All educators have a responsibility to create and sustain a stream of memory of the horror of war that carries from generation to generation, Mr. Mayer reminds us. DURING MUCH of 1996, I had the good fortune of living in Japan and working on a project in global education. While there, I visited Hiroshima several times. To help me understand the Japanese thinking about Hiroshima, a Japanese colleague suggested that I read Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.1 Visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Park is an experience that educators of every nationality should have. Seeing firsthand the results of modern warfare is unforgettable. Coupled with reading Japanese literature relating to the Hiroshima bombing, that experience helps immeasurably to understand postwar Japan, but it also holds dramatic lessons for what we teach the world's children about war, especially 'modern' war. Those of us in the West seem to have forgotten the need to impart the knowledge of the results of modern warfare ' and especially nuclear war ' to our schoolchildren. When I was in high school, just after the end of World War II and at the height of the Cold War, we learned about the nature of the A-bomb and its destructiveness to humans and the biosphere. This subject should be a responsibility of teachers at various levels and in several areas of the curriculum. Unfortunately, very little seems to be done in school curricula these days with regard to modern warfare, especially the impact of radiation on human and animal life. Nuclear War in American And Japanese Science Texts Just to be certain that I was correct in my assumption and because I am a science educator, I examined eight popular American high school science textbooks for any information they presented on nuclear radiation and the effect of its use in World War II. (For a list of the texts, write me at 111 W. Dominion Blvd., Columbus, OH 43214, or e-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com.) Two were high school physics textbooks. Conceptual Physics, written by Phil Hewitt and published by Addison-Wesley, devoted a page to a discussion of the development and use of the A-bomb during World War II. It included a reference to Hiroshima. In a different section, the text made a general reference to the biological effects of certain kinds of radiation. This is the only one of the eight books that devoted a significant amount of space to World War II and the use of the atomic bomb. I also examined three high school chemistry books, one high school biology book, and two physical science books (used in the ninth grade). The biology book had no information on radiation at all. The others ranged from a general discussion of nuclear radiation and its uses in medicine to an occasional picture of a test explosion of the hydrogen bomb. Two did mention the Manhattan Project ' but only in a sidebar or on an incidental time line of the development of nuclear energy. The only exception to this almost complete lack of information was found in one chemistry book, Chemistry in the Community, published by the American Chemical Society. It had a single sentence mentioning the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, but again it offered no information on the potential effects of the use of nuclear weapons. None of these books contained any reference to the possibility of nuclear winter in the event of an all-out nuclear war. It appears that science texts present very little information to American schoolchildren regarding nuclear war. Surely, I thought, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this would not be true of Japanese science textbooks. I was truly surprised, therefore, that a popular Japanese text for high school biology contained no reference whatsoever to the effects of nuclear radiation on organisms, much less on humans. Two Japanese physics texts contained very brief descriptions of nuclear energy near the end of the book. The sole reference to biological effects that I was able to find was the use of radiation in health services. …


Aims: New injection drug users (IDUs) are vulnerable to hepatitis C infection from risky injection practices. This article considers the range of hepatits C virus (HCV) knowledge among participants in a 2-year study examining the behaviours of new IDUs. Methods: Respondents (n = 36) were members of a cohort of new IDUs recruited in the New York City metropolitan area whose first injection occurred within the previous 18 months. Respondents were offered human immuno virus (HIV), hepatits B virus (HBV) and HCV testing. Two tested HIV positive and 12 tested HCV positive. During pre-test counselling they completed a qualitative interview focusing on aspects of HCV including: transmission, symptoms, long-term effects, prevention, treatment, concern regarding contracting HCV and how this concern impacted drug use and injection practices. Findings: Substantial gaps were seen in HCV knowledge. While respondents were aware that HCV is a blood-borne virus, the majority had only approximate knowledge regarding transmission, symptoms and effects. Respondents reported little discussion of HCV with peers and minimal concern about contracting HCV, especially compared with HIV. Conclusion: Accurate HCV information is failing to reach new IDUs, and new IDUs may not value the little information they do receive. More effective and innovative efforts are required to disseminate effective HCV prevention information to new IDUs.


This issue of Applied Optics features 16 papers related to the fabrication, design, and application of diffractive and micro-optical elements. A companion feature in the Journal of the Optical Society of America A [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 16(5), 1091 (1999)] includes papers on the modeling of diffractive elements.


Abstract Estimating plutonium (Pu) mass in spent nuclear fuel assemblies (SFAs) helps inspectors ensure that no Pu is diverted. Therefore, nondestructive assay (NDA) methods are being developed to assay Pu mass in SFAs. Uncertainty quantification is an important task in most assay methods, and particularly for SFA assay. A computer model (MCNPX) is being used to predict isotope masses and the spatial distribution of masses in virtual SFAs for 64 combinations of initial fuel enrichment (IE), fuel utilization [burnup (BU)], and cooling time (CT) values. Additional MCNPX modeling for the same 64 virtual SFAs provided the expected detector responses (DRs) for several NDA techniques such as the passive neutron albedo reactivity method and the 252Cf interrogation with prompt neutrons method. A previous paper describes one uncertainty quantification approach involving Monte Carlo (MC) simulation using individually any of six new NDA options together with IE, BU, and CT. This paper provides an interpretation of the MC approach that is suited for a numerical Bayesian alternative, separately assesses the impact of MCNPX interpolation error, and compares several options to use subsets of IE, BU, CT, and one DR.


Perpetually evolving divergent trading strategies is the natural consequence of a market with idiosyncratic private information. In the face of intrinsic uncertainty about other traders' strategies, participants resort to learning and adaptation to identify and exploit profitable trading opportunities. Model-consistent use of market-based information generally improves price performance but can inadvertently produce episodes of sudden mispricing. The paper examines the impact of trader's use of information and bounded rationality on price efficiency.


A prototype capable of generating underwater high-voltage discharges (3.5 kV) coupled with water plasma expansion was constructed. The level of phytomass disintegration caused by transmission of the pressure shockwaves (50-60 MPa) followed by this expansion was analyzed using gas adsorption techniques. The dynamics of the external surface area and the micropore volume on multiple pretreatment stages of maize silage and sunflower seeds was approximated with robust analytical techniques. The multiple increases on the reaction surface were manifest in up to a 15% increase in cumulative methane production, which was itself manifest in the overall acceleration of the anaerobic fermentation process. Disintegration of the sunflower seeds allowed up to 45% higher oil yields using the same operating pressure.


The numerous advantages of participation in physical activities (physical exercise) are: increased efficiency of heart and lungs; increased muscle strength and endurance; maintenance of proper body weight; and reduction of risk of coronary heart diseases.  The study was conducted to ascertain students' knowledge of the effects of physical activities on their health as well as their level of participation in physical activities, for the purpose of achieving optimum level of health (wellness) in the new millennium.  A total of three hundred (300) students randomly selected from the three campuses of tertiary institutions in Calabar served as subjects of the study. Three research questions were generated to guide the study.  A well structured and validated questionnaire was used to gather information from the subjects.  The study revealed that most of the subjects of the study (96%) displayed high knowledge of the effects of physical activities on human health. Level of participation in physical activities was found low, probable reasons deduced for poor level of participation were enumerated, while suggestions were made on how to raise level of participation in physical activities with the aim of using same to achieve good health/optimum level of well being in the new millennium.

 Key words: Physical activities, university students, utilization, good health.


Kusan Hulu Sub-district is one of filariasis endemic areas in Tanah Bumbu District of South Kalimantan Province which has implemented partial Mass Drug Administration (MDA) filariasis program starting in 2012 and simultaneously in all area of Tanah Bumbu District starting in 2015. This study aims to determine endemicity filariasis after the first MDA in 2015 in Kusan Hulu Sub-district by conducting a finger blood survey to determine microfilaria rate and know the type of microfilariae. The design of this study was cross sectional. The study was conducted in Kusan Hulu sub-district from March to November 2015. The results of the finger blood survey showed a mf rate of 0.4% of the 500 population. The type of microfilariae found was Brugia malayi. Both positive patients were of male sex with age> 45 years. There was a decrease in mf rate in Kusan Hulu Sub-district from before MDA compared to after the first MDA was conducted from 12.37% in 2008, and 0.91% in 2011 to 0.4% in 2015, so the area became nonendemic (mf rate <1%).


This article explores the significance of the current year in the evolution of the world economy. In 2014, it is for the first time after six difficult years when we can discuss about the post‐crisis world. From this point of view, 2014 is a turning point in the evolution of the post‐crisis world. This year the start of a genuine economic recovery will take place, according to current forecasts. In 2014, the average GDP growth for advanced economies will be 2.2% compared to 1.6 in 2013. The process of recovery is more pregnant in the United States and in the United Kingdom. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that the eurozone will experience a positive evolution after several years of negative growth. Let us not forget that the emerging world will experience a growth pace twice as big as that of the developed world. China is forecast to achieve 7.5% growth this year. Developing Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa are expected to lead the way as usual. In aggregate, the growth of emerging economies is forecast at 5.1% this year, up from 4.7% in 2013. This will diminish the gap between the developed world and the emerging world, respectively.


Six strains of white-rot fungi isolated from southern Chile were evaluated for their ergosterol/biomass correlation and ligninolytic potential in solid medium to formulate pellets for Reactive Orange 165 (RO165) decolourization. The fungus Anthracophyllum discolor was selected to formulate complex pellets (fungal mycelium, sawdust, and activated carbon), coated pellets (complex pellet + alginate) and simple pellets (fungal mycelium). The activity of ligninolytic enzymes (laccase, manganese peroxidase, manganese-independent peroxidase, and lignin peroxidase) was evaluated in both the complex and coated pellets in modified Kirk medium, and the morphology of the pellets was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Complex pellets of A. discolor showed a higher enzymatic production mainly MnP (38 U L-1 at day 15) compared to coated and simple pellets. Examinations using SEM showed that both pellets produced a black core that was entrapped by a layer of fungal mycelium. Decolourization of RO165 was demonstrated with all the pellets formulated. However, the highest and fastest decolourization was obtained with complex pellets (100% at day 8). Therefore, complex pellets of A. discolor can be used for the biological treatment of wastewater contaminated with RO165.


While self-mixing interferometry(SMI) has proven to be suitable for displacement measurement and other sensing applications, its characteristic self-mixing signal shape is strongly governed by the non-linear phase equation which forms relation between perturbed and unperturbed phase of self-mixing laser. Therefore, while it is desirable for robust estimation of displacement of moving target, the algorithms to achieve this must have an objective strategy that can be achieved by understanding the characteristic of extracting knowledge of the perturbed phase from the unperturbed phase. Therefore, it has been proved and shown that such a strategy must not involve sole methods where the perturbed phase is a continuous function of the unperturbed phase (e.g: Taylor series or fixed-point methods) or through successive displacements (e.g: variations of Gauss-Seidel method). The subset of this strategy is to perform spectral filtering of the perturbed phase followed by perturbative or homotopic deformation. A less computationally expensive approach of this strategy is adopted to achieve displacement with a mean error of 62.2nm covering all feedback regimes, when the coupling factor 'C' is unknown.


The nuclear negotiations between Iran and EU3+3 have provided the grounds for establishing direct talks between Iran and the United States, subsequently creating a positive prospect for solving the Iranian nuclear standoff after a decade of negotiations. The effect of economic sanctions and political change in Iran have made it possible to bring an important foreign policy issue into domestic politics discourses. The fact that the nuclear negotiations put Iran in a position comparable to the other world powers strengthened a sense of movement towards a win-win situation among Iranian political forces. All of this created a relative political consensus among Iran's ruling elites regarding the need to initiate direct talks with the United States in order to solve the Iranian nuclear standoff. The nuclear programme is also linked with the regional equation, the result of which has been the emergence of a new kind pragmatism in the conduct of Iranian regional policy in hope of revising Iran's place in US Middle East policy.


Chromatin Quality as a Crucial Factor for the Success of Fluorescent in Situ Hybridization Analyses of Unfertilized Oocytes, Polar Bodies and Arrested Zygotes Material that is supernumerary or unsuitable for in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures is used for basic and for IVF-related research. Despite the disadvantages of such cells, they have contributed much to our understanding of the mechanisms and prevalence of different abnormalities. Fifty-four human unfertilized oocytes, 34 arrested bipronuclear zygotes and 15 polar bodies were fixed for analysis on the third day after in vitro insemination and were subjected to fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with probes for chromosomes 18, 21, X and Y (centromere for 18, X, Y and locus-specific for 21). The aim of the study was the comparison of FISH efficiency in differently condensed chromatin. The success of FISH analysis was over 60% of analyzed cells and it was dependent on the chromatin changes (condensation and/or fragmentation) during the culture period before cell fixation. Chromatin ageing was the crucial factor for the reduced success of FISH in both oocyte chromosomes (60.0%) and pronuclei (61.76%). The chromatin of second polar bodies (PBII), and premature chromosome condensation (PCC) of the sperm chromatin in oocytes was more suitable for FISH analysis (FISH success 75.0% in PBII and 64.29% in PCC) with both centromere and locus-specific probes. These results revealed the significance of early signs of in vitro cell ageing for the success of FISH analysis and for the interpretation of results in case of analysis of unfertilized human ova, polar bodies and arrested zygotes.


In an increasingly globalising market, innovation is an important strategic tool for micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to achieve competitive advantage (Avermaete et al., 2004a; Gellynck et al., 2007; Murphy, 2002). Innovation can be defined as an ongoing process of learning, searching and exploring resulting in new products, new techniques, new forms of organization and new markets (Lundvall, 1995). Innovation is a continuous process characterised by three steps: efforts, activities and results. Efforts are all resources, such as human and financial resources, a firm is investing in activities for the development of innovations. Results are the effects of these innovation activities on tangible (e.g. growth of market share, profit) as well as less tangible aspects (e.g. firm stability, efficiency) (Gellynck et al., 2006). Consequently, the measurement of innovation competences captures also the progress in developing an innovation and not only the result, such as the successful implementation of innovation (Gellynck et al., 2007).


This paper seeks to analyze the nature of the terrorist threat following 9/11, and to explore the implications for defense R&D policy. First it reviews the defining trends of defense R&D since the cold war, and brings in pertinent empirical evidence: The US accumulated during the 1990s a defense R&D stock 10 times larger than any other country, and almost 30 times larger than Russia. Big weapon systems, key during the cold war but of dubious significance since then still figure prominently, commanding 30% of current defense R&D spending, vis a vis just about 13% for intelligence and antiterrorism. The second part of the paper examines the nature of the terrorist threat, focusing on the role of uncertainty, the lack of deterrence, and the extent to which security against terrorism is (still) a public good. I develop for that purpose a simple model of terrorism, cast in a nested discrete choice framework. Two strategies are considered: fighting terrorism at its source, and protecting individual targets, which entails a negative externality. Contrary to the traditional case of national defense, security against terrorism becomes a mixed private/public good. A key result of the model is that the government should spend enough on fighting terrorism at its source, so as to nullify the incentives of private targets to invest in their own security. Intelligence emerges as the key aspect of the war against terrorism and, accordingly, R&D aimed at providing advanced technological means for intelligence is viewed as the cornerstone of defense R&D. This entails developing computerized sensory interfaces, and increasing the ability to analyze vast amounts of data. Both have direct civilian applications, and therefore the required R&D is mostly dual use'. Indeed, there is already a private market for these systems, with a large number of players. R&D programs designed to preserve this diversity and to encourage further competition may prove beneficial both for the required R&D, and for the economy at large.


In production planning and control, decision support has to face the special properties of production processes and systems. To find an optimal solution for decision problems in this domain is usually np-hard and a proper definition of objective functions and constraints is extremely difficult. One reason for the problem of proper model definition for classical optimization methods is the individual character of production systems. Thus, in many cases only individual solutions for PPC offer satisfying results. In this paper, we introduce a framework for efficient implementation of PPC tools in serial manufacturing.


The rise of entrepreneurship has led to the development of small businesses. These developments have also been witnessed in low resource areas. As a result, the continuous increase of small business creates stiff competition among businesses. Some entrepreneurs have opted to utilise ICTs to improve their businesses. The use of ICTs has enabled the application of e-business services such as e-commerce, emarketing and online negotiation. In this paper we used the rural entrepreneurs as the case study. The main challenge that these entrepreneurs face is to reach the customers and sell widely. An online business platform is developed to satisfy the needs of the entrepreneurs. The proposed application offers the following functionalities: shop owners to upload products online, customers to get points for buying online and to negotiate by making offers online. The paper presents a step by step process of setting up an online platform. The paper educates the existing and emerging entrepreneurs on the online marketing technical process and functionalities.


Benchmarking has been used as a tool, a methodology and a technique for continuous improvements in sectoral operations to gain and maintain competitive advantage. This was a survey of benchmarking practices in higher education in Kenya, the case of public universities, whose objectives were; to document the benchmarking activities in the public universities; to establish the challenges facing the public universities in benchmarking. Cross sectional survey was used in this study to collect data from the six public universities with their respective campuses/schools in the population of interest. The respondents were senior administrators and the academic staff. Of the 53 informants who were sampled, 31 responded, thus, a response rate was of 58 percent. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze and summarize the data before presenting it in the form of proportions, means, tables and graphs. This was in line with the first and second objectives, which were actually answered in relation to the benchmarking practices in the academic function of public universities in Kenya. The study found out that continuous improvement systems in Kenyan public universities are good, not excellent. The external drivers of change/continuous improvements in public universities are the customers/students as opposed to legislation, while the major internal trigger of change is the actual performance. The public universities effectively and successfully benchmark for continuous improvement. The Kenyan public universities use action research and performance indicators as the sources of referencing information on benchmarks. The most common type of benchmarking in use is development/improvement benchmarking and planning to make use of international benchmarking. Finally, the three critical factors that have influenced the success of benchmarking practices are: time and resource availability: limited duration, comparability and compatibility, which are reasons why the institutions don't practice international benchmarking.


High speed CPUs and electronic chips usually dissipate relatively large quantities of energy in the form of heat. The limited available cooling space requires innovative and efficient thermal management techniques. These techniques must accomplish low operation temperatures along with uniform temperature distribution over the chip surface. Recently, several researches focused on developing different microchannel heat sink (MCHS) designs for this purpose. Among these designs is the double layer microchannel heat sink (DL-MCHS), which can be operated in either parallel flow (PF) or counter flow (CF) operation modes. The thermo-hydraulic characteristics of this heat sink was comprehensively investigated in the literature using numerical methods. However, based on the authors literature survey, all the previous numerical investigations considered the computational domain as a straight section with multi-channels in each layer. This approach assumes a uniform velocity for all the flow channels in each layer and neglect the effect of the inlet and outlet headers. In addition, the heat interaction between the coolant in both layers through the header section was not considered. These assumptions cause a considerable discrepancy between the numerical results in the literature and the realistic conditions. Therefore, in this work, a detailed 3D conjugate heat transfer model is developed. In this 3D model, DL-MCHS is designed with and without headers. The designed heat sinks are operated under PF and CF conditions. For a specific electronic chip with dimensions of 13 mm × 40 mm at a heat flux of 5 kW/m2. The model is validated with the experimental results in the literature. It is found that, including the header design in the simulation of the DL-MCHS must be considered in the simulation to predict the accurate thermo-hydraulic performance of the DL-MCHS specially in the CF. Further, using the DL-MCHS in PF operation accomplished a lower average chip temperature compared with the CF. Furthermore, at high coolant flowrate, neglecting the effect of the header in the CFD calculations can be approximated to predict the chip surface temperature. And finally, neglecting the header in the CFD calculations significantly affect the calculated pumping power for both PF and CF operated DL-MCHS.


This paper sheds light on the distinctive nature of entrepreneurial-oriented behaviours in news media firms by: (1) reconsidering conceptualisations of exploitation and exploration in the industry in order to provide further clarity to Organisational Ambidexterity (OA) measures; (2) offering a multidimensional construct for success of innovations that combines both objective and perceptual measures to allow direct comparisons; (3) drawing on data from a longitudinal study into the decision making of news media executives worldwide that provides historical and industry contexts; and (4) testing whether there are significant differences between the OA priorities of leaders at firms that report successes versus those who report poor performances. The investigation draws on the statistical analysis of original data collected from 1438 individuals in 107 countries. Though the results are based on a large sample, there still are limitations to the research, since the sample was self-selected, and the analysis methodology cross-sectional. However, objectivity was ensured through rigorous quantitative analysis, based upon strict significance testing. This study provides alternative definitions of exploitation and exploration and tests the relationships between them and the performance of news media firms. In so doing, it answers both the specific appeal for greater clarity of OA measures, as well as calls to test and expand existing theory in various contexts, and to develop theory that is directly pertinent to media management science.


This paper consists in a systematic review of the literature concerning the measurement of coping in athletes, based on the identification of the related instruments developed and adapted to the sporting context and their psychometric properties. Therefore, were explored the databases Scopus, Web of Science, PsycInfo, Scielo and Virtual Health Library to promote a systematization of the survey of articles published between 2008 and 2017. Thus, 65 empirical articles were identified with measuring instruments of the coping construct in sports, with an emphasis on competitive situations. Among this, 65 identified instruments, 10 were developed and adapted specially for athletes and presented good psychometric properties that ensured accuracy and reliability. It is imperative to highlight the need to expand the number of longitudinal and qualitative studies on coping in sports, as well as the development of instruments.


Prior studies have found that television and movie portrayals of science and agriculture can influence attitudes and opinions toward the featured topic or issue. The prevalence of media in modern society emphasizes the need to better understand the possible impact representations of agriculture in entertainment media have on audience members' attitudes. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence two agricultural documentaries (Food, Inc. and King Corn) had on students' perceptions of agriculture. Students enrolled in two agricultural communications classes at a southwest university watched one documentary per class, and through reflective journaling, recorded their thoughts about the documentaries. These journals were then analyzed to determine dominant themes and key quotes. Overall, students stated they were upset and offended by the messages presented and sources used in each documentary. Although some students found both documentaries to contain interesting information, for the most part, they found the films to be one-sided and did not portray an accurate depiction of modern agricultural practices. The use of reflective journaling was effective because it allowed all students to provide their viewpoints in response to the films. It also allowed the students to practice writing response statements as some will work in public relations and may be expected to defend their industry should other negative documentaries about agriculture be produced in the future. Additional research should further examine the effectiveness of reflective journaling and gather student perceptions to other films or television shows that feature agriculture. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This research is available in Journal of Applied Communications: http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol95/iss3/8 Reearch Re se ar ch Postsecondary Students' Reactions to Agricultural Documentaries: A Qualitative Analysis Courtney Meyers, Erica Irlbeck, and Kelsey Fletcher


Research summary>: We take a microfoundational approach to understanding the origin of heterogeneity in firms' capacity to adapt to technological change. We develop a computational model of individual‐level learning in an organizational setting characterized by interdependence and ambiguity. The model leads to organizational outcomes with the canonical properties of routines: constancy, efficacy, and organizational memory. At the same time, the process generating these outcomes also produces heterogeneity in firms' adaptive capacity to different types of technological change. An implication is that exploration policy in the formative period of routine development can influence a firm's capacity to adapt to change in maturity. This points to a host of strategic trade‐offs, not only between performance and adaptive capacity, but also between adaptive capacities to different forms of change. Managerial summary: Why are firms differentially effective at adapting to technological change? We argue that firms differ in the adaptive capacity of the routines that underlie their capabilities. These differences arise well before change occurs, and result because firms build routines that are differentially responsive to signals of performance decline associated with technological change. Thus, early managerial efforts to build superior productive efficiency must be complemented by efforts to build superior adaptive capacity. Our theory suggests that managers can prepare for technological change by implementing policies, in the formative period of organizational development, that promote individuals' exploration of novel actions. However, there are trade‐offs because preparation aimed at building adaptive capacity to one type of technological change may limit adaptive capacity to other types of change. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The issue of global warming has become a major topic in the international environmental debate. Alternative climate policy measures can be evaluated with the help of a simulation model that integrates economic and natural science considerations. A fully integrated assessment of the two-way relationship between the world economy and the climate system requires the incorporation of the repercussions of climate change on economic processes into the analysis. This paper seeks to review the contributions of the economic literature dealing with the modelling of climate change impacts. We look at the structure, assumptions, and results of impact studies to illustrate how climate change impacts can be incorporated into Computable General Equilibrium Models (CGEs). As a point of reference a generic general equilibrium model is established and extended to incorporate climate change impacts on the economy.


Global food security increasingly relies on the trade of food commodities. Freshwater resources are essential to agricultural production and are thus embodied in the trade of food commodities, referred to as "virtual water trade." Agricultural production predominantly relies on rainwater (i.e., "green water"), though irrigation (i.e., "blue water") does play an important role. These different sources of water have distinctly different opportunity costs, which may be reflected in the way these resources are traded. Thus, the temporal dynamics of the virtual water trade networks from these distinct water sources require characterization. We find that 42 × 109 m3 blue and 310 × 109 m3 green water was traded in 1986, growing to 78 × 109 m3 blue and 594 × 109 m3 green water traded in 2008. Three nations dominate the export of green water resources: the USA, Argentina, and Brazil. As a country increases its export trade partners it tends to export relatively more blue water. However, as a country increases its import trade partners it does not preferentially import water from a specific source. The amount of virtual water that a country imports by increasing its import trade partners has been decreasing over time, with the exception of the soy trade. Both blue and green virtual water networks are efficient: 119 × 109 m3 blue and 105 × 109 m3 green water were saved in 2008. Importantly, trade has been increasingly saving water over time, due to the intensification of crop trade on more water‐efficient links.


Client applications submit streams of relational queries to database servers. For simple requests, inter-process communication costs account for a significant portion of user-perceived latency. This trend increases with faster processors, larger memory sizes, and improved database execution algorithms, and this trend is not significantly offset by improvements in communication bandwidth.
Caching and prefetching are well studied approaches to reducing user-perceived latency. Caching is useful in many applications, but it does not help if future requests rarely match previous requests. Prefetching can help in this situation, but only if we are able to predict future requests. This prediction is complicated in the case of relational queries by the presence of request parameters: a prefetching algorithm must predict not only a query that will be executed in the future, but also the actual parameter values that will be supplied.
We have found that, for many applications, the streams of submitted queries contain patterns that can be used to predict future requests. Further, there are correlations between results of earlier requests and actual parameter values used in future requests. We present the Scalpel system, a prototype implementation that detects these patterns of queries and optimizes request streams using context-based predictions of future requests.
Scalpel uses its predictions to provide a form of semantic prefetching, which involves combining a predicted series of requests into a single request that can be issued immediately. Scalpel's semantic prefetching reduces not only the latency experienced by the application but also the total cost of query evaluation. We describe how Scalpel learns to predict optimizable request patterns by observing the application's request stream during a training phase. We also describe the types of query pattern rewrites that Scalpel's cost-based optimizer considers. Finally, we present empirical results that show the costs and benefits of Scalpel's optimizations.
We have found that even when an application is well suited for its original configuration, it may behave poorly when moving to a new configuration such as a wireless network. The optimizations performed by Scalpel take the current configuration into account, allowing it to select strategies that give good performance in a wider range of configurations.


Purpose : Nanophotoswitches (NPSs) offer a new tool for optical stimulation of neuronal activity, in vitro and potentially in vivo. Our group previously reported a ruthenium bipyridine-based NPS (Rubpy-C17) that, after injection into the eyes of photoreceptor degenerated blind rats, elicited electrical activity in the contralateral superior colliculus upon light exposure. Compared with the ruthenium complexes, the family of iridium complexes has been more widely used in clinics, owing to its biosafety profile. We have thus synthesized and tested Irbpy-C17, an analog of Rubpy-C17 with the ruthenium core replaced by iridium.

Methods : Rubpy molecules can be visualized by their luminescence upon visible wavelength illumination. To examine membrane incorporation, fluorescence imaging of HEK cells was obtained after incubation with Irbpy-C17. Activity of Irbpy-C17 was studied by MEA recording from wholemount retina after intravitreal injection. The test molecules were administered into the vitreous of blind RCS rats at the concentration of 200 µM. Animals were kept in dark after injection until the surgical dissection of retina. Acutely isolated retina was mounted on the MEA with the ganglion cell layer facing down to capture the spiking activity in response to light stimuli.

Results : Irbpy-C17 exhibited good membrane incorporation similar to that of Rubpy-C17. Interestingly, despite that Irbpy-C17 elicited minimal light response initially, subsequent application of synaptic blocker cocktail that pharmacologically isolated RGCs substantially enhanced the light activation of RGCs (1.8 ± 0.3 fold increase in spike frequency). In comparison with the 3-hour incubation between injection and dissection, prolonged 24-hour incubation led to a more pronounced 2.5 ± 0.5 fold increase in spike frequency.

Conclusions : Our data suggest that Irbpy-C17 may act on multiple components of the retinal neural circuitry that could suppress its direct action on RGCs via synaptic transmission. These molecules intravitreally administered remain stable and active in the ocular environment up to at least one day post injection. These data will prompt us to further study the iridium complexes in parallel with the ruthenium counterparts, particularly for the underlying mechanism of their differential behavior. The NPSs obviates the need for gene manipulation or toxic UV illumination, highlighting its potential in generating high-acuity prosthetic vision in the blind.


We present a new method for the simulation of melting and solidification in a unified particle model. Our technique uses the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method for the simulation of liquids, deformable as well as rigid objects, which eliminates the need to define an interface for coupling different models. Using this approach, it is possible to simulate fluids and solids by only changing the attribute values of the underlying particles. We significantly changed a prior elastic particle model to achieve a flexible model for melting and solidification. By using an SPH approach and considering a new definition of a local reference shape, the simulation of merging and splitting of different objects, as may be caused by phase change processes, is made possible. In order to keep the system stable even in regions represented by a sparse set of particles we use a special kernel function for solidification processes. Additionally, we propose a surface reconstruction technique based on considering the movement of the center of mass to reduce rendering errors in concave regions. The results demonstrate new interaction effects concerning the melting and solidification of material, even while being surrounded by liquids. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The preparation of two types of imidazole derivatives bearing a hydrazide group was achieved by treatment of the corresponding esters with NH2NH2·H2O in MeOH at room temperature. In the case of 4-(ethoxycarbonyl)-1H-imidazole 3-oxides 3, hydrazides of type 1 were formed with retention of the N-oxide structure (Scheme 1). Interestingly, due to a strong H-bonding, no deoxygenation of the N-O function could be achieved even by treatment of 3 with Raney-Ni. The second type, 2-[(1H-imidazol-2-yl)sulfanyl]acetohydrazides 2, was obtained from 1H-imidazole-2(3H)-thiones 4 in two steps via S-alkylation with methyl bromoacetate, followed by treatment with NH2NH2·H2O (Scheme 2). An imidazole 7, containing both types of hydrazide groups, was prepared analogously from ethyl 2,3-dihydro-2-thioxo-1H-imidazole-4-carboxylate 4d (Scheme 4). Both types of hydrazides, 1 and 2, were transformed successfully to the corresponding acylhydrazones 8 and 9, respectively (Scheme 5). Furthermore,
it has been shown that hydrazides of type 1 are useful starting materials for the synthesis of 1,2,4-triazole-3-thiones 11 and 1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amines 12, bearing an imidazole 3-oxide moiety (Scheme 7).


A detailed quantitative study of well-preserved nannofossil assemblages in closely spaced samples across the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary at El Kef, Tunisia, reveals no extinctions of nannoplankton in the uppermost 4 m of Maastrichtian marls as has been reported for planktonic foraminifers from the same samples. Nannofossil assemblages below the boundary show no trends to indicate that ecologic stresses such as temperature change foreshadowed the K-T event in the Tethyan region. On the other hand, the disappearance of several species of the more depth-sensitive planktonic foraminifers below the boundary at El Kef is probably the result of sea-level regression (or sampling effects) rather than preboundary climate change or other environmental stresses. Cretaceous nannofossil specimens present above the K-T boundary at El Kef are interpreted to have been reworked, rather than having survived the K-T event. This interpretation is suggested by abundance patterns of common Cretaceous species and a correlation with short-term sea-level lowstands.


Aims: To determine the trends of the two major dental diseases (dental caries and periodontal disease) in a group of 13-15 year old intermediate school and their treatment needs. Materials and Methods: A total of 516 intermediate school students were examined. Dental caries and treatment needs were assessed according to the WHO 1997 guidelines. The assessment of the gingival health and treatment needs of the students was performed using the CPITN index as recommended by the WHO 1987. Six index teeth were examined and the presence of gingival bleeding and calculus was recorded. Results: Dental caries in the sample has increased with a mean of 5.17. Dental caries increased with age with a statistically significant age difference. Females tended to have a higher DMFT of 5.5 compared to males 4.79 with significant difference, only 6.6% of the sample was caries free. The majority of the samples needed one surface fillings with a mean of 3.6/child. Other dental treatments were needed to a lesser extent. Regarding the periodontal status, the disease was present in 97.5% of the sample, there was no significant age difference regarding periodontal health. Females tended to have a healthier gingiva compared to males with significant difference. Regarding periodontal treatment needs, 97.5% of the sample required dental health education, while 65.9 % required professional scaling and polishing. Conclusions: To improve children's oral health, community school-based oral health educational programs should be established starting from primary and extending to intermediate schools, stressing on sugar restriction and oral hygiene measures, fluorides and fissure sealants can effectively be used too.


In many economic applications of matching, the teams that form compete later in market structures with strategic interactions or with knowledge spillovers. Such post-match competition introduces externalities at the matching stage: a team's payoff depends not only on their members' attributes but also on those of other matched teams. This article develops a large market model of matching with externalities, in which first teams form, and then they compete. We analyse the sorting patterns that ensue under competitive equilibrium as well as their efficiency properties. Our main results show that insights substantially differ from those of the standard model without externalities: there can be multiple competitive equilibria with different sorting patterns; both optimal and competitive equilibrium matching can involve randomization; and competitive equilibrium can be inefficient with a matching that can drastically deviate from the optimal one. We also shed light on the economic relevance of our matching model with externalities. We analyse two economic applications that illustrate how our model can rationalize the trend in within- and between-firm inequality, and also the evolution of markups of sectors where firms have market power.


The analytic element method, first developed for modeling flow in saturated porous media, is adapted to the solution of the governing equation for steady flow in unsaturated porous media. The governing equation for steady‐state unsaturated flow is made amenable to analytic element solution through transformation with the Kirchhoff integral, representation of the hydraulic conductivity by an exponential function of the pressure head, and use of a coordinate transformation. A number of analytic elements are available for the resulting modified Helmholtz equation; analytic element equations are presented for uniform flow, cylindrical drains, and cylindrical inhomogeneities. The analytic element solution allows for the analytic evaluation of the pressure head, saturation, and Darcy flux at any point in the vadose zone. The applicability of the analytic element method to simulate unsaturated flow is demonstrated by solving for several cases of steady flow in a region containing arbitrarily located cylindrical inhomogeneities, and for flow in a region containing one cylindrical inhomogeneity and two cylindrical drains.


The processing of point cloud data is influenced by the size of the point cloud. Today the size of point clouds has increased due to improvements in laser scanning technology; therefore processing of point cloud data has become computationally exhaustive and storage demands have increased. Consequently, accurate point cloud simplification algorithms are being sought. In this paper, a point cloud simplification algorithm is proposed. In the presented algorithm, important points (feature points) are preserved and redundant points (non-feature points) are removed, whilst ensuring the point cloud satisfies a minimum density requirement globally. The importance of a point can be evaluated by the relationship it has with its surrounding points. This relationship is quantified by using measures of information theory. These measures use the surface geometry about a point as a proxy for information. Five measures from past work are compared by quantitatively and visually measuring the accuracy of the simplified point cloud. The measure of information theory that results in the most accurate detection of feature points is found.


Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that involves the application of weak electric currents to the scalp. tACS has the potential to be an inexpensive, easily administrable, and well-tolerated multi-purpose tool for cognitive and clinical neuroscience as it could be applied to establish the functional role of rhythmic brain activity, and to treat neural disorders, in particular those where these rhythms have gone awry. However, the mechanisms by which tACS produces both "online" and "offline" effects (that is, those that manifest during stimulation and those that last beyond stimulation offset) are to date still poorly understood. If the potential of tACS is to be harnessed effectively to alter brain activity in a controlled manner, it is fundamental to have a good understanding of how tACS interacts with neuronal dynamics, and of the conditions that promote its effect. This thesis describes three experiments that were conducted to elucidate the mechanisms by which tACS interacts with underlying neural network activity.
Experiments 1 and 2 investigated the mechanism by which tACS at alpha frequencies (8 12 Hz, α-tACS) over occipital cortex induces the lasting aftereffects on posterior α power that were previously described in the literature. Two mechanisms have been suggested to underlie alpha power enhancement after α tACS: entrainment of endogenous brain oscillations and/or changes in oscillatory neural networks through spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). In Experiment 1, we tested to what extent plasticity can account for tACS-aftereffects when controlling for entrainment characteristics. To this end, we used a novel, intermittent α-tACS protocol and investigated the strength of the aftereffect as a function of phase continuity between successive tACS episodes, as well as the match between stimulation frequency and individual alpha frequency (IAF). Alpha aftereffects were successfully replicated with enhanced α power after intermittent stimulation compared to sham. These aftereffects did not exhibit any of the expected characteristics of prolonged entrainment in that they were independent of tACS phase-continuity and did not show stable phase alignment or synchronisation to the stimulation frequency. These results indicate that prolonged entrainment is insufficient to explain the aftereffects and suggest that the latter emerge through some form of network plasticity.
To clarify the nature of these plasticity mechanisms, we then aimed to assess whether STDP could explain the α power increase. We developed a conceptual STDP model that predicted bi-directional changes in α power depending on the relative mismatch between the tACS frequency and IAF. After observing in Experiment 1 that tACS at frequencies slightly lower than the IAF produced α enhancement, Experiment 2 used a similar intermittent protocol that manipulated tACS frequency to be either slightly lower or higher than IAF to respectively enhance or suppress α activity. In addition, a control condition with continuous stimulation aimed to replicate previous results from other groups. However, we did not observe a systematic α power change in any of the active conditions. The lack of consistency between the two experiments raises concerns regarding the reproducibility and effect size of tACS aftereffects.
The third experiment investigated the mechanism of online effects and tested predictions that were based on the assumption that entrainment is the underlying process mediating behavioural changes during tACS. We capitalised on two well-described phenomena: firstly, the association between α power lateralisation and visuospatial attention, and secondly, the fluctuation of perceptual performance with α phase. Specifically, the experiment tested whether event-related α-tACS applied over right parieto-occipital cortex can induce a visuospatial bias in a peripheral dot detection task that would reflect α power lateralisation, and whether detection performance depends on the phase of the tACS waveform. In control trials either no tACS or 40 Hz-tACS (gamma) was applied to make use of the putative opposing roles of alpha and gamma oscillations in visual processing. As expected from lateralised enhancement of alpha oscillations, visual detection accuracy was weakly impaired for targets presented in the left visual field, contralateral to tACS. However, this effect was neither frequency specific nor waveform phase-dependent. Therefore, it is unlikely that the negative effect of tACS on visuospatial performance reflects entrainment.
Overall, the results of these experiments only partially met our hypotheses. Experiment 1 produced the α enhancement that was expected based on the literature while the follow-up experiment failed to reproduce these results under similar conditions. This outcome demonstrates at best that tACS aftereffects on α activity are not robust, may vary widely across individuals, and might be extremely sensitive to small changes in experimental parameters and state variables. The results of the third experiment call into question the assumption of online entrainment as basis for the observed behavioural effect. These findings point to the need for improved methodology, for more systematic and exhaustive exploration of the relative effects of tACS across different parameter settings, tasks, and individuals; and for the replication of promising but thus far often anecdotal results. They also inspire guidelines for more informative experimental designs.


The relevance of the issue stems from the necessity to study the legal mechanisms for educational funding within the ongoing reforms, because their effectiveness would depend on the level of funding. The newest Federal Law on Education is the completion of a 20-year practice of the educational reform practice in Russia and the beginning of a new stage of entering the world educational space. The new law on Education has also created a new system of educational funding based on a combination of state and contractual regulation of financial relations. It is dealt with separate issues of educational funding at the present stage, including its effectiveness, and the possibilities and disadvantages of state funding. Attention is drawn to institute of self-sufficiency with financial resources of educational institutions. Based on the results of this study, the authors made conclusions about the prospects for a diversified regulation in the educational funding.


[1] Improvements in the analyses of Global Positioning System (GPS) observations yield resolvable millimeter to submillimeter differences in coordinate estimates, thus providing sufficient resolution to distinguish subtle differences in analysis methodologies. Here we investigate the effects on site coordinates of using different approaches to modeling atmospheric loading deformation (ATML) and handling of tropospheric delays. The rigorous approach of using the time-varying Vienna Mapping Function 1 yields solutions with lower noise at a range of frequencies compared with solutions generated using empirical mapping functions. This is particularly evident when ATML is accounted for. Some improvement also arises from using improved a priori zenith hydrostatic delays (ZHD), with the combined effect being site-specific. Importantly, inadequacies in both mapping functions and a priori ZHDs not only introduce time-correlated noise but significant periodic terms at solar annual and semiannual periods. We find no significant difference between solutions where nontidal ATML is applied at the observation level rather than as a daily averaged value, but failing to model diurnal and semidiurnal tidal ATML at the observation level can introduce anomalous propagated signals with periods that closely match the GPS draconitic annual ( 351.4 days) and semiannual period ( 175.7 days). Exacerbated by not fixing ambiguities, these signals are evident in both stacked and single-site power spectra, with each tide contributing roughly equally to the dominant semiannual peak. The amplitude of the propagated signal reaches a maximum of 0.8 mm with a clear latitudinal dependence that is not correlated directly with locations of maximum tidal amplitude.


This article considers the question of what legal rights should be possessed by those who reside and work in a democratic state without the legal authorization of the state, given the background assumption that the state is morally entitled to exclude such migrants. I argue that irregular migrants are morally entitled to a wide range of legal rights, including basic human and civil rights, but also rights to wages, workplace protections, and even rights to public education for their children. In order for these rights to be realized in practice, I argue, states ought to create a firewall between those charged with protecting and enforcing these rights and those charged with enforcing immigration laws.


As technology is shrinking down we requires devices which consume less power gives less delay in device. So here we compare PFAL (Positive Feedback Adiabatic Logic) and ECRl (Efficient Charge – Recovery Logic) technique basic logic gates with CMOS gates. Results gives improvement in power and delay. Using this ECRL and PFAL we have design 2:1 mux which is very less power consuming and fast in operation. Simulation result is done using TSMC180nm technology on tanner tool.


The very earliest years of childhood are key to fulfilled, productive and meaningful lives. Children's brain and physical development is at its most rapid during this time as they develop skills and capabilities that affect lifetime outcomes as diverse as earnings, wellbeing and criminality. Gaps that open up between children, often along familiar lines of wealth and income, during this stage typically persist and are exacerbated over time. Thus, these years are key to understanding the transmission of poverty across generations. For many children growing up in poorer countries, these earliest years don't offer conditions that are sufficient to reach their developmental potential. Poverty, malnutrition and disease-ridden and un-stimulating environments can all contribute to children falling short developmentally of what they otherwise would have been capable of. Excitingly, however, a vibrant research agenda demonstrates that a child's development is not predetermined but highly malleable: it is heavily affected by environmental factors which can be altered by policy or behaviour change. This creates a clear rationale for intervening early in life, especially for the most disadvantaged children.


The doctrine of bodily resurrection is a core tenet of Christian faith, yet it is a doctrine fraught with several philosophical problems, the most significant of which concerns the persistence of personal identity. This is especially true for physicalist accounts of human nature. Here I put forth a possible solution to the problem of resurrection identity. Turning to the theology of the 18th century American colonial theologian, Jonathan Edwards, as a resource, I argue for what I am calling "Edwardsean Anti-Criterialism." This is a form of anti-criterialism in which pre- and post-resurrection bodies are identical because God treats these bodies a metaphysically one. After providing a sketch of this view I defend Edwardsean Anti-Criterialism from two objections and provide three reasons why Christians might be inclined to accept this proposal.


This past decade has recorded an increase in catastrophic events that have led to dramatic changes for Americans. The wake of these disasters has resulted in many lessons being learned. These lessons have been captured by Homeland Security in the First Edition of the National Preparedness Goal. Extension is uniquely positioned to assist with community disaster preparedness, mitigation, and response efforts as outlined in the National Preparedness Goal. This article captures examples of Extension's involvement in the disaster realm and encourages additional work in the many aspects of community emergency preparedness.


Objective: Measurement of glucose uptake into peripheral tissue is an important mechanism to assess Insulin sensitivity. The present in vitro study was conducted to evaluate the Insulin sensitizing activity of Phyllanthus emblica (Pe), Tinospora cordifolia (Tc) and Curcuma longa (Cl) by assessing glucose uptake activity in a 3T3L1 adipocyte model. Materials and Methods: The 3T3 L1 fibroblast cells were differentiated to adipocytes, using a cocktail of insulin, isobutyl-1-methylxanthine and dexamethazone. These adipocytes were initially treated with different concentrations of the selected plants following which 2-deoxy glucose uptake was estimated using a radioactive assay. The effects of plants on glucose uptake both in the presence and absence of insulin was evaluated and compared with pioglitazone, a known insulin sensitizer. Results: Pe and Tc per se significantly stimulated glucose uptake in 3T3-L1 adipocytes in a dose dependent manner with maximal effect at higher concentrations (200μg/ml). The effect of both Pe and Tc at 200μg/ml was comparable to insulin and greater than pioglitazone. Cl per se stimulated glucose uptake with maximal effect at 50μg/ml. However, this effect was lesser as compared to insulin with higher concentrations inhibiting glucose uptake. When combined with insulin, an antagonist effect was observed between Pe, Tc and insulin indicating a possible plant-drug interaction while Cl in combination with insulin showed an increase in the glucose uptake as compared to Cl alone. Conclusion: The results suggest that one of the mechanisms for the anti-diabetic effect of Pe, Cl and Tc may be through an insulin sensitizing effect (stimulation of glucose uptake into adipocytes). Further studies using other target sites viz. skeletal muscle and hepatocytes models and in an insulin resistant state would help substantiate this conclusion.


Fumarole temperatures are the ultimate results of many processes that are encountered by deep fluids during their passage to the surface. Here, the time variations of high-temperature fumaroles acquired by continuous monitoring are presented, to show the effects of the forces that act on the system. Data acquired by continuous monitoring of fumaroles and the time relationships with the different parameters related to the activity of the volcanic system are discussed. From 1998 to 2010, the temperature and compositional changes of fumarolic gases were monitored at the same time as variations in the number of volcanoseismic events, which indicate frequent variations of energy release (heat and mass flow, and seismic strain release). Geochemical modeling applied to the volcanic system of Vulcano Island suggests that the overall expansion of magmatic gas through the fractured system is an almost iso-enthalpic process at depth, which shifts to an adiabatic process at shallow depth, where the rock permeability increases. Thus, the time variations of the fumarole temperatures reflect various physical variations of the system that can either occur at depth or close to the surface. The temperature monitoring performed in the fumarolic area of La Fossa Cone showed short-term effects related to rain events, and negligible effects related to other external agents (ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure variations). At the same time, the long-term monitoring highlighted some mean-term and long-term variations. These last are the main characters observed in the time-series, and they both appear to be related to endogenous forces that perturb the equilibrium of this complex geochemical system.


Watershed size and rainfall patterns are among the factors that influence the extent to which fishery species use estuarine marshes as nurseries. We examined three Texas bays with different watershed characteristics to determine how marsh use by fishery species was affected. In each bay, we measured densities of aquatic fauna on marsh surfaces at sites located along the salinity gradient during seasonal periods of varying rainfall. Fishery species collected were transient juveniles of brown shrimp, white shrimp, spotted seatrout, southern flounder, red drum, and others. The largest bay with the largest watershed was Galveston Bay where, due to a relatively high river inflow rate and a large inlet from the Gulf of Mexico, a steep salinity gradient always persisted. During periods of high or low rainfall, the gradient was translocated but it was never eliminated. Mesohaline and polyhaline marshes of the middle and lower Galveston Bay were continuously used by fishery juveniles, whereas the oiligohaline marshes of the upper bay were only intermittently used. By comparison, San Antonio Bay is small in size and has a large watershed. High rainfall often caused the salinity gradient in the bay to be virtually eliminated. Marsh use by most of the fishery species in San Antonio Bay was inversely related to the river flow and directly related to salinity. Gulf menhaden was the only exception where utilization was positively related with river flow. Lavaca Bay was also small in size and possessed a small watershed. A dam situated about 10 km above the river mouth further restricted river inflow. High salinities in this bay often extended onto the delta and high rainfall periods had little lasting effect on lowering salinity. The fishery species in Lavaca Bay used marshes the other bays, extended intervals of mesohaline and polyhaline salinities promoted the use of marshes by fishery animals. Persistent oligohaline conditions, on the other hand, depressed the use of marshes by fishery species in all three systems: We conclude that fishery production is least stable in small bays with large watersheds and that large bays with large mesohaline zones are most productive.


The aim of this study was to assess the electrical performance of the Cahora Bassa HVDC scheme. For practical reasons a database was developed to hold and analyse the performance data. Microsoft® Access 2002 relational database management system was chosen for this work. The principle of simplicity and flexibility were used in the design of the database. The Apollo year 2002 faults data was populated into the database. The database stored the information in a format that enables the user to extract results and the information required by Ciqre, The Ciqre Working Group 14 collects performance information from all the participating HVDC schemes around the world annually. The Apollo converter station's 2002 performance data was compared to other similar HVDC schemes that submitted to Cigre in the year 2002. In addition performance trends were drawn from similar schemes that submitted to Cigre over the past years. The Apollo performance data is quite comparable to other similar schemes in 2002 and over the past years.


Cofre de Perote volcano is a compound, shield-like volcano located in the northeastern Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. Large debris avalanche and lahar deposits are associated with the evolution of Cofre. The two best preserved of these debris-avalanche and debris-flow deposits are the ∼42 ka "Los Pescados debris flow" deposit and the ∼11–13 ka "Xico avalanche" deposit, both of which display contrasting morphological and textural characteristics, source materials, origins and emplacement environments. Laboratory X-ray diffraction and visible-infrared reflectance spectroscopy were used to identify the most abundant clay, sulfate, ferric-iron, and silica minerals in the deposits, which were either related to hydrothermal alteration or chemical weathering processes. Cloud-free Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) remote sensing imagery, supporting EO-1 Hyperion image spectra, and field ground truth samples were used to map the mineralogy and distribution of hydrothermally altered rocks on the modern summit of Cofre de Perote. The results were then compared to minerals identified in the two debris-avalanche and debris-flow deposits in order to assess possible source materials and origins for the two deposits.

The older Los Pescados debris-flow deposit contains mostly halloysite and hydrous silica minerals, which match the dominant mineralogy of soils and weathered volcanic deposit in the surrounding flanks of Cofre de Perote. Its source materials were most likely derived from initially noncohesive or clay-poor flows, which subsequently bulked with clay-rich valley soils and alluvium in a manner similar to lahars from Nevado del Ruiz in 1985, but on a larger scale. The younger Xico avalanche deposit contains abundant smectite, jarosite, kaolinite, gypsum, and mixed-layered illite/smectite, which are either definitely or most likely of hydrothermal alteration origin. Smectite in particular appears to be the most abundant and spectrally dominant mineral in summit ground truth samples, ASTER mapping results, Xico avalanche deposit, and an older (pre-Xico avalanche) deposit derived from collapse(s) of ancestral Cofre de Perote edifice. However, both Xico avalanche and Los Pescados debris flow deposits show some evidence of secondary, postemplacement weathering and induration, which is evident by the presence of gibbsite, and hydroxyl interlayered minerals, in addition to recently formed halloysite and hydrous silica (i.e., indurating) cements. Field-based, visible infrared image spectroscopy (VIS/IR) spectral measurements offer the possibility of distinguishing primary minerals of hydrothermal alteration origin in debris-avalanche and debris-flow deposits from those produced either by in situ chemical weathering or bulked from weathered source materials.


This article utilized information collected through a questionnaire distributed to preservice teachers in a Faculty of Education in Canada and in Scotland. The purpose of the questionnaire was to gather data about the field experience of preservice teachers. Preservice teachers in both countries articulated the need for positive, helpful feedback from the supervising teachers. The issue of whether the field experience should ideally be an apprenticeship, a time to innovate or a combination of both was also explored. The article underscores the importance of the supervising teacher in ensuring that the field experience: provides an experience based on the students' readiness and willingness to innovate or follow a set pattern; develop a positive relationship with the preservice teacher; and provide the type of helpful feedback that will enable preservice teachers to become effective classroom teachers. The field experience of preservice teachers or the time that preservice teachers spend in classrooms has been found to be a significant factor in the education of most teachers (Griffin, 1989). "The importance of observing exemplary practice has long been recognized as a critical component in educating teachers. Student teaching has traditionally been the capstone experience, and for many candidates, student teaching represented their first exposure to the classroom setting during their professional training" (Arends & Winitzky, 1996, p. 542). Central to this experience is the role that the supervising teacher plays. The supervising teacher totally controls the life of the preservice teacher during the field experience. The supervising teacher is responsible for assigning teaching tasks, providing resources and evaluating the preservice teacher. The amount and type of feedback provided by the supervising teacher plays a very important role in the development of the preservice teacher. "For many reasons related to contexts and persons, the quality of field experiences varies. For some preservice teachers, all the time spent in field experiences will be meaningful and educative; for others, that may be true only some of the time; still others may have several difficult or frustrating field experiences. There are no guarantees. There is no magic formula for a successful field experience even if the best of planning and preparation take place. Like all human endeavors involving relationships, the cooperating teacher-preservice teacher relationship is fraught with complexity and idiosyncrasies. For example, there may be differences in how you and your cooperating teacher perceive your roles; you may have different expectations for the time you are together; you may differ in teaching styles, philosophies, and approaches to education; and there are personality factors and contexts in which you may find yourselves at odds." (Knowles & Cole, 1994, p. 157, 8) The supervising teacher and the feedback provided by this teacher are significant factors in determining the value of the field experience. The preservice teacher relies on the feedback from the supervising teacher for constructive criticism and guidance. Preservice teachers often experience frustration as a result of receiving inadequate feedback (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1987; Griffin et al., 1983; Richardson-Koehler, 1988). The degree to which the supervising teacher is willing to encourage the preservice teacher to be innovative also impacts on the experience. The following study addresses supervising teacher feedback and evaluation, and the issue of innovation versus apprenticeship. Problem Statement This study examined the field experience (time spent in classrooms) of preservice teachers and specifically probed the impact of the supervising teacher on the preservice teacher. Preservice teachers were asked the following three questions related to the field experience. 1. Check off one of the categories listed below to describe the impact of the placement teacher (supervising teacher) on the quality of the school experience and then write your thoughts to further describe that impact. …


Long before the time their children enter the doors on their first day of kindergarten, most parents are already dreaming of and perhaps fearing the time thirteen years down the road when they will be sending their young scholars off to college. Many of these hopeful parents assume that a chance for higher education will allow their child the opportunity to have a prosperous and secure future. And, numerous studies have shown that the prayers of lots of these parents will be answered, as college graduates consistently earn higher wages than their less educated counterparts (Belfield, 2000). This article is available in The Park Place Economist: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace/vol13/iss1/14


We previously reported the development of a new hybrid medical material comprising bio-based materials with high biocompatibility and artificial materials with characteristics of excellent strength and pro-cessability. This material shows sufficient biocompatibility and excellent stability in vivo . Moreover, when applied to the surface of an implantable sensor, the biological reaction on the sensor function surface can be well controlled. For commercialization and widespread use of hybrid materials with such superior properties, sterilization and storage are critical considerations, given that hybrid materials must be processed outside the body prior to application as medical materials in vivo , thus posing a risk of contamination despite best efforts. There-fore, the aim of the present study was to establish an optimal sterilization method that will not impair the biocompatibility of the hybrid material. Toward this end, we tested six sterilization methods for the hybrid material: autoclave (121 (cid:155) C, 20 min), dry heat (160 (cid:155) C, 120 min), ethylene oxide gas (37 (cid:155) C, 120 min), hydrogen peroxide plasma (45 (cid:155) C, 45 min), and gamma ray (25 kGy) with and without lyophilization. After sterilization, the material was cultured with vascular endothelial cells to evaluate the engraftment rate, and was observed with light and scanning electron microscopy to determine shape and structure changes. The results demonstrated that gamma sterilization without lyophilization was the best sterilization method for this material, which preserved the collagen network and showed no change in number of adhered vascular endothelial cells compared to the pre-sterilized material. These findings are useful to promote the commercialization of this hybrid material with combined advantages of synthetic and bio-based materials for widespread clinical application in the engineering of artificial organs.


There is increasing competition in the health care supply market in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in other countries around the world, pushing hospital to develop strategies to remain attractive to the increasingly patient demand which become increasingly picky. The purpose of this study is to examine the decision-making process by which consumers who feel the need for a health care service choose a health care facility from among many other facilities in the city of Lubumbashi. A descriptive study of the determinants of consumer choice in health care was conducted in both public and private hospitals. The results indicate that the decision-making process for choosing a health care service involves five essential steps influencing consumer behavior. In addition, data that confirmed the influence of exogenous variables on the behavior of hospital users in terms of the choices they must make in advance. These are the perceived quality of care delivery, reception and quality of hospital infrastructure (87.27% of model's explanatory power), followed by the availability of specialized services, the cost of benefits and the physicians ability to listen and respond (65.84% of model's explanatory power). Since hospital attendance in this study was considered to be an endogenous variable, it allowed us to perform the likelihood tests and the determination coefficient (R2=0.746 or 74.6% explanation of the endogenous variable by exogenous variables). The study points to the need for hospitals to implement patient satisfaction mechanisms through a management-led, quality-of-health-care approach in order to achieve patient loyalty.


It is well-documented that strenuous physical activity has the potential to elicit exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD), particularly when the exercise is novel and has an eccentric component. Given that the symptoms of EIMD can compromise subsequent performance, there has been substantial investigation into potential strategies that might reduce these detrimental effects in athletic populations. However, while significant advances have been made in this field, few investigations address the diversity of exercising populations who might experience EIMD following the activities they engage in, and the strategies that could facilitate their recovery. Globally, dance and dance-based exercise are popular forms of recreational physical activity, and the intensity and volume of exercise previously reported in highly trained and professional dancers can often be comparable to that of many other elite athletes. The overall purpose of this thesis was to understand the nutritional challenges facing female dancers, increase knowledge of the EIMD response, and examine potential nutritional interventions to reduce the negative issues associated with damaging exercise in this understudied population.

The first study characterised the typical energy intake (estimated by combined 24 h recall and weighed food diary) and energy expenditure (estimated by the sum of basal metabolic rate, the thermic effect of food, and physical activity energy expenditure) of pre-professional contemporary dancers during 7 days of full-time training. This study determined that there is a prevalence of energy deficiency in this population (with an average daily deficit of -356 ± 668 kcal or -1.5 ± 2.8 MJ). Additionally, the second study demonstrated that female dancers experience EIMD, both from dance-specific and repeated-sprint exercise; with observed increases in muscle soreness, limb girth, plasma creatine kinase, and reductions in muscle function (all p < 0.05). These data served to inform the final two experimental chapters, which sought to investigate the role of nutritional interventions in alleviating the various symptoms of damage following repeated-sprint exercise in female dancers. Montmorency tart cherry supplementation accelerated recovery of countermovement jump height compared to placebo (p = 0.016). There was an improved recovery of reactive strength index (p = 0.016), flexibility (p = 0.050) and reduced CK (p = 0.002) following supplementation with whey protein hydrolysate. Consequently, this research provides justification for the use of these supplements as practical interventions, which could be implemented to benefit the day-to-day life of a dancer; not least for promoting recovery, but also contributing to maintaining energy balance.


Professional Nursing Concepts: Competencies for Quality Leadership takes a patient-centered, traditional approach to the topic of nursing education and professional development. This dynamic text engages students in recognizing the critical role that nurses play in healthcare delivery. Divided into four sections, this text has a unique framework and exclusively covers the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) five core competencies on quality and healthcare for all healthcare professionals. The first section introduces students to the history of the nursing profession, and covers such topics as nursing education, regulation, and accreditation. Section two explores the healthcare context in which nursing is practiced including continuum of care, health promotion, disease prevention, and illness, nursing ethics, and the nurse's role in health policy. The third section focuses on each of the five core competencies set forth by the IOM, and the final section focuses on the practice of nursing today and in the future particularly exploring the critical issue of the nursing shortage and the transformation of nursing practice.


The effect of irrigation efficiency upon the water demand for agricultural purposes in the Utah Lake drainage area has been evaluated in this study . Irrigation demand is the quantity of water at the supply source necessary to satisfy crop water requirements, taking into account irrigation efficiency. The Utah Lake drainage area was divided into hydrologic subareas and districts to facilitate analysis. The demand, surplus, and deficit quantities for each area was determined. The computations were made using constant mean quantities. Within a given area, the diverted water was assumed to be applied uniformly to satisfy agricultural crop demands, and the contribution of groundwater was neglected. The quantity of major interest is the surplus or deficit, which has been computed for present and potential future irrigation effiencies taking into account historical diversions and precipitation, and estimated root zone storage. The crop demand is not adequately met in the study area. There is a surplus in the Provo district (29,000 acre-feet annually), while deficits occur in the Spanish Fork district (69,000 acre-feet annually) and Northern Juab Valley subarea (38,000 acre-feet annually). The common pattern is excessive diversions in May and insufficient diversions in July through September. The present mean irrigation efficiency of 36 percent in the Utah Lake dra inage area results in an annual deficit of 111,000 acre-feet, of which 69,000 acre-feet occurs in Utah Valley. The maximum monthly deficit is 76,000 acre-feet, which occurs in August. Provided irrigation efficiencies were increased to 68 percent, surplus would exist in every month and the annual surplus would be 159,000 acre-feet. The combination of additional storage facilities to modify the diversion to coincide with crop demand, reallocation of water from water -plenty to water -short areas, and increasing the irrigation efficiency would provide the best economic use of water for the benefit of the area. (169 pages)


Sediment transport plays a key role in the morphological and ecological value of river ecosystems. The present study explores the design of sediment management measures for a flood control and revitalization project in an alpine valley of the Swiss Alps. The project was initiated after the October 2000 flood and it stands out for its extent, with reach of a 1 km long. The expected outcomes are the restoration of the river bed dynamics with the formation of alternate bars and an improvement of the longitudinal and lateral connectivity. The effects of the channel modification on the bedload transport capacity have been simulated with the 1D hydraulic and sediment transport model DuPiro. The project design has undergone several iterations to address both environmental and flood protection constraints. It results in the implementation of several sediment control measures that stabilize the morphological regime and allow the fish migration in the river, while ensuring the flood protection. It involves to extract gravel in some key locations, to replace weirs by rock ramps and to use lateral deflectors to protect and structure the river banks. The developed methods and concepts can apply generally to design restoration projects in alpine valleys. The advantages and limitations of the modeling approach are examined in the discussion of the results.


To effectively alleviate the heat transfer deterioration phenomenon of supercritical CO2 flow in a vertical circular tube, this paper proposes multiple truncated ribs from a whole O-ring rib but distributed in helical-like distribution. The fluid hydraulics and thermal performance with a verified standard k-ω mode are numerically explored. The effects of the height, the distance and the number of truncated ribs on flow characteristics and heat transfer are observed and analyzed in detail. Results show that the heat transfer coefficient increases significantly with increasing rib height, and as the pitch decreases the fluid re-circulation area behind each rib decreases, resulting in stronger mixing of swirling flow, which enhances turbulent kinetic energy in the downstream and weakens the buoyancy force, thus mitigating heat transfer deterioration. The present study suggests that introducing multiple truncated ribs distributed along helices into circular tubes can be a beneficial way to alleviate heat transfer deterioration and to enhance heat transfer of supercritical CO2 flow.


The purpose of this applied research project is to describe the attributes of city policies and/or employee handbook sections that address employee personal use of social media. A comprehensive review of the literature was used to develop a conceptual framework composed of three descriptive categories: interaction, confidentiality, and identity. The researcher utilized the content analysis method for this framework to develop a coding protocol. Forty Texas cities of various sizes were examined. These various cities were studied to determine if they had a policy or otherwise in place that addresses the personal use of social media by city employees. Public administrators in charge with creating, maintaining, and enforcing employee use social media policies ought to consider utilizing this research for the benefit of their cities.


Eric A. Klein ( Figure 1 ), M.D., is the Andrew C. Novick Distinguished Chair of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute and Professor of Surgery in the Lerner College of Medicine of the Cleveland Clinic. Following undergraduate training at Johns Hopkins University, he was a cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He subsequently completed residency training in Urology at the Cleveland Clinic and a fellowship in Urologic Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.


The Third Edition of Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education presents seven theoretical approaches to adult education: liberal, progressive, behaviorist, humanist, radical/critical, analytic, and postmodern. The book gives the historical grounding as well as the basic principles for each approach. In this edition each chapter has been revised and brought up to date. The chapter on radical adult education incorporates recent developments in radical education, phenomenology, feminist educational theory, and critical social theory. The book contains an entirely new chapter on postmodern adult education.


Climate change is a phenomenon that is already happening and in some areas of Africa it is taking place at an alarming rate. Climate change is expected to cause an increase in weather-related disasters and extreme weather events, such as droughts, heat waves, floods, desertification, and vector-borne infestations. Long-term changes in climate exacerbate environmental degradation leading to loss of wildlife habitat in many vulnerable places. Furthermore, climate change will alter the location and nature of the geographical environment, and wildlife will be forced to migrate to new areas as a way of adapting or face extinction. As there are limited natural places left for wildlife to move to, this will likely bring wildlife into more densely populated human areas, and create situations of human wildlife conflict. This review looks at how climate change intensifies natural disasters, alters the functions and structure of terrestrial ecosystems thus making human wildlife conflicts inevitable in some regions with East African countries.


Boussinesq formulations valid for highly dispersive and highly nonlinear water waves are derived with the objective of improving the accuracy of the vertical variation of the velocity field as well as the linear and nonlinear properties. First, an exact solution to the Laplace equation is given in terms of infinite–series expansions from an arbitrary z–level which is a constant fraction of the still–water depth. This defines the fully dispersive and fully nonlinear water–wave problem in terms of five variables: the free–surface elevation and the horizontal and vertical velocities evaluated at the free surface and at the arbitrary z–level. Next, the infinite series operators are replaced by finite–series (Boussinesq–type) approximations. Three different approximations are introduced, each involving up to fifth–derivative operators, and these formulations are analysed with respect to the linear–velocity profile, linear dispersion and linear shoaling. Nonlinear characteristics are investigated by a perturbation analysis to third order for regular waves and to second order for bichromatic waves. Finally, a numerical spectral solution is made for highly nonlinear steady waves in deep and shallow water. It can be concluded that the best of the new formulations (method III) allows an accurate description of dispersive nonlinear waves for kh (wavenumber times water depth) as high as 40, while accurate velocity profiles are restricted to kh < 10. These results represent a major improvement over existing Boussinesq formulations from the literature.


Abstract Women were first permitted to become Fellows of the Geological Society of London in 1919. Eight joined in May of that year and then in June a further two were admitted. By February 1922 there were 21 female Fellows. The Geological Society had opened its doors to women and, after an initial rush, there was a slow trickle. However, there were a number of highly regarded female geologists before this time, and several of them received grants, medals and, indeed, submitted papers, although they were not always permitted to read these themselves. Some of the first female Fellows have disappeared without trace, but the contributions of others are significant. As well as being educationalists, they were expert in many different areas of geology, with palaeontology and stratigraphy featuring strongly. Few, however, stayed on in this male-dominated arena once they married and had children. It seems there was no common reason for these women to seek membership of the Geological Society, other than their love of geology, but membership brought them recognition and status. They led the way as role models for future female Fellows and were the first of many women to play a significant role in the Geological Society's history.


Healthy aging is accompanied by decrements in episodic memory and working memory. Significant efforts have therefore been made to augment episodic and working memory in healthy older adults. Two principal approaches toward memory rehabilitation adults are restorative approaches and compensatory approaches. Restorative approaches aim to repair the affected memory processes by repeated, adaptive practice (i.e., the trained task becomes more difficult as participants improve), and have focused on recollection training, associative memory training, object-location memory training, and working memory training. The majority of these restorative approaches have been proved to be efficacious, that is, participants improve on the trained task, and there is considerable evidence for maintenance of training effects weeks or months after the intervention is discontinued. Transfer of restorative training approaches has been more elusive and appears limited to other tasks relying on the same domains or processes. Compensatory approaches to memory strive to bypass the impairment by teaching people mnemonic and lifestyle strategies to bolster memory performance. Specific mnemonic strategy training approaches as well as multimodal compensatory approaches that combine strategy training with counseling about other factors that affect memory (e.g., memory self-efficacy, relaxation, exercise, and cognitive and social engagement) have demonstrated that older adults can learn new mnemonics and implement them to the benefit of memory performance, and can adjust their views and expectations about their memory to better cope with the changes that occur during healthy aging. Future work should focus on identifying the personal characteristics that predict who will benefit from training and on developing objective measures of the impact of memory rehabilitation on older adults' everyday functioning.


[1] Using high-resolution seismic profiles and other geophysical data, collected during R/V Meteor Cruise M74/2, we investigate the distribution patterns of shallow sediments, their structure and deformation processes, and their role in the migration, accumulation and seepage of hydrocarbon-rich fluids. Here, we show that rapid syn-kinematic sedimentation at the frontal Makran accretionary prism provides a mechanism by which emerging imbricated thrust packets override the footwall at the seafloor without significant mass-wasting and destruction of fault-related anticline in the hanging wall. These anticlines may rise high above the seafloor to form plate-boundary-parallel ridges, and distinguish from simple thrust blocks seen at convergent margins elsewhere. With the fast burial of many thrust faults by the syn-kinematic sediments, anticlinal growth structures form in these syn-kinematic sediments by continuous thrust activity. The anticlinal structures preserved within the cores of the ridges or formed from these syn-kinematic sediments act as structural traps for migrating hydrocarbon-rich fluids, above which fluid escape structures are generated leading to seafloor seeps. Most of the discovered hydrocarbon seeps around Sixth Ridge are sourced from these traps. Despite the compressional environment and the rapid syn-kinematic sedimentation rates, shallow subsurface of the frontal Makran is a normally pressured regime, in which the buoyancy of hydrocarbons may account for the fluid migration. In this important respect, the Makran accretionary prism differs from many other convergent margins and accretionary prisms, where fluid flow is largely driven by tectonically induced overpressure.


As a developing country with an unacceptably high unemployment rate, mass migration from rural areas to cities and increasing impoverishment of rural communities, South Africa is in dire need to develop entrepreneurs, especially for small, micro and medium enterprises (SMME's). Funding for entrepreneurship development is readily available from government agencies as well as from overseas donors. However, available funds often remain unspent, or when utilised offer little in the way of creating jobs and alleviating poverty. When the Graduate School of Business of the North West University (Mafikeng campus) was offered funds for running an entrepreneurship development project in the rural areas of the North West Province, the Executive Director of the Business School was determined that the project should be well planned, soundly implemented and that strict control would be exercised. Now, three years since the start of the project, considerable success can be reported, but perhaps more important than the successful completion of the project are the valuable experiences and insights gained during the management of the project. These experiences and insights may serve as guidelines to those who embark on similar projects in order to ensure that they too get maximum return on their investment.


Hub of empire, world port and seat of government, London has a political history that is nevertheless entwined with the lives of its people, a multitude often dismissed throughout the centuries as a mob. This gripping new counter-history reveals how London's poor and its immigrant population have shaped its history and identity over the ages: from apprentices closing the city gates on Charles I in the 1640s to modern fights against fascism and racism in Cable Street and Notting Hill. A People's History of London takes us into an unofficial, half-hidden and often undocumented world, a city rarely glimpsed: of pamphleteers, agitators, exiles, demonstrations and riots; the city of Wat Tyler, Marx and Engels, Garibaldi and Gandhi; and the countless pubs, theaters, coffee-houses and meeting-places in which radical ideas have been nurtured and revolutions planned.