Reproducibility in the synthesis of nanomaterials is a crucial aspect for their real-life applications. It is particularly pertinent in the context of gold nanoparticles, where a plethora of seeded-growth methods are being developed to control particle morphology and size. The translation of such methods to manufacturing can be hindered by poor reproducibility of the seed production step. This study focuses on the development of a highly reproducible platform for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles, as potential substrates for glucose sensing. A flow reactor was designed, starting from a detailed study of the synthesis in batch. The well-established Turkevich synthesis was investigated via in situ time-resolved UV-vis spectroscopy. In order to enhance the reproducibility of the synthesis the effect of passivating the gold precursor stock before its use in the synthesis was investigated. It is shown that starting from a prepassivated precursor provided improved control over the initial reaction stage, at the expense of a small increase in the reaction time. At the optimal reaction conditions, the proposed modified Turkevich method allowed for the synthesis in batch of ∼12 nm monodisperse (RSD ∼10%) particles, with a variability from batch to batch of only ∼5%. The information gathered from the batch study, in particular the reaction time, was used to translate the synthesis from batch to flow. The system utilized for the flow synthesis consisted of a segmented flow reactor, where an organic stream was employed to segment the reactive aqueous stream to avoid reactor fouling and improve monodispersity. The use of segmented flow enables treating each droplet as a "travelling batch", hence allowing the direct use of the kinetic data obtained in batch to design the flow reactor, leading to the rapid identification of the minimum residence time to allow for reaction completion. The flow reactor enabled the synthesis of ∼11 nm monodisperse (RSD ∼10%) particles, with full precursor conversion and reproducibility between reactor runs higher than that obtained in batch (variability of ∼2%). The flow-produced gold nanoparticles were tested for glucose sensing, exploiting their glucose oxidase-mimicking behaviour and demonstrated satisfactory glucose detection in the range of 1–10 mM.


Recyclable catalysts and oxidation chemistry are two important areas in the field of Green Chemistry. In this thesis, research efforts towards the development of a re-usable aerobic oxidation catalyst arc described. The background to this field and a review of relevant literature are presented in Chapter 1. -- In Chapter 2, the preparation and characterization of a series of six potentially tetradentate di(pyridyl-imine) ligands presented. In each case the pyridyl-imine groups were separated by a different linking unit (in L1, CH₂CH₂CH₂(SiMe₂O)₂₀SiMe₂Ch₂CH₂CH₂ ; in L2, CH₂CH₂CH₂SiMe₂OSiMe₂CH₂Ch₂CH₂ ; in L3, CH₂CH₂ ; in L4, CH₂(CH₂)₄CH₂ ; in L5, CH₂(CH₂)₇CH₂ ; in L6, CH₂CH₂CH₂OCH₂CH₂OCH₂CH₂ OCH₂CH₂CH₂). The solubilities of L1 and L2 in supercriticaI carbon dioxide were determined. The coordination chemistry of L1-L2 with Cu(I) was studied by UV-Vis, multinuclear NMR and IR spectroscopies, MALDI -TOF and ESI mass spectrometries and elemental analysis. Dicopper complexes of L3-L6 were prepared for comparison. PGSE (pulsed-gradient spin-echo) NMR spectroscopy was used to determine the hydrodynamic radii of the species in solution and comparison of these data with computational models for the complexes was made. There is no evidence to support linear metallopolymer formation but data suggest that [2+2] and [1+1] metallomacrocyles were formed, with siloxane linking groups encouraging the formation of [1+1] species. Solid-state NMR data on [Cu(Li)]PF₆) indicate the presence of two different environments for the PF₆⁻ anions and this could be due to the location of PF₆⁻ anions both inside and outside the metallomacrocyclic species. -- In Chapter 3, an investigation into the ability of L1-L6 in catalytic oxidations of alcohols when combined with copper bromide (CUBT2) and 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidyl-1-oxy (TEMPO) is described. Analogous bidentate ligand (L 7) showed poorer catalytic activity than L 1- IA Also, the ratio of Cu:ligand was of crucial importance in maintaining high yields. The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) derived pyridyl-imine terminated ligand L1 combined with copper (II) ions afforded an effective and selective catalyst for aerobic oxidations of primary and secondary alcohols under aqueous conditions. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggested that bimetallic complexes may be playing a role in the catalytic transformation. -- In Chapter 4, oxidation of amines using a copper-containing catalytic system is described. CuBr₂ with TEMPO was successfully employed for the aerobic oxidation of primary and secondary benzyl amines in aqueous acetonitrile. The same catalyst system was also used for oxidative cross-couplings of benzylamines with anilines. The electronic and steric properties of the aniline partner were found to be of crucial importance in determining reactivity or lack thereof. A mechanism for these reactions is proposed based on the data obtained to date. In the absence of benzyl amines, electron-rich anilines were found to undergo dehydrogenative coupling and yields of the resulting azo products could be increased by replacing CuBr₂ with CuBr. No ligand (e.g. pyridine) is required for either reaction to proceed and presumably water and acetonitrile solvate the copper-containing intermediates. -- Chapter 5 contains a summary of the thesis and suggestions for future research in this area.


Agriculture in the United States (US) cycles large quantities of nitrogen (N) to produce food, fuel, and fiber and is a major source of excess reactive nitrogen (Nr) in the environment. Nitrogen lost from cropping systems and animal operations moves to waterways, groundwater, and the atmosphere. Changes in climate and climate variability may further affect the ability of agricultural systems to conserve N. The N that escapes affects climate directly through the emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), and indirectly through the loss of nitrate (NO3 - ), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia to downstream and downwind ecosystems that then emit some of the N received as N2 Oa nd NO x. Emissions of NOx lead to the formation of tropospheric ozone, a greenhouse gas that can also harm crops directly. There are many opportunities to mitigate the impact of agricultural N on climate and the impact of climate on agricultural N. Some are available today; many need further research; and all await effective incentives to become adopted. Research needs can be grouped into four major categories: (1) an improved understanding of agricultural N cycle responses to changing climate; (2) a systems-level understanding of important crop and animal systems sufficient to identify key interactions and feedbacks; (3) the further development and testing of quantitative models capable of predicting N-climate interactions with confidence across a wide variety of crop-soil-climate combinations; and (4) socioecological research to better understand the incentives necessary to achieve meaningful deployment of realistic solutions.


In this issue, the JCI inaugurates a new series on Science in Medicine. With this series and another on Science and Society, the journal seeks to expand its role as a voice for important issues that impact the academic health care community. The Science in Medicine series is designed to help bridge the gap between scientific discoveries made at the bench and the practice of medicine. The first article in the Science in Medicine series examines how advances in the understanding of the molecular pathophysiology of asthma have formed the basis for novel and effective therapeutics that are used daily in patient care (1). The Science and Society series looks to explore the meaning behind society's many ways (e.g., governmental policy, economics, ethics, religion, and politics) of molding the course of biomedical education and research. The first articles in the Science and Society series addressed the complexities that intellectual property rights have introduced into the conduct of biomedical research (2) and shortcomings in the infrastructure of science education in the United States (3). Future articles will focus on the decline of the academic mission in U.S. health centers, the future of biomedical research publishing, and the impact of politics on scientific research.

Last spring the JCI conducted a readership survey to help guide the new Editorial Board in plotting a course for the journal over the next five years. Interestingly, of the 551 respondents, 96% of whom indicated that they are involved in biomedical research, over 67% reported that they also participate in patient care and teaching. This response supports the editors' desire to enhance the scope of the JCI and make it an important journal for practicing academic physicians to read on a regular basis. It is our hope that the Science in Medicine series will become a valuable asset to the teaching physician on rounds and to medical students and house staff. As one anonymous respondent wrote, "It would be good to make [the JCI] more appealing to clinicians who do not do basic research but are interested in basic research." Ultimately, better-informed physicians are better physicians for their patients.

The editors have asked the authors of Science in Medicine series articles to present historical perspectives of common diseases in which they are recognized experts as well as comprehensive reviews of the contribution of "New Biology" to understanding mechanisms, diagnostics, and therapeutics of these diseases. While the emphasis will be on the present-day practice of medicine, insights into future directions for new therapeutics will also be included. The goal is to write the kind of paper that attendings (clinicians) will want to bring on rounds with them to help teach house staff and medical students.

In the JCI survey, 67% of respondents indicated that they still prefer the print version of the JCI, even though it is available, for free, on-line. Indeed, the JCI is the only major peer-reviewed biomedical research journal that is available barrier-free on-line. This includes all of the front matter of the journal as well as all scientific articles. However, it is likely that the front matter is read more completely by subscribers to the print version of the journal, and the editors are investing considerable energy toward increasing the value of this front matter to the readership.

These new efforts are in line with the editors' vision for the JCI as the premier journal for peer-reviewed biomedical research and commentary. In a sense, these changes do not represent new directions for the JCI, which, for the past three quarters of a century, has been a leading platform for the exposition of biomedical research. Rather, the new initiatives look to fulfill a promise that can best be met by a journal with sufficient history and of substantial quality to serve a community of increasing diversity in a time when informational overload threatens to become a new diagnosis. All of these efforts will depend on the continued good will and incredible energy provided by the contributors, reviewers, editors, and staff who labor with affection to produce a good read that provokes thought and contributes meaningfully to the body of scientific knowledge.


Title of proposed thesis: THIS NEW WHOLE: AN EXPLORATION INTO THE FACTORS OF SELF-AUTHORSHIP IN COLLEGE STUDENTS James Robert Neumeister, Master of Arts, 2007 Thesis directed by: Dr. Susan R. Komives, Professor Department of Counseling and Personnel Services College Student Personnel Program Over the past few years, self-authorship has become one of the most promising concepts and theories to emerge in college student development literature (Baxter Magolda, 2001b; Kegan, 1994). Despite an increasing amount of scholarship on this topic, the understanding of self-authorship remains incomplete, especially with regard to a clear comprehension of its structure, dimensions, and components. Using an exploratory factor analysis with oblique rotation to study the responses of over 3,500 college students at 52 institutions of higher education on 89 variables associated with self-authorship, this investigation identified eight, highly intercorrelated factors or lines of development associated with self-authorship: (1) Interdependence; (2) Engaging Diverse Views; (3) Dissonance and Change; (4) Cognitive Complexity; (5) Engaged Responsibility; (6) Personal and Communal Efficacy; (7) Congruence; and (8) Openness to New Ideas and Experiences. Implications of these results are outlined for current self-authorship theory, higher education policy and practice, and future research.


Governments are turning to Social Media as a way to engage citizens in public policies through online debates and discussion forums. Together with the communication team of a government department, we are exploring another facet of government-citizens communication, and another opportunity for governments to exploit Social Media. In particular, we are investigating whether online communities could become a new channel to support specific groups of citizens. In this model, a government would facilitate the creation of online communities for specific cohorts of people sharing goals and needs as well as act as mediator. This model would enable governments to capitalise on the power of crowd-sourcing and the social capital that gets created through such communities to provide social and emotional peer-support. These communities would also serve to provide direct feedback on social security policies. We propose to explore the issues that arise in this context.


Professor Hill maintains that the Constitution was grounded on an understanding that the states would not be suable without their consent, either in the federal or state courts; the Eleventh Amendment, within its purview, is declaratory of this understanding. The Supreme Court has consistently treated sovereign immunity as of constitutional dimension. As such, the immunity has been deemed exempt from congressional modification under the Commerce Clause. However, without overt challenge to the immunity's constitutional status, it has been held subject to congressional modification under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's decision in this regard does not withstand critical analysis. Sovereign immunity is not the malign doctrine it is commonly thought to be. In general, it has not served as a bar to effective relief for lawless conduct by government officers. For the most part, it has operated to defeat claims arising from consensual relations with the government—and here the immunity has been almost completely eliminated by the federal and state legislatures within their respective areas of competeiice.


Organic and inorganic thermal indicators throughout the Late Paleozoic sedimentary fill of the Aragon-Bearn Basin in the western Pyrenees, integrated with stratigraphic and structural data, point to a two-stage tectonic evolution:(i) High heat flow values and widespread magmatic intrusions driven by deeply rooted strike-slip faults characterized the first stage. This regime accompanied the rapid and localized deposition of the lower sedimentary succession and ended with uplift and erosion.(ii) The second stage was characterized by lower heat flow values, shallower strike-slip faults active during the deposition of an upper transgressive sedimentary succession and minor magmatic intrusions.The lower portion of the succession (Unidad Gris, Unidad de Transito and Unidad Roja Inferior, mainly Stephanian-Early Permian in age) records maximum temperatures between 170°C and 220°C as shown by clay mineral-based geothermometers (KI between 0.40 and 0.52°?2?, conversion of mixed layer illite-smectite to discrete illite), vitrinite reflectance (about 2.5%), and total homogenization temperatures from host-rock quartz cements between 160 and 180°C.The upper portion of the succession (Unidad Roja Superior, mainly Upper Permian in age) records maximum temperatures between 100-110° and 150°C as indicated by KI values between 0.57 and 0.94°?2?, illite content in mixed layer illite-smectite of 85-92%, and fluid inclusions in host-rock quartz-calcite cements.Local thermal maturity anomalies affected selected portions of the Late Paleozoic sedimentary succession with organic matter and clay minerals reaching respectively Ro%: 4.2-4.7% and KI up to 0.32°?2??in the lower sequence, and Ro% 2.9% in the upper sequence. These localized anomalies with respect to the basin thermal signature are the result of contact metamorphism related to the emplacement of magmatic intrusions across the sedimentary fill during two different magmatic events.


The atmospheric temperatures and concentrations of Earth's five most important, greenhouse gases, H$_2$O, CO$_2$, O$_3$, N$_2$O and CH$_4$ control the cloud-free, thermal radiative flux from the Earth to outer space. Over 1/3 million lines having strengths as low as $10^{-27}$ cm of the HITRAN database were used to evaluate the dependence of the forcing on the gas concentrations. For a hypothetical, optically thin atmosphere, where there is negligible saturation of the absorption bands, or interference of one type of greenhouse gas with others, the per-molecule forcings are of order $10^{-22}$ W for H$_2$O, CO$_2$, O$_3$, N$_2$O and CH$_4$. For current atmospheric concentrations, the per-molecule forcings of the abundant greenhouse gases H$_2$O and CO$_2$ are suppressed by four orders of magnitude. The forcings of the less abundant greenhouse gases, O$_3$, N$_2$O and CH$_4$, are also suppressed, but much less so. For current concentrations, the per-molecule forcings are two to three orders of magnitude greater for O$_3$, N$_2$O and CH$_4$, than those of H$_2$O or CO$_2$. Doubling the current concentrations of CO$_2$, N$_2$O or CH$_4$ increases the forcings by a few per cent. These forcing results are close to previously published values even though the calculations did not utilize either a CO$_2$ or H$_2$O continuum. The change in surface temperature due to CO$_2$ doubling is estimated taking into account radiative-convective equilibrium of the atmosphere as well as water feedback for the cases of fixed absolute and relative humidities as well as the effect of using a pseudoadiabatic lapse rate to model the troposphere temperature. Satellite spectral measurements at various latitudes are in excellent quantitative agreement with modelled intensities.


With the project off to a flying start, Michaela and Karen get together to discuss the aims and objectives of the project and introduce their approach to understanding the lives of Britons resident in Europe. They reflect on how Brexit marks a shift in the conditions and contexts that support British citizens living in other EU member states and the make the case for returning to their original fieldsites in France and Spain. In talking about the project, they describe their ethnographic approach to doing research and provide a sense of what it might be like to take part in the project.


It's 4pm on a Saturday afternoon in suburbia. Twenty women and men, some in brightly coloured uniforms and stockings, some in regular 'civilian' clothes, are rolling bags and boxes into a recreation centre, waiting for the basketball games to finish. As soon as the last buzzer goes off, they begin taking over the space, setting out chairs around the outside of an oval track upon which a crew in striped ref uniforms- "Team Zebra"- are taping down raised rope to mark the boundary. The group load consignment beer into the bar area, set up sound equipment borrowed from friends, organize scores of volunteers to staff the door and 'merch' booth. One woman, lanyard denoting her "Attila -Head Bouting Wench" flapping around her neck, is rushing around, briefing the hired security staff on the liquor licensing, making sure the trackside floor seating - the "suicide zone"- is the correctly insurable distance from the track, and overseeing the placement of chairs to ensure adherence to council guidelines on fire exits and wheelchair accessibility. In another room, a family are preparing for their daughter's wedding.

By 6pm the crowd has lined up out the door, the music is pumping, the beer is chilled, and there are 28 uniformed women on old-fashioned quad rollerskates slowly skating circles around the track. They chat casually to one another, stretch out their muscles, practice moves on one another. As the spectators slowly file in- families gathered together in the seating, over 18 's only in the suicide zone, young men with beers in the licensed stands- the atmosphere builds with the crowd eagerly anticipating the night's smashes and crashes. An announcer's voice booms out over the PA: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to rollllllllller derrrrrrrrrrbyyyyyyy!" The first lineup gather on the starting line- five in red, five in black- and when the whistle blows, they begin the strategic and physical manoeuvring of heavy blocks and quick agility that will help them win the game. They use their hips, bottoms and shoulders to throw each other off balance; falls and pile-ups are common and by the end of the game many are sporting rips in their stockings and bruises on areas not covered by their safety equipment. After the game, skaters cross the floor to hug members of the other team, and all line up to high five one another as each team do a victory lap for a bout well-fought. Brave members of the crowd line up to talk to their favourite player, and after all the spectators have left, the skaters begin the process of restoring the venue to its usual state before heading to the requisite after party. The neighbouring wedding has concluded and the party which has dwindled to ten curiously peer in the doors of the now-deserted stadium.

The sport of flat track roller derby is complicated, with two half-hour periods broken into jams which last a maximum of two minutes. Each team fields a line-up of five skaters in each jam- one jammer who scores the points, three blockers who hit other skaters and play both offense and defence, and one pivot who plays as a blocker while communicating strategy. In a jam, the first whistle allows the blockers to start skating and the two whistles shortly after allow the jammers to sprint towards the pack; the first jammer through the pack without a penalty is the lead jammer, and has the power to end the jam at any point before the two minutes is up. On each following pass, jammers score one point by passing each opposing player's hips; the blockers use their bodies to legally knock the opposing jammer down or out of bounds while trying to help their jammer past the opposing blockers unscathed. It's fast-paced, physically aggressive, and wildly entertaining.

Roller derby started as a profitable spectator sport in 1930s America, the brainchild of businessman and promoter Leo Seltzer. The rules evolved over the course of the twentieth century and the various incarnations of the sport from the original endurance races to include co-ed teams, staged fights, and pre-written WWF-style storylines. With the advent of television, broadcasting bouts brought a greater audience, but eventually the live immediacy of the sport was choked and it waned in popularity in the 1970s. The current revival grew out of the alternative music and punk communities of the West coast of America, and Austin, Texas is widely regarded as the birthplace of modern roller derby, starting the first team in the early noughties and continuing to be the headquarters of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) today 1 • It has evolved from a burlesque- and punk-inspired performance to a legitimate sport boasting over 1000 leagues and is being considered for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games2 •

 Most modern roller derby leagues operate with a grassroots, do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic where members participate in all aspects of management and production. This is embodied in the WFTDA's central governing philosophy of" for the skater, by the skater"3 , which means that "[f]emale skaters are primary owners, managers, and/or operators of each member league and of the association"4 . Aside from bouts- the publicly-spectated events described above- the women spend between two and five times a week training together, as well as fundraisers, league meetings, informal social events and countless hours spent behind the scenes in organizational roles. League members participate in every aspect of management and event production, including financial planning, media relations, coaching, writing policy, and so on. In his study of the importance of do-it-yourself (DIY) in the roller derby revival Beaver states "the DIY ethic is about non alienated self-activity"5 , and this can be seen in both the on- and off track interactions of roller derby participants. They physically work together on the track, and off the track collaborate in the running of the league. The collectivity of the roller derby community leads Beaver to assert that "rollergirls subscribe to a 'do-it ourselves ethos"'6 , and this networking and formation of friendships are central motivators for participating in roller derby. Thus, derby is both an 'alternative' sport, and a subculture dominated and defined by women.

Within the subculture, the physicality of sporting elements combined with the gendered dimensions of a female-dominated space allow for experimentation with "doing gender"7 , and the participants engage with this on several levels. Firstly, they adopt pseudonyms, which are often word plays and puns playing on sexual, aggressive and/or ironic themes, such as 'Storm in a D-Cup' or 'Lawrence of a Labia'. In addition, the standards of dress and presentation within the roller derby space- both bouting and training spaces, those in which participants are on skates- embrace an aesthetic which draws on punk, vintage, pinup, rockabilly, camp, and sexual subcultures. While this is partly a function of wearing protective gear including knee and elbow pads, wrist guards, helmets and mouthguards, it is also a conscious and public engagement with gendered identities and the creation of what Finley deems an "alternative femininity"8 , one which takes elements of marginalized femininities and reappropriates them as sources of empowerment. These outward signifiers of resistance are an important element in the self-promotion of leagues as well as the interpretation of roller derby by the mainstream media and the wider community. Despite elements of empowerment and collective action, roller derby is not immune to the discourses and cultural values of the wider socio-political landscape in which it exists. Internal political differences and personal disagreements certainly occur within the community and in extreme cases cause members to leave the subculture or split leagues. The internal dynamics of roller derby leagues highlight the tensions between a mainstream culture in which women are not often offered routes to collective action and diverse support networks, and a subculture that encourages agency, participatory democracy, and collaborative decision-making. Many, if not all leagues, struggle with balancing off-track politics in a tight-knit community and a competitive on-track sport which has to fight to maintain its credibility; however, the continued exponential growth . of the sport stands testament to the abilities of participants to overcome such obstacles through their passion and dedication to the subculture, the athletics, the 'revolution'.


The aim of these studies was to improve laboratory methods for the detection of virus-specific antibody to mumps and rubella. The presence of virus-specific antibody is indicative of immunity to disease so simple and effective antibody detection allows for the planning and monitoring of immunisation programmes.

In facilitating antibody surveillance, oral fluid has advantages as a sample compared with blood. It is simple, safe and cheap to collect and being non-invasive encourages subject recruitment. In this study, an 'IgG' antibody capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (GACELISA) was developed and evaluated for the detection of mump-specific IgG in oral fluid. Compared to an indirect commercial ELISA for the detection of mumps-specific IgG in serum, the oral fluid GACELISA was 100% sensitive and specific. The GACELISA should therefore be useful for future antibody prevalence studies.

The limitation of oral fluid samples compared with blood are that they contain lower antibody concentrations. Immuno-polymerase chain reaction (I-PCR) is an ultrasensitive method and in this study was adapted to detect antibodies to mumps virus. Though the method was shown to be feasible for antibody detection and quantification, its sensitivity and specificity did not exceed that of a conventional ELISA. Sensitivity was limited by non-specific binding of human IgG to the solid phase. It is necessary to further develop reagents and assay formats to fully exploit the potential of quantitative I-PCR, so that potential improvements in the sensitivity of viral-specific IgG detection can be realised.

Increasingly, recombinant antigens are being employed in ELISAs as cell culture antigens are difficult and expensive to produce, and are potentially infectious. In this study, the PinPoint Xa-1 T-Vector system was used to produce recombinant rubella virus (RV) El fusion proteins in Escherichia coli. Their antigenicity was assessed by Western blotting and ELISA. One of these antigens may be a suitable reagent for immunity studies as it reacted with RV El-specific monoclonal antibodies (MAb's) and a high percentage (80%) of RV antibody positive sera.


An asymptotic analysis is performed for thin anisotropic elastic plate clamped along its lateral side and also supported at a small area $\theta_{h}$ of one base with diameter of the same order as the plate thickness $h\ll1.$ A three-dimensional boundary layer in the vicinity of the support $\theta_{h}$ is involved into the asymptotic form which is justified by means of the previously derived weighted inequality of Korn's type provides an error estimate with the bound $ ch^{1/2} \left | \ln h\right| .$ Ignoring this boundary layer effect reduces the precision order down to $\left| \ln h\right| ^{-1/2}.$ A two-dimensional variational-asymptotic model of the plate is proposed within the theory of self-adjoint extensions of differential operators. The only characteristics of the boundary layer, namely the elastic logarithmic potential matrix of size $4\times4,$ is involved into the model which however keeps the precision order $h^{1/2}\left| \ln h\right| $ in certain norms. Several formulations and applications of the model are discussed.


Although it has been close to 60 years since the first operational silicon solar cell was demonstrated, the last 15 years have seen large improvements in the technology, with the best confirmed cell efficiency improved by over 50 %. The main drivers have been improved electrical and optical design of the cells. Improvements in the former area include improved passivation of contact and surface regions of the cells and a reduction in the volume of heavily doped material within the cell. Optically, reduced reflection and improved trapping of light within the cell have had a large impact. Such features have increased silicon cell efficiency to a recently confirmed value of 24.7%. Over recent years, good progress has been made in transferring some of the corresponding design improvements into commercial product with commercial cells of 17-18% efficiency now commercially available, record values of a mere 15 years ago. The theory supporting these improvements in bulk cell efficiency shows that thin layers of silicon, only a micron or so in thickness, should be capable of comparably high efficiency.


The reflection efficiencies for the various orders of diffraction produced by a grating are calculated under the following assumptions. The grating is for the most part flat, but with a fraction ∊ of the periodicity interval a described by a profile function z=f(x). The reflection and transmission efficiencies are calculated as a series expansion in ∊. Numerical calculations have been performed for the case of ultrasoft x rays incident at near grazing angles, using a complex index of refraction η=1−δ0λ2+iβ0λ3.25 or tabulated values. No effects of shadowing by the grating profile have been considered, and the numerical work has been done for a symmetrical triangular trench incised in the flat surface.


I am the founder and managing director of Scinopsis, a medical writing company based in France. Scinopsis is specialised in providing regulatory documents and medical communications to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. I created the company in 2006 and today we have 15 permanent staff (including myself). I believe the keys to our success are the quality of the documents we provide to our clients and the friendly attitude of my team. This article describes why and how I created Scinopsis, how the company is organised, and the challenges I have encountered over the years.


The "engineering" focus in software engineering education leaves instructors vulnerable to several traps. It also misleads students as to SE's essential human and social dimensions. Here, the author discusses how this limited conception of SE contributes to five assumptions that can trap SE educators: (i) an SE course needs an industrial project. (ii) SE is like other branches of engineering. (iii) Planning in SE is poorly done relative to other fields. (iv) The user interface is part of low-level design. (v) SWEBOK represents the state of the practice


Black women appear to be less likely than other groups to report sexual violence (Catalano et al., 2009). There are a number of factors that may potentially impact Black women's reporting sexual violence, such as fear of shame or rejection from religious congregations or social groups, fear of police officers, and a history of violence amongst family members that may normalize sexual violence to the level of not reporting (Truman & Morgan, 2016). This study examined the connection between the strong Black women's ideal, trust of law enforcement, and Black identity on Black women's attitudes towards reporting sexual violence among 112 women. In this study, I also explored the impact of previous sexual violence on Black women's attitudes towards reporting sexual violence. The responses from participants showed that whether or not someone had experienced sexual violence was a significant predictor of people's attitudes towards reporting. The participants were significantly more likely to have negative attitudes towards reporting if they had previously experienced sexual violence. In addition, the relationship between mistrust of police and negative attitudes towards reporting sexual violence was more significant when the Black female participant had experienced sexual violence. Future studies should continue to explore the impact of experiencing sexual violence on Black women's attitudes towards reporting.


Persuasive communication functions not only through content but also delivery, e.g., facial expression, tone of voice, and diction. This paper examines the persuasiveness of delivery in start-up pitches. Using machine learning (ML) algorithms to process full pitch videos, we quantify persuasion in visual, vocal, and verbal dimensions. Positive (i.e., passionate, warm) pitches increase funding probability. Yet conditional on funding, high-positivity startups underperform. Women are more heavily judged on delivery when evaluating single-gender teams, but they are neglected when co-pitching with men in mixed-gender teams. Using an experiment, we show persuasion delivery works mainly through leading investors to form inaccurate beliefs.


This research brief summarizes recent findings by the Center for Economic and Policy Research on job quality and workers' economic security. Using a rigorous methodology that improves on other more standard measures of economic security, we find that one in five Americans in working families have income below a minimum middle-class budget standard for the area in which they live. The authors argue this is the result of a frayed social contract that must be updated so that more workers can move into the middle class. The report concludes with proposals that would strengthen labor market institutions, expand work supports for families in the middle and working classes, and provide workers, particularly those in low- and moderate-wage jobs, with more opportunities to improve their skills and education throughout their lifetimes.


In societies severely divided by ethnicity, race, religion, language, or any other form of ascriptive affiliation, ethnic divisions make democracy difficult, because they tend to produce ethnic parties and ethnic voting. Two commonly proposed methods of amelioration are called consociational and centripetal. Three problems derive from these proposals: The first concerns the adoptability of either of the two principal prescriptions. Under what conditions can either be adopted? The second relates to a possibility inherent in centripetal regimes: the potential degradation of the electoral arrangements that sustain the interethnic coalition. The third derives from a common consequence of the adoption of a consociational regime: Where robust guarantees, including minority vetoes, are adopted, immobilism is a strong possibility, and it may be very difficult to overcome the stasis that immobilism can produce. By examining these three problems, we can uncover some of the frailties inherent in both of the common prescriptions.


As practitioners, policy-makers and politicians continue to operate in such fragile economic conditions, questions are being asked in relation to responding to the crunch and planning for the upturn. Indeed, a Government colleague contacted me at work the other day in a rush to gather some intelligence on 'what local authorities are doing to respond to the recession'. Apparently, a Minister had been getting 'quite vocal that he isn't hearing about what local authorities are doing and so we're compiling evidence of what we are doing to help people at the current time'. So in addition to supplying information about what I was doing on behalf of Durham County Council and the County Durham Economic Partnership, I decided to initiate a fact finding mission of what others are doing within the North East and further afield.


The literature suggests that members of the working class value informal ('hot') information rather than formal ('cold') information. They are also said to lack a future orientation; have a fatalistic (and pessimistic) attitude to life; and have low aspirations. These values should influence the way students from working‐class backgrounds approach career decision‐making. Thirty in‐depth interviews with full‐time undergraduates in their final year of study were carried out to find out if this was the case. The research found that students from working‐class backgrounds did not possess many of the values indicated in the literature. They did, however, show a reluctance to make use of formal sources of information from places like the university careers service. Their failure to utilise such sources appears to be a key factor contributing to significant gaps in the students' knowledge and understanding of the graduate labour market. It also means they are inadequately prepared for making the transition into graduate employment. The article concludes by suggesting that the provision of better careers information is not enough. There is a need to make university careers services more welcoming so that they become a source of 'hot' information. The article also suggests that students should be encouraged to reflect critically on how they undertake career decision‐making and planning. By getting students to engage in activities that challenge their taken‐for‐granted assumptions and biases, they are more likely to develop alternative approaches to career decision‐making.


The refractive indices of the potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) crystal have been measured in the temperature interval 20- 550 °C. It is shown that their values increase as temperature increases, and this is because the lattice contribution predominates. The curves showing the temperature dependence of the refractive indices for various wavelengths are not parallel to each other, and, as a consequence, the thermooptical coefficients Dn/Dt for a violet wavelength are almost a factor of two greater than for red. Dispersion curves are presented for the refractive indices and thermooptical coefficients.


Abstract Despite tobacco intervention efforts of schools, usage among students remains surprisingly high. One adolescent group that should be protected from using tobacco is athletes. This study compared the patterns of tobacco use of athletes and nonathletes. A 15-item survey designed to identify patterns of tobacco use and participation in organized scholastic and collegiate sports was completed by 1,290 college students enrolled at a public university in the Southeast. Participants were grouped as current college athletes, college students who had been athletes in high school but not college, and college students who had not been athletes. The data were analyzed using chi-square and descriptive statistics. Results indicate significance between groups in use of smokeless tobacco, with both athlete groups indicating higher rates of use (34.7% for college athletes and 23.2% for high school athletes) than nonathletes (13.8%). No significant differences were found between groups for cigarette smoking. Initiation of both cigarette smoking and use of smokeless tobacco was highest during high school, followed by middle school. With all three groups, there was little change in tobacco use from high school to college. The information from this study could be useful in the development and promotion of intervention policies, particularly for athletes, at the high school and college levels.


We present two six-parameter families of anisotropic Gaussian Schell-model beams that propagate in a shape-invariant manner, with the intensity distribution continuously twisting about the beam axis. The two families differ in the sense or helicity of this beam twist. The propagation characteristics of these shape-invariant beams are studied, and the restrictions on the beam parameters that arise from the optical uncertainty principle are brought out. Shape invariance is traced to a fundamental dynamical symmetry that underlies these beams. This symmetry is the product of spatial rotation and fractional Fourier transformation.


The duplicity theory states that cones produce photopic or color vision, whereas the rods produce scotopic or colorless night vision. This paper reports experimental findings which demonstrate the capacity of the rods to interact with the long-wave cones to produce color sensations. Radiances of 546 and 450 nm that excited only the rods, and radiances of 656 nm that excited only the long-wave cones were determined. When the rods and long-wave cones were selectively excited with the minimum radiance necessary to see form, the observers reported seeing a large variety of color sensations. These observers also reported the same variety of color sensations at greater radiances when the rods and long-wave cones were selectively excited. Color sensations produced by the excitation of rods and long-wave cones were independent of the wavelength used to excite the rods. Color sensations produced by rods and long-wave cones were identical, except for slight differences of brightness and sharpness, to the color sensations produced by 656 and 495±5 nm light when both were above cone threshold. Therefore, under the described conditions, the rods can be as much a part of the human color-producing system as the cones. All of the above results can be explained by Land's retinex theory of color vision.


Understanding the phenomenon of wave scattering by random media is a ubiquitous problem that has instigated extensive research in the field. This thesis focuses on wave scattering by quasiperiodic media as an alternative approach to provide insight into the effects of structural aperiodicity on the propagation of the waves. Quasiperiodic structures are aperiodic yet ordered so have attributes that make them beneficial to explore. Quasiperiodic lattices are also used to model the atomic structures of quasicrystals; materials that have been found to have a multitude of applications due to their unusual characteristics. The research in this thesis is motivated by both the mathematical and physical benefits of quasiperiodic structures and aims to bring together the two important and distinct fields of research: waves in heterogeneous media and quasiperiodic lattices.A review of the past literature in the area has highlighted research that would be beneficial to the applied mathematics community. Thus, particular attention is paid towards developing rigorous mathematical algorithms for the construction of several quasiperiodic lattices of interest and further investigation is made into the development of periodic structures that can be used to model quasiperiodic media.By employing established methods in multiple scattering new techniques are developed to predict and approximate wave propagation through finite and infinite arrays of isotropic scatterers with quasiperiodic distributions. Recursive formulae are derived that can be used to calculate rapidly the propagation through one- and two-dimensional arrays with a one-dimensional Fibonacci chain distribution. These formulae are applied, in addition to existing tools for two-dimensional multiple scattering, to form comparisons between the propagation in one- and two-dimensional quasiperiodic structures and their periodic approximations. The quasiperiodic distributions under consideration are governed by the Fibonacci, the square Fibonacci and the Penrose lattices. Finally, novel formulae are derived that allow the calculation of Bloch-type waves, and their properties, in infinite periodic structures that can approximate the properties of waves in large, or infinite, quasiperiodic media.


In today's competitive business environments, a firm's long-term survival rests heavily on its ability to sustain manufacturing superiority over its competitors. To provide the firm with detailed guidelines for sustaining manufacturing superiority, this paper examines the impact of different management accounting systems, manufacturing control systems and time horizon on manufacturing performance in an enterprise resource planning integrated environment. These management accounting systems include traditional costing, activity-based costing and throughput accounting. The manufacturing control systems include Just-In-Time- and Theory of Constraints-based manufacturing. Through a series of simulation experiments, it was found that activity-based costing provided higher short- and long-term profit, better customer service and lower work-in-process inventory than traditional costing and throughput accounting in situations where firms have high overhead costs and relatively low labour and material costs, while carrying ending inventories because of demand uncertainty. Traditional costing also outperformed throughput accounting by exploiting the real-time information sharing capabilities of an enterprise resource planning system. Just-In-Time manufacturing outperformed Theory of Constraints with respect to short- and long-term profitability, customer service, and work-in-process inventory because of differences in buffer inventory policies and sequencing rules. However, time horizon and its interaction with management accounting systems had no impact on the manufacturing performance. In addition, the results suggest that a management accounting system that depicts the manufacturing process tended to provide more accurate product cost information and resulted in a better system performance than the others.


Performance analysts commonly use trace-based data containing hardware and software metrics to understand performance. The trace data is generated by instrumenting the code to increment a counter when an event occurs and to collect hardware and software metrics in a trace. Unfortunately, the act of collecting a trace can perturb the behavior that the trace is frying to capture. In this paper, we gain an understanding of perturbation due to measurement instrumentation of the system. We identify two mechanisms to quantify perturbation: inner and outer perturbation. Using inner perturbation, a performance analyst can determine when a run is perturbed by collecting too much information. Using outer perturbation, the performance analyst can determine if she can use the data from multiple runs as if the data were all from a single run. Our evaluation of these mechanisms lead to two results. First, we are surprised to find that even with minimal instrumentation overhead, which increased instructions executed by less than 3%, high perturbation resulted, which prevented one from correctly reasoning about metrics within a trace or across traces. Second, the instrumentation of different software metrics interact in subtle, and not always obvious, ways making the impact of instrumentation on perturbation difficult, if not impossible, to predict. Finally, we outline a methodology for collecting data while avoiding perturbation. When inner perturbation occurs, the performance analyst can spread out the data collection over multiple runs. When outer perturbation occurs, she can try different strategies for spreading out the data collection over multiple runs.


Why do so many learners, even those who are successful, feel that they are outsiders in the world of mathematics? Taking the central importance of language in the development of mathematical understanding as its starting point, Mathematical Literacy explores students' experiences of doing mathematics from primary school to university - what they think mathematics is, how it is presented to them, and what they feel about it. Building on a range of theory which focuses on community, knowledge, and identity, the author examines two particular issues: the relationship between language, learning, and mathematical knowledge, and the relationship between identity, equity, and processes of exclusion/inclusion.

In this comprehensive and accessible book, the author extends our understanding of the process of gaining mathematical fluency, and provides tools for an exploration of mathematics learning across different groups in different social contexts. Mathematical Literacy's analysis of how learners develop particular relationships with the subject, and what we might do to promote equity through the development of positive relationships, is of interest across all sectors of education—to researchers, teacher educators, and university educators.


This paper presents the longitudinal database POPLINK, which has been developed at the Demographic Data Base at Umeå University, Sweden. Based on digitized Swedish population registers between c. 1700-1950, the database contains micro-data that covers the agrarian society through industrialization and further on to the Swedish welfare state and contemporary society. It is now possible to study the profound processes of the second demographic transition using individual level data with a proper size population. POPLINK allows for a large array of longitudinal studies, such as social mobility, migration, fertility, mortality, civil status, kinship relations, diseases, disability and causes of death. International standards of occupations (HISCO) and diseases (ICD-10) have been applied, facilitating comparability. POPLINK covers two large regions in Northern Sweden and is built on complete registrations. It is one of the world's most information-dense historical population databases, covering up to 15 generations and 350,000 individuals described by 300 variables, allowing the ability to monitor populations over time. POPLINK has been built to allow linkage to modern registries, clinical data and medical biobanks, which enables the study of transgenerational effects, heredity and genetic transfers in disease incidence of the population today. DDB serves as an infrastructure for research and is open to researchers of any nationality.


The environmental issue has generally received much attention from the public for decades, especially as a result of heavy industry - electrical energy, oil and gas, mining, steel and metals. Recently, attention has been paid to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its effect on the knowledge and related industries. Broadband, both fixed and mobile, is not an exception. Even though it has been recognized as a factor that has contributed to social and economic development, a negative effect can also be seen in particular regarding the environment. This paper provides a review of how government policy, in particular by the EU and Japan, are moving towards the transition to sustainability by utilizing ICT, as well as an evaluation of the pros and cons of broadband development. There are many complex effects on sustainability due to ICT. Since ICT can have environmental effects both as enabling energy efficiency and causing rebound effects, the policies should respond to both direct and indirect effects. To facilitate policy analysis and recommendations, this paper categorizes ICT impacts by five orders of aggregation. These five orders of aggregation may contribute both positively and negatively to sustainability, and each level will need targeted policies. The five orders of aggregation suggest a comprehensive and long term view of policy development, encompassing even policies that seek to improve the quality of decision making in our societies, by utilizing ICTs.


Background: Prostate carcinoma is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in males worldwide. The burden is expected to grow 1.7 million new cases and 499,000 new deaths by 2030. In developing countries such as India, prostate carcinoma will show an increase by 140% in the next few years. Although the diagnosis of prostate carcinoma can usually be made on histological features, now a days many immunohistochemical (IHC) markers are used to distinguish it from benign mimickers as well as in predicting prognosis and treatment. Out of these markers, Ets-related gene (ERG product) is a proto-oncogene which participates in chromosomal translocations and is frequently over expressed in prostate carcinoma which harbors ERG-transmembrane protease, serine 2 fusion. Materials and Methods: Fifty cases of carcinoma prostate diagnosed in needle biopsies and prostatic chips, in the Department of Pathology of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Punjab, India, were included in the present study. The slides were observed under the light microscope, and Gleason scoring was done using the 2005 International Society of Urological Pathology modified Gleason system. IHC study for ERG expression was done on all the cases, for which anti-ERG monoclonal rabbit clone antibody EP111 (Dako, Denmark) was used. Lymphocytes and endothelial cells were taken as in built positive controls for staining. The intensity of ERG positivity was scored as no staining (0), weak staining (+1), moderate staining (+2) and intense staining (+3). The H score was then calculated by multiplying the intensity of the stain with the percentage (0-100) of the cells showing that staining intensity. The H-score has a range of 0-300. The relationship between IHC expression and clinico-pathological parameters was compared and analyzed using Chi-square test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Majority of patients included in the study were in the age group of 61-80 (84% of the total). When ERG expression was studied with age-specific rates, it was not found to be statistically significant. The most common pattern noted in the present study was 4 + 3, constituting 36% of total, followed by 3 + 4 constituting 32%. Calculating the score, the majority of patients had a Gleason score of 5-8, constituting 76% of total. Out of the total fifty cases of prostate carcinoma, ERG was positive in 29 cases (58%) and negative in 21 cases (42%). Fourteen out of 21 (48%) of the ERG positive cases had an intensity score of 3. When the ERG intensity was correlated with the Gleason score group, it was seen that patients having Gleason score 7-8 showed ERG positivity in 19 out of 38 cases (50%), with 11/19 (57%) cases showing an ERG intensity score of 3. The Gleason score group 9-10 showed ERG positivity in 83% (10/12) cases, 20% (2/10) cases showing intensity score of 3. This correlation was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: ERG immunostaining was performed in a small Indian cohort of prostate cancer patients, diagnosed in trucut biopsy specimens and prostatic chips. ERG expression was found in 58% patients. An increase in the ERG expression was observed with an increase in Gleason score. The intensity of ERG expression, however, decreased with an increasing Gleason score.


Bound propagation methods, when combined with branch and bound, are among the most effective methods to formally verify properties of deep neural networks such as correctness, robustness, and safety. However, existing works cannot handle the general form of cutting plane constraints widely accepted in traditional solvers, which are crucial for strengthening verifiers with tightened convex relaxations. In this paper, we generalize the bound propagation procedure to allow the addition of arbitrary cutting plane constraints, including those involving relaxed integer variables that do not appear in existing bound propagation formulations. Our generalized bound propagation method, GCP-CROWN, opens up the opportunity to apply general cutting plane methods for neural network verification while benefiting from the efficiency and GPU acceleration of bound propagation methods. As a case study, we investigate the use of cutting planes generated by off-the-shelf mixed integer programming (MIP) solver. We find that MIP solvers can generate high-quality cutting planes for strengthening bound-propagation-based verifiers using our new formulation. Since the branching-focused bound propagation procedure and the cutting-plane-focused MIP solver can run in parallel utilizing different types of hardware (GPUs and CPUs), their combination can quickly explore a large number of branches with strong cutting planes, leading to strong verification performance. Experiments demonstrate that our method is the first verifier that can completely solve the oval20 benchmark and verify twice as many instances on the oval21 benchmark compared to the best tool in VNN-COMP 2021, and also noticeably outperforms state-of-the-art verifiers on a wide range of benchmarks. GCP-CROWN is part of the $\alpha,\!\beta$-CROWN verifier, the VNN-COMP 2022 winner. Code is available at http://PaperCode.cc/GCP-CROWN


Treatment of intra-cranial lesions sometimes requires a non-coplanar beam configuration. One of the most commonly used IGRT modalities, kV conebeam CT, cannot typically be used when large couch rotations are introduced. However, multiple other systems allow for imaging/tracking the patient for such situations. This work compares shift consistency from three independent systems, namely Varian's Advanced Imaging, Brainlab's Exactrac and Varian's OSMS, all installed on the same linear accelerator. After a phantom was first positioned using conebeam CT, the three systems were used to determine shifts at different couch positions. This was done with and without intentional shifts inserted in the original phantom position. Results show that the difference in shifts between the three systems was never more than 0.7 mm (average of 0.2 mm, standard deviation of 0.2 mm). These results confirm that all three systems are equivalent to within 1 mm and may potentially be uses interchangeably, especially in cases where the PTV margin is on the order of 1 mm.


PURPOSE
With the MRI accelerator it will be possible to get continuous patient anatomy updates, ranging from organ deformation to patient translation. To compensate for translations, one can re-optimize the treatment plan based on the online MRI images. Consequently, the IMRT optimization system should be fast and robust enough to generate daily a clinically acceptable plan to perform this 'virtual couch shift (VCS)'.

METHODS
The system uses a GPU based Monte-Carlo dose engine (GPUMCD) for online beamlet generation in a 1.5 T magnetic field and a fast inverse dose optimization algorithm (FIDO). For four phantom and two clinical cases (cervix and kidney), we generated clinically acceptable plans. The given plans are regenerated after a series of x, y, and z translations (up to 34 mm) of the patient anatomy, without adapting the optimization constraints as used during the initial optimization. The differences between the original plan and the regenerated plans are evaluated by using the gamma criterion and the relative D99 target coverage.

RESULTS
The system accurately reproduced the initial dose distribution after translating the phantom and patient anatomies. The gamma criterion of 2%/2 mm is satisfied for 99.2% all target voxels and for 97.2% for all OAR voxels. The relative D99 differences are almost 0.0 with a small standard deviation. With current hardware, a 7 beam cervix beamlet generation and IMRT optimization takes 141 seconds, the kidney case takes only 14 seconds.

CONCLUSIONS
We developed a system which is fast and accurate enough to perform a VCS by online re-optimization for the MRI accelerator. Currently we are adding sequencing to the system. We expect that this method can also be used for compensating patient rotations and tissue deformation and with this go towards realtime adaptive treatment planning and delivery.


The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of maternal perception of infant formula to formula feeding in infants aged 0-6 months. This research was a analytic survey research. The research design used in this study was cross-sectional. The study was conducted in Puskesmas Sidomulyo Pekanbaru involved 30 mothers with infants aged 0-6 months. The sampling technique was accidental sampling. Data collection tool was a questionnaire that had been tested for validity and reliability. This study used univariate and bivariate data analysis. The results showed a significant relationship between maternal perception of infant formula to formula feeding in infants aged 0-6 months (P value 0.007 < α 0.05. It was recommended to health professionals providing counseling or guidance to the public on the effects of formula feeding in infants aged 0-6 months. Keywords: Infants 0-6 months of age, perception, formula milk, formula milk feeding


Statistics and, in particular, sensitivity analysis represent an important tool for the building designer to find information about which parameters have the largest potential in reducing the energy consumption or which are the most crucial to focus on in the different phases of the project process. The application of dynamic simulation to a large number of configurations (i.e. the extensive simulation) to find the optimal solution either considering only the energy aspects or also the economic impacts and not only to evaluate a small set of possible alternatives, represents in that perspective a new approach to the building design, in particular for refurbishment considerations. This work aims to evaluate and generalize this kind of approach with its application to the refurbishment of residential buildings. The considered design solutions represent the most common measures of improvement of the performance of opaque and transparent envelope, such as the insulation level of walls and windows and the solar properties of the glazings. Different starting cases characterized by different envelope thermal inertia, corresponding to three massive materials (timber, clay and concrete), and different geometrical features were studied. A large number of environmental conditions, envelope characteristics and refurbishment interventions have been analyzed within a factorial simulation plan. Among those parameters, the ratios between the dispersing envelope and the volume conditioned (considering 3 different floors of a building – the top, the intermediate and the ground floor), the windows size (small or large size) and their distribution (South, East or West oriented), the level of insulation of the opaque envelope (starting cases without insulation, poor insulated and high insulated cases) and the kind of glazings (starting cases with single glasses and improved cases with double or triple glasses with high or low Solar Heat Gain Coefficient, SHGC) have been examined. Three Italian climates (Milan in the North, Rome in the center region and Messina in the South) were considered as representative of the Southern Europe. The inferential statistical analysis has been used to identify the predominant factors in each refurbishment solution and the economical savings both in heating and in cooling.


Three control measures of Pomace a insularus as parts of IPM (Integrated
Pest Management) components were studied; firstly the development of plant
molluscicides, secondly the use of fish as its biological control and thirdly its
utilisation as quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) feed. Leaf powder of yellow flame
(Peltophorum pterocarpum) was found to be quite effective in killing the snails. The
powder is water soluble (28% solubility) and yielded high extracts (25% of water
extraction and 23% of methanol extraction). The LC₅₀ value of this powder solution
is about 91 mg/L at 72 h. exposure, on two-week-old test snails. Saponins were the
active compounds found in the yellow flame leaves. Kept in solution form, the
molluscicide strength deteriorated after 30 days with toxicity level reduced to 34%.
The toxicity of the molluscicide in the field trials was found to be twice lower than
that of Tea Seed Cake (TSC) powder, a molluscicide used in Malaysia. The
broadcasting application of 150 kg/ha of this leaf powder molluscicide in 15 cm deep
rice field (equivalent to 100 mg/L) killed 100% of the adult snails in three days as compared to about 75 kg/ha (equivalent to 50 mg/L) of TSC. Study on the control of
the snails using fishes revealed that black carp, Mylopharyngodon piceus and hybrid
African catfish, Clarias sp. were good snail predators. In the laboratory trials the
former was more vigorous, consuming at the rate of 60% of its body weight, within
24 h, while the latter consumed only 7%. Due to the shape and size of its mouth,
black carps had greater ability in swallowing the snails than catfish. Young black
.carp of 25 g in size could consume snails of up to about 1.0 em in shell length. There
were high correlationships between the size of snails consumed and the size of fish
and the mouth width, with the equation ofY = 0.26 Ln (X) + 0.16 ( r2
= 0.93) and of
Y = 0. 4 Ln (X) + 1.25 (r2 = 0.93), respectively. Adult catfish (119 - 171 g) could
only consume snails of up to 1.5 em shell length. Results from the release of catfish
into the rice field showed a clear trend of a reduction in the snail population.
Macroinvertebrates populations presence in the rice field were another source of
food supply to the fish, thus enabling the fish to grow without being given
supplementary food. Biological control of this snail using fish was, however,
confronted with the problem of predators such as birds, crab, eel and otters. Snail
meal contained high protein (32%) and mineral (26%). It could be a substitute for
fish meal, meat and bone meal or soya bean meal as quail feed without having any
effect on its growth performance. Birds fed with snail meal also performed as good
as those given commercial feed. The performance indices such as average daily gain
(ADG), feed conversion ratio (FeR) and carcass percentage of birds given snail
meal protein was comparable with those given conventional protein source. A
palatability test conducted had shown that meat of the bird fed with snail meal was well accepted by food panelists. Each control measure of snails that has been studied
demonstrated promising results. Thus the implementation of the control measures
could be exercised in the field integrally to achieve managable control of the
population of Pomace a insularus


The generalization properties of Gaussian processes depend heavily on the choice of kernel, and this choice remains a dark art. We present the Neural Kernel Network (NKN), a flexible family of kernels represented by a neural network. The NKN architecture is based on the composition rules for kernels, so that each unit of the network corresponds to a valid kernel. It can compactly approximate compositional kernel structures such as those used by the Automatic Statistician (Lloyd et al., 2014), but because the architecture is differentiable, it is end-to-end trainable with gradient-based optimization. We show that the NKN is universal for the class of stationary kernels. Empirically we demonstrate pattern discovery and extrapolation abilities of NKN on several tasks that depend crucially on identifying the underlying structure, including time series and texture extrapolation, as well as Bayesian optimization.


India is clearly far along in the nutrition transition. This paper shows that there have been rapid increases in the proportion of adult women in India who are overweight and obese: these increases are seen not just in urban but in rural areas as well, and there are regional specificities. Correspondingly, diabetes and hypertension affect a large proportion of adults, even as childhood undernutrition remains a public health problem. These have important consequences for the design of public health systems, especially in rural India. At the same time, the intra-household dual burden of malnutrition is also increasing. Among other factors, households with wealthier and less educated mothers, and children born with a healthy weight, seem less vulnerable to the dual burden of malnutrition. Also significant are household expenditure (suggesting that the phenomenon is associated with affluence) and lifestyle choices, calling for better and nuanced behavior change communication strategies. JEL Classification: I14, I12 ADBI Working Paper 725 Dang and Meenakshi


One of the important tasks of the National Bank of Ukraine is to implement the Directive 2014/59/EU namely to introduce the "bail-in" mechanism, which will enable to resolve insolvency of banks or high probability of its occurrence at the expense of internal sources of banks in order to improve the Ukrainian banking system functioning and adapt it to the requirements and standards of the European Union. The foreign experience of the "bail-in" implementation shows that central banks succeeded in restructuring the balance sheets of banks and significantly reduced the risks of their activities. Thus, the purpose of the study is to substantiate the expediency of the "bail-in" mechanism introduction in banking system of Ukraine. The essence of the "bail-in" mechanism is the involvement of shareholders and lenders of the bank in order to restore its solvency by offsetting shareholders' equity, subordinated debt, and/or convert-ing/writing off other long-term unsecured and unprovided liabilities in a subordinated debt or shares of the bank. In the process of scientific research, using the comparative method, the method of analogies and methods of logical generalization and scientific abstraction, the structure of the "bail-in" mechanism is determined, which consists of methods (conversion of liabilities into capital, liabilities write-off, capital write-off), provision (normative and legal, financial, organizational and institutional, technical and technological, informational) and levers (incentives, sanctions). Using the expert estimation method, it is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the "bail-in" mechanism by comparing the quality of the assets of the bank prior to its implementation and after the completion of the action. The results of the study show that, firstly, the implementation of the "bail-in" mechanism in Ukraine will enable the National Bank of Ukraine to interfere with the activities of banks at an early stage of the problems and to take all necessary measures to restore their solvency. Secondly, the "bail-in" mechanism implementation in Ukraine will increase banks' resilience to shock, crisis and contribute to long-term financial stability.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this medication utilization evaluation (MUE) was to determine the appropriateness of dabigatran and rivaroxaban while also reviewing outcomes for safety and effectiveness within a large, multi-center health system.

METHODS
A retrospective chart review was performed using the system's electronic medical record. A data inquiry was requested and generated for dabigatran usage from July 28, 2011 through July 28, 2012 and for rivaroxaban from March 1, 2012 to July 31, 2012 at eight health system hospitals. All patients receiving at least one dose were eligible for inclusion in the MUE.

RESULTS
For dabigatran, 78 of 390 unique patient encounters were analyzed (20%). All 62 rivaroxaban encounters were included in the analysis. Dabigatran was used for appropriate indications in 94% of encounters and 82% for rivaroxaban. Based on indication and renal function, 87% of dabigatran patients and 92% of rivaroxaban patients received correct dosing. For patients transitioning to or from another anticoagulant, appropriate transitions occurred in 44% of dabigatran transitions and 48% of rivaroxaban transitions. At discharge, 83% of dabigatran and 86% of rivaroxaban therapy was continued. There were no reported strokes or systemic embolism with dabigatran, but one reported deep vein thrombosis occurred during hospitalization with rivaroxaban therapy. Documented bleeds in 5% of dabigatran and 3% of rivaroxaban patients. Patient education was documented for 37% of dabigatran and 26% of rivaroxaban patients receiving therapeutic anticoagulation.

CONCLUSION
This MUE revealed the appropriate use of dabigatran and rivaroxaban therapy with few safety outcomes within a large, multi-center health system.


Mutations in the ORF15 exon of the RPGR gene cause a common form of X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, which often results in severe loss of vision. In dogs and mice, gene augmentation therapy has been shown to arrest the progressive degeneration of rod and cone photoreceptors. However, the distribution of potentially treatable photoreceptors across the human retinas and the rate of degeneration are not known. Here, we have defined structural and functional features of the disease in 70 individuals with ORF15 mutations. We also correlated the features observed in patients with those of three Rpgr-mutant (Rpgr-ko, Rd9, and Rpgr-cko) mice. In patients, there was pronounced macular disease. Across the retina, rod and cone dysfunction showed a range of patterns and a spectrum of severity between individuals, but a high symmetry was observed between eyes of each individual. Genotype was not related to disease expression. In the Rpgr-ko mice, there were intraretinal differences in rhodopsin and cone opsin trafficking. In Rd9 and Rpgr-cko mice, retinal degeneration showed interocular symmetry. Longitudinal results in patients revealed localized rod and cone dysfunction with progression rates of 0.8 to 1.3 log per decade in sensitivity loss. Relatively retained rod and cone photoreceptors in midand far-peripheral temporal-inferior and nasal-inferior visual field regions should be good targets for future localized gene therapies in patients. † J.C. and A.V.C. contributed equally to this study. Received: August 5, 2016. Revised: October 16, 2016. Accepted: October 18, 2016 VC The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: firstname.lastname@example.com 5444 Human Molecular Genetics, 2016, Vol. 25, No. 24 5444–5459 doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddw361 Advance Access Publication Date: 25 October 2016


: Purpose: Intermittent demand is defined as infrequent or sporadic. Many forecasting errors are inappropriate for intermittent data. In some periods, there could be no demand, so division by zero must be avoided. Usually, forecasts are computed for many products; therefore, errors should be scale-independent (or relative). Many ex-post forecast errors, such as MASE (Mean Absolute Scaled Error) or MAE (Mean Absolute Error), indicate as best very low forecasts, sometimes even zero forecasts. Therefore, many researchers think that measures taking into account stock and consumer service levels should be used instead of conventional forecasts. It might suggest that typical forecast errors are useless for intermittent data. In this article, the contradictory hypothesis is verified. It is stated that only unbiased forecast errors should be used if the conclusions are to be correct. Design/Methodology/Approach: Definition of unbiased forecast error is proposed and verified for popular forecast errors, such as ME (Mean Error), MSE (Mean Square Error), MAE, or MASE. The theoretical properties of these errors are considered concerning their biasedness. Forecasts are made based on Croston's and TSB methods, but also average and median were used as forecasting methods to emphasize conclusions. Findings: In the empirical example, forecast errors are computed for intermittent demand times series to verify theoretical conclusions. The general conclusion is that only unbiased forecast errors provide proper indications according to forecast accuracy. This finding is true in general, not only for intermittent demand. Practical Implications: Presented considerations might be useful for enterprises dealing with intermittent demand forecasting such as distribution centers, warehouse centers, and so on. Originality/value: To the author's knowledge, forecast error bias was not analyzed before in the literature. A new forecast error is proposed, which was named RMSSE (Root Mean Square Scaled Error).


Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is a rare disorder with an estimated incidence of 3 - 7/1,000,000. It is an autoimmune disorder characterized by fever, neurological signs, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia and renal failure. This case report will describe a young lady who presented with acute middle cerebral artery infarct and was subsequently diagnosed to have TTP. Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) did not improve the neurological deficit. This case highlights the importance of recognizing TTP as a possible differential diagnosis in young onset stroke.


Abstract. Cartography in the under-law regulation for classification of fields and sciences in North Macedonia (page 49-93, annex 2, official gazette no.103 year 2010, http://www.slvesnik.com.mk/Issues/3F71A9F8CEFC884D813AD80158E3FBAD.pdf) in the same time is listed under the natural and technical sciences with two separate codes, namely: 10502 under the group of geography fields and 20606 under geodesy fields (official gazette no.103 year 2010, annex 2, pages 51 and 57). Based on this classification, non-cartographers, even official officers of the governmental institutions, gets wrong indicator as if they were two different type of science fields. This was the legal base for deliberately abuse by the officials in the State Inspectorate of Education in North Macedonia (http://dpi.mon.gov.mk) and University of Tetova (www.unite.edu.mk), which began on January 2016.In the minutes and decision nr.09-38 from 18.01.2016, contrary to article 17 of the Law for educational inspection (http://mon.gov.mk/images/documents/zakoni/zakon_za_inspekcija_26-02-2016.pdf), the state educational inspector Gjorgji Ilievski, made artificial and crucial difference between cartography as science under technical sciences and cartography as other science under natural sciences, by deciding that those who has PhD on cartography in technical faculties such as geodesy are not eligible to be elected as cartography lecturer/professor in the faculties of natural sciences such as geography department. This is non-professional and non-real distinction, however in the law system of North Macedonia, the signed decision nr.09-38 has an inspectional executive legal status, which should be obligatory used by the others as a legal base for other decisions. This is very dangerous situation, because the official decision by the state institution (State Educational Inspectorate) have to be used by all other institutions as a legal base for other procedures/decisions, even though it contain totally incorrect and non-professional proof!Based on the decision nr.09-38 from 18.01.2016 of the State Educational Inspectorate, on 22.06.2016 Vullnet Ameti as Rector of the University of Tetova has signed a decision nr.02-2094/1 for revocation of academic degrees in cartography under the natural sciences, with the same justification that "a PhD title on cartography that has been acquired in technical sciences is not eligible for getting academic position of cartography professor in geography department". This is the second official document/decision which has direct negative impact to cartography and cartographers in North Macedonia.Main proof which proves that both decisions are deliberately abuse by the officials in the State Inspectorate of Education in North Macedonia and the University of Tetova is classical falsification on my professional identity. In both documents, signer's educational inspector Gjorgji Ilievski as well as rector Vullnet Ameti have used wrong profession for my education as civil engineer, even though I have never studied in my life the civil engineering. In both documents, the signers have written supposedly that my PhD diploma is on civil engineering with code 207 (based on official gazette nr.103, year 2010; page 57). Such kind of decisions in which the signers change your profession without any document, is a crime and violation of the human rights.For the crime, falsification, non-real difference of scientific fields and non-professional actions, with the deliberately abuse by the officials in the State Inspectorate of Education in North Macedonia and the University of Tetova, all relevant institutions of North Macedonia have been informed, such as: Ministry of Education and Science, Academy of sciences, Ombudsman, Public prosecution, the Office of Prime Minister, the commission for anticorruption, the council of inspections, the administrative inspection, the administrative court, and the commission for discrimination, as well as some international organizations accredited in North Macedonia. However, until today, the end of February 2019, any concrete decision which will punish the signers of decisions with wrong proofs doesn't reached to me!In order to proof the opposite of those used in both decisions/minutes of State Inspectorate of Education in North Macedonia and the University of Tetova, the clarification has been asked to be given by the Sector for high education in the Ministry of Education and Sciences of North Macedonia (www.mon.gov.mk), and by the International Cartographic Association (www.icaci.org). Two documents with answers have been delivered from both institutions. Answer of the sector for high education nr. 14-9498/2 of 17.08.2017 prove that my PhD thesis defended in year 2007 in geodesy department at the Faculty for civil engineering of the University of "St. Cyril and Methodius" in Skopje is in the field of cartography, as well as prove that doesn't exist any difference between cartography listed in the technical and natural sciences in the under-law regulation for classification of fields and sciences in North Macedonia (annex 2, official gazette no.103 year 2010). Non-existing difference between cartography listed under the technical (geodesy) and natural (geography) sciences is proved also in the "Letter of Clarification/Confirmation for Cartography as independent science and its relation to natural and technical sciences" issued by the International Cartographic Association on 02.10.2018. Both documents have been submitted by me to the State Inspectorate of Education in North Macedonia and the University of Tetova, as well to other relevant institutions in North Macedonia, however until today, this issue has not been solved by any institution in North Macedonia. Therefore, additional international input by the International Cartographic Association is needed, because the destiny of cartography, cartographers and the individuals who are dealing with cartography can-not be left in hands of irresponsible officers who misuse their official positions to sign such a kind of illegal decisions (nr.09-38 from 18.01.2016, and nr.02-2094/1 from 22.06.2016) in order to punish certain people, in this case punishing me!The used codes 10502 for cartography under the group of geography fields and 20606 under geodesy fields (official gazette no.103, year 2010, annex 2, pages 51 and 57) are part of the under-law regulation known in North Macedonia as "International Frascati Classification of scientific fields". However, this type of classification is not fully compatible with the Frascati classification, which means that usage of word "international" doesn't reflect the reality. The proofing of this statement is very easy. In any country worldwide can not be recognized the same classification with same codes 10502 and 20606 for cartography, even all codes used in this regulation. These proofs clearly indicate that the classification in North Macedonia called "International Frascati Classification of scientific fields" is not an international classification, so it is just a classification in national level, and it is not internationally used.The beginning of this kind of classification in North Macedonia was established in year 2001 within the Tempus project CME-03118-97 (http://ftu.uklo.edu.mk/FTU/html/soopstenija/naucni%20polinja.pdf), and is formalized in year 2010 as underlaw regulation for "International Frascati Classification" (official gazette no.103, year 2010, annex 2). The classification called "Класификација на Научни Полиња, Подрачја и Области (Дисциплини) на Истражување" is performed in year 2001 within the project "Developing a system for quality assessment of educational performance to be introduced in Macedonian universities" under the Tempus programme CME-03118-97, by defining 960 scientific fields in the third level of classification, based on CERIF 1998 (Common European Research Project Information Format), UNESCO 1998 and two levels of Frascati Manual 1993 by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000101730). Nine year later, on year 2010, this project output (list of classification) has been used as a basic document for officialization of the classification of scientific fields in North Macedonia. Even though classification from year 2010 (official gazette no.103, year 2010, annex 2) is based on documents from year 1993 (by OECD) and 2001 (by TEMPUS project), it is still in official use in North Macedonia for all official procedures in the high education sector, although it is more than 2 decades old and doesn't fit the big technological changes happened in sciences during the last decades. Unfortunately, contrary to the reality, it is used as legal and professional base for illegal minutes and decision nr.09-38 signed by Gjorgji Ilievski on 18.01.2016 and decision nr.02- 2094/1 signed by Vullnet Ameti on 22.06.2016.Since the state educational inspectors in State Educational Inspectorate are officers with bachelor or master education in pedagogy, history, geography, physical education etc., the supervision of high educational process in public and private universities in North Macedonia is in very critical point, because the officers with bachelor or master degree on education have to supervise university professors in specific scientific areas, which is impossible mission!At the web site of the Ministry of education and sciences (http://www.mon.gov.mk/index.php/2014-07-24-06-34-40/pravilnici), in the page for regulations, as well as in the page regulation of the web site of the State Educational Inspectorate (http://dpi.mon.gov.mk/index.php/regulations/pravilnici), searched on February 2019, the "International Frascati Classification" from year 2010 (official gazette no.103, year 2010, annex 2) is missing.In the latest Law for high education in North Macedonia (official gazette no. 82, year 2018, http://www.slvesnik.com.mk/Issues/e70eb6afb


The Big Idea. American print advertising in the 50s and 60s. Gleaned from thousands of images, this companion set of books offers the best of American print advertising in the age of the "Big Idea." At the height of American consumerism magazines were flooded with clever campaigns selling everything from girdles to guns. These optimistic indicators paint a fascinating picture of the colorful capitalism that dominated the spirit of the 1950s and '60s, as concerns about the Cold War gave way to the carefree booze-and-cigarettes Mad Men era. Also included is a wide range of significant advertising campaigns from both eras, giving insight to the zeitgeist of the time. Bursting with fresh, crisp colors, these ads have been digitally mastered to look as bright and new as the day they first hit newsstands.


This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental research project investigating the impact of two different formal learning spaces – a traditional classroom and a technologically enhanced active learning classroom – on instructor behavior, classroom activities, and levels of on-task student behavior at a large mid-western university. Using time-series data collected as part of a series of classroom observations, we demonstrate that not only are clear differences manifest in terms of what occurred within each space, but that the different classroom types are linked causally to the observed differences in instructor and student behavior.


AIMS
To explore mental health nurses' knowledge, attitudes and clinical judgement concerning medicines management in an inpatient setting with a view to enhancing training.

BACKGROUND
Medicines management is a key role of mental health nurses, but little research has been conducted into their training needs.

DESIGN
An exploratory mixed-methods design was used involving individual interviews with participants to investigate their responses to hypothetical medicine administration scenarios.

METHODS
Interviews were held with a convenience sample of 50 Registered Nurses working in a specialist mental health hospital between November 2012-February 2013. Participants were presented with clinical vignettes describing eight scenarios they might encounter as part of their medicines management role and asked about how they would respond. Responses were assessed by two independent raters against ten quality standards underpinning the vignettes.

RESULTS
The median number of responses that were judged to demonstrate adequate awareness of associated quality standards was 4 (range 1-7), indicating that many participants did not appear to be aware of, or compliant with, current UK medicines management guidance and local policy. Many would not report a 'near miss' or medicines administration error. There was a lack of awareness of guidance on verbal prescribing, consent to treatment rules and the administration of off-label/unlicensed drugs. Past year attendance on a medicines management course, time since registration and self-reported knowledge of national standards for medicines administration did not discriminate between total score on the 10 quality standards.

CONCLUSION
The medicines management training needs of participants appeared not to be fully met by the existing learning sources. The use of vignettes to assess nurses' training needs requires evaluation in other settings.


Acute infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) generally occurs during the first year of life. Approximately 1% of all infants is hospitalized for RSV bronchiolitis, of which 10% requires intensive care. RSV bronchiolitis is hallmarked by exaggerated mucus production and neutrophil infiltration to the lower airways, which peaks prior to the adaptive immune response.

The infant vulnerability to viral infection has long been attributed to reduced employment of antiviral Th1 activation leading to a preferred activation of Th2 responses. Although Th2 cytokines are certainly involved in RSV disease, they do not suffice to explain all aspects of RSV bronchiolitis. Furthermore neither the timing of RSV pathology, nor the marked correlation of innate immune gene variants to RSV bronchiolitis are sufficiently explained by the model of Th2-driven immunopathology. Understanding the immunopathogenesis of RSV bronchiolitis could open avenues for novel therapeutic strategies.

IL-17 in RSV bronchiolitis

In the balance of T-helper cell polarizations, decreased Th1 responses as they occur in infants allow for elevated Th17 responses. Indeed, RSV infection in infants associates with elevated IL-17 and accumulation of CD161+ T cells in patient lungs, as well as locally elevated concentrations of Th17 polarizing cytokines. Circulating Th17 cells are present in one-month-old RSV patients, but absent in healthy infants of the same age. IL-17 thus may contribute to RSV airway immunopathology.

Th17 responses were previously reported to facilitate neutrophil migration. As lung neutrophilia in RSV precedes adaptive immunity, we asked whether IL-17 from an innate source causes neutrophil infiltration to RSV infected lungs. Local IL-17 concentrations in RSV patients early after hospitalization correlate with subsequent lung neutrophilia. An IL-17 blocking antibody prevented day 2 post-infection lung neutrophilia in RSV infected mice. We thus show that early local IL-17 production in the airways facilitates neutrophil recruitment to RSV-infected infant lungs.

Vitamin D and RSV immune activation

Vitamin D deficiency and a well-described polymorphism in the vitamin D receptor (VDR), FokI, are important risk factors RSV bronchiolitis. We investigated the role of vitamin D mediated regulation by studying the FokI VDR variant.

While normal VDR regulates NF-κB and STAT1 responses. FokI VDR fails to regulate both RSV-induced STAT1 phosphorylation and the expression of its downstream targets IRF1 and IRF7. The poor capacity of vitamin D to regulate IRF1 in FokI VDR expressing cells was recapitulated using blood samples from normal and FokI VDR genotyped healthy donors. Our data suggests that strong activation of innate STAT1 responses may be detrimental in RSV disease, but by what means is unclear. It also indicates that vitamin D supplementation may not protect against RSV disease in all individuals.

As a common concept, reduced regulation of immune activation seems to cause immunopathology in RSV disease. Infants are particularly vulnerable to excessive deployment of Th2/Th17 responses. Likewise, impaired regulating capacity of anti-viral responses by VDR may enhance RSV pathology. Targeted immune regulation, notably of STAT1 and IL-17, may be an appropriate approach for novel RSV therapies.


You want to learn C# programming, but you're not sure you want to suffer through another tedious technical book. You're in luck: Head First C# introduces this language in a fun, visual way. You'll quickly learn everything from creating your first program to learning sophisticated coding skills with C# 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4, while avoiding common errors that frustrate many students. The second edition offers several hands-on labs along the way to help you build and test programs using skills you've learned up to that point. In the final lab, you'll put everything together. From objects to garbage collection and from exceptions to interactions, you'll learn C# in a way that engages and entertains your brain. Here are a few of the topics you'll learn: Start by building a useful application with pre-built components in Visual Studio 2010 Discover how objects work, using real-world examples Store numbers, text, and other basic data types using primitives Save complex data in files and databases with great C# tools Build intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces by following simple rules Design your code to catch exceptions -- things you don't expect Develop good programming habits, such as refactoring code and applying unit tests Learn how web services put your programs in touch with the rest of the world Make it easy for other people to install your software


Within this article I describe, with the help of my masters in education (MEd) students who are also my coresearchers, the results of a year-long, cooperative inquiry aimed at exploring and making concrete the ways in which cultural and political knowledge can be explored, understood, and personalized as prospective teachers begin to develop culturally relevant approaches. This work is not intended to describe a model or define a single style, nor do we make any claims that what is described can be linked to improved achievement. What we do attempt to communicate is how a group of prospective teachers, as participants and students of a particular African American community context, begin to develop bicultural competency and personalize cultural and political knowledge in an effort to develop culturally relevant pedagogies.


The joint use of phylogenetic trees and ecological data has proven useful for many aspects of ecology. However, there are a multitude of phylo-diversity metrics with complex interdependencies and mathematical redundancies (the so-called 'jungle' of metrics). Several recentpapers have been trying to 'map' this jungle but appear at a first glance to contradict each other. We suggest that these contradictory results are in fact complementary and reflect two approaches to understand diversity metrics: the first focuses on general mathematical properties,the second focuses on assessing metric performance in relation to particular questions.In this manuscript, we discuss the complementarity of the two approaches and in particular how recent papers fit into this categorisation.