This thesis investigates the role of Facebook on the social relationships and social interactions amongst a class of international students undertaking a University foundation study course in Australia. Rapid growth in the adoption and use of social media globally, particularly amongst young people, highlights both the appetite for social connection and the capacity of technology to be an enabler. Globally, Facebook is the most widely adopted digital social network and has built its success on leveraging this appetite for social connection. In the educational sector, institutions are increasingly using digital social networks, like Facebook, as mechanisms to support and enhance student experiences. In Australia, where the international student market is now the third largest export sector, there is strong interest in ensuring these students successfully achieve their educational goals. For international students a key aspect of achieving positive educational outcomes relates to the level of social support available while studying overseas. An important source of this social support comes from the social connections that these students form with others, particularly with those individuals who are geographically co-located. To date, however, assumptions about Facebook, its use and role in supporting social connections within educational environments and its specific role amongst international students studying abroad has received limited research attention. In this context, this research investigates what role, if any, Facebook plays amongst a class group of international students and how it influences their approaches to interactions and relationship maintenance.
The research methodology employed in conducting this exploratory investigation adopted a research philosophy drawing on a subjective ontology and an interpretivist epistemology. The research strategy involved a 15 month case study of a class of 52 international students enrolled in the University of Tasmania's Foundation Studies Program (FSP) course. The research design aimed to collect data on the students' social connections, their Facebook usage, and their adoption, use and experience with technology prior to, during and after the FSP course. The research design structured data collection through two key techniques: self-reported surveys and semi-structured interviews. Three surveys were undertaken at three different time points over the 15 month case study (at the commencement of the program; at the mid-point; and four months after the completion of the FSP course). Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with six selected participants six months after the conclusion of the FSP course.
Data analysis was conducted using three separate techniques. The first technique involved analysis of descriptive statistics from the data collated from the three surveys. This technique revealed who the participants were, their behaviours, technological skills (including the use of Facebook) and their interactions with each other over time. The second technique, drawing on approaches adapted from social network analysis generated a series of social network diagrams representing the relationships present between the students before, during and after the study course. The combined data analysis generated from the surveys was then examined and discussed to highlight key insights that were further examined through the third technique of semi-structured interviews. These interviews were conducted with six participants selected on criteria generated from the survey results. Analysis examined the interview transcripts and deployed a thematic coding approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The codes produced from the interviews were interpreted to highlight the key semantic inter-relationships across the data. The combination of analysis and interpretation arising from the three streams generated key findings and these were then discussed in relation to the existing body of knowledge.
This exploratory research investigating the role of Facebook amongst international students has produced a number of key findings, which are:
1. There are three primary sets of factors that both stimulate and inhibit whether an initiated interaction proceeds and which communication mode is used. The three overlapping factors are the 'interaction convenience', 'environmental influences' and 'relationship strength'.
2. The influence of social relationship strength on moderate social relationships emerges as distinct in relation to Facebook use. Past research has identified a weak and strong category but this research identified an important moderate category.
3. Facebook is one of a range of technology based communication modes used by students. Despite Facebook's wide usage by students other technical methods of interaction will be used based on the method they wish to use to interact and with whom.
4. Facebook's role in social connection maintenance emerges as being influenced by the strength of the relationship that exists between the individuals connected. Facebook plays the most important role when the relationship between two individuals could be considered as moderate in strength.
In relation to social interactions amongst these students this research highlights three dominant factors: interaction convenience; environmental influences; and relationship strength. These three factors influence the choice of communication mode as well as the amount of time and effort that a student is willing to exert to engage in an interaction. This research highlights that the stronger the relationship the greater sensitivity exhibited in the selection of communication mode, the greater the willingness to interact and to overcome spatial or temporal barriers to interaction. Facebook is used as one communication mode amongst a suite of other choices including face-to-face and other technology based modes (e.g. Skype, MSN etc.). The choice and use of Facebook primarily relates to the convenience of communication offered for interactions that are generally not intimate in nature, rarely urgent in time and do not rely on high levels of interaction response.
In relation to the social relationships of these students, the research highlights that the importance of Facebook as a mode of maintaining social relationships relates directly to the nature and strength of that relationship. Significantly, its importance is highest amongst social relationships that are moderate in strength, those that can be broadly characterised as being friends. For these types of social relationships Facebook emerges as one of the most convenient and time efficient modes, particularly during periods when the students were not geographically co-located. For strong social relationships, while Facebook is still part of the suite of communication modes, individuals tended to opt for more direct communication approaches to support a greater level of intimacy. For weak social relationships, their lack of value lowers the importance of their maintenance over time.
This exploratory research into the role of Facebook amongst international students undertaking a foundation course at an Australian University contributes to knowledge at three levels. Firstly, at the substantive level, this research contributes a detailed case study on the role of Facebook amongst a small self-contained class of international students. It highlights that the social connections of international students evolve in complex ways that mitigate against simplistic assumptions about Facebook, its use and importance. Importantly, it reveals that the choice of Facebook does not reflect any inherent loyalty to the tool, such that it is likely to be substituted readily to accommodate changing social relationships and interaction needs. This case study suggests that instead of relying on technological approaches to teaching and supporting international students, educational institutions would be better served by encouraging and providing opportunities for social interaction between students. This can provide them with opportunities to form their own social support networks.
Secondly, at the methodological level, this research combined multiple data collection and data analysis techniques together as an innovative approach to overcoming the methodological limitations of previous research on Facebook. The use of this method allows greater insight into the influence of specific social connections and the role of Facebook in the communicative behaviours of international students over time.
Finally, at the theoretical level, this research has produced models that illustrate the connections that exist between social relationships, social interactions and the use of Facebook. These models illustrate how the changing nature of social connections in terms of strength interacts with convenience, location, time and the need for a communicative response.


There is a spectrum of parties that exist in foundational elections in new democracies, and this research will seek to identify why some parties are more successful than others, focusing on Latin America. These comparisons will highlight important characteristics of the parties that give them advantages and make them more likely to win. Subsequent studies will examine new democracies in other regions. A party can choose to embrace an idea or movement, such as the legacy of an old regime or a transition to democracy. Hypotheses are developed that will test variables that lead to a party increasing its vote share and share of seats in the country parliament. The variables are old regime alignment and opposition alignment. Within the countries' foundational elections, the political parties will be identified. The case study compares Brazil and Mexico. The study shows a relationship with party alignment with old regimes and electoral success. The hypotheses will be tested in future research quantitatively throughout the region using multiple regression analyses, and a few cases will be more deeply explored qualitatively to further understand the insights from the statistical findings.


For a higher resolution version of this file, please use the following link: www.geobabble.org Satellite-based remote sensing can assist forest managers with their need to recognize disturbances and track recovery. Despite the long standing availability of raw imagery, the systematic delivery of spatially continuous, ready-to-use, processed products has evaded us until recently. The web-based ForWarn system moves us a step forward by generating forest change maps at high frequency in a format that is usable to forest managers, planners, and the public. The ForWarn system shows change in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index derived from moderate resolution imagery according to a range of baseline normals. Expectations of normal derive from previously observed changes in seasonal leaf phenology; this adjustment is critical for forests dominated by deciduous vegetation that vary in greenness through the year. After these seasonal adjustments are made behind the scene, the remaining forest change that ForWarn users see may result from an array of climatic and disturbance causes. These include insects and disease, wildland fire, wind, hail, human development, drought, or variation in the timing of spring and fall. This publication outlines the data and methods that underlie this technology, and provides examples that illustrate selected capabilities of this system for coarse-scale forest monitoring.


The marked increase of IP-based services has resulted in the need for a more flexible rating process than the present 'flat-rate' accounting approach. This paper presents the design and development of a Rating Bureau Service for the IP telecommunications environment. It illustrates the architecture, information model, technologies, and standards used in development of the system, as well as expounding upon some of the key implementation goals. In the proposed rating environment, flexibility is achieved by decoupling the charging algorithm and the core rating system. Hence, algorithms can be changed independently of the core system, avoiding the need to recode and recompile. Algorithms can be swapped in and out of the system during rating, allowing a potentially limitless range of services to be rated by equal numbers of tailored algorithms. All algorithms in the system are spreadsheet-based. This approach moves the modelling and construction of algorithms from the programming domain into the business design arena. Anyone with a working knowledge of spreadsheets can effortlessly construct/update these arbitrarily complex charging algorithms. This paper focuses on the development of a fixed line call charging algorithm that may be employed by a large telecommunications company.


The eastern part of the oceanic Cocos Plate presents a heterogeneous crustal structure due to diverse origins and ages as well as plate-hot spot interactions which originated the Cocos Ridge, a structure that converges with the Caribbean Plate in southeastern Costa Rica. The complex structure of the oceanic plate directly influences the dynamics and geometry of the subduction zone along the Middle American Trench. In this paper an integrated interpretation of the slab geometry in Costa Rica is presented based on 3-D density modeling of combined satellite and surface gravity data, constrained by available geophysical and geological data and seismological information obtained from local networks. The results show the continuation of steep subduction geometry from the Nicaraguan margin into northwestern Costa Rica, followed by a moderate dipping slab under the Central Cordillera toward the end of the Central American Volcanic Arc. Contrary to commonly assumed, to the southeast end of the volcanic arc, our preferred model shows a steep, coherent slab that extends up to the landward projection of the Panama Fracture Zone. Overall, a gradual change in the depth of the intraplate seismicity is observed, reaching 220 km in the northwestern part, and becoming progressively shallower toward the southeast, where it reaches a maximum depth of 75 km. The changes in the terminal depth of the observed seismicity correlate with the increased density in the modeled slab. The absence of intermediate depth (> 75 km) intraplate seismicity in the southeastern section and the higher densities for the subducted slab in this area, support a model in which dehydration reactions in the subducted slab cease at a shallower depth, originating an anhydrous and thus aseismic slab.


During the hundred-year period from about 1320 to about 1420, the Florentine woollen cloth industry underwent two closely connected crises. The first crisis was the consequence, direct and indirect, of the ravages of warfare and falling population, afflicting the entire Mediterranean basin and western Europe from the 1290s, which raised transportation and other transaction costs to such an extent that long-distance trade in cheaper textiles became unprofitable, thereby forcing West European cloth producers to reorient their export-oriented production to very high priced luxury woollens (and silks) and also to shift from being price-takers to price-makers. Initially, the first crisis seemed to have had beneficial consequences for Florence: for its luxury woollens industry soon became late-medieval Italy's single most important export-oriented manufacturing industry, with large spill-over benefits for Italian commerce, banking, and finance. Indeed, by the third quarter of the 14th century, the Florentine woollen industry (Arte della Lana) was rivalling and then surpassing the previously pre-eminent leaders - those in the southern Low Countries (Flanders and Brabant); and in Mediterranean markets of this era, Florentine woollens reigned supreme over all rival textiles. But the consequences of that first economic crisis, in the ensuing transformation of the Florentine cloth industry, contained the very seeds that spawned the second and far more major crisis, which led to the inexorable downfall of this once majestic industry, by the early 15th century. The chief factors in that decline were: the accelerating population decline (especially after the Black Death), further raising transaction costs; the reorientation to very narrow luxury markets, with very restricted demand; and especially the complete dependence on imported, tax-burdened English wools (as the prime determinant of both luxury quality and the very high prices of Florentine woollens). All of these adverse factors led to drastic reductions in Florentine cloth production: from about 75,000 bolts in the 1330s to only about 9,500 in the 1420s - an overall fall of 87% (far more than the decline in the Florentine labour supply, or the European population). The Florentine cloth industry never regained its former if transitory glory. How the industry did, however, manage to achieve some recovery in the later 15th and 16th centuries, by resorting to domestic and then Spanish wools, is beyond the scope of this study.


Wretham Hall, the seat of Wyrley Birch, Esq., is situated about six miles north of Thetford, in that extensive tract of open sandy plains which occupies much of the south-western part of Norfolk and of the north-western part of Suffolk; a tract which may be called upland in comparison with the fens, but of very moderate elevation above the sea-level, as is shown by the slow course of the streams flowing from it. About Wretham there are several meres, or small natural sheets of water, without any outlet. The one to which my attention was particularly called by Mr. Birch occupied about forty-eight acres, and was situated in a slight natural depression, the ground sloping gently to it from all sides. The water has been drawn off by machinery, for the purpose of making use, as manure, of the black peaty mud which formed the bottom. This black mud, which is in parts above 20 feet deep, is nothing else than a soft, rotten, unconsolidated peat; or perhaps it should be described as vegetable matter in a more complete state of decomposition than ordinary peat, showing no distinct trace of vegetable structure. At the depth of about 15 feet, in this peat, occurs a distinct horizontal layer, from 2 to 6 inches thick in various parts, of compressed but undecayed moss, unmixed with any other substance.


A spatial coherence analysis of light propagation in optical fibers illuminated with a laser source is presented. Modulus and phase of the complex degree of spatial coherence across the end cross section are measured by means of Michelson-type wave-front-reversing interferometry. Interference fringe patterns of a laser beam emerging from the output end of optical fibers are also photographed. Comparison of the measurement with theory enables us to characterize the modal content in a quasi-single-mode fiber.


What are the coping strategies that have enabled African Americans not only to survive but also to achieve against all odds? Are they shaped, at least in part, by cultural patterns and characteristics that have survived from life on the African continent to the present? If so, what does this suggest for social work practice and social welfare policies and services? This article discerns successful coping styles among African Americans that reflect the transmission of African belief systems and cultural values. This article identifies several studies that explored the Africentric orientation to coping and resolving problems. These coping mechanisms are reviewed across system levels: individual, family, community, and organization. Implications for social work practice with African Americans are discussed and future research efforts are suggested. Traditional African Cultural Patterns Despite their unique experience during and after slavery, African Americans have been viewed and judged by most social scientists with the same worldview applied to the dominant culture. Differences from established dominant norms have been interpreted negatively or, at best, neutralized. Herskovits (1935) was among the few American scholars in the first half of the 20th century who described the highly developed political and legal systems, literature and art, and arrangements of interpersonal and family relations on the West African coast, the major area from which slaves were brought to America. Possibly among the first American theorists to discuss distinct worldviews and values of African Americans were Kluckhorn and Strodtbeck (1961) and Parsons and Shils (1967). More recently, Houston (1990) pointed to the structure, content, and practice of religion in African American churches as evidence that African culture survived the African diaspora. He described the large number of African priests who were among slaves brought to America as providing some of the means through which this cultural adaptation took place. These priests provided a degree of stability, affective experience, and group cohesiveness through which some of the coping strategies, based on their cultural past, could emerge. Houston stated, "Because of the many covert, subliminal, nonverbal, and otherwise seemingly innocuous means of culturally transmitting and conditioning personality from parent to offspring, it is possible that personality represents the most profound and intense of all African survivals" (p. 119). Nobles (1972, 1980), Ak'bar (1984), Baldwin (1985), and Asante (1988) are among contemporary scholars who have identified an Africentric approach to philosophy and human behavior and contributed to the development of what has come to be known as the Africentric paradigm. This paradigm proposes that in African culture humanity is viewed as a collective rather than as individuals and that this collective view is expressed as shared concern and responsibility for the well-being of others (Ak'bar, 1984; Ho, 1987; Houston, 1990; Schiele, 1990). In fact, most African languages did not have words for "alone" and "ownership" at the time of initial contact with Europeans. The Africentric paradigm acknowledges feelings and emotions as well as rational and logical ways of thinking equally. Materialism and competition are supplanted by spiritual awareness and by cooperation with others (Ak'bar, 1984; Baldwin, 1985; Ho, 1987; Turner, 1991). A belief system that recognizes and appreciates the rich heritage and experiences of African Americans, including the devastating impact of oppression as manifested by racism and discrimination, emerges from this perspective (Everett, Chipungu, & Leashore, 1991). Scholarship using this perspective identifies positive aspects of African American life richly embedded in spirituality and a worldview that incorporates African traits and commitment to common causes (Grier & Cobb, 1968; Hill, 1971; Houston, 1990; Nobles, 1972, 1980; Miller, 1993). …


In this paper, we present the multilevel Green's function interpolation method (MLGFIM) for analyses of three-dimensional doubly periodic structures consisting of dielectric media and conducting objects. The volume integral equation (VIE) and surface integral equation (SIE) are adopted, respectively, for the inhomogeneous dielectric and conducting objects in a unit cell. Conformal basis functions defined on curvilinear hexahedron and quadrilateral elements are used to solve the volume/surface integral equation (VSIE). Periodic boundary conditions are introduced at the boundaries of the unit cell. Computation of the space-domain Green's function is accelerated by means of Ewald's transformation. A periodic octary-cube-tree scheme is developed to allow adaptation of the MLGFIM for analyses of doubly periodic structures. The proposed algorithm is first validated by comparison with published data in the open literature. More complex periodic structures, such as dielectric coated conducting shells, folded dielectric structures, photonic bandgap structures, and split ring resonators (SRRs), are then simulated to illustrate that the MLGFIM has a computational complexity of O(N) when applied to periodic structures.


According to Gayle Rubin in "Thinking Sex," sexual values—like other value systems surrounding race, ethnicity, and religion—form hierarchical binaries that counterpose a privileged term residing within a charmed circle against a degraded other residing outside, thereby articulating an imaginary line of difference and implied divergence. The sexual hierarchy is generally constructed from the point of view of heterosexism. From its opening sentence, Ernest Hemingway's short story "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" establishes reproductive sexual practice within the context of marriage as a central frame of reference: "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried very hard to have a baby" (CSS 123). This essay will pursue the meaning and effect of Hemingway's emphasis, considering Hubert and Cornelia's presumed erotic practices with reference to Rubin's critical elucidation of a good sex/bad sex hierarchy.


Satsuma mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc.) is an important citrus commodity grown in the Gulf Coast area of Alabama. Mandarins are regarded as a valued part of a nutritious diet and health benefits are attributed to vitamin C, folate, dietary fiber, minerals as well as many phytochemicals including flavonoids, carotenoids and phenolic acids. However, mandarin fruit are highly perishable with a potential storage life of 2-4 weeks. Currently, little is known about the optimal postharvest practices for these fruit and there is an extensive need to develop advanced postharvest treatments to maintain high quality fruit during the storage and marketing period. Despite numerous advances achieved in postharvest biotechnology in ameliorating commodity losses associated with
postharvest decay, much of the nutritional value as well as the sensory quality of mandarin fruit can be lost as a result of current postharvest handling practices, which were developed primarily to maintain acceptable visual appearance with less regard to other quality aspects such as flavor and nutritional value. Although synthetic fungicides are effective in suppressing postharvest pathogen decay, public concerns regarding fungicide residue and development of pathogen resistance have stimulated the need for reduction of postharvest chemical use and for developing alternative non-chemical technologies. This led to the identification of trans-resveratrol (3,4',5-trihydroxystilbene), which is responsible for resistance of grapevines to fungal diseases, as a possible candidate in this regard.
In order to identify the most efficient means of providing nutritious and visually appealing fruit, a postharvest study was conducted to determine optimal dosage of trans-resveratrol (1.6x10-3M, 1.6x10-4M and 1.6x10-5M) and to compare its efficacy with a mixture of wax and Imazalil or tap water. Studies were conducted on external color attributes, total phenolics, total flavonoids, vitamin C, total carotenoids and free radical scavenging properties. Results from this study indicated that resveratrol treatment not only improved shelf life of fruit but also enhanced nutritional quality. Resveratrol (1.6x10-5M) had a significant effect on the total phenolic, ascorbic acid and total carotenoid content of fruit. A high correlation was also found between vitamin C content and antioxidant capacity determined by ABTS. Therefore, use of resveratrol as a natural fungicide offers a new simple and safe method to improve the shelf life and postharvest quality of mandarin fruit.


The explosion of algorithmic trading has been one of the most prominent recent trends in the financial industry. Algorithmic trading consists of automated trading strategies that attempt to minimize transaction costs by optimally placing orders. The key ingredient of many of these strategies are intra-daily volume proportions forecasts. This work proposes a dynamic model for intra-daily volumes that captures salient features of the series such as time series dependence, intra-daily periodicity and volume asymmetry. Moreover, we introduce a loss functions for the evaluation of proportions forecasts which retains both an operational and information theoretic interpretation. An empirical application on a set of widely traded index ETFs shows that the proposed methodology is able to significantly outperform common forecasting methods and delivers significantly more precise predictions for VWAP trading.


In this paper we explore how design may be used as a critical and creative tool to discuss how design is gendered in the contemporary gynaecology examination in Sweden. The aim of our paper is to uncover the veiled gender norms in this problem area and discuss the consequences for women. Our methods include a Gender Swapping Approach, centred around the chair currently used in most female gynaecological examinations. We used the results of our conducted interviews together with related previous research, which reveals that a majority of women have negative and sometimes even traumatic experiences of the gynaecology chair. These empirical findings were applied to our design concept - a male counterpart: the Andro-Chair. The initial reactions to our design concept points towards great potential for using gender critical design to uncover and discuss this particular problem.


Although the hosting of the 2004 Olympics in Athens constituted a unique opportunity for the diversification and enrichment of Athens' (and Greece's) tourism product, the evident lack of coordination between commercial providers and public governing bodies inhibited the development of a joint strategic approach to leverage the Games. However, the successful organization of the Olympics left a valuable intangible and tangible legacy for Athens, enhancing its heritage and tourism infra/superstructure respectively. Given the unrealized aspiration of harnessing the post-Olympic facilities, this study examines the potential of Athens to exploit its Olympic legacy for the joint development of sport and cultural tourism. This attempt seeks to synthesize a common ground for sport and cultural tourism development in Olympic cities by focusing on Olympic tourism in the post-Games period as it relates to the use of Olympic legacy and post-Olympic assets. A qualitative approach was adopted by conducting nine semi-structured interviews with city officials and tourism administrators. Findings reveal the conditions for synergistic development of sport and cultural tourism and the actions required to mobilize the network of actors, resources and assets that can enable Athens to move from its current inertia and implement post-event leveraging. The study argues that it is still not late for Athens to leverage its post-Olympic assets/legacy capitalizing on its unique and rich cultural heritage interwoven with the Olympic Games. Towards this direction, the study sheds light on what and how can be corrected in order to mitigate the sources and consequences of problems, while providing lessons for future Olympic cities. Finally, a strategic framework is suggested for leveraging the Olympic legacy and developing sustainable post-Olympic (sport and cultural) tourism products.


In integrity assessments, residual stresses have a significant effect on the crack driving force. In fracture assessments according to BS 7910 residual stresses are treated conservatively, and is often assumed to be equal to the material yield strength. In this work, a finite element model of a cracked steel plate was used to study the contribution to crack driving force from residual stresses. Residual stresses were introduced by the eigenstrain method and nodes were released to create cracks. Crack depths, a, up to 20 mm, crack lengths, 2c, up to 50 mm and through thickness cracks were investigated. Solutions were compared to reference solutions with the same crack dimensions, but no residual stress. Corresponding fracture assessments according to BS 7910 were performed to illustrate the difference in crack driving force between FEM and BS 7910. The dimensionless parameter R, was developed during this work and denotes the effect of residual stresses. R can be computed both for results from FEM and BS 7910. It can be seen that R depend on crack parameters and decrease as load increase. Generally, R is significantly higher for solutions according to BS 7910.


A four-dimensional variational data assimilation system for stratospheric trace gas observations has been extended and evaluated to draw full advantage from stratospheric remote sounding data and upper troposphere lower stratosphere (UTLS) in-situ aircraft measurements. The UTLS is the transition layer between the tratosphere and the troposphere and is marked by strong spatial and temporal variability of dynamic structures and distribution of trace gases. Aircraft measurements, highly resolving the UTLS filamental structures, are of most interest for local studies. Although, the satellite instruments are delivering an unprecedented wealth of observations of a number of stratospheric trace gases with global coverage, they are scattered and have a limited resolution in space or time. Combining these
measurements and applying advanced data assimilation techniques to compare benefits from satellite and air borne data, and to analyse the chemical composition of the tropopause and lower stratosphere, was the issue of this work. For this purpose, a model grid refinement and full revision of the chemical mechanism were performed.
The resolution of the horizontal grid points was increased from about 240 km to 150 km, resulting in
23 042 grid points per model level. The vertical resolution was increased with twelve additional layers, especially in the UTLS region. Hence, the vertical separation between grid levels is now less than 1 km below 22 km altitude. The chemistry module was extended and revised to better represent chemical processes in the UTLS region. All reaction rates were updated according to the recommendations of the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In total, a number of 197 photolysis, gas phase, and heterogeneous reactions of 51 stratospheric trace gases is considered by the chemistry module now. The meteorological fields are computed online by the global forecast model GME of German Weather Service. A comprehensive set of case studies has been
conducted in order to test and evaluate the extended system. Retrievals of various stratospheric trace gases derived from measurements of the Earth Observing
System Microwave Limb Sounder, as well as retrievals of aircraft measurements have been assimilated. The analyses show a perfect performance with respect to the assimilated ozone observations. For assimilation of water observations in UTLS additional preconditioning issue is desirable. Comparison with independent observations from satellite instruments and radiosondes demonstrates
a very good performance of the extended assimilation system.


A mathematical study is described to examine the concurrent influence of thermal radiation and thermal wall slip on
the dissipative magnetohydrodynamic electro-osmotic peristaltic propulsion of a viscous nano-liquid in an asymmetric
microchannel under the action of an axial electric field and transverse magnetic field. Convective boundary conditions
are incorporated in the model and the case of forced convection is studied i.e. thermal and species (nanoparticle volume
fraction) buoyancy forces neglected. The heat source and sink effects are also included and the diffusion flux
approximation is employed for radiative heat transfer. The transport model comprises the continuity, momentum,
energy, nanoparticle volume fraction and electric potential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. These are
simplified by negating the inertial forces and invoking the Debye–Huckel linearization. The resulting governing
equations are reduced into a system of non-dimensional simultaneous ordinary differential equations, which is solved
analytically. Numerical evaluation is conducted with symbolic software (MATLAB). The impact of different control
parameters (Hartmann number, electroosmosis parameter, slip parameter, Helmholtz-Smoluchowski velocity, Biot
numbers, Brinkman number, thermal radiation and Prandtl number) on the heat, mass and momentum characteristics
(velocity, temperature, Nusselt number etc.) are presented graphically. Increasing Brinkman number is found to
elevate temperature magnitudes. For positive Helmholtz-Smoluchowski velocity (reverse axial electrical field)
temperature is strongly reduced whereas for negative Helmholtz-Smoluchowski velocity (aligned axial electrical field)
it is significantly elevated. With increasing thermal slip nanoparticle volume fraction is also increased. Heat source
elevates temperatures whereas heat sink depresses them, across the micro-channel span. Conversely, heat sink
elevates nano-particle volume fraction whereas heat source decreases it. Increasing Hartmann (magnetic) parameter
and Prandtl number enhance the nano-particle volume fraction. Furthermore, with increasing radiation parameter the
Nusselt number is reduced at the extremities of the micro-channel whereas it is elevated at intermediate distances. The
results reported provide a good insight into biomimetic energy systems exploiting electromagnetics and nanotechnology
and furthermore they furnish a useful benchmark for experimental and more advanced computational
multi-physics simulations.


An historical overview of laser-based, spectroscopic methods that employ high-finesse optical resonators is presented. The overview begins with the early work in atomic absorption (1962) and optical cavities (1974) that led to the first mirror reflectivity measurements in 1980. This paper concludes with very recent extensions of cavity-enhanced methods for the study of condensed-phase media and biological systems. Methods described here include cavity ring-down spectroscopy, integrated cavity output spectroscopy, and noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectroscopy. Given the explosive growth of the field over the past decade, this review does not attempt to present a comprehensive bibliography of all work published in cavity-enhanced spectroscopy, but rather strives to illustrate the rich history, creative diversity, and broad applications potential of these methods. PACS No.: 39.30.+w


Background: Diabetes is the most common and highly prevalent non-communicable lifestyle disorder till date. Impaired glucose tolerance was a precursor to development of hyperglycemia in diabetes.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the evidence base for impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes descriptively and report the current state of published articles indexed in PubMed.

Materials and Methods: Descriptive exploratory study through a literature search was done to identify nine time-points in the timeline from 1970-2010, with five-year intervals in order to identify the scientific trend for Evidence-based diabetes care (EBDC). The number of obtained citations were classified and analyzed under the names of search filters of PubMed namely- text availability, publication date, species, article type, language, gender, journal categories, age and subject areas. The numbers for categories and subcategories of search filters were considered for comparison and analysis. Descriptive analysis using frequencies on Microsoft Excel 2010 worksheet was done.

Results: There is an exponential increase in number of articles in diabetes over the 40 years. After comparison for various categories and sub-categories, there was a greater prevalence of 'abstract available' articles, human studies, reviews, English language, MEDLINE journals, Middle-age population and veterinary sciences, with nearly equal gender representation.

Conclusion: This study found that the evidence-analysis utilizing a quantitative approach reflected the status of current practice-based evidence. Future analyses on diabetes should address journal-specific, population-specific and age-specific influences on EBDC.


Nothing for me matters as much as my Jewishness, which, however, in so many ways, matters so little in my life.Jacques Derrida1"Tonight, I feel that I will have to avow or disavow this 'je ne sais quoi' that has almost always devoted me \me voue\, entrusted and condemned me, to a 'keeping quiet [de taire].'"2 This je ne sai) quoi concerns the most haunting and difficult of bonds in Derrida's life and work: his experience of being Jewish. In the address that followed this admission, he did indeed avow it, anxiously but unequivocally, even if it was, characteristically, through disavowal. Finally, the philosopher and father of deconstructive theory, Jacques Derrida, in Paris in December 2000, speaks candidly about his Jewishness. Even if his presentation remains marked by the reservations shown in the past, and in particular by the casting of affiliation in the self-cancelling terms of its annulment, Derrida nevertheless here lets down his guard in a way he had not before. The outcome is remarkable: for the first time he ascribes the aporetic structure of his thinking to a particular propensity for indeterminacy, which he aligns not with Judaism in any of its doctrinal forms but with his own, somewhat idiosyncratic, experience of being Jewish.Needless to say, this is a most astonishing thing for Derrida to do. He intimates that his life-long obsession with the aporiae of what came to be known as deconstruction might be determrned by an rrrepressible kinship he could affirm only through withdrawal. But then, if Derridean thought rests on such a propensity and derives much of its momentum from it, deconstruction nevertheless remains in some way powerless before the propensity itself, though in exactly what way is precisely the question. Might it mean that deconstruction cannot deconstruct its own enabling condition? Is it that, after having questioned all foundations, the deconstructive project has at last identified its own foundation or starting point, something "buried" so deep,3 prior even to the proper name or the aboriginally affirmative "yes," that it cannot be reached by the interrogative gaze of deconstruction? Is this why Derrida here re-identifies "circumcision" as the single most haunting event governing his work since the 1960s, as both theme and strategy?4It may be worth floating in anticipation, without commitment and perhaps ultimately to discard it, a hypothesis: could the anxieties before the address on Jewishness, visibly displayed before the Parisian audience in 2000, be more than just the symptoms of a hard-won access to and public declaration of a hitherto semimasked autobiographical substratum of personal experience? Could they also be bearers of a heavily freighted philosophical implication? After all, when Derrida speaks publicly here, it is not merely as a "private" subject but as a philosopher. In his reference to the "plus elementaire et plus ineffacable" (most basic and most indelible) do we detect a hint of something beyond the reach of deconstruction?Perhaps the cluster of concepts to which Derrida constantly reverts when addressing questions of affiliation-such as aporia, double-bind, undecidability-does not simply provide a framework for a reflection on Jewishness but rather, in yet a further inflection of the deconstructive turn, it is (some version of) "Jewishness"; some version of the "vocable" -which, as he points out, is more "elementaiy" and (that most unDerridean of words) "ineffacable" than "any in the world," closer to his "body" than his body itself. As we will see, this Jewish "version of the vocable" explains a propensity and furnishes a restriction on the applicability of that propensity; if at once origin and limit, it must be what deconstruction cannot deconstruct. How can this be? Is it a case of Derrida placing ++himself in flagrante delicto of self-contradiction, or the genuine discoveiy and affirmation of a limit-point?Do the clarifications on Jewishness made in Paris 2000 mean that we can classify deconstruction as, simply, "Jewish"? …


"Doug Schuler has been a crusading pioneer in the community network arena and it will help the cause to have a significant book available that presents his views. His breadth of knowledge, personal experience, and the numerous examples he presents are the strong parts of this project. His enthusiasm shows and there are many appealing anecdotes. This has the potential to be an important book that gains national attention."-- Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland Author of Designing the User InterfaceIn an era when many communities are declining, activists at the grassroots level all over the world are building community networks that are designed to reinvigorate communities by encouraging dialogue and providing a forum for voices that too often go unheard. Via the new computer networking technology, new communities can now connect electronically to pursue various activities including: community and public health projects, long-distance learning, performances, and "virtual spaces." This book should be read by government officials, librarians, policy analysts, educators, journalists, social service administrators, students, social and political activists and -- in fact -- by anyone concerned about our communities and the uses of technology in our society.Highlights: * Provides a helpful reference for people trying to develop and sustain their own community networks. * Details issues critical for the success of a community-based network. * Includes case studies from the Santa Monica PEN project, Community Memory in Berkeley, the Cleveland Free-Net, and the Big Sky Telegraph system in rural Montana. * Explains short- and long-term issues about community networks. * Includes an extensive reference section and numerous appendices providing handy access to a plethora of information related to community networks. "Doug Schuler brings us the good news about the Internet: many-to-many communications can be a rich and powerful tool for community-building. Schuler tells us why and how community networks are a promising new technology for revitalizing not just community, but democracy. This is not just a manifesto. It's an invaluable and deep sourcebook for grassroots activists."Howard Rheingold, Author of The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier Interview by Howard Rheingold with Doug Schuler, (Salon, Issue #11, Apr 6-21, 1996) 0201595532B04062001


The day-to-day operations of corporations and government agencies rely on inter-operating software artifacts (e.g., legacy, commercial-off-the shelf (COTS), government-off-the-shelf (GOTS), databases, servers, etc.) and client applications, which are brought together into a distributed environment running middleware (e.g., CORBA, JINI, DCOM, etc.). In such a distributed environment, the interactions occur via the application programmer interfaces, APIs, of the software artifacts, which are available for use by any and all client applications, without restriction. However, security administrators are interested in controlling access by client applications to the methods of these artifact APIs as defined within a security policy. Specifically, they are interested in controlling for a given user/client: who can invoke methods based on role and security clearance; which methods can be invoked based on role or clearance level; when the methods can be invoked based on any time limitations; and under which values (parameters) the methods can be invoked.
This dissertation will present the findings of our research that proposes a unified role-based access control (RBAC), discretionary access control (DAC), and mandatory access control (MAC) security model and associated security enforcement framework that provides a level of security assurance. Specifically, we provide the means for security officers to concretely and precisely specify a security policy for a distributed application using a resource-based RBAC/DAC/MAC security model which will allow fine grained control to the API's of software artifacts. The RBAC/DAC/MAC security model capabilities and accompanying security assurance assertions can be utilized to control access to artifact APIs (methods) based on role, clearance and classification, time limits, and data value constraints. In this dissertation, we report on the research results of this work, focusing on: a detailed discussion of our current unified RBAC/DAC/MAC model—core definitions and role delegation; an in-depth examination and proof of security assurance guarantees, checked at design time and run time, which provides for both safety (nothing bad can happen) and liveness (all good things can happen); a review of our accompanying security enforcement framework that utilizes our custom security resource that supports the RBAC/DAC/MAC model; and a review of our prototyping efforts on the enforcement framework and associated security administration and management tools. In addition, we report on related research and highlight the contributions of the research.


The Thundercloud site (FbNp-25) is a multi-component processing/habitation site located within Wanuskewin Heritage Park near the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The site contains at least ten cultural occupations ranging from the period of European contact to 4,000 years before present. In 1993 the University of Saskatchewan chose the site for their annual field school and excavations continued at the site until the summer of 1998. During that time sediment samples were collected from every unit as part of the paleoenvironmental program. In 1996, a detailed analysis of the faunal and floral assemblage was begun including a complete examination of all sediment samples. The samples revealed a diversity of micro-remains which would not have been collected using standard screening techniques. The analysis of these remains provided a wealth of new archaeological and paleobiological data including new insights into pre-contact subsistence practices and paleoenvironmental studies. More specifically, analysis of these data played a pivotal role in the interpretation of seasonal occupation patterns, the depositional history of some levels, and in the reconstruction of past environments. More importantly, by examining hearth samples, suggestions were made regarding the human utilization of small animals. These analyses suggest that small animals have played a minor role in the subsistence strategies of all cultures represented at the Thundercloud site. This discussion was expanded into an examination of McKean subsistence on the Northern Plains and forms the basis for further studies in this area.


Objective: To determine whether a relationship exists between the aesthetic scores given to photographic records of the nasolabial region of patients with repaired unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) and the 5-Year Olds' Index scores of study models for the same participants. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: University of Bristol Dental Hospital, United Kingdom. Participants: Patients with nonsyndromic UCLP previously enrolled in the Cleft Care UK (CCUK) Study. Methods: The CCUK participants, who had both study models and photographs (frontal and worm's eye view), were identified and their records retrieved. These were rated by 2 consultants and 2 senior registrars in orthodontics. The 5-Year Olds' Index was used to score the study models, and at a separate sitting, a 5-point Likert scale was used to score the cropped frontal and worm's eye view photographs of the same children. The results were analyzed using intraclass correlation coefficients and Cohen κ. Main Outcome Measures: Correlation between the aesthetic scores of the photographic views and the concordant 5-Year Olds' Index scores of the study models. Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient scores showed very poor agreement between the photographic views and their concordant study models. The level of inter- and intra-rater reliability was strongest when scoring the study models. Conclusions: There was no agreement between the scores given to various photographic views and their corresponding study models. Scoring the study models using the 5-Year Olds' Index was the most reliable outcome measure for this age-group.


This case study examines a market-based approach to economic development through the eyes of NGO TechnoServe's project manager, implementing a US$9.5 million five-year public-private partnership between Coca-Cola, IDB, and USAID. The case ends at the beginning of the final year of the project, presents the project's advances, and invites students to position themselves in front of three options regarding the exit strategy to be deployed to ensure sustainability.Haiti Hope was to provide 25,000 Haitian farmers with world-class business and industry expertise to help them grow mangos more efficiently and abundantly, and secure access to new markets with the aim of doubling their income and raising their standard of living and, ultimately, contributing to the revitalization of the Haitian economy. The project structure devised by the partners to govern execution consisted of an implementation team and operating and steering committees. The partners with the implementer, TechnoServe, had agreed on a strategy that turned out to be difficult to execute due to local institutions, farmer cooperatives, which acted as gatekeepers and made it difficult to reach the critical mass of farmers to participate in the project. TechnoServe's project manager had to convince the partners to shift strategy to work directly with cooperative members rather than with the leadership. The project manager succeeded — Partners accepted to create a new intermediary channel with and for smallholder farmers, termed Producer Business Groups (PBGs). PBGs eschewed the diverse political goals of most cooperatives, and focused on the production and commercialization of members' mangoes and other agricultural products.By 2013, 18,000 farmers had been organized into PBGs for better access to markets, information and agricultural extension services, and approximately 70% of them had adopted best practices from training. Project trained farmers were using standardized sales units, enjoying greater bargaining power, and had access to credit. They were also earning higher prices for mangoes, which rose by 32% on average. By 2014, 3,356 of these farmers were selling directly to exporters via this new PBG channel. With the project entering its final year of implementation, only one season remained for course corrections and formulation of an exit strategy. Although confident in the new strategy, the partners recognized that sustainability of the innovations to the mango supply chain depended on ensuring that every player was profitable, and that local actors possessed both the motivation and capability to take over the activities being performed by TechnoServe. The project manager had to be sure that under the control of private sector partners the PBGs would continue to provide training and other agricultural extension services, such as communicating market prices, as well as continue to pursue ways to connect farmers directly and efficiently with exporters. Only one year remained to identify and implement additional initiatives to improve the structure of their supply chains so as to enable farmers and exporters to better compete in international markets.


A vast majority of engineering programs now include one or more project courses in the curricular core, in which students work in teams to solve realistic engineering challenges. Although team projects undoubtedly have strong potential for developing critical teaming skills, individual performance in these skill areas is not easily accessible to the instructor; monitoring and documenting the extent to which individual learning actually occurs in team project contexts represents a difficult challenge. In this paper, we describe an effective system we have developed to gain insight into internal team dynamics and individual performance based on an integration of structured task reports and anonymous peer evaluations. Benefits include early detection of internal team difficulties, an effective system for documenting individual contributions in team contexts, and a strong mechanism for differentiating student grades based on individual performance. Despite the minimalist philosophy shaping the evolution of our approach, truly effective use of the system developed requires substantial time investment by the instructor; we close by outlining an online system we are developing to largely automate the team management process. Benefits of automation include real-time feedback to instructor and team members, automated flagging of potential trouble, and automatic documentation of contributions/performance for individual team members.


In this article we present Anonymous Readers Counting (ARC), a multi-word atomic (1,N) register algorithm for multi-core machines. ARC exploits Read-Modify-Write (RMW) instructions to coordinate the writer and reader threads in a wait-free manner and enables large-scale data sharing by admitting up to $(2^{32}-2)$ concurrent readers on off-the-shelf 64-bit machines, as opposed to the most advanced RMW-based approach which is limited to 58 readers on the same kind of machines. Further, ARC avoids multiple copies of the register content when accessing it—this is a problem that affects classical register algorithms based on atomic read/write operations on single words. Thus it allows for higher scalability with respect to the register size. Moreover, ARC explicitly reduces the overall power consumption, via a proper limitation of RMW instructions in case of read operations re-accessing a still-valid snapshot of the register content, and by showing constant time for read operations and amortized constant time for write operations. Our proposal has therefore a strong focus on real-world off-the-shelf architectures, allowing us to capture properties which benefit both performance and power consumption. A proof of correctness of our register algorithm is also provided, together with experimental data for a comparison with literature proposals. Beyond assessing ARC on physical platforms, we carry out as well an experimentation on virtualized infrastructures, which shows the resilience of wait-free synchronization as provided by ARC with respect to CPU-steal times, proper of modern paradigms such as cloud computing. Finally, we discuss how to extend ARC for scenarios with multiple writers and multiple readers—the so called (M,N) register. This is achieved not by changing the operations (and their wait-free nature) executed along the critical path of the threads, rather only changing the ratio between the number of buffers keeping the register snapshots and the number of threads to coordinate, as well as the number of bits used for counting readers within a 64-bit mask accessed via RMW instructions—just depending on the target balance between the number of readers and the number of writers to be supported.


Using the renormalisation group framework we classify different extensions of the standard model according to their degree of naturality. A new relevant class of perturbative models involving elementary scalars is the one in which the theory simultaneously satisfies the Veltman conditions and is conformal at the classical level. We term these extensions perturbative natural conformal (PNC) theories. We show that PNC models are very constrained and thus highly predictive. Among the several PNC examples that we exhibit, we discover a remarkably simple PNC extension of the standard model in which the Higgs is predicted to have the experimental value of the mass equal to 126 GeV. This model also predicts the existence of one more standard model singlet scalar boson with a mass of 541 GeV and the Higgs self-coupling to emerge radiatively. We study several other PNC examples that generally predict a somewhat smaller mass of the Higgs to the perturbative order we have investigated them. Our results can be a useful guide when building extensions of the standard model featuring fundamental scalars.


CONTEXT
Overhead athletes commonly have poor posture. Commercial braces are used to improve posture and function, but few researchers have examined the effects of shoulder or scapular bracing on posture and scapular muscle activity.

OBJECTIVE
To examine whether a scapular stabilization brace acutely alters posture and scapular muscle activity in healthy overhead athletes with forward-head, rounded-shoulder posture (FHRSP).

DESIGN
Randomized controlled clinical trial.

SETTING
Applied biomechanics laboratory.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS
Thirty-eight healthy overhead athletes with FHRSP.

INTERVENTION(S)
Participants were assigned randomly to 2 groups: compression shirt with no strap tension (S) and compression shirt with the straps fully tensioned (S + T). Posture was measured using lateral-view photography with retroreflective markers. Electromyography (EMG) of the upper trapezius (UT), middle trapezius (MT), lower trapezius (LT), and serratus anterior (SA) in the dominant upper extremity was measured during 4 exercises (scapular punches, W's, Y's, T's) and 2 glenohumeral motions (forward flexion, shoulder extension). Posture and exercise EMG measurements were taken with and without the brace applied.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
Head and shoulder angles were measured from lateral-view digital photographs. Normalized surface EMG was used to assess mean muscle activation of the UT, MT, LT, and SA.

RESULTS
Application of the brace decreased forward shoulder angle in the S + T condition. Brace application also caused a small increase in LT EMG during forward flexion and Y's and a small decrease in UT and MT EMG during shoulder extension. Brace application in the S + T group decreased UT EMG during W's, whereas UT EMG increased during W's in the S group.

CONCLUSIONS
Application of the scapular brace improved shoulder posture and scapular muscle activity, but EMG changes were highly variable. Use of a scapular brace might improve shoulder posture and muscle activity in overhead athletes with poor posture.


Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a Lentivirus of the family Retroviridae, members of which cause a number of neurological and immunological diseases in humans and animals. HIV is the causative agent of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The disease is caused by virus-mediated depletion of CD4+ T lymphocytes, preferentially CCR5-positive memory T cells. Most of these cells localise to mucosal tissue, in particular gut mucosa, and disruption of the gut mucosal barrier is an early feature of HIV infection that determines the pathogenesis of the disease. More than 20 years of intensive studies identified the molecular mechanisms underlying viral replication and disease pathogenesis and provided the foundation for development of antiviral therapeutics and vaccine. This article provides a brief overview of the HIV life cycle and focuses on receptors that determine viral binding and entry into the target cells.

Key Concepts:

Virus entry into target cell is initiated by interaction between gp120 and cell receptors.

HIV preferentially targets memory CD4+ T cells that localise to mucosal lymphoid tissue, in particular the gut mucosa.

HIV replication includes a number of distinct steps: virus–cell fusion and entry, uncoating, reverse transcription and formation of the pre-integration complex (PIC), PIC nuclear entry and integration, transcription and translation of proviral DNA, viral assembly and release of nascent virions and maturation and formation of infectious virions.

To infect a target cell, virus needs to counteract the activity of multiple cellular antiviral factors (APOBEC3, SAMHD1, tetherin), most of which activated by interferon. HIV accessory proteins have evolved to perform this function.

Receptors determine not only the first step of HIV interaction with the target cell, but also regulate post-entry events in viral replication.

Characterisation of the molecular mechanisms underlying HIV replication and interaction with the target cells provides an opportunity to develop anti-HIV therapeutics and vaccine.

Keywords:

Lentivirus;
macrophage;
T lymphocyte;
dendritic cell;
CD4;
chemokine receptor;
integrin;
lectin


Extensive measurements from ground-based sites and satellite remote sensing (CloudSat and CALIPSO) reveal the existence of two types of ice clouds (TICs) in the Arctic during the polar night and early spring. The first type (TIC-2A), being topped by a cover of nonprecipitating very small (radar unseen) ice crystals (TIC-1), is found more frequently in pristine environment, whereas the second type (TIC-2B), detected by both sensors, is associated preferentially with a high concentration of aerosols. To further investigate the microphysical properties of TIC-1/2A and TIC-2B, airborne in situ and satellite measurements of specific cases observed during Indirect and Semi-Direct Aerosol Campaign (ISDAC) have been analyzed. For the first time, Arctic TIC-1/2A and TIC-2B microstructures are compared using in situ cloud observations. Results show that the differences between them are confined in the upper part of the clouds where ice nucleation occurs. TIC-2B clouds are characterized by fewer (by more than 1 order of magnitude) and larger (by a factor of 2 to 3) ice crystals and a larger ice supersaturation (of 15-20%) compared to TIC-1/2A. Ice crystal growth in TIC-2B clouds seems explosive, whereas it seems more gradual in TIC-1/2A. It is hypothesized that these differences are linked to the number concentration and the chemical composition of aerosols. The ice crystal growth rate in very cold conditions impinges on the precipitation efficiency, dehydration and radiation balance. These results represent an essential and important first step to relate previous modeling, remote sensing and laboratory studies with TICs cloud in situ observations.


Blood glucose levels were monitored continuously for twenty-four to thirty hours in twenty-eight normal subjects and fifteen insulin-dependent diabetic subjects. During this period, subjects took standardized exercise consisting of half-mile walks at 4 m.p.h., one at 2½° and two at 5° treadmill slope. The control group showed a modest decrease in glucose concentration (mean, 5.3 mg./100 ml.) during exercise at 2½° slope; during exercise at 5° slope, the decrement in glucose doubled (mean, 11.7 mg./100 ml.). The mean decrement in blood glucose among diabetic patients was greater than that of the control group at both levels of exercise: 24.5 mg./100 ml. at 2½° and 30.0 mg./100 ml. at 5°. These differences were statistically significant. In both groups there was a significant correlation between the magnitude of the decrement in blood glucose and the concentration of glucose at the onset of exercise. Among control subjects, the blood glucose levels returned to, or exceeded slightly, resting levels within sixty minutes following the exercise period. Among diabetic subjects, the blood glucose tracings resumed the pre-exercise slopes but at a lower level. These findings demonstrate the significant effect of a brisk half-mile walk on blood glucose levels in insulin-dependent diabetics, and support the clinical observations of the importance of exercise in diabetes control.


Resolving disputes in a timely manner is crucial for any online production group. We present an analysis of Requests for Comments (RfCs), one of the main vehicles on Wikipedia for formally resolving a policy or content dispute. We collected an exhaustive dataset of 7,316 RfCs on English Wikipedia over the course of 7 years and conducted a qualitative and quantitative analysis into what issues affect the RfC process. Our analysis was informed by 10 interviews with frequent RfC closers. We found that a major issue affecting the RfC process is the prevalence of RfCs that could have benefited from formal closure but that linger indefinitely without one, with factors including participants' interest and expertise impacting the likelihood of resolution. From these findings, we developed a model that predicts whether an RfC will go stale with 75.3% accuracy, a level that is approached as early as one week after dispute initiation.


In this paper, we consider the changes that occurred in the service exports of thirty-eight European countries in the period of 2005–2016. We have found that the existing world trend related to the growth of service exports is also present in Europe. However, the trend of the service exports' share growth in the general volume of export is not common for all European countries. We found that higher growth rates are observed in European countries with lower levels of GDP per capita. We also discovered the presence of a strong positive correlation between growth in service exports and GDP growth, as well as between growth in service exports and GDP per capita. We also found that there is a linear correlation between the growth of service exports and the growth of GDP per capita, as well as between the growth in service exports and GDP growth. The data obtained allowed us to conclude that European countries, categorized as "Innovation Leaders" in accordance with the European Innovation Scoreboard, are not the leading countries in Europe with regard to the rates of service export growth. We also discovered that service exports in Europe are less sensitive to adverse macroeconomic effects than goods exports.


In 1947, Christian Dior stunned the fashion world with his first collection; his 'New Look' featured designs that transformed the way women dressed. Dior continued to send shockwaves with his later shows, significantly altering the fashion landscape during the ten years of his career as a couturier. This book recounts Dior's search for the perfect line and how his unique vision of women's ideal silhouette developed. More than any designer before him, Dior embraced the dual aspects of creativity and commerce, becoming the first couturier to license his products in 1949. He became one of the most famous designers of the twentieth century, and his name still fronts one of the most successful haute couture fashion houses. As portrayed in the pages of Vogue by photographers such as Horst and Irving Penn and artists like Christian Berard, the book offers a unique insight into Dior's contribution to design, his dramatic impact on the landscape of 40s and 50s fashion and his personal legacy. Vogue, the international fashion bible, has charted the careers of designers through the decades. Its unique archive of photographs, taken by the leading photographers of the day from Cecil Beaton to Mario Testino, and original illustrations, together with its stable of highly respected fashion writers, make Vogue the most authoritative and prestigious source of reference on fashion. With a circulation of over 160,000 and a readership of over 1,400,000, no brand is better positioned to present a library on the great fashion designers of the modern age.


Powdery mildew can affect wine quality so Australian wineries often use a threshold of 3-5% disease severity on bunches near harvest to support decisions about grape quality and price. The quality of visual assessment in the vineyard reflects the experience and training of assessors in recognising disease and estimating bunch surface affected. A free application (PMapp) for Apple and Android devices was developed to facilitate assessment of powdery mildew in vineyards and promote uniformity of assessment practices. PMapp comprises an assessment screen for entry of severity scores, a reference set of computer-generated images to support area assessment, a self-calibration tool for the user to check his/her accuracy and a diagrammatic key with 2% increments in the range 2-12%. Since release in Australia in December 2015 and globally in November 2016, PMapp has been downloaded over 2000 times. A website developed to support use of PMapp (www.pmassessment.com.au) offers a stepwise guide to in-field assessment, with links to training in disease recognition and area assessment and to the diagrammatic key. The disease recognition module comprises photographs of grape bunches at veraison and close to harvest; each is presented in triplicate, with different areas outlined that might represent surface with powdery mildew. The user selects the image that has powdery mildew outlined most correctly. The area assessment module allows the user to test his/her ability to assess bunch surface area affected on computergenerated images coloured to indicate powdery mildew. Results are presented as a chart showing agreement of estimate with actual image, repeatability and time taken per image. The user can access results of his/her previous attempts. Feedback from wine sector representatives indicates that these resources have improved the quality of in-field disease assessment. PMapp is also being used in assessing bunch rot on grapes and diseases of various crops.


OF THESIS INVESTIGATION OF CARDIAC ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY IN HUMAN VENTRICULAR TISSUE Individuals with cardiomyopathy are at higher risk to die from sudden cardiac arrest than those with non-failing (NF) hearts. This study examined the differences in electrical properties of failing and NF human hearts in terms of cardiac memory through explicit control of diastolic intervals in a sinusoidal fashion, restitution of action potential duration (APD) through standard and dynamic pacing protocols, maximum rate of depolarization and APD alternans. Recordings of transmembrane potentials were made in tissues extracted from patients with heart failure and one donor NF heart. Computational simulations were performed using the O'Hara Rudy model for generating surrogates of control data. Significant differences were seen between left ventricular (LV) tissue and NF LV tissue in tilt, and measures of memory in terms of area and thickness during the sinusoidal 400ms protocol. Minimum delay was also significantly higher in the failing LV during the sinusoidal 150ms protocol. Failing tissues showed a higher restitution slope and prolonged AP which is consistent with previous studies and is hypothesized to contribute to the increased susceptibility to unstable alternans. This study further explored how disease alters the electrical functioning of the heart and why these patients are at a higher risk of ventricular arrhythmia.


"From the award-winning author of Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances Behind "The Mystery of Marie Roget""" comes a compelling argument for the identity of Emily Dickinson's true love"" "Proud of my broken heartSince thou didst break it, Proud of the pain IDid not feel till thee . . .Those words were written by Emily Dickinson to a married man. Who was he?For a century or more the identity of Emily Dickinson's mysterious "Master" has been eagerly sought, especially since three letters from her to him were found and published in 1955. In "Emily Dickinson in Love," John Evangelist Walsh provides the first book-length treatment of this fascinating subject, offering a solution based wholly on documented facts and the poet's own writings.Crafting the affair as a love story of rare appeal, and writing with exquisite attention to detail, in Part I Walsh reveals and meticulously proves the Master to be Otis Lord, a friend of the poet's father and a man of some reputation in law and politics. Part II portrays the full dimensions of their thirty-year romance, most of it clandestine, including a series of secret meetings in Boston.After uncovering and confirming the Master's identity, Walsh fits that information into known events of Emily's life to make sense of facts long known but little understood--Emily's decision to dress always in white, for instance, or her extreme withdrawal from a normal existence when she had previously been an active, outgoing friend to many men and women.In a lengthy section of Notes and Sources, Walsh presents his proofs in abundant detail, demonstrating that the evidence favors one man so irresistibly that there is left no room for doubt. Each reader will decide if he has truly succeeded in making the case for Otis Lord.


Rat liver cells grown in primary cultures in the presence of [35S]sulphate synthesize a labelled heparan sulphate-like glycosaminoglycan. The characterization of the polysaccharide as heparan sulphate is based on its resistance to digestion with chondroitinase ABC or hyaluronidase and its susceptibility to HNO2 treatment. The sulphate groups (including sulphamino and ester sulphate groups) are distributed along the polymer in the characteristic block fashion. In 3H-labelled heparan sulphate, isolated after incubation of the cells with [3H]galactose, 40% of the radioactive uronic acid units are L-iduronic acid, the remainder being D-glucuronic acid. The location of heparan sulphate at the rat liver cell surface is demonstrated; part of the labelled polysaccharide can be removed from the cells by mild treatment with trypsin or heparitinase. Further, a purified plasma-membrane fraction isolated from rats previously injected with [35S]sulphate contains radioactively labelled heparan sulphate. A proteoglycan macromolecule composed of heparan sulphate chains attached to a protein core can be solubilized from the membrane fraction by extraction with 6M-guanidinium chloride. The proteoglycan structure is degraded by treatment with papain, Pronase or alkali. The production of heparan [35S]sulphate by rat liver cells incubated in the presence of [35S]sulphate was followed. Initially the amount of labelled polysaccharide increased with increasing incubation time. However, after 10h of incubation a steady state was reached where biosynthetic and degradative processes were in balance.


This paper studies the spatial joint evolution of cooperative behavior and a partially assortative matching institution that protects cooperators. We consider cooperation as characterized by a cultural trait transmitted via an endogenous socialization mechanism and we assume that such trait can diffuse randomly in space due to some spatial noise in the socialization mechanism. Using mathematical techniques from reaction-diffusion equations theory, we show that, under some conditions, an initially localized domain of preferences for cooperation can invade the whole population and characterize the asymptotic speed of diffusion. We consider first the case with exogenous assortativeness, and then endogeneize the degree of social segmentation in matching, assuming that it is collectively set at each point of time and space by the local community. We show how relatively low cost segmenting institutions can appear in new places thanks to the spatial random diffusion of cooperation, helping a localized cultural cluster of cooperation to invade the whole population. The endogenous assortative matching institution follows a life cycle process: appearing, growing and then disappearing once a culture of cooperation is sufficiently established in the local population.


Remote sensing surveys of the Moon and Mars show evidence of lava tubes, which are potential safe havens for human crews and their equipment. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) can be used to map tubes because the void/rock interface at tube ceilings and floors strongly reflects radar pulses. We have tested the capacity of GPR to sense lava tube geometry at Lava Beds National Monument in California, USA. GPR and detailed light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data are presented for two tubes: Skull Cave, with a few meters of overburden, diameter ~10–20 m, and a rubbly floor; and Valentine Cave, with similarly thin overburden, diameter ~1–3 m, and a flatter smoother floor. On both caves GPR clearly resolves the ceiling and permits good estimates of the cave width as validated with LiDAR data. Where GPR fails, the primary cause is inferred to be strong out‐of‐plane effects due to complex 3‐D geometries. Recovery of the floor position requires migrating the GPR data with a 2‐D velocity model, as signal velocity is faster in void space. We find that floor position is recoverable in caves whose voids are taller than the radar wavelength (~3 m in this study). Forward modeling assuming planetary parameters suggests that GPR should be similarly successful on the Moon or Mars.


The implementation of a successful engineering program to a synchronous online curriculum is subject to many impacting factors. One such factor, that has not seen much investigation, concerns learning styles. Student learning styles may have a dramatic influence on the success of a synchronous online deliverable engineering graphics curriculum. The immediate objective of this research was to look at the effectiveness of teaching Engineering Graphics with a synchronous online delivery method and to compare it to a more traditional face-to-face delivery method. Using Kolb's learning style inventory, student learning styles in both educational settings were investigated and analyzed to discover the student population's prevailing learning style. Data relating to class success was collected with surveys, personal feedback, and by observing overall student performance based on grades and responses to the survey material presented. The study targeted 6 separate sections of an engineering graphics course taught by the same instructor, in the same physical setting, and with identical curricula over a two-year period. Data analysis allowed for an introspective look into correlations between academic success and the learning styles of the students. Findings suggest that (1) Converger students receive significantly higher final course grades when they are in a synchronous online environment; (2) Assimilator and Converger synchronous online students show significant improved differences in their final open-ended project scores over their face-to-face taught peers, the prevalent learning style within the course. Suggestions to accommodate learning styles are present.


One of the most energy-consuming processes in conventional microalgal biofuel production is harvesting cells from dilute media. Cell harvesting by centrifugation or membrane filtration requires equal or more energy than is captured by photosynthesis, resulting in a negative net energy and CO2 balance. As a cost-effective alternative to this approach, we investigated the possibility of using the inherent motility and behavioral responses of the green microalgae Euglena gracilis to light stimuli, to promote cell aggregation. Irradiation of cells with light stimuli of different wavelengths and intensities revealed that E. gracilis cells are specifically attracted to green light. The cell aggregation rate for cultures irradiated with green light for 24 h was 8.7 fold and the cell collection rate reached 70%, which is comparable to the efficiency of centrifugal separation. Utilization of green light for cell aggregation does not compete with the light absorption by chlorophylls in photosystems I and II (PSI and PSII). Therefore, the findings in the present study offer the use of green light in solar radiation, which was originally wasted energy in photosynthesis, as the energy source for one of the most energy-intensive downstream processes in microalgal biofuel production.


Rooted in the British apprenticeship system, the French Beaux-Arts, and the German polytechnical schools, architecture education in North America has had a unique history spanning almost three hundred years. Although architects in the United States and Canada began to identify themselves as professionals by the late eighteenth century, it was not until nearly a century later that North American universities began to offer formal architectural training; the first program was established at MIT in 1865. Today most architects receive their training within an academic setting that draws on the humanities, fine arts, applied science, and public service for its philosophy and methodology. This book, published in conjunction with the centennial of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), provides the first comprehensive history of North American architecture education. Architecture School opens with six chronological essays, each devoted to a major period of development: before 1860; 1860--1920; 1920--1940; 1940--1968; 1968--1990; and 1990 to the present. This overview is followed by a "lexicon" containing shorter articles on more than two dozen topics that have figured centrally in archictecture education's history, from competitions and design pedagogy to research, structures, studio culture, and travel.


This paper presents a case study on a particular higher education environment project (INNOV), where teachers use Web 2.0 applications to create online professional communities through an empowering learning strategy. The study focuses on how teachers, with basic knowledge of Web 2.0 tools will experience community building processes, add professional value to their curriculum and participate in the development of the educational quality strategy of the institution. The project is based on "teaching experience" storytelling, a pedagogic approach used in the development of E-Portfolios for teacher training. INNOV provides teachers with a complete range of interactive tools to share their innovative teaching experiences. The formalized storytelling model allows the fast exploitation of knowledge through the production of various multimedia contents.
 The paper combines a purely pedagogic observation of technology learning processes through community building, response to innovation and acceptation of sharing strategies in a professional competitive environment. The study shows patterns in adoption, individual motivation and voluntary participation in content production. The interdisciplinary approach of Web Science was helpful for this study: the paper gives solutions for designing an educational web application for teacher training that takes into account the particular context of the institution and ensures that the focus is on theory of teaching rather than on technology (Wubbels, 2007).
 Following propositions made by Halford, Pope and Carr in their Manifesto for Web Science, the study will look critically at the way Web technologies and Web 2.0 business model are used to build communities in the higher education context, in avoiding to create exclusion, rejection or new forms of inequalities.


Virtual reality and human interaction with it is a complex topic, and certainly not one which will be mastered overnight; but across the world, there is excellent research being carried out for all of these important domains. As humanity extends its understanding of the interplay with these system components, developers will be well-positioned to design better and more effective virtual reality interventions and come closer to realising the full potential of virtual reality for health and well-being. In this book, the authors present a number of short papers from research groups around the world working in this important and complex field. The chapters explore a range of issues, suggesting routes forward and offering insights into both the potential and the challenges of this rapidly maturing technology. (Novinka).


A transition from conventional centralized to hybrid decentralized systems has been increasingly advised recently due to their capability to enhance the resilience and sustainability of urban water supply systems. Reusing treated wastewater for non-potable purposes is a promising opportunity toward the aforementioned resolutions. In this study, we present two optimization models for integrating reusing systems into existing sewerage systems to bridge the supply–demand gap in an existing water supply system. In Model-1, the supply–demand gap is bridged by introducing on-site graywater treatment and reuse, and in Model-2, the gap is bridged by decentralized wastewater treatment and reuse. The applicability of the proposed models is evaluated using two test cases: one a proof-of-concept hypothetical network and the other a near realistic network based on the sewerage network in Chennai, India. The results show that the proposed models outperform the existing approaches by achieving more than a 20% reduction in the cost of procuring water and more than a 36% reduction in the demand for freshwater through the implementation of local on-site graywater reuse for both test cases. These numbers are about 12% and 34% respectively for the implementation of decentralized wastewater treatment and reuse.


The influence of SiC particles on the physical and mechanical properties for MgO/SiC composites was investigated. MgO matrix was reinforced with (2 wt%,4 wt%,6 wt% and 8 wt% ) of SiC particles which synthesized using powder technology technique. Five samples of each patch have been prepared and supplied to physical properties (green density (G.D) and bulk density (B.D)) and mechanical properties (hardness and compressive strength) were measured. It was observed that the green density of all samples were decreases with increasing SiC particles content. This due to the lower density of SiC than MgO particles. Prepared samples were sintered at different temperatures (800 ˚C, 1100 ˚C, and 1450 ˚C). The bulk density reviled the unaffecting property for samples sintered at 800C and 1100˚C, but it was observed a significant increasing in B.D for samples sintered at higher temperature (1450˚C). It has been found that Vickers hardness, compressive strength and diametrical strength values increases with increasing sintering temperature and decreasing with SiC particles content. The purpose of this study was to confirm the influence of SiC addition on some physical and mechanical properties of MgO matrix.


Arsenic is one of the most prevalent toxic elements in the environment. The toxicity, mobility, and fate of arsenic in the environment are determined by a complex series of controls dependent on mineralogy, chemical speciation, and biological processes. The element was first described by Theophrastus in 300 B.C. and named arsenikon (also arrhenicon; Caley and Richards 1956) referring to its "potent" nature, although it was originally considered an alternative form of sulfur (Boyle and Jonasson 1973). Arsenikon is believed to be derived from the earlier Persian, zarnik (online etymology dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=arsenic ). It was not until the thirteenth century that an alchemist, Albertus Magnus, was able to isolate the element from orpiment, an arsenic sulfide (As2S3). The complex chemistry required to do this led to arsenic being considered a "bastard metal" or what we now call a "metalloid," having properties of both metals and non-metals. As a chemical element, arsenic is widely distributed in nature and can be concentrated in many different ways. In the Earth's crust, arsenic is concentrated by magmatic and hydrothermal processes and has been used as a "pathfinder" for metallic ore deposits, particularly gold, tin, copper, and tungsten (Boyle and Jonasson 1973; Cohen and Bowell 2014). It has for centuries been considered a potent toxin, is a common poison in actual and fictional crimes, and has led to significant impacts on human health in many areas of the world (Cullen 2008; Wharton 2010).

The potential issues associated with elevated As concentrations in water supplies have led to a large body of published research in the last few years related to:


Wind scatterometry is an important technique for retrieving high-resolution nearsurface wind information in ocean areas where other techniques provide sparse coverage. Scatterometer winds are principally ambiguous in wind direction. In this paper a variational method for ambiguity removal, named 2DVAR, is presented. 2DVAR performs an incremental analysis based on the ambiguous scatterometer wind vector solutions and a model forecast, and selects the ambiguity closest to the analysis as solution. The correctness of the 2DVAR implementation is demonstrated to machine precision. The merits of 2DVAR are shown in a number of case studies and in a more general statistical comparison. SeaWinds observations at 25 km resolution are known to be noisy, especially in the nadir part of the swath, due to the observation geometry. It is shown that the noise is effectively suppressed by application of 2DVAR in combination with the Multi Solution Scheme (MSS). MSS retains the local wind vector probability density function after inversion, rather than only a limited number of ambiguous solutions. The effect of MSS is to increase the influence of the background. This can be decreased again by adjusting the parameters in the observation wind error model. A case study on an extratropical hurricane observed with SeaWinds shows that reliable wind estimates can be obtained wind speeds more than 40 m/s. ASCAT has a better observation geometry than SeaWinds and therefore the MSS is not needed, but a case study on a tropical cyclone shows that the 2DVAR error model should be tuned right to reproduce the correct circulation patterns.


Fertility is a key functional trait in dairy production systems, because calving determines the beginning of milk production. The objective of this study was to detect genomic regions associated with four fertility parameters: days at first service (D1S), calving interval (CI) number of services per conception (NSC) and days open (OD) to provide tools for improvement of the selection process. Phenotypes were the breeding values of D1S, CI, NSC and OD with reliabilities greater than 0.30 of Mexican Holstein females born from 2008 to 2013. After the genotype's quality control, a total of 20,407 SNP and 3,242 animals were used to perform Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) through a single linear regression model, previously adjusting for population composition and counting for false discovery rate and Bonferroni's correction. Quality control and GWAS were performed with SVS Golden Helix V.8.6. Hundreds of significant SNP (<1*e-5) were associated to fertility traits in the Mexican Holstein population. Because several genomic regions were related with many traits, the 100 most significant SNPs for each trait were pooled together and the SNP associated with more than two traits were referenced in the genomic databases. Six of the nine SNP associated in this study with more than two traits, were previously reported in other populations. Three of them are related directly with fertility (The SNP ARS-BFGL-NGS101016 with calving index and calving ease, Hapmap31053-BTA-111664 with number of inseminations and non-return rate and ARS-BFGL-NGS-103755 with calf size). Another three SNP have not been linked to fertility, but instead are related with traits for which a negative relationship with it has been reported like some production traits (for example, the marker ARS-BFGL-NGS-24522, SNP is related with caseins yield, BTB-01869907 with milk, fat, protein and lactose yield and Hapmap44709-BTA-70915 with mature weight). Markers BTB-02009158, ARS-BFGL-NGS-115837 and ARS-BFGL-NGS-113691 from chromosomes 8, 14 and 22 respectively, have not been previously associated to traits or genes that explain a possible interaction with fertility. This study shows the presence of novel genomic regions associated with fertility parameters in Holstein cattle.


A new method for generating families of ternary spreading sequences is presented. The sequences have aperiodic zero correlation zones and large families are created for a specific sequence length. The sequences are proposed as spreading sequences to provide high capacity and cancel multipath and multiple access interference (MAI) in a single carrier (SC) or multi-carrier (MC) direct-spread code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system. A Multi-carrier DS-CDMA system is simulated that employs the new sequences as spreading sequences in a multipath channel. Bit error rates (BER) and frame error rates (FER) for a range of Eb/No values are presented and it is demonstrated that the proposed sequences improve the BER and FER performance when used in place of masked Walsh Codes for the frequency selective fading channel evaluated, when a single correlator receiver is used on each sub-carrier.


Progress within the various surgical fields has been facilitated by the use of minimally invasive procedures to achieve the same clinical outcomes as traditional techniques. Spine surgery is no different, and endoscopic spine surgery continues to demonstrate extensive applications while minimizing collateral tissue damage. Endoscopic spine surgery blends skill sets, technology, and clinical applications from both surgical spine and interventional spine. Clinicians from these fields have adopted endoscopic spine surgery. This has created a dilemma: there are now physicians providing surgical care who have not had formal spine surgical training. Some interventional spine practitioners are able to offer safe and effective endoscopic spine surgery, but training standards and practice standards are necessary for the field to progress. This article provides suggestions for a pragmatic approach to endoscopic spine surgery training and credentialing for physicians who practice interventional spine.


We generate a single-carrier 21.4-Gbaud polarization-division-multiplexed (PDM) 64-ary quadrature-amplitude-modulated (QAM) signal (256.8-Gb/s line rate) using a single in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) optical modulator driven by 8-level electrical waveforms from a novel high-power digital-to-analog converter (DAC). We measure a required optical signal-to-noise ratio of 29.5 dB (0.1-nm reference bandwidth; 10-3 bit-error rate), 4.6-dB off the theoretical limit. Using ultra-large-area fiber, we achieve 400-km single-channel transmission. The DAC was also used to obtain excellent results with quadrature-phase-shift-keyed and 16-QAM signals at 21.4 Gbaud.


Rovibrational states of four dimers formed by the light and the heavy isotopologues of the methane and water molecules are computed using a potential energy surface taken from the literature. The general rovibrational energy-level pattern characteristic to all systems studied is analyzed employing two models of a dimer: the rigidly rotating complex and the coupled system of two rigidly rotating monomers. The rigid-rotor model highlights the presence of rovibrational sequences corresponding to formally negative rotational excitation energies, which is explained in terms of the coupled-rotors picture.