Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors in a firm, since they regard customer
satisfaction as one of the main goals of evaluating how effective the business is. In addition,
customer satisfaction is a starting point in the value chain between customer satisfaction,
customer loyalty, firm product, marketplace and financial performance, and shareholder wealth.
In today's dynamic global business environment, competition is forcing cooperative societies to
assess and respond to the growing importance of the role their customers play in their success. A
full understanding of factors that affect customers' satisfaction is crucial, to ensure long-term
share for the societies in the market. Customer satisfaction is the base on which cooperatives
build their success through decreasing costs. The main objective of this research was to
investigate the factors influencing customer satisfaction in Savings and Credit Co-operative
Societies (Saccos) in Kenya, with specific focus on Balozi Sacco Ltd. The specific objectives of
the study was to find out how nature of the products influences customer satisfaction in the
Sacco; to determine the extent to which staff qualification influence customer satisfaction in the
Sacco and to establish the effects of facilities and ICT on customer satisfaction in Balozi Sacco.
The study used descriptive study design. To satisfy the research objectives and answer the
research questions, the research used the survey technique. A self-administered questionnaire
was used for collecting data. The questionnaire had both open and close ended questions. The
research question had simple and logical questions in order to obtain the information intended.
The target population for this study was the members, staff, the management committee as well
as the supervisory committee of Balozi Sacco Ltd. The sample consisted of 202 members from
different branches of the Sacco, who were selected using a stratified random sampling technique.
The collected data was analyzed with the help of tools like descriptive statistics, correlation and
factor analysis. The findings showed that the nature of products, information communication
technology and staff training are some of the factors affecting customer satisfaction in Saccos. In
terms of recommendations The research recommends that customer or market oriented products
be developed in order to retain their members and attract new ones, that SACCOs must acquire
and use the latest information technology, that SACCOs should implement training for all staff.


Product development with end-user integration is not an end in itself but a logical necessity due to divergent types of knowledge of the user and the developer of a product. While the user is an expert in regard to the product's usage the developer is an expert in the product's construction and functioning. For the development of high-end products both types of expertises were a prerequisite at all times. The efficient and throughout integration of the user's perspective into existing product development approaches is the core of user-centred product development. Activities that are the basic ingredient of just any user-centred development approach can be roughly categorized into analysis, design and evaluation activities. Research and practice prove the early integration of real end-users within those activities to add significant and sustainable value to product innovation. The instrumental, methodological and procedural impact of globalization tendencies, on modern user-centred product development in particular, is the primary research focus of the field of cross-cultural user-centred product development. This research aims at the further advancement of the methodological foundations of cross-cultural user centred product development approaches based on a stabile and profound theoretical basis. Primary research objects are established user-analysis methodologies, which are mainly based on Western concepts and theories, and their applicability in disparate cultural contexts of the Far East (China and Korea in particular). For facilitating the adaptation of abstract method characteristics to the situational context of method application as foundation of cross-cultural methodological advancement, a model of method localization was developed. In alignment with internationalization and localization activities within product development processes, a framework for localizing user-centred methodologies was developed. Equivalent to internationalization activities of real product development, the abstraction of method traits from specific methodologies is a necessity in a first step. Methodological adaptation with the primary objective of optimizing situational application of a methodology is to be done in a second step – the step of method-localization. This model of method localization and its underlying theories and principles were tested within an extensive empirical study in Germany, China and Korea. Within this study the applicability of six distinct user-centred product development methodologies, each with its very own profile of abstract method traits, was tested with 248 participants in total. Results clearly back the basic hypothesis of method-localization, i.e. that the application of a user-centred methodology rises and falls with the alignment of its characteristic traits with the cross-cultural application context. Beyond, applicability-influencing factors identified within this study could be proven to be valid indicators of adaptation-necessities and –potentials of user-centred product development methodologies.


A natural consequence of groundwater withdrawals is the removal of water from subsurface storage, but the overall rates and magnitude of groundwater depletion and capture relative to groundwater withdrawals (extraction or pumpage) have not previously been well characterized. This study assesses the partitioning of long‐term cumulative withdrawal volumes into fractions derived from storage depletion and capture, where capture includes both increases in recharge and decreases in discharge. Numerical simulation of a hypothetical groundwater basin is used to further illustrate some of Theis' (1940) principles, particularly when capture is constrained by insufficient available water. Most prior studies of depletion and capture have assumed that capture is unconstrained through boundary conditions that yield linear responses. Examination of real systems indicates that capture and depletion fractions are highly variable in time and space. For a large sample of long‐developed groundwater systems, the depletion fraction averages about 0.15 and the capture fraction averages about 0.85 based on cumulative volumes. Higher depletion fractions tend to occur in more arid regions, but the variation is high and the correlation coefficient between average annual precipitation and depletion fraction for individual systems is only 0.40. Because 85% of long‐term pumpage is derived from capture in these real systems, capture must be recognized as a critical factor in assessing water budgets, groundwater storage depletion, and sustainability of groundwater development. Most capture translates into streamflow depletion, so it can detrimentally impact ecosystems.


Real-time-based platforms currently offer numerous advantages over conventional nucleic acid amplification techniques (NAATs) such as higher speed, less handling of PCR products, decreased risk of false-positive results due to carryover contamination, and the capability to quantify results. This chapter reviews some updates on the detection by NAAT of some relevant individual agents alone, and associated with clinical syndromes, with emphasis on the detection of respiratory agents, particularly the atypical pathogens Mycobacterium pneumoniae, Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Legionella spp., and Bordetella pertussis but also Streptococcus pneumoniae, for which also quantitative real-time amplification is discussed. Given the many alternative amplification protocols proposed for some applications, such studies are clearly needed. Although such studies are often lacking, new-generation molecular techniques are gradually replacing tissue culture and even conventional PCRs as the gold standard for the diagnosis of respiratory infections and for the detection of particular individual bacterial pathogens, as is further reviewed in this chapter. A recent development is the application of PCR for detecting the family of Haemophilus integrating conjugative elements among antibiotic-resistant Haemophilus influenzae type b directly to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to diagnose Haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis and predict the organism's susceptibility, irrespective of culture results. The potential of pyrosequencing after broad-range PCR was successfully investigated by Jordan for the identification of bacterial pathogens responsible for sepsis in neonates.


This qualitative UK study explored the lived experiences of volunteer befrienders to people with dementia, using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine befrienders aged between 25 and 66 years. The relationship that developed between befriender and befriendee was at the heart of befrienders' experiences. It comprised numerous paradoxical processes that generated issues of power, equality and boundaries, characterising befriending as a complex and unique phenomenon. Befriending was expressed as a deeply personal and human experience, often with emotional power and profound meaning. Befrienders' personal learning included seeing past dementia stereotypes, challenging their own assumptions and boundaries, and reflecting on love, life and humanness. Dissemination of these findings could help to challenge the stigma around dementia, and enhance recruitment and support of dementia befrienders. Future research should consider befriendee experiences of the relationship, additional measures of befriending effectiveness, and exploration of befriender attrition and support.


Inventories and price changes are correlated. The inverse relation is most obvious in housing where inventories build in low demand markets and shrink in high demand markets. This is a puzzle. Symmetry of information among buyers and sellers would seem to imply that sellers would change their reservation value by the amount that buyers change their offers. Because there is heterogeneity among buyers in the valuation of a given house, sellers set prices strategically. When demand falls, sellers rationally lower their prices, but not by enough to keep the probability of sale constant. As a result, inventories grow.


The steels with high chromium content are known to suffer embrittlement at elevated temperature induced either by decomposition of the microstructure into two arranged solid solutions α+α´ (embrittlement at 475 °C) or by precipitation of chromium-rich brittle phase σ . Martensitic precipitation hardening steels belong among materials having chromium content close to the minimum embrittlement concentration and in some circumstances there could be possibility of prolonged exposure of these steels at elevated temperatures. The effect of long-term ageing (1.000, 2.000 and 3.000 hours at 475 °C) on the material properties, microstructure and substructure of precipitation hardening martensitic stainless steel CUSTOM 465 was analysed and the additional precipitation of very fine particles of intermetallic phases and also decomposition of solid solution α into chromium-rich particles of the phase α´ with nanometric size was found. Despite expectations a slight decrease of strength and impact energy was detected after ageing at 475 °C as a result of stabilization of reverted austenite, which completely compensated the effect of the additional precipitation hardening of martensite. The total content of reverted austenite even doubled after ageing in comparison with the as-received state, although the ageing temperature was significantly lower than the temperature A c1 of the steel.


This paper uses willingness to pay (WTP) data from a field experiment in Hyderabad, India in 2013 to determine whether non-monetary prices better target health products to the poor than monetary prices. Monetary WTP is increasing in income and non-monetary WTP is weakly decreasing in income. Household fixed effects in a pooled sample of monetary WTP and non-monetary WTP are used to compare the correlation of income and WTP across price types. It is found that non-monetary WTP falls relative to monetary WTP as income rises. Finally, a greater fraction of demand is comprised of the poor at non-monetary prices.


Two hundred day old broiler chicks were randomly distributed in five groups with two replicates. Groundnut cake of control diet was replaced by soybean meal.at25, 50, 50 and 100percent levels. The overall data indicated that the weight gain of birds fed with 75 percent Soybean meal was significantly (p<0.01) higher than other treatments Feed consumption was significantly (P<0.01) more at 75 percent Soybean meal replacement than other treatment diets. Feed efficiency was best at 100 percent replacement as compared to other treatment. The proximate composition revealed that CP, EE, and total ash of Soybean meal were higher and CF, ME were lower than groundnut cake. It may be inferred that Soybean may be economical at 75 percent and 100 percent replacement.


The most colossal environmental disturbance in human history is under way. Ever-rising levels of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) are altering the cycles of matter and life and interfering with the Earth's natural cooling process. Melting Arctic ice and mountain glaciers are just the first relatively mild symptoms of what will result from this disruption of the planetary energy balance. In CO2 Rising, scientist Tyler Volk explains the process at the heart of global warming and climate change: the global carbon cycle. Vividly and concisely, Volk describes what happens when CO2 is released by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), letting loose carbon atoms once trapped deep underground into the interwoven web of air, water, and soil. To demonstrate how the carbon cycle works, Volk traces the paths that carbon atoms take during their global circuits. Showing us the carbon cycle from a carbon atom's viewpoint, he follows one carbon atom into a leaf of barley and then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the human bloodstream, and then back into the air. He also compares the fluxes of carbon brought into the biosphere naturally against those created by the combustion of fossil fuels and explains why the latter are responsible for rising temperatures. Knowledge about the global carbon cycle and the huge disturbances that human activity produces in it will equip us to consider the hard questions that Volk raises in the second half of CO2 Rising: projections of future levels of CO2; which energy systems and processes (solar, wind, nuclear, carbon sequestration?) will power civilization in the future; the relationships among the wealth of nations, energy use, and CO2 emissions; and global equity in per capita emissions. Answering these questions will indeed be our greatest environmental challenge.


Mining project studies and their evaluation are characterised by high uncertainties. These uncertainties range in magnitude from, and are prevalent in, the geological data on which the project is based, through to the final prices received for the ore, metal, or mineral being sold to the market. The process for managing uncertainties in mining projects could have a huge impact on the decision about the final option and on the project composition. It is therefore critical that a systematic process is followed that manages these uncertainties effectively and consistently throughout the project phases, and when evaluating various options one against the other. This paper discusses the results of an investigation to determine the extent to which risk management was applied in twenty different project studies in the mining environment. The results of these studies indicate that uncertainties relating to typical mining project studies are not well understood or managed. A process to manage these uncertainties throughout the project development phases was developed and used in a typical pre-feasibility study. The results indicate that the process can be successfully implemented; and that the process helps to develop the project faster by focusing the project teams most on the uncertainties that affect the project need or requirement.


Digital in-line holography (DIH) with a divergent beam is used to measure size and concentration of cavitation bubbles (6-100 μm) in hydrodynamic facilities. A sampling probe is directly inserted in the cavitation tunnel, and the holograms of the bubbles are recorded through a transparent test section specially designed for DIH measurements. The recording beam coming from a fiber-coupled laser diode illuminates the sample volume, and holograms are recorded by a CMOS camera. From each hologram, the sampling volume can be reconstructed slice by slice by applying a wavelet-based reconstruction method. Because of the geometry of the recording beam, a magnification ratio must be introduced for recovering the 3D location and size of each bubble. The method used for processing holograms recorded in such a configuration is presented. Then, statistical results obtained from 5000 holograms recorded under different pressures in the cavitation tunnel are compared and discussed.


This study deals with the transition toward quasi-periodicity of buoyant convection generated by a horizontal temperature gradient in a three-dimensional parallelepipedic cavity with dimensions $4\times 2\times 1$ (length $\times$ width $\times$ height). Numerical continuation techniques, coupled with an Arnoldi method, are used to locate the steady and Hopf bifurcation points as well as the different steady and periodic flow branches emerging from them for Prandtl numbers ranging from 0 to 0.025 (liquid metals). Our results highlight the existence of two steady states along with many periodic cycles, all with different symmetries. The bifurcation scenarios consist of complex paths between these different solutions, giving a succession of stable flow states as the Grashof number is increased, from steady to periodic and quasi-periodic. The change of these scenarios with the Prandtl number, in connection with the crossing of bifurcation points, was carefully analysed.


This paper describes the use of 3D microtissues as an intermediate model between the 2D cell culture and the animal model to assess radiation-induced cellular and DNA damage in the context of personalized radiation therapy. An agarose microwell array was used to generate 3D microtissues with controlled size and shape. The microtissues were exposed to X-ray radiation of various doses, and the radiation damage to cells was examined using a variety of techniques with different end points. Damage to cell membranes and reduction in metabolic activity were examined with the MTT assay and dye inclusion assay. DNA damage was tested with the micronucleus assay, γ-H2AX immunostaining, and HaloChip assay. 3D microtissues exposed to X-rays are smaller compared to unexposed ones in extended cultures, indicating that X-ray radiation can retard the growth of cells in 3D microtissues, where cells at the outer shells of microtissues can prevent further damage to those inside.


Complex Fenestration Systems (CFS) are widely studied to help redirecting daylight into a room in order to optimise its luminous properties. Daylighting designers and researchers usually employ physical and virtual models to assess their daylighting performance within buildings. However these models do not necessarily provide a sound analysis of real building performance due to a multiplicity of possible sources of errors. Physical and virtual models of a simple office room equipped with a CFS were investigated using comparison with a real building (1 : 1 scale test module), computer simulations based on the Radiance lighting program, as well as monitoring of 1:10 scale models. The main sources of errors were quantified for each CFS on the basis of the observed relative divergences. Significant errors sources, such as surface reflectance, glazing transmittance, CFS modelling techniques and other models construction details were identified: they are expected to be used as guidelines for CFS modelling in the course of daylighting performance assessments.


Abstract In Antarctica, Mesozoic tholeiitic magmatic rocks have been divided previously into the Ferrar and Dronning Maud Land magmatic provinces. In both provinces, K-Ar geochronology has established a spectrum of Jurassic ages, which supported relatively long-lived coeval magmatic episodes within each province. However, recent Ar-Ar geochronology has indicated that the Ferrar magmatism occurred over a short interval (176.6 ± 1.8 Ma). To further constrain the age relationships within the two provinces, new Ar-Ar geochronology has yielded the following ages from three different regions: NE Heimefrontfjella (Dronning Maud Land), basaltic lava 172.4 ± 2.1 Ma, dolerite still 182.1 ± 1.9 Ma; 10 dolerites from the Theron Mountains (Coats Land), 172.6 ± 1.7 to 181.9 ± 2.5 Ma, although two dolerites with low K plagioclase gave ages of c. 190 Ma; Dufek Intrusion (Transantarctic Mountains) 182.5 ± 2.4 Ma. The Dufek intrusion is an extremely large layered gabbroic complex, which is an integral part of the Ferrar Magmatic Province, but is slightly older than the basalts in this province; suggesting an early intrusive episode followed by somewhat later volcanic episodes. A similar age distribution has also been demonstrated in NE Heimefrontfjella. The new Ar-Ar ages confirm a short-lived but widespread Mid-Jurassic magmatic episode within Antarctica. This magmatic episode is c. 25 Ma older than the earliest evidence for the separation of Africa and Antarctica, suggesting that the plume responsible for the magmatism in Dronning Maud Land and the Karoo province in southern Africa was not the driving force for continental separation. However, the magmatism in Dronning Maud Land and Coats Land in Antarctica and the postulated position of the plume correlate with the position of the failed Weddell Sea Rift System. The plume may have provided the driving force for this rift system, but, it did not possess sufficient energy to drive continental separation.


Stat Labs: Mathematical Statistics Through Applications blends mathematical statistics with modern statistical practice. It turns the traditional teaching of mathematical statistics on its head by making a case study the centerpiece of each chapter. Chapters begin with the introduction of a real problem followed by a description of the data collected to address the problem, rich background material to put the problem in context, and suggestions for investigating the problem. This novel approach to bringing data analysis into the theoretical course is ideal for motivating and illustrating standard statistical techniques, for helping students understand mathematical statistics, and for showing how statistics can be useful in a wide variety of contexts. Stat Labs is designed for use in a calculus-based introductory statistics course. It would be equally effective as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to a traditional mathematical statistics text. Deborah Nolan received her Ph.D in Statistics from Yale University, and she is now Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include high-dimensional modeling, the teaching of statistics, and the use of technology in education. She has also been involved in encouraging women into research careers in the mathematical sciences, and in 1997 edited the volume, Women in Mathematics: Scaling the Heights for the Mathematical Association of America. Terry Speed's professional activities center around teaching and research involving th application of statistics to genetics and molecular biology. He spends 50% of his time in the Department of Statistics of the University of California at Berkeley, and the other 50% with the Genetics and Bioinformatics Group of the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia.


A pot trial was carried out at the Institute of Forage Crops, town of Pleven, Bulgaria (2003-04). Whereas ammonium and nitrate forms of mineral nitrogen are assimilated for the plants, the influence of these two forms of mineral nitrogen on the chemical composition, nitrate reductase activity and plastid pigments content of lucerne in conditions of optimum moisture and water deficiency stress was tested. Urea as a source of ammonium nitrogen and potassium nitrate as a source of nitrate nitrogen were used. Rates of 70, 140 and 210 mg N kg -1 soil were applied. It was found that mineral nitrogen in ammonium form, applied at the doses of 140 and 210 mg N kg -1 soil at optimum moisture increased crude protein content by 5-13%, and in the nitrate form at the same doses, by 3-7%. Crude protein content under water deficiency stress increased by 4-21% for ammonium, and by 3-12% for the nitrate form of mineral nitrogen. When the plants were supplied insufficiently with nitrogen, water deficiency stress more strongly deteriorated the chemical composition of lucerne, crude protein decreased by 6% and crude fiber increased by 10%. The application of mineral nitrogen under optimum moisture decreased calcium and phosphorus content, and the decrease was bigger for the nitrate form (up to 10% for calcium, and 23% for phosphorus). Under water deficiency stress the content of calcium and phosphorus decreased, but there were no differences for two forms of mineral nitrogen. At the optimum moisture and water deficiency stress, there was a similar tendency to reduce nitrate reductase activity in leaves, when applied mineral nitrogen at a dose of 70 mg N kg -1 soil in both forms, and to increase at the doses of 140 and 210 mg N kg -1 soil. The total content of plastid pigments increased as compared to unfertilized control, when mineral nitrogen was applied in both forms.


American businesses have confronted a changing world economy marked by increasing competition , technological innovation, and instability. Many more women have entered the labor force. Many families' caregiving needs are now being met by family members who also are holding down jobs. This, in turn, has fueled the rising need among employees for workplace policies that enable them to meet the often competing demands of job and home. In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA of the Act) to provide a national policy that supports families in their efforts to strike a workable balance between the competing demands of the workplace and the home.

The objective of this study is to examine the amount of FMLA lost time at one particular company in order to determine a demographic and job characteristic profile of employees who take time away from their jobs for reasons that are protected by the Act.


One night - after midnight - social workers brought a baby girl to the author's home, and her life as a foster mother began. A social worker herself, Sarah Gerstenzang discovered that raising Cecilia, despite all the personal joys, would be a complex and frustrating process of "co-parenting" with the foster care system in New York City. Foster parents are in great demand, but they are not necessarily treated well. We follow the author through the home visits, the Early Intervention evaluation, the WIC program that (with much bureaucratic hassle) provides free formula and cereal, and the mandatory parenting training sessions. She comments, "When Michael and I became foster parents, we learned how stigmatizing, demoralizing, and just plain inconvenient and time consuming being part of the 'unentitled' population can be. With the exception of Early Intervention, we often felt that the programs were more concerned with regulating our behavior than with providing services." Regular meetings with the birth family were also part of the process. Not only were they awkward for all concerned, but each visit involved a commute of several hours. One social worker admitted that she preferred a foster parent who didn't work because that person could more easily comply with the time-consuming regulations. Sarah and her husband Michael also agonized over complying with special regulations about hiring babysitters or traveling ("anytime we left New York State we needed to ask the agency's permission, which in turn had to get the signed consent from the birth mother"). Central to "Another Mother" is the issue of transracial placement. Sarah remembers, "That first day the contrast between my pale skin and Cecilia's brown skin seemed glaring. Not only did I feel that I had someone else's child, I felt that I had a child from another culture. Would I owe someone an explanation?" (Gerstenzang is recalling the 1972 opposition of the National Association of Black Social Workers.) Her account is full of anecdotes and reflections about race: acceptance and prejudice from others; the feelings of her two children about having a sibling of a different race; and efforts to maintain links to the culture of the child's origin, beginning with skin and hair care.


The effect of sharpness angle on tool wear and the effect of tool wear on machined surface roughness were investigated in wood flour/polyethylene composite (WFPEC) peripheral up-milling using cemented tungsten carbide (TC) tools. It was shown that nose width and edge recession increased with increasing feeding length. During the milling process, the wear of the nose width was smallest for the tool with a sharpness angle of 45°, followed by tools with sharpness angles of 55° and 65°. The wear of edge recession was highest for the tool with a sharpness angle of 45°, followed by tools with sharpness angles of 55° and 65°. The nose width increased with increasing sharpness angle, the edge recession decreased with increasing sharpness angle, and the machined surface roughness increased with increasing sharpness angle after a feeding length of 40 m. The nose width had a positive effect on the machined surface roughness, and the machined surface roughness increased with increasing nose width. The edge recession had little effect on the machined surface roughness. The clearance face roughness of the worn tool increased with increasing sharpness angle. The analysis of the SEM micrographs and EDS of the clearance face of the worn tool showed that the wear mechanisms of the cemented tungsten carbide tool were oxidation and abrasion in the range tested during cutting. Thus, a slight wear of the edge recession is gained in exchange for a lower machined surface roughness by decreasing the sharpness angle.


Measurements of cirrus clouds and aerosol in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere have been performed with a mobile lidar system aboard the German research vessel Polarstern. The aerosol load in the lower stratosphere is higher in the tropics compared to the midlatitudes. Our data reveal a high frequency of occurrence of subvisual cirrus clouds in the tropical tropopause region. Based on the data of radiosondes the temperature of the clouds as well as the structure of the tropical tropopause is characterized. The mean optical depth was 0.02 and a mean temperature of 198 K was determined. Cloud tops are often found at the thermal tropopause. In some cases these clouds are extemely thin with an optical depth below 10-3.


Abstract We evaluate site conditions at each of the 21 Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) strong-motion stations in the Reno–Sparks, Nevada, area. Shallow shear-wave velocities are measured using the refraction microtremor (ReMi) technique (Louie, 2001). Average velocities to depths of 30 and 100 m are compared with local geological and soil classifications. Generalized 1:250,000 scale geological classifications show some variations in unit averages of the measured velocities, but variations between units are much smaller than the standard deviations of velocities within units having multiple measurements. Site velocities are weakly correlated with the weight percent of gravel, sand, silt, and clay in the soil unit at the surface. Predictions of site velocities based on these soil sediment percentages fall within ±20% of measured values for all but two of the 21 sites.


Comets provide a unique insight into the molecular composition and complexity of the material in the primordial solar nebula. Recent results from the Rosetta mission, currently monitoring comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in situ, and ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), have demonstrated a tantalising link between the chemical complexity now confirmed in disks (via the detection of gas-phase CH3CN; Oberg et al. 2015) and that confirmed on the surface of 67P (Goesmann et al. 2015), raising questions concerning the chemical origin of such species (cloud or inheritance versus disk synthesis). Results from an astrochemical model of a protoplanetary disk are presented in which complex chemistry is included and in which it is assumed that simple ices only are inherited from the parent molecular cloud. The model results show good agreement with the abundances of several COMs observed on the surface of 67P with Philae/COSAC. Cosmic-ray and X-ray-induced photoprocessing of predominantly simple ices inherited by the protoplanetary disk is sufficient to generate a chemical complexity similar to that observed in comets. This indicates that the icy COMs detected on the surface of 67P may have a disk origin. The results also show that gas-phase CH3CN is abundant in the inner warm disk atmosphere where hot gas-phase chemistry dominates and potentially erases the ice chemical signature. Hence, CH3CN may not be an unambiguous tracer of the complex organic ice reservoir. However, a better understanding of the hot gas-phase chemistry of CH3CN is needed to confirm this preliminary conclusion.


Scriptural Text Integration employed in some Catholic educational institutions throughout the world has become the core pedagogy that promises relevant and meaningful education for today's learner. This study investigated the experiences of the teachers and students in integrating Scriptural texts in English language classes. It utilized a transcendental phenomenological research design. The study involved ten students and ten teachers in both Catholic schools in Southern Philippines and in Bangkok, Thailand. Focus Group Discussion and interviews were employed. Findings reveal that teachers used strategies such as careful choice of Scriptural texts; using Scriptural texts to broaden the topic; connecting Scriptures to life experiences; and use of Scriptural text as a platform for values formation. In terms of challenges, they expressed difficulty in having ample time for meaningful integration; Lack of skill in integrating Scriptural text; passivity of some students; and difficulty in word choice considering Thai students' spiritual background. In terms of effects on teachers, they have improved teaching effectiveness; empowered in shaping students' values; Indepth understanding of the lesson; self-fulfillment; and improved devotion to God. For students, this enabled them to gain deeper understanding of the lesson; evaluate their actions; make them more reflective; build closer relationship to God; and learn to share. From the findings, it can be inferred that such integration enabled teachers to experience a deep sense of fulfilment. Students too, developed the skill of discernment in their actions. Thus, it is recommended that teachers be trained and encouraged to continually integrate scriptures in their instructional processes.


Abstract This is an introduction to each of the four papers, to the response, and to the discussion generated in the context of their first presentation. ********** This collection of papers is from a panel organized by Chris Ives for the Ethics Section of the American Academy of Religion meeting in Philadelphia in November, 2005. As Chair of that panel I offer this brief introduction. The topic addresses a clear concern, apparent to scholars but also to many practitioners, about the problematic approach to ethics of the Zen Buddhist tradition and the place of ethics in its modern context. One major impetus for this concern is the challenge to Japanese Zen from Brian Victoria in his Zen at War, and the revelation of the active support by eminent Zen figures for Japanese militarism and jingoism before and during World War II. One assumption of these papers is that Zen's historical ethical failings may be symptomatic of internal problematics in the very structure of Zen philosophy and discourse, perhaps more heightened in its interface with the West and modernity. The paper by Tom Kasulis proceeds from the embeddedness of religious traditions in the ethical systems of their cultures. He argues that Zen Buddhism did not need to develop its own ethical construct since it was basically in harmony with the Confucian ethical system of East Asia. But in the shift to the West, and modernity, Zen Buddhism must adapt to a significantly different ethical (and epistemological) paradigm, and risk losing part of its own traditional identity, or retain its previous ethic, and risk becoming anomalous. Kasulis' stimulating definition of this paradigm shift is the move from the East Asian "intimacy" model of ethics, based on a world-view of interdependence, with a consequent contextual emphasis and a value of responsiveness. The new Western "integrity" model, on the other hand, is based on a world-view aimed at objective independence, in which different persons are seen as autonomous identities all equally subject to abstracted moral rules, with a consequent value of responsibility, as opposed to situational responsiveness. Dale Wright in his paper directly confronts the issue of Japanese Zen masters' role in World War II and makes the case that morality is incidental to Zen enlightenment itself. He argues that Zen emphases on "no-mind" and non-duality, along with disdain for discriminative thinking, have been inimical to moral reflection. Wright claims that none of the stories in the koan literature deal with ethical dilemmas, and values of skillful means and wholehearted presence lack an ethical dimension. He proposes that Zen training programs do not address ethical issues, and that for those historical Zen figures who have demonstrated moral stature, this resulted from other incidental factors aside from their training. Wright argues that for Zen to find its moral bearings and be relevant to a modern context it must engage in critical thinking and reflection, and recover elements in its Mahayana roots that support such considerations. Jin Park examines and compares teachings of the Korean masters Chinul from the 12th century and Songch'ol in the 20th century as a focus for addressing issues in the interrelationship of wisdom and compassion in Zen thought, and questions about the processes through which compassion arises. She highlights and considers four problems for Zen ethics. The first, derived from non-dualist negation of secular distinctions, is the ambiguity of ethical categories. The second is the subjectivism of Zen practice due to the individualistic nature of realization. Third is the ambiguity of whether the ethical agent is the essential (enlightened) mind, or rather the existential (unenlightened) mind. Fourth is the public meaning of awakening; how is it expressed to respond to suffering in the mundane realm? In the nuanced discussion that follows, Park addresses the tension between reclusion and compassionate activity, and the implications for Buddhist social action of the modern Korean Minjung movement (Buddhism for the masses). …


Companies constantly seek to enhance customer satisfaction by improving product or service features. Two methods are commonly used to assess customer priorities for product or service features from individual customers: ratings and constant-sum allocation. A common problem with the ratings approach is that it does not explicitly capture priorities; it is easy for the respondent to say that every feature is important. The traditional constant-sum approach overcomes this limitation, but with a large number of (ten or more) features, it becomes difficult for the respondent to divide a constant sum among all of them. ASEMAP (pronounced Ace-Map, Adaptive Self-Explication of Multi-Attribute Preferences) is a new web-based interactive method for assessing customer priorities. It consists of the respondent first grouping the features into two or more categories of importance (e.g., more important, less important). The respondent then ranks the features in each of the categories from the most important to least important thereby resulting in an overall rank order of the features. In order to estimate quantitative values for the priorities, the computer-based approach breaks down the feature importance question into a sequence of constant-sum paired comparison questions. The paired comparisons are chosen adaptively for each respondent to maximize the information elicited from each paired comparison question. The respondent needs to be questioned only on a small subset of all possible paired comparisons. Importances for the features are estimated from the constant-sum paired comparisons by log-linear multiple regression. The empirical context was that of assessing research priorities among fifteen topics from managers of Marketing Science Institute's member companies. The ASEMAP method provided a statistically significant and substantially better validity than the traditional constant sum method.


Ketogenic diet is a replacing of carbohydrates by fats in everyday food. This approach was proposed for treatment of different brain diseases including Parkinson disease, cancer, trauma, however. currently it is approved only for curing of epilepsy and Alzheimer disease. Ketone bodies are synthesized from fats in liver. Generally they include β-hydroxybutirate (BHB), acetoacetate and acetone. BHB and acetoacetate can permeate through blood brain barrier and are used by neurons as a fuel. It is believed that beneficial properties of ketogenic diet can be explained by moderate increase of ketone bodies plasma concentration. Potentially, ketone bodies can influence neurons on three different levels. 1) They can be energy substrates and may change several metabolic pathways. 2) They can be signaling molecules for instance due to binding to specific plasma membrane. 3) They can influence neurons on epigenetic level because BHB is recognized as a histone deacetylase inhibitor. Several molecular mechanisms were proposed for explanation of beneficial properties of ketone bodies. However, the main mechanism is still a discussible question. Most likely different metabolic and signaling pathways are involved.


BACKGROUND
Children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities need support to function in an optimal way. However, there is a limited knowledge about the role of external personal assistants working in the children's home.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A mixed method study was performed including qualitative data from interviews with 11 Swedish parents and nine external personal assistants and quantitative data from questionnaires answered by 60 families.

RESULTS
For the child, the assistant's role was one of reinforcing, meaning supportive and empowering, and the child needed a high level of assistance. For the family, the role was one of balancing and the external personal assistant was more often found to assist in activities away from home while parents tended to assist within home and in family unit activities.

CONCLUSION
In planning and implementation of external assistance, the child's needs as well as considerations of the whole family should be regarded.


Negative human–wildlife interactions can be better managed by early detection of the wildlife species involved. However, many animals that pose a threat to humans are highly cryptic, and detecting their presence before the interaction occurs can be challenging. We describe a method whereby the presence of the estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), a cryptic and potentially dangerous predator of humans, was detected using traces of DNA shed into the water, known as environmental DNA (eDNA). The estuarine crocodile is present in waterways throughout southeast Asia and Oceania and has been responsible for >1,000 attacks upon humans in the past decade. A critical factor in the crocodile's capability to attack humans is their ability to remain hidden in turbid waters for extended periods, ambushing humans that enter the water or undertake activities around the waterline. In northern Australia, we sampled water from aquariums where crocodiles were present or absent, and we were able to discriminate the presence of estuarine crocodile from the freshwater crocodile (C. johnstoni), a closely related sympatric species that does not pose a threat to humans. Further, we could detect the presence of estuarine crocodiles within an hour of its entry and up to 72 hours after the crocodiles were removed from aquariums. We conclude that eDNA could be a valuable tool for reducing human–wildlife conflict through early detection of the species.


CASE STUDY
Ms. G, a 78-year-old woman with a history of heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction of 45%, had an exploratory laparotomy with colon resection and colostomy two days ago for an obstructive stage IIIB adenocarcinoma of the colon. She is a patient on a general surgical unit. Upon assessment at 7 am, Ms. G was easily aroused and oriented. She has a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pump for postoperative pain control with 1 mg of morphine available every 30 minutes; she used a total of 4 mg of morphine via IV since midnight. Ms. G requires belladonna and opium suppositories about every eight hours to treat bladder spasms associated with her urinary catheter.


HAMILTON County, Tennessee, is home to one of the nation's most widely touted school reform success stories. Beginning in 2001, eight low-performing elementary schools began an ambitious upward trek. (1) With $5 million from the Chattanooga-based Benwood Foundation and funding from several other local organizations, school and community officials launched an intensive teacher-centered campaign to reform the inner-city Chattanooga schools. The effort, now known as the Benwood Initiative, drastically improved student achievement, and education observers took notice. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige cited Benwood's success in his 2003 annual report to Congress. And national media outlets have trumpeted the Benwood story since, including the Washington Post, Reader's Digest, and Education Week. (2) Most of these accolades have focused on a distinct approach to improving teaching in low-performing schools. In short: get better teachers. To some extent, this is what happened. School district officials reconstituted the faculties of the Benwood schools, requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs and hiring replacements for those who didn't make the cut. Community officials established financial incentives to attract new talent, including free graduate school tuition, mortgage loans, and performance bonuses. The press, policy makers, and education organizations have pointed to these incentives as the source of Benwood's success. "They're offering cold cash ... and they're getting results," declared the Dallas Morning News in 2003. (3) Two years later, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl cited Benwood's "incentive package" as evidence of the wisdom of merit pay for teachers. (4) But the argument that these initiatives brought a flood of new and better teachers into the schools' classrooms has been overstated. Most of the teachers who reapplied for their jobs were hired back, and less than 20 of the 300 teachers in the Benwood schools received bonuses in the first year of the much touted financial incentive plan. (5) Benwood's success has had at least as much to do with a second, equally important reform strategy: helping teachers improve the quality of their instruction. A new analysis of "value-added" teacher effectiveness data indicates that over a period of six years, existing teachers in the eight Benwood elementary schools improved steadily. Before the Benwood Initiative kicked off, they were far less effective than their peers elsewhere in the Hamilton County district. By 2006, a group of mostly the same teachers had surpassed the district average. This improvement was by design. The Benwood Initiative was about much more than pay incentives and reconstitution; the district invested heavily in mentoring programs to train teachers, in additional staff to support curriculum and instruction, and in stronger and more collaborative leadership at the school level. At the same time, the Benwood Initiative was buoyed by better labor-management relations and a host of other reform efforts at the district level. These findings have implications for other districts looking to turn around low-performing schools. There is no doubt that disadvantaged students are disproportionately likely in American education to be taught by less experienced, less qualified, less effective teachers. But solving that problem is not merely a matter of redistributing teachers from one school to another. As the Benwood Initiative demonstrates, individual teacher effectiveness is not a fixed trait. School systems can take many steps, as Hamilton County has, to improve teachers' work in classrooms. A REASON FOR REFORM The impetus for change in Hamilton County began in the late 1990s when the county school system officially merged with the Chattanooga city system. The county schools were scoring in the 90th percentile on state tests, and the district had no pressing need to improve its stable and successful teaching force. …


Note: This article was posted on the Archives Web site as an Early Online Release. Early Online Release articles have been peer reviewed, copyedited, and reviewed by the authors. Additional changes or corrections may appear in these articles when they appear in a future print issue of the Archives. Early Online Release articles are citable by using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a unique number given to every article. The DOI will typically appear at the end of the abstract.


Significance Belief in rigid distinctions between the nationalistic ingroup and outgroup has been a motivating force in citizens' voting behavior, as evident in the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum. We found that individuals with strongly nationalistic attitudes tend to process information in a more categorical manner, even when tested on neutral cognitive tasks that are unrelated to their political beliefs. The relationship between these psychological characteristics and strong nationalistic attitudes was mediated by a tendency to support authoritarian, nationalistic, conservative, and system-justifying ideologies. This suggests flexible cognitive styles are related to less nationalistic identities and attitudes. Nationalistic identities often play an influential role in citizens' voting behavior and political engagement. Nationalistic ideologies tend to have firm categories and rules for what belongs to and represents the national culture. In a sample of 332 UK citizens, we tested whether strict categorization of stimuli and rules in objective cognitive tasks would be evident in strongly nationalistic individuals. Using voting behavior and attitudes from the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, we found that a flexible representation of national identity and culture was linked to cognitive flexibility in the ideologically neutral Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Remote Associates Test, and to self-reported flexibility under uncertainty. Path analysis revealed that subjective and objective cognitive inflexibility predicted heightened authoritarianism, nationalism, conservatism, and system justification, and these in turn were predictive of support for Brexit and opposition to immigration, the European Union, and free movement of labor. This model accounted for 47.6% of the variance in support for Brexit. Path analysis models were also predictive of participants' sense of personal attachment to the United Kingdom, signifying that individual differences in cognitive flexibility may contribute toward ideological thinking styles that shape both nationalistic attitudes and personal sense of nationalistic identity. These findings further suggest that emotionally neutral "cold" cognitive information processing—and not just "hot" emotional cognition—may play a key role in ideological behavior and identity.


In the U.S., sinusitis is more prevalent than arthritis and hypertension and, when chronic, can be as debilitating as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, lack of a clear definition of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) has made it difficult for clinicians to provide effective care or develop new drug therapies. The Sinus and Allergy Health Partnership (SAHP) recently published guidelines that enumerate the multiple causes of and appropriate diagnosis criteria for CRS that may lead to improved therapies for the condition. The guidelines were published in a recent issue of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.


Heat-not-burn tobacco products (HNB), including Reynolds American's (RA) 'Eclipse' and 'Revo' and Philip Morris International's (PMI) 'Heatbar', are devices that heat tobacco to ∼500°F, producing an inhalable aerosol. Since 1988, tobacco companies have perennially introduced HNB and marketed them as healthier than conventional cigarettes. These claims, refuted by researchers,1 failed to lure consumers. Each reincarnation of HNB was commercially unsuccessful, and most HNB products were discontinued shortly after their introduction. Until recently, HNB products were all but unavailable to consumers—but now may be the perfect time for a thriving HNB market.

Recent enthusiasm for e-cigarettes2 has captured the attention of researchers and the imagination of tobacco executives. E-cigarette use is buoyed by perceptions that they are less harmful than conventional cigarettes.3 However, recent estimates …


Zooplankton show a unique pattern of evolution with successive waves of invasion into the water column from the benthos. We have found that 18 of 21 planktonic groups whose ancestry can be traced originated in the benthos. New recruits have survived and radiated if preadapted to remain in the plankton, but no major clades have evolved there (with the possible exception of some protists). The innovative steps into the planktic realm do not coincide with major global events such as mass extinctions. Recruitment into the plankton can occur either at the larval stage or in adulthood. No groups have returned to a benthic mode of life from a planktic one, except possibly some of the cnidarians. This unusual pattern of evolution, a one-way track into a particular environment, demonstrates the profound effect of the ecosystem on large-scale patterns and processes of evolution.


All physical systems interact by exchanging power, or energy. This energy can be explicitly taken into account when designing robotic systems, in dynamic models of systems and controllers, leading to more insight in energy-related effects. In this thesis, a biomimetic cheetah robot is developed, by first identifying core dynamic (energy-based) principles of the real cheetah and then translating them into a mechanical design. Theoretical aspects required for this analysis and design are amongst others synchronisation of limit cycles, energy-efficiency of hopping robots, passivity and energy-aware controllers, morphological computation. Finally, we introduce a biomimetic robotic bird on which we aim to apply the methods and tools used and developed for the cheetah.


Based on historical and instrumental data, societies in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East have survived at least 150 large earthquakes (generally M > 6) during the past 2500 yr. Beyond this time span, an earthquake chronology is mostly unknown, which hampers the production of reliable long-term earthquake models. Since the only remaining evidence of seismic activity is a bedrock scarp, cosmogenic 36Cl is the only suitable nuclide to be applied in the determination of the seismic history and slip rate of an active limestone fault plane. In this study, we focus on the 4-m-high Mugırtepe fault scarp within the active Manisa fault zone in western Anatolia, one of the most seismically active and rapidly extending regions in the world. We analyzed 44 samples in two slightly overlapping strips, which in total covered 2.65 m of the fault scarp. In order to determine the timing and the amount of slip of the paleoseismic events, we analyzed the measured 36Cl concentrations using the Schlagenhauf Matlab® code. We used two different scenarios based on two different inherited 36Cl concentrations as constrained by our data and modeling. The best fi t for the fi rst scenario yields two seismic events, one at 13.7 ± 0.8 ka with a displacement of 0.5 ± 0.2 m and one at 7.8 ± 0.5 ka with 2.15 ± 0.35 m offset. For the second scenario, we obtained a single seismic event at 8.6 ± 0.6 ka with 2.65 ± 0.35 m of slip. These results indicate that the visible part of the Mugırtepe exposed fault scarp had achieved most of its displacement already by 8 ka. Initial surface faulting at Mugırtepe occurred not later than around 14 ka, and marked seismic activity continued until around 8 ka. Our fi rst results from the western Anatolian Extensional Province show the ability to reveal periods of enhanced seismic activity beyond historical data using cosmogenic 36Cl.


As part of an Australian national response to the global reassessment of the value and purpose of arts in schools, and society more generally, the Australian Government recently commissioned two important reviews: the National Review of School Music Education (2005) and the National Review of Education in Visual Arts, Craft, Design and Visual Communication (current). The Centre for Learning Change and Development based at Murdoch University in Western Australia has conducted both reviews with research teams drawn from across the country.
As digital technology and globalisation not only reshape the way we work but also how we conceive, think, experience and act, the capacity to think and act creatively is seen, more than ever before, as a necessary functioning skill. The potential for education in the arts to meet this – and other - emerging needs is evident.
Whilst the scope of each review differs, both aim to envision Australian arts education for a changing world. To this end, both reviews incorporate a range of data gathering mechanisms aimed at generating rich data that enables key issues and challenges to be identified, useful conclusions to be drawn and productive ways forward to be proposed. Respondents include teachers, students, arts organizations and instrumentalities, teacher-educators and other key stakeholders. In the interests of equity, a breadth of learning needs, groups and settings are incorporated into the process of inquiry.
In this presentation, the researchers will share their findings in a selection of key areas, including emergent challenges and paradigms of arts education, the status and practice of arts education in Australia, best-practice exemplars and productive pathways to improvement.


[Extract] The highly charged debate over the proposed Carmichael coal mine, which culminated in Attorney-General George Brandis's decision last week to propose winding back environmental legal protections, has exposed the simmering tension between "jobs" and "the environment" on Australia's political landscape.

On one hand, those seeking to invest in the development of Australia's natural resources and jobs growth have been making a clear case that Australia's system of assessment and approval for major projects is riddled with procedural uncertainty.

On the other, environmental advocates and local communities feel that the current system does not adequately protect the environment – correctly pointing out Australia's less than stellar record in preventing species from going extinct.

As a nation, however, we need to lift our game on both fronts.

Investors in the Australian economy and those seeking jobs and growth need certainty with regard to where and how they invest.

Equally, to avoid warfare (or "lawfare") on a project-by-project basis, Australia's environmental advocates and local communities need certainty too. They need clarity about where and how economic development can occur without harming our environmental heritage.


Is your company a storyteller--or a storydoer? The old way to market a business was storytelling. But in today's world, simply communicating your brand's story in the hope that customers will listen is no longer enough. Instead, your authentic brand must be evident in every action the organization undertakes. Today's most successful businesses are storydoers. These companies create products and services that, from the very beginning, are manifestations of an authentic and meaningful story--one told primarily through action, not advertising. In True Story, creative executive Ty Montague argues that any business, regardless of size or industry, can embrace the principles of storydoing. Indeed, our best-run companies--from small start-ups to global conglomerates--organize around a coherent narrative that is then broadcast through every action they take (from product design to customer service to marketing). Montague shows why storydoing firms are nimble, more adaptive to change, and more efficiently run businesses. Montague is a founder of the growth consultancy co:collective and the former president and CCO of J. Walter Thompson, the largest advertising agency in North America. He brings his depth of creative business experience to the book and provides a clear framework and proven process for bringing you and your customers together in the creation of your brand story. Montague introduces five critical elements--what he calls the "the four truths and the action map"--that are the foundation of storydoing: * the participants (your customers, partners, and employees) * the protagonist (your company today) * the stage (the world around your business) * the quest (your driving ambition and contribution to the world) * your action map (the actions that will make your story real for participants) The book is filled with examples of how forward-thinking organizations--including Red Bull, Shaklee, Grind, TOMS Shoes, and News Corporation--are effectively using storydoing to transform their organizations and drive extraordinary results.


Gene expression profiling in time and space within a population of cells can be used to generate a molecular movie of development. Birnbaum et al. describe an analytical approach to provide such a map in the context of the Arabidopsis root tip. Global expression patterns within the organ were mined to infer novel aspects of development, which included the discovery of organizing signals that could play important roles in cell fate and differentiation in Arabidopsis. K. Birnbaum, D. E. Shasha, J. Y. Wang, J. W. Jung, G. M. Lambert, D. W. Galbraith, P. N. Benfey, A gene expression map of the Arabidopsis root. Science 302, 1956-1960 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The CRISMA project (www.crismaproject.eu ) is a European Union funded project focusing on the simulation of multi-sectoral large scale crisis scenarios that have multi-dimensional effects on society and people. The project aims at the development of a framework to build use case specific tools which will allow decision-makers to cross-examine dynamic crisis scenario evolutions, to set action parameters of operational and strategic activities, and to visualise impacts and crisis evolvement. This will be achieved by providing a modular and open software framework to build planning and decision support systems for modelling and simulating realistic crisis scenarios and their possible consequences. CRISMA applications simulate and analyse the development of a simulated "World" in a crisis management context. A World is defined as a coherent set of data, simulation models operating on this data and the model control parameters governing the activity of these models. A snapshot of the World, or World State, consists of all data related to a specific crisis simulation experiment. This includes a set of information to control simulation models operating on the World data as well as a set of condensed, representative and quantitative information that can be used for a qualitative assessment of a world state. The user can influence a crisis evolvement by changing control parameters of the simulation models. Every modification of a World State is considered a distinct decision point and eventually produces a new World State. This leads to a decision tree. The architectural design approach uses several concepts from previous projects focusing on reference models, reference architectures and simulation-specific standards. For the CRISMA architecture, the project adopts certain common concepts that support a systematic architectural design process. In order to demonstrate and validate the design, five pilot sites are used to provide experimentation for validation and testing of a wide range of crisis management situations (coastal floods, extreme weather conditions, geophysical hazards, multi-organisational and cross-border cooperation in crisis management, planning and training for resource management). Piloting will include multi-risk and domino effects. The paper presents the business logic and key aspects of the CRISMA architecture. The work presented is work in progress, published during the design stage of the architecture. Implementation will be under way during the MODSIM 2013 conference.


This paper explores consumers' perception of irradiated ground beef products and the role of irradiation in consumer purchase decisions. Data was collected with a survey of ground beef consumers. The research objective was the identification of important attributes leading to consumer preference and selection of irradiated beef products. Results showed that a majority of consumers had heard of food irradiation and would be willing to purchase irradiated food products, but they were somewhat concerned about the impact of irradiation on safety, taste, and nutritional value with were listed as the three most important attributes in food purchases. Consumers trusted medical professionals and food scientists the most and government the least when it came to irradiation of food. The identification of the attributes should provide a useful guidance for the beef industry in terms of determining marketing strategies to increase the level of consumer preference for irradiated products.


The variability and trend of Arctic sea ice since the mid 1970s is well documented and linked to rising temperatures. However, much less is known for the first half of the 20th century, when the Arctic also underwent a period of strong warming. For studying this period in atmospheric models, gridded sea ice data are needed as boundary condi5 tions. Current data sets (e.g., HadISST) provide a historical climatology, but may not be suitable when interannual-to-decadal variability is important, as they are interpolated and relaxed towards a (historical) climatology to fill in gaps, particularly in winter. Regional historical sea ice information exhibits considerable variability on interannnualto-decadal scales, but is only available for summer and not in gridded form. Combining 10 the advantages of both types of information could be used to constrain model simulations in a more realistic way. Here we discuss the feasibility of reconstructing yearround gridded Arctic sea ice from 1900 to 1953 from historical information and a coupled climate model. We decompose sea ice variability into centennial (due to climate forcings), decadal (coupled processes in the ocean-sea ice system) and interannual 15 time scales (atmospheric circulation). The three time scales are represented by a historical climatology from HadISST (centennial), a closest analogue approach using the coupled control run of the CCSM-3.0 model (decadal), and a statistical reconstruction based on high-pass filtered data (interannual variability), respectively. Results show that di erences in the model climatology, the length of the control run, and inconsistent 20 historical data strongly limit the quality of the product. However, with more realistic and longer simulations becoming available in the future as well as with improved historical data, useful reconstructions are possible. We suggest that hybrid approaches, using both statistical reconstruction methods and numerical models, may find wider applications in the future. 25


Inferring events of interest by fusing data from multiple heterogeneous sources has been an interesting and important topic in recent years. Several issues related to inference using heterogeneous data with complex and nonlinear dependence are investigated in this dissertation. We apply copula theory to characterize the dependence among heterogeneous data. In centralized detection, where sensor observations are available at the fusion center (FC), we study copula-based fusion. We design detection algorithms based on sample-wise copula selection and mixture of copulas model in different scenarios of the true dependence. The proposed approaches are theoretically justified and perform well when applied to fuse acoustic and seismic sensor data for personnel detection. Besides traditional sensors, the access to the massive amount of social media data provides a unique opportunity for extracting information about unfolding events. We further study how sensor networks and social media complement each other in facilitating the data-to-decision making process. We propose a copula-based joint characterization of multiple dependent time series from sensors and social media. As a proofof-concept, this model is applied to the fusion of Google Trends (GT) data and stock/flu data for prediction, where the stock/flu data serves as a surrogate for sensor data. In energy constrained networks, local observations are compressed before they are transmitted to the FC. In these cases, conditional dependence and heterogeneity complicate the system design particularly. We consider the classification of discrete random signals in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), where, for communication efficiency, only local decisions are transmitted. We derive the necessary conditions for the optimal decision rules at the sensors and the FC by introducing a "hidden" random variable. An iterative algorithm is designed to search for the optimal decision rules. Its convergence and asymptotical optimality are also proved. The performance of the proposed scheme is illustrated for the distributed Automatic Modulation Classification (AMC) problem. Censoring is another communication efficient strategy, in which sensors transmit only "informative" observations to the FC, and censor those deemed "uninformative". We design the detectors that take into account the spatial dependence among observations. Fusion rules for censored data are proposed with continuous and discrete local messages, respectively. Their computationally efficient counterparts based on the key idea of injecting controlled noise at the FC before fusion are also investigated. In this thesis, with heterogeneous and dependent sensor observations, we consider not only inference in parallel frameworks but also the problem of collaborative inference where collaboration exists among local sensors. Each sensor forms coalition with other sensors and shares information within the coalition, to maximize its inference performance. The collaboration strategy is investigated under a communication constraint. To characterize the influence of inter-sensor dependence on inference performance and thus collaboration strategy, we quantify the gain and loss in forming a coalition by introducing the copula-based definitions of diversity gain and redundancy loss for both estimation and detection problems. A coalition formation game is proposed for the distributed inference problem, through which the information contained in the inter-sensor dependence is fully explored and utilized for improved inference performance. HETEROGENEOUS SENSOR SIGNAL PROCESSING FOR INFERENCE WITH NONLINEAR DEPENDENCE


Two major ideas are interwoven in this essay. The first is that fair elections under Ahmadinejad's government in Iran were highly improbable, even almost impossible. Still, the myth of fair elections was at the root of the Green Movement. Without it, the movement that shattered the legitimacy of the Islamic Regime would have been impossible. The second major idea is based on the close scrutiny of the electoral maps, not only in 2009 but also in 2005 and the years in between. The result is baffling: not only Ahmadinejad's victory was incomprehensible in light of these data but Mousavi's score was also highly unlikely because the two other candidates' votes were disproportionately minored in order to bring about a two-pronged electoral result that nothing seemed to justify, taking into account previous elections, presidential, municipal and parliamentarian.


. For many applications, nonuniformly distributed functional data is given which lead to large–scale scattered data problems. We wish to represent the data in terms of a sparse representation with a minimal amount of degrees of freedom. For this, an adaptive scheme which operates in a coarse-to-fine fashion using a multiscale basis is proposed. Specifically, we investigate hierarchical bases using B-splines and spline-(pre)wavelets. At each stage a least-squares approximation of the data is computed. We take into account different requests arising in large-scale scattered data fitting: we discuss the fast iterative solution of the least square systems, regularization of the data, and the treatment of outliers. A particular application concerns the approximate continuation of harmonic functions, an issue arising in geodesy.


Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI) has embarked on a programme to build twelve sanitary wastewater treatment plants as well as regulating industrial effluent discharges to sewerage system and imposing a pretreatment program An industrial waste sludge management study was performed as a part of the sludge management efforts for the City of Istanbul In this study, over 1,500 industries with a wide variety of activities in the project planning area have been identified and categorized considering their proximities to the Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) Since there was little data on industrial sludge, productions were calculated through a three step process which consisted of wastewater characterization, sludge production identification process typically employed to meet pretreatment standards and development of sludge production formulas An important part of the study was the classification of industrial sludges as hazardous or non-hazardous. Identifications were made in accordance with the US Code of Federal Regulations and wastewater characteristics and treatment processes were evaluated Economic and noneconomic analysis were conducted in order to evaluate the possibility of joint treatment of nonhazardous compatible iiudge with the sanitary sludge. Unit costs for joint treatment at each POTW were calculated and it is found that administrative burdens and liability would be the prime concern as opposed to the economic factors


The purpose of this study is to look at the influence of diagnosis on the way in which the experiences of children who have been adopted are understood. The pathologizing of trauma is explored through a Critical Discourse Analysis of selections from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5), as well as an article on trauma as it relates to children who are in need of foster or adoptive homes. A response-based perspective from the theories of Response-Based Practice is used for the Discourse Analysis to explore the ways in which language use highlights or silences the resistance shown by children who have experienced trauma. The results of the study show that language used in the discourse studied minimizes resistance shown by children who have been adopted. Through pathologizing language that focuses on symptoms of disorders, children's responses to trauma may not be fully recognized or understood. The recommendations include the need for parents and adoption professionals to understand more about the responses children may be demonstrating to experiences of trauma. A part of this recommendation is the need to remain aware of the ways in which language contributes to understanding and making sense of the experiences and behaviours of children who have been adopted. The impact of not understanding the full context of behaviour related to trauma and adoption may lead to misdiagnosis, ineffective treatment or adoption disruption.


Non-classical logics (such as modal logics, description logics, conditional logics, multi-valued logics, hybrid logics, etc.) have many applications in artificial intelligence. In this tutorial, we will demonstrate a generic approach to automate propositional and quantified variants of non-classical logics using theorem proving systems for classical higher-order logic. Our particular focus will be on quantified multimodal logics. We will present and discuss a semantical embedding of quantified multimodal logics into classical higher-order logic, which enables the encoding and automated analysis of non-trivial modal logic problems in the Isabelle/HOL proof assistant. Additionally, TPTP compliant automated theorem proving systems can be called from within Isabelle's Sledgehammer tool for automating reasoning tasks. In the tutorial, we will apply this approach to exemplarily solve a prominent puzzle from the AI literature: the well-known wise men.


The role of costimulatory signals in T cell induction was evaluated in mice lacking the interleukin-2 (IL-2) gene. In vitro secondary antiviral T cell responses were absent unless IL-2 was added, confirming the crucial role of IL-2 in vitro. In vivo, primary and secondary cytotoxic T cell responses against vaccinia and lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus were within normal ranges. B cell reactivity to vesicular stomatitis virus was not impaired. T helper cell responses were delayed but biologically functional. Natural killer cell activity was markedly reduced but inducible. These normal in vivo immune responses in IL-2-deficient mice question the importance of IL-2 as defined by in vitro studies.


Background and aim Health services should take account of cultural and faith diversity. Pakistanis are the UKs second largest ethnic group and one of the largest Muslim communities. However, relative to other ethnic minority groups, there is a paucity of sexual health research among this group. Using community-based qualitative research we explored the social and cultural influences on sexual attitudes and experiences of young Pakistanis in East London to determine whether there is unmet sexual health need and implications for service development. Design Between June and September 2008, 30 in-depth one-to-one interviews (60–90 min) were conducted with young Pakistanis (n=22) and community workers working with Pakistani youth (n=8). Young Pakistanis were purposively selected across community settings: aged 16–25, born in UK and/or had been through UK secondary school. Interviews aimed to establish key life, social and cultural issues, with focus on relationship type and formation and perceived need/support. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis was thematic using "Framework" approach. Results Many themes emerged which have a bearing on, and shape young Pakistanis' experiences of, relationships. Most experience parental restrictions on socialising and mixing with the opposite sex. For girls, behaviour is further monitored by older brothers and for both sexes "community policing" is an extension of this. However, young people have developed creative strategies to circumvent these restrictions and despite faith and cultural norms, relationships do take place, primarily in secrecy. This presents what are described as "conflicting pressures", "double worlds", and "multiple realities", which young people negotiate and move between, balancing different value systems. There were striking gender differences in perceptions and types of relationships and intimacy. For young women the ideal was a relationship for marriage. However, many described partners as "bad boys" and "gangster types" and some relationships were considered pressurised and "unhealthy". The young men made distinctions between girls deemed "wifey material" and those for casual relationships. Older boys (18+) were sexually active with partners from a range of ethnic backgrounds. Condom use was inconsistent. Though not sexually active, some of the other young people had experienced mutual touching and/or oral sex. Few had good sexual health knowledge and would not know where to access help. Conclusions The secrecy within which young Pakistanis have relationships and the pressures and gender roles they negotiate mean that many may not receive the support they need. This has implications for the delivery of appropriate preventative and curative sexual health services.


When Jack London died in 1916 at age forty, he was one of the most famous writers of his time. Eighty years later, he remains one of the most widely read American authors in the world. The first major critical study of London to appear in a decade, "Male Call" analyses the nature of his appeal by closely examining how the struggling young writer sought to promote himself in his early work as a sympathetic, romantic man of letters whose charismatic masculinity could carry more significance than his words themselves. Jonathan Auerbach shows that London's personal identity was not a basis of his literary success, but rather a consequence of it. Unlike previous studies of London that are driven by the author's biography, "Male Call" examines how London carefully invented a trademark 'self' in order to gain access to a rapidly expanding popular magazine and book market that craved authenticity, celebrity, power, and personality. Auerbach demonstrates that only one fact of London's life truly shaped his art: his passionate desire to become a successful author. Whether imagining himself in stories and novels as a white man on trail in the Yukon, a sled dog, a tramp, or a professor; or engaging questions of manhood and mastery in terms of work, race, politics, class, or sexuality, London created a public persona for the purpose of exploiting the conventions of the publishing world and marketplace. Revising critical commonplaces about both Jack London's work and the meaning of 'nature' within literary naturalism and turn-of-the-century ideologies of masculinity, Auerbach's analysis intriguingly complicates our view of London and sheds light on our own postmodern preoccupation with celebrity. "Male Call" will attract readers with an interest in American studies, American literature, gender studies, and cultural studies.


The electroanalytical detection of the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) in the presence of uric acid (UA) is explored for the first time using commercially procured nanodiamonds (NDs). These are electrically wired via surface modification upon screenprinted graphite macroelectrodes (SPEs). The surface coverage of the NDs on the SPEs was explored in order to optimize electroanalytical outputs to result in well-resolved signals and in low limits of detection. The (electro)analytical outputs are observed to be more sensitive than those achieved at bare (unmodified) SPEs. Such responses, previously reported in the academic literature have been reported to be electrocatalytic and have been previously attributed to the presence of surface sp carbon and oxygenated species on the surface of the NDs. However, XPS analysis reveals the commercial NDs to be solely composed of nonconductive sp carbon. The low/negligible electroconductivity of the NDs was further confirmed when ND paste electrodes were fabricated and found to exhibit no electrochemical activity. The electroanalytical enhancement, when using NDs electronically wired upon SPEs, is attributed not to the NDs themselves being electrocatalytic, as reported previously, but rather changes in mass transport where the inert NDs block the underlying electroactive SPEs and create a random array of graphite microelectrodes. The electrode was applied to simultaneous sensing of DA and UA at pH 5.5. Figures of merit include (a) low working potentials of around 0.27 and 0.35 V (vs. Ag/AgCl); and (b) detection limits of 5.7 × 10 and 8.9 × 10 M for DA and UA, respectively.


The natural evolution of the estuary-coastal lagoon system of the Ria de Aveiro, Portu- gal, was halted in 1808 by the construction of a new inlet/outlet channel through the sand spit which isolates it from the Atlantic Ocean. In consequence, tidal amplitudes in the lagoon increased from 0.07-0.13 m to over 1 m. Improvements to the channel since 1936, including construction of jetties, breakwaters and dredging, have increased its cross-sectional area. This has caused a steady increase in tidal amplitude to between 2.5 and 2.8 m, the erosion of mud flats, salt marsh and old salt pans, the widening and deepening of channels, and a greater capacity for sediment transport and dispersal due to the increased tidal currents. The volume of the tidal prism calculated for spring tides is now 1.7 times that in 1951; thus areas bordering the lagoon, especially agricultural fields, are experiencing a progressively increasing risk of flooding and salt water contamination at high water. Any future increase of mean sea level will contribute to an increase of both area and volume of the water mass and could cause important changes to the dynamics of the system. An increase in mean sea level of 0.1 m will, for example, correspond to an increase of 5% in the capacity of the system and contribute to an increase in the speed of tidal propagation. The resulting increase in the volume of the tidal prism will be up to 22% of the present maximum value.


In September 2010 the EMA decided to suspend the market authorisation of rosiglitazone, while the FDA decided to restrict the use of rosiglitazone. These actions were taken approximately 10 years after the introduction of rosiglitazone, because rosiglitazone might be associated with an increased risk of ischemic heart disease. It is often stated that the first signs of an increased risk of ischemic heart disease were noticed in 2004, however already in 2001 the FDA concluded, based on data available to the EMA at the time of initial approval, that rosiglitazone should not be used in combination with insulin, because this combination therapy was associated with an increased risk of cardiac failure and ischemic heart disease. Remarkably, in 2007, when the evidence against this combination therapy had increased, the EMA made a decision that encouraged the use of insulin in combination with rosiglitazone, while the FDA tried to restrict this combination therapy. Despite the publication of several studies, including a large randomized controlled study, the cardiovascular risk of rosiglitazone still has not been definitively established. The weight given to the benefits and the risks seems mainly a subjective decision. To prevent new cases like rosiglitazone, more attention should be given to evaluation of study protocols of safety trials prior to their starts. This paper gives a critical overview of the decision making process at the FDA and the EMA on the basis of public available information.


Purpose: To present a comprehensive patient‐specific IMRT QA procedure on Tomotherapy® unit using ion chamber and radiographic film for those facilities with RIT® film dosimetry system. Method and Materials: A cylindrical Virtual Water® phantom was scanned in CT with an ion chamber in the hole 1.5 cm below the middle coronal plane. Three‐dimensional dose calculation in fine grid using treatment beam was performed to the phantom which is appropriately positioned so that the measuring point and plane are within the volume of interest. A sheet of Kokak® EDR‐2 Readypack was sandwiched between two halves of the phantom and pricked on green lasers. Film exposure and ion chamber measurement were made simultaneously. To verify planar absolute dose distribution, the film was calibrated in a separate sheet of the same batch on the same day IMRT QA was performed. To facilitate the film calibration and film dosimetryanalysis on Tomotherapy planning station, an in‐house software was developed to perform step‐valley film calibration and film image data conversion from RIT® format to DICOM format which is acceptable by the current version of Tomotherapy planning system. Results: 213 patient‐specific IMRT QA procedures have been performed on Tomotherapy unit since it was installed about two years ago. The average discrepancy between ion chamber measurement and dose calculation in phantom is 1.74%. Film dosimetry results agree with ion chamber measurements in an average discrepancy 1%. Three cases have failed the QA procedure based on 5% discrepancy criteria. Conclusion: Three‐dimensional dose calculation algorithm for helical IMRT works very well in homogeneous phantom. This QA procedure is clinically practical and necessary when independent dose calculation tools are not available. It is feasible to verify two‐dimensional absolute dose distribution using radiographic film if it is calibrated against ion chamber reading which is traceable to ADCL or NIST.


This paper aims to discuss the influence of interdependently effective political discourses and cultural differences in early modern Mediterranean regarding the motives for official state portraiture. Therefore, the paper will focus on the portraits of monarchs, foremost the depictions of Philip IV of Spain by the court painter Velazquez and works of Titian under the patronage of Charles V and Philip II in order to analyse, how the conservative portraiture culture was established and maintained during the so-called Siglo de Oro . In contrast to the western Mediterranean, the intercultural portraiture style of the Ottoman Emperor Mehmed II will be given to emphasize the significant role of political inclinations of monarchs on their portraits. A multi-layered approach lies therefore at the basis of full socio-political and cultural comprehension of the paintings to overcome a simple analysis and to contextualize the work of art within both macro and micro historical perspective.


Among tropical environments, Cerrados stand out because of its agriculture potencial. Although microorganisms play an important role on soil sustainability and crop production, few infor- mation is available on the effects of soil management systems on Cerradois microbial ecology. In this study the effects of environmental conditions and soil management practices on bacterial populations were evaluated. Bacterial population densities in soil under native vegetation were variable and diferentiated. Actinomycetes densities varied from 1.7 to 50 X 10 4 CFU/g dry soil in Sete Lagoas region, Brazil, whereas bacterial populations in both the first and second year of land use were similar and higher than those from soil under native vegetation in the Planaltina region. Soil management practices did not cause strong modifications in the equilibrium among actinomycetes populations obtained from both spores and hyphal. The spore/hypha ratios varied from 1.1 to 5.8. Correlation coefficients among actinomycetes and other bacteria populations were signifficant in soybeans rhizo- spheres. Results show that soil management practices used for soybean cultivation in Cerrado soils may influence the equilibrium of bacterial populations.


ABSTRACT The human polyomavirus JC virus is the etiologic agent of the fatal disease demyelinating progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. Although multiple transcription factors have been shown to interact with the JC virus promoter and regulate transcriptional activity, their relevance to cell specificity remains elusive. To investigate whether chromatin structure controls glial cell-specific expression of JC virus early genes, glial and nonglial cells were transfected with a reporter plasmid containing the JC virus early promoter and then treated with the histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors trichostatin A (TSA) and sodium butyrate. TSA and butyrate induced 20- to 30-fold activation of the JC virus promoter in nonglial cells, whereas less than 2-fold induction was observed in glial cells. These results indicate that the JC virus early promoter might be highly suppressed in nonglial cells by hypoacetylated chromatin and activated by hyperacetylation. In support of this, chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated acetylation of the JC virus promoter region in U87MG cells but no acetylation in HeLa cells. In addition, treatment of HeLa cells with TSA induced hyperacetylation of the JC virus promoter, whereas minimal induction was seen in U87MG cells. Deletional and site-directed mutational analyses revealed that the enhancer region and Sp1 binding site upstream of the TATA box were important for TSA-mediated activation. We confirmed TSA-mediated activation of the JC virus promoter in the context of natural chromatin structure in stable cell lines. Thus, it appears that chromatin structure may control JC virus transcription in a cell-specific manner.


Intracellular recordings were obtained from the ectodermal cells of the gastrozooids of the siphonophore, Agalma sp. Stimulated gastrozooids undergo rapid longitudinal contractions that are immediately preceded by a series of action potentials which propagate throughout the epithelium. These rapid potentials arise from a much slower graded depolarization. Both potentials are abolished in low sodium solutions. Fast action potentials persist in the presence of manganese ions but both the slow potentials and contraction are abolished.


Contemporary debates on "open science" mostly focus on the pub- lic accessibility of the products of scientific and academic work. In contrast, this paper presents arguments for "opening" the ongoing work of science. That is, this paper is an invitation to rethink the university with an eye toward engaging the public in the dynamic, conceptual and representational work involved in creating scientific knowledge. To this end, we posit that public computing spaces, a genre of open- ended, public learning environment where visitors interact with open source computing platforms to directly access, modify and create complex and authentic scientific work, can serve as a possible model of "open science" in the university.


Rural low-cost housing in South Africa is characterised by poor thermal performance, as these houses are designed with no consideration of utilising ambient weather conditions for indoor thermal comfort. Hence, a prototype low-cost energy efficiency house was built based on the principle of passive solar design to avert the energy burden faced by low-cost house dwellers. Passive solar design in this context is the strategic selecting and locating of building envelope components to utilise the ambient weather factor of a house to enhance indoor thermal comfort. The aim of this study is to analyse the thermal performance of the passive solar house. To this effect, the indoor and weather conditions of the house which include air temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation were monitored. The thermal contribution of the windows was determined from the measured data. In summer, 49% of the whole building air temperature and approximately 85% of its corresponding relative humidity were found within the thermal comfort. Only 23% temperature and 78% relative humidity distributions of the whole building were in the thermal comfort zone in the winter season. The daily cumulative heat contribution of the clerestory windows with no shading material was higher than that of the south-facing windows by 1.08 kWh/m2/windows in summer and 4.45 kWh/m2/windows in winter.


Using a highly linear fiber optic transceiver with IIP3 > 35 dBm, operating at noise level of -160dB/Hz, we demonstrate 71 km RF over Fiber LTE-Ultra transmission links with five 20 MHz intra-band aggregated carriers for a total of 100 MHz with 3% Total EVM (rms) for 64QAM modulation. Results meet the ≤ 8% requirement for 64QAM set in 3GPP specification 36.104 for signal transmission between base station and remote radio head. This demonstrates that the CPRI/OBSAI transmission layer can be completely eliminated and replaced with much higher bandwidth, lower cost and lower power direct RF over Fiber LTE transmission. The technology can be implemented using wavelength division multiplexing and offers a solution for implementing next generation 5G fronthaul Cloud Radio Access Networks with BBU to RRH separation exceeding 100km.