This thesis work includes studies and simulation how magnetization of the translator in a linear generator for wave power can be automated. The translator is the moving component in the generator that is "dressed" with permanent magnets. The translator is magnetized with rectangle-shaped permanent magnets that are today's strongest permanent magnet type of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB). Eight equivalent metal sheets are mounted around the translator. The plates have milled tracks where 106 permanent magnets per sheet are mounted. Today the assembling of the magnets is done by hand, which is a very tedious and time-consuming work. This project presents investigations about the automation of the translator magnetization theoretically and simulation results are preformed in ABB's robot simulation software RobotStudio. Even robot-held tool was designed that enables the robot to be able to magnetize the translator in a simple manner. The investment cost is roughly 1.5 million SEK. With an economic life-time of five years, the investment costs are estimated to 24000 SEK / month. According to the calculations, this project is very motivated to implement, as it provides savings up to 17 000 SEK per translator which is 10.2 million SEK assuming that the robot cell is operating at full speed the whole year. According to this thesis work the result is a 4x9 meter cell with two industrial robots of the type ABB IRB6650S. The cycle time to magnetize one translator was calculated to about 10 hours. This prototype of project can possibly be implemented in a full-scale production line and performed according to the calculations and simulations presented in the report. Further work is suggested to improve the tool.Lyssna


Well-Oiled Diplomacy: Strategic Manipulation and Russia's Energy Statecraft in Eurasia, Adam N. Stulberg. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. 337 pp. $80.00.In recent years, energy security has been high on Europe's agenda. The dependence on Russian gas and oil began to concern European countries when it became clear that Moscow's near-monopolistic position as an energy supplier has enabled it to interfere in other countries' domestic and foreign affairs. In Well-Oiled Diplomacy: Strategic Manipulation and Russia's Energy Statecraft in Eurasia, Adam N. Stulberg offers his understanding of how Russia's energy endowments translate into a source of influence over other states.Energy supplies to Europe have turned Russia into a powerful regional and global player. What puzzles Stulberg is that, despite Russia's economic and geostrategic dominance in the post-Soviet space, it has "both succeeded remarkably and failed miserably at securing compliance across sectors and states throughout Eurasia" (14). Stulberg's well-written theoretical framework draws on numerous theories, such as rational choice, new institutionalism, and prospect theory, which by themselves are unable to account for the varied outcomes of Russia's attempts to reassert its presence in the region. Stulberg is dissatisfied with the theories that concentrate exclusively on inducement and coercion and points out the need to broaden the definition of "soft" dimensions to include international security by introducing the concept of strategic manipulation (1). Its essence lies in restructuring "a target's decision situation, alignment choices, and risks to maximize the appeal of a favorable outcome or minimize the appeal of an unfavorable" one (1). Thus, influence can be exercised even before the actual decisions are made by altering the decision-making agenda of the targets (6). The attention to risk in decision making allows Stulberg to go beyond rational choice's traditional emphasis on utility maximization. By analyzing Russia's standing in gas, oil, and nuclear sectors vis-a-vis southern NIS states, Stulberg argues that an initiator's market power in a specific energy sector and operation within a clearly delineated regulatory system at home enables it to shape a target's decision-making context in such a way that "strategic compliance holds out more favorable prospects than noncompliance" (37). The inability of a state to marshal one or both independent variables can lead to either defiance or mutual accommodation (14). In the debate about the influence of globalization on the state, Stulberg clearly stands on the side of those who argue that the state remains a relevant actor despite the increasing influence of other nonstate actors.The book has a very clear structure; the argument is lucidly stated and flows well through the text. Stulberg is explicit about what he aims to do through his research. He is also meticulous in the selection and explanation of methodological tools he uses to answer his research question. The factual richness of the book is ensured by the process tracing in which Stulberg engages (57). …


Brazil has made considerable progress toward macroeconomic stability since reform measures began to take hold in the early 1990s, and its economy has produced stronger growth as a result an average of 2.5 percent annually over the past decade. This study provides a broad, cross-sectoral analysis of Brazil's capacity for producing knowledge and innovation. As such, it moves beyond the traditional recommendation that is, builds a stable macroeconomic environment and business-friendly physical and policy infrastructure and instead seeks a more comprehensive approach. The fact is that Brazil has delivered some important successes with efforts to develop innovation in agriculture, aerospace and energy. But like other middle-income nations, it is discovering that it must re-evaluate its education system, its information technology infrastructure, and its policy framework for encouraging innovation to ensure that its economy as a whole is growing fast enough to keep up with the global competition while also guaranteeing progress in its fight against poverty. This study was developed in close consultation with Brazilian government and civil society leaders, who are deeply engaged with the question of how to foster innovation and greater economic competitiveness. Indeed, the breadth of the support for this study is a testament to Brazil's pragmatism and perseverance in pursuing more robust growth. It is also a welcome reflection of its continually evolving relationship with the World Bank. Today, Brazil has emerged as a leader of efforts to build South-South cooperation. In this role, it can set an important example for other middle-income nations and act as a bridge between the northern and southern hemispheres.


MALT lymphoma is specifically associated with t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l), t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) and
t(14;1 8)(q32q; 2l). t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l) fuses the N-terminal of the API2 gene to the Cterminal
of the MALT1 gene and generates a functional AP12-MALTI fusion product.
t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) and t(14; 18)(q32q; 2l) bring the BCLIO and MALT1 gene respectively to
the IgH locus and deregulate their expression. The oncogenic activity of the three
independent chromosomal translocations is linked by the physiological role of BCLIO and
MALTI. in antigen receptor mediated NFKB activation. In this thesis,
immunohistochemical and molecular genetic methods have been developed and used to
investigate the frequency of these translocations in MALT lymphomas of various sites and
their role in the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of this malignancy.
t(l 1; 1 8)(q2 I; q2 1) was detected by RT-PCR of the AP12-MALT I fusion transcript and was
found most frequently in MALT lymphomas from the lung (38%) and stomach (24%),
moderately in those from the ocular adnexae (16%), but rarely in those from the salivary
gland (M), thyroid, skin, and other rare sites. The translocation was not seen in the
preceding diseases associated with the development of MALT lymphoma including H.
pylori associated gastritis, lymphoepithelial sialadenitis and Hashimoto's thyroiditis, nor in
other subtypes of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. In gastric MALT lymphoma,
t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l) was significantly associated with advanced cases and was a reliable
marker for those not responding to H. pylori eradication including cases at stage IE.
t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) positive MALT lymphoma was characterised by strong BCLIO nuclear
expression in contrast to the cytoplasmic expression of the protein in normal B-cells.
Moderate BCLIO nuclear expression was seen in t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) negative MALT
lymphomas including all those with t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l) and up to 20% of cases without
t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l). Based on BCLIO immunohistochemstry followed by interphase FISH,
t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) was found in MALT lymphomas from the lung (12%) and stomach( 5%),
but not in those from the ocular adnexae, salivary gland, thyroid and skin. In gastric MALT
lymphoma,t (1; 14)(p22q; 32) positive cases did not respond to H. pylori eradication. t(14;1 8)(q32q; 2l) positive MALT lymphoma was characterised by strong homogeneous
cytoplasmic expression of both MALTI. and BCLIO. In MALT lymphomas without
t(14;1 8)(q32q; 2l) including those with t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) or t(11; 18)(q2l; q2l), MALTI
expression was generally weak or negative. Based on MALTI and BCLIO
immunohistochernistry followed by interphase FISH, t(14; 18)(q32q; 2l) was found in
MALT lymphomas of the lung (6%), ocular adnexae (7%) and liver (17%) but not in those
from the stomach, salivary gland, thyroid and skin.
t(11;1 8)(q21q; 2l), t(1; 14)(p22q; 32) and t(14; 18)(q32q; 21) were variably involved in MALT
lymphoma of different sites. Detection of these translocations has significant implications
in diagnosis and prognosis of MALT lymphoma.


The model repository (MREP) is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed under the auspices of the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS. The purpose of the MREP is to organize and catalog the models, results, and suggestions for using MIDAS and to store them in a way to allow users to run models from an access-controlled disease model repository. The model repository contains source and object code of disease models developed by infectious disease modelers and tested in a production environment. Different versions of models used to describe various aspects of the same disease are housed in the repository. Models are linked to their developers and different versions of the codes are tied to Subversion, a version control tool. An additional element of the MREP will be to house, manage, and control access to a disease model results warehouse, which consists of output generated by the models contained in the MREP. The results tables and files are linked to the version of the model and the input parameters that collectively generated the results. The results tables are warehoused in a relational database that permits them to be easily identified, categorized, and downloaded.


The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (SARS-COV-2) in December 2019 disrupted traditional forms of teaching and learning centred on face-to-face and in-class instruction. Governments enforced social distancing measures characterised by stay-at-home strategies and the closure of schools and other learning facilities. The government of Zimbabwe adopted radio broadcast as the primary tool for lesson delivery during the COVID-19. Contextually, Zimbabwe's radio signals are only accessed by 29.1 percent of the entire population, with weak to no reception in some regions, especially those in the south. While radio access is low, mobile phone ownership per household is over 90 percent. In light of the contextual dynamics, the study examined available technologies to deliver educational content during the COVID-19 lockdown as the government declared radio broadcasts as the primary tool to support teaching and learning. The study utilised an adapted Technology Acceptance Model as the theoretical framework. Secondary school teachers from the southern region were drawn through random sampling to participate in the survey to gather their opinions and practices. The study results revealed that teachers preferred to use smartphones and computers/laptops for teaching rather than radio. The study identified barriers such as lack of infrastructure, cost of data, lack of connectivity, lack of access to computing devices, and the institution's culture. The results could influence policymakers in adopting digital media for teaching, and this will equip learners with 21st-century skills. Continuous professional development of teachers should aim to improve their digital skills.


NOTHING APPEARS LESS PROBLEMATIC than self-consciousness. Without it, no inquiry seems possible, for how can one seek knowledge unless one is aware of undertaking that quest? Moreover, consciousness of anything other than the self is always plagued with knowing something whose existence cannot lie in the consciousness of it. As Descartes observed, whenever one represents an object different from one's consciousness, it is always doubtful whether that object exists or corresponds with its representation. (1) By contrast, insofar as consciousness of one's self-consciousness is the very being of self-consciousness, the gap between object and representation here seems uniquely absent. Not only is my representation of myself as self-conscious constitutive of my being self-conscious, but nothing prevents that representation from corresponding to what it is about. This privileged certainty, however, generates skepticism regarding knowledge of anything other than one's own consciousness, including other minds. If knowledge of self-conscious is secured by its identity of subject and object, of knowing and what knowing is knowing of, wherever that identity is lacking, cognition confronts the dilemma of bridging a gap that is insurmountable if knowing has no access to its object other than by representing it. The yawning solipsism that attends the privileged self-certainty of self-consciousness is not mitigated by the oft alleged dependence of consciousness upon self-consciousness. To paraphrase Kant, consciousness of any object is possible only if consciousness relates itself to its own representation of the object. Otherwise, the putative knowledge belongs to no one and there is no consciousness of the represented object. If this relation of consciousness to its own representation is self-consciousness, then there can be no consciousness of an object without a simultaneous self-consciousness. (2) The problem with securing this dependency is that the privileged certainty of self-consciousness renders suspect whether consciousness can ever relate to anything but itself. So long as self-consciousness is construed to be primary, it remains doubtful whether there can be any consciousness of a non-self to accompany self-consciousness. The solitary primacy of self-consciousness, however, is just as questionable as is how consciousness can be aware of itself. II To begin with, self-consciousness must presuppose consciousness if to be self-conscious is to be conscious of one's consciousness. In that case, consciousness must be present, relating to an object it distinguishes from itself. Consciousness may always involve self-relation in that consciousness relates to an object only by relating to its own mental content. Nonetheless, in order for this self-relation to involve intentionality, to be about something objective rather than subjective, consciousness must treat its own mental content as the determination of something independently given from which it is disengaged. Without disengaging itself from the same content to which it stands in self-relation, consciousness reverts to a preconscious psyche that feels nothing but its own feeling self, never attaining an opposition of subject and object. For this reason, the relation of consciousness to its own mental content is not equivalent to consciousness of consciousness. Consciousness's relation to its own representation is only part of consciousness, a part that must be accompanied by a relation to that content as something other to consciousness. Accordingly, consciousness does not collapse into self-consciousness. Because mind is enabled to be conscious of something other than itself only by detaching itself from its own mental content, neither self-consciousness nor consciousness can be primary. Just as consciousness depends upon the disengagement by which self-feeling becomes sensation of something objective, so self-consciousness depends upon consciousness as the object of its own disengaged awareness. …


Expectations of the future play a large role in macroeconomics. The rational expectations assumption, which is commonly used in the literature, provides an important benchmark, but may be too strong for some applications. This paper reviews some recent research that has emphasized methods for analyzing models of learning, in which expectations are not initially rational but which may become rational eventually provided certain conditions are met. Many of the applications are in the context of popular models of monetary policy. The goal of the paper is to provide a largely nontechnical survey of some, but not all, of this work and to point out connections to some related research.


We consider techniques used in the articulation of pictorial relief. The related 'cue' best known to vision science is 'shading'. It is discussed in terms of an inverse optics algorithm known as 'shape from shading'. However, the familiar techniques of the visual arts count many alternative cues for the articulation of pictorial relief. From an art technical perspective these cues are well known. Although serving a similar purpose as shading proper, they allow a much flatter value scale, making it easier to retain the picture plane, or major tonal areas. Vision research has generally ignored such methods, possibly because they lack an obvious basis in ecological optics. We attempt to rate the power of various techniques on a common 'shading scale'. We find that naive observers spontaneously use a variety of cues, and that several of these easily equal, or beat, conventional shading. This is of some conceptual interest to vision science, because shading has a generally acknowledged ecological basis, whereas the alternative methods lack this.


The competition between China and Taiwan to attract high-tech industry investment recently has become increasingly severe. This study presents an in-depth analysis of the cross-strait (Taiwan, China) high-tech industry, considering the areas of industrial environment, government policy and industrial performance. This investigation examines the likely influence of WTO entry on increasing industry competition. It reveals that considerable development space exists for improving cross-strait relationships and that a competitive and cooperative relationship may appear during the transformation process. 1. Introduction Chinese comprise the bulk of the population of Asia. However, owing to different political views, the Taiwan Strait has separated China into two different states, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) since 1949. The cross-strait relationship refers to the interaction between these two sides. Following 50 years of separation, both sides developed respective advantages and specialties in science technology. Recently, the high-tech industry has not only created numerous high-tech elites and employment opportunities, but also exerted some very positive effects on international trade, making both sides significant players in the global market. With the global economy remaining gloomy, the Chinese market has attracted enterprises from all over the world. Since its formal WTO entry in 2001, China has been aggressively preparing for challenges from global trade competition. This phenomenon has significantly influenced investment in high-tech industry in China. Many other countries in the world are striving to prevent the magnetic effect between China and Taiwan in high-tech industry. Corporate management thus must create a cross-strait high-tech industry, involving industrial environment, industrial history and industrial infrastructure, to keep up with the development of the Chinese high-tech industry in Asia and succeed in the competitive international market. 2. Criteria for Assessing Industrial Competitiveness Most researchers from an economic or management point of view study the industrial international competitiveness based on an overall economic environment outside the industry and industrial structure. In "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" , Porter (1990) applied the Diamond Model to interpret the origins of national competitiveness, including five key elements: factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries, firm strategy, organizational structure, and two additional elements: government and chance. If a nation has good overall performance in all seven conditions, it will be competitive in some industry in the world. Rugman & D'Cruz (1993) and Rugman & Verbeke (1993) proposed a modified version of the Double Diamond Model that they applied to interpret the trade relationship among Canada, Mexico and U.S.A. Porter (1991) considered that since the Diamond Model is continuing the theory on competitive strategy and advantage and has been verified by field investigations and studies involving hundreds of industry types in dozens of countries (Grein and Craig, 1996), its theory is accountable and has integrity. On the other hand, Buckley (1985) adopted a perspective based on the competitive process to identify the determinants of international competitive as being competitive capability, management process and competitive performance. D'Cruz and Rugman (1993) employed the Five Partner Model to emphasize the importance of upstream suppliers and market scale to international competitiveness. Freemantle (1996) found that improving British industrial competitiveness requires both specialized division of labor and basic infrastructure for scientific and technical development. Gardener (1990) emphasized the complete integration of research academia, university, industry, government, the importance of technology transfer and high-tech industrial parks to make international competitiveness into a national characteristic. …


.................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1 ...................................................................................................... 1


The study of node-selection query languages for (finite) trees has been a major topic in the recent research on query lan- guages for Web documents. On one hand, there has been an extensive study of XPath and its various extensions. On the other hand, query languages based on classical logics, such as first-order logic (FO) or monadic second-order logic (MSO), have been considered. Results in this area typically relate an Xpath-based language to a classical logic. What has yet to emerge is an XPath-related language that is expressive as MSO, and at the same time enjoys the computational proper- ties of XPath, which are linear query evaluation and exponen- tial query-containment test. In this paper we propose μXPath, which is the alternation-free fragment of XPath extended with fixpoint operators. Using two-way alternating automata, we show that this language does combine desired expressiveness and computational properties, placing it as an attractive can- didate as the definite query language for trees.


Concern has been raised that herbicides recently registered for use in warm-season turf to control perennial ryegrass could be dislodged from treated areas and deposited on neighboring cool-season grasses. In a field study, rimsulfuron was applied at 17.5 or 35 g ai/ha to perennial ryegrass in the afternoon; the following morning while dew was still present, a greens mower was driven through the perennial ryegrass and across adjacent creeping bentgrass. Irrigation had no effect on perennial ryegrass control but reduced visible track length and injury of neighboring creeping bentgrass. When treated perennial ryegrass was not irrigated prior to simulated mowing, tire tracks were evident on adjacent creeping bentgrass for up to 30 days. Gibberellic acid at 0.12 kg ai/ha and foliar iron at 1.3 kg ai/ha, applied to creeping bentgrass when tracks first appeared, did not enhance recovery of injured creeping bentgrass. Persistence and stability of [2-pyridine C] rimsulfuron on turf foliage was also assessed. Rimsulfuron was absorbed by annual bluegrass and perennial ryegrass equivalently and persisted equally on turf foliage. Water extractable rimsulfuron decreased from 60% at 10 minutes after treatment to 40% at 96 hours after treatment. A substantial amount of stable rimsulfuron persists on turf foliage for up to four days. Results from both studies suggest that when applying rimsulfuron near susceptible bentgrass the lowest effective rate should be used, and irrigation should follow two hours after treatment to prevent nontarget injury.


Hair is power, beauty and seduction: a reflection of ethnicity and religion, and even a canvas for self-expression. A key feature in defining identity and social status, it holds the essence of our individuality. However, once removed from its original and natural setting—the epidermis—hair is seen as waste, and often evokes disgust. The objective of this thesis is to explore human hair, which particularly in the Arabic-Islamic region, carries great significance and raises many religious, cultural, and gender issues. Through design, and informed by critical design theory, I explore how this corporeal material can be reused and re-presented as a means of interrogating the references, symbolism, and connotations of hair


The efficiency of processing strategies for queries in a distributed database is critical for system performance. Methods are studied to minimize the response time and the total time for distributed queries. A new algorithm (Algorithm GENERAL) is presented to derive processing strategies for arbitrarily complex queries. Three versions of the algorithm are given: one for minimizing response time and two for minimizing total time. The algorithm is shown to provide optimal solutions under certain conditions.


The Brazilian macroeconomic model is characterized by financial opening, a growth strategy based on foreign savings, low (overvalued) exchange rate, current account deficits, high foreign debt, high basic (Selic) interest rate, low but inertial inflation, soft fiscal policy negative public savings, high public debt, depressed expected rates of profit, stagnant salary rate, depressed domestic savings, depressed investments, high unemployment, per capita GDP quasi-stagnant. The Brazilian economy achieved price but not macroeconomic stabilization in 1994 as long as intertemporal equilibrium was not achieved in fiscal and external accounts areas. Growth will only be resumed if monetary authorities acknowledge the interest rate and exchange rate trap in which the Brazilian economy is immersed, and decide to invert the perverse macroeconomic equation of high basic interest rate and low exchange rate. Yet, the international and domestic orthodoxy that runs macroeconomic policy in Brazil keeps using conventional macroeconomics to understand problems which are not conventional, and, so, it is unable to achieve the required macroeconomic stabilization.


This thesis consists of three parts. The first part (Chapter 3) is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the interrelationships among migration, the evolution ofthe settlement system, and the socioeconomic development in Taiwan over the past four hundred years (1600-1990), with an emphasis on the impacts of developmental strategy and government policy. The major finding is that the migration process in Taiwan appears to be highly responsive to the changing socioeconomic context. The second part (Chapter 4-6) involves the studies of (1) life-time migrations and (2) 1985-90 primary, return, and onward migrations of the labor force in Taiwan, based on the 1990 Taiwanese census. The main theme ofthese analyses is to assess the responsiveness of labor migration to the labor market forces and to the economic restructuring and globalization that took place in the 1980s. The main findings are (1) that primary labor migration played a much greater role than did onward and return labor migrations in affecting the transfers of human resources and (2) that the three types of labor migration responded in a rational way to the effects of patriarchal value system, educational attainment, location-specific capital, market forces, and economic restructuring and globalization. The third part (Chapter 7) is devoted to the analysis of the behaviors of fast repeat labor migration in Taiwan, based on the linked migration data. The main findings are (I) that the most important factors of fast repeat migrations turned out to be the chronicity and patriarchal ideology, (2) that those with a limited labor market knowledge and an unsuccessful job search are more prone to make a fast return migration, and (3) that the more experienced and more successful previous migrants are more prone to make a fast onward migration.


Key predistribution schemes accommodate secure connectivity by establishing pairwise keys between nodes. However, ensuring security for all communication links of a wireless sensor network (WSN) is nontrivial due to the memory limitations of the nodes. If some of the links are not available due to the lack of a primary security association between the transmitter and the receiver, nodes can still send their data to the base station but probably not via the best route that maximizes the network lifetime. In this study, we propose a linear programming framework to explore the incomplete secure connectivity problem with respect to its impact on network lifetime, path length, queue size, and energy dissipation. The numerical results show that if any two nodes share a key with a probability of at least 0.3, then we should expect only a marginal drop (i.e., less than 3.0%) in lifetime as compared to a fully connected network.


BACKGROUND Intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH) and abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS) may complicate monitoring of pulmonary mechanics owing to their impact on the respiratory system. However, recommendations for mechanical ventilation of patients with IAH/ACS and the interpretation of thoracoabdominal interactions remain unclear. Our study aimed to characterize the influence of elevated intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) and positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) on airway plateau pressure (PPLAT) and bladder pressure (PBLAD). METHODS Nine deeply anesthetized swine were mechanically ventilated via tracheostomy: volume-controlled mode at tidal volume (VT) of 10 mL/kg, frequency of 15, inspiratory-expiratory ratio of 1:2, and PEEP of 1 and 10 cm H2O (PEEP1 and PEEP10, respectively). A tracheostomy tube was placed in the peritoneal cavity, and IAP levels of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm Hg were applied, using a continuous positive airway pressure system. At each IAP level, PBLAD and airway pressure measurements were performed during both PEEP1 and PEEP10. RESULTS PBLAD increased as experimental IAP rose (y = 0.83x + 0.5; R2 = 0.98; p < 0.001 at PEEP1). Minimal underestimation of IAP by PBLAD was observed (−2.5 ± 0.8 mm Hg at an IAP of 10–25 mm Hg). Applying PEEP10 did not significantly affect the correlation between experimental IAP and PBLAD. Approximately 50% of the PBLAD (in cm H2O) was reflected by changes in PPLAT, regardless of the PEEP level applied. Increasing IAP did not influence hemodynamics at any level of IAP generated. CONCLUSION With minimal underestimation, PBLAD measurements closely correlated with experimentally regulated IAP, independent of the PEEP level applied. For each PEEP level applied, a constant proportion (approximately 50%) of measured PBLAD (in cm H2O) was reflected in PPLAT. A higher safety threshold for PPLAT should be considered in the setting of IAH/ACS as the clinician considers changes in VT. A strategy of reducing VT to cap PPLAT at widely recommended values may not be warranted in the setting of increased IAP.


Many scholars point to landholding inequality as a root cause of the "Great Divergence" between rich and poor countries over the last few centuries. Large landowners who fear being eclipsed by the masses or rival industrial elites and seek to preserve social and economic rents under-invest in public goods, block rural-urban migration, and keep peasants poor and subservient. By eliminating large landowners and enabling new policy initiatives, extensive land reform holds potential to vastly and directly improve peasant livelihoods, facilitate human capital formation, and enhance economic and social mobility. We demonstrate that this failed to occur in Peru despite a sweeping land reform that redistributed half of all private land to peasants. Using original localized land reform data and a geographic regression discontinuity design that exploits unevenness in reform implementation, we show that greater land reform intensity in Peru generated more poverty and stunted human development. This occurred because land reform encouraged rural demographic stasis, generated widespread land informality and property rights instability, and reduced political competitiveness. Although the government's distortionary management of post-reform cooperatives certainly did not maximize their development potential, evidence suggests that Peru's land reform failed to promote development because of broader inherent features of the reform.


The monetary side of domestic and international economic policy has generated increasingly intense debate and concern within and among the major industrial countries over the last several years. Recently, the Bank of Japan's Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies brought together leading academics and prominent economists of central banks and international organizations to analyze and discuss the key problems and issues of monetary policy of developed countries. Collected in this volume are their original contributions: eight essays that cover monetary policy in an uncertain world, domestic and international aspects of monetary policy, and policies to overcome stagflation. In particular, they recognize and provide a lively forum for the different views of academic and central bank economists.The essays are "Monetarism in Rhetoric and in Practice," by Milton Friedman; "Monetary Policy in an Uncertain World," by James Tobin; "The Conduct of Domestic Monetary Policy," by Robert Gorden; "Monetary Policy in Postwar Japan," by K. Hamada and F. Hayashi; "Monetary Policy in the Large Open Economy," by Michael Darby; "Alternative Approaches to Exchange-Rate Determination and Some Implications of the Structural Balance-of-Payments Approach for International Macroeconomic Interdependence," by Akihiro Amano; "'Reaganomics' and Credibility," by Thomas Sargent; and "Coordination of Monetary and Fiscal Policies," by Albert Ando.


Citizenship and naturalization procedures in the UK are examined in historical perspective. Recent legislation is reviewed in the light of global change. The implication of membership in the European Union is examined. The differential treatment of Commonwealth citizens and former colonial subjects is reviewed, as well as human rights questions raised by the treatment of asylum seekers. As a result of globalization, Britain is experiencing the same contradictory forces as other advanced industrial societies. Demographic and economic forces promote immigration, which is resisted for a combination of security fears and ethnocentric attitudes.


Technical challenges in using diatoms for paleolimnological work are the identification and enumeration of diatom valves. Variations exist in the minimum number of valves to identify, ranging from 100 to 700 valves of the dominant species. This task can be very time consuming, particularly when the diatom valves are not abundant. This research was conducted to determine the minimum number of valves to be identified in the diatom assemblages from Rawapening Lake, Central Java, Indonesia. Based on the 314 samples obtained from Rawapening Lake, the diatom efficiency rose above 0.85 upon the minimum count of 300 valves. The number of diatom species identified remained stable after the minimum of 300 valves. Therefore, the minimum number of diatom valves identified to represent the assemblage for paleolimnological analysis was 300.


SYNOPSIS Parenting has a significant and lasting impact on child development. From birth, parents must sensitively and appropriately attend to their infant's emotional expressions and vocalizations. Accumulating evidence indicates that these infant cues of emotion attract more attention than equivalent adult cues in parents as well as non-parents. We review this evidence and suggest that infant cues hold high incentive value and elicit motivated attention (i.e., enhanced processing of motivationally relevant stimuli), which in turn promotes approach motivation and thus caregiving responses. Further, we discuss data suggesting that infant cues are salient for non-parents, with increasing motivated attention to infant cues in the transition to parenthood. This increase may depend on interactions between the dopamine reward system and the neuropeptide oxytocin. Therefore, we also explore the human and non-human data that support this association and consider potential sources of variability in motivated attention in parents.


This paper presents a multi objective chance constrained programming model for matching of goods and transports in an intermodal transport chain under uncertain delivery time. The objectives in the proposed model are cost, emission, and transport time, where time is considered as an uncertain parameter. An approach to solve the model is proposed, and this approach has been implemented in a web-based system for transport matching in order to provide clients with alternative transport routes in a large system of possible transport solutions. A case study of a Swedish shipping company is analyzed, and the results are presented through comparisons of results from deterministic and stochastic models. The suggested model can help a decision maker to select transport alternative compromising between time, cost, emission, and with respect to uncertainty in transport time parameters.


Strong-motion accelerograms recorded within northern Iran are used to examine the propagation characteristics of shear wave, including geometric spreading behavior, Q-value, j 0 , and horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) ratio. These region-specific key seismic parameters are estimated from 259 three-component records of 22 earth- quakes with magnitude ranging from M 4.9 to M 7.4 in northern Iran. The geometric spreading follows a trilinear behavior with a strong postcritical reflection from the Moho. The first and second hinges of the trilinear behavior are at 75 and 150 km, respectively. The associated Q-value, based on the vertical component is Q 87 f 1.46 . j0 value for vertical and horizontal components are 0.03 and 0.05, respec- tively. Because of lack of station-specific site information, the H/V ratio is considered to be a rough estimation of generic site amplification. The obtained region-specific parameters are used to estimate the average stress drop based on three stochastic modeling approaches. Stochastic point-source modeling suggests a Brune stress drop of 125 bars, whereas stochastic finite-fault modeling based on static and dynamic corner frequency approaches suggests a stress drop of 68 bars.


This article examines whether, to give effect to the section 26 constitutional right to adequate housing, courts can (or should) compel the state to expropriate property in instances when it is not just and equitable to evict unlawful occupiers from privately-owned land (unfeasible eviction). This question was first raised in the Modderklip case, where both the Supreme Court of Appeal (Modder East Squatters v Modderklip Boerdery (Pty) Ltd; President of the Republic of South Africa v Modderklip Boerdery (Pty) Ltd 2004 3 All SA 169 (SCA)) and Constitutional Court (President of the Republic of South Africa v Modderklip Boerdery (Pty) Ltd 2005 5 SA 3 (CC)). dodged the question, opting instead to award constitutional damages to the property owner for the long-term occupation of its property by unlawful occupiers. It is clear from cases such as Ekurhuleni Municipality v Dada 2009 4 SA 463 (SCA), that, mindful of separation of powers concerns, courts have until very recently been unwilling to order the state to expropriate property in such circumstances. At the same time, it is increasingly evident that the state has failed to fulfil its constitutional obligations to provide alternative accommodation for poor communities. In this context, this article argues that there is a growing need for the judiciary to consider, as part of its role to craft effective remedies for constitutional rights violations, the issue of judicial expropriation. It does so, first, through an analysis of the relevant jurisprudence on evictions sought by private landowners and, second, through an in-depth engagement of the recent Western Cape High Court case, Fischer v Persons Listed on Annexure X to the Notice of Motion and those Persons whose Identity are Unknown to the Applicant and who are Unlawfully Occupying or Attempting to Occupy Erf 150 (Remaining Extent) Phillipi, Cape Division, Province of the Western Cape; Stock v Persons Unlawfully Occupying Erven 145, 152, 156, 418, 3107, Phillipi & Portion 0 Farm 597, Cape Rd; Copper Moon Trading 203 (Pty) Ltd v Persons whose Identities are to the Applicant Unknown and who are Unlawfully Occupying Remainder Erf 149, Phillipi, Cape Town 2018 2 SA 228 (WCC).


Abstract Do lenders securitize or price loans in response to credit risk? Exploiting exogenous variation in regional credit risk due to foreclosure law differences along U.S. state borders, we find that lenders securitize mortgages that are eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) rather than price regional credit risk. For non-GSE-eligible mortgages with no GSE buyback provision, lenders increase interest rates as they are unable to shift credit risk to loan purchasers. The results inform the debate surrounding the GSEs' buyback provisions, the constant interest rate policy, and show that underpricing regional credit risk increases the GSEs' debt holdings.


Externally designed strategies for improving the farm enterprise and reduce poverty among rural households may not produce desired results. For farm households to adopt economic approaches such as record keeping and management, innovative approaches that are participatory and which build on their indigenous knowledge are better. The value of farm level record keeping has been known for many decades now, yet many farmers in developing countries do not keep records. This paper presents the outcome of using innovative approaches that involved a rural community in a rural Ghanaian community. This research used consultation, village level meetings and participatory approaches to design user-friendly systems. This resulted in systems with which they can cope and which continued after the programme was over. There is the need to improve rural livelihoods by building on indigenous knowledge and using approaches that achieve greater productivity, efficiency, equity, profitability and sustainability. The findings show that rural households are knowledgeable and have the ability to decide on data collection formats that suit their needs.


The struggles and stressors that new faculty members face have been well documented, but during our first year at a Jesuit institution, we encountered unexpected, unprecedented challenges beyond typical. Fortunately, we developed a unique sense of community as new faculty stemming from Regis University ' s Manresa Experience. The Manresa Experience exposed us to Jesuit values, provided networking opportunities with colleagues, and introduced a togetherness that would help unite us against two unforgiving viruses. The first virus plagued Regis University in Fall 2019, when a cyberattack crippled our entire network security. As new faculty members, we were unable to utilize valuable resources that would normally aid in our successful transition to a new university. Almost immediately following this cyberattack, Regis University faced the tremendous challenges surrounding the COVID-19 global pandemic, which forced us to transition our team-based learning pedagogy into an online platform within a matter of days. The Manresa Experience and Jesuit values supported us in unexpected ways despite these extraordinary circumstances. Individually, we experienced the challenges in our own unique context. Together, we found peace amidst the turmoil and success amongst the chaos as we all relied on the Jesuit values and our support system created by the Manresa Experience.


This study examines how the POIs of members of an online retail organization were affected after an acquisition. The authors find that (a) POI is more complex than previously understood, and continuity, change and confusion in POI can coexist. (b) The organizational change reactivated previously unresolved POI issues. (c) The structure of POI includes cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions, and changes occurred in these dimensions. (d) Top managers and employees who have more interactions with outsiders in their jobs tend to be more confused and make less POI change than employees who primarily deal with internal operations. Finally, (e) the image of the acquired organization and the change strategies used are triggers of POI confusion and/or change in the acquiring organization. This article highlights the experience of individuals in the acquiring organization and suggests that POI is an important lens for understanding and managing organizational changes.


OBJECTIVES
To investigate whether a new derivative of melatonin, (2,3-dihydromelatonin (DHM), prevented the oxidative stress induced by ischemia /reperfusion (I/R) in the gerbil brain. To specify the effect on endogenous antioxidant activity and protein modification in the brain cortex, we evaluated the contents of glutathione (total GSx=GSH+GSSG) and protein carbonyl groups (PCG).

METHODS
Brain ischemia (I) was induced by (12 min) bilateral carotid occlusion (BCAO) in adult male gerbils (60-70 g b wt.) DHM (10 mg/kg) was administered i.p. 20 min before surgery, at the beginning of reperfusion (R), and then 2 and 6 hours later. Horizontal locomotor activity was recorded using the open-field test over the course of 24 hours. Contents of GSx and PCG were determined after 6h of reperfusion. Glutathione (GSx ) was determined spectrophotometrically using the microplate reader, lactate by the kit Randox, UK. The measurement of protein carbonyl (PCG) groups after their derivatization with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) is the most widely used assessment of protein oxidation. The contents of PCG and malondialdehyde (MDA) were assayed spectrophotometrically.

RESULTS
Evaluation of the data obtained from horizontal locomotor activity recorded over the course of 24 hours using the open-field test showed that hyperactivity induced by I/R was returned by DHM almost to its control value during the interval of up to 6 hours (from 18,000 to 5,000 cm distance traveled, p<0.05). I/R decreased the content of GSx by 27.2% (p<0.001). Administration of DHM resulted in maintaining the content of GSx at control values (p<0.05). DHM diminished the I/R-induced increase in PCG in the cortex by 34.2% (p<0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
Our data indicate that the effect of DHM on the content of glutathione and protein carbonyl groups occurred during the first 6 hours of reperfusion. In this time interval both the content of GSx and protein carbonyl groups seem to be sensitive indicators of I/R-induced oxidative stress in the gerbil brain.


BACKGROUND
Treatment of pediatric parapneumonic empyema (PPE) requires several weeks of antibiotic therapy that is typically completed in the outpatient setting. The route of outpatient therapy can be oral or intravenous (outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy [OPAT]). No studies have compared outcomes between oral therapy and OPAT for PPE.

METHODS
We identified children <18 years hospitalized from 2005 to 2014 at Primary Children's Hospital with PPE and discharged with oral therapy or OPAT. The primary outcome was the percentage of children who experienced all-cause complications after discharge. Complications included those that were related to pneumonia (including treatment failure, defined as readmission with reaccumulation of pleural fluid or abscess requiring drainage) or antibiotic therapy (eg, allergy, line clot) resulting in either a hospital readmission or emergency department/urgent care visit. All-cause complications were compared between oral therapy and OPAT by using propensity score-weighted logistic regression.

RESULTS
A total of 391 children were hospitalized with PPE; 337 (86%) were discharged with OPAT; 35 (9%) children experienced an all-cause complication, including 5 with oral (9.3%) and 30 (8.9%) with OPAT. Pneumonia and treatment-related complications were comparable (P = .25 and .78, respectively). Two patients treated with OPAT (1%) experienced treatment failure. After adjustment using propensity score weighting, the frequency of complications was similar between groups (adjusted odds ratio 0.97, 95% confidence interval 0.23-4.65).

CONCLUSIONS
The frequency of complications was similar with oral therapy and OPAT for children with PPE. Oral antibiotics may be considered safe and effective for children with PPE who will be discharged to complete therapy in the outpatient setting.


We recently described rapid quantitative pharmacodynamic imaging, a novel method for estimating sensitivity of a biological system to a drug. We tested its accuracy in simulated biological signals with varying receptor sensitivity and varying levels of random noise, and presented initial proof-of-concept data from functional MRI (fMRI) studies in primate brain. However, the initial simulation testing used a simple iterative approach to estimate pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PKPD) parameters, an approach that was computationally efficient but returned parameters only from a small, discrete set of values chosen a priori. Here we revisit the simulation testing using a Bayesian method to estimate the PKPD parameters. This improved accuracy compared to our previous method, and noise without intentional signal was never interpreted as signal. We also reanalyze the fMRI proof-of-concept data. The success with the simulated data, and with the limited fMRI data, is a necessary first step toward further testing of rapid quantitative pharmacodynamic imaging.


Mio-Pliocene sediments of the lower Colorado River area represent the northernmost well documented extent of the proto-Gulf of California, a tectonically enigmatic marine incursion that occupied much of what is now the Gulf of California region—including the lower Colorado River area and the Salton Trough—as much as 8 m.y. prior to the onset of spreading-and transform-related subsidence in that area. Fanglomerate and volcanic rocks informally referred to here as the Osborne Wash strata interfinger with the conformably overlying Bouse Formation. The Bouse Formation includes carbonate and coarse terrigenous-clastic basin margin deposits that interfinger laterally with basin fill material; basin fill strata comprise a basal estuarine carbonate unit overlain by fine-grained terrigenous-clastic deltaic deposits. The upper portion of the Bouse interfingers with overlying cobble conglomerates here referred to as the Colorado River gravels. Syndepositional folding of the Bouse Formation and bracketing units is believed to reflect slumping on oversteepened slopes, perhaps exacerbated by episodic tectonic activity. Syndepositional faults show both normal and reverse separation; outcrop relations allow but do not prove a strike-slip component of motion on some structures. Contemporaneous minor faults seem to reflect mutually incompatible stress orientations; this suggests that they record either localized stress fields or localized anomalous responses to regional stresses. Alternatively, they may reflect extension in two directions in the sediment pile overlying the subsiding basin floor. The Bouse Formation and bracketing units record four stages in the evolution of the northern proto-Gulf/lower Colorado River area: (1) dissection of preexisting, detachment fault-controlled topography and localized, interior-drainage alluvial deposition (about 14–9 Ma); (2) regional subsidence and proto-Gulf transgression (perhaps as early as about 8 Ma; not later than about 5.5 Ma); (3) progradation of ancestral Colorado River delta into the northern end of the proto-Gulf basin (prior to about 4.3 Ma); and (4) arrival of throughgoing Colorado fluvial channel (prior to about 3.5–4 Ma). Outcrop relations between the Osborne Wash strata and the Bouse Formation, and the relationship of these units to modern landforms, indicate that topography in the lower Colorado River area has not changed significantly since middle Miocene time. Subsidence of the Bouse basin is believed to have occurred via broad regional downwarping, which may have represented a sag formed as the locus of active proto-Gulf extension propagated northward into the lower Colorado River area from the block-faulted southern portion of the proto-Gulf. Timing suggests that incipient proto-Gulf extension in the lower Colorado River area was arrested by the approximately 5-Ma shift to the modern transtensional regime.


Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are a threat to people and the environment in part because toxins, especially microcystins in the American Midwest, can be produced by the resident cyanobacteria. Understanding this threat can be a challenge because reliable standards for monitoring toxins and for basic research purposes are not consistently available, if available at all. As a company poised to address this issue of availability, Beagle Bioproducts intends to be fully transparent about our products' specifications, so that our customers can be confident not only in their purchases but more importantly in their conclusions. What follows is a description of how we determine the identity, purity, and quantity of our microcystin products, so the end user can have this level of confidence.


This note summarizes much of the theory behind the use of the Delete-a- Group (DAG) jackknife with calibrated survey data like that coming from the third phase of the Agricultural Resources and Management Survey (ARMS III). A DAG jackknife employing 15 sets of replicate weights is used for variance estimation with ARMS-III data. Many analyses of this data are conducted by the Economics Research Service and by other agricultural economists outside of the US Department of Agriculture, making a portable variance-estimation technique like the DAG jackknife especially desirable. Some suggestions are offered to improve the present methodology.


In this work scaling of an optical broadcast-and-select network based on a passive star coupler is explored for avionics applications. Each client in the network is equipped with a transmitter unit and a multichannel receiver capable of receiving signals from all other clients connected to the star coupler. We propose a connecting node concept to scale the number of clients supported by the architecture. These connecting nodes act as bridges between star couplers, enabling the organization of several star couplers into a topology with additional clients. This design is modeled in the PhoenixSim simulation environment, and system-level simulation results are reported. We then propose the ring topology and dimension-N topology to interconnect and scale star couplers. Finally we compare the ring and dimension-N topologies in terms of scalability limit at different crossing traffic loads, revealing the trade-offs between latency, system complexity, and scalability. Our study shows that a robust, low-latency network of up to hundreds of clients, sufficient for current and next-generation avionics applications, can be built using off-the-shelf and near-term commercial technology.


To understand how Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor) locates its prey, i.e. Panonychus ulmi (Koch) and Tetranychus urticae Koch, we studied the predator's short-distance responses to the volatile allelochemicals associated with these two phytophagous mites and their host plant, Malus domestica (Borkham). At the end of one branch of a Y-shape runway we placed an uninfested apple leaf disk (= control) and, at the other end, one of the eight following types of stimulus (= treatments): 1) uninfested leaf, 2) uninfested leaf + prey, 3) uninfested leaf + prey kairomones, 4) uninfested leaf + prey + prey kairomones, 5) infested leaf, 6) infested leaf + prey, 7) infested leaf + prey kairomones, and 8) infested leaf + prey + prey kairomones. We observed the predator's searching behavior on the runway and analyzed its percentage of response to each of the above stimuli. When P. ulmi was tested, significantly more predators went to the end of the branch with uninfested leaves and prey with its kairomones (T4), infested leaves and prey kairomones (T7), and infested leaves and prey with its kairomones (T8). In relation to T. urticae, the predaceous mite showed significant responses to uninfested leaves with prey kairomones (T3) and to uninfested leaves and prey with its kairomones (T4), as well as to all infested leaf combinations (T5-8). These results indicate that the volatiles associated with the phytophagous mites, their byproducts, and the host plant, either separately or combined, play an important role on the short-distance location of T. urticae by N. californicus. On the other hand, only a combination of two or more of those stimuli appear to signal the location of nearby colonies of P. ulmi to the predaceous mite, specially when the kairomones from their feces, eggs, and exuviae are included in such blend.


We consider constraint-based methods for causal structure learning, such as the PC algorithm or any PC-derived algorithms whose first step consists in pruning a complete graph to obtain an undirected graph skeleton, which is subsequently oriented. All constraint-based methods perform this first step of removing dispensable edges, iteratively, whenever a separating set and corresponding conditional independence can be found. Yet, constraint-based methods lack robustness over sampling noise and are prone to uncover spurious conditional independences in finite datasets. In particular, there is no guarantee that the separating sets identified during the iterative pruning step remain consistent with the final graph. In this paper, we propose a simple modification of PC and PC-derived algorithms so as to ensure that all separating sets identified to remove dispensable edges are consistent with the final graph,thus enhancing the explainability of constraint-basedmethods. It is achieved by repeating the constraint-based causal structure learning scheme, iteratively, while searching for separating sets that are consistent with the graph obtained at the previous iteration. Ensuring the consistency of separating sets can be done at a limited complexity cost, through the use of block-cut tree decomposition of graph skeletons, and is found to increase their validity in terms of actual d-separation. It also significantly improves the sensitivity of constraint-based methods while retaining good overall structure learning performance. Finally and foremost, ensuring sepset consistency improves the interpretability of constraint-based models for real-life applications.


The emission of gases that may potentially intensify the greenhouse effect has received special attention due to their ability to raise global temperatures and possibly modify conditions for life on earth. The objectives of this study were the quantification of trace gas flux (N2O, CO2 and CH4) in soils of the lower Amazon basin that are planted with rice and soybean, and the relation of this flux to soil physical and chemical parameters and to precipitation. This study was conducted in agricultural fields planted with rice (Oryza sativa) and soybean (Glycine max), located near the cities of Belterra and Santarem in western Para State, Brazil, during the production years of 2005 to 2007. Measurements were done using static chambers in the field, and samples were analyzed by gas chromatography in the laboratory. Statistical analysis was conducted to determine variation in gas flux in both crops, and the results show that CO2 flux varied between 305 and 227 mg-C m-2 h-1 under rice, and 243 and 156 mg-C m-2 h-1 under soybean. Flux of N2O under rice varied between 4.5 and 20.4 µg-N m-2 h-1, and under soybean flux variation was between 4.0 and 9.4 µg-N m-2 h-1. Variation in flux of CH4 under rice was between 5.1 and 14.0 µg-C m-2 h-1, and under soybean it was 0.4 and 1.2 µg-C m-2 h-1. These results demonstrate that, during the study period, the rice crop had higher flux for all trace gases than the soybean crop.

 Key words: Amazon region, trace gas, crops.


Electron Bernstein waves are a mode of oscillation in a plasma, thought a candidate for providing radiofrequency heating and non-inductive current drive in spherical tokamaks. Previous studies of these modes have relied on neglecting or simplifying the contribution made by relativistic effects. This work presents fully relativistic numerical results that show the mode's dispersion relation for a wide range of parameters. Relativistic effects are shown to shift the location of the resonance as in previous studies, but the effects beyond this are shown to matter only in high temperature (10-20keV) plasmas. At these higher temperatures however, the fully relativistic model differs markedly. The assumption that the mode is electrostatic is looked at, and found to be inadequate for describing fully the electron bernstein modes dispersion relation. Simple estimates that neglect toroidal effects show current drive efficiency is expected to be an order of magnitude higher than that for conventional electron cyclotron current drive using the O or X modes. It is shown for a number of model tokamaks that heating the center of the plasma and driving current using EBWs is impossible launching from the outside due to strong damping of the wave at higher cyclotron harmonics. Results from a code based on a more complicated semi-analytic model of current drive, that includes toroidal effects and calculates the average current drive over the magnetic surface, confirm the higher expected current drive efficiency, and the code is shown to give good agreement with a FokkerPlanck code. The higher values of associated with the EBWs are shown to mitigate the delterious effects of trapping on current drive efficiency to a small extent. The details of the magnetic field are found to be unimportant to the calculation beyond determing where the wave is absorbed. The codes written to produce these results are outlined before each set of results. The last of these is considerably faster than conventional Fokker-Planck codes and a useful tool in studying electron cyclotron current drive in the future.


Soil is the most important resource for food production. The increase in the world population puts pressure on the soil resource to continuously provide food security for
the population. The per capita arable land is 0.29 ha per capita and it is expected to reduce due to population increase, land degradation processes and competition for non-agriculture land use. The agricultural sector has been successful to continuously supply food for the growing population. This is brought about by the green revolution resulting from technological improvement through advancement in scientific knowledge. With more constraints and greater challenges the agriculture sector requires more efficient and productive technology. Since horizontal increase through expansion of arable land is restricted the increase in food production has to be achieved vertically by increasing soil productivity. The use of fertilizer for improvement of soil productivity is widely practiced
and N fertilizer is the most important fertilizer use world wide. The use of N fertilizer has no doubt increase the soil productivity; however it has also created serious environmental problems. The efficiency of N fertilizer is often low due to losses through denitrification, volatilization, and leaching and clay fixation. The N that leaks to the environment causes serious environmental problems such as ground water pollution, emission of greenhouse gases, eutrophication and nitrate pollution. For sustainable N management, the N loss has to be minimized to subsequently increase N fertilizer efficiency. Co-applying urea with selected cations, micronutrients and urease inhibitors can effectively improve urea efficiency. It was also shown that rice yield was not affected when irrigation was applied only at soil saturation level instead of continuous flooding at 5-10cm as currently practiced.
Thus, potentially, tremendous amount of irrigation water can be saved and more area of land can be used for rice production .The public awareness on the importance of soil
resource for food production and human survival should be provided through the education system. Research for public good on sustainable soil management must be given top priority alongside the market driven research, to ensure the agriculture sector continue to supply us with food from the soil to the table.


We can use aerial surveys of waterbirds to identify high-conservation-value wetlands, estimate species' abundance and track changes in wetland condition. Two major approaches prevail. Transects to estimate a few species (1–20, often ducks) are predominantly used in North America and counts of entire waterbird assemblages on discrete wetlands are favoured in Australia. Such differences reflect wetland type, discrete (whole count) and continuous (transect) sampling, different objectives and history. There are few continuous large-scale aerial surveys of waterbirds, despite cost efficiencies and effectiveness. We review the eastern Australian waterbird survey that samples about one-third of the continent (2.697 million km2). Each October, during 1983–2007, all waterbirds were estimated on an average of 811 wetlands, within ten 30-km-wide survey bands, separately extending across latitudes from the east coast to central Australia. The survey has demonstrated the importance of arid wetlands for waterbirds and provided management data on distribution, abundance and breeding of waterbirds. Most significantly, long-term temporal data for individual wetlands provided strong evidence for the impacts of water resource development (dam building, diversion of water). These data have influenced wildlife management, river rehabilitation and restoration policies at a national scale.


Nightmares are a cardinal symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but little is known about the experiential aspects of PTSD dreams. The present study is a secondary exploration of data collected in a randomized, controlled trial of prazosin in PTSD patients. This study examined affective attributes of nightmares in 20 PTSD patients using visual analogue scales (VAS) rated from "0" (never) to "100" (always) for anger, fear, and sadness. PTSD diagnosis was confirmed by Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale. Sitting pulse, Disturbing Dreams and Nightmare Severity Index (DDNSI), PTSD Checklist (PCL), and other psychiatric measurements were recorded. Analytic approach included Pearson's r, paired t-tests, and multilinear regression modeling. The mean presence of anger, fear, and sadness in dreams was noted to have been: 54.9 ± 32.0, 76.6 ± 24.3, and 71.5 ± 26.2, respectively. Significant positive correlations were found between anger scores and the relation of a dream to: prior trauma (r= 0.5113), repetitive nature (r= 0.4807), and awakening the dreamer (r= 0.5781). Significant correlations were not seen for fearful or sad affects. In multilinear regression, "PCL minus sleep" scores were predicted by DDNSI and anger scores, after covarying for age and gender (F= 4.5, df = 19, p< 0.02). DDNSI scores and resting pulse were significantly positively correlated (r= 0.5541).  These results confirm that PTSD dreams are negative-affect laden, and specifically, that anger in dreams is correlated with a greater degree of traumatic themes, repetitiveness, and awakenings. Additionally, anger in dreams best indicated the presence of worse global PTSD symptoms. The correlation between resting daytime pulse and DDNSI scores underlines the unifying features of PTSD across day and night.


Organisms respond to environmental conditions by altering gene expression; however, it is unclear if organisms retain epigenetic memory of their ancestors' environmental conditions. Webster et al. assessed the descendants of two genetically identical... Phenotypic plasticity is facilitated by epigenetic regulation, and remnants of such regulation may persist after plasticity-inducing cues are gone. However, the relationship between plasticity and transgenerational epigenetic memory is not understood. Dauer diapause in Caenorhabditis elegans provides an opportunity to determine how a plastic response to the early-life environment affects traits later in life and in subsequent generations. We report that, after extended diapause, postdauer worms initially exhibit reduced reproductive success and greater interindividual variation. In contrast, F3 progeny of postdauers display increased starvation resistance and lifespan, revealing potentially adaptive transgenerational effects. Transgenerational effects are dependent on the duration of diapause, indicating an effect of extended starvation. In agreement, RNA-seq demonstrates a transgenerational effect on nutrient-responsive genes. Further, postdauer F3 progeny exhibit reduced gene expression plasticity, suggesting a trade-off between plasticity and epigenetic memory. This work reveals complex effects of nutrient stress over different time scales in an animal that evolved to thrive in feast and famine.


We study the sample complexity of teaching, termed as "teaching dimension" (TD) in the literature, for the learning-with-equivalence-queries (LwEQ) paradigm. More concretely, we consider a learner who asks equivalence queries (i.e., "is the queried hypothesis the target hypothesis?"), and a teacher responds either "yes" or "no" along with a counterexample to the queried hypothesis. This learning paradigm has been extensively studied when the learner receives worst-case or random counterexamples; in this paper, we consider the optimal teacher who picks bestcase counterexamples to teach the target hypothesis within a hypothesis class. For this optimal teacher, we introduce LwEQ-TD, a notion of TD capturing the teaching complexity (i.e., the number of queries made) in this paradigm. We show that a significant reduction in queries can be achieved with best-case counterexamples, in contrast to worst-case or random counterexamples, for different hypothesis classes. Furthermore, we establish new connections of LwEQ-TD to the well-studied notions of TD in the learning-from-samples paradigm.


Since several decades the RAUMIS modelling system is applied for policy impact assessments to measure the impact of agriculture on the environment. A disaggregation at the municipality level with more than 9.000 administrative units, instead of currently used 316 counties, would tremendously improve the environmental impact analysis. Two sets of data are used for this purpose. The first are geo-referenced data, that are, however, incomplete with respect its coverage of production activities in agriculture. The second set is the micro census statistic itself, that has a full coverage, but data protection rules (DPR) prohibit its straightforward use. The paper show how this bottleneck can be passed to obtain a reliable modelling data set at municipality level with a complete coverage of the agricultural sector in Germany. We successfully applied a Bayesian estimator, that uses prior information derived a cluster analysis based on the micro census and GIS information. Our test statistics of the estimation, calculated by the statistical office, comparing our estimates and the real protected data, reveals that the proposed approach adequately estimates most activities and can be used to fed the municipality layer in the RAUMIS modelling system for an extended policy analysis.


Factory worker pay in global value chains remains a contentious issue. In this paper, we evaluate a two-year field experiment in an apparel factory to analyze altered compensation systems designed to increase worker pay while supporting factory goals around productivity and profitability. Using a quasi-experimental design, with unique data on wages, hours, productivity, quality, and worker engagement, we estimate the impact of three altered compensation systems on pay, productivity, and factory profits. The compensation systems can be described as: 1) an improved productivity-based scheme, 2) a scheme that brings quality and waste reduction into the calculation; and 3) a "target wage" scheme. Overall, the treatments raised wages by 4.2-9.7% and increased productivity by 8-10% points. Management reported significant financial benefits from the experiment, including increased profits for five of six lines, and avoided costs and productivity losses due to decreased turnover. The factory workers, through focus-group interviews before, during, and after the intervention, reported improved relations with team members and managers. This study demonstrates altered factory compensation can support better factory performance and a better paid workforce, indicating a path towards advanced supply chains with improved wages.


Foreign law has become an increasingly important element of many cases brought before federal courts. Rule 44.1, which controls determinations of foreign law, is intended to make the process for determining foreign law as painless as possible, but like the regime that preceded it, it has become a procedural minefield for those wishing to rely on foreign law, as courts have declined to apply Rule 44.1 when it should be used, either deliberately or due to uncertainty as to its application. This is in large part due to the lack of concrete standards outlined in the rule. This Note examines the standards associated with the rule and their application in the years immediately after its promulgation and concludes that the reliant party's burden of production with respect to foreign law should vary based on whether statutory text is provided. If a statute is available, the courts should be required to undertake a Rule 44.1 analysis, while if a statute is unavailable, the reliant party should bear the burden of producing substantial evidence of foreign law. This standard, elaborated in the text of Rule 44.1, should ensure that as many foreign law determinations as possible can be resolved on the merits.


The paper evaluates the economic partnership agreement (EPA) which the European Union is forging with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and concludes that it is a raw deal for these developing countries. Particularly for Africa, the author likens the EPA to the Berlin conference of 1884–1885 that divided Africa among the European powers. EPA as the second scramble for Africa would merely turn Africa into a dumping ground for European goods and severely undermine its nascent development. It is argued that EPA has everything to do with the pressure on Europe to preserve Africa for itself against the 'threats' of China and has little to do with African development. For EPA to become a development partnership, the author outlines some key elements of an alternative development partnership between Africa and Europe that is possible.


Over the past few years, Public Administrations have been providing systems for procedures and files electronic processing to ensure compliance with regulations and provide public services to citizens. Although each administration provides similar services to their citizens, these systems usually differ from the internal information management point of view since they usually come from different products and manufacturers. The common framework that regulations demand, and that Public Administrations must respect when processing electronic files, provides a unique opportunity for the development of intelligent agents in the field of administrative processes. However, for this development to be truly effective and applicable to the public sector, it is necessary to have a common representation model for these administrative processes. Although a lot of work has already been done in the development of public information reuse initiatives and common vocabularies standardization, this has not been carried out at the processes level. In this paper, we propose a semantic representation model of both processes models and processes for Public Administrations: the procedures and administrative files. The goal is to improve public administration open data initiatives and help to develop their sustainability policies, such as improving decision-making procedures and administrative management sustainability. As a case study, we modelled public administrative processes and files in collaboration with a Regional Public Administration in Spain, the Principality of Asturias, which enabled access to its information systems, helping the evaluation of our approach.


Introduction: Inhaled nitrous oxide has been primarily used as a sedative but also as an analgesic in pediatric painful procedures. This study characterises the use of nitrous oxide in this age group and evaluates its effectiveness, safety and acceptance.
Methods: Observational and prospective study performed based on the application of a questionnaire to pediatric patients in which nitrous oxide was administered (50% mixed with oxygen). Wong-Baker and FLACC-R (face, legs, activity, cry, consolability – revised) scales were used for pain assessment by the patient and the physician, respectively. Statistical analysis was performed using non-parametric tests and a significance level of 0.05 was considered.
Results: A total of 65 patients with a median age of 8 years were evaluated. In 46 patients (70.8%), it was used in acute disease, mainly in fractures reduction (n = 33; 50.8%). The median of onset duration was 3 minutes and the action duration 7 minutes. There were reported side effects in 21 patients (32.3%), all mild and temporary.
Twenty patients (30.8%) underwent supplemental analgesia during the procedure. During the procedure, in the context of acute illness, pain was lower than previous pain when evaluated by the patient (p < 0.001).
Patients who were 5 years of age or older reported less pain during the procedure than patients who were of a younger age (p < 0.001). All the patients would accept its use again.
Discussion: Nitrous oxide is an effective, safe, easy to use and quick-action analgesic. Efficacy was higher in patients older than 5 years of age and was well accepted by the patients.


Among various cultural models, the dichotomy of static versus dynamic models has provided a fertile ground for research. Although a number of static models are suggested, the dominant trend in almost all static models is provided by Hofstede who focuses on cultural differences along four major dimensions (power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity) and reduces "the complex phenomenon of culture in simple and measurable terms" (Fang, 2010, p. 156). The main concern is whether static bipolar models can cope with the requirements of the globalized era when cross-cultural communication "in an increasingly borderless and wireless workplace, marketplace, and cyberspace" (Fang, 2012, p. 2) is needed. Studying Fang's dynamic cultural model versus Hofstede's static cultural dimensions theory, the present paper, through the case study of Iranian culture, hypothesizes that dynamic models, such as Fang's (2005, 2012), which recognize the paradoxical essence of cultures, emphasize all-dimensional cultural nearness. In Fang's model, cultures are dialogic and open for cross-cultural interaction rather than monologic and segregated.


Design of modern control laws motivates the creation of state-space models from aeroservoelastic models. Balanced truncation is often used to create reduced-order models. In the present work, a reduced-order model that employs a change in time scale in computing the balancing transformation is developed. The transformation matrix necessary to transform the original aeroservoelastic model is found from the aeroservoelastic model employing the recast time scale. Results from an aeroservoelastic wing and a supersonic transport model are shown, and it is demonstrated that, with an appropriate choice of time scale, the methodology results in greatly improved conditioning for the Lyapunov equations used to find the Gramians employed in the balancing transformation.


In this contribution a novel technique for objective full reference quality rating of degraded images using the paradigm of structural distortion measurement is presented. The method is based on the separate evaluation of the edge degradation and of the textural disturbances to measure the quality loss of a given image. Compared with other techniques, the method presents quite uniform behavior with respect to different image defects, responsiveness to image improvements, and diagnostic capabilities.


The need for recognition schemes is inherent to human civilization itself. Each epoch has been characterized by different identification practices and has posed different challenges. Today we are confronted with "identification in the globalization age". Biometrics can be an important element of the answer to this challenge. With biometrics, for the first time in the history, human beings have really enhanced their capacity for personal recognition by amplifying their natural, physiological, recognition scheme, based on the appreciation of physical and behavioural appearances. Biometric technology can offer an identification scheme applicable at global level, indipendently of Nation States. Yet, when one speaks of global biometric identifiers, people immediately think of a nightmarish scenario, a unique world database, including billions of individuals, run by a global superpower. This is (bad) science fiction. We lack the technical and financial capacity, not to mention the international agreement, for creating such a database, which cannot exist today, and will hardly ever exist in the future. One could instead imagine a system based on many decentralized applications. An ongoing rhizome, made up of several distributed, interoperable, biometric databases, owned by local collaborative organizations and agencies. This system could increasingly support identity transactions on a global basis, at the beginning only in specific areas (e.g., refugees, migrants), siding traditional systems, and then, gradually, enlarging its scope and substituting old systems. This is expected to overturn many current ethical and privacy standards.


A small community hospital in northern California implemented a practice improvement project in critical care units to optimize best practices surrounding a "code blue" event. In Hospital Cardiac Arrest (IHCA) is a high-risk process of care that requires tremendous resources to deliver an efficient, safe, and cost-effective service. The code blue recorder sheet summarizes the whole patient care event; this necessitates careful documentation. As a risk anticipator, the unit clinical nurse leader identified suboptimal variation in documentation after a microsystem assessment. This led to a practice change project and targeted educational intervention for code blue recorders. Fifteen staff members were identified from every shift to cover all IHCA events. Baseline data indicated that the completion and accuracy of the code blue documentation were critically low. A literature review revealed best practices with an evidenced-based educational approach including thorough assessment and responsiveness to staff learning needs and preparedness, enhancing knowledge and building confidence to impact patient care outcomes. Results of the educational intervention demonstrated significant improvements in team member confidence in the skills specific to their role and responsibilities. Completion and accuracy data indicated that the rate improved from the baseline of 17% to 67% over the two-month period of training. Clearly, in high acuity and high-risk events such as IHCA, unit leaders need to carefully define the division of labor, role clarity, staff learning needs to implement, and maintain best practices in code blue documentation.


Background :

In Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) elevated neutrophil (HL-N) count is a well-known negative prognostic factor but its biological meaning is not elucidated. Our previous work showed that HL-N are dysfunctional and can suppress T-cell activation in vitro, as consequence of increased amount of Arginase-1 (Arg-1).

Aim:

Investigating clinical meaning of arginase increase in HL, correlating its amount to features at diagnosis, including some semiquantitative parameters of 18-FDG- PositronEmission Tomography (PET) acquired with a novel operator-independent algorithm.

Material and methods : We prospectively measured soluble Arg-1 (s-Arg-1) in 135 sera obtained from 90 patients with HL, distinguished in a training set (N=35) and a validation set (N=55) and 20 healthy participants. In the training set, blood was taken at three fixed time-points prior, during, and after first-line therapy. In the first ten patients, a correlation between s-Arg-1 and semiquantitative parameters of PET at diagnosis was explored, including the Metabolic Tumor Volume (MTV) and the Total Lesion Glycolysis (TLG). Briefly, our group developed ad hoc tool independent from the operator: PET images are represented as a graph in which the voxels are its nodes and the edges are defined by a cost function which maps a change in image intensity to edge weights. This approach is an efficient and accurate method to segment lesion in low contrast images characterized by noise and weak edges as metabolic images (Stefano, 2013).

Results :

s-Arg-1 was increased in HL patients compared to healthy subjects, reduced after therapy in responders and increased in relapsed patients (p<0.0001). s-Arg-1 was positively correlated to the amount of Neutrophils and Arg-1 in N detected by RT-PCR. A cut-off level of 205 ng/mL for Arg-1 was chosen (equal to 2 times the 95th percentile in controls and ROC value with sensitivity and specificity of at least 80%) to predict response status at 24 months.

In the training set, 32% patients had high s-Arg-1, 24% had positive PET-2 and were addressed to an early salvage therapy accordingly to BEACOPP scheme. A level of 205 ng/mL s-Arg-1 resulted in 83% (95% C.I. 58-96) sensitivity and 81% (95% C.I. 42-96) specificity in predicting response status in the training set (area under curve, AUC, 0.81, p=0.02).

In the validation set, baseline levels of s-Arg-1>205 ng/mL resulted in 83% (C.I. 95% 62-95) sensitivity and 87% (C.I. 95% 47-99) specificity in predicting response status. Patients with s-Arg-1 ≥ 205 ng/mL had shorter PFS than patients carrying Arg-1 < 205 ng/mL (despite both groups did not reach the median, because of the short follow-up, p=0.005).

In first 10 patients enrolled in the study, semiquantitative parameters of PET at diagnosis were explored: SUVmax was 12.7 (range 5.9-14.2), MTV median was45.5 (range 8.9-308.7), TLG mean was 43.7 (range 25.2-2475.3). MTV and TLG, but not SUVmax, were positively correlated to s-Arg-1 (respectively, r=0.68, p=0.003 and r=0.59, p=0.002). Conclusion

S-Arg-1 is a predictor of PFS in HL and it is positively correlated with MTV in PET scans at baseline calculated with a novel operator-independent tool for imaging analysis. An update will be provided at the conference.

Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This paper presents two complementary approaches to automatically classify pottery sherds: one that focuses on the sherd's profile and the other that examines visual features of the sherd's surface. The methods are validated using a set of pottery sherds that were collected during surveys at the ancient site of Koroneia (Greece), which were carried out by the 'Ancient Cities of Boeotia' team (under the directorship of Professor J. Bintliff). Both automatic classification techniques produce good results using different sherd classification criteria, such as shape, production technique and chronology.


Introduction: Laryngeal Mask Airways (LMAs) have traditionally been used for short surgery under general anesthesia with good results. Many studies have reported favourable outcomes in safety profile, complication risk, ease of insertion, recovery of patients and cost analyses. However, there is an under reporting of complications arising during ventilation with this device and the risk factors associated with such complications in adult patients. These include laryngospasm, difficulty with insertion, suboptimal ventilation, bronchospasm, aspiration, desaturation, hypotension and conversion to intubation with ETT. These can be significantly serious and life threatening. Often times it is wrong patient selection for the wrong surgery that results in an undesirable outcome.
Methods: By means of this prospective observational study we aimed to audit all general anesthesia cases performed with an LMA at our hospital over six months from February till August 2012. Included in the parameters observed were induction techniques, ventilation strategies and intraoperative problems during LMA ventilation. By means of a data collection form, the Anaesthetist in charge indicated the intraoperative events and outcomes.
Results: 1,095 patients were included in the audit. The mean age of the patients was 40 years and mean weight was 66.4kg. The patients were given GA for a variety of procedures. LMA Proseal™ was used in 78.4% of patients while the LMA Supreme™ was favored when the surgeries required a lateral position. 7.1% of patients encountered problems with insertion whilst 7.8% had intraoperative problems related to difficulty with ventilation. This was more prevalent with the LMA Supreme™ (p=0.031). Age and BMI of the patient increased the incidence of complications (p=0.002 and 0.0008). A BMI >30 and an age >46 years are associated with a significant 2-fold increase in the probability of all ventilatory problems intraoperatively.
Conclusion: LMA use in our Operating Theatre is generally safe as long as potential problems are recognised and managed accordingly. The risk of problems increases 2-folds with patients with a BMI>30 and age>46 years. LMA Supreme was more problematic compared with Proseal.


To determine the incidence, clinical presentation and antibiotic susceptibility of Mycoplasma pneumoniae at the main hospitals in Sana'a, we studied 405 patients clinically and radiographically diagnosed with lower respiratory tract infections aged 10-60 years. M. pneumoniae was identified by 3 different methods: culture, antigen detection and IgM serology. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed for confirmed isolates by macro-broth dilution technique. There were 125 patients (30.9%) with current infection, mostly among younger age groups, with bronchopneumonia the most common underlying clinical condition. All tested isolates were susceptible to all antibiotics in the in vitro antibiogram, with erythromycin the most active. The results indicate the need for different approaches in the diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infection in Yemen.


In recent years, there has been a growing need to develop and delineate algorithms that quickly provide optimized highway alignments. The matter is very complex since it is dominated by several factors and engineers have to achieve different and relevant targets (such as minimization of construction and earthwork costs, compliance with environmental and right-of-way constraints, maximization of safety and comfort for users, conformity with geometric standards). The possible solutions of this problem are clearly infinite and only modern artificial intelligence techniques can really simplify and speed up the highway design process. In this study a search algorithm, based on a Swarm Artificial Intelligence technique (Particle Swarm Optimization method), to optimize highway 3-dimensional alignments, considering also environmental constraints, is proposed. This algorithm pertains to the minimization of a particular cost function, made up of different kinds of construction costs and some penalties, related to geometric and environmental constraints (geomorphologic, hydraulic and seismic constraints) and useful to avoid and discard incorrect alignments. Some specific operators, derived from Genetic Algorithms (GAs), were also introduced in the model for improving its efficiency and correcting inappropriate solutions. To test the model efficiency, through the MatLab © software, an original script has been developed. The topography of the study area was reproduced through a particular Digital Terrain Model (DTM) representation.


Firearms identification, often improperly referred to as "ballistics identification," is part of the forensic science discipline of toolmark identification. Despite widespread faith in "ballistics fingerprinting," this article contends that because of systemic scientific problems, firearms and toolmark identifications should be inadmissible across-the-board. This article explains that similarities between toolmarks made by different tools and differences between toolmarks made by the same tool imply that a statistical question must be answered to determine whether a particular tool was the source of an evidence toolmark. What is the likelihood that the toolmarks made by a randomly selected tool of the same type would do as good a job as the toolmarks made by the suspect tool at matching the characteristics of the evidence toolmark? Firearms and toolmark examiners evade this question by claiming to be able to single out a particular firearm or other tool as the source of an evidence toolmark. The article further explains that the absence of statistical empirical foundations cannot be excused on the ground that, regardless of how they do it, firearms and toolmark examiners reach accurate identity conclusions. Although firearms and toolmark examiners have feared that Daubert would lead courts to exclude their testimony, both before and after Daubert, firearms and toolmark identification testimony has largely been admitted as a matter of course. No court, including the two recent courts that have excluded particular identification testimony, has recognized the systemic scientific problems with the field. Nonetheless, because of the risk that innocent people will be convicted or even sentenced to death on the basis of erroneous identifications, all firearms and toolmark identifications should be excluded until adequate statistical empirical foundations and profiency testing are developed for the field.


The current study explored the effect of sexual content in advertisements and the programme–advertisement congruence on the memory of sexual and nonsexual advertisements. Seventy participants (41 females and 29 males) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions. They viewed either The Bachelorette (sexual programme) or I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (nonsexual programme) with sexual or nonsexual fragrance advertisements placed within the programme. The order of the advertisements was counterbalanced across participants to control for order effects. Free and cued recall of the advertisements were assessed. As predicted, there was a main effect of advertisement type, with the sexual advertisements better recalled than the nonsexual advertisements. Contrary to our prediction, the sexual content of the programme did not have an effect on advertisement recall. There was an interaction between the advertisement type and programme type; sexual advertisements were remembered better when embedded within a sexual programme. Limitations of this study are considered.