Objective To investigate the views and experiences of parents whose children have rampant tooth decay. Methods In-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 19 parents of varied age and social background whose children had been referred to Dundee Dental Hospital for assessment for dental extractions. Participants were encouraged to discuss their own and their child's dental experiences and their views on how the child developed rampant caries. The interview data was systematically coded using key theme headings, and summary charts were constructed to facilitate analysis. Results The parents found it difficult to avoid sweets and giving their children sweet treats. They had limited knowledge of oral health maintenance which was poorly applied. These factors, combined with the difficulties of family life — in particular illness and life events — created circumstances in which their children experienced tooth decay. Conclusions Parents find it difficult to restrict their children's sugar intake in an environment where sugary snacks are so readily available. More societal support in restricting children's sugar intake is of central importance. Parents would benefit from more sympathetic and explicit diet and toothbrushing messages tailored to their individual circumstances from those involved in the care of children's oral health.


This preliminary study investigates what role early trauma might have in alexithymia acquisition for adults by controlling for male circumcision. Three hundred self-selected men were administered the Toronto Twenty-Item Alexithymia Scale checklist and a personal history questionnaire. The circumcised men had age-adjusted alexithymia scores 19.9 percent higher than the intact men; were 1.57 times more likely to have high alexithymia scores; were 2.30 times less likely to have low alexithymia scores; had higher prevalence of two of the three alexithymia factors (difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings); and were 4.53 times more likely to use an erectile dysfunction drug. Alexithymia in this population of adult men is statistically significant for having experienced circumcision trauma and for erectile dysfunction drug use.


Since the establishment of a democratic South Africa in 1994, a number of rural water supply schemes have been implemented. A specific aim of these schemes is to improve the health of the population. The underlying assumption is that a supply of reticulated water will improve the quality of water'used by the community, reduce the exposure of the community to contaminated water supplies, and reduce water related diseases, in particular diarrhoea. This research thesis focuses on two rural water supply schemes in KwauZulu-Natal: Mpolweni and Vulindlela, both being developed by Umgeni Water, the regional water utility. These communities depended variously on rivers, rain harvesting, and springs for their water supply. For sanitation, the majority of people used unimproved pit latrines. This research thesis is based on information gathered from the communities prior to the installation of the water supply schemes. It focuses on the linkage between water supply and health by examining diarrhoeal morbidity as a measurable disease outcome and by identifying possible pathways to the prevalence of diarrhoea. Questionnaire and observational surveys were undertaken of 181 households in Mpolweni and 100 households in Vulindlela. From these surveys, the prevalence of diarrhoea in Vulindlela households was found to be 40.4% and in Mpolweni to be 49%. Children under the age of five years old are the most vulnerable, with 20.1% of children in Mpolweni and 21 .3% of children in Vulindlela reported as having had diarrhoea in the recall period prior to the surveys. The Mpolweni study considered eighty exposure variables, finding an association between diarrhoeal disease and sixteen of these variables (p value < 0.05). The Vulindlela study considered fifty-five exposure variables, of which eight were considered significant (p value < 0.05). In regard to water and diarrhoea: • no association was found between the prevalence of diarrhoea and the source of water in either Mpolweni or Vulindlela. • using water to wash nappies was associated with diarrhoeal disease in Vulindlela. However, it is postulated that it is the faecal contamination in the nappy, rather than the water, that is problematic. No association between water use and diarrhoea was established in Mpolweni. • poor disinfection of stored water supplies was associated with diarrhoeal disease in both Mpolweni and Vulindlela. In addition, the use of plastic storage containers to store water at the household provided additional risk in Mpolweni. However, once the reticulated system is installed, the communities are likely to continue to store water due to a distrust of the reliability of water supply. The above surveys form the baseline for additional studies currently being undertaken by Umgeni Water that are intended to measure the effectiveness of the water supply schemes on community health. However, from this thesis, it is concluded that many of the risk factors associated with diarrhoeal disease in both Vulindlela and Mpolweni will not directly be addressed by the introduction of the water supply schemes.


Population viability analysis (PVA) is used to assess the probability that a biological population will persist for a specified period of time. Such models are typically cast as Markov processes that may include age, stage, sex and metapopulation structures, density‐dependence and ecological interaction processes. They may also include harvesting, stocking, and thresholds that trigger interventions. Here we present a PVA web app that includes extensible user‐selected options. Specifically, this PVA web app allows for the specification of one to ten age classes, one or two sexes, single population or metapopulation configurations with 2 or 3 subpopulations, as well as density‐dependent settings for inducing region‐specific carrying capacities. Movement among subpopulations can be influenced by age, metapopulation connectivity, and attractivity of regions based on the relative fitness of the youngest age classes in each region. Simulations can be carried out deterministically or stochastically, with a user‐specified combination of demographic and environmental processes. This PVA web app is freely available at http://www.numerusinc.com/webapps/pva for running directly on any browser and device. It is easily modified by users familiar with the NovaModeler Software Platform.


In 1997, Xian-Jin Li gave an equivalence to the classical Riemann hypothesis, now referred to as Li's criterion, in terms of the non-negativity of a particular infinite sequence of real numbers. We formulate the analogue of Li's criterion as an equivalence for the generalized quasi-Riemann hypothesis for functions in an extension of the Selberg class, and give arithmetic formulae for the corresponding Li coefficients in terms of parameters of the function in question. Moreover, we give explicit non-negative bounds for certain sums of special values of polygamma functions, involved in the arithmetic formulae for these Li coefficients, for a wide class of functions. Finally, we discuss an existing result on correspondences between zero-free regions and the non-negativity of the real parts of finitely many Li coefficients. This discussion involves identifying some errors in the original source work which seem to render one of its theorems conjectural. Under an appropriate conjecture, we give a generalization of the result in question to the case of Li coefficients corresponding to the generalized quasi-Riemann hypothesis. We also give a substantial discussion of research on Li's criterion since its inception, and some additional new supplementary results, in the first chapter.


Crop income is the predominant source of income for most rural Mozambican households, accounting for 73% of rural household income on average in 2002, and greater than 80% of the total income of the poorest 40% of rural households. While the Government of Mozambique recognizes the need to improve agricultural productivity, there is little empirical evidence to date suggesting what mix of public and private assets would best foster improved agricultural productivity in rural Mozambique. This paper aims to better understand the determinants of household crop income in rural Mozambique, by using the TIA panel household survey of 2002-2005 to measure the impact of various private and public assets on crop income. We build upon Walker et al.'s (2004) analysis of TIA02 crop income by utilizing the econometric advantages of panel econometrics to obtain improved estimates of the impact of various private and public assets on crop income. Our principal focus is to measure the effect on total household net crop income of factors which are assumed to have a positive effect on crop productivity and profitability, including: private assets such as landholding; household use of improved inputs (fertilizer, animal traction) and diversification into tobacco or cotton; and access to public goods such as extension advice, market price information, and farm association membership.


OBJECTIVES
Changes in the activity of beta-glucuronidase, N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase, cathepsin D and L, alanine aminopeptidase and lysosomal acid lipase in lysosomal fractions of the liver and kidneys of mice, which were administered 20 mg/kg b.w. of exogenous melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) for 7 and 14 days were investigated.

METHODS
The slices of the liver and kidney were homogenized in 0.1M phosphate buffer, pH 7.0. Homogenates were subjected to differentiated centrifuging and determination of studied enzymes.

RESULTS
Melatonin caused lowering of the activity of all the investigated lysosomal enzymes in the liver and kidney.

CONCLUSION
Administration of melatonin was caused the lowering of the activity of the investigated lysosomal enzymes in comparison with values in control groups.


Outbound Port 25 Blocking has been widely used over a decade as a
countermeasure against mail spams. It is the operation to filter TCP
traffic which (1) the source IP addresses are dynamic IP addresses and
(2) the destination port is 25. Since ordinal mail message submissions
from dynamic IP addresses can be done via submission port (port number
587), operators can introduce the blocking without preventing ordinal
mail message submissions. We explain current OP25B operations in this
document.


Since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympic Games, large-scale transportation infrastructures have been transforming the city. We examine the transportation planning process and consequences of implementation in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games by triangulating qualitative and quantitative methods. We argue that because of the low cost, speed of implementation, best-practice knowledge, existing political coalitions, ease of land acquisition, and flexibility in planning, BRTs emerged as the dominant Olympic transport solution. We find that the transport planning process has undermined the public interest and placed the burdens of implementation disproportionally on the urban poor.


The paper aims to establish the possibility of trust from within a Hobbesian framework. It shows that distrust situations can be structured in two ways, the first referred to as Hard and the second as Soft, both of which are compatible with Hobbes's stark assumptions about human nature. In Hard distrust situations (which are prisoner's-dilemma structured) the distrust strategy is dominant; in the Soft variety (which are stag-hunt structured) trust is an equilibrium choice. In order to establish the possibility of trust there is no need to claim that the state of nature is Soft rather than Hard, nor even that Soft is likelier. Game theoretical considerations show that all that is needed to give trust a chance is the ambiguity or uncertainty on the part of the players as to which of the two basic situations of distrust in fact obtains: which game was picked by Nature for them to play.


This thesis is a critical history of ideas—or a history of repressed and repressive ideas (and histories)—that analyses how liberal internationalism, in the form of human rights, presses upon, covers over, brushes against, interacts with, or is used instrumentally by Indigenous activism and political life. By situating these interactions between human rights and Indigenous political life in the context of settler colonialism, it aims to bring out the complexity of a politics of (ref)usal that permeates this relationship, in this context. First, the thesis reads critiques of human rights against emerging literature in settler colonial studies, showing how the irreducible element of an eliminatory drive for land, which characterizes settler colonialism, is not accounted for in the existing critical literature on human rights. Second, it presents a critical history of the normative evolution of the right to self-determination in both law and discourse as these relate to Indigenous peoples, showing how the norm is constructed both to make illegible other forms of Indigenous political life and to reify anthropological tropes about Indigenous culture. Third, it tests proposals for 'saving' human rights from its colonial-hegemonic past—by repoliticizing it—against writing on settler decolonization, to ask about the role of human rights in/as decolonial politics. The thesis, finally, considers how the normative and historical terrain it has mapped might help us think through the politics of human rights and Indigenous activism (namely, the Idle No More movement) in Canada in light of Justin Trudeau's election as Prime Minister in October, 2015. Ultimately, the aim of this work is to interrogate the normative political optics of the settler state—what it can and cannot make legible—as it makes use of liberal internationalist discourse to make illegible (to eliminate from view) other, Indigenous, modes of political life which stubbornly (politically) refuse this imposition.


The potential link performance gains obtained with up to 8×8 MIMO transmissions as standardized in 3GPP LTE Release 10 have been evaluated in an indoor measurement campaign using a testbed implementation. For well-separated antennas, the results show increasing downlink throughput when increasing the number of transmit and receive antennas, up to a median throughput of 335 Mbps for an 8×8 MIMO configuration on a 20 MHz carrier. A similar and only slightly smaller throughput is achieved when using a compact UE array of a size that is more reasonable for a consumer device implementation.


After briefly reviewing the legal systems in the West Bank and Gaza from 1948 until the Oslo agreements, the author examines the major obstacles to creating a viable legal system in Palestine. These are the difficulties in unifying two distinct legal systems-the continental, Jordanian system in the West Bank, and the Anglo-Saxon, common law system in Gaza-and the blurred lines of authority. The author argues that the Palestinian legal sector, where decision making has been characterized by uncertainty, diktat, and personalism, can be seen as a microcosm of PA politics. In both the legal sector and in general, the PA has created a "politics of antithesis" to consolidate its own power.


While many studies on mobile wireless communication devices predominantly take a micro-scale approach and concentrate their often ethnographically informed focus on use values, social implications, conversation strategies, changing norms and ethics, culture-dependent domestication, and so forth, with this Ph.D. dissertation I propose to venture into a more historical and comparative direction, mainly in order to shed light on and engage the question of why we invest so much of ourselves in mobile wireless communication devices in the first place. I aim to extend the existing body of research on mobile communication to include a more expanded view of the development, marketing, and reception of mobile communication technologies, and to provide a more comprehensive account of how mobile communication technologies have come to occupy such a prominent position in our media landscape. Starting with an analysis of how human affects like hope and desire stand at the base of necessary fictions, of myths that tell us that a better tomorrow is near if only we improve, I determine in what ways and to what purpose such hopeful and luring myths come to be expressed in the ideals of communication that are presupposed in various communication models. I show that these ideals, despite the fact that in their radical conclusions they end up being experienced as dystopian scenarios, are powerful strategic elements in portraying communication as something that can can be improved. I then argue that recurrent myths of improved communication inform and constitute the 'good tricks' of media evolution: they supply the discursive tropes of what ideal communication could be, and how it should be reached. Hence, in the development of communication technology we find stories that tell us, over and over again, that better communication is at hand, if only the technology is perfected and people learn how to use it effectively. To analyse the function of idealised ideas of communication in media development, I take on a multi-sided perspective that adheres to the guidelines of what is called a 'media archaeological approach', which deals with studying cyclically recurring discursive elements in the historical contexts of media machines. With this approach I proceed to uncover the regulative function of utopian communication claims in order to study how throughout time they have known various manifestations, and to what extent they play a role in co-constructing discourses of mobile wireless communication devices. This dissertation concludes with the notion that so far all media have tried to reach ideals of communication by improving on themselves, but have failed. Mobile wireless communication devices, as the most recent addition to our media spectrum, may seem to achieve communication utopia, but our experience and expectations of these media are surprisingly similar to those of older media; they reconfirm and reinforce the idea that actually reaching an all-encompassing 'anyone, anything, anytime, anywhere' experience can be both a blessing and a curse, that the desire for ideal communication is a tragic and paradoxical yet highly powerful regulative principle in our media evolution.


Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common type of violence against women. It is a major public health problem and violates the fundamental human rights of women. Aim: To determine the prevalence, pattern and consequences of IPV during pregnancy in Abakaliki, Southeast Nigeria. Subjects and Methods: A semi-structured questionnaire was designed for cross-sectional survey of pregnant women attending antenatal clinic between April and June 2011 at the Federal Medical Centre Abakaliki. A total of 321 questionnaires were correctly filled and then analyzed using Epi info software 2008 (Atlanta Georgia, USA). Results: Out of the 321 booked pregnant women, 44.6% (143/321) reported having been abused in the index pregnancy. Age of woman, family setting, religion, educational level of couples, parity and social habits of their husbands significantly influenced IPV (P < 0.05). The common causes of IPV were no identifiable cause (20.1%) 29/144, domestic issues (19.4%) 28/144, keeping late nights (12.5%) 18/144 and financial problem (11.8%) 17/144. Verbal abuse (60.1%) 86/143 was the most common type of abuse and most pregnant women resorted to praying (31.5%) 46/146, crying (24.7%) 36/146, and begging (22.6%) 33/146 as their major reactions to IPV. Eleven (7.7%) 11/143 pregnant women were hospitalized while (21%) 30/143 sustained emotional and physical injury. Apologies were tendered after IPV by 84.6% (121/143) of husband. Majority (83.9%) 120/143 of the abused did not support reporting IPV. Conclusion: Various types of IPV are still practiced commonly in our environment. IPV poses great threat to the reproductive health of all women especially during pregnancy.


BACKGROUND
Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is an autosomal dominant vascular dysplasia and severe, recurrent epistaxis is a common clinical phenotype associated with HHT. An intranasal treatment regime of diluted Avastin™ (Bevacizumab; recombinant humanized anti-vascular epithelial growth factor immunoglobin G1) using apulsatile nasal irrigator has proven efficacious in clinical practice. However, concerns regarding the stability of Avastin™ following dilution and prolonged storage in standard containers used for drug delivery, such as polyethylene bottles, have so far prevented a more widespread clinical use. Compatibility with the preservative benzalkonium chloride was also unknown.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed at determining, whether dilution, prolonged refrigerated storage and the presence of the preservative benzalkonium chloride - as required for novel Avastin™ formulations - affected the biochemical and electrochemical properties of the drug.

METHODS
We performed a detailed biochemical and electrochemical analysis of Avastin™, including native and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and isoelectric focusing.

RESULTS
We did not detect any evidence of degeneration or aggregation following dilution and prolonged, refrigerated storage or from the presence of benzalkonium chloride. All biochemical and electrochemical properties of Avastin™ after dilution and prolonged, refrigerated storage were undistinguishable from control.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data provide important insight into the stability of Avastin™ and allow the consideration of novel Avastin™ formulations, including its use in a metered-dose nasal spray for the treatment of HHT and other applications.


As the organizers of this conference note, we live under a regime of data power (Lauriault et al 2017). In common with any regime, the subjects that exist within it make rights claims to authority in order to enact citizenship.  This converts the data subject into data citizen, and according to Isin & Ruppert (2015) makes her both a subversive and submissive figure: simultaneously performing rights claims and submitting to authority.  The process of making rights claims to the holders of data power has been codified in more than thirty charters of digital rights drafted by activists and policymakers since 1999 (Gill, Redeker & Gasser 2015).  The content of these charters are remarkably consistent, centring on access, privacy, freedom of expression and network neutrality—such that elsewhere I contend they are underpinned by the mantra of 'draft once; deploy everywhere' (FC Hoskins 2017). What I argue in this presentation is that as well as the content, these charters are uniform in their emphasis on submission over subversion: the way that digital rights are conceptualized ultimately reinforce rather than challenge the brokers of data power. By examining some of the most prominent bills of digital rights, such as the IGF's Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet, I propose that their formulation of rights claims has the effect of securing data to meets the systemic needs of informational capitalism, as well as foreclosing the potential to substantively address its considerable inequities: monopolization, surveillance and commodification. By contrast, I explore the potential for models of active data citizenship (Powell 2016), such as 'platform cooperativism' (Scholz 2014), to more effectively subvert the regime of data power.


In this paper, the design and fabrication of a new radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switch structure is presented. This RF MEMS switch is developed to get the minimum permanent deformation on the microbridge after 200 °C thermal treatment. The residual stress-based buckling on the MEMS bridge is simulated for 5-40-MPa/μm stress gradient (Aσ) with 5-MPa/μm steps. The temperature-dependent extension and deformation on the MEMS bridge are modeled up to 270 °C. The temperature-dependent permanent deformation on the MEMS bridge is reduced by optimizing the dimensions of the bridge. The electromechanical and electromagnetic simulations are carried out to find the actuation voltage and the RF performance at Ka-band. The actuation voltage is measured as 22 and 25 V before and after 200 °C thermal treatment for 2-μm air gap (g0). The RF performance of the switch is measured before and after 200 °C thermal treatment to observe the temperature effect on the MEMS bridge. The persistent insertion loss (<;0.35 dB) and the isolation (<;-20 dB at 28-40 GHz) are measured before and after thermal treatment. The RF MEMS switch is fabricated on quartz wafer using an in-house surface micromachining process with an amorphous silicon sacrificial layer structure.


The relationship between teachers' participation in 4MAT learning style training and their perception of teacher efficacy was investigated three ways. Teachers who participated in 4MAT Fundamentals training were surveyed, observed, and interviewed. The Gusky and Passaro (1994) teacher efficacy scale was given to 120, K-12 teachers at 4MAT training sites. The survey was administered three times: before the workshop, immediately after the workshop and one month after the teachers had returned to their classrooms. The scale measured two teacher efficacy factors: (a) internal teacher efficacy -perception of personal influence and impact on teaching and learning situations; and (b) external teacher efficacy -perception of the influence and impact of elements that lie outside the classroom on teaching and learning situations. In addition, the teachers at one learning style training site were observed to determine how readily they adopted learning style terminology. Finally, six teachers were interviewed three times each to determine if factors found by Ashton (1984) to be associated with a high level of teacher efficacy were present. Perceptions of internal teacher efficacy increased significantly from preto post workshop administrations. After the teachers had been in the classroom for one month, internal teacher efficacy scores were lower than immediately after the workshop but still significantly higher than before the workshop. The training had no significant impact on external teacher efficacy scores. An interaction was found between teachers' level of previous knowledge and the reported gain in internal teacher efficacy. Those teachers with little previous knowledge of learning style theory and methodology showed higher levels of gain in internal teacher efficacy immediately after the workshop and on the one-month follow-up survey. The teachers' discourse during interviews and behavior during the workshops reflected all the elements Ashton outlined as associated with teacher efficacy: a belief in students' potential to learn and develop, awareness of the classroom as a social setting, and use of reflective behavior. These data also suggested that the maintenance of a high level of efficacy was influenced by the support of colleagues, modeling of instructional techniques, and validation of teachers' ideas concerning practice. It was also noted that teachers adapted 4MAT methodology idiosyncratically. These findings suggest that knowledge of learning style theory and practice can be valuable to teachers. It appears that examining the impact of learning style training on teachers' attitudes and behaviors may provide meaningful insights into why interest in learning style concepts continues despite an inconclusive research base.


Primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is a disorder caused by autoantibody-mediated platelet destruction and decreased platelet production. Rituximab, a B cell-depleting agent, has become the first-line treatment for ITP; however, patients with refractory disease usually require splenectomy. We identified antibody-secreting cells as the major splenic B cell population that is resistant to rituximab. The phenotype, antibody specificity, and gene expression profile of these cells were characterized and compared to those of antibody-secreting cells from untreated ITP spleens and from healthy tissues. Antiplatelet-specific plasma cells (PC) were detected in the spleens of patients with ITP up to 6 months after rituximab treatment, and the PC population displayed a long-lived program similar to the one of bone marrow PC, thus explaining for most of these patients the absence of response to rituximab and the response to splenectomy. When analyzed by multiplex PCR at the single-cell level, normal splenic PC showed a markedly different gene expression profile, with an intermediate signature, including genes characteristic of both long-lived PC and proliferating plasmablasts. Surprisingly, long-lived PC were not detected in untreated ITP spleens. These results suggest that the milieu generated by B cell depletion promotes the differentiation and settlement of long-lived PC in the spleen.


About two miles south of McSherrystown and a similar distance southwest of Hanover, in Conewago Township, lies the small village of Mt. Pleasant. The community developed at and near the intersection of State Route 194, commonly called the Hanover-Littlestown Pike, and Legislative Route 01005, known in days past as the road from McSherrystown to Gitt's Mill and its segment south of the intersection called in recent times Narrow Drive. In the eastern quadrant of the intersection, a church was built in 1878; nearby and adjacent to the crossroads sat a public school, which had been built sometime before 1858. The school was known by two names, Mt. Pleasant and Schwartz's, and the village itself was also called by some people Schwartz's or Schwartz's Schoolhouse. Further, like the church, the school had religious significance to residents of the vicinity. [excerpt]


Understanding the crystallization behavior of fats and oils is essential to ensure certain desirable characteristics in a given industrial application. In recent years, some advances in the structuring of lipid phases have enabled a direct influence on the food properties. The structuring mechanisms of lipid bases can be classified as either conventional or unconventional. Conventional crystallization mechanisms consist of nucleation, growth, and maturation of the crystals, thus resulting in a crystalline lattice. Co-crystallization or seeding agents and emerging technologies such as ultrasound can be used to aid in crystallization and improve the physical properties of fats and oils. Unconventional mechanisms bring organogel technology as a trend, which consists in the use of self-assembly agents to entrap the liquid oil, resulting in a structured gel network. In this chapter, the formation process of crystalline networks and gel networks will be presented in stages, highlighting the main differences related to the mechanisms of formation and stabilization of both types of networks.


The present research was conducted in order to investigate if there was any significant difference between abstracts written by native (N) English speakers and abstracts written by Iranian nonnative (NN) speakers of English based on Swales' (1990) IMRC model. Investigating the possible differences between abstracts written by male vs. female N and NN speakers of English was a further aim in the present study. To achieve these objectives, a total of 140 research papers were randomly selected from the journals published in the field of English Language Teaching in 2014 and 2015. The papers were divided into two categories: 70 papers written by Iranian authors as NN English writers and 70 papers written by N English writers. The four-move theory of IMRC developed by Swales (1990) was used to examine the abstracts. The findings showed that in terms of number of words, the male N authors wrote wordier abstracts compared with male NN authors. On the contrary, the number of words used by NN female authors were more than the number of words used by female N authors.  In addition, the number of words used by female authors in both N and NN corpora were more than that used by male N and NN authors. Statistically speaking, the results of Chi-square tests showed that there were significant differences between the number of words used by N and NN male authors on the one hand, and N and NN female authors on the other. Finally, the results of the move analysis of the corpus under study, using Swales' (1990) model, revealed that this model was followed only in fourteen NN abstracts and 16 N abstracts.


Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented and service design practices in several key respects: The expansion and negotiation of system boundaries to frame the design situation, the intentional embrace of sociotechnical complexity, and strategies of systemic integration rather than market differentiation. Systemic design is concerned with higher-order socially-organized systems that encompass multiple subsystems in policy, organizational or product-service contexts. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centered design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems as those found in industrial networks, transportation, medicine and healthcare. It adapts from known design competencies - form and process reasoning, social and generative research methods, and sketching and visualization practices - to describe, map,
propose and reconfigure complex services and systems. The recent development of systemic design as a research-based practice draws on long-held precedents in the system sciences toward representation of complex social and enterprise systems.

A precedent article (Jones, 2014) established an axiomatic and epistemological basis for complementary principles shared between design reasoning and systems theory. The current paper aims to establish a basis for identifying shared methods (techne) and action practice (or phronesis).


The study of biodiversity is crucial to the stability of the planet as it assists scientists with the knowledge and tools necessary to maintain a functional and sustainable environment. Previous research has utilized malaise traps to collect insects in order to study trends in biodiversity. However, malaise traps may have a potential for bias, depending on the type of attractant used, given that flies are attracted to rotting, fermented fruit. This study aims to test whether inadequate sampling occurs during the collection of flying insects. We hypothesized that attractants do bias the results of malaise trap research. The project was designed to test this hypothesis. We placed two identical traps in similar areas of the Southwestern Riverside County Multi-Species Reserve near Western Center Academy. All variables were maintained across these traps, except for the type of attractant used (independent variable). Traps were placed three feet apart, both parallel to the prevailing wind in a homogeneously vegetated field. After one week, we counted and identified the insects down to order manually under a microscope and their genomes were sequenced. This process was repeated the following week. The data from the two traps were compared to each other and to a concurrent Mount San Jacinto Junior College study to test our hypothesis. Based on analysis of our data, we found our hypothesis to be supported by the data and there was indeed a bias when using denatured alcohol.


A photonic crystal fiber with two large air holes outside the holey cladding region is fabricated to induce an effective long periodic grating (LPG) in the core by an electric arc discharge. We believe that the two large air holes lead to the asymmetric perturbation in the core under the electric arc discharge, thereby introducing the coupling to the first higher-order mode. The transmission characteristics of the PCF with the LPG for the external perturbation such as strain, curvature, and temperature are also investigated. It was found that the shift of resonance peak in the transmission spectrum depends on the bending direction. The curvature of 8.55 m-1 results in the center wavelength shifts of 1.8, 4.3, and 11 nm for a vertical, diagonal, and horizontal direction of the curvature to the large air-hole alignment, respectively.


Purpose

This study aims to focus on living labs as a means of achieving radical innovation by discussing the differences in their network structure and its effect on the type of innovation outcome.

Design/methodology/approach

This research analyses 24 living labs in four countries using qualitative methods.

Findings

A specific network structure referred to as a distributed multiplex supports radical innovation in living labs, while distributed and centralized network structures support incremental innovations. Also, the results suggest that radical innovation depends on the driving actor and objectives in a living lab.

Research limitations/implications

A bias on the perceived novelty of innovation may exist when analyzing data collected through interviews with a limited number of living lab participants compared to a large number of informants. This study proposes a two-dimensional framework based on the network structure to investigate innovation in living labs.

Practical implications

This paper offers a classification tool to identify, categorize and make sense of organizations' participation in open innovation networks and in living labs.

Originality/value

The study provides evidence that, although the distributed multiplex network structure supports the emergence of radical innovations, the distributed and centralized network structures support incremental innovation. A combination of a provider- or utilizer-driven living lab and a distributed multiplex network structure, with a clearly defined and future-oriented strategic objective, offers good potential for radical innovation to occur.


The $n$-cube is the poset obtained by ordering all subsets of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ by inclusion, and it can be partitioned into $\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$ chains, which is the minimum possible number. Two such decompositions of the $n$-cube are called orthogonal if any two chains of the decompositions share at most a single element. Shearer and Kleitman conjectured in 1979 that the $n$-cube has $\lfloor n/2\rfloor+1$ pairwise orthogonal decompositions into the minimum number of chains, and they constructed two such decompositions. Spink recently improved this by showing that the $n$-cube has three pairwise orthogonal chain decompositions for $n\geq 24$. In this paper, we construct four pairwise orthogonal chain decompositions of the $n$-cube for $n\geq 60$. We also construct five pairwise edge-disjoint symmetric chain decompositions of the $n$-cube for $n\geq 90$, where edge-disjointness is a slightly weaker notion than orthogonality, improving on a recent result by Gregor, Jäger, Mütze, Sawada, and Wille.


Various spatial metaphors related to cyberspace suffer from two major deficiencies. First, they do not take into account that cyberspace is not a preexistent territory, but an entity that emerges in the process of its development. Second, cyberspace is not a metric space, so that most of the ready-made constructs, like the topologic spaces, cannot be of much use. An interpretation of Blake's works helps one to understand that cyberspace is not a purely spatial entity; it also involves time, but not in the sense of Einstein's special relativity theory. The cyber space-time continuum is not a void waiting to be filled, but an aggregation of places (sites) that, similarly to Blake's plates, are multimedia architectures resulting from the blend of space and time.


Immobilization and stabilization of enzymes increases their potential for use in industrial scale. D-hydantoinases (dihidropirimidina amidrohidrolase EC 126.96.36.199) catalyze the hydrolysis of D-hydantoins, generating the corresponding Ncarbamoil-D-amino acid and are used in the production of D-amino acids, including Dphenylglycine and D-p-hydroxyphenylglycine.This work reports studies for immobilization and stabilization of D-hydantoinase from Vigna angularis (E.C. 22.214.171.124.). Different strategies of multipoint covalent attachment in organic supports as chitosan and agarose were used. Different protocols of immobilization were employed, being the adittion of ions during the reduction step with the NaBH4 important to protect enzyme catalytic site. The active and stabilized derivatives were used to catalyze the hydrolysis of D-phenylhydantoin. The temperature and pH enzyme profiles showed maximum enzyme activity at 60oC and pH 10,0. The subunits of the enzyme present molecular mass aroundt 50kDa. The enzyme immobilized in glyoxyl-agarose in the presence of Zn ions during the reduction step, with immobilization time of 24h, was the best derivative, being 89-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme. The analysis of amino acids showed that a 50% of lysines residue present in the enzymes was covalently linked in glyoxyl-agarose. The enzyme immobilized in epoxy-chitosan-alginate was 20-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme. All the tested immobilization protocols led to 100% of immobilization yield. Soluble enzyme and the best glyoxyl and chitosan enzyme derivatives were used to catalyze the hydrolysis of Dphenylhydantoin , and led to the production of 99% of NCarbamoil-D-Phenylglycine after 3, 9 and 15h of reaction respectively.


Man has tried to improve comfort within buildings by improving the thermal inertia and minimize the equivalent thermal conductivity of the envelope of building from time immemorial. Attempt has been made by engineers by increasing the thickness, changing the geometry of the outer wall and also tried several building materials to reduce temperature fluctuations for indoor environment in both summer and winter. The installation of heating and air conditioning to seek comfort in homes, offices and public places has created high energy consumption and consequently, increased the environmental pollution. The use of passive solar architectural techniques can reduce not only the temperature fluctuations but also can solve the environmental pollution. The use of phase change materials (PCM) in the building along with passive solar techniques is one of the solutions. The integration of a PCM layer into an external building wall diminished the amplitude of the instantaneous heat flux through the wall. In this paper a threedimensional transient heat transfer model has been developed and solved numerically using the commercial Thermal analysis package ANSYS.


T cells play an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetes in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse. CD8 cytotoxic T cell lines and clones were generated from the lymphocytic infiltrate in the islets of Langerhans of young (7-wk-old). NOD mice by growing them on (NOD x B6- RIP-B7-1)F1 islets. These cells proliferate specifically to NOD islets and kill NOD islets in vitro. The cells are restricted by H-2Kd, and all bear T cell antigen receptor encoded by V beta 6. When these CD8 T cell lines and clones are adoptively transferred to irradiated female NOD, young NOD-SCID, and CB17-SCID mice, diabetes occurs very rapidly, within 10 d of transfer and without CD4 T cells.


This chapter has two main objectives. The first is to critically introduce the reader to the emerging field of generative third language acquisition, demonstrating that L3 data make significant contributions towards a better understanding of how the mind represents language and how cognitive economy delimits acquisition processes. The second is to offer an updated articulation of the Typological Primacy Model (Rothman 2010, 2011), which argues that structural proximity between the L3 and the L1 and/or the L2 determines L3 initial stages transfer. Beyond showing this with empirical data, a proposal of how the mind determines typological proximity and how this is motivated by cognitive and linguistic factors is fleshed out.


The article discusses the venue and the nature of the coronation ceremony of the Sasanian kings in the third century. It is argued that the coronation of the early Sasanians was a continuation of a Hellenistic ceremony, which was essentially the act of binding a diadem around one's head. It seems that the common practice was for the king to bind the diadem himself in the presence of a select circle of courtiers or only in the presence of the gods. Furthermore, the article will demonstrate that Ctesiphon was neither the "capital" nor even the most important residence of the early Sasanians and no ceremony of coronation took place there in the third century.


This title offers a stunningly illustrated look at the role and history of fashion in the Middle Ages. From the costly velvets and furs worn by kings to the undyed wools and rough linens of the peasantry, the clothing worn by the various classes in the Middle Ages played an integral role in medieval society. In addition to providing clues to status, profession, or geographic origin, textiles were a crucial element in the economies of many countries and cities. Much of what is known about medieval fashion is gleaned from the pages of manuscripts, which serve as a rich source of imagery. This volume provides a detailed look at both the actual fabrics and composition of medieval clothing as well as the period's attitude toward fashion through an exploration of the illuminated manuscripts in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The last portion of the book is dedicated to the depiction of clothing in biblical times and the ancient world as seen through a medieval lens.


Access to formal financial products like savings accounts constitutes a hallmark feature of economic development, but individuals do not uniformly embrace these products. In explaining such financial preferences, scholars have focused on institutional, cultural, and material factors, but they have paid less attention to organizations and small groups. In this article, we argue that these factors are crucial to understanding financial preferences. We investigate a government-sponsored microsavings program in Colombia and find that participants became less interested in banking services over the course of the program, even as they gained access to appropriate accounts and their savings increased. Turning to qualitative data to understand this curious finding, we show that organizational efforts to disseminate abstract information about banking triggered a process of "elaboration" among group members, leading many to develop financial preferences at odds with those promoted by the government. This study integrates insights from economic sociology, organizational theory, and microsociology to advance theories of financial preference. In doing so, we reveal how organizational efforts to compress information, followed by group efforts to personalize and expand upon the information, can shape preferences and potentially undermine organizational goals.


Abstract. During four aircraft field experiments with the DLR research aircraft Falcon in 1998 (LACE), 2006 (SAMUM-1) and 2008 (SAMUM-2 and EUCAARI), airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and in situ measurements of aerosol microphysical and optical properties were performed. Altogether, the properties of six different aerosol types and aerosol mixtures – Saharan mineral dust, Saharan dust mixtures, Canadian biomass burning aerosol, African biomass burning mixture, anthropogenic pollution aerosol, and marine aerosol have been studied. On the basis of this extensive HSRL data set, we present an aerosol classification scheme which is also capable to identify mixtures of different aerosol types. We calculated mixing lines that allowed us to determine the contributing aerosol types. The aerosol classification scheme was supported by backward trajectory analysis and validated with in-situ measurements. Our results demonstrate that the developed aerosol mask is capable to identify complex stratifications with different aerosol types throughout the atmosphere.


This Article examines the effects of incremental domestic legislation on international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change is a global public good, which, ultimately, only an international agreement can provide. The common presumption (justified or not) is that national legislation is a step forward to an international agreement. This Article analyzes how national legislation can create a demand for international action but can also preempt or frustrate international efforts. The crucial issue, which has been largely ignored thus far, is how incremental steps at the domestic level alter international negotiations. This paper identifies four mechanisms that support the intuitive idea that national legislation will have positive effects: (1) allocating economic resources, (2) providing leadership in international negotiations, (3) creating a demand for a uniform standard, and (4) cultivating public opinion. This Article demonstrates that, on closer examination, each of these mechanisms could hinder international efforts to create a comprehensive agreement. This is by no means an argument against all efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions at the national level. Instead, this Article calls for a more careful analysis the dynamic political impact of domestic proposals.


INTRODUCTION: PHILADELPHIA STORIES, 1790-1860 1. FEVER MATHEW CAREY, ABSALOM JONES, RICHARD ALLEN, AND THE COLOR OF FEVERLLLL... MINISTERS AND CRIMINALS: RICHARD ALLEN, JOHN JOYCE, AND PETER MATTHIAS BENJAMIN RUSH'S HEROIC INTERVENTIONS MATHEW CAREY'S FUGITIVE PHILADELPHIANS CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN'S EXPERIMENTS IN CHARACTER 2. MANNERS HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE, AND THE IRREPRESSIBLE TEAGUE EDWARD W. CLAY'S "LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA "THE RAGE FOR PROFILES": SILHOUETTES AT PEALE'S MUSEUM PHILADELPHIA METEMPSYCHOSIS IN ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD'S SHEPPARD LEE THE PECULIAR POSITION OF OUR PEOPLE WILLIAM WHIPPER AND DEBATES IN THE BLACK CONVENTIONS. DISFRANCHISEMENT AND APPEAL JOSEPH WILLSON'S HIGHER CLASSES OF COLORED SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA 3. RIOT "DOOMED TO DESTRUCTION": THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA HALL THE PORTRAITURE OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, AND HENRY JAMES'S AMERICAN SCENE THE MYSTERIES OF THE CITY: GEORGE LIPPARD, EDGAR ALLAN POE THE FICTION OF RIOT: GEORGE LIPPARD, JOHN BEAUCHAMP JONES THE CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR 4. FREEDOM THE STRUGGLE OVER "PHILADELPHIA": MARY HOWARD SCHOOLCRAFT, SARA JOSEPHA HALE, MARTIN ROBISON DELANY, JAMES MCCUNE SMITH, AND WILLIAM WHIPPER FRANK J. WEBB'S THE GARIES AND THEIR FRIENDS "A RATHER CURIOUS PROTEST STILL LIFE IN GEORGIA HISTORY AND FARCE PARLOR AND RIOT PHILADELPHIA VANITAS THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT IN HERMAN MELVILLE'S BENITO CERENO CODA: JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN'S PHILADELPHIA BIBLIOGRAPHY


OBJECTIVE
To assess the impact of a formulary on drug expenditures and prescribing trends in personal care homes (nursing homes).

DESIGN
Quasi-experimental analysis of a drug prescription database before and after implementation of the formulary.

SETTING
Personal care homes in Manitoba.

PATIENTS
Residents occupying the 6848 beds of the 88 personal care homes that did not already have a formulary.

INTERVENTION
Formulary, introduced Apr. 1, 1987.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Drug expenditures from Apr. 1, 1985, to Mar. 31, 1990; proportion of residents receiving a prescription by drug class and rate of prescriptions of nonformulary drugs in the year before and 2 years after the formulary was introduced.

MAIN RESULTS
The total drug expenditures per bed remained constant during the first year after the formulary was implemented, even though the annual drug inflation rate was 9.8% on average during the study period. Expenditures 2 and 3 years after implementation rose by 9.4% and 5.8% respectively. Those for specific agents and drug classes targeted as being inappropriate for long-term care decreased greatly because of reduced prescribing. Expenditures for some other drug classes increased mainly because newer, more expensive agents were used. The mean drug expenditure per bed varied widely between homes; neither size nor location were found to correlate with drug expenditure, but adherence to the formulary did predict personal care homes with decreased expenditures.

CONCLUSIONS
A formulary in personal care homes can improve therapeutic management. The impact on cost containment was not as strong after the first year, although expenditures remained less than the rate of inflation for drug costs.


Chromosomal inversions facilitate local adaptation of beneficial mutations and modulate genetic polymorphism, but the extent of their effects within the genome is still insufficiently understood. The genome of Anopheles funestus, a malaria mosquito endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, contains an impressive number of paracentric polymorphic inversions, which are unevenly distributed among chromosomes and provide an excellent framework for investigating the genomic impacts of chromosomal rearrangements. Here we present results of a fine-scale analysis of genetic variation within the genome of two weakly differentiated populations of Anopheles funestus inhabiting contrasting moisture conditions in Cameroon. Using population genomic analyses, we found that genetic divergence between the two populations is centered on regions of the genome corresponding to three inversions, which are characterized by high values of FST, absolute sequence divergence and fixed differences. Importantly, in contrast to the 2L chromosome arm, which is collinear, nucleotide diversity is significantly reduced along the entire length of three autosome arms bearing multiple overlapping chromosomal rearrangements. These findings support the idea that interactions between reduced recombination and natural selection within inversions contribute to sculpt nucleotide polymorphism across chromosomes in An. funestus.


Externally bonded fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite systems have emerged over the last few decades as an effective means for strengthening concrete structures. Typically these systems are installed by a process known as wet lay-up which involves the saturation of dry fibers with epoxy and applying them to the surface of a concrete member. This in-situ manual process is widely susceptible to a number of defects along the bondline due to entrapped air, moisture and other foreign inclusions. While current guidelines suggest acceptable defect sizes without the need for repair, significant research is still needed that examines the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of such defects and the durability of FRP strengthened structures in extreme environments. Due to the speed and ease of application, acoustic sounding (hammer tapping) is among the most common inspection methods, but it is considered insufficient due to the limited information it provides and its accuracy depends on user interpretation. To this end, many have turned to Infrared Thermography (IRT) as an alternative whose use has been demonstrated by several researchers. However, its effectiveness is also affected by the operating environment. Occurrences such as surface reflection, humidity and non-uniform heating can lead to false readings that produce an inaccurate assessment of bond quality. Pulse Phase Thermography (PPT), a derivative technique, has been shown to overcome such issues by performing a Fourier Transform on the thermal data captured during the cooling period. PPT not only enables the removal of thermal noise by observing the phase values in the frequency domain, it also enjoys the benefit of rapid deployment by using shorter heating periods. This paper presents the results from a study involving the environmental conditioning of small scale, single-lap FRP-to-concrete pull-test specimens. Fifteen specimens were manufactured with and without pre-existing bond defects and were subjected to water submersion and freeze-thaw protocols. PPT inspection images were taken before and after the conditioning to observe the growth of defected areas as a result of conditioning. Also the tested performance of these specimens was examined to assess the criticality of discovered flaws. Finally, conclusions are made on the durability of the FRP-to-concrete interface when defects are initially present. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/55


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine women composers' use of online communities of practice (CoP) to negotiate the traditionally masculine space of music composition while operating outside its hierarchical structures.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a mixed methods approach consisting of an online survey (n=225) followed by 27 semi-structured in-depth interviews with female composers to explore the concept and use of CoP. Content analysis was used to analyze the survey responses and interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to interpret respondents' lived experiences as relayed in the interviews.

Findings
The findings reveal that the online environment can be a supportive and safe space for female composers to connect with others and find support, feedback and mentorship, increase their visibility and develop career agency through learning and knowledge acquisition. CoP emerged as an alternative approach to career development for practicing female music workers and as a tool which could circumvent some of the enduring gendered challenges.

Originality/value
The findings suggest that online CoP can have a positive impact on the career development and sustainability of women in male-dominated sectors such as composition.


The establishment of a monetary union in Europe in 1999 has eliminated exchange rate risk within the euro area and has led to a more unified financial framework. It has been established in the literature that the euro has led to a disproportional increase in bilateral asset holdings within the euro area. This paper builds on this evidence and answers the question whether this has been a one-off effect, or whether the euro effect in intra-euro area bilateral asset holdings has changed over time. We show, using a gravity framework, that the proportional increase in bilateral asset holdings took place in the early years of the European monetary union and was a unique event. The data used are bilateral data on equity and bond holdings, provided by the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey of the IMF for the years 1997, and 2001 until 2006.


In Jane Austen's Persuasion, the narrator and the characters who encounter Anne seemingly portray her character as easily persuadable. Despite what appears to be a lack of agency and a mixed critical response towards potential agency, this essay argues argues that Anne does exhibit agency throughout the novel. Though initially portrayed in moments of crisis under conditions of high emotions and loss of reason among other characters, her agency is evident throughout the text. The analysis of her more obvious agency in these moments of crisis allows the reader to reexamine and then perceive her agency in other, more subtle manners and moments. Furthermore, this essay argues that the agency Anne portrays serves to criticize gendered social norms that promote the persuasion and obedience of young, unmarried females in regard to marriage and social hierarchy. AND For individuals living in Britain during the 1900s, respectability was a major aspect of life. From the upper classes to the working classes, neighbors and other individuals judged respectability based on actions; particularly amongst the working classes, respectability had less to do with money than it did with conduct and behavior. These behaviors included, but were not limited to, sexual conduct and a family's, specifically the wife's, ability to manage the finances of the home. But respectability for women also depended upon one's ability to keep the home clean and properly care for her children. As a result of these ideals and the ideals of femininity, women were typically discouraged from drinking, because it often hindered their ability to complete these daily responsibilities. In Jack Common's semi-autobiographical novel, Kiddar's Luck, the reader can perceive this message throughout the story as the main character, Willie Kiddar, describes multiple occurrences of his mother's drinking. Based on these examples and the historical background of the text, this paper argues that through his writing, Common denounces female drinking, especially maternal drinking. Yet, Kiddar still is able to maintain sympathy for his mother, despite his aversion to her alcoholic tendencies and behaviors.


In the past decade there has been a concerted effort by the software industry to improve the quality of its products. This has led to the inception of various techniques with which to control and measure the process involved in software development. Methods like the Capability Maturity Model have introduced processes and strategies that require measurement in the form of software metrics. With the ever increasing number of software metrics being introduced by capability based processes, software development organisations are finding it more difficult to understand and interpret metric scores. This is particularly problematic for senior management and project managers where analysis of the actual data is not feasible. This paper proposes a method with which to visually represent metric scores so that managers can easily see how their organisation is performing relative to quality goals set for each type of metric. Acting primarily as a proof of concept and prototype, we suggest ways in which real customer needs can be translated into a feasible technical solution. The solution itself visualises metric scores in the form of a tree structure and utilises Fuzzy Logic techniques, XGMML, Web Services and the .NET Framework. Future work is proposed to extend the system from the prototype stage and to overcome a problem with the masking of poor scores.


Conventional approaches to water supply and wastewater treatment in regional towns globally are failing due to population growth and resource pressure, combined with prohibitive costs of infrastructure upgrades. However, there are complexities associated with implementing sustainable infrastructure solutions, and a need to simplify the decision making process to equally compare alternatives to business-as-usual solutions. The aim of this study was to develop a model which could assist in delivering sustainable infrastructure solutions in regional towns (and elsewhere) to facilitate growth and/or reduce the burden on limited resources. The developed model (Sustainable Infrastructure Decision Model, SIDM © ) ultimately organises intelligent inputs (from expert stakeholders and quantitative calculations) systematically and holistically in order to compare relative impacts, risks, costs, and benefits of varying solutions. In this sense, it deviates both from the 'black box' designs of many other sustainability tools, which requires trust of hidden data and formulas and from heuristic approaches that often 'set up' a subjective game of bias between stakeholders. Rather, SIDM © is based on a transdisciplinary system approach which facilitates informed decisions in a transparent manner. It links water, wastewater, energy, and waste (resource flows) along with stakeholders (consumers, producers), the receiving environment (receptors), and governing systems (managers, politicians, regulators, financers). Key to the approach is the use of local context analysis as a 'design' driver, along with equal con sideration of stakeholder intent, capacity, and commitment. The model also includes an economic analysis and risk-based evaluation process to ensure that the preferred solution is optimised to the environmental, social, economic, and political setting of a particular town. The SIDM © model was applied to a rapidly growing Australian township (Hopetoun) with complex resource and infrastructure constraints, which is described in this paper as a case study. Use of SIDM © resulted in an agreed decentralised solution which was approximately half of the cost of a conventional solution, with considerable water and energy savings and unanimous stakeholder support. Since this project, SIDM © has been applied to other regional towns and urban develop


Systems of linear equations arise at the heart of many scientific and engineering applications. Many of these linear systems are sparse; i.e., most of the elements in the coefficient matrix are zero. Direct methods based on matrix factorizations are sometimes needed to ensure accurate solutions. For example, accurate solution of sparse linear systems is needed in shift-invert Lanczos to compute interior eigenvalues. The performance and resource usage of sparse matrix factorizations are critical to time-to-solution and maximum problem size solvable on a given platform. In many applications, the coefficient matrices are symmetric, and exploiting symmetry will reduce both the amount of work and storage cost required for factorization. When the factorization is performed on large-scale distributed memory platforms, communication cost is critical to the performance of the algorithm. At the same time, network topologies have become increasingly complex, so that modern platforms exhibit a high level of performance variability. This makes scheduling of computations an intricate and performance-critical task. In this paper, we investigate the use of an asynchronous task paradigm, one-sided communication and dynamic scheduling in implementing sparse Cholesky factorization (symPACK) on large-scale distributed memory platforms. Our solver symPACK relies on efficient and flexible communication primitives provided by the UPC++ library. Performance evaluation shows good scalability and that symPACK outperforms state-of-the-art parallel distributed memory factorization packages, validating our approach on practical cases. Keywords-Cholesky; factorization; dynamic scheduling; asynchronous; task; UPC++; one-sided communications


The aim of this paper is to describe the terminology used to market certain local products in their country of origin and the transfers this yields in translated international trade documents in Spain and French-speaking European countries. Terminology used in the field of marketing, unlike that used in other areas, is in a state of constant change, and this adds to its complexity. The paper discusses the introduction and acceptance in the importing country of terms used in the exporting country and examines in particular the cases of Armuna lentils, Iberian ham and cured meat products, foie, and Belgian chocolates and a typical Spanish confectionary product from Avila. The importance of teaching future professionals an international exchange terminology to make them aware of the key role played by efficient marketing communication is also examined.


In the Southern Ocean, several zooplankton taxonomic groups, euphausiids, copepods, salps and pteropods, are notable because of their biomass and abundance and their roles in maintaining food webs and ecosystem structure and function, including the provision of globally important ecosystem services. These groups are consumers of microbes, primary and secondary producers, and are prey for fishes, cephalopods, seabirds, and marine mammals. In providing the link between microbes, primary production, and higher trophic levels these taxa influence energy flows, biological production and biomass, biogeochemical cycles, carbon flux and food web interactions thereby modulating the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Additionally, Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and various fish species are harvested by international fisheries. Global and local drivers of change are expected to affect the dynamics of key zooplankton species, which may have potentially profound and wide-ranging implications for Southern Ocean ecosystems and the services they provide. Here we assess the current understanding of the dominant metazoan zooplankton within the Southern Ocean, including Antarctic krill and other key euphausiid, copepod, salp and pteropod species. We provide a systematic overview of observed and potential future responses of these taxa to a changing Southern Ocean and the functional relationships by which drivers may impact them. To support future ecosystem assessments and conservation and management strategies, we also identify priorities for Southern Ocean zooplankton research.


This paper studies how having your home damaged or destroyed by a natural disaster impacts on economic and financial outcomes. Our context is Australia, where disasters are frequent. Estimates of regression models with individual, area and time fixed-effects, applied to 10 waves of data (2009-2018), indicate that residential destruction has no average impact on employment and income, but increases financial hardship and financial risk aversion. These impacts are generally short-lived, larger for renters than home owners, and greater for smaller isolated disasters. Using a Group Fixed Effects estimator, we find that around 20% of the population have low resilience to financial shocks, and for these individuals we find a substantive increase in financial hardships. The most vulnerable are the young, single parents, those in poor health, those of lower socioeconomic status, and those with little social support. These results can help target government aid after future natural disasters to those with the greatest need.


Industrial Design is a discipline concerned with determining the form and function of mass-produced goods. This process depends extensively on the use of models. Until the advent of personal computers, modelling was done mostly by drawing on paper in the case of two-dimensional models, and by making physical mockups using clay, wood, foam, etc in the case of three-dimensional models. With the advent of personal computers however, this process became increasingly computer-based. This application of comptuers for modelling and visualization, constitutes the foundation of what is generally known as 'Computer Aided Design' (CAD) in the Design and Engineering disciplines, and which has become a most essential skill for any practicing professional. The development of these computer skills has been studied in the past, most of this research however, has been done in disciplines with a longer research tradition such as Architecture or Engineering. Moreover, most of this research has been approached from the perspective of Computer Aided Design, not from the perspective of computer skills in general. Therefore it is unknown to what extent Industrial Design students acquire these skills as they transition through college. Besides the fact that computer modelling has become essential in Industrial Design, studying the development of computer skills is important for other reasons. There are computer skills not related to Computer Aided Design, which have been identified as basic literacies in the 21st century. These other skills are intricatelly related to the development of advanced computer modelling techniques which pose opportunities and challenges for Industrial Design education. These studies investigate the computer skills being fostered in Industrial Design schools, and how their development is translated into the curriculum. The studies are based on a survey of 38 Industrial/Product Design schools from different parts of the world, through which their corresponding curriculums were studied/analized. This information was complemented with a number of interviews with practitioners, academics and researchers, and other sources such as artefacts analysis, action research and auto-ethnography. Among other, the studies found that the development of comptuer skills in Industrial Design schools focuses almost exclusively on developing 3D modelling skills, often even excluding 2D skills. The development of other skills, such supporting project management with the use of computers, or computer programming is almost null. The studies also found that most schools do not teach students to work with Polygonal Models, and that a good number only teach students to work with either Solid or Surface (NURBs) models, but not both. One of the arguments raised in the studies, is that due a number of trends, students should learn to work with all three different types of models, including polygonal ones. The studies also found that while strictly speaking the term CAD refers to the use of computers to support the design process, the general understanding in the field, is of CAD being essentially about modelling, and even just about 3D modelling. This tints the research and discussion around the education of computer skills in the field. The studies finish by providing a series of recommendations to enhance the development of computer skills in Industrial Design Education, by using a framework developed in these studies.


This paper reviews and extends the field of similarity-based classification, presenting new analyses, algorithms, data sets, and a comprehensive set of experimental results for a rich collection of classification problems. Specifically, the generalizability of using similarities as features is analyzed, design goals and methods for weighting nearest-neighbors for similarity-based learning are proposed, and different methods for consistently converting similarities into kernels are compared. Experiments on eight real data sets compare eight approaches and their variants to similarity-based learning.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the nature and prevalence of drug related problems (DRPs) in older patients with polypharmacy identified by community pharmacists in daily practice through means of a clinical medication review (CMR) and assess the implementation rate of proposed interventions to solve DRPs.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional study METHOD: We analysed the CMR data of 3,807 older patients (≥ 65 years) with polypharmacy (≥ 5 drugs) completed in January-August 2012. Using the "Service Apotheek Medicatie Review Tool" (SAMRT, Service Pharmacy Medication Review Tool), pharmacists in 258 community pharmacies registered the patients' year of birth, gender, dispensing data, DRPs, and proposed and implemented interventions.

RESULTS
Pharmacists identified a median of two DRPs (interquartile range 1-4; mean 3.0) per patient. The DRP categories overtreatment (25.5 %) and undertreatment (15.9 %) were found to occur most frequently. On average, 46.2 % of the proposed interventions to address DRPs were implemented as proposed. In 22.4 % of cases the intervention differed from the proposal, whereas in 31.3 % of cases no intervention was implemented.

CONCLUSION
In daily practice, community pharmacists identified a mean of three DRPs in older patients with polypharmacy, a number comparable to that found in controlled studies. Over- or undertreatment caused nearly half of the identified DRPs. The majority (69.9%) of the proposed interventions led to an intervention for the patient.


This Article examines the development of supplemental needs trusts and their role in meeting the needs of people who require additional support that are not adequately met by government benefits. Supplemental needs trusts are part of a complementary partnership between government benefits and private wealth that reflects the eligibility requirements of Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, among other programs. Throughout its history, the trust has been a subversive tool that has furthered social justice by providing for the needs of people who are subject to the harsh dictates of the dominant legal structure. As part of that tradition, the supplemental needs trust emerged from a mix of judicial and legislative developments and broader societal changes.Supplemental needs trusts promote a higher level of support and care to the beneficiary of the trust than is available from government benefits alone. An aging society, the prevalence and evolving social construct of "disability", and the structure and limitations of the health insurance system in the United States have made the supplemental needs trust an important tool that continues to evolve.


The objective of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) Working Group on Site Survey and Co-location is to improve local measurements at space geodesy sites. We appointed dedicated Points of Contact (POC) with the four different services of IERS as well as the NASA Space Geodesy Project in order to improve the efficiency of internal communication within the working group. Following the REFAG2014 conference, the POCs agreed on a common and general terminology on local ties that clarifies the communication regarding site surveying and co-location issues between and within the IERS services. We give brief introductions to the different observation techniques and mention some contemporary issues related to site surveying and co-location.


Church tradition and culture as contributory factors in service to the Kingdom. This study describes how reverend Kalman Papp (1924– ) was able to leave his land of origin behind under difficult, unasked-for and compelling circumstances and embrace a new future in a far-off and unknown country. This follows from his spontaneous responding and acting positively to the effects of cultural interaction and the common denominational factor of the Reformed Church ever present. The study argues in its methodology that it is an oversimplification and a mistake to seek truth by avoiding, underestimating or eliminating the necessary outcome of cultural interaction and church tradition in the choices we make (even theologically) and experiences we have of life. This is the true life story of a church minister who finds his destiny and becomes himself a minister in the service of God's Kingdom, through faith's challenges and encounters with the theologies and cultures of his embracing worlds.


Rearranging the six-dimensional phase space of particles in plasma can release energy. The rearrangement may happen through the application of electric and magnetic fields, subject to various constraints. The maximum energy that can be released through a rearrangement of a distribution of particles can be called its available or free energy. Rearrangement subject to phase space volume conservation leads to the classic Gardner free energy. Less free energy is available when constraints are applied, such as respecting conserved quantities. Also, less energy is available if particles can only be diffused in phase-space from regions of high phase-space density to regions of lower phase-space density. The least amount of free energy is available if particles can only be diffused in phase space, while conserved quantities still need to be respected.


We propose that the fine discrete movements of the tongue as used in speech are what account for the extreme lateralization in humans, and that handedness is a mere byproduct of tongue use. With regard to syntax, we support the Armstrong et al. (1995) proposition that syntax derives directly from gestural motor movements as opposed to facial expressions.


Objective: To assess the prospective relationship between spiritual experiences and health in a sample of patients surviving an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) with depression or low social support. Methods: A subset of 503 patients participating in the enhancing recovery in coronary heart disease (ENRICHD) trial completed a Daily Spiritual Experiences (DSE) questionnaire within 28 days from the time of their AMI. The questionnaire assessed three spirituality variables—worship service/church attendance, prayer/meditation, and total DSE score. Patients also completed the Beck Depression Inventory to assess depressive symptoms and the ENRICHD Social Support Inventory to determine perceived social support. The sample was subsequently followed prospectively every 6 months for an average of 18 months to assess all-cause mortality and recurrent AMI. Results: Of the 503 participants who completed the DSE questionnaire at the time of index AMI, 61 (12%) participants either died or sustained a recurrent MI during the follow-up period. After adjustment for gender, education level, ethnicity, and a composite medical prognosis risk score derived specifically for the ENRICHD trial, we observed no relationship between death or nonfatal AMI and total spirituality as measured by the DSE (p = .446), worship service attendance (p = .120), or frequency of prayer/meditation (p = .679). Conclusion: We found little evidence that self-reported spirituality, frequency of church attendance, or frequency of prayer is associated with cardiac morbidity or all-cause mortality post AMI in patients with depression and/or low perceived support. AMI = acute myocardial infarction; BDI = Beck Depression Inventory; CHD = coronary heart disease; DSE = Daily Spiritual Experiences scale; ECG = electrocardiogram; ENRICHD = Enhancing Recovery In Coronary Heart Disease; ESSI = ENRICHD Social Support Inventory; HR = hazard ratio.


Purpose
Job satisfaction and leadership behavior are recognized by the organizational world as fundamental elements that influence the overall effectiveness of a company. However, as the first step for an adequate intervention on any of these variables, it is the evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate two brief measures on job satisfaction and leadership behavior.

Design/methodology/approach
The sample was made up of 246 workers located in Bogota, Colombia. The study was an instrumental research. To collect validity evidence, the internal structure and the relationship with other variables were used. For the evaluation of equity, the differential item functioning was analyzed according to the sex of the participants. Reliability was estimated through the ordinal omega coefficient.

Findings
Both brief measures presented a unifactorial structure, where job satisfaction was measured by five items and leadership behavior by four items. On the other hand, only one item of leadership behavior showed differential item functioning; however, its magnitude was trivial. Also, convergent and discriminant evidence was provided for both measures, and the reliability levels were adequate.

Originality/value
The measures developed represents an effort to briefly measure job satisfaction and leadership behavior. Likewise, it constitutes two of the few instruments to measure job satisfaction and leadership behavior in Latin American, representing a good alternative for the measurement of the referred constructs in an organizational context.


The main goal of this study is to analyze the impact of strategy-structure combination on performance, adding a new variable: the family. The research considers the wellknown strong link between strategy and structure to demonstrate that a correct combination of these two variables has a positive impact on performance. In addition to the strategy and structure variables there is another variable which has a relevant impact on performance, the family, and this study is conducted both in family and non family firms to understand where the most value is created. Consequently this research focuses its attention on two variables that influence the performance: the strategystructure combination and the family. This research wants to study the strategystructure combination and the relationship with the performance adding the family like a new variable, because this topic is less treaty in the literature. Dyer (2003, p. 401) confirms this assertion, in fact he refers to the family as "the missing variable in organizational research" and he warns that "failing to use the family as a variable in organizational research can lead to incomplete or misleading findings" (Speckbaker G., Wentges P. 2007). Based on this statement, I conduct this study comparing family and non family firms in the relationships strategy – structure and the impact on performance, because in the organizational and strategic management researches the family is a relevant variable, sometimes forgotten. Although the number of papers on family firms has recently increased, it is unaware of any published research on the influence of family or non family ownership on strategy – structure combination and the impact on performance.


A water-rich magmatic gas phase escaped explosively from Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991, taking with it a load of crystalline and molten material sufficient to form pumice and tephra deposits with an estimated total dense-rock-equivalent volume of 3-5 km 3 (Scott et al., 1991), and carrying in it enough sulfur to form a 20 Mt SO 2 cloud in the stratosphere. Application of the "petrologic method" for estimating sulfur degassing during the climactic event from the sulfur content of trapped glass inclusions and matrix glasses in the pumice deposits requires an unacceptably large volume of erupted magma to account for SO 2 in the stratospheric cloud. The ubiquitous presence of primary vapor bubbles in glass inclusions and unaltered anhydrite phenocrysts in the pumice suggest that sulfur was present in a separate H 2 O-rich gas phase of the Pinatubo magma before eruption. Thus, for this eruption, and perhaps others, the petrologic method for estimating sulfur degassing is prone to substantial underestimation of sulfur release and the potential climatic impact of past explosive eruptions.


traffic prediction plays a vital role in the optimal resource allocation and management in computer networks. This paper introduces an ARIMA based model for the real time prediction of VBR video traffic. The methodology presented here can successfully addresses the challenges in traffic prediction such as accuracy in prediction, resource management and utilization. ARIMA application on a VBR video trace results in a component wise representation of the trace which in turn used for prediction. A brief introduction of the classic prediction scheme of ALP along with a quantitative comparison of the ARIMA with ALP is also presented. Performance evaluation of the proposed method is carried out using RMSE. The prediction accuracy is improved by 23% and the error variance is reduced by 18%. Keywords-Traffic prediction, ARIMA, ALP, VBR Video .


The focus of this article is on one aspect of the raging conflict between the prophetic parties addressed in Jeremiah 23:9-15. In this section the aspect of disloyalty to Yahweh is raised as hampering factor for being a true prophet. The research investigates the relationship between doing evil (cf. words such as adultery and ungodly/profane conduct) and the effect on the land (cf curse on the land, the land mourns, pastures drying up – 23:10-11). The research also entertains the relation with the next set of verses (23:13-15) which explicitly mentions the worship of Baal, the vegetation god, as reason for the disloyalty. The false prophets, with their adulterous way of living, are part of a leadership that failed the people of Judah and Yahweh.


Abstract The progression of events that develop into an accident with severe fuel or core damage in the Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactor is discussed. Such events involve a number of broadly common stages in which the thermal-hydraulic behavior of the reactor fuel, fuel channels, heat transport system, and a number of key process systems governs both the rate at which severely degraded cooling conditions develop and the extent of resultant damage to the reactor core. The quantification of core damage states requires the modeling of the physical phenomena that are active in these accidents, which is a focus of this paper. As discussed in this paper, unique passive features of the CANDU reactor design have a beneficial effect in that they delay the progression of severe accidents, thereby providing ample opportunity for operator actions to stabilize the plant and mitigate the consequences. It is shown that large CANDU reactors are inherently tolerant of a prolonged loss of engineered heat sinks at decay power levels. This is because two large volumes of water (the moderator and shield water) surround the reactor core and act as in situ passive heat sinks in severe accidents. This has significant impacts on severe accident management. The pressure tube reactor design precludes melting of the core at high system pressures; that is, high-pressure melt ejection is physically impossible. In the event that severe undercooling of fuel occurs at high system pressure, a pressure tube will fail well before any significant molten fuel material can accumulate.


A right of first refusal requires the owner of a property to offer the property to the rightholder on the same terms as those offered by that third party before the owner can sell the property to a third party. A right of first offer requires the owner of a property to let the rightholder make an offer to purchase the subject property; if the owner rejects that offer, the owner can sell the property to a third party only at a price above the one offered by the rightholder. This paper models the value of such first purchase rights at the time of their potential exercise. Modeling this ex post value is important since: the factors that determine the ex post value of first purchase rights also affect how much one should pay or accept for such rights ex ante, at the time when they are contracted; the model highlights the significance of certain features in the design of these rights, certain environmental features, and the relation of design and environmental features to each other; the ex post value of a right determines the amount of damages payable if the right is breached; and the model sheds light on why such rights are granted and how they enhance efficiency. The main results are: (i) Rights of first refusal are more valuable than rights of first offer. (ii) If transaction costs are compensable, first purchase rights have the highest value when bargaining skills are relatively evenly distributed. (iii) The fact that transaction costs are uncompensable increases the value of first purchase rights; this increase is more pronounced for a right of first refusal than for a right of first offer. (iv) Imperfect information by rightholder over the value placed on the subject property by a third party reduces the value of a right of first offer and has no effect on the value of a right of first refusal (v) Imperfect information by a third party on the value placed on the subject property by rightholder may increase or reduce the value of a right of first refusal and has no effect on the value of a right of first offer. (vi) First purchase rights may enhance efficiency by: reducing seller's incentives to engage in strategic search for certain third-party buyers, improving rightholder's incentives to take certain steps to increase the value of the property, and reducing the costs associated with strategic bargaining.


Abstract Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Plant Health performed a pest categorisation of Cronartium spp. (non‐EU), a well‐defined and distinguishable group of fungal pathogens of the family Cronartiaceae. There are at least 40 species described within the Cronartium genus, of which two are considered native to the EU (C. gentianeum and C. pini) and one has been introduced in the 19th century (C. ribicola) and is now widespread in the EU – these three species are thus not part of this pest categorisation. In addition, the non‐EU C. harknessii, C. kurilense and C. sahoanum were already dealt with in a previous pest categorisation. All the non‐EU Cronartium species are not known to be present in the EU and are regulated in Council Directive 2000/29/EC (Annex IAI) as harmful organisms whose introduction into the EU is banned. Cronartium spp. are biotrophic obligate plant pathogens. Many of the North American Cronartium species alternate between the aecial host Pinus spp. and telial hosts of various dicotyledonous plants. C. conigenum, C. orientale, C. quercuum and C. strobilinum have different Quercus spp. as their telial hosts. C. orientale and C. quercuum also infect Castanea spp. and Castanopsis spp. The pathogens could enter the EU via host plants for planting and cut flowers and branches. Non‐EU Cronartium spp. could establish in the EU, as climatic conditions are favourable to many of them and Pinus and Quercus spp. are common. The pathogens would be able to spread following establishment by movement of host plants, as well as natural spread. Should non‐EU Cronartium spp. be introduced in the EU, impacts can be expected on pine, oak and chestnut woodlands, plantations, ornamental trees and nurseries. The Cronartium species present in North America cause important tree diseases. Symptoms on Pinus spp. differ between Cronartium spp., but include galls, cankers, dieback of branches and stems, deformity, tree and cone death. The main knowledge gap concerns the limited available information on (sub)tropical Cronartium spp. The criteria assessed by the Panel for consideration of Cronartium spp. (non‐EU) as potential quarantine pests are met, while, for regulated non‐quarantine pests, the criterion on the pest presence in the EU is not met.


The Ogallala Aquifer extends beneath eight states in the Great Plains region of North America. It stretches from Texas to South Dakota and is among the largest aquifers in the world. In Texas, extraction of groundwater, primarily for cropland irrigation, far exceeds recharge resulting in a significant decline of the water table. In the Texas High Plains, this decline prompted restrictions set by a local water conservation agency in 2009 stating that in 50 years about 50% of the saturated thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer should be preserved. However, this restriction only addressed the quantity and not the quality of the remaining water. The quality of water extracted from the Ogallala Aquifer has been observed to change over time, especially over the length of a crop's growing season. We measured water quality over a three-year period using an electrical conductivity sensor and measured depth to water at 20 locations across five counties in the Texas High Plains. Results show that when wells are actively pumping, water quality can change in complex and unpredictable ways. In some cases, water quality declined and in others water quality improved. This result has prompted us to further investigate the mechanisms involved in observed seasonal water quality changes.


Background: Public hospitals ' expenditures in Italy is approximately 45% of total public health financing. The reduction of public debt requires reducing total public health, as well as hospital expenditures in the public sector. Past health reforms introduced rules to improve the efficiency in controlling hospital costs with a better use of resources. The objective of this study is to derive technical efficiency as a performance measurement in the directly managed public hospitals in Italy under different case-mix specifications, as well as to discover the effect of it on technical efficiency. Methods: Two different Data Envelopment Analysis ( DEA ) models are solved. To control for the influence of the case-mix complexity/severity of illness on technical efficiency, the distributions of DEA efficiency scores are compared applying statistical tests developed in the non-parametric efficiency analysis. Results: On average, in the year 2007, the technical efficiency in the sample is lower (0.8071) in model B (output mix with weighted Case Mix Index) than in model A (0.8748). The bootstrap-corrected efficiency scores of models B and A are respectively 0.7185 and 0.8106. On average, the case mix index in the sample is 0.87859. Statistical tests confirm that the differences in the efficiency scores distribution are statistically significant, confirming that treatment complexity has influenced technical efficiency. At the individual hospital level, the effect is more evident, modifying the rank and the technical efficiency of the hospitals. Conclusions: The different case-mix specifications adjusted with Case Mix Index, generate statistically significant differences in the distribution of the efficiency scores. This evidence permits us to conclude that the performance of the Local Health Trust's directly managed public Italian hospitals is influenced by the hospitals ' case-mix severity/complexity. As a policy indication, we can observe that the need for policy makers and hospital managers to reduce hospital costs conflicts with the need to guarantee an optimum level of hospital resources with different case-mix complexities of the treated cases.


An algorithm for improvement of boundaries estimated via HMM is suggested, using numerous divergence measures (spectral distance, cepstral distance, difference of the cepstral coefficients, Kullback-Leibler divergence, distance given by the General Likelihood Ratio, distance defined by the family of Recursive Bayesian Changepoint Detectors, the Bhattacharyya divergence, the Mahalanobis measure, the L2 metric and the Jeffreys-Matusita measure). A method for choosing of appropriate measure for each boundary is stated, and is demonstrated on the training set of signals. The ability to improve boundary positions is verified on the testing set, and it is found that a combination of methods brings better results than using only one measure.


Abstract Student-centered instruction is featured in reforms that aim to improve excellence and equity in mathematics education. Although research on stereotype threat suggests that student-centered instruction may have differential effects on racial minority students, the relationship between student-centered mathematics instruction and student engagement remains understudied. This study examined the relationship between student-centered mathematics instruction and adolescents' behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement in mathematics and whether the relationship differed by ethnicity. The authors used a multilevel path analysis with data from 3,883 sixth- to 12th-grade students (52.1% girls, 38.2% eligible for free/reduced lunch, 66.1% Caucasian, 23.8% African American, 7.2% multiracial, and 2.9% Asian American). The results showed that student-centered instruction was positively related to all dimensions of mathematics engagement. However, the positive association between student-centered mathematics instruction and student engagement was weaker for African American students. This study provides empirical evidence for the benefits of student-centered instruction while suggesting differential effects based on students' ethnicity.