This practice-based research project will examine the link between the contemporary genre of Musique Concrete and the visual medium, through a portfolio of audiovisual pieces. By undertaking in-depth research into audiovisual principles demonstrated by Michel Chion and Walter Murch, I will first outline the various relationships that audio has with vision, and viceversa, drawing on ideas from theorists like Denis Smalley, Rick Altman and Paul Rudy. Then, by subsequently analysing the definitions and interpretations of Musique Concrete by musicologists such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, I will look at the issues and debates surrounding acousmatic sounds, as well as the way the listening audience receives and perceives sound. Finally, I will amalgamate these ideas and concepts into a theoretical framework, and strive to answer the question of how Musique Concrete could potentially
manifest itself visually. As vision is generally seen as the most dominant of the senses1, the
importance of having aesthetic compatibility between the audio and visual elements of a piece
of work is imperative. Therefore, study into this area will help to develop a specific integrated
framework for effectively analysing or creating audiovisual work involving concrete music.

Drawing inspiration from various video artists such as Rob Chiu and Chris Cunningham, the portfolio comprises three audiovisual pieces, each with the common goal of demonstrating
a marriage of concrete music and its accompanying visual stimuli. However, each piece explores a different approach to achieving its unified objective, by adopting various methods of
realisation through utilising an assortment of visual production techniques, based on conceptualising the creative process. This will be accomplished by looking at the schematisation of Musique Concrete, and the parallels that run between its concrete to abstract compositional process and that of video editing. Interpreting these concepts visually will help to develop the foundation for an enhanced, sympathetic audiovisual relationship. The soundtrack
will also be extrapolated into varying degrees of abstracted syntax, as well as explored for aural
and mimetic discourse, revealing how it evokes imagery and metaphoric messages through
environmental context, and the impact this has on the video.

The popular culture element of the research project will look to consolidate these ideas of a
concrete sound and video hybrid, and present it in a modern-day popular context. By studying
modern Musique Concrete artists such as Matthew Herbert, whose seamless blend of Jazz and
concrete samples produces a unique and popular soundworld, to more traditional artists like
Michel Chion, Pierre Henry and Luc Ferrari, the portfolio accompanying this project will consist
of sounds from everyday objects, integrated with samples of electric guitar and bass, and manipulated through the use of software plug-ins and granular synthesis. The result is an
industrial soundworld contextualised within various genres of popular music.


This paper uses experimental auction method to study the WTA for GM rice cookies of Chinese consumers. The bid data are collected from 353 randomly recruited undergraduate students participated in Wuhan, China, during the spring and early summer of 2008.The experiment auction suggest most participant hold a positive WTA for GM rice cookie, which suggest that consumers regard GM rice an inferior substitutes for non-GM rice. Information favorable of GM rice will decrease the WTA, while negative information will increase the WTA. When information of both sides is revealed, the WTA bids decrease at different pace according to the sequence of discovering information.


The increasing growth of forced displacement worldwide has led to the stronger interest of various stakeholders in measuring poverty among refugee populations. However, refugee data remain scarce, particularly in relation to the measurement of income, consumption, or expenditure. This paper offers a first attempt to measure poverty among refugees using cross-survey imputations and administrative and survey data collected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. Employing a small number of predictors currently available in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees registration system, the proposed methodology offers out-of-sample predicted poverty rates. These estimates are not statistically different from the actual poverty rates. The estimates are robust to different poverty lines, they are more accurate than those based on asset indexes or proxy means tests, and they perform well according to targeting indicators. They can also be obtained with relatively small samples. Despite these preliminary encouraging results, it is essential to replicate this experiment across countries using different data sets and welfare aggregates before validating the proposed method.


In this paper, we address the problem of effective visualization of and interaction with multiple and multi-dimensional data supporting communication between project stakeholders in an information cave. More exactly, our goal is to enable multiple users to interact with multiple screens from any location in an information cave. We present here our latest advancements in developing a novel human-computer interaction system that is specifically targeted towards room setups with physically spread sets of screens. Our system consists of a set of video cameras overseeing the room, and of which the signals are processed in real-time to detect and track the participants, their poses and hand-gestures. The system is fed with camera based gesture recognition. Early experiments have been conducted in the Value Lab (see figure 1), that has been recently introduced at ETH Zurich, and they focus on enabling the interaction with large urban 3D models being developed for the design and simulation of future cities. For the moment, experiments consider only the interaction of a single user with multiple layers (points of view) of a large city model displayed on multiple screens. The results demonstrate the huge potential of the system, and the principle of vision based interaction for such environments. The work continues on the extension of the system to a multi-user level.


Food preference learning is an important component of wellness applications and restaurant recommender systems as it provides personalized information for effective food targeting and suggestions. However, existing systems require some form of food journaling to create a historical record of an individual's meal selections. In addition, current interfaces for food or restaurant preference elicitation rely extensively on text-based descriptions and rating methods, which can impose high cognitive load, thereby hampering wide adoption. In this paper, we propose PlateClick, a novel system that bootstraps food preference using a simple, visual quiz-based user interface. We leverage a pairwise comparison approach with only visual content. Using over 10,028 recipes collected from Yummly, we design a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) to learn the similarity distance metric between food images. Our model is shown to outperform state-of-the-art CNN by 4 times in terms of mean Average Precision. We explore a novel online learning framework that is suitable for learning users' preferences across a large scale dataset based on a small number of interactions (≤ 15). Our online learning approach balances exploitation-exploration and takes advantage of food similarities using preference-propagation in locally connected graphs. We evaluated our system in a field study of 227 anonymous users. The results demonstrate that our method outperforms other baselines by a significant margin, and the learning process can be completed in less than one minute. In summary, PlateClick provides a light-weight, immersive user experience for efficient food preference elicitation.


Zoonotic pathogens, those that are naturally transmissible from animals to humans, are important causes of morbidity and mortality in humans, with outcomes ranging from mild to fatal and occurrences from sporadic disease to pandemics. These pathogens have had profound impacts on human health throughout recorded history and will continue to pose challenges, as the majority of emerging pathogens are zoonotic (1). Continued encroachment of humans into previously undeveloped regions, concentration of human and animal populations from urban sprawl, expanded animal and vector ranges resulting from climate change, increasingly mobile animal populations, and rapid international movement of animal-based foods facilitate the emergence and rapid dissemination of zoonotic pathogens. Recent years have been accompanied by dramatic instances of newly identified zoonotic pathogens (e.g., severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus [2], Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus [3, 4], Hendra virus [5]), marked range changes in known pathogens (e.g., West Nile virus in North America [6]), and new variants of well-known pathogens (e.g., H1N1 pandemic influenza A [7]). Potential new clinical roles for known pathogens have also been identified, such as the recent association of Bartonella henselae with some neurocognitive disorders (8). The close relationship between animals and humans has also been reflected in the identification of interspecies transmission of important pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (9) and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (10, 11). At the same time, "traditional" zoonotic pathogens such as rabies virus, influenza A, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Coxiella burnetii continue to pose tremendous challenges. While the overall impact of zoonotic diseases is not known (and virtually impossible to quantify), it is undeniable that diseases spread directly from animals, from animal products, and from animal contamination of the environment have a profound impact on human health and require substantial efforts for diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and control. All of those have a foundation in accurate and timely diagnostic testing, so it should be no surprise that molecular diagnostic testing is increasingly being used to identify zoonotic pathogens.


This study estimates the total annual cost of criminal behavior in the United States. While past research has typically focused on particular costs, regions, or crime categories, this general study estimates all of the direct and indirect costs of crime for the entire nation. In addition to aggregating expenses commonly associated with unlawful activity, it considers ancillary costs that have not yet been included in an overall formula for the cost of crime. Beyond the expenses of the legal system, victim losses, and crime-prevention agencies, the burden of crime encompasses the opportunity costs of victims', criminals', and prisoners' time; the fear of being victimized; and the cost of private deterrence. More accurate information on the repercussions of crime could guide our legal, political, and cultural stance toward crime and allow informed prioritization of programs that curtail criminal activity. The net annual burden of crime is found to exceed $1 trillion. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.


Total COVID-19 Awards In FY 2021, HRSA received $9.38 billion through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) with over $8 billion in COVID-19 funding. This included $7.2 billion for health centers, $29 million for health workforce education and training, $50 million for home visiting and pediatric mental health, $505 million for rural health programs, and $246 million for communitybased workforce and COVID-19 vaccine access and outreach. HRSA also received $397 million for small rural hospitals COVID testing and $96 million to expand rural health clinics vaccine confidence. HRSA FY 2021 Supplemental Funding for COVID-19 Response


Sulphuric acid, ammonia, amines, and oxidised organics play a crucial role in nanoparticle formation in the atmosphere. In this study, we investigate the composition of nucleated nanoparticles formed from these compounds in the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets) chamber experiments at CERN (Centre europeen pour la recherche nucleaire). The investigation was carried out via analysis of the particle hygroscopicity, ethanol affinity, oxidation state, and ion composition. Hygroscopicity was studied by a hygroscopic tandem differential mobility analyser and a cloud condensation nuclei counter, ethanol affinity by an organic differential mobility analyser and particle oxidation level by a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer. The ion composition was studied by an atmospheric pressure interface time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The volume fraction of the organics in the particles during their growth from sizes of a few nanometers to tens of nanometers was derived from measured hygroscopicity assuming the Zdanovskii–Stokes–Robinson relationship, and compared to values gained from the spectrometers. The ZSR-relationship was also applied to obtain the measured ethanol affinities during the particle growth, which were used to derive the volume fractions of sulphuric acid and the other inorganics (e.g. ammonium salts). In the presence of sulphuric acid and ammonia, particles with a mobility diameter of 150 nm were chemically neutralised to ammonium sulphate. In the presence of oxidation products of pinanediol, the organic volume fraction of freshly nucleated particles increased from 0.4 to ~0.9, with an increase in diameter from 2 to 63 nm. Conversely, the sulphuric acid volume fraction decreased from 0.6 to 0.1 when the particle diameter increased from 2 to 50 nm. The results provide information on the composition of nucleated aerosol particles during their growth in the presence of various combinations of sulphuric acid, ammonia, dimethylamine and organic oxidation products.


Recently, many articles deal with Internet and mobile phones that have penetrated all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, in the light of their benefits. Various reports, including the World Bank, describe the main benefits of new information and communication technologies and promote their greater integration into the wider economy to increase efficiency by completing other production factors and fostering innovation, for example, drastically reducing transaction costs. The article analyzes recent literature but also presents novelty elements that emerged from questions such as the risks associated with new technologies considering that there are not enough studies in the field confirming, on the one hand, the benefits but also the losses caused by them. Keyword: New technology, agriculture, innovation


Electoral rules and constitutional structures can influence the level of political corruption. We show that proportional representation (PR) systems are more susceptible to corrupt political rent-seeking than plurality systems. We argue that this result depends on the different loci of rents in PR and plurality systems, and on the monitoring difficulties faced by both voters and opposition parties under PR. We also examine the interaction between electoral rules and presidentialism. We test our main predictions and interaction effects on a cross-section of up to ninety-four democracies. The empirical findings strongly support our hypothesis that PR systems, especially together with presidentialism, are associated with higher levels of corrupt political rent-seeking.


Mexican migration to the United States has been a very important issue throughout the twentieth century, and its relevance has reached unprecedented levels during the last two decades. Even though there is a huge body of literature that analyses many different aspects of this phenomenon, the economic performance of migrants with respect to the Mexican labour markets has received very little attention. This paper aims at filling this gap by presenting new evidence on the effect that migration to the United States has on labour market outcomes of Mexican workers. It uses data from the Mexican National Survey of Urban Labour (ENEU) for the period 1994-2002. Among other advantages, the panel structure of the survey is ideal for minimizing the problems of self-selection bias that are common in most of the alternative data sources. Fixed-effects estimation indicates that Mexican workers that migrate temporarily to the United States obtain significantly higher earnings in the U.S. labour market than in the Mexican one during the period of migration. They also tend to work longer hours and face a generally higher likelihood of non employment during the period of return migration. Finally, the gains from temporary migration are lower for more skilled workers and for those migrating from the most distant regions in Mexico, relative to the United States.


The Andean thrust front in the Cerros Penitentes and Visera (High Cordillera of Mendoza): Chronological and cartographic aspects. The finding of an important marine invertebrate fauna of Upper Tithonian age at the shoulders of the Penitentes hill, in the basal carbonatic sequence of the first Andean wedge confirms the tectonic logic of a detachment of this unit at the level of the Yeso Principal. This allows invalidating certain lithostratigraphic correlations and paleogeographic sketches ascribed to the La Manga Formation. On the other hand, the analysis of some key sections around the Penitentes hill area between the Quebrada de Vargas and the Cerro Visera, allows presenting a tectonic reinterpretation of the sector. This is based on the recognition and differentiation of the main Tertiary units represented in the area by the Penitentes Conglomerates (Early Miocene) and the Santa María Agglomerates (Late Miocene) in a mutual relationship very similar to that previously described at the north of Puente del Inca. The study show interferences, in a polyphasic context, between the reactivations of the thinskinned Penitentes overthrust and a thick skinned frontal thrust which repeats the Tertiary sequence. The unconformity between the Tertiary sequences and the emplacement of a Malm klippe above the Penitentes Conglomerates of the Cerro Visera syncline, lead to ascribe certain importance to the final phase of the Early Miocene.


This article addresses the recent turn in strategy research to practice-based theorizing. Based on a data set of 51 meeting observations, the article examines how strategy meetings are involved in either stabilizing existing strategic orientations or proposing variations that cumulatively generate change in strategic orientations. Eleven significant structuring characteristics of strategy meetings are identified and examined with regard to their potential for stabilizing or destabilizing existing strategic orientations. Based on a taxonomy of meeting structures, we explain three typical evolutionary paths through which variations emerge, are maintained and developed, and are selected or de-selected. The findings make four main contributions. First, they contribute to the literature on strategy-as-practice by explaining how the practice of meetings is related to consequential strategic outcomes. Second, they contribute to the literature on organizational becoming by demonstrating the role of meetings in shaping stability and change. Third, they extend and elaborate the concept of meetings as strategic episodes. Fourth, they contribute to the literature on garbage can models of strategy-making.


Most subsurface contamination passes through the unsaturated zone before reaching an aquifer; however, transport studies are often conducted under saturated conditions because of the difficulty in maintaining steady‐state flow. Chromate migration was measured in coarse‐textured, oxide‐rich sediment under different water contents using vacuum and centrifuge techniques to obtain a steady‐state unsaturated flow regime. Leaching solutions contained 0.5 or 1.0 mM Cr(VI) and tritium in artificial groundwater. Breakthrough curves (BTCs) were modeled using CXTFIT assuming equilibrium conditions, since evaluation of data using a "two‐region" physical nonequilibrium model indicated that mobile water was >90% regardless of saturation level. Dispersivity increased nonlinearly with decreasing water content. Retardation (R) increased with decreasing water content, but water content had little effect on the distribution coefficient calculated from R, Kd‐app The average Kd‐app of all Cr(VI) experiments (water content range: 0.07–0.43 cm3 cm−3) was 0.633 mL g−1, very similar to the distribution coefficient derived from batch equilibration, Kd (0.684 mL g−1). Though results in both transport systems were similar, average solute residence times in the vacuum system were 4 to 23 times longer than in the centrifuge system at comparable water contents. The centrifuge system column experiments could also be run over a greater range in volumetric water content (0.07–0.42 cm3 cm−3) than the vacuum column system (0.23–0.43 cm3 cm−3).


Milton Friedman was the leading public proponent for an all-volunteer military. This chapter traces his influence upon the national debate over conscription, which culminated in Friedman's service on the Gates Commission. Friedman's argument relied on economic reasoning and appeal to cost-benefit analysis. Central was his conjecture that the social cost of the draft, which imposed an "implicit tax" on draftees, exceeded that of the all-volunteer military. This was supported by the work of Walter Oi. Friedman's position attracted support both within the conservative movement and from across the political landscape, allowing Friedman to form coalitions with prominent individuals otherwise in disagreement with his politics. With the social context ripened by the draft and the Vietnam War, Friedman's argument echoed in influential circles, reaching policymakers in Washington and Martin Anderson on the Nixon advising team. The successful institution of the all-volunteer armed force reflected Friedman's intellectual entrepreneurship.


This study was conducted on the reduction reaction of the azo dye Reactive Black 5 by means of the Mn85Al15 particles prepared by melt-spinning and ball-milling processes. The morphology, the surface elementary composition and the phase structure of the powders were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The degradation efficiency of the ball milled powder was measured by using an ultraviolet-visible absorption spectrophotometer and the collected powder was analyzed by means of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy technique to characterize the functional groups in the extract. The degradation of Reactive Black 5 and the analysis of the aromatic by-products were investigated by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The ball-milled powder shows higher degradation efficiency and the Reactive Black 5 solution was completely decolorized after 30 min. The degradation kinetics and the formation by-products depend on the pH and temperature of the solution. The analyses of the extracted product confirmed the cleavage of the (–NN–) bonds. Our findings are expected to pave the way for a new opportunity with regard to the functional applications of nanostructured metallic particles.


Private equity companies are targets to a never-ending controversy debate about their contribution to the economy. The existing empirical data provide, on the one hand, strong evidence that private equity activity contribute positively to efficiency of companies, but they are often viewed as short-term investors who utilize firms' resources. In this paper I find no empirical support for that claim. By a unique dataset that covers all majority buyouts in Sweden by Swedish private equity firms from 1997-2010 I end up following 680 portfolio firms before and after the buyout as well as after the exit and a peer group defined by industry, size, age and financial performance. I do, however, find that the firms actually performs better after they exit from the private equity firm, which might be a result of sustainable long-term investments rather than short-termism.


This paper examines perspectives on the recent proliferation of sargassum (free-floating seaweed) in the oil-producing region of Ghana. The shores of many fishing villages surrounding Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field are now covered with decomposing sargassum, which, in addition to releasing offensive smells, clogs the fishing nets and boat engines of local fishermen, in turn, disrupting livelihoods considerably. Fishermen from villages such as Cape Three Points have linked the 'blackened' colour of rotting sargassum to the recent commencement of oil production, calling on the government to discipline Tullow, the main company operating in the Jubilee Oil Field, and to compensate them accordingly. Representatives from the government and Tullow have countered by stating that the growing presence of sargassum, which is an important source of food for numerous aquatic species, has more to do with local fishing habits: that it is a result of overfishing, not oil production. Whether this phenomenon is coincidental or not, the response of both policy-makers and government officials to mounting grievances over sargassum has been woefully inadequate, and fairly symptomatic of the approach being taken overall to foster development in communities affected by oil production in Ghana and the wider sub-region.


During the past two decades the computing industry has developed several different, at the time, dominating user interfaces. These initially offered text-based screens, such as DOS, and then, with the invention of the MIT-, then Xerox- and then (the significantly faster and better) Apple Computer-created windowing interfaces, a graphical environment was born. With various modifications and enhancements, this was adopted by most leading software vendors, and it is widely used today in any computer-integrated device, or machine. (It is important to mention that the latest and best of these innovations come from Apple computers again, with the introduction of the new OS X Aqua windowing interface. There is no doubt, that all major software vendors will try to mimic this seamless graphical design, with vector-based fonts, professional colour management, and fast, animated objects; just as they did in the past.) Since most knowledge workers, and even operators and line managers on the shop floor, spend over half--or even more--of their time looking at various computer screens in a digital enterprise, eTransition user interface design issues are critical. The objective of our research was to create an object/component oriented requirements analysis method and software tool that enables enterprises to analyse and design all critical aspects of their user interfaces for product/process design, manufacturing, demanufacturing, and other process, including total quality control and even software engineering over the web and/or their company intranets. (Note that we did not limit our approach to computer user interfaces; nevertheless, since even CNC machine tools, robots, smart sensor interfaces, vision systems, and other web-linked devices on the shop floor offer browser readable multimedia interfaces, we included in our study and analysis all web-linked and web-enabled devices that enterprises use.) Our solution is generic, nevertheless, due to the importance of this method during the multi-lifecycle eTransition process, we focus here on providing an analytical method for evaluating various disassembly line manager and operator user requirements, based on appropriate engineering solutions, including the parameter ranges and their correlation matrices of such solutions. One of the results of this R@D effort is our implemented and validated, web-enabled, open source CORA Tool (Object/Component Oriented Requirements Analysis Tool).


This memo is intended to explore how Type-of-Service might be
implemented in the Internet. The proposal describes a method of
queuing which can provide the different classes of service. The
technique also prohibits one class of service from consuming excessive
resources or excluding other classes of service. This is an "idea
paper" and discussion is strongly encouraged.


Recent areal and typological research has brought to light several syntactic features which English shares with the Celtic languages as well as some of its neighbouring western European languages, but not with (all of) its Germanic sister languages, especially German. This study focuses on one of them, viz. the so-called it-cleft construction. What makes the it-cleft construction particularly interesting from an areal and typological point of view is the fact that, although it does not belong to the defining features of so-called Standard Average European (SAE), it has a strong presence in French, which is in the 'nucleus' of languages forming SAE alongside Dutch, German, and (northern dialects of) Italian. In German, however, clefting has remained a marginal option, not to mention most of the eastern European languages which hardly make use of clefting at all. This division in itself prompts the question of some kind of a historical-linguistic connection between the Celtic languages (both Insular and Continental), English, and French (or, more widely, Romance languages). Before tackling that question, one has to establish whether it-clefting is part of Old (and Middle) English grammar, and if so, to what extent it is used in these periods. In the first part of this article (sections 2 and 3), I trace the emergence of it-clefts on the basis of data from The York–Toronto–Helsinki Corpus of Old English Prose and The Penn–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition. Having established the gradually increasing use of it-clefts from OE to ME, I move on to discuss the areal distribution of clefting among European languages and its typological implications (section 4). This paves the way for a discussion of the possible role played by language contacts, and especially those with the Celtic languages, in the emergence of it-clefting in English (section 5). It is argued that contacts with the Celtic languages provide the most plausible explanation for the development of this feature of English. This conclusion is supported by the chronological precedence of the cleft construction in the Celtic languages, its prominence in modern-period 'Celtic Englishes', and close parallels between English and the Celtic languages with respect to several other syntactic features.


Baby Bear meets all sorts of different animals until he finally finds what he is looking for - his mother. Told through Bill Martin's rhythmic text and Eric Carle's vibrant images - this is the fourth and final companion title to the much-loved classic "Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?"


As a result of the Finch Report of 2012, RCUK (Research Councils UK) introduced an open access policy, and funding was provided to Higher Education Institutions from BIS (Department for Business, Information and Skills) to implement open access. Indeed, my first post in open access was a result of this funding. However, it is HEFCE's Open Access policy of 2014 that has forced the biggest change upon UK Higher Education Institutions. Open access is no longer only for "gold" funded research outputs, but for all research outputs. It is not limited to journal articles and
conference proceedings, but has moved on to include educational resources, chapters, books, software and datasets.

Universities across the UK have created numerous open access related posts, in turn creating and enhancing workflows in an endeavour to meet the requirements of HEFCE's open access policy. Whilst the number of academics aware of HEFCE's open access policy has certainly increased considerably, it is questionable as to whether academics are more engaged with open access than previously. If HEFCE's open access policy ceased to exist, and we couldn't yield our "if you don't deposit your work then it won't be eligible for submission in the next REF" line, would open access still be a concern to academics? Do academics engage with open access because it's a good thing to do, or just because they have to?

Universities in the United Kingdom offer various workflows, dependant on what is deemed to work best for their institution. Some institutions offer mediated deposit
whereby academics email their manuscripts to a centralised email account and the rest is taken care of by repository/open access staff. Other institutions require
academics to upload their own manuscripts to a CRIS (Current Research Information System), and to update this as the paper moves from being accepted to published.

This paper will look at various workflows that Higher Education Institutions have adapted in order to implement HEFCE's open access policy and whether this has resulted in a change of academics attitudes and behaviours in terms of open access.

Were the workflows created with a view of increasing engagement with open access? Or in order to not burden academics with administrative work? Is it detrimental to remove academics from the workflow around making their work open access, or is it essential to make open access happen?

The paper will look at ways in which support staff can maximise the support available to academics and increase engagement with open access by academics. HEFCE's
open access policy is now one year into effect and the RCUK 5 year block grant "transition" to open access ends in October this year. Both policies have resulted in
an increase in administrative work for both academics and support staff. Both have made a change in how academics perceive open access. Is this support sustainable? Without this support will "green" open access continue?


OBJECTIVE
To compare various treatment options provided to patients with Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) and assess improvement in liver status via reduction in serum Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT) levels.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective cohort study.

PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY
The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from April 2000 to April 2007.

METHODOLOGY
All available records of patients aged between 20-70 years, fatty liver on ultrasound, elevated serum ALT and having at least one follow-up, after a baseline visit were included. The patients had variable number of follow-ups and a maximum of 3 follow-ups were considered. Information was collected on demographic and clinical characteristics of the subjects. The treatment options were categorized as weight reduction alone, with statins, and with other medications. Serum ALT level was the main outcome measured in IU/l. Repeated-measures ANOVA, using a mixed model approach was performed with treatment options as between subject factor, and follow-up as within subject factor and p-value < 0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS
Sixty-nine records of subjects, consisting of 50 males and 19 females were selected. The mean (+/- SD) age was 40+/-12 years. Thirty-one subjects (45%) were advised weight reduction only, and experienced a 72% reduction in serum ALT levels, over the mean follow-up time of 9+/-3 months. Twelve subjects (17%) received statins along with weight reducing advice, and experienced a 56% reduction in mean ALT over the mean follow-up of 11+/-7 months. Twenty-six subjects (38%) received other medications along with advice for weight reduction and experienced a 73% reduction in serum ALT levels over the mean time of 10+/-4 months. The mean ALT declined at follow-up times, irrespective of the prescribed treatment, and that the decline with time was different for males and females.

CONCLUSION
Serum ALT levels among patients with NASH decreased with time, regardless of the provided treatment, and the decrease was different for males and females.


The advent of digital technology and increased global connectivity has, to put it mildly, caused some ripples for the entertainment industry specifically and copyright law generally. In the aftermath, many are searching for new ways to incorporate the benefits of digital copies and the internet while minimizing the harms. To some, the anime industry and its fans offer examples of how an industry can benefit and even grow from allowing copyright infringement. This article examines the anime industry in-depth with this suggestion in mind and places the industry among current copyright policy debates, such as those suggested by Lawrence Lessig.


In this paper, we demonstrate Tabula, a middleware that sits between the data system and the geospatial visualization dashboard to increase user interactivity. The proposed system adopts a sampling cube approach that stores prematerialized spatial samples and allows data scientists to define their own accuracy loss function such that the produced samples can be used for various user-defined visualization tasks. The system ensures that the difference between the sample fed into the dashboard and the raw query answer never exceeds the user-specified loss threshold. For demonstration purposes, we connect Apache Zeppelin, a visualization dashboard, to the system and show how Tabula accelerates interactive visualizations on NYC Taxi Trip data, Yelp review data and San Diego Smart Streetlights data.


We develop a multicountry model in which governments aim at excessive spending in order to serve the narrow interests of the group in power. This puts pressure on the monetary authorities to extract seigniorage, and thus affects the incentives countries would have to participate in a monetary union. This feature, ignored by the monetary union literature for Europe, is potentially important in Africa. We calibrate the model to data for West Africa and use it to assess proposed ECOWAS monetary unions. We conclude that monetary union with Nigeria would not be in the interests of other ECOWAS countries, unless it were accompanied by effective discipline over Nigeria's fiscal policies.


Marine seismic source arrays are directional. Source directivity is used to attenuate coherent noise, but primary reflected data may be degraded. Source directivity is ignored in a standard processing sequence, so directional source signature deconvolution may be required. In the frequency-wavenumber (f-k) directional deconvolution method, a filter is calculated from far-field source signatures and is applied to the f-k transform of common-receiver gathers. Reflections on common-receiver gathers are often spatially aliased, and this causes practical problems with the technique. Directional deconvolution may also be performed in combination with prestack migration because the prestack Kirchhoff summation migration operator is a function of source take-off angle. The constant-offset section is deconvolved separately with a full range of filters for source signatures radiated in different directions; then the migration summation operator sums across the deconvolved sections, selecting the section which has been deconvolved for the correct source signature at each point. Physical model data, which were acquired over simple models using a directional source, are used to evaluate directional deconvolution assuming constant velocity. Reflector continuity and resolution are improved by using directional deconvolution. Directional deconvolution combined with prestack migration is extended to media in which the velocity varies with depth, and is applied to two datasets from the Southern North Sea. The second dataset, which has shallow steeply dipping reflectors, is improved by using directional deconvolution. Directional deconvolution may be combined with a Kirchhoff migration technique which assumes a linear velocity-depth model. Results are superior to conventional Kirchhoff migration because ray bending is honoured. Directional deconvolution cannot synthesise fully point-source equivalent data from data acquired with a source array without excessive noise amplification. Source arrays with a short in-line dimension should be used where possible. For data which have been acquired with a long source array, directional deconvolution is desirable.


How should we invest capital into a sequence of investment opportunities, if, for reasons of external competition, our interest focuses on trying to invest in the very best opportunity? We introduce new models to answer such questions. Our objective is to formulate them in a way that makes results high-risk specific in order to present true alternatives to other models. At the same time we try to keep them applicable in quite some generality, also for different utility functions. Viewing high-risk situations we assume that an investment on the very best opportunity yields a lucrative, possibly time-dependent, rate of return, that uninvested capital keeps its risk-free value, whereas "wrong" investments lose their value. Several models are presented, mainly for the so-called rank-based case. Optimal strategies and values are found, also for different utility functions, and several examples are explicitly solved. We also include results for the so-called full-information case, where, in addition, the quality distribution of investment opportunities is supposed to be known. In addition we present tractable models for an unknown number of opportunities in terms of Pascal arrival processes. Effort is made throughout the article to justify assumptions in the view of applicability.


Medulloepithelioma is a rare primitive embryonal tumour of the central nervous system which typically occurs in early childhood. The histopathological appearance has been confused with primitive neuroectodermal tumours (PNETs), but medulloepitheliomas have a more aggressive clinical course. Imaging typically demonstrates a well-circumscribed, poorly or non-enhancing solid mass, with cyst formation being infrequent. We report the imaging findings in a case of a cystic hemispheric medulloepithelioma. The importance of considering this diagnosis is discussed in view of the propensity to aggressive recurrence in subtotal resection.


Erectile dysfunction (ED) or male impotence is defined as inability of a man to achieve or maintain penile erection sufficient for sexual activity. It is primarily a neuronal and endothelial dysfunction of the corpus cavernosum of penile tissue, and is partly characterized by reduced production of nitric oxide (NO). Other factors that may contribute to the pathogenesis of ED include androgen deficiency in aging men, hypertension, high cholesterol levels, atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, diseases of the prostate and heart, and anatomical deformity of the penis. ED may also be caused by some medications, prostate surgery and spinal cord injury. Psychological and social conditions such as stress, depression and unhappy marital relationship may contribute to the problem. Chronic infections and inflammation can also contribute to the disease process. ED is linked to an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Several orally active drugs (sildenafil, vardenafil, tadalafil, avanafil) are currently prescribed for treating ED to improve the arterial blood flow to the penile tissue. Medicinal plants and their extracts have been used in traditional medicine in southwest Asia and other countries to treat ED. The current review focuses on four medicinal plants that have been used as aphrodisiacs for enhancing sexual performance and for the treatment of ED. These plants include Eurycoma longifolia Jack (tongkat ali); Chlorophytum borivilianum (safed musli); Withania somnifera (ashwagandha); and Pausinystalia johimbe (formerly known as Corynanthe johimbe). Suggested mechanisms of action for each of the plant extracts will be discussed.


Cortisol secretion follows a distinct circadian rhythm characterised by a nadir in early sleep, gradually increasing concentrations during late sleep, peak levels at 30-45 minutes post awakening (the cortisol awakening response: CAR) and a declining pattern thereafter. Salivary cortisol enables determination of the diurnal pattern within the domestic setting, although the measurement presents methodological challenges that need to be addressed. Further, the diurnal pattern of cortisol has been studied in relation to trait and state ill-being, rather than well-being. Consequently the focus of this programme of research was to explore relationships between the diurnal pattern of cortisol secretion and measures of both state and trait well-being and to examine the impact of electronically determined participant adherence to protocol within the domestic setting. In the first instance healthy, psychopathology-free young females were investigated but the work was extended to investigate the impact of aging on associations between cortisol secretion and well-being in healthy older females.
Data from healthy female participants demonstrates for the first time that moderate delays (on average 8 minutes) between awakening and the start of saliva sampling (previously considered tolerable) result in erroneous over-estimation of CAR magnitude and earlier timing of the CAR peak. This minimal level of non-adherence was not detected by self-reported awakening time, suggesting that electronic monitoring of awakening is essential in CAR research. The effects of moderate delays on the CAR measurement were explored in a detailed study, the first to sample salivary cortisol secretion at five minute intervals in the immediate post-awakening period. Over-estimation of the CAR magnitude and earlier peak were attributed to an observed approximate ten minute time lag between awakening and the start of the cortisol rise. In contrast non-adherence to the sampling protocol across the day did not impact on measurement of the diurnal cortisol measures when measured at 3-12 hours post-awakening.
In healthy young females neither state nor trait well-being/ill-being were associated with the CAR when using data strictly monitored for non-adherence during saliva sampling in the post-awakening period. Additionally, state and trait well-being were not associated with the diurnal decline or mean levels of cortisol across the day. These null findings could be attributed to the age of the sample. Previous associations between well-being and diurnal cortisol patterns have been observed mostly in middle-aged and older adults.
The new method of cortisol assessment in hair samples provided a retrospective trait measure of cortisol secretion, without the problems of non-adherence to protocol. No associations between three months hair cortisol secretion with well-being/ill-being were observed in young healthy females, in line with the results reported above using salivary cortisol. However, in the older sample associations between hair cortisol and trait well-being were evident. Higher levels of trait well-being were associated with higher hair cortisol, independently of ill-being, providing support for cortisol as an 'energiser' in healthy older female participants. Together these findings provide evidence for the neurotoxicity hypothesis of cortisol secretion; well-being did not exert effects on cortisol secretion in early adulthood but effects were evident in late adulthood in healthy psychopathology-free female samples.
The unique contribution of this programme of research lies in its consideration of methodological issues in the measurement of cortisol and well-being and its focus on positive psychology rather than the traditional psychopathology in relation to cortisol.


Since its publication in 1982, Beyond Positivism has become established as one of the definitive statements on economic methodology. The book's rejection of positivism and its advocacy of pluralism were to have a profound influence in the flowering of work methodology that has taken place in economics in the decade since its publication. This edition contains a new preface outlining the major developments in the area since the book's first appearance. The book provides the first comprehensive treatment of twentieth century philosophy of science which emphasizes the issues relevant to economics. It proceeds to demonstrate this relevance by reviewing some of the key debates in the area. Having concluded that positivism has to be rejected, the author examines possible alternative bases for economic methodology. Arguing that there is no best method, he advocates methodological pluralism.


Emotions of the employees of especially the sectors like banking, tourism, and health care, in which the interaction with the customers is at utmost importance, are expected by the businesses to be properly managed. While the display of emotions by the employees according to the demands of the organization in respect to the payments made has positive contributions to the businesses, it might affect the employees in a negative way. In this study, the relationship between the emotional labour and burnout displayed by the nurses, the employees of one of the career groups in which high level of interaction with the human beings occur, while working in their organizations. In the study, emotional labour and burnout levels of 136 nurses, serving in a community hospital, have been measured by using "Emotional Labour Scale" which was developed by Cukur (2009), and whose validity and reliability studies have been done in Turkey, with Maslach Burnout Inventory. In the result of the study, it has been determined that there is a correlation between Emotional Labour with its sub-dimensions, and burnout with its sub-dimensions


The Revolution Will Not Be Gray presents a selection of works that look both backward and forward at the shifting terrain of revolution, protest, and gestures of refusal. Examining the impetus to observe the world in strictly black-and-white terms, the exhibition reveals an intricate set of histories, politics, and identities, reminding us of the inherent power in the human voice. Featuring work by Andrea Bowers, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Claire Fontaine, Sharon Hayes, Iman Issa, Tony Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Carlos Motta, Pedro Reyes, Adam Pendleton, and Carey Young.


Cell organization, proliferation, and differentiation are impacted by diverse cues present in the cellular microenvironment. As a result, the surface of a material plays an important role in cellular function. Synthetic surfaces may be augmented by physical as well as chemical means. In particular, patterning and interfacial gradients may be utilized to mitigate the cellular response. Patterning is advantageous as it affords control over a range of feature sizes from several nanometers to millimeters. Gradients exist in vivo, for instance in stem cell niches, and the ability to create interfacial gradients in vitro can provide valuable insights into the influence of a series of minute surface changes on a single sample. This review focuses on fabrication methods for generating micro- and nanoscale surface patterns as well as interfacial gradients, the impact of these surface modifications on the cellular response, and the advantages and challenges of these surfaces in in vitro applications. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys., 2013


The demand for energy in Nigeria is usually met by burning fossil fuels such as charcoal, petroleum, natural gas, kerosene, etc. or by the use of electricity. These conventional energy sources are exhaustible, unstable and not environmentally friendly. Electricity generation in Nigeria is not sufficient enough to meet the demand for energy. This has often been blamed on lack of technical know-how, excess profiteering by marketers and large population size of the citizens. The seemingly alternative to these is burning of firewood. This however has its negative effects as exploitation of firewood will cause deforestation leading to desert formation in the country. Solar energy therefore appears to be the only veritable and viable alternative source of energy to heat water. It is inexhaustible, has no effect on the environment, and can be converted to many other forms of energy. Converting it to thermal energy in order to heat water is done with a solar water heating system. This work explores the use of solar energy to fulfil the hot water requirements in Nigeria and creates a model for the water heating system. Through modelling, the efficiency of the system and major factors affecting the system are determined. This project seeks to model a thermo-syphon system, which relates the effect of efficiency and also a gross area of the solar collector on the volumetric flow, from experimental results in Akure, Nigeria. Thermo-syphon systems, being the most suitable for the climate of Nigeria, were evaluated and analysed.  The result of the analysis shows that if the efficiency of the system is increased, the area is increased resulting in an increase in the volumetric flow, which can be used to evaluate the amount of water being heated per time. Keywords: Solar Energy; Solar Water Heating (SWH) System; Modelling, Volumetric Flow.


The ability to sequence mitochondrial genomes quickly and cheaply has led to an explosion in available mtDNA data. As a result, an expanding literature is exploring links between mtDNA features and susceptibility to, or prevalence of, a range of diseases. Unfortunately, this great technological power has not always been accompanied by great statistical responsibility. I will focus on one aspect of statistical analysis, multiple hypothesis correction, that is absolutely required, yet often absolutely ignored, for responsible interpretation of this literature. Many existing studies perform comparisons between incidences of a large number (N) of different mtDNA features and a given disease, reporting all those yielding p-values under 0.05 as significant links. But when many comparisons are performed, it is highly likely that several p-values under 0.05 will emerge, by chance, in the absence of any underlying link. A suitable correction (for example, Bonferroni correction, requiring p < 0.05/N) must therefore be employed to avoid reporting false positive results. The absence of such corrections means that there is good reason to believe that many links reported between mtDNA features and various diseases are false; a state of affairs that is profoundly negative both for fundamental biology and for public health. I will show that statistics matching those claimed to illustrate significant links can arise, with a high probability, when no such link exists, and that these claims should thus be discarded until results of suitable statistical power are provided. I also discuss some strategies for responsible analysis and interpretation of this literature.


We propose a mesh-based surface tracking method for fluid animation that both preserves fine surface details and robustly adjusts the topology of the surface in the presence of arbitrarily thin features like sheets and strands. We replace traditional re-sampling methods with a convex hull method for connecting surface features during topological changes. This technique permits arbitrarily thin fluid features with minimal re-sampling errors by reusing points from the original surface. We further reduce re-sampling artifacts with a subdivision-based mesh-stitching algorithm, and we use a higher order interpolating subdivision scheme to determine the location of any newly-created vertices. The resulting algorithm efficiently produces detailed fluid surfaces with arbitrarily thin features while maintaining a consistent topology with the underlying fluid simulation.


This essay responds to recent exigencies that ask scholars to honor histories of cultural rhetorics, engage in responsible and responsive cultural rhetorics conversations, and generate productive openings for future inquiry and practice. First, the authors open by paying homage to scholarship and programs that have made cultural rhetorics a disciplinary home. Next, they consider the varied ways in which "culture" and "rhetoric" interface in cultural rhetorics scholarship. The authors provide case studies of how cultural rhetorics inquiry shapes their scholarship across areas of rhetoric, composition, and technical communication. Finally, they close by discussing the ethics of doing cultural rhetorics work.


Current serving systems lack the ability to bulk load massive immutable data sets without affecting serving performance. The performance degradation is largely due to index creation and modification as CPU and memory resources are shared with request serving. We have extended Project Voldemort, a general-purpose distributed storage and serving system inspired by Amazon's Dynamo, to support bulk loading terabytes of read-only data. This extension constructs the index offline, by leveraging the fault tolerance and parallelism of Hadoop. Compared to MySQL, our compact storage format and data deployment pipeline scales to twice the request throughput while maintaining sub 5 ms median latency. At LinkedIn, the largest professional social network, this system has been running in production for more than 2 years and serves many of the data-intensive social features on the site.


This monograph introduces methods for handling filtering and control problems in nonlinear stochastic systems arising from network-induced phenomena consequent on limited communication capacity. Such phenomena include communication delay, packet dropout, signal quantization or saturation, randomly occurring nonlinearities and randomly occurring uncertainties.The text is self-contained, beginning with an introduction to nonlinear stochastic systems, network-induced phenomena and filtering and control, moving through a collection of the latest research results which focuses on the three aspects of: the state-of-the-art of nonlinear filtering and control; recent advances in recursive filtering and sliding mode control; and their potential for application in networked control systems, and concluding with some ideas for future research work. New concepts such as the randomly occurring uncertainty and the probability-constrained performance index are proposed to make the network models as realistic as possible. The power of combinations of such recent tools as the completing-the-square and sums-of-squares techniques, HamiltonJacobiIsaacs matrix inequalities, difference linear matrix inequalities and parameter-dependent matrix inequalities is exploited in treating the mathematical and computational challenges arising from nonlinearity and stochasticity.Nonlinear Stochastic Systems with Network-Induced Phenomena establishes a unified framework of control and filtering which will be of value to academic researchers in bringing structure to problems associated with an important class of networked system and offering new means of solving them. The significance of the new concepts, models and methods presented for practical control engineering and signal processing will also make it a valuable reference for engineers dealing with nonlinear control and filtering problems.


When you're looking for a satisfying, energizing snack that does not contain processed sweeteners or refined sugar, look no further than the delicious Blueberry Almond Unibar. Developed by Dr. Peter D'Adamo, author of Eat Right 4 Your Type, the Blueberry Almond Unibar is nutritious, pocket-sized snack suitable for all blood types (including secretor and nonsecretor). This wheat- and gluten-free bar is kosher and is a delicious bar to enjoy when you need a burst of energy between meals or as a healthy and quick meal replacement. Blueberry Almond Unibar contains 13 grams of protein so it metabolizes slowly. It is made from the purest, natural food ingredients and is sweetened by nature with organic Agave Nectar and is suitable for all blood types. (Each box contains 12 bars) NOTE: We do not accept returns of perishable food items. If you are not sure you will like this product, please try a single bar or two first.


We report results of a recent national survey of the Israeli environmental movement, assessing its activities, strategies, and financial viability. Since the early 1990s, the movement has undergone significant expansion, with numerous new organisations at both local and national levels. The movement is undergoing notable operational and ideological changes, and exhibiting tremendous capacity, cooperation, and increased sophistication. Yet, environmental NGOs still lack professional capabilities in key areas, greater inclusiveness of minority populations, and financial stability with sufficient funding from a diversity of Israeli donors. Key issues involving sustainability, such as consumption and overpopulation, still remain outside its agenda.


Oral administration of antigens has been proposed in the prevention and treatment of autoimmune diseases. We reported that oral administration of 0.8 mg of recombinant human insulin to 6-week-old NOD mice every other day for a month generated regulatory T-cells that were able to reduce the severity of insulitis and the percentage of clinical diabetes in naive irradiated recipients when co-injected with diabetogenic T-cells. In the present study, immunohistochemical analysis of the pancreatic glands revealed that injection of T-cells from insulin-fed mice upregulated the number of interleukin (IL)-4-secreting cells within the islets. Using two strains of NOD mice congenic at the Theta, or Thyl, locus, we observed a higher proportion of T-cells from insulin-fed mice in both the spleen (7.73 ± 0.3 vs. 5.57 ± 0.2%; P < 0.001) and the pancreatic lymph nodes (10.1 ± 0.8 vs. 7.2 ± 0.7%; P < 0.05) of cotransferred mice. By reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis, mice reconstituted with T-cells from insulin-fed animals had detectable amounts of IL- 4 mRNA, specifically in the pancreatic lymph nodes (8 of 9 experimental mice vs. 1 of 9 control mice) and the pancreas (3 of 3 experimental mice vs. 0 of 3 control mice). γ-Interferon mRNA was detectable in all cotransferred animals, but IL-10 mRNA and transforming growth factor β mRNA were undetectable. These results suggested a shift from a T-helper 1 (Thl) to a Th2 pattern of cytokine expression and underlined the role of pancreatic lymph nodes in the protection. Repeated injections of 500 ug s.c. of anti-IL-4 monoclonal antibody led to an accentuation of the severity of islet infiltration and to the development of clinical diabetes. We concluded that oral administration of insulin can induce the presence of regulatory T-cells in the pancreas and the corresponding draining lymph nodes, initiate the secretion of IL-4 in this microenvironment sufficiently to suppress the activity of Thl autoreactive T-cell clones, and ultimately provide protection against autoimmune diabetes.


The automotive industry has recently agreed upon the embedded software standard AUTOSAR, which structures an application into reusable components that can be deployed using a configuration scheme. However, this configuration takes place at design time, with no provision for dynamically installing components to reconfigure the system. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a dynamic component model that extends AUTOSAR with the possibility to add plug-in components at runtime. This opens up for shorter deployment time for new functions; opportunities for vehicles to participate in federated embedded systems; and involvement of third-party software developers.


During the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Team USA athlete Simone Biles withdrew from several gymnastics events midcompetition, citing mental health issues. Biles, one of the most recognizable stars of the Games, faced intense scrutiny from both the world's media and the general public in the immediate aftermath. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Facebook narrative surrounding Biles's withdrawal within the theoretical context of framing, as crafted through user comments on various public high-profile Facebook pages. A total of 87,714 user comments were collected and analyzed using the qualitative software Leximancer. The themes emerging from the data suggested a polarizing narrative, with many users supporting Biles, engaging in the wider discussion surrounding athlete mental health, while others condemned her action, suggesting she quit on the biggest sporting stage.


Cocaine is believed to exert its psychostimulant effects through activation of the mesocorticolimbic system. Although the nucleus accumbens, in particular, has been hypothesized as the site of action of cocaine's stimulating effects, there is no direct evidence that microinjection of cocaine into this region produces behavioral activation. The present experiments investigated the locomotor response to microinjection of cocaine (0, 10, 30, 100 micrograms/0.5 microliter) into the nucleus accumbens in rats. Cocaine elicited a pronounced, dose- dependent motor activation of approximately 60 min duration. This stimulant effect was blocked by prior administration of a dopamine (DA) receptor antagonist, cis-flupenthixol. The response to cocaine was differentiated from nucleus accumbens microinjections of procaine and lidocaine, compounds that have potent local anesthetic effects but little affinity for the dopamine-uptake site. Neither procaine nor lidocaine (0, 10, 30, 100 micrograms/0.5 microliter) had any overall effect, although activity was somewhat decreased in the initial part of the test session and increased at the end, relative to control activity. Cocaine injected into the anterior dorsal or ventrolateral striatum (100 micrograms) also increased motor activity; procaine and lidocaine had no effect. Cocaine injected into the ventrolateral striatum significantly increased stereotypy. The amplitude of motor activation following cocaine injection into nucleus accumbens was much greater than that elicited at the other striatal sites. Further, observation of the time course of motor activation following cocaine injection into the anterior dorsal and ventrolateral striatum suggested that the motor effect was due to diffusion, most likely to the nucleus accumbens.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Fourier analysis is a powerful tool for many problems, and especially for solving various differential equations of interest in science and engineering. In the present paper since the utilization of Zadeh's Extension principle is quite difficult in practice, we prefer the idea of level sets in order to construct a fuzzy-valued function on a closed interval via related membership function. We derive uniform convergence of a fuzzy-valued function sequences and series with level sets. Also we study Hukuhara differentiation and Henstock integration of a fuzzy-valued function with some necessary inclusions. Furthermore, Fourier series of periodic fuzzy-valued functions is defined and its complex form is given via sine and cosine fuzzy coefficients with an illustrative example. Finally, by using the Dirichlet kernel and its properties, we especially examine the convergence of Fourier series of fuzzy-valued functions at each point of discontinuity, where one-sided limits exist.


Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and John Edward Bruce: The Relationship of a Militant Black Journalist with the "Father of Civil Rights," and the "Wizard of Tuskegee."During the late nineteenth century, John Edward Bruce (1856-1924) was a leading Black journalist, a prominent Republican activist, and one of African America's foremost self-trained historians. Along with T. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928), Bruce, who also wrote under the pen name "Bruce Grit," was the most respected voice associated with the national Black press during his era. He had a tentative and sometimes volatile relationship with both Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) and Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). An aging giant in the struggle to liberate African Americans, Douglass was the generally acknowledged leader of the race until his death in 1895. Ironically, on a hot September afternoon in the same year, Washington's speech at the Atlanta Exposition catapulted him to fame, power, and ultimately a position of enormous influence in African American history and race relations. Bruce corresponded with both men, curried their favor, and challenged their ideas and actions. An examination of his association with these Black leaders provides a better understanding of two difficult areas in Bruce's life. His relationship with Douglass was an extension of a prolonged struggle with the Republican Party, while Washington's influence upon the Black press encouraged Bruce to compromise his editorial views.How did Bruce first meet Douglass? What was his response to the national debate on Douglass' marriage to Helen Pitts? How did Washington moderate Bruce's editorial opinions? What was Bruce's relationship with the Tuskegee Machine? This article will address these questions and chart the relationship between Bruce and two of the most powerful politicians in the African American political legacy.Bruce contended that he "knew Douglass from the earliest days in Washington, D.C." Douglass was publishing the New National Era. In 1869 this newspaper and The Colored Citizen, edited by John P. Sampson, were the only two Black newspapers in the District. According to Bruce, Douglass read one of his earlier articles, published under the pen name of the "Rising Sun," and hired him as a correspondent for the New National Era. While working for Douglass' publication, Bruce wrote under the pen name "Caleb Quotem."(2)The historian Benjamin Quarles has argued that Bruce was a consistent critic of Douglass, but Bruce's personal papers indicate that until 1884 he held the elder statesman in high regard. Two years earlier, Douglass' first wife, Anna Murray, had died of a stroke. Douglass rebounded from this tragedy by throwing himself into his work as the District's Recorder of Deeds. On January 25, 1884, Douglass married his second wife, Helen Pitts, a forty-five year old white clerk who worked in his office. "The marriage caused great strain within Douglass' family," according to his biographer William S. McFeely, and shocked many of his Black colleagues. McFeely wrote:...the young Douglasses...[saw] the idea of marriage...to someone who was not black, [as an] anathema to them. They had always known the importance to their father of his many close white friends, but it was only with his marriage that he seemed formally to have repudiated his family -- his children, their mother, and their mother's people -- all black people. In this feeling the Douglass children were joined by many black Americans, who felt betrayed by a leader they had so long admired.(3)Surprised by Douglass' new marriage, Bruce publicly articulated some of the frustration shared by his colleagues and friends. In an editorial entitled, "The Mistake of His Life," published in the Grit, Bruce declared: "We are opposed to colored men marrying second-rate white women...We do not believe that it adds anything to the character or good sense of either of the two races to intermarry. …


Autoregressive (AR) models are commonly obtained from the linear autocorrelation of a discrete-time signal to obtain an all-pole estimate of the signal's power spectrum. We are concerned with the dual, frequency-domain problem. We derive the relationship between the discrete-frequency linear autocorrelation of a spectrum and the temporal envelope of a signal. In particular, we focus on the real spectrum obtained by a type-I odd-length discrete cosine transform (DCT-Io) which leads to the all-pole envelope of the corresponding symmetric squared Hilbert temporal envelope. A compact linear algebra notation for the familiar concepts of AR modeling clearly reveals the dual symmetries between modeling in time and frequency domains. By using AR models in both domains in cascade, we can jointly estimate the temporal and spectral envelopes of a signal. We model the temporal envelope of the residual of regular AR modeling to efficiently capture signal structure in the most appropriate domain.


Ethnic inequality in education is a well-established topic among the scientific community. We assume that ethnic inequality is constituted early in life - before a child has even started school. Differences between natives and immigrants with regard to preschool attendance (if, when, and which preschool is attended) may account for some of the ethnic educational inequality upon entering school. We use the school entrance examination data of the City of Osnabruck (Germany) for the years 2000–2005 to analyse the school readiness of 6- to 7-year-old children as an indicator of early school success. It is apparent that the amount of preschool experience improves school readiness, even when controlling for family background. While this is true for all children, immigrant children nonetheless exhibit lower scores on school readiness when all these individual explaining factors are controlled for. Multilevel analysis shows that the ethnic effect differs among preschools. A preschool's influence depends on its social composition: preschools with a beneficial social composition are better able to promote children's development than those with a poorer learning context. Immigrant children benefit particularly from longer attendance at preschools with a positive context.


Attention! Learn more about your military now! Does a corporal have to salute a lieutenant or is it the other way around? What are forward-deployed units? Is an "armored cow" a type of tank or something soldiers eat? Are Polaris missiles dropped from the air or launched from a submarine? If someone calls you a "Cat 4" should you be honored or offended? Do you feel lost when it comes to all things military? Sure, you hear things on the news and maybe you know someone who is in the military, but you probably have a hard time fully grasping the acronyms, equipment, and protocol they discuss. That's where A Civilian's Guide to the U.S. Military can help. Author Barbara Schading decodes all things military for you. She discusses each branch-Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and the Coast Guard-in simple terms you can understand. You'll get the background information, an easy-to-read chart showing rank and insignia, and an explanation of the organization of each branch. In addition, the book has extensive glossaries that cover terms, acronyms, slang, and equipment. You'll find an entire chapter that covers special operations forces like the Green Berets, Force Recons, Army Rangers, and more. You'll learn about their specific training, missions, and history. The book also covers other important aspects of the military like: * flag and saluting etiquette * military funerals * the Tombs of the Unknown* the American Legion, USO, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other groups * military law * military academies * medals and decorations * official military music * an explanation of the Geneva Convention * and a list of resources to help you find more information So the next time you read the paper or talk with a new recruit, you don't have to feel lost. Become a knowledgeable civilian with the help of A Civilian's Guide to the U.S. Military.


Oxidative damage and inflammation are proposed to be involved in an age-related functional decline of exocrine glands. However, the molecular mechanism of how oxidative stress affects the secretory function of exocrine glands is unclear. We developed a novel mev-1 conditional transgenic mouse model (Tet-mev-1) using a modified tetracycline system (Tet-On/Off system). This mouse model demonstrated decreased tear production with morphological changes including leukocytic infiltration and fibrosis. We found that the mev-1 gene encodes Cyt-1, which is the cytochrome b560 large subunit of succinate-ubiquinone oxidoreductase in complex II of mitochondria (homologous to succinate dehydrogenase C subunit (SDHC) in humans). The mev-1 gene induced excessive oxidative stress associated with ocular surface epithelial damage and a decrease in protein and aqueous secretory function. This new model provides evidence that mitochondrial oxidative damage in the lacrimal gland induces lacrimal dysfunction resulting in dry eye disease. Tear volume in Tet-mev-1 mice was lower than in wild type mice and histopathological analyses showed the hallmarks of lacrimal gland inflammation by intense mononuclear leukocytic infiltration and fibrosis in the lacrimal gland of Tet-mev-1 mice. These findings strongly suggest that oxidative stress can be a causative factor for the development of dry eye disease.


BI (Business Intelligence) is considered as a top priority of enterprises in investment decisions on information systems. Deploying a BI system is very complex, not just installing software and hardware, its success depends on assessing the current situation, planning, analyzing and improving business processes. This study was conducted to identify the factors influence the readiness of deploying BI in enterprises using ERP systems. Base on that, we suggest some solutions to increase the readiness and availability to better support enterprises in preparing for BI system deployment in the future. We surveyed participants in the process of deploying and using ERP system in theirs companies at Ho Chi Minh City. The research uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to propose a research model, test model, discuss results and propose solutions. The experimental research results show that the readiness factors that enterprises need to pay attention to when deploying BI systems, in the order: Organization, Technology, Process and People.


Community-based management (CBM) has attracted much interest as a conservation and development strategy in natural resource-dependent communities in recent decades. However, most initiatives fail to achieve both objectives. The most analyzed CBM strategies in the literature include donor- and government-driven initiatives, but other types exist as well. The research objective was to identify the internal and external factors that influence the trade-offs between conservation and development in three internally driven CBM initiatives in Latin America: a long-term indigenous-based conservation strategy, the constitutional recognition of ancestral land rights of Afro-American communities and artisanal fisheries management. The results showed that livelihoods depend on natural resources, but none of the cases identified a balance between conservation and development. Community activities are not the primary cause of natural resource degradation. Conservation is supported by ethnicity and cultural values and is challenged by current development models and worldviews that push intensification of resource use and by power asymmetries. Internal pressures include limited rule compliance and enforcement authority to stop free-riding and unauthorized activities. Internal challenges for development include the lack of capacities, rigid rules and non-inclusive CBM, and the inertia and risk aversion that prevail in many communities. External challenges include the lack of economic incentives and compensation models that enable welfare opportunities linked to sustainable management


In the European projects SOLSILC and SPURT, a process is developed for the production of solar grade silicon (SOG-Si) by carbothermic reduction of silica, based on very pure raw materials. The purity of the raw materials greatly reduces the requirements on purification of the silicon, from dopants and other impurities. This paper reports the technology used for the Si production, which is suitable for the available high purity silica and carbon materials. It also reports results from the carbon removal process, which brings the carbon content of the silicon from several hundred ppmw to below 5 ppmw. Finally, it discusses experiments on the allowable impurity concentrations in SOGSi feedstock for directional solidification. Segregation observed during directional solidification is better than previously published, and allowable concentrations of Fe and Ti are similar to what was previously published for monocrystalline material by Westinghouse Corp.


Progress on the elimination of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa has come to a halt as the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa remains 12 votes from ratification in the African Union (AU). Also called the Maputo Protocol, the Protocol was formulated at the July 2003 conference of the AU in Maputo, Mozambique. Article 5 of this addendum to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights would prohibit, "through legislative measures backed by sanctions ... all forms of female genital mutilation." So far, only Comoros, Libya, and Rwanda have ratified this protocol though female genital mutilation is banned by legislation in 14 African countries. Before the AU can enforce the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa for all 53 members of the African Union, 15 member countries must adopt the protocol. Each year, two million girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab peninsula undergo FGM, a procedure that entails removal of part or all of the external female genitalia, often carried out in unsanitary conditions. Complications range from infection to death and because instruments are reused without sterilization, infections are transmitted from one woman to the other. Given the HIV/AIDS epidemic, efforts to eradicate this procedure have taken on a new sense of urgency. The main obstacles to the ratification of the Protocol and the eradication of FGM are tradition and poverty. Although FGM predates Islam, the two existed simultaneously for hundreds of years and some sects of Islam, specifically those in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Chad, in addition to parts of the Middle East, believe that FGM is a religious practice. In fact, contrary to this belief, modern Islamic movements, such as the Muslim Women's League, cite specific passages in the Quran that state that mutually satisfying sexual relations in marriage are a gift from Allah. Nevertheless, traditional religious and cultural ties to FGM persist. Adherents to FGM believe circumcision decreases a woman's sexual drive, thereby making her faithful and pure, augments a woman's fertility, improves her hygiene and aesthetic appeal, and creates binding sociological and cultural ties that she can never escape. To compound the problem, practitioners of FGM, or "cutters," encourage continuation of the practice because they often rely on performing circumcision for their livelihood. In Kenya, cutters earn approximately US$12.60 for each operation when 56 percent of other citizens earn less than US$1 per day. In September of 2004, Kenya hosted the international Nairobi conference to explore strategies for ending FGM. …


Housing is a central component of productive, healthy and meaningful lives, and a principle social determinant of broader health and wellbeing. Surprisingly though, evidence on the ways that housing influences health in Australia is poorly developed. The underdevelopment of housing and health knowledge in Australia stems largely from the fact that the majority of the population is accommodated in relatively good quality housing stock. The dominance of a 'good housing paradigm' means that households who live in poor quality and unhealthy housing are doubly disadvantaged – by the quality of their housing, and the fact that in Australia we do not adequately acknowledge health effects of housing. In this paper we examine the scale, health outcomes and populations most vulnerable to poor quality housing. We base our analysis on data from Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, a panel dataset that is representative across Australia. We find a sizeable, policyimportant, and to date under-acknowledged, cohort of Australians who live in poor condition dwellings. Further, this cohort is shown to have a high prevalence of existing health and socio-economic vulnerability.


There are many isoforms of phospholipase C (PLC), the enzyme that cleaves phosphatidylinositol 4,5 diphosphate (PIP2). PLC-β isoforms are activated by Gαq in response to activation of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The regulation of the PLC-δ isoforms is less well understood. Guo et al. present evidence to suggest that PLC-β2 maintains PLC-δ1 in an inactive state and that increased concentrations of the Gβγ disrupt the interaction between the two proteins, allowing PLC-δ1 to become active. This provides one model to explain how PLC-δ amplifies calcium signals initiated by PLC-β. Using a fluorescent probe covalently attached to PLC-β2, a direct association between PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1 was detected in vitro, and the affinity of the interaction was increased if the enzymes were immobilized on membranes. In vitro enzymatic activity was less than additive when both isoforms were present, suggesting that one or both enzymes were being inhibited. Using several different assay conditions, the authors determined that the activity of PLC-δ1 was inhibited by the presence of PLC-β2. The addition of Gβγ to the mixture of PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1 disrupted complex formation between the two enzymes in vitro and abolished inhibition of enzyme activity when the enzymes were mixed. Experiments with endogenously expressed PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1, as well as with cells transfected with versions of the proteins for bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC), indicated that both proteins localized at the plasma membrane in unstimulated cells. In the BiFC experiment, stimulation of the cells with acetylcholine, which activates muscarinic GPCRs, decreased the enzymes' interaction. In the transfected cells, inhibition of Gα with pertussis toxin, which allows Gβγ to accumulate, disrupted the interaction between PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1, and this disruption by increasing concentrations of Gβγ was reproducible in isolated membrane preparations from the BiFC-transfected cells. Thus, it appears that in cells expressing both PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1, PLC-β2 maintains PLC-δ1 in an inactive state, and this inhibition is relieved by the Gβγ subunits of the G proteins activated in response to GPCR stimulation. Thus G proteins have a dual role in producing a calcium signal: Gα stimulates PLC-β2 and Gβγ disrupts the PLC-β2 and PLC-δ1 complex, allowing PLC-δ1 to enhance the signal. Y. Guo, M. Rebecchi, S. Scarlata, Phospholipase Cβ2 binds to and inhibits phospholipase Cδ1. J. Biol. Chem. 280, 1438-1447 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Three new cationic amphiphiles bearing anthraquinone moieties at the polar headgroup region were synthesized. The single-chain amphiphile, N,N-dimethyl-N-octadecyl-N-(9,10-dihydro-9,10-dioxoanthracen-2-ylmethyl)ammonium bromide 1, in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide upon dispersion in water gave co-micellar aggregates containing covalently attached anthraquinone residues at the polar aqueous interfaces. The other two double-chain amphiphiles, N,N-dioctadecyl-N-methyl-N-(9,10-dihydro-9,10-dioxoanthracen-2-ylmethyl)ammonium bromide 2 and N,N-dimethyl-N-(1, 2-bispalmitoyloxypropanyl)-N-(9,10-dihydro-9,10-dioxanthracen-2-ylmethyl)ammonium bromide 3, however, on dispersion in aqueous media produced vesicular aggregates. The critical temperatures for the gel to liquid-crystalline-like phase transition processes for the vesicular systems were determined by following temperature-dependent changes in the ratios of keto–enol tautomeric forms of benzoylacetanilide doped within respective vesicular assemblies. The redox chemistry of the these supramolecular assemblies was also studied by following the time-dependent changes in the UV–VIS absorption spectroscopy in the presence of exogenous reducing or oxidizing agents. Electrochemical studies using glassy carbon electrodes reveal that redox-active amphiphiles adsorb on to the glassy carbon surfaces to form electroactive deposits when dipped into aqueous suspensions of either of these aggregates irrespective of the micellar or vesicular nature of the dispersions.


On the 11 th of July 2010; as funs watched the FIFA World Cup Finals around the world, two separate suicide bombings rocked Kampala, Uganda leading to the deaths of 79 people and injuring many others. Al-Shabaab, a fundamentalist group in Somalia immediately claimed responsibility. These events sparked widespread debate within scholarly circles as far as the counter-terrorism agenda in the Greater Horn of Africa is concerned. In recent years, terrorism has grown to become a vice of global magnitude. The Greater Horn of Africa has had its own share of terror attacks and terrorism-related activities since the late 1990s. The resilient anarchy in Somalia seems to have worsened the picture. Six years after the formation of the Transitional Federal Government in October 2004, Somalia is yet to have a fully operational government. This state of affairs, coupled with similar regional challenges made the Greater Horn an easy target for global crime syndicates- piracy, drugs and light weapons trafficking and most notably, international terrorism. Since late 2006, Somalia seems to be the epicentre of Islamic fundamentalism of the kind witnessed in the Middle-East in recent years. The countries in the region more often than not, are unable to tame the vice as they were plagued by internal challenges- active and/or potential conflicts amongst them.  It is against this background that this paper sought to explore the challenges facing the counter terrorism agenda in the Horn of Africa with a view to assessing the evolving terrorism threat with specific reference to Somalia and further charting the way forward on the same. The researcher arrived at the conclusion that; international terrorist activities are not a preserve of any single country. It has both short and long-term effect on almost any country. The structural features on which terrorism thrives; particularly poverty, ignorance, bad governance, disorder and insecurity all need to be addressed not only as "the Somali problem" but one that involves all state and non-state actors in the Greater Horn of Africa. This calls for concerted economic, political and security cooperation now and in future. Key words: Somalia, terrorism, Al-Shabaab


The aim of this paper is to provide clues to industry and academia on how best to approach the challenge of developing a sustainable supply chain. A case study was undertaken of the Westpac Banking Corporation—one of the world's most socially responsible banks—to examine how they approached the challenge of managing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their supply chain. This paper highlights some of the challenges and opportunities associated with extending corporate governance beyond the firm boundary. Specific attention is given to a discussion of assessment and governance tools.


Electromagnetic-based Wireless NanoSensor Networks (EM-WNSNs) operating in the Terahertz band (0.1 THz – 10 THz) will enable nano-scale applications and stimulate the evolution from the Internet of Things (IoT) to the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT). Data delivery, which is one of the key functionalities of EM-WNSNs, faces three major challenges that will affect network performance: the frequency-selective channel in the THz band due to molecular absorption, the limited ability to support networking functions due to their small size, and the limited bandwidth of the existing infrastructure for transferring sensed data to the Internet. However, to date, limited amount of research on data delivery has been done to address the peculiarities of IoNT from the networking perspective.  To fill the gap, in this thesis, data acquisition and dissemination solutions are studied for IoNT to improve the resource utilization efficiency during data delivery. Different from existing literatures that focus on standalone nanonetworks, this thesis investigates solutions for connecting nanodevices to the Internet.  In detail, the contributions of this thesis are composed of four components: First, a preliminary study namely the Channel-aware Forwarding (CForward) is conducted on multi-hop forwarding for THz networks; second, the On-demand Probabilistic polling (OP polling) is developed for IoNT with dynamic IoT bandwidth and channel conditions; third, a TTLbased Efficient Forwarding (TEForward) is designed for the polling-based nanonetworks under dynamic channel conditions; fourth, the Enhanced Adaptive Pulse Interval Scheduling (EAPIS) is implemented to collect data from event-based nanonetworks under limited IoT bandwidth.


Afghanistan is a country which has experienced years of conflict and war. This unrest has forced large numbers of Afghans into diasporas, Hazaras comprising one of these groups. Hazaras have mainly fled from rural Hazarajat to more urban areas in Pakistan. Marginalization of Hazaras in general and girls in particular, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, restricts their ability to, for example, access education and challenge traditional gender roles. However, in the authors' view, the change of locality is but one factor that has altered what kind of marginalization they experience, changing, among other things, the sentiments toward girls' education, as well as their access to schools. In analysing interviews conducted with Hazara parents, teachers and female students in Pakistan, the authors argue that this situation in a diaspora has made girls' education more accessible, and can be seen as an agent of change for both individuals and the Hazaras as a group.


No surprise?people with more education often earn higher incomes and are unemployed less than those with less education. Those with higher incomes also tend to accumulate more wealth. Why? Research shows that well-educated people tend to make financial decisions that help build wealth. Their strategies, though, can be used by anyone. Learn valuable tips in the January 2017 issue of Page One Economics.


Wound healing is a natural and spontaneous phenomenon that takes place in three orderly and timely interactive phases: inflammation, proliferation, and remodelling. Normal wound healing cascade begins immediately following injury. Tissue damage and the activation of clotting factors during the vascular phase stimulate the release of inflammatory mediators, such as prostaglandins and histamine, from cells such as mast cells. The transition from the inflammatory to the proliferative phase, the stage characterized by the filling of the wound with new connective tissues, is orchestrated by macrophages. A decrease in wound size is achieved by a combination of the physiological processes of granulation, contraction, and epithelialization. Reepithelialization phase rebuilds the structure while the remodeling phase involves the final form. Surgery in diabetic patients is associated with slow wound healing process and hence requiring longer hospital stay, higher health care resource utilization, and greater perioperative mortality than nondiabetic subjects. The exact pathogenesis of the poor wound healing process in diabetic patients is not clearly understood, but evidence from studies involving both human and animal models reveal increased rate of infections and several abnormalities in the various phases of wound healing process. With the worldwide diabetes incidence now considered to be increasing in an epidemic proportion, there is a growing need to search for novel drugs to combat diabetes and the associated disorders, such as wound complications.

Over 278 natural xanthones belonging to the plant families of Gentianaceae, Guttiferae, Moraceae, Clusiaceae, and Polygalaceae are known to occur. Most xanthones are polyphenols and hence regarded as powerful antioxidants that can offer beneficial health effect either by direct scavenging of reactive oxygen species or by acting as chain-breaking peroxyl radical scavengers. In addition to possessing antioxidant effects, xanthones have also been reported to be hepatoprotective, mutagenic, immunomodulatory, anticomplement, cardioprotective, antitumoral, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antiulcer, and analgesic agents. Smeathxanthone A is a unique xanthone that combines a polyphenolic skeleton with four free hydroxyl groups and a terpenoid geranyl structural moiety. Although the compound has previously been isolated in our laboratories from Garcinia smeathmanii, it has never been investigated for its potential antidiabetic properties. In the present communication, the blood glucose lowering and wound healing effects of smeathxanthone A in diabetic mice are reported.


This project sought to identify critical factors for successfully balancing viable cultural heritage tourism (enterprise with heritage conservation goals). Information was gathered from site visits and interviews with operators and cultural heritage managers. The outcomes will be of interest to government agencies and heritage tourism operators in the public and private sector.


Four original stories about witches for children just beginning to read. Featuring wicked, wily witches, these stories are guaranteed to delight children while developing their reading ability. Usborne Young Reading has been developed with reading experts from Roehampton University. The audio CD includes a dramatic listen-along recording with music and sound effects, followed by a read-along version with prompts for page turns.


Global warming in permafrost areas is expected to change fluxes of riverine organic carbon (OC) to the Arctic Ocean. Here OC concentrations, stable carbon isotope signatures (δ13C), and carbon‐nitrogen ratios (C/N) are presented from 22 sampling stations in the Lena River and 40 of its tributaries. Sampling was conducted during two expeditions: the first in July 2012 in the south and southeastern region and the second in June 2013 in the northern region of the Lena basin. The data showed significant spatial differences in concentrations and major sources of OC. Mean subcatchment slopes were correlated with OC concentrations, implying that mountainous areas in general had lower concentrations than lowland areas. δ13C and C/N data from tributaries originating in mountainous areas indicated that both dissolved and particulate OC (DOC and POC) were mainly derived from soil organic matter (SOM). In contrast, tributaries originating in lowland areas had larger contributions from fresh vegetation to DOC, while aquatically produced OC was the major source of POC. We suggest that these differences in dominant sources indicated differences in dominant flow pathways. Tributaries with larger influence of fresh vegetation probably had surficial flow pathways, while tributaries with more SOM influence had deeper water flow pathways. Thus, the future export of OC to the Arctic Ocean will likely be controlled by changes in spatial patterns in hydroclimatology and the depth of the active layers influencing the dominant water flow pathways in Arctic river basins.