This study aimed to characterise the bacterial community composition and abundance in the River Wensum in Norfolk using epifluorescence microscopy (EFM), automated ribosomal intergenic analysis (ARISA) and 454 pyrosequencing. It also aimed to determine the effects of spatial and temporal variations and environmental factors on bacterial community composition and abundance in this intensively farmed lowland catchment. The three techniques provided the same trends in bacterial community composition and abundance across the Wensum catchment. Total bacterial numbers ranged from 0.21 × 106 cells/mL to 5.34 × 106 cells/mL (mean = 1.1 × 106 cells/mL). The bacterial community composition and abundance showed significant differences between sites and times and were related to environmental parameters, with temperature and flow rate explaining most of the variation in bacterial community composition and abundance. Bacterial abundance increases as water moves downstream, while bacterial diversity decreases as water moves downstream. Some operational taxonomic units (OTUs) become commoner as the water moves downstream (3rd and 4th order streams). This presumably reflects the fact that these bacteria are actively growing in the river, and reducing the abundance of other taxa. Consequently, the community becomes less diverse moving downstream, although a small number of sites do not fit this pattern. The River Wensum is dominated by the phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria and Actinobacteria. Members of these phyla are well known to be responsible for biogeochemical processes, such as nitrogen cycling. The commonest bacteria at upstream sites were Proteobacteria (OTUs 2 and 4), Deltaproteobacteria (OTU29), Gammaproteobacteria (OTU32), Sphingobacteria (OUT9) and Flavobacteria (OTUs 12 and 23). Most OTUs (2, 9, 17, 29 and 32) are considered to be soil bacteria, suggesting that these bacteria are terrestrial in origin and are flushed into the lower order streams. Most of the upstream bacteria showed positive relationships with total nitrogen (TN) and total carbon (TC) and the presence of arable areas. On the other hand, the commonest bacteria at downstream sites were Cyanobacteria (OTU1), Flavobacteria (OTUs 3, 10 and 19), Cytophagia (OTU14), Actinobacteria (OTUs 20, 21 and 25) and Alphaproteobacteria (OTU26). Most of the downstream bacterial OTUs showed a positive relationship with TP and the presence of urban areas. The results of this research, however, do not provide strong evidence that competition is an important process structuring these bacterial communities. In addition, the correlations between environmental parameters and bacterial composition and abundance are not strong and do not clearly distinguish the most impacted sites from others. This suggests that bacterial community composition cannot be used as an indicator of the ecological status to assess compliance with Water Framework Directive (WFD) in a moderately impacted lowland catchment like the Wensum.


The state attaches great importance to the issue of the right to the use of rural land. At present, China is carrying out a large-scale mapping and confirmation of rural house sites and rural houses. The traditional measurement method mainly adopts total station or RTK manual measurement method, which is characterized by high work intensity, complex operation procedure and laborconsuming. There are hundreds of thousands of villages in China. With the development of science and technology, it is an inevitable trend to use new technologies in rural cadastral surveys to improve their efficiency and quality. LiDAR scanning technology has the advantages of high efficiency, flexibility, reliability, and high accuracy, which meet the requirements of tasks and schedules that are difficult to complete with traditional measurement methods. This paper is based on the AS-300H multi-platform LiDAR system of Huace Navigation, which integrates UAV and vehicle LiDAR for cadastral surveying and mapping. It proves that LiDAR using in rural cadastral mapping has low labor intensity, high efficiency and accuracy. At the same time, the advantages and disadvantages of LiDAR technology for cadastral mapping are also summarized and elaborated, which has a good reference and significance for those who are currently conducting rural housing and cadastral mapping work.


The fragility of thin Clark‐type glass microelectrodes used in aquatic eddy covariance measurements of benthic oxygen fluxes is a challenge when using this powerful technique. This study presents a new fast‐responding dual oxygen‐temperature sensor for eddy covariance measurements that is far more robust. Response time tests in the lab, where the sensor was inserted from air into water, revealed 90% response times of 0.51 s and 0.34 s for oxygen and temperature measurements, respectively. In wave tank tests, the new sensor showed no stirring sensitivity in contrast to Clark‐type microelectrodes. Other tests in a flume and in a particle‐free water tank revealed how close the sensor can be positioned to the measuring volume of the Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter without disturbing velocity recordings. In field tests at river sites, all > 24 h, the new sensor recorded high‐quality eddy covariance data for the entire deployment. Similar positive results were obtained in deployments at a marine site with unidirectional current flow overlaid with minor wave action. Concurrently deployed eddy covariance systems based on the new sensor and a traditional Clark‐type microelectrode revealed that they recorded statistically equivalent fluxes and similar velocity‐oxygen cospectra until the microelectrode broke after 2 h. The significant increase in robustness of the new sensor was achieved by relying on a larger sensor tip. This put some constrains on how the sensor should be deployed and fluxes extracted, but given the substantial gain in performance, it is a viable alternative for eddy covariance measurements in many aquatic environments.


Life oil earth was formed during billions of years, exposed to, and shaped by the original physical forces such as gravitation, cosmic irradiation, atmospheric electric fields and the terrestrial magnetism. The Schumann resonances at 7.4 Hz are all example of oscillations possibly important for life.(1)) The existing organisms are created to function in harmony with these forces. However, in the late 19th century mankind introduced the use of electricity, in the early 20th century long-wave radio and in the 1940-ies short-wave radio. High frequency RF was introduced in the 50-ies as FM and television and during the very last decades, microwaves of the modern communication society spread around the world. Today, however, one third of the world's population is owner of the microwave-producing mobile phones and an even larger number is exposed to the cordless RF emitting systems. To what; extent are all living organisms affected by these, almost everywhere present radio frequency fields? And what will be the effects of many years of continuing exposure? Since 1989 Our group has studied the effects upon the mammalian blood-brain barrier (BBB) in rats by non-thermal radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). These have been shown to cause significantly increased leak-age of the rats' own blood albumin through the BBB of exposed rats, at energy levels of 1W/kg and below, as compared to non-exposed animals in a total series of about two thousand animals.(2)-6)) One remarkable observation is the fact that the lowest energy levels, with whole-body average power densities below 10mW/kg, give rise to the most pronounced albumin leakage. If mobile communication, even at extremely low energy levels, causes the users' own albumin to leak out through the BBB, also other unwanted and toxic molecules in the blood, may leak into the brain tissue and concentrate in and damage the neurons and glial cells of the brain. In later studies we have shown that a 2-h exposure to GSM 915 MHz, at non-thermal SAB-values of 0.2, 2 and 200 mW/kg, gives rise to significant neuronal damage, seen not only 50 days after the exposure 7) but also after 28 days but not after 14 days. Albumin extravasations and uptake into neurons was enhanced after 14 clays, but not after 28.(8)) in our continued research, also the non-thermal effects oil tissue structure and memory function of long-term exposure for 13 months are studied.(9)) We have also performed microarray analysis of brains from rats exposed to short term GSM both at 1,800 MHz and at 900MHz and have found significant effects upon gene expression of membrane associated genes as compared to control animals.(10),11)) Most of our findings support that living organisms are affected by the non-thermal radio frequency fields. Some other Studies agree while others find no effects. The mechanisms by which the EMFs may alter BBB permeability are not Well Understood. At low field strengths, the effects on body temperature are negligible and thus heating effects are not involved. A change in the physicochemical characteristics of membranes has been suggested as a cause.(12)) We have performed experiments to verify a quantum mechanical model for interaction with protein-bound ions. Our results show that controlled frequency and amplitude of ELF EM fields upon spinach plasma vesicles can steer transport over the membrane.(13)) This may be a first proof of a resonance phenomenon where appropriate levels of frequency and amplitude in the right combination have the potency to communicate with the biology of membranes and transport systems. Our study has prompted Lis to elaborate on magnetic resonance models; the Ion Cyclotron Resonance (ICR) model and the Ion Parametric Resonance (IPR) Model in an attempt to explain the occurrence of resonance frequencies. This is extensively described here under the heading: Mechanisms behind the effects of electromagnetical fields upon biology. We also bring forward the concept of solitons being active in membranes and DNA/RNA-transcription as a, possible mean to understand and prove the biological effects of EMF. The Nishinomiya-Yukawa International and Interdisciplinary Symposium 2007 raised the question: What is Life? An obvious and simple answer could be: It is DNA! The DNA strand can be looked upon as an antenna resonating in the microwave band 6GHz with its harmonics and subharmonics.(14)-18)) If this holds true, the dramatic situation might exist, that all living organisms have a receptor for the newly constructed and world-wide man-made microvaves, leading to a direct effect upon the function of DNA - in concordance with our experimental findings! Our generation invented the microwave emitters. We now have in imperative obligation to further investigate the links between EMF and biology in order to prevent possible detrimental effects of the microwaves. (Less)


Background: The previously mobile child who refuses to walk or weight-bear is a common presentation to the accident and emergency department, for which there are a number of causes. One uncommon cause is discitis, an inflammatory process of the intervertebral disc, which is easily diagnosed with spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A case series of three patients is presented of non-weight-bearing children in whom there was a delay in making the diagnosis of lumbosacral discitis. None presented with back pain, spinal symptoms or abnormal neurological findings, and a full range of movement of both hips was found. Methods: All patients underwent conventional radiography and ultrasound, but diagnoses were made on spinal MRI, with two patients undergoing bone scintigraphy before this. Results: The mean delay was 15.6 days (range 13–20) from presentation at the hospital to MRI. All three patients made a good clinical recovery with intravenous antibiotics. Conclusion: These cases are presented in order to heighten the awareness of this disease entity and its imaging findings, and suggest new guidelines for the appropriate radiological investigations in this clinical setting.


A few years ago in the archives of the William Eggleston Artistic Trust in Memphis, a box was found containing Eggleston's earliest photography remarkably in black and white. The photos were subsequently exhibited at Cheim & Read gallery in New York and sold. This book reunites these photos in their entirety, and shows the artistic beginnings of a pioneer of contemporary photography. In the late 1950s Eggleston began photographing suburban Memphis using high-speed 35 mm black and white film, developing the style and motifs that would come to shape his pivotal colour work including diners, supermarkets, domestic interiors and people engaged in seemingly trivial and banal situations. Now, fifty years later, all the plates in Before Color have been scanned from vintage prints developed by Eggleston in his own darkroom. In the mid 1960s Eggleston discovered colour film and was quickly satisfied with the results: And by God, it worked. Just overnight. Eggleston then abandoned black and white photography, but its fundamental influence on his practice is undeniable. William Eggleston, born in 1939 in Memphis, is one of the most important contemporary American photographers. From the 1970s onwards, his work has significantly contributed to the recognition of colour photography as an artistic medium. Eggleston has published his work extensively, and it has been shown in many major exhibitions around the world. He continues to live and work in Memphis, and travels considerably for photographic projects.


SYNOPSIS: We synthesize the results of existing auditor independence research and provide commentary on the implications for two primary audiences: policy makers who consider research findings in formulating independence requirements for public company auditors and academics whose research can help inform policy makers. Our review of the independence literature suggests that extant research, though limited in scope, does not provide strong evidence that the prohibitions and requirements imbedded in the current independence rules for public company auditors are strongly correlated with independence in fact. However, some prohibitions and requirements do appear to improve perceived independence—at least in the pre-SOX era. In response, we highlight a number of issues that policy makers might consider in trying to achieve a balance between cost and benefit. Further, because policy formulation benefits from research, we highlight numerous opportunities for future research that could drive policy formulation, ...


The Optical Unconscious is a pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. The account of modernism presented here challenges the vaunted principle of "vision itself." And it is a very different story than we have ever read, not only because its insurgent plot and characters rise from below the calm surface of the known and law-like field of modernist painting, but because the voice is unlike anything we have heard before. Just as the artists of the optical unconscious assaulted the idea of autonomy and visual mastery, Rosalind Krauss abandons the historian's voice of objective detachment and forges a new style of writing in this book: art history that insinuates diary and art theory, and that has the gait and tone of fiction. The Optical Unconscious will be deeply vexing to modernism's standard-bearers, and to readers who have accepted the foundational principles on which their aesthetic is based. Krauss also gives us the story that Alfred Barr, Meyer Shapiro, and Clement Greenberg repressed, the story of a small, disparate group of artists who defied modernism's most cherished self-descriptions, giving rise to an unruly, disruptive force that persistently haunted the field of modernism from the 1920s to the 1950s and continues to disrupt it today. In order to understand why modernism had to repress the optical unconscious, Krauss eavesdrops on Roger Fry in the salons of Bloomsbury, and spies on the toddler John Ruskin as he amuses himself with the patterns of a rug; we find her in the living room of Clement Greenberg as he complains about "smart Jewish girls with their typewriters" in the 1960s, and in colloquy with Michael Fried about Frank Stella's love of baseball. Along the way, there are also narrative encounters with Freud, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. To embody this optical unconscious, Krauss turns to the pages of Max Ernst's collage novels, to Marcel Duchamp's hypnotic Rotoreliefs, to Eva Hesse's luminous sculptures, and to Cy Twombly's, Andy Warhol's, and Robert Morris's scandalous decoding of Jackson Pollock's drip pictures as "Anti-Form." These artists introduced a new set of values into the field of twentieth-century art, offering ready-made images of obsessional fantasy in place of modernism's intentionality and unexamined compulsions.


The practice of unit testing enables programmers to obtain automated feedback on whether a currently edited program is consistent with the expectations specified in test cases. Feedback is most valuable when it happens immediately, as defects can be corrected instantly before they become harder to fix. With growing and longer running test suites, however, feedback is obtained less frequently and lags behind program changes.
The objective of test prioritization is to rank tests so that defects, if present, are found as early as possible or with the least costs. While there are numerous static approaches that output a ranking of tests solely based on the current version of a program, we focus on change-based test prioritization, which recommends tests that likely fail in response to the most recent program change. The canonical approach relies on coverage data and prioritizes tests that cover the changed region, but obtaining and updating coverage data is costly. More recently, information retrieval techniques that exploit overlapping vocabulary between change and tests have proven to be powerful, yet lightweight.
In this work, we demonstrate the capabilities of information retrieval for prioritizing tests in dynamic programming languages using Python as example. We discuss and measure previously understudied variation points, including how contextual information around a program change can be used, and design alternatives to the widespread \emph{TF-IDF} retrieval model tailored to retrieving failing tests.
To obtain program changes with associated test failures, we designed a tool that generates a large set of faulty changes from version history along with their test results. Using this data set, we compared existing and new lexical prioritization strategies using four open-source Python projects, showing large improvements over untreated and random test orders and results consistent with related work in statically typed languages.
We conclude that lightweight IR-based prioritization strategies are effective tools to predict failing tests in the absence of coverage data or when static analysis is intractable like in dynamic languages. This knowledge can benefit both individual programmers that rely on fast feedback, as well as operators of continuous integration infrastructure, where resources can be freed sooner by detecting defects earlier in the build cycle.


Air traffic flow management is one of the fundamental challenges facing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today. The FAA estimates that in 2005 alone, there were over 322,000 hours of delays at a cost to the industry in excess of three billion dollars. Finding reliable and adaptive solutions to the flow management problem is of paramount importance if the Next Generation Air Transportation Systems are to achieve the stated goal of accommodating three times the current traffic volume. This problem is particularly complex as it requires the integration and/or coordination of many factors including: new data (e.g., changing weather info), potentially conflicting priorities (e.g., different airlines), limited resources (e.g., air traffic controllers) and very heavy traffic volume (e.g., over 40,000 flights over the US airspace).
 In this paper we use FACET -- an air traffic flow simulator developed at NASA and used extensively by the FAA and industry -- to test a multi-agent algorithm for traffic flow management. An agent is associated with a fix (a specific location in 2D space) and its action consists of setting the separation required among the airplanes going though that fix. Agents use reinforcement learning to set this separation and their actions speed up or slow down traffic to manage congestion. Our FACET based results show that agents receiving personalized rewards reduce congestion by up to 45% over agents receiving a global reward and by up to 67% over a current industry approach (Monte Carlo estimation).


New efficient vaccines against infectious diseases are in demand. Some important factors impeding the vaccine development are the poor immunogenicity and the MHC restriction of the immune responses to a number of antigens. The use of novel vaccine adjuvants or carrier proteins, which are known to enhance the immunogenicity of the subunit antigens and provide T-cell help, can circumvent these problems. The potential of heat shock proteins (HSPs) to function as adjuvants when fused to or co-delivered with protein antigens, make them attractive vaccine candidates. In this thesis we have evaluated the potency of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) as a possible vaccine adjuvant and studied the mechanisms behind the adjuvanticity.The first article aims to evaluate the carrier effect of glutathione-S-transferase (GST) on a malarial antigen EB200 that induces a MHC restricted response in mice. Immunization of CBA and C57BL/6 mice, high and low responders to EB200, respectively, with the GST-EB200 fusion protein elicited EB200 specific antibody responses in both strains of mice, which indicated that MHC restriction was broken in C57BL/6 mice. However, the antibody affinity and the magnitude of the response were lower in the C57BL/6 mice compared with that in CBA. To improve the response, the efficacy of various adjuvants like alum, HSP70 from Trypanosoma cruzi, and the adjuvant combination (HSP70 and cholera toxin) was evaluated. The results indicated that cholera toxin and HSP70 act synergistically and improve the immunogenicity of EB200 antigen by increasing the affinity and magnitude of the response.HSP belongs to a family of conserved molecules and the maximum homology lies on the N-terminal region of the protein, therefore there is a risk that use of a complete molecule would give rise to autoimmunity. Thus, in our second study we first evaluated the adjuvant effect of the less conserved portion of HSP70 derived from Plasmodium falciparum (Pf70C). We found that the Pf70C exhibited similar adjuvant properties as the whole molecule. We further analyzed the adjuvant potential of Pf70C against EB200 formulated as a chimeric DNA vaccine construct. These constructs alone failed to generate substantial levels of EB200 specific antibodies in mice. However, the DNA immunization efficiently primed the immune system. This was evident as the subsequent boosting with the corresponding recombinant fusion proteins Pf70C-EB200 elicited strong EB200 specific Th-1 antibody responses. In contrast, no such priming effect was observed for ex vivo IFN-γ production, however stimulation with the Pf70C-EB200 fusion protein induced an enhanced secretion of IFN-γ in vitro.During the infection process, the synthesis of bacterial HSP is up-regulated, which is known to sensitize T cells in the infected host. Since a high degree of homology exists within the phylogenetic families of HSPs, we postulated that exposure of mice to microorganisms could prime the immune system for evolutionary diverse HSPs and for any antigen coupled to them. We tested this hypothesis by priming mice with different microorganisms such as BCG, Mycobacterium vaccae or Chlamydia pneumoniae and boosted with a recombinant fusion protein Pf70C-EB200 or with a panel of HSPs. We found that BCG and M. vaccae but not C. pneumoniae could provide priming of the immune system to induce secondary IgG responses to Pf70C as well as to other HSPs tested. The priming effect was also observed when the EB200 antigen was coupled to Pf70C. Analysis of the IgG1 and IgG2a profiles and IFN-g production induced against the HSPs revealed a mixture of Th1/Th2 type of responses. We also observed that HSP70 specific sera cross-reacted some extent with certain autoreactive antigens. However, no deposits were observed in the kidneys of HSP treated animals.Finally, we investigated the role of TLR2 and TLR4 on HSP70-mediated adjuvanticity. We found that HSPs displayed different degrees of adjuvanticity regarding both the strength and the profile of the induced immune response. Also, they possessed different requirements for signaling through TLRs. While HSP70 from T. cruzi induced antigen-specific humoral responses in wild type as well as in both the TLR2 and TLR4 knockout mice, the response was diminished in the TLR4 knockout mice when both the whole and C-terminal fragment of HSP70 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis was used. However, the C-terminal fragment of P. falciparum HSP70 elicited responses only in wild type mice but not in TLR2 or TLR4 knockout mice indicating that the adjuvant function differ for phylogenetically related HSPs. Taken together our data suggest that HSPs can be promising candidates in future vaccines.


Extracting useful knowledge from large network datasets has become a fundamental challenge in many domains, from scientific literature to social networks and the web. We introduce Apolo, a system that uses a mixed-initiative approach— combining visualization, rich user interaction and machine learning—to guide the user to incrementally and interactively explore large network data and make sense of it. Apolo engages the user in bottom-up sensemaking to gradually build up an understanding over time by starting small, rather than starting big and drilling down. Apolo also helps users find relevant information by specifying exemplars, and then using a machine learning method called Belief Propagation to infer which other nodes may be of interest. We evaluated Apolo with twelve participants in a between-subjects study, with the task being to find relevant new papers to update an existing survey paper. Using expert judges, participants using Apolo found significantly more relevant papers. Subjective feedback of Apolo was also very positive.


The answer to the question 'who am I?' is of fundamental importance to being human. Answers to this question have traditionally been sought from various disciplines and sources, which include empirical sources, such as biology and sociology, and phenomenological sources, such as psychology and religion. Although the approaches are varied, they have the notion of foundational truth, whether from an objective or subjective perspective, in common. The question of human identity that is the subject of this paper is germinated from the title of a book by WITS academic, Ivor Chipkin, entitled, Do South Africans exist? Nationalism, democracy and the identity of 'the people' (2007). This paper does not discuss Chipkin's thoughts on nationalism and democracy; however, it considered the matter of human identity that is raised by his question. The approach taken by this paper on the notion of identity was significantly influenced by Brian McLaren's postmodernist approach to Christian doctrine as outlined in his book A generous orthodoxy (2004) – a term coined by Yale Theologian, Hans Frei. The inadequacies of traditional approaches to human identity and consciousness that are based upon 'foundational knowledge' were thus considered. Both subjective and objective approaches to identity were touched upon, showing the weaknesses of these approaches in dealing with the complex nature of true human identity. The paper then presented an integrative framework for individual consciousness that is not static or ultimately quantifiable, but rather formulated in the process of mutual discovery that arises from a shared journey. The approach presented here drew strongly upon the groundbreaking work of Ken Wilber and Eugene de Quincey and related their ontological systems to the intersubjective approach to identity that can be found in the African philosophy and theology of 'ubuntu'. This paper focused on how the ethics and theology of this indigenous knowledge system can contribute toward overcoming the impasse of validating individual identity in contemporary academic debates on human consciousness.


The process by which scholarly papers are selected for publication in a journal is faced with serious problems. The referees rarely agree and often are biased. This paper discusses two alternative measures to evaluate scholars. The first alternative suggests input control. The second one proposes that the referees should decide only whether a paper reaches a minimal level of quality. Within the resulting set, each paper should be chosen randomly. This procedure has advantages but also disadvantages. The more weight that is given to input control and random mechanism, the more likely it is that unconventional and innovative articles are published.


Given that a majority of stars form in multiple systems, in order to fully understand the star- and planet-formation processes we must seek to understand them in multiple stellar systems. With this in mind, we present an analysis of the enigmatic binary T-Tauri system VV Corona Australis, in which both components host discs, but only one is visible at optical wavelengths. We seek to understand the peculiarities of this system by searching for a model for the binary which explains all the available continuum observations of the system. We present new mid-infrared interferometry and near-infrared spectroscopy along with archival millimetre-wave observations, which resolve the binary at 1.3mm for the first time. We compute a grid of pre-main-sequence radiative transfer models and calculate their posterior probabilities given the observed spectral energy distributions and mid-infrared interferometric visibilities of the binary components, beginning with the assumption that the only differences between the two components are their inclination and position angles. Our best-fitting solution corresponds to a relatively low luminosity T-tauri binary, with each component's disc having a large scale height and viewed at moderate inclination ($\sim 50^\circ$), with the infrared companion inclined by $\sim 5^\circ$ degrees more than the primary. Comparing the results of our model to evolutionary models suggests stellar masses $\sim 1.7$M$_\odot$ and an age for the system of 3.5Myr, towards the upper end of previous estimates. Combining these results with accretion indicators from near-IR spectroscopy, we determine an accretion rate of 4.0$\times 10^{-8}$M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ for the primary. We suggest that future observations of VV~CrA and similar systems should prioritise high angular resolution sub-mm and near-IR imaging of the discs and high resolution optical/NIR spectroscopy of the central stars.


El (Eleazar) Lissitzky (1890-1941) was a vital force in the revolutionary period in Russia. Having first trained in engineering and architecture and later becoming a painter and illustrator, his creative activity ranged across disciplines. This he called 'the interchange station between painting and architecture', and it made him enormously influential - as a painter, graphic designer, teacher, propagandist, exhibition designer, and also as an architectural theorist. Lissitzky had studied in Germany before the Russian Revolution, and after it he became a vital link between Soviet culture and Western art groups, travelling officially to present Soviet art in the West, but at the same time contacting many leading figures in Western art, including the De Stilj group in Holland, Dadaists in Switzerland and Germany, and artists and designers at the Bauhaus, as well as architects with international aims. He was a tireless creative force, and a determined traveller who brought many collaborative projects to a fruitful conclusion that involved connections across the political East-West division of Europe. Yet this determined and dynamic man suffered grievously from tuberculosis. From the sanatorium he still sent witty letters and drawings to his wife Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers in Russia. In his last year he turned his abilities to designing Soviet trade fairs and, briefly, to propagandist war posters. The "Design" series is the winner of the Brand/Series Identity Category at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2009, judges said: 'A series of books about design, they had to be good and these are. The branding is consistent, there is a good use of typography and the covers are superb.'


Scientific Research Journal of India(SRJI) is the official organ of Dr.L.Sharma Medical Care and Educational Development Society. Scientific Research Journal of India is a Multidisciplinary, Peer Reviewed, Open Access,  Journal of science. The scope of journal is therefore necessarily broad to cover recent discoveries in structural and functional principles of scientific research. It encourage and provide a forum for the publication of research work in different fields of pure and applied sciences. The Journal publishes selected original research articles , reviews ,short communication and book reviews in the fields of Botany, Zoology, Medical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences, Anthropology and any other branch of related sciences. The Journal is regularly published and issued quarterly.


This paper applies the overreaction hypothesis of De Bont and Thaler [De Bont, W., Thaler, R., 1985. Does stock market overreact? Journal of Finance 40(3), 793–805], developed for stock price behavior, to capital flows to emerging markets. We find that a surge in capital flows, or what we call a capital boom, can predict future sharp contractions in capital flows, or sudden stops. We use a large list of possible economic fundamentals as control variables, and the results show that the best predictor of a sudden stop is a preceding capital boom. Moreover, the probability of a country undergoing a sudden stop increases considerably with the length of the boom: this probability more than doubles when the boom is three years old, and rises by three to four times when the boom lasts for four years. These results are interesting for two reasons. In the first place, they contradict previous studies that emphasize worsening fundamentals as the ultimate cause of a sudden stop. Second, they are of policy interest because of the enormous negative impacts that sudden stops have on the real economy. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ree for useful comments to an earlier draft. They are also thankful for the the Central Bank of Chile, the Department of Economics of the University of n and Caribbean Economic Associacition (LACEA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Business of the University of Groningen. Franklin Huaita is thankful to 21050491. Oficina 1501, Santiago, Chile. Tel.: þ56 2 978 3984.


Recent revisions to the biostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic assignment of strata from the type area of the Niagaran Provincial Series (a regional chronostratigraphic unit) have demonstrated the need to revise the chronostratigraphic correlation of the Silurian System of North America. Recently, the working group to restudy the base of the Wenlock Series has developed an extremely high-resolution global chronostratigraphy for the Telychian and Sheinwoodian stages by integrating graptolite and conodont biostratigraphy with carbonate carbon isotope (delta 13C(carb)) chemostratigraphy. This improved global chronostratigraphy has required such significant chronostratigraphic revisions to the North American succession that much of the Silurian System in North America is currently in a state of flux and needs further refinement. This report serves as an update of the progress on recalibrating the global chronostratigraphic correlation of North American Provincial Series and Stage boundaries in their type area. The revised North American classification is correlated with global series and stages as well as regional classifications used in the United Kingdom, the East Baltic, Australia, China, the Barrandian, and Altaj. Twenty-four potential stage slices, based primarily on graptolite and conodont zones and correlated to the global series and stages, are illustrated alongside a new composite delta 13C(carb) curve for the Silurian. Conodont, graptolite, isotope, New York, Ontario, series, Silurian, stage. (Less)


The Baltic Sea is a marginal sea, located in a highly industrialized region in Central Northern Europe. Saltwater inflows from the North Sea and associated ventilation of the deep exert crucial control on the entire Baltic Sea ecosystem. This study explores the impact of anticipated sea level changes on the dynamics of those inflows. We use a numerical oceanic general circulation model covering both the Baltic and the North Sea. The model successfully retraces the essential ventilation dynamics throughout the period 1961–2007. A suite of idealized experiments suggests that rising sea level is associated with intensified ventilation as saltwater inflows become stronger, longer, and more frequent. Expressed quantitatively as a salinity increase in the deep central Baltic Sea, we find that a sea level rise of 1 m triggers a saltening of more than 1 PSU. This substantial increase in ventilation is the consequence of the increasing cross section in the Danish Straits amplified by a reduction of vertical mixing


This thesis contributes to the understanding of how to create organizational change and innovation in companies of the Norwegian Architects, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. The thesis, then, inquires into the conditions necessary for how the collective practice of collaboration and execution in building projects can be changed emphasizing the emancipatory potential of conversations in arenas for dialogue. The aim is to achieve new useful collective practice in projects, which in the end entails increased competitiveness for the companies involved. This implies that organizational change and innovation ultimately encompass the total value-creating chain of all the actors involved in the building project. That means all from the finished building including the physical construction process on the building site and the end-consumers that are going to use or own it, to the initial programming stage with the first drawing sketches of the architect. The thesis will argue that organizational change and innovation in AEC companies does not emerge on its own through for instance "linear-control" oriented models of planning and subsequent plan implementation or models for increased managerial project control. To the contrary, the thesis will show that processes of change and innovation are created through active and broad participation by all actors directly involved in the project, companies as well as single individuals in arenas for dialogue. The objective of this thesis, then, is to contribute to how organizational change and innovation can be created, that is; what are the conditions necessary to achieve organizational change and innovation in AEC companies? And next; how can organizational change and innovation be spread among the companies in the Norwegian AEC industry? These are the two major research questions of the study. The thesis is an action research-oriented case study based on collaboration with a Research & Development (R&D)-program called The Integrated Building Process (the SiB – Samspillet i Byggeprosessen) jointly sponsored by four Norwegian AEC companies and the Research Council of Norway (RCN). My doctoral grant, including abroad stay as a visiting research scholar at Stanford University, California, USA, summer 1998 and fall 1999, was 100 % sponsored by the RCN, the Industry and Energy division. The field research was carried out in a 4 ½-years period from 1997 to 2001.


Schlieren deflectometry aims at measuring deflections of light rays from transparent objects, which is subsequently used to characterize the objects. With each location on a smooth object surface a sparse deflection map (or spectrum) is associated. In this paper, we demonstrate the compressive acquisition and reconstruction of such maps, and the usage of deflection information for object characterization, using a schlieren deflectometer. To this end, we exploit the sparseness of deflection maps and we use the framework of spread spectrum compressed sensing. Further, at a second level, we demonstrate how to use the deflection information optimally to reconstruct the distribution of refractive index inside an object, by exploiting the sparsity of refractive index maps in gradient domain.


This study examined the effects of temperature on cooked food in Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria. It utilized the survey research design. Primary data about cooked food conditions between hours of reheating were generated from women in the area using copies of checklist. Temperature data were collected for a period of one year from Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Delta State University, Abraka. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson's product moment correlation (PPMC). Results indicate that, incidents of soup souring were related to temperature at p < 0.05, although the relationship was direct (r = 0.72), revealing that as temperature increases soup sours or as temperature reduces soup taste was sustained longer. Again, melon, banga, and owo soups went sour within 6 h of previous heating as temperature reaches 31°C, while, vegetable, okra, and ogbono soups stayed beyond 6 h at 31°C. The ANOVA revealed that, there was a significant difference in soup sour incidence at p < 0.05 (F = 274) at different seasons (December, January, and February [DJF], May, June, and July [MAM], June July and August [JJA], September, October, and November [SON]) of the year thereby emphasizing the effects of weather on soup behavior after cooking. Based on these findings and dangers that soured soup can cause to human health and the loss of money, there should be proper kitchen ventilation in the absence of refrigerator and/or power supply. Choice of soup to cook should also be made with utmost consideration of prevailing air temperature in the tropics where air temperature is generally high.

 Key words: Tropics, local-soup, sour, weather, cooked-food.


The design of open check dams at mountain rivers for flood protection has an essential impact on the sediment budget of downstream river reaches. A key issue is the bedload transfer hindering and retention which can be influenced by the geometry of the openings of check dams. Contemporary design concepts provoke the retention of too much or insufficient bedload with regard to the downstream transport capacity. This dysfunction can cause continuous maintenance works or endanger downstream infrastructures, respectively. Herein an experimental analysis of the influence of check dam openings on the bedload transport capacity is made as a function of the constriction ratio of the opening width and the mean width of the undisturbed channel. Constriction ratios of more than 0.9 have no significant influence on the bedload transport capacity, while constriction ratios of less than about 1/3 block every grain larger than 1/40 of the channel width.


Variations in oral bacterial communities have been linked to oral cancer suggesting that the oral microbiome is an etiological factor that can influence oral cancer development. The 4‐nitroquinoline 1‐oxide (4‐NQO)‐induced murine oral and esophageal cancer model is frequently used to assess the effects of preventive and/or therapeutic agents. We used this model to assess the impact of the microbiome on tumorigenesis using axenic (germ‐free) and conventionally housed mice. Increased toxicity was observed in germ‐free mice, however, no difference in tumor incidence, multiplicity, and size was observed. Transcriptional profiling of liver tissue from germ‐free and conventionally housed mice identified 254 differentially expressed genes including ten cytochrome p450 enzymes, the largest family of phase‐1 drug metabolizing enzymes in the liver. Gene ontology revealed that differentially expressed genes were enriched for liver steatosis, inflammation, and oxidative stress in livers of germ‐free mice. Our observations emphasize the importance of the microbiome in mediating chemical toxicity at least in part by altering host gene expression. Studies on the role of the microbiome in chemical‐induced cancer using germ‐free animal models should consider the potential difference in dose due to the microbiome‐mediated changes in host metabolizing capacity, which might influence the ability to draw conclusions especially for tumor induction models that are dose dependent.


Background
Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is considered by experts as one of the key elements in multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) employed in oncological studies outside the brain. A low-to-high b value ratio DWI has been proposed as an approach to decrease acquisition time and simplify the analysis of DWI data without the need to use a mathematical model.

Methods
Forty-three men with biopsy-proven prostate cancer (PCa) who underwent mpMRI of the prostate were included. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps were created in the MRI scanner using a mono-exponential algorithm [b value (× number of averages) =0 (×1), 10 (×1), 25 (×1), 50 (×1), 100 (×1), 250 (×1), 450 (×1), 1,000 (×2), 1,500 (×3), and 2,000 (×5) s/mm2]. DWI ratio images were calculated with three previously estimated optimal b value combinations: (I) b=100 and b=1,000 s/mm2 (R1); (II) b=100 and b=1,500 s/mm2 (R2); and (III) b=100 and b=2,000 s/mm2 (R3). For quantitative analysis, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between normal and cancerous tissue was compared between the ADC maps and the DWI ratio images in terms of noninferiority. For qualitative analysis, two radiologists read all images in a randomized order without knowing whether the presented image was an ADC map or a DWI ratio image. All images were scored in terms of artifacts, cancer conspicuity and overall image quality with a 5-point scale. Agreement between the readers was assessed by weighted kappa statistics. Agreement was considered as poor when kappa <0.4, fair to good when kappa >0.4 and <0.75 and excellent when kappa >0.75. Mean scores were compared between ADC and each of the DWI ratio images. Agreement between ADC maps and DWI ratio based synthetic ADC were assessed by intraclass correlation (ICC). Values less than 0.5, between 0.5 and 0.75, between 0.75 and 0.9, and greater than 0.90 were indicative of poor, moderate, good, and excellent reliability, respectively. Median difference between low and intermediate/high risk were tested.

Results
Quantitative analysis shows DWI ratio images were not inferior to ADC maps quantitatively [P=0.0298 (ADC vs. R1), <0.0001 (ADC vs. R2) and <0.0001 (ADC vs. R3)]. Qualitatively, DWI ratio images were no more than 0.5 point on Likert scale lower than ADC in overall quality [P=0.0043 (ADC vs. R1), <0.0001 (ADC vs. R2), <0.0001 (ADC vs. R3)]. Reader agreement for the qualitative analysis was good to excellent (weighted kappa =0.4-0.7). Agreement between ADC maps and the synthetic ADC's were excellent. Significant difference between low and intermediate/high risk were found in all measurements on average (all P values <0.05).

Conclusions
We presented an analytical method for searching for the optimal combination of high and low b values for DWI ratio images in terms of minimizing CNR between cancer and surrounding benign tissues. Optimized DWI ratio images are comparable both quantitatively and qualitatively to ADC maps for the interpretation of DWI data in the context of prostate mpMRI.


Prompted by evidence that clinical simulations improve patient safety, team simulations are emerging in hospital settings. Accrediting organizations such as the U.S. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (Joint Commission, 2004, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2002) have recommend simulation of obstetrical emergencies, including shoulder dystocia for hospital teams. National patient safety mandates for simulation training of critical events have not been available to small, rural hospitals because of lack of talent and equipment, creating a gap in resources. Other than demonstrations by manikin companies, this author has currently been unable to sufficiently document the existence of active, non-academic resources for in-situ simulations available to small, rural hospitals in California. The California Simulation Alliance (CSA) is uniquely positioned as a state consortium for healthcare simulation to solve the deficiencies of talent and equipment by bringing the benefits of in-situ simulations to rural and urban community hospitals. The CSA Onsite Sims project described in this proposal initiates the move to in-situ scenarios from simulation center scenarios by expanding the CSA nurse-based scenarios into interprofessional, in-situ team simulations while maintaining the validity, repeatability, and integrity of the CSA scenarios. The CSA Onsite Sims scenarios promote the identification of desired behaviors, communication, and patterns that improve outcomes satisfying the medico-legal need for documented patient safety practices. INTERPROFESSIONAL ROLES SHOULDER DYSTOCIA 3


This paper summarizes an ongoing work in multimedia processing aimed at the automated archiving and selective retrieval of textual, pictorial and auditory information contained in video programs. Video processing performs the task representing the visual information using a small subset of the video frames. Linguistic processing refines the closed caption text, generates table of contents, and creates links to relevant multimedia documents. Audio and video information are compressed, and indexed based on their temporal association with the selected video frames and processed text. The derived information is used to automatically generate a hypermedia rendition of the program contents. This provides a compact representation of the information contained in the video program. It also serves as a textual and pictorial index for selective retrieval of the full-motion video program. A fully automatic system has been set up that generates HyperText Markup Language (HTML) renditions of television programs, and makes them available for access over the Internet within seconds of their broadcast.


The state of children In Pakistan was reviewed with a view that it has important bearing upon future of Pakistan. The significance of childhood in the development of human mind was pointed out. The situation of .primary education of children requires immediate attention from all angles. Psychology as a discipline is not playing any significant role in the improvement of primary education. Drop outs from schools was seen as one of the major problems of primary education in Pakistan. Significance of a psychological perspective for understanding the problem of drop outs was discussed. A psychological model which adopts a passive and mechanical view of human beings was rejected in the favour of a theoretical model which provides central role to children in the process of education. Various theories of psychology were discussed and evaluated in the context of child development. The cognitive development theory of Jean Piaget was selected as a framework which can be useful to undertake a psychological research on primary school children of Pakistan. A biographical review of Piaget was included to understand his contribution in child psychology. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and his concept of stages of development was described. . By considering cognitive development as an important aspect of children's education, a cognitive development survey of primary school children was undertaken. It was assumeed that this survey will not only shed light on the cognitive development of children but will also be useful in clarifying some important issues in Piagetian psychology. The construct of concrete operation thought was taken as a significant aspect of theory of cognitive development which has direct relevance to primary school children. An assessment of concrete operational thought as a unitary construct was considered an important aspect of this work. A plan was proposed to clarify some of these issues by a large data, based upon a larger sample with sufficient range of cognitive development levels in children and collected with a battery containing enough cognitive development tasks to cover various ranges of cognitive levels. The results of survey were analysed from different angles. The reliability of the cognitive development tasks was established. Factor analysis was used to investigate the structure of the construct of concrete operational thought. The problem of decalage in the cognitive development theory was considered in the light of evidence available in the data. It was shown that this battery provided a good estimate of cognitive development levels of Pakistani children. It was shown that the construct of concrete operational thought is a valid and unitary construct which can be used for expla1n1ng certain problems in primary school education of Pakistan. The results of survey described cognitive developmental stages of Primary school children. A sub-sample was used to point out a link between drop outs and cognitive development levels of children. Some classroom observations in primary schools were undertaken to establish that the educational practices are not in consonance with the cognitive development levels of children in schools. A class 1 textbook was analysed to show that its contents are not suitable for the given cognitive levels of chl1dren at this stage. Implication' of this work for further research and psychology's contribution in primary education were discussed.


Health behaviours learned in adolescence set precedence for healthy habits that extend throughout the lifespan. During adolescence transitions take place that lay the foundations for health and wellbeing in adulthood. This study is underpinned by two frameworks: Antonovsky's theory of salutogenesis and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Research evidence within the salutogenic paradigm suggests that both the strength of an individual's Sense of Coherence (SOC) and the Sense of Family Coherence (SOFC) are linked to positive health outcomes. This study aimed to explore how family life is associated with the development of SOC in adolescents. To achieve this a fully integrated longitudinal mixed method research design was employed. Data were collected through mixed method surveys in three waves and semi-structured family interviews using genograms and ecomaps as data collecting tools. The sample was purposively selected from one school and consisted of Swedish-speaking Finns: 65 adolescents, 89 parents and 56 families. Longitudinal data were generated from 18 families. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, content analysis and thematic analysis.

The study findings add to the body of knowledge of the sparsely researched area of a collective SOC. Developmental processes of SOC were found to take place in several environments of development simultaneously, with each of these environments providing diverse contexts for complex non-linear and overlapping processes influencing social, physical and mental dimensions of wellbeing. It was however not the contexts of development that were the most crucial factors influencing SOC but rather the processes that took place within these contexts. The findings suggest a reciprocal relationship between SOFC and SOC, with a strong SOFC promoting the development of a strong SOC in adolescents. Individuals with strong SOC scores and families with strong SOFC scores voiced an understanding of beliefs, facts and values deemed important for health and wellbeing. They also demonstrated insight into what actions are needed and should therefore be taken when aiming to promote the health and wellbeing of adolescents. This study recommends that a salutogenic discourse of health should be implemented when planning and implementing policies and strategies aimed at promoting the health and wellbeing of adolescents and their families, leading to improved health and wellbeing.


Synaesthesia is a condition in which one property of a stimulus triggers a secondary experience not typically associated with the first (e.g., seeing achromatic graphemes can evoke the perception of color). Recent work has explored a variety of cognitive and perceptual traits associated with synaesthesia. One example is in the domain of personality, where higher rates of positive schizotypy and openness to experience and lower agreeableness have been reported in synaesthetes who experience color as their evoked sensation relative to typical adult controls. Additionally, grapheme-color synaesthetes have previously been reported to show elevated mental imagery compared to typical adults. Here, we aimed to further elucidate the relationship between personality, synaesthesia, and other cognitive traits. In Study 1, we examined self-reported schizotypy and self-reported visual imagery vividness in grapheme-color synaesthetes and typical adults. Our results partially replicated previous findings by showing that synaesthesia was associated with greater positive schizotypy and enhanced self-reported imagery vividness. The results also extend previous reports by demonstrating that differences in positive schizotypy and mental imagery vividness are not related in grapheme-color synaesthesia. In Study 2, we sought to build on prior work showing lower agreeableness and increased openness to experience in synaesthetes by examining whether grapheme-color synaesthesia is associated with other conceptually related traits; namely lower self-monitoring and increased sensation seeking. We did not find any differences between synaesthetes and controls on either of these traits. These findings are discussed in relation to potential factors that may contribute to the observed personality profile in grapheme-color synaesthesia.


This paper reports the temperature dependent cross-plane thermal conductivity of pure silica zeolite (PSZ) MFI and MEL thin films measured using the 3w method between 30 and 315 K. PSZ MFI thin films were b-oriented, fully crystalline, and had a 33% microporosity. PSZ MEL thin films consisted of MEL nanoparticles embedded in a non-uniform and porous silica ma- trix. They featured porosity, relative crystallinity, and particle size ranging from 40% to 59%, 23% to 47%, and 55 to 80 nm, respectively. Despite their crystallinity, MFI films were found to have thermal conductivity smaller than that of amorphous sil- ica due to strong phonon scattering by micropores. In addition, the effects of increased relative crystallinity and particle size on thermal conductivity of MEL thin films were compensated by the simultaneous increase in porosity. Finally, thermal conductivity of MFI zeolite was predicted and discussed using the Callaway model based on the Debye approximation.


New 87Sr/86Sr dating allows the correlation of a marker horizon within the prolific Late Cretaceous Gunnarites antarcticus faunal assemblage of the Cape Lamb Member, Snow Hill Island Formation, Vega Island, Antarctica with reference sections in Europe and the USA. This horizon is between 81.5 and 96.5 m above the base of the G antarcticus assemblage. Replicate analysis of six macrofossils from within it yielded a mean value for 87Sr/86Sr of 0.707 735 9 ± 0.000 004 3 (± 2 s.e., n=17). This ratio in turn yields a numerical age of 71.0 ± 0.2 Ma when compared to the standard 87Sr/s6Sr reference curve for the latest Cretaceous, for which the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary is placed at 71.3 ± 0.5 Ma. The value of 0.707 735 9 ± 0.000 004 3 correlates to a level in the Belemnella lanceolata belemnite Zone of the Chalk of northwestern Germany that is 2.5 ± 5 m beneath the base of the overlying B. pseudobtusa Zone (and 7.5 m above the Campanian-Maastrichtian belemnite boundary), and to an interval within the ammonite zonation of the US Western Interior that spans the early Maastrichtian Baculites baculus and B. eliasi zones, but with a most likely level within the B. eliasi Zone. An earliest Maastrichtian age is thereby determined for the Antarctic horizon, and indeed for the entire G. antarcticus assemblage. Gunnarites, sensu lato, is an important ammonite marker for the base of the Maastrichtian throughout the southern high-latitude regions, and the associated large heteromorph ammonite Diplomoceras may comprise a macrofossil link back to the Maastrichtian type sections.


This study investigated the impact of workers` training programmes on industrial strike reduction among industrial workers in Nigeria. This is for the purpose of ascertaining the relevance of workers` training programmes, as an alternative approach to human capital formation, to industrial strike reduction among industrial workers in Nigeria. A total of 230 respondents were selected for the study using stratified sampling technique to reflect the two strata of public and private organizations. Two sets of questionnaire, with three subscales, titled 'Workers Training Programmes Scale (WTPS) and Industrial Strike Reduction Scale (CRS) were used for data collection. All the hypothesized research questions were examined using Regression Analysis and t-test statistical methods at 0.05 alpha levels. The finding revealed that workers` training programmes (taken together) had significantly influenced industrial strike reduction among industrial workers. It was also found that only three independent variables (conflict skill, communication skill and interpersonal relations skill training programmes) have significantly influenced industrial strike reduction. However, it was found that management skill and computer skill training programmes were not as significant in influencing industrial strike reduction in selected work organizations. Also, there was no significant difference in the level of female and male workers` participation in workers` training programmes in both public and private organizations selected for the study. Based on the findings of study, it is recommended that workers` training programmes should be given priority by all establishments in order to forestall industrial peace for all levels of workers. Also, training needs of the organization as well as that of workers must be identified before making recommendations for training. This will possibly foster specialization and encourage technical-driven training in work organizations. Key Words: Workers, Training Programmes, Industrial strike reduction, Organizations, Nigeria


Feyerabend's later philosophy was a sustained defence of cultural and epistemic diversity. After Against Method (1975) Feyerabend argued that his rejection of methodological monism challenged the presumed unity and superiority of scientific knowledge and practices. His later philosophy was therefore dedicated to a reassessment of the merits of a wide range of 'non-scientific' traditions present throughout non-Western indigenous cultures. Feyerabend drew upon the resources of anthropology and environmental and development studies to argue that the cognitive and practical merits of a variety of indigenous medical, environmental, and classificatory systems had been denied or disregarded. The consequence of these reassessments was epistemic pluralism. Western scientific and cultural practices represent many but by no means all of these and attempts to assert their cross-cultural value have resulted in enormous environmental, social, and intellectual destruction. Feyerabend here drew upon John Stuart Mill's claim that both human wellbeing and the growth of knowledge are best served by a diversity of forms of life and modes of inquiry. Such diversity is threatened by the cognitive and cultural authority of the Western sciences and Feyerabend therefore insisted that moral and political concerns are an essential component of the philosophy of science. Throughout the thesis I argue that the later Feyerabend anticipated many subsequent themes in the philosophy of science, such as pluralism, values in science, and political and postcolonial philosophies of science. The irreducibly pluralistic character of the sciences arises from the diverse values and concerns of human beings, on the one hand, and the complexity of the natural world, on the other, and this claim is developed at length in Feyerabend's final book Conquest of Abundance (1999). Feyerabend's work served to unify these contemporary philosophical and political concerns and also to demonstrate their continuity with the older 'post-positivist' philosophies of science. I conclude that the later Feyerabend presented an optimistic and humane vision of global cultural and epistemic diversity and of the role of the Western sciences in the modern world, rather than lapsing into the 'anti-science' polemics and 'cultural relativism' with which his work has come to be associated.


The smooth, coordinated fine motor movements required to play a musical instrument are not only highly valued in our society; they also predict academic success in areas that generalize beyond the motor domain, including reading and math readiness, and verbal abilities. Interestingly, motor skills that overlap with those required to play a musical instrument (e.g., sequential finger tapping) markedly improve (get faster) over a night of sleep, but not after a day spent awake. Here we studied whether individuals who play musical instruments that require fine finger motor skill are better able to learn and consolidate a simple motor skill task compared to those who do not play an instrument, and whether sleep-specific motor skill benefits interact with those imparted by musical experience. We used the motor sequence task (MST), which taps into a core skill learned and used by musicians, namely, the repetition of learned sequences of key presses. Not surprisingly, we found that musicians were faster than non-musicians throughout the learning session, typing more correct sequences per 30-sec trial. In the 12hrs that followed learning we found that sleep and musical experience both led to greater improvement in performance. Surprisingly, musicians retested after a day of wake performed slightly better than non-musicians who had slept between training and retest, suggesting that musicians have the capacity to consolidate a motor skill across waking hours, while non-musicians appear to lack this capacity. These findings suggest that the musically trained brain is optimized for motor skill consolidation across both wake and sleep, and that sleep may simply promote a more effective use of this machinery. In sum, there may be something special about musicians, perhaps a neurophysiological advantage, that leads to both the expected—greater motor speed at learning—and the surprising—greater motor skill improvement over time.


For the functioning of democratic societies, it is a crucial question why some citizens value or even enjoy political engagement while others hardly bother about politics at all. However, despite scholarly agreement on the relevance of childhood experiences, the early causes of varying inclinations for volitional political engagement remain largely unidentified. Arguing for the relevance of non-political factors, this study theorizes the role of basic psychological needs in shaping proclivities for political engagement. Specifically, this study hypothesizes that children who grow up in need-supportive parental homes will be more inclined to engage with politics decades later. Findings from two independent representative cohort studies (N = 5927, N = 6158) suggest that need-supportive parenting stimulates the development of curiosity and appreciation towards politics. Moreover, need-supportive parenting interacts with social learning processes in stimulating political engagement. Providing insights into the promotion of political engagement, these findings underscore the importance of factors seemingly remote to the political domain but deeply engrained in human processes of psychosocial functioning.


The ubiquity of information technology, technological advances, and utility computing trends have motivated large-scale systems, but managing and sustaining these systems is far from trivial. Automatic or semi-automatic monitoring and control are a potential solution to this problem. However, since management scenarios differ from system to system, a generic management framework that can manage a wide variety of systems should support user-defined management logic. This paper proposes a novel architecture that can manage large-scale systems according to user-specified management logic that depends on both global and local assertions of the managed system. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that despite having a global view of the managed system, a management framework can scale to manage most real world use cases.


Since the 1990s, the upsurge of multiple "sons-of-the-soil" conflicts all over the world has reopened academic debate about the rise of nativism, the role of ethnicity, and the alleged crisis of citizenship within the postcolonial state. Often the renewed claim for belonging versus exclusion under the vernacular of "autochthony" is seen as a reactionary attempt to counter the de-rooting of identity within the neoliberal globalizing context. This article makes the case that at the base of many homeland disputes lie too powerfully territorialized (ethnic) identities and the enduring but highly selective reaffirmation of such "natural" geo-cultural links —by both local political agents and state. In the Indian state of Assam, the struggle over indigenous homelands has not been a cry for closure within the engulfing globalizing world, but the result of sustained, yet ambivalent politics of identification, classification, and ethnographic mapping through which the colony and post-colony have sought to reshape the political landscape of India's Northeast. This selective but highly mobilizing politics of autochthony has not only extolled fierce struggle between "indigenous" and "fake autochthon" communities over the protection and demarcation of indigenous homeland, it has also engendered fierce conflict amongst autochthon groups about the degree of indigeneity required to claim a separate homeland of their own.


This paper analyses the role of think tanks in Swiss policy making. Starting from the relationship between interest groups and the state, which has been shaping Swiss policy making for a long time, we hypothesize that these structures offer good possibilities for scientific arguments and ideas to influence the process of policy making. Our observations from a recent example indeed illustrates that think tanks can use the same channels as vested interests to bring in their know-how. Furthermore, we conclude that the characteristics of the political system, e.g. direct democracy and the consensual alignment particularly influence the chances of think tanks to intervene. In this exchange vested interests and think tanks do not really interfere with each other, but rather they complement each other both having their strong points at different stages of the policy making process.


This Article contends that enforceable individual rights can improve the efficiency of government operations. The last decade has seen enforceable individual rights eliminated in a wide range of areas, from welfare to the treatment of immigrants and prisoners in U.S. jails to, most recently, the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere overseas. In most instances, opponents of enforceable individual rights have quarreled little with the substantive norms underlying these rights. Instead, they have argued that enforceable legal rights would unduly burden government administration. Supporters of individual rights have tended to concede that they are inefficient, arguing instead that other values justify the imposition. In fact, enforceable individual rights operate very much like privatized audits of program operations. Most government programs have multiple, partially inconsistent goals. Agency leaders typically communicate the importance of their goals by auditing the performance of line workers. A single audit, however, has difficulty enforcing multiple partially conflicting goals simultaneously. Requiring line staff to respond both to pressure from auditors enforcing one set of norms and to individual rights vindicating competing norms is likely to produce the best balance between the two. This Article analyzes the jurisprudential foundations of the adversary system of justice to find support for the proposition that competing pressures on behalf of contrasting positions tend to produce an optimal balance. The Article then illustrates how the adversary system has worked successfully in public-benefit programs and highlights the difficulties of achieving similar results through the command-and-control mechanisms that typically replace individual-rights regimes.


Rupture of the Sunda megathrust on 26 December 2004 produced broad regions of uplift and subsidence. We define the pivot line separating these regions as a first step in defining the lateral extent and the downdip limit of rupture during that great M_w ≈ 9.2 earthquake. In the region of the Andaman and Nicobar islands we rely exclusively on the interpretation of satellite imagery and a tidal model. At the southern limit of the great rupture we rely principally on field measurements of emerged coral microatolls. Uplift extends from the middle of Simeulue Island, Sumatra, at ~2.5°N, to Preparis Island, Myanmar (Burma), at ~14.9°N. Thus the rupture is ~1600 km long. The distance from the pivot line to the trench varies appreciably. The northern and western Andaman Islands rose, whereas the southern and eastern portion of the islands subsided. The Nicobar Islands and the west coast of Aceh province, Sumatra, subsided. Tilt at the southern end of the rupture is steep; the distance from 1.5 m of uplift to the pivot line is just 60 km. Our method of using satellite imagery to recognize changes in elevation relative to sea surface height and of using a tidal model to place quantitative bounds on coseismic uplift or subsidence is a novel approach that can be adapted to other forms of remote sensing and can be applied to other subduction zones in tropical regions.


Lighting consumes a significant amount of generated electrical power in developing countries, and it uses over 20% of the energy supplied in developed countries. Therefore, semiconductor-based light sources with high energy efficiencies are critical technologies for the reduction of global carbon footprint. As an emerging lighting technology, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) has received huge worldwide attention in recent years, partially driven by its success in the flat-panel display market and partially driven by its technology virtues such as an unique thin, flat, foldable form factor. In this review, we will provide an overview on the current status of OLEDs for lighting applications. Specifically, a detailed overview of the state-of-the-art white OLED design concepts including their working principles will be presented. A brief overview on the current status of out-coupling techniques suitable for white OLEDs will also be discussed.


The aim of this work was to describe growth dynamics, substrate depletion and polygalacturonases production by Aspergillus flavipes FP-500 in batch cultures by means of unstructured models. The microorganism was cultivated on several mono- di- and poly- saccharides, and then the culture development modeled with Monod and Leudeking-Piret equations. The kinetic parameters related to the models (µmax, γx/s, α and β) were obtained by minimizing the quadratic residuals function with a simplex algorithm. An accurate description of experimental data was attained with the proposed models. Besides, modeling provided significant kinetic information on microbial degradation of complex substrates, such as the correlation between specific growth rate µmax and production yield α, suggesting that A. flavipes FP-500 polygalacturonases are actually constitutive, but also that there is a certain degree of induciblility in these enzymatic activities.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the activity of the NAWAlution WoundCare® solution on various bacteria and to determine its suitability for use in critical care units. The effect of the antiseptic solution, NAWAlution® WoundCare(NAWA Heilmittel GmbH, Germany) was evaluated with and without the addition of albumin, using the broth microdilution method. A total of eight gram negative, four gram positive type bacteria that may be isolated in an intensive care unit and spore-forming bacteria Bacillus spp., as well as C.albicans were studied. E.coli, K.pneumonia, E.faecium, S.aureus and ATCC strains were used in the study. In vitro cytotoxic activity of the NAWAlution WoundCare® antiseptic solution was determined by 3-(4.5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2.5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide test. NAWAlution WoundCare® was found to be effective against K.pneumoniae at a concentration of 1/32; against A.baumanii, P.aeruginosa, Chryseobacterium spp, S.maltophilia and Shewanella at a concentration of 1/64; and against E. coli at a concentration of 1/256. However, no activity was observed against B.cepacia. The substance was effective against MRSA at a concentration of 1/64; against voncomycin-resistant E.faecium, vancomycinsensitive E.faecium and Bacillus spp. at a concentration of 1/128; against methicillin-sensitive S.aureus and methicillin-resistant coagulase negative staphylococci at a concentration of 1/256; and against C.albicans at a concentration of 1/256. However, NAWAlution WoundCare solution at a concentration of between 1/10 and 1/2560 had no cytotoxic effect on the Vero cells. In conclusion NAWAlution WoundCare® antiseptic solution was found to be effective against many microorganisms that could cause wound infection, and is also appropriate for direct topical application.


This dissertation explored a dimension of American political culture that is likely to be relevant to individuals and social movements seeking political change. I proposed that we share a familiar, yet mostly implicit, social construct that is deeply rooted in historical narratives and national identity. This construct suggests that, when facing some kind of oppression, people may feel compelled to come together, to voice their opinions, and to try to change the status quo. I called this "the public imperative" and described its three core elements: 1) meeting up, 2) speaking out, and 3) pushing back. To see if this functioned in practice, I conducted a series of qualitative in-depth interviews with members of the Tea Party movement, meeting at events in several Western states and Washington, D.C., and talking with members across five distinct regions of the country. My findings suggested that the public imperative was a powerful motivator in transforming isolated, frustrated individuals into a national movement. Through interviews and a detailed web analysis, I also examined how news media and digital platforms related to members' public imperative expectations. This study has implications for how individuals and organizations might develop more meaningful and effective forms of civic engagement in the United States and elsewhere.


Small and medium enterprise (SMEs) have played an important role in economic development either ini developed countries or in developing countries like Indonesia. SMEs will mainly contribute to the employment opportunities, technology transfer, and poverty reduction. Considering of their signigicant contribution to the economic development, Indonesia government do have many policies and program to encourage SMEs develop and growth further. Program Bapak Angkat in one of measure adapted by Indonesia government to enhance SMEs performance by asking State owned company to provide assistance to SMEs in many ways; such as marketing opportunities, credit facility, training and promotion. The objective of this research is to find out the effectiveness of this program in improving the performance of SMEs in West Sumatera. There are 251 SMEs as the respondents of this study coming from five municipalities in West Sumatera, they consist of 226 respondents that are not including in the program and 25 of them include in the program Bapak Angkat. Using descriptive analysis, this study found out that Bapak Angkat program does have contributed to the improvement of SMEs financial performance. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also mentioned this research
 Keywords: Small and medium enterprise (SMEs), performance, assistance government program, developing countries


The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of differences in the inflation rates of trade-partner countries on their foreign trade patterns. The results of the analysis of a simple trade model served as the basis for an empirical study of Russia's foreign trade. For the purposes of experimental verification, we built Russia's export and import gravity models, using trade data for 2005-2012, as well as indicators reflecting the ratio of inflation rates in Russia and its trade-partner countries by the main commodity groups (inflation data for 1995-2012). The results of the empirical verification have basically confirmed the conclusions derived from the trade model analysis: Russia intensifies its export of fuel and raw-material commodities to countries with lower inflation rates and, simultaneously, increases its import of engineering, chemical, and agricultural products from countries with lower inflation rates.


The Agent in Grid project (AiG) attempts to integrate the concept of the Grid and an agent-based system to facilitate efficient resource management in the Grid. In this paper, we present preliminary considerations concerning multiple equivalent simultaneous offers strategy that can be used in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiations. These negotiations are the key part of the main use case scenarios within the AiG project. In this context, first, we describe the AiG system. Second, we introduce the simultaneous offer strategy, as a mechanism known from economy, and suggest an approach for using it in the AiG negotiations.


Objective: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is currently the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The aim of this study was to examine carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) and valvular calcification in asymptomatic hemodialysis (HD) patients, to compare them with healthy subjects, and to identify risk factors associated with atherosclerosis.
Materials and Methods: Forty-nine HD patients and age and sex-matched 48 healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. Right and left carotid intima-media thicknesses (CIMTs) were measured, and echocardiographic evaluation of valve calcification was performed. CaxP product and parathormone (PTH) values were measured from venous blood samples.
Result: The mean CIMT thicknesses were 0.86 ± 0.16 mm in the patient group and 0.61 ± 0.11 mm in the control group. Mean CIMT was significantly higher in the patient group (p <0.001) and valve calcification was measured as 53% in the patient group. Aortic valve calcification in 22.5%, mitral valve calcification in 18.3%, and calcification in both valves in 12.2%. The rate of valve calcification in the control group was 10.4%. In the HD group, the mean PTH level was 578.2 pg/ml and in the healthy control group was 36.2 pg/ml. The CaxP product was significantly higher in the dialysis group than in the control group (p <0.001) (53.9 ± 11.5-33.6 ± 4.1, respectively). PTH value and CaxP product height correlated significantly with valve calcification and CIMT.
Conclusion: CIMT was more prominent as a sign of atherosclerotic development in HD patients and valve calcification was more frequent. In addition to classical risk factors, we have concluded that the uremic environment may contribute to an acceleration in the atherosclerotic process.


Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain "beauty capital" to increase opportunities for social and career success. Building on rich ethnographic data, this book presents the perspectives of women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, illuminating the aspirations behind their choices. Wen Hua explores how turbulent economic, sociocultural, and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced both mentally and corporeally. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in gender studies, China studies, anthropology and sociology of the body, and cultural studies.


Spore and pollen assemblages occurring in an Upper Pennsylvanian Redstone coal seam are used to interpret phytoecological history of the swamp in which source material was deposited. Punctatosporites minutus and other bilaterally symmetrical monolete spore species predominate through the thickness of the seam, masking vertical variation of other more significant species. With their removal, additional assemblages were recognized, some of which correspond closely to variations in maceral content of the seam. As a result, three phases in the ecological development of the Redstone coal were distinguished. Forty-nine sporomorph species in 34 genera were recognized, 10 species and one genus, Stripites, being new. Densosporites and Cristatisporites are reported for the first time from an Upper Pennsylvanian coal seam in the United States.


Background: Normal values of lumbar vertebral canal diameters are useful in facilitating diagnosis of lumbar vertebral canal stenosis. Various studies have established variation on values between different populations, gender, age, and ethnic groups. Objectives: To determine the lumbar vertebral canal diameters in adult skeletons according to gender, ethnicity, and vertebral levels at Galloway osteological collection of Makerere university. Methods: A descriptive cross-section study was carried out on 216 complete sets of male and female human lumbar vertebral bones. The midsagittal, transverse diameters of the lumbar vertebral canal and the anteroposterior diameter of the inferior vertebral notch were measured using an electronic digital caliper. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS 12.0 computer program. Results and discussion: In both sexes, the midsagittal diameter of the canal was wider at the cephalic than at the caudal end; reflecting the size of the contents at this level and also an adaptation to ensure protection of these contents during complex movements of this transition region . A steady widening of the transverse diameter of the canal from L1 to L5 was also observed in both genders. The anteroposterior diameter of inferior vertebral notch was subject to gender and ethnic variation. Conclusion: The narrowest midsagittal diameter is found at L3 in both genders, the widest transverse diameter on the other hand was at L5. Various diameters of the lumbar vertebral canal varied according to gender and ethnicity. Tanzania Medical Journal Vol. 23 (2) 2008: pp. 28-30


Mobile phones these days are becoming an important part of our life. This is one of the communication's most important media. The exponential rise in mobile phones has increased the amount of non-ionizing accompanying radio waves over the past two decades, the potential risks of human body exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields are a major concern for society. Although mobile phone familiarization and dependency is growing at an alarming rate, the effects of human health due to radiation exposure, the impact of blue light on human eyes, macular degradation and its impact have been discussed and become a subject of intense debate. The rate at which the human body absorbs radiation is measured by the Specific Absorption Rate, and government regulatory agencies in many countries have set their maximum levels for modern handsets. It is even more intimidating because this radiation is invisible and enters and leaves our bodies without our knowledge. The rise in temperature on the surface of the brain caused by radiation waves is 0.3 degrees at the most. It is not known that this type of temperature rise has biological significance. The brain's temperature normally fluctuates by about one degree, and cells become damaged only after a five-degree increase in temperature. According to the cell phone radiation test, men's sperm cells are damaged, causing them to lose reproductive changes and suffer mental health damage due to radiation from cell


This thesis examines the contemporary American horror cinematic subgenre torture porn. Consisting of titles such as "Hostel" (2005), "Saw" (2004) and "Captivity" (2007), films belonging to this label have been critically and morally reproached for their graphic and realistic depictions of torture and violence. Despite these negative critiques, the films have proven to be commercially successful, with some titles becoming the highest grossing films within the horror genre's history. In this thesis, I take a multidisciplinary approach to understanding this contemporary phenomenon of popular culture. In the first half of the thesis, I engage with the criticism surrounding this subgenre of films. I interrogate why they have been popular with audiences both inside the cinema and through new technological platforms that remediate the narratives into new forms of entertainment. As these films all feature 'set pieces' in which the central focus is the depiction of the human body in pain, what I find interesting is how they continue the tradition of the spectacle of violence featured throughout the history of popular Hollywood cinema. Although prevalent academic discourse on these films posits them as emblematic of post-9/11 anxiety, this thesis provides an alternative reading that focuses on how audiences engage with fictional acts of violence and torture as a pleasurable experience. I do not deny that torture porn draws on cultural anxieties; they clearly imbue subtexts indicative of the cultural and political landscapes that reflect their period of production. However, the focus in this thesis is how the films' distinct depiction of violent spectacle, or what will be conceptualised as the set piece, seeks to engage the spectator by locating the source of pleasure in what Linda Williams calls the "on/scene" ("Porn Studies" 3). That is, how these films invite audiences to test their ability to witness acts of fictional violence carried out on the human body. This feature, I argue, elicits a mode of engagement that can be thought of as being the cinematic equivalent to riding a rollercoaster. The latter half of this thesis examines how the phenomenon of torture porn expands beyond the cinema, converging with other multimedia platforms. The films in this subgenre are being remediated – where the film content is remade through different media – to produce new experiences of interactivity and consumption. This shift away from the cinematic experience to other sites forges a new experience of pleasure for the spectator, whether this is experienced at the live theme-park attraction where traps from the "Saw" franchise are brought to life, on social networking sites and video games, or on the television. I argue that this extension of the cinema can be charted from the inception of cinema as a source of technological attraction through to the current advancement of new media technologies and interactive sites of engagement. This new form of digital entertainment and engagement positions torture porn as a contemporary popular phenomenon through these new modes of aligning spectacle, pleasure and interactivity for public consumption.


Using the data obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) legacy survey, we have studied the variations of the dust composition and abundance across the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Such variations are expected, as the explosive events which have lead to the formation of the many H i shells observed should have affected the dust properties. Using a model and comparing with a reference spectral energy distribution from our Galaxy, we deduce the relative abundance variations of small dust grains across the LMC. We examined the infrared color ratios as well as the relative abundances of very small grains (VSGs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) relative to the big grain abundance. Results show that each dust component could have different origins or evolution in the interstellar medium (ISM). The VSG abundance traces the star formation activity and could result from shattering of larger grains, whereas the PAH abundance increases around molecular clouds as well as in the stellar bar, where they could have been injected into the ISM during mass loss from old stars.


This study aims at comparing effect of traditional and multimedia teaching of vital signs assessment on knowledge acquisition of nursing students at IUIU. Quasi-experimental design was used for the study and a sample of 62 students were randomly selected. Knowledge acquisition levels of both the groups were compared using paired t - test and independent t- test. The study findings revealed a statistically significant difference on knowledge, t (30) = 4.42, p < 0.05 (two tailed) acquisition after the multimedia intervention. Knowledge acquisition scores significantly improve after the traditional intervention and there was a statistically significant difference in knowledge, t (30) = 7.99, P<.05 (two tailed). There was no statistically significant difference between post-test knowledge scores of students in multimedia and traditional groups t (60) = .061, P >.05). The mean post-test knowledge of traditional (M = 19.79, SD = 1.93) was slightly higher than multimedia (M = 19.76, SD 2.21). Therefore, it was recommended that multimedia method should be enhanced and used in combination with traditional method when teaching complex procedures. The management of IUIU should provide more multimedia delivery tools such as television and videos in the skills laboratory to ensure delivery by tutors and learning by students at their extra time.


This paper examines and questions the predictions found in the academic and policy literature of social breakdown in southern Africa in the wake of anticipated high rates of orphanhood caused by the AIDS epidemic. Analysis of the logic underlying these predictions reveals four causal relationships necessary to fulfil such dramatic and apocalyptic predictions: 1. High AIDS mortality rates will produce high numbers of orphans. 2. These orphans will become children who do not live in appropriate social environments to equip them for adult citizenship. 3. Poor socialisation will mean that children orphaned by AIDS will not live within society's moral codes (becoming, for example, street children or juvenile delinquents). 4. Large numbers of such 'asocial' or 'antisocial' children will precipitate a breakdown in the social fabric. Evidence for each of these steps in the argument is scrutinised using available data from southern Africa and other regions that have moved further through the epidemic's cycle. The paper finds strong evidence for the first step, although variable definitions of 'orphan' make it difficult to draw accurate comparisons over time and space. Evidence for the second step is found to be mixed in terms of outcomes of AIDS orphanhood for child well-being. Moreover the argument takes little account of the social and economic environments onto which AIDS is mapped, including the economic fragility of households and pervading socio-cultural patterns of child-rearing. Data to substantiate the third step are anecdotal at best and no research is able to demonstrate a link between the long term effects of AIDS orphanhood and rising rates of juvenile delinquency. Arguments made towards the fourth step are shown to be based heavily on notions of the 'correct' social and physical environments for children and on unsubstantiated fears of alternatives to these. There is no evidence from countries where numbers of AIDS orphans are already high to suggest that their presence is precipitating social breakdown. The paper argues—somewhat provocatively—that such apocalyptic predictions are unfounded and ill-considered. By misrepresenting the problems faced by children and their families, attention is distracted from the multiple layers of social, economic and psychological disadvantage that affect individual children, families and communities. Consequently, insufficient consideration is given to the multi-faceted supports necessary to assist children to cope with extremely difficult circumstances brought about over the long term by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.


Abstract A rather extensive degradation of cellulose and hemicelluloses was found in waterlogged oak wood samples from the ancient warship Vasa by size exclusion chromatography with the solvent system lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide (LiCl/DMAc). The degradation has mainly occurred after salvage of the wreck, probably as a consequence of keeping iron contaminated wood in contact with air. The most likely explanation is Fenton type of reactions degrading the wood polymers and oxidising reduced sulphur forms to sulphuric acid. An increased degradation rate of the Vasa wood can be anticipated in the future if the sulphuric acid cannot be neutralised and the oxidative reactions cannot be quenched.