Abstract Introduction: Aesthetic materials for direct restorations can suffer changes in the oral cavity due to multiple factors acting at this level. The aim of the study was to demonstrate that aesthetic materials undergo structural changes in texture and chemicals, depending on the nature of the extrinsic factor, concentration, and exposure time. Material and methods: We used 3 types of composites, a self-polymerizing composite, two photo-polymerizing composites, and a glass ionomer. 210 teeth were initially immersed in artificial saliva as a control solution and afterwards immersed into artificial gastric juice, ethyl alcohol, energy drink, and distilled water. With the help of a pH meter, we determined the pH of the substances both before and after immersing the teeth in solutions. The teeth were monitored for 24-48 hours in a thermostat bath at 37 degrees Celsius, after which they were analyzed with the help of a rough meter that measures the smallest surface changes. Results: Significant changes in pH occurred in alcohol, where a considerable decrease was observed after 48h. Also, the alcohol produced the most aggressive changes of texture in the composites, and the smallest changes occured in the composite with nanofiller. The glass ionomer was the most affected of all the materials due to the exposure to both alcohol and artificial gastric juice, respectively energy drinks so that the surface analysis could not be performed. Conclusions: The results of the in vitro study are clinically important because the glass ionomer is much too rotten in these extreme situations. Thus, its use is not recommended both in patients with gastroesophageal reflux as well as in alcoholics and persons consuming energy drinks.


The implementation of interventions to minimize the Corona Virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Africa has been flurry and increasingly complicated in nature. This milieu engenders and heightens vulnerabilities of critical masses living in socially- compromised situations and economically constrained communities in the current pandemic. The increasing spread of COVID-19 has necessitated enforcement of frequent hand washing, social distancing and lockdown measures as a recommended global strategy to curb community-based spread of the disease. However, pre-existing conditions in Africa impede capacity to observe hand hygiene, social distancing and lockdown. Although past epidemics in Africa created foundations for planning for future occurrences, the enormity of the current COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed capacity to observe globally recommended interventions. The rising trends in morbidity and mortality has gained attention from community members, stakeholders, regulatory bodies and governments, however, implementation of hand hygiene practices and mobility restrictions has not been in tandem with sustainable approaches that assure compliance and resource availability to limit cross-transmission. The aim of our article is to unveil current challenges with handwashing and social distancing in Africa and propose innovative solutions to prevent community-based COVID-19 transmission. The issues pertaining to Africa are not only related to the magnitude of the problem, but the unique nature of African contexts and the paucity of documented evidence that impede a re-envisioning of interventions that promote community health. Therefore, gaining an understanding of the inherent nuances is important to implementing globally recommended interventions.


We present a method of reliable extraction of the flux of individual sources from sky maps in the presence of noise and a source population in which number counts are a steeply falling function of flux. The method is an extension of a standard Bayesian procedure in the millimeter/submillimeter literature. As in the standard method, the prior applied to source flux measurements is derived from an estimate of the source counts as a function of flux, dN/dS. The key feature of the new method is that it enables reliable extraction of properties of individual sources, which previous methods in the literature do not. We first present the method for extracting individual source fluxes from data in a single observing band, then we extend the method to multiple bands, including prior information about the spectral behavior of the source population(s). The multi-band estimation technique is particularly relevant for classifying individual sources into populations according to their spectral behavior. We find that proper treatment of the correlated prior information between observing bands is key to avoiding significant biases in estimations of multi-band fluxes and spectral behavior, biases which lead to significant numbers of misclassified sources. We test the single- and multi-band versions of the method using simulated observations with observing parameters similar to that of the South Pole Telescope data used in Vieira et al.


In an Iranian court the judge acts as prosecutor, jury, and arbiter; the system is a form of the inquisitorial system. However, according to Article 168 of Iran's constitution, in certain cases involving the media a jury is allowed to be the arbiter. The judge holds absolute power. In practice, judges may be overwhelmed by cases, and not have the time to excogitate about each case. All judges are certified in Islamic law, and most, but not all, are members of the ruling clergy. I'm going to explain courts structure in this article.


When operating an Electric Submersible Pump (ESP) in a location with high installation or worker costs, the installation can cost much more than the ESP itself. Having a reliable ESP with good average run life is critical to the operational economics. In sweet or benign reservoirs, ESP run life can easily exceed five (5) years through careful design, selection, manufacture, installation and operational practices. When taking an ESP system with a proven track record into sour environments, the average run life deteriorates significantly and correlates with the partial pressure of the H2S in the produced fluid. This proven track record is important to bear in mind because an ESP system that has inherent reliability issues will fail of its own accord long before the effects of H2S become obvious which makes failure analysis challenging. In a region with both sweet and sour fields coupled with high intervention costs, it is vital that ESP run life is reliable and predictable in any field. Years of dismantle inspection failure analysis (DIFA) on all ESPs has allowed identification of modes of failure attributed to H2S, prioritized those issues and led to the development of a high integrity ESP system to combat the modes of failure allowing ESPs in sour fields to improve run life to be on par with those in sweet fields. This paper will describe the specific problems H2S causes an ESP and what was done to resolve them.

 H2S will cause significant damage to an ESP system that may eventually cause a failure. If the H2S partial pressure is low, the damage may not reduce the run life significantly or at least lower it enough to cause significant inconvenience and high operational cost. If an ESP can run five (5) to seven (7) years, on average, without failure, this would be more than adequate in most cases. While having an ESP that never fails might seem to be a worthy goal, it isn't really practical. Changing reservoir conditions or production strategies with time will make it necessary to pull and replace an ESP at some point. While a variable speed drive (VSD) does expand the useful window of operation of an ESP, it only helps up to a point. Fortunately H2S does not appear to significantly impact the ESP run life performance. To date, corrosion resistant coating (CRC) on carbon steel has been effective as long as the coating is intact. If CRC is to be applied to a housing, it is necessary that the coating be applied as soon after bead or shot blasting as possible. Even a few extra minutes of delay will allow an oxide layer to form on the newly cleaned housing surface making it impossible for the coating to adhere to it. H2S attacks the ESP cable, seal section and motor in specific ways. For this paper, the ESP completion discussed has a deep set, non-vented packer located approximately 200 feet above the pump discharge used to prolong the life of the production casing. Based on empirical data, the most significant reduction of run life is failure of the MLE system which includes the packer penetrator lower connector, the MLE pothead and the MLE lead jacketed cable itself in that order of importance. While some penetrator manufacturers perform better than others, nobody has yet designed an H2S proof system. Whether the penetrator is factory molded or field attachable, H2S will eventually cause it to fail. Without going into the specifics of one design over another, probably the most important factor impacting the reliability of the penetrator connector is the length of the leakage path from the sour production fluid to the copper of the cable and connectors. The longer the distance, the longer the useful life of the connector.


The aim of this project was to develop and implement an optimisation methodology that combines process thermo-modelling and process integration in a thermo-economic optimisation framework for fuel cells systems. During this project, a generic software has been developed to perform optimisation of integated energy systems. OSMOSE stands for "OptimiSation MultiObjectif de Systemes Energetiques integres" (MultiObjective Optimisation of Integrated Energy Systems). The developed approach and software have been used to optimise a hybrid PEM and gas turbine system. This report contains the project description, the methodology the obtained results, the full PEM process flow diagram, examples of results and the manual of OSMOSE.


The use of audio and video communication has increased exponentially over the last decade and has gone from speech over GSM to HD resolution video conference between continents on mobile devices. As the use becomes more widespread the interest in delivering high quality media increases even on devices with limited resources. This includes both development and enhancement of the communication chain but also the topic of objective measurements of the perceived quality. The focus of this thesis work has been to perform enhancement within speech encoding and video decoding, to measure influence factors of audio and video performance, and to build methods to predict the perceived video quality. The audio enhancement part of this thesis addresses the well known problem in the GSM system with an interfering signal generated by the switching nature of TDMA cellular telephony. Two different solutions are given to suppress such interference internally in the mobile handset. The first method involves the use of subtractive noise cancellation employing correlators, the second uses a structure of IIR notch filters. Both solutions use control algorithms based on the state of the communication between the mobile handset and the base station. The video enhancement part presents two post-filters. These two filters are designed to improve visual quality of highly compressed video streams from standard, block-based video codecs by combating both blocking and ringing artifacts. The second post-filter also performs sharpening. The third part addresses the problem of measuring audio and video delay as well as skewness between these, also known as synchronization. This method is a black box technique which enables it to be applied on any audiovisual application, proprietary as well as open standards, and can be run on any platform and over any network connectivity. The last part addresses no-reference (NR) bitstream video quality prediction using features extracted from the coded video stream. Several methods have been used and evaluated: Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Least Square Support Vector Machines (LS-SVM), showing high correlation with both MOS and objective video assessment methods as PSNR and PEVQ. The impact from temporal, spatial and quantization variations on perceptual video quality has also been addressed, together with the trade off between these, and for this purpose a set of locally conducted subjective experiments were performed.


Abstract Basin classification rests on a plate tectonic foundation, highlighting lithospheric substrate, proximity to plate margin and relative motion of the nearest plate boundary. Major mechanisms for regional subsidence and uplift are subdivided into isostatic, flexural and dynamic groups. Basin-forming mechanisms and basin types do not exhibit simple cause-and-effect relationships, but rather reflect a matrix-type relationship. Different basin types have different spans of existence, with generally shorter life spans related to more tectonically active settings. Many 'polyhistory' basins, composed of two or more megasequences, reflect a long evolution dominated by different basin-forming and basin-modifying mechanisms. The supercontinent cycle is marked by distinct sets of basin types, developed during successive phases of the cycle. Major classification schemes are reviewed briefly, before surveying the range of basin types represented in the Proterozoic of several key cratonic areas. Basins examined encompass almost the entire Neoarchaean–Neoproterozoic period. All of these basins have a relatively long history of preservation, which can be tied to the essentially continental character of their basement rocks and concomitant enhanced 'survivability'. Their preservation thus underlines the longevity and inherent stability of the continental lithosphere. The distinction between basin occurrence over geological time and preferential preservation is important when viewing the geological record.


Phthalates are synthetic chemicals added to plastics to increase their flexibility, however they easily migrate out of the plastic into the environment. Previous research has shown that early life exposure to DEHP results in altered neurodevelopment. DEHP was administered once daily from P18-23. Wildtype C57Bl/6 and transgenic AldHl1- L10:GFP mice were used to assess behaviour and astrocytic changes in the PFC, respectively. Behavioural and histological measurements were assessed at P29 and P49 in males and females. Our results suggest that male mice exposed to DEHP exhibit acute hyperactivity and decreased anxiety. These effects were not seen at P49, and no differences were seen at either time point in females. No changes in astrocyte number or astrocyte activation were observed. In conclusion, early-life DEHP exposure appears to have acute anxiolytic effects only in males, and these effects do not seem to be mediated through astrocytic changes in the PFC.


OBJECTIVE
Functionalized benzenes are prepared from the reaction of sulfonoketenimides that is produced from the Copper catalyzed reaction of terminal alkynes and sulfonyl azides with zwitterionic intermediate that is generated from the reaction of dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylates, alkyl bromides and triphenylphosphine in the presence of ZnO-nanoparticles in good yields.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
All chemicals employed in this work were prepared from Fluka (Buchs,
Switzerland) and were used without further purification. Nanoparticles of ZnO were synthesized
according to literature report. Melting points were measured on an Electrothermal 9100 apparatus.
Elemental analyses for C, H, and N were performed using a Heraeus CHN–O-Rapid analyzer. Mass
spectra were recorded on a FINNIGAN-MAT 8430 spectrometer operating at an ionization potential
of 70 eV. IR spectra were measured on a Shimadzu IR-460 spectrometer. 1H, and 13C NMR spectra
were measured with a BRUKER DRX-500 AVANCE spectrometer at 500.1 and 125.8 MHz,
respectively.

RESULTS
In these reactions, the first step is optimization of reaction conditions for achieving best
conditions. For this reason, solvent, catalyst, and reaction time is changed so that the best result is
obtained. For optimization, several catalysts such as CuI, CuBr, CuCl, ZnO-nanoparticles, CM-ZnO,
pyridine, piperidine, CuO-NPs, TiO2-NPs and copper powder were checked. Among them CuI and
ZnO-NPs give the best results. Also, several solvents such as CH3CN, H2O, solvent-free conditions,
toluene and diethyl ether are employed and CH3CN is the best solvent.

CONCLUSION
In summary, sulfonoketenimides react with intermediate that is generated from the reaction of dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylate, alkyl bromides and triphenylphosphine in the presence of ZnO-NPs (10 mol%) to produce benzene derivatives in good yields.


The goal of automated essay evaluation is to assign grades to essays and provide feedback using computers. Automated evaluation is increasingly being used in classrooms and online exams. The aim of this project is to develop machine learning models for performing automated essay scoring and evaluate their performance. In this research, a publicly available essay data set was used to train and test the efficacy of the adopted techniques. Natural language processing techniques were used to extract features from essays in the dataset. Three different existing machine learning algorithms were used on the chosen dataset. The data was divided into two parts: training data and testing data. The inter-rater reliability and performance of these models were compared with each other and with human graders. Among the three machine learning models, the random forest performed the best in terms of agreement with human scorers as it achieved the lowest mean absolute error for the test dataset.


Horizontal wells with multistage hydraulic fracturing are today the most important drilling technology for shale gas extraction. Considered unprofitable before, the production has now become economically profitable due to advances in technology. Shales main characteristics is its low permeability, making the gas challenging and expensive to extract. Hydraulic fracturing stimulates the wells by creating additional conductivity, making the gas flows from storage pores to the well. This flow only possible in a short time scale, and states the need for multistage fracturing. Shale gas flow therefore exhibits a high initial peak, followed by a rapid decline in production rates. The use of shut-ins of shale gas wells allows for pressure build-up and may prevent liquid loading, as a means of boosting production. Shut-ins are used as on/off control variables in short-term model-based optimization of multiple shale gas wells with the objective of tracking a reference rate, while at the same time avoiding liquid loading. Previous work have focused on open-loop optimization. Here, an open-loop formulation is compared to a closed-loop formulation, in the form of mixed integer model predictive control. Both formulations are implemented in IBM ILOG CPLEX, with and without disturbances. Optimal production settings are solved in the presence of global constraints on production rates and minimal shut-in time. This allows for shut-ins with variable periods. The implementation is sensitive to initial conditions, horizons and weighting factors. The closed-loop formulation shows the best ability to reduce the effects of disturbances.


Improvement of students' academic qualification is one of the main concerns of any educational system, then psychological and counseling theories may be applied in the way of reaching the point. This research investigated the effectiveness of training the Choice Theory of Glasser to teachers on improvement of students' academic qualification. The study was One Group Pre-Post Test Quasi Experimental Design. Statistical universe included all teachers of Sarv Abad( a city in Iran, Kurdistan Province) Education Office and teahers in Ghaleji Secondary School were selected as sample conveniencely. 8 sessions of training the Choice Theory were implemented for teachers. Within-Subject ANOVA was applied to analyze data; results showed significant difference between students' scores in pre and post test(P<0/01). Training the Choice Theory could affect and improve students' academic qualification.


Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate pesticide moderately toxic to humans via inhalation and dermal absorption (LD50 oral, rat = 226 mg kg-1, LD50 skin, rabbits = 1265 mg kg-1), is widely used to eradicate termites in Australia. A series of 28 surveys totaling 32 separate assessments, or 10% of all professional users in Perth, Western Australia, comprised biological monitoring, exposure assessment techniques, a health symptoms and work practices questionnaire. Chlorpyrifos metabolite 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol and alkyl phosphates were extracted from urine, and serum cholinesterase (SChE) and erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase from blood. Chlorpyrifos was extracted from 24 patches removed from a supplied cotton overall, cotton gloves worn under protective gloves, 7 absorbent patches placed on the skin and an organic vapour collection tube. Surface wipes were collected in the workers vehicle and on the workers forehead. Chlorpyrifos was applied in either 0.5% (n=2) or 1% (n=26) concentration of active ingredient in water solution. Surveys took place at pre-construction sites (n=5) where pesticide was sprayed onto a prepared site, existing buildings with concrete foundations (n=17) where pesticide was injected under pressure around the perimeter of the building and existing buildings with suspended floors requiring the worker to spray under floor (n=6). Combined left and right glove deposition was 9 mg hour- 1 (SD = 18 mg.hour-1). Mean deposition on overalls was 14 mg.hour-1 (SD = 12 mg.hour-1), on skin patches was 0.2 mcg cm-1.hour-1, on vehicle gear-stick was 3 mcg (SD = 8 mcg) and, on steering wheels was 3 mcg (SD = 3 mcg). The mean protection 4 factor of overalls, a ratio of outer layer and inner levels, was 75 (SD = 411).

Mean air concentration of chlorpyrifos during an application was 30 mcg m-3, and 17 mcg m-3 8 hour TWA (SD = 40 mcg m-3 8 hour TWA), and in one group of 17 workers correlated (p<0.05) with ambient air temperature (15 to 38 oC). Urinary metabolites and SChE activity were effective indicators of exposure. The health symptoms questionnaire did not highlight significant health effects. A discrepancy between operators' perception of risk and their actual exposure requires addressing, for example the measured high deposition rate to hands was ineffectively controlled, as 48% or workers wore inappropriate or no gloves and only 26% washed their hands after completing their tasks. All workers indicated in the questionnaire they would wash their hands after completing their tasks. The questionnaire also highlighted a high incidence of poor work practices, 58% spilt the concentrate at least once a week, 74% had recently spilt/splashed diluted chlorpyrifos in their eyes and 90% on their boots, and 52% believed they would benefit from more education concerning chlorpyrifos. Observations concluded that workers unnecessarily increased their exposure by poor work practice.

Recommendations include modification to pesticide worker education, licencing and health surveillance systems; an improvement in the understanding of the benefits of a health and safety management systems for employers, and pesticide suppliers taking a stewardship role in the usage of their products.


Higher energy-efficiency has become essential in servers for a variety of reasons that range from heavy power and thermal constraints, environmental issues and financial savings. With main memory responsible for at least 30% of the energy consumed by a server, a low power main memory is fundamental to achieving this energy efficiency. DRAM has been the technology of choice for main memory for the last three decades primarily because it traditionally combined relatively low power, high performance, low cost and high density. However, with DRAM nearing its density limit, alternative low-power memory technologies, such as Phase-change memory (PCM), have become a feasible replacement. PCM limitations, such as limited endurance and low write performance, preclude simple drop-in replacement and require new architectures and algorithms to be developed.
A PCM main memory architecture (PMMA) is introduced in this dissertation, utilizing both DRAM and PCM, to create an energy-efficient main memory that is able to replace a DRAM-only memory. PMMA utilizes a number of techniques and architectural changes to achieve a level of performance that is par with DRAM. PMMA achieves gains in energy-delay of up to 65%, with less than 5% of performance loss and extremely high energy gains. To address the other major shortcoming of PCM, namely limited endurance, a novel, low-overhead wear-leveling algorithm that builds on PMMA is proposed that increases the lifetime of PMMA to match the expected server lifetime so that both server and memory subsystems become obsolete at about the same time.
We also study how to better use the excess capacity, traditionally available on PCM devices, to obtain the highest lifetime possible. We show that under specific endurance distributions, the naive choice does not achieve the highest lifetime. We devise rules that empower the designer to select algorithms and parameters to achieve higher lifetime or simplify the design knowing the impact on the lifetime. The techniques presented also apply to other storage class memories (SCM) memories that suffer from limited endurance.


BACKGROUND
Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae are common sexually transmitted diseases among young women and little has been doing to study them in Chilean adolescents.

AIM
Determine the rates of C trachomatis and N gonorrhoeae in Chilean young women.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Urine samples were obtained from 203 sexually active females under 25 year-old, who attended hospitals from either high or low-income areas in Chile's capital, Santiago. C trachomatis and Ngonorrhoeae were detected by nucleic acid amplification testing.

RESULTS
Seven percent of samples were positive for C trachomatis. AU samples were negative for N gonorrhoeae. Among pregnant women, 19% of samples were positive for C trachomatis, while non-pregnant women were positive on 5.5% (p =0.04). Systematic use of barrier contraception was referring by 12% of women. AU of the latter was free of C trachomatis. No association was observing between age, number of sexual partners, age of first sexual intercourse, and presence of uro-gynecological symptoms, socioeconomic status and the rate of C trachomatis.

CONCLUSIONS
Seven percent of this group of Chilean young women was infected with C trachomatis. The figure rises to 19% if pregnant. Surveillance and screening programs should been implemented to prevent sequels on this vulnerable population.


Few gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor subunits have been cloned from insects. These include Resistance to dieldrin, or Rdl, and a homologue of the vertebrate GABAA receptor beta subunit. Unlike most vertebrate GABAA receptor subunits, Rdl forms a highly functional homomultimeric receptor. This receptor is picrotoxin (PTX) sensitive but bicuculline (BIC) insensitive and cannot be readily classified within the known GABAA receptor subtypes. In contrast, functional expression of the beta subunit homologue has not been reported. We report that coinfection of cells with recombinant baculoviruses containing Rdl plus beta subunits induces GABA receptors with distinct pharmacological and kinetic properties. Coinfection produces two separate receptor populations: one highly sensitive to PTX but BIC insensitive (Rdl homomultimers) and the other PTX insensitive and BIC sensitive (Rdl plus beta heteromultimers). Putative Rdl plus beta channels also show reduced GABA sensitivity, slow desensitization, rapid bursting, and shorter mean open time. These studies not only localize PTX and BIC sensitivity to two distinct GABA receptor subunits but also demonstrate assembly of two highly divergent GABA receptor subunits. Furthermore, the difference in channel conductance and gating between in vivo and recombinant channels implies the existence of uncharacterized GABA receptor subunits in Drosophila.


Working organizations regularly use games for their training activities or communications in the workplace. The increasing use of serious games by businesses cannot obscure the use, for several decades, of "situation" games: role-playing, simulation and "scenarios" that support many training, learning, awareness and teambuilding sessions in companies. This use of social games, constantly renewed by management, invites the question of what businesses and their leaders find in these games that could be useful to work and production, as play and work are traditionally opposed.
Based on the observation of role playing and simulation, this book seeks to analyze the effectiveness of games in a professional context. Exploring several theories of games, it shows how the well-known concepts – in social sciences and humanities – of frame, role or fiction can help us to rethink what the gamification of work could be and how it could operate.


The patch-clamp technique was used to investigate the effects of the isoflavone genistein on disease-causing mutations (G551D and ΔF508) of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). In HeLa cells recombinantly expressing the trafficking-competent G551D-CFTR, the forskolin-stimulated Cl currents were small, and average open probability of G551D-CFTR was P o = 0.047 ± 0.019. Addition of genistein activated Cl currents ∼10-fold, and the P o of G551D-CFTR increased to 0.49 ± 0.12, which is a P o similar to wild-type CFTR. In cystic fibrosis (CF) epithelial cells homozygous for the trafficking-impaired ΔF508 mutation, forskolin and genistein activated Cl currents only after 4-phenylbutyrate treatment. These data suggested that genistein activated CFTR mutants that were present in the cell membrane. Therefore, we tested the effects of genistein in CF patients with the G551D mutation in nasal potential difference (PD) measurements in vivo. The perfusion of the nasal mucosa of G551D CF patients with isoproterenol had no effect; however, genistein stimulated Cl-dependent nasal PD by, on average, -2.4 ± 0.6 mV, which corresponds to 16.9% of the responses (to β-adrenergic stimulation) found in healthy subjects.


Oil palm cultivation occupies a large planting area in Malaysia and is one of the most profitable commercial crops contributing to unprecedented socio-economic development in the country. The crop, however, requires high uptake of macronutrients and some relevant amounts of micronutrients largely supplied by agrochemical-based fertilisers. The overuse of fertilisers endangers the ecosystem with possible effect on the environment especially on the soil health and its microbial diversity. With oil palm replanting in its fourth generation, the practice needs to be sustainable yet economic without compromising the yield and this is the challenge being faced by the industry. This article discusses the importance of fertilisers, types of fertilisers (inorganic, organic and microbial-based products) and balancing the effects with agrochemical-based fertilisers in oil palm plantations through balanced integrated fertiliser application. This could be one of the most effective sustainable strategies in improving the soil health by enhancing the biodiversity of microorganisms and community composition in soil towards a balanced ecosystem. Sustainable soil health management system has the capacity to produce higher yields while maintaining if not improving the soil health. Finally, the article addresses future recommendations that highlight soil health which is also the current focus of modern agriculture.


The task of shape space learning involves mapping a train set of shapes to and from a latent representation space with good generalization properties. Often, real-world collections of shapes have symmetries, which can be defined as transformations that do not change the essence of the shape. A natural way to incorporate symmetries in shape space learning is to ask that the mapping to the shape space (encoder) and mapping from the shape space (decoder) are equivariant to the relevant symmetries. In this paper, we present a framework for incorporating equivariance in encoders and decoders by introducing two contributions: (i) adapting the recent Frame Averaging (FA) framework for building generic, efficient, and maximally expressive Equivariant autoencoders; and (ii) constructing autoencoders equivariant to piecewise Euclidean motions applied to different parts of the shape. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully piecewise Euclidean equivariant autoencoder construction. Training our framework is simple: it uses standard reconstruction losses, and does not require the introduction of new losses. Our architectures are built of standard (backbone) architectures with the appropriate frame averaging to make them equivariant. Testing our framework on both rigid shapes dataset using implicit neural representations, and articulated shape datasets using mesh-based neural networks show state of the art generalization to unseen test shapes, improving relevant baselines by a large margin. In particular, our method demonstrates significant improvement in generalizing to unseen articulated poses.


Abstract Problematic alcohol use (PAU) presents a major burden on health worldwide. Sampson and Laub's Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control provides a unique lens through which to investigate desistance from PAU. This study explored the potential of relationship adjustment to act as a turning point, promoting desistance from PAU across the lifespan. Seventy-three participants (58 females, 15 males) who had previously experienced a period of PAU responded to an anonymous online survey. Contrary to the hypothesis, results showed that relationship adjustment did not act as a turning point predicting desistance from PAU across the lifespan in this sample. However, further analyses revealed that relationship adjustment did predict desistance for those aged 25 years and under. The findings provide partial support for the use of Sampson and Laub's theory in the alcohol use literature, and highlight the importance of relationship adjustment in the drinking behaviors of youth. Replication and further research are needed. Implications for therapeutic practices, health promotion, and theoretical frameworks are discussed.


Increasing the effectiveness of how river level data are communicated to a range of stakeholders (individuals, groups and communities) with an interest in river level information is likely to result in greater use of data collected by regulatory agencies. A range of interest groups, like those involved in recreational pursuits such as angling and canoeing, require certain but different information on changes in river levels state to allow effective scheduling of their activities. A range of options have been developed for communicating river level data to different audiences, but those fail to address group heterogeneity and information demands. To a large extent, those problems derive from a lack of understanding of information demanded by river water users, as well as the failure to comprehend how they perceive river level change. We are working with river users who span land managers and farmers, hydropower generators, recreational users e.g. those involved in canoeing and fishing and broader local communities as well as the public authority (SEPA) responsible for hydrological monitoring and provision of this information and cyberinfrastructure in Scotland. Currently, river level data is provided to members of the public through a web site without any formal engagement with river users having taken place. In our research project called wikiRivers, we are working with the suppliers of river level data as well as the users of this data to explore and improve from the user perspective how river level data and information is made available online. We are focusing on the application of natural language generation technology to create textual summaries of river level data tailored for specific interest groups. These tailored textual summaries will be presented among other modes of information presentation (e.g. maps and visualizations) with the aim to increase communication effectiveness. Natural language generation involves developing computational models that use nonlinguistic input data to produce natural language as their output. Acquiring accurate correct system knowledge for natural language generation is a key step in developing such an effective computer software system. In this paper we set out the needs for this project based on discussions with the stakeholder who supplies the river level data and current cyberinfrastructure and present a detailed stakeholder identification, engagement and cyberinfrastructure development plan. Macleod et al. Communicating river level data and information to stakeholders with different interests: the participative development of an interactive online service


This article presents our approach to the design of nine MOOC courses produced to date at Tel Aviv University, and to implementing four of them, based on the Flipped Classroom model. The rationale behind this approach is driving change in the value proposition delivered to learners, and adapting this proposition to the digital age – thereby offering a better and more active learning experience compared to the traditional teaching method. This new learning experience digital, personal and holistic, is achieved through extensive investment in technology, design and pedagogical tools. The resulting Premium MOOC courses become the backbone of the Flipped Classroom model, enabling the in-classroom teaching to be more meaningful, and also more flexible, thus making it easier to adapt to different needs. This article presents the method's seven underlying fundamental principles. One focal principle is that the teacher serves as a leader who guides the blended learning process, and creates an enriching in-class learning experience that complements the digital learning component.


Abstract Label-free detection of molecules and particles based on native fluorescence excited at the ultraviolet (UV) region of the electromagnetic spectrum shows great potential for molecular analysis in life sciences. It offers simple, low-cost, and fast methods for sensitive detection of important biological analytes in nature forms. This article reviews the most significant research on label-free native fluorescence detection in analytical chemistry and biochemistry, with particular focus on the instrumental requirements and applications that cover papers published to the beginning of 2009. Future development directions for label-free optical biosensors based on native fluorescence are discussed.


Market value is the most common compensation basis for expropriation of both private and customary property rights. Private property rights are generally exchangeable while customary property rights are conceptually not as exchangeable. It is hence critical to analyse the applicability of current compensation theories, which are founded on private property rights, to different property rights and in different social settings. By using existing literature and empirical evidence from Africa and other countries where customary property rights dominate, this paper undertakes a theoretical analysis of the applicability of existing compensation theories and the methodologies used to achieve the desired compensation goals. The analysis concludes that whilst current compensation theories are broadly applicable to customary property rights as they aim to protect property rights and prevent expropriatees from impoverishment, various ontological and methodological factors limit the realisation of these goals in settings dominated by customary properties. Such factors include ontology and dominance of customary property rights, use of market value as a compensation basis, and capacity of compensation assessors. Broadly, these factors lead to inadequate compensation and impoverishment of affected people.


OBJECTIVES: To determine the association of prior use of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASIs) with mortality and outcomes in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. SETTING: Multicenter, international COVID-19 registry. Subjects: Adult hospitalized COVID-19 patients on antihypertensive agents (AHAs) prior to admission, admitted from March 31, 2020, to March 10, 2021. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Data were compared between three groups: patients on RAASIs only, other AHAs only, and those on both medications. Multivariable logistic and linear regressions were performed after controlling for prehospitalization characteristics to estimate the effect of RAASIs on mortality and other outcomes during hospitalization. Of 26,652 patients, 7,975 patients were on AHAs prior to hospitalization. Of these, 1,542 patients (19.3%) were on RAASIs only, 3,765 patients (47.2%) were on other AHAs only, and 2,668 (33.5%) patients were on both medications. Compared with those taking other AHAs only, patients on RAASIs only were younger (mean age 63.3 vs 66.9 yr; p < 0.0001), more often male (58.2% vs 52.4%; p = 0.0001) and more often White (55.1% vs 47.2%; p < 0.0001). After adjusting for age, gender, race, location, and comorbidities, patients on combination of RAASIs and other AHAs had higher in-hospital mortality than those on RAASIs only (odds ratio [OR] = 1.28; 95% CI [1.19–1.38]; p < 0.0001) and higher mortality than those on other AHAs only (OR = 1.09; 95% CI [1.03–1.15]; p = 0.0017). Patients on RAASIs only had lower mortality than those on other AHAs only (OR = 0.87; 95% CI [0.81–0.94]; p = 0.0003). Patients on ACEIs only had higher mortality compared with those on ARBs only (OR = 1.37; 95% CI [1.20–1.56]; p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 who were taking AHAs, prior use of a combination of RAASIs and other AHAs was associated with higher in-hospital mortality than the use of RAASIs alone. When compared with ARBs, ACEIs were associated with significantly higher mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.


We study the uptake and distribution of transferrin (Tf)-conjugated CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) in single living HeLa cells with both fluorescence confocal microscopy and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technique. By increasing the co-incubation time or the dosage of QDs-Tf, we find that the uptake of QDs-Tf bioconjugates in the cells increases correspondingly, but with different uptake rates. Additionally, the distribution of QDs-Tf, in single live HeLa cells is time dependent. To our knowledge, this is the first study on quantitatively analyzing the uptake and distribution of bioconjugated QDs in single living cells. Such QDs nanoplatform can be further modified for developing biomedical evaluation tool in cancer diagnosis and targeted drug delivery.


High-throughput scientific instruments are generating massive amounts of data. Today, one of the main challenges faced by researchers is to make the best use of the world's growing wealth of data. Data (re)usability is becoming a distinct characteristic of modern scientific practice. By data (re)usability, we mean the ease of using data for legitimate scientific research by one or more communities of research (consumer communities) that is produced by other communities of research (producer communities). Data (re)usability allows the reanalysis of evidence, reproduction and verification of results, minimizing duplication of effort, and building on the work of others. It has four main dimensions: policy, legal, economic and technological. The paper addresses the technological dimension of data reusability. The conceptual foundations of data reuse as well as the barriers that hamper data reuse are presented and discussed. The data publication process is proposed as a bridge between the data author and user and the relevant technologies enabling this process are presented.


The traditional control of Imperata brasiliensis grasslands used by farmers in the Peruvian Amazon is to burn the grass. The objective of this study was to compare different methods of short-term control. Biological, mechanical, chemical and traditional methods of control were compared. Herbicide spraying and manual weeding have shown to be very effective in reducingabove-and below-groundbiomass growth in thefirst 45 days after slashing the grass, with effects persisting in the longer term, but both are expensive methods. Shading seems to be less effective in the shortterm, whereas it influences the Imperata growth in the longer term. After one year shading, glyphosate application and weeding significantly reduced abovegroundbiomass by 94, 67 and 53%; and belowground biomass by 76, 65 and 58%, respectively, compared to control. We also found a significant decrease of Imperata rhizomes in soil during time under shading. Burning has proved to have no significant effect on Imperata growth. The use of shade trees in a kind of agroforestry system could be a suitable method for small farmers to control Imperata grasslands.


Hybrid Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (HUASB) reactor filled with rumen liquid associated with cow-dung mixture (3:1) has been fabricated and tested for its performance on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) with different operating conditions for the effluent of pulp and paper industry. The experimental procedure is carried out for a total period of 84 days by applying a COD (attained by trial and error method) range of 11312 kg COD/day in the influent with different Organic Loading Rate (OLR) and Hydraulic Loading Rate (HLR). To test the large scale application of the reactor, the initial COD concentration is not reduced from raw wastewater value. An efficiency of 85.6% was achieved with respect to COD removal during the study. Kinetic models are fitted to the data obtained and the best fit models are highlighted. Kinetic parameters like decay coefficient, first and second order rate constants, and yield coefficient are determined for the HUASB reactor.


Across machine learning, the use of curricula has shown strong empirical potential to improve learning from data by avoiding local optima of training objectives. For reinforcement learning (RL), curricula are especially interesting, as the underlying optimization has a strong tendency to get stuck in local optima due to the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Recently, a number of approaches for an automatic generation of curricula for RL have been shown to increase performance while requiring less expert knowledge compared to manually designed curricula. However, these approaches are seldomly investigated from a theoretical perspective, preventing a deeper understanding of their mechanics. In this paper, we present an approach for automated curriculum generation in RL with a clear theoretical underpinning. More precisely, we formalize the well-known self-paced learning paradigm as inducing a distribution over training tasks, which trades off between task complexity and the objective to match a desired task distribution. Experiments show that training on this induced distribution helps to avoid poor local optima across RL algorithms in different tasks with uninformative rewards and challenging exploration requirements.


Informal settlements in the past decades have become ubiquitous features of the Philippine urban landscape that are commonly perceived in a negative light in Filipino popular culture. This paper puts forward a countervailing argument that more than being places of blight and despair, these communities, in reality, can not only be considered as the product of the urban poor's need to access a scarce resource (i.e., living space) but also as spatial outcomes of a disadvantaged group's continuing resistance against the state and the more socioeconomically advantaged sectors, particularly with respect to how resources in society should be distributed. Through key informant interviews and field observations in the informal settlements of Lookan, Mehan and Labrador1 in Quezon City, I argue that the methods employed by the residents of informal communities enable them to appropriate for themselves urban space that they do not legally own, and in the process utilize, develop, manage, and protect these usurped lands into viable spaces for living. Moreover, residents make a living in the areas they occupy without either the approval of its legal owners or the direct supervision and management of the state. These strategies reflect characteristics that are similar to activities that political scientist James C. Scott (1985) has classified as "the weapons of the weak" or the "everyday forms of resistance" of marginalized groups and adds a geographic component to the said paradigm.


Background. With vaccine-preventable disease accounting for many <5-year deaths in most developing countries, it is imperative to determine the factors responsible for poor immunisation coverage in these countries.  Objective. To identify maternal sociodemographic factors associated with child immunisation uptake in Nigeria. Methods. Data from a nationally representative sample of mothers (aged 15 - 49 years) were obtained from the 2008 Nigeria demographic and health survey. Logistic regressions were used to examine the association between maternal sociodemographic variables and child immunisation uptake. Results. The overall uptake of full immunisation based on the National Programme on Immunisation schedule was 30.6%. There was wide variation in full immunisation uptake in the different regions in Nigeria, with 51% in the South-West, 46.5% in the South-East, 39.5% in the South-South, 6.4% in the North-West, 11.8% in the North-East and 28.2% in the North-Central. Approximately 40.2% of children surveyed had never received any form of vaccination. The most common reasons given for non-vaccination of these children were lack of information about immunisation, fear of side-effects and the immunisation centres being too far away. It was noted that uptake of vaccines with multiple dosing schedules dropped with each successive dose. Decreased likelihood for full immunisation was seen in mothers <18 years old (odds ratio (OR) 0.53; confidence interval (CI) 0.34 - 0.84) and mothers residing in the northern regions. Increased likelihood for full immunisation was seen in mothers from middle and rich classes (OR 1.26, CI 1.03 - 1.66 and OR 1.69, CI 1.27 - 2.25, respectively), mothers with higher educational level (OR 3.77, CI 1.52 - 9.32), mothers with access to media (OR 1.84, CI 1.21 - 1.68), mothers resident in urban areas (OR 1.36, CI 1.22 - 1.51) and mothers who had institutional deliveries (OR 1.86, CI 1.44 - 2.40). Conclusion. Full immunisation uptake in Nigeria is poor. Cultural disparity in different regions of Nigeria may account for the wide variation in immunisation coverage observed.


Content-based histology image retrieval systems have shown great potential in supporting decision making in clinical activities, teaching, and biological research. In content-based im-age retrieval, feature combination plays a key role. It aims at en-hancing the descriptive power of visual features corresponding to semantically meaningful queries. It is particularly valuable in his-tology image analysis where intelligent mechanisms are needed for interpreting varying tissue composition and architecture into histological concepts. This paper presents an approach to auto-matically combine heterogeneous visual features for histology im-age retrieval. The aim is to obtain the most representative fusion model for a particular keyword that is associated with multiple query images. The core of this approach is a multiobjective learn-ing method, which aims to understand an optimal visual-semantic matching function by jointly considering the different preferences of the group of query images. The task is posed as an optimization problem, and a multiobjective optimization strategy is employed in order to handle potential contradictions in the query images associated with the same keyword. Experiments were performed on two different collections of histology images. The results show that it is possible to improve a system for content-based histology image retrieval by using an appropriately defined multifeature fu-sion model, which takes careful consideration of the structure and distribution of visual features.


The simulation of cutting process challenges established methods due to large deformations and topological changes. In this work a particle finite element method (PFEM) is presented, which combines the benefits of discrete modeling techniques and methods based on continuum mechanics. A crucial part of the PFEM is the detection of the boundary of a set of particles. The impact of this boundary detection method on the structural integrity is examined and a relation of the key parameter of the method to the eigenvalues of strain tensors is elaborated. The influence of important process parameters on the cutting force is studied and a comparison to an empirical relation is presented.


The Elephant Marsh, a wetland in Southern Malawi, is important for fishing, agriculture, hunting and the collection of natural resources for the livelihoods of local communities. However, there has been increasing pressure driven by a changing climate, population growth, rural poverty and agricultural conversion, all of which threaten the future of the wetland. Currently, Malawi does not have either a national wetland policy or a climate change policy and wetland issues are only marginally present in the National Parks and Wildlife Policy of 2000 and National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy of 2001. As a result, the country lacks a framework that could be strong enough to achieve balanced and sustainable wetland management for multiple resource users. The objective of this study was to establish the development potentials of Elephant Marsh from an ecosystem-based ('working-with-nature') perspective. It was revealed that there are development potentials in fisheries, recession agriculture, biomass for energy, conservation and tourism. This paper emphasizes that as these opportunities are developed, there will be the need to strengthen management institutions at local and national levels, and the coordination between the two.


HIV infection remains of major public health importance in Europe. In 2012, 131 202 new HIV infections were diagnosed in 52 of the 53 countries of the WHO European Region1. Of those infections, 55 494 were officially reported to ECDC/WHO Regional Office for Europe by 51 countries; 29 381 of which were from the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA)2, while 75 708 infections were reported through the database of the Federal Statistics Agency of the Russian Federation [1]. The surveillance data suggest an overall rate of 7.8 diagnoses per 100 000 population for the WHO European Region and 5.8 per 100 000 for the EU/EEA. The rates are highest in the East of the Region (Table A). The main transmission mode varies by geographical area, illustrating the diversity in the epidemiology of HIV in Europe; heterosexual transmission is the main mode of transmission in the WHO European Region, while sexual transmission between men is the most common mode in the EU/EEA and transmission through injecting drug use remains substantial in the East of the Region.


This paper examines the short-term persistence in performance of equity mutual funds around the world between 1990 and 2013. Using a large survivorship bias-free sample of 35 countries, we document strong evidence of persistence in daily mutual fund returns over quarterly measurement periods. We rank countries by abnormal return and estimate the performance of each country for the following quarter. We find statistically and economically significant performance persistence that is more pronounced for the top and bottom countries. The post-ranking abnormal return disappears when performance is examined over longer time periods. Thus, our results confirm that superior performance is a short-lived phenomenon.


We propose an end-to-end approach for synthetic QA data generation. Our model comprises a single transformer-based encoder-decoder network that is trained end-to-end to generate both answers and questions. In a nutshell, we feed a passage to the encoder and ask the decoder to generate a question and an answer token-by-token. The likelihood produced in the generation process is used as a filtering score, which avoids the need for a separate filtering model. Our generator is trained by fine-tuning a pretrained LM using maximum likelihood estimation. The experimental results indicate significant improvements in the domain adaptation of QA models outperforming current state-of-the-art methods.


In the Japanese labor movement of the early twentieth century, no one captured the public imagination as vividly as Osugi Sakae (1885-1923): rebel, anarchist, and martyr. Flamboyant in life, dramatic in death, Osugi came to be seen as a romantic hero fighting the oppressiveness of family and society. Osugi helped to create this public persona when he published his autobiography (Jijoden) in 1921-22. Now available in English for the first time, this work offers a rare glimpse into a Japanese boy's life at the time of the Sino-Japanese (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese (1904-5) wars. It reveals the innocent - and not-so-innocent - escapades of children in a provincial garrison town and the brutalizing effects of discipline in military preparatory schools. Subsequent chapters follow Osugi to Tokyo, where he discovers the excitement of radical thought and politics. Byron Marshall rounds out this picture of the early Osugi with a translation of his "Prison Memoirs" (Gokuchuki), originally published in 1919. This essay, one of the world's great pieces of prison writing, describes in precise detail the daily lives of Japanese prisoners, especially those incarcerated for political crimes.


PURPOSE
BM88 is a cell-cycle exit and neuronal differentiation protein that has been used as a marker of surviving retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) after optic nerve injury. Thy1.1 has also been used as a marker for RGC loss, but after optic nerve crush (ONC) a decrease in Thy1.1 expression precedes the loss of RGCs. The purpose of this study was to determine if BM88 expression was correlated with RGC loss after ONC and optic nerve transection (ONT) injuries.

METHODS
Rats were injected with Fluorogold (FG) into the superior colliculus to label RGCs and received ONC or ONT 7 days later. Eyes were collected 2 to 28 days after injury. Retinas were labeled with BM88 and intensity of the BM88 cell labeling was measured.

RESULTS
In control retinas, 98.9% of RGCs were immunoreactive (-IR) for BM88. There was a significant downregulation of BM88 by 52% to 80% of RGCs 7 days after ONC or ONT. The staining intensity of the remaining labeled cells was reduced to 41% to 51% of the control after 28 days of optic nerve injury. However, early in the injury there was a significant increase in the staining intensity of BM88.

CONCLUSIONS
Nearly all BM88-IR RGCs colocalized with FG-labeled RGCs in control retinas. However, both the number of BM88-IR RGCs and their intensity decreased gradually between 4 and 28 days, preceding the loss of FG-labeled cells. These findings indicate that BM88 is not a good marker of surviving RGCs but may indicate abnormal RGC functioning, which precedes cell death.


The paper reviews experimental and descriptive data on /l/ vocalization and elision and related vowel shifts in the Romance languages, and argues that a given sound change may be achieved through different evolutionary paths. While prevailing theories tend to attribute a single articulatory or acoustic cue to changes affecting /l/, we propose instead an explanatory account based on an evaluation of the relative prominence of cues in different contextual and positional conditions on the part of the listener. According to this proposal, several prominent articulatory and/or acoustic characteristics may be responsible for segmental insertions, segmental elisions and sound shifts.


Glochidia (parasitic larvae) of freshwater mussels generally require a fish as a host Westralunio carteri Iredale 1934(Bivalvia: Hyriidae), the only freshwater mussel from south-western Australia (SWA), Is listed as a Priority 4 (P4) species by the Western Australian Government, was listed as Vulnerable but recently changed to Least Concern by the IUCN. Glochidia were found on three alien (Eastern Gambusia (Gambusio holbrooki (Girard, 1859)), One-spot livebearer (Phalloceros caudimaculatus (Hensel, 1868)) and Goldfish (Carassius auratus Linnaeus, 1758))) and seven native species of fish (Swan River goby (Pseudogobius olorum (Sauvage, 1880)), South-western goby (Afurcagobius suppositus (Sauvage, 1880)), Western minnow (Galaxias occidentalis Ogilby, 1899), Western pygmy perch (Nonnoperca vittara (Castelnau, 1873), Nlghtfish (Bostockia poroso Castelnau, 1873, Western hardyhead (Leptatherina wallacei (Prince, lvantsoff & Potter, 1982) and Freshwater cobbler (Tandanus bostocki Whitley, 1944)) from 18 sites in SWA. On alien fishes, glochidia prevalence ranged from 0.0 to 41.0% and mean Intensity (number of glochidia per infested fish) from 1.0 to 6.0, while on native fishes prevalence was 9.2—90.5% and intensity was 2.3—7.1. Glochidia infestation was greatest on benthic fishes, which may be a consequence of greater encounter rates, but other factors, including host size, probably also influence glochidia prevalence and intensity. Glochidia were generally restricted to fins, but seldom found on gills or the body surface. In a laboratory exposure trial, four native (Swan River goby, South-western goby, Western pygmy perch and Freshwater cobbler) and one alien fish species (Eastern Gambusia) were found to be competent hosts for their ability to produce juvenile W. carteri, but two alien fish species (Goldfish and Pearl cichlid (Geophagus brasiliensis (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824))) were not. The inability of some alien fishes to produce juvenile W. carteri could potentially reduce recruitment success in degraded areas dominated by alien fishes such as Goldfish.


The outcome was studied of gastric carcinoma found in six selected mass survey groups. One-hundred-and-thirty-seven cases of gastric carcinoma were detected and followed-up postoperatively for 16 years at the longest. They consisted of 55 cases of early and 74 of advanced carcinoma with eight cases of unknown depth of involvement. Early carcinoma amounted to 42-6% of the cases with known depth of involvement. The relative five-year and 10-year survival rates calculated by the method of Ederer et al. (1961) in the 137 cases were 0-628 and 0-642, respectively, and those for early carcinoma were 0-959 and 1-016. These survival rates are remarkably high. The five-year survival rate in those who were followed-up after operation for more than five years (83 cases) was 0-554, which is much higher than that of the outpatient cases, who presented themselves for medical advice with some symptoms. The good prognosis is largely explained by a high incidence of early gastric carcinoma in the cases detected in the mass survey. Where methods of screening were concerned, the use of the gastrocamera markedly improved the detection rate of gastric carcinoma.


The research project was carried out to explore the health benefits of barley β-glucan in beverage. Beverages were prepared with different levels of β-glucan and then analyzed for various quality attributes during storage. The L*, a* and b value for color of beverages increased significantly by increasing the level of β-glucan. The highest viscosity (21.75 mPa-s) and total soluble solids (10.42obrix) were found in T6beverage containing 1% β-glucan.The pH decreased significantly in all beverages throughout the storage period. Total acidity and ascorbic acid varied significantly as a function of storage. The reducing sugars increased from 3.72 to 4.31 from 0 to 90 days of storage, respectively. The total plate count of beverages decreased from 1.29 × 104 to 1.17 × 104 at the end of the storage. The scores assigned to all the sensory parameters of beverages affected significantly with the variation in the levels of β-glucan and decreased significantly during storage intervals. The treatments T2, T3 and T4 got containing 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6% β-glucan got highest scores for sensory evaluation. Total cholesterol, glucose, LDL-C and triglyceride contents in serum of adult humans fed on beverages decreased significantly whereas concentration of HDL improved due to incorporation of β-glucan in beverages. The beverage with 0.6% β-glucan contributed to reduce the serum glucose of human subjects by 10.18 %, cholesterol by 8.26%, triglycerides by 10.99% and LDL by 10.82%. The present study suggests that β-glucan is a functional ingredient and can be used to prevent cardiovascular diseases and also to control diabetes.


Industrial heritage sites are special areas in a city. In recent years, China has paid more attention to the protection and renewal of industrial heritage. Because these areas have proved to be problematic, landscape architectures should work to solve these problems for future areas. This thesis asks the question: could there be a conscious way to deal with this issue? Using the five major models and Linda Groat's four perspectives on contextual design as the theoretical approach, this thesis conducts a comparative study on the center of Norrkoping and Xu Jiahui Park in Shanghai. In order to investigate if Linda Groat's categories could be useful to landscape architectures, this thesis analyzes the two cases and discusses to what extent they fit in with Groat's theory. The investigation produces some results to guide landscape architects; so when facing an industrial heritage, the landscape design might be dealt with in a more conscious way.


Introduction: For the surgical treatment of gall bladder diseases, laparoscopic Chole cystectomy has been accepted as
the gold standard. The minimally invasive procedure is undeniably superior in various respects when compared with
open surgery and this is also true on the aesthetic criteria when the conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy (CLC) is
compared with the mini-laparoscopic cholecystectomy (MLC).
Objective: Evaluate the hospital charges associated with these procedures and specify the differences concerning these
techniques.
Method: Comparative and retrospective study of hospital charges, with 40 consecutive patients, who underwent
laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
There were two groups with 20 patients each. One group underwent conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy and in
the other the minimally invasive approach was performed. The arithmetic mean was used to compare the total charges
for the entire procedures.
Results: The MLC procedures showed no significant difference in total hospital charges compared to the CLC approach.
Conclusion: The equivalence of hospital charges for the two procedures suggests that the mini-laparoscopic
cholecystectomy (MLC) should be widely recognized among surgeons as offering better aesthetic results the
conventional laparoscopic procedure. Studies comparing patient satisfaction with the surgical result, difference in postoperative
morbidity, pain, and recuperation for the two procedures are needed.

charges, surgery, laparoscopy, needlescopic instruments


The concept of a '"crisis" in masculinity' came to prominence in Britain and North America during the 1990s. This phenomenon developed out of several decades in which the notion of 'the subject' came under critical scrutiny, both from developments in postmodern and post-structuralist theory, and sociocultural shifts informed by the politicised campaigns of second-wave feminism, gay activism and civil rights movements. In this context, the discursively central position of the white, heterosexual, middle-class male subject looked to be decentred by a host of radical projects that claimed identity positions as constructed and contingent. In exploring the resonance of the 'crisis' in mainstream playwriting practice of the 1990s and early 2000s, this study centres on a range of texts by contemporary British and North American male dramatists: Closer (1997) by Patrick Marber; The Shape of Things (2001) by Neil LaBute; Alan Bennett's The History Boys (2004); Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (1992 and 1994); Roy Williams's Clubland (2001) and Bondage (1992), by David Henry Hwang. Through evaluating strategies by which privileged and 'marginalised' masculinities are portrayed, this thesis considers not only how far these works may appear to suggest a state of rupture in 'normative' masculinity, but whether they can be read as reaffirming or undermining binaristic and 'stable' notions of identity. These concerns take account of the various ways in which gender is articulated through 'race', sexuality, nationality and class. The primary theoretical framework is drawn from the field of poststructuralist philosophy, and, specifically, selected works by Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler and Homi Bhabha. Cultural studies and sociology provide a 'sub-strand' of theory, through analyses that interconnect the themes of masculinity and nostalgia. While the former trope enables psychoanalytic readings, the latter is apt for analyses of cultural texts produced at a time in which masculinity was deemed in a hazardous state of decline. It is in combining these threads with queer, feminist and performance theory, and philosophical accounts of the postmodern, that this thesis looks to reflect on how the male-authored dramas under discussion respond to or evoke the 'crisis' in masculinity, and what might thus be discerned about both this practice and the 'crisis' discourse itself.


Focusing on Seoul, the capital of Korea, this report will analyze the current demographic and housing trends by using census data from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), and then suggest recommendations for the direction of the future housing market of Korea based on the analyzed trends. Since Seoul is a center of the Korean housing markets and the housing market of Seoul accounts for the largest part of the national housing market, this report can support the future housing markets and policies both at national and local level. In the public sector it can be used as fundamental resources to establish long-term housing policies for the future. Moreover, in the private sector this report will be helpful for developers and contractors as an indicator for long-range housing business plans. Due to current demographic problems such as low birthrates and population aging, Korea cannot escape the demographic changes, and consequently these changes might affect the future housing market regarding housing supply and demand.


The engulfment and pushing (extrusion) of inclusions during solidification play an important role in the formation of a steel structure and, as a result, for the mechanical properties of the final steel product. The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about the behavior of non-metallic inclusions at the interface between a growing solid front and a liquid phase. The focus is on the effect of the titanium and titanium oxide content on the inclusions and the different phenomena, which occurs at the solid/liquid interface. This was studied in samples of low-carbon steels de-oxidized by different combinations of Al, Ca, and Ti. For this purpose, each metal sample of 0.19 g was melted at a temperature close to 1550 A degrees C in an argon atmosphere and solidified under different solidification rates. A direct observation of inclusion behavior during solidification was made using a confocal scanning laser microscope equipped with an infrared gold image furnace. The alloying elements in the sample varied between: C 0.002-0.044; Si 0.02-1.33; Mn 0.12-1.33; P 0.003-0.016; S 0.003-0.01; Al 0.002-0,033; Ni 0-0.28; Cr 0-0.25; Ti 0.008-0.065; Ca 0.0007-0.002; O 0.002-0.0114 and N 0.0028-0.0056 (mass%). Several types of inclusions with different morphologies were found within the sample. The morphology of the observed inclusions on the molten steel surface varied from round alumina and calcium-oxide-rich inclusion to needle-shaped titanium oxide-rich inclusions. The observed motions of the inclusions at the vicinity of the front of the solidifying steels were classified. At a low solidifying velocity and a small inclusion size, inclusions flowed away from the solidifying front. Furthermore, they also or got pushed a distance and thereafter flowed away from the interface. At a medium velocity and a slightly bigger size, inclusions tend to get pushed in front of the solidifying front. Another observation was that at a high velocity and a large particle size, inclusions tend to get engulfed or pushed and then engulfed by the progressing front. The relationship among the morphology, chemical composition of inclusions and the solidifying velocity is discussed in this article.


POMDP planning faces two major computational challenges: large state spaces and long planning horizons. The recently introduced Monte Carlo Value Iteration (MCVI) can tackle POMDPs with very large discrete state spaces or continuous state spaces, but its performance degrades when faced with long planning horizons. This paper presents Macro-MCVI, which extends MCVI by exploiting macro-actions for temporal abstraction. We provide sufficient conditions for Macro-MCVI to inherit the good theoretical properties of MCVI. Macro-MCVI does not require explicit construction of probabilistic models for macro-actions and is thus easy to apply in practice. Experiments show that Macro-MCVI substantially improves the performance of MCVI with suitable macro-actions.


In an area north of the Pyasina delta in Taimyr (Russia), nest distribution, nest initiation and breeding success of Brent Geese Branta bernicla bernicla were studied in six successive summer seasons from 1990-1995 in relation to lemming and Arctic Fox Alopex lagopus abundance. Lemming abundance conformed to the well-known three-year cycle with peaks in 1991 and 1994. Wandering Arctic Foxes were numerous in 1992, one of the two years following a lemming peak. This was the only year in which foxes visited the small offshore island where Brent Geese used to nest. Although Brent Geese arrived in time that year, the majority did not even start to breed and disappeared. Thus the actual mechanism causing failure in 1992 was disturbance rather than predation and Brent Geese appeared to be able to forego breeding at the very last moment. In the unexpected absence of foxes in the second predator year 1995, Brent Geese incubated successfully on the small islands in our study area. However, they failed to raise their goslings as these were all predated, not by foxes but probably by gulls.


Each and every day thousands of students attend college and are the owner of an Android device. The way in which students currently interact with their college material to create notes is to either create documents of notes or write out their notes on paper. This project aims to eliminate these tiresome tasks to promote a new way of creating notes for the student's college material by interacting the college material on their Android device and annotating the content via the Scriba stylus to create notes.

The intended audience of the project are students that are the owners of an Android device and an a Scriba stylus. The idea is that students will have access to their college documents and presentation slides by having these documents and slides stored on a remote server. While in class or at home, students may create notes with their Scriba stylus.

The project idea has been proposed and the requirements have been gathered while in consultation with David Craig, CEO Dublin Design Studio LTD. The necessary requirements for the project are documented in the requirements section of this report. The technologies that would best suit the projects requirements have been identified.

This project is necessary in this field as it will improve a student's interaction with their college material by providing a useful mobile app to store unique notes and view at any time and any place. The application will also contain an option to create quizzes based on the recorded notes, which adds a unique feature not seen in other applications in the same field.

The key benefit of this application is that it will increase student engagement and knowledge of college material by providing a fun and intuitive way of recording notes. The application will offer quizzes based on questions created by the user.


[1] In a series of numerical experiments, arrays of parallel-dipping normal faults formed only if the model contained a thin viscous layer sandwiched between the brittle, faulted layer on top and a lower boundary that resisted vertical displacement. With this particular vertical stratification, parallel-dipping faults developed even if the viscous layer had a shear-stress-free lower boundary condition. This observation contradicts previous studies relating parallel-dipping normal faults to consistent horizontal shear stress in the brittle layer. We explain the formation of parallel-dipping normal faults in our experiments through the properties of flow in a thin viscous channel and how this flow accommodates and delocalizes faulting in the brittle layer on top. First, for closely spaced normal faults, an array of parallel-dipping faults minimizes the viscous work rate (dissipation) in the viscous layer as it minimizes the distance between sources and sinks in the flow pattern. Second, a thin layer of moderate viscosity leads to the required formation of closely spaced single faults. A highly viscous substratum tends to reflect faults at the base of the brittle layer and hence promotes the formation of a local graben at each necking site in the brittle layer. With lower viscosities, a thick layer or a floating lower boundary condition usually leads to the formation of widely spaced core complexes in the brittle layer. Our scheme can explain varying dip polarity along strike, which is observed in many rift systems and difficult to explain through consistent shear stress.


Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has received a substantial amount of attention in other fields, very little appears in the transportation literature about people with ASD. Because the National Household Travel Survey and metropolitan travel surveys do not classify people with ASD as a separate category of persons with disabilities, very little information is available about their travel patterns, needs, or barriers. To bridge the existing information gap, this paper provides results from a recent survey that focused exclusively on adults with ASD in New Jersey to learn about their travel patterns, the importance of the various types of trips they make, and the barriers they encounter regarding the use of different transportation modes. The survey, distributed through various organizations throughout the state, was completed by or for 703 adults. Because the objective of the paper is to provide as much information as possible from the survey, no attempt has been made to compare the travel patterns, needs, and barriers of the survey respondents with those of the general population. However, other researchers can easily compare the survey results provided in this paper with data from other sources. Although the survey generated other valuable information, the most revealing information pertained to barriers to walking, driving, taking public transit, and even taking rides from others. The information collected through this research is being shared through outreach efforts with agencies that provide or fund transportation to persons with disabilities in New Jersey.


We introduce the C++ application and R package ranger. The software is a fast implementation of random forests for high dimensional data. Ensembles of classification, regression and survival trees are supported. We describe the implementation, provide examples, validate the package with a reference implementation, and compare runtime and memory usage with other implementations. The new software proves to scale best with the number of features, samples, trees, and features tried for splitting. Finally, we show that ranger is the fastest and most memory efficient implementation of random forests to analyze data on the scale of a genome-wide association study.


Tracing and integrating security requirements throughout the development process is a key challenge in security engineering. In socio-technical systems, security requirements for the organizational and technical aspects of a system are currently dealt with separately, giving rise to substantial misconceptions and errors. In this paper, we present a model-based security engineering framework for supporting the system design on the organizational and technical level. The key idea is to allow the involved experts to specify security requirements in the languages they are familiar with: business analysts use BPMN for procedural system descriptions; system developers use UML to design and implement the system architecture. Security requirements are captured via the language extensions SecBPMN2 and UMLsec. We provide a model transformation to bridge the conceptual gap between SecBPMN2 and UMLsec. Using UMLsec policies, various security properties of the resulting architecture can be verified. In a case study featuring an air traffic management system, we show how our framework can be practically applied.


University libraries have an increasingly important role to play in supporting open access publishing and dissemination of research outputs.1 In particular, many libraries are playing a leading role in establishing and managing institutional repositories. Institutional repositories are, most often, Open Access Initiative (OAI)-compliant databases of a university or other research institution's intellectual output, most typically research papers, although many other forms of digital media can also be stored and disseminated. Their main function is to provide improved access to the full text of research articles and improve retrieval of relevant research.
The National University "Kyiv Mohyla Academy" is a small-sized institution with approximately 3,000 students and 500 academic staff. Although it is a teaching-intensive university, developing research and knowledge-transfer capacity is a strategic priority and four research institutes have been established, with further research activity going on in the academic schools and research centres.


This chapter deals with the modeling approach toward membrane reactors, making a short overview on the most significative findings in the specialized literature. In detail, 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D models are analyzed, pointing out the role of such parameters as the membrane permeability mechanism and hydrogen flux, reaction kinetics, and heat and mass transport inside the reactor and within the catalyst pellets, able of influencing the accuracy of the model.


SUMMARY Water intake of nectarivores is intrinsically linked to nectar concentration. Osmoregulation in whitebellied sunbirds Nectarinia talatala (body mass 9.3±0.1 g, mean ± S.D., N=7), was examined by feeding them sucrose solutions, equivalent to extreme diet concentrations (0.07–2.5 mol l–1 sucrose; 2–65% w/w), with and without supplementary drinking water. Total water gain was 33–515% of body mass daily. Cloacal fluid (CF) volume increased with diet dilution from 0.4% to 309% of body mass while increases in evaporative water loss (obtained by difference) were also recorded. Osmolality of CF demonstrated the largest scope yet recorded for a bird and was significantly correlated with water flux: mean values were 6–460 mosm kg–1 H2O (minimum 3, maximum 1900 mosm kg–1). When supplementary water was provided, its consumption by birds fed concentrated diets (2.5 mol l–1 sucrose) led to a dramatic reduction in CF osmolality, from 461±253 to 80±119 mosm kg–1 fluid. Sunbirds maintained energy balance on sucrose diets varying tenfold in concentration, from 0.25 to 2.5 mol l–1; however, on extremely dilute diets (0.07 and 0.1 mol l–1 sucrose, lower than natural nectar concentrations) their inability to maintain energy balance was probably due to excess preformed water. Total osmotic excretion and concentrations of Na+ and K+ increased with high water fluxes, and are a possible physiological constraint for nectarivorous birds on artificial dilute diets devoid of electrolytes. Even low electrolyte levels in nectars may be adequate to replace these losses, but other physiological limitations to the intake of dilute nectars are increased energetic costs of solute recovery, increased heat loss and interference with digestive processes. Sunbirds therefore deal with sugar solutions spanning the range of nectar concentrations by shutting down water excretion on concentrated diets, or, on dilute diets, by producing extremely dilute CF with some of the lowest solute concentrations recorded.


Taking on what one former U.S. ambassador called "the last ghost of the Vietnam War," this book examines the far-reaching impact of Agent Orange, the most infamous of the dioxin-contaminated herbicides used by American forces in Southeast Asia. Edwin A. Martini's aim is not simply to reconstruct the history of the "chemical war" but to investigate the ongoing controversy over the short- and long-term effects of weaponised defoliants on the environment of Vietnam, on the civilian population, and on the troops who fought on both sides. Beginning in the early 1960s, when Agent Orange was first deployed in Vietnam, Martini follows the story across geographical and disciplinary boundaries, looking for answers to a host of still unresolved questions. What did chemical manufacturers and American policymakers know about the effects of dioxin on human beings, and when did they know it? How much do scientists and doctors know even today? Should the use of Agent Orange be considered a form of chemical warfare? What can, and should, be done for U.S. veterans, Vietnamese victims, and others around the world who believe they have medical problems caused by Agent Orange? Martini draws on military records, government reports, scientific research, visits to contaminated sites, and interviews to disentangle conflicting claims and evaluate often ambiguous evidence. He shows that the impact of Agent Orange has been global in its reach affecting individuals and communities in New Zealand, Australia, Korea, and Canada as well as Vietnam and the United States. Yet for all the answers it provides, this book also reveals how much uncertainty--scientific, medical, legal, and political--continues to surround the legacy of Agent Orange.


Group homes represent a non-traditional alternative to single family living. The advent of the group home has taken place since the 1970s for a number of reasons, namely, due to a severe shortage in affordable housing, particularly for newly employed young adults and the elderly, due to public policy considerations calling for deinstitutionalization of the developmentally disabled and mentally ill, and finally due to a growing need for congregate type living arrangements for other special needs populations. Part I of the article explores the framework of the New York State zoning authority and the methods by which municipalities regulate the siting of group homes. Part II discusses the preemptory effect and limitations of the Pavadan Law in the siting of group homes Part III examines the impact of federal laws on the siting of group homes, particularly in the context of discrimination against the disabled, namely the Federal Fair Housing Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Part IV summarizes the effect of federal and state legislation on local land-use regulation pertaining to group homes. Finally, the article concludes that dispite continuing the notion of "Not In My Back Yard" (NIMBY), group home advocates have developed a solid foundation to challenge discriminatory zoning laws and practices that resulte in the exclusion of group homes from communities.


Essays honouring one of Canada's most brilliant legal minds. Roderick A. Macdonald (1948-2014), internationally renowned for his expertise on access to justice, legal pluralism, and the philosophy of law, was first and foremost a teacher and mentor. He believed in the law as a promise our society makes to itself, and passionately imparted this message to students who went on to become lawyers, judges, and academics. Throughout his career, including participation in several government commissions and tenures as dean of law at McGill University and president of the Law Commission of Canada, he strove to promote ideas that have become woven into our contemporary understanding of unity, reconciliation, accommodation, and social justice. The Unbounded Level of the Mind brings together the fascinating essays developed from presentations made at a symposium, held in February 2014 at McGill's Faculty of Law, in honour of Rod Macdonald. Eminent legal scholars from Canada and beyond explore various aspects of Macdonald's rich scholarship, reflecting on the influence this has had on their own work and its implications for the future. Organized around six cross-cutting themes - kaleidoscopic federalism, producing fairness, pluralizing the subject, the priority of distributive justice, contextualizing governance, and pursuing virtue - this volume is both a tribute to Macdonald's dedication to the law and a call to challenge all assumptions in the quest to better our society.


Purpose Corneal astigmatism is a common eye disorder characterized by irregularities in corneal curvature. Recently, the rs7677751 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at the platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) locus was found to be associated with corneal astigmatism in people of Asian ancestry. In the present study, we sought to replicate this finding and identify other genetic markers of corneal astigmatism in an Australian population of Northern European ancestry. Methods Data from two cohorts were included in this study. The first cohort consisted of 1,013 individuals who were part of the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study: 20-year follow-up Eye Study. The second cohort comprised 1,788 individuals of 857 twin families who were recruited through the Twins Eye Study in Tasmania and the Brisbane Adolescent Twin Study. Corneal astigmatism was calculated as the absolute difference between the keratometry readings in two meridians, and genotype data were extracted from genome-wide arrays. Initially, each cohort was analyzed separately, before being combined for meta- and subsequent genome-wide pathway analysis. Results Following meta-analysis, SNP rs7677751 at the PDGFRA locus had a combined p=0.32. No variant was found to be statistically significantly associated with corneal astigmatism at the genome-wide level (p<5.0×10−8). The SNP with strongest association was rs1164064 (p=1.86×10−6) on chromosome 3q13. Gene-based pathway analysis identified a significant association between the Gene Ontology "segmentation" (GO:0035282) pathway, corrected p=0.009. Conclusions Our data suggest that the PDGFRA locus does not transfer a major risk of corneal astigmatism in people of Northern European ancestry. Better-powered studies are required to validate the novel putative findings of our study.


Background Older home-living people are an at-risk group for undernutrition, particularly those who are living alone. Lack of knowledge about healthy dietary habits, altered taste sensation, and declined health status are shown to be some of the factors related to undernutrition. The aims of this study were to explore how a small group of older people in Southern Norway perceived their nutritional self-care. Methods An exploratory qualitative approach, combined with a simple self-report questionnaire, was used. Five persons living in rural areas in Southern Norway, who in a former study were screened and found to be at risk for undernutrition, participated. Qualitative data assessed by means of individual self-care talks in the persons' own homes were analyzed using directed content analysis. A simple self-report questionnaire containing demographic variables, two health-related questions, and the Nutritional Form For the Elderly (NUFFE-NO) instrument was filled out at baseline and 6 months after the self-care talks. Results The qualitative data showed that the participants had adequate knowledge about healthy and nutritious diets. They were aware of and motivated to adapt their diet to their current state of health and to perform the necessary actions to maintain an optimal nutritional status and nutritional self-care. Conclusion Older people living at home are a diverse group. However, this study showed that they may have sufficient knowledge, willingness, and ability to perform nutritional self-care, even if they live alone and have several chronic illnesses and impaired health.


Endocannabinoids (eCBs) are retrograde lipid messengers that, by targeting presynaptic type 1 cannabinoid receptors (CB1Rs), mediate short- and long-term synaptic depression of neurotransmitter release throughout the brain. Short-term depression is typically triggered by postsynaptic, depolarization-induced calcium rises, whereas long-term depression is induced by synaptic activation of Gq/11 protein-coupled receptors. Here we report that a physiologically relevant pattern of postsynaptic activity, in the form of theta-burst firing (TBF) of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons, can trigger long-term depression of inhibitory transmission (iLTD) in rat hippocampal slices. Paired recordings between CA1 interneurons and pyramidal cells, followed by post hoc morphological reconstructions of the interneurons' axon, revealed that somatic and dendritic inhibitory synaptic inputs equally expressed TBF-induced iLTD. Simultaneous recordings from neighboring pyramidal cells demonstrated that eCB signaling triggered by TBF was highly restricted to only a single, active cell. Furthermore, pairing submaximal endogenous activation of metabotropic glutamate or muscarinic acetylcholine receptors with submaximal TBF unmasked associative iLTD. Although CB1Rs are also expressed at Schaffer-collateral excitatory terminals, long-term plasticity under various recording conditions was spared at these synapses. Consistent with this observation, TBF also shifted the balance of excitation and inhibition in favor of excitatory throughput, thereby altering information flow through the CA1 circuit. Given the near ubiquity of burst-firing activity patterns and CB1R expression in the brain, the properties described here may be a general means by which neurons fine tune the strength of their inputs in a cell-wide and cell-specific manner.


In this article, the authors present new empirical data on highly skilled emigrants from two southern European countries, Italy and Greece, which have been particularly hit by the global financial and Eurozone crisis. The data have been generated by an e-survey conducted in late spring and summer 2013. Through analyzing the responses of Greek and Italian citizens who have chosen to emigrate, the authors present new insights on their educational backgrounds, the conditions that have motivated their decision to emigrate, and the way in which they have defined their migration project. It is argued that the decision to migrate is driven by a sense of severe relative deprivation as a result of the crisis and a deep frustration with the conditions in the home country. The crisis seems to have magnified the "push" factors that already existed in Italy and Greece and that now nurture this migration wave. At the same time, however, this migration is also framed within a more general perspective of a vision of life in which mobility and new experiences are valued positively and also seen as part of one's professional identity.


Storytelling is an art, as well as a skill. It allows the listener to take an idea and shape it into something that is relatable on a personal level. In The Art of Storytelling: Telling Truths Through Telling Stories, Amy E. Spaulding enables the reader to learn how to develop this skill, while also discovering the tradition of storytelling. Spaulding covers a wide array of important storytelling elements, from advice on choosing, learning, and presenting the stories to discussions on the importance of storytelling through human history and its continued significance today. This book includes an annotated list of stories, as well as a bibliography of collections and a brief list of recommendations for online sources. Designed for anyone who wants to develop the skill of telling stories, The Art of Storytelling is a resource for drama students, teachers, librarians, and for those learning on their own without a formal class setting.