The multi‐scale spatial match between bird and food abundances is a main driver of the structure of fruit‐eating bird assemblages. We explored how the activity of fruit‐eating birds was influenced by the abundance of fruits at the local and landscape scales in Andean mountain forests during the breeding season, when most birds forage close to their nest. We measured: (1) the spatial scale of variation in the abundance of fruits, (2) the spatial scale of variation in the activity of fruit‐eating birds, and (3) the spatial match between both variables. The sampling design consisted of eleven 1.2‐ha sites, each subdivided into 30 cells of 20 × 20 m, where we sampled fruits and fruit‐eating birds. We found that fruit consumption, and to a lesser extent bird abundance, were associated with local spatial variation in abundance of selected fruit species. However, fruit‐eating birds did not modify their spatial distribution in the landscape following changes in availability of these fruits. Our study shows that fruit‐eating birds detect local spatial variation in fruit availability in their home breeding ranges, and exploit patches with large clusters of selected fruits. However, it may be unprofitable for breeding birds to stray too far from their nests to exploit fruit‐rich patches, accounting for the absence of fruit tracking at larger spatial scales.


In a timely and eye-opening book Rodric Braithwaite examines the Russian experience in that most recent war in Afghanistan (after Alexander's conquests and the many British imperial wars and skirmishes). Largely basing his account on Russian sources and interviews he shows the war through the eyes of the Russians themselves - politicians, officers, soldiers, advisers, journalist, women. As former ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite brings unique insights to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The story has been distorted not only by Cold War propaganda but also by the myths of the nineteenth century Great Game. It moves from the high politics of the Kremlin to the lonely Russian conscripts in isolated mountain outposts. The parallels with Afghanistan today speak for themselves. 'A superb achievement of narrative history, sensitive writing and exciting fresh research': so wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore about Rodric Braithwaite's bestseller Moscow 1941. But those words, and many others of praise that were given it, could equally apply to his new book.


Ka mau tonu ngā taonga tapu o ngā matua tupuna Koinei ngā taonga i tuku iho, na te ātua Hold fast to the treasures of the ancestors For they are the treasures that have been handed down to us by God' (Dymond, 2013, p. 274)  Ecologists, resource managers, landowners and iwi generally strive to manage biodiversity on their whenua as obliged by legislation. This may include restoration, protection, the mitigation of negative human impacts, or the prevention of further habitat loss. Mainstream ecological science and resource management (ERM) usually guides management decisions and provides evidence of management effectiveness. However, ecological science can struggle with stochastic and complex biological systems. Māori have hundreds of years of environmental knowledge and understanding that could be utilised by mainstream resource managers to enhance society's combined knowledge. An assessment tool that places mātauranga at its core can introduce a Māori perspective, privilege Māori knowledge, enable holistic co-management, re/introduce social values and create a common ground on which the two paradigms can connect.  He Kete Hauora Taiao is an environmental assessment framework for terrestrial habitats constructed on Māori ecological health indicators by applying them to quantitative ecological scientific data. He Kete Hauora Taiao is built on the Driver – Pressure – State/Condition – Indicator – Response framework (K. F. D. Hughey, Cullen, Kerr, & Cook, 2004). Māori ecological perspectives or ariā (indicators, perspectives or concepts) are placed at the 'condition' level. Ariā include concepts such as mauri, whakapapa, tapu, wairua and mahinga kai which are linked to environmental structures, processes, functions and services. These ecological indicators can then be assessed with recognised qualitative scientific tools, metrics and targets. ESAT, Ecological State Assessment Tool, is a database that accompanies He Kete Hauora Taiao and enables quantitative ecological data to be viewed through a Māori perspective and weighted according to its relevance to management objectives.   Creating a new bicultural environmental assessment framework required the exploration of the intersection between Māori ecological knowledge (MEK) and ERM. To my knowledge this is the first MEK based ecological assessment framework created specifically for terrestrial habitats and the first one to attempt to quantify MEK ecological indicators, relate them to ecology and resource management metrics and develop an interface between the two epistemologies. He Kete Hauora Taiao and ESAT (Ecological Statement Assessment Tool) are valuable resource management tools. Together they can create resource management programmes informed by a Māori value framework and are tailored to specific whenua, iwi agendas and political reporting and management requirements. He Kete Hauora Taiao spans the intersection between ERM and MEK, enabling communication and translation. MEK may provide context to scientific data and the scientific data may help augment understanding of MEK. Combined, MEK and ERM may create a powerful force that could vastly improve our resource management and conservation efforts. He Kete Hauora Taiao is a framework that could be engaged with by territorial authorities, iwi kaitiaki and landowners nationwide to automatically build te ao Māori into our management practices.


SAGE Reference is proud to announce the Encyclopedia of Career Development. With more than 400 articles the Encyclopedia of Career Development is the best reference tool for research on career-related topics. Covering a broad range of themes, the contributions to these two volumes represent original material written by leading researchers, academics and practitioners in the field of career development. This multidisciplinary resource examines career-related issues from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, education, counselling, organizational behaviour and human resource management.The Encyclopedia of Career Development: - offers introductory materials prepared by the editors and supplementary appendices on key topics; - incorporates global, cultural and international dimensions of careers and examines the social context of careers such as the contemporary work environment, emerging values in society, gender and ethnicity, social class and work-family interface; - explores the evolution of careers including career stages, patterns and transitions, as well as variations in the meaning of career success; - discusses career decision-making strategies, and looks at employment law and regulations that influence career development and decision making; - analyzes initiatives used by employers, career counsellors and society to promote the effective career development. Topics covered include: - Theoretical Perspectives on Careers; - The Social Context of Careers; - Cultural and International Perspectives; - Ethnicity, Gender, and Diversity; - The Organizational Environment; - Social Class and Background; - The Work-life Interface; - The Evolution and Development of Careers; - Decision-Making and Career Development; - Variations in Career Patterns and Career Success; - Career Development Initiatives; - Legislative and Regulatory Mandates; - Assessment Areas and Techniques; - Job Search and Organizational Recruiting; - Professional Associations.


Automated decision making has become widespread in recent years, largely due to advances in machine learning. As a result of this trend, machine learning systems are increasingly used to make decisions in high-stakes domains, such as employment or university admissions. The weightiness of these decisions has prompted the realization that, like humans, machines must also comply with the law. But human decision-making processes are quite different from automated decision-making processes, which creates a mismatch between laws and the decision makers to which they are intended to apply. In turn, this mismatch can lead to counterproductive outcomes.

We take antidiscrimination laws in employment as a case study, with a particular focus on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A common strategy for mitigating bias in employment decisions is to "blind" human decision makers to the sensitive attributes of the applicants, such as race. The same strategy can also be used in an automated decision-making context by blinding the machine learning system to the race of the applicants (strategy 1). This strategy seems to comply with Title VII, but it does not necessarily mitigate bias because machine learning systems are adroit at using proxies for race if available. An alternative strategy is to not blind the system to race (strategy 2), thereby allowing it to use this information to mitigate bias. However, although preferable from a machine learning perspective, this strategy appears to violate Title VII.

We contend that this conflict between strategies 1 and 2 highlights a broader legal and policy challenge, namely, that laws designed to regulate human behavior may not be appropriate when stretched to apply to machines. Indeed, they may even be detrimental to the very people that they were designed to protect. Although scholars have explored legal arguments in an attempt to press strategy 2 into compliance with Title VII, we believe there lies a middle ground between strategies 1 and 2 that involves partial blinding—that is, blinding the system to race only during deployment and not during training (strategy 3). We present strategy 3 as a "Goldilocks" solution for discrimination in employment decisions (as well as other domains), because it allows for the mitigation of bias while still complying with Title VII. Ultimately, any solution to the general problem of stretching human laws to apply to machines must be sociotechnical in nature, drawing on work in both machine learning and the law. This is borne out in strategy 3, which involves innovative work in machine learning (viz. the development of disparate learning processes) and creative legal analysis (viz. analogizing strategy 3 to legally accepted auditing procedures).


Transport project prioritisation and selection processes require consideration of many aspects of costs, intended benefits and other impacts. Economic analysis methods can measure many of those factors, though the analysis methods must be specified in ways that meet the information needs of decision-makers. This paper examines how benefit-cost analysis, economic impact analysis and multi-criteria analysis approaches have evolved and been applied to address the specific form of governmental decision processes that exist in the U.S. and some other countries. It discusses how "ex-post" case studies and associated statistical studies of have been promoted and utilised to both inform and refine "ex-ante" evaluation methods. It concludes by discussing the advantages, limitations and trade-offs involved in the use of this approach for transport project decision-making.


For much of its history, Armenia has been a prisoner of its difficult geography. Situated at a strategic crossroads, it has lost out in competition with much larger regional powers and empires, and was the victim of the first genocide of the 20th century. Armenia is now at a crucial political crossroads yet again, this time with the fate of the country's strategic orientation and domestic stability in the balance.


Individuals within fish populations differ in many traits, such as sex, life-history, habitat residence, diet, and morphology. Such trait differences among individuals (i.e. intra-population variation) may be greater than the differences among populations (i.e. inter-population variation). My dissertation examines intra-population variation, with a focus on trophic relationships and morphology; as well as how variation in these attributes may reflect differences in bioaccumulation of contaminants. The second chapter of my dissertation examines the influence of spatial-temporal variation on the trophic structures of round goby (Neogobius melanstomus) and two age classes of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) within Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron. Using stable isotope ratios (δ13C, δ15N, δ2H, δ18O) and stomach contents as trophic indicators, I examined variation of diets. I found that spatial variation had a greater impact on diet indicators than both annual and seasonal variation. This spatial variation could represent a form of compartmentalization within the community of fish residing in Saginaw Bay, and could provide stability to the community. Chapter three of my dissertation examines intra-population variation in yellow perch morphology through a series of mesocosm experiments. My first mesocosm study determined that yellow perch could be experimentally manipulated to display divergent morphologies using simulated habitats, specifically pelagic and littoral habitats. Following this experiment, I focused on specific environmental drivers (structure, prey resources, and predation risk) as possible influences on yellow perch morphology. Within experimental pools, I exposed yellow perch to one of four treatments (an open pool, a structured pool, pools with chironomid prey resources and pools with a perceived, olfactory, predation risk) in the summer of 2015. Following exposure to these treatments I examined the morphological changes in yellow perch in magnitude and direction. I observed that while each treatment induced some difference in morphology, the open and structured treatments had the greatest magnitude of difference. I repeated the open and structure treatments during the following summer (2016). Again, I found that structure and open morphologies could be induced by my mesocosm treatments, but also observed that shapes differed from the previous year's structure and open treatments. Finally, my fourth chapter examined how variation in trophic niches and morphology may reflect variation in contaminant concentration of fish in their natural environment. In this chapter, I extended my work with yellow perch to also include black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) and examined fish from 5 northern Indiana glacial lakes. Using model inference techniques, I found that variation in mercury was closely associated with not only fish total length, but also stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) and morphology. Interestingly, morphology-related variables of both species were strong predictors of mercury concentration in fish, following total length. Together, the chapters within my dissertation highlight the importance of considering intra-population variation, in which local factors such as habitat conditions and prey availability can influence individual variation in trophic structuring and morphology. These in turn may reflect other attributes of interest, such as the accumulation of contaminants.


We vindicate the widespread intuition that there is something morally problematic with for-profit corporations providing care to young children and elders. But instead of putting forward an empirical argument showing that for-profit corporations score worse than not-for-profits when it comes to meeting the basic needs of these vulnerable groups, we develop a philosophical argument about the nature of the relationship between a care organisation, its role-occupants, and care recipients. We argue that the correlation between profit and lower-quality care is a result of intrinsic features of a for-profit model, combined with conceptual features of meaningful caring relationships, such that non-profits are the most reliable institutional providers of adequate care. Our claim is that care requires a kind of commitment that for-profit institutions are constituted to avoid, and that non-profit institutions are constituted to embrace.


Using detailed firm-level transactions data for UK imports, we find that invoicing in a vehicle currency is pervasive, with more than half of transactions in our sample invoiced in neither sterling nor the exporter's currency. We then study the relationship between invoicing currency choices and the response of import prices to exchange rate changes. We find that for transactions invoiced in a vehicle currency, import prices are much more sensitive to changes in the vehicle currency than in the bilateral exchange rate. Pass-through therefore substantially increases once we account for vehicle currencies. Our results help to explain the higher-thanexpected pass-through into import prices during the Great Recession and after the EU referendum. Finally, within a theoretical framework we conceptualize an omitted variable bias arising in estimating pass-through with only bilateral exchange rates under vehicle currency pricing. Overall, our results contribute to understanding the disconnect between exchange rates and prices.


Background: The Private Nursing School was founded in 1999 in Durban when the first nursing students started the Nursing program. In 2006 there was an upgrade to the Private Nursing School when a clinical skills laboratory was introduced to enhance the students' clinical skills. The clinical skills laboratory was furnished with the equipment needed for demonstrations, role-plays and lectures to take place, and a need arose to evaluate the laboratory.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to conduct a process evaluation to evaluate the clinical skills laboratory at the Private Nursing School with regard to the quality of equipment, satisfaction of the students and the efficiency of clinical facilitators.
Methodology: A process evaluation was conducted of the clinical laboratory, including a quantitative survey to evaluate the students' satisfaction (n=97), a quantitative audit of the quality of the equipment, a review of the utilisation of the clinical skills laboratory and semi-structured interviews with the four clinical facilitators. Students from two years were purposively selected for the study as they made the most use of the clinical skills laboratory. Survey tools were developed by the researcher. Findings from the surveys and audits were described and Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney to compare satisfaction and beliefs of the students. Information from the clinical facilitator interviews were analysed for common themes on usage and satisfaction. Results: The students and facilitators reported overall satisfaction with the running of the clinical skills laboratory. The findings of the evaluation showed that the clinical laboratory was reaching the target groups with all students making use of the clinical skills laboratory for the purpose of viewing demonstrations, subjecting skills to assessment or practising skills. The students felt that learning did take place in the clinical skills laboratory with most of the students (94, 96.2%) reporting that knowledge was gained from demonstrations and practice. Almost two thirds of the students (59.8%) felt that the support from the clinical facilitators was beneficial to them. Some quality issues in terms of equipment were identified where damaged equipment could not be used by the support staff and facilitators stating that there was a need to improve the simulation experience for the students so that they can gain the much-needed practical and theoretical knowledge required for their stipulated course.
Conclusion: The clinical skills laboratory is functioning at a level that is satisfactory to the nursing students and the clinical facilitators. Future research should be conducted regarding the impact and outcomes of the clinical skills laboratory training on students' ability to function in the clinical setting.


This article analyzes negative externalities that policymakers in one region or group may impose upon the citizens of neighboring regions or groups. These externalities may be material, but they may also be psychological (in the form of envy). The latter form of externality may arise from the production of `conspicuous' public goods. As a result, decentralized provision of conspicuous public goods may be too high. Potentially, a centralized legislature may internalize negative externalities. However, in a model with strategic delegation, we argue that the median voter in each jurisdiction may anticipate a reduction in local public goods supply and delegate to a policymaker who cares more for public goods than she does herself. This last effect mitigates the expected benefits of policy centralization. The authors' theory is then applied to the setting of civil conflict, where they discuss electoral outcomes in Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia before and after significant institutional changes that affected the degree of centralization. These case studies provide support for the authors' theoretical predictions.


The European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued guidelines for the conduct of drug-drug interaction studies. To examine the applicability of these regulatory recommendations specifically for induction, a group of scientists, under the auspices of the Drug Metabolism Leadership Group of the Innovation and Quality (IQ) Consortium, formed the Induction Working Group (IWG). A team of 19 scientists, from 16 of the 39 pharmaceutical companies that are members of the IQ Consortium and two Contract Research Organizations reviewed the recommendations, focusing initially on the current EMA guidelines. Questions were collated from IQ member companies as to which aspects of the guidelines require further evaluation. The EMA was then approached to provide insights into their recommendations on the following: 1) evaluation of downregulation, 2) in vitro assessment of CYP2C induction, 3) the use of CITCO as the positive control for CYP2B6 induction by CAR, 4) data interpretation (a 2-fold increase in mRNA as evidence of induction), and 5) the duration of incubation of hepatocytes with test article. The IWG conducted an anonymous survey among IQ member companies to query current practices, focusing specifically on the aforementioned key points. Responses were received from 19 companies. All data and information were blinded before being shared with the IWG. The results of the survey are presented, together with consensus recommendations on downregulation, CYP2C induction, and CYP2B6 positive control. Results and recommendations related to data interpretation and induction time course will be reported in subsequent articles.


Greek civilisation is universally recognised as the basis of the modern West. But what was the basis of the Greek civilisation? From the dawn of history in the empires of Sumer and Babylon, where writing was developed and laws first codified, to the Medes and the Persians whom Alexander the Great conquered, this history charts the political and social changes that took place over the course of many centuries, culminating at last in the intellectual and material achievements of Greece, Rome and their later successors. As well as the famous races like the Jews and Egyptians, Chahin explores less well known but vitally important groups such as the Hittites and Hurrians. The fascinating kingdoms of Crete and Mycenae hover in the shadowy background of the earliest Greek writings; the Sea Peoples are a source of great controversy among Homeric scholars and other students of that period; and the terrible might of the Assyrians is remembered to this day. All those to whom Ancient history means Greece and Rome should read this book and learn what happened in earlier generations to shape the world that the makers of Europe found when they rose to significance. It will appeal to the general reader interested in history, the enthusiast for Greek antiquities keen to discover their context and the Bible student wishing to understand more of the background to the Old Testament.


Recognition of the value of forest vegetation data has increased in recent years, especially when it is collected using consistent methods over many forest types. Because the cost of collecting large datasets is substantial, managers must balance the cost of collection with the utility of the conclusions that may be drawn from the data analyses. There is no single standard for collecting vegetation data; sampling protocols should be developed to address clearly defined analysis objectives. We compare the utility of the established Phase 3 Vegetation Diversity and Structure Indicator data with the proposed vegetation data to be collected with the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program's Phase 2 Vegetation Profile.


Wind gusts are traditionally observed and reported at the reference height of 10 m and most gust parametrization methods have been developed only for this height. In many practical applications, e.g. in wind energy, the relevant heights are, however, up to a few hundred metres. In this study, mean gustiness conditions were studied using observations from two coastal/archipelago weather masts in the Gulf of Finland (northern Europe) with observation heights between 30 and 143 m. Only moderate and strong wind cases were addressed. Both masts were located over relatively flat terrain but the local environment, and hence the surface roughness length, differed between the mast locations. The observations showed that above all the gust factor depended on the surface roughness. Stability had a more pronounced effect over the rough forested surface than over the smooth sea surface. At both locations the stability had a larger effect on gusts than the observation height. Two existing parametrization methods, developed for a 10 m reference height, were validated against the observations and a new parametrization was proposed. In the new method, the gust factor depends on the standard deviation of the wind speed, which is parametrized on the basis of the surface friction velocity, the Obukhov length and height and the boundary‐layer height. The new gust parametrization method outperformed the two older methods: the effects of surface roughness, stability and the height above the surface were well represented by the new method.


Nanotechnology has opened up a new, previously unimaginable world in cancer diagnosis and therapy, leading to the emergence of cancer nanomedicine and nanoparticle-aided radiotherapy. Smart nanomaterials (nanoparticle drones) can now be constructed with capability to precisely target cancer cells and be remotely activated with radiation to emit micrometer-range missile-like electrons to destroy the tumor cells. These nanoparticle drones can also be programmed to deliver therapeutic payloads to tumor sites to achieve optimal therapeutic efficacy. In this article, we examine the state-of-the-art and potential of nanoparticle drones in targeting lung cancer. Inhalation (INH) (air) versus traditional intravenous ("sea") routes of navigating physiological barriers using such drones is assessed. Results and analysis suggest that INH route may offer more promise for targeting tumor cells with radiosensitizers and cannabinoids from the perspective of maximizing damage to lung tumors cells while minimizing any collateral damage or side effects.


An increasing number of services require access control. On the web, access control is usually enforced using a combination of username and password. Users are
encouraged to choose secure passwords. These secure passwords are very hard to remember, which causes people to write passwords down, re-use the same password
or choose a simple password. Our goal is to design an access control system that is easier to use, while still offering the same amount of security. The main idea behind this research is that not every service needs the same amount of security. It may not be necessary to ask the secure password for every service; for services that require less security, an access control method that is less secure, but easier to use, may be sufficient.
We have built a system that is capable of dynamically determining the access control method or methods that it has to use to ensure sufficient security. When the user
requests a service, the system looks up the amount of security that is needed and adapts the used access control methods to this. The evaluation of this system shows that people appreciate the fact that the system is able to choose easier access control methods for services that do not require a high security level. According to the participants, the dynamic system is easier and more pleasant to use than an access control method based on caller ID, and easier and more pleasant than DigiD with additional SMS authentication. The participants, however, did not find the dynamic system easier or more pleasant to
use than username and password. This system is so common and widely-used that it is hard to beat. We do believe, however, that the dynamic system can become better than username and password when users get more accustomed to it, and when some usability problems have been looked into


By the summer of 1704 Louis XIV's vast armies dominated Europe. France defeated every alliance formed against her and Louis was poised to extend his frontier to the Rhine and install a French prince on the throne of Spain. Two men saved Europe from French military domination: the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. Marlborough masterminded a brilliant campaign, working with Eugene to surprise the French invaders inside Germany. The rival armies clashed in August and the hitherto unbeaten French were utterly destroyed. Blenheim was a major turning point in European history. Charles Spencer's narrative is drawn from original sources and moves seamlessly from the deliberations of kings and princes to the frontline soldiers. This is the battle that creates the enduring reputation of the British redcoat and shatters the image of the 'Sun King' and his mighty army.


Designed to be used in conjunction with A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps, this workbook helps deepen and extend the understanding of the lessons taught in the book and brings them to life with simple exercises and journaling activities. It further empowers each woman to take ownership of her recovery by documenting her growth and recovery process in a personally meaningful way. Unlike many interpretations of the Twelve Steps for women, this workbook uses the original Steps language, preserving its spirit and focusing attention on its healing message. Covington guides women to reinterpret the Steps to support their own recovery. ""When we look inside ourselves and reframe the original wording in the way that works best for us, then each of us, individually, can discover the meaning for ourselves,"" she writes. In sections devoted to each of the Twelve Steps, Covington blends narrative, self-assessment questions focused on a feminine definition of terms such as powerlessness and letting go, guided imagery exercises, and other experiential activities. In addition to the book and workbook, two new components--a facilitator's guide for clinicians and a DVD--have been produced to form a complete A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps program. The four components can stand alone, but together they form a comprehensive, integrated treatment program for women.


We use a parametric method to estimate the income distribution for 191 countries between 1970 and 2006. We estimate the World Distribution of Income and estimate poverty rates, poverty counts and various measures of income inequality and welfare. Using the official $1/day line, we estimate that world poverty rates have fallen by 80% from 0.268 in 1970 to 0.054 in 2006. The corresponding total number of poor has fallen from 403 million in 1970 to 152 million in 2006. Our estimates of the global poverty count in 2006 are much smaller than found by other researchers. We also find similar reductions in poverty if we use other poverty lines. We find that various measures of global inequality have declined substantially and measures of global welfare increased by somewhere between 128% and 145%. We analyze poverty in various regions. Finally, we show that our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests involving functional forms, data sources for the largest countries, methods of interpolating and extrapolating missing data, and dealing with survey misreporting.


For more than 90% of human history, our species has lived as egalitarian hunter-gatherers. How did our ancestors keep inequality in check? Research on existing hunter-gatherer societies suggests that scattered resources, few possessions, and customs such as sharing meat and exchanging arrows keep these societies equitable.


The story takes place in the summer of 1931, on board a cruise ship bound for Germany. Passengers include a Spanish noblewoman, a drunken German lawyer, an American divorcee, a pair of Mexican Catholic priests. This ship of fools is a crucible of intense experience, out of which everyone emerges forever changed. Rich in incident, passion, and treachery, the novel explores themes of nationalism, cultural and ethnic pride, and basic human frailty that are as relevant today as they were when the book was first published in 1962.


(1979) (" In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. Firstly, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. ").


Metal contacts have been identified to be a key technological bottleneck for the realization of viable graphene electronics. Recently, it has been observed that for structures that possess both a top and a bottom gate, the electron-hole conductance asymmetry can be modulated by the bottom gate. In this paper, we explain this observation by postulating the presence of an effective thin interfacial dielectric layer between the metal contact and the underlying graphene. Electrical results from quantum transport calculations accounting for this modified electrostatics corroborate well with the experimentally measured contact resistances. This paper indicates that the engineering of a metal-graphene interface is a crucial step toward reducing the contact resistance for high-performance graphene transistors.


The many applications of high energy storage devices have forged an increasing interest in research areas related to electrochemical capacitors. Here, in this work, we present a facile method for the fabrication of self-organized titania nanotubes grown by anodic oxidation of titanium foil with different subsequent heat-treatment regimes for use as binder-free working electrodes in supercapacitor applications. The capacitance of these highly ordered titania nanotubes, when exposed to a reductive atmosphere during annealing, was determined to be well above 900 µF cm−2, confirming that the capacitance contribution was pseudocapacitive in nature. The behaviour of oxygen depleted titania in the anatase to rutile (A → R) phase transformation and also in electrochemical charge storage has been studied in detail. It was found that upon the reduction of Ti4+ to Ti3+, with oxygen depletion of the structure, the A → R phase transformation was promoted. In addition, the fabricated electrodes showed highly reversible charge–discharge stability.


Herbivore outbreaks often trigger catastrophic overgrazing events in marine macrophyte ecosystems. The sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus, the dominant herbivore of shallow Mediterranean seascapes, is capable of precipitating shifts to barrens when its populations explode. Paracentrotus lividus is found ubiquitously in rocky macroalgal communities and in sandy seagrass meadows of Posidonia oceanica, two of the most important subtidal habitats in the Mediterranean. We explored if habitat‐specific regulation across the principal stages of the urchin life cycle could help explain the persistence of these populations in connected mosaics. We measured each of three relevant ecological processes (i.e. settlement, post‐settlement survival and predation) across a wide stretch of the Mediterranean coast (ca 600 km). Our results show that habitat‐specific regulation is critical in determining urchin populations: each habitat limited urchin sub‐populations at different life stages. Settlement was never limiting; urchins settled at similar rates in both habitats across the coast. Post‐settlement survival was a clear bottleneck, particularly in seagrass meadows where no juvenile urchins were recorded. Despite this bottleneck in seagrasses, adult urchin populations were very similar in both seagrass and macroalgal habitats indicating that other processes (potentially migration) could be key in determining adult distributions across the mosaic. The fact that population regulation is clearly habitat‐specific suggests that sea urchin populations may be significantly buffered from bottlenecks in mixed seascapes where both habitats co‐occur. Sea urchin populations can therefore persist across the seascape despite strong habitat‐specific regulation either by maintaining reproductive output in one habitat or by migrating between them. By affording these regulatory escapes to habitat‐modifying species, patchy mosaics may be much more prone to herbivore outbreaks and a host of cascading effects that come in their wake.


While biomass utilization for energy conversion in the industrialized nations is being largely developed, highly efficient and environmentally friendly, many tropical countries still use biomass at low efficiencies and high emission levels. The main reasons for these gaps are both political and technological: the energy markets are different, the Gross National Product (GDP) differs widely, and the feedstock differs in form and conversion behaviour. By implementing newer technologies adapted for tropical biomass feedstock, there would be a large potential in these countries for increased energy services since access to modern energy still is an essential step for improving the GDP for a country. Two dominant and tropically placed industries available for energy improvements are the cane sugar and palm-oil industries, which both produce an abundant amount of biomass residues. One step towards enhanced utilization of the residues, which would not require large investment costs in the power plant section nor in the processes of these industries, would be to install a pelletizing unit in the industry area to make fuel out of the excess residues for sale to the nearby villages. The pellets could be used both for cooking/heating and for small-scale power generation in a gasification-IC engine plant. The overall objective of this study is to experimentally evaluate the biomass residues in pellet form from the cane sugar and palm oil industries during conversion to useful energy in small-scale systems. The thesis is built upon five publications which include experimental analysis on flaming pyrolysis and rapid heating of pellets (paper I), pyrolysis in oxygen-free atmosphere and slow heating with subsequent steam gasification (paper II), global pelletizing data such as relative energy consumption, temperature levels, particle size and moisture content for successful pelletizing process (paper III), downdraft gasification evaluation including reactor temperature distribution, gas composition, cold-gas efficiency and packed-bed mechanics (paper IV) and a numerical model including the overall system efficiency for residue-to-electric power based in a small-scale gasifier system (paper V).The single-pellet studies revealed that pyrolysis in reducing atmosphere is to prefer compared to flaming pyrolysis in oxidizing environment with regards to the char quality. The studies also showed favourable thermochemical and mechanical behaviour for smaller size pellets (O6- O8mm) compared to larger size ones (O12 mm). Therefore, a downdraft gasifier of closed constricted type was designed for real gasification tests of the residue pellets of sizes O6- O8mm. These tests showed that all the studied pellet sorts could be used in one and the same gasifier, resulting in different reactor temperature distributions and gas compositions with lower heating values in the range of 4.1-5.4 MJ/m3n dry gas. The reactor bed dynamics showed to be dependent both on the fuel reactivity and the size, with less pressure drop for larger size pellets with lower reactivity. The pelletizing process itself revealed that the selected residues all needed higher moisture content and smaller particle size than recommended for wood for successful pelletizing. The relative electric energy consumption was lower when producing larger size pellets O8 mm than smaller ones (O6 mm) of same material. For untreated wet empty-fruit bunch (EFB) a stand-alone power plant with integrated EFB pre-treatment and gasification could generate 380 kWh of net electricity per ton of EFB at a "well-to-wheel" efficiency of 15%.


We study the outcome of the amendment voting procedure based on a potentially incomplete preference relation. A decision-maker evaluates candidates in a list and iteratively updates her choice by comparing the status-quo to the next candidate. She favors the status-quo when the two candidates are incomparable according to her underlying preference. Developing a revealed preference approach, we characterize all choice functions that can arise from such a procedure and discuss to what extent the underlying preference can be identified from observed choices. JEL Classification: D11


Using the Fourier modal method (FMM) we report our analysis of the transmission resonances of a plasmonic grating with subwavelength period and extremely narrow slits for wavelengths of the incoming, transverse magnetic (TM)-polarized, radiation ranging from 240nm to 1500nm and incident angles from 0° to 90°. In particular, we study the case of a silver grating placed in vacuo. Consistent with previous studies on the topic, we highlight that the main mechanism for extraordinary transmission is a TM-Fabry-Perot (FP) branch supported by waveguide modes inside each slit. The TM-FP branch may also interact with surface plasmons (SPs) at the air/Ag interface through the reciprocal lattice vectors of the grating, for periods comparable with the incoming wavelength. When the TM-FP branch crosses an SP branch, a bandgap is formed along the line of the SP dispersion. The gap has a Fano-Feshbach resonance at the low frequency band edge and a ridge resonance with extremely long lifetime at the high frequency band edge. We discuss the nature of these dispersion features, and in particular we describe the ridge resonance in the framework of guided-mode resonances (GMRs). In addition, we elucidate the connection of the coupling between the TM-FP branch and SPs within the Rayleigh condition. We also study the peculiar characteristics of the field localization and the energy transport in two topical examples.


Introduction The culture in many team sports involves consumption of large amounts of alcohol after training/competition. The effect of such a practice on recovery processes underlying protein turnover in human skeletal muscle are unknown. We determined the effect of alcohol intake on rates of myofibrillar protein synthesis (MPS) following strenuous exercise with carbohydrate (CHO) or protein ingestion. Methods In a randomized cross-over design, 8 physically active males completed three experimental trials comprising resistance exercise (8×5 reps leg extension, 80% 1 repetition maximum) followed by continuous (30 min, 63% peak power output (PPO)) and high intensity interval (10×30 s, 110% PPO) cycling. Immediately, and 4 h post-exercise, subjects consumed either 500 mL of whey protein (25 g; PRO), alcohol (1.5 g·kg body mass−1, 12±2 standard drinks) co-ingested with protein (ALC-PRO), or an energy-matched quantity of carbohydrate also with alcohol (25 g maltodextrin; ALC-CHO). Subjects also consumed a CHO meal (1.5 g CHO·kg body mass−1) 2 h post-exercise. Muscle biopsies were taken at rest, 2 and 8 h post-exercise. Results Blood alcohol concentration was elevated above baseline with ALC-CHO and ALC-PRO throughout recovery (P<0.05). Phosphorylation of mTORSer2448 2 h after exercise was higher with PRO compared to ALC-PRO and ALC-CHO (P<0.05), while p70S6K phosphorylation was higher 2 h post-exercise with ALC-PRO and PRO compared to ALC-CHO (P<0.05). Rates of MPS increased above rest for all conditions (∼29–109%, P<0.05). However, compared to PRO, there was a hierarchical reduction in MPS with ALC-PRO (24%, P<0.05) and with ALC-CHO (37%, P<0.05). Conclusion We provide novel data demonstrating that alcohol consumption reduces rates of MPS following a bout of concurrent exercise, even when co-ingested with protein. We conclude that alcohol ingestion suppresses the anabolic response in skeletal muscle and may therefore impair recovery and adaptation to training and/or subsequent performance.


This Article engages the equality principles of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to reconsider the constitutionality of one of the last and most entrenched barriers to universal suffrage - felon disfranchisement. A deeply racialized problem, felon disfranchisement is additionally and independently a legislative judgment as to which citizen's ideas are worthy of inclusion in the electorate. Relying on a series of cases involving states' interests in protecting the ballot and promoting its intelligent use, this Article demonstrates that felon disfranchisement is assailable under the Supreme Court's fundamental rights jurisprudence when it is motivated by a desire to limit political expression based on its perceived content; in other words, when felon disfranchisement is motivated by viewpoint discrimination. The justifications for felon disfranchisement laws reflect a misguided perception of how a voter's identity, status, or behavior will affect how he votes. This Article confronts these justifications and examines the linkages between the right to vote and First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. Recognizing the difficulty in proving legislative motive in electoral decisions, this Article draws upon the underexplored theory of First Amendment Equal Protection, as well as the Court's jurisprudence in the area of partisan gerrymandering to formulate the claim of viewpoint discrimination and demonstrate increasing judicial intolerance for legislative tampering in the electoral process with suspect motives. Through its viewpoint discrimination analysis, this Article also lays bare the multi-scalar impact of felon disfranchisement in terms of race, class, and partisanship, thereby highlighting the particular segments of society whose political participation and freedom of expression are most directly infringed by felon disfranchisement, and, perhaps, the underlying motivations for the practice.


On the afternoon of July 18, 1984, James Oliver Huberty, a forty-one year old unemployed welder, walked into a McDonald's fast food restaurant in San Ysidro, California. He was armed with a twelve gauge shotgun, a semi-automatic pistol, a nine millimeter Uzi semi-automatic rifle and a load of ammunition. Soon after entering the restaurant he pulled out the shotgun and killed one of the employees. Then he shouted "Everybody down!" and began spraying bullets throughout the store. After more than forty minutes of terror a police sharp shooter killed Huberty. Twenty-one people lay dead, fifteen were injured. Most of the victims were Mexican-American residents of the border town of San Ysidro or Mexicans from nearby Tijuana, Mexico. This tragic event was the largest mass murder in American history. This is a survey of the social and political impact of the San Ysidro massacre on the local Mexican and Mexican-American communities. The psychological and public health dimensions of this event have been part of a larger study being concluded by a research team headed by Professors Ramon Valle, Bill Vega, and Richard Hough. Here I want to focus mainly on the public community responses to the tragedy from the point of view of social history. San Ysidro's community response to the tragedy reflected the particular dynamics of its status as a marginal ethnic enclave within the City of San Diego. For many years one of the main themes in the history of this U.S. border town had been its neglect by the city administration. Until July 1984, San Ysidro was a forgotten village. In one day the massacre brought unprecedented public attention to San Ysidro and politicized large segments of the local population. The tragedy insured that San Diego would not soon forget its ethnic border town.


Beyond the Bronze Pillars is an innovative and iconoclastic look at the politico-cultural relationship between Vietnam and China in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Overturning the established view that historically the Vietnamese sought to maintain a separate cultural identity and engaged in tributary relations with the Middle Kingdom solely to avoid invasion, Liam Kelley shows how Vietnamese literati sought to unify their cultural practices with those in China while fully recognizing their country's political subservience. He does so by examining a body of writings known as Vietnamese "envoy poetry." The various Vietnames kingdoms that existed during this period - the Le, the Tay Son, the Nguyen - regularly dispatched embassies to the Chinese capital to present tribute. The envoys who served on these missions often composed verse along the way, and many compiled collections of poetry upon their return home. Far from advocating their own cultural distinctiveness, these Vietnamese poets expressed a profound identification with what we would now call the Sinitic world and their political status as vassals in it. In mining a body of rich primary sources that no Western historian has previously employed, Kelley provides startling insights into the premodern Vietnamese view of their world and its politico-cultural relationship with China.


Tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, are a keystone, top-order predator that are assumed to engage in cost-efficient movement and foraging patterns. To investigate the extent to which oscillatory diving by tiger sharks conform to these patterns, we used a biologging approach to model their cost of transport. High-resolution biologging tags with tri-axial sensors were deployed on 21 tiger sharks at Ningaloo Reef for durations of 5–48 h. Using overall dynamic body acceleration as a proxy for energy expenditure, we modelled the cost of transport of oscillatory movements of varying geometries in both horizontal and vertical planes for tiger sharks. The cost of horizontal transport was minimized by descending at the smallest possible angle and ascending at an angle of 5–14°, meaning that vertical oscillations conserved energy compared to swimming at a level depth. The reduction of vertical travel costs occurred at steeper angles. The absolute dive angles of tiger sharks increased between inshore and offshore zones, presumably to reduce the cost of transport while continuously hunting for prey in both benthic and surface habitats. Oscillatory movements of tiger sharks conform to strategies of cost-efficient foraging, and shallow inshore habitats appear to be an important habitat for both hunting prey and conserving energy while travelling.


How do dividend policy decisions affect a firm's stock price, is a widely researched topic in the field of investments and finance but still it remains a mystery that whether dividend policy affects the stock prices or not. There are those who suggest that dividend policy is irrelevant because they argue a firm's value should be determine by the basic earning power and business risk of the firm, in which case value depends only on the income (cash) produced, not on how the income is split between dividends and retained earnings and opponents of this statement called dividend is irrelevance, that investors care only about the total returns they receive, not whether they receive those returns in the form of dividends, capital gains or both.The results of researches conducted in various stock markets are different. There are many internal and external factors, which simultaneously affect stock prices and it is almost impossible to segregate the effect of each so the variations remain. This paper empirically estimates excess stock market returns for all the thirty banks listed in Dhaka Stock Exchange for the period of 2007 to 2011. Attempts are made to examine, what kind of relationship exists between dividend policy and stock market returns of private commercial banks in Bangladesh, and to what degree the returns on stocks can be explained by their respective dividend policy for the same period of time. Various theories related to dividend policy are tested in various parts of the world with different results and findings. Various other articles are reviewed, written in Bangladesh and abroad to see the significance of dividend policy on the stock prices and to compare the results of this research with those conducted earlier. Sample size is large i.e. all the listed commercial banks of Dhaka Stock Exchange so the results are reliable and valid. Panel data approach is used to explain the relationship between dividends and stock prices after controlling the variables like Earnings per Share, Return on Equity, Retention Ratio have positive relation with Stock Prices and significantly explain the variations in the market prices of shares, while the Dividend Yield and Profit after Tax has negative, insignificant relation with stock prices. Overall results of this study indicate that Dividend Policy has significant positive effect on Stock Prices.


Background. The training of novices, in any field, to achieve the optimum state of cognitive, clinical, technical and professional development requires a variety of teaching methodologies, including the process of feedback. Feedback is defined as a process where the desired standard of proficiency in a task has already been established and communicated to the student before gaps in performing the task or in the level of knowledge are identified. The process of feedback has often been evaluated and has consistently revealed students' dissatisfaction with the amount and type of feedback they receive in their clinical and postgraduate training, as they perceive it to be inadequate, inappropriate or non-existent. Objectives. To investigate the perceptions of the quality of feedback received by a diverse, heterogeneous population of registrars in postgraduate training at an academic hospital. Methods. A study was conducted using a questionnaire to determine the perceptions of all registrars in the six major clinical training programmes with regard to the quality, efficacy and effectiveness of feedback received during clinical training. Descriptive statistics were used to interpret the responses of the registrars, with mean values being calculated. Results. Perceptions of the quality of feedback received differed across disciplines. Overall, the registrars rated the feedback they received as poor. The majority (51.4%) reported that both formal and informal feedback was only sometimes, even rarely, received during all encounters with consultants. Others (51.3%) felt that the feedback received was unacceptable, and did not perceive it to be based on concrete observations of performance. The proficiency of consultants in giving feedback was scored as unacceptable by 64.8% of registrars. Conclusion. Registrars in training regard feedback as an essential component of their postgraduate medical education and as an important component of achieving clinical competence. More formalised processes need to be implemented. The majority of registrars agreed that consultants required training in providing feedback effectively.


Background: It is not currently known how Year 1 Primary school pupils
and their teachers use activity-related-gestures and targeting, during group-based
task-activity in a working classroom.
Airn: To explore this context using two teacher 'settings': 'teacher-out-of-the-group'
(TOG) and 'teacher-in-the-group' JIG), informed by an ecological, affordancesbased,
psychological perspective.
Sample: Twenty-five observations of pupil groups (12 TOG, 13 TIG), involving two
schools, four teachers and 49 pupils, working in groups of up to six pupils.
Method: Non-video-based, systematic, participant observation in working
classrooms.
Results: No statistical differences were apparent when girls' and boys' mean use of
particular categories of gesture, targeting and task-activity were compared
(underlying variability between participants may have influenced this lack of
difference). Significant differences with their teachers were apparent. However,
within and between settings, and within task-groups, some evidence of subtle
differences between girls' and boys' overall gesture-use, targeting and task-activity
profiles were identified. Extensive differences with their teachers were also apparent.
Correlation analysis revealed that girls and boys showed limited and different
associations in the two settings. Case studies revealed that a teacher, when part of a
group, became the principal target for gestural activity, dominating pupil gestural and
targeting activity. Limited evidence suggested that Partnering could affect gestural
activity and task-activity. Teachers overwhelmingly used speech, rather than gesture,
for communicative purposes, particularly in the TIG setting. Pupils used more
gesture than did teachers in both settings.
Conclusions: Teacher and pupil role, pupil gender, task-structure, using shared
resources and, to some extent, partnering, are key factors relating to pupil and
teacher gesture-use, targeting and task-activity. Arguably girls, boys and teachers
bring different saliencies and expectations to the same group activities, as revealed
in their gesture-use, targeting and task-activity. The implications for classroom
practice, and gesture-in-action in the working classroom, are discussed.


The Red Brigades were a far-left terrorist group in Italy formed in 1970
and active all through the 1980s. Infamous around the world for a campaign
of assassinations, kidnappings, and bank robberies intended as a
"concentrated strike against the heart of the State," the Red Brigades'
most notorious crime was the kidnapping and murder of Italy's former prime
minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In the late 1990s, a new group of violent
anticapitalist terrorists revived the name Red Brigades and killed a number
of professors and government officials. Like their German counterparts in
the Baader-Meinhof Group and today's violent political and religious
extremists, the Red Brigades and their actions raise a host of questions
about the motivations, ideologies, and mind-sets of people who commit
horrific acts of violence in the name of a utopia.

In the first English edition of a book that has won critical acclaim and
major prizes in Italy, Alessandro Orsini contends that the dominant logic
of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a
corrupt world through violence. Only through revolutionary terror,
Brigadists believed, could humanity be saved from the putrefying effects of
capitalism and imperialism. Through a careful study of all existing
documentation produced by the Red Brigades and of all existing scholarship
on the Red Brigades, Orsini reconstructs a worldview that can be as
seductive as it is horrifying. Orsini has devised a micro-sociological
theory that allows him to reconstruct the group dynamics leading to
political homicide in extreme-left and neonazi terrorist groups. This
"subversive-revolutionary feedback theory" states that the willingness to
mete out and suffer death depends, in the last analysis, on how far the
terrorist has been incorporated into the revolutionary sect.

Orsini makes clear that this political-religious concept of historical
development is central to understanding all such self-styled "purifiers of
the world." From Thomas Muntzer's theocratic dream to Pol Pot's Cambodian
revolution, all the violent "purifiers" of the world have a clear goal: to
build a perfect society in which there will no longer be any sin and
unhappiness and in which no opposition can be allowed to upset the
universal harmony. Orsini's book reconstructs the origins and evolution of
a revolutionary tradition brought into our own times by the Red Brigades.


ASSOCIATION BETWEEN VITAMIN D INTAKE AND OBESITY DURING PREAND EARLY ADOLESCENCE by Lori A Scholle Background: Prevalence of obesity in US children has increased substantially. The influence of vitamin D intake on body mass index (BMI) is yet to be clearly defined. Results are mixed regarding the relationship of vitamin D deficiency with obesity in children. The objective of this study was to examine the association between vitamin D intake and BMI over a 6 month period in pre-to early adolescent children in Pittsburgh, PA. Methods: Secondary analysis was done on 256 healthy 6-14 year old (54% male) Caucasian and African American (70%) children from Pittsburgh, PA. Participants completed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and a Sun Exposure Questionnaire (SEQ) and provided anthropometric measures at 2 time points 6 months apart. Vitamin D intake was compared by BMI status (normal = 95 percentile) as well as by change in BMI over 6 months. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance, Spearman's correlation, Chi Square test, and regression analysis (vitamin D intake, gender, race, baseline BMI, total energy intake, sun exposure and sunscreen use). Results: Median reported vitamin D intake was 245.85 IU at baseline and 382.51 IU at 6 month follow up. After subdividing children by BMI, at baseline the obese group reported lowest median intake (188 IU) and at 6 month follow up the normal group reported lowest median intake (374 IU) (P=0.03). Overall relation between vitamin D intake and BMI was significant (P=0.033) but weak (r=-0.015). Regression analysis revealed only baseline BMI status (P=<0.001) as a predictor of 6 month follow up BMI. No relation was observed between change in BMI and vitamin D intake. Conclusion: The results of this study do not support a strong relationship between vitamin D intake and change in BMI status over a 6 month time period.


Many investors see little opportunity for active portfolio managers to exploit relative returns in environments with high return correlation. Contrary to what current-day Chicken Littles believe, the authors empirically find a positive relation between the S&P 500's average constituent stock relative-return volatility and its average between-constituent return correlation. Moreover, the S&P 500's index-return variance, average between-constituent return correlation, average constituent relative-return variance, and average constituent residual-return variance are all positively related to a statistically significant degree. The authors also provide a theoretical foundation for these empirical findings.


Incorporation of tyrosine within synthetic macromolecules via the controlled radical polymerization technique is of particular interest due to the presence of a phenolic group in tyrosine imparting high inhibition potential. Tyrosine incorporation is also fascinating from a medicinal point of view since this particular amino acid is present in several natural antimicrobial peptides as a key constituent. This study describes a facile strategy to integrate the naturally occurring proteinogenic amino acid tyrosine within a polyacrylate system via the reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization technique to construct potent bioactive macromolecules against the microbial strain S. flexneri 2a causing shigellosis. The cationic charge and amphiphilic features inherited from the amino acid tyrosine mimic the function of natural antimicrobial peptides. A library of tyrosine polyacrylates has been synthesized to investigate the effect of molecular weight on antimicrobial activity. The time-dependent morphological switching observed via FESEM measurement revealed membrane rupture followed by leakage of cellular constituents as an effective mechanism of action of the biomimetic tyrosine-based polymers. The details of membrane disintegration and depolarization due to alteration in membrane potential have been evaluated via flow cytometric and fluorescence microscopic measurements. Most importantly, the side chain tyrosine-based polymers show fascinating biocidal features against the Gram-positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterial strain, the major causative agent of nosocomial infections. The broad spectrum nature of the polymers has been further investigated against the fungus Aspergillus niger and another Gram-negative bacterium, Escherichia coli.


Study Design. Establishment of a novel in vivo animal model of cervical spondylosis. Objective. To investigate apoptotic, degenerative, and inflammatory changes occurring in the cervical intervertebral discs of rats. Summary of Background Data. Cervical degeneration occurs as the result of imbalance of both static and dynamic spinal stabilizers. The disc degeneration that occurs is characterized by increased local inflammation and increased apoptosis of intervertebral disc cells. Methods. By excising the paraspinal musculature and posterior cervical spinal ligaments of rats, both static and dynamic cervical stabilizers were disrupted. The resultant biomechanical imbalance resulted in biochemical and histologic changes, which were characterized by light microscopy, electron microscopy, immunostaining, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, polymerase chain reaction, and in situ hybridization. Results. Histologic analysis showed characteristic degenerative changes of the intervertebral discs and vertebral endplates following surgery. Ultrastructural examination revealed apoptotic changes, which were verified by immunostaining. Instability also resulted in significant up-regulation of inflammatory factors, as shown by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, polymerase chain reaction, and in situ hybridization. Conclusions. By creating static and dynamic posterior instability of the cervical spine, this novel model of cervical spondylosis results in rapid intervertebral disc degeneration characterized by increased apoptosis and local inflammation, such as that seen clinically.


: Molecular mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of pemphigus vulgaris are still not clear. We aimed to determine the significance of detecting expression of some antigens that might be pivotal to the process, namely CD44 and CD117, in patients with active pemphigus vulgaris. Seventeen patients with active pemphigus vulgaris and 19 normal healthy controls were included in the study. The immunohistochemical results showed prominent expression of CD44 in 13 of the patients and CD117 in 9 of the patients with new blister formation. CD44 percentage values in peripheral T-lymphocytes were significantly higher in patients than controls, as detected by flow cytometry. In addition, there was a significant increase in a soluble form of c-kit in sera of patients with active pemphigus vulgaris compared to controls.


Aim: This study investigates the amount of available chlorine and pH of sodium hypochlorite after dilution and the influence of storage temperature, heating, and aging. Materials and Methods: A 5.25% sodium hypochlorite solution was diluted to 2.5%, and free available chlorine (FAC) and pH were measured. This was labeled as the control group. The diluted solution was divided into four groups. The first and second groups were stored at 4°C and room temperature, respectively, and FAC and pH were measured at room temperature at intervals of 30 min, 1, 3, and 6 h. The third and fourth groups were stored at 4°C and room temperature, respectively. Samples were collected at intervals of 30 min, 1, 3, and 6 h after heating to 60°C–70°C, and FAC and pH were measured. An iodometric titration method was used for FAC estimation. pH was measured using a digital pH meter. Data obtained were statistically analyzed. Results: All groups showed depletion in FAC and decrease in pH over time. Available chlorine was utmost in Group III and least in Group II. No statistically significant difference in pH was recorded. Conclusions: Sodium hypochlorite at room temperature should be used within 3 h of dilution. Its shelf life can be enhanced by storing at 4°C. Heating the solution to 60°C–70°C before irrigation is more efficacious.


As there are not many studies about musical preferences as an antisocial behavior understanding method , this study aimed to raise possible relation among this construct and deviant behaviors, considering also the attitudes toward marijuana use. This sample was composed by 548 high school students from public (46.4%) and private (53.6%) schools, most of them female (54.9%). They had answered the Musical Preference Scale, Attitudes toward Marijuana Use Scale and Antisocial and Deviant Behaviors Scale, besides demographic questions Results have indicated that the preference for unconventional musical styles (heavy metal, rap) was directly correlated to attitudes favorable toward marijuana use and antisocial and deviant behaviors. On the other hand, the conventional styles preference (pop music, gospel music) showed an inverse correlation pattern with these variables. Differences were observed in the musical preference, attitudes toward marijuana use, and antisocial and deviant behaviors according to sex, in which women are more adjusted to the conventional patterns. These findings are consistent, compared to the previous published ones. Nevertheless, there is a long path to follow for a definitive explanation about musical preference influence.


We welcome the dialogue concerning the potential clinical significance of seeding dispersal (Purevdorj-Gage et al., 2005) in the life cycle of mucoid Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. We had based our hypothesis that the seeding dispersal phenomenon may be more relevant for non-mucoid, environmental strains on (1) the propensity of diseases associated with reduced mucociliary clearance in the lung, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), to select for mucoid P. aeruginosa phenotypes, and (2) that conversion to mucoidy is usually associated with a concomitant down-regulation of flagella production and loss of swimming motility (see Garrett et al., 1999). However, as Kirov et al. discuss above, there may be greater diversity in mucoid CF isolates than generally acknowledged, and the perceived dichotomy between mucoidy and swimming phenotypes should be a topic for debate. More recently it has been shown that expression of flagellum genes in response to oxygen limitation precedes loss of mucoidy and is reversible during this state of transition (Wyckoff et al., 2002). Further, in an ongoing screen of mucoid CF isolates it was found that 6 out of 20 were motile (D.J. Wozniak, personal communication). However, it was suspected that growth medium may also play a role in the outcome of the motility assay and exact proportions may vary depending on culture conditions. The growth-condition-dependent transient switching between mucoid and swimming phenotypes is problematic when relating a particular biofilm behaviour with phenotype and stresses the importance of attempting to characterize the phenotypic state at various time points during biofilm development. Broadly though, the finding of Dr Wozniak is in agreement with that of Kirov et al. We agree that to fully assess the role of seeding dispersal (and other yet unidentified behavioural developmental phenotypes) in the context of lung infections, biofilm studies should include greater diversity in strains, growth conditions and be conducted over longer time scales. The interesting observation that seeding motility occurred in a mucoid CF isolate clearly demonstrates that the phenomenon may have clinical relevance. Another point we would like to briefly address is the difference in terminology used by our two groups in reference to the hollowing out of clusters. Kirov et al. refer to hollowing resulting from 'bacteriophage-mediated lysis' as 'death-associated dispersal'. We use the term 'seeding dispersal' in a more general sense to describe sequential steps from the formation of microcolonies culminating in the release of live cells from the centres of the colonies. Our working hypothesis for seeding dispersal which integrates observations from our two groups is thus: (1) the formation of cell clusters; (2) the differentiation of the cell cluster into two or possibly three distinct phenotypes consisting of the cells in the stationary cluster 'wall', the highly motile seeding subpopulation in the interior and the lysing interior subpopulation (Webb et al., 2003) which allows the interior to liquefy; (3) highly agitated 'seeding motility' in the interior; and finally (4) the swimming, or swarming, of cells out of the microcolony. In the case of PAO1 the release appears to occur through directed motility, but we recognize that hollowing in non-motile species such as Staphylococcus epidermidis (P. Stewart & B. Pitts, personal communication) and Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans (Kaplan et al., 2003) may be driven by water currents. It is interesting to speculate that the recent increase in reports of hollow clusters occurring in a diversity of bacterial biofilms is evidence of convergent evolution in biofilm development.


Protecting privacy is a major concern of people using the internet. Purchasing items online inevitably builds up profiles within databases. Ensuring that this data remains protected is vital if society is to continue to trust electronic avenues of purchasing. Having credit card information leaked or hacked is of serious concern. PCI Compliance attempts to protect individual users from such situations. With Cloud architectures still relatively new, can customers still be guaranteed protection? This paper will endeavour to research this area and determine if procedures exist in the Cloud that can adhere to and implement PCI Compliance adequately. The PCI standard is primarily concerned with protecting the details of a credit card, which while perfectly acceptable, it does not take into consideration any other factors. Therefore, if the compliance is to be maintained in a Cloud environment where other vulnerabilities exist, can it still be successful? This essay will explore these questions and provide some insights.


Current data suggest that apoptosis controls neutrophil numbers in tissues. We analyzed roles for and the sites of action for the cAMP-dependent protein kinases (cAPKs) in apoptosis induced in human neutrophils by in vitro storage, cycloheximide (CHX) exposure, and anti-Fas exposure. Treatment with 8-chlorophenylthio-cAMP (8-CPT-cAMP) prolonged the time required for 50% of the cells to exhibit apoptotic morphology (t 50) from 16.3 to 41.8 h (in vitro culture), from 2.4 to 7.8 h (CHX), and from 4.8 to 6.5 h (anti-Fas). CHX ± 8-CPT-cAMP did not significantly alter resting intracellular calcium levels and H-89, a selective inhibitor of cAPK, had no effect on apoptosis in the absence of the analogue. In contrast, site-selective cAMP analogues that specifically activated the type I cAPK, but not type II cAPK, synergistically attenuated apoptosis. Exposure to 8-CPT-cAMP delayed, in parallel, the activity of caspase-3 (CPP-32β), whereas mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAPKK) inhibitor, PD98059, had no effect on CHX-induced apoptosis ± 8-CPT-cAMP. Together these results indicate that type I cAPK activation is necessary and sufficient to mediate cAMP-induced delay in human neutrophil apoptosis induced by several mechanisms and suggest that one of the major sites of cAPK action is upstream of caspase-3 (CPP-32β) activation.


Event studies have become increasingly important in securities fraud litigation after the Supreme Court's decision in Halliburton II. Litigants have used event study methodology, which empirically analyzes the relationship between the disclosure of corporate information and the issuer's stock price, to provide evidence in the evaluation of key elements of federal securities fraud, including materiality, reliance, causation, and damages. As the use of event studies grows and they increasingly serve a gatekeeping function in determining whether litigation will proceed beyond a preliminary stage, it will be critical for courts to use them correctly. This Article explores an array of considerations related to the use of event studies in securities fraud litigation. It starts by describing the basic function of the event study: to determine whether a highly unusual price movement has occurred and the traditional statistical approach to making that determination. The Article goes on to identify special features of securities fraud litigation that distinguish litigation from the scholarly context in which event studies were developed. The Article highlights the fact that the standard approach can lead to the wrong conclusion and describes the adjustments necessary to address the litigation context. We use the example of six dates in the Halliburton litigation to illustrate these points. Finally, the Article highlights the limitations of event studies – what they can and cannot prove – and explains how those limitations relate to the legal issues for which they are introduced. These limitations bear upon important normative questions about the role event studies should play in securities fraud litigation.


Background Multi-day running events are becoming increasingly popular with nonprofessional athletes. However, it is unknown how and when this type of event affects injury risk factors such as proprioception and balance. Objective To evaluate the effect of running one, five consecutive and nine consecutive marathons on joint position sense (JPS) and dynamic balance. Design Cross-sectional, observational study. Setting Sports-injury clinic. Participants 21 athletes completing the event (age 44.8±8.09 yrs, mass 74.4±13.14 kg, years running 10.4±7.39 yrs, average weekly mileage 44.8±12.09 miles) entered the study. Ten athletes completed the JPS testing and five athletes completed the dynamic balance testing. Assessment of Risk Factors Risk factors were assessed the day before the event (day zero) and then following completion of one (day one), five (day five) and nine (day nine) consecutive marathons. The independent variable was time. Main Outcome Measurements JPS error into flexion and extension, star-excursion balance test (SEBT) and number of injuries per runner. Results Friedman's ANOVAs indicated no effects of time on JPS into extension (p=0.94), dominant-leg anterior (p=0.52) or posterior-lateral (p=0.65) SEBT reach. JPS flexion error significantly decreased by 1.3° from day one to five (p=0.032). Non-dominant leg anterior, posterior-medial and posterior-lateral SEBT reaches significantly decreased from day zero to nine by 0.09% (p=0.043), 0.13% (p=0.043) and 0.17% (p=0.043) of leg length respectively. Dominant leg posterior-medial SEBT reach also significantly decreased by 0.12% of leg length (p=0.043) from day zero to nine. There were 4.2 injuries per runner. Conclusions The results suggest multi-day running events can cause over four lower limb injuries per runner and reduce dynamic balance ability. Nonprofessional athletes completing these events should be aware of this high injury occurrence and prepare appropriately. Injury prevention programmes incorporating dynamic balance may be recommended. However future studies with additional risk factors and larger sample sizes are needed to substantiate these findings.


A systematic method for fault diagnosis of analogue circuits based on the combination of neural networks and wavelet transforms is presented. Using wavelet decomposition as a tool for removing noise from the sampled signals, optimal feature information is extracted by wavelet noise removal, multi-resolution decomposition, PCA (principal component analysis) and data normalisation. The features are applied to the proposed wavelet neural network and the fault patterns are classified. Diagnosis principles and procedures are described. The reliability of the method and comparison with other methods are shown by two active filter examples.


Background: Among the many factors that may affect speech production, phonological neighbourhood density (ND) and phonotactic probability (PROB) have displayed effects on speech and language performance in healthy speakers. What is not clear is if they show an effect in impaired speech output after stroke and if they do, whether this effect is facilitatory or inhibitory. Aims: To determine whether ND and/or PROB play a role in speech production accuracy in acquired output impairment after stroke. To compare the performance of English vs German speakers on a matched set of words in order to tease out language‐specific and language‐independent factors affecting impaired speech output. Methods & Procedures: Seven English and seven German native speakers with acquired output impairment after stroke repeated in their respective languages 509 real words that are (near) homophones across German and English (e.g., leader–Lieder; vine–Wein). Responses were transcribed phonetically and scored as correct or incorrect. Results & Outcomes: There was a small correlation between accuracy on near‐homophones between English and German speakers (r = .201; p < .001). Correlating accuracy for speakers combined across both languages with language‐independent factors (i.e., number of phonemes, syllables, clusters) showed significant independent effects of number of phonemes and clusters in the target, but multiple regressions did not show an effect of number of syllables. Within‐language correspondence was greater than between‐language correspondence (9.4% vs 4%; p < .00001). Correlating differences in accuracy in English/German with differences in language‐specific factors (i.e., word and syllable frequency, PROB, ND) multiple regression displayed a significant independent effect of the target's word frequency but not of the target's ND, PROB, or syllable frequency. Conclusions: The small but significant correlation between accuracy on (near) homophones for English and German speakers suggests there are language‐independent determinants of production accuracy, whereas greater within‐language correspondence indicates language‐specific determinants of performance. Only word frequency appears to have a significant (facilitatory) effect on response accuracy. Neither ND nor PROB had a significant effect on response accuracy in this study. The results are discussed in light of theoretical and methodological issues within the study.


We study learning structured output in a discriminative framework where values of the output variables are estimated by local classifiers. In this framework, complex dependencies among the output variables are captured by constraints and dictate which global labels can be inferred. We compare two strategies, learning independent classifiers and inference based training, by observing their behaviors in different conditions. Experiments and theoretical justification lead to the conclusion that using inference based learning is superior when the local classifiers are difficult to learn but may require many examples before any discernible difference can be observed.


In this engaging study Jean Dangler examines the way that ideas of difference were forged in four types of medieval Iberian discourse: muwashshah/jarcha poems from al-Andalus, Andalusi "cutting poems," medical literature about the body, and portrayals of the monster. According to Dangler, these texts demonstrate the two fundamental precepts of medieval Iberian alterity: multifaceted subject formation and the embrace of contrasts and the negative. Medieval Iberia was a multicultural territory of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian societies. These communities had constant geographic, cultural, political, and economic contact with one another. Because medieval Iberia was not hierarchical and homogenous, medieval subjectivity was not always marked by essential qualities of character, but was mutable and shifting. The adverse was often esteemed in the making of meaning and the forging of the social order. Dangler explores how the four discourses she analyzes changed in the early modern period, from an acceptance of difference to more rigid concepts of subjectivity and the marginalization of difference. This shift accompanied the rise of the Castilian nation-state and its imposition of static hierarchies of value. This book will appeal to a broad range of medievalists. It makes an important contribution to the growing interest in medieval Iberia and offers a nuance understanding of medieval history and culture in general.


The love triangle, claims Eve Sedgwick in Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, is useful "as a figure by which the "commonsense" of our intellectual tradition schematizes erotic relations, and because it allows us to condense in a juxtaposition with that folk-perception several somewhat different streams of recent thought" (Sedgwick, 21). There has been minimal work done, however, on the integration of Sedgwick's view of triangulated desire into studies of postcolonial representation. Many scholars only address the similarities between imperial oppression of the colonized land and masculine dominance of the female body, and thereby ignore the homosocial bonds that emerge in this structure. In my discussion, I will explore two postcolonial works whose plots contain triangulated desire, Graham Greene's The Quiet American and Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People. Although these works present different views of the postcolonial situation, both novels use the triangulated model of desire to create gender hierarchies. By integrating Girard and Sedgwick's theories into my reading of the two works, I will show how each author uses the triangulated model to promote an image of patriarchy and masculinity which matches that of Great Britain during the First and Second World Wars. Within this study, I will analyze how the structure of triangulated desire can represent the inherent power disjunction in the master/slave relationship; I will also relate the placement of the female object in the triangle to the idea of the subaltern and to the actual placement of women in both Western and Third World Countries after the Second World War. My talk with ultimately address how the triangulated model of desire both confronts and denies the realities of postcolonial power.


Abstract An eclogite facies meta-plagiogranite from the Lanzo massif (western Alps, Italy) contains crystals of zircon intimately associated with allanite. Zircon displays different microtextures ranging from pristine, euhedral, and magmatic to fractured, porous varieties with mosaic zoning, and pervasive recrystallization into euhedral microcrystals. Fractures and voids in the recrystallized zircon microcrystals are mainly filled by high-pressure Na-rich pyroxene. Electron backscattered diffraction analysis revealed a similar crystallographic orientation for primary magmatic zircon crystals and microcrystals, with less than 2° misorientation among neighboring microdomains. The textural change is coupled with chemical and isotopic modifications: recrystallized zircon domains contain significantly less Th and light- to mid-REE, but are richer in Sr than magmatic zircon crystals. Magmatic zircon preserves the protolith U-Pb age of 163.5 ± 1.7 Ma, whereas zircon microcrystals have a mean age of 55 ± 1 Ma. The coexisting allanite also contains inclusions of Na-rich pyroxene and has chemical features (elevated Sr and Ni contents and lack of Eu anomaly) indicating formation at high pressure. Despite being associated texturally with zircon, allanite yields a younger Th-Pb age of 46.5 ± 3.0 Ma, suggesting that the Lanzo unit remained at relatively high pressure conditions for ~8 m.y. Zircon recrystallization proceeded with volume reduction and loss of material to an alkaline metamorphic fluid that acted as the agent for a coupled dissolution-reprecipitation process. Recrystallization occurred with minimum transport, in a low-strain environment, and was not significantly enhanced by metamictization. The source of the fluid for zircon recrystallization is most probably related to prograde devolatilization reactions in the surrounding serpentinite.


Three classes of antifungals - the polyenes, the echinocandins, and the extended spectrum azoles - are now availabel for treating invasive aspergillosis (IA). New agents and formulations in these classes offer the possibility of decreased toxicity and improved outcomes. With the availability of newer antifungals, clinicians are challenged to understand the advantages and limitations of these new choices. Standard amphotericin B deoxycholate is associated with poor outcomes in addition to unacceptable toxicity and is no longer recommended as primary therapy for most patients. Lipid formulations of amphotericin reduce toxicity, but because of cost and toxicity concerns, they may not be used at optimal doses. Interestingly, a recent trial showed that initial use of higher doses of liposomal amphotericin at 10 mg kg-1 d-1 did not improve efficacy and was associated with more toxicity. Due to lack of complete killing or inhibition of Aspergillus, the echinocandins are not frequently used as primary therapy for aspergillosis, although their minimal toxicity and potential for combination therapy remains attractive. The newer triazoles, including voriconazole and posaconazole, offer fungicidal activity against Aspergillus and, for voriconazole, both intravenous as well as oral therapy. Voriconazole was compared with amphotericin B followed by other licensed therapy in a global trial that showed better outcomes and improved survival so that voriconazole is recommended as primary therapy for most patients with this disease. These studies also show that early, effective therapy is a key factor for a successful outcome. Consideration of risk for IA and early initiation of therapy may improve outcomes in this often lethal infection.


The analysis of Girlfight (Karyn Kusama, 2000) in this paper is framed by critical discourses surrounding physically active female characters in the action genre, the conventions of the boxing film 'genre', the relationship between bodily spectacle and narrative structure, as well as the more general significance of the female boxer's challenge to normative and binary notions of bodily existence and subjectivity. With a particular focus on the interrelationship between narrative structure and boxing sequences ('numbers'), this paper explores notions of the (gendered) subjectivity constructed around the film's female boxing character, Diana (Michelle Rodriguez). I will argue that the boxing 'numbers' largely function as a (bodily) articulation of Diana's struggle for a unified sense of identity and the embodiment of subjectivity. However, the emphasis on the materiality of the body in earlier 'numbers' is replaced in the final boxing sequence by a sense of abstraction and generic integration. The significance of the physicality of the body in relation to the embodiment of subjectivity is therefore strangely disavowed and the (bodily) agency of Diana's character undermined.


The driving forces of microplate transport remain one of the major unknowns in plate tectonics. Our hypothesis postulates that the Baja California microplate is transported along the North America–Pacific plate boundary by partial coupling to the Pacific plate and low coupling to the North America plate. To test this idea, we use numerical modeling to examine the interplate coupling on a multiple-earthquake-cycle time scale along the Baja California–Pacific plate boundary and compare the modeled velocity field with the observed geodetic motion of the Baja California microplate. We find that when the strain can localize along a weak structure surrounding microplate (faults), high interplate coupling, produced by frictional tectonic stresses, can reproduce the observed kinematics of the Baja California microplate as seen from geodetic rigid-plate motions. We also find that the northward motion of Baja California can influence the fault slip partitioning of the major faults in the North America–Pacific plate boundary region north of Baja California.


We are witnessing a technological revolution with a broad impact ranging from daily life (e.g., personalized medicine and education) to industry (e.g., data-driven healthcare, commerce, agriculture, and mining). At the core of this transformation lies "data". This transformation is facilitated by embedded devices, collectively known as Internet of Things (IoT), which produce real-time feeds of sensor data which are collected and processed to produce a dynamic physical model used for optimized real-time decision making. At the infrastructure level, there is a need to develop a scalable architecture for processing massive volumes of present and historical data at an unprecedented velocity to support the IoT paradigm. To cope with such extreme scale, we argue for the need to revisit the hardware and software co-design landscape in light of two key technological advancements. First is the virtualization of computation and storage over highly distributed data centers spanning across continents. Second is the emergence of a variety of specialized hardware accelerators that complement traditional general-purpose processors. Further efforts are required to unify these two trends in order to harness the power of big data. In this paper, we present a formulation and characterization of the hardware acceleration landscape geared towards real-time analytics in the cloud. Our goal is to assist both researchers and practitioners navigating the newly revived field of software and hardware co-design for building next generation distributed systems. We further present a case study to explore software and hardware interplay for designing distributed real-time stream processing.


Abstract. The nature of knowledge is considered, in particular its creation and formalisation, and some of the issues which re-late to disciplinary knowledge in particular. It is suggested that cartography has particular needs addressing its disciplinary boundaries, the role of uncertain and 'troublesome' knowledge in its subject-matter, and the enhancement of its subject-specific knowledge, with more generic supporting material, including skills and attitudes. An overview of Bodies of Knowledge (BoK) in other disciplines has been undertaken, and models of BoK structure, content and usage have been assessed. BoKs in closely related subjects, including civil engineering, GIS and software engineering, give examples of good practice. The paper concentrates on the work done to date to create the cartography BoK, and the adoption of the 'Delphi' method of consultation to develop it. The Delphi method is intended to yield consensus on the scope, content, context and use of the BoK. It is regarded as a rigorous process, iterative (and therefore time consuming), involving questionnaire survey, opinion gathering, discourse analysis, and feedback. The participants are expected to be experts, from a range of different sectors, but 'volunteer amateurs' are also important consultants.


Most modern high-pressure common rail diesel fuel injection systems employ an internal pressure equalization system in order to provide the force necessary to support needle lift, enabling precise control of the injected fuel mass. This results in the return of a substantial proportion of the high-pressure diesel back to the fuel tank. The diesel fuel flow occurring in the injector spill passages is expected to be a cavitating flow, which is known to promote fuel ageing. The cavitation of diesel promotes nano-particle formation through induced pyrolysis and oxidation, which may result in deposit formation in the vehicle fuel system.

A purpose-built high-pressure cavitation flow rig has been employed to investigate the stability of unadditised crude-oil derived diesel and a paraffin-blend model diesel, which were subjected to continuous hydrodynamic cavitation flow across a single-hole research diesel nozzle. Continuous in-situ spectral optical extinction (405 nm) has been employed to identify, determine and measure variations in fuel composition as a function of the cavitation duration.

The results of two high-pressure diesel cavitation experiments are reported. The first dealt with the effect of injection pressure on the rate of induced variation in chemical composition of diesel, and concluded that faster degradation of the fuel occurred at higher pressure.

The second experiment involved an investigation into the variation in composition occurring in diesel fuel and the paraffin-blend model diesel, subjected to cavitating flow over a longer duration. Observed differences suggest that the high-pressure cavitation resulted in hydrodynamic sono-chemical destruction of aromatics in the diesel, which is believed to lead to carbonaceous nano-particle formation.


We present a publicly-available toolkit of flight-proven hardware and software to retrieve 5 TB of data or small physical samples from a stratospheric balloon platform. Before launch, a capsule is attached to the balloon, and rises with it. Upon remote command, the capsule is released and descends via parachute, continuously transmitting its location. Software to predict the trajectory can be used to select a safe but accessible landing site. We dropped two such capsules from the SUPERBIT telescope, in September 2019. The capsules took ∼37 minutes to descend from ∼30 km altitude. They drifted 32 km and 19 km horizontally, but landed within 300 m and 600 m of their predicted landing sites. We found them easily, and successfully recovered the data. We welcome interest from other balloon teams for whom the technology would be useful.