Preventing contamination in pipetting is paramount to achieving reliable results. It requires identification of the potential contamination mechanism in order that they can all be addressed. This paper addresses the three contamination types that originate from pipetting: Pipette-to-sample contamination, sample-to-pipette contamination, and sample-to-sample contamination. Keep in mind: If your testing procedure in your Cannabis environment requires you to repeatedly portion out exact volumes of liquids involved, our bottle-top dispensers will give you a steady hand to ensure accurate and consistent results.


The Operator axioms have been contructed to deduce number systems. In this paper, we slightly improve on the syntax of the Operator axioms and construct a semantics of the Operator axioms. Then on the basis of the improved Operator axioms, we define two fundamental operator functions to study the analytic properties of the Operator axioms. Finally, we prove two theorems about the fundamental operator functions and pose some conjectures. Real operators can give new equations and inequalities so as to precisely describe the relation of mathematical objects or scientific objects.


Quality deterioration of smoked catfish is caused by lipid oxidation and microbial spoilage. Smoked catfish can be cross-contaminated during processing and may harbor several pathogens, e.g., Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella spp. Lipid oxidation causes unpleasant flavor, thus making smoked fish unacceptable. Hydroperoxides and free radicals, formed during oxidation, may directly react with fish tissues to promote complex reactions. Through such complex reactions, physicochemical properties of smoked catfish may be adversely affected. A combination of smoking and treatments with antimicrobial agents and antioxidants would retard microbial spoilage, extend shelf life, and enhance safety of smoked catfish. The objective of this study was to assess microbial and physicochemical quality of smoked catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) treated with antimicrobial agents and antioxidants during 6-week storage at room temperature. Raw catfish steaks were subjected to the following treatments for 30 minutes prior to smoking: 25% NaCl and 1% ascorbic acid; 3% sodium lactate; 3% sodium lactate and 5% rosemary extract; and/ or 5% sorbic acid. The non-treated catfish served as control. Smoked catfish samples were drawn after 0, 2, 4, and 6 weeks for microbial, pH, water activity, proximate, color, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and peroxide value (PV) analysis. All treated smoked catfish had a water activity (aw) less than 0.85 compared with 0.94 for the control. Total plate count (TPC) for all dried samples was 1.22.2 log CFU/g at day zero and increased to 1.48-3.0 log CFU/g after 4-week storage. The control was moldy after 6-week storage. No mold was observed on samples treated with sodium


Restating what all people intuit and what this means in moral, specifically bioethical, discourse is the"raison d'etre"for this volume. J.aDaryl Charles argues that a traditional metaphysics of natural law lies at the heart of the present reconstructive project, and that a revival in natural-law thinking is of the highest priority for the Christian community as we contend in, rather than abdicate, the public square. Nowhere is this more on display than in the realm of bioethics, where the most basic moral questions -- human personhood, human rights versus responsibilities, the reality of moral evil, the basis of civil society -- are being debated. With his timely application of natural-law thinking to the field of bioethics, Charles seeks to breathe new life back into this key debate."


In our current technological environment, designers are encouraged to identify, define and meet people's needs by undertaking user-centred research, working with experts in other fields, and by becoming 'producers' of their own designs. In this thesis the designer has taken on these roles to address information and communications issues in the health sector. This research study seeks to improve the heath care and healing processes of adolescent patients by a practical application of visual communications design. The research takes a holistic approach by considering the social, therapeutic, and creative needs of adolescent patients as they relate to the use of typography, illustration, colour, and packaging design. Information design, communications theory, and play therapy inform the approach taken. Educational and recreational resources designed for adolescent patients are virtually non-existent in New Zealand hospitals. Instead, most of the information relating to the hospital services and the patients' conditions and treatment is communicated verbally by the hospital staff. This can disadvantage adolescent patients who tend to dislike communicating with people in positions of authority. Because adolescents have been found to be highly visually literate, adolescent patients needs can best be addressed by innovative visual communications design solutions. The designer used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate the complexity of adolescent patients' needs. Because the questionnaire survey of adolescent patients and the interviews with health professionals were conducted in hospitals in Auckland and Wellington, the designer was faced with the daunting task of getting approval from three separate ethics committees and from the related clinical boards before the research could be conducted. However the many administrators and hospital staff approached willingly gave their time to help ensure that the resulting design would be both appropriate and relevant. With the research findings, the designer succeeded in developing a comprehensive communications system involving informative pamphlets, games, and activities that addressed the needs identified in the research. The designer also developed a packaging system that contained and displayed its contents in an appealing and innovative way. This thesis must be read in conjunction with the practice-based component of the research study described in chapter 5 (page 65-91). Ongoing evaluations with health professionals and adolescent patients have suggested modifications to improve the design and have also confirmed that the resulting Patient Information Manual (PIM) is both highly appropriate and extremely helpful in addressing adolescent patients' needs. There has already been widespread interest and offers of support to help ensure that this design is available for use in public hospitals in New Zealand. R d More Date 2000 Author Duthie, Glenna


This article takes as a starting point the segregation of urban areas and discusses schooling in the neighbourhoods typically associated with problems and challenges, in order to explore young people's responses to their schooling and social positions. Such responses include individual acts, such as rejecting further schooling or dismissing the local school in favour of prestigious ones, as well as the development of shared understandings and collective formations. The article focuses in particular on young people's responses through aesthetic practices, informal education and public political actions. Although research suggests that youths in poor areas are increasingly individualised and shows that schools provide them with little help to understand and act upon their circumstances in school, the analyses here also bring to light young people's rather strong belief in collective actions; students' formations of resistance groups and political knowledge appear as crucial resources, and, although scarce, teacher support and teaching about political actions appear as important.


Ethics in Higher Education: Case Studies for Regents by Alexander B. Holmes. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. 1996. 112 pages. $21.95. ISBN 0-8061-2857-7. Within the past year, the Regents of the State of New York exercised its extraordinary authority and removed the members of the board of trustees of Adelphi University, and the editors of the Community College Week published a special report issue (August 24, 1998) devoted to "Trustees: Stewards of America's Future." Although the latter may reflect journalistic exaggeration, the former reflects the very real concern of the state, and theoretically the community-at-large, in the actions of trustees, even trustees at a private university. Finally, for those who wish some historical perspective, over 70 years ago, in The Higher Learning In America, Thorstein Veblen argued that universities had experienced a substitution of businessmen and politicians for clergymen on their governing boards. The result for Veblen was that control in matters of university policy rested in the hands of businessmen. Indeed, Veblen would be interested to know that according to Vaughan and Weisman (cited in the Community College Week report), 67% of the community college trustees are professionals and 17% are business owners or managers whereas less than 6% are artists, or sales, services, office and other categories of "worker." However, for the majority of internal and external stakeholders, the primary concern is not who the trustees are, but how they became board members (appointment versus election) and how they act. In this brief book of 112 pages, Alexander B. Holmes addresses the issue of how board members should act. More specifically, "This book is intended to provide thought-provoking discussion of the ethical issues faced by regents and trustees of institutions of higher education" (p. xiii). Through his emphasis on ethics, Holmes, correctly I believe, assumes that open lines of communication and adequate knowledge about the particular institution and issue are not sufficient to ensure appropriate behavior and decision-making on the part of trustees. Holmes is Regents Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma, and former secretary of finance and revenue and budget director of the state of Oklahoma. Through education and experience, he is in an excellent position to understand the role of information, power, and ethics in decision-making processes. Although the case studies reflect experiences at senior colleges and universities, they or similar situations are likely to be encountered by trustees at community colleges. Certainly, the underlying principles raised in each of the cases are applicable regardless of institutional setting. For Holmes, ethical behavior is not an end in itself. The good economist that he is leads him to conclude that colleges and universities play a crucial role in accounting for the economic development of the society and for individual social mobility within the society. However, he also recognizes that the continued support of these institutions is dependent on public confidence, and, that in turn requires "regents, faculty, and staff to adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior" (p.xv). Given their power, the ethical expectation is particularly strong for trustees. One strength of Holmes's discussion is his recognition in the first chapter that trustees have power and that "this power is the source of potential ethical conflicts" (p. …


The concealed (>80 m) Baiyinnuoer Pb-Zn deposit in Inner Mongolia is a typical skarn deposit in North China and has been studied to improve geochemical exploration within the area. Two vertical soil profiles were studied in order to evaluate the vertical geochemical distribution patterns within the residual soil associated with this deposit. Soil Profile #6 is located above the Pb-Zn orebody whereas Profile #8 is located away from this deposit. To determine the dynamics of the vertical geochemical distribution patterns, concentrations and species of nine elements in samples of six different size fractions were used. The distribution patterns of all the nine elements along Profile #6 display a similar trend of lower concentrations in both the topsoil and moderately-weathered bedrock layers but higher concentrations in the residual subsoil layer, showing an inverted 'C-shape'. The normalized concentrations (using Fe) of elements and the normalized enrichment factors also follow the same distribution patterns. A sequential extraction study of the soil showed that ore-forming and pathfinder elements were dominantly related to humic acid, Fe-Mn oxides and residual fractions. Based on the results, the recommended soil sampling depth for detecting surficial geochemical anomalies in this and similar semi-arid and thickly covered area is 2–3 m. Furthermore, Hg, Sb, As, Cu, Pb, Zn, Mn and Bi appear to be important indicators for geochemical exploration of Pb-Zn deposits. The research approach and results of this study are useful for evaluating mineral resources in similar covered areas through surface geochemical soil surveys as well as for providing insights to the dynamics of vertical geochemical patterns in soil from concealed Pb-Zn deposits.


In this thesis the subject of service implementation is investigated. From the research findings a framework is constructed which serves as the basis of a toolbox. The thesis fulfills an assignment that was posted by service design agency Ideate from Amersfoort who wanted to become more effective in the implementation of newly developed services. Ideate consultants always work closely with their clients to develop services and experienced difficulty in implementing these services. Service implementation is a relatively new subject that is underexposed in the academic literature. Where in research on New Product Development much attention is paid to each stage of the development process, for New Service Development this is only true concerning the earlier stages of a project. This project was carried out by a gradation student who worked internally in the company during the project. The project consisted of a research, an analysis and a toolbox development phase. The research consisted of a literature review, expert interviews with experts from the field and case studies of four of Ideate's cases. In analysing the findings of this research insights are generated and a framework is constructed. This framework consist of the perspective of integrated service implementation. This term indicates that the implementation of the service that is to be developed needs to be addressed continuously and iteratively throughout the project and in parallel with the actual development of the new service. Additionally integrated service implementation consist of three themes: Process Understanding: All involved stakeholders should to a certain degree adopt and understand the user-centered iterative NSD process used in the development and implementation of the service. Stakeholder Management: All parties and individuals involved in service implementation and development should be identified, involved, informed and coordinated by favouring open communication and continuous alignment of objectives throughout the entire NSD. Finding Fit: The new service development project should be continuously aligned with the client company's capabilities, strategy, culture and objectives. This framework formed the basis of the development of a toolbox. The toolbox makes the information from this framework and the insights accessible to and directly applicable for the Ideate consultants. The toolbox intervenes at three moments in the service development project. Check-In: at the start of a project at which the project is positioned with the help of two positioning tools. Check-Up: during the project a check-up moment will be introduced at which the project leader and consultants discuss the status of the implementation of the service. Since implementation is continuous these check-ups take place throughout the entire project. Continuous support tools: principle cards and a project journey make the knowledge from this framework easily accessible to the consultants.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of firm attributes on the financial performance of insurance firms in Kenya. The study was anchored on trade off theory. The research philosophy adopted was positivism while the correlation research design was adopted. The study used secondary data which was collected using data collection sheet from Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) and individual firms' websites. The target population of the study was 52 insurers that operated in Kenya for the ten years (2010-2018). The unbalanced panel data was analyzed using Random and Fixed effect model where Hausman test was used to establish to test the hypothesis. The study found that leverage and liquidity had a significant negative effect on financial performance of insurance firms in Kenya. The study recommends that insurance firms to embrace feasible financial leveraging strategies that can boost firm profitability. Also, they need to conduct effective liquidity management to maximize the value of the company and its financial performance.


The shallow water reefs of the Coral Triangle, which stretches across Indonesia and north through the Philippines, host the world9s greatest diversity of corals, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and marine plant species. Now preliminary results from a joint Indonesian–U.S. marine survey indicate that the biodiversity runs deep. A remotely operated vehicle has captured stunning images of massive corals, as well as unusual crustaceans and fish living at depths never before surveyed, thousands of meters below the surface. And mapping of that sea floor has turned up a huge, previously unknown volcano.


Are western Muslims an endangered species, or are they the future of Islam? The accelerated adaptation and change western Muslims are pushed to make in order just to survive has galvanized them into a serious effort of rethinking and reflection. This has, in turn, moved the worldwide debate on Islamic reform into a new higher gear. While Muslim intellectual activism in the West had deep historical roots, the claims of the new emerging movements and intellectual figures to moral, intellectual and religious leadership of the Ummah are unprecedented in their boldness and pride in their specifically western/modernist credentials. Moreover, it is paradoxical that what is in essence a response to the precariousness of the increasingly vulnerable Muslim presence in the West is at the same time trying to present itself as the most authoritative interpretation of Islam. This paper traces the historical roots of western Muslim intellectual activism, and assesses its success in attracting support both within the West and the wider Muslim world.


Although the services sector has emerged as a major contributor to gross domestic product and employment in developed economies, very little attention has been paid to financial constraints faced by services firms. This paper represents a first attempt to model financial constraints in the services sector. In particular, we question the commonly accepted inverse relationship between firm size/age and financial constraints. To conduct our empirical tests, we estimate the Cash-Cash Flow Sensitivity using a large unbalanced panel of Portuguese firms. We also combine the recently developed Hovakimian-Hovakimian index of firm's financial constraints with the sensitivity of cash stocks to cash-flow approach. Our results suggest that there are clear differences in financial constraints across the two sectors. First, firms operating in the services sector suffer from more severe financial constraints than those in manufacturing. Second, the relationship between size and financial constraints appears to be inverse in the case of the manufacturing sector, but not in services, for which we have U-shaped evidence. Finally, for the services sector we find some evidence suggesting an inverse relationship between age and financial constraints, while in manufacturing this relationship seems to be U-shaped.


The present experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of flavomycin on performance and egg quality of layer hens. Ninety commercial layer hens (White Lohmann) at the age of 63 weeks were used .The duration of the experiment was seven weeks. Birds were randomly assigned to three dietary treatment groups of thirty hens each. The treatments included 100 and 150 gm flavomycin/ton feed (8 and 12 ppm of flavophospholipol respectively). Each treatment was subdivided into six replicates of 5 birds each. All experimental diets were formulated according to the guidelines given in the manual provided by the breeder company Layers Performance and parameters of egg quality were recorded. The results indicated that the addition of flavomycin to diet significantly improved (P<0.05) egg weight values throughout the experimental period. No significant differences were observed in the performance of all treatment groups (feed intake and egg production) and egg quality. It is concluded that dietary supplementation with flavomycin, in inclusion rate of 8 ppm, enhanced egg production as well as egg weight of aged commercial laying chickens.


Sustainable Development was conceived as a visionary idea to have society meet the needs of the today while also considering those of future generations. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development was developed to provide an operational planning methodology to move society towards ecological and social sustainability. While abundant scientific research and project work have been completed in the ecological issues area - a significant gap remains regarding Social Sustainability. This research project sought to identify leading Actions of Social Sustainability that might strategically remove the systemic conditions (barriers) to Social Sustainability. Reducing the complexity of Social Sustainability for sustainability practitioners can be helpful for working within Strategic Sustainable Development. Using an assessment tool based on Social Sustainability Actions Criteria, leading Actions of Strategic Sustainable Development emerged from case studies and interviews research with social sustainability practitioners and experts. Although this research process was successful, the study of Social Sustainability Actions also resulted in two aspects of proposed discovery: a means to identify systems barriers within a Social Sustainability Actions Criteria Tool and a model of Core Characteristics of Social Sustainability Actions. Additionally proposed, 3 potential Universal Categories of Social Sustainability Actions.


Utilization of biogas generated from wastewater of Palm Oil Mills (POM) is one of the alternative renewable energy which has a huge potential. This potential is supported by about 700 of POMs owned by private companies or state own company which scattered in Sumatera, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, mainly. Utilization of biogas as an electricity contributes to increase ratio of renewable energy utilization. However, there is a change of selling electricity price according to Ministerial Decree of Energy and Mineral Resource of Republic of Indonesia No.:12/2017, which the price is not determined based on the FIT (Feed in Tariff) anymore. New price is based on Cost Production of Power Plant (BPP) and it leads to a decline in the economy rate of biogas power plant. Therefore, investors become uninterested for developing biogas power plant in the future. Potential additional revenue from selling palm kernel was studied. An excess biogas is used to substitute palm kernel shell as boiler fuel of POM, and the substituted shell is sold to the market. The additional revenue from selling the shell increased economy rate of the biogas power plant. It is shown that IRR=7,21% increased to 14.43%.


Nine bilbies were reintroduced to a 14-km 2 reserve free of rabbits, cats and foxes in South Australia in April 2000. The survival, growth and ecology of the population were studied for 17 months after release by means of radio-tracking and trapping. Reproduction was continuous over the study period, with juveniles successfully recruited into the population. Home-range size of female bilbies averaged 0.18 km 2 and was significantly smaller than home ranges of males, which averaged 3.16 km 2 . Wild-born subadults had smaller home ranges than adults. While male home ranges, and male and female home ranges overlapped considerably, females appeared to maintain areas discrete from other adult females. Bilbies showed a significant preference for dune habitat. As swale habitat appears too hard for burrow construction and males moved greater distances from diurnal burrows than females, males are likely to access food reserves that are under-used by females. Both males and females reused at least 30% of their burrows, and females displayed long-term site fidelity. The release was considered successful and suggests that despite historical damage from rabbits and stock, bilbies are able to successfully recolonise parts of their former range in arid South Australia once rabbits, cats and foxes are removed. W R Rei t e th A K. E. MEonn


Cardiovascular disease continues to be a leading cause of global mortality. Metabolic perturbations including obesity, hyperlipidemia and type II diabetes arising from a western style diet and a more sedentary lifestyle are significant contributors to this phenomenon. Diabetic patients are at a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease. Approximately 50% of diabetic patients suffer from cardiomyopathy and they are twice as likely to develop congestive heart failure. Importantly, this cardiomyopathy is often independent of hypertension and coronary artery disease, suggesting that factors inherent to the metabolic disease are pathogenic to the heart. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a mechanism that is has been postulated to have an etiological role in the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Studies on diabetic hearts reveal these mitochondria have increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) emission, reduced ATP production and oxidative damage. At a gross scale, an early histological finding in the hearts of a sub-set of both diabetic and obese patients is increased collagen deposition and an infiltration of fibroblasts which over time leads to reduced cardiac compliance/ relaxation and ultimately diastolic dysfunction. Lipid peroxides and reactive aldehyde derivatives (LPPs) are derived from ROS peroxidation of cellular polyunsaturated fatty acids and have been linked to cardiometabolic disease. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that LPPs underlie cardiometabolic derangements in obesity. This hypothesis was tested using glutathione peroxidase 4 haploinsufficent (GPx4) mice. GPx4 is one of the few enzymes specialized to neutralize lipid peroxides. GPx4 +/mice were fed a high fat, high sucrose (HFHS) diet to investigate cardiometabolic derangements in a model of increased LPP production. Our research revealed that greater carbonyl stress, exacerbated glucose intolerance, dyslipidemia, and liver steatosis occurred in GPx4 +/mice compared to wild-type (WT) on a high fat high sucrose diet (HFHS). Although normotensive, cardiac hypertrophy was evident with obesity, and cardiac fibrosis was more pronounced in obese GPx4 +/mice. Mitochondrial dysfunction manifesting as decreased fat oxidation capacity and increased reactive oxygen species was also present in obese GPx4 +/but not WT hearts, along with up-regulation of proinflammatory and pro-fibrotic genes. Biochemical analysis was also performed on samples of human atrial myocardium revealed patients with diabetes and hyperglycemia exhibited significantly less GPx4 enzyme and greater HNE-adducts in their hearts, compared with age-matched non-diabetic patients. The pathogenic role of LPPs was further investigated using carnosinol (CAR), an LPP scavenger that preferentially binds and sequesters reactive aldehydes. In this follow-on study, CAR was administered via drinking water (40mg/kg) starting mid-way through the HFHS diet. In WTs, CAR improved whole body glucose tolerance, blood lipid profiles and insulin sensitivity. CAR treatment also mitigated HFHSdiet induced cardiac hypertrophy and hepatic steatosis. Levels of 4-HNE adducts were reduced in the cardiac mitochondria, liver and whole heart following treatment. Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation efficiency (OxPhos) in the heart was also improved with CAR in WT mice fed HFHS diet, although no effect on mitochondria in the GPx4+/mice was observed. Collectively, the data presented in this dissertation provide evidence that lipid peroxides and their reactive aldehyde derivatives are a distinct form of oxidative stress that has an etiological role in human cardio-metabolic disease. It establishes that GPx4 is an adaptive response to oxidative stress in obesity, and that deficiency in this important enzyme accelerates the pathogenic effect of the condition. Furthermore, it provides support for the development of a novel class of aldehyde scavenging compounds to ameliorate the cardio-metabolic disease and associated comorbidities common with obesity. EXPLORING THE ROLE OF ELEVATED LIPID PEROXIDATION AND GLUTATHIONE PEROXIDASE 4 IN METABOLIC SYNDROME AND CARDIAC REMODELING IN OBESITY


We propose novel polarization splitters based on photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), in which the cores of the splitters are nearly nonbirefringent. Different from conventional fiber-based polarization splitters, the birefringence in the new splitters results mainly from narrow silica regions physically connecting the two cores. This means that polarization splitting can be achieved without employing highly birefringent cores, which provides a possibility to greatly simplify the structures of the PCF-based polarization splitters and make them more practical. A 5-mm-long splitter with an extinction ratio of 20 dB has been obtained. We also discuss how the silica regions influence coupling characteristics of the dual-core PCFs and present a design guidance for the polarization splitters based on polarization-dependent coupling.


Christine Mitchell Havelock's book takes a much- needed new look at some of the most famous icons of Western art: the nude statues that the Greeks produced to represent Aphrodite. The Aphrodite of Knidos, by master sculptor Praxiteles, is the leading example of this form. Other statues include the Capitoline and Medici Venuses, the Crouching Aphrodite and the Aphrodite of Melos--all of them indebted to Praxiteles. The author analyzes the meaning of the pose of the Aphrodite of Knidos, the significance of her nudity, and her architectural setting. A survey of the statue's reception and interpretation in Greek, Roman, and modern times offers an entirely new perspective on this major work of art. Among topics examined are Praxiteles' reported use of his mistress Phryne as his model, the pudica gesture, and the importance of small-scale versions of statues for dating the larger sculptures. The author also considers the function and religious significance of the small statues, and she includes the cultural context offered by the erotic poetry of Propertius and Ovid, two Roman poets who were fascinated by the robing and disrobing of their mistresses. The Aphrodite of Knidos is a highly readable, broad-based volume of interest to anyone familiar with classical art and the ancient world. Christine Mitchell Havelock is Professor Emerita of Art History and Curator of the Classical Art Collection at Vassar College. She has written and lectured widely on Greek art.


The 2008 elections abound with historic milestones. Never before has a Black candidate been elected to lead a non-Black majority nation. Even before Obama's presidential victory, however, history was being made. Obama's success as a minority candidate in the primaries also was unprecedented. The Obama campaign's use of new media technologies to revitalize political activism among youth, engage the public at large, and raise enormous, record-breaking sums of money was unlike that of any political campaign to date.But the milestones achieved in the 2008 elections certainly did not belong to Obama alone. The 2008 elections also marked the first time that a Latino candidate, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, sought the presidential nomination of a major political party. In addition, the role of Latino voters in determining the outcome of a national election in the United States had never before been so scrutinized or numerically significant. The prominence of women – both as candidates and constituents – in the 2008 elections likewise was unprecedented. While women have competed for (and secured) presidential nominations as early as 1872, it was not until the 2008 primaries, over 135 years later, that the first woman, now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, came close to securing the nomination of a major political party. Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska also achieved a first within the Republican Party as its first female nominee for Vice President. Likewise, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente headed the first all women-all minority ticket for president and vice president, respectively, as the nominees of the Green Party. Never before have women played such integral and defining roles in a United States presidential contest. Against this dynamic backdrop, in the final weeks of the 2008 election season, the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development and its newly affiliated publication, the St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary, assembled distinguished scholars, practitioners, government officials, and political commentators for a two-day symposium entitled "Making History: Race, Gender, and the Media in the 2008 Elections".


Abstract:The potential of forest roads to enhance habitat diversity within plantation forests is an important conservation issue. If properly managed, these open spaces allow structurally diverse vegetation to grow at the road-verges, which may support greater invertebrate abundance and species richness, increasing overall forest biodiversity. We investigated spider diversity along road edges in young plantation forests in Ireland, the influence of road-verge vegetation and the consequences of doubling the standard forest road-width currently used in Ireland. Active ground-dwelling spiders were studied in eight Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) plantations using pitfall trapping one year after planting and five years after planting. A total of 16,741 spiders were caught, from which 141 species were identified from 14 families. Ten spider species of conservation importance were found in the road-verges demonstrating their importance as habitats for spider diversity. We found no difference in ground-dwelling spider diversity between road-verge and forest interior plots at this stage in the rotation. We found no advantage or disadvantage of increasing the road-width of forest roads for ground-dwelling spider diversity of young plantation forests. The findings of this study are discussed in the context of the management of plantation forests for biodiversity conservation and associated forest policy development.


The subject matter of this article emerged in part out of research for the author's thesis project and first game patch, Madame Polly, a first-person shooter gender hack. Since the time it was written, there has been an upsurge of interest and research in computer games among artists and media theoreticians. Considerable shifts in gaming culture at large have taken place, most notably a shift toward on-line games, as well as an increase in the number of female players. The multidirectional information space of the network offers increasing possibilities for interventions and gender reconfigurations such as those discussed at the end of the article.


Two vastly different health care systems confront one another along the 2000 miles of U.S.-Mexico border. In large measure the economies of those two systems determine the nature of health care provided in the border region. This a rticle examines the health care sector in the U.S. and Mexico as each responds to economic forces, and describe the resulting hybrid health care system that has evolved in the border region in the context of recent economic trends and national policies. Since disease vectors pay no heed to the arbitrary demarcation known as the international border, these two often antagonistic health care systems share a common patient population as it moves primarily northward. The human drama played out each day along the border, is influenced by economic imperatives whose signatures are indelibly etched in the form and substance of each country's health care establishment. The Mexican economy is seriously imperiled. It's commitment to the health of its population manifests ominous signs of disregard brought about by the emaciated state of the national economy. Northward migration is seen as a "safety valve" for the jobless and sometimes the sick and the outlook for the future promises little improvement. The U.S. on the other hand is laboring under a sluggish national economy and a myopic preoccupation with the size of its federal deficit. The current trend is to shift responsibilities for social expenditures from the Federal Government to the state and local ones. This then, is a recipe for disaster in the U.S.-Mexico border health field. One country is involved in an economic struggle on the order of life itself, unable to care for its population, confronting another nation, economically mature, but one which chooses to turn away from its national responsibilities for health care at the border. This article suggests that a continuation of current economic trends and national policies in the U.S. and Mexico has the potential to create a health care crisis in the border region.


From the residue of meaning, an ensemble of shadows. From the glint of souvenir, pliable impressions. In this paper, we work a poetics of encounter, of being, keeping, homage, of paying homage to fragility, to object and to interspecies—ways are found to engage motion from within and around co-extensive bodies. With the consolation of images, we follow the terse rhythms of routine and street where dwelling is a case of affective dissent. Zones of departure appear through testimony as well as chance, taking their own form. A footfall brings us as observers into quiet spaces which refuse self-estrangement as we travel by way of an unquiet ground. Breath, respiration, aspiration. Precipitation. Sculptures of mist are also the language of lives, of kinship between object, footfall and air. A language of brackets, questions, ellipses. There may be a man, a dog, a barrow. There may be a woman, a cart. Air. How shall this image be made?


River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India DAVID HABERMAN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, BERKELEY, CA, 2006 xv + 277 PP. $26.95 PAPERBACK REVIEWED BY PRATYUSHA BASU As human-induced environmental problems take on global proportions, understanding the intersections of religion and environmentalism has become part of attempts to expand the scope of contemporary environmental debates. seeking to harness the positive aspects of religious beliefs, including the ability to reflect on the larger questions of human existence and the perseverance to accede to the everyday demands of a moral life, David Haberman's study of Hindu religious practices along India's Yamuna river is a significant addition to the field of religious environmentalism. Melding poetic contemplation, scientific measurement, and environmental activism, Haberman traces the Yamuna river through the heartland of India, drawing particular attention to the region of Braj, where the Yamuna river is especially revered and currently the object of active efforts for protection. Chapter 2 begins with an oft-asked question: Is Hinduism eco-friendly? Given that the deified personification of elements of nature is central to Hindu religious practices, the answer to this question seems self-evident. Haberman however points out that many scholars have argued to the contrary, asserting that the transcendental aspects of Hinduism are obstacles to serious engagement with the material aspects of nature. Against this, Haberman posits that while Hinduism does include worlddenying asceticism, or advaita traditions, it also comprises world-affirming temple cults in the form of the bhaguata tradition. In the case of religious and environmentalist activities around the Yamuna river, it is the latter strand that dominates. But the question central to Haberman's study is not the question of existing Hindu traditions as much as that of the future of river-based religious environmentalism in India. What happens to the divinity of the river when its water is visibly loaded with sewage? To gain some insight into possible futures of river-centered religiosity, Haberman begins at the source of the Yamuna in Chapter 3. His own immersion in devotional activities associated with the river emerges vividly here, and journeys of many kinds permeate this chapter: pilgrims attest to the river's ability to ward off the sufferings of death, and the idol of the river itself is ceremonially carried to her brother's house where she resides for part of the year. Chapter 4 takes on a different tone, as the Yamuna flows through the city of Delhi, a city defined by its location on the banks of the river, and now responsible for changing the nature of the river for the worse. As Haberman recounts the degradation of water quality of the Yamuna at Delhi, he is also documenting the history of urbanization in India, and poetic rhythms fade in the dire predictions of environmental reports. Chapter 4 is the center of the book. It focuses on the region of Braj, associated according to Haberman with the most passionate forms of worship of the Yamuna. The polluted nature of the river at Braj, given that the region is located downstream of Delhi, may raise concerns about the clash between its ritual significance and material impurity. The discussion in Chapter 2 of pilgrimages to the source of the river may suggest that there are other sites that are equally sacred and much cleaner that can be associated with the Yamuna. Haberman however skillfully utilizes poetic texts and ethnographic evidence to depict how links between the river Yamuna and the cowherd god Krishna make the river's journey through Braj the most meaningful part of its course. The only problem with such depictions, and one that Haberman alludes to in an endnote [note 134, p.252], is the ways in which the female river attains meaning through male deities, whether through taking the form of the lover of Krishna in Braj, or as the sister of Yama at its source. …


In this paper, we suggest and analyze a new class of specification tests for random coefficient models. These tests allow to assess the validity of central structural features of the model, in particular linearity in coefficients and generalizations of this notion like a known nonlinear functional relationship. They also allow to test for degeneracy of the distribution of a random coefficient, i.e., whether a coefficient is fixed or random, including whether an associated variable can be omitted altogether. Our tests are nonparametric in nature, and use sieve estimators of the characteristic function. We analyze their power against both global and local alternatives in large samples and through a Monte Carlo simulation study. Finally, we apply our framework to analyze the specification in a heterogeneous random coefficients consumer demand model.


Understanding how patterns of wildfire activity across biomes are shaped by heterogeneity in biomass resources to burn and atmospheric conditions conducive to burning is a high research priority in the context of global environmental change. Along a latitudinal gradient (25 to 56° S) from semi-arid scrublands through Mediterranean-type vegetation to wet forests in southwestern South America (SSA) we analyzed influences of mean climate and interannual climate variability on fire activity using documentary fire records from 1984 to 2008. We identified large regions with common temporal variability in annual area burned, related this variability to local interannual climate variability and in turn to modes of the major tropical and extratropical climate drivers of the southern hemisphere—El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). Differences in fire activity response to interannual climate variability were related to the relative influences of available biomass to burn, and to weather effects on amounts of fine fuels and fuel moisture conditions. The pattern of average fire activity along this latitudinal moisture/productivity gradient corresponds well with the varying constraints model. This model predicts low fire activity towards the arid extreme due to reduced burnable biomass and again towards the humid extreme due to infrequent weather suitable for drying fuels, and predicts a broad zone of high fire activity at intermediate locations where resources to burn are abundant in all years and fuel moisture dries under reliably dry summer conditions. The dominant influence on interannual climate variability is AAO, which explained most of the variability in fire activity both by reducing seasonal precipitation in mesic and wet forests where fire is dependent on infrequent drought and by enhancing fine fuel production in Mediterranean-type vegetation where fuel amount and continuity constrain fire activity. In the context of the drying and warming trends in SSA related to the continued positive anomaly in AAO, our results underscore the importance of the varying constraints on fire activity and modulation of fire-climate relationships by different vegetation types, which is a much needed step toward developing fire projections under future climate.


Transportation Planners have a long history of using Geographical Information Systems, Simulation Models and Visualizations for decision support. A frame-work that integrates all three can provide enhanced decision support, opportuni-ties for training and planning future scenarios. In the current paper, we describe the concept of such a framework and the first steps toward its development.


Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a burgeoning interest in, and literature of, both landscape studies and food studies. Landscape describes places as relationships and processes. Landscapes create people's identities and guide their actions and their preferences, while at the same time are shaped by the actions and forces of people. Food, as currency, medium, and sustenance, is a fundamental part of those landscape relationships.

This volume brings together over fifty contributors from around the world in forty profoundly interdisciplinary chapters. Chapter authors represent an astonishing range of disciplines, from agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, conservation, countryside management, cultural studies, ecology, ethics, geography, heritage studies, landscape architecture, landscape management and planning, literature, urban design and architecture. Both food studies and landscape studies defy comprehension from the perspective of a single discipline, and thus such a range is both necessary and enriching.

The Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food is intended as a first port of call for scholars and researchers seeking to undertake new work at the many intersections of landscape and food. Each chapter provides an authoritative overview, a broad range of pertinent readings and references, and seeks to identify areas where new research is needed―though these may also be identified in the many fertile areas in which subjects and chapters overlap within the book.


We report paleomagnetic data for the Lower to Middle Jurassic La Silla and Todos Santos formations of southern Mexico, in west-central Chiapas and the Tehuantepec Isthmus region. Volcanic rocks and red beds of these formations were deposited prior to or during the early stages of Gulf of Mexico opening. Dual-polarity characteristic magnetizations reside primarily in hematite and pass intraformational conglomerate, regional tilt, and reversal tests; they are thus interpreted as primary magnetizations. Our sampling sites are concentrated in three localities; around La Angostura Lake, 17 accepted sites yield a tilt corrected mean of declination (Dec) = 325°, inclination (Inc) = 4.6° ( k = 11.9, α 95 = 10.8°); in the Matias Romero region, the mean is Dec = 312.9°, Inc = 3.2° (based on only seven sites); and in the Custepec area, Jurassic andesitic dikes intruding rocks of the Permian Chiapas Massif yield a corrected mean of Dec = 335.0°, Inc = 5.0° (six sites). The mean directions are discordant with respect to expected North America reference directions, and indicate a counterclockwise rotation of 35° to 40°. Inclinations indicate deposition or emplacement at near equatorial paleolatitudes (2.1°N ± 3.4°). This paleolatitude estimate is statistically indistinguishable from those previously observed in the La Boca Formation of the Huizachal Group in northeast Mexico. The localities we sampled in southern Mexico are separated by ∼150 km, suggesting that the paleomagnetic signature of these rocks reflects regional-scale rather than local deformation. These Jurassic paleomagnetic directions support a rotational origin for the Gulf of Mexico. The data are also consistent with an Early to Middle Jurassic reconstruction that places the Chiapas Massif offshore the Tamaulipas state in the western Gulf of Mexico, and an Euler rotation pole for the Maya Block for this time period in the eastern gulf. The apparent polar wander path defined by paleomagnetic poles for the Chiapas Massif and Jurassic rocks reported here suggests that relative motion between North America and the Maya Block occurred between Late Permian and Early Jurassic time, during a protracted rifting phase, and then in the Late Jurassic in association with seafloor formation in the Gulf.


Under COVID-19, the free trade system, especially the global intellectual property regime, is violating human rights in new ways. In the current fragmented state of international health law and human rights law, intellectual property law under the global trading system is commoditizing COVID-19 vaccines and other essential medicines, prioritizing commercial interests and patent protection over human rights. Although the international human rights system has issued a number of resolutions and reports on this issue, and many international and national organizations have also introduced mechanisms similar to the COVAX plan, the situation of "vaccine apartheid" and the marginalization of the interests of people in poor areas still exists. Therefore, this paper proposes some initial recommendations for better safeguarding of human rights during the COVID-19 outbreak, such as strengthening international cooperation or highlighting the human rights responsibilities of non-state actors, including multinational corporations and NGOs.


Abstract Two Pbca orthopyroxene samples, donpeacorite (DP N.1) and enstatite (B22 N.60) with chemical formulae Mn0.54Ca0.03Mg1.43Si2O6 (XMn = 0.27) and Fe0.54Ca0.03Mg1.43Si2O6 (XFe = 0.27), respectively, were investigated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction at high-temperature conditions. The nearly identical XFe and XMn make the two samples the perfect candidates to investigate the effect of the compositional change at the M2 site (i.e. Fe-Mn substitution) on the thermal expansion behaviour of orthopyroxenes. Therefore, the unit-cell parameter thermal expansion behaviour of both samples has been investigated in the temperature range between room T and 1073 K. No evidence for phase transitions was found over that range. The two samples have been previously disordered with an ex situ annealing at ~1273 K. The unit-cell parameters and volume thermal expansion data, collected on the disordered samples, have been fitted to a Fei Equation of State (EoS) and the following coefficients obtained: V0 = 853.35(4) Å3, αV,303K = 2.31(24) × 10-5 K-1 and V0 = 845.40(6) Å3, aV,303K = 2.51(25) × 10-5 K-1 for DP N.1 and B22 N.60, respectively. While there is no difference in the volume thermal expansion coefficient as a function of composition and the expansion along the b direction is nearly identical for both samples, slight differences have been found along a and c lattice directions. The thermal expansion along the a direction is counterbalanced by that along c being responsible for the changes in lattice expansion scheme from αb > αc > αa at room T, to αc > αb > αa at high T. Therefore, as a result of the different behaviour along a and c, the unit-cell volume thermal expansion for both samples is identical within estimated standard deviations. The negligible effect of the Fe-Mn substitution on the bulk thermal expansion can be applied when dealing with geothermobarometry based on the elastic host-inclusion approach (e.g. Nestola et al., 2011; Howell et al., 2010; Angel et al., 2014a,b, 2015). In fact, though the compressibility effect is still not known, the nearly identical thermal expansion coefficients will not affect the entrapment pressure (Pe).


Itm2a is a type II transmembrane protein with a BRICHOS domain. We investigated the temporospatial mRNA and protein expression patterns of Itm2a in the developing lower first molar, and examined the subcellular localization of Itm2a in murine dental epithelial (mDE6) cells. From the initiation to the bud stage, the in situ and protein signals of Itm2a were not detected in either the dental epithelial or mesenchymal cells surrounding the tooth bud. However, at the bell stage, these signals of Itm2a were primarily observed in the inner enamel epithelium of the enamel organ. After the initiation of the matrix formation, strong signals were detected in ameloblasts and odontoblasts. Itm2a showed a punctate pattern in the cytoplasm of the mDE6 cells. The perinuclear-localized Itm2a displayed a frequent overlap with the Golgi apparatus marker, GM130. A tiny amount of Itm2a was colocalized with lysosomes and endoplasmic reticulum. Minimal or no overlap between the Itm2a-EGFP signals with the other organelle markers for endoplasmic reticulum, lysosome and mitochondria used in this study noted in the cytoplasm. These findings suggest that Itm2a may play a role in cell differentiation during odontogenesis, rather than during the initiation of tooth germ formation, and may be related to the targeting of proteins associated with enamel and dentin matrices in the secretory pathway.


This article describes the policy of forced loans, employed in Spain by Charles V to solve the principal financial crises of the Royal Treasury and to fund the main military campaigns of the Habsburg Empire. Specifically, this study is focused on the first requisition of private American treasures—the earliest case of this in European history—which were expropriated in 1523 by the Casa de la Contratacion (House of Trade) of Seville to finance the campaign of Fuenterrabia against the French army. The analysis of exceptional archival sources provides details of all the forced loans imposed on the holders of remittances (primarily gold) and the conditions for extinguishing the debts without causing harmful consequences to Atlantic traders. The article challenges the widespread view of the confiscations as an attack on property rights and overly simplistic ideas about the supposedly 'highly absolutistic' or predatory policies attributed to the Crown of Castile in some of the economic historiography.


In this paper, we propose a characterization for nonelementary trapping sets (NETSs) of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The characterization is based on viewing a NETS as a hierarchy of embedded graphs starting from an ETS. The characterization corresponds to an efficient search algorithm that under certain conditions is exhaustive. As an application of the proposed characterization/search, we obtain lower and upper bounds on the stopping distance $s_{min}$ of LDPC codes. We examine a large number of regular and irregular LDPC codes, and demonstrate the efficiency and versatility of our technique in finding lower and upper bounds on, and in many cases the exact value of, ${s}_{min}$. Finding $s_{min}$, or establishing search-based lower or upper bounds, for many of the examined codes are out of the reach of any existing algorithm.


In this contribution, the English commonhold system, which enables the development of freehold units in a multi-unit development, is critically re-visited. Provision is made for the development of freehold apartments on land with a registered commonhold title. At the date of registration, a management body for the scheme, the commonhold association, must be in place. Each purchaser of a unit in the relevant building obtains freehold property on purchase. The property and management of the building housing the units and of the common areas of the scheme are, by contrast, withheld from unit holders and vested in the commonhold association, which is a special kind of body corporate. Since the coming into force of the English legislation, a set of defects have been detected. This contribution re-assesses the main problem areas and makes a number of reform suggestions drawing on material from a number of jurisdictions, notably South Africa, France and Germany. Avoidable problems are likely to arise with any conversions to commonhold from the predominant English long lease system, owing to the narrowness of the conversion rules. The manner in which ownership of units and the common parts are regulated, a key aspect in any such system, merits re-assessment. It seems that here the English rules survive comparison. The rules pertaining to constitution of the commonhold association fail to provide sufficient safeguards for unpaid scheme creditors. The rules relating leasing of commonhold units seem inadequately thought out. There is a conspicuous absence of real remedies for non-payment of assessments by unit holders. The effect of these and other aspects may help to explain why commonhold has had a limited numerical impact. The time for a second generation reforming statute may have come.


Flash CS4 Professional Digital Classroom is like having a personal instructor guiding readers through each lesson, while they work at their own pace. This book includes 13 self-paced lessons that let readers discover essential skills and explore new features and capabilities of Adobe Flash Professional. Every lesson is presented in full color with step-by-step instructions. Learning is reinforced with video tutorials and lesson files on a companion DVD that were developed by the same team of Adobe Certified Instructors and Flash experts who have created many of the official training titles for Adobe Systems. Each video tutorial is approximately five minutes long and demonstrates and explains the concepts and features covered in the lesson. This training package shows the basics of using the program, such as using layers and instances to build animation sequences, as well as advance features, such as using ActionScript to create interactive Web page components. Jam-packed with information, this book and DVD takes users from the basics through intermediate level topics and helps readers find the information they need in a clear, approachable manner.


Evaluation of semantic web technologies at large scale, including ontology matching, is an important topic of semantic web research. This paper presents a web-based evaluation service for automatically executing the evaluation of ontology matching systems. This service is based on the use of a web service interface wrapping the functionality of a matching tool to be evaluated and allows developers to launch evaluations of their tool at any time on their own. Furthermore, the service can be used to visualise and manipulate the evaluation results. The approach allows the execution of the tool on the machine of the tool developer without the need for a runtime environment.


This work investigates the non-linear elasto-plastic and visco-plastic behaviour of lead free solder material and soldered joints. Specifically, Finite Element (FE) tools were used to better understand the deformations within Ball Grid Array solder joints (BGA), and numerical and analytical methods were developed to quantify the identified constituent deformations. FE material models were based on the same empirical constitutive models (elastic, plastic and creep) used in analytical calculations. The current work recognises the large number of factors influencing material behaviour which has led to a wide range of published material properties for near eutectic SnAgCu alloys. The work discovered that the deformation within the BGA was more complex than is generally assumed in the literature. It was shown that shear deformation of the solder ball could account for less than 5% of total measured displacement in BGA samples. Shear displacement and rotation of the solder balls relative to the substrate are sensitive to the substrate orthotropic properties and substrate geometry (relative to solder volume and array pattern). The FE modelling was used to derive orthotropic FR4 properties independently using published data. An elastic modulus for Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu was measured using homologous temperatures below 0.3. Suggested values of Abaqusspecific creep parameters m and f (not found in literature) for Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu have been validated with published data. Basic verification against simple analytical calculations has given a better understanding of the components of overall specimen displacement that is normally missing from empirical validation alone. A combined approach of numerical and analytical modelling of BGAs, and mechanical tests, is recommended to harmonise published work, exploit new material data and for more informed analysis of new configurations.


Purpose - This study aims to assess the perceptions of leading Australian integrators within the RFID (radio frequency identification) Industry about the future of the industry and barriers to more widespread adoption of the technology.Methodology/approach - Five leading Australian integrators presently working within the RFID Industry were interviewed.Findings - We find that the interviewed managers were realistic and circumspect about the industry's future and potential supply chain savings, which can be contrasted with the "hype" evident in the commercial literature (for example, AIMRFID
Connections, 2003).Research implications - Understanding integrators' current perceptions about the industry will help vendors and
integrators to develop applications that will be more likely to gain widespread acceptance in the future.Originality/value - This paper provides a unique insight into the perceptions of leading Australian RFID suppliers and integrators regarding the future of the industry and barriers to more widespread adoption of the technology.


Beginning with the commonplace that acts of interpreting individual films and other media works are central to media studies, this article argues that if such accounts are to be presented as interesting, or as the principal evidence for theoretical positions, then more serious engagement with mechanisms involved in meaning production is needed than is common in the field. The author traces interpretive approaches in media studies from various forms of textual determinism (e.g. approaches associated with 'Screen theory') through to reader-response criticism, appeals to interpretive communities, and New Audience Studies. Core issues in ascribing meaning to texts are outlined, in belated celebration of the detailed critique of film interpretation in David Bordwell's often overlooked 'Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema' (1989). Proposing ways in which greater interpretive reflexiveness can be developed, the article concludes by discussing difficulties with the idea of 'exemplary readings': readings which are simultaneously exceptional or outstanding and yet at the same time examples of interpretive processes which are interesting precisely because they are assumed to be followed by any average or ordinary reader.


This paper presents a methodological model for the establishment of Open Access to scientific information at Embrapa, as a strategy for scientific information and knowledge management. The model consists of elements that speed up scientific communication processes and allow for the research output management. The aim is to provide the necessary mechanisms to capture, store, organize, preserve and widely disseminate the scientific knowledge produced by Embrapa and by the scientific community involved in agricultural research, through the implementation of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). It is our contention that effective information management improves institutional scientific communication, which contributes for the betterment of scientific research related processes.


This analysis explores the impact of early cytogenetic and molecular responses on the outcomes of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) in the phase 3 DASatinib versus Imatinib Study In treatment-Naive CML patients trial with a minimum follow-up of 3 years. Patients with newly diagnosed CML-CP were randomized to receive 100 mg dasatinib (n = 259) or 400 mg imatinib (n = 260) once daily. The retrospective landmark analysis included patients evaluable at the relevant time point (3, 6, or 12 months). Median time to complete cytogenetic response was 3 vs 6 months with dasatinib vs imatinib. At 3 and 6 months, the proportion of patients with BCR-ABL transcript levels ≤10% was higher in the dasatinib arm. Deeper responses at 3, 6, and 12 months were observed in a higher proportion of patients on dasatinib therapy and were associated with better 3-year progression-free survival and overall survival in both arms. First-line dasatinib resulted in faster and deeper responses compared with imatinib. The achievement of an early molecular response was predictive of improved progression-free survival and overall survival, supporting new milestones for optimal response in patients with early CML-CP treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This study was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00481247.


In this article we determine the effect of an extralimital megaherbivore on the reproductive potential and vegetation structure of two keystone tree species in the Auob River in the south western Kalahari Desert of southern Africa. Using spoor and dung counts we establish the presence of giraffe in three predetermined density zones by walking 50 transects across the river in each zone. We also photographed six trees from each species in each zone and use these photographs to determine browse impact on reproductive potential, canopy volume as well as the percentage dieback on the extremities of the canopy. We then perform stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on the leaves of the trees and compare these relative to the isotope ratios of giraffe dung to ascertain dietary preference. Crude protein was determined as a guide to nutritive value. Finally, we determine both chemical and physical defences for the two species. Our results show a significant negative impact of giraffe browse on tree canopies, no significant differences in recruitment and a noticeable decrease in flowers and pods at the giraffe browse height of 2 m – 5 m. No significant differences in crude protein or condensed tannins were found but significant differences in spinescence. Giraffe are not endemic to the Auob River and our study shows that the introduction of these animals is having a negative impact on the canopies of Vachellia haematoxylon . While there are, as yet, no significant impacts on reproductive potential we speculate that this will happen with time. Conservation implications: Our study shows that giraffe are significantly impacting the canopies of two common tree species in the Auob River in the arid Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Without management intervention an increasing population of giraffe will result in substantial changes to the plant community vegetation structure of the river.


A compact balanced bandpass filter is proposed using a novel circuit topology, which includes a differential resonator and a common resonator in the conventional quasi-lumped coupled-line circuit, instead of adopting quarter-wavelength or half-wavelength transmission lines in the filter design. Based on this circuit topology, the balanced bandpass filter can support bandpass filtering function under differential-mode operation and exhibit bandstop filtering function under common-mode noise. By employing the advantage of the low-temperature co-fired ceramic fabrication technology, a compact balanced bandpass filter is centered at 3.42 GHz with fractional bandwidth 10.4% for differential signals and rejection band is from 1.48 to 7.4 GHz for the common-mode noise. Moreover, the proposed filter is able to introduce a transmission zero with excellent common-mode suppression (>;40 dB) within the differential-mode passband. The electrical size of this filter is 5.6 × 5.4 mm with the corresponding electrical size 0.113 × 0.109 λg, where λg is the guided wavelength at the center frequency 3.42 GHz. This compact balanced bandpass filter is suitable to be applied to the system-in-package technology for wireless application.


This paper considers a joint design that incorporates the physical, medium access and network layers of a generic OFDMA-based wireless network with an ad hoc topology. The network employs channel reuse, whereby a frequency subchannel might be used simultaneously by multiple nodes. In addition to being a source and/or a destination, each node can act as a half-duplex relay to assist other nodes. The design objective is to determine the jointly optimal data routes and subchannel power allocations that maximize a weighted sum of the rates that can be reliably communicated over the network. Assuming that the signals transmitted by the nodes are Gaussian, the joint cross layer design of routing and power allocation is cast as an optimization problem. Unfortunately, this problem is non-convex, and hence difficult to solve. To circumvent this difficulty, an efficient technique based on geometric programming is developed to obtain a local solution that satisfies the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker necessary optimality conditions. Numerical results show that, despite the potential suboptimality of the obtained solution, for some network scenarios, it offers significant gains over optimal scheduling-based schemes in which a frequency band is allowed to be used by one node only at any time instant.


The proponents of globalization contend that European countries are now converging on an Anglo-American model of capitalism. Contrary to this prediction, this paper will show that in Spain globalization and EMU have promoted rather than undermined coordination among economic actors. Unable to escape from economic interdependence the Spanish economic actors have developed coordinating capacities at the macro and micro levels to address and resolve tensions between economic interdependence and political sovereignty. In this paper I show that there is at least one more variety than the two–LME and CME–that Hall and Soskice cite and also that it is possible to develop coordination capacities in countries that lack a strong tradition of such capacities. In particular, this paper analyzes the resurgence of national-level social bargaining in Spain in the 1990s. This development was the result of the reorientation of the strategies of the social actors. In a new economic and political context, marked by a process of institutional learning, trade unions have supported social bargaining as a defensive strategy to retake the initiative and influence policy outcomes.


Summary 1. The potential effects of wind energy development on wildlife have received increased attention over the past decade. In Kansas, optimal sites for wind energy development often overlap with preferred habitats of greater prairie-chickens Tympanuchus cupido. Our goal was to determine whether wind energy development affected survival of female prairie-chickens in a grassland ecosystem, assessing one potential impact of wind on an upland gamebird of conservation concern. We focused primarily on the response of female prairie-chickens to wind energy development because population dynamics of prairie-chickens are primarily determined by female demography. 2. We monitored prairie-chickens at a wind facility in Kansas during a 2-year pre-construction (2007–2008) and a 3-year post-construction period (2009–2011). We used data from 220 radio-marked females to calculate weekly survival and hazard rates. We used cause of death for 81 mortality events to test for changes in the proportion of mortalities attributed to mammalian predators, avian predators and collisions. 3. We observed an unexpected increase in annual survival during the post-construction period (057) compared with the pre-construction period (032). Distance from home range centroid to the nearest wind turbine site had no effect on weekly survival of females. Collision mortality events were rare, and most were associated with fences or transmission lines and not turbine blades. 4. Most female mortality was due to predation (c. 90%). Differences in annual survival were driven by a higher risk of mortality during lekking activity in March and April during the preconstruction period (weekly hazard rate = 0050–0062) compared with the post-construction period (hazard rate = 0012–0021). We observed no change in the proportion of mortalities attributed to different causes between the two treatment periods. 5. Synthesis and applications. Development of a wind energy facility had no negative effect on survival of female prairie-chickens. The results of our field study indicate that greater prairie-chickens are less sensitive to wind energy development than lesser prairie-chickens Tympanuchus pallidicinctus and greater sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus are to oil and gas development. We have strong evidence that survival increased after wind energy development, and hypothesize that energy development affected the local predator community, resulting in an indirect effect of decreased predation risk during the post-construction period.


The witch-hunts of the early modern period must have left a profound mark on many local communities. The intense trials and executions which took place during the second half of the seventeenth century were dreadful events that touched many people. All those involved, from the accused and the witnesses to the judges and the clergy, had to make decisions that changed and even ended people's lives. Other people too must have remembered the accusations, and felt the fear and hatred for a long time afterwards. Those involved had families, neighbours and friends who were, at the very least, emotionally affected by the proceedings. Moreover, such events were difficult not only for individuals but also for local societies as a unit. In a time when unity, neighbourliness and harmony were meant to characterise a good Christian society, the disorder that a large-scale witch-hunt created was especially threatening. So what happened in a community following a witch-hunt? In the years that followed people had to go on living together. But what became of them? Were the accused witches who had not been executed reintegrated into the local society, or were they forever witches in the eyes of their neighbours? What relationship did the accusers have to the people they had accused, or the families of those who had been executed? Did the witch accusations go on in some other form? Were new conflicts created instead? The issue of the aftermath is important because witch-hunts did not begin or end with the trial proceedings. There was usually a long history of related events following a trial as well as leading up to it. In this context it is important to question both the ways in which local society affected a witch-hunt and how the witch-hunt altered the lives of everybody involved. In the historiography of witchcraft it has been recognised that the background and the relationships between the involved parties in a witchhunt were determining factors for how things would turn out. Even if accuser and accused had not been involved in face-to-face conflicts before the accusations were made, certain patterns can be detected in how the witch-hunt


Graham considers Jean Toomer's Cane from a musicological perspective and discusses the novel's musical poetics with an ear toward 1920s discussions of African American folk culture, preservationism, and the mediation of song. At the time of Cane's publication, Toomer's poems-modeled on African American spirituals-could be appreciated and sung by readers of various ethnic backgrounds. This essay argues that their musicality and performability were ultimately intended to promote interracial empathy and to elide racial difference.
Other topics of the essay include turn-of-the-century American theater, Tin Pan Alley and the music industry, anthropology and ethnography in the southern United States, and Toomer's debts or relations to other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, among them James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Langston Hughes.


Abstract A 13-year-old adolescent presented for correction of an 85-degree idiopathic thoracic scoliosis. She was known to have Prader-Willi syndrome. Previous general anaesthesia for non-spinal surgery had been uneventful. On two occasions following uneventful induction and total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) maintenance, she developed severe recalcitrant bradycardia with hypotension that was resistant to anticholinergics, inotropes and vasopressors upon prone positioning. Immediate resolution occurred upon a return to the supine position. On each occasion, she emerged from anaesthesia with no untoward sequelae. Cardiac investigations, including echocardiography, electrocardiography (ECG), troponin and creatine kinase-MB fraction levels were all within the normal range, and ventricular function was good. It was necessary to urgently proceed with the surgery as the scoliosis was progressive, with risks of cardiovascular and respiratory compromise. Additionally, she was scheduled to recommence growth hormone therapy postoperatively to treat her growth retardation. Ultimately, she received propofol for induction of anaesthesia and TIVA with propofol and remifentanil infusions for the maintenance of anaesthesia. Post-induction, a transvenous pacing wire was placed under ECG guidance. A transoesphageal probe was inserted and cardiac function monitored throughout the procedure. Upon prone positioning, she again developed a bradycardia which responded to pacing and surgery was carried out uneventfully. Clinical examination and extensive investigations had failed to demonstrate any specific underlying cause for her repeated positional arrhythmia. Therefore, we deduced that the bradycardia was due to a hypervagal response provoked by prone positioning and because of the severity of the scoliosis. We are unaware of reports of such a complication in the literature.


OBJECTIVES
To determine how much should be invested each year to encourage and operationalize the administration of influenza vaccine to children before November and how late the vaccine should be offered each year.

STUDY DESIGN
Monte Carlo decision analytic computer simulation models.

METHODS
The children's influenza vaccination timing model quantified the incremental economic value of vaccinating a child earlier in the influenza season and the incremental cost of delaying vaccination. The children's monthly influenza vaccination decision model evaluated the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating versus not vaccinating for every month of the influenza season.

RESULTS
Getting children vaccinated by the end of October rather than when they are currently getting vaccinated could save society between $6.4 million and $9.2 million plus 653 and 926 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and third-party payers between $4.1 million and $6.1 million plus 647 to 942 QALYs each year. Decision makers may want to continue offering influenza vaccination to children at least through the end of December. Vaccinating with trivalent inactivated virus vaccine was more cost-effective than vaccinating with live attenuated influenza vaccine for every month.

CONCLUSION
Policymakers could invest up to $6 million to $9 million a year to get children vaccinated in September or October without expending any net costs.


Previous studies have shown that preferences for direct versus averted gaze are modulated by emotional expressions and physical attractiveness. For example, preferences for direct gaze are stronger when judging happy or physically attractive faces than when judging disgusted or physically unattractive faces. Here we show that preferences for front versus three-quarter views of faces, in which gaze direction was always congruent with head orientation, are also modulated by emotional expressions and physical attractiveness; participants demonstrated preferences for front views of faces over three-quarter views of faces when judging the attractiveness of happy, physically attractive individuals, but not when judging the attractiveness of relatively unattractive individuals or those with disgusted expressions. Moreover, further analyses indicated that these interactions did not simply reflect differential perceptions of the intensity of the emotional expressions shown in each condition. Collectively, these findings present novel evidence that the effect of the direction of the attention of others on attractiveness judgments is modulated by cues to the physical attractiveness and emotional state of the depicted individual, potentially reflecting psychological adaptations for efficient allocation of social effort. These data also present the first behavioural evidence that the effect of the direction of the attention of others on attractiveness judgments reflects viewer-referenced, rather than face-referenced, coding and/or processing of gaze direction.


Community engagement is increasingly recognized as essential for the ethical conduct of health research, particularly in international settings where wealth, educational and cultural differences between host communities and researchers are often stark. Engagement approaches are diverse, addressing a wide range of goals. The School Engagement Programme (SEP) forms part of a wider platform of community engagement activities at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) in Kilifi, Kenya. Key SEP goals include raising mutual understanding between researchers and community members, nurturing secondary school students' interest in science, and raising educational aspirations.

In this thesis, I address the paucity of careful evaluations of community engagement in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), and of school engagement specifically. I consider the potential contribution of school engagement to the ethical goals of research, and contribute to the identification of key elements to use in the evaluation of school engagement programmes in the region.

Drawing on a novel combination of methods including participatory video, baseline and post-intervention surveys, interviews and group discussions I found that the SEP benefitted students through nurturing an interest in science and promoting confidence in speaking to researchers, laying a foundation for future interactions. Researchers benefitted through strengthened ties with the community which gave them a better understanding of the context of their work and more of a sense of being part of the community. There were also unintended outcomes and mismatches between programme goals and community expectations however, which highlight the need for broad inclusion in planning and implementing school engagement programmes, and the monitoring of perverse outcomes. The thesis draws from the SEP evaluation findings to synthesise a theory of change and a framework to guide the evaluation of school engagement programmes.


This study investigated the effect of reaction temperature, ranging from 450 to 650 o C, on the pore structure of the nanostructured zeolite particles (NZP) synthesized by aerosol-assisted self-assembly (AASA). The results indicated that by using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant, the pore size distributions in the synthesized NZP from 450 to 550 o C were nearly uniform with geometric standard deviations of around 1.2. However, the uniformity is poorer at process temperature of 650 o C. A maximum surface area of 872 m 2 /g could be reached at 550 o C with an average pore diameter of 2.0 nm, while a maximum pore diameter of 2.5 nm could be achieved at 450 o C with a surface area of 750 m 2 /g. The results also indicated that a slight increase in the average pore diameter (d) of NZP from 2.0 to 2.5 nm led to an increase in the acetone adsorption capacity, even though its surface area was decreased; in which case (d=2.5 nm) the saturated adsorption of NZP was better than that of ZSM-5 zeolite.


Note: This essay sought to disinter a lost history of twentieth century modernism and to recuperate forays by fine artists into the applied arts. It was also a pioneering attempt to analyse the significance of artists' current engagement with the 'world of ordinary things'. The chapter was a contribution to the current debate concerning the cultural significance of the 'everyday' and sought, on a modest scale, to rewrite the history of visual modernism. Several methodological models were useful for this research including anthropological texts on art consumption (Appadurai, Danto, Gell) and attempts to reconfigure the history of visual modernism (TJ. Clark, Kirkham, Naylor, Sparke, Tillyard). It made use of my ongoing research into Le Corbusier's engagement with folk and vernacular objects. The book in which this essay appeared is now a standard test on contemporary art in relation to the home. It came out of the 'At Home with Art' project organised by Colin Painter at Tate Britain and at Homebase.


Objective: To compare the mean duration of 1st stage of labor with phloroglucinol and drotaverine in patients with uncomplicated labour. Study design: Randomized controlled trial. Settings: Department of Obstetrics &Gynecology, Allied Hospital, Faisalabad. Duration: From 28th June, 2016 to 27th December, 2016. Methodology:80 laboring patients with singleton pregnancy, cephalic presentation, presenting at gestational age 37-40 weeks in active phase of labour were included in the study. All the females were randomly divided into two groups. In group A, phloroglucinol 40mg IV every 60 min (Maximum of 3 doses) was given and in group B drotaverine was given 40mg IV every 60 min (Maximum of 3 doses.) Duration of 1st stage of labour was measured in minutes. Results: The mean age of the patients was 27.58+4.2 years and mean gestational age was 38.09+0.97 weeks. In Phloroglucinol group, mean duration of 1st stage of labour was 154.70+26.46 min and in Drotaverine group, it was 175.30+33.34 min. There was a mean difference of 20.60 minutes between both groups and the difference was statistically significant between two groups with p-value = 0.003. Conclusion: The phloroglucinol is better than drotaverine in patients with uncomplicated labour in terms of mean duration of 1st stage of labour.


A prototype energy scavenging autonomous marine surface vehicle for littoral water surveillance has been developed and experimentally tested. The basic vehicle chassis is a heavily modified Stiletto Catamaran with the center structure removed and replaced with an aluminum box beam supporting a carbon fiber stub mast. A carbon fiber rigid wing, 10.7 meters tall and with a 3 meter chord is suspended on bearings about the stub mast and able to rotate freely in azimuth. Controlled by flying tails attached on booms at mid-span, the wing flies at a constant angle of attack to the relative wind (the vector sum of the true wind and vehicle velocity). Equipped with two 7KW electric motors, and independent battery banks to power them, the vehicle can be propelled either electrically, or via wind power, or both. A simple hybrid drive results from the operation of two independent control systems linked through GPS velocity. Off shore tests have shown the vehicle to be capable of tracking patrol segments to better than 2 meters, with line acquisition and segment transitions taking 50-100 meters to complete. The control system for the wing automatically tacks and jibes the wing as appropriate in order to produce forward thrust.


Abstract Unusally severe storms occurred in the northeast Pacific Ocean between January and March 1983, and waves from these storms caused extensive erosion and damage along the U.S. west coast. Wave conditions as measured by eight data buoys are described for an intense storm of northern California with significant wave heights up to 12.9 m that occurred during February 1983. A very uncommon feature of the wave spectra is considerable energy at long periods of 20 to 25 s. Long period waves were generated west of the northern buoys and propagated as high swell to the southern buoys. Swell propagation was consistent with classical wave theory. The ability to quantitatively identify high swell at northern buoys prior to its arrival at buoys off southern California may have real-time swell forecast applications. Differences between measurements and numerical wave model forecasts and hindcasts indicate the value of the wave data and areas where numerical modeling of such storm-generated waves could be improved.


Courses IS 100 Exploring the iSchool with a Human-Centered Lens credit: 1 Hour. (https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule/terms/IS/100/) This course introduces students to the School of Information Sciences (iSchool). Students will explore career and professional development within information sciences, building their leadership and collaborative skills, and building a network within and beyond the iSchool. Through a human centered design project focused on an information science problem, students will gain experience and a better understanding of the process to develop an innovative solution addressing a societal need. Prerequisite: Restricted to Majors Only; First Semester Freshman, Intercollegiate and Off-Campus Transfer Students Only.


This research uses an interdisciplinarian neo-institutional approach to examine formal and informal institutional factors that influence dairy farmers' ideas about participation in collective action in the "Altos Sur" region in Jalisco, Mexico. Data collected from face-to-face interviews of a sample of 100 dairy farmers was used to measure and analyze formal and informal factors that influence these dairy farmers' decisions about collective action; whether or not to join other dairy farmers to produce milk in a collective way. This research tests hypotheses not only on dairy farmers' perceptions of formal institutions such as the state, the market and the economic organization, but also on their perceptions of informal institutions such as bonding and bridging social capital which might have influenced them to participate in collective action. Results of this research indicate that these dairy farmers' motivations to go into entrepreneurial collective action were influenced by both formal and informal institutional perceptions. Perceptions of formal institutions that affected willingness to engage in collective action include views about government responsibilities and duties in the milk industry; perceptions of the functionality of an economic organization, and perceptions of market functionality. The surveys also show that farmers' perceptions of bonding social capital had a more significant influence than bridging social capital on whether or not they were encouraged to participate in collective action. These findings are discussed in relation to the larger issue of whether collective entrepreneurial action can mediate market failure that is exacerbated by globalization.


This paper identifies some common and specific pitfalls in the development of sign language technologies targeted at deaf communities, with a specific focus on signing avatars. It makes the call to urgently interrogate some of the ideologies behind those technologies, including issues of ethical and responsible development. The paper addresses four separate and interlinked issues: ideologies about deaf people and mediated communication, bias in data sets and learning, user feedback, and applications of the technologies. The paper ends with several take away points for both technology developers and deaf NGOs. Technology developers should give more consideration to diversifying their team and working interdisciplinary, and be mindful of the biases that inevitably creep into data sets. There should also be a consideration of the technologies' end users. Sign language interpreters are not the end users nor should they be seen as the benchmark for language use. Technology developers and deaf NGOs can engage in a dialogue about how to prioritize application domains and prioritize within application domains. Finally, deaf NGOs policy statements will need to take a longer view, and use avatars to think of a significantly better system compared to what sign language interpreting services can provide.


Two features of the legal regulation of childhood seem troublesome, but ultimately contribute to sensible policies in most contexts. First, the boundary between childhood and adulthood varies in different policy domains, through a regime of age grading under which elementary school students are deemed adults for some legal purposes, while, for other purposes, college students are children. Second, the transitional stage of adolescence is virtually invisible, because, for most purposes, law makers employ binary categories, classifying adolescents as either children or as adults. This framework - a series of legislative bright line rules, arrayed around a presumptive age of majority - generally promotes social welfare as well as the interests of youth. Although this approach sometimes distorts developmental reality, it accomplishes the transition from legal childhood to adulthood over time without incurring the costs associated with the creation of intermediate legal category. Indeed, the unsuccessful experience with abortion regulation (in which adolescents occupy a special category) confirms the benefits of binary classification. In the context of juvenile justice policy, however, categorical assumptions that ignore the developmental stage of adolescence have harmful outcomes. In responding to youth crime, law makers have shifted the boundary of childhood dramatically during the 20th century. The Progressive architects of the traditional juvenile court described delinquent youths as innocent children, and constructed policies that presumed that the state's sole purpose was to promote their welfare. Contemporary conservatives, in contrast, assume that young offenders are indistinguishable from adult criminals, and argue that public protection demands that they be subject to the same punishment. I argue that both of these accounts represent distortions and have been the basis of unsatisfactory policies - even in terms of the professed objectives of their adherents. A justice policy that treats adolescence as a distinct legal category not only will promote youth welfare, but will also advance the utilitarian objectives of reducing the costs of youth crime.


The present critical review aims to portray the principles and theoretical foundations that have been used for the application of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to study electron-transfer mechanisms, mass transfer phenomena and distribution of the heterogeneous properties of microbial electrochemical systems (MXCs). Over the past eight years, the application of this method has allowed major breakthroughs, especially in the field of microbial fuel cells (MFCs); however, it is still most widely extended only to the calculation of internal resistances. The use and interpretation of EIS should greatly improve since the intrinsic knowledge of this field, and efforts and current trends in this field have already allowed its understanding based on rather meaningful physical properties and not only on fitting electrical analogues. From this perspective, the use, analysis and interpretation of EIS applied to the study of MXCs are critically examined. Together with the revision of more than 150 articles directly devoted to this topic, two examples of the correct and improved analysis of EIS data are extensively presented. The first one focuses on the use of graphical methods for improving EIS analysis and the other one concentrates on the elucidation of the constant phase element (CPE) parameters. CPEs have been introduced in equivalent circuit models, sometimes without solid justification or analysis; the effective capacitance has been obtained from CPE parameters, following an unsuitable theory for the case of microbial-electrochemical interfaces. The use of CPE is reviewed in terms of meaningful physical parameters, such as biofilm thickness. The use of a finite-diffusion element is reviewed throughout estimation of accurate values for obtaining the dimensionless numbers, Schmidt and Sherwood, in the context of a dioxygen-reducing-biocathode, under different flow-rate conditions. The use and analysis of EIS in this context are still emerging, but because of the promising potential of MXCs in renewable power generation, wastewater treatment and energy-positive biorefining, among other applications, it becomes necessary to boost our global capacities for the application of EIS-and especially its interpretation-so that we achieve a better understanding and optimization of these systems.


This paper documents stylized facts on the process of structural transformation around the world and empirically analyzes its determinants using data on real value added by sector of economic activity (agriculture, manufacturing and services) for a panel of 168 countries over the period 1970-2010. The analysis points to large differences in sector shares both across and within regions as well as for countries at similar levels of economic development. Using both linear and quantile regression methods, it finds that a large proportion of the cross-country variation in sector shares can be accounted for by country characteristics, such as real GDP per capita, demographic structure, and population size. It also finds that policy and insitutional variables, such as product market reforms, openness to trade, human and physical capital, and finance improve the baseline model's ability to account for the variation in sectoral shares across countries.