Most small foundry shops mix their sand manually which is not efficient since homogenous mix cannot be guaranteed and even when foundry mixer are available most of them are imported costing the nation huge foriegn exchange. A foundry sand mixer capable of mixing foundry sand has been designed and fabricated using locally available material. The sand mixer components machine frame, mixing pan, motor support, gear box speed reducer, Shaft, discharge door and Mixing blades were designed ,produced and assembled together to produce the mixer. A step-turned shaft of diameters 23mm and 33mm attached to a 2hp, 3 phase electric motor to transmit the torque required to effectively turn and mix the sand in the pan. The mixer test results show that the average mixing time of the sand mixer to mix 20kg of sand was 14minutes and the mixer efficiency was 52%.The fabricated mixer compare favourably with the the imported existing one which has an efficiency of 59%.The application of this sand mixer by foundry shops will eliminate the use manual effort which is cumbersome, time wasting and inefficient.It will also save the the country of huge foreign exchange used in the importation of foundry sand mixers http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v33i4.22


Over the last twenty years, domestic sexual trafficking of children has received increased attention from state and national policymakers and advocates. Indeed, states across the country have enacted laws establishing harsh new penalties for individuals convicted of domestic sexual trafficking. At the same time, arrest and conviction rates for Black girls within the juvenile justice system are increasing, often as a result of prostitution-related offenses. In this Article, I explore the race, gender, and class dynamics that animate these trends. In particular, I highlight the ways in which historic constructions of childhood, innocence, and sexuality shape antitrafficking law enforcement practices and how they have functioned in racialized and gendered ways to exclude Black girls from protection. Consequently, Black girls who are subject to sexual exploitation in the contemporary era are often labeled as offenders rather than victims. In sum, I contend that the intersectional identities of poor Black girls at once render them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and deny them access to protective antitrafficking regimes. To combat the discrimination that Black girls experience as a result of this exclusion, I propose decriminalization of girls who are subject to trafficking and robust investment in supportive race- and gender-conscious institutions that can prevent sexual exploitation.


Abstract. The amount of ice discharged by an ice stream depends on its width, and the widths of unconfined ice streams such as the Siple Coast ice streams in West Antarctica have been observed to evolve on decadal to centennial timescales. Thermally driven widening of ice streams provides a mechanism for this observed variability through melting of the frozen beds of adjacent ice ridges. This widening is driven by the heat dissipation in the ice stream margin, where strain rates are high, and at the bed of the ice ridge, where subtemperate sliding is possible. The inflow of cold ice from the neighboring ice ridges impedes ice stream widening. Determining the migration rate of the margin requires resolving conductive and advective heat transfer processes on very small scales in the ice stream margin, and these processes cannot be resolved by large-scale ice sheet models. Here, we exploit the thermal boundary layer structure in the ice stream margin to investigate how the migration rate depends on these different processes. We derive a parameterization of the migration rate in terms of parameters that can be estimated from observations or large-scale model outputs, including the lateral shear stress in the ice stream margin, the ice thickness of the stream, the influx of ice from the ridge, and the bed temperature of the ice ridge. This parameterization will allow the incorporation of ice stream margin migration into large-scale ice sheet models.


Background Recent pre-clinical studies have shown that complement activation contributes to glomerular and tubular injury in experimental FSGS. Although complement proteins are detected in the glomeruli of some patients with FSGS, it is not known whether this is due to complement activation or whether the proteins are simply trapped in sclerotic glomeruli. We measured complement activation fragments in the plasma and urine of patients with primary FSGS to determine whether complement activation is part of the disease process. Study Design Plasma and urine samples from patients with biopsy-proven FSGS who participated in the FSGS Clinical Trial were analyzed. Setting and Participants We identified 19 patients for whom samples were available from weeks 0, 26, 52 and 78. The results for these FSGS patients were compared to results in samples from 10 healthy controls, 10 patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), 20 patients with vasculitis, and 23 patients with lupus nephritis. Outcomes Longitudinal control of proteinuria and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Measurements Levels of the complement fragments Ba, Bb, C4a, and sC5b-9 in plasma and urine. Results Plasma and urine Ba, C4a, sC5b-9 were significantly higher in FSGS patients at the time of diagnosis than in the control groups. Plasma Ba levels inversely correlated with the eGFR at the time of diagnosis and at the end of the study. Plasma and urine Ba levels at the end of the study positively correlated with the level of proteinuria, the primary outcome of the study. Limitations Limited number of patients with samples from all time-points. Conclusions The complement system is activated in patients with primary FSGS, and elevated levels of plasma Ba correlate with more severe disease. Measurement of complement fragments may identify a subset of patients in whom the complement system is activated. Further investigations are needed to confirm our findings and to determine the prognostic significance of complement activation in patients with FSGS.


In the academic community within Poland, there is an ongoing debate about the optimal strategies for a redesign of PhD programs; however, the views of PhD students in relation to contemporary doctoral study programs are not widely known. Therefore, in this article, we aim to answer the following questions: (1) what are the demands and the resources for doctoral studies at the Jagiellonian University (JU) as experienced by PhD students? (2) how are these demands and resources related to study burnout and engagement? To gain answers to these questions, we conducted an on-line opinion-based survey of doctoral students. As a result, 326 JU PhD students completed a questionnaire measuring 26 demands and 23 resources along with measures of study burnout and levels of engagement. The results revealed that the demands of doctoral studies at the JU (as declared by at least half of the respondents) are: the requirement to participate in classes that are perceived as an unproductive use of time, the lack of remuneration for tutoring courses with students, a lack of information about possible career paths subsequent to graduation, the use of PhD students as low-paid workers at the university, a lack of opportunities for financing their own research projects, and an inability to take up employment while studying for a doctoral degree. In terms of resources, at least half of the doctoral students pointed to: discounts on public transport and the provision of free-of-charge access to scientific journals. Analyzing both the frequency and strength of the relationships between resources/demands and burnout/engagement, we have identified four key problem areas: a lack of support from their supervisor, role ambiguity within University structures for PhD students, the conflict between paid work and doctoral studies, and the mandatory participation in classes as a student.


From August 1975 to August 1976 the Indian space agency's world-leading Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, known as SITE, broadcast to 2,400 villages across the country. This early project of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) defined a societal remit still considered the formational imaginary behind the space agency's range of remote sensing and planetary activities. The paper focuses on a brief span of time following SITE when opportunities opened for village residents to take control of the media, and this came about in part through initiatives in which creative practitioners working with the space agency introduced methods of co-production. The shift in creative agency from producers to audiences carried radical possibilities for social mobility and locally determined, rather than state-led, development initiatives. The purpose of this short paper is to highlight how creativity coincided with audience-led innovation. Opportunities for audiences to use the technical equipment opened as creative methods of co-production became more commonplace, such that innovation reflected the cultural values, or cognitive matrix, of the audience. Although the shift in agency from producer to audience was unprecedented, it was swiftly suppressed when the national satellite broadcast system INSAT finally became operational in the 1980s, in spite of—or perhaps because of—this flourish of social innovation. Applying the concept "cognitive innovation" to this context foregrounds the limited opportunities available for rural television audiences to use the technology instrumentally for their own purposes. Displacing creativity, by dismantling the project and putting a halt to its emerging methods of co-production, was a way of delinking the audience from the technology and thereby imposing a different order. By indicating how creative activity accesses cognitive innovation, the paper introduces the notion of "displacing creativity" as a transferable measure of agency. It argues that where creativity is displaced, crucial mechanisms by which subalterns gain agency to act and to innovate are lost.


With Brexit, the European Union has entered the first phase of
unprecedented and potentially wider political disintegration. This is a reflection
of the growing division between the EU's core political agenda, defined
under Germany's increasingly uncompromising hegemonial leadership
throughout the past decade, and the political preferences of the periphery in
Southern and Central-Eastern Europe. This article critically examines the
multiple effects of Germany's dominant leadership role in the EU since the
onset of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis on the basis of a liberal intergovernmentalist
perspective. It also considers future perspectives for German
leadership in the EU after Brexit. As Angela Merkel enters her fourth term as
German chancellor, she faces growing domestic political pressures and dwindling
support for German leadership in the EU. German leadership is therefore
more constrained than ever at a time when it is urgently needed to steer
the EU away from further disintegration and towards lasting consolidation.
The latter will require Berlin to engage profoundly in rebuilding a multilateral
EU leadership constellation with France and Poland, which develops an inclusive
policy agenda that represents the growing diversity of national interests
amongst the remaining EU-27 member states.


In recent years, multimedia applications such as video telephony, teleconferencing, and video streaming, which are delay sensitive and bandwidth intensive, have started to account for a significant portion of the data traffic in wireless networks. Such multimedia applications require certain quality of service (QoS) guarantees in terms of delay, packet loss, buffer underflows and overflows, and received multimedia quality. It is also important to note that such requirements need to be satisfied in the presence of limited wireless resources, such as power and bandwidth. Therefore, it is critical to conduct a rigorous performance analysis of multimedia transmissions over wireless networks and identify efficient resource allocation strategies. Motivated by these considerations, in the first part of the thesis, performance of hierarchical modulation-based multimedia transmissions is analyzed. Unequal error protection (UEP) of data transmission using hierarchical quadrature amplitude modulation (HQAM) is considered in which high priority (HP) data is protected more than low priority (LP) data. In this setting, two different types of wireless networks are considered. Specifically, multimedia transmission over cognitive radio networks and device-to-device (D2D) cellular wireless networks is addressed. Closed-form bit error rate (BER) expressions are derived and optimal power control strategies are determined. Next, throughput and optimal resource allocation strategies are studied for multimedia transmission under delay QoS and energy efficiency (EE) constraints. A Quality-Rate (QR) distortion model is employed to measure the quality of received video in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) as a function of video source rate. Effective capacity (EC) is used as the throughput metric under delay QoS constraints. In this analysis, four different wireless networks are taken into consideration: • First, D2D underlaid wireless networks are addressed. Efficient transmission mode selection and resource allocation strategies are analyzed with the goal of maximizing the quality of the received video at the receiver in a frequencydivision duplexed (FDD) cellular network with a pair of cellular users, one base station and a pair of D2D users under delay QoS and EE constraints. • A full-duplex communication scenario with a pair of users and multiple subchannels in which users can have different delay requirements is addressed. Since the optimization problem is not concave or convex due to the presence of interference, optimal power allocation policies that maximize the weighted sum video quality subject to total transmission power level constraint are derived by using monotonic optimization theory. The optimal scheme is compared with two suboptimal strategies. • A full-duplex communication scenario with multiple pairs of users in which different users have different delay requirements is addressed. EC is used as the throughput metric in the presence of statistical delay constraints since deterministic delay bounds are difficult to guarantee due to the time-varying nature of wireless fading channels. Optimal resource allocation strategies are determined under bandwidth, power and minimum video quality constraints again using the monotonic optimization framework. • A broadcast scenario in which a single transmitter sends multimedia data to multiple receivers is considered. The optimal bandwidth allocation and the optimal power allocation/power control policies that maximize the sum video quality subject to total bandwidth and minimum EE constraints are derived. Five different resource allocation strategies are investigated, and the joint opti2 mization of the bandwidth allocation and power control is shown to provide the best performance. Tradeoff between EE and video quality is also demonstrated. In the final part of the thesis, power control policies are investigated for streaming variable bit rate (VBR) video over wireless links. A deterministic traffic model for stored VBR video, taking into account the frame size, frame rate, and playout buffers is considered. Power control and the transmission mode selection with the goal of maximizing the sum transmission rate while avoiding buffer underflows and overflows under transmit power constraints is exploited in a D2D wireless network. Another system model involving a transmitter (e.g., a base station (BS)) that sends VBR video data to a mobile user equipped with a playout buffer is also adopted. In this setting, both offline and online power control policies are considered in order to minimize the transmission power without playout buffer underflows and overflows. Both dynamic programming and reinforcement learning based algorithms are developed. multimedia transmission over wireless networks: performance analysis and optimal resource allocation


The Junta del Acuerdo Cartagena (JUNAC), the governing and administrative body for the Andean Pact, and the InterAmerican Development Bank (BID), sponsored a working seminar on border integration in the Andean region in early July 1989. The meetings brought together government officials, members of the private sector, persons from local border development agencies, scholars and individuals from international agencies. Most of the participants were from the countries of the Andean Pact--Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia--but experts on border development from Central America, Mexico, the United States, Brazil and Argentina also were involved in the discussions. The purpose of the seminar was to explore border regional integration as a strategy for economic development and for the integration of the Andean Pact countries. The seminar consisted of an introductory section that discussed the purposes of the meetings from the perspectives of JUNAC and BID and presented a document to serve as a general frame of reference for discussion and analysis of integration of Andean border subregions. Also, methodologies for identification and design of projects for border integration, short term policies for border integration and development programs for border integration were discussed. The next section of the seminar consisted of presentations of case studies of Central American borders and the United States-Mexico border in order to provide a comparative perspective. Next followed a series of general and specific presentations that examined a number of projects and summarized actual developments in different border regions of the Andean Pact. These included the Peru-Bolivia border, the Colombian-Venezuelan border region, border regions of Ecuador, border regions of Peru, border regions of Bolivia and border regions of Columbia. Also presented were discussions of regional corporations, development corporations and multinational corporations in regional border development. The last part of the seminar was devoted to working groups considering general concepts of border integraton, short term policies for border integration and methodological factors for the study of Andean border regions. Each group produced a working document and these were all brought together and discussed in a general session to then form a summary document for the seminar.


We propose a cosmological model in which the universe undergoes an endless sequence of cosmic epochs that begin with a "bang" and end in a "crunch." Temperature and density at the transition remain finite. Instead of having an inflationary epoch, each cycle includes a period of slow accelerated expansion (as recently observed) followed by contraction that produces the homogeneity, flatness, and energy needed to begin the next cycle.


Background Tea consumption is associated with decreased cardiovascular risk. Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) of the brachial artery is related to coronary endothelial function and it is an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. Black tea has a beneficial effect on endothelial function; the effect, however, of green tea on brachial artery reactivity has not been defined yet. Design and methods We studied 14 healthy individuals (age 30 ± 3 years) with no cardiovascular risk factors except from smoking (50%) on three separate occasions on which they took: (a) 6 g of green tea, (b) 125 mg of caffeine (the amount contained in 6 g of tea), or (c) hot water. FMD of the brachial artery was measured before each intervention and 30, 90, and 120 min afterward. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein, interleukins 6 (II-6) and 1 b (II-1b), total plasma antioxidative capacity, and total plasma oxidative status/stress were measured at baseline and at 120 min after each intervention. Results Resting and hyperemic brachial artery diameter did not change either with tea or with caffeine. FMD increased significantly with tea (by 3.69%, peak at 30 min, P < 0.02), whereas it did not change significantly with caffeine (increase by 1.72%, peak at 30 min, P = NS). Neither tea nor caffeine had any effect on high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, II-6, II-1 b, total plasma antioxidative capacity, or total plasma oxidative status/stress. Conclusion Green tea consumption has an acute beneficial effect on endothelial function, assessed with FMD of the brachial artery, in healthy individuals. This may be involved in the beneficial effect of tea on cardiovascular risk.


Cats with patent infections of Brugia malayi were treated by intraperitoneal injection of diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC) for 6 consecutive days, weekly for 6 consecutive weeks or monthly for 3 months. Each cat received a total of 100 mg DEC per kg. At necropsy 7 months after infection, no living worms were recovered from any of eight cats treated weekly and only one of nine cats treated daily had a single living Brugia. Five of nine cats treated monthly and six of eight untreated controls had one or more living worms. Cats treated weekly showed a larger decline in microfilariae than those of the other treated groups. The mean microfilariae level of untreated controls increased 2-fold. At necropsy, gross appearance of regional lymphatics in daily and weekly treated cats resembled those of uninfected controls more closely than those in cats treated monthly or untreated. Differences in degree of histological changes between groups of infected cats were not apparent. Weekly administration of DEC appeared to be the most effective regimen; monthly treatment was less effective.


Abstract I present a long-term earthquake rate model for the central and eastern United States from adaptive smoothed seismicity. By employing pseudoprospective likelihood testing (L-test), I examined the effects of fixed and adaptive smoothing methods and the effects of catalog duration and composition on the ability of the models to forecast the spatial distribution of recent earthquakes. To stabilize the adaptive smoothing method for regions of low seismicity, I introduced minor modifications to the way that the adaptive smoothing distances are calculated. Across all smoothed seismicity models, the use of adaptive smoothing and the use of earthquakes from the recent part of the catalog optimizes the likelihood for tests with M ≥2.7 and M ≥4.0 earthquake catalogs. The smoothed seismicity models optimized by likelihood testing with M ≥2.7 catalogs also produce the highest likelihood values for M ≥4.0 likelihood testing, thus substantiating the hypothesis that the locations of moderate-size earthquakes can be forecast by the locations of smaller earthquakes. The likelihood test does not, however, maximize the fraction of earthquakes that are better forecast than a seismicity rate model with uniform rates in all cells. In this regard, fixed smoothing models perform better than adaptive smoothing models. The preferred model of this study is the adaptive smoothed seismicity model, based on its ability to maximize the joint likelihood of predicting the locations of recent small-to-moderate-size earthquakes across eastern North America. The preferred rate model delineates 12 regions where the annual rate of M ≥5 earthquakes exceeds 2×10 −3 . Although these seismic regions have been previously recognized, the preferred forecasts are more spatially concentrated than the rates from fixed smoothed seismicity models, with rate increases of up to a factor of 10 near clusters of high seismic activity. Online Material: Figures of minimum-magnitude determination, b -value estimation, and maps of earthquake rate and forecasts, and tables of optimized neighbor numbers and smoothing distances.


Transition path sampling is an innovative method for focusing a molecular dynamics simulation on a reactive event. Although transition path sampling methods can generate an ensemble of reactive trajectories, an initial reactive trajectory must be generated by some other means. In this paper, the authors have evaluated three methods for generating initial reactive trajectories for transition path sampling with ab initio molecular dynamics. The authors have tested each of these methods on a set of chemical reactions involving the breaking and making of covalent bonds: the 1,2-hydrogen elimination in the borane-ammonia adduct, a tautomerization, and the Claisen rearrangement. The first method is to initiate trajectories from the potential energy transition state, which was effective for all reactions in the test set. Assigning atomic velocities found using normal mode analysis greatly improved the success of this method. The second method uses a high temperature molecular dynamics simulation and then iteratively reduces the total energy of the simulation until a low temperature reactive trajectory is found. This was effective in generating a low temperature trajectory from an initial trajectory run at 3000 K of the tautomerization reaction, although it failed for the other two. The third uses an orbital based bias potential to find a reactive trajectory and uses this trajectory to initiate an unbiased trajectory. The authors found that a highest occupied molecular orbital-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital bias could be used to find a reactive trajectory for the Claisen rearrangement, although it failed for the other two reactions. These techniques will help make it practical to use transition path sampling to study chemical reaction mechanisms that involve bond breaking and forming.


The financial press and accounting regulators (e.g., the SEC and FASB) have expressed concern about pressures on Internet firms to report high levels of revenue. This study verifies the association between market capitalization and revenue, and examines economic factors that potentially influence Internet company managers' decisions to adopt allegedly aggressive revenue recognition policies. Specifically, we examine factors hypothesized to influence reporting of advertising barter revenue and grossed-up sales levels. We begin by providing descriptive evidence on the use of barter and grossed-up revenue across Internet sectors. While common in some sectors, we find that use of these accounting policies is not pervasive overall. We limit our empirical analyses to Internet companies that have the opportunity to report grossed-up or advertising barter revenue. Our cross-sectional predictions are based on both external and internal incentives to maximize revenues as well as constraints that may limit management's discretion. We predict that the following factors increase the likelihood that a firm will report grossed-up and/or barter revenue: shorter time before needing additional external financing, more active individual investor interest in the firm's stock, more active pursuit of growth via acquisitions, and greater use of stock options in employee compensation. We also posit that barter transactions might be an inexpensive way for firms to evaluate the viability of future marketing or content alliances with potential partners. Finally, we predict constraints on management discretion to be related to the reputation/quality of the firm's auditor and underwriter, and the extent of management ownership. We find that firms with greater cash burn rates and higher levels of activity on Motley Fool message boards are consistently associated with barter and grossed-up revenue reporting. This suggests that the pressure to seek external funding and the extent of active individual investor interest in a firm influence Internet managers' use of allegedly aggressive revenue reporting practices. In addition, it appears that firms reporting barter revenue are more likely to enter into marketing and content alliances, suggesting the potential for future alliances may be another motivation for managers to enter into barter transactions.


Persistent homology provides a robust methodology to infer topological structures from point cloud data. Here we explore the persistent homology of point clouds embedded into a probabilistic setting, exploiting the theory of point processes. We provide variants of notions of ergodicity and investigate measures on the space of persistence diagrams. In particular we introduce the notion of self-similar scaling of persistence diagram expectation measures and prove a packing relation for the occurring dynamical scaling exponents. As a byproduct we generalize the strong law of large numbers for persistent Betti numbers proven in [Hiraoka et al., Ann. Appl. Probab. 28(5), 2018] for averages over cubes to arbitrary convex averaging sequences.


The very wide diversity of asteroid compositions in the main belt suggests significant material transport in the solar protoplanetary disk and hints at the presence of interstellar ices in hydrated bodies. However, only a few quantitative estimations of the contribution of interstellar ice in the inner solar system have been reported, leading to considerable uncertainty about the extent of radial inward mixing in the solar protoplanetary disk 4.56 Ga ago. We show that the pristine CM chondrite Paris contains primary Ca-carbonates whose O-isotopic compositions require an 8%–35% contribution from interstellar water. The presence of interstellar water in Paris is confirmed by its bulk D/H isotopic composition that shows significant D enrichment (D/H = (167 ± 0.2) × 10−6) relative to the mean D/H of CM chondrites ((145 ± 3) × 10−6) and the putative D/H of local CM water ((82 ± 1.5) × 10−6). These results imply that (i) efficient radial mixing of interstellar ices occurred from the outer zone of the solar protoplanetary disk inward and that (ii) chondrites accreted water ice grains from increasing heliocentric distances in the solar protoplanetary disk.


The goal of this thesis is the user-independent recognition of dynamic, singlehanded gestures using a dataglove. This research focuses on the technology behind the recognition of these gestures. It wants to try and find suitable technologies, compare them and research ways to optimise the use of these technologies to increase recognition performance. The dynamic hand gestures described in this research were defined by researching the tasks users do when controlling a large display surface. Nine gestures
were defined to cover different aspects of navigating a user interface. Using a dataglove for hand pose data and an additional sensor for position and orientation data, data was recorded on all nine gestures from eight users in a Wizard of Oz experiment. The aim of this experiment was the simulation of a real-world environment in which users control two applications with the nine gestures. With the recorded data three types of recognisers that were suitable for the goal of this thesis were trained and tested: Discrete Hidden Markov Models (DHMMs), Continuous Hidden Markov Models (CHMMs) and Latent-Dynamic Conditional Random Fields (LDCRFs). Different data pre-processing methods
and parameter tuning were applied to try and increase their recognition rate. Contrary to expectation, the DHMMs and CHMMs performed poorly and only LDCRFs were able to achieve a satisfying recognition rate on the recorded data
set. Initial testing of the LDCRFs on user independence also showed satisfying recognition rates. This thesis shows that the user-independent recognition of dynamic hand gestures using a dataglove is feasible. Even though this research describes only a part of the process involved in designing hand gesture interaction, it can without
a doubt play an effective role in its realisation.


Problems and challenges with information technology and information systems (IT/IS) outsourcing often do not relate to the strategic level, but to the operational level. Especially organizations with little experience with larger IT/IS outsourcing programs face operational problems with the steering of external outsourcing providers. In this paper, we propose a reference framework that structures the required processes for an effective steering of IT/IS outsourcing relationships. The research is based on the design science paradigm in information systems research. In a first step, we derive a framework from related literature and knowledge in this particular area. We then use extensive fieldwork to evaluate our framework and to develop it further. The suggested framework proves to be a viable instrument to support the structured analysis of current processes and the definition of suitable target processes for the steering of IT/IS outsourcing programs. This paper"s primary contribution therefore lies in providing an applicable instrument for practitioners, as well as in extending the existing body of knowledge on IT/IS outsourcing.


This papers aims at presenting the first stages of a new research project that is being developed in Portugal on medieval and modern seals. One of the major goals of the project is to gather in a coherent and organised corpus all Portuguese seals a task that was never undertaken. It intends to start working with the medieval secular clergy seals and embrace other groups at a later stage. For such a goal it was achieved the agreement and institutional cooperation of archives, museums and libraries in possession of the specimens and collections. Seals have been used since ancient times with the triple and important function of identifying, validating and keeping something inviolable, a function still at play nowadays. Nevertheless care for their inventorying, preservation and study have not corresponded to what is desirable and a significant number of specimens is at risk. In Portugal a recent analysis of the seals prior to 1319 from the archives of the Cathedral Chapter of Coimbra stored at the National Archive of Torre do Tombo (ANTT) points to almost 50% of missing seals and only 25% of the remaining considered to be in good condition. Given that this is one of the largest Portuguese seal collections, such numbers are an alarming indicator of the urgent need to safeguard the sigillographic heritage still existing in our country. Having in mind the rebirth and renewal of the sigillographic science that occurred a few decades ago by the hand of Michel Pastoureau who gave a new boost to the study of these "small monuments" we believe the project justifies itself. Chapter 5 Heritage and culture 583


The MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) has been widely accepted not only for providing digital TV services, but also as a subnetwork technology for building IP networks. This document describes a Unidirectional Lightweight Encapsulation (ULE) mechanism for the transport of IPv4 and IPv6 Datagrams and other network protocol packets directly over the ISO MPEG-2 Transport Stream as TS Private Data. ULE specifies a base encapsulation format and supports an extension format that allows it to carry additional header information to assist in network/Receiver processing.


Temperature impacts the quality of reservoir and source rocks, thereby representing an important aspect of petroleum prospect assessments of any basin. This case study of the Triassic basin of Edgeøya, eastern Svalbard, reevaluate earlier burial estimates that were solely based on organic matter maturation data from organic rich shales. Here, we estimate temperatures using a multi‐method approach: Rock‐Eval pyrolysis parameters, fluid inclusions in diagenetic quartz, and inorganic diagenesis signatures of sandstones. Data were collected from organic rich shales of the Botneheia and Tschermakfjellet formations and coal bearing sandstones of the De Geerdalen Formation. Rock‐Eval pyrolysis data indicate that Botneheia and Tschermakfjellet formations experienced burial temperatures of about 124–138°C while the De Geerdalen Formation experienced temperatures ≥92°C. Homogenization temperatures of the De Geerdalen Formation sandstones give similar diagenetic temperatures, from 70 to 124°C, while the kaolinite to dickite transformation implies the temperatures >90°C. Furthermore, the absence of illite formation associated with kaolinite suggest that temperature have never exceed 130°C. Integrating various methods validate spatial variations in temperature proxies and constrain the thermal history of this basin. Cretaceous intrusions have locally affected the temperatures and have obscured regional subsidence and uplift trends. The effect of igneous intrusions on inorganic matter is very limited, but intensive on organic matter. These differences between organic and inorganic thermal indices help in distinguishing of magmatic from burial heating. This study has therefore relevance in deciphering the thermal history of sandstones experiencing magmatic activity coupled with multiple burial and uplift events.


Christian Wolff is a composer who has followed a distinctive path often at the centre of avant-garde activity working alongside figures such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Cornelius Cardew. In a career spanning sixty years, he has produced a significant and influential body of work that has aimed to address, in a searching and provocative manner, what it means to be an experimental and socially aware artist. This book provides a wide-ranging introduction to a composer often overlooked despite his influence upon many of the major figures in new music since the 1950s from Cage to John Zorn to the new wave of experimentalists across the globe.

As the first detailed analysis of the music of this prolific and highly individual composer, Changing the System: The Music of Christian Wolff contains contributions from leading experts in the field of new and experimental music, as well as from performers and composers who have worked with Wolff. The reception of Wolff's music is discussed in relation to the European avant-garde and also within the context of Wolff's association with Cage and Feldman. Music from his earliest compositions of the 1950s, the highly indeterminate scores, the politically-inspired pieces up to the most recent works are discussed in detail, both in relation to their compositional techniques, general aesthetic development, and matters of performance. The particular challenges and aesthetic issues arising from Wolff's idiosyncratic notations and the implications for performers are a central theme. Likewise, the ways in which Wolff's political persuasions - which arguably account for some of the notational methods he chooses - have been worked out through his music, are examined.


Abstract Women's health after childbirth Erica Schytt, Department of Woman and Child Health The overall aim of this thesis is to describe women's health after childbirth in a national Swedish sample by investigating the prevalence of a number of physical symptoms and self-rated health (SRH). The prevalence of stress incontinence at one year after delivery, and possible predictors, was investigated specifically. Risk factors for poor SRH at two months and one year after childbirth were identified. To further understand what the question of SRH captures in the context of childbirth and early parenthood, the reasoning of new mothers when answering the question 'How would you summarize your state of health at present' at one year after the birth, was explored. For the purpose of Papers I-III, we used selected data from a national Swedish survey (the KUB project: Women's experiences of childbirth), investigating women's physical and psychological assessment of childbirth. This study was designed as a cohort study in which women were followed by means of three questionnaires from early pregnancy to one year after the birth. Swedish-speaking women were recruited at their first antenatal booking visit, from 593 (97%) antenatal clinics in Sweden. About 4600 women were eligible. Of the 3455 (75%) who consented to participate, 3061 answered the first questionnaire, 2762 the second and 2563 the third; 2450 (53%) filled in all three questionnaires. The representativity of the sample was assessed by comparison with all births taking place in Sweden in 1999, according to the Swedish Medical Birth Register. For the purpose of Paper IV, a qualitative design using the method of combined concurrent and retrospective thinkaloud interviews, followed by a semi-structured interview, was used. The 26 respondents, recruited from Child Health Clinics one year after delivery, were asked to say out loud everything that came into their minds, from the moment they first saw the question until they finally gave their answer. The analysis was guided by a theoretical framework describing four cognitive tasks, usually performed when a respondent answers a survey question: interpretation of the question, retrieval of information, forming a judgment and giving a response. Tiredness, headache, neck, shoulder and low back pain were common problems at two months, as well as one year after childbirth. At two months, pain from cesarean section, dyspareunia, and hemorrhoids were frequent problems, whereas stress incontinence was often reported at one year. Nevertheless, SRH was reported to be 'very good' or 'good' by 91% of the women at two months after birth, and by 86% at one year (Paper I). One year after the birth, 22% of the women had symptoms of stress incontinence but only 2% said it caused them major problems. The strongest predictor was urinary incontinence (overall leakage) 4-8 weeks after a vaginal delivery as well as after a cesarean section. Other predictors in women with a vaginal delivery were: multiparity, obesity and constipation 4-8 weeks postpartum (Paper II). Physical problems, such as tiredness, musculoskeletal symptoms and abdominal pain, and emotional problems such as depressive symptoms, increased the risk of poor SRH in both primiparas and multiparas at one or both time points. Negative experience of breastfeeding (2 months) and infant sleeping problems (1 year) were infant-related risk factors in both groups, and prematurity was a risk factor in primiparas at two months. Insufficient social support increased the risk in multiparas. In primiparas, outcome of labor, such as negative birth experience after operative delivery was associated with poor SRH at one year, and perineal pain at two months (Paper III). The qualitative study showed that the question on SRH was a measure of women's general health and wellbeing in their present life situation, but it did not seem to measure recovery after childbirth specifically. The question on SRH seemed to capture a woman's total life situation, such as family functioning and wellbeing, relationship with partner, the issue of combining motherhood and professional work, level of energy, physical symptoms and emotional problems affecting daily life, stressful life events, chronic disease with ongoing symptoms, body image, physical exercise, and feelings of happiness and joy. Neither childbirth-related events nor some childbirth-related symptoms (urogenital and anal symptoms) were included in women's reasoning (Paper IV). In conclusion, this thesis shows that physical problems were common in early motherhood, but in spite of this, few women assessed their health as poor. Self-rated health mainly captures a woman's total life situation as well as ongoing physical and emotional health problems affecting daily life. The quantitative study suggests that mode of delivery and childbirth experience have long-term effects on SRH, but the qualitative study did not support this finding, showing that more research is needed on long-term effects of childbirth on mothers' experiences of their health.


In this thesis, we investigate the possibility of basing cryptographic primitives on Physically Uncloneable Functions (PUF). A PUF is a piece of hardware that can be seen as a source of randomness. When a PUF is evaluated on a physical stimulus, it answers with a noisy output. PUFs are unpredictable such that even if a chosen stimulus is given, it should be infeasible to predict the corresponding output without physically evaluating the PUF. Furthermore, PUFs are uncloneable, which means that even if all components of the system are known, it is computational infeasible to model their behavior. In the course of this dissertation, we discuss PUFs in the context of their implementation, their mathematical description, as well as their usage as a cryptographic primitive and in cryptographic protocols.

We first give an overview of the most prominent PUF constructions in order to derive subsequently an appropriate mathematical PUF model. It turns out that this is a non- trivial task, because it is not certain which common security properties are generally necessary and achievable due to the numerous PUF implementations.

Next, we consider PUFs in security applications. Due to the properties of PUFs, these hardware tokens are good to build authentication protocols that rely on challenge/response pairs. If the number of potential PUF-based challenge/response pairs is large enough, an adversary cannot measure all PUF responses. Therefore, the at- tacker will most likely not be able to answer the challenge of the issuing party even if he had physical access to the PUF for a short time. However, we show that some of the previously suggested protocols are not fully secure in the attacker model where the adversary has physical control of the PUF and the corresponding reader during a short time.

Finally, we analyze PUFs in the universally composable (UC) framework for the first time. Although hardware tokens have been considered before in the UC framework, designing PUF-based protocols is fundamentally different from other hardware token approaches. One reason is that the manufacturer of the PUF creates a physical object that outputs pseudorandom values, but where no specific code is running. In fact, the functional behavior of the PUF is unpredictable even for the PUF creator. Thus, only the party in possession of the PUF has full access to the secrets. After formalizing PUFs in the UC framework, we derive efficient UC-secure protocols for basic tasks like oblivious transfer, commitments, and key exchange.


The financial systems of some countries fared materially better than others during the global financial crisis of 2007-09. The performance of the Canadian banking system during this period was relatively strong. Using a case study approach together with empirical analysis, we assess some of the factors that contributed to this favourable outcome with a view to drawing useful lessons for regulatory reform. We argue that an important contributor to positive bank performance was a solid approach to risk management on the part of the Canadian banking system, an approach that was actively fostered by the domestic authorities. Efforts to buttress risk management were favourably influenced by several stressful yet instructive episodes in Canadian financial history. The 2007-09 crisis experience suggests a need to make risk management a pervasive element of financial system culture and emphasizes the importance of robust liquidity management.


The hypothesis that active site translocation during initial transcription occurs by a passive sliding mechanism which allows the pre- and post-translocated states to equilibrate on the time scale of bond formation was tested by evaluating the effects of NTP concentration on individual transcript extension steps in the presence of translocation roadblocks created by proteins bound immediately downstream of a T7 promoter, as well as by evaluating the effects of NTP concentration on competing transcript extension pathways (iterative synthesis and "normal" extension). Results are consistent with a passive sliding mechanism for translocation which is driven by NTP binding, and are inconsistent with mechanisms in which the pre- and post-translocated states fail to equilibrate with each other on the time scale of bond formation or in which translocation is driven by NTP hydrolysis. We also find, in agreement with many previous studies, that divergence from consensus in the ITS (initially transcribed sequence) of the T7 promoter decreases productive initiation. However, this appears to be largely due to increases in the NTP concentration requirements for efficient transcription on the divergent ITSs.


This paper reviews the major forces that led to a new climate of assessment in higher education, some of the instruments commonly used to assess undergraduate student learning and growth, and the programs through which results are communicated to prospective students, their parents, lawmakers, and other constituents. The impact of increased emphasis on assessment on academic libraries and the role those libraries can play in institutional assessment activities is also discussed.


The build-up of scientific knowledge about climate change has increased its urgency within public debate, but also defined it as a formidable problem of governance. As such, climate change is an 'untamed risk', one with an accumulating effect and a time-dimension that differs from what 'traditional' problem-solving structures are used dealing with. International attempts at governance, like the UN Climate Change Conferences, only demonstrate this divergence. To understand these problem-solving strategies and their shortcomings better, an analysis is given of the conceptions of responsibility underlying them. It is then asked how these conceptions could better fit the specific characteristics of climate change. Through the work of the French philosopher Alain Badiou the book then arrives at an imperative for action that is at the same time inclusive and particular, offering examples of its implications for any problem-solving strategy on a national or global scale. This work thus offers ideas on policies and strategies regarding climate change, and as such can be insightful for a broad public; from policy advisors to scholars as to the generally interested reader.


BACKGROUND
Protein-calorie malnutrition is highly prevalent in patients with chronic renal failure and on chronic dialysis therapy. Longitudinal studies evaluating nutritional outcomes after the initiation of chronic dialysis therapy in incident dialysis patients are limited.

METHODS
This prospective cohort study evaluated time-dependent changes in several well-defined markers of nutritional status before and after initiation of chronic hemodialysis therapy. Fifty incident hemodialysis (HD) patients (60% men, 38% white, 32% with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) were studied. Multiple nutritional markers, including biochemical parameters and analysis of body composition, were assessed before the initial outpatient CHD treatment and every 3 months thereafter for 12 months.

RESULTS
At baseline, nutritional markers correlated well with each other. After the initiation of HD therapy, there were marked improvements in most nutritional parameters, including serum albumin, serum prealbumin, normalized protein catabolic rate, fat mass, reactance, and phase angle (P < 0.05 for all). Improvements in nutritional parameters were influenced by baseline nutritional status; ie, baseline nutritional parameters were predictors of their end-of-study value.

CONCLUSION
Initiation of CHD therapy is associated with improvements in most nutritional markers. Nutritional benefits of increased solute clearance provided by the initiation of chronic dialysis therapy prevail over its potential catabolic effects. However, the extent of improvement was dependent on nutritional status at the time of initiation of dialysis therapy, which remained an important determinant of subsequent nutritional improvements during the first year of treatment.


Robust treatment of complex collisions is a challenging problem in cloth simulation. Some state of the art methods resolve collisions iteratively, invoking a fail-safe when a bound on iteration count is exceeded. The best-known fail-safe rigidifies the contact region, causing simulation artifacts. We present a fail-safe that cancels impact but not sliding motion, considerably reducing artificial dissipation. We equip the proposed fail-safe with an approximation of Coulomb friction, allowing finer control of sliding dissipation.


A characterization of the expression, regulation, and function of the mouse voltage-sensitive phosphatase, Mm-VSP Mario Giavonni Rosasco Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Sandra Bajjalieh Department of Pharmacology Voltage-sensitive phosphatases (VSPs) are proteins that directly couple changes in membrane electrical potential to changes in the enzymatic activity of a lipid phosphatase domain. The best characterized activity of VSPs so far is dephosphorylation of the lipid substrates phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2), phosphatidylinositol 3,4-bisphosphate (PI(3,4)P2), and phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PI(3,4,5)P3). These phospholipid signals regulate many important cellular signaling cascades that have been implicated in numerous diseases, and regulated electrical signaling is also known to play a crucial role in an equally broad variety of cell signaling events and diseases. Given that VSPs are uniquely able to directly couple these two signaling mechanisms, there is a clear biomedical motivation to fully understand the roles that VSPs play in cell signaling. Great progress has been made using VSPs as tools to investigate phosphoinositide signaling pathways and to investigate structural mechanisms of electrochemical coupling in cells. However despite these advancements, the mammalian members of the VSP family remain poorly characterized relative to their non-mammalian counterparts, and very little is known about the cell signaling roles that any VSP proteins serve. To address this gap in knowledge, I have characterized the expression, regulation, and activity of the VSP family member from mouse, giving particular attention to a possible role in the central nervous system. This dissertation will begin with a summary of the current state of understanding of both mammalian and nonmammalian VSPs, and then discuss what I have recently learned about the properties of the mouse VSP. In particular, I have demonstrated that the mouse protein is expressed in the central nervous system, where its expression is developmentally regulated at both the mRNA and protein levels. I have also shown that the mouse protein's transmembrane segments function as a voltage sensing domain, and that the phosphatase domain is capable of reducing the concentration of PI(4,5)P2 at the plasma membrane. These properties of the mouse VSP are distinct from the reported properties of the non-mammalian VSPs, suggesting interesting and unique physiological roles for the VSPs from mammals.


MEMS Accelerometer, the new inventions which revolutionized the technical world. Now, it's time for the self assistive accelerometers. In this paper, we have designed the trampoline, annular diaphragm structured piezoelectric accelerometers using PZT-5H with COMSOL Multiphysics software tool for providing low transverse sensitivity along one axis and good temperature stability. These accelerometers are incorporated into application specific integration circuit (ASIC) and RF telemetry systems to facilitate wireless monitoring of industrial equipment.


Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) has become one of the dreadful health problems in the world. An integrated approach is strongly suggested for creating knowledge, attitude, and awareness to control the spread of HIV/AIDS among healthcare workers. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of nursing students toward provision of care for HIV/AIDS-affected people. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among students attending four nursing colleges in Guntur city, Andhra Pradesh. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data regarding knowledge, attitude, and practices in provision of care for HIV patients. Of 1012 students, a total of 839 students agreed to participate in the study, of which 800 completely filled questionnaires were returned and subjected to statistical analysis. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20 software and Chi-square tests were used to analyze the data. Results: Approximately 96.37% of students were aware that sexual intercourse can spread HIV/AIDS, whereas only 47.75% had knowledge on spread of HIV through tattooing. In total, 37.25% erroneously believe that salivary contact can spread HIV/AIDS. Around 20.37% of the study participants reported that they would not prefer to care for HIV patients. Approximately 50.75% of females and 54.17% of males expressed their apprehension of being exposed to HIV/AIDS at work. Conclusion: A majority of nursing students had adequate knowledge, and few students held discriminatory attitudes toward people with HIV/AIDS.


Background: While the Latino immigrant male (LIM) population in Allegheny County is small, it is quickly growing. Previous studies have shown that men who immigrate without their families lack a sense of collective identity due to a socioeconomically diverse and geographically dispersed Latino population in Allegheny County. This reality may result in social isolation, and other associated negative health consequences. Purpose: This qualitative study sought to understand the social context of LIM in Allegheny County and describe how this context may impact their health. Methods: Photovoice was used, which is a community-engaged methodology in which participants document their lives in photographs, to understand community-level perspectives on participants' social context and relevant health topics. Participants were asked to take photographs about various topics, discuss the contexts related to photographs, and then relate the contexts with their experiences as immigrants. Seven LIM participated. Photograph "assignments" addressed the meaning of: (1) being an immigrant; (2) stress and related coping strategies; and (3) "fun" for the Latino community. All discussions were transcribed and analyzed using elements of grounded theory. Results: Three dominant themes emerged, which characterize the social context of participants: 1) the paramount role of the family leads immigrants to make sacrifices in order to provide for relatives abroad; 2) individual estimation of self-worth is affected by many factors, including workplace dynamics, pride and social discrimination; and 3) this community is marginalized, not able to retain close ties with families in the former culture, yet not able to access and participate in society in the new culture. Participants also discussed the disconnected nature of the Latino population and high stress levels, influenced by excessive work hours, unstable housing situations and lack of healthy social outlets. Conclusions & Public Health Relevance: The contextual reality within which LIM live in Allegheny County is not sufficient to provide the social support needed for members of a collectivist culture. This lack of social support, compounded by a social and economic context hostile to immigrants, is resulting in negative health outcomes. Existing health infrastructure must take into account this reality, particularly when designing care, support and prevention programs.


This thesis describes syntheses and attempted syntheses of certain 3-substituted
oxetanes. Simple oxetanes bearing reactive substituents in the 3-position are required
since the polymerisation of these compounds is anticipated to lead to polymers of
potential use as energetic binders in rocket propellant systems. Oxetanes of particular
interest are 3-hydroxyoxetane, 3,3-bis(hydroxymethyl)oxetane, and 3-(hydroxymethypoxetane.
3-Hydroxyoxetane was prepared in three steps from epibromohydrin (I). Firstly,
Lewis acid-catalysed ring opening of the epoxide in the presence of acetic acid gave the
bromohydrin II. This was heated with ethyl vinyl ether and p-toluenesulphonic acid,
and cyclisation of the resulting ether III with strong base afforded the oxetane IV.
Deprotection gave 3-hydroxyoxetane (V).
3-Hydroxyoxetane (V) underwent reaction with dinitrogen pentaoxide, and the
resulting nitrate ester VI was polymerised to give poly-3-nitratooxetane 3,3-Bis(hydroxymethyl)oxetane (IX) was prepared from pentaerythritol (VIII)
via pyrolysis of the carbonate ester X, and by monobromination followed by
intramolecular Williamson reaction of the resulting bromohydrin XI.
Attempts have been made to synthesise 3-(hydroxyMethypoxetane (XII) by two
main routes. The first involved cyclisation of either 2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol
(XIII) or a protected derivative XIV to give either the oxetane XII itself or the
corresponding derivative XV. 2-(Hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol (XHI) was itself prepared by deamination
of 2-amino-2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol (XVI) using hydroxylamine-0-
sulphonic acid in base, but it could not be cyclised directly.
2,2-Dimethy1-5-(hydroxymethyl)-5-nitro-1,3-dioxane (XVIII) was formed by
the reaction of 2-(hydroxymethyl)-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol (XVH) with 2-methoxypropene.
The dioxane XVIII was further protected by conversion to 2,2-dimethy1-5-
(methanesulphonyloxymethyl)-5-nitro-1,3-dioxane (XIX). Hydro-denitration of the
nitro-compound XIX using tri-n-butyltin hydride, yielded 2,2-dimethy1-5-
(methanesulphonyloxymethyl)-1,3-dioxane (XX), which was hydrolysed to the
corresponding diol XXI. Treatment of this methanesulphonyl ester XXI with strong
base afforded 3-(hydroxy/methypoxetane (XV).
An attempt to form 2(t-butyldimethylsilyloxymethyppropane-1,3-diol (XXII)
via a five-stage process from allyl t-butyldimethylsilyl ether (xxim) was unsuccessful. Cyclo-addition of the allyl ether XXIII with dichloroketene gave 3-(tbutyldimethylsilyloxymethyl)-
2,2-dichlorocyclobutanone (XXIV) which was dehalogenated
to give 3-(t-butyldimethylsilyloxymethyl)cyclobutanone (XXV). This
was converted to diethyl acetal XXVI, but the acetal failed to undergo Baeyer-Villiger
oxidation to 5-(t-butyldimethylsilyloxymethyl)-2-oxo-1,3-dioxane (XXVII). A second route to 3-(hydroxymethyl)oxetane (MI) involved the formation and
attempted cyclisation of the glycidyl ether XXVIII to give oxetane XXIX. The
epoxide XXVIII was prepared from ethyl bromoacetate and glycidol, but no cyclisation
could be effected.


Maritime historians have not followed the trend set by other disciplines towards regional studies which has become an established practice over the past ten years. Some excellent work has been done on individual ports but no one has attempted to establish the relationship between the sea trade and the land based economy on a regional basis. This thesis corrects the omission for the region of the North West of England. A study of the coastwise trade and the trade with Ireland in the late eighteenth century, it provides evidence which argues for the existence of an integrated maritime economy in the Irish Sea region in the period 1750-1810. Altogether, it demonstrates that a complex regional trade existed alongside increasing overseas trade.

The sources to identify coastal trading activity in this period are scarce. With few exceptions, records of the King's Remembrancer Exchequer Port Books are no longer available, while the run of records of the Customs Bills of Entry has not started. One of the challenges, therefore, was to identify alternative sources from which the necessary information could be drawn. Shipping lists published in local newspapers were the principal source used. Other key sources included trade directories, trade reports and business papers.

The study of ownership uses the shipping registers from 1786 and examines ownership and relationships with the local economies in greater detail than has been undertaken previously. Research into local sources assisted in identifying the specific business interests of owners, particularly those designated as 'merchant' and 'gentleman' in the registers. A key finding is that a complex shipping investment pattern existed within the region related to the characteristics of the local economies.

Case studies based on surviving business records give insight into the business practices underpinning regional maritime commerce, particularly the use of information networks, methods of payment and the roles of the merchants. The importance of the trust in business relationships is the most prominent characteristic to emerge from these case studies.


General office lighting visibility specifications were analyzed with respect to optimization of cost effectiveness. Cost effectiveness is a function of visual performance, not visibility per se. It was found that the present procedures which utilize ESI are not readily adaptable to cost optimization calculations. An alternative procedure using log VL is presented which appears suitable for this use. A sample calculation of net benefits versus light level is presented. For the same calculation the net benefits from visibility saturate at lower levels of visibility than are normally prescribed for office environments.


We analyse the results of experiments on questionnaire design and interview mode in the first four waves (2008-11) of the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel survey. The randomised experiments relate to job, health, income, leisure and overall life-satisfaction questions and vary the labeling of response scales, mode of interviewing, and location of questions within the interview. We find significant evidence of an influence of interview mode and question design on the distribution of reported satisfaction measures, particularly for women. Results from the sort of conditional modeling used to address real research questions appear less vulnerable to design influences.


Unlike Bulgarian accounting theory and practice, global accounting theory and practice treat budgeting and analysis as a whole. The situation in our country in recent years has introduced a new concept of business budgeting.Managers already need to have a plan for the operation of an entity in following and future reporting periods and to link corporate planning and the process of performance assessment. Accounting staff have felt a strong need to set budget indicators and to compare actual performance to these budget indicators. In this way, the concept of "accounting budgeting" has been gradually introduced in our country. It refers to the process of determining the quantity and value of sales, production, costs, investments in non-current tangible and intangible assets, current assets and liabilities, cash receipts and payments and more. The end result, or the so-called product of the budgeting process, is presented on paper in the form of a document named "a budget" (a plan).


Rural development or natural resource management program planning and implementation frequently confront challenges of environmental resource competition and conflict, particularly where common pool resources are a major component of rural livelihoods. This paper reports on an approach to multistakeholder dialogue, supported by participatory action research, to address the roots of such competition and conflict. The approach, called "Collaborating for Resilience," includes principles and guidance on building a shared understanding of risks and opportunities, weighing alternative actions, developing action plans, and evaluating and learning from the outcomes. Working in partnership with government, community and civil society actors, the approach was developed and refined through applications in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. This paper presents a synthesis of lessons addressing practitioners in government, nongovernmental development organizations, and international development agencies. These lessons include guidance on the context of multistakeholder dialogue processes, addressing gender equity, building stakeholder relationships and accountability across scales, and encouraging learning and innovation over time.


The essence of this study, in addition to the three dimensional image reconstruction of human dentin microstructure in micro and nano size; involves irradiation effects and modification of anatase TiO2 surface by gallium focused ion beam, the various properties of modified surface were investigated by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). The aforementioned procedures can successfully be carried out using a dual-beam system consisting of highresolution scanning electron microscope (HR-SEM), focused ion beam (FIB) columns, attachments such as gas injection systems (GIS), and detectors for elemental analysis (EDS). However, the ion beam irradiation causes some artifacts along with other beneficial modifications on material's surface especially on biocompatible materials such as TiO2. Therefore, in this study we considered the limitations as well as the advantages of using focused ion beam for nanostructuring, ion implantation etc. In the first part of this study, high-resolution electron microscopy techniques, such as Focused Ion Beam (FIB), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) revealed micro and nano features within human dentin with high definition and accuracy. The samples were prepared using FIB based advanced nanostructuring processes in a dual-beam instrument. The related secondary electron (SE) image tomographs were acquired by means of stacking the images from FIB slice-series for monitoring micro-sized dentinal tubules, whereas FIBstructured pin-like samples were investigated at the TEM to observe the collagen fibrils at the nanoscale. The complementary analysis helped to reveal the microstructure and morphology of human dentin in three dimensions in detail. In the second part of the study, surface morphology and microstructural evolution upon low energy ion irradiation of anatase TiO2 were investigated by in situ focused Ga+ ion beam/scanning electron microscopy. A surface roughening through pore formation, coalescence and eventually nanoneedle formation were induced on TiO2 surface. The mechanism of nanoneedle formation was investigated. In addition, Raman spectroscopy and EDS analysis of irradiated surface revealed the gallium implantation during direct milling. Gas assisted etching was investigated in this study in order to reveal the enhancement of surface milling in presence of assisting gas.


OBJECTIVE
To compare distraction index (DI) with hip arthroscopy findings in juvenile dogs with hip dysplasia undergoing unilateral or bilateral double pelvic osteotomy (DPO).

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective case series.

ANIMALS
Twenty dogs (36 hip joints).

METHODS
Medical records from dogs undergoing unilateral or bilateral DPO (2011-2016) were reviewed. Distraction index was measured by using distraction view radiographs. Arthroscopic images were analyzed. Cartilage was graded by using the modified Outerbridge scale (0 = arthroscopically normal, 1 = chondromalacia, 2 = surface fibrillation, 3 = deep fissuring, 4 = full-thickness cartilage loss, and 5 = eburnation of exposed subchondral bone). Dorsal acetabular rim, acetabular labrum, the ligament of head of the femur, and synovitis were graded by using a four-point scale (normal, mild, moderate, severe). Spearman and Pearson correlations were used to compare DI between grade groups and age.

RESULTS
Distraction index ranged from 0.4 to 1.0 (mean 0.69 ± 0.16). Most of the hips had an arthroscopically normal femoral head and acetabulum in most regions, except for the region at the insertion of the ligament of the head of the femur. There was a low positive correlation between synovitis and DI (Spearman ρ = 0.35, P = .0346). No other differences in DI were identified between grade or age groups.

CONCLUSION
There was a low positive correlation between synovitis and DI. No other differences in DI were identified.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Arthroscopic evaluation of the coxofemoral joint prior to DPO can allow detection of joint pathology that might not be appreciated by using traditional radiographic screening criteria.


Drug development is currently hampered by the inability of animal experiments to accurately predict human response. While emerging organ on chip technology offers to reduce risk using microfluidic models of human tissues, the technology still mostly relies on end-point assays and biomarker measurements to assess tissue damage resulting in limited mechanistic information and difficulties to detect adverse effects occurring below the threshold of cellular damage. Here we present a sensor-integrated liver on chip array in which oxygen is monitored using two-frequency phase modulation of tissue-embedded microprobes, while glucose, lactate and temperature are measured in real time using microfluidic electrochemical sensors. Our microphysiological platform permits the calculation of dynamic changes in metabolic fluxes around central carbon metabolism, producing a unique metabolic fingerprint of the liver's response to stimuli. Using our platform, we studied the dynamics of human liver response to the epilepsy drug Valproate (Depakine™) and the antiretroviral medication Stavudine (Zerit™). Using E6/E7LOW hepatocytes, we show TC50 of 2.5 and 0.8 mM, respectively, coupled with a significant induction of steatosis in 2D and 3D cultures. Time to onset analysis showed slow progressive damage starting only 15-20 hours post-exposure. However, flux analysis showed a rapid disruption of metabolic homeostasis occurring below the threshold of cellular damage. While Valproate exposure led to a sustained 15% increase in lipogenesis followed by mitochondrial stress, Stavudine exposure showed only a transient increase in lipogenesis suggesting disruption of β-oxidation. Our data demonstrates the importance of tracking metabolic stress as a predictor of clinical outcome.


Identifying anti-crisis solutions represents one of the main objectives of central and local government bodies. The rigidity of the administrative structures has as a main results the incapacity of this system to react in an active and flexible manner, to the fluctuations that are been generated by the economic environment - economic crisis forcing the state to start a complex process of administrative reform, in order to increase adaptability, quantified by expanding the capacity of reaction. Special attention must be given in time of crisis to local government, and to the local development, by making a direct connection between central and local bodies, generating a complex process of coordination that must take place between those two levels and giving the possibility to applying the concept of joined-up government at the level of metropolitan areas. From the perspective of this paper, metropolitan areas should act as a middle government, responsible for the identification and implementation of the anti-crisis measures at the local and regional level, representing at the same time the place of convergence for the decentralization process and joined-up government process. From this regard, the concept of decentralization will be presented, the author going to ascertain that financial decentralization should stop at the metropolitan area level and be aimed, on the basis of the principle of specialization (one of the establishing principles of metropolitan areas), especially at the areas of responsibility delegated to exercise by the local governments, this set of core competencies representing the area of implementation of the concept of joined-up government. The applicability of the joined-up government concept can be seen as a first measure that the administrative system can generate and implement, through a comprehensive process aimed at rethinking the operation and the organization of the administrative structures. Delegation of powers, at the level of specific organisms, can be interpreted, as an anti-crisis measures. The role of those organisms is to coordinate the implementation process of the anti-crisis policies throughout the entire region, contributing to the coherence and the effectiveness of these policies. The entire analysis regards the Romanian administrative system, local governments having the responsibility of implementing the anti-crisis government policies at the local level.


textabstractFor years, psychiatric problems in the general population have been hardly studied in
epidemiologic research. This was one of the conclusions of the Dutch Advisory Committee
on Health Research in a report about research into chronic illness, in the early
nineties. Consequently, this committee advised the Dutch Health ministry to invest in
epidemiologic studies into depression and anxiety. Based on the outcomes, substantial
improvement of healthcare was to be expected. Rationale for the choice of these topics
was the relative scarcity of research in this field, compared to the immense emotional
and financial burden of psychiatric disorders for patients and society.[1]
The subsequent grant programme has resulted in collaborations of scientific and
healthcare organizations and corroboration of existing initiatives. As a result, knowledge
about the prevalence, negative consequences and biological, medical and psychosocial
risk factors of both disorders has considerably increased. It appeared that depression
and anxiety disorders have a negative influence on cognitive functioning, functional
abilities and the development and recovery from chronic diseases. It also appeared
that both disorders often remained unrecognised and therefore untreated, especially
in older people.[2]
People with intellectual disabilities (ID) have been excluded from these studies in the
general population and these results can not be merely translated to people with ID
due to substantial differences between both populations. People with ID suffer from
longstanding disability, have co-morbid health problems, live in group homes and use
more often psychotropic drugs than the general population.[3, 4] Therefore, research in
people with ID is important.


This massive volume presents daily expenditures and wage payments, as taken from the manuscript accounts maintained by Franciscan friars at Broad Lane, Cork city, for the period 1764-1921. Many of the original manuscripts are difficult to decipher, so this huge volume of data is made available for the first time to scholars and others. The friary accounts furnish a unique window on social and economic change in one of Ireland's leading maritime cities. Due to a variety of circumstances, Ireland has suffered major losses to its historical archives. Thus economic and social information that extends in a fairly consistent fashion over long periods of time is relatively rare for Ireland. This is why the records of ecclesiastical institutions take on a greater significance than they might in some other countries. The Irish Catholic church and its various institutions possessed a degree of continuity, formal organization and geographical coverage that is unmatched by any other private body. Foremost among institutions preserving detailed records is the Franciscan Order of Friars in Ireland. The Account Books for the Franciscan friary at Broad Lane yield a particularly long run of consistent information, stretching from the later 18th century to the second decade of the twentieth. These record on a daily basis the living expenses of the Broad Lane community. The variety of commodities mentioned, even in the early years, is striking. As well as water and milk, we find expenditures on such drinks as ale, porter, cider, wine, claret, brandy, punch and rum. Tea makes its first appearance in the summer of 1769. So also does sugar, suggesting demand for the two was interrelated. Among references to meats and fish, we find sausages, kidneys, veal, beef, mutton, salmon, turbot and cod. The more carbohydrate-rich foods consumed by the Franciscans included the ubiquitous potato, as well as bread, rice, butter and eggs. The purchase of vegetables was less common, though lemons and onions are mentioned, and, as a condiment, mustard. It is likely that vegetables and potatoes were more commonly available to the community than is suggested by the lists of purchases. This is because the Franciscans were the beneficiaries of payments in kind, generated by the door-to-door collections known as questing (or the seeking of alms). In addition to food and drink, energy and light sources in the form of coal and candles added to the comfort of the community. In subsequent years and decades the variety of food and drink widened, which means it is possible to trace the evolution of a consumer culture through the medium of these records. Of particular interest is the "hungry 1840s", when thousands died of malnutrition and associated diseases in Cork city and countryside. The Franciscan records offer an unexpected vantage point on the course of retail food prices and clerical consumption during the worst of decades in modern Irish history. Widening opportunities for consumption, comfort and perhaps piety are evident in the post-Famine decades.The members of the community did not of course receive wages. The convent at Broad Lane did, however, hire skilled and unskilled workmen, usually for building and maintenance work. So we have references to masons, stone cutters, slaters, sawyers and carpenters, as well as labourers. In addition, the convent made payments to washerwomen, cooks, kitchen maids and servants. These were generally female. Thus this all-male institution, in an incidental way, generated records relating to women as well as men, which is a somewhat unexpected bonus. The convent at Broad Lane was first and foremost a religious institution. The accounts offer insights into the progress of organised religion in Cork from the later eighteenth century onwards. We find that incense was being used in the church in Broad Lane as early as 1764. Candles were a frequent purchase, altar linen was regularly washed, while four shillings and four pence was spent on books for the library on the twelfth of August 1777. An inventory of "all furniture, plates, books, altar ornaments, vestments, latch and kitchen furniture etc" taken in July 1822 mentions that by then the library contained a remarkable "2,688 volumes of all descriptions". This must have made it one of the largest repositories for books, pamphlets and manuscripts in Cork in this period. A highly literate community might also be expected to be interested in newspapers and we find bills for the Cork Mercantile Chronicle, the Tablet, and later on the Freeman's Journal, as well as subscriptions in the late nineteenth century to the Dublin Review and the Gaelic Journal. These subscriptions also suggest an increasing identification with Irish nationalism, as does a donation of £3 to the "Tenants Defence" in December 1890 (possibly linked to the Plan of Campaign, a nationalist agrarian agitation of the period). All in all, this volume makes available a range of primary source material that is of interest to social and economic historians, as well as historians of religion, dialect and cultural change. The introduction by the editors sets out the value of these resources and identifies some of the salient features of the account books. A digitised version (see the Irish Manuscripts Commission's website) facilitates searches within the work.Grant: the work for the volume extended over many years and was only possible as a result of generous grants from the Irish Manuscripts Commission (Euro 9,440) and University College Dublin.


Yami is spoken by 3000 speakers on Orchid Island, off the coast of Taiwan. Only one of the six villages on the island has children who still speak Yami. The rest have gradually shifted to Chinese, the medium of education. Even though the Taiwan government supports indigenous language revitalization by rewarding students doing well on examinations in their heritage language,and Yami is taught in elementary and middle schools on the island, this has not helped increase Yami language use and inter-generational transmission.This chapter describes language use and language attitudes on Orchid Island over the past ten years, followed by a case study of a Yami teacher's journey teaching Yami at various levels of schools.


Background/Aim An increasing number of pre-presbyopic patients are undergoing uniocular cataract extraction. We aim to compare the binocular status of subjects with uniocular cataracts, implanted either with a multifocal or a monofocal intraocular lens (IOL). Materials and Methods Subjects were recruited from outpatient ophthalmology clinics and randomized to an IOL type. Corrected and uncorrected LogMAR distance visual acuity (VA) and near and intermediate VA using the Radner reading test were completed. The binocular tests included the Worth Four Dot Test, fixation disparity, TNO stereoacuity and foveal suppression assessment. In addition to the near activity vision questionnaire. The trial was closed early because the chosen multifocal lens had been superseded by newer models. We report two subjects, one receiving the multifocal IOL and a monofocal IOL control with the most comparable baseline characteristics. Results Both subjects experienced uncomplicated cataract surgery, showing clinically significant improved corrected distance VA, 0.06 LogMAR and −0.16 LogMAR in the monofocal and multifocal IOL, respectively. The multifocal subject had 30 seconds of arc stereoacuity indicating normal binocular vision. Only gross binocular single vision with no stereopsis was found in the monofocal IOL subject. The latter subject also had reduced near vision quality-of-life questionnaire results. Conclusion This two-patient case series demonstrates greater binocular near ability, with the multifocal IOL, in the pre-presbyopic patient undergoing uniocular cataract surgery. The case series highlights the need, and methodology for investigating further the functional and quality-of-life benefits of implanting multifocal IOLs in pre-presbyopic patients, those in their twenties and thirties, undergoing uniocular cataract surgery.


Hahn, Jeeyeon. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2014. Anaysis of the Interaction of Two Parallel Surface Cracks. Major Professor: Dr. Alten F. Grandt, Jr. The objective of this research is to analyze and predict the interaction of surface cracks that occur in parallel planes. Multiple cracks may form in aging aircraft that forms at stress concentrations such as fastener holes and notched components by stress corrosion and fatigue cracking. The lifetime of the structures are significantly affected by the interaction between these cracks. Depending on relative positions and orientations of neighboring cracks, local stress fields and crack driving forces can be affected by the presence of adjacent cracks. Even small subcritical cracks may rapidly grow to a size that will cause failure in service due to interaction and coalescence with other cracks. The interaction behavior and crack propagation direction of two parallel surface cracks is studied using three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA). FEA models with wide range of crack configurations in a finite plate under tension are evaluated to investigate the correlation between the crack shapes and the separation distance between two cracks. The relative distance (vertical and horizontal) between two cracks and size and shape of these cracks are varied to create different stress interaction fields. Stress intensity factors (SIF) along the crack fronts are obtained from FEA, and then, xv cracking behaviors of the cracks are predicted by considering the influence of the interaction on the SIF and the coalescence of two cracks. The results obtained are then compared with existing experimental and analytical data for validation. All of the data analyses are presented in tabular forms and figures.


The United Nations Office onDrug and Crime (UNODC)announced the imminententry into force of the UnitedNations Protocol against the IllicitManufacturing of and Traffickingin Firearms, Their Parts andComponents and Ammunition (UNFirearms Protocol), after Zambiabecame the fortieth country toratify it in April 2005. The Protocol,which supplements the UnitedNations Convention againstTransnational Organised Crime,provides an important opportunityfor countries to control one of thebiggest killers of our times, smallarms. Zambia, through KalomboThomson Mwansa, Minister ofHome Affairs for Zambia,deposited the instrument ofratification during the 11th UnitedNations Congress on CrimePrevention and Criminal Justice inBangkok, 18-25 April.


Macroscopic properties of suspensions, such as those composed of globular particles (e.g., colloidal or macromolecular), can be tuned by controlling the equilibrium aggregation of the particles. We examine how aggregation - and, hence, macroscopic properties - can be controlled in a system composed of both globular particles and long, flexible polymer chains that reversibly bind to one another. We base this on a minimal statistical mechanical model of a single aggregate in which the polymer chain is treated either as ideal or self-avoiding, and, in addition, the globular particles are taken to interact with one another via excluded volume repulsion. Furthermore, each of the globular particles is taken to have one single site to which at most one polymer segment may bind. Within the context of this model, we examine the statistics of the equilibrium size of an aggregate and, thence, the structure of dilute and semidilute suspensions of these aggregates. We apply the model to biologically relevant aggregates, specifically those composed of macromolecular proteoglycan globules and long hyaluronan polymer chains. These aggregates are especially relevant to the materials properties of cartilage and the structure-function properties of perineuronal nets in brain tissue, as well as the pericellular coats of mammalian cells.


A promising approach for upgrading the performance of an established low-bandgap solar technology without adding much cost is to deposit a high bandgap polycrystalline semiconductor on top to make a tandem solar cell. We use a transparent silver nanowire electrode on perovskite solar cells to achieve a semi-transparent device. We place the semi-transparent cell in a mechanically-stacked tandem configuration onto copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) and low-quality multicrystalline silicon (Si) to achieve solid-state polycrystalline tandem solar cells with a net improvement in efficiency over the bottom cell alone. This work paves the way for integrating perovskites into a low-cost and high-efficiency (>25%) tandem cell.


Membrane proteins are key targets for pharmacological intervention because they are vital for cellular function. Here, we analyze recent progress made in the understanding of the structure and function of membrane proteins with a focus on rhodopsin and development of atomic force microscopy techniques to study biological membranes. Membrane proteins are compartmentalized to carry out extra- and intracellular processes. Biological membranes are densely populated with membrane proteins that occupy approximately 50% of their volume. In most cases membranes contain lipid rafts, protein patches, or paracrystalline formations that lack the higher-order symmetry that would allow them to be characterized by diffraction methods. Despite many technical difficulties, several crystal structures of membrane proteins that illustrate their internal structural organization have been determined. Moreover, high-resolution atomic force microscopy, near-field scanning optical microscopy, and other lower resolution techniques have been used to investigate these structures. Single-molecule force spectroscopy tracks interactions that stabilize membrane proteins and those that switch their functional state; this spectroscopy can be applied to locate a ligand-binding site. Recent development of this technique also reveals the energy landscape of a membrane protein, defining its folding, reaction pathways, and kinetics. Future development and application of novel approaches during the coming years should provide even greater insights to the understanding of biological membrane organization and function.


We discuss the problem of composing Quality-of-Service across several administrative domains considering an evolved DiffServ notion of Per-Domain Behavior (PDB). We discuss two components of the problem: path discovery and the effect of composing PDBs. We assume the most general scenario: domains are free to adopt any PDB, as long there are common semantics and a set of well-known QoS parameters (e.g. one-way delay, peak/sustained bandwidth, etc.). Thus we adopt an abstract representation of PDBs. We obtain three main results. First, we show that a distributed path discovery scheme is feasible and more scalable than a centralized one. Second, we show the outcome of inter-domain QoS composition, for general metrics and for Internet-alike topologies. Finally, and as an important practical result, we show that the Internet may not need a centralized governance model, in terms of the definition of inter-domain PDBs.


The genus Hippolyte Leach in the East Atlantic and the Mediterranean is revised and a list of the world species is given. Eleven species occur in the area studied: H. coerulescens (Fabricius), H. garciarasoi spec. nov., H. inermis Leach, H. lagarderei d'Udekem d'Acoz, H. leptocerus (Heller), H. leptometrae Ledoyer, H. niezabitowskii spec. nov., H. palliola Kensley, H. prideauxiana Leach, H. sapphica d'Udekem d'Acoz, H. varians Leach. An elaborate key, complete descriptions and illustrations of all species are provided, while their ecology is discussed in detail. A morphological account is also given for the species occuring in the Suez Canal: H. proteus (Paulson) and H. ventricosa H. Milne Edwards. It is shown that H. prideauxiana (previously H. huntii) and H. varians display important geographical variations. H. longirostris proves to be a junior synonym of H. leptocerus but part of the specimens previously referred to as H. longirostris belong in fact to a new species: H. garciarasoi spec. nov. The latter is not very variable but it is extremely close to H. leptocerus which itself displays extraordinary variations within individual populations and on a geographical scale. H. sapphica presents discontinuous variations: it comprises a long-rostred form (forma A) and a short-rostred form (forma B). H. niezabitowskii spec. nov. is a new species possibly endemic in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas and morphologically close to H. inermis and to the Mediterranean populations of H. varians. H. coerulescens presents some neotenic characters.


Background: Several treatment options have been proposed to treat lateral epicondylitis. Both Platelet rich plasma (PRP) and Extra-corporeal Shock Wave Therapy (ESWT) are new treatment modalities for tendinopathy. Patients and Methods: Thirty seven patients suffering from chronic lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) for at least six months were treated in this study. The patients were divided into two treatment groups, the first group including 20 patients treated by ESWT and the second group including 17 patients treated by local injection of platelet-rich plasma. The results were evaluated using the visual analogue scale and the DASH score. Results: In the first group (treated by ESWT), the average follow-up period was 21.55 months. The average VAS improved from 8.2 to 1.95 and the average DASH score improved from 72.25 to 51.7. Moreover, 11 cases were satisfied (55%), 3 cases (15%) were satisfied with reservation and 6 cases (30%) were not satisfied. In the second group (treated by PRP), the average follow-up period was 18.47 months. The average VAS improved from 8.52 to 1.47, the DASH score improved from 72 to 48.23. Concerning patient satisfaction, 13 cases were satisfied (83.33%), 3 cases (10.52%) were satisfied with reservation and 1 case (5.55%) was not satisfied. Conclusion: Platelet rich plasma was proved to achieve superior results when compared to ESWT as regards pain relief, improvement of elbow function and patient satisfaction at follow-up.


Indigenous women in the Northern Territory of Australia experience significant reproductive and sexual health disadvantage, which widens with increasing geographical remoteness. Attempts to ameliorate this profound inequity, which have been based mostly on Western biomedical models of health care, have had limited efficacy in improving outcomes. Although an abundance of epidemiological data statistically substantiates Australian Indigenous women's health disadvantage, a paucity of literature describes the contributing cultural contexts of Indigenous women's health and even less privileges their experiences and perspectives on their reproductive health and gendered bodies. Set in an Australian remote town, this research aimed to historically contextualise women's reproductive experiences and to document women's cultural and linguistic constructions of reproduction. An ethnographic approach was used, which included historical and extended fieldwork over a six-year period, participant observations, written fieldwork diaries, reproductive ethnophysiology drawing and language sessions, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, archival document review, training and employment of Aboriginal research assistants, and consultation and advice from a local reference group and a cultural mentor. Women's current emic perspectives and use of language to describe the female reproductive life cycle, anatomy and physiology are described and documented. The research findings demonstrate how changes to the local care of women during pregnancy and childbirth, which initially colonised ancestral reproductive practices, later nurtured women's resilience. Planned locations for childbirth have undergone successive changes, with the only available option now being a regional hospital hundreds of kilometres away. Without robust evidence, scientific and clinical logics have been used to deny women their reproductive choices. This thesis suggest that women's general health outcomes could be improved by a broad range of measures aimed at achieving better sexual and reproductive health rights for women.