Phenanthrenequinone (PQ) doped poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) photopolymer material is receiving ever greater attention in the literature due to its attractive properties for applications such as holographic data storage, hybrid optoelectronics, solar concentrators, self-trapping of light, and diffractive optical elements. PQ/PMMA photopolymer material can be used to produce three-dimensional low loss, low shrinkage recordings that are environmentally stable, have high contrast refractive index variations, and can produce high-optical-quality devices. However, in any attempt to further develop the potential of such materials, a more physical and accurate theoretical model has become ever more necessary and important. In this paper, based on a detailed analysis of the photochemical mechanisms present in PQ/PMMA photopolymer during holographic grating formation, a set of rate equations are derived governing the temporal and spatial variations of each associated chemical species concentration. Experimental results are presented, which are then fit using this model. In this way, values for several kinetic parameters are estimated and their significance is discussed.


Aims Genome-wide association studies have identified novel BMI/obesity associated susceptibility loci. The purpose of this study is to determine associations with overweight, obesity, morbid obesity and/or general adiposity in a Danish population. Moreover, we want to investigate if these loci associate with type 2 diabetes and to elucidate potential underlying metabolic mechanisms. Methods 15 gene variants in 14 loci including TMEM18 (rs7561317), SH2B1 (rs7498665), KCTD15 (rs29941), NEGR1 (rs2568958), ETV5 (rs7647305), BDNF (rs4923461, rs925946), SEC16B (rs10913469), FAIM2 (rs7138803), GNPDA2 (rs10938397), MTCH2 (rs10838738), BAT2 (rs2260000), NPC1 (rs1805081), MAF (rs1424233), and PTER (rs10508503) were genotyped in 18,014 middle-aged Danes. Results Five of the 15 gene variants associated with overweight, obesity and/or morbid obesity. Per allele ORs ranged from 1.15–1.20 for overweight, 1.10–1.25 for obesity, and 1.41–1.46 for morbid obesity. Five of the 15 variants moreover associated with increased measures of adiposity. BDNF rs4923461 displayed a borderline BMI-dependent protective effect on type 2 diabetes (0.87 (0.78–0.96, p = 0.008)), whereas SH2B1 rs7498665 associated with nominally BMI-independent increased risk of type 2 diabetes (1.16 (1.07–1.27, p = 7.8×10−4)). Conclusions Associations with overweight and/or obesity and measures of obesity were confirmed for seven out of the 15 gene variants. The obesity risk allele of BDNF rs4923461 protected against type 2 diabetes, which could suggest neuronal and peripheral distinctive ways of actions for the protein. SH2B1 rs7498665 associated with type 2 diabetes independently of BMI.


Japan has been experiencing an unprecedented inbound tourism boom, but initially, tourists were concentrated in major cities in the Kanto and Kansai regions. However, due to an increase in repeat travelers and diversification in sources of information such as SNS, we have started to routinely observe tourists dispersed to other regions and localized increases in tourists. The purpose of this paper is to observe the distribution of tourist destinations statistically and its change over time for inbound and domestic tourists. We utilize the number of overnight guests of each accommodation in the "Accommodation Survey" conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for aggregating at the municipality and prefecture levels. We first perform rank-size rule regression between the logarithms of total overnight stays of foreign and Japanese tourists and the logarithms of the rank order of municipalities and ascertain if Zipf's law and the Pareto property are valid for municipality level. Next, since rank-size rule regression focuses only on cross-sectional characteristics, we next compare the patterns of rank changes using the new visualization method of rank clocks to observe the dynamics of ranks that represent the municipality's attractiveness as a destination. Finally, we verify whether Gibrat's law holds by examining the dynamics of the destination distribution. Our analysis reveals that both the ranks and the sizes for Japanese travelers are very stable, while the numbers of inbound travelers of each region have higher growth rates and fluctuate in rank order. Also, average growth rates of regions with smaller numbers of foreign tourists in 2011 are higher during the period up to 2017, indicating that target destinations for foreign tourists are becoming more diverse.


In today's knowledge-based economy, intellectual capital has been used for organizations. Knowledge has been replaced with other capitals as the most important capital. The role of man power is notable as an effective factor and the most important capital. Also, organizational commitment has a considerable effect on the improvement of organization effectiveness and many variables. On the other hand, the function of organizations should be investigated for the purpose of maintaining their survival. Data enveloping analysis is one of the techniques which is used in this field. The aim of this study is to evaluate the function of organizational units based on the intellectual capital and organizational commitment with the use of DEA. In this study, units of operation, warehouse, design and manufacturing, production planning, quality assurance and education, laboratory and law enforcement became efficient and their efficiency ranks were identified with the use of AP method. Units of design and manufacturing, production and planning, quality assurance and education, operation, and laboratory were respectively ranked from first to fifth place and the rank of warehouse and law enforcement units were not identified. Also, the intensity of input effects on the organizational commitment was included customer capital, structural capital, and human capital.


Abstract Survival rate from fledging to breeding, or juvenile survival, is an important source of variation in lifetime reproductive success in birds. Therefore, determining the relation-ship between juvenile survival and environmental factors is essential to understanding fitness consequences of reproduction in many populations. With increases in density of individuals and depletion of food resources, quality of most habitats deteriorates during the breeding season. Individuals respond by dispersing in search of food resources. Therefore, to understand the influence of environmental factors on juvenile survival, it is also necessary to know how natal dispersal influences survival of juveniles. We examined effects of various environmental factors and natal dispersal behavior on juvenile survival of endangered Snail Kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis) in central and southern Florida, using a generalized estimating equations (GEEs) approach and model selection criteria. Our results suggested yearly effects and an influence of age and monthly minimum hydrologic levels on juvenile Snail Kite survival. Yearly variation in juvenile survival has been reported by other studies, and other reproductive components of Snail Kites also exhibit such variation. Age differences in juvenile survival have also been seen in other species during the juvenile period. Our results demonstrate a positive relationship between water levels and juvenile survival. We suggest that this is not a direct linear relationship, such that higher water means higher juvenile survival. The juvenile period is concurrent with onset of the wet season in the ecosystem we studied, and rainfall increases as juveniles age. For management purposes, we believe that inferences suggesting increasing water levels during the fledging period will increase juvenile survival may have short-term benefits but lead to long-term declines in prey abundance and possibly wetland vegetation structure.


This paper considers the issue raised in 2008 by Gillian Brown in her article 'Selective listening' regarding whether nouns are 'privileged' in memory over verbs during listening tasks, and whether attention to nouns, at least in the early stages of L2 learning, is a desirable strategy to be taught to learners, as Brown suggests it might be. The question of verb/noun recognition was explored in the present study using data from 30 lower-intermediate learners of French in England. Learners completed a listening task on two occasions, six months apart, producing recall protocols for short oral passages in French. We also explored learners' attentional strategy use by asking them to report on this in writing immediately after the recall task. An analysis of verbs and nouns recognised indicated that verb recognition was lower than that of nouns, and that progress in verb recognition over six months was negligible. A qualitative analysis of learners' strategy use indicated that learners with a more balanced verb/noun recognition profile took a broader focus, tending to focus their attention consciously at phrase/sentence level rather than at word level. These findings are discussed in terms of the development of listening skills over time, and the implications of this for L2 listening pedagogy.


Abstract Polysystem theory provides a useful, though necessarily limited, entry point for an investigation of the complex relationships that underlie the production of children's books in various languages in South Africa, and the role that translation plays in this process. In particular, it provides a theoretical means of hypothesizing reasons for the tensions between original production and translation in relation to different language groups, and an explanation of the ways in which tensions between domesticating and foreignizing approaches to translation are perceived by various role players. This paper first argues that there is a systemic relationship between different types of literary texts for children in the various languages in South Africa, and that this provides a possible key for explaining the tensions outlined above. Against this background, the paper presents some findings of a survey conducted among South African translators of children's literature, focusing specifically on translators' perceptions of preliminary norms and the basic initial norm. Based on these findings, it is then argued that the dynamics and power differentials among the different languages in South Africa may challenge conventional interpretations of systemic relationships and their effects on norms and (possible) laws or universals of translation, particularly relating to binary conceptions of and conventionally held assumptions about the relationship between source-text and target-culture orientation (or domestication and foreignization) as linked to polysystemic position.


Factorial experimental designs (FEDs) can be used to study the effects of controllable variables, such as an experimental treatment, sex, strain, age, diet and prior treatment of animals, on some defined response. Such designs have been widely used in optimising manufacturing processes, but have rarely been used in optimising animal experiments in drug discovery. FEDs generally provide more information than the alternative "one-variable-at-a-time" approach, because each animal contributes information on the effect of every factor, and because such designs can highlight any interactions among the variables. Although FEDs can have any number of factors and levels of each factor, where many factors are to be explored, it is common to do an initial experiment using two levels of each factor, and in some cases fractional factorial designs can be used to reduce the total number of treatment combinations to manageable levels. These designs have been used successfully at AstraZeneca in the optimisation of in vivo drug screening experiments, where their use has effectively reduced the numbers of animals used in some routine screens.


Context: Chronic periodontitis is an inflammatory condition of the tooth supporting structures. There is increasing evidence that the cytokines interleukin-17 (IL-17) and interleukin-18 (IL-18) play a role in progression of chronic periodontitis. Aim: The objective of this study was to compare the levels of the cytokines IL-17 and IL-18 in gingival tissue extracts from individuals with healthy gingiva, chronic gingivitis, and mild chronic periodontitis. Settings and Design: The study was performed in a hospital-based population with an experimental design. Materials and Methods: A total of 69 individuals (n = 23 per group) were recruited for the study. Group 1 included 23 individuals with healthy gingiva and Group 2 included 23 chronic gingivitis patients and Group 3 included 23 patients with mild chronic periodontitis. Gingival tissues were collected during surgical procedures and levels of IL-17 and IL-18 were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Statistical Analysis: Intergroup comparison was done by posthoc Tukey′s test. Results: The gingival tissue concentration of IL-17 was found to be highest in Group 2 (415.19 ± 76.84 pg/mg) followed by Group 3 (193.77 ± 37.32 pg/mg) and Group 1 (20.49 ± 6.05 pg/mg). Concentrations of IL-18 were significantly higher (P < 0.01) in Group 2 (1479.42 ± 330.33 pg/mg) when compared with Group 1 (385.18 ± 71.26 pg/mg) and Group 3 (330.24 ± 48.56 pg/mg). Conclusion: There appears to be considerable variation of IL-17 and IL-18 levels in gingival tissue during periodontal health and disease.


The American South before the Civil War was the site of an unprecedented social experiment in women's education. The South offered women an education explicitly designed to be equivalent to that of men, while maintaining and nurturing the gender conventions epitomized by the ideal of the Southern belle. This groundbreaking work provides us with an intimate picture of the entire social experience of antebellum women's colleges and seminaries in the South, analyzing the impact of these colleges upon the cultural construction of femininity among white Southern women, and their legacy for higher education. Christie Farnham investigates the contradiction involved in using a male-defined curricula to educate females, and explores how educators denied these incongruities. She also examines the impact of slavery on faculty and students. The emotional life of students is revealed through correspondence, journals, and scrapbooks, highlighting the role of sororities and romantic friendships among female pupils. Farnham ends with an analysis of how the end of the Civil War resulted in a failure to keep up with the advances that had been achieved in women's education. The most comprehensive history of this brief and unique period of reform to date, The Education of the Southern Belle is must reading for anyone interested in women's studies, Southern history, the history of American education, and female friendship.


Costs or benefits which accumulate for individuals over time are of interest in many life history processes. Familiar examples include costs of health care for persons with chronic medical conditions, the payments to insured persons during periods of disability, and quality of life which is sometimes used in the evaluation of treatments in terminally ill patients. For convenience, here we use the term costs to refer to cost or other cumulative measures. Two important scenarios are (i) where costs are associated with the occurrence of certain events, so that total cost accumulates as a step function, and (ii) where individuals may move between various states over time, with cost accumulating at a constant rate determined by the state occupied. In both cases, there is frequently a random variable T that represents the duration of the process generating the costs. Here we consider estimation of the mean cumulative cost over a period of interest using methods based upon marginal features of the cost process and intensity based models. Robustness to adaptive censoring is discussed in the context of the multi-state methods. Data from a quality of life study of breast cancer patients are used to illustrate the methods. MSC: 62N01, 62N02, 62N05, 62P20


Pelagic fishery in the Java Sea is multi-species and dominated by a community of
small pelagic species. This study attempted to employ different sources of data in
order to determine the distribution of pelagic fish species and to estimate their
environmental preferences. Catch per unit effort (CPUE), hydro-acoustic, satellite
derived sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll-a data as well as
oceanographic in sifu measurements data were used to achieve these objectives.
CPUE data were collected from commercial fishing records available at the fishing
port of Pekalongan, the main pelagic fish landing centre in the north coast of Java
Hydro-acoustic and oceanographic in situ measurements data were collected from
hydro-acoustic survey carried out during September-October 2002, while the data of
satellite &rived SST of AVHRR-NOAA and chlorophyll-a derived fiom SeaWiFS
were collected from the HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission) ground
receiving station at BPPT (Assessment and Application of Technology Board),
Jakarta, and GSFC-NASA (Goddard Space and Flight Center of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration). Correlation analysis, cluster analysis, PCA,
spatial analysis and GIs technique were employed in determining abundance and
density distribution of pelagic fish species. Spatial analysis and GIs technique
together with GLM were also applied in building the fishery-environment dependent
model in order to estimate the environmental preferences of the fishes. Results of the
study showed that the Java Sea water was seasonally occupied by oceanic water of
the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF). The influence of the ITF was most pronounced in
the southeast monsoon when the currents in the Java Sea flow towards the west. The
influence is minimum in the northwest monsoon when the currents flow towards the
east. The sea has a great thermal stability with a monthly SST average of 28.9 OC and
the difference between maximum and minimum (gradient) of 2.0-3.5 OC. The
abundance of phytoplankton tends to increase towards the west and towards the
coastal areas off north coast of Java, south coast of Kalimantan, and around the small
islands spreading over the Java Sea. Correlations between physical and biological
oceanographic parameters were exhibited. Pelagic fishery resources in the Java Sea
have undergone considerable variations in both their seasonal distributions and
abundances. They were relatively low during northwest monsoon (December-
March), and increased during southeast monsoon (June-September), with a peak at
the end of the monsoon. Abundance of the resources was mostly driven by
fluctuations in the abundance of one dominant species, SardineIIa spp in the inshore
and Decapterus spp in the offshore. The two species make up the average of 36%
and 32% of the total CPUE, respectively. GLM model gave evidence that the pelagic
fish species have a tolerance limit of temperature of up to 28.5 OC, and below this
temperature limit they show a positive trend of relationships with chlorophyll-a
concentrations. The model also revealed that oceanographic variables (SST and
chlorophyll-a concentrations) contriiuted 54% to the total variance explained by the
GLM predictors, confirming the relative importance of these variables in predicting
m u s
bvmar~rw r
pelagic fish catch However, relationship between sea surface temperature ana
chlorophyll-a concentrations was weak The GIs model has demonstrated its
capability in delineating spatial patterns of fish density in relation to the
environmental variables, especially zooplankton, which was not covered in the GLM
model.


Apelin, a novel multifunctional peptide implicated in the regulation of the cardiovascular system, including blood pressure and cardiac function control, has been postulated to be involved in the pathophysiology of hypertension and hypertensive heart disease. The aim of this study was to investigate, for the first time, whether the effects of apelin's chronic application might be involved in deoxycorticosterone acetate-salt-induced hypertensive rats (DOCA-salt rats). In this study, 8–10-week-old male Wistar rats were divided into four groups: control, control + apelin, DOCA-salt rats, DOCA-salt rats + apelin. Deoxycorticosterone Acetate (25 mg/kg of body weight) was injected subcutaneously, twice a week for 4 weeks. These rats received NaCl 1% instead of tap water for drinking during the experimental period. Later, rats were randomly treated with pyroglutamylated apelin-13 (200 μg. kg−1. day−1 intraperitonealy) for 17 days. The concentrations of apelin, endothelin-1, angiotensin-converting enzyme, angiotensinogen, and angiotensin II were analyzed in the plasma. The mRNA level of apelin and apelin receptor were determined in the heart and aorta tissue by real-time polymerase chain reaction, respectively. It was found that apelin reduces blood pressure in DOCA-salt rats. Apelin can be used as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of hypertension in the future.


Water movement in unsaturated soils gives rise to measurable electrical potential differences that are related to the flow direction and volumetric fluxes, as well as to the soil properties themselves. Laboratory and field data suggest that these so‐called streaming potentials may be several orders of magnitudes larger than theoretical predictions that only consider the influence of the relative permeability and electrical conductivity on the self potential (SP) data. Recent work has improved predictions somewhat by considering how the volumetric excess charge in the pore space scales with the inverse of water saturation. We present a new theoretical approach that uses the flux‐averaged excess charge, not the volumetric excess charge, to predict streaming potentials. We present relationships for how this effective excess charge varies with water saturation for typical soil properties using either the water retention or the relative permeability function. We find large differences between soil types and the predictions based on the relative permeability function display the best agreement with field data. The new relationships better explain laboratory data than previous work and allow us to predict the recorded magnitudes of the streaming potentials following a rainfall event in sandy loam, whereas previous models predict values that are three orders of magnitude too small. We suggest that the strong signals in unsaturated media can be used to gain information about fluxes (including very small ones related to film flow), but also to constrain the relative permeability function, the water retention curve, and the relative electrical conductivity function.


Abstract. The availability of the actual water use from agricultural crops is considered as the key factor for irrigation water management, water resources planning, and water allocation. Traditionally, evapotranspiration (ET) has been calculated in the Gezira scheme as the point of reference with evapotranspiration (ETo) and crop coefficients (kc) being derived from actual measurements of soil-water balance. Recently developed, advanced energy balance models assisted in estimating the ET through the remotely sensed data. In this study Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images were used to estimate the spatial distribution of the daily, monthly and seasonal ET for irrigated sorghum in the Gezira scheme, Sudan. The daily ET maps were also used to estimate kc over time and space. Results of the energy balance, based on being remotely sensed, were compared to actual measurements conducted during 2004/05 season. The seasonal actual ET values, obtained from the seven MODIS images for irrigated sorghum, were estimated at 579 mm. The values for remotely sensed kc, derived during the initial mid-season and late-season crop development stages, were 0.62, 0.85, 1.15, and 0.48, respectively. On the other hand, the values for the experimental kc during the pervious mention stages were 0.55, 0.94, 1.21 and 0.65, respectively. The estimated seasonal ET of the sorghum, derived by remotely sensed kc, was 674 mm. The Landsat data and the Free MODIS provided reliable, exhaustive, and consistent information on the water use, relevant for decision support in the Gezira scheme.


Abstract. The seed content of soils is often estimated through germination tests, though these methods are always somewhat inaccurate due to the presence of dormant seeds in the samples. The researcher thus faces the question of whether to continue the germination test or to stop it in the search for an accuracy-to-effort balance. In this paper I analyze the accuracy of seed content estimates obtained after a first-year germination test, by comparison to the germination recorded after three-year cultivation, in 48 soil seed bank samples and 389 from herbivore dung. After the first 9-month cultivation, I recorded 85 ± 1% seedlings and 90 ± 1% species in soil samples, while the accuracy in those of dung was significantly lower, 48 ± 1% seedlings and 65 ± 1% species. The accuracy of estimations varied among samples within experiments, with significant differences in the estimation of species richness in both cases. I did not find consistent differences in the accuracy of estimations linked to seedling densities in growing pots, but the taxonomic composition of samples was a major source of bias. Thus, 22% and 36% of the most frequent species showed germinabilities in the first year significantly different from the rest, and some generalities arose, like the high germinability of grasses and the hardseededness of legumes. I would thus recommend the use of at least two germination cycles for seed bank estimations and a cautious approach when comparing samples with very different origin and/or taxonomic composition.


This essay analyzes the spatial and temporal dynamics which have emerged from the rapid development of Chiang Mai, Thailand over the last four decades. Modern urbanization since the 1980s in the previously remote Chiang Mai-Lamphun Valley has coincided with digital and financial globalization, neo-liberal governance, and the articulation of a new geological era of the Anthropocene based on evidence of human induced climate change. This time frame serves as a lens to theorize the architecture of the "metacity", a new urban form and new form of urban practice responding to the demands of global digital financial networks and neo-liberal trade policies, but grounded in the ecology and life worlds of particular localities. The metacity appears in Chiang Mai within the interstices of a particularly fragmented rural/urban mix within a self-organized rather than plan-controlled built environment. The entire valley has been the site of intensive inhabitation for centuries, and recently urbanized, yet is spatially heterogeneous, extensive and patchy rather than ordered, bounded and uniform. The resulting landscape is marked by a disjunction between a feudal wet-rice cultivation land tenure structure overlaid with a market-based typology of urban real estate products with little enforcement of land use controls. The essay begins with theorizing the form of the metacity, continues with a description of the Chiang Mai case study, and concludes with a general assessment of the need to create a new form of metacity urban practice. A metacity design practice would re-conceptualize urban theories and forms by inking architectural and ecological thinking with inclusive social practices, enhanced by new digitally-enhanced urban imaginaries and new representational tools of mapping, modeling and design.


Interconnect analysis and optimization at high levels of abstraction is extremely attractive since it offers a much larger room for improvement than optimization at lower levels. The objective of this thesis is to optimize performance and power consumption in interconnect structures at high levels of abstraction. For this purpose, efficient high-level models for delay and power consumption in very deep sub-micron interconnects are developed and employed for constructing and evaluating different low power and throughput improving signal encoding schemes. Moreover, in order to achieve an even higher efficiency, coding is combined with lower level techniques like spacing, shielding, and buffer planning. In order to construct and evaluate encoding schemes at high levels of abstraction, two conceptually different issues must be solved. On the one hand, bit-level characteristics of the data transmitted over the interconnect structures need to be extracted during system-level design and architecture specification. On the other hand, important interconnect-related very deep sub-micron effects have to be incorporated into high-level models as well. Delay models able to predict the line delay for each set of input patterns (and not only for the worst case) are required in order to develop and evaluate coding schemes tailored for performance improvement. An essential contribution of this work is the development of a pattern-dependent delay model. The essence of the so-called extended linear delay (ELD) model is to incorporate the effects of all possible input patterns in buses exhibiting not only inter-wire capacitance, but also inductive effects which are in general more difficult to predict and more daunting because of their long-range nature. Further, the described power macromodel shows that in order to decrease dynamic power consumption at high levels of abstraction, one has to reduce not only the self transition activity but also the so-called coupling transition activity responsible for charging and discharging the inter-wire capacitances in a bus. The abovementioned models are employed in order to construct and evaluate several low-power and throughput improving codes. Based on the observation that the bit-level transition activity in typical DSP applications can be accurately described by two breakpoints, several simple yet very efficient hybrid codes are constructed. Those codes combine non-redundant and redundant schemes in such a way that the total self and coupling transition activity are significantly decreased. Moreover, maximum achievable limits are derived, which show the effectiveness of the developed codes. Further, several low-complex codes are proposed that improve bus performance by avoiding a certain set of input patterns. In this context, fundamental limits and bounds are derived for state and transition coding, respectively. Coding is also compared and combined with low-level interconnect optimization techniques like spacing and shielding. The problem of simultaneously addressing coding-based power reduction and performance improvement is introduced and analyzed. Finally, an interconnect-centric design flow is presented that integrates signal encoding for power and performance optimization. Signal encoding schemes can be constructed at high levels of abstraction while analyzing the data that is transmitted through the interconnect system. After interconnect planning and synthesis, when exact information regarding layout and routing optimization is available, codes can be refined based on the specific wire topology. Moreover, in order to prove the large optimization opportunities available at high levels, a simultaneous buffer insertion and placement algorithm is developed. In this context, coding for throughput is appended to the developed algorithm, and it is shown that performance and/or power consumption can be thus further improved.


When the heart is put under stress, it adapts by increasing in size, a process known as cardiac hypertrophy. After prolonged periods, however, heart failure ensues. Sano et al. examined the contribution that angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels) makes to the development of hypertrophy and cardiac failure. They established a model of hypertrophy by introducing a severe transverse aorta constriction (TAC) in mice. The resultant increase in pressure caused a gradual development of hypertrophy over 14 days, with an accompanying increase in the number of blood vessels in the heart, followed by a second phase (days 14 to 28), during which the continued pressure led to systolic dysfunction. Increased amounts of messenger RNA and protein for the angiogenic factor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were present in the TAC heart, peaking on day 14 and sharply decreasing by day 28. Hypertrophy results in ischemia (insufficient oxygen) in the myocardium, and the authors found that both the production and activity of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α (a transcription factor that induces angiogenic factors under ischemic conditions) were stimulated in the hearts of TAC mice from days 3 to 14, returning to basal levels by day 28. The tumor suppressor p53 is known to bind to and promote the degradation of HIF-1α, and elevated amounts of p53 in the myocardium were observed 14 days after TAC. Producing TAC in p53-deficient mice resulted in higher HIF-1α activity, amounts of VEGF, and numbers of blood vessels than in wild-type mice, leading to better systolic function. This study establishes p53 as an important regulator of cardiac hypertrophy by inhibiting angiogenesis. M. Sano, T. Minamino, H. Toko, H. Miyauchi, M. Orimo, Y. Qin, H. Akazawa, K. Tateno, Y. Kayama, M. Harada, I. Shimizu, T. Asahara, H. Hamada, S. Tomita, J. D. Molkentin, Y. Zou, I. Komuro, p53-induced inhibition of Hif-1 causes cardiac dysfunction during pressure overload. Nature 446, 444-448 (2007). [PubMed]


An Eulerian-Lagrangian algorithm, based on operator-splitting techniques has been formulated for the three-dimensional advection-diffusion equation. This combines the advantage of a fixed Eulerian grid and computationally powerful Lagrangian technique. Using the operator splitting algorithm, the full transport equation has been split into two successive initial value problems of pure advection and pure diffusion. For the advection equation, solutions are found by the Backward Method of Characteristics (BMC) and for the diffusion equation, an Alternating Direction Implicit (ADI) scheme is employed. Lagrangian solution of the advection equation involves the tracking of characteristics lines backward in time from a fixed Eulerian nodal point. A tri-cubic hermitian interpolation scheme is used to interpolate the concentration and its derivatives at the foot of the characteristic lines. Amplitude and phase error portraits for the Backward Method of Characteristics have been constructed using the von Neumann fourier analysis. Extensive numerical testing has been performed, with results compared to solutions obtained by analytical and other existing numerical techniques.


Throughout the first decades of its existence, many held the view that the UN Security Council would in some senses automatically encourage the protection of human rights by maintaining international peace. However, since the end of the Cold War there have been growing concerns that the Council is a force with the potential to do harm to the cause of human rights, even to the extent of violating the rights of individuals. The chapters of this volume take a closer look at these two sides of the Security Council's involvement in human rights: both its efforts to promote and enforce human rights, and its actions that, with the Intention of maintaining and restoring international peace, also have the potential to jeopardize human rights.

The book represents a collection of individual views and appraisals of how the Council has dealt with human rights issues in the post-Cold War period, particularly in the cases of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq and the targeted sanctions directed against the Taliban and the supporters of the Al Qaeda Network. Written by experts in the field of international law, they are both positive and negative, critical and analytical. Together they offer a selection of different perspectives and evaluate the contribution of the Security Council to the promotion of human rights, highlighting possible avenues for improvement.

With contributions by Bardo Fassbender, Daphna Shraga, Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Annalisa Ciampi, Erika de Wet and Salvatore Zappala.


The purpose of this mixed methods study is to provide an understanding of the interrelationships between experienced ESL teachers' knowledge, practice, and the social context of the classroom. Such a study is important to gain a more in-depth understanding of ESL teaching and to assist in the development of appropriate teacher education programs. The purpose of stage one of the study, the quantitative inquiry, was to understand the structure of ESL teacher knowledge. Given that ESL teacher training programs at the post-secondary level are the major formal sources of teacher content and pedagogical knowledge, they were thought to be the best reference points for devising a likert-scale questionnaire on the phenomenon. Exploratory factor analysis of the data on 108 ESL teachers from the six states of Australia provided evidence that knowledge of teaching and knowledge of language, the main categories of teacher knowledge in the questionnaire, consisted of a total of seven subcategories of knowledge types. Teachers also regarded knowledge of teaching as being significantly more important than knowledge of language.
The findings of the quantitative study were used as a backdrop to investigate the interrelationships between the different types of teacher knowledge in a qualitative investigation with four experienced ESL teachers. The qualitative data—consisting of pre-observation and stimulated recall interviews and videos of the teachers' practice—revealed that the classroom context was understood through the identities that the teachers constructed for themselves and their students. The teachers in the second phase qualitatively verified the knowledge types that teachers had given the highest degree of importance in the quantitative phase indicating those knowledge types that were thought to be most practical and important in the language classroom. Although patterns of teacher thinking seemed to be similar for all participant teachers, what went into each stage of their thinking, the content, differed from one teacher to another. Once teachers started teaching, their different knowledge types reciprocally interacted with one another in the background of their knowledge of Self and of their students. ESL teacher knowledge was found to be of three types: identity related, cognition related, and practice related.
The findings suggest that, since teacher identity is present in every aspect of what teachers think and do but not present in teacher education programs, the greatest challenge in learning to teach is located in this area. The main tenet of communicative language teaching is the need to help students connect the lesson to their own selves. This cannot be possible unless teachers have already experienced making such connections themselves. Hence, there is a need to assist student teachers to become both Self-aware and student-aware. Finally, the study argues that teacher education programs need to take into consideration the nature of different ESL teacher knowledge types—i.e., identity related, cognition related, and practice related—when developing programs.


The Survey of English Dialects (SED) is the only detailed nation wide dialect survey which has ever been conducted in England. The SED is a unique repository of data on the traditional dialects of England in the mid-twentieth century. This remarkable record is a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of British English dialectology, sociolinguistics, and English historical linguistics. The SED fieldwork was undertaken in predominantly rural communities in England in the middle of the twentieth century, at a time when social, domestic and working life was undergoing very significant changes. The SED is thus a record of speech which reflects a society different in many ways from today, and as such affords the possibility of comparison which is instructive to those engaged in all types of study of linguistics today. The SED is available as a complete set, or in the following volumes and parts: Introduction: 0-415-18508-4: Volume 1: Six Northern Counties and the Isle of Man Volume 1, Part 1: 0-415-18509-2: Volume 1, Part 2: 0-415-18518-6: Volume 1, Part 3: 0-415-18511-4: Volume 2: The West Midlands Volume 2, Part 1: 0-415-18512-2: Volume 2, Part 2: 0-415-18513-0: Volume 2, Part 3: 0-415-18514-9: Volume 3: The East Midland Counties and East Anglia Volume 3, Part 1: 0-415-18515-7: Volume 3, Part 2: 0-415-18516-5: Volume 3, Part 3: 0-415-18517-3: Volume 4: The Southern Counties Volume 4, Part 1: 0-415-18518-1: Volume 4, Part 2: 0-415-18519-X: Volume 4, Part 3: 0-415-18520-3:


High-resolution bathymetry is used to derive a new structural interpretation of a submerged inverted graben on the English Channel shelf (northwest Europe). The bathymetry provides a continuous plan-view image of the bedrock geology and resolves fine structural detail, particularly in areas of steeply dipping strata where traditional seismic imaging fails. The imagery, combined with shallow core, deep borehole, and two-dimensional seismic reflection data, shows a marked asymmetry in the bedrock outcrop and structural style, both across and along the axis of the basin. For example, the oldest synrift rocks crop out in a complex south-verging anticline along one margin, whereas more massively bedded younger rocks are folded into a simpler anticline at the other. Comparison of our observations with both recent analog modeling and a neighboring inverted basin highlights the importance of the mechanical properties of the basin stratigraphy in controlling the structural development. We conclude that the inversional asymmetry developed because of the distribution of strong competence contrasts within the synrift fill.


Sustainable Development is the management and conservation of the basic natural resources through which organizational and technological changes are lead to meet present and future needs of humans. In developing and analyzing the solutions based on sustainable development principles, we require to pursue an integrated and holistic approach. Not only system dynamics has the essential tools for systemic analysis, but also it is an appropriate approach for perceiving problems and offering solutions. The goal of this study is to present an integrated and systemic model to analyze the existent dynamics in sustainable development of Iran's farming industry. In order to achieve the mathematical equations and values of model's variables, a simulation is carried out using the data gathered from Damavand city, Tehran, Iran. The parameters of the model are selected and calculated considering the specifications of this case study. After modeling the system, Vensim simulation software has been employed, followed by identifying the leverage points of the model; then, a set of scenarios have been generated and tested through simulation in order for us to achieve a much improved understanding of the system's dynamic behavior. The results show that two factors are among the most important leverage points: "profit gained from agriculture" and "required water". We could also observe that the main issue in Damavand is the lack of water for which saving policies would be a major step towards agriculture's sustainable development in this area.


This study examined the morphological traits of sixty three (63) cocoa varieties that have been imported and cultivated in Vietnam. These cocoa varieties were collected from five regions in Southern Vietnam and were classified into three groups based on their phylogenetic relationships. Their morphological features were individually evaluated and analysed. This included leaf characteristics (leaf and stem anatomy) and flower features (ligule shape, anther number, pollen, stamen and ovule, fruit, seed). The results of this study showed a large variation across all morphological characteristics of the evaluated cocoa varieties. The Vietnamese cocoa flower showed a diversity of morphological characteristics including five shapes of ligule (oval, broad, deltoid, elliptic and sub-lanceolate) and each stamen also has a bilobed anther with the exception of trilobed anther for TD11. Furthermore, the shape of pollen grains was found homogeneous in all 63 varieties. The colour of the stamens and ovules was purple and white respectively for all examined samples. Three kinds of fruit shapes were identified, namely Angoleta, Amelonado and Cundeamor, and these were of various colours. Additionally, an anatomical analysis on the midrib structure of the leaves from the 63 varieties showed the highest similarity, likewise the stem structure. The colour of young leaves was observed as being green and red. This is the primary research that scrutinizes the morphological biodiversity of Vietnamese cocoa varieties during the three-decade development of the Vietnam cocoa project. The results have a practical applications for cocoa cross-breeding and botanical taxonomy.


Zircon separates from one jadeitite sample (JJ) from Tone, Japan and one from Guatemala (GJ) were studied for mineral inclusions, age dating, trace-element determination and Hf isotope analysis. These zircons can be categorized into two types. Type I (igneous) zircons are characterized by the presence of mineral inclusions, among others K-feldspar, which is not present in jadeitite matrix. They also show higher Th/U ratios, larger Ce anomalies and higher 176 Lu/ 177 Hf ratios. Type II (metasomatic/solution-precipitate) zircons contain omphacite/jadeite inclusions and exhibit lower Th/U ratios, smaller Ce anomalies and lower 176 Lu/ 177 Hf ratios. Both types of zircons display high eHf( t ) values, slightly lower than the depleted mantle evolution line. The JJ sample contains both type I and II zircons. SHRIMP and geochemical data indicate that this jadeitite sample was formed through the mechanism of whole-sale metasomatic replacement at ~80 Ma from an igneous protolith of juvenile origin with an age of 136 ± 2 Ma. The GJ sample contains only type II zircons and may have formed through a mechanism of, or close to, vein precipitation at 98 ± 2 Ma. The two samples therefore testify that both mechanisms may have been in operation during jadeitite formation. Based on Hf isotope composition of type I zircons and the back-calculated REE pattern of the presumed protolith, the geochemical characteristics of the protolith of the Tone jadeitite were shown to be similar to those of oceanic plagiogranites derived from partial melting of cumulate gabbros or subduction-zone adakitic granites originated from partial melting of subducted oceanic crust. The latter, however, is a more probable candidate because the former is known to be poor in K 2 O, which, in contrast, is a notable chemical component in Tone jadeitite. On the basis of the available data, it is also suggested that the protolith, the physicochemical conditions and the extent of jadeitization may all play a role in dictating the chemical variations of jadeitites.


Targeted enrichment of conserved genomic regions (e.g. ultraconserved elements or UCEs) has emerged as a promising tool for inferring evolutionary history in many organismal groups. Because the UCE approach is still relatively new, much remains to be learned about how best to identify UCE loci and design baits to enrich them. We test an updated UCE identification and bait design workflow for the insect order Hymenoptera, with a particular focus on ants. The new strategy augments a previous bait design for Hymenoptera by (i) changing the parameters by which conserved genomic regions are identified and retained, and (ii) increasing the number of genomes used for locus identification and bait design. We perform in vitro validation of the approach in ants by synthesizing an ant‐specific bait set that targets UCE loci and a set of 'legacy' phylogenetic markers. Using this bait set, we generate new data for 84 taxa (16/17 ant subfamilies) and extract loci from an additional 17 genome‐enabled taxa. We then use these data to examine UCE capture success and phylogenetic performance across ants. We also test the workability of extracting legacy markers from enriched samples and combining the data with published datasets. The updated bait design (hym‐v2) contained a total of 2590‐targeted UCE loci for Hymenoptera, significantly increasing the number of loci relative to the original bait set (hym‐v1; 1510 loci). Across 38 genome‐enabled Hymenoptera and 84 enriched samples, experiments demonstrated a high and unbiased capture success rate, with the mean locus enrichment rate being 2214 loci per sample. Phylogenomic analyses of ants produced a robust tree that included strong support for previously uncertain relationships. Complementing the UCE results, we successfully enriched legacy markers, combined the data with published Sanger datasets and generated a comprehensive ant phylogeny containing 1060 terminals. Overall, the new UCE bait design strategy resulted in an enhanced bait set for genome‐scale phylogenetics in ants and other Hymenoptera. Our in vitro tests demonstrate the utility of the updated design workflow, providing evidence that this approach could be applied to any organismal group with available genomic information.


Drinking practices across Britain are not uniform and in each locality reflect the historical, socio-economic and cultural context unique to each specific part of the country. In South Yorkshire, the drinking cultures that exist in the area reflect the industrial heritage of the area, particularly the steel, rail and coal industries. The decline of traditional industries across Britain has had a significant impact on these drinking practices as Britain has transitioned from having an economy dominated by heavy industry to a post-industrial economy defined by Neoliberalism. The decline of the coal industry in Doncaster in particular has had a significant impact on the general everyday lives of people in communities that once had economies centred around the coal industry. This impact is reflected in the changes to drinking cultures.

This study focuses specifically on two post-mining communities in the Doncaster Borough (Rossington and Denaby Main and Mexborough), which have faced significant change in the socioeconomic landscape due to the decline and eventual loss of the mining industry. Post-mining communities have been subject to significant study and analysis from an economic regeneration aspect, but there was an identified gap in literature regarding research that specifically focuses on drinking practices in these areas.

From a symbolic interactionist perspective, the research utilised a constructivist grounded theory methodological approach, as gaining intimate familiarity with the research topic was of high importance, due to criticisms of past research having the preconceived notions or specific interests being imposed on them by the researcher. The grounded theory methodology was initially chosen due to the advantages it has when conducting research on under-researched topics such as attitudes to alcohol in post-mining communities. Twenty-four participants (five from Denaby Main and Mexborough and twenty-one from Rossington) were questioned about their attitudes to alcohol in semi-structured interviews in the case study areas.

This study made significant use of reflexivity as a methodological tool to put to the forefront the complexities of conducting qualitative research. This became particularly important in documenting the impact of the political context at the time and how this may have impacted on how the participants engaged with the researcher (the Brexit campaign, Brexit Referendum and the post-referendum period).

The research revealed that in both case study areas economic and cultural identities of the past have had a significant influence in shaping drinking practices. Drinking practices in the post-mining period have formed as a result to adapting to endogenous influences that have drastically changed the economy in the two areas. Whilst endogenous traditions such as maintaining closely-knit ties and respectability and sociability were emphasised by participants to have been maintained, the function of drinking associated with the mining industry (such as recovery) and institutions with links to the industry had declined. This decline in both the function of drinking and of institutions such as pubs and clubs had faced decline due to changing local socioeconomic context. Exogenous influences such as large supermarkets, an increasing presence in both areas from national off-licence franchises and increasing opportunities to engage in privatised leisure significantly influenced the strategies that participants used to adapt to post-industrial Doncaster.

The study contributes to knowledge in this area by contributing knowledge of localised drinking practices within a post-mining context in South Yorkshire although a gap may still remain for future research regarding research into drinking practices in post-mining communities. The research emphasises the need for researchers and policy makers that engage in future research in communities similar to the two case study areas to engage in reflexive practice, specifically in the current political context.


Light scattering from circular cylinders (diameter sizes from 0.1λ to 4λ) on a conducting substrate are studied by means of a numerical solution of the electromagnetic problem based on the extended boundary conditions of the extinction theorem. Both the cylinder and the substrate are considered real conductors. The evolution of the scattering patterns and the source functions for several angles of incidence allows it to be compared with that found in previous research on perfect conductors. The study shows that, although some of the features are similar in both cases, important differences exist. We found that, for this geometry, the perfect-conductor assumption for real metals is correct only for light polarized perpendicularly to the plane of incidence (which in turn is assumed to be perpendicular to the cylinder axis). Parallel polarized light is far more sensitive to the optical properties of the surfaces, therefore producing different scattering features.


In the early 1990s, a period of high-risk lending at high interest rates, a new entrant emerged in civil litigation: the Litigation Finance Company ("LFC"). LFCs advance money to plaintiffs involved in contingency fee litigation. The money is provided on a non-recourse basis, meaning the plaintiff repays the LFC only if she obtains money from the lawsuit through a settlement, judgment, or verdict. If the plaintiff does not recover anything, she will not owe the LFC anything. When she does repay the LFC, however, she could end up paying as much as 280% of the amount advanced by the LFC. As one can see, LFCs make a lot of money. It is estimated that as of 2011, the total amount of outstanding advances exceeded $1 billion with $100 million being advanced annually. LFCs, like banks and credit card issuers, loan money to consumers with the expectation of being repaid the amount borrowed plus interest. Unlike banks and credit card issuers, however, LFCs are largely unregulated. The federal government does not regulate LFCs at all, and only Maine, Ohio, and Nebraska have enacted legislation regulating LFCs that operate in their respective states. What LFCs do is controversial, and the academic commentary about them is voluminous. Some commentators argue that LFCs should be abolished. Others say LFCs are the byproduct of willing sellers and willing buyers engaging in market transactions. Yet another group of commentators say LFCs serve a salutary purpose, but should be regulated like other entities that loan money to consumers. It is probably unrealistic to think that LFCs will be abolished, thus the question becomes whether they should be regulated, and if so, by whom. This paper posits that LFCs should be regulated by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, the Federal Trade Commission, or both. Federal regulation is necessary in order to provide a uniform set of rules that provide protection to consumers while also allowing LFCs the freedom to provide the funding that consumers have shown they are willing to seek and accept.


Infertility is defined as a delay in conception of more than one year duration when there is no use of contraception. Approximately 25% of cases of male infertility are of unknown aetiology. Genetic variations have been found to be as one of the risk factors for male infertility. Among genetic variations, deletions affecting the Azoospermia Factor (AZF) region which is located in the long arm of the Y-chromosome are the most important factors in the development of male infertility. The three types of AZF deletions (AZFa, AZFb and AZFc) have been shown to be associated with male infertility. The frequency rates of those AZF deletions vary among populations due to ethnic factors. Moreover, controversy exists in the literature about the significance of other types of AZF deletions, namely AZFd deletations and partial AZFc deletations (gr/gr, b1/b3, b2/b3 deletions), in male infertility. Conventional Iitiplex PCR-gel electrophoresis is the standard screening method for AZF letions. However, this method has a number of disadvantages as it is a lor-intensive procedure with conflicting results. This study comprised 54 ertile males and 63 fertile controls (proven fertility). The frequency of AZFa, AZFb and AZFc deletions were determined using conventional PCR. In addition, a genetic association study was done to determine the association of AZFd and partial AZFc deletions between male infertility and control subjects. In this study, we have also developed a new real-time PCR High Resolution Melt (HRM) analysis based method to screen for AZF deletions and compared with the results from conventional PCR method. The results of this study showed that, three out of 54 cases (5.55%) had AZF (a, b and c) deletions (two had AZFc and one had AZFa deletions). Four cases were found to have AZFd deletions (7.4%) with two of them were found to be associated with AZFc deletions (p=O.028). In this study, gr/gr deletions were found in six cases (11.53%) as well as in six control subjects (9.52%) and significantly differed (p=O.725). One case was found to have b2/b3 deletion(1.85%, p=O.269) and there were no b1/b3 deletions identified in this study. The new HRM analysis based-method was able to produce the same results obtained with the conventional PCR-gel electrophoresis method. In fact, the HRM based-method was highly repeatable as shown by the 95% Limits of agreement statistical analysis. The frequency of AZF (a, b and c) deletions in Malaysian infertile male subjects was found to be comparable with other populations. AZFd deletions were found to be significant in male infertility and it may be associated with other types of AZF deletions. Partial AZFc deIetions were not found to be significant in Malaysian infertile males. Moreover, the HRM analysis screening method for AZF deletions was found I be reliable, reproducible, fast, probe free, of high throughput, semi¬-automated with easy interpretation of the results and cost-effective method.


The goal of this study was to examine the potential health effects of organochlorine (OC) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure on Atlantic stingray populations in Florida's St. Johns River (SJR). Special emphasis was placed on identifying OCand/or PAH-related effects in stingrays from areas of the lower (LSJR) and middle (MSJR) basins shown to possess elevated levels of these compounds, as well as characterizing baseline levels of pollutant exposure in the SJR shipping channel, which may be subjected to dredging in the near future, potentially resuspending and redistributing contaminated sediments and increasing pollutant-associated effects. To accomplish this, we measured OC and PAH biomarker levels in stingrays collected from contaminated and reference sites. We specifically examined the phase I detoxification enzyme, cytochrome P4501a1 (CYP1a1); the phase II detoxification enzymes, glutathione-Stransferase (GST) and uridine 5'-diphosphate glucuronosyltransferase (UGT); fluorescent aromatic compounds, PAH bile metabolites; and lipid peroxidation (LPO), cell membrane damage. Biomarker values collected between 2014 and 2016 were compared by site. Detoxification enzyme activity and LPO values from individuals collected from the three MSJR lakes between 2002 and 2005 were compared to those collected between 2014 and 2016. The data suggested that biomarker values from the SJR were variable, with elevated levels from Lake Jesup. Compared to reference estuaries, the LSJR has low biomarker values. This indicates that residing in certain portions of the MSJR is detrimental to stingray health, while residing in the LSJR is not. Lake Monroe and Lake George biomarker levels indicated reduced contaminant input over time, whereas Lake Jesup biomarker levels suggested the opposite. This study has developed a baseline for biomarker levels in the LSJR, allowing for the identification of dredging-induced changes to the system, and has identified temporal changes in biomarker levels from three MSJR lakes.


Over the past few decades, US-based technology corporations and surveillance agencies colonized the global tech ecosystem. This dissertation proposes a conceptual and theoretical framework to understand how the United States is reinventing colonialism in the Global South through the domination of digital technology. As a policy analysis of digital colonialism – defined as the use of digital tech for political, economic, and social control – it provides a detailed assessment of Operation Phakisa Education (OPE), the secretive plan to fast-track a national e-education rollout to all South African public schools.

The study contrasts the Western model of digital capitalism against what I refer to as "People's Technology for People's Power" – a nod to the anti-apartheid education movement of the 1980s. People's Technology merges socialist democracy with technologies and perspectives developed by the Free Software community. It offers a vision for digital socialism that aims to transform the tech ecosystem into a global digital commons based on decentralized ownership and control over the means of computation.

The dissertation demonstrates how the national e-education initiative is a primary vessel for Silicon Valley corporations to capture South African education, economy, and society. By placing general-purpose Big Tech products in public schools (such as Microsoft Windows or Google Android), young people and teachers become consumers of Big Tech software, and society is locked into their platforms, products, and ecosystems. By placing education-specific products into schools (such as Office 365 Education or G Suite for Education), public education becomes partially privatized through the educational features designed by Silicon Valley.

The South African government has a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) policy preference explicitly designed to resist US-based corporate colonization, yet policymakers are presently ignoring it. Instead, SA policymakers embrace digital capitalism expressed through the so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution" narrative. OPE aims to serve the technocratic aims of the state-corporate ruling class, which seeks to "transform" education, economy, and society through Big Data surveillance of teachers and pupils.

The dissertation concludes that US technological and conceptual dominance in South Africa constitutes digital colonialism. It emphasizes the need for public inclusion in policy formation and the central importance of People's Tech to a free and equitable society. Current scholarship critical of digital technology neglects the Free Software community and the problem of digital colonialism, and subsequent literature would be enriched by addressing these issues.


Stick ball, stoop sitting, pickle barrel colloquys: The neighborhood occupies a warm place in our cultural memory-a place that Kenneth A. Scherzer contends may have more to do with ideology and nostalgia than with historical accuracy. In this remarkably detailed analysis of neighborhood life in New York City between 1830 and 1875, Scherzer gives the neighborhood its due as a complex, richly textured social phenomenon and helps to clarify its role in the evolution of cities. After a critical examination of recent historical renderings of neighborhood life, Scherzer focuses on the ecological, symbolic, and social aspects of nineteenth-century community life in New York City. Employing a wide array of sources, from census reports and church records to police blotters and brothel guides, he documents the complex composition of neighborhoods that defy simple categorization by class or ethnicity. From his account, the New York City neighborhood emerges as a community in flux, born out of the chaos of May Day, the traditional moving day. The fluid geography and heterogeneity of these neighborhoods kept most city residents from developing strong local attachments. Scherzer shows how such weak spatial consciousness, along with the fast pace of residential change, diminished the community function of the neighborhood. New Yorkers, he suggests, relied instead upon the "unbounded community," a collection of friends and social relations that extended throughout the city. With pointed argument and weighty evidence, The Unbounded Community replaces the neighborhood of nostalgia with a broader, multifaceted conception of community life. Depicting the neighborhood in its full scope and diversity, the book will enhance future forays into urban history.


The aim of the study was to investigate how the time structure of a road-traffic affects the noise annoyance judgment. In a psychoacoustic experiment, the listeners judged noise annoyance of four road-traffic noise scenarios with identical numbers of vehicles and LAeq,T value but different time structure of a road traffic. The traffic structure varied from even to highly clustered across different scenarios. The scenarios were created in the laboratory from a large set of a single vehicle pass-by recordings. The scenarios were additionally filtered with filters corresponding to a typical window transfer function to simulate the situation inside the building. The experimental results showed that there is a significant difference in annoyance judgment for different traffic structures with the same LAeq,T value. The highest annoyance ratings were obtained for even traffic distribution and the most clustered distribution resulted in the lowest annoyance rating. These results correlated well with the averaged loudness, whereas the percentile loudness (N5) and level (L5) predict the opposite results.


We perform quantitative trait locus (xQTL) analyses on a multi-omic dataset, comprising RNA sequence, DNA methylation, and histone acetylation ChIP sequence data from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of 411 older adult individuals. We identify SNPs that are significantly associated with gene expression, DNA methylation, and histone modification levels. Many SNPs influence more than one type of molecular feature, and epigenetic features are shown to mediate eQTLs in a number of (9%) such loci. We illustrate the utility of our new resource, xQTL Serve, in prioritizing the cell type most affected by an xQTL and in enhancing genome wide association studies (GWAS) as we report 18 additional CNS disease susceptibility loci after re-analyzing published studies.


This work intends to investigate the figure of Stefan Edberg from two perspectives: on the one hand the icon of Edberg within the sporting imagery in relation with the hero mythology, and on the other, starting from the particular development of the Serve and volley, as it can make us understand tennis in a mediological key. This analysis must therefore take into account the technical-tactical characteristics of Edberg's game and the relationships that the Swedish tennis player has had with the media who have built the character (Marchesini 2016). The purpose of the article is to trace the particular heroic substance of Edberg suspended between the shine of the classical hero and the duplicity of the modern hero. This heroic substance is investigated also starting from the figure that the media have built of the Swedish tennis player.


S U M M A R Y On 2008 October 5, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck the eastern termination of the intermontane Alai valley between the southern Tien Shan and the northern Pamir of Kyrgyzstan. The shallow thrust earthquake occurred in the footwall of the Main Pamir thrust, where the Pamir orogen is colliding with the southern Tien Shan mountains. We measure the coseismic surface displacements using SAR (Synthetic Aperture RADAR) data; the results show clear gradients in the vertical and horizontal directions along a complex pattern of surface ruptures and active faults. To integrate and to interpret these observations in the context of the regional tectonics, we complement the SAR data analysis with seismological data and geological field observations. While the main moment release of the Nura earthquake appears to be on the Pamir Frontal thrust, the main surface displacements and surface rupture occurred in the footwall along the NE–SW striking Irkeshtam fault. With InSAR data from ascending and descending tracks along with pixel offset measurements, we model the Nura earthquake source as a segmented rupture. One fault segment corresponds to high-angle brittle faulting at the Pamir Frontal thrust and two more fault segments show moderate-angle and low-friction thrusting at the Irkeshtam fault. Our integrated analysis of the coseismic deformation argues for rupture segmentation and strain partitioning associated to the earthquake. It possibly activated an orogenic wedge in the easternmost segment of the Pamir-Alai collision zone. Further, the style of the segmentation may be associated with the presence of Palaeogene evaporites.


Authors and readers have been in conflict since the invention of writing, battling over the right to interpret a written document. This has artificially created a split between these two institutions, a split typically divided between those who have the power and money to publish their words to a mass audience and those whose words have been repressed by that publishing system. This thesis examines, through the lens of deconstruction and other post-structuralist threories, how hypertext and other digital technologies have empowered reader to take back some of the functions historically granted to authors. Through blogs, interactive Web sites, and electronic literatures, readers can assume a larger role in the creative process. However, with more power comes more danger for manipulation, as authors have also become more canny with the rise of electronic text. Though readers have more freedom, they must also face an increased potential for mediation and manipulation outside of their control. This thesis determines that although the gap between authors and readers is narrowing, many of the old conflicts are too ingrained to ever be settled.


There is need to facilitate the enhancement of capacity in human-beings to develop pro-people and pronational technologies, production-systems, and management models. In our country, there should be more stress on promotion of labour-intensive enterprises so as to increase the employment opportunities and to solve the wide-spread and serious problem of unemployment. The nature and direction of our industrial production should be to fulfill real national and peoples' needs. The technologies should be such that these utilise and develop local resources and expertise. This will certainly facilitate our movement on the path of having and establishing the self-reliance in our country. To satisfy all the necessities, production-processes are necessary. For this, development of productive-forces (means of production plus human-resources) is a must. To develop productive-forces, the development of productive-relations is also necessary. Development of productive-forces and productive-relations is what constitutes the development of economic-base of the country. Infra-structure is necessary for economic development of the nation. Transportation is an important aspect of infra-structure. The development of transportation is vital not only for economic development of the country and the people, but also for the development of the country and the people in social and cultural spheres. There are four basic modes of transport viz. roadways, railways, waterways, and airways. Every mode of transport has relative advantages and disadvantages. In case of waterways and airways, the vehicle and load has to move through fluids. In case of fluids, there is viscous dragging force due to viscosity of the fluid which is infact internal-fraction between layers of the moving fluid. It is quantified by concept of co-efficient of viscosity. Whenever a small spherical body moves through a viscous fluid, then layers of the fluid which touch the body, are dragged along with the body, while the layers of the fluid away from the body remain at rest. Hence a relative motion between different layers of the fluid is developed. As a result, a backward dragging force comes into play. This viscous-dragging force is in addition to the viscous-drag which is inherent in the fluid motion. Moreover, when a body moves through the fluid, then there is also the presence of external-friction between the surface of the body and the "surface" of the fluid taking fluid as a bulk quantity. Therefore, when a body moves through a fluid, then the body has to struggle against three opposing forces: viscousdragging force inherent in the fluid, viscous-dragging force due to the motion of the body through the fluid, viscousdragging force due to external friction (air-friction), and all these three opposing forces reinforce one-another to become a formidable opposing force. Role of viscosity concerning motion of fluids is more determined by a relatively new concept of"Kinematic Viscosity" rather than the concept "Co-efficient of Viscosity". We see that kinematic viscosity for air is greater than that of water, so more power will be required for the vehicle and the load to move through air than through water. It is a commonestimation that the energy requirement to carry unit load per unit distance in case of railways is one-fourth to one-sixth of the energy requirement for roadways. The basic point is that co-efficient of friction between steel-and-steel surfaces in case of railways is far less than co-efficient of friction between rubber-and-concrete surfaces. In case of railways and roadways, the role of the phenomenon of elasticity is also important. Hooke's Law states that within elastic limit, the extension produced in a wire is directly proportional to the load applied. Co-efficient of elasticity or modulus of elasticity of the material of the body is the ratio of the stress and the corresponding strain produced, within elastic limit. All the three kinds of modulus of elasticity of steel are large, also it has other good properties like being flexible and being comparatively cheap. Also co-efficient of friction for steel-steel surfaces is small. These factors combined lead to the selection of steel in railways. Of the modes of transportation of roadways and railways, supreme stress should be on the development of railways, as less force is required to move trains, leading to less use of petroleum products, so the most economical. Also, less pollution of the environment will be there.


Two-dimensional defect-rich molybdenum nitride (dr-MoN) nanosheets were successfully prepared via a NaCl template-directed synthesis route followed by an incomplete ammoniation of MoO3 nanosheets. With additional edge defects arising from the etched MoO3 compared to those in the intact MoN nanosheets, dr-MoN was capable of efficiently electro-catalyzing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under both acidic and alkaline conditions with impressive activity and durability. The dr-MoN-0 catalyst possessed an ultra-small onset overpotential of approximately 10 mV in 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte, which is competitive with that of the Pt/C catalyst. Overpotentials of only 125 mV and 139 mV are required to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm−2 for the dr-MoN-0 catalyst in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 1 M KOH, respectively. More importantly, the dr-MoN-0 maintained a prominent amperometric (I–t) durability during a 20 h test and also a superior cycling stability with negligible overpotential loss, all of which are among the best results for current MoN based HER catalysts. The exceptional performance was attributed to the defect-abundant structure which resulted in the formation of tiny cracks on the surface of the nanosheets and caused the additional exposure of active edge sites. These findings highlight the prospective potential of dr-MoN with additional active edge sites as highly efficient and stable platinum-free electrocatalysts towards the HER.


Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), characterized by the absence or low expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2), is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer. TNBC accounts for about 15% of breast cancer cases in the U.S., and is known for high relapse rates and poor overall survival (OS). Chemo-resistant TNBC is a genetically diverse, highly heterogeneous, and rapidly evolving disease that challenges our ability to individualize treatment for incomplete responders and relapsed patients. Currently, the frontline standard chemotherapy, composed of anthracyclines, alkylating agents, and taxanes, is commonly used to treat high-risk and locally advanced TNBC. Several FDA-approved drugs that target programmed cell death protein-1 (Keytruda) and programmed death ligand-1 (Tecentriq), poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP), and/or antibody drug conjugates (Trodelvy) have shown promise in improving clinical outcomes for a subset of TNBC. These inhibitors that target key genetic mutations and specific molecular signaling pathways that drive malignant tumor growth have been used as single agents and/or in combination with standard chemotherapy regimens. Here, we review the current TNBC treatment options, unmet clinical needs, and actionable drug targets, including epidermal growth factor (EGFR), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), androgen receptor (AR), estrogen receptor beta (ERβ), phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and protein kinase B (PKB or AKT) activation in TNBC. Supported by strong evidence in developmental, evolutionary, and cancer biology, we propose that the K-RAS/SIAH pathway activation is a major tumor driver, and SIAH is a new drug target, a therapy-responsive prognostic biomarker, and a major tumor vulnerability in TNBC. Since persistent K-RAS/SIAH/EGFR pathway activation endows TNBC tumor cells with chemo-resistance, aggressive dissemination, and early relapse, we hope to design an anti-SIAH-centered anti-K-RAS/EGFR targeted therapy as a novel therapeutic strategy to control and eradicate incurable TNBC in the future.


We investigate non-linearities in the stock return - trading volume relationship by using daily data for 16 European countries in an asymmetric vector autoregressive model. In this framework, we test for asymmetries and analyze the dynamic relationship using a simulation based procedure for computing asymmetric impulse response functions. We find that stock returns have a significant influence on trading volume, but there is no evidence for the influence of trading volume on returns. Our analysis indicates that responses of trading volume to return shocks are non-linear and the sign of the response depends on the absolute size of the shock. Thus, using linear VAR models may lead to wrong conclusions concerning the return - volume relationship. We also find that after stock markets go up (down), investors trade significantly more (less) in small and mid cap stocks, supporting evidence for the theories of overconfidence, market participation, differences of opinion, and disposition effect.


We study the feasibility of video transmission using an acoustic system for deep-sea oilfield supervisory control and inspection. Such a system is of interest over short distance links, with short delays and high available bandwidth, as near realtime imagery can be transmitted to monitor targeted underwater spots. This work includes three parts: (1) noise characterization for deep-sea oilfield environments, (2) video compression to reduce the amount of data to be transmitted through the channel, and (3) OFDM modulation to achieve high bit rates over the underwater link. Experimental testing was conducted at the MIT Sailing Pavilion premises, in the Charles River, Boston. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the coupled MPEG-4 compression and OFDM modulation, reaching bit rates on the order of 90 kbps in a 115 kHz acoustic band over a 200-meter link under a variety of channel conditions.


Abstract. Sea ice is a crucial component for short-, medium- and long-term numerical weather predictions. Most importantly, changes of sea ice coverage and areas covered by thin sea ice have a large impact on heat fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere. L-band brightness temperatures from ESA's Earth Explorer SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) have been proven to be a valuable tool to derive thin sea ice thickness. These retrieved estimates were already successfully assimilated in forecasting models to constrain the ice analysis, leading to more accurate initial conditions and subsequently more accurate forecasts. However, the brightness temperature measurements can potentially be assimilated directly in forecasting systems, reducing the data latency and providing a more consistent first guess. As a first step towards such a data assimilation system we studied the forward operator that translates geophysical parameters provided by a model into brightness temperatures. We use two different radiative transfer models to generate top of atmosphere brightness temperatures based on ORAP5 model output for the 2012/2013 winter season. The simulations are then compared against actual SMOS measurements. The results indicate that both models are able to capture the general variability of measured brightness temperatures over sea ice. The simulated brightness temperatures are dominated by sea ice coverage and thickness changes are most pronounced in the marginal ice zone where new sea ice is formed. There we observe the largest differences of more than 20 K over sea ice between simulated and observed brightness temperatures. We conclude that the assimilation of SMOS brightness temperatures yields high potential for forecasting models to correct for uncertainties in thin sea ice areas and suggest that information on sea ice fractional coverage from higher-frequency brightness temperatures should be used simultaneously.


INTRODUCTION The rapid rise of voice control assistant devices, particularly smart devices such as Google Home, Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, have attracted speculation about their psychological effects on users. These devices are designed to respond to human interaction with realistic voices, often in a conversational manner through natural language processing. There are increasing suggestions that such devices may act as 'friends' to children, being advertised as reading companions to help children improve their reading skills. Early research also suggests that treating the devices as conversation partners may help families to improve children's communication skills by challenging verbal mistakes. However, the advanced artificial intelligence driving the devices as well as the humansounding voices have attracted concerns that the assignment of mental and social attributes to the devices may negatively affect children's cognitive and social development. Concerns about the human–computer interaction between children and smart devices can broadly be categorised as shown in figure 1: 1. Inappropriate responses 2. Impeding social development 3. Hindering learning opportunities


Developments in the field of optical sensing have seen the creation of a wide variety of new structures and materials. These include metamaterial sensors, which comprise of nanostructures with physical dimensions smaller than the wavelength of light. Two of the most widely researched metamaterial structures are the Split Ring Resonator (SRR) and fishnet. Both of these structures can be physically altered (in terms of geometry, material composition or periodicity) to exhibit plasmonic resonances at frequencies as far as the visible regime. The near-infrared frequency range is of particular interest with regard to optical sensing as many molecular absorption bands can be found here.
This thesis studies the effectiveness of different designs of optical sensors and the fabrication techniques used to produce them. By changing the dimensions and constituent metal of SRRs, their resonance response is analysed and parameters such as the Quality factor (Q-factor) obtained. The sensitivity of a single gap SRR to the presence of a thin film and localised block of Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is experimentally measured. By changing the position of the localised PMMA block, it can be used as a material probe for the sensor, enabling the areas of greatest sensitivity to be determined. The sensitivity of the SRR is found to greatly depend on the polarisation of the incident electric field with respect to the structure, varying between 143 nm/RIU and 612 nm/RIU when PMMA is positioned at the gap in the ring. Complementary simulations offer additional insight into the behaviour of the structure at a range of frequencies. In addition to plasmonic structures, the fabrication and characterisation of a polymer photonic biosensor is also studied. This sensor utilises a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) cavity adjacent to a rib waveguide to create a narrow stop-band that can potentially be used in the sensing of specifically targeted biological analytes.
For optical sensors to make a transition from research environment to commercial application, the costly fabrication techniques associated with the research and development of nanostructures need to be avoided. Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) offers multiple benefits in terms of cost, fabrication time and the patterning of large areas and is well suited to the commercial sector. NIL has been extensively used throughout the work detailed in this thesis to pattern SRRs, fishnets and polymer sensors.


Much of Australian railway tracks traverse coastal areas containing soft soils and marine deposits. Pre-construction stabilization of soft formation soils by applying a surcharge load alone often takes too long. The installation of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) can reduce the preloading period significantly by decreasing the drainage path length, sometimes by a factor of 10 or more. The analytical solution based on actual radial soil permeability is proposed considering the variation of vacuum pressure, and the Cavity Expansion Theory is employed to predict the smear zone caused by the installation of mandrel driven vertical drains. The predicted smear zone and the effect of drain unsaturation are compared with data obtained from a large-scale radial consolidation tests and the results are explained. When a higher load is required to meet the desired rate of settlement and the cost of surcharge is also significant, the application of vacuum pressure with reduced surcharge loading can be used. In this method, an external negative load is applied to the soil surface in the form of vacuum pressure through a sealed membrane system. The applied vacuum pressure generates negative pore water pressure, resulting in an increase in effective stress and accelerated consolidation, also avoiding the need for a high surcharge embankment. The analytical and numerical analyses incorporating the authors' equivalent plane strain solution for both Darcian and non-Dracian flow are conducted to predict the excess pore pressures, lateral and vertical displacements and several selected case histories are analysed and presented. Cyclic loading of PVDs is also examined in the laboratory in a manner appropriate for railway environments. It is shown that short PVDs can dissipate excess pore pressure as fast as they are built up under repeated loading conditions. The research findings verify that the impact of smear and vacuum pressure can significantly affect soil consolidation, and these aspects need to be simulated properly in the selected numerical approach. Finally, the use of native vegetation to stabilise soft soils in railway environment is discussed with the aid of preliminary suction models developed on the basis of evapotranspiration mechanics applied to tree roots.


Desmanthus virgatus (L.) Willd. Turner (1950) regarded Desmanthus virgatus as an all-encompassing species, comprising D. virgatus , D. pubescens , D. pernambucanus , D. glandulosus and D. leptophyllus . Despite taxonomic revision by Luckow (1993) that resolved the complex to distinct species, many authors continued to refer to all species as D. virgatus in the literature until the late 1990s. Correct nomenclature is now generally used.


It has recently been shown that syllogistic reasoning engages two dissociable neural systems. Reasoning about familiar situations engages a frontal-temporal lobe system, whereas formally identical reasoning tasks involving unfamiliar situations recruit a frontal-parietal visuospatial network. These two systems may correspond to the heuristic and formal methods, respectively, postulated by cognitive theory. To determine if this dissociation generalizes to reasoning about transitive spatial relations, we studied 14 volunteers using event-related fMRI, as they reasoned about landmarks in familiar and unfamiliar environments. Our main finding is a task (reasoning and baseline) by spatial content (familiar and unfamiliar) interaction. Modulation of reasoning toward unfamiliar landmarks resulted in bilateral activation of superior and inferior parietal lobules (BA 7, 40), dorsal superior frontal cortex (BA 6), and right superior and middle frontal gyri (BA 8), regions widely implicated in visuospatial processing. By contrast, modulation of the reasoning task toward familiar landmarks, engaged the right inferior/orbital frontal gyrus (BA 11/47), bilateral occipital (BA 18, 19), and temporal lobes. The temporal lobe activation included the right inferior temporal gyrus (BA 37), posterior hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus, regions implicated in spatial memory and navigation tasks. These results provide support for the generalization of dual mechanism theory to transitive reasoning and highlight the importance of the hippocampal system in reasoning about familiar spatial environments.


In recent years, power consumption has become the main concern in High Performance Computing (HPC). This has lead to heterogeneous computing systems in which Central Processing Units (CPUs) are supported by accelerators, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). While GPUs used to be seen as slave devices to which the main processor offloads computation, today's systems tend to deploy more GPUs than CPUs. Eventually, the GPU will become a first-class processor, bearing increasing responsibilities. Promoting the GPU to a first-class processor comes with many challenges, such as progress guarantees, dynamic memory management, and scheduling. However, one of the main challenges is the GPU's inability to orchestrate communication, which is currently entirely handled by the CPU. This work addresses that issue and presents solutions to allow GPUs to source and sink network traffic independently. Many important aspects are addressed, ranging from the application level to how networking hardware is accessed. First, important and large scale exascale applications are studied to further understand their communication behavior and applications' requirements. Several metrics are presented, including time spent for communication, message sizes, and the length of queues that are required to match messages with receive requests. One aspect the analysis revealed is that messages are becoming smaller at scale, which renders the matching of messages and receive requests an important problem to address. The next part analyzes how the GPU can directly access the network with various communication models being presented and benchmarked. It is shown that a flat address space of distributed GPU memories shows superior bandwidth than put/get communication or CPU-controlled message passing, but less communication can be overlapped with computation. Overall, GPU-controlled communication is always superior, both in terms of time-to-solution and energy spending. The final part addresses communication management on GPUs, which is required to provide high-level communication abstractions. Besides other fundamental building blocks, an algorithm for the message matching is presented that yields similar performance as CPUs. However, it is also shown that the messaging protocol can be relaxed to improve performance significantly, leveraging the massive amount of parallelism provided by the GPU's architecture.


Recently, several cases have been filed in North America and Europe alleging that fertility physicians inseminated former patients with their own sperm only to have this conduct come to light decades later when their unsuspecting adult children use direct-to-consumer genetic tests and learn that they are not biologically related to their fathers and often that they have multiple half-siblings. For instance, Donald Cline of Indianapolis, Indiana, has over sixty doctor-conceived children, with more continuing to come forward. Although these cases induce disgust, it has thus far proven difficult to hold these physicians legally accountable because their conduct falls within gaps in existing civil and criminal laws. This Article explores the legal contours of fertility fraud cases involving illicit physician inseminations, explaining why it falls through gaps in existing criminal and civil law and why it is essential to take whatever measures are necessary to hold physicians accountable. Part I discusses six physicians who have thus far faced criminal or civil charges for their conduct in North America and explores how artificial insemination has long been a stigmatized practice cloaked in secrecy. Part II discusses how fertility fraud violates various ethical and legal interests of female and male former patients and their doctor-conceived children. Part III assesses how Cline's illicit inseminations affected parents and progeny and how Cline's progeny learn of new genetic connections, what they think of Cline and his motivations, how they derive support from one another, their reactions to criminal proceedings against Cline, and why they regard a legislative "fertility fraud" bill as an ideal outcome. Part IV analyzes why it is difficult to hold physicians criminally and civilly liable under existing law, including excerpts from an interview with the prosecutor in the Cline case. Finally, Part V discusses successful efforts to overcome these difficulties through passing fertility fraud legislation in Indiana and Texas.


This paper presents a method for computing topology changes for triangle meshes in an interactive geometric modeling environment. Most triangle meshes in practice do not exhibit desirable geometric properties, so we develop a solution that is independent of standard assumptions and robust to geometric errors. Specifically, we provide the first method for topology change applicable to arbitrary non-solid, non-manifold, non-closed, self-intersecting surfaces. We prove that this new method for topology change produces the expected conventional results when applied to solid (closed, manifold, non-self-intersecting) surfaces---that is, we prove a backwards-compatibility property relative to prior work. Beyond solid surfaces, we present empirical evidence that our method remains tolerant to a variety of surface aberrations through the incorporation of a novel error correction scheme. Finally, we demonstrate how topology change applied to non-solid objects enables wholly new and useful behaviors.


We test the basic assumption underlying the job competition and crowding out hypothesis: that employers always prefer higher educated to lower educated individuals. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in which duos of fictitious applications by bachelor and master graduates are sent to real vacancies requiring only a bachelor degree. Our design allows to look at whether employers' preferences for overqualified versus adequately qualified applicants depend on the demand and supply context, sectoral activity and type of organisation, and characteristics of the posted vacancy. For the overall sample, we find that master graduates are 19% more likely to be directly invited for a job interview. Nonetheless, we conclude that eventual crowding out of bachelor graduates as a consequence of this selection policy is unlikely to be large since the advantage for master graduates is particularly observed for jobs with high overall invitation rates.


Fully updated for its third edition, Echocardiography provides all of the essential information you need on echo acquisition, interpretation, and reporting in an easily readable and concise format. Featuring over 400 full colour images, this resource also comes with online access to 155 video clips to clarify complex issues, making it an invaluable guide for both the experienced and trainee cardiologist who performs echocardiography as part of their practice. Designed to align to international guidelines and help trainees undergoing accreditation or certification, including the BSE, EACVI, and ASE requirements, this handbook bridges the gap between entry-level texts and large textbooks, and is compact enough to carry around in clinical settings. It covers all echocardiography modalities, from acute echocardiography to transoesophageal and stress imaging. The third edition includes a simplified approach to the physics of ultrasound, a brand new chapter on interventional echocardiography, and a streamlined navigation between basic and advanced techniques. The sections on diastolic function, heart failure, and congenital heart disease have been expanded, and over 100 new illustrations, images, and schematic diagrams have been added to simplify images and anatomy for the reader.