ABSTRACT In the current study, we explore the influence of orthographic knowledge on phonological awareness in children with cochlear implants and compare developmental associations to those found for hearing children matched for word reading level or chronological age. We show an influence of orthographic knowledge on syllable and phoneme awareness in deaf and hearing children, but no orthographic effect on rhyme awareness. Nonorthographic rhyme awareness was a significant predictor of reading outcomes for all groups. However, whereas receptive vocabulary knowledge was the most important predictor of word reading variance in the cochlear implant group, rhyme awareness was the only important predictor of word reading variance in the reading level matched hearing group. Both vocabulary and rhyme awareness were equally important in predicting reading in the chronological age-matched hearing group. The data suggest that both deaf and hearing children are influenced by orthography when making phonological judgments, and that phonological awareness and vocabulary are both important for reading development.


Phylogenetics seeks to deduce the pattern of relatedness between organisms by using a phylogeny or evolutionary tree. For a given set of organisms or taxa, there may be many evolutionary trees depicting how these organisms evolved from a common ancestor. As a result, consensus trees are a popular approach for summarizing the shared evolutionary relationships in a group of trees. We examine these consensus techniques by studying how the pantherine lineage of cats (clouded leopard, jaguar, leopard, lion, snow leopard, and tiger) evolved, which is hotly debated. While there are many phylogenetic resources that describe consensus trees, there is very little information, written for biologists, regarding the underlying computational techniques for building them. The pantherine cats provide us with a small, relevant example to explore the computational techniques (such as sorting numbers, hashing functions, and traversing trees) for constructing consensus trees. Our hope is that life scientists enjoy peeking under the computational hood of consensus tree construction and share their positive experiences with others in their community.


For schools and teachers to help students develop knowledge and skills, students need to show up to class. Yet absenteeism is prevalent, especially in secondary schools. This study uses a rich data set tracking class attendance by day for over 50,000 middle and high school students from an urban district in academic years 2007–2008 through 2012–2013. Our results extend and modify the extant findings on absenteeism that have been based almost exclusively on full-day absenteeism, missing class-by-class absences. Notably, part-day absenteeism is responsible for as many classes missed as full-day absenteeism, raising chronic absenteeism from 9% to 24% of secondary-grades students. Incorporating part-day absences sharply increases the chronic absenteeism gap between underrepresented minority students and their peers. Both full- and part-day absenteeism show a discrete jump at the point of transition from middle school to high school, but full-day absenteeism then declines whereas part-day absenteeism remains high in Grades 10 and 11 and increases again in Grade 12. Whereas 55% of full-day absences are unexcused, 92% of part-day absences are unexcused. Absenteeism from individual classes varies considerably by time of day but less by class subject matter.


People regularly use plants for a wide range of utilitarian, spiritual, pharmacological, and dietary purposes throughout the world. Scholarly understanding of the nature of these uses in prehistory is particularly limited by the poor preservation of plant resources in the archaeological record. In the last two decades, researchers in the South Pacific and in Central and South America have developed microscopic starch grain analysis, a technique for overcoming the limitations of poorly preserved plant material.In "Acorns and Bitter Roots," Timothy C. Messner establishes starch grain analysis in the temperate climates of eastern North America using the Delaware River Watershed as a case study for furthering scholarly understanding of the relationship between native people and their biophysical environment in the Woodland Period. Messner s analysis is based on extensive reviews of the literature on early historic and prehistoric native plant use and the collation of all available archaeobotanical data, a review of which also guided the author in selecting contemporary botanical specimens to identify and in interpreting starch residues recovered from ancient plant-processing technologies. The evidence presented here sheds light on many local ecological and cultural developments as ancient people shifted their subsistence focus from estuarine to riverine settings. These archaeobotanical datasets, Messner argues, illuminate both the conscious and unintentional translocal movement of ideas and ecologies throughout the Eastern Woodlands."


Our recent paper1 examined the type-specific associations between sports and all cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Among the wide media attention,2 CNN reported our finding as 'Swimming, aerobics, racquet sports slash risk of death'3 and those three sports that showed the largest reductions in mortality risk (as indicated by the HR value).4 Running and football (soccer)/rugby5 showed limited beneficial associations with mortality. While it was beyond the capacity and scope of our research to undertake comparisons between different sports and explain why these three specific types of sports were associated with the largest reductions in risk, much of the media commentary2 was consumed with aetiological explanations3 5–7 of the beneficial associations that participation in certain sports conferred. On the other hand, an alternative explanation is that our findings of lower mortality did not reflect the health attributes of the examined sports but, instead, they were related to socioeconomic characteristics of the participants of certain sports. For example, as football is perceived …


Global demand for renewable energy is at an all-time high. Renewable energy can be extracted from naturally available resources such solar, wind, tides, geothermal heat, sea waves and the others. The percentage of renewable energy in the energy resources is increasing at an ever increasing rate. While much renewable energy is large scale, it is also suitable for rural and remote areas.
 The challenges facing today's renewable energy supply industry are many, especially in the wave energy field which is still underdeveloped. The number of commercialised wave energy devices is very limited and the concepts implemented for harnessing wave energy are very different between the different devices and often struggle to be effective or survive ocean-going conditions. Thus, major research is required to find new and effective methods for harnessing wave energy which are able to supply power to the grid with high conversion rate and good reliability. The proposed Bristol cylinder device, in theory, should be able to harness sea wave energy and to convert it into useful electricity, and this device is studied in detail here. This device is still new in terms of practical application in ocean conditions. It needs power electronics and effective controllers for high-efficiency power extraction and to be successfully integrated into the power grid. When the device was first investigated in the 1970s, power electronics and variable-speed brushless permanent-magnet machinery was simply not developed to the level it is today, hence the revisiting of this device several decades later. A successful Bristol cylinder wave device which can extract renewable energy may well impact on the renewable energy sector. The wave characteristics were studied and simulated using Airy Linear Wave Theory and Stoke's Second Order Theory. The dynamic characteristics of the Bristol cylinder are investigated when interacting with waves, together with the control necessary to make it a functioning device. A lab scale wave tank suitable to test the Bristol cylinder is designed. A surface magnet permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) design is considered in this research project. This generator configuration shows its suitability in producing high conversion-rate power when working in a low speed environment. The sizing exercise is performed to determine the size of the lab scale PMSG. Analytical analysis and finite element analysis is performed to study the performance of the designed PMSG. A study of the effect of the armature length with the corresponding incident wave is done. Field oriented control (FOC) is applied to control the speed of the generator. FOC is shown to be suitable for stable control of the generator speed. Simulations using MATLAB are utilized and Simulink is used to construct the model and evaluate the potential performance of the control system design. In this thesis, theoretical analyses and simulations of the generator performances are carried out for several generator topologies and sizes. The grid side converter controller technique is also simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and the performance evaluated.


Year-to-year variability in CO2 fluxes can yield insight into climate-carbon cycle relationships, a fundamental yet uncertain aspect of the terrestrial carbon cycle. In this study, we use global observations from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite for years 2015–2019 and a geostatistical inverse model to evaluate 5 years of interannual variability (IAV) in CO2 fluxes and its relationships with environmental drivers. OCO-2 launched in late 2014, and we specifically evaluate IAV during the time period when OCO-2 observations are available. We then compare inferences from OCO-2 with state-of-the-art process-based models (terrestrial biosphere model, TBMs). Results from OCO-2 suggest that the tropical grasslands biome (including grasslands, savanna, and agricultural lands within the tropics) makes contributions to global IAV during the 5 year study period that are comparable to tropical forests, a result that differs from a majority of TBMs. Furthermore, existing studies disagree on the environmental variables that drive IAV during this time period, and the analysis using OCO-2 suggests that both temperature and precipitation make comparable contributions. TBMs, by contrast, tend to estimate larger IAV during this time and usually estimate larger relative contributions from the extra-tropics. With that said, TBMs show little consensus on both the magnitude and the contributions of different regions to IAV. We further find that TBMs show a wide range of responses on the relationships of CO2 fluxes with annual anomalies in temperature and precipitation, and these relationships across most of the TBMs have a larger magnitude than inferred from OCO-2. Overall, the findings of this study highlight large uncertainties in process-based estimates of IAV during recent years and provide an avenue for evaluating these processes against inferences from OCO-2.


Elevational gradients provide an interesting opportunity for studying the effect of climatic drivers over short distances on the various facets of biodiversity. It is globally assumed that the decrease in species richness with increasing elevation follows mainly the decrease in ecosystem productivity, but studies on functional diversity still remain limited. Here, we investigated how resource use and food preferences by both individual ant species and communities foraging in the understory vary with elevation along a complete elevational gradient (200 to 3200 m asl). Five bait types reflecting some of the main ecosystem processes in which ants are involved were tested: mutualism (sucrose and melezitose), predation (live termites), and detritivory (crushed insects and chicken feces). The observed monotonic decrease in both species richness and occurrences with elevation increase was accompanied by changes in some of the tested ecosystem processes. Such variations can be explained by resource availability and/or resource limitation: Predation and bird feces removal decreased with increasing elevation possibly reflecting a decline in species able to use these resources, while insect detritivory and nectarivory were most probably driven by resource limitation (or absence of limitation), as their relative use did not change along the gradient. Consequently, resource attractiveness (i.e., food preferences at the species level) appears as an important factor in driving community structuring in ants together with the abiotic environmental conditions.


The present study aimed at investigating attitudes of home science students at Khartoum University toward using the MOODLE Learning Management System as electronic resource in teaching English for Science. English for Science is an 8 hour university required curriculum taught to all university science students. A group of 39 students registered for their first university required courses in the second semester of the university year 2012/2013 in the Faculty of Education were asked to assess their skills and attitudes, before using Moodle as an open source learning management system, internetbased resources in learning English for Scientific & Academic Purposes and after 14 weeks experience. The results show that participants have positive towards using technology for learning English language ; moreover the teaching methodology which integrates face-to-face teaching and Moodle Environments have positive impacts on changing participants` attitudes towards using technology for teaching English at Khartoum University. The study concluded that using and integrating virtual learning environments will accelerate the educational process and enhance better affective learning outcomes.


In this thesis we consider the problem of designing and implementing Model Predictive Controllers (MPC) for stabilizing the dynamics of an autonomous ground vehicle. For such a class of systems, the non-linear dynamics and the fast sampling time limit the real-time implementation of MPC algorithms to local and linear operating regions. This phenomenon becomes more relevant when using the limited computational resources of a standard rapid prototyping system for automotive applications. In this thesis we first study the design and the implementation of a nonlinear MPC controller for an Active Font Steering (AFS) problem. At each time step a trajectory is assumed to be known over a finite horizon, and the nonlinear MPC controller computes the front steering angle in order to follow the trajectory on slippery roads at the highest possible entry speed. We demonstrate that experimental tests can be performed only at low vehicle speed on a dSPACE rapid prototyping system with a frequency of 20 Hz. Then, we propose a low complexity MPC algorithm which is real-time capable for wider operating range of the state and input space (i.e., high vehicle speed and large slip angles). The MPC control algorithm is based on successive on-line linearizations of the nonlinear vehicle model (LTV MPC). We study performance and stability of the proposed MPC scheme. Performance is improved through an ad hoc stabilizing state and input constraints arising from a careful study of the vehicle nonlinearities. The stability of the LTV MPC is enforced by means of an additional convex constraint to the finite time optimization problem. We used the proposed LTV MPC algorithm in order to design AFS controllers and combined steering and braking controllers. We validated the proposed AFS and combined steering and braking MPC algorithms in real-time, on a passenger vehicle equipped with a dSPACE rapid prototyping system. Experiments have been performed in a testing center equipped with snowy and icy tracks. For both controllers we showed that vehicle stabilization can be achieved at high speed (up to 75 Kph) on icy covered roads.
This research activity has been supported by Ford Research Laboratories, in Dearborn, MI, USA.


Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is characterized by moderate to severe intellectual disability, which is accompanied by macroorchidism and distinct facial morphology. FXS is caused by the expansion of the CGG trinucleotide repeat in the 5′ untranslated region of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene. The syndrome has been studied in ethnically diverse populations around the world and has been extensively characterized in several populations. Similar to other trinucleotide expansion disorders, the gene‐specific instability of FMR1 is not accompanied by genomic instability. Currently we do not have a comprehensive understanding of the molecular underpinnings of gene‐specific instability associated with tandem repeats. Molecular evidence from in vitro experiments and animal models supports several pathways for gene‐specific trinucleotide repeat expansion. However, whether the mechanisms reported from other systems contribute to trinucleotide repeat expansion in humans is not clear. To understand how repeat instability in humans could occur, the CGG repeat expansion is explored through molecular analysis and population studies which characterized CGG repeat alleles of FMR1. Finally, the review discusses the relevance of these studies in understanding the mechanism of trinucleotide repeat expansion in FXS.


Wireless communication is commonly modeled as a stochastic system. This is justified by the fact that the wireless channel incorporates a number of stochastic effects including fading, interference and thermal noise.One example for a stochastic model is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) model, which has been successfully used to analyze the capacity of the point-to-point channel and some multi-terminal networks. However, the AWGN capacity of most networks is still an open problem. This includes small examples like the relay channel, which consists of just three terminals.In order to progress, it was suggested to investigate deterministic channel models as an approximation of the AWGN model. The objective is to find a deterministic model, which is accessible to capacity analysis. Furthermore, this analysis should provide insights on the capacity of the AWGN model.In this thesis we consider two deterministic models, the linear finite-field model (LFFM) by Avestimehr et at. and the discrete superposition model (DSM) by Anand and Kumar.It has been shown that the capacity of the DSM is a constant gap approximation of the AWGN capacity for some networks including the parallel relay network (PRN). We find upper and lower bounds on the DSM capacity of the point-to-point channel, the multiple-access channel, the broadcast channel and the PRN. Our bounds are within a constant gap, hence, they yield a constant gap approximation to the AWGN capacity of the PRN.We also show how the LFFM can be utilized to design transmission strategies for AWGN relay networks. A transmission strategy in the LFFM can be translated into a transmission strategy in the AWGN model if it fulfills certain constraints. We consider two sets of constraints, and we show that in both cases the rate in the AWGN model is at most a constant below the rate in the corresponding LFFM.


Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a complex disorder, with serious consequences, affects the quality of life of the individual, the family, as well as the community. Therefore, the subject of this chapter is to study how to reduce stress and improve the quality of life of these people and consequently the community. This chapter is based on documentary studies including the foundations of the theory, the study of the results of experiments in the world, and case studies in this field, which shows that the interaction of individuals with PTSD and therapeutic landscapes can act as a therapeutic mechanism. In the following, features from therapeutic landscapes that help to optimize mental health levels are reviewed in people with PTSD, briefly.


Topography influences evolutionary and ecological processes by isolating populations and enhancing habitat diversity. While the effects of large-scale topography on patterns of species richness and endemism are increasingly well documented, the direct effect of local topography on endemism is less understood. This study compares different aspects of topographic isolation, namely the isolating effect of deep barrancos (ravines) and the effect of increasing isolation with elevation in influencing patterns of plant endemism within a topographically diverse oceanic island (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). We collected plant presence–absence data from 75 plots in 8 barrancos on the northern coast of La Palma, spanning an elevation gradient from 95 to 674m a.s.l. Using mixed-effects models, we assessed the effect of barranco depth and elevation on the percentage of single-island endemics, multi-island endemics, and archipelago endemics. We found that percent endemism was not significantly correlated with barranco depth and correlated negatively with elevation within barrancos (rather than the expected positive relationship). The topographic barriers associated with the deep island barrancos thus appear insufficient to drive speciation through isolation in oceanic island plants. The decrease in endemism with elevation contradicts findings by previous broader-scale studies and it may reflect local influences, such as high habitat heterogeneity at low elevations.


Research indicates that reflective practice has the potential to create a culture of continuous improvement and lead to lasting school change when it becomes the collective cultural norm in a school. However, few studies have examined how elementary principals strategically promote and sustain reflective practices from the individual level to school-wide reflective practices. The purpose of this study was to examine, through a multiple case study approach, how two elementary principals in the North Carolina Piedmont intentionally implemented and sustained reflective practices in their schools. The research questions investigated were: "How do elementary principals strategically promote and sustain effective reflective practices in their schools?"; "What are the reflective practices and structures used in these schools?"; and "What is the relationship between individual reflection and collective reflection in the school?" Participants included an administrator and five teachers at each school site. Data was collected through two structured interviews with each participant. Findings indicate that the following practices were effective at leading school-wide reflective practice: administrator modeling of reflective questioning; providing individual differentiated opportunities for building teacher reflection capacity; administrator support of Professional Learning Community reflection on standards; encouraging reflection on the relationship between data and instruction; administrator support of school-wide reflection with standards, data, and instruction; and the role of trust and relationships in reflective opportunities. Key findings from the case studies found that principals in both cases utilized reflective questioning, examination of instructional practices as well as analyzed student data with individual teachers, PLCs, vertical teams and at the school level. This reflective mindset requires a paradigm shift from acceptance of established practices to questioning and digging deeper with reflection on data and content.


Facades are a crucial interface between exterior and interior conditions and greatly influence the architectural quality of buildings. Glass plays an important role in the building envelope by providing daylight, views and ventilation and hence can contribute significantly to indoor environmental quality and impact occupants' comfort and well-being. Glass also plays an important role in the energy balance of the envelope and hence in both energy loads and environmental performance of a building. In order to avoid high energy consumption, reduce environmental impact and increase the quality of the space selecting the appropriate size and type of glazing along with the orientation and shading based on the building's function, the climatic conditions, site and occupants' needs are a fundamental part of early design stage decisions and are difficult to change later on. The challenge is to improve the building quality by providing a balance between energy efficiency, comfort and saving resources. To reduce energy consumption through glazing taking into account the thermal insulating properties is insufficient, it is also necessary to consider the coatings impact on the physical properties of glass regarding radiation. Coatings are often used to improve the thermal insulation, solar control, acoustic insulation of glazing in order to reduce heat loss, maximize solar gains in winter and minimize it in summer and improve indoor environmental conditions. Multiple configurations of coatings are available on the market to date. The goal of our study is to determine the impact of coated glazing on the energy performance, daylighting and the environmental performance of buildings where occupants spend substantial time inside. This paper incorporates an integrated performance analysis method and presents an energy analysis, daylighting and a life cycle assessment (LCA) study of several coated glazing for patient rooms in Belgium.


Women in Jordan are excluded from labor market opportunities at among the highest rates in the world. Previous efforts to explain this outcome have focused on specific, isolated aspects of the problem and have not exploited available datasets to test across causal explanations. We develop a comprehensive framework to analyze the drivers of low female employment rates in Jordan and systematically test their validity, using micro-level data from Employment and Unemployment Surveys (2008-2018) and the Jordanian Labor Market Panel Survey (2010-2016). We find that the nature of low female inclusion in Jordan's labor market varies significantly with educational attainment, and identify evidence for different factors affecting different educational groups. Among women with high school education or less, we observe extremely low participation levels and find the strongest evidence for this phenomenon tracing to traditional social norms and poor public transportation. On the higher end of the education spectrum – university graduates and above – we find that the problem is not one of participation, but rather of unemployment, which we attribute to a small and undiversified private sector that is unable to accommodate women's needs for work and work-family balance.


HIV type 1 infection is associated with a rapid depletion of Th17 cells from the GALT. The chemokine receptor CCR6 is a marker for Th17 lineage polarization and HIV permissiveness in memory CD4+ T cells. CCR6+ T cells have the potential to migrate into the GALT via the gut-homing integrin α4β7, a newly identified HIV-gp120 binding receptor. In this study, we investigated whether memory T cells coexpressing CCR6 and integrin β7 are selective HIV targets and whether retinoic acid (RA)-induced imprinting for gut-homing selectively increases CCR6+ T cell permissiveness to infection. We demonstrated that β7−R6+ and β7+R6+ compared with β7−R6− and β7+R6− T cells were highly permissive to HIV, produced Th17 cytokines, and their frequency was decreased in the peripheral blood of HIV-infected subjects. RA upregulated integrin α4 and β7 coexpression in both CCR6+ and CCR6− T cells, but increased HIV permissiveness selectively in CCR6+ T cells via entry (CCR5 upregulation) and postentry mechanisms. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that CCR6, but not the integrin β7, is a discriminative marker for memory T cells imprinted with a transcriptional program favorable to HIV replication. Nevertheless, given the ability of integrin β7 to regulate cell migration into the GALT and bind HIV-gp120, CCR6+ T cells coexpressing integrin β7 and CCR5 might have an extraordinary ability to disseminate HIV from the portal sites of entry. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of memory CCR6+ T cell differentiation is critical for the design of new therapeutic strategies that should interfere with viral permissiveness but not Th17 lineage commitment and gut-homing potential in CCR6+ T cells.


St. Louis Fed President James Bullard discussed two scenarios for future rate increases: the FOMC's scenario and the market-based scenario. The former suggests a gradual pace of rate increases over the next several years, while the latter is much shallower – only a few increases over the forecast horizon. He cited evidence to back both views. For the FOMC scenario, he cited strong labor markets, waning international headwinds and inflation measurements that are closer to the 2 percent target. For the market-based scenario, the evidence included slow real GDP growth and low inflation expectations. Bullard spoke at the 35th UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project hosted by the University of California, Santa Barbara.


Condition monitoring (CM) of gear transmission has attracted extensive research in recent years. In particular, the detection and diagnosis of its faults in their early stages to minimise cost by maximising time available for planned maintenance and giving greater opportunity for avoiding a system breakdown. However, the diagnostic results obtained from monitored signals are often unsatisfactory because mainstream technologies using vibration response do not sufficiently account for the effect of friction and lubrication. To develop a more advanced and accurate diagnosis, this research has focused on investigating the nonlinearities of vibration generation and transmission with the viscoelastic properties of lubrication, to provide an in-depth understanding of vibration generating mechanisms and hence develop more effective signal processing methods for early detection and accurate diagnosis of gear incipient faults.

A comprehensive dynamic model has been developed to study the dynamic responses of a multistage helical gear transmission system. It includes not only time-varying stiffness but also tooth friction forces based on an elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) model. In addition, the progression of a light wear process is modelled by reducing stiffness function profile, in which the 2nd and 3rd harmonics of the meshing frequency (and their sidebands) show significant alteration that support fault diagnostic at early stages. Numerical and experimental results show that the friction and progressive wear induced vibration excitations will change slightly the amplitudes of the spectral peaks at both the mesh frequency and its sideband components at different orders, which provides theoretical supports for extracting reliable diagnostic signatures.

As such changes in vibrations are extremely small and submerged in noise, it is clear that effective techniques for enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio, such as time synchronous averaging (TSA) and modulation signal bispectrum (MSB) are required to reveal such changes. MSB is preferred as it allows small amplitude sidebands to be accurately characterised in a nonlinear way without information loss and does not impose any addition demands regarding angular displacement measurement as does TSA.

With the successful diagnosis of slight wear in helical gears, the research progressed to validate the capability of MSB based methods to diagnose four common gear faults relating to gear tribological conditions; lubrication shortfall, changes in lubrication viscosity, water in oil, and increased bearing clearances. The results show that MSB signatures allows accurate differentiation between these small changes, confirming the model and signal processing proposed in this thesis


This paper traces some micro enterprises with a sociological lens to view the situation on the ground for almost three decades (29 years). It highlights the as a case study the experiences of the Mucunabitu Iron Works (MIW) Cooperative Limited at Nasinu, Fiji. It includes thrift and credit or micro finance within the case study and beyond. It mentions some prominent Coops like Lutu in the Province of Naitasiri, Makadru in Matuku, Lau Province, Cane-growers Cooperative Savings and Loans Association (CCSLA) in Lautoka, Fiji Teachers Union Credit & Thrift Cooperative (FTU-CTC) in Suva, and Savu Coop in Naitasiri. The role played by the author, research conducted through the Sociology & Social Work Division of the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Law, University of the South Pacific (USP). The study highlights developing cooperatives and micro finance as social enterprises establishing the basis of developing capacities to contribute to development after four coups. National policy mooted by the late former Reserve Bank Governor and Vice Chancellor, Mr. Savenaca Siwatibau supports the work pursued here from interactions with him and of course his paper (Narsey 2009). The need for social as well as micro enterprises in Fiji and globally can no longer be ignored. Much has been written in Bolivia micro finance and Bangladesh"s Grameen Bank (Todaro & Smith 2006:341-7). It is our challenge to support micro enterprises in Fiji and the South Pacific now for it should robustly develop our countries for our livelihood as well as contributing largely to sustaining our economic and social progress.


Communities globally are experiencing an increasing number of patients with medical conditions and elderly people, living alone, who need immediate attention and support in case of medical emergency incidents. At times, even calling an ambulance becomes difficult for them and even then ambulance may turn up late causing to their sufferings. On the other hand, ambulances may turn up only to find a situation a non-emergency one not requiring an ambulance but that costs them money and wastes their time. In context to such situations, informal caregivers, in forms of friends, families and neighbours, can initially attend the patients and elderly people before the arrival of ambulance. Selection of appropriate informal caregivers is critical for a patient or a particular medical emergency situation and in this paper we propose a context-aware recommendation system (CARS) to recommend appropriate informal caregivers based on a list of pre-identified context information of informal caregivers, patients and elderly people. CARS operates as part of the technology-assisted medical emergency framework introduced by us. This work discusses the different phases of CARS, namely, context dimension, context acquisition and processing and context recommendation, and explains the entire informal caregiver recommendation procedure of CARS. Preliminary simulation results have shown that our proposed CARS perform better than other such existing systems.


The story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece is one of the oldest and most familiar tales in classical literature. Apollonius of Rhodes wrote the best-known version, in Greek, in the third century B.C.E. The Latin poet Gaius Valerius Flaccus began his own interpretation of the story in the first century of the Christian era, but he died before completing it. With The Voyage of the "Argo," the acclaimed poet and translator David Slavitt recovers for modern readers the only surviving work of this little-known writer. The result is an engaging rendition of Jason's adventures, of particular interest when compared to the Greek version of the story. While Apollonius' tale offers a subtle psychological study of Medea, Valerius Flaccus' achievement is to present Jason as a more complete and compelling heroic figure. Slavitt, for one, enjoyed the rediscovery immensely-and he invites his readers to do the same. "I am content to let my rendition into English speak for Valerius, but for those whom I imagine standing in an aisle of a library or bookstore, trying to decide, I can offer some reassurance. This piece is playful, unpredictable, oddly contrarian, sometimes almost mannerist. Valerius' description in book 8 of Medea's putting the serpent to sleep so Jason can filch the fleece involves a gesture no other Latin poet I know would have thought to try-a brief moment in Medea's head when she allows herself to feel sorry for the snake...It is this kind of droll surprise that drew me to undertake the translation of a work that is not, I freely confess, well known."-David Slavitt


Piezoelectric ultrasonic motors are superior to electromagnetic micro motors, because their efficiency remains theoretically constant during miniaturization. However, the still relatively recent technology has a considerable unexploited optimization potential. Numerical structural analysis by the means of the finite element method (FEM) is a common approach for dimensioning piezoelectric motors. Consequently, there is a need for efficient optimization procedures fitted to the FEM simulation. We developed a dedicated design methodology to first well understand the influence of the geometrical parameters on the movement of the motor. The parameters with the strongest influence on the objective function, the vibration amplitude of the resonator, are used in a following optimization stage. Functional models of rotary and linear motors are built in order to demonstrate their operation. Interferometric measurements validate quantitatively the FEM model along with the suggested design methodology.


ABSTRACT The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 (IPCC AR5, 2013) discussed bulk atmospheric temperatures as indicators of climate variability and change. We examine four satellite datasets producing bulk tropospheric temperatures, based on microwave sounding units (MSUs), all updated since IPCC AR5. All datasets produce high correlations of anomalies versus independent observations from radiosondes (balloons), but differ somewhat in the metric of most interest, the linear trend beginning in 1979. The trend is an indicator of the response of the climate system to rising greenhouse gas concentrations and other forcings, and so is critical to understanding the climate. The satellite results indicate a range of near-global (+0.07 to +0.13°C decade−1) and tropical (+0.08 to +0.17°C decade−1) trends (1979–2016), and suggestions are presented to account for these differences. We show evidence that MSUs on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's satellites (NOAA-12 and −14, 1990–2001+) contain spurious warming, especially noticeable in three of the four satellite datasets. Comparisons with radiosonde datasets independently adjusted for inhomogeneities and Reanalyses suggest the actual tropical (20°S-20°N) trend is +0.10 ± 0.03°C decade−1. This tropical result is over a factor of two less than the trend projected from the average of the IPCC climate model simulations for this same period (+0.27°C decade−1).


Although adriamycin (Doxorubicin) is one of the most effective and useful antineoplastic agents for the treatment of a variety of malignancies, its repeated administration can induce irreversible myocardial damage and resultant heart failure. Currently, no marker to detect early cardiac damage is available. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether an assessment of the acoustic properties of the myocardium could enable the earlier detection of myocardial damage after adriamycin chemotherapy. Forty Wistar rats were treated with adriamycin (2 mg/kg, i.v.) once a week for 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks consecutively. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was calculated using M-mode echocardiography data. The magnitude of cardiac cycle dependent variation of integrated backscatter (CVIB) of the myocardium was measured in the mid segment of the septum and in the posterior wall of the left ventricle, using a real time two dimensional integrated backscatter imaging system. LVEF was significantly lower in the adriamycin-treated 8-week group than in the controls (75 ± 9 vs 57 ± 8%, p < 0.05). Myocyte damage was only seen in the 8-week adriamycin-treated group. However, no significant changes of CVIB were observed between baseline or during follow-up in the ADR or control group. In conclusion, serial assessment of the acoustic properties of the myocardium may not be an optimal tool for the early detection of myocardial damage after doxorubicin chemotherapy in a rat model.


Kidney organoids differentiated from human pluripotent stem cells hold great promise for understanding organogenesis, modeling disease and ultimately as a source of replacement tissue. Realizing the full potential of this technology will require better differentiation strategies based upon knowledge of the cellular diversity and differentiation state of all cells within these organoids. Here we analyze single cell gene expression in 45,227 cells isolated from 23 organoids differentiated using two different protocols. Both generate kidney organoids that contain a diverse range of kidney cells at differing ratios as well as non-renal cell types. We quantified the differentiation state of major organoid kidney cell types by comparing them against a 4,259 single nucleus RNA-seq dataset generated from adult human kidney, revealing immaturity of all kidney organoid cell types. We reconstructed lineage relationships during organoid differentiation through pseudotemporal ordering, and identified transcription factor networks associated with fate decisions. These results define impressive kidney organoid cell diversity, identify incomplete differentiation as a major roadblock for current directed differentiation protocols and provide a human adult kidney snRNA-seq dataset against which to benchmark future progress.


Cotton is a vital material for the textile industry, providing the fundamental raw component for the manufacture of numerous and varied garments. It has been thoroughly characterised both in terms of its constitution; behaviour under a variety of environmental and manufacturing conditions; and several mechanisms by which it takes up dyestuffs. Recently the availability of a range of high-performance surface analysis tools has allowed researchers to begin to assess the contribution of the surface interface to the overall properties of cellulose in cotton. In particular, these approaches offer considerable potential to address the current lack of fundamental experimental data in support of the proposed dye-uptake mechanisms in cotton fibres. The absence of a detailed molecular model for the process makes it difficult to predict dye performance and to identify the key characteristics of the cotton which influence dyeing. For example, the existence and location of dye binding sites is still unclear. It has been postulated that the occurrence of crystalline or amorphous regions in cotton may play a role in such binding and in dye uptake. A deeper understanding of the dyeing mechanisms therefore requires knowledge of the interplay between the physical chemistry of the dye, its adsorption/diffusion onto the surface of and within cotton fibres, and the related physical and chemical characteristics of the cotton itself. Here we begin to address these broad questions through the application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and other complimentary surface analytical techniques, to analyse a range of dyed and undyed cellulose based textiles. We provide high-resolution surface morphological image data, which show nanometre scale detail of the surface of dyed and undyed cotton fibres. It is believed that the dyeing process induces an increase in crystallinity, due to breakages in hydrogen bonds between cellulose chain molecules during swelling of fibres within the dyebath, thus allowing dye molecules to enter and become entrapped within the fibre matrix. We provide evidence in the form of image data that suggest a difference in the crystal structure between undyed and dyed cellulose fibres to support this theory. We also reveal possible crystalline and amorphous regions within the substrate through AFM phase imaging using modified tips and successfully fingerprint regions of dyed and undyed cellulose fibres. Complimentary surface chemical analysis of dyed and undyed fibres, provide qualitative and quantitative data to show the presence of dye molecules on the surface of dyed cellulose textiles. Novel investigations of dyed fibres through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), determine the amount of dye present at the surface of cotton fibres. Using the N 1s atomic orbital region as a diagnostic peak, the level of dye loading could be directly attributed to the concentration levels of dye within the dyebath. The XPS data also provided strong evidence for possible dye-uptake mechanisms. We observed that certain stages of the dyeing process directly influenced the amount of dye entering cotton fibres. XPS showed that an increase in salt (NaCl) content within the dyebath produced dyed fibres with increased presence of dye compound at the surface. The knowledge obtained from these studies will help to improve the dyes and dyeing mechanisms for cotton and other textiles, thus improving the quality of dyed garments offered to the consumer.


Previous in vivo studies have shown that beta-alanine is incorporated specifically into the dipeptide L-carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine). In the present study, we administered beta-[3H]alanine to the nasal cavity of hamsters and used biochemical analyses to identify the radioactively labeled compounds in the olfactory epithelium and olfactory bulb and autoradiography to demonstrate the localization and transport of the label in the primary afferents of the olfactory system. The olfactory epithelium and lamina propria were labeled intensely 6 hr after intranasal beta-[3H]alanine administration. At this survival time, 61% of the radioactivity in the olfactory epithelium was present in the carnosine fraction, while 37% of the label remained in the beta-alanine fraction. After 24-hr and 4-day survival periods, greater than 82% of the radioactivity was present in the carnosine fraction, and the olfactory receptors and bundles of axons were labeled preferentially. The olfactory nerve and glomerular layers of the main olfactory bulb were labeled intensely at 6 and 24 hr after beta-[3H]alanine administration; much less label was present in these layers at 4 days survival. At all three of these survival times, greater than 84% of the radioactivity in the olfactory bulb was present in the carnosine fraction. No label was present in the olfactory epithelium or bulb 18 days after beta-[3H]alanine administration. While the autoradiographic labeling over the structures of the accessory olfactory system was consistently less intense than that over the main olfactory system structures, the patterns of labeling were similar over the four survival times. Intranasal alpha-[3H]alanine administration resulted in some labeling in the primary afferent fibers, but the labeling did not have the specificity nor the same time course over the four survival times that was observed after beta-[3H]alanine administration. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that carnosine is a neurotransmitter or neuromodulator in the olfactory neurons. The results also suggest that carnosine may play a similar role in the vomeronasal neurons.


Random epigenetic silencing of the X‐chromosome in somatic tissues of female mammals equalizes the dosage of X‐linked genes between the sexes. Unlike this form of X‐inactivation that is essentially irreversible, the imprinted inactivation of the paternal X, which characterizes mouse extra‐embryonic tissues, appears highly unstable in the trophoblast giant cells of the placenta. Here, we wished to determine whether such instability is already present in placental progenitor cells prior to differentiation toward lineage‐specific cell types. To this end, we analyzed the behavior of a GFP transgene on the paternal X both in vivo and in trophoblast stem (TS) cells derived from the trophectoderm of XXGFP blastocysts. Using single‐cell studies, we show that not only the GFP transgene but also a large number of endogenous genes on the paternal X are subject to orchestrated cycles of reactivation/de novo inactivation in placental progenitor cells. This reversal of silencing is associated with local losses of histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation extending over several adjacent genes and with the topological relocation of the hypomethylated loci outside of the nuclear compartment of the inactive X. The "reactivated" state is maintained through several cell divisions. Our study suggests that this type of "metastable epigenetic" states may underlie the plasticity of TS cells and predispose specific genes to relaxed regulation in specific subtypes of placental cells. Stem Cells 2014;32:377–390


After having described, in the previous parts of this work, the external particularities of the organic or metallic pieces solidified in the 'cold' and 'hot' simulation devices, and the microstructural ones in the obtained SG and white cast iron pieces, as well as the real-time development of first skin and its kinetics, this final part will give a microscopic description of the mechanisms which allow the development of the dynamic skin. This description, extrapolated fromwhat is known for vertical continuous casting with presence of a meniscus, will allowexplaining all the particular features observed on the organic and metallic pieces solidified in the two simulation apparatus, as well as of course the ones appearing on surface of the steel half products industrially fabricated in horizontal continuous casting.


The detection of human skin in images is a very desirable feature for applications such as biometric face recognition, which is becoming more frequently used for, e.g., automated border or access control. However, distinguishing real skin from other materials based on imagery captured in the visual spectrum alone and in spite of varying skin types and lighting conditions can be difficult and unreliable. Therefore, spoofing attacks with facial disguises or masks are still a serious problem for state of the art face recognition algorithms. This dissertation presents a novel approach for reliable skin detection based on spectral remission properties in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectrum and proposes a cross-modal method that enhances existing solutions for face verification to ensure the authenticity of a face even in the presence of partial disguises or masks. Furthermore, it presents a reference design and the necessary building blocks for an active multispectral camera system that implements this approach, as well as an in-depth evaluation. The system acquires four-band multispectral images within T = 50ms. Using a machine-learning-based classifier, it achieves unprecedented skin detection accuracy, even in the presence of skin-like materials used for spoofing attacks. Paired with a commercial face recognition software, the system successfully rejected all evaluated attempts to counterfeit a foreign face.


With a view to assembling information to aid in decision-making with regard to prevention policies, a study of mortality from violent causes and its trends in the countries of the Americas was carried out. The study focused on persons under 24 years of age and utilized information from 1980 and 1986 taken from the data base of the Pan American Health Organization. The causes of death were grouped in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. Accidental deaths were separated from intentional deaths by means of the following classification: traffic accidents, other accidents, homicides, suicides, and «unknown causes». The information on violent deaths was compared with information on deaths from infectious diseases during the same period


Nowadays, the world has observed a tremendous increase in the demand of radio spectrum in wireless communication. Services like broadband internet, telecommunication, videoconferencing, mobile IP, online multimedia gaming and other applications have been deployed using wireless services. All of this has put an immense pressure on the companies offering radio resources such as bandwidth and power to raise the data rates in order to provide a guaranteed quality of service and quality of experience for the users. The shortage of radio spectrum and power have led to an emerging of the need-based concept of Cognitive Radio to economize the exceeding utilization of spectrum in order to accommodatea rising demand of higher data rates for using wireless services by applying the concept of cooperative communication in cognitive radio networks. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems have practically been considered as a way forward to address these challenging demands by actually conceptualizing the advancement of cooperative communication in cognitive radio networks. MIMOs have the capacity to be implemented in mobile cellphones. This capacity can be harnessed by using the major idea of forming a virtual station of MIMOs antenna system by invoking a terminal known as relay station. The relay schemes of cooperative communication that run on this relay station to gauge all the wireless traffic are Amplify-Forward and Detect-Forward. We have proposed a model to study the hybrid form of Decode-Amplify-Forward, to see the drastic and rapid increase in the usability of the cooperative spectrum. This system typically consists of the Primary User, the Cognitive Relays, the Cognitive Controller and the Secondary User. The PU transmits data to the CRs and CRs decode and re-encode the transmitted data by using Maximum Likelihood estimation and 2 x 2 Alamouti OSTBC techniques and later amplify the data by squaring the Alamouti OSTBC (re-encoded) data at the relays. All the relays in the system forward their collective decision to CC to finalize its decision on the basis of the information provided by the relays. This system is simulated by MATLAB and results are validated using MATLAB to accomplish transmit diversity, spatial diversity, cooperative diversity and diversity gain in cognitive radio environment in handling detection probability of licensed (primary user) for the unlicensed user (secondary user) to use cooperative spectrum.


THE NATURE OF DEFENSES USED BY SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN WITH ADHD by Laurie G. Slodounik Advisor: Steven B. Tuber, PhD. This study sought to develop a more nuanced clinical picture of children with ADHD by examining the relationship between their emotional dysregulation and their use of defense mechanisms—the unconscious mental processes that guard against strong emotions. Children's responses to the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) were examined for evidence of defense mechanisms using an empirically validated scale, the Defense Mechanism Manual. The study employed a mixed between-within nonequivalent group design to examine the responses of 37 children ages 7-10. It was hypothesized that children with ADHD would use more frequent and more immature defenses than their peers without the disorder. Additionally, those TAT cards designated as "high arousal" were predicted to elicit more defense mechanisms than those considered to be less emotionally stimulating. Results indicated that ADHD was not a significant predictor of defense use. However, arousal level and age were found to be significant predictors of defense use. Implications of these findings and directions for future research were discussed.


Abstract Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), is the most common form of urinary bladder cancer in dogs and represents 2% of all reported canine cancers. Canine TCC is usually a high-grade invasive cancer and problems associated with TCC include urinary tract obstruction and distant metastases in more than 50% of affected dogs. TCC is most commonly located in the trigone region of the bladder precluding complete surgical resection. Current treatment options for TCC in dogs include medical therapy, surgery or radiation. Mycobacterium Cell Wall Fraction (MCWF) is a biological immunomodulator derived from non-pathogenic Mycobacterium phlei. MCWF possesses a potential in multiple veterinary areas such as anticancer therapy, palliative care and treatment of infectious diseases in both small and large animals. MCWF is considered a bifunctional anti-cancer agent that induces apoptosis of cancer cells and stimulates cytokine and chemokines synthesis by cells of the immune system. Here we report the results from in vitro and in vivo studies that could suggest use of MCWF as an additional treatment option for TCC in dogs. Particularly, we demonstrated that MCWF induces a concentration dependent inhibition of proliferation of K9TCC cells which was associated with the induction of apoptosis as measured by the proteolytic activation of caspase-3 and the degradation of PARP. Furthermore, we demonstrated the safety and potential for in vivo MCWF treatment efficacy in dogs bearing stage T2 TCC by reducing clinical signs, and improving the quality of life in dogs with TCC.


Fiber-optic gyroscopes (FOGs) represent an important development in the field of inertial sensors and are now considered an alternative technology to mechanical and ring laser gyroscopes for inertial navigation and control applications. The past 30 years of research and development around the world have established the FOG as a critical sensor for high-accuracy inertial navigation systems. In this paper, specifications, system configurations, and error and sensitivity analysis for different types of FOGs, including critical technology, are presented. This paper addresses the design and production of a different FOG that fulfills requirements such as small size, low production cost, low power consumption, and a broad spectrum of applications.


Following the global financial crisis, economic growth and international trade growth have been sluggish. Current projections indicate that growth may continue to be sluggish in the medium term. These continuing trends will limit income raising productivity growth needed to maintain and improve living standards with population ageing across many economies. It will also limit capacities needed to raise living standards amongst lower income regions. Gaining public acceptance of productivity improving policies and the contribution that trade openness makes, however, is getting harder due to re-emerging national protectionist sentiments. This note looks at possible ways to improve trade policy formulation at the national, regional and global levels through evidence to bolster the case for greater openness and economic reform. Growth could be revived if G20 countries act to implement deeper and wider trade and economic reforms, and avoid policies that limit productivity growth prospects.


Agricultural land, and arable farming in particular, is commonly associated with increased soil erosion risk. Such systems are most vulnerable during low groundcover periods, but downstream delivery is ultimately controlled by connectivity. This study provides a catchment‐scale sediment budget integrating three discrete but complementary investigations spanning different temporal and spatial scales. The first gives details on suspended sediment fluxes at the catchment outlet (2009–2012). The second provenances sources of fluxes using quantitative sediment fingerprinting. The third sets recent data in a multidecadal (60‐year) context using radiometric (137Cs) field‐scale soil loss estimates. The catchment observatory (11 km2) is low relief with predominantly well‐drained soils and dominated by spring‐sown cereal cropping through the study period. Modelling 137Cs inventory losses across 30 fields provided a catchment‐wide mean soil loss of 2.0 Mg ha−1 yr−1. Although such rates are not atypical of intensively managed agriculture across Europe, they are considerably higher than contemporary sediment export yields of 0.12 Mg ha−1 yr−1 of which fingerprinting revealed that contemporary slope erosion contributed less than 25% (0.03 Mg ha−1 yr−1). No evidence of floodplain or in‐channel sediment storage was consistent with disconnectivity. Instead, it is hypothesised that soil loss is associated with coextraction from root crop harvesting of previously widespread sugar beet crops. Considering that the highest mass‐specific 137Cs concentration occurred during the 1960s, there appears to have been significant depletion of the cumulative 137Cs inventory where root crop harvesting occurred as compared with atmospheric fallout 'reference sites.' The study highlights the value of multiple methodologies when seeking to understand legacy issues within agricultural catchment settings.


When Moomintroll and Sniff find a message in a bottle down on the shore, it leads to an expedition to Lonely Island on a little raft. High winds and a storm at sea nearly lead to disaster but they are rescued by a new friend, the ever-resourceful Too-Ticky. Moomintroll's close friend, Snorkmaiden, is jealous but she soon learns that finding a new friend doesn't mean losing an old one. This is a magical picture book about the Moomins based on the art and characters created by Tove Jansson.


The genetic characteristics among Escherichia coli strains can be grouped by origin of isolation. Then, it is possible to use the genotypes as a tool to determine the source of water contamination. The aim of this study was to define water aptitude for human consumption in a rural basin and to assess the diversity of E. coli water populations. Thus, it was possible to identify the main sources of fecal contamination and to explore linkages with the hydrogeological environment and land uses. The bacteriological analysis showed that more than 50% of samples were unfit for human consumption. DNA fingerprinting analysis by BOX-PCR indicated low genotypic diversity of E. coli isolates taken from surface water and groundwater. The results suggested the presence of a dominant source of fecal contamination. The relationship between low genotypic diversity and land use would prove that water contamination comes from livestock. The genetic diversity of E. coli isolated from surface water was less than that identified in groundwater because of the different hydraulic features of both environments. Furthermore, each one of the two big strain groups identified in this basin is located in different sub-basins, showing that hydrological dynamics exerts selective pressure on bacteria DNA.


The suffragettes outraged Victorian society but their personal lives were just as dramatic as their public actions. In this gripping and incisive account of the Pankhursts, Martin Pugh reveals the full story behind this unique family: Emmeline, the domineering mother; Christabel, the favourite daughter, who became an Adventist and admirer of Mussolini; Sylvia, the 'scarlet woman'; and Adela, banished to Australia after a bitter rift. The result is a narrative that reads like a novel, and a brilliant insight into the history of a family that changed the face of British society for ever.


An alternate formalism that uses vector variables to treat the two-body LippmannSchwinger equation for realistic nucleon-nucleon potentials in momentum space is discussed in this thesis. The formalism uses the symmetry properties of the nucleon-nucleon potential and expands the nucleon-nucleon potential in terms of six linearly independent spin operators. The alternate formalism discussed in this thesis brings to light the role of time-odd spin operators. The vector variable formalism's treatment of spin degrees of freedom heavily depends on the analytical computation of hundreds of algebraic expression. A mathematical framework and computer algorithms for an automated symbolic reduction of algebraic expressions into scalar functions of vector variables are explained in this thesis. The vector variable formalism requires nucleon-nucleon potentials that are in operator form as input. The configuration space nucleon-nucleon potential Argonne V18 is one such potential that can be used for relativistic energies if it can be computed efficiently in momentum space. This thesis develops an efficient numerical technique using Chebyshev approximation to compute the Argonne V18 potential in momentum-space. The tools discussed in this thesis, the algebraic system and the efficient computation of the Argonne V18 potential in momentum space are tested by computing the binding energy and bound state wavefunctions of the deuteron using the vector variable approach. The results were successful and the first step towards a higher goal of using vector formalism of the three-body Faddeev equations for intermediate and high energies has been made.


The concept of food security has been emerged in the 20th century and many multilateral organizations such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and United Nations (UN) have utilized the term "food security" to describe the global effort to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. Food safety and food security are interrelated concepts with a profound impact on quality of human life. In 2009, the World Summit on Food Security introduced four pillars of food security namely; availability, access, utilization, and stability. Food security could be substantially improved by increased investment and policy reforms. The ISO 22000:2005 family of international standards is one of leading food safety security management systems and it specifically addresses food safety management. However, the scope of food security is insufficiently addressed by the ISO 22000:2005 food safety standards. The purpose of this study is to develop checklist for self-evaluation of Food Security Management System food preparation facilities considering one additional pillar in food security, which is food safety, with a special reference to edible oil and oil based products in Sri Lanka.


Classrooms are continuing to become increasingly diverse, and today's teachers often look for trade books that will help them reach students from places near and far. Books reviewed: Early Grades: Faith by Maya Ajmera, Magda Nakassis, & Cynthia Pon (2009); Words to my life's song by Ashley Bryan (2009); 14 cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah. (2009); Stories from the billabong by James Vance Marshall (2009); Cycle of rice, cycle of life: A story of sustainable farming by Jan Reynolds (2009). Middle Grades: Anything but typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin (2009); All the broken pieces by Ann E. Burg (2009); Broken memory: A novel of Rwanda by Elisabeth Combres (2009); Every human has rights: A photographic declaration for kids. (National Geographic, 2009); Where the mountain meets the moon by Grace Lin (2009); Bad news for outlaws: the remarkable life of Bass Reeves, deputy U.S. marshal by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (2009); After Gandhi: One hundred years of nonviolent resistance by Anne Sibley O'Brien & Perry Edmond O'Brien. (2009); Tofu quilt by Ching Yeung Russell (2009). Upper Grades: Bausum, Ann Denied, detained, deported: Stories from the dark side of American immigration. (2009); Edwardson, Debby Dahl Blessing's bead (2009); Griffin, Paul. (2009). The orange houses; Hoose, Phillip. (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice toward freedom; Khan, Rukhsana. (2009). Wanting Mor; Murphy, Jim. (2009). Truce: The day the soldiers stopped fighting; Naidoo, Beverley. (2009). Burn my heart; Nelson, Marilyn. (2009). The Sweethearts of Rhythm: The story of the greatest all-girl swing band in the world; Partridge, Elizabeth. (2009). Marching for freedom: Walk together, children, and don't you grow weary; Perkins, Mitali. (2009). Secret keeper; Stork, Francisco X. (2009). Marcelo in the real world.


This paper addresses the issue of the automatic induction of syntactic categories from unannotated corpora. Previous techniques give good results, but fail to cope well with ambiguity or rare words. An algorithm, context distribution clustering (CDC), is presented which can be naturally extended to handle these problems.


The typology of evaporitic aquifers is part of the AQUITYP research project, whose principal aim is the hydrogeological characterization of different aquifer types between the Jura and the Swiss Alps. This study has been directed by the Geology laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (GEOLEP) since 1981. More than one hundred sources were studied. These sources are part of the vast observation network laid out in the Rhone Basin, above Lake of Geneva, and are linked to the evaporitic aquifers of Trias, which developed at the base of the important tectonic unit of the Western Swiss Alps: Median Prealps, Helvetic, Ultrahelvetic and Penninic. These tectonic considerations permitted the division of the aquifers of Rhone Trias into four secondary evaporitic aquifers. This division seemed necessary in order to arrive at a typological synthesis of the hydrogeological behaviour and the geochemical characteristics of each one of these types. No general hydrogeological study of the cold waters of Triassic evaporites of this regions had ever previously been carried out. The emphasis in this study was placed on the selenitic sources whose annual average temperature is less than 12°C. The behaviour of the physical-chemical parameters of these waters were studied as a function of time and space at the scale of one tectonic unit as well as the four together. In addition to the major and minor components, a large number of trace elements in the groundwaters were detected for the first time. According to degree of karstification, the gypseous rocks constitute the principal aquifers of Trias. These were analyzed very intensively, using several methods to determine the components and the chemical elements of these rocks, according to whether they were soluble in water, weak or strong acid or after alkaline fusion. The gypsum leaves a very strong chemical imprint on the waters. This is characterized by a total average mineralization of 1.8 g/l with 50 to 90% SO4 (average level = 1041 mg/l) and Ca (average level = 419 mg/l). Other karstic rocks mineralize more or less strongly in these waters; they are calcareous dolomitic rocks of Trias (dolomite, dolomitic limestone and cellular dolomite). Levels of HCO3 (average level = 251 mg/l) and Mg (average level = 66.6 mg/l) were observed, each which may represent 10 to 20% of the total chemical composition. The carbonated rocks make up the secondary aquifers associated with the gypseous karst. Approximately 80% of the sources showed similar chemical compositions, where Ca, Mg, SO4 and HCO3 formed the major ions. In order to better characterize the chemical composition of these waters, theoretical hydrochemical facies based on the minor and trace elements detected in the waters were created. The ion strontium found in the water showed itself to be a marker of the gypsum bearing the same name as did the sulfate and calcium ions. It is linked to the presence of authigenic crystals of celestine, characteristic of gypseous conduits. The average concentration of Sr in the waters is 7.9 mg/l. In 70% of the cases, it was higher than that of K or Na. The cold selenitic waters are slightly mineralized with K and Na, as well as with Ca. Their average levels were less than 7 mg/l. The significant marking of the gypsum on the water has also been confirmed by the discovery of trace elements which are characteristic of this rock: these are Rb, Ni, Cu, Sc and Y. Other elements, such as Al and Li, seem to come from the carbonated karst or from the clays which are often present as filling material in the microdiscontinuities of the gypsum. The selenitic waters may also flow through fractured quartzite. This was observed in the Penninic. The approach based on hydrological flow patterns and time variations in the physical-chemical parameters of the water showed that, in spite of variable flows linked to snow thaw, the temperature and the mineralization remained stable. This signals that the water remained a sufficient amount of time in the aquifer for thermal and geochemical equilibrium. The hydrogeological behaviour of the aquifers depends on the model of the hydrogeological basin to which it belongs. If the infiltration and emergence zones are adjoining, then modifications in their hydraulic, geochemical and thermal behaviours may occur (mixing of two types of waters with different mineralization and temperature). On the other hand, if the zones are not adjoining, the fluctuations are small. The joining models were observed in the Ultrahelvetic, while the non-joining ones characterize the hydrogeological basins of the Median Prealps, the Helvetic and the Penninic. The various tracing studies carried out in the evaporitic karst permitted the determination of rather weak velocities, between 10 and 1000 m/day. These are clearly inferior to those observed and the karstic conduits of Jura. The moderate speeds are linked to the hydrogeological basin model; the water movement is more rapid when the infiltration and emergence zones are adjoining. The study of spatial variations of the physical-chemical parameters of the water showed a rather weak heterogeneity at the scale of Rhone Basin. This was also observed in the composition of the gypsum. The maximum measured flows were approximately 5000 l/min. The average temperature was 8.7°C. A detailed study of the geochemical characteristics of the aquifers showed that those of the Penninic, and to a slight degree, those of the Ultrahelvetic, were different. Generally, the waters from these aquifers are more mineralized than those of the Median Prealps and the Helvetic. Particularly high levels of uranium were observed in the selenitic waters of the Penninic. The maximum values were on the order of 70 mg/l. They are due to the presence of extra-Triassic formations in Triassic rocks, particularly the permo-carboniferous black shales of the Penninic. This geological structure does not exist in the other three cases. Generally speaking, the evaporitic aquifers of the Penninic have hydraulic and geochemical characteristics which are more exotic than the other three secondary types. A comparison of the data from this study with those of waters from the same lithologic and stratigraphic origin in the northern part of Switzerland show a strong homogeneity. However, this is not the case for certain aquifers of Trias in Northern Italy. Globally, the evaporitic aquifers have a chemical composition which is very different from those which characterize other aquifer types, especially those studied in the AQUITYP project. They are especially more mineralized, and the minimum levels of SO4, Ca, Mg, Sr and Rb observed in the selenitic waters are superior to the former in many cases. The aims of this study were more than achieved. The geochemical characteristics of the four secondary types of evaporitic aquifers were observed and distinguished in complex hydrogeological systems.


Since 2012, there has been a rapid increase in the number of mobile microinsurance (MMI) products. The use of relatively low-cost mobile channels in microinsurance offers the potential to reach poorer and more remote clients, which in turn could reshape the microinsurance footprint and contribute to financial inclusion. In addition, many mobile network operators (MNOs) see MMI as another source of customer loyalty and appear to be pursuing a role beyond simply providing the delivery channel, partly with the help of specialized microinsurance business-to-business (B2B) service providers that are rapidly growing into a new niche. This Brief describes CGAP's initial supply-side scan of this emerging trend, which identified 84 products offered through 74 deployments. It analyzes the different provider models and explores the role played by mobile channels to date, with a view to providing an initial basis for understanding these developments.


The purpose of this paper is to show some results coming from the international Interreg-AlpStone project, a research whose main aim is the protection and valorisation of a rural Cultural Heritage, theme of recent growing interest. In particular the background of this contribute is the traditional stone architecture placed in the territory between Italy and Switzerland, while into the foreground is put the method to right document, archive and analyse information about the objects of study. The response comes from BIM technologies (acronym of Building Information Modeling) which objective is the creation of a dynamical and interoperable system allowing the share of information through a unique database. If these methods have been largely employed on new constructions, they still haven't been enough tested on the field of historical architecture. In order to fill this gap, the paper suggest a method leading to the creation of a Cultural Heritage information system, which arise during the survey phase and continue through the detection of different building information, the proposal of recovery solutions, the asset georeferentiation on the territory and finally the moment of sharing information on a web platform. The creation of an architectural database is made possible by a survey based on point clouds. The latter constitute then the input data for the creation of a 3D model made with a parametric software allowing the increase of various kind of information. The future work plans will complete this project by locating the Cultural Heritage models on a webGIS.


Tetrahymena thermophila is a ciliated eukaryotic protozoan that lives in temperate freshwater ecosystems. In this experiment, we examined the effect of temperature on the growth rate of T. thermophila . We predicted that decreasing temperature leads to a decrease in growth rate. In our experiment, T. thermophila was incubated at three different temperatures 25 o C, 30 o C, and 35 o C; with a set of four replicates for each temperature. Cell counts were taken at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours after incubation, and cell concentrations were calculated from those counts. Based on a one-way ANOVA, the p-value was 0.013. We rejected our null hypothesis and provided support for our alternate hypothesis which stated that temperature has an effect on the growth rate of T. thermophila.


Galina Volodina - Associate Professor at Department of Strategic Management, Faculty of Management, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Alla Obolonskaya - Associate Professor at Department of Financial Management, Faculty of Management, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: email@example.com Ratt - Candidate of Science, Head of University District Development Department, HSE Campus in Perm. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com paper describes relevancy, aim, scope and technologies of experimental activity conducted by HSE-Perm to set up a university and school cluster as an innovative form of enhancing Perm region teachers' professional competencies. The authors describe organizational structure of the cluster, determine unique features of applied forms and techniques of cooperation among participants (high school and university teachers), and analyze the results of university and school cluster activities at the first stage of its development. Cluster is an organizational form of efforts combined to achieve competitive advantages in general education system. The key benefit of building clusters is that the educational market is entered by communities of concerned members, instead of individuals. University takes on a leadership role in innovating general education through: training and re-training human resources of general education; updating the syllabus; monitoring training materials and taking direct participation in their development; pursuing research (sociological, economical, psychological, legal, managerial) in education; monitoring quality of education process. The long-term innovative educational project "University and School Cluster" was launched in 2009. The paper compares quantitative measures of teachers' subject-matter competencies at three stages of university and school cluster development (2009-2011).The authors consider the innovational aspects of cluster-based cooperation to be: advanced information and engineering support of subject departments; development and implementation of a special technology to monitor the level of teachers' subject-matter competencies through the whole project; individual tutorial support for the process of enhancing teachers' subject competencies; development of the university and school cluster website, an integrated interactive space for project participants, and filling it with appropriate methodological materials.


Implant positioning is a critical factor in assuring the primary stability of cementless Total Hip Replacements (THRs). Although it is under the direct control of surgeons, finding the optimal implant position and achieving a perfect fit remain a challenge even with the advent of computer navigation. Placement of the femoral stem in an excessive ante/retroversion or varus/valgus orientation can be detrimental to the performance of THR. To determine the effect of such malalignment, finite element (FE) computer modelling is often used. However, this can be time consuming since FE meshes must be repeatedly generated and solved each time for a range of defined implant positions. In the present study, a mesh morphing technique is developed for the automatic generation of FE models of the implanted femur; in this way, many implant orientations can be investigated in a single analysis. An average femur geometry generated from a CT scan population of 13 male and 8 female patients aged between 43 and 84 years was considered. The femur was virtually implanted with the Furlong HAC titanium alloy stem (JRI Ltd, Sheffield, UK) and placed in the medullary canal in a baseline neutral nominal position. The head of the femur was then removed and both femur and implant volumes were joined together to form a single piece that was exported into ANSYS11 ICEM CFD (ANSYS Inc., 2008) for meshing. To adequately replicate implant ante/retroversion, varus/valgus or anterior/posterior orientations, the rigid body displacement of the implant was controlled by three rotations with respect to a local coordinate system. One hundred different implant positions were analysed and the quality of the morphed meshes analysed for consistency. To check the morphed meshes, corresponding models were generated individually by re-positioning the implant in the femur. Selected models were solved to predict the strain distribution in the bone and the boneimplant relative micromovements under joint and muscle loading. A good agreement was found for bone strains and implant micromotions between the morphed models and their individually run counterparts. In the postprocessing stage further metrics were analysed to corroborate the findings of the morphed and individually run models. These included: average and maximum strains in bone interface area and its entire volume, percentage of bone interface area and its volume strained up to and beyond 0.7%; implant average and maximum micromotions and finally percentages of implant area undergoing reported critical micromotions of 50 μm, 100 μm and 150 μm for bone in growth. Excellent correlation was observed in all cases. In conclusion, the proposed technique allowed an automatic generation of FE meshes of the implanted femur as the implant position varies; the required computational resources were considerably reduced and the biomechanical response was evaluated. This model forms a good basis for the development of a tool for multiple statistical analyses of the effects of implant orientation in pre-clinical studies.


We present a framework to compose artificial neural networks in cases where the data cannot be treated as independent events, our particular motivation is star galaxy classification for ground based optical surveys. Due to a turbulent atmosphere and imperfect instruments, a single image of an astronomical object is not enough to definitively classify it as a star or galaxy. Instead the context of the surrounding objects imaged at the same time need to be considered in order to make an optimal classification. The model we present is divided into three distinct ANNs: one designed to capture local features about each object, the second to compare these features across all objects in an image, and the third to make a final prediction for each object based on the local and compared features. By exploiting the ability to replicate the weights of an ANN, the model can handle an arbitrary and variable number of individual objects embedded in a larger exposure. We train and test our model on simulations of a large up and coming ground based survey, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and compare to the state of the art approach, showing improved overall performance as well as better performance for a specific class of objects that are important for the LSST.


Within this work, time-lapse microscopy and quantitative analysis of motion parameters were used to characterize Ras regulation of the phenomena determining directional cell migration. The behaviour of NIH3T3 and NIHRasV12 fibroblasts, expressing RasV12, a constitutively activated variant, was characterized in terms of kinetic, morphological and biochemical features.
Constitutive RasV12 activation results in both morphological changes and increased proliferation and speed, and confers to NIH3T3 cells the ability to close the wound faster in wound healing assays. Since neither increased cell proliferation nor higher speed explain, alone, the accelerated wound closure, other parameters, descriptive of specific aspects of cell motion, such as linearity, persistence and directionality, were quantitatively evaluated. For both NIH3T3 and NIHRasV12 fibroblasts, the wound acts as a directional stimulus, but the presence of constitutively activated RasV12 amplifies the directional response: NIHRasV12 migration is characterized by paths more directional and directed towards the wound. The role of the effectors through which Ras drives directional cell migration, was evaluated by separately blocking two main signaling pathways downstream from Ras, PI3K and MAPK pathway. The inhibition of PI3K pathway reduced speed but not the directional component of cell migration; instead, the selective block of ERK activation showed that directionality, more than speed, is associated with MAPK pathway and strictly depend on ERK phosphorylation.
Immunofluorescence stainings showed that ERK activates at the wound edge immediately after wound. The biochemical analysis, by western blot, of cell extracts enriched with cells located in the proximity of a wound, showed that ERK phosphorylation occurs in a prolonged and biphasic way. Moreover, both peaks of ERK activation resulted dependent on neo-phosphorylation by MEK.
Actin modifications, induced by the wound, are impaired by the inhibitor of ERK activation, in both NIH3T3 and NIHRasV12 fibroblasts, suggesting that the cellular response, responsible for starting and driving directional movement, depend on early ERK activation by Ras, after the wound stimulus.


Post-genomic biomedical science requires quantitative proteomics. In most cases this involves differential protein expression analysis using matched pairs of simultaneously detectable labelling reagents for specific protein amino acids. In this thesis the development and optimisation of a novel cysteine labelling strategy, that is based on the use of iodoacetyl derivatives of Cy3 and Cy5 (ICy3/5) and 2D-difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE) is described. The differentially labelled samples are separated on a single 2D gel and detected by multi-wavelength fluorescence scanning. The method is used to analyse standard proteins and then cell lysates to define the stoichiometry, sensitivity and specificity of this labelling technique. A comparative study of this new proteomic ICy dye protocol with the current NHS-Cy dye labelling system and methods that employ commonly used protein staining methods is described. The method is then used for cysteine labelling of proteins in non-reduced, denatured biological samples allowing accurate monitoring and sensitive detection of redox-dependent thiol modifications and expression level changes. The method is shown to be compatible with the use of MALDI mass spectrometry to identify proteins by analysis of trypsinised ICy labelled peptide digests. Using parallel sample analysis within single gels, the ICy-dye reagents were used to detect redox-, ErbB-2- and growth factor-dependent changes in a human mammary luminal epithelial cell system which was exposed to hydrogen peroxide or to growth factor stimulation. The conventional lysine labelling 2D-DIGE technique was also used in parallel to assess the new ICy labelling strategy for determination of the effects of oxidative stress on protein isoform levels. This study has revealed the identity of proteins involved in the response to oxidative stress and growth factor stimulation in the context of ErbB-2 growth factor receptor over-expression. In addition, this labelling strategy was also used to detect changes in thiol reactivity that follow the UV irradiation of plasma proteins as part of a study designed to evaluate the effect of UV disinfection on plasma product safety for clinical use.


A narrowband and tunable XUV-laser source, based on harmonic generation of visible laser light, is developed for sensitive and direct absorption measurements. A novel method to monitor and eliminate the fluctuating intensity of this source is developed, which increases the sensitivity for absorption by an order of magnitude. This procedure allows for accurate relative cross-section measurements, demonstrated on selected bands of CO in the wavelength range 95–97 nm.


Abstract This article outlines a conceptual framework and research agenda for exploring the relationship between tourism and degrowth. Rapid and uneven expansion of tourism as a response to the 2008 economic crisis has proceeded in parallel with the rise of social discontent concerning so-called "overtourism." Despite decades of concerted global effort to achieve sustainable development, meanwhile, socioecological conflicts and inequality have rarely reversed, but in fact increased in many places. Degrowth, understood as both social theory and social movement, has emerged within the context of this global crisis. Yet thus far the vibrant degrowth discussion has yet to engage systematically with the tourism industry in particular, while by the same token tourism research has largely neglected explicit discussion of degrowth. We bring the two discussions together here to interrogate their complementarity. Identifying a growth imperative in the basic structure of the capitalist economy, we contend that mounting critique of overtourism can be understood as a structural response to the ravages of capitalist development more broadly. Debate concerning overtourism thus offers a valuable opportunity to re-politicize discussion of tourism development generally. We contribute to this discussion by exploring of the potential for degrowth to facilitate a truly sustainable tourism.


Since 11 September 2001, President George W. Bush's administration has argued that when governments respect both the rule of law and human rights they contribute to a world where terrorism cannot thrive. For this reason, as well as its commitment to promote its own values, the US claims that it will not relax its efforts to advance human rights. However, since 11 September the US has often apparently compromised its stance on human rights promotion abroad, in its search for military bases, intelligence cooperation and political support in the struggle against terrorism. This Adelphi Paper investigates how national security and human rights considerations have been accommodated in US policy towards five Asian states: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Washington values its cooperation with all five countries in its ongoing anti-terrorist campaign. The Paper's main conclusion is a qualified one: in general, US levels of concern about the human-rights record of these five states has diminished and each has exploited the room for manoeuvre offered by changes in US domestic and foreign policies. Nevertheless, where the US executive and legislative branches, together with civil society, are united in their condemnation of a country's human rights record, then US rhetorical attention to that record remains in place, even if the state is perceived as central to anti-terrorist operations.


Abstract Freshwater mussel larval parasitism of fish is unique among bivalves. The relationship is primarily phoretic rather than nutritive; only the smallest glochidia and the haustorial larva grow substantially while on the host. Growth of the smallest larvae suggests a lower functional size limit of ∼150 μm for the juvenile stage. Most Ambleminae, the most diverse North American clade, infect host gills by attracting feeding fish. Many species of Pleurobemini and some Lampsilini release conglutinates of eggs and larvae that resemble host food items. Many Lampsilini and a few Quadrulini use mantle modifications to attract host fish to the female. The mantle of some Quadrulini forms a posterior chamber that holds glochidia for immediate release in response to host fish. In many Lampsilini, mantle flap lures and a protrusible marsupium promote attack by the host fish and direct extraction of glochidia from the marsupium by the host. Host extraction of glochidia from the brooding female might have favored the evolution of long-term brooding in Lampsilini because glochidia need not be released by the female to encounter the host. A remarkable derivative of the host extraction strategy evolved in Epioblasma, which catch fish between the valves and release glochidia directly to the trapped host before releasing it. Host specificity is a critical feature of the evolutionary diversification and conservation biology of Unionoida. As temporary parasites, mussels must primarily evade the innate immune responses of the host, rather than the adaptive (acquired) responses. Evolution of host specificity is associated with selective encounter of host taxa, either because of host attraction strategies or because of dominance of particular host species in the habitat. The intricate relationships between mussels and fish are easily disrupted and, thus, contribute to the imperilment of many mussel species, yet they also fascinate us and compel conservation efforts.


Within the past few years, the U.S. federal government has been forced to confront the massive but hard-to-quantify problem of foreign and state-sponsored cyberespionage against U.S. corporations, from Boeing to small technology start-ups, and (as of this writing) perhaps Sony Pictures Entertainment. As part of that effort, Congress has taken up the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Trade Secret Protection Act, which would create a private cause of action under the federal Economic Espionage Act. This Article addresses the possibility of introducing trolling behavior — using litigation as a means to extract settlement payments from unsuspecting defendants — to trade secret law through creation of a federal private trade secret misappropriation cause of action. Like the existing problem of patent trolls, trade secret trolling has the potential to undermine the structure of trade secret law and create serious problems and costs for innovators across all industries. Thus, this Article addresses the heretofore unexplored link between patent and trade secret trolling established by this legislation. It assesses in detail the benefits and downsides of creation of a federal trade secret misappropriation cause of action and, for the first time, the risk of trolling.


Peculiar coesite + chloritoid + garnet ± glaucophane talcschists have been used to make at least four quern-stones, unearthed in the ruins of a villa rustica belonging to the Roman imperial period and located at Costigliole Saluzzo, Western Alps. The site of the villa rustica and the presence of coesite relics could suggest a possible provenance of these rocks from one of the already known ultra-high pressure ( UHP ) units of the Western Alps, i.e ., either the Brossasco-Isasca Unit (BIU) of the southern Dora-Maira Massif or the Lago di Cignana Unit (LCU) of the Piemonte Zermatt-Saas Zone. However, similar talcschists have never been reported from these units. Two samples of coesite-bearing, chloritoid + garnet ± glaucophane talcschist collected from two different specimens of quern-stones have been petrologically investigated with the aim of defining their peak pressure–temperature ( P-T ) conditions. The stability field of the coesite + garnet + talc + chloritoid + glaucophane assemblage has been constrained using isochemical phase diagrams modelled in the MnNCFMASHO system; prograde P-T conditions have been additionally constrained using the yttrium-in-garnet (YAG) geothermometer. Thermodynamic modelling tightly constrains peak P-T conditions at 480–510°C, 27–31 kbar. The unusual Mg-rich composition of the talcschists suggests that they originated by Mg-metasomatism of either a continental crustal protolith (granodiorite or Fe-rich metapelite) or an oceanic crustal protolith (altered oceanic crust). A mechanism similar to that proposed for the well-known pyrope-bearing whiteschists of the UHP BIU, i.e . influx of antigorite-derived fluids along shear zones during subduction, can be envisaged. Although the field occurrence of these coesite + chloritoid + garnet ± glaucophane talcschists is still unknown, the obtained results clearly show that these rocks cannot belong to the UHP BIU, whose peak P-T conditions are at significantly higher T and P (730°C, 40–43 kbar). Therefore, this finding opens the challenging hypothesis of the existence of a further, still unmapped, UHP Unit in the Western Alps that also experienced UHP metamorphism and fluid influx from underlying serpentinites during subduction. A detailed mapping and petrologic investigation of the tectono-metamorphic continental ( i.e ., southern Dora-Maira Massif) and oceanic ( i.e ., Monviso meta-ophiolite Complex) units in the proximities of Costigliole Saluzzo is required in order to further constrain the location and the dimension of this new UHP unit.