Common sense suggests fewer persons will confess if police must warn them of their right to silence, obtain affirmative waivers from them, and end the interrogation if they ask for a lawyer or for questioning to stop, as required under Miranda v. Arizona. Yet the conventional academic wisdom is that Miranda's effects are negligible. Perhaps more surprisingly, no one has bothered to quantify Miranda's effect on the criminal justice system so as to explain what a "negligible" effect is and how many dangerous criminals such an effect involves. This Article contends that the conventional academic wisdom about Miranda's effects is simply wrong. In defense of this thesis, this Article makes the first attempt to advance the Miranda debate beyond the prevailing qualitative level. It proceeds in six parts. Part I briefly describes the proper methodology for assessing Miranda's costs. Part II reviews the available empirical evidence concerning Miranda's effect on confession rates and on the role of confessions in obtaining convictions. Part III then specifically quantifies Miranda's costs, both in terms of lost cases and more favorable plea bargains for defendants. Part IV responds to anticipated challenges to these results. Part V examines whether this concept of a cost to Miranda is a "legitimate" one. Finally, Part VI assesses Miranda's costs and concludes that they are unacceptably high, particularly because alternatives such as videotaping police interrogations can more effectively prevent coercion while reducing Miranda's harms to society.


Body awareness has been proposed as one of the major mechanisms of mindfulness interventions, and it has been shown that chronic pain and depression are associated with decreased levels of body awareness. We investigated the effect of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on body awareness in patients with chronic pain and comorbid active depression compared to treatment as usual (TAU; N = 31). Body awareness was measured by a subset of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) scales deemed most relevant for the population. These included: Noticing, Not-Distracting, Attention Regulation, Emotional Awareness, and Self-Regulation. In addition, pain catastrophizing was measured by the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). These scales had adequate to high internal consistency in the current sample. Depression severity was measured by the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology—Clinician rated (QIDS-C16). Increases in the MBCT group were significantly greater than in the TAU group on the "Self-Regulation" and "Not Distracting" scales. Furthermore, the positive effect of MBCT on depression severity was mediated by "Not Distracting." These findings provide preliminary evidence that a mindfulness-based intervention may increase facets of body awareness as assessed with the MAIA in a population of pain patients with depression. Furthermore, they are consistent with a long hypothesized mechanism for mindfulness and emphasize the clinical relevance of body awareness.


Cultural Theory, as developed by Mary Douglas, argues that differing risk perceptions can be explained by reference to four distinct cultural biases: hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism. This paper presents empirical results from a quantitative survey based on a questionnaire devised by Karl Dake to measure these cultural biases. A large representative sample (N = 1022) was used to test this instrument in the French social context. Correlations between cultural biases and perceptions of 20 social and environmental risks were examined. These correlations were very weak, but were statistically significant: cultural biases explained 6%, at most, of the variance in risk perceptions. Standard sociodemographic variables were also weakly related to risk perceptions (especially gender, social class, and education), and cultural biases and sociodemographic variables were themselves inter correlated (especially with age, social class, and political outlook). The authors compare these results with surveys conducted in other countries using the same instrument and conclude that new methods, more qualitative and contextual, still need to be developed to investigate the cultural dimensions of risk perceptions. The paper also discusses relationships between perceptions of personal and residual risk, and between perceived risk and demand for additional safety measures. These three dimensions were generally closely related, but interesting differences were observed for some risk issues.


Abstract—Change requirement traceability in object oriented software systems is one of the challenging areas in research. We know that the traces between links of different artifacts are to be automated or semi-automated in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The aim of this paper is discussing and implementing aspects of dynamically linking the artifacts such as requirements, high level design, code and test cases through the Extensible Markup Language (XML) or by dynamically generating Object Oriented (OO) metrics. Also, non-functional requirements (NFR) aspects such as stability, completeness, clarity, validity, feasibility and precision are discussed. We discuss this as a Fifth Taxonomy, which is a system vulnerability concern.


2011 News Literacy Conference Photos, set 18 (Friday Hi-Resolution Group Shots) 640 x 4801/15 sec / 4.042.5 mm ISO 800 Canon PowerShot SX110 IS


Taller people are more accurate in judging target location in the intermediate distance range. Our sense of vision reliably directs and guides our everyday actions, such as reaching and walking. This ability is especially fascinating because the optical images of natural scenes that project into our eyes are insufficient to adequately form a perceptual space. It has been proposed that the brain makes up for this inadequacy by using its intrinsic spatial knowledge. However, it is unclear what constitutes intrinsic spatial knowledge and how it is acquired. We investigated this question and showed evidence of an ecological basis, which uses the statistical spatial relationship between the observer and the terrestrial environment, namely, the ground surface. We found that in dark and reduced-cue environments where intrinsic knowledge has a greater contribution, perceived target location is more accurate when referenced to the ground than to the ceiling. Furthermore, taller observers more accurately localized the target. Superior performance was also observed in the full-cue environment, even when we compensated for the observers' heights by having the taller observer sit on a chair and the shorter observers stand on a box. Although fascinating, this finding dovetails with the prediction of the ecological hypothesis for intrinsic spatial knowledge. It suggests that an individual's accumulated lifetime experiences of being tall and his or her constant interactions with ground-based objects not only determine intrinsic spatial knowledge but also endow him or her with an advantage in spatial ability in the intermediate distance range.


In the UK and other temperate regions, short rotation coppice (SRC) and Miscanthus x giganteus (Miscanthus) are two of the leading 'second‐generation' bioenergy crops. Grown specifically as a low‐carbon (C) fossil fuel replacement, calculations of the climate mitigation provided by these bioenergy crops rely on accurate data. There are concerns that uncertainty about impacts on soil C stocks of transitions from current agricultural land use to these bioenergy crops could lead to either an under‐ or overestimate of their climate mitigation potential. Here, for locations across mainland Great Britain (GB), a paired‐site approach and a combination of 30‐cm‐ and 1‐m‐deep soil sampling were used to quantify impacts of bioenergy land‐use transitions on soil C stocks in 41 commercial land‐use transitions; 12 arable to SRC, 9 grasslands to SRC, 11 arable to Miscanthus and 9 grasslands to Miscanthus. Mean soil C stocks were lower under both bioenergy crops than under the grassland controls but only significant at 0–30 cm. Mean soil C stocks at 0–30 cm were 33.55 ± 7.52 Mg C ha−1 and 26.83 ± 8.08 Mg C ha−1 lower under SRC (P = 0.004) and Miscanthus plantations (P = 0.001), respectively. Differences between bioenergy crops and arable controls were not significant in either the 30‐cm or 1‐m soil cores and smaller than for transitions from grassland. No correlation was detected between change in soil C stock and bioenergy crop age (time since establishment) or soil texture. Change in soil C stock was, however, negatively correlated with the soil C stock in the original land use. We suggest, therefore, that selection of sites for bioenergy crop establishment with lower soil C stocks, most often under arable land use, is the most likely to result in increased soil C stocks.


Abstract. Fixed nitrogen (N) loss to biogenic N2 in intense oceanic O2 minimum zones (OMZ) accounts for a large fraction of the global N sink and is an essential control on the ocean's N-budget. However, major uncertainties exist regarding microbial pathways as well as net impact on the magnitude of N-loss and the ocean's overall N-budget. Here we report the discovery of a N-loss hotspot in the Peru OMZ associated with a coastally trapped mesoscale eddy that is marked by an extreme N-deficit matched by biogenic N2 production, high NO2− levels, and the highest isotope enrichments observed so far in OMZ's for the residual NO3−. High sea surface chlorophyll in seaward flowing streamers provides evidence for offshore eddy transport of highly productive, inshore water. Resulting pulses in the downward flux of particles likely stimulated heterotrophic dissimilatory NO3− reduction and subsequent production of biogenic N2 within the OMZ. A shallower biogenic N2 maximum within the oxycline is likely a feature advected by the eddy streamer from the shelf. Eddy-associated temporal-spatial heterogeneity of N-loss, mediated by a local succession of microbial processes, may explain inconsistencies observed among prior studies. Similar transient enhancements of N-loss likely occur within all other major OMZ's exerting a major influence on global ocean N and N isotope budgets.


The concept of entropy, which can be used to measure physical disorder, has been rediscovered by Shannon to measure the irregularity in information. Entropy measurements are made by considering one or more factors. Specific features such as color, shape, element type, height, material related with architectural compositions can be considered as factors and the amount of information carried by the building depending on one or more of these factors can be measured. In this study, it is questioned whether there is a relationship between entropy values of municipal building competition projects, which are measured in relation to the factors, and the building is considered successful by the competition jury. In order to conduct this examination, the entropy values of the projects, which respected to the same architectural program and won various awards in the project competitions were calculated. Before making comparisons, measurements were made according to solid-void ratios on the plan layout, the shapes of closed and discrete spaces, and the distribution of functions. A discussion was made on the usability of entropy method in the design phase, which gave solid and precise results according to the results of the comparisons.


In this thesis I have explored the clinical potential of the 4C-technology and worked on
development of a novel chromatin conformation capture based technology, called TLA.
In chapter 2 I describe how the 4C-technology can be applied as a targeted strategy
to identify putative fusion-genes or chromosomal rearrangements as a cause for aberrant
expression of copy number neutral genes in a cohort of triple-negative breast cancer. The
rationale behind the approach was that detection of recurrent rearrangements in triplenegative
breast cancer could provide unique therapeutical targets for treatment of this
particular type of aggressive breast cancer.
While the chromatin conformation capture technologies only confine to analysis of
partial sequences of restriction fragments and thereby cannot be used to identify variants
other than large chromosomal rearrangements, TLA provides the possibility to delineate
the complete sequence and characterize structural variants as well as other genetic variants
of genes or regions of interest. The methodology and exciting applications are described
in chapter 3.
In chapter 4, I applied TLA to a series of blood samples obtained from Hereditary
Hemorrhagic-Telangiectasia (HHT) patients, also known as Rendu-Oslo-Weber (ROW)
patients. HHT has a well characterized phenotype and in ~95% of the patients a genetic
mutation is found in one of the three HHT-associated genes. The remaining 5% are
thought to either carry mutations in a yet to be identified fourth HHT gene or they may
have previously unnoticed structural rearrangements in or near one of the three established
HHT genes. Since TLA can identify such rearrangements, I applied TLA to blood samples
from patients that had been proven negative on genetic mutations, but were positively
diagnosed by experts in the field for the HHT phenotype.
In the general discussion I will discuss the potential of using chromatin conformation
capture technologies in genetical diagnostics and clinical research.


Previous research has demonstrated that Pacific Region SSTs and SST anomalies can be separated into seven general synoptic classifications (clusters) (A-G). Clusters B and G (C, D, and F) [A and E] were shown to be generally representative of La Nina (El Nino) [neutral] type SST distributions. Further, an analysis of the SST patterns in 1955-1993 demonstrated that clusters A-D were prominent in 1955-1977, while types E and F dominated the later period. Type G clusters were comparatively rare, but occurred during both periods. In retrospect, this shift during 1977 corresponds roughly with a change in phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). After updating the analysis to include the 1994 to 2005 period, there was a corresponding change in the predominant SSTs associated with a change in phase of the PDO during 1999 and 2000. The results show that SST patterns did evolve from predominantly E and F-type anomalies in 1994 to A, B, D and G-type anomalies through 2005. Thus, these results suggest that A through D-type (C, E, and F-type) SST clusters are characteristic of the negative (positive) phase of the PDO. Also, using a modified technique for generating phase diagrams, it is shown that there are interannual and interdecadal variations in the mid-Mississippi region monthly mean surface temperature and precipitation records that can be associated with the ENSO and PDO. Additionally, an analysis was performed to see if there was any statistical association between temperature and precipitation anomalies in the mid-Mississippi region and prolonged SST regimes. B, D and G anomalies were associated with warmer-than-normal conditions, while C and E type anomalies tended to be associated with cooler-than-normal conditions across the region. C, D, F, and G anomalies were associated with drier than normal conditions.


Mycobacterium avium is an intracellular pathogen that can invade and multiply within macrophages of the reticuloendothelial system. Current therapy is not highly effective. Particulate drug carriers that are targeted to the reticuloendothelial system may provide a means to deliver antibiotics more efficiently to M. aviuminfected cells. We investigated the formulation of the antibiotics ciprofloxacin and azithromycin in liposomes and tested their antibacterial activities in vitro against M. avium residing within J774, a murine macrophagelike cell line. A conventional passive-entrapment method yielded an encapsulation efficiency of 9% for ciprofloxacin and because of aggregation mediated by the cationic drug, was useful only with liposomes containing <50 mol% negatively charged phospholipid. In contrast, ciprofloxacin was encapsulated with >90% efficiency, regardless of the content of negatively charged lipids, by a remote-loading technique that utilized both pH and potential gradients to drive drug into preformed liposomes. Both the cellular accumulation and the antimycobacterial activity of ciprofloxacin increased in proportion to the liposome negative charge; the maximal enhancement of potency was 43-fold in liposomes of distearoylphosphatidylglycerol-cholesterol (DSPG-Chol) (10:5). Azithromycin liposomes were prepared as a freeze-dried preparation to avoid chemical instability during storage, and drug could be incorporated at 33 mol% (with respect to phospholipid). Azithromycin also showed enhanced antimycobacterial effect in liposomes, and the potency increased in parallel to the moles percent of negatively charged lipids; azithromycin in DSPG-Chol (10:5) liposomes inhibited intracellular M. avium growth 41-fold more effectively than did free azithromycin. Thus, ciprofloxacin or azithromycin encapsulated in stable liposomes having substantial negative surface charge is superior to nonencapsulated drug in inhibition ofM. avium growth within cultured macrophages and may provide more effective therapy ofM. avium infections.


The European invasion of the continent to which we now refer as North America unfolded in several different ways, each with its own particular implications. Yet no matter their differences, each colonial effort drew upon the same moral, intellectual, and material premises necessary to justify and enact the dispossession of the land's first peoples. From religious arguments about Christianity extirpating "savage devils" from New England or Jamestowners' obsession with finding gold and precious minerals to the introduction of new species of plants and animals across the continent and imperial assertions of sovereignty, the European invasion of America touched every facet of the lives that had brought first peoples and colonizers together. Examining how first peoples represented their land and how European invaders and their later American successors countered such mapping practices with their own cartographical projections affords an important way to understand a centuries-long process of place-making and place-taking too often glossed as colonization.


Epichloë endophytes associated with cool-season grass species can protect their hosts from herbivory and can suppress mycorrhizal colonization of the hosts' roots. However, little is known about whether or not Epichloë endophyte infection can also change the foliar fungal assemblages of the host. We tested 52 grassland study sites along a land-use intensity gradient in three study regions over two seasons (spring vs. summer) to determine whether Epichloë infection of the host grass Lolium perenne changes the fungal community structure in leaves. Foliar fungal communities were assessed by Next Generation Sequencing of the ITS rRNA gene region. Fungal community structure was strongly affected by study region and season in our study, while land-use intensity and infection with Epichloë endophytes had no significant effects. We conclude that effects on non-systemic endophytes resulting from land use practices and Epichloë infection reported in other studies were masked by local and seasonal variability in this study's grassland sites.


Marine turtles are declining throughout the world and all the species are on the verge of extinction due to reckless human activity. A number of reasons are pointed out by the global conservation groups for the alarming decline of turtles. Indian coastal habitat supports five species of marine turtles and ironically all the species face great threat over the years In India. Especially the East coast region of Tamilnadu the number of death spiraling up every year due to the use of gillnets by the fishermen. Moreover, overfishing leads to the decline of turtle species. Immediate conservation measures are need of the hour unless the Asian region will lose few more turtle species which will badly reflect on the declining marine biodiversity.


Job analysis has been described by some as the basic activity of human resource management.(1) Others, like Riggio,(2) suggest that job analysis is the starting point for nearly all personnel functions. In local government, informal job analysis occurs regularly when a department head tells an elected official about the need for a new position or when a supervisor making a hiring decision must decide what questions to ask potential hirees. Such activities do not simply occur in a vacuum. Indeed, informal job analysis is probably the norm in many small local governments where the resources to conduct a formal job analysis do not exist. Deciding to conduct a formal job analysis is rather like deciding to clean out your attic. Generally, you have put it off so long that you are now forced to do it and you know there will be family squabbles about what you can get rid of and what you must keep. The Mobile County, AL Personnel Department, a civil service agency representing about 5,000 employees in 20 separate governmental entities, opted to conduct an analysis of some 500 job classifications. Formal job analysis had been regularly conducted for the validation of selection and promotion procedures in certain critical areas using a model proposed by Menne, McCarthy and Menne.(3) The decision was made to undertake an analysis of the entire classification system in an effort to address employee concerns in a variety of areas. Most of the concerns brought by employees dealt with improper classification and lack of perceived internal pay equity. The Mobile County Personnel Department also saw an opportunity to expand the validation of selection and promotion procedures, reduce the number of job classifications and to enhance the performance appraisal system. It became apparent to the department staff that a unified job analysis approach would be the most efficient, economical and practical means of addressing all concerns while still adhering to necessary legal and technical standards. Development of the Job Analysis Questionnaire A review of a number of existing job analysis instruments was conducted. These included the Critical Incident Technique(4) and the Position Analysis Questionnaire.(5) In our search to find an approach that might meet all our needs we strongly considered the Versatile Job Analysis System (VERJAS) as described by Bemis, Belenky and Soder.(6) These authors demonstrated that a comprehensive approach to job analysis was practical and that such data could be applied to a wide range of personnel management decisions. In the end, however, we decided to develop our own job analysis instrument. Some of the existing instruments were simply too long or complicated to be used for a variety of job classifications. Others required too much creative narrative writing on the part of employees. A major consideration was that the instrument should lend itself to data analysis by computer The ratio of project staff workers to employees necessitated this, since the goal was to survey all employees and not just a sample of workers from each job classification. The development of the in-house job analysis questionnaire took approximately six months. Quantification of data, where practical, was given high priority to ensure as much objectivity as possible. Attempting to make the document readable for a wide range of employees was given much attention. Customized data analysis programs were written and tested. Much effort was devoted to concerns addressed in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures.(7) The final questionnaire consisted of eight sections as listed in Table 1. Job duties consisted of broad dimensions of work associated with various jobs. In order to help employees organize their jobs, a list of job duties was provided to employees. The list was generated from job descriptions and other documents on file with the department. The list consisted of job duties like "Typing," "Firefighting," "Counseling" and "Testing. …


The first year experience of students studying at higher education institutions has been intensively studied over the past forty years (Nelson & Clarke, 2014). Much has been learnt, but institutions are continuing to face unacceptable levels of student withdrawal. Concerns have been raised that the constructs on which previous studies have been based may be restricting researchers' efforts to develop a deeper understanding of the first year phenomena (Kahu, 2013). There is strong support for new and creative ways to investigate the lived experience of first year students across their full first year of study. This paper details and discusses these issues and reports on a research approach using an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) with first year pre-service teachers that may better capture student perceptions of the factors they believe have a marked effect on their experiences. The authors contend the method is transferable to all first year university students. The ESM strategy applied to the first year university experience is explained in detail as well as the perceptions of the participants with regard to its effectiveness and impact. The results of the study provide a strong base for future discussions about third generation research methods and the use of an 'insider researcher' approach to investigating the first year experience.;


The European AQUA Thermodynamic Experiment (EAQUATE) brought together collocated hyperspectral measurements from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, as well as three airborne interferometers operating in the troposphere and stratosphere. Simultaneous observations of temperature, water vapour and trace gases have been used to constrain the atmospheric state, for validation of radiometric accuracy and radiative transfer modelling. The close agreement of observations with model spectra, in the 800–1200 cm−1 region, indicates that the accuracy of modelling AIRS spectra is sufficient for beneficial use of the data in operational weather forecasting. The variability of atmospheric water vapour was found to be a fundamental constraint in the modelling of the 1400–1600 cm−1 region, emphasising the requirement for a high density of observations in future validation campaigns. Copyright © Royal Meteorological Society and Crown Copyright, 2009.


R410A is one of the main refrigerants used for air conditioning and heat pump systems in residential applications. It has zero ozone depletion potential but its global warming potential is about 2,000. In China and Japan, refrigerant R32 (GWP = 675, zero ODP) has been proposed, as possible replacement for R410A but this refrigerant is slightly flammable. HFO-1234yf is a refrigerant with low GWP (GWP = 4, zero ODP) that is currently being used in European car market as a possible replacement for R134a. The direct impact on the environment of these two refrigerants might be gauged based on their low GWP but a measure of their indirect contributions on greenhouse gasses effects is still an open question. Having a low GWP might not be sufficient to reduce the overall environmental impact if the energy performance of the heat pump system is significantly penalized. In addition, considerable amount of engineering and manufacturing work might be necessary for developing new components that are fit to work with these low GWP refrigerants. This paper focuses on an experimental comparison of the drop-in energy performance and capacities of refrigerants R32 and R1234yf in a R410A heat pump split system for ducted HVAC in residential applications. The experiments were conducted in a large scale psychrometric chamber at Oklahoma State University and on a 5 ton heat pump unit that was commercially available. The experiments were conducted for cooling and heating modes of the unit and the outdoor temperature was varied from 17! F (-8! C) to 115! F (46! C). Cooling tests at AHRI standard rating conditions were performed and the refrigerant charge was optimized. Two additional conditions were considered with high outdoor temperatures of 110! F (43! C) and 115! F (46! C) to analyze the condenser pressure and discharge temperature of the refrigerant when the unit run at extreme high ambient off-design conditions. The paper highlights some challenges related to R32 and R1234yf and discusses an optimization of the thermal expansion valve when these refrigerants are directly retrofitted in the unit. It was observed that the COP was higher for both R32 and R1234yf as compared to R410A with some peculiar behavior at very high temperatures, for which R32 COP was lower than that for R410A. The capacity for refrigerant R1234yf was 40 to 50% lower and the management of the charge as well as the adjustments of the TXV was problematic without any additional modification to the system.


The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting interest of the elderly in visiting  Elderly Integrated Health Centre. This study is a descriptive correlative study by using cross-sectional study design, and research methods using analytical survey. The study was conducted in 97 elderly people in the village Tuah Karya using the sampling method in purposive sampling. The measuring instruments used in the form of questionnaires and have tested the validity and reliability (r > 0,444). Analysis is used univariate and bivariate analysis using chi-square test. The study found that the factors affecting interest in the elderly visiting  elderly integrated health centre is knowledge ( p value = 0,003), distance ( p value = 0,397), and family support ( p value = 0,001). Based on these result, it is recommended to the Health Center to make effort to improve the elderly posyandu through the promotion of the benefits posyandu, posyandu should be held in the middle of residential communities, and encouraged in elderly to increase its active role in activities and make posyandu as a necessity. Key words             : Distance, e lderly, e lderly p osyandu , f amily s upport, interest,k nowledge


The main aim of this paper is to analyse all possible characteristics related to the country risk factor for the state of Romania. The country risk factor is a measure of a risk related to economic, political, physical and other unforeseen events able to affect the stability of the financial sector in a certain country with immediate results in the profitability index of the multinational companies operated in the country especially banks. Nowadays, in the context of a very high rhythm of economic globalization and of international investor's expansion in multinational companies, the country risk factor is very important. The paper tries to assess the Romanian country risk factor especially after the year 2007, when Romania has became a member of the European Union. Some comparisons between its country risk factor and that of the other new member states will be also made in an attempt to find out the relative position of Romania with respect to the other nations joined the European Union recently. A valid analysis of the business environment will be also presented as it is consider as a key element for the enterprises in order to be aware of the direction they are heading and contributes to improve the favorable factors they should develop to come out with the competitive advantage. The SWOT analysis will be used to emphasize the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the drawbacks of the Romanian business environment and their mode to influence the country risk factor of the state of Romania.


In this work, three series of soft ferrites were synthesized via solid state route. These
are Nio.3-xCu,Zno.7Fe20(4x = 0.0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25 and 0.30), Ni0.S-
.C&Zno.~Fe204 (x=O.O, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5) and Y3..NdxFes0~2 (x=O.O, 0.4,
0.8, 1.2 and 1.6). The X-ray diffraction patterns showing single phases for these three
samples series, confirmed that the spinel and garnet structure had been formed in the
Ni-Zn ferrites and YIG respectively.
Ni-Zn ferrites substituted with copper oxide showed exaggerated grain growth
whereas the other series substituted with cobalt oxide had no massive changes in the
microstructure. For the YIG substituted with neodymium oxide, the first sample
exhibited a porous microstructure and developed to become a more compact and
poreless microstructure as neodymium increased.
Measurement of the electrical properties was carried out in the temperature range
from 28°C to 300°C in the low frequency region of 10 Hz to 1 MHz. Impedance analyzer was employed in the ac data acquisition whereas a pico-ammeter and a dc
voltage source were used to measure electric current at different voltages.
The results obtained from dielectric measurements indicate that microstructure of the
samples plays an important role in the dielectric dispersion. A sample with higher
porosity is associated with a low value of dielectric permittivity due to its high
resistivity. Meanwhile a sample with a more compact structure exhibits higher
dielectric permittivity due to its higher conductivity. Hence, electron hopping
between ~ ean~d ~+e w~ou'ld increase in the conductive sample and give higher
dielectric permittivity if compared with the resistive one.
The dielectric response for every sample in the three series of soft ferrites displayed
different mechanisms throughout the investigated temperature range. Therefore,
dielectric behaviour of a sample can be modeled into at least two equivalent circuits.
The complex impedance plots of both samples Ni-Zn ferrites and YIG showed
overlapping semicircles. However, at high temperature the high frequency arc
disappeared and there remained just one semicircle. The center of the semicircle for
all samples was depressed below the real impedance axis and described by the
parameter a. The results indicate that all these three series of soft ferrites can be
represented by two parallel RC circuits connected in series that correspond to the
contributions of grain and grain boundary.
The ac conductivity for the three series of soft ferrites showed almost similar
behaviour. At lower temperature, the ac curves can be divided into two region. The low frequency region showed that the ac conductivity was weakly dependent on
frequency whereas at high frequency region, it was strongly dependent on frequency.
As the temperature increased, the ac conductivity seemed independent of frequency.
Extrinsic and intrinsic conductions had been inferred to occur in these samples.
It is also found that microstructural entities such as grains and porosity play an
important role in the dc resistivity. The two activation energies obtained indicated
that there were probably two parallel conduction mechanisms or spin reorientation
phase transition occurred.


Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is a prevalent disease that usually starts from the third decade of life and it is considered as one of the reasons contributing to social and economic problems. The results of several studies have shown that platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has the ability to stimulate cell growth and proliferation of extracellular matrix. However, studies for IDD have so far mostly been restricted. So, further studies are required to clarify the role of PRP on the prevention and treatment of the IDD disease. The purpose of this review article was to summarize and analyze the current preclinical studies and clinical evidence on using platelet-rich plasma in the IDD treatment. Literature search was performed through various combinations of the following keywords: Intervertebral Disc Degeneration, Platelet Rich Plasma, PRP, Intervertebral disc regeneration. Papers included in our review cover the period between 2006 and 2016. At the end of the review process, articles related to searches have been evaluated in 2 separate studies as "In vitro" and "In vivo" condition. In this study, several clinical studies and a clinical case study were also evaluated. All the included studies led to positive preclinical and clinical results. The results have shown a positive impact on the use of PRP for the treatment of disc degeneration but it is not possible to draw definitive evidence about the use of PRP in IVD regeneration. In this field, further studies should be done in the future.


Straw bale buildings provide significant benefits in terms of costs, human health, and environmental sustainability. Several studies in different regions have underlined the remarkable properties of straw bales as insulating and construction material; however, to the authors' knowledge, there are no reviews published on this topic. The main objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of straw bale systems, focusing on durability and thermal and acoustic insulation properties. To this end, previous tests and studies on straw bale buildings around the world were reviewed, comparing their results, assessing where research currently stands, and identifying the aspects that need to be further investigated. Results from previous tests have highlighted their ability to achieve excellent living comfort and encouraged their use. Guidelines for the characteristics to be achieved during the baling process are now required. Combining straw bale walls with a render or any type of high-density layer can improve both the thermal and acoustic properties of straw bale constructions. Finally, a quantitative assessment of the most significant properties, such as thermal resistance and acoustic insulation, is necessary to reduce the gap between straw bales and traditional building materials.


The Security Sector Governance (SSG) Programme of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) seeks to strengthen oversight of the security sector through enhancing knowledge and understanding of the policy and legal frameworks, institutions and practices that buttress this sector, and the capacity of legislatures and civil society in Africa to engage in security debates. The SSG Programme conducted baseline studies of the security sector in six Southern African countries, namely Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, as well as the Southern African Development Community's Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (SADC Organ). The results of this research are reflected in this monograph.


This thesis focuses on modelling factors in the adoption of educational software in schools based on the perceptions of key stakeholders. Findings indicate educational software adoption in UK secondary schools is unsatisfactory. Given the potential of educational software to affect the learning process; the government's emphasis on developing software content for learning purposes and the concern that scarce resources in schools are wasted on software that is inappropriately used or not used at all, there is a need to ensure the successful take-up of educational software. This study aims to provide schools the means to facilitate better management of resources and achieve greater utilisation of educational software. The study in recognising the importance of stakeholders in any technological adoption considers modelling educational software adoption in schools, based on key stakeholders' perceptions. Fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), considered extensions of cognitive maps used for modelling complex chains of casual relationships, are used as a modelling approach in this study. A mixed methods research approach is adopted. Participants, include students; a range of teachers; ICTCoordinators and ICT-Technicians, drawn from three UK secondary schools. The resulting FCM model offers a visual medium providing insight into the factors required in the take-up of educational software. Some factors identified include the availability and accessibility to IT facilities and equipment; the availability of educational software; software ability to satisfy learning requirements and to meet curriculum requirements. The model provides the means to identify factors which have a greater impact on educational software adoption, so scarce resources can be directed accordingly. As a holistic model it provides insight into the context of educational software adoption in schools. As a dynamic model it allows the opportunity to explore `what-if possibilities relating to policy and investment options. The model can act as a guide for planners, decision-makers and software developers.


INTRODUCTION When entrepreneurs and business executives develop a business plan, they recognize that a great line of products or services helps a company achieve, and maintain, a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Porter, 1980). For instance, the founder of Coyote Logistics (based in Lake Forest, Ill) based his business model around the practice of back-hauling (filling trucks with cargo from other clients for return trips) so that fewer of his trucks traveled with underutilized cargo space (Inc, 2010). This unique service has caused Coyote Logistics to have a 13,846.8% growth rate since being founded in 2006. Similarly, W.L. Gore and Associates (based in Newark, NJ) base the majority of their products (ranging from dental floss to guitar strings) on their innovative fluoropolymer material. This unique product has helped position the company as a market leader in diverse industries ranging from rugged outdoor equipment to high-end transfer cables for electronic equipment. Finally, Zappos.com (based in Henderson, NV) provides another example of a company that has relied on a unique service/product line to grow from a small web-based shoe retailer to the largest on-line shoe retailer within 5 years of being founded (Durst, 2007). The leaders at these businesses, and any other successful venture, clearly recognize the importance of identifying a unique product or service. Furthermore, successful managers also recognize the importance of efficiently managing their employees and developing their human resources. For example, CEO Jeff Silver credits Coyote Logistics success to an intensive two-month training program followed by a six-month mentorship program that is required for all new employees (Inc, 2010). Additionally, W.L. Gore and Associates has consistently been ranked as one of the top 100 places to work in Fortune magazine's annual rankings by focusing on valid human resource management practices to identify and prepare associates to develop innovative uses for their fluoropolymer materials. Furthermore, throughout Zappos.com's rapid growth, the leaders consistently focused on designing training programs to help employees deliver quality customer service (Chafkin, 2009). These firms clearly linked their human resource management practices to their competitive business model. When business leaders are able to align a strong competitive strategy with a well designed and strategically focused human resource system, it has the necessary foundation that brings customers in the door (or to their website) initially and gets them to come back for repeat business (Cascio & Boudreau, 2008; Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005). The recognition that human resource issues are important to small and growing firms is not new. For instance, Hess (1987) presented data that suggested that small business owners rank human resource related issues as the second most important management activity after general management. Further, Karami, Jones, and Kakabadse (2008) suggested that the majority of CEO's in their sample believe that human resource practices have a substantial impact on firm performance. Additionally, Dunn, Short, and Liang (2008) presented results suggesting that sound hiring practices and training programs are considered important by small business owners who have 10 or more employees. In light of the growing recognition that the human resource issues faced by small and growing firms are different from their larger counterparts and that the quality of a company's human resources play an important role in building a successful firm, recent theoretical (Cardon & Stevens, 2004) and empirical (e.g., Carlson, Upton, & Seaman, 2006; Dunn, Short, & Liang, 2008; Karami, Jones, & Kakabadse, 2008; Messersmith & Guthrie, 2010) work has begun to examine the specific human resource management practices employed by small and entrepreneurial firms. This prior research has clearly established a link between employee knowledge, skills, and abilities and maintaining a competitive edge in small and entrepreneurial businesses (Deshpande & Golhar, 1994). …


The actio quanti minoris is one of the so-called Aedilitian actions developed in Roman law to provide relief for a purchaser who discovered latent defects in a thing sold. The remedy is aimed at reclaiming a fair portion of the purchase price as redress for the fact that the thing sold is defective and consequently worth less than the price actually paid for it. To succeed with a claim based on the actio quanti minoris, a plaintiff must not only show that the thing sold was defective at the date of the sale, but also establish the exact amount by which the purchase price should be reduced. The question is, therefore, how a claim with the actio quanti minoris must be quantified. This was one of the issues which the court had to decide in the case of Banda v Van der Spuy 2013 4 SA 77 (SCA).


Lake Erie is part of the Great Lakes systems in North America, which represent the largest continental lake systems in the world. Anthropogenic eutrophication in the Western Basin of Lake Erie, a Case II environment, has an adverse impact on the surrounding ecosystems and the regional economy. The optical complexity found in Lake Erie is a feature of many aquatic environments making it a challenging setting for remote-sensing applications. To assess the controls on these optical properties, we sampled 20 locations, encompassing a variety of optical environments in the Western Basin and Sandusky Bay during four research cruises. Strong correlations between light extinction and phycocyanin (correlation coefficient, r ≥ 0.95), suspended sediment (r = 0.90), and chlorophyll-a (r ≥ 0.86) indicate that surface conditions are representative down to at least the first optical depth. Application of varimax-rotated principal component analysis to lab-based, hyperspectral reflectance data identified three components related to a diatom/green algae community, and two blue-green algae communities, one of which was associated with suspended sediment. Phycocyanin and chlorophyll-a content inferred using a semi-analytic red/near-infrared algorithm correlated well with concentrations measured in situ using a multiparameter sonde. Chlorophyll-a retrievals from a regional, blue : green algorithm developed for the Western Basin of Lake Erie compared well with retrievals from the semi-analytic algorithm for all samples from the Western Basin and 25% of samples from Sandusky Bay. Chlorophyll-a retrieval errors using the blue : green algorithm occurred when high ratios of suspended sediment to phycocyanin biased samples from the extremely turbid waters of Sandusky Bay. The bias likely resulted when suspended sediment altered the blue : green ratio or when phycocyanin interfered with the chlorophyll-a absorption peaks. This approach can be applied to other Case II environments to provide insights during the design of experimental field studies and for spectral band selection with the next generation of visible near-infrared remote-sensing instruments.


In this paper we study the effect of, well-known, higher order corrections to the allowed beta decay spectrum on the determination of anti-neutrino spectra resulting from the decays of fission fragments. In particular, we try to estimate the associated theory errors and find that induced currents like weak magnetism may ultimately limit our ability to improve the current accuracy and under certain circumstance could even largely increase the theoretical errors. We also perform a critical evaluation of the errors associated with our method to extract the anti-neutrino spectrum using synthetic beta spectra. It turns out, that a fit using only virtual beta branches with a judicious choice of the effective nuclear charge provides results with a minimal bias. We apply this method to actual data for U235, Pu239 and Pu241 and confirm, within errors, recent results, which indicate a net 3% upward shift in energy averaged anti-neutrino fluxes. However, we also find significant shape differences which can in principle be tested by high statistics anti-neutrino data samples.


This study examined the importance of authoritarian and positive achievement motivation behavior of the supervisors in enhancing salespeople's motivation and work performance. Survey data were collected from all 105 sales employees in two retail organizations. Supervisors' ratings were collected on all 105 of the salespersons. All hypotheses were tested using regression analysis and Pearson correlations controlling for background variables of gender, marital status, and ethnicity. The findings indicated that to the extent that supervisors engaged in positive motivational behaviors, salespersons' intrinsic motivations were increased, which, in turn, increased their performance. Implications and a number of recommendations are discussed.


Defect free software is a critical national priority. Yet, we still do not fully understand the shape of the field that underlies the process of producing, sustaining and acquiring secure software. Specifically, there is no common agreement on the knowledge requirements for the field, nor is there even full agreement about the activities that legitimately comprise the process itself. Recognizing this, the Department of Defense, through the National Security Agency, has begun a three-year study to characterize the form and contents of the discipline of software assurance. This type of rigorous study is a necessary first step in formulating an academic study of the field. It is also a pre-requisite to formulating the practical steps necessary to achieve a secure software base. The first phase of the project, which has just been completed, created a database containing the known empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic and methodological knowledge elements of the field. This report utilizes that database to characterize the current state of secure software assurance work and suggest future directions.


ABSTRACT The Scandinavian countries, i.e. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are often described as European leaders within equal opportunity and diversity. However, in spite of the fact that the Scandinavian countries have implemented policies and initiated programmes to ensure gender diversity in all sectors and levels of society since the mid-1970s and beginning of the 1980s, progress is generally slow. Nonetheless, the three countries differ regarding public and political attention on the issue and hence on policies, intensity of implementation and management of gender equality policies. In this article, we focus on the representation of Scandinavian women in leadership positions in larger companies and academia, and discuss the scope and intensity of gender equality policies and their effects. Finally, we highlight key lessons learned from decades of gender equality work in the three countries.


Though most types of thyroid cancer are cured by surgery and adjuvant radio-
iodine therapy and TSH suppression, patients with radio-iodine refractory
thyroid carcinoma as well as with medullary thyroid carcinoma, a
neuroendocrine malignancy that does not express iodine transporter, are
difficult to treat because of the lack of effective systemic treatment. Therefore,
there is an urgent need of novel therapeutic measures for these patients.
Thyroid cancer is frequently associated to the oncogenic conversion of protein
kinases such as RET (medullary thyroid cancer) and BRAF (papillary and
undifferentiated thyroid cancer). Therefore, protein kinase small molecule
inhibitors (PKI) have been considered as promising novel agents for the
treatment of thyroid carcinoma. Compounds that revealed good RET and
BRAF activity both in clinical (vandetanib for RET) and in pre-clinical
(vemurafenib for BRAF) settings have been identified. Recently, vandetanib
was approved for patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma and vemurafenib
was approved for patients affected by melanoma. Cancer patients may be
refractory to PKI or develop secondary resistance after an initial response.
Two general mechanisms can explain resistance: i) the presence of mutations
in the kinase that blocks binding to the PKI; ii) the oncogenic switch to
another pathway that rescues cancer cells from kinase blockade. In this
dissertation, we have addressed mechanisms of resistance in the case of RET
PKI (for the treatment of medullary thyroid carcinoma) and BRAF PKI (for
the treatment of radio-iodine refractory thyroid carcinoma). Here we show
that: i) ponatinib is a novel RET PKI and is able to overcome RET resistance
mediated by mutations in RET V804 and Y806; ii) thyroid cancer cells escape
treatment with vemurafenib by switching to another signaling pathway and
that inhibitors of the IGF1R/PI3K/AKT signaling cascade may be exploited to
overcome resistance of thyroid cancer cells lines to BRAF PKI.


L this month, participants at a national conference will attempt to craft a coherent policy on the use of placebo in randomized controlled trials, one that will iron out the inconsistencies that have plagued attempts to reconcile the Declaration of Helsinki, the Tri-Council Policy Statement, and the made-in-the-FDA guidance of the International Conference on Harmonisation. The placebo debate, which has been smouldering since the lightningstrike of Rothman and Michels' critique in 1994, has been described as a conflict between goal-based and duty-based thinking. Arguments for the use of placebo posit scientific rigour as a goal that may, ethically, guide practice; the counterargument, expressed by Charles Weijer among others (see page 603), is that the physician's duty to the research participant qua patient is paramount. Of course, individual patients have a stake in medical progress, and physicians have a duty to foster the integrity of that progress. Research that has no hope of yielding useful results cannot be considered ethical. Placebo controls have been defended strenuously on methodologic grounds — e.g., that they permit smaller studies, thus exposing fewer participants to potential harm, and that they allow the placebo effect and side-effects to be distinguished more cleanly. Just as strenously, these claims have been disputed. Emanuel and Miller have attempted to define a middle ground, where placebo could be used in the presence of proven effective therapy, but only when it is methodologically compelling to do so and provisions are made to obviate potential harm. However, this middle ground seems firm only where risks are small — in trials of the treatment of allergic rhinitis, for example. One might argue that to disallow exposure even to minimal risk in a placebo trial arm undermines the very notion of informed consent and assumes that patients who enrol in clinical trials have no altruistic concern for the patients of the future. At the same time, we should remember that science is a creature of our own making, invented to serve our own pragmatic purposes, such as helping ill people become well. Interesting that science in its pure (that is, imaginary) state is a creature so unlike us: without allegiance, opinion, ego or moral valence. Ultimately, the placebo debate seems to be about what kind of admittance this creature should gain into the clinic or hospital ward. For it is in the name of scientific rigour that psychotic patients have had their medications withheld and patients with parkinsonism have undergone the sham implantation of fetal cells, with the attendant risks of surgery, anesthesia and medication. For clinicians to deal in abstractions such as "the cause of science" sits uneasily with the primary duty of care; otherwise, as some commentators seem happy to imply, clinical researchers are ethically distinct from physicians. Ultimately, the best test of the appropriateness of including a placebo arm in a trial design will be whether the patient's consent to participate can be confidently given, and whether the clinician's request for that consent arises from a state of clinical equipoise and of moral equilibrium. — CMAJ


Persulfate is an emerging oxidant for in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) applications with a high oxidation potential on activation (E o = 2.6 V). The design of an oxidant remedial system involves a comprehensive understanding of a number of underlying physical and chemical processes. One of these processes, which impacts oxidant efficiency, involves the stability of the oxidant in the presence of natural aquifer materials. To improve our understanding and develop predictive relationships a series of batch experiments were designed to quantify the interaction between persulfate and aquifer materials. Well-characterized aquifer materials collected from seven sites across North America were used in this investigation. The batch experiments, run in triplicates for each aquifer material, were conducted to primarily observe and derive decomposition kinetic parameters for an experimental system that comprised of 100 g of solids, and 100 mL of solution with an initial persulfate concentration of 1000 mg/L. The decomposition of persulfate followed a first-order mass action law in the presence of all aquifer materials used in this study although the reaction rate coefficient varied by an order of magnitude (10 -4 to 10 -3 hr -1 ). In general, the observed reaction rate coefficients were small indicating that persulfate will have a high stability in these aquifer systems. Preliminary test results suggest that persulfate decomposition is a function of the oxidant to solids mass ratio. Dissolved organic carbon, iron, and manganese concentrations decreased relative to background conditions; however, no correlation with the observed reaction rate coefficients was determined. Significant decreases in the chemical oxidant demand of solids exposed to persulfate indicate that oxidation of natural organic matter occurred in these batch systems.


The energy system in Europe changes towards a smart energy system with interconnection of heat, power and gas networks, increasing the flexibility and efficiency. Combined heat and power units play an important role in such systems, since they have a high total efficiency and enable the interconnection between the networks. Yet, control concepts are needed to ensure an optimal operation planning of available capacities. The resulting unit commitment problem can be approached with mixed-integer linear programming. This paper presents a generic modelling method of coupled and decoupled combined heat and power units with mixed-integer linear programming. Furthermore, operation data of two steam turbine types are compared with the model performance to demonstrate the feasibility of this modelling approach. Finally, a model of a combined cycle is presented, derived from the presented method.


The Southern Granulite terrane, southern India, comprises a vast exposure of deep crust and forms a key region in the reconstruction of the Gondwana supercontinent. An E-W−trending crustal-scale shear zone, the Palghat-Cauvery suture zone system, which formed during the late Neoproterozoic−Cambrian (0.75−0.50 Ga), marks a prominent terrane boundary separating terranes with a predominantly late Neoarchean (ca. 2.5 Ga) regional granulite metamorphism to the north from those with an Ediacaran−Cambrian (0.63−0.50 Ga) regional granulite metamorphism to the south. Focusing on the younger granulite metamorphic domains, we present here new zircon U-Pb ages and Hf isotopic compositions for 11 charnockite orthogneisses from the Madurai, Trivandrum, and Nagercoil blocks and contribute to the resolution of the age of their magmatic protoliths. This study shows that the charnockite orthogneisses south of the Palghat-Cauvery suture zone relate to a minimum of four distinct episodes of felsic magmatism centered at: ca. 2.62−2.46 Ga, ca. 2.05−1.84 Ga, ca. 1.0−0.9 Ga, and ca. 0.80−0.76 Ga, pertaining to the Siderian, Orosirian, and Tonian Periods. Hafnium isotope analyses of zircon grains from the charnockite gneisses suggest that the protoliths of the ca. 2.05−1.98 Ga gneisses from the Trivandrum and Nagercoil blocks and the ca. 1.0−0.9 Ga gneisses along the southeastern Madurai block involved a significant juvenile magma component, while the protoliths of charnockite gneisses elsewhere in the Madurai block formed mainly through recycling of older crust up to ca. 3.2 Ga. A regional granulite-facies metamorphic imprint during the Ediacaran−Cambrian marked an advanced stage in the amalgamation of the Madurai, Trivandrum, and Nagercoil blocks into the East African orogen and its collision with the Dharwar craton.


Abstract As lyrical refrain forms flourished beginning in the twelfth century and increased attention was paid to the mise en page of song in manuscript sources, scribes faced the dilemma of how to cue frequent repetition of poetry and music. Owing to a lack of shared conventions among these scribes, the signalling of repetition varied greatly among sources, the resulting inconsistencies furnishing what Ardis Butterfield calls 'glimpses of scribal thinking'. Nowhere is this more evident than in approaches to notating the Latin refrain, a structural feature in a range of genres and an inexact yet related parallel to the French refrain. I argue in this article that the graphic treatment of refrains in Latin song exposes assumptions that both scribes and performers made about form, genre and the realization of song in performance. Attending to the visual cueing of refrains clarifies textual and musical ambiguities arising from the simultaneously oral, written and performative milieu within which Latin song was cultivated and disseminated.


Abstract Local democracy and the involvement of local communities in the provision of social services are central issues in the local government reforms that are presently being implemented in many developing countries. At the same time, institutions that run parallel to local authorities, such as social funds and various user-committees, are established to improve accountability and participation. By focusing on actual political processes rather than administrative, legal and fiscal aspects of decentralisation, this article traces the breakdown of two development projects in Tanzania to the existence of parallel structures. It suggests that user-committees and social funds should be integrated in local authority structures to avoid fragmentation of participation and to enhance local democracy.


Purpose: To identify the current atmosphere of online sales of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) in regards to key health-related and legal claims being made and to analyze the legal framework for regulating such claims. Methods: In December 2014, a systematic search protocol was employed with 3 popular search engines using six terms: 1) e-cigarettes, 2) e-cigs, 3) e-juice, 4) e-liquid, 5) e-hookah, and 6) vape pen. Websites from ENDS manufacturers and retailers were eligible for inclusion, and excluded review sites, blogs, or other non-commercial sites. Three pages of content were examined for each search term. In Phase I, included sites were independently coded for several health-related and legal themes, including: Modified or Reduced Risk, Cessation, Smoke anywhere, Health Benefits, Cleanliness, Environmentally Friendly, and Modern. In Phase II, gathered qualitative data was further coded for primary (explicit) and secondary (implicit) claims. Results: The final web search (n = 115) identified eligible sites and these were divided into two categories Manufacturers (n = 78) and Retailers (n = 32). Between both groups, the most common claims were Modified or reduced risk claims (63.6%), Cessation claims (41.8%), and Claims regarding one's ability to get around clean indoor air laws (42.7%) for Manufacturers and Retailers, combined. Overall, Manufacturers were more likely to make any health or legal claim than Retailers. Conclusions: The unregulated marketing of ENDS has led to a proliferation of health-related claims. Applying a legal/regulatory perspective, this research reveals the different types of health-related claims being made by ENDS manufacturers and retailers on their websites. For claims that are misleading or deceptive, the specifics content and context of each claim may influence whether the FDA has the current regulatory authority to address it. This research demonstrates that the FDA should complete the proposed "deeming" rule and develop a comprehensive regulatory scheme to addresses health-related claims by ENDS manufacturers and retailers.


Adam Kendon and I disagree on just one aspect of the role of gesture in language evolution. Where I propose that manual gesture preceded speech, he argues that gesture and vocal language evolved as equal partners. Some arguments for the gesture-first theory no longer seem to carry force, but the main support comes from evidence that vocal production in nonhuman primates is largely involuntary and inflexible, whereas manual action is flexible, intentional and learnable. This suggests that language evolved from manual grasping and manipulation in primates to pantomime in our hominin forebears, and was gradually conventionalized toward arbitrary symbols. Speech was one outcome of this process, although gesture is an option, as in signed languages, and also accompanies spoken discourse.


Today, young people write in their leisure time far more than they did 15 years ago. Most often they use the new media to do their writing. This book explores whether the frequent writing of short messages and e-mails and participation in chats and social networks like Facebook have an influence on writing in school. Are there any similarities and relationships between the texts written in school and the private texts? For the first time, based on comprehensive data from Swiss students, this book provides empirical answers to these questions.


While the extant innovation literature has provided extensive evidence of the so-called "demand-pull" effect, the possible diverse impact of demand evolution on product vs process innovation activities has not been yet investigated. This paper develops a formal model predicting a larger inducing impact of past sales in fostering product rather than process innovation. This prediction is then tested through a dynamic microeconometric model, controlling for R&D persistence, sample selection, observed and unobservable individual firm effects and time and sectoral peculiarities. Results are consistent with the model and suggest that an expansionary economic policy may benefit the diffusion of new products or even the emergence of entire new sectors.


Lynn Mather as President of the Law and Society Association: A Canadian Perspective I was very pleased to see Mather address the issue of assumptions of universality that might exist in the Law and Society Association (LSA), especially as she notes the "unusual year" of planning a joint meeting with the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA). Many of us can tell stories (some rather amusing) about assumptions of universality by citizens of the United States.1 Some of us have experienced it by sending articles to the Law & Society Review.2 But what I would like to focus on is Mather's role in reaching out to the CLSA. I have to confess I was initially a bit dubious about the proposed joint meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.3 Many of my doubts were erased when Mather drove up to Quebec City in May 2001, during our annual conference, to meet with members of the CLSA regarding the planning of the 2002 conference. Despite the fact that her organization was seven to eight times larger than ours and had an office with staff (unlike the CLSA), she started from the assumption that we were on equal footing. Mather and Lou Knafla, the president of the CLSA, appointed a 16-member program committee, with six academics from the United States, five from Canada, one from each of South Korea, Japan, and Australia.4 Valerie Hans and I were asked to act as program chairs. Mather also had the foresight to realize that we might work better as a group if we actually met face-to-face. She raised funds from the John Sloan Dickey Center to bring us together at the Minary Center in New Hampshire. Due to the terrorist events of September 11, our September 14-15 meeting had to be cancelled. Undeterred, Mather (with the assistance of Rod MacDonald and Jean-Francois Gaudreault-DesBiens, two committee members from McGill) arranged for us to meet in Montreal in mid-October. Not only did we receive John Sloan Dickey's quotation about "ill-founded premises" in advance of the meeting (see Mather 2003:263 for the quotation), but Mather read it to us again in her opening comments at our planning meeting. Above all, Mather is a good listener, and her disarming manner and charm won us over. She has gone a long way in taking the United States out of the LSA.5 On a personal level, Mather's ability to reach out to Canadians and others was unprecedented and very much appreciated. The Impact of Institutional Structures and Power on Law and Society I was intrigued by Mather's reference to the article by Campbell and Wiles (1976) that describes law and society in Britain as bifurcating into the "sociology of law" and "sociolegal studies," whereas the phrases are "indistinguishable to most Americans" (Mather 2003:272), and her discussion of the creation of LSA as a response to a wider political environment as well as an academic one (as discussed by Garth & Sterling 1998). It led me to reflect on the nature of law and society research and teaching issues, and whether there are sufficient changes in societies today to anticipate another shift in focus. Campbell and Wiles distinguish between sociolegal studies, which has been "denigrated [by the sociology of law] as antitheoretical, concerned with social engineering through the existing legal order, and not with explaining the order or transcending it by critique," and the sociology of law, which has been "chastized [by sociolegal studies] as abstract theoreticians, whose speculations were divorced from reality and lacked practical relevance" (1976:549). Sociolegal studies has accepted the legal order as unproblematic and worked to improve it (handmaidens of the law and social order), whereas the sociology of law has questioned the nature of social (including legal) order and tried to understand how laws have emerged-both the official and unofficial versions (1976:553-54). One year earlier, Cain expressed concern that the sociology of law might separate too early from its sociological roots (as British criminology had done) and lose some of its ideas and theory, "which alone could give it coherence and direction" (1975:61). …


The theory of the second order backscattering enhancement in discrete random medium is discussed in this paper. The effects of rainfall on millimeter wave (MMW) radar performance are analysed based on Mie theory, Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and backscattering enhancement theory, at 35 and 95 GHz, respectively. The rain attenuation considering the raindrops multiple scattering is introduced into the estimation of the signal to clutter ratios (S/C) and the clutter to noise ratios (C/N) for MMW radar. The S/C and C/N are calculated by means of the backscattering enhancement, Mie theory and MC simulation method, respectively under the condition of rain environment. The results show that the S/C obtained by backscattering enhancement theory is smaller than the results by Mie and MC. The C/N by backscattering enhancement is greater than the results by other. The Mie and MC methods do not consider backscatter enhancement, underestimate the effect of raindrops scattering on radar performance. Hence, it is shown that the attenuation and backscattering enhancement induced by raindrops multiple scattering are necessarily taken into account for the performance estimation of MMW radar operating in heavy rainfall environment


We present an analysis of linear feature extraction techniques to derive a compact and meaningful representation of the articulatory data. We used 14-channel EMA (ElectroMagnetic Articulograph) data from two speakers from the MOCHA database [A.A. Wrench. A new resource for production modelling in speech technology. In Proc. Inst. of Acoust., Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, 2001.]. As representations, we considered the registered articulator fleshpoint coordinates, transformed PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) features. Various PCA schemes were considered, grouping coordinates according to correlations amongst the articulators. For each phone, critical dimensions were identified using the algorithm in [Veena D Singampalli and Philip JB Jackson. Statistical identification of critical, dependent and redundant articulators. In Proc. Interspeech, Antwerp, Belgium, pages 70-73, 2007.]: critical articulators with registered coordinates, and critical modes with PCA and LDA. The phone distributions in each representation were modelled as univariate Gaussians and the average number of critical dimensions was controlled using a threshold on the 1-D Kullback Leibler divergence (identification divergence). The 14-D KL divergence (evaluation divergence) was employed to measure goodness of fit of the models to estimated phone distributions. Phone recognition experiments were performed using coordinate, PCA and LDA features, for comparison. We found that, of all representations, the LDA space yielded the best fit between the model and phone pdfs. The full PCA representation (including all articulatory coordinates) gave the next best fit, closely followed by two other PCA representations that allowed for correlations across the tongue. At the threshold where average number of critical dimensions matched those obtained from IPA, the goodness of fit improved by 34% (22%/46% for male/female data) when LDA was used over the best PCA representation, and by 72% (77%/66%) over articulatory coordinates. For PCA and LDA, the compactness of the representation was investigated by discarding the least significant modes. No significant change in the recognition performance was found as the dimensionality was reduced from 14 to 8 (95% confidence t-test), although accuracy deteriorated as further modes were discarded. Evaluation divergence also reflected this pattern. Experiments on LDA features increased recognition accuracy by 2% on average over the best PC representation. An articulatory interpretation of the PCA and LDA modes is discussed. Future work focuses on articulatory trajectory generation in feature spaces guided by the findings of this study.


Next Term, in Jones v. Harris, the Supreme Court will be called upon to resolve philosophical divergences on a massive, critical, yet academically slighted subject: the dysfunctional system through which almost one hundred million Americans attempt to save more than ten trillion dollars for their retirement. When this case was in the Seventh Circuit, two of the foremost theorists of law and economics, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judge Richard Posner, disagreed vociferously on competing analyses of the investment industry. The Supreme Court's ruling will not only resolve the intricate fiduciary and doctrinal issues of this dispute but also have profound implications upon several major theoretical debates in contemporary American jurisprudence: the clash of classical versus behavioral economics; the judicial capacity to evaluate increasingly sophisticated econometric analyses of financial systems; and the determination of the legal constraints - if any - upon executive compensation decisions. In this Article, I advance a positive account of the economic and legal context of this dispute and then argue normatively for a behavioral approach to its resolution. Because of the unique structure and history of the personal investment industry in the United States, the architecture of this segment of the economy is singularly bereft of beneficial market forces and thus vulnerable to significant fiduciary distortions. The ultimate judicial resolution of this dispute should take full account of the behavioral constraints upon individual investors and their advisors to avoid nullifying a federal statute and to impose discipline in a vital segment of the U.S. economy.


In this study, we analyse the sensitivity of nadir viewing satellite observations in the visible range to freshly produced lightning NO x . This is a particular challenge due to the complex and highly variable conditions of meteorology, (photo-) chemistry, and radiative transfer in and around cumulonimbus clouds. For the first time, such a study is performed accounting for photo-chemistry, dynamics, and radiative transfer in a consistent way: A one week episode in the TOGA COARE/CEPEX region (Pacific) in December 1992 is simulated with a 3-D cloud resolving chemistry model. The simulated hydrometeor mixing ratios are fed into a Monte Carlo radiative transfer model to calculate box-Air Mass Factors (box-AMFs) for NO 2 . From these box-AMFs, together with model NO x profiles, slant columns of NO 2 (S NO 2 ), i.e. synthetic satellite measurements, are calculated and set in relation to the actual model NO x vertical column (V NO x ), yielding the "sensitivity" S NO 2 /V NO x . From this study, we find a mean sensitivity of 0.46. NO x below the cloud bottom is mostly present as NO 2 , but shielded from the satellites' view, whereas NO x at the cloud top or above is shifted to NO due to high photolysis and low temperature, and hence not detectable from space. However, a significant fraction of the lightning produced NO x in the middle part of the cloud is present as NO 2 and has a good visibility from space. Due to the resulting total sensitivity being quite high, nadir viewing satellites provide a valuable additional platform to quantify NO x production by lightning; strong lightning events over "clean" regions should be clearly detectable in satellite observations. Since the observed enhancement of NO 2 column densities over mesoscale convective systems are lower than expected for current estimates of NO x production per flash, satellite measurements can in particular constrain the upper bound of lightning NO x production estimates.


The selective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes or ketones is very difficult to accomplish when the oxidant is molecular oxygen (O2) and the reaction is carried out under ambient conditions. To meet these challenges, visible light photocatalysis was exploited to enable the use of O2 for the selective oxidation of alcohols at room temperature. In this scheme, eosin Y, an organic dye, was connected with TiO2 to capture visible light, leading to consequential photocatalytic processes. More importantly, these photocatalytic processes can be neatly merged with the redox catalytic cycles of TEMPO, which in turn induce the oxidation of alcohols under visible light irradiation. This work suggests that the merger of visible light photocatalysis and TEMPO catalysis has great potential for execution of challenging oxidative transformations.


Abstract The Rutog granitic pluton lies in the Gangdese magmatic arc in the westernmost part of the Lhasa Terrane, NW Tibet, and has SHRIMP zircon U–Pb ages of c. 80 Ma. The pluton consists of granodiorite and monzogranite with SiO2 ranging from 62 to 72 wt% and Al2 O3 from 15 to 17 wt%. The rocks contain 2.33–4.93 wt% K2O and 3.42–5.52 wt% Na2O and have Na2O/K2O ratios of 0.74–2.00. Their chondrite-normalized rare earth element (REE) patterns are enriched in LREE ((La/Yb)n = 15 to 26) and do not show significant Eu anomalies (δEu = 0.68–1.15). On a primitive mantle-normalized trace element diagram, the rocks are rich in large ion lithophile elements (LILE) and poor in high field strength elements (HFSE), HREE and Y. Their Sr/Y ratios range from 15 to 78 with an average of 30. The rocks have constant initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7045 to 0.7049) and slightly positive ɛNd(t) values (+0.1 to +2.3), similar to I-type granites generated in an arc setting. The geochemistry of the Rutog pluton is best explained by partial melting of a thickened continental crust, triggered by underplating of basaltic magmas in a mantle wedge. The formation of the Rutog pluton suggests flat subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere from the south. Crustal thickening may have occurred in the Late Cretaceous prior to the India–Asia collision.


Keywords: solar fuels, energy, solar energy, peak oil, hydrogen, Fischer Tropsch, Transition Town, Iocalisation, globalisation The problem of energy The world population of 7 billion humans uses energy at a mean rate of 16 TW (16 terawatts). This amounts to an annual 504 EJ (504 exajoules = 5.04 x [10.sup.20] J), and is provided from fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), plus nuclear and hydro (hydroelectric) power along with all other forms of renewable energy (1). The breakdown of these various contributions is given in Table I. Around one third of the total energy used by humans on Earth is provided by crude oil, and close to one quarter each by natural gas and coal, although the amount of coal being burned is rising, particularly in China. Nuclear and hydro-power each contribute around 6% of the total energy mix, while the combination of renewable energy from all sources, wind, wave, geothermal, wood, solar etc. amounts to just a little above 1%. In 2004, humanity used 471 EJ of energy (2), and while the relative proportion of each contributing energy source has remained modestly constant, it is clear that at a rise to 504 EJ in 2010, the demand placed upon these energy sources is rising relentlessly. This follows not merely a growing human population per se, but an increasingly affluent industrialised consumer society. We need to consider two aspects: firstly, that the C[O.sub.2] produced by burning fossil fuels is believed to contribute to global-warming and that this may lead to unwelcome or even catastrophic changes to the global climate (3). Secondly, and more immediately, the fossil fuels and uranium too (for nuclear power) are in finite supply, and there is compelling evidence that each source will meet its own production peak within the next two decades. Most vulnerable appears to be crude oil (petroleum), world supplies of which are predicted to peak ("peak oil") probably during the next 5 years (4). Irrespective of the exact timing of peak oil, there are salient predictions (see below) that a gap will emerge in the supply of oil against demand for it, from the end of this year (2012), rising to a shortfall of 10 million barrels a day by 2015 (5). This situation has been termed "gap oil" (6), and can only be exacerbated by peak oil, when supply must draw-down against rising demand, thus enlarging the gap from both sides. Thus, in order to curb carbon-emissions and to extend limited resources, alternative and ideally renewable sources of energy are needed. Liquid fuels and transportation A simple comparison of the energy content delivered from different energy sources, as is made in Table 1, is somewhat misleading, since it seems to imply that if the production of one of them begins to fail, it can be readily substituted by another. The issue of transportation is a singular example where this is not the case, since practically all the vehicles used in the world--cars, lorries, buses, trains, ships and planes--have been engineered to run on liquid fuels that are refined from crude oil. Therefore the likely consequences of "peak oil", with dwindling supplies and escalating costs of liquid fuels, are very serious. Ward's, the US based publisher, estimated that as of 2010 there were 1.015 billion motor vehicles in use in the world (7). This figure represents the number of cars, light, medium and heavy duty trucks, and buses, but does not include off-road vehicles or heavy construction equipment. Between 1950 and 1970, the world vehicle population doubled roughly every 10 years, passing the 250 million mark in 1970, and exceeding 500 million in 1986. It has been estimated that the world's road transportation fleet will reach 2 billion by 2020, of which at least 50% will be cars. China's and India's automobile fleets are expected to grow at an annual rate of around 7 or 8%, while in the United States, it will be under 1% a year, and around 1 to 2% in Western Europe, but this depends tacitly on finding an expanding liquid fuel supply, and it is this which is at issue. …


Human endothelial progenitor cells (hEPCs) derived from bone marrow play a crucial in the prevention of ischemic injuries in the course of postnatal neovasculogenesis. Frequent fish oil (FO) consumption is reportedly associated with a significantly lower incidence of cardiovascular disease. However, the molecular mechanisms of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)/docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are not well elucidated, and the beneficial effect of FO consumption on neovasculogenesis has not been demonstrated yet. In the current study, we investigated the effects of EPA/DHA and FO consumption on neovasculogenesis by using vascular tube formation assay, Western blotting, real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemical staining and Doppler imaging in both in vitro and in vivo models. The results demonstrate that EPA and DHA dose-dependently enhance the neovasculogenesis and cell migration of hEPCs in vitro. The mechanisms of action included up-regulation of the c-kit protein as well as the phosphorylation of the ERK1/2, Akt and endothelial nitric oxide synthase signaling molecules in hEPCs. Furthermore, EPA significantly suppressed the expression of microRNA 221 in vitro. In experimental animal models, FO consumption significantly induced the formation of new blood vessels (neovasculogenesis) and prevented ischemia. Taken together, it is suggested that FO consumption enhances neovasculogenesis mainly through the effects of EPA in hEPCs, thereby exerting a preventive effect against ischemic injury. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Through analysing critically a broad range of visual, oral and written sources, this PhD thesis is centred upon identifying and exploring the prescriptions and perceptions of manhood and manliness in England during the period c.1580-c.1700. It traces shifts in emphasis of the defining characteristics of manhood across the long-seventeenth century. Moreover, the centrality of both social status and the life cycle to the edicts of manhood are raised and analysed. After an initial examination of both professional and popular understanding of biological distinctions between the two sexes, the importance placed on outward conformity to perceptions of gender difference is highlighted, providing a foundation of early modern understanding of sex differentiation, which is then built upon to realise corporeal differences within the male gender. The thesis goes on to consider the extent to which prescriptions of manhood and manliness were mutable at specific life stages, including boyhood, youth and manhood. This provides a framework for examining the plurality and changing contexts of manhood, allowing for the possibility that there were many and sometimes contradictory prescriptions of male conduct and manliness. Finally, the thesis explores the extent to which social rank impacted on the prescriptions of manhood, thus questioning the extent to which these concepts were constructed in the higher echelons of the social strata and disseminated downwards.


Output power spectrum clamping over C+L band (84 channels) is demonstrated experimentally on a standard 100-km single mode backward-pumped distributed fiber Raman amplifier (B-DFRA). The clamping is realized by pump adjustment based on a simple linear relation of individual pump power versus on-off gain level and gain tilt in its spectrum. The average clamping error over all channels are less than 0.32 dB within the experimental range.


How can the Web be made situation-aware? Event processing is a suitable technology for gaining the necessary real-time results. The Web, however, has many users and many application domains. Thus, we developed multi-schema friendly data models allowing the re-use and mix from diverse users and application domains. Furthermore, our methods describe protocols to exchange events on the Web, algorithms to execute the language and to calculate access rights.


At the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010, the United States joined other developed countries in pledging to mobilize $100 billion in public and private sector funding to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a warmer world. With a challenging US fiscal outlook and the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in the US Congress, America's ability to meet this pledge is increasingly in doubt. This paper identifies, quantifies, and assesses the politics of a range of potential US sources of climate finance. It finds that raising new public funds for climate finance will be extremely challenging in the current fiscal environment and that many of the politically attractive alternatives are not realistically available absent a domestic cap-and-trade program or other regime for pricing carbon. Washington's best hope is to use limited public funds to leverage private sector investment through bilateral credit agencies and multilateral development banks.


A dazzling short history of the Balkans from the Romans to the present, which provides vital historical and cultural background to contemporary Balkan politics. At the end of the twentieth century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe for ever. But two hundred years earlier, the Balkans did not exist. It was not the Balkans but the 'Rumeli' that the Ottomans ruled, the formerly Roman lands they had conquered from Byzantium, together with their Christian inhabitants. In this original account of the region Mark Mazower dispels current Western cliches and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants' lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries. Mazower's narrative ranges broadly both in time and in space, treating the former Turkish domains in Europe as part of a common if complex historical inheritance.


Estrogen deficiency reduces estrogen receptor-alpha (ERα) and promotes apoptosis in the hippocampus, inducing learning-memory deficits; however, underlying mechanisms remain less understood. Here, we explored the molecular mechanism in an ovariectomized (OVX) rat model, hypothesizing participation of autophagy and growth factor signaling that relate with apoptosis. We observed enhanced hippocampal autophagy in OVX rats, characterized by increased levels of autophagy proteins, presence of autophagosomes and inhibition of AKT-mTOR signaling. Investigating upstream effectors of reduced AKT-mTOR signaling revealed a decrease in hippocampal heparin-binding epidermal growth factor (HB-EGF) and p-EGFR. Moreover, 17β-estradiol and HB-EGF treatments restored hippocampal EGFR activation and alleviated downstream autophagy process and neuronal loss in OVX rats. In vitro studies using estrogen receptor (ERα)-silenced primary hippocampal neurons further corroborated the in vivo observations. Additionally, in vivo and in vitro studies suggested the participation of an attenuated hippocampal neuronal HB-EGF and enhanced autophagy in apoptosis of hippocampal neurons in estrogen- and ERα-deficient conditions. Subsequently, we found evidence of mitochondrial loss and mitophagy in hippocampal neurons of OVX rats and ERα-silenced cells. The ERα-silenced cells also showed a reduction in ATP production and an HB-EGF-mediated restoration. Finally in concordance with molecular studies, inhibition of autophagy and treatment with HB-EGF in OVX rats restored cognitive performances, assessed through Y-Maze and passive avoidance tasks. Overall, our study, for the first time, links neuronal HB-EGF/EGFR signaling and autophagy with ERα and memory performance, disrupted in estrogen-deficient condition.


We investigate the expressive power of MATLANG, a formal language for matrix manipulation based on common matrix operations and linear algebra. The language can be extended with the operation inv for inverting a matrix. In MATLANG + inv we can compute the transitive closure of directed graphs, whereas we show that this is not possible without inversion. Indeed we show that the basic language can be simulated in the relational algebra with arithmetic operations, grouping, and summation. We also consider an operation eigen for diagonalizing a matrix. It is defined such that for each eigenvalue a set of orthogonal eigenvectors is returned that span the eigenspace of that eigenvalue. We show that inv can be expressed in MATLANG + eigen. We put forward the open question whether there are boolean queries about matrices, or generic queries about graphs, expressible in MATLANG+eigen but not in MATLANG+inv. Finally, the evaluation problem for MATLANG + eigen is shown to be complete for the complexity class 9R.


Historically, the causative agent of infectious coryza has been identified as the NAD requiring bacterium Haemophilus paragallinarum and the implementation of an intensive vaccination program led to the effective control of this contagious upper respiratory infection. More recently, however, a decline in the protective capacity of a vaccine conditioned immune response was noted, with a number of contributing factors, including the emergence of a fast-growing NAD-independent bacterium, which has largely replaced the traditional NAD-dependent variety. As such, accurate, reproducible methods for determining and continually monitoring the type of infecting bacteria was necessitated. To address this need, strains of H. paragallinarum were evaluated according to both their phenotypic and their genotypic properties, in a combination serodiagnostic approach. A data bank of NAD-dependent H. paragallinarum reference strain and field isolate serovar-specific fingerprints was established on both a whole cell and outer membrane protein level. Visual comparative analysis of the qualitatively and quantitatively similar outer membrane protein patterns of all strains of NAD independency studied with the formulated data bank, indicate that the NAD-independent strains displayed profiles typical of serovar C-3. The outer membrane proteins have been identified as putative virulence determinants and, as such, were characterised according to their surface location, susceptibility to heat modification, functional role as endotoxins, sequence homology to structural membrane counterparts, and finally, their ability to induce an immune response. These studies represent novel efforts and form the foundation for identifying those antigens responsible for maintaining an infection in the host milieu. Ribotype analysis served as an adjunct to phenotypic observations, with the local NAD-independent field isolates being identified as serotype A. These contradictory outcomes call for the creation of a set of reference strains specific for NAD-independent isolates. The identification of restriction fragment length polymorphisms in the conserved 16S rRNA gene sequences indicate the potential application of this method for type assignment, requiring the recognition of a battery of versatile restriction enzymes to generate serovar-specific polymorphic profiles. The complexity of serotype allocation demands that a combination approach in which genotypic analyses complement phenotypic-based methods of haemagglutination inhibition and outer membrane protein profiling. The groundwork for implementation of such a system has been accomplished.


In the present work, free vibration analysis of the square sandwich plate with functionally graded (FG) porous face sheets and isotropic homogenous core is performed under various boundary conditions. For this purpose, the material properties of the sandwich plate are supposed to vary continuously through the thickness direction according to the volume fraction of constituents defined with the modified rule of the mixture including porosity volume fraction with four different types of porosity distribution over the cross-section. Furthermore, a hyperbolic shear displacement theory is used in the kinematic relation of the FG porous sandwich plate, and the equations of motion are derived utilizing Hamilton's principle. Analytical solutions are achieved for free vibration analysis of square sandwich plates with FG porous face sheets under various boundary conditions, i.e. combinations of clamped (C), simply supported (SS), and free (F) edges are presented. Several parametrical studies are conducted to examine the effects of porosity volume fraction, type of porosity distribution model, lay-up scheme, side to thickness ratio, and boundary conditions on the free vibration of the FG sandwich plates. Finally, it is concluded that the investigated parameters have significant effects on the free vibration of the FG sandwich plates and the negative effects of porosity may be reduced by adopting suitable values for said parameters, considerably.