Summary This report is the second of three reports and part of a two year project entitled Establishing water markets in northern Australia: a study to assess feasibility and consequences of market-based mechanisms of water delivery undertaken through the Australian National University's Crawford School of Economics and Government. The Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) hub funded this project under Theme 6.1 "Sustainable Enterprises". This research is also being done in collaboration with the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA). This second report provides analysis of stakeholder attitudes and values and their implications for the design of water markets across tropical Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia, (with focus on the Gulf, Timor and North East drainage divisions). The study utilised a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, employing a survey with closed ended (5 point Likert scales and multiple choice) and open ended measures. In Task 2 we surveyed 120 people from government, Indigenous, industry and recreational user groups and present a range of values and attitudes related to markets and we discuss the general implications for market design in the north. Analysing data from open ended measures involved coding and grouping data into categories, then identifying patterns and themes. While statistical analysis involved ordered probit models, using robust standard errors and also controlling for lack of independence within each group using cluster. Preliminary findings were sent out to respondents for their feedback and where appropriate changes made. From this the final report was produced. Our findings highlight that sustainability; environmental protection; social justice and equity; and economic development were important values to respondents in relation to water markets. Respondents emphasised the importance of robust water planning frameworks that support ecological values and irrigator and Indigenous livelihoods, and respondents overwhelmingly disagreed with the trade of environmental and cultural flows. There was also significant support for the preservation of certain catchments and aquifers for their unique values (particularly among Indigenous respondents). Social justice and equity were important to respondents, with a sentiment to include Indigenous people in water reform and in water markets. Indigenous respondents felt that current arrangements were not equitable. As well, respondents from government, Indigenous and recreational groups felt that consultation and water policy fail to adequately address the needs and interests  of Indigenous Australians. Indigenous respondents showed support for water markets, the development of water based enterprise (such as agriculture and horticulture) and believe strongly that the benefits of water trading will be significant. These views were tempered by some concerns that  Indigenous people may be alienated from markets and that the ecological impacts from markets could be significant. Respondents felt that water management was sustainable in their region, but at the same time they did not believe water management to be efficient. This may be related to perceptions that certain systems are not over-allocated to consumptive users. A little over half of respondents agreed that water markets help sustainable water management and that water should be a tradable commodity, and respondents that were male and had a higher education were more likely to agree to these statements. Support for separating land and water title (unbundling) was mixed, with Indigenous respondents less likely to agree to a separation. There is a level of understanding of water management in their jurisdictions were more likely to agree to water transfers. There was unanimous support for government involvement in water markets, with overwhelming support for government as regulator. Literature highlights that importance of integrating values and attitudes in resource management frameworks. We identify four general implications for the design of water markets from our findings. The first is that Indigenous involvement in water markets and reform is important as one way to address Indigenous disadvantage and to support Indigenous livelihoods. This involvement could range from water management and planning, to the recognition of customary and commercial rights. Second, respondents thought that the general community should have greater involvement in water management and planning. This would require education programs to improve awareness of reform and increased support for stakeholder input into reform, particularly where language barriers and cultural differences exist. Third, given the importance of sustainability and environmental protection, it is recommended that markets develop within a planning framework, with robust but simple trading rules to protect ecological and customary values. Fourth it was emphasised by some respondents that there should be minimal red tape and costs associated with markets given the marginal operating conditions for producers across the north. Further research could build on this exploratory work to improve understanding of how to involve Indigenous interests in water markets, and examine the attitudes and values of a broader range of stakeholders across the north (such as examining women's attitudes and values to water markets across the north).


Abstract: Efforts aimed at urban poverty reduction and service delivery improvement
depend critically on slum dwellers' collective agency. Adding to a long history
of community participation approaches, there is a now growing incidence
of so-called 'partnerships' between municipal agencies, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and slum organizations. Such approaches require a
fair representation of a majority of the poor by local community-based organizations
(CBOs), the potential and interest of both poor men and women to
organize pro-actively in collective action, and a CBO leadership that works
for the common good. This article puts some key assumptions underlying
grassroots-based strategies under scrutiny. That relations amongst the urban
poor are unequal and that they are divided in terms of income, gender and
ethnicity has been well documented, but there has been less attention for
the fact that the poor, facing conditions of scarcity and competition, rely on
vertical relations of patronage and brokerage which may hinder or prevent
horizontal mobilization. Rather than being vehicles of empowerment and
change, CBOs and their leadership often block progress, controlling or capturing
benefits aimed at the poor and misusing them for private (political)
interests. Presenting evidence from community-based projects in the slums
of three large Indian cities, the article argues that municipal agencies, donors
and NGOs cannot easily escape the logic of patronage and often themselves
become part of a system of vertical dependency relations.


As voters switch political preferences from election to election, understanding the magnitude of voter flows among parties and transitions between voters and non-voters is an essential element of political analysis. As exit polls are uncommon in Canada, voter migration can also be estimated using suitable statistical techniques. Backing out micro-level voter migration probabilities from macro-level election data is a problem of `ecological inference.' This paper uses the method of generalized maximum entropy (GME) to estimate voter migration patterns for the two most recent recent Canadian federal elections (2004 and 2006) and the most recent provincial election in British Columbia (2005). The estimation results answer important questions about voter behaviour in Canada. These results will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and politicians, as well as econometric practicioners who wish to estimate voter migration.


Overuse injuries represent a significant problem for runners with tibial stress injuries common. Identifying risk factors is a crucial step in the development of effective preventative measures and treatments for specific injuries. The foot has been suggested to be an intrinsic risk factor for tibial stress injury, however, literature is contradictory. Few studies have investigated dynamic foot function as a potential risk factor. A recent area of biomechanics research has focussed on the development of multisegment foot models for use in research and clinical settings. However to date, few studies have used such models to try and answer questions relating to overuse injuries. The overall purpose of this thesis was to answer the question, are forefoot-rearfoot kinematics risk factors for tibial stress injuries in runners? Chapter II conducted a systematic review of the literature to determine any relationship between tibial stress injuries and foot type. Results proved conflicting with limited evidence implicating any one foot type as a potential risk factor. Importantly, dynamic measures of foot function were suggested to be more useful in predicting injury risk. Chapter III examined methodological considerations with the measurement of forefoot-rearfoot kinematics. A new multisegment foot model (forefoot, rearfoot and shank) for use with gait sandals was developed and presented. Data was also presented to support the use of gait sandals as an effective means of measuring the kinematic motions seen when wearing running shoes. The Chapter also addressed the reliability of selected kinematic measures and tibial shock. Selected kinematic variables focused on peak joint angles, excursions and velocities which define the motions of the foot during loading. Chapter IV presents an application of the developed model. The study investigated foot function in relation to foot type and sought to compare forefoot-rearfoot kinematics in high and low-arched populations. Differences between high and low-arched feet were observed for some dynamic forefoot-rearfoot variables. Specifically, greater forefoot abduction excursion, forefoot dorsiflexion excursion and forefoot abduction velocity were found in high-arched compared to low-arched individuals. Further, differences between groups were also noted in the coupling between the forefoot and rearfoot, but these differences did not appear to be transferred proximally to the shank. Chapter V studied dynamic foot function in relation to tibial stress injury risk. The study sought to compare forefoot-rearfoot kinematics in those with a history of tibial stress injury and a matched control group. Key differences were found in kinematic variables between injury and control groups. Specifically, peak rearfoot eversion, peak forefoot dorsiflexion velocity and peak forefoot abduction velocity were found to be greater in those with a history of tibial stress injury compared to a control group. Differences were also noted between the coupling of the forefoot, rearfoot and shank, these may characterise the unique loading pattern seen in those with tibial stress injuries. Although only initial findings, this thesis has enhanced understanding of important dynamic risk factors for tibial stress injuries associated with the foot. Furthermore, findings serve to highlight the importance of forefoot motions as risk factors. It is hoped the findings of this thesis will be a useful basis for future research and represent an important step in the development of effective preventative measures and treatments for these injuries.


Land reform in South Africa and the realisation of the section 25 property clause of the Constitution of South Africa , 1996 (hereafter the Constitution) is seen as an integral step in the democratisation process as well as in the social and economic empowerment of previously marginalised groups. For many, the true test for political transformation will be whether land needs (including protection of and care for the environment) are addressed effectively and in a sustainable manner. In recent years, however, government's addressing of land needs has become a highly controversial issue, especially where land that vests in private owners is claimed back because of its status as ancestral land.   Land reform may strongly impact on the environment and sustainable development as protected in section 24 of the Constitution since it involves vast hectares of land, other environmental media and people. Restitution of land processes in terms of section 25(7), as one of the components of land reform, often does not take key provisions contained in environmental and planning law into account. In many instances, for example, government's restitution projects do not make sufficient provision for harmonisation with environmental principles contained in environmental law and no or limited systems exist whereby to inform and assist land restitution beneficiaries on compliance with environmental and planning law obligations in post settlement development endeavours. These limitations could, inter alia , be linked with the fragmentation of the environmental governance regime and a lack of role clarification. It may furthermore result in significant conflict between sections 24 and 25(7) of the Constitution as overarching framework legislation, and between developmental objectives contained in sectoral-specific subordinate legislation. The restitution of land is, amongst other policies, regulated by section 25(7) of the Constitution and the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 whilst section 24 of the Constitution and the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 aim at protection of the environment, the prevention of pollution, the promotion of conservation, and secured ecologically sustainable development. The conditions following land restitution settlement, including the current state of the environment on land that has been restituted, provide an interesting and factual source of reference for critical analysis of environmental policy implementation in land restitution processes and post-settlement endeavours. It further allows for a critical view on the effective or futile realisation of sustainable development in national and provincial governments' efforts to finalise claim-driven restitution of land. In order to limit the scope of this article, land restitution policy, progress with the national land restitution programme and some post-settlement accounts will be critically analysed and assessed in the light of obligations and initiatives for environmental governance derived from the legal framework concerned. A land restitution case is briefly discussed with subsequent comments and suggestions for the way forward.


Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is now an urgent priority. Systems control theory, and in particular feedback control, can be helpful in designing policies that achieve sustainable levels of emissions of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) while minimizing the impact on the economy, and at the same time explicitly addressing the high levels of uncertainty associated with predictions of future emissions. In this paper, we describe preliminary results for an approach where model predictive control (MPC) is applied to a model of the UK economy (UK 4see model) as a test bed to design sustainable policies for greenhouse gas emissions. Using feedback control, the policies are updated on the basis of the actual emissions, rather than on the predicted level of emissions. The basic structure and principle of the UK 4see model is described and its implementation in Simulink is presented. A linearized state space model is obtained and model predictive control is applied to design policies for CO2 emissions. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The preliminary results obtained in this paper illustrate the strength of the proposed design approach and form the basis for future research on using systems control theory to design optimal sustainable policies. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY license.


This study addresses the role of code switching to students' L1 (Arabic) in their ESL classrooms and whether it expands interaction in these classrooms. The gap perceived in this area needs to be addressed towards the domains of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics in the ESL classrooms teaching environment. Henceforth, this study draws on data collected from basic, secondary and college ESL classrooms in the Sudan and Saudi Arabia. The study incorporates various data gathering procedures: audio-taped spoken data of some ESL classrooms, questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The data has been analysed by descriptive statistics. The findings generally indicate that CS has been used extensively, purposefully and functionally as part and parcel of ESL classrooms' discourse. The overall findings suggest that, although the use of L1 has been criticized in the existing literature, yet it has been admitted by ESL teachers, showing that L1 use is unavoidable at basic, secondary and tertiary level in the Sudan and Saudi Arabia. In classrooms where both students and teachers share the same L1, there is a great tendency for using it in the fields of explaining meaning and difficult words, guiding interpretation, transmitting lesson content, illustrating grammatical rules, organizing ESL classrooms and praising and encouraging students. Thus, L1 has been found useful in expanding the interactions of ESL classrooms towards facilitating ESL learning process. The study also calls for sensitizing both teachers and students about the helpful uses of CS. Therefore, syllabi and methods of teaching ESL should incorporate CS in an occasional and judicious way.


Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs) show the most potential in efficient chemical to electrical energy conversion having approximately half the specific energy compared to gasoline at 5.54 kW-hr/kg (19.9 MJ/kg). With a density of 0.792 kg/L, methanol's energy density is 4.39 kW-hr/L. By designing a system to utilize methanol, the advantages from quick refills and the elimination of recharge times offer great motivation for further analysis on this topic. Furthermore, methanol is a relatively low cost alcohol/fuel with popular applications such as automobile windshield wiper and aircraft de-icing fluids. One major source of inefficiency within the DMFC is the electrolyte allowing fuel to cross over from the anode to cathode. Proprietary DuPont Nafion 117 has been the standard thus far for all meso-scale direct methanol power conversion systems and its shortcomings are primarily in the areas of slow anodic reaction rates and fuel crossover resulting in lower voltage generation or "mixed potential." Porous Silicon (P-Si) is traditionally used in photovoltaic and photoluminescence applications. Rarely is it used to function as a mechanical filter or membrane. The research deals with investigations into using P-Si as a functioning electrolyte to transfer ions from the anode to cathode of a DMFC. In addition, an effort to observe the consequences of stacking multiple layers of anodes is attempted. Porous silicon was fabricated in a standard Teflon cylindrical cell by an anodization process including varying the current density to etch and electro-polish the silicon membrane. The result was a silicon membrane with pore sizes of approximately 1.5 μm when optically characterized by a scanning electron microscope. The porous membranes were then coated in approximately 0.2 mg/cm Pt-Ru catalyst with a 10% Nafion solution binding agent onto the anode. Voltage versus current data shows that an open circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.25V was achieved with one layer when operating at 20C. When adding a second layer of porous silicon, the OCV was raised to approximately 0.32V under the same conditions. The experimental data suggests that the current collected also increases with an additional identical layer of anode prepared the same way. The only difference is that the air cathode side was surface treated to 0.1 mg of Pt black catalyst with a 10% Nafion binding agent to aid in the recombination of hydrogen atoms to form the water byproduct. Porous silicon endurance runs with 2ml of 3% by volume methanol (0.7425M) fuel dissolved in water show that an operating voltage was generated for approximately 3 hours before the level dropped to approximately 65% of the maximum voltage of 0.25V. Endurance runs with a second layer added extended the useful life of the cell by approximately 2 hours to 5 hours when tested under the same conditions. When tests were conducted for voltage generation by varying the methanol concentration, a linear relationship developed up until the point where methanol seepage through the porous membrane affected measurements. In an effort to quantify the results and confirm the usefulness of the addition of a second layer, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry was conducted on a number of samples to verify the methanol concentration for each layer. Additionally, a pH test was conducted to measure the relative amounts of protons dissolved in solution between the layers.


An ophiolitic suture zone and associated active continental margin sequences of mid-Jurassic age are found in northern Turkey exposed in inliers surrounded by an extensive Upper Cretaceous to Eocene volcanic blanket. The pre–Late Jurassic rocks of the eastern Black Sea Mountains (eastern Pontide tectonic zone) consist of two distinct lithologic associations: a "continental" assemblage represents a Permian to Early Jurassic north-facing magmatic arc, whereas an "oceanic" assemblage, including a locally metamorphosed ophiolite suite overlain by deep-sea sediments, is believed to represent the vestiges of an oceanic realm that existed north of the arc during the ?Permian to Jurassic interval. During the mid-Jurassic, the oceanic assemblage underwent penetrative deformation and was overthrust by the continental assemblage. The latter has not been penetratively deformed except for a wide zone of intense cataclasis along its basal thrust. The southern part of the continental assemblage was affected by east-west gravity faulting and basaltic and some trachytic volcanism during the Early Jurassic. We interpret the Permian to mid-Jurassic geological record of the eastern Pontides as the expression of the progressive contraction of a Permian-Jurassic ocean with a south-dipping subduction zone. Its closure resulted in the overthrusting of the continental assemblage onto the oceanic assemblage. Regional considerations suggest that the suture forms a part of an orogenic belt stretching from the mid-Jurassic South Rhodope Orogen through the early to mid-Mesozoic orogenic zones of the peri-Black Sea regions, northern Iran, Afghanistan, central Tibet, and China. This orogenic belt resulted from the closure of Permian-Triassic Paleo-Tethys. The oceanic assemblage we describe is believed to be a part of the floor of this ocean, whereas the continental assemblage is viewed as a part of a previously defined Cimmerian continent.


AN INVESTIGATION OF METHODS TO HOMOGENEOUSLY ENTRAIN AND SUSPEND ABRASIVE PARTICLES IN A LOW PRESSURE DENTAL WATER JET Michael S. Grygla Department of Mechanical Engineering Master of Science During the past several decades, the water jet cutting concept has developed from a novel concept into a well-accepted machine cutting tool. With the addition of abrasive particles and the improvement of high pressure pumps, the water jet stream is currently capable of cutting through metal, concrete, and composite materials. Water jet systems have been utilized at a wide range of different pressures. Research performed at Brigham Young University has revealed that low pressure water jets have the ability to cut human teeth. Experiments have shown that when abrasive particles are added to the water jet stream, an greater amount of tooth material can be removed at lower input pressures. Many different methods have been proposed to entrain and suspend particles in a high pressure water jet system. The abrasive particles can be entrained before the water is pressurized, while the water is being pressurized, or after the water jets stream exits the pressurized system. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, keeping abrasive particles homogeneously entrained and suspended in a water jet stream has proven to be difficult. Research at Brigham Young University has encountered similar problems. Researchers are attemping to place abrasive particles in a low pressure water jet stream, but have not been able to maintain a suspended homogeneous slurry. It is the objective of this research to investigate and suggest several possible methods to entrain and suspend abrasive particles into a low pressure water jet system intended for a dental cutting application. A broad review of methods to entrain abrasives in high pressure water jet systems was performed. A list of methods and concepts as possible solutions to entrain abrasives in a low pressure system has been generated. Product design principles were applied to screen, score, and rank these generated concepts to narrow down the list to the most viable concepts for BYU's low pressure dental water jet. Several tests and experiments were also performed to validate the suggested concepts and to provide useful information for future research. It is anticpated that one or more of these methods will be applicable for the proposed dental application as well as other similar applications.


Dengue caused by four antigenically distinct serotype remains a serious health concern around the world, particularly in the tropical areas. Clinical signs and symptoms of this disease are indistinguishable from other infectious disease; therefore, laboratory diagno- sis is very crucial for confirming the disease that will be useful for the patient's manage -ment. In laboratory, dengue can be confirmed using cell culture, RNA detection, and serological detection based on ELISA and immunochromatographic test. However, each of these methods has certain practical limitations. Therefore, researchers from all over the world have been working to address these limitations. In this chapter, we will highlight the current research toward the development of novel point-of-care test for the diagnosis of dengue in acute and convalescent phase.


We propose an acoustic anomaly detection algorithm based on the framework of contrastive learning. Contrastive learning is a recently proposed self-supervised approach that has shown promising results in image classification and speech recognition. However, its application in anomaly detection is underexplored. Earlier studies have demonstrated that it can achieve state-of-the-art performance in image anomaly detection, but its capability in anomalous sound detection is yet to be investigated. For the first time, we propose a contrastive learning-based framework that is suitable for acoustic anomaly detection. Since most existing contrastive learning approaches are targeted toward images, the effect of other data transformations on the performance of the algorithm is unknown. Our framework learns a representation from unlabeled data by applying audio-specific data augmentations. We show that in the resulting latent space, normal and abnormal points are distinguishable. Experiments conducted on the MIMII dataset confirm that our approach can outperform competing methods in detecting anomalies.


Benefiting from the natural vegetation of the region optimizes the planting design both aesthetically and functionally, and efficient planting is achieved through concomitant utilization of various forms. Geophytes are especially preferred in planting works as natural species due to their superior qualities such as easy growth as well as beautiful and glamorous flowers and plant forms in spring and autumn. They are used in parks and gardens overseas, and their use becomes gradually widespread in landscape design works in Turkey, especially in Istanbul Metropolitan City over the recent years. In this study the importance of geophytes in terms of landscape design was covered, general principles and areas of use were explained, and examples were given from the Istanbul metropolitan city.

 Key words: Geophytes, planting, landscape design.


Local differential privacy (LDP) is a strong notion of privacy for individual users that often comes at the expense of a significant drop in utility. The classical definition of LDP assumes that all elements in the data domain are equally sensitive. However, in many applications, some symbols are more sensitive than others. This work proposes a context-aware framework of local differential privacy that allows a privacy designer to incorporate the application's context into the privacy definition. For binary data domains, we provide a universally optimal privatization scheme and highlight its connections to Warner's randomized response (RR) and Mangat's improved response. Motivated by geolocation and web search applications, for $k$-ary data domains, we consider two special cases of context-aware LDP: block-structured LDP and high-low LDP. We study discrete distribution estimation and provide communication-efficient, sample-optimal schemes and information-theoretic lower bounds for both models. We show that using contextual information can require fewer samples than classical LDP to achieve the same accuracy.


Generating large-scale synthetic data in simulation is a feasible alternative to collecting/labelling real data for training vision-based deep learning models, albeit the modelling inaccuracies do not generalize to the physical world. In this paper, we present a domain-invariant representation learning (DIRL) algorithm to adapt deep models to the physical environment with a small amount of real data. Existing approaches that only mitigate the covariate shift by aligning the marginal distributions across the domains and assume the conditional distributions to be domain-invariant can lead to ambiguous transfer in real scenarios. We propose to jointly align the marginal (input domains) and the conditional (output labels) distributions to mitigate the covariate and the conditional shift across the domains with adversarial learning, and combine it with a triplet distribution loss to make the conditional distributions disjoint in the shared feature space. Experiments on digit domains yield state-of-the-art performance on challenging benchmarks, while sim-to-real transfer of object recognition for vision-based decluttering with a mobile robot improves from 26.8 % to 91.0 %, resulting in 86.5 % grasping accuracy of a wide variety of objects. Code and supplementary details are available at this https URL


We report on the scientific and historical study of a mummy associated with an Egyptian coffin once belonging to Count Aleksander Branicki, an important Polish collector who took part in two private expeditions to Egypt during the mid-nineteenth century. Recently the object was submitted for radiological investigation, as well as radiocarbon dating, in order to obtain a clearer picture of the biohistory and chronology of the body contained within the coffin. Furthermore, new documentary evidence was recovered that illustrates the colorful journey of the artifact and its contents from Egypt to Europe.


In this work we employed UV resonance Raman spectroscopy with 229 nm excitation to study two tryptophan-containing antimicrobial peptides with a broad-spectrum activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria: lactoferricin B (LfB, RRWQWRMKKLG) and pEM-2 (KKWRWWLKALAKK). UV resonance Raman spectra of both peptides are dominated by tryptophan bands. Raman spectra of LfB and pEM-2 in D2O and 2,2,2-trifluoro ethanol (TFE) have been measured and used to identify the hydrogen-bond strength marker bands W6 and W17. The tryptophan doublet, W7, at 1340 and 1360 cm−1 was used to detect an increase in the hydrophobicity of Trp environment in TFE. The spectra of LfB in complex with model cell membranes composed of zwitterionic dipalmitoylglycero-phosphocholine (DPPC) or anionic dipalmitoyglycero-phosphoglycerol (DPPG) lipid vesicles revealed a more hydrophobic Trp environment in DPPG, suggesting stronger interactions between the cationic peptide and anionic model cell membrane. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A robotic fish accepted by animals as conspecifics is a very powerful tool in behavioral biology. To obtain the acceptance of the device towards the animals, it should generate some visual stimuli that can be perceived by a living fish as attractive signals. In this paper we introduce a novel design of a robotic fish lure based on a Rigid-Flex Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for experiments on the fish collective behavior. The 3D scan of a zebrafish Danio Rerio, a model animal for fish behavior studies, was used to mimick the main visual features of the zebrafish on the design. The robot can generate different stimuli thanks to its actuated caudal peduncle and two Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) placed near its eyes. The prototype has a total length of 63 mm and is only 1.5 times bigger than a zebrafish. The final prototype is waterproof and functional and thus satisfies the necessary conditions for the next steps that will be interaction experiments between the device and living zebrafish.


For a decade, researchers have focused on the development and deployment of road automated mobility. In the development of autonomous driving embedded systems, several stages are required. The first one deals with the perception layers. The second one is dedicated to the risk assessment, the decision and strategy layers and the optimal trajectory planning. The last stage addresses the vehicle control/command. This paper proposes an efficient solution to the second stage and improves a virtual Cooperative Pilot (Co-Pilot) already proposed in 2012. This paper thus introduces a trajectory planning algorithm for automated vehicles (AV), specifically designed for emergency situations and based on the Autonomous Decision-Support Framework (ADSF) of the EU project Trustonomy. This algorithm is an extended version of Elastic Band (EB) with no fixed final position. A set of trajectory nodes is iteratively deduced from obstacles and constraints, thus providing flexibility, fast computation, and physical realism. After introducing the project framework for risk management and the general concept of ADSF, the emergency algorithm is presented and tested under Matlab software. Finally, the Decision-Support framework is implemented under RTMaps software and demonstrated within Pro-SiVIC, a realistic 3D simulation environment. Both the previous virtual Co-Pilot and the new emergency algorithm are combined and used in a near-accident situation and shown in different risky scenarios.


With 63 essays, 22 articles and editorials, 6 short stories, and 7 poems by naturalists, corporate executives, journalists, politicians, philosophers, economists, developers, scientists, poets, fiction writers, and historians, Reading the Environment takes students behind the crisis headlines to introduce them to the rich variety of writing on nature and the environment. In all their diversity, the selections have on thing in common: excellence in writing. With 78 of its 99 selections written since 1980, Reading the Environment is distinctly contemporary in emphasis; however, students can place recent writing in the historical context provided by classic essays on nature and the environment by Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, and Henry D. Thoreau, among others. Reading the Environment gives help where it is needed. Argument Pairs/Topic Clusters encourage critical reading. A Chronology identifies key publications, organizations, legislations, and environmental catastrophes. Vignettes/Photographs spark discussion and writing. Chapter Introductions place the selections in a larger social and political context. Study Questions ("Understanding What You Read," "Writing About What You Read," and " Making Connections"). Glossary of Environmental Terms. Selected List of Books for Further Reading.


Abstract Objective: Early replacement of a new central venous catheter (CVC) may pose a risk of persistent or recurrent infection in patients with a catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI). We evaluated the clinical impact of early CVC reinsertion after catheter removal in patients with CRBSIs. Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of adult patients with confirmed CRBSIs in 2 tertiary-care hospitals over a 7-year period. Results: To treat their infections, 316 patients with CRBSIs underwent CVC removal. Among them, 130 (41.1%) underwent early CVC reinsertion (≤3 days after CVC removal), 39 (12.4%) underwent delayed reinsertion (>3 days), and 147 (46.5%) did not undergo CVC reinsertion. There were no differences in baseline characteristics among the 3 groups, except for nontunneled CVC, presence of septic shock, and reason for CVC reinsertion. The rate of persistent CRBSI in the early CVC reinsertion group (22.3%) was higher than that in the no CVC reinsertion group (7.5%; P = .002) but was similar to that in the delayed CVC reinsertion group (17.9%; P > .99). The other clinical outcomes did not differ among the 3 groups, including rates of 30-day mortality, complicated infection, and recurrence. After controlling for several confounding factors, early CVC reinsertion was not significantly associated with persistent CRBSI (OR, 1.59; P = .35) or 30-day mortality compared with delayed CVC reinsertion (OR, 0.81; P = .68). Conclusions: Early CVC reinsertion in the setting of CRBSI may be safe. Replacement of a new CVC should not be delayed in patients who still require a CVC for ongoing management.


The output regulation problem for an LTI plant whose outputs to be regulated are more than the control inputs is considered. For the case of constant references, a two-degree-of-freedom control scheme that minimises a quadratic cost function is presented. This cost function weights the tracking error at steady state. The methodology is based on the singular value decomposition of the plant transfer matrix at s=0. It is then shown how, by introducing some stronger assumptions, it is possible to modify the controller so as to reduce the steady-state control effort at the cost of a higher tracking error. A detailed numerical design example is finally presented.


We characterize the equilibrium of a search model with a continuum of job and worker types, wage bargaining, free entry of vacancies and on-the-job search. The decentralized economy with monopsonistic wage setting yields too many vacancies and hence too low unemployment compared to first best. This is due to a business-stealing externality. Raising workers' bargaining power resolves this inefficiency. Unemployment benefits are a second best alternative to this policy. We establish simple relations between the losses in production due to search frictions and wage differentials on the one hand and unemployment on the other hand. Both can be used for empirical testing.


[1] We use a plume height climatology derived from space-based Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) observations to evaluate the performance of a widely used plume-rise model. We initialize the model with assimilated meteorological fields from the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System and estimated fuel moisture content at the location and time of the MISR measurements. Fire properties that drive the plume-rise model are difficult to constrain, and we test the model with four estimates each of active fire area and total heat flux, obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire radiative power (FRP) thermal anomalies available for each MISR plume and other empirical data. We demonstrate the degree to which the fire dynamical heat flux (related to active fire area and sensible heat flux) and atmospheric stability structure influence plume rise, although entrainment and possibly other less well constrained factors are also likely to be significant. Using atmospheric stability conditions, MODIS FRP, and MISR plume heights, we find that smoke plumes reaching high altitudes are characterized by higher FRP and weaker atmospheric stability conditions than those at low altitude, which tend to remain confined below the boundary layer, consistent with earlier results. However, over the diversity of conditions studied, the model simulations generally underestimate the plume height dynamic range observed by MISR and do not reliably identify plumes injected into the free troposphere, key information needed for atmospheric models to simulate smoke dispersion. We conclude that embedding in large-scale atmospheric studies an advanced plume-rise model using currently available fire constraints remains a difficult proposition, and we propose a simplified model that crudely constrains plume injection height based on two main physical factors for which some observational constraints often exist. Field experiments aimed at directly measuring fire and smoke plume properties in detail are likely to produce the next major advances in plume-rise modeling.


Why do some armed groups commit massive wartime rape, whereas others never do? Using an original dataset, I describe the substantial variation in rape by armed actors during recent civil wars and test a series of competing causal explanations. I find evidence that the recruitment mechanism is associated with the occurrence of wartime rape. Specifically, the findings support an argument about wartime rape as a method of socialization, in which armed groups that recruit by force—through abduction or pressganging—use rape to create unit cohesion. State weakness and insurgent contraband funding are also associated with increased wartime rape by rebel groups. I examine observable implications of the argument in a brief case study of the Sierra Leone civil war. The results challenge common explanations for wartime rape, with important implications for scholars and policy makers.


Background: Given the hazardous nature of the work in steel factories and that the staff has to deal with hazardous equipment and machines, improper sleep quality and drowsiness among the works tackles performance and boosts rate of job accidents. This study is aimed to survey the quality of sleep and sleepiness status and the pertinent factors among the workers in a rolling mill and a steel production company in Tehran, Iran. Methods: In a Cross-Sectional study 2011, 180 workers were selected randomly from a rolling mill and a steel production company in Tehran. A questionnaire was designed to collect demographic data and variables of work condition. Pitersborg's sleep quality questionnaire was used to survey quality and problems of Participants' sleep. Epworth Sleepiness questionnaire was used to deals with sleepiness during work, studying, watching TV, or during time spent in public. Results: Average score of sleep quality for the fixed shift staff and changing shift staff were 7.5±2.82 and 8.49±2.95 respectively. Surveys of sleep quality for the two groups of the participants based on T-test showed a significant difference between the two groups so that the changing shift staff group suffered poorer sleep quality (p=0.03). Comparison of average drowsiness scores between the two groups of participants based on Mann-Whitney test showed no significant difference (p>0.005). Chi square test showed a significant difference between severity of drowsiness and type of working shift (p =0.028 and 0.009). Conclusion: Staff in revolving shifts suffers poor sleep quality comparing with staff with fixed working shift. Moreover, type of working shift greatly affects severity of drowsiness as staff at different work shift experienced different level of sleepiness. It is essential to survey sleep disorder of the staff in the industry and pay more emphasis on sleep disorder epidemic in other fields of industry.


This paper examines the impact of rainfall shocks on a measure of adult health, body mass, drawing on a unique panel data set of households residing in rural Zimbabwe. Controlling for individual, household, and community factors, and individual fixed, unobservable effects, we find women, but not men, are adversely affected by drought. However, these effects are not borne equally by all women. Women residing in poor households and daughters more generally appear to bear the brunt of this shock. Our results suggest that an ex ante private coping strategy, the accumulation of livestock, protects women against the adverse consequences of this shock. By contrast, we find that ex post public responses are not effective, though for several reasons we treat this finding with caution.


Interactions between species can lead to the evolution of interspecific communication. Non-verbal communication by humans, both intentional and unintentional, can be interpreted by other species. We tested whether American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) were sensitive to human facial features under field conditions by comparing flight initiation distances and urgency of escape behavior to human approaches varying in eye contact and facial expression. We first examined whether crows distinguish between an approaching human who is directly gazing at them and a human approaching them with an averted gaze. In a second experiment, we tested whether crows differentiate a smiling from scowling human approaching them with direct or averted gaze. In the first experiment, we found that crows fled sooner and more urgently when humans were directly gazing at them. Similarly, in the second experiment, crows responded sooner to a direct vs. averted gaze; however, they did not react differently to varying human facial expressions. We suggest that crows use human gaze as a reliable visual cue compared with facial expressions when making decisions about responding to approaching humans. This is the first study to show that a wild corvid species changes its behavior based on human gaze, possibly representing an adaptation to living in human-dominated urban areas and suggesting crows might perceive human intention by this visual cue.


Microstrip Patch Antennas have made great progress in recent years and are one of the most important printed antennas for wireless applications ranging from GSM, WLAN, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max to mid and long-range RADAR tracking. Microstrip antennas have many advantages with respect to conventional antennas, which include smaller size, low cost, ease of fabrication and integration with MMIC, as well as ease of obtaining circular polarization using dual- feed or slotted patch structures. Recently, those same properties, with additional size reduction using high dielectric constant materials, have made patch antennas common in handsets, GPS receivers and other mass-produced wireless products. This paper mainly concentrates on the length and width parameters optimization of an inset-fed rectangular patch antenna with resonating frequency 3 GHz, using Hooke-Jeeves Pattern Search Algorithm for minimized VSWR as well as Return Loss. The patch antenna designs as well as optimizations are done using Ansoft HFSS 13.


Managed in Hong Kong: Adaptive Systems, Entrepreneurship and Human Resources. Edited by Chris Rowley and Robert Fitzgerald. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. Pp. 135. This is a timely and insightful edited volume preoccupied with the future of Hong Kong as rooted in current and past performance. The introductory chapter, written by the two editors, Chris Rowley and Robert Fitzgerald, sets the tone by discussing the three main themes "national competitiveness", "deindustrialization", and "human resources". The conclusion of the introductory chapter is well taken, that old solutions representing a continued frantic search for low cost production in response to new systemic shifts in the economic environment may create a vicious circle hard to break. As part of China in the new millennium, I could not agree more with the statement that Hong Kong needs new ideas for the rocky path ahead. The second chapter by Mick Carney and Howard Davies, takes a historic perspective of the Hong Kong economy up to the present day in an attempt to understand whether past adaptive abilities may play a role in the future. The conclusion is as clear as it is alarming: the "merchant manufacturers" of Hong Kong are not likely to be able to change their traditional strategies towards the required technological upgrading and product differentiation. It is also deftly pointed out that this may not only have negative repercussions for Hong Kong, but also for the Chinese mainland, making the capabilities of Hong Kong firms operating there obsolete as the mainland develops further. Chapter 3, written by Paul Ellis, again bases its analysis on past times but adds a theoretical flair in introducing complexity theory analysing Hong Kong as a complex adaptive system. Somewhat surprisingly, the result is more positive for the future of Hong Kong even if the arguments in favour are a bit weak. It is argued that Shanghai will not have a chance against Hong Kong in the future because established patterns of entry into (mainland) China will not be broken easily. Currently, when one of the main problems in business is that "established patterns" are broken so easily and quickly that there is less and less time for firms to detect the changes in time (let alone respond to them), the authors' argument for the continued success of Hong Kong seems a bit feeble. The fourth chapter by Victor Lee deals with the future demand for higher education, especially in business and management. The implication based on an analysis of Hong Kong government statistics and data reveals what every Hong Kong academic in this discipline already knows, that the market for business and management education has a lot more room for expansion. Touching on the virtues of distance learning and the prospects of foreign institutions linking up with local universities, the main point is lost. The government must invest more in management and business education. The only natural resource Hong Kong ever possessed is its people, and if this is not worth investing in at this historical period of rapid environmental change for businesses worldwide, what will be the future of Hong Kong? Chapter 5, written by Aimee Wheaton, analyses the notion of organizational commitment in a Chinese sense, as contrasted against the corresponding Western connotations. Based on original empirical research, the author compares the extent of organizational commitment, both in behavioural and attitudinal terms. As expected, she finds that the Chinese exhibited a lower level on both counts than their Western counterparts, but this difference was not statistically significant. …


In recent years, breakthroughs have been made in both biology and robotics by the close cooperation between biologists and roboticists. Researchers in the fields of octopus biological study and soft robotics can also benefit from working together and inspiring each other. However, this collaboration is not easy because of the different research motivations and terminologies used. This paper starts from challenges for controlling soft robots, through biological inspirations from the octopus, to their engineering interpretation for creating a behavior control architecture for soft robots. Hypotheses related to the octopus biology from the engineering perspective are also proposed. This work serves as a case study in biologist-roboticist collaboration. It wishes to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between these two disciplines.


Background: Mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA CN) may be modified by mitochondria in response to oxidative stress. Previously, mtDNA CN was associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) risk, particularly chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL). We conducted a replication study in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) study and pooled with published ATBC (Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene) data. Methods: In PLCO, 292 NHL cases (95 CLL/SLL cases) and 301 controls were pooled with 142 NHL cases (47 CLL/SLL cases) and 142 controls from ATBC. Subjects answered a questionnaire and provided blood. DNA was extracted from prediagnostic peripheral white blood, and mtDNA CN assayed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Unconditional logistic regression estimated mtDNA CN and NHL risk by odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: Greater mtDNA CN was associated with increased risk of CLL/SLL among males in PLCO (3rd vs. 1st tertile: OR, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.03–4.72; Ptrend: 0.049) and pooled (T3 vs. T1: OR, 3.12; 95% CI, 1.72–5.68; Ptrend: 0.0002). Association was stronger among male smokers (Ptrend: <0.0001) and essentially identical for cases diagnosed <6, >6–8, and >8 years from blood draw (pooled: Pinteraction: 0.65). mtDNA CN and risk of other NHL subtypes and multiple myeloma showed no association. Conclusions and Impact: Mitochondrial DNA CN was associated with risk of CLL/SLL in males/male smokers. The risk was observed among cases diagnosed as long as 8 years after blood draw. These results suggest that higher mtDNA CN may reflect a process involved in CLL/SLL development. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 24(1); 148–53. ©2014 AACR.


Medieval will-making has often been associated with efforts right before death. But estate planning activity at an earlier time was also possible and was pursued by the upper reaches of English society. Sir John Fastolf (1380-1459), a wealthy East Anglian knight, made substantial efforts to plan his estate. He made several wills and charters enfeoffing land to his use. But his efforts faced many obstacles and ultimately failed, resulting in a contest regarding the validity of his death-bed will. This essay documents those estate planning activities. It does so by recounting a story of longstanding interest to medieval historians and other scholars. Using extensive primary sources, the essay, for the first time, explores completely and orderly all the relevant wills, charters, and other documents as well as the voluminous testimony in the will contest. The full story shows that Fastolf's estate planning efforts were ultimately frustrated by deathbed changes, other claims on the property, the need for royal approval, political factors, conflicts among executors, and papal intervention. Nor is it clear whether they ever could have been successful or whether medieval estate planning could ever be secure.


We introduce a novel, end-to-end learnable, differentiable non-rigid tracker that enables state-of-the-art non-rigid reconstruction. Given two input RGB-D frames of a non-rigidly moving object, we employ a convolutional neural network to predict dense correspondences. These correspondences are used as constraints in an as-rigid-as-possible (ARAP) optimization problem. By enabling gradient back-propagation through the non-rigid optimization solver, we are able to learn correspondences in an end-to-end manner such that they are optimal for the task of non-rigid tracking. Furthermore, this formulation allows for learning correspondence weights in a self-supervised manner. Thus, outliers and wrong correspondences are down-weighted to enable robust tracking. Compared to state-of-the-art approaches, our algorithm shows improved reconstruction performance, while simultaneously achieving 85 times faster correspondence prediction than comparable deep-learning based methods.


As universities in English-speaking countries recruit and enroll international students, a variety of forms of support are typically offered on and off campus to help students make a successful transition. The most common challenges for non-native English-speaking international students are linguistic and cultural. In spite of meeting English proficiency score requirements for admission, students report struggling with the demands of academic English. This article describes a model for an on-site English language program to help students improve their levels of English proficiency prior to their arrival. Program effectiveness was assessed through pre and post test measures of students' English language skills, interviews with stakeholders, and observations. Students' gains in proficiency were moderate due to the limited amount of time they had available for course attendance and study, but gains in affective factors were strong. Challenges in the implementation of the program and how they were resolved are described.


We have explored some of the effects of tuning intervals with inharmonic partials. The tones that composed the intervals had partials whose spacing is given by f\( f_n = KA^{\log 2n/1} \)where\( f_n \) is the frequency of the wth partial and K = 2ɸ/Aɸ. We suggest that subjects can successfully (internally) assign a pitch to tones with a structured departure from harmonicity. We find that subjects appear to process intervals with nearly harmonic stimuli (A = 1.9-2.1) in a manner that supports the "best fit" pattern recognition theories of pitch perception. Subject perception of intervals whose component tones were stretched (A > 2.1) is best accounted for by noting the nature of auditory spectral resolution and by interval memory mechanisms. The results imply that temporal synchrony of harmonics becomes increasingly important to interval integrity after A= 2.1 and that the strength of the impression of conventional intervals is dependent on temporal synchrony.


This paper presents and empirically compares two solutions to the problem of vision and self-localization on a mobile robot. In the commonly used particle filtering approach, the robot identifies regions in each image that correspond to landmarks in the environment. These landmarks are then used to update a probability distribution over the robot's possible poses. In the expectation-based approach, an expected view of the world is first constructed based on a prior camera pose estimate. This view is compared to the actual camera image to determine a corrected pose. This paper compares the accuracies of the two approaches on a test-bed domain, finding that the expectation-based approach yields a significantly higher overall localization accuracy than a state-of-the-art implementation of the particle filtering approach. This paper's contributions are an exposition of two competing approaches to vision and localization on a mobile robot, an empirical comparison of the two methods, and a discussion of the relative advantages of each method.


Colorectal cancer recurrence is a major clinical problem - around 30-40% of patients who are treated with curative intent surgery will experience cancer relapse. Proactive prognostication is critical for early detection and treatment of recurrence. However, the common clinical approach to monitoring recurrence through testing for carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) does not possess a strong prognostic performance. In our paper, we study a series of machine and deep learning architectures that exploit heterogeneous healthcare data to predict colorectal cancer recurrence. In particular, we demonstrate three different approaches to extract and integrate features from multiple modalities including longitudinal as well as tabular clinical data. Our best model employs a hybrid architecture that takes in multi-modal inputs and comprises: 1) a Transformer model carefully modified to extract high-quality features from time-series data, and 2) a Multi-Layered Perceptron (MLP) that learns tabular data features, followed by feature integration and classification for prediction of recurrence. It achieves an AUROC score of 0.95, as well as precision, sensitivity and specificity scores of 0.83, 0.80 and 0.96 respectively, surpassing the performance of all-known published results based on CEA, as well as most commercially available diagnostic assays. Our results could lead to better post-operative management and follow-up of colorectal cancer patients.


This is the only atlas devoted to the physical diagnosis of pain, Dr. Steven Waldman's 2nd edition of "Physical Diagnosis of Pain" continues to offer a clear, how-to-do-it approach to the accurate diagnosis of 300 conditions through their physical signs. Dr. Waldman's teaching method coupled with new and beautifully detailed illustrations give you the information you need to optimize outcomes for your patients with pain. Plus, thirty new chapters keep you up to date and a DVD of procedural videos performed by Dr. Waldman provides you with authoritative guidance on conducting physical examinations to help you effectively diagnose pain.


In recent years, much progress has been made in explicating how the educational mission of a Jesuit university can be informed and guided by the specific Catholic and Jesuit identity of the university. In contrast, almost no progress has been made in academic mission implementation in the area of faculty research. This failure is due in part to the widespread conviction that such an implementation is incompatible with academic freedom and will harm the research enterprise. This article argues that exactly the opposite is true. Such implementation could liberate the research enterprise of the methodological and substantive restrictions imposed on it by the dominant secular research paradigm. It would free scientists to diversify their research methods, gain a much richer understanding of reality, and even find God.


Structural change towards diversification and competitiveness is important to make our economies productive, wealthy and sustainable. In market economies, structural change is essentially driven by private entrepreneurs who challenge incumbents with new business ideas and take risks to implement them. While public policy cannot fully anticipate the outcomes of such market-driven search processes, it does have important roles in directing structural change: it can facilitate stakeholder processes meant to overcome coordination and information failure and thereby smooth the transformation; it can make pre-competitive investments in infrastructure and skills for the future; and it can help align structural change with broader societal objectives, such as environmental sustainability or job creation. To fulfil these roles, policymakers need to have an idea about future competitive patterns of specialisation. The challenge is to anticipate trends and facilitate action towards promising futures in ways that are as evidence-based as possible and effectively synchronised with market forces. Our paper makes three essential contributions to addressing this challenge: (1) We identify five influential methodologies for anticipating future competitive advantages, analyse their strengths and weaknesses, and suggest ways to consolidate their most valu¬able features in one synthetic approach. (2) In doing so, we emphasise the importance of disruptive change, stemming in particular from decarbonisation as well as the digitali¬sation of economic processes and products. Such game changers are likely to affect virtually all economic sectors, thereby reducing the predictive power of methodologies that essentially extrapolate from the past. (3) We highlight the need to contextualise the various analytical tools, and caution against using them as technocratic blueprints. To be of practical use, evidence-based assessments of future competitive advantages need to be embedded into a political economy framework that takes account of both societal objectives (normative level) and implementation capabilities (institutional level).


A simple, specific, accurate and precise method, reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography was developed for estimation of tadalafil in tablet dosage form. For HPLC method, Hi- Qsil C18-10 column in isocratic mode with mobile phase containing acetonirtile; acetate buffer pH (2.8) in ratio of 45 : 55 v/v was used. The flow rate was 1 mL/min and effluent was monitored at 283 nm. Retention time was found to be 4.46 ± 0.03 minutes. Method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy and precision. Results of the analysis show that the method can be used for the estimation of tadalafil in tablet dosage form.


A comprehensive set of autonomous, ice-ocean measurements were collected across the Canada Basin to study the summer evolution of the ice-ocean boundary layer (IOBL) and ocean mixed layer (OML). Evaluation of local heat and freshwater balances and associated turbulent forcing reveals that melt ponds (MPs) strongly influence the summer IOBL-OML evolution. Areal expansion of MPs in mid-June start the upper ocean evolution resulting in significant increases to ocean absorbed radiative flux (19 W m−2 in this study). Buoyancy provided by MP drainage shoals and freshens the IOBL resulting in a 39 MJ m−2 increase in heat storage in just 19 days (52% of the summer total). Following MP drainage, a near-surface fresh layer deepens through shear-forced mixing to form the summer mixed layer (sML). In late summer, basal melt increases due to stronger turbulent mixing in the thin sML and the expansion of open water areas due in part to wind-forced divergence of the sea ice. Thermal heterogeneities in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) upper ocean led to large ocean-to-ice heat fluxes (100–200 W m−2) and enhanced basal ice melt (3–6 cm d−1), well away from the ice edge. Calculation of the upper ocean heat budget shows that local radiative heat input accounted for at least 89% of the observed latent heat losses and heat storage (partitioned 0.77/0.23). These results suggest that the extensive area of deteriorating sea ice observed away from the ice edge during the 2014 season, termed the "thermodynamically forced MIZ," was driven primarily by local shortwave radiative forcing.


Abstract This paper adopts two perspectives. The first is a framing process aimed at defining and examining the conditions for adopting adaptive coastal governance. The second applies to relevant themes of changing coastal policy, central to the testing of adaptive coastal governance, namely cooperative science, risk-sensitive planning, socially fair insurance cover and effective ways to design, finance and engage with local communities over actual coastal change. We illuminate both missions through case studies in North Norfolk (England) and Portugal, all notably affected by coastal change. In England and Portugal, there is a broad understanding and acceptance of the likely effects of climate change. This recognition encourages debates over risk-averse planning, the design of proactive insurance cover, creative relocation of endangered property and new ways of predicting and paying for coastal adjustment. Yet, moving from a basic willingness to engage with coastal change to actual practices of landscape adjustment through such policy shifts is proving very difficult. In this research, we find that coastal landscapes are lived experiences, resigned acceptances of inevitable change and hopeful imaginings. Coastal management institutions are not geared to resolving this incompatibility and this paper explains why.


One can speak of knowledge in an impersonal sense: It is accepted as knowledge that copper expands when heated, that the capital of Finland is Helsinki, and that no one under 18 years of age is entitled to vote in national elections. Such knowledge is not an abstract entity floating around in some kind of Platonic "third world". Rather it is knowledge that some actual agent or agents actually have or have had as contents of their appropriate mental states (belief states) and that others on this basis can have as their knowledge. People find out things either by themselves or together, and often what they come to believe about the world is true and more or less well-grounded, thus knowledge much in the sense of traditional epistemology. We may say then that there is knowledge in groups or communities, e.g. in the scientific community, that such and such is the case, and that in some cases groups as groups know; and in all these cases there must be or have been actual knowers.


Blast is a major disease of rice in Iran, causing severe damage in nursery and field. Piriformospora indica is a plant-root-colonizing fungus that can induce systemic resistance against different root and shoot pathogens. In this study expression rate of several defense genes in rice plant with or without P. indica treatment at different time points after inoculation with rice blast fungus (Magnaporthe oryzae) was evaluated using realtime qPCR. Rice seedlings were treated with mycorrhiza and spore suspension of the pathogen (M. oryzae) evaluation of the disease in plants treated and non-treated with M. oryzae and P.indica revealed that treated plants had less severe disease symptoms. Study on infection type, affected leaf area and number of lesions showed significant reduction of symptoms in treated plants compared to control. Also, expression amount of PR1b, LOX, NPR1 and WRKY85 genes increased in plants treated with mycorrhiza in comparison to control. Results of this study suggest the active role of mycorrhiza in protection of rice plant against blast disease due to enhanced expression of related defense genes.


Impervious surfaces have long been implicated in the decline of watershed integrity in urban and urbanizing areas. Porous pavement is one solution to mitigating the problem of stormwater runoff problems. In this research, three available porous pavement systems were investigated to evaluate their infiltration capability of precipitation. Experiments were conducted to simulate different kinds of porous pavements having different sub-base materials in different cells. The discharge volumes were monitored from each cell, and the relationship between rainfall intensity, outflow and outflow duration was analyzed. Results show that these three porous pavements increased infiltration and decreased runoff. The optimum thickness of the porous pavement was 31 cm, which consisted of a 6 cm top layer of porous concrete and a 25 cm sub-base (10 cm concrete without sand and 15 cm aggregate base). Furthermore, under a rainfall rate of 59.36 mm/h, the runoff coefficient of the above porous pavement was zero, while the coefficient of the impervious pavement was 0.85. These results provide a clear indication of the value of porous pavement systems for broad expanses of the human engineered environment.


There is an increasing need to implement a total business solution which supports major functionalities of a business. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is designed to meet this need, and has been widely adopted by organizations in developed countries. Meanwhile, ERP is beginning to appear in many organizations of developing countries. Little research has been conducted to compare the implementation practices of ERP in developed vs developing countries. Our research shows that ERP technology faces additional challenges in developing countries related to economic, cultural, and basic infrastructure issues. This article identifies a range of issues concerning ERP implementation by making a comparison of advanced and developing countries.


The aim of this paper is to study the different parts of a wireless system in order to better understand the signal properties and what key factors changes the signal during its transmission. Two transmitters were created, an FM transmitter that transmits analog data and an Arudino board programed to convert data to bits before its transmission. The acquired signals were then compared to the original signal noting how differently the data had changed. To understand the antennas contribution to the system a simulation was done using High Frequency Structural Simulator. A description of the analysis on the different acquired signals was done to determine the best applications they might have.


BACKGROUND
Bellini carcinomas, rare tumors of kidney, are aggressive and have a poor prognosis. For these cancers, there is no standard treatment regimen and chemotherapy for urothelial cancer is usually used.

CASE REPORT
In a 44-year-old man with hematuria, a tumor was diagnosed in the right kidney. After radical nephrectomy, pathologic analysis revealed Bellini carcinoma, staged pT3apN0, Fuhrman grade 3. Secondary pulmonary lesions occur one year later. Chemotherapy (gemcitabine, cisplatin and bevacizumab) was started and after 2 cycles of chemotherapy, Thoracic CT scans showed good response to treatment, with almost complete regression of the pulmonary lesions. After the third cycle of chemotherapy, maintenance treatment with bevacizumab continued. Fifteen months after diagnosing pulmonary metastases, hilar adenopathies progressed slightly and cisplatin-gemcitabine was started again leading to a partial response after five courses. Approximately 2 years after the diagnosis of lung metastases, the patient presented a second relapse, so carboplatin-gemcitabine was started, while bevacizumab was continued. 24 months after the diagnosis of lung metastases, the patient was still alive with controlled disease.

CONCLUSIONS
In view of our findings, a prospective multicenter trial with cisplatin, gemcitabine and bevacizumab in patients with metastatic collecting duct carcinoma is planned.


A wall climbing robot is a robot with the capability of climbing vertical surfaces. This paper describes the design and fabrication of a quadruped climbing robot. We are required to design and create a wall climbing robot which uses suction as a means of sticking to the wall. The robot will be controlled using Basic Stamp and the movement of its legs will generated by two servo motors. Each servo motor will control legs which are located on the left and right side of the robot. The leg rotations mimic stepping motions through the use of a slider and crank. The suction force will be supplied by two vacuum pumps that will turn on intermittently. The main body of the robot will carry all the components except for the compressor thus making it mobile. Currently the robot is only designed for linear movement. However plans to incorporate maneuverability and other functions can be implemented after the first stage of the development achieves success.


Abstract Three decades after what is widely referred to as the transition from a First to a Second Nuclear Age, the world stands on the cusp of a possible Third Nuclear Age where the way that we conceptualise the central dynamics of the nuclear game will change again. This paradigm shift is being driven by the growth and spread of non-nuclear technologies with strategic applications and by a shift in thinking about the sources of nuclear threats and how they should be addressed, primarily, but not solely, in the United States. Recent scholarship has rightly identified a new set of challenges posed by the development of strategic non-nuclear weaponry (SNNW). But the full implications of this transformation in policy, technology and thinking for the global nuclear order as a whole have so far been underexplored. To remedy this, we look further ahead to the ways in which current trends, if taken to their logical conclusion, have the capacity to usher in a new nuclear era. We argue that in the years ahead, SNNW will increasingly shape the nuclear order, particularly in relation to questions of stability and risk. In the Third Nuclear Age, nuclear deployments, postures, balances, arms control, non-proliferation policy, and the prospects for disarmament, will all be shaped as much by developments in SNNW capabilities as by nuclear weapons. Consequently, we advocate for an urgent reassessment of the way nuclear order and nuclear risks are conceptualised as we confront the challenges of a Third Nuclear Age.


Assembling equivalent test forms with minimal test overlap across forms is important in ensuring test security. Chen and Lei (2009) suggested a exposure control technique to control test overlap-ordered item pooling on the fly based on the essence that test overlap rate – ordered item pooling for the first t examinees is a function of test overlap rate – ordered item pooling for the previous (t-1) examinees. The exposure control procedure to control test overlap-ordered item pooling on the fly appears to meet the needs of controlling test overlap rate for tests assembled sequentially. To develop a better understanding of how well the ordered-item-pooling control method function in automated assembly of multiple forms with the WDM heuristic, this study evaluated its performance under different conditions of test length and test-content outline by comparing the outcomes to those from the corresponding baseline automated-test-assembly (ATA) conditions, where test overlap controls were not considered. The evaluation criteria included (i) the conformity to the test-assembly constraints, (ii) test parallelism in terms of the resultant psychometric properties, (iii) average test overlap rate, and (iv) distribution of item exposure rate. The results showed that the ordered-item-pooling control procedure demonstrated its effectiveness in most experimental conditions by achieving an acceptable average test overlap rate across multiple forms without compromising the conformity to the test-assembly constraints and the test equity of the assembled forms. Moreover, test security might be ensured in less supportive contexts for ATA by imposing item exposure control together with test overlap control that would be less likely to compromise test quality. More research is needed to verify this anticipation.


Isopods are terrestrial crustaceans whose role and impact in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem remains little explored despite being rather prevalent non-native inhabitants. To better understand this role, we conducted two related studies. The first was a rapid survey of isopods in experimental treatments at Konza Prairie LTER site to investigate the diversity and relative abundance of isopod species present. Of the four species known in Kansas thus far, all non-native, Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804) was the most abundantly found, accounting for 93% of individuals found. Armadillidium nasatum Budde-Lund, 1885, Cylisticus convexus (De Geer, 1778) and Porcellionides pruinosus (Brandt, 1833) were also found and we report the first record of Porcellio laevis Latreille, 1804 in the State of Kansas. Survey results showed no evidence for a relationship between isopod abundance and fire frequency or grazing treatment. The second experiment was a food preference study to explore granivory in non-native isopods and characterize their seed predator behavior on native plants. Individual isopods were placed in Petri dishes with food options including leaf litter and seeds from one of 15 species; dishes were then incubated for 6-12 days and preference was assessed based on pre- and post-trial weights of the feed and individual isopod. Isopods showed a significant preference for leaves compared to seeds in nine of the 15 seed species evaluated; no evidence for leaf-vs.-seed preference was apparent in the remaining six seed species. However, in all cases, isopods did consume some amount of seeds even when leaf litter was present. Taken together, the relatively low abundance of non-native terrestrial isopods and their lack of apparent preference for native plant seeds suggest that isopods are unlikely to pose considerable threat to tallgrass prairie ecosystems. More extensive research, including a preference study with greater representation of seed species and a quantitative survey throughout the year, would be needed to further characterize the ecological role of isopods in the tallgrass prairie.


The essential oil of silver fir (Abies alba) is known to help respiratory system and have easing and soothing effect for muscle. In the present study, we investigated the chemical composition, cytotoxicity and its biological activities of silver fir (Abies alba) essential oil. The composition of the oil was analyzed by GC-MS and bornyl acetate (30.31%), camphene (19.81%), 3-carene (13.85%), tricyclene (12.90%), dl-limonene (7.50%), α-pinene (2.87%), caryophyllene (2.18%), β-phellandrene (2.13%), borneol (1.74%), bicyclo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene,2,3-dimethyl (1.64%) and α-terpinene (1.24%) were the major components in the oil. The results tested by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay indicated that the oil showed no cytotoxic effect, at concentrations of 1 and 5%, for as long as 24 and 3 h, respectively. The antiradical capacity was evaluated by measuring the scavenging activity of the essential oil on the 2,20-diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis 3-ethyl benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) radicals. The oil was able to reduce the both radicals dose-dependently, and the concentration required for 50% reduction (RC50) against DPPH radicals (2.7 ± 0.63%) was lower than ABTS radicals (8.5 ± 0.27%). The antibacterial activity of the oil was also evaluated using disc diffusion method against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus mutans, Listeria monocytogenes, Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, and Vibrio parahaemolyticcus. The oil exhibited no antibacterial activity against all the bacterial strains tested except S. aureus of mild activity.


The object of this paper is to determine the relationship between geographical variables and income per capita, income per capita growth, population density and population growth in Colombian municipalities. In order to carry out econometric estimations at the municipal level we constructed a set of geographical variables based on soil, climate and road maps. We obtained some other geographical variables from the Colombian Institute of Geography (IGAC) homogeneous zone statistics. We found that geography affects both the level of municipal income per capita and its growth, being responsible for between 36% and 47% of the variance in municipal income per capita, and between 35% and 40% of the variance in municipal income per capita growth. It was established that, among the geographic variables, distance to domestic markets and soil type exercise the greatest influence on income per capita and its growth. Furthermore, geographical variables seem to be more significant for poor municipalities than rich ones. In poor municipalities, geography is responsible for between 25% and 32% of income per capita variance, and between 24% and 27% of income per capita growth variance. In contrast, in rich municipalities, geography is less important, being responsible for between 18% and 25% of income per capita variance and between 16% and 17% of income per capita growth variance. Thus, geography affects income and income growth via the productivity of the land, the availability of natural resources (such as water and rivers), the presence of tropical diseases, and agglomeration. Although geography influences the fate of a region, that is not the end of the story. Human factors, both public policy and private intervention, also play an important role. Education, infrastructure and more efficient public institutions can boost regional economic growth, and can help poor regions to overcome the poverty trap of low income and low economic growth.


In the history of psychology, first-person methods, such as introspection, have come into disrepute in favor of the experimental approach. Yet the results of first-person research - such as the famous studies provided by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception - have indeed produced knowledge subsequently ascertained by neuroscientific research. The purpose of this book is to assist readers in developing first-person methods as a rigorous approach. It is designed to assist researchers in the field of education to develop their competencies in the first-person approach. Concrete examples, descriptions, precepts, and possible findings are provided to guide readers in their inquiries. Surrounding the inquiries, reflective commentaries assist readers to become reflexively aware of what they are doing and thereby come to bring into discourse the methods they have used. That is, readers are assisted in developing research praxis by experiencing first-person methods first hand and then to become reflexively aware of the method as method.


The lifelong disabilities caused by exposure to alcohol in pregnancy (known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders), along with other negative effects of exposure to alcohol on the pregnancy, are an important public health concern. In the WHO European Region and the European Union (EU), alcohol use among women of childbearing age is common and, while many women stop drinking once they find they are pregnant, some continue. A major concern is the number of unplanned pregnancies, in which women continue to drink well into pregnancy.

Ensuring health in early life, including in utero, is a particular focus of public health policy in the Region and the EU. This report gives an overview of the literature on interventions to prevent alcohol exposure during pregnancy that target both pregnant and non-pregnant women, in line with policy documents in the EU and the Region. It reviews the literature on preventing alcohol exposure in pregnancy from studies published in the last decade, and present case studies from eight European countries, to share their experience.


In a culture where poetry is considered the highest form of human language, Gendun Chopel is revered as Tibet's greatest modern poet. Born in 1903 as British troops were preparing to invade his homeland, he was identified at any early age as the incarnation of a famous lama and became a Buddhist monk, excelling in the debating courtyards of the great monasteries of Tibet. At the age of thirty-one, he gave up his monk's vows and set off for India, where he would wander, often alone and impoverished, for over a decade. Returning to Tibet, he was arrested by the government of the young Dalai Lama on trumped-up charges of treason, emerging from prison three years later a broken man. He died in 1951 as troops of the People's Liberation Army marched into Lhasa. Throughout his life, from his childhood to his time in prison, Gendun Chopel wrote poetry that conveyed the events of his remarkable life. "In the Forest of Faded Wisdom" is the first comprehensive collection of his oeuvre in any language, assembling poems in both the original Tibetan and in English translation. A master of many forms of Tibetan verse, Gendun Chopel composed heartfelt hymns to the Buddha, pithy instructions for the practice of the dharma, stirring tributes to the Tibetan warrior-kings, cynical reflections on the ways of the world, and laments of a wanderer, forgotten in a foreign land. These poems exhibit the technical skill for which Gendun Chopel was known and reveal the poet to be a consummate craftsman, skilled in both Tibetan and Indian poetics. With a directness and force often at odds with the conventions of belles lettres, this is a poetry that is at once elegant and earthy.


Brass, a copper-zinc (Cu-Zn) alloy has gained extensive attention in industries due to its high corrosion resistance, machinability and strength to weight ratio. The aim of present study was to evaluate the effect of biofield treatment on structural and physical properties of brass powder. The brass powder sample was divided into two parts: control and treated. The treated part was subjected to Mr.Trivedi's biofield treatment. Control and treated brass powder were characterized using particle size analyser, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The result showed that the average particle size, d50 and d99 (size below which 99% particles were present) were reduced up to 44.3% and 56.4%, respectively as compared to control. XRD result revealed that the unit cell volume in treated brass powder was increased up to 0.19% as compared to control. Besides, the crystallite size of brass powder was significantly increased up to 100.5% as compared to control, after biofield treatment. Furthermore, SEM microscopy showed welded particles in control powder, however fractured surfaces were observed in treated sample. In FT-IR spectra, new peak at 685 cm-1 was observed after biofield treatment as compared to control that might be due to alteration in bonding properties in treated brass sample. These findings suggest that the biofield treatment has significantly altered the physical and structural properties of brass powder.


BACKGROUND
The most manifest long-term consequences of radiation therapy in the head and neck cancer patient are salivary gland hypofunction and a sensation of oral dryness (xerostomia).

METHODS
This critical review addresses the consequences of radiation injury to salivary gland tissue, the clinical management of salivary gland hypofunction and xerostomia, and current and potential strategies to prevent or reduce radiation injury to salivary gland tissue or restore the function of radiation-injured salivary gland tissue.

RESULTS
Salivary gland hypofunction and xerostomia have severe implications for oral functioning, maintenance of oral and general health, and quality of life. Significant progress has been made to spare salivary gland function chiefly due to advances in radiation techniques. Other strategies have also been developed, e.g., radioprotectors, identification and preservation/expansion of salivary stem cells by stimulation with cholinergic muscarinic agonists, and application of new lubricating or stimulatory agents, surgical transfer of submandibular glands, and acupuncture.

CONCLUSION
Many advances to manage salivary gland hypofunction and xerostomia induced by radiation therapy still only offer partial protection since they are often of short duration, lack the protective effects of saliva, or potentially have significant adverse effects. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and its next step, proton therapy, have the greatest potential as a management strategy for permanently preserving salivary gland function in head and neck cancer patients.Presently, gene transfer to supplement fluid formation and stem cell transfer to increase the regenerative potential in radiation-damaged salivary glands are promising approaches for regaining function and/or regeneration of radiation-damaged salivary gland tissue.


Modeled after the Soviet propaganda magazine SSSR na stroike (›USSR in Construction‹, published 1930–1941, 1949), the Japanese overseas propaganda photo magazine FRONT (1942–1945) provided visual propaganda for the so-called ›Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere‹, a concept that was proclaimed in 1940 and served to disguise Japan's quest for hegemony in Asia. Employing the aesthetics of Russian Constructivism and Socialist Realism of SSSR na stroike, FRONT created a visual aesthetic that could be termed Japanese Co-Prosperity Realism. Its dynamic and modernistic design was a transculturally inspired practice by Japanese photographers, graphic designers, journalists and producers of visual media, some of whom had been left-wing intellectuals or had lived and worked in the Soviet Union. In a comparative perspective, this paper carves out the political, cultural and gendered semantics of the (in)visibility of power, political religion and ethnic diversity that such aesthetics entailed. It explores some of the shifting backgrounds against which photographic techniques were enacted, from their avant-garde beginnings to their application in authoritarian regimes.


This paper describes the spatial and temporal pattern of groundwater flow accretion to the River Lambourn, a 234 km2 chalk catchment of the West Berkshire Downs, UK, which has been largely unaffected by groundwater abstraction. Variations in the discharge measured at four fixed gauges in the catchment, coupled with information on the length of flowing channel over the period 1983–2001, are used to describe regional patterns in flow accretion. Mean catchment accretion generally exceeds 0·15 m3 s−1 km−1, but there are significant differences between perennial reaches indicating how the combination of local structural controls and seasonal changes in the drainage net affect flow accretion. Data from current meter surveys were used to determine the spatial variability in flow accretion: 505 paired observations along 12 reaches between 1 and 2·95 km in length indicated a consistent spatial trend in accretion. Accretion was high in upstream and downstream channel reaches, and in middle reaches where dry valleys intersected the main valley. A flow accretion index was developed to describe the relationship of flow accretion in each of the 12 study reaches to catchment discharge. The relationship varied from a strong positive correlation with catchment discharge (two reaches), a weak positive correlation (three reaches), a strong negative correlation (two reaches), to no relationship to catchment discharge (four reaches). The results highlight the need to reconsider the usual assumption of uniform, or uniformly increasing, flow accretion in chalk catchments. Moreover, they emphasize the importance of catchment topography, and illustrate how flow accretion in individual reaches may vary between high and low groundwater levels. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This paper suggests a novel model-free primitive-based hierarchical approach to trajectory tracking, which endows the feedback control systems with learning and planning capabilities. The reference inputs (r.i.s) are first optimized at the low level in a Model-Free Iterative Learning Control framework to achieve controlled output trajectory tracking, without using a model of the environment. The learning takes place in a Linear Time Invariant (LTI) setting. The learned r.i.-controlled output pairs are called primitive pairs. Each new complex trajectory to be tracked is then decomposed at the high level in terms of the learned output primitives regarded as basis functions. The optimal r.i. ensuring output tracking of the new trajectory is obtained by merging the leaned r.i. primitives using the superposition principle specific to LTI. Therefore, the optimal r.i. is computed offline and avoids learning to track new trajectories from repeated executions of the tracking task. The efficiency of this approach is illustrated on a positioning control system for an aerodynamic system.


In sequenced genomes, genes belonging to the cluster of orthologous group COG1041 are exclusively, and almost ubiquitously, found in Eukaryota and Archaea but never in Bacteria. The corresponding gene products exhibit a characteristic Rossmann fold, S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase domain in the C terminus and a predicted RNA-binding THUMP (thiouridine synthases, RNA methyltransferases, and pseudouridine synthases) domain in the N terminus. Recombinant PAB1283 protein from the archaeon Pyrococcus abyssi GE5, a member of COG1041, was purified and shown to behave as a monomeric 39-kDa entity. This protein (EC 22.214.171.124), now renamed PabTrm-G10, which is extremely thermostable, forms a 1:1 complex with tRNA and catalyzes the adenosylmethionine-dependent methylation of the exocyclic amino group (N2) of guanosine located at position 10. Depending on the experimental conditions used, as well as the tRNA substrate tested, the enzymatic reaction leads to the formation of either N2-monomethyl (m2G) or N2-dimethylguanosine (m22G). Interestingly, PabTrm-G10 exhibits different domain organization and different catalytic site architecture from another, earlier characterized, tRNA-dimethyltransferase from Pyrococcus furiosus (PfuTrm-G26, also known as PfuTrm1, a member of COG1867) that catalyzes an identical two-step dimethylation of guanosine but at position 26 in tRNAs and is also conserved among all sequenced Eukaryota and Archaea. The co-occurrence of these two guanosine dimethyltransferases in both Archaea and Eukaryota but not in Bacteria is a hallmark of distinct tRNAs maturation strategies between these domains of life.


The objective of the project is to accomplish road-building and maintenance work. To achieve this goal of development the state has undertaken efforts to rehabilitate 1056 km of earth roads on the national network, under the project for the Transport Sector Program (PAPST). The study area of the project consists of 13 sections of earth roads spread over 5 regions of the country namely Dosso, Tillabery, Tahoua, Maradi and Zinder. The study has helped to identify and assess the potential impacts of 13 sections of the project, and suggested enhancements of positive impacts and reduction or elimination of negative environmental impacts. Main negative impacts could include: A)The impact of the project on air quality whereby during the preparation activities and construction as well as the operation of the roads, there will be a gaseous emanation of all kinds (production of dust and smoke). For all sections, the work will have a direct and negative impact. It will be of short duration and low intensity, thus of negligible significance; B) Impacts on the ground in that the opening work for extracting materials and excavation, will be the basis for increased and accelerated water erosion causing flooding in level valleys, fields and some villages where no provision is made. The clearing of vegetation, surrounding roads and quarries will cause water and wind erosion of soil in places already fragile. Overall, the significance of the negative impact of sections on the ground is average; C) Impacts on water resources will be average and negative impact of the work on the underground water resources and surface will be direct, of average duration, scope and intensity; D) Impacts on fauna and flora will be localized, of low-intensity and short duration. Main mitigation measures include: transforming the quarries into cultivable land, work to repair the sand dunes.


It is the aim of this review to provide a survey of research on Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in health care with a special focus on SHGs for women with chronic muscular pain. The aim is not only to describe this field of research, but also to consider how this research relates to gender research as such. A variety of themes are examined: history, external factors that influence SHGs, internal aspects of SHGs, and gender research on SHGs. It was found that the gender perspective was relatively neglected. Our suggestion for further research notes that group members can produce new ways to manage their lives with the help of the interaction/exchange in the SHGs, regarding gender construction, knowledge, legitimacy and adaptation or transformation, and the position of activities in SHGs among societal norms and attitudes.