Financial planning in Australia is moving away from its traditional characterisation as an "industry" and towards a "profession". A key feature of any profession is an educational framework that facilitates the development of technical knowledge and generic skills by students so that they can successfully transition into the workplace. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is currently reviewing changes to that educational framework (ASIC 2011; ASIC 2013), while the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has recently introduced revised and enhanced educational requirements through the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC) (FPA 2010; FPEC 2012). Stakeholder input will be critical for the development of financial planning education programs that meet the higher standards of a profession. In particular, what are the generic skills needed by financial planners; and which are currently seen to be most deficient? This paper is an instrumental case study involving interviews with 24 financial planning firms which explore the what, why and how of generic skills. This qualitative study provides a greater insight into generic skills by identifying skill importance and deficiency, as well as possible solutions to assist with the financial planning industry moving to a profession.


America's policy regarding illegal drugs has been accused of being a failure and being racially biased against blacks and other minorities. The author asserts that while drugs and crime exist in all parts of the society, problem-generating drug use and serious crime are indeed concentrated among the urban poor, some of whom are black. He further explores what this disproportionate drug-related suffering means when it comes to the provision of addiction treatment, law enforcement resources and other responses to the problems spawned by addiction.


AS THE U.S. Government mobilizes for homeland defense and a protracted war against terrorism, it is evident to the Russian national security elite that fundamental features of the international security landscape are undergoing "tectonic shifts."1 Such shifts, as described by diplomatic historian John Gaddis, involve the process of globalization, the decline of the power of the nation-state, and emerging nonstate actors with the will and means to challenge the international system's stability.2 History did not end with the cold war, but it does assert a new set of fault lines. The current revolution in the international security system cannot be understood in isolation. In the case of U.S.-Russian relations, there have been two seismic shocks in only 2 years. The first, during spring 1999, was associated with NATO's intervention in Kosovo that ended the post-cold war era and any illusions of a U.S.-Russian partnership. The second occurred in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 and the initiation of the war on terrorism. The first shock pushed the United States and Russia apart on key security issues; the second drew them together as allies. The Postmodern Russian Military: Post-Soviet and Post-Yeltsin During spring 1999, this author wrote about a dying Russian military whose chronic problems remain numerous and deep.3 Low morale and the military's diminished status in society broke the link between the nation and the armed forces. A topheavy officer corps with too many senior officers and too few junior officers fed stagnation and inertia. A conscript pool based on a small portion of eligible age cohort, drawn from the lower strata of Russian youth, brought health and social problems into the ranks. Barracks life, with its brutal hazing, caused suicides among recruits. Criminalization and corruption throughout the officer corps undermined self-respect and public confidence. Grossly inadequate training reduced the force's combat effectiveness. A decade of barely procuring new weapons and the problem of looming block obsolescence in the first years of the next century precluded modernizing the force. The officer corps. open disdain for and distrust of the current government created a dying military. As an acute observer notes, their inability to deal with their own decline into chaos and disorder has gone hand in hand with a remarkable fact of their marginalization in Russian national politics. Disgruntled officers perceive themselves as sheep going to the slaughter.4 Each time the sheep complain of starvation, the political shepherds respond with another round of cuts in manpower and wage arrears. One of Boris Yeltsin's government's most vocal critics, Colonel Viktor Baranets, uses precisely that language to describe Russia's "lost army."5 During spring 1998, the much-publicized film, "Chistilishche" ("Purgatory"), which was written and directed by nationalist journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov and produced by oligarch Boris Berezovsky, carried the metaphor even further by depicting the Russian Army in Chechnya as a crucified Christ.6 The resurrection of the Russian military began during spring 1999. The rebirth involved a combination of international and domestic events, which brought in their aftermath renewed pride and importance for the Russian Armed Forces. Russia's inability to forestall NATO military intervention against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis undermined the strategic posture of relying on strategic nuclear weapons to secure Russian political interests. Former Russian Minister of Defense Marshal Igor Sergeev made modernizing those forces and restructuring their command and control the capstone of his military reform program at the expense of Russia's conventional forces. The NATO air campaign over Yugoslavia served Sergeev's critics in two ways. First, it underscored the limits of strategic nuclear deterrence in defense of interests that were beyond Russia's immediate frontiers and not perceived to demand capital engagement. …


It is commonly believed that with increased age, movement dexterity becomes slower and increasingly clumsy when performing simple every day tasks. In the General Introduction of this PhD thesis (Chapter 1), literature that supports evidence for this relationship was reviewed. In addition, literature that has attempted to understand co-variance factors that may influence the age and dexterity relationship were also presented. From this, the general thesis hypothesis raised was that other factors such as sense of touch, attention ability or strength might also correlate with age and so possibly could also explain the reduced dexterity variable. Five empirical chapters present the experiments conducted to address the hypothesis, and the data from these are discussed in the General Discussion (Chapter 7). The empirical chapters consisted of three main areas of experimentation. That is, Chapter 2 ran preliminary screening data, Chapters 3 and 4 tested the effects of selective attention ability on the age - dexterity relationship and Chapters 5 and 6 tested the effects of strength on the age - dexterity relationship. In more detail, Chapter 2 used standard clinical measurements to assess the effects of age on fine and gross movement dexterity, sense of touch, selective attention and strength. The data showed that all factors declined with increased age, but that strength and selective attention seemed particular relevant to general upper limb dexterity. In Chapter 3, the impact of selective attention ability was assessed using a modified and motion tracked dexterity task. This demonstrated that the age and dexterity relationship was not generalised across all movements, but instead was specific for phases of action that contained a selective attention component. Chapter 4 followed up these data by showing evidence of impaired selective attention and inhibition with increased age. Chapter 5 sought to clarify the impact that strength had on the age and dexterity relationship. The findings showed that while age and strength were related, age explained more of thedata's variance for steadiness and movement tracking dexterity, whereas strength explained more of the data's variance for aiming and tapping dexterity. In Chapter 6, the findings of Chapter 5 were tested by directly manipulating hand grip strength and measuring the resultant effects on tapping dexterity. The data supported Chapter 5 and confirmed that hand grip strength had a clear impact on the age and dexterity relationship. Together, the data presented in the PhD thesis suggest that other factors contribute to the effects of age on dexterity, and support the idea that better management of these confounding factors may allow for a better understanding of the age and dexterity relationship and furthermore, help older adults enjoy better movement dexterity.


Constipation in cancer and palliative care is frequent, poorly managed and has a profound adverse effect on patients' lives. This qualitative study explores factors contributing to the suboptimal management of constipation and identifies strategies to alleviate it. In a three-staged action research study data were collected from 11 patient interviews, 26 health care professionals (HCPs)
during six focus group meetings and a Constipation Management Clinic (CMC), comprising a cohort of 29 patients, which was developed as part of this study.
The findings from stage one, patient interviews, confirm that the management of constipation in patients with cancer and palliative care is suboptimal partly due to HCPs' poor knowledge and ambivalent attitudes, inadequate patient education and a lack of a concordant approach to
management. Patients described feeling abandoned, their condition trivialised and many suffered considerable distress and embarrassment. In stage two, focus groups of HCPs were questioned on their understanding of the condition, its impact and their strategies for treatment. Findings from the patient interviews were fed back as a means of education and to facilitate discussion. The
focus groups confirmed the findings from the patient interviews. It was therefore possible to postulate that constipation management would be improved by redressing the educational needs of HCPs, imparting knowledge to patients and working to develop a partnership approach.
To test this a CMC was developed during stage three. Patients with severe and intractable constipation were recruited to a nurse-led clinic that adopted a patient-focused, education-based management strategy which also encompassed a concordant approach to laxative recommendations. Following attendance there was an immediate improvement in bowel function in all patients who became more autonomous and concordant with their treatment regimens. Aims of the study were to improve the research's skills and knowledge in research methodology in the cancer and palliative care setting, identify factors leading to the suboptimal management of
constipation and to explore ways in which to alleviate the condition in patients with cancer. Throughout the project the action research methodology incorporated concurrent dissemination of findings to HCPs allowing them to discuss and assist with the evolution of the research and to modify their own practices to the benefit of patients generally. This research demonstrates the advantages of adopting an action research approach when
identifying strategies to reduce the incidence of constipation in patients with cancer and the importance of paying attention to detail when trying to manage this frequent and distressing problem.


The study investigated economic and managerial considerations for using sexed semen as a tool for accelerated herd expansion and improvement of its genetic potential. Economic value of reproduction strategies based on conventional semen and sexed semen were analysed according to partial budgeting method by Victor E Cabrera and adjusted for the Estonian average indicators. Data for the study were provided by Animal Breeders Association of Estonia. In order to evaluate the economic value of using sexed semen over conventional semen, five different reproductive strategies involving sexed semen were used and compared with conventional semenbased strategy. Average conception rate from the first insemination with conventional semen was 65.6% and 56.1% with sexed semen for Holstein heifers in Estonia in 2015. Probability for birth of a female calf was 49.3% with conventional semen and 93.0% with sexed semen. Net present value for all sexed semen based reproduction strategies was negative at the baseline conditions. Sensitivity analysis for key reproductive and economic variables showed that market price of female calves and conception rates had the most impact on the economic value. Sexed semen can be a valuable tool for reproduction management in dairy farms, but the actual economic value of its application depends on the reproductive performance and objectives of an individual farm. Results of this study provide basis for further research about the situations, where using sexed semen would be economically justified for the farmers.


Coupling of motor proteins within arrays drives muscle contraction, flagellar beating, chromosome segregation, and other biological processes. Current models of motor coupling invoke either direct mechanical linkage or protein crowding, which rely on short-range motor-motor interactions. In contrast, coupling mechanisms that act at longer length scales remain largely unexplored. Here we report that microtubules can physically couple motor movement in the absence of short-range interactions. The human kinesin-4 Kif4A changes the run-length and velocity of other motors on the same microtubule in the dilute binding limit, when 10-nm-sized motors are separated by microns. This effect does not depend on specific motor-motor interactions because similar changes in Kif4A motility are induced by kinesin-1 motors. A micron-scale attractive interaction potential between motors is sufficient to recreate the experimental results in a computational model. Unexpectedly, our theory suggests that long-range microtubule-mediated coupling not only affects binding kinetics but also motor mechanochemistry. Therefore, motors can sense and respond to motors bound several microns away on a microtubule. These results suggest a paradigm in which the microtubule lattice, rather than being merely a passive track, is a dynamic medium responsive to binding proteins to enable new forms of collective motor behavior.


Surveying key informants is a common methodology in congregational research. While practical and cost-effective, there are limitations in the ability of a single informant to speak for an entire organization. This paper explores potential limitations empirically. Using the 1993 American Congregational Giving Study, we compare demographic descriptions provided by pastors to demographic information taken from random samples of members in the same congregations. Significant differences in congregational profiles appear along dimensions of gender, age, race/ethnicity and, most notably, education and income. The amount of discrepancy between pastor and member profiles varies by congregational factors such as denominational affiliation and employment status of pastor. We construct diversity measures using both pastor descriptions and surveys from samples of congregation members to demonstrate the impact of data type on conclusions drawn from empirical research. Difficulties notwithstanding, key informant methodology has a place in congregational research with appropriate precautions. Of course, the most complete view of congregations is one that combines perceptions from the pulpit with information directly from the pews.


Solid models are the critical data elements in modern computer-aided design (CAD) environments, describing the shape and form of manufactured artifacts. Their growing ubiquity has created new problems in how to effectively manage the many models that are now stored in the digital libraries of large design and manufacturing enterprises. Existing techniques from the engineering literature and from industrial practice, such as group technology, rely on human-supervised encoding and classification, while techniques from the multimedia database and computer graphics/vision communities often ignore the manufacturing attributes most significant in the classification of models. This paper presents our approach to the manufacturing similarly assessment of solid models of mechanical parts based on machining features. Our technical approach is three-fold: (1) perform machining feature extraction to map the solid model to a set of STEP AP 224 machining features; (2) construct a model dependency graph from the set of machining features; and (3) find the nearest neighbors to the query graph using an iterative improvement search across a database of other models. We also present empirical experiments to validate our approach using our testbed, the National Design Repository (). The contribution of this research is the first fully automated technique for machining feature-based comparisons of mechanical artifacts. We believe that this work can lead to radical changes in the way in which design data is managed in modern engineering enterprises.


Dipolar systems, both liquids and solids, constitute a class of naturally abundant systems that are important in all branches of natural science. The study of orientational relaxation provides a powerful method to understand the microscopic properties of these systems and, fortunately, there are many experimental tools to study orientational relaxation in the condensed phases. However, even after many years of intense research, our understanding of orientational relaxation in dipolar systems has remained largely imperfect. A major hurdle towards achieving a comprehensive understanding is the long range and complex nature of dipolar interactions which also made reliable theoretical study extremely difficult. These difficulties have led to the development of continuum model based theories, which although they provide simple, elegant expressions for quantities of interest, are mostly unsatisfactory as they totally neglect the molecularity of inter-molecular interactions. The situation has improved in recent years because of renewed studies, led by computer simulations. In this review, we shall address some of the recent advances, with emphasis on the work done in our laboratory at Bangalore. The reasons for the failure of the continuum model, as revealed by the recent Brownian dynamics simulations of the dipolar lattice, are discussed. The main reason is that the continuum model predicts too fast a decay of the torque-torque correlation function. On the other hand, a perturbative calculation, based on Zwanzig's projection operator technique, provides a fairly satisfactory description of the single particle orientational dynamics for not too strongly polar dipolar systems. A recently developed molecular hydrodynamic theory that properly includes the effects of intermolecular orientational pair correlations provides an even better description of the single-particle orientational dynamics. We also discuss the rank dependence of the dielectric friction. The other topics reviewed here includes dielectric relaxation and solvation dynamics, as they are intimately connected with orientational relaxation. Recent molecular dynamics simulations of the dipolar lattice are also discussed. The main theme of the present review is to understand the effects of intermolecular interactions on orientational relaxation. The presence of strong orientational pair correlation leads to a strong coupling between the single particle and the collective dynamics. This coupling can lead to rich dynamical properties, some of which are detailed here, while a major part remains yet unexplored.


Gene expression is required in all steps of embryonic development and therefore heat stress is known to reduce developmental competence after direct exposure of oocytes and embryos to different conditions of heat shock, by decreasing protein synthesis. Moreover, as in somatic cells, the heat stress befuddles the integration of RNA and posttranscrip‐ tional modification of RNA, the assumption was that during meiotic maturation heat shock may mutate RNA within oocytes, with the possibility of altering the surround‐ ing cumulus cells, causing, thus, reductions in development. Heat shock proteins (HSP) are among the first proteins produced during embryonic development and are crucial to cell function. The HSP70 (HSPA14 gene) is an important part of the cell's machinery for folding, unfolding, transport, localization of proteins and differentiation, regulation of the embryonic cell cycle and helping to protect cells from stress. Therefore, HSPA14 is an apoptotic gene induced by heat shock is associated with embryonic loss, playing an important role of control mechanism of processes involved in growth, cellular differentia‐ tion, and embryonic development. In addition the connexin proteins (e.g. Cx43), related to gap junctions, are expressed in numerous tissues including gonads, act as a mediator of heat stress effect on cells. In the present review, the effect of heat stress on bovine embryonic development in a physiologic and genetic point of view is fully discussed.


Background tDCS studies typically find that: lowest levels of comfort occur at stimulation-onset; young adult participants experience less comfort than older participants; and participants' blinding seems effective at low current strengths. At 2 mA conflicting results have been reported, questioning the effectiveness of blinding in sham-controlled paradigms using higher current strengths. Investigator blinding is rarely reported. Objective Using a protocol with 30 min of 2 mA stimulation we sought to: (a) investigate the level of perceived comfort in young and older adults, ranging in age from 19 to 29 years and 63 to 76 years, respectively; (b) test investigator and participant blinding; (c) assess comfort over a longer stimulation duration; (d) add to the literature on protocols using 2 mA current strength. Methods A two-session experiment was conducted where sham and active stimulation were administered to the frontal cortex at the F8/FP1 sites in a within-subjects manner. Levels of perceived comfort were measured, using a visual analogue scale, at the start and end of stimulation in young and older adults. Post-stimulation, participants and investigators judged whether or not active stimulation was used. Results Comfort scores were lower at stimulation onset in both age groups. Older adults reported: (i) more comfort than young participants overall; (ii) comparable levels of comfort in sham and active stimulation; (iii) significantly more comfort than the young participants during active stimulation. Stimulation mode was correctly identified above chance in the second of the two sessions; 65% of all participants correctly identified the stimulation mode, resulting in a statistical trend. Similarly, the experimenter correctly identified stimulation mode significantly above chance, with 62% of all investigator judgements correct across 120 judgements. Conclusions Using 2 mA current strength over 30 minutes, tDCS stimulation comfort is lower at stimulation onset in young and older adults and, overall, lower for young participants. Investigators and participants may be able to identify active stimulation at above chance levels, although accuracy never exceeded 65% for either participants or the experimenter. Further research into blinding efficacy is recommended.


South Korean mainstream pop music, known simply as K-Pop, has become such a huge phenomenon in recent years that it is playing a decisive role in reshaping Korean culture and identity. Indeed, the K-Pop phenomenon is much more than just something musical, intertwining a complexity of sound, performance, ethnicity and gender. A contextual analysis needs therefore to take all these elements into consideration. This paper aims to show how K-Pop plays a crucial role in promoting ideologies, and defining gender roles. It does so by analyzing the music and image of the Taiwanese-American originating singer Amber Liu. Liu goes against the standard gender identification and behavior that Korean society imposes on women, and by doing so she can be said to represent a shift in the portrayal and performance of femininity through K-pop. But, how is her gender behavior tolerated, and to what extent is this a stage behavior required and promoted by her management company as a way to mark out difference?


This article uses history to explore how prominent international lawyers explain seemingly transgressive state behavior. It begins with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. This seizure of another state's territory by force of arms seems to violate everything that the UN Charter and the post-1991 settlement of the Cold War stood for. Surprisingly, the various steps employed by the Russians to give their actions a veneer of legality follow almost exactly the playbook used by the United States in 1903 to seize the Panama Canal Zone. In both instances, leading professors of international law ‒ Rein Mullerson, the Anglo-Estonian scholar, publicist, and stateman in the case of Crimea, John Bassett Moore, the most prominent U.S. international lawyer of the day, in the case of Panama ‒ sought to justify these acts in the face of what they both acknowledged was a general ban on wars of conquest.

The details of these transgressions and the justifications offered by their prominent defenders shed light on the work that international law does. These events provide an opportunity to use the tools of comparative international law to uncover and assess claims about the validity of otherwise repugnant state behavior. This emerging field downplays the judgmental, project-oriented focus of contemporary international law in favor of striving for a better understanding of systematic differences in the way significant actors use international law.

In a world riven with entrenched and unbridgeable differences, counting on states to agree to an extensive body of deep rules to govern their international behavior is utopian, but expecting them to understand their adversaries' perceptions of their international interests and the ways they will explain themselves is not. The bipolar world of the Cold War required a tradeoff between consensus and comprehension. The contemporary multipolar world, with its challenges and conflicts, may do the same.


Technological complementarity is argued to be a crucial element for effective Research and Development (R&D) collaboration. The real structure is, however, still largely unknown. Based on the argument that organizations' knowledge resources must fit for enabling collective learning and innovation, we use the co-occurrence of firms in collaborative R&D projects in Germany to assess inter-sectoral technological complementarity between 129 sectors. The results are mapped as complementarity space for the Germany economy. The space and its dynamics from 1990 to 2011 are analyzed by means of social network analysis. The results illustrate sectors being complements both from a dyadic and portfolio/ network perspective. This latter is important, as complementarities may only become fully effective when integrated in a complete set of different knowledge resources from multiple sectors. The dynamic perspective moreover reveals the shifting demand for knowledge resources among sectors at different time periods.


This research addresses the issue of how organisations can build capabilities to acquire, deploy, exploit and sustain computer-based information systems. With the application of information technology dramatically altering the strategies, structure, and processes of organisations, capabilities in acquiring and deploying computer-based information systems are considered critical to organisational success. It is often presumed that firms have similar capabilities to derive maximum value from deploying computer- based information systems. However, they have been shown to exhibit disparate capacities to successfully implement and exploit such systems. The concept information systems capability is introduced and refers to an organisation's capacity to effectively orchestrate the processes of acquiring, deploying, exploiting and sustaining computer-based information systems to support its strategic and functional objectives. Emphasising evolutionary and resource-based perspectives of the firm the research stresses the firm-specific, cumulative, and path-dependent nature of organisational IS capability. Three strategic dimensions of IS capability are identified. These are routines, resources, and contexts. Routines refer to the IS-related processes and practices of the organisation. Resources are its endowments. Contexts reflect the environmental factors influencing IS investment opportunities and decisions. Capabilities develop through a prescient understanding of the contexts, the strategic acquisition and deployment of IS resources and the establishment and enaction of effective organisational routines. Researchers are concerned about the persistence of ineffective information technology transfer and diffusion in developing countries. This research seeks to explicate the concept of information systems capability by drawing on examples from a developing country context. Through case studies and surveys done in Zimbabwe it explores organisational efforts to develop IS capability. The findings of the case studies confirm the significant impact of macro-contextual and organisational factors on capability building. A framework for IS capability building is proposed.


This thesis is a study of speech acts in one of Chinese Drama-Comedy film, Summer Holiday. The writer only analyzed the conversation that consist of the conflict between Mo Mo Cha and Summer. In this study the writer tried to answer three questions. First, what are the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts used in 'Summer Holiday"?. Second, what are the direct and indirect speech acts used in "Summer Holiday"?. Third, What contexts of the situation underlie the utterances in "Summer Holiday"?. To answer the thesis problems, the writer uses the theory of speech acts. To analyze direct and indirect speech act, she uses Hurford and Heasley's theory. In this study, the writer uses the qualitative approach. She uses this approach, because this study does deal with language that is used in the conversations in "Summer Holiday". Having analyzed the data, the writer found out that the classification of speech acts occurred in the conversations in "Summer Holiday". They are: Declarative, Representative, Directive, Expressive, and Commissive. In this study, the writer has found out that the illocutionary acts in "Summer Holiday" are: requesting, giving help, expressing dislike, guessing, showing confuse, expressing angry, disbelieving, asserting, giving clarification, bargaining, refusing, showing curiosity, showing bored, showing worried, suggesting, admitting, and commanding. While about the perlocutionary, the writer found out that literally and non-literally perlocutionary act occurred. The writer also found out that the theory of Hurford and Heasley is true. Language is used in more complicated ways. A declarative sentence is not always asserting, an interrogative sentence is not always asking, and an imperative sentence is not always an ordering. As the writer found in this study, declarative sentences are used for asking, and interrogative sentences are used for commanding.


&NA; Mortality in ducks and geese caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) infection had not been previously identified in Bangladesh. In June–July 2011, we investigated mortality in ducks, geese and chickens with suspected H5N1 infection in a north‐eastern district of the country to identify the aetiologic agent and extent of the outbreak and identify possible associated human infections. We surveyed households and farms with affected poultry flocks in six villages in Netrokona district and collected cloacal and oropharyngeal swabs from sick birds and tissue samples from dead poultry. We conducted a survey in three of these villages to identify suspected human influenza‐like illness cases and collected nasopharyngeal and throat swabs. We tested all swabs by real‐time RT‐PCR, sequenced cultured viruses, and examined tissue samples by histopathology and immunohistochemistry to detect and characterize influenza virus infection. In the six villages, among the 240 surveyed households and 11 small‐scale farms, 61% (1789/2930) of chickens, 47% (4816/10 184) of ducks and 73% (358/493) of geese died within 14 days preceding the investigation. Of 70 sick poultry swabbed, 80% (56/70) had detectable RNA for influenza A/H5, including 89% (49/55) of ducks, 40% (2/5) of geese and 50% (5/10) of chickens. We isolated virus from six of 25 samples; sequence analysis of the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase gene of these six isolates indicated clade 22.214.171.124a of H5N1 virus. Histopathological changes and immunohistochemistry staining of avian influenza viral antigens were recognized in the brain, pancreas and intestines of ducks and chickens. We identified ten human cases showing signs compatible with influenza‐like illness; four were positive for influenza A/H3; however, none were positive for influenza A/H5. The recently introduced H5N1 clade 126.96.36.199a virus caused unusually high mortality in ducks and geese. Heightened surveillance in poultry is warranted to guide appropriate diagnostic testing and detect novel influenza strains.


We present a parametrised Preisach-type model that describes the hysteresis exhibited by the high temperature superconductors (HTSC); hysteresis is the main cause for losses in the subcritical domain. The parametrised model, in combination with electrical measurements, is independent of geometry, number of filaments and other physical measures, and is identified by a novel method that uses electrical lock-in (loss) measurement technique, which greatly enhances the signal to noise ratio. Identification results from measurements on Bi-2223 multi-filamentary tapes are presented. We have further derived exact models for the hysteretic losses in strip and elliptic geometry strips, where the energy losses were calculated by Norris. The paper contains analysis of the Preisach Model, of its losses and of the suggested parametrisation.


The paper is a by-product of a recent, cross-disciplinary research project, aiming at exploring
linguistic and discursive patterns broadly construing 'justice' in a highly influential
institutional setting of political discourse, i.e. the British House of Commons, as regards one
of the most complex issues facing today's society: im/migration. Parliamentary language may,
in fact, provide a privileged terrain for analysing the relationship between social practices and
discourse, especially as regards the discussion of key, highly contested issues such as
immigration. Moving from the assumption that justice' is a "human construction" (Walzer
1986; Eriksen 2016) embedded in specific systems of value and beliefs, and that immigration
is "indeed a matter of justice" (Miller 2013: 5), the research investigates select patterns of
'orientational meanings' (Lemke 1992; Miller 1999), or evaluative and intersubjective stance
(Martin and White 2005; Thompson and Hunston 2006) being typically construed within this
particular register of political discourse. In particular, the paper focuses on 'fair' a a case
study in a specialised corpus of UK parliamentary debates on the broad topic of
im/migration, thus including issues of asylum and refugees


Summary
1.
Four hundred ambulatory patients in the medical wards of Lawson Veterans Administration Hospital were examined for the presence of Endamoeba histolytica and other intestinal parasites. An average of 2.6 post-cathartic specimens per patient was examined by direct wet mounts, the Ritchie formalinether sedimentation procedure, and the PVA-fixative technic. Cultivation was used on specimens from 374 of the patients. Thirty-seven (9.3 per cent) patients were found to be infected with E. histolytica. This rate is within the usually accepted range for the incidence of E. histolytica in the general population of the United States (Craig and Faust, 1951). Four of the 37 (or 10.8 per cent) were considered to have clinical amebiasis. Despite the lapse of several years after the end of World War II, two of the four amebiasis cases could conceivably have been service-connected.
2.
Comparison of the technics performed demonstrated the desirability of examining permanently-stained smears for amebic infections. The PVA-fixative technic provides a convenient method of collecting specimens for the preparation of stained smears. This technic, which is particularly effective for amebic trophozoites, should be used in conjunction with other procedures which are more effective in the recovery and identification of cysts.
3.
A significant relationship between the presence of E. histolytica infections and outside toilet facilities was demonstrated. This correlation apparently was not related to the rural residence of the patients.


This paper focuses on some underlying tensions within the literature of global regulation towards the possibility and limits of international law in helping understand and address the current financial-political challenges facing the international legal system. First, I want to briefly think about some common 'illusions' that may restrict our ability to cope with the violence and paranoia that haunts our horizons. My suspicion is that too often we see ourselves in the role of architects, embroiled in debates over the structural aspects of civil society at home and global governance abroad. In this sense, I want to suggest that it is not our institutions or ideological underpinnings that stifle our efforts, but something more intimate, something about our most cherished conceptions of our past, those illusions about our own personality and the projects we sign up to. This might be seen as the search less for a set of concrete virtues, and more for a posture or sensibility to guide us forward. Second, I want to turn and think about how this sensibility might be applied in practice, and specifically to think about this in relation to the looming financial crisis. My hope in this work is not to provide an in-depth analysis of any of the current challenges that face global law and policy, but to focus on the sensibility that experts more often than not bring to the table, and to inject into this ongoing conversation some more recent advances within Continental European philosophy and critical theories of international law and development. The task here, in other words, is to propose an initial step into thinking how we might move more boldly beyond the politics of knowledge, of self-reflection and ambivalence, to a politics of truth - what we might see as an experience of the freedom, or perhaps the thrill, of taking risks ethically.


The paper gives an overview of negation in Livonian. The study is based on fieldwork data and previous research. Livonian has negation markers of three types: (1) auxiliaries, ab in the indicative and conditional present, iz in the indicative past, and alā in the imperative and the jussive; (2) particle mitto is used to reinforce negation and to mark the scope of the constituent negation; (3) particle ap functions as a prosentence. All categories which are expressed in affirmative verb forms occur also in negative forms, although their expression is divided inconsistently between the negation verb and the lexical verb. The negation markers have given rise to negative prefixes, coordinating conjunctions, and a comparative marker.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial intentions. Significant studies anchored in the Theory of Planned Behavior use causal statistical approaches to entrepreneurial intentions. This methodological approach, leads to the conclusion that there is a single pathway for all groups of people to achieve business start-up. Even though theory suggests approaches by women entrepreneurs to start a business may be influenced by different factors from those influencing men, results are inconclusive in these analyses. The authors argue that methodological preferences for linear, causal analytical approaches limit the understanding of gender similarities and differences in the business start-up process. The authors propose that when considering diverse samples, it is unreasonable to assume there is only a single pathway leading to business start-up.

Design/methodology/approach
Building on fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and data set of 2,038 respondents, the authors investigate factors predicting the intentions to start a business and evaluate the alternative conjunctive paths that emerge.

Findings
The fsQCA results shows that the relationship among conditions leading to entrepreneurial intentions is complex and is best represented as multiple and conjectural causation configurations. In other words, there are multiple significant pathways (refers to equifinality) that predict intentions to start a business start-up, and there are significant differences by gender.

Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine the roll of gender as a sperate condition in the analysis. This paper offers implications for theory and future research and highlights the complexity of this domain.


GARTEUR (Group of Aeronautical Research and Technology in EU-Rope) is a multinational organisation that performs high quality, collaborative, pre-competitive aeronautical research. It is based on a government-to-government agreement (MoU) between seven European nations with major research and test capabilities in aeronautics. GARTEUR was formed in 1973 by the governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom in the wake of the formation of Airbus. The Netherlands joined the group in 1977. Sweden joined GARTEUR in 1991, followed by Spain in 1996 and Italy in the year 2000. The GARTEUR focus is on research topics aimed at long term R&T because this is considered essential to assure sustained competitiveness of the European aerospace industries. A key asset of GARTEUR is its unique mechanism for cooperation, which has been used successfully for numerous collaboration projects over the past decades. It is the only framework in Europe for both civil and military aeronautics R&T.


The right to water has been recently recognized as a fundamental human right by the United Nations, thereby clarifying its status as 'legally binding', making it 'justiciable' and enforceable. This development has been heralded as a key that holds great potential to change the lives of the billions who still lack access to clean water. Many of those deprived of enjoyment of the right are children, who constitute up to a third of the population in the developing world. What is the value added of the rights-based approach for access to water, especially for children? Would recognition of the right to water as legally binding deliver real benefits to children in improving their access to water? Does it really offer anything new that can help them realize their right to water more effectively? These questions will be explored in this paper using empirical evidence from India, where water has been legally interpreted as a fundamental right, and as a welfare state, where there has been consistent effort on part of the state to improve children's access to water.


Purpose

Violence against the police represents an ongoing and serious problem in the USA. In 2014, over 48,000 law enforcement officers assaulted while on duty. Although over one in four of these resulted in injury, little is known about the conditions under which injury is likely to occur. The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of the individual and situational factors that predict injurious assaults against law enforcement.

Design/methodology/approach

Using logistic regression, the current study analyzes data from the 2012 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) on all assaults against the police (n=8,987) in order to understand, within a routine activities theoretical framework, how individual-level characteristics (i.e. officer and offender characteristics) and situational influences (i.e. assignment type, activity type, and location) predict the likelihood that an assault will result in injury.

Findings

Overall, findings suggest support for a routine activities theory of violence against the police. Initiating an arrest, one-officer vehicle type, and incidents occurring on highways/roads were all more likely to result in injurious assaults against the police. Other predictors of injury include officer and offender demographics as well as the time the incident took place.

Research limitations/implications

This research was unable to control for some factors that may influence the likelihood of injury such as wearing body armor. Additionally, NIBRS data are not nationally representative, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

Originality/value

This is one of the first papers to use national data to examine the individual and situational factors that predict injurious assaults against law enforcement.


Recent trends in researching Information Behaviour in organisations show that the initial focus on technology has shifted to cognitive methods that take the individual into account, but more recently there has been a move to the social sciences approach. Literature shows that this approach has been informative but rather theoretic as there has been limited work using this approach to handle information problems in organisations. There is a need to develop and test theories to help understand Information Behaviour in organisations in a social science context that gives direct benefits to the organisation. It is useful to view organisations as complex social networks of interactions, where importance is put on the relationships between people in the organisations, as well as on the individual actor. A need exists to evaluate and connect insights from social sciences communities of practice, and complexity theory. This paper explores insights from these theories and develops a conceptual framework for understanding Information Behaviour in organisations. Data collection is in a preliminary stage, reflections and observations, of the researcher and a few participants. The intention is to provoke thoughts along the lines of seeking to use a synergy between theories that can offer different and useful platforms to help better understand the impact of information behaviour on organizational culture.


Abstract Although there is no clarity on the precise definition of the metabolic syndrome, there is consensus that it is a cluster of inter-related risk factors (elevated blood pressure, elevated plasma glucose, atherogenic dyslipidaemia) that are due to mainly abdominal obesity and insulin resistance, and which appear to directly promote the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), and increase the risk for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus. The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome is increasing globally, including in the adolescent population. In developed countries the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome is about 30% of the adult population. The cornerstone of management of this syndrome is lifestyle intervention. Following a comprehensive initial assessment to risk-stratify patients, they are recommended to attend either a group-based programme (medically supervised or medically directed, depending on the severity of the disease and the presence of any co-morbidities) or a home-based intervention programme. The main elements of a lifestyle intervention programme for metabolic syndrome are nutritional intervention (mainly for weight loss and to improve the atherogenic dyslipidaemia), exercise training (minimum of 30–60 minutes at moderate intensity on most days of the week), and psychosocial interventions. Regular monitoring should be conducted and a follow-up assessment is indicated after three months to assess progress and to re-set goals. Longer-term (5–6 months) and supervised intervention programmes are associated with better long-term outcomes.


Desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) is an ambient ionization technique that enables imaging experiments directly on fungal cultures. Much information can be gained by examining an organism directly from culture, rather than through an extraction process, as the regional and temporal distribution of bioactive compounds can give a better understanding of interactions in the environment. However, this technique has been underutilized towards the direct analysis of fungal cultures. A major challenge of fungal culture analysis with DESI-MS is the requirement of a firm, flat surface for effective ionization. The media upon which fungi grow can be easily deformed by the pressures from the solvent spray and gas, and the fungal topography is naturally uneven, often containing mycelium and spores that move freely. Furthermore, DESI-MS imaging can only analyse the surface of a sample, thus internal compounds remain undetected. This project first sought to overcome these issues, and then, apply the newly developed methodology to explore the chemical interactions between two distinct fungi. To test the methodology, a fungus that produces antifungal metabolites was grown against a mycotoxin producing fungus, both of the phylum Ascomycota. By comparing the spatial and temporal distribution of secondary metabolites between both isolated cultures and co-cultures, the chemical exchanges that took place were visualized.


Gavan Rosman was valued at the Telecom (later Telstra) Research Laboratories, Australia, for his expertise as a research engineer in radio and coaxial cable technologies and, in particular, for his pioneering work on optical fibre technologies. He was also valued for his wide-ranging intellect and gentle, satirical sense of humour. His fluency in speaking Japanese was appreciated by visiting Japanese researchers. In retirement from TRL, he worked at Optiscan Imaging in Melbourne on developing an optical endoscope.


ABSTRACT Dated subsurface cores, 40 m, 100 m, and 200 m in length, from the Salar de Atacama, Chile, record changes in climate and tectonics over the past 325 ka. These cores were used to assess completeness of the stratigraphic record and how that record was influenced by faulting and climate change. The same basic facies, efflorescent halite crust and cement (subaerial halite), and chevron halite (saline lake) occur in each core. The dominant facies is efflorescent halite formed in a subaerial environment like that in the Atacama basin today. Thick, well-preserved efflorescent crusts in the Salar de Atacama cores illustrate that major sediment aggradation occurred in subaerial environments by growth of efflorescent halite from evaporation of groundwater brines. Similar pedogenically formed evaporites may be pre served in the geologic record. The N-S trending Salar Fault System has downdropped the eastern block of the Salar de Atacama (core 2002) relative to the western block (cores 2005 and 2031). Relative faulting rates over the past 60 ka were determined from stratigraphic offset and uranium-series ages from core 2005. Major faulting along the Salar Fault System occurred between 16.5 and 5.4 ka, with offset of 26.5 m and faulting rates of 2.4 m/kyr. Aggradation of efflorescent halite crusts on the downdropped eastern block served to smooth out topographic variations created by faulting. Although stratigraphic units in core 2002 shifted down > 30 m over the past 60 ka, the thickness and sedimentary features are similar for all but one equivalent stratigraphic unit in all three cores. Faulting along the Salar Fault System, despite significant offset, did not alter the basic stratigraphic record. Temporal completeness of the stratigraphic record, within the limits of the age dates and their errors of greater than ± 3 ka, was examined qualitatively by comparing long-term sedimentation rates (0.6-0.9 m/kyr) and shorter-term sedimentation rates (0.3-3.6 m/kyr). The similarity of sedimentation rates on the 10 kyr scale and the longer 100 to 300 kyr scale suggests temporal completeness of Salar de Atacama sediments, at least at the 10 kyr scale. Although hiatuses, long periods of subaerial exposure, and dissolution of evaporites may have occurred, the main climate fluctuations at Salar de Atacama over the last 100 ka are recorded in all three subsurface cores. Paleoclimate records obtained from such cores are therefore representative of basin-wide climate change and are valid for regional paleoclimate reconstructions.


We develop a relational sense-making framework in order to understand the ways in which knowledge and information, when transferred across social networks, enable or inhibit the innovation process and its sustainability within social enterprises. Our model comprises four main elements: (i) Social capital, (ii) the Innovation, (iii) the Process, and (iv) Adoption and ongoing support (SIPA). Collective understanding through sense-making and sense-giving is fundamental to the successful management and sustainability of innovation projects. The social capital which emerges and develops may incorporate formal and/or informal group(s) linked by particular interests, common goals and/or shared agenda(s). Broadly speaking, the innovation may be directed towards either a problem or an opportunity for the collective. The 'black box' process through which different views and interests are presented, interpreted and collective sense-making occurs in the further development and uptake of innovation is by its nature: multifaceted, complex and non-linear. The temporal fragility of certain innovations necessitates ongoing support and acceptance in order to achieve longer-term sustainability. The iterative relations between these elements of social capital, innovation, process and adoption occur within a social, political and economic context in which sense-making and sense-giving of individuals and groups often compete. A key objective of our research is, therefore, to tease out the extent to which and the ways in which social relationships and networks, innovation intentions and technology development are influenced by social capital dynamics within organizations, social enterprises in particular.


This study examines the theoretical and practical justifications of local community participation as a stakeholder group in the nomination of a World Heritage Site in Jatiluwih Village, Bali, Indonesia. The study adds to current knowledge by contributing an in-depth understanding of local community participation in the nomination process of a World Heritage Sites. The background for this study is based on the increasingly important involvement of the community in the process of the identification of potential sites and the nomination of proposed sites since some designations and nominations of World Heritage Sites have sparked tensions and protests to the detriment of the sites concerned. These tensions and protests occurred because those sites were designated without free, prior and informed consent from the local communities who live in the designated/nominated area. There is, therefore, a need to investigate the ways in which the local community as a stakeholder participates in the nomination process of a World Heritage Site and how they also participate in the decision-making processin the local context. In order to meet the aim of this research, a qualitative case study methodology was deployed which prioritises interviews conducted with the local community in Jatiluwih Village. To further enhance this study, various data collection methods such as field observations and documentations (news clippings, photos, blog, and minutes of meetings) were conducted in addition to the interviews conducted. Forty-six semi-structured interviews were carried out with the local community as stakeholder in Jatiluwih Village between May to August 2012 and another twelve interviews were conducted from stakeholders such as private sectors, public sectors and NGOs. Both sets of interviews with the local community and other stakeholders (public/private sectors and NGO) were analysed by using content analysis. Three themes (participation; participation in World Heritage; and Jatiluwih and tourism; and nine sub themes (meetings; government initiated programmes; religious participation; awareness of World Heritage status the dissemination of information on the nomination process; hopes and concerns on the label; threat for the status in the future; about Jatiluwih; and local community's perception on tourism) were identified with the interviews conducted with the local community as a stakeholder group. From other stakeholders such as NGOs, private and public sectors, two themes (first dossier and second dossier) and eight sub themes (first dossier; inexperience; lobbying; roles of international expert; roles of NGO; roles of volunteers; roles of governing assembly; and the lack of enthusiasm of the government) were identified to represent the process of the nomination and the creation of the dossier. The majority of World Heritage research to date has taken place within a post-inscription context, which unavoidably limits the scope for understanding the whole process of World Heritage Site designation, especially with regard to how the site is designated and the role of local people who live in the proposed site. This study, therefore, contributes by investigating the local community participation as stakeholder during the nomination process of a World Heritage Site. By examining local community participation therefore it can identify their types of participation and barriers to participation in the process of nomination. Moreover, by exploring the local community participation and their views during this stage, it provides the opportunity to identify their potential roles after the site is being designated. The implications of this study relate to the need for a more proactive approach to the identification of the local community as a worthy participant in the nomination process that builds from an understanding of cultural, political and economic features. In addition, World Heritage practitioners and academics need to understand and identify the fundamental underlay of local community participation in the process of nomination. In the future, it is thus hoped that local communities will be engaged and empowered to participate in the process of nomination with them possessing heightened levels of awareness about the importance of their involvement in the identification and nomination of their sites as World Heritage.


In several key industries, including semiconductors, biotechnology, computer software, and the Internet, our patent system is creating a patent thicket: an overlapping set of patent rights requiring that those seeking to commercialize new technology obtain licenses from multiple patentees. The patent thicket is especially thorny when combined with the risk of holdup, namely the danger that new products will inadvertently infringe on patents issued after these products were designed. The need to navigate the patent thicket and holdup is especially pronounced in industries such as telecommunications and computing in which formal standard setting is a core part of bringing new technologies to market. Cross licenses and patent pools are two natural and effective methods used by market participants to cut through the patent thicket, but each involves some transaction costs. Antitrust law and enforcement, with its historical hostility to cooperation among horizontal rivals, can easily add to these transaction costs. Yet a few relatively simple principles, such as the desirability package licensing for complementary patents but not for substitute patents, can go a long way toward insuring that antitrust will help solve the problems caused by the patent thicket and by holdup rather than exacerbating them.


Mobile edge computing is an emerging technology to offer resource-intensive yet delay-sensitive applications from the edge of mobile networks, where a major challenge is to allocate limited edge resources to competing demands. While prior works often make a simplifying assumption that resources assigned to different users are non-sharable, this assumption does not hold for storage resources, where users interested in services (e.g., data analytics) based on the same set of data/code can share storage resource. Meanwhile, serving each user request also consumes non-sharable resources (e.g., CPU cycles, bandwidth). We study the optimal provisioning of edge services with non-trivial demands of both sharable (storage) and non-sharable (communication, computation) resources via joint service placement and request scheduling. In the homogeneous case, we show that while the problem is polynomial-time solvable without storage constraints, it is NP-hard even if each edge cloud has unlimited communication or computation resources. We further show that the hardness is caused by the service placement subproblem, while the request scheduling subproblem is polynomial-time solvable via maximum-flow algorithms. In the general case, both subproblems are NP-hard. We develop a constant-factor approximation algorithm for the homogeneous case and efficient heuristics for the general case. Our trace-driven simulations show that the proposed algorithms, especially the approximation algorithm, can achieve near-optimal performance, serving 2–3 times more requests than a baseline solution that optimizes service placement and request scheduling separately.


Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) support culturally and economically important fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska, though recent decreases in mean size-at-age have substantially reduced fishery yields, generating concerns among stakeholders and resource managers. Among the prevailing hypotheses for reduced size-at-age is intensified competition with Arrowtooth Flounder (Atheresthes stomias), a groundfish predator that exhibited nearly five-fold increases in biomass between the 1960s and mid-2010s. To assess the potential for competition between Pacific Halibut and Arrowtooth Flounder, we evaluated their degree of spatiotemporal and dietary overlap in the Gulf of Alaska using bottom trawl survey and food habits data provided by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA; 1990 to 2017). We restricted analyses to fish measuring 30 to 69 cm fork length and used a delta modeling approach to quantify species-specific presence-absence and catch-per-unit-effort as a function of survey year, tow location, depth, and bottom temperature. We then calculated an index of spatial overlap across a uniform grid by multiplying standardized predictions of species' abundance. Dietary overlap was calculated across the same uniform grid using Schoener's similarity index. Finally, we assessed the relationship between spatial and dietary overlap as a measure of resource partitioning. We found increases in spatial overlap, moving from east to west in the Gulf of Alaska (eastern: 0.13 ± 0.20; central: 0.21 ± 0.11; western: 0.31 ± 0.13 SD). Dietary overlap was low throughout the study area (0.13 ± 0.20 SD). There was no correlation between spatial and dietary overlap, suggesting an absence of resource partitioning along the niche dimensions examined. This finding provides little indication that competition with Arrowtooth Flounder was responsible for changes in Pacific Halibut alHHsize-at-age in the Gulf of Alaska; however, it does not rule out competitive interactions that may have affected resource use prior to standardized data collection or at different spatiotemporal scales.


This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book is intended primarily for practitioners who are facing the softwareisation of their business. It presents the Scaling Management Framework, a model based on collected experiences from companies that have already made the journey to give software a central role within the organization. The model is unique because it suggests a holistic method to analyze and plan your journey. It simply means that you cant just focus solely on your products or services. You also have to look closely at your processes and your organization, the way you make decisions and get things done. Inevitably, these will have to change. Software has changed the rules of the game. The world talks about the digitalization in industry and society how the focus has shifted from producing tangible things towards software and services. This trend started many years ago, but is now affecting every company, whether its a software company or not. There are many companies that have already made a digitalization journey and many are about to embark on this journey like you. How do you transform your organization when software is becoming a critical part of your business? This book comes with a map, a compass, and suggested journeys along with selected travel stories comprising best practices and lessons learned from past digitalization journeys. Use the map to find your way in the digitalization landscape, and use the compass to find the direction of your journey.


Ultra-high cycle fatigue (gigacycle) tests have shown that a true fatigue endurance limit does not exist for most metallic materials used in high cycle applications. These findings have significant implications for rotorcraft dynamic structural components that have traditionally been designed using endurance limit, stress-life methods. Unfortunately, the gigacycle fatigue test results generated to date cannot be easily applied to rotorcraft component design, because the interaction of different crack nucleating mechanisms under variable amplitude loading is not well understood, and must be studied using spectrum fatigue tests carried out to very long lives. To quantify the effect of spectrum load control errors on the rate of fatigue damage accumulation for a standard servo-hydraulic fatigue test machine, a damage ratio parameter for crack initiation is calculated using the high cycle fatigue portion of the Coffin-Manson strain-life curve with rainflow cycle counting. The fatigue damage parameter allows the level of controller error to be assessed as a function of test frequency, peak load levels, and test spectrum complexity. Also, different command feedback compensation schemes are tested to determine the range of control error that can be expected for a given set of test parameters. A sensitivity study was performed on the command signal response errors as a function of changes in the slope of the mean damage curve beyond 106 cycles. The test results demonstrate that rotorcraft spectrum fatigue tests can be performed at frequencies up to 150 Hz with a level of nominal damage accumulation error less that 1 % under most conditions. When electrical measurement system error is accounted for, the damage accumulation error is less than 2 % under most conditions. The results also show that it is important to consider the shape of the stress-life curves in the gigacycle fatigue range when performing spectrum tests out to long fatigue lives.


The etiology of bloodstream infections (BSIs) in febrile (> or =37.5 degrees C) adults (> or =18 years old) in one Malawi hospital were determined during August and September 1997. After clinical evaluation, blood was drawn for comprehensive culture, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 testing, and malaria smear. Of 233 patients, 173 (74%) were HIV-1 infected, and 70 (30%) had BSI. BSI pathogens included 25 (33%) Streptococcus pneumoniae and 21 (28%) Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Nine patients (4%) had malaria parasitemia. BSIs were more likely in HIV-1-positive than in -negative patients (62/173 vs. 8/60, P<.01). Clinical predictors of BSI included HIV-1 infection and altered mental status. Mortality among inpatients with BSI was higher than among those without BSI (P<.001). In conclusion, S. pneumoniae and M. tuberculosis are frequent causes of BSI in febrile adults. Similar surveys, performed periodically in developing countries, may assist in the identification of clinical predictors of BSI and in planning appropriate therapy.


The aim of this work was to study the factors that affect the quality and preservation of the
horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus, F. Carangidae), for the consumer and also in order to
extend its commercial life. The study was divided into three sections: the study of parasites;
the migration process and excapsulation of these parasites after the death of the fish; and
degradation of the fish through the study of quality indices.
Parasitic nematodes belonged to two different genera of F. Anisakidae: Anisakis and
Hysterothylacium. In the case of Hysterothylacium, there were always larvae of the species H.
aduncum: larva 3 (L3) L4 (last stage before the adult) and step 3 to 4 larvae (L3-L4). Regarding
Anisakis, we differentiated between type I and type II level (specific determination requires
molecular studies), always at larval stage 3 (L3). The presence of Anisakis was observed mainly
in medium-sized fish, while H. aduncum was detected more frequently in larger fish.
This differential distribution of parasites was related to a change in diet depending on the size
of fish. Crustaceans being the main prey of young ones and instead, fish, were the dominating
prey on the old ones. Mindful that anisakids nematodes can cause problems in allergic
consumers, it raised the need to know the location of these parasites in the host, not only in
fresh fish but also once time had passed.
Both the analysis of the distribution of the parasites and the excapsulation and migration
process were done with medium-sized individuals. All the parasites were Anisakis type I. In
fresh fish, parasites were observed mainly in the digestive tract. As the days passed, their
presence could be observed, especially, in the visceral cavity. Parasites were never observed
encapsulated in the muscles, but instead, there was penetration of parasites in the meat from
the third day on.

Finally, the "Quality Index Method" (QIM) showed no significant differences in the overall
analysis of all attributes and organoleptic quality of tissues, including the whole fish and the fish
without viscera (gutted). Nevertheless, aspect and colour analyses of the flesh showed
significant differences. Additionally there was a personal test of acceptability, which gave
significant differences between the samples of whole fish and without viscera (gutted)


In this study, in order to investigate the resilience of the area in the catchment of Lake Urmia, in contrast to the destruction of the density of the stream network, a performance function matrix was developed in the probabilistic First Order Reliability Method (FORM). The basis for calculations in the Python programming environment was the changes in the flow accumulation layer, as an important factor in the surface recharge of Lake Urmia. Preparation of flow accumulation layer, based on the digital elevation model of 30 meter's altitude of Aster Landsat satellite in the geographic information system environment, and the criterion for its changes, according to the different layers of the stream network density and with certain thresholds of sequential power, has been the natural flow path in the automatic extraction method. The performance function in the FORM method was prepared by estimating the standard deviation, mean and linear correlation between the two categories of current stream network density, with thresholds of 100, 300 and 1000, as well as 1000, 3000 and 10000, and by deducting two sets of coordinate points. The results showed that the failure probability in the catchment area, without taking into account the lake environment, varies between 28% and 72%. For the boundary strip, the lake's vulnerability display is the least resilient in the western, northwestern and southern parts. Vulnerability occurs with the destruction of the stream network in accordance with the FORM method in its maximum value with 86% in the western part of Lake Area.


Background: Holothuria scabra is one of the most commercially important species found in the Pacific region. The sea cucumber extracts have been widely reported to have beneficial health effects. The aim of this study was to determine the nutritional compositions of H. scabra , and compare its important nutritional contents with that of other species. Methods: The sea cucumbers were dissected, sliced into small pieces, and then freeze-dried. The nutritional compositions, including proximate composition, amino acids, fatty acids, collagen, GABA, Vitamin A, C, and E of the whole body and body wall of H. scabra , were analyzed. Results: H. scabra contained a high quantity of protein (22.50% in whole body and 55.18% in body wall) and very low lipids (1.55% in whole body and 1.02% in body wall). The three most abundant amino acids found in both the whole body and body wall were glycine, glutamic acid, and proline. The main fatty acids found in the whole body were stearic acid and nervonic acid, and in the body wall were arachidonic acid and stearic acid. The whole body and body wall also contained high levels of essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, and collagen, in addition to moderate amounts of vitamin E and low amounts of GABA and vitamin C. Conclusions: The sea cucumber, H. scabra , contained high quantity of protein and very low lipid. It contained high essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, nervonic and arachidonic acids, and collagen, which also contained GABA, vitamin C, and vitamin E. Keywords : sea cucumber; Holothuria scabra ; nutrition components; functional food


The Companies Bill (61 of 2008) tabled in Parliament in June this year comes as a relief to current and aspiring directors. The Bill's regulation of directors' duties of care and skill and the fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company can justly be described as a codification of the common law. It leaves the courts with sufficient flexibility and discretion to ensure fair results and achieves the aim stated in the Memorandum on the Objects of the Companies Bill, 2008 of clarifying directors' responsibilities and duties.


Two sets of phantoms have been used to calibrate a 109Cd γ-ray induced K-XRF bone-lead measurement system. Both sets of phantoms are made of plaster of Paris, but the calibration lines are significantly different. This results in a significant difference for the derived concentrations of bone lead for the same person using these two sets of phantoms. This study shows that the different calibration lines are due to the different compositions of the phantoms, which can then be accounted for by adjusting the parameters related to the phantom composition in spectral analysis. Bone-lead concentrations for ten lead-exposed smelter workers were computed before and after analysis modification, and the results show that the bone-lead concentrations for the same person calculated from two sets of phantoms are not significantly different, only after the modifications are incorporated. Through these investigations, it was discovered that a common practice of setting the ratio of the calcium edge amplitude to the coherent scatter amplitude as a constant is only valid when all spectra are acquired at the same system resolution. When there is a change in the resolution between spectra, it has been determined that the ratio of the calcium edge amplitude to the coherent area should instead be used as the constant factor in the analysis program.


Background Studies have highlighted that clinicians may not feel prepared to deal with end of life care patients as historically their training has been focussed on acute medical and trauma management. This has been shown to cause conflict with paramedic perceptions of their role. Although research exists that explores the attitudes and experiences of health and social care professionals who deal with palliative care patients on a routine basis, there is little evidence that explores the attitudes and perceptions of end of life care within the emergency pre-hospital setting. Aim of the study To gain an understanding of UK paramedics perceptions and attitudes towards dealing with End of Life Care patients and carers/relatives. Methods An online survey was distributed to all paramedics in the North West of England. The survey contained open and closed questions to enable collection of both qualitative and quantitative data to address the aims of the study. Demographic data including NHS band, personal experience and education & training was gathered in order to contextualise the data. Results NHS band and educational background are the main influences on the participants views of End of Life provision provided by paramedics. Length of service as a paramedic and experience appear to be factors that affect confidence when dealing with these incidents in practice. The majority of participants rated that communication about End of Life Care between services is poor. Most participants would like EOL training to be mandatory and would prefer face to face training to self-directed learning packages. Conclusions Communication between services is viewed as poor whilst staff backgrounds influences their views. Whilst the majority of paramedics feel that End of Life Care it is a key part of their role, there is a need for wider training to address differences in staff awareness, knowledge and confidence.


We propose and test an inverse ocean optics procedure with numerically simulated data for the determination of inherent optical properties using in-water radiance measurements. If data are available at only one depth within a deep homogeneous water layer, then the single-scattering albedo and the single parameter that characterizes the Henyey-Greenstein phase function can be estimated. If data are available at two depths, then these two parameters can be determined along with the optical thickness so that the absorption and scattering coefficients, and also the backscattering coefficient, can be estimated. With a knowledge of these parameters, the albedo and Lambertian fraction of reflected radiance of the bottom can be determined if measurements are made close to the bottom. A simplified method for determining the optical properties of the water also is developed for only three irradiance-type measurements if the radiance is approximately in the asymptotic regime.


In this experimental work, the adsorption of partially hydrophilic silica nanoparticles, SiO2 has been investigated to determine the degree of silica nanoparticle aggregation in the porous media. An integrated quantitative and qualitative method was used by flowing silica nanoparticles into Buff Berea cores and glass micromodel. Water wet Buff Berea cores were flooded with 5 pore volumes of 0.05% silica nanoparticles solution followed by 10 pore volumes of brine post flush subjected to 30 and 60°C. The pressure drops increased rapidly at the initial stage of silica nanoparticles injection indicated the adsorption had taken place. Pressure drops reached the maximum value of ~3.1 psi and between 26.6–82.6 psi at 30 and 60°C respectively. Pressure drops gradually declined and stabilized in between ~0.4 and ~0.7 psi after couple of pore volumes of brine post flush, suggesting complete reversible and irreversible adsorption. Micromodel test provide qualitative information where the straining or log-jamming observed in the form of gelled-like suspension when silica nanoparticles in contact with brine. The adsorption is considered reversible when the suspension decreased after post flooded with brine. Silica nanoparticles used in this experimental work shows minimal aggregation that can be beneficial as improved oil recovery agent.


We developed a scalable visual analytics framework for managing and analyzing hundreds of geographically distributed photovoltaic systems. These systems deliver performance parameters at different levels as well as environmental parameters. Our web-based framework gathers the data in a central server and allows comparisons of production values across time and photovoltaic systems, analysis of component failures and reporting errors. It is in daily use by a regional energy provider for over one year and its capabilities for fluent interaction and versatile configuration of visualizations from overviews to performance parameters of detailed components of individual systems are highly appreciated.


Alandeom W. Oliveira is the ETAP Chair and an associate professor of science education at the State University of New York at Albany. He earned a Master's degree in science education at Southeast Missouri State University (2002) and a PhD degree in science education at Indiana University Bloomington (2008). He has taught science education courses to teachers in Brazil and the US and has coordinated multiple professional development programs for schoolteachers, including Science Modeling for Inquiring Teachers Network, and Technology-Enhanced Multimodal Instruction in Science and Math for English Language Learners. His research interests include cooperative science learning, inquiry-based teaching, and classroom discourse and language use.


Meanings are assembled in various ways in a construction-based grammar, and this array can be represented as a continuum of idiomaticity, a gradient of lexical fixity. Constructional meanings are the meanings to be discovered at every point along the idiomaticity continuum. At the leftmost, or 'fixed', extreme of this continuum are frozen idioms, like the salt of the earth and in the know. The set of frozen idioms includes those with idiosyncratic syntactic properties, e.g., the fixed expression by and large (an exceptional pattern of coordination in which a preposition and adjective are conjoined). Other frozen idioms, like the unexceptionable modified noun red herring, feature syntax found elsewhere. At the rightmost, or 'open' end of this continuum are fully productive patterns, including the rule that licenses the string Kim blinked, known as the SubjectPredicate construction. Between these two poles are (a) lexically fixed idiomatic expressions, verb-headed and otherwise, with regular inflection, e.g., chew/chews/chewed the fat; (b) flexible expressions with invariant lexical fillers, including phrasal idioms like spill the beans and the Correlative Conditional, e.g., The more, the merrier; and (c) specialized syntactic patterns without lexical fillers, e.g., the Conjunctive Conditional (e.g., One more remark like that and you're out of here). Construction Grammar represents this range of expressions in a uniform way: whether phrasal or lexical, all are modeled as feature structures that specify phonological and morphological structure, meaning, use conditions and relevant syntactic information (including syntactic category and combinatoric potential).


In school districts across the nation, voters elect fellow citizens to their local school boards and charge them with the core tasks of district management: hiring administrators, writing budgets, negotiating teacher contracts, and determining standards and curriculum, among them. Whatever the task, the basic purpose of all school board activities is to facilitate the day-to-day functioning of schools. If board members do their jobs well, schools should do a better job of educating students. Not surprisingly, school board members agree that one of their most important goals is to help students learn. According to a 2002 national survey, student achievement ranks second only to financial concerns as school board members' highest priority. We wondered, though, do voters hold school board members accountable for the academic performance of the schools they oversee? Do they support sitting board members when published student test scores rise? Do they vote against members when schools and students struggle under their watch? Existing accountability policies assume that they do: states shine light on school performance by providing the public with achievement data. Voters and parents are expected to make use of these data in choosing school districts or schools, and to hold administrators and school board members accountable for the schools' performance at each election. The idea is that voters will replace incumbents with new members when performance is poor and support incumbents over challengers when performance is strong. Indeed, there are very few other ways in which district officials can be held accountable for school performance. Neither the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) nor the states impose direct sanctions on members of school boards that oversee large numbers of underperforming schools. Our questions led us to undertake the first large-scale study of how voters and candidates respond to student learning trends in school board elections. We analyzed test-score data and election results from 499 races over three election cycles in South Carolina to study whether voters punish and reward incumbent school board members on the basis of changes in student learning, as measured by standardized tests, in district schools. In addition, we assessed the impact of school performance on incumbents' decisions to seek reelection and potential challengers' decisions to join the race. We found that in the 2000 elections, South Carolina voters did appear to evaluate school board members on the basis of student learning. Yet in the 2002 and 2004 elections, published test scores did not influence incumbents' electoral fortunes. As we'll see, the possible reasons our results differed so dramatically from one time period to the next hold important implications for the design of school accountability policies. But let's first take a closer look at our methods and findings. South Carolina Once we set out to study local school board races, we encountered tall hurdles to obtaining election results. Only one state, South Carolina, centrally collects precinct-level election data for school board races. In all other states, obtaining precinct-level election results requires gathering and organizing election returns from hundreds of individual counties and election districts. So we took a close look at South Carolina. In most respects, South Carolina elections and school boards are similar to those across the rest of the country. All but 4 of the state's 46 counties hold nonpartisan school board elections. Approximately 80 percent of school board members receive some compensation, either a salary, per diem payments, or reimbursement for their expenses. Over 90 percent of South Carolina's 85 school boards have between 5 and 9 members, while the largest board has 11. And, as is common practice in other states, nearly 9 out of 10 South Carolina school districts hold board elections during the general election in November. …


We investigate transport through ionic liquid gated field effect transistors (FETs) based on exfoliated crystals of semiconducting WS2. Upon electron accumulation, at surface densities close to, or just larger than, 10(14) cm(-2), transport exhibits metallic behavior with the surface resistivity decreasing pronouncedly upon cooling. A detailed characterization as a function of temperature and magnetic field clearly shows the occurrence of a gate-induced superconducting transition below a critical temperature Tc ≈ 4 K, a finding that represents the first demonstration of superconductivity in tungsten-based semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. We investigate the nature of superconductivity and find significant inhomogeneity, originating from the local detaching of the frozen ionic liquid from the WS2 surface. Despite the inhomogeneity, we find that in all cases where a fully developed zero resistance state is observed, different properties of the devices exhibit a behavior characteristic of a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, as it could be expected in view of the two-dimensional nature of the electrostatically accumulated electron system.


Anderson's (1996) notion of an analytic audience offers a fruitful organizing concept for discourse analysis regarding health communication interventions. An analytic audience in this context might be conceived as an entity produced by health practitioners as they describe intervention development. In order to illustrate this idea, the present paper briefly explores examples of discourse on educational efforts related to AIDS. Analysis in this vein might suggest implications regarding the relationships between health organizations and the individuals they ostensibly serve through interventions that may not be obvious from other perspectives. In so far as such realizations are worthwhile, such analysis is not idle perusal of arcane documents but rather is vital work for public health researchers. Moreover, focusing on discourse concerning constructed audiences is one way to approach the current lack of reflexive inquiry among public health researchers.


Are certain ethnic cleavages more conflict-prone than others? While only few scholars focus on the contents of ethnicity, most of those who do argue that political violence is more likely to occur along religious divisions than linguistic ones. We challenge this claim by analyzing the path from linguistic differences to ethnic civil war along three theoretical steps: (1) the perception of grievances by group members, (2) rebel mobilization, and (3) government accommodation of rebel demands. Our argument is tested with a new data set of ethnic cleavages that records multiple linguistic and religious segments for ethnic groups from 1946 to 2009. Adopting a relational perspective, we assess ethnic differences between potential challengers and the politically dominant group in each country. Our findings indicate that intrastate conflict is more likely within linguistic dyads than among religious ones. Moreover, we find no support for the thesis that Muslim groups are particularly conflict-prone.


We have identified the neurons that pioneer the major CNS axon tracts in the Drosophila embryo and determined their trajectory and fasciculation choices using serial section electron microscopy. Although Drosophila pioneer neurons make choices similar to those of their grasshopper homologs, there are interesting differences that reflect the much smaller nervous system size and the much faster rate of development characteristic of Drosophila. For example, where 2 longitudinal tracts are pioneered independently in grasshopper, only one is formed in Drosophila. This change is due to a change in fasciculation affinity of the pCC growth cone. Additionally, the intersegmental (IS) nerve is pioneered by a different neuron in Drosophila (aCC) than in the grasshopper (U1) because the smaller Drosophila CNS places the IS nerve within filopodial reach of the aCC soma, while in the grasshopper it is not. Drosophila growth cones explore a much more confined neuropil volume than do grasshopper growth cones but can also sample a larger fraction of the CNS as well. For this reason, some cell-cell recognition events critical to pathfinding in the grasshopper embryo may not be as essential in Drosophila. Nevertheless, many specific cellular affinities have been retained through the evolutionary divergence of these 2 species.


The notion of self has become crucial for contemporary cultural studies in its examination identities. Identities are often conceptualized as an engagement of the individual's self -their condition of being a person- with broader cultural constructs. However, in addition to being culturally situated, the constitution of selves may be conceived of through indentity-construction phenomena whereby individuals ?subjectivities take up, or resist, the subject positions made available in discursive practices. Selves -the notion of Who and I?- may only be undestood as resulting from power-bases discourses and cultural practises.
In this respect, the idea of the self could be best made sense of in the broader context of the circuits of culture where identities are conformed together with other key cultural processes including representation and cultural production, consumption and regulation.


Due to the increasing abstraction gap between the initial system model and a final implementation, the verification of the respective models against each other is a formidable task. This paper addresses the verification problem by proposing a stepwise application of combined refinement and verification activities in the context of synchronous model of computation. An implementation model is developed from the system model by applying predefined design transformations which are as follows: 1) semantic preserving or 2) nonsemantic preserving. Nonsemantic-preserving transformations introduce lower level implementation details, which are necessary to yield an efficient implementation. Our approach divides the verification tasks into two activities: 1) the local correctness of a refined block is checked by using formal verification tools and predefined properties, which are developed for each nonsemantic-preserving transformation, and 2) the global influence of the refinement to the entire system is studied through static analysis. We illustrate the design refinement and verification approach with three transformations: 1) a communication refinement mapping a synchronous channel to an asynchronous one including a handshake mechanism; 2) a computation refinement, which introduces resource sharing in a combinational computation block; and 3) a synchronization demanding refinement, where an algorithm analyzes the influence of a local refinement to the temporal properties of the entire system and restores the system's correct temporal behavior if necessary.


The many health attributes of functional beverages have resulted in the rapid growing of their market sale. Waterbased beverages fortified with minerals have made a new connection between the medical and food sciences. Functional beverages include a wide variety of products in the market. They are mainly fortified to be a substitution for what is lost in current diets. However, consumers never scarify tastes for health means, and their expectations of beverage functions depend on cultural differences across the world. In the current study, water-based beverage fortifications have been reviewed and substantiated with scientific data collected from published papers to show the value of adding fortified water with a range of functional ingredients including minerals from the individual and public points of view. Addition of various minerals has also been demonstrated to help establish a beverage market, which can satisfy consumers in any country.


The main motivation for this work was to explain and solve the old mystery connected with the detailed instrumental observation of the Benešov superbolide on 7 May 1991 over the central part of the Czech Republic. Detailed analyses of this undoubted meteorite fall were published in several papers, and this is one of the best documented bolides (at least of the superbolide category) ever observed. However, despite high-quality data, favorable trajectory, relatively large terminal mass, and especially great efforts and many attempts, no meteorite was found in the weeks and years after the fall. Here we solve and explain this old mystery. In spring 2011, just before the twentieth anniversary of this extraordinary case, we remeasured all available all-sky records and reanalyzed the data. We used slightly different methods and new approaches, which we gradually developed to analyze several recent instrumentally observed meteorite falls (Morávka, Neuschwanstein, Jesenice, Bunburra Rockhole, Mason Gully, and Košice). We assembled a new consistent picture of the Benešov event, which resulted in a slightly revised impact location and suggested a new strategy that might lead to a recovery of Benešov meteorites after 20 years. The reality completely confirmed all our assumptions and surpassed our expectations. We found four small highly weathered fragments irregular in form and completely without fusion crust with a total mass of 11.63 g (1.54 g (H5), 7.72 g (with achondritic clast), 1.99 g, 0.38 g (all LL3.5)). They were recovered exactly in the predicted impact area for corresponding masses, namely within 40 m from the highest probability line. Although all fragments are very small and their weathering grade is high (W3 for all pieces), their interior was preserved enough for reliable analysis (except for the smallest one). The meteorite is classified as a polymict breccia containing three recognized lithologies with different texture, chemical, and mineralogical composition. This result is pioneering in many aspects. We proved that in some special cases it is still possible to predict and find meteorites a long time after the fall. The most important result, however, is the heterogeneity of the recovered meteorites. This case clearly shows that larger meteoroids can be compositionally very complicated bodies. We discovered that the Benešov meteoroid consisted of at least three different types of material – LL3.5, H5, and primitive achondrite. This case also implies that it is very useful to study as many fragments as possible from one fall because there can be significant differences among them.


The speciation and fate of neptunium as Np(V)O2(+) during the crystallization of ferrihydrite to hematite and goethite was explored in a range of systems. Adsorption of NpO2(+) to iron(III) (oxyhydr)oxide phases was reversible and, for ferrihydrite, occurred through the formation of mononuclear bidentate surface complexes. By contrast, chemical extractions and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) analyses showed the incorporation of Np(V) into the structure of hematite during its crystallization from ferrihydrite (pH 10.5). This occurred through direct replacement of octahedrally coordinated Fe(III) by Np(V) in neptunate-like coordination. Subsequent analyses on mixed goethite and hematite crystallization products (pH 9.5 and 11) showed that Np(V) was incorporated during crystallization. Conversely, there was limited evidence for Np(V) incorporation during goethite crystallization at the extreme pH of 13.3. This is likely due to the formation of a Np(V) hydroxide precipitate preventing incorporation into the goethite particles. Overall these data highlight the complex behavior of Np(V) during the crystallization of iron(III) (oxyhydr)oxides, and demonstrate clear evidence for neptunium incorporation into environmentally important mineral phases. This extends our knowledge of the range of geochemical conditions under which there is potential for long-term immobilization of radiotoxic Np in natural and engineered environments.