In many public primary schools across different countries, generalist primary teachers are required to teach all subjects, including music, dance, drama and visual arts. This study investigates the background and confidence of preservice primary teachers from five countries in relation to drama and drama education. It also examines if there is a difference between the preservice teachers' perceptions of their own background and confidence in drama education in relation to each of the five countries (Australia, South Africa, Namibia, USA and Ireland). On investigating the differences between countries, there were significant statistical differences in the means of responses from preservice teachers from the different countries in relation to both background and confidence in drama education. The paper concludes with suggestions for teacher educators, given their students' weak background in drama education.


ABSTRACT Older men are often excluded from family caregiving research despite the steady increase in the number of husbands assuming primary caregiving roles. We explored perceptions of older, male caregivers' experiences with caring for a wife with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and examined what aspects of the support group were beneficial. Our qualitative research methods invited six caregivers ranging in age from 74 to 85 years to narratively construct their perspectives on caring for their wives with Alzheimer's Disease and benefits of participation in an all-male support group. Thematic analyses revealed caregivers faced several transitions. "Losses related to their personal relationships with their wife, family, and self," captured as loss of golden years. The second area, benefits and improvements of support groups, were captured in the following theme: "creating our own space," which included two sub-themes: "releasing our frustration" and "developing coping strategies." There was also "Gendered experience of caregiving." This study revealed that male caregivers benefited from the support and company of other men in similar caregiving situations. Results from this study have implications for health care professionals for the development of psychosocial educational groups aimed at providing support to male caregivers.


A digital scan of the unpublished manuscript, Don't stand behind the fan (Jet that is) written by Henry Leo (Hap) Hudson Sr. The manuscript documents Mr. Hudson's experiences while working at Lockheed-Georgia from 1952 to 1988. He was the first African American supervisor and buyer at Lockheed-Georgia. The title comes from the process of testing the damage done to turbo and jet engines by objects flying into them during flight. Standing behind the fan would result in being splattered with the debris. The manuscript was published in 2015 with additional notes and illustrations by Dr. Randall Patton, Professor of History at Kennesaw State University as, Working for equality: The narrative of Harry Hudson.


The Chi-Chi earthquake of 1999 in Central Taiwan caused significant vertical uplift and ignited a dynamic fluvial erosion system in the Taan River. In order to understand the geomorphologic changes in the Taan River after the Chi-Chi earthquake, this study uses multi-temporal aerial photos to produce orthoimages and surface models to derive regional three dimensional movements from 2001 - 2009. The Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique is applied to identify the horizontal movements from both orthoimages and digital surface models (DSMs). While PIV can provide estimates for the channel change direction and magnitude; vertical analysis such as river incision rate derivation could be performed using the height difference between multi-temporal surface models. The results from these two approaches are then integrated for river geomorphological interpretation. It is observed that the proposed scheme is capable of identifying three river evolution stages from the extracted movements in the Taan case. These stages are: years 2001 to 2003, 2004 to 2006, and 2007 to 2009, respectively. The total incision between 2001 and 2009 is about 10 m. This study demonstrates that both PIV and DSM subtraction are effective in river geomorphological change identification. The integration of these two approaches could provide more information when observing the evolution of river morphology.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of estimation techniques and sample sizes on model fit indices in structural equation models constructed according to the number of exogenous latent variables under multivariate normality. The performances of fit indices are compared by considering effects of related factors. The Ratio Chi-square Test Statistic to Degree of Freedom, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation, and Comparative Fit Index are the least affected indices by estimation technique and sample size under multivariate normality, especially with large sample size.


This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pandemic in a century. With a long view of the ecological, economic, social, and political factors that promote the emergence and spread of infectious disease, archaeologists are well positioned to examine the antecedents of the present crisis. In this article, we bring together a variety of perspectives on the issues surrounding the emergence, spread, and effects of disease in both the Americas and Afro-Eurasian contexts. Recognizing that human populations most severely impacted by COVID-19 are typically descendants of marginalized groups, we investigate pre- and postcontact disease vectors among Indigenous and Black communities in North America, outlining the systemic impacts of diseases and the conditions that exacerbate their spread. We look at how material culture both reflects and changes as a result of social transformations brought about by disease, the insights that paleopathology provides about the ancient human condition, and the impacts of ancient globalization on the spread of disease worldwide. By understanding the differential effects of past epidemics on diverse communities and contributing to more equitable sociopolitical agendas, archaeology can play a key role in helping to pursue a more just future.


Workflows processing data from research activities and driving in silico experiments are becoming an increasingly important method for conducting scientific research. Workflows have the advantage that not only can they be automated and used to process data repeatedly, but they can also be reused – in part or whole – enabling them to be evolved for use in new experiments. A number of studies have investigated strategies for storing and sharing workflows for the benefit of reuse. These have revealed that simply storing workflows in repositories without additional context does not enable workflows to be successfully reused. These studies have investigated what additional resources are needed to facilitate users of workflows and in particular to add provenance traces and to make workflows and their resources machine-readable. These additions also include adding metadata for curation, annotations for comprehension, and including data sets to provide additional context to the workflow. Ultimately though, these mechanisms still rely on researchers having access to the software to view and run the workflows. We argue that there are situations where researchers may want to understand a workflow that goes beyond what provenance traces provide and without having to run the workflow directly; there are many situations in which it can be difficult or impossible to run the original workflow. To that end, we have investigated the creation of an interactive workflow visualization that captures the flow chart element of the workflow with additional context including annotations, descriptions, parameters, metadata and input, intermediate, and results data that can be added to the record of a workflow experiment to enhance both curation and add value to enable reuse. We have created interactive workflow visualisations for the popular workflow creation tool KNIME, which does not provide users with an in-built function to extract provenance information that can otherwise only be viewed through the tool itself. Making use of the strengths of KNIME for adding documentation and user-defined metadata we can extract and create a visualisation and curation package that encourages and enhances curation@source, facilitating effective communication, collaboration, and reuse of workflows.


Flighted rotary dryers are used extensively to control the temperature and moisture content of granular materials. Despite their extensive use, the solids transport characteristics of flighted rotary dryers are still poorly understood. There are a few studies in the literature that have examined the unloading of small scale flights within pilot dryers using photographic techniques. Further, theoretical considerations and geometric analysis are also reasonably well described in the literature. However, there has been little direct experimental work undertaken on full scale flights. This paper outlines the design and commissioning of an experimental apparatus to study the unloading characteristics of flights similar to those used in industrial sugar dryers. A section of a full-scale dryer flight is unloaded into a collection tray, and four load cells are used to provide continuous measurement of the unloading mass. A range of flight rotational speeds are possible. Facilities are also available for filming the unloading process at the flight tip. The most significant problems associated with directly obtaining mass flow measurements from flights has been the impact forces that occur when falling particles land in the collection tray. Design modifications and modelling techniques to reduce or quantify the impacts are described. Filtering techniques used to reduce signal noise are also described. Preliminary unloading results are given to illustrate that the apparatus provides a means to experimentally measure and compare different flight geometries, and to develop optimal flight designs.


After the introduction of dipeptidylpeptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors into the treatment for diabetes, these drugs have been widely used because of their capability and safety. Therefore, the clinical efficacy of linagliptin to sitagliptin was compared. Patients with type 2 diabetes, in whom pharmacological treatment was recently started, were randomly assigned to two separate groups, namely sitagliptin (50 mg/day) group and linagliptin (5 mg/day) group. A total of 42 patients (21 patients in each group), who received a single dose of their respective pharmacological agents, were evaluated in this study. The study primarily focused on changes in HbA1c levels before and 24 weeks after drug administration and effects of these drugs on renal function, liver function, and fat. Significant improvement in HbA1c levels (%) was found in both linagliptin and sitagliptin groups. Significant improvements were observed in low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in patients in the linagliptin group. Linagliptin offers a great potential in terms of improving effect on blood glucose and lipid profile. This study has demonstrated that linagliptin can be a valuable option in the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes.

 Key words: Linagliptin, dipeptidylpeptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, type 2 diabetes, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C).


OBJECTIVE
Brain death results in cardiac injury and hemodynamic instability. After brain death, catecholamine levels surge in concert with increased expression of select myocardial gene products. Sympathetic blockade was used to investigate the effects of the adrenergic nervous system on myocardial gene expression in a rabbit model of brain death.

METHODS
A balloon expansion model of brain death in rabbits (n = 42) was used with and without sympathetic blockade (xylazine, acetylpromazine, and ketamine). Sham-operated and naive rabbits served as control animals. Over 4 hours, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, electrocardiographic results, catecholamine levels, myocardial histology, and messenger RNA levels were assessed.

RESULTS
Sympathetic blockade decreased basal catecholamine levels and blocked the catecholamine surge accompanying brain death. The typical hemodynamic instability, adverse electrocardiographic changes, and myocellular injury associated with brain death were all significantly decreased. Sympathetic blockade not only suppressed the previously reported increases in myocardial gene expression (cardiac and skeletal alpha-actin, egr-1, and heat shock protein 70) but also suppressed the expression of multiple other genes (alpha and beta myosin heavy chain, calcium ATPase [sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-adenosine triphosphatase pump, SERCA-2a], phospholamban [ryanodine receptor], and c-jun).

CONCLUSION
Central sympathetic blockade minimizes the hemodynamic instability associated with brain death and neutralizes the increased expression of multiple myocardial gene products associated with brain death.


This essay applies the concept of "fuzzy thinking" to geopolitics, using a curious turn of phrase in a 1914 policy paper ("the Islamic-Israelite world") to explore paradoxes of German strategy in World War I. To find the origins of this phrase, the article explores the language of prewar Orientalism, especially the potent German variety that was notoriously neglected by Edward Said in his 1979 study decrying Orientalism as the handmaiden of European imperialism. But many prominent German Orientalists were also ignored in Robert Irwin's recent book-length critique of Said's Orientalism, despite the centrality of the German case to Irwin's argument. Just as Said ignored scholarly titans of the German-speaking world such as Carl Heinrich Becker, Ignaz Goldziher, and Theodore Nöldeke—presumably because Germany, unlike France and Britain, never colonized Islamic lands in the Middle East—so, too, did Irwin ignore more worldly German Orientalists such as Max von Oppenheim and Curt Prüfer, whose covert activities on behalf of Berlin did not fit his own counterthesis that Orientalism, pace Said, "in its most important aspect was founded upon academic drudgery." The "hack" German Orientalists who concocted a Turco-German "jihad" against the Entente Powers in World War I—accompanied by a simultaneous plan to unleash Zionism to destroy tsarist Russia—may not have been scholars of the highest caliber, which helps explain how they could tolerate a fuzzy phrase like "the Islamic-Israelite world." The essay concludes that, nevertheless, we may learn from and even be inspired by their ideas, however illusory these proved to be in practice.


This ambitious undertaking gathers in one volume all the important elements of the seven Supplemental Liturgical Resources published earlier and now revised following extensive use throughout the church. It is useful to ministers and congregations in planning and leading worship. The book provides orders of worship and liturgical texts for each Sunday and for every festival and season throughout the year, and includes the Lord's Supper, baptism, daily prayer, marriage, funeral, and pastoral liturgies. The lectionary, a collection of prayers for a variety of uses, and the psalms, are also included. This practical and valuable book will certainly be the church's principal resource for planning and leading worship for decades to come.


Internet users have come to expect that the Internet is the place to go for quick access to current information. Indeed, as a recent user of a Web site maintained at the UIC Library comments [1], anything but current information is a sign of mismanagement and irresponsibility on the part of the content provider. As this user asserts, the World Wide Web is the place to for quick access to current information and the print medium is better suited to older information. Perhaps this response is a reflection of the relative newness of the medium. Many users come to the Internet with naive expectations about the quality and extent of information on the Internet. They do not understand the often intricate and constantly shifting issues involved in digitizing information for the client/server-based Internet, nor do they think of electronic life span of digital information. As a librarian involved in a number of digital information projects, the question of how to digitize information for the long term (more than the next six months) is the starting point for any project. Obviously librarians working as Web site designers and information managers want their sites to be as aesthetically pleasing, useable, accurate and dynanmic as current technologies allow. But how do we balance the demands of the fast lane of rapidly changing and evolving client/server technologies and user expectations with the responsibility of long term information management and preservation? This paper will address practical steps toward balancing these questions by reflecting on a number of testbed projects at the University of Illinois at Chicago University Library.


Although risk assessments are critical inputs to economic and organizational decision-making, we lack a good understanding of the social and political causes of shifts in risk perceptions and the consequences of those changes. This article uses social movement theory to explain the effect of environmental activism on corporations' perceived environmental risk and actual financial performance. We define environmental risk as audiences' perceptions that a firm's practices or policies will lead to greater potential for an environmental failure or crisis that would expose it to financial decline. Using data on environmental activism targeting U.S. firms between 2004 and 2008, we examine variation in the effectiveness of secondary and primary stakeholder activism in shaping perceptions about environmental risk. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that primary stakeholder activism against a firm affects its perceived environmental risk, which subsequently has a negative effect on the firm's financial performance.


THE RESEARCH IS DESCRIBED WHICH LED TO THE PRODUCTION OF A CODE FOR PEDESTRIANS CROSSING THE ROAD. SOME HUNDREDS OF MOTHERS OF YOUNG CHILDREN, ROAD SAFETY OFFICERS AND TEACHERS WERE ASKED TO ASSESS THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF 20 ITEMS CONCERNED WITH CROSSING ROADS SAFELY. THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE AGREEMENT ABOUT PRIORITIES AND, BASED ON THIS, SOME ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF A NEW CROSSING CODE WERE DEVISED. 294 CHILDREN BETWEEN 5 AND 7 WERE QUESTIONED AT THE ROADSIDE TO SEE WHETHER THEY COULD UNDERSTAND THESE TERMS AND PHRASES. ON A BASIS OF THESE RESULTS, WHAT APPEARED TO BE THE BEST WORDING WAS CHOSEN AND 170 CHILDREN AGED 7-8 WERE TESTED AT THE ROADSIDE TO FIND OUT WHETHER THEY COULD CARRY OUT THE INSTRUCTIONS: THEIR ABILITY TO READ THE CODE WAS ALSO TESTED. THE RESULTS WERE SATISFACTORY AND THE NEW CODE WAS PUBLICISED LATER (MAY 1971) AS THE "GREEN CROSS CODE". THIS PUBLICITY WAS ASSOCIATED WITH AN 11 PER CENT REDUCTION IN CHILD CASUALTIES, EVEN THOUGH 16 MONTHS LATER A SURVEY AMONG 595 CHILDREN AGED 7-15 SHOWED THAT MOST OF THEM COULD NOT SAY WHAT THE CONTENT OF THE CODE WAS VERY EXACTLY, WHILE MANY CONFUSED IT WITH THE "KERB DRILL".


The alignment of the wind turbine yaw to the wind direction is an important topic for wind turbine technology by several points of view. For example, the negative impact on power production of an undesired non-optimal yaw alignment can be impressive. The diagnosis of zero-point shifting of the yaw angle is commonly performed by adopting supplementary measurement sources, as for example, light detection and ranging (LIDAR) anemometers. The drawback is that these measurement campaigns have a certain cost against an uncertain diagnosis outcome. There is therefore an increasing interest from wind turbine practitioners in the formulation of zero-point yaw angle shift diagnosis techniques through the use of nacelle anemometer data. This work is devoted to this task and is organized as a test case discussion: a wind farm featuring six multi-megawatt wind turbines is considered. The study of the power factor Cp as function of the yaw error (estimated through nacelle anemometer data) is addressed. The proposed method has been validated through the detection of a 8 deg zero-point shift of the yaw angle of one wind turbine in the test case wind farm. After the correction of this offset, the performance of the wind turbine of interest is shown to be comparable with the nominal. The results of this work therefore support that an appropriate analysis of nacelle anemometer and operation data can be effective for the diagnosis of zero-point shift of the yaw angle of wind turbines.


In this book Laurien Crump examines to what extent the Warsaw Pact inadvertently provided the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) members with an opportunity to assert their own interests, emancipate from the Soviet grip, and influence Warsaw Pact (WP) policy in the period 1960-1969. In the shadow of the increasingly urgent German Question and the escalating Sino-Soviet split, the alliance evolved into a body of multilateral consultation, in which the NSWP members not only obtained increasing leeway, but also managed to exercise leverage over the Soviet Union, which served the WP's evolution into a multilateral alliance. Crump traces this development through six thematic case-studies, which focus on particular issues from a multilateral perspective, and analyses how the WP inadvertently developed a new dynamics in the 1960s, which caused the emancipation of some NSWP countries and the multilateralisation of the alliance at large. The Albanian obstruction in 1961 heralded the alliance's gravest crisis, and paved the way for Romanian emancipation from the Soviet Union. At the same time, the second Berlin Crisis enabled the East German and Polish leaders to use the alliance to assert their national interests, whereas the Kremlin was increasingly forced to adopt the position of a mediator. In the second half of the 1960s the NSWP members' clashing interests on issues such as the Vietnam War, non-proliferation, WP reforms and European Security determined the debates within the alliance. Although the invasion of five socialist countries in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was conducted outside a WP framework, the fact that Romania did not participate exacerbated the differences between its members. This nevertheless sparked further debates, which surprisingly culminated in consolidation and consensus on WP reforms and the proposal for a European Security Conference in 1969. These genuinely contested compromises sealed the alliance's evolution into a multilateral alliance. Empirical evidence accordingly suggests that the widely held assumption within historiography of the WP as a mere Soviet instrument is a misconception. This is not only the first monograph based on primary sources on the WP since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing opening of the Eastern European archives, but it is also unprecedented in its challenge of the unfounded, but persistent, assumption within historiography of the WP as a mere instrument of Soviet power. By analysing hitherto neglected archival evidence from archives in Berlin, Bucharest and Rome, and examining the Soviet alliance from a radically novel perspective, this dissertation aims to offer new insights into the multilateral dynamics of power within the Soviet bloc, while contributing to New Cold War history. This new angle is particularly overdue, since there is a sharp asymmetry between the scant study of the role of the Soviet Union's Eastern-European allies in the WP and the amount of recent research on the influence of America's Western-European allies in NATO. This book therefore also serves to shed a new light on the dynamics of alliances in general, which is an especially relevant issue at a time when alliances such as NATO face internal challenges.


Desert Dreams: The Quest for Arab Integration from the Arab Revolt to the Gulf Cooperation Council, by Justin Dargin. 312 pages. $ 95 cloth; $ 49 paper. Reviewed by Oliver Schlumberger In Desert Dreams, Justin Dargin undertakes the truly Herculean task, in three parts and no less than 21 chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue, of discussing topics as diverse as pre-Islamic tribal structure; myths about the origin of "the Arabs"; nationalism; modernization; (pan-)Arabism; "authoritarianism and development" (chapter 15); military integration in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries, and "Nasser and the Cold War Era" (chapter 12). The predominant pattern by which empirical facts are organized in Parts I ("The Birth of the Arab Revolt") and II ("Post-War Integration Attempts") is a historical approach of chronologically ordered narratives which tell the reader about developments from pre-Islamic times up to the present. Part III ("The Gulf and Structural Arab Integration"), then, focuses on the Gulf sub-region and, in chapters 18 to 21 in particular, discusses the GCC's case of subregional integration with a view toward energy, the military, transport (a case study of the pan-GCC railway; chapter 20) and a broader concluding chapter 21 on overall economic integration and economic development. Dargin opens his preface by hinting at the difficulty readers will have in locating this book within existing literature: it "does not easily fit into the usual academic categories. It is not merely a historical review, nor does it focus merely on current events" (p. xiii). And one is tempted to add: Nor does it pursue any clear-cut research question or can be situated smoothly within any academic discipline. The author thus aptly calls his book a "broad exposition on philosophical and historical trends" (p. xiii). In line with this overarching trait, and except from a very brief discussion on the meanings of "integration" in the introduction, Dargin also refrains from using any stringently applied theoretical or analytical concepts; this renders the book largely free of jargon and guarantees easy access for non-specialized readers to a wealth of empirical details across hundreds of years of history, including a range of primary sources in Arabic. This book's greatest strengths undoubtedly lie in its accessibility as well as its empirical richness. The book's key thrust is to convey the message that the various ideology-based efforts at Arab political integration (chiefly pan-Arabism) have failed. It is the less ideologized and capitalist processes of economic integration under modern capitalist structures as exemplified by the GCC which, according to Dargin, provides the "more perfect" (p. 215) model of integration (astonishingly, the author devotes only one small chapter of a mere six pages to "Nasser and the Cold War Era" [pp. 159-66]). Often, however, such strengths also have their flipside. Without any conceptual background, much of the assembled empirical details seem rather eclectically collated. …


Claims in advertising may vary in their use of probability markers that signal the degree to which the claim is true. Experimental research has compared hedges (which mark a claim as moderately probable) and pledges (which mark a claim as very probable). This research has generally neglected the proponent of the claims: the brand. There are reasons to believe that the brand behind the advertising affects to what extent people are persuaded by advertising claims. In two studies it was therefore investigated whether the reputation of the brand affects the persuasiveness of hedges and pledges. It was expected that hedges would be more persuasive for low-reputation brands, whereas pledges would be more persuasive for high-reputation brands. This expectation was tested in two experiments. In Study 1, hedges and pledges were compared in an ad that was provided after information about a brand's reputation. In Study 2, hedges, plegdes and no markers were compared in an ad in which the brand's reputation was incorporated. Both studies did not find empirical support for the hypothesis. In Study 1, hedges and pledges were found to be equally persuasive; in Study 2, pledges were found to be more persuasive than hedges.


Using a new equity price-based measure of the global financial cycle, this paper evaluates the relative importance of global financial shocks for quarterly equity returns and output growths in a large sample of advanced and emerging economies, as well as in South Korea and China--two countries on different sides of the trilemma triangle of international finance. We document that global financial shocks in both China and South Korea explain a substantial share of equity return variability (20 and 50 percent of the total variance, respectively), but a much smaller portion of real output fluctuations (less than 10 percent in Korea and negligible in the case of China). We also find that the combination of a closer capital account and a more rigid exchange rate regime, as in China, is associated with some costs in terms of diversification opportunities quantified by very large exposures to domestic financial and real shocks, dwarfing the contribution of any other shock in the model. More surprisingly, the combination of a relatively open capital account and a flexible exchange rate, as in South Korea, not only is associated with higher exposure to the global financial cycle than in China but also with a significant incidence of domestic financial shocks on output fluctuations.


Turbine Engine Diagnostics (TED) is a diagnostic expert system to aid the M1 Abrams tank mechanic find and fix problems in the AGT-1500 turbine engine. TED was designed to provide the apprentice mechanic the ability to diagnose and repair the turbine engine like an expert mechanic. The expert system was designed and built by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School (OC&S). This paper discusses the relevant background, development issues, reasoning method, system overview, test results, return on investment, and fielding history of the project. Limited fielding began in 1994 to select Army National Guard units, and complete fielding to all M1 Abrams tank maintenance units started in 1997 and will finish by the end of 1998. The Army estimates that TED will save roughly $10 million per year through improved diagnostic accuracy and reduced waste. The development and fielding of the TED program represents the Army's first successful fielded maintenance system in the area of AI. There are several reasons associated with the success of the TED program: an appropriate domain with proper scope, a close relationship with the expert, extensive user involvement, plus others that are discussed in this paper.


The Great Lakes Forecasting System is a full three-dimensional model-based system designed to make regularly scheduled predictions of the physical status of each of the Great Lakes. Due to its shallowness and rapid response to storms, Lake Erie has been selected as the prototype. Daily predictions are made for three-dimensional velocity and temperature distributions as well as water level and wind wave distributions. The system is designed to function with existing, operationally collected data including AVHRR and GOES satellite data. Products are distributed through two systems, the NOAA-based COASTWATCH program and the PC-based GLFSview system. Research concerns include identification of procedures for coupled predictions with atmospheric models, developing satellite procedures for including the effect of clouds on heat flux estimates, and determining the adequacy of wave model predictions for shallow water effects. Funding for this project comes from a suite of thirteen sources, ranging from federal to local governments and private companies and foundations.


Lithium cobaltite oxides (LixCoO2) have been serving as an important rechargeable battery material with reversible extraction and insertion of lithium ions. During the charge–discharge process, 50% or more amount of lithium can be extracted, and the layered structure remains stable with a semiconductor to metal transition at around x = 0.7. Static high pressure, an effective tool to tune crystal and electronic structure, is utilized herein in the most studied layered compound Li0.9CoO2 to investigate the effects on the structural stability and transport properties by synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD), electric resistivity, UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, and ab initio calculations. Up to 19.8 GPa, no structural phase transition was observed, but surprisingly its electric transport behavior changed from a semiconducting state to an insulating state. The detailed XRD and UV-vis spectroscopy analysis reveals that the pressure-induced Co–O bond length shrinkage in the CoO6 octahedron enhances crystal field splitting, which leads to band gap opening, and the decrease in Co–Co distance causes the t2g bands to overlap and the electron holes to be localized. The profoundly different response of the ground state to high pressure indicates an unusual, delicate interplay between the crystal structure and the electronic structure in LixCoO2 and may provide a new route for the development of lithium-ion battery with high performance under the assistance of pressure.


This article addresses visualization of deformation or shape differences between bones while conventional visualization techniques are often about a single bone such as its 3D reconstruction. Given a pair of bones with a set of corresponding anatomical landmarks, we compute displacement vectors describing the deformation from one bone to the other at the landmark points on one of the bones. Out of these prescribed ones, a displacement vector at each vertex on the bone surface is derived using a multi-level approximation technique of scattered data. Based on the value of inner product between a displacement vector and a surface normal at each vertex, color is mapped. Considering error-prone estimation of the landmark location in real applications, approximations at different levels are realized instead of exact interpolation as usually done in elastic image registration. Experimental results on a pair of femoral bones are presented.


Travel Warning: Since early March 2017, there have been indications that the process for obtaining a new visa, or even renewing a visa for continued study or research could begin to take longer. See a summary of the issues as reported by NAFSA: Association of International Educators. [1] The U.S. State Department has requested [2] a more extensive review process for some or all visa applications (details are not yet clear.) OISS is recommending that any international students or scholars who will need to apply for a U.S. visa take the following steps:


Between September of 1997 and August of 1998, 40 specimens of Micropogonias furnieri were captured of the coastal zone of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (aprox. 21-23° S, 41-45° W), and examined to study quantitative aspects of their infrapopulations of metazoan parasites. All fishes were parasitized with at least one species of metazoan. A total of 760 parasites were collected, with average of 19/fish. Seventeen species of metazoan parasites were found. The nematode Dichelyne elongatus was the most prevalent and abundant parasite of M. furnieri. All parasite species of M. furnieri showed a typical pattern of distribution. Clavellotis dilatata had a positive correlation between the total length and parasite prevalence, and Pachycreadium gastrocotylum showed negative correlation. Pterinotrema-toides mexicanum, Macrovalvitrema sinaloense, Dichelyne elongatus and C. dilatata showed positive correlation between the total length and the parasite abundance while P. gastrocotylum showed negative correlation. The sex of the host not influenced the prevalence and abundance of the metazoan parasites


Despite the Pentagon, it had to be found ...Newcastle electrician Mick Vincent had almost everything in life he wanted. Jesse Ossbourne, the bookshop owner he loved. A big house at Bar Beach he owned. And a 1936 Buick Roadmaster he cherished. The only thing missing in Mick's life was a pressure plate for his Buick. Through a strange old lady, Mick finds his pressure plate. He also finds a diary belonging to Nikola Tesla, the electronics genius reputed to be smarter than Einstein. But what was Nikola Tesla doing in outback New South Wales in 1925? Building a doomsday machine powerful enough to blow up Australia and half the world, according to Jesse. And it's sitting on a fault line. Even though the Tesla Legacy is highly classified, the Pentagon spy satellites are zeroing in and a hit squad from the United States Department of National Security is out to kill them. With the hint of an oil company conspiracy in the air and ASIO in the background, Mick and Jesse set off to find the Tesla Legacy first - their only clues, a lost mountain of copper ore and an old racehorse called Tears of Fire. Robert G. Barrett's latest novel, The Tesla Legacy, set in Newcastle, Muswellbrook, Scone and the mysterious Burning Mountain in New South Wales, is an action-packed, pace-driven thriller woven with a delightful touch of romance and an ending guaranteed to send chills down your spine. Proving once again why author Robert G. Barrett is, according to the Australian newspaper, the king of contemporary Australian fiction


The Autonomous Region of the Azores is one of the most sustainable destinations in the world. Being an archipelago comprised of nine small islands, quality and sustainability are critical features in the tourism sector, inducing the need for thorough and technical strategic development processes. Ribeira Grande is an importantmunicipality in the Azores, which envisioned tourism as a strategic sector to develop when the partial liberalization of the air passenger transport sector occurred in 2015. However, this destination had little tourism maturity and competitiveness and required some structural planning work. The development of a strategic plan for tourism forthe municipality of Ribeira Grande, including the selection of tourism products, is explained in detail in this article, which highlights the main challenges and results of the process.


The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it should find a source in history, positive law, the Constitution, or sound policy considerations. None of these, however, offers a plausible justification for the presumption. As for history, the sort of judicial review that the presumption favors — appellate-style arbitrariness review — was not only unheard of prior to the twentieth century, but was commonly thought to be unconstitutional. The ostensible statutory source for the presumption — the Administrative Procedure Act — nowhere instructs courts to strain to read statutes to avoid the preclusion of judicial review. And although the text and structure of the Constitution may prohibit Congress from precluding review of constitutional claims, a presumption responsive to constitutional concerns would favor review of those claims, not any and all claims of agency wrongdoing. As for policy, Congress has the constitutional authority, democratic legitimacy, and institutional capacity to make fact-intensive and value-laden judgments of how best to weigh the desire to afford private relief against the disruption to the smooth administration of public programs that such relief may entail. Courts do not. When the courts invoke the presumption to contort statutes that appear to preclude review to nonetheless permit it, they dishonor Congress's choices and limit its ability to tailor administrative and regulatory schemes to their particular contexts. The courts should end this practice. Where the best construction of a statute indicates that Congress meant to preclude judicial review, the courts should no longer insist that their participation is indispensable.


We have performed dielectric spectral measurements of lysozyme in a solid state to understand the effects of hydration and thermal excitation on the low-frequency dynamics of protein. Dielectric measurements were performed under changing hydration conditions at room temperature in the frequency region of 0.5 GHz to 1.8 THz. We also studied the temperature dependence (83 to 293 K) of the complex dielectric spectra in the THz frequency region (0.3 THz to 1.8 THz). Spectral analyses were performed using model functions for the complex dielectric constant. To reproduce the spectra, we found that two relaxational modes and two underdamped modes are necessary together with an ionic conductivity term in the model function. At room temperature, the two relaxational modes have relaxation times of ∼20 ps and ∼100 ps. The faster component has a major spectral intensity and is suggested to be due to coupled water-protein motion. The two underdamped modes are necessary to reproduce the temperature dependence of the spectra in the THz region satisfactorily. The protein dynamical transition is a well-known behavior in the neutron-scattering experiment for proteins, where the atomic mean-square displacement shows a sudden change in the temperature dependence at approximately 200 K, when the samples are hydrated. A similar behavior has also been observed in the temperature dependence of the absorption spectra of protein in the THz frequency region. From our broadband dielectric spectroscopic measurements, we conclude that the increase in the spectral intensities in the THz region at approximately 200 K is due to a spectral blue-shift of the fast relaxational mode.


Pushing magnetic components towards higher power densities, which is often realized by increasing the operating frequency, leads to the need for the development of more accurate design tools, for example more accurate expressions for core losses, winding losses and leakage inductance calculations. This paper presents a new analytical expression intended to accurately evaluate the leakage inductance of transformers in the high frequency range in which the behavior of the magnetic field within the windings is altered. Unlike conventional expressions, which usually overestimate the leakage inductance at higher frequencies, this expression accounts for high frequency behavior of the magnetic field and provides high accuracy when operating at high frequencies. These high accuracy and applicability makes the derived expression of interest for designers to avoid time consuming finite element simulations without compromising with accuracy. The expression is validated by 2-D FEM simulation, as well as by measurements.


Childminding is popularly characterised as childcare in a home-like environment. In the wake of the National Childcare Strategy, and with an emphasis on childcare 'quality', the state is increasingly constructing childminders as Early Years Professionals who happen to work in their own homes. This thesis is an attempt to explore registered childminders' negotiation of the meaning and practice of their work in the context of contemporary developments in childcare policy. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in an Inner London Borough (2003 - 2005). Methods employed ranged from participant observation, the collection of ephemera, interview and sorting exercises, to the improvisation of the raffle as a research technique.

Following consideration of the social and historical context of childminding's popularity, the thesis explores some of the varied meanings that childminders bring to and gain from their work. Focussing on the spatial, social and temporal dimensions of the home environment it examines in ethnographic detail the qualities and negotiations that characterise childminders work betwixt and between 'private' and 'public' domains. Childminders' performance of professionalism is explored and some ways in which women negotiate tensions between internal beliefs and external demands in this context are considered. It is argued that in their encounter with the 'technology of quality' childminders are reproduced as deficient. Tradeoffs associated with childminders' engagement with the hegemonic model of professionalisation are shown to have continuities with broader feminist debates over equality/difference and care/justice. It is suggested that childminders' work is characterised by the negotiation of contradictions.

Informed by and hoping to inform a focus in feminism on the empirical study of care work, the thesis also hopes to contribute toward a growing anthropology of public policy as well as to add childminders' perspectives to the burgeoning critical reappraisal of the hegemonic mode of professionalisation in the Early Years.


Kirigami Haptic Swatches demonstrate how kirigami and origami based structures enable sophisticated haptic feedback through simple cut-and-fold fabrication techniques. We leverage four types of geometric patterns: rotational erection system (RES), split-fold waterbomb (SFWB), the overlaid structure of SFWB and RES (SFWB+RES), and cylindrical origami, to render different sets of haptic feedback (i.e. linear, bistable, bouncing snap-through, and rotational force behaviors, respectively). In each structure, not only the form factor but also the force feedback properties can be tuned through geometric parameters. We experimentally analyzed and modeled the structures, and implemented software to automatically generate 2D patterns for desired haptic properties. We also demonstrate five example applications including an assistive custom keyboard, rotational switch, multi-sensory toy, task checklist, and phone accessories. We believe the Kirigami Haptic Swatches helps tinkerers, designers, and even researchers to create interactions that enrich our haptic experience.


A five-person panel of senior researchers have each selected two articles that they believe represent the best violence research that was published in 2011. The panelists each describe how they approached this challenging task and as a result help to outline how we might approach the task of knowledge integration and synthesis. The 10 selected articles, published in seven different outlets, include theoretical treatises, innovative methodologies, and careful analyses. They each represent exemplary science and help create a portrait of where our field is going.


Dramatic flood events witnessed from the turn of the century have renewed political attention and, it is believed, created new opportunities for the restoration of functional floodplains to alleviate the impact of flooding on urban development. For centuries, rural and urban landowning interests have dominated floodplains and water management in England, through a 'hegemonic discourse alliance' on land use development and flood defence. More recently, the use of structural flood defences has been attributed to the exacerbation of flood risk in towns and cities, and we are warned if water managers proceeded with 'business as usual' traditional scenarios, this century is predicted to see increased severe inconveniences at best and human catastrophes at worst. The novel, sustainable and integrated policy response is highly dependent upon the planning system, heavily implicated in the loss of floodplains in the past, in finding the land for restoring functioning floodplains. Planners are urged to take this as a golden opportunity to make homes and businesses safer from flood risk, but also to create an environment with green spaces and richer habitats for wildlife. Despite supportive changes in policy, there are few urban floodplain restoration schemes being implemented in practice in England, we remain entrenched in the engineered flood defence approach and the planner's response is deemed inadequate. The key question is whether new discourses and policy instruments on sustainable, integrated water management can be put into practice, or whether they will remain 'lip-service' and cannot be implemented after all. Against the backdrop of a broader modernity debate, in this thesis the English floodplain emerges as a 'battle site' where the planner is caught in the cross fire of an ideological clash between economic (armed with technology) and environmentalist (allied with nature) arguments and preferred change in land use. Furthering interpretative research and discourse analysis to tap and explain belief and knowledge systems rather than rational 'fluvial systems' per se, the thesis delves deeper than previous research, into the mind sets and 'irrationalities' of actors' practices on the floodplain. The policy response advocating 'making space for water' and floodplain restoration is based on an overstretched steering optimism, and will continue to prove too radical if the mediating and tempering political-institutional context is not seriously addressed. If there is true commitment from the UK government, closing the current implementation deficit on floodplain restoration will require the recognition and amelioration of persisting power structures within government agencies, founded on technological and economic rationalities, and permit the planner to share responsibility, unfettered by one sided growth objectives, to find new ways of working across sectors and disciplines towards sustainable, water sensitive towns and cities.


Differentially private learning has recently emerged as the leading approach for privacy-preserving machine learning. Differential privacy can complicate learning procedures because each access to the data needs to be carefully designed and carries a privacy cost. For example, standard parameter tuning with a validation set cannot be easily applied. In this paper, we propose a differentially private algorithm for the adaptation of the learning rate for differentially private stochastic gradient descent (SGD) that avoids the need for validation set use. The idea for the adaptiveness comes from the technique of extrapolation in classical numerical analysis: to get an estimate for the error against the gradient flow which underlies SGD, we compare the result obtained by one full step and two half-steps. We prove the privacy of the method using the moments accountant mechanism. This allows us to compute tight privacy bounds. Empirically we show that our method is competitive with manually tuned commonly used optimisation methods for training deep neural networks and differentially private variational inference.


Despite major advances in numerical weather prediction, few resources exist to forecast wildland fire danger conditions to support operational fire management decisions and community early-warning systems. Here we present the development and evaluation of a spatial fire danger index that can be used to assess historical events, forecast extreme fire danger, and communicate those conditions to both firefighters and the public. It uses two United States National Fire Danger Rating System indices that are related to fire intensity and spread potential. These indices are normalized, combined, and categorized based on a 39-yr climatology (1979–2017) to produce a single, categorical metric called the Severe Fire Danger Index (SFDI) that has five classes; Low, Moderate, High, Very High, and Severe. We evaluate the SFDI against the number of newly reported wildfires and total area burned from agency fire reports (1992–2017) as well as daily remotely sensed numbers of active fire pixels and total daily fire radiative power for large fires (2003–2016) from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) across the conterminous United States. We show that the SFDI adequately captures geographic and seasonal variations of fire activity and intensity, where 58% of the eventual area burned reported by agency fire records, 75.2% of all MODIS active large fire pixels, and 81.2% of all fire radiative power occurred when the SFDI was either Very High or Severe (above the 90th percentile). We further show that SFDI is a strong predictor of firefighter fatalities, where 97 of 129 (75.2%) burnover deaths from 1979 to 2017 occurred when SFDI was either Very High or Severe. Finally, we present an operational system that uses short-term, numerical weather predictions to produce daily SFDI forecasts and show that 76.2% of all satellite active fire detections during the first 48 h following the ignition of nine high-profile case study fires in 2017 and 2018 occurred under Very High or Severe SFDI conditions. The case studies indicate that the extreme weather events that caused tremendous damage and loss of life could be mapped ahead of time, which would allow both wildland fire managers and vulnerable communities additional time to prepare for potentially dangerous conditions. Ultimately, this simple metric can provide critical decision support information to wildland firefighters and fire-prone communities and could form the basis of an early-warning system that can improve situational awareness and potentially save lives.


Social pacts – policy agreements between governments, labor unions and sometimes employer organizations – began to emerge in many countries in the 1980s. The most common explanations for social pacts tend to focus on economic factors, influenced by industrial relations institutions such as highly coordinated collective bargaining. This book presents, and tests, an alternative and complementary explanation highlighting the electoral calculations made by political parties in choosing pacts.

Using a dataset covering 16 European countries for the years 1980-2006, as well as eight in-depth country case studies, the authors argue that governments' choice of social pacts or legislation is less influenced by economic problems, but is strongly influenced by electoral competition. Social pacts will be attractive when party leaders perceive them to be helpful in reducing the potential electoral costs of economic adjustment and wage restraint policies. Alternatively, parties may forgo negotiations with social partners and seek to impose such policies unilaterally if they believe that approach will yield electoral gain or minimize electoral costs.

By combining the separate literatures on political economy and party politics, the book sheds new light on the dynamics of social pacts in Western Europe. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, economics, political economy, European Studies and comparative politics.


The most important part of an autonomous mobile robot is
its power management in order to avoid any deadlock. A system
was developed to identify the time when the autonomous mobile
robot needed to return for battery recharge through an alarm of the
battery error detection.
The design of this system is a car-like mobile robot with two
front steering wheels and two rear driving wheels. The steering gear
motor turns the entire front-wheel assembly a number of degrees to
the left or right of the straight-ahead. The drive motor is mounted to one of the rear wheels and both rear wheels are fixed to the rear
axle. The gear motor can drive both of them at the same time. This
mobile robot is kinematically constrained body, which can be
modelled as a 2D object translating and rotating in the horizontal
plane.
The discharge parameters are the battery voltage and the
battery capacity. The values of these two discharge parameters are
function of the battery suitability to the load. Using a
microcontroller-based circuit with current and temperature sensors
did achieve the battery management process. The battery
temperature and voltage sensors provide information for the
changed battery status. The current sensor monitors the current
delivered from the battery during the discharge time. From
identifying the value of the current, the applied load to the mobile
robot can be known. From the sensed current the system can
generate a suitable countdown time to estimate the remaining
battery lifetime under load. The time is updated as the load is
changed.


Islamization is commonly seen as the work of Islamist movements who have forced their ideology on ruling regimes and other hapless social actors. There is little doubt that ruling regimes and disparate social and political actors alike are pushed in the direction of Islamic politics by Islamist forces. However, Islamist activism and its revolutionary and utopian rhetoric only partly explain this trend. In fact, argues Vali Nasr, the state itself plays a key role in embedding Islam in the politics of Muslim countries. The turn to Islam, argues Nasr, is a facet of the state's drive to establish hegemony over society and expand its power and control. He focuses on the cases of Malaysia and Pakistan to demonstrate his thesis.


Spatial behavior in humans and animals includes a wide variety of behavioral competences and makes use of a large number of sensory cues. Here we studied the ability of human subjects to search locations, to find shortcuts and novel paths, to estimate distances between remembered places, and to draw sketch maps of the explored environment; these competences are related to goal-independent memory of space, or cognitive maps. Information on spatial relations was restricted to two types: a visual motion sequence generated by simulated movements in a virtual maze and the subject's own movement decisions defining the path through the maze. Visual information was local (i.e., no global landmarks or compass information was provided). Other position and movement information (vestibular or proprioceptive) was excluded. The amount of visual information provided was varied over four experimental conditions. The results indicate that human subjects are able to learn a virtual maze from sequences of local views and movements. The information acquired is local, consisting of recognized positions and movement decisions associated to them. Although simple associations of this type can be shown to be present in some subjects, more complete configurational knowledge is acquired as well. The results are discussed in a view-based framework of navigation and the representation of spatial knowledge by means of a view graph.


Reflecting on the growing interest from scholars and practitioners and their awareness of the necessity to appreciate the involvement of the client in an audit process (Canning, Malsch & O'Dwyer, 2017), the aim of this study is to explore the importance of audit client commitment to comprehensive audit preparation, to improve the quality of a UK financial statements audit. This research is based on a qualitative approach employing semi structured interviews as a research method. Accordingly, interviews were undertaken with audit engagement leaders from a range of auditing firms as well as with finance directors from a range of audited clients. The perspectives as to the levels of preparedness for the first day of the financial statements audit commencing from each participant group were examined and were shown to reveal interesting results.

The study unveiled the differences between what auditors and their clients perceived to be 'ready' for the financial statements audit. The availability of a completed set of financial statements when the auditors commence their audit has been identified as an issue that causes a significant amount of time pressures on the auditors. Additionally, the thematic analysis of data revealed that as a result of such pressures auditors were adopting practices whereby insufficient/substandard work was completed, which could potentially not only have an adverse effect on the overall quality of the audit, but also contribute to an inappropriate audit opinion being signed. Amendments to current auditing practices and the periods between a reporting period end and the audit work commencing to enhance audit quality was found to underpin the pressures on auditors when forming a time pressured audit opinion. This study of the challenges faced by auditors to plan and complete their audit with conflicting targets and time scales as well as the pressures felt by audit clients, provides audit preparedness specific, evidence based implications on which these may be surmounted to enable a quality, fully documented audit and supported audit opinion to be completed.
This study addresses the pressing need to overcome the lack of theoretical discussions on the auditees' perspectives on auditing practices, and their views on the specific factors enhancing audit quality. Based on the existing literature to date, no study has explored the "auditee" as a research object in scholarly discussions on the quality of a UK financial statements audit.
The findings of this study, along with subsequent recommendations have relevance for the key stakeholders of audit engagements and regulators concerned with the enhancement of the quality of a UK financial statements audit, and for scholars interested in broadening their understanding of the audit process as a two-sided relationship.


A new technique for achieving subpicosecond–femtosecond optical soliton communication over long distances is proposed. The technique uses adiabatic soliton trapping and soliton standardization in an active transmission line with a finite optical-gain bandwidth. Forces destructive to femtosecond pulse propagation, such as soliton self-frequency shift and third-order dispersion, can be completely compensated for by the bandwidth-limited optical gain. Then soliton amplitude and width (i.e., area) are fixed to a certain value that indicates an N = 1 soliton, and the soliton is standardized by trapping. The technique will be a key technology for achieving ultrahigh-bit-rate (>100 Gbit/s) optical transmission systems.


Recent advances in both theory and methods have created opportunities to simulate biomolecular processes more efficiently using adaptive ensemble simulations. Ensemble-based simulations are used widely to compute a number of individual simulation trajectories and analyze statistics across them. Adaptive ensemble simulations offer a further level of sophistication and flexibility by enabling high-level algorithms to control simulations-based on intermediate results. Novel high-level algorithms require sophisticated approaches to utilize the intermediate data during runtime. Thus, there is a need for scalable software systems to support adaptive ensemble-based applications. We describe three different types of adaptations and propose four operations necessary to support these adaptations. We identify and address the challenges of expressibility, instantiation and implementation of the four operations. We enhance the Ensemble Toolkit – an ensemble execution system – with abstractions to support these operations. We characterize the overhead of supporting adaptive capabilties in the toolkit at production scale. We implement two high-level adaptive algorithms: expanded ensemble and Markov state modeling. We highlight scientific advantages enabled by the novel capabilities of our approach and implementation on three distinct platforms.


Assay staining is an essential step to produce visual signals for the development of colorimetric biochips; it is, therefore, of practical importance to evaluate the conventionally adopted staining methods in terms of their quantitative performance in screening immunoassay biochips. Particularly, we have performed a systematic comparison of the color development speed, sensitivity, response range, and aging effects of three common staining protocols, i.e., gold nanoparticle-catalyzed silver deposition (silver staining), horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-catalyzed oxidation of tetramethylbenzidine (TMB staining), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP)-catalyzed reduction of tetrazolium salt (TAS staining). Our results have revealed that silver staining can afford the best screening performance in terms of sensitivity, response range, and aging effect. In comparison, TMB staining is fast in producing quantitative results (5–10 min). TAS staining can provide easily saturated signals with a low background, which is suitable for semi-quantitative or qualitative on-site applications. More importantly, we have demonstrated that the three staining methods can be adapted to the same biochip to fabricate "multichannel" colorimetric biochips for screening multiple tumor markers simultaneously.


Traditional finance (TF) assumes that people are rational. However, TF ignores the fact that people are human; their decisions, and subsequently, their behaviors, are influenced by emotions and psychology, especially when trading in the stock market. Therefore, Behavioral Finance (BF) has arisen to compliment TF. BF is a relatively new field that applies psychology to financial decisions and subsequently examines its effects on stock prices and the market. Most BF studies are conducted in developed markets, which are dominated by institutional investors. Most of these studies have used the experimental approach, and a few have used observation of trading accounts. However, there remains a lack of quantitative studies using surveys, especially in frontier markets like the Saudi Stock Market (SSM). The SSM is dominated by individuals who control around 90% of the market value. The market has witnessed stock mispricing, market inefficiency and sharp corrections, which have negatively affected individuals' investments. Irrational behavior on the part of individuals is suspected to be the root of this problem. While many studies that have been published examine rationality in decision making in emerging and developed markets, little is known about the behavior of individuals in the Saudi stock market. In response to these issues, this research aims to determine the degree of heuristics and framing factors exhibited by individuals and to propose a theoretical model that explains the influence of heuristics and framing factors on individual speculating and investment buying behavior simultaneously. It then aims to quantify how much speculation and investment behavior is due to the influence of heuristics and framing factors. Lastly, it examines the role of experience in moderating the relationship between behavioral finance factors and individuals' buying behavior. The model used was chosen based on a review of the literature and is empirically investigated using individuals trading in the biggest brokerage firms in Saudi Arabia. The findings of this research are drawn from 294 valid surveys collected from individuals trading in largest brokerage firms in Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah City in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Partial Least Square (PLS) approach to Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is utilized in this research and SmartPLS version 2.0 software was used to analyze the empirical data. Analysis of the research model indicates that individuals exhibit a moderate degree of heuristics and framing factors during the decision making process. However, the results become more meaningful after examining the influence of these factors on the individuals' buying behavior. The results indicate that confirmation heuristics, loss aversion and regret aversion influence speculation and investment behavior. Additionally, representativeness heuristics influence investment while anchoring influence speculation behavior. The analysis indicates that the majority of heuristics and framing factors introduced in this research model can explain a large portion of individuals' speculation buying behavior (37%) and investment buying behavior (21%). Lastly, Multi Group Analysis was conducted to investigate the role of experience (low vs. high). However, no significant difference is found between the two groups. The research contributes to behavioral finance body of knowledge and is of interest to practitioners and scholars alike.


The development of wings may be one of the most important reasons for the great diversity among insects. Being able to move makes it possible to colonise new areas and explore resources in the surroundings. However, developing dispersal-related traits, like wings or flight muscles, is costly and moving can also be dangerous. One should therefore expect an increased selection against dispersal when moving is less advantageous. Dispersal may be favoured in a fragmented habitat of a metapopulation, but there could at the same time be a selection against dispersal within subpopulations. Following increased habitat fragmentation, selection against dispersal may temporarily become intensified, leading to an increased extinction risk (Paper I). Genetic variation could thus pose a threat to metapopulation persistence. Investigating Melitaea cinxia on Oland, we found both spatial and temporal variation in flight morphology (Paper II). This could indicateadaptations in flight design to the landscape structure. However, females and males varied differently and it is unclear to what extent the variation reects adaptations to the need to disperse between sites. In an outdoor cage experiment, we found that Euphydryas aurinia, M. cinxia and M. athalia were much less willing to move through shade than three other,very common butter ies (Clossiana euphrosyne, Brenthis ino and Aphantopus hyperantus) (Paper III). Among the melitaeines, M. athalia moved most frequently through the shade while E. aurinia and M. cinxia moved at lower rates. In another cage experiment, we investigated the tendency of forest-living butterflies (Lopinga achine and Pararge aegeria)to cross an open area in order to move between two shady habitats. Swedish populations of these species both preferred the shady areas, but P. aegeria traversed the open area at a higher frequency than L. achine (Paper IV). A Madeiran population of P. aegeria (naturally occurring on fairly open land) was found at similar densities in open and shady habitat, but dispersed less between the shady parts than a Swedish population of P. aegeria. The willingness to move through unsuitable habitat (habitat exploration) may have consequences for distribution; the results from Papers III & IV suggest a correlation between habitat exploration and a species' distribution in Sweden. The ability to fly at low temperature may be one important aspect of habitat exploration and could be related to the willingness to move through shade for sun-loving butter ies (Paper V).


Through a combination of geographical isolation, effective quarantine and good fortune, Australia has remained free of many of the known species of forestry nematodes. However, with increasing volumes and sources of traded goods there is increased risk of these species gaining entry. The nematode Bursaphelenchus aff. vallesianus / sexdentati has been recovered from urban and plantation pine trees in Southeast Queensland. This nematode can affect pine seedlings in Europe during heat and drought, and may potentially be associated with pine-wilt disease.

The nematode was first detected in a dying tree in suburban Brisbane in July 2014. Wood samples from this tree were collected during response surveillance following emergence of adult Monochamus alternatus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) from imported timber pallets. Monochamus alternatus is the vector of pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, a major pest of Pinus spp. and cause of pine-wilt disease.

Wood samples were soaked for 24 hours and the extracted nematodes examined morphologically. Typical of the genus Bursaphelenchus, the female nematodes were slender, with a fine, but well developed stylet with small basal knobs, slightly off-set head, a large, angular median bulb, longer than wide, the oesophagus overlapping the intestine dorsally and with a posterior vulva at 70-80% of the body length. The female specimens were "hand-picked" and forwarded for molecular analysis at Australian National Insect Collection. The same nematode was subsequently found in NSW and an extensive surveillance program showed it to be widespread across a number of regions throughout the state and also at Passchendaele State Forest, near Stanthorpe, Qld. Molecular identification was confirmed by NSW DPI Plant Health Diagnostic Service.

Wood samples from unthrifty host trees will continue to be examined to contribute to our knowledge of the distribution of these nematodes and provide absence data in relation to B. xylophilus, the original target of the QLD surveillance.


Several indicators of animal welfare were measured to determine the impact of relocation on lactating dairy cows. In experiment one, locomotion was scored on a 4-point scale where 1 = normal and 4 = lame. Cleanliness was scored on a 4-point scale where 1 = little or no manure visible and 4 = heavy plaques of manure on 3 body regions: udder, lower leg, and flank/upper leg. In experiment two, milking parlor behaviors observed were cow reactivity (REACT), latency to enter the parlor (LAT), and plasma cortisol (CORT). REACT was evaluated on a numeric scale (0 = ideal milker to 3 = steps and kicks frequently) to define behavior during udder preparation, claw fitting, and milking. LAT was the time necessary for each cow to enter the milking parlor. In these studies, the effects of treatment or breed on MY, lameness, parlor behaviors, stress, and cow cleanliness were monitored. In experiment one, cows with access to a rubber mat in front of the feed bunk had lower locomotion scores and cleaner lower legs. There were no breed effects on locomotion, but Jerseys had cleaner lower legs than Holsteins. The effect of the new facility on locomotion occurred gradually. Cows with higher locomotion scores had decreased milk production, but the results were not significant. In experiment two, relocation caused an increase in plasma cortisol and LAT. Milk yield decreased the p.m. on the day of relocation, but overall milk yield was not affected. Jerseys had lower plasma cortisol levels and latency to enter the parlor, but had a greater decline in p.m. milk yield the day of relocation. In conclusion, alternative flooring may alleviate some locomotion problems caused by relocation to a new facility. Additionally, moving to a new facility may have an effect on behavior and stress, but these effects are short-lived and effects on overall milk production minimal.


The specific ablation rate in a transect of Storstrømmen, a large outlet glacier from the Northeast Greenland ice sheet, is derived by combining airborne laser altimetry measurements with emergence/submergence velocities derived from satellite synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) and airborne ice‐sounding radar measurement of ice thickness. The results are compared with in situ point observations of ablation measured at poles drilled into the glacier. Considering the different measurement periods for the different data sets, the agreement between derived and observed ablation rates is satisfactory. The new method of deriving specific mass balance, particularly ablation rate, by remote sensing measurements alone has the potential to substantially increase the density of observational based ablation rates on ice sheet and ice cap margins.


This study aims to contemplate possibilities and challenges in the current development of global flood disaster risk indicators (GFDRIs). To this end, methodological requirements are first identified from stakeholders' opinions included in the post-2015 UN Development process and the post-2015 Hyogo Framework for Actions process. Then, state-of-the-art methods are applied, as a preliminary attempt, to fourteen countries in Asia to understand how the GFDRI estimates plausibly describe the number of affected people and fatalities under the 50-year return period condition. The results show that GFDRIs are capable of overcoming the unavailability of data necessary to analyze flood inundation depths and areas, describing the number of people affected by flood events, using vulnerability proxies contextually meaningful to understand why flood fatalities disproportionally occur in less developed countries, and making GFDRIs simple, understandable and transparent estimates. Simultaneously, it is revealed that there is still much room to technically improve GFDRIs, especially in dealing with reluctance in assigning a single value to an indicator for a large area such as a country, inaccessibility to authorized disaster records, difficulties in showing the effectiveness of infrastructure such as dams and dykes, and lack of local knowledge about vulnerability.


High throughput screening technology has allowed significant advances to be made in the discovery of lead agents for use in the pharmaceutical and agrichemical industries. However, economic and practical constraints have limited the use of this technology in the identification of bioactive microbes targeted at crop pests and diseases. Smaller scale targeted screening programmes have generally provided greater success in identifying microbial bioactivity. This paper describes a strategy for targeted selection of bioactive Trichoderma spp. Isolates are selected for biological characteristics that best match the biocontrol blueprint developed for the target pathogen and are then put through a series of standardised bioassays. This strategy provides a rapid and cost-effective means of identifying biocontrol agents with commercial potential.


Cloud computing is the latest buzzword and cutting-edge technology. The cost-efficiency, easy to operate, on-demand services, availability, makes the cloud so popular. The online web applications based on the internet such as E-Healthcare, E-Commerce are moving to the cloud to reduce the operating investment cost. These applications are vulnerable to slow HTTP Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in the cloud. This kind of attacks aims to consume the resources of the application as well as the hosting system so that to bring down the services. The various forms of the slow HTTP DDoS are HTTP header attack, HTTP body attack and HTTP read attack. Due to the nature of mimicking the slow network behaviour, this attack is very challenging to detect. This is even more difficult to identify in the cloud environment as it has multiple attack paths. Theweb applications running in the cloud should have been safeguarded from the slow HTTP DDoS attacks. This paper proposed a novel multi-stage zone-based classification model to identify, mitigate and prevent the slow HTTP DDoS attacks in the cloud environment. The solution is implemented using the OpenStack cloud environment. The open-source slowHTTPTest tool is used to generate different types of slow HTTP DDoS attacks.


The retrieval of aerosol properties from spaceborne sensors requires highly accurate and precise radiometric measurements, thus placing stringent requirements on sensor calibration and characterization. For the Terra/Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the characteristics of the detectors of certain bands, particularly band 8 [(B8); 412 nm], have changed significantly over time, leading to increased calibration uncertainty. In this paper, we explore a possibility of utilizing a cross calibration method developed for characterizing the Terra/ MODIS detectors in the ocean bands by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ocean Biology Processing Group to improve aerosol retrieval over bright land surfaces. We found that the Terra/MODIS B8 reflectance corrected using the cross calibration method resulted in significant improvements for the retrieved aerosol optical thickness when compared with that from the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer, Aqua/MODIS, and the Aerosol Robotic Network. The method reported in this paper is implemented for the operational processing of the Terra/MODIS Deep Blue aerosol products.


This Viewpoint examines data on international trends in energy research and development (R&D) funding, patterns of U.S. energy technology patents and R&D funding, and U.S. R&D intensities across selected sectors. The data present a disturbing picture: (i) Energy technology funding levels have declined significantly during the past two decades throughout the industrial world; (ii) U.S. R&D spending and patents, both overall and in the energy sector, have been highly correlated during the past two decades; and (iii) the R&D intensity of the U.S. energy sector is extremely low. It is argued that recent cutbacks in energy R&D are likely to reduce the capacity of the energy sector to innovate. The trends are particularly troubling given the need for increased international capacity to respond to emerging risks such as global climate change.


We have proposed an "Illumination Watermarking" technology with which the images of objects without copyright protection can contain invisible digital watermarking. This technology uses spatially modulated illumination possibly using an orthogonal transform, such as discrete cosine transform (DCT), as the method of embedding watermarks, and it can be applied to objects that do not have electronically embedded watermarking such as pictures painted by artists. We conducted a new series of experiments where one-bit binary data were embedded in one block that consisted of 8 × 8 pixels using the phase of the highest frequency component generated by a Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT) as well as DCT. The experimental results revealed that embedded data could be read out with almost 100% accuracy in both cases, where the embedded watermarked image could hardly be observed. We also found that the influence of JPEG compression, which is commonly used in digital cameras, was very small.


We investigate the relationship between community organizations and the implementation of a multi-ward participatory budgeting (PB) process in Chicago. Drawing on observations and surveys administered during 2012–2013, we find that participation in PB varied across the four wards, as did the involvement of community organizations. The ward with the highest turnout also had the lowest associational involvement, possibly because residents were familiar with the process and because some organizations there did not want to appear to endorse a process associated with the alderman. We found that the engagement of organizations depended on their missions, as well as their relationships to their elected officials. Reform-oriented groups that focused on the built environment participated more than advocacy organizations whose agendas were less physical and more ideological. The positive linkages found between the pre-existing civic infrastructure and participation in PB in other contexts (notably Brazil) may be less apparent in politician-led, infrastructure-focused processes where top-down mobilization is more common.


By exploring the symbolism of the wanderer motif, we can trace its path in German literature, first through the mind of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, specifically focusing on some of his poetry from early on in his career during the Sturm und Drang Period. We then travel to the Romantic Period, as we focus on works from Wilhelm Muller with the help of musical interpretations of Franz Schubert, and finally end the journey with Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, a novella by Joseph von Eichendorff in the late Romantic Period. The wanderer, as we will see, is not the aimless figure normally associated with it today, but rather one who is transformed through his journey. These writers each had a different purpose for using the motif, and each plays a part in making the wanderer a prominent figure during the Age of Goethe.


OBJECTIVE
To explore the differences existing between the levels of oxidative stress in peripheral and mesenteric serum in patients with colorectal cancer.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
One hundred fifty patients with colorectal cancer who underwent surgery between May 2005 and March 2010 were prospectively analyzed. The differences between oxidative stress parameters in their peripheral and mesenteric blood were measured. The associations between peripheral and mesenteric levels and the staging and clinicopathological variables were investigated.

RESULTS
Oxidative stress parameters were higher in patients with advanced tumor staging (p<0.01), lymph node invasion (p<0.01), and venous invasion (p<0.01). Differences between oxidative stress parameters in peripheral and mesenteric blood samples were also observed.

CONCLUSIONS
The mesenteric levels of the oxidative stress markers were higher than the peripheral levels in these colorectal cancer patients. Higher levels of these oxidative stress markers are associated with an advanced state of cancer.


Abstract The composite moment tensor is defined in analogy to the composite focal mechanism as the averaged representative seismic moment tensor characteristic for a focal area under study. In contrast to the composite focal mechanism, which provides information on shear faulting, the composite moment tensor can provide additional information on nonshear rupture mode and on physical conditions along the fault. The composite moment tensor is calculated by a joint inversion of multiple earthquakes associated with the same fault system and displaying a similar focal mechanism. The method utilizes amplitudes of P and/or S waves or full waveforms. Because the inversion is linear, it is fast and applicable to datasets of many earthquakes. The method is particularly suitable for the analysis of microseismicity, earthquake swarms, or aftershock sequences, where observations of multiple earthquakes are available. The composite moment tensor can be retrieved even when the station configuration or data quality prevent inversion for the full moment tensors of individual earthquakes.


As there is a rapid development of the information society, large amounts of multimedia data are generated, which are shared and transferred on various electronic devices and the Internet every minute. Hence, building intelligent systems capable of associating these visual data at diverse locations and different times is absolutely essential and will significantly facilitate understanding and identifying where an object came from and where it is going. Thus, the estimated traces of motions or changes increasingly make it feasible to implement advanced algorithms to real-world applications, including human-computer interaction, robotic navigation, security in surveillance, biological characteristics association and civil structure vibration detection.

However, due to the inherent challenges, such as ambiguity, heterogeneity, noisy data, large-scale property and unknown variations, visual data association is currently far from being established. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the studies of associating visual data at diverse locations and different times for the tasks of tracking, re-identification and retrieval. More specifically, three situations including single camera, across multiple cameras and across multiple modalities have been investigated and four algorithms have been developed at different levels.

Chapter 3 The first algorithm is to explore an ensemble system for robust object tracking, primarily considering the independence of classifier members. An empirical analysis is firstly given to show that object tracking is a non-i.i.d. sampling, under-sample and incomplete-dataset problem. Then, a set of independent classifiers trained sequentially on different small datasets is dynamically maintained to overcome the particular machine learning problem. Thus, for every challenge, an optimal classifier can be approximated in a subspace spanned by the selected competitive classifiers.

Chapter 4 The second method is to improve the object tracking by exploiting a winner-take-all strategy to select the most suitable trackers. This topic naturally extends the concept of ensemble in the first topic to a more general idea: a multi-expert system, in which members come from different function spaces. Thus, the diversity of the system is more likely to be amplified. Based on a large public dataset, a prediction model of performance for different trackers on various challenges can be obtained off-line. Then, the learned structural regression model can be directly used to efficiently select the winner tracker online.

Chapter 5 The third one is to learn cross-view identities for fast person re-identification, in a cross-camera setting, which significantly differs from the single-view object tracking in the first two topics. Two sets of discriminative hash functions for two different views are learned by simultaneously minimising their distance in the Hamming space, and maximising the cross-covariance and margin. Thus, similar binary codes can be found for images of the same person captured at different views by embedding the images into the Hamming space.

Chapter 6 The fourth model is to develop a novel Hetero-manifold regularisation framework for efficient cross-modal retrieval. Compared with the first two settings, this is a more general and complex topic, in which the samples can be relaxed to the images captured in the very far distance or very long time, even to text, voice and other formats. Taking advantage of the hetero-manifold, the similarity between each pair of heterogeneous data could be naturally measured by three order random walks on this hetero-manifold.

It is concluded that, by fully exploiting the algorithms for solving the problems in the three situations, an integrated trace for an object moving anywhere can be definitely discovered.


Cattle breeds regarded as indigenous to Zimbabwe include the Mashona, Tuli and Nkone. History of the breeds, their development and promotion, and development of breed societies for each breed is described by Harvey (1987). Since commercial livestock production was introduced in Zimbabwe in the early colonial period, both the breeding policy and beef production have been based on the use of exotic breeds. The reason given was that the indigenous breeds were not productive and could not support commercial beef production. However, exotic breeds brought in from Europe were not well adapted to local production conditions and their performance was generally unsatisfactory when compared with their performance in Europe. In 1933, problems associated with the use of exotic breeds and the necessity to come up with a different breeding policy for the country was pointed out by Harvey (1987). He also pointed out the need to investigate the possibilities of evolving an indigenous or crossbred type of cattle more suited to ranching conditions in Zimbabwe than are the imported breeds. A large experiment was initiated at Matopos Research Station in 1938, the objective being to define a suitable breeding system for the improvement of exotic and indigenous cattle. Since that time, breed evaluation work has continued at the Matopos Research Station.


Conservation treatments may cause alterations to the aesthetic qualities and appearance of paper materials, including their color. The scientific evaluation of color change to measure the effects of conservation treatments is therefore valuable information for the conservator weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the various treatments and approaches available. In this study, two Japanese tissue papers (Yukyu-shi and Sekishu Mare) were treated with plant dyes including black tea, henna, fresh and dried Eucalyptus cinerea leaves, as well as selected watercolors and acrylic paints. Paper specimens were subjected to both moist-heat artificial aging and accelerated photo-aging and color changes were measured using spectrophotometry and microfading tests. Color change is here defined as a change in light/dark, red/green, and yellow/blue coordinates in the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) color space of light reflected from a colored surface before and after an intervention such as accelerated aging. The findings of this study show that paper samples treated with plant dyes experienced larger and more perceptible color changes, as measured by spectrophotometry, compared to untreated controls and samples treated with watercolors and acrylic paints. Thus, plant dyes have poor color stability after moist-heat aging when compared with watercolors and acrylic paints. Nevertheless, papers treated with alizarin crimson acrylic paint, dried eucalyptus leaves, and black tea exhibited minimal color change after photo-aging. This study provides paper conservators with a better understanding of toning materials and their color stability when chosen for paper conservation treatment.


One of the main expected benefits from the establishment of the Euromediterranean Partnership in 1995 between the European Union and 12 Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries was sizeable increase in foreign direct investment into the latter. Moreover, FDI is a key link for the success of the overall development strategies implemented in those countries in the last 15 years, and to face the economic and social costs of the future Euromediterranean Free Trade Area. However, five years thereafter this FDI increase has not come forward in the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). The article offers an analytical framework of the drivers of FDI in Maghreb countries which allows us to explore its future evolution within different scenarios. The conclusion is that only market integration between the three countries and proactive FDI-promoting strategies complementing market liberalisation within the framework of the Euromediterranean Partnership could boost FDI levels in the region.


Sudden voltage drops and outages frequently disturb the operation of sensitive loads for domestic, commercial, and industrial use. In some cases, these events may even impair the functioning of relevant equipment. To maintain power under such conditions, a UPS system is usually installed. Once a disturbance happens at the grid side, the line-interactive UPS system takes over the load to prevent an interruption. But, due to magnetic saturation of the transformer, a significant inrush current may occur for the transformer-coupled loads during this transition. The generation of such transient currents may in turn decrease the line voltage and activates over-current protecting devices of the system. In this work, a cost-effective, line-interactive UPS system is proposed that eliminates the inrush current phenomenon associated with transformer-coupled loads. The strategy was implemented by connecting a standard current-regulated voltage source inverter (CRVSI) to the secondary winding of the load transformer. During any transient condition at the grid side, the load current is monitored and regulated to achieve either seamless compensation of the load current or complete transferal of load from grid to the inverter. Experimental results were obtained for a prototype under all possible operating conditions so as to validate the performance of the proposed topology.


Three-dimensional user interface design is a critical component of any virtual environment (VE) application. In this paper, we present a broad overview of 3-D interaction and user interfaces. We discuss the effect of common VE hardware devices on user interaction, as well as interaction techniques for generic 3-D tasks and the use of traditional 2-D interaction styles in 3-D environments. We divide most user-interaction tasks into three categories: navigation, selection/manipulation, and system control. Throughout the paper, our focus is on presenting not only the available techniques but also practical guidelines for 3-D interaction design and widely held myths. Finally, we briefly discuss two approaches to 3-D interaction design and some example applications with complex 3-D interaction requirements. We also present an annotated online bibliography as a reference companion to this article.


Denmark's energy policy has been remarkably successful. When the first oil crisis struck in 1973 Denmark was almost entirely dependent on imported fossil fuels. Modern Denmark has been transformed into a leader in renewables and the most efficient user of energy in Europe. A new clean energy industrial cluster has emerged and Denmark is now a key player in energy technology, a sector which more than tripled its exports between 1998 and 2008.

The IIEA is delighted to welcome two of Denmark's thought leaders in the energy world, one of whom will provide a broad strategic overview of these developments and plans, and another who will provide a fascinating case study with clear implications for Ireland.

Professor Henrik Lund, from the Department of Development and Planning, in Aalborg spoke on the topic of Danish sustainable energy policy past and future: how to engage society? He was followed by Soren Hermansen, Director of Samso Energy Academy & Adjunct Professor at Aalborg University, who spoke on the topic of Using Sustainable Energy for Regional Development, the case of Samso, the 'Energy Positive' Island.

About the Speakers:

Professor Henrik Lund of Aalborg University is one of the world's leading experts in the field of renewable energy. He is the author of a book entitled Renewable Energy Systems, which contextualizes renewable energy design efforts by addressing the socio-political challenge of implementing the shift to renewables. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Energy -- The International Journal and associate editor of several other significant journals in the field, a consultant to leading international and Danish organizations, a teacher and author of many articles in the field of renewable energy systems.

Soren Hermansen, is Adjunct Professor at Aalborg University. He is an islander, born on Samso, and describes himself as an educated farmer. He was the organisation leader of Samso Energy and Environment organisation -- SEEO-- Samso, Denmark's 100% Renewable Energy Island, and from 2006 has been Director of Samso Energy Academy. He has a background as a campaigner and developer of renewable energy projects in wind, solar, biomass, biofuels and transport.