The course of Theory and Design of Structures for the Bachelor courses of Civil Engineering in Academic Year 2016-17 at the University of Cagliari was divided in two semesters: the first one dealing with theoretical aspects, in the second one a didactic laboratory was developed with the aim of a structural design of a building. The assignment and development of a series of individual themes of structural design was managed in a classroom of about 120 students. The strategy to optimize the efficiency was to assign a series of simple plane framed structures with comparable difficulty. They were generated from a common building with six identical frames, each composed by four columns and three floors. The removal of beams or columns, together with variations of length, height, location and destination, generated the requested individual themes. The students were then divided into four groups, followed by tutors. They experienced the development of the project in classroom, in a series of twelve sessions: Eight of them were dedicated to develop a prescribed step of the project, two for the inspection activities and the remaining two for harmonizing the project's state of progress of the project. The main educational results are here illustrated.


Abstract. We have compiled a relatively extensive catalogue of geomagnetic declination measurements performed by the Portuguese Bento Sanches Dorta in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) between 1781 and 1788. All the information was retrieved from printed documents compiled in the first three volumes of the Memories of the Portuguese Royal Academy of Sciences. During this period Sanches Dorta performed roughly 20000 individual observations, however, only a fraction of this data is presently available. In this work, all available information about these measurements is analysed. The annual change (variability and trend) and the daily cycle of geomagnetic declination at monthly scale are discussed. Keywords. Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism, History of geophysics, Geomagnetic field declination


The plug-and-play priors (PnP) and regularization by denoising (RED) methods have become widely used for solving inverse problems by leveraging pre-trained deep denoisers as image priors. While the empirical imaging performance and the theoretical convergence properties of these algorithms have been widely investigated, their recovery properties have not previously been theoretically analyzed. We address this gap by showing how to establish theoretical recovery guarantees for PnP/RED by assuming that the solution of these methods lies near the fixed-points of a deep neural network. We also present numerical results comparing the recovery performance of PnP/RED in compressive sensing against that of recent compressive sensing algorithms based on generative models. Our numerical results suggest that PnP with a pre-trained artifact removal network provides significantly better results compared to the existing state-of-the-art methods.


Photochromic molecules provide an intriguing and relatively untapped alternative to traditional materials utilized in organic memory devices. Here, we review recent progress in the implementation of photochromic molecules in electrically‐addressed organic memory devices. Recent results for a light‐emitting photochromic organic diode are highlighted in the context of multifunctional devices with the ability to simultaneously operate as multilevel memory, signage and display elements. Furthermore, a set of design rules for successful implementation of photochromic compounds in organic memory devices are suggested.


Automatic identification of clinical concepts in electronic medical records (EMR) is useful not only in forming a complete longitudinal health record of patients, but also in recovering missing codes for billing, reducing costs, finding more accurate clinical cohorts for clinical trials, and enabling better clinical decision support. Existing systems for clinical concept extraction are mostly knowledge-driven, relying on exact match retrieval from original or lemmatized reports, and very few of them are scaled up to handle large volumes of complex, diverse data. In this demonstration we will showcase a new system for real-time detection of clinical concepts in EMR. The system features a large vocabulary of over 5.6 million concepts. It achieves high precision and recall, with good tolerance to typos through the use of a novel prefix indexing and subsequence matching algorithm, along with a recursive negation detector based on efficient, deep parsing. Our system has been tested on over 12.9 million reports of more than 200 different types, collected from 800,000+ patients. A comparison with the state of the art shows that it outperforms previous systems in addition to being the first system to scale to such large collections.


Here we detail a complete process flow to overcome the challenge of placement of carbon nanotubes on solid surfaces, limiting "bottom-up", large-scale integration in semiconductor process technology. To date most bottom up placement strategies are based on surface functionalization having the drawback that chemical modifications can deteriorate the deposited carbon nanotubes. The application of dielectrophoretic techniques eliminates the chemical treatment, however, it necessitates the usage of conductive electrodes typically made out of metal. These metallic electrodes limit performance, scaling, and density of integrated electronic devices. Here, we report a method for electric-field assisted placement of purely semiconducting carbon nanotubes from solution at predefined locations by means of large-scale graphene layers having patterned nanoscale deposition sites. The patterned graphene layers can be removed residue-free after carbon nanotube deposition. In order to demonstrate the application potential, we have assembled at predefined substrate locations carbon nanotubes of varying density and integrated them into fieldeffect transistor. The graphene-based placement process, implemented with nanoscale resolution at wafer scale, could enable mass manufacturing of application-specific electronics based on carbon nanotubes.


We report here the results of studies documenting the contamination of a cigarette-appearing smoking article labeled Eclipse with glass fibers, fragments, and particles. Eclipse, a product of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), was commercialized in June of 1996. Eclipse is unlike conventional cigarettes in that, like its predecessor Premier, it is designed to heat and not burn tobacco. The purpose of Eclipse was to simplify the chemical composition and reduce the biological activity of the mainstream and sidestream smoke and to achieve a significant reduction of environmental tobacco smoke. In Eclipse, tobacco pyrolysis is reduced by a carbon fuel rod that serves as a heat source for generating an aerosol having nicotine and tobacco flavor. The carbon rod, at the tip of the cigarette, is insulated and bound with two wrapping mats of glass fibers. Recently, Eclipse has been modified to address consumer complaints of burdensome draw and off-taste. The redesigned Eclipse, which we have termed the NEW Eclipse, has an unconventional filter-appearing mouthpiece that consists of a cellulose acetate cylindrical bundle with a central hollow tunnel. In our analysis of Eclipse, glass fibers (length:width aspect ratio, > or = 3:1) were: (a) observed protruding from the tip; (b) identified on the white cigarette wrapping paper; (c) viewed on the surface of the cork-appearing tipping paper; (d) found in the pack residue; (e) discovered lying freely on the cut surface of the filter by both light and electron microscopy; (f) harvested from the filter with adhesive tape; and (g) displaced when Eclipse was smoked mechanically. In a study of Eclipse that had not been removed from carefully opened packs, we observed that > or = 95% of the filters were contaminated with glass fibers (Eclipse: Regular, n = 114/120, 95%; Milds, n = 118/120, 98%; Menthol, n = 120/120, 100%). Likewise, 99% of NEW Eclipse had glass fibers on the redesigned filter (Regular, n = 119/120). In contrast, glass fibers were never observed on the filters of conventional United States filter cigarettes that had been used as controls (n = 0/120, 0%). In a study of Eclipse (n = 60), the number of glass fibers contaminating the filter surface ranged from 5 to 55. Glass fibers as well as fiber fracture items [aspect ratio, < 3:1 (e.g., particles, fragments, bits, chips, flakes, specks, and dust)] were discovered in the pack residue. The average number of glass fibers in the residue of a pack of Eclipse was 7,548 (SE +/- 3443; range, 1,164 to 26,725 glass fibers/pack; n = 7 packs). The thin and fragile glass fibers of the insulation mats had most likely been broken and fragmented in the high-speed multiple-step Eclipse manufacturing operation. Invariably, puffing on Eclipse discharged glass fibers and glass particles from the filter into the smoker's mouth. Subsequently, the bioresistant glass fibers and microscopic glass dust are inhaled and/or ingested. Contamination of Eclipse filters with glass fibers and glass dust poses a potential and unnecessary health hazard to uninformed consumers. Eclipse is a paradigm of the health danger that may be imposed by technically complex tobacco articles and nicotine delivery devices promoted by an unregulated industry to smokers worldwide, many of whom are addicted to nicotine and who seek a less hazardous cigarette.


Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is caused by amoebae of the genera Naegleria and Hartmannella (Acanthamoeba), which ordinarily are free-living saprophytes. The infection may be acquired from fresh water—for example, while bathing—the amoebae invading the nasal mucosa and reaching the meninges and brain along the olfactory nerve filaments. The disease is designated "primary" to distinguish it from meningocerebral infection caused by the parasitic amoebae, particularly Entamoeba histolytica, which invade the central nervous system only as a result of dissemination in the blood stream from lesions in other parts of the body. During histological reappraisal of old specimens in a medical museum in London an instance of amoebic meningoencephalitis histologically indistinguishable from the published cases has been found. The specimen dates from 1909. The patient was said to be from Essex. What may have been another case, seen in Northern Ireland in 1937, is also described briefly. These observations may indicate that this disease occurs in the British Isles. Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of every case of acute meningitis.


DAVID Lindenmayer and Jerry Franklin are the two most influential forest conservation biologists of the past decade and will probably remain so for the coming decade. Each has contributed significantly to forest research, management, biodiversity conservation and policy. Lindenmayer is an Australian based at the Australian National University in Canberra who has worked mainly in the temperate eucalypt forests of Victoria and southeastern New South Wales. Most of his research is wildlife oriented, with an emphasis on arboreal marsupials and the impacts of forest management on forest vertebrates. Franklin is an American at the University of Washington, Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. His research is more botanically oriented, with an emphasis on the impacts of forest management on forest structures (e.g., large trees and logs) and processes. Of the two, Franklin has had the greatest involvement in the political, economic and social processes driving the modern change in forestry practices and attitudes. Together they form a formidable team to present a summary and an analysis of how temperate forests globally can and should be managed. Their goal is not just to enhance biodiversity and other ecological values, but to ensure the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems. Only when forests are managed sustainably to protect biodiversity can forest managers guarantee the many social and economic benefits derived from the world's forests, including wood production.


A cotton management program in the Imperial Valley, CA was designed to reduce pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders), populations. The program established I March as the earliest planting date, 1 September for defoliant or plant growth regulator application and 1 November for cotton stalk destruction and plowdown. Inseason gossyplurebaited pink bollworm male moth activity monitoring and immature green cotton boll inspections for larval infestation were encouraged as decision making aids to determine the need for additional control action. Male pink bollworm moth catches in gossyplurebaited Lingren and delta sticky traps were significantly reduced each year from 1990 to 1994 following the initiation of the management program in 1989. Fewer larvae per cotton boll occurred in the years from 1990 to 1992. Fiber quality of commercial cotton sampled was also improved from 1989 to 1994, as compared to the 1984 to 1988 average. Cotton production, in general, was reduced during 1989 to 1994 in areas surrounding Imperial Valley and may have contributed partially to reduced populations in Imperial Valley.


Abstract Element (nutrient) balances have proven useful in evaluating the sustainability of farming systems. However, most studies have been carried out over 1 year for single nutrients; thus data on annual variations are scarce, and so is the information on the behaviour of different elements. In addition, most studies have been carried out as farm-gate balances that do not include internal flows such as home-produced fodder and manure, which is crucial to assess the sustainability of management practices, in particular in organic systems. In this study, field level flows were monitored during 3 years and input–output mass balances were calculated for macronutrients (K, P) and trace elements (Cd, Zn) in adjacent organic and conventional dairy systems in Sweden. In addition, nitrogen balances were established for the first year of the study. Variations in element concentrations and mass flows between systems and years were analysed statistically for selected inputs and outputs. The K balances were negative (−39 to −22 kg ha−1 yr−1) all years in both systems, except one year in the conventional system, with less K harvested in organic crops. The organic P balance fluctuated around zero all years, whereas it was slightly positive in the conventional. Cadmium and Zn balances were positive in all years for both systems with lower surplus in the organic (Cd 0.24–0.70; Zn 225–463 g ha−1 yr−1). The inter-annual variation in flows was 10–40% for most elements. Incorporating variations, in addition to mean values, in field (soil surface) balances is recommended in order to assess and combat risks for long-term soil depletion or accumulation of essential and potential toxic elements.


America began, we are often told, with the Founding Fathers, the men who waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States. We may acknowledge the early Jamestown and Puritan colonists and mourn the dispossession of Native Americans, but we rarely grapple with the complexity of the nation's pre-revolutionary past. In this pathbreaking revision, Daniel Richter shows that the United States has a much deeper history than is apparent--that far from beginning with a clean slate, it is a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the Middle Ages, pasts whose legacies continue to shape the present. Exploring a vast range of original sources, Before the Revolution spans more than seven centuries and ranges across North America, Europe, and Africa. Richter recovers the lives of a stunning array of peoples--Indians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Africans, English--as they struggled with one another and with their own people for control of land and resources. Their struggles occurred in a global context and built upon the remains of what came before. Gradually and unpredictably, distinctive patterns of North American culture took shape on a continent where no one yet imagined there would be nations called the United States, Canada, or Mexico. By seeing these trajectories on their own dynamic terms, rather than merely as a prelude to independence, Richter's epic vision reveals the deepest origins of American history.


Tectonic plate boundaries are shaped by localized and distributed brittle-plastic deformation such as slip on major faults and folding of fault-bounded blocks. However, the microstructural to outcrop-scale mechanisms that enable such deformation and the factors that control the onset of localization remain a matter of debate. Here we combine field-based strain measurements and numerical modeling of a half-graben to investigate patterns of distributed inelastic strain induced by footwall-flexure of the upper crust. We focus on the Sandia Mountains (New Mexico, USA), which have marked the eastern edge of the Rio Grande rift's middle section for the last ~10–25 Myrs. This half-graben is uniquely suited for our study: it consists of a layer of Pennsylvanian limestone which experienced little deformation prior to Cenozoic rifting and lies uncomformably above Proterozoic granite. Furthermore, most of the present-day topography and up-warping of the limestone can be attributed to slip on the Sandia fault system and is well modeled as the deflection of an anomalously weak elastic upper crust. The Sandia limestone thus constitutes a unique record of distributed brittle strain related to inelastic shoulder flexure.

In the field, deformation within the up-warped footwall-block primarily manifests as small faults (<10s of m slip) and sub-mm to cm-scale mode-I calcite-filled fractures. We identified two sets of veins: a N-striking set subparallel to the axis of flexure, and an E-striking set. Fold tests indicate that the veins formed during the onset of flexure and were mostly tilted with bedding. We measured the aperture of thousands of veins sampled by 31 scan lines distributed along an E-W transect through the Sandia footwall. Vein apertures generally follow a power law distribution of slope ~1. Profiles of E-W fracture-borne strain show clear maxima of ~0.1 with 1-mm fracture densities of ~20 cracks/m at outcrops located 12–15 km away from the range bounding fault. This location represents the hinge of the flexure where bending stresses were apparently large enough to exceed the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, yet did not result in the localization of a crustal-scale fault.

To test this idea, we designed 2-D numerical simulations of half-graben growth using a visco-elasto-plastic rheology coupled with plastic strain softening to enable spontaneous fault localization. Our models predict spatial patterns of distributed inelastic strain within the footwall block that are consistent with our field-based fracture intensity profiles. We find that the strain softening rate is a key control on (1) the distribution of footwall inelastic strain and (2) whether distributed strain can localize onto a new crustal fault. This enables us to constrain values of weakening rate (~100 MPa/strain) that reproduce the observed pattern of distributed cracking while allowing prolonged slip on a single master fault. Our results demonstrate that numerical geodynamic simulations can be benchmarked against microstructural observations to quantify the strain localization properties of the lithosphere. They also suggest that the low effective rigidity of warped crust stems from the growth and interaction of tensile defects on a range of spatial scales, as is commonly observed in rock deformation experiments.


The internal fixation of fractures is associated with a risk of infection. Open fractures in particular are susceptible to such infection. Treatment is difficult and patients can develop a chronic osteomyelitis. We present the case of a patient who developed chronic osteomyelitis with a persistent discharging sinus following internal fixation of an open fracture of tibia. At presentation, the sinus tract had undergone malignant transformation causing massive soft tissue and bony destruction. This patient died from carcinomatosis after metastasis of his cancer. This catastrophic complication of chronic osteomyelitis is now uncommon; however, this case reminds us that the long-term follow-up of all such patients is mandatory.


The importance of lifelong learning is beyond question in any working context and especially so under the circumstances of today's global recession. Consequently, in the current European Higher Education Area (EHEA), continuing education tendencies and plans acquire a global dimension that overcomes – or should overcome – reductionist approaches. The construction and development of the European Area of Lifelong Learning (EALL) (Commission of the European Communities, 2001a), should be understood as a process that is embedded in a much broader framework. It is a networked action in which the involvement of many active professional stakeholders is required, and in which convergence, recognition and cohesion are the principal qualitative components. Following an exhaustive review of original and official documents linked to the origin, foundations and construction of the EHEA, the EALL stands out as a challenge within the context of the EHEA as a whole. In the aforementioned review, lifelong learning is conceived on the basis of the free movement of European citizens and the potential to offer better training and work opportunities, both of which relate to the principles of movement and recognition. It is found that full adaptation to the knowledge society demands a number of transparent mechanisms and effective instruments to foster improvements in quality and competitiveness, as well as the convergence and recognition of academic qualifications and university degrees, as a response to the increasingly globalised labour market, to technological advances and to full European social integration. It is for these reasons that lifelong learning is a priority action for Europe, in line with the principle of continuing improvement and investment in human capital for its own benefit, as defined by the European Commission itself.


Graph-based approaches to data analysis have become more widespread, which has given need for a query language for graphs. Such a graph query language needs not only SQL-like functionality for querying structured data, but also intrinsic support for typical graph-style applications: reachability analysis, path finding and graph construction.
 We propose a new query language for the popular Property Graph (PG) data model: the Property Graph Query Language (PGQL). PGQL is based on the paradigm of graph pattern matching, closely follows syntactic structures of SQL, and provides regular path queries with conditions on labels and properties to allow for reachability and path finding queries. Besides intrinsic vertex, edge and path types, PGQL also has the graph as intrinsic type and allows for graph construction and query composition.


Recent geological studies revealed that the freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean was highly variable during the Holocene. In the present study we examine the influence of changing Arctic freshwater runoff and low-saline Bering Strait inflow on largescale ocean-sea ice dynamics by means of a general circulation model of the Arctic Ocean, the Nordic Seas, and the Atlantic. Discharge distributions used are based on paleohydrological reconstructions for the early (approx. 10 ka) and middle (about 7 ka) Holocene. Keeping all other forcing fields and topography at present-day values, we isolate the effect of a variable freshwater supply to the Arctic Ocean. The model experiments show that Arctic freshwater input is vitally important for the polar oceanic circulation, influencing the size of the Beaufort Gyre and the path of the Transpolar Drift. The results indicate that long-term Holocene variability in Arctic freshwater forcing had the potential to cause considerable variability in Arctic Ocean dynamics on a century-to-millennium scale. Moreover, a relatively warm Bering Strait inflow exerts a strong influence on polar sea ice. It is likely that a gradual increase in the influx during the early Holocene slowly affected the polar climate by melting some ice and decreasing the surface albedo in the eastern Arctic. The effect of Arctic freshwater forcing on the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) is small in our experiments. We conclude that changes in the Arctic Ocean freshwater input alone only played a minor role for potential variations in the THC during the Holocene.


It is the aim of the work that will be discussed in the following thesis to contribute to the field of Rh(III) polypyridyl chemistry. A series of heteroleptic Rh(III) polypyridyl complexes have been synthesised and characterised from the perspective of studying the effect of ligand variation and it was also hoped that it would be possible to develop dinuclear Ru(II)-Rh(III) complexes in which both the electron donor and the electron acceptor would be photoexcitable units.

A series of complexes of the form [Rh(L)2(L')]n+ where L = bpy or phen, L' = a pyridine triazole / pyrazine triazole/ triazine or imidazo based ligand and n = 2 or 3 have been synthesised and characterised. Chapter 3 focuses upon the synthesis, purification and structural characterisation of the complexes incorporating pyridine triazole ligands whereas Chapter 5 details the synthesis and structural characterisation of the complexes incorporating pyrazine, triazine, imidazole and triazole based ligands. Whilst particular emphasis was placed on the synthesis and structural characterisation of these complexes, their photophysical and electrochemical properties were also studied and Chapters 4 and 6 detail the results of these studies. The complexes all contain ligands with different adonor and 7t-acceptor properties and their characterisation aims to determine if the variation of these ligand properties influences their photophysical and electrochemical properties. Their behaviour is compared with that of the tris homoleptic complexes [Rh(phen)3]3+ and [Rh(bpy)3 ]3+ and where possible with analogous Ru(II) complexes. Chapter 7 details the numerous synthetic approaches which were taken in attempts to synthesise Rh(III)/Ru(II) dinuclear complexes and also discusses the difficulties which were encountered. Chapter 8 aims to take the results discussed throughout the thesis into consideration and discusses the issues of coordination modes, protonation states and the photophysical and electrochemical properties of all of the complexes synthesised, with particular emphasis being placed upon their behaviour in relation to their ligand adonor and 71-acceptor strengths. Having analysed the results obtained, Chapter 8 also proposes avenues through which this research can progress.


BACKGROUND: Yeasts of the genus Candida create colonization, superficial infections and systemic infections in immunodeficient individuals. The presentations of the disease lead to the necessity of using various diagnostic methods and treatments. OBJECTIVES: To differentiate among the Candida species, correlate them with the anatomical region involved and evaluate in vitro susceptibility to ketoconazole, fluconazole, itraconazole and amphotericin B. METHODS: An evaluation of 100 cases of immunocompetent patients with cutaneous or mucous candidiasis attended at the Santa Casa de Sao Paulo Hospital from May 1999 to July 2001. This study attempted to correlate the site of the involvement and the Candida species, isolated using the CHROMagar Candida® technique. The species were evaluated using the Etest® antifungal susceptibility to ketoconazole, fluconazole, itraconazole and amphotericin B. RESULTS: C. albicans was isolated in 76% of the material, C. krusei in 19% and C. tropicalis in 1%. It was not possible to establish a significant correlation between the involved area and the species isolated. Most of the samples proved to be susceptible to the antifungals tested. CONCLUSIONS: C. albicans was the most commonly observed species. The majority of samples presented susceptibility to the tested antifungals.


Background The aim of this prospective cohort study was to determine the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in air and on surfaces in rooms of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and to identify patient characteristics associated with SARS-CoV-2 environmental contamination. Methods Nasopharyngeal swabs, surface, and air samples were collected from the rooms of 78 inpatients with COVID-19 at six acute care hospitals in Toronto from March to May 2020. Samples were tested for SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA and cultured to determine potential infectivity. Whole viral genomes were sequenced from nasopharyngeal and surface samples. Association between patient factors and detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in surface samples were investigated using a mixed-effects logistic regression model. Findings SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected from surfaces (125/474 samples; 42/78 patients) and air (3/146 samples; 3/45 patients) in COVID-19 patient rooms; 14% (6/42) of surface samples from three patients yielded viable virus. Viral sequences from nasopharyngeal and surface samples clustered by patient. Multivariable analysis indicated hypoxia at admission, a PCR-positive nasopharyngeal swab with a cycle threshold of [≤]30 on or after surface sampling date, higher Charlson co-morbidity score, and shorter time from onset of illness to sample date were significantly associated with detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in surface samples. Interpretation The infrequent recovery of infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus from the environment suggests that the risk to healthcare workers from air and near-patient surfaces in acute care hospital wards is likely limited. Surface contamination was greater when patients were earlier in their course of illness and in those with hypoxia, multiple co-morbidities, and higher SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in NP swabs. Our results suggest that, while early detection and isolation of COVID-19 patients is important, air and surfaces may pose limited risk a few days after admission to acute care hospitals.


The purpose of this Perspective Paper is to advance understanding of absorptive capacity, its underlying dimensions, its multi-level antecedents, its impact on firm performance and the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity. Nineteen years after the Cohen and Levinthal 1990 paper, the field is characterized by a wide array of theoretical perspectives and a wealth of empirical evidence. In this paper, we first review these underlying theories and empirical studies of absorptive capacity. Given the size and diversity of the absorptive capacity literature, we subsequently map the existing terrain of research through a bibliometric analysis. The resulting bibliometric cartography shows the major discrepancies in the organization field, namely that (1) most attention so far has been focused on the tangible outcomes of absorptive capacity; (2) organizational design and individual level antecedents have been relatively neglected in the absorptive capacity literature; and (3) the emergence of absorptive capacity from the actions and interactions of individual, organizational and inter-organizational antecedents remains unclear. Building on the bibliometric analysis, we develop an integrative model that identifies the multi-level antecedents, process dimensions, and outcomes of absorptive capacity as well as the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity. We argue that realizing the potential of the absorptive capacity concept requires more research that shows how "micro antecedents" and "macro- antecedents" influence future outcomes such as competitive advantage, innovation, and firm performance. In particular, we identify conceptual gaps that may guide future research to fully exploit the absorptive capacity concept in the organization field and to explore future fruitful extensions of the concept.


Nanoscale light fields near nanoplasmonic objects can be highly structured and can contain highly-subwavelength features. Here, we present the results of our search for the simplest plasmonic system that contains, and can be used to control, the smallest such optical feature: an optical singularity. Specifically, we study the field around subwavelength holes in a metal film and look for polarization singularities. These can be circular (C)-points, at which the polarization is circular, or linear (L)-lines, where the polarization is linear. We find that, depending on the polarization of the incident light, two or three holes are sufficient to create a wealth of these singularities. Moreover, we find for the two-hole system that C-points are created in multiples of eight. This can be explained using symmetry arguments and conservation laws. We are able to predict where these singularities are created, their index and the topology of the field surrounding them. These results demonstrate the promise of this plasmonic platform as a tool for studying and controlling fundamental properties of light fields and may be important to applications where control over these properties is required at the nanoscale.


This is a chapter from the book System Design, Modeling, and Simulation using Ptolemy II This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://ptolemy.org/books/Systems.


Individual airborne sea spray aerosol (SSA) particles show diversity in their morphologies and water uptake properties that are highly dependent on the biological, chemical, and physical processes within the sea subsurface and the sea surface microlayer. In this study, hygroscopicity data for model systems of organic compounds of marine origin mixed with NaCl are compared to data for authentic SSA samples collected in an ocean-atmosphere facility providing insights into the SSA particle growth, phase transitions and interactions with water vapor in the atmosphere. In particular, we combine single particle morphology analyses using atomic force microscopy (AFM) with hygroscopic growth measurements in order to provide important insights into particle hygroscopicity and the surface microstructure. For model systems, a range of simple and complex carbohydrates were studied including glucose, maltose, sucrose, laminarin, sodium alginate, and lipopolysaccharides. The measured hygroscopic growth was compared with predictions from the Extended-Aerosol Inorganics Model (E-AIM). It is shown here that the E-AIM model describes well the deliquescence transition and hygroscopic growth at low mass ratios but not as well for high ratios, most likely due to a high organic volume fraction. AFM imaging reveals that the equilibrium morphology of these single-component organic particles is amorphous. When NaCl is mixed with the organics, the particles adopt a core-shell morphology with a cubic NaCl core and the organics forming a shell similar to what is observed for the authentic SSA samples. The observation of such core-shell morphologies is found to be highly dependent on the salt to organic ratio and varies depending on the nature and solubility of the organic component. Additionally, single particle organic volume fraction AFM analysis of NaCl : glucose and NaCl : laminarin mixtures shows that the ratio of salt to organics in solution does not correspond exactly for individual particles - showing diversity within the ensemble of particles produced even for a simple two component system.


Motivation Tumor genome sequencing offers great promise for guiding research and therapy, but spurious variant calls can arise from multiple sources. Mouse contamination can generate many spurious calls when sequencing patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). Paralogous genome sequences can also generate spurious calls when sequencing any tumor. We developed a BLAST-based algorithm, MAPEX, to identify and filter out spurious calls from both these sources. Results When calling variants from xenografts, MAPEX has similar sensitivity and specificity to more complex algorithms. When applied to any tumor, MAPEX also automatically flags calls that potentially arise from paralogous sequences. Our implementation, mapexr, runs quickly and easily on a desktocomputer. MAPEX is thus a useful addition to almost any pipeline for calling genetic variants in tumors.


Book synopsis: Computer simulations have become a central tool for scientific practice. Their use has replaced, in many cases, standard experimental procedures. This goes without mentioning cases where the target system is empirical but there are no techniques for direct manipulation of the system, such as astronomical observation. To these cases, computer simulations have proved to be of central importance. The question about their use and implementation, therefore, is not only a technical one but represents a challenge for the humanities as well.

In this volume, scientists, historians, and philosophers join to examine computer simulations in scientific practice. One central aim of the volume is to provide a multi-perspective view on the topic. Therefore, the text includes philosophical studies on computer simulations, as well as case studies from simulation practice, and historical studies of the evolution of simulations as a research method.

The theoretical studies in this book discuss the epistemological relation between simulations and experiments as well as the empirical or non-empirical status of data resulting from computer simulations. The role of simulations in current scientific practice is examined in the cases of astronomy, system biology, nanoscale research, and in the pharmaceutical industry. The historical perspective is brought in by examining the rise of supercomputing as well as the exploding number of published simulation studies in some scientific fields. The book concludes with critical reflections on the potential, limitations, and failures of computer simulations.


In this study we investigated vegetation changes superimposed by grazing and their effect on small mammals in the Karoo (South Africa) on grazed farmland and an adjacent, 10-year livestock enclosure. Plains and drainage line habitats were compared by monitoring vegetation height and cover, and small mammal species composition and abundance along transects. Animals were captured by live trapping. Vegetation cover was low on the grazed compared to the ungrazed study site, but vegetation height did not differ. The number of small mammal individuals and the number of species captured was higher at the ungrazed study site. Two species of climbing rodents captured in the ungrazed drainage line were absent from the grazed drainage line. Numbers of small mammals captured on the plains were similar for grazed and ungrazed land, but grazed plains were dominated by a single species of gerbil.


Dr N. Holgate writes: Speight & Mitchell present what they regard as evidence to disprove the Tertiary dextral shift on the Great Glen Fault first recognized by Holgate (1969). However, they agree with him in recognizing a 7–8 km dextral shift on the main track of the fault between Morvern and Lismore, but contest its Tertiary dating. They find no evidence of lateral displacement of Tertiary dykes at the Great Glen Fault and question the existence of its major splay passing SE of Lismore. The writer agrees with the authors that the Tertiary Skye dyke-swarm intersects a Permo-Carboniferous swarm in the Morvern area. He also accepts their field criteria (op. cit., p. 5) for the recognition of Tertiary dykes within the area. But their statement (op. cit., p. 9) that Tertiary dykes are sparse on Lismore—11 dykes (which they arbitrarily assign to the Mull swarm) in the SW end of the island—is scarcely convincing, since their traverses, on Lismore and on the Appin coast (op. cit., p. 8; Fig. 3) exclude the several localities cited by Holgate (op. cit., p. 113) at which Tertiary dykes are displaced dextrally by NE–SW fractures marginal to the Firth of Lorne fault zone which separates Lismore from Appin. Towards the NE end of Lismore, such fractures become increasingly numerous as the Firth of Lorne shore is approached. The Firth of Lorne fault diverges through some 10° in an anticlockwise sense from the Great Glen Fault at a point to the


This paper presents results for full and mixed resolution stereo video coding including subjective and objective evaluation for 3DTV on Mobile devices. For this, objective as well as subjective tests have been carried out with different sequences at different image sizes and evaluated on two different stereoscopic displays. The subjective tests showed, that for uncoded sequences full resolution was rated better, however for coded sequences at low bit rates mixed resolution was rated better. An unsharp masking algorithm for up-sampling the lower resolution view only partially improved the overall quality because coding artifacts were strengthened as well. Objective tests showed that the optimum bit rate distribution for mixed resolution stereo video coding is 30% to 35% of the total bit rate for the lower resolution view (half horizontal and half vertical). Finally, tests showed that mixed resolution stereo video decoding with up-sampling is less complex than decoding full resolution stereo video which is important for implementation on mobile devices.


New! Invasive and noninvasive procedures are a common and necessary component in the management of infants and children with acute and chronic diseases. As technology continues to expand, there are an increasing number of techniques that require procedural sedation outside of the operating room.
 Authored by experts in a variety of specialties, Procedural Sedation for Infants, Children, and Adolescents is a comprehensive guide for the initial design and implementation of a procedural sedation program and a tool to educate pediatric health professionals on medications used for sedation, associated adverse events, and the treatment of these adverse effects.
 Contents include:
 Pre-sedation evaluation
 Documentation and parental instructions
 Monitoring for procedural sedation
 Medications
 Specific clinical scenarios
 Non-pharmacologic interventions
 Topical and local anesthetic agents
 Quality improvement and assurance
 and more


The endocannabinoid system comprises cannabinoid receptors 1 and 2 (CB1 and CB2), their endogenous ligands, anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol, and metabolic enzymes of these ligands. The endocannabinoid system has recently been implicated in the regulation of various pathophysiological processes of the skin that include immune competence and/or tolerance of keratinocytes, the disruption of which might promote the development of skin diseases. Recent evidence showed that CB1 in keratinocytes limits the secretion of proinflammatory chemokines, suggesting that this receptor might also regulate T cell dependent inflammatory diseases of the skin. In this article, we sought to investigate the cytokine profile of IFN-γ-activated keratinocytes, and found that CB1 activation by AEA suppressed production and release of signature TH1- and TH17-polarizing cytokines, IL-12 and IL-23, respectively. We also set up cocultures between a conditioned medium of treated keratinocytes and naive T cells to disclose the molecular details that regulate the activation of highly proinflammatory TH1 and TH17 cells. AEA-treated keratinocytes showed reduced an induction of IFN-γ-producing TH1 and IL-17-producing TH17 cells, and these effects were reverted by pharmacological inhibition of CB1. Further analyses identified mammalian target of rapamycin as a proinflammatory signaling pathway regulated by CB1, able to promote either IL-12 and IL-23 release from keratinocytes or TH1 and TH17 polarization. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that AEA suppresses highly pathogenic T cell subsets through CB1-mediated mammalian target of rapamycin inhibition in human keratinocytes. Thus, it can be speculated that the latter pathway might be beneficial to the physiological function of the skin, and can be targeted toward inflammation-related skin diseases.


The modeling and enactment of business processes is being recognized as key to modern information managment. The expansion of Web services has increased the attention given to processes, because processes are how services are composed and put to good use. However, current approaches are inadequate for flexibly modeling and enacting processes. These approaches take a logically centralized view of processes, treating a process as an implementation of a composed service. They provide low-level scripting languages to specify how a service may be implemented, rather than what interactions are expected from it. Consequently, existing approaches fail to adequately accommodate the essential properties of the business partners in a process (the partners would be realized via services)---their autonomy (freedom of action), heterogeneity (freedom of design), and dynamism (freedom of configuration).Flexibly represented protocols can provide a more natural basis for specifying processes. Protocols specify what rather than how; thus they naturally maximize the authonomy, heterogeneity, and dynamism of the interacting parties. We are developing an approach for modeling and enacting business processes based on protocols. This paper describes some elements of (1) a conceptual model of processes that will incorporate abstractions based on protocols, roles, and commitments; (2)the semantics or mathematical foundations underlying the conceptual model and mapping global views of processes to the local actions of the parties involved; (3) methodologies involving rule-based reasoning to specify processes in terms of compositions of protocols.


Timing-accurate storage emulation fills an important gap in the set of common performance evaluation techniques for proposed storage designs: it allows a researcher to experiment with not-yet-existing storage components in the context of real systems executing real applications. As its name suggests, a timing-accurate storage emulator appears to the system to be a real storage component with service times matching a simulation model of that component. This paper promotes timing-accurate storage emulation by describing its unique features, demonstrating its feasibility, and illustrating its value. A prototype, called the Memulator, is described and shown to produce service times within 2% of those computed by its component simulator for over 99% of requests. Two sets of measurements enabled by the Memulator illustrate its power: (1) application performance on a modern Linux system equipped with a MEMS-based storage device (no such device exists at this time), and (2) application performance on a modern Linux system equipped with a disk whose firmware has been modified (we have no access to firmware source code).


This paper focuses on the recent land grab in Zambia for agricultural investment. The paper explores the history of foreign land acquisition and shows the dynamics that led to the liberalization of land market in Zambia. The research argues that despite the negative effect of these investments, the government can leverage this opportunity to place the country on the trajectory of growth, especially in the area of capacity development through skill acquisition. This can be achieved by structuring the contract to contain some performance requirements that investors are expected to contribute to the local people.


Do firms choose inputs that minimize their cost of production, ignoring the attitudes of their owners and employees? We examine this question using an episode of worsening relations between the US and France: from February 2002 to March 2003, France's favourability rating in US public opinion polls fell from 83 percent to 35 percent. Very negative attitudes towards France became common even among college educated Americans with high levels of income, so they were likely prevalent among managers. Using data from 1999-2005, we find that the worsening relations reduced US imports from France by about 15 percent and US exports to France by about 8 percent, compared to other Eurozone or OECD countries. This decline was due in large part to a fall in France's share of the quantity of inputs traded between the Eurozone and the US; this decline is significant even after we control for changes in the product composition of trade flows. We also find that the decline in trade was accompanied by a similar drop in both business trips and tourist visitations of US residents to France compared to Western Europe. Taken together, our findings suggest that competition cannot eliminate the effect of attitudes on firms' choice of inputs.


Many benthic marine invertebrates develop by means of free-living, dispersive larval stages. The presumed advantages of such larvae include the avoidance of competition for resources with adults, temporary reduction of benthic mortality while in the plankton, decreased likelihood of inbreeding in the next generation, and increased ability to withstand local extinction. However, the direction of evolutionary change appears generally biased toward the loss of larvae in many clades, implying that larvae are somehow disadvantageous. Possible disadvantages include dispersal away from favorable habitat, mismatches between larval and juvenile physiological tolerances, greater susceptibility to environmental stresses, greater susceptibility to predation, and various costs that may be associated with metamorphosing in response to specific chemical cues and postponing metamorphosis in the absence of those cues. Understanding the forces responsible for the present distribution of larval and non-larval (aplanktonic) development among benthic marine invertebrates, and the potential influence of human activities on the direction of future evolutionary change in reproductive patterns, will require a better understanding of the following issues: the role of macro-evolutionary forces in selecting for or against dispersive larvae; the relative tolerances of encapsulated embryos and free-living larvae to salinity, pollutant, and other environmental stresses; the degree to which egg masses, egg capsules, and brood chambers protect developing embryos from environmental stresses; the relative magnitude of predation by planktonic and benthic predators on both larvae and early juveniles; the way in which larval and juvenile size affect vulnerability to predators; the extent to which encapsulation and brooding protect against predators; the amount of genetic change associated with loss of larvae from invertebrate life cycles and the time required to accomplish that change; and the degree to which continued input of larvae from other populations deters selection against dispersive larvae. The prominence of larval development in modern life cycles may reflect difficulties in losing larvae from life cycles more than selection for their retention.


The Fairchild F8 is a control microprocessor whose architecture is considerably different from most machines in the same price and performance class. Good computer architecture is consistent, symmetrical, and coherent; the programmer is provided with the maximum amount of information possible after each operation and his freedom of action is limited as little as possible. A machine with these qualities behaves in the way one expects it to behave; it is free of special cases and peculiar quirks. The F8 falls considerably short of meeting these goals. It predates most equivalent micros; its designers seem to have had little contact with others doing similar things. This background has resulted in a machine combining brilliant design concepts with ugly flaws.


An intrusion detection system has become a standard component of security infrastructure. Mobile agents transportable in network, gather information, evaluate and guide the alarm to network administrator. Advantage of having the mobile agent based approach in IDS that there is no centralized failure, less latency rate of data transmission and it has real time capability to generate the alarm against the intrusion. Despite of having many number of advantages of agent based IDS, it have some challenges like security of agent from attacker and high time to detection. which need to address. This paper present Mobile Agent Based decentralized and Fault Tolerant Intrusion Detection System to detect user anomalies in windows environment. This paper focus on the protection of mobile agent from malicious host.


Researchers in several scientific disciplines are struggling to cope with the masses of data resulting from either increasingly precise instruments or from simulation runs on ever more powerful supercomputers. Efficiently managing this deluge of data has become key to understand the phenomena they are studying. Scientists in the simulation sciences, for example, build increasingly big and detailed models, as detailed as the hardware allows, but they lack the efficient technology to update and analyze them. In this paper we discuss how innovative data management techniques we have developed, enable scientists to build and analyze bigger and more detailed spatial models and how these techniques ultimately accelerate discovery in the simulation sciences. These include spatial join methods (in memory and on disk), techniques for the efficient navigation in detailed meshes, an index for range query execution on complex and detailed spatial data as well as in-memory mesh indexes. The evaluation of these techniques using real neuroscience datasets shows a considerable performance improvement over the state of the art, and that the indexes we proposed scale substantially better for the purpose of the analysis of bigger and denser spatial models.


The fatty acid oleoylethanolamide, which is produced in response to feeding, enhances rodent memory consolidation. Oleoylethanolamide (OEA) is a bioactive fatty acid produced by the gut in response to food intake, and it acts in the gut through the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPAR-α) to stimulate expression of genes involved in lipid absorption. OEA is also involved in communicating satiety to the brain through stimulation of the vagus nerve. Campolongo et al. reasoned that because animals that could remember information associated with food sources would have an advantage in foraging in the wild, signals produced by feeding may also contribute to memory formation. In two different learning tasks, rats injected with OEA performed better than rats not receiving the fatty acid. Infusion of lidocaine to reversibly block nerve conduction in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS), which is the primary relay site of the vagus in the brain, blocked the memory-enhancing effects of OEA. Infusion of an adrenergic receptor blocker into the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) to block signaling from the NTS to this site of emotional memory consolidation also prevented the memory-enhancing effects of OEA. Memory enhancement was absent in mice lacking PPARa and was reproduced in rats by treatment with two different PPAR-α agonists. Thus, eating not only may provide the brain with an energy supply but also, through the formation of OEA, may improve memory formation. P. Campolongo, B. Roozendaal, V. Trezza, V. Cuomo, G. Astarita, J. Fu, J. L. McGaugh, D. Piomelli, Fat-induced satiety factor oleoylethanolamide enhances memory consolidation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 8027–8031 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In Oracle America, Inc. v. Google LLC, the Federal Circuit undermined copyright law's deference to patent law and, in doing so, delivered a blow to both regimes. Copyright's deference— including a historic refusal to enforce rights that might undermine the public's liberty to copy unpatented inventions-- is a necessary part of preserving inventors' willingness to accept the short duration, mandatory disclosure, and other stringent bargains demanded by patent law. Deference to patent law is also integral to copyright law's interior architecture; copyright's refusal to monopolize functional applications of creative work lowers the social costs that would otherwise be imposed by copyright's ease of acquisition and long duration.

If patent law refuses to protect a functional device or other innovation (perhaps because its patent has expired, or because the innovation would be obvious to anyone skilled in the field), various copyright doctrines make it difficult for an eager claimant to use copyright law instead. These doctrines act like fences.

For example, under 17 USC § 102(b), copyright cannot extend to "ideas" or to any "procedure, process, system,[or] method of operation." This prohibition applies "regardless" of the copyrighted "form" in which the idea, procedure, process or method appears. Id. Therefore, the public violates no copyright duties when it copies, say, ideas about how to improve the manufacture of steel from a copyrighted instruction manual or video. If the creator of the manufacturing idea wants protection for it, the inventor needs to look to patent law.

Similarly, although copyright can subsist in drawings of a useful article, the statute and caselaw disable those copyrights from giving any rights to keep others from making or selling the article. 17 USC § 113(b). Say the inventors of an automobile engine with improved fuel efficiency want to restrain others from building and selling copycat engines. To restrain such functional copying, the inventors get no mileage out of the copyrights that subsist in their blueprints. Rather, to stop competitors from building and selling the new engine, the inventors must seek the protection of patent law.

Under yet another statutory rule, sculptured shapes that have "an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information" are not copyrightable unless their aesthetic and functional components are separable. 17 USC § 101.

The instant Article discusses these and other limits on copyright law. Their overall impact is to emphasize the importance Congress and the courts give to preventing copyright law from directly or indirectly competing with, or undermining, the decisions of patent law.

Computer-program copyrights were intended to respond to programmer's expression, not their engineering ingenuity. As technology poses new chanllenges, separate intellectual property laws need to keep conguent with the separate purposes each serves. The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Oracle, allowing the Court to evaluate a judicial opinion that, this Article argues, ignored these first principles.

A need for congruence ('or 'fit') is recognized in most areas of civil liability. For example, in enforcing the Clayton Act, the Supreme Court honored that need for congruence by creating a doctrine it called 'antitrust injury' to limit liability. Common-law tort generally employs the doctrine called "proximate cause" to similarly assure fit between the facts of a given case and the law's purposes. In copyright law, the courts and Congress entrust this familiar but crucial task to "fair use". The instant Article employs analogies from antitrust and common-law tort to reinforce the appropriateness of using the fair use doctrine to keep copyright law in its own yard.


The Decade of Evangelism occupied the attention of the Church of England throughout the 1990s. The present study employs the statistics routinely published by the Church of England in order to assess two matters: the extent to which these statistics suggest that the 43 individual dioceses finished the decade in a stronger or weaker position than they had entered it and the extent to which, according to these statistics, the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Evangelical tradition differed from the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Catholic tradition. The data demonstrated that the majority of dioceses were performing less effectively at the end of the decade than at the beginning, in terms of a range of membership statistics, and that the rate of decline varied considerably from one diocese to another. The only exception to the trend was provided by the diocese of London, which experienced some growth. The data also demonstrated that little depended on the churchmanship of the diocesan bishop in shaping diocesan outcomes on the performance indicators employed in the study.


This thesis investigates how adolescents' involvement in different leisure time activities is associated with their self-concept. Adolescence is a period of development marked by its focus on identity exploration and refinement. Discretionary time activities are considered optimal contexts for learning about oneself, as they are chosen by youth to fit their interests and goals. This thesis utilised a number of approaches to the measurement of leisure time to understand how different aspects of activity involvement are associated with adolescent self-concept. Data were collected from a large representative sample of Western Australian adolescents in conjunction with the Youth Activity Participation Study of Western Australia (YAPS-WA). Study 1 and Study 4 in this thesis utilise Wave 1 data from the YAPS-WA project (see Appendix A for a copy of the entire Wave 1 survey). Study 2 and Study 3 draw on data from Wave 2 (see Appendix B for a copy of the entire Wave 2 survey). Study 5 is longitudinal and uses all 5 high school waves of data from the initial Year 8 cohort.

Study 1 investigated the relationship between adolescents' participation in structured leisure activities and their self-concepts. In general, participation in any type of structured activity was associated with a higher social and academic self-concept, and general self-worth, compared to no participation. Study 1 also found that adolescents who participated in both sports and non-sports reported a more positive social self-concept and general self-worth, compared to those who only participated in one of the activity types.

Study 2 focused on the link between involvement in unstructured leisure and self. As there is immense diversity in unstructured leisure activities, with some activities less likely to be associated with self (e.g., watching television), this thesis focused on a popular activity with potential to influence self-development: social networking. Frequency of social networking site use was linked to higher social self-concept, while investment in social networking sites was associated with lower self-esteem and higher depressed mood. Gender differences were also explored in Study 2.

 Study 3 examined the degree to which different leisure activities provide youth with opportunities to explore and refine their identities and experience positive peer interactions. Traditional structured leisure activities (e.g., sport, art) provided adolescents with more experiences of identity exploration and reflection and positive peer interactions than did social networking site use. Further analysis compared differences in social networking site use and found that both the frequency with which adolescents visited their social networking sites, and the degree of investment they had in their social networking sites, predicted more experiences of identity exploration and reflection and positive peer interactions.

Study 4 investigated whether positive developmental experiences in structured leisure activities predicted more positive self-concept, and whether this link was stronger for youth from disadvantaged schools. The positive developmental experiences that occurred during structured leisure activities predicted higher general self-worth and social and academic self-concept, and this link was stronger for youth from low SES schools.

The fifth and final study investigated the longitudinal impact of adolescent involvement in structured leisure activities on self-concept. Study 5 used latent growth curve models to examine whether breadth of structured activity participation during early adolescence predicted changes in self-concept across the high school years. Greater breadth of structured activity participation during early adolescence, controlling for intensity of participation, predicted less decline in general self-worth and academic self-concept. In summary, all five studies provided support for the proposition that leisure time activities are important to adolescent self-concept. The findings indicate that involvement in a diversity of structured leisure activities is a developmentally positive use of discretionary time in adolescence, particularly for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, results suggest that adolescents' frequent use of social networking sites is not a cause for concern, although the degree to which an adolescent is invested in his or her social networking site does appear to be linked to poorer outcomes. The findings of this thesis have relevance to both policy and practice.


Abstract:This paper describes in detail and discusses the regıonal variation of weıghts and measures of major food commodities (potatoes, oats, oatmeal, wheat, barley, rye, butter and milk) in early nineteenth-century Ireland. It builds upon the exposition by Wakefield and Bourke of weıghts and measures in Ireland before the Great Famıne. New sources examined include estate records, market reports in regional and local newspapers, archıves of the Irısh Folklore Commission ın the Department of Irish Folklore, and Ordnance Survey memoirs. A wider range of weights and measures is shown, ıllustrated through tables and with calculation of median and modal values. The diversity appears to reflect one or more variables-commodity, location, tıme and poınt in the chain of distribution-thus indıcating the need for caution in assumptions about unıform or smooth interchangeability of weights and measures. The government's attempts to standardise weights and measures in Ireland are discussed with reference to the wider international movements towards quantitative standardisation.


Statistical model-building is the science of constructing models from data and from information about the data-generation process, with the aim of analysing those data and drawing inference from that analysis. Many statistical tasks are undertaken during this analysis; they include classification , forecasting, prediction and testing. Model-building has assumed substantial importance, as new technologies enable data on highly complex phenomena to be gathered in very large quantities. This creates a demand for more complex models, and requires the model-building process itself to be adaptive. The word " paradigm " refers to philosophies, frameworks and methodolo-gies for developing and interpreting statistical models, in the context of data, and applying them for inference. In order to solve contemporary statistical problems it is often necessary to combine techniques from previously separate paradigms. The workshop addressed model-building paradigms that are at the frontiers of modern statistical research. It tried to create synergies, by delineating the connections and collisions among different paradigms. It also endeavoured to shape the future evolution of paradigms.


This book provides a detailed study of nominalizing patterns in Malagasy (Austronesian) and discusses the broader theoretical issues that arise from these patterns. It explores new and original fieldwork data drawn from the largely unexplored domain of Malagasy deverbal nominals. Offering new insights to long-standing puzzles in the derivation of argument-structure, referential, and clausal nominals, the book promotes a single structure-building mechanism, which allows nominalizers to attach at different heights in the clausal spine to derive nominals with different morphosyntactic properties. In addition, it provides a novel analysis of participant nominalizations, showing that they are derived through the same mechanism that derives relative clauses, and thus setting the stage for new and exciting research directions.


This thesis investigates the developments in contemporary reading that accompany the adoption of new reading technologies, principally the eReader and eBook. Using methods of interview and participant observation, the
opinions and values of communities of readers have been collected and analysed to explore how those communities describe the experiences of reading and of books.

This research focuses on four case studies: people who are members of reading groups, who have a reading habit which includes at least one book per week, and who describe reading as their main medium for leisure purposes. These are people who express a love of reading, and are comfortable with discussing their own reading experiences. The second case is people who have adopted an eReader for leisure reading. This group share a reading pattern that matches that of the first case in frequency. The third case study investigates Bookcrossing.com, a social network site which promotes a practice of sharing books as gifts, by leaving them in public spaces to form the token for a treasure hunt game, organised through the website. A community has formed around the website Bookcrossing.com, which serves as a record of both the treasure hunt game and the reading experiences for it users. Finally, using the work of Jane Fox and Irene Mensah, the thesis explores the use of Portable Document Format copies of books, where access to an original physical book is limited or unavailable. Material in each case is reviewed and interpreted with respect to the experiential, socio-cultural, and material nature of the data collected.

Having established an understanding of the experiences of the reader, based on the interview material collected from the reading group participants, the subsequent case studies offer the opportunity to understand the experiences of reading with, and the use of, the replacement transitional objects, that are in the process of inculcation in literary society. This thesis uses the concept of the assemblage, adopted from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as a model for the book as an object, which simultaneously denotes significance for the experience of reading, of the text it contains as well as wide significance for knowledge, wisdom and the transcendent sign. The contemporary situation is one of transition, from the singular book as an object of reading, that holds a single text or aggregation of texts towards the 'book' as an electronic device. This new device for reading has the potential to deliver any text, where format, digital rights and storage conditions are met, and where the text itself holds the potential to connect out to any and all other texts, provided in a digital material form. The research method adopts the concepts of Ludic approach to understanding reading developed by Wolfgang Iser, deconstruction of the nature of language and discourse as developed by Jacques Derrida, and utilising the concepts of Theory of Mind and Metarepresentation elaborated by Lisa Zunshine. The experiences of reading captured in each case study are compared and exposed to the impact of technological developments changing both readers and books.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how family-supportive supervisor behaviour (FSSB) and organisational work–family policies (WFP) influence turnover intention (TI), satisfaction with work–family balance (SWFB) and prosocial motivation (PSM) in employees in organisations in the private sector in Colombia and Chile. It also explores whether a family -friendly organisational culture (FFOC) moderates this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire (the International Family-Responsible Employed Index) was used to survey 486 employees (Chile: 255, Colombia: 231). The questionnaire consisted of three main sections: independent variables (WFP, FSSB, (FFOC and individual characteristics); dependent variables (organisational outcomes of TI, loyalty and commitment, and individual outcomes of health, WFE, SWFB, PSM and intrinsic); and demographic indicators. Structural equation modelling was used to test the possibility of comparing both countries and the model proposed.

Findings
Results show a negative relationship between FSSB and TI, and a positive relationship between FSSB and SWFB and PSM. There are no significant differences among countries, except when looking at PSM. FFOC moderates the relationships between FSSB and TI, between policies and FSSB and SWFB and between FSSB and PSM. It also has a direct effect on PSM.

Originality/value
This paper is one of the first to offer comparative data from organisations and managers in Latin American countries at the work–family interface. It also contributes to the literature, offering results partly consistent with studies in Anglo–Saxon countries.


In recent decades, a growing number of writers have argued for the claim that good interpretation requires not just skill but character; all else being equal, it is argued, virtuous people, whose interactions with the world are characterized by habits of attentiveness, charity, honesty, courage and humility, are most likely to understand and do justice to the texts they read. The book of Ruth offers a test case in the possibilities and limitations of virtue hermeneutics for biblical interpretation. Lurking just beneath the surface of the novella are a string of interpretive questions about how the commandments of the Torah are to be understood and applied, and about how the character of God is to shape the conduct of his people. Viewed from one angle, Boaz could be seen as the paradigm of the virtuous reader, a biblical parallel to Aristotle's 'magnanimous man'. But Boaz is not the only reader of God and God's purposes within the book of Ruth. At least as important to the action are Naomi and Ruth; their interpretations of the words and actions of God and the readings that are generated by their interactions with Boaz offer a challenge to the sufficiency of 'virtue' as a category for biblical hermeneutics.What emerges is a hermeneutic of חסד that presupposes an expansive vision of the kindness of God, and flourishes within a social matrix radically different from the small circle of wealthy, freeborn, virtuous men imagined by Aristotle as necessary to safeguard the flourishing of good character.


Eight leading American and Japanese specialists examine the potential for Japanese-American cooperation in UN peacemaking and peace enforcement. They discuss ongoing domestic political controversy in both countries over whether and when to support such UN efforts, review the record of UN intervention in key arenas of conflict, and suggest criteria that should govern UN intervention in specific cases. The book is the result of a research project sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment and the Research Institute of Peace and Security in Tokyo.


In this paper we study a two-dimensional system of charged colloidal particles using Brownian dynamics simulations. We determine the phase diagram and investigate the dynamics of this system in the density regime where hexatic and solid phases are stable. We find that the dynamics in these phases is heterogeneous by means of the spontaneous formation and diffusion of highly mobile defects. We identify two key mechanisms associated with the areas of high mobility. The first mechanism involves the highly cooperative motion of a closed loop of particles which shift coherently along the loop until each particle has replaced the position of its predecessor in the chain. The second mechanism involves the spontaneous creation of vacancy-interstitial pairs which diffuse within the hexatic and solid phases. We further explore quantitatively the properties of the open-ended and closed rearrangement strings and find that in the crystal phase the string-size distribution can be approximately matched with a simple, random walk description of vacancies and interstitials on a lattice.


Cobalt, Ontario, is renowned for the 12.6 billion grams (445 million ounces) of silver produced from the area since discovery in 1903 by workers of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. Native silver generally occurs with cobalt arsenides and sulfosalts in near-vertical carbonate veins cutting the Huronian sedimentary rocks of the Gowganda Formation, the Archean metavolcanics and/or the Nipissing diabase. All major deposits have been found within a few hundred meters of the unconformity between the Archean and Huronian rocks in general proximity to the Nipissing diabase and volcanogenic sulfide mounds within the Archean meta-volcanics. Silver has been mobilized from one or more of the local country rocks by hyper-saline brines and deposited in or near zones of mixing where the saline brines encounter paleometeoric water transported to depth along the unconformity or local structures. Previous work has shown that chloride complexes are the dominant ligands responsible for silver transport. These hypersaline brines, represented as halite-bearing fluid inclusions at room temperature, have been trapped as primary fluid inclusions within vein minerals. Pressure-temperature conditions of vein formation have been derived from mineral equilibria, maximum lithostat and fluid-inclusion studies. These data are consistent with vein formation occurring over the temperature range 300°C to 350°C, with pressures constrained between 60 Mpa and 136 Mpa (600 bars and 1360 bars).


A mutant Arabidopsis acetolactate synthase (ALS) gene csr-1-1, conferring chlorsulfuron resistance, was tested in transgenic rice to develop an alternative selectable marker for rice transformation. Up to a 200-fold increase in chlorsulfuron resistance was detected in transgenic rice calli expressing the mutant ALS gene under control of the CaMV 35S promoter. Efficient selection of resistant protoplast colonies was achieved by using 10 to 50 nM of chlorsulfuron after transformation with the 35S/ALS gene. Fertile transgenic rice plants were successfully recovered from 35S/ALS-containing transformants. These results demonstrated that the 35S/ALS gene could be used as a selectable marker gene in rice transformation. Progeny of protoplast-derived nontransformed rice plants and transgenic rice plants containing the hygromycin phosphotransferase (hph) gene and the maize activator (Ac) transposable element were investigated in a field experiment. Comparison with seed-derived plants for six major agronomic traits indicated that nontransformed protoplast-derived plants were essentially indistinguishable from the parent cultivar, suggesting that somaclonal variation in these plants was not significant. Hph-containing transgenic plants were relatively normal. The generally low fertility in these plants may have been caused by the hygromycin selection procedure. In the majority of transgenic rice plants, the hph gene was inherited as a single dominant locus. Transferred DNA was maintained stably in the rice genome through the third generation of selfing. Ac-containing transgenic plants produced a significantly higher frequency of phenotypic variations than protoplast-derived nontransformed plants and transgenic plants containing the hph gene. In some varied traits such as sterility and albinism were segregated as a single locus among transgenic progeny and may have been associated with the presence of an active Ac element. This field experiment enabled us to assess the traits of transgenic rice plants for transposon tagging and obtain useful mutant materials.


Objective: To provide supporting evidence on the effectiveness of chiropractic care in relieving asthma and allergies and overall improvement in a pediatric patient∂s immune system and health. Clinical Features: A 7-year-old male was presented by his parents for chiropractic evaluation and possible care. The suffered from chronic colds, allergies, and asthma since the age of 5 months. At the time of initial evaluation, the patient was on a 1x/day dose of prescription Alavert for allergies and Albuterol for asthma. The patient∂s illness caused him to miss approximately 1-2 days a month of school due to colds and symptoms of asthma. His parents also indicated that his health problems resulted in monthly visits to his medical doctor. Interventions and Outcomes: The patient was cared for using specific, low-force adjustments with the Activator Instrument to address areas of vertebral subluxation in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbosacral spine. Within two weeks of initiating chiropractic care, the patient was able to discontinue his allergy and asthma medications (as decided upon by his parents) and the use of his nebulizer. In the first 5 months after beginning chiropractic care, he has had only wellness checkups at the medical doctor. In the past school year, the patient has not missed any days of school due to illness. Conclusion: This case report provides supporting evidence that chiropractic care can help balance immune system functioning and relieve asthma symptoms as well as colds and allergies. It is recommended that further research be done on this subject to support the findings of this case study.


This paper discusses the Kumpulan Wang Amanah Negara (KWAN), Malaysia's natural resource fund. Using good governance frameworks from research on Natural Resource Funds by the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of KWAN and suggests several improvements. Among them are revising the deposit and withdrawal rules to encourage saving and accountability, improving the oversight mechanism and public disclosure.


The explosion of interest in stem cell research raises a raft of controversial policy questions. When should human embryos be used to create stem cells? Should cloning be outlawed? Should egg and tissue donors be paid? Should we allow scientists to patent stem cells? Is the government entitled to a portion of the revenue from stem cell technology created with public funds? How should the regulators and courts balance the competing goals of access to revolutionary treatments and protection of the public from unknown risks? Russell Korobkin, with contributions from Stephen R. Munzer, provides the first thorough discussion and analysis of these and other unsettled questions of law, policy, and ethics that surround stem cell science. His clear and concise description of complex problems coupled with logical and well-balanced conclusions makes this volume essential reading for all Americans, general readers and experts alike, interested in the promise of stem cell research and the future of regenerative medicine.


In recent years kinship theory has opened up innovative avenues of enquiry that contrast with the comparatively static nature of some previous analytical models. A prime example of these new interpretative frameworks is the field of socalled new kinship studies, which advocates against the reification of kinship, leaning towards the more encompassing and fluid notion of relatedness. Rather than being defined from an exclusively biological perspective, relatedness relies on alternative parameters such as personhood, gender, and substance, which allow for an understanding of kinship as a performative process. This article addresses how kinship theory may be used to better delineate an emic approach to relatedness in Middle Kingdom Egypt. As a case study, I explore to what extent the idea of substance may be a useful category to construe the way relatedness was represented and perpetuated in the primary sources. By taking kinship as a contextually bounded social representation, it may be possible to attain a more nuanced explanation of ancient Egyptian social fabric.


Highly reflective LaF(3)/MgF(2) systems for a wavelength of 248 nm on MgF(2) and crystalline quartz substrates were investigated. The influence of laser conditioning on damage threshold and absorptance was remarkable in those coatings that had a high initial absorptance. Monitoring with a laser calorimeter revealed the conditioning effect to be a function of the irradiation dose rather than of energy density or pulse rate. Furthermore, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy investigations showed that conditioning induces stoichiometric and structural changes in the multilayers, especially in near-surface sublayers, whereas scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy investigations indicated that the surface remains unchanged.


"Unsanitized Domestic Allegories" begins the work of recovering the complex history linking Progressive-Era biomedicalization, gender expectations, and ideologies of racial uplift within African American culture. Through a close reading of early-twentieth-century African American health care activists, including C. V. Roman, founding member of the National Medical Association (1895) and the first editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association, E. Elliott Rawlins, health columnist for the Amsterdam News, and Mary Fitzbutler Waring, chair of the Committee for Health and Hygiene of the National Association for Colored Women, Knadler's essay argues that race leaders recruited a language of health and hygiene to shape, manage, and regulate the class divisions and cultural disorientations of urban migration. But this community epidemiology was also connected to a particular biomediated image that functioned as part of a politics of risk and affect to preempt women's freedom: the (un)sanitized woman who was said to endanger the health of her family and the community at a time when many African American neighborhoods were experiencing epidemics of diseases as a result of health-care disparities and environmental racism. Knadler then turns to a close reading of Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) to show how its unruly, unsanitized domestic allegory exposes and destabilizes this interworking of medical language, affect, and gendered risk within racial uplift. Quicksand testifies to the complex meaning of agency in a world in which political, economic, and moral crises have been recast as the medical condition of specific "risky" bodies and doubts over their competence at maintaining sanitary self-care.


Purpose of this paper: The purpose of the first part of the paper is to identify a set of services that potentially can be provided by intelligent goods, and to show what is needed, from a functional perspective, to realize these types of services. In particular, we focus on what information and functions are required. The purpose of the last part of the paper is to present some of the most important factors affecting the placement (e.g. goods, vehicle or ERP level) of the information and processing required by a service. We also discuss how these factors affect our identified services. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper. A number of potential intelligent goods services have been identified based on a literature study. An in-depth analysis of these services has thereafter been carried out. Findings The paper presents what is needed, from a functional perspective, to implement potential intelligent goods services. The paper also provides an initial analysis of what factors influence where the data and processing necessary for a service should be placed, and thus under which circumstances solutions based on intelligent goods are recommended. What is original/value of paper The literature study shows that many inventive services based on local information and/or local intelligence have already been suggested, and some have also been realized. However, the requirements imposed by the services have not yet been analyzed thoroughly. We address questions, such as, what is required for realization, what factors influence which is the best realization solution, and furthermore, when is intelligent goods really the best instrument to use?


The gastrointestinal uptake of Zn²⁺ was studied in the winter flounder using an in situ technique, an equilibrium dialysis technique and a non-absorbed marker technique. -- The entire digestive tract of the flounder was capable of absorbing Zn²⁺, with the uppermost portion of the intestine having the highest and the stomach the lowest capacity. A seasonal study revealed that the capacity to absorb Zn²⁺ was greatest during the summer feeding period. Zn²⁺ absorption appeared to involve at least two steps, the first a rapid accumulation of Zn²⁺ by the tissue and the second, a slower transfer of Zn²⁺ into the body. The total amount of Zn²⁺ absorbed increased with increasing loads of Zn²⁺ in the lumen; the transfer mechanism did not appear to be saturated at the highest Zn²⁺ loads tested. However, Zn²⁺ uptake was inhibited by several other metals and by the amino acid, histidine. -- The capacity of the digestive tract to absorb Zn²⁺ was not affected by feeding the flounder a high-Zn²⁺ diet or by increasing the body Zn²⁺ load by parenteral injections. In the event of exposure to elevated levels of Zn²⁺ in the diet, it is suggested that elimination mechanisms may play a greater role in Zn²⁺ homeostasis in the winter flounder than limitation of gastrointestinal uptake. -- The dynamics of Zn²⁺ turnover in the flounder was investigated by examining the distribution of ⁶⁵Zn in the tissues following single intramuscular injections of the radiotracer. The tissues exhibited different rates of accumulation and loss of ⁶⁵Zn, the most rapid being in tissues such as the kidney, liver, gill and gastrointestinal tract. -- Retention of ⁶⁵Zn was examined in live flounder using a whole-body detector. The loss of ⁶⁵Zn appeared to vary seasonally; when flounder were monitored during the summer feeding period the rate of ⁶⁵Zn loss (monitored in the area of the peritoneal cavity) increased over that seen in the winter non-feeding period (i.e. TB₁/₂=223 and 1510 days, respectively). Whole-body ⁶⁵Zn retention patterns were similar in flounder injected with saline or a load of stable Zn²⁺. Under these experimental conditions the rate of Zn²⁺ loss was not affected by an excess of stable Zn²⁺. -- Experiments conducted to determine the possible site(s) of Zn²⁺ excretion into the digestive tract following i.v. injections of ⁶⁵Zn indicated that Zn²⁺ could be secreted into the lumen contents all along the tract. Other possible sites of Zn²⁺ elimination include the gills, kidney and body surface. -- Chromatographic techniques were its ed. to examine the Zn²⁺-binding proteins in the cytosols of several tissues of the winter flounder. A low molecular weight ⁶⁵Zn (Zn²⁺)-binding protein, with properties characterizing it as metallothionein, was isolated from the mucosal and liver cytosols of Zn²⁺-injected flounder. Metallothionein did not appear to be serving the same function(s) in the intestine of the flounder as commonly hypothesized for mammals. The presence of the protein in the mucosal cytosol did not appear to be associated with any enhancement or depression of Zn²⁺ absorption. The role of metallothionein in the normal metabolism of Zn²⁺ in the flounder remains to be resolved. That it could play a role in homeostasis is suggested by the presence of a low molecular weight Zn²⁺-binding protein, with elution characteristics similar to metallothionein, in the tissues of normal flounder.


Normal 0 This protocol has been registered with the International Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on the 10 July 2012 under registration number CRD42013006487 (Available online from http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.asp?ID=CRD42013006487 ). REVIEW QUESTION: Do conventional glass-ionomer restorations, in patients with single and/or multi-surface cavities in posterior permanent teeth, have a higher failure rate than direct composite resin restorations? SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE SEARCH: Databases: MEDLINE accessed via PubMed; CENTRAL accessed via Cochrane Library; Open access sources: Biomed Central, DOAJ; Regional databases: IndMed, SABINET; Grey-Literature sources: OpenSIGLE, Google Scholar. SEARCH TERM DEVELOPMENT: Strings of search terms (containing MeSH and text search terms) together with Boolean operators will be developed and utilized for searching the databases. ARTICLE SELECTION CRITERIA: Prospective clinical control trial; clearly reported parallel group design with dichotomous outcome measure; outcome measure: restoration failure due to fracture, wear, secondary caries, retention loss; Intervention in permanent posterior teeth; follow-up period: 1 year or longer with longest comparable result per study; trials comparing: composite versus amalgam, high-viscosity glass-ionomers versus amalgam, high-viscosity glass-ionomers versus composite. Trial exclusion criteria: Tunnel restoration, preventive resin restoration (sealed restoration) as intervention type; cermet, low-viscosity glass-ionomer cements; chemically cured composite resin, non-hybrid composite resins (macro/micro/midi filled); low-copper amalgam alloys; composite resin and/or amalgam restorations placed with glass-ionomer liner or base; no computable data reported; tooth cavities in anterior teeth, class V cavities or cavities on root/cervical tooth surfaces; tooth cavities extending into enamel, only. DATA EXTRACTION: The information extracted from selected trials will include general trial information, information regarding bias risk; all data with relevance to the review question will be extracted in form of individual dichotomous datasets. DATA ANALYSIS AND REPORTING: Relative and absolute point estimates with 95% Confidence intervals will be computed per dataset and statistical heterogeneity investigated; selection-, detection-, performance-, attrition-, publication bias risk will be assessed; a network meta-analyses will be conducted for adjusted indirect comparison of treatment efficacy between conventional glass-ionomer and composite resin on basis of amalgam restorations as the shared control intervention.


Trenching of sand blows in two liquefaction fields on late- to mid-Holocene alluvium within the southern Mississippi Embayment was conducted to determine the origin of the sand blows and their possible relationship to New Madrid seismic zone events. Trench stratigraphy and crosscutting relationships show evidence of multiple events of seismically induced sand venting. These two fields of moderate to intense liquefaction are 175 km and 240 km southwest of the southern limit of similarly intense sand blows within the New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ) liquefaction field. The southernmost field (Ashley County, Arkansas) is ∼25 km in diameter, and sand blows are densely spaced. Sand blows are more sparsely spaced in the larger (∼30 km by 45 km) northern field (Desha County, Arkansas). Various correlations of liquefaction events between these two fields and between each of these fields and the NMSZ can be accommodated by our radiocarbon and infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) ages of sediments predating and postdating vented sand deposits in our trenches. These ages show a major liquefaction event at both the Ashley and Desha County fields between 4600 and 5500 years ago and a major event at the Ashley County field approximately 700 years ago. The early venting episode is older than the documented NMSZ chronology, and so a NMSZ seismic source cannot be assessed. The age of the later venting episode falls between two postulated NMSZ events, so it may reflect seismicity from a different source zone. Our trench logs show at least three other moderate to minor sand-venting episodes at the Ashley County field and two at the Desha County field, and one may be the same event at both fields about 2200 years ago. If these sand blows formed during large NMSZ events (≥175 km northeast), the area of strong ground motion for this seismic source has been underestimated. Alternatively, if these liquefaction fields formed due to local seismicity, then additional significant seismic source zones are present in the Mississippi Embayment outside the NMSZ. Each of the two fields sits astride seismicity alignments associated with the margins of a previously identified active fault block between the Arkansas River fault zone that projects through the Desha County field and the Saline River fault zone that projects through the Ashley County field.


Cinnamon has been used for neuralgia on the knees and waist, and it is shown to have a wide antibacterial spectrum in both Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria. In this study, glucosyltransferase adhesive ability, acid-production suppression effect, and antibacterial activity were measured to identify the anti-caries effect of cinnamon extract. It was shown that cinnamon extract effectively suppressed acid production and bacterial adhesion for Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sanguinis . Additionally, the measurement result of the minimum inhibitory concentration of the cinnamon extract showed that the bacterial growth and development was inhibited at a 4 mg/ml concentration for anti-caries bacteria. In terms of the minimum bactericidal concentration, 99.99% bactericidal action was also confirmed at 4 mg/ml, and a high bactericidal action was shown with the smallest concentration for cariogenic bacteria. With regard to the adhesion-inhibition of glucosyltransferase, which is an oral pathogen for Streptococcus mutans that typically causes dental, caries among oral pathogens, the inhibitory effect appeared to be based on the concentration of the cinnamon extract, thereby showing that cinnamon extract has the ability to inhibit the fraction's adhesion. Based on the results, it is concluded that cinnamon extract has the potential to be used as a natural antibacterial agent for oral pathogens, as it possesses acid-production suppression ability, the bactericidal action of the minimum bactericidal concentration, adhesion-inhibition ability, and anticaries effect.