When humans invented farming 10,000 years ago, they weren9t the only ones to get a boost from the new starchy diet. Some microbes that had lurked at low levels in the mouths of hunter-gatherers bloomed on the sugary films coating the teeth of farmers who munched cereal grains. Eventually the cavity-causing Streptococcus mutans, for one, took root. It adapted to the sweet life, multiplying like a weed and edging out many other species of bacteria. That leaves the modern mouth a depauperate ecosystem, according to two new genetic studies.


Sub-millimetre remote sensing instruments can provide critical information on cirrus clouds and an alternative way of measuring precipitation with a much smaller antenna than those which microwave sensors currently use. Two satellite concepts CIWSIR and GOMAS were proposed as ESA Earth Explorer missions; these were not funded, however they were recommended for an aircraft demonstrator. ESA studies have been performed to identify the optimum instrument and platform to demonstrate these satellite concepts. This paper reports on one of these preparatory activities; the design of a sub-millimetre wave airborne demonstrator for both ice cloud and precipitation observations which will be able to prove the feasibility of the scientific principles of both satellite missions. The paper will describe the derivation of the demonstrator requirements, consideration of the available platform and instrument options, the design of the selected concept, performance prediction and the outline of a proof of concept flight campaign. It will present the outcome of the study which describes a demonstrator design based upon the new Met Office International Sub-Millimetre Airborne Radiometer (ISMAR).


The current movement toward more and better research experiences for undergraduates has spread across disciplines in the arts, humanities, science, mathematics, and engineering beyond the "research university" to the full range of post-secondary institutions of higher education. Along with this spread of practice is the need to take stock of the programs and make use of evaluation to inform program improvement and to communicate an understanding of the worth of the program to funders, institutional administrators, faculty/mentors, and students. The main aim of the book is to provide a practical guide for planning an evaluation of an undergraduate experience program. The intent is to enable a program director to plan with a team consisting of an internal evaluator and program staff, a systematic and rigorous study of the program (processes, products, organizational dynamics, etc.) including the gathering and analysis of information that is context-sensitive, and connected to an argument and justification for descriptive, causal, and practice-useful claims. It is useful for a program director to contract with an evaluator. It is specific to the field of undergraduate research experience while being useful for other fields. It places strong emphasis on how to find and specify evaluation questions that yield information that has high leverage for program improvement and demonstrating the effectiveness and worth of the program. A measure of attitude toward evaluation allows you to reflect on your leanings evaluation orientations such as formative/summative, process/product, preordinate goals/emergent goals, and other characteristics of approaches to and confidence in evaluation. The main readership is targeted to directors and developers of undergraduate research experience programs. While the examples are mainly in the undergraduate research experience, it will be found useful for instructors of courses in project evaluation and beginning level evaluators. The usefulness of the book is enhanced by a checklist in the final chapter that integrates the approaches from throughout the book referencing the earlier discussions.


Having established the status of social and economic rights the authors then argue for the imaginative enforcement of such rights starting at the national level. The authors look first at the judicial role in this enforcement. They expand the concept of enforcement to argue the domestic justiciability of these rights and explore the lingering perception of the lack of justiciability of social and economic rights and the effect of enforcement. The next section highlights two models of judicial enforcement: the minimal enforcement model and the substantive enforcement model. It discusses the aim of each model, their benefits and limitations and the variations within each model. The final detailed section examines and explains the programmatic model requiring pro-active government strategies to embed social and economic rights. The authors use Northern Ireland to explore the programmatic approach developed there and conclude with their preference for a combination of models to secure the enforcement of social and economic rights at a domestic level.


Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a cruel and deadly disease affecting the respiratory system, digestive system, endocrine system, and reproductive system. CF is a disease of greatly varied symptomatology due to the many possible mutations contributing to genotype and phenotype. This creates a disease complex with a wide range of disorders that can ultimately include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, CF-associated liver fibrosis, diabetes mellitus, cholelithiasis, and arthritis. The primary destructive component, however, is seen in the lungs, resulting in the uncertain life span associated with this disease. Controlling bacterial infection and managing the status of macro- and micronutrients remain a constant challenge. Due to the severity of this recessive disorder, conventional medical treatment is mandatory. However, many alternative medical options, such as coenzyme Q10, oligomeric proanthocyanidins, antioxidants, and amino acid therapies have proven to be significant contributors to the treatment of one of the ultimate co-management diseases of our time. (Alt Med Rev 1997;2(2):104-115)


Circadian control of liver metabolism is mediated by cycles of recruitment of the histone deacetylase HDAC3. Jet travel and working the night shift uncouple patterns of eating and activity from the body's internal circadian clock. Recent evidence indicates that such disruption of circadian rhythms has deleterious consequences for metabolic control and can increase the occurrence of diseases like obesity or diabetes. Feng et al. (see the Perspective by Moore) provide insight into the molecular mechanisms that couple circadian rhythms to metabolic control in the liver. The authors found that histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) bound to more than 14,000 genes throughout the genome during the day when mice were inactive but to only about 100 genes during the night when the animals were active and feeding. Genes with products that function in liver metabolism tended to bind HDAC3, and the presence of HDAC3 was associated with histone deacetylation and decreased transcription. Thus, failure to coordinate expression of such genes with feeding and activity may contribute to the observed effects of circadian disruption on metabolism. D. Feng, T. Liu, Z. Sun, A. Bugge, S. E. Mullican, T. Alenghat, X. S. Liu, M. A. Lazar, A circadian rhythm orchestrated by histone deacetylase 3 controls hepatic lipid metabolism. Science 331, 1315–1319 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text] D. D. Moore, Crise de foie, redux? Science 331, 1275–1276 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The eBank-UK (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk) project was concerned with the problem of making publicly available the vast amount of small molecule crystal structures being generated by recent advances in crystallographic and computational instrumentation. The eCrystals repository (http://ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk) that arose from this project makes available all the derived and results data from a crystallographic experiment in a machine readable manner. Building on this prototype the eCrystals Federation project (http://wiki.ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk) will establish a network of data repositories across an international group of crystallography laboratories. Data from repositories has been harvested by CCDC and CDS and the project is also working with IUCr, RSC, Chemistry Central and Nature to integrate the system with the publication process. This process alters the traditional method of peer review and communication of structures by openly providing data where the reader or user may directly check correctness and validity by accessing all files generated during the experiment. This approach allows rapid release of crystal structure data into the public domain whilst providing a valuable educational resource and mechanisms for services to be built on the body of data for communication, further studies and reuse. Examples of communication and education services that will be presented are the use of repositories for capturing teaching laboratory experiment data and reports, Blogs for discussion of experiments and results and the potential of SecondLife for visualisation and communication. The final educational tool to be presented is the Schools eMalaria project (http://emalaria.soton.ac.uk), where children use this data in docking simulations.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to use attribution theory to identify the factors that contribute to the failure of entrepreneurial ventures in Colombia.

Design/methodology/approach

The research study upon which this paper is based involved an online survey. A total of 324 Colombian entrepreneurs who had experienced business failure answered this survey. The study included six factors (financial, organizational, marketing, external environment, operational, and human resources) with their respective attributions as well as a personality test and segmentation questions. Two multivariate techniques were used (principal component analysis and a multinomial distribution model) to analyze the results of the survey.

Findings

The results showed that the principal attributions of failure for Colombian entrepreneurs were financial and organizational issues, the external environment, and marketing. Specific sub-issues included insufficient income generated to maintain the business, lack of proper financing, problems with the control of the business, as well as legal and economic instability.

Practical implications

These results of this research study are important for the creation and development of policies that promote entrepreneurship in Colombia and other developing countries. The findings may also provide entrepreneurs with an analysis of the attributions that are most frequently associated with failure and related lessons, which could individually and cumulatively increase the probability of success for entrepreneurs who are starting new business ventures.

Originality/value

This study makes an important contribution to the extant entrepreneurship literature by identifying and categorizing factors associated with business failure in Colombia. In developing countries, it is especially important to analyze failure attributions to determine relevant official policy instruments that could promote successful business ventures.


Between 1913 and 1924 the Catholic Federation of New South Wales articulated and advocated the political interests of the Catholic Church in the state. As part of a world wide movement, having its origins in the successful resistance of German Catholics to Bismarck's Kulturkampf during the 1870s, the Federation was one of four such bodies that were established in Australia and which enrolled tens of thousands of Catholic men and women as members. (1) At its peak the NSW federation claimed a membership of over a hundred thousand and there were times when its activities dominated news reports in the major metropolitan newspapers for days on end. Yet less than eighty years after its demise, few Catholics have heard of the Catholic Federation of NSW, let alone are aware of what it did during its short existence. This article aims to give an overview of the history of the Catholic Federation of NSW so as to fill that gap in the awareness and understanding of the organisation and its significance in the history of the Australian Catholic community. (2) Catholics in early twentieth-century Australia When the Catholic Federation of NSW was established in 1913, Catholics were mostly Irish by birth or descent, the Irish were mostly Catholics, and the Irish Catholics were mostly on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. This three-fold identification of religion, ethnicity and class had long been a feature of Australian society. (3) From the earliest days of European colonisation, Irish Catholics had perceived themselves as a persecuted minority. The degree to which, if at all, Catholics were in fact subject to persecution in this country is a question which has frequently been debated in the historiography of religion in Australia. (4) Whatever may have been the reality, it was the perception which was most important in shaping the attitude of Catholics as to their place in the wider community, and during the period of the Catholic Federation's existence persecuted Catholicism was the orthodox Catholic historical interpretation. In the first quarter of the twentieth-century Australian society comprised two communities: one was British in origin and Protestant in faith, the other Irish and Catholic. At a functional level these two communities generally co-existed and cooperated peacefully and effectively, but viscerally they were quite distinct and often in a state of tension. From 1910 political and industrial troubles magnified by the stress induced by the Great War saw these tensions increase to a point that at times threatened the social fabric of the nation. The education question The issue that chronically and most clearly divided the two communities concerned the financing of education. Originating in the 1870s, the struggle between the Catholic Church and the NSW government over the withdrawal of state funding for denominational schools had by 1910 endured far longer than either side initially contemplated and had in fact assumed a de facto stability. The Catholic Church regarded the restriction of government assistance to state-run schools as imposing an unjust burden on Catholic parents who in good conscience could not send their children to state schools. Protestants and secularists, on the other hand, were suspicious and hostile towards Catholics' insistence on conducting their own schools. According to the Methodist, the Catholic Church 'seeks to segregate its young people, and to bring them up under influences which imbue their minds with the narrowest and most bigoted notions, separating them in the most sacred relations of life from the rest of the citizenship of the State'. (5) With the election in 1910 of an avowedly non-sectarian Labor government, the Church sensed an opportunity to reopen the education issue. At first, Catholic Archbishops of Sydney, the scholarly patrician Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, and his successor, the rotund and pious Michael Kelly, endeavoured to do so by a strategy of constructive engagement with the new government. …


Jill Randall would like to use two case studies at two different sites of student projects to
investigate the use of the Live Brief within teaching, and how staff research projects can
introduce new ways of delivering Fine Art education, with benefits for the student and the
institution. Jill Randall has a history of implementing her research practically within the
University and re-introducing it into a teaching context.
Parys Mountain Copper Mine is an abandoned mine site in Anglesey, an extraordinary
place, an extreme environment, with its own "terrible beauty" of amazing colours and a
toxic landscape where corrosion and time are accelerated. Randall has led student
working field trips there for several years to respond to this unique site, creating new works
on and with the site, and to contribute ideas for the ongoing development of the mine as a
heritage site.
Flat Time House in Peckham, South London, is a gallery, project space, archive, and the
former home and studio of one of Britain's most influential artists, John Latham, founder
artist of the APG, (The Artist Placement Group.) The APG was a hugely important and
influential artists movement which began in the 1960s, and attempted, through negotiation,
to place artists within industry and government departments, and instigated the notion of
"Art in Context" and a "socially-engaged" art practice. Randall will report on a student
project there in March, "The Open Brief", re-staging one of the APG's maxims, and
allowing students to make a personal response which begins with Flat Time House.


Making decisions in a business intelligence (BI) environment can become extremely challenging and sometimes even impossible if the data on which the decisions are based are of poor quality. It is only possible to utilise data effectively when it is accurate, up-to-date, complete and available when needed. The BI decision makers and users are in the best position to determine the quality of the data available to them. It is important to ask the right questions of them; therefore the issues of information quality in the BI environment were established through a literature study. Information-related problems may cause supplier relationships to deteriorate, reduce internal productivity and the business' confidence in IT. Ultimately it can have implications for an organisation's ability to perform and remain competitive. The purpose of this article is aimed at identifying the underlying factors that prevent information from being easily and effectively utilised and understanding how these factors can influence the decision-making process, particularly within a BI environment. An exploratory investigation was conducted at a large retail organisation in South Africa to collect empirical data from BI users through unstructured interviews. Some of the main findings indicate specific causes that impact the decisions of BI users, including accuracy, inconsistency, understandability and availability of information. Key performance measures that are directly impacted by the quality of data on decision-making include waste, availability, sales and supplier fulfilment. The time spent on investigating and resolving data quality issues has a major impact on productivity. The importance of documentation was highlighted as an important issue that requires further investigation. The initial results indicate the value of research to investigate information quality in a BI environment.


Hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) have emerged as promising materials for applications in solar energy harvesting as well as in optoelectronic devices. Here, we report the first demonstration of cation exchange on HOIP nanocrystals (NCs). In this reaction, methylammonium cations are replaced in methylammonium lead halide (MAPbX3) NCs by formamidinium cations through a solid–liquid–solid cation exchange reaction. X-ray diffraction and optical characterizations allowed for the close monitoring of this process. Through this new type of cation-exchange reaction, formamidinium lead halide (FAPbX3) NCs with various halide compositions were synthesized by altering the starting material. This allowed for the formation of FAPbX3 HOIP NCs with a wide range of emissions spanning from 395 nm to 700 nm.


In this commentary I want to stress two issues: My appreciation for the overview of MIR-related theories (it can be considered a challenging first step toward an even more comprehensive overview) and the need to move on with constructivist issues. I am writing from a pragmatic perspective. The sophisticated formulation of radical constructivism (RC) seems to be the result of a long historical line of argumentation. Now the interesting questions arise: how can we use it? Will it provide insights and mechanisms which can actually be used to alter the way we approach (everyday and scientific) problems?


This paper reports a simple method to recycle plastic-bottle and Li-ion-battery waste in one process by forming valuable coordination polymers (metal–organic frameworks, MOFs). Poly(ethylene terephthalate) from plastic bottles was depolymerized to produce an organic ligand source (terephthalate), and Li-ion batteries were dissolved as a source of metals. By mixing both dissolution solutions together, selective precipitation of an Al-based MOF, known as MIL-53 in the literature, was observed. This material can be recovered in large quantities from waste and presents similar properties of purity and porosity to as-synthesis MIL-53. This work illustrates the opportunity to form hybrid porous materials by combining different waste streams, laying the foundations for an achievable integrated circular economy from different waste cycle treatments (for batteries and plastics).


The Netherlands and South Africa acknowledge the potential of biomass and therefore launched the Biomass Action Plan for Electricity Production (BAPEPSA) in 2014. In this government to government cooperation, South Africa's Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), Department of Energy (DOE) and the Netherlands' Ministry of Economic Affairs are leading the project in collaboration with Eskom, research institutes and NGOs. As part of BAPEPSA, this study focuses on the biogas potential for electricity generation in South Africa. It is a comprehensive overview of available wet waste streams for energy production. In conclusion, the report contains recommendations to overcome barriers to further develop the biogas market. These recommendations will be a part of the Biomass Action Plan (Main Report) expected to be published early 2017.


Abstract This study presents a new, reliable method of dental microwear analysis, which is applied to one of the largest published primate databases and to a Miocene hominoid, Ouranopithecus macedoniensis. Phase I and phase II molar facets were considered. A strict protocol during the molding and casting steps enabled the capture of sharp photographs using light stereomicroscopy. A semi-automatic method allows the quantification of the microwear features on digitized photographs. Inter-specific analysis on extant primates enabled recognition of three clusters. Primates feeding on soft fruits and leaves and having a low incidence of pitting on molar facets constitute the first cluster. A second group composed of the three sub-species of Papio, differs from the others by a high incidence of pitting and scratching on both molar facets. This is related to the consumption of abrasive graminoids and hard items. Pan troglodytes troglodytes and Pongo pygmaeus have an intermediate microwear pattern and constitute a third group. Ouranopithecus macedoniensis is close in dental microwear pattern to the three sub-species of Papio. This suggests the importance of the consumption of hard and abrasive items. Intra-specific analysis of dental microwear variations within a population of Pongo pygmaeus reveals no significant differences related to sex and molar-wear stage. According to these results, this alternative method appears to be repeatable, and therefore reliable, for paleodiet characterization of fossil primates.


This paper presents an analysis of ethnographic data collected by researchers as part of the process of rewriting an institutional learning and teaching strategy in an English university. The research was driven by a desire to understand what work a learning and teaching strategy might accomplish, and the form/s of address in strategy documents. The data for the study comprised in‐depth interviews with staff, focus groups with staff and students, documentary analysis of the existing institutional strategy documents from equivalent higher education institutions, and data from notes, memos, minutes and a personal reflective diary of events. These data did not provide the basis for an evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategy, rather they played a role in informing the development of the strategy, interrogating the limitations of strategy and exploring the ways in which such strategies discursively position pedagogic and academic identity. We conclude that strategy is non‐linear and the site of multiple contradictions, and that the work of strategy documents is accomplished through rhetorical forms in which desiring is as important as rational argument. How academics are discursively positioned, therefore, becomes a matter of power. Tensions between different approaches to teacher improvement, in the name of improving student learning, are acted out in the process of authoring strategy documents.


We characterized wildfire transmission and exposure within a matrix of large land tenures (federal, state, and private) surrounding 56 communities within a 3.3 million ha fire prone region of central Oregon US. Wildfire simulation and network analysis were used to quantify the exchange of fire among land tenures and communities and analyze the relative contributions of human versus natural ignitions to wildfire exposure. Among the land tenures examined, the area burned by incoming fires averaged 57% of the total burned area. Community exposure from incoming fires ignited on surrounding land tenures accounted for 67% of the total area burned. The number of land tenures contributing wildfire to individual communities and surrounding wildland urban interface (WUI) varied from 3 to 20. Community firesheds, i.e. the area where ignitions can spawn fires that can burn into the WUI, covered 40% of the landscape, and were 5.5 times larger than the combined area of the community core and WUI. For the major land tenures within the study area, the amount of incoming versus outgoing fire was relatively constant, with some exceptions. The study provides a multi-scale characterization of wildfire networks within a large, mixed tenure and fire prone landscape, and illustrates the connectivity of risk between communities and the surrounding wildlands. We use the findings to discuss how scale mismatches in local wildfire governance result from disconnected planning systems and disparate fire management objectives among the large landowners (federal, state, private) and local communities. Local and regional risk planning processes can adopt our concepts and methods to better define and map the scale of wildfire risk from large fire events and incorporate wildfire network and connectivity concepts into risk assessments.


Spirituality, Gender, and the Self in Renaissance Italy: Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula (1474-1540). By Querciolo Mazzonis. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2007. Pp. xx, 247. $35.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-813-21490-0) Noted as a "santa viva" and a significant figure in early modern Catholicism, Angela Merici (1474-1540) is recognized for her foundation of the Company of St. Ursula, whose aim traditionally has been considered as dedicated to teaching and charity. In his book Spirituality, Gender, and the Self in Renaissance Italy:Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula (1474-1540), Querciolo Mazzonis disputes this interpretation of the Company's original goals and instead emphasizes the uniqueness of Merici's innovative conception in creating a new option for female religious life. Based on an analysis of primary documents, Mazzonis argues that the original purpose of Merici's Ursulines was to enable noncloistered virgins to pursue a life as "Brides of Christ" in the world within a structure that afforded them remarkable autonomy in shaping their own unmediated spiritual development. Mazzonis situates Merici and her Company within the context of late-medieval female spirituality, contemporary gender attitudes, Renaissance concepts of self, and spiritual trends in preTridentine Italy. In chapter 1, Mazzonis explores the late-medieval roots of Merici's religiosity, relating it to the experience of other laywomen who pursued a religious life outside the convent. He provides a brief reconstruction of Angela's life before examining the characteristics and organizational structure of her Company of St. Ursula, founded in Brescia in 1535. Living in their own homes as Brides of Christ, Ursulines followed a life of prayer, penance, and devotion in a democratic organization without institutional trappings, managed by women, and unusually independent of male church authorities. Charity and teaching were not principal goals of the original foundation, nor was charity central to Merici's spirituality or her sense of an active apostolate. Chapter 2 considers the Ursulines within the social, economic, and political context of Brescia. Examining prescriptive literature directed to women in the sixteenth century, Mazzonis notes how Merici drew on female identities of virgin, bride, and widow in the structure of her Company, but gave these a new empowering significance. He also establishes Merici as the author of the Rule of the Company of St. Ursula, which represents a rare example of a codification of the "irregular," noninstitutional features of female spirituality. …


Background : Calcium bentonite is a natural clay that has the ability to absorb toxins and metabolite excess substances and often referred to as healing clay because it is used traditionally. This study aimed to determine the ability of local calcium bentonite to absorp high blood glucose.. Methods : This study was an experimental study using 20 female Wistar rats and divided into two groups consisting of Group I (control group, n=10) and Group II (calcium bentonite group, n=10). Diabetes in rats was induced by alloxan monohydrate 150 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally. Examination of blood glucose was performed three times; in the beginning of study, 72 hours after alloxan monohydrate induction, and four days after the given interventions. Blood glucose levels in mean values were analyzed using t-independent test. Statistically significance was considered when p<0.05. Results : Oral calcium bentonite of 1g/kg body weight significantly lowered blood glucose level relatively to the control group with average value of 131.30 mg/dl (p=0.01). Conclusions : Calcium bentonite significantly lowers blood glucose levels. DOI : 10.15850/amj.v2n3.562


University of New England (UNE) has been collecting and reporting data about its students and their learning outcomes for the purpose of better understanding and enhancing learning experience through the use of technology at the various points of the student life cycle for a number of years. Based on the existing sets of data, UNE has developed a wide range of strategies and activities to enhance first-year experience, provide relevant and timely support and high quality information, develop early at-risk detection and prevention programmes, and design personalised and engaging online study curriculum, all of which promote participation, diversification and quality for UNE's students. The workshop will focus on the technical features, conceptual framework and pedagogical aspects of the learning analytics projects presently operating at UNE and those currently being developed in partnership with Pearson. The workshop will be facilitated by Dr Michael Crock (Pro Vice-Chancellor Educational Innovation & International, University of New England) with participation of researchers, data analysts, academic and administrative staff from both UNE and Person.


In this paper, we consider the problem of providing fault tolerant operation for multicast networks with multiple sources, e.g., sensors, and delivering data to a pre-defined set of destinations, e.g., sinks. We propose an algorithm that combines network and erasure coding to provide resilience against a predefined number of link failures. For sources unable to meet the flow constraints, support is provided at the cost of reduced throughput and if required, reduced protection. The necessary and sufficient flow conditions for network resource verification are proved. We also prove that the field size for coding coefficients is bounded by the amount of protection offered for erasure coding and equal to 2 for network coding.


This is the first book to tell the story of British photography as a coherent whole, from the pioneers of the early nineteenth century to photographers today who may display their images on websites, as projections, on computer screens or on i-Pods. The authors have travelled the length and breadth of the UK, researching both well-known and forgotten ouevres and uncovering many lost masterpieces. As well as the famous names - William Henry Fox Talbot, Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, Bill Brandt, Madame Yeronde, Angus McBean, Susan Lipper and Tom Hunter among them - they have examined post-cards, family albums, photographic illustrations in books, medical photographs, war-time propoganda and social documents. Previous imbalances in the available history of photography have been corrected, not least by the inclusion of women photographers and photographers from Britain's ethnic minorities. Through their exhaustive research the authors demonstrate the extraordinary range and diversity of roles that photography has played in British cultural life over the past one and half centuries.


Escape, evacuation, and rescue (EER) analysis is one of vital roles to protect and save personnel in the event of a major accident on offshore oil and gas production platforms. However, most of EER analysis method for evaluating EER strategies of offshore plants relied on deterministic or probabilistic methods including several risk assessment tools. This study focused that all partial processes of EER analysis are similar to the things of passenger ship escape and evacuation: "Means of Escape", "Simplified Evacuation Analysis", and "Advanced Evacuation Analysis". Since various methodologies and some authorized rules for EER plans and resources were already studied in the domain of passenger ship, this study tried to adopt them to offshore plant fields with their minor revisions. In the evacuation process of EER analysis, especially, a human behavior model was adopted to simulate the evacuation sequence in more detail. It was supposed that the human behavior model is based on the velocity-based model, and consists of individual, crowd, and emergency behaviors. As an example, the method is applied to some offshore plant projects and compared with the result of conventional EER analysis.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


The present study determines the relative strengths and positions of electrical activity in different regions of the brain. It aims to investigate the differential involvement of the left and right hemispheres of the brain when a visual stimulant is administered. This paper examines the frequency - intensity spectrum of recorded EEG signals at the electrodes at F7, F8, P3, P4, T3, T4, O1, O2, C3, C4, T5 and T6 situated in two hemispheres at a specific instant and inferences were drawn regarding hemispheric differences in EEG activities in four frequency bands 0-4 Hz, 4-8 Hz, 8-12 Hz and 12-25 Hz for all the four subjects. The present work will be useful for future research to study the importance of the functional asymmetry of the brain for the organization of emotions though the relative contribution of the left and right hemispheres. The findings of this study can also be used to develop brain-computer interface for various applications.


This volume is: (1) a completely updated and expanded edition in all areas of powder production, sampling, characterization, shaping, consolidation, sintering, quality control, machining, heat treating, and P/M applications; (2) single source for practical engineering information on sintering practices, tool design, P/M metallography, dimensional control, part design, powders, binders, lubricants, and the processing, properties, and performance of P/M materials in different production technologies and applications; (3) comprehensive coverage of P/M technologies and applications including warm compaction, injection molding, rapid prototyping, thermal spray forming, reactive sintering, and P/M gears, bearings, high-performance parts, composites, machine parts, electric contacts, magnetic materials, metallic foams, hardfacing powders, automotive parts, and more.


This paper presents the results of a study pertaining to the acquisition of timing control by Australian subjects who are enrolled in first-year Japanese at tertiary level. Instrumental techniques are used to observe segment duration and pitch patterns in the speech production of learners and native speakers of Japanese. The observations concern vowels and obstruents based on minimal pairs with durational contrasts, and the results are discussed within the framework of interlanguage phonology. The results obtained from this study demonstrate problems of beginning-level learners, including the underdifferentiation of durational contrasts (Han 1992). From the viewpoint of interlanguage phonology, however, the results seem to indicate that the learners have the ability to control timing and that they try to achieve durational distinctions in their speech production, but that their phonetic realisation is different from that of native speakers.


South China Sea off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia is shallow, semi-enclosed
tropical sea. Most of the fishing activities in this area are concentrated in the inshore
waters where marine resources are optimally exploited. However, the offshore waters
still harbour a potential for fishery development. This study was carried out to assist the
nation to develop offshore fisheries through sustainable development of the fisheries
resources in the Malaysian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and thus harvest the fishery
resources effectively and sustainably.
The integration of remote sensing and GIS modeling has provided a powerful
tool in fish forecasting. Understanding the relationship between oceanographic
conditions and fish behavior can lead towards forecasting of fish migration and aggregation. Fish forecasting technology has been applied successfully in many
countries. Findings of this study showed that some of the forecasting methods used in
temperate water were unsuitable to be applied in this region.
A fish forecasting model was developed in this study. The model was primarily
based on the description of oceanographic phenomena from two major parameters,
namely sea surface temperature and chlorophyll a. An oceanography and acoustic
survey was conducted in year 2000 to verify the Potential Fishing Zone forecast. The
survey's results showed that abundance of fish was located close to the upwelling
boundaries, which agreed with the forecast results. For the ease of fish forecasting using
GIS, ArcView interface was customized and named as the Tropical Fish Forecasting
System (TroFFS).


Portal technologies integrate information, content and enterprise applications. Executive information systems (EIS) grew out of the information needs of top executives. Web-based technologies are causing a revisit to existing IT implementation models, including those for EIS. Some technologies include: intranet, internet, extranet, e-commerce business-to-business (B2B), e-commerce business-to-consumer (B2C), wireless application protocol (WAP) and other mobile and portal technologies. The authors conducted a survey of 31 well-established organizations in KwaZulu-Natal, which successfully implemented EIS. A validated survey instrument was administered to an EIS stakeholder in each organization surveyed. This article is a report on (a) on the activity sectors of organizations surveyed; (b) an analysis of the different commercially purchased EIS software tools and/or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software with EIS features used by stakeholders in organizations surveyed; and (c) the impact level of portal technologies on EIS implementation. The authors report that after the Intranet and Internet, portal technologies have the third highest impact on EIS implementations in organizations surveyed in KwaZulu-Natal.


More than 200 years ago in his work "Perpetual Peace,"' Immanuel Kant called for peace and human rights to be protected under international law. Ever since, the United Nations, which was founded in 1945 as part of the worldwide fight against tyranny and heinous crimes, has been considering the idea of setting up a permanent International Criminal Court (or "Court"). Already in 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of December 9, 1948 ("Convention") demanded the creation of an international tribunal. In 1993 and 1994, the Security Council of the United Nations established the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia 4 and for Rwanda. In July 1998 an overwhelming majority of States-including Germany-adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (or "Statute"). By the end of November, the third meeting of the Preparatory Commission for this Court will begin in order to complete the necessary preparatory work for the entry into force of the Statute. Germany wholeheartedly contributes to these efforts in order to ensure that the Court can commence its work in the next years. The general debate of the fifty-fourth U.N. General Assembly focused in an unprecedented manner on the question of humanitarian intervention versus State sovereignty. These "milestones" roughly describe the increasingly dynamic development of international law and politics in the fight against genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. They describe a long journey, which is still far from over. Part I addresses the background and basis of the signatories of the Convention. Part II discusses Germany's policy belief that there is no peace without justice. Part III discusses the positive impact that the establishment of the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda (and other ad hoc tribunals) have had, but also how the effort falls short of universal justice. Part III A. outlines the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a quantum leap in the development of international law. Part III B. addresses the process of ratifying the Rome Statute as well as a description of the establishment of a Preparatory Commission. Part IV discusses sovereignty versus humanitarian intervention, the principle of non-use of force versus effective protection of human rights. Part V discusses the importance of developing the existing U.N. system in such a way that in the future it is able to intervene in good time in cases of very grave human rights violations, but not until all means of settling conflicts peacefully have been exhausted and-this is a crucial point-within a strictly limited legal and controlled framework. FROM NUREMBERG TO ROME AND BEYOND: THE FIGHT AGAINST GENOCIDE, WAR CRIMES, AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY


The visible light and Eosin B-catalyzed direct sulfenylation of sp C–H bonds with sulfinic acids through a photoredox process has been demonstrated at room temperature under transition metal-free conditions for the first time. Diverse heteroaryl sulfides were obtained in moderate to good yields. This is the first example of the sulfenylation of sp C–H bonds using arylsulfinic acids as odorless sulfur reagents under visible light-induced conditions. More interestingly, the reductive products could be obtained under visible light-induced oxidative conditions. This protocol demonstrates a new model for C–S bond formation, which serves as a novel approach toward the synthesis of heteroaryl sulfides.


The term "Gun Show Loophole" came about as a result of the passage of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 19861 and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993.2 These laws effectively created a dual standard for gun sales based on the federal license status of the seller. The Brady Act mandated that licensed gun dealers must conduct criminal background checks on potential buyers regardless of whether the sale takes place at the dealer's store or at a gun show, 3 whereas the Firearm Owners Protection Act expressly exempted "persons making occasional sales or selling all or part of a personal collection" from the need to obtain a federal license to sell firearms.4 Thus, a private individual who is not considered to be "engaged in the business" of buying and selling guns, or who sells occasionally, is not required, or even allowed, to conduct a background check on a prospective buyer. 5 The reason for the exception to the background check requirement for private sellers was to allow for the unregulated sale or transfer of guns between friends and relatives or the "occasional" sale of guns by individuals from their personal collection. 6


PURPOSE
To evaluate prediagnostic markers of endothelial dysfunction and inflammatory processes in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).

METHODS
Blood samples were collected from 1989 to 1990 in the nurses' health study (women) and from 1993 to 1995 in the health professionals follow-up study (men), and medical-record confirmed incident poag cases were identified (women: 229 cases and 455 controls; men: 116 cases and 228 controls). Controls were matched on cohort, age, race, ethnicity, cancer status, and date of blood collection. Plasma concentrations of ICAM-1, E-selectin, and soluble TNF receptor 2 (sTNF-R2), a marker related to TNF-α, were measured with ELISA assays. Cohort-specific multivariable conditional logistic regression model results were meta-analyzed.

RESULTS
We observed no associations with ICAM-1 or E-selectin. for sTNF-R2, the mean (SD) plasma levels (pg/ml) in cases and controls were 2888 (997) and 2993 (913), respectively, in women; and 2622 (664) and 2569 (688), respectively, in men. pooled multivariable results showed no relation between sTNF-R2 levels and POAG. however, compared with the lowest tertile of sTNF-R2, the highest tertile showed a significant decreased risk of POAG in women (multivariable odds ratio [OR] = 0.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.360.93; P(trend) = 0.03) but not in men (P(trend) = 0.21; P for heterogeneity by sex = 0.03). also, among women, the inverse association with sTNF-R2 was stronger with normal-tension glaucoma (ntg; maximum intraocular pressure 21 mm Hg at diagnosis): highest versus lowest tertile comparison OR = 0.29 (95% CI = 0.12-0.71; Ptrend = 0.007).

CONCLUSIONS
In women, but not in men, higher sTNF-R2 levels at 6 to 8 years before diagnosis were inversely associated with POAG, but more strongly for NTG.


Planets embedded within dust disks may drive the formation of large scale clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. Detection and subsequent modeling of the dust structures would help constrain the mass and orbit of the planet and the disk architecture, give clues to the history of the planetary system, and provide a statistical estimate of disk asymmetry for future exoEarth-imaging missions. Here, we present the first search for these resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the light curves of hot Jupiter planetary candidates identified by the Kepler mission. We detect only one candidate disk structure associated with KOI 838.01 at the 3σ confidence level, but subsequent radial velocity measurements reveal that KOI 838.01 is a grazing eclipsing binary and the candidate disk structure is a false positive. Using our null result, we place an upper limit on the frequency of dense exozodi structures created by hot Jupiters. We find that at the 90% confidence level, less than 21% of Kepler hot Jupiters create resonant dust clumps that lead and trail the planet by ∼90° with optical depths ≳ 5 × 10−6, which corresponds to the resonant structure expected for a lone hot Jupiter perturbing a dynamically cold dust disk 50 times as dense as the zodiacal cloud.


Searching desired data on the Internet is one of the most common ways the Internet is used. No single search engine is capable of searching all data on the Internet. The approach that provides an interface for invoking multiple search engines for each user query has the potential to satisfy more users. When the number of search engines under the interface is large, invoking all search engines for each query is often not cost effective because it creates unnecessary network traffic by sending the query to a large number of useless search engines and searching these useless search engines wastes local resources. The problem can be overcome if the usefulness of every search engine with respect to each query can be predicted. We present a statistical method to estimate the usefulness of a search engine for any given query. For a given query, the usefulness of a search engine in this paper is defined to be a combination of the number of documents in the search engine that are sufficiently similar to the query and the average similarity of these documents. Experimental results indicate that our estimation method is much more accurate than existing methods.


There are style guides and best practices for many programming languages. Their goal is to promote uniformity and readability of code, consequentially reducing the chance of errors. While programmers who are frequently using the same programming language tend to internalize most of its best practices eventually, little is known about what happens when they casually switch languages and write code in a less familiar language. Insights into the factors that lead to coding convention violations could help to improve tutorials for programmers switching languages, make teachers aware of mistakes they might expect depending on what language students have been using before, or influence the order in which programming languages are taught. To approach this question, we make use of a large-scale data set representing a major part of the open source development activity happening on GitHub. In this data set, we search for Java and C++ programmers that occasionally program Python and study their Python code quality using a lint tool. Comparing their defect rates to those from Python programmers reveals significant effects in both directions: We observe that some of Python's best practices have more widespread adoption among Java and C++ programmers than Python experts. At the same time, python-specific coding conventions, especially indentation, scoping, and the use of semicolons, are violated more frequently. We conclude that programming off-language is not generally associated with better or worse code quality, but individual coding conventions are violated more or less frequently depending on whether they are more universal or language-specific. We intend to motivate a discussion and more research on what causes these effects, how we can mitigate or use them for good, and which related effects can be studied using the presented data set.


Strong divergent selection leading to local adaptation is often invoked to explain the staggering diversity of bacteria in microbial ecosystems. However, examples of specialization by bacterial clones to alternative niches in nature are rare. Here, we investigate the extent of local adaptation in natural isolates of pseudomonads and their relatives to their soil environments across both space and time. Though most isolates grew well in most environments, patchily distributed low-quality environments were found to drive specialization. In contrast to experimental evolution work on microbial adaptation, temporal adaptation was stronger than spatial adaptation among the isolates and environments we sampled. Time-shift analysis of fitness across two seasons of growth revealed an unexpectedly strong effect of preadaptation. This pattern of apparent future adaptation may be caused by unknown abiotic properties of these environments, phages, bacterial competitors or general mechanisms of ecological niche release, and warrants future study.


Next Generation Network (NGN) is IP based broadband and integrated network of existing communication networks. This paper defines requirements of management information to handle topology and resource management in NGN transport network, and suggests protocol neutral information model in the form of Unified Modeling Language (UML). We also present high-speed resource control mechanism based on parallel and single-phase schemes to minimize control processing overhead in NGN transport network.


This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands's (2017) argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands's analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct substantive RTM debates that do not collapse into merely verbal disagreements. Combined, Sections 2 and 3 demonstrate how, by employing specifying stipulations, we can get around Rowlands's arbitrariness challenge. Section 2 reveals why RTM, as canonically construed in terms of mental states exhibiting intensional (with-an-s) properties, has been deemed a valuable explanatory hypothesis in the cognitive sciences. Targeting the canonical notion of mental representations, Section 3 articulates a rival nonrepresentational hypothesis that, we propose, can do all the relevant explanatory work at much lower theoretical cost. Taken together, Sections 2 and 3 show what can be at stake in the RTM debate when it is framed by appeal to the canonical notion of mental representation and why engaging in it matters. Section 4 extends the argument for thinking that RTM debates matter. It provides reasons for thinking that, far from making no practical or theoretical difference to the sciences of the mind, deciding to abandon RTM would constitute a revolutionary conceptual shift in those sciences.


1. The mechanism of catecholamine secretion after coronary occlusion was investigated in open-chest, anaesthetized dogs; the blood-bathed organ technique was used for continuous measurement of the changes in concentration of circulating catecholamines. 2. In dogs with increased output of adrenaline during the first hour after acute coronary occlusion, topical application of lignocaine to the infarcted area of the heart, spinal block at C 1 , bilateral section of thoracic splanchnic nerves, or ganglionic blockade virtually abolished adrenaline secretion. 3. Adrenaline secretion was abolished by bilateral vagotomy in 50% of the dogs, decreased in 28% and unchanged in the remaining 22%. Bretylium or guanethidine had no effect on adrenaline secretion in the early stages of myocardial infarction. 4. Seventeen of nineteen reserpinized dogs failed to secrete catecholamines during the first hour of coronary occlusion, even though the adrenal medulla responded to bradykinin, acetylcholine or nicotine. Noradrenaline infused either into the unoccluded carotid artery or intravenously restored adrenal medullary secretion. 5. When a sustained noradrenaline release occurred after coronary ligation, it was abolished by topical application of lignocaine to the ischaemic area of the heart or by ganglionic blockade. Neither bilateral vagotomy nor section of both thoracic splanchnic nerves suppressed noradrenaline liberation. 6. It is concluded that the adrenal medullary secretion of adrenaline which occurs in the early stages of myocardial infarction in the dog is induced reflexly from stimulation of cardiac receptors at the site and the boundary of the infarct. The reflex involves vagal as well as extra-vagal pathways and supraspinal structures. Enhanced liberation of noradrenaline in the early stage of infarction may reflect release from postganglionic sympathetic nerve endings in the heart.


BUSINESS COMMUNICATION: IN PERSON, IN PRINT, ONLINE, 8TH EDITION, offers a realistic approach to communication in today's organizations. The text covers the most important business communication concepts in detail, and thoroughly integrates coverage of today's social media and other communication technologies. Building on core foundational written and oral communication skills, the 8th edition helps readers make sound medium choices and provides guidelines and examples for the many ways people communicate at work. Readers learn how to create PowerPoint decks, use instant messaging and texting effectively at work, engage customers using social media, lead web meetings and conference calls, and more.


The modern high strength steel plates have an excellent combination of strength and toughness based on micro-alloying and complex microstructure. Retaining this combination of properties in the weld zone is a major challenge for applications in high-demanding structural construction. This work investigates the weldability of three different modern high strength steel plates, with a thickness of 8 mm. Two of the test materials were produced by a thermo-mechanically controlled process (TMCP) and one by a quenching and tempering method (Q&T). Two-passes MAG (metal active gas) welding was used with four different heat inputs. The tests implemented on all the materials included tensile, hardness profiles (HV5), Charpy-V impact toughness tests, and microstructure analysis using scanning electron microscope (SEM). For one of the TMCP steels, some extended tests were conducted to define how the tensile properties change along the weld line. These tests included tensile tests with digital image correlation (DIC), and 3-point bending tests. The most notable differences in mechanical properties of the welds between the materials were observed in Charpy-V impact toughness tests, mostly at the vicinity of the fusion line, with the Q&T steel more prone to embrittlement of the heat affected zone (HAZ) than the TMCP steels. Microstructural analysis revealed carbide concentration combined with coarse bainitic structures in HAZ of Q&T steel, explaining the more severe embrittlement. During the tensile tests, the DIC measurements have shown a strain localization in the softest region of the HAZ. Increasing the heat input resulted in earlier localization of the strain and less maximum strength. The tensile properties along the weld line were investigated in all welding conditions, and the results emphasize relevant and systematic differences of the yield strength at the transient zones near the start and end of the weld compared with the intermediate stationary domain.


Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S Wats.) has increased the need for effective preemergence (PRE) herbicides in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Fluridone, a carotenoid biosynthesis inhibitor, has a mechanism of action currently not used in crops. Field research focused on Palmer amaranth control by fluridone (224 g a.i. ha-1) applied PRE alone and in combination with acetochlor, diuron, pendimethalin, and half and full rates of fomesafen (1260, 560, 1063, 140, and 280 g a.i. ha-1, respectively). Also evaluated were fluridone (112 and 168 g ha-1) plus fomesafen 140 g ha-1, diuron 560 g ha-1 plus fomesafen 140 or 280 g ha-1, and acetochlor 1260 g ha-1 plus fomesafen 140 or 280 g ha-1. PRE herbicides were followed by glufosinate applied twice postemergence (POST) and diuron plus MSMA at layby. Fluridone injured cotton 3% or less and did not increase injury when combined with other herbicides. Palmer amaranth was controlled 97% by fluridone at 224 g ha-1 prior to glufosinate application compared with 87 to 95% control by acetochlor, diuron, fomesafen, or pendimethalin. Fluridone alone controlled Palmer amaranth as well as acetochlor plus fomesafen and better than diuron plus fomesafen. Similar control was obtained with fluridone at 112, 168, and 224 g ha-1, acetochlor, or diuron plus fomesafen at 140 g ha-1. Glufosinate controlled emerged weeds but continued emergence was noted in the absence of residual herbicides. PRE herbicides increased control prior to layby but did not increase cotton yield. This research demonstrated that fluridone can be used in a glufosinate-based system for proactive resistance management.


The growth in urbanization, industrialization and irrigated agriculture are imposing growing demands and pressure on water resources. As a case in point, Lunchoo River, Malaysia was considered on of the contributing factor to water quality deterioration with regional consequences on the aquatic ecosystem. Moreover, it also deemed to affect the health of the downstream sub-basin user group. Influenced by tidal, restricted exchange between estuaries and the open sea allows rapid change in salinity, temperature, nutrients and sediment load. Therefore, a balance is vital between development and a good quality of life. In the present study, limitation on point source pollutant and low flow conditions are investigated. An understanding of the existing river and waste stream characteristic is necessary to determine the background level of pollutant. In addition, output generated from this study is an important key towards an optimal management of water resources. Results showed that in making prediction of water quality for Lunchoo River, it is essential to characterize the volume and properties of the river and wastewater stream. Moreover, both hydraulic and constituent flow rate fluctuated greatly in most part of the experimental field.


Last year 43 motorcyclists lost their lives (14% of the road toll) while another 1,044 were seriously injured on Victorian roads. 56% were single vehicle crashes with at least 50% of these crashes involving excessive speed . Motorcycles account for approximately 3% of the vehicle fleet in the state. In January 2009, Victoria Police with the support of VicRoads and the Victorian Motor Cycle Advisory Council (VMAC), commenced an ambitious two year "Community Policing and Education" project with the objective to positively impact on motorcycle safety. This new initiative provides a focus on communication and awareness for both motorcyclists and vehicle drivers while ensuring that a complementary enforcement strategy is maintained. In addition to normal policing activities, five major state-wide policing operations will be undertaken annually supported by 50 regional operations each year. The program is to be fully evaluated.


Summary
In the years 1936 to 1938 a study was made of the immunity to yellow fever of the human population in the Municipio of Muzo, a typical jungle yellow fever area in the State of Boyaca, Colombia. Census data were taken on 4,965 persons, and two separate collections of serum specimens were made prior to the use of 17D vaccine in the municipio.
In the "first bleeding," 2,129 blood specimens were obtained. Because the mice used in the neutralization tests in the early part of the study were not uniformly susceptible to yellow fever, an excessive amount of virus was employed, and as a consequence special rules had to be set up for the interpretation of the test results; the most important of these was that inconclusive results were interpreted as positive. On this basis, the crude percentage positive of the first bleeding sera was 34.0, and that of 1,479 persons born in Muzo, 34.6. The proportion of positives increased with age and length of residence in Muzo, but there was an unexpectedly high percentage of positives in the 10–14 age group. While the number of positive males was appreciably larger than that of females, especially in the older age groups, the proportion of female positives to male was relatively high and suggests that transmission of yellow fever may not infrequently occur outside of forests. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that Haemagogus spp. have been taken biting well outside the forests and even within houses.
One to two years after the first bleeding, a second bleeding was done on 1,462 of the original donors. Net conversion rates (conversions less reconversions) for males and females were 12.8 per cent and 6.7 per cent, respectively. As would be expected, the rates were highest in adult males. In females the pattern by age group was irregular.
The data do not permit a conclusion as to whether yellow fever is enzootic or epizootic in Muzo.


Deleuze and Guattari's principles of the rhizome were used to inform the design of a massive open online course (MOOC), Rhizomatic Learning: The Community is the Curriculum , which came to be known as Rhizo14. In a previous paper about learner experiences in this course our reported findings from a qualitative survey (which enabled anonymous responses) raised concerns about the ethics of using experimental pedagogies in designing MOOCs. In this paper, we continue this research and report learners' understandings of the rhizome as applied in Rhizo14, from what participants have told us in email interviews and from our own reflections on participation in the course. Our findings reveal that many participants could relate to and welcomed the anti-authoritarian, anti-hierarchical characteristics of the rhizome, but that knowledge and understanding of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptual principles of the rhizome was more difficult. Lack of engagement with theory and lack of appreciation of the incompleteness and complexities of the rhizome metaphor can result in negative consequences, such as imbalances in power relations and increased vulnerability for some learners.


MORPHODYNAMIC CHANGES OF THE PARRAMORE-CEDAR BARRIERISLAND SYSTEM AND WACHAPREAGUE INLET, VIRGINIA FROM 1852 TO 2011: A MODEL OF BARRIER ISLAND AND TIDAL INLET EVOLUTION ALONG THE SOUTHERN DELMARVA PENINSULA, USA Trent Michael Richardson, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2012 Dissertation Director: Dr. Randolph A. McBride This dissertation is a study of the shoreline and tidal inlet changes of the Parramore–Cedar barrier-island and Wachapreague tidal inlet system through the integration of a variety of geospatial data sets over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Fundamental changes to the historical trends of shoreline and tidal inlet behavior provide a means to quantitatively test the three-stage model of runaway transgression (Fitzgerald et al., 2004). The analysis of a robust set of shoreline data sets demonstrates the pattern of clockwise rotational instability over the long term as documented by Leatherman et al. (1982) has evolved into sustained rapid retreat along the entire outer shoreline of Parramore Island. In addition, Cedar Island has transitioned from in-place narrowing to rapid barrier rollover and landward migration through overwash and inlet processes. The non-inlet-influenced, open-ocean shoreline of Parramore Island experienced a -4.1 m/yr retreat rate from 1852 to 1998 and a -12.2 m/yr retreat rate from 1998 to 2010, according to a linear regression analysis. Similarly, Cedar Island's non-inlet-influenced, open-ocean shoreline underwent a -5.5 m/yr retreat rate from 1852 to 2007 and a -15.4 m/yr retreat rate from 2007 to 2010, also according to a linear regression analysis. The short-term retreat rates for both islands are nearly triple the long-term rates. These increases in shortterm retreat rates constitute a fundamental change in the pattern of historical shoreline movement for the Parramore–Cedar barrier-island system. The cross-sectional area of an inlet throat is used as a proxy to calculate tidal prism and ebb-tidal delta volume of tidal inlets. The historical cross-sectional areas for Wachapreague Inlet were 1845 m2 in 1852, 4473 m2 in 1871, 4737 m2 in 1911, 4572 m2 in 1934, 4047 m2 in 1972, 4398 m2 in 2007, 4735 m2 in 2010 (April), 5014 m2 in 2010 (August), and 5210 m2 in 2011. Tidal prism and ebb-tidal delta volumes at Wachapreague Inlet fluctuated from 1871 to 2011 with tidal prism ranging between 4.82 × 107 m3 and 6.09 × 107 m3 and ebb-tidal delta volumes ranging between 1.85 × 107 m3 and 2.46 × 107 m3. From 1871 to 2007, the long-term linear regression rates of change were -2.4 m2/yr for cross-sectional area, -2.67 × 104 m3/yr for tidal prism, and -1.26 m3/yr for ebb-tidal delta volume. However, from 2007 to 2011, the short-term linear regression rates of change switched to high rates of increase with 186.1 m2/yr for cross-sectional area, 2.04 × 106 m3/yr for tidal prism, and 9.89 × 105 m3/yr for ebb-tidal delta volume. Overall, from 1871 to 2007, cross-sectional area, tidal prism, and ebb-tidal delta volumes were characterized by relative stability to a slight decrease with a distinct increase more recently (2007–2011). This research accounts for the natural variability in tidal prism on a monthly basis (e.g., neap vs. spring tides, perigee vs. apogee) and a seasonal basis (e.g., potential coastal setup caused by meteorological events, thermal expansion of the water column [steric effect]) by utilizing a 15% natural variability in the tidal-inlet analyses as documented by O'Brien (1969). These spatial analyses provide insight into how shoreline and bathymetric changes of the Parramore–Cedar barrier-island system are driven by 1) the southern extension of the large arc of erosion located south of Assateague Island in response to sediment trapping at the large recurved spit complex at Fishing Point, Virginia; 2) relative sea level rise along the southern Delmarva Peninsula; 3) updrift barrier-island breaching north of Wachapreague Inlet along Cedar Island and other breaches further north; and 4) increased storminess along the outer barrier islands of the Virginia Eastern Shore. Of these four coastal-change drivers, the southern propagation of the large arc of erosion (i.e., lack of sediment supply) appears to be the primary driver of coastal evolution along the Parramore-Cedar barrier-island system for the past 150 years and potentially for the next 10 to 100 years into the future. Furthermore, this research presents a six-stage model of barrier evolution along the southern Delmarva Peninsula. The sixstage model accounts for changes in sediment supply, relative sea level rise, increased storminess, and the projected consequences to the Parramore–Cedar barrier-island system. The significance of short-term shoreline and bathymetric changes that depart from historical trends is important because these developments may indicate wider patterns of barrier-island change for the entire Virginia Eastern Shore and, perhaps, large expanses of mixed-energy coasts along the entire U.S. Atlantic seaboard.


The Court of Justice of the European Union is an important motor of integration and is said to be particularly strong in those cases where the Council shows an inability to act. What is the relevance of the Court to social Europe? Europeanisation studies analyse how member states change due to European integration. Judicial Europeanisation is a topic that is under-explored in the literature. Using a case-study approach, this paper analyses the Zambrano case, one of the most notable recent cases of judicial activism of the CJEU with regard to EU citizenship rights. Although the literature often assumes that member states only reluctantly embrace the requirements of case law, the Irish government immediately obliged its administration to implement the required changes. Analysing this case in greater detail and comparing it to the responses of several other member states promises to shed some light on the under-explored question of how Europeanisation through case law proceeds, and what the Court may contribute to social Europe.


The story of epidemiologists and surrogate variables is one of a classic love–hate relationship. Epidemiologists love surrogates because many studies would not be possible without them. When events are rare or the time between an intervention and the outcome is long, surrogate variables are used to fill the gap. Epidemiologists hate surrogate variables because they introduce an additional step in the chain between intervention (or exposure) and outcome, and thus an additional source of error. To introduce surrogates means to increase uncertainty — and, perhaps, an error.

A recent "collection of misleading surrogate end points" reminds us that caution is warranted: examples from this collection include the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial in which a group of patients with asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic ventricular arrhythmia after myocardial infarction were treated with encainide or flecainide. Both drugs are used to suppress ventricular arrhythmia (the surrogate end point), but they were actually associated with excess mortality (the relevant outcome). In another case, patients treated with fluoride developed the desired increase in bone mineral density at the lumbar spine (the surrogate end point) but suffered from a higher rate of vertebral fractures than the control group.1 Assessing whether surrogate variables actually measure what they purport to measure (ie, for their validity) is therefore required. Available instruments, however, can only test if a surrogate correctly indicates the direction of an effect — that …


The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effects of replacing conventional, solvent-extracted canola meal (control; CTRL) with high oil content; conventional, mechanically extracted canola meal (CMEC); high-oleic, low polyunsaturated fatty acid (FA) canola meal (HOLL); and high-erucic acid, low-glucosinolate rapeseed meal (RPS) on rumen function, digestibility, milk production, and milk FA composition in lactating dairy cows. The experimental design was a replicated 4×4 Latin square with 8 lactating dairy cows. Four of the cows were ruminally cannulated. All oilseed meals were included at approximately 12 to 13% of dietary dry matter (DM). Crude protein and fat concentrations (% of DM) of the meals were 43 and 3.1%, 32.8 and 16.1%, 45.2 and 13.7%, and 34.3 and 17.9% for CTRL, CMEC, HOLL, and RPS, respectively. All diets were formulated to supply net energy of lactation in excess of requirements. The CMEC and RPS diets were predicted to be about 1% deficient in metabolizable protein. Relative to the CTRL, inclusion of high-oil seed meals in the diet lowered ruminal acetate concentration and the molar acetate:propionate ratio and decreased DM intake. Milk yield generally followed DM intake and was lower for CMEC and RPS than the CTRL. Treatments had no effect on milk composition, other than an increase in milk urea nitrogen concentration for HOLL. Fat-corrected milk (3.5%) feed efficiency was increased by HOLL and RPS compared with CTRL. Urinary urea nitrogen losses were increased by HOLL, which, as a consequence, increased the ammonia-emitting potential of manure. The ratio of milk N-to-N intake was greater for CMEC and RPS. Replacing solvent-extracted canola meal with the high-oil meal decreased milk fat 12:0, 14:0, 16:0, and total saturated FA content and enhanced cis-9 18:1 and total monounsaturated FA concentrations. Relative to the CTRL, canola increased total trans FA in milk, whereas inclusion of HOLL in the diet increased trans-11 18:1 and cis-9, trans-11 CLA content. The RPS increased milk fat cis-13 22:1 content from 0.07 to 2.33 g/100g of FA. In conclusion, HOLL or RPS, which are likely to come from small-scale biodiesel plants where oil is cold pressed without hexane extraction, fed at levels at or above 12 to 13% of dietary DM may decrease feed intake and milk production, but can be used to alter milk FA composition in lactating dairy cows.


As part of ongoing research on computational modelling of agroindustrial biosystems, lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) have been applied in order to numerically simulate transport phenomena in food and bioprocesses. This paper addresses LBM simulation of two different continuousflow processes in fixed-bed equipment whose models are quite similar, namely bioaffinity chromatography and extraction of biocompounds. Considering a dynamic onedimensional model framework for those processes, LBM was implemented in D1Q2 lattice and particle distribution functions were assigned to species (adsorbate or extract) concentrations in both fluid and solid phases. Equilibrium distribution functions were set by considering diffusiveconvective transport in the fluid phase whereas the solid phase remains stationary. LBM simulations were carried out in view of existing research work on bioseparation of lysozyme and extraction of essential oil from gorse. As the governing equation for species concentration in the solid phase lacked partial derivatives with respect to the spatial coordinate, the corresponding streaming step was suppressed in the LBM code. No loss of functionality was verified and the expected shapes of breakthrough as well as extraction yield curves were suitably reproduced in all LBM simulations.


The present study examined the effects of cup elongation (short, wide vs. tall, slender) on consumers' volume perception. Ninety participants were recruited in the study and were required to pour juice into a given container to referenced volumes (150 mL for tumbler and 100 mL for goblet) using their own judgment. Results showed that the short, wide tumbler resulted in less volume poured (134.5 ± 26.1 mL) than did the tall, slender tumbler (146.6 ± 26.3 mL) when the volume of the referenced tumbler was set at 150 mL. Similar results were also found for the goblet. The contrasting results for the tumbler, between the present study and previous study, may be attributed to different viewing positions; thus, the different optical cues dominated the judgment. The findings imply that the container volume perceptions were not only influenced by the elongation variable but also by viewing position.


Project-based learning (PBL) has been believed beneficial for learner autonomy in that it requires learners to actively participate and take responsibility in the learning process. While interest and research in PBL is growing, few empirical studies have been found investigating the application of PBL in China, and fewer have explored large EFL classes in tertiary institutions. This presentation reports on a longitudinal study of promoting learner autonomy through a 5i (intriguing, informing, involving, interactive, and inspiring) Show project.

The study is conducted over an academic year in a Chinese university with six large non-English major classes (approximately 80 students in each). It is currently in progress and to be completed in August, 2018. With preliminary findings from a questionnaire conducted among a larger number of students, data for this study is collected through a follow-up questionnaire and semi-structured interviews.

The presentation will report in greater detail on the project in relation to its design and classroom operation, including the strategies adopted by the teachers, students' receptiveness, achievements and perceptions, as well as challenges encountered by both the participating teachers and students. It is hoped that the project can have practical implications for both classroom teachers utilising PBL in similar contexts and researchers for further exploration in this area.


This article discusses approaches of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Healthy Cities Program (HCP) to create environments that are supportive to good health. Creation of healthy marketplaces is part of the HCP strategy. Marketplaces offer consumers low-cost fresh produce and other foods direct from the producers and ready-to-eat foods prepared by vendors. Marketplaces serve an important social role for exchanging ideas and information. These locations offer an opportunity for health education. Many marketplaces set a poor example with unsanitary conditions and unhygienic practices. A Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-WHO Expert Committee on Food Safety recommends drafting and enforcing food laws, provision of infrastructure and services, training and education of vendors, and increased consumer awareness. Hygiene should be equal to requirements for fixed facility retail stores. A Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is a cost-effective method for assessing food safety and controlling health hazards. HACCP priorities take into consideration the physical and socioeconomic context and cultural characteristics of vendors and customers. A first step in ensuring food safety is the establishment of an organizational structure for implementing controls. Healthy marketplaces should include market administration, healthy sanitation and drainage, waste disposal, and education of food vendors and customers. The physical layout should provide the best conditions for preventing contamination.


This study traces a historical trajectory of the voice as it encounters the Orpheus figure in writing, music, and other media. Following a critical discussion of Auerbach's literary figuration, the author questions certain aspects of phonocentrism in relation to opera and texts using the voice for authoritative or rhetorical purposes. Grounded in the prefiguration of opera's earlier displacement of the singing voice, the understanding of mass media and digital media then developed is critical of theories of immersion in media. The analyses of the series of works and figures (Orpheus, Ossian, and Tristan) in this study lead the author to propose a threefold historical definition of the voice: the mimetic, the representational, and the expressive.


The current discussion regarding the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is challenging due to the varying needs and interests of the old and new member states (NMS) of the European Union (EU). The NMS still display tremendous disparities in most structural and socio-economic indicators compared to the EU15 average, implying that further sectoral restructuring is needed. The Structural Change in Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods (SCARLED) project, which ran from 2007 until 2010, offers rich empirical insights with a specific focus on these processes in the NMS. This policy brief summarises the project's main policyrelevant results. SCARLED offers three key lessons for CAP reform. First, it claims that the current, uniform CAP only partially addresses the needs of NMS. Second, the region's agriculture still requires support to enhance competitiveness, albeit for a limited time. Third, the issue of small, subsistence-based farms in the region needs to be recognised. However, approaches aiming at poverty alleviation in such subsistence-based households, but also in landless rural households, need to look beyond the agricultural sector. The wider rural economy and improving education, as well as rural-urban linkages, need to be included in any povertyrelated policy approach, be it at the national or the EU level.


Eryphanis zolvizora (Hewitson, 1877) is a rare Andean endemic butterfly, described from Bolivia, which has been historically classified either as a unique species, or as part of a group of three allopatric species from Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. In this paper, the group is revised using more than 200 specimens housed in 34 European, and North and South American public and private collections. For the first time, the presence of the group in Western Ecuador and Venezuela is confirmed, and important data on Peruvian populations are provided. In some populations, individual variations of genitalia are observed. Nevertheless, male genitalia allow the distinction of four geographical groups. Considering also habitus characters, eight taxa are distinguished and considered to be subspecies, of which five are new: Eryphanis zolvizora inca ssp. nov., Eryphanis zolvizora chachapoya ssp. nov., Eryphanis zolvizora casagrande ssp. nov.., Eryphanis zolvizora reyi ssp. nov., and Eryphanis zolvizora isabelae ssp. nov.  In the present state of knowledge, these taxa are allopatric, except for a possible geographic overlap in central Peru, where data are insufficient to prove sympatry. The "several subspecies vs. several species" dilemma is discussed, considering its impact for conservation action and policies.


How can judges draw a line between innocent jokes and potentially harmful ones? Due to its inherent link with ambiguity, humor is an extremely arduous testing ground for the legal regulation of freedom of expression—all the more so in the case of cartoons and other forms of highly condensed, predominantly visual humor. The juridical challenges presented by humorous expression are particularly topical in the digital age, as shown by the mediatic impact of recent humor scandals from Jyllands-Posten to Charlie Hebdo; nevertheless, the potential for interdisciplinary dialogue between law and humor studies is still strikingly underexplored. This paper aims to contribute to the development of forensic humor studies by analyzing a corpus of 10 rulings delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), revolving around controversial examples of predominantly visual humor. After identifying the criteria underpinning the selected judgements and discussing the problems posed by the current ECtHR approach, the present study sets out to illustrate how insights coming from humor studies can prove instrumental in tackling those problems. Building on theoretical models proposed by Wayne Booth and Paul Simpson, it will be argued that a closer dialogue with humor studies can be of particular help to judges dealing with three key questions: does the impugned text clearly signal its humorous or satirical intent? What is the aim or message hiding behind the humorous surface? And to what extent should the author be held accountable for different (and potentially dangerous) interpretations of the same text?


Pedestrian crashes account for approximately 14% of road fatalities in Australia. Crossing the road, while a minor part of total walking, presents the highest crash risk because of potential interaction with motor vehicles. Crash risk is elevated by pedestrian illegal use of the road, which may be widespread (e.g. 20% of crossings at signalised intersections at a sample of sites, Brisbane) and enforcement is rare. Effective road crossing requires integration of multiple skills and judgements, any of which can be hindered by distraction. Observational studies suggest that pedestrians are increasingly likely to 'multitask', using mobile technology for entertainment and communication, elevating the risk of distraction while crossing. To investigate this, intercept interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 211 pedestrians aged 18-65 years in Brisbane CBD. Self-reported frequency of using a smart phone for activities at two levels of distraction: cognitive only (voice calls); or cognitive and visual (text messages, internet access) while walking or crossing the road was collected. Results indicated that smart phone use for potentially distracting activities while walking and while crossing the road was high, especially among 18-30 year olds, who were significantly more likely than 31-44yo or 45-65yo to report smart phone use while crossing the road. For 18-30yo and the higher risk activity of crossing the road, 32% texted at high frequency levels and 27% used internet at high frequency levels. Risky levels of distracted crossing appear to be a growing safety issue for 18-30yo, with greater attention to appropriate interventions needed.


Abstract Undergraduate research projects in the life sciences encompass a broad range of studies, some of which may require the participation of human subjects or other activities which may raise ethical concerns. As universities are accountable for all projects undertaken under their auspices they must ensure that these projects adhere to legal requirements, use acceptable research methods, represent an appropriate use of resources, and minimise risks to all research participants. Many student projects in UK universities are not subject to external review, and individual universities have established their own internal ethical review processes. This paper discusses the risks and benefits of student research projects, considers the range of ethical review processes performed in UK universities, and provides some suggestions for proportionate, transparent and efficient review of student projects.


This thesis examines the development of criticality based on an empirical study in beginners' Japanese language courses within a UK Modem Languages Degree Programme. A starting point for this study is Barnett's (1997) claim concerning the significance of fostering criticality and setting educational aims against the current trend of mass education at the Higher Education. The empirical base is inspired by the Criticality Project by the University of Southampton which, also based on Barnett's model, investigates a whole Modern Languages course. This thesis, however focuses on the phases of Modern Language Studies which have not been explored: beginners' level language courses with the example being a n on-European language. The examination of the current issues of Modem Languages Degree Programmes illustrates the fact that there is a problem of a lack of coordination of the diversity of various components within programmes. The nature of language modules, especially at beginners' level, inclines to the acquisition of practical language skills focusing on grammar rather than on 'content', and widens the gap from academic content modules. In this thesis, the notion of criticality is highlighted as a single 'linkage' connecting each component to others. This issue needs to be examined from two perspectives: the empirical study of criticality development in beginners' level language courses and the theoretical concept of criticality. Action Research was conducted in beginners' Japanese language courses at a Modern Languages Degree Programme where the researcher was teaching. Lessons with activities which target criticality development in cultural and language dimensions were inserted in the existing grammar based language course framework. The observations of beginners' level language lessons in other institutions ensured the aims and syllabus of the normal lessons of the target courses have the same standard as them. Various types of qualitative data were collected. Among them, particularly the participants' output data; group interviews and post-lesson questionnaires became the main sources of analysis of this study. The analysis of empirical data made two important resources for criticality visible: skills and knowledge. Skills appeared as the students' theory building process comprising three stages: inquiry, analysis and conclusion. The concept of inquiry stage corresponds to inquiry and scepticism which was highlighted by a review of Critical Pedagogy and Critical Thinking. From these examinations of two perspectives, one from empirical and another one from theoretical, the fundamental concept of 'being critical' is defined as inquiry and scepticism. During the theory building process, various kinds of knowledge are employed, and the students' theories were presented according to nine thematic categories comprising culture, language, and learning process. The factors contributing to the development of criticality are found to be cultural and linguistic dimensions and also the learning process itself. The analysis of empirical data also highlights the existence of criticality specifically in the language modules and that criticality could work as a connection among the components of Modern Languages Degree Programme. Barnett's theoretical criticality model of domains and levels is supported by the empirical data, but they also showed that criticality development does not appear in a neat order nor the steady progression from lower to higher levels as in his framework. It is concluded from this study that both instrumental and educational aims can be and need to be compatible in language modules even at the beginners' level and all the components of Modern Languages Degree Programme need to be connected by a single linkage, criticality, which realizes an educational aim of the Modern Languages Degree Programme. However, it also implies that further research is needed to bring the issues to the level of curriculum development.


Cephalopod mollusks evolved numerous anatomical innovations, including specialized arms and tentacles, but little is known about the developmental mechanisms underlying the evolution of cephalopod limbs. Here we show that all three axes of cuttlefish limbs are patterned by the same signaling networks that act in vertebrates and arthropods, although they evolved limbs independently. In cuttlefish limb buds, Hedgehog is expressed anteriorly. Posterior transplantation of Hedgehog-expressing cells induced mirror-image limb duplications. Bmp and Wnt signaling, which establishes dorsoventral polarity in vertebrate and arthropod limbs, is similarly polarized in cuttlefish. Inhibition of the dorsal Bmp signal caused ectopic expression of Notum, a ventral sucker field marker, and development of ectopic suckers. Cuttlefish limbs also show proximodistally regionalized expression of Htx, Exd, Dll, Dac, Sp8/9, and Wnt genes, which delineate arm and tentacle sucker fields. These results suggest that cephalopod limbs evolved by parallel activation of an ancient genetic program for appendage development that was present in the bilaterian common ancestor.


The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is fast emerging as the dominant standard for describing and interchanging data among various systems and databases on the Internet. It offers the Document Type Definition (DTD) as a formalism for defining the syntax and structure of XML documents. The XML Schema definition language, as a replacement for the DTD, provides more rich facilities for defining and constraining the content of XML documents. However, it does not concentrate on the semantics that underlies these documents, representing a logical data model rather than a conceptual model. To enable efficient business application development in large-scale electronic commerce environments, it is necessary to describe and model real-world data semantics and their complex interrelationships. In this article, we describe a design methodology for XML documents. The aim is to enforce XML conceptual modeling power and bridge the gap between software development and XML document structures. The proposed methodology is comprised of two design levels: the semantic level and the schema level. The first level is based on a semantic network, which provides semantic modeling of XML through four major components: a set of atomic and complex nodes, representing real-world objects; a set of directed edges, representing semantic relationships between the objects; a set of labels denoting different types of semantic relationships, including aggregation, generalization, association, and of-property relationships; and finally a set of constraints defined over nodes and edges to constrain semantic relationships and object domains. The other level of the proposed methodology is concerned with detailed XML schema design, including element/attribute declarations and simple/complex type definitions. The mapping between the two design levels is proposed to transform the XML semantic model into the XML Schema, based on which XML documents can be systematically created, managed, and validated.


Data-free Knowledge Distillation (DFKD) has attracted attention recently thanks to its appealing capability of transferring knowledge from a teacher network to a student network without using training data. The main idea is to use a generator to synthesize data for training the student. As the generator gets updated, the distribution of synthetic data will change. Such distribution shift could be large if the generator and the student are trained adversarially, causing the student to forget the knowledge it acquired at previous steps. To alleviate this problem, we propose a simple yet effective method called Momentum Adversarial Distillation (MAD) which maintains an exponential moving average (EMA) copy of the generator and uses synthetic samples from both the generator and the EMA generator to train the student. Since the EMA generator can be considered as an ensemble of the generator's old versions and often undergoes a smaller change in updates compared to the generator, training on its synthetic samples can help the student recall the past knowledge and prevent the student from adapting too quickly to new updates of the generator. Our experiments on six benchmark datasets including big datasets like ImageNet and Places365 demonstrate the superior performance of MAD over competing methods for handling the large distribution shift problem. Our method also compares favorably to existing DFKD methods and even achieves state-of-the-art results in some cases.


Abstract Correlation of sandstones using heavy minerals is dependent on the recognition and quantification of provenance-sensitive parameters. Suitable criteria include ratios of minerals that have similar hydraulic and diagenetic behaviour, and properties of populations of individual mineral species. Sandstones of the Statfjord Formation in the Snorre Field display marked variations in their heavy mineral assemblages. Although hydraulic and diagenetic processes have played some part in generating these variations, major changes in the nature of the source material can be detected on the basis of heavy mineral ratio and varietal data. These changes in sand provenance can be used to produce a detailed stratigraphic breakdown of the sequence and to correlate from well to well. Eleven heavy mineral zones have been recognized on the basis of variations in monazite/zircon, garnet/zircon and rutile/zircon ratios, on the incoming of chloritoid, and on the composition of garnet populations. The marked changes in provenance result from the proximity of the depositional location to the hinterland and it is considered unlikely that the detailed correlation made in the Snorre Field area applies to Statfjord sandstones in other parts of the northern North Sea. However, there is evidence for some degree of allogenic control on the heavy mineral variations and therefore some events may have regional significance.