Whilst peer facilitation is deemed to be a beneficial alterative strategy in an asynchronous online discussion, a review of the literature indicates that previous studies have primarily focused on the instructor as the facilitator. Inquiries into the roles that student facilitators perform and strategies they deploy to promote meaningful dialogues and participation in a student-led online discussion board have not been widely explored. Using posted messages of seven student facilitators in a peer-moderated online discussion forum, this study aimed to address the gap in the literature. Content analysis of the data revealed that the student moderators played four major roles during the discussions: 1) a knowledge constructor who actively engaged in a collective inquiry and contributed to a deeper understanding of a subject matter; 2) a team builder who expended considerable efforts to create group cohesion to achieve their learning objectives as a team; 3) a motivator who encouraged and inspired team members to engage in and contribute to the discussion; 4) an organiser who managed and monitored each phase of the discussion and orchestrated the subsequent group oral presentation. The findings suggest that assigning students to lead online discussions is an effective strategy to foster learner autonomy and nurture student leaders. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications and directions for future research.


The food and agribusiness is an important sector in European logistics with a share in the EU road transport of about 20%. One of the main logistic challenges in this sector is to deal with the high dynamics and uncertainty in supply and demand. This paper discusses the opportunities of Future Internet (FI) technologies to addresses the specific demands on information systems for logistics in the food and agribusiness domain. More specifically, it presents a Future Internet (FI) based design for smart agri-food logistic information systems. This design aims to enable new types of efficient and responsive logistics networks with flexible chain-encompassing tracking and tracing systems and decision support based on that information. These systems effectively virtualise the logistics flows from farm to fork, support a timely and error-free exchange of logistics information and provide functionality for intelligent analysis and reporting of exchanged data to enable early warning and advanced forecasting.


This Companion explores the Bible's role and influence on individual writers, whilst tracing the key developments of Biblical themes and literary theory through the ages. * An ambitious overview of the Bible's role and influence on English literature - as arguably the most powerful work of literature in history - from the medieval period up through the 20th century * Includes introductory sections to each period giving background information about the Bible as a source text in English literature, and placing writers in their historical context * Draws on examples from medieval, early-modern, eighteenth-century and Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist literature * Includes many 'secular' or 'anti-clerical' writers alongside their 'Christian' contemporaries, revealing how the Bible's text shifts and changes in the writing of each author who reads and studies it


This paper proposes a model of the US unemployment rate which accounts for both its asymmetry and its long memory. Our approach, based on the tests of Robinson (1994), introduces fractional integration and nonlinearities simultaneously into the same framework (unlike earlier studies employing a sequential procedure), using a Lagrange Multiplier procedure with a standard limit distribution. The empirical results suggest that the US unemployment rate can be specified in terms of a fractionally integrated process, which interacts with some non-linear functions of the labour demand variables (real oil prices and real interest rates). We also find evidence of a long-memory component. Our results are consistent with a hysteresis model with path dependency rather than a NAIRU model with an underlying unemployment equilibrium rate, hence giving support to more activist stabilisation policies. However, any suitable model should also include business cycle asymmetries, with implications for both forecasting and policymaking.


By broadening the stripe width of the active waveguide region, it is possible to extract high optical powers from semiconductor broad area lasers. However, a weak output beam quality, optical filamentation, and high peak power densities will result, which are invoked by the amplification of higher order modes. We show an approach to influence the optical field inside the resonator by integrating optical phase structures directly into the waveguide. Those elements offer the possibility to enlarge the active gain area for the desired fundamental laser mode, while additional diffraction losses for higher order modes are generated, thus achieving an improved beam quality. We report on considerations in designing those elements and demonstrate a first experimental realization.


Business enterprises regularly face operationally-threatening lawsuits targeting one or more of their products. Businesses, however, may mitigate the damage from these lawsuits by forming separate limited liability entities for each product. If such action is taken and a product becomes a target of lawsuits, the subsidiary formed around said product may file for bankruptcy and the corporate form will enable the enterprise as a whole to limit its loss. The enterprise may, however, still face significant exposure from lawsuits directed at the bankrupt subsidiary because of the prospect of substantive consolidation of non-debtors with a debtor. Unless appropriate steps are taken to protect against it, a court could order that the enterprise's assets be made available for distribution to creditors of the bankrupt subsidiary through substantive consolidation, destroying the value of the enterprise.


Hydrography and larval fish distribution in the northeastern North Sea were studied during a research programme carried out during the period from 1991 to 1994. The aim was to examine the connection between frontal zone formation and nursery characteristics of gadoid larvae at the shelf break. Emphasis was placed on the year-to-year variation in frontal characteristics and distributional patterns of larvae. An area of about 67 000 km 2 covering the northeastern North Sea, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat was surveyed by grid or transect sampling. At each sampling station the hydrography was studied by CTD casts, and the abundance of fish larvae was measured by depth integrating tows of a 2 m ring net. Five species of gadoid larvae and small juveniles were found in the area: cod Gadus morhua, whiting Merlangius merlangus, haddock Melanogrammus aeglefinus, Norway pout Trisopterus esmarki and saithe Pollachius virens. Larval abundance differed markedly between species and years. The abundance of all species was the highest in 1992 and declined during the following 2 years. In 1994, cod and whiting were the only gadoid species observed. Peak abundance of all gadoids was found in the vicinity of the frontal zone; however, the relationship between larval distribution and hydrography differed among species. Correspondence between spatial and interannual variation in characteristics of frontal zones and larval distributions suggests that frontal zone variability is a central element in the early life of gadoid larvae from the area.


A great task confronts the Department of Health in regard to locating the numerous sources of electronic product radiation and enforcing the licence system which is provided by the new legislation. The licence system which is :applied to almost all forms of ionizing radiation control in South Africa - should be a very effective method of control, given effective enforcement against a background of adequate scientific knowledge.


Zirconium phosphate (ZrP), an inorganic layered nanomaterial, is currently being investigated as a catalyst support for transition metal-based electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Two metal-modified ZrP catalyst systems were synthesized: metal-intercalated ZrP and metal-adsorbed ZrP, each involving Fe(II), Fe(III), Co(II), and Ni(II) cations. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the composite materials and confirm the incorporation of the metal cations either between the layers or on the surface of ZrP. Both types of metal-modified systems were examined for their catalytic activity for the OER in 0.1 M KOH solution. All metal-modified ZrP systems were active for the OER. Trends in activity are discussed as a function of the molar ratio in relation to the two types of catalyst systems, resulting in overpotentials for metal-adsorbed ZrP catalysts that were less than, or equal to, their metal-intercalated counterparts.


Background Debility accounts for 10% of inpatient rehabilitation cases among Medicare beneficiaries. Debility has the highest 30-day readmission rate among 6 impairment groups most commonly admitted to inpatient rehabilitation. Objective The purpose of this study was to examine rates, temporal distribution, and factors associated with hospital readmission for patients with debility up to 90 days following discharge from inpatient rehabilitation. Design A retrospective cohort study was conducted using records for 45,424 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with debility discharged to community from 1,199 facilities during 2006–2009. Methods Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios for readmission. Schoenfeld residuals were examined to identify covariate-time interactions. Factor-time interactions were included in the full model for Functional Independence Measure (FIM) discharge motor functional status, comorbidity tier, and chronic pulmonary disease. Most prevalent reasons for readmission were summarized by Medicare severity diagnosis related groups. Results Hospital readmission rates for patients with debility were 19% for 30 days and 34% for 90 days. The highest readmission count occurred on day 3 after discharge, and 56% of readmissions occurred within 30 days. A higher FIM discharge motor rating was associated with lower hazard for readmissions prior to 60 days (30-day hazard ratio=0.987; 95% confidence interval=0.986, 0.989). Comorbidities with hazard ratios >1.0 included comorbidity tier and 11 Elixhauser conditions, 3 of which (heart failure, renal failure, and chronic pulmonary disease) were among the most prevalent reasons for readmission. Limitations Analysis of Medicare data permitted only use of variables reported for administrative purposes. Comorbidity data were analyzed only for inpatient diagnoses. Conclusions One-third of patients were readmitted to acute hospitals within 90 days following rehabilitation for debility. Protective effect of greater motor function was diminished by 60 days after discharge from inpatient rehabilitation.


Abstract The liverwort Archilejeunea nebeliana Gradst. et Schäf.-Verw. sp. nov. (Lejeuneaceae) is described from submontane rain forest of southern Ecuador. The new species is a member of A. subg. Archilejeunea and differs from all other species of this group by narrowly and obtusely pointed leaves, thin-walled lobule cells, stem epidermis with darker-colored middle lamella, and narrowly elongate female bracts and bracteoles with acute to acuminate apices. The new species constitutes the first record of subg. Archilejeunea from the Andes and is a further addition to the unusually rich flora of the Andes of southern Ecuador. The species is named in honor of Dr. Martin Nebel.


Petunia × hybrida Wave series cultivars were observed with symptoms of tan to brown stem lesions, wilt, and branch death in a demonstration/trial planting at Burden Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA, during January and February 2000. Disease signs included the presence of white, cottony mycelia on infected stems and the presence of black sclerotia. Seventeen of 131 plants were infected on 20 February and included individuals of cvs. Wave Purple, Wave Rose, Wave Misty Lilac, Wave Pink, Tidal Wave Hot Pink, and Tidal Wave Cherry. Isolations were made by placing diseased stem sections on acidified potato-dextrose agar. A fungus that produced white mycelia and black sclerotia was consistently isolated from infected stems and identified as Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Pathogenicity tests were done by pipetting 1 to 2 ml of blended mycelia and sclerotia (one plate culture blended in 100 ml distilled water) at the base of flowering-age Wave series plants. Plants were held for 3 days in a dew chamber maintained at 22°C and then moved to a greenhouse held at 25°C. Wilt and branch death developed on inoculated plants after 5 days and S. sclerotiorum was reisolated. Uninoculated plants remained healthy. Wave series cultivars have a prostrate growth habit that is conducive to disease development. No plants in the trial planting were killed and infected plants had recovered by 1 May and had uniformly covered the plant bed. Sclerotinia blight was previously reported on Petunia × hybrida from Bermuda (2) and Florida (1). References: (1) D. F. Farr et al. 1989. Fungi on Plants and Plant Products in the United States. The American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN. (2) J. M. Waterston. Dept. Agric. Bermuda Rep., 1947.


This paper first provides a broad overview of current conditions in the banking industry in some of the countries that will participate in European economic and monetary union. It then goes on to identify a number of important forces for change. Some of these are global in nature, but likely to have a particularly strong impact in continental Europe, while others (such as the introduction of the euro) are distinctively European. The paper then notes just how little restructuring has actually taken place in continental European banking in the last decade and offers some explanations. The conclusion reached is that the banking sector in continental Europe may now be about to enter a period of sharply increased competition. This will pose challenges for national regulators and other policy-makers concerned with the maintenance of financial stability.


Cyanophages, viruses that infect cyanobacteria, are known to be abundant throughout the world's oceans. They are important because of the ecological significance of their hosts which are prominent primary producers. In the natural environment cyanobacteria undergo light-dark cycles, which might be expected to exert significant effects on the way in which cyanophages reproduce. The results in this study show how light plays an important role in cyanophage adsorption to the host cell using a model system consisting of cyanophage S-PM2 and Synechococcus sp. WH7803. An initial investigation of the role of light on phage adsorption revealed a striking light-dependence. In the dark, the phage S-PM2 was virtually not capable of adsorbing to WH7803, but adsorption resumed as soon as the light was switched on. This light-dependent phage adsorption was not just limited to the phage S-PM2, four out of nine other cyanophages showed the same effect. The host photosynthetic activity and light/dark cycles were demonstrated not to influence phage adsorption. The presence of the photosynthetic reaction centre gene psbA in cyanophage genomes was not associated with the light-dependent phage adsorption. No photoreceptor was detected from the phage S-PM2 particle. A phage-resistant mutant that S-PM2 can't adsorb to WH7803 was isolated. A putative multicopper oxidase was found to be absent from the outer membrane fraction of the mutant. This outer membrane fraction in the wild type showed a moderate phage neutralisation activity (up to ~ 30%). To test whether the putative multicopper oxidase was the S-PM2 receptor, a recombinant WH7803 strain was constructed by inactivating the putative multicopper oxidase gene. As S-PM2 can still adsorb to the knockout mutant as efficiently as to the wild type, it suggests that the multicopper oxidase is not the phage receptor and that loss of the putative multicopper oxidase is probably a pleiotropic consequence of the loss of the S-PM2 receptor or other components, such as lipopolysaccharide, that is needed for a successful S-PM2 adsorption.


This research is a descriptive study at PR HF PRIMA Malang entitled "The Application of Balanced Scorecard to Assess the Managerial Performance of PR HF PRIMA Malang". The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of PR HF PRIMA Malang measured by Balanced Scorecard. The performance assessment of PR HF PRIMA Malang is conducted for the year of 2004, 2005, and 2006 by employing Balanced Scorecard. The data utilized for this evaluation are primary and secondary data. Primary data is the data generated from interviews while secondary data is the financial report data such as balance sheet, Lost-Profit report, and other data such as the customer and employee data. In this research, the writer Balanced Scorecard is one the performance evaluation methods which concerns about the financial and non-financial aspects. This method consists of four perspectives: the learning and growth process, internal business process, customer, and financial perspective. The analytic technique utilized to evaluate the firm performance is the Balanced Scorecard. For the perspective of learning and growth process, the indicators used are employee retention, employee training, and employee absenteeism. For the perspective of internal business process, the indicator employed is the MERR (Minimized Error Rate and Rework). The customer perspective uses Customer Core Measurement which comprises of Customer Retention, Customer Acquisition, Customer Complain, and Customer Value Proposition. The analysis conducted shows that the firm performance is fairly good. From the perspective of learning and growth process and the internal business process, the firm shows a good performance. It can be observed from the Customer Retention and Customer Acquisition which tend to decline. Meanwhile, from the financial perspective, the firm shows a performance which is not so good. It can be seen from the credit value which belongs to not-healthy standard. Based on the conclusion above, the writer advises that PR HF PRIMA Malang should employ Balanced Scorecard in evaluating its performance since the company can assess its performance from the financial and non-financial aspects, so that continues improvements can be done in order to achieve the firm's vision and mission as well as to facilitate the management in constructing short-term and long-term programs.


Users Quality of Experience (QoE) analysis is paramount for telcos to drive business, and for users to verify their SLAs with the operators. Over the years both academia and industry put a lot of efforts to define methodologies and create tools to monitor QoE. In particular, web traffic QoE analysis is a well understood and ``standardized'' research area, and a varied set of tools and metrics are available to understand how content is delivered. For instance, it is easy to capture the interaction of a browser with a website (e.g., as HAR objects), to inspect content delivery critical path via the download waterfall (e.g., via Chrome, or tools like WProf), or quantify webpage retrieval performance via page load time (PLT), or Google speed index.

These tools and techniques suit well fixed access networks but cannot be directly applied to analyze mobile user QoE. Indeed, most of mobile traffic is generated by large number of applications and do not resemble to traditional web browsing traffic. Also, mobile architectures are more complex than fixed infrastructures and their main performance bottleneck is latency. In this work, we consider QoE for mobile applications by focusing on network level metrics and taking into account application level information. The main goal is to identify network activities (as DNS lookup, TCP and TLS handshake, content download, etc.) which are bottlenecks for application performance and propose countermeasures. To achieve this objective we combine active and passive on-device measurements.

On the one hand, we developed an app that leverages the Android VPN APIs (i.e., it does not require rooted devices) to monitor network traffic, while collecting also info about user activity with the device. This enable us to analyze mobile apps traffic in different scenarios (e.g., application startup, application in background/foreground without user activity, user interaction) and develop techniques to reconstruct the networking waterfall for each of them, similarly to what is currently possible for generic web browsing traffic. However, we envision a generic mobile device system component capable to inspect all traffic, and possibly tapping into user engagement (e.g., interactivity with the screen). By analysing the waterfall we aim to identify activities constituting the critical path for each scenario and application.

On the other hand, the monitoring app allows to schedule active experiments. This allows us to define a comparison baseline to contrast against other analysis, as well as further diagnose problems when the waterfall analysis suggests there may be a bottleneck.

In the poster, we present the methodology and preliminary results on a small set of applications in a testbed with real devices.


ABSTRACT Which European universities and research centres are most prominent in research on European Union (EU) interest groups? What are the theoretical perspectives employed currently in this scholarship? What research designs do scholars employ to study and investigate EU interest groups? And finally, what are the academic works that constitute the core building blocks on which researchers of EU lobbying build their theoretical arguments and empirical research? We answer these questions by analysing an original, built-for-purpose dataset providing information on the theoretical approaches, research designs and bibliographic references employed in 196 academic articles published on the topic of EU lobbying and interest groups in 22 European and American journals of political science and public policy. The dataset also contains information about authors' academic affiliation and Ph.D.-awarding institutions. We combine two approaches employed in the literature on systematic analyses of a discipline: the research synthesis and meta-analysis approach, and the bibliometric approach.


In order to clarify the mechanism involved in the reproductive failure associated with heat stress and to test in
vivo the effect on ovarian function, 42 White Leghorn laying hens were separated into two equal groups and
individually caged in two environmentally controlled chambers. One group was exposed daily for 12 h and for 15
d to an ambient temperature of 37°C. The second group was maintained under thermoneutral conditions (23°C)
and served as control. Body temperature was recorded daily and heparinized blood samples were drawn at d 0, 1,
to determine the effect exerted by a short heat exposure, and every 3 d. Plasma LH levels were assayed by RIA. At
d 1 the ovary of half of the birds in each group was examined by means of real time B-mode ultrasound scanning
to characterize large follicles (LF; diameter greater than 10 mm) and the same procedure was repeated at d 6
and 15. Short and long heat exposure caused significant hyperthermia. Ultrasound images revealed a significant
reduction of LF number both at d 6 and 15 whereas the acute thermal stress, as assessed 1 d after starting the
temperature treatment, did not adversely affect this ovarian trait. Decreased plasma LH was detected 24 h after
exposing the birds to heat stress. In contrast, no significant change was found in LH concentrations during d 3, 6,
9, 12 and 15. The reduction in the number of LF observed after 6 d of heat stress and maintained until the end of
the experiment at d 15, was not accompanied by a decline in plasma LH, suggesting a possible direct debilitating
effect of high ambient temperature on ovarian function of domestic birds. The ultrasonography, representing a
non-invasive, rapid, reliable method for studying reproductive efficiency also in the hens, could be advantageous
for developing new management strategies to maximize production.


Digital Methods can be defined as the repurposing of the inscriptions generated by digital media for the study of collective phenomena. The strength of these methods comes from their capacity to take advantage of the data and computational capacities of online platforms; their weakness comes from the difficulty to separate the phenomena that they investigate from the features of the media in which they manifest ('the medium is the message', according to McLuhan's 1964 dictum). In this article, we discuss various methodological difficulties deriving from the lack of separation between medium and message and propose eight practical precautions to deal with it.


The Tatar language has been exposed to significant transformations under the pressure of the Russian language. The nature of this pressure has been characterized as political, social, and cultural by different disciplinary traditions, with no small part being played by globalization. The purpose of this chapter is to explore endangered Tatar idioms along two revealing lines of enquiry. The first line of enquiry analyzes culture-specific Tatar idioms; the second line interrogates borrowed idioms from Russian sources. The paper argues that Russian idiom-adoption leads to loss of Tatar-specific knowledge as well as loss of Tatar-specific encodings of that knowledge otherwise found in traditional idioms. This indelibly transforms Tatar history and culture.


An experimental investigation has been undertaken in which vortex generators (VGs) have been employed to inhibit boundary-layer separation produced by the combined adversepressure- gradient of a terminal shock-wave and subsonic diffuser. This setup has been developed as part of a program to produce a more inlet relevant flow-field using a small-scale wind tunnel than previous studies. The resulting flow is dominated by large-scale separation, and as such, is thought to be a good test-bed for flow control. In this investigation, VGs have been added to determine their potential for shock-induced separation mitigation. In line with previous studies, it was observed that the application of VGs alone was not able to significantly alleviate separation overall, because enlarged corner separations was observed. Only when control of the corner separations using corner bleed was employed alongside centre-span control using VGs was a significant improvement in both wall pressure recovery (6% increase) and stagnation pressure recovery (2.4% increase) observed. Copyright © 2012 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.


The ARI is committed to nurturing UCSF?s HIV researchers, clinicians and educators by delivering targeted, unrestricted funds to support their groundbreaking work. We are able to support this work because of donations from our generous supporters. Thank you to our donors whose efforts have helped us get this far in the fight against HIV. Learn more about giving opportunities and how to donate [1].


There is no denial that developing countries have long-standing problems of education due to their scarce resources for providing education facilities to their masses. The provision of education for all and continuous education is impossible for these countries because they cannot afford to establish educational institutions filled with teachers and teaching facilities for every single citizen as available to the masses of developed states. Fortunately, ICTs are opening new opportunities for the developing and poor states to start planning and implementing digital opportunity initiatives and thereby address their problems including education. eLearning is emerging as a panacea for the issues of education for all, lifelong learning and globally compatible education. The purpose of the paper is to bring together the threats and opportunities, attached with digital initiatives, available to the developing countries and plot the findings into a compact theoretical model for guidance and further research.

 Key words: Educational-technologies, virtual-learning-environments, education-for-all, lifelong-learning, and continuous-education


A number of industrialized nations have recently experienced some degrees of constriction in their long-standing sex differentials in life expectancy at birth. In this study we examine this phenomenon in the context of Canada's regions between 1971 and 1991: Atlantic (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island); Quebec, Ontario, and the West (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories). Decomposition analysis based on multiple decrement life tables is applied to address three questions: (1) Are there regional differentials in the degree of narrowing in the sex gap in life expectancy? (2) What is the relative contribution of major causes of death to observed sex differences in average length of life within and across regions? (3) How do the contributions of cause-of-death components vary across regions to either widen or narrow the sex gap in survival? It is shown that the magnitude of the sex gap is not uniform across the regions, though the differences are not large. The most important contributors to a narrowing of the sex gap in life expectancy are heart disease and external types of mortality (i.e., accidents, violence, and suicide), followed by lung cancer and other types of chronic conditions. In substantive terms these results indicate that over time men have been making sufficient gains in these causes of death as to narrow some of the gender gap in overall survival. Regions show similarity in these effects.


Although academia continues to debate Ronald Reagan's place in history, a Reagan legacy industry has been working, with some success, to enshrine the former president's memory in a host of public sites and symbols (Bjerre-Poulsen 2008). The man who fired the nation's air traffic controllers and thundered against the growth of the federal bureaucracy now has Washington's national airport and DC's largest federal office building named in his honor. Recently, conservative activists have borrowed from the evangelical Christian movement and urged each other to be guided by the question "What would Reagan do?" (Heritage Foundation 2008). And even Barack Obama invoked Ronald Reagan in the 2008 presidential campaign as a role model of transformative leadership. From these and other indications, it would seem that Ronald Reagan is well on his way to becoming an iconographic figure in our politics. Many academics and liberal groups understandably take a dim view of this development. But the fact of the matter is that ours would be a very dreary political society if citizens did not try to find ways to celebrate their departed heroes. Rather than pooh-poohing the idea of honoring important political figures, we would do better to recognize that there are significantly different ways of doing so. One way of honoring is to memorialize a person. We do that by stamping his or her name on physical things--a street, building, piece of currency, and the like. Thus the Reagan Legacy Project, led by Grover Nordquist and his group, Americans for Tax Reform, aims to erect a Reagan monument in every state and to have something named after the former president in each of the nation's 3,054 counties. Second, we can bestow honor by ritually praising the person who is to be remembered. This involves mounting celebrations, remembrances, or similar hortatory projects. Here, for example, one might think of the commemorations conducted by the Young America's Foundation at Reagan's Rancho del Cielo or the over 40 state governments that have now designated February 6 (the former president's birthday) as "Ronald Reagan Day." Finally, there is the honor that comes from trying to appreciate a person. By "appreciate" I aim to use the term in its original sense--to evaluate or price out the worth of whatever is under consideration. In this sense, to appreciate does not mean simply to admire or be thankful. It means to be carefully attentive to understand, in a well-rounded way, the significance of someone or something. Applied to any major political figure, such an appreciative effort means striving to take the full measure of a person's presence on the public scene. That is far different from simply rendering a thumbs-up or thumbs-down approval rating. It seems to me that this third category is the highest form of honor we can bestow on a person. That is because it puts the supreme value on the truth of things. We pay our greatest respect to a person by studiously and honestly weighing what it meant that he or she passed through this troubled world. It is true that Reagan has become an iconographic figure for many people. But this does not deny the value of striving for such an appreciation. Quite the contrary. Properly understood, an icon is not something to be worshipped but something to be seen into, a portal into deeper realities. Ideologically closed minds can have trouble seeing that an icon is not an idol. Of course, even in the best of circumstances, honoring-as-truthful-appreciation is difficult work. A wise historian once said that "all history is contemporary history" (Collingwood 1994, 202). (1) In other words, you and I cannot avoid seeing the past in light of our present. Humanly speaking, that is the only light we have. If that is the case in the best of circumstances, offering a fair account of Ronald Reagan's legacy in 2008 is especially difficult. Given that it is scarcely 20 years since he left office, we are only just now entering the middle distance where one can start gaining a reasonable historical perspective. …


HPTLC on amino plates, with simple heating of the plates for derivatization, has been used for quantification of glucosamine in nutritional supplements. On heating the plate glucosamine reacts to form a compound which strongly absorbs light between 305 and 330 nm, with weak fluorescence. The reaction product can be detected sensitively either by absorption of light or by fluorescence detection. The detection limit in absorption mode is approximately 25 ng per spot. In fluorescence mode a detection limit of 15 ng is achievable. A calibration plot for absorption detection is linear in the range 25 to 4000 ng glucosamine. The derivative formed from glucosamine by heating is stable for months, and the relative standard deviation is 1.64% for 600 ng glucosamine. The amounts of glucosamine found in nutritional supplements were in agreement with the label declarations.


This paper sketches out the case for a new board model, Board 3.0, as an option for public company boards. The goal is to develop a model of thickly informed, well-resourced, and highly motivated directors who could credibly monitor managerial strategy and operational skill in cases where this would be particularly valuable. Unlike the present board model of thinly informed, under-resourced, and boundedly motivated directors, Board 3.0 directors could credibly defend management against shareholder activist incursions, where appropriate, with institutional investor owners. Similarly, such directors could find a place in extremely complex enterprise, such as finance, where the costs of business failure are profound. One inspiration for Board 3.0 is found in private equity, in which the high-powered incentives of the PE sponsor have produced a different mode of board and director engagement that seems associated with high value creation. Porting over some of its features to the public company board offers a fresh starting point. The present public board model is an organizational experiment begun approximately 40 years ago, which replaced a prior organizational form that had fallen short. There is no reason to think the present public company board model is the "end of history" for corporate governance. The world of private markets, venture capital and private equity, have made effective use of alternative board models. Our goal is to bring some of that governance experimentalism to public companies. Expanding public company board models with Board 3.0 may avoid the need for corner solutions, such as dual class common structures or take-private transactions. A new public company board option will strengthen the capacity of public markets to facilitate capital formation and will thus aid financial inclusion by sustaining the number of public companies.


We introduce Texar, an open-source toolkit aiming to support the broad set of text generation tasks that transform any inputs into natural language, such as machine translation, summarization, dialog, content manipulation, and so forth. With the design goals of modularity, versatility, and extensibility in mind, Texar extracts common patterns underlying the diverse tasks and methodologies, creates a library of highly reusable modules and functionalities, and allows arbitrary model architectures and algorithmic paradigms. In Texar, model architecture, inference, and learning processes are properly decomposed. Modules at a high concept level can be freely assembled or plugged in/swapped out. Texar is thus particularly suitable for researchers and practitioners to do fast prototyping and experimentation. The versatile toolkit also fosters technique sharing across different text generation tasks. Texar supports both TensorFlow and PyTorch, and is released under Apache License 2.0 at https://www.texar.io.


We investigated the phylogenetic relationships of Pseudophoxinus (Cyprinidae: Leuciscinae) species from central Anatolia, Turkey to test the hypothesis of geographic speciation driven by early Pliocene orogenic events. We analyzed 1141 aligned base pairs of the complete cytochrome b mitochondrial gene. Phylogenetic relationships reconstructed by maximum likelihood, Bayesian likelihood, and maximum parsimony methods are identical, and generally well supported. Species and clades are restricted to geologically well-defined units, and are deeply divergent from each other. The basal diversification of central Anatolian Pseudophoxinus is estimated to have occurred approximately 15 million years ago. Our results are in agreement with a previous study of the Anatolian fish genus Aphanius that also shows a diversification pattern driven by the Pliocene orogenic events. The distribution of clades of Aphanius and Pseudophoxinus overlap, and areas of distribution comprise the same geological units. The geological history of Anatolia is likely to have had a major impact on the diversification history of many taxa occupying central Anatolia; many of these taxa are likely to be still unrecognized as distinct. 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


There are approximately 10 million kinds of olganisms in the world, of which we have described some 15 percent. The rapid growth of the human population will cause most of the remainder to disappear from the earth before they are seen by a taxonomist. These facts suggest a more rigorous application of priorities in systematic biology as well as a careful review of the principles upon which our taxonomic system is based. Folk taxonomies all over the world are shallow hierarchically and comprise a strictly limited number of generic taxa ranging from about 250 to 800 forms applied to plants and a similar number applied to animals. These numbers are consistent, regardless of the richness of the environment in which the particular people live. Very few specific and varietal taxa are recognized in folk taxonomic systems. Until the invention of movable type in the mid-l5th century, written taxonomies were simply records of the folk taxonomies of particular regions. Subsequently, with the possibility for the wide distribution of books, it began to seem worth while to attempt to describe and name all species of plants and animals in the world. By the year 1700, 698 genera of plants were recognized; and by the year 1778, some 1350 genera, including tens of thousands of species. In 1789 de Jussieu interpolated the family as a higher level taxonomic category in an attempt to reduce the number of important units in the system to a memorable number. The family is still the focal point in systems of angiosperm classification at present, several hundred families being recognized. Problems with the taxonomic system stem largely from the fact that it is not designed as an information retrieval device. In folk taxonomies, names are given to organisms and these are used to communicate about the organisms with others who already know the culturally significant properties of the organisms being discussed. In dealing with the vast numbers of organisms that exist, we tend to overemphasize the process of classification and the decisions it involves at the expense of the information about the organisms that we are supposedly accumulating. Frequent changes in names exacerbate the difficulties of the system and render it still less useful for information retrieval. With modern electronic data processing equipment, it has become possible to record information about organisms, to retain this information in a data bank, and to utilize it for various purposes, including the construction of various taxonomic systems. The invention of high-speed electronic data processing equipment is seen as analogous to but more important than the invention of movable type in the history of systematic biology. By using such equipment to its full potentialities, we should be able to achieve a qualitative improvement in our perception of the living world.


A B S T R A C T Marketing capabilities such as advertising and distribution, in the past, were considered as an intermediate level marketing activities but our focus in this study is on higher potentials of marketing, innovation and branding. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effect of marketing capabilities on the market of small and medium enterprises in the province of Isfahan, Iran. The research consisted of small and medium enterprises in the industrial towns of the province of Esfahan using random sampling technique to gather the necessary data. Out of the 62 industrial parks and industrial zones in the province, there were 4,326 industrial units, which were active and the study distributes 384 questionnaires and managed to collect 308 properly filled ones. Using some statistical tests, the study has confirmed that innovation and branding influence positively on SMEs in this province.


In monitoring scenarios, Wireless Sensor Networks commonly transmit measurements from a large number of sensor nodes to a central data sink. This communication pattern is known as concast. Different approaches have been proposed to improve the energy-efficiency of concast and thus the lifetime of the WSN. However, energy-efficiency evaluations that are close to reality are missing. This paper systematically analyzes the influence of aggregation strategies, tree topologies, and different MAC protocols on the energy-efficiency of concast communication. We implement a sample concast application and analyze it using the AVRORA + simulator to gain realistic evaluation results. Our results disproof some common assumptions. We show that aggregation improves energy-efficiency only in a few cases and can even degrade it. Instead, MAC protocol and parametrization have a higher impact on energy-efficiency.


In Belgium, as in most countries in Western Europe, the most important conditions of employment for the vast majority of employees in the private sector are regulated by collective agreements. Nevertheless, the content of these collective agreements and the collective bargaining process in Belgium has not yet been the subject of much systematic research on the basis of an explicit scientific frame of reference. The study described here constitutes a first attempt at making the phenomenon of collective bargaining a subject of academic research. Starting with 37 JCs in the private sector, we analysed the content of the collective agreements that were negotiated and measured their relevant institutional, organisational and socio-economic characteristics. This makes it possible to answer questions such as: to what extent does the dominant level of negotiation (sectoral or company level) influence the content of the collective agreement? What effect does the level of organisation of trade union federations and employer federations have on the collective agreements negotiated by them? To what extent do socio-economic characteristics of the sector for which bargaining is taking place - such as the level of competition, sensitivity to exports or the structure of the sector - determine the results of the negotiations? This paper makes a start on coming up with answers to all these questions.


According to Lakoff (1975), tag questions are a feature of what she calls "women's language" and that women use them more than men. However studies conducted as a result of her claim show inconsistent findings. Many authorities on the subject such as Holmes (1984,1995), Coates and Cameron (1989), Dubois and Crouch (1975) are of the opinion that the use of tag questions is dependent on many linguistic and
extra-linguistic factors and not merely gender. Studies on the use of tag questions have been conducted in various contexts and situations but not specifically in the academic context at the tertiary level in Malaysia. In light of the relatively limited information that is available regarding the use of tag questions in the academic context, the nature of the study is descriptive and
exploratory. The study adopts a quantitative as well as a qualitative design. The study sample was made up of lecturers and students from the English Departments of Universiti Putra Malaysia, International Islamic University Malaysia and Tunku Abdul Rahman College. The data was collected by means of questionnaire and audiotape recordings of lectures and oral presentations. The findings suggest that in the academic arena, both men and women use different forms of tag questions, with women using them slightly or marginally more than men. The most frequently used tag questions are the comformative, responsive and
information seeking types, which function to request the agreement of the audience, to invite response from the audience and to express uncertainty respectively. Speakers usually feel that the use of tag questions boosts their level of confidence and creates a congenial atmosphere for interaction to take place. The study also revealed that a single category of question tag could function as different forms of tag questions and vice versa. In the Malaysian academic context the most frequently used linguistic realizations of question tag categories by both genders are OK and all right. This study sheds some light on the use of tag questions in the academic context. The findings of this study may help later studies to explore whether the use of tag question is dependent on factors such as different contexts, situations, intentions, cultures and varieties of English.


Scholars have become keenly aware of the growing importance attached to art-based enquiry in discussions of art and art education over the last two decades, and it has become a crucial topic among the Western academic community. However, it is not of major concern in Hong Kong, China or Taiwan. Only a small number of articles were found in which art-based research methodologies and methods in the Chinese context are discussed in any detailIt is evident that art-based enquiry is a topic unfamiliar to the Chinese academic community and that a re-conceptualisation of enquiry methods is called forIn light of the above, this paper provides a philosophical analysis of the discourse on the fundamental underpinning, enquiry approach and context of art-based researchIt examines topics relevant to this issue in the Chinese context.It argues that expanding discussions on art-based research will be beneficial to methodologies and methods used in the fields of both art and art educational research.


An algebra is called corecursive if from every coalgebra a unique coalgebra-to-algebra homomorphism exists into it. We prove that free corecursive algebras are obtained as coproducts of the terminal coalgebra (considered as an algebra) and free algebras. The monad of free corecursive algebras is proved to be the free corecursive monad, where the concept of corecursive monad is a generalization of Elgot's iterative monads, analogous to corecursive algebras generalizing completely iterative algebras. We also characterize the Eilenberg-Moore algebras for the free corecursive monad and call them Bloom algebras.


In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, questions persisted about how the potential cataclysm had been allowed to develop. A subsequent congressional investigation focused on what came to be known as the "photo gap" five weeks during which intelligence-gathering flights over Cuba had been attenuated.In "Blind over Cuba," David M. Barrett and Max Holland challenge the popular perception of the Kennedy administration's handling of the Soviet Union's surreptitious deployment of missiles in the Western Hemisphere. Rather than epitomizing it as a masterpiece of crisis management by policy makers and the administration, Barrett and Holland make the case that the affair was, in fact, a close call stemming directly from decisions made in a climate of deep distrust between key administration officials and the intelligence community.Because of White House and State Department fears of "another U-2 incident" (the infamous 1960 Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane), the CIA was not permitted to send surveillance aircraft on prolonged flights over Cuban airspace for many weeks, from late August through early October. Events proved that this was precisely the time when the Soviets were secretly deploying missiles in Cuba. When Director of Central Intelligence John McCone forcefully pointed out that this decision had led to a dangerous void in intelligence collection, the president authorized one U-2 flight directly over western Cuba--thereby averting disaster, as the surveillance detected the Soviet missiles shortly before they became operational.The Kennedy administration recognized that their failure to gather intelligence was politically explosive, and their subsequent efforts to influence the perception of events form the focus for this study. Using recently declassified documents, secondary materials, and interviews with several key participants, Barrett and Holland weave a story of intra-agency conflict, suspicion, and discord that undermined intelligence-gathering, adversely affected internal postmortems conducted after the crisis peaked, and resulted in keeping Congress and the public in the dark about what really happened.Fifty years after the crisis that brought the superpowers to the brink, "Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis" offers a new chapter in our understanding of that pivotal event, the tensions inside the US government during the cold war, and the obstacles Congress faces when conducting an investigation of the executive branch.


Taking up Jacques Derrida's concept of "the university without condition", we try to argue that the fundamental role of the university in the history of Europe has consisted in a specific kind of radicalism which, on the one hand, allows the individual for the exploration and pursuit of his/her interests and vocation, and, on the other, makes it mandatory to realize that the development of the individual always takes place in the space of conjoint communicative experience. Thus, what is at stake in any discussion of the university education is a future of democracy and citizenship. Using the works of, among others, Hanah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, Plato, Dewey, and Friedrich Holderlin the essay makes a point that to save what holds between people, i.e. to redeem the human bond in the society, the university always aims at the acts of Deweyan deliberation thus discussing and thus determining appropriate significance to the public and the individual.


Mono Lake is a large, alkaline, moderately hypersaline lake containing planktonic prokaryotes and viruses at concentrations that are among the highest reported for natural aquatic environments. We hypothesized that pronounced seasonality in physical and biological forcing and strong vertical gradients of chemical, physical, and biological parameters in this meromictic lake would result in dramatic temporal and spatial variability in concentrations of viruses and viral infec- tions of prokaryotes. To test this, we investigated the temporal, vertical, and horizontal variability in hydrography, microbial concentrations, and viral infections of prokaryotes at 4 stations over a 10 mo period in Mono Lake. The infection parameters quantified included the frequency of visibly infected cells (FVIC), burst size, intracellular virus diameter, and volume of infected cells. Concentrations of chlorophyll a (chl a), prokaryotes, and viruses in individual samples ranged from 3.3 to 150 µg l -1 , 0.10 to 1.2 × 10 11 l -1 , and 0.14 to 1.9 × 10 12 l -1 , respectively, with the highest concentrations of each occurring in the spring. For all data combined, concentrations of viruses were significantly correlated with concentrations of prokaryotes (r = 0.68, p < 0.001, n = 68), but not with chl a. FVIC ranged from <0.1 to 3.5% for the community, but reached as high as 13% for coccoid cells in 1 sample. Averaged over the water column, the estimated fraction of prokaryote mortality due to viral lysis ranged from a low of 3.7% in September, to a high of 16% in July. Burst size, intracellular virus diameters, and vol- umes of infected cells were temporally variable with a trend of decreasing burst size through the spring and summer as a result of larger viruses infecting smaller cells. In contrast, these parameters did not differ systematically among stations or between the anoxic and oxic layers of the lake. The data suggested that seasonal forcing is the primary source of variability in viral infections in the lake. Overall, viral lysis appeared to make a modest contribution to the mortality of prokaryotes, but high virus-host contact rates suggested that viruses are likely to influence the clonal diversity of picoplankton in the lake.


The study has employed a case study design to examine, describe and appraise contributions of classroom teachers, heads of schools, members of school committees and boards and the regional and district education staffs in the conduct of educational reforms. The major findings were that active participation in conduct of reforms is a function of a Human Resource Strategy integrating performance improvement decisions to overall mission of reforms. Such integration was so weak in this case, that management and development of teachers were unsystematically executed; definition, specification, planning, appraisal and rewarding of the teaching role were peripheries; selection and induction of heads of schools and members of committees and boards were unsystematic and inefficient empowerments for taking-up managerial, leadership and linkage roles; and schools were not sufficiently furnished with clear indicators and supportive systems and structures reflective of desired improvements.

The study recommends: (i) Strategic planning of education that links the goals, purpose and scope on one hand, with knowledge, skills and competences required for achieving them on the other. (ii) Induction and recruitment procedures strengthening the school level managers to efficiently administer reforms that improve students' learning. (iii) Clear guides for committees and boards' interactions with parents, other stakeholders, school programmes and regional and district education staffs. (iv) Regional and district support for occurrence of genuine school level change and improved students' learning.


This is the first comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the cost-effectiveness of both ground- and space-based astronomical observatories. The effectiveness is based on an analysis of the 15% most highly-cited papers published in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in the first half of every fourth year from 1958 to 1994, inclusive. The costs include both capital and annual operations costs.

The analysis shows that there has been a progressive swing away from small, ground-based, optical/IR telescopes over the period 1958-1994, in terms of highly-cited papers, so that by 1994 two-thirds of all ground-based, optical/IR results were being produced using telescopes > 2.5m diameter. The Hale 5m was the most effective optical/IR telescope over the whole period, but the AAT matched it in the second half of the period. The VLA was the most effective radio telescope, and the Einstein Observatory and lUE was the most effective spacecraft over the whole period, although the CGRO, ROSAT and HST produced high-quality results at the end of the period.

Large ground-based, optical/IR telescopes were more cost-effective, on average, than smaller telescopes; the two most cost-effective large telescopes over the second half of my period being the AAT and 3m Lick. Ground-based, optical/IR telescopes taken as a whole were more cost-effective than either ground-based radio telescopes or spacecraft observatories. The cost-effectiveness of spacecraft has increased over the last twenty years, however, although the high cost of the HST caused a reduction in overall spacecraft cost-effectiveness in 1994.

Finally, the facilities recommended in the decennial NRC reports are compared with those provided, and some of the reasons for the poor correlation discussed. The thesis ends with general conclusions and a discussion of possible lessons to be learnt.


Here we present a propagation model for Power-Line Communication (PLC) networks, based on a frequency domain analysis. First we set a simple two-port model of a network and calculate complex attenuation factor from the z-parameters, which are expressed in terms of impedances easily calculable/measurable from the network's ports. We provide all the elements for a simple and efficient propagation model, including propagation by crosstalk between different circuits in e.g. three phase networks, as well as influence of the loads connected to the ports of different circuits on such networks. We conclude that the model shown is suitable for PLC channels simulations, giving very accurate results and enabling modeling of wide band channel characteristics.


When Soviet forces entered the Kovno Ghetto (Lithuania) on 1 August 1944 they found a scene of mass destruction. What happened at Kovno was a reflection of the extent of the Final Solution, where the goal was to extinguish not only the Jews, but their entire culture. While the Final Solution was instituted throughout Europe, this paper will focus on the inhabitants of the Kovno Ghetto. As they faced extermination, Kovno Jews risked their lives to create detailed records including: lists and accounts of people killed, diagrams of the camp, artwork, journals, and photographs of the events in the camp. One act of defiance chronicled in the photographs and writings was the hidden school system that the Jews conducted to exercise one of the few powers they possessed, the power to preserve their culture. The history of clandestine schools is outlined using the diary of Avraham Tory, excerpts of the diaries of students, historical information provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and other historical resources. Kovno's schools are compared with traditional purposes of education and an exploration is conducted on what caused the focus of education to shift from traditional purposes to a preservation of culture and humanity. Therefore, the purpose of Kovno's schooling will be examined through reproduction theory in an attempt to explain why schooling continued in Kovno despite the threat of imminent death. Despite great obstacles, defiance manifested as a refusal to be forgotten and hidden schools were one means of perpetuating Jewish culture.


Inland water systems are generally supersaturated in carbon dioxide (CO2) and are increasingly recognized as playing an important role in the global carbon cycle. The Arctic may be particularly important in this respect, given the abundance of inland waters and carbon contained in Arctic soils; however, a lack of trace gas measurements from small streams in the Arctic currently limits this understanding. We investigated the spatial variability of CO2 evasion during the summer low-flow period from streams and rivers in the northern portion of the Kolyma River basin in north-eastern Siberia. To this end, partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and gas exchange velocities (k) were measured at a diverse set of streams and rivers to calculate CO2 evasion fluxes. We combined these CO2 evasion estimates with satellite remote sensing and geographic information system techniques to calculate total areal CO2 emissions. Our results show that small streams are substantial sources of atmospheric CO2 owing to high pCO2 and k, despite being a small portion of total inland water surface area. In contrast, large rivers were generally near equilibrium with atmospheric CO2. Extrapolating our findings across the Panteleikha–Ambolikha sub-watersheds demonstrated that small streams play a major role in CO2 evasion, accounting for 86% of the total summer CO2 emissions from inland waters within these two sub-watersheds. Further expansion of these regional CO2 emission estimates across time and space will be critical to accurately quantify and understand the role of Arctic streams and rivers in the global carbon budget.


The first rocks to be returned from the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts were basalts from the mare basins. Analysis of these rocks led to the hypothesis that the mare lavas were remelts of a lunar interior that had experienced an early, profound chemical differentiation event produced by crystallization of a planet-wide lunar magma ocean. As Apollo missions continued to explore and sample the lunar surface, an increasingly diverse suite of mare volcanic rocks was discovered. Mare magmatism is concentrated in the time interval of 3.8 to 3.0 billion years before present. Among the samples were tiny, glassy spheres of ultramafic composition that formed during volcanic fire-fountain eruptions into the cold lunar vacuum. The results of high-pressure and high-temperature laboratory melting experiments on lunar mare basalts and volcanic glasses, along with geochemical evidence and physical modeling, affirm that remelting of the solidified products of a deep magma ocean still provides the best explanation for lunar maria magmas. However, the initial depth of the lunar magma ocean, the physical processes that accompanied solidification, and the heat source for remelting cumulates to form these late basaltic outpourings remain incompletely understood and present challenging problems for current researchers.


The paper presents a stages model that guided the efforts of an academic unit at an Australian university to improve its research performance. Aiming to grow the research culture it used the re-engineering approach to bring about a transformation. There are four stages in the model used: establishing the current research presence, facilitating research interaction, increasing research transactions and achieving research transformation. Part of stage 1 was a survey to establish significant gaps between staff research expectations and perceptions. Progress for stages 1 and 2 were able to be managed within the academic unit but stage 3 was largely influenced by university processes. The final stage (stage 4) will only be reached in a year or two when the research expectations-perceptions survey should be repeated to measure the degree of change that has been achieved. The approach outlined in the paper should be of value to other academic units seeking to re-engineer their research efforts.


The rapid and accurate detection of food pathogens plays a critical role in the early prevention of foodborne epidemics. Current bacteria identification practices, including colony counting, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and immunological methods, are time consuming and labour intensive; they are not ideal for achieving the required immediate diagnosis. Different SERS substrates have been studied for the detection of foodborne microbes. The majority of the approaches are either based on costly patterning techniques on silicon or glass wafers or on methods which have not been tested in large scale fabrication. We demonstrate the feasibility of analyte specific sensing using mass-produced, polymer-based low-cost SERS substrate in analysing the chosen model microbe with biological recognition. The use of this novel roll-to-roll fabricated SERS substrate was combined with optimised gold nanoparticles to increase the detection sensitivity. Distinctive SERS spectral bands were recorded for Listeria innocua ATCC 33090 using an in-house build (785 nm) near infra red (NIR) Raman system. Results were compared to both those found in the literature and the results obtained from a commercial time-gated Raman system with a 532 nm wavelength laser excitation. The effect of the SERS enhancer metal and the excitation wavelength on the detected spectra was found to be negligible. The hypothesis that disagreements within the literature regarding bacterial spectra results from conditions present during the detection process has not been supported. The sensitivity of our SERS detection was improved through optimization of the concentration of the sample inside the hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) wells. Immunomagnetic separation (IMS) beads were used to assist the accumulation of bacteria into the path of the beam of the excitation laser. With this combination we have detected Listeria with gold enhanced SERS in a label free manner from such low sample concentrations as 104 CFU ml−1.


In the history of research, Luke 22:31-34 has been on the whole judged to be a rather awkward composition consisting of traditional material and Lucan wording. This article intends to show the completely Lucan character of the passage as well as the theological meaning Luke attached to it. In these verses, Luke reveals his literary mastery as well as his theological overall project in Luke-Acts: the primacy of Peter is rooted in the prayer of Jesus Christ himself during His Passion.


Precision measurement of manufactured parts commonly uses contact measurement methods. A Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) mounted probe touches the surface of the part, recording the probe's tip position at each contact. Recently, devices have been developed that continuously scan the probe tip across the surface, allowing points to be measured more quickly. Contact measurement is accurate and fast for shapes that are easily parameterized such as a sphere or a plane, but is slow and requires considerable user input for more general objects such as those with free-form surfaces. Phase stepping fringe projection and photogrammetry are common non-contact shape measurement methods. Photogrammetry builds a 3D model of feature points from images of an object taken from multiple perspectives. In phase stepping fringe projection a series of sinusoidal patterns, with a phase shift between each, is projected towards an object. A camera records a corresponding series of images. The phase of the pattern at each imaged point is calculated and converted to a 3D representation of the object's surface. Techniques combining phase stepping fringe projection and photogrammetry were developed and are described here. The eventual aim is to develop an optical probe for a CMM to enable non-contact measurement of objects in an industrial setting. For the CMM to accurately report its position the probe must be small, light, and robust. The methods currently used to provide a phase shift require either an accurately calibrated translation stage to move an internal component, or a programmable projector. Neither of these implementations can be practically mounted on a CMM due to size and weight limits or the delicate parts required. A CMM probe consisting of a single camera and a fringe projector was developed. The fringe projector projects a fixed fringe pattern. Phase steps are created by moving the CMM mounted probe, taking advantage of the geometry of the fringe projection system. New techniques to calculate phase from phase stepped images created by relative motion of probe and object are proposed, mathematically modelled, and tested experimentally. Novel techniques for absolute measurement of surfaces by viewing an object from different perspectives are developed. A prototype probe is used to demonstrate measurements of a variety of objects.


Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) offer a promising therapeutic method for cardiac tissue regeneration. However, to monitor the fate of MSCs for tissue repair, a better stem cell delivery carrier is needed. Developing a unique injectable and shear-thinning dual cross-linked hybrid hydrogel for MSC delivery for cardiac tissue engineering is highly desirable. This hydrogel was synthesised using guest: host reaction based on alginate-cyclodextrin (Alg-CD) and adamantane-graphene oxide (Ad-GO). Here, the role of macromere concentration (10 and 12%) on the MSC function is discussed. Our hybrid hydrogels reveal a suitable oxygen pathway required for cell survival. However, this value is strongly dependent on the macromere concentrations, while the hydrogels with 12% macromere concentration (2DC12) significantly enhanced the oxygen permeability value (1.16-fold). Moreover, after two weeks of culture, rat MSCs (rMSCs) encapsulated in Alg-GO hydrogels expressed troponin T (TNT) and GATA4 markers. Noticeably, the 2DC12 hydrogels enhance rMSCs differentiation markers (1.30-times for TNT and 1.21-times for GATA4). Overall, our findings indicate that tuning the hydrogel compositions regulates the fate of encapsulated rMSCs within hydrogels. These outcomes may promote the advancement of new multifunctional platforms that consider the spatial and transient guidelines of undifferentiated cell destiny and capacity even after transplantation for heart tissue regeneration.


The functional food concept has in recent years, moved progressively towards the development of dietary supplements that may stimulate gut microbial composition and activities. The rationale behind these advances is consequent to the realization that gut microflora has profound influence on the
host's health. The human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) represents an ecosystem of the highest complexity and is very dynamic in composition. The micro biota exists in a commensal, symbiotic or an antagonist microbial relationship. Among more than 400 species of bacteria present in the GIT of an adult human being, bifidobacteria and lactobacillus are considered to be the most beneficial to human health. Members of these genera are thought to enhance digestion, adsorption of nutrients, prevention of colonization by pathogens, decreasing serum cholesterol and stimulation of immune responses. The ability of these bifidobacteria and lactobacilli to ferment non-digestible oligosaccharides may be an important characteristic which enables them to establish themselves in the colon. Studies were undertaken by researchers in our laboratory to elucidate the probiotic characteristics and effects of the bifidobacteria species isolated from the human GIT and to propose screening, cultivation and preservation and delivery techniques for this bacterium.


We provide compelling evidence that a previously introduced model of non-perturbative
2d Lorentzian quantum gravity exhibits (two-dimensional) flat-space behaviour
when coupled to Ising spins. The evidence comes from both a high-temperature
expansion and from Monte Carlo simulations of the combined gravity-matter system.
This weak-coupling behaviour lends further support to the conclusion that
the Lorentzian model is a genuine alternative to Liouville quantum gravity in two
dimensions, with a different, and much 'smoother' critical behaviour.


This book provides probabilistic, deterministic and geolocation-aware approaches for adaptive connectivity, robust security and privacy-aware communications for vehicular cyber physical systems (CPS). It presents mathematical models and numerical results obtained from experiments and simulations, and a trade-off between connectivity, security and privacy for vehicular communications. Connectivity between vehicles is crucial for vehicular CPS. Intelligent vehicular CPS provides not only road safety and traffic efficiency by exchanging information among vehicles, but also offers infotainment services to passengers using a variety of wireless technologies to forward the traffic/trajectory information with Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), and Vehicle-to-Roadside-to-Vehicle (V2R2V) communications. The book covers how to ensure that the message received from other vehicles is secure and trustworthy, rather than malicious. Further, it reveals how to make sure that the privacy of participants is not revealed while validating the received message. Researchers and professionals working with vehicular networks, smart systems, cyber physical systems, and mobile privacy will find this book valuable.


Anterior shoulder stabilization has become the treatment of choice for athletes after anterior glenohumeral dislocation. Rehabilitation after surgical stabilization plays a vital role in returning the athlete to their desired sports participation level. Historically, rehabilitation, progression, and return to sport clearance after anterior stabilization surgery has been based on tissue healing and elapsed time from surgery. In general, good to excellent functional results have been achieved with this approach and a large proportion of athletes are able to return to sports, with low recurrence rates. However, substantially fewer are able to return to preinjury levels of sports participation; inadequate assessment and thus management of risk factors may be a potential cause. Rehabilitation guidelines and evidence provide only scant information for the clinician when assessing an athlete's preparedness to return to sports. Additionally, the unique demands of each sport and non-modifiable factors create an additional layer of complexity in return to sport decision making. In this review article, rehabilitation guidelines after anterior shoulder stabilization, examination of factors utilized to determine return to sports preparedness, and clinical tests and measures that may be used during decision making are discussed. The importance of matching rehabilitation interventions based on the goals of each stage and criterion based progressions are emphasized. Establishment of the fundamental motion, strength, and stabilization is paramount before entering into return to sport preparation and testing. Once the athlete is nearing return to sport, appropriate tests and measures must should be performed to replicate the demands commonly placed on the shoulder during sports. Based on the available evidence and the unique functional requirements of each sport, it is recommended that a battery of tests and measures are utilized to assess multiple aspects of sports participation.


The Economics of QWERTY suggests that historical accidents can trap economies in inefficient equilibria. This paper suggests that such accidents do not have the force that proponents claim. The paper presents a mechanism that may unravel a locational advantage caused by an historical accident. In the model, there are agglomeration benefits from concentrating industry in a particular location because it enables a large variety of local suppliers to emerge. Firms differ by the extent to which they purchase from local suppliers. Low-tier firms purchase little; high-tier firms purchase more. When the industry migrates, the lowest-tier products move first.


Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu Abstract Previously we carried out experiments from the perspective of our spin-mediated consciousness theory to test the possibility of quantum-entangling the quantum entities inside the brain with those of an external chemical substance. We found that applying magnetic pulses to the brain when an anesthetic was placed in between caused the brain to feel the effect of said anesthetic as if the test subject had actually inhaled the same. We further found that drinking water exposed to magnetic pulses, laser light or microwave when an anesthetic was placed in between also causes brain effects in various degrees. Through additional experiments, we verified that the said brain effect was indeed the consequence of quantum entanglement. These results defy common belief that quantum entanglement alone cannot be used to transmit information and support the possibility of a quantum brain. While our reported results are under independent verifications by other groups, we report here our experimental findings of non-local chemical, thermal and gravitational effects in simple physical systems such as reservoirs of water quantum-entangled with water being manipulated in a remote reservoir. With the aids of high-precision instruments, we have found that the pH value, temperature and gravity of a liquid such as water in the detecting reservoirs can be non-locally affected through manipulating water in the remote reservoir. In particular, the pH value changes in the same direction as that being manipulated; the temperature can change against that of local environment; and the gravity can change against local gravity. These non-local effects are all reproducible, surprisingly robust and support a quantum brain theory such as our spin mediated consciousness theory. They can be used for non-local signaling and many other purposes. We suggest that they are mediated by quantum entanglement between nuclear and/or electron spins in the treated liquids and discuss the profound implications of these results.


A method for restoring an optical image which is subjected to low-pass frequency filtering is presented. It is assumed that the object whose image is restored is of finite spatial extent. The problem is treated as an algebraic image-restoration problem which is then solved as a quadratic programming problem with bounded variables. The regularization technique for the ill-posed system is to replace the consistent system of the quadratic programming problem by an approximate system of smaller rank. The rank which gives a best or near-best solution is estimated. This method is a novel one, and it compares favorably with other known methods. Computer-simulated examples are presented. Comments and conclusions are given.


People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suffer from a profound social disability. Social neuroscience is the study of the parts of the brain that support social interactions or the "social brain." This module provides an overview of ASD and focuses on understanding how social brain dysfunction leads to ASD. Our increasing understanding of the social brain and its dysfunction in ASD will allow us to better identify the genes that cause ASD and will help us to create and pick out treatments to better match individuals. Because social brain systems emerge in infancy, social neuroscience can help us to figure out how to diagnose ASD even before the symptoms of ASD are clearly present. This is a hopeful time because social brain systems remain malleable well into adulthood and thus open to creative new interventions that are informed by state-of-the-art science.


Recently, liver transplantation (LT) has been increasingly performed for unresectable hepatoblastoma (HB) with acceptable results. We conducted a national survey of cases undergoing living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) for HB to evaluate their outcomes. Thirty‐nine patients (28 males and 11 females with a median age at LDLT of 3.6 years) who had undergone LDLT for HB by the end of 2009 were enrolled in this study. The clinical data were collected from their medical records via a questionnaire survey in 2011 (median follow‐up = 4.6 years). Thirteen patients (33.3%) had extrahepatic lesions before LDLT. Thirty‐eight patients (97.4%) received chemotherapy, and 15 (38.5%) underwent hepatectomy before LDLT. Twenty‐seven patients (69.2%) were alive without recurrence after LDLT, and 12 patients (30.8%) suffered from recurrence. The most common site of recurrence was the lung (9 cases), which was followed by the graft liver (6 cases). The median interval from LDLT to recurrence was 5.5 months. Four of the 9 cases (44.4%) with lung metastasis underwent surgical resection, and 3 were alive without any tumor recurrence. Eight patients died because of tumor recurrence. The multivariate landmark analysis revealed that the independent recurrence risk factors were a high alpha‐fetoprotein (AFP) level at diagnosis [≥500,000 ng/mL; hazard ratio (HR) = 7.86, P = 0.010], the presence of extrahepatic lesions before LDLT (HR = 3.82, P = 0.042), and a high AFP level at LDLT (≥4000 ng/mL; HR = 9.19, P = 0.036). The actuarial 3‐ and 5‐year patient survival rates were 84.3% and 77.3%, respectively. In conclusion, with appropriate timing for scheduled LT, LDLT provides a valuable alternative treatment with excellent results for children with HB. Liver Transpl 20:333‐346, 2014. © 2013 AASLD.


Numerous FPSE designs have been demonstrated, tested and maybe commercially produced for different applications since Beale had invented the first design of the FPSE. The proposed design of FPSE is intended to operate at atmosphere pressure and low heat source temperature for power generation applications. The proposed design aims to address some of the disadvantages associated to the FPSEs, such as seal leakage, hysteresis losses and side forces, with the considerations of the mechanism and assembly to be simple and straightforward. The focus was on the components and the design of the displacer and the power piston as they are of the main parts in the FPSE influence its operation and performance. The displacer and the power piston have improved by integrating sorts of flexible materials that being used in replace of the typical mechanical springs. The flexible metal component used in replace of the conventional mechanical springs has the properties of elasticity, rigidity, low density and low thermal conductivity beside its cylindrical housing shape. A prototype for the novel configuration with the integration of stainless bellows and rubber diaphragm is built to be work at low and medium temperature range. The engine is gradually improved so that the objectives of the configuration are achieved. The FPSE prototype is demonstrated and tested in the lab to assure that the new configuration is working properly. The engine is new in terms of design mechanical configuration; however, it showed aspiring results.


ISB to cease operations after making major contributions to the resolution of difficult and longstanding auditor independence issues. (AICPA 2001b) With that headline, the Independence Standards Board (ISB or Board) announced that it was closing its doors. Why did the Board dissolve before officially adopting its largely completed conceptual framework? What does the Board's demise mean for the future of independence rule making? This commentary is a pathology--which the dictionary defines as "the scientific study of the nature of disease, its causes, processes, development, and consequences" (1) -- of the ISB's conceptual framework project, which ultimately affected the Board's ability to survive. FORMATION AND OPERATION OF THE ISB The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is responsible for developing rules to ensure the independence of auditors of public entities. The SEC, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the largest auditing firms agreed in June 1997 to form an. independent, private body to establish independence standards applicable to the auditors of SEC registrants (SEC 1998, Sec. II). Funded by the accounting profession, that body--the ISB--consisted of four well-known and highly respected public members, one of whom was elected chair, and four members from the accounting profession--three CEOs from the Big 5 and the CEO of the AICPA. The SEC's Chief Accountant, or his/her designee, had observer status at Board meetings. An Executive Director and a small staff coordinated the Board's operations (which began in October 1997), helped inform the public about the ISB's activities, and ensured regular communications with the SEC, the AICPA, and regulators and standard setters outside the U.S. (2) In addition to issuing three independence standards, the Board started a project to develop a framework to serve as a conceptual foundation for its future work. The ISB retained us as project directors and appointed a task force composed of auditors, audit committee members, academics, state board of accountancy representatives, analysts and other financial statement users, corporate executives, representatives from international standard setters, the AICPA chair, and the SEC observer. The Board also retained a business ethicist to assist in the project, and a group of three Board members monitored the framework project. To stimulate public debate about conceptual issues, in February 2000 the Board issued Discussion Memorandum (DM) 00-1, A Conceptual Framework for Auditor Independence (ISB 2000a). After considering the comments received during the exposure period from individuals and groups in the academic, auditing, standard-setting, and investor communities, the Board directed the staff and consultants, assisted by the project task force, to develop an Exposure Draft (ED) of a proposed Statement of Independence Concepts. That ED was issued in November 2000 (ISB 2000b). Based on additional public comments and further assistance from project task force members, the Board's oversight task force, and others, the staff and consultants revised the ED and prepared a final draft of a conceptual framework for the Board's review. (3) CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES IN THE FRAMEWORK PROJECT The most significant debates among the parties involved in the framework's development concerned the role of independence in appearance and the appropriateness of a threats and safeguards approach. The nature of those debates provides important insights into the future of auditor independence regulation. Independence in Appearance The appearance of independence has long been part of auditors' ethical standards. (4) Nevertheless, how to incorporate investors' and other financial statement users' perceptions into a conceptual framework for independence was extremely controversial. (5) There was little disagreement among the project's participants that improving financial statement credibility and enhancing user confidence are important outcomes of an audit and an auditor who appears to be independent contributes to those outcomes. …


Particularly interesting textual evidence on the use of the veil in ancient Mesopotamia comes from 15th-14th century BC Assyria. No comprehensive code of laws has reached us from this age, but only a collection of 14 tablets, which are named ad hoc "Middle Assyrian Laws", from the religious and political capital Aššur. Veiling was prescribed for appearances in public of married women, even if widows, but also applied to the vaster class of women who were 'Assyrian', i.e. of free status and native-born. On the other hand, prostitutes had no right to wear a veil, and severe punishments were foreseen for transgression; and the same applied to slave women. These harsh rulings on the veil and other matters in the "Middle Assyrian Laws" do not, curiously enough, find counterparts in the contemporaneous legal deeds, which show women endowed with a much more liberal status. Perhaps the "Laws" reflected normative codifications applying to the stricter moral and intellectual 'climate' of the city of Aššur, dominated by its temple and royal palace.


Abstract This paper is a representation of a live, audio-visual keynote address given at the Creative Citizens Conference in London (September 2014), co-presented by Hargreaves (IH) and Hartley (JH). It seeks to combine (i) autobiographical narrative storytelling – two of them, in fact; with (ii) an attempt to build concepts, themes and strategies out of that narrative, and how the two stories did indeed arrive at 'one destination'; and (iii) plentiful use of visual prompts, combined with part-scripted, part-improvised dialogic commentary. This approach was risky on the day; it is even harder to render into two dimensions, not least because a vital element, the audience, cannot be represented in that format. Nevertheless, we offer the 'paper' as a record of how two intersecting lives and careers were both drawn to the 'Creative Citizens' idea, not only as a research problem but also as a component of the speakers' own practice – one as a high profile journalist turned academic; the other as an academic with interests in alternative models of journalism. We think that our bio-trajectories are relevant to the way that the research project led by Hargreaves has been tackled.


This paper discusses three studies on changing people's attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language. In Study 1, sport management students (N= 164) were asked how to persuade others to use nonsexist language. Many suggested education. Study 2 participants (N = 201) were asked if they had ever discussed sexist language in instructional settings. Analysis of their attitudes revealed an interaction between gender and instruction. Study 3 (N = 248) tested the effects of 3 types of instruction on student attitudes about sexist/nonsexist language. After a 50-minute intervention, Study 3 participants were generally undecided about sexist/nonsexist language, and their attitudes did not differ across instructional strategies (p > .01). In all conditions, males were significantly less receptive to nonsexist language than females (p < .01). This "gender gap" was magnified by a combination of direct and indirect instruction. Until more is known, the authors propose (a) modeling and (b) instruction grounded in empathy ...


The fifth generation of mobile communication is characterized by ultra-dense cellular networks, where massive small cells are deployed in hot spots to increase the network capacity. As a promising technology in the small-cell scenario, coordinated multipoint (CoMP) is proposed to improve cell-edge user throughput by converting inter-cell interference into useful signals. In this paper, we study how reconfigurable fronthaul enabled by optical networks can help improve the CoMP service. According to the baseband unit (BBU) that serves the purposes of coordination, we classify the CoMP service into intra-BBU CoMP and inter-BBU CoMP. Inter-BBU CoMP will cause data exchange between the BBUs, which requires backhaul to support a large bandwidth and low latency. Our proposal is to associate coordinated RRHs with a single BBU to reduce the data exchange. To achieve this goal, we propose two heuristic algorithms: a minimum-cut graph-based lightpath reconfiguration (MCG-LR) and a BBU weightbased lightpath reconfiguration (BW-LR). The two algorithms are emulated on a time and wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network-based fronthaul under different cell conditions. The simulation results show that the reconfigurability of fronthaul can improve the CoMP service through elastic radio resource allocation. In addition, we can observe that MCG-LR achieves a lower inter-BBU CoMP ratio and lower BBU migration than BW-LR after lightpath (wavelength) reconfiguration.


A novel "sandwich" microreactor designed as a thin (∼ 300 $\mu$m) porous plate of sintered metal fibers (SMF), sandwiched between metallic plates is reported. The SMF surface was coated by Fe-ZSM-5 thin film (< 2 $\mu$m) rendering a catalyst highly active in the decomposition of N2O. The 3D open microstructure of SMF plates presents a low pressure drop during the passage of reacting gases. The high thermoconductivity of metallic SMF improves the heat transfer, avoiding hotspot formation during exothermic reactions. The temperature measured in the middle and at the outlet of the reactor confirmed the isothermal reactor operation. The sandwich microreactor showed high permeability and a narrow residence time distribution close to an ideal plug-flow reactor. The kinetics of the N2O decomposition was studied and the reaction was shown not to be limited by mass transfer when conducted in the microreactor.


The outer mitochondrial membrane enzyme carnitine palmitoyltransferase I (CPT I) represents the initial and regulated step in the beta-oxidation of fatty acids. It exists in at least two isoforms, denoted L (liver) and M (muscle) types, with very different kinetic properties and sensitivities to malonyl-CoA. Here we have examined the relative expression of the CPT I isoforms in two different models of adipocyte differentiation and in a number of rat tissues. Adipocytes from mice, hamsters and humans were also evaluated. Primary monolayer cultures of undifferentiated rat preadipocytes expressed solely L-CPT I, but significant levels of M-CPT I emerged after only 3 days of differentiation in vitro; in the mature cell M-CPT I predominated. In sharp contrast, the murine 3T3-L1 preadipocyte expressed essentially exclusively L-CPT I, both in the undifferentiated state and throughout the differentiation process in vitro. This was also true of the mature mouse white fat cell. Fully developed adipocytes from the hamster and human behaved similarly to those of the rat. Thus the mouse white fat cell differs fundamentally from those of the other species examined in terms of tis choice of a key regulatory enzyme in fatty acid metabolism. In contrast, brown adipose tissue from all three rodents displayed the same isoform profiles, each expressing overwhelmingly M-CPT I. Northern blot analysis of other rat tissues established L-CPT I as the dominant isoform not only in liver but also in kidney, lung, ovary, spleen, brain, intestine and pancreatic islets. In addition to its primacy in skeletal muscle, heart and fat, M-CPT I was also found to dominate the testis. The same inter-tissue isoform pattern (with the exception of white fat) was found in the mouse. Taken together, the data bring to light an intriguing divergence between white adipocytes of the mouse and other mammalian species. They also raise a cautionary note that should be considered in the choice of animal model used in further studies of fat cell physiology.


A video copy detection system that is based on content fingerprinting and can be used for video indexing and copyright applications is proposed. The system relies on a fingerprint extraction algorithm followed by a fast approximate search algorithm. The fingerprint extraction algorithm extracts compact content-based signatures from special images constructed from the video. Each such image represents a short segment of the video and contains temporal as well as spatial information about the video segment. These images are denoted by temporally informative representative images. To find whether a query video (or a part of it) is copied from a video in a video database, the fingerprints of all the videos in the database are extracted and stored in advance. The search algorithm searches the stored fingerprints to find close enough matches for the fingerprints of the query video. The proposed fast approximate search algorithm facilitates the online application of the system to a large video database of tens of millions of fingerprints, so that a match (if it exists) is found in a few seconds. The proposed system is tested on a database of 200 videos in the presence of different types of distortions such as noise, changes in brightness/contrast, frame loss, shift, rotation, and time shift. It yields a high average true positive rate of 97.6% and a low average false positive rate of 1.0%. These results emphasize the robustness and discrimination properties of the proposed copy detection system. As security of a fingerprinting system is important for certain applications such as copyright protections, a secure version of the system is also presented.


A Photonic Crystal (PC) with a surface defect layer (made of dimers) is studied in the microwave regime. The dispersion diagram is obtained with the Plane Wave Expansion Method. The dispersion diagram reveals that the dimer-layer supports a surface mode with negative slope. Two facts are noted: First, a guided (bounded) wave is present, propagating along the surface of the dimer-layer. Second, above the light line, the fast traveling mode couple to the propagating spectra and as a result a directive (narrow beam) radiation with backward characteristics is observed and measured. In this leaky mode regime, symmetrical radiation patterns with respect to the normal to the PC surface are attained. Beam steering is observed and measured in a 70 degrees angular range when frequency ranges in the 11.88-13.69 GHz interval. Thus, a PC based surface wave structure that acts as a frequency dependent leaky wave antenna is presented. Angular radiation pattern measurements are in agreement with those obtained via numerical simulations that employ the Finite Difference Time Domain Method (FDTD). Finally, the backward radiation characteristics that in turn suggest the existence of a backward leaky mode in the dimer-layer are experimentally verified using a halved dimer-layer structure.