This article presents the results of a two-year research project on the Brazilian music festival Rock in Rio . The research consists of an analysis of the particular circumstances that led to the formation of the festival's multigenerational audience. Rock in Rio was held for the first time in 1985, soon after the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil, which lasted for more than 20 years (1964–1985). Meanwhile, Brazilian youth cultures were experiencing the emergence of a new local rock music scene that highlighted some of the country's most relevant social and political issues at that time. Since then, the festival's various editions, held in its hometown of Rio de Janeiro, have brought together wide audiences from different age groups.


Hypertension and estrogen deficiency in women have been identified as significant risk factors for cerebrovascular diseases. Hypertension causes excessive vascular stretch and contributes to the initiation of cellular injury in blood vessels while estrogen has been demonstrated to exert beneficial protective effects on the vascular system. Although the specific biological outcomes exerted by either excessive stretch or estrogen exposure are well established, the combined biochemical effects of both stimuli remain unclear. Therefore, this study was conducted for quantitative proteomics study on human cerebral microvascular endothelial cells (HCMECs) subjected to 20% "pathological" cyclic stretch for a period of 18 hour in the presence or absence of 17β-estradiol by isobaric Taqs for Relative and Absolute Quantification. The results showed that only some proteins responded to 17β-estradiol (e.g., thioredoxin reductase-1), stretch (e.g., 14- 3-3 protein epsilon or acidic leucine-rich nuclear phosphoprotein 32 family member B) and interestingly, some proteins returned to control pre-treatment levels when exposed to both (e.g., d-dopachrome decarboxylase, thrombospondin-1). In addition, HCMECs that exposed only to estrogen had a very similar proteomic profile (i.e., up-regulation of structural, cellular adhesion and proliferation proteins) as to those exposed to estrogen with 20% stretching for 18 hour, suggesting that estrogen ablated the detrimental effects by the stretch alone. These findings sheds light on the molecular mechanisms by which the cerebrovascular protective actions of estrogen on HCMEC exposed to pathological levels of cyclic stretch which could provide a platform for future research in therapeutic approach. DOI :  http://dx.doi.org./10.17576/JSKM-2018-09


In this paper we describe the major trends in China's income inequality over the past 40 years and explain them as the outcome of four interleaved stories. The first story is a standard development story characterized by structural change, market development, labour absorption, and the Kuznets inverted-U path of inequality. The second is the economic transition story, in which changes in income distribution result from the shift from plan to market. Third is incomplete transition, with opportunities for rent-seeking, corruption, and hidden income. Fourth is the story of government efforts to moderate inequality through social and welfare policies.


It is conceivably important that demographic variables such as gender may have an impact on community of inquiry (CoI) and perceived learning. This study is in response with Garrison et al. (2010) who suggest that there is a need to determine moderation effects of gender on the relationship between CoI elements and perceived learning. A total of 348 undergraduate students were drawn from blended programs in three public universities in Malaysia to be the sample of the study. As research instrumentation, participation in online and face to face session, the community of inquiry questionnaire, and a perceived learning scale were distributed among the respondents. All the questionnaires were validated by a panel of experts, reliability of the instrument was tested in a pilot study and assumptions of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were checked before analyzing the data. The findings of the study have shown that although differences between the two groups of undergraduate students (male and female) were statistically significant, the amount of differences were not enough to moderate the relationship between CoI components and perceived learning in undergraduate blended learning environments. However, the findings indicate that differences between the two groups of undergraduate students (male and female) were statistically significant.


New sedimentological and fossil-diagenetic information from remains of four dinosaurs is herein provided. The fossil material was preserved in deposits of different fluvial sub-environments from the middle section of the Lago Colhué Huapi Formation, Golfo San Jorge Basin. In all the studied cases, the bone structure originally constituted by hydroxyapatite was modified by ionic substitution to francolite. The fossil remains contained in fine lithoarenites with high clay minerals content, affected by lithostatic compression, exhibit plastic deformation and intense fracturing which affected the bone microstructure. The francolite presents cavernous texture with high crystallinity index and a lower carbonate content, evidencing processes of mineral dissolution in an acidic environment. The hematite is present as crusts and nodules on the surface of the bones and internally at the edges of the vascular channels. It is related to the precipitation of iron oxide in well oxygenated areas with fluctuating water table. The permineralization of the vascular channels with hematite and well-developed crystals of fluorapatite of neoformation, would have occurred during the early diagenesis. By contrast, the fossil remains contained in coarse lithoarenites with scarce clay minerals, have been less affected by lithostatic compression and are better preserved. The francolite exhibits a massive texture with a lower index of crystallinity and higher carbonate concentration. The permineralization of the vascular channels with hematite and well-developed crystals of calcite would have occurred in an alkaline environment during the late diagenesis. In the four study-cases it could be determined that the crystallinity indexes of the francolite and the carbonate content, display a positive correlation with the relative increase of fluorine content and the fragility of the fossil remains. Therefore, the sedimentological and fossil-diagenetic studies, in particular the permineralization processes in the vascular channels, enhance our understanding of the physical and chemical conditions that prevailed during the lithification and fossilization of the remains in different fluvial sub-environments from the Lago Colhué Huapi Formation.


Teaching and the student experience are interlocked. This paper takes a personal look at the pleasures and pressures of teaching in contemporary higher education. In doing so it adds to the definition of teachers' work in higher education, surveys some of the creative and positive sides of University teaching and shines a light upon the impact of increased commercialisation and managerial approaches upon academic work. It focuses upon the teaching and learning activities that academics undertake in the service of the university, including the research that adds to and updates their own knowledge, and hence underpins their teaching, so as to enable and enrich the learning journeys of their students. This paper has been written as a personal narrative, as what I have come to call a 'subjective academic narrative'. The 'subjective' refers to acknowledgement of the inevitability of the personal being an integral part of research; the 'academic' refers to the analytical and the intellectual ambience in which university research takes place; and the 'narrative' refers to the story, that is, the way in which we re-tell all of our research. Above all, this paper contributes to a sense of understanding some of the elements of teaching that are involved in student engagement.


The classic, award winning novels. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird have always been questioned as proper reading for children and young adults since both books mostly refer to the uncomfortable issue of racism in the south. Such serious undercurrents within the novels, however, are presented through the perspective of the main children characters, Huck and Scout. Within the boundaries of the setting of time, place and society, they are acquainted with two different forms of racism: slavery and segregation . Through a sequence of initiation process, they eventually oppose the society's value of racism. From the topic presented in this thesis, the writer wants to reveal the process of character development that occurs on the children. Therefore, the writer of this thesis attempts to compare every early racist attitudes that reveal the children's traits, die conflicts which serves as initiations and their latter anti-racist attitudes that prove their changing traits. Analyzing both novels, the writer is going to use a comparative study, setting, characterization and conflict to learn how the children are forming themselves as anti-racists from their initial conducts which cany the essence of racism. The children's character development from immaturity to maturity gives them a better knowledge of the world, helps them recognize the deviated social values, and leads them to the ability to take a stand in the issue of racism. Commencing from his naive initial state of mind, Huck nurtures his defiance against racism by valuing his friendship to Jim, whereas Scout comprehends the bitter facts of racial discrimination in her society under the guide of wise Atticus. The children, having been nurtured with the very core of racism in their society through all their life, gradually determine to change their perspective towards the blacks.


Summary Identification of plant hybrids produced from closely related species can be difficult using morphological characteristics alone, particularly when identifying young seedlings. In this study, we compared the performance of three calibration models developed to discriminate between seedlings of Eucalyptus globulus, E. nitens and their first-generation hybrid using either foliar oil chemistry or near-infrared reflectance spectral data from fresh, whole leaves. Both oil and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) models were developed using partial least-squares discriminant analysis and showed high classification accuracy, all correctly classifying more than 91% of samples in cross-validation. Additionally, we developed a larger, "global" and independently validated NIRS model specifically to discriminate between E. globulus and F1 hybrid seedlings of different ages. This model correctly classified 98.1% of samples in cross-validation and 95.1% of samples from an independent test set. These results show that NIRS analysis of fresh, whole leaves can be used as a rapid and accurate alternative to chemical analysis for the purpose of hybrid identification.


Network monitoring is a basic component for intrusion detection and also an energy-expensive task. However in the existing works the contradiction between energy efficiency and security of network monitoring isnpsilat well handled. In this paper, we propose SpyMon, a network monitoring mechanism for the sensor network. To achieve energy-efficiency and reliability, a subset of sensor nodes are randomly selected as monitors in the network and each sensor node is monitored by at least k nodes. For the resistance against the attacks, the monitors are protected from identity exposure to prevent them becoming the explicit targets of adversaries. A collective monitoring triggering scheme is also proposed to further improve the capability and reliability of monitoring. Our analysis shows that SpyMon is resilient against node compromise while attaining energy efficiency.


An analytical solution for the sheath dynamics of an asymmetrically driven capacitively coupled plasma is obtained under the assumptions of time-independent, collisionless ion motion, inertialess electrons, and uniform current density. Modeling is performed considering that the plasma is driven by a nonsinusoidal radio frequency (rf) current which can be resolved into a finite number of harmonic components. Together with different sheath parameters the equation for the bulk plasma impedance is also obtained to calculate the overall plasma impedance and the overall rf voltage. Assuming equal plate areas the solution for a symmetric discharge is also obtainable from this model. We have found that the even harmonic components of rf voltage and impedance are always present, even in a symmetric discharge. Experimental results are shown to be in qualitative agreement with the theoretical model. The values of normalized rf voltage and impedance harmonics assume lower values as the asymmetry of the plasma chamber...


The environmental performance and management disclosure of organisations has over the past decade come under increased scrutiny due to a number of factors including, in particular, the impact organisations have had on the world's environment and the corresponding rapid change in the world's climate. These concerns have made organisations, including financial institutions, review the level of their environmental performance and management disclosures to demonstrate, amongst other objectives, their level of social responsibility. Financial institutions due to the nature of their business are not generally seen to contribute directly to the degradation of the environment however they do provide the funds for many organisations' projects which do directly impact on the environment. This paper will review the environmental performance and management disclosures of two note issuing banks in Hong Kong; the Hongkong and Shangihai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited (BOCHK) from 2003 to 2006. This review will be conducted with reference to the Equator Principles, a voluntary environmental performance framework, which were developed specifically for financial institutions. The second purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on legitimation theory with specific reference to the social constructionalist perspective of legitimation.


This volume adopts a unique, multidisciplinary approach to the study of the development of the human brain and early behavior. It includes chapters by researchers from several disciplines whose work addresses specific aspects of brain-behavioral interactions in development. The chapters provide strong evidence that the development of both brain and behavior is a response to biological and environmental variations. Language is also discussed, and provides a useful example of biosocial development because linguistic and brain functions and development can be examined under controlled conditions of both genetic and environmental deprivation. Research in this area has produced particularly exciting results pointing to the universality of language capacity among humans and illuminating the processes by which language competence develops. Brain Maturation and Cognitive Development provides new views in the understanding of human nature and present new, biosocially oriented research directions that are unique in their focus.


We present an efficient nonlinear data assimilation filter that combines particle filtering with the nested sampling algorithm. Particle filters (PF) utilize a set of weighted particles as a discrete representation of probability distribution functions (PDF). These particles are propagated through the system dynamics and their weights are sequentially updated based on the likelihood of the observed data. Nested sampling (NS) is an efficient sampling algorithm that iteratively builds a discrete representation of the posterior distributions by focusing a set of particles to high‐likelihood regions. This would allow the representation of the posterior PDF with a smaller number of particles and reduce the effects of the curse of dimensionality. The proposed nested sampling particle filter (NSPF) iteratively builds the posterior distribution by applying a constrained sampling from the prior distribution to obtain particles in high‐likelihood regions of the search space, resulting in a reduction of the number of particles required for an efficient behaviour of particle filters. Numerical experiments with the 3‐dimensional Lorenz63 and the 40‐dimensional Lorenz96 models show that NSPF outperforms PF in accuracy with a relatively smaller number of particles.


An airborne geophysical survey of the whole of Northern Ireland was flown by the Geological
Survey of Northern Ireland in 2005 and 2006 as part of the Tellus project funded by the
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment of Northern Ireland and by the Rural
Development Programme through the Northern Ireland Programme for Building Sustainable
Prosperity. Magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric data were acquired at 200 m line spacing
and a flying height of 56 m (240 m over built-up areas) using the Joint Airborne Capability of
the British Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Finland. In total, 82,000 line-km of
data were acquired. The radiometric data were collected as full 256 channel gamma-ray spectra
every 1 s or approximately 70 m of ground coverage. The Tellus project also included a baseline
geochemical survey of Northern Ireland for which 22,000 samples, of soils, stream sediments
and stream waters, were collected.
A preliminary assessment of the radiometric data has been carried out to illustrate the type of
features present in the dataset, at both regional and local scales, and provide pointers to possible
areas of future research. At the scale of the whole of Northern Ireland the data reflect the major
solid geological subdivisions; the Lower Palaeozoic greywackes and Palaeogene intrusives of the
SE have relatively high K, U and Th contents. In contrast the Palaeogene basalts in the NE have
much lower radioelement concentrations, although Palaeogene rhyolites, and inliers of
Palaeozoic and Precambrian rocks in this area, have higher values. Surrounding the basalts to the
south and west, the Triassic sedimentary rocks have moderate K, eU and eTh levels. The more
heterogeneous geology of the western part of Northern Ireland is reflected in the radiometric data
with juxtaposed areas of relatively high and low radioelement content. Formation boundaries
within the basement and Upper Palaeozoic rocks, sometimes faulted, are clear in places as ENEWSW
and NE-SE-trending features.


Current strategies to stem global biodiversity losses are struggling to be effective, and this is particularly acute for threatened ecosystems with limited options under climate change. Our social-ecological assessments of the alpine landscapes of the Australian Alps and the predominantly agricultural landscape of the Tasmanian Midlands suggest that the future challenge for these focal systems are inevitable transformation for biodiversity. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the resilience assessment techniques we used together with stakeholders in both case study contexts to determine key drivers of change, construct future scenarios, and diagnose institutional and governance arrangements to identify points of intervention. For the Australian Alps, we found that changes in invasive processes, fire regimes and the tourism industry brought on by climate change were key drivers affecting biodiversity outcomes, along with changes in community values and attitudes. For the Tasmanian Midlands, the key drivers were farmer profitability and social and human capital. Our novel contribution has been to explicitly address governance influences as an integral part of all the techniques we used. Improving biodiversity outcomes requires proactive human intervention, but such efforts can be undermined if inherent and persistent governance failures are not addressed. For the Australian Alps, the process of negotiating system transformation requires deliberate and inclusive governance approaches through which all stakeholders can collectively address the inevitable loss, attempt to minimise the resulting value deficits, and identify and seek to take advantage of new possibilities. Having governance arrangements that enable flexible, adaptive management and comprehensive engagement of stakeholders are critical to shaping desired futures. The approach and tools we used can be readily applied to other landscape-scale biodiversity planning contexts.


Group multi-disciplinary projects face difficult challenges in social collaboration, diverse technologies and aesthetic grounds. Combining sound, image and space into a sufficiently malleable set of materials for creation is a complex task. As such projects lack a common ground from which to start, an experimental, practical approach is suggested, with a non-hierarchical, informal group structure. The Meta-Orchestra project, tackling these problems since 2000, re-engaged with the issues in a fourth meeting in Maastricht in 2004. This paper lays out the context of multi-disciplinary work, influenced by developments in computer technologies, by outlining the changed roles of the orchestra, the score and audio-visual theories. The Meta-Orchestra is described against a theoretical frame of social, technical and aesthetic considerations. Although the project will not be forced into this framework, descriptions of the palette, the strategies to create common grounds, the areas opened up by wireless network technologies, aesthetic issues of layering sounds and images, and the development of a central score system, illustrate the layered complexities of the Meta-Orchestra.


Image retouching, aiming to regenerate the visually pleasing renditions of given images, is a subjective task where the users are with different aesthetic sensations. Most existing methods deploy a deterministic model to learn the retouching style from a specific expert, making it less flexible to meet diverse subjective preferences. Besides, the intrinsic diversity of an expert due to the targeted processing on different images is also deficiently described. To circumvent such issues, we propose to learn diverse image retouching with normalizing flow-based architectures. Unlike current flow-based methods which directly generate the output image, we argue that learning in a style domain could (i) disentangle the retouching styles from the image content, (ii) lead to a stable style presentation form, and (iii) avoid the spatial disharmony effects. For obtaining meaningful image tone style representations, a joint-training pipeline is delicately designed, which is composed of a style encoder, a conditional RetouchNet, and the image tone style normalizing flow (TSFlow) module. In particular, the style encoder predicts the target style representation of an input image, which serves as the conditional information in the RetouchNet for retouching, while the TSFlow maps the style representation vector into a Gaussian distribution in the forward pass. After training, the TSFlow can generate diverse image tone style vectors by sampling from the Gaussian distribution. Extensive experiments on MIT-Adobe FiveK and PPR10K datasets show that our proposed method performs favorably against state-of-the-art methods and is effective in generating diverse results to satisfy different human aesthetic preferences. Source code and pre-trained models are publicly available at https://github.com/SSRHeart/TSFlow.


The development of mass higher education has forced the diversification of the traditional university model because the university, where  research and teaching are accorded equal weight, is difficult for the modern state to finance at all institutions that teach at a higher education level.  Diversification has been driven by competition between universities in research and by the effect of market forces on student choice and enrollment (Dill,2003).  The growth of the private university is one indication of this, and a powerful indication of the forces of change; the pressure for universities to play a greater role in stimulating their local and regional economies is perhaps another. But the growth of university entrepreneurialism – of the institution and within the institution – represents a further element of diversification.   If universities become more orientated to markets, more driven by individual initiative, more subject to risk taking, they are more entrepreneurial. The more entrepreneurial universities become, the more they also require entrepreneurial leadership. Key words: Higher Institution of Learning, Leadership, Entrepreneurial Leadership, Entrepreneurialism, Creativity, Innovation


The term 'spatial media' has traditionally been used to describe the intersections between information and geography. It signifies information that describes, or is about, a particular place. A street map of Chicago, geographic data files about Copenhagen, a postcard with a picture of Oxford on it, a travel guide to Sweden, are all examples of spatial media; in other words, information about geography.
It was only relatively recently that geographic information became so easily infused into spatial media. For most of human history, geographic information was tethered onto particular parts of the world. It passed from person to person, often changing because it was so difficult to attach it to stable containers. But then, a succession of technological advancements (like papyrus and the printing press) allowed for the invention of books, newspapers, maps, and other media. What these mediums had in common was that they that fixed geographic information to its containers: they made it immutable. A paper map for instance, could be moved from place to place without the map itself changing.
This chapter, however, is about something different that has recently happened to spatial media. What has occurred is not just a move from mutable geographic information to immutable geographic information, but also the increasing proliferation of what could be called 'augmented spatial media.' Instead of just being fixed to containers, information can now augment and be tethered to places; it can form parts of the layers or palimpsests of place (Graham et. al., 2013). A building or a street can now be more than stone, bricks, and glass; it is also constructed of information that hovers over that place: invisible to the naked eye, but accessible with appropriate technological affordances. In other words, while it has long been argued that "the map is not the territory" (Korzybski, 1948; Harley, 1989; Crampton, 2001), this chapter argues is that the map is indeed becoming part of the territory.


The objective was to determine whether the Elders Risk Assessment Index can predict multi-disciplinary team referral of older patients (≥ 65 years) in Emergency Department same-day discharges. The study identified 1,376 qualifying individuals from a regional New Zealand hospital database. Of these, 12.7 % were referred to the multi-disciplinary team. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore associations between the Index, its components, and other demographic factors with referral. With every unit increase in the Index there was a 9% increase in the odds of being referred. When the components of the Index were analysed separately, an increased likelihood of being referred was associated with not being married, having had a previous hospital admission of more than five days, having chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and being older. Conversely, a decreased likelihood was associated with having diabetes. When non-Index items were analysed it was found that females were more likely to be referred than males and that Māori were less likely to be referred than New Zealand Europeans. With adaptation, the Elders Risk Assessment Index may provide a simple, cost-effective, and timely tool to assist in determining the need for multi-disciplinary team referral for older people who present to the Emergency Department.


Positively addressing and resolving staff grievances within a school is imperative for effective schooling and leadership. Often overlooked in grievance procedures are the role/s of stakeholders especially those in authority (e.g., Principals or School Leaders). Content and Leximancer analysis are two useful methodological tools used in tandem which can specifically assist in understanding the process/es undertaken to positively resolve grievance in terms of procedures, roles of individuals and outcomes in line with policy. Content and Leximancer analysis were used to review 10 formal archival files between the periods of 1973 until 1987 from a secondary school secure repository in Tasmania. Content analysis was used to capture broad themes, essences, and trends common in archived formal grievance files which have led to identifying incidents in terms of their nature and severity. Leximancer analysis was used to look at key ideas, concepts, and common words mandated by Human Resource policy documentation; this assisted in assessing whether appropriate procedures and processes were followed leading up to positive resolution. Content analysis revealed that disputes regarding behaviours (e.g., bullying) appeared to have resolved within five working days and, required no further action from school leadership. However, Leximancer analysis identified that the grievance procedure in this school had a focus on producing measurable outcomes (e.g., reducing the bullying) rather than solutions (e.g., restoring an effective working relationship after bullying has ceased). Content analysis allowed for a multi-layered consideration as it assisted in unpacking the grievance in terms of behaviour, and Leximancer analysis provided a clear link in identifying how outcomes were achieved in line with policy and whether they resulted in positively resolving the grievance.


Abstract In response to foraging for foods that fluctuate in availability, generalists often exhibit the ability to switch between different food sources. Many of the Carnivora on an omnivorous–frugivorous diet display temporal dietary switching and specialism, but the mechanisms underlying this are incompletely understood. Here we studied the diet of the opportunistically frugivorous yellow-throated marten (Martes flavigula) with regard to food-resource exploitation in a subtropical forest of central China. Diet was determined through scat analyses combined with surveys to estimate local food abundance. Peak fruit consumption and the lowest utilization of small mammals occurred when fruit abundance reached its temporal maximum in the environment in synchrony with a concomitant peak in small mammal abundance. When both fruits and small mammals were least abundant in the environment, the marten's diet shifted to the maximum utilization of small mammals with no fruit consumption. This dietary switching could not be explained by the fluctuation in the abundance of principal prey in the environment, that is, small mammals, but by the ease of procurement of fruit at peak fruiting season. The marten's diet thus does not simply reflect primary resource abundance but is a function of the relative abundance and inferred availability of alternative food types. This case study of the yellow-throated marten provides insight into foraging strategies that depend on the relative, temporal availability of food types, a phenomenon observed for other generalist omnivores (including several Carnivora).


MXenes are the newest class of two-dimensional (2D) materials, and they offer great potential in a wide range of applications including electronic devices, sensors, and thermoelectric and energy storage materials. In this work, we combined the outstanding electrical conductivity, that is essential for battery applications, of graphene with MXene monolayers (M2CX2 where M = Sc, Ti, V and X = OH, O) to explore its potential in Li battery applications. Through first principles calculations, we determined the stable stacking configurations of M2CX2/graphene bilayer heterostructures and their Li atom intercalation by calculating the Li binding energy, diffusion barrier and voltage. We found that: (1) for the ground state stacking, the interlayer binding is strong, yet the interlayer friction is small; (2) Li binds more strongly to the O-terminated monolayer, bilayer and heterostructure MXene systems when compared with the OH-terminated MXenes due to the H+ induced repulsion to the Li atoms. The binding energy of Li decreases as the Li concentration increases due to enhanced repulsive interaction between the positively charged Li ions; (3) Ti2CO2/graphene and V2CO2/graphene heterostructures exhibit large Li atom binding energies making them the most promising candidates for battery applications. When fully loaded with Li atoms, the binding energy is −1.43 eV per Li atom and −1.78 eV per Li atom for Ti2CO2/graphene and V2CO2/graphene, respectively. These two heterostructures exhibit a nice compromise between storage capacity and kinetics. For example, the diffusion barrier of Li in Ti2CO2/graphene is around 0.3 eV which is comparable to that of graphite. Additionally, the calculated average voltages are 1.49 V and 1.93 V for Ti2CO2/graphene and V2CO2/graphene structures, respectively; (4) a small change in the in-plane lattice parameters (<1%), interatomic bond lengths and interlayer distances (<0.5 A) proves the stability of the heterostructures against Li intercalation, and the impending phase separation into constituent layers and capacity fading during charge–discharge cycles in real battery applications; (5) as compared to bare M2CX2 bilayers, M2CX2/graphene heterostructures have lower molecular mass, offering high storage capacity; (6) the presence of graphene ensures good electrical conductivity that is essential for battery applications. Given these advantages, Ti2CO2/graphene and V2CO2/graphene heterostructures are predicted to be promising for lithium-ion battery applications.


How do public administrators find information about the problems they confront at work? In particular, how and when do they reach across organizational boundaries to find answers? There are substantial potential obstacles to such searches for answers, especially in a system of decentralized governance such as the U.S. government. In this article, we examine the alternative mechanisms within the public sector that compensate for this dispersion of expertise, focusing on knowledge sharing across public DNA forensics laboratories. In particular, we propose that the emergence of informal interpersonal networks plays an important role in providing access to necessary expertise within a highly decentralized system. Our findings point both to the need for further research on knowledge sharing networks within the public sector as well as practical implications around the value of investments into facilitating the creation and maintenance of networks of practice.


DOI: 10.14254/2071789X.2018/11-4/3 ABSTRACT. Comparative analysis of the EU countries' socioeconomic indicators is carried out here along with the systematic analysis of the global and the EU strategic documents, the European Commission's communiqués, the European Commission's (committees') and individual working groups' studies on employment issues. Potential scenarios for increasing employment are considered basing on the analysis of socioeconomic conditions in Lithuania. The article uses the methods of systematic scientific literature analysis, general and logical analysis, comparison, summation and abstraction as well as the mathematical and statistical processing methods. Situation analysis is based on the data of the Eurostat, specialized surveys and the results of statistical calculations. The article substantiates that in order to increase employment, efficient resource allocation and targeted economic policy focused on social problems of the country are needed, and appropriate measures for its implementation are proposed. Employment-friendly macroeconomic policy-making is seen here as a fundamental strategic guideline to address the problems of employment and social economic inequality. Green economy and green jobs' development are one of the priority directions in increasing employment in Lithuania. Employment policy guidance in green technologies (renewable energy sources, recycling, and green building), the green economy, and promotion of professional skills in this area are recommended. Transition to green economy, eco-villages and ecological communities would be one of the fundamental directions in increasing employment among the most vulnerable groups. Furthermore, regional policies must be intensified in Lithuania to enhance economic (investment) and social attractiveness of less populated areas.


Is it possible to design a bargaining institution that will substantially improve the international trade negotiations conducted in a multilateral basis? Rausser and Simon [1991] propose a multilateral bargaining (MB) institution which has many attractive theoretical properties, and which appears to be general enough to encompass realistic classes of trade negotiation problems. Harrison, McCabe, Rausser and Simon [1992] provide some elementary "stress tests" of the MB institution in the form of laboratory experiments using contrived preferences. In this paper I extend the "lab stress testing" to assess the outcomes that the MB institution would theoretically achieve using less contrived negotiation problems. In section 2 I present a brief overview of the main properties of the MB institution, including a series of "large" numerical examples. These examples are still contrived in the sense of employing artificial preference structures, but are useful to illustrate the general numerical properties of the model. They provide the backdrop to our simulations using more realistic preference structures appropriate for negotiations over trade policies. In section 3 I review alternative approaches to estimating "realistic" policy preferences. In section 4 I employ one of these methods to generate some preference structures over agricultural trade policy reforms, and solve the resulting MB game.


By embracing the affordances offered by broadband, new digital tools and increasingly open platforms, Australia's principal national public broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is positioning itself as a media organisation that not only creates high quality, relevant content, but one that also seeks partnerships with audiences, enabling them to create their own content and participate at the local, national and even global level to identify, and engage with issues that matter to them.


To develop a more sustainable district; two major systems need to be changed; more renewable energy generation and increasing the efficiency of current real estate. On this moment, no real investment is made due to a split-incentive by both systems. In this research a solution is searched by the developing the concept of a Local Energy Coalition community (LECC). A financial model is developed to determine if a LECC should invest in their own district to become energy autarky. This is done by modeling a geothermal installation in System Dynamics. The System Dynamics model calculates the profit of such investment, due to using a scenario driven planning model. The results of these methods are valued by the Net Present Value and the real option theory. The results are the financial options for a LECC to start developing a business model.


Common species, defined as those which are widely distributed and/or abundant,
tend to be ignored in terms of their conservation and ecological significance. The
general understanding is that they are too widespread to be in any danger of
extinction and that, in comparison to rare taxa, they do not fulfill critical or
specialized ecosystem functions. Very few studies though have actually examined
the ecological functions of common species.
A text book example of a common species, the rhesus macaque Macaca
mulatta, has been intensively studied for many biological aspects, yet nothing is
known about its role in maintaining ecosystem structure and functions. In this study,
I investigated the role of rhesus macaques in fulfilling an important ecosystem
function, namely seed dispersal. Seed dispersal is a critical ecological process that
drives tropical forest recruitment and the recolonization and restoration of degraded
habitats. Although many primate species are considered important seed dispersers,
common macaque species, including the rhesus macaque, have been traditionally
undervalued in this regard. However, land use changes resulting in loss of forest
cover have led to the loss of large numbers of primate populations globally. In such
a scenario, the importance of ecologically resilient primate species, characterized by
dietary flexibility and ability to thrive in a variety of habitats, increases manifold. It
has, in fact, been suggested that in many parts of tropical and subtropical Asia,
where forests are fragmented or native mammal fauna has gone extinct,
disturbance‐tolerant macaques like the rhesus macaque Macaca mulatta, the bonnet
macaque M. radiata and the long‐tailed macaque M. fascicularis may be the only seed
dispersers, especially for the large fruit/seed bearing species.
Based on their large group and home range sizes, occasional high levels of
frugivory, and dietary flexibility, I predicted that rhesus macaques may be
potentially effective seed dispersers. To test my prediction I examined seed dispersal
effectiveness in rhesus macaques in terms of (i) number of fruit species dispersed, (ii)
rates of seed predation, (iii) seed handling methods and (iv) germination and
establishment rates of dispersed seeds. I also investigated how certain ecological and
behavioural parameters such as resource availability, fruit trait preference and access
to human food subsidies may impact seed dispersal effectiveness in rhesus
macaques. Resource availability fluctuates in all ecosystems and the existence of distinct
dry and wet seasons regulates the availability of fruits in forests. Studies on rhesus
macaque diets have reported extremely variable levels of frugivory. Fruit
consumption is often a function of fruit availability in the habitat. Although
seasonality in dietary patterns has been noted in rhesus macaques in some studies,
levels of frugivory in forest-dwelling rhesus macaques have rarely been studied in
relation to fruit availability. Therefore, I examined how seasonal resource availability
influences frugivory in rhesus macaques and in turn affects their role as seed
dispersers.
Primate fruit consumption may be driven by particular fruit characteristics
and the latter are generally construed to be adaptations for effective seed dispersal.
Hence I also investigated if rhesus macaques show preference for certain fruit
species or fruit traits and the implications of this for seed dispersal by rhesus
macaques.
Throughout history, humans and primates have co-existed in diverse cultures
and contexts and provisioning wild primates is a socio-religious tradition in many
Asian countries, including India. Provisioned primate troops have been observed to
decrease their consumption of natural plant parts, their mean daily and home ranges
and spend more time resting and less time feeding and foraging. Since changes in
ranging and feeding behavior may bring about changes in the ecological functions of
species, the third aspect of my study was to assess how human interference in the
form of providing food subsidies to rhesus macaques impacts their role as seed
dispersers.
I conducted my study July, 2012 to September, 2014 at the Buxa Tiger Reserve
in West Bengal, India on two troops of rhesus macaques – Troop C that was wholly
dependent on natural resources and Troop D that was provisioned by humans for
some months in a year. The methods I used to address my research questions
comprised (i) behavioural observations on macaque individuals, (ii) phenological
monitoring of tree species, (iii) documentation of fruit and seed traits, (iv) GPS
tagging of dispersed seeds and (iv) in situ and ex situ germination experiments. My
findings showed that rhesus macaques dispersed 84 % of the 49 species they fed on
by spitting or defecation. More than 60% of macaque-handled seeds were deposited
outside the tree canopy, 96 % of handled seeds were undamaged and 61 % of the
species for which germination tests were performed had enhanced germination.
Fifty percent of monitored seeds germinated in situ and 22 % established seedlings. These results attest that rhesus macaques are important seed dispersers in tropical
forests.
Fruit consumption was positively correlated with fruit availability; the
macaques acted as seed dispersers all the year round for a broad range of species.
Dietary fruit evenness was negatively correlated with fruit availability. This implies
that the macaques showed preference for certain species. In terms of fruit traits,
rhesus macaques primarily fed on fruits with juicy-soft pulp and acted as seed
predators for those with no discernible pulp. The other preferred fruit traits were
soft skins, medium to large seeds and true stone-like seeds. Irrespective of fruit
availability, macaque frugivory (and therefore seed dispersal) declined with
increasing degree of provisioning. Macaque daily ranges also decreased during
provisioning, resulting in shorter dispersal distances. Additionally, macaquehandled
seeds were usually deposited on tarmac roads during provisioning periods,
thereby precluding seed germination.
Wildlife conservation practices are often driven by the risk of species
extinction, hence common species are typically overlooked in conservation
initiatives. However, although common primate species are highly adaptable, they
are not neutral to various anthropogenic pressures such as habitat degradation,
forest fragmentation and poaching. The population trend of rhesus macaques is
presently unknown but their habitat size is declining rapidly. Due to their
commensality, they are also often in conflict with humans and are regarded as pests.
The findings of my thesis clearly demonstrate that the rhesus macaque fulfils
important ecological functions within its natural habitat and that reduction in rhesus
population numbers or even local extinction may result in serious consequences for
the ecosystem. Based on the results of my study, I suggest that the regeneration and
recruitment of preferred plant species alongside afforestation programmes involving
these species may prevent rhesus macaques from gravitating towards human
habitations and getting into conflict over shared resources. My study also
demonstrates the negative impacts of provisioning on rhesus macaque ecological
functions. Preventing or curbing provisioning is however not an easy task as
provisioning wild animals is a socio-cultural tradition across much of South and
South-East Asia, including India. Hence I recommend the initiation of a nation-wide
literacy programme that educates lay citizens about the ill-effects of provisioning
and strongly cautions them against the practice. I also advocate the need for rhesus
population monitoring programs across the geographic range of the species, so that timely interventions can be made, if required, to ensure that they remain 'common'
and of 'least concern'.


The need to promote academic activities in telehealth remains a high priority as the discipline expands into new areas of healthcare. Response during 2020 to the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an excellent example of the rapid diversification and impact attainable with telehealth, and may kindle a new momentum for accelerated service design and adoption processes in the future. This book, Telehealth Innovations in Remote Healthcare Services Delivery, is the tenth in the Global Telehealth series. Due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions placed on academic gatherings, the organizers issued a general call for contributions, with the intention of attracting a wide cross-section of contributions reflecting the breadth of different aspects of telehealth internationally. The resulting collection offers snapshots of research projects and studies of service experience from five continents, with an emphasis on delivering benefits in regional settings in keeping with the theme of the book's title. Articles range from descriptions of telehealth networks and clinical-service instances such as cardiac health, mental health and pathology, several in Pacific-rim settings, to more generic papers on the evolution of such services, as well as commentaries on innovative considerations for telehealth such as the emergence of the concept of virtual care, the suitability of health apps, and the status of eHealth readiness in the developing world. This book is a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge on current telehealth research interests and trends, and will be of interest to all those working in the field. © 2021 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.


This paper examined the familiarity and competence of agricultural extension staff with and in use of ICT devices for communication to and with farmers. The specific objectives were to ascertain extension officers ' familiarity with ICT devices; identify perceived ICT capability competence of extension officers; and identify perceived challenges facing extension staff use of ICT devices. One hundred and twenty (120) extension staff of the Imo ADP were purposively selected and interviewed. Percentage and mean were used to analyse the data. The findings reveal that the extension agents were familiar with radio, television, computers, internet, projector, printer, ipads, ipods, web-boards, interactive white boards among others. They have the ability to use computers, knowledge of the internet, use computers to solve problems, data processing and sending text messages - Lack of training in ICTs, poor infrastructure, and poor power supply, high cost of ICT devices and high cost of maintenance were challenges facing extension personnel in ICT use. To improve ICT use by extension offices, training should be given regularly to staff, availability of maintenance shops be encouraged and cost of ICT device be brought low.


ABSTRACT The very recent past has seen an upswing of scholarly interest not so much in the Internet and Web themselves but in the terms in which they have been discussed and understood. This article examines a remarkable effusion of writing in the 1990s that addressed the spiritual and ethical implications of "cyberspace". Christian critics reacted in different ways to prophecies of technological revolution. Some saw ethical challenges in relation to economic and social exclusion and the nature of interpersonal relations. Others elaborated a semi-mystical evolutionary understanding of the Web as an ontologically concrete "space". Others again revived older anxieties about the challenge apparently posed to human uniqueness and autonomy posed by computerisation more generally, which cyberspace threatened to magnify. However, this thinking did not occur in isolation from the sweep of Anglophone social thought. I suggest instead that the wider discourse about the ethics of the Internet and Web, both learned and popular, was infused at every level with religious imagery. As such, the article contributes to the ongoing debate on the extent to which the cultures of the UK and North America have been secularised: even if religious observance has declined, the English language still bears the marks of its Christian past.


Myostatin (MSTN) gene plays a key role in skletal muscle homeostasis such as inducing muscle athrophy, poliferation of myoblast, increasing ubiquitin-proteasomal, downregulating IGF pathway, and glucolysis. Myostatin gene expression is controled by CpG island located in promoter region. The objectives of this research were to identify polymorphism of MSTN promoter gene and to associate the polymorphism of SNP with growth and muscling traits in Bali cattle. A total of 48 Bali cattle from BPTU-HMT Bali island was screened to identify genetic polymorphisms in MSTN promoter region using sequencing method. The growth and muscling traits were measured at 12 months of age. The muscling traits were evaluated using ultrasound console with linear transducer having frequency 6.5 Hz and scaning we conducted at 130 mm in deep. Analysis of polymorphism was conducted by using PopGen 1.32 software. The association of MSTN with growth and muscling traits were analyzed by using General Linear Model (GLM) procedure. This result showed that a total of 20 polymorphic SNPs (seven SNPs in CpG island) were detected in this region. Although, only 3 SNPs (g.-8078C>T, g.-7996G>C, and g.-7930A>G) had equilibrium condition in Hardy-Weinberg analysis. The association result showed that 2 SNPs (g.-7799T>C and g.-7941C>T) were significantly associated with intramuscular fat percentage (P≤0.05) in Bali cattle. Although the 2 SNPs were nominally significant at nominal P≤0.05 threshold, they were not significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. It could be concluded that MSTN promoter gene was polymorphic in Bali cattle and there were 2 SNPs associated with carcass quality.


The main objective of this dissertation is to analyse prerequisites, expectations, apprehensions, and attitudes of students studying computer science, who are willing to gain a bachelor degree. The research will also investigate in the students' learning style according to the Felder-Silverman model. These investigations fall in the attempt to make an impact on reducing the "dropout"/shrinkage rate among students, and to suggest a better learning environment.
The first investigation starts with a survey that has been made at the computer science department at the University of Baghdad to investigate the attitudes of computer science students in an environment dominated by women, showing the differences in attitudes between male and female students in different study years. Students are accepted to university studies via a centrally controlled admission procedure depending mainly on their final score at school. This leads to a high percentage of students studying subjects they do not want. Our analysis shows that 75% of the female students do not regret studying computer science although it was not their first choice. And according to statistics over previous years, women manage to succeed in their study and often graduate on top of their class. We finish with a comparison of attitudes between the freshman students of two different cultures and two different university enrolment procedures (University of Baghdad, in Iraq, and the University of Potsdam, in Germany) both with opposite gender majority.
The second step of investigation took place at the department of computer science at the University of Potsdam in Germany and analyzes the learning styles of students studying the three major fields of study offered by the department (computer science, business informatics, and computer science teaching). Investigating the differences in learning styles between the students of those study fields who usually take some joint courses is important to be aware of which changes are necessary to be adopted in the teaching methods to address those different students. It was a two stage study using two questionnaires; the main one is based on the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire of B. A. Solomon and R. M. Felder, and the second questionnaire was an investigation on the students' attitudes towards the findings of their personal first questionnaire. Our analysis shows differences in the preferences of learning style between male and female students of the different study fields, as well as differences between students with the different specialties (computer science, business informatics, and computer science teaching).
The third investigation looks closely into the difficulties, issues, apprehensions and expectations of freshman students studying computer science. The study took place at the computer science department at the University of Potsdam with a volunteer sample of students. The goal is to determine and discuss the difficulties and issues that they are facing in their study that may lead them to think in dropping-out, changing the study field, or changing the university. The research continued with the same sample of students (with business informatics students being the majority) through more than three semesters. Difficulties and issues during the study were documented, as well as students' attitudes, apprehensions, and expectations. Some of the professors and lecturers opinions and solutions to some students' problems were also documented. Many participants had apprehensions and difficulties, especially towards informatics subjects. Some business informatics participants began to think of changing the university, in particular when they reached their third semester, others thought about changing their field of study. Till the end of this research, most of the participants continued in their studies (the study they have started with or the new study they have changed to) without leaving the higher education system.


Why do we get technology policy so wrong, so often? As governments rush to develop new identity policies they fail too often in answering essential questions: are identity policies capable of addressing a diverse range of policy goals? Are the techniques we imagine to be necessary in fact helpful? Instead, policy makers remain fixated on expensive and sexy 'biometrics' and vast new centralised databases to solve problems they do not understand. This survey seeks to resolve why policy makers repeatedly commission identity schemes based on obsolete knowledge of modern technological capabilities. We argue that policy making requires an understanding of technological issues as well as more traditional political and organisational concerns, and a little less bravado. As a result, policy makers can set about developing effective solutions that are citizen friendly and actually address pressing policy goals.


Cultural institutions have sought to develop social media as a means of engaging with their audiences. However, there is a lack of guidance about how to effectively evaluate performance. A study was carried out to explore contemporary practices in cultural institutions to better understand the challenges, methods, and strategies. This involved in-depth interviews with social media managers at eight Scottish institutions and a worldwide survey of one hundred organisations. The participants were asked about how they use social media, what their objectives are, and whether use of frameworks, toolkits, and strategies were useful or indeed feasible. Results showed that despite various approaches, many institutions share priorities and challenges. Although some preferred to be flexible, while others more regimented, there is consensus that social media helps deliver on wider institutional goals and strategies. There is also evidence that institutions want to better understand the impact of their social media but often have problems capturing or interpreting relevant data, and all institutions are responsive to tools that might help them do this. The research tested the principles of one tool in particular, the Culture24 Evaluation Framework. Discussions with participants revealed that while its concepts were relevant and valuable, there remained issues with how it could be implemented, given incongruity with existing operations. Consequently, the research proposes recommendations for developments in social media and evaluative frameworks. The research concludes that institutions that have more defined strategy, even if practices remain flexible, are more decisive and effective in their use of social media. Having objectives and cycles allows better implementation of specific tools and frameworks. Furthermore, careful consideration of the functionality of specific social media platforms allows them to more effectively address specific targets and metrics.


To comply with future emission regulations for internal combustion engines, system-related cold start conditions in short-distance traffic constitute a particular challenge. Under these conditions, pollutant emissions are seriously increased due to internal engine effects and unfavorable operating conditions of the exhaust aftertreatment systems. As a secondary effect, the composition of the exhaust gases has a considerable influence on the deposition of aerosols via different deposition mechanisms and on fouling processes of exhaust gas-carrying components. Also, the performance of exhaust gas aftertreatment systems may be affected disadvantageously. In this study, the exhaust gas and deposit composition of a turbocharged three-cylinder gasoline engine are examined in situ upstream of the catalytic converter at ambient and engine starting temperatures of −22 °C to 23 °C using a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer and a particle spectrometer. For the cold start investigation, a modern gasoline engine with series engine periphery is used. In particular, the investigation of the behavior of deposits in the exhaust system of gasoline engines during cold start under dynamic driving conditions represents an extraordinary challenge due to an average lower soot concentration in the exhaust gas compared to diesel engines and so far has not been examined in this form. A novel sampling method allows ex situ analysis of formed deposits during a single driving cycle. Both, particle number concentration and the deposition rate are higher in the testing procedure of real driving emissions (RDEs) than in the inner city part of the worldwide harmonized light vehicles test cycle (WLTC). In addition, reduced ambient temperatures increase the amount of deposits, which consist predominantly of soot and to a minor fraction of volatile compounds. Although the primary particle size distributions of the deposited soot particles do not change when boundary conditions change, the degree of graphitization within the particles increases with the increasing exhaust gas temperature.


Software development and, in particular, software maintenance are time consuming and require detailed knowledge of the structure and the past development activities of a software system. Limited resources and time constraints make the situation even more difficult. Therefore, a significant amount of research effort has been dedicated to learning software prediction models that allow project members to allocate and spend the limited resources efficiently on the (most) critical parts of their software system. Prominent examples are bug prediction models and change prediction models: Bug prediction models identify the bug-prone modules of a software system that should be tested with care; change prediction models identify modules that change frequently and in combination with other modules, i.e., they are change coupled. By combining statistical methods, data mining approaches, and machine learning techniques software prediction models provide a structured and analytical basis to make decisions.Researchers proposed a wide range of approaches to build effective prediction models that take into account multiple aspects of the software development process. They achieved especially good prediction performance, guiding developers towards those parts of their system where a large share of bugs can be expected. For that, they rely on change data provided by version control systems (VCS). However, due to the fact that current VCS track code changes only on file-level and textual basis most of those approaches suffer from coarse-grained and rather generic change information. More fine-grained change information, for instance, at the level of source code statements, and the type of changes, e.g., whether a method was renamed or a condition expression was changed, are often not taken into account. Therefore, investigating the development process and the evolution of software at a fine-grained change level has recently experienced an increasing attention in research.The key contribution of this thesis is to improve software prediction models by using fine-grained source code changes. Those changes are based on the abstract syntax tree structure of source code and allow us to track code changes at the fine-grained level of individual statements. We show with a series of empirical studies using the change history of open-source projects how prediction models can benefit in terms of prediction performance and prediction granularity from the more detailed change information.First, we compare fine-grained source code changes and code churn, i.e., lines modified, for bug prediction. The results with data from the Eclipse platform show that fine grained-source code changes significantly outperform code churn when classifying source files into bug- and not bug-prone, as well as when predicting the number of bugs in source files. Moreover, these results give more insights about the relation of individual types of code changes, e.g., method declaration changes and bugs. For instance, in our dataset method declaration changes exhibit a stronger correlation with the number of bugs than class declaration changes.Second, we leverage fine-grained source code changes to predict bugs at method-level. This is beneficial as files can grow arbitrarily large. Hence, if bugs are predicted at the level of files a developer needs to manually inspect all methods of a file one by one until a particular bug is located.Third, we build models using source code properties, e.g., complexity, to predict whether a source file will be affected by a certain type of code change. Predicting the type of changes is of practical interest, for instance, in the context of software testing as different change types require different levels of testing: While for small statement changes local unit-tests are mostly sufficient, API changes, e.g., method declaration changes, might require system-wide integration-tests which are more expensive. Hence, knowing (in advance) which types of changes will most likely occur in a source file can help to better plan and develop tests, and, in case of limited resources, prioritize among different types of testing.Finally, to assist developers in bug triaging we compute prediction models based on the attributes of a bug report that can be used to estimate whether a bug will be fixed fast or whether it will take more time for resolution.The results and findings of this thesis give evidence that fine-grained source code changes can improve software prediction models to provide more accurate results.


The drafters of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (crpd) incorporated the concept of inclusive education into Article 24 of the crpd. Many consider this to be a new children's right. The inclusive education idea has played since 2006 a role in interpreting crc Article 23 (rights of children with disabilities), Article 28 (right to education) and Article 29 (aims of education). The relationship between these two complementary human rights Conventions (crc and crpd) is described and the question raised by Sandland and discussed here is if there is a "Clash of Conventions". The disability rights perspective created an ideological battle between advocates of the closure of special education and those who oppose it. The author supports the proposal (More and More Inclusive, 2020) by the Dutch Education Council to the Minister of Education to bring special and regular education closer to each other, but not closing special education.


Brenner, Moran, Stallman, Gilchrist and McVan, (2006) recommended that "swimming ability be promoted as a necessary component of water competence, but with the understanding that swimming ability alone is [often] not sufficient to prevent drowning" (p. 116). Tradition and expert opinion are no longer enough. Science can now help us select essential competencies. What does research evidence show us about the protective value of specific individual personal competencies? Since the term "water competence'' was coined by Langendorfer and Bruya (1995) and adapted for drowning prevention by Moran (2013), it has gained in use and acceptance. As a construct, it is indeed more inclusive than "swimming skill'' alone for addressing drowning prevention. Our proposed taxonomy of water competencies re-emphasizes the need for a broad spectrum of physical aquatic competencies as well as the integration of cognitive and affective competencies. The purpose of this review article is to a) identify all the key elements of water competence, b) support each recommended type of water competence with examples of research evidence, and c) suggest areas requiring further research.


The central nervous system of the mammalian embryo is organized according to the expression of region-specific transcription factors along the anteroposterior and/or the dorsoventral axis. For example, the dorsal ventricular zone (VZ) of the embryonic spinal cord expresses Pax3 and Pax7, the ventral VZ expresses Pax6, and the more ventral VZ expresses Nkx2.2. Properties of neuronal precursors located in the VZ are determined by the characteristic expression patterns of these transcription factors, leading to the generation of distinct classes of neurons. Recent studies demonstrated that radial glial cells produce neurons in addition to glia during central nervous system development. Thus, neuronal precursor diversity may be dependent upon the diversity of radial glial cells. To investigate this hypothesis, we analyzed the expression of radial glial cell markers and transcription factors in the mouse embryonic spinal cord. We show that radial glial cells indeed express domain-specific transcription factor. Moreover, they varied in expression of the astrocyte-specific glutamate transporter. The region where the astrocyte-specific glutamate transporter is strongly expressed in the ventral radial glial cells is closely related to the Pax6-expressing domain, and the weakly expressing region corresponding to the Nkx2.2-expressing domain. Furthermore, dorsal radial fibers expressed ephrin-B1. Thus, different types of radial glial cells exist in different domains defined by the transcription factor expression at E12.5. We also show that this diversity continues to the gliogenic stage of radial glial cells. This raises the idea that astrocytes generated from different domains along the dorsoventral axis in the mouse spinal cord have distinct characteristics.


Synchronization of concurrent data structures is difficult to get right. Fine-grained synchronization locks small data chunks, but requires too high an overhead per chunk, traditional coarse-grained synchronization locks big data chunks, and thereby makes them unavailable to other threads. Neither synchronization method scales well. Recently, hardware transactional memory was introduced, which allows threads to use transactions instead of locks. So far, applying hardware transactional memory has shown mixed results. We believe this is because transactions are different from locks, and using them efficiently requires reasoning about those differences. In this paper we present 5 guidelines for applying hardware transactional memory efficiently, and apply the guidelines to BT-trees, a concurrent ordered map. Evaluating BT-trees on standard benchmarks shows that they are up to 5.3 times faster than traditional maps using hardware transactional memory, and up to 3.9 times faster than state of the art concurrent ordered maps.


The presence of diffuse or primitive senile plaques in the neocortex of cognitively normal elderly at autopsy has been presumed to represent normal aging. Alternatively, these patients may have developed dementia and clinical Alzheimer disease (AD) if they had survived. In this setting, these patients could be subjects for cognitive or pharmacologic intervention to delay disease onset. We have thus followed a cohort of cognitively normal elderly subjects with a Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) of 0 at autopsy. Thirty-one brains were examined at postmortem according to Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer Disease (CERAD) criteria and staged according to Braak. Ten patients were pathologically normal according to CERAD criteria (1a). Two of these patients were Braak Stage II. Seven very elderly subjects exhibited a few primitive neuritic plaques in the cortex and thus represented CERAD 1b. These individuals ranged in age from 85 to 105 years and were thus older than the CERAD la group that ranged in age from 72 to 93. Fourteen patients displayed Possible AD according to CERAD with ages ranging from 66 to 95. Three of these were Braak Stage I, 4 were Braak Stage II, and 7 were Braak Stage III. The Apolipoprotein E4 allele was over-represented in this possible AD group. Neuropsychological data were available on 12 individuals. In these 12 individuals, Possible AD at autopsy could be predicted by cognitive deficits in 1 or more areas including savings scores on memory testing and overall performance on some measures of frontal executive function.


The electric utility sector in Australia, Germany and the U.S. are all going through major changes driven by declining sales, increasing use of distributed energy sources and policy responses to global climate change. This paper discusses efforts in each of these countries to reform their electric industries, address climate change and promote energy efficiency. Going forward, we see a role for government, utilities and private market energy efficiency efforts in all three countries, although the emphasis will vary by country and will evolve over time. Where all three parties can work together with a common vision, reform efforts are likely to be more successful and more sustained. In all three countries the future is uncertain. In the face of this uncertainty, energy efficiency supporters need to keep abreast of these changes, and find more flexible and nimble policy strategies for energy efficiency to prosper, as the future is likely to unfold in unexpected ways.


Web content extraction is a popular technique for extracting the main content from web pages and discards the irrelevant content. Extracting only the relevant content is a challenging task since it is difficult to determine which part of the web page is relevant and which part is not. Among the existing web content extraction methods, density based content extraction is one popular method. However density based methods, suffer from poor efficiency, especially when the pages containing less information and long noise. We propose a web content extraction technique build on Entropy based Informative Content Density algorithm (EICD). The proposed EICD algorithm initially analyses higher text density content. Further, the entropy-based analysis is performed for selected features. The key idea of EICD is to utilize the information entropy for representing the knowledge that correlates to the amount of informative content in a page. The proposed method is validated through simulation and the results are promising.


Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) exhibit variable distribution patterns, depending upon their geographic location. Habitat utilization patterns in Biscayne Bay, Florida, were examined using the Biscayne Bay Bottlenose Dolphin Photo-ID database obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) Miami Laboratory. Habitat coverages in Biscayne Bay were obtained from the Atlas of Marine Resources Version 1.3B CD and the Biscayne Bay National Park CD. Dolphin sightings were overlaid on the habitat coverages using GIS Arcview software.
The effects of habitat, season, behavior, zone (sectioned area of Biscayne Bay), and depth on patterns of bottlenose dolphin distribution were examined by analysis of variance to determine the significance of the factors. The total number of dolphins observed during the sightings analyzed was 1,538. The number of dolphins per sighting varied from 1 to 28 dolphins, with a mean of 5.14. The average number of dolphins per survey effort was 10.32. Several significant changes in habitat have occurred between 1991-1992 to 1997. The changes in habitat had some influence on the dolphins' behavior distribution. The highest proportion of all behavior types was found in moderately dense seagrass beds and dredge bottom areas. Habitat quality (habitat types) of Biscayne Bay influenced dolphin sightings, while habitat quantity (habitat area) influenced dolphin numbers. Analysis of variance statistics supported the strong significant effect of habitat on the variation of sightings and dolphin numbers (P < 0.001).
No significant difference in sightings was found between seasons or zones throughout the study period. The fall season had the lowest number of dolphins and sightings. The low number of surveys during the fall season does not account for all the influence on the dolphin numbers. Strong significant differences were observed between behaviors (P < 0.001). The majority of initial behaviors included traveling, feeding, and socializing. Changes in behaviors were apparent as observations continued. It was determined that the proximity of the research vessel and the duration of observation influenced dolphin behavior. Tail slap and chuffing behavior and boat interaction doubled and quadrupled, respectively during sightings. A strong variation in the number of sightings and number of dolphins occurred between different depths (P < 0.001). The majority of dolphins were observed in depths of 2.1 - 3 meters. This coincides with the fact that the majority of Biscayne Bay depths are within that range. A time series analysis was performed to determine if there was a cycle present in the pattern of dolphin distribution, and no significant cycle was found. Future analysis of dolphin composition (resident, migratory, nomadic) may yield cyclic patterns.


Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the internal segment of the globus pallidus (GPi) has been demonstrated to be an effective therapy for the treatment of primary dystonia as well as tardive dystonia. Results for other forms of secondary dystonia have been less consistent. Although a number of target sites have been explored for the treatment of dystonia, most notably the motor thalamus, the target of choice remains the sensorimotor portion of the GPi. Although the optimal site within the GPi has not been determined, most centers agree that the optimal site involves the posteroventral lateral "sensorimotor" portion of the GPi. Microelectrode recording (MER) can be used to identify boundaries of the GPi and nearby white matter tracts, including the corticospinal tract and optic tract, and the sensorimotor GPi. However, whether or not the use of MER leads to improved outcomes compared with procedures performed without MER has not been determined. Currently, there is no evidence to support or refute the hypothesis that mapping structures with MER provides better short‐ or long‐term outcomes. Centers using MER do not report a preference of one system over another, but there have not been any studies to compare the relative benefits or risks of using more than 1 electrode simultaneously. Comparison studies of different target structures and targeting techniques in dystonia have not been performed. Additional research, which includes comparative studies, is needed to advance our understanding and optimization of DBS targets, techniques, and approaches along with their relative benefits and risks in dystonia. © 2011 Movement Disorder Society


Research and policy processes in many fields, such as sustainability and health, are increasingly relying on transdisciplinary cooperation among a multitude of governmental, nongovernmental, and private actors from local to global levels. In the absence of hierarchical chains of command, multistakeholder governance may accommodate conflicting or diverse interests and facilitate collective action, but its effectiveness depends on its capacity to integrate systems, transformation, and target knowledge. Approaches to foster such governance are nascent and quickly evolving, and methodological standards to facilitate comparison and learning from best practice are needed. However, there is currently no evaluation approach that (i) comprehensively assesses the capacity for knowledge integration in multistakeholder governance, (ii) draws on the best available knowledge that is being developed in various fields, and (iii) combines a systematic and transferable methodological design with pragmatic feasibility.
We brought together 20 experts from institutions in nine countries, all working on evaluation approaches for collaborative science–policy initiatives. In a synthesis process that included a 2-day workshop and follow-up work among a core group of participants, we developed a tool for evaluating knowledge integration capacity in multistakeholder governance (EVOLvINC). Its 23 indicators incorporate previously defined criteria and components of transdisciplinary evaluations into a single, comprehensive framework that operationalizes the capacity for integrating systems, target, and transformation knowledge during an initiative's (a) design and planning processes at the policy formulation stage, (b) organization and working processes at the implementation stage, and (c) sharing and learning processes at the evaluation stage of the policy cycle. EVOLvINC is (i) implemented through a questionnaire, (ii) builds on established indicators where possible, (iii) offers a consistent and transparent semiquantitative scoring and aggregation algorithm, and (iv) uses spider diagrams for visualizing results. The tool builds on experience and expertise from both the northern and southern hemispheres and was empirically validated with seven science–policy initiatives in six African and Asian countries.
As a generalized framework, EVOLvINC thus enables a structured reflection on the capacity of multistakeholder governance processes to foster knowledge integration. Its emphasis on dialog and exploration allows adaptation to contextual specificities, highlights relative strengths and weaknesses, and suggests avenues for shaping multistakeholder governance toward mutual learning, capacity building, and strengthened networks. The validation suggests that the adaptive capacity of multistakeholder governance could be best enhanced by considering systems characteristics at the policy formulation stage and fostering adaptive and generic learning at the evaluation stage of the policy cycle.


Due to relatively high oxygen permeability, lanthanum-strontium ferrite phases are of interest as ceramic membrane materials for the partial oxidation of natural gas. This work was focused on the study of perovskite-type ferrites co-doped with Sr2+ and Ce4+ or Nb5+, with particular emphasis on the ionic transport and thermodynamic stability limits at low oxygen chemical potentials. Dense membranes of La0.5-2xCexSr0.5+xFeO3-δ (x = 0 - 0.2) and La0.5-2ySr0.5+2yFe1-yNbyO3-δ (y = 0 - 0.1) were characterized employing X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dilatometry, oxygen permeation and faradaic efficiency studies, and the measurements of total conductivity and Seebeck coefficient in the oxygen partial pressure range from 10-20 to 0.5 atm. The incorporation of Ce4+ or Nb5+ was found to decrease thermal expansion and electronic transport parameters, whereas the ionic conductivity behavior is complex, indicating the relevance of redox interactions of the variable-valence cations and the concentration of mobile oxygen vacancies.


Table lookup with interpolation is used for many learning and adaptation tasks. Redundant mappings capture the important concept of "motor skill," which is important in real, behaving systems. Few robot skill implementations have dealt with redundant mappings, in which the space to be searched to create the table has much higher dimensionality than the table. A practical method for inverting redundant mappings is important in physical systems with limited time for trials. We present the "Guided table Fill In" algorithm, which uses data already stored in the table to guide search through the space of potential table entries. The algorithm is illustrated and tested on a robot skill learning task both in simulation and on a robot with a flexible link. Our experiments show that the ability to search high dimensional action spaces efficiently allows skill learners to find new behaviors that are qualitatively different from what they were presented or what the system designer may have expected. Thus the use of this technique can allow researchers to seek higher dimensional action spaces for their systems rather than constraining their search space at the risk of excluding the best actions.


Environmental status and diarrhea is regarded as a complex and multidimensional topic. Diarrhea is one of the main water-borne diseases considered to be endemic in many regions of the world and brings the major health threats to the world populations, both in tropical and subtropical poor countries. The state Meghalaya situated in the North-Eastern India is an upland landmass bound by seven districts surrounded within by different tribes. The population is predominantly rural, with 81.41% of the population belongs merely to the scheduled tribes. The state offers a wide range of disease environments, dominated by communicable diseases (35.68%), and diarrhea is one of the water-borne diseases that alter the society of the state. Various factors like poor environmental sanitation, unavailability of safe drinking water, seasonal rainfall, infected foods, infection through fomites, flies, cockroaches, etc. are the main culprit that led to the cause of diarrhea in the state. The local people are very much closely associated with nature, and with their ethnobiological knowledge about the plants available around them, they can easily avert and cure themselves from several disease complications. In this review, the information regarding the traditional method of utilization of 58 plant species that are used to treat and cure diarrhea and dysentery are enlisted briefly.


Background Material presented at conferences is meant to provide exposure to ongoing research that could affect medical decision making based on future outcomes. It is important then to evaluate the rates of publication from conference presentations as a measure of academic quality as such research has undergone peer review and journal acceptance. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the fate of abstracts presented at the Skeletal Society of Radiology Annual Meetings from 2010–2015. Materials and Methods Conference abstracts were searched using Google, Google Scholar, and PubMed (which includes Medline) to locate the corresponding published reports. The data recorded for published studies included date published online, in print, or both; the journal in which it was published; and the 5-year journal impact factor. When an abstract was not confirmed as published, authors were contacted by email to verify its publication status or, if not published, the reason for nonpublication. Results A total of 162 abstracts were published out of 320 presented (50.6%) at the SSR conferences from 2010 to 2015 with 59.9% (85/142) of publications occurring within two years of the conference date (not counting abstracts published prior to conference). Mean time to publication was 19 months and is calculated by excluding the 20 (12.3%) abstracts that were published prior to the conference date. The median time to publication is 13 months (25th–75th percentile: 6.25–21.75). The top two journals publishing research studies from this conference were Skeletal Radiology and The American Journal of Roentgenology. These journals accepted 72 of the 162 (44.4%) studies for publication. Of the 14 authors who responded with 17 reasons for not publishing, the most common reasons were lack of time (7–41.2%), results not important enough (4–23.5%), publication not an aim (3–17.6%), and lack of resources (3–17.6%). Discussion At least half of the abstracts presented at the annual meeting for the Society of Skeletal Radiology are accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The majority (59.9%) of these publications were achieved within two years of the conference presentation. The rate at which presentations are published and the journals that accept the abstracts can potentially be used to compare the importance and quality of information at conferences.


We report on the full process integration of nanocrystal (NC) memory cells in a stand-alone 16-Mb NOR Flash device. The Si NCs are deposited by chemical vapor deposition on a thin tunnel oxide, whose surface is treated with a low thermal budget process, which increases NC density and minimizes oxide degradation. The device fabrication has been obtained by means of conventional Flash technology, which is integrated with the CMOS periphery with high- and low-voltage transistors and charge pump capacitors. The memory program and erase threshold voltage distributions are well separated and narrow. The voltage distribution widths are related to NC sizes and dispersion, and bigger NCs can induce a cell reliability weakness. An endurance issue is also related to the use of an oxide/nitride/oxide dielectric which acts as a charge trapping layer, causing a shift in the program/erase window and a distribution broadening during cycling.


Several speech processing and audio data-mining applications rely on a description of the acoustic environment as a feature vector for classification. The discriminative properties of the feature domain play a crucial role in the effectiveness of these methods. In this work, we consider three environment identification tasks and the task of acoustic model selection for speech recognition. A set of acoustic parameters and Machine Learning algorithms for feature selection are used and an analysis is performed on the resulting feature domains for each task. In our experiments, a classification accuracy of 100% is achieved for the majority of tasks and the Word Error Rate is reduced by 20.73 percentage points for Automatic Speech Recognition when using the resulting domains. Experimental results indicate a significant dissimilarity in the parameter choices for the composition of the domains, which highlights the importance of the feature selection process for individual applications.


Matrices in Stata can serve as look-up tables. Because Stata will accept references to matrix elements within many commands, most notably generate and replace, users can access and use values from a table in either vector or full matrix form. Examples are given for entry of small datasets, recoding of categorical variables, and quantile-based or similar binning of counted or measured variables. In the last case, the device grants easy exploration of the consequences of different binning conventions and the instability of bin allocation.


This study examined hemispheric differences in processing the overall meaning of passages. Based on past research it was hypothesised that the right hemisphere (RH) would be uniquely involved in processing the overall meaning of passages. A sample of 52 right-handed Murdoch University students participated in a lexical decision task, with reaction time (RT) and error rates recorded. Stories were read between each trial with half of the target words presented in the passages to manipulate the independent variables of: visual field of presentation (left or right), relatedness to the overall meaning of passages (related or unrelated), and presence in passages (in or out). A significant facilitation effect in favour of the LH over the RH was found for words that were not present in the passages, however there was no significant difference in facilitation effects between hemispheres for words in the passages. Further, this LH advantage was found for males but not for females, with females having no significant hemispheric differences for facilitation effects. The results therefore did not replicate the findings of previous studies demonstrating a RH dominance for the appreciation of the overall meaning of stories (Jung-Beeman, 2005). Rather, the presence effect demonstrates a LH dominance for making the inferences necessary for the appreciation of the overall meaning of stories. The results are also consistent with McGlone's (1977) interhemispheric model, claiming that language is predominately processed in the LH for males and bilaterally for females.

Keywords: lexical decision task, hemisphere, visual field, language, overall meaning


Crises normally occur without any alerts and cover broadly. More importantly, improper Crisis Leadership would result in the situation more difficult. For organizations, being able to predict the occurrence of crises would be the best condition for reducing losses. Unfortunately, most situations appear contrarily as crises often occur suddenly and strictly test the crisis leadership of an organization. The discussion about Crisis Leadership focused more on the USA after World War II. Although it has been a long period of time, most US enterprises still pay for it. Aiming at the sufferers of The 88 Taiwan Flood, total 600 copies of questionnaires are distributed in this study. Having deducted invalid and incomplete ones, total 327 copies are valid, with the retrieval rate 55%. The research results show partially positive correlations between Crisis Leadership and Quality of Reconstruction Product, Quality of Service Personnel, and Connotation of Recovery Service in Satisfaction with Post-Disaster Recovery and Demographic Variables appear significant moderating effects on the correlations between Crisis Leadership and Satisfaction with Post-Disaster Recovery.


Abstract Young people with disabilities participate in sports to a lesser extent than other adolescents. That physical activity has positive effects on young people are understood. Sports clubs are identified as potential environments for physical activity. The reasons why young people with disabilities participate to a lower extent in organized sport is complex and barriers can be deriving from many different levels. However, barriers have been studied more than what can facilitate participation in organized sport. Therefor the aim of this study is to increase the understanding of how sports clubs include children and adolescents with disabilities in their activities. The results of this systematic search are presented using the three research questions: What are the characteristics of the sports clubs that include young people with disabilities?; How are the young people with disabilities included in sports clubs' activities?; and finally Why are young people with disabilities included in the sports activities?. A vision must be to go from adapting physical activity for disabled persons to adapting physical activity for all people, because the diversity of people's reasons for doing sports, their differing backgrounds and their uniqueness all demand it. This will result in more people doing sports for longer in life.


A series of experiments were conducted to determine 1) the embryonic and
larval development, 2) feeding performance and 3) weaning of humpback grouper,
Cromileptes altivelis, larva.
The above study was carried out from spawning of broodstocks to obtain
the fertilized eggs till they hatched. The results showed that the mean diameter of
humpback grouper egg was 828.69 ± 45.91 um. The fertilized eggs hatched in 20
hour 10 minutes at the temperature of 27 to 28°C. The hatched larvae had a mean
length of 1.86 mm, and a mean height of 0.460 mm. The yolk sacs and oil
droplets were totally utilized after 63 and 65 hour after hatching (HAH),
respectively. Within one day, the larvae had an average length and height of
2.253 mm and 0.615 mm, respectively. At 49 DAH, the mean length and height
increased to 27.153 mm and 9.190 mm respectively.
The spines on the larvae began to appear at day 7 to day 1 0. The dorsal
spines reached their maximum length at day 28 to day 30, and the spines had a
maximum mean length of 5668.30 um, while the ventral spines had a maximum
mean length of 4415.44 11m at day 25-28. Then the spines began to reduce and
change to hard rays as the larvae grew.
The eyes pigments started to be visible at day 3 to day 4 after hatching
(DAH). The larvae's mouths were opened for the first time at day 2 or 45 HAH.
The relationship of mouth gape and eyes diameter was quadratic with an equation
of MG = -02E-05Ed2 + 0.3992Ed + 215.05 and R2
= 0.96. Appearance of black
spots at the caudal peduncle, dorsal fin and anal fin occurred between day 25 to
day 30. These spots would increase in numbers and would spread towards the
head and became perfected at day 40 to day 45, and they would look similar to the
juvenile fish.
The teeth of humpback grouper fish larvae began to appear at day 15, but
those teeth were still few in numbers and were short. The height and width of
larvae teeth increased as the larvae grew. At day 30, the larvae teeth got closer
with a mean height and width of 110.18 um and 40.13 um respectively.
Histologically, no fold occurred in the larvae digestive tract yet before they
reach 5 days old. The incipient stomach began to be visible at day 30. The
larvae's stomachs were perfected at 45 DAH. The liver began to be visible at day
5, while the pancreas was visible at day 10. The protease enzyme activity
increased as the larvae grew.