This field handbook is the result of over fifteen years' experience of forestry operations under projects conducted by CIRAD. It sets out to fill a gap in the literature available on the flora of the dry zones of West Africa. Its 1 300 colour photographs of flowers, fruits, leaves and bark will facilitate identification of each of the 360 species presented. As trees are an integral part of the landscape and have many functions and uses, an up-to-date inventory is also given of the traditional uses of the different parts of plants for pharmaceutical and human and animal food purposes and in daily life. The determination keys and descriptive sheets are accessible to non-specialists in botany, be they technicians working in forestry, agriculture or animal production, teachers or students. This book is a reference for anyone in need of information on the trees and shrubs of the region. (Resume d'auteur)


The Cassini spacecraft has been touring Saturn's neighborhood since it entered orbit there on 1 July 2004. As well as interrogating the giant planet and its filigree rings, understanding the formation of Saturn's moons is one of the key goals of the mission. Saturn has 35 named moons in its family, as well as a plethora of smaller objects hidden in the rings. The variety of moons is staggering. Some consist of exposed rock; others are enveloped in thick ice. Some are pock-marked with billion-year-old craters; others varnished with fresh snow. Cassini's busy schedule included more than 20 encounters with Saturn's moons in the past year, offering but a sampling of these different worlds.

One of the most curious of all Saturn's moons is Enceladus. The sixth largest saturnian satellite—although at a mere 504 km across, its width is smaller than that of Arizona or Spain—Enceladus rides in the middle of Saturn's E ring, a wide and diffuse blue ring of fine particles. Because this ring lacks the bigger shards characteristic of ancient satellite smash-ups, astronomers have long suspected that the E-ring particles emanate from Enceladus itself.

Earlier Earth-based and Voyager space probe images revealed that Enceladus' surface is icy and complex. Old cratered terrains butt up against newly resurfaced smooth ice flows. So Cassini scientists hoped to see signs of recent activity and possibly ice volcanism. As the papers in this special issue show, their anticipation was rewarded. In three flybys, in February, March, and July 2005, Cassini trained its instruments on Enceladus. The first two cruises descended to about 1000 and 500 km above the moon's equator. Onboard cameras snapped images of lines of folded mountain ridges and cracked white ice plains streaked with dark green organic material. The magnetometer saw signs of ions leaking out from Enceladus'atmosphere, and it localized, in the second flyby, a strong outflow from the south pole. The trajectory of the third flyby on 14 July 2005 was then adjusted to fly through the emergent gas just 168 km above the south pole.

The flybys show that Enceladus' south polar landscape is still active today and is being resurfaced by cryovolcanism and fresh snowfall. Tidal forces have twisted and buckled the surface ice, producing long ridges and fractures. At infrared wavelengths, the south pole actually glows. An underground heat source lies beneath a surface grid of "tiger stripes": a parallel set of linear trenches stained with dark organic material. From these warm vents, water vapor, ice, and dust particles are lofted in a spectacular plume, like spray from a Yellowstone geyser. Ions are driven further into the atmosphere and out into the magnetosphere of Saturn itself and the E ring. The rate at which water is being blown out is enough to replenish not only the E ring but also oxygen throughout the whole saturnian system.

So is the mystery of Enceladus solved? Not at all. Finding such active geology on such a tiny moon is a big surprise. Neptune's Triton and Jupiter's Io have ice and sulfur volcanoes, respectively, but are larger bodies; Europa has experienced plate tectonics but no current activity is seen there. Yet tiny Enceladus produces a plume large enough to drench the whole Saturn system. The origin of Enceladus' internal heating is also still a major puzzle. To produce the plume, water needs to be boiled off or sublimated. Ammonia could act as antifreeze but was not detected by Cassini. Does liquid water, or locked-up ammonia, lie beneath the surface? We may need to wait for future missions to this enigmatic moon to find out for sure, but Enceladus is definitely on the map.


ABSTRACT Previous research indicates that social relationships can influence the probability of successfully finding a first job. This paper contributes to this field of research by empirically analysing the rarely studied question, if social networks can help adolescents find an apprenticeship in the strongly company-based vocational training system of Germany. In contrast to most previous studies, not only the youth's networks, but also their mothers' networks are taken into account. In addition to the social, the ethnic composition of the networks is also considered. Event data analyses of German panel data on natives and migrants from the project 'Young Immigrants in the German and Israeli Educational System' show that adolescents' networks have no effect on the success of an apprenticeship search. In contrast, the mothers' networks play a crucial role.


In his keynote address to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics research pre-session, Sloane (2006b) challenged mathematics education researchers to 'quantify qualitative insights'. This quasi-experimental study used blended methods to investigate the development of two-digit addition and subtraction strategies. Concurrent classroom teaching experiments were conducted in two intact first grade classrooms (n = 41) in a mid-Atlantic American public school. From a pragmatic emergent perspective, design research (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006) was used to develop local instructional theory. An amplified theoretical framework for early base-ten strategies is explicated. Multilevel modelling for repeated measures was used to evaluate the differences in strategy usage between classes across occasions and the association of particular pedagogical practices with the emergence of incrementing and decrementing by ten (N10) or decomposition (1010) strategies (Beishuizen, Felix, & Beishuizen, 1990).
The two matched classes were not different in terms of gender, poverty, race, pre-assessment performance, and special education services. After the first unit of instruction with differentiated pedagogical tools, the collection class was significantly (p = .001) more likely to use 1010 than the linear class. No difference was demonstrated during the post-assessment. Students in both classes were more likely to use N10 during the last structured interview than in the first (p < .0001). Furthermore, there was no difference between the two classes in using any advanced strategy; however, students in both classes were more likely to use an advanced strategy at the conclusion of the study than they were initially (p = .033). The order of emergence of 1010 and N10 was not associated with the ability to develop both strategies, but there was an association (p < .001) between use of an advanced strategy and success on a district-mandated written assessment of two-digit addition and subtraction.
Two original instructional sequences of contextually-based investigations are presented. Protocols transcribed from videotaped lessons and dynamic assessment interviews are presented to illuminate specific constructs detected and to illustrate the pedagogical techniques. An amplified framework for early place value constructs is proposed. Recommendations for future studies, curricular changes, and the need of early intervention are discussed.


Background and Aim: Bacillus subtilis refers to stretched and sometimes curved, gram-positive, aerobic, and catalase-positive bacilli , which has thermo-resistant endospores. It has been known as a normal flora in the human but can be pathogens In the case of opportunistic. Also, it can be the pathogen of nosocomial infections such as wound among hospitalized patients. Purpose of this study was to identify the type of nosocomial infections in a burn patient suffering from wound infections and septicemia. Methods: In November 2012, sampling was made from the burn wound of a 26year-old woman infected with septicemia using a sterile swab. The wound sample was cultured on a blood agar medium. Various routine biochemical tests were performed for species detection and identification. Eventually, PCR was used to increase the reliability and accuracy in the identification of the isolated bacterium. The PCR product was then sequenced. Results: According to the results of different biochemical tests and molecular identification, the bacteria separated from B. subtilis wound were reported. The mentioned gene was recorded under access number AB894357 in the gene bank. Conclusion: According to the conducted studies, although B. subtilis is known as a commensal bacterium, it can be considered a pathogen of nosocomial infection, which subsequently causes secondary infections. Considering that B. subtilis is known as a nonpathogenic bacterium, it is recommended to pay more attention to its diagnosis and treatment as an opportunistic pathogen among hospitalized patients.


This thesis explores implications of support and advocacy with substance-misusing women during and after pregnancy in promoting parental involvement and children's welfare within the regulatory child care framework. It is uniquely situated in relation to social construction, juridification of family lifeworlds, relations of power, and theorisation of an enabling process informed by a rights discourse that facilitates communicative action.

Chapter 1 introduces the rationale for this research and contextualises the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's (NSPCC) Liverpool Families and Substance Support Team (FaSST) service for substance-misusing parents. It utilises observation evidence, outlining FaSST's relationship to wider professional and agency networks. An expanded overview of chapter organisation makes the distinctiveness of this exploratory research clear; as it relates theory and practice within the previously little researched area of advocacy with substance misusing parents to promote the best interests of children's welfare. Chapter 2 develops issues of social construction, identity, risk and relations of power vi affecting substance misusing parents within the modern state. Chapter 3 considers the development of child protection, children's safeguarding, actuarialism and issues of governance. Chapter 4 examines Habermas' theory of communicative action, rights discourses and how support and advocacy might develop.
Remaining chapters examine research fieldwork. Chapter 5 explains the qualitative research design, research method and ethical considerations. Chapter 6 analyses data in terms of governance and risk and tentatively theorises those matters, and chapter 7 analyses data and theorises possibilities for support and advocacy. Chapter 8 formulates conclusions regarding how the FaSST has addressed parents' concerns and promoted involvement in their children's interests within the regulatory child care framework. It theorises support and advocacy in that context, and it identifies implications for its further development.


This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the important and growing field of urban anthropology. This is an increasingly critical area of study, as more than half of the world's population now lives in cities and anthropological research is increasingly done in an urban context. Exploring contemporary anthropological approaches to the urban, the authors consider:

 How can we define urban anthropology?
 What are the main themes of twenty-first century urban anthropological research?
 What are the possible future directions in the field?

The chapters cover topics such as urban mobilities, place-making and public space, production and consumption, politics and governance. These are illustrated by lively case studies drawn from a diverse range of urban settings in the global North and South. Accessible yet theoretically incisive, Introducing Urban Anthropology will be a valuable resource for anthropology students as well as of interest to those working in urban studies and related disciplines such as sociology and geography.


The purpose of radical process change (Re-Engineering), as well as the incremental business process improvement approaches (continuous improvement), is the transformation of business processes. The desire to achieve such transformation has served to propel practice ahead of formalised theory. This fonnalisation of the theoretical context of effective business process change management is essential for improved implementation and, more generally, to advance systematic inquiry in the field. This research leads to the conclusion that the theoretical basis of business process change should concern the creation of an organisational environment that develops a culture supportive of change. This can be achieved through learning, knowledge sharing (including IT enablement and leadership), and internal and external network partnering. This concept facilitates the implementation of effective processes and change management practice, which leads to improvement in business processes and greater benefits. Implied in tllis statement is tile vital role that the leader plays in establishing strategic initiatives such as communicating a vision to move the organisation toward business process change and providing tangible support to enable and maintain an organisational environment that is receptive to BPC management practice. Regarding the strategic role of IT leadership for tile internationalisation process, tile interviews conducted produced nlixed results. On the one hand more companies than expected have developed world-wide communication networks. These networks include E-mail as well as internal fax networks. On the other hand, the stereotype that IT Leadership pushes globalisation was not supported. Firms use IT leadership to facilitate the management of international business processes and renew the communications hardware when lligher levels of internationalisation ask for it. It is found that IT leadership influences the interaction between headquarters and subsidiaries and may have an impact on the use of co-ordination instruments. IT Leadership helps to solve problems which are intensified by the international scope of business processes: geographical distances that have to be overcome, scattered members in a decentralised organisation who need to creale and process information in many places, and different time zones between senders and recipients of information tllat pose additional problems. The internationalisation of firms increases the dynamics and complexity of their relations with the environment. Rapid external change makes Multi-National Companies so vulnerable that tlley cannot fully rely on adaptive structural changes. They have to organise their business processes in ways that allow greater flexibility. Organising for more flexibility means deliberately to design or re-design existing international business processes. This requires a clear understanding of the Strategic Role of the IT Leader. In this paper discussion that moves toward a theory of the strategic value of Infonnation Technology (IT) Leadership in business process change management is presented. The beginnings of such a theory are based upon both conceptual syntheses of observations from practice as well as drawn from research literature from several related disciplines.


Our aim was to evaluate in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) the relationship between some cell cycle markers and HPV infection, conditionally to age, gender and certain habits of patients, and to assess the ability of fuzzy neural networks (FNNs) in building up an adequate predictive model based on logic inference rules. Eighteen cases of OSCC were examined by immunohistochemistry for MIB‐1, PCNA and survivin expression; presence of HPV DNA was investigated in exfoliated oral mucosa cells by nested PCR (nPCR, MY09‐MY11/GP5‐GP6), and HPV genotype was determined by direct DNA sequencing. Data were analyzed by traditional statistics (TS) and FNNs. HPV DNA was found in 9/18 OSCCs (50.0 %) without any significant higher risk of HPV infection with respect to the sociodemographic variables considered (p > 0.2), apart from tobacco smoking, reported in 44.4% of OSCC HPV‐positive vs. 100% HPV‐negative subjects (p = 0.029). Regarding cell cycle markers, TS and FNN revealed that survivin was expressed significantly more in HPV‐negative than in HPV‐positive OSCC [root mean‐square error (RMSE) = 5.89 × 10–6, % predicted 100.0]; furthermore, smoking played a protective role for survivin expression in HPV‐positive cases (OR = 0.019, 95%CI 0.001–0.723, RMSE = 0.20, % of prevision 94.4). FNN, although on a small sample size, allowed us to confirm data by TS and to hypothesize a different cell cycle pattern for HPV‐positive vs. HPV‐negative OSCC. In the latter cases, the relevance of apoptotic vs. proliferative markers suggested that they may be related to the different supposed outcome of HPV‐negative OSCC and that HPV may have a protective role in the expression level of survivin, especially in tobacco smokers. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The aim of this research was to make the first depth profiles of the microbial assimilation of methanol carbon and its oxidation to carbon dioxide and use as an energy source from the microlayer to 1000 m. Some of the highest reported methanol oxidation rate constants of 0.5–0.6 d−1 were occasionally found in the microlayer and immediately underlying waters (10 cm depth), albeit these samples also showed the greatest heterogeneity compared to other depths down to 1000 m. Methanol uptake into the particulate phase was exceptionally low in microlayer samples, suggesting that any methanol utilised by microbes in this environment is for energy generation. The sea surface microlayer and 10 cm depth also showed a higher proportion of bacteria with a low DNA content, and bacterial leucine uptake rates in surface microlayer samples were either less than or the same as those in the underlying 10 cm layer. The average methanol oxidation and particulate rates were however statistically the same throughout the depths sampled, although the latter were highly variable in the near-surface 0.25–2 m compared to deeper depths. The statistically significant relationship demonstrated between uptake of methanol into particles and bacterial leucine incorporation suggests that many heterotrophic bacteria could be using methanol carbon for cellular growth. On average, methanol bacterial growth efficiency (BGEm) in the top 25 m of the water column is 6% and decreases with depth. Although, for microlayer and 10 cm-depth samples, BGEm is less than the near-surface 25–217 cm, possibly reflecting increased environmental UV stress resulting in increased maintenance costs, i.e. energy required for survival. We conclude that microbial methanol uptake rates, i.e. loss from seawater, are highly variable, particularly close to the seawater surface, which could significantly impact upon seawater concentrations and hence the air–sea flux.


Abstract In this article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a 'community of practice', I show how this community is organised by a 'grand narrative' that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persistence of piracy and assists us in understanding the phenomenon. Relying on publicly available interviews with pirates, I deconstruct this grand narrative and detail the different functions of the narrative in the light of situations in which it is told. The article develops an alternative perspective on piracy based on the study of practice, narrative and situation that provides new avenues for the study of clandestine, illicit or violent practices.


The paper establishes a functional version of the Hoeffding combinatorial central limit theorem. First, a pre-limiting Gaussian process approximation is defined, and is shown to be at a distance of the order of the Lyapounov ratio from the original random process. Distance is measured by comparison of expectations of smooth functionals of the processes, and the argument is by way of Stein's method. The pre-limiting process is then shown, under weak conditions, to converge to a Gaussian limit process. The theorem is used to describe the shape of random permutation tableaux.


This study examines the association between financial restatements and audit fees, and the effect of board of directors turnover on this relationship. Restatements are seen as a financial reporting failure, increasing risk for the auditor resulting in a higher audit fee. Regression analysis using the audit fee change model based on prior literature is applied on an U.S. sample. We found no evidence that there is positive significant relationship found between restatements and audit fees. Eventually, the association between restatements and audit fees does not weaken for restatement firms changing board members relative to restatement firms not changing board members. Hence, this implies that board of directors turnover is not an effective strategy to weaken the relationship between restatements and audit fees. This study contributes by responding to the call of Feldmann et al. (2009) to investigate possible indicators, next to CEO and CFO turnover, that firms can take to repair their damaged reputation due to a financial restatement.


We study consistency properties of surrogate loss functions for general multiclass learning problems, defined by a general multiclass loss matrix. We extend the notion of classification calibration, which has been studied for binary and multiclass 0-1 classification problems (and for certain other specific learning problems), to the general multiclass setting, and derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a surrogate loss to be calibrated with respect to a loss matrix in this setting. We then introduce the notion of convex calibration dimension of a multiclass loss matrix, which measures the smallest 'size' of a prediction space in which it is possible to design a convex surrogate that is calibrated with respect to the loss matrix. We derive both upper and lower bounds on this quantity, and use these results to analyze various loss matrices. In particular, we apply our framework to study various subset ranking losses, and use the convex calibration dimension as a tool to show both the existence and non-existence of various types of convex calibrated surrogates for these losses. Our results strengthen recent results of Duchi et al. (2010) and Calauzenes et al. (2012) on the non-existence of certain types of convex calibrated surrogates in subset ranking. We anticipate the convex calibration dimension may prove to be a useful tool in the study and design of surrogate losses for general multiclass learning problems.


This study examines the components of construction projects and whether there are construction resources that are the key project constituents. The rationale for the study stems from the unexplained assumptions regarding the primary components responsible for increases in construction costs in South Africa, as South Africa lacks a national building cost database. The study adopts a qualitative research approach that employs a case studies of six new and six refurbished projects in obtaining the necessary data for use in answering the study objectives. The study found that the primary cost constituents of construction projects are materials and sub-contracted work, accounting for 63.69% and 74.6% of the value of renovation and new construction work respectively and on the average, the major materials by value are reinforcement, cement and filling, while Electrical Installation is the primary sub-contracting item by value. Based on these findings, the study concludes that the future levels of construction work can be predicted knowing levels of specialist sub-contractor costs and building material costs. The study recommends that the sub-contractor and material inputs into construction projects are carefully managed, both on the projects and the construction industry, to limit construction cost increases and cost overruns on projects. The study contributes to the literature on resource planning and control in construction.
Keywords: Cement, Construction Cost, Electrical Installation, Reinforcement, Specialist Sub-contractor.


Essential elements of public health program evaluation can be applied to the evaluation of health information technology (health IT). Integrating the framework of public health evaluation with existing best practices in health IT evaluation can yield a more robust set of methods within a proven framework than either alone. This combined approach is of particular importance given the rapid pace of health IT implementation due to funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. In this paper, we outline the importance of evaluation in health IT, elements of public health program evaluation, and special considerations for health IT. We review the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) public health evaluation model and how it can be adapted and applied to assessments of health IT applications.


A total of 98 patients, who had undergone gastric surgery (23), or who had peptic ulcers (56), or who had normal endoscopic findings (19) underwent gastric biopsy, together with measurement of pH and total bile acid concentration, in their fasting gastric juice. The biopsy specimens were stained by the Warthin-Starry method for Campylobacter like organisms and were also graded "blind," as described in the preceding paper, for the five features that we believe may constitute the histological picture of reflux gastritis. The individual grades were added together to give a composite "reflux score" (0-15) for each patient. We found a notable association between the absence of Campylobacter like organisms and previous surgery for peptic ulceration, high reflux scores (greater than 10), hypochlorhydria (pH greater than or equal to 4), and increased bile acid concentrations (greater than or equal to 1 mmol/l) in the stomach. These findings further support our contention that reflux gastritis represents a distinct histopathological entity causally related to the effects of enterogastric reflux on the gastric mucosa and suggest that there may be two major categories of chronic gastritis: chronic superficial, or atrophic gastritis related to Campylobacter like organisms and reflux gastritis. Our data also imply that patients with peptic ulceration may, after gastric surgery, revert from being positive for these organisms to being negative and may undergo a possible transition from Campylobacter related chronic gastritis to reflux gastritis.


We present a detailed investigation of X-ray emission from both flat and nanowire zinc oxide targets irradiated by 60 fs 5 × 1016 W/cm2 intensity laser pulses at a 0.8 µm wavelength. It is shown that the fluence of the emitted hard X-ray radiation in the spectral range 150–800 keV is enhanced by at least one order of magnitude for nanowire targets compared to the emission from a flat surface, whereas the characteristic Kα line emission (8.64 keV) is insensitive to the target morphology. Furthermore, we provide evidence for a dramatic increase of the fast electron flux from the front side of the nanostructured targets. We suggest that targets with nanowire morphology may advance development of compact ultrafast X-ray sources with an enhanced flux of hard X-ray emission that could find wide applications in highenergy density (HED) physics.


In this paper, we study the implicit regularization of the gradient descent algorithm in homogeneous neural networks, including fully-connected and convolutional neural networks with ReLU or LeakyReLU activations. In particular, we study the gradient descent or gradient flow (i.e., gradient descent with infinitesimal step size) optimizing the logistic loss or cross-entropy loss of any homogeneous model (possibly non-smooth), and show that if the training loss decreases below a certain threshold, then we can define a smoothed version of the normalized margin which increases over time. We also formulate a natural constrained optimization problem related to margin maximization, and prove that both the normalized margin and its smoothed version converge to the objective value at a KKT point of the optimization problem. Our results generalize the previous results for logistic regression with one-layer or multi-layer linear networks, and provide more quantitative convergence results with weaker assumptions than previous results for homogeneous smooth neural networks. We conduct several experiments to justify our theoretical finding on MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets. Finally, as margin is closely related to robustness, we discuss potential benefits of training longer for improving the robustness of the model.


We report the first wide-scale measurement study of server-side geographic restriction, or geoblocking, a phenomenon in which server operators intentionally deny access to users from particular countries or regions. Many sites practice geoblocking due to legal requirements or other business reasons, but excessive blocking can needlessly deny valuable content and services to entire national populations. To help researchers and policymakers understand this phenomenon, we develop a semi-automated system to detect instances where whole websites were rendered inaccessible due to geoblocking. By focusing on detecting geoblocking capabilities offered by large CDNs and cloud providers, we can reliably distinguish the practice from dynamic anti-abuse mechanisms and network-based censorship. We apply our techniques to test for geoblocking across the Alexa Top 10K sites from thousands of vantage points in 177 countries. We then expand our measurement to a sample of CDN customers in the Alexa Top 1M. We find that geoblocking occurs across a broad set of countries and sites. We observe geoblocking in nearly all countries we study, with Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, and Russia experiencing the highest rates. These countries experience particularly high rates of geoblocking for finance and banking sites, likely as a result of U.S. economic sanctions. We also verify our measurements with data provided by Cloudflare, and find our observations to be accurate.


Clustering is a common technique for statistical data analysis, which is used in many fields, including machine learning, data mining, pattern recognition, image analysis and bioinformatics. Clustering is the process of grouping similar objects into different groups, or more precisely, the partitioning of a data set into subsets, so that the data in each subset according to some defined distance measure. This paper covers about clustering algorithms, benefits and its applications. Paper concludes by discussing some limitations.


The influence of a solution treatment on the evolution of through-thickness texture gradients in a low carbon steel was studied. In order to intensify through-thickness variations of the strain state, the samples were cold rolled dry, i.e. without lubrication. The evolution of the texture and the microstructure during rolling and recrystallization was tracked by X-ray texture analysis and TEM microstructure investigations. The strain distribution during rolling was simulated for several layers of the rolled sheets by the finite element method. After the rolling deformation, a specimen taken directly from the hot band showed pronounced through-thickness texture gradients, whereas the solution treated specimen showed a rather uniform rolling texture in all layers analyzed. Analysis of the friction behaviour between the different specimens and the roll material points to a much higher friction between the softer hot band and the rolls. This leads to stronger through-thickness variations in the strain state and, thus, to the pronounced texture gradients observed. The texture gradients in the recrystallized samples reflected those of the as-rolled sheets. In the center layer of the hot band specimen and in all layers of the solution treated specimen characteristic though notably weakened typical plane strain recrystallization textures formed; the textures in outer layers of the hot band sample were even almost random. These weak recrystallization textures could be attributed to the highly inhomogeneous as-deformed microstructure.


Purpose
This study aims to examine the link between boards and audit committees and firm performance in Kuwaiti listed firms in the context of recent and extensive corporate governance regulatory reform.

Design/methodology/approach
Panel data regression analysis with fixed effects and clustered standard errors of firm performance for 61–97 listed industrial and services firms in Kuwait over a seven-year period. The dependent variables are the returns on assets and equity, the debt-to-equity ratio and leverage and Tobin's Q and the independent variables comprise board of directors and audit committee characteristics, including size, the number of meetings and the numbers of independent and outside board and expert committee members. Firm size, subsidiary status and cash flow serve as control variables.

Findings
Mixed results with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors. Board size and independent and outsider board members positively relate only to Tobin's Q and insiders only to debt to equity. For audit committee characteristics, committee size, independence and expertise positively relate to the return on equity and committee size and expertise only to Tobin's Q. Of the five performance measures considered, board and audit committee characteristics together best determine Tobin's Q.

Research limitations/implications
Data from a single country limits generalisability and control variables necessarily limited in a developing market context. Need for qualitative insights into corporate governance reform as a complement to conventional quantitative analysis. In combining accounting and market information, Tobin's Q appears best able to recognise the performance benefits of good corporate governance in terms of internal organisational change.

Practical implications
The recent corporate governance code and guidelines reforms exert a mixed impact on firm performance, with audit committees, not boards, of most influence. But recent reforms implied most change to boards of directors. One suggestion is that non-market reform may have been unneeded given existing market pressure on listed firms and firms anticipating regulatory change.

Social implications
Kuwait's corporate governance reforms codified corporate governance practices already in place among many of its firms in pursuit of organisational legitimacy, and while invoking substantial change to audit committees, involved minor change to firm performance, at least in the short term. Some firms may also have delisted in expectation of stronger corporate governance requirements. Regardless, these direct and indirect processes both improved the overall quality of listed firm corporate governance and performance in Kuwait.

Originality/value
Seminal analysis of corporate governance reforms in Kuwait, which have rapidly progressed from no corporate governance code and guidelines to an initially voluntary and then compulsory regime. Only known analysis to incorporate both board of directors and audit committee characteristics. Reveals studies of the corporate governance–firm performance relationship may face difficulty in model specification, and empirical significance, given the complexity of corporate governance codes and guidelines, leads in changing firm behaviour and self-selection of firms into and out of regulated markets.


Xiao Hong (1911-1942), original name Zhang Naiying, lived through the first half of the twentieth century, leaving behind the image of a socially engaged writer, sensitive to the issues connected to the people of her troubled homeland, in the North East of China. After an initial enthusiastic reception of her most representative novel, The Field of Life and Death (1935) in the literary arena, she was later neglected by Chinese critics, and excluded from the Maoist literary canon, as her fictional creatures and her works did not fit the optimistic spirit and the class consciousness requested to the intellectuals of the time. She was then re-discovered only in the 1980s, when both in China and the West her works have been re-read with a feminist or cultural studies approach. In this paper I explore the personal and literary forms of escape underpinning her figure and literary production. Exile, escape, uncertainty are the key words which can adequately describe Xiao Hong's life and writing, in which, as Yan Haiping (2006, 136) states, one can find the sense of a 'mobile violence', due to her choices both as a woman (who revolted against her traditionally bound clan) and as a writer, who adopted a quite innovative, fragmented style combining personal memories and a crude and yet poetic realism. The literary practice which mainly expresses her constant escape from stereotypes, ignorance and conventional fetters is the representation of a dislocated female body subject to any kind of violence and humiliation: Xiao Hong's 'placeless bodies' (Yan Haiping 2006, 146) are tangible marks of subjugation but also of resilience against a gendered destiny, which let her construct her literary and personal identity on a popular standpoint.


Acknowledgements found in scholarly papers allow for credit attribution of nonauthor contributors. As such, they are associated with a different kind of recognition than authorship. While several studies have shown that social factors affect authorship and citation practices, few analyses have been performed on acknowledgements. Based on 878,250 acknowledgees mentioned in 291,167 papers published between 2015 and 2017, this study analyzes the gender and academic status of individuals named in the acknowledgements of scientific papers. Our results show that gender disparities generally found in authorship can be extended to acknowledgements, and that women are even more underrepresented in acknowledgements section than in authors' lists. Our findings also show that women acknowledge proportionally more women than men do. Regarding academic status, our results show that acknowledgees who have already published tend to have a higher position in the academic hierarchy compared with all Web of Science (WoS) authors. Taken together, these findings suggest that acknowledgement practices might be associated with academic status and gender.


One of human basic needs is to fulfill the need for residence and housing. Yet, for low income communities, it is difficult to attain healthy and proper house. In order to assist low income communities to meet the housing need in Temanggung, the government in 1988/1989 provided simple-housing loan facility through sub-core housing. The purpose of this study is to assess the types of physical adjustments in the post-occupancy and to examine the factors encouraging the adjustments in Perumahan Sub Inti Gemoh Asri Temanggung. This is a posivistic research using quantitative method. The sample used is total sample or census. The statistic used is descriptive statistic using cross-tab analysis, chi square test (x2), and contingency coefficient (C). Based on the analysis, there are 9 (nine) variables which significantly influence the physical adjustments that are the age of the head of household, number of occupants in the house, occupant's perception toward the quality of the building materials, the head of household's occupation, the head of household's income, family income, occupants' business activity in the house, vehicle ownership, and goods ownership in the house. Practical recommendations given are the need of active participation from the local government to assist its community during the physical adjustments and the government's effort to improve its' community welfare. The recommended future research is a deeper research using more influential factors and deeper analysis such as double regression or path analysis as well as a research to examine the change of ownership status.


Background. Chronic upper extremity impairment due to stroke has significant medical, psychosocial, and financial consequences, but few studies have examined the effectiveness of rehabilitation therapy during the chronic stroke period. Objective. To test the safety and efficacy of the MIT-Manus robotic device for chronic upper extremity impairment following stroke. Methods. The VA Cooperative Studies Program initiated a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial in November 2006 (VA ROBOTICS). Participants with upper extremity impairment ≥6 months poststroke were randomized to robot-assisted therapy (RT), intensive comparison therapy (ICT), or usual care (UC). RT and ICT consisted of three 1-hour treatment sessions per week for 12 weeks. The primary outcome was change in the Fugl-Meyer Assessment upper extremity motor function score at 12 weeks relative to baseline. Secondary outcomes included the Wolf Motor Function Test and the Stroke Impact Scale. Results. A total of 127 participants were randomized: 49 to RT, 50 to ICT, and 28 to UC. The majority of participants were male (96%), with a mean age of 65 years. The primary stroke type was ischemic (85%), and 58% of strokes occurred in the anterior circulation. Twenty percent of the participants reported a stroke in addition to their index stroke. The average time from the index stroke to enrollment was 56 months (range, 6 months to 24 years). The mean Fugl-Meyer score at entry was 18.9. Conclusions. VA ROBOTICS demonstrates the feasibility of conducting multicenter clinical trials to rigorously test new rehabilitative devices before their introduction to clinical practice. The results are expected in early 2010.


Previous research has shown that there is a strong link between people, buildings and climate: the building sector contributes up to 30 per cent of global annual greenhouse gas emissions and consumes up to 40 per cent of all energy. Most 20th-century buildings in the world are currently reliant on electro-mechanical cooling systems. Researchers and scholars have studied and analysed the sustainability issues in architecture casting light from different perspectives. However, such studies have seldom paid significant attention to the principles of sustainable Iranian architecture. Environmental sustainability and sustainable architecture in Iran are still relatively new concepts. This research fills the gap on the application of vernacular architecture to modern building design, particularly in the context of Iran and its climate by creating an informed and tested understanding of how vernacular architecture can inform modern building design and techniques. There have been limited studies on vernacular design as a source of knowledge which can contribute to 21st century challenges. The scope of this study is not only limited to Iran as its finding are also applicable to other countries with hot climates.
As one of the key contributions, this thesis demonstrates how energy use in buildings can be minimised using such principles that are adopted from Iranian vernacular architecture. The study firstly relies on the state of the art literature review on vernacular architecture in Iran using secondary analysis, and then offers comparisons, analysis and hypotheses testing in the following sections. The challenge of extracting Iranian vernacular architecture principles (IVAP) has been achieved by a multi-method approach. Site observations, sketches, drawings and measurements at the early stages were reinforced by further detailed analysis of the literature beyond IVAP, and supplemented by studies in sustainable design such as passive design. It was found that IVAP have many common elements which are shared today by passive design. The methodology for the above consists of simulation modelling and comparisons of the energy in use for building designed using IVAP versus designs using conventional building techniques in Iran. By using energy software packages (Integrated Environmental Solutions, Design Builder, CC5) it is found that the application of IVAP can significantly improve energy consumption in buildings. The research also explores a novel approach and tests the feasibility of using 'adobe' as an insulation material for construction of walls. The analysis involves construction of a wall using this new approach (inspired by IVAP) and testing it in the lab for its energy performance. The findings confirm that as a building material, 'adobe' could be potentially a feasible and environmentally friendly substitute to conventional insulation with additional sustainable benefits such as using local materials and preservation of traditional culture in the region.
Another contribution of this study is to offer a deeper understanding of the drivers and barriers to the implementation of IVAP in today's architecture in Tehran, Iran. To achieve this a survey was conducted which revealed that an integral part of the implementation and application of IVAP is education and design of the UG and PG curricula. Recommendations are made to highlight the necessary and critical adjustment to policies regarding promotion of IVAP to safeguard the environment and national and cultural identities.


The Federal Clean Air Act of 1970 is widely seen as a revolutionary legal response to the failures of the earlier common law regime, which had governed air pollution in the United States for more than a century. Noga Morag-Levine challenges this view, highlighting striking continuities between the assumptions governing current air pollution regulation in the United States and the principles that had guided the earlier nuisance regime. Most importantly, this continuity is evident in the centrality of risk-based standards within contemporary American air pollution regulatory policy. Under the European approach, by contrast, the feasibility-based technology standard is the regulatory instrument of choice. Through historical analysis of the evolution of Anglo-American air pollution law and contemporary case studies of localized pollution disputes, Chasing the Wind argues for an overhaul in U.S. air pollution policy. This reform, following the European model, would forgo the unrealizable promise of complete, perfectly tailored protection - a hallmark of both nuisance law and the Clean Air Act - in favor of incremental, across-the-board pollution reductions. The author argues that prevailing critiques of technology standards as inefficient and undemocratic instruments of "command and control" fit with a longstanding pattern of American suspicion of civil law modeled interventions. This distrust, she concludes, has impeded the development of environmental regulation that would be less adversarial in process and more equitable in outcome.


Aberrant DNA hypermethylation of promoter of tumor suppressor genes is commonly observed in cancer, and its inhibition by small molecules is promising for their reactivation. Here we designed bisubstrate analogues-based inhibitors, by mimicking each substrate, the S-adenosyl-l-methionine and the deoxycytidine, and linking them together. This approach resulted in quinazoline-quinoline derivatives as potent inhibitors of DNMT3A and DNMT1, some showing certain isoform selectivity. We highlighted the importance of (i) the nature and rigidity of the linker between the two moieties for inhibition, as (ii) the presence of the nitrogen on the quinoline group, and (iii) of a hydrophobic group on the quinazoline. The most potent inhibitors induced demethylation of CDKN2A promoter in colon carcinoma HCT116 cells and its reactivation after 7 days of treatment. Furthermore, in a leukemia cell model system, we found a correlation between demethylation of the promoter induced by the treatment, chromatin opening at the promoter, and the reactivation of a reporter gene.


Lineated and foliated tectonites of the Teslin suture zone, Yukon, represent the deep-seated part of a west-dipping subduction complex that formed seaward of western North America in Permian-Triassic time. The tectonites were progressively underplated onto the hanging wall plate during B-type subduction. With continued subduction and underplating, the boundary between the hanging wall and subduction channel migrated oceanward, resulting in "growth" of the hanging-wail plate at depth. These tectonites preserve a progressive record of backflow, dextral margin-parallel shear, and downflow within the subduction channel. Early Jurassic A-type subduction of the leading edge of western North America resulted in eastward overthrusting of the tectonites as a coherent block onto North American strata. These tectonites provide empirical evidence that backflow, margin-parallel displacement, and downflow can all occur within the deeper parts of subduction zones.


The viridans group streptococci (VGS) are an extremely diverse range of organisms within the genus Streptococcus, which are characterized by a greening of the blood in blood agar, on which they are normally grown. Oral streptococci largely comprise members of the VGS, which currently include 20 species, which are commensal inhabitants of the oropharyngeal cavity, and the gastrointestinal and genital tracts of mammals. On the basis of 16S rRNA sequence homology, these bacteria are categorised into four groups: the salivarius rRNA homology group, including Streptococcus thermophilus, Streptococcus vestibularis and Streptococcus salivarius; the mitis group, including Streptococcus cristatus, Streptococcus gordonii, Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus mitis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus sanguinis and Streptococcus parasanguinis; the anginosus group, including Streptococcus anginosus, Streptococcus constellatus and Streptococcus intermedius; and the mutans group, including Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus criceti, Streptococcus downei, Streptococcus ferus, Streptococcus macacae, Streptococcus ratti and Streptococcus sobrinus. This review aims at comparing conventional and molecular detection methods and the emergence of antibiotic resistance within the VGS.


Larvae of Neureclipsis bimaculata (Trichoptera: Polycentropodidae) construct elaborate catchnets in lotic habitats to trap small drifting invertebrate prey. Three populations located at two oligotrophic and one eutrophic site were studied in southern Sweden. Measurements were made of larval weight, net size, seston quality and quantity, and stream velocity.

Neureclipsis larvae alter their net dimensions in response to both velocity and seston concentration. This was determined by comparing net structure and seston at the three locations. Larvae from the eutrophic, high quality seston site attain a significantly (P < 0.001) heavier instar V dry weight, spin a smaller catchnet, filter a volume of water dependent on body size, and slightly alter their catchnet dimensions with velocity. Larvae from the two oligothrophic sites are significantly smaller than those from the eutrophic site, spin a larger net at comparable velocities, filter a larger volume of water at comparable weights, and alter net dimensions with velocity.

Estimates of silk production indicate that the net cost is minimized by spinning a very fine silken strand and by adding silk over a period of time. The cost while large is offset by a large capture rate of prey.

The structure of Neureclipsis nets appears to be the result of a trade-off between maximizing food capture and minimizing hydraulic stress on the net.


INTRODUCTIONPsychological control and authoritarian control are thought to be distinct but related constructs (Barber & Harmon, 2002). However, the extent to which the measures are related versus distinct has not been examined empirically. In this article, we consider the similarities and differences between authoritarianism and psychological control. We also consider whether standard measures of psychological control and authoritarianism will function similarly in groups of Chinese and European background.Psychological Control and Authoritarianism-How Similar Are They?The phenomenon of psychological control has received a great deal of attention within the last decade (see Barber, 2002). Barber and Harmon (2002) discuss two aspects of psychological control. First, psychologically controlling parents influence children by manipulating their thoughts and emotions. Second, psychological control is intrusive, in that the boundaries between parent and child are not maintained. Thus psychologically controlling parents treat children as extensions of themselves, rather than individuals in their own right. This makes it difficult for children to differentiate themselves from their parents and develop a sense of efficacy and worth. Psychologically controlling practices include guilt induction, love withdrawal, controlling children via anxiety induction, and constraining verbal interactions between parent and child to topics important to the parent. In European samples, psychological control has been linked to more deleterious outcomes in children, including higher levels of internalizing behavior, and lower levels of self-esteem, (see Barber & Harmon for a comprehensive review).One aim of the present study was to compare a measure of psychological control with measures of parental authoritarianism, in order to determine the extent to which the two constructs are empirically distinct versus overlapping. Barber and Harmon (2002) state that psychological control has often been combined with other aspects of parenting as part of the authoritarian typology, as outlined by Baumrind. Baumrind described authoritarian parents as engaging in restrictive control, in that they demand obethence from children without question or discussion. She also described authoritarian parents as detached, emotionally remote, lower in warmth, controlling, and punitive (e.g., Baumrind, 1971).Baumrind's (1971) characterization of restrictive control seems to be distinct from psychological control, yet constructs of authoritarian control and psychological control have overlapped considerably in early research. Schaefer (1959) argued that two main factors underlied parenting: control versus autonomy and love versus hostility. While "psychological control" was not used as a label in this initial study, scales that had high loadings on the factor labeled "control" suggested psychological control (these scales included maternal anxiety, intrusiveness, fostering dependency, and excessive contact). However, some scales that reflected control (punitiveness, strictness, punishment, and the use of fear to control) loaded not on the factor labeled "control," but on the hostility end of the love-hostility factor. Schaefer speculated that authoritarian control was a combination of (psychological) control and hostility.Later, Droppleman and Schaefer (1963) distinguished between "covert indirect control" (i.e., psychological control) and "overt restrictive control" (comprised of strictness and punishment). The latter type of control is similar to the restrictive control that Baumrind (1971) characterized as typical of authoritarian parents. On the other hand, covert control more closely resembles psychological control. These two types of control differ in terms of the methods used to obtain child compliance. Parents using overt, authoritarian control simply demand obethence and obtain it by force if necessary, whereas parents using covert, psychological control attain obethence via manipulation of the child's thoughts and feelings (Barber & Harmon, 2002; Baumrind, 1971 ). …


This article discusses the issues and implications of high stakes tests on English language learners (ELLs). As ELLs are being included in all high stakes assessments tied to accountability efforts (e.g., No Child Left Behind), it is crucial that issues related to the tests be critically evaluated relative to their use. In this case, academic achievement tests are analyzed relative to their norming samples and validity to determine their usefulness to ELLs. Also, commonly used language proficiency tests are examined relative to definitions of proficiency, technical quality, alignment with criteria for language classification and reclassification, and their academic predictive validity. Based on the synthesis of the literature, the author concludes that high stakes tests as currently constructed are inappropriate for ELLs, and most disturbing is their continued use for high stakes decisions that have adverse consequences. The author provides recommendations for addressing the issues related to high stakes tests and ELLs.


Law enforcement officers' health and wellness is important at the individual and community levels in terms of maintaining a fit workforce to uphold the mission of public safety. The current study was designed to assess officer wellness across the U.S. From a nationally representative random sample of 1,135 local and state agencies, a random, probability-based sample of officers was selected, oversampling for female officers. Latent class analyses were conducted to assess wellness profiles based on a set of eleven physical, psychological, and behavioral health indicators for 2,232 officers. Personal and professional characteristics were included as auxiliary variables in models of the resulting classes. Results from this sample indicated that over two-thirds of officers fit a healthy profile, whereas one in four officers presents with moderate health concerns and nearly 6% are classified in a profile of broad health concerns. In this sample, sexual assault in childhood, greater exposure to critical incidents, working a current rotation schedule, and being female were characteristics associated with broad health concerns. Emotional and/or physical assault in childhood, greater exposure to critical incidents, and being female were characteristics associated with moderate health concerns, whereas older age and being Hispanic were protective factors. In sum, full-time sworn law enforcement officers across the U.S. are reasonably healthy but their exposures to stressful situations put them at increased risk particularly in terms of post-traumatic stress, risky drinking, and suicidality. These results are important for agency administrators and policymakers to consider in terms of wellness programs, prevention efforts and budget allocations.


In Jewish, Christian, and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome's Translation of the Book of Exodus, Matthew Kraus analyzes the Classical, Christian, and rabbinic influences on Jerome's translation of biblical narrative, poetry, and law.


The starting point of our paper is the question: Should a growth firm hoard cash to reduce dilution associated with external financing (by self-financing more) if this means delaying its existing investment opportunity? The analysis of such non-precautionary hoarding gives a stark contrast to the better-known precautionary motive that focuses on hoarding cash in anticipation of the arrival of potential investment opportunities. The latter particularly applies to large and mature firms. Our perspective is that of a growth firm with investment opportunities already present but without the necessary cash to undertake these opportunities; arguably one of the most important settings in corporate finance. While from a precautionary perspective, firms expecting the arrival of better opportunities hoard more, we have the opposite prediction for growth firms for which investment opportunities are already present. Such non-precautionary hoarding features a self-reinforcing effect: firms with better investment opportunities hoard less, yet grow successful and cash-rich more quickly. We show that hoarding affects the choice between public and private financing, and is sensitive to product market competition. Our contrasting insights to those from precautionary theories can help explain puzzling empirical evidence, such as why private firms hoard less than public firms, and why competition drives some firms to prefer hoarding and public financing, while others to prefer the opposite.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current Visual Management practices in highways construction projects in England.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a comprehensive literature review, the research topic was investigated by using five case studies and focus groups.
Findings
The main findings are (i) the current implementation of VM is limited, particularly on the construction field, (ii) there are some identified points (suggestions) that require attention to disseminate and advance the current practices further (iii) many conventional and BIM based opportunities to extend the current Visual Management implementations exist for the sector.
Originality/value
The highways construction and maintenance sector in England has been systematically deploying lean construction techniques in its operations for a while. One of those lean techniques is a close-range visual communication strategy called Visual Management. The literature on the Visual Management implementation in construction is scarce and generally limited to the building construction context. This paper documents the current industry practice in conventional and Building Information Modelling (BIM) based Visual Management and identifies a set of recommendations and some Visual Management ideas for future implementation efforts in the highways construction and maintenance sector.


The Central Chadic languages are a diverse and fascinating collection of languages, spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. The phonologies of these languages have intrigued linguists since they were first studied, due to their minimal sets of phonemic vowels (sometimes only one), complex systems of vowel harmony, and extensive use of palatalized and labialized consonants. Analysis of these languages led to the proposal of phonemic units referred to as 'prosodies', which act on both vowels and consonants, allowing Central Chadic phonologies to be described in a neat and succinct way.
This study looks at the diverse phonological systems found within Central Chadic, and reconstructs the phonological system of their ancestor language. This system is itself simple and succinct, and includes one phonemic prosody and just three phonemic vowels. The study describes the phonological processes that led from this system to the many phonological systems that are in use today, shedding light both on the history of the languages, and on issues in the analysis of these languages.


Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become an integral part of today's Web. Politicians, celebrities, revolutionists, and others use OSNs as a podium to deliver their message to millions of active web users. Unfortunately, in the wrong hands, OSNs can be used to run astroturf campaigns to spread misinformation and propaganda. Such campaigns usually start off by infiltrating a targeted OSN on a large scale. In this paper, we evaluate how vulnerable OSNs are to a large-scale infiltration by socialbots: computer programs that control OSN accounts and mimic real users. We adopt a traditional web-based botnet design and built a Socialbot Network (SbN): a group of adaptive socialbots that are orchestrated in a command-and-control fashion. We operated such an SbN on Facebook---a 750 million user OSN---for about 8 weeks. We collected data related to users' behavior in response to a large-scale infiltration where socialbots were used to connect to a large number of Facebook users. Our results show that (1) OSNs, such as Facebook, can be infiltrated with a success rate of up to 80%, (2) depending on users' privacy settings, a successful infiltration can result in privacy breaches where even more users' data are exposed when compared to a purely public access, and (3) in practice, OSN security defenses, such as the Facebook Immune System, are not effective enough in detecting or stopping a large-scale infiltration as it occurs.


Over the last decade, a growing body of literature has described and evaluated interventions designed to improve partner notification and treatment for curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs). For the most part, these studies have described expedited partner therapy (EPT), interventions meant to increase partner treatment by making it easier for partners to receive medication.1 The need for new approaches to partner treatment grew out of widespread recognition of the mismatch between the size of the STI problem and the paltry resources available for traditional partner services (PS). To date, EPT has most often involved patient delivered partner therapy (PDPT), the practice of giving persons diagnosed with an STI (index patients) medication for their sex partners. Although interest in the subject has probably been greatest in the USA, EPT studies have also come from the UK, Australia and Brazil.2–4 Available evidence suggests that EPT increases partner treatment and decreases rates of STI reinfection.1 However, these gains come at a price. Some partners who receive PDPT forgo medical evaluation, which may lead to missed diagnoses, fewer opportunities to diagnose and treat additional sex partners, and lost counselling opportunities. Furthermore, PDPT is not legal in many areas. Given these realities, it is important to develop and evaluate new low-cost, scalable models for partner treatment.

Two recent articles in Sexually Transmitted Infections provide a preliminary evaluation of a new model of EPT, accelerated partner therapy (APT). As described by Estcourt, APT includes two related approaches that diminish barriers to treatment while …


The performance of existing DVC codecs is still lacking relative to that of H.264 and work is being carried out in order to close this gap. The authors of this paper have been and still are involved in the development of two DVC codecs respectively, the performance of which is compared herein. The aim is to identify strengths and weaknesses of the two codecs that can be exploited / addressed in order to improve the achieved performance relative to H.264.


Understanding and predicting the extent, location, and function of biogeochemical hot spots at the watershed scale is a frontier in environmental science. We applied a hydropedologic approach to identify (1) biogeochemical differences among morphologically distinct hydropedologic settings and (2) hot spots of microbial carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling activity in a northern hardwood forest in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA. We assessed variables related to C and N cycling in spodic hydropedologic settings (typical podzols, bimodal podzols, and Bh podzols) and groundwater seeps during August 2010. We found that soil horizons (Oi/Oe, Oa/A, and B) differed significantly for most variables. B horizons (>10 cm) accounted for 71% (±11%) of C pools and 62% (±10%) of microbial biomass C in the sampled soil profile, whereas the surface horizons (Oi/Oe and Oa/A; 0–10 cm) were dominant zones for N‐cycle‐related variables. Watershed‐wide estimates of C and N cycling were higher by 34 to 43% (±17–19%) when rates, horizon thickness, and areal extent of each hydropedologic setting were incorporated, versus conventionally calculated estimates for typical podzols that included only the top 10 cm of mineral soil. Despite the variation in profile development in typical, bimodal, and Bh podzols, we did not detect significant differences in C and N cycling among them. Across all soil horizons and hydropedologic settings, we found strong links between biogeochemical cycling and soil C, suggesting that the accumulation of C in soils may be a robust indicator of microbial C and N cycling capacity in the landscape.


The paper is devoted to the analysis of Ukrainian fuel and energy sector (FES). The number of risks that threaten the stable supply of energy sources is growing. A high proportion of the energy intensity of developing economies in conjunction with their growing GDP leads to increased competition on world primary energy markets and causes significant fluctuations in energy prices, which negatively affect the global economy. There is also an important issue for world energy - limited use of non-renewable energy resources. Considering the prospects of development of Ukrainian FES, it is important to pay attention to patterns and trends of the global and national power. We have studied the basic trends of Ukrainian FES. It is the most important sector of the economy, and therefore its reform for market economy creation, price liberalization is a very important process. The current task of the energy sector of Ukraine is to be able to consistently produce and use energy to promote economic growth and improve quality of life.


Orphanages are curiously absent from geography, despite these spaces demonstrating a number of notable similarities to other institutional environments such as asylums, prisons and secure care facilities that have long been staples of geographical literature. Children's geographers are well placed to consider orphanage spaces, which reflect recent developments in the sub-discipline of children's geographies that have highlighted the diminished utility of the biosocial dualism (Lee and Motzkau 2011), and the need to avoid approaches that 'expel' or 'bracket out' biology or materiality (Prout 2005). While biopolitics has been put forward as a means to analyse contemporary childhood and move beyond biosocial dualisms, there is concern within geography that biopolitics has, at times, been uncritically engaged with. This chapter's contributions are twofold. First, it provides an overview of the development of biopolitics drawing upon Foucault, and situates it within his wider conceptualisation of biopower. Second, it reviews qualitative studies of orphanage spaces through the lens of biopower to illustrate the complexity and multi-scalar nature of the term, and the need to consider orphanages within children's geographies.


We present a method for kernel antenna array processing using Gaussian kernels as basis functions. The method first identifies the data clusters by using a modified sparse greedy matrix approximation. Then, the algorithm performs model reduction in order to try to reduce the final size of the beamformer. The method is tested with simulations that include two arrays made of two and seven printed half wavelength thick dipoles, in scenarios with 4 and 5 users coming from different angles of arrival. The antenna parameters are simulated for all DOAs, and include the dipole radiation pattern and the mutual coupling effects of the array. The method is compared with other state-of-the-art nonlinear processing methods, to show that the presented algorithm has near optimal capabilities together with a low computational burden.


How has the Jewish family changed over the course of the twentieth century? How has it remained the same? How do Jewish families see themselves-historically, socially, politically, and economically-and how would they like to be seen by others? This book, the fourteenth volume of Oxford's internationally acclaimed Studies in Contemporary Jewry series, presents a variety of perspectives on Jewish families coping with life and death in the twentieth century. The book is comprised of symposium papers, essays, and review articles of works published on such fundamental subjects as the Holocaust, antisemitism, genocide, history, literature, the arts, religion, education, Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East. Published annually by the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Studies in Contemporary Jewry series features current scholarship in the form of symposia, articles, and book reviews by distinguished experts of Jewish studies from colleges and universities across the globe. Each volume also includes a list of recent dissertations. Volume XIV: Coping with Life and Death: Jewish Families in the Twentieth Century will appeal to all students and scholars of the sociocultural history of the Jewish people, especially those interested in the nature of Jewish intermarriage and/or family life, the changing fate of the Orthodox Jewish family, the varied but widespread Americanization of the Jewish family, and similar concerns.


We present a method for determining the location and spatial extent of the source of explosions at Stromboli Volcano, Italy, based on a Bayesian inversion of the slowness vector derived from frequency-slowness analyses of array data. The method searches for source locations that minimize the error between the expected and observed slowness vectors. For a given set of model parameters, the conditional probability density function of slowness vectors is approximated by a Gaussian distribution of expected errors. The method is tested with synthetics using a five-layer velocity model derived for the north flank of Stromboli and a smoothed velocity model derived from a power-law approximation of the layered structure. Application to data from Stromboli allows for a detailed examination of uncertainties in source location due to experimental errors and incomplete knowledge of the Earth model. Although the solutions are not constrained in the radial direction, excellent resolution is achieved in both transverse and depth directions. Under the assumption that the horizontal extent of the source does not exceed the crater dimension, the 90% confidence region in the estimate of the explosive source location corresponds to a small volume extending from a depth of about 100 m to a maximum depth of about 300 m beneath the active vents, with a maximum likelihood source region located in the 120- to 180-m-depth interval.


This paper deals with a numerical approach for improving the mechanical properties of a safety belt anchor. The goal is to optimise the component shape and its manufacturing process by using a multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-2). This kind of automotive component is typically manufactured in three stages: blanking, rounding of the edges by punching and finally bending (90°). The numerical model is linked to the genetic algorithm (GA) in order to optimise design, material and process parameters. This is implemented by using ABAQUS© and CATIA script files. The material behaviour is modelled using a specific Lemaitre material damage formulation implemented in ABAQUS©. A global optimisation is finally performed in order to improve the ultimate unbending load and the volume of the safety part. This work has two major areas of innovation: a) the improvement of the genetic algorithm NSGA-2; b) the development of an integrated numerical procedure including 'computer aided design' and 'mechanical finite element simulation' controlled by the genetic algorithm.


Argument The Scandinavian countries share a solid reputation as longstanding contributors to top level Arctic research. This received view, however, veils some deep-seated contrasts in the ways that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have conducted research in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. In this paper it is argued that instead of focusing on the geographical determinism of science – the fact that the Arctic is close to, indeed part of, Scandinavian territories – we should look more closely at the geopolitics of science to understand the differences and similarities between these three Nordic countries. Through case studies of, mainly, Swedish Arctic and North Atlantic glaciology in the 1920s through to the 1940s, and of Norwegian preparations in the 1950s for the International Geophysical Year 1957/58, the paper demonstrates how different styles of research – research agendas, methodological choices, collaborative patterns, international networks, availability of infrastructure, relations to politics and power – are conditioned on economic interests and strategic and geopolitical trajectories, either these are explicitly put in the forefront of scientific priorities as in the case of Norway in the 1950s, or when they are manifestly disregarded in the name of scientific internationalism, as in the case of Swedish glaciology. The case of Danish colonial science in Greenland is only cursorily drawn into this analysis but corroborates the overall thesis. The analysis of this wider science politics of Scandinavian circumpolar science is exercised against a brief introductory backdrop of Arctic science historiography. Its chief message is that the analysis of polar science applying modern theory and method of the social studies of science is comparatively recent and that the full potential of merging the literature of Arctic science and exploration with those of security, geopolitics, indigenous voices, and the politics of nationalism is yet to be realized.


The spleen is an organ found in virtually all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The spleen plays important roles in regard to red blood cells (also referred to as erythrocytes) and the immune system. The study was done to study the morphology and other characteristics of the human foetal spleen at different gestational ages. The Foetal spleens from the aborted foetus were collected for the study. The data on various characters like length, width, thickness and weight of spleens were measured in present study. The data generated is helpful in the different medical as well as surgical conditions. As it is a haemolymph organ and belongs to the reticulo endothelial system.


Background Epidemiological features characterization of COVID-19 is highly important for developing and implementing effective control measures. In Saudi Arabia mortality rate varies between 0.6% to 1.26%. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether demographic characteristics (age and gender) and non-communicable diseases (Hypertension and Diabetes mellitus) have a significant association with mortality in COVID-19 patients. Methods Prior to data collection, an expedite approval was obtained from Institutional Review Board (IRB Log No: RC. RC20.09.10) in Al Habib Research Center at Dr. Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This is a retrospective design where we used descriptive and inferential analysis to analyse the data. Binary logistic regression was done to study the association between comorbidities and mortality of COVID-19. Results 43 (86%) of the male patients were non-survivors while 7 (14%) of the female patients were survivors. The odds of non-survivors among hypertensive patients are 3.56 times higher than those who are not having a history of Hypertension (HTN). The odds of non-survivors among diabetic patients are 5.17 times higher than those who are not having a history of Diabetes mellitus (DM). The odds of non-survivors are 2.77 times higher among those who have a history of HTN and DM as compared to those who did not have a history of HTN and DM. Conclusions Those patients that had a history of Hypertension and Diabetes had a higher probability of non-survival in contrast to those who did not have a history of Diabetes and hypertension. Further studies are required to study the association of comorbidities with COVID-19 and mortality.


Background Sjögren's syndrome (SS) is characterised by immune cell infiltration in the salivary glands (SG) leading to xerostomia (dry mouth) and exocrine dysfunction1. B cells play a central role in SS pathogenesis whereby autoreactive B-cells populate ectopic germinal centres (EGC) in SS-SG and undergo somatic hypermutation and class-switch recombination of the immunoglobulin (Ig) genes2. However, the capacity of specific B cell clones to seed ECG in different SG and undergo clonal diversification is unclear. Objectives To unravel the dynamics of recirculation of B cell clones among different minor salivary gland (mSG) biopsies, we investigated immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) gene rearrangements and patterns of somatic hypermutation (SHM) using a high-throughput next-generation sequencing approach. Methods IgH gene usage and SHM were investigated in 4 pairs of mSG biopsies from 4 pSS patients with high B cell infiltration and EGC. Retro-transcription of 100ng total RNA using Ig-μ, -γ and -α specific primers yielded Ig-specific cDNA for use as template in producing 36 PCR libraries (12 forward primers for each Ig-C) per sample3. Modified primers3 allow for multiplexing of amplicons and assist in bioinformatic filtering of reads. Sequencing was performed using the Roche GS-FLX titanium platform that allows for bi-directional sequencing producing full length reads of ∼500bp. Raw data was processed using IGMT4 and IgAT5, and lineage trees were produced using IgTree© 6. Results We generated ∼166,000 reads for the 8 SS mSG samples. Ig isotype usage was similar between paired samples; patients 1-3 presented with ∼60% μ- and ∼30% α-gene usage; and patient 4 contained a predominance of γ-gene usage (∼60%) and approximately equal usage of μ and α (∼20%). In total, we detected 1631 clonotypes (defined as reads with same IgHV and IgHJ gene usage and equal CDR3 length). Between 5 and 9 shared clonotypes were observed among paired SG biopsies, demonstrating B cells can recirculate between glands. Lineage tree analysis revealed 3 patterns of B cell circulation: a) unidirectional circulation of B cell clones from 1 biopsy to another; b) clones circulating between both glands; c) an undefined pattern with less-mutated and unidentified precursors migrating from one site to the other. Finally, mRNA expression of AICDA, the enzyme required for SHM, correlated with the number of SHMs present in the shared clonotypes studied, supporting the notion that functional EGCs support clonal selection in SS. Conclusions We show that B cells recirculate between mSG in SS and undergo further rounds of SHM in adjacent glands. The level of B cell recirculation appears to be related to the Ig isotype, as Gamma rich samples appeared to recirculate less often. Although further study is needed to confirm these observations, these findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of B cell affinity maturation in SS within ECGs. References Voulgarelis & Tzioufas. Nat Rev Rheumatol (2010). Bombardieri, et al. J Immunol (2007). Tiller, Busse & Wardemann. J Immunol Methods (2009). Brochet, Lefranc & Giudicelli. Nucleic Acids Res (2008). Rogosch, et al. Front. Immun (2012). Barak, et al. J Immunol Methods (2008). Disclosure of Interest None declared


The long-run relation between growth and inflation has not yet been studied in the context of nominal price and wage rigidities, despite the fact that these rigidities now figure prominently in workhorse macroeconomic models. We therefore integrate staggered priceand wage-setting into an endogenous growth framework. In this setting, growth and inflation are linked via the incentive to innovate. For standard calibrations, the linkage is strong: as trend inflation shifts from -5 to 5 percent, the range over which the economy's steady-state growth rate varies spans 50 basis points, implying up to a 15 percent output differential after thirty years. Nominal wage rigidity plays a critical role in generating these results, and compounding of inflation's growth effects implies large welfare losses. Endogenous growth thus proves a key channel via which inflation impacts New Keynesian economies.


Decentralized optimization is a powerful paradigm that finds applications in engineering and learning design. This work studies decentralized composite optimization problems with non-smooth regularization terms. Most existing gradient-based proximal decentralized methods are known to converge to the optimal solution with sublinear rates, and it remains unclear whether this family of methods can achieve global linear convergence. To tackle this problem, this work assumes the non-smooth regularization term is common across all networked agents, which is the case for many machine learning problems. Under this condition, we design a proximal gradient decentralized algorithm whose fixed point coincides with the desired minimizer. We then provide a concise proof that establishes its linear convergence. In the absence of the non-smooth term, our analysis technique covers the well known EXTRA algorithm and provides useful bounds on the convergence rate and step-size.


The fungus Colletotrichum truncatum (Schw.) Andrus and Moore causes lentil anthracnose, which is a major challenge to lentil production in western Canada. The pathogen infects leaves and stems, resulting in defoliation, stem girdling, plant wilting, and possibly plant death. Two races, Ct0 and Ct1, have been identified in the pathogen population in Canada. However, the differences in the infection process between the two races have not been described in detail. Currently, several lentil cultivars, such as CDC Redberry, CDC Robin, CDC Rosetown, CDC Rouleau, and CDC Viceroy, have resistance against race Ct1, whereas there are no cultivars showing resistance to race Ct0. The objective of this study was to investigate differences in the infection process between race Ct0 and race Ct1 using the fully susceptible cultivar Eston and the race Ct1-resistant cultivar CDC Robin. Experiments on glass well slides showed that race Ct0 had no inherently different conidium germination rate compared to race Ct1, and that differences in conidium germination between the two races on lentil plants were the result of specific interactions between the two races and lentil resistance. Investigations of the infection process of the two races on detached and attached leaves of both lentil cultivars were conducted starting 12 h postinoculation (hpi) until 72 hpi, including conidium germination, appressorium formation, and leaf penetration. Results indicated that differences in virulence of the two races may be related to the ability of conidia to germinate and form appressoria, as well as the ability of primary infection hyphae to grow in response to cues from the lentil cultivars. Furthermore, resistance of lentil to isolates of race Ct1 appeared to involve an inhibition in and/or delay of the spread of primary infection hyphae inside the plant tissue. Results of infection studies of one isolate from each race on attached leaves did not completely agree with results of the same isolates on detached leaves. Based on this study, race Ct0 and race Ct1 do not appear to be classical physiological races, but may represent aggressive races or some intermediate forms.


For an academic, finding an audience is critical. However, finding an audience is not always easy for most marketing academics. This inaugural address explores what the challenges are in finding an audience, among fellow scholars, students, public policy, industry, or society in general. It finds that the academic audience for marketing research is: (1) often small; (2) constrained to the own discipline; and (3) mostly located in the United States. The student audience is also under pressure, due to: (1) the difficult translation of academic marketing research to marketing education; (2) shifting student preferences; and (3) lack of involvement of students. The audience in society is too small due to a lack of relevance of marketing research in three ways: (1) lack of a public policy perspective; (2) too incremental insights to be useful to practice; and (3) too much focus on rigor to be interesting for the press. This address cites three ways to grow towards a larger and more loyal audience by evolving towards: (1) a truly globalized community of marketing academics; (2) living together with our source disciplines; and (3) a stronger focus on the knowledge economy and the life sciences.


By adopting its final Constitution in 1996, South Africa transformed its legal dispensation and automatically recognised women and men as equals. For Muslim women who were trebly disadvantaged throughout the apartheid era, this was a major improvement in their status. But despite this new legal position, they continued to experience discrimination both culturally and religiously. This book concerns itself with Muslim women's challenging conditions within Islam. The main objective of the book is 'to encourage those women and men... to participate in this debate' (at vi). '[I]t is not the purpose of this book to actually reformulate Islamic law...' (at 11). The author admits that although she is not an Islamic law scholar trained in a Muslim theological seminary, she is a legal scholar with a deep interest in the subject and passionate about the legal rights of women (at ix).


Twelve monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) formed temporary cluster TC36. mAb CACTB6A was included as a standard antibody that reacted with the gamma/delta T cell receptor (TCR). Eight of the mAbs, CACTB6A, CACT16A, CACT17A, CACTB12A, CACTB44A, CACT71A, CACT18A and CACT61A, immunoprecipitated a 47 kDa molecule indicating that they all recognize the gamma/delta TCR. Flow cytometric studies separated these mAbs into three groups that distinguish three different gamma/delta TCR. mAb BAQ72A, which fell within TC36, immunoprecipitated a 215 kDa molecule with a similar tissue and cellular distribution to BoWC1 mAb. mAbs CACT26A, CACT63A and CACT77A reacted similarly to each other by flow cytometry and immunohistology, but were distinct from the other mAbs in TC36. These three mAbs may recognize an activation molecule and form a distinct novel mAb cluster.


Abstract. Structure from motion (SfM) has been widely used to achieve automatic 3D reconstructions. However, as the 3D point clouds obtained via SfM are sparse, multi-view stereo (MVS) was developed to compensate for this sparseness. The accuracy of the 3D surface depends on the accuracy of the orientation elements based on the SfM. Additionally, in the case of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), SfM exhibits a decrease in the accuracy of the orientation elements during complex camera movements. This paper proposes a patch-based MVS (PMVS) method considering the accuracy of the orientation elements. The proposed method involves applying the global SfM, estimating accuracy of exterior orientation (EO) elements, and introducing the accuracy of EO elements to PMVS. The PMVS approximates an object surface by using small rectangular patches, namely local tangent plane approximation. The patches are optimized by minimizing the sum of the photometric discrepancy scores. The accuracy of the EO elements is introduced to the patch optimization as weighting function. This accuracy is defined using the variances of the estimated parameters in the bundle adjustment. We also investigate the types of weighting functions. The results indicate that the proposed method is capable of considering geometric conditions during patch estimation. The proposed method was applied to the three types of image datasets, i.e., images captured using an SLR camera at ground level, images captured using a UAV equipped with a SLR camera, and images captured using an airplane equipped with an oblique camera. Through the experimental results, the improved accuracy and the effectiveness of the proposed method were confirmed.


To efficiently solve challenges related to motion-planning problems with dynamics, this paper proposes treating motion planning not just as a search problem in a continuous space but as a search problem in a hybrid space consisting of discrete and continuous components. A multilayered framework is presented which combines discrete search and sampling-based motion planning. This framework is called synergistic combination of layers of planning ( SyCLoP) hereafter. Discrete search uses a workspace decomposition to compute leads, i.e., sequences of regions in the neighborhood that guide sampling-based motion planning during the state-space exploration. In return, information gathered by motion planning, such as progress made, is fed back to the discrete search. This combination allows SyCLoP to identify new directions to lead the exploration toward the goal, making it possible to efficiently find solutions, even when other planners get stuck. Simulation experiments with dynamical models of ground and flying vehicles demonstrate that the combination of discrete search and motion planning in SyCLoP offers significant advantages. In fact, speedups of up to two orders of magnitude were obtained for all the sampling-based motion planners used as the continuous layer of SyCLoP.


Biotechnologies potentially have significant benefits for developing countries but many countries lack complete regulatory processes to allow their release. In evaluating the potential benefits of genetically modified crops, one must be able to measure the true cost of regulations in addition to the other costs associated with bringing the crop to market. The objectives of this paper are to (1) identify the direct costs of the regulation of Bt eggplant, Bt rice, ringspot virus resistant (PRSV) papaya and virus resistant tomatoes in the Philippines, and (2) estimate the opportunity cost of time lost in the regulatory process. The study compares the cost of regulations as they differ by factors such as the existence of previous studies on the product or the intention for export or domestic use. It is hypothesized that the costs are greater for products that are intended for export or human consumption or are produced by the private sector. It is also hypothesized that these factors increase the time to complete the regulatory process, therefore increasing the opportunity cost of time. This study evaluates the economic impact of the GMO regulatory process on the change in producer surplus, the net present value and the internal rate return using an economic surplus model. Scientists and other experts in the field of GMOs and regulation were interviewed to obtain the necessary data on the regulatory process. The evaluation was carried out for four different commodities in the Philippines, Bt Rice, Bt Eggplant, PRSV Papaya and MVR Tomato. The results for the open economy model revealed a change in producer surplus, as a result of the GMO research, of $418.3 million for Bt Rice and $353.7 million for PRSV Papaya. The closed economy model of Bt Eggplant has a change in producer surplus of $25.1 million and a change in total surplus of $40.8 million while the result for the change in producer surplus for MVR Tomato is $19.3 million and the change in total surplus is $51.6 million. A sensitivity analysis of the results was then carried out in which the elasticity of supply, the cost of regulation, and the release date were each varied in order to show the welfare impact of such changes. The sensitivity analysis revealed limited changes in surplus when elasticity and regulatory costs were changed. However, changing the date of release or commercialization resulted in monumental changes in surplus.


Lathrocasis is a recently recognized genus of Polemoniaceae that circumscribes the species first named Gilia tenerrima A. Gray. This species, distributed primarily in the Great Basin and Rocky Mountain floristic regions, has previously escaped thorough taxonomic scrutiny. Surveys of herbarium specimens and living material show that some features of this species have been inaccurately characterized in the past, while other characteristics have not been previously considered in assessing its relationships. Lathrocasis possesses a distinct suite of morphological features that, considered as a whole, distinguish this taxon at the generic level. This suite of characters includes the mostly entire, nonmucronate leaves, effuse branching with diverging to retrorse and threadlike pedicels, uniformity of short stipitate glands throughout, uniovulate locules, spiriliferous seeds with verrucate seed coats, minute funnelform flowers with simple vasculature, and stamens equally inserted approximately mid-tube. Parsimony analyses of ITS, trnL , and matK genes recover similar trees that place Lathrocasis in Gilieae with possible sister relationships to Gilia , a group composed of Allophyllum , Collomia , and Navarretia , or both of these groups combined. A detailed description of L. tenerrima , a review of its taxonomic history, and notes on the type collection are presented.


Quality of urban environment as a subset of quality of life now represents the search for happiness and personal satisfaction in urban environment and is a broad concept which is concerned with the overall well-being in urban environment. The purpose of this study was to investigating the quality of urban environment according to the 5 urban landscape indicators; Land use, Green space, Population and Floor density, Accessibility and physical quality in Noor Town of Tabriz. In order to achieve this goal, the two-step research method has been used. The first step was field observation and conduction an organized interview with the citizens and the next step was the implementation of the results on the map using Geographical Information System analysis. The results of the research showed that the highest quality of urban environment related to green space and people are satisfied with the availability of green space in Noor Town. In contrast, the lowest quality of urban environment was related to the aspects of land use, such as the existence of wastelands in the southern parts of the study area and existence some industrial sites as air pollution sources near to the study area.