The mother-child relationship (MCR) has received an increasing amount of attention over the last several decades regarding its effect on long-term child development. Because the quality and quantity of interactions in the MCR have been established as important predictors of the child's development, early identification of areas in the relationship requiring support and intervention is essential for promoting positive child outcomes. Observational assessment of the mother and child is considered best practice in evaluating maternal-child interaction (MCI). The Nursing Child Assessment Teaching (NCAT) scale is an instrument that has been used to quantify the quality of interaction in the MCR during the first 36-months of a child's life. While studies have shown the NCAT scale as both a reliable and valid instrument, limited evidence exists confirming theoretical congruence between the scale and the Barnard Model it is based on. These analyses were conducted using data from two large, demographically different samples, the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST) database and the Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood database. Item response theory, confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple indicators multiple causes modeling were used to examine the psychometric properties of the NCAT scale and describe the interactions between mothers and children from these samples. Results of analyses offer support for the Barnard Model and the potential for instrument abbreviation, which may provide researchers and practitioners a more concise, reliable way of measuring MCI. In addition, the predictive validity of both the full NCAT scale and resulting abbreviated NCAT scale (NCAT-AB) was established by obtaining Pearson correlations and associated probabilities for MCI at 12-months, measured by the NCAT and NCAT-AB, and child cognitive and language development at 36-months, as measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition. This study provided critical appraisal of the NCAT scale, supported the continued use of the NCAT scale in evaluating MCI, and contributed to the growing body of literature surrounding the importance of the MCR on early child development.


This essay examines Elizabeth Gaskell's use of the 'courtroom scene' in her debut novel Mary Barton (1848), focusing on the testimony delivered by the eponymous heroine. It situates the passage in the wider context of real-life nineteenth-century court cases, and subsequent criticism about the relationship between legal proceedings and realist fiction. Countering claims that Mary's appearance has a chiefly didactic purpose or that it is simply a leaden part of an otherwise dramatic scene, it argues that her role in the proceedings has an inherently melodramatic appeal, which Gaskell exploits. Reflecting on the way in which the courtroom is cast as a liminal space between the public and private spheres, this essay interrogates the ways in which Mary's aims – to protect Jem Wilson and conceal the identity of the real murderer (her father) – necessitate both the discourse of emotion and an act of deceit. It examines the ways in which Mary may be seen as a 'performer', telling a feminised 'love' story cast in the melodramatic mode. Arguing that Mary uses the genre to both forestall expectation and guy it, this paper looks at the ways in which Mary's tactics may mirror Gaskell's own strategies as a first-time female novelist.


Stem cell function during organogenesis is a key issue in developmental biology. The transcription factor SHORT-ROOT (SHR) is a critical component in a developmental pathway regulating both the specification of the root stem cell niche and the differentiation potential of a subset of stem cells in the Arabidopsis root. To obtain a comprehensive view of the SHR pathway, we used a statistical method called meta-analysis to combine the results of several microarray experiments measuring the changes in global expression profiles after modulating SHR activity. Meta-analysis was first used to identify the direct targets of SHR by combining results from an inducible form of SHR driven by its endogenous promoter, ectopic expression, followed by cell sorting and comparisons of mutant to wild-type roots. Eight putative direct targets of SHR were identified, all with expression patterns encompassing subsets of the native SHR expression domain. Further evidence for direct regulation by SHR came from binding of SHR in vivo to the promoter regions of four of the eight putative targets. A new role for SHR in the vascular cylinder was predicted from the expression pattern of several direct targets and confirmed with independent markers. The meta-analysis approach was then used to perform a global survey of the SHR indirect targets. Our analysis suggests that the SHR pathway regulates root development not only through a large transcription regulatory network but also through hormonal pathways and signaling pathways using receptor-like kinases. Taken together, our results not only identify the first nodes in the SHR pathway and a new function for SHR in the development of the vascular tissue but also reveal the global architecture of this developmental pathway.


— In order to alleviate climate change consequences, UK governments are pioneering offshore energy developments with increasing commitment. The North Sea is a dynamic ecosystem with strong bottom-up/top-down natural and anthropogenic drivers facing rapid climate change impacts. Therefore, to ensure the compatibility of such large-scale developments with nature conservation obligations, cumulative effects need to be evaluated through cumulative impact assessments (CIA). However, by excluding climate change impacts, CIA lacks spatio-temporal appropriate baselines linking ecosystem components (e.g. physical indicators) to population dynamics which leads to uncertain predictions at populations levels. This study presents an overview of a framework for CIA using a holistic and pragmatic ecosystem approach based on spatio-temporal Bayesian network in order to identify pressure pathways, keystone components, ecosystem connectivity and resilience as well as population-level changes. We will also present potential fine-scale environmental monitoring solutions and data sources generated at MRED (Marine Renewable Energy Developments) site levels. Finally, we will discuss the usefulness of the two components that make up this framework: a database and an application of standardised shared tools that will pave the way to more transparent and multi-disciplinary collaborations. This framework will provide a multi-dimensional decision-making toolkit that would also lead towards more efficient SEAs (Strategic Environmental Assessment) as well as providing the ability to embed the CIAs of projects into regional and multinational schemes .


In both cases the treatment chosen was Mohs micrographic surgery.The differential diagnosis of EMPD in the frontotemporal area should be established with seborrheic dermatitis, nummular eczema, Bowen disease and, less frequently, with lichen-sclerosus et atrophicus and lichen simplex chronicus. The histological differential diagnosis should be made with other malignancies that occupy the epidermis and are characterized by cells with clear cytoplasm and patchy distribution, mainly superficial spreading melanoma and malignant lentigo, in which case the epithelial markers would be negative and the melanocytic markers (S-100, Melan-A, HMB-45, etc.) positive. P63 can be used to differentiate EMPD from the Pagetoid variant of Bowen disease. In general, EMPD is only locally aggressive. However, in cases of advanced or metastatic EMPD, systemic chemotherapy is indicated. Surgery is the treatment of choice in EMPD. However, recurrence rates are high even when the lesions are removed with wide surgical margins. Recurrence is probably due to the multifocal nature of the disease and subclinical involvement of skin that is apparently unaffected. Recurrence rates are higher in cases of invasive disease. The use of Mohs micrographic surgery improves cure rates but does not prevent recurrence. Radiation therapy may be useful as adjuvant therapy in patients at high risk of recurrence. Because EMPD has a patchy distribution and the affected area often extends beyond the clinically visible tumor, photodynamic therapy may be a useful treatment when there is intraepithelial involvement and surgery is high-risk or when there is a high risk of morbidity due to the anatomical location of the lesion. However, because of the small number of studies and case reports of patients treated with this technique, photodynamic therapy should only be used when other approaches are not feasible. We report the third case of EMPD affecting the face (the frontotemporal region). We call attention to the need to include this disease in the list of lesions that simulate other dermatoses and to the fact that its diagnosis requires immunohistochemical evaluation of the usual breast tumor markers. Ours is the first case treated with photodynamic therapy. The patient achieved complete temporary remission, so this treatment may be a good therapeutic option when involvement is exclusively intraepidermal and when a surgical approach is difficult.


Diseases, pests, inappropriate agronomic practices and drought are the most important constraints to grain legumes production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Crop failures are frequent in the climatically marginal areas, making occasional reliance on relief food supplies a reality in affected populations. There is a need to develop and promote drought tolerant crops such as the green gram, Vigna radiate (L) Wilczek, that yield reasonably with little rainfall and are resistant to pests and diseases. A baseline field survey was carried out among smallholder farmers in Homa Bay and Busia Districts in Kenya and Magu District in Tanzania to establish the extent of green gram production in the Lake Victoria Basin. The survey was intended to investigate green gram land races, common pests and diseases, as well as methods of pest and disease control. It emerged that green gram is a traditional food crop in the study areas and there are established land races/varieties of the crop. Pests and diseases varied in the study areas. The insects identified belonged to several families, namely Calliphoridae, Coccinellidae, Scydmaenidae, Chalcididae, Formicidae and Aphididae. Other species identified were Chrotogonus hemipterus,Catantops melanostictus and Taeniothrips sjostedti. In Magu, bean flies, thrips, aphids, pod-sucking bugs and beetles were common while in Homa Bay and Busia the major pests were cutworms, white ants, bean flies and aphids. Common green gram diseases reported were leaf curl, leaf spot, powdery mildew, blight, rust and pod rot. Bruchids and Sitophilus spp. were the most common storage pests while general wood ash, crushed fresh marigold stem and leaves were used to control field pests and diseases as sisal ash was used to control stored grain pests. Thirteen (13) land races were identified based on size, color and shape of the seeds. The land races planted in separate pilot plots to determine their performance with respect to yield, resistance to pest and diseases, and other growth factors of production like low inherent soil fertility and erratic precipitation revealed variation in germination rates, vegetative growth, flowering, pod set and maturity time. Observation on grains harvested from the ten land races yielded five more land races indicating that the land races in the study areas are heterozygous. Green gram grown in all study areas exhibit varying characteristics, hence different varieties. The crop was found to be infected with virus and fungi and was prone to various diseases. The pests attacking the crop ranged from insect species to birds and mammals.


Introduction: Aminoglycosides used for treating multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis are ototoxic, leading to a need for audiological monitoring. While audiologists monitor ototoxicity, currently there are no guidelines on monitoring in the South African context. Therefore, the findings of this study might help to motivate the establishment of a more in-depth ototoxicity monitoring policy, which facilitates uniformity among audiologists managing patients with MDR tuberculosis. Therefore, the study aimed to describe the audiological practices employed by audiologists in the management of adult patients with MDR tuberculosis in South Africa. Method: A descriptive survey design was used. A questionnaire was developed and included elements of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (1994) guidelines for monitoring ototoxicity. Ninety-three audiologists contributed data to this study. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of the data. Results: Sixty-eight percent (%) of the respondents were aware of the international guidelines, 93% provided pre-treatment counselling and 87% conducted a baseline assessment. Nineteen percent of the respondents conducted high-frequency audiometry, while 74% carried out a monthly evaluation, 72% performed a full audiological assessment after the cessation of the MDR tuberculosis treatment, and 96% conducted post-treatment counselling. Modifications to the international guidelines include not conducting speech and immittance audiometry, as well as testing certain frequencies. The reasons for these modifications include limited specialised equipment, time constraints, large caseloads and understaffed departments. Conclusion: There are no explicit guidelines on ototoxicity monitoring in South Africa. Consequently, audiologists are having to modify the international guidelines. Thus, there is no consistency in managing patients with MDR tuberculosis. This highlights the need for South Africa to develop context-relevant ototoxicity monitoring guidelines to appropriately manage patients with MDR tuberculosis.


Abstract Silks are well known natural fibers used for textile applications and have got for the first time available upon sericulture of silkworms (Bombyx mori) several thousand years ago in China. In contrast to silkworm silk, spider silks offer better mechanical properties such as higher tensile strength and much better toughness, but natural spider silk is less accessible due to the cannibalistic behavior of spiders prohibiting large scale farming, and therefore has not been employed in textile industry yet. In this study, a biotechnologically produced spider silk protein was introduced as a new material for textile applications in form of foam coating material. The spider silk foam coating was developed to increase the abrasion behavior of natural and polymeric furniture textiles. Modern textiles are high-tech materials and optimized concerning yarn design and fabric weave to fit a wide range of applications. Often hydrofluorocarbons based coatings are used to enhance textile performances. Upon coating with sustainable spider silk, yarn fraying was significantly reduced lowering the tendency to form knots and loops. Further, the textile abrasion resistance, analyzed by pilling tests, was improved significantly (17–200%) for all tested types of fabrics, in particular long term strain pilling was minimized.


Should state administrators be required to perform assessments of potential violations of the Fifth Amendment before issuing a new regulation or applying an existing one? Should state regulations be confined to protection of public health and safety only and exclude other public interest goals for the "general welfare?" Should local governments be required to perform impact assessments of takings according to the state attorney general's mandated guidelines prior to taking a regulatory action? If as a result of the lawful application of a state regulation, a business person's property experiences a 25 percent decline in value, should the state agency that issued the regulation be required to pay for the amount of the decrease out of its budget? These and other questions are being answered in the affirmative by provisions in new laws governing state and local regulation being considered and passed by state legislatures across the country. The rise of the regulatory state, conflicts over land use and environmental regulation, political organizing by property rights groups, and federal judicial pronouncements have all sparked an explosion of state legislative initiatives concerning regulatory takings. Recent federal judicial decisions have set out an emerging, albeit somewhat muddled doctrine of regulatory takings that directly impacts a wide range of federal, state, and local regulatory activities. The doctrine states that under certain circumstances, many normal regulatory activities can be judged to have violated the Fifth Amendment's prescription that private property may not be "taken for public use without just compensation." Compensation can be required by the courts, even though the regulation leaves legal ownership in the hands of the private individual. These pronouncements coupled with concerted lobbying activities by property rights advocates across the country have led to a spate of new state statutes that in some cases embrace, and in others, extend requirements placed on regulators. These measures could portend complicating, if not extremely costly consequences for the exercise of government regulation, depending on the approach a state takes. In this article we provide a preliminary overview and analysis of the state property rights legislation enacted to date. We describe the extent and nature of these new statutes, explain and critique the major types of measures being adopted, and conclude with a discussion of the key issues raised by these acts and their implications for public administration. Federal Jurisprudence on Regulatory Takings One of the intentions of most of the new state statutes concerning property rights is to codify elements of the newly developing takings doctrine. A brief review, then, of the key Supreme Court rulings on regulatory takings is in order before moving on to the legislative approaches themselves. Since 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the possibility that a regulation, as opposed to outright confiscation, could be judged a taking without just compensation (Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon, 260 U.S., 1992). However, federal courts seldom invoked the "regulatory takings" doctrine or sided with private property owners against state interests until the 1980s. In the last 15 years, the takings doctrine has been elaborated, and property owners have begun to win more regulatory takings suits against state and local regulators in federal and state courts. The Supreme Court's preferred approach to assessing regulatory takings claims is for trial judges to conduct an ad hoc balancing of the "legitimate state interest" at stake with the burden placed on the property owner affected by the governmental action. The Court has preferred (but not always insisted) that courts assess each regulation as it is actually applied to a particular piece of property to determine if a taking has occurred rather than to assess the regulation when issued. …


In the aftermath of the 2008 global crisis, the main obstacles to the sustainability of entrepreneurship in developing countries have been: i) high tax burden, ii) little investment in technological resources, iii) insufficiency of capital for investment and difficulties to obtain credit and access to capital markets, iv) ignorance of the market, v) ineffective management, vi) interdependence between the private and business affairs, vii) lack of standardization and integration with trading partners, viii) difficulty to access foreign markets, ix) absence of control in processes and results, x) not specialized workers; xi) competition pressures from the informal market. Following the guidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research on entrepreneurship, this paper aims to present and analyze the main features of the recent evolution of the entrepreneurial environment in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) with regard to the role of entrepreneurial finance, that is to say, the availability of credit. Taking into account the social and economic relevance of entrepreneurship in developing countries , further research is needed on how the absence of economies of scale, entrepreneurial financial challenges and management gaps are intertwined. Con sidering this background, this paper states that the resilience of entrepreneurs among small firms in the context of globalization requires the consolidation of specific competitive financial advantages to support sustainable growth and profitable performance.


Abstract. Long-term simulations with the coupled WRF–CMAQ (Weather Research and Forecasting–Community Multi-scale Air Quality) model have been conducted to systematically investigate the changes in anthropogenic emissions of SO2 and NOx over the past 16 years (1995–2010) across the United States (US), their impacts on anthropogenic aerosol loading over North America, and subsequent impacts on regional radiation budgets. In particular, this study attempts to determine the consequences of the changes in tropospheric aerosol burden arising from substantial reductions in emissions of SO2 and NOx associated with control measures under the Clean Air Act (CAA) especially on trends in solar radiation. Extensive analyses conducted by Gan et al. (2014a) utilizing observations (e.g., SURFRAD, CASTNET, IMPROVE, and ARM) over the past 16 years (1995–2010) indicate a shortwave (SW) radiation (both all-sky and clear-sky) "brightening" in the US. The relationship of the radiation brightening trend with decreases in the aerosol burden is less apparent in the western US. One of the main reasons for this is that the emission controls under the CAA were aimed primarily at reducing pollutants in areas violating national air quality standards, most of which were located in the eastern US, while the relatively less populated areas in the western US were less polluted at the beginning of this study period. Comparisons of model results with observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD), aerosol concentration, and radiation demonstrate that the coupled WRF–CMAQ model is capable of replicating the trends well even though it tends to underestimate the AOD. In particular, the sulfate concentration predictions were well matched with the observations. The discrepancies found in the clear-sky diffuse SW radiation are likely due to several factors such as the potential increase of ice particles associated with increasing air traffic, the definition of "clear-sky" in the radiation retrieval methodology, and aerosol semi-direct and/or indirect effects which cannot be readily isolated from the observed data.


We report here on the theoretical performance of blazed binary diffractive elements composed of pillars carefully arranged on a two-dimensional grid whose period is smaller than the structural cutoff. These diffractive elements operate under unpolarized light. For a given grating geometry, the structural cutoff is a period value above which the grating no longer behaves like a homogeneous thin film. Because the grid period is smaller than this value, effective-medium theories can be fully exploited for the design, and straightforward procedures are obtained. The theoretical performance of the blazed binary elements is investigated through electromagnetic theories. It is found that these elements substantially outperform standard blazed echelette diffractive elements in the resonance domain. The increase in efficiency is explained by a decrease of the shadowing effect and by an unexpected sampling effect. The theoretical analysis is confirmed by experimental evidence obtained for a 3λ-period prismlike grating operating at 633 nm and for a 20°-off-axis diffractive lens operating at 860 nm.


This paper describes a very high-level language for clear description of distributed algorithms and optimizations necessary for generating efficient implementations. The language supports high-level control flows where complex synchronization conditions can be expressed using high-level queries, especially logic quantifications, over message history sequences. Unfortunately, the programs would be extremely inefficient, including consuming unbounded memory, if executed straightforwardly.
 We present new optimizations that automatically transform complex synchronization conditions into incremental updates of necessary auxiliary values as messages are sent and received. The core of the optimizations is the first general method for efficient implementation of logic quantifications. We have developed an operational semantics of the language, implemented a prototype of the compiler and the optimizations, and successfully used the language and implementation on a variety of important distributed algorithms.


Negotiation is something that we do all the time. Negotiation is usually considered as a compromise to settle an argument or issue to benefit ourselves as much as possible. Communication is always the link that will be used to negotiate the problem whether it is face-to-face, on the telephone or in writing. Negotiation is not always between two people, it can involve several members from two parties. Children will negotiate among themselves everyday. They will negotiate when they faced with conflict. There are ways in helping children resolve conflict in communication and therefore negotiation plays an important role. The objectives of this paper are to identify the conflict pattern in communication and the use of negotiation skills in resolving conflict in communication among primary school children. A class of 20 subjects from a school in Selangor, Malaysia was chosen to find out the conflict pattern in communication via negotiation skills. The research was carried out for 3 months with the help of the class teacher. It is found that children are able to resolve conflict in communication by the use of negotiation skills.


The primary goal of patients with central field loss attending to visual rehabilitation (VR) offices is to get adapted to daily life activities in near vision, mainly looking for recovering their ability to read again. The disparity in the functionality of these patients, due to the new advances in medical treatment and the increasing number of new apps and technological devices in the market, implies a heterogeneity in the reading training programs to be applied, and consequently a variability in the results obtained. Currently, with the increasing access to information and communication technologies and social networks, the opportunities for improving their access to information and communication is taken an important role. For this reason, the basis of ad-hoc evidence-based reading training programs is needed to standardized the clinical practice in reading rehabilitation for visual impaired and blind patients. This chapter will go in depth into these topics offering an exhaustive state of the art of reading rehabilitation for central field loss patients that will be useful for clini-cians dedicated to the rehabilitation of visual impaired and blind people.


Relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain have recently undergone severe strain because of a call to ban the public wearing of niqabs, or full-face veils. The niqab controversy, instigated by comments from British politicians, demonstrates how long-standing practices of separation and isolation have allowed diverse religious and cultural traditions to coexist in Britain in mutual isolation. The anger generated over this issue is a reminder that multiculturalism at the cost of isolation has not worked in Britain and that a new discussion and solution to the country's minority issue is needed. Following the subway bombings of 2005, schools and universities across the country instituted dress codes banning the niqab. The ban has been justified as a security measure, especially since a woman who wears a niqab in public cannot have her face matched to a picture ID. The controversy deepened in October 2006 when Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons and a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, admitted in early October that he requested Muslim women remove their niqabs when meeting with him. Blair, an advocate of secularization in the public sphere, has supported Straw's comments, publicly referring to the niqab as "a mark of separation" that makes non-Muslims uncomfortable. There are also Muslims, such as MP Shahid Malik, who recognize the importance of the niqab debate and the need for increased cross-cultural understanding. These bold statements have unsurprisingly angered many Muslim groups, including the Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee; both Muslims and non-Muslims have severely criticized the government and its supporters. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former head of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused supporters of a ban to be "Islamophobes." London mayor Ken Livingstone compared the treatment of Muslims today to that of Jews in the 1930s. The anger that is present on both sides of the debate is not just over the niqab itself; it is also over tensions that are symbolized by the niqab. The heart of the problem is that the niqab represents both a proud culture and a cultural divide. The same object stands for both the piety of British Muslims and their isolation from other groups. This isolation is particularly problematic in Britain, where the Muslim community is one of the least integrated groups. Britain's government has followed a policy of multiculturalism through isolation, whereby distinct cultures are allowed to flourish at the expense of incomplete integration into mainstream society. …


Introduction
These short movies illustrate locomotion and feeding behavior of a Bdelloid rotifer in the context of an urban environment sampling site.
Rotifer locomotion by head to toe movement and by corona action are clearly seen.  The corona establishes strong vortex currents to draw food into its mouth, and green algae are clearly seen being drawn into the mouth.  Digestive movements of mastax and stomach are shown.
Methods
This rotifer is from leaf litter accumulated in a discarded plastic box which was then submerged in rain water.  The sample was harvested by drawing superficial material into a Pasteur pipette
and this was transported to the laboratory in an Eppendorf tube
.
  Approximately 50 µl were transferred to a microscope slide as one drop and a cover slip applied.  This slide was viewed with a conventional bright-field microscope and a Pupil Cam attachment (Ken-A-Vision, Kansas City, MO). The Pupil Cam is a simple and inexpensive device for making appealing materials easily visible for biology classes.  Focusing up and down through the plane of focus was used to allow viewers to form an impression of thick structures.
Discussion
Bdelloid rotifers are microscopic animals that are common in freshwater ponds, puddles, and films of water (4).  They are conspicuous in field samples and have been known almost as long as microscopes have been available (1).  Their two distinguishing characteristics are the ability to withstand the periodic dehydration experienced in their ephemeral environments by a specialized process called anhydrobiosis (3) and the absence of sexual reproduction (5).
Rotifers feed by creating strong currents of water using rings of cilia that make up the corona organ.  These currents blow plankton through the mouth and into the mastax organ.  The mastax is a muscular organ lined with hard chitinized trophi (2) that resemble jaws.  The mastax opens and closes in a pulsing manner and the hard trophi crush food passing from the mouth to the stomach.  The stomach is usually the most conspicuous part because it contains many pigmented cells ingested by rotifers, such as green algae (4).  Rotifers may move across surfaces by a head to toe movement or through open water using the corona in order to find favorable feeding places.
References
1.  Hartog, M.  1896.  Rotifera, Gastrotricha, and Kinorhyncha, p.
197–240
.
In
S. F. Harmer and A. E. Shipley (ed.),
The Cambridge natural history, vol. 2.  McMillan, New York, NY.
2.  Klusemann, J.,
W.
Kleinow, and W. Peters.  1990.  The hard parts (trophi) of the rotifer mastax do contain chitin: evidence from studies on Brachionus plicatilis.  Histochem. Cell Biol. 3:277–283.
3.  Ricci, C.  1998.  Anhydrobiotic capabilities of bdelloid rotifers.  Hydrobiologia 387/388:321–326.
4.  Ricci, C., and G. Melone.  2004.  Key to the identification of the genera of bdelloid rotifers.  Hydrobiologia 418
:73–80.
5.  Welch, J. L. M.,
D. B. M.
Welch, and M. Meselson.  2004.  Cytogenic evidence for asexual evolution of bdelloid rotifers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101
:1618–1621.


Sprouty was originally identified as an inhibitor of Drosophila FGF receptor signaling during tracheal development. By following the capacity of ectopic Sprouty to abolish the pattern of activated MAP kinase in embryos, we show that Sprouty can inhibit other receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling pathways, namely the Heartless FGF receptor and the EGF receptor. Similarly, in wing imaginal discs, ectopic Sprouty abolishes activated MAP kinase induced by the EGF receptor pathway. Sprouty expression is induced by the EGFR pathway in some, but not all, tissues in which EGFR is activated, most notably in follicle cells of the ovary, the wing imaginal disc and the eye disc. In the ovary, induction of sprouty expression follows the pattern of EGFR activation in the follicle cells. Generation of homozygous sprouty mutant follicle-cell clones demonstrates an essential role for Sprouty in restricting EGFR activation throughout oogenesis. At the stage when dorso-ventral polarity of the follicle cells is established, Sprouty limits the ventral expansion of the activating Gurken signal. Later, when dorsal appendage fates are determined, reduction of signaling by Sprouty facilitates the induction of inter-appendage cell fates. The capacity of Sprouty to reduce or eliminate accumulation of activated MAP kinase indicates that in vivo it intersects with the pathway upstream to MAP kinase. The ability of ectopic Sprouty to rescue lethality caused by activated Raf suggests that it may impinge upon the pathway by interacting with Raf or downstream to it.


Abstract This article examines enterprise performance in Russian oil companies between 1992 and 2012. The analysis is based upon longitudinal trend output data, and distinguishes between four different types of owners – outsider private, insider private, federal state and regional state. In comparison with previous studies which considered just 1999–2004, and identified outsider private companies as the best performers, this article finds that over the longer period 1992–2012 federal state and insider private-owned companies actually performed best. The explanation for this relates to institutions and the business environment.


Diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) is one of the most common building blocks for small molecules and conjugated polymers designed for organic electronic applications. By attaining a detailed understanding of the photophysical behaviour for a simple DPP-based molecule in fullerene blends, we establish a foundation for spectroscopic investigations into more complex DPP-based systems. Transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) and time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TR-EPR) spectroscopy are used to examine bulk heterojunction blend films of a small diketopyrrolopyrrole-based molecule, 2,5-bis(2-hexyldecyl)-3,6-di(thiophen-2-yl)-2,5-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-dione (TDPP) with the common fullerene derivatives [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC60BM) and [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC70BM). Following pulsed laser excitation, the spectral signatures of a fullerene anion and a TDPP triplet state are observed on the picosecond timescale by TAS. The presence of these species implies the formation of a TDPP:PCBM charge transfer state that subsequently undergoes ultra-fast spin-mixing and geminate recombination to produce a TDPP triplet state. The overall photophysical mechanism is confirmed by TR-EPR spectroscopy, which unambiguously shows that the TDPP triplet is formed via spin-mixing in the TDPP:PCBM charge transfer state, rather than direct intersystem crossing from the excited singlet state.


We have detected the neural cell adhesion molecule, N-CAM, at nerve- muscle contacts in the developing and adult mouse diaphragm. Whereas we found N-CAM staining with fluorescent antibodies consistently to overlap with the pattern of alpha-bungarotoxin staining at nerve-muscle contacts both during development and in the adult, we observed N-CAM staining on the surfaces of developing myofibers and at much lower levels on adult myofibers. Consistent with its function, N-CAM was also detected on axons and axon terminals. Immunoblotting experiments with anti-N-CAM antibodies on detergent extracts of embryonic (E) diaphragm muscle revealed a polydisperse polysialylated N-CAM polypeptide, which in the adult (A) was converted to a discrete form of Mr 140,000; this change, called E-to-A conversion, was previously found to occur in different neural tissues at different rates. The Mr 140,000 component was not recognized by monoclonal antibody anti-N-CAM No. 5, which specifically recognizes antigenic determinants associated with N-linked oligosaccharide determinants on N-CAM from neural tissue. The relative concentration of the Mr 140,000 component prepared from diaphragm muscle increased during fetal development and then decreased sharply to reach adult values. Nevertheless, expression of N-CAM in muscle could be induced after denervation: one week after the sciatic nerve was severed, the relative amount of N-CAM increased dramatically as detected by immunoblots of extracts of whole muscle. Immunofluorescent staining confirmed that there was an increase in N-CAM, both in the cell and at the cell surface; at the same time, however, staining at the motor endplate was diminished. Our findings indicate that, in muscle, in addition to chemical modulation, cell-surface modulation of N-CAM occurs both in amount and distribution during embryogenesis and in response to denervation.


The two papers in this volume (together with those in the accompanying Network paper 81) were originally presented at a conference held at ODI in June 1997. The objective of the conference ‐ which was entitled 'Ghana and Zimbabwe: options for change' ‐ was to bring together and discuss various of the studies of aspects of rural livelihoods which are currently in progress in these countries. The papers dealing with Ghana will be published in book format in 1998. At the conference a particular emphasis was placed on semi-arid areas; in Zimbabwe many of these are only now beginning to recover from the prolonged drought of the early 1990s. Paper 82a presents a broad perspective on biodiversity in farming systems, particularly within Africa. It argues that until recently agricultural land has been seen as 'off limits' in biodiversity surveys, but that new studies suggest that in some types of farming system, diversity may be as great or greater than in the adjacent 'wild' land. For this and other reasons it is of considerable importance to develop the skills to understand agricultural biodiversity. Paper 82b considers the Rwenya basin in north east Zimbabwe from the point of view of its potential for wildlife conservation. It reviews existing domestic livestock systems in the area and assesses the present and potential future impact of livestock keeping in local communities on the Rwenya reserve.


Wireless applications have become a common part of daily life. Whether it is mobile phones, the Wi-Fi router at home, the keycard which has replaced the car key, a radio frequency identification access system to a building or a Bluetooth headset for your computer or phone, the means of modern wireless data exchange is an omnipresent technology. In sports, the market is in its infancy for wireless, technical applications or gadgets. Only heart rate monitors and GPS watches are currently used by recreational athletes. Even though most of the larger sports equipment companies regularly launch new products related to sports performance monitoring and mobile phone technology, product innovation leaps are rare.In this work the design of a wireless sports performance measurement platform is presented. Using the example of kayaking, this platform is configured as a paddle performance measuring system, the Kayak XL System, which can monitor propulsive paddle force, paddle kinematics and boat velocity, interalia. A common mobile phone platform has been chosen as the user interface for this system. The design approach focussing on user requests, demands and expectations in combination with the process of iterative technical development are unveiled in this thesis. An evaluation of the system is presented and the work is finalised with an overview of further systems which have been designed based on the developed measurement platform. The Kayak XL System is a flexible system designed to be mounted onto any standard kayak paddle and installed in any competition kayak. Versatility, unobtrusiveness and usability were major design concerns. The developed system consists of four modules plus a software which has been designed for Android mobile phones. The phone communicates with each of the four modules trough Bluetooth radio. These four modules are also referred to as nodes and have specific measurement purposes. Two nodes have been designed to measure paddle force and kinematics, one node has the purpose to measure foot stretcher force and boat motion data, and the fourth node enables a more convenient method of calibrating paddle force measurement. The fourth node is therefore only needed prior to performance data acquisition. Results show that paddle and foot stretcher force can be measured with a resolution below 1N after calibration. Installing the paddle nodes on a previously configured paddle without repeated calibration is facilitated with the compromise of a doubled error margin. The default sampling frequency is set to 100 Hz and can, like all system parameters, be configured on the mobile phone. Real-time computation of complex performance parameters is only limited by the phone CPU. The system adds twice 109 g to the paddle and approximately 850 g to the kayak, excluding the mass of the mobile phone


Foreign Affairs Litigation in United States Courts is an indispensable resource for attorneys and government officials focused on the role of the courts in foreign affairs, actions against foreign governments in United States courts, the Act of State Doctrine, foreign sovereign immunity, the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, foreign affairs takings actions in the Court of Federal Claims, and choice of court in international litigation.


Part memoir, part study, "The Making of a Philosopher" is the self-portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life lived on both sides of the Atlantic."The Making of a Philosopher" follows Colin McGinn from his early years in England, reading Descartes and Anselm, to his years in the States, first in Los Angeles, then New York. McGinn presents a contemporary academic take on the great philosophical figures of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Noam Chomsky, alongside stories of the teachers who informed his ideas and often became friends and mentors, especially the colorful A. J. Ayer at Oxford.McGinn's prose is always elegant and probing; students of contemporary philosophy and the general reader alike will absorb every page.


A lively debate has raged in recent years about how to regulate employment reference practices. According to the conventional account, employers refuse to provide candid references because they fear defamation liability and perceive only the most speculative benefits from exposing themselves to the risk of suit. As a result, almost everyone appears to agree that employers are getting too little information about prospective employees. An intuitively appealing response to this problem would be to impose on the former employer a duty to disclose. Another obvious possibility is to reform defamation law so as to reduce the threat of liability that employers face when they provide candid references. Although these are plausible policy options, prior commentators have seriously underestimated the difficulty of designing appropriate legal reforms. The framework that I develop in this Article highlights the unique problems associated with regulating information flows and reveals complex interactions among the various legal and economic forces that influence employment reference practices. In particular, I examine three potential inefficiencies arising from employee turnover -- mismatching, churning, and scarring. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I conclude that defamation law functions reasonably well in its present form, that disclosure obligations might well produce more harm than good, and finally that the most promising legal reforms are those that focus on the problems associated with hiring for high-risk occupations. I also explore how the law might facilitate both preexisting and innovative market mechanisms for information sharing.


Ultrasound examination is often the most effective and sometimes the only practical means of examining children with soft tissue, tendon and joint diseases. This review will cover the important application of diagnostic ultrasound in children musculoskeletal disorders. We will consider topics where ultrasound is the only sensible means of examination such as developmental dysplasia of the hip, where it is the best choice of several possible methods such as painful hip and when it provides an alternative or adjunct to other imaging such as the examination of soft tissue masses.


Comparison of shallow-water limestone and silicified dolomite from the Mid-Paleoproterozoic Mooidraai Formation, Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa, shows that the primary rare earth element (REE) distribution of these pure marine sedimentary carbonates has been preserved during dolomitization and silicification. Both lithologies display REE (and Y) patterns closely resembling those of present-day seawater, i.e. they show enrichment of the heavy relative to the light REE, positive anomalies of La, Gd and Lu, and super-chondritic Y/Ho ratios. However, these shallow-water carbonates lack any Ce anomalies, indicating that in the Mid-Paleoproterozoic the redox-level of surface water in the Griqualand-West sub-basin of the Kaapvaal Craton did not allow for oxidation of Ce(III). The absence of Ce anomalies from shallow water Mooidraai carbonates indicates a return to marine anoxia immediately after large amounts of marine sedimentary Mn oxides had been deposited in a highly oxygenated marine environment in the underlying Hotazel Formation. This suggests that the "Great Oxidation Event" in the Paleoproterozoic was a transition period characterized by strong fluctuations of the redox level of the Earth's surface ocean.


Abstract Housing markets reflect our housing consumption profile over the life cycle. As we age, marry and have kids, we seek larger dwellings and to a greater extent owner-occupied housing. The up-trading process has two key characteristics: first, it is equity induced. Second, it impacts both the supply and demand sides of housing markets. This is our point of departure. The paper combines a housing ladder with a house price index to show how up-trading amplifies shocks and introduces a multiplier into the housing market. The interplay between market segments results in up-trading induced price dispersion and a price response in the segments on top of the ladder that exceeds those of segments further down, even when shocks are equal across market segments. Finally, as up-trading impacts both housing supply and housing demand, even balanced shocks to net demand might impact house prices. Focusing on different market segments, shocks to demand might have both direct (the size effect) and indirect (the up-trading effect) effects on the house price index. This paper highlights policy options at a finer level when in need of stimulating or dampening house price cycles.


As the family name clearly implies, matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) are localized to the extracellular matrix, where they function as proteases, modulating cell signaling by cleaving proteins such as growth factors or growth factor receptors. In the past few years, MMPs in some cell types have also been observed to function in the nucleus. Eguchi et al. implicate MMPs in a nuclear function that does not require its proteolytic activity, however. This alternative function was first suggested when the authors identified MMP3 in a screen for transcriptional regulators of the gene encoding connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), an insulin-like growth factor implicated in diverse physiological and morphogenetic processes, including arthritis, angiogenesis, and wound healing. MMP3 was detected in the nuclei of mouse chondrocytes both in vitro and in vivo, and in vitro knockdown of MMP3 by RNA interference suggested that MMP3 activated CTGF transcription. MMP3's interaction with the CTGF promoter was direct and sequence-specific, as assayed by a luciferase reporter system and band-shift experiments. Furthermore, the catalytic domain of MMP3 was not required for its DNA-binding or transcriptional activator functions. Finally, binding to the CTGF enhancer was limited to MMP3; overexpression or inhibition of other MMPs did not affect CTGF expression. The results presented in this study suggest an unconventional role for MMPs in the regulation of gene expression. T. Eguchi, S. Kubota, K. Kawata, Y. Mukudai, J. Uehara, T. Ohgawara, S. Ibaragi, A. Sasaki, T. Kuboki, M. Takigawa, Novel transcription factor-like function of human matrix metalloproteinase 3 regulating the CTGF/CCN2 gene. Mol. Cell. Biol. 28, 2391-2413 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Responding to global food crisis, such as imposed by climate change, requires resilient food systems that are able to respond to shocks. Resilience thinking, as an approach to agriculture development, focuses on enhancing the capacity of both the human and ecological systems inter alia. In this paper, the concept of resilience is approached from the perspective of socio-ecological systems dynamics. In particular, the study examined the contribution of farmers to research towards enhanced resilience of traditional African vegetable production systems in northern Ghana . An Innovation Platform was set up as a 'knowledge space' that provided an enabling environment for the interaction between farmers' indigenous and researchers' scientific knowledge in agricultural research. The study revealed that indigenous knowledge can be invaluable to building resilient food systems. However, ensuring that farmers participate effectively and contribute to research effort requires good community mobilization and facilitation skills by scientists as farmers need to be assured that their knowledge and other contributions are valued and their views respected by scientists. Good communication skill is necessary for effective knowledge brokering by researchers. Beyond the farmer, building a good relationship with the community is important in ensuring buy-in by farmers. Keywords : Resilience, Researchers, Varietal Evaluation, Knowledge, Innovation Platforms


The interview was recorded at Geneva, Switzerland, on March 9, 1998. The Interviewer was Jean Krasno.Former Spokesman for the Secretary‑General
Ramses Nassif joined the United Nations in 1953 as a press officer in charge of promoting United Nations publications and in 1955 for the Bandung conference in Indonesia, which was the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. He met U Thant as an ambassador of Burma to the United Nations in 1957. When U Thant was officially elected as acting Secretary‑General after Dag Hammarskjold's sudden death, Mr. Nassif was tapped to become U Thant's "press officer," a position that would be known as the Official Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. He served at that capacity until U Thant's retirement in 1971. Subsequently, he moved to Geneva, where he held the post of Director of Information.
As the first Spokesperson for the Secretary‑General, Mr. Nassif helped to establish many of the protocols that are employed by the Office of the Secretary‑General today to keep an ongoing relationship with the press, including the Daily Press Briefings. Mr. Nassif, retired at the time of these interviews, discusses these experiences and reflects on U Thant's term as Secretary‑General. The first interview, conducted on 9 March 1998, focuses on U Thant as Secretary‑General — from his election to the many crises he faced during his term. In the second interview, conducted on 15 April 2005, Mr. Nassif centres his discussion on U Thant's relationship with the press and media.


a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. Abstract The effect of test anxiety on academic performance has been studied extensively throughout the past few decades. Recent developments in test anxiety research have largely been based within the cognitive psychology framework, where different components of working memory were identified to mediate the relationship between test anxiety and test performance. Similarly, the field of educational psychology has expanded this area of research to identify the different pathways in which emotional states can serve both activating and deactivating roles towards learning and achievement. From the clinical psychology perspective, the connection between emotional experiences and thought processes is an integral part of assessment which then informs ways of intervention. However, there is limited research that explicitly examines the relationship between general emotional distress and more specific forms of test-related distress, such as the cognitive and physiological components of test anxiety. The Tripartite Model of Emotions (TME) is used to explore the connection between general emotional distress and test anxiety. The model proposed that the experiences of depression and anxiety are predisposed by a combination of three high-order dimensions of emotional distress: positive affect (or lack thereof), negative affect, and physiological hyperarousal. While researchers have identified these tripartite factors to be significant predictors of various health and performance outcomes, the degree to which the tripartite model may account for the experience of test anxiety, as well as the level of academic performance, remains unclear. In the present study, 642 secondary school students (aged 16-19) completed a questionnaire comprised of measures of test anxiety, depression, anxiety, and the tripartite dimensions. This enabled a cross-sectional investigation into the validity of the tripartite model of emotions, as well as how test anxiety may be predicted by the higher-order factors of emotional distress. The grade point averages of a sub-sample of 188 students were gathered, which enabled a prospective investigation vi into how these emotional variables influenced academic performance. Structural equation modeling was employed to simultaneously test the relationships among the aforementioned variables, and to identify an explanatory model for academic performance. There was support for the tripartite factors' hypothesized influence on depression and test anxiety. Specifically, low levels of positive affect (PA) and high levels of negative affect (NA) influenced the experience of depressive symptoms, …


Traditional hospital wards are not specifically designed as effective clinical microsystems. The feasibility and sustainability of doing so are unclear, as are the possible outcomes. To reorganize a traditional hospital ward with the traits of an effective clinical microsystem, we designed it to have 4 specific features: (1) unit-based teams, (2) structured interdisciplinary bedside rounds, (3) unit-level performance reporting, and (4) unit-level nurse and physician coleadership. We called this type of unit an accountable care unit (ACU). In this narrative article, we describe our experience implementing each feature of the ACU. Our aim was to introduce a progressive approach to hospital care and training.


Spectacle 2.0 recasts Debord's theory of spectacle within the frame of 21st century digital capitalism. It offers a reassessment of Debord's original notion of Spectacle from the late 1960s, of its posterior revisitation in the 1990s, and it presents a reinterpretation of the concept within the scenario of contemporary informational capitalism and more specifically of digital and media labour. It is argued that the Spectacle 2.0 form operates as the interactive network that links through one singular (but contradictory) language and various imaginaries, uniting diverse productive contexts such as logistics, finance, new media and urbanism. Spectacle 2.0 thus colonizes most spheres of social life by processes of commodification, exploitation and reification. Diverse contributors consider the topic within the book's two main sections: Part I conceptualizes and historicizes the Spectacle in the context of informational capitalism; contributions in Part II offer empirical cases that historicise the Spectacle in relation to the present (and recent past) showing how a Spectacle 2.0 approach can illuminate and deconstruct specific aspects of contemporary social reality. All contributions included in this book rework the category of the Spectacle to present a stimulating compendium of theoretical critical literature in the fields of media and labour studies. In the era of the gig-economy, highly mediated content and President Trump, Debord's concept is arguably more relevant than ever.


A novel inorganic cation exchanger cerium(IV) antimonomolybdate was synthesized and characterized by XRD, FT-IR, TGA, SEM, EDS and UVVis DRS etc. Its thermal and chemical stabilities, pH titration curve, and distribution coefficients towards different metal ions etc were studied systematically. The distribution studies revealed that the material is highly selective for Ca, Pb and Mn metal ions. UV-Vis DRS studies shows that the material exhibits narrowed band gap energy. The applications of the material were explored by the quantitative separation of calcium from other metal ions, studying its catalytic activity towards hazardous organic dyes and antimicrobial activity of the material towards E coli and staphylococcus aureus. The results ensure that the material face promising applications in various fields by combining its ion exchange properties, catalytic activity and antimicrobial activity.  2015 Trade Science Inc. INDIA


Mirror descent with an entropic regularizer is known to achieve shifting regret bounds that are logarithmic in the dimension. This is done using either a carefully designed projection or by a weight sharing technique. Via a novel unified analysis, we show that these two approaches deliver essentially equivalent bounds on a notion of regret generalizing shifting, adaptive, discounted, and other related regrets. Our analysis also captures and extends the generalized weight sharing technique of Bousquet and Warmuth, and can be refined in several ways, including improvements for small losses and adaptive tuning of parameters.


Sustainable development is perceived as a complex concept because of the south-north, north-north and south-south divide. The various perspectives on this subject are embedded in people's own beliefs or interests regarding what sustainable development (SD) means to them. No wonder SD is viewed by politicians as community projects; by business as goods and profits; by environmentalists as a means of enabling efficient use of natural resources; and by the masses as a means of meeting their basic needs and as a strategy for poverty alleviation. Although indigenous knowledge - whether called scientific or non-scientific knowledge - enables people to address their diverse ills (challenges) in society, sometimes it is marginalized in education because it is seen as non-scientific and non-engaging in formal education. Using the capability approach to human development, this paper investigates the link between indigenous knowledge and sustainable development and proposes a better framework for understanding these concepts in development processes.


Increased landfilling costs and state-mandated reductions in municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal have combined to increase interest in recycling as an MSW management option. Most benefit-cost analyses, however, focus solely on urban curbside recycling programs and/or fail to include the benefits which accrue to households from the opportunity to recycle. This study focuses on the economic feasibility of dropoff recycling in rural areas, presenting estimates of household willingness to pay (WTP) for dropoff recycling in a rural/suburban area of Tennessee. Using contingent valuation, the most conservative mean household WTP is near $4.00 per household per month.


The American public is perhaps more sensitized to the flaws in our criminal justice system than at any time in our history. News accounts of wrongful convictions, racial profiling, violent police-citizen encounters, and botched executions have called into question the policies of a nation that imprisons more people than any other developed nation – upwards of 1.5 million people housed in state or federal prisons according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. To some extent, this period of questioning and reflection has produced gains; we have witnessed a modest shift away from mandatory minimum sentencing and toward the decriminalization of some narcotics. Parole boards have shown a rising awareness that inmates' claims of innocence should not be held against them in their release decisions. Even more, some states – most notably, Michigan – have formulated innovative re-entry programs to assist prisoners in making the perilous transition from their cell blocks to residential and commercial blocks in neighborhoods throughout the country. These events have prompted some observers to envision an end to mass incarceration in the United States.Yet this vision is a mirage. Despite all of the talk about criminal justice reform and "decarceration," we still live in a country where large swaths of people, especially young men of color, languish behind bars or under the restrictions of probation, parole, or some other form of community supervision. This is likely to remain the case absent dramatic changes to policing practices, wealth inequalities, and the lobbying tactics of corrections officials and affiliated industries. The danger with the decarceration rhetoric is that it deflects attention from those who continue to suffer under horrid conditions of confinement. Indeed, this Symposium explores the contemporary prison experience against this complicated backdrop and asks a fundamental question: what are the gravest problems that inmates face during an era in which many people might naively think that the situation has improved?


We consider various notions of equivalence in the space of bounded operators on a Hilbert space, in particular modulo finite rank, modulo Schatten $p$-class, and modulo compact. Using Hjorth's theory of turbulence, the latter two are shown to be not classifiable by countable structures, while the first is not reducible to the orbit equivalence relation of any Polish group action. The results for modulo finite rank and modulo compact operators are also shown for the restrictions of these equivalence relations to the space of projection operators.


There is a growing need for the analysis of energy systems not only on the bases of their operational life, but also on the basis of considerations for the manufacturing and recycling phases. Environmental and to a lesser extent resource scarcity factors sould also be taken into consideration. A general unified thermodynamic approach based on exergy was recently proposed [1,2,3] and is briefly summarized. The main idea of this approach is to minimize the cumulated exergetic losses of operation, manufacture and recycling distributing the exergy of manufactrue (the so-called gray exergy) and recycling over the life time of the system. Additional levels of analysis consist of introducing pollution and resource scarcity factors and using these to artificially penalize the above mentioned exergy terms. In this paper, the first level of analysis (exergy analysis with gray exergy) is applied to four domestic heat pumps operating with different evaporators (direct expansion horizontal ground coil, brine horizontal ground coil, brine geothermal U tubes and air-source).


In Drosophila melanogaster, weak incompatibility in crosses between infected and uninfected strains is associated with a Wolbachia microorganism. Crosses between infected males and uninfected females show a reduction (15-30%) in egg hatch. Progeny tests indicated that the infection is widespread in Australian D. melanogaster populations and that populations are polymorphic for the presence of the infection. The infection status of 266 lines from 12 populations along the eastern coast of Australia was determined by 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining of embryos. All populations contained both infected and uninfected flies. Infection frequencies varied between populations but there was no discernible geographical pattern. Laboratory experiments indicated that the infection was not associated with a reduction in fecundity as in Drosophila simulans. Incompatibility levels could not be increased by laboratory selection on isofemale lines. Factors contributing to the persistence of the infection in D. melanogaster populations are discussed.


This paper examines ways in which styles of language usage mediate attempts at describing classroom practice. The authors' particular focus centres on discursive power and they seek to illustrate some of the effects and consequences of applying certain Foucauldian concepts and analytical procedures within depictions of interactions between children and with the teacher in a nursery classroom. The paper begins by introducing an example of children's play. To this are applied analyses which stem from readings of Foucault. In so doing, it is shown how power both permeates and defines subjective positionings and where, as a consequence, individuals experience themselves as both powerful and powerless. A second example is offered in which a teacher talks to a child. The authors' analyses of this can, they believe, be perceived as a reflexive act, where the teacher's own beliefs, including her feminism, are critiqued and redefined.


: Shame is frequently racialized, gendered, and sexualized. The 2016 film Moonlight , directed by Barry Jenkins, is a cultural touchstone in these terms. Through its success at the 89th Academy Awards, it brought to mainstream audiences a complex depiction of black, queer masculinities that move beyond shame. Moonlight follows a black man through three episodes in his life as he seeks to find agency in hypermasculine spaces wherein his potential queerness and aversion to dominance and aggression leads to isolation and shame. Through the lens of queer temporalities, I show how conventional queer narratives are subverted in Moonlight through opportunities of intimacy. I offer an analysis of the film's depiction of queerness as an unfixed category and show how the aesthetics underscore the idea of indeterminacy. irector Chiron Sanders, as he moves through three episodes in his life—childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—all while navigating the terrains of black masculinity in a society where the dominant discourse rejects any notions of vulnerability among men. At the core of this coming-of-age story is the struggle with hypermasculinity that Chiron faces as a black queer man. As the film progresses, he uncovers various aspects of queerness, kinship, and masculinity that open up opportunities beyond shame and secrecy. Rather than rely on conventions of homosexuality and masculinity where identities are exposed and/or liberated by daylight, I will utilize the framework of queer temporalities in order to show that Moonlight embraces the metaphor of night as a vehicle for a narrative that values mutability and indeterminacy.


The study was conducted following a systematic review of 38 articles (Collins et al 2004), which failed to find strong evidence for the optimum duration and frequency of follow-up, or the personnel best placed to provide it. Against this background of lack of evidence for ongoing follow-up, on the grounds of limited resources and an ever increasing population of breast cancer survivors; the level and nature of service provision for the patients attending a regional breast unit was changed. What was unknown was the impact this may have on the quality of the care and support and future health and well-being. Primary aim: To investigate the experience of being discharged from follow-up breast care services and evaluate the impact of the proposed changes from the patient's perspective. This thesis reports on interviews with 20 women from the time they were discharged from the service to 2 years post discharge. In addition, 4 participants who developed recurrent disease gave interviews to discuss their experiences. 3 major themes emerged: 1. "Close shave" or "marked woman"? describes the approaches adopted by the women towards their disease, treatment and risk of recurrent disease; 2. A "blessing" or a "curse"? encompasses views of the value of follow-up care; 3. "freedom" or "isolation"? is the account of the impact of discharge from the service on future health, care and well-being. Creating a network of services and working collaboratively with other sectors may well provide the scope and quality of care that women in long-term recovery from breast cancer want and need from the survivorship care of the future.


In deep-drawing dies for steel sheet parts of car bodies huge masses are moved. To prevent vibrations, which occur by sudden acceleration or stopping of those masses, elastomeric tubular dampers [1] are used. The dampers are made out of carbon filled elastomers. A good knowledge about the material behaviour of metals is available. But for the numerical investigation of complete deep-drawing dies the elastomeric dampers must be taken into account, too. To characterize the material behaviour of the elastomers tensile tests and pressure tests were carried out. The received material data from the tests were read into LS-DYNA [2]. Simulation models of the tensile test and the pressure test were created for LS-DYNA according to the real dimensions and boundary conditions. For validation purposes, calculations of loading cycles were done to enable a comparison between test data and simulation results. For the calculations the implemented material model *MAT_SIMPLIFIED_RUBBER_WITH_DAMAGE (*MAT_183) was used. The comparison shows a good fitting between the test data and the calculation results with respect to the mechanical material behaviour by using this material model in single loading cases. The settings from the simulations of material tests were transferred to simulations of dampers, which are used in deep-drawing dies.


This paper evaluates the extent of wage rigidities in Colombia over a period, 2002-2014, in which the fall in unemployment was relatively slow with respect to sustained economic growth. Following Holden and Wulfsberg (2009), we compute a measure of downward real wage rigidity (DRWR) of 12.09%, four times bigger than their aggregate estimate for the OECD economies. Moreover, in contrast to the evidence for the advanced economies, the determinants of such rigidities show no connection to the wage bargaining system. Amid the absence of effective labor market institutions to make rigidities less prevalent, economic growth appears as the most powerful mechanism to ward them off. Under this light, we provide a stylized description of the wage setting rule in Colombia, compare it with the common one in the advanced economies, and call for a far-reaching reform of the Colombian wage bargaining setup. JEL Classification: E24, J3, J48, J58.


This introductory article concludes the examination of prototypical argumentative patterns manifesting themselves in communicative activity types in the political, legal and medical domain reported in this special issue of the Journal of Argumentation in Context ( JAIC ) and an earlier special issue of the journal Argumentation (2016, 30(1)). First, the results pertaining to the use of pragmatic argumentation in the main argumentation of prototypical argumentative patterns in the various domains are described that were reported in the latter issue. Next, the results are described which are reported in this issue of JAIC ; they pertain to prototypical argumentative patterns in the various domains that come into being as a result of the employment of an argument scheme in the main argumentation that is perfectly suited for being used in a certain communicative activity type in a specific domain. In the following section an overview is provided of the most conspicuous differences in the prototypical argumentative patterns between the various communicative domains caused by the institutional preconditions for strategic maneuvering in the communicative activity types that were examined. Finally, some general conclusions are discussed.


We report herein that symmetrical and non-symmetrical N-heterobiaryls are produced by a potassium tert-butoxide-mediated dimerization of heterocyclic N-oxides. The reaction is scalable and transition metal-free, and can be carried out under thermal and microwave conditions. Preliminary mechanistic studies point to the involvement of radical anionic intermediates arising from the N-oxide substrates and potassium tert-butoxide.


Introduction and Scientific Background Albert Einstein spent World War I in Berlin, where he developed a theory that described electromagnetic radiation in equilibrium with atoms that could emit and absorb radiation. The innovation in Einstein's work, which was published in 1916 and 1917, was that he used the newly developed quantum theory to obtain his results. The most important result was not only that the atoms in the assembly could absorb and emit radiation spontaneously but also that atoms in certain excited states could be induced to emit radiation. (1) Einstein called this discovery the stimulated emission of radiation. Einstein's discovery provided the basis for the development of lasers, though the phenomenon would not be observed in the laboratory for many years. The development of radar during World War II required intensive research in microwave radiation. The need for highly sensitive radar receivers led to isolating and observing for the first time Einstein's stimulated emission of radiation. In 1954, Charles H. Townes, J.P. Gordon, and H.J. Zeiger were the first to amplify a microwave signal by using stimulated emission. (2) They called their device the maser, which stood for Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. This work led many to speculate about applying the same principles to radiation in other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This effort turned out to be successful, and 6 years later, a positive result was achieved with visible light. The first laser (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation) was developed by Theodore H. Maiman in 1960 at the Hughes Aircraft Corporation research laboratory. (3) To develop the laser, a material had to be found in which an assembly of atoms, most of which were in a higher energy state than the ground state (or lowest energy state) of the atom, could be created. Such a condition is called a population inversion. Where it exists, a light pulse can be amplified by stimulating the emission of radiation by the atoms in the higher energy state. Thus, a strong light pulse can be obtained using a small stimulus--hence the term amplification. Maiman found that a population inversion could be produced within certain atoms in an appropriately designed ruby rod by irradiating it with a strong pulse of light. The atoms in the higher energy states could be stimulated to emit radiation by a very weak light signal of the proper frequency, which would create a cascade that would stimulate the emission of light by all other atoms in the higher energy state, producing a strong pulse of red light. About the same time, Ali Javan and his collaborators at Bell Laboratories discovered a way to create a population inversion in a mixture of helium, neon, and other gases. (4) The tube in which these gases were placed was irradiated continuously with light of the appropriate wavelength. A population inversion was created in the gas mixture, which created a tightly focused beam at a sharply defined wavelength. This tight focus bore out Einstein's 1916-1917 prediction. His calculations revealed that the light quanta or photons created by the stimulated emission are in exactly the same quantum state as the photon that initiated the stimulated emission. This means that all the photons in the process are moving in exactly the same direction, thus creating the tightly focused beam. Solid-state and gas lasers of the type described here are limited in terms of the energy that the laser beam contains because the population inversion is eventually destroyed by melting or other change in the state of the medium in which it is created. The best continuous energy both in pulsed and continuous wave beams is of the order of kilowatts. Lasers of this kind are useful for many purposes, including meteorology, bar-code scanning, and target designation. One of the most fascinating applications of a solid-state laser with energy in the kilowatt range is the lunar laser ranging experiment conducted for the past 30 years at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. …


This paper describes the laws designed especially for the purposes of protecting juveniles and preventing delinquency in China. The Juvenile Protection Law 1991 and Preventing Juvenile Delinquency Law 1999 have defined the duties, responsibilities and authorities which by law parents or guardians of a juvenile have in relation to the welfare, right of education and juvenile justice. This paper discusses the changes of juvenile justice in relation to the enactment of the new laws. In particular, the author relates the new prevention law to the existing Chinese model of delinquency control and how the new law affects this model. It is found that with the promulgation of new prevention law, there is a shift from an informal to a more formal direction of delinquency control where there may be an increase of custodial outcomes for juvenile delinquents.


Back ground:

Laparoscopy became used as a surgical procedure for the removal of gallbladder by Lukichev in

1983 and Muhe in 1985. Those procedures gained little attention and popularity till the well acknowledged laparoscopic cholycystectomy which was performed by the French gynecologist Mouret in 1987.
Aims of the study:

To evaluate the rate of conversion of laparoscopic cholecystectomy into open surgery and its predisposing factors.
Patients and methods: A total number of 1077 patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy were enrolled in the presents study. The sample was composed of 932 females and 145 males and their age ranged from 9-86 years. The study was conducted in Al-Dewaniyiah teaching hospital from January 2015 through December 2015.
Results: The occurrence of disease in female patients was significantly higher than that of male patients (P<0.001). The conversion rate of laparoscopic cholycystectomy into open surgery was reported in 13 out of 1077 (1.2%). The conversion was reported only in the following intervals:
30-39 years (0.7%), 40-49 years (1.6%), 50-59 years (3.5%) and 60-69% (0.8%). The rate of conversion was significantly higher in males than females (P<0.001).
Conclusions: Conversion rate is acceptable in view with available data. Risks for conversion included: Male gender, advanced age, dense adhesion, diabetes, CBD injury and Cholecystoduodenal fistula.


Tuberculous Tenosynovitis of the hand usually presents late because of its non-specific nature that starts insidiously and becomes indolent. Although most of the tuberculous tenosynovitis reported has been the primary focus of the disease, tuberculous tenosynovitis of the hand can be the presenting feature of multiple foci skeletal tuberculosis. In this case series we report three cases of tuberculous tenosynovitis with three different presentations; the definitive diagnosis being made by biopsy and tissue culture. Combined early surgical intervention and chemotherapy was the definitive treatment although the courses of treatment and outcomes differed.


NIKOLOVA, Ts., 2015. Absorption of Pb, cu, Zn and Cd type Morus alba L. cultivated on soils contaminated with heavy metals. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 21: 747–750 In recent years, interest in heavy metals and fitoremediatsionnite technologies increases. The fact that phytoremediation can be performed on the spot (in situ) at significantly less cost, determined research in this area as highly relevant. The purpose of this study was to explore the possibilities of the mulberry tree to be used as fitoremediator contaminated soils with heavy metals. And to establish the accumulation of lead, copper, zinc and cadmium in the root system and aerial biomass (habitus). The results obtained show that increasing the saturation of the roots with heavy metals is increased and the concentration in the aerial parts stems, branches, leaves and the most in the mulberry fruit. Heavy metals accumulate in plant parts not significantly affect the growth and development of the species Morus alba L.


Numerical simulations of cellular membranes are useful for both basic science and increasingly for clinical diagnostic and therapeutic applications. A common bottleneck in such simulations arises from solving large highly complex stiff systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) thousands of times for numerous collocation points (representing cells) throughout a three -dimensional volume. For some electrophysiology simulations, over 98% of the time is spent solving these systems of ODEs when run in serial on a single core. We have reduced the time to simulate a single heartbeat from 4.5 hours on a 48 core Opteron cluster (MPI implementation) to 12.7 minutes on a Desktop workstation equipped with a $500 GPU accelerator that also economizes power consumption. This improvement over cluster performance transforms the simulation workflow, and at this level of performance we can realize larger scale simulations, previously only feasible on a cluster, that are needed in a clinical setting. To achieve this same performance on our Opteron cluster would theoretically require at least a 1020 core system. Thus, the GPU has effectively miniaturized the hardware requirement to perform the simulation. We also demonstrate 23x to 280x speedups across a wide spectrum of cardiac cell models running on the nVidia GTX-295 GPU compared with a multithread implementation on a 4-core Intel i7 processor. Our simulator employs a source-to-source translator that converts a higher level python description of a cell model into highly tuned and optimized CUDA source code, which is then compiled with the CUDA C compiler for execution. Our optimizations include automatic kernel partitioning and a software managed-memory cache. Our translator also removes numerical singularities introduced by using single precision arithmetic


Few Pleistocene paleontological faunas are published in detail for most of Central America. Probably the richest locality of vertebrates in Central America is at Tomayate, El Salvador, and dates to the early-middle Pleistocene. Literature about late Pleistocene vertebrate species from Guatemala is especially scarce. The purpose of the present paper is to introduce the late Pleistocene mammalian remains from Chivacabe, in the western highlands of Guatemala. The Chivacabe fauna radiocarbon dates to between 15,700 and 12,920 calendar years ago. The specimens recovered from excavations between 1977 and1992 are probably only a small portion of the entire fauna likely to exist under 4 to 5 m of redeposited tephra and valley alluvium. Recovered specimens include at least one individual of Glyptotherium sp., three individuals of Cuvieronius cf. C. hyodon, one individual of Equus sp., and two individuals of Odocoileus cf. O. virginianus. One specimen that originally was thought to represent a deer antler is in fact a hyoid bone of Cuvieronius. Previous reports of 'peccary' and Eremotherium from Chivacabe are not supported by archived fossils. No faunal specimens exhibit supposed human modification marks purported by previous investigators; all aberrations observed on the bones and teeth can be explained by other taphonomic processes. The Chivacabe fauna represents one of the very few late Pleistocene faunas from Guatemala described thus far. A preliminary list of late Pleistocene localities known in Guatemala suggests that detailed studies of these faunas are warranted.


Recently, for purposes of radiation safety, the validation of the linear non-threshold (LNT) hypothesis at low doses of radiation was actively discussed. New knowledge, especially on subcellular level, might contribute to the clarification of this problem. The aim of our study was to describe the patterns of spontaneous (rs_sp) and induced (rs_ind) leukocyte DNA repair in workers from the Nuclear Power Plant in Kozlodui (Bulgaria). An epidemiological cross-sectional survey was carried out. Retrospective information about demographic characteristics, health status and occupational exposure (including age at initial exposure, age at sampling, duration of exposure, radiation doses, etc.) was collected. The personnel gave informed consent to participate in the study and were assured of complete anonymity. Blood samples were taken from 342 workers (286 exposed workers in the "strict regimen" area and 56 non-exposed NPP administration staff). The annual doses of irradiation in the exposed group were within the occupational safety limits. Both the basal and repair DNA syntheses (so called unscheduled DNA synthesis) were defined in short-term culture of whole blood (before and after in vitro 2 Gy γ-irradiation). The incorporation of 3H-thymidine in the leukocyte population (in the presence or absence of oxyurea, respectively) was measured radiometrically. Data was analysed by methods of descriptive statistics, percentage distribution, ANOVA, non-parametric tests, parametric and non-parametric correlation and regression analysis. The results from the initial analyses indicated that probability distribution of most variables, although similar in exposed and control groups, was asymmetrical which required a procedure of normalisation of the parameters by log-transformation. Higher levels of spontaneous and induced DNA repair were found in the exposed than in the control group. Low, but significant positive correlation (p < 0.05) was found between the cumulative dose and spontaneous DNA repair patterns. At low levels of the cumulative dose (< 20 mSv) this disappeared and only positive associations between the age (at initial exposure and at sampling) and spontaneous DNA repair were found to be significant (p < 0.05). The present study substantiated the hypothesis that low doses of occupational ionising radiation might have elevated the DNA repair capacity of human leukocytes in the view of eventual subsequent exposure to radiation at higher doses. It could be suggested, therefore, that low levels of such occupational radiation might have stimulated the adaptive mechanisms of the complex system of DNA-damage control. However, the interpretation of our results in the sense of beneficial effects of low doses of ionising radiation (radiation hormesis) should be done with caution because it is not clear whether the cumulative errors of DNA repair might lead to malignant transformation.


This paper focuses on language variation and change in nineteenth-century England. The first part of the paper is concerned with grammar writing and the influence that grammatical norms may have had on the English language. The second part of the paper takes a closer look at actual language usage. Throughout the paper particular attention is paid to language history 'from below', i.e. the linguistic situation of the lower social orders. For instance, the paper confirms, based on empirical data, that you was , a stigmatised feature in prescriptive grammars, was the dominant form in lower-class language usage. All in all, the paper also tries to show that nineteenth-century English still deserves a lot more scholarly attention.


In order to enhance ecological knowledge for coastal and mangrove ecosystem conservation in Ghana, the study documents the taxonomic groups of benthic macrofauna and fish assemblages in an urban mangrove swamp as its fundamental objective with emphasis on their composition, richness and diversity. This is because benthic and fish fauna of mangrove habitats are amongst the least studied biota in Ghana. Fish and benthos sampling was undertaken from five randomly selected pools within a mangrove stand during the wet and dry seasons using pole-seine net (7 m long and 1.5 m depth, with stretched mesh size of 5 mm) and an Ekman grab (15 cm × 15 cm dimensions), respectively. All samples were preserved in 10% formalin for laboratory analysis. The results indicated a more diverse macrozoobenthic community in the wet (H¹ = 1.8) than dry season (H¹ = 1.5) . Overall, five out of a total of 13 genera found are intolerant to pollution and four moderately tolerant, while four comprising polychaetes and the midge Chironomus, are pollution tolerant. This suggests that the mangrove habitat is less polluted. A grand total of 917 fish specimens, belonging to 15 species and nine families, were encountered for both seasons (371 and 546 specimens for wet and dry seasons, respectively). The black-chinned tilapia, Sarotherodon melanotheron, was the dominant fish species in the wet season, accounting for 54.2% of the total fish caught, whilst the grey mullets, Mugil babanensis and Mugil curema, were the dominant species in the dry season, with a combined total of 51.4% of the fish population. However, over 70% of these dominant fish species from both seasons were juveniles providing a strong justification for the observation that the mangrove habitats are nursery grounds for fish inhabiting adjacent riverine, estuarine and inshore marine habitats. Considering this relevance of mangroves and the ongoing conversion attempts of mangrove habitats to other land uses, a concerted mangroves conservation effort is strongly advocated.


2 Abstract: Low Physical activity during adolescence is recognized as a key public health concern. School-based interventions are thought to be the most globally applicable and effective way to counteract levels of physical inactivity and sedentary behavior. This study aimed to investigate the effects of an eight-week school-based teaching intervention to promote physical activity through increasing the physical activity-related knowledge of high school students in Palestinian national high schools in 2012. Baseline and 3 months post-test data from the Health Knowledge Inventory Survey (HKI) were analyzed for group differences through independent t tests and for improvement over time via repeated measures ANOVA. The findings indicated no significant differences between the groups in terms of mean physical activity knowledge scores (P = 0.059) before the intervention. There was a significant difference (P < 0.001) in mean knowledge scores between the intervention and control schools 3 month after intervention follow-up and there was a significant difference in term of gender (male (p=0.028) and female (p=0.007)) and stream of education track (Scientific and non-scientific) in the intervention schools. Whereas significant difference for control group (p<0.001) was found solely between scientific and non-scientific stream students. Media and internet were the two most common sources of physical activity-related knowledge. The evidence suggests the effectiveness of school-based physical activity interventions, given the positive effects on physical activity knowledge. Schools are a suitable setting for the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Additional research on the long-term impact of these interventions is needed.


Aims: The current study aims to assess the attitude of Indian Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D) graduates toward the pharmacy curriculum and pharmaceutical care in India.
Settings and Design: Web‑based survey
Materials and Methods: A nineteen item web‑based questionnaire was used to attain the purpose of study. A total of n = 130 pharmacy students were invited for their participation in this study. Descriptive statistics was applied to assess the responses using Microsoft Excel®.
Results: n = 108 Pharm.D students responded to this survey with a response rate of 83.0%. Results identified acceptance and dissemination in each of the key areas; 96% (mean: 1.04; standard deviation (SD): 0.19) respondents felt that there is a need for the Pharm.D course in India and 76.0% (4.19; 0.85) agreed that there is a need of continuous professional education for a pharmacist. Also, 83.0% (4.14; 1.01) students has shown willingness to be the part of pharmaceutical care process for their patients and 97.0% (4.64; 0.56) agreed that providing pharmaceutical care can increase the quality of service. Nearly 64.0% (3.72;1.07) agreed the Pharm.D program was successful in India.
Conclusions: Findings of the current study reflects that Pharm.D curriculum is well accepted in India and pharmacy students get more insight through active participation in patient care. The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) need to initiate more proactive measures in creating clinical pharmacy jobs for Pharm.D graduates in India, and promote the Pharm.D degree to gain international status, as in United States.


Four chapters in the book's first section, Matters Mainly Psychological, describe empirical observations that explore how a child copes with the fact that many different name-like words can be applied to a single object.A second major section, Matters Mainly Linguistic, contains chapters on phonology, the learning of grammatical categories, the definite and indefinite articles, and the plural. A third section, Matters Mainly Philosophical, focuses entirely on the complex issues of reference and meaning. A final chapter reflects on the implications of the book for developmental psychology.John Macnamara is a world-recognized developmental psychologist and Professor of Psychology at McGill University. An MIT Press/Bradford Book.


Schedule management reduces schedule delays while optimizing positive opportunities to the project timeline. The built industry continues to struggle to capture project metrics that will improve supply chain management. The lack of performance metrics on construction projects filters the actual project performance of the project stakeholders. Contractors can easily be blamed for schedule delays because of the nature of construction projects. A large university capital improvement organization recognizes their lack of performance information and begins implementing a performance measurement system in 2005. The university measurements focus on project impacts to cost, schedule, and quality in hopes that additional information will improve risk management processes. This article reviews the schedule impacts that contractors create within projects. Data was collected directly from both contractor and client project managers of 254 construction projects. Actual delays from contractors were found to be a small percentage of the overall project schedule delays. More than half of the delays that contractors produced were found to be correlated to the material suppliers.


Modern industrial biomass combustion plants are regulated by the power and/or combustion control. In this process, the implemented sensors collect the relevant measured data. The aim is to achieve ideal combustion with optimum efficiency and to minimize gas emissions. For this purpose, a group within the research project Metabolon developed new regulatory procedures in order to record the combustion process of a biomass combustion plant using a webcam. The recordings were evaluated automatically and were used for a better monitoring of the process. In addition, the webcam-based method aims, among other things, to provide private homes with a cost-effective variant as an alternative to industrial system solutions.


This is an intellectual biography of Feng Youlan [Fung Yu-lan] (1895-1990). It explores Feng's work and the trajectory of changes in Feng's philosophical outlook against the social and political contexts of Feng's life from the 1920s to 1990.


We study the remote detection of virtual machine monitors (VMMs) across the Internet, and devise fuzzy benchmarking as an approach that can successfully detect the presence or absence of a VMM on a remote system. Fuzzy benchmarking works by making timing measurements of the execution time of particular code sequences executing on the remote system. The fuzziness comes from heuristics which we employ to learn characteristics of the remote system's hardware and VMM configuration. Our techniques are successful despite uncertainty about the remote machine's hardware configuration.


In much of the mathematical literature, there is talk about the (note the definite article) orthogonal group O(n, F I ) of degree n ∈ N I over a field F I . This is extremely misleading, because, given a linear space T of dimension n, one can consider the orthogonal group of any non-degenerate quadratic form Q on T . In Chapter 6 of the book Basic Algebra I [J], Jacobson denotes this orthogonal group by O(Q). Since there are many such quadratic forms, there are many orthogonal groups. The main purpose of this paper is to study the relations between them and, in particular, determine under what conditions they are conjugate, I was able to find a complete answer in the case when F I is an ordered field. (See Theorem 7 below.)