Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are important industrial microorganisms involved in fermentation of food and beverage products. The strict fermentative growth of LAB has complex requirements of various nutrients including amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Information about the effect of these nutrients on the growth of LAB in cucumber fermentation is not readily available. It is evident, from previous research that certain nutrients like; leucine, isoleucine, tryptophan, valine, biotin, nicotinic acid, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, manganese and magnesium are beneficial for LAB growth, but are not provided in sufficient quantities by the cucumber in the brine. The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of (1) the above mentioned nutrients (2) the most effective concentrations of biotin, isoleucine and valine alone and (3) combination of biotin, isoleucine and valine with cucumber fermentation brine, on the production of LAB and lactic acid in brine. The yield of LAB was determined from microscopical counts using a hemacytometer, lactic acid concentration, dry weight and the final sugar concentration in the brine was determined. The first three trials established that biotin, valine and isoleucine improved LAB growth. Efficacy of five different concentrations each of biotin, valine and isoleucine in cucumber juice was determined in trial four. Biotin and isoleucine treatments at three different concentrations, in trial four, were equally effective on LAB growth; hence the lowest concentrations of 614 nM of biotin and 0.76 mM of isoleucine were selected; whereas valine treatments showed a relative small increase in the LAB growth with increase in concentration and 1.17 mM of valine was the most effective of all the valine treatments. These optimized concentrations of nutrients were used in trial five, in different combinations. Of these, biotin and valine treatments when used individually or in combination showed a significant increase in LAB growth and the rate of production and concentration of lactic acid in the brine. These results indicated that the addition of biotin and valine potentially increased the number of LAB. Additional research is required using whole cucumbers to develop effective treatments. This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council


Theories explaining the origin and distribution of Heinrich layers—abrupt, massive discharges of ice-rafted detritus—generally attribute these layers to the Laurentide ice sheet. However, doubt has been cast by the discovery that sediments also originated from European ice sheets. Here we present isotopic (Sr-Nd) fingerprints of Heinrich layers obtained in cores from the European margin. They reveal that for most of the Heinrich layers, the icebergs were calved first from the European ice sheets, predating the Laurentide surges. Accelerator mass spectrometry 14C ages reveal that the oceanic Heinrich events were synchronous with their dust equivalents in the Greenland ice cores, implying a direct ocean-atmosphere link. The typical Laurentide surge seems to have occurred over a short time span, after about 1.5 k.y. of iceberg release from the European ice sheets. This suggests that the Laurentide ice sheet responded to a stimulus created by events in the European sector.


Compared to stress-timed English, mora-timed Japanese is characterized by a simpler syllabic structure and no vowel reduction. Such differences may explain some aspects of the problems that Japanese talkers have in producing English speech rhythm, i.e., an L1 influence on L2 rhythm production. The present study tested whether this L1 influence on L2 could be moderated by an increase in L2 experience. We examined English sentences spoken by Japanese ('experienced' and 'inexperienced' English learners) and native Australian English talkers. The mean duration and variability of consonant and vowel intervals were calculated using rhythm metrics. The results showed that the mean duration of phoneme intervals was relatively longer in L2 speech, particularly the inexperienced L2, compared to L1 speech. Furthermore, the inexperienced L2 talkers exhibited the least vowel durational variability, with the English talkers having the most; the values of the experienced L2 talkers were intermediate. Differences among the talker groups were well described by the coefficient of variations of vowel and consonant durations, more specifically, durational variability increased as the phoneme duration got shorter. Overall, the results demonstrated that an L1 influence on L2 speech rhythm production decreases as a function of L2 experience.


This volume examines the relationship between health literacy and health outcomes, and the role of schools in promoting health literacy through the curriculum. The volume utilizes research, literature reviews and case studies that examine how education can support health literacy development as a vital 21st century citizenship competency. The volume specifically describes the concept of health literacy, and its crucial importance to individuals and society worldwide. It examines the role of the school in fostering health literate youth and what schools can do to provide youth with the tools to become health literate citizens. Including comments from leaders in the field as well as relevant research, and directives for practice, this volume will be of value to those interested in maximising the opportunities of youth and for conceptualising how small changes implemented in the school and across curricula over the course of the formative education period are strongly recommended. The volume aims to stress the importance of the relationship between literacy and health, health literacy and academic achievement, and health literacy and overall individual and societal well-being and citizenship. How health literacy impacts us all, as well as how the school as an educational venue can help to produce health literate citizens is specifically discussed.


Abstractâ??The results of the recent national students survey (NSS) revealed that a major problem in HE today is that of student feedback. Research carried out by members of the project team in the past has led to the development of an automated student feedback system for use with objective formative testing. This software relies on an â??intelligentâ?? engine to determine the most appropriate individual feedback, based on test performance, relating not only to answers, but also to Bloomâ??s cognitive levels. The system also recommends additional materials and challenges, for each individual learner. Detailed evaluation with more than 500 students and 100 university staff have shown that the system is highly valued by learners and seen by staff as an important addition to the methods available. The software has been used on two modules so far over a two year period


Disease has left its record upon this earth from before a written or historic record is available. The study of mummies and human remains in the last 100 years has shed light on numerous diseases.  Diseases previously prominent in society such as tuberculosis and leprosy, are well represented in the paleorecord.  Even rare diseases whose identities were unknown until recent times have been evidenced in the paleorecord.  Basal cell nevus syndrome, also known as Gorlin- Goltz syndrome, is a rare, heritable, autosomal-dominant condition with complete penetrance and variable expressivity.  Although this disease was first recognized by Jarisch and White in 1894 and its spectrum elaborated by Gorlin and Goltz in 1960, the archeological finding of Egyptian Dynastic brothers exhibits proof of this disease in the paleorecord antedates these descriptions by over 3000 years. A look at the original finding and how far our knowledge has come in understanding this disease is the focus of this review.


In this study, the price of carbon offset credits is used for incentivizing a reduction in the release of CO2 emissions and an increase in sequestration of CO2 through forestry activities. A forest management model representative of the southern interior of British Columbia is described. The objective is to maximize net discounted returns to commercial timber operations plus the benefits of managing carbon fluxes. The model tracks carbon in living trees, organic matter, and post-harvest carbon pools. The decision about which forestry activities generate carbon offset credits and how many is essentially a political and not a scientific one.


Differences in health status by socioeconomic position (SEP) tend to be more evident at older ages, suggesting the involvement of a biological mechanism responsive to the accumulation of deleterious exposures across the lifespan. DNA methylation (DNAm) has been proposed as a biomarker of biological aging that conserves memory of endogenous and exogenous stress during life. We examined the association of education level, as an indicator of SEP, and lifestyle-related variables with four biomarkers of age-dependent DNAm dysregulation: the total number of stochastic epigenetic mutations (SEMs) and three epigenetic clocks (Horvath, Hannum and Levine), in 18 cohorts spanning 12 countries. The four biological aging biomarkers were associated with education and different sets of risk factors independently, and the magnitude of the effects differed depending on the biomarker and the predictor. On average, the effect of low education on epigenetic aging was comparable with those of other lifestyle-related risk factors (obesity, alcohol intake), with the exception of smoking, which had a significantly stronger effect. Our study shows that low education is an independent predictor of accelerated biological (epigenetic) aging and that epigenetic clocks appear to be good candidates for disentangling the biological pathways underlying social inequalities in healthy aging and longevity.


Extracted from text ... Heywood, T J 2000 - Tillich. Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series.
Continuum: New York. Pages. Price: US$19.95
Reviewer: Dr Johann Beukes (Kriel)
This is truly an exquisite Tillich-monography! John Heywood Thomas, who studied with Tillich and remained friends with Tillich until Tillich's death, provides us with a fascinating in-depth account of the life and work of Paul Tillich (1886-1965), the remarkable philosopher-theologian who implemented the thought of Schelling, Kant and Hegel, just to name the most prominent of his philosophical influences, directly and explicitly into the theological discourse of the twentieth century. Apart ..


In this paper we study a duopoly where the network e¤ect is nonmonotone and the network can be overloaded. The firms choose prices and locations endogenously, and the agent's utility is influenced by the number of people patronizing the same firm she does. We determine the market equilibrium, and we study how the network effect influences social welfare. We compare this setting with the standard horizontal differentiation model with no network effects to understand whether and how conformism is socially desirable. The results show that whether network effects are desirable depends on how people are conformist, and whether overloading is feasible. If overloading is not possible (in either of the firm's network), and the total consumers' mass is sufficiently high, a network effect which is slightly concave increases social welfare. By contrast, if overloading is feasible, and the total consumers' mass is sufficiently small, social welfare is increased if the network effect is more concave than in the previous case.


We present the first optical sensor based on Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) operating in the mid-infrared range. The experimental setup is based on a Kretschmann geometry with Ti/Au layers deposited on a CaF(2) prism where light excitation is provided by a Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) source. Evidence of SPR is presented and the sensing capability of the system is demonstrated by using CO(2) and N(2) mixtures as test samples. Due to the absorption of CO(2) at this wavelength, it is shown that the sensitivity of this configuration is five times higher than a similar SPR sensor operating in the visible range of the spectrum.


Although a variety of formal and informal mechanisms govern behavior in virtual worlds, the proprietors of such worlds increasingly have relied upon formal legal claims to sanction undesired user behavior. A range of such legal claims might be asserted in different factual situations: copyright infringement, or trespass to computers, or circumvention of technical protections. But each of these claims relies upon the authorization status of the targeted user. Authorization is largely an incident of the virtual world proprietor's Terms of Service (ToS). Thus, the ToS is increasingly regarded as a license to access the proprietor's servers; violation of the ToS annuls authorization to access the servers. The result is that any misbehavior by users, in violation of the ToS, can be recast as a violation of copyright, or trespass, or technical circumvention laws, even if the undesired behavior has little bearing on the variety legal claim asserted. This mutation of legal claims is troubling, not only from the standpoint of legal policy, but as a social policy to govern virtual worlds.


We present a detailed intercomparison of five ground-based 22 GHz microwave radiometers for stratospheric and mesospheric water vapor. Four of these instruments are members of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). The global measurements of middle atmospheric water vapor of the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) onboard the Aura satellite serve as reference and allow intercomparison of the ground-based systems that are located between 45 degrees S and 57 degrees N. The retrievals of water vapor profiles from the ground-based radiation measurements have been made consistent to a large extent: for the required temperature profiles, we used the global temperature measurements of MLS and we agreed on one common set of spectroscopic parameters. The agreement with the reference measurements is better than +/- 8% in the altitude range from 0.01 to 3 hPa. Strong correlation is found between the ground-based and the reference data in the mesosphere with respect to seasonal cycle and planetary waves. In the stratosphere the measurements are generally more noisy and become sensitive to instrumental instabilities toward lower levels (pressures greater than 3 hPa). We further present a compilation of a NDACC data set based on the retrieval parameters described herein but using a temperature climatology derived from the MLS record. This makes the ground-based measurements independent of additional information and allows extension of the data set for years in a homogeneous manner.


The manufacturing sector has been the engine of growth for the Malaysian economy since the economic structural transformation in 1987. The sustainability of high economic growth depends on the productivity through the enhancement of total factor productivity. Total factor productivity development strategies emphasise on quality of the workforce, raw materials, capital structure and technical progress. The improvement and slowdown of total factor productivity (TFP) contribution to the manufacturing sector industries in terms of average annual growth rates depend on the quality of inputs used in the production of the manufacturing sector industries, that were reported to be of low quality and insufficient.

The results of the study confirm that productivity growth of Malaysia's manufacturing sector is an input driven rather than TFP driven and mainly dependent on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The performance of productivity growth after the financial crisis of 1997 was found to be negative during 1998. In addition, it was also found that the slowdown of labour productivity growth of the manufacturing sector industries in terms of average annual growth rates was due to the quality of labour involved in the manufacturing sector industries.

Meanwhile, the study contributes to the literature available in the area of growth accounting method in terms of calculating the real TFP growth by internalising the pollutant emissions beside the input terms in the production function. By this technique total factor productivity growth becomes an indictor of green productivity, which puts into consideration economic development and environmental protection.

Furthermore, the factors affecting the output growth of the manufacturing sector as identified using Jorgensen et al model are the individual contributors to capital, labour, material, pollutant emissions and the combined contribution of the quality of these inputs expressed as the TFP. In fact, the higher level of pollutant emissions generated by the manufacturing sector slowed the growth rates of TFP by internalised the pollutant emissions beside the traditional input terms in the form of undesirable output produced beside the original products of the sector in the model as shown in the results of model 1.

While the factors identified as influencing the labour productivity of the manufacturing sector (that is indicated as a good measure of standard of living rather than output that measure the output per person) as in Dollar and Sokoloff model are the individual contributors to the capital deepening, material-labour ratio, pollutant emissions intensity and the simultaneous contribution of the quality of these factors expressed as the TFP per unit of labour. The pollutant emissions per worker were found to be of more impact into slowing down the contribution of TFP per unit of labour (technological progress) of the manufacturing sector compared with that of the first model. This is due to the problems of labour, during the entire period of the study that witnessed the rapid industrial development in the Malaysian economy, which generated higher level of pollutant emissions as a result of the industrial activities. Finally, combining the results of the two models this study found that industrial activities are related to the growth rate of pollutant emissions generated in the production process of the manufacturing sector. This appears in the form of undesirable output that had slowed the productivity growth of the manufacturing sector in general and the contributions of total factor productivity of the manufacturing sector in particular.


One hundred and sixty‐three patients over 65 years of age admitted to the acute medical wards of a district teaching hospital were studied for prevalence and type of cognitive impairment. Findings from research assessments, where possible using a cognitive rating scale, were compared with detection of impairment by medical and nursing staff involved in patients' clinical management. 30.7% of patients were judged by us to show definite or probable cognitive impairment, a figure substantially higher than that detected by hospital staff. Outcomes in terms of death, duration of admission and discharge location were related to the presence or absence of cognitive impairment and whether impairment was due to delirium, dementia or a mixed syndrome. The low rate of detection of cognitive impairment is discussed, and suggestions made to improve detection in acute elderly medical inpatients.


We discuss the role played by interregional power transmission on the basis of recent scenario work. In a project dealing with long-term planning for energy efficiency and renewable energy in Europe [described thoroughly in 1-4], we modelled a scenario for the present 15 EU countries' energy system in 2050. The basis for the scenario is the concept of "fair pricing" for energy services, meaning that the price of energy should reflect all externalities, but not otherwise be taxed or subsidised. The project assessed resource availability and expected technology price developments over time for a number of energy-related technologies, both on the supply side, the intermediate conversion chain and on the demand side. Among these, transmission technologies play an important role, both in smoothing out renewable energy supplies within the European Union region, and also allowing substantial import of energy from countries outside the EU having a surplus of renewable energy based power.


The successful formation of abrupt phosphorus (P) δ-doping profiles in germanium (Ge) is reported. When the P δ-doping layers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) directly on Ge wafers whose surfaces had residual carbon impurities, more than a half the phosphorus atoms were confined successfully within a few nm of the initial doping position even after the growth of Ge capping layers on the top. On the other hand, the same P layers grown on Ge buffer layers that had much less carbon showed significantly broadened P concentration profiles. Current–voltage characteristics of Au/Ti/Ge capping/P δ-doping/n-Ge structures having the abrupt P δ-doping layers with carbon assistance showed excellent ohmic behaviors when P doses were higher than 1 × 1014 cm−2 and the capping layer thickness was as thin as 5 nm. Therefore, the insertion of carbon around the P doping layer is a useful way of realizing ultrashallow junctions in Ge.


Antarctic benthos exhibits highly complex communities showing a wide array of spatial patterns at several scales which are poorly quantified. In this study, we introduce the use of methods borrowed from landscape ecology to study quantitatively spatial patterns in the Antarctic megaepibenthic communities. This discipline focuses on the notion that communities can be observed as a patch mosaic at any scale. From this perspective we investigated spatial patterns in an Antartcic benthic assemblage across different stations based on landscape indices, and we chose the optimal subset for describing Antarctic benthic patterns. For this purpose, 42 photographs (1 m 2 each) corresponding to 6 stations from the Weddell Sea shelf were investigated. Canonical variate analysis (CVA) showed the arrangement of photographic records along a patch size and diversity gradient on the first axis and a heterogeneity pattern gradient (cover area, interspersion and juxtaposition, land- scape shape indices) on the second axis. Based on a forward stepwise selection, mean patch size (MPS), patch size coefficient of deviation (PSCV), patch richness (PR), interspersion and juxtaposition index (IJI), mean shape index (MSI), Shannon's evenness (SHEI), and periarea index (PERIAREA) were chosen as the adequate subset of indices to describe the Antarctic benthos. Principal Compo- nent Analysis (PCA) was used to identify relationships among them. The resulting 3 factors were interpreted as (1) a heterogeneity pattern (related to patch size, form, diversity, and interspersion indices), (2) an equitability pattern (represented by the evenness index), and (3) a perimeter-area pat- tern (characterised by the periarea index). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to detect differences among the stations based on the subset of indices. Overall, the results showed large dif- ferences in patch characteristics (mean and its coefficient of variation, and shape indices), diversity, and interspersion. The successful description of Antarctic benthic communities through landscape pattern indices provides a useful tool for the characterisation and comparison of spatial patterns in these diverse marine benthic habitats, which gives insights in their organisation.


The ultimate goal of any genome-scale experiment is to provide a functional interpretation of the data, relating the available information with the hypotheses that originated the experiment. Thus, functional profiling methods have become essential in diverse scenarios such as microarray experiments, proteomics, etc. We present the FatiGO+, a web-based tool for the functional profiling of genome-scale experiments, specially oriented to the interpretation of microarray experiments. In addition to different functional annotations (gene ontology, KEGG pathways, Interpro motifs, Swissprot keywords and text-mining based bioentities related to diseases and chemical compounds) FatiGO+ includes, as a novelty, regulatory and structural information. The regulatory information used includes predictions of targets for distinct regulatory elements (obtained from the Transfac and CisRed databases). Additionally FatiGO+ uses predictions of target motifs of miRNA to infer which of these can be activated or deactivated in the sample of genes studied. Finally, properties of gene products related to their relative location and connections in the interactome have also been used. Also, enrichment of any of these functional terms can be directly analysed on chromosomal coordinates. FatiGO+ can be found at: http://www.fatigoplus.org and within the Babelomics environment http://www.babelomics.org


Despite the limited success of immunotherapies in solidmalignancy, two human cancers, melanoma and renal cancer, have, for many years, responded to systemic administration of immune-targeted biologics and showed signals of response to certain therapeutic vaccines. These findings underpinned a long-held perception that melanoma and renal cancerwere uniquely "immunogenic" but that virtually all other human cancerswere not and thus would not respond to immune modulation. That notion has now been shattered by the significant and durable responses in non–small cell lung cancer induced by therapeutic treatment with antibodies blocking the PD-1 checkpoint. The immunotherapy success in lung cancer thus provides a gateway to development of treatments for multiple cancer types that were previously believed not accessible to immune-based therapies. Cancer Immunol Res; 1(2); 85–91. 2013 AACR.


Software reliability is closely influenced by the creation, manifestation and impact of software faults. Consequently, software reliability can be improved by treating software faults properly, using techniques of fault tolerance, fault removal, and fault prediction. Fault tolerance techniques achieve the design for reliability, fault removal techniques achieve the testing for reliability, and fault prediction techniques achieve the evaluation for reliability. In this paper we present best current practices in software reliability engineering for the design, testing, and evaluation purposes. We describe how fault tolerant components can be applied in software applications, how software testing can be conducted to show improvement of software reliability, and how software reliability can be modeled and measured for complex systems. We also examine the associated tools for applying these techniques.


MapReduce is a scalable and fault tolerant framework, patented by Google, for computing embarrassingly parallel reductions. Hadoop is an open-source implementation of Google MapReduce that is made available as a web service to cloud users by the AmazonWeb Services (AWS) cloud computing infrastructure. Amazon Spot Instances (SIs) provide an inexpensive yet transient and market-based option to purchasing virtualized instances for execution in AWS. As opposed to manually controlling when an instance is terminated, SI termination can also occur automatically as a function of the market price and maximum user bid price. We find that we can significantly improve the runtime of MapReduce jobs in our benchmarks by using SIs as accelerators. However, we also find that SI termination due to budget constraints during the job can have adverse affects on the runtime and may cause the user to overpay for their job. We describe new techniques that help reduce such effects.


This dissertation reports on the development of devices and concepts for electrical and microfluidic cell manipulation. In the present context, the term cell manipulation stands for both cell handling and cell modification. The combination of microfluidic channels with micropatterned electrodes allows for the definition of highly localised chemical and electrical environments with spatial resolution comparable to the size of a cell. The devices fabricated in the frame of this thesis employ dielectrophoretic particle handling schemes such as deflection and trapping in pressure-controlled laminar flows to bring cells to – or immobilise them at – locations where cell altering electric fields or chemicals are present. The two concepts of dielectrophoretic cell dipping and cell immersion are introduced and experimentally shown for erythrocytes dipped into Rhodamine in flow, and for individually immobilised Jurkat cells immersed by Trypan Blue. Also, in-situ membrane breakdown in high intensity AC electric fields is optically assessed by efflux of haemoglobin (haemolysis) and by influx of nucleic stains or fluorescence-enhancing ions. The most advanced experiments are on-chip medium exchange followed immediately by electropermeablisation or electrodeformation. The majority of assays presented in this thesis are carried out in microfabricated glass-polymer-glass chips featuring top-bottom electrodes. The devices are fluidically controlled by external gas pressure bridging circuits. Experimental evidence of the unmatched precision of pressure bridging is given in the case of micrometric xy positioning of cells at the intersection of two perpendicular microfluidic channels. Further shown in this document are two methods of optical in-situ temperature measurements, important for bioinstrument characterisation. The two concepts of thermoquenching of a fluorescent dye and the original thermoprecipitation of "smart polymers" are used. The last part of this work deals with the innovative, conceptual engineering tool Liquid Electrode. The general concept and its advantages over solid-state electrodes are given, followed by numerical particle tracking in the case of the novel lateral nDEP particle deflection. The chapter on liquid electrodes concludes with preliminary experimental results of buffer swapping of cells in flow and of AC electropermeabilisation of erythrocytes at frequencies far below the cut-off frequency of corresponding solid-state microelectrodes.


Filarial nematodes are important and widespread parasites of animals and humans. We have been using the African bovine parasite Onchocerca ochengi as a chemotherapeutic model for O. volvulus, the causal organism of 'river blindness' in humans, for which there is no safe and effective drug lethal to adult worms. Here we report that the antibiotic, oxytetracycline is macrofilaricidal against O. ochengi. In a controlled trial in Cameroon, all adult worms (as well as microfilariae) were killed, and O. ochengi intradermal nodules resolved, by nine months' post–treatment in cattle treated intermittently for six months. Adult worms removed from concurrent controls remained fully viable and reproductively active. By serial electron–microscopic examination, the macrofilaricidal effects were related to the elimination of intracellular micro–organisms, initially abundant. Analysis of a fragment of the 16S rRNA gene from the O. ochengi micro–organisms confirmed them to be Wolbachia organisms of the order Rickettsiales, and showed that the sequence differed in only one nucleotide in 858 from the homologous sequence of the Wolbachia organisms of O. volvulus. These data are, to our knowledge, the first to show that antibiotic therapy can be lethal to adult filariae. They suggest that tetracycline therapy is likely to be macrofilaricidal against O. volvulus infections in humans and, since similar Wolbachia organisms occur in a number of other filarial nematodes, against those infections too. In that the elimination of Wolbachia preceded the resolution of the filarial infections, they suggest that in O. ochengi at least, the Wolbachia organisms play an essential role in the biology and metabolism of the filarial worm.


Money demand in part reflects a portfolio decision. As equities have become a significant store of household wealth, it seems plausible that variations in equity markets could affect money demand. We re-specify a standard money demand equation to include stock market volatility and revisions to analyst earnings projections. We find that these equity market variables are statistically significant and reduce the errors from money demand models.


Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry, 2nd Edition helps today's hospitality professional be an expert at managing many functions. In every segment of the hospitality industry, recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, and retaining outstanding staff members are always challenging tasks, but every manager must master them. Hospitality managers now need to be familiar with rising labor costs, increasing competition for quality staff, changing employees' attitudes, evolving guest expectations and a proliferation of new laws that impact human resources policies and activities.


Starting and conducting clinical trials in England can be a complicated and time-consuming process. Before your study can begin it is necessary to gain approval from the appropriate regulatory bodies. Prior to March 2016, studies required National Health Service (NHS) permission (also referred to as Research and Development (R&D) approval) obtained via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Coordinated System for gaining NHS Permission (CSP). Since March 2016, a new streamlined system has been introduced with the aim of making it easier to gain regulatory approvals. Now studies must go through the process of Health Research Authority (HRA) approval. In this article we review the process of gaining HRA approval in England. The article is aimed at junior researchers to help them understand the application process, and to give tips on how to succeed in gaining approval.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect N and K2O on the production and yield of sweet pepper plants, related to the characteristics of growth (weight, lenght and diameter) and total number of fruits per plant, per area. Nitrogen (urea) and potassium (KCl) fertilizers were side dressed in six applications to sweet pepper cultivar Mayata, cultivated in a protected environment. The experiment was conducted from November/96 to August/97, with the following treatments: control and combination of three rates of N (13.3, 26.6, and 39.9 g m-2) and three rates of K2O (13.3, 26.6 and 39.9 g m-2). The experimental design consisted of randomized blocks, in a factorial scheme (3 x 3 + 1), with four replications with a total of 40 plots. Each plot comprised 11 plants, totalizing of 444 plants. Plants were grown with drip irrigation along the entire cycle of the crop. Fruits were harvest when ripe, ready for consumption. Nitrogen fertilizer increased the maximun dry matter of the stem, leaves and roots, but not of fruit dry matter production. The optimal rate for maximum dry matter accumulation of N was 27.0 g m-2. Nitrogen did not affect the growth characteristics of the commercial fruits, such as weight, length, and diameter. Therefore did not affect the yield of commercial fruits. The favorable effect of the nitrogen on the production of total dry matter and yield occurred only at low concentrations of potassium in the soil (13.3 gm-2) and a minimum development of sweet pepper with 33,0 g m-2 de K2O in the soil.


How states acquire the ability to raise taxes is a central question in the study of institutions and economic development in economic history. This paper uses new data on 'Native Authorities', or African local governments, to investigate tax compliance under indirect rule in British Africa. In theory, Native Authorities represented the integration of indigenous institutions into colonial rule. However, the relationships of African states with the colonial government varied, and African communities experienced considerable political and economic change during the colonial period. The paper investigates the relationship between tax compliance, the autonomy of African states within the colonial system, local levels of income and education, and Native Authority institutions. Understanding the dynamics of Native Authority tax collection helps address wider questions about African processes of state-building, the emergence of an 'uneven topography' of sub-national institutions during the colonial period, and the ways in which Africans shaped colonial rule.


The objective of prostheses and of dynamic orthoses is to provide restorative function to anatomical joints of the upper or lower limb that are either absent or physiologically compromised. This study considers the volitional demands of upper limb function and the periodic
requirements of the lower limb during gait. Control strategies using discrete magneto-transducers to measure normal residual physiological activities which predict intended joint positions of dysfunctional or absent joints in the lower or upper limb, have been investigated and
tested by experiment.
The restoration of ankle dorsiflexion in hemiplegics with drop foot using functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been investigated. FES is traditionally controlled using a pressure switch in the heel of the shoe switching the stimulation on only when the foot is not weight bearing.
However functional and cosmetic constraints of this method of control do not make it universally acceptable. A novel FES controller using a magneto-transducer to measure the cyclic variation of angular velocity of the leg through the knee has been developed. Experimentation with this controller showed that reliable switching of FES during successive gait cycles was possible in some patients with a hemiplegic drop foot.
Most powered prosthetic prehensors and wrist units are controlled using the myoelectric activity of muscles. Such prostheses however have no intrinsic relationship between the position of the prosthetic prehensor and wrist unit and hence a degree of conscious effort in their control is required. A powered prosthetic prehensor and wrist unit has been developed using magneto-transducers which sense the myokinemetric activity of muscles dedicated to grasping and which measure forearm rotation. Reliable volitional control of the position of prosthetic prehension and wrist rotator has been demonstrated over several cycles of grasping and wrist rotation.


INTRODUCTION Five days after Mexico's July 2nd presidential election, in the midst of growing public anxiety over an election in which preliminary results had been much too narrow to call, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) declared Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) the "winner" over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The final vote count, issued by the IFE, showed that Calderon had obtained 35.89% while Lopez Obrador had received 35.31%, giving the PAN candidate a victory by a slim half of a percentage point. Despite the declaration, Lopez Obrador refused to concede defeat. It was not just that Felipe Calderon had won by such a narrow margin. Lopez Obrador called for an official recount of the vote because he suspected that the election had been fraudulently stolen from him. In Mexico a presidential election must be certified by the country's Federal Electoral Tribunal. During the two months of that certification process Mexicans waited with great public uncertainty to learn who their next president would be. That public uncertainty was punctuated with increasing unrest characterized by rallies, hunger strikes, and demonstrations aimed at pressing the seven judges of the Tribunal to agree to Lopez Obrador's demands for a total vote-by-vote recount. Clearly, the post-election debacle was a great disappointment for Mexico. Indeed, prior to the presidential campaign there had been much speculation that in July 2006, "Mexico would have an opportunity to consolidate its democratic process for the first time in modern history." (1) Such expectations were clearly premature, raising serious questions about Mexico's progress toward creating a stable democratic system. As Mexico's newly established electoral infrastructure was receiving international recognition and being heralded a s "a model for other emerging democracies," it appears that political optimists were misreading events, believing Mexico to be further along in its transition toward democratic consolidation. (2) Such optimism was tempting based on Mexico's 2000 presidential election experience. The victory of PAN candidate Vicente Fox in that undisputed election against the long ruling PRI marked the country's first truly democratic national contest in modern times. Despite expectations for democratic consolidation in the years that followed, Mexico failed to establish the institutional conditions necessary for deepening its democracy. It appears that Mexico is "stuck" between transitions and may even be vulnerable to reversal. Indeed, what are the consequences of this election for the future of Mexico's emerging democracy? Have democratic reforms hurt Mexico more than they have helped it? Is society prepared to accept the election's results? If not, has Mexico's newfound "democracy" risked the stability of the nation? What can the Mexican case tell us about the conditions necessary for a country's democratic consolidation? DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Much has been written about Latin America's democratic openings in the wake of tremendous political changes in the region during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Regional transitions from authoritarian regimes to newly elected governments were regarded as part of a "third wave" of global democratization. But what defines democratization? Samuel Huntington, who coined the term "third wave," was among those who suggested the importance of free and contested elections as a critical component of democratization. (3) The peaceful transfer of power through free and fair elections, however, is by no means the only sufficient criteria for suddenly characterizing a country as democratic. A careful review of the literature on democratization suggests a general lack of consensus on what democracy is. For example, Collier and Levitsky (1995) have inventoried more than one hundred qualifiers that have been attached to the term democracy. …


Evolution options for a servicing facility at Space Station Freedom (SSF) are currently being studied. While many choices exist, one promising idea is an enclosed facility or hangar which can support a wide variety of applications. These include servicing of Lunar Transfer Vehicles (LTVs), Mars Transfer Vehicles (MTVs), and satellites; storage of payloads, logistics equipment, and tools; and as an element for testing astronaut EVA maneuvers, attaching instruments, and conducting science experiments. At a minimum, the servicing facility should provide micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MM/OD) protection, electrical power, thermal environment leveling, C 3 (Command, Control, and Communications), the necessary functions for servicing, and safe access or escape for astronauts. Preliminary analyses indicate that the advantages of having a servicing facility outweigh the potential disadvantages. For reusable lunar transfer systems, significant savings in mass are realized over the life of the vehicle. Also, a platform for robotic servicing using either on-orbit control by astronauts or ground control can be provided by the hangar. Incorporating automation and robotics wisely can significantly reduce EVA or IVA hours needed for performing servicing tasks and vehicle turnaround. Several hangar designs have been considered with variations in volume, mass, robotic complements, location, and attachment method to SSF and are presented in this paper along with the issues and impacts of implementing a servicing facility.


A procedure is described which permits the isolation from the prepuberal mouse testis of highly purified populations of primitive type A spermatogonia, type A spermatogonia, type B spermatogonia, preleptotene primary spermatocytes, leptotene and zygotene primary spermatocytes, pachytene primary spermatocytes and Sertoli cells. The successful isolation of these prepuberal cell types was accomplished by: (a) defining distinctive morphological characteristics of the cells, (b) determining the temporal appearance of spermatogenic cells during prepuberal development, (c) isolating purified seminiferous cords, after dissociation of the testis with collagenase, (d) separating the trypsin-dispersed seminiferous cells by sedimentation velocity at unit gravity, and (e) assessing the identity and purity of the isolated cell types by microscopy. The seminiferous epithelium from day 6 animals contains only primitive type A spermatogonia and Sertoli cells. Type A and type B spermatogonia are present by day 8. At day 10, meiotic prophase is initiated, with the germ cells reaching the early and late pachytene stages by 14 and 18, respectively. Secondary spermatocytes and haploid spermatids appear throughout this developmental period. The purity and optimum day for the recovery of specific cell types are as follows: day 6, Sertoli cells (purity>99 percent) and primitive type A spermatogonia (90 percent); day 8, type A spermatogonia (91 percent) and type B spermatogonia (76 percent); day 18, preleptotene spermatocytes (93 percent), leptotene/zygotene spermatocytes (52 percent), and pachytene spermatocytes (89 percent), leptotene/zygotene spermatocytes (52 percent), and pachytene spermatocytes (89 percent).


Ross Anderson. The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign 1914-1918. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2004. Distributed by Trafalgar Square Publishing, P. O. Box 257, Howe Hill Road, North Pomfret, Vt. 05053. 352 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $45.00. Cloth. In The Forgotten Front, Ross Anderson has produced the definitive history of the First World War's East African campaign. This is the story of how roughly ten thousand Germans and their African soldiers tied down several hundred thousand British and allied forces for the entire four years of the conflict. It is also the story of how the supposedly "civilized" colonial powers drew tens of thousands of African soldiers and laborers into a war that did not concern them and spread disease, famine, and devastation throughout what is now modern Tanzania. To date, there is no other English-language monograph that covers the East African fighting in its entirety. Although the British government's official history of the first two years of the campaign appeared in 1941, World War II delayed the remaining volumes permanendy. Hubert Moyse-Bartlett's King's African Rifles (1956) and the German commander Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's autobiography (English translation, East African Campaigns [1957]) cover World War I in East Africa from the British and German perspectives but provide only a narrow view of the overall conflict. Anderson, a veteran of the British and Canadian armies and the holder of a Ph.D. in history from the University of Glasgow, aims to remedy this historical gap by covering the "fighting and operational aspects" of the entire campaign. He also correctly widens the scope of his narrative beyond the British and German forces to consider the Belgian and Portuguese role in the East African war. Anderson's book is an old-style narrative military history. His primary actors are politicians, generals, and divisions. Based on material from British and German archives, The Forgotten Front consists of chronological chapters that take the reader through the strategic background of the war in 1914 to the end of the fighting four years later. Although Anderson's close attention to precise troop movements reads in places like an account of a chess match, there is much to recommend this book. A particularly startling revelation is his convincing argument that the East African campaign began in 1914 when General Sir E. G. Barrow, the military secretary to the India Office, took it upon himself to redefine Britain's strategic objectives from the straightforward occupation of German naval bases to territorial conquest. …


In the decades following the Second World War, historians writing about militarism and politics during the German Empire have often mentioned Count Alfred von Waldersee (1832-1904), the armys Quartermaster-General (1882-1888) then Chief of the General Staff (1888-1891), portraying him as a stereotypical warmongering Prussian political general who sought to enhance his own influence, especially by aspiring to the chancellorship. They have typically viewed Alfred von Waldersee within the contexts of civil versus military relations and the era and entourage of Wilhelm II (r. 1888-1918), but these frameworks do not help accurately explain the man, his motivations, how he saw himself, and his relationship to power.
Using archival material that has never before been utilized judiciously and extensively by a professional historian, this study seeks to question, reevaluate, and revise the traditional interpretation of Waldersee by analyzing his private life, public image, and the limits of his ambition. This thesis argues that Alfred von Waldersee needs to be understood as a man formed by his experiences in the age of Wilhelm I; this was the era in which his opinions about domestic and international affairs solidified and he became a political partisan in Berlin. He was a monarchist, but one whose conception of the Prusso-German monarchy was based on the rule of Wilhelm I, his friend and ideal sovereign. In his actions throughout the 1880s, Waldersee sought to defend the traditional power of the Kaiser against what he considered the sovereigns enemies: threatening foreign powers, constitutionalism, democracy, socialism, Jews, and Catholics. This project also focuses on his relationship with his American-born wife, his anti-Semitism, his views on preventive war, and his relationship with the press.
During his life, but especially from 1882 to 1891, Waldersee did not aspire to gain political power for himself; he never wanted to become Chancellor. As an intimate and aide-de-camp to the Kaisers, Waldersee did not operate outside the convoluted power structure of the German Empire. In the colorful, modernizing Europe of the late nineteenth century, Waldersee saw the world in black and white and represented one of the last gasps of an earlier age.


In the years after the first circulation of Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo's Padua anti-Copernican colleague, the staunch Aristotelian philosopher, Cesare Cremonini, published a book on 'traditional' cosmology, Disputatio de coelo in tres partes divisa (Venice, 1613) which puzzled the Roman authorities of the Inquisition and the Index much more than any works on celestial novelties and 'neo-Pythagorean' astronomy. Cremonini's disputation on the heavens has the form of an over-intricate comment of Aristotle's conceptions, in the typically argumentative style of Scholasticism. Nonetheless, it immediately raised the concern of Cardinal Bellarmin, the Pope and other Inquisitors. At a close reading, Cremonini's interpretation of Aristotle's cosmos proved radically anti- Christian. It represented a radicalization of Pomponazzian Alexandrism. In fact, Cremonini did not only circulate Aristotelian principles used by Pomponazzi to argue for the soul's mortality (first, no thought is possible without imagination and the latter faculty is dependent on the body; secondly, all that is generated will eventually perish). He also wiped away all transcendence from the Aristotelian cosmos. In fact, he marginalized the function of the motive Intelligences by explaining heavenly motions through the action of animal-like inseparable souls although he did not erase nor reduced all Intelligences to only one, in accordance with Alexander. Also, he put at the center of Aristotle's cosmos the idea of its eternity, a thesis which he explicitly connected with the rejection of the idea of God the Creator. Cremonini assumed that the universal efficiens, that is the efficient cause of all motion and change in the world, is nothing but the first heaven. As a result of this radically naturalist reading of Aristotle, he banned God from the cosmos, reduced Him to the final cause of the world, and deprived Him of any efficiency and will. This essay on less explored sources of Renaissance astronomical debates considers the institutional, cultural and religious setting of Cremonini's teaching and conceptions. It assesses the reasons for his troubles with the religious authorities, and the political support he was granted by the Serenissima Republic of Venice inspite of the scandalous opinions he circulated as a university professor. My reconstruction of his views is based on the Disputatio de coelo of 1613 and later works, which are directly connected with cosmo-theological polemics with the religious authorities: his Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta coeli substantia (1616) and the unpublished book De coeli efficientia, two manuscript copies of which are preserved in the libraries of Padua and Venice.


This Article is a rejoinder to the civil recourse theorist's claim that tort law will be better served by retreating to the philosopher's prefecture of private wrongs. A subsidiary goal of this Article is to refute John Goldberg's claim that my sociologically-inspired theory of torts as public wrongs serves the interests of tort reformers rather than American consumers. In a nutshell, civil recourse theory is "tort reform in disguise," not the concept of torts as fulfilling wide-ranging purposes such as the social control of corporations. If judges adopt civil recourse theory, they will be less inclined to recognize new causes of action and plaintiff classes deferring instead to legislatures. Tort law is the multi-tasker of the common law and does far more than redress private wrongs.Tort law not only redresses private wrongs, it also advances general deterrence through social control. The contemporary Toyota sudden acceleration claims and the BP oil spill are examples of how tort law tackles collective injuries impacting the consuming public, the environment, and communities. While it is unclear what role tort law will ultimately play in redressing these collective injury cases, social interests will be relevant. This Article, which makes the case that tort law can and should redress public wrongs, unfolds in six parts. Part II introduces the idea of the teleological telescope and the deontological microscope illustrating their operation in sociological theory.In this part of the Article, I explain how the grand theories of classical sociology were telescopic, but some modern theorists miniaturized their perspective to focus on the individual and the small group. Part III describes how modern tort theory has divided into competing camps based upon whether legal academics use a macroscopic or a microscopic approach. The basic distinction is that tort scholars use either a functional telescope (to study public wrongs) contextually or the philosopher's microscope to understand individual cases and controversies in an abstract way. The division between macrotort and microtort theories is the functional equivalent of how these approaches play out in classical and contemporary sociological theory. Torts have a micro aspect applicable to the pressing facts of the individual case and the relationships between the parties, but they also have macro features such as general deterrence and social control that fill in the interstices between criminal and civil law and resonate our collective beliefs.Part IV comments on civil recourse theory's obscurantism and its lack of fit with the empirical reality of modern tort law's complexity. In this part of the Article, I discuss the civil recourse theorist's misguided attempt to reduce the multiplicity of American tort law to one single "true" quintessence. To me, it seems that the main problem with this pure theory of tort law is its separation from social context such as gender, race, social class, power, and social change. What is important to note here is that torts often redress public wrongs, beyond the interests of the immediate parties.Part V gives my pluralistic account of torts as public wrongs. While the manifest function of tort law is civil recourse or compensation, its latent function is vindicating public wrongs. The latent function - the hidden face - of tort law is its public policy role addressing corporate misconduct from the bottom up rather than through a top-down government monolith. The key institution is the plaintiff in the role of private attorney general who seeks civil recourse but also fulfills a broader purpose of identifying and punishing reckless corporate defendants who had previously evaded the attention of the public authorities.Part VI applies my sociological theory of public wrongs to the widespread problems created by dangerously defective software. The tort law lag in addressing defective software demonstrates the need to permit tort law to evolve to address social problems. Hence, the focus is how "we the people" need brawny tort remedies to address social problems in the information-based economy.


The Arabian Temnothorax Mayr, 1861 fauna is revised for the first time. Three species are recognized from the region: Temnothorax arabicus Sharaf & Akbar sp. nov., T. liviae (Agosti & Collingwood, 2011) comb. nov. and T. megalops (Hamann & Klemm, 1967). Leptothorax saudiae Collingwood & Agosti, 1996 was placed in Temnothorax by Bolton (2003), but actually belongs to Tetramorium Mayr, 1855 and is herewithin recombined to Tetramorium saudiae (Collingwood & Agosti, 1996) comb. nov. Automontage images and comparative diagnoses of workers as well as notes on habitats and distribution of treated species are provided. A revised key to the Arabian species based on the worker caste is also presented.


Transient diabetes is not recognized as one of the known metabolic complications of acute inflammatory polyradiculopathy or Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Four patients are described who developed this disorder during the paralytic phase of their illness and one who was hyperinsulinaemic but not hyperglycaemic. The mean age of the patients was 34.4 yr. No patient received steroids and three were ventilated. The mean cerebrospinal fluid protein concentration was 1.6 g/l. Two patients required short term insulin therapy. Four had intravenous glucose tolerance tests performed acutely (AP) and after one month (1 M). Three had a repeat study after long term follow-up. One subject had increased his Body Mass Index from 23.8-26.8 and therefore his IVGTT reflected insulin resistance. The other three patients had elevated basal glucose during GBS and similar first phase glucose response to IVGTT. The mean fasting glucose was 6.9 mmol/l (AP), 3.9 mmol/l (1 M) and 4.4 mmol/l at 6 yr. The mean fasting insulin was 114.9 pM/l (AP), 114.9 pM/l (1 M) and 25.9 pM/l (6 yr). The mean fasting C-peptide was 1.3 nmol/l (AP), 1.0 nmol/l (1 M) and 0.5 nmol/l (6 yr). Homeostatic modelling of the paired insulin and C-peptide data show a trend consistent with the hypothesis that insulin resistance is the dominant feature of impaired glucose tolerance in Guillain-Barre syndrome.


ABSTRACT The protozoan parasite Entamoeba histolytica is the causative agent of amoebiasis, a human disease characterized by dysentery and liver abscess. The physiopathology of hepatic lesions can be satisfactorily reproduced in the hamster animal model by the administration of trophozoites through the portal vein route. Hamsters were infected with radioactively labeled amoebas for analysis of liver abscess establishment and progression. The radioimaging of material from parasite origin and quantification of the number inflammation foci, with or without amoebas, described here provides the first detailed assessment of trophozoite survival and death during liver infection by E. histolytica. The massive death of trophozoites observed in the first hours postinfection correlates with the presence of a majority of inflammatory foci without parasites. A critical point for success of infection is reached after 12 h when the lowest number of trophozoites is observed. The process then enters a commitment phase during which parasites multiply and the size of the infection foci increases fast. The liver shows extensive areas of dead hepatocytes that are surrounded by a peripheral layer of parasites facing inflammatory cells leading to acute inflammation. Our results show that the host response promotes massive parasite death but also suggest also that this is a major contributor to the establishment of inflammation during development of liver abscess.


The spectral representation of gravity and magnetic fields shows that the mathematical expressions describing these fields are the result of the convolution of factors which depend on the geometry of the causative body, the physical properties of the body and the type of field being observed. If a field is known then it is possible to remove or alter these factors to map other fields or physical parameters which are linearly related to the observed field. The transformations possible are: continuation, reduction to the pole, converting between gravity and magnetic fields, converting between components of measurement, calculation of derivatives and mapping magnetization and density distributions and relief on interfaces. Digital Wiener filters, designed using a least squares error criterion, provide an accurate method for effecting these transformations If the field to be transformed is contaminated by noise anomalies, Whose average autocorrelation function can be estimated, then the Wiener filter can be optimized to suppress this noise. The British Isles resulted, in Lower Palaeozoic times, from the collision of two continental masses. Consideration of published geological, aeromagnetic, gravity and crustal seismic data suggests that the Midland Valley of Scotland and Northern Ireland overlies the suture of this ocean closing process. Ophiolite zones on either side of the Midland Valley suggest the location of ancient diverging sub duction zones and the Midland Valley graben appears to be down faulted as a result of compression between the two converging continents It is possible to relate the tectonic, stratigraphic and igneous features of the area to this model and to use the model to predict and to use the geophysics to locate, previously unknown features The post Carboniferous features in the area appear to be related to continental drifting of Europe from America.


Although international organizations are often seen as an important transformative power on the international arena, we know less about how and when they promote better domestic institutions. Using data on education outcomes in 53 African countries from 1994-2008, we show that IOs use several empirically distinct channels through which they influence domestic outcomes: conditionality, rankings and international integration. We find that integration and high international rankings have a positive impact on education outputs, while IOs have a negative influence when they use conditional aid. Our findings have implications both for the diffusion of the quality of government agenda, and for advancing our knowledge of IO power. Monika Bauhr The Quality of Government Institute Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg email@example.com Nicholas Charron The Quality of Government Institute Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg firstname.lastname@example.com


SUMMARY The objectives of this study were to determine the incidence rate, the cumulative incidence of Postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) and porcine dermatitis nephropathy syndrome (PDNS), and the frequency of macroscopic and microscopic lesions of PMWS and PDNS in pigs in a farm in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. A group of production consisting of 235 pigs was observed from 4 to 22 weeks of life to determine the number of new cases compatible with the PMWS and PDNS. In addition pigs necropsied on the farm that were discarded and with signs consistent with syndromes studied. 80 pigs were studied, the organs inspected during the necropsy were the lungs, lymphonodes, spleen, liver, tonsils, ileum, kidneys and skin, samples of all organs were obtained for histopathological studies. The results were: 14 pigs with signs consistent with syndromes mentioned, 7 with the PMWS and 7 with the PDNS. The cumulate incidence and incidence rate for both syndromes was 0.06 and 0.0034 respectively. Five pigs died, 3 due to PMWS and 2 due to PDNS. The lethality rate calculated for PMWS and PDNS was of 0.4 and 0.3 respectively. The average time elapsed since the start of the observation period until the pigs sick with the PMWS and PDNS were 13.8 and 16.8 weeks respectively. The principal organ affected were the lymph nodes (100%) where the main macroscopic injury was a lymphadenomegaly with diffuse edema (56%) and the microscopic was a histiocytic lymphadenitis with lymphoid atrophy (64%)


This paper proposes a Three-Stage Model for transmission augmentation in restructured electricity markets. The mathematical formulation of the model is developed based on the game theory. Transmission network service provider, TNSP, generating companies, GenCos, and market management company, MMC, are placed in different stages of the model. These stages are linked to each other using the Leader-followers game and the concept of Nash equilibriums. An increase in transmission capacity can have two benefits for the electricity market; firstly, efficiency benefit in terms of improving the social welfare of the electricity industry, and, secondly, competition benefit which leads to increasing competition among generating companies. The introduced Three-Stage Model can capture both benefits of transmission projects in electricity markets. An effective numerical method is designed for solving the developed Three-Stage Model. A modified IEEE 14 example system is employed to show the effectiveness of the methodology. This paper has been organized in two parts. First part deals with the mathematical formulation of the algorithm and second part deals with the numerical studies. What follows is the first part of the paper.


The prehistory and the early history of Nepal are largely unknown - certainly, as far as the major part of the country is concerned, because it is not situated closely enough to such early cultural and political centers such as Kapilavastu, or medieval ones such as the Kathmandu Valley, Tibet, Chamba or Jumla. Nor can we expect, except from future extensive archaeological surveys, more information for those areas that have not left us with written documentation. In this situation, it may be useful to try to elicit more information not only from the "unwritten history" contained in legends etc., but also from language itself, where such information can be found in an "undiluted" state. For changes in language occur, as is well known, mostly unconsciously and over a period of many years and they are, for the greater part, not directly influenced by official policy or by individual habits. It is well known that place names such as those of streams, rivers, localities, and mountains often are very persistent. This especially applies to names of rivers. In Europe, for example, where such names have been studied in great detail, river names were found to reflect, quite frequently, the languages spoken before the influx of the Indo-European speaking populations. They thus are older, dependent on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in the various parts of Europe, than c. 4500 to 2500 B.C. It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of Nepal. A toponymical study of Nepal is bound to provide some insight into the settlement patterns of the present and past populations of the area. Such an attempt has not yet appeared though some authors have hinted at the desirability of such an undertaking. In the following pages, I will limit myself to the names of the rivers of the Nepalese Himalayas, to hydronomy, as such names seem to be more conservative than those of settlements (and easier to explore than for example those of local fields or mountains.)


This article seeks to establish if there are similarities in literary themes in children's literature from Zimbabwe and the Caribbean Islands. This is done by looking at recurrent themes in Caribbean and Zimbabwean children's literatures. The article's analysis is based on two children's literature books, one from Jamaica and another from Zimbabwe. The researchers established that there are similarities in the themes explored in these texts. The themes that feature prominently are those of family, reward of bravery, punishment of crime, and myths and beliefs. This seems to support Summer Edward's assertion that Caribbean children's literature has universal themes that can be found in children's literature the world over. However, it has also been established that there are some themes found in children's literatures that are peculiar to regions and their settings. For instance, some themes in Caribbean children's literature centre on the sea, which is central to the livelihoods of the people and is viewed as the provider of life. Similarly, some dominant themes in the Zimbabwean children's literature revolve around the Great Zimbabwe ruins/world heritage site in the country. On the whole, however, the researchers conclude that common themes in children's literature are universal.


This research documents human-animal interactions on the Georgia coast during the Late Archaic (3000-2000 cal B.C.). Results of multiple analyses indicate that Late Archaic people fished estuaries extensively, but fish populations were not impacted to the same extent, either anthropogenically or non-anthropogenically, as present-day fish populations. Archaeofaunal collections from five shell rings, which are shell-bearing archaeological formations with mounded shell arranged in a circular pattern around a shell-free center, are analyzed. The collections are from three sea islands and include: the Cannon's Point (9GN57) and West (9GN76) Rings, St. Simons Island; Ring III of the Sapelo Island Shell Ring complex (9MC23), Sapelo Island; and the St. Catherines (9LI231) and McQueen (9LI1648) Shell Rings, St. Catherines Island. The shell ring collections are dominated by estuarine fishes. Sea catfishes, mullets, and drums are the most abundant taxa; other fishes also are present, but to a lesser extent. Deer contribute very few individuals, but sometimes a large percentage of the biomass. Late Archaic people used mass-capture technologies to exploit small-bodied, estuarine fishes. The fishes most frequently used reflect the local environmental parameters in each estuary. For example, fishes that prefer lower salinities are more common in shell ring collections from St. Simons Island, which is surrounded by an estuary with a large freshwater input. At the St. Catherines Shell Ring, several zooarchaeological measures including abundance of taxa, diversity, richness, equitability, mean trophic level, and abundance of different fish body sizes and capture type are compared from multiple sections of the ring. The analysis suggests that sections of the ring itself are similar, while remains from the interior of the ring differ from those of the ring itself. The terminal increment in fish otoliths and δ 18 Ootolith are used to establish the temperature the fish experienced at death. These analyses show that fishing occurred during all four seasons. The incremental structures of modern and archaeological hardhead catfish and Atlantic croaker otoliths suggest that fish grew more slowly in the past compared to present-day growth rates. Possible factors for changes in growth include anthropogenic environmental changes, such as pollution and overfishing, and non-anthropogenic environmental change. INDEX WORDS: Zooarchaeology, Coastal archaeology, Late Archaic shell rings, Georgia, Otolith incremental formation, Oxygen isotope analysis, Optimal Foraging Models, Intrasite analysis, Seasonality, Fisheries, Human impacts on fish populations ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF VERTEBRATE REMAINS FROM FIVE LATE ARCHAIC SHELL RINGS ON THE GEORGIA COAST, USA


Strontium isotopes (87Sr/86) in tooth enamel reflect the geological subtrate on which an animal lived during tooth development. Therefore, strontium isotopes of tecth in fosil cave accumulations are potentially useful in determining whether an animal was native to the vicinity of the site or was brought in by other agents such as predators from farther afield. In this study, we tested the ability of strontium isotopes to help determine the origins of fossil rodents in Gladysvale Cave, South Africa. First, biologically available 87 Sr/86) ratios were established using modern plants recovered from three geologically distintct areas, the Malmani dolomite, the Hekpoort andesite/basalt, and the Timeball Hill shale, all of which were found to be significantly different. Strontium isotope values were then measured on tooth enamel of rodents from a moder barn ow (Tyto alba) roost in Gladysvale (67%) versus those from other geological zones. We then measured strontium isotope values of enamel from 14 fossil rodent teecth from Gladysvale Cave. The average and range of values for the fossil rodents is similar to that of the modern owl roost rodents. Fifty-seven percent of the fossil rodent probably derived from the local dolomite, while others were brought in from at least 0.8 km away. A pilot study of 87Sr/86Sr ratios of fossil rodent teeth from Swartkrans Member 1 and Sterkfontein Member 4 indicates that 81% and 55% of those rodents, respectively, are from the local dolomite subtrate. Overall, this study shows that strontium isotopes can be a useful tool in taphonomy analyses by identifying non. Local individuals, and has great potential for elucidating more of the taphonomic history of fossil accumulations in the dolomitic cave sites of South Africa.


Mary Pipher's groundbreaking investigation of America's "girl-poisoning culture," Reviving Ophelia, has sold nearly two million copies and established its author as one of the nation's foremost authorities on family issues. In Letters to a Young Therapist, Dr. Pipher shares what she has learned in thirty years as a therapist, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Letters to a Young Therapist gives voice to her practice with an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation. And while her letters are addressed to an imagined young therapist, every one of us can take something away from them. Long before "positive psychology" became a buzzword, Dr. Pipher practiced a refreshingly inventive therapy--fiercely optimistic, free of dogma or psychobabble, and laced with generous warmth and practical common sense. But not until now has this gifted healer described her unique perspective on how therapy can help us revitalize our emotional landscape in an increasingly stressful world. Whether she's recommending daily swims for a sluggish teenager, encouraging a timid husband to become bolder, or simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent's sorrow, Dr. Pipher's compassion and insight shine from every page of this thoughtful and engaging book.


In this study, pigments from three species of pigmenting fungi, Chlorociboria aeruginosa (xylindein, green), Scytalidium cuboideum (draconin red, red), and Scytalidium ganodermophthorum (yellow), were used to dye multi-fabric test strips. Tests for color stability and tests for colorfastness to washing with and without bleach, and to perspiration, were conducted. Color readings were taken using a colorimeter, and color differences were statistically determined based on overall color change as calculated using the CIE L*a*b* color space. The results indicated that all three pigments were stable over time, indicating that these pigments can be used for fabric dyeing, eliminating the need for additional chemicals or heat as is required for traditional fabric dyes. Xylindein and draconin red exhibited good colorfastness to washing, and xylindein good colorfastness to perspiration. These results indicate that xylindein shows good potential as a dye for garment fabrics, and draconin red shows good potential as a dye for secondlayer garment fabrics.


Electronic performance support systems (EPSSs) are the software programs commonly used in commercial environments since the early 1990s. These software programs are generally called performance-based systems and focus on the complete job rather than providing individual development. For that reason, the usage of these systems in learning environments has not been sufficiently investigated. In this empirical study, availability of using EPSS software for learning processes was investigated in order to contribute to the literature. An EPSS software was developed for undergraduate students to use in programming language courses and the effects of the software on students' self-regulation based learning skills were investigated. During the treatment process, while the experimental group was supported with EPSS, traditional teaching continued in the control group. The results of the study showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of motivational beliefs; however, there were significant differences in terms of cognitive, metacognitive, and resource management strategies.


A new sliding mode control (SMC) approach, output variables only, single phase only and chattering phenomenon free, is presented for a class of mismatched uncertain large-scale systems. For a new multitask SMC, it is not required that the system states are available. Moreover, the sliding function in this study just depends on output variables. Using an exponential type sliding surface, the system states are always in the sliding mode at the beginning time t = 0. Using a newly appropriate linear matrix inequality stability conditions by the Lyapunov method are derived such that each subsystem in the new sliding mode is completely invariant to matched uncertainties. As a result, robustness of the mismatched uncertain large-scale systems can be assured throughout an entire response of the system starting from the initial time t = 0. In every subsystem, a scheme of decentralised control using only output states is proposed. In addition, a continuous controller is finally designed for chattering removal. Finally, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.


Torsional drivetrain oscillations are a well-known problem in electrical or hybrid electric drivetrains and may greatly influence the driving comfort. An experimental testing setup that can be used to design and evaluate active oscillation damping schemes is proposed in this paper. Instead of an in-vehicle test, the drivetrain transmission is emulated from mathematic models, executed by a servo drive which is connected to the physical electrical drive system. The proposed setup functions as a hardware-in-the-loop simulator and can be easily adjusted to simulate any drive trains without additional cost.


The objective of this randomised controlled trial was to compare the effects and expense of three approaches to care (1) proactive cardiovascular risk reduction (CaRR) clinic; (2) nurse telephone calls; or (3) usual care for people with cardiovascular risk factors in a Primary Care, Health Service Organisation (HSO) in Ontario, Canada. Subjects included consenting patients with an identified cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor identified from the HSO computerised patient information system in 2004. Patients were excluded if they were mentally incompetent, <18 years of age, in a nursing home, or not English speaking. Of 1570 eligible subjects, 523 (33.3%) verbally declined, 145 (9.2%) could not be contacted, and 249 (15.9%) were not needed. The final sample size was 653 (41.6%), 634 completed the follow-up (97%). The Cardiovascular Risk Score, Health and Social Service Utilisation, Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating, Billings and Moos Indices of Coping, Personal Resource and Self-Efficacy Questionnaires were measured at baseline and 1-year follow-up by clinical examination and telephone interview. Cardiovascular risk scores were reduced in all treatment groups after 1 year. The proportions of subjects showing reduction in risk score greater than or equal to 10% was greatest in the CaRR group (69.2%) compared with Nurse Phone intervention (57.8%) and Usual Care (59.0%) (M-Hchi(2) = 4.33, df = 1, P = 0.037, CaRR-Usual Care). Self-efficacy scores showed the greatest improvements in the CaRR clinic. This effect was achieved with no significant difference in total person per annum costs for direct and indirect health and social service utilisation between all three groups. A CaRR clinic is more effective in reducing CVD risk after 1 year compared with nurse phone intervention and usual care with no additional expense found.


The phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt pathway is thought to be essential for normal insulin action and glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle and has been shown to be dysregulated in insulin resistance. However, the specific roles of and signaling pathways triggered by Akt isoforms have not been fully assessed in muscle in vivo. We overexpressed constitutively active (ca-) Akt-1 or Akt-2 constructs in muscle using in vivo electrotransfer and, after 1 wk, assessed the roles of each isoform on glucose metabolism and fiber growth. We achieved greater than 2.5-fold increases in total Ser473 phosphorylation in muscles expressing ca-Akt-1 and ca-Akt-2, respectively. Both isoforms caused hypertrophy of muscle fibers, consistent with increases in p70S6kinase phosphorylation, and a 60% increase in glycogen accumulation, although only Akt-1 increased glycogen synthase kinase-3beta phosphorylation. Akt-2, but not Akt-1, increased basal glucose uptake (by 33%, P = 0.004) and incorporation into glycogen and lipids, suggesting a specific effect on glucose transport. Consistent with this, short hairpin RNA-mediated silencing of Akt-2 caused reductions in glycogen storage and glucose uptake. Consistent with Akt-mediated insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1) degradation, we observed approximately 30% reductions in IRS-1 protein in muscle overexpressing ca-Akt-1 or ca-Akt-2. Despite this, we observed no decrease in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. Furthermore, a 68% reduction in IRS-1 levels induced using short hairpin RNAs targeting IRS-1 also did not affect glucose disposal after a glucose load. These data indicate distinct roles for Akt-1 and Akt-2 in muscle glucose metabolism and that moderate reductions in IRS-1 expression do not result in the development of insulin resistance in skeletal muscle in vivo.


This paper presents recent work on a multimedia retrieval project at Cambridge University and Olivetti Research Limited (ORL). We present novel techniques that allow extremely rapid audio indexing, at rates approaching several thousand times real time. Unlike other methods, these techniques do not depend on a fixed vocabulary recognition system or on keywords that must be known well in advance. Using statistical methods developed for text, these indexing techniques allow rapid and efficient retrieval and browsing of audio and video documents. This paper presents the project background, the indexing and retrieval techniques, and a video mail retrieval application incorporating content-based audio indexing, retrieval, and browsing.


We present rest-frame near-ultraviolet (NUV) spectroscopy of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at 0.6 < z < 1.2 from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) in SDSS-IV. One of the eBOSS programs is to obtain 2″ (about 15 kpc) fiber spectra of about 200,000 emission-line galaxies (ELGs) at redshift z ≳ 0.6. We use the data from the pilot observations of this program, including 8620 spectra of SFGs at 0.6 < z < 1.2. The median composite spectra of these SFGs at 2200 Å < λ < 4000 Å feature asymmetric, preferentially blueshifted non-resonant emission, Fe ii*, and blueshifted resonant absorption, e.g., Fe ii and Mg ii, indicating ubiquitous outflows driven by star formation at these redshifts. For the absorption lines, we find a variety of velocity profiles with different degrees of blueshift. Comparing our new observations with the literature, we do not observe the non-resonant emission in the small-aperture (<40 pc) spectra of local star-forming regions with the Hubble Space Telescope, and find the observed line ratios in the SFG spectra to be different from those in the spectra of local star-forming regions, as well as those of quasar absorption-line systems in the same redshift range. We introduce an outflow model that can simultaneously explain the multiple observed properties and suggest that the variety of absorption velocity profiles and the line ratio differences are caused by scattered fluorescent emission filling in on top of the absorption in the large-aperture eBOSS spectra. We develop an observation-driven, model-independent method to correct the emission infill to reveal the true absorption profiles. Finally, we show that the strengths of both the non-resonant emission and the emission-corrected resonant absorption increase with [O ii] λλ3727, 3730 rest equivalent width and luminosity, with a slightly larger dependence on the former. Our results show that the eBOSS and future dark-energy surveys (e.g., Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey and Prime Focus Spectrograph survey) will provide rich data sets of rest-frame NUV spectroscopy for astrophysical applications.


This paper is intended to provide background to guide future work in establishing the cost-effectiveness of modern wound care practices. An outline of the rationale, indications and effectiveness is given for two aspects of the total wound care protocol: pressure relief and moist wound dressings. Against this background of mechanisms and materials for wound healing, methodology employed in reported cost-effectiveness studies is appraised with a view to identifying a set of rigorous studies that might accurately reflect the value of adopting alternative wound care methods as part of a standard treatment protocol. Several methodological shortcomings were identified in the studies reviewed. Moreover, these studies generally fell well short of the rigorous application of CEA methods necessary to inform questions of resource allocation at the societal level. Nonetheless, reviewed findings provide a guide to the magnitude of key factors influencing the cost-effectiveness of pressure relieving surfaces and moist wound healing. Further, modelling cost-effectiveness around reviewed findings could well produce robust estimates of C/E suitable to guide resource allocation.


Additional information at the end of the chapter Abstract Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a morbidity that presents a wide range of difficulties for the patient to reach the control. This reality not only has impact on the clinical practice but also has serious financial and social consequences for both the patient and the health system. Health technologies that are capable of improving glycemic control have been tested in cost-effectiveness analysis to assess the efficiency of DM care. According to the Brazilian Society of Diabetes, patients with glycated hemoglobin (A1c) within the values considered adequate, less than 6.5%, present a relative risk of developing complications (neuropathy, retinopathy, diabetic foot, pressure ulcers, cardiovascular diseases and renal disease) equal to that of a nondiabetic patient. In highlight, health technologies health technologies have presented positive impact on reducing A1c and, consequently, on reducing diabetes complications. Thus, new health technologies have been capable saving of 72% of resources spent on DM care.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the body of literature on environmental management accounting (EMA) and provides a quantitative overview of the academic as well as the professional literature constituting the field. By doing so, the paper discusses whether EMA has developed as a discipline. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a database containing 814 (396 of them published in academic journals) publications in English, German and French with a publication date prior to 2012 a bibliometric analysis is conducted. Data on the publications, journals, authors and citations were collected, double-checked and examined by applying bibliometric measures. Findings - The bibliometric analysis identifies trends in EMA research publications which show that EMA has developed as a young discipline, but is still faces challenges to get better established in mainstream accounting and management research. Although the publication number is growing, a substantial part of the publications have been published outside mainstream accounting journals in non-accounting journals, books and reports. A recent trend towards establishing specialised environmental (and sustainability) accounting journals is also rendered apparent. The low number of highly cited publications of few authors, however, indicates that EMA is still to become a mainstream field of research. Originality/value - The paper discusses with the help of bibliometric analysis and measures whether EMA has developed as a discipline and whether it has become part of mainstream accounting research.


Deduplication is a popular technique widely used to save storage spaces in the cloud. To achieve secure deduplication of encrypted files, Bellare et al. formalized a new cryptographic primitive named message-locked encryption (MLE) in Eurocrypt 2013. Although an MLE scheme can be extended to obtain secure deduplication for large files, it requires a lot of metadata maintained by the end user and the cloud server. In this paper, we propose a new approach to achieve more efficient deduplication for (encrypted) large files. Our approach, named block-level message-locked encryption (BL-MLE), can achieve file-level and block-level deduplication, block key management, and proof of ownership simultaneously using a small set of metadata. We also show that our BL-MLE scheme can be easily extended to support proof of storage, which makes it multi-purpose for secure cloud storage.


We present a theoretical analysis of correlation properties of the local density of states in a disordered emitter probed by resonant tunnelling through a localized impurity state. The emitter is considered to be a cylinder of length L and radius R with elastic mean free path l<<{L,R} and the effective dimensionality d⩽3 of the emitter is determined by the relation between the typical scale over which diffusion occurs, namely the quasi-particle relaxation length Lc, and the dimensions L and R. The differential conductance measured in asymmetric double-barrier structures has been used (see, e.g., Schmidt T, Haug R J, Fal'ko V I, von Klitzing K, Förster A and Lüth H 1996 Europhys. Lett. 36 61) to image local density-of-states fluctuations. We give analytic expressions for the variance and for correlations of the differential conductance with respect to voltage and applied magnetic field for the limits of a bulk three-dimensional emitter, a film, a wire and a pillar, and we determine the effect of magnetic anisotropy in lower dimensions. A numerical calculation, valid for arbitrary Lc, is performed in order to describe the crossovers between these limits where the correlation functions are sensitive to the shape of the emitter and the position of the resonant impurity.


Can political communication specialists benefit from developments in social media intelligence in the business sphere? The corporate world and management studies academics have focused a significant amount of attention on translating online data into actionable intelligence about consumer behavior. At the same time, political scientists are increasingly using online data to test and refine a range of theories, particularly relating to public opinion and voting behavior. This paper, which reports on a joint management/political communication seed grant project from the ADVANCE program at the University of Maryland, explores the extent to which each field can usefully inform the other. We used the early primary campaigns for the U.S. 2016 presidential elections as a case study, finding that Republicans did not establish brand elements of their campaigns on their own websites. We used a broader study of the media ecosystem and brands in election campaigns, finding that traditional media outlets continue to play a large role in amplifying and spreading particular political 'brand' elements (e.g. Trump's immigration stance) in ways that overwhelmed attempts by both seasoned and novice presidential campaigns to attract voter attention in a crowded race. Social media then amplified this brand. Thus, social media intelligence and branding can be a useful part of understanding political brands, but only when this intelligence is deployed within a broader analysis of media ecosystems. We suggest a campaign message flow model for measuring and analyzing how ideas packaged as 'brands' can be tracked in a media ecosystem. We also consider the relationship between extremism and media, suggesting that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's conviction that the mass media gave credence to extremism through the "oxygen of publicity" may be the most relevant model for understanding the role of the media in the 2016 U.S presidential elections. Ultimately, our cross-disciplinary approach to social media intelligence holds promise in analyzing how candidate brands/messages are remediated through the legacy media and how these brands/messages resonate among voters.


Syntaxonomy, ecology and distribution patterns of thermophilous deciduous forests of the class Quercetea pubescentis remain understudied in the Western Balkans. Some oak forest types have not been investigated to date in large parts of the region and classification of many traditionally distinguished types has not been critically revised based on numerical data analysis. This is particularly true for the acido-thermophilous communities dominated by Quercus petraea, that are transitional between thermophilous and meso-acidophilous oak forests and were traditionally classified mostly to the class Quercetea robori-petraeae. Numerical analysis of nearly 3000 relevés allowed us to approach these issues. We classified thermophilous deciduous forests of the Western Balkans into six types reflecting the main broad-scale ecological and phytogeographical patterns in species composition within the study area: type 1 – sub-Mediterranean forests dominated by Quercus pubescens and/or Carpinus orientalis; type 2 – sub-Mediterranean and continental Quercus pubescens forests without Carpinus orientalis; type 3 – meso-thermophilous supra-Mediterranean and/or relict communities dominated by Ostrya carpinifolia; type 4 – thermophilous continental forests of deep, neutral to slightly acidic soils dominated by Quercus frainetto and/or Quercus cerris; type 5 – acido-thermophilous continental forests dominated by Quercus petraea and/or Quercus cerris; type 6 – acido-thermophilous northern Dinaric-southern Pannonian Quercus petraea dominated forests. A detrended correspondence analysis revealed that the variation in species composition mainly follows a geographical southwest-northeast gradient, reflecting the broad-scale ecological (macroclimatic and geological) and phytogeographical (turnover of dominant tree species) gradients. There is also a significant role of light regime, which mainly reflects local management practice, level of disturbance and the hemeroby of particular sites. Contrary to most traditional classifications, we place the acidothermophilous forests of the Western Balkans (type 6) into the class Quercetea pubescentis.


The paper uses a case study approach to review a working project aimed at establishing a final year international integrated student construction project at Coventry University. Due to the ever-increasing internationalisation of the construction industry the integrated student project at Coventry University aims to provide the participants with virtual international working teams, an increasingly common process within the construction industry. The teams undertaking the project are to be formed equally from two Universities, one in the United Kingdom (Coventry University) and the other in Canada (Toronto - Ryerson University). The paper reviews the process of establishing the international student construction project and reviews how the student teams needed to work together to produce technical outputs from a given brief, therefore promoting international communication and teamwork. The paper reviews the evaluation of the project through quantitative and qualitative data taken from questionnaires with a view to measuring the success of international integrated student collaboration with links to the construction sector.


We study the target node prediction problem: given two social networks, identify those nodes/users from one network (called the source network) who are likely to join another (called the target network, with nodes called target nodes). Although this problem can be solved using existing techniques in the field of cross domain classification, we observe that in many realworld situations the cross-domain classifiers perform sub-optimally due to the heterogeneity between source and target networks that prevents the knowledge from being transferred. In this paper, we propose learning the consistent behavior of common users to help the knowledge transfer. We first present the Consistent Incidence Co-Factorization (CICF) for identifying the consistent users, i.e., common users that behave consistently across networks. Then we introduce the Domain-UnBiased (DUB) classifiers that transfer knowledge only through those consistent users. Extensive experiments are conducted and the results show that our proposal copes with heterogeneity and improves prediction accuracy.


The reconciliation step of continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocols usually involves forward error correction codes. Matching the code rate and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the quantum channel is required to achieve the high reconciliation efficiencies that are crucial for long distance links. Puncturing and shortening is a way to adapt the code rate to the SNR at the cost of a slightly reduced reconciliation efficiencies. Instead of adapting the code rate to the SNR, we propose to add a controlled amount of artificial noise to the measured data, so that the resulting SNR could be reduced to match the given code rate. We show that our method can compete with puncturing and shortening and even outperform it in high-loss, high-excess noise scenarios.