T lymphocytes regulate the initiation, duration, and magnitude of adaptive immune responses and function as effector cells in cell mediated immunity. To become immunologically competent they must generate functional antigen receptors. This process takes place in the thymus and requires somatic recombination of T cell receptor (TCR) genes. It is mediated by the endonucleases recombination activating gene-1 (RAG1) and RAG2. Although the thymus regresses at puberty, T cells are present throughout life implying that other tissues must provide the proper milieu for T cell development. This thesis describes extrathymic T cell maturation in man. RAG1, RAG2, and the preTα-chain (pTα), which is exclusively utilized in developing T cells, were used as markers for TCR gene rearrangement. Two new exons (1A and 1B) encoding sequences in the 5' untranslated region (5'UTR) of mRNA were discovered in the human RAG1 gene. The previously described 5'UTR exon (renamed 1C) was located between the new exons and exon 2, the latter containing the entire coding sequence. We found that small intestinal lymphocytes of the T cell lineage expressed the new exons in three different splice forms. RAG1 mRNA containing the 1C exon was not expressed in small intestinal lymphocytes. In contrast, splice forms containing the 1A exon were not expressed in thymocytes. RAG1 and pTα mRNA expressing lymphocytes were seen both within the epithelium and in lamina propria. Thymocyte-like CD2+CD7+CD3-, CD4+CD8+, CD1a+, and IL7-R+ lymphocytes were identified in the small intestinal mucosa. CD2+CD7+CD3- cells had the highest expression levels of mRNA for RAG1 and pTα, suggesting that the small intestinal mucosa is indeed a site for T cell maturation. Small intestinal T lymphocytes were also shown to kill via the Fas/FasL pathway in a TCR/CD3 independent manner and via the perforin/granzyme pathway in a TCR/CD3 dependent manner. The Fas/FasL-mediated cytotoxicity may reflect an ongoing selection process of extrathymically maturated T cells.The nasopharyngeal tonsil is the major inductive site for immune reactions against inhaled antigens. Previous demonstration of RAG1 expression in tonsillar B cells was interpreted as antigen driven receptor revision. The present study confirms the expression of RAG1 in B cells. We also found that RAG1, RAG2, and pTa mRNAs were expressed in lymphocytes of the T cell lineage. A small population of cells with the immature phenotype CD2+CD7+CD3- was demonstrated. This population had the highest expression levels of mRNA for RAG1, RAG2, pTα and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase. All four splice-forms of RAG1 mRNA were expressed. RAG1 and pTα mRNA expressing cells were mainly located in the proximity of the surface epithelium and in the outer rim of the follicles. These results suggest that the nasopharyngeal tonsil is a site where extrathymic T cell development and antigen driven TCR revision are occurring in parallel.Celiac disease (CD) is a small intestinal enteropathy characterized by permanent intolerance to gluten. Gluten reactive intestinal T cells are central in the pathogenesis and CD can be regarded as a failure to maintain tolerance to this food antigen. Expression of the RAG1 1A/2 splice form was significantly decreased in small intestinal T cell subsets of CD patients suggesting that impaired TCR gene rearrangement could contribute to failure of maintain tolerance in CD.Together, these findings show that both small intestinal and nasopharyngeal tonsillar lymphocytes of T cell lineage have the molecular machinery for antigen receptor rearrangement and that thymocyte-like lymphocytes are present in both tissues. Thus these organs are likely sites of T lymphocyte ontogeny as well as for secondary T cell receptor rearrangement in man.


Abstract In Experiment 1, adult and child participants were instructed to imitate a video model performing a bowling action with or without a ball. Participants imitated the action with greater accuracy without a ball and in general adults were more accurate than children. In Experiment 2, adults and children were shown a video or point-light display of the bowling action. There was no difference in movement form between the adult point-light and video groups. In contrast, children were poorer at reproducing the action when viewing point-light compared with video sequences (P < 0.05). The novel point-light display hindered the children's ability to provide conceptual mediation between the presented information and action requirements. In Experiment 3, a child point-light group was provided with perceptual-cognitive training. The perceptual-cognitive training group demonstrated better movement reproduction than a group who viewed the point-light displays with no training (P < 0.05), although there were no differences between participants who received training and those who viewed a video. Children are able to perceive and use relative motion information from a display after some general training, and the effectiveness of demonstrations needs to be judged relative to the task context.


This paper reports on field investigations, in which the nearbed layer was one of major foci. The study was carried out at the IBW PAN Coastal Research Facility Lubiatowo. The radioactive sand tracer used in the study consisted of iridium glass beads with medium grain diameter D50 from 0.2 to 0.25 mm and having physical properties close to their counterparts of natural sand on the Baltic coast of Lubiatowo. Some 150 core samples, each 30 cm long, were taken from the areas where the tracer was set in motion, i.e. bar crests, troughs between bars, and other regions subject to the action of waves and currents. Data analysis shows that sediment movement is characterized by high intermittence reflected in a stratified structure of bedlayer, whereby each sublayer is governed by different forcing factors. For identical external conditions the vertical tracer profiles are different at bar crests and troughs, showing clear diversification of sediment mechanics across the surf zone. Fairly thin sediment sheets, a few millimeters thick, travel at bar crests and troughs, due to high sand speed in onedirectional (longshore) movement. The aggregated vertical profile of tracer concentration stems from the superposition of a few quasi-parabolas (close to the injection point) or thin uniform laminas (firmer away from the tracer source).


The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic yield of dental radiography (DR) and 3 cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) software modules for the identification of 32 pre-defined dentoalveolar lesions in cats. For 5 feline cadaver heads and 22 client-owned cats admitted for evaluation and treatment of dental disease, 32 predefined dentoalveolar lesions were evaluated separately and scored by use of dental radiography and 3 CBCT software modules [multiplanar reconstructions (MPR), tridimensional (3-D) rendering, and reconstructed panoramic views]. A qualitative scoring system was used. Dentoalveolar lesions were grouped into 14 categories for statistical analysis. Point of reference for presence or absence of a dentoalveolar lesion was determined as the method that could be used to clearly identify the disorder as being present. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were calculated with the McNemar χ2 test of marginal homogeneity of paired data. When all 3 CBCT software modules were used in combination, the diagnostic yield of CBCT was significantly higher than that of dental radiography for 4 of 14 categories (missing teeth, horizontal bone loss, loss of tooth integrity, feline resorptive lesions), and higher, although not significantly so, for 9 categories (supernumerary teeth, supernumerary roots, abnormally shaped roots, vertical bone loss, buccal bone expansion, periapical disease, inflammatory root resorption, and external replacement root resorption). In conclusion, we found that CBCT provided more clinically relevant detailed information as compared to dental radiography. Therefore, CBCT should be considered better suited for use in diagnosing dentoalveolar lesions in cats.


Our cultural, political and physical geographies proliferate with wounded places: sites of conflict and natural disasters; places marked by layers of turmoil and conquests; impromptu refuge locations that become permanent. "Making home" in these places, seldom a choice, becomes simultaneously a material and symbolic endeavor, involving both design and memory practices.Wounded places are scarred with collective memory of what had happened: they contain markers of the past, which may or may not be legible to those who make home there. Mnemonic activities, whether vernacular (informal) or officially imposed, can either facilitate or constrain the making of home in wounded places.

This international symposium "Making Home in Wounded Places: Memory, Design, and the Spatial" is conceived as a polyphonic intervention engaging the realms of design studies, art, and the social sciences. We propose the following questions to inform our discussions:

How to make home in wounded places?

What is the role of memory tensions in this process?

How does the (re)design of wounded places impact their users?

How are wounded places appropriated by the politics of memory?

What are the strategies for navigating through wounded places — as individuals, as communities, as societies?

An international symposium co-sponsored by: MA Design Studies, Parsons School of Art and Design History and Theory, The Global Studies Program at the New School,The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, New School for Social Research


Parathyroid carcinoma is a rare tumor associated with significantly high levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) and primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT) and is difficult to distinguish from parathyroid adenoma, which is a much more common cause of HPT. Parathyromatosis is a rare condition in which several nodules of hyperfunctioning parathyroid tissue form in the neck and mediastinum, and it presents as recurrent hyperparathyroidism. We describe the case of a 44-year-old woman with recurrent hyperparathyroidism who presented with hypercalcemic crisis and biochemical investigations showed a severely raised serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) level of 2513 pg/ml and serum calcium level of 17 mg/dl. A four-dimensional computed tomography (4D CT) of the neck was done, which showed few arterially enhancing nodular lesions in the right paratracheal and retrotracheal location at the level of thoracic inlet showing washout in delayed images suggestive of recurrent/residual parathyroid lesions. A technetium-99 m methoxyisobutylisonitrile (Tc-99 m MIBI) scan was done, and the planar neck anterior early images showed an area of increased radiotracer uptake in the right lower neck region with persistent uptake in the delayed images. Single photon emission computed tomography/ computed tomography (SPECT/CT) images showed a soft-tissue lesion in the right paratracheal region at the level of C7 vertebra showing increased radiotracer uptake suggestive of a recurrent/residual parathyroid lesion. Exploration and excision of the recurrent parathyroid mass was planned, and the right paratracheal mass with nodes above the aortic arch along with the subcutaneous and intramuscular lesions were excised. Postoperative serum calcium was 7.8 mg/dl, and serum iPTH was 135 pg/ml. Histopathological examination of the excised tissue showed the features of parathyroid carcinoma. Thus, Tc-99 m MIBI scan and 4D CT were critical in evaluating this case of parathyroid carcinoma with recurrent hyperparathyroidism and planning its management.


Recently, the application of internal crowdsourcing in companies as a new form of orchestrating work has increased substantially. Early research has shown that organizations should apply internal crowdsourcing due to its benefits, such as fast access to internal knowledge and increased productivity. Although studies have identified some advantages, internal crowdsourcing is a complex initiative and we do not sufficiently know how to rollout internal crowdsourcing initiatives in a company and to guide them to a state of stable operations in the adaptation stage. Some papers derived barriers for internal crowdsourcing and solutions on how to overcome them. However, these barriers address mostly the operational stage, when the initiative is already stable. Some papers address adaptation barriers, but the assessment frameworks in current literature used to detect them were incomprehensive resulting in only few adaptation barriers and solutions. Therefore, we identify the adaptation barriers of internal crowdsourcing comprehensively through the technochange theory in a multiple case study, assess what solutions the companies applied and describe how the solutions work in order to display how to overcome barriers in a consolidated introduction model for internal crowdsourcing.


The undergraduate dental students who enter clinical session after completion of preclinical exercises on simulated patients usually encounter difficulties in adjusting to real life patient encounter. This study seeks to evaluate the perception of undergraduate dental students on the use of JIT videos before a clinical procedure as an aid to overcome these difficulties. Inside this Interventional study student watch JIT videos of three simple procedures like rubber dam application, fluoride application, restoration of carious teeth (International Caries Detection and Assessment System ICDAS 03) before the clinical procedure starts. 90 randomly selected Penang International Dental College undergraduates were included in this study. Questionnaire based on 5-Level Likert Scale at the extremes, with "strongly disagree," to "strongly agree," and open-ended questions at the end was distributed to them after watching the JIT video and performing the clinical procedure. The mean scores for the 21 individual questions range from 3 to 4 for Fluoride Application, Restoration of Carious Tooth (ICDAS 03), Rubber Dam Application JIT videos and the overall Cronbach's Alpha showed a very strong reliability. In summary, the student perceptions were generally positive. Even though there were some disagreements among the items evaluated, the majority of students agreed that JIT videos have helped them during the clinical procedure. All three JIT videos were able to reduce the students' anxiety level, improve students' knowledge, skills and professionalism, provided good video structures, enhanced interaction of students with and useful enough to be recommended to other students in the clinical practice.


While a substantial literature on structural break change point analysis exists for univariate time series, research on large panel data models has not been as extensive. In this paper, a novel method for estimating panel models with multiple structural changes is proposed. The breaks are allowed to occur at unknown points in time and may aect the multivariate slope parameters individually. Our method is related to the Haar wavelet technique; we adjust it according to the structure of the observed variables in order to detect the change points of the parameters consistently. We also develop methods to address endogeneous regressors within our modeling framework. The asymptotic property of our estimator is established. In our application, we examine the impact of algorithmic trading on standard measures of market quality such as liquidity and volatility over a time period that covers the nancial meltdown that began in 2007. We are able to detect jumps in regression slope parameters automatically without using ad-hoc subsample selection criteria.


Type IIb heat-labile enterotoxin (LT-IIb) is produced by Escherichia coli 41. Restriction fragments of total cell DNA from strain 41 were cloned into a cosmid vector, and one cosmid clone that encoded LT-IIb was identified. The genes for LT-IIb were subcloned into a variety of plasmids, expressed in minicells, sequenced, and compared with the structural genes for other members of the Vibrio cholerae-E. coli enterotoxin family. The A subunits of these toxins all have similar ADP-ribosyltransferase activity. The A genes of LT-IIa and LT-IIb exhibited 71% DNA sequence homology with each other and 55 to 57% homology with the A genes of cholera toxin (CT) and the type I enterotoxins of E. coli (LTh-I and LTp-I). The A subunits of the heat-labile enterotoxins also have limited homology with other ADP-ribosylating toxins, including pertussis toxin, diphtheria toxin, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A. The B subunits of LT-IIa and LT-IIb differ from each other and from type I enterotoxins in their carbohydrate-binding specificities. The B genes of LT-IIa and LT-IIb were 66% homologous, but neither had significant homology with the B genes of CT, LTh-I, and LTp-I. The A subunit genes for the type I and type II enterotoxins represent distinct branches of an evolutionary tree, and the divergence between the A subunit genes of LT-IIa and LT-IIb is greater than that between CT and LT-I. In contrast, it has not yet been possible to demonstrate an evolutionary relationship between the B subunits of type I and type II heat-labile enterotoxins. Hybridization studies with DNA from independently isolated LT-II producing strains of E. coli also suggested that additional variants of LT-II exist.


Breakpoint graph analysis is a key algorithmic technique in studies of genome rearrangements. However, breakpoint graphs are defined only for genomes without duplicated genes, thus limiting their applications in rearrangement analysis. We discuss a connection between the breakpoint graphs and de Bruijn graphs that leads to a generalization of the notion of breakpoint graph for genomes with duplicated genes. We further use the generalized breakpoint graphs to study the genome halving problem (first introduced and solved by Nadia El-Mabrouk and David Sankoff). The El-Mabrouk-Sankoff algorithm is rather complex, and, in this paper, we present an alternative approach that is based on generalized breakpoint graphs. The generalized breakpoint graphs make the El-Mabrouk-Sankoff result more transparent and promise to be useful in future studies of genome rearrangements


What do David Bowie, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Radiohead, The Troggs, The Human League, The Osmonds and The Beach Boys have in common? They've all used unusual musical instruments on big hit records. Strange Sounds tells the stories behind these recordings and many more. It includes some of the biggest names in pop music from the 1950s to the present, explaining and illustrating what instruments were used - their history, how they were played, how the artists came to choose them - and in the process uncovering a parallel history of pop music, one where guitars and drums make way for claviolines, ocarinas and stylophones. The accompanying CD includes demonstration recordings of many of the instruments documented, as well as incidental music composed by the author, recorded using a unique line-up of the instruments featured in the book.


Currently, approximately 35 million foreign-born people (about 12% of the U.S. population) live in the U.S., and the majority of recent immigrants are from less-developed regions, a trend that is projected to continue. Given the fact that immigrants from developing countries will represent a crucial component of the future American cultures, all these implications can be profound on the future American urban landscape. It is therefore of great interest to urban and economic geographers to investigate immigrants' residential location patterns and how they vary by social mobility. Using the America Community Survey data of 2008-2012, this study investigates the diversity of immigrant populations and their housing locations in the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area within 29 counties at census tract level. Specifically, the research examines whether immigrants' countries of origin, language, socioeconomic, and regional background influence the geographic distributions of foreign-born populations. This dissertation had three broad objectives: (1) to determine the geographic distributions of foreign-born populations as part of the population growth process in the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); (2) to analyze the magnitude of segregation among immigrant populations in the Atlanta metropolitan area; and (3) to evaluate the demographic and housing conditions of foreign-born populations in segregated vs. non-segregated census tracts in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. Unlike past studies, this research extended the literature by documenting a broader overview of residential locations across different groups of immigrants such as by their origin of countries, regions, continents, as well as socioeconomic conditions of origin of the countries. The approaches include calculating location quotients and an index of dissimilarity and using geographic information systems to visualize the results. Gwinnett and Fulton Counties have the highest foreign-born population. However, immigrants live in highly segregated communities in both counties. Immigrants are more segregated from native-born Whites in Gwinnett County and native-born Blacks in Fulton County. The Location Quotient (LQ) of foreign-born within native-born population analysis shows that most of the Atlanta MSA is segregated with an under represented LQ of <0.25. This level of segregation occurs in 724 counties around the entire MSA, accounting for 76.14% of all tracts. The place of birth has an influence on immigrants' home locations at the census tract level. They tend to live near people from their own country. These patterns may imply that immigrants tend to get help from each other (e.g., housing, living and carpool). The study also found that the average segregation level is higher among all education levels of immigrants, but is slightly less among immigrants with graduate and professional level educations. Those tracts with over-representation of foreign-born residents have a high percentage of those with less than a high school level education; this group is 32% of the educated foreign-born population. Overall, immigrant groups in the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) reflect the fact that location patterns differ from those of natives in various aspects. The index of dissimilarity values indicates that overall immigrant groups in the Atlanta metropolitan area are segregated from native-born populations at the county level, but the magnitude of segregation is low. However, foreign-born populations from developing countries, non-Western countries, Central America, and the Caribbean are highly segregated from native-born Whites.


Non-genetic factors can cause individual cells to fluctuate substantially in gene expression levels over time. Yet it remains unclear whether these fluctuations can persist for much longer than the time for a single cell division. Current methods for measuring gene expression in single cells mostly rely on single time point measurements, making the time of a fluctuation of gene expression or cellular memory difficult to measure. Here, we report a method combining Luria and Delbrück's fluctuation analysis with population-based RNA sequencing (MemorySeq) for identifying genes transcriptome-wide whose fluctuations persist for several cell divisions. MemorySeq revealed multiple gene modules that express together in rare cells within otherwise homogeneous clonal populations. Further, we found that these rare cell subpopulations are associated with biologically distinct behaviors in multiple different cancer cell lines, for example, the ability to proliferate in the face of anti-cancer therapeutics. The identification of non-genetic, multigenerational fluctuations has the potential to reveal new forms of biological memory at the level of single cells and suggests that non-genetic heritability of cellular state may be a quantitative property.


A General History of the Most Prominent Banks of Europe Particularly the Banks of England and France, The Rise and Progress of the Bank of North America; A Full History of the Late and Present Bank of the United States to Which is Added, a Statistical and Comparative View of the Moneyed Institutions of New York, And Twenty-Four Other Principle Cities of the United States. Compiled from Various Standard Works, Official Sources, and Private Correspondence. Also, A. Hamilton's Report to Concress on Currency, Presented while Secretary: and McDuffie's Report on Currency, Presented to the Last Congress


Abstract Objective: To explore the level of patient satisfaction with nurse practitioner delivered services at two health centres in urban Jamaica. Method: A cross sectional survey of 120 adult clients (age ≥18 years old) seen by Nurse Practitioner at a Type 3 or Type 5 health centre in Kingston, Jamaica was conducted using a modified self-administered Nurse Practitioner Satisfaction Survey questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS® version 18 for Windows®. Results: The study achieved response rate of 91.6% (N = 120). The majority were females (77%) with an average age of 40 ± 16 years. Most (63%) were from the Type 5 health centre and the rest (37%) were from a Type 3 facility. The mean general satisfaction score was 81 out of a possible 90 and 83% of the respondents reported they were very satisfied with another 17% expressing that they were satisfied with the nurse practitioner services at both facilities. No respondent was dissatisfied. The mean satisfaction score was significantly higher among respondents 40 years and older than that of their younger counterparts. Socio demographic and organisation characteristics were not associated with the mean satisfaction score. Conclusions: A high level of satisfaction exists among patients seen by nurse practitioners at two facilities in Kingston, Jamaica. This may represent an opportunity for expanded role of Nurse practitioners in the delivery of primary in Jamaica.


This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne State in early 2007) addresses risk assessment and cost benefit analysis as mechanisms in counterterrorism policy. It argues that although policy is often best pursued by agreeing to set aside deep foundational differences, in order to obtain a strategic plan for an activity such as counterterrorism, foundational differences must be addressed in order that policy not merely devolve into a policy minimalism that is always and damagingly tactical, never strategic, in order to avoid domestic democratic political conflict. The article takes risk assessment in counterterrorism, using cost benefit analysis, as an example of a foundational disagreement that cannot easily be elided. Examining an extreme, indeed crude, recent example of cost benefit analysis applied to the risks of terror and the costs of counterterrorism - John Mueller's widely noticed Overblown - the article suggests that cost benefit analysis, at least applied in this way, runs roughshod over other important values in counterterrorism policy, such as justice, but in addition, makes radical yet unstated assumptions about what cost benefit analysis seeks to compare in establishing counterterrorism policy or estimating the risks and costs of terrorism - unstated assumptions that, in fact, assume the conclusion. The article notes that cost benefit analysis tends to promote a policy-minimalizing "event specific catastrophism" - seeking above all to prevent simply the next, serial terrorist attack, with however no greater strategic vision. Indeed, the article says in conclusion (as Philip Bobbitt has noted) cost benefit analysis is "relentlessly tactical," not strategic; it also tends toward serial 'event specific catastrophism' as its analytic frame; and it is a method of evaluating proposed courses of action, not generating them, and hence promotes a strategically questionable tendency to reaction as a response to terrorism. This article presents these ideas in brief fashion, however, as the first draft in a larger project on cost benefit analysis and counterterrorism, and it does so by reference to a book that is unabashedly crude in its approach to both cost benefit analysis and terrorism/counterterrorism. The critical project will extend beyond this particular article, which is in effective a a first pass at developing a critique. It is also an article that does not extend beyond events of early 2007 (when the original address was given) and should be read in that light.


The purpose of this study was to examine elite Canadian individual-sport athletes' experiences with an Olympic team-selection process. Six nonselected Canadian individual-sport athletes who were attempting to qualify for the Olympics took part in 3 semistructured interviews during the Olympic team-selection process, after they gained knowledge of their selection status, and after the Olympic Games. Data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three major themes emerged from the interpretation of the athletes' experiences: (a) pursuing and expressing the Olympic athlete identity; (b) navigating the Olympic team-selection process: expectations, barriers, and tensions; and (c) moving on: reactions, life-goal reinvestment, and athletic-goal adjustment. Participants' experiences were shaped by personal motivation and social expectations, with changes shifting across the 3 interview periods. Athletes attempted to manage the discontent of nonselection through processes of positive reappraisal, athletic-goal adjustment, and accentuating other life goals and identities.


This study argues that consumers no longer take the actions of brand leaders for granted. Instead, they challenge and are inherently active. Although consumers have long been recognised as stakeholders by brand leaders, the question remains as to what extent their voices are heard and to what extent brand leaders recognise them as active stakeholders. The research problem was addressed by linking aspects of corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsiveness, stakeholder theory, stakeholder communication and accountability to develop a reliable measuring instrument for brand leaders to evaluate to what extent they are attuned to the active consumer stakeholder concept and, through further rankings and qualitative analyses, obtain some indication as to what extent awareness of the active consumer stakeholder concept has taken root among a sample of 51brand leaders. Through reliability and cluster analyses, the research succeeded in developing a reliable measuring instrument which reflected most of the theoretical tenets of the active consumer stakeholder concept. Further findings, albeit of a limited scope, suggest an interesting dichotomy between recognition of the active consumer stakeholder concept on the one hand, and a strong profit maximisation view on the other, which could become a platform for further research.


The tallgrass prairie has persisted in the Flint Hills of east-central Kansas for both biophysical and socioeconomic reasons, and has been one of the key elements in the development of the region. A population boom in the latter part of the 19 th century and the subsequent increase in cattle in the 1860s-1870s were key factors in the transition of this landscape into a major cattle grazing region by the turn of the 20 th century. At various points in the past 150 years, this social ecosystem has exhibited remarkable resilience in episodes of both drought and over-grazing. The resilience of the bluestem pastures had implications for stability in the rural economy. Yet, the land use regimes have undergone change since EuroAmerican arrival, thus the human signature on the land is by no means static. We approach the human-environment relationship as an ecological dialogue that includes both biophysical and social elements mutually shaping each other, and driven by human interests as much as biophysical factors. Current threats to the tallgrass prairie, including fragmentation and invasive species are discussed.


Blind signal separation can easily find its position in audio applications where mutually independent sources need to be separated from their microphone mixtures while both room acoustics and sources are unknown. However, the conventional separation algorithms can hardly be implemented in real time due to the high computational complexity. The computational load is mainly caused by either direct or indirect estimation of thousands of acoustic parameters. Aiming at the complexity reduction, in this paper, the acoustic paths are investigated through an acoustic similarity index (ASI). Then a new mixing model is proposed. With closely spaced microphones (5–10 cm apart), the model relieves the computational load of the separation algorithm by reducing the number and length of the filters to be adjusted. To cope with real situations, a blind audio signal separation algorithm (BLASS) is developed on the proposed model. BLASS only uses the second-order statistics (SOS) and performs efficiently in frequency domain.


Recently, we commissioned one of Journal of Animal Ecology's most experienced Associate Editors, Simon Leather, to compile a Virtual Issue on his great passion – insects. The journal has published many classic insect ecology papers over the years and Simon does a great job of highlighting some of these as well as many new papers that we hope will go on to become classics themselves. In his preface to the VI, Simon bemoans the fact that back in the 1970s, when he first began subscribing to the journal, there were many more papers on insects than there are now and that the journal has perhaps become vertebrate-centric in recent years. This got me thinking – is this really true? And if it is, then why do we publish fewer entomological papers now than back then? Are we alone in this trend or is it common across other general ecological journals? And, either way, should we be worried about the taxonomic distribution of our papers?


Children's play in industrialized societies such as the United States tends to be observed either under controlled conditions, in a laboratory or studied via closed-choice questionnaires, or under semicontrolled conditions in the home or child-care center. By contrast, studies of play in the majority world tend to be conducted by ethnographers who observe in any of the typical settings in which children are found. There are both disciplinary and paradigmatic reasons for this. However, even those methods that are intended to assess children's naturally occurring play in their everyday contexts may misrepresent the extent to which children play, their types of play, and their typical partners in play. Misrepresentation may occur by examining play in limited settings or by relying on parental reports (in the industrialized world) or by ignoring the heterogeneity of contexts in rapidly changing parts of the majority world. We present a method, designed explicitly to fi t within a contextualist paradigm, for observing play in its everyday contexts, and use data derived from a single city from each of the United States, Kenya, and Brazil to illustrate the heterogeneity of young children's experiences and cast doubt on the generality of earlier fi ndings.


Interviews with 30 converts from the 1930s and 1940s are a component of Barry Chevanne's book, a look into the origins and practices of Rastafarianism. From the direct accounts of these early members, he is able to reconstruct pivotal episodes in Rastafarian history to offer a look into a subgroup of Jamaican society whose beliefs took root in the social unrest of the 1930s. The little that most people know about Rastafarianism has come through the Jamaican music, Reggae, which resonates with the contemporary social and political struggle of the poverty-stricken cities of Trenchtown and Kingston. Bob Marley and the Wailers, for instance, with their politically charged lyrics about the ghetto, became emissaries for the Jamaican poor. Here Chevannes traces Rastafarianism back to 1930's prophet Marcus Garvey and his mass coalition against racial oppression and support of a free Africa. Before Garvey, few Jamaicans, the overwhelming majority of whom had been brought to the island from Africa and enslaved by Europeans, held positive attitudes about Africa. The rise of black nationalism, however, provided the movement with its impetus to organise a system of beliefs. Likewise, Chevannes explores the movement's roots in the Jamaican peasantry, which underwent distinct phases of development between 1834 and 1961 as freed slaves became peasants. The peasants established themselves in the recesses of the island and many eventually moved to cities, where the economic and social hardship already inherent in Jamaican society, was even more desolate. Between 1943 and 1960, detrimental social changes transformed Jamaica's rapidly expanding cities. Kingston's population grew by 86 percent, and crime and disease were rampant. It was under this severe social decay that Rastafari became a hospice for the uprooted and derelict masses. As a spiritual philosophy, Rastafarianism is linked to societies of runaway slaves or maroons and derives from both the African Myal religion and the Revivalist Zion churches. Like the revival movement, Rastafarianism embraces the 400-year-old doctrine of repatriation. Rastas believe that they and all Africans who have migrated are but exiles in "Babylon" and are destined to be delivered out of captivity by a return to Zion or Africa - the land of their ancestors and the seat of Jah Rastafari himself, Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia. "Rastafari" is a work with an historical and ethnographic approach that seeks to correct several misconceptions in existing literature - the true origin of dreadlocks, for instance. It should be of interest to religion scholars, historians, scholars of Black studies, and a general audience interested in the movement and how Rastafarians settled in other countries.


Localization and tracking support is useful in many contexts and becomes crucial in emergency response scenarios: being aware of team location is one of the most important knowledge for incident commander. In this work both localization and tracking for rescuers are addressed in the framework of REFIRE project. The designed positioning system is based on the well-known prediction-correction schema adopted in field robotics. Proprioceptive sensors, i.e., inertial sensors and magnetometer, mounted on the waist of the rescuers, are used to form a coarse estimation of the locations. Due to the drift of inertial sensors, the position estimate needs to be updated by exteroceptive sensors, i.e., RFID system composed by tags embedded in the emergency signs as exteroceptive sensors and a wearable tag-reader. In long-lasting mission RFID tags reset the drift by providing a positioning having room-level accuracy.


The article presents the results of a controlled experiment designed to evaluate a teaching method aimed at developing mental calculation competencies in students with learning difficulties or disorder. The method exploits touch-screen technology to give students the means to have an Immersive Learning Experience of the strategies that experts use in mental calculation. The strategies that may be involved in mental calculation of multi-digit addition and subtraction are presented along with the ways in which these strategies are incorporated into the application used in the experiment. Ten students with learning difficulties or disorder were involved in the experiment and underwent three-months training by touch-screen application following a standardized protocol. Their performance was evaluated by a standardized test performed at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, by two questionnaires and by a final test of acquired mathematical skills. Statistical analysis showed a significant increase of the mean score at the standard addition/ subtraction test and most students, following the training, achieved a score in the normal range. The present findings indicate an effective and reproducible approach for the development of an inclusive teaching practice of mental calculation within the school context.


This research proposes a heuristic method, which decomposes the Multi-level Multi-item Capacitated Lot Sizing Problem with Multi-workstation (MLCLSP-M) into two phases which are an assignment with given lot size and a partial lot size with given assignment. Each iteration, the sub problem mathematical models are solved with AMPL/CPLEX 8.0.0 solver. An example is present for demonstration of the heuristic. The result indicate that the proposed heuristic (Partial Assignment – Lot size: PA-LS) give a satisfactory solution within faster solving time on comparison with the original mathematical model solving.


Drawing on a variety of psychoanalytic approaches, ten critics engage in exciting discussions of the ways the "inner life" is depicted in the Renaissance and the ways it is shown to interact with the "external" social and economic spheres. Spurred by the rise of capitalism and the nuclear family, Renaissance anxieties over changes in identity emerged in the period's unconscious--or, as Freud would have it, in its literature. Hence, much of Renaissance literature represents themes that have been prominent in the discourse of psychoanalysis: mistaken identity, incest, voyeurism, mourning, and the uncanny. The essays in this volume range from Spenser and Milton to Machiavelli and Ariosto, and focus on the fluidity of gender, the economics of sexual and sibling rivalry, the power of the visual, and the cultural echoes of the uncanny. The discussion of each topic highlights language as the medium of desire, transgression, or oppression. The section "Faking It: Sex, Class, and Gender Mobility" contains essays by Marjorie Garber (Middleton), Natasha Korda (Castiglione), and Valeria Finucci (Ariosto). The contributors to "Ogling: The Circulation of Power" include Harry Berger (Spenser), Lynn Enterline (Petrarch), and Regina Schwartz (Milton). "Loving and Loathing: The Economics of Subjection" includes Juliana Schiesari (Machia-velli) and William Kerrigan (Shakespeare). "Dreaming On: Uncanny Encounters" contains essays by Elizabeth J. Bellamy (Tasso) and David Lee Miller (Jonson).


Gender bias is a broad social issue, combining historical and current stereotypes that affect both the for-profit and non-profit workforce. Furthermore, phenomena such as the glass ceiling, the wage gap, and feminization develop the perception of gender bias in society, including that part involving the museum community. to determine the extent that gender bias exists in museum leadership positions, data of current museum leaders were obtained from 9,475 museums by using the directory of the American Association of Museums. Data were statistically analyzed according to geographical region, museum size, and museum type. From this research it is determined that there are a small number of cases of gender bias for both men and women in museum leadership. trends from the data, correlated with a historical context, indicate the possibility of an increasing feminization of the profession.


Nadia Abu El-Haj, The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. 328 pp. The use of genetics in the study of human history and personal ancestry tests has become the subject of a growing literature in the Anthropology, History, and Sociology of Science. The Genealogical Science focuses on the voluminous DNA research carried out among Jewish communities. Do people around the world who identify themselves as Jewish have a common origin? If so, is this origin in Palestine? Is the biblical account about the lineage of the Jewish priests correct? These are some of the questions that the genetic research subject of the Nadia Abu El-Haj's inquiry has tried to address. As the book shows, the scientists' attempts to answer these questions have been informed by the broader socio-cultural discourses about Jewish descent and history. The Genealogical Science begins with a useful discussion of the origins and historical context of what became known as genetic anthropology or genetic history-studies which attempt to use genetics to describe the formation of human populations. Drawing on the work of other scholars in the Anthropology of Science and wider Science and Technology Studies, Abu El-Haj discusses how human population genetics both reproduces existing concepts of race and creates new, biologized, notions of human diversity. As far as specifically genetic history is concerned, Abu El-Haj argues that DNA data provide the wrong type of evidence to answer the questions that geneticists take upon themselves to address. The book elucidates well the numerous socio-political and ethical problems associated with genetic research. It critiques the attempts made by geneticists to create a "firewall" between questions of culture and DNA evidence, and demonstrates that despite the scientists' assertions that their research does not do much more than reconstruct early human history by using "neutral" markers, genetic anthropology still invites its audiences to "infer behavior from DNA evidence" (48) and contributes to the construction of a "biologico-historical" self. Abu El-Haj argues that while, on the one hand, genetic studies create a discourse suggesting that it is up to the individual to choose whether to learn about his or her biological self or not; on the other hand, they reinforce the idea that it is this biological self that is the most authentic one. The book reminds us that "the search for the biologically meaningless marker cannot be safely cordoned offfrom the search for culturally, medically, or cognitively meaningful traits" (179). Abu El-Haj has based her analysis of genetic history on studies of Jewish origins, which the book considers against the backdrop of earlier constructions of Jewish physicality. The Genealogical Science first focuses on the work of European and American Jewish scientists devoted to the perceived racial composition of the Jews conducted at the turn of the 20th century. The author then proceeds to explore studies in population genetics carried out in Israel during the 1950s and 1960s, and, finally, discusses more recent genetic history projects which aimed to identify the origins of different Jewish communities around the world, including the communities who declared their affiliation to the Jewish tradition in the 20th century. The book also discusses ancestry tests offered to individuals interested in using genetics as a means of deciphering family history and looking for possible Jewish roots, and on the research which argued for the genetic origins of what has entered the public discourse as Jewish intelligence. In each case, the author argues that the studies in question promote a particular understanding of Jewish peoplehood which constructs the Jews as members of a universal community connected to each other not just on the level of culture and religion, but also through their origin, which is supposed to be evident in their physicality. …


Small-world networks permeate modern society. In this paper we present a methodology for creating and analyzing a practically limitless number of networks exhibiting small-world network properties. More precisely, we analyze networks whose nodes are Facebook groups sharing a common word in the group name and whose links are mutual members in any two groups. By analyzing several numerical characteristics of single networks and network aggregations, we investigate how the small-world properties scale with a coarsening of the network. We show that Facebook group networks have small average path lengths and large clustering coefficients that do not vanish with increased network size, thus exhibiting small-world features. The degree distributions cannot be characterized completely by a power law, and the clustering coefficients are significantly larger than what would be expected for random networks, while the average shortest paths have consistently small values characteristic of random graphs. At the same time, the average connectivity increases as a power of the network size, while the average clustering coefficients and average path lengths do not exhibit a clear scaling with the size of the network. Our results are somewhat similar to what has been found in previous studies of the networks of individual Facebook users.


The focus of the research is on online retail channels for organic bee products. They create short supply chains and ensure access to local and global markets and new market segments, which do not exist on offline markets. Creating one's own online channel for organic bee products or using an intermediary one implies the development of one's own retail platforms and social networks or the use of intermediary ones. Designing and maintaining one's own online retail channel for organic bee products requires substantial investments, therefore such channels are mainly built by large agricultural and non-agricultural entities with high horizontal and vertical integration and ensured access to capital and markets. The high level of integration of different systems, technologies and innovations such as CRM and ERP in online platforms makes it possible to collect, systematize and analyse large volumes of data base – the so-called Big Data and analyse the online behaviour of customers in order to implement precise and targeted marketing


The world around us, natural or man-made, is built and held together by solid materials. Understanding their behaviour is the task of solid mechanics, which is in turn applied to many areas, from earthquake mechanics to industry, construction to biomechanics. The variety of materials (metals, rocks, glasses, sand, flesh and bone) and their properties (porosity, viscosity, elasticity, plasticity) is reflected by the concepts and techniques needed to understand them: a rich mixture of mathematics, physics and experiment. These are all combined in this unique book, based on years of experience in research and teaching. Starting from the simplest situations, models of increasing sophistication are derived and applied. The emphasis is on problem-solving and building intuition, rather than a technical presentation of theory. The text is complemented by over 100 carefully-chosen exercises, making this an ideal companion for students taking advanced courses, or those undertaking research in this or related disciplines.


Policymakers and the public had high expectations for the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen last December. Since the international community embarked on a new round of negotiations in Bali in 2007, elections in the United States, Australia, and Japan raised developed countries' climate change ambitions and a number of emerging economies--including China, India, and Brazil--announced their first ever nationwide climate change targets. Yet while political will to tackle climate change appeared to be building, international climate change negotiations were failing to deliver. The UN process launched in Bali struggled for two years to reach agreement on even the most basic issues between the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These two trends collided in Copenhagen, when ministers and heads of state arrived to find a negotiation process in disarray and no consensus text on the table. An eleventh-hour diplomatic flurry by leaders of a diverse and representative set of countries produced a political accord addressing the core issues of the negotiations. While attracting broad support among the 192 Parties to the UNFCCC, the accord did not receive unanimous approval. Instead, the UN "took note" of the agreement. This policy brief assesses the two-week conference, evaluates the Copenhagen Accord that resulted, and discusses key issues the international community will face moving forward. Author Trevor Houser argues that despite the chaos in Copenhagen, the accord is a significant step in addressing global climate change. The chaos in Copenhagen presents the international community with a unique opportunity to go back to first principles and craft a more suitable and sustainable long-term approach to this challenge. Houser calls for combining the UN process aimed at producing a legally binding agreement with a small-group process that would start work immediately on a politically binding basis--an approach that would prevent near-term substantive action from being held hostage to disagreements over legal form while demonstrating that meaningful international cooperation is possible and thus building support for a future treaty.


This article utilizes original survey and interview data to explore why norms governing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights mobilize an active resistance in some cases and not in others. Based on a comparison of Poland and Slovenia, this article shows that differing perceptions of threat define the way international norms are received in distinct domestic realms. Threat perception is heightened in cases where religion is historically embedded in the essence of the popular nation. In Poland, the Catholic Church created a role for itself as a symbol of the nation. There, the domestic opposition succeeded in framing a narrative that linked LGBT rights to external forces threatening national values. By contrast, the Catholic Church in Slovenia could neither maintain nor (re-)establish similarly strong ties to the popular nation, stifling the opposition's ability to mobilize a robust popular resistance. Whether resistance is effectual, however, is a related but separate question. The data suggest that resistance produced in high-threat contexts can be self-defeating in that it enhances the salience of the norm in the domestic setting.


This paper describes the design and synthesis of a conjugate (Q7R) comprising the synthetic host cucurbit[7]uril (Q7) linked to the fluorescent dye tetramethylrhodamine (TMR), and the characterization of its optical and guest-binding properties as well as its cellular uptake. Q7R was synthesized in two steps from monofunctionalized azidobutyl-Q7 and NHS-activated TMR. The fluorescence of Q7R is quenched upon guest binding, and this observable was used to determine equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) values. Unexpectedly, the Kd values for guests binding to Q7R and to unmodified Q7 were essentially identical. Therefore, Q7R can directly report binding to Q7 without an energetic penalty due to the conjugated fluorophore. This result demonstrates a potentially general strategy for the design of single-component host-indicator conjugates that respond sensitively to analytes without perturbing the binding properties of the host. The unique properties of Q7R enabled measurement of Kd values across 3 orders of magnitude and at concentrations as low as 0.7 nM. This result is particularly relevant given the unmatched range of guests and binding affinities demonstrated for Q7. Confocal fluorescence microscopy of live and fixed HT22 neurons revealed the cellular uptake of Q7R and its punctate localization in the cytoplasm. Q7R did not alter cell growth at concentrations up to 2.2 μM over 4 days. These experiments demonstrate the feasibility of Q7R as a direct sensor for guest binding and as a cell-permeable compound for imaging applications.


Variability of salt tolerance in eight wild populations of two annual Medicago species (Medicago ciliaris and Medicago polymorpha) was evaluated at germination stage using tree treatments of salinity: 50, 100 and 150 mM of NaCl. Results showed that germination is clearly affected by high salt stress; their germination rate doesn't exceed 7% at 150 mM. The greatest variability in tolerance was observed at moderate salt stress (50 mM of NaCl) and the decrease in germination seems to be more accentuated in Medicago polymorpha than Medicago ciliaris. Whereas, the Tunisian population of Medicago ciliaris was the best tolerant in all ecotypes studied in this work. This population prospected on soils affected by salinity, exhibits a particular adaptability to salt environment, at least at this stage in the life cycle. This intra-specific variation in salt tolerance may be used to select genotypes particularly suitable for cultivation on lands relatively affected by salinity. On the other hand, when ungerminated seeds from NaCl treatments were transferred to distilled water, they recovered largely their germination at all the populations studied after only 2 days. This, indicate that the germination inhibition was related to osmotic stress rather than ion toxicity. In addition, seed germination in all populations tended to be extremely rapid than that observed in distilled water which indicate that this pretreatment raises dormancy.


In order to reduce sizes and costs of microwave circuits and to simplify their integration together with IF, control and power supply networks, we tested (1) a simple solution that allows using FR4 boards also for microwave circuits. Since FR4 boards are necessarily present in every equipment for power supplies, control, digital and IF circuits, it becomes possible to reduce the number of boards or modules collecting all the networks (operating from DC to tenth of Gigahertz) on the same FR4 multilayer. The typical RF requirements of good thermal and electrical ground and the need of a carrier for "chip on board" monolithic assembly are all achieved through the insertion of a copper plate a few tenth of millimetre thick. This copper plate replaces the second metal layer of FR4 multilayer remaining within standard FR4 process; monolithics can be mounted on it just opening a window on the first layer.


Gene therapy can be used to treat devastating inherited diseases, especially diseases and patients that are not suitable for a conventional cure. The blood clotting disorder hemophilia is one of the most extensively studied monogenetic diseases in gene therapeutic approaches. Several viral vectors were tested for the treatment of hemophilia B. The administration of an episomal adenoviral vector at non-toxic dose showed effective phenotypic correction, but the therapeutic effect was only transient. Therefore, the combination of non-viral integration machineries for somatic integration with adenoviral vectors for efficient delivery offers a promising alternative for achieving persistent transgene expression. Towards this end, the delivery of the Sleeping Beauty transposase (SB) integration machinery via high-capacity adenoviral vectors (HC-AdVs) has demonstrated efficient hepatocyte-directed gene transfer and long-term coagulation factor IX expression in vivo.
However, the safety issues of this adenoviral vector/Sleeping Beauty transposase (AdV/SB) hybrid-vector system, especially the vector dose-effect and genotoxicity were not addressed yet. Thus, I evaluated this hybrid-vector system in both mice and a canine model for hemophilia B with different vector dose settings, and analyzed the integration profile in respect to genotoxicity after systemic administration.
First of all, the viral vector preparations involved in the AdV/SB hybrid-vector studies were analyzed regarding physical and infectious titers. To avoid toxic side effects, the helper virus (HV) contamination levels were quantified and the potential existence of replication-competent adenovirus (RCA) in final vector preparations was excluded by quantitative real-time PCR. Only the HC-AdV preparations with high amounts of transducing units (107-108 TUs/µl), low HV contamination levels (<0.03%) and undetectable RCA were subsequently used for in vivo studies.
My study showed that this AdV/SB hybrid-vector system can result in significantly stabilized transgene expression in rapidly dividing hepatocytes in both male and female mice, as well as in a canine model for hemophilia B (three years). Notably, I demonstrated that the efficiency of the hybrid-vector system in terms of long-term transgene expression occurred in a dose-dependent manner. This phenomenon was confirmed at the molecular level by determining vector genome copy numbers of the AdV/SB hybrid-vectors in liver of treated animals. Furthermore, it was found that the toxicity profile of the hybrid-vector was also dose-dependent.
Regarding genotoxicity, the SB transposition events from the adenoviral vector were identified and analyzed at chromosomal level. For integration site analysis, I first established a PCR-based method for high-throughput analysis of integration events. Utilizing this method, I identified a total of 163 SB transposase-mediated integration events from five transduced mice liver and 9 events from dog. Herein, similar to previously published plasmid-based studies, a fairly random integration pattern with respect to genes (exons and introns) and intergenic regions was observed for the adenovirus hybrid-vector. Unexpectedly, the chromosomal distribution displayed a bias towards the X-chromosome in female mice. Moreover, some extra-chromosomal integration events were observed, most likely due to vector rearrangements. Furthermore, 10 integration events were located in and near cancer-related genes, but the cancer-causing-potential of SB remains to be analyzed.
Besides the vector itself, the transgene can significantly influence the outcome of a gene therapeutic approach. To increase the therapeutic index of hemophilia B gene therapy utilizing adenoviral vectors, a previously described hyperactive human coagulation factor IX variant (hFIX-K265T/Y345T) was evaluated. However, the exploration did not reveal the expected hyperactive effect. Nevertheless, the utility of an improved transgene expression cassette represents a promising strategy for optimized gene therapeutic approaches.
In summary, this thesis provides novel insights into the adenovirus/SB transposase hybrid-vector system and demonstrates that this integrating adenoviral vector system presents a promising tool for gene therapy especially in regenerating tissues.


Federated learning distributes model training among a multitude of agents, who, guided by privacy concerns, perform training using their local data but share only model parameter updates, for iterative aggregation at the server. In this work, we explore the threat of model poisoning attacks on federated learning initiated by a single, non-colluding malicious agent where the adversarial objective is to cause the model to misclassify a set of chosen inputs with high confidence. We explore a number of strategies to carry out this attack, starting with simple boosting of the malicious agent's update to overcome the effects of other agents' updates. To increase attack stealth, we propose an alternating minimization strategy, which alternately optimizes for the training loss and the adversarial objective. We follow up by using parameter estimation for the benign agents' updates to improve on attack success. Finally, we use a suite of interpretability techniques to generate visual explanations of model decisions for both benign and malicious models and show that the explanations are nearly visually indistinguishable. Our results indicate that even a highly constrained adversary can carry out model poisoning attacks while simultaneously maintaining stealth, thus highlighting the vulnerability of the federated learning setting and the need to develop effective defense strategies.


Airborne magnetic surveys have improved dramatically over the past three decades with advances in both data acquisition and image processing techniques. Magnetic surveys form an integral part of exploration programs and are now routinely undertaken before geological mapping programs. These advances have been made despite treating the magnetic field as a scalar, wherein various processing procedures that assume a potential field are compromised. If the vector information could be retrieved, either by direct measurement or by mathematical manipulation, magnetic surveys could be improved even further. For instance, the total magnetic intensity (TMI) could be corrected so it represents a true potential field.


This dissertation is about how knowledge is constructed in interactions and what knowledge entails in practical social work. It is about how a collective can provide a foundation for the construction and development of knowledge through the interactions contextualized in this study on Swedish elder care, organized by the municipality. This study follows a research tradition that recognizes knowledge as socially constructed, and focuses on the practice of knowledge within an organizational context of care.This is an ethnographic study. The empirical material consists primarily of field notes from participant observations at two elder care units in a midsized city in Sweden. Moreover, the collected materials include national and municipal policy documents, local policy documents and guidelines, and notes from observations in staff meetings and interviews with care workers and managers. This thesis uses Institutional Ethnography as a departure point for analyzing the contextual factors for workers in elder care, mainly women, and the situational factors for acquiring knowledge.The overall aim of this dissertation was to explore knowledge in elder care practice by analyzing the construction and application of knowledge for and by staff in elder care. This sheds light to the Mystery of Knowledge in Elder Care Practice: Locally Enabled and Disabled.In order to pursue this aim, two questions were addressed in the study:1. How and what kind of knowledge is expressed and made visible in daily elder care practice?2. How is knowledge shared interactively in the context of elder care?The findings shed light to the situation for care workers in elder care and the conditions for using and gaining knowledge. This situation is problematic as the local conditions both enables and disables knowledge use and sharing of knowledge. Contributing challenging factors are lack of recognition and equal valuing of various forms of knowledge; the organizational cultures and a limiting reflective work to the individual.The main findings in this thesis are presented in three areas:- a way of understanding tacit knowledge, which refers to knowledge gained by care workers through working in elder care;- the connection between an organizational culture and the knowledge shared within the organizational culture;- reflective practice in elder care work and the imbalance between individual and collective reflectivity.These findings have implications for specific knowledge in social work practice and the need for education linked to this knowledge. Formal knowledge alone is insufficient for effective elder care practice; however, informal knowledge is also insufficient alone. Both are needed, and they should be linked to create synergy between the two types of knowledge.


Birds in seasonal environments must time stages in their annual life cycles precisely. While the fitness costs of mistimed reproduction and migration are widely recognized, molt has been viewed as a more flexible element. Birds modify the timing of molt in various ways to keep to overall timetables, but recent studies provide evidence for considerable attendant costs in fitness. Selective pressure, therefore, affects the timing of molt and its flexibility, favoring timing mechanisms that are finely tuned to local conditions. We illustrate such timing mechanisms for post-juvenal molt in stonechats (Saxicola torquata). These widely distributed passerines differ in life history traits such as length of breeding season, number of clutches and migratory behavior. To understand adjustments to temporal environments, we compared the temporal plasticity of captive African, European, and Siberian stonechats. The subspecies from these regions differed from each other in their reaction norms to photoperiod, in temporal patterns related to the timing requirements of their native habitats. Their circannual rhythms thus encode characteristic features of seasonal activities in a population-specific manner. High heritability in post-juvenal molt corroborates the interpretation of molt timing as adaptive. We conclude that stonechat populations adapt to temporal environ- ments not by switching between distinct and rigid programs but by adjusting reaction norms to relevant time cues.


Abstract A conceptual model (paradigm) for school psychology is presented based upon ecological and contextual considerations that frame the practice, training, and research agendas of the field. We argue that despite previous calls by noteworthy scholars, school psychology has failed to heed efforts to move toward effective prevention and intervention models of service. We provide a synthesis of issues that have prevailed to limit the quality of school psychological services during the past decades (i.e., the anomaly), integrate contemporary theoretical and research advances that address the core problems (i.e., the paradigm), and suggest methods for changing the predominant focus of school psychological services (i.e., changing our own ecology). We suggest that school psychology be guided by an ecological framework of service delivery that addresses needs at multiple ecosystemic levels.


The aim of the present study was to investigate British Indian men and women's perceptions of Indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes. Eight semi-structured interviews with men and women were conducted, and the data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: 1) Cultural similarities and differences in physical appearance, 2) Gender differences in pressure experienced, 3) Improving physical appearance for marriage, and 4) Factors influencing appearance pressures. The findings indicated that participants perceived few cultural similarities in the Indian and Western standards for physical appearance. Internalisation of Indian body ideals (including fair skin and slimness) were linked to finding a suitable partner for marriage for women, and this pressure was largely perceived to be influenced by maternal encouragement and the media. The results indicate that gender is influential in determining the physical, psychological and social implications of attempting to conform to the cultural physical appearance ideals and related attributes.


We report an investigation of white-light continuum generation and self-focusing by 140-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses in extended transparent media. It is found that continuum generation is triggered by self-focusing and that both phenomena depend on the medium's bandgap. There is a bandgap threshold for continuum generation. Above that threshold the continuum's width increases with increasing bandgap. Furthermore, the beam's self-focal diameter is discontinuous across the threshold. To explain the observations a mechanism is proposed that involves multiphoton excitation of electrons into the conduction band at the self-focus; the generated free electrons cause spectral superbroadening and limit the self-focal diameter. The continuum beam's surprisingly low divergence is then investigated and explained in terms of a Kerr lensing effect.


The propensity of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to self-organize into continuous networks of bundles has direct implications for thermal transport properties of CNT network materials and defines the importance of clear understanding of the mechanisms and scaling laws governing the heat transfer within the primary building blocks of the network structures—close-packed bundles of CNTs. A comprehensive study of the thermal conductivity of CNT bundles is performed with a combination of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of heat transfer between adjacent CNTs and the intrinsic conductivity of CNTs in a bundle with a theoretical analysis that reveals the connections between the structure and thermal transport properties of CNT bundles. The results of MD simulations of heat transfer in CNT bundles consisting of up to 7 CNTs suggest that, contrary to the widespread notion of strongly reduced conductivity of CNTs in bundles, van der Waals interactions between defect-free well-aligned CNTs in a bundle have negligible effect on the intrinsic conductivity of the CNTs. The simulations of inter-tube heat conduction performed for partially overlapping parallel CNTs indicate that the conductance through the overlap region is proportional to the length of the overlap for CNTs and CNT-CNT overlaps longer than several tens of nm. Based on the predictions of the MD simulations, a mesoscopic-level model is developed and applied for theoretical analysis and numerical modeling of heat transfer in bundles consisting of CNTs with infinitely large and finite intrinsic thermal conductivities. The general scaling laws predicting the quadratic dependence of the bundle conductivity on the length of individual CNTs in the case when the thermal transport is controlled by the inter-tube conductance and the independence of the CNT length in another limiting case when the intrinsic conductivity of CNTs plays the dominant role are derived. An application of the scaling laws to bundles of single-walled (10,10) CNTs reveals that the transition from inter-tube-conductance-dominated to intrinsic-conductivity-dominated thermal transport in CNT bundles occurs in a practically important range of CNT length from ∼20 nm to ∼4 μm.


Recombinant rat stem cell factor (rrSCF) and recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) coinjected for 1 week in rats cause a synergistic increase in mature marrow neutrophils accompanied by a striking decrease in erythroid and lymphoid marrow elements. The spleens of the same rats show increased granulopoiesis as well as increased erythropoiesis as compared with the spleens of rats treated with either growth factor alone. Splenic extramedullary erythropoiesis may act to compensate for the decrease in marrow erythropoiesis. The coinjection of rrSCF and G-CSF causes an increase in marrow mast cells at the end of 1 week, but the increase is much less than in rrSCF-alone-treated rats. The combination of rrSCF and G-CSF increases the rate of release of marrow neutrophils into the circulation and causes a dramatic synergistic peripheral neutrophilia, beginning especially after 4 days of treatment. Colony-forming assays of all experimental groups showed a synergistic increase in colony-forming unit granulocyte-macrophage (CFU-GM) in the marrow, but not in peripheral blood, after coincubation with SCF plus granulocyte-macrophage CSF (GM-CSF) as opposed to GM-CSF alone, showing anatomic compartmentalization between a more primitive marrow CFU-GM subset and a more mature peripheral blood CFU-GM subset. In vivo daily administration of SCF plus GM-CSF results in a synergistic increase in marrow neutrophils, but not the striking synergistic increase in circulating neutrophils that is observed with SCF plus G-CSF.


The fine-flavor cocoa industry explores mainly six chocolate sensory traits from four traditional cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) varieties. The importance of cocoa pulp flavors and aromas has been ignored until we recently showed that they migrate into beans and into chocolates. Pulp sensory traits are strongly genotype dependent and correlated to human preference. Growers of the native Chuncho variety from Cusco, Peru, which is the cocoa that the Incas consumed, make pulp juices from preferred trees (genotypes). Evaluations of 226 preferred trees evidenced presence of 64 unique mostly multi-trait sensory profiles. Twenty nine of the 40 flavors and aromas identified mimic those of known fruit and flower or spice species such as mandarin, soursop, custard apple, cranberry, peach, banana, inga, mango, nut, mint, cinnamon, jasmine, rose and lily. Such large sensory diversity and mimicry is unknown in other commercial fleshy fruit species. So far, 14 Chuncho-like pulp sensory traits have been identified among different cocoa varieties elsewhere suggesting that Chuncho is part of the "centre of origin" for cocoa flavors and aromas. Stable expression of multi-trait Chuncho sensory profiles suggest pleiotropic dominant inheritance, favoring selection for quality traits, which is contrasting with the complex sensory trait determination in other fleshy fruit species. It is inferred that the large sensory diversity of Chuncho cocoa can only be explained by highly specialized sensory trait selection pressure exerted by frugivores, during evolution, and by the indigenous "Matsigenkas", during domestication. Chuncho beans, still largely employed as a bulk cocoa source, deserve to become fully processed as an extra-fine cocoa variety. The valorization of the numerous T. cacao sensory profiles in chocolates, raw beans and juices should substantially diversify and boost the fineflavor cocoa industry, this time based on the Matsigenka/Inca and not anymore on the Maya cocoa traditions.


Introduction: Training evaluation is an integral part of the education systems which helps managers making better decisions about curriculums. This study aims to investigate effectiveness of a workshop on evaluating health promotion programs which was held for health staffs of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences. Method: In this quasi experimental study a workshop on Evaluating Health Promotion Programs was evaluated based on Kirkpatrick's model. Data were collected through a self administered researcher designed questionnaire. Data were analyzed by appropriate statistical methods using SPSS V.19. Results: Mean satisfaction of teaching method and workshop conditions were 38.97±7.89 and 45.67±5.62 respectively. Increasing knowledge had positive correlation with participants' satisfaction of teaching method (r=0.684, P=0.007). Participants' evaluation score about attending in the workshop (18.47±2.67) were positively correlated to workshop Environmental and Managerial conditions (r=0.545, P=0.019). 89.5 % of participants reported that they are willing to evaluate their health promotion programs in the future. Discussion: For such workshops, teachers' selection teaching methods and workshop conditions should be considered. When using Kirkpatrick model, not only the descriptive results should be reported, but also it is important to report other analytical findings in order to achieve better results.


This chapter starts with a description of the Swedish school system and the situation of social and emotional education in Swedish schools. In Sweden, special programs for social and emotional learning are often associated with interventions in or prevention of bullying. No particular social and emocional program has been implemented on a national level, but several are in use in various schools around the country. However, no systematic scientific evaluations of these programs, as employed within the Swedish context, have yet been completed. The chapter goes on to describe two examples of social and emotional education. The first recounts a success story of one particular school which changed from the worst to the first through several creative and imaginative pedagogical innovations focused on the social and emotional aspects of schooling. The story illustrates among other things the benefits of gathering external resources and institutions around the school, turning it into a cultural centre for the neighbourhood. The second example summarises some results of an evaluation study of Swedish Steiner Waldorf schools. The evaluation provides suggestive evidence that these schools cultivate a successful form of social and emotional education. The two examples illustrate indirect forms of social and emotional education, focused on values and the cultivation of positive feelings


Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the single leading cause of global mortality and is projected to remain so. Cardiac arrhythmia is a very common type of CVD and may indicate an increased risk of stroke or sudden cardiac death. The ECG is the most widely adopted clinical tool to diagnose and assess the risk of arrhythmia. ECGs measure and display the electrical activity of the heart from the body surface. During patients' hospital visits, however, arrhythmias may not be detected on standard resting ECG machines, since the condition may not be present at that moment in time. While Holter-based portable monitoring solutions offer 24-48 h ECG recording, they lack the capability of providing any real-time feedback for the thousands of heart beats they record, which must be tediously analyzed offline. In this paper, we seek to unite the portability of Holter monitors and the real-time processing capability of state-of-the-art resting ECG machines to provide an assistive diagnosis solution using smartphones. Specifically, we developed two smartphone-based wearable CVD-detection platforms capable of performing real-time ECG acquisition and display, feature extraction, and beat classification. Furthermore, the same statistical summaries available on resting ECG machines are provided.


This article contributes to the pertinent literature by providing a gender perspective to organic-conventional technical efficiency comparative studies and to the debate on technical efficiency of organic and conventional agriculture. Data from 280 organic and 378 conventional cocoa farm from Suhum area in Ghana; segregated into 101 females and 557 males, were analysed. Using separate frontiers, females were found to be more technically efficient than males irrespective of technology; conventional or organic, although males tended to be more productive. Increased access to productive inputs to females is necessary to increase their participation in organic cocoa production and further enhance efficiency.


BACKGROUND
Cow's milk allergy (CMA) is a disease of infancy and usually appears in the first few months of life. The evaluation of infants for possible CMA is one of the more common problems shared by pediatricians. The role of foods in determining and/or aggravating the clinical features of atopic dermatitis (AD) has been stressed in the last decades.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study was to investigate, in children with food related AD, the development of tolerance to the offending food(s), clinical or laboratory data to predict the development of food tolerance, and whether there are clinical or laboratory data to predict the onset of respiratory allergy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this prospective study we report on 115 babies, first examined at a median age of 6 months, and followed-up for 8 years. We have investigated several factors as predictive of the outcome, as follows: early onset; widespread or not-typical (reverse pattern) skin lesions, family history positive for atopy; persisting FA, high levels of total and specific IgE antibodies, association with CMA and asthma.

RESULTS
All these parameters were significantly predictive of a long-term morbidity of AD children with CMA. The median age for tolerance to cow's milk was 7 years + 11 months, to egg 6 years + 6 months, and to wheat 7 years + 2 months. However a great number of both tolerant and intolerant children developed multiple sensitizations. Only 66 children (57%) acquired food tolerance, but there was the onset of asthma in 54% of cases.

CONCLUSION
The natural history of CMA is not well-known, since not many related studies have been done in children. The several predictive factors, all in a negative sense, may be the norm in atopic children. We suggest possible areas of intervention in children at risk due to parental atopy. Preventive measures may induce a dramatic improvement in children with food allergy, but we stress that the long-term prognosis is challenging, since asthma prevalence may increase up to 54% during a long follow-up. Therefore, the natural history of IgE-mediated AD in atopic children sensitized to several allergens may be less optimistic than generally reported.


Nurses are encountering an increasing number of ethical dilemmas in clinical practice. Ethics courses for baccalaureate nursing students provide the opportunity for the development of critical thinking skills in order to deal with these effectively. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to describe ethical reasoning in 70 baccalaureate nursing students enrolled in a nursing ethics course. Reflective clinical journals were analyzed as appropriate for qualitative inquiry. The overriding theme emerging from the data was `in the process of becoming', which includes: practicing as a professional, lacking the confidence as a student nurse to take an ethical stand, advocating for patients, being just in the provision of care, identifying the spiritual dimensions of nursing practice, confronting the `real world' of health care, making a commitment to practice with integrity, and caring enough to care. The development of critical thinking and ethical reasoning within the framework of knowing and connecting is essential in nursing education.


This paper reflects on research conducted on the role of interior designers in retail design within the South African retail sector. Based on three leading corporate retailers, the paper explores the contribution of interior designers to retail design in the South African clothing and footwear retail context. In 2008 these retail companies collectively held more than 50 per cent of a R96.2 billion retail market share. Their primary turnover is generated through consumer purchases concluded in retail stores. The design of retail stores have become a means of marketing communication and are commonly used as a differentiation strategy by retailers. It is here that interior designers can make a considerable contribution to retailers. This qualitative research study reflects on information obtained through open-ended interviews with the managers and senior managers involved in the design and implementation of retail stores for these leading clothing and footwear retailers. A qualitative content analysis method was employed to identify overlapping themes and categories to compare the role of interior designers in these three corporate retailers. The research reveals that interior designers are currently under utilised due to a poor understanding of the role that interior designers can perform in retail design. Although the paper provides information on the approach and operation of retail design in the clothing and footwear sphere of retailing, wider application can be drawn to the role of interior designers in retail design in South Africa. The paper proposes that stakeholders such as education could make a valuable contribution in promoting interior design in all sectors within the South African economy.


— Due to the quick headway of remote advancements, remote body region systems (WBANs) have gotten broad consideration from the general population as of late. IoT-based WBANs are intended to give life support significantly by observing the essential body boundaries and the general situations of human bodies. These sensors gather the constant natural data, for example, circulatory strain, pulse and beat of a patient and afterward send the data through cell phones, for example, an information sink to a distant clinical worker. In light of the got data, the specialists and other clinical specialists can give appropriate diagnostics to the patients. They are utilized to give appropriate and opportune clinical diagnostics and invited method for electronic social insurance frameworks.


Abstract Background: Recovery room nurses should have the knowledge and skill to identify and manage postoperative airway emergencies in adult patients. Aim: To determine the knowledge of recovery room nurses regarding postoperative airway emergencies in adult patients in private hospitals in Northern Gauteng. Methods: A quantitative, descriptive, contextual research design was adopted, using a survey as research method. The research instrument was a questionnaire in the form of a measurement test. The sample consisted of all registered nurses on duty at a given time that volunteered to complete the questionnaire. Convenience sampling was thus applied. A thorough literature review, evaluation of the questionnaire by experts and a pilot study enhanced validity and reliability of the research. Results: The researcher analyzed the data, using descriptive statistics. The average score of respondents was forty-three per cent (43%), which was twenty-seven per cent (27%) below the set competency indicator of seventy per cent (70%%). Only one respondent achieved a score above seventy per cent (70%). Conclusion: It was found that respondents lacked knowledge regarding six specific airway emergencies in postoperative adult patients. As the study was contextual, findings could not be generalized to other populations.


This dissertation is a study of the "policy trajectories" followed by those national governments which, at one point or another over the course of the January 1, 1990 - September 10, 2001 period, were the targets of "successful" Washington-backed regime change campaigns. My analytical focus is on determining if the "successful" occurrence of a Washington-backed regime change in a non-US country appears to serve as an inflection point in the "policy trajectory" that is pursued by the target country's national government. I review those policies and policy stances which provide insights into the basic "line" that a given non-US national government adhered to with regard to economic matters, foreign affairs as well as the domestic, non-economic sphere. I make determinations as to whether, after the occurrence of a Washington-backed regime change, the
targeted national government became either; 1) more committed or less committed to implementing policies consistent with the principles of a "free-market" capit
alist economy; 2) more committed or less committed to making "its own" country hospitable to specifically American private foreign investment; 3) more committed or less committed to aligning its geopolitical stance with that of
Washington; 4) more committed or less committed to making "its own" internal political system more genuinely democratic (as opposed to authoritarian;) 5) more committed or less committed to respecting fundamental human rights.
The first three research questions in this dissertation reflect my own ideological inclinations, influenced as they
are by certain foundational principles of Marxism. The other two research questions in this dissertation are based on the "mainstream" liberal and neo-conservative outlooks in
contemporary western politics. Liberal and neo-conservative intellectuals and public figures generally claim that Washington's foreign interventions are based on an enlightened and progressive desire to spread the 'blessings' of liberal parliamentary democracy and decent human rights practices as widely as possible outside the borders of the US. Three non-US regime changes provide the raw data from which the validity of all five research questions can be evaluated. A portion of this dissertation is devoted to better under standing critical realism and to explaining how
it can serve to provide an important "conceptual-philosophical" support for the Marxist and World-Systems Theory perspectives. The elaboration of the various ontological and epistemological assumptions that
critical realism shares with the Marxist and World Systems Theory outlooks takes on is significant given that these outlooks served as the ideological and intellectual well-
spring from which I drew the inspiration for the formulation of the three research questions which I am advancing
as my own in this dissertation. Furthermore, I provide explanations for why the utilization of the case-study method not only flows logically from an acceptance and an application in the study process of the central principles of critical realism, but why it may well be compatible with Marxist and World Systems Theory-influenced attempts to understand complex socio-historical phenomena and processes. Critical realism, which emphasizes the vital importance of identifying the existence of particular potential causal factors in the sphere of human affairs, as well as Marxism, with its rather comprehensive and well-rounded vision of what constitutes the sources of exploitation, power and weakness in the modern world capitalist economy, can all see their own explanatory powers being enhanced via the careful elaboration of the kind of detailed historical accounts that constitute positive examples of how the case-study method should be applied for the in-depth analysis and ever-better
comprehension of the social world.


Purpose
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) legislative intervention around "home-grown" player quotas came into effect for the 2006-2007 season, aiming to protect playing opportunities and the development of indigenous talent. Previous research has identified clear differences between clubs and club types regarding opportunities for academy players. This paper aims to examine the outputs from six European leagues (France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and England), identifying differences between national associations, club type, and on an individual club level. The paper investigates different league structure (in terms of allowing reserve teams in the professional leagues) and assesses UEFAs legislation in relation to programme theory (expected outcomes).

Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on playing data from 200 clubs and 3,329 indigenous players making their debut in one of the six leagues since 2006, and includes ten seasons of competition to 2015-2016.

Findings
The number of players produced and playing opportunities offered since 2006 are more prominent in the Spanish, The Netherlands, French and German leagues compared to Italy and England. For those clubs competing in all ten seasons, a similar pattern emerges with those four nations producing greater outputs. Four clubs significantly outperform others in terms of producing players reaching any top-six league first team, and for their own academy graduates. Additionally, the four leagues allowing reserve teams in their professional structure have a higher level of "output" for their academy players.

Originality/value
The paper discusses issues in the design of the legislation (not making nationality a factor and being unable to control other dominant variables) as key weaknesses to influencing change, and achieve the rationale cited by UEFA for its introduction.


Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by Toxoplasma gondii. Epidemiological surveys of T. gondii infection among livestock have great economical importance since this infection may cause abortion, growth retardation and neonatal mortality, with significant losses to breeders. In regard of public health, human infection can be acquired by ingestion of meat or milk in natura from infected livestock. The aim of this study was to assess the toxoplasmosis seroprevalence by indirect immunofluorescence antibody test (IFAT) in goats and sheep, in three counties of Rio de Janeiro state, from 10 different farms. The seroprevalences of anti-T.gondii IgG antibodies were 29.12% (60/206) in goats and 38.05% (137/360) in sheep, with titers ranging from 64 to 256, suggesting chronic infection. Association of each of the following epidemiological factors: female gender, adult age, extensive management system, grazing pasture and drinking lake water with seropositivity was observed only in sheep (p<0.05). Improvement in breeding conditions may reduce the sources of infection in herds.


Research focused on the initiation and development of alcohol use among adolescents can inform professionals, families, and preventative strategies. Much of the research on adolescent substance use among this population focuses on risk. This study investigated a model of the initiation of adolescent alcohol use milestones including first full drink, first time engaging in heavy drinking, and first time being drunk, extending the risk perspective by emphasizing a model of resilience. This was done by simultaneously including risk, promotive, and protective influences in a single model. It was hypothesized that parental monitoring and reasons for abstaining and limiting drinking would have a promotive effect on alcohol use such that these predictors would relate to a decreased probability of milestone initiation. Peer influences and impulsive personality traits were hypothesized to be risk factors and increase the probability of milestone initiation. Parental monitoring was also hypothesized to have a protective effect on adolescent drinking milestones by mitigating the influence of peers and impulsive personality. The sample is comprised of roughly equal numbers of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders (N=1,023) in six middle schools. Mean age at baseline was 12.22 years (SD=0.98, range 10-15) and the sample is 52% female and 27% non-White (4% Black, 11% other), and 12% Hispanic. Rates of initiation for all three milestones increased with time and females drank more than males at each time point. Survival analysis tested the overall model and results indicate adequate model fit (Δ AIC= -200). Reasons for abstaining and limiting drinking and parental monitoring decreased the probability of alcohol use initiation, first heavy drinking, and first drunk (hazard ratios = .37/.77; .50/.77; .49/.66, respectively) Being female increased the probability of alcohol use initiation and first heavy drinking (H.R.= 1.62; 1.54). Peer influences increased the probability of alcohol use initiation (H.R.= 1.46) and sensation seeking was also a risk factor for heavy drinking (H.R.= 1.41). The influence of parental monitoring as a protective effect, mitigating the influence of peers and personality, was only partially supported as there was an interaction effect of parental monitoring and peer influences on first time being drunk. Results support a more resilient model with promotive effects remaining most significant when considered alongside risk. Further investigation of how these risk, promotive, and protective effects influence the development of future drinking patters such as regular use, or alcohol use disorders, should be considered. Results add to the burgeoning studies on reasons for abstaining and limiting drinking (RALD) and this cognitive factors' influence on alcohol use initiation. An emphasis on these cognitions either by encouraging the maintenance of previously held RALD or helping adolescents to acquire more RALD might be beneficial for preventative strategies and merits further investigation. Research was supported by National…