Introduction: In this item a 'tertiary' review of systematic reviews in literacy learning
is presented. It explores the methodological quality of the identified systematic reviews
and identifies the primary data that are used for the in-depth methodological work in
Item 3 on the two main threats to the validity of systematic reviews: publication bias
and design bias.
Background: Recent governments in the UK have introduced a number of initiatives
aimed at improving the literacy levels of children. It is important, therefore, that policy
and practice are informed by the most rigorous available evidence, particularly for
questions of effectiveness in literacy learning. It is also important that this evidence is
subjected to rigorous critical scrutiny.
Methods: Systematic reviews undertaken in the field of literacy learning in English in
the years between 1983 and 2003 were searched for, located and quality assessed. The
scope of the review was limited to systematic reviews of experimental research
evaluating literacy interventions with quantifiable literacy outcome measures in English
as a first (not second or additional) language and focusing on children and young people
in school settings up to the age of 18.
Results: A total of 14 systematic reviews containing meta-analyses and meeting all the
inclusion criteria were included in the tertiary review. The following data were
extracted from the reviews: literacy interventions, outcomes evaluated and effect sizes.
The quality of the reviews was examined using an adaptation of the QUORUM
statement. Overall the quality of the meta-analyses included in this tertiary review was
good. When examining the effect sizes of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and
controlled trials (CTs) separately there was no clear pattern as to whether the RCTs
produced a larger or smaller effect size than the CTs.
Discussion: Overall the quality of the meta-analyses included in this tertiary review was
good. The QUORUM checklist seemed to perform well for the appraisal of educational
meta-analyses. All the reviews clearly stated their research question, and their methods
of searching for and selecting included studies. Most studies described their data
extraction and used some form of quality assessment of included studies. On the other
hand, some reviews did have notable methodological weaknesses. Six of the 14 studies
did not make an assessment of publication bias, which is potentially a major threat to
the validity of any systematic review. In addition, six studies did not provide evidence
for reviewer agreement when synthesising the data. There is, therefore, some room for
improvement in the methodological quality of systematic reviews in literacy learning.
Conclusions: A number of reviews in this tertiary review are judged to be of
sufficiently high quality to provide reliable evidence for the effectiveness of literacy
interventions.


In previous work, we argued that the First Amendment limits the power of government to regulate lies that, paradoxically, promote the democracy and truth-finding functions of free speech. See Alan K. Chen & Justin Marceau, High Value Lies, Ugly Truths, and the First Amendment, 68 VAND. L. REV. 1435 (2015). In doing so, we claimed that the Supreme Court had previously protected lies solely to avoid chilling truthful speech, and not because they might have intrinsic value in our constitutional democracy. In that work, we did not fully address a related question – under what circumstances are lies subject to valid government regulation because they cause material harm or yield material gains to the speaker. What harms and benefits count to disqualify a lie from first Amendment coverage? Contemporary controversies about the role of falsehoods in our democracy, ranging from investigative deceptions to facilitate undercover investigations by activists on both the left and the right, to a Presidential campaign filled with claims that both major party candidates were liars, to an apparent epidemic of fake news stories on social media, suggest that there exists some urgency to further define the contours of the First Amendment's protection of lies.
The Supreme Court's fractured decision in United States v. Alvarez offers some clues, but does not elaborate sufficiently to explain the boundaries of constitutional protection for lies. For instance, Justice Kennedy's plurality opinion distinguished laws that regulate lies because those falsehoods cause some form of "legally cognizable harm" from laws that regulate lies without reference to such harms. In addition, Justice Kennedy notes that one of the flaws of the Stolen Valor Act was that it did not limit criminal liability to those who lied about military honors to gain a "material advantage." Similarly, in his concurring opinion, Justice Breyer observed that the saving feature of most statutory and common law provisions prohibiting lies was that they typically require "proof of injury." But these limiting principles are stated at too great a level of generality to be useful. All lies cause some harm to the listener or produce some benefit to the speaker. The harm or benefit might often be largely abstract, symbolic, or psychological, but there is still a harm or a benefit. Indeed, all of the Court's opinions in Alvarez acknowledge there is some harm associated with lies told about earning military honors, including a general dilution of the prestige associated with such honors, and there was some benefit to Alvarez in telling the lie to his local, political constituents. Yet six of the current eight Justices agreed that the lie in question fell within the protections of the First Amendment.
In this article, we explore what the Alvarez Court did not. We set out some general parameters to guide courts in determining whether the harms or gains resulting from a particular lie are sufficiently material to justify excluding the lie from First Amendment coverage. Some cases are easy even under existing doctrine, before and after Alvarez. Perpetrating a fraud to persuade a person to give away money unequivocally causes both harm to the victim and material gain to the speaker, both of which provide a sufficient state interest to allow punishment of the lie. But do other types of more intangible benefits to the liar count as material gains under Alvarez? A lie might bring a feeling of satisfaction from having fooled another. What if lying makes one feel better about her place in the world? What if it enhances one's political agenda, providing benefits to one's psyche and self-esteem? May the state proscribe a lie that leads to information used in an award-winning piece of investigative journalism because it yielded a material gain to both author and publication? What about a lie that generates favorable publicity, which then leads to more donations to an advocacy group with which the liar is affiliated? And in the context of political campaigns, what about a lie designed to get a voter to favor a particular candidate or ballot measure? For that matter, should lies on political topics receive more or less protection because of the context? Does the motive for the lie matter? Is a lie designed to produce truth within the ambit of free speech doctrine even if it causes harm or produces benefits to the liar?
Ultimately, we argue that many lies will be protected even though they will produce some benefit to the speaker and some harm to the listener. Lies that are consistent with the values and goals of free speech will receive the most protection. Some benefit-producing and harm-causing lies that are largely worthless, as with the lie in Alvarez, will also be protected. There may need to be a middle category of lies that receive some protection, but may be regulated as long as the state meets some form of intermediate scrutiny. And those lies that cause tangible harm or produce material benefits in contexts that are divorced from the underlying purposes of free speech theory will not be protected, and indeed not covered by the First Amendment at all.


While most of the work in the IETF is technical, the IETF should and
does regularly examine itself, including its processes and goals, to
determine if the technical community is truly serving the larger
network engineering community effectively. Changes in this area tend
to be incremental, as is fitting for an organization with decades of
experience and history in developing and managing the process of
building technical specifications. The rapid and ongoing changes in
the world have recently caused a number of IETF participants to
examine the current processes and operation of the IETF, particularly
in the context of the culture of the IETF. This memo discusses some
cultural and global trends in relation to the IETF's operating
environment, how these trends might affect the operation of the IETF,
and notes some topics for further exploration. Writing this memo has
been inspired by involvement in various decisions that the IETF
leadership has to take part in, often wishing to be able to draw more
on understanding trends and their impact on the IETF. This memo is
also input for discussion that the IETF community should have. The
memo has no particular official standing, nor does it claim to
represent more than the authors' thinking at the time of writing.
There is no intent on the part of the authors for this to be published
as a RFC. Please direct discussion about this topic to the
firstname.lastname@example.com mailing list.


The world has changed irrevocably in the last century. Fifty years ago, it looked completely different; and the way the world looked to the great thinkers of the time still holds surprises. J. Robert Oppenheimer helped to invent the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, which ultimately changed international politics forever. Northrop Frye took a new and challenging look at Canada in the changing international world. And Edward Togo Salmon understood the rise and fall of empire like nobody else. Who else to remind us of the complicated world in the cold-war period, and to look forward to the challenges of the future? We are that future, and looking back to their thinking is very worthwhile. Drawn from a high-profile series of lectures given at McMaster University from 1956 to the present, these three lectures were chosen for their fascinating reflections on the human world, past, present, and future. Take a whirlwind tour of the Roman Empire, find out about physics from Isaac Newton to the splitting of the atom, and consider Canada's position as it stood poised to enter a new modern century. An engaging introduction by Professor Jonathan Hart gives all that background you need to enjoy these explorations of science, culture, and empire in a rapidly changing world as it looked some fifty years ago to three brilliant thinkers.


Climate change is expected to have a strong effect on the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) region, which includes 40% of the Arctic shelves and comprises the Laptev and East Siberian seas. The largest organic carbon pool, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC), may change significantly due to changes in both riverine inputs and transformation rates; however, the present DOC inventories and transformation patterns are poorly understood. Using samples from the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, this study examines for the first time DOC removal in Arctic shelf waters with residence times that range from months to years. Removals of up to 10%–20% were found in the Lena River estuary, consistent with earlier studies in this area, where surface waters were shown to have a residence time of approximately 2 months. In contrast, the DOC concentrations showed a strong nonconservative pattern in areas with freshwater residence times of several years. The average losses of DOC were estimated to be 30%–50% during mixing along the shelf, corresponding to a first‐order removal rate constant of 0.3 yr−1. These data provide the first observational evidence for losses of DOC in the Arctic shelf seas, and the calculated DOC deficit reflects DOC losses that are higher than recent model estimates for the region. Overall, a large proportion of riverine DOC is removed from the surface waters across the Arctic shelves. Such significant losses must be included in models of the carbon cycle for the Arctic Ocean, especially since the breakdown of terrestrial DOC to CO2 in Arctic shelf seas may constitute a positive feedback mechanism for Arctic climate warming. These data also provide a baseline for considering the effects of future changes in carbon fluxes, as the vast northern carbon‐rich permafrost areas draining into the Arctic are affected by global warming.


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The archaeological evidence for the Neolithic of the Levant, considered to have lasted from c. 8500 to 3750 B.C., is presented and an attempt made to explain its origins and development. The discussion is concerned with four principal themes: (1) the transition from a hunter-gatherer to a farming economy, (2) the social evolution that accompanied this economic development, (3) population growth immediately before and during the Neolithic and (4) the modifications in settlement patterns which followed these other changes. The environmental changes which occurred at the end of the Pleistocene and early in the Holocene are believed to be of fundamental importance. The degree of their influence on the four main themes is examined. The effects of man's own changing activities upon his environment are also considered. The Neolithic of the Levant is divided into four stages, designated Neolithic 1 to 4, on the evidence of changes in economy, population, settlement patterns and cultural remains. Regional groups of sites, defined by their cultural material, may be discerned and their evolution followed from one stage to the next. The detailed archaeological evidence is examined principally for the light it throws upon the development of the four main themes of the thesis and the contemporary changes in environment. It is argued that the amelioration of the environment in the late Pleistocene created a greater supply of wild foods for man which stimulated population growth. This was accompanied by increased sedentism and the development of agricultural techniques. In Neolithic 2 agriculture was intensified and the population grew further. After 6000 B.C. the population of the Levant lived in permanent settlements supported by agriculture but these were concentrated only in the more fertile and well-watered areas of the Levant. This new way of life permitted another increase in population in Neolithic 4 despite a deterioration in the environment.


U-Pb ages of detrital zircons from metasedimentary rocks of the Sawtooth metamorphic complex (SMC) are key for identifying the stratigraphic age of metamorphosed strata within the Idaho batholith region of the Cordilleran orogen. The SMC is an exposure of medium- to high-grade metasedimentary rocks surrounded by the Idaho and Sawtooth batholiths. U-Pb ages of detrital zircons from SMC quartzites and quartzofeldspathic gneisses yield two distinctive age spectra consisting of primary 2900–2510 Ma and 1990–1760 Ma zircons for one group and 1870–1670 Ma, 1490–1330 Ma, and 1220–1020 Ma zircons for the other group. The suite of samples also yields a small number of zircons with concordant Cambrian and Neoproterozoic ages. Statistical and visual comparisons of age spectra with detrital-zircon data from Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata deposited on the western passive margin of Laurentia suggest that the SMC rocks were deposited in the Cambrian and Middle Ordovician. The identification of lower Paleozoic shelf strata in the SMC, along with similar sections recently identified in the Stibnite and Gospel Peaks inliers of the Idaho batholith, suggest that the Cordilleran passive margin sequence was continuous along the western margin of Laurentia, including the area occupied by the Idaho batholith.


The diversity and abundance of bacteria and diazotrophs in the euphotic and aphotic layers of the 29 South China Sea (SCS) basin were investigated based on high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA and 30 nifH genes. Bacterial communities in the aphotic layers significantly differed from those at the euphotic 31 layers, and were characterized by geographical specificities. Prochlorococcus and Alphaproteobacteria were 32 abundant in the surface layer, whereas Gammaproteobacteria was more common in the aphotic layers. 33 Moraxellaceae was the most abundant group in the aphotic layer in the northern basin of the SCS (nSCS), 34 while SAR324, SAR202 and SAR406 occurred mainly in the southern basin of the SCS (sSCS). Diazotrophic 35 Alphaproteobacteria was the predominant group in the SCS basin, whereas Marine Group II Euryarchaeota 36 emerged in the euphotic bottom of both nSCS and sSCS. Abundances of genes encoding amino acid 37 transporters and ammonium assimilating enzymes were relatively high in the SCS surface and the entire 38 water column of the sSCS, while expression levels of urea and ammonium transporter-encoding genes were 39 the highest at the surface of the SEATS site. Iron deficiency-induced gene IdiA and urease were highly 40 expressed at the A2 site. Our results indicated that bacterial communities in the SCS were depth-stratified 41 and exhibited geographic divergency in the aphotic layers between nSCS and sSCS. Amino acids and 42 ammonium were the major nitrogen sources for bacteria while urea, ammonia and nitrite played important 43 roles in regulating cell growth of Prochlorococcus in different regions of the SCS. 44


Effects of Various Mobility Aids on Lower-Extremity Muscle Activity Michael Ryan Sanders Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Millions of people each year spend some portion of their time using mobility aids to facilitate periods of non-weight bearing ambulation. The use of these devices changes the loading conditions of the lower extremities, which may result in skeletal muscle adaptations. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effects of 3 types of mobility aids on lowerextremity muscle activity. Evaluation was based on 1) measured muscle activation signals using electromyography (EMG), and 2) measured joint kinematics and ground reaction forces, which were used to predict muscle forces. 16 healthy subjects (7 female, 9 male), ages 18-27 participated in the study. Subjects were instructed to ambulate using each of three mobility aids (crutches, a knee scooter and a temporary-injury prosthesis) as well as normal walking. EMG and motion capture were used to obtain bilateral data from the lower half of the body during ambulation on each of these mobility aids and walking (10 trials on each per subject). Muscles studied were right and left vastus lateralis (VLR, VLL), rectus femoris (RFR, RFL), Biceps femoris long head (BFR, BFL), and gastrocnemius medialis (GMR, GML). Joint kinematics and ground reaction force data (joint kinetics) were acquired using a standard camera-based motion capture system. The measured joint kinetics were used as inputs to the open source musculoskeletal biomechanics software OpenSim (SimTK, Stanford, CA), which allowed prediction of muscle force data for a representative subject during each mode of ambulation. As compared to walking, the following differences in EMG activation were significant. For the knee scooter, increases in VLR, RFR, BFL and decreases in GMR. For the TI prosthesis, increases in VLR, RFR, BFR, VLL, RFL, GML and decreases in GMR. For crutches, increases in BFR, VLL, RFL, BFL, GML and decreases in VLR, GMR. Muscle force results were similar, but demonstrated inadequacy of current musculoskeletal simulation software to resolve muscle forces during non-weight bearing portions of gait based solely on kinetic data. Results for walking data were similar to what is reported in the literature for normal gait. This study provides useful bilateral data that describe measured lower-extremity EMG activation amplitudes and muscle force predictions based on kinetic data during ambulation using three different ambulatory aids, compared to normal walking. Based on a criteria of maintaining muscle activation, the TI prosthesis proved most effective among the devices tested. The data presented will be valuable to clinicians in providing insight into which mobility aid may be best suited for a particular patient. It is anticipated that these data will provide designers of mobility aids with a protocol for evaluation of designs based on their potential to cause or prevent muscle adaptations.


Black holes are extreme spacetime deformations where even light is imprisoned. There is an extensive astrophysical evidence for the real and abundant existence of these prisons of matter and light in the Universe. Mathematically, black holes are described by solutions of the field equations of the theory of general relativity, the first of which was published in 1916 by Karl Schwarzschild. Another highly relevant solution, representing a rotating black hole, was found by Roy Kerr in 1963. It was only much after the publication of the Schwarzschild solution, however, that the term black hole was employed to describe these objects. Who invented it? Conventional wisdom attributes the origin of the term to the prominent North American physicist John Wheeler who first adopted it in a general audience article published in 1968. This, however, is just one side of a story that begins two hundred years before in an Indian prison colloquially known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. Robert Dicke, also a distinguished physicist and colleague of Wheeler at Princeton University, aware of the prison's tragedy began, around 1960, to compare gravitationally completely collapsed stars to the black hole of Calcutta. The whole account thus suggests reconsidering who indeed coined the name black hole and commends acknowledging its definitive birth to a partnership between Wheeler and Dicke.


Recent studies on neurolinguistics have demonstrated that the process of native language learning of infants involves the perception and interaction of the language learning environment with the brain's innate neurocognitive mechanism. Compared with a foreign or a second language learning in adulthood, native language learning of infants sees advantages and more active expression of brain nerves in terms of perceiving linguistic features, brain learning plasticity, and brain computational characterization. This paper, based on a detailed analysis of the studies on brain neurocognition related mechanisms in the infants' native language learning both at home and abroad, compared in depth the specific differences in the foreign language learning in adulthood between the native language learning in infancy, and proposed learning methods and applied teaching environment in line with the foreign language learning cognitive and perceptual rules and the brain neural mechanism of infants' native language learning, so as to provide scientific and reasonable theoretical support for solutions to the difficulties and challenges in the foreign language teaching, especially English teaching.


Extracted from text ... THE QUALITY EDGE June 2005 33
quality assurance
ISO 9001: what are the extras
needed to make it work?
Many organisations have developed and implemented
a standardised Quality Management System (QMS)
to suit the requirements of the ISO 9001 (2000) Quality
Standard. Yet some of these organisations fail to observe
that a parallel informal system based on previous practices
often remains in place.
At the same time there is often an additional short
term improvement campaign introduced by management
to the organisation to improve profit or productivity and is
usually given a slogan or theme. This often leads to ..


We consider non-trivial homomorphisms to reflexive oriented graphs in which some pair of adjacent vertices have the same image. Using a notion of convexity for oriented graphs, we study those oriented graphs that do not admit such homomorphisms. We fully classify those oriented graphs with tree-width $2$ that do not admit such homomorphisms and show that it is NP-complete to decide if a graph admits an orientation that does not admit such homomorphisms. We prove analogous results for $2$-edge-coloured graphs. We apply our results on oriented graphs to provide a new tool in the study of chromatic number of orientations of planar graphs -- a long-standing open problem.


OBJECTIVE
Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality appear to be enhanced in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which might be due to an increased prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as dyslipidemia. It was recently shown that effective disease modifying antirheumatic drug treatment had a favorable influence on the lipid profile in patients with active RA. As infliximab markedly reduces disease activity in RA, we investigated the effects of infliximab on the lipid profile.

METHODS
Infliximab was administered at baseline and at 2 and 6 weeks in patients with active RA. Total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol concentrations were measured and their ratio, the atherogenic index (an important cardiovascular risk factor indicator), was assessed.

RESULTS
Sixty-nine patients were enrolled. The Disease Activity Index score (DAS-28) was 5.9 (SD +/- 1.4) at baseline and decreased to 4.6 (+/- 1.4) after 2 weeks and further to 4.1 (+/- 1.5) after 6 weeks. Total cholesterol level was 5.2 mmol/l at baseline and increased to 5.7 mmol/l (p < 0.001) at 2 weeks, and was 5.6 mmol/l (p < 0.001 vs baseline) at Week 6. For HDL-cholesterol these values were 1.5, 1.6 (p < 0.001), and 1.6 mmol/l (p < 0.001 vs baseline), respectively. Changes in disease activity were significantly inversely associated with changes in total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol levels. The atherogenic index, however, remained constant. Corticosteroid use at baseline was associated with significantly higher total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol levels and a lower (more favorable) atherogenic index at baseline.

CONCLUSION
Infliximab treatment was associated with a significant increase of both total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol levels, which correlated with decreasing disease activity. However, this was not accompanied by a favorable effect on the atherogenic index. The favorable effect of infliximab on cardiovascular comorbidity might not be mediated by effects on lipid metabolism, but longterm investigations are needed to confirm this.


Countercurrent gas-liquid interactions in the lower zone of a blast furnace play an important role in achieving stable operations with high productivity and efficiency. Previous gas-liquid flow models for the blast furnace did not adequately consider both the discrete nature of liquid flow and the strong, localised gas-liquid interactions occurring in the cohesive zone, which have been elucidated experimentally. The present work details a two-dimensional numerical model and a cold two-dimensional physical model, used to study gas-liquid flow in the blast furnace cohesive zone. The numerical model utilises a force balance approach to describe the discrete liquid flow and a stochastic treatment to take into account the complex packing structure. The validity of this model was demonstrated by the good agreement between model predictions and experimental observations. The model can be applied to simulate gas-liquid two-phase flow in a layered packing with multiple liquid sources, similar to the blast furnace lower zone condition.


Between 2010 and 2014, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) contracted with RTI International to administer the State Health Policy Consortium (SHPC). The project objective was to provide states with resources needed to develop solutions to challenges preventing or impeding health information exchange (HIE) across state lines. The methods used to establish, fund, support, and manage consortiums, which we refer to as an "agile policy analysis methodology," resulted in a number of successful HIE pilot and demonstration projects. The structured yet flexible framework developed by RTI helped to identify and implement high-value projects through a grassroots approach. Challenges and opportunities within the HIE environment evolve rapidly. As solutions are implemented and HIE expands, new opportunities and tipping points emerge. The flexible SHPC model allowed ONC to take advantage of these opportunities as they emerged to make rapid progress. This report describes the agile policy analysis methodology the SHPC developed and used to support collaboration between states regarding HIE, enumerates the benefits of this methodology and the conditions under which it succeeds, and discusses how it can be employed in the future to further support both HIE and other challenges requiring multistate collaboration


Objectives Increased physical activity predicts survival and reduces risk of readmission in patients with coronary heart disease. However, few data show how physical activity is associated with survival and readmission after heart valve surgery. Objective were to assess the association between physical activity levels 6–12 months after heart valve surgery and (1) survival, (2) hospital readmission 18–24 months after surgery and (3) participation in exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation. Methods Prospective cohort study with registry data from The CopenHeart survey, The Danish National Patient Register and The Danish Civil Registration System of 742 eligible patients. Physical activity was quantified with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and analysed using Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox regression and logistic regression methods. Results Patients with a moderate to high physical activity level had a reduced risk of mortality (3 deaths in 289 patients, 1%) compared with those with a low physical activity level (13 deaths in 235 patients, 5.5%) with a fully adjusted HR of 0.19 (95% CI 0.05 to 0.70). In contrast, physical activity level was not associated with the risk of hospital readmission. Patients who participated in exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (n=297) were more likely than the non-participants (n=200) to have a moderate or high physical activity level than a low physical activity level (fully adjusted OR: 1.52, 95% CI 1.03 to 2.24). Conclusions Moderate to high levels of physical activity after heart valve surgery are positively associated with higher survival rates and participation in cardiac rehabilitation.


1.Ecological intensification involves the incorporation of biodiversity based ecosystem service management into farming systems in order to make crop production more sustainable and reduce reliance on anthropogenic inputs, including fertiliser and insecticides.

2.The benefits of effectively managing ecosystem services such as pollination and pest regulation for improved yields have been demonstrated in a number of studies, however recent evidence indicates that these benefits interact with conventional agronomic inputs such as fertiliser and irrigation. Despite the important contribution of biodiversity‐based ecosystem services to crop production their management is rarely considered in combination with more conventional agronomic inputs.

3.This study combines a number of complementary approaches to evaluate the impact of insect pollination on yield parameters of Brassica napus and how this interacts with a key agronomic input, fertiliser. We incorporate data from a flight cage trial and multiple field studies to quantify the relationships between yield parameters to determine whether insufficient insect pollination may limit crop yield.

4.We demonstrate that, by producing larger seeds and more pods, B. napus has the capacity to modulate investment across yield parameters and buffer sub‐optimal inputs of fertiliser or pollination. However, only when fertiliser is not limiting can the crop benefit from insect pollination, with yield increases due to insect pollination only seen under high fertiliser application.

5.A non‐linear relationship between seed set per pod and yield per plant was found, with increases in seed set between 15 and 25 seeds per pod resulting in a consistent increase in crop yield. The capacity for the crop to compensate for lower seed set due to sub‐optimal pollination is therefore limited.

6.Synthesis and applications. Oilseed rape has the capacity to compensate for sub‐optimal agronomic or ecosystem service inputs although this has limitations. Insect pollination can increase seed set and so there are production benefits to be gained through effective management of wild pollinators or by utilising managed species. Our study demonstrates however that increased insect pollination cannot simply replace other inputs, and if resources such as fertiliser are limiting, then yield potential cannot be reached. We highlight the need to consider insect pollination as an agronomic input to be effectively managed in agricultural systems.


RATIONALE: During the last decade assessment of clinicalskills in student nurses preparing for state registration has undergone a number of developments. According to contemporary literature, written examinations, which represent one feature of assessment for state registration, often bear little relationship to the level of nursing skills demonstrated by a student in the clinical setting. Having observed contemporary methods of clinical assessment, the researcher here explores the theoretical and practical considerations underlying these methods; their reliability and validity; and the related question of what could constitute useful and appropriate instruments for assessment of clinical nursing skills.NATURE, SCOPE AND METHOD: Two methods of clinical assess-ment in general use were explored, employing guided interviews with a sample of senior nursing staff regularly involved in clinical assessment (N = 44). This was a sample of ward sisters located in four centres: Centre A, an est-ablished teaching hospital (N = 14.); Centre B, a busy district general hospital (N = 8); Centre C, a new postgraduate medical school hospital (N = 12); and Centre D, a small suburban general hospital (N = 10). Following a review of the literature, a guided interview schedule was developed by means of preliminary unstructured discussion with assessors in order to establish general categories; followed by a small pilot study. Interview data were stored on audiotape and comparisons made between responses from assessors in the four centres. The researcher wished to collect accurate information in respect of specific issues involved in the current procedures. Interviews were wide-ranging, covering numerous aspects of assessment as these affect student, assessor and patient; and the instruments currently used. Numerical data is supported by anecdotal material illustrative of typical responses. Additionally to the interviews, a retrospective analysis of specimen assessments carried out for a specific group of third-year students was undertaken in order to. obtain data on reliability and validity of such assessments.FINDINGS: These illustrate a variety of strengths andweaknesses in current assessment procedures as perceived by senior clinical nurses: and serve to emphasise issuesrequiring further study. Of greatest interest are implications for preparation, training and continued development of clinical assessors. Respondents viewed both current assessment systems critically; and a specimen analysis illustrated the shortcomings of progress assessments. Inferences were drawn from the data regarding potential future ways of improving organisational, assessmental and educational aspects of clinical nurse assessment.


We present a technique to measure the frequency chirp introduced by the laser pulse amplification process in the transmitter of the Colorado State University sodium lidar system. This chirp causes a systematic radial wind bias that must be removed from the reported wind measurements. An iodine absorption line located near the lidar operating wavelength of 589.16 nm is used for real-time monitoring and measurement of the chirp for the correction of radial wind bias. This technique has been thoroughly characterized in the laboratory and validated by field testing, facilitating simultaneous measurements of temperature and horizontal wind in the mesopause region of the atmosphere (80-105 km).


Last month, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) released a report* with some grim news that confirmed what is painfully obvious to recent Ph.D. graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields: Unemployment for this cohort is on the rise (at 2.4% in 2010, up nearly a percentage point since 2008). Although it remains below the U.S. national average for all workers (8.2%), for bright students who have invested many years in specialized education and training, the outlook is discouraging. Furthermore, according to an NSF survey, in 2008 only 16% of Ph.D.'s in science, engineering, and health fields held positions in academia within 3 years of earning a doctorate.† Prospects for employment can be improved, however, for STEM Ph.D.'s who make a concerted effort to learn about positions outside the lab and prepare themselves for alternative paths.


We investigate the training of sparse layers that use different parameters for different inputs based on hashing in large Transformer models. Specifically, we modify the feedforward layer to hash to different sets of weights depending on the current token, over all tokens in the sequence. We show that this procedure either outperforms or is competitive with learning-to-route mixture-of-expert methods such as Switch Transformers and BASE Layers, while requiring no routing parameters or extra terms in the objective function such as a load balancing loss, and no sophisticated assignment algorithm. We study the performance of different hashing techniques, hash sizes and input features, and show that balanced and random hashes focused on the most local features work best, compared to either learning clusters or using longer-range context. We show our approach works well both on large language modeling and dialogue tasks, and on downstream fine-tuning tasks.


As an interdisciplinary research-based literature on interpreting emerges in spoken and signed language interpreting studies, this chapter provides an overview of publishing interpreting research for novice researchers seeking advice on publication. The chapter walks potential researchers through types of research projects and appropriate publication outlets. The importance of publishing interpreting research is discussed in light of the benefits for students, practitioners, educators, researchers, and other stakeholders. In particular, the chapter discusses how interpreters can become involved in conducting and publishing research through "interpreter fieldwork research". The chapter emphasizes the need to draw together practice, experience and academic pursuit to make research accessible to all stakeholders in various forms of publications.


Reverse Engineering (RE) is the process of reconstructing CAD models from
scanned data of a physical part acquired using 3D scanners. RE has attracted a
great deal of research interest over the last decade. However, a review of the
literature reveals that most research work have focused on creation of free form
surfaces from point cloud data. Representing geometry in terms of surface patches
is adequate to represent positional information, but can not capture any of the
higher level structure of the part. Reconstructing solid models is of importance
since the resulting solid models can be directly imported into commercial solid
modellers for various manufacturing activities such as process planning, integral
property computation, assembly analysis, and other applications.
This research discusses the novel methodology of extracting geometric features
directly from a data set of 3D scanned points, which utilises the concepts of
artificial neural networks (ANNs). In order to design and develop a generic
feature-based RE system for prismatic parts, the following five main tasks were
investigated. (1) point data processing algorithms; (2) edge detection strategies;
(3) a feature recogniser using ANNs; (4) a feature extraction module; (5) a CAD
model exchanger into other CAD/CAM systems via IGES.
A key feature of this research is the incorporation of ANN in feature recognition.
The use of ANN approach has enabled the development of a flexible feature-based
RE methodology that can be trained to deal with new features. ANNs
require parallel input patterns. In this research, four geometric attributes extracted
from a point set are input to the ANN module for feature recognition: chain codes,
convex/concave, circular/rectangular and open/closed attribute. Recognising each
feature requires the determination of these attributes. New and robust algorithms
are developed for determining these attributes for each of the features.
This feature-based approach currently focuses on solving the feature recognition
problem based on 2.5D shapes such as block pocket, step, slot, hole, and boss,
which are common and crucial in mechanical engineering products. This approach
is validated using a set of industrial components. The test results show that the
strategy for recognising features is reliable.


PURPOSE
To isolate the protein that collects in increased amounts beneath the corneal epithelium in familial subepithelial corneal amyloidosis (FSCA), also known as gelatinous droplike corneal dystrophy, and to identify it by N-terminal amino acid sequencing.

METHODS
Peptides resulting from pepsin digestion of a unique protein isolated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis from frozen tissue from two corneas with FSCA were purified by high-pressure liquid chromatography followed by protein sequence analysis. The protein was identified by amino acid sequencing, Western blotting, and immunohistochemistry.

RESULTS
A protein was identified in two corneas with FSCA that was not present in normal corneas or in corneas with other disorders. The amino acid sequences of two peptides derived from this protein were identical to portions of lactoferrin. The unique protein reacted with rabbit antihuman lactoferrin after Western blotting. The presence of lactoferrin in the amyloid within affected corneas was confirmed using the immunoperoxidase method on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections and lactoferrin antiserum.

CONCLUSIONS
Corneal tissue with FSCA contains lactoferrin, and this is the first form of amyloidosis found to be associated with this protein. Because lactoferrin is a product of lacrimal glands, the corneal lactoferrin may be derived from the tears. Because the gene for lactoferrin is on chromosome 3 (3q21-q23), this locus is a potential site for the FSCA gene.


ABSTRACT The relationship between the Trump administration and the regime in Pyongyang has gone through two distinct phases: a period of crisis and confrontation, roughly corresponding to the year 2017, and a period of diplomacy and détente in the first half of 2018, which culminated in the Singapore summit of June 2018. During both phases, Trump's approach has been characterised by a high degree of unpredictability and the use of 'mixed signals'. As a consequence, while the US achieved a significant objective in 2018, namely a reduction in tension and risk of conflict, this came at a considerable cost, especially in terms of the solidity of the US-led alliances in East Asia.


The traumatic experience of violence is, in its nature, unspeakable. It causes in the victim a deep wound in identity, changes in the dynamics of psychic investments producing a failure of the ability to symbolize, thus breaking the rules that characterize the usual development of thought. Some affections related to the body prevail, above all the shame which expresses itself in characteristics which reinforce the element of trauma. The loss of a capacity to represent and symbolize is not only a psychic dynamic, but it also reproduces itself in the social systems, shaping that zone of "silent concealment", that drives the phenomenon of gender violence. The psychoanalytical reflection on the relationship between guilt and shame seems to be a priority in dealing with and at the same time highlighting the risk of victim blaming intended in terms of the unconscious defensive dynamics expressed by the social systems. We will consider the importance in the therapeutic intervention of the work of reconstruction and historicization, to be able to reactivate representation which allows the integration and the chance to distinguish the imaginary plane of the traumatic event from the real one. The psychoanalytical approach to the groups provides an interpretative model to articulate the psychic and the social space.


The Culture Of Television Advertising: An Historical And Empirical Analysis Of The Content Of Television Commercials And Of The Saudi Viewers Responses To Advertising. By Fahad Al-kheraiji, 1991 This exploratory study is to fill in some of the gaps in the current state of knowledge about the cultural exports of Multinational Corporations and Multinational Advertising Agencies. Another primary purpose of this research has been to investigate the nature of the relationship between advertising culture and Saudi television audiences and how this is reflected in both the content of television commercial and audience responses'. This study provides, firstly, a link between the past and present history of advertising in Saudi Arabia; secondly, it follows the detailed development of television advertising in Saudi Arabia from its inception in 1986 until 30th December 1989; thirdly, it indicates that the content of television commercials does not focus mainly on the selling intent (physical benefits and economic values) of products and services, but rather on the creation and enforcing of a global culture a multinational culture which plays on emotions, and social and personal values to achieve its ultimate goals; fourthly, it explores, empirically, the theoretical arguments about the effects of advertising on cultural values and national identity and the claim that it helps to implant Western ideology in less developed societies. This study raises concerns about the loss of cultural and national identity within Third World communities. The fear is that the threat arises not only from Western ideology but also from that of neighbouring countries, with their inexpensive production and opportunities for MNC manipulation at the expense of local culture, as in the case of Egypt and Lebanon's effect on Saudi Arabia culture. This concern is explained through the interaction between television commercials (senders) and Saudi society (receivers). Finally, the study encourages the use of more than one technique to tackle the complexity of studying advertising and culture. Two instruments, content analysis and survey, were used to bridge the gap between the sender and the receiver, or in other words, the gap between television presentation and viewers perceptions. The researcher hopes that this study is the seed for future work which can provide a more complete picture of advertising culture in the Third World.


Does mothers' employment predict the subsequent maternal employment of their daughters? Social learning theory suggests that modeling should increase under more positive relationship conditions. We examined the congruence between mothers' maternal employment and daughters' maternal employment longitudinally across 4 periods of parenthood and as a function of the daughters' retrospective reports of her mother's emotional availability during the daughters' childhood. When all periods were considered together, mothers' maternal employment was associated with increased likelihood of daughters' maternal employment. In particular, women who recalled their mothers as more emotionally available over childhood were more likely to match their own mother's maternal employment status during their own child's high school period. These findings provide support for long-term effects of modeling. Moreover, during the high school years, these findings suggest that the modeling is moderated by the quality of the childhood relationship between mother and daughter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


The fluctuations in abundance of a demersal fish, the Malabar sole (Cynoglossus macrostomus Norman) and a pelagic fish viz.,oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps) in the Malabar upwelling ecosystem (MUE) were analysed in relation to long-term trends in rainfall in Kerala, onset time of the southwest monsoon, sea level off Cochin and solar periodicity. The abundance of these species showed a clear decadal trend comparable to such trends existing in rainfall, sea level and solar periodicity. The variations in the rainfall showed a 35-year rhythm in its inten- sity. A fishery forecast of Malabar sole and oil sardine fishery has been attempted based these trends and is a posse ad esse. The fluctuations in abundance of oil sardine, beyond doubt, are dearly influenced by the trends in rainfall during southwest monsoon. Periods of good rainfall
have positive effect on its abundance and vice versa. There appear to be a decadal or long-term trend in the productivity of the upwelling zone itself. The spawning, recruitment, survival, feeding, growth, migration and the abundance of various organisms are influenced by rhythms
exiting in this large marine ecosystem of the southeastern Arabian Sea.


Permeability studies across epithelial barriers are of primary importance in drug delivery as well as in toxicology. However, traditional in vitro models do not adequately mimic the dynamic environment of physiological barriers. Here, we describe a novel two‐chamber modular bioreactor for dynamic in vitro studies of epithelial cells. The fluid dynamic environment of the bioreactor was characterized using computational fluid dynamic models and measurements of pressure gradients for different combinations of flow rates in the apical and basal chambers. Cell culture experiments were then performed with fully differentiated Caco‐2 cells as a model of the intestinal epithelium, comparing the effect of media flow applied in the bioreactor with traditional static transwells. The flow increases barrier integrity and tight junction expression of Caco‐2 cells with respect to the static controls. Fluorescein permeability increased threefold in the dynamic system, indicating that the stimulus induced by flow increases transport across the barrier, closely mimicking the in vivo situation. The results are of interest for studying the influence of mechanical stimuli on cells, and underline the importance of developing more physiologically relevant in vitro tissue models. The bioreactor can be used to study drug delivery, chemical, or nanomaterial toxicity and to engineer barrier tissues.


Abstract In a companion article (Beier et al. 2006), we identified 2 sets of unreliable inferences that may compromise efforts to conserve the Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi). In spite of serious flaws in methodology and interpretation, these unreliable conclusions have appeared in prominent, peer-refereed scientific journals and have been repeatedly cited and miscited in support of panther conservation. Future editors and referees may reduce these errors by insisting on adherence to an Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) format; checking improbable assertions attributed to earlier papers; and refusing to allow scientific inference in publication formats not subject to scientific peer review (e.g., editorials). We urge conservation biologists to view science as an adaptive process and to use the method of multiple working hypotheses (Chamberlin 1890) that are now a central feature of adaptive resource management (Walters 1986, Williams et al. 2002). We advocate a workshop approach, similar to that used for analysis of data for the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis; Anderson et al. 1999), to deal with scientific disagreement where, as in the case with panthers, stakeholders have entrenched points of view. Finally, we recommend the creation of an independent Scientific Steering Committee to address long-term issues of future research and monitoring of Florida panthers.


According to LCDM theory, hierarchical evolution occurs on all mass scales, implying that satellites of the Milky Way should also have companions. The recent discovery of ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates in close proximity to the Magellanic Clouds provides an opportunity to test this theory. We present proper motion (PM) measurements for 13 of the 32 new dwarf galaxy candidates using Gaia data release 2. All 13 also have radial velocity measurements. We compare the measured 3D velocities of these dwarfs to those expected at the corresponding distance and location for the debris of a Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) analog in a cosmological numerical simulation. We conclude that four of these galaxies (Hor1, Car2, Car3, and Hyi1) have come in with the Magellanic Clouds, constituting the first confirmation of the type of satellite infall predicted by LCDM. Ret2, Tuc2, and Gru1 have velocity components that are not consistent within 3σ of our predictions and are therefore less favorable. Hya2 and Dra2 could be associated with the LMC and merit further attention. We rule out Tuc3, Cra2, Tri2, and Aqu2 as potential members. Of the dwarfs without measured PMs, five of them are deemed unlikely on the basis of their positions and distances alone being too far from the orbital plane expected for LMC debris (Eri2, Ind2, Cet2, Cet3, and Vir1). For the remaining sample, we use the simulation to predict PMs and radial velocities, finding that Phx2 has an overdensity of stars in DR2 consistent with this PM prediction.


The first regional swath-bathymetry survey of the Makran accretionary wedge revealed a sinistral strike-slip fault, named herein the Sonne fault, obliquely crossing the wedge and continuing into the abyssal plane. This fault separates the western part of the Makran subduction zone where plate boundary events are absent from the eastern part that does show plate boundary seismicity; most events are concentrated along the Sonne fault. Little Murray Ridge (a basement high) and related magnetic anomalies are offset along the Sonne fault. Together, these observations identify the newly discovered Sonne strike-slip fault as a plate boundary that has been active ∼2 m.y. This finding suggests that what has been considered the northeasternmost part of the Arabian plate is actually a separate microplate, named herein the Ormara plate, the formation of which resulted from tearing of the Arabian plate along the Sonne fault. With this concept, the different dips of the downgoing plate below the western and eastern parts of the Makran margin and the related different distances between the trench and Quaternary arc volcanic centers can be unequivocally explained.


The epidemiology and aetiology of ankle injuries in soccer has been widely established. Ankle injuries have been identified as a primary injury concern within soccer, highlighting the need for injury prevention programmes to be implemented in an attempt to reduce their incidence and severity. Injuries are multi-modal in occurrence thus indicating the need for a multi-modal battery of tests to further inform aetiology, whilst also allowing for greater informed rehabilitation and prehabilitation strategies. The purpose of study one was to determine whether relationships existed between aetiological risk factors associated with ankle sprain using a multi-modal battery of tests. In accordance with the multi-variate aetiology, a lack of commonality between task performance outcomes was demonstrated.

Studies two and three, utilising the same analysis parameters, investigated the effects of different brands of kinesiology tape (KT) and time of day effect on the same aetiological risk factors. Study two indicated that both brands of KT had some beneficial improvements in peformance for measures of postural stability and proprioception, whilst study three indicated a lack of time of day effect on task performance outcome measures.

Studies four and five attempted to provide greater ecological validity via assessing the effects of both KT and increased utlisation of interchanges (SAFT60) on locomotive activity and measures of postural stability and mechanical variables in the form of GPS, Force Plate and Qualisys kinematics. Prior research has often failed to investigate the effects of sport specific fatigue on paramters of performance associated with aetiological risk factors. KT demonstrates improvement in both postural stability and locomotive mechanics in the form of GPS and Force Plate variables, compared to that of postural stability only for the SAFT60. However, both the KT and SAFT60 intervention strategies failed to offset the effects of fatigue with regards to postural stability, indicating that other mechanisms such as different taping strategies need to be explored.

Study six, amalgamated the findings of the first five studies through designing a new six-week ankle injury prevention programme, which investigated the effects of training two groups of professional soccer players in either a non-fatigued or a fatigued state of performance, with measures of postural stability, GPS, Force Plate and Qualisys measured during the SAFT90, pre and post intervention. Findings indicated that performing the new ankle injury prevention programme helps to improve performance parameters and mechanisms associated with postural stability and functional movement, whilst also highlighting improvements in movement efficiency. However, whether the ankle injury prevention programme was conducted pre or post training had no significant effect on measures of postural stability performance or mechanical responses associated with soccer match play.

The findings of these studies provide a novel insight into the aetiological mechanisms associated with ankle sprain injury in healthy male soccer players, adopting a multi-modal rather than univariate approach. This suggests that tasks used to screen athletes are discrete in nature, thus emphasising the need for a multi-modal battery of tests. Furthermore, they demonstrate that KT and the SAFT60 improve measures associated with injury risk. Additionally a new and novel multi-modal training programme over a six-week period can improve measures of postural stability and locomotive mechanics during soccer simulations, thus potentially reducing injury risk in healthy male soccer players.


In A Camera in the Garden of Eden, Kevin Coleman argues that the "banana republic" was an imperial constellation of images and practices that was checked and contested by ordinary Central Americans. Drawing on a trove of images from four enormous visual archives and a wealth of internal company memos, literary works, immigration records, and declassified US government telegrams, Coleman explores how banana plantation workers, women, and peasants used photography to forge new ways of being while also visually asserting their rights as citizens. He tells a dramatic story of the founding of the Honduran town of El Progreso, where the United Fruit Company had one of its main divisional offices, the rise of the company now known as Chiquita, and a sixty-nine day strike in which banana workers declared their independence from neocolonial domination. In telling this story, Coleman develops a new set of conceptual tools and methods for using images to open up fresh understandings of the past, offering a model that is applicable far beyond this pathfinding study.


This paper presents a new constrained subband beamforming algorithm to enhance speech signals generated by a moving source in a noisy environment. The beamformer is based on the principle of a soft constraint defined for a specified region corresponding to a known source location. The soft constraint secures the spatial-temporal passage of the desired source signal in the adaptive update of the beamforming weights and guarantees the full rank property of the matrix inverted in the update. The source of interest is modelled as a cluster of stationary point sources and source motion is accommodated by revising the point source cluster. The source modelling and its direct exploitation in the beamformer through covariance estimates are presented. An algorithm for sound source localization is used for speaker movement tracking and this information is exploited to update the spatial distribution in the source model. Evaluation in a real environment with a moving speaker shows a significant noise and hands-free interference suppression within the conventional telephone bandwidth. This is achieved with a negligible impact on speech distortion.


This study provides quantitative and qualitative analyses of explicit expressions of apology in second language (L2) Turkish. L2 data from native Arabic and Russian speakers are compared with remedial acts used by native Turkish speakers in the same situations. Findings reveal that even after spending a considerable amount of time in the target language community, L2 learners still deviate significantly from native speaker norms and face the risk of encountering communication breakdowns.


IN THE PRESENT PAPER, ORTHOTROPIC ELASTO-PLASTIC CONSTITUTIVE FORMULATIONS FOR SHEET METAL FORMING BASED ON NON-ASSOCIATED FLOW RULE THAT ASSUME DISTORTION OF YIELD FUNCTION/PLASTIC POTENTIAL WITH ONGOING DEFORMATION PROCESS ARE ANALYZED. THE YIELD FUNCTION/PLASTIC POTENTIAL ARE CONSIDERED AS TWO DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS WITH FUNCTIONAL FORM AS ORTHOTROPIC QUADRATIC HILL OR NON-QUADRATIC KARAFILLIS-BOYCE STRESS FUNCTION. BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF PLASTIC WORK EQUIVALENCE, ANISOTROPY PARAMETERS OF THE UTILIZED YIELD FUNCTION/PLASTIC POTENTIAL ARE SET AS FUNCTIONS OF THE EQUIVALENT PLASTIC STRAIN. IN THE CONSTITUTIVE FORMULATION, FOR THIS INTERNAL VARIABLE, EVOLUTION EQUATION CONSISTENT WITH THE SAME PRINCIPLE OF PLASTIC WORK EQUIVALENCE IS INTRODUCED. FOR DC06 SHEET SAMPLE WITH REPORTED SIGNIFICANT VARIATION OF THE INCREMENTAL R-VALUES WITH STRAINING, PREDICTIONS OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE YIELD STRESS AND R-VALUE DIRECTIONAL DEPENDENCES WITH STRAINING OBTAINED BY THE ANALYZED MODELS ARE PRESENTED. THE ALGORITHMIC FORMULATIONS OF THE ANALYZED CONSTITUTIVE MODELS ARE DERIVED BY APPLICATION OF THE IMPLICIT RETURN MAPPING ALGORITHM. FOR THE DERIVED STRESS INTEGRATION PROCEDURES THE ACCURACY IS INVESTIGATED BY CALCULATING ISO-ERROR MAPS. THE MAPS ARE COMPARED ACCORDING TO THE FLOW RULE AND INVOLVED ORTHOTROPIC STRESS FUNCTIONS. IT HAS BEEN REVEALED THAT ALTHOUGH THERE IS A DIFFERENCE IN MAPS CONFIGURATION THERE IS NO PROMINENT DIFFERENCE IN ERROR MAGNITUDES.


Proper care and maintenance of textile materials is essential in prolonging their durability and appearance. This books describes methods of care and maintenance for textile products, focusing on types of laundering and dry-cleaning processes, chemicals, and equipment, while considering the environmental impacts of these procedures and green cleaning approaches. It details care labelling of garments, including electronic care labelling and instructions for different specialty textiles. Factors such as pilling, abrasion, snagging, color fading, and dimensional change are discussed. This book also emphasizes care and maintenance of textiles used for protection from fire, bullets, cold weather, and chemicals.


: Most marine invertebrates develop in the plankton, where microscopic offspring can avoid abundant benthic predators until settlement. However, at least four phyla of marine invertebrates (Annelida, Mollusca, Nemertea, and Platyhelminthes) deposit benthic egg capsules or masses. Often, these animals possess additional means to protect their young, including chemical or morphological defenses or nonrandom selection of deposition sites. Egg capsule deposition is the dominant reproductive strategy among gastropod molluscs, including the mud snail, Tritia obsoleta . In intertidal and shallow subtidal habitats in New England, the mud snail preferentially deposits egg capsules on blades of eelgrass ( Zostera marina ), a substrate that stands upright in the water column. In a field and lab study, we examined deposition of T. obsoleta egg capsules and found that mud snails lay their egg capsules on eelgrass at 6-8 cm off the benthos or higher. When exposed to egg capsule predators, hermit crabs and periwinkles, mud snails increase the average height of deposition off the benthos by 1-3 cm. In the presence of hermit crabs, capsules deposited on a blade of eelgrass 5 cm above the benthos have survivorship as much as 4 times higher than capsules deposited directly on the benthos. We suggest that deposition of egg capsules off of the benthos is an adaptive response allowing mud snails to protect their embryos from benthic predators. We also provide evidence that snails use characteristics of the eelgrass itself to ensure capsules are laid well above the benthos.


Online shopping has become a huge phenomenon lately. User or customer tends to compare the prices of homogeneous clothing category from different websites of online store before choosing and buying the item. User consumes a lot of time and
money in order to compare the prices from multiple websites at one time manually since user needs to visit each of clothing websites. To solve this problem, online Clothing Shopbots via Web Content Extraction is developed so it can help user to reduce the time and money consumed to compare the prices because all the items and prices from multiple websites can be compared in just one website to ease the user or customer.

Therefore, agile development methodology is very useful method to make the system successful and can be developed according to the schedule. An algorithm vision based page segmentation algorithm will be implemented in this system to extract the data from multiple websites and will be displayed in new website. By using this algorithm, the web page is segmented into several big blocks. These block tree is constructed by using DOM (document object model) tree. After that the data is searched using the nodes. A functionality testing is done to make sure the system meets the objectives. This system is useful for the user to make a right decision to buy a product without spending much money and time.


In the Pleistocene Montalbano Jonico composite section (southern Italy) the microhabitat preferences of the benthic foraminifera have been determined by comparison with data on living forms. The stratigraphic distribution of the different living positions seems to be related to the cyclic oxygen fluctuations recorded in the succession. In the high-oxygenated phases, when the oxygenated zone within the sediment column is wide, the assemblages show a distinct vertical microhabitat distribution. In the low-oxygenated phases, when the minor oxygen availability at the bottom–water interface reduces the oxygen penetration within the sediment, infaunal microhabitat is the preferred living depth. In order to quantify the oxygen fluctuations recorded in the succession, a palaeo-oxygen curve is reconstructed testing Kaiho's benthic foraminiferal oxygen index (BFOI) in the equation: y=1.686+ 0.033337x. In general, good correlations are observed between the dissolved oxygen regimes and the benthic assemblage composition. The low-oxygenated phases are identified with the low-medium oxic regime and the high-oxygenated phases with the high oxic regime. In the deeper part of the composite section, oxygen has played an important role on the foraminiferal assemblage composition. In contrast, in the shallower part, a combination of oxygen and sea-level changes regulates the distribution and composition of the assemblages.


Milton's use of economic tropes has attracted very little critical attention, and the connections between economics and theology in his thought have not yet been explored.
Blair Hoxby's Mammon's Music: Literature and Economics in the Age of Milton (2002) focuses on the influence of economic ideas on Milton's political thought, arguing that the
poet persistently associates trade monopolies with autocratic abuses of monarchical power. David Hawkes places Milton's lifelong professional usury at the centre of his 2009
biography, John Milton: A Hero of Our Time, and his 2011 essay, 'Milton and Usury,' fruitfully reads key passages from Paradise Lost in relation to contemporary tracts on
usury. Hoxby and Hawkes have astutely highlighted the relationship between economics and Milton's thought, but neither scholar has pursued these connections into Milton's
theology. Economic ideas lie at the very heart of Milton's soteriology, and my thesis offers a historicised investigation of Milton's corpus, demonstrating that the tropes of contemporary economic thought were crucial to his understanding of sin and, more importantly, salvation.

Chapter 1 traces the roots of this economic soteriology to the economic and theological treatises of the 1620s and early 1630s, which argued that money must be not stockpiled but circulated, and that salvation was a transaction between man and God. Chapter 2 considers how Ben Jonson and George Herbert, whose work Milton was familiar with in his youth, used The Staple of Newes (1626) and The Temple (1633) to respond to contemporary developments in economic and theological thought. Chapter 3 reads Milton's early works as studies of hoarding and consumption, traced through the debate
over sexual stockpiling in Comus (1634), the sinfulness of a hoarding nation in the History of Moscovia (early 1640s), and the clergy torn between their compulsions to covet and
consume in Of Reformation (1641). Chapter 4 finds in Gerrard Winstanley's Fire in the Bush (1650) an explicitly economic understanding of the Fall, and demonstrates how Milton's political and religious writings of the 1650s betray an anxiety that the English cannot govern their economic appetites and, therefore, themselves. Chapter 5 examines
how Milton uses tropes of investment, profit, loss, and repayment in the Christian Doctrine and Paradise Lost (1667) to represent redemption as a transaction between Jesus and God
on man's behalf. Chapter 6 reads the History of Britain (1670) as an indictment of isolationist economic policies, with Milton demonstrating that free interactions between
peoples facilitate national refinement, and thus strangers become saviours.


The goal of skin tightening can be achieved by various methods which, among others, include chemical peels, radiofrequency therapy and laser therapy. The efficacy, downtime and potential side effects of these methods vary highly between "groups" of methods as well as within the same method group, depending on treatment parameters used. A method which would combine efficacy with no-downtime and minimize the chance of unwanted side effects is highly desirable. A new FRAC3® Nd:YAG laser modality appears very promising in this respect. Between 2010 and 2012, we performed the FRAC3® skin tightening procedure on over 100 patients. Procedure satisfaction rates of good to excellent were reported by over 90% of the patients treated. Here we present six representative clinical cases selected among the treatment data on over 100 patients.


Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women, and rated the second most common cancer and a significant cause of death in females in the Sudan. This study aims to identify tumor protein that elicits humoral immune responses in breast cancer patient in comparison to tissues from healthy individuals as well as from normal tissues of the cancer patient. Serum samples and breast cancer tissue specimens were collected from breast cancer patients (n = 9) and from healthy individuals (n = 5) at Khartoum Teaching Hospital. Breast cancer tissues were homogenized in PBS, centrifuged and the supernatants were lysed in 2X SDS-PAGE sample buffer. The preparation then boiled and the resulting supernatants were subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Western blot analysis. Total proteins were separated on SDS-PAGE and transferred to the nitrocellulose paper, then analyzed by immunoblotting for total proteins and serum antibodies using serum from patients with breast cancer and from healthy individuals to enhance humoral immune responses. The SDS-PAGE analysis showed an increase in size of protein bands in the normal control tissues than from breast cancer patients. The Western blot analysis of breast cancer tissues with the serum from breast cancer patients specifically detected major bands than in the normal tissues from the healthy tissues of cancer patients or from healthy individuals. Beside the major bands, additional bands have been detected in breast cancer tissues with the serum from breast cancer patients. The reactive auto-antibodies in patient's tissues bound to the circulating tumor antigen in patient's serum and immune complexes would result by Western blotting indication of strong immune response to these proteins. The present study demonstrated that there was a clear decline in the expression of some proteins among breast cancer patients which has been confirmed by strong immune reactions in the Western blotting analysis.

 Key words: breast cancer , protein expression, SDS-PAGE, Commasie brilliant blue, Western blot.


Fast chemical reactions are driven by mixing‐induced chemical disequilibrium. Mixing is poorly represented by the advection‐dispersion equation. Instead, effective dynamics models, such as multirate mass transfer (MRMT), have been successful in reproducing observed field‐scale transport, notably, breakthrough curves (BTCs) of conservative solutes. The objective of this work is to test whether such effective models, derived from conservative transport observations, can be used to describe effective multicomponent reactive transport in heterogeneous media. We use a localized formulation of the MRMT model that allows us to solve general reactive transport problems. We test this formulation on a simple three‐species mineral precipitation problem at equilibrium. We first simulate the spatial and temporal distribution of mineral precipitation rates in synthetic hydraulically heterogeneous aquifers. We then compare these reaction rates to those corresponding to an equivalent (i.e., same conservative BTC) homogenized medium with transport characterized by a nonlocal in time equation involving a memory function. We find an excellent agreement between the two models in terms of cumulative precipitated mass for a broad range of generally stationary heterogeneity structures. These results indicate that mass transfer models can be considered to represent quite accurately the large‐scale effective dynamics of mixing controlled reactive transport at least for the cases tested here, where individual transport paths sample the full range of heterogeneities represented by the BTC.


Radical hysterectomy (RH) is the standard treatment for early stage cervical cancer, but the surgical approach for locally bulky-size cervical cancer (LBS-CC) is still unclear. We retrospectively compared the outcomes of women with LBS-CC treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) and subsequent RH between the robotic (R-RH) and abdominal approaches (A-RH). Between 2012 and 2014, 39 women with LBS-CC FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics) stage IB2–IIB were treated with NACT-R-RH (n = 18) or NACT-A-RH (n = 21). Surgical parameters and prognosis were compared. Patient characteristics were not significantly different between the groups, but the NACT-R-RH group had significantly more patients with FIGO stage IIB disease, received multi-agent-based NACT, and had a lower percentage of deep stromal invasion than the NACT-A-RH group. After NACT-R-RH, surgical parameters were better, but survival outcomes, such as disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), were significantly worse. On multivariate analysis, FIGO stage IIB contributed to worse DFS (p = 0.003) and worse OS (p = 0.012) in the NACT-A-RH group. Women with LBS-CC treated with NACT-R-RH have better perioperative outcomes but poorer survival outcomes compared with those treated with NACT-A-RH. Thus, patients with FIGO stage IIB LBS-CC disease might not be suitable for surgery after multi-agent-based NACT.


The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story, and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and its fiscal compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticize the debt brake. We show that (1) it suffers from serious shortcomings, and its success is far from certain even from a mainstream point of view; (2) from a Post-Keynesian perspective, it completely neglects the requirements for fiscal policies of member-countries in a currency union and will prevent fiscal policy from contributing to the necessary rebalancing in the Euro area; and (3) alternative scenarios, which could avoid the deflationary pressures of the German debt brake on domestic demand and contribute to internally rebalancing the Euro area, are extremely unlikely, as they would have to rely on unrealistic shifts in the functional income distribution and/or investment and savings behavior in Germany.


Fluorometric detection of analytes using batch injection analysis (BIA) has been investigated. BIA involves the injection of microliter samples toward a nearby detector which is immersed in a large-volume, nonflowing, blank solution. The characteristics and advantages of employing fiber-optic fluorometric detection for BIA are described. Similar to analogous flow injection measurements, batch injection fluorometric analysis offers high speed, reproducibility and simplicity, while eliminating the need for pumps, valves, and associated tubings. With injection rates at 120–500 samples/h, there is no observable carryover, and the precision is typically 2–3% (RSD).


Transcriptome-enabled phylogenetic analyses have dramatically improved our understanding of metazoan phylogeny in recent years, although several important questions remain. The branching order near the base of the tree is one such outstanding issue. To address this question we assemble a novel data set comprised of 1,080 orthologous loci derived from 36 publicly available genomes and dissect the phylogenetic signal present in each individual partition. The size of this data set allows for a closer look at the potential biases and sources of non-phylogenetic signal. We assessed a range of measures for each data partition including information content, saturation, rate of evolution, long-branch score, and taxon occupancy and explored how each of these characteristics impacts phylogeny estimation. We then used these data to prepare a reduced set of partitions that fit an optimal set of criteria and are amenable to the most appropriate and computationally intensive analyses using site-heterogeneous models of sequence evolution. We also employed several strategies to examine the potential for long-branch attraction to bias our inferences. All of our analyses support Ctenophora as the sister lineage to other Metazoa, although support for this relationship varies among analyses. We find no support for the traditional view uniting the ctenophores and Cnidaria (jellies, anemones, corals, and kin). We also examine phylogenetic placement of myriapods (centipedes and millipedes) and find it more sensitive to the type of analysis and data used. Our study provides a workflow for minimizing systematic bias in whole genome-based phylogenetic analyses.


Global population has increased rapidly in recent decades. So far, it has been possible to feed the growing population by using more and more land for agriculture, using irrigation and artificial fertilisers and by improving the efficiency of agriculture. Recently the growth of the global agricultural area has slowed. However, the need for food will continue to grow markedly in coming years. This demand can no longer be met by using increasingly more land for agriculture, and in many areas it is not possible to increase crop production by irrigation (Wise 2013).
Large areas in the tropics are characterised by strongly depleted soils with low concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. In such areas, the yield of crop per hectare is much lower than the theoretical yield using optimal fertilising (Ray et al. 2013). Reducing the gap between real and potential crop productivity offers the best solution to achieve food security for the world's rapidly growing population.
Poor soil quality in the tropics is largely due to the rapid weathering of minerals and leaching of dissolved nutrients in the warm and humid climate. If weathered minerals are not replaced by new minerals, for example due to volcanic activity, then soil fertility continues to decline over time. Therefore, it is necessary to use increasing amounts of fertilisers to feed growing populations in the tropics. Most nutrients come from geological deposits; the only exception is nitrogen, which can be extracted from the atmosphere. Nutrients that are mined constitute a limited resource. Hence the known occurrences of phosphorous can only cover the current demand for a few decades (van Vuuren et al. 2010).
In recent years, investigations have been conducted to see if the productivity of nutrient-poor soils can be improved by the application of glacial rock flour from Greenland. Rock flour in southern West Greenland consists of fine-grained silt, formed by the grinding of bedrock by stones and boulders embedded in the basal part of glaciers. Preliminary results indicate that plants cultivated in soils with rock flour can achieve increased growth (M.T. Rosing, unpublished data 2019). However, the research is still in its early days and many questions remain. We do not know why adding rock flour to soil results in increased growth. Maybe the silt fraction improves the soil properties. Also we do not know if it is feasible to mine rock flour and transport it to the tropics. As a first step towards answering some of these questions, our aim here was to simply map and sample the glacial rock flour in Tasersuaq, a large proglacial lake in southern West Greenland, c. 105 km north-east of Nuuk.


This study on domestic workers in China was conducted under the EU–China Dialogue on Migration and Mobility Support Project, a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration and the International Labour Organization, funded by the European Union. It examines the current situation of domestic workers in China with a focus on the case study of Beijing, including domestic workers' recruitment, employment, working conditions, social security, accessibility to legal protection, and complaint mechanisms. The study identifies the gaps in the national policies and practices concerning domestic workers in China in light of international standards and good practices.

In addition, the study provides relevant policy recommendations to narrow the gaps with regard to international instruments and to promote the legitimate rights of domestic workers in China. The study is not only an illustration of the socioeconomic impact of migration on development – and urbanization in particular. It is an expression of hope that domestic work may transition from the informal to the formal economy and become a fully-fledged urban labour market in its own right in China's near future.


The state-of-the-art hardware platforms for training deep neural networks are moving from traditional single precision (32-bit) computations towards 16 bits of precision - in large part due to the high energy efficiency and smaller bit storage associated with using reduced-precision representations. However, unlike inference, training with numbers represented with less than 16 bits has been challenging due to the need to maintain fidelity of the gradient computations during back-propagation. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, the successful training of deep neural networks using 8-bit floating point numbers while fully maintaining the accuracy on a spectrum of deep learning models and datasets. In addition to reducing the data and computation precision to 8 bits, we also successfully reduce the arithmetic precision for additions (used in partial product accumulation and weight updates) from 32 bits to 16 bits through the introduction of a number of key ideas including chunk-based accumulation and floating point stochastic rounding. The use of these novel techniques lays the foundation for a new generation of hardware training platforms with the potential for 2-4 times improved throughput over today's systems.


Avian diversity is used to assess the functionality of diverse types of habitats around Salt Lake Djendli, Northeast Algeria. The landscape is stratified into five habitat types in a gradient from wetland to forested mountains. Bird species found in these habitats can be classified into four ecological groups with decreasing degrees of aquatic specialisation and increasing forest specialisation. For each surveyed species, five ecological status were assigned. Overall, there was lower species richness in urban areas compared to other "natural" habitats. Birds have a biogeographical affinity to the western Palaearctic according to the dominant faunal types. Interactions of ecological status with phenological traits reveal that water birds are different from non-aquatic species because most of them are migrants. Moreover, overall, there is no worrying conservation status for surveyed birds. Bird diet is dependent on the ecological status that differentiate bird groups from each other due to differences in the food resources of the habitats they frequent. Phenological categories tend to link together birds of urban and open-lands. These two groups are affected by seasonal human activities. Our findings emphasise the importance of using combinations within the birds' ecological status, which would give information on the actual state of avifauna. This approach is relevant for future programmes and conservation actions.


Extracted from text ... Hell, J P, & Ringe, S H (eds)1999 - The meal scenes in Luke-Acts: An audience-orientated
approach
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. 367 Pages. Price: Unknown.
Reviewer: Dr D H Reinstorf (Cape Town)
J P Hell explicates Luke's well-known meal scenes literary motif which features throughout his
two-volume work. The value of the book lies in its comprehensiveness. An overview of all meal
scenes, most of which are unique to Luke, is provided. As the book's subtitle indicates, Hell
follows an "audience-oriented approach". This approach forms part of the broader category of
narrative criticism. The focus is on the ..


We have succeeded in developing a method for photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) on fully magnetized ferromagnetic bulk samples and have applied this technique to Dy-doped Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets. Remanence magnetization of the sample was approximately 1.2 T, and its dimension was 3 × 3 × 3 mm3. By utilizing a yoke as an absorber of the stray magnetic field from the sample, we can obtain well-focused PEEM images of magnetized samples. We have observed not only chemical distributions to visualize Dy-rich and Dy-poor areas but also magnetic domains by x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. The formation of reversed magnetic domains is strongly suppressed at room temperature by Dy-doping. As the temperature of the Dy-doped sample is raised, starting from room temperature, the reversed magnetic domains first grow along the magnetization easy axis. Next, above approximately 80°C, the shapes of reversed domains start to expand in the direction perpendicular to the easy axis. Above approximately 85°C, the reversed domains cover more than half of the field of view of 30 µm. More importantly, the reversed magnetic domains tend to nucleate or extend in Dy-poor regions. We discuss the relationship between the chemical distribution and the magnetic domain structure.


The results of a detailed investigation into the relationships between folds, faults and joints in the Orielton anticline are presented. The study continues the early structural work of Dixon (1921) and the stress analysis of the area made by Anderson (1951). The Orielton anticline is a compound and faulted Armorican fold largely affecting Upper Palaeozoic rooks. The structural pattern of the anticline developed during two major deformation phases: the first essentially corresponding to a period of folding and thrusting, the second to a period of wrench faulting. Within each phase, which is divisible, faulting occurred before jointing with joint sets not necessarily lying parallel to equivalent faults. The attitudes of both faults and joints depend on fold geometries. Faults are oriented relative to fold axial planes and axes, whilst joint attitudes are largely controlled by bedding dip and the plunge of the bedding - fracture cleavage intersection. It is tentatively suggested that the dependence of fracture attitudes upon fold geometries is due to the operation of residual stress systems. The dihedral angle between complementary shear planes has been investigated and shown to be consistently low, usually less than 50o. Regional tension joints appear to be absent. Joint orientations in collapsed blocks of Carboniferous Limestone enclosed in Triassio breccias show that all phases of the deformation belong to the Armorican orogeny.


A fundamental understanding of behavior requires predicting when and what an individual will choose. However, the actual temporal and sequential dynamics of successive choices made among multiple alternatives remain unclear. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that there is a general bursting property in both the timing and sequential patterns of foraging decisions. We conducted a foraging experiment in which rats chose among four different foods over a continuous two-week time period. Regarding when choices were made, we found bursts of rapidly occurring actions, separated by time-varying inactive periods, partially based on a circadian rhythm. Regarding what was chosen, we found sequential dynamics in affective choices characterized by two key features: (a) a highly biased choice distribution; and (b) preferential attachment, in which the animals were more likely to choose what they had previously chosen. To capture the temporal dynamics, we propose a dual-state model consisting of active and inactive states. We also introduce a satiation-attainment process for bursty activity, and a non-homogeneous Poisson process for longer inactivity between bursts. For the sequential dynamics, we propose a dual-control model consisting of goal-directed and habit systems, based on outcome valuation and choice history, respectively. This study provides insights into how the bursty nature of behavior emerges from the interaction of different underlying systems, leading to heavy tails in the distribution of behavior over time and choices.


This report deals with the accelerations obtained in flight on various airplanes at Langley Field for the purpose of obtaining the magnitude of the load factors in flight and to procure information on the behavior of an airplane in various maneuvers. The instrument used in these tests was a recording accelerometer of a new type designed by the technical staff of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The instrument consists of a flat steel spring supported rigidly at one end so that the free end may be deflected by its own weight from its neutral position by any acceleration acting at right angles to the plane of the spring. This deflection is measured by a very light tilting mirror caused to rotate by the deflection of the spring, which reflected the beam of light onto a moving film. The motion of the spring is damped by a thin aluminum vane which rotates with the spring between the poles of an electric magnet. Records were taken on landings and takeoffs, in loops, spins, spirals, and rolls.


A two-step approach to devising a hierarchical taxonomy of a domain is outlined. As the first step, a coarse "high-rank" taxonomy frame is built manually using the materials of the government and other representative sites. As the second step, the frame is refined topic-by-topic using the Russian Wikipedia category tree and articles filtered of "noise". A topic-to-text similarity score, based on annotated suffix trees, is used throughout. The method consists of three main stages: 1) clearing Wikipedia data of noise, such as irrelevant articles and categories; 2) refining the taxonomy frame with the remaining relevant Wikipedia categories and articles; 3) extracting key words and phrases from Wikipedia articles. Also, a set of so-called descriptors is assigned to every leaf; these are phrases explaining aspects of the leaf topic. In contrast to many existing taxonomies, our resulting taxonomy is balanced so that all the branches are of similar depths and similar numbers of leaves. The method is illustrated by its application to a mathematics domain, "Probability theory and mathematical statistics".


Background: Alcohol dependence is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, placing many health, social and economic burdens upon society. Aims: To review evidence regarding the socioeconomic burden of alcoholism and the cost-effectiveness of available treatments. Methods: Relevant literature was identified from searches of electronic databases covering the period from 1980 to February 2002. Results: Total economic costs to society from alcohol abuse have been estimated at $148 billion (1992) in the USA, DM6 billion (€3.1 billion, 1990) in West Germany and 638 billion ptas (€3.8 billion, 1996) in Spain. Lost productivity costs far outweighed direct medical costs in each of these countries. Regarding comparative cost-effectiveness evidence, no economic evaluations could be identified on specific interventions, except the several modelling studies that have been published recently on acamprosate. They showed potential cost savings by acamprosate, primarily through reduced acute hospitalization and rehabilitation. Existing effectiveness and cost data suggest that brief motivational counselling is also a potentially cost-effective intervention. A few papers examining the cost-effectiveness of different treatment programmes were also reviewed. Conclusions: Results of this review further emphasize the necessity of efficient resource allocation in health care and the need for comprehensive, standardized management strategies for people with alcohol abuse.


This thesis is devoted to the computational study of the electronic and transport properties of monolayer and bilayer graphene in the presence of disorder arising from both topological and point defects. Among the former, we study grain boundaries in monolayer graphene and stacking domain boundaries in bilayer graphene, whereas among the latter we study hydrogen atoms covalently bound on the graphene crystal lattice. The electronic spectrum of disordered graphene has been studied within a tight-binding framework, which has been coupled to the Landauer-Buttiker theory and Green?s function techniques in order to have access to the properties of coherent transport of graphene charge carriers. We assess the low-energy equilibrium structures of defective graphene by a combination of ab initio density functional theory, classical potentials, and Monte Carlo methods. We study periodic grain boundaries in monolayer graphene and individuate two classes of defects with opposite effects in terms of scattering of low-energy charge carriers. One class, unexpectedly, is highly reflecting in the limit of low defect density, whereas another is highly transparent. Subsequently, we study disordered grain boundaries in order to predict the intrinsic conductance of realistic polycrystalline graphene samples. In two related works, conducted in collaboration with experimentalists, we identify the atomic structure of periodic grain boundaries imaged by scanning tunneling microscopy, and discuss the valley-filtering capabilities of a line defect of graphene that can be grown in a controllable manner. Next, we investigate the electronic transport of graphene with realistic hydrogen adsorbates, whose equilibrium configurations are obtained by means of Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the conductance of graphene dramatically increases upon formation of cluster adatoms, which we predict to happen spontaneously at room temperature. This is due to the non- resonant nature of a large fraction of hydrogen clusters in the room-temperature distribution, which we further elucidate by means of an analytically solvable model. Finally, we study the behavior, in terms of structural and electronic properties, of twisted bilayer graphene in the limit of zero twist angle. We find a critical angle below which the system arranges in a triangular superlattice of Bernal-stacking domains, separated by a hexagonal network of stacking domain boundaries. The presence of stacking domain boundaries is at the base of our interpretation of an experiment reporting oscillations in the electrical conductance of bilayer graphene subjected to mechanical indentation.