cost.

CONCLUSIONS
Recruiting an ethnically diverse sample presented multiple challenges. We recommend that future studies budget adequately for recruitment time and costs, develop ongoing relationships with key community leaders, evaluate recruitment strategies closely, and report detailed recruitment findings to the research community.


Background: A variant of the contingent convertible bond, first proposed in 2011, is investigated: the Call Option Enhanced Reverse Convertible (COERC). Although issued as a bond, it converts to new shareholder's equity if a bank's market share of capital falls below a pre-specified trigger point. Aim: COERCs avoid the problems with market-based triggers (e.g. sell-offs and death spirals) due to panic and market manipulation. Banks that issue COERCs have less incentive to choose investments that may be subject to large losses and disincentive problems, associated with the replenishment of shareholder's equity after market declines (also known as debt overhang) are also avoided. Setting: Proposed amendments to the COERC structure are suggested for the African market. Methods: The data used were simulated, stylised values for a standard COERC. No market parameters are required, such as equity or debt levels or market volatility. Details of the stylised example are provided in Table 4 and Table 5 in the 'results and discussion' section. Results: Both examples of floating coupons for COERCS would aid in the objective of issuing a security that is countercyclical in nature, as banks would avoid having to pay coupons in times of distress. Conclusion: In addition to the recommendations of the Basel frameworks, CoCos have been considered and proposed as an additional measure to promote counter cyclicality in terms of capital composition in banks.


An electronically switching-beam reflectarray antenna to be used in X-band has been designed, manufactured and tested, using PIN diodes as switching device. The antenna has 244 elements arranged in a circular aperture. With the aim of saving electronic devices and reducing both manufacturing complexity and cost, the phase control has been implemented at sub-array level, using aperture-coupled patches gathered by pairs to a common delay line. The antenna was designed to switch the beam between ±5°, in a scanning plane tilted 18.3° with respect to the YZ plane. Each state was obtained by forward biasing one half of the diodes, while the other half remains in reverse biasing. A third state with the beam pointing to 0° was obtained when all the diodes are in reverse biasing. The concept has been demonstrated by manufacturing and testing a breadboard. The measured radiation patterns fulfill the design requirements.


When a young woman is found unconscious at the wheel of her car, evidence at the scene suggests this was no ordinary crash. Especially when it turns out her boyfriend is the son of the Scottish Justice Minister and neither of them is willing to talk to the police. Meanwhile, John Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a big demotion and an even larger chip on his shoulder. A new law has been passed allowing the Scottish police to re-prosecute old crimes and a thirty-year-old case is being reopened, with Rebus and his team from back then suspected of corruption and worse. Known as 'the Saints', his colleagues swore a bond of mutual loyalty on something called 'the Shadow Bible'. But with Malcolm Fox as the investigating officer - and determined to use Rebus for his own ends - the crimes of the past may not stay hidden much longer. With political turmoil threatening to envelop Scotland, who really are the saints and who the sinners? And can the one ever become the other? SAINTS OF THE SHADOW BIBLE not only reaches back to the past to find out what John Rebus did, but also to discover who he really is.


In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from these union agreements, which workers are not covered anymore, and what this means for their wages. We show that about 9 percent of workers in plants with collective agreements do not enjoy individual coverage (and thus the union wage) anymore. Econometric analyses with unconditional quantile regressions and firm-fixed-effects estimations demonstrate that not being individually covered by a collective agreement has serious wage implications for most workers. Low-wage non-union workers and those at low hierarchy levels particularly suffer since employers abstain from extending union wages to them in order to pay lower wages. This jeopardizes unions' goal of protecting all disadvantaged workers.


Context: While much has been published on vesicovaginal fistula (VVF), little is known about the urinary, bowel, and sexual functional outcomes following successful anatomical closure. Aims: We assessed the medium- to long-term urological, sexual, and bowel function outcomes following the successful anatomical closure of VVF. Patients and Methods: We conducted interviews with 36 women (median age – 47.5 years) who had successful anatomical closure of their VVF (28 vaginally and 8 abdominally) with a median of 40.5 months earlier. All completed validated questionnaires on urinary (Urogenital Distress Inventory-6 [UDI-6] and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire-7 [IIQ-7]), bowel (low anterior resection syndrome [LARS] score), and overall function (EQ5D). Sexually active patients completed the pelvic organ prolapse/ urinary incontinence sexual questionnaire (PISQ-12). All women also completed these questionnaires retrospectively for their status immediately before VVF repair. Functional outcomes were compared with preoperative function, and outcomes of those women having vaginal repair were compared with those having abdominal repair. Statistical analysis was by Student's t-test and Mann–Whitney U-test. Results: Median UDI-6 and IIQ-7 scores (low score is better) reduced significantly (P ≤ 0.01) from 16.5 and 25.5 preoperatively to 4 and 2.5 postclosure. Median LARS score was not significantly altered. Sexual function was restored in 67.6% while overall function postclosure was good (PISQ12 – low score better). Both EQ5D (low score better) and health thermometer (high score better) medians were significantly improved (P < 0.01) from 9 and 25 to 6 and 75 postclosure, respectively. There was no significant difference in the medium- to long-term outcomes of women who had had vaginal repair of their VVF and those who had had abdominal repair. Conclusions: Successful repair of VVF results in medium- to long-term significant improvement in urinary symptoms and distress, general well-being, and quality of life with no long-term adverse effects on bowel function regardless of route of repair. Sexual function is restored in 67.6%.


Eirik Samuelsen, senior meteorologist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (Met) and UiT The Arctic University of Norway, discusses the importance of citizen science to current meteorology in Norway. Amateurs contribute to the improvement of weather forecasts in various ways, from anecdotic but valuable feedback on errors in the forecast to a large network of private weather stations providing precious data for the free-to-use weather service www.yr.no. Besides yr.no as such, which is maintained by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), there is mention of Eiriks værblogg (Eirik's weather blog) on Facebook, the network of Netatmo Weather Stations, the open database of meteorological models and weather data thredds.met.no, and the project Smart Senja.
First published online September 23, 2020.


BACKGROUND
The optimal method of vascular control and resuscitation in patients with life-threatening, extrathoracic torso hemorrhage remains debated. Guidelines recommend emergency department thoracotomy (EDT) with aortic clamping, although transabdominal aortic clamping followed by vascular control and direct vascular control (DVC) without aortic clamping are alternatives. The objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness of three approaches to extrathoracic torso hemorrhage in a large animal model.

METHODS
Adolescent swine (Sus Scrofa) (mean weight = 80.9 kg) were randomized into three groups all of which had class IV shock established by hemorrhage from an iliac artery injury. Group 1: EDT with thoracic aortic clamping (N = 6); group 2: transabdominal supraceliac aortic clamping (SCC; N = 6); and group 3: DVC of bleeding site without aortic clamping (N = 6). After hemorrhage, EDT or SCC was performed in groups 1 and 2, respectively, with subsequent exploration of the bleeding site and placement of a temporary vascular shunt (TVS). Group 3 (DVC) underwent direct exploration of the injury and placement of a TVS. All groups were resuscitated to predefined physiologic endpoints over 6 hours with repeated measures of central and cerebral perfusion and end-organ function at standardized time points. Postmortem tissue analysis was performed to quantify injury to critical tissue beds.

RESULTS
There was no difference in mortality among the groups and no TVS failures. Central aortic pressure, carotid flow, and partial pressure brain tissue oximetry, all demonstrated increases in EDT and SCC after application of the aortic clamp relative to DVC (p < 0.05). During resuscitation, serum lactate levels were higher in EDT compared with SCC and DVC (6.85 vs. 3.08 and 2.15, respectively; p < 0.05) and serum pH in EDT reflected greater acidosis than SCC and DVC (7.24 vs. 7.36 and 7.39, respectively; p < 0.05). EDT and SCC required more intravenous fluid than DVC (2,166 mL and 2,166 mL vs. 667 mL, respectively; p < 0.05) and more vasopressors were used in EDT and SCC compared with DVC (52.1 μg and 43.5 μg vs. 12.4 μg, respectively; p < 0.05). Brain and myocardial tissue stains demonstrated the same degree of acute ischemic changes in all groups.

CONCLUSION
Although aortic clamping increases central and cerebral perfusion, DVC results in less physiologic derangement. The optimal method of aortic control would incorporate the benefits of maintained central pressure with less associated morbidity. Clinical studies evaluating DVC are warranted.


Alcohol abuse is a problem in South Africa and it has negative effects on the wellbeing of individuals, families, friends, work associates and neighbours. Alcohol produces both psychological and physical dependence. Gillies (1999:112) indicated that alcoholism usually interferes with the ability to socialize, work and may lead to much other destructive behaviour. It was further stated that people who are addicted to alcohol often have a low self-esteem, immaturity, are easily frustrated, and have difficulty in solving personal problems. This study investigated the perceptions of community members towards youth abusing alcohol and identified, among others, anti-social behaviour, poor interpersonal relationships, family disorganization, poor integration with family members and physical damage as the major concerns. An attempt was also made to develop strategies that can be used to overcome the problems of alcohol abuse by youth. Design and Method: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was followed in this study for the participants to describe their perceptions regarding the phenomenon in question (Brink, 2006:113). Data were collected through individual unstructured interviews in one village of the Capricorn District of the Limpopo Province. The researchers employed the principles of Guba and Lincoln (1993) cited in De Vos (1998:331) relating to trustworthiness and adhered to the ethical standards as set by the Democratic Nurses Association of South Africa (DENOSA, 1998:2.3.2). Findings: Five themes and seven categories emerged from the data analysis, using Tech's open coding approach (1990), as outlined in De Vos (1998:343), namely, antisocial behaviour, poor interpersonal behaviour, physical damage, poor progress in life processes and effects of alcohol on the body. To address the problem of alcohol abuse by youth in one village (the study area) of the Capricorn District in the Limpopo Province and other villages the study recommends that educational and recreational facilities and the formation of youth structures should be established.


Background: Olfactory dysfunction in patients with allergic rhinitis has long been thought to be secondary to coexisting chronic rhinosinusitis and polyposis with obstruction of airflow over the olfactory epithelium. Recent evidence suggests that the allergic inflammatory infiltrate may itself affect olfaction in the absence of mucosal hypertrophy. Objective: We undertook a study to determine olfactory function in patients with allergic rhinitis in the presence and absence of chronic sinusitis. Methods: Fifty-one subjects with symptoms of rhinitis who presented for allergy testing were administered the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test. In addition each patient underwent computed tomography (CT) scanning of the sinuses. Results: Eighty percent of subjects were allergic. Subjects with allergic rhinitis and no evidence of sinusitis scored on average in the 30th percentile (95% CI 20–40th percentile) on objective olfactory testing compared to age- and gender-specific norms. Half the allergic patients were classified as normosmic, while half had some degree of hyposmia. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that even in the absence of mucosal disease on CT scan, a significant subset of patients with allergic rhinitis will exhibit hyposmia, mostly to a mild or moderate degree. The pathophysiology and potential treatments for olfactory loss in these patients should be further explored.


Square Viger was designed as an opulent and lush Victorian park in the mid- nineteenth century for the use of nearby wealthy residents. The park had trees lining promenades, benches, fountains, and a glass greenhouse. Over time, the influx of industry brought more working class citizens to the Ville-Marie borough and pushed the bourgeoisie to other areas in the early twentieth century. Historians of Montreal's built environment mark this change in demographic as the decline of the park. Since then the park has undergone drastic redevelopment due to changes in transportation infrastructure. Sculptor Charles Daudelin (1920-2001) redesigned the site and built the Agora in 1983, but his designs were met with animosity from the media and the public the site was intended for.
Using archival research, interviews with artists, and site analysis, this thesis investigates the Agora's appropriation by homeless groups and individuals and the artistic interventions the site has also incurred. Square Viger is a telling example of Montreal's push for modernization but is also an indication of the large-scale redevelopment projects that have taken place on the island. In March 2012, Square Viger has been defined as a threatened emblematic site by Heritage Montreal and its redevelopment looms in the very near future. With this redevelopment, I believe the social-cultural and design heritage of the site and the Agora will be forgotten. With this research, I present a methodologically inclusive investigation into this fraught public space and its values as a space for appropriation, community, and artistic practice.


Can a photograph demonstrate, reveal or prove what really happened? Certainly a photograph shows something that once existed. But does that mean that it is always 'the truth'? Crime Scenes | A Hundred Years of Photographic Evidence is the first exhibition ever to show how photography has been used as visual evidence. From Alphonse Bertillon's metrical photographs, used in early twentieth-century murder cases, right through to the reconstruction of drone attacks in Pakistan in 2012, Crime Scenes presents eleven case studies illustrating the use of photography as legal evidence over the past century.

The case studies relate to legal cases dating from between 1900 and the present day. They concern matters such as crime, war, political history and present-day conflicts and feature issues of major humanitarian importance and/or relevance to international law. Together, they illustrate the attempts made to use photographs as legal evidence. Police photographs, records of mass graves, aerial photographs and satellite images: all have been used to identify the perpetrators or victims of crime.

Crime Scenes offers fascinating insights into the way the courts have viewed photography over time. First used by the justice system in the late 19th century, almost as soon as the medium became available, photography was seen as an objective means of establishing the truth. Fairly soon, however, it became clear that photographs could not be regarded as conclusive proof, but must always be viewed in the context of witness statements and other oral or written evidence. The rise of digital technologies has made it even harder to assess the value of photography as evidence in legal cases.

Each of the eleven case studies has been curated by a specialist researcher or forensic expert and features a wide range of historical material. The exhibition starts with the metrical photography of French police photographer Alphonse Bertillon, used in the early twentieth century to record crime scenes and presented in court as supporting evidence for the prosecution. It goes on to examine the controversial photographic history of the Turin Shroud, portraits of citizens condemned to death during Stalin's Great Purge, and the research done by Richard Helmer, who superimposed photographs of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele over those of an unidentified skull to demonstrate that the remains concerned were indeed those of Mengele. The exhibition ends with the 2012 drone attacks in the inaccessible Pakistani region of Waziristan, a case in which the circumstances of the attacks were successfully established through an analysis of satellite images and video material.

Curated by Diane Dufour/ Le bal with Luce Lebart, Christian Delage and Eyal Weizman in collaboration with Jennifer L. Mnookin, Anthony Petiteau, Tomasz Kizny , Thomas Keenan and Eric Stover


Problem statement: Security Management has become a critical aspect for large scale distributed systems. Particularly, recent Distributed Intrusion Detection Systems (DIDS) schemes in High Speed Networks (HSN) have raised new serious management problems and challenges. Increasing the effectiveness of IDS monitoring is primordial to satisfy the restrictive constraints in such large multi-domains environment for narrow context of HSN. Approach: We consider the intrusion detection monitoring as a two facets entity: one at local level (single domain) and another at the global one (multi-domains). Through the local level, evolution of single domain intrusion detection process (vulnerability data collection, alert generation and sensor configuration according to some improvement scenarios) can be monitored. The global level represents evolution of multi-domain intrusion detection process as well as the eventual security defending process through overall network (policy generation, load balancing operations and global alert correlation). Differentiating these two facets, leads to the design of a scalable intrusion detection management solution. Results: The effectiveness of DIDS management in HSN had been studied and an IDS scalable monitoring architecture for multi-domains had been proposed. Several scenarios of Snort IDS showed an improvement on the performance of real-time detection. An integration of a set of tools provided a convivial IDS monitoring platform. Conclusion: To satisfy the constraints of Intrusion detection process in term of real-time and efficiency in HSN we need to monitor efficiently the IDS process. In this context, the management framework outlined is more appropriate, convenient and efficient. The herein proposed architecture, the snort IDS improvement techniques and the integrated platform played a crucial role in improving of IDS real-time monitoring.


We study the problem of preserving user privacy in the publication of location sequences. Consider a database of trajectories, corresponding to movements of people, captured by their transactions when they use credit cards, RFID debit cards, or NFC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication) compliant devices. We show that, if such trajectories are published exactly (by only hiding the identities of persons that followed them), one can use partial trajectory knowledge as a quasi-identifier for the remaining locations in the sequence. We devise four intuitive techniques, based on combinations of locations suppression and trajectories splitting, and we show that they can prevent privacy breaches while keeping published data accurate for aggregate query answering and frequent subsets data mining.


Microblogging networks have gained popularity in recent years as a platform enabling expressions of human emotions, through which users can conveniently produce contents on public events, breaking news, and/or products. Subsequently, microblogging networks generate massive amounts of data that carry opinions and mass sentiment on various topics. Herein, microblogging is regarded as a useful platform for detecting and propagating new hot events. It is also a useful channel for identifying high-quality posts, popular topics, key interests, and high-influence users. The existence of noisy data in the traditional social media data streams enforces to focus on human-centric computing. This paper proposes a human-centric social computing (HCSC) model for hot-event detection and propagation in microblogging networks. In the proposed HCSC model, all posts and users are preprocessed through hypertext induced topic search (HITS) for determining high-quality subsets of the users, topics, and posts. Then, a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)-based multiprototype user topic detection method is used for identifying users with high influence in the network. Furthermore, an influence maximization is used for final determination of influential users based on the user subsets. Finally, the users mined by influence maximization process are generated as the influential user sets for specific topics. Experimental results prove the superiority of our HCSC model against similar models of hot-event detection and information propagation.


The impact of myofascial release technique alone has not been investigated in the patients with non-specific chronic neck pain. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of myofascial release technique on pain, disability, the maximum contraction of isometric extensor muscles of neck and pressure pain threshold in the patient with non-specific chronic neck pain compared with control group. In this clinical, randomized, double-blind trial, the patients with non-specific chronic neck pain have been entered the study by the available sampling method and have been located randomly into two groups of myofascial release therapy group, and control group. Pressure pain threshold, pain intensity, disability and isometric power of neck extensor muscles before and after intervention were registered through pressure algometer, visual analogue scale, neck disability index, and pressure biofeedback. The treatment was performed for 4 sessions and each session for 20 minutes. The paired t-tests and independent t-test were used for within group and between group comparison respectively. Comparing the mean of pain intensity, pressure pain threshold, neck disability index in the intervention group compared with control group showed significant reduction (P 0.05). Myofascial Release is one of the effective manual therapy techniques in reducing pain, disability, improving the isometric extension strength of neck in patients with nonspecific chronic neck pain.


Participation in collective action is frequently studied through a community-based analysis, with focus on the social features of the participants and on the ecological features of the managed system. This study addresses the importance of scaling down to household level to understand different individual incentives to collaborate (or not) as well as scaling up to the landscape level to evaluate the ecological outcome of the local forms of collective action. We report on a study of a riparian community of 33 households in the Lower Amazon located between two distinct ecosystems - a privately owned upland forest and a communally owned floodplain. Household-based analysis uncovers how heterogeneity within the community leads to different incentives for participation in the communal floodplain, while systemic analysis reveals that interconnection between the managed ecosystem and adjacent ecosystem influences the decisions to participate as well as the ecological outcomes of the collective actions.


Ask the average American anywhere in the country to answer the association question Staten Islandand you get Ferryin immediate response. what is regularly billed as America's favorite boatride- not least because a round trip still costs an astonishing twenty-five cents- is the last public survivor of New York Harbor's once immense fleet of those doughty double-ended ferryboats. Dozens of ferryboats in a myriad of liveries crossed the harbor's waterways as recently as one generation ago Most have vanished as though they never were, leaving in their ghostly wakes only fading memories and a few gorgeously restored ferry terminals. The handsomest of these terminals, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, is probably the one dubbed by Christopher Morley the Piazza San Lackawanna. Over and Back captures definatively nearly two centuries of ferryboating in New York Harbor, by a master narrator of the history of transportation in America. In stories, charts, maps, photographs, diagrams, route lists, fleet rosters, and in the histories of some four hundred ferryboats, Brian J. Cudahy captures the whole tale as concisely as one could hope. The transportation expert, the ferry buff, the model builder, the urban historian: each will find grist for his or her mill. The photographs capture a highlt significant footnote in America's past and present; the colored illustrations prserve some of the stylish rigs in which the owners garbed their boats, despite coal soot, oil smudge, and urban grime. Fully a third of the book comprises the most complete statistical compilation that the nation's public and private archives permit. The data show, among other things, that some of the former workhorses of New York Harbor are filling utilitarian or social roles elsewhere in the United States and overseas, and that the newest boats in the harbor began life along the Gulf of Mexico and in New England.


There is disagreement as to the influence of certain microbial infection on male infertility and such agents are ignored. The incidence of these microbial agents in seminal fluid isolates is on the increase. This study therefore evaluates the prevalence of male factor infertility and contribution of microbial infection to male infertility in Kano, northern Nigeria. Seminal fluid analysis in five hundred males who were investigated for infertility was evaluated using the 5th generation SQ AII C-P sperm quality analyzer and the Neubaeur counting chamber. The result indicates that 58.2% had sperm density less than twenty million per millilitre. The oligospermic subjects (sperm density 2-19 millions/ml) were 27.6%, severe oligospermic (sperm density less than 2 million) 13.2% and azoospermia, 17.4%. Asthenospermia (motility less than 50%) decrease from 44.8% in oligospermia to 24.0% in severe oligospermia. Teratospermia (abnormal morphology greater than 50%) also deteriorated from 46.3% to 35.4% in oligospermic and severe oligospermic males respectively. Seminal fluid infection increases with decreasing sperm density, motility and morphology. The prevalence of abnormal sperm indices and bacterial infection is high and Staphylococcus aureus infection should be treated and no longer ignored in the management of male factor infertility.


Objectives: This article examines the challenges for health technology assessment (HTA) in the light of new developments of personalized health care, focusing on European HTA perspectives. Methods: Using the example of the Integrated Genome Research Network – Mutanom (IG Mutanom) project, with focus on personalized cancer diagnostics and treatment, we assess the scope of current HTA and examine it prospectively in the context of the translation of basic and clinical research into public health genomics and personalized health care. Results: The approaches developed within the IG-Mutanom project are based on innovative technology potentially providing targeted therapies for cancer; making translation into clinical practice requires a novel course of action, however. New models of HTA are needed that can account for the unique types of evidence inherent to individualized targeted therapies. Using constructive health technology assessment (CTA) models is an option, but further suitable models should be developed. Conclusions: Integrative, systems biology-based approaches toward personalized medicine call for novel assessment methods. The translation of their highly innovative technologies into the practice of health care requires the development of new HTA concepts.


Wood is a pure, sustainable, renewable material. The increasing use of wood for construction can improve its sustainability. There are various techniques to assemble multi-layer wooden panels into prefabricated, load-bearing construction elements. However, comparative market and economy studies are still scarce. In this study, the following assembling techniques were compared: laminating, nailing, stapling, screwing, stress laminating, doweling, dovetailing, and wood welding. The production costs, durability, and ecological considerations were presented. This study was based on reviews of published works and information gathered from 27 leading wood product manufacturing companies in six European countries. The study shows that the various techniques of assembling multi-layer wooden construction panel elements are very different. Cross laminated timber (CLT) exhibited the best results in terms of cost and durability. With regard to ecological concerns, dovetailing is the best. Taking into account both durability and ecological considerations, wooden screw-doweling is the best. These alternatives give manufacturers some freedom of choice regarding the visibility of surfaces and the efficient use of lower-quality timber. CLT is the most cost-effective, is not patented, and is a well-established option on the market today.


The objective of this study was to determine the effects of the long-term feeding of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) on laying hen performance, egg fertility and hatchability of fertile eggs of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). One hundred and sixty 7-day old Japanese quail chicks were randomly assigned to four groups (40 birds per group) and fed for five weeks on a commercial diet supplemented with either 0.5% hazelnut (Group A), 0.5% sunflower oil (Group B), 0.25% CLA (Group C) or 0.5% CLA (Group D). The birds received water and feed ad libitum during the study. At the end of the five weeks the birds were sexed, and 21 females and seven males from each group were selected. For a further six weeks these selected birds were fed a layer diet supplemented with their respective sources of oil. Eggs were collected daily and incubated weekly. The fertility rate was determined by visual inspection at the end of the incubation period. Dietary CLA at the inclusion level of 0.5%, but not at 0.25%, caused a significant decrease in percentage hatchability of the fertile eggs compared to Groups A and B. Hatchability of fertile eggs from Groups A, B, C and D was 74, 80, 72 and 70, respectively. Fertility rates between Groups A, B, C and D did not differ significantly, and were 64.4, 56.4, 66.0 and 62.8%, respectively. Hen-day egg production of Groups A, C and D were similar, but in weeks 3, 4, 5 and 6, hens in Group B had a significantly lower hen-day egg production (%) compared to Group A. Also, in weeks 3, 4, 5 and 6, egg size in Group B was significantly lower than that in the other groups. From this study it is concluded that dietary CLA at inclusion levels of 0.25% or 0.5% did not influence egg fertility, egg weight and egg production in Japanese quail. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 36(2) 2006: 99-104


Abstract. South Korea is planning to launch the GEMS (Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer) instrument into the GeoKOMPSAT (Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose SATellite) platform in 2018 to monitor tropospheric air pollutants on an hourly basis over East Asia. GEMS will measure backscattered UV radiances covering the 300–500 nm wavelength range with a spectral resolution of 0.6 nm. The main objective of this study is to evaluate ozone profiles and stratospheric column ozone amounts retrieved from simulated GEMS measurements. Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) Level 1B radiances, which have the spectral range 270–500 nm at spectral resolution of 0.42–0.63 nm, are used to simulate the GEMS radiances. An optimal estimation-based ozone profile algorithm is used to retrieve ozone profiles from simulated GEMS radiances. Firstly, we compare the retrieval characteristics (including averaging kernels, degrees of freedom for signal, and retrieval error) derived from the 270–330 nm (OMI) and 300–330 nm (GEMS) wavelength ranges. This comparison shows that the effect of not using measurements below 300 nm on retrieval characteristics in the troposphere is insignificant. However, the stratospheric ozone information in terms of DFS decreases greatly from OMI to GEMS, by a factor of ∼2. The number of the independent pieces of information available from GEMS measurements is estimated to 3 on average in the stratosphere, with associated retrieval errors of ~1% in stratospheric column ozone. The difference between OMI and GEMS retrieval characteristics is apparent for retrieving ozone layers above ~20 km, with a reduction in the sensitivity and an increase in the retrieval errors for GEMS. We further investigate whether GEMS can resolve the stratospheric ozone variation observed from high vertical resolution Earth Observing System (EOS) Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). The differences in stratospheric ozone profiles between GEMS and MLS are comparable to those between OMI and MLS below ~3 hPa (~40 km), except with slightly larger biases and larger standard deviations by up to 5%. At pressure altitudes above ~3 hPa, GEMS retrievals show strong influence of a priori and large differences with MLS, which, however, can be sufficiently improved by using better a priori information. The GEMS-MLS differences show negative biases of less than 4% for stratospheric column ozone, with standard deviations of 1–3%, while OMI retrievals show similar agreements with MLS except for 1% smaller biases at middle and high latitudes. Based on the comparisons, we conclude that GEMS will measure tropospheric ozone and stratospheric ozone columns with accuracy comparable to that of OMI and ozone profiles with slightly worse performance than that of OMI below ~3 hPa.


Intuition is a phenomenon widely acknowledged within psychological therapy, and yet it remains poorly understood. Historically its subjective and nonrational
nature has prevented it from entering into mainstream psychological research, and to date studies of the phenomenon have concentrated on; proving the existence of intuition, anecdotal or descriptive accounts, and the
measurement of accuracy. Research attempting to provide a comprehensive understanding of the process of intuition within the therapeutic dyad, and a theory of how information arrives in the unconscious mind of the therapist, is sparse. An argument is put forward for the importance of pursuing research in this area.
Using grounded theory and unstructured interviewing of experienced practitioners, this study explores the emergence and process of intuition in the therapeutic dyad. A case is made for the importance of recognising the
contributions of the advances in the study of neuroscience and for considering the intersubjective nature of the therapeutic process in understanding the phenomenon. Using examples from participants it explores their subjective experiences and offers a theory of intuition as a
non-conscious process, emerging between client and therapist, and experienced on a physiological, affective and cognitive level. Furthermore it suggests that intuition might be understood as a convergence of many systems and that this may be best explained through an application of
complexity theory. The limitations of the study are discussed and suggestions are put forward for future research.
Lastly the implications of this study are discussed from the viewpoint of clinical practice and the training of practitioners, and the importance of the acceptance of the process of intuition as a natural and integral process within the therapeutic relationship is explored.