Introduction: The Quality of Decision-Making Orientation Scheme (QoDoS) was developed to provide organisations involved in submission, approval and reimbursement of new medicines with a tool to improve the quality of their decision-making processes and is considered the most promising tool for such purpose. This study aimed to further establish the measurement properties of the QoDoS by evaluating its reliability (internal consistency and test-retest reliability) and relevance in the target population. Methods: The study participants consisted of 55 individuals recruited from pharmaceutical companies, regulatory and HTA agencies. It was designed as a longitudinal study with participants assessed on two different occasions, at baseline (test 1) and then 7 days later (test 2). Internal consistency reliability was assessed with Cronbach's alpha and the test-retest reliability was evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) based on absolute agreement, 2 way mixed-effects model for the four QoDoS domains. The relevance of the QoDoS was evaluated by applying cognitive debriefing using five short feedback questions following test 1. Results: Test 1 was completed by 44 study participants (80% response rate) and test 2 was completed by 32 of the 44 individuals, resulting in a 73% response rate. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was greater than 0.7 across all the domains for test 1 and test 2, ranging from 0.71 to 0.79, indicating good consistency of responses. For the overall score across all 47 items, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.81 for test 1 and 0.86 for test 2, which is rated as very good. The four QoDoS domains showed moderate to strong reproducibility (ICC range: 0.63–0.86). The outcome of the cognitive debriefing from the 43 respondents (98% response rate) confirmed the relevance (95% agreement), language clarity (95%) and completeness of items (86%); the clarity of the scaling (91%) as well as spontaneity of responses (95%). Conclusion: These results provide strong support for the relevance and reliability of the QoDoS, which are key properties for future longitudinal and cross-sectional applications of the instrument when evaluating quality of decision making by those involved in the lifecycle of medicines.


Education has been identified as a human right (Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948). This right is extended to all groups in society including those with intellectual disability. In 2005, UNESCO produced guidelines for inclusion which summarised much of the work done in this area. The guidelines highlight the importance of inclusion and the effects of exclusion. The purpose of this chapter is to present a review of the literature available within the last ten years regarding the inclusion of people with disability in post-secondary and higher education. While evidence is emerging that people with intellectual disability are included in post-secondary and higher level institutions, this inclusion may not always be visible. Often inclusion is achieved by delivering specialised courses or modules or by providing opportunities to be included with but not necessarily achieve the same credits as their non-disabled peers. The review is presented using the themes of education and policy; inclusion in post-secondary and higher education; the case for inclusion; barriers to inclusion; the implications for post-secondary and higher education; and experiences of inclusion. In concluding the review possible directions for future research are also outlined.


Administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) impaired antioxidant mechanisms, increased peroxidation and impaired mitochondrial redox activity causing brain inflammation as well as neuronal damage and impairment of brain monoamines. Panax ginseng (P.ginseng) is a well-known herbal medicine; the main active constituent of ginseng is ginsenosides or ginseng saponins that have neuroprotective activity. The aim of our experiment was to study the role of Panax ginseng root in maintaining brain monoamines levels through the protection against LPS - induced oxidative stress in rat model. In this experiment, we used forty rats and divided them into: control, ginseng, lipopolysaccharide and ginseng treated groups. malondialdehyde (MDA) and paraoxonase activity (PON-1) were estimated colorimetrically. Comet assay technique was used to determine the percent of DNA damage in addition to brain monoamines assessment by HPLC. The data showed that lipopolysaccharide significantly increased brain MDA, DNA damage percent and brain monoamines concomitant with a reduction in serum PON-1. Contrarily, ginseng supplementation improved these values in treated group. P. ginseng is a very important supplement that protects against brain injury and its benefit effect may be attributed to its high amounts of ginsenosides that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory effects that augment impairment of brain monoamines


There is a growing attention for parent involvement in education in general and in early childhood education in particular. The vast majority of scholarly literature is published in English language and originates from Western countries. There is a risk that this may lead to the assumption that mainstream ideas in international literature are globally valid and come to dominate those of other countries, despite cultural differences. We conducted a systematic review of Chinese literature on parent involvement and analyzed underlying assumptions on rationales for parent involvement, on how parent involvement is configured, on guanxi and social inclusion, and eventually on the meaning of early childhood education. We found that while traditional important Chinese values are missing in
dominant literature, there is also an increasing influence from U.S. literature on Chinese policy and practice.


Migration of neuronal growth cones in the Drosophila visual system is a model system useful for understanding how axons seek their targets during development. Axons from certain photoreceptor cells in the fly's compound eye project specifically to the lamina region of the brain's optic lobe. In a genetic screen for mutations that disrupt this precision, Senti et al. identified a gene called brakeless (bks) that is necessary for these axons to terminate in the lamina. Without bks, axons fail to stop in the lamina and project onto the medulla. One of the two alternatively spliced isoforms of the gene product for bks has a zinc-finger-like domain, and both isoforms localized to cellular nuclei. Hence, in addition to target-derived cues that regulate axon outgrowth, intrinsic factors in the migrating neurons play a key role as well. It is not clear whether bks provides growth cones with the molecular machinery needed to respond to targeting signals, or acts in the nucleus to stop axon extension in response to these signals. Senti, K.-A., Keleman, K., Eisenhaber, F., and Dickson, B.J. (2000) brakeless is required for lamina targeting of R1-R6 axons in the Drosophila visual system. Development 127: 2291-2301. [Online Journal]


The study aims to investigate the current perceptions of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIP) for domestic workers in a township called KwaNdengezi, a Durban Metro area, Pretoria section. The study used qualitative research methods to gather and interpret data. A sample consisting of 13 domestic workers, 10 employers of domestic workers, Department of Labour (UIF official) and representative from the South African Domestic and Allied Workers Union (SADAWU) were interviewed. The study found that there are negative perceptions about the policy due to the fact that people (employers and domestic workers) do not understand the policy objectives and how the policy tries to meet these objectives. The study also found that SADAWU was participated in setting the agenda for policy by identifying the problems of domestic workers and petitioning government to address them. Lastly, the study highlighted that the main problem with the implementation of the policy was that it was not communicated clearly enough which has led to many misinterpretations of the policy. CONTENTS Introduction 1 PART 1: Theoretical Framework 3 Defining Public Policy 3 Identifying a problem 4


In this article, we discuss the various ways in which the experiments we have been doing within the INKE Interface Design team and elsewhere are predicated on the availability of "digital apparatus" – various forms of metadata that can be made consistently available. These include structural, procedural, and semantic markup, digital indexes, textual variants, annotations, regularized citations, and taxonomies of references, to name a few. While some affordances are agnostic to the very existence of metadata, in some crucial instances the metadata is essential. The question we hope to address in these cases is the extent to which the new affordances are actually of sufficient potential benefit to the community to warrant being produced and maintained .


Therme Vals, the spa complex built in the Swiss Alps by celebrated architect Peter Zumthor, became an icon of contemporary architecture soon after its opening in 1996. Inspired by the spa's majestic surroundings, Zumthor built the structure on the sharp grade of an Alpine mountain slope with grass-topped roofs to mimic Swiss meadows, captured here in a series of sumptuous images. Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, the only book-length study of this singular building, features the architect's own original sketches and plans for its design as well as Helene Binet's striking photographs of the structure. Architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser contributes an essay on such topics as "Artemis/Diana," "Baptism," "Mikvah," and "Spring"--drawing out the connections between the elemental nature of the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity. Annotations by Peter Zumthor on his design concept and the building process elucidate the structure's symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings, revealing, for example, why he insisted on using locally quarried stone. Therme Vals's scenic design elements, and Zumthor's contributions to this book, reflect the architect's commitment to the essential and his disdain for needless architectural flourishes. This lavishly illustrated volume about the spa that catapulted a remote Swiss village onto the international architecture scene will entrance all enthusiasts of contemporary design.


This thesis is concerned with inferring scene shape by combining two specific techniques: shape-from-shading and stereopsis. Shape-from-shading calculates shape using the lighting equation, which takes surface orientation and lighting information to irradiance. As irradiance and lighting information are provided this is the problem of inverting a many to one function to get surface orientation.
Surface orientation may be integrated to get depth. Stereopsis matches pixels between two images taken from different locations of the same scene - this is the correspondence problem. Depth can then be calculated using camera calibration information, via triangulation. These methods both fail for certain inputs; the advantage of combining them is that where one fails the other may continue to work. Notably, shape-from-shading requires a smoothly shaded surface, without texture, whilst stereopsis requires texture - each works where the other does not.

The first work of this thesis tackles the problem directly.
A novel modular solution is proposed to combine both methods; combining is itself done using Gaussian belief propagation. This modular approach highlights missing and weak modules; the rest of the thesis is then concerned with providing a new module and an improved module. The improved module is given in the second research chapter and consists of a new shape-from-shading algorithm. It again uses belief propagation, but this time with directional statistics to represent surface orientation. Message passing is performed using a novel method; it is analytical, which makes this algorithm particularly fast. In the final research chapter a new module is provided, to estimate the light source direction. Without such a module the user of the system has to provide it; this is tedious and error prone, and impedes automation. It is a probabilistic method that uniquely estimates the light source direction using a stereo pair as input.


Staging of lung cancer is a key factor for both prognostication and management of patients. Thus, there is a need for an accurate, uncomplicated, easily reproducible staging system. The database of the 8th TNM (T: Tumor, N: Node, M: Metastasis) classification is based on information gathered from 94,708 patients who received diagnoses of lung cancer between 1999 and 2010, originating from 35 sources in 16 countries. Data analysis was performed in 2013–2014 regarding proposals put forward for the 8th edition and was published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. It is thought that the 8th edition will be used in 2017. In this edition, tumor diameter is more important and each centimeter counts (T1a: ≤1 cm, T1b: >1 cm but ≤2 cm, T1c: >2 cm but ≤3 cm, T2a: >3 cm but ≤4 cm, T2b: >4 cm but ≤5 cm, T3: >5 cm but ≤7 cm, and T4: >7 cm). There are changes in some T descriptors such as main bronchus involvement (T2), total atelectasis/pneumonitis (T2), involvement of diaphragm (T4), and mediastinal pleural invasion (not used as T descriptor). Current N staging is still valid; however, there are clues for the importance of the abundance of nodal involvement. Three metastatic groups are defined: M1a (contralateral/bilateral tumor nodules, pleural/pericardial nodules or effusion), M1b (single metastatic lesion in one organ), and M1c (multiple metastasis in either single or multiple organs). More stage groupings demonstrating good prognostic categories are proposed. These changes do not have much implication on treatment. The proposed taxonomic changes do not affect therapeutic modalities. However, care should be taken to follow up for small pulmonary nodules.


Type-2 (T2) fuzzy logic (FL) systems (T2FLSs) have shown a remarkable potential in dealing with uncertain data resulting from real-world systems with non-stationary characteristics. This paper reports on novel developments in interval T2FLS (IT2FLS) classifier design methodology so that system non-stationarities can be effectively handled. In general, the approach presented here rests on a general concept of two-stage FLS design in which an initial rule base structure is first initialized and then system parameters are globally optimized. The proposed incremental enhancements of existing fuzzy techniques, adopted from the area of conventional type-1 (T1) FL, are heuristic in nature. The IT2FLS design methods have been empirically verified in this work in the realm of pattern recognition. In particular, the potential and the suitability of IT2FLS to the problem of classification of motor imagery (MI) related patterns in electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings has been investigated. The outcome of this study bears direct relevance to the development of EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) since the problem under examination poses a major difficulty for the state-of-the-art BCI methods. The IT2FLS classifier is evaluated in this work on multi-session EEG data sets in the framework of an off-line BCI. Its performance is quantified in terms of the classification accuracy (CA) rates and has been found to be favorable to that of analogous systems employing a conventional T1FLS, along with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM), commonly utilized in MI-based BCI systems.


Importance
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic with no specific therapeutic agents and substantial mortality. It is critical to find new treatments.

Objective
To determine whether convalescent plasma transfusion may be beneficial in the treatment of critically ill patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection.

Design, Setting, and Participants
Case series of 5 critically ill patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) who met the following criteria: severe pneumonia with rapid progression and continuously high viral load despite antiviral treatment; Pao2/Fio2 <300; and mechanical ventilation. All 5 were treated with convalescent plasma transfusion. The study was conducted at the infectious disease department, Shenzhen Third People's Hospital in Shenzhen, China, from January 20, 2020, to March 25, 2020; final date of follow-up was March 25, 2020. Clinical outcomes were compared before and after convalescent plasma transfusion.

Exposures
Patients received transfusion with convalescent plasma with a SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody (IgG) binding titer greater than 1:1000 (end point dilution titer, by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA]) and a neutralization titer greater than 40 (end point dilution titer) that had been obtained from 5 patients who recovered from COVID-19. Convalescent plasma was administered between 10 and 22 days after admission.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Changes of body temperature, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score (range 0-24, with higher scores indicating more severe illness), Pao2/Fio2, viral load, serum antibody titer, routine blood biochemical index, ARDS, and ventilatory and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) supports before and after convalescent plasma transfusion.

Results
All 5 patients (age range, 36-65 years; 2 women) were receiving mechanical ventilation at the time of treatment and all had received antiviral agents and methylprednisolone. Following plasma transfusion, body temperature normalized within 3 days in 4 of 5 patients, the SOFA score decreased, and Pao2/Fio2 increased within 12 days (range, 172-276 before and 284-366 after). Viral loads also decreased and became negative within 12 days after the transfusion, and SARS-CoV-2-specific ELISA and neutralizing antibody titers increased following the transfusion (range, 40-60 before and 80-320 on day 7). ARDS resolved in 4 patients at 12 days after transfusion, and 3 patients were weaned from mechanical ventilation within 2 weeks of treatment. Of the 5 patients, 3 have been discharged from the hospital (length of stay: 53, 51, and 55 days), and 2 are in stable condition at 37 days after transfusion.

Conclusions and Relevance
In this preliminary uncontrolled case series of 5 critically ill patients with COVID-19 and ARDS, administration of convalescent plasma containing neutralizing antibody was followed by improvement in their clinical status. The limited sample size and study design preclude a definitive statement about the potential effectiveness of this treatment, and these observations require evaluation in clinical trials.


An international university can communicate better with foreign users by an
easy and useful website which its content replies to all students' information
needs. The lack of sufficient information for international students may
happen in that kind of bilingual websites which all information has not been
translated equally in both languages and the national language is dominant.
This research aims to measure the level of ease of use and usefulness of the
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) website in order to know the foreign students'
expectation and satisfaction with it and evaluate the content from the users'
point of view.
The questionnaire survey was employed as the instrument for data collection
in this study. Simple Random sampling technique was applied in the sample
selection of the respondents. A self-administered questionnaire was designed
as a research instrument in survey section. A total of 328 international students participated in the survey conducted in the Universiti Putra Malaysia.
The return response rate was 92.1 percent. Statistical techniques engaged in
survey study included frequency distribution, descriptive analysis statistics
and Spearman rho Correlation coefficient.
The results revealed that the level of ease of use and usefulness of the UPM
website was high among international students. As the UPM website had
English language problem for users, but they were satisfied with it and could
communicate with website. Additionally, the findings indicated that there is a
moderate correlation between ease of use of the UPM website and the
international students' satisfaction, as the correlation between usefulness and
users' satisfaction was high.
It can be concluded that the respondents of this study perceived UPM website
useful and easy to use and they are satisfied with it. Meaning an easy and
useful technology has effects on users to accept or reject it. Based on this
study a useful academic website with rich content is more interesting than an
easy website for students. They expected to have access to a complete
university website in order to answer to all information needs with more
detailed information and it should be the first reference to get information
from.


A practical and environmentally benign electrochemical oxidation of thioethers and thiols in a commercially-available continuous-flow microreactor is presented. Water is used as the source of oxygen to enable the oxidation process. The oxidation reaction utilizes the same reagents in all scenarios and the selectivity is solely governed by the applied potential. The procedure exhibits a broad scope and good functional group compatibility providing access to various sulfoxides (15 examples), sulfones (15 examples) and disulfides (6 examples). The use of continuous flow allows the optimal reaction parameters (e.g. residence time, applied voltage) to be rapidly assessed, to avoid mass- and heat-transfer limitations and to scale the electrochemistry.


Background and Objectives Diagnostic discordance for osteoporosis is the observation that the T-score of an individual patient varies from one key measurement site to another, falling into two different diagnostic categories of minor and major discordances, identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) classification system. The aim of the present study was to assess the frequency of causes of minor discrepancy between bone densities of hip and spine. Methods In this study, from all patients referred to bone marrow densitometery centre of Loghman from September 2008 to May 2009 in order to BMD assessment due to several causes and underwent spine and hip BMD. 171 cases with minor discrepancies were enrolled and causes of discrepancies were determined. Results The mean age of patients was 92.69 ± 13.13 years. 87.78% of patients were female. The causes of minor discrepancy were respectively Osteoarthritis (45.03%), Osteoporosis (28.65%), Aortic Calcification, Osteoarthritis Deformans, Syndesmophytes and DISH each with 2.92%. These causes in female gender were Osteoarthritis (48.67%), Osteoporosis (27.33%), Aortic Calcification and Syndesmophytes with 3.33%; and in male they were Osteoarthritis (38.1%), Osteoporosis and DISH each with 19.05%. Conclusions The minor discrepancy in T-score is a common finding which can result diagnostic problems in densitometry analysis. The results of the present study show that the most common causes of minor discrepancy were Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, Aortic Calcification, Osteoarthritis Deformans, Syndesmophytes and DISH.


PURPOSE
We developed and tested theoretically derived procedures to observe physical environments experienced by nursing home residents at three nested levels: their rooms, the nursing unit, and the overall facility. Illustrating with selected descriptive results, in this article we discuss the development of the approach.

DESIGN AND METHODS
On the basis of published literature, existing instruments, and expert opinion about environmental elements that might affect quality of life, we developed separate observational checklists for the room and bath environment, unit environment, and facility environment. We trained 40 interviewers without specialized design experience to high interrater reliability with the room-level assessment. We used the three checklists to assess 1,988 resident room and bath environments, 131 nursing units, and 40 facilities in five states. From the data elements, we developed quantitative indices to describe the facilities according to environmentally relevant constructs such as function-enhancing features, life-enriching features, resident environmental controls, and personalization.

RESULTS
We reliably gathered data on a large number of environmental items at three environmental levels. Environments varied within and across facilities, and we noted many environmental deficits potentially relevant to resident quality of life.

IMPLICATIONS
This research permits resident-specific data collection on physical environments and resident-level research using hierarchical analysis to examine the effects of specific environmental constellations. We describe practice and research implications for this approach.


Soil respiration is controlled by soil temperature, soil water, fine roots, microbial activity, and soil physical and chemical properties. Forest thinning changes soil temperature, soil water content, and root density and activity, and thus changes soil respiration. We measured soil respiration monthly and soil temperature and volumetric soil water continuously in a young ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex P. Laws. & C. Laws.) plantation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California from June 1998 to May 2000 (before a thinning that removed 30% of the biomass), and from May to December 2001 (after thinning). Thinning increased the spatial homogeneity of soil temperature and respiration. We conducted a multivariate analysis with two independent variables of soil temperature and water and a categorical variable representing the thinning event to simulate soil respiration and assess the effect of thinning. Thinning did not change the sensitivity of soil respiration to temperature or to water, but decreased total soil respiration by 13% at a given temperature and water content. This decrease in soil respiration was likely associated with the decrease in root density after thinning. With a model driven by continuous soil temperature and water time series, we estimated that total soil respiration was 948, 949 and 831 g C m(-2) year(-1) in the years 1999, 2000 and 2001, respectively. Although thinning reduced soil respiration at a given temperature and water content, because of natural climate variability and the thinning effect on soil temperature and water, actual cumulative soil respiration showed no clear trend following thinning. We conclude that the effect of forest thinning on soil respiration is the combined result of a decrease in root respiration, an increase in soil organic matter, and changes in soil temperature and water due to both thinning and interannual climate variability.


This paper critically reviews the evolving perspectives and disciplinary developments in the field of third language acquisition. It illustrates three of the most prominent and widely discussed models, namely Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn, Foley, & Vinnitskaya, 2004), L2 Status Factor Model (Bardel & Falk, 2007), Typological Primacy Model (Rothman, 2011), and their later developments/refinements. Based on the comparison of the three models, this article continues with a survey of up-to-date empirical studies and further reconciles the current conflicting findings. It points out potential factors and deficiencies of research designs, including selection of participants, languages involved, linguistic features examined, and elicitation instruments, that may have led to controversial findings. Built upon the critical investigation of existing theoretical frameworks and empirical studies, this paper moves beyond the three models, brings in perspectives that are overlooked in prior research, and identifies the future research directions in the field of third language acquisition.


Claude McKay remains one of the most influential intellectuals of the African diaspora. Best remembered for his extraordinary poetry, his achievement in verse has been widely analyzed and praised. Yet in the welter of discussion about McKay, little has been said about his early writing in Jamaican. Two collections from the period, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, are more known about than known, and his poems for the Jamaican press, most of which have never been anthologized, are rarely studied. In A Fierce Hatred of Injustice, Winston James elegantly redresses this omission. Through a subtle and detailed consideration of McKay's formative years on the island, James reviews the themes and politics of poetry which McKay began writing at the age of ten. Above all he focuses on the poet's pioneering use of Jamaican creole revealing the way in which this laid a foundation for subsequent work by writers such as Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith. The volume concludes with a comprehensive anthology of the early poems together with a comic sketch about Jamaican peasant life by McKay and an autobiographical essay on his experiences in the Kingston police force.


Introduction African historiography owes much of its creation to scholars with secular tendencies, and it is not surprising that they place more emphasis on the political and cultural effects of religion rather than on the nature of religious change. In Nigeria, the failure to pay adequate tribute, outside the confines of religious studies, to the enormous contributions of the Christian missions to nation building has been described as a deficient cultural nationalism. (1) This paper aims to set the record straight. The impact of mission education on the political landscape of Eastern Nigeria in particular has remained an important factor in the region's socio-cultural history. In the pages that follow, we shall look at the various stances of the Christian denominations with regard to the political training and political participation of their adherents in Eastern Nigeria. Throughout the colonial period, the Protestant missions maintained a comfortable lead over their Catholic counterparts in the provision of political leadership in the country. In 1955, Father J. Jordan, the education adviser to the Catholic missions, was at pains to note that the premier, his deputy, and eleven out of the twelve cabinet ministers, in other words the entire government of the then Eastern Region, were Protestant. (2) The paper shall attempt, among other things, to analyse the causes of this disparity, which although the Catholics had the status of a numerical giant, accorded them that of a political dwarf. It also accounted, in part, for the brand of cultural nationalism that tended to depreciate the role of religion in the nation-building mechanism of the polity. Post-primary education and national consciousness The imbalance which existed in the exercise of political control among the products of the missionary schools is essentially the outcome of the different approaches which the Christian denominations gave to secondary education in Nigeria. Among the missionary societies which came to Africa in the 19th century, there was a general awareness that education, especially at the secondary level, was necessary for all aspects of nation building in the continent. Their plan was, in the words of the secretary general of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), to train a body of natives, "who may form an intelligent and influential class of society and become f0unders of a kingdom which shall render incalculable benefits to Africa." (3) It was the Protestant missions which took the lead in translating this general principle into practice, not only in Eastern Nigeria but also throughout the country. It was a move that brought their adherents into intimate contact with the political struggle for independence. Long before British rule was established in Nigeria, the Protestant missions had begun to prepare their African members for leadership, especially for leadership in the local churches envisaged in the country. Realizing the relevance of higher education to nation building, the mission societies sent their African parsons and senior teachers to colleges in England and America, and to Fourah Bay in Sierra Leone, that powerhouse of Protestantism in West Africa. The elevation in 1864 of Ajayi Crowther to the position of bishop in the Anglican church to lead an all-African staff on the Niger, was the high water mark of the pioneering indigenization efforts of the Protestant missions. (4) It was the products of this Protestant initiative which eventually spearheaded the establishment of Protestant grammar schools in Nigeria, and saw education as an instrument of emancipation from perpetual servitude. It was against this background that Eyo Ita, the first premier of Eastern Nigeria, launched his national education movement in the 1930s. "Education", he said, "will not Europeanize the African, but on the contrary will Africanize him ... It must now become a powerful dynamic force to liberate the people, soul and body, and it must do that at a rate never dreamt of before. …


Expert systems can be developed and operated on personal computers to aid in the design of the geotextile filter component of pavement edge drains. The expanding use of geotextiles in infrastructure construction and renovation presents the opportunity to combine the technologies to develop a computer tool to assist in the design of pavement systems. The 'Edge Drain by Expert System' (EDxES) software system is a first step in this direction.


INTRODUCTION The area covered by this report has been surveyed (1923–1931) by parties of the Geological Survey of Canada, for the most part under the leadership of the author. The work was undertaken because of the urgent need for a standard section across the Appalachians of southern Quebec, often called the Notre Dame Hills ( see Fig. 1). For ninety years the Survey has maintained parties in this region, but in the early days, because of inherent difficulties and because of a failure to appreciate the fact that stratigraphic standards west of the frontal fault of the Appalachians could not be safely applied to the folded rocks to the east, the region came to be considered of such structural and stratigraphic complexity that little serious detailed regional work was attempted. Local areas, around Quebec City and Levis, Thetford, Philipsburg, and other cities, were more or less intensively studied, but with generally . . .


This research full paper proposes opportunities to expand qualitative and textual data analysis using natural language processing (NLP), and demonstrates opportunities to use NLP in engineering education work in our presentation of two NLP-based projects as examples of how NLP can be used. The discipline of engineering education frequently employs qualitative data analysis techniques, but fundamentally, the analysis of large corpora of textual documents is limited by researcher's time. In this paper, we present a brief review literature of how NLP has been used in other qualitative research fields. This portion of the paper is aimed to provide a clear description of NLP for those unfamiliar with machine learning and natural language processing methods. The second part of the paper will provide two brief examples of how NLP is being employed in our research group. Example 1 is a study of engineering résumés, with the intention of being able to calculate the "disciplinary discourse density" based off the engineering language presented in engineering résumés, a technique validated in prior qualitative studies by hand. Example 2 is a genre analysis of engineering literature reviews, seeking to understand the ways in which sentences linguistically build into arguments, such that the task of writing literature reviews might be demystified. This paper will have a methodological impact for researchers attempting to use NLP methods to analyze qualitative data, articulating the opportunities and barriers in using these methods for engineering education research.


The internal turning operation is a common metal working process that is usually associated with vibration problems. Boring bars are often long and slender, making them prone to vibration when they are excited by the cutting forces introduced by the material deformation process in boring. The vibration causes degraded surface finish of the machined work piece, decreased tool life of inserts and boring bars, noise and other unwanted effects. Therefore, time-consuming planning and preparation have to be made in order to minimize vibration, affecting the cost of the machining process in the negative direction. It is possible to stabilize boring bars using active vibration control. To be able to do so, the dynamic properties of the bars have to be known in detail. Furthermore, with this knowledge, the results of using prediction tools for relating cutting parameters to cutting results may be significantly improved thanks to more relevant input data into the prediction tools. The effect of different clamping conditions on the dynamic properties of a boring bar's fundamental bending modes has been studied. Modal analysis was performed on a 40 mm-diameter boring bar with 100 mm clamping length and 200 mm overhang, making the L/D ratio 5. The clamping conditions have been varied by use of two different clamping devices. In each clamping device, several different clamping conditions were achieved by using different torque on the clamping screws. Results show that both the eigenfrequencies and the directions of the fundamental bending modes vary considerably due to the clamping conditions used.


The mechanism by which outflows and plausible jets are driven from black hole systems still remains observationally elusive. This notwithstanding, several observational evidences and deeper theoretical insights reveal that accretion and outflow/jet are strongly correlated. We model an advective disk-outflow coupled dynamics, incorporating explicitly the vertical flux. Inter-connecting dynamics of outflow and accretion essentially upholds the conservation laws. We investigate the properties of the disk-outflow surface and its strong dependence on the rotation parameter of the black hole. The energetics of the disk outflow strongly depend on the mass, accretion rate, and spin of the black holes. The model clearly shows that the outflow power extracted from the disk increases strongly with the spin of the black hole, inferring that the power of the observed astrophysical jets has a proportional correspondence with the spin of the central object. In the case of blazars (BL Lacs and flat spectrum radio quasars, FSRQs), most of their emission are believed to be originated from their jets. It is observed that BL Lacs are relatively low luminous than FSRQs. The luminosity might be linked to the power of the jet, which in turn reflects that the nuclear regions of the BL Lac objects have a relatively low spinning black hole compared to that in the case of FSRQs. If extreme gravity is the source that powers strong outflows and jets, then the spin of the black hole, perhaps, might be the fundamental parameter to account for the observed astrophysical processes in an accretion powered system.


In automotive industry, computer control, fault detection and communication are becoming increasingly complex and interrelated with each other. This prompts development of formal methods for software design and verification.
The model based development of automotive functionality has become extremely popular especially in drive train and engine applications. The approach appears to make the development more modular, with the programming code being more reusable and easier to test. This article looks at the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. It concerns the range of tests, from first component tests through integration and system tests to the final acceptance tests.
It discusses model based development using the V model and shows some differences to code based development.
The first component tests are generally divided into static tests (reviews, rule checkers, metrics, static analysis) and dynamic tests (model in the loop, software in the loop, processor in the loop). In addition, an important aspect is verification of models using non-floating point arithmetic, as this method of calculation of often used in automotive embedded computers (e.g. FPGA). The formal verification of such models is discussed. With respect to the integration tests, the article concentrates on some issues of hardware-in-the-loop testing. The system tests are also discussed, especially the structure of system information in a model based approach and the preconditions determined by hardware in the loop tests. In the final acceptance tests, the main problems contain: formal link between the system requirements and the test methods and coordination and optimisation of the whole test process. Current trends in automotive industry are toward higher level of integration of the development, verification and manufacturing of systems. Therefore, the traceability is also discussed, with a mention of a model of an integrated tool chain. The article shows the pit falls of tool orientation and a way out of the disaster.
An example of software development and testing process in a leading automotive company will illustrate the considerations.
Finally the article looks at the future of software development in automotive industry, will development of formal methods and increasing standardisation lead to a closer cooperation of different manufacturers?


Cerebral oedema in diabetic ketoacidosis (CODKA) is a controversial subject both in medical and forensic practice as well as in the specialized literature, in the light of the non-homogeneous theories regarding the pathophysiological mechanisms. It would seem that the ground of CEDKA would be a combination/fusion of processes that affect both metabolic changes in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and aggressive therapy to combat DKA. This article wants to underline the importance of knowing and deepening the pathophysiological mechanism that leads to the installation of cerebral oedema (CO) in DKA, focusing on the potential of the thanatogenerator mechanism.


A weak infrared (IR) image amplifier with more than 60-dB optical gain and frequency up-conversion is developed from a picosecond (PS) 355-nm pumped gated optical parametric amplifier (OPA) in a \beta- BaB2O4 (BBO) crystal. The IR image at 1064 nm is amplified and up-converted into the visible region at 532 nm by parametric amplification and up-conversion. With the optimized optical gain, the lowest detectable energy of the image can be as low as 1.8 femto-Joule per pulse, which is three orders of magnitude lower than the detection limit of a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. The transversal resolution of the OPA imaging is investigated, and the approaches for higher detection sensitivity and higher transversal resolution are proposed.


In the wake of numerous protests in the Spring of 2011, memes have taken Arab internet culture by storm. Social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have mainly been studied in the Arab world for their apparent aid in mass uprisings in several countries. This article explores what these Arabic internet memes reveal about the patriarchal system. The data used in this analysis are memes available on the Internet that are in Arabic. To investigate this problem, this article discusses the form and content of several internet memes about patriarchy, the language and rhetoric used, humorous elements, and their overall messages. This article uses qualitative methods and approaches to analyze these memes. The semiotic structuralism method examines the internal elements, such as images and texts, their relationships, as well as linguistics, rhetoric, humor, and semiotics theories. From the analysis results, it was found that, on the one hand, when it comes to their form, memes are very useful in conveying issues about the patriarchal system. On the other hand, internet memes are rather difficult for everyday people to digest because they use many connotative signs and phrases that need to be observed beforehand. This is what distinguishes Arabic internet memes about patriarchal systems from other memes. The issue of patriarchy in Arabia is very diverse and complex, requiring a critical reading to understand it.


Diseases of the thyroid are among the most prevalent of medical conditions, especially in women, but the symptoms can be relatively nonspecific or mild. For this reason, clinicians have been placing increased reliance on the laboratory for assistance in the diagnosis of thyroid disorders. In the 1950s, only one thyroid test was available, the protein-bound iodine estimate of the serum total thyroxine (T4) concentration which showed a poor sensitivity and specificity for thyroid disease.


Many pharmaceutical solids can exist in different physical forms including polymorphs, solvates, hydrates and co-crystals. Polymorphism is observed in more than half of all crystalline pharmaceutical drugs. A drug substance can have multiple polymorphs, each exhibiting different properties including solubility, bioavailability, stability, efficacy etc. Inter-conversion of different polymorphs of a drug during its isolation, manufacture, transport and storage can have profound effects on the quality and performance of the drug product. Therefore, in order to ensure reproducible bioavailability of the drug during its shelf life under a variety of storage conditions, it is desirable to develop the most thermodynamically stable polymorph of that compound, although this is not an easy task. Hence, developing drugs that do not have an inherent tendency to crystallise is a potentially promising avenue of investigation for the pharmaceutical industry. For this reason, liquid drug forms of established active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) have been proposed as a new approach towards alleviating the problems associated with polymorphism of solid drugs. Ionic liquids, compounds comprised entirely of ions and that melt below 100 oC, exhibit a lack of crystallisation at ambient temperature and pressure as a result of decreased lattice energies in the crystalline state. These compounds are known for their ability to be tailored, where ions can be chosen to obtain ionic liquids with particular characteristics (e.g. water soluble vs. water insoluble ionic liquids etc.) It is therefore possible to combine pharmaceutically active ions with Generally Recognised as Safe (GRAS) counter ions to obtain liquid salt forms of known APIs. This is the basis of the research discussed within. The concept of dual pharmaceutically active ionic liquids, whereby two APIs with synergistic activities are combined in order to obtain ionic liquids with dual pharmaceutical activity, is also explored. Predicting whether a particular ion pair will generate a liquid at room temperature is difficult due to the number of possible combinations of anions and cations and the intricacies of their interactions. In this project, a concept known as "anti-crystal engineering" was employed in order to aid in the selection of ions most likely to produce liquids, and this approach was successful in generating a wide range of pharmaceutically active ionic liquids. These new compounds have been fully characterised and their physical properties are reported. As most organic acid/base drugs are only sparingly soluble in water, while many of the corresponding salts of these drugs are water soluble, pharmaceutically active protic ionic liquids have also been developed in order to extend this research strategy to a wider number of drugs, rendering them water soluble in most cases. In order to gain more information about their potential behaviour in delivery systems, these compounds were subjected to a number of experimental techniques, such as infrared analysis and transport property studies, where their chemical and physical properties were determined. As protic ionic liquids do not necessarily consist entirely of ions, but may also contain small amounts of the acid/base species they are derived from, it is also imperative to determine the degree of proton transfer in these compounds. For the protic ionic liquid to be considered a "pure" salt, and not a mixture of the starting materials and the salt, the proton transfer should be at least 99 %. We have established a relationship between the presence of certain functional groups, the extent of proton transfer and the level of association between ions, which will be a useful tool for the future design of the most efficient liquid protic drugs. Finally, model membrane transport studies were performed using the pharmaceutically active protic ionic liquids. These have shown very promising initial results, indicating that these compounds can be designed to have enhanced membrane transport when compared to the original solid form of the drug. These results are an important step towards the application of liquid APIs.


Quartz at the Betze-Post deposit, the largest Carlin-type gold system in the world, was examined to better understand ore fluid properties and sources that generated Carlin-type gold deposits. Detailed petrography and paragenesis investigations distinguished textural relationships, luminescence, various generations of quartz, and fluid inclusion populations; microthermometry, chemical analyses of quartz, and in situ and conventional oxygen isotope analyses of quartz provided information about hydrothermal fluid conditions as well as fluid sources and ore formation processes.

Pre-, syn-, late-, and post-ore stages of quartz were distinguished during petrographic studies and confirmed by cathodoluminescence analyses. Ore-stage jasperoid and late-ore drusy quartz are spatially associated with Au-bearing pyrite; both lack luminescence. Two generations of post-ore drusy quartz overgrew ore and late-ore quartz and exhibit bright and multiply zoned luminescence. Electron probe microanalyses determined that nonluminescing ore and late-ore quartz have elevated concentrations of Al, in contrast to post-ore luminescent quartz that contains low trace element concentrations. Fluid inclusion microthermometry determined that ore-stage fluids had low salinities, generally <5 wt % NaCl equiv, and were trapped at 180° to 240°C.

The δ 18O values, calculated for inclusion fluids and determined for quartz using in situ ion probe and conventional analyses, indicate that the isotopic composition of hydrothermal fluids became 18O depleted with time, from the ore stage through the late-ore stage to the post-ore stage. The δ 18O composition of each stage of quartz also varies spatially across the Betze-Post deposit, and δ 18OVSMOW values of ore-, late-ore, and post-ore stage quartz became more depleted with increasing distance from the master Post fault. These patterns are interpreted to result from increasing dilution of the 18O-enriched ore fluid by unevolved meteoric fluids over time and with increased ore fluid transport distance to the west, away from the Post fault, the master fault that transmitted hydrothermal fluids to the deposit.

Oxygen isotope results are consistent with a low fluid/rock ratio during upward transport of the ore fluid via the Post fault. Below the deposit, some ore fluids were diverted into the JB Series faults, associated with the Betze ore zones, and the Shalosky fault, associated with the Screamer ore zone in the western part of the deposit. Ore fluids were increasingly diluted by meteoric fluids with distance as ore fluids traveled away from the Post fault and over time as different stages of quartz precipitated. Acidic, 180° to 240°C ore fluids accessed the level of the deposits where they reacted with the Devonian Popovich Formation and precipitated nonluminescing, Al-enriched ore-stage jasperoid and late-ore drusy quartz, along with Au and trace element-rich pyrite. Fluid-rock reaction, dissolution, and replacement of silty carbonate host rocks may have produced Al that substituted for Si in non-luminescing jasperoid and late-ore stage quartz. As the hydrothermal ore system began to cool and collapse, late-ore drusy quartz and realgar precipitated in open space as ore-stage pyrite precipitation declined. The hydrothermal system collapsed with meteoric water flooding; post-ore minerals, including luminescent, Al-poor post-ore drusy quartz and later calcite and barite, precipitated either from latest Carlin-related fluids, neutralized by infiltration of meteoric waters, or as part of a later, separate hydrothermal event.


Beet soilborne mosaic virus (BSBMV) is a rigid rod-shaped virus transmitted by Polymyxa betae. Particles were 19 nm wide and ranged from 50 to over 400 nm, but no consistent modal lengths could be determined. Nucleic acids extracted from virions were polyadenylated and typically separated into three or four discrete bands of variable size by agarose-formaldehyde gel electrophoresis. RNA 1 and 2, the largest of the RNAs, consistently averaged 6.7 and 4.6 kb, respectively. The sizes and number of smaller RNA species were variable. The molecular mass of the capsid protein of BSBMV was estimated to be 22.5 kDa. In Northern blots, probes specific to the 3' end of individual beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV) RNAs 1-4 hybridized strongly with the corresponding BNYVV RNA species and weakly with BSBMV RNAs 1, 2, and 4. Probes specific to the 5' end of BNYVV RNAs 1-4 hybridized with BNYVV but not with BSBMV. No cross-reaction between BNYVV and BSBMV was detected in Western blots. In greenhouse studies, root weights of BSBMV-infected plants were significantly lower than mock-inoculated controls but greater than root weights from plants infected with BNYVV. Results of serological, hybridization, and virulence experiments indicate that BSBMV is distinct from BNYVV. However, host range, capsid size, and the number, size, and polyadenylation of its RNAs indicate that BSBMV more closely resembles BNYVV than it does other members of the genus Furovirus.


This study was conducted to determine the effects of different day lengths and daminozide on days to flower, some quality parameters and chlorophyll contents of spray chrysanthemum plants (Chrysanthemum morifolium cvs. 'Yellow Reagan' and 'White Reagan') grown under greenhouse conditions. Day length and daminozide significantly affected days to flower, stem length, stem diameter and flower numbers per stem. While stem fresh weight and chlorophyll a and b contents were affected by day length, daminozide had an insignificant effect on these parameters. Long day (LD) conditions delayed days to flower by 42 days as compared to short day (SD) conditions. SD conditions reduced stem length (84.47 cm) by almost 2-fold as compared to LD conditions (169.88 cm). Under SD conditions, the stem lengths of plants treated (3000 mg L-1) and untreated (control) with daminozide were 79.21 and 89.73 cm, respectively, whereas under LD conditions, they were 156.33 and 183.43 cm, respectively. The flower number increased per stem both under SD conditions and with daminozide application. The numbers of flowers per stem were 13.40 and 11.87 under SD and LD conditions, respectively, and 14.11 flowers were obtained from the plants treated with daminozide, while 11.17 flowers per stem were obtained from the plants untreated with daminozide. LD conditions increased both chlorophylla (11.50 µg/mg) and chlorophyll b (5.93 µg/mg) contents as compared to SD conditions. In the study, compact and higher quality flowers with a desired stem length were obtained both under SD conditions and with daminozide application.

 Key words: Chlorophyll, chrysanthemum, daminozide, long day, short day, stem length.


Background A link has been suggested between increased dynamic knee valgus and the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in female athletes. However, these findings are based on complex time-consuming 3D motion analysis. There is a need for simple screening tools to identify athletes at increased risk of an ACL rupture. Objective To assess whether an experienced clinician can identify athletes with increased valgus angles and moments during a vertical drop jump using a simple screening test. Design Cross-sectional study. Participants Elite female football players. Methods Players in the Norwegian elite league (12 teams) were screened for potential risk factors for ACL injuries. Knee kinematics and kinetics in the landing phase of a 30 cm vertical drop jump were calculated using 3D motion analysis. Using a similar jump task, a physiotherapist assessed how well players stabilised their knees, and scored their knee control as 'good', 'reduced' or 'poor'. Results Of the 136 players included, 38% were classified as 'good', 34% had 'reduced' control and 28% were scored as 'poor'. Players with good control had significantly lower maximal valgus angles compared to players with poor control (0.5° vs 6.8°, p≤0.001). There were no differences in valgus moments (0.28 Nm/kg vs 0.28 Nm/kg, p=1.0). One-fifth of all players (17.6%) displayed valgus angles more than one SD above the mean in the 3D analyses (3.1° ±4.5°). The screening test captured 87.5% of these players. 22 (16.2%) players were classified in the 'poor' group without displaying high valgus angles. Conclusion The screening test identified 87.5% of players with increased valgus angles. No correlation was found between valgus angles and moments, and the test could not identify players with high valgus moments. Further investigations are needed to determine the cut-off value for defining high- versus low-risk groups, as well as the predictive value of the test.


Although the emergence of the English novel is generally regarded as an eighteenth-century phenomenon, this is the first book to be published professing to cover the 'eighteenth-century English novel' in its entirety. This Handbook surveys the development of the English novel during the 'long' eighteenth century-in other words, from the later seventeenth century right through to the first three decades of the nineteenth century when, with the publication of the novels of Jane Austen and Walter Scott, 'the novel' finally gained critical acceptance and assumed the position of cultural hegemony it enjoyed for over a century. By situating the novels of the period which are still read today against the background of the hundreds published between 1660 and 1830, this Handbook not only covers those 'masters and mistresses' of early prose fiction-such as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Scott and Austen-who are still acknowledged to be seminal figures in the emergence and development of the English novel, but also the significant number of recently-rediscovered novelists who were popular in their own day. At the same time, its comprehensive coverage of cultural contexts not considered by any existing study, but which are central to the emergence of the novel, such as the book trade and the mechanics of book production, copyright and censorship, the growth of the reading public, the economics of culture both in London and in the provinces, and the re-printing of popular fiction after 1774, offers unique insight into the making of the English novel.


Scheduling is critical part in most creation frameworks and information processing as sequencing of tasks or jobs framework executed on a grouping of processors.  One of the NP-hard problem is "Job Shop Scheduling Problem". In this work, a method of optimization proposed called "Fireworks Algorithm". The solutions divided into fireworks and each one applied sparks to find the best solution. For some selected spark applied Gaussian mutation to find enhanced solution and find optimum solution.   FWA tested on dataset to improve performance and it do well with respect to some other algorithm like Meerkat Clan Algorithm (MCA), Camel Herds Algorithm) CHA(, and Cukoo Search Algorithm (CSA).


We investigate the problem of efficient panoramic video construction based on time-synchronized input video streams. No additional constraints are imposed regarding the motion of the capturing video cameras. The presented work is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to construct in real-time a panoramic video stream from input video streams captured by freely moving cameras. The main contribution is in proposing an efficient panoramic video construction algorithm that exploits temporal information to avoid solving the stitching problem fully on a frame by frame basis. We provide detailed experimental evaluation of different methodologies that employ previous frames stitching results such as tracking interest points using optical flow and using areas of overlap to limit the search space for interest points. Our results clearly indicate that making use of temporal information in video stitching can achieve a significant reduction in execution time while providing a comparable effectiveness.


Communicating, conveying information, and transferring knowledge, these are actions that all living beings engage in, and they are central to scientific activity. Communication strategies involve the use of well-codified techniques and rules, and scientific communication, despite the incredible changes and innovations ushered in by the digital age, continues to hinge on the written word. However, the passing of time has brought changes in the methods used for transferring information, also as an effect of their scientific verification in terms of efficacy and safety. It has been shown, for example, that airline passengers understand safety maneuvers better if the instructions they receive are supported by illustrations. The communicative potential of images has also been exploited by health care professionals in hospitals, with this approach being found to be extremely useful in conveying information about medical and surgical procedures not just to patients, but also among physicians and other health care professionals. Furthermore, the Internet, the use of icons to support text, touchscreens, and digitization, have created many different information/communication opportunities, all complementary to the use of written text. Infographics have become, in form and stature, a valid scientific communication strategy. In particular, more and more people, drawn to the use of graphics in associationwith scientific data, are finding that infographic techniques suit them better. The use of graphics reinforces visual memory; recollection of a message is extremely increased if it is conveyed through text and images as opposed to text alone. Furthermore, the diffusion of images digitally makes it possible, thanks to the use of social media, to reach a wider audience and achieve greater popularity, in terms of both visualizations and citations. Nowadays, sharing via Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram must be considered an option for transferring information, also in the scientific field. Although an image is obviously no substitute for reading a complete research paper, it adds visual value to the text, serving to illustrate the key concepts. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, for example, used an infographic series to spreadguidelines inorthopaedics and traumatology and validated this methodology. Like all techniques, infographics have their own rules, and although, they allow the reader to obtain an opinion rapidly, the design work involved is time consuming. As far as our specific sphere is concerned, infographics are designed by physicians (who must have an active role in the image preparation process) and are aimed at physicians. That said, any one of us, provided we are properly supported by adequate technology and dedicated software, can produce an attractive infographic that meets several key requirements: the recipient of the message (target) must be clearly established; the title must be clear, and it must contain the key message of the scientific work that is the subject of the infographic; arrows and lines must be used to guide the reading process in a logical and orderly manner; spatial proportions between images, drawings, and words must be appropriate, and there needs to be a harmonious balance in the use of colors and fonts. We felt it would be interesting to make our readers aware of this method of information/communication that, by combining images with words in a new way, may facilitate recall of data, concepts, and recommendations, or even just rapid dissemination of critical ideas. Researchers wanting to share their work with the scientific community are informed that, from now on, Joints is willing to include works prepared according to this new publishing format.


One of the strategic mechanisms for human resource development (HRD) practitioners in developing career development program for research and development (R&D) professionals is by managing their career aspirations (Petroni, 2000). It is believed that career aspiration is one of the internal needs for motivating R&D professionals to succeed in their careers. This study therefore would contribute insights into the management of R&D professionals' careers, where their internal needs could be fulfilled through their aspirations.
There are three factors that had been recognized to have influenced the R&D professionals' career aspirations in Malaysian Government Research Institutes (GRI), namely, self-efficacy, organizational socialization and continuous improvement (CI) practices. These factors were selected based on the components of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) developed by Lent, Brown and Hackett (1994). The objectives of this study were to determine the levels of career aspiration, self-efficacy, organizational socialization and CI practices of R&D professionals in GRI, to determine the relationship between each factor and their career aspirations, and to determine the contribution of each factor to their career aspirations.
The design of this study was a descriptive correlational research where it was conducted through a quantitative research method on 158 R&D professionals. The respondents were gathered through a purposive sampling procedure and the response rate was 69.30%. The data for this study were collected using a set of questionnaire which consists of simplified version of Schein's Career Anchor Inventory (Igbaria, Kassicieh, & Silver, 1999), the General Self-efficacy scales (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995), the Organizational Socialization Inventory (Taormina, 1994), and the CI Cpabilities Survey (Jorgensen, Boer, & Laugen (2006).
The data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics to see the distributions of the respondents based on age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, and working experience. Pearson Product-Moment correlation analysis was also conducted to explain the relationship among the variables and multiple linear regressions analysis was conducted to predict the contribution of self-efficacy, organizational socialization, CI practices to the R&D professionals' career aspirations.
The findings of this study revealed that the level of R&D professionals' self-efficacy, organizational socialization, continuous improvement (CI) practices, and career aspirations were high. The results indicated that the three selected factors showed significant positive relationships with the R&D professionals' career aspirations. Nevertheless, only self-efficacy and CI practices were found to be significant in explaining the variation of career aspiration. The predictor variables explained 15.5% of the variance in the R&D professionals' career aspiration.
The study concluded that R&D professionals' self-efficacy, organizational socialization, and CI practices are important factors that determined their career aspirations. This study implied that R&D professionals must equip themselves with high level of self-efficacy, organizational socialization and CI practices to enhance their career aspirations. It is recommended that the HRD system of the GRIs need to formulate a career development programs that considers R&D professionals' self-efficacy, promotes more learning experiences through organizational socialization and strengthens the quality improvement work-procedures. Although it had been identified that the career aspirations held by the R&D professionals are high, however, this study did not explore their career aspirations with different career stages. Therefore, additional study is necessary to delve into the stability of their career aspirations over different career stages.


This article investigates whether increasing secondary education opportunities influences childbearing among young women in Brazil. We examine a novel dataset reflecting the vast expansion of secondary education in Brazil between 1997 and 2009 and exploit variation in the introduction of schools across 4,884 municipalities to instrument for school enrolment. Our most conservative estimate suggests that for every 9.7 students enrolled there is one fewer teenage births. These findings are robust to a number of specifications and sensitivity tests. Our estimates imply that Brazil's secondary school expansion accounts for 34% of the substantial decline in teenage childbearing observed over the same period. We further look at heterogeneous effects across a number of municipal characteristics and discuss what these results suggest about the mechanisms underlying the school-childbearing relationship.


Abstract. This paper assesses the relationship between amount of climate forcing – as indexed by global mean temperature change – and hydrological response in a sample of UK catchments. It constructs climate scenarios representing different changes in global mean temperature from an ensemble of 21 climate models assessed in the IPCC AR4. The results show a considerable range in impact between the 21 climate models, with – for example – change in summer runoff at a 2 °C increase in global mean temperature varying between −40% and +20%. There is evidence of clustering in the results, particularly in projected changes in summer runoff and indicators of low flows, implying that the ensemble mean is not an appropriate generalised indicator of impact, and that the standard deviation of responses does not adequately characterise uncertainty. The uncertainty in hydrological impact is therefore best characterised by considering the shape of the distribution of responses across multiple climate scenarios. For some climate model patterns, and some catchments, there is also evidence that linear climate change forcings produce non-linear hydrological impacts. For most variables and catchments, the effects of climate change are apparent above the effects of natural multi-decadal variability with an increase in global mean temperature above 1 °C, but there are differences between catchments. Based on the scenarios represented in the ensemble, the effect of climate change in northern upland catchments will be seen soonest in indicators of high flows, but in southern catchments effects will be apparent soonest in measures of summer and low flows. The uncertainty in response between different climate model patterns is considerably greater than the range due to uncertainty in hydrological model parameterisation.


There are pronounced and persistent wage differences between men and women in all parts of the world. A significant element of these wage disparities can be attributed to differences in worker and workplace characteristics, which are likely to mirror differences in worker productivity. However, a large part of these differences remains unexplained, and it is common to attribute them to discrimination by the employer that is rooted in prejudice against female workers. Yet recent empirical evidence suggests that, to a large extent, the gaps reflect "monopsonistic" wage discrimination—that is, employers exploiting their wage-setting power over women—rather than any sort of prejudice.


Children living in families with three or more of the following risks ? single parenthood, four or more children in the household, a parent?s lack of education, and poverty ? were classified at a high level of sociodemographic risk. Nationally, 8 percent of children under age 18 experienced high levels of sociodemographic risk compared to 20 percent of poor children. High risk children were significantly more likely to exhibit emotional and school problems. These problems appear more frequently with older children. Among the 13 states studied, the proportion of children experiencing sociodemographic risk is higher than the national average in Alabama, California, and Mississippi and lower than the national average in Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin.


How leaders experience wisdom is important to our understanding of leadership behavior as well as to our overall understanding of leadership. The article explores qualitative findings that may advance academic discourse and research at the intersection between leadership, wisdom, and constructive-developmental theory. The present study examined how 12 executive leaders who assessed at the conventional and post-conventional stages of adult development experience wisdom. It is significant in that it addresses a gap in the literature between wisdom and constructive-developmental theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine how executive leaders understand their leadership role in terms of the cognitive, reflective, and affective domains of wisdom. Contrary to research that defines and operationalizes wisdom as the integration of these domains, findings indicate that participants experience wisdom in one or more of the domains of wisdom. Participants were also assessed for their meaning- making capacity to determine their stage of development using the SCTi-Map instrument. Contrary to research in constructive-developmental theory that suggests that post- conventional levels of development may equate to higher levels of wisdom, findings also indicate that there was no significant difference between how leaders describe their propensity for wisdom and their measured adult stage of development. Leaders who assessed at both the conventional and post-conventional stages of development described a propensity for wisdom. Analysis of participant responses suggests that the wisdom, in all its complexity, has its own trajectory and therefore necessitates inquiry into the lines of human development to include integral perspectives associated with spiritual, emotional, and psychosocial measures. The results of this study indicate the potential for additional research that explores wisdom in the context of both adult lines and adult stages of development to determine if specific correlations do exist.


Twenty-four patients who had a major complication after attempted stabilization of the spine with methylmethacrylate were referred for treatment. The initial instability that necessitated stabilization was caused by a traumatic condition in fifteen of these patients and by a metastatic tumor in nine. The average length of time before failure of fixation was 208.3 days for the patients who had a traumatic condition and 193.7 days for those who had a neoplasm. In eleven patients a progressive neural deficit developed postoperatively, and in six others the recovery of neural function was possibly hindered by the cement. A deep wound infection developed in six patients, and in five of them treatment by removal of the methylmethacrylate and metal, followed by a prolonged period of cervical traction, was required. Loosening and failure of fixation was the most common complication--it occurred in twelve of the fifteen patients who had a traumatic lesion and in eight of the nine who had a neoplasm. Salvage operations that included removal of the cement and conventional bone-grafting procedures were performed in eleven of the twelve patients who had loosening associated with a traumatic lesion and in six of the eight who had loosening and a tumor. Stability was restored in every patient. Improved long-term results can be achieved by using grafts of iliac bone and triple-wire stabilization methods (a midline wiring between the spinous processes and two iliac-crest grafts, one on each side, wired to the posterior elements) instead of methacrylate in the primary treatment of traumatic injuries. The treatment of choice for instability caused by neoplastic destruction of two or more vertebral bodies includes a construct of methylmethacrylate anteriorly. However, if cement is used, early augmentation with posterior fusion of the spine and stabilization should be considered. As a rule, combined anterior and posterior stabilization is recommended for the reconstruction of a spine that is unstable due to neoplastic destruction. In general, whenever methylmethacrylate is used for spinal stabilization, it should be augmented with grafts of iliac bone to provide long-term stability.


The essays and primary research studies presented in Perspectives in Interdisciplinary and Integrative Studies extend the field of integrative studies further by drawing a clear distinction between integrative and interdisciplinary studies, in which integrative studies provides for a synthesis of study and life, an application of interdisciplinarity to complex problems. This volume provides a common body of integrative knowledge, theory, methods, and program development and assessment, and reveals how scholars have applied the principles of integrative studies in their courses, degree programs, and research. As a primary or supplemental text, this volume is designed for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a resource of contemporary integrative studies theories and practices for scholars and teachers. Students interested in interdisciplinary programs will find this text instrumental for synthesizing information across disciplines to solve real-world complex problems. University and college administrators responsible for faculty development, academic assessment, degree program development, and the promotion of an integrative campus culture will also find this a useful resource.


We explore how anharmonicity, nuclear quantum effects (NQE), many-body dispersion interactions, and Pauli repulsion influence thermal properties of dispersion-bound molecular crystals. Accounting for anharmonicity with $ab$ $initio$ molecular dynamics yields cell parameters accurate to within 2% of experiment for a set of pyridine-like molecular crystals at finite temperatures and pressures. From the experimental thermal expansion curve, we find that pyridine-I has a Debye temperature just above its melting point, indicating sizable NQE across the entire crystalline range of stability. We find that NQE lead to a substantial volume increase in pyridine-I ($\approx 40$% more than classical thermal expansion at $153$ K) and attribute this to intermolecular Pauli repulsion promoted by intramolecular quantum fluctuations. When predicting delicate properties such as the thermal expansivity, we show that many-body dispersion interactions and sophisticated treatments of Pauli repulsion are needed in dispersion-bound molecular crystals.


Abstract Geometrical modeling of radiation damages zones from α recoil and fission that accounts for their elongate nature provides new estimates of the doses required to reach percolation and full connectivity in zircon. Alpha recoil track damage percolates at doses from 2.5-3.1 × 1016 α/g based on our calculations, about two orders of magnitude lower than previous estimates, with the difference partially due to elongation and partially due to decay chains creating pre-made networks of connected tracks. This dose level is far below that required for metamictization, and suggests that α recoil track percolation has no effect on macroscopic or unit-cell properties, at least as measured to date. However, fission tracks percolate at a dose of approximately 1.9 × 1018 α/g, the approximate level formerly ascribed to α recoil damage percolation and correlating with various transitions in material properties, such as an inflection in the relationship between dose and macroscopic swelling. Consideration of the undamaged regions between damage zones indicates that c-axis-parallel channels are frequently interrupted, at the micrometer scale at very low doses and tens of nanometers at usual doses in natural zircon, with the probable effect of decreasing diffusivity anisotropy. The percolation and further interconnectivity of α recoil damage corresponds with a general minimum in diffusivity and maximum in closure temperature in zircon, indicating that α recoil damage percolation does not make a grain "leaky", but instead quite the opposite. Instead, the onset of poor He retentivity at high damage levels correlates with fission-track percolation. Some of these results are non-intuitive with respect to the trapping model of He diffusivity reduction, and the alternative mechanism of tortuosity is discussed.


The knowledge immigrant parents hold about their children is often unrecognized by Canadian educational systems. Parent knowledge has vital implications for Canadian school systems and for teacher preparation. Based on interviews of parents from 15 countries, this study presented three types of parent knowledge: First language, cultural and religious knowledge. Then, parent knowledge was shared with a group of pre-service teachers. Results reveal some pre-service teachers encouraged the use of students' first language in their practicum whereas others internalized their monolingual ideology despite multilingual realities. They recognized cultural misunderstanding between immigrant parents and Canadian teachers and systemic racism, and questioned the feasibility of accommodating everyone's religious needs. The study calls for the reconstruction of difference and the inclusion of epistemological pluralism, particularly immigrant parent knowledge, within teacher education. The study also suggests that it is important to help pre-service teachers shift their representation of multilingualism from being a problem to a resource, challenge their Eurocentric perspectives, understand immigrant students' cultural backgrounds, and address religious-based exemptions and accommodation.


The Trinity River Authority (TRA) Central Regional Wastewater System (CRWS) Treatment Plant in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex has implemented an asset management plan. TRA strives to implement efficient and effective operations throughout the Authority, and their asset management plan at CRWS allows TRA to view their asset data and location within the Treatment Plant. This asset management plan is also being implemented at the rest of their facilities in North Texas. In order to achieve the goals of the asset management plan, a vision and associated business requirements were developed for how asset management would evolve at TRA. A plant wide ESRI Geographic Information System (GIS) geodatabase that integrates the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) with their geographic data was implemented. As a result of this project, TRA was able to incorporate over 3,000 surveyed assets and associated asset data into their asset management system at CRWS Treatment Plant.


Dr P. L. Binda writes: Annels (1984) suggests that the Zambian Copperbelt was the site of rifting during the deposition of at least part of the Katanga Sequence and that the mineral deposits are Red-Sea type.Intracratonic depositional settings may be fault-bounded or slowly subsiding basins, but rifting does not necessarily imply hydrothermal systems capable of brininging about mineralizations on the scale of the Zambian–Zaïrean Copperbelt. Schneiderhöhn (1937) psroposed that copper was derived from the erosion of a mineralized hinterland and carried—partly as detritus, partly dissolved─to be deposited, syngenetically and diagenetically, in rocks of the Katanga Sequence. Pre-Katangan rocks in Zambia are rich in copper, and there is no difficulty in deriving enough copper from weathering of the basement to account for the Katangan deposits. Some of the Zambian deposits contain economic concentrations of cobalt, but data on cobalt in the basement are lacking. Annels proposes that cobalt and copper were derived from basic magmas at depth, and interprets the various bodies of amphibolite shown in his fig. 5 as high-level intrusives, and possibly submarine extrusives Most of the Copperbelt amphibolites are probably metamorphosed gabbros, but there is no evidence that any are volcanic rocks. The only volcanics recorded in the Katanga Sequence in Zambia are in one drill hole (NE6B) in the Ndola area. The spatial relationship between arnphibolites and cobalt distribution is not as clear as Annels suggests, and in his fig. 4 the Upper Roan cobalt occurrence of Mufulira is ignored. Furthermore, the Série des Mines


Fuel cells, one of the most promising devices which may replace the traditional fossil fuels, have emerged during the past decade as one of the possible solutions for resolving the severe pollution, global warming and possible future shortages of fossil fuels. Albeit important, hydrogen and fuel cell education was not bewared. Further, albeit new employment opportunities are opening up for graduates with solid background of fuel cell engineering, very few scholars tried to develop curriculum for future fuel cell engineers. Apparently, a design of the curriculum in the related field of the fuel cell engineering will be very helpful for the engineering students' capability expansions and future job seeking. By introducing the concepts of capability-driven curriculum design, a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) framework consisting of the modified Delphi method as well as the Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) was defined. Fuel cell experts from the academic and research institutes were invited for providing opinions in capability derivations and curriculum design. Based on the experts' opinions, capabilities including understanding of the characteristics of various batteries, understanding of the evolution and theories of batteries, etc. were recognized by the experts as the essential capabilities. Meanwhile, theory and design of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, materials and devices of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, fuel cell system design and applications, etc. were selected as the components of the curriculum for developing the capabilities of a future fuel cell engineer.


ABSTRACT Although ampicillin is the most commonly used drug in neonates, developmental pharmacokinetic (PK) data to guide dosing are lacking. Ampicillin is primarily renally eliminated, and developmental changes are expected to influence PK. We conducted an open-label, multicenter, opportunistic, prospective PK study of ampicillin in neonates stratified by gestational age (GA) (≤34 or >34 weeks) and postnatal age (PNA) (≤7 or >7 days). Drug concentrations were measured by tandem mass spectrometry. PK data were analyzed using population nonlinear mixed-effects modeling in NONMEM 7.2. Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to determine the probability of target attainment for the time in which the total steady-state ampicillin concentrations remained above the MIC (T>MIC) for 50%, 75%, and 100% of the dosing interval. A total of 142 PK samples from 73 neonates were analyzed (median [range] GA, 36 [24 to 41] weeks; PNA, 5 [0 to 25] days). The median ampicillin dose was 200 (100 to 350) mg/kg/day. Postmenstrual age and serum creatinine were covariates for ampicillin clearance (CL). A simplified dosing regimen of 50 mg/kg every 12 h for GA of ≤34 weeks and PNA of ≤7 days, 75 mg/kg every 12 h for GA of ≤34 weeks and PNA of ≥8 and ≤28 days, and 50 mg/kg every 8 h for GA of >34 weeks and PNA of ≤28 days achieved the prespecified surrogate efficacy target in 90% of simulated subjects. Ampicillin CL was associated with neonatal development. A simplified dosing regimen stratified by GA and PNA achieves the desired surrogate therapeutic target in the vast majority of neonates.


Reproduced here is an essay by Michael P. (Mikhail Pavlovich) Alekseev. In the 1760s two students from Russia, Semyon Efimovich Desnitsky (1740–1789) and Ivan Andreevich Tretyakov (1735–1776), attended Glasgow University, learned directly from Adam Smith, John Millar, and others, returned to Russia, and commenced a tradition of Smithian thought in Russia. Alekseev tells of other Russian Smithians including N. S. Mordinov (1754–1845), Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1744–1810), Alexander Romanovich Vorontsov (1741–1805), Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov (1744–1832), Christian von Schlozer (1774–1831), Heinrich Friedrich von Storch (1766–1835), M. A. Balugiansky (1769–1847), Nikolay Turgenev (1789–1871), and the great author Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). Alekseev writes: "After the war of 1812 Adam Smith became extremely popular among the liberal youth of Russia who were organizing secret circles. In endowing the hero of his novel Eugene Onegin with a taste for economic problems and by making him read Adam Smith, Pushkin merely reproduced the actual feature of the time, the writer himself having had the same taste."


Safe drinking water is a top priority in preventing disease outbreaks and is of general concern to everyone. This study examines the occurrence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in Hungarian drinking water supplies for the first time. A total of 76 raw and drinking water samples were examined using the U.S. EPA Method 1623. From these 15 of 34 (48.4%) raw water samples tested positive for Giardia and 7 (26.6%) for Cryptosporidium. Twelve of 45 (26.7%) drinking water samples were positive for Giardia and 6 (13.3%) for Cryptosporidium. Overall, Giardia cysts and/or Cryptosporidium oocysts were detected in 48% of the raw water samples and 35% of the drinking water samples. The highest levels in drinking water were found to be 3 oocysts/100 litres of Cryptosporidium and 63.6 cysts/100 litres for Giardia, enough to cause giardiasis. The highest levels in raw water were 1,030 cysts/100 litres for Giardia and 50 oocysts/100 litres for Cryptosporidium and higher oocyst densities were associated with source water receiving effluents from sewage treatment plants or originating from a forest environment. In addition to this monitoring, riverbank filtrated water and raw water from the River Danube in Budapest were monitored in order to ascertain protozoan removal efficiency of riverbank filtration (RBF). A total of 157 samples, including 87 samples from the River Danube and 70 samples post RBF, were examined. Cryptosporidium and Giardia were detected regularly in the river water but never in riverbank filtered water suggesting the effectiveness of RBF as a purification method. The occurrence of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts in the investigated water supplies may require the water utilities and water authorities in Hungary to apply additional monitoring and treatment and/or watershed controls.


This lively overview of the archaeology of northern New Mexico's Pajarito Plateau argues that Bandelier National Monument and the Pajarito Plateau became the Southwest's most densely populated and important upland ecological preserve when the great regional society centered on Chaco Canyon collapsed in the twelfth century. Some of Chaco's survivors moved southeast to the then thinly populated Pajarito Plateau, where they were able to survive by fundamentally refashioning their society. David E. Stuart, an anthropologist/archaeologist known for his stimulating overviews of prehistoric settlement and subsistence data, argues here that this re-creation of ancestral Puebloan society required a fundamental rebalancing of the Chacoan model. Where Chaco was based on growth, grandeur, and stratification, the socioeconomic structure of Bandelier was characterized by efficiency, moderation, and practicality. Although Stuart's focus is on the archaeology of Bandelier and the surrounding area, his attention to events that predate those sites by several centuries and at substantial distances from the modern monument is instructive. Beginning with Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers and ending with the large villages and great craftsmen of the mid-sixteenth century, Stuart presents Bandelier as a society that, in crisis, relearned from its pre-Chacoan predecessors how to survive through creative efficiencies. Illustrated with previously unpublished maps supported by the most recent survey data, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in southwestern archaeology.


Are monetary savings the only explanation for consumer response to a sales promotion? If not, how do the different consumer benefits of a sales promotion influence its effectiveness? To address the first question, this research builds a framework of the multiple consumer benefits of a sales promotion. Through a series of measurement studies, the authors find that monetary and nonmonetary promotions provide consumers with different levels of three hedonic benefits (opportunities for value expression, entertainment, and exploration) and three utilitarian benefits (savings, higher product quality, and improved shopping convenience). To address the second question, the authors develop a benefit congruency framework, which argues that a sales promotion's effectiveness is determined by the utilitarian or hedonic nature of the benefits it delivers and the congruence these benefits have with the promoted product. Among other results, two choice experiments show that, as predicted for high-equity brands, monetary promotions are more effective for utilitarian products than for hedonic products. The authors then discuss the implications of the multibenefit and the benefit congruency frameworks for understanding consumer responses to sales promotions, reexamining the value of everyday-low-price policies, and designing more effective sales promotions.


The intestinal epithelium forms a barrier between the body and the external environment facilitating the selective uptake of water, ions and nutrients while excluding bacteria, antigens and toxins. This raises the question whether breaches in this barrier can be a primary cause of intestinal inflammation or whether barrier loss is merely the inevitable consequence of inflammation causing epithelial damage, without barrier loss itself playing a pathogenic role. This question has puzzled investigators for decades and is of some importance, as the answer will determine whether restoring barrier loss is a plausible target for future therapy. Doubts about barrier loss playing an important causal role in inflammation have been fuelled by observations that some healthy individuals have an impaired barrier as measured by sugar absorption studies and in some circumstances barrier loss may actually be protective against intestinal inflammation.1 ,2

The intestinal barrier comprises a physical barrier provided by epithelial cells and the overlying mucus and a chemical barrier of antibacterial peptides secreted by Paneth cells. The main physical barriers are the epithelial cells and the intercellular spaces between them. The absorption of substances between epithelial cells is termed paracellular transport. The rate-limiting structure for paracellular transport is the tight junction; a complex branching network of proteins bringing the cell membranes of neighbouring cells almost together near the luminal surface of the epithelial …


In this work we present the synthesis, time-resolved spectroscopic characterization and computational analysis of a bichromophore composed of two very well-known naturally occurring dyes: 7-hydroxycoumarin (umbelliferone) and 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone (alizarin). The umbelliferone donor (Dn) and alizarin acceptor (Ac) moieties are linked to a triazole ring viaσ bonds, providing a flexible structure. By measuring the fluorescence quantum yields and the ultrafast transient absorption spectra we demonstrate the high efficiency (∼85%) and the fast nature (∼1.5 ps) of the energy transfer in this compound. Quantum chemical calculations, within the density functional theory (DFT) approach, are used to characterize the electronic structure of the bichromophore (Bi) in the ground and excited states. We simulate the absorption and fluorescence spectra using the TD-DFT methods and the vertical gradient approach (VG), and include the solvent effects by adopting the conductor-like polarizable continuum model (CPCM). The calculated electronic structure suggests the occurrence of weak interactions between the electron densities of Dn and Ac in the excited state, indicating that the Förster-type transfer is the appropriate model for describing the energy transfer in this system. The average distance between Dn and Ac moieties calculated from the conformational analysis (12 Å) is in very good agreement with the value estimated from the Förster equation (∼11 Å). At the same time, the calculated rate constant for energy transfer, averaged over multiple conformations of the system (3.6 ps), is in reasonable agreement with the experimental value (1.6 ps) estimated by transient absorption spectroscopy. The agreement between experimental results and computational data leads us to conclude that the energy transfer in Bi is well described by the Förster mechanism.


Recent advances in efficient Transformers have exploited either the sparsity or low-rank properties of attention matrices to reduce the computational and memory bottlenecks of modeling long sequences. However, it is still challenging to balance the trade-off between model quality and efficiency to perform a one-size-fits-all approximation for different tasks. To better understand this trade-off, we observe that sparse and low-rank approximations excel in different regimes, determined by the softmax temperature in attention, and sparse + low-rank can outperform each individually. Inspired by the classical robust-PCA algorithm for sparse and low-rank decomposition, we propose Scatterbrain, a novel way to unify sparse (via locality sensitive hashing) and low-rank (via kernel feature map) attention for accurate and efficient approximation. The estimation is unbiased with provably low error. We empirically show that Scatterbrain can achieve 2.1⇥ lower error than baselines when serving as a drop-in replacement in BigGAN image generation and pre-trained T2T-ViT. On a pre-trained T2T Vision transformer, even without fine-tuning, Scatterbrain can reduce 98% of attention memory at the cost of only 1% drop in accuracy. We demonstrate Scatterbrain for end-to-end training with up to 4 points better perplexity and 5 points better average accuracy than sparse or low-rank efficient transformers on language modeling and long-range-arena tasks.