The ecological consequences of hybridization of microbial symbionts are largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that hybridization of microbial symbionts of plants can negatively affect performance of herbivores and their natural enemies. In addition, we studied the effects of hybridization of these symbionts on feeding preference of herbivores and their natural enemies. We used Arizona fescue as the host-plant, Neotyphodium endophytes as symbionts, the bird cherry–oat aphid as the herbivore and the pink spotted ladybird beetle as the predator in controlled experiments. Neither endophyte infection (infected or not infected) nor hybrid status (hybrid and non-hybrid infection) affected aphid reproduction, proportion of winged forms in the aphid populations, aphid host-plant preference or body mass of the ladybirds. However, development of ladybird larvae was delayed when fed with aphids grown on hybrid (H+) endophyte infected grasses compared to larvae fed with aphids from non-hybrid (NH+) infected grasses, non-hybrid, endophyte-removed grasses (NH-) and hybrid, endophyte-removed (H-) grasses. Furthermore, adult beetles were more likely to choose all other types of grasses harboring aphids rather than H+ infected grasses. In addition, development of ladybirds was delayed when fed with aphids from naturally uninfected (E-) grasses compared to ladybirds that were fed with aphids from NH+ and NH- grasses. Our results suggest that hybridization of microbial symbionts may negatively affect generalist predators such as the pink spotted ladybird and protect herbivores like the bird cherry–oat aphids from predation even though the direct effects on herbivores are not evident.


Jurassic palynomorphs dominate samples 1, 3-6 and 10; these are virtually all of Callovian-Oxfordian age. Some minor evidence of Carboniferous and Toarcian reworking was also observed. Exclusively Callovian and Oxfordian index species are common, and forms that are indicative of the late Callovian-early Oxfordian interval are especially abundant. This indicates the incorporation of significant levels of the Oxford Clay Formation. Smaller levels of recycling from the Cornbrash and Kellaways formations are also present. These lithostratigraphical assessments indicate that this Jurassic input was local, and probably derived from the Spalding-Sleaford area of south Lincolnshire to the north-east. Sample 2 yielded a sparse palynoflora, indicating some input from probable marine Quaternary sediments; no evidence of the reworking of Palaeozoic or Mesozoic strata is present. Sample 7 produced a sparse palynoflora indicating input from Carboniferous, Jurassic/?Cretaceous and probable terrestrial Quaternary strata. Sample 8 comprises isolated chalk pebbles from a chalky till and produced a sparse palynoflora. No stratigraphically diagnostic taxa were encountered. The sparseness of the dinoflagellate cyst associations indicates that the Chalk in this sample is not from the Upper Chalk. Sample 9 produced an abundant palynoflora that is dominated by Jurassic miospores; no marine Jurassic microplankton were observed. Low numbers of ?Rugospora spp., a Lower Carboniferous spore, and indeterminate dinoflagellate cysts were also observed. The presence of forms such as Leptolepidites spp. and Neoraistrickia gristhorpensis indicates that this sample was derived from Middle Jurassic strata deposited in a terrestrial/freshwater regime. The source is most likely to be the Rutland Formation, a Bathonian heterolithic, rhythmic unit. The Rutland Formation outcrop is local to Clipsham Quarry. Sample 9 is significantly different to samples 1, 3-6 and 10, which are characterised by younger Jurassic material.


Objective: Our objective is to analyze the influence that the type of CEO has on the management of listed family businesses in Spain, distinguishing between whether the CEO is a family member or not. The study mainly focuses on his/her influence on levels of profitability. Design/methodology: During de period from, 2012 to 2016, with data coming from Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis System (SABI) database. To analyze the effects of the CEOs on family businesses, we carried out two kinds of analyses. First, a univariate analysis that allowed us to identify differences regarding profitability, financial structure, growth, and dividend payout policies, and secondly, a linear regression model to see the influence—as well as the effect and significance—that variables, including the type CEO, had on profitability. Findings: Our results show the existence of a double effect on the profitability of family businesses of having an outside CEO. First, there is a statistically significant negative effect that is derived from the non-family CEOs' increased propensity to take on debt, and secondly, there is a positive causal effect on businesses' profitability that has to do with the different management styles that outside CEOs bring to the table, as they are more focused on profits. The results support the importance of having non-family CEOs in listed family businesses in Spain. Research limitations/implications: Our study focused on family businesses listed on the Spanish stock market, which means that the number of companies that were analyzed was reduced and the results cannot be extended to other kinds of businesses. However, this fact did enable us to get more high-quality data and focus on a specific field that was appropriate for considering the problem we proposed. Originality/value: While many studies have compared the performance of family businesses with that of non-family businesses, few have considered that family businesses are not homogeneous and that they have different management styles. And, These styles are determined by the type of CEO that is leading the company; this fact is analyzed empirically in this article.


Chitinase and peroxydase are important bioactive proteins or are specific enzymes that are related to plant resistance to pathogens. The aims of the research were to analyze the chitinase and peroxidase activities of crude protein extract from calli, stem, leaves and roots of T. cucumerinavar. anguina. In the first experiment, chitinase and peroxydase activities were analyzed from in vitro calli, leaves and roots obtained from 2-month-old of field grown plants. The media for calli induction were Murashige and Skoog medium with addition of 1 µM NAA + 1 µM BA, 2 µM NAA + 2 µM BA, 3 µM NAA + 3 µM BA, or 4 µM NAA + 4 µM BA. In the second experiment, the chitinase and peroxydase activities from crude protein extract of roots, stems and leaves were analyzed. The extracts were from 3-week-old seedling (less than a month), 1-month and 2-month-old plants. The first and the second experiment results showed that crude protein extracts of plant roots from the field grown plants had the highest chitinase and peroxidase activities. Stem of field grown plants had the similar level of chitinase activities with the plant roots. Chitinase activities of in vitro calli were not significantly different from those of plant roots so that it could be used as an alternative for plant roots in studying chitinase from T. cucumerinavar. anguina. Chitinase activities in crude protein extracts of roots appeared constant whereas peroxidase tend to increase with plant age. Keywords: calli, enzyme activities, leaves, roots, stem


ABSTRACTIt is widely believed that behavioral economics justifies more intrusive regulation of financial markets, because people are not fully rational and need to be protected from their quirks. This Article challenges that belief. Firstly, insofar as people can be helped to make better choices, that goal can usually be achieved through light-touch regulations. Secondly, faulty perceptions about markets seem to be best corrected through market-based solutions. Thirdly, increasing regulation does not seem to solve problems caused by lack of market discipline, pricing inefficiencies, and financial innovation; better results may be achieved with freer markets and simpler rules. Fourthly, regulatory rule makers are subject to imperfect rationality, which tends to reduce the quality of regulatory intervention. Finally, regulatory complexity exacerbates the harmful effects of bounded rationality, whereas simple and stable rules give rise to positive learning effects.IntroductionThe recent financial crisis fostered lively debates about fundamental issues in financial law and regulation, with many commentators blaming the crisis on animal spirits and the irrationality of investors.1 Such sentiments are supported by behavioral economics, which challenges standard economic assumptions about rational human behavior. 2 From a legal and regulatory viewpoint, the ordinary perception is that neoclassical economics emphasizes the importance of competition, whereas the behavioral paradigm strengthens the case for paternalist and interventionist policies, as it highlights the limits of human rationality and willpower.3The debate on behavioral law and economics has often led to a simplistic division in which proponents of the behavioral paradigm advance pro-regulation arguments while advocates of the neoclassical paradigm make anti-regulation critiques.4 Critics of the interventionist tendencies of behavioral law and economics have also sought to point out the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of the behavioral apparatus in its entirety. It may be argued that some of the opposition to behavioralism may be motivated by the political implications it has, or seems to have.6This Article proposes a different perspective. While accepting some of the criticism of behavioral economics, it argues that the behavioral paradigm is broadly valid, but it does not imply a systematically interventionist policy. In fact, a number of reasons can be found for why behavioralism may have markedly anti-regulatory implications. In other words, there may be good reasons to regulate certain financial activities, but the behavioral perspective specifically seems to favor light-touch regulations and regulatory simplicity.This thesis is based on five arguments. First, behavioral economics does not necessarily imply the need for heavier regulation, but rather presents the possibility for novel light-touch regulations that would not be possible within the neoclassical, rational-choice economic framework.7 The principal forms of light-touch regulation examined here are default rules, targeted information disclosure, and cooling-off regulations. While it is not entirely clear whether these light-touch regulations result in more or less intervention overall, it is evidently possible to replace certain intrusive regulations with lighter ones.8Second, it is argued that faulty market perceptions seem to be best corrected by market-based solutions. Behavioral economics implies that financial market participants tend to be misled by a range of factors about investment prospects, and some commentators have called for the establishment of regulatory tools to help "debias" faulty market perceptions.9 While such measures seem plausible, the prospects of regulatory debiasing in financial markets are not very promising since the track record of public authorities in predicting crises is poor, and their resources and incentives for doing so are weak in comparison with the private sector. …


The aftermath of suicide can have devastating effects on family and friends. Research has shown that the complexities of suicide bereavement can lead to physical and mental health problems, increased risk of suicide, pathological grief, and non-specific stress disorders. How the bereaved cope with the loss of a loved one by suicide was the focus of this study. It exp lored factors that were helpful or unhelpful, as well as the specific needs of this group. Fifteen volunteers over the age of 18, bereaved for more than two, and less than five years, told their stories in 45-60 minute semi-structured interviews. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, results revealed a variety of coping strategies, and highlighted a number of factors that helped or hindered the individual's ability to cope. Results also highlighted a need for training for personnel dealing with the bereaved, suggested improvements in procedures following a suicidal death , and indicated a need for professional help and support immediately following the death. The findings of this study could be beneficial to policymakers at many levels, and to medical and associated professionals. Understanding the factors that can help or hinder the bereaved's ability to cope will help in the assessment of risk, and consequently be useful in the development of early intervention strategies to minimize the risk of physical and psychological problems that can result from such a traumatic event.


Abstract
The political democratisation in Taiwan which started in the 1980s had an enormous impact
on educational leadership in schools in the 1990s. Democratisation was imported into
school leadership as the state of reform and change reached education. Moreover, gender
also became an important issue as the number of women principals increased in Taiwan.
This research uses case studies of eleven junior high schools in Northern Taiwan to explore
the values and vision of Taiwanese men and women principals in a time of change. It
examines how they engaged in change and how their staff perceived their efforts; and also
how they tried to adapt or resist democratic practices in their schools. It looks at the ways in
which 'democracy' was borrowed and interpreted in the school context.
The thesis reviews related theories about gender and school leadership in the West to see
what insight they give in the Taiwanese context. In addition, related critiques about the
influence of traditional Chinese culture and the impact of politics on school principals in
Taiwan are examined.
The central research finding is that although men and women principals in Taiwan share
similar vision and values about educational reform, other members of school staff perceive
significant gender differences in the way principals have responded to the changes of
democratisation. Staff generally show a preference to work with men rather than women
principals. The thesis argues that the ill-defined principalship, together with the top-down
process of 'democratisation' initiated by principals in schools, has created a paradox that
makes principalship in Taiwan a very challenging task. For many newly arrived women
principals, who did not fit the traditional image of 'male' principals, their aspiration to
work hard and to make a difference to schools often creates unexpected resistance.


Objectives: The objective of this study is to report our initial experience with patients undergoing transvaginal natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES). Materials and Methods: From September 2016 to December 2016, patients who were not virgins and did not have pelvic inflammation or obliteration of the cul-de-sac who underwent NOTES hysterectomy or ovarian cystectomy (OC) were included in the study. Results: Transvaginal NOTES was performed smoothly in six patients, two patients (mean age 35 years, mean body mass index [BMI] 25) received an OC and four patients (mean age 49 years, mean BMI 27) underwent a hysterectomy. One patient with a hysterectomy received concurrent adhesiolysis. The mean surgical times were 74 and 75 min and blood loss was 50 and 87.5 ml in the OC and hysterectomy groups, respectively. One patient with a hysterectomy had a postoperative fever with 38°C last for 2 days. Pain scores were 0 at 48 h postoperatively in both groups. Conclusion: Transvaginal NOTES is a feasible and safe technique for hysterectomy and OC in our patients and those in previous reports. This procedure was minimally invasive with no scars on the abdomen as well as little pain.


Nowcasting has been a challenge in the recent economic crisis. We introduce the Toll Index, a new monthly indicator for business cycle forecasting and demonstrate its relevance using German data. The index measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across the country and has highly desirable availability properties (insignificant revisions, short publication lags) as a result of the innovative technology underlying its data collection. It is coincident with production activity due to the prevalence of just-in-time delivery. The Toll Index is a good early indicator of production as measured for instance by the German Production Index, provided by the German Statistical Office, which is a well-known leading indicator of the Gross National Product. The proposed new index is an excellent example of technological, innovation-driven economic telemetry, which we suggest should be established more around the world.


This research study is to measure the activity of saccharomyces cerevisiae through selected additives which have been added in the hydration step of making bread dough. The saccharomyces cerevisiae is sensitive to sugars (Mazzoleni, S. et al.2015) and by using multiple possible additives that can be found at home, we can compare which ones give a healthier yeast and therefore a better rise to the dough. As the saccharomyces cerevisiae ferments, it consumes the sugars naturally in the dough and creates an acidic environment to maintain its growth and produces CO2 as a product of this reaction, which is the cause for the rising dough. This can be tracked by how active the yeast is to its mean weight loss by measuring the weight loss of the three separate batches and comparing the results through a Multiple Comparisons of Means: Tukey Contrasts test to see if the significance to what is added to what was added to help the fermentation process of the yeast. We can see that easily soluble sugars are the best choices for promoting the health of the saccharomyces cerevisiae in by the test with F(9,20)=14.49, p<0.0001.Keywords: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bread, Fermentation, Glucose, Baking


The dyes are known to be toxic, carcinogentic and mutagenic. Their release in the environment can cause non-aesthetic pollution, and moreover, they are not degraded by conventional aerobic wastewater treatment due to their recalcitrance. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce dye concentration in the wastewater. Activated carbon was obtained from capsicum straw by chemical activation using KOH as an activator. Then it was used as an adsorbent for the removal of dye Methylene Blue. The adsorption of dye Methylene Blue by activated carbon was carried out in details. Kinetic adsorption data were analyzed by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model, the pseudo-second-order model and the intraparticle diffusion model. The experimental data were analyzed by the Langmuir and Freundlich models of adsorption. The thermodynamics parameters were also calculated.


Recent research has demonstrated that ponds contribute a great deal to biodiversity at a regional level as networks of habitat patches that also act as 'stepping stones' to facilitate the movement of species through the landscape. Similarly, a great deal of biodiversity persists in urban environments where synanthropic communities are supplemented by species that thrive in disturbed environments. Aquatic urban biodiversity appears to persist despite anthropogenic stressors: an array of anthropogenic pollutants (road salt and heavy metals), invasive species, and active mismanagement—particularly the removal of riparian vegetation. Optimizing urban ponds for different ecosystem services results in conflicting priorities over hydrological, geochemical, ecological, aesthetic, and cultural functions. The socio‐ecosystem approach to environmental management opens a path to greater incorporation of biodiversity into town planning and sustainability, while accounting for cultural attitudes to urban ecosystems. I identify a range of research needs: (1) the roles of design and location of urban ponds in influencing biodiversity, (2) the function of urban wetlands for stormwater and pollution management, and (3) public perceptions of urban ecosystems and how those perceptions are influenced by interactions with natural systems. Urban wetlands offer an important opportunity to educate the general public on natural systems and science in general using a resource that is located on their doorstep. In the face of increasing pressures on natural systems and increasing extent and intensity of urbanization, a more comprehensive appreciation of the challenges and opportunities provided by urban ponds could play a substantial role in driving sustainable urban development.


MOST AMERICANS FEEL SECURE THAT THEIR FREEDOM TO WORSHIP IN THEIR particular religious faith is a well protected right. After all, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therefo..." However, for many Native Americans, the First Amendment provides no such sense of security. Considering the genocide they have experienced at the hands of the U.S. government, it is not surprising that Indian peoples have never had their traditional religious freedoms protected under its auspices. In fact, Euro-American hostility toward Native American religions has served as justification for 500 years of oppression. Recognized early on as a primary source of strength and stability for Indian nations, Native religious practices were disrupted, degraded, and outlawed by white colonizers bent on eradicating "pagan savages" and helping themselves to their resources. The Potlatch of the Northern Pacific coastal nations and the Sun and Ghost Dances of those of the Great Plains are just a few of the better-known ceremonies that were forbidden and whose "illegality" was then used to persecute their practitioners. By the mid--1800s, nearly all aspects of traditional Native American religious practices were against the law. It was not until the late 1970s that the U.S. government acknowledged its long history of Native American religious repression. In 1978, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), a move that seemed to indicate a new consciousness on the part of the government. In its preamble, the act spelled out the many ways that the federal government has failed to recognize Indian religions and has interfered with or prohibited their free exercise. The act stated that U.S. policy would now be to: protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent rights to believe, express, and exercise traditional religions...including but not limited to access to sites, use, and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites. However, in the 14 years since AIRFA was signed into law by then-President Jimmy Carter, various branches of the U.S. government have continued to chip away at Native American religious freedoms. AIRFA was passed basically as a policy statement, without provisions for enforcement, and the recommendations it generated for changes in the ways agencies operated vis a vis Native religious concerns went virtually ignored. Subsequent efforts to invoke AIRFA as a tool in cases fighting for Native American religious protections (i.e., preservation of sacred sites or religious use of peyote) were often fruitless, further demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the act. Incarcerated Native Americans have also tried to evoke AIRFA in support of their struggles for First Amendment religious protections. However, the American prison system is allowed to formulate its own unique interpretation of "freedom of religion," regardless of AIRFA. The courts consistently defer to the decisions of individual superintendents or wardens as to which "freedoms" constitute a "security risk." Religious activities can therefore be prohibited at the discretion of corrections officials without any substantiating evidence that past incidents involving said practices have transpired. The results are inconsistent and tend to privilege inmates with mainstream, Judeo-Christian beliefs. Perhaps no other U.S. group has suffered greater denial of their First Amendment rights to freely practice their traditional religion than have incarcerated Native Americans. The U.S. penal system has its roots in Judeo-Christian concepts of punishment and redemption; solitary confinement, for example, began with the idea of isolating the prisoner with a Bible. In fact, two of the primary "rehabilitative" components of U. …


Voters' expectations of party strengths are a central part of many foundational political science theories that posit a strategic act by the voter. But how do voters develop these beliefs and how is this belief formation affected by polling reports? In this article, we present a dynamic Bayesian learning model that serves as a baseline for how beliefs are formed. We use survey experiments to estimate parameters of the dynamic learning process and analyze how and when belief formation deviates from theoretical model. We find that respondents update closely to new arriving poll results, they judge the polls to be two times more imprecise as the actual sample error and that this makes the induced differences in prior beliefs about a race vanish over time. We further apply the experiment to the study of partisan bias and the quality of the polls.


The IEEE 802.11 wireless media access standard supports multiple data rates at the physical layer. Moreover, various auto rate adaptation mechanisms at the medium access layer have been proposed to utilize this multi-rate capability by automatically adapting the transmission rate to best match the channel conditions. In this paper, we introduce the Opportunistic Auto Rate (OAR) protocol to better exploit durations of high-quality channels conditions. The key mechanism of the OAR protocol is to opportunistically send multiple back-to-back data packets whenever the channel quality is good. As channel coherence times typically exceed multiple packet transmission times for both mobile and non-mobile users, OAR achieves significant throughput gains as compared to state-of-the-art auto-rate adaptation mechanisms. Moreover, over longer time scales, OAR ensures that all nodes are granted channel access for the same time-shares as achieved by single-rate IEEE 802.11. We describe mechanisms to implement OAR on top of any existing auto-rate adaptation scheme in a nearly IEEE 802.11 compliant manner. We also analytically study OAR and characterize the gains in throughput as a function of the channel conditions. Finally, we perform an extensive set of ns-2 simulations to study the impact of such factors as node velocity, channel conditions, and topology on the throughput of OAR.


The rapid advances in infrared detector technology over the past decades have impelled the development of wide-field instruments, and shaped our view of the cold universe. Large scale surveys in our Galaxy have discovered hundreds of brown dwarfs enabling the characterisation of the mass function in the substellar regime. I will review the most recent observational results concerning the substellar IMF derived in star forming regions, open clusters, and the field, that must be reproduced and explained by any successful star formation theory.


We propose a generative framework for joint sequence labeling and sentence-level classification. Our model performs multiple sequence labeling tasks at once using a single, shared natural language output space. Unlike prior discriminative methods, our model naturally incorporates label semantics and shares knowledge across tasks. Our framework is general purpose, performing well on few-shot, low-resource, and high-resource tasks. We demonstrate these advantages on popular named entity recognition, slot labeling, and intent classification benchmarks. We set a new state-of-the-art for few-shot slot labeling, improving substantially upon the previous 5-shot ($75.0\% \rightarrow 90.9\%$) and 1-shot ($70.4\% \rightarrow 81.0\%$) state-of-the-art results. Furthermore, our model generates large improvements ($46.27\% \rightarrow 63.83\%$) in low-resource slot labeling over a BERT baseline by incorporating label semantics. We also maintain competitive results on high-resource tasks, performing within two points of the state-of-the-art on all tasks and setting a new state-of-the-art on the SNIPS dataset.


Personal workplace technologies, with the capability to both enhance productivity and monitor staff performance, have become prevalent in many organisations. With the increased need for the use of personal computers, the Internet and safety and security technologies, employers are offered a plethora of tools that can be used to track the activities of staff during their working day. This thesis offers a case study on an organisation, studying the personal workplace technologies it adopted and how they are applied in the organisation by management. The main reasons for implementation into the core organisational structure are compared between the unique perceptions; those of staff and management. The impact of these technologies, their benefits and problems are discussed and evaluated from the perspectives of both staff and management, which provides a number of points of difference and agreement. McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y is explored, and compared against the characteristics of the case study organisation. Findings from primary research are then analysed in order to deduce concluding recommendations, particularly the need to increase staff training after implementing personal workplace technologies. Including all affected employees in meetings to discuss personal workplace technology, and its impact on the job role, is vital in increasing transparency and trust. Furthermore, decreasing levels of employee monitoring where possible, and ensuring it is done for reasons other than the need to know the whereabouts and activities of staff would ensure a more positive working environment. These recommendations and conclusions open up an area for further research in order to seek more knowledge into the vital issue of personal workplace technologies and their impact upon an organisation and its actors. Implications of Personal Technologies in the Workplace: Distinctions Between Employer and Employee Perceptions 2009


COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) worldwide has a prevalence of
10% in men and 8.5% in women. Exacerbations of COPD account for
approximately 10% of all acute medical admissions. Projected prevalence
figures suggest that by 2020 COPD will be the third leading cause of mortality
worldwide thus imposing a significant burden on healthcare resources in the
future. Acute exacerbations are not only responsible for a decline in the
patient's quality of life, but have a major socioeconomic impact. Following a
pilot study that showed current smokers recover lung function much more
slowly from their exacerbation than ex smokers, I initiated a properly powered
prospective study to investigate the difference between the two groups. A total of 58 patients admitted with acute infectious exacerbations of COPD
were recruited to the study to determine the effect of smoking status on their
exacerbation. Throughout the admission lung function was measured. Sputum
was cultured for bacteria, and PCR used to detect viral infection. Blood and
sputum cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. Serum was collected for CRP
levels. Ex-smokers recovered significantly more quickly than current smokers in all
spirometric parameters (P<0.01), and were discharged sooner (mean 3.08 vs
5.59 days, P<0.001). Sputum culture was positive for more pathogenic bacteria
in current smokers, especially H. influenzae, which was associated with a
significantly higher CRP rise (p<0.05) than any other organism. CD8+ T cells
predominated in the sputum of ex-smokers while CD4+ T cells were the
dominant cell type in current smokers (p Current smoking is a risk factor for more severe exacerbations, delayed
recovery and prolonged hospitalization. This may result from a variety of factors
including bacterial, immune mediated responses and systemic inflammation.


The development of a genetic engineering system for soya bean (Glycine max L.) is described in this thesis. Routine tissue culture regeneration systems were developed for South African cultivars of soya bean despite the recalcitrant nature of this plant to in vitro manipulation. Regeneration of shoots was obtained when cotyledons were excised from seeds germinated for two days and cultured on B5 BA 20 medium containing 2 mg/I BA. The important problems of in vitro shoot elongation and rooting were overcome by culturing cotyledons in the dark for four weeks to produce shoots with unusually long stems. This was followed by one week of culture under conditions of high light intensity to obtain healthy green shoots which could be rooted , either in sorbarods or on solid Y2MS 30 medium. The use of a mist bed for the hardening off of rooted soya bean regenerants was essential for the recovery of fertile soya bean plants. Molecular techniques for the cloning of foreign genes into binary vectors suitable for plant genetic engineering were also studied and are described in the thesis. The Basta herbicide resistance gene , pat, was successfully cloned into the binary vector pBI121 which contains the ~-glucuronid~se (GUS) reporter gene , uidA. The new construct, pB1121/Ac, was conjugated into various disarmed Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains and these strains, along with other binary vector-containing strains, were used to transform soya bean plant material. Although a protocol for the routine transformation of soya bean was not developed, transgenic soya bean material resistant to kanamycin and showing GUS activity was obtained. Transformation of wound sites on cotyledons was obtained in several experiments and transgenic shoots were regenerated from inoculated cotyledons. Only the A. tumefaciens strain C58C1 (pGV2260)(pJIT119) was ii able to transform cotyledonary cells of soya bean and , therefore , only kanamycin resistant soya bean shoots were produced. Transgenic soya bean plants resistant to the herbicide Basta were not produced due to the recalcitrant nature of the crop to genetic engineering. Transformation of the non-recalcitrant plant, tobacco, which is a model system for plant genetic engineering was achieved. The binary pat gene containing vector constructed in th is study, as well as vectors obtained from AgrEvo , were tested. The transgenic Basta resistant tobacco plants obtained were used to optimize assay systems for the analysis of transformed plant material containing the pat gene. These assay systems included the use of the polymerase chain reaction as well as digoxigenin-Iabelling of a DNA probe suitable for detection of the pat gene.


Shoreline erosion in response to extreme wave events can be severe. The reduction in beach width leaves development within the hinterland exposed and vulnerable to future wave attack. Wave climates are a fundamental driver of coastal erosion and changes to wave height, direction and period can severely impact a coastline. These changes are directly linked to changes within the principle drivers of wave climates namely synoptic scale atmospheric circulation. The links are complex and if they can be clarified they can be used to provide insight into wave climates and improve the evaluation of future climate scenarios. The coupling between atmospheric circulation and wave climates provides a tool for risk assessment that is strongly based on fundamental physical processes. This study is focused on exploring this relationship and its effect on coastal vulnerability. A statistical classification algorithm is utilized to explore the relationship between synoptic scale circulation patterns and regional wave climates. The algorithm is fully automated and discrete atmospheric patterns are derived through an optimization procedure. It is driven to an optimal solution through statistical links between regional wave climates and atmospheric circulation patterns (CPs). The classification is based on the concept of fuzzy sets and differs from standard classification techniques. It employs a "bottom–up" approach as the classes (or CPs) are derived through a procedure that is guided by the wave climate. In contrast existing classification techniques first explore the atmospheric pressure space while links to the variable of interest are only made post classification. The east coast of South Africa was used as a case study. Wave data off the Durban coastline were utilized to evaluate the drivers of the wave climate. A few dominant patterns are shown to drive extreme wave events. Their persistence and strong high– low coupling drive winds toward the coastline and result in extreme wave events. The sensitivity of the algorithm to key input parameters such as the number of CP classes and temporal resolution of the data was evaluated. The Shannon entropy is introduced to measure the performance of the algorithm. This method benefits from incorporating the link between atmospheric CPs and the wave climate. A new stochastic wave simulation technique was developed that is fundamentally based on the CPs. This technique improves the realism of stochastic models while retaining their simplicity and parsimony relative to process-based models. The simplicity of the technique provides the framework to evaluate coastal vulnerability at site specific locations. Furthermore the technique was extended to evaluate changes in wave behaviour due to climate change effects.


In this article, a general Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for nonlinear models is derived, which allows the difference in an outcome variable between two groups to be decomposed into several components. We show how, using nldecompose, this general decomposition can be applied to different models with discrete and limited dependent variables. We further demonstrate how the standard errors of the estimated components can be calculated by using Stata's bootstrap command as a prefix.


Structurally colored materials could potentially replace dyes and pigments in many applications, but it is challenging to fabricate structural colors that mimic the appearance of absorbing pigments. We demonstrate the microfluidic fabrication of "photonic pigments" consisting of microcapsules containing dense amorphous packings of core-shell colloidal particles. These microcapsules show non-iridescent structural colors that are independent of viewing angle, a critical requirement for applications such as displays or coatings. We show that the design of the microcapsules facilitates the suppression of incoherent and multiple scattering, enabling the fabrication of photonic pigments with colors spanning the visible spectrum. Our findings should provide new insights into the design and synthesis of materials with structural colors.


Among the most prevalent justifications for deference to judicial precedent is the protection of reliance interests. The theory is that when judicial pronouncements have engendered significant reliance, there should be a meaningful presumption against adjudicative change. Yet there remains a fundamental question as to why reliance on precedent warrants judicial protection in the first place. American courts have made clear that deference to precedent is a flexible policy rather than an absolute rule. The defeasibility of precedent raises the possibility that stakeholders who fail to mediate their reliance on precedent forfeit any claim to judicial protection through the doctrine of stare decisis. This Article explores the dynamics and implications of precedential reliance. It contends that the case for protecting reliance on precedent is uncertain. There are several reasons why reliance might potentially be worth protecting, but all are subject to serious limitations or challenges. To bolster the doctrine of stare decisis while the status of precedential reliance continues to be worked out, the Article suggests a conceptual move away from backward-looking reliance and toward the forward-looking interest in managing the disruptive impacts of adjudicative change for society at large.


We examine how cooperation within the couple protects the partners from HIV infection using survey data from Southern Africa. The respective impacts of education and cooperation on HIV risk for both wives and husbands are estimated in a joint estimation model. We fully discuss and test the conflictual approach of the couple against a cooperative framework derived from a simple matching model. Our findings suggest that the larger the number of decisions husbands and wives jointly make, the less likely it is that they are infected with HIV. This is robust to assuming that cooperation is endogenous in the wife equation. Freedom and trust are also significantly related to the likelihood of infection for both partners while the women's views about whether marital violence is acceptable are not. These effects may come from a reduced likelihood of extramarital affairs among men and women living in more cooperative partnerships. JEL Codes: I12, I26, J12, D10, O12


Geneva Waterworks supplies the 400 000 inhabitants of the Canton of Geneva. As a public service it has a duty to prepare for the future and to secure the water supply for decades to come. Its long-term planning simply consists in three documents: the master plan, the financial 10-year plan and a service contract with the government.

The aim of the masterplan is to avoid making investments which will be useless in the long term. It is based on the demographic forecast and on the development zones of the Canton. The master plan describes the current infrastructure situation and the necessary investments which should be realised, at the most in the next 10 years.

The financial 10 year plan is renewed every year. It represents a tool to detect the financial trends and development of the utility.

The service contract with the government is negotiated every 4 years. It describes the level of services that the waterworks must provide and the necessary income to fulfil them. With this contract a negotiation on water tariff occurs only once every 4 years and the utility is able to plan the financing of the investment during this period.


While droplet-based microfluidic systems have several advantages over traditional flow-through devices, achieving adequate mixing between reagents inside droplet-based reactors remains challenging. We describe an active mixing approach based on the magnetic stirring of self-assembled chains of magnetic microspheres within the droplet as these stirrers experience a rotating magnetic field. We measure the mixing of a water-soluble dye in the droplet in terms of a dimensional mixing parameter as the field-rpm, fluid viscosity, and microsphere loading are parametrically varied. These show that the mixing rate has a maximum value at a critical Mason number that depends upon the operating conditions.


Building on the unpublished correspondence between Ludwig Wittgenstein's literary executors Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright, this paper sketches the historical development of different editorial approaches to Wittgenstein's Nachlass. Using the metaphor of a ladder, it is possible to distinguish seven significant "rungs" or "steps" in the history of editing Wittgenstein's writings. The paper focuses particularly on the first four rungs, elucidating how Rhees, Anscombe and von Wright developed different editorial approaches that resulted in significant differences in their editions. The paper sheds light on how these editorial differences are grounded in the editors' divergent understandings of their task. It is suggested that future research may investigate the development of editorial approaches to Wittgenstein's Nachlass as a human story of philosophical inheritance.


Members of Generation Y in the training and development industry will be required to assume leadership roles as Baby Boomers retire, yet little empirical research exists regarding how best to prepare them for leadership. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in leader developmental readiness between generational cohorts in the training industry, specifically Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. Leader developmental readiness provided a definition of developmental readiness for leaders using the five constructs (learning goal orientation, developmental efficacy, self-awareness, leader complexity, and metacognitive ability). A volunteer sample was compiled from members of the ASTD National LinkedIN group (n = 636). Results were analyzed using structured means analysis with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. Generational cohorts demonstrated differences in leader developmental readiness. Baby Boomers indicated statistically and practically higher metacognitive ability and developmental efficacy than Generation Y. Results demonstrated statistically and practically higher leader complexity in Generation Y and both Generation X and Baby Boomers. These results should inform leader development practitioners as they continue to use existing methods in preparing the different generations for leader development interventions while pointing to possible needs to increase the metacognitive ability and developmental efficacy in Generation Y and ensure accurate perception of leader complexity in those individuals. Further research would be helpful to confirm or refute findings and expand on the target population for enhanced generalizability.


Value Assessment of Orphan Drugs and Treatments for Rare Diseases Catherine M. Lockhart Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Research Assistant Professor Ryan N. Hansen Department of Pharmacy OBJECTIVES: In 1983 the US Orphan Drug Act was passed to facilitate commercialization of drugs to treat rare diseases. The market value for orphan drugs in the US reached $90 billion annually in 2014, with worldwide sales forecast at $176 billion. Payers and policymakers need robust methodology for evaluation of health technology in this growing landscape of expensive treatments for rare diseases. Here I present a systematic review of current practices in valuebased evaluation of orphan drugs from a global perspective. I also propose a potential new framework to be developed as new metric for assessing the value of orphan drugs, the Orphan Drug Index Estimate (ODIE). METHODS: For the systematic review, searches were conducted in December 2015 in PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases using the following keywords: orphan drug, rare disease treatment, economics, resource utilization, cost, cost effectiveness, questionnaire, and value. Only references published in English were included. Manuscripts that solely reported one of the following were excluded: clinical or patient care, policy or legislation on orphan drugs particularly relating to research incentive, opinion or editorial, preclinical studies, drug-development, unrelated to rare diseases or healthcare, reviews other than systematic reviews for health technology assessment. RESULTS: A total of 2513 unique references were obtained, and screened by title and abstract according to exclusion criteria. After exclusion, 333 references remained for full evaluation. Of those, an additional 296 were excluded, but 51 additional studies were included from the reference lists of included articles. A total of 88 articles were included in the complete analysis. Overall, the methodology employed for conducting cost-effectiveness assessments followed traditional techniques including decision analysis and Markov modeling techniques. The reported incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICERs) ranged from dominant treatments to a high of €6.1 million per quality adjusted life year (QALY). Interpretation of the results was more challenging, with 43% of studies reporting ICERs that would not be considered cost-effective under a willingness-topay threshold of $50,000 per QALY. In spite of the lack of cost-effectiveness, the majority of authors agreed that since the treatment under review is for a rare condition, there is an obligation to cover the costs. In light of these analyses, there is an evident need for a method of analysis that is more comprehensive than the ICER, and more appropriate for addressing the uniqueness of orphan drugs, including variables related to the rarity and severity of disease, and a broader societal perspective on costs, including societal burden and identifiable opportunity costs. In response, here I propose a potential new metric based on multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of orphan drugs. CONCLUSIONS: There is a global consensus of a need to develop appropriate methodology, analysis techniques, and related policies to address management of expensive treatments. It is not yet clear how best to evaluate the value of orphan drugs. More thorough evaluation and validation of novel modeling techniques, analytic rationale and proactive policy changes are needed to redefine the status quo of health technology assessment of rare disease treatments. I propose a new metric to overcome some limitations of the ICER in evaluation of rare diseases. Continued research is needed in detailed development of a valid, quantifiable, and reproducible metric; however, the work presented here provides a foundation for the development process. Table&of&


The study applies key indicators of the energy security vulnerability index to examine the sensitivity and vulnerability of the Malaysian economy to energy supply disruptions and further test the potential impact of this energy supply disruption indicators on major economic indices such as the GDP and trade balance. The results from the analysis of the historical data and future projections of Malaysia's primary energy supply portfolios suggest that Malaysia exhibits a highly diversified energy portfolio with an inclination towards reduction if the present trend is not checked. The estimated vulnerability index also indicates that the direct impact of oil supply disruptions on the economy of Malaysia is high compared to coal. The dominance of gas in electricity generation also implies a relatively low carbon-free fuel portfolio. The implication is that Malaysia has been increasing GDP with less energy import dependency and more energy diversification but with less carbon-free portfolios -a case of environmentally non-sustainable growth.


A new series of substituted 1-(2-((1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methoxy)-5-((2-benzoyl-3-methylbenzofuran-5-yl)methyl)phenyl)ethanonederivatives were synthesized by copper(I) catalyzed azide-alkyne cyclo-addition (CuAAC) reaction. All the newly synthesized compounds were characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and mass spectroscopy. The representative analogues were screened in vitro antibacterial and antifungal activity. The newly synthesized compounds were showed significant antibacterial activity and moderate antifungal activity compared to standard drugs ciprofloxacin and nystatin respectively.


Medium gain antennas, in dual polarisation, with high polarisation purity and return loss, operating over a total bandwidth of 30% or more, are needed for numerous applications in the space and ground segments. Such requirements can be satisfied with novel antenna solutions in multilayer composite technology as described in previous publications [1, 2]. The antenna consists of a suitable arrangement of layered elements acting as a 3D wave-guiding structure excited by a single or dual polarised patch element. The wave-guiding structure provides the beam focusing and the free space impedance matching of the radiated energy over a large bandwidth. The main advantage of this antenna element is the flexibility to match the overall design to a wide range of stand-alone and array configuration requirements, due to the natural separation of the antenna components responsible for the matching and gain performance. This particular characteristic enables the implementation of a very effective design procedure starting from the initial sizing and preliminary performance estimate up to the final optimization of the antenna performance. The multi-layer structure and the balanced excitation of the feeding section require an accurate numerical modelling for the initial sizing, overall optimisation and feeding network design. Modular breadboards, conducted and radiated measurements and numerical modelling refinements have been used extensively in the development of the antenna element. This paper describes the electrical and mechanical design considerations, manufacturing activity and discusses the final testing of the antenna.


This catalogue presents over fifty works in different media--most notably sculpture, painting, and ceramics--assembled together for the first time to convey the impressive variety of Japanese art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These works, all masterpieces from the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, introduce the museum's astounding holdings of modern Japanese art to an American audience and help illustrate where modern works fit within the rich history of Japanese visual tradition. Engaging essays by noted scholars explore the diverse sources of influence for Japanese artists around the turn of the 20th century, such as Western oil painting, Buddhist portraiture, European porcelain, traditional Japanese landscape and figure imagery, and Chinese painting. This publication offers a compelling and innovative conception of modern Japanese art, framing artists as creators of traditions for the modern age who maintained a sense of continuity with the past while also integrating wide-ranging cultural inspirations.


Previously, the most prominent explanation for the Star of Bethlehem was to identify one of many astronomical events in the sky as being the inspiration for the trip of the Magi. However, all the astronomical answers have detailed refutations, and general disproofs, so all the astronomical answers for the Star are dead.
In 1999, Michael Molnar put forth a completely new solution, where the Star originated as a report of a natal horoscope for 17 April 6 BC. This natal horoscope shows very impressive regal portents and points to Judea. It is very improbable that such a very rare planet configuration (averaging only once per millennium or longer) would coincide with the very restricted day of Jesus' birth (springtime in a year shortly before Herod's death in 4 BC), unless there is some causal connection. The Magi (as labeled by the gospel author) were astrologers, so they were only interested in horoscopes. The astrological solution is further supported by the presence of an astrological technical term ('in the east' meaning what astronomers call the 'heliacal rise') in the Nativity narrative of Matthew. Importantly, Molnar has only identified the Star as originating from a particular natal horoscope, while making no statement about the nature or historicity of any of the other elements of the story in Matthew. So for example, the Magi might be astrologers as idealized by the Greeks of the time, or they might have been non-existent (invented by a latter-day Greek seeking omens for the birth of a great king), and they might have arrived on 17 April 6 BC or months later, and they might or might not have been three in numbers with given names. But for the Star of Bethlehem alone, Molnar's astrological solution is convincing.


Aim of the study is to determine the possible roles of p53, cyclin D1, B-catenin and Ki-67 in the increase in risk of fractures in patients with giant cell tumor of bone. The study included a total of 164 patients with giant cell tumor of bone (GCTB), 21 (12.8%) with and 143 (87.2%) without fracture. The samples were analyzed immunohistochemically for expression of Ki-67, p53, cyclin D1 and b-catenin. According to the immunohistochemical expression of p53 and Ki-67 in mononuclear stromal cells, as well as of cyclin D1 in multinuclear giant cells, there was no significant association with immunopositivity and risk of fractures. However, our research revealed that patients with cytoplasmic expression of b-catenin in stromal cells had three times more frequent occurrence of pathological fractures, which was highly statistically significant (χ2 = 7.065; p = 0.008). Moreover, a highly statistically significant correlation between the nuclear expression of b-catenin in giant cells and the incidence of pathological fractures was also found (χ2 = 8.824; p = 0.003). The study showed that b-catenin expression highly correlates with the incidence of pathological fractures in patients with GCTB. Taking into account that b-catenin is closely linked to activation of the Wnt signaling pathway in GCTB pathogenesis, one could postulate that activation of the Wnt pathway is one of the contributing factors to locally destructive behavior of this tumor, as well as to the incidence of pathological fractures.


This study explores the degree of perceived self-efficacy related to the performance of specific nursing behaviors among new graduate nurses who began their formal acute care institution orientation program in southeastern North Carolina during the summer of 2005. The theoretical framework for the study is Bandura's Theory of Self-Efficacy (1997). A quasi-experimental single-group pretest, posttest design is used to examine self-efficacy perceptions of new graduate nurses across time and compare 6 nursing domains with various demographic characteristics. The study methods evaluate what influence prior nursing practice experience may have on self-perception of self-efficacy and to what degree the self-efficacy perceptions change over the course of 6 months. The study methods also evaluate for differences which may exist between self-efficacy perceptions within 6 nursing domains (Nurse-Client Relationship, Health Promotion, Illness/Injury Prevention, Curative/Supportive Care, Rehabilitative Care and Professional Practice) as measured by the Self-Efficacy for Professional Nursing Competencies Questionnaire (Babenko-Mould et al, 2004). There were 71 new nurse graduates who volunteered to complete the questionnaire during their first week of acute care institution orientation Forty of these new nurse graduates volunteered to complete the questionnaire again 6 months later. Significant differences (p<.001) in self-efficacy perceptions are found from pretest to posttest. These findings highlight the importance of the coaching activities for new graduate nurses and validate self-efficacy sources as proposed in Bandura's theory. Insights gained from this study may assist nursing educators in planning curricula, clinical experiences, and orientation programs to meet learning needs of nursing students in preparation for the new graduate nurse role.


Quantitative information on urine volume of dairy cows fed winter forages is required to accurately evaluate nitrate leaching risks on these diets. Thirty-two Friesian x Jersey non-lactating, pregnant dairy cows were fed either 10 kg DM of fodder beet with 5.6 kg DM of ryegrass baleage or 16.4 kg DM of kale with 6.4 kg of oat silage. Cows were fitted with a urine meter for 24 to 72 hours to record the frequency and volume of urine events. Daily urine volume (28 ± 3 L/cow/day), frequency (9 ± 0.89 events/cow/day), and event volume (3.2 ± 0.3 L/event) were not significantly different between fodder beet and kale treatments. This was despite respective differences in total apparent water (51 vs. 70 L/cow/day, ± 2, P<0.001) and nitrogen (N) intake (231 vs. 488 g N/cow/ day, ± 9.4, P<0.001). In this study, water consumption and N intake did not appear to be linked with urine volume of dairy cows when two different forage diets were compared.


Noninvasive continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring is not yet practically available for daily use. Challenges include making the system easily wearable, reducing noise level and improving accuracy. Variations in each person's physical characteristics, as well as the possibility of different postures, increase the complexity of continuous BP monitoring, especially outside the hospital. This study attempts to provide an easily wearable solution and proposes training to specific posture and individual for further improving accuracy. The wrist watch-based system we developed can measure electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram. From these two signals, we measure pulse transit time through which we can obtain systolic and diastolic blood pressure through regression techniques. In this study, we investigate various functions to perform the training to obtain blood pressure. We validate measurements on different postures and subjects, and show the value of training the device to each posture and each subject. We observed that the average RMSE between the measured actual systolic BP and calculated systolic BP is between 7.83 to 9.37 mmHg across 11 subjects. The corresponding range of error for diastolic BP is 5.77 to 6.90 mmHg. The system can also automatically detect the arm position of the user using an accelerometer with an average accuracy of 98%, to make sure that the sensor is kept at the proper height. This system, called BioWatch, can potentially be a unified solution for heart rate, SPO2 and continuous BP monitoring.


We present an application of the transport theory developed for area preserving
dynamical systems, to the problem of pollution and in particular patchiness in
clouds of pollution in partially stratified estuaries. We model the flow in
such estuaries using a $3+1$ dimensional uncoupled cartoon of the dominant
underlying global circulation mechanisms present within the estuarine flow. We
separate the cross section up into different regions, bounded by partial and
complete barriers. Using these barriers we then provide predictions for the
lower bound on the vertical local flux. We also present work on the
relationship between the time taken for a particle to leave the estuary, (ie.
the exit time), and the mixing within the estuary. This link is important as we
show that to optimally discharge pollution into an estuary both concepts have to
be considered. We finish by suggesting coordinates in space time for an optimal
discharge site and a discharge policy to ensure the continually optimal discharge
from such a site (or even a non optimal site).


Swarm robotics research describes the study of how a group of relatively simple physically embodied agents can, through their interaction collectively accomplish tasks which are far beyond the capabilities of a single agent. From this information they are able to decide their behavior and take the appropriate action. A global behavior can then be witnessed that is derived from the local behaviors of each agent. The presented research introduces the novel method for optimizing the communication and the processing of communicated data for the purpose of detecting large scale meta-object or event, denoted as meta-event, which are unquantifiable through a single robotic agent. The ability of a swarm of robotic agents to cover a relatively large physical environment and their ability to detect changes or anomalies within the environment is especially advantageous for the detection of objects and the recognition of events such as oil spills, hurricanes, and large scale security monitoring. In contrast a single robot, even with much greater capabilities, could not explore or cover multiple areas of the same environment simultaneously. Many previous swarm behaviors have been developed focusing on the rules governing the local agent to agent behaviors of separation, alignment, and cohesion. By effectively optimizing these simple behaviors in coordination, through cooperative and competitive actions based on a chosen local behavior, it is possible to achieve an optimized global emergent behavior of locating a meta-object or event. From the local to global relationship an optimized control algorithm was developed following the basic rules of swarm behavior for the purpose of meta-event detection and recognition. Results of this optimized control algorithm are presented and compared with other work in the field of swarm robotics.


Title of dissertation: A DATA-INFORMED MODEL OF PERFORMANCE SHAPING FACTORS FOR USE IN HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS Katrina M. Groth, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Dissertation directed by: Professor Ali Mosleh Department of Mechanical Engineering Many Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) models use Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs) to incorporate human elements into system safety analysis and to calculate the Human Error Probability (HEP). Current HRA methods rely on different sets of PSFs that range from a few to over 50 PSFs, with varying degrees of interdependency among the PSFs. This interdependency is observed in almost every set of PSFs, yet few HRA methods offer a way to account for dependency among PSFs. The methods that do address interdependencies generally do so by varying different multipliers in linear or log-linear formulas. These relationships could be more accurately represented in a causal model of PSF interdependencies. This dissertation introduces a methodology to produce a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) of interactions among PSFs. The dissertation also presents a set of fundamental guidelines for the creation of a PSF set, a hierarchy of PSFs developed specifically for causal modeling, and a set of models developed using currently available data. The models, methodology, and PSF set were developed using nuclear power plant data available from two sources: information collected by the University of Maryland for the Information-Decision-Action model [1] and data from the Human Events Repository and Analysis (HERA) database [2], currently under development by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Creation of the methodology, the PSF hierarchy, and the models was an iterative process that incorporated information from available data, current HRA methods, and expert workshops. The fundamental guidelines are the result of insights gathered during the process of developing the methodology; these guidelines were applied to the final PSF hierarchy. The PSF hierarchy reduces overlap among the PSFs so that patterns of dependency observed in the data can be attribute to PSF interdependencies instead of overlapping definitions. It includes multiple levels of generic PSFs that can be expanded or collapsed for different applications. The model development methodology employs correlation and factor analysis to systematically collapse the PSF hierarchy and form the model structure. Factor analysis is also used to identify Error Contexts (ECs) – specific PSF combinations that together produce an increased probability of human error (versus the net effect of the PSFs acting alone). Three models were created to demonstrate how the methodology can be used provide different types of data-informed insights. By employing Bayes' Theorem, the resulting model can be used to replace linear calculations for HEPs used in Probabilistic Risk Assessment. When additional data becomes available, the methodology can be used to produce updated causal models to further refine HEP values. A DATA-INFORMED MODEL OF PERFORMANCE SHAPING FACTORS FOR USE IN HUMAN RELIABILITY ANALYSIS


The observations provided by oceanographic remote instruments are essential to the purposes of the operational oceanography that represents a constantly growing tool to monitor and predict the state of the marine resources. The management of a network of instruments deployed in the Mediterranean Sea is a complex task that may be greatly supported by the GRID technology. This paper presents the activity planned by the DORII EU-FP7 project concerning the floats and the glider. The aim of the project is to demonstrate the potentiality of the state-of-the-art eInfrastructure in the integration of the data driven control/interaction workflow that characterizes the instruments. We describe the communication between the elements of the workflow and the associated network topology.


This paper describes a study that used community psychology theories to investigate family-focused literacy education programmes, evaluations of which usually focus solely on skills gains and their economic advantage. Specifically, the study drew on an ecological systems-based, culturally adaptive framework for personal, relational and collective wellbeing bringing much-needed new thinking to how family-focused adult literacy education might be theorised and practiced. The study traced the experiences of 19 adult participants in four family-focused literacy programmes in different communities in New Zealand over 18 months. Participant accounts from 79 key informant interviews, 12 classroom observations and programme documentation were scrutinized using latent theoretical thematic analysis which drew on broad perspectives of literacy, ecological systems theory, network theory and integrative theories of wellbeing. The study found that the programmes shared common principles and practices that prioritised holistic wellbeing whilst valuing literacy enhancement. It showed that participants experienced positive literacy, social and wellbeing-related outcomes. Programme effects were found to be interconnected and to flow on to other parts of participants' lives and to their families and communities. We demonstrate community psychology's critical contribution to a fuller understanding of family-focused literacy education.


Background: Diabetes is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and death, and self-reports are one of the most convenient methods for ascertaining diabetes status. We evaluated the validity of diabetes self-reports among Japanese who participated in a health checkup. Methods: Self-reported diabetes was cross-sectionally compared with confirmed diabetes among 2535 participants aged 28 to 85 years in the Saku cohort study. Confirmed diabetes was defined as the presence of at least 1 of the following: fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level of 126mg/dL or higher, 2-hour post-load glucose (2-hPG) level of 200mg/dL or higher after a 75-gram oral glucose tolerance test, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level of 6.5% or higher, or treatment with hypoglycemic medication(s). Results: Of the 251 participants with self-reported diabetes, 121 were taking hypoglycemic medication(s) and an additional 69 were classified as having diabetes. Of the 2284 participants who did not self-report diabetes, 80 were classified as having diabetes. These data yielded a sensitivity of 70.4%, a specificity of 97.3%, a positive predictive value of 75.7%, and a negative predictive value of 96.5%. The frequency of participants with undiagnosed diabetes was 3.0%. Of these, 64.2% had FPG within the normal range and were diagnosed by 2-hPG and/or HbA1c. Conclusions: Our findings provide additional support for the use of self-reported diabetes as a measure of diabetes in epidemiologic studies performed in similar settings in Japan if biomarker-based diagnosis is difficult.


This study aims to generate empirical evidence on the validity and reliability of Perception of Online Collaborative Learning Questionnaire (POCLQ) using Rasch model. The questionnaire was distributed to 32 (N=32) Diploma Hotel Catering students from Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, Johor (PIS). Data obtained was analysed using WINSTEP version 3.68 software. The finding showed that POCLQ had high reliability with five categories of difficulties items. So, it can be concluded that POCLQ is reliable and strongly accepted. Meanwhile, analysis of items fit showed there were six items that are not in the specified range and based on standardised residual correlation measurement value; there were five items found to be overlapped that should be dropped. All the items that needed to be dropped based on the analysis of result had been refined and retained for the purpose of the study and based on expert's view. Therefore, all items remained after Rasch analysis. It is hoped that this study will give emphasis to other researchers about the importance of analysing items to ensure the quality of an instrument being developed.


Incentive travel is a multi-billion dollar segment of the travel industry that continues to grow. This white paper outlines the findings from the 2016 JD Power/SITE Foundation survey on incentive travel buyers and sellers, bringing particular focus to the considerations and concerns facing incentive travel professionals. Controlling program costs is a major focus as travel planners turn to less expensive destinations, accommodations and amenities while still seeking innovative and engaging experiences for participants. North American, Caribbean and European destinations are increasingly popular for incentive travel. Buyers and sellers of incentive travel services report growing concerns regarding economic volatility, regulatory changes that make travel more difficult for some populations, and safety issues such as local violence or terrorism. And while consolidation and disintermediation within the travel industry continue to influence planning decisions, incentive travel professionals maintain a largely optimistic outlook for growth in the near future.


The research was aimed to detect the change of forest area over planning periods to estimate casualty over production period of forest management. It is undeniable fact that teak plantation area has inevitable risk due to bad practices of illegal logging, deforestation, and forest degradation. However, Perum Perhutani does not consider these risk factors in the company yield regulation and annual allowable cut (AAC) determination. The results show that the percentage of forest area that changed into the higher age class by order from the lowest age class were 16.3% (age class I to II), 33.74% (age class II to III), 3.36% (age class III to IV), 31.54% (age class IV to V), 19.69% (age class V to VI), and 15.73 % (age class VI to VII). The casualty per cent calculated from age class I, II, III, IV, V, VI were 75%, 70%, 55%, 54%, 32%, and 16%, respectively. The AAC regarding to the casualty per cent for planning period 2005-2014 in Bagian Hutan Kradenan Utara was 595 m 3 /year, while the current AAC calculation was 1.840 m 3 /th, regardless the casualty percent.


The African Economic Outlook is a joint African Development Bank - OECD Development Centre project funded by the European Commission. The project combines the expertise accumulated by the OECD, which produces the OECD Economic Outlook twice a year, and the knowledge of the African Development Bank on African economies. The objective is annually to review the recent economic situation and the short-term likely evolutions of selected African countries using a unique analytical design. This common framework includes a forecasting exercise for the current and the following year using a simple macroeconomic model, together with an analysis of the social and political context. It also contains a comparative synthesis of African country prospects, placing the evolution of African economies in the world economic context. A statistical appendix completes the volume.


This selection of the best-loved and most frequently studied of "Chaucer's Canterbury Tales" provides a fascinating introduction to one of the great cornerstones of English literature. "The General Prologue" gives vivid character sketches of the colourful band of pilgrims who gather at a London inn on their way to Canterbury, while the nine tales chosen range from the noble Knight's story of rivalry in love to the boastful Pardoner's moral treatise, from the exuberant Wife of Bath's Arthurian legend to the Miller's worldly, ribald farce.Incorporating every style of Medieval narrative - bawdy anecdote, allegorical fable and courtly romance - the tales brought together here encompass the blend of universal human themes and individual personal detail that have fascinated readers for over 600 years. For this selection the original fourteenth-century Middle English is presented with a facing-page modern prose translation. This volume also contains a chronology, further reading and an introduction examining Chaucer's life and work and the literary influences on the Tales. It is translated and edited with an introduction by Colin Wilcockson.


ABSTRACT A partial reptile skull collected from the Lower Triassic (Induan) Barendskraal locality of South Africa is referable to the procolophonid parareptile Sauropareion anoplus. The specimen comprises the left side of the skull roof, palate, and mandible, and preserves areas not preserved or accessible in the skulls of previously published specimens, including fragmentary remains of the premaxilla, the anterior end of the maxilla, and the anterior end and lingual aspect of the mandible. The maxilla exhibits a maxillary depression that is similar in both shape and relative size to that seen in Procolophon trigoniceps, an anterolateral maxillary foramen that is indistinguishable from those seen in other procolophonoids, and 11 conical teeth. The suborbital foramen is formed ventrally by the palatine and the ectopterygoid. The dentary and the coronoid are fused together indistinguishably in lateral aspect. The marginal teeth appear to be anchored to the jaws by bone of attachment. The dentary teeth are exposed in lingual aspect and appear to be ankylosed to the summit of the bone, suggesting acrodont tooth implantation. Tooth replacement is seen in these teeth, where the lingual surface of a single tooth crown base in the middle of the dentary series is excavated for the apex of a replacement tooth crown, but the excavation does not extend ventrally onto the lingual surface of the bone. Considering that no extant reptiles with acrodont tooth implantation exhibit tooth replacement or bone of attachment, we tentatively regard protothecodonty to be present in S. anoplus.


Clay-mineral determinations have been made on the less than 2 µm size fraction of 116 samples of tills and associated terrestrial sediments, surficial marine sediments, and sediment from deep-sea cores from the eastern continental margin of Canada (Baffin Bay to Nova Scotia).

The mineralogy and geographic distribution of clays in surficial sediment largely reflects the distribution of source lithologies and the local origin of the clays; the influence of climate on clay mineralogy is negligible. An illite-chlorite assemblage predominates in sediments from Newfoundland and Labrador and the adjacent inner continental shelf, whereas kaolinite additionally occurs in parts of the Maritime Provinces. In these areas, illite is most abundant in high-grade metamorphic source terrain, chlorite is relatively more common in low-grade metasedimentary and metaigneous terrain, and kaolinite is relatively more common in areas underlain by Carboniferous-Triassic red beds. Marine sediments from Baffin Bay and the outer continental margin of Newfoundland and Labrador contain kaolinite and montmorillonite, in addition to illite and chlorite, which are derived from underlying Mesozoic-Tertiary coastal-plain strata. On the Nova Scotia margin a similar clay-mineral assemblage is derived from both the red beds on land and submerged coastal-plain strata.

Three clay assemblages are recognized in Wisconsin sediments on the outer continental margin off Nova Scotia and the Grand Banks. These are (1) red clay turbidites enriched in kaolinite that were transported down the Laurentian Channel; (2) sandier, more montmorillonitic turbidites supplied to the Scotian Rise, partly from glacial outwash and partly from erosion of coastal-plain strata in the heads of submarine canyons; and (3) clay turbidites on the Grand Banks margin that contain more chlorite and less kaolinite than those on the Scotian Rise–Laurentian Fan. These assemblages show that downslope dispersion of sediment by turbidity currents was the dominant process. Holocene reworking of local glacial drift on the shelf is supplying sediment to the outer margin, but at a lesser rate.


This novel about US black slavery departs from realism, moving around in time and space as a means of dealing with different racial terrors in different historical periods. One of the author's intentions is to make us think about slavery not just in the past but with reverberations for the present. Published in 2016, the novel resonates with a contemporary America characterized by acrimonious racial division.

After escaping from a Georgia plantation through a literalized Underground Railroad, the adolescent female protagonist soon learns that freedom remains elusive in states further north, even those where slavery has been abolished. The novel fuses the odyssey of Cora with the history and mythology of America, and asserts the inseparability of slavery from American capitalism and the building of empire.

Cora explores both the Declaration of Independence and the Bible, two foundational texts of the nation, in a novel that addresses some of the foundational sins of America. Hers is the all-American story of escape to freedom, but her journey takes her through ever darker varieties of depredation and oppression. She becomes an American dreamer in the sense that she never accepts her place in a system that she persists in defying, and through this process becomes a fictional representation of black people who, with their relentless pursuit of freedom, contributed so greatly to the building of American democracy.


Given a set V of n elements we wish to linearly order them using pairwise preference labels which may be non-transitive (due to irrationality or arbitrary noise). The goal is to linearly order the elements while disagreeing with as few pairwise preference labels as possible. Our performance is measured by two parameters: The number of disagreements (loss) and the query complexity (number of pairwise preference labels). Our algorithm adaptively queries at most O(n poly(log n, e-1)) preference labels for a regret of e times the optimal loss. This is strictly better, and often significantly better than what non-adaptive sampling could achieve. Our main result helps settle an open problem posed by learning-to-rank (from pairwise information) theoreticians and practitioners: What is a provably correct way to sample preference labels?


We use the Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression (FAVAR) approach of Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (2005) to estimate the effects of monetary policy shocks on wages and employment in the euro area. The use of a large data set comprising country, sectoral and euro area-wide data allows us to better identify common monetary policy shocks in the euro area and their effects on labour market outcomes. At the same time the FAVAR approach gives us estimates of how relative wages and employment in the various countries and sectors respond to these common shocks. The ultimate objective of our work is to relate the estimated cross-country differences in wage and employment responses to differences in labour market institutions and sectoral composition.


Abstract. This paper investigates the impact and potential use of the cut-cell vertical discretisation for forecasts covering five days and climate simulations. A first indication of the usefulness of this new method is obtained by a set of five-day forecasts, covering January 1989 with six forecasts. The model area was chosen to include much of Asia, the Himalayas and Australia. The cut-cell model LMZ (Lokal Modell with z-coordinates) provides a much more accurate representation of mountains on model forecasts than the terrain-following coordinate used for comparison. Therefore we are in particular interested in potential forecast improvements in the target area downwind of the Himalayas, over southeastern China, Korea and Japan. The LMZ has previously been tested extensively for one-day forecasts on a European area. Following indications of a reduced temperature error for the short forecasts, this paper investigates the model error for five days in an area influenced by strong orography. The forecasts indicated a strong impact of the cut-cell discretisation on forecast quality. The cut-cell model is available only for an older (2003) version of the model LM (Lokal Modell). It was compared using a control model differing by the use of the terrain-following coordinate only. The cut-cell model improved the precipitation forecasts of this old control model everywhere by a large margin. An improved, more transferable version of the terrain-following model LM has been developed since then under the name CLM (Climate version of the Lokal Modell). The CLM has been used and tested in all climates, while the LM was used for small areas in higher latitudes. The precipitation forecasts of the cut-cell model were compared also to the CLM. As the cut-cell model LMZ did not incorporate the developments for CLM since 2003, the precipitation forecast of the CLM was not improved in all aspects. However, for the target area downstream of the Himalayas, the cut-cell model considerably improved the prediction of the monthly precipitation forecast even in comparison with the modern CLM version. The cut-cell discretisation seems to improve in particular the localisation of precipitation, while the improvements leading from LM to CLM had a positive effect mainly on amplitude.


There is altered expression of histamine H1 and H2 receptor subtypes in mucosal biopsies from the terminal ileum and large intestine of patients with symptoms of food allergy and/or irritable bowel syndrome

The research article by Sander and colleagues1 in this issue of Gut , reports their results for expression of histamine receptor subtypes in the human intestinal tract from normal individuals and patients with symptoms of the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and/or food allergies (see page 498) . Work of this nature was overdue because most of the available histological and functional data for histamine receptors in the small and large intestine were obtained from animal models. The authors' principal findings for the human bowel are in general agreement with the animal literature that reports on expression of the histamine H1, H2, and H4 receptor subtypes in the enteric nervous system (ENS), intestinal musculature, mucosal epithelium, and immune/inflammatory cells. In contrast, the finding by Sander and colleagues1 that histamine H3 receptors are not expressed in the human bowel was unexpected in view of the clearcut evidence for functional involvement of the H3 receptor subtype in the nervous control of motility, secretion, and blood flow in guinea pig intestine, which serves as the primary animal model.2–5

The authors' evidence for altered expression of histamine H1 and H2 receptor subtypes in mucosal biopsies from the terminal ileum and large intestine of patients with symptoms of food allergy and/or IBS is consistent with current concepts for the involvement of histamine release from enteric mast cells and its paracrine signalling function in the ENS as an underlying factor in these two disorders.5–8 Histamine is not expressed by enteric neurones and is not a neurotransmitter in …


Background Respiratory disorders, including apnoea, are common in preterm infants due to their immature respiratory control compared with term-born infants. However, our inability to accurately measure respiratory rate in hospitalised infants results in unreported episodes of apnoea and an incomplete picture of respiratory activity. Methods We develop, validate and use a novel algorithm to identify interbreath intervals (IBIs) and apnoeas in preterm infants. In 42 preterm infants (1600 hours of recordings), we assess IBIs from the chest electrical impedance pneumograph using an adaptive amplitude threshold for the detection of breaths. The algorithm is refined by comparing its accuracy with clinically observed breaths and pauses in breathing. We develop an automated classifier to differentiate periods of true apnoea from artefactually low amplitude signal. We assess the performance of this algorithm in the detection of morphine-induced respiratory depression. Finally, we use the algorithm to investigate whether retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening alters the IBI distribution. Results Individual breaths were detected with a false-positive rate of 13% and a false-negative rate of 12%. The classifier identified true apnoeas with an accuracy of 93%. As expected, morphine caused a significant shift in the IBI distribution towards longer IBIs. Following ROP screening, there was a significant increase in pauses in breathing that lasted more than 10 s (t-statistic=1.82, p=0.023). This was not reflected by changes in the monitor-derived respiratory rate and no episodes of apnoea were recorded in the medical records. Conclusions We show that our algorithm offers an improved method for the identification of IBIs and apnoeas in preterm infants. Following ROP screening, increased respiratory instability can occur even in the absence of clinically significant apnoeas. Accurate assessment of infant respiratory activity is essential to inform clinical practice.


This article explores the role of Athenian literary prizes in the development of ancient literary criticism. It examines the views of a range of critics (including Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, historians, biographers, lexicographers, commentators, and the self-critical poets of Old Comedy), and identifies several recurrent themes. The discussion reveals that ideas about what was good or bad in literature were not directly affected by the award of prizes; in fact the ancient critics display what is called an ""anti-prize"" mentality. The article argues that this ""anti-prize"" mentality is not, as is often thought, a product of intellectual developments in the fourth century BC. It is suggested that the devaluation of prizes is actually a contemporary, integral feature of prize-awarding culture in general. This article draws on recent approaches from cultural sociology to offer some conclusions about the way in which prizes function in popular and critical discourse.


In this paper, we consider lossy mobile ad hoc networks where the data rate of a given flow becomes lower and lower along its routing path. One of the main challenges in lossy mobile ad hoc networks is how to achieve the conflicting goal of increased network utility and reduced power consumption, while without following the instantaneous state of a fading channel. To address this problem, we propose a cross-layer rate-effective network utility maximization (RENUM) framework by taking into account the lossy nature of wireless links and the constraints of rate outage probability and average delay. In the proposed framework, the utility is associated with the effective rate received at the destination node of each flow instead of the injection rate at the source of the flow. We then present a distributed joint transmission rate, link power and average delay control algorithm, in which explicit broadcast message passing is required for power allocation algorithm. Motivated by the desire of power control devoid of message passing, we give a near-optimal power-allocation scheme that makes use of autonomous SINR measurements at each link and enjoys a fast convergence rate. The proposed algorithm is shown through numerical simulations to outperform other network utility maximization algorithms without rate outage probability/average delay constraints, leading to a higher effective rate, lower power consumption and delay. Furthermore, we conduct extensive network-wide simulations in NS-2 simulator to evaluate the performance of the algorithm in terms of throughput, delay, packet delivery ratio and fairness.


Athletes employ various dietary strategies in attempts to attenuate exercise-induced gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms to ensure optimal performance. This case-study outlines one of these GI-targeted approaches via the implementation of a short-term low FODMAP (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols) diet, with the aim to attenuate persistent running specific GI symptoms in a recreationally competitive multisport athlete (male, 86 kg, 57.9 ml·kg·min-1 V02max, 10-15 hr/week training, with no diagnosed GI disorder). Using a single-blinded approach a habitual diet was compared with a 6-day low FODMAP intervention diet (81 ± 5g vs 7.2 ± 5.7g FODMAP s/day) for their effect on GI symptoms and perceptual wellbeing. Training was similar during the habitual and dietary intervention periods. Postexercise (During) GI symptom ratings were recorded immediately following training. Daily GI symptoms and the Daily Analysis of Life Demands for Athletes (DALDA) were recorded at the end of each day. Daily and During GI symptom scores (scale 0-9) ranged from 0-4 during the habitual dietary period while during the low FODMAP dietary period all scores were 0 (no symptoms at all). DALDA scores for worse than normal ranged from 3-10 vs 0-8 in the habitual and low FODMAP dietary periods, respectively, indicating improvement. This intervention was effective for this GI symptom prone athlete; however, randomized-controlled trials are required to assess the suitability of low FODMAP diets for reducing GI distress in other symptomatic athletes.


Cable television and traditional telephone companies are increasingly offering the same set of services: telephone, television, and broadband Internet access. Competition between these two types of companies would ordinarily require them to improve these services, but unless broadband providers have the ability to discriminate on the basis of content and charge Internet video providers that compete with their own video services, the growth of the Internet will be stunted, as broadband providers will not improve the capacity of their networks.


Introduction. Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) usually manifests as a cutaneous disease but GI manifestation is often rare. It is associated with human herpes virus-8 (HHV-8) and seen in immunocompromised patients. In the USA, use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has drastically reduced incidence of KS in HIV patients. Case Presentation. A 65-year-old male with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with cardiopulmonary arrest secondary to hyperkalemia of 7.5 meq/L. Following placement of orogastric and endotracheal tube (ETT), a significant amount of blood was noticed in the ETT. Hemoglobin trended down from 9.6 mg/dL to 6.7 mg/dL over five days. Stool guaiac was positive. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) was performed and revealed multiple large hypervascularized violaceous submucosal nodular lesions with stigmata of bleeding seen on the soft palate and pharynx and within the cricopharyngeal area close to the vocal cords. Biopsy of the soft palate lesions showed proliferation of neoplastic spindle shaped cells arranged in bundles with slit-like capillary spaces containing erythrocytes consistent with Kaposi's sarcoma. Biopsy was positive for HHV-8. Colonoscopy was unremarkable. There were no cutaneous manifestations of the disease. Conclusion. GI involvement of Kaposi's sarcoma must be considered in immunocompromised patients and can be confirmed by endoscopic methods.


Here, we report dicyanopyrazine (DPZ)-derived push–pull chromophores, easily prepared and tunable organic compounds, as new kinds of photoredox catalysts. In particular, the DPZ derivative H, containing 2-methoxythienyl as electron-donating moiety, exhibits a broad absorption of visible light with an absorption edge up to 500 nm and excellent redox properties, and has been demonstrated as a desirably active and efficient photoredox catalyst in four challenging kinds of photoredox reactions. The amount of catalyst in most reactions is less than 0.1 mol% and even 0.01 mol%, representing the lowest catalyst loading in the current photoredox organocatalysis.


Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an analytical technique real-time geochemical analysis that is being developed for portable use outside of the laboratory. In this study, statistical signal processing and classification techniques were applied to single-shot, broadband LIBS spectra, comprising measured plasma light intensities between 200 and 960 nm, for a suite of 157 garnets of different composition from 92 locations worldwide. Partial least squares discriminant analysis was applied to sets of 25 LIBS spectra for each garnet sample and used to classify the garnet samples based on composition and geographic origin. Careful consideration was given to the cross-validation procedure to ensure that the classification algorithm is robust to unseen data. The results indicate that broadband LIBS analysis can be used to discriminate garnets of different composition and has the potential to discern geographic origin.


Blood stains are a relatively common occurrence at scenes of violent crime and are a source of much information including biological, circumstantial, positional and potentially, information on the timeline of the crime. Successfully aging blood on scene could aid in time of death estimation, time since incident or even verify alibies of potential suspects. Methods in use thus far for time since death currently hold high error rates due to fluctuations in environmental factors. Several different techniques for aging of blood stains have been analysed and compared for suitability as well as similar spectroscopic techniques. Some of these aging methods were found to be complimentary, as reflectance spectroscopy has a relatively low error rate for short term aging, followed by a gradual increase, making it unsuitable for long term aging. Whereas, RNA marker analysis which follows the general degradation pattern of select RNA, was able to show a more steady error rate making it a more viable method for long term aging but not well suited to short term. The major variable factors in determining the time since deposition of blood stains include; daily or person to person fluctuations in blood protein percentages, haematocrit values, drugs present and environmental considerations such as temperature, humidity and UV light exposure. In order for any method to be acceptable in court, the full extent to these factors needs determination and full error analysis implemented. Additionally, improvement in portability, efficiency and development of non-destructive methods should be prioritised.


The intense digital change that is taking place in the world of cinema presents significant future challenges for film archives. This article reviews the extent to which the basis for the activities of film libraries founded in the 1930s remains valid in the information age, along with key debates questioning their identity and role in the 21st century. We explore the lines of film archives expansion that are being drawn in the current digital context, and finally offer a response to the crossroads that film libraries face today if they do not want to become isolated.