Background: Health behaviors of men who have sex with men (MSM) affect their health status in many aspects. Rate of HIV infection among Thai male prostitutes in 2005 was 15.4%. Among these, 28.3% were MSM. Thirty percent of youth suicides were conducted by gays and lesbians. Objective: To explore the health behaviors related to the development and maintenance process of men who have sex with men. Material and Method: This was a qualitative study. The study population was MSM in Mukdahan province. The subjects were recruited gradually, by snowball sampling, until the required data were saturated. In-depth interviews and participant observations were performed over a period of 17 months. A triangulation technique was applied to check reliability of the data. Data were analyzed by content analysis and compared with the Troiden's stages of development and maintenance process of homosexual identity. Results: Eleven Thai MSM were recruited and followed up. Health behaviors of them were different according to the stages of development and maintenance process regarding Troiden's theory. Physical, psychological, social and sexual aspects of health behaviors were identified in various stages. It was found that many factors affect health behaviors of MSM. These include health promoting and undermining factors. Conclusion: Health behaviors of MSM varied in each stage of development and maintenance of homosexual identity. Health promotion campaigns and policies for MSM should be designed accordingly.


The paper is focused on semantic oppositions occurring in both settlement and non-settlement names from the territory of Bohemia. The "oppositions" are understood more broadly, comprising not only the antonymic semantic relationship, but including all distinctive toponymic elements (typically distinctive attributes, but also, for example, distinguishing components in compound names). We will analyse the individual elements both formally (indicating their role on the syntactic and/or word-formation level) and semantically (the semantic analysis will include also the account of the type of "opposition", distinguishing especially between the antonymic relationship and the other types of semantic relationships). The typical semantic relationships expressed by the pairs of distinctive elements refer most often to the extent, position, colour, age or owner of the named object. However, we will devote a great deal of attention also to some less typical cases of oppositions, for example pairs of distinctive elements in compound place names based on the original nicknames of inhabitants.


TV-on-Demand services have become one of the most popular Internet applications that continuously attracts high user interest. With rapidly increasing user demands, the existing network conditions may not be able to ensure a low start-up delay of video playback. Prefetching has been broadly investigated to cope with the start-up latency problem, which is also known as user perceived latency. In this paper, two datasets from different IPTV providers are used to analyse the TV program request patterns. According to the results, we propose a prefetching scheme at the user end to preload videos before user requests. For both datasets, our prefetching scheme significantly improves the cache hit ratio compared to passive caching and we note that there is a potential to further improve prefetching performance by customizing prefetching schemes for different video categories. We further present a cost model to determine the optimal number of videos to prefetch. We also discuss if there is enough time for prefetching. Finally, more factors, which may have an impact on optimizing prefetching performance, are further discussed, such as the jump patterns over different time in a day and the the distribution of each video's viewing length. (Less)


Many streams and rivers in agricultural areas have been straightened in order to enhance the drainage of cultivated land and facilitate crop management. This practice is now viewed as unsustainable as periodic re-straightening is often necessary to address the problems associated with bank erosion, compromising the ecological integrity of lotic and riparian ecosystems. This research aims to assess the current sediment dynamics, as well as directions of current and future channel morphology change, of a straightened upland gravel-bed river in order to provide guidelines for sustainable management schemes. The case study is the Sunday River (Quebec), located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and regarded to contain prime trout habitat. The lowest reach has proved the most problematic as a mid-channel bar repeatedly establishes itself, resulting in considerable erosion of adjacent agricultural land. In response, stakeholders have sought to regularly intervene by extracting gravel and re-straightening the channel. The study methodology combines a GIS analysis of historical aerial photos, field data collection and hydraulic and sediment transport modeling. Topographic channel geometry, sediment grain size and discharge data were acquired over the span of 2 field seasons. Additionally, repeated terrestrial lidar scans of eroding banks were acquired to aid in sediment budget evaluation. The 1D model HEC-RAS was employed to simulate current hydraulics and sediment transport, and to recreate pre-disturbance hydraulics by increasing cross-section spacing to mimic a longer, more sinuous channel.


In this paper, I introduce a theoretically justified framework that incorporates scenario analysis into operational risk modeling. The basis for the framework is the idea that only worst-case scenarios contain valuable information about the tail behavior of operational losses. In addition, worst-case scenarios introduce a natural order among scenarios that makes possible a comparison of the ordered scenario losses with the corresponding quantiles of the severity distribution that research derives from historical losses. Worst-case scenarios contain information that enters the quantification process in the form of lower bound constraints on the specific quantiles of the severity distribution. The framework gives rise to several alternative approaches to incorporating scenarios.


Treatment optimization is usually formulated as an inverse problem, which starts with a prescribed dose distribution and obtains an optimized solution under the guidance of an objective function. The solution is a compromise between the conflicting requirements of the target and sensitive structures. In this paper, the treatment plan optimization is formulated as an estimation problem of a discrete and possibly nonconvex system. The concept of preference function is introduced. Instead of prescribing a dose to a structure (or a set of voxels), the approach prioritizes the doses with different preference levels and reduces the problem into selecting a solution with a suitable estimator. The preference function provides a foundation for statistical analysis of the system and allows us to apply various techniques developed in statistical analysis to plan optimization. It is shown that an optimization based on a quadratic objective function is a special case of the formalism. A general two-step method for using a computer to determine the values of the model parameters is proposed. The approach provides an efficient way to include prior knowledge into the optimization process. The method is illustrated using a simplified two-pixel system as well as two clinical cases. The generality of the approach, coupled with promising demonstrations, indicates that the method has broad implications for radiotherapy treatment plan optimization.


Next to Magnet Resonance Elastography and Ultrasound Elastography, Digital Image Elasto-Tomography (DIET) is a new imaging-technique, using only motion data available on the boundary, to reconstruct mechanical material parameters, i.e. the interior sti.ness of a domain, in order to diagnose tissue related disease such as breast cancer. Where classically Finite Element Methods have been employed to solve this inverse problem, this paper explores a new approach to the reconstruction of mechanical material properties of tissue and tissue defects by the use of Boundary Element Methods (BEM). Using the Boundary Integral Equations for Linear Elasticity in two dimensions within a Conjugate Gradients based inverse solver, material properties of healthy and malicious tissue could be determined from displacement data on the boundary. First simulation results are presented.

http://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/10092/730/2/12606264_Berger et al_Abs_Sum_SPIE_SanDiego - PAPER.pdf


Abstract. Oceanic anoxic events were time intervals in the Mesozoic characterized by widespread distribution of marine organic matter-rich sediments (black shales) and significant perturbations in the global carbon cycle. These perturbations are globally recorded in sediments as carbon isotope excursions irrespective of lithology and depositional environment. During the early Toarcian, black shales were deposited on the epi- and pericontinental shelves of Pangaea, and these sedimentary rocks are associated with a pronounced (ca. 7 ‰) negative (organic) carbon isotope excursion (CIE) which is thought to be the result of a major perturbation in the global carbon cycle. For this reason, the lower Toarcian is thought to represent an oceanic anoxic event (the T-OAE). If the T-OAE was indeed a global event, an isotopic expression of this event should be found beyond the epi- and pericontinental Pangaean localities. To address this issue, the carbon isotope composition of organic matter (δ13Corg of lower Toarcian organic matter-rich cherts from Japan, deposited in the open Panthalassa Ocean, was analysed. The results show the presence of a major (>6 ‰) negative excursion in δ13Corg that, based on radiolarian biostratigraphy, is a correlative of the lower Toarcian negative CIE known from Pangaean epi- and pericontinental strata. A smaller negative excursion in δ13Corg (ca. 2 ‰) is recognized lower in the studied succession. This excursion may, within the current biostratigraphic resolution, represent the excursion recorded in European epicontinental successions close to the Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary. These results from the open ocean realm suggest, in conjunction with other previously published datasets, that these Early Jurassic carbon cycle perturbations affected the active global reservoirs of the exchangeable carbon cycle (deep marine, shallow marine, atmospheric).


In this article I explore the relationships between commercial gambling and late capitalism. In particular, I am interested in the societal forces that produce gambling as a contemporary form of consumption, which I define as the state-sanctioned commodification of chance.As a theoretical entry point, I employ the typology of games devised by French sociologist Roger Caillois in his 1961 volume Man, Play, Games . Specifically, I develop Caillois's distinction between competitive or agônistic games (the ancient Greek word meaning contest or challenge) and those based on chance or alea (the ancient Greek for playing at a game of chance of any kind). I extend these categories beyond a concern with the individual game to explore the tensions between the increasingly aleatory trends of the risk society, the agônistic forces of gambling production (i.e. the state and industry) and the aleatory nature of individual consumption. I argue that the expansion of gambling products is due to the state's own position as aleatory subject within late capitalism. I suggest that the concern with the risk minimization of the risk society and the massive expansion of alea through gambling are dialectically related. In other words, the risk society produces a corollary — a demand for risk — in the production of alea.This contradiction is resolved through the consumption of alea as a form of controllable, bounded, and individualized risk, one that is able to be consumed free of the broader global anxieties of the risk society. Finally, I argue that aleatory consumption itself opens up the possibility of a series of misrecognitions between production and consumption, ones that, in combination with the ideology of chance, conceal the agônistic realm of production by enabling consumers to adopt individualized orientations towards consumption.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to report an investigation of local sustainable production in Australia and Sweden aimed at exploring the factors contributing to survival and competitiveness of manufacturing companies. Design/methodology/approach - In Australia, six companies were studied in 2010, with comparisons being made with three of them from earlier projects. In Sweden, eight manufacturing companies were studied on two occasions 30 years apart, in 1980 and 2010. To provide a valid comparative perspective a common format for data collection and analysis was used. Findings - There has been a shift in the nature of competition in both Sweden and Australia due to an increasing complexity of the global business environment as well as changes in technology and customer expectations. Despite the differences in country context, the findings suggest that all the manufacturing companies have a good awareness of the elements of the market environment and the relationships with their competitive strategy. However, in general, the Swedish companies have more experience of managing the risks and benefits from operating in the international environment. Research limitations/implications - The results of the research are based on a relatively small sample of case companies in a limited number of industrial sectors. There are methodology implications for future research in the area. Practical implications - The research results have practical implications for the manufacturing industry, especially for companies operating in a competitive international environment. Originality/value - The paper is based on original case research and comparative analysis of data from different geographical contexts. It contributes to both theory and management practice about the strategic resources, decision choices, competitive environments and firm values needed to address external market demands as well as in building internal capabilities.


Background/Aims: Puumala virus causes nephropathia epidemica (NE), a milder form of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome that occurs in Central and Northern Europe. Several studies have sought to identify risk factors for severe NE. However, elevated procalcitonin (PCT) levels have not previously been investigated as a predictive marker for a severe course of NE. Methods: A cross-sectional prospective survey of 456 adults with serologically confirmed NE was performed. Results: PCT levels at the time of diagnosis were available for 43 out of 456 patients, and in 24 of these patients (56%) PCT levels were elevated ("PCT positive"). C-reactive protein (CRP) levels at admission to hospital and peak CRP levels during the acute course of the disease were higher in the PCT-positive compared with the PCT-negative group (p<0.05). Severe acute kidney injury (AKI) (RIFLE I and F) was present in similar numbers of PCT-positive and -negative patients (p=0.7), but antibiotics were more frequently used in the PCT-positive than the PCT-negative group (p<0.05). Within the PCT-positive group, PCT levels were similar among those receiving and not receiving antibiotics (p=0.13), and neither the duration of hospital stay nor CRP peak levels were lower in those treated with antibiotics (p=0.12 and p=0.13, respectively). Conclusions: Elevated PCT levels are common in patients with acute NE. There was no association between PCT levels and severity of disease, including AKI or thrombocytopenia. It is important to distinguish Puumala virus infection from other causes of AKI with thrombocytopenia. However, PCT might not be useful in differentiating hantavirus infection from bacterial infection.


*The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has achieved its highest levels in the last 800,000 years, and probably even in the last 2.1 million years, recently topping briefly the atmospheric concentration target of 400 ppm. Whereas this mark does not set Earth's climate in an apocalyptic mode, it does represent a grave global sociopolitical risk, because it highlights the inaction and indifference of government and society to our self-triggered climate changes and their
consequences, especially for the poor and the weak.
*Since pre-industrial times (i.e. since 1750), atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased by over 40%, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and decondarily from net land use change emissions, at a rate unprecedented in the last 22,000 years, reaching an average of 2 ppm/ year in the last decade. About 30% of the emitted anthropogenic CO2 has been absorbed by the ocean, causing ocean acidification that poses serious risks to marine ecosystems, resources, and services.
*Ice core paleoclimate records teach us that, under typical conditions,
global surface temperature never changes much in the long term (of
centuries) without a corresponding change in atmospheric CO2 concentration, and vice-versa. In order to explain the amount of warming observed in the temperature records, one must take into account the greenhouse effect caused by the corresponding Atmospheric CO2
concentrations in that period. This does not preclude, however, the occurrence of short-term (decadal) climate variability, which can enhance or counteract the prevailing temperature trend (e.g. the current 15-year hiatus in global temperature rise).
*In a business as usual scenario, atmospheric CO2 concentrations by the
middle of the 21st century would reach just over 500 ppm, a change of 25% above the present value, which would probably lead to an increase of more than 2oC in the global mean surface temperature On the other hand, reducing emissions by 2% per year starting no later than 2020
would limit the global carbon dioxide concentration to below 450 ppm.
Delaying emission cuts will only enhance the risks of dangerous, and potentially irreversible, climatic changes and increase the costs of future mitigation and adaptation measures.


The author here extends a dialogue with Jeffrey M. Perl, published in the Spring 2010 issue of Common Knowledge, under the title "'Decorate the Dungeon." That dialogue concerns whether Thomas More could have avoided martyrdom though he acted with heroic quietism during the Henrician Reformation. Dubious of this premise during the previous exchange, the author here examines the lives of three northern English quietists of More's time—Christopher Urswick (c. 1448–1552), Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559), and John Redman (1499–1551)—who never quite risked martyrdom but never abandoned their own principles either. This essay concludes that Tunstall was the most heroic of the three. As a bishop (for well over thirty years), he could have burned heretics in the 1530s and 1550s but he sent no one to death—a record perhaps better than that of Thomas More, who saw sedition in some of those brought before him as heretics when he was chancellor. A record so free of violent commitment as Tunstall's was extraordinary in his time, as in ours, and this article gives it due recognition.


India is at a critical juncture as cities and governments in general move into the digital age in order not only to provide enhanced services, but to improve transparency and efficiency, and as this development is taking place at a time when the Supreme Court bench has decided in August, 2017 that privacy is a constitutional right. It is in this context that this research asks the following question: how can cities (a state actor) use citizen data to maximize the governance while protecting the citizens fundamental right to privacy? We examine how this balance and tradeoffs arise due to the way Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) collect, use, and disclose citizen data. For the investigation, we collect ULB metadata by examining the architecture of the products of eGovernments Foundation, one of the leading providers of digital tools for ULBs, and by directly by interacting with ULBs. Based on this investigation, we define two new indices, a Governance Efficiency Index (GEI) and a Information Privacy Index (IPI), that allows for measuring city's performance on the two dimensions, understanding where tensions arise in simultaneously improving performance on both, and where innovation will overcome such tensions. In addition, to being able to make specific observations and recommendations for the particular cases we examined, this work is a proof of concept that such analysis can and should be done more widely, in order to understand the tradeoffs between government transparency and efficiency on one hand, and privacy on the other.


The invitation poem, in which the beloved is urged to come away to an idealized place, is among the most enduring genres of European love poetry. The tradition begins with the biblical Song of Songs, which sets several important precedents: a dialogic framework, a close association of lover and landscape, and a sense of love as exile. Medieval and Renaissance invitation poems follow the Song of Songs but shift its emphases toward monologue, materialism, and importunity. Milton thus inherits a dual tradition of invitational poetry, both aspects of which figure prominently in Paradise Lost. Recognizing the traditional features of the genre therefore illuminates significant moments in the epic, including, notably, Eve's final speech. The invitational tropes in this passage reveal how Eve reconceives of exile as homecoming and how she reestablishes a sense of radical mutuality with Adam by completing a dialogue that began before the Fall.


Further Education (FE) institutions in England have been providing a variety of higher education (HE) courses for decades. Despite the more recent expansion of HE in England, however, the proportion of those studying HE in FE colleges has remained curiously stable at around ten per cent of all HE students. This paper sets out to investigate why the proportion of college-based HE has remained so stable by setting this extremely diverse provision within its wider social and economic context. In so doing, this study reveals an important aspect of the increasing differentiation of the HE sector in this country. The paper examines secondary statistical data on HE students in FE colleges, including the type of course they are taking and their consequent destinations, to question if HE in FE provides "An engine for widening participation and social mobility" as claimed by the Policy Exchange think tank.


Abstract The international bailout granted to Portugal between 2011 and 2014 was conditional on the adoption by the Portuguese State of austerity measures included in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the European Commission on behalf of the European Union (EU) and the Member States. The MoU was never published in an official journal or even translated into the Portuguese language. Its implementation caused a significant decrease in the level of protection of social rights. The compatibility of the MoU with core principles of the rule of law and with the EU's social Constitution was never tested in court. A systemic failure in the jurisdictional system of the EU immunized the MoU to any judicial challenge. At the apex of the system, the Court of Justice of the EU declined to answer preliminary references submitted by Portuguese lower courts that questioned the compatibility with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU of national budgetary measures that implemented the MoU. At the bottom, Portuguese courts either failed to properly identify the EU law acts that were the source of national austerity measures or disregarded their role as common EU law courts of ordinary jurisdiction when they bypassed the opportunity to refer a question for a preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice challenging the validity of the MoU.


We have observed propagating adiabatic evaporation waves in superheated liquid dodecane, C12H26. Experiments were performed with a rapid decompression apparatus at initial temperatures of 180–300°C. Saturated dodecane in a tube was suddenly depressurized by rupturing a diaphragm. Motion pictures and still photographic images, and pressure and temperature data were obtained during the evaporation event that followed depressurization. Usually, a front or wave of evaporation started at the liquid free surface and propagated into the undisturbed regions of the metastable liquid. The evaporation wave front moved with a steady mean velocity but the front itself was unstable and fluctuating in character. At low superheats, no waves were observed until a threshold superheat was exceeded. At moderate superheats, subsonic downstream states were observed. At higher superheats, the downstream flow was choked, corresponding to a Chapman–Jouguet condition. At the most extreme superheat tested, a vapour content of over 90% was estimated from the measured data, indicating a nearly complete evaporation wave. Our results are interpreted by modelling the evaporation wave as a discontinuity, or jump, between a superheated liquid state and a two-phase liquid–vapour downstream state. Reasonable agreement is found between the model and observations; however, there is a fundamental indeterminacy that prevents the prediction of the observed wave speeds.


Abstract The dynamic changes in the regimes of forest fires are due to the severity of climate and weather factors. The aim of the study was to examine the trend of forest fires and to evaluate their relationship with climate parameters for the state of Telangana in India. The climate and forest fire data were used and uploaded to the GIS platform in a specified vector grid (spacing: 0.3° x 0.3°). The data were evaluated spatially and statistical methods were applied to examine any relationships. The study revealed that there was a 78% incidence of forest fires in the months of February and March. The overall forest fire hotspot analysis (January to June) of grids revealed that the seven highest forest fire grids retain fire events greater than 600 were found in the north east of Warangal, east of Khammam and south east of Mahbubnagar districts. The forest fire analysis significantly followed the month wise pattern in grid format. Ten grids (in count) showed a fire frequency greater than 240 in the month of March and of these, three grids (in count) were found to be common where the forest fire frequency was highest in the preceding month. Rapid seasonal climate/weather changes were observed which significantly enhanced the forest fire events in the month of February onwards. The solar radiation increased to 159% in the month of March when compared with the preceding month whereas the relative humidity decreased to 47% in the same month. Furthermore, the wind velocity was found to be highest (3.5 meter/sec.) in the month of February and precipitation was found to be lowest (2.9 mm) in the same month. The analysis of Cramer V coefficient (CVC) values for wind velocity, maximum temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity and precipitation with respect to fire incidence were found to be in increasing order and were in the range of 0.280 to 0.715. The CVC value for precipitation was found to be highest and equivalent to 0.715 and showed its strongest association/relationship with fire events. The significant increase in precipitation not only enhances the moisture in the soil but also in the dry fuel load lying on the forest floor which greatly reduces the fuel burning capacity of the forest. The predicted (2050) temperature anomalies data (RCP-6) for the month of February and March also showed a significant increase in temperature over those areas where forest fire events are found to be notably high in the present scenario which will certainly impact adversely on the future forest fire regime. Findings from this study have their own significance because such analyses/relationships have never be examined at the state level, therefore, it can help to fulfill the knowledge gap for the scientific community and the state forest department, and support fire prevention and control activities. There is a need to replicate this study in future by taking more climate variables which will certainly give a better understanding of forest fire events and their relationships with various parameters. The satellite remote sensing data and GIS have a strong potential to analyze various thematic datasets and in the visualization of spatial/temporal paradigms and thus significantly support the policy making framework.


Designed to secure a lasting peace between the Allies and Germany, the Versailles Settlement soon came apart at the seams. In After The Versailles Treaty an international team of historians examines the almost insuperable challenges facing victors and vanquished alike after the ravages of WW1. This is not another diplomatic history, instead focusing on the practicalities of treaty enforcement and compliance as western Germany came under Allied occupation and as the reparations bill was presented to the defeated and bankrupt Germans. It covers issues such as: How did the Allied occupiers conduct themselves and how did the Germans respond? Were reparations really affordable and how did the reparations regime affect ordinary Germans? What lessons did post-WW2 policymakers learn from this earlier reparations settlement The fraught debates over disarmament as German big business struggled to adjust to the sudden disappearance of arms contracts and efforts were made on the international stage to achieve a measure of global disarmament. The price exacted by the redrawing of frontiers on Germany's eastern and western margins, as well as the (gentler) impact of the peace settlement on identity in French Flanders. This book was previously published as a special issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft


The current Internet climate poses serious threats to the Domain Name
System. In the interim period before the DNS protocol can be secured
more fully, measures can already be taken to harden the DNS to make
'spoofing' a recursing nameserver many orders of magnitude
harder. Even a cryptographically secured DNS benefits from having the
ability to discard bogus responses quickly, as this potentially saves
large amounts of computation. By describing certain behaviour that
has previously not been standardised, this document sets out how to
make the DNS more resilient against accepting incorrect responses.
This document updates RFC 2181.


Acorn production plays a fundamental role in the organization and dynamics of oak forest ecosystems. Regarding acorn importance, visual survey methods have been used to estimate acorn production of oak species throughout the world. In this study, the mast indices of Brants oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) were determined in a section of northern Zagros forests, almost 36 ha area, near Baneh, Kurdistan province. Different types of visual surveys (Whitehead, Christisen-Kearby, Modified Graves and Koenig) were used on 120 trees which were selected using stratified random sampling method. In early September, just prior to acorn fall, each tree was investigated using visual surveys. Furthermore, for each tree, acorn density (acorns number/m2 crown area) was calculated using crown counting to calculate the best regression model in Koenig method. Based on visual estimation indices, fair acorn production of Q. brantii was observed. There was a strong (R2 = 0.73), highly significant (P < 0.001) linear relationship between the Koenig acorn counts (X) and corresponding crown counts. Furthermore, the results of this research confirmed usefulness of the quick visual survey methods to estimate the acorn crop of Q. brantii.


Introduction On first glance, a review of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in a journal that focuses on the health of the elderly may seem out of place. PAH is typically envisioned as a progressively disabling disease in young females. However, PAH is not a disease restricted to the young. Indeed, 20% of the patients followed in our pulmonary hypertension clinic are over the age of 65. Although information regarding the natural course of PAH has been described in a report of the National Registry for Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, this information is not representative of the elderly population.1 In particular, given the greater prevalence of comorbid conditions in the elderly, one must be particularly vigilant in searching for an underlying secondary cause of PAH. Owing to a paucity of information in this population, most of our comments derive from our own observations of PAH in the elderly and from inferences made from their younger counterparts.


The sixth edition of the Precis de Parasitologie, appearing in two volumes, is an encyclopedic documentation of parasitologic information reflecting the broad experience of this well-known French parasitologist. The text, introduced by 87 pages of a general discussion of host-parasite interrelations, is divided into two main sections: (1) the animal parasites in which are included the spirochetes, protozoa, rickettsiae, and metazoa, and (2) the plant parasites, a section unique in this work, emphasizing the fungi. The index and table of contents appear at the end of the second volume.
To revise a treatise of such wide scope requires many months of arduous labor with the result that there may be a considerable lag between the latest references cited and the actual time of publication. In an attempt to minimize this lag the author has included up-to-date information in a special section appended to the second volume.
One cannot describe a uniform method of presentation for the emphasis varies considerably from topic to topic.


With businesses, governments, and individuals increasingly dependent on the Internet, understanding its reliability is more important than ever. Network outages vary in scope and cause, from the intentional shutdown of the Egyptian Internet in February 2011, to outages caused by the effects of March 2011 earthquakes on undersea cables entering Japan, to the thousands of small, daily outages caused by localized accidents or human error. In this paper we present a new method to detect network outages by probing entire blocks. Using 24 datasets, each a 2-week study of 22,000 /24 address blocks randomly sampled from the Internet, we develop new algorithms to identify and visualize outages and to cluster those outages into network-level events. We validate our approach by comparing our data-plane results against controlplane observations from BGP routing and news reports, examining both major and randomly selected events. We confirm our results are stable from two different locations and over more than one and half years of observations. We show that our approach of probing all addresses in a /24 block is significantly more accurate than prior approaches that use a single representative for all routed blocks, cutting the number of mistake outage observations from 44% to under 1%. We use our approach to study several large outages such as those mentioned above. We also develop a general estimate for how much of the Internet is regularly down, finding about 0.3% of the Internet is likely to be unreachable at any time. By providing a baseline estimate of Internet outages, our work lays the groundwork to evaluate ISP reliability.


Abstract. The stable carbon isotope composition of dissolved inorganic carbon (δ13CDIC) in seawater was measured in samples collected during June–July 2014 in the subpolar North Atlantic. Sample collection was carried out on the RRS James Clark Ross cruise JR302, part of the "Radiatively Active Gases from the North Atlantic Region and Climate Change" (RAGNARoCC) research programme. The observed δ13CDIC values for cruise JR302 fall in a range from −0.07 to +1.95 ‰, relative to the Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite standard. From duplicate samples collected during the cruise, the 1σ precision for the 341 results is 0.08 ‰, which is similar to our previous work and other studies of this kind. We also performed a cross-over analysis using nearby historical δ13CDIC data, which indicated that there were no significant systematic offsets between our measurements and previously published results. We also included seawater reference material (RM) produced by A. G. Dickson (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA) in every batch of analysis, enabling us to improve upon the calibration and quality-control procedures from a previous study. The δ13CDIC is consistent within each RM batch, although its value is not certified. We report δ13CDIC values of 1.15 ± 0.03 ‰ and 1.27 ± 0.05 ‰ for batches 141 and 144 respectively. Our JR302 δ13CDIC data can be used – along with measurements of other biogeochemical variables – to constrain the processes that control DIC in the interior ocean, in particular the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and the biological carbon pump. Our δ13CDIC results are available from the British Oceanographic Data Centre – doi:10.5285/22235f1a-b7f3-687f-e053-6c86abc0c8a6 .


This book compiles and adapts different chapters written by the author during the last decades on the topic of Caribbean development. On the one hand, the document provides the reader with the opportunity to travel in time acknowledging the evolution of academia, paradigms, and frameworks regarding the Caribbean. On the other hand, it shows the reader how many of the action plans and strategies suggested through the years are still relevant and how many of the challenges and structures of Caribbean nations have not changed radically over the years, once again stressing the urgent need for action. The document covers a wide array of topics within Caribbean growth and development, as it also takes on different approaches. The first couple of chapters are rich in historical backgrounds, providing information and analysis bringing the reader up to date with the different Caribbean challenges, while the last couple of chapters are mostly focused on strategies and action plans to achieve the objectives that had already been identified earlier on.


Abstract
A random household sample of 30% of the population of 1,393 of Nduru, Kisumu, Kenya was examined in a cross-sectional study of the correlation of morbidity with the prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis mansoni as determined by standard medical examination. The 384 individuals in 66 households studied had a male:female ratio of 45:55 and an age structure in which more than 50% were below age 20. Malaria was holoendemic in the area, with a spleen rate equal to or greater than Hackett 2 in 34% of individuals without schistosomiasis. S. mansoni infection, as determined by quantitative Kato thick smears, had an overall prevalence of 47% with a peak of 75% in the 40- to 49-year age group. With respect to intensity, 53% were uninfected, 26% had light (10–100 eggs/g), 15% moderate (101–400), and 6% heavy (greater than 401) infections. Peak intensity occurred in females at ages 20–24 years (236 eggs/g) and in males at ages 30–39 (453 eggs/g). A history of not feeling well enough to carry out usual activities occurred in about ⅓ to ½ of the population but was not correlated with presence or intensity of infection. Abdominal pain was reported more frequently by heavily infected individuals. Hepatomegaly was less prevalent in those more heavily infected. Splenomegaly, which occurred in 34% of the uninfected population, was seen in only 5% of those with egg counts greater than 400/g. The methodology of this study of a rural fishing community (Kisumu District) of Nilotic extraction in an area holoendemic for malaria and with schistosomiasis of moderate prevalence and intensity was virtually identical to that of a previous study of a rural farming community (Machakos District) of Bantu extraction in which malaria was rare and schistosomiasis was of high prevalence and intensity. The results in these two communities are compared.


The timing and spatial extent of mid-Cenozoic ignimbrite flare-up volcanism of the Sierra Madre Occidental silicic large igneous province of Mexico in relation to crustal extension is relatively unknown. Extension in the Sierra Madre Occidental has been variably interpreted to have preceded, postdated, or begun during Early Oligocene flare-up volcanism of the silicic large igneous province. New geologic mapping, zircon U-Pb laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry dating, modal analysis, and geochemical data from the Guazapares Mining District region along the western edge of the northern Sierra Madre Occidental silicic large igneous province have identified three informal synextensional formations. The ca. 27.5 Ma Parajes formation is an ∼1-km-thick succession composed primarily of welded to nonwelded silicic outflow ignimbrite sheets erupted from distant sources. The 27–24.5 Ma Temoris formation is interpreted as an andesitic volcanic center composed of locally erupted mafic to intermediate composition lavas and associated intrusions, with interbedded andesite-clast fluvial and debris flow deposits, and an upper section of thin distal silicic outflow ignimbrites. The 24.5–23 Ma Sierra Guazapares formation is composed of silicic vent facies ignimbrites to proximal ignimbrites, lavas, plugs, dome-collapse deposits, and fluvially or debris flow–reworked equivalents. These three formations record (1) the accumulation of outflow ignimbrite sheets, presumably erupted from calderas mapped ∼50–100 km east of the study area that were active during the Early Oligocene pulse of the mid-Cenozoic ignimbrite flare-up; (2) development of an andesitic volcanic field in the study area, likely related to rocks of the Southern Cordillera basaltic andesite province that were intermittently erupted across all of the northern Sierra Madre Occidental toward the end of and following the Early Oligocene ignimbrite pulse; and (3) the initiation of explosive and effusive silicic fissure magmatism in the study area during the Early Miocene pulse of the mid-Cenozoic ignimbrite flare-up. The main geologic structures identified in the Guazapares Mining District region are NNW–trending normal faults, with an estimated minimum of 20% total horizontal extension. Normal faults were active during deposition of all three formations (Parajes, Temoris, and Sierra Guazapares), and bound half-graben basins that show evidence of synvolcanic extension (e.g., growth strata) during deposition. Normal faulting began by ca. 27.5 Ma during deposition of the youngest ignimbrites of the Parajes formation, concurrent with the end of the Early Oligocene silicic ignimbrite pulse to the east and before magmatism began in the study area. In addition, preexisting normal faults localized andesitic volcanic vents of the Temoris formation and silicic vents of the Sierra Guazapares formation, and some faults were reactivated during, as well as after, deposition of these formations. We interpret extensional faulting and magmatism in the Guazapares Mining District region to be part of a regional-scale Middle Eocene to Early Miocene southwestward migration of active volcanism and crustal extension in the northern Sierra Madre Occidental. We show that extension accompanied silicic volcanism in the Guazapares region, and overlapped with the peak of mid-Cenozoic ignimbrite flare-up in the Sierra Madre Occidental; this supports the interpretation that there is a relationship between lithospheric extension and silicic large igneous province magmatism.


With the exception of the River Tone, which appears to have been separated at an early stage from its neighbours to the south by
a major fault, the rivers of south Somerset and east Devon were initiated on a southward dipping Tertiary planation surface.
The evolutionary histories of the present-day catchments of the rivers Exe and Otter are complex and inter-related. Those of the
adjacent Axe and Teign appear to be less complex and may have evolved relatively independently from the Exe-Otter system.
The differences in the histories of the catchments are most clearly demonstrated by their terrace systems. The Exe-Otter
catchment has 10 or more terrace levels at heights of up to 140 m above the modern floodplain. In contrast, the Axe, Teign and
Tone catchments contain only one or two terrace levels all of which are less than 20 m above the present-day valley floor.
The explanation suggested here for the difference involves a sequence of river captures that changed the forerunner of the
present-day Otter from a major river capable of producing a 3-km wide gravelly braidplain into a minor stream.


We study repayment and delinquency in an innovative loan contract that offers borrowers a wide range of flexibility. Using a large administrative dataset, we perform unsupervised pattern analysis to study how borrowers repay within the framework of this loan. We identify eight clusters that can be grouped into three distinct repayment types. We show that borrowers with fluctuating incomes and limited consumption smoothing resources use the loan's flexibility more and that farmers in particular adjust their repayment to cash flow. Finally, we show that high use of the loan's flexibility is associated with repayment difficulties, yet typically does not result in eventual default; whereas borrowers who face repayment difficulties that are likely driven by economic shocks face a high probability of default.


Background: Epidermoid cyst of the oral cavity is very rare, slow-growing, benign neoplasm derived from the remnant of the neural tube. It accounts for less than 0.01% of all cystic lesions of the head and neck. Most of the intraoral cases are reported in the midline and floor of the mouth. Very rare cases are seen involving the tongue, lips, uvula, temporomandibular joint, maxillary, and buccal mucosa. The rare oral lesion is asymptomatic, but large masses present early with difficulty in breathing and swallowing. We report an uncommon case of epidermoid cyst in an infant with failure to thrive due to obstruction and inability to latch breast milk. Case report: A 40-day-old male infant presented with a large oral swelling in the floor of the mouth since birth. It measured 4 × 5 cm in size. Surgical excision with primary closure was successfully performed. The histopathological report confirmed the diagnosis of epidermoid cyst. The child recovered to full general health with no signs of recurrence. Conclusion: Oral epidermoid cyst is a rare neoplasm that may mimic dermoid cyst and teratoid tumors clinically. The treatment of choice is surgical excision; however, there is a recurrence rate of 33% and rarely transforms into malignancy.


Cancer is an important cause of morbidity in the elderly, and many medical conditions and treatments influence cancer risk. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database can be used to conduct population-based case-control studies that elucidate the etiology of cancer among the US elderly. SEER-Medicare links data on malignancies ascertained through SEER cancer registries to claims from Medicare, the US government insurance program for people over age 65 years. Under one approach described herein, elderly cancer cases are ascertained from SEER data (1987-2005). Matched controls are selected from a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Risk factors of interest, including medical conditions and procedures, are identified by using linked Medicare claims. Strengths of this design include the ready availability of data, representative sampling from the US elderly population, and large sample size (e.g., under one scenario: 1,176,950 cases, including 221,389 prostate cancers, 185,853 lung cancers, 138,041 breast cancers, and 124,442 colorectal cancers; and 100,000 control subjects). Limitations reflect challenges in exposure assessment related to Medicare claims: restricted range of evaluable risk factors, short time before diagnosis/selection for ascertainment, and inaccuracies in claims. With awareness of limitations, investigators have in SEER-Medicare data a valuable resource for epidemiologic research on cancer etiology.


Recently, a great deal of controversy has been generated from the salaries earned by head coaches in the NCAA. Although many figures in the world of sports earn high salaries, one important difference in the case of the NCAA is that the players do not get paid. We develop a model that shows that a cartel agreement to not pay the players raises the coach's salary if some players choose where to play based on the identity of the coach. The agreement not to pay the players improves competitive balance in the baseline model, but this result does not generalize.


Spanning the 1870s to the present, Individuality Incorporated demonstrates how crucial a knowledge of Native American-White history is to rethinking key issues in American studies, cultural studies, and the history of subjectivity. Joel Pfister proposes an ingenious critical and historical reinterpretation of constructions of "Indians" and "individuals." Native Americans have long contemplated the irony that the government used its schools to coerce children from diverse tribes to view themselves first as "Indians"—encoded as the evolutionary problem—and then as "individuals"—defined as the civilized industrial solution. As Luther Standing Bear, Charles Eastman, and Black Elk attest, tribal cultures had their own complex ways of imagining, enhancing, motivating, and performing the self that did not conform to federal blueprints labeled "individuality." Enlarging the scope of this history of "individuality," Pfister elaborates the implications of state, corporate, and aesthetic experiments that moved beyond the tactics of an older melting pot hegemony to impose a modern protomulticultural rule on Natives. The argument focuses on the famous Carlisle Indian School; assimilationist novels; Native literature and cultural critique from Zitkala-Sa to Leslie Marmon Silko; Taos and Santa Fe bohemians (Mabel Dodge Luhan, D. H. Lawrence, Mary Austin); multicultural modernisms (Fred Kabotie, Oliver La Farge, John Sloan, D'Arcy McNickle); the Southwestern tourism industry's development of corporate multiculturalism; the diversity management schemes that John Collier implemented as head of the Indian New Deal; and early formulations of ethnic studies. Pfister's unique analysis moves from Gilded Age incorporations of individuality to postmodern incorporations of multicultural reworkings of individuality to unpack what is at stake in producing subjectivity in World America.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if there is a relationship between maternal perception of neighborhood safety in 3(rd) grade and weight status in 5(th) grade children, to test if gender moderates this relationship, and to identify potential mediators.

METHOD
Data from 868 children and their mothers involved in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (NICHD-SECCYD) were used to examine the relationship between maternal perception of neighborhood safety in the 3(rd) grade and child body mass index (BMI) z-score in the 5(th) grade. Multiple regression models tested this relationship, the effect of gender, and potential mediating variables (time outdoors in neighborhood, television viewing, child behavior problems and puberty status).

RESULTS
Neighborhood safety ratings in the least safe tertile, compared with the safest tertile, were associated with an increased risk of obesity independent of gender, race and income-to-needs ratio (OR=1.59; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03, 2.46), and higher child BMI z-scores among girls, but not boys, compared with the safest tertile (beta=0.33; 95% CI: 0.09, 0.57). Neither amount of time spent outdoors in the neighborhood, television viewing, child behavior problems (internalizing or externalizing), nor puberty status altered the relationship.

CONCLUSIONS
Maternal perception of the neighborhood as unsafe in 3(rd) grade independently predicted a higher risk of obesity, and a higher BMI z-score among girls, but not boys, in the 5(th) grade. The relationship was not explained by several potential mediators. Further investigation is needed to explore these gender differences and potential mediators.


As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global contexts and regions. Divided into three sections - histories and cultural memories; place, community and environment; and poetics and participation - the chapters interweave cutting-edge theoretical insights with examples of innovative creative practice that traverse different places, spaces and times. Essential reading for researchers and artists working within applied theatre, this collection will also be of interest to those in theatre and performance studies, education, cultural policy, social history and cultural geography.


Terrorism is designed to change minds by destroying bodies; it is a form of costly signaling. Terrorists employ five primary strategies of costly signaling: attrition, intimidation, provocation, spoiling, and outbidding. The main targets of persuasion are the enemy and the population that the terrorists hope to represent or control. Terrorists wish to signal that they have the strength and will to impose costs on those who oppose them, and that the enemy and moderate groups on the terrorists' side cannot be trusted and should not be supported. Each strategy works well under certain conditions and poorly under others. State responses to one strategy may be inappropriate for other strategies. In some cases, however, terrorists are pursuing a combination of strategies, and the response must also work well against this combination.


This article argues that the assimilation policy adopted by the Australian government during the 1950s was based on a denial of a migrant's past. The assumption that the migrant would readily merge into Australian cultural life ignored the ways in which past stories and memories shape the self. Through an analysis of the Good Neighbour Councils I explore the nature of assimilation that was based on a neglect of collective war memories of immigrant groups. This perspective is distinguished from that adopted by several theorists of the day such as W.D. Borrie and Jean Martin whose studies were less crude and one-dimensional. The experiences of Greek migrants are examined to consider how Greek war stories could not often find expression or recognition in the assimilationist climate of the post-war period. © 2013.


•In 2000 – 2001, 18% of adults in England aged 16 and over reported having some form of disability, 5% of whom reported having a serious disability. The most common type of disability reported amongst adults was loco motor disability. Current legislation on housing design, to incorporate the needs of those individuals with physical disabilities, is contained within Part M of the Building Regulations. These requirements have had a significant impact upon dwelling design. This case study documents the experiences of a disabled man occupying a brand new home. Forming part of a wider research project, this study identifies how current Building Regulations only go some way in accommodating the needs of those with a disability and that in some 'parts' these regulations display a lack of systems thinking.


The 'New Year Wave' was recorded at the Draupner platform in the North Sea and is a rare high-quality measurement of a 'freak' or 'rogue' wave. The wave has been the subject of much interest and numerous studies. Despite this, the event has still not been satisfactorily explained. One piece of information that was not directly measured at the platform, but which is vital to understanding the nonlinear dynamics is the wave's directional spreading. This paper investigates the directionality of the Draupner wave and concludes it might have resulted from two wave-groups crossing, whose mean wave directions were separated by about 90° or more. This result has been deduced from a set-up of the low-frequency second-order difference waves under the giant wave, which can be explained only if two wave systems are propagating at such an angle. To check whether second-order theory is satisfactory for such a highly nonlinear event, we have run numerical simulations using a fully nonlinear potential flow solver, which confirm the conclusion deduced from the second-order theory. This is backed up by a hindcast from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts that shows swell waves propagating at approximately 80° to the wind sea. Other evidence that supports our conclusion are the measured forces on the structure, the magnitude of the second-order sum waves and some other instances of freak waves occurring in crossing sea states.


BACKGROUND
Studies reporting lower rates of surgery for older women with early invasive breast cancer have focused on women with oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive tumours. This study examined the factors that influence receipt of breast surgery in older women with ER-positive and ER-negative early invasive breast cancer .

METHODS
Women aged 50 years or above with unilateral stage 1-3A early invasive breast cancer diagnosed in 2014-2017 were identified from linked English and Welsh cancer registration and routine hospital data sets. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the influence of tumour and patient factors on receipt of surgery.

RESULTS
Among 83 188 women, 86.8 per cent had ER-positive and 13.2 per cent had ER-negative early invasive breast cancer. These proportions were unaffected by age at diagnosis. Compared with women with ER-negative breast cancer, a higher proportion of women with ER-positive breast cancer presented with low risk tumour characteristics: G1 (20.0 versus 1.5 per cent), T1 (60.8 versus 44.2 per cent) and N0 (73.9 versus 68.8 per cent). The proportions of women with any recorded co-morbidity (13.7 versus 14.3 per cent) or degree of frailty (25 versus 25.8 per cent) were similar among women with ER-positive and ER-negative disease respectively. In women with ER-positive early invasive breast cancer aged 70-74, 75-79 and 80 years or above, the rate of no surgery was 5.6, 11.0 and 41.9 per cent respectively. Among women with ER-negative early invasive breast cancer, the corresponding rates were 3.8, 3.7 and 12.3 per cent. The relatively lower rate of surgery for ER-positive breast cancer persisted in women with good fitness.

CONCLUSION
The reasons for the observer differences should be further explored to ensure consistency in treatment decisions.


A rock inscription, discovered in summer 2009 in Timna (Wadi el- Man'iye), Israel, is presented and interpreted herein. The context of Egyptian copper mining activities in the New Kingdom at Timna, involving workforce recruited from the local Semitic population, accommodates placing the graffito in the tradition of the so-called Proto- Sinaitic (PS) inscriptions. The engraving can be read as a West Semitic personal name and an introductory title or qualification. It supplies meaningful variant traits not attested hitherto in PS texts, and contributes to the controversial dating of the earliest attestations of alphabetic writing. Doubts as to the authenticity and/or antiquity of the engraving are also addressed. DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v02i2_wimmer


Background. The timely completion of the childhood immunisation schedule for children under the age of 1 year by caregivers is key to reducing the high morbidity and mortality of vaccine-preventable diseases among infants globally.  Objective. To determine the ownership of mobile phones among caregivers of children under the age of 1 year, their knowledge about immunisation service delivery and willingness to receive childhood immunisation schedule reminder messages in Ondo State, south-western Nigeria.  Method. A descriptive cross-sectional study using semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaires was conducted with 615 caregivers of infants, who brought their children to clinics conducting immunisation in 24 health facilities in rural, semi-urban and urban settlements in Ondo State in December 2014.  Results. The mean (standard deviation, SD) age of respondents was 28.49 (6.01) years, 76.7% were Yoruba, 91.4% were married and living with their spouses and 4.2% were single. Mobile phone ownership was 74.5% among rural-based respondents, and 95.8% among urban-based. Forty-six percent of the respondents had good knowledge of immunisation, vaccine-preventable diseases and vaccination schedules, while 27.5% had poor knowledge. The majority of the respondents (99.7%) were willing to receive childhood immunisation reminder messages on their mobile phones. About 50% of the respondents preferred to receive reminder messages at any time, rather than specific times. The most preferred language for reminders was English (54.5%). Residing in an urban area and having post-secondary education were predictors of mobile phone ownership.  Conclusion. The high mobile phone ownership level, and the willingness of caregivers of infants in this study area to receive immunisation schedule reminder messages, is encouraging, and should be optimised to improve routine immunisation uptake. However, caregivers of infants in rural areas need to be provided with mobile phone support, and trained in their usage in order to benefit from such an intervention in childhood immunisation.


Designing effective model-based reinforcement learning algorithms is difficult because the ease of data generation must be weighed against the bias of model-generated data. In this paper, we study the role of model usage in policy optimization both theoretically and empirically. We first formulate and analyze a model-based reinforcement learning algorithm with a guarantee of monotonic improvement at each step. In practice, this analysis is overly pessimistic and suggests that real off-policy data is always preferable to model-generated on-policy data, but we show that an empirical estimate of model generalization can be incorporated into such analysis to justify model usage. Motivated by this analysis, we then demonstrate that a simple procedure of using short model-generated rollouts branched from real data has the benefits of more complicated model-based algorithms without the usual pitfalls. In particular, this approach surpasses the sample efficiency of prior model-based methods, matches the asymptotic performance of the best model-free algorithms, and scales to horizons that cause other model-based methods to fail entirely.


Abstract In Sweden, the PE curriculum states that students are expected to develop a number of abilities, a variety of movement activities and qualities. Interesting to explore is then if exergames (video games that includes physical activity) can be seen as a teaching resource to learn different movement's qualities. With a new teaching tool that has been introduced in education and new policy documents emphasising development of different movement qualities, the purpose of this article is accordingly to investigate students' use of different movement qualities when playing various exergames during PE. For this we use a version of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) adapted for exploring exergames in PE practice. The empirical data include video-recordings from PE lessons. The games offered were of three different characters; sports games, exercise games and dance games. We are inspired by the LMA framework and explore students' movement qualities on the basis of four aspects; body, effort, space and relations. Further, with socio-cultural learning theory, recognition of artefacts, other people and the offered content of the exergames are also involved in the analysis. Our findings show that exergames are creating opportunities for PE teachers and students to pay attention to different movement qualities. In PE the player is accordingly involved in a complex context of movement qualities, interacting with the game and with other students.


Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) extends the Windows NT operating system to support high-availability services. The goal is to offer an execution environment where off-the-shelf server applications can continue to operate, even in the presence of node failures. Later versions of MSCS will provide scalability via a node and application management system which allows applications to scale to hundreds of nodes. In this paper we provide a detailed description of the MSCS architecture and the design decisions that have driven the implementation of the service. The paper also describes how some major applications use the MSCS features, and describes features added to make it easier to implement and manage fault-tolerant applications on MSCS.


The aim of the present study was to assess the wound healing efficacy of the experimental medicinal extract mixture (EMEM) composed of brown algae, Cystoseira trinodis, plus three medicinal plants (garlic, liquorice and ginger). The extract was applied on induced excised wounds in rats, either healthy or induced hyperglycemia by alloxan. Healing activity was evaluated for up to 21 days after wounding in terms of decrease in surface area of wound, percentage of wound closure and tissue regeneration using digital planimetry analysis and histopathological examination. The study revealed that topical application of the extract improved and enhanced the healing process in diabetic rat model when compared with diabetic non-treated rats. The extract promoted wound contraction, reduced the wound closure time and induced proliferation of fibroblast as well as angiogenesis and re-epithelialization.


In the growing field of collective robotics, spatial co-ordination between robots is often critical and usually achieved via local relative positioning sensors. We believe that range and bearing sensing, based on infrared technology, has the potential to fulfil the strict requirements of real-world collective robots. These requirements include: small size, light weight, large range, high refresh rate, immunity against tilting and misalignment, immunity against ambient light changes, and good range and bearing accuracy. Currently, there are no range and bearing systems that have been designed to cope with such strict requirements. This paper presents a custom range and bearing system, based on a novel cascaded filtering technology, complemented by hybrid infrared/Radio Frequency (RF) communication, which has been designed specifically to meet all these expectations. The system has been characterised and tested, proving its viability.


Strata of late Devonian and Tournaisian age in Belgium and Southern China were studied sedimentologically. This detailed study integrated into a biostratigraphical framework, based on foraminiferal zonation, allowed the construction of a sequence stratigraphical model for both areas. Based on these models a correlation on the scale of third order sequences between these two widely separated depositional environments can be made. This indicates the eustatic nature of the sea-level changes that caused the sedimentological changes during the Tournaisian.


In acute thromboembolic stroke, neurological damage is due to ischemia-induced apoptotic death of neuronal cells and the surrounding vascular network. Here, we demonstrate that the BH4 domain of the anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-xL, attached to the membrane transport peptide, TAT, reduces stroke injury after intracerebroventricular infusion into immature rats subjected to carotid artery ligation and additional exposure to hypoxia. The injected TAT-BH4 entered neuron bodies, maintained brain architecture, protected neuronal and endothelial cells from apoptosis and promoted neuronal stem cell recruitment. In vitro, TAT-BH4 enhanced the survival of endothelial cells exposed to H2O2, increased neuronal differentiation, and induced axonal remodelling of adult neuronal stem cells. These findings indicate that TAT-BH4 administration protects against acute hypoxia/ischemia injury in the brain by preventing endothelial and neuron cell apoptosis and by inducing neuronal plasticity.


Some of the most scientifically valuable transiting planets are those that were already known from radial velocity (RV) surveys. This is primarily because their orbits are well characterized and they preferentially orbit bright stars that are the targets of RV surveys. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) provides an opportunity to survey most of the known exoplanet systems in a systematic fashion to detect possible transits of their planets. HD 136352 (Nu2 Lupi) is a naked-eye (V = 5.78) G-type main-sequence star that was discovered to host three planets with orbital periods of 11.6, 27.6, and 108.1 days via RV monitoring with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph. We present the detection and characterization of transits for the two inner planets of the HD 136352 system, revealing radii of R⊕ and R⊕ for planets b and c, respectively. We combine new HARPS observations with RV data from the Keck/High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope, along with TESS photometry from Sector 12, to perform a complete analysis of the system parameters. The combined data analysis results in extracted bulk density values of g cm−3 and g cm−3 for planets b and c, respectively, thus placing them on either side of the radius valley. The combination of the multitransiting planet system, the bright host star, and the diversity of planetary interiors and atmospheres means this will likely become a cornerstone system for atmospheric and orbital characterization of small worlds.


In online shopping quality is a key consideration when purchasing an item. Since customers cannot physically touch or try out an item before buying it, they must assess its quality from information gathered online. In a typical eCommerce setting, the customer is presented with seller-generated content from the product catalog, such as an image of the product, a textual description, and lists or comparisons of attributes. In addition to catalog attributes, customers often have access to customer-generated content such as reviews and product questions and answers. In a crowdsourced study, we asked crowd workers to compare product pairs from kitchen, electronics, home, beauty and office categories. In a side-by-side comparison, we asked them to choose the product that is higher quality, and further to identify the attributes that contributed to their judgment, where the attributes were both seller-generated and customer-generated. We find that customers tend to perceive more expensive items as higher quality but that their purchase decisions are uncorrelated with quality, suggesting that customers seek a trade-off between price and quality when making purchase decisions. Crowd workers placed a higher value on attributes derived from customer-generated content such as reviews than on catalog attributes. Among the catalog attributes, brand, item material and pack size were most often selected. Finally, attributes with a low correlation with perceived quality are nonetheless useful in predicting purchases in a machine-learned system.


Rental scams are a type of advance fee fraud, in which the scammer tries to get a victim to pay a deposit to rent an apartment of which the scammer pretends to be the landlord. We specifically focused on fraudulent long-term rentals advertised in the UK on Craigslist. After a victim responds to the scammer's advertisement, the scammer attempts to persuade them to transfer money without having seen the property. We were interested in which persuasion techniques scammers use, and in assessing their skill at the art of persuasion. During a period of three weeks, we scraped 2112 letting advertisements, identified the fraudulent advertisements and had 44 conversations of around 4 or 5 emails each with the scammers. Our analysis indicates that Cialdini`s marketing-based social persuasion strategies, such as liking, appeal to authority, and the need for commitment and consistency are extensively implemented by rental scammers. Of Stajano and Wilson's scam-based persuasion strategies, an appeal to sympathy (i.e., kindness) and need for greed were commonly used. We identified two further social persuasion strategies: establishing credibility and removing objections. At a superficial level, rental scammers seem skilled at their job, because they mimic genuine landlords and use a range of effective persuasion techniques. However, when examining their emails more closely, we see they often use pre-scripted emails, their mimicry is often incompetent, and they have a lack of language skills and cultural knowledge that may tip people off. They appear to be the criminal equivalent of a boilerhouse sales operation, a modus operandi that has not previously been studied by cybercrime researchers.


In this article, we develop a substantially expanded theory of late merger. Adopting related insights by Fox (2002), we argue that late merger is permitted whenever an output representation can be interpreted in the semantic component. A consequence of our approach is that late merger is available not only for the well-known case of adjuncts, but also for restrictors of determiners (wholesale late merger). We demonstrate that this theory can explain the different reconstruction possibilities of A-movement and -movement, as well as various otherwise puzzling facts about movement and ellipsis, while still maintaining the copy theory of movement.


This paper reports results concerning characterization and improvement of biological quality of beechwood prehydrolysate in order to adapt the Candida Scottii yeast to this nutritive medium. Some difficult aspects caused by the presence of lignin compounds in the prehydrolysate are mentioned. Studies carried out also made it possible to evaluate yeasts as regards the chemical composition and their nutritive value, tested in case of a mixed fodder used for chicken breeding.


Background: Aerobic exercise has shown inconsistent cognitive effects in older adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia. Objective: To examine the immediate and longitudinal effects of 6-month cycling on cognition in older adults with AD dementia. Methods: This randomized controlled trial randomized 96 participants (64 to cycling and 32 to stretching for six months) and followed them for another six months. The intervention was supervised, moderate-intensity cycling for 20–50 minutes, 3 times a week for six months. The control was light-intensity stretching. Cognition was assessed at baseline, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months using the AD Assessment Scale-Cognition (ADAS-Cog). Discrete cognitive domains were measured using the AD Uniform Data Set battery. Results: The participants were 77.4±6.8 years old with 15.6±2.9 years of education, and 55% were male. The 6-month change in ADAS-Cog was 1.0±4.6 (cycling) and 0.1±4.1 (stretching), which were both significantly less than the natural 3.2±6.3-point increase observed naturally with disease progression. The 12-month change was 2.4±5.2 (cycling) and 2.2±5.7 (control). ADAS-Cog did not differ between groups at 6 (p = 0.386) and 12 months (p = 0.856). There were no differences in the 12-month rate of change in ADAS-Cog (0.192 versus 0.197, p = 0.967), memory (–0.012 versus –0.019, p = 0.373), executive function (–0.020 versus –0.012, p = 0.383), attention (–0.035 versus –0.033, p = 0.908), or language (–0.028 versus –0.026, p = 0.756). Conclusion: Exercise may reduce decline in global cognition in older adults with mild-to-moderate AD dementia. Aerobic exercise did not show superior cognitive effects to stretching in our pilot trial, possibly due to the lack of power.


Music technology is a term commonly used to refer to electronic form of the musical arts, particularly devices and computer software that enable the facilitation, playback, recording, composition, storage, and performance of various musical compositions. There has been a growing awareness of the importance of aesthetics in early childhood education, especially for the music technology that offers young children benefits from the implementation of an appropriately complete music technology curriculum in the early childhood educational environment and instruments application. The findings in this paper demonstrate such music courses encourage creativity and foster a sense of cultural understanding and appreciation amongst children in an early education program. In short, with the progress of developmentally appropriated program, this study demonstrates that music technology curriculum is not only valuable, but essential to the early education program for young children.


BACKGROUND
Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APAS) is regarded as the most frequently acquired risk factor for thrombophilia. The obstetric manifestations of APAS include early or late pregnancy losses and complications like preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. Its timely diagnosis and treatment can improve maternal and neonatal outcome.

AIMS
To study the pregnancy outcome of patients with APAS treated with heparin and aspirin.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN
This was a retrospective study of pregnancy outcome in 42 consecutive women with APAS, treated with heparin and aspirin.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The case records of 42 diagnosed cases of APAS with pregnancy, over a 3-year period, were studied. The pregnancy outcome in this group was compared before and after treatment with heparin and low-dose aspirin in terms of abortions, intrauterine deaths and live birth rate. The outcome of the present pregnancy in terms of fetal and maternal complications was analyzed.

RESULTS
The mean age and average parity of women with APAS were 30.1±4.1 years and 3.2±1.2, respectively. Among the treated patients of APAS, 13 (30.9%) had preeclampsia and 9 (21.4%) had intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). There were 2 (4.7%) intrauterine deaths, 4 (9.5%) missed abortions and 3 (7.1%) abruptio placentae. Women with APAS had a live birth rate of 4.6% before treatment and 85.7% in the index pregnancy after treatment.

CONCLUSION
Treatment of pregnant women with APAS results in marked improvement in the live birth rate (4.6-85.7%). However, complications like preeclampsia and IUGR occur even after treatment, requiring strict monitoring and timely delivery.


Stenotrophomonas maltophilia uses the Diffusible Signal Factor (DSF) quorum sensing (QS) system to mediate intra- and inter-specific signaling and regulate virulence-related processes. The components of this system are encoded by the rpf cluster, with genes rpfF and rpfC encoding for the DSF synthase RpfF and sensor RpfC, respectively. Recently, we have shown that there exist two variants of the rpf cluster (rpf-1 and rpf-2), distinguishing two groups of S. maltophilia strains. Surprisingly, only rpf-1 strains produce detectable DSF, correlating with their ability to control biofilm formation, swarming motility and virulence. The evolutive advantage of acquiring two different rpf clusters, the phylogenetic time point and mechanism of this acquisition and the conditions that activate DSF production in rpf-2 strains, are however not known. Examination of this cluster in various species suggests that its variability originated most probably by genetic exchange between rhizosphere bacteria. We propose that rpf-2 variant strains make use of a strategy recently termed as "social cheating." Analysis of cellular and extracellular fatty acids (FAs) of strains E77 (rpf-1) and M30 (rpf-2) suggests that their RpfFs have also a thioesterase activity that facilitates the release of unspecific FAs to the medium in addition to DSF. Production of DSF in rpf-1 strains appears in fact to be modulated by some of these extracellular FAs in addition to other factors such as temperature and nutrients, while in rpf-2 strains DSF biosynthesis is derepressed only upon detection of DSF itself, suggesting that they require cohabitation with DSF-producer bacteria to activate their DSF regulatory machinery. Finally, we show that the mixed rpf-1/rpf-2 population presents synergism in DSF production and virulence capacity in an in vivo infection model. Recovery and quantification of DSF from co-infected animals correlates with the observed mortality rate.


Snake venom is the secretion of a modified gland, thevenom gland and chemically composed of different enzymic and non-enzymic proteins, beside other organic and in-organic substances. The present study is centered around the phospholipases and protein inhibitors from venoms of Horned viper (Cerastas cerastas) and leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni). Most of the present work is carried out on the leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) venom because of the fact that its occurrence is largely limited to the desert areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The aim of this study was two fold; 1. Purification and primary structure determination of venom proteins, an effort to understand their structure, function, relationship and biological effects 2. To interpret intra-and inter-species variations in vipers venom proteins by establishing their sequence homology

The present study has resulted in purification and characterization of one phospholipase A2 from Horned viper (Cerastas cerastas) venom and two phospholipases A2, one trypsin inhibitor and one platelet aggregation inhibitor from leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) venom

Horned viper (Cerastas cerastas) venom phospholipase A2 Phospholipase As has been purification chromatography and reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography. The primary structure has been established by sequence analysis of the intact protein and its Lys-C, Asp-N and Glu-C endoproteases peptides. The structure has 120 amino acid residues, properties like other class IIB phospholipases but only 45-55% identity with the enzyme from other viperid species and large variations even within the species (26% residue differences at known positions in African form). The conserved residues are largely clustered around calcium and catalytic domains. The primary structure also exhibit domains corresponding to anticoagulant effect and myotoxicity

Leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) venom phospholipases A2: Two phospholipase A2 isozymes have been purified from leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) by gel filteration chromatography followed by reverse phase HPLC and cation exchange FPLC. Both isozymes contain 7 pairs of hald-cystine, typical of class II phospholipase A2. Surprisingly large differences, affecting both N-and C-terminal regions, exist between the two isozymes purified from the same snake venom. Exchanges occur at no less than 27 of 121 positions (22%) suggesting the possible existence of two genes for phospholipase A2. The residue identity with the enzymes from other viperid species is also low, only 44-48%, indicating extensive variations of this protein structure at large. Functionally, the present isozymes do not possess the cationic regions ascribed to myotoxicity and anti-cogulant effects of the enzyme

Leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) venom trypsin inhibitor: A kunitz-type trypsin inhibitor has been purified from the venom of leaf nosed viper, (Eristocophis macmahoni). The primary structure is elucidated by sequence analysis of fragments from endoproteases Lys-C and chymotryptic digests. The polypeptide comprises 62 amino acid residues including six half-Cystines and shows a few residues extended C-terminal. Functionally important residues are conserved with the exception of one residue at both main and weak contact sites. The structure is homologous to known kunitz-type inhibitors from snake venoms and other sources, however closest sequence homology was found with the inhibitor from long nosed viper (73% residue identity)

Leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) platelet aggregation inhibitor: Three platelet aggregation inhibitor-type protein have been purified from leaf nosed viper (Eristocophis macmahoni) venom. And the primary structure of major form (Eristocophin) is determined. The Eristocophin is found to contain 62 amino acid residues with 10 half-Cystines. The amino acid sequence of Eristocophin is homologous to other integrin-type proteins characterized from venom of different snake species. It exhibits both RGD-domain and strictly conserved half-Cys residues involved in interaction with integrin receptors Large residue identity is found with other snake venoms platelet aggregation inhibitors. Eristocophin also show residue identity with the RGD-domains of human von willibrand factor and fibronectin A-B


Attemp;ts are being made to use quantum mechanics as a probe to unravel the mysteries of consciousness. This paper examines this probe, quantum mechanics and its usefulness in getting an insight of working of human consciousness. The formation of quantum mechanics based on certain axioms, its development to study the dynamical behavior and motions of fundamental particles and quantum energy particles moving with the velocity of light, its insistence on wave functions, its probability approach, its dependence on uncertainty principles will all be critically discussed. The result of this discussion will be presented. Its limitations in unraveling the form, function and biological nature of consciousness will be presented. The alternative probe available and being used - the translation of Upanishadic insight and Advaita philosophy into cognitive science elements in delineating the definition, form and function of Consciousness will be given. The usefulness of this modeling and analysis in understanding the consciousness, mind and its functions in cognitive science and theory of human language acquisition and communication will also be presented. The physic-chemical nature of ideas, senses, thoughts, feelings, utterances will be grossly dealt with. The functions of consciousness and mind, in knowledge and language acquisition and communication will be dealt with. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */
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Background. In selecting medical students for medical school, there is interest in predictors other than examination scores. This is motivated by the concern that the selection processes, mainly based on academic attainment, appear to disadvantage some applicants. There is increasing recognition that empathy and communicating skills are important for doctors.
Aims. To assess empathy levels in final-year medical students in Johannesburg and to examine the psychometrics of the student version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE-S).
Methods. Empathy level was assessed in 158 final-year medical students using the JSPE-S at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School in 2008. Gender, age and prior degree/s were used as confounders.
Results. The mean empathy score in final-year medical students was 107 (standard deviation (SD) 10.9). The mean empathy score was higher in 95 female students than in 63 male students (109 SD 9.8 v. 104 SD 12) (t=2.51; p<0.013). The inter-item score correlations were positive and statistically significant. Cronbach's coefficient alpha was 0.79. Factor analysis using principal component analysis identified three factors that are generally consistent with the grand conceptual aspects of the notion of empathy in the JSPE-S (viz. perspective taking, compassionate care and standing in the patient's shoes).
Conclusion. The results indicate that the mean empathy scores and psychometrics of the JSPE-S among final-year medical students in Johannesburg, South Africa are similar to studies published among students in America and Europe and that the scores are higher than those published in studies of students in Asia.


Analytical Methods for Social Research presents texts on empirical and formal methods for the social sciences. Volumes in the series address both the theoretical underpinnings of analytical techniques as well as their application in social research. Some series volumes are broad in scope, cutting across a number of disciplines. Others focus mainly on methodological applications within specific fields such as political science, sociology, demography, and public health. The series serves a mix of students and researchers in the social sciences and statistics.


Within the special geometry of the simplex, the sample space of compositional data, compositional orthonormal coordinates allow the application of any multivariate statistical approach. The search for meaningful coordinates has suggested balances (between two groups of parts)—based on a sequential binary partition of a D-part composition—and a representation in form of a CoDa-dendrogram. Projected samples are represented in a dendrogram-like graph showing: (a) the way of grouping parts; (b) the explanatory role of subcompositions generated in the partition process; (c) the decomposition of the variance; (d) the center and quantiles of each balance. The representation is useful for the interpretation of balances and to describe the sample in a single diagram independently of the number of parts. Also, samples of two or more populations, as well as several samples from the same population, can be represented in the same graph, as long as they have the same parts registered. The approach is illustrated with an example of food consumption in Europe.


The host's hormonal environment determines the susceptibility, the course, and severity of several parasite infections. In most cases the infection disturbs the host environment, and activates immune responses that end up affecting the endocrine system. In the other hand, a number of reports indicate that parasites have reproductive systems, and some others have shown that these organisms synthetize sex steroid hormones. We have shown that cysticerci, the larval stage of Taenia solium and Taenia crassiceps ORF and WFU, synthesize steroid hormones. This capacity was modified by drugs that act inhibiting the steroid synthesizing enzymes, or blocking the parasite's hormone receptors. We have also shown that the cysticerci of T. crassiceps WFU and T. solium have the capacity to synthesize corticosteroids as deoxicorticosterone and corticosterone. We also reviewed the effects of insulin on these parasites, and the receptors found for this hormone. A deep knowledge of the parasite's endocrine properties will contribute to understand their reproduction and the reciprocal interactions with the host. Likewise, may also help designing tools to combat the infection in clinical situations.


The prevalence and the incidence are two primary epidemiological parameters in infectious disease modelling. The incidence is also closely related to the force of infection or the hazard of infection in survival analysis terms. The two measures carry the same information about a disease because they measure the rate at which new infections occur. The disease prevalence gives the proportion of infected individuals in the population at a given time, while the incidence is the rate of new infections. The thesis discusses methods for estimating HIV prevalence, incidence rates and the force of infection, against age and time, using cross-sectional seroprevalence data for pregnant women attending antenatal clinics. The data was collected on women aged 12 to 47 in rural KwaZulu-Natal for each of the years 2001 to 2006. The generalized linear model for binomial response is used extensively. First the logistic regression model is used to estimate annual HIV prevalence by age. It was found that the estimated prevalence for each year increases with age, to peaks of between 36% and 57% in the mid to late twenties, before declining steadily toward the forties. Fitted prevalence for 2001 is lower than for the other years across all ages. Several models for estimating the force of infection are discussed and applied. The fitted force of infection rises with age to a peak of 0.074 at age 15, and then decreases toward higher ages. The force of infection measures the potential risk of infection per individual per unit time. A proportional hazards model of the age to infection is applied to the data, and shows that additional variables such as partner's age and the number of previous pregnancies do have a significant effect on the infection hazard. Studies for estimating incidence from multiple prevalence surveys are reviewed. The relative inclusion rate (RIR), accounting for the fact that the probability of inclusion in a prevalence sample depends on the individual's HIV status, and its role in incidence estimation is discussed as a possible future approach of extending the current work.


In the current trend of increasing globalization, relationships are evolving between global and local realities, rich and poor regions of the world and 'old' and 'new' leisure and tourism patterns. The tourist has become an active agent in their travel experiences, moving between and among multiple localities, in an environment of transnational, interconnected social networks.
In order to understand the modern tourist, concepts of mobility have begun to be applied to tourism studies and have questioned whether the word tourism is any longer sufficient to describe the complex socio-political milieu of people on the move. Bringing together theoretical and practical issues, this edited volume analyses tourism's wider role as an agent for the mobile modern population of the world. Themes range from post-modern youth and independent mobility to theoretical texts on hypermobility and citizenship within global space and mobility, media and citizenship. Offering a thought-provoking examination of modern tourism, this will be an important text for students of tourism and human geography as well as tourism professionals.


Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) developed for thin film (TF) Si:Hbased materials resulted in large area thin film PV cells on glass and flexible substrates. However, these TF cells demonstrate low power conversion efficiency PCE = 11% for double and PCE = 13% for triple junction cells below predicted PCE ≈ 24%. PV cells on crystalline silicon (c-Si) provide PCE ≈ 17–19%. Cost of c-Si PV cells lowered continuously due to reducing price of silicon wafers and enlarging their size. Two factors stimulated a combination of PECVD films and c-Si devices: (a) compatibility of the technologies and (b) possibility for variation of electronic properties in PECVD materials. The latter results in additional build-in electric fields improving charge collection and harvesting solar spectrum. We describe a transformation of PECVD TF solar cell technology for 11% efficiency modules to heterojunction technology (HJT) c-Si modules with 23% efficiency. HJT PV structure comprises c-Si wafer with additional junctions created by PECVD deposited layers allowing development of single wafer PV cells with PCE ≈ 24% and the size limited by wafer (15.6 x 15.6 cm2). The chapter starts with background in PECVD and c-Si PV cells. Then, in Section 2, we describe electronic properties of PECVD materials in HJT PV structures. Section 3 deals with structure and fabrication process for HJT devices. In Section 4, we present and discuss performance characteristics of the devices. Section 5 describes implementation of the developed HJT module (1600 x 1000 mm2) based on HJT single wafer cells in industry with presentation and discussion of characteristics related to industrial production. Finally, Section 6 presents the outlook and summary of the chapter.


Abstract. Observed variations of the atmospheric greenhouse gas methane (CH4) over the past two decades remain the subject of debate. These variations reflect changes in emission, uptake, and atmospheric chemistry and transport. We isolate changes in the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CH4 using a wavelet transform. We report a previously undocumented persistent decrease in the peak-to-peak amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CH4 at six out of seven high northern latitude sites over the past two to three decades. The observed amplitude changes are statistically significant for sites at Barrow, Alaska and Ocean Station M, Norway, which we find are the most sensitive of our sites to high northern latitude wetland emissions. We find using a series of numerical experiments using the TM5 atmospheric chemistry transport model that increasing wetland emissions and/or decreasing fossil fuel emissions can explain these observed changes, but no significant role for trends in meteorology and tropical wetlands. We also find no evidence in past studies to support a significant role for variations in the hydroxyl radical sink of atmospheric CH4. Using the TM5 model we find that changes in fossil fuel emissions of CH4, described by a conservative state-of-the-science bottom-up emission inventory, are not sufficient to reconcile observed changes in atmospheric CH4 at these sites. The remainder of the observed trend in amplitude, by process of elimination, must be due to an increase in high northern latitude wetland emissions, corresponding to an annual increase of at least 0.7 %/yr (equivalent to 5 Tg CH4/yr over 30 years).


This book critically addresses the potential of the liberal concept of collective security to provide a solution to conflict in East Asia, with a focus on the Korean peninsula.