Background: Tamoxifen treatment of breast cancer is associated with an increased risk of endometrial cancer, but tamoxifen-related risks of endometrial cancer are unclear in premenopausal women, in long-term users of tamoxifen, and in women for whom several years have passed since ending treatment. We conducted a case – control study in Britain to investigate these risks. Methods: We compared treatment information on 813 case patients who had endometrial cancer after their diagnosis for breast cancer and 1067 control patients who had breast cancer but not subsequent endometrial cancer. We assessed risk by conditional logistic regression analysis. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: Overall, tamoxifen treatment, compared with no treatment, was associated with an increased risk of endometrial cancer (odds ratio [OR] = 2.4; 95% confi dence interval [CI] = 1.8 to 3.0). Risk increased statistically signifi cantly ( P trend <.001) with duration of treatment (for ≥5 years of treatment compared with no treatment, OR = 3.6, 95% CI = 2.6 to 4.8). As an indication of background levels of treatment, 16% of control patients received 5 years or more of treatment. Risk of endometrial cancer adjusted for treatment duration did not diminish in follow-up to at least 5 years after the last treatment ended. Risk of endometrial cancer was not associated with the daily dose of tamoxifen and was comparable in preand postmenopausal women. Ever treatment with tamoxifen was associated with a much greater risk of Mullerian and mesodermal mixed endometrial tumors (OR = 13.5, 95% CI = 4.1 to 44.5) than of adenocarcinoma (OR = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.6 to 2.7) or clear cell and papillary serous tumors (OR = 3.1, 95% CI = 0.8 to 17.9). Conclusions: There is an increasing risk of endometrial cancer associated with longer tamoxifen treatment, extending well beyond 5 years. The increased risk of endometrial cancer associated with tamoxifen treatment should be considered clinically for both premenopausal and postmenopausal women during treatment and for at least 5 years after the last treatment. [J Natl Cancer Inst 2005;97:375 – 84]


The central purpose of this paper is to show that lottery play is not economically irrational and uninformed. The paper presents a theory of lottery tickets not as misguided inputs into wealth production as some critics believe but as valuable inputs in creating a sense of open-ended possibility, specifically the possibility of escaping one's current life by acquiring great wealth. In the course of the discussion the claim that the lottery is a regressive tax is investigated and a variety of empirical predictions are generated as to patterns of purchase both across groups and by individuals. Finally the insights gained from the earlier discussion are employed as a springboard to reground the normative use of the assumption of rational utility maximization.


This paper describes the use of 1 g small-scale models composed of weak, saturated clay mixtures to investigate the response of natural clay deposits to underlying base rock fault displacements. A 3:1 mixture of kaolinite and bentonite at water contents between 150 and 100% produces a material with undrained shear strengths on the order of 1 to 2.5 kPa and well-scaled stress deformation behavior for small-scale model testing without the need for a centrifuge apparatus. Strength testing indicated that the axial strain at failure could be controlled to evaluate the importance of this parameter in base deformation testing. It was found that the height of the shear zone in the saturated clay overlying the base rock fault offset was related to the magnitude of base movement and the failure strain of the soil.


We introduce horizontal holonomy groups, which are groups defined using parallel transport only along curves tangent to a given subbundle $D$ of the tangent bundle. We provide explicit means of computing these holonomy groups by deriving analogues of Ambrose-Singer's and Ozeki's theorems. We then give necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the horizontal holonomy groups for existence of solutions of two problems on foliated manifolds: determining when a foliation can be either (a) totally geodesic or (b) endowed with a principal bundle structure. The subbundle $D$ plays the role of an orthogonal complement to the leaves of the foliation in case (a) and of a principal connection in case (b).


A new family of switching amplifiers, each member having some of the features of both class E and inverse F, is introduced. These class-E/F amplifiers have class-E features such as incorporation of the transistor parasitic capacitance into the circuit, exact truly switching time-domain solutions, and allowance for zero-voltage-switching operation. Additionally, some number of harmonics may be tuned in the fashion of inverse class F in order to achieve more desirable voltage and current waveforms for improved performance. Operational waveforms for several implementations are presented, and efficiency estimates are compared to class-E.


We present the results of a search for gravitational-wave bursts (GWBs) associated with 137 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that were detected by satellite-based gamma-ray experiments during the fifth LIGO science run and first Virgo science run. The data used in this analysis were collected from 2005 November 4 to 2007 October 1, and most of the GRB triggers were from the Swift satellite. The search uses a coherent network analysis method that takes into account the different locations and orientations of the interferometers at the three LIGO–Virgo sites. We find no evidence for GWB signals associated with this sample of GRBs. Using simulated short-duration No. 2, 2010 SEARCH FOR GWBs ASSOCIATED WITH GRBs USING LIGO AND VIRGO 1441 (<1 s) waveforms, we set upper limits on the amplitude of gravitational waves associated with each GRB. We also place lower bounds on the distance to each GRB under the assumption of a fixed energy emission in gravitational waves, with a median limit of D ∼ 12 Mpc(Eiso GW/0.01 M c2)1/2 for emission at frequencies around 150 Hz, where the LIGO–Virgo detector network has best sensitivity. We present astrophysical interpretations and implications of these results, and prospects for corresponding searches during future LIGO–Virgo runs.


The hydrothermal diamond anvil cell (HDAC) has been used to place aqueous samples under conditions up to 2.5 GPa and 1000 °C. Optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS), infrared absorption, luminescence, and Raman spectroscopy have been used to analyze samples in the HDAC. Equation of state (EOS), critical behavior, melting, phase transitions, reactions, ionic structure and speciation, and compositional changes have been observed and measured. Five examples of the application of the HDAC discussed here are: 1) EOS of water, 2) hydration states of montmorillonite, 3) silicate melts under hydrothermal conditions, 4) prevention of decrepitation of CO 2 -rich fluid inclusions, 5) structure and speciation of complexes. The simplicity of diamond anvil cells and the diverse modifications for their use with a wide range of analytical techniques is leading to many exciting new experimental approaches to problems in mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry.


MILITARY HISTORY THIS is the thirty-third supplement to Doctoral Dissertations in Military Affairs: A Bibliography (Manhattan: Kansas State University Library, 1972). Information on dissertations published in the United Kingdom is based on: (1) Historical Research for University Degrees in the United Kingdom, published each May by the University of London Institute of Historical Research; or (2) the quarterly Index to Theses, which is listed as ITT, vol. # (issue #), year. The compilers would appreciate information regarding omissions and dissertations completed outside the United States. Write: Edward A. Goedeken, Parks Library, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011. Listings below include the order number of the dissertation (which may be purchased from University Microfilms International, Dissertation Copies, P. O. Box 1764, Ann Arbor, MI 48106) and the issue of Dissertation Abstracts International in which the abstract appeared. If no DAI issue is given, the dissertation is from a university that does not cooperate with DAI. For dissertations with no order number (n.o.n.), researchers should contact the university directly. For universities located in Canada, microfiche copies of dissertations are available from the National Library, Ottawa, Canada. In addition, the Center for Research Libraries holds a collection of foreign doctoral dissertations, which can be used through interlibrary loan. Write: Director, The Center for Research Libraries, 5721 Cottage Grove Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. The subject field for entries is history unless it is spelled out or indicated by one of the following abbreviations:


Backgrounds The debate on health selection which describes the influence of health on subsequent social mobility is highly contested. The authors set out to examine the effect of health selection by looking at the effect of previous health status on changes in socio-economic position (SEP) over two time periods. Method Data were pooled from 13 waves (1991–2003) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Using a multilevel multinomial approach, the presence of health selection between classes and into/out of employment was concurrently tested and compared. Results In the descriptive analysis, poor health was consistently associated with moving downward, while the outcome was inverse for upward movement. After accounting for the data structure using multilevel analysis, health was a predictor for social mobility when leaving and entering employment, but the effect was minimal for transitions between classes for both men and women. Conclusion The non-significant impact of health on mobility inside employment may reflect the presence of the significant impact of health on mobility between employment and non-employment. This implies that the effect of health was not evenly spread over all social mobility, but rather tends to concentrate on some types of mobility. The effect of each predictor on social mobility is more concentrated among specific transitions, and health and age were likely to be substantial in moving into/out of the labour force, whereas education was a relevant predictor for mobility into/out of upper classes, in particular, classes I/II.


Traditionally, health economics have been orientated on the question as to how the limited resources should be allocated, on the efficiency criterion. The limited resources should be used in such a way that the additionally achievable health in the population is maximised. The increased health benefits (life expectance, quality of life) are the factor to is maximised. A purely efficency-orientated allocation of resources can, however, have a strong distribution effect that would be considered as unfair and unjust by many people and consequently not be accepted. In the meantime there is a body of empirical data evidence about the alternatives or additional criteria that are important for members of the population in the assesment of utility of medical interventions. Three of these possible criteria are discussed as examples here. Although the improvement in health is an important, perhaps even central criterion, a poor state of health, a limited health potential as well as other personal factors for the afflicted patient may, in part considerably, compensante for the achievable improvement in health. Systems for the evaluation of utility that will be accepted and supported by the general public must in future take into consideration the various explicit factors of the societal and individual benefits of health-care interventions and balance their relative importances.


Void fraction is one of the most important parameters that affect two-phase flow heat transfer and pressure drop. In this paper, a commercial gamma densitometer and a high-speed X-ray radiography system developed at the University of Michigan (UM) are used to measure the void fraction in two-phase boiling flows, with water as the working fluid, in a tubular test section. The test section is made of Incoloy 800H/HT with a total length of 1.589 m, an inner diameter of 12.95 mm, and a wall thickness of 3.05 mm. These two instrumentation systems are installed on a traversing platform that travels along the vertical test section for measurements at multiple elevations. Subcooled flow boiling and natural convection boiling experiments are performed to measure the void fraction in the test section. Flow visualization images are obtained for bubbly and slug flows from the X-ray radiography system. The wall temperature of the test section is measured at 17 elevations by thermocouples. In addition to the experiments, a multiphase computational fluid dynamics (MCFD) model is developed using ANSYS FLUENT to simulate the subcooled flow boiling. The measured wall temperature and void fraction from the experiments are compared with the MCFD simulation results. The RMS (Root mean square) errors are 3.6% and 16.1% for the wall temperature and void fraction, respectively, between the experimental data and MCFD simulations.


This article reviews the requirements for successful compressed sensing (CS), describes their natural fit to MRI, and gives examples of four interesting applications of CS in MRI. The authors emphasize on an intuitive understanding of CS by describing the CS reconstruction as a process of interference cancellation. There is also an emphasis on the understanding of the driving factors in applications, including limitations imposed by MRI hardware, by the characteristics of different types of images, and by clinical concerns.


The creation of the EU's Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has turned the right to emit CO2 into a positively priced intermediate good for the affected firms. Firms thus face the decision whether to source compliance with the EU ETS within their boundaries or to acquire it through the permit trade. However, a combination of internal abatement, free permit allocation and exibility to shift the use of their allocation across time creates opportunities to achieve compliance with the EU ETS without entering the permit trade. This paper aims to identify firm-level determinants of participation in and the extent of the permit trade while recognizing the possibility of zero trade flows leading to selection bias if unaccounted-for. We construct a firm-level dataset incorporating transaction-level information from both EU ETS operator and person holding accounts, thus representing the entire system-wide permit trade by CO2 emitters. We cover the supply and demand sides of the permit trade, both inter- firm and intra-firm, and account for a wide set of firm-level characteristics using firms' balance sheet information. A detailed descriptive analysis documents salient features of the firm-level permit trade. We then jointly model firms' participation and amount decisions while allowing for possible self-selection into trading. Our results suggest that participation in the permit trade is driven by a combination of firm-specific factors existing independently of the EU ETS, such as size, sector and ownership structure, and market-specific characteristics resulting from the firms' inclusion in the EU ETS, such as the value of the firms' free permit endowment and their relative allowance position. We find that amounts traded are mostly driven by market-specific factors. In contrast to the literature on the firm-level determinants of the general goods trade we do not find self-selection into trading.


The rapidly increasing use of mobile devices for sensing applications, and the growing amount of simulated data generated from simulation tools such as agent-based transport simulations results in massive spatiotemporal datasets. Therefore, the demand for applications to manage and to visualize this data effectively in an interactive and easily understandable way increases quickly. Spatiotemporal visualization has long been recognized as being able to provide a suitable solution for creating such applications. However it remains a challenging task to combine such a visualization with interactive operation. In this paper, we describe MetroBuzz, a prototype system designed for visualizing large amounts of spatiotemporal data, and for interacting with the dataset in a way that is both interesting from a scientific viewpoint as well as for a broader non-expert audience. At its core, MetroBuzz generalizes activities in urban networks, specified as origin-destination trip information in terms of series of line segments in 3D space. These 3D elements are stored in a spatial index that allows quick retrieval of relevant data. Based on this, we implemented interactive tools to define queries on the spatial index in an intuitive manner. We show how such tools can be applied in the case of large transport simulation datasets.


Abstract Language learners often require appropriate scaffolding to engage in digital multimodal composing to maximise its potential for learning. This illuminates the need for pre-service teachers to be ready for these experiences both on teaching placements and at the beginning of their careers. However, little is known about their readiness for digital multimodal composing in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. Drawing on a case study of an after-school program for primary school English as an Additional Language (EAL) students, facilitated by four pre-service teachers, this article explores their perspectives on engaging EAL students in digital multimodal composing. The study found that pre-service teachers recognised that digital multimodal composing is valuable for language learners; however, they struggled to name more specific literacy benefits afforded by digital multimodal composing. For all participants in this study, students' engagement with digital interfaces stood out as the main challenge but they had limited concerns about other aspects of digital multimodal composing. While they effectively scaffolded students' learning in relation to the challenges that they recognised using more general pedagogical approaches, other dimensions of digital multimodal composing were often left unattended. The article concludes with a number of implications for preparation of teachers working with language learners.


Background: Improving students competence to provide appropriate knowledge and skills to deal with professional works becomes a challange in education nowdays. Objectives: This research is aimed to develop and implement an inovative learning material to be used as learning media in the teaching and learning activities to improve students' competence on chemistry. Materials and Methods: The procedures consist of the development and standardization of an innovative learning material with tasks instructions, preparation of research instruments of questionnaire and evaluation tests and implementation of an innovative learning material for teaching and learning activities in the class. Relevant contextual examples, laboratory works, students' activities, media and multimedia and hyperlink to trustworthy websites were integrated into a set of chemistry material to achieve innovative learning material. The instruction for students tasks was also included into the learning package to guide the students to achieve learning goal. Results and Conclusion: Set of learning package has been implemented as learning media in the experimental class on the teaching of chemistry. Compared to control class that used the existing textbook, students' performance in the experimental class was higher than that in control class. An innovative leaning package was discovered to be effective to guide the students to learn chemistry independently. The learning facilities integrated in the learning material help the students to understand chemistry concepts easily. The students enthusiastic to learn chemistry and familiar to use scientific documents to complete the given tasks, as well as having improved ability to write and organize their assignments. Innovative learning material has transformed the chemistry teaching and learning practice from lecturer oriented to students oriented.


How much can employers in low and middle-income countries suppress wages below marginal productivity? Using plant and customs data from Colombia, we exploit predetermined variation across plants in sales export destination combined with variation in exchange rates to generate plant-specific shocks to marginal revenue productivity and labor demand. We estimate a firm-level labor supply elasticity of around 2.5, implying that workers produce about 40% more than their wage level. Our results indicate that Colombian and US manufacturers have a comparable degree of labor market power.


Tobamoviruses are serious pathogens because they have extremely stable virions, they are transmitted by contact, and they often induce severe disease in crops. Knowledge of the routes of transmission and resilience of tobamovirus virions is essential in understanding the epidemiology of this group of viruses. We used an isolate of the tobamovirus yellow tailflower mild mottle virus (YTMMV) to examine root-to-root transmission in soil and in a hydroponic growth environment. Root-to-root transmission occurred rarely, and when it occurred plants did not exhibit systemic movement of the virus from the roots to the shoots over a 30-day period. The resilience of YTMMV virions was tested in dried leaf tissue over time periods from one hour to one year under temperatures ranging from -80°C to 160°C. Infectivity was maintained for at least a year when incubated at -80°C, 22°C or at fluctuating ambient temperatures of 0.8°C to 44.4°C, but incubation under dry conditions at 160°C for >4 days eliminated infectivity. Exposure of virions to 0.1 M sodium hydroxide or 20% w/v skim milk solution for 30 min, treatments recommended for tobamovirus inactivation, did not abolish infectivity of YTMMV.


Twenty-six species of gastropods (terrestrial, shell-bearing snails and slugs) were recorded at the 'Evolution Canyon' microsite, lower Nahal Oren, Mount Carmel, Israel. Twenty-five species were recorded at the temperate, mesic north-facing slope (NFS) and 20 species at the xeric south-facing slope (SFS). Out of these species, six were NFS specific (Pilorcula raymondi hebraica, Euchondrus septemdentatus, Monacha crispulata, Pyramidula rupestris hierosolymitana, Truncatellina haasi, and Vitrea contracta) and one was SFS specific (Prolimax eustrictus). The interslope difference was probably partly due to missing forest species at the SFS in comparison with the NFS. Twenty-two species were Levantine endemics (84.6%) and four species were more widely distributed in the Palaearctic region (15.4%). The Levantine species are inhabitants of the mesic and mainly mountainous regions, but four species (Granopupa granum, Calaxis hierosolymarum, Cecilioides acicula, and Helix engaddensis) also penetrate the deserts. Seven species (Buliminus labrosus, H. engaddensis, Levantina spiriplana caesareana, Metafruticicola fourousi, Monacha syriaca, Sphincterochila cariosa, and Xeropicta vestalis joppensis) were significantly more abundant on the SFS than on the NFS. The local physical microclimatic sharp divergence leads to gastropod adaptive interslope biotic divergence caused by natural selection. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 147–155.


This chapter focuses on the nature of the L2 initial mental grammatical system and the related question to what extent L2 learners transfer syntactic structures from their L1 at the L2 initial state. Transfer is viewed within the overall context of a model of the L2 initial mental grammatical system, which is claimed to be underdeveloped and highly constrained. The constraints are spelled out in the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis (Lenzing, 2013) and it is argued that they do not allow for full transfer at the initial state. In keeping with this, the perspective on transfer adopted here is the Developmentally Moderated Transfer Hypothesis (Pienemann, 1998; Pienemann et al., 2005a) and its claim that transfer is constrained by processability. The results of an empirical study of early L2 learners of English with German as L1 are presented that provide support for (a) the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis and (b) the Developmentally Moderated Transfer Hypothesis. In particular, the results indicate that at the initial state of L2 acquisition, L1 transfer merely plays a minor role, as learners predominantly rely on single words, formulaic sequences and both lexically and structurally restricted idiosyncratic utterances.


Older Americans, even those who are long retired, have strong willingness to work, especially in jobs with flexible schedules. For many, labor force participation near or after normal retirement age is limited more by a lack of acceptable job opportunities or low expectations about finding them than by unwillingness to work longer. This paper establishes these findings using an approach to identification based on strategic survey questions, purposefully designed to complement behavioral data. These findings suggest that demand-side factors are important in explaining late-in-life labor market behavior and need to be considered in designing policies aimed at promoting working longer. (JEL D91, J15, J22, J26)


Video users in a multicast group may be highly heterogeneous in terms of individual channel conditions and requirements for video transmission, making it a challenging task for the network to optimally configure the resource management. In this paper, we consider a mathematical model for the choice of the optimum number of transmission opportunities, based on a Markov chain representation of the wireless channel, where each channel state is associated to a different quality corresponding to a choice of video layer and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS). In case of multicast transmissions, the selection of the video layer is based on the aggregate channel conditions of all users and a collection of coordination rules. We evaluate how the cross-layer optimisation performs and we also define a taxonomy of user quality perception. We further investigate how users' satisfaction levels vary in the multicast session. Performance evaluation results show that cross-layer optimisation significantly outperforms sequential and independent scheme for multicast video transmissions, conforming the strong need for cross-layer solutions in video transmission, however, this improvement is heavily related to the resource allocation policy of the operator.


The thesis examines the American career of William Duane (1760-1835) in the light of his earlier, and much less studied period in Ireland, England and India. It is the study of the development of one of America's pre-eminent newspaper editors. Although Duane is not a first-tier figure of the Early Republican period such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton, he certainly fits comfortably within the second-tier with men such as James Thomson Callender, Tench Coxe, John Binns and William Cobbett. He is an important figure within the historiography on the Early Republican period which has come out in recent years. He has an important role in three recent and seminal works on the period by Durey, Wilson and Pasley: Transatlantic Radicals, United Irishmen, United States and "The Tyranny of Printers".

This is a study of the identity of Duane measured against his political change and shifting sense of self. It seeks to answer the question: Who was William Duane? The thesis probes the question in depth by looking at Duane's origins and then tracing his life in 1790s Philadelphia. The portrayal of Duane found in the recent historiography and in the first academic biography of Duane, Kim T. Phillips' William Duane: A Radical Journalist in the Age of Jefferson, lets Duane's version of self rest too easily, without interrogating how he constructed his identity within an American political context for an American reading audience. For example, although Duane constructed himself as a citizen of the United States by birth, the thesis maintains that he was not an U.S. citizen at all but was born in Newfoundland and was by eighteenth-century definitions a British subject.

The thesis offers a great deal more detailed archival research within the above framework. First, it develops Duane's familial relationships in his early life in much more detail than before. I have uncovered more details on his life from numerous sources, particularly letters, and a careful, textual search for any information on Duane's earlier career in Ireland and England in the 1780s which has been overlooked by previous researchers. The thesis then places this material in the context of the newspaper trade in 1780s Clonmel and London while building a narrative analysis of this period before moving on to India.

Second, this thesis demonstrates Duane's links to the East India Company army. The importance of Duane's Indian career also lies in his being part of a wider chronology of deported editors and government suppression of the press within the period from 1780 to 1799. The place of Duane within an ignored history of radical migrations to India is also dealt with as is his emergence as a pro revolutionary editor in Calcutta after the declaration of war in 1793.

Third, the thesis uncovers a great deal more archival information on the period of Duane's membership of the London Corresponding Society and his editorship of the Telegraph – a strongly pro-French newspaper in wartime London. This period was a short but crucial one for Duane as he witnessed first-hand the last real throes of a British revolutionary movement and the enactment of two important bills which sought to smother the L.C.S. and the other plebeian radical groups.

Fourth, the thesis examines Duane's role in what has been perceived as a crucial turning point in American history – the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency in 1800. The thesis seeks to understand what Duane's impact on American politics was and how his earlier career shaped his political outlook and his actions in America. It seeks to denativise the Early Republican Period by pointing out outside currents that Duane used in defining what Americanness was as opposed to his conceptualisation of Federalism and Britain.

Finally, the thesis argues that the story of William Duane is one of an eighteenthcentury editor's transoceanic search for a home.


The present study focuses on water-borne conidial fungi associated with leaf litter in riparian tree holes of the west coast (Konaje) and Western Ghats (Sampaje) of India during dry (summer) and wet (monsoon) seasons. Out of a total of 34 fungal taxa recovered from leaf litter trapped in tree holes, 26 fully identified taxa constitute the first record for the tree hole habitat. Paired t-test revealed no significant difference in number of taxa (P = 0.1177) and conidial output (P = 0.1816) between Konaje and Sampaje tree holes, while they significantly differed between seasons of Konaje (P = 0.0258) and Sampaje (P = 0.0206). The Simpson and Shannon diversity of fungi were highest in Sampaje than Konaje tree holes. Tree-wise diversity of fungi revealed that banyan (Ficus benghalensis) tree holes are highly diverse during the summer and monsoon seasons in Konaje, but only during summer in Sampaje. In spite of a low conidial output, tree hole leaf litter of Konaje yielded 18 taxa against 20 taxa in the Konaje stream, wheras 29 taxa were recorded in Sampaje tree holes against 68 taxa in the Sampaje stream. The current study has been compared with earlier investigations on the occurrence of water-borne conidial fungi in tree canopies (e. g. intact leaves, leaf litter, tree holes, stemflow and throughfall).


Abstract Since Belarus is rich in sphagnum bogs it is extremely important to develop ways to use the resources of sphagnum mosses with a number of useful properties. Sphagnum is the only genus in the class Sphagnopsida and includes 36 Bryophyta species in Belarus. Sphagnum mosses, which are widespread in Belarus, have great potential for possible use in contaminated water purification from various hydrophilic and hydrophobic solvents and salt solutions, in light industry and agriculture (considering the need of their renewal).


Recently, various methods have been introduced to address the OOD detection problem with training outlier exposure. These methods usually count on discriminative softmax metric or energy method to screen OOD samples. In this paper, we probe an alternative hypothesis on OOD detection by constructing a novel latent variable model based on independent component analysis (ICA) techniques. This novel method named Conditional-i builds upon the probabilistic formulation, and applies the Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criteria that offers a convenient solution for optimizing variable dependencies. Conditional-i exclusively encodes the useful class condition into the probabilistic model, which provides the desired convenience in delivering theoretical support for the OOD detection task. To facilitate the implementation of the Conditional-i model, we construct unique memory bank architectures that allow for convenient end-to-end training within a tractable budget. Empirical results demonstrate an evident performance boost on benchmarks against SOTA methods. We also provide valuable theoretical justifications that our training strategy is guaranteed to bound the error in the context of OOD detection. Code is available at: https://github.com/OODHSIC/conditional-i.


This study examined the establishment of coherence relations by Persian EFL learners in their reading of stories. 201 undergraduate EFL learners read narrative passages and selected appropriate coherence elements of different types necessary for the proper construction of meaning. The results demonstrated a consistent pattern of a text-specific hierarchy for the comprehension of conjunctive relations across learners with different proficiency levels. More specifically, adversatives were found to be the easiest connectors by all the three groups followed by causals as the second easiest, then sequentials as the third and more difficult, and additives as the most difficult markers. The results have both theoretical and practical applications and implications for the 'model building' hypotheses on the one hand, and reading comprehension and instruction on the other.


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A long-term archive of clear-sky Meteosat "water vapor" observations, covering the July 1983 to February 1997 period with a 3 hourly time step and a spatial resolution of 0.625°, is presented. Cloud clearing is performed using a scene selection procedure based on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project DX product. In this procedure low cloud scenes are kept because of the negligible contribution of the low atmospheric layer in this spectral band. Cloud contamination is shown to have little influence on the clear-sky radiance (CSR) field and is mainly confined to the continental Intertropical Convergence Zone with values less than 0.5 K. This scene selection yields to a significantly enhanced sampling with respect to pure clear-sky in the subtropical high regions. Homogenization of the 14 year database is performed in accordance with existing technique. A comparison to the operational radiosondes archive indicates a small bias of 0.3 K that is stable throughout the period. A first analysis of the CSR variability reveals that the intraseasonal variance over the subtropical dry regions has a strong seasonal cycle in the Northern Hemisphere that is not observed in the Southern Hemisphere. Such a data set completes the ones currently available to document the water vapor variability of the troposphere from climatic down to regional and daily scales.


This study suggests an approach to adapt the KGE through transformation with a Gamma distribution so that it can be better used as an informal likelihood function in calibration procedures. The study finds that the results and inference behavior when using this adapted KGE measure are very similar to the case when using the RMSE as a likelihood function. In a synthetic case study, it is also shown that the presented approach successfully re-infers the known true parameter values.


Java 5.0, code-named "Tiger", promises to be the most significant new version of Java since the introduction of the language. With over a hundred substantial changes to the core language, as well as numerous library and API additions, developers have a variety of new features, facilities, and techniques available. But with so many changes, where do you start? You could read through the lengthy, often boring language specification; you could wait for the latest 500 page tome on concepts and theory; you could even play around with the new JDK, hoping you figure things out--or you can get straight to work with Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook. This no-nonsense, down-and-dirty guide by bestselling Java authors Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan skips all the boring prose and lecture, and jumps right into Tiger. You'll have a handle on the important new features of the language by the end of the first chapter, and be neck-deep in code before you hit the halfway point. Using the task-oriented format of this new series, you'll get complete practical coverage of generics, learn how boxing and unboxing affects your type conversions, understand the power of varargs, learn how to write enumerated types and annotations, master Java's new formatting methods and the for/in loop, and even get a grip on concurrency in the JVM. Light on theory and long on practical application, Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook allows you to cut to the chase, getting straight to work with Tiger's new features. The new Developer's Notebooks series from O'Reilly covers important new tools for software developers. Emphasizing example over explanation and practice over theory, they focus on learning by doing--you'll get the goods straight from the masters, in an informal and code-intensive style that suits developers. If you've been curious about Tiger, but haven't known where to start, this no-fluff, lab-style guide is the solution.


This thesis includes theoretical contributions to organisational studies and medical sociology, drawn from a three levelled ethnographic case study of commissioning by General Medical Practitioners in the setting of the English National Health service. In order to locate these levels as interrelated structures, the concept of "field" (Bourdieu, 2005, Fligstein, 2001, Fligstein and McAdam, 2012, Lewin, 1997 [1951]) is used. Jens Beckert (2010) has developed a framework in which cognitive frames, networks, and rules are in a relationship of irreducible interdependency. The definitions of analytic categories in the extant framework are under-developed. In this thesis, the framework is empirically applied to add definition to the analytic category "cognitive frame". Beckert's Framework and Weick's (Weick, 1995, Weick, 2000, Weick et al., 2005) Sensemaking Perspective are intersected to develop a reciprocal relationship between the two theories. By conceptualising cognitive frame as a sensemaking process, insight is gained in three different but overlapping facets: wider contexts, temporality, and distributed sensemaking. At the level of an industry a cognitive frame can be described as a sensemaking type, which will have constituent sensemaking styles associated with that industries internal networks. When rules require organisations from separate industries or sectors to form partnerships then actors with different sensemaking types will be required to interact within one network. Organisational development techniques can be used to support and align sensemaking in both of these circumstances. Sensegivers may have an important role in pacing, including suspending, sensemaking. The thesis also contains insights for medical sociology in respect of how and why GPs commission as they do. These relate to the impact of belonging to the NHS family; differing permutations of changes to the profession (hybridisation, restratification, and the delimitation of autonomy) in GP networks; GP compliance with rules; and the characteristics of an inner-city GP workforce.


During the last decade and a half, American higher education has invested about 70 Billion Dollars in information technology goods and services, as much as 20 Billion Dollars of which has gone to the support of teaching and learning. But despite the size of this investment in instructional technology, numerous examples of innovative and successful instructional applications, and a growing comfort level with technology among both faculty and students, instructional technology has not been widely adopted by faculty, nor has it become deeply integrated into the curriculum. By some estimates, no more than five percent of faculty utilize information technology in their teaching as anything more than a "high tech" substitute for blackboard and chalk, overhead projectors, and photocopied handouts. Promising innovations rarely propagate beyond the innovators themselves. This paper examines the broad range of factors that underlie the failure of instructional technology to penetrate the curriculum more widely than it has. Particular attention is paid to the social barriers that impede the diffusion and adoption of promising innovations in instructional technology, and to the unintended manner in which well-meaning efforts to support the development and diffusion of instructional technology by IT support organizations and technology vendors have frequently undermined adoption by mainstream faculty.


This book reveals the changing subject(s) and object(s) of commodification. It traces how the academic discourse evolved, both in its treatment of commodification as an academic topic (subject) of study and in its views of the purpose (object) of commodification; as well as how the discourse evolved in its views of the subject in a relationship of commodification (the owner) and the object in a relationship of commodification (the thing owned). The book begins by establishing a canon of commodification discourse. Debates over commodification have occurred primarily within two disciplinary frameworks: economics and cultural studies. We review the foundational works of scholars in these fields. We observe that in the two decades since these works surfaced, the subject and object of commodification have taken a distinctly cultural turn. What might broadly be called a cultural studies approach animates much of the new commodification scholarship published herein. For these scholars, commodification and culture are indelibly linked. The cultural study of commodities in motion focuses on the changing meaning of the commodity as it passes through various local and global circuits, including markets. Cultural studies theorists argue that, in many cases, individual agents, not just the hegemonic market, control those meanings. Thus, commodities are in motion both literally and figuratively. As they pass through various physical spaces, they also undergo semiotic changes. A new age of freedom through commodification, or what Arjun Appadurai has termed commodity resistance? According to some, yes. Read as a whole, the essays in the latter half of this volume suggest an emerging new conception of human flourishing itself: today, demands for equality include a right to compensation and control in the world's markets. This rhetoric hearkens back to old-style market-liberationism. The question is if, and how, they are different.


Problem, research strategy, and findings: College campuses are multimodal settings with very high levels of walking and biking in conjunction with high levels of vehicular traffic, which increases risks for bicyclists and pedestrians. In this study, we examine crash data (both police reported and self-reported) and urban form data from three U.S. campuses to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of crashes on the campuses and their immediate periphery. To account for underreporting of pedestrian and bicycle crashes, we developed and circulated an online survey, which helped identify collision hotspots across the three campuses. We then studied these locations to determine their characteristics, generate a typology of campus danger zones, and recommend design and policy changes that could improve pedestrian and cycling safety. We find a significant underreporting of crashes, and unequal spatial and temporal distributions of campus crashes. We identify three particular types of danger zones for pedestrians and cyclists: campus activity hubs, campus access hubs, and through traffic hubs. Injuries tended to be more serious for those crashes taking place on campus peripheries. Takeaway for practice: The intermingling of motorized and non-motorized modes creates significant opportunities for crashes. Planners should be aware of the existing underreporting and give special attention to the three types of danger zones. In addition to the recommendations of the literature for the creation of campus master plans for walking and biking, campuses should conduct safety audits and surveys to identify hotspots and consider specific design improvements for each of the three danger zones to lessen modal conflict.


The research aimed to determine the effect of interaction giving palm oil waste sludge and NPKMg (15:15:6:4) fertilizer on Ultisol and get the best treatment to the growth of palm oil ( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) seedlings in main nursery. The research was conducted at the experimental field of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Riau. This research was conducted from March to July 2015. The research used Completely Randomized Design factorial that consisting of two factors. The first factor is palm oil waste sludge (S) consists of 4 levels. The second factor is the NPKMg (15:15:6:4) fertilizer (P) consists of 3 levels. Both these factors resulted in 12 treatment combinations, each combination made 3 replications, so that there are 36 experimental units. Each experimental unit consisted of 2 plants, so the total crop was 72 plants. Parameters measured were the increase seedling height, the number of leaves increase, the increase hump diameter, leaf area, root volume and dry weight. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance and further tested using Duncan`s New Multiple Range Test at the level of 5%.The results of the research showed that there is interaction between giving application palm oil waste sludge and NPKMg fertilizer on increase of seed hump diameter dan seed dry weight. Combination treatment of sludge dose with 100 g/plant and NPKMg fertilizer with 10,5 g/plant is the best treatment that can be recommended to get the growth palm oil seedling in main nursery on Ultisol. Keywords: palm oil, growth, Ultisol, palm oil waste sludge, NPKMg fertilizer


Abstract Within the context of contemporary concerns about ecological degradation and debates about water use for irrigation, this article examines how and why commercial rice growing began in the Murrumbidgee River region, New South Wales. It focuses on the crop's establishment and rapid expansion from approximately 1900 to 1960 and concentrates on three events, which each significantly shaped commercial rice growing: the problems faced by the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area during its first years of operation, the introduction of Californian varieties of rice, and World War II. This history of rice growing reveals some of the changing connections between regional, state, national, and global concerns about food and water. The analysis builds on Marnie Haig-Muir's 1996 examination of the economic forces that influenced rice growing in Wakool, located in the Murray River valley, during World War II, taking a different geographical perspective, a broader temporal view, and emphasising the importance of considering the cultural dimensions of the establishment of rice growing. It expands previous histories of water management and irrigation in Australia by examining historical agricultural publications related to rice. This history is relevant to contemporary issues around rice farming and the Murray-Darling Basin, and this article explores the ways in which the history of rice has shaped the contemporary political and physical landscape.


In an otherwise masterful document, the Founding Fathers created the vice presidency with almost no thought as to how it would fit into the structure of the new federal government. The office was, in fact, a constitutional afterthought designed solely to provide a president-in-reserve, and for 200 years it languished in obscurity, derision, and irrelevance. This is the story of how Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale changed all that. By 1976 I had known Walter Mondale for 15 years. Although we were separated in age by nearly a decade, we shared a Norwegian heritage, a love of politics in the progressive Minnesota tradition, and an appreciation for dry humor. In 1972 Mondale had sensed that I was ready to move on after three years as chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. He asked me to come to Washington to head his Senate office and, not incidentally, help him prepare for a possible run for the presidency. I gladly accepted, and it turned out to be a good fit. We worked together well, and I became more convinced than ever that he had, and deserved, a future in national politics. In the late spring of 1976, I was not alone in concluding that he might be well positioned to become that year's Democratic vice-presidential nominee. Jimmy Carter had just come from nowhere to the brink of securing the party's presidential nomination. Hubert H. Humphrey, Minnesota's other U.S. senator who had narrowly lost the presidency in 1968 but never fully lost his presidential ambitions, had just announced that he would not enter the late 1976 primaries, as he had been sorely tempted to do. Humphrey's decision meant that Mondale, his close friend and protege, was now free to think about a position on the ticket for himself. It was not an implausible idea. Carter was a pro-civil rights, moderate governor from the South who had never served in Washington; Mondale was a northern liberal who had spent more than a decade in the U.S. Senate. National tickets had traditionally been constructed to "balance" such factors, so if Carter wanted to continue that practice, he would be hard pressed to find a better balance than Mondale could provide. There was only one problem with this seemingly compelling idea: Mondale was totally uninterested. In fact, he wanted no part of it. He had recently concluded an unhappy, year-long presidential "exploratory" effort, which he ended for a variety of personal and political reasons, including, famously, his lack of affection for Holiday Inns. He was well into the process of re-engaging in the business of the Senate, and he was finding particular satisfaction in the work of the Select Committee on Intelligence, which was then immersed in an unprecedented examination of the FBI and the CIA. Why, he argued, should he consider giving up an institution he loved (and, he didn't need to add, a very safe seat in that institution) for an office that had been the subject of derision and bad jokes for nearly two centuries? Most pointedly, he noted the slights, humiliations, and generally bad treatment that Humphrey had suffered in the Johnson White House, the same kind of treatment then being visited on Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in Gerald Ford's White House. Why, he asked me, should he trade his independence as a senator for an office of total dependency and no prescribed duties except presiding over the Senate, where he could only vote to break ties? A good deal of history in addition to this logic was on Mondale's side of the argument. Going all the way back to John Adams, the nation's first vice president, it was difficult, if not impossible, to come up with an occupant of the office who had anything approaching a happy experience. After many hours of discussion, it was fair to say that Mondale's position on the matter was becoming entrenched and showed no visible signs of softening. Unable to persuade him of the merits of an idea that were so obvious to me, I decided to seek help. …


Despite significant strides to minimize lead in our air, water, soil, food, homes, workplaces, and consumer products, sporadic and systemic lead poisoning persists in industrial societies, e.g., the contemporary Flint (Michigan, USA) municipal water tragedy. Because lead exposure is cumulative, the sum of exposure from all sources, it is important to document and update potential community or neighborhood exposure levels from such environmental compartments as air, water, soil, food, and housing. Here we present ambient airborne lead levels in El Paso, Texas, USA, parsed by particulate matter (PM) size fraction, geography, and season. Dichotomous samplers at 8 stations collected PM continuously for 1-week periods for nearly 4 years. Overall, airborne annual lead exposure throughout El Paso County is low, well within US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines. There is considerably more lead in the coarse fraction (PM10-PM2.5) than in the fine fraction (PM2.5 and lower), indicating decreased effective human exposures because the coarse fraction does not penetrate as deeply into the pulmonary system as finer particles. Re-entrained soil has previously been identified as the source of airborne lead in El Paso; the concentration of lead in the coarse PM is consistent with this observation. Seasonally, fall-winter lead levels are highest, due to PM trapping by temperature inversions, followed by spring and summer. Geospatially, higher lead levels characterize sampling stations in older and more commercial neighborhoods, also consistent with published maps of soil lead levels throughout the city and county. At present, airborne lead can be considered to be only a minor source of lead exposure for typical El Paso residents.


Large numbers of bats are killed by collisions with wind turbines, and there is at present no direct method of reducing or preventing this mortality. We therefore determine whether the electromagnetic radiation associated with radar installations can elicit an aversive behavioural response in foraging bats. Four civil air traffic control (ATC) radar stations, three military ATC radars and three weather radars were selected, each surrounded by heterogeneous habitat. Three sampling points matched for habitat type and structure, dominant vegetation species, altitude and surrounding land class were located at increasing distances from each station. A portable electromagnetic field meter measured the field strength of the radar at three distances from the source: in close proximity (<200 m) with a high electromagnetic field (EMF) strength >2 volts/metre, an intermediate point within line of sight of the radar (200–400 m) and with an EMF strength <2 v/m, and a control site out of sight of the radar (>400 m) and registering an EMF of zero v/m. At each radar station bat activity was recorded three times with three independent sampling points monitored on each occasion, resulting in a total of 90 samples, 30 of which were obtained within each field strength category. At these sampling points, bat activity was recorded using an automatic bat recording station, operated from sunset to sunrise. Bat activity was significantly reduced in habitats exposed to an EMF strength of greater than 2 v/m when compared to matched sites registering EMF levels of zero. The reduction in bat activity was not significantly different at lower levels of EMF strength within 400 m of the radar. We predict that the reduction in bat activity within habitats exposed to electromagnetic radiation may be a result of thermal induction and an increased risk of hyperthermia.


Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.) is a perennial leguminous evergreen tree native to the coastal regions of the Mediterranean basin and is considered to be an important component of vegetation for economic and environmental reasons. Two constituents of the pod, pulp and seeds, can be used as feed or in food production. In this study, drying characteristics, texture and microstructure of carob pods were studied. Three different carob samples were prepared: whole carob pod, carob pod parts and carob seed. The drying experiments and the modelling showed that carob seeds had the highest drying rate, followed by pod parts and the whole, intact carob fruit. Texture studies showed that the maximum compression force depended on the area of the carob fruit on which compression tests were performed. The seeds showed the highest compression force, followed by the stem zone, the tip and the centre of the fruit. Differences in drying behaviour and texture of carob pods can successfully be interpreted by the micromorphology of the carob pods and seeds. Determining the drying rate, maximum compressive force and micromorphological traits is of great importance for further carob processing (e.g. milling, sieving, carob bean gum production or usage in food or feed products).


Translators' agency is defined in this paper as the willingness and ability to act after active
negotiations with various actors (humans and
non-humans alike), highlighting the translator's
power over other actors involved in each translation activity, namely, his or
her intentional acceptance or refusal of the influence from external
constraints. What is being investigated, is not what influence the translator's agency exerts, but the
extent to which its influence (or 'weight') is exerted upon the final product. We bear these
two questions in mind: (1) Does the translator's agency
influence all stages of the translation process[1]? (2) If it does not, in which stages does it
exert influence and to what extent? Which stages does it not exert influence
and what other agencies exert their influences at these stages? Drawing on
available studies and archival primary sources and adopting Latour's
Actor-Network Theory to make sense of the findings, this article tries to assess the different extents to which a translator could exercise their agency, by determining the interplay between
translators and other actors in the translation network of Chinese
Literature. The findings of this report are that translators can exercise no agency in the selection, editing and
revision stages, because they can't participate in these. It is in the
translation stage, that translators can participate and have the chance to
negotiate with other actors. Translators can often exercise their agency to the
largest extent, here, regardless of how powerful other actors might be.


Feminism, like all other critical theories based in political action, thrives on debate. Indeed, it is through debate that feminist theory and practice have evolved to incorporate the changing circumstances of women's lives. Despite the range of ideologies and political practices that have always characterized feminist praxis, mainstream depictions of feminism continue to depict it as a dogmatic politic that is resistant to criticism. Mainstream media tends to present a united feminist position that is directed by an elite group who purport to speak for all women. This conspiratorial image of the women's movement ignores the debates that occur in feminist organizations and coalitions. It does not acknowledge that feminist ideologies have changed dramatically since the emergence of the contemporary women's movement in the 1960s. Nor does it recognize that feminist institutions and organizations have, accordingly, adapted structurally in order to reflect better the diversity that exists within the women's movement.Much of feminist writing has focussed on ways to make the women's movement more representative of the women for whom it speaks. Coupled with the concern about making the women's movement inclusive are questions about what sort of strategies will address the immediate needs of women without losing sight of the need for radical social change. The books under review for this article add to an extensive list of feminist anthologies that present the debates of the past three decades of feminist theory and action. They reflect on the gains made by women's political action, question areas the women's movement has failed to address, and propose strategies for change that consider the day-to-day realities of women's lives.Students of the Canadian feminism are taught that the women's movement has been active on two distinct, albeit interrelated, fronts: the grass-roots women's liberation movement and institutionalized feminist organizations. Women who espoused radical feminist ideologies sought to bring about social change through autonomous women's organizing and the creation of alternative services for women through grass-roots organizing. Their work was complemented and abetted by women who chose to work within existing institutions and political structures, and whose efforts prompted the federal government to strike the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) in 1967.(f.1) The Final Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada is among the most significant documents of the Canadian women's movement because it ushered in a new era of feminist engagement with the state. The ramifications of the report do not lie in the past. The RCSW, the consequent founding of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the creation of federal and provincial bureaus to act as liaisons between the government and women's organizations established a unique relationship between the women's movement and the Canadian State. Dubbed the insider/outsider model, this strategy for change is premised on the belief that a critical mass of feminists working within the institutions of the state will ensure that the agendas of women's organizations will be addressed by governments.Twenty years after the report was tabled, a group of activists and academics met at the University of Ottawa to discuss how the intensification and institutionalization of the links between the feminist movement and the state had affected women's lives. The key question of the conference was whether the relationship between the women's movement and the state had helped or hindered feminist agendas. The papers given at the conference are the content of Women and the Canadian State/Les Femmes et L'Etat Canadien. The book is divided between those who defend the insider/outsider model, and those who argue that a more critical analysis of feminist engagement with the state is needed. The issues considered at the conference included theoretical debates about the impact of state initiatives on women's lives and the women's movement, the relationship between First Nations women and the state, family policy, pay equity, immigration and human rights. …


Furosemide kinetics was studied in camels (Camelus dromedarms). The drug was injected intramuscularly (i.m.) and intravenously (i.v.) at doses of 0.5 mg/kg or 1.5 mg/kg. The mean terminal elimination half life ranged from 50.2 min (0.5 mg/kg, i.m.) to 119 min (1.5 mg/kg, i.v.). The average systemic clearance and the steady state volume of distribution were higher when the 1.5 mg/kg dose was administered. Peak furosemide plasma concentration was achieved in about 20 min after i.m. dosing. The glucuronide metabolite of furosemide was not detected in plasma. The mean absolute bioavailability of furosemide administered i.m. ranged from 47% (0.5 mg/kg) to 71% (1.5 mg/kg). It appears that some aspects of the kinetics of furosemide in camels may be different from that in other animals such as the horse.


This study investigates the strong photoluminescence (PL) and X-ray excited optical luminescence observed in nitrogen-functionalized 2D graphene nanoflakes (GNFs:N), which arise from the significantly enhanced density of states in the region of π states and the gap between π and π* states. The increase in the number of the sp2 clusters in the form of pyridine-like N–C, graphite-N-like, and the C═O bonding and the resonant energy transfer from the N and O atoms to the sp2 clusters were found to be responsible for the blue shift and the enhancement of the main PL emission feature. The enhanced PL is strongly related to the induced changes of the electronic structures and bonding properties, which were revealed by the X-ray absorption near-edge structure, X-ray emission spectroscopy, and resonance inelastic X-ray scattering. The study demonstrates that PL emission can be tailored through appropriate tuning of the nitrogen and oxygen contents in GNFs and pave the way for new optoelectronic devices.


Abstract The international order of territory-based sovereign nation-states (Westphalia) has been in transition towards a so-called 'post-Westphalian order', but pre-Westphalian structures still prevail. This has been most relevant in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in the Persian Gulf. This coincides with the increasingly delicate (im)balance of power and the changing role of the state in the Persian Gulf, expressed in such narratives as the decline of the state, the United States 'withdrawal' from the region as well as the Iranian-Saudi 'Cold War.' The paper aims at analysing war and peace in this context of the transition of the international order and the regional (im)balance of power, and highlights that war or peace in the Persian Gulf will be the outcome of the competitive multi-polarity of traditional and modern, pre-Westphalian, Westphalian and post-Westphalian actors and factors, where the modalities and methodology of all will play a role.


This section of the Quarterly is reserved for brief reports of research in progress, discussions of unsolved problems, methodological studies, and public opinion data not extensively analyzed or interpreted. Succinct case histories are welcomed, as well as hypotheses and insights that may be useful to other students of public opinion. Usually, material in this section will be shorter, more informal, and more tentative than in the preceding pages of the Quarterly.


Data science can offer huge opportunities for government. With the ability to process larger and more complex datasets than ever before, it can provide better insights for policymakers and make services more tailored and efficient. As with all new technologies, there is a risk that we do not take up its opportunities and miss out on its enormous potential. We want people to feel confident to innovate with data. So, over the past 18 months, the Government Data Science Partnership has taken an open, evidence-based and user-centred approach to creating an ethical framework. It is a practical document that brings all the legal guidance together in one place, and is written in the context of new data science capabilities. As part of its development, we ran a public dialogue on data science ethics, including deliberative workshops, an experimental conjoint survey and an online engagement tool. The research supported the principles set out in the framework as well as provided useful insight into how we need to communicate about data science. It found that people had a low awareness of the term 'data science', but that showing data science examples can increase broad support for government exploring innovative uses of data. But people's support is highly context driven. People consider acceptability on a case-by-case basis, first thinking about the overall policy goals and likely intended outcome, and then weighing up privacy and unintended consequences. The ethical framework is a crucial start, but it does not solve all the challenges it highlights, particularly as technology is creating new challenges and opportunities every day. Continued research is needed into data minimization and anonymization, robust data models, algorithmic accountability, and transparency and data security. It also has revealed the need to set out a renewed deal between the citizen and state on data, to maintain and solidify trust in how we use people's data for social good. This article is part of the themed issue 'The ethical impact of data science'.


Abstract Including sustainability criteria for making decisions in project management poses challenges in the areas of bioenergy, biotherapeutics, and biomaterials. This is mainly due to chemical heterogeneity of bio-based materials, technoeconomic feasibility, and triple constraint of time, cost, and product quality. However, bio-based technologies create opportunities as sustainable processes because they involve upvaluation of locally available renewable and biodegradable materials. This work was conducted to identify challenges and opportunities in incorporating project management tools in bioproduct development with the goal of integrating measurable sustainability criteria scores in decision-making. The scores or metrics from these tools can be used by project managers for decision-making in engineering process scale-up, evaluation of social impact, and commercialization of processing technologies.


Indonesian banking sector has recently been suffering from bad debt and liquidity problems. Crisis since 1997 has impoverished bank's performance and reduced shareholder wealth. The deterioration of bank's performance with respect to bank's purpose to be an intermediation agent also affects the wealth of stakeholders, especially depositors. Agency problem has severe effects on bank's performance. Openness policy especially in bank ownership structure also has an effect on competition between banks. Globalization forces early openness on banking industry, therefore foreign ownership in banking industry becomes usual in Indonesia. Central bank has an obligation to support citizen with variety of banking services, without sacrificing security. Although Indonesia has several prospective domesticowned banks, however crisis weakened national banking industry. Therefore, type of ownership should have difference effect on agency problems controlling mechanism. This research examines agency theory arguments in banking industry by analyzing the effect on firm specific variables, which are managerial stock ownership, leverage, dividend yield, and type of ownership. Agency costs proxy by earnings volatility, manager's portfolio diversification losses, bank size, and standard deviation of bank equity returns. Types of ownership are domestic-owned banks, and foreign-owned banks. It is one of the first researches that examine the determination of financial policy variables based on agency theory perspective in banking industry. This research examines the largest 51 banks during the period of 1999-2004 using quarterly financial report. The result showed bank size and a  measure of manager's portfolio diversification opportunity set affect the bank's level of managerial stock ownership, leverage, and dividends. The result also confirms the difference effect of type of banks ownership to controlling mechanism of agency problems.


There are some critical privacy concerns in the current online social networks (OSNs). Users' information are disclosed to different entities whom they were not supposed to access. Furthermore, the notion of friendship is inadequate in OSNs since the degree of social relationships between users dynamically changes over the time. Additionally, users may define similar privacy settings for their friends in an OSN. In this paper, we present a centralized privacy-preserving framework for OSNs to address these issues. Using the proposed approach, the users enforce confidentiality and access control on the shared data while their connections/relationships with other users are kept anonymous in OSNs. In this way, the users themselves create and modify personalized privacy settings for their shared data while employing each other's privacy settings. Detailed evaluations of the proposed framework show the advantages of the proposed architecture compared to the most analogous recent approach.


ABSTRACT Walking is an essential component of outdoor mobility, and recognised as one of the best forms of physical activity for older adults. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between socio-demographic factors, coping resources, self-esteem and health status with the outdoor walking ability of people aged 55–79 years living in the community. The hypothesis is that there is a positive association between outdoor walking ability and coping, self-esteem and health status. A nationally-representative sample of 3,069 women and men answered questions regarding socio-demographic attributes, coping resources, self-esteem, health status and outdoor walking ability. The mean age of the respondents was 65.6 years. Around one-half of the sample were women, and around one-half were aged 65 or more years. One-third (32.3%) of the sample were married or cohabiting. Regarding outdoor walking ability, only 0.7 per cent of the respondents were not able to walk at all, and 80.8 per cent could walk at least one kilometre without a pause. Binary logistic multivariate regression analyses showed that those who had good outdoor walking ability (one kilometre or more) were significantly younger than those who did not, and that they were predominantly men, partnered or married, not in paid work, experienced significantly little pain, had better self-reported health and higher perceived coping.


Objective: The clock drawing test (CDT) version with the pre-drawn circle has been widely used in research and clinical practice without standardized Turkish norms. The present study aimed to standardize CDT scores according to the most frequently used scoring methods in the literature (Manos-Wu and Shulman) and to estimate the validity and reliability of both methods. Materials and Methods: The norm determination phase of the study was performed with 244 healthy individuals in the age range of 50-92 years. The effects of age, education, and sex on the CDT scores were examined and normative data stratified by age and education were derived. Test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, and concurrent validity and criterion validity of the two scoring methods were tested. Criterion validity was assessed using the ROC analysis to examine the extent to which the CDT scores could distinguish among healthy individuals, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results: In the Manos-Wu method, age and education had significant effects on CDT scores of healthy individuals; however, in the Shulman method, only an education effect was found. Both methods had high test-retest reliability (Manos-Wu, 0.81; Shulman, 0.72) and inter-rater reliability (Manos-Wu, 0.98; Shulman, 0.96) and showed high correlations with each other and with other cognitive screening tests. The area under the ROC curve had high values only in discriminating between healthy individuals and AD, and healthy individuals and MCI. Conclusion: In the present study, detailed normative data for individuals aged 50 and older were established. Age and education levels should be taken into account when interpreting CDT scores. Both scoring methods provided similar results in terms of high test-retest and inter-rater reliability, as well as high concurrent and criterion validity.


For markets to work efficiently, buyers and sellers must be able to transact easily. People must have access to a marketplace such as a supermarket or a stock exchange with adequate liquidity. Further, people must have confidence that such a well-functioning marketplace will also exist in the future. Market liquidity risk is the risk that the market will function poorly in the future, handcuffing the "invisible hand†through which markets produce allocative efficiency. We discuss the effects of market liquidity risk on asset pricing, investment management, corporate finance, banking, financial crises, macroeconomics, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and other economic areas.


Supply chain partnerships within housing refurbishment have not been given much specific attention which may be found surprising because the refurbishment market is becoming of increasing importance compared to new construction and has specific characteristics that require adapted approaches to supply chain integration. In this paper approaches, expected benefits and challenges of supply chain partnerships within housing renovation are explored. From general literature on building process innovation, dimensions of supply chain integration and potential advantages and challenges of have been derived and employed in a preliminary inquiry among Dutch housing associations and their partners that are experimenting with supply chain partnering in housing refurbishment projects. The results indicate that approaches are in a relatively early stage of development towards 'mature' supply chain partnerships. Furthermore, many of the general expectations also apply to the Dutch housing refurbishment sector, but at a more detailed level, refurbishment may require specific attention for the division of tasks and risks between the partners, particularly regarding communication with tenants


Oregano is an herb that has been cultivated for centuries in the Mediterranean area, although it now can be found on most continents. Actually, there is not simply one "oregano," but rather several species that may contribute to the oregano used for culinary purposes. Origanum vulgare (also referred to as Spanish thyme and wild marjoram), a member of the plant family Lamiaceae, is generally the spice variety sold as oregano in Europe and the United States. Medicinal uses for oregano date back to the ancient Greek and Roman empires where applications of the leaves were used to treat such maladies as skin sores and relieve aching muscles and as an antiseptic. Oregano also has been used in traditional medicines for such ailments as asthma, cramping, diarrhea, and indigestion. In Greece, an oregano infusion is still used as a folk remedy against colds and upset stomach and to maintain general health. Based on the current scientific literature, oregano extracts and individual constituents consistently have demonstrated antimicrobial actions in vitro toward food-borne pathogens, although the capacity to counter human infections is not well studied. Oregano contains several potent antioxidants that may contribute to the findings in preliminary studies that oregano exhibits benefits toward the cardiovascular and nervous systems, relieves symptoms of inflammation, and modulates blood sugar and lipids. Well-controlled human studies substantiating these health effects are lacking


We present new Gemini/GMOS optical spectroscopy of 16 extreme variability quasars (EVQs) that dimmed by more than 1.5 mag in the g band between the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Dark Energy Survey epochs (separated by a few years in the quasar rest frame). These EVQs are selected from quasars in the SDSS Stripe 82 region, covering a redshift range of 0.5 < z < 2.1. Nearly half of these EVQs brightened significantly (by more than 0.5 mag in the g band) in a few years after reaching their previous faintest state, and some EVQs showed rapid (non-blazar) variations of greater than 1–2 mag on time-scales of only months. To increase sample statistics, we use a supplemental sample of 33 EVQs with multi-epoch spectra from SDSS that cover the broad Mg ii λ2798 line. Leveraging on the large dynamic range in continuum variability between the multi-epoch spectra, we explore the associated variations in the broad Mg ii line, whose variability properties have not been well studied before. The broad Mg ii flux varies in the same direction as the continuum flux, albeit with a smaller amplitude, which indicates at least some portion of Mg ii is reverberating to continuum changes. However, the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of Mg ii does not vary accordingly as continuum changes for most objects in the sample, in contrast to the case of the broad Balmer lines. Using the width of broad Mg ii to estimate the black hole mass with single epoch spectra therefore introduces a luminosity-dependent bias.


We report observations of waveforms in surface pressure made over several years by a network of ground‐level barometers in the eastern United States. The waveforms can be reconstructed by superimposing the 4th through 10th subharmonics of the solar day. Some of these solar harmonics are likely generated by the temperature and pressure gradients across the solar terminators. The measurements presented here enable a wave detection analysis which indicates that some waveforms are coherent between stations with a median speed of 49.7 m/s to the southeast. We interpret these propagating signals, which are interference patterns created by internal gravity waves with periods that are subharmonics of a solar day, as a previously undiscovered type of terminator wave. The waveforms appear predominantly postsunrise during winter and postsunset in summer. Their quasi‐eastward propagation direction suggests an analogy with "stern" waves left behind by the faster, westward‐moving terminator.


Global value chains (GVCs) have sharpened the interdependencies between trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Using a novel micro-level dataset covering about 27 000 corporate relationships of 147 multinational enterprises (MNEs) in 13 sectors, new evidence is provided on how firms organise their production globally by combining trade with investment, and on a range of non-equity, contract-based partnerships. The analysis leads to five stylised facts. First, MNE activities are a combination of trade, FDI and strategic partnerships. All firms rely on a mix of these different types of corporate relationships. Second, the configuration of trade, investment and strategic partnerships varies across sectors, firms and markets. The results highlight considerable firm-level heterogeneity within the same industry and across the different modes of entry. Third, investment performs various functions in GVCs. In addition to traditional forms of FDI such as "market-seeking" or "input-seeking", investment "in capabilities" or "conglomerate" FDI also account for a relevant share of equity-based relationships. Fourth, support business functions emerge as key building blocks in GVCs, which suggests that policy reforms in transversal services sectors that support all GVCs should merit special attention. Fifth, GVCs display a clear geographical organisation. While domestic corporate relationships may lead to higher volumes of activities, in terms of the number of relationships MNEs have more partners abroad. Moreover, the large majority of GVC interactions take place within OECD countries. Overall, the complex and heterogeneous interlinkages observed in modern firm strategies highlight the importance of ensuring a level playing field for both trade and investment.


Detecting and monitoring forest disturbance from selective logging is necessary to develop effective strategies and polices that conserve tropical forests and mitigate climate change. We assessed the potential of using the remote sensing tool, CLASlite forest monitoring system, to detect disturbance from timber harvesting in four community forests () of the Selva Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Selective logging impacts (e.g. felling gaps, skid trails, logging roads and log landings) were mapped using GPS in the 2014 annual cutting areas (ACAs) of each ejido. We processed and analyzed two pre-harvest Landsat images (2001 and 2013) and one post-harvest image (November 2014) with the CLASlite system, producing maps of degraded, deforested and unlogged areas in each ACA. Based on reference points of disturbed (felling and skidding), deforested (log landings and roads) and unlogged areas in each ACA, we applied accuracy assessments which showed very low overall accuracies (<19.1%). Selective logging impacts, mainly from log landings and new logging road construction, were detected in only one ejido which had the highest logging intensity (7 m ha).ejidos3–1


The exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation during radiotherapy results in severe morphological and functional alterations of the salivary glands, such as xerostomia. In the present study we investigated the chronic effect of a single radiation dose of 15 Gray (Gy) limited to head and neck on rat salivary gland function (salivary secretion and gland mass) and histology. Results indicate that norepinephrine (NE)-induced salivary secretion was reduced significantly at 30, 90, 180 and 365 days after the administration of a single dose of 15 Gy of ionizing radiation compared to non-irradiated animals. The maximal secretory response was reduced by 33% at 30 and 90 days post irradiation. Interestingly, a new fall in the salivary response to NE was observed at 180 days and was maintained at 365 days post irradiation, showing a 75% reduction in the maximal response. The functional fall of the salivary secretion observed at 180 days post irradiation was not only associated with a reduction of gland mass but also to an alteration of the epithelial architecture exhibiting a changed proportion of ducts and acini, loss of eosinophilic secretor granular material, and glandular vacuolization and fibrosis. On the basis of the presented results, we conclude that ionizing radiation produces irreversible and progressive alterations of submandibular gland (SMG) function and morphology that leads to a severe salivary hypo-function.


Background The burdens experienced by relatives of mentally ill persons are substantial. Aims To study the relationship between family burden and sociocultural context. Method A comparative study of Euro-Americans and Latinos ascertained whether dimensions of family response are (a) non-specific to diagnostic groups; and/or (b) variable across cultural settings. Results Regardless of diagnosis or ethnicity, patient misery was found most burdensome and distressing. However, considerable difference in shades of meaning and nuance across groups appears in relation to what is classed similarly as 'misery'. Only gender was significantly associated with social performance (males reported to have greater deficits). A complex cultural – ecological effect was observed among the Latino–schizophrenia group. Conclusions Findings suggest similarities and differences in levels of family burden in relation to socio-cultural factors across cultural and diagnostic groups. The specificity of results by objective and subjective measures, types of burden, gender, ethnicity, diagnosis, and living situation confirm the importance of context and heterogeneity in understanding family burden and distress.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the treatment success of root-end resection compared with that of trephination directly after orthograde root-canal filling of non-vital molars. The survival time, considering extractions and clinical/radio graphic success, was tested in 79 teeth with 118 treated roots with a median control time of 58 months. The age of the patient, type of molar and number of appointments were not relevant to the result. The study found that 81% of the trephined roots and 86.5% of the resected roots were successful. The success difference was not statistically significant (p=0.239). Regarding failure, both therapies achieved a statistical significance in apical periodontitis lesions of greater than 5mm in diameter at the beginning of treatment (p=0.003 for root-end resection; p=0.043 for trephination). A statistically significant difference was found between the failure of trephined roots treated by the dental assistants and the failure of those roots treated by the practice owner (p=0.044), possibly because they had less experience than the practice owner did. Overfilled trephined roots showed a tendency to an increased failure rate, but no statistical significance was observed. _Introduction


Conventional location recommendation models rely on users' visit history, geographical influence, temporal influence, etc., to infer users' preferences for locations. However, systematically modeling a location's context (i.e., the set of locations visited before or after this location) is relatively unexplored. In this paper, by leveraging the Skipgram model, we learn the latent representation for a location to capture the influence of its context. A pair-wise ranking loss that considers the confidences of observed user preferences for locations is then proposed to learn users' latent representations for personalized top-N location recommendations. Moreover, we also extend our model by taking into account temporal influence. Stochastic gradient descent based optimization algorithms are developed to fit the models. We conduct comprehensive experiments over four real datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art location recommendation methods.


OBJECTIVE
  To describe the ocular clinical signs in a group of cows diagnosed with sheep associated malignant catarrhal fever (MCF), and to investigate a possible correlation between the severity and progression of certain typical clinical signs and disease outcome.

PROCEDURE
  This prospective study involved cows diagnosed with MCF between 2007 and 2010, and included cows enrolled in a larger clinical trial. Signalment of affected cows, presence and progression of ocular lesions, as well as disease outcome were recorded. Cows were divided into two groups based on the disease outcome: (1) survival and (2) nonsurvival. The degree of corneal edema at first examination was statistically compared between groups. The progression of corneal edema, uveitis and the examining ophthalmologists' subjective assessment of disease progression between the first and last examination were also compared between groups.

RESULTS
  Twenty-five cows (22 F, 3 M) of six different breeds and one mixed breed were included. Median age was 21 months (range 8-113). Ten cows survived, 13 cows were euthanized, and two died. No statistical association was identified between the degree of corneal edema at the first examination and the disease outcome. Deterioration of corneal edema was not noticed in any of the surviving animals. Anterior uveitis improved in all 10 surviving cows.

CONCLUSIONS
  The degree of corneal edema at first examination had no prognostic value for the disease outcome. The results of this study suggest that the progression of corneal edema correlates well with disease outcome, and that nonimprovement of uveitis is a bad prognostic sign.


The speed of an electromechanical scanner is limited by its first resonance frequency. To maximize scan speed, input signals are required that contain negligible frequency components near, or above the first resonance frequency. Such signals are usually obtained by low-pass filtering the desired scan trajectory. However, this introduces curvature and ripple into linear (constant velocity) scan regions. In this work, input signals are designed with guaranteed linear regions and minimal harmonic components above a chosen frequency. The proposed scanning trajectories are proven by simulation and experiment to induce less vibration than existing techniques.


Over the last decades, the relationship between natural resource discoveries on macroeconomic development has been thoroughly debated. The importance of maintaining a sustainable development in mainland industries has made this a topic of interest for both economists and regulators. This master thesis aims to examine and quantitatively assess how the Norwegian economy has been affected by the evolution of its petroleum sector. We also relate our findings to earlier contributions on this topic from both theoretical and empirical literature. We examine the effect of the petroleum industry on the Norwegian economy by conducting two comparative analyses. First, following a theoretical two-sector model, we compare the impact of booms and busts in oil prices on macroeconomic variables in two resource economies, Norway and Australia, and a non-resource economy, Sweden. Generally, we find that the predicted dynamics can be identified in the resource economies, but that these responses have changed through time. Notably, the introduction of a floating exchange rate has allowed the real effective exchange rate to respond to oil price fluctuations, thus shielding the remaining economy. Other institutional effects, such as the Norwegian fiscal rule, sovereign wealth fund and a well-defined monetary framework might also have contributed to this effect. Second, we build a counterfactual scenario in which Norway did not discover petroleum. This is done by means of a synthetic control method, creating a synthetic Norway from 1972, using nonpetroleum producing OECD countries. We find that Norwegian GDP per capita has been an average of 15.6 % larger than what it would have been in the absence of petroleum resources. Norwegian mainland industries have suffered an average loss in production of 12.4 % of mainland GDP relative to the counterfactual scenario. We hypothesize that the latter is owed to forfeited capital investment and real effective exchange rate effects. Furthermore, we find a petroleum-driven supercycle in the Norwegian GDP per capita, peaking already in 1998, suggesting that the contraction-phase is more mature than previously assumed. Although political priorities in favour of the petroleum industry have been beneficial, the generated revenue streams and returns on investment have crowded out parts of the mainland industries. This has implications for adjustments in the coming years, when the petroleum industry is phased out. We discuss briefly some scenarios for this adjustment process, and conclude.


Agriculture is a major land use activity in the developing tropics. Though the productivity of the land in many parts of the region has gone up significantly due to "green revolution" agriculture, it has had many negative environmental consequences, and its economic impact is still confined to only a small section of society. These concerns and issues linked to agroecosystem resilience in the context of the much discussed "global change" have led to a renewed interest in the multi-species complex agroecosystems of traditional societies. Farmers' choices of cropping combinations represent a planned biodiversity strategy which offers possibilities for in situ conservation of crop biodiversity which is so important even for the long-term sustainability of modern high-energy input agriculture. However, if the traditional crop and management practices of these complex agroecosystems could be improved through the inputs of modern science, we would move in the direction of sustainable agriculture with improved production possibilities. This paper discusses issues relating to additional pathways for agricultural development, placed in the context of a more sustainable landscape management plan and involving community participation.


This article considers the recent international controversy over the patents held by a Melbourne firm, Genetic Technologies Limited (GTG), in respect of non-coding DNA and genomic mapping. It explores the ramifications of the GTG dispute in terms of licensing, litigation and policy reform, and - as a result of this dispute - the perceived conflict between law and science. GTG has embarked upon an ambitious licensing program with twenty seven commercial licensees and five research licensees. Most significantly, GTG has obtained an exclusive licence from Myriad Genetics to use and exploit its medical diagnostics in Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific region. In the US, GTG brought a legal action for patent infringement against the Applera Corporation and its subsidiaries. In response, Applera counterclaimed that the patents of GTG were invalid because they failed to comply with the requirements of US patent law, such as novelty, inventive step, and written specifications. In New Zealand, the Auckland District Health Board brought legal action in the High Court, seeking a declaration that the patents of GTG were invalid, and that, in any case, the Board has not infringed them. The New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economic Development have reported to Cabinet on the issues relating to the patenting of genetic material. Similarly, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has also engaged in an inquiry into gene patents and human health; and the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) has considered whether there should be a new defence in respect of experimental use and research.