Models of age–related mate choice predict female preference for older males as they have proven survival ability. However, these models rarely address differences in sperm age and male mating history when evaluating the potential benefits to females from older partners. We used a novel experimental design to assess simultaneously the relative importance of these three parameters in the hide beetle, Dermestes maculatus. In a two–part experiment we first explored age–related male mating success and subsequently examined the consequences of male age, sperm age and male mating history on female fecundity and fertilization success. In a competitive mating environment, intermediate–age males gained significantly higher mating success than younger or older males. To test the consequences for females of aged–related male mating success, a second set of females were mated to males varying in age (young, intermediate–age and old), in numbers of matings and in timing of the most recent mating. We found that male age had a significant impact on female fecundity and fertilization success. Females mated to intermediate–age males laid more eggs and attained consistently higher levels of fertilization success than females with young and old mates. A male's previous mating history determined his current reproductive effort; virgin males spent longer in copula than males with prior mating opportunities. However, differences in copulation duration did not translate into increased fecundity or fertilization success. There was also little evidence to suggest that fertilization success was dependent on the age of a male's sperm. The experiment highlights the potential direct benefits accrued by females through mating with particular aged males. Such benefits are largely ignored by traditional viability models of age–related male mating success.


Active control of vibration and sound inside a structure-surrounded enclosure leads to many applications such as noise control inside vehicle cabins. Despite the extensive research carried out in the last two decades, ANVC technology is still in its infancy and has not yet been introduced massively in practical engineering applications. One of the problems to be resolved is that most of presently used techniques require the use of microphones inside the cavity, which is not practical in many situations. In addition, due to the coupling between the vibrating structure and the confined enclosure, demand for more robust control strategy is apparent. This paper tackles the aforementioned problem using a benchmark system in which only PVDF (Polymer polyvinylidene fluoride) sensors are used on the structural surface. A new method based on genetic algorithms is developed for sensor design. This design process ensures a proper consideration of the acoustic energy in the enclosure without the direct use of acoustic sensors inside the cavity. Roughly speaking, the sensor is designed to capture the most radiating motion of the structure via an automatic optimization process. In the proposed method, Genetic Algorithms and the least quadratic square optimal theory are organically combined together. For each configuration of error sensors, the amplitude of control forces, which can either be point forces or excitation generated by piezoceramic actuators, is first determined by minimizing the sum of the squared outputs of error sensors using the least quadratic square optimal theory. Then with the optimal amplitude of control forces, the acoustic potential energy of the sound cavity is computed and used as the evaluation criteria in the evolution process. Using Genetic Algorithms, the optimal configuration of the error sensors can be determined. A cylindrical shell with an internal floor partition is used as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. To increase the computational efficiency, the structural surface is assumed to be covered with strip-typed PVDF sensors along both the circumferential and longitudinal directions. Both numerical and experimental results show the great effectiveness of the proposed GA-based design method. The sound reduction is achieved not only at the design frequency but also at most frequencies in the low frequency range. The proposed method demonstrates great merits in sensor design for complex structures.© 2002 ASME


Higher birth order positions are often associated with poorer outcomes, possibly due to fewer resources received within the household. Using a sample of PSID-CDS children, we investigate whether the birth order effects in their outcomes are due to unequal allocation of the particular resource represented by maternal quality time. OLS regressions show that the negative birth order effects on various test scores are only slightly diminished when maternal time is included among the regressors. This result is confirmed when we account for unobserved heterogeneity at the household level, exploiting the presence of siblings in the data. Our evidence therefore suggests that birth order effects are not due to differences in maternal quality time received.


Orangutans are a species with a very pronounced sexual dimorphism, in that fully grown males are about twice the size of females, but adult, sexually mature males come in two distinct morphs. Unflanged males lack the secondary sexual characteristics (e.g., cheek flanges, throat sack, long call) of the flanged males, but are sexually active, fertile and known to sire offspring. In some males, full development may be delayed until they are over 30. This 'bimaturism' is hypothesized to have arisen as a result of sexual selection in which female choice, male–male competition and male coercion have all played important roles. The data reviewed here show that male–male competition is highly affected by the reproductive condition of the females and female preference for associating with particular males. Potentially reproductive female orangutans are widely dispersed in space and time. Consequently, dominant flanged adult males cannot easily exert permanent control over access to reproductive females.


Individuals of mussels were collected in ponds from a commercial shrimp farm in the Unare region, Anzoátegui State, Venezuela. Identification was carried out using dichotomous keys and corroborated via analysis of similarities between the sequences of partial mitochondrial DNA of the cytochrome oxidase gene and Mytella strigata (Hanley, 1843) reported in GenBank with 99-100% similarity. Morphological analyses further supported the identification of the specimen. The first report of M. strigata in the Venezuelan Caribbean coast suggests that it could be a transplanted species. Possible negative effects of M. strigata on commercial shrimp production systems are discussed.


We derive the generalized Helmholtz equation (GHE) governing non-isentropic acoustic fluctuations in a quasi 1-D duct with non-uniform cross-section, mean temperature gradient and non-uniform mean flow. Non-isentropic effects are included via heat conduction terms in the mean and fluctuating energy equations. To derive the Helmholtz equation exclusively in terms of the fluctuating pressure field, a relationship between density and pressure fluctuations is needed, which is shown to be a second-order differential equation for nonisentropic motions. Novel analytical solutions that are accurate for both low/high frequencies and small/large mean gradients are presented for the GHE based on the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) method. WKB solutions are developed using the ansatz that the pressure fluctuation field has a travelling wave form, ˆp(x) = exp [∫0x (a + ib) dx], where x is the axial coordinate. Substituting this form into the Helmholtz equation yields coupled, nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for a and b. Analytical solutions to the ODEs are obtained using the approximations of high frequency and slowly varying mean properties. This simplification allows us to obtain the lower order solutions b0 and a0. We then enhance solution accuracy by using a0 to solve for b1 without any approximations. Finally, b1 is employed to get a1, giving us the higher order solution. The ˆp calculated from (a1, b1) is in good to excellent agreement with numerical solution of the GHE for both low and high frequencies and for a range of mean Mach numbers, including M ≥ 1.


PURPOSES/OBJECTIVES
To compare sleep quality and disturbance, fatigue, and depressive symptoms between breast cancer survivors and healthy women experiencing hot flashes and to examine relationships among sleep and remaining variables (fatigue, depressive symptoms, and frequency of hot flashes).

DESIGN
Cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative pilot study.

SETTING
University-based outpatient setting.

SAMPLE
15 breast cancer survivors and 15 healthy women matched on age, race, and menopausal status. All women had untreated hot flashes (no hormone replacement therapy or other hot flash treatments).

METHODS
Questionnaires (sleep quality and disturbance, fatigue, and depression); two ambulatory, 24-hour sternal skin conductance monitoring sessions (hot flash frequency); and medical records review.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Sleep quality and disturbance, fatigue, depressive symptoms, and objective hot flash frequency.

FINDINGS
The majority of participants evidenced poor sleep quality and high sleep disturbance (73% of breast cancer survivors and 67% of healthy women above a cutoff score of 5). Sleep duration was significantly shorter for breast cancer survivors in contrast to healthy women. Nighttime flashes were experienced by 67% of breast cancer survivors and 37% of healthy women. No group differences were found in fatigue, depressive symptoms, or objective hot flash frequency. Global sleep scores were significantly positively correlated with fatigue and depression but not with hot flash frequency.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that sleep disturbance is common in menopausal breast cancer survivors and healthy women, is not necessarily related to hot flashes, and may stem from a multifactorial etiology.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Menopausal breast cancer survivors who present with any one of these symptoms should be screened for all symptoms both during and after treatment.


The effect of urine pH on plasma disposition of ampicillin sodium was evaluated. A single dose of 10 mg/kg of body weight was administered IV to Thoroughbreds with alkaline (pH greater than 8.0) or acidic (pH less than 4.5) urine. Urine alkalinity was achieved and maintained by oral administration of up to 400 mg of sodium bicarbonate/kg/d, and acidity was achieved and maintained by oral administration of up to 400 mg of ammonium chloride/kg/d. Ampicillin sodium was measured in the plasma of horses by use of an agar diffusion microbiological assay with Bacillus subtilis as the test organism. The plasma disposition kinetics of ampicillin sodium best fitted a 2-exponential decay pattern, and statistically significant differences were not evident in elimination half-life, area under the plasma concentration time curve, volume of distribution, or body clearance rate between horses with alkaline or acidic urine. Results indicate that changes in urine pH over a range encountered in clinically normal horses are unlikely to affect plasma pharmacokinetic variables of ampicillin sodium after IV administration of the drug.


In some recent works, Louis Kaplow deals with a recurring antitrust question: what rules
and remedies are necessary to prevent supracompetitive prices in oligopolies, that are markets with a few sellers? Under an economic and non-formalistic approach, Kaploui examines whether the term «agreement» is susceptible of an interpretation sufficiently broad to include situations of tacit parallelism (or pure interdependence) in absence of explicit agreements or concerted actions among the parties. His conclusion is very skeptical concerning current application of antitrust rules against anticompetitive
agreements, and calls for a different competition policy toiwards price fixing. This article
gives an overview of Kaplows scholarship and discusses its potential reception and application in the European and ltalian legal systems. It is argued that two main problems affect Kaplows interesting model. First, reliance on economic theory can be even more problematic than requiring evidence of an agreement in order for illicit collusion to be proved. Second, the economic approach leads to a sort of strict liability for undertakings in oligopolistic markets, and that would be hardly acceptable without a proper amendment of current competition law. Moreover, were such a paradigm shift possible in
Europe, it should consistently involve the application of arto 102 TFEU, which prohibits the abuse of an individual or collective dominant position. As a final point, a more practical problem is outlined. Since Kaplouws thesis concerns the link between market structure and antitrust liability, it sheds light on the issue of optimal application of merger control as well: in accordance with such an economic approach, a potential problem affecting current ltalian merger control system highlighted in the last section of this paper


A community-based approach in the establishment and implementation of a marine protected area (MPA) in Balingasay, Bolinao, Pangasinan is presented. The factors necessary to facilitate the successful establishment and implementation of a community-managed MPA include heightening of environmental awareness, community mobilization, and legal/institutional and financial assistance. A heightened environmental awareness encouraged the community to undertake resource management action. The formation of a people's organization, SAMMABAL (Samahan ng mga Mangingisda at Mamamayan ng Balingasay), was crucial in assessing environmental problems (e.g., overfishing) and identifying the establishment of an MPA as a management tool to address the problem. SAMMABAL was also instrumental in eliciting community support for the issuance of a municipal ordinance in the establishment of the MPA. Subsequently, the organization initiated the patrolling of the MPA. Institutions involved in the community-based management of the MPA also included the multi-sectoral council (BRMC – Balingasay Resource Management Council) and representatives from the barangay council and the municipal government. This institutional arrangement has proven to be very resilient, indicating a high probability of sustaining its successes despite some obstacles and shortcomings. Clear delineation of the role and functions of the institutions and the stakeholders was essential in advancing the initiative. This case study will draw on the lessons from the experience of a four-year community-managed MPA.


An important question in organic chemistry is how does a chemist synthesize chemicals in the most efficient way beginning with chemicals readily available. These problems are known as synthesis problems. Currently, methods based on databases (Chen, 2006) and methods related to quantum mechanics (Jorgensen, 1998) are used frequently to solve this problem. When solving synthesis problems by hand, a key step is to identify the functional groups of molecules as this gives the experimenter a set of applicable reactions. The functional groups required for different reactions are experimentally derived and accepted into a knowledge base. Instead of relying on this knowledge base for functional group identification, perhaps there is a way to gain the same level of accuracy for functional group identification with large datasets of reactions. This paper investigates a heuristics method of determining the functional groups of a certain reaction type.


Chinas Industrial clustering is a distinguished economic phenomenon over the last 20 years. It began to enter into its fast track in the mid-1990s and developed rapidly in recent years. Both market-driven force and government-driven force contribute to Chinese industrial clusters. The opening and stable macroeconomic policies create a favorable climate for the industrial clustering. Local government has made its contribution to construction on both hardware and software environments for industrial clusters. The major contribution of FDI to the local industrial clustering lies in helping integrating Chinese domestic industries into international division of labor and at the same time forging a relatively integrated production chain for Chinese domestic industries. At present, China has stepped into the new phase of industrial clusters upgrading. Chinese government is gradually improving the local software infrastructure for industry clustering.


One year approaching completion of United Indonesia Cabinet work period, in November 2013 the Vice President Boediono announced Business Ease Policy Package. The Package consists of eight targeted areas comprising 17 Action Plans or business climate improvement steps. Such steps are aimed to resolve a number of obstacles that have been source of difficulties currently, whether in starting a business or in its development such as in processing transfer of property ownership, obtaining access to credit, etc.

The Policy Package has been implemented at the national as well as regional levels. Records and assessment made on the performance (realization) show that part of the planned actions has been completed satisfactorily, while the other part has been failed. Certainly, taken into consideration business climate is a crucial issue in economic development, the new government under the leadership of President Joko Wiodo shall continue all the remaining action plans and bring a significant change.

In order to assess and measure performance achievement, in particular at regional level on part of the action plans which are the domain of the region's function, the Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) supported by Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) carry out an evaluation study on the implementation of the aforementioned Package. The three joined institutions conducting this study definitely have professional records and, moreover – in particular BKPM – has the authority and direct responsibility on the success of the plans.

By adopting the framework used in the survey "Ease of Doing Business (EoDB)" by the International Finance Corporation (IFC)-World Bank, we have done this study at several selected regions, namely Medan City (North Sumatera), Surabaya City (East Java), Balikpapan City (East Kalimantan), and Makassar City (South Sulawesi), and have taken Jakarta as the benchmark.

The result of assessment and measurement, also descriptive analysis on the abovementioned strategic issue are presented in this report. All the KPPOD researchers have done their best to perfectly assess and measure, and present in simple way technical and rather complicated matters in their findings so that the readers in general might understand easily. Certainly, we do hope that the report would be an input for the Government as well as the Local Government in policy formulation in their long way of improving business ease in Indonesia in the years to come.

Finally, comments and criticism from the readers and the users of this study are highly appreciated. Such inputs are very important for us for improvement in preparation of similar studies which are planned to be conducted in 2015- 2016, with some enhancement in instruments and additional selected regions.


A rigorous and efficient computational method is developed to calculate transmission and reflection spectra for a finite number of air-hole arrays in a slab, where the incident waves are propagating modes of the slab. The method is a three-dimensional extension of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) map method previously developed for ideal two-dimensional photonic crystals which are infinite and invariant in one spatial direction. The method relies on the DtN maps of the unit cells to avoid repeated calculations in identical unit cells. The DtN map of a unit cell is constructed using eigenmode expansions in the vertical direction (perpendicular to the slab) and cylindrical wave expansions in the horizontal directions.


Abstract In spite of the wide agreement among linguists as to the significance of spoken language data, actual speech data have not formed the basis of empirical work on English as much as one would think. The present paper is intended to contribute to changing this situation, on a theoretical and on a practical level. On a theoretical level, we discuss different research traditions within (English) linguistics. Whereas speech data have become increasingly important in various linguistic disciplines, major corpora of English developed within the corpus-linguistic community, carefully sampled to be representative of language usage, are usually restricted to orthographic transcriptions of spoken language. As a result, phonological phenomena have remained conspicuously understudied within traditional corpus linguistics. At the same time, work with current speech corpora often requires a considerable level of specialist knowledge and tailor-made solutions. On a practical level, we present a new feature of BNCweb (Hoffmann et al. 2008), a user-friendly interface to the British National Corpus, which gives users access to audio and phonemic transcriptions of more than five million words of spontaneous speech. With the help of a pilot study on the variability of intrusive r we illustrate the scope of the new possibilities.


Presidential earmarks? Perhaps even more so than their counterparts in Congress, presidents have the motive and the means to politicize spending for political power. But do they? In Presidential Pork , John Hudak explains and interprets presidential efforts to control federal spending and accumulate electoral rewards from that power. The projects that members of Congress secure for their constituents certainly attract attention. Political pundits still chuckle about the "Bridge to Nowhere". But Hudak clearly illustrates that while Congress claims credit for earmarks and pet projects, the practice is alive and well in the White House, too. More than any representative or senator, presidents engage in pork barrel spending in a comprehensive and systematic way to advance their electoral interests. It will come as no surprise that the White House often steers the enormous federal bureaucracy to spend funds in swing states. It is a major advantage that only incumbents enjoy. Hudak reconceptualizes the way in which we view the U.S. presidency and the goals and behaviors of those who hold the nation's highest office. He illustrates that presidents and their White Houses are indeed complicit in distributing presidential pork - and how they do it. The result is an illuminating and highly original take on presidential power and public policy.


Rogue Access Points (RAPs) pose serious security threats to local networks. An analytic model of prior probability distribution of Segmental TCP Jitter (STJ) is deduced from the mechanism of IEEE 802.11 MAC Distributed Coordinated Function (DCF) and used to differentiate the types of wire and WLAN connections which is the crucial step for RAPs detecting. STJ as the detecting metric can reflect more the characteristic of 802.11 MAC than ACK-Pair since it can eliminate the delay caused by packet transmission. The experiment on an operated network shows the average detection ratio of the algorithm with STJ is more than 92.8% and the average detection time is less than 1s with improvement of 20% and 60% over the detecting approach of ACK-Pair respectively. Farther more no WLAN training trace is needed in the detecting algorithm.


Efficient inductive power transfer has become an area of increasing scientific interest as it can solve some problems associated with traditional wired or contact power transmission. These include but are not limited to corrosion, mechanical friction, clutter and impracticality in places like underwater and subterranean applications. This wireless energy transfer is made possible by the optimization of electromagnetic induction, circuit frequency resonance all achieved with advanced power electronics. One of the components of this technology is the precise delivery of the incident electromagnetic fields to the precise location to which they are converted to power via induction, without indiscriminate emission of these electromagnetic fields inefficiently into the surrounding areas. This paper presents a method in achieving bounded spatial freedom using flux-guide saturation for flux delivery to one or more secondary coils for contactless inductive power transfer. The experiments demonstrate the principle of using the nonlinearity of a ferrite flux shield in order to "open up" a flux path from the primary to the secondary coil to achieve inductive power transfer.


Analysts assessing energy policies and energy modelers forecasting future trends need to have access to reliable and concise energy statistics. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory evaluated several sources of California energy data, primarily from the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, to develop the California Energy Balance Database (CALEB). This database manages highly disaggregated data on energy supply, transformation, and end-use consumption for each type of energy commodity from 1990 to the most recent year available (generally 2001) in the form of an energy balance, following the methodology used by the International Energy Agency. This report presents the data used for CALEB and provides information on how the various data sources were reconciled. CALEB offers the possibility of displaying all energy flows in numerous ways (e.g.,physical units, Btus, petajoules, different levels of aggregation), facilitating comparisons among the different types of energy commodities and different end-use sectors. In addition to displaying energy data, CALEB can also be used to calculate state-level energy-related carbon dioxide emissions using the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.


OBJECTIVE: To find out the hypoglycemic activity of Ficus hispida Linn. (bark) in normal and diabetic albino rats and to evaluate its probable mechanism of hypoglycemic activity if any.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Albino rats were divided into groups (n=6) receiving different treatments consisting of vehicle, water-soluble portion of the ethanol extract of Ficus hispida bark (FH) (1.25 g/kg) and standard antidiabetic drugs, glibenclamide (0.5 mg/kg) and 0.24 units of insulin (0.62 ml of 0.40 units/ml). Blood glucose was estimated by the glucose oxidase method in both normal and alloxan-induced diabetic rats before and 2 h after the administration of drugs. To find out the probable mechanism of action of FH as a hypoglycemic agent, i) the glycogen content of the liver, skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle, and ii) glucose uptake by isolated rat hemi-diaphragm were estimated.
RESULTS: FH showed significant reduction of blood glucose level both in the normal (P<0.01) and diabetic (P<0.001) rats. However, the reduction in the blood glucose level was less than that of the standard drug, glibenclamide. FH also increased the uptake of glucose by rat hemi-diaphragm significantly (P<0.001). There was a significant increase in the glycogen content of the liver (P<0.05), skeletal muscle (P<0.01) and cardiac muscle (P<0.001). The amount of glycogen present in the cardiac muscle was more than the glycogen present in the skeletal muscle and liver.
CONCLUSION: FH has significant hypoglycemic activity. Increased glycogenesis and enhanced peripheral uptake of glucose are the probable mechanisms involved in its hypoglycemic activity.


An integrated portfolio of wide-area real-time reliability tools is addressing one of the major recommendations from the most recent blackouts in North America's Eastern and Western interconnections: The lack of common, simultaneous, adequate and accurate reliability information during major disturbances. The functional specifications for the tools were defined through guidance provided by NERC reliability Subcommittees and Reliability Coordinators addressing wide-area real operational reliability problems. The tools' intelligent alarms, multi-view, geo-graphic displays and automatic reliability reports enable Balancing Authorities and Reliability Coordinators to rapidly and jointly interpret and use consistently presented real-time data to monitor load-generation-frequency resources adequacy and grid health. The data and functional architectures are being adapted to make the tools useful for the integration of emergent dynamic distributed systems into the traditional centralized systems of today. The paper focus on the most intensively used tools, and illustrates how the tools are used in practice with five examples drawn from four interconnections.


The growing worldwide demand for energy must be controlled. However, even in the event of voluntary policies to dampen energy demand, it is hard to imagine that the demand could be less than twice as much as today's by 2050. We feel it is necessary to satisfy this demand. It is obvious also that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced in order to limit the severe consequences that they entail. An energy shortage could develop if new sources of large-scale energy production are not established. A significant contribution of nuclear power to such energy production by 2050 rests on a well-coordinated and optimised deployment scheme (Loiseaux et al., 2004; The Future of Nuclear Power, 2003). This requires, as early as today, a reflection on the present status of nuclear power, on its extrapolation into the future and, thus, on the means that should be put to work and the transition possibilities.


ABSTRACT All viruses are obligate intracellular parasites and depend on certain host cell functions for multiplication. However, the extent of such dependence and the exact nature of the functions provided by the host cell remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated if nonessential Bacillus subtilis genes are necessary for multiplication of bacteriophage SPP1. Screening of a collection of 2,514 single-gene knockouts of nonessential B. subtilis genes yielded only a few genes necessary for efficient SPP1 propagation. Among these were genes belonging to the yuk operon, which codes for the Esat-6-like secretion system, including the SPP1 receptor protein YueB. In addition, we found that SPP1 multiplication was negatively affected by the absence of two other genes, putB and efp. The gene efp encodes elongation factor P, which enhances ribosome activity by alleviating translational stalling during the synthesis of polyproline-containing proteins. PutB is an enzyme involved in the proline degradation pathway that is required for infection in the post-exponential growth phase of B. subtilis, when the bacterium undergoes a complex genetic reprogramming. The putB knockout shortens significantly the window of opportunity for SPP1 infection during the host cell life cycle. This window is a critical parameter for competitive phage multiplication in the soil environment, where B. subtilis rarely meets conditions for exponential growth. Our results in combination with those reported for other virus-host systems suggest that bacterial viruses have evolved toward limited dependence on nonessential host functions. IMPORTANCE A successful viral infection largely depends on the ability of the virus to hijack cellular machineries and to redirect the flow of building blocks and energy resources toward viral progeny production. However, the specific virus-host interactions underlying this fundamental transformation are poorly understood. Here, we report on the first systematic analysis of virus-host cross talk during bacteriophage infection in Gram-positive bacteria. We show that lytic bacteriophage SPP1 is remarkably independent of nonessential genes of its host, Bacillus subtilis, with only a few cellular genes being necessary for efficient phage propagation. We hypothesize that such limited dependence of the virus on its host results from a constant "evolutionary arms race" and might be much more widespread than currently thought.


Africa should industrialize. Without structural change it cannot sustain recent growth. Economies with more diverse and sophisticated industrial sectors tend to grow faster. But since 1980 Africa has deindustrialized. The paper shows that between 1975 and 2005 the size, diversity and sophistication of industry in Africa have all declined. An industrialization strategy containing two elements is needed. The first is straightforward: refocusing current investment climate reforms on infrastructure, skills, and regional integration. These actions alone will not be sufficient, however. Africa must also learn to compete through strategies to create an export push, develop industrial clusters, and attract task-based production.


We use evidence from a survey of approximately 200 Polish state-owned, privatized, and de novo private manufacturing firms to investigate the nature and scope of enterprises-level provision of social benefits, and in particular how enterprise-level social provision is changing with transition, privatization and the emergence of the new private sector. We find that social provision remains surprisingly widespread, and has not been greatly reduced in either the state-owned or the privatized sectors. De novo private firms offer a substantially smaller but still significant range of social provision aside from ownership form are firm sized and employee power ( the latter are not explicitly via the union structure), both of which are associated with higher levels of social provision. Money wages and the provision of social benefits appear to be complementary rather than substitutes. Assets used for the provision of social benefits are concentrated in state-owned firms, but there is relatively little social asset disposal; the de novo private sector is expanding the range of social benefits offered but is not investing significantly in social assets. Social provision has been declining in state-owned firms, less so in privatized firms, and increasingly (modestly) in new private firms. On average the declines determinants of the pace of change aside from ownership form are the size of the firm and its profitability, both of which are associated with increases or slower declines in social provision, in the case of the state-owned sector, provision also declines more slowly when they tax-based income policy (the "popwiek") binds.


We present a case study demonstrating the use of an "L"-shaped downhole fibre-optic array to monitor microseismicity. We use a relatively simple method to detect events from continuous waveform data, and develop a workflow for manual event location. Locations are defined with a cylindrical coordinate system, with the horizontal axis of the DAS cable being the axis of symmetry. Events are located using three manual "picks", constraining (1) the zero-offset "broadside" channel to the event (2) the P-S wave arrival time difference at the broadside channel, and (3) the angle, ? of the event from the array. Because the one-component DAS array is unable to record P-wave energy on the broadside channel, the P-wave pick is made indirectly by ensuring that the modeled P- and S-wave moveout curves match the observed data. The ? angle requires that signal is observed on the vertical part of the array, in our case this is possible because an engineered fiber, rather than standard telecommunications fiber, provided a significant reduction in the noise level. Because only three picks need to be made, our manual approach is significantly more efficient than equivalent manual processing of downhole geophone data, where picks for P- and S-waves must be made for each receiver. We find that the located events define a tight cluster around the injection interval, indicating that this approach provides relatively precise and accurate event locations. A surface microseismic array was also used at this site, which detected significantly fewer events, the locations of which had significantly greater scatter than the DAS array locations. We conclude by examining some other aspects of the DAS microseismic data, including the presence of multiple events within very short time windows, and the presence of converted phases that appear to represent scattering of energy from the hydraulic fractures themselves.


This paper illustrates the clinical value of a computer technique for superimposition of two different kinds of imaging procedures. The initial application was to overlay cerebral angiograms onto computed tomograms of the brain. Case material from three patients with intracerebral abnormalities is presented. The sum of information from the combined studies exceeds that from either study alone and has value for both diagnosis and treatment of head lesions.


This is an elegant and profound homage to the discipline of descriptive geometry. Sterile classroom lectures on the subject have long been the bane of engineering and architecture students and now it is widely thought that CAD (computer-aided design) may be giving the coup de grace to this special branch of geometry. And yet modern graphics techniques are unthinkable today without the foundation that descriptive geometry provides. The author traces the discipline's evolution from the 16th through to the 19th century, starting with an examination of how it served the early art of stone-cutting, and moving on to studying its relationship to pure geometry and its curricular importance to the Ecole Polytechnique established by the National Convention. Descriptive geometry is the point of juncture between the theoretical and the practical, between thought and action. A knowing and expansive selection of architectural drawings demonstrates this beautifully throughout the work. The drawings are the readable imprints of man's three-dimensional imagination; the maps which give us the wherewithal to turn the space he invents into physical reality. "


Nowadays, working has become the integral part of the human life. Individuals spend much of their time in the organizations every day. The unlimited pressures imposed and wants asked for by the organizations compel the individuals to be constantly at work. Therefore, they will be more likely to develop workaholism and it can leave positive or negative effects in the related organization. On the other hand, according to the fact that in this era of competition and change, employing committed and effective human force is proposed as a unique competitive advantage for every organization, concepts such as organizational efficiency can be effective on the enhancement of the qualitative and quantitative levels of the employees' organizational performance and align the employees' organizational relations in a direction towards stability and comfort. Thus, the present study aims at analyzing the workaholism role in predicting the human workforce efficiency in Agriculture Banks from Sistan and Baluchistan Province. The study adopts a descriptive-correlation approach to the survey of a 419-people population comprised of Sistan and Baluchistan Province's Agriculture Banks staff. The study takes advantage of a regression correlation coefficient technique to investigate the study subject matter. The results of the study indicated that workaholism and its components influence the human workforce effectiveness.


Critical Psychiatry and Mental Health critically explores the current theory and practice of ethno-psychiatry and multicultural mental health practices and policies. Through an in-depth discussion of the work of Suman Fernando, one of the world's leading scholars and researchers in race, culture and mental health, an international selection of contributors discuss and debate issues affecting mental health and minority ethnic individuals and groups.

The book offers a new approach to global mental health, arguing that the use of outdated and outmoded ways in which psychiatry is researched and practiced is a thing of the past, that social justice can only be achieved through a more democratic approach to mental health care and emphasising that the inclusion of cultural and traditional healing methods and practices are vital to meeting diverse needs. Split into five parts, the book covers:

Critique of Western Psychiatry and Mental Health

Challenges and Opportunities in Mental Health Care

Training and Development in Mental Health Practice

Transnational Contexts: Engaging the work of Suman Fernando

Personal Reflections on Suman Fernando's Life and Work

Critical Psychiatry and Mental Health is ideal for researchers and practitioners in health and mental health, psychiatry, counselling and psychotherapy and anyone interested in the intersection of race, culture and mental health.


The article explores the complementary connections between communities of practice and the ways in which individuals orchestrate their engagement with others to further their professional learning. It does so by reporting on part of a research project conducted in New Zealand on teachers' online professional learning in a university graduate diploma program on ICT education. Evolving from social constructivist pedagogy for online professional development, the research describes how teachers create their own networks of practice as they blend online and offline interactions with fellow learners and workplace colleagues. Teachers' perspectives of their professional learning activities challenge the way universities design formal online learning communities and highlight the potential for networked learning in the zones and intersections between professional practice and study. The article extends the concepts of Lave and Wenger's (1991) communities of practice social theory of learning by considering the role participants play in determining their engagement and connections in and across boundaries between online learning communities and professional practice. It provides insights into the applicability of connectivist concepts for developing online pedagogies to promote socially networked learning and for emphasising the role of the learner in defining their learning pathways.


Digital media technologies provide new opportunities for the recording and publicising of human rights violations. In recent years, soldier photography during military conflicts has become one of the most controversial sources of images of abuse, especially in relation to the visual representation of detainees. The backdrop to this article is the death of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian who died while in detention on a British Army military base in Basra in southern Iraq in 2003. A soldier's video footage of Mr Mousa's treatment in the detention facility has helped to generate a range of cultural, political and legal effects, not least an ongoing official Inquiry into the causes of his death. But while new media technologies, such as mobile camera-phones, can provide an expanded visual record of human suffering and death in war zones, this article argues that this brings dangers as well as possibilities. More generally, it raises questions about how human rights practitioners should respond to the increasing visualisation of witnessing.


Abstract Background and Purpose: Many organisations are using the e-payment system; however, its effectiveness has not been determined particularly in the Nigeria context. The University of Ilorin as educational organisation started using e-payment system in 2010 and up till now there has been limited or no study conducted to examine whether or not workers are satisfied with the new payment system together with other related ones they are familiar with. It is in the light of this that this study examined users' satisfaction with the e-payment system at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Design/Methodology/Approach: A sample of 260 academic and non-academic staff was taken from six out 12 faculties that made up the university. Using a survey research approach data was collected with a modified questionnaire. Five research questions were developed to guide the study. Results: The results revealed that, respondents (93.5%) were adequately satisfied, satisfied and moderately satisfied, while, only (6.5%) of the respondents were less satisfied and dissatisfied. Perceived speed was identified as the characteristics users mostly satisfied with, followed by system security, traceability, and convenience. Moreover, there is significant correlation among the entire e-payment characteristics/factors (perceived speed, security, anonymity, traceability, perceived ease of payment, and convenience); and that all the six factors jointly predict users' satisfaction with the e-payment system. In order of magnitude of the prediction/contribution to e-payment, users' satisfaction, perceived speed made the most significant prediction/contribution. Conclusion: Based on the findings, the study concluded a considerable percentage of the respondents (93.5%) are satisfied with the e-payment system at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. In lieu of this therefore, there is need to improve the e-payment system so that all and sundry could be satisfied.


We propose a model to generate music following a linguistic approach. Musical melodies form the training corpus where each of them is considered a phrase of a language. Implementing an unsupervised technique we infer a grammar of this language. We do not use predefined rules. Music generation is based on music knowledge represented by probabilistic matrices, which we call evolutionary matrices because they are changing constantly, even while they are generating new compositions. We show that the information coded by these matrices can be represented at any time by a probabilistic grammar; however we keep the representation of matrices because they are easier to update, while it is possible to keep separated matrices for generation of different elements of expressivity such as velocity, changes of rhythm, or timbre, adding several elements of expressiveness to the automatically generated compositions. We present the melodies generated by our model to a group of subjects and they ranked our compositions among and sometimes above human composed melodies.


A partly gain-coupled ridge varied two-section DFB self-pulsation laser for optical microwave generating has been fabricated. It produces microwave with a wide tuning range of more than 135GHz. A successful locked to the microwave frequencies of 30GHz, 40GHz, 50GHz, 60GHz are demonstrated and a timing jitter below 300fs is detected.


PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
During aging, musical activities can help maintain physical and mental health and cognitive abilities, but their rehabilitative use has not been systematically explored in persons with dementia (PWDs). Our aim was to determine the efficacy of a novel music intervention based on coaching the caregivers of PWDs to use either singing or music listening regularly as a part of everyday care.

DESIGN AND METHODS
Eighty-nine PWD-caregiver dyads were randomized to a 10-week singing coaching group (n = 30), a 10-week music listening coaching group (n = 29), or a usual care control group (n = 30). The coaching sessions consisted primarily of singing/listening familiar songs coupled occasionally with vocal exercises and rhythmic movements (singing group) and reminiscence and discussions (music listening group). In addition, the intervention included regular musical exercises at home. All PWDs underwent an extensive neuropsychological assessment, which included cognitive tests, as well as mood and quality of life (QOL) scales, before and after the intervention period and 6 months later. In addition, the psychological well-being of family members was repeatedly assessed with questionnaires.

RESULTS
Compared with usual care, both singing and music listening improved mood, orientation, and remote episodic memory and to a lesser extent, also attention and executive function and general cognition. Singing also enhanced short-term and working memory and caregiver well-being, whereas music listening had a positive effect on QOL.

IMPLICATIONS
Regular musical leisure activities can have long-term cognitive, emotional, and social benefits in mild/moderate dementia and could therefore be utilized in dementia care and rehabilitation.


The volume presents the results of an international project carried out in cooperation between the Uppsala University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Lund University and the University of Gothenburg. The questions put forward in the project were: How is hypotaxis marked in Semitic, other than by conjunctions? How does this affect the organization of texts? More specifically, what constitutes a circumstantial clause? To find an answer to these questions, all the major Semitic language families and some modern spoken Semitic dialects were surveyed within the project. Thus, Clause Combining in Semitic: The Circumstantial Clause and Beyond examines how different kinds of clauses combine to a text in a number of Semitic languages (Ethio-Semitic not included). Specifically, many of its chapters examine how circumstantial clauses are coded in individual Semitic languages. (Less)


Trust models have been recently suggested as an effective security mechanism for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Considerable research has been done on modeling trust. However, most current research work only takes communication behavior into account to calculate sensor nodes' trust value, which is not enough for trust evaluation due to the widespread malicious attacks. In this paper, we propose an Efficient Distributed Trust Model (EDTM) for WSNs. First, according to the number of packets received by sensor nodes, direct trust and recommendation trust are selectively calculated. Then, communication trust, energy trust and data trust are considered during the calculation of direct trust. Furthermore, trust reliability and familiarity are defined to improve the accuracy of recommendation trust. The proposed EDTM can evaluate trustworthiness of sensor nodes more precisely and prevent the security breaches more effectively. Simulation results show that EDTM outperforms other similar models, e.g., NBBTE trust model.


Information Technologies (IT) have the capability to improve
the clearness and the usefulness of scientific information, and related applications in earth sciences could allow to make geological data more sharable among different users. This paper illustrates
an approach to represent the knowledge paths followed by field geologists involved in assessment and description of complex structuralgeological settings and processes, through the use of specific IT applications. The proposed approach is based on three working steps: i) building of a conceptual map (cMap) that defines the project
approach to the study matter, drives the acquisition of field data and gives rules for GIS representation of interpreted geological features (prefieldwork
stage); ii) capturing of data directly in the
field by means of digital devices, in a way suitable to retrace the acquisition data steps and to separate the observed features from the interpreted ones (fieldwork stage); iii) management of information in relational GIS databases by means of «geological» metadata that could define the «weight» of data and explain the adopted
interpretations (postfieldwork
stage). An application of these working
steps is given in a case study of the stability evaluation of a quarry rock mass. In the example, different conceptualizations and investigation methods are combined so that they are sharable
among field geologists and engineering geologists in order to allow
crucial decision in characterization and modelling of the quarry slope. Besides, ITbased approaches should get retraceability of decisional processes possible


The wire rope endurance for mining installations with drum winders can be calculated if the wire rope is wound only in one layer on the drum. The loading sequence with its elements and the operating tensile forces will be presented for installations with tower-mounted drum winders. As an example, the wire rope endurance will be calculated up to very great hoisting depths. A simple non-rotating spiral round strand rope is used for this. It is easy to exceed the endurance of these standard ropes by using special wire ropes.


Light emitting diodes (LEDs) and SSL (solid state lighting) are relatively new light sources, but are already widely applied for outdoor lighting. Despite this, there is little available information allowing planners and designers to evaluate and weigh different sustainability aspects of LED/SSL lighting when making decisions. Based on a literature review, this paper proposes a framework of sustainability indicators and/or measures that can be used for a general evaluation or to highlight certain objectives or aspects of special interest when choosing LED/SSL lighting. LED/SSL lighting is reviewed from a conventional sustainable development perspective, i.e. , covering the three dimensions, including ecological, economic and social sustainability. The new framework of sustainable indicators allow prioritization when choosing LED/SSL products and can thereby help ensure that short-term decisions on LED/SSL lighting systems are in line with long-term sustainability goals established in society. The new framework can also be a beneficial tool for planners, decision-makers, developers and lighting designers, or for consumers wishing to use LED/SSL lighting in a sustainable manner. Moreover, since some aspects of LED/SSL lighting have not yet been thoroughly studied or developed, some possible future indicators are suggested.


This is a study of some of the many types of entertainment that have been called spectacular, of the cultural significance of certain conventions in ways of transforming space and identity. Forms of spectacular drama both require and celebrate urban social relations, they constitute essential parts of the popular cultural landscape. They display an idealisation of ways of picturing collective experience. Although I note continuities in forms of spectacular drama through different eras, it is differences in the ways in which our sense of collective life or community is experienced and expressed that provide for very different understandings of forms of spectacular display. I describe and discuss forms of spectacular drama in the fifteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have chosen the fifteenth century as it was a period when there was a flourishing range of dramatic entertainment but no theatres. The principal features of the culture that I stress are the looseness of the dramatic frame. In contrast, the nineteenth century is a period of both urban expansion and theatrical supremacy. In the course of the century the population became urbanised and the growing cities became spectacular stages for new forms of social experience. I describe a broad framework of popular entertainment which provided many forms of spectacular experience, but concentrate upon the theatrical form of melodrama and forms of pictorial realism. In the chapter on the twentieth century I am principally concerned with the implications of processes of massification - both of society and culture. I argue that the democratic individualism of consumer culture and mass leisure has made the vocabulary of identity and community peculiarly problematic. The theme is that spectacular drama in contemporary culture has become more insistent and more public and yet our participation and response has been increasingly privatised.


Poor nutrient and water holding capacities characterise highly weathered soils, thereby limiting soil productivity. This study was conducted to investigate the potential of improving soil productivity through amending soils with zeolite to effect improvements on moisture and cation retention capacities. Two experiments were carried out: i) In the first experiment, an ALISOL and ACRISOL were each amended with zeolite to effect increases in CEC by 0, 25, 50, 75, 100 and 125%. The mixtures were placed in pots and allowed to equilibrate for a period of six weeks, and thereafter soil moisture retention and CEC were determined. ii) In the second experiment, the agronomic performance of zeolite was evaluated on the same soils used in the first experiment. A factorial experiment was carried out in the greenhouse with five levels of urea (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 g / plant) as the main plot, and zeolite to effect an increase of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% on CEC as the sub-plot. Maize was used as the test crop and this was harvested at the end of eight weeks when dry matter yield was determined. Significant (p<0.05) increases in moisture retention and CEC were obtained. For every gram of zeolite added to a kilogram of soil, plant available water increased by 0.12% for ACRISOL and a non-significant increase of 0.02% on ALISOL. Soil CEC increased by 0.10 cmol/kg and 0.11 cmol/kg for ALISOL and ACRISOL respectively. A combination of urea at 2 g/pot and zeolite at 100% CEC increase increased maize dry matter yield by 75% in the ALISOL and 57% in the ACRISOL. When the zeolite application rate exceeded 16.21 g / kg soil (36.58% in ALISOL and 60.27% in ACRISOL), maize dry matter yield declined. This was found to correlate with declining tolerance of maize to increasing sodium (Na) concentrations. This study has shown that within a limited range, addition of zeolite
iv
to soils can help increase soil productivity by increasing soil moisture retention and cation exchange capacities.


Everyday, we make difficult choices under uncertainties. The decision making process becomes even more complicated when more agents get involved: one must consider their interactions and conflicts of interest because the final outcome is based not only on an agent's decision but on everybody's. In insurance industry, companies try to avoid making large claim payments to policyholders (commonly known as insureds) by purchasing reinsurance policies from reinsurance companies (the reinsurer). Each policy details conditions upon which the reinsurer pays a share of the claim to the insurance company (also known as the cedent or the insurer). To reach an agreement, the interests of both parties must be taken into consideration. In this thesis, we will discuss approaches for constructing optimal reinsurance policies that are beneficial to both the insurer and the reinsurer. Likewise, we have similar situations in real estate industry, where sellers and buyers negotiate contracts. For example, the difference between the seller's selling price and the buyer's budget (commonly referred to as the buyer's reservation price) affects the intensity of buyer arrivals, the bargaining process and its rate of success, as well as many other parameters. We will explore the likelihood of the buyer purchasing a property given factors such as the buyer's reservation price and the negotiated selling prices, which may or may not be dependent random variables. Of course, these are just two illustrative scenarios that make our results more intuitive and better appreciated from the practical point of view, which has been a very important consideration throughout the thesis. Furthermore, it will be easily seen when reading the thesis that our developed and discussed methodologies can be adapted to numerous other scenarios, which may in turn require making certain adjustments to our results. Nevertheless, we are confident that the herein developed considerations are very general in nature and can already be used to facilitate decision making.


In the past, environmental managers could behave as if they were managing a "natural" system to which they were external; criteria for successful management could be derived from historical data or from current pristine systems elsewhere in the world. With a few localized exceptions, this approach is no longer viable. Most of the ecosystems for which critical and urgent decisions need to be made are best seen as complex ecosocial systems, with people firmly embedded as an integral element. We can no longer manage ecosystems per se, but rather we must learn to manage our interactions within our ecological context. This view, which incorporates notions of multiple, interacting, nested hierarchies, feedback loops across space and time, and radical uncertainty with regard to prediction of system behavior, requires rethinking. How should we now think about science and science-based management? Post-normal science, complex systems theories, and the creation of collective narratives offer the best hope for making progress in this field. We use several ecosystem management and community health programs in Peru, Kenya, and Nepal to demonstrate the characteristics necessary for this kind of "inside-out" approach.


Wintonotitan wattsi, a Cretaceous titanosauriform sauropod from central Queensland, Australia, is redescribed following a full revision of its osteology. The holotype specimen, a partial postcranial skeleton derived from the lower Upper Cretaceous Winton Formation, comprises axial and appendicular elements. Wintonotitan has been commonly resolved as a non‐titanosaurian somphospondylan titanosauriform since its description, in contrast to its more derived contemporary Diamantinasaurus matildae. We provide a detailed redescription, taking this opportunity to correct four misinterpretations made in the original description of Wintonotitan that impact on our understanding of this taxon: the right ulna was originally described as the left and vice versa; the left metacarpus was incorrectly described as being from the right side; metacarpal IV was described as metacarpal V and vice versa; and the ilium was incorrectly oriented. The reassessment of the metacarpus is particularly important, since it shows that a proximal fossa is present on metacarpals I, II and III, which might have been occupied by either the strongly convex distal end of the radius or a (possibly unossified) carpal element. We provide a review of titanosauriform metacarpal morphology to support our reassessments. Our revision of the osteology of Wintonotitan results in the identification of several previously unrecognized autapomorphies, augmenting and revising its original diagnosis. We provide additional support for the previous referral of four caudal vertebrae from south‐east of Winton, Queensland, to W. wattsi. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a tentative report of titanosaur osteoderms from the Winton Formation was based on misidentification of dorsal vertebral neural spines pertaining to the holotype of W. wattsi. Consequently, titanosaur osteoderms are currently unknown from Australia. Following our revision and reinterpretation of a number of elements, we re‐examine the phylogenetic placement of Wintonotitan, supporting its position as a non‐titanosaurian somphospondylan titanosauriform, with no close relationship with the contemporaneous lithostrotian titanosaur Diamantinasaurus.


The propagation properties of linear wave motions in magnetic and/or velocity shears which vary in one coordinate z (say) are usually governed by a second order linear ordinary differential equation in the independent variable z. It is proved that associated with any such differential equation there always exists a quantity A which is independent of z. By employing A a measure of the intensity of the wave, this result is used to investigate the general propagation properties of hydromagnetic-gravity waves (e.g. critical level absorption, valve effects and wave amplification) in magnetic and/or velocity shears, using a full wave treatment. When variations in the basic state are included, the governing differential equation usually has more singularities than it has in the W.K.B.J. approximation, which neglects all variations in the background state. The study of a wide variety of models shows that critical level behaviour occurs only at the singularities predicted by the W.K.B.J. approximation. Although the solutions of the differential equation are necessarily singular at the irregularities whose presence is solely due to the inclusion of variations in the basic state, the intensity of the wave (as measured by A) is continuous there. Also the valve effect is found to persist whatever the relation between the wavelength of the wave and the scale of variations of the background state. In addition, it is shown that a hydromagnetic-gravity wave incident upon a finite magnetic and/or velocity shear can be amplified (or over-reflected) in the absence of any critical levels within the shear layer. In a Boussinesq fluid rotating uniformly about the vertical, wave amplification can occur if the horizontal vertically sheared flow and magnetic field are perpendicular. In a compressible isothermal fluid, on the other hand, wave amplification not only occurs in both magnetic-velocity and velocity shears but also in a magnetic shear acting alone.


Recent papers have shown the possibility to implement large scale neural network models that perform complex algorithms in a biologically realistic way. However, such models have been simulated on architectures unable to perform real-time simulations. In previous work we presented the possibility to simulate simple models in real-time on the SpiNNaker neuromimetic architecture. However, such models were "static": the algorithm performed was defined at design-time. In this paper we present a novel learning rule, that exploits the peculiarities of the SpiNNaker system, enabling models designed with the Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) to learn transfer functions using a supervised framework. We show that the proposed learning rule, belonging to the Prescribed Error Sensitivity (PES) class, is able to learn, effectively, both linear and non-linear functions.


The enhancement of the stratospheric aerosol layer by volcanic eruptions induces a complex set of responses causing global and regional climate effects on a broad range of timescales. Uncertainties exist regarding the climatic response to strong volcanic forcing identified in coupled climate simulations that contributed to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). In order to better understand the sources of these model diversities, the Model Intercomparison Project on the climatic response to Volcanic forcing (VolMIP) has defined a coordinated set of idealized volcanic perturbation experiments to be carried out in alignment with the CMIP6 protocol. VolMIP provides a common stratospheric aerosol data set for each experiment to minimize differences in the applied volcanic forcing. It defines a set of initial conditions to assess how internal climate variability contributes to determining the response. VolMIP will assess to what extent volcanically forced responses of the coupled ocean–atmosphere system are robustly simulated by state-of-the-art coupled climate models and identify the causes that limit robust simulated behavior, especially differences in the treatment of physical processes. This paper illustrates the design of the idealized volcanic perturbation experiments in the VolMIP protocol and describes the common aerosol forcing input data sets to be used.


Continuing land subsidence can diminish the effectiveness of an existing flood mitigation system and aggravate the flood hazard. This chapter demonstrates that, through groundwater management with an effective pumping scheme, flood hazard and related flood damage in land subsidence area can be reduced. The chosen study area is in the southwest coast of Taiwan, which has long been suffering from frequent and wide-spread flooding primarily due to land subsidence induced by groundwater overpumping. Numerical investigation in the study area clearly shows that effective management of groundwater pumping can play an important role in long-term sustainable solution for controlling the spatial-temporal variability of future land subsidence, preventing the flood hazard from worsening, reducing the flood damage, and satisfying the groundwater demand.


Intergenerational domination is the idea that future people's freedom is violated insofar as they are vulnerable to the capacity of the people living before them to interfere. This paper explores the extent to which intergenerational domination applies to two familiar phenomena: climate change and constitutionalism. The first part of the paper argues that the emission of greenhouse gases does not amount to intergenerational domination. Being hurt by climate change does not equal subjection to the capacity of previous generations to interfere. The second part argues that intergenerational domination is under certain conditions applicable to the relationship exemplified by political constitutionalism. Hence, this study shows that constitutional provisions introduced in order to protect future generations from climate change is more likely to contribute to rather than to protect them from intergenerational domination.


Drug resistance is an almost inevitable consequence of cancer therapy and ultimately proves fatal for the majority of patients. In many cases this is the consequence of specific gene mutations that have the potential to be targeted to re-sensitize the tumor. The ability to uniformly saturate the genome with point mutations without chromosome or nucleotide sequence context bias would open the door to identify all putative drug resistance mutations in cancer models. Here we describe such a method for elucidating drug resistance mechanisms using genome-wide chemical mutagenesis allied to next-generation sequencing. We show that chemically mutagenizing the genome of cancer cells dramatically increases the number of drug-resistant clones and allows the detection of both known and novel drug resistance mutations. We have developed an efficient computational process that allows for the rapid identification of involved pathways and druggable targets. Such a priori knowledge would greatly empower serial monitoring strategies for drug resistance in the clinic as well as the development of trials for drug resistant patients.


Despite the wealth of information on the signals required for T cell activation in vitro, the signals required for the generation of functional Th cells in vivo are poorly understood. We addressed this by directly tracking the behavior of adoptively transferred CD4+ TCR transgenic T cells following Ag administration in vivo. Injection of soluble Ag induced a transient accumulation of Ag-specific T cells in lymphoid tissue. If bacterial LPS was present during this period, enhanced numbers of Ag-specific T cells accumulated, migrated into B cell-rich follicles, and provided help for Ab production. The ability of LPS to enhance the accumulation and follicular migration of Ag-activated T cells was mimicked by the proinflammatory cytokines, TNF-alpha and IL-1, and the capacity of LPS to promote the generation of IFN-gamma-secreting T cells, which provide help for IgG2a production, was mimicked by IL-12. Thus, the in vivo generation of functional Th cells can arise from Ag-dependent clonal expansion in the context of inflammatory cytokines.


Classification of nonlinearly separable data by nonlinear support vector machines (SVMs) is often a difficult task, particularly due to the necessity of choosing a convenient kernel type. Moreover, in order to get the optimum classification performance with the nonlinear SVM, a kernel and its parameters should be determined in advance. In this paper, we propose a new classification method called support vector selection and adaptation (SVSA) which is applicable to both linearly and nonlinearly separable data without choosing any kernel type. The method consists of two steps: selection and adaptation. In the selection step, first, the support vectors are obtained by a linear SVM. Then, these support vectors are classified by using the K-nearest neighbor method, and some of them are rejected if they are misclassified. In the adaptation step, the remaining support vectors are iteratively adapted with respect to the training data to generate the reference vectors. Afterward, classification of the test data is carried out by 1-nearest neighbor with the reference vectors. The SVSA method was applied to some synthetic data, multisource Colorado data, post-earthquake remote sensing data, and hyperspectral data. The experimental results showed that the SVSA is competitive with the traditional SVM with both linearly and nonlinearly separable data.


A major problem in the construction industry today is the adequacy, or otherwise, of information passed from the designer to the end user, particularly in the sphere in which I am directly concerned, that of a reinforcing steel sub-contractor. This statement may come as a surprise to many a consulting engineer but there is a reason for that. Reinforcing steel is normally handled under sub-contract and officially there is no direct contact between a sub-contractor and the designer. The sub-contractor's problems end with the main contractor. The latter has sufficient of his own without having to carry forward the sub-contractor's as well.The purpose of this paper is not to teach how to detail reinforcing steel, but it is rather an attempt to reiterate and remind originators of information of the basic principles of communication which, it is hoped, will then result in more adequate details being produced by them for any construction purpose, but principally for reinforcing steel. The work study method of asking five basic questions will be used with certain illustrations.


Despite doctrinal requirements that the state establish a compelling interest to justify content-based regulations on speech, Professor Ross argues that courts have routinely taken the government's interest at face value when it argues that it inhibits speech to protect children. The Article examines the Supreme Court's test which requires the state to establish a compelling interest by articulating the precise harm it wishes to address, demonstrating a nexus between that identified harm and the regulated speech, and showing that restriction of the speech will alleviate the harm. The author seeks to reframe the discussion surrounding controversial speech and children by calling on courts to scrutinize the interest asserted by the government. This Article examines the two compelling interests on which the government relies in justifying its efforts to shield children from controversial speech: an interest in reinforcing parental authority and an independent state interest in protecting children from material the government deems unsuitable. The author finds both arguments fatally flawed. Drawing on the literature of family law, Professor Ross offers a heuristic device for measuring the potential of regulations on speech to empower parents. She divides families into three categories: the "idealized normative family," the "imperfect normative family," and the "nonconformist family," which itself manifests a wide range of values. She then demonstrates that no regulatory scheme can accommodate the range of constitutionally protected parental preferences in all three types of families. The state's purported independent interest in shielding children from speech fares no better. In case after case, the government has failed to articulate any specific harm to children that would support such an independent interest, much less the required nexus between the speech and the harm. Even if proponents of particular regulations on speech were to succeed in meeting their burden of proof to demonstrate a compelling interest, a close question would still be presented, as the handful of lower court opinions that have expressly considered the government's asserted interest make clear. Then, and only then, would courts properly analyze whether the specific regulation survives balancing of competing constitutional interests and is narrowly tailored. Because the private market offers numerous mechanisms to respond to a range of parental preferences, it is unclear that government regulation would be necessary to alleviate demonstrable harms, much less the least restrictive alternative, in all but the narrowest of cases.


This article uses household-level survey data on income and employment to compare labour market dynamics across a range of advanced economies, including Australia. The analysis focuses on how changes in employment status are distributed within countries and how those distributional patterns vary internationally. There are many similarities across the countries studied. In particular, lower-income households are more likely to have moved into or out of employment but less likely to move region. But there are also differences across countries. For example, adults in the United States are more likely to change their employment status than in other countries examined. Furthermore, the probability of men entering and leaving employment is closer to that for women in Australia than it is in the other countries examined.


Sexual contacts are the main spreading route of HIV. This puts sex workers at higher risk of infection even in populations where HIV prevalence is moderate or low. Alongside condom use, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective tool for sex workers to reduce their risk of HIV acquisition. However, PrEP provides no direct protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) other than HIV, unlike condoms. We use an empirical network of sexual contacts among female sex workers (FSWs) and clients to simulate the spread of HIV and gonorrhea. We then investigate the effect of PrEP adoption and adherence, on both HIV and gonorrhea prevalence. We also study the effect of a potential increase in condomless acts due to lowered risk perception with respect of the no-PrEP scenario (risk compensation). We find that when HIV is the only disease circulating, PrEP is effective in reducing HIV prevalence, even with high risk compensation. Instead, the complex interplay between the two diseases shows that different levels of risk compensation require different intervention strategies. Finally, we find that providing PrEP only to the most active FSWs is less effective than uniform PrEP adoption. Our work shows that the effects emerging from the complex interactions between these diseases and the available prophylactic measures need to be accounted for, to devise effective intervention strategies.


Despite the recent success in probabilistic modeling and their applications, generative models trained using traditional inference techniques struggle to adapt to new distributions, even when the target distribution may be closely related to the ones seen during training. In this work, we present a doubly-amortized variational inference procedure as a way to address this challenge. By sharing computation across not only a set of query inputs, but also a set of different, related probabilistic models, we learn transferable latent representations that generalize across several related distributions. In particular, given a set of distributions over images, we find the learned representations to transfer to different data transformations. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by introducing the MetaVAE, and show that it significantly outperforms baselines on downstream image classification tasks on MNIST (10-50%) and NORB (10-35%).


This thesis develops a metaphysics of fictional objects that is embedded in a theory of fictional practice and maximally preserves the meanings of our fictional utterances. I begin by asking two questions: How can it be true of a fictional object such as Dune's Paul Atreides that he was born on the planet Caladan to the Lady Jessica (an intrafictional claim), that he was created on Earth by Frank Herbert (an extrafictional claim), and that he does not exist (a nonexistence claim)? If one or more of these is not true, then what is the nature of our assent to these three types of propositions about fictional objects? I argue that fiction's social nature and its basis in imaginative acts provides us with a dualist account of fictional objects: 'Paul Atreides' in the intrafictional and nonexistence claims refers to merely possible people while 'Paul Atreides' in extrafictional claims refers to an actual abstract artifact. I defend imagination's central role in fiction and argue that it's a norm of imagination that it models possibilities. I then define fiction as a social practice necessarily consisting in 1) acts of social imagining, 2) agreement maintained by implicit principles, 3) an aesthetic function or aim, and 4) the creation of abstract artifacts through which it achieves that aim. The result is that intrafictional claims are not assertions about the actual world, but expressions of imaginings that have as their intentional objects possible objects and states of affairs. Extrafictional claims are assertions about the actual abstract artifacts created by fictional practice that bear a picking out relation to the possibilia of fictive imaginings. Finally, nonexistence claims are assertions about the possibilia of our fictive imaginings assertions that they are not actual. I defend the compatibility of these artifactualist and possibilist accounts and show how their union under the umbrella of a full theory of fiction both explains their intuitive appeal and solves the major issues they encounter individually.


The establishment of a national airline m Ireland in 1936 was understood to fulfil many functions: as a government agent it was a conduit for 'official' discourses of national identity, as de facto tourist authority it visualised and disseminated such and as a transport medium it facilitated cultural exchange. Focusing on a collection of posters and other examples of graphic design and advertising produced on behalf of Aer Lingus between 195 1 and 1961, this thesis provides a thematic investigation of the intersection of these simultaneous roles which reveals a complexity of concerns embedded in the material culture of the alrline. These themes broadly compnse: the ideological function of the airline within the national and international discourse of nation buildmg; the intersection of Aer Lingus' role with that of other Irish tourism agents; the company's rned~ationo f cultural homogeneity through the materialisation of Catholicism; and its multiplicity of roles in the development of inward and outward tourism. Utilising these objects as primary and material texts, this research provldes a unique examination of how social, economic and polltical ideologies were visually articulated during period of profound change - a time when Irish habitus was simultaneously reinforced and challenged and, when the isolationist policies that defined the early decades of independence were questioned in the prelude to Ireland's application for EEC membership.

As mediators of parallel discourses of nationalism and internationalism these objects reflect attempts to articulate a collective identity through the synthesis of two apparently contradictory abstractions, tradition and modernity. However, as many were authored by Dutch immigrant designers employed to professionalise the nascent field of Irish graphic design practice, this analysis emphasises the complexity of such vlsual representations and, in doing so, demonstrates the extent to which national image represents the fusion and fluidity of both internal and external influences.


This article is a synthesis of ideas from different sources. Ideas are drawn from part of my research on multicultural music education and from various readings on music as a concept. In the article I make a very simple conceptual analysis of music the sound and music as a phenomena of social construction. Muse as a product of social construction is discussed in view of the role of the community in the development of a music tradition within a culture. Towards the end of the article I propose a comprehensive definition of music so as educators in Zimbabwe may develop a strong philosophical base for music education.


Abstract : The Team Software Process Body of Knowledge (TSP BOK) was drafted to define the fundamental knowledge and skills that set TSP-trained individuals apart from other software professionals. It helps individual practitioners to assess and improve their own skills, provides employers with an objective baseline for assessing the process improvement skills and capabilities of their development team members, and guides academic institutions that want to incorporate TSP into their software and other engineering courses or curricula. The TSP BOK also facilitates the development of TSP certification programs that are based on a well-established standard set of knowledge and skills.


ABSTRACT The in vitro susceptibilities of 66 molecularly identified strains of the Mucorales to eight antifungals (amphotericin B, terbinafine, itraconazole, posaconazole, voriconazole, caspofungin, micafungin, and 5-fluorocytosine) were tested. Molecular phylogeny was reconstructed based on the nuclear ribosomal large subunit to reveal taxon-specific susceptibility profiles. The impressive phylogenetic diversity of the Mucorales was reflected in susceptibilities differing at family, genus, and species levels. Amphotericin B was the most active drug, though somewhat less against Rhizopus and Cunninghamella species. Posaconazole was the second most effective antifungal agent but showed reduced activity in Mucor and Cunninghamella strains, while voriconazole lacked in vitro activity for most strains. Genera attributed to the Mucoraceae exhibited a wide range of MICs for posaconazole, itraconazole, and terbinafine and included resistant strains. Cunninghamella also comprised strains resistant to all azoles tested but was fully susceptible to terbinafine. In contrast, the Lichtheimiaceae completely lacked strains with reduced susceptibility for these antifungals. Syncephalastrum species exhibited susceptibility profiles similar to those of the Lichtheimiaceae. Mucor species were more resistant to azoles than Rhizopus species. Species-specific responses were obtained for terbinafine where only Rhizopus arrhizus and Mucor circinelloides were resistant. Complete or vast resistance was observed for 5-fluorocytosine, caspofungin, and micafungin. Intraspecific variability of in vitro susceptibility was found in all genera tested but was especially high in Mucor and Rhizopus for azoles and terbinafine. Accurate molecular identification of etiologic agents is compulsory to predict therapy outcome. For species of critical genera such as Mucor and Rhizopus, exhibiting high intraspecific variation, susceptibility testing before the onset of therapy is recommended.


This research sets out to understand the why, how and with whom of rural-urban internal migration of children to the Mozambique border town of Ressano Garcia. In doing so, it aims to address the overarching research question of how to strengthen child protection systems for unaccompanied migrant children. Research took place at the border town of Ressano Garcia and in the Mozambican capital city of Maputo, between July and September 2012. Following a thorough analysis of the qualitative data, engaging with the current debate on migration and child protection issues, this paper critically assesses the current interconnected 'protective actors' and protection mechanisms and provides recommendations. Under a qualitative child participatory approach, children and their views are placed at the centre of the research. Research participants also include protective actors that are the cornerstone of child protection mechanisms, including: civil society organizations (CSOs) in both Ressano Garcia and Maputo, and government officials at local, district, provincial and central level, thus allowing for a triangulation of sources.


Life arose on the young Earth as a natural chemical process. More than half a century of experimental research has underscored the dynamic interactions of atmosphere, oceans, and rocks that fostered this ancient transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. Researchers on the origin of life now conclude that rocks and minerals must have played key roles in virtually every phase of life's emergence—they catalyzed the synthesis of key biomolecules; they selected, protected, and concentrated those molecules; they jump-started metabolism; and they may even have acted as life's first genetic system.


Learning-based Text To Speech systems have the potential to generalize from one speaker to the next and thus require a relatively short sample of any new voice. However, this promise is currently largely unrealized. We present a method that is designed to capture a new speaker from a short untranscribed audio sample. This is done by employing an additional network that given an audio sample, places the speaker in the embedding space. This network is trained as part of the speech synthesis system using various consistency losses. Our results demonstrate a greatly improved performance on both the dataset speakers, and, more importantly, when fitting new voices, even from very short samples.


Much has been written about the right-wing politics and eugenicist sympathies of Yeats's late-1930s poetry in general and about On the Boiler in particular. Yeats's focus on Ireland's degeneration and his calls for its regeneration through cultural (and even biological methods) coincided with his dalliance with the Irish Blueshirts and his frustrations with the transformations of the Irish Free State under Éamon de Valera. However, these years also proved to be Yeats's most active in terms of radio broadcasting, with six of his nine broadcasts made between 1937 and 1938. In this essay, I read Yeats's broadcasts, in particular "In the Poet's Pub," "In the Poet's Parlour," and "My Own Poetry" alongside On the Boiler to show how themes of degeneration and regeneration link these works. As a medium, radio could advance the cultural degeneration and pandering to the masses to which Yeats was opposed. However, it was also within radio's capabilities to control modes of broadcasting, influencing the public and regenerating Irish culture through the dissemination of poetry.


Our oceans are heavily utilized by a wide variety of human activities that exert pressures which negatively impact marine ecosystems, occasionally leading to unsustainable rates of exploitation. A linkage framework approach can be used to make independent associations between sectors, activities, and the pressures they introduce. However, in reality, many different sectors and their associated activities overlap in time and space, potentially changing the severity of their impact as pressures combine, and undermine the efforts of environmental managers to mitigate the harmful effects of those activities. Here, we present a spatially resolved approach to assess the potential for combined effects using a linkage framework assessment. Using illustrative examples from the Northeast Atlantic, we show the likelihood of changes in pressure severity as a result of multiple overlapping activities.Management options to limit pressure introduction are explored and their benefit—measured as a reduction in the area of seabed impacted—assessed. In its simplest form, the approach can be used to develop potential precautionary management options in areas where data availability is poor and more comprehensive management measures where data are more widely available.


Objectives In non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), hepatic steatosis is intricately linked with a number of metabolic alterations. We studied substrate utilisation in NAFLD during basal, insulin-stimulated and exercise conditions, and correlated these outcomes with disease severity. Methods 20 patients with NAFLD (mean±SD body mass index (BMI) 34.1±6.7 kg/m2) and 15 healthy controls (BMI 23.4±2.7 kg/m2) were assessed. Respiratory quotient (RQ), whole-body fat (Fatox) and carbohydrate (CHOox) oxidation rates were determined by indirect calorimetry in three conditions: basal (resting and fasted), insulin-stimulated (hyperinsulinaemic–euglycaemic clamp) and exercise (cycling at an intensity to elicit maximal Fatox). Severity of disease and steatosis were determined by liver histology, hepatic Fatox from plasma β-hydroxybutyrate concentrations, aerobic fitness expressed as , and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) measured by computed tomography. Results Within the overweight/obese NAFLD cohort, basal RQ correlated positively with steatosis (r=0.57, p=0.01) and was higher (indicating smaller contribution of Fatox to energy expenditure) in patients with NAFLD activity score (NAS) ≥5 vs <5 (p=0.008). Both results were independent of VAT, % body fat and BMI. Compared with the lean control group, patients with NAFLD had lower basal whole-body Fatox (1.2±0.3 vs 1.5±0.4 mg/kgFFM/min, p=0.024) and lower basal hepatic Fatox (ie, β-hydroxybutyrate, p=0.004). During exercise, they achieved lower maximal Fatox (2.5±1.4 vs. 5.8±3.7 mg/kgFFM/min, p=0.002) and lower (p<0.001) than controls. Fatox during exercise was not associated with disease severity (p=0.79). Conclusions Overweight/obese patients with NAFLD had reduced hepatic Fatox and reduced whole-body Fatox under basal and exercise conditions. There was an inverse relationship between ability to oxidise fat in basal conditions and histological features of NAFLD including severity of steatosis and NAS.


Background: Inherited chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 (iciHHV-6) is a condition observed in approximately 1% of the population. Whether such a genetic alteration predisposes to cancer development in currently unknown. Two studies were conducted to determine whether iciHHV-6 is associated with cancer development. Methods: First, a screen of 19,597 people from the province of Quebec (Canada) was conducted. A replication test, using data from a population-based case–control study of 1,090 women with incident breast cancer and 1,053 controls from British Columbia and Ontario (Canada) was conducted. DNA samples were analyzed by qPCR and droplet digital PCR to identify iciHHV-6+ carriers. Results: In the initial study, a potential association between iciHHV-6 positivity and breast cancer was identified [OR = 2.66; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.95–7.44]. In the replication dataset, no association was found between iciHHV-6 positivity in women and breast cancer (OR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.35–2.15). Conclusions: We found no statistically significant associations between inherited chromosomally integrated HHV-6 and breast cancer in women. Impact: These results do not provide evidence to suggest that iciHHV-6 is a risk factor for breast cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(3); 425–7. ©2016 AACR.


This paper investigates how collaborative robots (cobots) can assist a human by mechanically constraining motion to software-defined guide paths, and introduces simple and efficient tools to design ergonomic paths. Analysis of the movements of seven subjects with the Scooter cobot reveals significant differences between guided movements (GM) and free movements (FM). While FM requires learning for each novel task, movements in GM are satisfying from the first trial, require little effort, are faster, smoother, and with fewer back and forth corrections than in FM. Operators rely on path guidance to rotate the Scooter and direct it along curved trajectories. While these advantages demonstrate the strength of the cobot concept, they do not show how guide paths should be defined. We introduce tools to enable the cobot and its operator to collaboratively learn ergonomic guide paths and adapt to changes in the environment. By relying on the haptic sensing, vision, and planning capabilities of the human operator, we can avoid equipping the cobot with complex sensor processing. Experiments with human subjects demonstrate the efficiency and complementarity of these guide paths design tools


The objective of this thesis is to address the benefits and barriers in using operations research (OR) based decision support software (DSS) in the evaluation of cargo and vessel fixtures within dry bulk chartering. The motivation for doing this research is the tramp ship routing and scheduling models and solution algorithms presented in courses at NTNU, combined with the impression that use of OR based DSS within dry bulk chartering is currently non-existing. The scope of this thesis is to describe the decisions processes in a dry bulk chartering department, to develop a set of prescriptive mathematical models of some of the decisions and apply the models on the scenarios through implementation in a commercially available optimization software. The scenarios are also implemented in the non-commercially available decision support software Turborouter. The final part of the thesis is a comparison of the mathematical models, Turborouter and the conventional decision support tools used in Torvald Klaness today. The main barrier identified in this thesis is that the existing OR based DSS is not adapted to the dynamic and uncertain nature of dry bulk chartering. The main benefit identified in this thesis, is the increased calculation capacity by applying knapsack and assignment models decision process of fixing cargo and vessels. The models need further improvement in terms of data input and output, but the scenario testing in this thesis strongly implies that it exists benefits from using OR based decision support models in the fixture process in dry bulk chartering.