As a post modern approach and a relatively new paradigm in thinking about education, Critical Pedagogy (CP) derives its interest from critical theory. Critical theory began with the assumption that social relations are infused with injustices and it is the responsibility of intellectuals to recognize and address power relations. Accordingly, CP provides principles, inspirations and recommendations to improve human education and to direct it to democratic and oppression –free direction. This study was an attempt to survey 200 Iranian school teachers' views concerning CP at elementary, secondary, and high school levels. Adopting "the Principles of Critical Pedagogy Scale" developed by Yilmaz (2009), as the instrument, differences in teachers' views on CP by age, gender, and the level they teach at were examined. Data analysis was done by utilizing descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA. The results indicated for no significant difference between teachers' views concerning the given variables except for gender. Moreover, in spite of teachers' agreement and approval of CP and its principles, the results obtained from the study indicate for the absence of critical pedagogy in Iranian educational system which can be attributed to the centralized top-down educational management.


ABSTRACT In this study conversation analysis is used in an investigation of indirect reported speech (IRS) in storytelling. It reveals its recurrent sequential positions showing that it occurs in distinct places from direct reported speech (DRS) and performs different interactional tasks. IRS recurrently occurs in talk surrounding the focus of the telling (including background detailing prior to, during, or following the focus of the story) and in introducing sequences of DRS. It tends to be brief—usually one unit long—and nongranular. It summarizes or glosses an action rather than enacting a locution from a particular context and is recurrently embedded into larger structures. In this way it regularly manages transitions either from detailing to the focus or from the focus to related matters. Thus, analysis throws light on the use and design of reported speech in interaction and adds to our knowledge of the way storytelling is constructed and how movement between different segments is managed. The data are drawn from collections of English telephone calls recorded in the United Kingdom and United States.


Muscle food products play a vital role in human nutrition due to their sensory quality and high nutritional value. One well-known challenge of such products is the high perishability and limited shelf life unless suitable preservation or processing techniques are applied. Thermal processing is one of the well-established treatments that has been most commonly used in order to prepare food and ensure its safety. However, the application of inappropriate or severe thermal treatments may lead to undesirable changes in the sensory and nutritional quality of heat-processed products, and especially so for foods that are sensitive to thermal treatments, such as fish and meat and their products. In recent years, novel thermal treatments (e.g., ohmic heating, microwave) and non-thermal processing (e.g., high pressure, cold plasma) have emerged and proved to cause less damage to the quality of treated products than do conventional techniques. Several traditional assessment approaches have been extensively applied in order to evaluate and monitor changes in quality resulting from the use of thermal and non-thermal processing methods. Recent advances, nonetheless, have shown tremendous potential of various emerging analytical methods. Among these, spectroscopic techniques have received considerable attention due to many favorable features compared to conventional analysis methods. This review paper will provide an updated overview of both processing (thermal and non-thermal) and analytical techniques (traditional methods and spectroscopic ones). The opportunities and limitations will be discussed and possible directions for future research studies and applications will be suggested.


Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (exCR) is a key element of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation program towards the care of patients with acute or chronic cardiac disease. Many studies have shown that patient's adherence to these programs is low despite evidence that such programs can improve outcomes and critical cardiac event reduction. New strategies to improve adherence to exCR programs are now being tested using non-hospital solutions that relies on VR gaming technologies. This paper presents such a system called MedBike which allows patients to perform an exCR program at home while being monitored in real-time by a remote clinician. The paper describes the technical aspects of the system, its pros and cons, various gamification strategies, and a recent usability study.


The efficiency and stereoselectivity of the conjugate addition of lithium (Z)- or (E)-beta-amino ester enolates, generated by lithium amide conjugate addition to an alpha,beta-unsaturated ester or deprotonation of a beta-amino ester, respectively, to a range of alpha,beta-unsaturated acceptors has been investigated. Deprotonation of a beta-amino ester with LDA, followed by conjugate addition to a chiral alpha,beta-unsaturated oxazolidinone gives high 2,3-anti selectivity ( approximately 90% d.e.), with hydrogenolysis and purification to homogeneity generating stereodefined trisubstituted piperidinones as single stereoisomers. Asymmetric three-component couplings of alpha,beta-unsaturated esters and alkylidene malonates initiated by lithium amide conjugate addition proceeds with high levels of 2,3-anti stereoselectivity, with hydrogenolysis giving tetrasubstituted piperidinones.


Cloud technologies are becoming pervasive and available for private companies or public institutions in different flavors, mostly public cloud or private clouds. Our focus in this work is on the usage of public cloud technologies by the most popular sites in the Internet. While some studies have described the nascent landscape of public cloud computing 5 years ago, surprising little effort has been put to study the recent evolution of this domain.Using DNS data that enables us to map domains (e.g., netflix.com) and their subdomains (e.g., api.netflix.com) with the cloud providers actually used, we refresh our understanding of this ecosystem. We focus on the dominant four cloud providers, namely Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Computing and IBM Bluemix. We demonstrate that cloud penetration has clearly increased since 2013, reaching almost 50% of the top 1000 domains, from the Alexa list. Furthermore, a significant fraction of domains use multiple cloud providers simultaneously. Still, domain owenrs remain cautious when it comes to choose which subdomain is actually hosted in the cloud and only 17.8% on average of the subdomains are actually hosted in the cloud. In terms of performance, preliminary results indicate that hosting a subdomain in the cloud pays off as compared to private hosting with a decrease of application level latency of 28%.


Background The Wnt/β-catenin/T cell factor (TCF) signaling pathway is important in the development of nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs). Nitric-oxide-releasing nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NO-NSAIDs) are chemopreventive agents consisting of a traditional NSAID attached to an NO-releasing moiety through a chemical spacer. Previously we showed that an aromatic spacer enhanced the potency of a particular NO-NSAID compared to an aliphatic spacer. Methods We synthesized an NO-releasing NSAID with an aromatic spacer (flurbiprofen benzyl nitrate, NBS-242), and using the human skin cancer cell line A-431, we evaluated its effects on cell kinetics, Wnt/β-catenin, cyclin D1, and caspase-3. Results NBS-242 inhibited the growth of A-431 cancer cells, being ~15-fold more potent than flurbiprofen and up to 5-fold more potent than NO-flurbiprofen with an aliphatic spacer, the half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) for growth inhibition being 60 ± 4 μM, 320 ± 20 μM, and 880 ± 65 μM for NBS-242, NO-flurbiprofen, and flurbiprofen, respectively. This effect was associated with inhibition of proliferation, accumulation of cells in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle, and an increase in apoptotic cell population. NBS-242 cleaved β-catenin both in the cytoplasm and the nucleus of A-431 cells. NBS-242 activated caspase-3 whose activation was reflected in the cleavage of procaspase-3. To test the functional consequence of β-catenin cleavage, we determined the expression of cyclin D1, a Wnt-response gene. NBS-242 reduced cyclin D1 levels in a concentration dependent manner. Conclusion These findings establish a strong inhibitory effect of NBS-242 in A-431 human epidermoid carcinoma cells. NBS-242 modulates parameters that are important in determining cellular mass.


This qualitative study examined the perceived outcomes of participation at Autistry Studios among young adult students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autistry Studios is a unique program offering services to individuals with ASD similar to that of a pre-vocational training program. The mission of Autistry Studios is to help students with ASD become independent adults by engaging in "project-based therapy." A setting is provided where individuals with ASD can achieve personal and functional growth with the use of creative resources like art supplies, raw materials, and power tools to pursue and complete a project that is client-centered. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between attendance at Autistry Studios and improvement in areas of independent living. Participants were selected using purposive and convenience sampling methods. The results describe the key themes that emerged from semi-structured interviews of three types of stakeholders (participants with ASD, their workshop mentors, and their primary caregivers). The researchers used framework analysis to reveal consistent themes of improvement in five areas: executive functioning, socialization, self-esteem, independence, and self-regulation. These areas are essential to workplace functioning, suggesting that participation in Autistry Studios leads to a scaffolding of skills required in a modern workplace. Results also suggest the principles and practices of Autistry Studios and "project-based therapy" are consistent with occupational therapy theory and practice due to a focus of hands-on participation in functional tasks as observed by the embedded researchers. The methods utilized at Autistry Studios could help occupational therapists modify treatment programs to better benefit clients with ASD. CAPTURING SUCCESS AT AUTISTRY STUDIOS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY


Measuring tiny forces with atomic clouds For projects such as detecting gravity waves, physicists need to measure tiny forces precisely. Schreppler et al. developed an extremely sensitive method for force measurement. They applied a known force on a cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms in an optical cavity. The force caused the atoms to oscillate, and the researchers used optical measurements to monitor the motion. Under optimal conditions, the authors could measure forces with a level of sensitivity only four times worse than the fundamental limit imposed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Science, this issue p. 1486 A very sensitive force-measuring technique uses ultracold rubidium atoms in an optical cavity as a mechanical oscillator. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets a lower bound on the noise in a force measurement based on continuously detecting a mechanical oscillator's position. This bound, the standard quantum limit, can be reached when the oscillator subjected to the force is unperturbed by its environment and when measurement imprecision from photon shot noise is balanced against disturbance from measurement back-action. We applied an external force to the center-of-mass motion of an ultracold atom cloud in a high-finesse optical cavity and measured the resulting motion optically. When the driving force is resonant with the cloud's oscillation frequency, we achieve a sensitivity that is a factor of 4 above the standard quantum limit and consistent with theoretical predictions given the atoms' residual thermal disturbance and the photodetection quantum efficiency.


For at least 30 years, and with growing intensity through recurring corporate governance crises, public policy in many countries has been striving to encourage boards of directors to undertake regular evaluations. The policy push has stimulated much practical advice, many tools for evaluation, strong encouragement from professional bodies, and considerable skepticism from those being evaluated. While some scholars have sought to conceptualize the practice, we lack a fuller understanding that can help us see how the promised benefits and feared drawbacks arise. This Director Notes report reviews the policy context and practitioner accounts and builds frameworks for practice and policy analysis. The authors find that board evaluation is a multidimensional concept in which the interactions across the dimensions open paths to improvement of boards processes while also to unintended consequences. The authors then suggest avenues for future research and a shift in policy and practice toward greater experimentation.


We model the quantum dynamics of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate of87Rb in a one dimensional optical lattice. Using the truncated Wigner approach we find that for condensates with ferromagnetic interactions a stable spin squeezed gap soliton can be formed via a triple gap soliton interaction process.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of stocking densities on productive performance of the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii in biofloc system. Experimental tanks (microcosms) with 0.20 m² area were used as experimental units. The tanks were connected to two 300 L matrix tanks (macrocosm) with biofloc technology, used as recirculating units. M. rosenbergii juveniles, with an initial weight of 0.315 ± 0.06 g and initial length of 33.34 ± 2.26 mm, was randomly distributed in the experimental tanks at different stocking densities (50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 ind m-²) and reared during 60 days. The total biomass at the end of the experiment was significant higher ( P < 0.05) with the use of higher stocking density (250 ind m -² ). However, prawns stocked at the density of 50 m -² showed significant higher ( P < 0.05) survival (73%) and significantly lower values (P < 0.05) for feed conversion rate (1.28). The different stocking densities evaluated did not affect the weight and length of prawns. The recommended density for growing M. rosenbergii in the biofloc system is 50 ind m -² .


OF THESIS PREDICTION OF PROTECTED-PERMISSIVE LEFT-TURN PHASING CRASHES BASED ON CONFLICT ANALYSIS Left-turning maneuvers are considered to be the highest risk movements at intersections and two-thirds of the crashes associated with left-turns are reported at signalized intersections. Left-turning vehicles typically encounter conflicts from opposing through traffic. To separate conflicting movements, transportation agencies use a protected-only phase at signalized intersections where each movement is allowed to move alone. However, this could create delays and thus the concept of a protected-permissive phase has been introduced to balance safety and delays. However, the permissive part of this phasing scheme retains the safety concerns and could increase the possibility of conflicts resulting in crashes. This research developed a model that can predict the number of crashes for protected-permissive left-turn phasing, based on traffic volumes and calculated conflicts. A total of 103 intersections with permissive-protected left-turn phasing in Kentucky were simulated and their leftturn related conflicts were obtained from post processing vehicle trajectories through the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). Factors that could affect crash propensity were identified through the Principal Component Analysis in Negative Binomial Regression. Nomographs were developed from the models which can be used by traffic engineers in left-turn phasing decisions with enhanced safety considerations.


Organs transplanted across donor‐specific HLA antibodies (DSA) are associated with a variety of clinical outcomes, including a high risk of acute kidney graft rejection. Unfortunately, the currently available assays to determine DSA characteristics are insufficient to clearly discriminate between potentially harmless and harmful DSA. To further explore the hazard potential of DSA, their concentration and binding strength to their natural target, using soluble HLA, may be informative. There are currently a number of biophysical technologies available that allow the assessment of antibody binding strength. However, these methods require prior knowledge of antibody concentrations. Our objective within this study was to develop a novel approach that combines the determination of DSA‐affinity as well as DSA‐concentration for patient sample evaluation within one assay. We initially tested the reproducibility of previously reported affinities of human HLA‐specific monoclonal antibodies and assessed the technology‐specific precision of the obtained results on multiple platforms, including surface plasmon resonance (SPR), bio‐layer interferometry (BLI), Luminex (single antigen beads; SAB), and flow‐induced dispersion analysis (FIDA). While the first three (solid‐phase) technologies revealed comparable high binding‐strengths, suggesting measurement of avidity, the latter (in‐solution) approach revealed slightly lower binding‐strengths, presumably indicating measurement of affinity. We believe that our newly developed in‐solution FIDA‐assay is particularly suitable to provide useful clinical information by not just measuring DSA‐affinities in patient serum samples but simultaneously delivering a particular DSA‐concentration. Here, we investigated DSA from 20 pre‐transplant patients, all of whom showed negative CDC‐crossmatch results with donor cells and SAB signals ranging between 571 and 14899 mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). DSA‐concentrations were found in the range between 11.2 and 1223 nM (median 81.1 nM), and their measured affinities fall between 0.055 and 24.7 nM (median 5.34 nM; 449‐fold difference). In 13 of 20 sera (65%), DSA accounted for more than 0.1% of total serum antibodies, and 4/20 sera (20%) revealed a proportion of DSA even higher than 1%. To conclude, this study strengthens the presumption that pre‐transplant patient DSA consists of various concentrations and different net affinities. Validation of these results in a larger patient cohort with clinical outcomes will be essential in a further step to assess the clinical relevance of DSA‐concentration and DSA‐affinity.


The aim of this article is to reflect on how clergy, working in Pretoria central areas, live out (the external dimension) and experience (the internal dimension) their faith in their everyday life. Thirteen clergy were briefly interviewed on an individual basis and then asked to keep a diary for two months. Four of the interviewed clergy completed the diary project. Based on the interviews and the diaries, the main themes that could be identified in relation to faith in their everyday lives, are responding to the challenges associated with urban ministry, including poverty and trauma, and dealing with the sometimes overwhelming experience of stress that the demands of this ministry can create. Distancing from the different aspects of their tasks, attending to personal needs, and focusing on individual experiences of faith are the main identified strategies the participants employ in dealing with the daily pressures they are exposed to.


This study investigated changes in mechanical pain sensitivity (MPS) and pressure pain thresholds (PPT) across the lower back as well as changes in the distribution of lumbar erector spinae muscle activity and biomechanical disturbances in individuals with low back pain (LBP) with mild to moderate functional impairment and healthy controls. 19 people with chronic nonspecific LBP and 17 control subjects performed a repetitive lifting task while surface electromyographic (EMG) signals were recorded from multiple loca-tions over the lumbar erector spinae muscle with a grid of 64 electrodes while tridimen-sional tracking of body movement was achieved by means of an 8-camera stereo-photogrammetry system (motion capture system). The EMG root mean square (RMS) was computed for each location of the grid to form a map of the EMG amplitude distribution. Stimulus/response-functions (S/R-function) for MPS and dynamic mechanical allodynia (DMA) as well as PPT were recorded before and after the lifting task. Pain intensity was recorded before, during and after the lifting task.
The individuals with LBP reported an increase in pain intensity of 38% during the repeti-tive lifting task. PPT was lower in the LBP group after completion of the repetitive task compared to baseline, whereas no change in PPT over time was observed for the control group. There were no changes observed for MPS in the LBP group compared to controls and baseline. None of the individuals with LBP showed DMA. The EMG RMS progressively increased more in the caudal region of the lumbar erector spinae muscle during the re-petitive task for the control subjects, resulting in a shift in the distribution of muscle activ-ity. In contrast, the distribution of muscle activity remained unaltered in the LBP group despite an overall increase in EMG amplitude. In comparison to the control group, the motion analysis did display reduced range of spinal motion and greater range of hip angle during the lifting task for individuals with LBP.
The results demonstrate that LBP alters the normal adaptation of lumbar erector spinae muscle activity to exercise, which occurs in the presence of biomechanical disturbances and exercise-induced hyperalgesia. Reduced variability of muscle activity may have im-portant implications for the recurrence or chronicity of LBP due to repetitive tasks. How-ever, this changes where evident only in a subgroup of patients. Future studies should use longitudinal designs and patients with greater impairment due to LBP to validate this po-tentially prognostic factor.


Since the establishment of the Sweden Democrats they have collected more and more votes for every election. They have managed to go from being a marginalised right wing extremist party to an established party in parliament in less than twenty years. Their entry into the parliament in 2010 is the result of a journey that started in 1995 and intensified during the 2000s. This chapter takes a rhetorical perspective and specifically analyses the public debate regarding the Sweden Democrats and if they should be allowed to buy advertisement space. The background of the party is explained and set in a both Swedish and broader context. It is also reviewed how the established parties publicly declared their strategies towards the Sweden Democrats and how the general media treatment and view of the party was during primarily the 2000s. With a combined method of rhetorical pro et contra theory and modern argumentation theory, Toulmin and informal logic, the continuous debate between 2002 and 2010 is analysed. It goes through how individual arguments are constructed, how they relate to each other over time, how the standpoint of the editors in chief shifts over time and how the argumentation is structured in the public debate.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the primary causes of opportunistic infections in humans and it is associated with both acute and chronic infections in immunocompromised individuals. This bacterium is extremely resistant to many antibiotics, making the treatments against this pathogen often unsuccessful. Azoreductases, a family of enzymes involved in the reduction of azo compounds and quinones, are found in many bacterial species including P. aeruginosa. Although the enzymatic activity of three of these enzymes has been extensively characterized, their physiological role remains unclear. In this study, the enzymatic activity as well as the effect on physiological processes such as swarming motility, biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance of known and putative azoreductase proteins from P. aeruginosa PAO1 have been investigated. Five putative azoreductase genes from P. aeruginosa PAO1 (pa0949, pa1204, pa2280, pa2580 and pa4975) were cloned and four of these (pa0949, pa1204, pa2280 and pa2580) were over expressed in E. coli strains. Recombinant proteins were purified and biochemically characterized showing the presence of FAD bound to PA1204 and PA2580 proteins. Enzymatic reaction conditions were established for each protein by determining the preferred cofactor and reductant (flavin and NAD(P)H) used by each protein. Higher reduction rates were obtained using FAD for PA1204 and PA2580, and FMN for PA0949 and PA2280, whereas NADPH was always the preferred reductant for all of the enzymes tested. Substrate specificity studies performed with azo compounds and quinones showed that PA1204, PA2280 and PA2580 recombinant proteins can reduce both classes of substrate, with higher reduction rates with quinones, whereas the recombinant PA0949 protein showed to reduce only quinone substrates. Investigation of the role of azoreductase genes on P. aeruginosa PAO1 motility, biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance was conducted using single gene transposon mutants for each of the genes paazor1, paazor2, paazor3, pa0949, pa1204, pa2280, pa2580 and pa4975. Motility analysis demonstrated greater swarming for all mutants tested compared with wild type, although both wild type and mutants showed the same growth rate. Similarly, all mutants showed higher biofilm production compared with the wild type in a short term period (24 hours), whereas no differences were observed after a longer biofilm production period (48 hours). The MICs and MBCs of several antibiotics were determined, showing that, in presence of fluoroquinolones, P. aeruginosa PAO1 azoreductase mutants exhibit higher growth inhibition (up to 127-fold) and reduced survival (up to 7 fold) compared with wild type. This suggests that azoreductase genes (or gene products) may be involved in the P. aeruginosa PAO1 resistance to antibiotic treatments, and in particular to fluoroquinolones. The findings prove that the proteins PA0949, PA1204, PA2280 and PA2580 have similar features and enzymatic functions to the already characterized paAzoR1-3 from P. aeruginosa PAO1. Therefore, these can be included in the family of azo- and quinone- oxidoreductase enzymes. The data presented here on the antibiotic resistance strongly suggest a role for azoreductase gene products in antimicrobial resistance in P. aeruginosa. These original findings provide a springboard for further investigation of azoreductases as novel targets for antimicrobial agents for this pathogen.


StankoviC, M. S., M. Zia-Ul-Haq, B. M. BojoviC and M. D. topUZoviC, 2014. total phenolics, flavonoid content and antioxidant power of leaf, flower and fruits from cornelian cherry (Cornus mas l.). Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 358-363 This paper presents new data for comparative analysis of different plant parts (leaf, flower and fruit) of Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas L.). Total phenolic content, flavonoid concentrations and antioxidant activity are analyzed in fifteen different extracts from plant parts using in vitro standard spectrophotometric methods. The total phenolic content in the examined extracts range from 12.77 to 341.09 mg GA/g. The concentration of flavonoids in extracts is between 3.53 and 149.97 mg RU/g. Obtained values indicate that all plant parts of C. mas are very rich in phenolic compounds and flavonoids, especially. Antioxidant activity of extracts is determined using DPPH reagent and expressed as IC50 values (mg/ml) that range from 518.47 to 11.06 μg/ml. Parallel to the analysis of C. mas plant parts, Ginkgo billoba standardized extract and three standard substances are analyzed for comparison. Ethyl acetate extract from fruit showed significant antioxidant activity, IC50 values of this extract are higher than the values for the standard substance (chlorogenic acid) and G. biloba extract. New data regarding the flower extrcts from C. mas shows a greater activity of the methanolic extract of flowers if compared to G. biloba. Acetone, as well as methanolic and water extracts from leaves show very strong activity. The report related to our research of plant parts of C. mas could help in the explanation of their uses in agriculture, food industry and pharmacy as well as can be regarded as promising candidates for natural plant sources of high antioxidant value.


Radiation therapy has undergone considerable changes in the past 20 years. The complexity of radiation therapy treatments has increased and there has been a corresponding response by medical physicists to adopt new techniques to assure that treatments are safely delivered. Quality assurance equipment manufacturers have developed devices that substantially aid the medical physicist in measurement and analysis of treatments. The radiation therapy delivery device manufacturers have also stepped in, modifying their traditional approach to device manufacturing and providing extensive equipment operation recording and to a lesser extent reporting. Treatment planning system vendors have also provided tools to aid medical physicists in developing critical treatment planning quality assurance processes. This symposium examines some of the current quality assurance technology research. It presents research into tools that will provide the treatment planner insights regarding the absolute quality of a specific treatment plan, methods for automatically and redundantly assuring that the proper patient is being treated in the proper location, in highly automated redundant checks of treatment plan delivery quality. Many of the techniques that will be described are looking for rare but potentially catastrophic errors, including human error, process errors, equipment failure, and software bugs. One of the challenges for designing and implementing these techniques includes the assumption that there will be little or no additional manpower available to implement and monitor these techniques. Therefore, most of the presented research will utilize autonomous functions and workflows that either involve no additional manpower efforts or improve the efficiency of existing efforts.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Teach the challenges that medical physicists face in an ever increasingly complex medicine. 2. Show examples of novel quality assurance technologies that improve the stability and quality of treatment plans. 3. Show examples of autonomous software and quality assurance workflows that monitors the treatment planning and delivery process to identify errors. 4. Show examples of techniques that expand the ability of medical physicists to provide expert advice.


Objective: To study the epidemiology and current trend in the management of urologic complications following obstetric and gynaecologic surgeries at CUUA University hospital of Cotonou. Patients and Methods: It was a retrospective study of patients referred with urologic complications following obstetric and gynaecological surgeries. The study took place at the Teaching Clinic of Urology Andrology at CNHU of Cotonou between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2013. Results: Forty-one patients were studied. They represented 3.5% of people hospitalized at CUUA throughout the study period. The average age was 41 years swith range of 20 and 57 years. Twenty-one (51.2%) of them were married. Thirty patients (73.2%) were referred from a non-academichospital, while 7 patients (17.1%) were referred from academic hospital. Caesarean section was the primary gynecological surgery in 22 cases (53.7%) and hysterectomy in 19 cases (46.3%). Clinically, the pre- dominant symptoms were leakage of urine throughout the vagina and obstructive anuria with or without back pain. We found 31 cases of VVF, 5 cases of bilateral ligation of the ureters, 3 cases of unilateral ligation of the ureter, 1 ureteralinjury and 1 uretero-vaginal fistula. These complications were diagnosed postoperatively in 95.1% of cases. Surgeries done included VVF repair in 31 cases (75.6%), unilateral ureteral reimplantation in 4 cases (9.8%), removal of ligation of the ureters in 3 cases (7.3%), bilateral ureteral reimplantation for 2 cases (4.9%) and end-to-end anastomosisin 1 case (2.4%). The postoperative period was uneventful in 29 cases and we observed 7 cases of surgical site infection. The overall success rate was 87.8%. Conclusion: Urological complications following gynecologic surgeries managed at the urologic department of teaching hospital of Coto-nou had an even higher incidence. Early diagnosis especially during the operative procedure would save the patients' serious complications and open surgery due to the lack of endo-urological facilities. The most important factor in prevention is good knowledge of pelvicanatomy and good knowledge of the surgical techniques of caesarean operation section and trans-abdominal hysterectomy.


Most states prohibit public employees from striking and the federal government makes a strike by a federal employee a felony. Many public employee labor relations acts give organized employees a right to arbitrate when their union and employer are unable to reach agreement on the terms of a contract. Much discussion of such interest arbitration schemes has focused on whether the process inhibits bargaining (the chilling effect) or is habit forming (the narcotic effect). These discussions contrast the use of traditional interest arbitration, where the arbitrator may award any outcome that falls between the parties' final offers, with final offer arbitration where the arbitrator must award one party's final offer, either on a package or an issue-by-issue basis, and analyze each approach's effect on the chilling and narcotic effects.This article focuses on another undesirable characteristic of interest arbitration – its ability to allow union and employer leaders to avoid accountability to their constituents. Using data from 2008-2012, the article finds support that, at least in hard times, parties negotiating in a right-to-strike legal regime tend to take responsibility for making the difficult decisions necessary to respond to the economic environment while parties negotiating under an interest arbitration legal regime are more likely to arbitrate and push responsibility off onto the arbitrator. The article contrasts legal regimes which approach interest arbitration as an extension of the collective bargaining process with those which approach interest arbitration as a quasi-judicial adjudication. It finds that the latter approach exacerbates the tendency of union and employer leaders to use interest arbitration as a means of avoiding accountability to their constituents.


Aromatic constituents of cell walls limit the feeding value of forages, but information is lacking on the sites and types of these constituents that retard biodegradation. A series of cell types in stems and leaf blades of a normal (N) and a brown midrib (bmr) mutant line of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R Br) were analyzed by UV absorption microspectrophotometry from freeze-dried bulk walls and from 4 jlm thick sections. Cell types were evaluated by scanning and transmission electron microscopy for rumen microbial degradation . Generally, N cell walls had a higher absorbance, hypsochromatically shifted Amax' and a higher absorbance ratio (280 :320 nm) compared with bmr walls . Spectra suggested that ester-linked phenolic acids were present in lignified and non-lignified walls of both plant lines. Results are consistent with previous information that N cell types have substantially higher concentrations of esterlinked p-coumaric acid and more condensed aromatics than bmr walls . Pronounced variations occurred within regions of some cell types , including the middle lamella region vs. secondary layers of sclerenchyma cells and the outer vs. inner regions of epidermal cells . Biodegradable cell walls, such as stem parenchyma and epidermis and parenchyma bundle sheaths of leaf blades, showed less absorbance than heavily lignified walls. For some walls, UV spectra related well with variations in digestibility, while for other cell walls further work is needed to relate spectra to biodegradation .


This discussion arose from a quick exchange at the 'Two Cultures' conference at the University of New South Wales in 2006. Sciences–humanities relations were the issue. What remained of the 'two cultures' divide, if anything? How were the humanities and social sciences responding to the 'hard' sciences? How possible at this moment was it to work across the two cultures? In the discussion, Andrew made an off-the-cuff remark that 'we are all scientists now'. Someone else suggested we could all go into the laboratories. Adrian was not so sure, and thought that now, more than ever, we needed to pay close attention to the specificities of the different kinds of thinking and activity involved in science, and in the humanities, and even perhaps social science's engagement with the 'other' sciences. What follows is an attempt to work through these problems, if only briefly, and if only to raise more questions. It turns out that we were probably talking about quite different things that, although not exactly in agreement, are quite complementary. Adrian discusses the contemporary circumstances of the engagement between the two cultures—which in sum he sees at last beginning, but only beginning, to become an actual engagement, rather than a critique, or perhaps worse, badly posed poaching of terms and concepts from science. Andrew responds to this by suggesting that everyday life perhaps has been much more engaged with science for much longer than the academic world of the humanities. Both of us found the work of Isabelle Stengers useful in thinking these questions through.


Cities actively endeavour to reposition themselves in the global economy by using large scale neoliberal interventions, which have the potential to significantly alter urban landscapes. Within these interventions, it is important to understand the ways in which knowledge is produced, and how decisions are made. Typically located within cities, ports are drivers of local and regional economic growth, and can stimulate urban development and prosperity. In the age of containerisation, ports and their cities have to transform in order to remain competitive. This study investigates the Back of Port (BoP) Project in Durban, which is a spatial planning exercise initiated by the eThekwini Municipality that sought to create a BoP zone that would enhance the Port of Durban's competitiveness. The Port was facing a 'congestion crisis', and this city-led project emerged out of a co-operative initiative between the Municipality and the state owned Transnet National Port Authority. It was developed by a range of specialist consultants, with the aim of creating a distinct framework for the management and development of land use in the areas adjacent to the Port. The study follows the knowledge production process from the Inception to the Concept Plan Phase of the BoP Project. By using discourse analysis, this research identifies the dominant discourses, story lines and discourse-coalitions, as well as other dramaturgical and deliberative factors, which were introduced by various actors and shifted throughout the project. These features shaped this project's knowledge production process, and have the potential to significantly alter urban space in this locality. The 'rules of the game' constructed the BoP Project so that a 'good business climate' would be created for logistics and port-related activities in adjacent city spaces. These spaces were conceptualised as areas of change, which facilitated the introduction of new planning strategies. The knowledge negotiation processes were nuanced and complex, as knowledges associated with the functional discourse-coalition became hegemonic, whilst counter-hegemonic knowledges 'fell through the cracks'. The research revealed that in order for such planning projects to be successful, it is important that decision-making in urban planning is cognisant of the context within which it occurs, and that holistic decisions, based on 'multiple knowledges', are made.


This study used analyses of the genetic structure of a non-game fish species, the mottled sculpin Cottus bairdii to hypothesize probable recolonization routes used by cottids and possibly other Laurentian Great Lakes fishes following glacial recession. Based on samples from 16 small streams in five major Lake Michigan, U.S.A., tributary basins, significant interpopulation differentiation was documented (overall FST = 0·235). Differentiation was complex, however, with unexpectedly high genetic similarity among basins as well as occasionally strong differentiation within basins, despite relatively close geographic proximity of populations. Genetic dissimilarities were identified between eastern and western populations within river basins, with similarities existing between eastern and western populations across basins. Given such patterns, recolonization is hypothesized to have occurred on three occasions from more than one glacial refugium, with a secondary vicariant event resulting from reduction in the water level of ancestral Lake Michigan. By studying the phylogeography of a small, non-game fish species, this study provides insight into recolonization dynamics of the region that could be difficult to infer from game species that are often broadly dispersed by humans.


This paper presents a hybrid energy storage system mainly based on Compressed Air, where the storage and withdrawal of energy are done within maximum efficiency conditions. As these maximum efficiency conditions impose the level of converted power, an intermittent time-modulated operation mode is applied to the thermodynamic converter to obtain a variable converted power. A smoothly variable output power is achieved with the help of a supercapacitive auxiliary storage device used as a filter. The paper describes the concept of the system, the power-electronic interfaces and especially the Maximum Efficiency Point Tracking (MEPT) algorithm and the strategy used to vary the output power. In addition, the paper introduces more efficient hybrid storage systems where the volumetric air machine is replaced by an oil-hydraulics and pneumatics converter, used under isothermal conditions. Practical results are also presented, recorded from a low-power air motor coupled to a small DC generator, as well as from a first prototype of the hydro-pneumatic system. Some economical considerations are also made, through a comparative cost evaluation of the presented hydro-pneumatic systems and a lead acid batteries system, in the context of a stand alone photovoltaic home application. This evaluation confirms the cost effectiveness of the presented hybrid storage systems.


Excerpt] The aim of this paper is to review the current accessibility legislation on the built environment in Kenya and document the current situation in the light of persons with disabilities. The paper will briefly explain the various categories of disability. In addressing disability and current legislation, the paper will embark on a detailed description of government policies. In the light of the foregoing information, various legislations will be discussed each in detail as they affect the overall design of the built environment. The paper will compile in its conclusion a list of feasible recommendations which the government can consider in order to cater adequately for the disabled person. In itemizing the recommendations, a distinction will be made of those which can be tackled immediately, i.e. addition of a ramp to buildings and those which require to be implemented over time and for those to be included in new building designs.


This study represents the comparison of the morphology variation in different planes of female and male pelvis. Anthropological literature represents two different views of the pelvic morphology variation. On the one hand, the variation is considered lower in females than in males. On the other hand, some empirical findings demonstrated no differences in the pelvic morphology variation between sexes. Moreover, some measures of female pelvis demonstrate higher coefficients of variation. Taking into account that previous findings were based on linear measures, it seems important to analyze pelvic proportions and the variation of the inlet, middle, and outlet planes. The study was based on the retrospective pelvimetry of threedimensional computer tomography of 176 live males and 212 females. Anterioposterior diameters and transverse diameters were measured in four planes, and their ratios were calculated in order to evaluate proportions and variances. The Levene's test for the equality of variances was used to evaluate the observed variation in male and female pelvis morphology. The results confirmed well established sexual dimorphism in the pelvic linear measures – the anteroposterior diameters of the midplane and the outlet. In addition, this study identified higher variation in the transverse diameter of the inlet in females. The proportions demonstrated no differences in variation in all the planes but the midplane including bispinous diameter (F=11.34; p<.01). It seems important that the female pelvis cavity demonstrated lower variance than the male pelvis cavity in the midplane including bispinous. This finding supports the view of selective pressure on the female pelvis and its intensity in the midplane.


In this paper, we investigate spectrum trading via auction approach for cognitive radio networks. We consider a realistic valuation function in terms of different parameters for secondary users (SUs), and propose an efficient concurrent Vickrey-Clarke-Grove mechanism for non-identical channel allocation in two different scenarios. In the first scenario, SUs can bid for a single channel while in the other one, SUs can bid for a bundle of two channels. Our numerical results demonstrate significant revenue increase for the auctioneer and bidders in comparison with the conventional auction mechanisms.


Assembling Japan focuses on Japan's modernization as a long-term process that is reliant on changing technology and that has led to the nation's full engagement with the global system. This process forms a complex field of tensions, full of interesting dynamisms and synergies that can be best understood through the book's methodology: anthropological analysis combined with historical contextualization.
The approaches in this collection are manifold. Some chapters examine the themes of modernity, technology and Japan's global experience though popular culture, from reggae to football, from television to film. Other topics include coffee, travel, economics, cultural politics and technological innovation in the field of robotics. All of the contributions aim to show how these global interactions have occurred and continue to take place in twenty-first-century Japan.


This research maps out the value network of collaboration enabling automated access to egovernment services, motivated by the dissemination efforts of the EU-funded Access-eGov project. The main contribution of this article is the stepwise development of a value map which highlights the exchange of tangible and intangible deliverables and an initial value network analysis based on two different scenarios of technology choice. Results are expected to help decision makers in the participating institutions to direct their investments, and to help policy makers considering options for introducing new (public or private) actors to the collaboration network. However, value network analysis in e-government is only at the beginning, and further research should collect more empirical data, focus on reusing existing e-government assets, quantify the value exchanges, and bring value network analysis closer to decision making in governmental practice.


Abstract Selection and recruitment into healthcare education and practice is a key area of interest for educators with significant developments in research, policy, and practice in recent years. This updated consensus statement, developed through a multi-stage process, examines future opportunities and challenges in selection and recruitment. There is both a gap in the literature around and a compelling case for further theoretical and empirical literature to underpin the development of overall selection philosophes and policies and their enactment. More consistent evidence has emerged regarding the quality of different selection methods. Approaches to selection are context-dependent, requiring the consideration of an institution's philosophy regarding what they are trying to achieve, the communities it purports to serve, along with the system within which they are used. Diversity and globalization issues continue to be critically important topics. Further research is required to explore differential attainment and explain why there are substantial differences in culturally acceptable ways of approaching diversity and widening access. More sophisticated evaluation approaches using multi-disciplinary theoretical frameworks are required to address the issues. Following a discussion of these areas, 10 recommendations are presented to guide future research and practice and to encourage debate between colleagues across the globe.


This article examines the transgenerational transmission of trauma among campensino living in a rural, repopulated community in El Salvador. Research with Holocaust survivors and their children has shown that traumatic symptoms can be transmitted to children who did not directly experience the Holocaust. The mechanisms by which this transgenerational transmission occurs have not been fully explored and require an expansion of medical and anthropological conceptualizations of posttraumatic illness. Through their reactions to and interpretations of everyday events, campesino parents who lived in the guerrilla camps explicitly transmit trauma to children who did not experience the recent civil war. Illness narratives by sufferers of nervios transmit trauma and point to the basic immorality of the war, an immorality that continues today. In addition, the symptoms of nervios constitute a mechanism by which trauma is implicitly transmitted. Symptoms of nervios point to what generally is not and, indeed, cannot be voiced: the destruction of primary relationships in the family and unresolved grief and helplessness, which, through the responses of family members to the sufferer, are reproduced and reenacted in the present family context.


Summary A time-lapse reservoir characterization study is performed on a model of a producing reservoir. This model reservoir has two injection wells and one producer. Pressure and saturation models are obtained from numerical simulation of reservoir properties and fluid flow for a number of calendar days. Integration of saturation models and Gassmann's relations delivers compressional wave velocity models for each calendar day, and finite-difference algorithms are used to generate synthetic data for comparison; specifically, we compare 2D acoustic and 3C3D elastic forward modelling. Examples show subtle similarities and differences between the models and both prove to be valuable tools in reservoir characterization.


Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) has been considered as a promising memory technology because of its attractive properties such as non-volatility, fast access, zero standby leakage and high density. Although integrating MRAM with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic may incur extra manufacturing cost because of the hybrid magnetic-CMOS fabrication process, it is feasible and cost-effective to fabricate MRAM and CMOS logic separately and then integrate them using 3D stacking. In this work, we first studied the MRAM properties and built an MRAM cache model in terms of performance, energy and area. Using this model, we evaluated the impact of stacking MRAM caches atop microprocessor cores and compared MRAM against its static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) counterparts. Our simulation result shows that MRAM stacking can provide competitive instruction-per-cycle (IPC) performance with a large reduction in power consumption.


The purpose of the research is to identify key factors influencing employee retention in the South African national government departments as a guide towards developing effective employee retention strategies. The research was conducted in three phases. For the determination of employee turnover rates and benchmarks, 33 national departments were classified into three homogenous subgroups with respect to their number of employees (Phase one). Thereafter the employee turnover rates for each department and benchmarks for each subgroup were determined (Phase two). These employee turnover statistics were analysed for all 33 national departments in the three subgroups and used as guidelines for the selection of cases for the multiple case (Phase three). Four departments were selected from each subgroup for the case study where selection was based on a department"s turnover rate relative to the benchmark rate. These departments participated in a cross sectional survey. The data from the survey was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The analysis confirmed a significant relationship between employee turnover rates and responses for the combined subgroups of selected small, medium and large departments. Significant relationships were also observed for the subgroups of small and large departments. Employee turnover has a significant impact on business performance primarily due to the fact that it takes too long to fill vacant posts together with uncompetitive salary scales and the lack of skilled candidates. Further, the lack of human resourcing strategies, recruitment difficulties, problems related to monitoring and measuring of employee turnover and employee retention difficulties were important issues that influence employee retention. Future research on knowledge and systems for managing employee turnover is recommended.


The concept of victim responsibility has assumed a central place within psychological research into perceptions of rape. Research repeatedly reports that victims may experience secondary victimization and perpetrators may receive light sentences or even be absolved of the crime. Despite new policies and practices in the UK in respect of rape crimes, attrition rates remain extremely high. This article examines victim responsibility in the talk of convicted sex o fenders and those who work with them. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with professionals and paraprofessionals who work with sex o fenders. The taped therapy sessions of a prison treatment group were the source of perpetrator talk. Discourse analysis identified the existence of two discourses; the discourse of desire and the discourse of commonsense. Separately and together, these discourses served to attribute some responsibility to the victim and to conceptualize rape as sex.


Abstract. Effective agricultural water management requires accurate and timely information on the availability and use of irrigation water. However, most existing information on irrigation water use (IWU) lacks the objectivity and spatio-temporal representativeness needed for operational water management and meaningful characterisation of land-climate interactions. Although optical remote sensing has been used to map the area affected by irrigation, it does not physically allow for the estimation of the actual amount of irrigation water applied. On the other hand, microwave observations of the moisture content in the top soil layer are directly influenced by agricultural irrigation practices, and thus potentially allow for the quantitative estimation of IWU. In this study, we combine surface soil moisture retrievals from the spaceborne SMAP, AMSR2, and ASCAT microwave sensors with modelled soil moisture from MERRA-2 reanalysis to derive monthly IWU dynamics over the contiguous United States (CONUS) for the period 2013–2016. The methodology is driven by the assumption that the hydrology formulation of the MERRA-2 model does not account for irrigation, while the remotely sensed soil moisture retrievals do contain an irrigation signal. For many CONUS irrigation hot spots, the estimated spatial irrigation patterns show good agreement with a reference data set on irrigated areas. Moreover, in intensively irrigated areas, the temporal dynamics of observed IWU is meaningful with respect to ancillary data on local irrigation practices. State-aggregated mean IWU volumes derived from the combination of SMAP and MERRA-2 soil moisture show a good correlation with statistically reported state-level irrigation water withdrawals but systematically underestimate them. We argue that this discrepancy can be mainly attributed to the coarse spatial resolution of the employed satellite soil moisture retrievals, which fails to resolve local irrigation practices. Consequently, higher resolution soil moisture data are needed to further enhance the accuracy of IWU mapping.


This Comment argues that though the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing allows a court to forfeit both a defendant's right to object to the admission of hearsay statements and the right of confrontation, the current state of the law requires all out-of-court statements admitted under Rule 804(b)(6) to possess some level of reliability in order to satisfy due process. Part I of this Comment discusses the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing, the courts' treatment of this principle prior to 1997, and its codification into the Federal Rules of Evidence. Part II looks at Confrontation Clause issues unique to hearsay exceptions and examines Ohio v. Roberts19 and Crawford v. Washington, the Supreme Court's two most important cases dealing with this issue. In discussing the guarantees of due process, Part III explains that any fair criminal trial requires convictions to be based on reliable evidence and maintains that Rule 804(b)(6), when given its plain language interpretation, violates the Due Process Clause by allowing admission of untrustworthy and unreliable evidence. Part IV of this Comment argues that the Crawford Court's rejection of the Roberts "indicia of reliability" standard separated due process from Confrontation Clause analysis, thereby giving the accused a strengthened argument that all statements admitted under Rule 804(b)(6) must bear sufficient indicia of reliability.


Large amounts of produced water are generated during oil and gas production. Produced water, as it is known in the oil industry, is briny fluid trapped in the rock of oil reservoirs. The objective of this study was to test produced waters from a Montana USA oilfield using a mobile station to design a plant to cost efficiently treat the produced water for agricultural irrigation. We used combined physical and chemical treatment of produced water in order to comply with reuse and discharge limits. This mobile station consists of three stages: pretreatments, membrane filtration and post treatment. Two spiral-wound membrane units were employed and the rejections of various constituents were examined. The performance of two membranes, 20 kDa weight cut-off (MWCO) ultrafiltration and a polyamide-composite reverse osmosis membrane was investigated. The mobile station effectively decreased conductivity by 98%, COD by 100% and the SAR by 2.15 mgeqv(0.5) in the produced water tested in this study. Cost analysis showed that the treatment cost of produced water is less expensive than to dispose of it by injection and this treated water may be of great value in water-poor regions. We can conclude that the mobile station provided a viable and cost-effective result to beneficial use of produced water.


Abstract What obligations are there on voters? This paper argues that voters should make their electoral decision competently, and does so by developing on a recent proposal for democratic legitimacy. It then explores three problems arising from this 'competency obligation'. First, how should voters be competent? I propose three conditions required for voter competence. Second, how competent should voters be? I argue that the competency required tracks the significance of the consequences of the vote. Third, if the electorate are unlikely to deliver a competent decision, should suffrage be restricted to the competent alone? I defend unrestricted suffrage on the grounds that restricting suffrage cannot guarantee a competently made electoral decision. Instead, obligations on voters should be minimised by political parties satisfying their obligations to be politically sound; if they are sound, then the obligation to be competent can be easily satisfied by voters.


Editors Foreword A Note On The Texts Introduction: Modern Moral Philosophy, 1600-1800 1. A Difference between Classical and Modern Moral Philosophy 2. The Main Problem of Greek Moral Philosophy 3. The Background of Modern Moral Philosophy 4. The Problems of Modem Moral Philosophy 5. The Relation between Religion and Science 6. Kant on Science and Religion 7. On Studying Historical Texts HUME I. Morality Psychologized and the Passions 1. Background: Skepticism and the Fideism of Nature 2. Classification of the Passions 3. Outline of Section 3 of Part III of Book II 4. Hume's Account of (Nonmoral) Deliberation: The Official View II. Rational Deliberation and the Role of Reason 1. Three Questions about Hume's Official View 2. Three Further Psychological Principles 3. Deliberation as Transforming the System of Passions 4. The General Appetite to Good 5. The General Appetite to Good: Passion or Principle? III. Justice as an Artificial Virtue 1. The Capital of the Sciences 2. The Elements of Hume's Problem 3. The Origin of Justice and Property 4. The Circumstances of Justice 5. The Idea of Convention Examples and Supplementary Remarks 6. Justice as a Best Scheme of Conventions 7. The Two Stages of Development IV. The Critique of Rational Intuitionism 1. Introduction 2. Some of Clarke's Main Claims 3. The Content of Right and Wrong 4. Rational Intuitionism's Moral Psychology 5. Hume's Critique of Rational Intuitionism 6. Hume's Second Argument: Morality Not Demonstrable V. The Judicious Spectator 1. Introduction 2. Hume's Account of Sympathy 3. The First Objection: The Idea of the Judicious Spectator 4. The Second Objection: Virtue in Rags Is Still Virtue 5. The Epistemological Role of the Moral Sentiments 6. Whether Hume Has a Conception of Practical Reason 7. The Concluding Section of the Treatise Appendix: Hume's Disowning the Treatise LEIBNIZ I. His Metaphysical Perfectionism 1. Introduction 2. Leibniz's Metaphysical Perfectionism 3. The Concept of a Perfection 4. Leibniz's Predicate-in-Subject Theory of Truth 5. Some Comments on Leibniz's Account of Truth II. Spirits As Active Substances: Their Freedom 1. The Complete Individual Concept Includes Active Powers 2. Spirits as Individual Rational Substances 3. True Freedom 4. Reason, Judgment, and Will 5. A Note on the Practical Point of View KANT I. Groundwork: Preface And Part I 1. Introductory Comments 2. Some Points about the Preface: Paragraphs 11-13 3. The Idea of a Pure Will 4. The Main Argument of Groundwork I 5. The Absolute Value of a Good Will 6. The Special Purpose of Reason 7. Two Roles of the Good Will II. The Categorical Imperative: The First Formulation 1. Introduction 2. Features of Ideal Moral Agents 3. The Four-Step CI-Procedure 4. Kant's Second Example: The Deceitful Promise 5. Kant's Fourth Example: The Maxim of Indifference 6. Two Limits on Information 7. The Structure of Motives III. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE: THE SECOND FORMULATION 1. The Relation between the Formulations 2. Statements of the Second Formulation 3. Duties of Justice and Duties of Virtue 4. What Is Humanity? 5. The Negative Interpretation 6. The Positive Interpretation 7. Conclusion: Remarks on Groundwork 11:46-49 IV. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE: THE THIRD FORMULATION 1. Gaining Entry for the Moral Law 2. The Formulation of Autonomy and Its Interpretation 3. The Supremacy of Reason 4. The Realm of Ends 5. Bringing the Moral Law Nearer to Intuition 6. What Is the Analogy? V. THE PRIORITY OF RIGHT AND THE OBJECT OF THE MORAL LAW 1. Introduction 2. The First Three of Six Conceptions of the Good 3. The Second Three Conceptions of the Good 4. Autonomy and Heteronomy 5. The Priority of Bight 6. A Note on True Human Needs VI. Moral Constructivism 1. Rational Intuitionism: A Final Look 2. Kant's Moral Constructivism 3. The Constructivist Procedure 4. An Observation and an Objection 5. Two Conceptions of Objectivity 6. The Categorical Imperative: In What Way Synthetic A Priori? VII. THE FACT OF REASON 1. Introduction 2. The First Fact of Reason Passage 3. The Second Passage: 5-8 of Chapter 1 of the Analytic 4. The Third Passage: Appendix I to Analytic I, Paragraphs 8-15 5. Why Kant Might Have Abandoned a Deduction for the Moral Law 6. What Kind of Authentication Does the Moral Law Have? 7. The Fifth and Sixth Fact of Reason Passages 8. Conclusion VIII. The Moral Law as the Law of Freedom 1. Concluding Remarks on Constructivism and Due Reflection 2. The Two Points of View 3. Kant's Opposition to Leibniz on Freedom 4. Absolute Spontaneity 5. The Moral Law as a Law of Freedom 6. The Ideas of Freedom 7. Conclusion IX. THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RELIGION, BOOK I 1. The Three Predispositions 2. The Free Power of Choice 3. The Rational Representation of the Origin of Evil 4. The Manichean Moral Psychology 5. The Roots of Moral Motivation in Our Person X. The Unity Of Reason 1. The Practical Point of View 2. The Realm of Ends as Object of the Moral Law 3. The Highest Good as Object of the Moral Law 4. The Postulates of Vernunftglaube 5. The Content of Reasonable Faith 6. The Unity of Reason HEGEL I. His Rechtsphilosophie 1. Introduction 2. Philosophy as Reconciliation 3. The Free Will 4. Private Property 5. Civil Society II. Ethical Life and Liberalism 1. Sitttichkeit: The Account of Duty 2. Sittlickkeit: The State 3. Sittlichkeit: War and Peace 4. A Third Alternative 5. Hegel's Legacy as a Critic of Liberalism Appendix: Course Outline


This article evaluates the recent (March 2012) legislative initiative by the European Commission for a regulation (known as Monti II) on the exercise of the right to take collective action within the context of the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services. The authors put forward a critique of the legal basis, content and form of the proposal, which has already been challenged by Parliaments in twelve Member States. The authors propose the adoption of a revised initiative that would make a clear commitment to international law and labour standards. It should recognize the autonomy of the social partners and a margin of manoeuvre for trade union action, foreseeing only limited judicial review in accordance with international practice. The proposed articles on dispute resolution and an alert mechanism should be deleted, and the appropriate form of the revised proposal could be based on guidelines adopted on the basis of Article 26(3) TFEU.


As a measure of consumer ethnocentrism, CETSCALE has aroused great interest in
the field of consumer behaviour. However, despite CETSCALE's popularity, there is
sufficient theoretical evidence to support investigating its content validity. Various
authorities have questioned the purity of the scale, i.e., its lack of domain specificity;
In particular, the items that comprise CETSCALE seem to be indicative of other
phenomena such as patriotism, protectionism, and even xenophobia! Consequently,
this study addresses CETSCALE's lack of domain specificity by proposing a
theoretically sound psychometric scale that is 1) true to Sumner's (1906) definition
of consumer ethnocentrism, 2) embraces Rosenberg and Hovlands' (1960) 3-
Component View of Attitude model, and 3) faithful to Churchill's (1979) Paradigm
for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs.
Volumes one, two and three of Marketing Scales Handbook (American Marketing
Association)-comprising 1,647 psychometric scales-were used as the oracle, from
which was derived an initial pool of 249 items. Based on a sample of 803 respondents, these items were subjected to factor analysis (exploratory and
confirmatory), finally giving rise to the 14-item scale TRUCET scale. TRUCET
scale has good psychometric properties, consistently demonstrating construct validity
in various tests of discriminance and convergence. Its predictability has also been
demonstrated in a nomological framework with related constructs. And it meets the
requirements of face validity.
The results indicate TRUCET scale to be domain specific. It presents researchers
with an alternative measure of consumer ethnocentrism which is untainted with
foreign artefacts.


by E. Fleetwood and M. Metzger (Silver Spring, MD: Calliope Press; 1998, 96 pages, soft cover) Let's assume there is some consensus that deaf and hard of hearing students need to be exposed to a reasonable, unambiguous model of English, whether they are attempting to learn it as a first or second language. Exposure is important for children to do their natural job of being little linguists. That the interpretation of "reasonable and unambiguous" varies is an understatement in the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. This is evident in the numerous signed systems that exist (e.g., Signed English, Seeing Essential English, Signing Exact English, Linguistics of Visual English, etc.) and a cued system, popularly known as Cued Speech, the linguistic application and visible characteristics of which are discussed as "cued language" in this text under review. As a research scholar who has several published articles and books that have discussed the merits of the signed systems and oral approaches, I have become disenchanted with the overall effectiveness of these approaches, most of which have been in use for 20 years or more. Nevertheless, professionals need to be careful that disenchantment does not lead to hardening of the knowledge-seeking arteries. We need to continue to investigate the reasons for our relative lack of success in representing English in a reasonably clear and unambiguous manner for many deaf and hard of hearing students. We also need to inquire whether it is really feasible to attempt this representation in a mode that is different from the soken mode. Cued Language Structure, with its eloquent style and lucid explanations, compels us to take yet another look at this business of representing English via the use of manual or hand symbols. In fewer than 100 pages (96 to be exact), this book covers quite a bit of ground with a Foreword, 6 chapters, an Afterword, a Glossary, and References. It also contains sidebars-further explanation or clarification of terms/topics in the margin at the right side of the text. The authors have done a fine job of making this book accessible to a broad audience. The authors waste no time in addressing controversial, thought-provoking issues; the Foreword is replete with information, ranging from a few historical background perspectives to a brief description of each chapter to a compelling call for further investigation of the "linguistic claims" of "invented communication systems." In fact, the Foreword provides a synopsis of the major issues that are elaborated upon in the ensuing chapters. The most intriguing statement is one that has consumed me over the years: "Can a language that has traditionally been spoken and heard remain intact when conveyed with different articulators and in a different medium?" (p. 10). In Chapter 1, the authors provide a good, brief description of the nature of linguistic competency, including a discussion of the difference between "structure" and "form." Many of us do not need to be convinced that "phonology" does not have to be rendered acoustically or be sound-based (consider sign languages, for starters) or that "speech" is a descriptive attribute of the user of a spoken language, rather than a requirement of that language. However, I am certain there are some of us in this field who might need more evidence for the following statements: "Acquiring the phonology of a language is the first step to learning about how its word parts can be manipulated to influence their meaning" (p. 17), and "The intonation and stress people use while speaking [or expressing] a language plays an important role in how people understand each other" (p. 19; words added). The authors provide some evidence for these assertions via the use of linguistic analysis, and there are a few references for obtaining further details and support. In addition, both the authors and I are in agreement that these assertions are also necessary for developing script literacy skills in English. …


In recent years a number of studies have been devoted to the twin issues of economic development and of decentralization in Argentina. Many papers have tried to understand the complex system of intergovernmental relations. Most of them, however, have focussed on the role of provinces, and neglected the problems raised by municipalities. This paper tries to bridge this gap, and to suggest that stronger municipalities could contribute to produce stronger cities that would in turn foster economic development.


The optical properties of metallic nanoparticles are well known, but the study of their thermal behavior is in its infancy. However the local heating of surrounding medium, induced by illuminated nanostructures, opens the way to new sensors and devices. Consequently the accurate calculation of the electromagnetically induced heating of nanostructures is of interest. The proposed multiphysics problem cannot be directly solved with the classical refinement method of Comsol Multiphysics and a 3D adaptive remeshing process based on an a posteriori error estimator is used. In this paper the efficiency of three remeshing strategies for solving the multiphysics problem is compared. The first strategy uses independent remeshing for each physical quantity to reach a given accuracy. The second strategy only controls the accuracy on temperature. The third strategy uses a linear combination of the two normalized targets (the electric field intensity and the temperature). The analysis of the performance of each strategy is based on the convergence of the remeshing process in terms of number of elements. The efficiency of each strategy is also characterized by the number of computation iterations, the number of elements, the CPU time, and the RAM required to achieve a given target accuracy.


The analysis of molecular cues in dentinal fluid from an excavated cavity could improve diagnostics in the context of minimally invasive caries treatment. In the current clinical trial we assessed whether the dentinal fluid levels of MMP-9 (matrix metalloproteinase-9; neutrophil gelatinase) would increase with the progression of carious lesions. MMP-9 is associated with neutrophil-related tissue breakdown in the pulp. Absolute MMP-9 levels were contrasted against the levels of MMP-2, an enzyme related to normal tissue turnover. Dentinal fluid was collected below deep and shallow caries from molars and premolars within the same patients aged 18 years and older (n = 30, 1 tooth per group/patient). Experimental teeth were isolated under a rubber dam prior to excavation. Dentinal fluid was collected from the bottom of the cavity using a size 25 paper point. MMP levels were assessed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Nonparametric methods were applied to test for differences between groups. Significantly more (p < 0.05, Wilcoxon test) MMP-9 was collected from the deep carious lesions than from the shallow counterparts. Pairwise comparison of MMP-9 values within patients revealed that there was more MMP-9 collected from deep lesions than from shallow counterparts in 27 of the 30 individuals under investigation (pairwise Wilcoxon test, p < 0.001). In contrast, no such difference existed for MMP-2. There was a high correlation between MMP-9 from deep and shallow lesions (Spearman's ρ = 0.72, p < 0.001), indicating that patients with more MMP-9 in the deep carious lesion also tended to have more MMP-9 in the shallow lesion.


Fire management around the world is now undergoing extensive review, with a move toward fire management plans that maintain biodiversity and other ecosystems services, while at the same time mitigating the negative impacts to people and property. There is also increasing recognition of the historical and anthropogenic dimensions that underlie current fire regimes and the likelihood that projected future climate change will lead to more fires in most regions. Concurrently, resilience theory is playing an increasingly important role in understanding social-ecological systems, and new principles are emerging for building resilience in both human and natural components. Long-term fire data, provided by paleoecological and historical studies, provide a baseline of knowledge about the linkages between climate, vegetation, fire regimes, and humans across multiple temporal and spatial scales. This information reveals how processes interacting over multiple spatial and temporal scales shape the local fire conditions that influence human and ecological response. This multiscale perspective is an important addition to adaptive fire management strategies that seek to build resilience, incorporate stakeholder perspectives, and support polycentric decision making.


We aimed to examine the evidence for the proposed additive effect of exercise in the presence of nature (green exercise) by systematically reviewing studies that investigated the effects of outdoor or virtual green exercise compared with indoor exercise. Our review updates an earlier review, whose searches were conducted in April 2010. Trials were eligible if: (a) participants in an outdoor or virtual exercise condition were exposed to views of nature (green exercise); (b) green exercise was compared with indoor exercise with no exposure to nature; (c) included an outcome related to physical or mental health; (d) used comparative or crossover trial design. We searched the following databases from 1st January 2010 to 28th June 2018: PubMed, CENTRAL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, GreenFile, and Sports DISCUS. We assessed risk of bias using the Cochrane "risk of bias" tool. Where possible we conducted a meta-analysis using the inverse variance random-effects method, and where this approach was not possible we presented the results qualitatively and in harvest plots. We identified 28 eligible trials. In a meta-analysis of just three longitudinal trials, the only statistical finding was slightly lower post-intervention perceived exertion with green versus indoor exercise (mean difference: −1.02; 95% confidence intervals: −1.88, −0.16). Compared with indoor exercise, acute bouts of outdoor green exercise may favorably influence affective valence and enjoyment, but not emotion, perceived exertion, exercise intensity, and biological markers. No other consistent statistical differences were observed, apart from a higher enjoyment of outdoor green versus virtual green exercise. We found a high risk of bias across trials and an overall low quality of evidence. In conclusion, there was limited evidence to support the view that green exercise offers superior benefits to exercise without exposure to nature. The low quality of evidence prohibits clear interpretation of trial findings. Future robust and rigorously designed trials are needed to evaluate the effects of long-term and multiple-bout exposure to nature during exercise compared with exercise indoors.


The UK's regulators and accounting profession are at one in their assessment of why the UK avoided its Enron: the UK's approach to accounting regulation is principles-based in contrast to the rules-based approach taken in the United States. According to this position, the UK has its principles-based regulatory technique to thank for keeping the integrity of its markets intact during the infectious greed of the 1990s. This article is an inquiry into the effect and validity of this claim. It investigates the effect that this claim has had upon structuring the UK's post-Enron regulatory process and provides a close analysis of UK and US accounting regulation to determine whether the UK's regulation is in fact distinctively principles-based. It concludes that the structuring effect of the claim was considerable, diverting the reform process away from some of the US's most important Enron lessons. This is of particular concern as the article also concludes that the claim is without foundation.


Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately.Whereas the study ofWestern mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together. The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, while the work of mystics was bound up with esoteric or occult preoccupations. It also shows why mysticism and esotericism must be examined together if either is to be understood fully. Including contributions by leading scholars, this volume features essays on such topics as alchemy, astrology, magic, Neoplatonism, Kabbalism, Renaissance Hermetism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, number symbolism, Christian theosophy, spiritualism, and much more. This handbook serves as both a capstone of contemporary scholarship and a cornerstone of future research.


This contribution to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review's online symposium on Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands argues that the majority's test for separability misses the mark because it is disconnected from the purpose of the useful articles doctrine and particularly the requirement of separability. Congress intended the separability requirement to distinguish applied art from industrial design, admitting the former as potential copyright subject matter but excluding the latter. Because the Court misunderstood that foundational purpose, it abstracted away from Congress' central examples of separability and opened the door to protection of a wide range of previously unprotectable features. The Court's formulation also puts significant pressure on claiming in useful articles cases, which is a problem because copyright claiming is not well developed generally.


The study was designed to examine the challenges as well as to find the remedies to staff development for effective library services in special libraries in Benue state of Nigeria. The study was guided by three research questions in line with the objectives of the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for this study was 25 library staff from the 2 special libraries in Benue state. Data were collected using questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using percentage and mean scores. The findings revealed that, Lecture method, Job Rotation, Coaching Method, Mentorship, mention among others were accepted as methods used for staff development in special libraries The result also shows the problems associated with staff development in the special libraries to include lack of fund for developing library programmes, poor budgetary allocation to special libraries, lack of more sponsored programmes for staff development, discrimination against library staff by the management of parents' organizations and lack of due process in staff selection for trainings. The study also recommended establishment of a well written staff development policy, placement of non-qualified personnel to head libraries should be checkmated by regulatory bodies, discrimination against library staff by parent organizations should be discouraged and provision of adequate training facilities. The study concluded that staff development may not be the magical approach for enhancing effective library services even though the attitudes of staff is significant but special libraries in Benue state need to improve their services to meet the growing demand for information in the modern era despite all odds.


The reliquary of Jacques de Vitry, a prominent clergyman and theologian in the early 13th century, has experienced several transfers over the last centuries, which seriously question the attribution of the remains to the late Cardinal. Uncertainty about the year of his birth poses an additional question regarding his age at death in 1240. The reliquary, located in the Saint Marie d'Oigines church, Belgium, was reopened in 2015 for an interdisciplinary study around his relics as well as the Treasure of Oignies, a remarkable cultural heritage notably built from Jacques de Vitry's donation. Anthropological, isotopic and genetic analyses were performed independently on the remains found in the reliquary. Results of the analyses provided evidence that the likelihood that these remains are those of Jacques de Vitry is very high: the remains belong to the same human male individual and the historical tradition about his age is confirmed. In addition, a separate relic (left tibia) was analysed and found to match with the remains of the reliquary (right tibia). The unique Jacques de Vitry's mitre, made of parchment, was sampled non-destructively and the extracted parchment collagen was analysed by a proteomic method in order to determine the animal species. The results showed that, surprisingly, not all parts of the mitre were made from the same species. All together, these findings are expected to fertilize knowledge carried by historical tradition around the relics of Jacques de Vitry and his related cultural heritage.


Why do similar economic reforms often produce dissimilar outcomes? We examine the impact of institutional environment on reform outcomes, exploiting a particular moment of institutional change: the 2004 Orange Revolution, which resulted in a dramatic shift in the balance of power among regions in Ukraine. Using a unique panel dataset of over 7,000 Ukrainian manufacturing enterprises, we estimate change at the regional level in the effect of privatization on firm performance. Our analysis finds a marked decrease after the Orange Revolution in the relative effectiveness of privatization in regions that opposed Viktor Yushchenko during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.


Selecting good conference keywords is important because they often determine the composition of review committees and hence which papers are reviewed by whom. But presently conference keywords are generated in an ad-hoc manner by a small set of conference organizers. This approach is plainly not ideal. There is no guarantee, for example, that the generated keyword set aligns with what the community is actually working on and submitting to the conference in a given year. This is especially true in fast moving fields such as AI. The problem is exacerbated by the tendency of organizers to draw heavily on preceding years' keyword lists when generating a new set. Rather than a select few ordaining a keyword set that that represents AI at large, it would be preferable to generate these keywords more directly from the data, with input from research community members. To this end, we solicited feedback from seven AAAI PC members regarding a previously existing keyword set and used these 'community-sourced constraints' to inform a clustering over the abstracts of all submissions to AAAI 2013. We show that the keywords discovered via this data-driven, human-in-the-loop method are at least as preferred (by AAAI PC members) as 2013's manually generated set, and that they include categories previously overlooked by organizers. Many of the discovered terms were used for this year's conference.


Three small‐scale refraction and gradiometry experiments were performed to investigate whether off‐the‐shelf exploration geophones and seismographs can be used to perform meaningful gradiometry measurements. Relative calibration of the geophones was attempted through huddle tests and spectral measurements of ambient ground motions. The results show that relative gains cannot be completely characterized because of geophone/ground interaction. Numerical tests show that typically observed 4.5% gain errors introduce a standard deviation of 0.03  s/km and 1.97° about the correct input slowness and azimuth, respectively, for 100,000 realizations of synthetic array data. A standard linear refraction experiment was performed to investigate the slowness of P and Rayleigh waves from hammer sources to compare with measurements taken from two gradiometer designs. One design consists of four 6‐instrument gradiometers in a linear array to investigate the spatial and temporal variation of horizontal slowness and propagation azimuth for sources close to the array as well as to test the location abilities of the entire gradiometer array. Its location estimate for a shot 10 m from the center of the array using the two closest cells was close to the actual source position with a 1.38‐m error. The gradiometers were able to correctly determine the slowness values of the P and surface waves identified in the refraction profile. A second gradiometer experiment involves superimposed cells to explore precision in calculation of spatial gradients. Significant increases in the precision of the wave attributes occur when a larger number of averaged time‐shifted waveforms are used as the reference‐station displacement in place of a single‐reference‐station displacement waveform. The concept of center‐station correlation is introduced to avoid spurious amplitude errors from drastically affecting the wave parameter estimates. We conclude that the off‐the‐shelf equipment can be used to construct small dense gradiometer arrays that can be used to infer wave attributes that are important for the interpretation of wavefields in exploration seismology experiments.


Capitalizing on recent estimates of infrastructure financing requirements in Asia, this paper frames a scenario for infrastructure development in the region and estimates the external effects of infrastructure investment. It also assesses quantitatively the economy-wide welfare effects of developing regional infrastructure in Asia, using a global computable general equilibrium model. The results show that developing Asian economies would gain significantly from the expansion of regional infrastructure in transport and communication. With annual investment of around US$800 billion in transport, communication, and energy infrastructure during 2010-2020, developing Asia is likely to reap welfare gains of US$1,616.3 billion (in 2008 prices) in 2020, or 10% of projected aggregate gross domestic product.


The present study aimed at establishing the effectiveness of the Student Representative Council in Open and Distance Learning institutions. A case study was undertaken at the Zimbabwe Open University, in the Mashonaland East region which the researchers selected to understand in depth regardless of number of there being 10 regions in the ZOU. In order to make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Student Representative Council at the Zimbabwe Open University, this current study sought to find out what services were being offered by the SRC, how beneficial these services were and how effective the SRC had been in addressing student concerns. The study also aimed at unearthing the challenges which the SRC faced in their quest to provide effective student services. The respondents were drawn from all the 436 active ZOU students from the four faculties in Mashonaland East region duly registered for the August-December 2010 semester. A sample of 100 students was drawn and consisted of 10 Student Representative Council members, and 90 ordinary students. The responses from the students were solicited through the use of a questionnaire, for the ordinary students, while the student representatives` views were extracted through the use interviews. Findings revealed that at most, the SRC was not being effective in rendering the services for which they were elected. No meetings had been held with students although only one had been held with the Regional Administration. Students` grievances were obtained through a suggestion box once, but unfortunately, these had not been deliberated upon. The most dominating challenge was lack of funds and this made the majority of the SRC`s objectives unattainable during the 2010 academic year. For the effective functioning of the SRC, it is recommended that financial control of the students` monies should be devolved to regions in order to expedite disbursements to various service providers. For ease of coordination, office space should be availed to the SRC where the receive students` issues and sit for their meetings. There is also need for a vigorous campaign to have the students linked with their counterparts in universities inside and outside the country for exchange programmes.


Alcoholics Anonymous has developed an oral tradition for teaching people to alter their relation to their own desires and their own freedom fundamentally, teaching that is done through practice rather than through ideas. Our study of AA's innovative organisational tools for building long-lasting mutual-help groups shows that the same tools that build the organisation also exemplify and embody the organisation's ethical worldview. To that extent, AA's group practices are worth studying not only from the point of view of learning about bottom-up, non-expert-led networks but also to shed light on the development of a popular pragmatist ethics in which little techniques - anonymity, the focus on the 24-hour cycle, etc. - deconstruct the Kantian distinction between means and ends. This study of the everyday ethics of AA members argues that AA's unique role in the history of popular ethical practices can be traced to several original features. First, AA incorporates elements of the disease model of alcoholism while remaining fundamentally a spiritual programme, thus mapping an important hybrid terrain often ignored by students of medicalisation. Secondly, AA was able to steer away from the political controversies about temperance, prohibition, and control of alcoholic beverages that had made the old temperance movement founder. Thirdly and most importantly, AA uniquely managed to combine the once-in-a-lifetime experience of total transformation that is characteristic of religious conversion with the development of a series of slogans and mental techniques for dealing with the `trivial' details of life. This paper first outlines the hybrid terrain of AA, between medicine and religion, and then examines a few of the techniques that are at the core of AA's success, including anonymity, the Higher Power, and the twenty-four hour cycle.


The solvency asset management (SAM) project, a joint venture of the Financial Services Board (FSB), who is also an active member of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), and the South African insurance industry, will introduce a new risk-based supervisory regime for the prudential regulation of both the long-term and short-term insurance sectors in South Africa. SAM will be implemented in January 2014, with its final implementation due in January 2016.


A digital Video Stabilization (DVS) system removes the unwanted shaking in the videos acquired by hand-held cameras and preserves the panning. In this paper, a digital video stabilization system is proposed based upon adaptive cerebellar model articulation controller (CMAC) filtering. A CMAC is a manifestation of the associative memory learning structure present in the cerebellum of human being. Adaptive CMAC filtering has favorable properties of small size, good generalization, rapid learning and dynamic response. Thus, it is more suitable for high-speed signal processing applications. The adaptive CMAC is used to adjust the coefficients of IIR filter employed in the proposed model. The training of CMAC is based upon fuzzy rule. The efficacy of the proposed adaptive CMAC filtering has been validated by evaluating it on a set of test video sequences.