Multiple turbidity currents were recorded in two submarine canyons with maximum speed as high as 280 cm/s. For each individual turbidity current measured at a fixed station, its depth-averaged velocity typically decreased over time while its thickness increased. Some turbidity currents gained in speed as they traveled downcanyon, suggesting a possible self-accelerating process. The measured velocity profiles, first in this high resolution, allowed normalizations with various schemes. Empirical functions, obtained from laboratory experiments whose spatial and time scales are two to three orders of magnitude smaller, were found to represent the field data fairly well. The best similarity collapse of the velocity profiles was achieved when the streamwise velocity and the elevation were normalized respectively by the depth-averaged velocity and the turbidity current thickness. This normalization scheme can be generalized to an empirical function Y = exp(–α X β ) for the jet region above the velocity maximum. Confirming theoretical arguments and laboratory results of other studies, the field turbidity currents are Froude-supercritical.


Objective: This review aimed to synthesise qualitative research exploring clients' perspectives of forming a therapeutic relationship with their therapist or counsellor. Method: Noblit and Hare's meta-ethnographic approach was used to guide the synthesis of 13 studies meeting inclusion criteria. The quality of each study was rated using the CASP quality rating checklist. Results: Findings demonstrated that clients create a hierarchy of desired therapist characteristics to assess how well the therapy can meet their needs (theme 1: assessing clienttherapist match). The formation of the therapeutic relationship is facilitated by an openness from both the therapist and client (theme 2: facilitating openness) and helps to develop a connection through which the client can be fundamentally understood (theme 3: connecting on a deeper level). Displays of disrespectful or disempowering behaviour generate barriers in the formation of a therapeutic relationship (theme 4: empowerment through respect). Conclusions: The meta-ethnographic approach extended the findings from each individual study to highlight some significant discoveries, including that clients across different settings created a hierarchy of therapist characteristics which were of varying importance to them depending on their perceived needs. Additionally, clients reported that they preferred their therapists to disclose information in order to facilitate the therapeutic relationship.


Background: Obesity is not a new disease, with roots that can be traced back to 400 BC. However, with the staggering increase in individuals that are overweight and obese since the 1980s, now over a quarter of individuals in Europe and the Americas are classed as obese. This presents a global health problem that needs to be addressed with novel therapies.

It is now well accepted that obesity is a chronic, low-grade inflammatory condition that could predispose individuals to a number of comorbidities. Obesity is associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) as part of "the metabolic syndrome," and as first identified by Dr Vauge, central distribution of white adipose tissue (WAT) is an important risk factor in the development of these diseases. Subsequently, visceral WAT (vWAT) was shown to be an important factor in this association with CVDs and T2D, and increasing inflammation. As the obese WAT expands, mainly through hypertrophy, there is an increase in inflammation that recruits numerous immune cells to the tissue that further exacerbate this inflammation, causing local and systemic inflammatory and metabolic effects. One of the main types of immune cell involved in this pathogenic process is pro-inflammatory M1 adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs).

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a species of small RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression by targeting gene mRNA, causing its degradation or translational repression. These miRNAs are promiscuous, regulating numerous genes and pathways involved in a disease, making them useful therapeutic targets, but also difficult to study. miR-34a has been shown to increase in the serum, liver, pancreas, and subcutaneous (sc)WAT of patients with obesity, non- alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and T2D. Additionally, miR-34a has been shown to regulate a number of metabolic and inflammatory genes in numerous cell types, including those in macrophages. However, the role of miR-34a in regulating vWAT metabolism and inflammation is poorly understood.
Hypothesis: miR-34a is dysregulated in the adipose tissue during obesity, causing dysregulation of metabolic and inflammatory pathways in adipocytes and ATMs that contribute to adipose inflammation and obesity's comorbidities, particularly T2D.

Method/Results: The role of miR-34a in adipose inflammation was investigated using a murine miR-34a-/- diet-induced obesity model, and primary in vitro models of adipocyte differentiation and inflammatory bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs). miR-34a was shown to be ubiquitously expressed throughout the murine epididymal (e)WAT of obese high-fat diet (HFD)-fed WT mice and ob/ob mice, as well as omental WAT from patients with obesity. Additionally, miR-34a transcripts were increased in the liver and brown adipose tissue (BAT) of ob/ob and HFD-fed WT mice, compared to WT controls.

When miR-34a-/- mice were fed HFD ad libitum for 24 weeks they were significantly heavier than their WT counterparts by the end of the study. Ex vivo examinations showed that miR-34a-/- eWAT had a smaller adipocyte area on chow, which significantly increased to WT levels during HFD-feeding. Additionally, miR-34a-/- eWAT showed basal increases in cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism genes Cd36, Hmgcr, Lxrα, Pgc1α, and Fasn. miR-34a-/- iBAT showed basal reductions in Cebpα and Cebpβ, with increased Pgc1α expression during HFD- feeding. The miR-34a-/- liver additionally showed increased basal transcript expression of Pgc1α, suggesting miR-34a may broadly regulate PGC1α. Accompanying the ex vivo changes in cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism genes, in vitro miR-34a-/- white adipocytes showed increased lipid content.

An F4/80high macrophage population was identified in HFD-fed miR-34a-/- eWAT, with increased Il-10 transcripts and serum IL-5 protein. Following these ex vivo observations, BMDMs from WT mice upregulated miR-34a expression in response to TNFα stimulation. Additionally, miR-34a-/- BMDMs showed an ablated CXCL1 response to TNFα.
Conclusion: These findings suggest miR-34a has a multi-factorial role in controlling a susceptibility to obesity, by regulating inflammatory and metabolic pathways, potentially through regulation of PGC1α.


Tree-based algorithms for spatial domain applications scale poorly in the distributed setting without extensive experimentation and optimization. Reusability via well-designed parallel abstractions supported by efficient parallel algorithms is therefore desirable. We present ParaTreeT, a parallel tree toolkit for state-of-the-art performance and programmer productivity. ParaTreeT leverages a novel shared-memory software cache to reduce communication volume and idle time throughout traversal. By dividing particles and subtrees across processors independently, it improves decomposition and limits synchro-nization during tree build. Tree-node states are extracted from the particle set with the Data abstraction, and traversal work and pruning are defined by the Visitor abstraction. ParaTreeT provides built-in trees, decompositions, and traversals that offer application-specific customization. We demonstrate ParaTreeT's improved computational performance over even specialized codes with multiple applications on CPUs. We evaluate how several applications derive benefit from ParaTreeT's models while pro-viding new insights to these workloads through experimentation.


One of the principal U.S. tax policy issues leading up to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was how foreign-source active business income of U.S. multinational enterprises should be taxed by the United States if the system of deferring U.S. tax on active foreign income of a foreign subsidiary was ended. Much of the U.S. multinational business community urged that the United States adopt a territorial or exemption system, while others, including many labor-backed groups, favored adopting an expanded worldwide tax regime. As others have observed, Congress chose both. This report takes a preliminary look at the extent to which the TCJA's purely outbound international provisions caused a degree of movement in either direction.

The TCJA created a more complex international system that manages to include elements of territoriality, expanded worldwide taxation, and even deferral. Consequently, the TCJA does not resolve the territorial versus worldwide debate, but extends it.

When the one-time acceleration of tax on deferred earnings is set aside, the TCJA's ongoing outbound rules are estimated to actually lose revenue, thus supporting a conclusion that the U.S. international tax system has shifted toward territoriality, although not nearly so much as territoriality advocates had hoped.

The authors have concluded that expanded worldwide taxation is the normatively preferred position. The report explains how the new global intangible low-taxed income regime may serve as a platform to shift the U.S. international tax regime to expanded worldwide taxation and identifies steps that would accomplish that objective.


Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that erotic stimuli activate the reward circuitry processing monetary and drug rewards. Theoretically, a general reward system may give rise to nonspecific effects: exposure to "hot stimuli" from one domain may thus affect decisions in a different domain. We show that exposure to sexy cues leads to more impatience in intertemporal choice between monetary rewards. Highlighting the role of a general reward circuitry, we demonstrate that individuals with a sensitive reward system are more susceptible to the effect of sex cues, that the effect generalizes to nonmonetary rewards, and that satiation attenuates the effect.


This paper proposes, designs, and analyses a novel nonlinear feedback controller that realizes fast, and oscillation free convergence of the synchronization error to the equilibrium point. Oscillation free convergence lowers the failure chances of a closed-loop system due to the reduced chattering phenomenon in the actuator motion, which is a consequence of low energy sm ooth control signal. The proposed controller has a novel structure. This controller does not cancel nonlinear terms of the plant in the closed-loop; this attribute improves the robustness of the loop. The controller consists of linear and nonlinear parts; each part executes a specific task. The linear term in the controller keeps the closed-loop stable, while the nonlinear part of the controller facilitates the fast convergence of the error signal to the vicinity of the origin. Then the linear controller synthesizes a smooth control signal that moves the error signals to zero without oscillations. The nonlinear term of the controller does not contribute to this synthesis. The collaborative combination of linear and nonlinear controllers that drive the synchronization errors to zero is innovative. The paper establishes proof of global stability and convergence behavior by describing a detailed analysis based on the Lyapunov stability theory. Computer simulation results of two numerical examples verify the performance of the proposed controller approach. The paper also provides a comparative study with state-of-the-art controllers.


Owing to rapid economic and industrial development, China has been suffering from degraded air quality and visibility. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are important precursors to the formation of ground-level ozone and hence photochemical smog. To investigate the impact of VOCs produced in concentrated areas of pharmaceutical enterprises on environment and human health, 168 samples were collected at 8 sites around the concentrated areas of pharmaceutical enterprises. The content of VOCs was determined by prethickening-GC-MS method, and the health risk assessment model of United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was used to evaluate the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) pollution in the concentrated areas of pharmaceutical enterprises. The results showed that the total of 32 substances were detected in concentrated areas of pharmaceutical enterprises, and concentration of Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) was 2.04 mg•m-3. Among them, the proportion of aromatic hydrocarbons and ketones were higher, respectively accounting for 43% and 28%; most VOCs concentrations were ten times or 100 times the background value. The 19 detected VOCs which had health hazards did not pose a significant non-carcinogenic health risk to humans; but 5 kinds of VOCs such as 1, 3- butadiene, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, benzene and 1, 1, 2-, methyl chloroform, etc. have carcinogenic health hazard to human body. The cumulative carcinogenic risk index of total VOCs was much higher than the acceptable quantity level, indicating that the VOCs emitted from concentrated areas of pharmaceutical enterprises was the main cause of carcinogenic health damage to human body.


This research paper presents a novel method for the speed control of induction motors without using a speed sensor. The rotor speed can be accurately computed using an optimal control observer named the Kalman filter designed in this research paper. This replaces a speed sensor and eliminates the difficulty of the sensor installation in many applications. This research paper presents an advanced field oriented control of induction motors, based on a specific d-q coordinate model with the d-coordinate chosen to be in line with the rotor flux and the q-coordinate chosen to be 90⁰ lagging. The position of the rotor flux can be accurately computed using the Kalman filter. This eliminates the position sensors required accurately to monitor the flux. This research paper shows that as a result of this specific d-q transformation, the motor torque is proportional to the product of the rotor flux and the q-coordinate stator current. This significantly simplifies the induction motor control, such that the rotor flux is simply controlled by regulating the flux-related d-coordinates stator current and the motor torque is controlled just by regulating the q-coordinate stator current. This research paper presents a computational efficient recursive algorithm for Kalman filter which is specifically designed for the induction motor control. The Kalman filter provides the minimum variance state estimation and tolerates induction motor modelling and measurement errors. The Kalman filter can process all available measurements regardless of their precision (only two input current measurements required for the motor control), and provides a quick and optimal estimate of the variables of interest (the rotor speed and flux selected as outputs), as well as achieves a fast convergence. This research paper presents the digital signal processor (DSP) implementation of the field oriented control of induction motors using Kalman filter. The hardware requirements and all software modules are detailed. The experimental verification of the control method designed in this research paper is provided. Typical measurements are given to demonstrate the efficiency of the novel control presented in this research paper.


This article surveys recent work of Carlsson and collaborators on applications of computational algebraic topology to problems of feature detection and shape recognition in high-dimensional data. The primary mathematical tool considered is a homology theory for point-cloud data sets — persistent homology — and a novel representation of this algebraic characterization — barcodes. We sketch an application of these techniques to the classification of natural images. Comments Reprinted from: GHRIST, R. Barcodes: the persistent topology of data. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (New Series) 45, 1 (2008), 61–75. This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/grasp_papers/1 BARCODES: THE PERSISTENT TOPOLOGY OF DATA


For many scientists seeking funding from NIH, this seems like the best of times and the worst of times. The opportunities to make scientific discoveries have never been better. Following the completion of the Human Genome Project and the International HapMap Project, we have guides to the common variations in the human genome. These maps yield an unprecedented opportunity to identify the genomic vulnerability to complex diseases and phenotypes, including mental illness, addiction, and alcohol dependence. New neuroimaging tools allow us to detect the circuits involved in the pathophysiology of brain disorders, revealing, for the first time, details of normal and abnormal functioning and development of the human brain. We now have national networks for clinical trials, facilitating large-scale studies of important public health questions. As directors of three NIH Institutes, we believe passionately that there has not been a better time for progress in clinical neuroscience.

But in this time of unprecedented opportunities, we are also keenly aware of the anxiety in our fields. From young investigators who are wondering if there is a future for a scientific career to seasoned scientists who are concerned about paylines, we are hearing that these are the worst of times. A sampling of recent questions would include the following: How can NIH have so little money to pay new grants when its budget was just doubled? How can you cut training when there are too few investigators in the field? What should I tell my graduate student who is thinking of leaving science? Are you funding any new grants? We understand that there is both confusion and anxiety about the state of NIH funding. This brief editorial is one attempt to dispel the confusion and allay the anxiety. Similar articles are available elsewhere and may answer questions that we do not address here (1, 2).

What is the state of NIH funding? Funding for NIH derives entirely from Congress, based on an annual appropriation process that commits a budget to each Institute. As part of the Department of Human Health and Services (DHHS), NIH is part of the executive branch of government and, as such, we may testify to defend funding for our Institutes, but we are legally prohibited from lobbying Congress for appropriations. From 1998–2003, there was an overall doubling of the NIH appropriation. However, since 2003, there has been relatively little change. The NIH appropriation for 2006 (the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2006) for our three Institutes averaged close to 0.4% above the previous year. The NIH appropriation for the current year has not been determined, but is expected to drop below the 2006 level.

If the budget is reduced, doesn't this mean we will fund fewer new grants? Not necessarily. Roughly 70% of our grant support in any given year is for "continuations," the out-years of multi-year grants. The remaining 30% is a combination of new funds from our appropriation and uncommitted funds from the churn of multi-year grants that are completing their funding cycle. Thus, to project the funds available for new grants in 2007, one needs to look at the appropriation and at what was funded in 2002 and subsequent years. While some of these completed grants will return for competitive renewals, not all will compete successfully. Our most optimistic projections for 2007, assuming a nearly flat Congressional appropriation, suggest that we will be funding roughly the same number of grants as in 2006, due to the turnover from our current portfolio. Of course, any significant reduction in our budget will mean we have less money than we had in 2006 to fund new and continuing grants.

However, 2006 was not a growth year. The NIH success rate (the chance that a grant will be funded either in its original or amended form) dropped from 31% in 1998 to 19% in 2006. How can the success rate be dropping when the budget was just doubled? The success rate is the ratio of the number of grants funded divided by the number of applications submitted. This ratio is related but not identical to the payline, which is the percentile for funding in any given round of competition (http://www.nih.gov/about/researchresultsforthepublic/successrates.pdf). Clearly, if the number of grants funded stays the same but the number of applications increases, the success rate will fall. At NIH, the number of grants funded has increased. Indeed, our three Institutes collectively supported 4,393 research project grants in 2005, a 44% increase over the number in 1998. Just focusing on new competing grants, the number has increased to 1,148 in 2005, a 25.5% increase over the number of new grants funded in 1998. During this same period, the average cost of each awarded grant at our three Institutes increased by 34% to an average cost of $368,100 in 2005. However, at the same time that we were funding more grants, there was roughly a 60% increase in the number of grant applications. The result is an imbalance of demand and supply, especially in the past 3 years when the increase in applications and applicants has accelerated. While every Institute and Center is facing slightly different constraints, the fundamental challenge is shared across NIH: just as the demand took off in 2003, the budget hit a plateau.

We believe this imbalance between supply and demand is a major source of the current angst in the research community. Even though in the post-doubling era we have been funding more grants than at any time in our history, the drop in paylines leaves many scientists feeling like we are in a fiscal famine. The reality is that competition is greater, funding requires more submissions with delays in research and sometimes loss of personnel, and many of the grants funded are being cut which, in turn, leads to more submissions. Moreover, with continued annual biomedical inflation at 3.5% or greater, following 3 or more years of sub-inflationary budgets, our purchasing power is falling substantially. It is this perfect storm of increased demand with reduced supply that has turned this scientific "best of times" into the "worst of times" for individual investigators.

NIH and each of the Institutes have addressed these tough times proactively. We have been especially concerned that the "worst of times" scenario could result in a loss of young investigators and a tendency to avoid high-risk research at the very time when new scientists and innovation can have the greatest impact. The NIH Roadmap and the Neuroscience Blueprint represent joint efforts to support enabling tools and resources for the community, allowing smaller labs and innovative ideas to be competitive. The Roadmap and Blueprint have introduced several new training opportunities to permit training in specific areas of need. In addition, NIH launched a new training mechanism, the Pathway to Independence Award (K99 R00), to facilitate more rapid transition from mentored training to independence. Each Institute has identified priorities for funding, ensuring that certain critical areas will be supported notwithstanding dropping paylines. For prospective and current grantees, there has never been a more important time to work with program officers who can advise about specific priorities and opportunities for funding.

As NIH Institute directors, we feel the urgency of delivering breakthroughs for human health, and we are passionate about the unprecedented opportunities to make those breakthroughs with new tools for discovery. We have witnessed previous funding cycles of feast followed by famine. This one is somewhat more dramatic because it follows such a profound increase in the NIH budget and because the research capacity has grown so quickly. But this period of angst will end just as previous difficult periods have ended, biomedical science will continue, and the supply and demand for funding will realign. Our short-term strategies to deliver scientific breakthroughs during this fiscal famine include reducing the size of awards and sharpening our priorities. These short-term strategies may help us through 2007, but these strategies are clearly not sustainable. With each additional year that the nation's support of science falls behind inflation, we are losing ground in our support of discoveries that will reduce the burden of mental illness, addiction, and alcohol dependence.


Maternal hyponatraemia during labour can affect both mother and baby. As a result, standard intrapartum care includes administration of oxytocin in sodium-containing fluids, limitation of oral intake and use of isotonic sports drinks. There is no strict guidance on best practise and local protocols vary. We present a case report of acute severe hyponatraemia following spontaneous vaginal delivery at 38+5 weeks gestation in a 34-year-old primiparous woman. This previously well woman spent 4.5 hours in the birthing pool and drank approximately 6 litres of water/lucozade in that time. After delivery, she suffered a seizure and acute confusion. The plasma sodium was 117 mmol/L (135–145 mmol/l). This was corrected with hypertonic saline to 130 mol/L within 4 hours. She was admitted to intensive care and required sedation and ventilation. Endocrine investigations revealed no underlying cause. Differential diagnoses included atypical eclampsia and posterior-reversible encephalopathy syndrome. She was discharged on day 6 with a Mini-mental State Examination score of 30/30. Isotonic drinks prevent urinary ketosis, maintain plasma glucose and electrolytes, thereby preventing the 'starvation effect' of labour, also seen in marathon runners. Review of the literature relating to the effect of water immersion and oral fluid intake on plasma sodium levels during labour suggests that a 40-minute bath may cause increased naturiesis and plasma volume expansion. Water tolerance appears diminished in labour and thus intoxication may be possible with relatively moderate volumes. We recommend that in labour a) women do not drink excessively, b) hypotonic fluid administration is avoided, c) fluid-balance charts become mandatory.


The publication of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in September 2004 was an event of great literary and scholarly importance. In his Leslie Stephen Lecture, commemorating the founder of the original Dictionary of National Biography, the celebrated historian Keith Thomas surveys the many earlier attempts at collective biography, considers the relationship of the Oxford DNB to them, and offers a preliminary assessment of the Oxford DNB itself. The author, who has been chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the Oxford DNB since its inception, writes with intimate knowledge of the project. This Leslie Stephen Lecture complements the earlier Lecture on the DNB by the late Colin Matthew, Founder-Editor of the Oxford DNB, and published by Cambridge in 1997.


This study presents a comparative approach to investigate the potentials of two innovative methods for the synthesis of ZnO and Al-doped ZnO. The first method is a precipitation system working in mild hydrothermal conditions (90°C) using a tubular reactor (Segmented Flow Tubular Reactor, SFTR). The second method is a microwave-assisted hydrothermal process working at 250°C - 38 atmospheres. Nanocrystalline ZnO with a high specific surface area (49–68 m 2 /g) was obtained with both systems. Smaller equiaxed particles (50–70 nm) were obtained with the SFTR, with an excellent homogeneity in size and morphology, which was attributed to an excellent control of the process parameters (mixing, temperature, volume of reaction). A higher luminescence signal was measured on these samples. The microwave method leads to particles with a higher crystallinity due to the temperature of the reaction. A significant effect of the aluminum was observed, which reduces the crystal growth to produce equiaxed morphologies. This effect was enhanced by adding poly(acrylic) acid (PAA).


Introduction: Craniocerebral Trauma is one of the leading causes of death in the world. The study of their epidemiology makes it possible to identify risk factors to better target prevention actions.
Patients and methods: This was a descriptive retrospective study carried out at the intensive care unit of the Bouake University Hospital from January 2013 to December 2014. It concerned patients admitted in intensive care units for a craniocerebral trauma with a Glasgow score of less than 14. The parameters studied were sex, age, occupation, circumstances of occurrence, mode of transport, and time of admission to hospital and duration of hospitalization.
Results: During the study period out of a total of 1244 admissions, 92 patients were hospitalized for a craniocerebral trauma, hospital prevalence in intensive care units of 7.39%. There were 86 men and 6 women. The median age was 32.6 years ± 17.03 (range 2 to 76 years). Motorcycle taxi drivers (49%) and students (24%) represented the most affected social groups. Traffic accidents were incriminated in 87% of cases and motorized two-wheeled vehicles accounted for 40% of craniocerebral trauma. None of the patients received medical transport from the accident site to the hospital and in 48.9% the evacuation of the patients was carried out by the military fire brigade. The majority of patients (61%) were admitted before the 6th h and the average admission time was 3 h. The average length of stay was 4.37 ± 4.23 days (range 1 to 21 days). The overall mortality was 66%.
Conclusion: Craniocerebral trauma is frequent in Bouake and follows a Public road accident involving a two-wheeled motor vehicle in the majority of cases. Prevention is based on awareness of compliance with the highway code.


John Collier was a chemical engineer who, in his earlier career, was a specialist in two–phase flow and heat transfer. He was formerly Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and was Chairman of Nuclear Electric plc when he died on 18 November 1995. John Collier was born in London on 22 January 1935. His father, Jack Collier, was a musician who was one of the country's leading double–bass players. Jack had turned down the job of lead bass with the Hallé Orchestra at the age of 20 and set out to see the world. While playing in the ship's band on a transatlantic trip he met John's mother (Edith Georgina de Ville, a passenger on the same ship) and married her soon afterwards, in 1925. John was their only child and his infant years were spent in prewar London, his father making a name for himself playing music of a wide variety. During the war, Jack Collier became a member of ENSA, the Forces' entertainment service. His attempts to protect his wife and child against the bombing seemed to be relatively unsuccessful; he moved them to Southampton, Coventry and Manchester in turn! The young John Collier, at the age of six, was actually machinegunned by a German fighter plane flying down a Southampton street. John and his mother finally returned to London just in time for the start of the V1 (flying bomb) raids. All these moves meant that John attended nine different schools during the war years–a very disruptive experience. The family was reunited again after the war but their happiness was short–lived; John's mother (Edith) had a recurrence of the cancer she had suffered towards the end of the war and died in 1948. In 1951, Jack Collier married Guinevere (Jean) Olga Northcote. By this time, he was working freelance, playing with the major London orchestras; he was much in demand. He still did some work with lighter music, particularly on the radio where he played in such programmes as ITMA (Tommy Handley) and The Goon Show (Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers), and he later played on television shows such as The Morecombe and Wise Show.


Crossing the border. A Romantic journey and test of Prussianness in the pre-March period: Václav Vladivoj Tomek's wanderings in the Silesian-Czech borderlandIn the article I analyse, using a specific example from 1830, the identity-shaping perception of the mountains as a border at a time of Czech national agitation. Drawing on the memoirs of a young Prague law student, Václav Vladivoj Tomek, later an eminent Czech historian, I present perception categories he used to reflect on the differences between societies and cultures along the Czech-Silesian   Austrian-Prussian border and to discuss their links with the landscape. This is placed, on the one hand, in the context of the agitation phase of the Czech national movement in its early period, and on the other in the context of individual and collective processes of identification of a young man at a key stage of his personal development. Tomek expressed his observations in the language of cultural, social and confessional diversity. In this he focused on the quality of life, architecture, faith with a tendency to exoticise Protestantism and partly also historical culture in Prussia. Significantly, there  are no comments concerning the problem of the mismatch, so important in later years, between the state and the language border: the transition between predominantly Czech-speaking and predominantly German-speaking regions near the state border in this case the  Broumov region is not even mentioned. The crossing of the border as a practice is not referred to either; the border is seen as a point,  what is mentioned in its crossing are only state symbols. Although strong emotions are visible, the now nationally aware Tomek does not allude to national emotions state border, but to a Romantic view of the landscape accompanied by a fascination, typical of the period, with what is picturesque and extraordinary in the mountains, rocks, sights and traces of the past found in the mountains.


The assemblages of medusae and ctenophores were examined from samples collected each winter from St Helena Bay, over the 10-year period 1988-1997. A total of 50 hydromedusae, 1 scyphozoan and 2 ctenophore species were identified from 243 samples. Although the data set is characterised by great interannual variability, two main assemblages could be identified each year. These were characterised by either holoplanktonic medusae (e.g. Liriope tetraphylla, Aglaura hemistoma ) or meroplanktonic medusae (e.g. Mitrocomella millardae, Chrysaora hysoscella ) and ctenophores (e.g. Pleurobrachia pileus ). The holoplanktonic medusae were typical of samples at the southern edge of the Bay, and were positively associated with both depth and temperature. Their abundances tended to increase during warm years (1992, 1993 and 1997) as warm surface water flooded the Bay. The meroplanktonic medusae and ctenophores were typical of samples collected within the Bay, and the density of species tended to be negatively correlated with temperature and depth. In spite of the eurythermal nature of the meroplanktonic species, they were more common during cold years (1990 and 1995). This paper represents the first Bay-wide, interannual study of any zooplankton group, and contributes important base line information on the structure of regional pelagic assemblages.


Rare-element granitic pegmatites are well recognized for the diversity and concentrations of metal ores that they host. The supply of some of these elements is of concern, and the European Commission recently designated metals such as tantalum and niobium as "critical materials" or "strategic resources." Field relationships, mineral chemistry, and experimental constraints indicate that these elements are concentrated dominantly by magmatic processes. The granitic melts involved in these processes are very unusual because they contain high concentrations of fluxing compounds, which play a key role at both the primary magmatic and metasomatic stages. In particular, the latter may involve highly fluxed melts rather than aqueous fluids.


Space operations from the dawn of the Space Age have resulted in a large, and growing, resident space object population. However, the availability of sensor resources is limited, which presents a challenge to Space Situational Awareness applications. When direct communication with an object is not possible, whether that is due to a lack of access for active satellites or due to the object being characterized as debris, the only independent information source for learning about the resident space object population comes from measurements. Optical measurements are often a cost-effective method for obtaining information about resident space objects. This work uses observability analysis to investigate the relationship between desired resident space object characteristics and the information resulting from ground-based optical measurements. Observability is a concept developed in modern control theory for evaluating whether the information contained within measurements is sufficient to describe the dynamical progression of a system over time. In this work, observability is applied to Space Situational Awareness applications to determine what object characteristic information can be recovered from ground-based optical measurements and under which conditions these determinations are possible. In addition, the constraints and limitations of applying observability to Space Situational Awareness applications are assessed and quantified.


Abstract Research on the British Paleocene Igneous Province (BPIP) has historically focused on the emplacement, chemistry and chronology of its elaborate central intrusive complexes and lava fields. However, the BPIP has also been dramatically shaped by numerous erosion, sedimentation and volcano-tectonic events, the significance of which becomes ever clearer as localities in the BPIP are re-investigated and our understanding of volcano-sedimentary processes advances. The resultant deposits provide important palaeo-environmental, palaeo-geographical and stratigraphical information, and highlight the wide range of processes and events that occur in ancient volcanic settings such as the BPIP. In this paper we review the sedimentary and volcano-tectonic processes that can be distinguished in the BPIP, and conceptualize them within a generalized framework model. We identify, and describe, the sedimentary responses to four broadly chronological stages in the history of the BPIP volcanoes: (1) the development of the lava fields, (2) early intrusion-induced uplift, (3) caldera collapse and (4) post-volcano denudation and exhumation of central complexes. We highlight and illustrate the range of sedimentary processes that were active in the BPIP. These operated on and helped shape a dynamic landscape of uplands and lowlands, of alluvial fans, braided rivers, lakes and swamps, and of volcanoes torn apart by catastrophic mass wasting events and/or caldera collapse.


When patients present in the pharmacy with coughs, usually they are caused by a viral upper respiratory tract infection, such as the common cold. Such coughs are self-limiting and improve within a few days with or without treatment. Nonetheless, an acute cough can interfere with patients' daily activities and disrupt their sleep. Pharmacists are often asked to recommend a suitable product to relieve the cough. While the evidence to support that cough medicines are effective is not strong, many patients report that they find them useful. This article provides a brief review on the components and appropriate selection of over-the-counter cough remedies for adults and children with acute coughs that are caused by a viral upper respiratory tract infection. The article takes into account recent concerns about the safety of cough remedies in children.


Coastal wetlands store terrestrial carbon and conserve biodiversity, thus playing an essential ecological role. Reliable regional-scale assessments of wetland dynamics, such as analysis of land use and land cover (LULC), and coastal monitoring, provide important hydrographical and socio-geographical information. Remote sensing images, such as Earth Observation satellite data, are useful for examining temporal LULC changes and providing environmental monitoring data. This study presents a method of mapping and monitoring changes in coastal LULC using classified multispectral images acquired by the Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-2 (KOMPSAT-2). Wetland changes are monitored in three different protected tidal flats areas on the coastal boundary of the Korean Peninsula with the Yellow Sea, for the period of 2008 2015. High overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient values for the accuracy assessment indicate the suitability of LULC classification using high spatial resolution KOMPSAT imagery, even when an unsupervised classification approach is adopted. The LULC maps were analyzed and evaluated using post-classification change detection methods. Results showed spatial decreases of 6 and 20% for mixed forest and wetlands in the Gyeonggi area, respectively, but no significant changes over time for Jeonbuk and Jeonnam. There was a 12% increase in developed areas for Gyeonggi but only 1.9 and 6% for Jeonbuk and Jeonnam, respectively. LULC change is thus easily identified through a pixel-based analysis of multispectral KOMPSAT-2 images over time. Such data are useful for environmental and policy managers when developing advanced coastal management strategies. Article history: Received 14 December 2017


Rabies causes more than 24 000 human deaths annually in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization recommends annual canine vaccination campaigns with at least 70% coverage to control the disease. While previous studies have considered optimal coverage of animal rabies vaccination, variation in the frequency of vaccination campaigns has not been explored. To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of rabies canine vaccination campaigns at varying coverage and frequency, we parametrized a rabies virus transmission model to two districts of northwest Tanzania, Ngorongoro (pastoral) and Serengeti (agro-pastoral). We found that optimal vaccination strategies were every 2 years, at 80% coverage in Ngorongoro and annually at 70% coverage in Serengeti. We further found that the optimality of these strategies was sensitive to the rate of rabies reintroduction from outside the district. Specifically, if a geographically coordinated campaign could reduce reintroduction, vaccination campaigns every 2 years could effectively manage rabies in both districts. Thus, coordinated campaigns may provide monetary savings in addition to public health benefits. Our results indicate that frequency and coverage of canine vaccination campaigns should be evaluated simultaneously and tailored to local canine ecology as well as to the risk of disease reintroduction from surrounding regions.


Strata formation in sedimentary systems is the result of the interplay of controls generated within (autogenic) and outside (allogenic) the system. Allogenic controls include climate, sea level and tectonics. For example, tectonic tilting or sea-level variations can alter the space available for sediments to fill (accommodation), affecting the amount and characteristics of the accumulating sediments. Climate change can influence supply to the system, generating variations in (the rate of) aggradation or degradation. Since the characteristics and relative importance of the autogenic processes are still poorly known and impossible to infer from natural sedimentary systems, analogue experiments have been carried out to unravel the interacting controls. Autogenic evolution was studied separately for three different types of sedimentary systems: alluvial fans, fan deltas and a flood-tidal delta. In each experimental study the allogenic boundary conditions were held constant allowing the systems to grow and evolve in absence of externally imposed variation (base level or input of water and sediment). Autocyclic behaviour (i.e., repetitive autogenic behaviour) of alluvial fans and fan deltas was similar, consisting of alternations of sheet and channelised flow. Channelised flow was initiated by slope-driven incision, and terminated by loss of flow momentum and subsequent channel filling. Flood-tidal delta behaviour deviated from that seen on alluvial fans and fan deltas and showed lateral migration and expansion of tidal channels followed by channel abandonment and filling. All experiments demonstrated that autogenic processes and allogenic variations have a comparable impact on the morphodynamic evolution and, in the case of the alluvial fans and fan deltas, depositional architecture. The autogenic processes on the flood-tidal delta were limited to the intertidal part, and hardly left stratigraphic signals as the migrating tidal channels continuously reworked the remnants of previous channels. In addition, the effect of base level was investigated by comparing the autogenic development of alluvial fans (positioned far from base level) and fan deltas (positioned at a standing body of water, so the shoreline formed its base level). With identical input of water and sediment, alluvial-fan behaviour demonstrated remarkable differences in slope and frequency of autogenic processes, until it reached base level and started acting as a fan delta, substantiating earlier flume and numerical studies. To further apply developed concepts on autocyclic behaviour for Martian fan deltas, a series of fan deltas were formed in a mock-crater mimicking conditions similar to a specific type of deltas (stepped deltas) found on Mars. By comparing the morphology of the experimental and Martian deltas these experiments demonstrated that the Martian deltas were formed in one event of rapid water release, and the steps were generated by the interaction between the rising water level in the crater and autogenic variations in the supply related to processes in the upstream feeder channel.


The integration of human and robot into a single system offers remarkable opportunities for a new generation of assistive technology. Despite the recent prominence of upper limb exoskeletons in assistive applications, the human arm kinematics and dynamics are usually described in single or multiple arm movements that are not associated with any concrete activity of daily living ADL. Moreover, the design of an exoskeleton, which is physically linked to the human body, must have a workspace that matches as close as possible with the workspace of the human body, while at the same time avoid singular configurations of the exoskeleton within the human workspace. The aims of the research reported in this manuscript are 1 to study the kinematics and the dynamics of the human arm during daily activities in a free and unconstrained environment, 2 to study the manipulability isotropy of a 7-degree-of-freedom DOF-powered exoskeleton arm given the kinematics and the dynamics of the human arm in ADLs. Kinematic data of the upper limb were acquired with a motion capture system while performing 24 daily activities from six subjects. Utilising a 7-DOF model of the human arm, the equations of motion were used to calculate joint torques from measured kinematics. In addition, the exoskeleton isotropy was calculated and mapped with respect to the spacial distribution of the human arm configurations during the 24 daily activities. The results indicate that the kinematic joint distributions representing all 24 actions appear normally distributed except for elbow flexion--extension with the emergence of three modal centres. Velocity and acceleration components of joint torque distributions were normally distributed about 0 Nm, whereas gravitational component distributions varied with joint. Additionally, velocity effects were found to contribute only 1/100th of the total joint torque, whereas acceleration components contribute 1/10th of the total torque at the shoulder and elbow, and nearly half of the total torque at the wrist. These results suggest that the majority of human arm joint torques are devoted to supporting the human arm position in space while compensating gravitational loads whereas a minor portion of the joint torques is dedicated to arm motion itself. A unique axial orientation at the base of the exoskeleton allowed the singular configuration of the shoulder joint to be moved towards the boundary of the human arm workspace while supporting 95% of the arm's workspace. At the same time, this orientation allowed the best exoskeleton manipulability at the most commonly used human arm configuration during ADLs. One of the potential implications of these results might be the need to compensate gravitational load during robotic-assistive rehabilitation treatment. Moreover, results of a manipulability analysis of the exoskeleton system indicate that the singular configuration of the exoskeleton system may be moved out of the human arm physiological workspace while maximising the overlap between the human arm and the exoskeleton workspaces. The collected database along with kinematic and dynamic analyses may provide a fundamental basis towards the development of assistive technologies for the human arm.


Large-size studies on the prevalence of female intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in Germany are rare and partly outdated; representative data on male IPV victimization are lacking altogether. The present survey addresses these gaps. For this study, the instrument of the WHO Multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence has been translated to German and adapted to be used with females and males. A random route procedure in selecting household addresses has been used to gather data on IPV in combination with an omnibus survey on (mental) health issues. A total 2,503 respondents with a minimum age of 14 years have participated (response rate=44.1%). The resulting distribution of age and gender was representative for the German population above the age of 14 years. A total of 57.6% of female participants and 50.8% of male participants have reported victimization by intimate partners during their lifespan; gender distribution differs significantly (Chi2=43.43; p<0.001). Out of the different documented subtypes, psychological IPV was most prevalent (53.6% in females, 48.0% in males). Other forms ranged between 15.2% (physical IPV) and 18.6% (sexual IPV) for females, and 5.5% (sexual IPV) and 10.8% (physical IPV) for males. All forms of victimization regularly coincided, both in females and males. Experiencing any IPV was not only significantly associated with female gender, but also with older age, periods of unemployment, poverty, and IPV perpetration. The findings highlight the still much needed global efforts to prevent IPV against women – and in general. They further support previous research in underlining that fighting poverty might also be instrumental in reducing the likelihood of IPV. The discussion further addresses the issues of reciprocity in IPV.


The potentially lethal Chironex fleckeri (Class Cubozoa) inhabits estuarine and nearshore coastal waters in the western Pacific. The spatial scales of connectivity between C. fleckeri populations are poorly understood. Biophysical modelling of Port Musgrave, a 17 × 21 km shallow bay in tropical Australia, was used to investigate the potential for connections between populations separated by medium (10s of km) to small (100s of m) spatial scales. We measured the swimming speeds and orientations of medusae ranging in size from 4 to 12 cm interpedalial distance (the distance between two adjacent corners on the bell of the medusae). Medusae swam longshore at average speeds (5.3 ± 3.5 cm s-1 SD) that exceeded the local average current speeds (2.7 ± 2.4 cm s-1). These and other ecological data were used to parameterise the biophysical model. No medusae modelled as passive were advected from the bay in 14 d; <2.5% of swimming medusae were lost. When medusae swam directionally, a high percentage aggregated in shallow waters within 10s to 100s of m of the seeding locations. Newly metamorphosed medusae are likely to be retained in the bay through a combination of 'sticky water' (i.e. water with reduced current speeds, reduced through diversion around obstacles) in shallow complex habitats and favourable currents. C. fleckeri are vulnerable to low salinities; however, modelling a strong flood revealed higher salinity refugia in shallow water. As there was high retention within the system, we conclude that populations of C. fleckeri inhabiting shallow, semi-enclosed estuarine bays probably represent stocks. Within these stocks, swimming and favourable currents may minimise connectivity and maintain populations at multiple spatial scales.


It is generally accepted that the environment has three inter-dependent components: economic, socio-political and natural Consequently, integrated environmental management coupled with sustainable development is critical, and in order to achieve this goal, effective guidelines and implementable legislation are necessary. This evaluation aims to determine and compare the effectiveness of the South African and Malawian environmental impact assessment (EIA) legislation, using the comparative criteria set out by Wood (1995, 2003), and accordingly to determine whether any further amendments are necessary to improve the effectiveness of these countries' EIA systems. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, it is particularly important that environmental legislation and policies are aligned across borders, to allow for better integration of these economies. The alignment of EIA systems in the SADC region could enhance regional sustainable development if managed using similar criteria. The primary objective of this study is to compare the EIA legislation of South Africa and Malawi using Wood's (1995, 1999, 2003) 14-point evaluation criteria. The effectiveness and not the implementation and practice of the legislation is being compared. The secondary objective of this study is to determine whether Wood and Roux's recommendations have been incorporated into the South African National Environmental Management Amendment Act 8 of 2004 and the January 2005 draft EIA regulations, and whether South African legislation meets Wood's 14 criteria for a sound EIA system. In the South African evaluation, 11 of Wood's 14 criteria are met, while an additional two criteria are partially met and one criterion is failed, resulting in an overall improvement in the South African EIA system. The Malawian EIA legislation meets 11 of Wood's 14 criteria, with three criteria being partially met, in principle making it more effective than the South African EIA legislation. However, although Malawi theoretically has a slightly more effective EIA legislation than South Africa, in practice this is not the case. Ideally, when South Africa's updated EIA legislation is published it will meet with all 14 of Wood's criteria for an effective EIA system based on international standards.


Stage gate models have long been the norm in manufacturing industries. Whereas agile models, such as scrum, are standard amongst software industries. These two models have been traditionally been pitted against one another, each with its own advantages and limitations. A new trend is being observed, where gated models are becoming more agile, and agile models more gated. This trend indicates a need to combine the models, recognizing the limitations of both. We explore a number of cases where the models have been combined, very much based on trial and error, with adaptions being made as needed. The findings are relevant to product- and engineering design theory and education as stage gate models are commonly seen as the basis for modeling and teaching design. Certain qualities of agile are expected to be integrated into stage gate models, from which new process models might emerge. Such processes are expected to integrate more interdisciplinary collaboration along different stages of product development, facilitate more flexibility in setting requirements and allowing change. This article offers managers the possibility to understand how to combine stage gate and agile models and why, based upon cross company learning, hence fast tracking this process.


Volatile anesthetics (VAs) are widely used in medicine, but the mechanisms underlying their effects remain ill-defined. Though routine anesthesia is safe in healthy individuals, instances of sensitivity are well-documented, and there has been significant concern regarding the impact of VAs on neonatal brain development. Evidence indicates that VAs have multiple targets, with anesthetic and non-anesthetic effects mediated by neuroreceptors, ion channels, and the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Here, we characterize an unexpected metabolic effect of VAs in neonatal mice. Neonatal blood ß-hydroxybutarate (ß-HB) is rapidly depleted by VAs at concentrations well below those necessary for anesthesia. ß-HB in adults, including animals in dietary ketosis, is unaffected. Depletion of ß-HB is mediated by citrate accumulation, malonyl-CoA production by acetyl-CoA carboxylase, and inhibition of fatty acid oxidation. Adults show similar significant changes to citrate and malonyl-CoA, but are insensitive to malonyl-CoA, displaying reduced metabolic flexibility compared to younger animals.


Looking more closely at the way people form expectations about the possible outcome of the election in their electoral district I will provide evidence for the first time that strategic voting can be observed and predicted even in PR systems with large districts magnitudes, such as in Portugal. Employing district-level data from 1975-2002 I estimate that a party, who is expected to win no seat, will be strategically deserted on average by about 3 per cent of the voters. This number does systematically vary with the district magnitude of each district and is largest (> 4 per cent) in Portugal's smallest electoral districts (e.g., Beja and Evora). Nevertheless even in Portugal's largest electoral district, Lisbon, strategic voting can be observed to have a systematic impact on parties vote shares.


Longitudinal joint quality control/assurance is essential to the successful performance of asphalt pavements and it has received considerable amount of attention in recent years. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the level of compaction at the longitudinal joint and determine the effect of segregation on the longitudinal joint performance. Five paving projects with the use of traditional butt joint, infrared joint heater, edge restraint by milling and modified butt joint with the hot pinch longitudinal joint construction techniques were selected in this study. For each project, field density and permeability tests were made and cores from the pavement were obtained for in-lab permeability, air void and indirect tensile strength. Asphalt content and gradations were also obtained to determine the joint segregation. In general, this study finds that the minimum required joint density should be around 90.0% of the theoretical maximum density based on the AASHTO T166 method. The restrained-edge by milling and butt joint with the infrared heat treatment construction methods both create the joint density higher than this 90.0% limit. Traditional butt joint exhibits lower density and higher permeability than the criterion. In addition, all of the projects appear to have segregation at the longitudinal joint except for the edge-restraint by milling method.


Cerebral ischaemia, or stroke, is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Ischaemic stroke, as a result of arterial occlusion, and subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), as a consequence of arterial rupture in the subarachnoid space, are major subtypes of stroke. Treatment options for both are limited, and many therapeutic strategies have failed. In ischaemic stroke, lack of evidence of brain penetration of treatments has been cited as a major weakness and contributing factor to failed clinical trials. In SAH, animal models do not always mimic key pathophysiological hallmarks of the disease, hindering development of new therapeutics. Inflammation is strongly associated with brain injury after cerebral ischaemia and inhibition of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) represents apossible therapeutic target. Therefore, the key objectives of this thesis were; (1) to improve preclinical data on a promising stroke treatment, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra), by investigating its pharmacokinetic profile and brain penetration in a rat model of ischaemic stroke, (2) to investigate the endovascular perforation model of SAH in rat, as a tool for the investigation of neuroprotectants, and (3) to examine the role of the inflammatory response in the SAH model and the effects of IL-1Ra.The neuroprotective effect, pharmacokinetic profile and brain penetration of IL-1Ra were assessed after a single subcutaneous (s.c.) dose (100mg/kg) in rats, after transient (90 min) middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo). A single s.c. dose of IL-1Ra reduced neuronal damage, resulted in sustained, high concentrations of IL-1Ra in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid and also penetrated brain tissue exclusively in areas of blood brain-barrier (BBB) breakdown. An endovascular perforation model of SAH in rat was investigated and produced widespread multifocal infarcts. In this model, administration of IL-1Ra (s.c.) reduced BBB breakdown, which correlated with injury at 48 h. IL-1_ was expressed in the brain early after SAH in areas associated with haem oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression, indicating the presence of free haem. Stimulation of primary mouse mixed glial cells in vitro with haem induced expression and release of IL-1 alpha but not IL-1 beta. These data, after MCAo in rat, are the first to show that a single s.c. dose of IL-1Ra rapidly reaches salvageable brain tissue and is neuroprotective. This allows confidence that IL-1Ra is able to confer its protective actions both peripherally and centrally. After experimental SAH, we suggest that haem, a breakdown product of haemoglobin, released from lysed red blood cells in the subarachnoid space, acts as a danger associated molecular pattern (DAMP) driving IL-1- dependent inflammation. These data provide new insights into inflammation after SAH-induced brain injury and suggest IL-1Ra as a candidate treatment for the disease. Overall, these findings strengthen preclinical data supporting IL-1Ra as a neuroprotective therapy for ischaemic stroke, and identify SAH as a new indication for treatment with IL-1Ra.


IntroductionTHE MICHAEL MANLEY GOVERNMENT of 19705 Jamaica has always won plaudits for its achievements in education, even from its most trenchant critics. The regime's education policies, most notably the 'free education' scheme, are often cited as proof of goodwill in Manley's party, the People's National Party (PNP). The literature on the era's politics has emphasised that however moderate and multi-class his ideas, Manley advanced the cause of equality in education in a divided society.2 However, studies of Caribbean education3 have shown that while schools have served as agencies for upward mobility, the system in Jamaica, as in other developing countries,4 has failed to meet the needs of the majority. Therefore, it is surprising that hardly any works have explored in depth the approach of Manley's education programme towards the poor, in terms of equality.This article looks at education policies which were pursued by Michael Manley in Jamaica from 1972 to 1980, when his PNP government was elected to power on its promises of equality. The paper examines the extent to which philosophies of equality informed education reforms, and investigates how these manifested themselves On the ground'. This work highlights the case of black Jamaicans, a disproportionately poor group whose status and image were stained by slavery and colonialism, and asks the extent to which education countered this condition, enabling them to be seen as 'equal'. The paper deals with the themes of expansion, accessibility and curriculum/culture, and submits them not to gender analysis, which deserves a full-length study in itself, but to racial and class analysis. The research centres on Manley's policies towards school-aged youth: during the 19705, there was a massive population explosion in Jamaica, especially in the 5-19 age band,5 "the result of high fertility periods of the past decades".6The article argues that Manley genuinely sought to alter the racial and social profile of the island's schools, and to cultivate a 'cultured and sophisticated' image of blacks through education. However, it also shows that the development of such policies was inhibited both by logistical challenges, made worse by economic7 and political crises,8 and by Manley's reluctance to follow through with them at the expense of educational quality and standard. Manley's goal was not to perfunctorily 'blacken' the elite models: in his cost-benefit analysis, a newly branded elite system, but with the educational standards of old, was important for Jamaica's national and international ambitions. In other words, Manley's egalitarian education ideal was not a myth, but was less true in practice than it was in theory.Education in Jamaica before ManleyThe foundation of the island's government- aided education, which can be traced to 1866, was linked to the hopes of a minority group for a majority: the elementary/primary school system, which focused on teaching religion and the 'jRs', emerged from popular education pioneered by Christian churches and missionaries for ex-slaves.9 Though basic literacy skills were promoted, these schools, and their 'all-age' extensions (which went up until grade 9), were part and parcel of the British/European mission to 'civilise' and 'Christianise' black people. In the words of one source, "The Primary Schools [of Jamaica] are perhaps the most class exclusive schools outside the top English public schools in the whole of the English-speaking world."10 Vocational and technical schools evolved from this system. On the other hand, the island's grammar/high schools, which evolved from various plantation owners' bequests for the education of Jamaican poor whites and 'coloureds',11 was to groom the heirs apparent to colonial leadership. Based on the ethos of British 'public schools', such as Eton and Harrow, Jamaican grammar schools, like their counterparts across other areas of Empire,12 centred on a literary curriculum. …


ABSTRACT This paper addresses the social and relational dimensions of player transitions in professional football. Data were generated through a total of 24 cyclical, in-depth interviews with three former players. The interview transcripts were subjected to emic and etic readings, with Bauman's metaphors of liquid modernity, hunters and pointillist time, May's theorisation of belonging and Crossley's relational theorising providing the primary heuristic framework. Our analysis led to the construction of two interconnected themes. These were (a) the paradox of feeling wanted by others during workplace transitions and, simultaneously, seeing these others as threats to their career longevity and (b) the interplay between the participants' multiple identities, relations with others outside of the workplace, and their career choices. Importantly, our findings highlighted that player transitions were not tied to the personality traits or characteristics of the individual but rather to broader social and cultural factors. Indeed, the participants' experienced and interpreted their transitions through the reading of their respective social landscapes and their changing understandings of the multiple social networks that comprised them. Based on these findings, we believe there is much to gain from the exploration of multiple identities in sports work and how these play out and are experienced over time.


Advancing the development of good practice around the teaching team has been the focus of a recently completed, nationally funded Australian grant entitled Coordinators Leading Advancement of Sessional Staff (CLASS). The project focused on developing leadership capacity of subject coordinators to provide supportive contexts for sessional staff to enhance their knowledge of teaching practice and contribute to subject improvement through a team approach. An action learning approach and notions of distributed leadership underpinned the activities of the teaching teams in the program. This paper provides an overview of a practical approach, led by the subject coordinator, to engaging sessional staff through the facilitation of a supportive network within the teaching team. It addresses some of the gaps identified in the recent literature which includes lack of role clarity for all members of the team and provides some examples of initiatives that teams engaged with to address some of the challenges identified. Resources to support this approach were developed and are shared though the project website. Recommendations for future direction include improved policy and practice at the institutional level, better recognition and reward for subject coordinators and resourcing to support the participation and professional development needs of sessional staff.


Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to investigate whether retrieving information about a specific object attribute requires reactivation of brain areas that mediate perception of that attribute. During separate PET scans, subjects passively viewed colored and equiluminant gray-scale Mondrians, named colored and achromatic objects, named the color of colored objects, and generated color names associated with achromatic objects. Color perception was associated with activations in the lingual and fusiform gyri of the occipital lobes, consistent with previous neuroimaging and human lesion studies. Retrieving information about object color (generating color names for achromatic objects relative to naming achromatic objects) activated the left inferior temporal, left frontal, and left posterior parietal cortices, replicating previous findings from this laboratory. When subjects generated color names for achromatic objects relative to the low-level baseline of viewing gray-scale Mondrians, additional activations in the left fusi-form/lateral occipital region were detected. However, these activations were lateral to the occipital regions associated with color perception and identical to occipital regions activated when subjects simply named achromatic objects relative to the same low-level baseline. This suggests that the occipital activa-tions associated with retrieving color information were due to the perception of object form rather than to the top-down influence of brain areas that mediate color perception. Taken together, these results indicate that retrieving previously acquired information about an object's typical color does not require reactivation of brain regions that subserve color perception.


Handshake is our new online portal which includes job and internship postings, as well as details about oncampus recruiting, career fairs, workshops and employer contact information and more. Log in and complete your profile today! Please note, all students served by UCS have existing Handshake accounts which can be accessed when logging in with your ONYEN. Please do not attempt to create a new account. Newly admitted students do not have system access until the beginning of the semester for which they were admitted.


The academic study of flow-based malware detection has primarily focused on NetFlow v5 and v9. In 2013 IPFIX was ratified as the flow export standard. As part of a larger project to develop protection methods for Cloud Service Providers from botnet threats, this paper considers the challenges involved in designing an open source IPFIX based botnet detection function. This paper describes how these challenges were overcome and presents an open source system built upon Xen hypervisor and Open vSwitch that is able to display botnet traffic within Cloud Service Provider-style virtualised environments. The system utilises Euler property graphs to display suspect "botnests". The conceptual framework presented provides a vendor-neutral, real-time detection mechanism for monitoring botnet communication traffic within cloud architectures and the Internet of Things.


Heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) mediate the inducible transcriptional response of genes that encode heat shock proteins and molecular chaperones. In vertebrates, three related HSF genes (HSF1 to -3) and the respective gene products (HSFs) have been characterized. We report the cloning and characterization of human HSF4 (hHSF4), a novel member of the hHSF family that shares properties with other members of the HSF family yet appears to be functionally distinct. hHSF4 lacks the carboxyl-terminal hydrophobic repeat which is shared among all vertebrate HSFs and has been suggested to be involved in the negative regulation of DNA binding activity. hHSF4 is preferentially expressed in the human heart, brain, skeletal muscle, and pancreas. Transient transfection of hHSF4 in HeLa cells, which do not express hHSF4, results in a constitutively active DNA binding trimer which, unlike other members of the HSF family, lacks the properties of a transcriptional activator. Constitutive overexpression of hHSF4 in HeLa cells results in reduced expression of the endogenous hsp70, hsp90, and hsp27 genes. hHSF4 represents a novel hHSF that exhibits tissue-specific expression and functions to repress the expression of genes encoding heat shock proteins and molecular chaperones.


Striated cardiac and skeletal muscles play very different roles in the body, but they are similar at the molecular level. In particular, contraction, regardless of the type of muscle, is a precise and complex process involving the integral protein myofilaments and their associated regulatory components. The smallest functional unit of muscle contraction is the sarcomere. Within the sarcomere can be found a sophisticated ensemble of proteins associated with the thick filaments (myosin, myosin binding protein-C, titin, and obscurin) and thin myofilaments (actin, troponin, tropomyosin, nebulin, and nebulette). These parallel thick and thin filaments slide across one another, pulling the two ends of the sarcomere together to regulate contraction. More specifically, the regulation of both timing and force of contraction is accomplished through an intricate network of intra- and interfilament interactions belonging to each myofilament. This review introduces the sarcomere proteins involved in striated muscle contraction and places greater emphasis on the more recently identified and less well-characterized myofilaments: cardiac myosin binding protein-C, titin, nebulin, and obscurin. © 2017 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 7:675-692, 2017.


My aim in this paper is, on the one hand, to point out the novelty and the great relevance of Damasio's account of emotions and feelings, and, on the other hand, to focus on some persisting theoretical problems present in his new neurobiological model of mind and brain. More specifically, my contention is that the Portuguese neuroscientist does not take into a comprehensive consideration the role actively played – on the basis of our body as a whole – by the social and cultural contexts surrounding us (the world we share with others, in general). The last, in particular, are important not only in supporting and consolidating our inner life, as well as our description of it, but, importantly, in shaping and constituting it. Nowadays, this topic is subject to extensive research. In particular, I propose some relevant psychological, phenomenological and neurophenomenological paradigms that emphasize social and cultural 'tools for feelings' (music, for example). I also try to explain in which sense intentional and cognitive properties permeate emotional experience, highlighting the temporal structure involved in the neural dynamics of emotions. In the end, I provide a more general critique of Damasio's assessment of emotions and their nature that, even if not incompatible de jure with the above mentioned theoretical approaches, would fail to abandon completely Descartes' 'solipsistic' heritage.


Using a unique field experiment we show that prompts to leave money to charity during the will-making process substantially increase the probability of making a bequest. Asking if the donor wants to leave money to charity doubles the proportion making a bequest; adding emotional and social cues trebles it. The responses are strongest among childless people. We compare the effects of the prompts to the effect of an estates tax. Our results suggest that both economic and non-pecuniary incentives similarly affect whether people leave money to charity, but are less effective where people have strong preferences for other bequests.


The United States is distinctive among Western countries in its reliance on nonprofit institutions to perform major social functions. This reliance is rooted in American history and is fostered by federal tax provisions for charitable giving. In this study, Charles T. Clotfelter demonstrates that changes in tax policy—effected through legislation or inflation—can have a significant impact on the level and composition of giving. Clotfelter focuses on empirical analysis of the effects of tax policy on charitable giving in four major areas: individual contributions, volunteering, corporate giving, and charitable bequests. For each area, discussions of economic theory and relevant tax law precede a review of the data and methodology used in econometric studies of charitable giving. In addition, new econometric analyses are presented, as well as empirical data on the effect of taxes on foundations. While taxes are not the most important determinant of contributions, the results of the analyses presented here suggest that charitable deductions, as well as tax rates and other aspects of the tax system, are significant factors in determining the size and distribution of charitable giving. This work is a model for policy-oriented research efforts, but it also supplies a major (and very timely) addition to the evidence that must inform future proposals for tax reform.


Abstract. Long-term data sets of all-sky and clear-sky downwelling shortwave (SW) radiation, cloud cover fraction, and aerosol optical depth (AOD) were analyzed together with surface concentrations from several networks (e.g., Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD), Clean Air Status and Trend Network (CASTNET), Interagency Monitoring of Protection Visual Environments (IMPROVE) and Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM)) in the United States (US). Seven states with varying climatology were selected to better understand the effects of aerosols and clouds on SW radiation. This analysis aims to assess the effects of reductions in anthropogenic aerosol burden resulting from substantial reductions in emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) over the past 16 yr across the US, based on trends in SW radiation. The SO2 and NOx emission data show decreasing trends from 1995 to 2010, which indirectly validates the effects of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in the US. Meanwhile, the total column AOD and surface total PM2.5 observations also show decreasing trends in the eastern US but slightly increasing trends in the western US. Moreover, measured surface concentrations of several other pollutants (i.e., SO2, SO4 and NOx) have similar behavior to AOD and total PM2.5. Analysis of the observed data shows strong increasing trends in all-sky downwelling SW radiation with decreasing trends in cloud cover. However, since observations of both all-sky direct and diffuse SW radiation show increasing trends, there may be other factors contributing to the radiation trends in addition to the decreasing trends in overall cloud cover. To investigate the role of direct radiative effects of aerosols, clear-sky downwelling radiation is analyzed so that cloud effects are eliminated. However, similar increasing trends in clear-sky total and diffuse SW radiation are observed. While significantly decreasing trends in AOD and surface PM2.5 concentrations along with increasing SW radiation (both all-sky and clear-sky) in the eastern US during 1995–2010 imply the occurrence of direct aerosol mediated "brightening", the increasing trends of both all-sky and clear-sky diffuse SW radiation contradicts this conclusion since diffuse radiation would be expected to decrease as aerosols direct effects decrease and cloud cover decreases. After investigating several confounding factors, the increasing trend in clear-sky diffuse SW may be due to more high-level cirrus from increasing air traffic over the US. The clear-sky radiation observations in the western US also show indications of "brightening" even though the AOD, PM2.5 and surface concentration do not vary drastically. This outcome was not unexpected because the CAA controls were mainly aimed at reducing air pollutant emissions in the eastern US and air pollutant levels in the western US were much lower at the onset. This suggests other factors affect the "brightening" especially in the western US.


We propose a tensor-based approach to analyze multi-dimensional data describing sample subjects. It simultaneously discovers patterns in features and reveals past temporal points that have impact on current outcomes. The model coefficient, a k-mode tensor, is decomposed into a summation of k tensors of the same dimension. To accomplish feature selection, we introduce the tensor '"atent LF,1 norm" as a grouped penalty in our formulation. Furthermore, the proposed model takes into account within-subject correlations by developing a tensor-based quadratic inference function. We provide an asymptotic analysis of our model when the sample size approaches to infinity. To solve the corresponding optimization problem, we develop a linearized block coordinate descent algorithm and prove its convergence for a fixed sample size. Computational results on synthetic datasets and real-file fMRI and EEG problems demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach over existing techniques.


This article provides an improved automated skin lesion segmentation method for dermoscopic images. There are several stages for this method. These include the pre-processing steps such as resizing the images and eliminating noise. Hair was removed and reflective light was reduced using morphological operations and a median filter. The single green channel was rescaled into new intensities, as it provided the highest segmentation accuracy. The threshold value was calculated to separate the skin lesion region from healthy skin. Morphological operations were implemented to merge the small lesion areas around the bigger lesion areas with similar features and trace the boundary of the melanoma. The accuracy of the segmentation was evaluated by comparing the automatic boundary and manual boundary. Compared to other studies, our proposed method achieved the highest average accuracy of 97%.


In the early design of compressors and turbines, it was of importance to locate the rotor critical speeds so as to insure that a turbo rotor would not be operating at a critical speed. As compressor and turbine design became more sophisticated, a more detailed analysis of the rotor damped critical speeds and rotor log decrements was necessary. With compressors and turbines operating at higher speeds, under high power levels, and at multiples of the first critical speed, the problem of stability or self-excited whirling is of paramount importance. The onset of self-excited motion may lead to large amplitudes of motion with possible destructions of the rotor or the inability of the compressor to operate at peak power levels. Encountering this phenomenon with a compressor on an off-shore oil platform can mean millions of dollars of lost production. Self-excited whirling can be caused by fluid-film bearings, seals, Alford-type cross-coupling forces, or internal shaft friction, to name a few of the excitation mechanisms. The problem of computing the approximate values of the rotor log decrement under full speed and loading conditions requires the solution of a complex eigenvalue problem. The computation of the rotor complex roots is an order of magnitude more difficult than the problem of undamped critical speed calculations. J. W. Lund presented the first practical numerical procedure for computing turbo-rotor log decrements. The mathematical transfer matrix method pioneered by Lund has allowed industry to develop and stabilize a vast array of rotating machinery leading to the savings to industry of millions of dollars. Without the procedures of Lund, for example, it would not have been possible to resolve stability problems encountered with both the hydrogen and oxygen space shuttle pumps. This paper briefly presents some of the attributes of the Lund stability procedure and its unique characteristics. @DOI: 10.1115/1.1605978#


We review the methodological innovations and findings from an ongoing research program that reevaluates the resource curse hypothesis on a global scale using a time-series and counterfactually-driven approach to the data (Haber and Menaldo 2010). While we do not find any evidence that increases in natural resource reliance undermine democracy or prevent democratization, some of our results suggest a resource blessing. We also explore why our findings diverge from conventional wisdom, offering both methodological and theoretical reasons why the resource curse theory and its supporting evidence is flawed. Finally, we also undertake a reevaluation of the evidence for a resource blessing in Latin America along the lines pursued in our general research program. Contradicting extant work on this topic, our findings suggest that natural resources are neither a curse nor blessing in Latin America.


In dense metropolitan areas, there are many factors including traffic congestion, building development and social organizations that may impact the health of street trees. The focus of this study is to better understand how social, biological and urban design factors affect the mortality rates of newly planted street trees. Prior analyses of street trees planted by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation between 1999 and 2003 (n=45,094) found 91.3% of those trees were alive after two years and 8.7% were either standing dead or missing completely. Using a site assessment tool, a randomly selected sample of 13,405 of these trees was surveyed throughout the City of New York during the summers of 2006 and 2007. Overall, 74.3% of the sample trees were alive when surveyed and the remainder were either standing dead or missing. Results of our initial analyses reveal that highest mortality rates occur within the first few years after planting, and that land use has a significant effect on street tree mortality.


The first book in this important new series, under the general editorship of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, Institutions, Innovation and Growth assembles a stellar cast of international contributors. Leading economists join the debate on innovation and economic growth, focussing on a broad spectrum of issues ranging from labour markets to corporate governance. Growth paths within the OECD are also assessed, with particular emphasis on contrasts between US and European models. The book seeks to identify those institutional factors, taking into account different national trajectories, which might serve to promote economic growth in Europe.


Noriko is just getting started as a junior reporter for the Asagake Times. She wants to cover the hard-hitting issues, like world affairs and politics, but does she have the smarts for it? Thankfully, her overbearing and math-minded boss, Mr. Seki, is here to teach her how to analyze her stories with a mathematical eye. In The Manga Guide to Calculus, you'll follow along with Noriko as she learns that calculus is more than just a class designed to weed out would-be science majors. You'll see that calculus is a useful way to understand the patterns in physics, economics, and the world around us, with help from real-world examples like probability, supply and demand curves, the economics of pollution, and the density of Shochu (a Japanese liquor). Mr. Seki teaches Noriko how to: * Use differentiation to understand a function's rate of change * Apply the fundamental theorem of calculus, and grasp the relationship between a function's derivative and its integral * Integrate and differentiate trigonometric and other complicated functions * Use multivariate calculus and partial differentiation to deal with tricky functions * Use Taylor Expansions to accurately imitate difficult functions with polynomials Whether you're struggling through a calculus course for the first time or you just need a painless refresher, you'll find what you're looking for in The Manga Guide to Calculus. This EduManga book is a translation from a bestselling series in Japan, co-published with Ohmsha, Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan.


The treatment of the problem of deducing the phase of an optical wavefield from image- and diffraction-plane intensity measurements recently presented by Robinson [ J. Opt. Soc. Am68, 87– 92 ( 1968)] is shown to be valid only in the limit of geometrical optics. A simple proof and example of the nonuniqueness of the phase retrieval problem in this limit is presented. It is argued that although the phase retrieval is not unique in the geometrical optics limit it does appear to possess a unique solution within the framework of the diffraction theory of image formation.


Because of the increasing use of technology to enhance learning in higher education, particularly in the professions, the aim of this study was to explore student perceptions of electronic learning (e-learning) within one module of the occupational therapy curriculum at a university in the United Kingdom. Twenty participants sorted 30 statements taken from the literature by indicating how much each statement reflected their own experience of the e-learning component of their program. Following analysis, two factors were identified indicating two distinct perceptions of e-learning. One factor was interpreted as a preference for traditional lectures along with a perception that technology hindered students' learning. The other factor revealed a view that the use of technology was beneficial and a part of students' learning. Using Q methodology showed the interconnectedness of the issues in e-learning. Ways to improve the instructional design of the module to enable students of both views to engage interactively with the content are discussed.


Background The Measure of Activity Performance of the Hand (MAP-HAND) evaluates 18 daily activities performed using the hands. It was developed in Norway for people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using patient generated items and is the product of extensive development and testing. Items are scored on a 0-3 scale (no difficulty to not able to do)1. Objectives To develop a British English version of the MAP-HAND and psychometrically test it in a UK population of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Development involved (i) Phase1 (cross-cultural adaptation): forward translation to British English; synthesis; expert panel review to ensure uniformity; cognitive debriefing interviews, and (ii) Phase 2 (psychometric testing): through measuring internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha); test-retest reliability (linear weighted kappa and Intra-Class Correlations (ICC (2,1) based on Rasch transformed data); concurrent validity (Spearman's correlations) and Minimal Detectable Difference (MDC95). The internal construct validity, measured using exploratory factor analysis, Mokken Scaling and Rasch analysis was previously reported2. Participants from 17 Rheumatology clinics completed postal questionnaires of demographic questions, including the MAP-HAND (twice 3 weeks apart), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), ULHAQ (7 upper limb HAQ items), SF-36v2 Physical Function (PF), and Disability Arm Shoulder Hand (DASH) scale. Results In Phase1, cultural adaptations included e.g. opening a can, instead of opening hermetic cans. Cognitive debriefing interviews (n=31) were conducted with participants: age=63.42 (SD12.04) years; female: 26 (84%); RA duration=15.71 (SD12.61) years. All items were considered relevant by participants. In Phase2, 340 people completed the Test 1 questionnaire (age: 61.96 years (SD 12.09); RA duration: 14.44 years (SD 11.73); female: 251 (74%); Combination therapy: 190 (56%); Monotherapy: 91 (27%); no DMARDS: 34 (10%); Biologics: 25 (7.4%)). Of these 108 (32%) were employed, 245 (78%) lived with family/ spouse or significant others and 36 (10%) had children living at home. 273 (80%) completed the Test 2 MAP-HAND. Internal consistency (α=.96) was excellent. Test-retest reliability was good: at item-level linear weighted kappa scores were good (range 0.61-0.75)); at scale level, the ICC (2,1) score was 0.96 (95% CI 0.94, 0.97)). MAP-HAND correlated strongly with HAQ20 (rs=.88), ULHAQ (rs=.91), SF-36v2 (PF) Score (rs=-.80) and DASH (rs=.93), indicating strong concurrent validity. The MDC95 MAP-HAND score=3.99. Conclusions The British English version of the MAP-HAND has good validity and reliability in people with RA and can be used in both research and clinical practice. References Paulsen T et al (2010) Development and psychometric testing of the patient-reported MAP-HAND in RA. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine 42:636-644 Prior Y et al (2015) Psychometric testing of MAP-HAND in RA: Rasch Analysis. Rheumatology (Suppl) In press. Acknowledgements We would like to thank to participating NHS hospitals and patients for taking part and the Arthritis Research UK for funding this study. Disclosure of Interest None declared


In this paper, we propose a computer-generated integral imaging (CGII) method called multiple orthographic frustum combining (MOFC), in which an elemental image array (EIA) can be generated by rendering a 3-D scene with one-shot orthographic projection using combing multiple orthographic frustum. The proposed MOFC method exploits the programmability of graphic processing unit to improve the computational efficiency. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve real-time computational speed for generating ultra high-definition (3840 ×2160) EIA.


Otolith marking provides a reference point for otolith growth patterns by validating the temporal significance of growth increments. This widespread method is primarily implemented using fluorescent dyes. The incorporation of a trace element that appears naturally in otoliths offers an alternative approach. Diplodus annularis and Serranus scriba otoliths were marked with an intramuscular injection of SrCl 2 diluted in 0.9% sterile saline solution (55 mg Sr ml -1 saline solution), given at a dose of 100 mg Sr kg -1 fish. At 277 to 366 days after marking, the fishes showed little or no mortality and experienced growth in length and weight. All of the otoliths analyzed showed a clear Sr mark detected with backscattered or secondary electron imaging during a scanning electron microsope (SEM) analysis. The mark was confirmed by Sr analysis using an X-ray detector and an energy dispersive spectrometer system with the SEM. The otoliths continued to grow after the mark, and background Sr values in this new growth were much lower than at the mark. This method was feasible and yielded good results. However, the method's cost may limit its applicability to experimental studies.


Lulu Sawyer arrives in Marrakech hoping to rekindle her romance with businessman Ian Drumm. It's the perfect cover for her assignment with the CIA: tracing the flow of money from donors to radical Islamic groups. As she navigates the complex interface of East and West, Lulu stumbles into unforeseen intrigues: a young Muslim girl, Suma, is on the run from her brother intent on an honour killing; and a beautiful Saudi woman, Gazi, is vying for Ian's love, leaving her husband in a desperate bid to escape her repressive society. The more Lulu immerses herself in the workings of Marrakech, the more questions emerge as beneath the surface of this polite expatriate community lies a more sinister world laced with double standards as well as double agents.


Questions of Internet jurisdiction have attracted research ever since the Internet has become popular. Despite a long track of existing work in the area, a number of key issues remains unanswered to date. In particular, the subject matter of Internet jurisdiction has to be presented from an integrated international viewpoint. A structured, embracing, and consistent approach in assessing the subject matter needs to be determined. And a focus specific to characteristics of the Internet and electronic business in the Internet as of today needs to be adopted. Consequently, this paper conducts a comparative Private International Law study considering connecting factors and service provider market activities constituting jurisdiction in major Internet markets (European Union, United States of America, China). Identified connecting factors are related to market activities and assessed by means of a common structuring scheme developed. This is followed by the set of market activities-driven challenges determined. These challenges are identified based on a scenario reflecting a service provider with connection to several markets. An in-depth discussion reveals by which connecting factors - and the respectively reflected market activities - a service provider might avail itself to jurisdiction in a market. This is complemented by the respective recommendations developed on how to address techno-legal implications with respect to Internet jurisdiction.