Hydrogen sulphide is a toxicant naturally produced in hypoxic marine sediments, hydrocarbon and brine seeps and hydrothermal vents. The California killifish, a salt marsh resident, is remarkably tolerant of sulphide. The 50% lethal concentration is 700 μM total sulphide in 96 h, and 5 mM in 8 h (determined in flow-through, oxygenated sea water). Killifish exposed to sulphide produce thiosulphate which accumulates in the blood. The cytochrome c oxidase (a major site of toxicity) of the killifish is 50% inhibited by <1 μM sulphide. Killifish liver mitochondria are poisoned by 50–75 μM sulphide but can oxidize 10–20 μM sulphide to thiosulphate. Sulphide causes sulphhaemoglobin formation (and impairment of oxygen transport) at 1–5 mM in vitro and to a small extent at 2 mM in vivo. Killifish blood neither catalyses sulphide oxidation significantly nor binds sulphide at environmental (low) sulphide concentrations. Exposure to 200 μM and 700 μM sulphide over several days causes significant increases in lactate concentrations, indicating shift to anaerobic glycolysis. However, individuals with the most lactate die. In terms of diffusible H2S, the killifish can withstand concentrations two to three orders of magnitude greater than would poison cytochrome c oxidase. The high sulphide tolerance of the killifish, particularly of concentrations typical of salt marshes, can be explained chiefly by mitochondrial sulphide oxidation. Sulphide tolerance and mitochondrial sulphide oxidation in the killifish have a constitutive basis, i.e. do not diminish in fish held in the laboratory in sulphide-free water for 1–2 months, and are improved by prior acclimation.


The characteristics of fibrous veins of gypsum and other minerals are described and it is concluded that the growth of the fibres kept pace with the dilation of the veins because fluid pressures were in excess of lithostatic pressures but less than the combined lithostatic pressures and tensile strengths of the fibres. Crystallization in the regions of greatest tensile strain in the fibres would be promoted by the greater probability of atoms being accommodated in the crystal structure. The free energy associated with the crystal dislocations which are likely to be concentrated in these regions would contribute to the crystallization process and allow it to proceed at very low levels of supersaturation. Crystallization during tensile strain explains the common occurrence of strain effects such as undulose extinction and dislocation planes in fibrous crystals. It is suggested that polycrystalline aggregates may deform under triaxial stress by pressure solution of the grains on planes approximately perpendicular to the direction of greatest stress and simultaneous crystallization of elongate crystals in the direction of maximum extension from the points of concentrated tensile strain. Tensile strain crystallization may be an important mechanism in the development of penetrative preferred orientations in metamorphic rocks.


Clastic sediments, particularly shale, exhibit transverse isotropic properties with the symmetric axis perpendicular to bedding (VTI). These anisotropic rock properties are important in seismic imaging, prestack seismic analysis, and reservoir characterization. Laboratory tests are the main techniques used in measuring rock anisotropic properties. Vertical seismic profiling (VSP) and seismic refraction are the in-situ techniques used to determine anisotropic parameters. All of these methods provide significant insight to the anisotropic properties of the subsurface. However, limitations exist in the applications of these methods because of cost issues and restrictions on the number of measurements that can be conducted. Therefore, new techniques that are cost effective, easy to use, and able to measure continuous anisotropic profiles are desirable. This paper describes a methodology which involves the use of conventional rock properties to derive anisotropic rock properties.


Stream sediment geochemistry remains a versatile tool in exploration
especially in regions where knowledge of the primary mineralization is lacking
and the exploration activities are still at reconnaissance stage. In this
study, we investigate the concentrations of gold and associated elements in
stream sediment samples from the Vaimba-Lidi drainage system in northern
Cameroon; a relatively remote area where alluvial gold is worked locally, and
exploration activities are at early stage. The main river and its principal
first and second order tributaries were sampled, panned for gold grain recovery
and the 100 μm size fraction analyzed for Au by fire assay with Ni finish. A
suite of other elements were analyzed for by inductively coupled plasma mass
spectrometry (ICP-MS). Gold grades estimated by the panning and weighing technique
rarely exceed1 g/t
while the Au concentrations from chemical analysis range from 3.0 to 354.0 ppm.
The spatial distribution of gold and all the other elements are presented as
point symbol maps and the data analyzed using multivariate statistics. From the
principal component analysis (PCA), the As-Mo-W-Ag as well as the Au-Zn factors
point to the presence of primary hydrothermal gold-sulphide mineralization in
the area and this can be further investigated. These results highlight the
importance of multielement analysis and multivariate statistical interpretation
of sediment geochemical data in inferring the nature of the underlying primary
mineralization in any region.


Background and Objectives: Studies have shown that people with schizophrenia die prematurely. Antipsychotic medications and clients' lifestyle seem to be the contributing factors to excess morbidity and mortality in these clients. The objective of this study was to investigate different lifestyle parameters, diet, body mass index, smoking, and unemployment, among schizophrenic clients in Palestine. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2011 and February 2012 at the governmental primary psychiatric health care centers in Northern West Bank, Palestine. Two hundred and fifty clients were selected by a convenience sampling method and different lifestyle parameters were measured among the selected clients. Results : Regression analysis showed that smoking, obesity, and unemployment were significantly high among schizophrenia clients with the majority of clients having unhealthy lifestyles. Conclusion: The compromised health conditions of schizophrenic clients could be due to poor nutritional status and unhealthy lifestyle. These findings suggest that schizophrenic clients need nutritional follow-up as well as coaching to help them improve their lifestyle.


Some constitutional amendments are not amendments at all. They are self-conscious efforts to repudiate the essential characteristics of a constitution and to destroy its foundations. And yet we commonly identify transformative changes like these as constitutional amendments no different from others.
A radically transformative change of this sort is not a constitutional amendment. It is a constitutional dismemberment. A constitutional dismemberment is a deliberate effort to disassemble one or more of the constitution's constituent parts, whether codified or uncodified, without breaking the legal continuity that is necessary if not useful for maintaining a stable polity. Dismemberment seeks to transform the identity, the fundamental values or the architecture of the constitution.
In this Article, I introduce and theorize the phenomenon, concept, doctrine and theory of constitutional dismemberment. Drawing from jurisdictions around the world — Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Honduras, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Caribbean and the European Union — I explain how constitutional dismemberment responds to the major challenges in constitutional change today. How should constitutional designers structure the rules of constitutional change? How may political actors legally and legitimately formalize transformative changes to a constitution? Should courts review the constitutionality of constitutional amendments? And how may we redeem the foundational theory of constituent power to give it some purchase in modern constitutionalism? The theory of constitutional dismemberment offers a suite of pragmatic solutions to these enduring puzzles in the modern study of constitutional change and in the design of its procedures.


There is increasing coverage in the literature highlighting threats to online financial systems. Attacks range from the prevalent reverse social engineering technique known as phishing; where spam emails are sent to customers with links to fake websites, to Trojans that monitor a customer's account log on process that captures authentication details that are later replayed for financial gain. This ultimately results in loss of monetary funds for affected victims. As technological advances continue to influence the way society makes payment for goods and services, the requirement for more advanced security approaches for transaction verification in the online environment increases. This paper has three main purposes. The first is to detail the current threats and vulnerabilities to online financial systems and in particular online banking, from the selected literature. The second is to present the known prevention techniques for protecting against these attacks. The third is to present a conceptual model for authentication, data entry and transaction verification. It is suggested that the design adds another layer of security to existing methods to either prevent a MitM attack or to make the procedure of capturing and reassembling customer log on and transaction details more computationally and time intensive than what it is worth to an attacker. The model is based on a graphical authentication application previously developed called Authentigraph.


In the development and evaluation of virtual acoustic displays, the relative importance of factors such as head movement, listener‐specific pinna responses, and naturalness of the environment to the veridical localization of sound (including externalization) remains unclear. In this poster demonstration, the role of reverberation is explored through a series of recordings from an artificial head in a variety of acoustical environments. Specifically, several binaural recordings have been made on the acoustical mannequin KEMAR for single and multiple talker configurations in a variety of different environments and in a number of different conditions. The signals from KEMAR's microphones (Etymotic ER−1/2 in.) were amplified (ER‐11 amplifiers provided with microphones) and fed directly to a commercially available digital audio tape (DAT) machine. These recordings will be available for listening and discussion at the poster. [Work supported by NIDCD.]


There is a bourgeoning strand of academic literature dealing with the matter of corporate governance in the exchange industry. Large part of that literature investigates the reasons why exchanges modify their legal status. In particular, it tries to find a viable economic explanation to the demutualization of exchanges and the subsequent listing of major exchanges. The corporatization of exchanges would mirror the attempt to balance the vested interests of brokerage firms and outside shareholders, locals and international intermediaries, listed firms and platform users. The exchange industry has been rapidly evolving, especially during the last decade. Alongside with increasing consolidation, the exchange industry is experiencing a particular path of development moving toward a deepening of links between platforms. Such a development is a by-product of institutionalization of ownership and links platforms at an ownership level. What we are seeing are few large institutional investors holding large stakes in major exchanges exerting, the facto, a joint influence in the biggest players. We may call it as a form of soft consolidation or clustering. It becomes, therefore, interesting to delve into the implications and criticalities connected to the growing up of clusters of exchanges.


The Quebrada de los Colorados Formation, at the north end of Calchaquí Valley in Salta Province, northwest Argentina, preserves evidence of syndepositional deformation since the middle Eocene (ca. 40 Ma) that includes (1) an angular unconformity with the underlying Salta Group (Paleogene), and (2) internal unconformities and changes in vertical facies succession and provenance. Its fossil record [mammalian (notoungulates), middle Eocene] is correlatable to the Casa Grande Formation, which also unconformably overlies the Salta Group; both units record middle Eocene deformation along the eastern border of the Puna Plateau and outline previous fi rst-order mechanical heterogeneities related to the Cretaceous rift basin border. Along the western margin of the Puna, Eocene deformation coincides with thermal (magmatic arc) and mechanical (basin inversion) heterogeneities. Thus, the distribution of Eocene deformation followed an irregular pattern as a consequence of the heritage of preexisting heterogeneities.


Due to its deep location, close to the elbow joint, the supinator muscle requires special dissection skills. This fact enhanced our interest for a more accurate knowledge of the anatomical relations of the muscle with the elbow joint and with the posterior branch of the radial nerve. There are many clinical consequences of these anatomic relations, such as epicondylar impingement syndromes. There resides an open field of research on the anatomical basis of radial nerve entrapment syndromes. In 1618, Da Cortona published a clear reference to the passage of the nerve in close relation to the deeper side of the supinator muscle. All the material here presented, corresponds to careful dissection work on embalmed corpses, prepared at our dissection lab, with original techniques. The classical approach through ventral dissection demonstrates the relation between the supinator muscle arcade (Frohse) and the radial nerve, with its natural sliding adipose cushion sheath. The dorso-lateral surgical approach, allows deep dissection of the forearm muscles, in relation to the lateral epicondylar bundle, and the elbow joint capsule. Stereoscopic microscopy completed our macroscopic observations. Future histological and microscopic analysis of the nature of the supinator arcade; of the intricate relation of the supinator muscle fibers and the capsular fibers of the elbow; and also, the importance of the vascular elements of the muscle arcade and of the adipose bursa that surrounds the radial nerve, will further provide rich interesting research towards the improvement of pathogenic knowledge of the regional impingement, and compressive radial nerve syndromes.


The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative commenced during a World Health Organization (WHO) workshop in 1999. The initial goals were (i) to propose a new allergic rhinitis classification, (ii) to promote the concept of multi-morbidity in asthma and rhinitis and (iii) to develop guidelines with all stakeholders for global use in all countries and populations. ARIA ‒ disseminated and implemented in over 70 countries globally ‒ is now focusing on the implementation of emerging technologies for individualized and predictive medicine. MASK (MACVIA (Contre les MAladies Chroniques pour un VIeillissement Actif)-ARIA Sentinel NetworK) uses mobile technology to develop care pathways in order to enable the management of rhinitis and asthma by a multi-disciplinary group or by patients themselves. An App (Android and iOS) is available in 20 countries and 15 languages. It uses a visual analogue scale to assess symptom control and work productivity as well as a clinical decision support system. It is associated with an inter-operable tablet for physicians and other health care professionals. The scaling up strategy uses the recommendations of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. The aim of the novel ARIA approach is to provide an active and healthy life to rhinitis sufferers, whatever their age, sex or socio-economic status, in order to reduce health and social inequalities incurred by the disease.


The Laplacian model is the standard distribution for correlation noise estimation at the turbodecoder in Wyner-Ziv coding schemes. In practice, this hypothesis is not always satisfied and, regularly, the estimated model sensibly differs from the error distribution. In this work, we prove that using a model better fitted to the true distribution improves the performances, and we thus propose to use the more general exponential power distribution (EPD) which has never been tested in a distributed video coding context. Gains in rate-distortion over the Laplacian model are illustrated by results on several video sequences, showing that the EPD model outperforms the Laplacian one in off-line (oracle) as well as in on-line (practical implementation) modes. These results also indicate that, in some cases, the online EPD model reduces the bitrate even over the off-line Laplacian model.


In exploring the epistemology of engineering science, we propose a model of engineering. This model incorporates the goals of engineering, the approach to engineering (also called the engineering method) and the role of experience in engineering. The basis for understanding the nature of engineering science will be explored, and will be contrasted with natural science. To begin, a large-scale engineering project that was successfully completed in Ireland many years ago is discussed specifically, the development of a megalithic passage tomb as an exemplar of the engineering method in structural design, project management and aesthetics. This exemplar firmly demonstrates that engineering method existed before the development and understanding of the relevant natural science. We next contrast the nature of engineering or engineering science and natural science. This discussion will further develop the engineering model, but will contrast the philosophical differences between engineering and science. We then return to build upon the 'engineering model' through the modern day exemplar of the development of the jet engine, demonstrating that invariably multiple factors, including creative design initiatives from different sources, global, political, economic and cultural circumstance, and the passage of time contribute to the evolution and success (or failure) of large sustainable scientific and engineering projects. In conclusion, the engineering model is mapped to a philosophical model demonstrating that philosophy is as relevant to engineering as it is to other fields .


Abstract The stratigraphic record of shallow-water shoreline paleoenvironments is characterized by significant facies heterogeneity and laterally discontinuous stratal geometries. In contrast, we investigate a uniquely extensive and microstratigraphically spatially uniform interval of upper Famennian (Upper Devonian) marginal marine strata in the Rocky Mountains. This transgressive deposit (< 5 m thick) rests on a depositional sequence boundary, and is composed of a thin, discontinuous basal transgressive sandstone bed, two thin fossiliferous shale beds, and several meters of oncolite-bearing carbonate wackestone. The lower shale is a consistently thin (~ 0.1 m) bed with a fossil fauna of spinicaudatans (clam shrimp or conchostracans), which are extant, bivalved, chitinous, benthic crustaceans that live in fresh to brackish water, in ephemeral ponds, estuaries, and other shoreline settings. Isotopic data for the oncolitic unit record deposition in an epicontinental seaway with restricted circulation and locally brackish conditions. Sulfur isotope data may also reflect short-term changes in redox conditions, consistent with our interpretation of temporary hypoxia during deposition of the spinicaudatan bed, based on its faunal assemblages. The remarkably large areal extent (~ 1600 km north to south, and ~ 1000 km east to west) of this uniformly thin interval with marginal marine fauna is one of the most unusual paleoecological events of the latest Devonian in Laurentia. It is considered an artifact of exceptional depositional processes including passive transgression (i.e., little or no wave or tidal ravinement) along with rapid opportunistic takeover of habitats during transgression. The radiation, possibly associated with temporary hypoxia, was aided by the spinicaudatan reproductive strategy of numerous offspring, high growth rate, and rapid reproduction.


It is argued that the social forces of urbanization, individualism, interpersonal competition, technology, and geographical mobility have brought greater and greater numbers of strangers into people's everyday lives and have made the achievement of primary, social ties with relatives, friends, neighbors, and workmates more difficult. As a result, many are forced to satisfy their needs for sociability in less personal, less intimate, less private ways. It is proposed that sports spectating has emerged as a major urban structure where spectators come together not only to be entertained but to enrich their social psychological lives through the sociable, quasi-intimate relationships available. The changing nature of the sociability experience in America presents sport managers with interesting challenges and opportunities. A number of recommendations are offered for maximizing the gemeinschaft possibilities of sports spectating facilities. By giving greater attention to the individual and communal possibilit...


Many variables determine the quality of health care received by persons of color in the United States. Differences in disease detection, diagnosis, and management of health care outcomes in African Americans date back to slavery. There are race differences, gender differences, and epidemiological differences in the treatment of African Americans in our health care system. Diseases such as prostate and colorectal cancer, infant mortality, chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes all are very high among African Americans as compared to white Americans. The high rate of infectious diseases like Pneumonia and AIDS are consistently higher among African Americans. Contributing factors for these occurrences are a lack of regular sources for Primary care, social, financial, cultural, insurance related and linguistic barriers that increases the burden of disease and unresolved disparities in the U.S. healthcare system. Elimination of these healthcare disparities must take place in order to better manage healthcare and provide unbiased equal care and quality of life to all Americans. This article examines factors leading to healthcare disparities and identifies essential tasks to improve the quality of care received by African Americans and other racial minority groups.


For decades, the application of technology to percussion curricula has been substantially hindered by the limitations of conventional input devices. With the need for specialized percussion instruction at an all-time high, investigation of this domain can open the doors to an entirely new educational approach for percussion. This research frames the foundation of an embodied approach to percussion instruction manifested in a system called Percussive. Through the use of body-scale interactions, percussion students can connect with pedagogical tools at the most fundamental level—leveraging muscle memory, kinesthetics, and embodiment to present engaging and dynamic instructional sessions. The major contribution of this work is the exploration of how a system which uses motion-sensing to replicate the experiential qualities of drumming can be applied to existing pedagogues. Techniques for building a system which recognizes drumming input are discussed, as well as the system's application to a successful contemporary instructional model. In addition to the specific results that are presented, it is felt that the collective wisdom provided by the discussion of the methodology throughout this thesis provides valuable insight for others in the same area of research.


As a consequence of liberalization policies in the European Union (EU), a number of formerly inward-looking incumbents in telecommunications and electricity transformed themselves into some of the world's leading multinationals. The relationship between liberalization and incumbent internationalization, however, is contested. Three political economy arguments on this relationship are tested. The first claims that incumbents most exposed to domestic liberalization would internationalize most. The second asserts that incumbents operating where liberalization was restricted could exploit monopolistic rents to finance internationalization. The third argument claims that a diversity of paths will be adopted by countries and incumbents vis-à-vis liberalization and internationalization. Using correlation and cluster analysis of EU telecoms and electricity incumbent multinationals, evidence is found in favour of the third hypothesis. Internationalization as a response to liberalization took diverse forms in terms of timing and extent and this is best explained using a country, sector and firm logic.


A circularly polarized ellipsometer was developed to enable real-time measurements of the optical properties of materials. Using a four photo-detector quadrature configuration, a phase modulated ellipsometer was substantially miniaturized which has the ability to achieve a high precision detection limit. With a proven angular resolution of 0.0001 deg achieved by controlling the relative positions of a triangular prism, a paraboloidal and a spherical mirror pair, this new ellipsometer possesses a higher resolution than traditional complex mechanically controlled configurations. Moreover, the addition of an algorithm, FTA (fault tolerance algorithm) was adopted to compensate for the imperfections of the opto-mechanical system which can decrease system measurement reliability. This newly developed system requires only one millisecond or less to complete the measurement task without having to adopt any other modulation approach. The resolution achieved can be as high as 4x10(-7) RIU (refractive index unit) which is highly competitive when compared with other commercially available instruments. Our experimental results agreed well with the simulation data which confirms that our quadrature-based circularly polarized ellipsometer with FTA is an effective tool for precise detection of the optical properties of thin films. It also has the potential to be used to monitor the refractive index change of molecules in liquids.


Falls among older people are an international public health issue that requires significant attention from authorities. Around a third of people aged 65 and over experience at least one fall each year.1 Falls can lead to serious consequences, such as fractures, hospital admissions, mobility-related disability, loss of confidence and reduction in community participation. Importantly, costs related to falls are dramatically increasing worldwide.2

The previous (2009) version of this Cochrane systematic review of randomised trials3 provided evidence that the rate of falls in older people can be reduced with preventive interventions, such as exercise programmes, cataract surgery and psychoactive medication withdrawal.

This updated systematic review by Gillespie et al 4 aimed to assess the effects of interventions designed to prevent falls in older people living in the community. Different types of interventions were included, such as exercises, educational programmes, medication and surgery. The focus of this PEDro summary is on the trials evaluating exercise interventions compared to control interventions (ie, usual care and placebo intervention).

This review followed the methodology advocated by the Cochrane Collaboration. Electronic databases (the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL) and online trial registers were searched. Ongoing and unpublished trials were identified by contacting researchers …


Although prejudice researchers have mainly focused their attention on changing attitudes toward outgroups, other outcome variables may also be important. In post-conflict reconciliation, intergroup forgiveness may play a crucial role in helping groups in conflict put the atrocities of the past behind them (Cairns, Tam, Hewstone, & Niens, 2005). Two studies showed that both the specific intergroup emotion of anger and infrahumanization (the attribution of more human emotions to the ingroup than to the outgroup) predicted decreased intergroup forgiveness in Northern Ireland. Results further revealed intergroup contact as a potential means of reducing anger toward the outgroup and improving attitudes toward them. This research integrated prior interpersonal theory with intergroup literature to examine the concept of intergroup forgiveness and its predictors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for reconciliation in conflict societies.


Catches of South African sardine Sardinops sagax have declined in recent years from about 200 000 t harvested annually during the period 2002–2006 to less than 100 000 t. Consequently, some companies are now importing sardine from sources elsewhere in the world to meet local demand for canned sardine and bait. This importation has the potential for the introduction of sardine pathogens, in particular the pilchard herpesvirus (PHV), which could have a negative impact on the currently small South African sardine population. The aims of the current study were to determine whether PHV is present in the local sardine population and to assess the extent to which sardine is being imported into the country and whether imported fish are from countries where the virus is known to be endemic. Fish sampled from South Africa's western (n = 150), southern (n = 182) and eastern (n = 96) putative stocks of S. sagax were analysed for the presence of PHV using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The origin and amount of potentially infected material imported into South Africa during the period 2010–2014 was also assessed. None of the South African sardine collected during this study tested positive for PHV, suggesting that active PHV was not prevalent in the local population of S. sagax at the time of this study. Between 56 000 and 71 000 t of frozen sardine was imported annually into South Africa from countries where S. sagax occurs, including some from areas (Australia and New Zealand) where sardine infection by PHV is known to be endemic. Hence, it is plausible that the PHV pathogen, capable of perpetuating infections in local sardine populations, could be imported into South Africa along with the importation of frozen sardine. Should local sardine be naïve to the virus, as suggested by this study, then the population is at risk of infection and precautions against such must be taken.


Semiconductor facilities consume large amounts of water, most of which is used for rinsing of wafers during cleaning steps. To optimize water use, real-time and in situ monitoring of wafer cleanliness during rinsing is necessary. Yet no prior art is real-time and in situ. In this paper, we present a passive wireless sensing system capable of measuring the residual contamination on the wafers in real-time and in situ. The wireless system consists of a micromachined Electro-Chemical Residue Sensor (ECRS) and wireless transponder circuitry based on RFID technology. The ECRS measures the impurities concentration of the water inside micro-features during the rinsing processes. The sensor reading is converted to a frequency by the on-wafer transponder and remotely logged through a wireless link between two coupled inductors, while the transponder captures power from the remote RF signal: a battery-free system. A prototype system was fabricated and its frequency output was characterized by using sodium chloride solution ranging from 190 ppb to 6 ppm. The measured wireless chemical sensor system has a relative uncertainty of less than 1% in the concentration range.


Objectives To verify how class actions (known, in Brazil, as 'public civil actions'), regulated in Brazilian legal system to protect diffuse, collective and homogeneous rights, are being used to protect workers' health and safety. Methods The author identified and evaluated decisions of Brazilian Superior Court of Labour involving collective actions and work accidents. The timeframe chosen was December 2015. The online jurisprudence database was consulted in page available for public consultation on the court website. The categorization of the data was made considering the result (court application was rejected or accepted), the request type, the amount of compensation and and the author of the cause, besides knowing the reasoning used by the judges. Results The High Court issued 21,948 decisions in December 2015, with 1448 judgments (6.6%) about work accidents and only 20 (0.09%) on collective action. After analysing these 20 decisions, it was found that the judgments granted compensation for collective moral damage (85%) and/or obligation to make, that is, changes to improve prevention and safety (71%). The lawsuits have been brought by Unions (28%) or Labour Public Prosecutors (72%). The compensation for collective moral damage had average of 250,000 reais(about US$65,000). This is the last instance resource for this kind of lawsuit and all decisions were well founded and received partially the request made for the protection of the working environment. Conclusions When triggered, the labour court system provides the requested collective protection in class action. The values of convictions arbitrated in collective actions are significant and indicate that it creates social and economic repercussions, stimulating employers to improve the working environment conditions of their companies. It is necessary to intensify the use of these types of action, however, because they are more efficient for prevention than reparatory individual lawsuits, but it has been underutilised, mainly by Unions.


Very little has been contributed to the research of Sikh Architecture. Any research that does exist offers little understanding and analysis of Gurdwaras in the Diaspora. This thesis explores the design possibilities of a contemporary Gurdwara in a Canadian context. Part of living in a multi-cultural society is the synthesis of cultures, identity and values that come with each group. Little has been discussed or researched on the architecture that has been transplanted with each group. Little has been discussed or researched on the architecture that has been transplanted by the Diaspora from their homelands. Many of these religious institutions are erected in rural and urban centres. Part of this transplanted architectural movement is from the Sikh Community. The first Sikh settlers arrived in British Columbia, Canada in the 1890's. Over time this small community of Sikhs would build a temple that would become the first of many erected temples. This emerging architectural style would be a distinctive fusion of Sikh and Canadian architecture. This notion of blending of Sikhi and Canadiana would come through the symbolic gestures on the exterior facade detailing and usage of interior space within the worship place. Today, in Canada there are upwards to one hundred Sikh Temples, known as a "Gurudwara". Very little has been contributed to the research and academia on Sikh Architecture. The research that does exist offers little understanding and analysis of Gurudwaras in the Diaspora. This paper explores the state of design and history of the Gurdwara(s) in a Canadian context. Some of the key difficulties in understanding the Sikh Diaspora architecture are: what constitutes a religious place of worship? How does a Sikh Gurdwara manifest in a contemporary Diaspora form? What is the architectural definition of a Gurdwara as it pertains to semiotics? Caught between a struggle with their new homeland - Canada - and their native soil of the Province of Punjab, Sikhs search to find a Canadian Diaspora identity. This disengagement can be connected with examining the historical and present state of Gurdwaras in Canada. The discourse of contemporary Canadian Sikh identity is clearly indicated through the architectural representation of their worship centres, the Gurdwara.


This paper addresses the spiking (or pulsed) neural network model with synaptic time delays at dendrites. This model allows one to change the action potential generation time more precisely with the same input activity pattern. The action potential time control principle proposed previously by several researchers has been implemented in the model considered. In the neuron model the required excitatory and inhibitory presynaptic potentials are formed by weight coefficients with synaptic delays. Various neural network architectures with a long-term plasticity model are investigated. The applicability of the spike-timing-dependent plasticity based learning rule (STDP) to a neuron model with synaptic delays is considered for a more accurate positioning of action potential time. Several learning protocols with a reinforcement signal and induced activity using varieties of functions of weight change (bipolar STDP and Ricker wavelet) are used. Modeling of a single-layer neural network with the reinforcement signal modulating the weight change function amplitude has shown a limited range of available output activity. This limitation can be bypassed using the induced activity of the output neuron layer during learning. This modification of the learning protocol allows reproducing more complex output activity, including for multiple layered networks. The ability to construct desired activity on the network output on the basis of a multichannel input activity pattern was tested on single and multiple layered networks. Induced activity during learning for networks with feedback connections allows one to synchronize multichannel input spike trains with required network output. The application of the weight change function leads to association of input and output activity by the network. When the induced activity is turned off, this association, configuration on the required output, remains. Increasing the number of layers and reducing feedback connection leads to weakening of this effect, so that additional mechanisms are required to synchronize the whole network.


Objective: Research has argued that a speaker's facial appearance can result in an "intelligibility cost" for the listener. The study investigated whether such an intelligibility cost exists for a visible repaired cleft lip and nasal asymmetry. Setting: University department. Participants: Eight typical speakers provided speech samples. Twenty-eight naive listeners participated in a speech in noise experiment. Interventions: Listeners transcribed sentences in noise that were paired with faces of individuals with repaired cleft lip and nasal asymmetry or typical faces. They also rated speaker intelligibility and answered a questionnaire about their previous knowledge about cleft lip and palate. Main Outcome Measures: Percentage of words transcribed correctly and intelligibility ratings, compared by experimental condition (photo of typical face or face with repaired cleft lip and nasal asymmetry) and speaker gender. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between speech stimuli that were presented with faces with repaired cleft lip and nasal asymmetry or typical faces. The percentage of words transcribed correctly by the listeners was lower for female speakers (F = 12.7, df = 1; P < .01). Speech intelligibility of female speakers was rated more poorly (F = 10.5, df = 1; P < .01). Conclusions: Presence of a repaired cleft lip and nasal asymmetry did not result in an intelligibility cost for naive listeners. Future research should investigate possible effects of facial motion or previous knowledge.


INTRODUCTION A primary goal of virtual environments is to support natural, efficient, powerful, and flexible human-computer interaction. If the interaction technology is awkward, or constraining, the user's experience with the synthetic environment is severely degraded. If the interaction itself draws attention to the technology, rather than the task at hand, it becomes an obstacle to a successful virtual environment experience. The traditional two-dimensional, keyboard-and mouse-oriented graphical user interface (GUI) is not well-suited for virtual environments. Instead, synthetic environments provide the opportunity to utilize several different sensing modalities and integrate them into the user experience. The cross product of communication modalities and sens-ABSTRACT A primary goal of virtual environments is to support natural, efficient, powerful and flexible human-computer interaction. But the traditional two-dimensional, keyboard-and mouse-oriented graphical user interface is not well-suited for virtual environments. The most popular approaches for capture, tracking and recognition of different modalities simultaneously to create intellectual human-computer interface for games will be considered in this chapter. Taking into account the large gesture variability and their important role in creating intuitive interfaces, the considered approaches focus one's attention on gestures although the approaches may be used also for other modalities. The considered approaches are user independent and do not require large learning samples. ing devices begets a wide range of unimodal and multimodal interface techniques. The potential of these techniques to support natural and powerful interfaces is the future of game constructing and designing. To more fully support natural communication, it has to not only track human movement, but to interpret that movement in order to recognize semantically meaningful gestures. While tracking user's head position or hand configuration may be quite useful for directly controlling objects or inputting parameters, because people naturally express communicative acts through higher-level constructs such as gesture or speech. In this chapter, we shall consider the most popular approaches for capture, tracking and recognition of different modalities simultaneously to create intellectual human-computer interface for games. Taking into account the large gesture variability and their important role in creating intuitive interfaces, the considered approaches focus one's attention on gestures although the approaches may be used also for other modalities. The considered approaches are user independent and do not require large learning samples.


Green electricity products are increasingly made available to consumers in many countries in an effort to address a number of environmental and social concerns. Most of the existing literature on this green electricity market focuses on consumer's characteristics and product attributes that could affect participation. However, the contribution of this environmental consumerism to the overall environmental good does not depend on participation alone. The real impact made relies on market penetration for green consumers (the proportion of green consumers) combined with the level of green consumption intensity-the commitment levels, or proportion of consumption that is green. We design an online interface that closely mimics the real market environment for electricity consumers in Western Australia and use an error component model to analyze consumers' choice of green electricity products is much more strongly influenced by consumer characteristics than product attributes. When green products are selected, the vast majority select the minimum commitment possible, and this is insensitive to the premium being charged on green power, suggesting that we are largely observing a "warm glow" for carbon mitigation.


Title of Document: JOINT REPLENISHMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN ACTIONS IN THE RETAIL GROCERY INDUSTRY: TWO ESSAYS Pamela S. Donovan, Ph.D., 2006 Directed By: Dr. Curtis Grimm, Dean's Professor of Supply Chain and Strategy, Logistics, Business & Public Policy Dr. Philip T. Evers, Associate Professor, Logistics, Business & Public Policy This study investigated supply chain management practices in the retail grocery industry from two perspectives. First, the operational performance objectives were examined by developing and testing a periodic review, joint replenishment model and heuristic. Joint replenishment policies, designed to coordinate the ordering of multiple items, can reduce inventory costs by synchronizing transportation and replenishment decisions (Cetinkaya and Lee, 2000). A fully specified model was developed taking into account the cost disadvantage of overdeclared shipments. Based on the performance of the Full model, a Truck heuristic was proposed to fill a truck with each order. By varying the model parameters, the study demonstrated the large impact transportation costs had on total inventory costs and the viability of the Truck heuristic, even for moderate differences in transportation rates. A simulation study tested violations of the demand normality assumption and found the Full model suboptimized the order interval and base stock levels under non-normal demand conditions. The result was a 2 percent cost increase over the expected costs in the Full model. The primary cost drivers were positive or negative deviations from truckload shipments and higher than expected demand during the order interval and replenishment period. The second essay examined the strategic objectives of the retail grocer using the Schumpeterian perspective to relate supply chain actions, market-based actions, and firm performance in a longitudinal study. A structured content method was used to code articles reporting on supply chain and market-based activities. The study found that higher levels of supply chain and market-based actions, a source of competitive advantage, resulted in higher sales growth. Unexpectedly, firms engaged in a broad range of supply chain activities realized a decline in sales, suggesting that a more narrow focus on specific supply chain programs provided greater financial benefits to firms in the retail grocery industry. An exploratory study using cluster analysis found grocery retailers used a variety of strategies. Larger firms were more likely to focus on market-based strategies and realized the largest sales growth. Smaller firms, on the other hand, tended to choose balanced or supply chain-focused strategies, while still realizing average sales growth. JOINT REPLENISHMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN ACTIONS IN THE RETAIL GROCERY INDUSTRY: TWO ESSAYS.


Open source. Open access. Open society. Open knowledge. Open government. Even open food. The word "open" has been applied to a wide variety of words to create new terms, some of which make sense, and some not so much. This essay disambiguates the many meanings of the word "open" as it is used in a wide range of contexts.


Biogas is the one of renewable energies that is the result of fermentation of methanogenic bacteria of biomass or organic substance . The low methane content in biogas is affected by the amount of impurities in the biogas. A membrane that produced from activated zeolite as an adsorbent is used to absorb or reduce the content of impuritiesin the biogas in order to increase methane in the biogas . Variate of research comprise variety the composition ratio of zeolite and clay as materials for zeolite membranes are 30:70 , 50:50 , 70:30 , and the effect of flow rate on the purification were 100% open valve and 50% open the valve . Parameters to determine the quality of the purification results biogas is methane percentage were analyzed by Gas Chromatography. The percentage of methane in biogas purification before treatment was 64.86 % . The results showed that the highest percentage of methane was 72.22 % that generated by biogas purification for zeolite and clay ratio was 70:30 with 100% open valve as the flow rate.


We study two-dimensional motion perception in flies using a semicircular visual stimulus. Measurements of both the H1-neuron and the optomotor response are consistent with a simple model supposing spatial integration of the outputs of correlation-type motion detectors. In both experiment and model, there is substantial H1 and horizontal (yaw) optomotor response to purely vertical motion of the stimulus. We conclude that the fly's optomotor response to a two-dimensional pattern, depending on its structure, may deviate considerably from the direction of pattern motion.


Theories of urban development have mentioned many advantages for using a structural approach. However, intuitive (and not objective) methods have been used to determine the main structure, which is essentially considered equivalent to the main passage network and public utilities. Since the mental conceptual structure is considered in a way that its components are combined to gether as a whole, the present study aims to develop an objective mechanism for extracting the mental structure of people about texture. Accordingly, this research seeks to answer the question that which elements and objective analysis have a greater impact on the explanation of the existing structures in the cognitive maps. In this regard, cognitive maps of people were collected through drawings and interviews, and the structure was extracted in three physical, functional and semantic dimensions. The analysis of the spatial values associated with the network of passages and land use in the geographic information system as well as the spatial qualities and relationships were carried out using spatial analysis. Spatial integration between the mental structures of cognitive maps, on the one hand, and the objective analysis of passages, land uses and spatial layout, on the other hand,showed that "axial depth" analysis explains the physical dimension of mental structure (Correlation = 0.72361, Sig. <0.001), "mean depth of convex space" analysis explains the functional dimension (Correlation = 0.66973, Sig. <0.001) and "Convex Space Integration1" analysis explains the semantic dimension (Correlation = 0.44744, Sig. <0.001). Accordingly, it is concluded that objective analyses of the existing urban textures can be used to explore people's cognitive maps. Contrary to e x isting theories, this paper showed that the segmentation and land use models could not significantly e xplain the structure of cognitive maps while spatial analysis has the highest degree of explanation of the structure of cognitive maps. The main network of passages, in accordance with the existing theory, is still an appropriate explanation for all three dimensions of mental structures of the cognitive maps.


Stable distributions are a rich class of probability distributions that are widely used to model leptokurtic data. Since the probability density and distribution functions are not known in closed form, stable distributions are often specified by their characteristic functions. This paper reviews both the techniques used to compute the density functions and the methods used to estimate parameters of the stable distributions. A new Bayesian approach using Metropolis random walk chain and direct numerical integration is proposed. The performance of the method is examined by a simulation study.


III-V compound multijunction solar cells enable ultrahigh efficiency performance in designs where subcells with high material quality and high internal quantum efficiency can be employed. However the optimal multijunction cell bandgap sequence cannot be achieved using lattice-matched compound semiconductor materials. Most current compound semiconductor solar cell design approaches are focused on either lattice-matched designs or metamorphic growth (i.e., growth with dislocations to accommodate subcell lattice mismatch), which inevitably results in less design flexibility or lower material quality than is desirable. An alternative approach is to employ direct bonded interconnects between subcells of a multijunction cell, which enables dislocation-free active regions by confining the defect network needed for lattice mismatch accommodation to tunnel junction interfaces. We fabricated for the first time a direct-bond interconnected multijunction solar cell, a two-terminal monolithic GaAs/InGaAs dual-junction cell, to demonstrate a proof-of-principle for the viability of direct wafer bonding for solar cell applications. The bonded interface is a metal-free n⁺GaAs/n⁺InP tunnel junction with highly conductive Ohmic contact suitable for solar cell applications overcoming the 4% lattice mismatch. The quantum efficiency spectrum for the bonded cell was quite similar to that for each of unbonded GaAs and InGaAs subcells. The bonded dual-junction cell open-circuit voltage was equal to the sum of the unbonded subcell open-circuit voltages, which indicates that the bonding process does not degrade the cell material quality since any generated crystal defects that act as recombination centers would reduce the open-circuit voltage. Also, the bonded interface has no significant carrier recombination rate to reduce the open circuit voltage. Such a wafer bonding approach can also be applied to other photovoltaic heterojunctions where lattice mismatch accommodation is also a challenge, such as the InGaP/GaAs/InGaAsP/InGaAs four-junction tandem cell by bonding a GaAs-based lattice-matched InGaP/GaAs subcell to an InP-based lattice-matched InGaAsP/InGaAs subcell. Simple considerations suggest that for such a cell the currently-reported interfacial resistance of 0.12 Ohm-cm² would result in a negligible decrease in overall cell efficiency of ~0.02%, under 1-sun illumination. Engineered substrates consisting of thin films of InP on Si handle substrates (InP/Si substrates or epitaxial templates) have the potential to significantly reduce the cost and weight of compound semiconductor solar cells relative to those fabricated on bulk InP substrates. InGaAs solar cells on InP have superior performance to Ge cells at photon energies greater than 0.7 eV and the current record efficiency cell for 1 sun illumination was achieved using an InGaP/GaAs/InGaAs triple junction cell design with an InGaAs bottom cell. Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells from the InGaAsP-family of III-V materials grown epitaxially on InP substrates would also benefit from such an InP/Si substrate. Additionally, a proposed four-junction solar cell fabricated by joining subcells of InGaAs and InGaAsP grown on InP with subcells of GaAs and AlInGaP grown on GaAs through a wafer-bonded interconnect would enable the independent selection of the subcell band gaps from well developed materials grown on lattice matched substrates. Substitution of InP/Si substrates for bulk InP in the fabrication of such a four-junction solar cell could significantly reduce the substrate cost since the current prices for commercial InP substrates are much higher than those for Si substrates by two orders of magnitude. Direct heteroepitaxial growth of InP thin films on Si substrates has not produced the low dislocation-density high quality layers required for active InGaAs/InP in optoelectronic devices due to the ~8% lattice mismatch between InP and Si. We successfully fabricated InP/Si substrates by He implantation of InP prior to bonding to a thermally oxidized Si substrate and annealing to exfoliate an InP thin film. The thickness of the exfoliated InP films was only 900 nm, which means hundreds of the InP/Si substrates could be prepared from a single InP wafer in principle. The photovoltaic current-voltage characteristics of the In0.53Ga0.47As cells fabricated on the wafer-bonded InP/Si substrates were comparable to those synthesized on commercially available epi-ready InP substrates, and had a ~20% higher short-circuit current which we attribute to the high reflectivity of the InP/SiO²/Si bonding interface. This work provides an initial demonstration of wafer-bonded InP/Si substrates as an alternative to bulk InP substrates for solar cell applications. Metallic nanostructures can manipulate light paths by surface plasmons and can dramatically increase the optical path length in thin active photovoltaic layers to enhance photon absorption. This effect has potential for cost and weight reduction with thinned layers and also for efficiency enhancement associated with increased carrier excitation level in the absorber layer. We have observed photocurrent enhancements up to 260% at 900 nm for a GaAs cell with a dense array of Ag nanoparticles with 150 nm diameter and 20 nm height deposited through porous alumina membranes by thermal evaporation on top of the cell, relative to reference GaAs cells with no metal nanoparticle array. This dramatic photocurrent enhancement is attributed to the effect of metal nanoparticles to scatter the incident light into photovoltaic layers with a wide range of angles to increase the optical path length in the absorber layer. GaAs solar cells with metallic structures at the bottom of the photovoltaic active layers, not only at the top, using semiconductor-metal direct bonding have been fabricated. These metallic back structures could incouple the incident light into surface plasmon mode propagating at the semiconductor/metal interface to increase the optical path, as well as simply act as back reflector, and we have observed significantly increased short-circuit current relative to reference cells without these metal components.


This all-new edition of the seminal book on navigating the multigenerational workplace takes a fresh look at a growing challenge, now exacerbated by the youngest employees. With their micromanaged childhoods and tech addictions, Gen Yers require constant feedback—frustrating for the Me Generation that can't let go of the spotlight, and annoying for Gen Xers, sandwiched between the two. So how can you lead this motley group with their often incompatible work ethics, values, and styles?Generations at Work lays bare the causes of conflict, and offers practical guidelines for managing the differences, including:• In-depth interviews with members of each generation• Best practices from companies bridging the generation gap• Specific tips for each generation on how to handle the others• A field guide for mentoring GenerationYFor anyone struggling to manage a workforce with different ways of working, communicating, and thinking, Generations at Work is the answer.


This book offers comprehensive coverage of biofuel crop production, with a focus on individual crops and longer term sustainability. The transition from fossil to renewable fuels has put crops with biofuel production potential in the spotlight. It offers an introduction to biofuels and the challenges faced. It has unique focus on the cultivation of biofuel crops, not just processing and policy issues. It examines in detail individual crops of current importance or with high future prospects, including algae, sugar crops, and grass, oil and forestry species. It focuses on the genetics, breeding, cultivation, harvesting and handling of each crop. It addresses issues associated with the long-term sustainability of biofuel crops. This book will cover algae in detail and also contain a comprehensive genetic discussion on the crops covered. In addition, it will review in detail the issues associated with the long-term sustainability of biofuel crops. It is suitable for students and researchers in agronomy and industry personnel.


Data Center (DC) networks exhibit much more centralized characteristics than the legacy Internet, yet they are operated by similar distributed routing and control algorithms that fail to exploit topological redundancy to deliver better and more sustainable performance. Multipath protocols, for example, use node-local and heuristic information to only exploit path diversity between shortest paths. In this paper, we use a measurement-based approach to schedule flows over both shortest and non-shortest paths based on temporal network-wide utilization. We present the Baatdaat flow scheduling algorithm which uses spare DC network capacity to mitigate the performance degradation of heavily utilized links. Results show that Baatdaat achieves close to optimal Traffic Engineering by reducing network-wide maximum link utilization by up to 18% over Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing, while at the same time improving flow completion time by 41% - 95%.


Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have failed on many levels including: social, political, legal, economic, agronomic and ecologic. After three decades of promotion, promises and contention, 3.8% of global agriculture is GMO agriculture. Mechanisms for compensating farms contaminated by GMOs are lacking, and the GMO industry has taken no responsibility for contaminations. GMOs are a threat to the organic sector and the maintenance of certification and price premiums. Only 24 countries grow GMOs commercially. Four countries of North and South America (USA, Canada, Brazil and Argentina) account for 85% of the global GMO hectares. Four crops (soy, corn, cotton and canola) account for 99% of GM hectares. Despite the veneer of social validity that regulators cast, the GMO sector has failed to gain a social licence. Where GM labelling is required, food manufacturers avoid GM ingredients. GMOs have failed to gain price parity with their non-GM counterparts, and they attract price penalties. Segregation of GMOs and non-GMOs has failed (with a tolerance of 0.9% GM contamination in so-called non-GM canola). GM has failed the coexistence test with GMO growers contaminating neighbouring farms. GMOs are a biosecurity fail, with test plots of GM canola planted in the late 1990s still monitored two decades later for rogue canola plants. Most GMO crops are glyphosate dependent. Glyphosate is globally subject to massive litigation claims and awards, and is implicated in the causation of multiple cancers. Most countries (88%) do not grow GMO crops. This paper considers the global experience of GMOs and the Australian experience as a microcosm of the global experience and as a case study.


The gaps between two mating surfaces should be strictly controlled in precision manufacturing. Oversizing of gaps will decrease the dimensional accuracy and may reduce the fatigue life of a mechanical product. In order to reduce the gaps and keep them within tolerance, the relative posture (orientation and position) of two components should be optimized in the assembly process. This paper presents an optimal posture evaluation model to control the assembly gaps in aircraft wing assembly.Based on the step alignment strategy, i.e. preliminary alignment and refined alignment, the concept of a small posture transformation (SPT) is introduced. In the preliminary alignment, an initial posture is estimated by a set of auxiliary locating points (ALPs), with which the components can be quickly aligned near each other. In the refined alignment, the assembly gaps are calculated and the formulation of the gaps with component posture is derived by the SPT. A comprehensive weighted minimization model with gap tolerance constraints is established for redistributing the gaps in multi-regions. Powell-Hestenes-Rockafellar (PHR) optimization, Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and KD-tree searching are introduced for the solution of the optimal posture for localization. Using the SPT, the trigonometric posture transformation is linearized, which benefits the iterative solution process. Through the constrained model, overall gaps are minimized and excess gaps are controlled within tolerance. Practical implications – This method has been tested with simulated model data and real product data, the results of which have shown efficient coordination of mating components.This paper proposed an optimal posture evaluation method for minimizing the gaps between mating surfaces through component adjustments. This will promote the assembly automation and variation control in aircraft wing assembly.


Protein interaction networks of the GTPase Rhes regulate motor control in the striatum. Rhes networks in motor control Drugs like amphetamine, which stimulates the release of both norepinephrine and dopamine, enhance locomotor activity, which could be beneficial in various neurological and psychological disorders characterized by impaired dopamine signaling in the striatum, such as Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. The striatal GTPase Rhes suppresses amphetamine-induced locomotion in mice and is implicated in Huntington's disease. Shahani et al. identified protein interaction networks centered on Rhes in mice. Both amphetamine and the guanine exchange factor RasGRP1 altered the proteins with which Rhes interacted, including several that are associated with various neurological diseases. The findings have implications for understanding the molecular underpinnings of amphetamine's locomotor effects, which may enable development of better therapeutics. The striatum of the brain coordinates motor function. Dopamine-related drugs may be therapeutic to patients with striatal neurodegeneration, such as Huntington's disease (HD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), but these drugs have unwanted side effects. In addition to stimulating the release of norepinephrine, amphetamines, which are used for narcolepsy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), trigger dopamine release in the striatum. The guanosine triphosphatase Ras homolog enriched in the striatum (Rhes) inhibits dopaminergic signaling in the striatum, is implicated in HD and L-dopa–induced dyskinesia, and has a role in striatal motor control. We found that the guanine nucleotide exchange factor RasGRP1 inhibited Rhes-mediated control of striatal motor activity in mice. RasGRP1 stabilized Rhes, increasing its synaptic accumulation in the striatum. Whereas partially Rhes-deficient (Rhes+/−) mice had an enhanced locomotor response to amphetamine, this phenotype was attenuated by coincident depletion of RasGRP1. By proteomic analysis of striatal lysates from Rhes-heterozygous mice with wild-type or partial or complete knockout of Rasgrp1, we identified a diverse set of Rhes-interacting proteins, the "Rhesactome," and determined that RasGRP1 affected the composition of the amphetamine-induced Rhesactome, which included PDE2A (phosphodiesterase 2A; a protein associated with major depressive disorder), LRRC7 (leucine-rich repeat–containing 7; a protein associated with bipolar disorder and ADHD), and DLG2 (discs large homolog 2; a protein associated with chronic pain). Thus, this Rhes network provides insight into striatal effects of amphetamine and may aid the development of strategies to treat various neurological and psychological disorders associated with the striatal dysfunction.


Neonatal care work is a complex social practice. It maybe understood as a network in which doctors, babies, parents, technology and medicalcare are aligned together in relationships dominated by issues of accountability. The nature of neonatal care means that the boundaries of what counts as the unit are always shifting. The regular appearance of new members, new patients and new technologies mean that much effort must be expended to hold the unit together as a functional entity. Thus stability in the unit's practice, rather than change, is something to be explained. Equally, ambiguity and uncertainty rather than clarity and procedure are important features of neonatal care. We examine how the baby (i.e. the neonate receiving care) acts the 'object' around which the unit is continuously ordered. The identity of the baby — what it is, what attributes are considered important, what effects it generates — is changeable. Staff constantly 'scale up' and 'scale down' what the baby is from a child to a biological system in accord with contextual demands (i.e. the baby's likely trajectory of care). The agency of the baby is often a resource that is worked up and generated by the network itself during this process of scaling. In this sense the baby is a 'virtual object' which cycles through various identities and relationships. We outline how this cycling appears to operate and the way in which it serves to hold together neonatal care work.


NATO as an institution always kept the interest on many theorist and researchers. NATO enlargement as a process has become subject of analysis, especially after the Cold War. This is because, the existence of the NATO Alliance before this period was only seen as a creation balancing the Soviet Threat. With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR, NATO transformed itself gradually. Since, the Soviet threat in not present any more, the researchers were and still are analyzing the NATO enlargement in terms what is the current threat that makes these countries willing to become part of NATO, and what is NATO interest in further enlarging. The concerns have been raised in some studies, but no one seems to have solved the puzzle. In this article I would make and analysis and try to explain this concerns. This would be done by analyzing and comparing the countries that had been admitted until know. Based on the indicators revealed by the analysis, alternative explanations based on the realism and neoliberal institutionalism would be provided. I conclude that NATO is still a complex process that should be further analyzed in order the process to be clear. But as interesting points revealed in this study are that NATO enlargement is not based only on the criteria and requirements that the aspirant countries should fulfill. Aside form these requirements, the relations on the bilateral level, and the events and the relations on the international level seem to have a huge influence on the NATO enlargement.


For listing in "Calendar," submit the meeting name, the sponsor, the site and dates, address, phone number and name of contact person—no later than four months before the meeting date. Meeting reports (500-750 words long) should be of national interest, include descriptions of content and some identifiable outcomes and recommendations. Reports on official conferences of membership organizations should include names and affiliations of new officers.


Noradrenergic and serotonergic abnormalities have long been implicated in patients with major depression. The novel selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor reboxetine has been shown to be at least as effective as imipramine, desipramine and fluoxetine in the treatment of major depression. It is suggested that the dysfunction of the norepinephrine transporter (NET) may be related to major depression. Although the transcriptional activity related to the NET gene expression is little known, it may be a good candidate gene for major depression. Therefore, we investigated whether the T-182C polymorphism of the NET gene is associated with major depression in a Korean sample of 112 major depression patients compared with 136 healthy controls. We found a significantly lower frequency in TT genotype in patients with major depression than in normal controls when the genotypes of T-182C polymorphism were classified into two groups: TT group versus TC + CC group (p = 0.019). This result suggests that the T-182C polymorphism in the NET gene might be associated with major depression.


(De)contextualising Buddhist Aesthetics is a practice-led artistic research project focusing on the interchanging transition between Buddhist and artistic practices. Essentially inspired by the concept of vipassanā meditation, I created a series of performances involving repetitive actions centring on the tasks of re-arranging readymade objects into multiple precarious configurations. Many exercises challenge the laws of gravity and other physical limitations of objects, as well as encouraging the learning experience through the process of trial and error. During the course of mindful observation of the performing body and objects, the mental state gradually gains moments of stillness and silence, which approach the meaning of emptiness ( sunnatā ) in Buddhism. Repeated failures generate intermittent feelings of exhaustion and disappointment, which naturally become part of the progress, and can be personally used to develop insight into the notions of impermanence and the non-self derived from dhamma (Buddhist teachings). The video and photography documentations were edited and altered to generate a visual experience that echoes my thoughts and feelings developed during the proceedings; these moving images later inspired other series of hand-made artworks, including collages, drawings and paintings on paper and canvas, exhibited as part of the installations. Various techniques were applied so these objective components resonate a comparative experience of uncontrollability and controllability: dynamic and stillness, fast pace and slow rhythm, abstract and representation. Some two-dimensional pieces are transformed to three-dimensional and their displays keep changing from location to location, and from time to time, in conjunction with an unstable state of the mind. All artworks were created in various formats and interrelate and inform each other. They act together as evidence of the endless journey of artistic learning, which also mirrors the concept of self-learning in Buddhist meditation.


Unique wind ripples attaining heights to 2.3 m, wavelengths to 43 m, and a crest maximum grain size of 19 mm occur on the Argentine Puna Plateau at ~4000 m altitude. These are the largest ripples reported on Earth, comparable only to Mars counterparts. They form in the presence of high proportions of low-density pumice clasts (0.91 g/cm 3 ), although crests are exclusively composed of varnished, normal-density clasts (2.43 g/cm 3 ). Mature ripple profiles are partly excavated on bedrock, so they form by a combination of deflation, winnowing of finer grains, minor wind drift of fine gravel, and lagging of clasts >4 cm. The large ripple size appears to be related to strong winds, dense saltation layers, and a long time for evolution. Ripple sizes are smaller on obstacles, as compared to flat terrain; there is a lack of correlation between clast size, wavelength, and the extreme ripple size (in spite of the thin atmosphere), all of which suggest that while small-scale gravel ripples may form according to a reptation model, their evolution into large-scale types may relate to aerodynamic instabilities originating at the saltation curtain–air interface.


In the past decade, advances in structure determination with electron microscopy of organic, beam sensitive, materials have been significant. The newly developed techniques, triggered by new microscope systems and new cameras, made it possible to acquire 3D structural information from these samples to a resolution which was impossible to achieve before. Knowledge is required to improve structure solution and every aspect of the process involved, from treatment of radiation sensitive materials, sample preparation, TEM imaging and diffraction systems all the way to how data must be interpreted. In this thesis I explained multiple new techniques and methods developed by us, using both new microscopes as well as a new type of detector: Timepix. I describe how these tools can help to overcome (what were) the most important problems and bottlenecks in detection of very low dose electron diffraction.


We developed a protocol which yields purified bacterial DNA from the soil bacterial community. The bacteria were first dispersed and separated from soil particles in the presence of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone, which removes humic acid contaminants by adsorption to this insoluble polymer. The soil bacteria were then collected by centrifugation and lysed by using a comprehensive protocol designed to maximize disruption of the various types of bacteria present. Total bacterial DNA was purified from the cell lysate and remaining soil contaminants by using equilibrium density gradients. The isolated DNA was essentially pure as determined by UV spectral analysis, was at least 48 kilobases long, and was not subject to degradation, which indicated that there was no contaminating nuclease activity. The isolated DNA was readily digested by exogenously added restriction endonucleases and successfully analyzed by slot blot and Southern blot hybridizations. Using single-stranded, 32P-labeled DNA probes, we could detect and quantitate the presence of a specific microbial population in the natural soil community on the basis of the presence of a DNA sequence unique to that organism. The sensitivity of our methodology was sufficient to detect Bradyrhizobium japonicum at densities as low as 4.3 × 104 cells per g (dry weight) of soil, which corresponds to about 0.2 pg of hybridizable DNA in a 1-μg DNA sample.


Titanium oxide thin films were deposited on Si monocrystalline substrate using the pulsed laser ablation technique in a reactive oxygen atmosphere. The films were obtained starting from Ti and TiO2 targets which were ablated using a KrF* excimer laser (λ = 248 nm). During the deposition, the Si substrates were heated at 300 °C under various high purity oxygen atmosphere of 1.0, 0.5 and 0.1 mbar. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction investigations revealed the presence of a nanostructured film consisting of a mixture of several titanium oxides, with crystalline grains size of few nm to 10 nm. Only the film deposited from the Ti target at a pressure of 1.0 mbar exhibited crystalline grains of 30-40 nm. Thin films surface morphology and topography, studied using atomic force and scanning electron microscopy, revealed a relatively smooth surface with the presence of some submicron droplets, typical for laser ablation technique. Films deposited at 0.5 mbar pressure from both targets were significantly rougher than the other deposited films.


The Stern/Nordhaus controversy has polarized the widely disparate beliefs about what to do in order to tackle the climate challenge. To explain differences in results and policy recommendations, comments following the publication of the Stern Review have mainly focused on the role played by the discount rate. A closer look at the actual drivers of the controversy reveals however that Stern and Nordhaus also disagree on two other parameters: technical progress on abatement costs and the climate sensitivity. This paper aims at appraising the relative impacts of such key drivers of the controversy on the social cost of carbon and climate policy recommendations. To this end, we use the flexible integrated assessment model RESPONSE which allows us to compare very diverse worldviews, including Stern and Nordhaus' ones within the same modelling framework and map the relative impacts of beliefs on the three key drivers of the controversy. Furthermore we appraise quantitatively, by means of a linear statistical model, the impacts on results of an extended set of core parameters of RESPONSE. We show that beliefs on long term economic growth, technical progress, the form of the climate damage function and the climate sensitivity have an impact as important as beliefs on pure time preference. Hence, we can qualify the role played by the discount rate in the Stern/Nordhaus controversy and more broadly in the definition of climate policies.


Plasma concentrations of ten individual proteins were measured by electroimmunoassay in young male Buffalo rats following injection of turpentine oil or implantation of Morris hepatoma 7777. The highest relative responses to inflammation and tumour growth were found for alpha 2-macroglobulin, alpha 1-acute-phase globulin and alpha 1-acid glycoprotein. As shown by crossed immuno-affinoelectrophoresis the concanavalin A-reactive fractions of the latter two glycoproteins were predominantly increased in plasma from injured and tumour-bearing rats.


The parasitic fauna of some commercial fish species along the Kenyan coast was investigated at four localities between August 2001 and March 2002. The study was carried out to establish the extent of parasitisation of different fish species and quantify the relationship between the parasites and their fish hosts. Fish samples were collected once a month from four landing beaches. Sixteen fish species were examined out of which only eight were infested with ecto-and endo parasites. The infested fish species included: the rabbitfish (Siganus sutor), the mackerels (Selar crumenophthalmus, Scomberomorus commerson and Rastrelliger kanarguta), parrot fish (Leptoscarus vaigiensis), sardine (Sardinella gibbosa), tuna (Thunnus sp.) and needle fish (Hemiramphus far). Of the eight species, Si. sutor was most infested with parasites while Sardinella and Leptoscarus were primarily infested with ectoparasites (isopods). Intensity of infestation increased with age (size), especially in Si. sutor, where very young fish had a low infestation rate, while adults were heavily infested (P < 0.01). No significant differences were observed in the intensity of infestation between sexes in Si. sutor (P > 0.05).


A passive satellite radiometer operating at submillimetre wavelengths can measure cloud ice water path (IWP), ice particle size, and cloud altitude. The paper first discusses the scientific background for such measurements. Formal scientific mission requirements are derived, based on this background and earlier assessments. The paper then presents a comprehensive prototype instrument and mission concept, and demonstrates that it meets the requirements. The instrument is a conically scanning 12‐channel radiometer with channels between 183 and 664 GHz, proposed to fly in tandem with one of the Metop satellites. It can measure IWP with a relative accuracy of approximately 20% and a detection threshold of approximately 2 g m−2. The median mass equivalent sphere diameter of the ice particles can be measured with an accuracy of approximately 30 µm, and the median IWP cloud altitude can be measured with an accuracy of approximately 300 m. All the above accuracies are median absolute error values; root mean square error values are approximately twice as high, due to rare outliers. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society


The price dynamics of energy and water in Texas might be about to change. Historically, planners have assumed that the price of energy is volatile and trending up, while the price of water is stable and low. However, current trends in technology, demography, and Texas' natural environment may mean that energy is actually getting more plentiful and less costly, while water may be becoming scarcer and more expensive. These changes would have implications for the trade-offs companies should make in energy vs. water use, in energyvs. labor-intensive processes, and in the mix of energy sources including fuels, grid energy, cogeneration, and on-site generation. Source: http://texasceomagazine.com/features/the-cost-of-water-vs-the-cost-of-energy/


In this paper a hierarchical distributed model predictive control scheme is proposed for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. The building consists in multiple connected rooms and zones. The control objective is to keep the temperature of each room and zone at a given comfortable level with minimal energy consumption. This control scheme is divided into two levels. The upper level controller collects temperature and predictive information of all rooms and zones to generate reference trajectories while a lower level controller only uses local information to track the reference and optimize energy efficiency and thermal comfort. By using a contraction property of building's dynamics, recursive feasibility of the proposed algorithm is guaranteed. Simulation results are given to show the performance of our proposed control strategy.


Mycoplasmas evolved by a drastic reduction in genome size, but their genomes contain numerous repeated sequences with important roles in their evolution. We have established a bioinformatic strategy to detect the major recombination hot-spots in the genomes of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Mycoplasma genitalium, Ureaplasma urealyticum and Mycoplasma pulmonis. This allowed the identification of large numbers of potentially variable regions, as well as a comparison of the relative recombination potentials of different genomic regions. Different trends are perceptible among mycoplasmas, probably due to different functional and structural constraints. The largest potential for illegitimate recombination in M.pulmonis is found at the vsa locus and its comparison in two different strains reveals numerous changes since divergence. On the other hand, the main M.pneumoniae and M.genitalium adhesins rely on large distant repeats and, hence, homologous recombination for variation. However, the relation between the existence of repeats and antigenic variation is not necessarily straightforward, since repeats of P1 adhesin were found to be anti-correlated with epitopes recognized by patient antibodies. These different strategies have important consequences for the structures of genomes, since large distant repeats correlate well with the major chromosomal rearrangements. Probably to avoid such events, mycoplasmas strongly avoid inverse repeats, in comparison to co-oriented repeats.


A system of shallow water equations and a bed evolution equation are used to examine the evolution of perturbations on an erodible, initially plane beach subject to normal wave incidence. Both a permeable (under Darcy's law) and an impermeable beach are considered. It is found that alongshore-periodic morphological features reminiscent of swash beach cusps form after a number of incident wave periods on both beaches. On the permeable (impermeable) beach these patterns are accretional (erosional). In both cases flow is 'horn divergent'. Spacings of the cusps are consistent with observations, and are close to those provided by a standing synchronous linear edge wave. An analysis of the processes leading to bed change is presented. Two physical mechanisms are identified: concentration gradient and flow divergence, which are dominant in the lower and upper swash respectively, and their difference over a wave cycle leads to erosion or deposition on an impermeable beach. Infiltration enters this balance in the upper swash. A bed wave of elevation is shown to advance up the beach at the tip of the uprush, with a smaller wave of depression on the backwash. It is found that cusp horns can grow by a positive feedback mechanism stemming from decreased (increased) backwash on positive (negative) bed perturbations.


Extracting adverse drug events receives much research attention in the biomedical community. Previous work adopts pipeline models, firstly recognizing drug/disease entity mentions and then identifying adverse drug events from drug/disease pairs. In this paper, we investigate joint models for simultaneously extracting drugs, diseases and adverse drug events. Compared with pipeline models, joint models have two main advantages. First, they make use of information integration to facilitate performance improvement; second, they reduce error propagation in pipeline methods. We compare a discrete model and a deep neural model for extracting drugs, diseases and adverse drug events jointly. Experimental results on a standard ADE corpus show that the discrete joint model outperforms a state-of-the-art baseline pipeline significantly. In addition, when discrete features are replaced by neural features, the recall is further improved.


Abstract The case for global climate change is made, with reference to current warming trends and consequent increases in the severity and unpredictability of the weather. Consensus is considerable that substantial contribution is made to it by human activity. Agriculture, including livestock production in particular, contributes its share to global warming. Agricultural implications may include suffering or gain from climate change depending upon where one is farming. In general, already marginal, food-insecure areas will suffer most – notably in sub-Saharan Africa. Moral dilemmas are raised not only by the events resulting and likely to result from climate change but also from the actual and potential responses to it at both policy and personal levels. Practical responses to these realities are considered in the light of some basic theological reflections.


The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of participation in Quality Circles (QCs). The study looked at major factors affecting QCs effectiveness, which are namely; employees involvement, adequacy of training, leadership, employee perception, purpose of setting up QCs, number of projects implemented, management support, job satisfaction, commitment and willingness to expand effort, and intent to quit.

An important aspect of this study was the fact that it took place in large manufacturing and service organizations where research on organizational commitment is rare and where commitment and QCs members' feelings about their organizations are particularly troublesome. Therefore, out of seventeen companies, only five participated in this study.

Subjects consisted of 130 employees from five manufacturing and service organizations who volunteered to participate in the study. 89-item questionnaire was developed to meet study objectives. While, QCs members (N=109) answered the whole questionnaire, non-QCs members (N=21) were directed to fill out the last part of the questionnaire.

From the data obtained, Pearson Correlation test showed there was no relationship found between training and involvement in QCs, a very weak correlation between leadership and adequacy of training. Nonetheless, there was significant positive relationship between management support and scores of projects implemented. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed to investigate whether or not scores of two groups namely QCs and non-QCs differ significantly. Besides improved problem solving skills that the results show, QCs develop positive attitudes among employees who derive job satisfaction when they feel that their companies are a good place to work. Also, they are more willing to extend their efforts for their companies. Even though, these impacts were more obviously seen in manufacturing QCs (N=56) than service counterparts (N=53), still the conclusion shows that the Quality Circles concept is still alive and effective.


Consolidation via merger both from hospital-to-hospital mergers and from hospital acquisitions of physician groups is changing the competitive landscape of the provision of health care delivery in the United States. This Article undertakes a legal and economic examination of a recent Ninth Circuit case examining the hospital acquisition of a physician group. This Article explores the Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Nampa Inc. v. St. Luke's Health System, Ltd. (St. Luke's) decision — proposing a type of analysis that the district court and Ninth Circuit should have undertaken and that we hope future courts undertake when analyzing mergers in the health care sector. First, the Article addresses the question of how best to frame the acquisition of a physician group by a hospital — is the merger horizontal, vertical, or potentially both? In undertaking this analysis the Article examines the broader issue of the treatment of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in antitrust law. ACOs are short of full integration and as such, a potential contractual alternative for hospitals and physician groups to an acquisition. A hospital acquisition of a physician practice also has implications for how to view competitive effects in the context of ACOs. Indeed, in St. Luke's the Ninth Circuit suggests that integration short of full merger was a possible alternative. Second, the Article examines the justification for integration as a way to address countervailing power in health care, the reduction of transaction costs, and potential cost and quality efficiencies. Third, the Article applies the economics of these issues to merger case law generally and specifically to the St. Luke's decision. Ultimately, the Article finds the economic analysis of the Ninth Circuit lacking. Finally, the Article offers policy implications of the decision and concludes with some suggestions to improve health care antitrust analysis in practice for litigated cases to make such analysis better follow economic principles.


Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide an important approach to identifying common genetic variants that predispose to human disease. A typical GWAS may genotype hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located throughout the human genome in a set of cases and controls. Logistic regression is often used to test for association between a SNP genotype and case versus control status, with corresponding odds ratios (ORs) typically reported only for those SNPs meeting selection criteria. However, when these estimates are based on the original data used to detect the variant, the results are affected by a selection bias sometimes referred to the "winner's curse" (Capen and others, 1971). The actual genetic association is typically overestimated. We show that such selection bias may be severe in the sense that the conditional expectation of the standard OR estimator may be quite far away from the underlying parameter. Also standard confidence intervals (CIs) may have far from the desired coverage rate for the selected ORs. We propose and evaluate 3 bias-reduced estimators, and also corresponding weighted estimators that combine corrected and uncorrected estimators, to reduce selection bias. Their corresponding CIs are also proposed. We study the performance of these estimators using simulated data sets and show that they reduce the bias and give CI coverage close to the desired level under various scenarios, even for associations having only small statistical power.


Recent advances have started to uncover the underlying mechanisms of metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) dependent long-term depression (LTD). However, it is not completely clear how these mechanisms are linked and it is believed that several crucial mechanisms still remain to be revealed. In this study, we investigated whether system identification (SI) methods can be used to gain insight into the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. SI methods have shown to be an objective and powerful approach for describing how sensory neurons encode information about stimuli. However, to the author's knowledge it is the first time that SI methods are applied to electrophysiological brain slice recordings of synaptic plasticity responses. The results indicate that the SI approach is a valuable tool for reverse engineering of mGluRLTD responses. It is suggested that such SI methods can aid to unravel the complexities of synaptic function.


The article presents the results of the reaction of phenol with 1-methylcyclopentadiene in the presence of the KU-23 catalyst. Cycloalkylation of phenol have been carried out in a batch laboratory installation. After the reaction, the alkylate is separated from the catalyst and rectified. Firstly, during rectification at atmospheric pressure MCP and phenol that did not enter into the reaction were distilled off (up to 200° C), and then, under vacuum (666.5 Pa) the target reaction product was isolated and its purity and physicochemical parameters were determined. The kinetic regularities of the reaction were studied, and the probable mechanism of its occurrence was established. A kinetic model of the phenol cycloalkylation reaction, consisting of a system of differential equations, that describes the change in the concentration of the initial substances and reaction products over time has been developed. The kinetic constants of differential equations were estimated using a modified random search method with automatic step selection. For this purpose, the developed package of applied programs was used. The orders, activation energies, and rate constants of individual stages are determined. It is shown that the proposed model adequately describes the experimental data.


A visual odyssey that will change the way we see our planet, this remarkable book, companion to the acclaimed Discovery Channel/ BBC series, is an enduring and awe-inspiring record of one of the most ambitious natural history projects ever undertaken. Using the latest aerial surveillance, state-of-the-art cameras, and high definition technology, the creators of "Planet Earth "have assembled more than 400 stunning photographs of wondrous natural landscapes from around the globe, including incredible footage of the rarely spotted, almost mythical creatures that live in these habitats. Many of the images reveal inaccessible places that few have seen and record animal behavior that has never been filmed or photographed before. With the help of this highly advanced technology and the world's premier wildlife photographers, the book takes us on a spectacular journey from the world's greatest rivers and impressive gorges, to its mightiest mountains, hidden caves and caverns, and vast deserts. "Planet Earth "captures breathtaking sequences of predators and their prey, lush vistas of forests viewed from the tops of towering trees, the oceans and their mysterious creatures viewed from beneath the surface, and much morein a magnificent adventure that brings unknown wonders of the natural world into our living rooms. "Copub: BBC Worldwide Americas ""


This book provides key contributions by leading international researchers and scholars on a range of perspectives related to improving learning outcomes for students across educational settings from the primary years, through to university and beyond. It will be of interest to school administrators, teachers, researchers and policy makers who are interested in finding new and innovative ways to meet the needs of learners in the globalized world of the 21st century in culturally competent and meaningful ways. Throughout the chapters, a common theme of innovation, reform and overcoming barriers to learning are highlighted and the reader will gain a considerable knowledge of strategies and techniques to improve learner engagement and outcomes in meaningful and effective ways. In addition, this book will be of interest to university professors who wish to find a comprehensive reader for teacher preparation courses that provide international perspectives of academics from around the world, including the UK, USA, Australia, Norway, Kazakhstan and Korea. This broad and international perspective also provides a starting point for discussing culture and the role it plays in educational and life outcomes and how educators can become culturally competent in designing, delivering and facilitating learning experiences across sectors and around the globe.