This thesis aims to use historical and recent global ocean observations to ascertain changes to the water cycle, expressed by ocean salinity changes. The analysis is dependent on over 1.6 million profiles of salinity, potential temperature and neutral density from historical archives and the international Argo Program. The period of analysis extends from 1950-2008, and takes care to minimise the aliasing associated with the seasonal and major global El Nino-Southern Oscillation modes.
The thesis is structured in 5 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to ocean observations and observed changes over the 20th and early 21st century. It provides an introduction to the global water cycle and the ocean's role in its operation and the anticipated future, as well as observed changes in response to climate change. Chapter 2 presents new estimates of global ocean salinity changes in dual pressure and density analyses and attempts to tease out primary processes driving these changes. Chapter 3 focuses on the pattern of sea surface salinity changes, and compares these to current state-of-the-art climate models which comprise the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) database. A comparison of the spatial patterns of change and the explicit rates of salinity pattern amplification in the 20th century realisations (20C3M) is made against the new observational estimates of change (Chapter 2). Chapter 4 concentrates on the three dimensional changes expressed by these new estimates; by combining the concurrent temperature analysis, it provides new coherent estimates of regional (and global) sea level rise as expressed by halosteric (salinity-) and thermosteric (temperature-driven) changes. Chapter 5 summarises these results, reviews key new findings and suggests areas for future research.
This research has uncovered large, robust and spatially coherent multi-decadal linear trends in salinity to 1800 dbar depth. Salinity increases at the surface are found in evaporation-dominated regions and freshening in precipitation-dominated regions. This spatial pattern of change strongly resembles the climatological mean sea surface salinity field, consistent with an amplification of the global water cycle. Recorded changes in the ocean subsurface suggest that subduction and circulation by the ocean's mean flow of surface salinity and temperature anomalies are driving regional changes on the 50-year timescales.
A robust amplification of the mean surface salinity pattern of 8% is found globally, with 5-9% apparent in each of the 3 key independently analysed ocean basins. 20th century realisations (20C3M) from the CMIP3 model suite support the broad-zonal relationship between amplified patterns of surface freshwater flux driving an amplified pattern of ocean surface salinity. The warming response represented in realistic (when compared to observed estimates) 20th century realisations appear similar in their patterns to those of 21st century projected future realisations (these projections are strongly forced by greenhouse gases).
New observed surface salinity change estimates suggest a pattern amplification of 8% (`16±7% K^-1`; associated with a 0.5K global surface temperature increase) has been experienced for 1950-2000. Using modelled relationships this equates to an inferred change of 4% (`8±5% K^-1`) for evaporation minus precipitation (E-P) replicating the theoretical response described by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. While there is a large spread in the CMIP3 20th century comparison results, the ensemble best-estimate tends to underestimate observed salinity changes by 50%, with `%K^-1` rates also found to be similar in projected 21st century realisations.
Considering the full three dimensional salinity and temperature changes yields new quantitative estimates of steric sea level rise for 1950-2000. Thermosteric linear trend estimates for 0-700m replicate the rates expressed by well documented time series, however, provide new insights into the spatial pattern of these counteracting steric contributions. Halosteric estimates indicate large contractions (enhanced salinity) in the Atlantic, with corresponding expansions (freshening) occurring in the Pacific and a near neutral globally integrated response. When considering the total steric changes, the Atlantic (the most dynamically changing basin over the analysis period) undergoes strong warming (expansion) and strong enhanced salinity (contraction) with these signals cancelling to provide a muted total steric response.
These new estimates of ocean changes for 1950-2000 provide a globally coherent and stringent target for coupled modelling systems when undertaking 20th century hindcast simulations. A better understanding of observed changes will aid in the evaluation of the upcoming CMIP5 (phase 5) database, providing a benchmark by which to assess the poorly known water cycle intensification and ocean changes expressed in the 20th century and beyond.


BACKGROUND
Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) allows for the treatment of intracranial tumors with a high degree of dose conformality and precision. There are, however, certain situations wherein the dose conformality of GKRS is desired, but single-session treatment is contraindicated. In these situations, a traditional pin-based GKRS head frame cannot be used, because it precludes fractionated treatment.

OBJECTIVE
To report our experience in treating patients with fractionated GKRS using a relocatable, noninvasive immobilization system.

METHODS
Patients were considered candidates for fractionated GKRS if they had 1 or more of the following indications: a benign tumor >10 cc in volume or abutting the optic pathway, a vestibular schwannoma with the intent of hearing preservation, or a tumor previously irradiated with single-fraction GKRS. The immobilization device used for all patients was the Extend system (Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, Elekta, Kungstensgatan, Stockholm).

RESULTS
We identified 34 patients treated with fractionated GKRS between August 2013 and February 2015. There were a total of 37 tumors treated including 15 meningiomas, 11 pituitary adenomas, 6 brain metastases, 4 vestibular schwannomas, and 1 hemangioma. At last follow-up, all 21 patients treated for perioptic tumors had stable or improved vision and all 4 patients treated for vestibular schwannoma maintained serviceable hearing. No severe adverse events were reported.

CONCLUSION
Fractionated GKRS was well tolerated in the treatment of large meningiomas, perioptic tumors, vestibular schwannomas with intent of hearing preservation, and reirradiation of previously treated tumors.

ABBREVIATIONS
CNS, central nervous systemGKRS, Gamma Knife radiosurgerySRS, stereotactic radiosurgery.


The HT-29 human colon adenocarcinoma cell line, like many epithelial cells, displays an undifferentiated phenotype when cultured on plastic substrata. Biochemical markers of differentiation, such as brush border associated enzymes and carcinoembryonic antigen were expressed at very low levels. The differentiation-inducing effects of the culture of HT-29 cells on collagen type I gels were evaluated, and were assessed by morphological appearance, brush border associated enzyme activities and the secretion of CEA. The effect that this more physiological environment had on their chemosensitivity to a panel of chemotherapeutic agents was determined, so as to indicate whether this system could be used to improve the selectivity of screening for novel anticancer agents. Initial studies were performed on HT-29 cells derived from cells seeded directly from plastic substrata onto the collagen gels (designated Non-PPC gels). Their time of exposure to the collagen was limited to the time course of a single experiment and the results suggested that a longer, more permanent exposure might produce a more pronounced differentiation. HT-29 cells were then passaged continuously on collagen gels for a minimum of 10 passages prior to experimentation (designated PPC gels). The same parameters were measured, and compared to those for the cells grown on plastic and on the non-passaged collagen gels (Non-PPC) from the original studies. Permanently passaged cells displayed a similar degree of morphological differentiation as the non-passaged cells, with both culture conditions resulting in a more pronounced differentiation than that achieved by culture on plastic. It was noted that the morphological differentiation observed was very heterogeneous, a situation also seen in xenografted tumours in vivo. The activity of alkaline phosphatase and the production of CEA was higher in the cells passaged on collagen (PPC) than the cells cultured on non-passaged collagen gel (Non-PPC) and plastic. The biochemical determination of aminopeptidase activity showed that collagen gel culture enhanced the activity in both non-passaged and passaged HT-29 cells above that of the cells cultured on plastic. However, immunocytochemical localization of aminopeptidase and sucrase-isomaltase of samples of cells grown on the various substrata for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days showed a reduction in both enzymes in the cells grown on collagen gels when compared to cells grown on plastic. The reason for the discrepancy between the two assays for aminopeptidase is at this stage unexplained. Although, there was evidence to suggest that the culture of HT-29 cells on collagen gels was capable of inducing morphological and biochemical markers of enterocytic differentiation, there were no differences in the chemosensitivity of the different cell groups to a panel of anticancer agents. Preliminary studies suggested that the ability of the cells to polarize by their culture on porous filter chambers without any exogenous ECM was sufficient to enhance HT-29 differentiation and the onset of differentiation was probably correlated with the production of ECM by the cells themselves.


Studies on the risks and on the positive factors implied in the onset of anorexia nervosa (AN) have reported the role of an insecure or disorganized state of mind (SoM) with respect to attachment. We compare the effects of eyes movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) approach with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in the treatment of AN in terms of SoMs, reflective function (RF), and narrative coherence (Coh). Our results are part of a broader observational clinical comparative study of the two approaches, and it is based on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) outcomes. Differences in terms of belongingness to a secure group and an unsecure group before and after the treatments in EMDR and CBT group have been reported through McNemar's test. The generalized linear model (GLM) repeated‐measures multivariate ANOVA (RM‐MANOVA) has been selected. Our results suggest that EMDR allows an active reprocessing of traumatic memories related to family dynamics and to eating behaviors, which could enable a positive resolution of eating disorder (ED) symptoms. The emotional reprocessing of unresolved attachment issues can allow a better modulation of the control‐related rigidity that is a commonality between AN patients.


This essay unravels the history of Chicago as an urban laboratory and the way crisis was utilised and even staged in order to project alternative scenarios. It centres on a single photograph of an intersection from 1909, which shows the location saturated with a shocking amount of traffic brought to a standstill. To make visible what commonly remained hidden (the flows and intensities of urban movement), city officials had administered an urban experiment that suspended police presence and regulation in an effort to test if the metropolis could still self-regulate. Using the city as a stage for experimentation that at times pushed it to the brink of collapse, Chicago's officials perceived their town as an urban test-bed. Injecting this reading into our established historiography reconfigures some of its most prominent narratives: from Sullivan's Kindergarten Chats, and Burnham and Bennett's Plan for the city, to the Chicago school of sociology.


Lucid dreams – dreams in which the dreamer is aware that is dreaming – most frequently occur during REM sleep, yet there is some evidence suggesting that lucid dreaming can occur during NREM sleep as well. By conducting a sleep laboratory study on lucid dreams, we found two possible instances of lucidity during NREM sleep which are reported here. While lucid dreaming during NREM sleep seems to be much rarer and more difficult to achieve, it appears to be possible and is most likely to occur during N1 sleep, somewhat less likely during N2 sleep and yet to be observed during N3 sleep. Future studies should explore induction methods, underlying neural mechanisms and perceptual/dream content differences between REM and NREM lucid dreams. Furthermore, a consensus agreement is needed to define what is meant by lucid dreaming and create a vocabulary that is helpful in clarifying variable psychophysiological states that can support self-reflective awareness.


Phase-Locked Loop based frequency synthesis is an essential technique employed in wireless communication systems for local oscillator generation. The ultimate goal in any design of frequency synthesisers is to generate precise and stable output frequencies with fast switching and minimal spurious and phase noise. The conflict between high resolution and fast switching leads to two separate integer synthesisers to satisfy critical system requirements.
This thesis concerns a new sigma-delta fractional-N synthesiser design which is able to be directly modulated at high data rates while simultaneously achieving good noise performance. Measured results from a prototype indicate that fast switching, low noise and spurious free spectra are achieved for most covered frequencies. The phase noise of the unmodulated synthesiser was measured −113 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset from the carrier.
The intermodulation effect in synthesisers is capable of producing a family of spurious components of identical form to fractional spurs caused in quantisation process. This effect directly introduces high spurs on some channels of the synthesiser output. Numerical and analytic results describing this effect are presented and amplitude and distribution of the resulting fractional spurs are predicted and validated against simulated and measured results. Finally an experimental arrangement, based on a phase compensation technique, is presented demonstrating significant suppression of intermodulation-borne spurs.
A new technique, pre-distortion noise shaping, is proposed to dramatically reduce the impact of fractional spurs in fractional-N synthesisers. The key innovation is the introduction in the bitstream generation process of carefully-chosen set of components at identical offset frequencies and amplitudes and in anti-phase with the principal fractional spurs. These signals are used to modify the Σ-Δ noise shaping, so that fractional spurs are effectively cancelled. This approach can be highly effective in improving spectral purity and reduction of spurious components caused by the Σ-Δ modulator, quantisation noise, intermodulation effects and any other circuit factors. The spur cancellation is achieved in the digital part of the synthesiser without introducing additional circuitry. This technique has been convincingly demonstrated by simulated and experimental results.


It is expected that improved connectivity will enable African Tertiary education and research institutions to generate a proportionate amount of intellectual property goods to achieve parity with the rest of the world. Nevertheless this vision can only be attained through intensive collaborative activities. The emergence of large-scale e-infrastructure projects in Africa reflects a trend toward more complex configurations of scientific collaboration. This paper investigates the concepts of synergizing which denote the active processes of creating and managing relationships among people, organizations, and technologies in the creation of e-infrastructure. The paper also explores how embeddedness is not only an important result of infrastructure development, but is also a precursor that can act as both a constraint and a resource for development activities. The researchers are more interested with the process of creating and maintaining productive socio-technical relationships, which they refer to as synergizing. Human infrastructure posits that complex infrastructures come about through complex interactions among networks, place-based organizations, groups, and consortia. Through a multiple case study approach and integrated literature survey, the research examines how two e-infrastructure initiatives; UNESCO-HP brain gain and HP catalyst projects attempts to make use of these concepts to foster e-research and draws specific lessons for African HEIs. The study revealed that the two dominant e-research projects have adopted approaches that favor synergizing and embeddedness in e-research however despite funding of 24 projects in 21 HEIs, visibility of Africa in e-research world map is still wanting.


ABSTRACT Large areas of the rural Lao landscape are being rapidly transformed by infrastructure development projects. Arguably, it is hydraulic development that is contributing most significantly to rural socio-ecological change, due to the profound socio-political ruptures dams precipitate. The nationally iconic Theun-Hinboun Hydropower Project, commissioned in 1998 and expanded in 2012, provides an illustrative case of hydropower's complex social-ecological outcomes. Proponents have argued that the project represents a best-case example of planned, sustainable development, through successful mitigation of negative impacts and benefit-sharing with affected communities, and implemented in accordance with international good practice. This article questions the narratives of sustainability. It is argued that while the project could be considered successful in achieving certain economic objectives defined by the government and investors, evidence of social and environmental sustainability is questionable, raising questions about other dam projects in the country with weaker standards and oversight. Given the extent of negative impacts and associated social trauma in the Nam Hinboun basin, the article considers whether and to what extent such hydraulic development processes under authoritarian rule may be framed as expressions of structural injustice and slow violence.


Taller workers receive a substantial wage premium. Studies extending back to the middle of the last century attribute the premium to non-cognitive abilities, which are associated with stature and rewarded in the labor market. More recent research argues that cognitive abilities explain the stature-wage relationship. This paper reconciles the competing views by recognizing that net nutrition, a major determinant of adult height, is integral to our cognitive and non-cognitive development. Using data from Britain's National Childhood Development Study (NCDS), we show that taller children have higher average cognitive and non-cognitive test scores, and that each aptitude accounts for a substantial and roughly equal portion of the stature premium. Together these abilities explain why taller people have higher wages.


In most major cities, levels of traffic congestion are rising along with their associated problems such as travel delays and pollution. While any increase in public transit rider-ship could reduce the level of traffic congestion and related costs, most transit agencies are not able to expand their existing services because of fiscal• and physical constraints. As a result, a growing interest has been developing recently to maximize the transit system efficiency and productivity using new emerging technologies.

Recently, the emergence of new technologies such as automatic vehicle location (AVL) and

global positioning systems (GPS) has facilitated the design of computer-based real-time decision support systems for public transits. These technologies could significantly help transit agencies improve their operations monitoring and control. In the context of public transit systems, operations monitoring refers to real-time service performance measure and problems detection, and control refers to implementing real time control actions to remedy those problems.

This thesis presents a new approach for operations monitoring and control in public transit systems with real-time information. First, an integrated model that combines both headway-based and schedule-based services is presented. To measure the headway or schedule adherence, the model uses predicted arrival times of vehicles at downstream stops. This feature allows the operational managers to avoid major service interruptions by proactively taking necessary corrective actions. Transit agencies have used and continue to use real-time control strategies to improve quality of their services. These strategies are employed by inspectors at various points along a route to remedy the problems as they occur. Practice shows that it is difficult to apply such strategies effectively without real-time information. In the second part of this thesis, a mathematical model for holding control strategy with real-time information is described. The proposed model aims at minimization of the total passengers waiting time and considers both cases of overcrowded and underutilized services. Due to complexity of the holding problem, several metaheuristics are proposed and tested. Among all intelligent search algorithms, a new version of simulated annealing algorithm is proposed to solve the real-time holding control model.


Specific Christological models help define the spirituality of African peoples. A Christianity that creates meaning for any people must be integrated anthropologically. This study investigates some selected Christological models that helped shape the spirituality of Africa and its integration in the Christian faith. Spirituality has a definitive role in defining African people. The socio-cultural life of Africa is the foundation that Africans relate to other spiritualities; therefore, both the corporeal and the divine are inseparable in the hermeneutical, anthropological narrative of Africans. Some aspects of African Christological models are consistent with Scripture and these functional Christologies unveil a culture of pragmatic relevance in ever-changing societies. Although critiques on the lack of missional contextualization of Christianity are overwhelming in academia, nevertheless, a study of some of these perspectives makes Christ the center of the history of African spirituality and interpretation, which makes Christianity interactive and relevant to the development of the African society.


Post-surgical pain is a common problem in patients. If pain is not treated after surgery, it may cause complications by acting on the systems and may become chronic. Multimodal analgesia is a method which is aims to use evidence-based practices for pain management, effective analgesia, minimizing the adverse effects of drugs, using safe and low-dose analgesia, early recovery, Early conversion of functions, early discharge. Pharmacological treatment is also supported by non-pharmacological methods in multimodal analgesia methods. Multimodal analgesia requires multidisciplinary team work. The nurses is also the most important member of this team and have important responsibilities in pain management.


During October 1971, four cesium beam atomic clocks were flown on regularly scheduled commercial jet flights around the world twice, once eastward and once westward, to test Einstein's theory of relativity with macroscopic clocks. From the actual flight paths of each trip, the theory predicts that the flying clocks, compared with reference clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory, should have lost 40 � 23 nanoseconds during the eastward trip, and should have gained 275 � 21 nanoseconds during the westward trip. The observed time differences are presented in the report that follows this one.


The ecological impact of an invasive species can depend on the behavioural responses of native fauna to the invader. For example, the greatest risk posed by invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina Bufonidae) in tropical Australia is lethal poisoning of predators that attempt to eat a toad; and thus, a predator's response to a toad determines its vulnerability. We conducted standardized laboratory trials on recently captured (toad-naive) preda- tory snakes and lizards, in advance of the toad invasion front as it progressed through tropical Australia. Responses to a live edible-sized toad differed strongly among squamate species. We recorded attacks (and hence, predator mortality) in scincid, agamid and varanid lizards, and in elapid, colubrid and pythonid snakes. Larger-bodied predators were at greater risk, and some groups (elapid snakes and varanid lizards) were especially vulnerable. However, feeding responses differed among species within families and within genera. Some taxa (notably, many scincid and agamid lizards) do not attack toads; and many colubrid snakes either do not consume toads, or are physiologically resistant to the toad's toxins. Intraspecific variation in responses means that even in taxa that apparently are unaffected by toad invasion at the population level, some individual predators nonetheless may be fatally poisoned by invasive cane toads.


Hierarchically structured materials have emerged as promising alternatives in the field of adsorption and separation technology owing to their fascinating physicochemical properties such as extraordinarily high surface area, ultrahigh porosity, well-defined morphologies, facile transportation, and easy recovery. Recently, a lot of encouraging research has been conducted on rational design and synthesis strategies of hierarchical MgO and other magnesium-based mixed oxides architectures, and their applications, especially in the field of adsorption and remediation of organic contaminants. To promote and highlight the progress in the development and applications of unique MgO based hierarchical structures, a thorough summary is essential. In this review, we recapitulate advances on synthesis strategies for hierarchically ordered MgO and MgO-based mixed oxides as adsorbents and provide an outline for their applications in toxic organic pollutant remediation from waste-water systems by analyzing selected examples. Finally, we will outline the issues and challenges for developing materials to increase their efficiency for remediation of organic effluents.


Introduction: Loneliness is a critical
psychosocial problem that affects mental health and wellbeing of the individuals
and communities. This systematic review synthesized the current evidence on the
prevalence and correlates of loneliness from empirical studies conducted in
India. Methods: Adopting the Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines,
eight major databases and additional sources were searched. Studies were
evaluated using following criteria: peer-reviewed journal articles, published
in English language, presenting any quantitative form of evidence on
loneliness, and studies conducted in India among the Indian population. A meta-analysis
of the prevalence studies and narrative synthesis of the overall status and factors
associated with loneliness were conducted.Results: Among 1290 studies,
only 13 met our criteria. All the studies reported a high burden of loneliness
among the participants. The pooled prevalence among 3169 participants was 41%
(95% confidence interval [CI] 18% - 63%). The burden of loneliness was higher
among the elderly participants (44%, 95% CI 5% - 83%) compared to younger
participants (24%, 95% CI 22% - 27%). Factors associated with loneliness
included aging, family structure, marital status, religious practices, group
membership, educational attainment, source and level of income, psychological
attributes, and comorbid physical and mental health conditions among the
affected individuals.

Conclusion: This review
identified and evaluated the status and severity of loneliness and its
correlates, which may inform future studies examining complex psychopathological
and social dynamics associated with loneliness. Lastly, the current evidence
necessitates the development of multipronged interventions to address the risk
factors and alleviate the burden of loneliness in India.


This article investigates the risk of cost overruns and underruns occurring in the construction of 51 onshore and offshore wind farms commissioned between 2000 and 2015 in 13 countries. In total, these projects required about $39 billion in investment and reached about 11 GW of installed capacity. We use this original dataset to test six hypotheses about construction cost overruns related to (i) technological learning, (ii) fiscal control, (iii) economies of scale, (iv) configuration, (v) regulation and markets and (vi) manufacturing experience. We find that across the entire dataset, the mean cost escalation per project is 6.5% or about $63 million per windfarm, although 20 projects within the sample (39%) did not exhibit cost overruns. The majority of onshore wind farms exhibit cost underruns while for offshore wind farms the results have a larger spread. Interestingly, no significant relationship exists between the size (in total MWor per individual turbine capacity) of a windfarm and the severity of a cost overrun. Nonetheless, there is an indication that the risk increases for larger wind farms at greater distances offshore using new types of turbines and foundations. Overall, the mean cost escalation for onshore projects is 1.7% and 9.6% for offshore projects, amounts much lower than those for other energy infrastructure.


Educational aims To summarise the evidence of the role of breathing control approaches in the management of asthma To provide information on the content of evidence-based breathing exercises programmes Summary Asthma is a complex, multi-dimensional condition that affects patients in many ways. Having asthma is inherently stressful and psychological problems are common and associated with poor asthma outcomes. Although most patients in clinical trials can achieve high levels of control with optimised pharmacotherapy, in "real-life" practice, poor control is common, with over-reliance on rescue bronchodilator medication and ongoing symptoms and quality-of-life impairment. Many patients are interested in non-pharmacological treatments to improve asthma control, particularly breathing control exercises but, until recently, the evidence base has been inadequate. The place of breathing exercises has been controversial, partly because some proponents have made exaggerated, implausible claims of effectiveness. Recent evidence, however, has resulted in endorsement of breathing exercises as add-on treatment in asthma in systematic reviews and guidelines. This review summarises the current evidence of effectiveness of breathing exercises programmes as an adjuvant treatment to pharmacological strategies for people with asthma. The types of breathing training programmes used and the content of effective programmes are discussed. We conclude that patients whose asthma continues to cause symptoms and quality-of-life impairment, despite adequate pharmacological treatment, or who have high bronchodilator use, should be offered access to an effective breathing training programme as a part of holistic, integrated asthma care. Key points Asthma is frequently poorly controlled despite effective modern medication Psychological factors can be as important as physiological ones in affecting symptom perception and disease impact Breathing exercises can improve patient-reported outcomes and psychological state Breathing exercises should be offered to all asthma patients with symptoms or impaired quality of life despite standard treatment


We suggest and demonstrate a novel platform for the study of tunable nonlinear light propagation in two-dimensional discrete systems, based on photonic crystal fibers filled with high index nonlinear liquids. Using the infiltrated cladding region of a photonic crystal fiber as a nonlinear waveguide array, we experimentally demonstrate highly tunable beam diffraction and thermal self-defocusing, and realize a compact all-optical power limiter based on a tunable nonlinear response.


Advances in Information Communication Technology (ICT) have changed the way of doing business in many industries, including tourism and hospitality. Much has been written about the importance of ICT particularly on how the use of the ICT in the lodging industry is growing exponentially and that this enables hotels to reconsider the way they are doing business. As a result, more emphasis is now on how to change the attitude of hotel managers towards adopting ICT to enhance hotel performance. Educating the manager about affordances of ICT determines whether or not the hotel will benefit from the new technology. The author examined the relationship between managers' attitudes and the extent of electronic commerce (EC) adoption. The paper examines the perceptions of 332 South African managers within the South African hotel industry. A quantitative research design was used through a questionnaire to collect data from the managers. The research highlights the importance of changing the managers' attitude for technology to be accepted.


The processes that are involved in sexual addiction and recovery were explored in this research. A phenomenological-hermeneutic method was employed in interviewing five male recovering sexual addicts. Themes of sexual addiction and recovery were then extrapolated from the words the participants used to express their life experience. Eleven themes characterizing the addiction process emerged from the transcriptions of the participant's indepth interviews, as well as six themes relating to recovery. It is hoped that a deeper understanding of the sexual addict's internal and external motivations for the use of sex, will be achieved by depicting several addicts' experiences in an unfolding story. It is up to readers of this research to draw their own conclusions and to take what is relevant to them from the words of the sexual addicts and the researcher's interpretation of those words. There is no one absolute interpretation of the participants' life experiences. This research only suggests possibilities to illuminate interpretations of the lived experiences of the five participants involved.


The Australian Stomatopod fauna is comprehensively revised. Two new genera, Belosquilla and Quollastria, are recognized. Seventy-two species are newly reported from Australia, of which 26 are described as new. Bathysquilloidea is represented by 2 genera and 3 species; Erythrosquilloidea by 1 genus and species; Eurysquilloidea by 5 genera and 8 species; Gonodactyloidea by 15 genera and 46 species; Lysiosquilloidea by 13 genera and 26 species; Parasquilloidea by 2 genera and 3 species; and Squilloidea by 25 genera and 59 species. Harpiosquillidae is synonymized with Squillidae. Gonodactylinus is synonymized with Gonodactylellus, Keijia with Carinosquilla, Raoulius with Odontodactylus, Laevosquilla with Siamosquilla and Toshimitsu with Lophosquilla. The results of the present study double the known stomatopod fauna of Australian waters, now totalling 146 species and 63 genera, in 7 superfamilies and 14 families—about 50% of species and almost 74% of genera from the Indo-West Pacific. Forty-six species (32% of the Australian fauna) are presently known only from Australia. Species richness and abundance of the Australian fauna is likely to be much greater than that implied by the composition of existing collections. Many habitats remain to be specifically targeted for stomatopods and future sampling will likely yield many more species from Australia. All Australian species are illustrated and diagnosed. Keys to the world genera and all species in Australian genera are provided.


We evaluated spatial and temporal differences in migratory behavior among different breeding groups of midcontinent greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) using band-recovery data and observations of neck collared geese during migration and winter. Birds from different breeding areas were initially delineated by geographic distance into 6 banding reference areas (BRAs): 1) interior Alaska, 2) North Slope of Alaska, 3) western Northwest Territories (NWT), 4) western Nunavut, 5) central Nunavut, and 6) eastern Nunavut. The banding groups also differed by breeding habitat, with geese from interior Alaska nesting in the boreal forest (taiga), and all other groups breeding in tundra habitats. Geese from interior Alaska migrated earlier during autumn, and were more likely to winter farther south (in Mexico) than geese from other breeding areas. Geese banded in central and eastern Nunavut (Queen Maud Gulf and Inglis River) wintered farther east (in Louisiana) than geese from other breeding areas. Small-scale (within-state) geographic segregation of wintering flocks was evidenced by the recent (post-1990) nearly exclusive use of a new wintering area in north central Texas by geese from interior Alaska. Segregation among BRAs was also apparent in Mexico, where taiga geese were found predominantly in the central Highlands (states of Zacatecas and Durango), whereas tundra geese mostly used states along the Gulf Coast (primarily Tamaulipas). Interior Alaska birds initiated spring migration earlier than geese from other areas, and were more likely than others to stop in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, a region where cholera outbreaks periodically kill thousands of geese. Geese from interior Alaska were the first to arrive at spring staging areas in prairie Canada where BRAs exhibited spatial delineation (a longitudinal cline) in relation to breeding areas. Our results show significant geographic and temporal variation among taiga and tundra breeding cohorts during autumn, winter, and spring. Temporal and spatial differences in migratory behavior may allow management practices that accommodate potential demographic differences between taiga and tundra populations. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.


A few decades ago, Antarctic ice sheets were expected to grow as the atmosphere warmed and increasing poleward moisture transport added snowfall to regions that would remain below freezing year-round. Concerns about their sensitivity to climate change were centered on air temperature and on glacially paced ice dynamics. Southern Ocean roles were relegated to iceberg transport, a mix of melting and freezing under ice shelves buffered by the frigid shelf waters generated by sea ice production, and slow sea level rise by other forcing. At that time, observations were lacking in the remote Amundsen Sea, where difficult ice conditions have vexed explorers for more than 200 years. Mapping of its ocean structure and circulation began in 1994, revealing that "warm" Circumpolar Deep Water has access to its continental shelf. Glacially scoured troughs in the seafloor provide conduits for that seawater to melt regional ice shelves far more rapidly near their deep grounding lines. Coincident satellite data showed the ice shelves were thinning, in turn leading to
accelerated glacier flow and loss of grounded ice to the sea. Repeated measurements and modeling suggest ocean changes that could impact the stability of the marine-based West Antarctic Ice Sheet.


Global trends in migration show a predominance of internal over external flows. The African continent is the world's most vulnerable region to climate change due to its higher levels of exposure and its scarcer financial resources for adaptation. Therefore, climate change presents in Africa some peculiar challenges to livelihoods, and security. In this paper, we assess the climate-induced migration in African coastal zones, accounting for many different factors such as conflict, demography, social networks, economic opportunities, and geographical factors such as the terrain. We also provide a critical review of major strands of models of climate-induced migration, namely agent-based models, choice-centred models, gravity model, and household allocation models. The most used data in climate change analyses are also analyzed.


Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) studied Roman law and philosophy in Leipzig from 1661, and became a doctor iuris in Altdorf in 1666. Between 1665 and 1672, as a very young man, he wrote juridical texts of the highest quality. These texts comprise a unique combination of highly technical Roman law, formal logic and moral philosophy. His logical theory of legal conditions has been the focus of major research by both legal historians and philosophers during the last decade. In the second part of this paper, the different logical approaches to his theory of conditions will be discussed.


Taiwanese voiced stops are followed by non‐nasalized vowels, while nasals are followed by nasalized vowels. This study uses a concept formation paradigm to test whether native speakers treat the voiced stops and nasals as allophones or separate phonemes. There are three experiments in the study. In the training session of experiment A, monosyllabic morphemes are presented. Subjects receive a positive reinforcement when a syllable beginning with /b/ is presented. In the test session of experiment A, syllables beginning with /m/ are introduced. In experiments B and C disyllabic phrases are presented. In the training session of test B, the subjects are reinforced to treat /b/ and /m/ as separate categories. In the training session of test C, the subjects are reinforced to treat /b/ and /m/ as the same category. The results show that /m,b/ are grouped into the same category. In experiment B, subjects cannot differentiate between /b/ and /m/. In experiment C, when /b/ and /m/ are reinforced to be of the same c...


Abstract The outer layer of the skin, stratum corneum (SC) is an efficient transport barrier and it tolerates mechanical deformation. At physiological conditions, the majority of SC lipids are solid, while the presence of a small amount of fluid lipids is considered crucial for SC barrier and material properties. Here we use solid-state and diffusion nuclear magnetic resonance to characterize the composition and molecular dynamics of the fluid lipid fraction in SC model lipids, focusing on the role of the essential SC lipid CER EOS, which is a ceramide esterified omega-hydroxy sphingosine linoleate with very long chain. We show that both rigid and mobile structures are present within the same CER EOS molecule, and that the linoleate segments undergo fast isotropic reorientation while exhibiting extraordinarily slow self-diffusion. The characterization of this unusual self-assembly in SC lipids provides deepened insight into the molecular arrangement in the SC extracellular lipid matrix and the role of CER EOS linoleate in the healthy and diseased skin.


Uncertainty analysis is an effective methodology to acquire the variability of composite material properties. However, it is hard to apply hierarchical multiscale uncertainty analysis to the complex composite materials due to both quantification and propagation difficulties. In this paper, a novel hierarchical framework combined R-vine copula with sparse polynomial chaos expansions is proposed to handle multiscale uncertainty analysis problems. According to the strength of correlations, two different strategies are proposed to complete the uncertainty quantification and propagation. If the variables are weakly correlated or mutually independent, Rosenblatt transformation is used directly to transform non-normal distributions into the standard normal distributions. If the variables are strongly correlated, multidimensional joint distribution is obtained by constructing R-vine copula, and Rosenblatt transformation is adopted to generalize independent standard variables. Then the sparse polynomial chaos expansion is used to acquire the uncertainties of outputs with relatively few samples. The statistical moments of those variables that act as the inputs of next upscaling model, can be gained analytically and easily by the polynomials. The analysis process of the proposed hierarchical framework is verified by the application of a 3D woven composite material system. Results show that the multidimensional correlations are modelled accurately by the R-vine copula functions, and thus uncertainty propagations with the transformed variables can be done to obtain the computational results with consideration of uncertainties accurately and efficiently.


— now a day people are very frustrate by traffic in any routes. They are finding the route that they did not get the traffic .For that they must have the knowledge of that area or city. Without knowledge they cannot surf anywhere. They surely jam in traffic. For that we are developing a Website. That website shows the road jams, traffic routes and free or traffic less areas. This having server connection. That shows online traffic updating. We are sure that, with using this application any one can find traffic less areas and free routes. We are thinking that what should name it we named it as "T-INDICATOR".


Surviving in the Hour of Darkness:The Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women addresses the health issues - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual - of black women, First Nations women, and other women of colour. The book is a collection of scholarly essays, case studies, personal essays, poetry, and prose written by over 45 contributors. It illustrates, through the voices of many women, that gender, religious, cultural, and class background strongly influence how one experiences illness, how and when one is diagnosed, and how one is treated within the healthcare system. The book also focuses on the need for cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness in the delivery of health services. Surviving in the Hour of Darkness :The Health and Wellness of Women of Colour and Indigenous Women aims to promote and generate knowledge with and about minority women while identifying key strategies for promoting their health, thus contributing to a broader understanding of how the experience of being a minority woman affects one's health and well-being. With Contributions By: Byllye Y. Avery Dr. Wanda Thomas Bernard Dr. Ana Bodnar Shirley Brozzo Nora Burrell Bishakha Chowdhury LindaCornwell Charmaine Crawford Karen Flynn Randa Hammadieh CiajDiannHarris Layla Hassan Troy Hunter Rolanda C. Kane Rosamond S. King Heather MacLeod Kristine Maitland Marisa Marharaj Notisha Massaquoi Naomi North Sima Qadeer Talata Reeves Carla R. Ribeiro Ingrid Rivera Anakana Schofield Beldan Sezen Farah M. Shroff Neeta Singh Lorraine Thomas Roxane Tracey Wendy Vincent Vera M. Wabegijig Ingrid Waldron Pitche Wasayananung Crystal E. Wilkinson Gitane Williams Judith K. Witherow Valerie Wood


Sandstorms are serious natural disasters, which are commonly seen in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Northern China.In these regions, sandstorms have caused massive damages to the natural environment, national economy, and human health. To avoid such damages, it is necessary to effectively monitor the origin and development of sandstorms. To this end, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be deployed in the regions where sandstorms generally originate so that sensor nodes can collaboratively perform sandstorm monitoring and rapidly convey the observations to remote administration center. Despite the potential advantages, the deployment of WSNs in the vicinity of sandstorms faces many unique challenges, such as the temporally buried sensors and increased path loss during sandstorms. Consequently, the WSNs may experience frequent disconnections during the sandstorms. This further leads to dynamically changing topology. In this paper, a topology analysis of the WSNs for sandstorm monitoring is performed. Four types of channels a sensor can utilize during sandstorms are analyzed, which include air-to-air channel, air-to-sand channel, sand-to-air channel, and sand-to-sand channel. Based on the channel model solutions, a percolation-based connectivity analysis is performed. It is shown that if the sensors are buried in low depth, allowing sensor to use multiple types of channels improves network connectivity. Accordingly, much smaller sensor density is required compared to the case, where only terrestrial air channels are used. Through this topology analysis a WSN architecture can be deployed for very efficient sandstorm monitoring.


A novel surface ion imprinted adsorbent [Co(II)-IIP] using polyethyleneimine (PEI) as function monomer and ordered mesoporous silica SBA-15 as support matrix was prepared for Co(II) analysis with high selectivity. The prepared polymer was characterized by Fourier transmission infrared spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm. Bath experiments of Co(II) adsorption onto Co(II)-IIP were performed under the optimum conditions. The experimental data were analyzed by pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. It was found that the pseudo-second-order model best correlated the kinetic data. The intraparticle diffusion and liquid film diffusion were applied to discuss the adsorption mechanism. The results showed that Co(II) adsorption onto IIP was controlled by the intraparticle diffusion mechanism, along with a considerable film diffusion contribution. Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushke- vich adsorption models were applied to determine the isotherm parameters. Langmuir model fitted the experiment data well and the maximum calculated capacity of Co(II) reached 39.26 mg/g under room temperature. The thermodynamic data were indicative of the spontaneousness of the endothermic sorption process of Co(II) onto Co(II)-IIP. Co(II)-IIP showed high affinity and selectivity for template ion compared with non imprinted polymer (NIP).


Water and energy are critical resources that are essential and interdependent. Satisfying consumers9 water needs requires energy for supply, purification, distribution, and treatment of water and wastewater. This energy consumption to provide water is linked with negative environmental externalities. This paper provides an overview of the energy and environmental costs related to water supply services in Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world; this city is heading towards a major water crisis, more than 30% of its water supply comes from external sources. The internal groundwater sources are overexploited between 9 and 12 m 3 /s generating 6–28 cm of sinking every year. The current water availability is 130 lt/person/day, which is below the minimum requirements. Also, half of Mexico City9s water supply is lost through poor infrastructure alone and mismanagement of water resources. The external and internal sources of water supply are analyzed in terms of the energy consumption and costs as well as the generation of contaminants in the atmosphere such as CO 2 , SO 2 , N 2 O. Finally, some opportunity areas are provided to reduce energy use and contamination of the non-sustainable water consumption pattern of Mexico City.


Background: Chronic venous insufficiency is an important complication following iliofemoral deep venous thrombosis. Early thrombus removal may preserve venous function and prevent this complication. This study represents the largest reported South African series of pharmacomechanical thrombolysis for iliofemoral deep venous thrombosis to date. Objective: To evaluate the long-term outcome following pharmacomechanical thrombolysis for proximal and extensive deep venous thrombosis in a private, specialist vascular unit. Methods: All patients who underwent pharmacomechanical thrombolysis for iliofemoral deep venous thrombosis between August 2009 and January 2016 were invited to return for clinical assessment and venous ultrasound. Clinical findings were recorded according to the Villalta score and clinical, etiology, anatomic and pathology (CEAP) classification. The quality of life (QoL) was assessed utilising the VEINES-QoL/Sym questionnaire, providing two scores per patient, one describing the QoL and the other symptom severity (Sym). Results: Thirty two patients (35 legs) were evaluated. There were 25 females and 7 males, with a mean age of 33.5 years (±14 years). The mean follow-up period was 31 months (range 3 months – 80 months). Results of the CEAP classification were C0 = 24 (75%), C1 = 1 (4%), C2 = 2 (6%), C3 = 2 (6%) and C4 = 3 (9%). Thirty-one (97%) patients had Villalta scores from 0 to 4, indicating no or mild evidence of venous disease. One patient (3%) had a Villalta score of 6, indicating post-thrombotic syndrome. The mean QoL score was 87% (±12) and the mean Sym score was 86% (±14). Twenty-four (75%) patients had no abnormality on ultrasound, with fibrosis the most observed abnormality. Conclusion: Most patients who had undergone pharmacomechanical thrombolysis for extensive iliofemoral deep venous thrombosis showed few significant clinical signs of chronic venous insufficiency, had excellent function on venous ultrasound and reported excellent QoL.


The effect of the close following warning sign, originally tested at ascot, is reported at a further four trial sites. The sign was illuminated whenever the gap between two vehicles was less than 1.6 Seconds. Two different messages were compared in the trial. Measurements of inter vehicle gaps were made at a number of monitoring sites downstream from the signs and at independant control sites. Additionally, individual vehicle pairs were observed and measured at two signs and subsequent monitors before and after the signs were in use. The improvement in drivers' behaviour was similar to that at the original site at ascot. There was a reduction of approximately on third in the number of drivers following at less than 1.0 Second. Both messages were effective in producing a decrease in close following, with no appreciable different between the two. Accident data were collected and analysed, but an overall statistically significant change was not discernible in the data available. (A)


This report is the result of a more streamlined review process than previous Programme
Development Groups (PDG). Nevertheless, members of the PDG were able to provide expert
analysis and input covering a wide spectrum of the work of the Marine, Coastal and
Hydrocarbons Programme (MCHP).
The PDG considered the Terms of Reference and determined the following:
• The PDG welcomes the close links between the commissioned and co-funded research
and the core (SB funded) science programme, which is focused on the objectives outlined
in the BGS 2005-10 Programme. Careful planning is required to ensure that the
Programme maintains flexibility to respond to external factors, but maintains a broad
focus on the underlying scientific objectives.
• The excellent links with the oil industry and DTI demonstrate a programme aligned to the
needs of industry and government, and the plan to develop a new focus on the mature
areas of the North Sea is welcomed. The increasing presence of new, smaller oil
companies active in the UK will require different approaches to generate aligned funding.
Future hydrocarbon research will require careful analysis of funding opportunities.
• The development of operations to support a new generation of detailed marine and
coastal mapping and modelling based on collaboration with other research institutes, and
the collection and interpretation of multibeam data is supported. This approach is directly
in line with the policy to improve understanding of the marine environment in terms of
ecosystems and Government policy on marine monitoring. Data already collected clearly
shows the potential for new scientific discoveries and a step-change in our understanding
of marine geology.
• The PDG endorses the integrated approach to the marine and coastal zone component of
the programme. It is recognised that co-funded and commissioned research in the coastal
area is less than in the marine and hydrocarbons areas. The number of experienced, high
quality coastal geoscientists within BGS is very small and this is a factor in future
development of the BGS coastal geoscience profile. Consideration should be given to
establishing a distinctive, well-funded sub-programme to focus on coastal processes,
particularly addressing erosion, sea level rise, and climate change to complement and
strengthen the existing programme.
• There is significant progress on developing a strategy for surveying the 'white ribbon'
and a new national sea-bed-mapping programme based on multibeam data. Closer links
with other marine organisations, such as CEFAS and UKHO are being developed and the
participation in joint cruises (e.g. DTI SEAs, JNCC SAC research) is welcomed. The
case for an integrated approach to marine mapping is strong, but continual effort and
support will be required to raise funding for a successful national mapping programme.
• The development of Lithoframe 3D modelling in the coastal and offshore areas is still
immature. The PDG supports the completion of the current series of offshore regional
reports as a precursor to the development of basinwide and national 3D models. BGS is
in a unique position to develop such models on a national scale. Detailed models, for
example, in estuaries and within the shallow section below the sea-bed should be
encouraged.
• Advances in marine geology and geophysics are frequently technologically led, and it is
important to maintain and develop state-of-the art equipment and capability. The marine
operations capability has a world-recognised position in shallow coring and management of major operations. The development of multibeam acquisition and interpretation skills
is crucial to the programme, but there are also opportunities to develop expertise in
additional geophysical techniques such as marine LIDAR, AUV technologies and
improved shallow-water high-resolution seismic methods.
• Collaboration with other organisations is vital and development of data-sharing models
with key organisations (such as UKHO, CEFAS and JNCC) should be further developed
to maintain access to comprehensive data sources. BGS participation in PILOT initiatives
(such as DEAL) and MDIP (Marine Data Information Partnership) is encouraged.
• MCHP should continue to develop links with universities, and the PDG welcomes the
increasing number of joint-PhD and MSc students within a wide range of universities.
Opportunities to develop closer links with universities through joint research bids to
NERC and other funding bodies, and through marine pooling initiatives in Scotland are
encouraged.
• MCHP has an excellent track record of international collaboration through EU projects,
collaborative projects with other geological surveys, and commissioned research within
the hydrocarbons sector.
• The PDG feels strongly that the SB funding for the MCHP is insufficient given the size
and strategic importance of the UKCS and coastal zone. The staff have an excellent track
record of attracting external funding to enhance the scientific programme but higher
baseline funding is needed, particularly to cover operational survey (non-staff) costs. It
is not the place of this PDG to argue for a switch of resources within BGS, however, the
PDG actively encourages the Programme to seek additional funding from NERC through
the FAB process, as well as from external sources. There are a multitude of players in
the marine environment and BGS has a key role to play in co-ordinating activities.


Food fortification is a popular strategy for addressing 'hidden hunger', and staple foods are seen as promising, if unproven, vehicles for the delivery of essential micronutrients to poor people in developing countries. This article examines wheat flour fortification with iron in Pakistan as a case of technocratic optimism in the face of institutional constraints. An evaluative framework based on the analysis of entire value chains can provide a reality check on technocratic optimism. We find that poor people based their preferences for different types of flour on price as well as perceptions of nutritional value. Many of these flour types are not covered by fortification programmes. Fortification interventions, meanwhile, have attempted to leverage public–private partnerships in a segment of the wheat flour value chain which is beset with regulatory weakness. This article illustrates why technical interventions should support rather than ignore a broader agenda of reforms in food policy.


Relapse after high-dose chemotherapy supported by peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (HDC-PBSCT) is the main cause of therapeutic failure in patients with lymphoma and breast cancer. Adoptive immunotherapy with activated natural killer (A-NK) cells and interleukin 2 might eliminate surviving residual tumor without adding to toxicity. Eleven patients with relapsed lymphoma and one with metastatic breast cancer were entered on a pilot clinical trial of HDC-PBSCT followed on day 2 after transplant by infusion of cultured autologous A-NK cells. Simultaneously, recombinant human interleukin 2 (rhIL-2) was initiated as a 4-day continuous i.v. infusion at 2 x 10(6) IU/m2/day, referred to as high-dose rhIL-2. Therapy with high-dose rhIL-2 was followed by a 90-day continuous i. v. infusion at 3 x 10(5) IU/m2/day, referred to as low-dose rhIL-2. All patients engrafted and nine completed treatment. Posttransplant days to a neutrophil count of 500/microliter and to a platelet count of 50,000/microliter were similar to comparable patients treated with HDC-PBSCT alone. Generation of A-NK cells for therapy was feasible in all patients except the three patients with Hodgkin's disease, whose cells did not proliferate in culture. Overall toxicity associated with early posttransplant transfer of A-NK cells and interleukin 2 did not differ from that observed with peripheral blood stem cell transplantation alone in comparable patients. There was early amplification of natural killer cell activity in the peripheral blood of four patients that appeared to result from the transfused A-NK cells. Adoptive transfer of A-NK cells and rhIL-2 during the pancytopenic phase after HDC-PBSCT was feasible and well tolerated, did not adversely affect engraftment, and resulted in amplified natural killer activity in the peripheral blood during the immediate posttransplantation period.


Questions about the nature of money have gained a new urgency in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Even as many people have less of it, there are more forms and systems of money, from local currencies and social lending to mobile money and Bitcoin. Yet our understanding of what money is—and what it might be—hasn't kept pace. In The Social Life of Money, Nigel Dodd, one of today's leading sociologists of money, reformulates the theory of the subject for a postcrisis world in which new kinds of money are proliferating. What counts as legitimate action by central banks that issue currency and set policy? What underpins the right of nongovernmental actors to create new currencies? And how might new forms of money surpass or subvert government-sanctioned currencies? To answer such questions, The Social Life of Money takes a fresh and wide-ranging look at modern theories of money. One of the book's central concerns is how money can be wrested from the domination and mismanagement of banks and governments and restored to its fundamental position as the "claim upon society" described by Georg Simmel. But rather than advancing yet another critique of the state-based monetary system, The Social Life of Money draws out the utopian aspects of money and the ways in which its transformation could in turn transform society, politics, and economics. The book also identifies the contributions of thinkers who have not previously been thought of as monetary theorists—including Nietzsche, Benjamin, Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Hardt and Negri. The result provides new ways of thinking about money that seek not only to understand it but to change it.


M. Ramesh May 11, 2012: Welspun has emerged one among the four winning bidders for solar projects in Madhya Pradesh. After the formal award of the project, Welspun Solar MP Pvt Ltd will put up one solar photo voltaic project of 100 MW and another of 25 MW capacity. Welspun offered a tariff of Rs 8.05 a unit. Typically, a solar power project costs Rs 10 crore a MW. The other winning bidders are: Alpha Infra Properties 20 MW at Rs 7.90 a unit (the least of the four), Simplex 10 MW at Rs 9.59 a unit and Acme Telepower 45 MW for Rs 12.45 (the highest tariff). Madhya Pradesh also followed a 'reverse bidding' process under which it would award projects to those who offer to sell power at the best (least) rates. The MP programme is for 200 MW, which means it would award projects up to a total of 200 MW. Madhya Pradesh received bids for 430 MW for its tender for 200 MW, from 12 developers, including known names such as Azure (which submitted a bid for 5 MW), BGR Energy (10 MW), Essel Infra Properties (30 MW) and IL&FS (50 MW). The tariffs offered in the Madhya Pradesh programme reveal a hardening of rates. The least tariff ever offered was by Alex Green which won a 25-MW project in Odisha quoting Rs 7 a unit. "Viewed against this, the MP tariffs are very attractive to the developers, considering that costs have not gone down at all," says Mr Vineeth Vijayaraghavan, Founder-Editor, Panchabuta, an online newsletter. email@example.com


Case Report A previously healthy 37-year-old man presented to an outside hospital with an acute onset of sharp left lower quadrant pain that radiated into his groin while mowing the lawn. The pain was continuous, lasting until the patient presented to the emergency room of his local community hospital. He denied any trauma or sudden changes in position. The patient identified no aggravating or alleviating factors for the pain. The pain was associated with nausea and one episode of bilious, non-bloody emesis. He also noted urinary hesitancy but denied hematuria.


We present mPlatform, a new reconfigurable modular sensornet platform that enables real-time processing on multiple heterogeneous processors. At the heart of the mPlatform is a scalable high- performance communication bus connecting the different modules of a node, allowing time-critical data to be shared without delay and supporting reconfigurability at the hardware level. Furthermore, the bus allows components of an application to span across different processors/modules without incurring much overhead, thus easing the program development and supporting software reconfigurability. We describe the communication architecture, protocol, and hardware configuration, and the implementation in a low power, high speed complex programmable logic device (CPLD). An asynchronous interface decouples the local processor of each module from the bus, allowing the bus to operate at the maximum desired speed while letting the processors focus on their real time tasks such as data collection and processing. Extensive experiments on the mPlatform prototype have validated the scalability of the communication architecture, and the high speed, reconfigurable intermodule communication that is achieved at the expense of a small increase in the power consumption. Finally, we demonstrate a realtime sound source localization application on the mPlatform, with four channels of acoustic data acquisition, FFT, and sound classification, that otherwise would be infeasible using traditional buses such as I2C.


The algorithm of automated karst depression recognition uses a digital terrain model (DTM) and mainly applies the methods of moving window with a kernel size of 3 x 3 cells using focal functions. It is divided into four parts: watershed calculation, depression delineation, higher lever depression delineation and non-karst depression elimination. The essential part of algorithm is delineation of depression by the elevation of the lowest border cell of watershed. Depressions of higher level are recognised by filling previously recognised depressions. Performance of algorithm was tested on test area in Kras region (Slovenia) using DTMs with spatial resolution of 12.5 m and 3 m. The results mainly depend on the DTM characteristics and quality, especially on their spatial resolution.


This dissertation maps the responses to the world premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West (10 December 1910, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City). It seeks to arrive at a deeper understanding of the opera's ambivalent reception in the New York City musical press. From the vantage point of national musical identity, it analyzes the argumentation of the reviews and articles in the New York City newspapers from 1905-1911 and determines the themes and patterns that connect them. It then places the critical commentary into the larger contexts of both the New York City opera field of 1910 and the discourse of the American Frontier Myth. Critics carefully negotiated conflicting views of personal, national, and musical identities in their assessments of this work. The early twentieth-century concern over the development of an American musical identity motivates much of the negative criticism about La fanciulla del West, while cosmopolitanism drives much of the positive criticism. The reviews offer a window into nativism and cosmopolitan nationalism in New York City musical life during the first decade of the twentieth century.


By use of the Rayleigh scattering theory for pure air, primary scattering and known upper air densities from rockets, the brightness of the zenith twilight sky was calculated and values were obtained two to four times greater than those observed at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico ( J. Opt. Soc. Am.42, 353 ( 1952). The attenuation of the atmosphere there was observed to be twenty percent above that of the Rayleigh theory, and the ozone thickness was measured to be about 2.2 mm. When the absorption of the Chappuis band of ozone in the visible spectrum was added to the Rayleigh theory, the calculated sky brightness came into agreement with observation for solar depression angles below the horizon from about 0° to 6°. For the sun below 7° the calculated zenith sky brightness fell rapidly below the observed brightness, showing that primary scattering in the atmosphere above about 60 km does not contribute appreciably to the brightness, as has long been known ( J. Opt. Soc. Am.28, 227, 1938).Calculation showed that during the day the clear sky is blue according to Rayleigh, and that ozone has little effect on the color of the daylight sky. But near sunset and throughout twilight ozone affects the sky color profoundly. For example, in the absence of ozone the zenith sky would be a grayish green-blue at sunset becoming yellowish in twilight, but with ozone the zenith sky is blue at sunset and throughout twilight (as is observed), the blue at sunset being due about 13 to Rayleigh and 23 to ozone, and during twilight wholly to ozone.


Contents: Part I:The Development of Decoding Skills. A.M. Liberman, Why Is Speech So Much Easier Than Reading? P.B. Gough, S. Wren, The Decomposition of Decoding. W.E. Tunmer, J.W. Chapman, Language Prediction Skill, Phonological Recoding Ability, and Beginning Reading. U. Goswami, Rime-Based Coding in Early Reading Development in English: Orthographic Analogies and Rime Neighborhoods. L.C. Ehri, Word Reading by Sight and by Analogy in Beginning Readers. V. Muter, Phonological Awareness: Its Nature and Its Influence Over Early Literacy Development. J. Morais, P. Mousty, R. Kolinsky, Why and How Phoneme Awareness Helps Learning to Read. R.W. Barron, Proto-Literate Knowledge: Antecedents and Influences on Phonological Awareness and Literacy. Part II:Developmental Impairments of Decoding Skills. M. Bruck, Outcomes of Adults With Childhood Histories of Dyslexia. M. Snowling, N. Goulandris, N. Defty, Development and Variation in Developmental Dyslexia. R.H. Felton, The Development of Reading Skills in Poor Readers: Educational Implications. J.L. Metsala, G.D.A. Brown, Normal and Dyslexic Reading Development: The Role of Formal Models. J. Alegria, The Origin and Functions of Phonological Representations in Deaf People. R.S. Johnston, The Role of Letter Learning in Developing Phonemic Awareness Skills in Preschool Children: Implications for Explanations of Reading Disorders. N.K. Goulandris, A. McIntyre, M. Snowling, Fixed Reference Eye and Reading Disability: Is There a Connection? Part III:Reading Comprehension. R.M. Joshi, K.A. Williams, J.R. Wood, Predicting Reading Comprehension From Listening Comprehension: Is This the Answer to the IQ Debate? K. Cain, J. Oakhill, Comprehension Skill and Inference-Making Ability: Issues of Causality. J. Oakhill, K. Cain, N. Yuill, Individual Differences in Children's Comprehension Skill: Toward an Integrated Model. Part IV:Spelling. R. Treiman, Beginning to Spell in English. C. Lennox, L.S. Siegel, Phonological and Orthographic Processes in Good and Poor Spellers. P.G. Aaron, S. Wilczynski, V. Keetay, The Anatomy of Word-Specific Memory. C.K. Leong, Strategies Used by 9- to 12-Year-Old Children in Written Spelling. K. Nation, C. Hulme, The Role of Analogy in Early Spelling Development. Part V:The Remediation of Reading Problems. C. Juel, What Kind of One-on-One Tutoring Helps a Poor Reader? B.W. Wise, R.K. Olson, Studies of Computer-Aided Remediation for Reading Disabilities.


Semantic parsing is the task of transducing natural language (NL) utterances into formal meaning representations (MRs), commonly represented as tree structures. Annotating NL utterances with their corresponding MRs is expensive and time-consuming, and thus the limited availability of labeled data often becomes the bottleneck of data-driven, supervised models. We introduce StructVAE, a variational auto-encoding model for semi-supervised semantic parsing, which learns both from limited amounts of parallel data, and readily-available unlabeled NL utterances. StructVAE models latent MRs not observed in the unlabeled data as tree-structured latent variables. Experiments on semantic parsing on the ATIS domain and Python code generation show that with extra unlabeled data, StructVAE outperforms strong supervised models.


A variety of thermodynamic models have been developed to predict inorganic gas-aerosol equilibrium. To achieve computational efficiency a number of the models rely on a priori specification of the phases present in certain relative humidity regimes. Presented here is a new computational model, named UHAERO, that is both efficient and rigorously computes phase behavior without any a priori specification. The computational implementation is based on minimization of the Gibbs free energy using a primal-dual method, coupled to a Newton iteration. The mathematical details of the solution are given elsewhere. The model computes deliquescence behavior without any a priori specification of the relative humidities of deliquescence. Also included in the model is a formulation based on classical theory of nucleation kinetics that predicts crystallization behavior. Detailed phase diagrams of the sulfate/nitrate/ammonium/water system are presented as a function of relative humidity at 298.15 K over the complete space of composition.


The rennin-angiotensin II system (RAS) and the insulin-PI3kinase signalling pathways cross-interact with important physiological and pathophysiological consequences for cells and the whole organism. Here, the effect of 24 h pre-incubation of EA.hy926 with two different concentrations of angiotensin II, on insulin-mediated activation of the PI3kinase-AKT-eNOS signalling was investigated. Quiescent EA.hy926 cells were treated with insulin (100 nM, 30 min) following 24 h pre-treatment with or without either 0.1 or 1 μM of angiotensin II. Cell lysates were immunoblotted for phospho AKT Ser-473, phospho eNOS Ser-1177 and normalized with β-actin. Homogenates of EA.hy926 treated with insulin in the presence or absence of 1 μM angiotensin II, were also subjected to nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity assay using titrated arginine as substrate. To exclude cytotoxicity of the 1 μM angiotensin II concentration, Trypan blue cell viability assay as well as the microscopic examination of unstained and DAPI/Phalloidin stained EA.hy926 cells were undertaken. Insulin resulted in about 2 fold increase in phospho-eNOS Ser-1177 and 8 fold increase in phospho-AKT Ser-473 levels in treated compared to untreated cells. A 2 fold increase was observed in the NOS activity of insulin-treated and untreated cells preincubated with Ang II. 24 h pre-treatment with 0.1 μM Ang II did not significantly interfere with the responses to insulin but the 1 μM Ang II pre-treated EA.hy926 showed significant attenuated insulin induced phosphorylation of eNOS Ser-1177 and AKT Ser-473, alongside impaired NOS activity. The Ang II-treated cells showed normal nuclei and cytoskeletal architecture. Angiotensin II concentrationdependently regulated basal and insulin-mediated PI3Kinase-AKT-eNOS signalling in cultured endothelial cells.


This article presents some reflections on the changes in the role of the state in the process of defining rules, norms, and configuration of educational systems, based on the results of a wider research on the repercussions of Prova Brasil in the municipalities of Campina Grande (PB) and Pelotas (RS). It focuses on the analysis of changes in the relation between state and market, as well as in the model of state regulation that reinforces the implantation of managerial mechanisms in the educational systems and in the schools. Through documental, bibliographic, and empirical data, the findings demonstrate that, despite the peculiarity with which municipalities and schools react to this national policy, there is great concern about the results of Prova Brasil and IDEB, which convert into public-private partnerships the implementation of some incentives such as payment by performance and other compensations for best schools. In Campina Grande, training has been a strategic element in pushing professionals toward a market logic; in Pelotas, professionals try to preserve their autonomy and practice a collective work. Therefore, on the one hand, the post-bureaucratic and quasi-market model of regulation that permeates the assessment system weakens the autonomy, professionalization, and democratic management of schools. On the other, the teachers who work in the schools are subjects capable of resisting and reinventing their practices.


Effective visual design of e-commerce websites enhances website aesthetics and emotional appeal for the user. To gain insight into how Internet users perceive human images as one element of website design, a controlled experiment was conducted using a questionnaire, interviews, and eye-tracking methodology. Three conditions of human images were created including human images with facial features, human images without facial features, and a control condition with no human images. It was expected that human images with facial features would induce a user to perceive the website as more appealing, having warmth or social presence, and as more trustworthy. In turn, higher levels of image appeal and perceived social presence were predicted to result in trust. All expected relationships in the model were supported except no direct relationship was found between the human image conditions and trust. Additional analyses revealed subtle differences in the perception of human images across cultures (Canada, Germany, and Japan). While the general impact of human images seems universal across country groups, based on interview data four concepts emerged--aesthetics, symbolism, affective property, and functional property--with participants from each culture focusing on different concepts as applied to website design. Implications for research and practice are discussed.


The optical imaging and radiometric properties of arrays of GRIN fiber lenses (Selfoc lens arrays) have been studied as a function of the length of the fibers. Experiments measured the object-to-image distance, image quality (MTF), depth of focus, image irradiance distribution, and exposure for a set of Selfoc lenses with differing fiber length. Simple models were used to explain the observed dependences, and analytical formulas were developed for the prediction of these optical properties.


An Upper Eocene diagnostic larger foraminiferal assemblage is described and illustrated from carbonates of the uppermost Dammam Formation, on the western side of the Northern Oman Mountains, along the United Arab Emirates and Oman border. This assemblage comprises Fabiania cassis (Oppenheim 1896), Silvestriella tetraedra (Gumbel 1870), Pellatispira madaraszi Hantken 1876, Nummulites fabianii (Prever 1905), N. ptukhiani Kacharava 1969 and N. retiatus (Roveda 1959). The presence of Nummulites ptukhiani and N. fabianii within the same horizon of Pellatispira madaraszi places both species in the Priabonian stage, confirming a Late Eocene age for the uppermost part of the Dammam Formation. The studied carbonates were deposited in an inner shelf environment, which may be related to the eustatic fall of sea level at the end of the Late Eocene.


Over the last decades intensified agricultural production is applied in the northern coastal part of Korinthos Prefecture (Peloponnese, Greece). An aquifer system occurs in the recent basin deposits, which consists of unconsolidated material, namely sands, pebbles and fine clay to silty sand sediments. A network of production boreholes and wells distributed over the studied region were sampled in June 1998 and the waters analyzed for major ions, nitrites and ammonia. Quality deterioration was detected and attributed by crop overfertilization and use of abandoned shallow wells as septic tanks, inducing increased nitrogen compound concentrations. Nitrates are noticeable throughout the entire region rendering most of the analyzed waters improper for human consumption, as concentrations by far exceed 50 mg l -1 . Mean nitrate concentration in the groundwater is 74 mg l -1 and the standard deviation 72. In general, low nitrate concentrations were observed in wet seasons.


Introduction: Remitting seronegative symmetrical synovitis with pitting edema (RS3PE) is an uncommon elderly-onset rheumatic disease characterized by tenosynovitis of both flexor and extensors tendons at the wrist and at the feet. Cancer has been reported in association with this syndrome since 1985.
Materials and method: We perform a systematic electronic search of Medline and PubMed for evaluation of relationship between cancer and RS3PE and present in this review the more significant data.
Results: The paraneoplastic weight of RS3PE syndrome is greater than other clinical pictures. In our experience, when RS3PE is associated with polymyalgia rheumatic (PMR), the probability of a paraneoplastic picture is very high (28.5% in our PMR+RS3PE cohort had a cancer diagnosed in an observation time of 24 months vs. 2.04% in cohort of PMR without RS3PE).
Conclusion: The possibility that RS3PE can be considered a paraneoplastic phenomenon or a generic risk factor for cancer is still debated. The repercussions of these evaluations on health policies are easily understandable. More data must be available.


While studying a collection of cephalopods from Surinam sent to me by Dr. C. O. van Regteren Altena, a number of loliginid squids were found that at first examination appeared to be Loligo pealei Lesueur, 1821. Further detailed study revealed a series of characters unknown in that species and sufficiently different from those of other known Western Atlantic loliginids to warrant the erection of a new species. An increased interest in the squids of this genus seems to warrant the publication of this new species in advance of the full report on the collections. I wish to thank the officials of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, and particularly Dr. van Regteren Altena for the opportunity to study the collections. The illustrations are mine. This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation GB2499X3 for which I extend my thanks. Loligo surinamensis new species (figs. 1-3) Material examined. — Holotype: Male, mantle length 118 mm, R/V "Coquette" Sta. 8-9, 30 miles northeast of the lightship "Suriname Rivier" in no feet (= 37 m), with trawl, 30 June 1966; W. Vervoort and C. Cornet leg.; RNHL alc. 9010. Paratypes: 7 males, mantle lengths 88-114 mm, 6 females, mantle lengths 75-118 mm, R/V "Coquette" Sta. 8-9, type locality; RNHL alc. 9011. — 2 males, mantle lengths 84-85 mm, R/V "Coquette", 5 miles northwest of lighter (mouth of the Surinam River), 106-102 feet, 19 February 1963; C. O. van Regteren Altena leg.; RNHL alc. 9012. — 1 male, mantle 1) Contribution No. 1662 from the University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. length 105 mm, R/V "Calamar" Sta. 121, 6°15'N, 54°45'W northeast of the mouth of the Surinam River in 27 m, 11 August 1967; UMML 31 :1110.


Purpose: Patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy generally have worse outcome; however, some patients with residual tumor after neoadjuvant chemotherapy do not relapse. We hypothesize that there are subgroups of patients with chemoresistant TNBC with different prognosis. Experimental Design: Forty-nine chemoresistant cases from 111 patients with TNBC treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX) constituted the discovery cohort, and 25 chemoresistant samples from 47 neoadjuvant chemotherapy-treated TNBC (The Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX) were chosen for validation. Extended validation was carried out in 269 operable TNBC predicted to be chemoresistant by expression pattern from published datasets. Results: We established a seven-gene prognostic signature using dChip and gene set enrichment analyses. In the independent validation cohort, the classifier predicted correctly with positive predictive value of 75.0% and negative predictive value (i.e., relapse-free survival; RFS) of 76.9% at 3 years. Those predicted to relapse had a HR of 4.67 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.27–17.15] for relapse in 3 years. In extended validation, patients predicted not to relapse exhibited 3-year RFS of 78.9%, whereas the 3-year RFS was 48.5% for patients predicted to relapse, with HR of 2.61 (95% CI: 1.52–4.49). The TNBC subgroup that predicted to have relatively favorable prognosis was characterized by high expression of "luminal-like" genes [androgen-receptor (AR) and GATA3], whereas the subgroup with worse prognosis was characterized by expression of cancer stem-cell markers. Conclusion: We developed a clinically relevant signature for patients with chemoresistant TNBC. For these women, new therapeutic strategies like targeting AR activation or cancer stem cells may need to be developed. Clin Cancer Res; 19(10); 2723–33. ©2013 AACR.


Emerging technologies, such as social networks and interactive web applications, have played a vital role in the way we communicate. These technologies are fundamental in reducing the digital gaps among users. Advanced Research and Trends in New Technologies, Software, Human-Computer Interaction, and Communicability presents scientific, theoretical, and practical insight on the software and technology of social networks and the factors that boost communicability. By highlighting different disciplines in the computer and social sciences, this reference is essential for practitioners, researchers, and scholars invested in the current studies, as well as for future generations in the field of ICT.


Over the last decade, researchers have been increasingly interested in exploring the nature and potential benefits of an organisation's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. CSR refers to "actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law" (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001, p.117). The majority of research to date has focused on an organisational perspective and demonstrated that engaging in CSR activities results in positive organisational outcomes such as a reduced firm risk (McWilliams and Siegel 2001), increased attractiveness for investors (Aguilera, Rupp, Williams and Ganapathi 2007) and prospective employees (Bhattacharya et al. 2008) and reduced employee turnover (Galbreath 2009). More recently, researchers have turned their attention towards exploring how and organisation's employees respond to CSR activities.

Corporate volunteering (CV) is emerging as an important tool through which organisations demonstrate their CSR. A focus on CV answers the call for an employee-centered understanding of CSR. This thesis explores the drivers and consequences of CV for employees and the employing organisation. This study integrates research on functional motivation and organisational support with CV to demonstrate that emploees' integral and external motives offer a perspective towards the CV initiatives in their organisations. This research also contributes to CV literature by examining the consequences of CV for the employee as well as the organisation.

As CV involves volunteers who are also regular employees, the researcher expects that participating in CV will have an impact on how employees behave during their regular employment and also for the employing organisation, who in this case are the facilitators of the CV programme. Drawing on social exchange theory and intrinsic motivation theory, the study focuses on organisational outcomes of organisational commitment and work engagement and employee outcomes of job satisfaction and employee health and well-being as a result of CV participation.

This study also examined the process through which CV activities influence the above mentioned outcomes. Inconsistencies in findings on research in CV have elicited calls for mediation mechanisms to be identified that will clarify relationships between CV and its outcomes. By focusing on social identity theory, this study suggests that pride and organisational identification (OI) mediates the relationship between employees' attitudes to CV and the consequences.

Electronic questionnaires were distributed to employees in organisations that had corporate volunteering initiatives from Malaysia and Singapore. The final sample size after deleting for missing data incomplete questionnaires was 160 respondents. On average, participants were 38 years old with a SD on 9.1 years. 58.2 percent were female and 41.8 percent were male. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to analyse the data. The findings suggest that employees participate in CV for a variety of motives, the most significant of which is a desire to experience new learning experiences and to have the opportunity to use these knowledge, skills and abilities that they might not use in their regular jobs. Participating to express altruism, improving relationships with others, protecting the ego from negative features and enhancing positive strivings of the ego proved to be less important. Another important finding is that employees are driven by the support shown by their employers in terms of paid leave and time off. In terms of consequences, the findings suggest that all the dependent variables have a positive relationship with employees' attitudes towards corporate volunteering when mediated by both pride and organisational identification.

By conceptualising and examining the relationships in this model, this study makes the following contributions. First, this research integrates several underpinning theories to develop a new theoretical framework that explains the drivers, consequences and mediators of CV. Second, by adopting Clary et al.'s (1998) functional theory and organisational support, this study contributes towards a perspective to explain individuals' attitudes towards their organisations' CV initiatives. It also contributes towards healthy debate on similarities and differences between general volunteering and CV. Third, this study integrates social exchange theory and intrinsic-extrinsic motivation to contribute to the literature on the outcomes of CV by incorporating organisational commitment, work engagement, job satisfaction and health and well-being in one model. Fourth, this study integrates social identity theory and intrinsic-extrinsic motivation theory to examine how pride and organisational identification mediate the processes through which CV activities influence employee outcomes of job satisfaction and health and well-being as well as employer outcomes of organisational commitment and work engagement.


Teacher education and development practices across the globe today, insist on having reflective practices at their core. Given that self-reflective process rests upon psychological education, it is widely agreed that student-teachers should be provided opportunities for self-learning through reflection and assimilation of new ideas. However, self-development being a subjective concept, there is lack of established methods for training teachers for self-reflective practices leading to self-development. One such method is the self-development workshops recently added to pre-service teachertraining in India. The present paper analyses the effectiveness of the self-development workshops in teacher education curriculum. Drawing data from self-development workshops, based on Rogerian approach, as part of a teacher training course, the paper traces and documents the intra-personal and interpersonal growth of its participants.


The genetic structure of the European sardine ( Sardina pilchardus ) was assessed throughout its geographic range using five microsatellite loci. One of the loci seemed to be under hitchhiking selection and exhibited a latitudinal cline along the eastern Atlantic, with abrupt change in allele frequencies from the Alboran Sea to the western Mediterranean and from the east Atlantic coast to the Azores and Madeira. This pattern was very similar to that previously described for the allozymic locus SOD* and these 2 loci could be linked. A Bayesian analysis of environmental factors with the genetic data indicated temperature as a potential selection factor. Selection pressure may be stronger at the southern limit of sardine distribution, because heterozygosity of the non-neutral locus was much lower there. The abrupt change in allele frequencies of the non-neutral locus in certain regions seem to be related more to strong barriers to gene flow, which were not evident for neutral loci, than to abrupt changes in selection pressure. These areas of discontinuity provide a guideline to define and delineate genetic stocks and are generally consistent with areas of phenotypic change in sardine, but they are not in concordance with the currently recognized morphological subspecies.


Author(s): Casillas, Armando; Lin, guanjing; Granderson, jessica | Abstract: Fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) analytical tools for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems represent one of the most active areas of smart building technology development. A diversity of techniques is used for FDD analytics, spanning physical models, black box, and rule-based approaches, and researchers continuously strive to develop improved algorithms. With FDD algorithm numbers now in the hundreds, there is a need for performance evaluation of these algorithms in order to assess improvements, improve costeffectiveness, and to prioritize investment in the further development of these technologies. A persistent challenge of FDD advance has been the lack of common datasets to benchmark the performance accuracy of FDD algorithms. This paper summarizes the successful curation of HVAC operational data, paired with validated ground-truth information regarding the presence and absence of faults. The current dataset, consisting of both simulation and experimental data, will evolve to include a larger set of HVAC systems with the objective of creating the largest publicly available dataset to be used by FDD developers, users, and researchers to compare and contrast performance accuracy across FDD algorithms, helping to drive improvements that will spur greater market adoption of FDD tools. Furthermore, in order to avoid previously observed issues with contributed datasets and ensure high quality and consistency of future submissions, the development of data validation and ground-truth assessment protocol is detailed in this study.


Abstract Background: A major use of serum magnesium measurements in clinical practice is to identify patients with deficiency. However, numerous studies have shown that magnesium deficiency is common and may be present in over 10% of hospitalized patients, as well as in the general population. An important cause for under diagnosis of deficiency is that serum magnesium, the most commonly used test, can be normal despite negative body stores. This article focuses on the limitations of "normal" magnesium results and highlights the importance of lifestyle or "modus vivendi" as a pragmatic means of identifying those individuals potentially at risk for negative body magnesium stores. Methods: Researched peer reviewed articles on magnesium published between 1990 and 2008 in MEDLINE and EMBASE, using database keywords "magnesium, deficiency, diagnosis, treatment and hypomagnesaemia". Bibliographies of retrieved articles have been searched and followed. We have also performed a manual search of each individual issue in which most of these reports have appeared. Results: In 183 peer reviewed studies published from 1990 to 2008, magnesium deficiency was associated with increased prevalence and risk in 11 major conditions. Similarly, in 68 studies performed over the same period, magnesium deficiency was found to predict adverse events and a decreased risk of pathology was noted when supplementation or treatment was instituted. Conclusions: The perception that "normal" serum magnesium excludes deficiency is common among clinicians. This perception is probably enforced by the common laboratory practice of highlighting only abnormal results. A health warning is therefore warranted regarding potential misuse of "normal" serum magnesium because restoration of magnesium stores in deficient patients is simple, tolerable, inexpensive and can be clinically beneficial. Clin Chem Lab Med 2010;48:323–7.