Back pain is a major cause of ill health and disability in affluent populations. To combat such a common ailment, observational epidemiologic studies are needed to identify high-risk groups and factors that determine the risk of back pain. Risk factors that may be amenable to change through intervention are potentially the most important. Most research has focused on work-related mechanical factors. During the past decade reviews on the role of such factors in relation to back pain have remained cautious or even nihilistic (1--4). In this issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health , however, Hoogendoorn and her co-workers publish a systematic review concluding that there is strong evidence that manual materials handling, bending and twisting, and whole body vibration are risk factors for back pain (5). Progress seems also to have occurred in methods of assessing physical work exposures (6, 7). So far, one of the main difficulties in epidemiologic studies is that the differentiation of back pain into etiologically different groups is both theoretically and practically problematic. The paucity of diagnostic methods suitable for field work aggravates this problem in population surveys. The intermittent nature of back complaints is a further difficulty. Resolution without subsequent disability is common, and cross-sectional studies therefore miss a considerable proportion of cases. Retrospective assessments of back pain, usually depending on uncertain records or memory, are likely to result in bias, whereas prospective studies are costly and time-consuming. A wealth of observational studies suggest that heavy manual work in general and frequent lifting, postural stress, and whole-body vibration in particular contribute not only to back pain (5) but also to degenerative changes of intervertebral discs and facet joints (1, 2, 4) and to sciatica due to a herniated lumbar disc (1). From the view of work-related risk factors, therefore, Hoogendoorn and her co-workers could have included studies on herniated lumbar intervertebral discs in their review. The label of back pain inevitably comprises a multitude of conditions (including herniated discs), some or perhaps all with different etiology. Sciatica due to a herniated lumbar disc differs from other types of back pain in that specific investigations have been developed for its diagnosis. The results, in principle, provide a sufficient basis for epidemiologic research, or, at least, a more solid biomedical foundation than exists for other common types of low-back pain. There is some evidence of the importance of nonoccupational driving and lifting to sciatica due to a herniated lumbar disc (1, 8), unlike the situation for nonspecified back pain (5). Spinal stenosis could be another entity specific enough, but no study exists on its risk factors. Epidemiologic studies focusing on the risk factors for sciatica due to herniated lumbar intervertebral disc suggest that driving a motor vehicle increases the risk (1). Associations found between driving and nonspecified back pain (5) appear weaker but rather consistent between studies. Whatever the outcome, however, whole-body vibration may not represent the crucial exposure because sudden starting and stopping, the transmission of road shocks, the lack of proper support for the back, and the position of the driver=s legs simultaneously induce mechanical stresses on the lower back. Manual handling of materials and a lack of activities strengthening both musculature and connective tissues may also contribute to back complaints among occupational drivers. To distinguish between these factors will not be easy. Thus far, on the basis of epidemiologic evidence, it may be premature to conclude that whole-body vibration per se is a risk factor for back pain. Insufficient control of confounding in previous studies may also hamper conclusions about the significance of manual materials handling and bending and twisting (5). Accident-related traumatic events, smoking, mental stress, tallness, overweight, and familiar aggregation (the combined effect of genes and shared early environment) are factors that predict an increased risk of back pain, and they can covary with physical work loads (1--4). Furthermore, unknown risk factors are likely to exist. Physical load may also have prophylactic effects. As a result, strengthened muscles of the trunk and adaptation of the connective tissues can reduce sudden forces on the lower back that might otherwise damage spinal structures. Further research should seek to answer why physical activity at work exerts detrimental effects on the lower back, whereas physical activity during leisure rather seems to be prophylactic. The tangle probably could be undone by means of careful intervention studies and observational epidemiologic studies in which the interactions of work-related physical exposures (6, 7), physical activity during leisure, and muscular strength were adequately assessed for their prediction of back pain. The exposures may not be deleterious for everybody or in all circumstances. In general, with regard to biological coherence, it seems difficult to make causal inference on the basis of occupation-related differences in the risk of back pain. One could consider it self-evident that back pain bothers especially those who need their backs for working. Back pain as a research topic has been treated as if it were an illness. It is, however, a complaint and, as such, is possibly not a genuine disease (9). Thus it cannot be concluded whether work load contributes to spinal injury, to aggravation of pain, or incapacity from it once an injury occurs, or to both. This problem for back pain research was realized over 30 years ago (10), but it is still topical today. Whatever the mechanisms leading to differences in the risks between occupational groups, the primary prevention of back pain would have considerable potential if adequate tools could be developed. Various ergonomic measures and instructions on manual handling and lifting are widely believed to be prophylactic, although sufficient evidence is lacking that they are effective. However, if the association between work load and back pain is not due to back injury incidence but rather to a greater likelihood of symptoms and disability once an injury occurs, then primary prevention by ergonomic measures may prove elusive. The conclusions of Hoogendoorn and her co-workers (5) indicate the need for advanced epidemiologic studies, as well as intervention trials, in occupational medicine.


Over the years, as Barbara Pym replaced Nancy Mitford, Georgette Heyer, even Jane Austen, as my most loved author, I devoured all her books, but JANE AND PRUDENCE remains my favourite. Even an umpteenth reading this weekend was punctuated by gasps of joy, laughter and wonder that this lovely book should remain so fresh, funny and true to life' Jilly Cooper 'The setting of this very funny novel, one of Barbara Pym's earliest, is an English village where Jane's husband is the newly appointed vicar, and where Prudence will pay Jane a visit and find herself courted by a fatuous young widower. Prudence, at twenty-nine, has achieved nothing in life but a dull research job in London and a string of dud affairs; Jane, now in her forties, was Prudence's tutor at Oxford. Jane cheerfully concedes that she is an incompetent housewife, but she hopes that the move to a rural parish may transform her into a Trollopean vicar's wife, as well as a crafty matchmaker. There are many comic complications here, as Jane learns that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as does housewifery' The New Yorker


Geophysical anomalies clearly indicate a vast circular structure buried under approximately 1000 m of Cenozoic sediments of the Yucatan platform (SE Mexico). Cores drilled in the structure indicate the presence of suevite-like impact breccia, with abundant shocked minerals, and of a melt-breccia dated by 40 Ar/ 39 Ar at approximately 65 Ma. The lithology and age show that the Yucatan structure is thus the long sought Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) impact crater. The suevite and melt-breccia are derived from the fracture and fusion of the lithologies present under the Yucatan platform at the time of impact, a succession of approximately 3 km of carbonate and evaporitic sediments overlying a Pan African age (550 Ma) silicate rich basement. The Chicxulub melts are chemically similar to the fragments of impact glasses found at the KT boundary all around the Gulf of Mexico. Impact glasses and shocked quartz form the base of a 2 and 4 metres thick coarse clastic sequence which marks the KT boundary from Alabama to Guatemala. These sands and silts were probably deposited, over a short period of time (a few days) by the gigantic tsunami waves triggered by the Chicxulub impact. Because of the target lithology, the Chicxulub event must have almost instantaneously released into the atmosphere huge quantities of water vapor, CO 2 and SO 2 . These components must have played a key role in the perturbation of the global Earth system and mass extinction taking place at the KT boundary.


House of Lords reform remains unfinished business, and looks likely to remain so for a long time yet. The preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act portentously proclaimed that Lords reform was 'an urgent question which brooks no delay', yet more than a century later, there have been only sporadic and inchoate reforms. Moreover, these have often been motivated by calculations of partisan advantage, even when depicted as being derived from important political principles. After the 1911 Act, the remainder of the twentieth century witnessed only three further laws pertaining to House of Lords reform: the 1949 Parliament Act, which reduced the Second Chamber's power of delay (veto) of legislation from two years to one; the 1958 Life Peerages Act, which established a new category of appointed peer to sit alongside the hereditary peers; the 1999 House of Lords Reform Act, which removed most of the hereditary peers, but allowed 92 to remain pending further reform.


The Southern Ocean is disproportionately important in its effect on the Earth system, impacting climatic, biogeochemical and ecological systems, which makes recent observed changes to this system cause for global concern. The enhanced understanding and improvements in predictive skill needed for understanding and projecting future states of the Southern Ocean require sustained observations. Over the last decade, the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) has established networks for enhancing regional coordination and research community groups to advance development of observing system capabilities. These networks support delivery of the SOOS 20-year vision, which is to develop a circumpolar system that ensures time series of key variables, and deliver the greatest impact from data to all key end-users. Although the Southern Ocean remains one of the least-observed ocean regions, enhanced international coordination and advances in autonomous platforms have resulted in progress towards addressing the need for sustained observations of this region. Since 2009, the Southern Ocean community has deployed over 5700 observational platforms south of 40°S. Large-scale, multi-year or sustained, multidisciplinary efforts have been supported and are now delivering observations of essential variables at space and time scales that enable assessment of changes being observed in Southern Ocean systems. The improved observational coverage, however, is predominantly for the open ocean, encompasses the summer, consists of primarily physical oceanographic variables and covers surface to 2000 m. Significant gaps remain in observations of the ice-impacted ocean, the sea ice, depths more than 2000 m, the air-sea-ice interface, biogeochemical and biological variables, and for seasons other than summer. Addressing these data gaps in a sustained way requires parallel advances in coordination networks, cyberinfrastructure and data management tools, observational platform and sensor technology, platform interrogation and data-transmission technologies, modeling frameworks, and internationally agreed sampling requirements of key variables. This paper presents a community statement on the major scientific and observational progress of the last decade, and importantly, an assessment of key priorities for the coming decade, towards achieving the SOOS vision and delivering essential data to all end users.


Abstract. Developing predictive capability for future atmospheric oxidation capacity requires a detailed analysis of model uncertainties and sensitivity of the modeled oxidation capacity to model input variables. Using oxidant mixing ratios modeled by the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model and measured on the NASA DC-8 aircraft, uncertainty and global sensitivity analyses were performed on the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model for the modeled oxidants hydroxyl (OH), hydroperoxyl (HO2), and ozone (O3). The sensitivity of modeled OH, HO2, and ozone to model inputs perturbed simultaneously within their respective uncertainties were found for the flight tracks of NASA's Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) A and B campaigns (2008) in the North American Arctic. For the spring deployment (ARCTAS-A), ozone was most sensitive to the photolysis rate of NO2, the NO2 + OH reaction rate, and various emissions, including methyl bromoform (CHBr3). OH and HO2 were overwhelmingly sensitive to aerosol particle uptake of HO2 with this one factor contributing upwards of 75 % of the uncertainty in HO2. For the summer deployment (ARCTAS-B), ozone was most sensitive to emission factors, such as soil NOx and isoprene. OH and HO2 were most sensitive to biomass emissions and aerosol particle uptake of HO2. With modeled HO2 showing a factor of 2 underestimation compared to measurements in the lowest 2 km of the troposphere, lower uptake rates (γHO2


This paper discusses an explorative study of emerging Dalit activism in online realms. It is the aim of this study to provide empirical content to debates that link the advance of social media to shifts in citizenship and the manifestation of democracy. It seeks to unravel the complexity and hybrid appearance of online activism in practice by focussing on underexplored subaltern spheres. After some contextualizing reflections concerning literature on Dalit media and online political participation, it assesses attempts of prominent Dalit bloggers to employ social media in their battle for justice, representation and socio-economic mobility. Contributing to current debates on collective (and connective) action and 'new' or personalized politics – especially since Web 2.0 – the article stresses the importance of embracing a broad conceptualization of online political practice and the need to explore such practice as part of contemporary projects of self. It is argued that, in order to explore the dynamics of personalized politics within marginalized communities, one needs to assess the way in which the intertwinement of these individual projects of self and the collective emancipatory project appear in online social networking strategies of digital activists. As such, the analysis adds to the understanding of every day activism at grassroots level in the age of the Internet.


The number of congenital heart disease (CHD) patients with heart failure is expanding. These patients have a high probability of dying while awaiting heart transplant. The potential for durable ventricular assist devices (VAD) to improve waiting list survival in CHD is unknown. We conducted an analysis of the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database for the primary outcome of death or delisting due to clinical worsening while listed for heart transplant. We compared CHD patients with non-CHD patients matched for listing status. Multivariable models were constructed to account for confounding variables. Congenital heart disease patients were less likely to have a VAD and were more likely to experience the primary outcome of death or delisting due to clinical worsening compared to non-CHD patients. Ventricular assist devices decreased the probability of experiencing the primary outcome for non-CHD but not for CHD patients with a final listing status of 1A. Ventricular assist devices increased the probability of experiencing the primary outcome among CHD patients for those with a final listing status of 1B with no impact in non-CHD patients. Among non-CHD patients who died or were delisted, the time to the primary outcome was delayed by VAD, with a similar trend in CHD. Except for patients with a final listing status of 1B, VAD does not adversely affect waiting list outcomes in CHD patients listed for heart transplant. Ventricular assist devices may prolong waiting list survival among high-risk CHD patients.


This is a major comparative study of big business in the three dominant European nations across the 20th century. In particular the author looks at the character and performance of the major companies in each country at five snapshot moments through the century. In so doing he offers a broad and sweeping analysis of European business amply supported by a wealth of empirical data. Cassis view often challenges widely held assumptions about, for example, entrepreneurial failure in Britain; the relationship between big business and the Nazis in Germany; and the rebuilding of France in the post war period. To fill out his story Cassis looks closely at the role and charcter of the business elites in each country and and their relationship with wider social and political developments. The book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the development of European business and the links between business practice and the wider social and political environment in each country.


This thesis examines Edward Gorey's play with form and content across five literary genres, how that play results in the style that has come to be known as the "Goreyesque" and how the Goreyesque has influenced later artists and writers. Gorey consistently places style ahead of thematic and moral considerations, removing the purpose of each genre to reveal what remains in its absence. In doing so, Gorey maps out the boundaries of each form, providing genre- and period-specific details that act as signposts to how his audience should approach each narrative. With these markers in place, Gorey's readers are thus made aware of which genre expectations rule each piece. These expectations, however, are undermined as Gorey removes the audience-understood literary endgame, so that the work appears in all respects to be an accurate representation of the chosen genre, yet is missing the central heart.  Gorey's melodramas present scenarios in which deep familial loss and suffering are at the forefront of each narrative, yet as a result of the distance that Gorey places between the text and his readers, these works ultimately lack sentimentality. His Dickensian narratives, while populated with virtuous orphans and embittered, isolated men, lack moral pronouncements and just rewards, resulting in exceptionally bleak, nihilistic endings that provide little or no social commentary. His children's literature, although full of mnemonic systems, rejects all pedagogical functions in favour of inviting in adult audiences to luxuriate in sound and linguistic form. His mystery and detective fiction, while containing secrets, crimes and criminals, ignores any pretence of decoding the central mysteries. His Gothic horror revels in supernatural excesses, yet engenders no fear. By tracing Gorey's play with genre, we can identify the aesthetic parameters of the Goreyesque, and examine how they manifest in the works of other artists and writers, notably Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman and Roman Dirge.  In manipulating genre expectations, Gorey does more than simply leave readers with the shell of narrative purpose. Instead, he draws attention to the absence and pushes beyond expectation to reinvention. He normalizes the strange and fantastic by removing the very things that make the ordinary extraordinary. He infuses his works with a distance that shifts their purpose from generating high emotion and strong reactions to encouraging minute attention to narrative detail. Gorey's fantasies therefore represent odd, underwhelming moments that are otherwise ignored in the search for the uncommon and unique. By underplaying the significance of the events in his stories, Gorey represents and refreshes our concepts of the fantastic, and highlights the strangeness in the overlooked.


The proliferation of online social networks, and the concomitant accumulation of user data, give rise to hotly debated issues of privacy, security, and control. One specific challenge is the sharing or public release of anonymized data without accidentally leaking personally identifiable information (PII). Unfortunately, it is often difficult to ascertain that sophisticated statistical techniques, potentially employing additional external data sources, are unable to break anonymity. In this paper, we consider an instance of this problem, where the object of interest is the structure of a social network, i.e., a graph describing users and their links. Recent work demonstrates that anonymizing node identities may not be sufficient to keep the network private: the availability of node and link data from another domain, which is correlated with the anonymized network, has been used to re-identify the anonymized nodes. This paper is about conditions under which such a de-anonymization process is possible.
 We attempt to shed light on the following question: can we assume that a sufficiently sparse network is inherently anonymous, in the sense that even with unlimited computational power, de-anonymization is impossible? Our approach is to introduce a random graph model for a version of the de-anonymization problem, which is parameterized by the expected node degree and a similarity parameter that controls the correlation between two graphs over the same vertex set. We find simple conditions on these parameters delineating the boundary of privacy, and show that the mean node degree need only grow slightly faster than log n with network size n for nodes to be identifiable. Our results have policy implications for sharing of anonymized network information.


The effect of spatial arrangement and maize population in maize-soybean mixture on maize earworm attack was studied at Nsukka, Nigeria for four years, 1997-2000. The treatment consisted of three maize population densities of 40,000, 60,000 and 80,000 plants ha-1, and three row-arrangements of maize: soybean mixtures of 1:1. 1:2 and 1:3 in all possible combinations. There were also three sole crop populations of maize and one of soybean. This resulted in 13 treatments which were laid out in field plots in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The result showed that intercropping maize and soybean did not reduce maize earworm infestation. Maize population at 80,000 plants ha-1 significantly reduced the infestation by maize earworm and maize cob sizes compared to populations at 40,000 or 60,000 plants ha-1 (P = 0.05). Highly significant positive correlations were established in all the years between earworm population and maize ear sizes. The correlation between damage incidence and severity were inconsistent Land equivalent ratios (LER) at 40,000 and 60,000 maize ha-1 were significantly higher than LER at 80,000 maize ha-1. The differences among the spatial arrangement and its interaction with maize population did not attain any level of statistical significance.
. Keywords : Maize earworm, Spatial arrangement, Maize population, Maize-Soybean mixture Agro-Science Vol. 4 (1) 2005: pp. 60-65


Background: Serine protease promotes desquamatation of the stratum corneum and this is controlled by serine protease inhibitors (SPI). After disruption of the skin barrier, signals for barrier recovery are started with the activation of cytokines and a migration of calcium ions. On the other hand, the protease-activated receptor-2 (PAR-2) pathway is initiated as a negative signal. As the pH of the stratum corneum become neutral, activated serine protease and PAR-2 inhibit the secretion of lamellar bodies and the formation of the lamellar structure. Objective: We wanted to screen noble synthetic peptides and identify the efficacy of a selected peptide, Palmitic acid-Lysine Threonine Threonine Lysine Serine (Pal-KTTKS), on PAR-2 in vitro and in vivo, and a clinical study was performed. Methods: In vitro: Changes of the intracellular calcium ion concentration were measured in cultured HaCaT cells by fluorescence imaging according to treatment with sample peptides and trypsin. In vivo animal study: The efficacy of 2% Pal-KTTKS cream as a selected noble peptide was evaluated in an oxazolone-induced atopic dermatitis animal model. Clinical study: A total of twenty three atopic dermatitis patients applied 2.5% Pal-KTTKS peptide-containing cream on the one side of their extremities and pseudo-ceramide containing moisturizer on the other side of the extremities as a control twice a day for 4 weeks. Clinical improvement was evaluated by the Eczema Area Severity Index (EASI) score, a subject questionnaire and comparison of photographs. Results: Suppression of the intracellular calcium concentration via PAR-2 inhibition was noted in the Pal-KTTKS peptide treated cultured HaCaT cells. In the oxazolone-induced atopic dermatitis hairless mice model, 2% Pal-KTTKS peptide containing lotion was more effective than vehicle lotion only. In the atopic dermatitis patients, the sites treated with 2.5% Pal-KTTKS peptide-containing cream showed better improvement for the EASI score, the subject questionnaire and the clinical photographs as compared to that of the control sites. There were no remarkable side effects related to the treatment. Conclusion: A PAR-2 inhibitor-containing topical agent would be an effective and safe modality for treating atopic dermatitis.


Author Stephenie Meyer forever altered the cultural existence of Quileute Indians when she wrote them into her Twilight novels. Now a veritable global phenomenon complete with books, movies, and affiliated merchandise, the Twilight series depicts young, male members of the tribe as vampire-fighting werewolves who ferociously defend a peace and territorial treaty made with local bloodsuckers. In reality, the Quileute Tribe consists of approximately 700 Indians, many of whom live on a remote reservation in the pacific Northwest, a tiny parcel of the once vast Quileute territory. Since Twilight's unprecedented international success, the Quileute have been overwhelmed with fans and entrepreneurs, all grasping, quite literally in some cases, for their own piece of the Quileute.


Abstract Multidisciplinary study of the Osa and Burica peninsulas, Costa Rica, recognizes the Osa Igneous Complex and the Osa Mélange – records of a complex Late Cretaceous–Miocene tectonic–sedimentary history. The Igneous Complex, an accretionary prism (sensu stricto) comprises mainly basaltic lava flows, with minor sills, gabbroic intrusives, pelagic limestones and radiolarites. Sediments or igneous rocks derived from the upper plate are absent. Four units delimited on the base of stratigraphy and geochemistry lie in contact along reactivated palaeo-décollement zones. They comprise fragments of a Coniacian–Santonian oceanic plateau (Inner Osa Igneous Complex) and Coniacian–Santonian to Middle Eocene seamounts (Outer Osa Igneous Complex). The units are unrelated to other igneous complexes of Costa Rica and Panama and are exotic with respect to the partly overthickened Caribbean Plate; they formed by multiple accretions between the Late Cretaceous and Middle Eocene, prior to the genesis of the mélange. Events of high-rate accretion alternated with periods of low-rate accretion and tectonic erosion. The NW Osa Mélange in contact with the Osa Igneous Complex has a block-in-matrix texture at various scales, produced by sedimentary processes and later tectonically enhanced. Lithologies are mainly debris flows and hemipelagic deposits. Clastic components (grains to large boulders) indicate Late Eocene mass wasting of the Igneous Complex, forearc deposits and a volcanic arc. Gravitational accumulation of a thick pile of trench sediments culminated with shallow-level accretion. Mass-wasting along the margin was probably triggered by seamount subduction and/or plate reorganization at larger scale. The study provides new geological constraints for seamount subduction and associated accretionary processes, as well as on the erosive/accretionary nature of convergent margins devoid of accreted sediments.


There is growing acknowledgement among policymakers that climate change may give rise to potentially catastrophic financial risk and impact financial stability. This paper explores the specific features of climate-related financial risks (CRFR), drawing on a growing body of macrofinancial literature and policy work, and discusses the options macroprudential policy-makers have in the face of such risk. It finds that there are significant challenges associated with 'greening' macroprudential policy, both epistemological and methodological as well as behavioural, and points to potential ingredients of a 'green' macroprudential policy. In light of the radical uncertainty in relation to the dynamics of CRFR, the timing of policy action is of the essence. The paper, in particular, explores the merits and challenges associated with a precautionary approach to tackling the systemic effects of CRFR. Finally, it discusses the role that Central Banks can and should play in the transition to a low-carbon economy, both within the confines and in fulfilment of their price and financial stability mandates.


We show how to create a semantics-based, parameterized translator from model-based notations to SMV, using template semantics. Our translator takes as input a specification and a set of user-provided parameters that encode the specification's semantics; it produces an SMV model suitable for model checking. Using such a translator, we can model check a specification that has customized semantics. Our work also shows how to represent complex composition operators, such as rendezvous, in the SMV language, in which there is no matching language construct.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of Commelina diffusa L. as a ruminant feed. Commelina diffusa belongs to the Commelinaceae family, a family of plants that is generally poorly investigated with respect to ruminant nutrition. The species was evaluated in terms of its chemical composition, and through the in sacco technique, its rumen degradation characteristics. Rumen degradability was determined in three mature female goats, each fitted with a permanent rumen cannula. Commelina diffusa contained 177 g crude protein (CP)/kg dry matter (DM) and its CP had a rumen degradability of 74.1 ± 2.7%. Most of the DM and organic matter (OM) were lost during the first 36 h of incubation and the cell wall components after 48 h of incubation. Maximum (120 h) DM, OM, neutral and acid detergent fibre, hemicellulose and cellulose disappearances from the bags incubated in the rumen were 66.3, 57.8, 55.6, 55.2, 56.7 and 44.3%, respectively. Rumen degradation of DM and OM was correlated (r2 = 0.66), but significantly different. It is concluded that, from a nutritional point of view, C. diffusa compares well with many commonly used fodder crops and could be used as protein source for ruminants on smallholder farms. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 36(1) 2006: 28-32


Understanding the dynamics of a two-phase flow (liquid and gas) has been studied quite extensively over the past. This problem is indeed of direct relevance for many areas such as transportation, chemical processes and for the area of industrial risk assessment. For several years, INERIS has been conducting various experiments in order to understand the mechanisms of vaporisation during the release of products initially stored in the liquid phase, into the atmosphere. The purpose is to determine the gas fraction flowing not only in the pipeline but also in the released jet and the liquid fraction that could be trapped on the ground because of the presence of an obstacle. The studied products were propane, butane and ammonia. Various regimes of flows were tested and a database was created. Then, an evaluation of different models for calculating the two-phase flow and the droplet behaviour was based on flow regimes and experimental set-up. The first objective was to calculate the flow rate in the pipeline and predict the size of the droplets in the initial part of the jet. There was a wide scatter of the results and many difficulties arose during the determination of the flow evaporation rate. This paper presents the experimental results and conclusions on the validity of the twophase models depending on the products, experimental set-up, and pressure storage.


The goal of the Arabian Sea section of the TARA oceans expedition was to study large particulate matter (LPM> 100 µm) distributions and possible impact of associ- ated midwater biological processes on vertical carbon export through the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of this region. We propose that observed spatial patterns in LPM distribution resulted from the timing and location of surface phytoplank- ton bloom, lateral transport, microbial processes in the core of the OMZ, and enhanced biological processes mediated by bacteria and zooplankton at the lower oxycline. Indeed, satellite-derived net primary production maps showed that the northern stations of the transect were under the influence of a previous major bloom event while the most southern sta- tions were in a more oligotrophic situation. Lagrangian sim- ulations of particle transport showed that deep particles of the northern stations could originate from the surface bloom while the southern stations could be considered as driven by 1-D vertical processes. In the first 200 m of the OMZ core, minima in nitrate concentrations and the intermediate nepheloid layer (INL) coincided with high concentrations of 100 µm< LPM< 200 µm. These particles could correspond to colonies of bacteria or detritus produced by anaerobic mi- crobial activity. However, the calculated carbon flux through this layer was not affected. Vertical profiles of carbon flux in- dicate low flux attenuation in the OMZ, with a Martin model b exponent value of 0.22. At three stations, the lower oxy- cline was associated to a deep nepheloid layer, an increase of calculated carbon flux and an increase in mesozooplank- ton abundance. Enhanced bacterial activity and zooplankton feeding in the deep OMZ is proposed as a mechanism for the observed deep particle aggregation. Estimated lower flux at- tenuation in the upper OMZ and re-aggregation at the lower oxycline suggest that OMZ may be regions of enhanced car- bon flux to the deep sea relative to non OMZ regions.


We propose a decentralized progressive data retrieval (PDR) mechanism for data reconstruction in a network of Byzantine and crash-stop nodes. The scheme progressively retrieves stored data, such that it achieves the minimum communication cost possible. In particular, PDR gracefully adapts the cost of successful data retrieval to the number of Byzantine and crash-stop storage nodes. At the core of PDR is an incremental Reed-Solomon decoding (IRD) procedure that is highly computation efficient for data reconstruction. IRD's computation efficiency arises from its ability to utilize intermediate computation results. In addition, we provide an in-depth analysis of PDR and compare it to decentralized erasure coding and decentralized fountain coding algorithms for distributed storage systems. Moreover, our implementation results show that PDR has up to 35 times lower computation time over the state-of-the-art error-erasure decoding scheme for distributed storage systems. In our analysis, we also show that the code structure of PDR and the number of available storage nodes are independent of each other, and they can be used to control both the data dissemination and retrieval complexity.


i ABSTRACT The objective of this project was to evaluate human factors based cognitive aids on endoscope reprocessing. The project stems from recent failures in reprocessing (cleaning) endoscopes, contributing to the spread of harmful bacterial and viral agents between patients. Three themes were found to represent a majority of problems: 1) lack of visibility (parts and tools were difficult to identify), 2) high memory demands, and 3) insufficient user feedback. In an effort to improve completion rate and eliminate error, cognitive aids were designed utilizing human factors principles that would replace existing manufacturer visual aids. Then, a usability test was conducted, which compared the endoscope reprocessing performance of novices using the standard manufacturer-provided visual aids and the new cognitive aids. Participants successfully completed 87.1% of the reprocessing procedure in the experimental condition with the use of the cognitive aids, compared to 46.3% in the control condition using only existing support materials. Twenty-five of sixty subtasks showed significant improvement in completion rates. When given a cognitive aid designed with human factors principles, participants were able to more successfully complete the reprocessing task. This resulted in an endoscope that was more likely to be safe for patient use.


-OUTLINE OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY. By Henry Pratt Fairchild. New York: The Macmillan Company. Cloth. Price. $1.75. Yale University is continually making highly impor1ant contributions to the discussion of the problems of sociology and economics and it is gratifying to find the younger men following in the path of their elders. This book is less a discussion of social problems' than it is. a guide and inspiration to the study of these problems In real life. In the new phraseology it "motivates" the study of sociology. Or in the still newer phraseology it treats the various phases of sociology as distinct "projects," and in the newest phraseology it has social life and activities studied as "natural projects" rather than as scholastic or "artificial projects." In other words Mr. Fairchild is strictly up to date pedagogically as well as sociologically, all of which makes the book most attractive and exceedingly valuable. In conventionalized and traditional language we would say the questions under discussion are not considered as unrelated problems, but a comprehensive view is taken of the entire field of social life and social endeavor. The many aspects of the social organization are correlated logically and systematically. and the actual inter-relationship between seemingly divergent departments of life is indicated. Specific social problems and reform movements are considered only in their broad outlines, but each is shown to be comprehensible only in the light of its related social facts.


We conducted an extensive simulation study to compare the performance of a large group of plotless density estimators (PDEs) to obtain clarification of their relative performance in a diversity of sampling situations. The PDEs studied included well-known ones from the literature plus some extensions and modifications introduced here. The simulations cover 96 combinations of 6 spatial patterns, 4 sample sizes, and 4 population densities. We made comparisons within classes of similar estimators, and we indicate the best-performing PDEs out of the complete set studied. Over all spatial patterns, the angle-order estimator with measurements to the third- closest individual in each quadrant had the lowest relative root-mean-squared error (RRMSE), followed by the same estimation method with measurements to the second closest individual in each quadrant. Also performing well were the variable area transect, the ordered distance estimator using the third closest individual, and an extension of the Kendall-Moran estimator that searches for the second nearest neighbor and pools search areas from all sample points. Opinions and recommendations are given as to which PDEs perform well enough and are practical enough to deserve strong consideration for use in the field.


Formation of toxic oligomeric and fibrillar structures by the amyloid beta-protein (Abeta) is linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD). To facilitate the targeting and design of assembly inhibitors, intrinsic fluorescence was used to probe assembly-dependent changes in Abeta conformation. To do so, Tyr was substituted in Abeta40 or Abeta42 at position 1, 10 (wild type), 20, 30, 40, or 42. Fluorescence then was monitored periodically during peptide monomer folding and assembly. Electron microscopy revealed that all peptides assembled readily into amyloid fibrils. Conformational differences between Abeta40 and Abeta42 were observed in the central hydrophobic cluster (CHC) region, Leu17-Ala21. Tyr20 was partially quenched in unassembled Abeta40 but displayed a significant and rapid increase in intensity coincident with the maturation of an oligomeric, alpha-helix-containing intermediate into amyloid fibrils. This process was not observed during Abeta42 assembly, during which small decreases in fluorescence intensity were observed in the CHC. These data suggest that the structure of the CHC in Abeta42 is relatively constant within unassembled peptide and during the self-association process. Solvent accessibility of the Tyr ring was studied using a mixed solvent (dimethyl sulfoxide/water) system. [Tyr40]Abeta40, [Tyr30]Abeta42, and [Tyr42]Abeta42 all were relatively shielded from solvent. Analysis of the assembly dependence of the site-specific intrinsic fluorescence data suggests that the CHC is particularly important in controlling Abeta40 assembly, whereas the C-terminus plays the more significant role in Abeta42 assembly.


Tropical peatland burning in Asia has been intensifying over the last decades, emitting huge amounts of gas species and aerosol particles. Both laboratory and field studies have been conducted to investigate emission from peat burning, yet a significant variability in data still exists. We conducted a series of experiments to characterize the gas and particulate matter emitted during burning of a peat sample from Sumatra in Indonesia. Heating temperature of peat was found to regulate the ratio of CH4 to CO2 in emissions (ΔCH4/ΔCO2) as well as the chemical composition of particulate matter. The ΔCH4/ΔCO2 ratio was larger for higher temperatures, meaning that CH4 emission is more pronounced at these conditions. Mass spectrometric analysis of organic components indicated that aerosol particles emitted at higher temperatures had more unsaturated bonds and ring structures than that emitted from cooler fires. The result was consistently confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance analysis. In addition, CH4 emitted by burning charcoal, which is derived from previously burned peat, was lower by at least an order of magnitude than that from fresh peat. These results highlight the importance of both fire history and heating temperature for the composition of tropical peat‐fire emissions. They suggest that remote sensing technologies that map fire histories and temperatures could provide improved estimates of emissions.


Many sensing systems remotely monitor/measure an environment at several sites, and then report these observations to a central site. We propose and investigate several practical algorithms for joint routing and compression of data files as they are forward from remote nodes to a central site, with the goal of minimizing the communication cost incurred. Our algorithms are practical in that they do not assume that nodes have a priori information about the correlation structure (and resulting compression gains) of the individual measurements at a given sensor or among multiple sensors. Instead, this correlation structure is learned as pieces of the files are routed and jointly compressed on their way to the sink, and routes are adaptively changed as the nodes learn more about the correlation structure of the data.


In an industry project with a German car manufacturer we are faced with the challenge of placing a maximum number of uniform rigid rectangular boxes in the interior of a car trunk. The problem is of practical importance due to a European industry norm which requires car manufacturers to state the trunk volume according to this measure. No really satisfactory automated solution for this problem has been known in the past. In spite of its NP hardness, combinatorial optimization techniques, which consider only grid-aligned placements, produce solutions which are very close to the one achievable by a human expert in several hours of tedious work. The remaining gap is mostly due to the constraints imposed by the chosen grid. In this paper we present a new approach which combines the grid-based combinatorial method with Simulated Annealing on a continuous model. This allows us to explore arbitrary orientations and placements of boxes, hence closing the gap even further, and – in some cases – even surpass the manual expert solution. The implemented software system allows our industrial partner to incorporate the trunk volume in a very early stage of the car design process without relying on a repeated and cumbersome manual evaluation of the volume.


Depression has been identified as a significant global health problem. However, to date, there has been little research into the most appropriate strategies to use in the prevention of depression. There is even less research about the understanding that people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have of the conditions encompassed by the term 'depression', (or more culturally and linguistically specific representations of unhappiness) and of the ways in which these conditions may be prevented.

The Listening to Diverse Voices: multicultural mental health promotion research project, a collaboration between Murdoch University and the East Metropolitan Population Health Unit, funded by Healthway, investigated these issues within a number of minority communities and in consultation with service providers in Perth, Western Australia, during the period 2001-2004. The objectives of the research were to identify cultural differences in understandings and experiences of 'depression' and appropriate ways of dealing with such issues.

The research used focus groups and interviews to explore understandings of social and emotional well-being and of 'depression' among members of a number of communities in Perth. These included Sudanese, Somali, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Croatian, Bosnian and Chinese communities and also Indigenous Australians. The information in this document however pertains only to the Horn of Africa communities in the study. Service providers too were canvassed for their concerns and experiences. Participants came from a variety of ethnic and class backgrounds, and while some entered Australia under the 'skilled migrant' category, many came under the 'humanitarian program' and had experienced life in refugee camps in other parts of the world before coming to Australia. Over 200 people participated in the research.

Because of cultural sensitivities, separate focus groups were conducted with men, women and young people for some communities. Within the Sudanese community separate focus groups were conducted with North and South Sudanese and, within the Ethiopian community, separate focus groups were undertaken with Oromo men and women. In the Eritrean community Arabic speaking men and Tigre speaking men participated in separate focus groups. Most focus groups, apart from those with youth, were conducted by bilingual facilitators, in community languages, and were then transcribed verbatim and translated. Some focus groups and all interviews were conducted in English.

It is important to note that the use of such groupings does not imply internal homogeneity of individuals, experiences, perspectives or concerns.

All interviews and focus groups were undertaken using a semi-structured, standardised schedule. Interview and focus group questions were designed to elicit participants' understandings of mental health, social and emotional well-being, depression, causes of depression and recommendations for appropriate treatments and/or interventions. Interviews and focus groups were taped, transcribed and translated, where necessary, and the transcripts studied for common themes. These themes were then taken back to the communities for comment, and the summaries adapted according to this further feedback. While it is not claimed that the participants are 'representative' of the communities of which they are members, the research team feels confident that the issues identified are among the most common concerns of these communities.

The most significant finding was that issues seen by communities as likely to cause emotional (or mental) distress, are social and settlement issues, rather than being biomedical in nature, or being seen as the result of pre-arrival trauma (although this was one factor identified). The result of this is that while some of the issues may be dealt with from within a 'population health' perspective and organisation, most are outside population health parameters. Therefore this information is being provided to a wider audience in the hope that other government departments, non-government organisations and individuals will also take action to address some of these issues.

This document contains brief summaries of the various issues identified by the Horn of Africa communities as leading to what Westerners might call 'depression' and their suggestions for solutions. Our commitment to hearing the voices of these communities themselves is reflected in our use of direct quotations taken from the interviews and focus groups. We also provide profiles of the communities, including historical and cultural information and a brief history of arrival in Western Australia. This document provides information about the new and emerging communities from the Horn of Africa. Horn of Africa. The opinions expressed are from research participants and do not necessarily represent the views of the authors. For information about the findings from all other communities, see the East Metropolitan Population Health Unit Website: http://www.health.wa.gov.au/home/ or Murdoch University Website: http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/


This paper makes the case for extended ways of knowing in systemic intervention. It argues that the deployment of formal (even reflective) thinking and dialogue methods are inadequate, on their own, to the critical tasks of comprehending larger wholes and appreciating others' viewpoints. Theory and techniques need to go further and access other forms of knowing, held in experiential, practical or symbolic ways. This could offer a better basis to incorporate marginalized people and other phenomena that are affected by interventions but do not have a voice, such as ecosystems and future generations.


Reliable group data delivery (RGDD) is a pervasive traffic pattern in data centers. In an RGDD group, a sender needs to reliably deliver a copy of data to all the receivers. Existing solutions either do not scale due to the large number of RGDD groups (e.g., IP multicast) or cannot efficiently use network bandwidth (e.g., end-host overlays). We designDatacast for RGDD. Datacast turns group state management to in-network packet caching by leveraging the content centric networking (CCN) concept. It uses centrally calculated multiple edge-disjoint trees for efficient and fast data delivery. By introducing a robust rate-based congestion control, which interprets duplicated CCN interest packets as congestion signal, Datacast adapts well to varying network conditions. We have implemented Datacast using the ServerSwitch [13] platform. Our implementation shows that all the features needed in Datacast, including flexible packet filtering, source routing, and in-network packet caching, can be implemented using commodity devices. Our implementation can offload packet forwarding to switching chip for 50% nodes in a typical group with 280members and over 500 intermediate nodes. Our testbed experiments demonstrate that Datacast achieves 1.74Gb/s goodput using two 1GbE Steiner trees, it uses network bandwidth efficiently, adapts to changing traffic conditions and reacts to network failures quickly.


Water quality objectives may require water managers to consider deviations from original project purposes to provide downstream water quality maintenance during low-flow periods. The decision process is even more complex when operating a system of reservoirs. In such cases, however, the possibility is greatly enhanced that a combination of release strategies exists which provide a solution to the multiobjective problem. This paper investigates the problem of balancing multiple project benefits with water quality objectives for a system of reservoirs during low-flow seasons. An optimization model to address this issue is developed; the primary focus of the model is upon the inclusion of water quality concerns in developing daily operational strategies during low-flow periods. The Cumberland River Basin in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky is used to illustrate the possibilities for applying such a model.


This paper briefly describes how international trade has been transformed in recent years and what has determined its increasing politicisation. It argues that the two main pillars of the global trading system—international trade regulation and the dispute settlement mechanism—are being put under strain due to various developments. The whole system is being challenged by opposing tendencies: on the one hand, the multiplication of global risks and opportunities demands common action and multilateral rulemaking; on the other, we are witnessing increasing fragmentation and regionalisation. The realistic objective that can now be set for the future development of world trade is the preservation of as much as possible of the present system and its improvement in specific areas.


The FedExCup is a professional golf championship on
 the PGA TOUR that includes the first
playoff system staged on any of the world's profess
ional golf tours. The FedExCup,
incorporating elements of theory on the design of i
ndividualistic sports competitions in its
organisation and structure, enhances the PGA TOUR s
eason by providing an additional
competitive element and has to date been effective
in meeting a number of its objectives.
However, despite having the largest prize fund in g
olf and the seventh largest first prize in all
team or individual sports, the FedExCup is evidentl
y considered neither by top players nor
by fans to be the most important competition in gol
f, thereby conflicting with theory on prize
incentives in sport competition. The FedExCup canno
t currently match the inherent
importance and tradition of the major championship
tournaments; however, its importance
may be enhanced with a reorganisation of the finale
 tournament, 'The TOUR Championship',
to a three day tournament and the introduction of n
ew matchplay playoff competition
between the top four players in the final standings
 after The TOUR Championship. This
would serve to separate the two distinct competitio
ns: (a) the competition for the event, and
(b) the competition for the 'league title', and mak
e them complementary rather than
embedded. The objective of this restructure is to
maintain all of the existing positive
elements of the design of the FedExCup, but to also
 add a more dramatic context to its
conclusion; critically it would make the competitio
n more attractive to spectators and as a
consequence, increase the perceived status of the F
edExCup to a level more befitting of its
prize fund.


Many emerging applications of space, ground, marine, and air vehicles require relative automated navigation with respect to other vehicles and objects. Disturbances in the environment may cause faults in relative navigation sensors. For sensors based on cameras or laser range finders, events as common as lighting changes, glint, or obstruction by debris could potentially cause spurious responses. Relative navigation is safety critical‐fault tolerance must be addressed. We propose a fault detection, identification, and recovery architecture using multiple moving horizon estimators, each for a separate hypothesis of the fault state of the system. The hypothesis with maximum empirical likelihood is selected. Detected and identified faults are reported to the main navigation filter, which may then discard the relative navigation sensor data, and instead temporarily rely on the inertial navigation system. The guidance system may also act on the identified fault state, taking actions to recover the system to a safe state. This logic is demonstrated in simulation for the automated rendezvous and docking (AR&D) of spacecraft‐a key technology for the near future demands of the space program. The simulation results demonstrate that faulty relative sensors may seriously aect the navigation solution. The proposed fault detection scheme has demonstrated an ability to identify faults in these sensors and take them oine before they disrupt navigation and lead to mission failure.


As the world enters an era of rapidly growing demand for food, declining resource availability and rising volatility, leaders in global food processing have recognized the need for more sustainable food production and are beginning to implement strategies for improved environmental, social and economic performance in their supply chains. With significant growth occurring in emerging markets like China, multinational food processors must consider the context of the market and the impact this has on the viability of their sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) strategies. Addressing a shortage of related literature, this study aims to understand the conditions for sustainable supply chain development in China's food processing sector and factors that companies pursuing this strategy must consider.
An exploratory case study of two multinational food processors based in China and serving the domestic market, investigates progress made in implementing SSCM strategies, with a focus on the upstream and agricultural producers. Use of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Sustainable Purchasing Portfolio (SPP) model highlight differences in asset specificity and supply risk that contribute to
understanding observed variations, despite the firms having similar stakeholders, common threats to triple bottom line sustainability and proven track records for SSCM in their home countries.
Findings suggest that current conditions in China's food sector may not support widespread adoption of SSCM strategies. While undergoing remarkable change, the industry is still characterized by a high degree of fragmentation and low levels of development. Intense competition, a lack of traceability infrastructure and the need for more reliable enforcement of regulations has spurred opportunistic behaviour that threatens basic food quality and safety. Stakeholders concerned with these issues and the affordability of food for consumers spending more than a third of their income on food, have low expectations for triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability. As such, the high cost of pursuing SSCM represents a significant risk to the economic sustainability of commodity food processors. However in contrast, processors of specialized inputs that require high levels of coordination to achieve quality standards face less risk in pursuing SSCM. Furthermore, the process and the relationships fostered may support reduction of supply risk stemming from market volatility and the short-term investment focus of many agricultural producers.
Future study of a wider range of MNC food processors are necessary to test the findings from in this study. Including MNCs processing for export markets or Chinese-owned MNCs may produce new insights into the application of the SPP, and facilitate a more detailed stakeholder analysis that considers differences in
expectations of overseas stakeholders or those in different segments of China's domestic market. Lastly, as findings suggest the importance of supply chain relationships, a closer investigation of the entire chain using Vurro et al.'s (2009) network view of SSCM may also provide understanding of interactions with and the impact of retail and food service sustainability strategies.


Communication plays a key role in coordinating all social interactions in an individual's life, but is particularly crucial for coordinating reproduction. Although chemical (olfactory) signals are ubiquitous in sexual communication in mammals, a disproportionate reliance on laboratory-based studies using a limited range of species, along with several logistical and methodological limitations, limit our broader understanding of their functions in reproduction and as sexually selected traits. I addressed these shortcomings by using an integrated, multidisciplinary approach, combining organic chemical analyses, physiology, genetics and behaviour, to investigate chemical signals, reproduction and sexual selection in a terrestrial, egg-laying mammal (monotreme), the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus).
Although the monotreme and therian lines have been evolutionarily separate for over 150 million years, echidna scent gland secretions from the spur and cloaca showed a typical mammalian pattern in terms of high chemical diversity and complexity. I identified a large number of compounds of varying volatility, molecular weight, functional groups and aromaticity, suggesting a high reliance on olfactory communication. Similarities with other vertebrates can indicate evolutionary convergence on optimal chemicals as signals, although several obscure and even novel compounds were also identified. Consistent with other seasonal breeders, echidna chemical profiles varied between sexes and during the mating season. Profiles also differed between individuals, suggesting they could contain genetic information, although microsatellite markers were inadequate to confirm this hypothesis. Changes in male spur secretions during the mating season coincided with maximum annual plasma testosterone concentrations and could be sexually selected, functioning in mate choice or intra-sexual competition. Males were attracted to female scent, confirming male response to sex-specific scent differences is an important driver of echidna mating behaviour. Consequently, chemical sensory traits that influence the ability to locate mates seem to be favoured by natural and sexual selection.Behavioural responses to chemical signals can be complicated by sexual conflict, although this has rarely been investigated in mammals. Male echidnas locate and mate with hibernating females; however females showed no changes in chemical profiles during hibernation. These results suggest that females do not 'actively' signal to males while hibernating, but intense male-male competition for access to females has probably driven earlier male readiness to breed, even before females might otherwise emerge from hibernation and signal to males. In females, chemical cues and reproductive physiology were not closely linked, as females showed continued mating activity during pregnancy and no detectable changes in chemical profiles at the time of fertilization or during pregnancy. Therefore, female reproductive status appears undisclosed to males, and multi-male mating may function to confuse paternity and reduce infanticide risk. These results suggest chemical signals are used differently by males and females to increase their reproductive success, often at the expense of the other sex, resulting in an evolutionary 'arms race' between signalers and receivers.
Overall, a complex interplay between chemical signals, behaviour, environmental and selective pressures is responsible for the mating behaviour observed in Tasmanian echidnas. My work highlights the benefit of using a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach based on a free-living, 'non-model' mammalian species, representing a significant step towatrds understanding the influences of selective pressures, including selection and conflict, on animal communication.


We revisit the theory of null shells in general relativity, with a particular emphasis on null shells placed at horizons of black holes. We study in detail the considerable freedom that is available in the case that one solders two metrics together across null hypersurfaces (such as Killing horizons) for which the induced metric is invariant under translations along the null generators. In this case the group of soldering transformations turns out to be infinite dimensional, and these solderings create non-trivial horizon shells containing both massless matter and impulsive gravitational wave components. We also rephrase this result in the language of Carrollian symmetry groups. To illustrate this phenomenon we discuss in detail the example of shells on the horizon of the Schwarzschild black hole (with equal interior and exterior mass), uncovering a rich classical structure at the horizon and deriving an explicit expression for the general horizon shell energy-momentum tensor. In the special case of BMS-like soldering supertranslations we find a conserved shell-energy that is strikingly similar to the standard expression for asymptotic BMS supertranslation charges, suggesting a direct relation between the physical properties of these horizon shells and the recently proposed BMS supertranslation hair of a black hole.


In the construction of modern metal airplanes there are many locations where a more or less concentrated load is transferred to a large area of material. Therefore the design-engineer is frequently confronted with the problem of "shear lag." This problem can be treated in a few simple cases by the mathematical theory of elasticity, especially by Airy's stress functions, but in many other cases, in order to avoid mathematical complexities, certain assumptions must be made which will simplify the analytical solution of the problem. These assumptions usually do not agree with the actual conditions therefore the results are not adequate. By the photoelastic method, however, the results obtained by the mathematical theory can be checked. It is the purpose of this experiment to check the results which have been obtained by the theoretical investigation for a few simple cases.


European canker (Neonectria ditissima), is an important disease on apple trees. Four biological Bacillus-based products and four fungicidal products were tested for efficacy against this pathogen on water agar (WA) and potato dextrose agar (PDA). Neonectria ditissima colonies grown without the biological products were healthy, but when mixed with biological control agents, the colonies were smaller and more diffuse. An interaction between medium and product was observed at 20˚C. BacstarTM, Serenade® Optimum and TripleXTM reduced colony growth on PDA but not on WA, while Fulzyme® Plus reduced colony growth on WA but less on PDA. Interestingly, the efficacy of the products was not improved when 10 times label rates were used, except for Fulzyme Plus on WA. At 10˚C and 15˚C Fulzyme Plus was the most effective biological product, particularly at 10 times label rate. Activation of the biological products (25˚C for 3 h) did not increase their efficacy. CapetecTM (captan) and a mixture of HML32TM + HML SilcoTM prevented pathogen growth. ARMOUR-Zen® and Esteem® did not reduce the number of colonies. More research is needed to determine whether biological products can be used to control European canker.


Many young working age adults in developed countries are failing to thrive in economic, demographic and social terms. Their failure to thrive is a relatively new phenomenon that has not been widely recognized, but it affects young adults in virtually all the more developed countries for which we have relevant data. Young adults nowadays are more often in poverty. They are leaving their parental homes at ever later ages and in some countries the frequency of psychological problems increased. The seriousness of failure to thrive syndrome is reflected in the relationship between relative economic conditions and increased suicide rates. The syndrome is important because young adults are at the prime ages for finding employment, establishing long-run career paths and building an economic basis for founding a family. Developing strategies to arrest the spread of failure to thrive syndrome among young adults, in order to keep them vibrant contributors to our societies, should be a priority for policy makers.


Teacher education in developing countries faces great challenges attributable to economic constraints, including shrinking resources, the low status of teachers—exacerbated by declining incentives—and an entirely theoretical approach in teacher training programs. These challenges are further intensified by variations in the trainees' cultural, regional, and religious backgrounds and by the lack of collaboration between different education sectors. In this context, the Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) in Karachi, Pakistan, is attempting to provide contextually appropriate, effective teacher education programs for Pakistan and other developing countries. This article draws on the authors' personal experiences in the teacher education programs at AKU-IED and on studies that examine the impact of these programs on participants. Several studies show that teacher education transforms teachers' beliefs and practices if accomplished through more effective approaches. The article discusses how teacher education programs are conceptualized and implemented in the multicultural context of AKU-IED, where the course participants come from various developing countries and diverse backgrounds.


Transportation policies, plans, and projects all flow through state institutions because of the substantial cost of infrastructure and the need to assess transportation system performance, including equity implications. But environmental justice scholarship interrogates the state's role in perpetuating injustice. Most research and planning practice related to transportation equity has relied upon state-sponsored analytical methods. Transportation planners and scholars can benefit from critical assessments of these approaches. We propose a shift in focus from transportation equity to a broader consideration of transportation justice that is more closely aligned with models of social change promulgated in the environmental justice literature and by related movements.


The identified neurone R15 in the abdominal ganglion of the marine mollusc, Aplysia californica, exhibits a rhythmic bursting pattern of electrical activity. This pattern, which is generated endogenously by the interaction of several voltage- and time-dependent ion currents in R15's membrane, is subject to long-term modulation by synaptic stimulation and application of several neurotransmitters. At micromolar concentrations the transmitter serotonin causes neurone R15 to hyperpolarize, as a result of the activation of an anomalously rectifying potassium conductance. Furthermore under some conditions serotonin can excite R15, as a result of the activation of a voltage-dependent calcium current. Both of these effects of serotonin are mediated by the intracellular second messenger cyclic AMP. In addition, serotonin can modulate a chloride current by a cyclic-AMP-dependent mechanism. In contrast to the activation of the voltage-dependent calcium current by serotonin/cyclic AMP, a cyclic GMP analogue alters the bursting pattern by inhibiting this current. The results indicate that a single neurotransmitter, acting via a single intracellular messenger, can modulate several classes of ion channels in a single nerve cell. Furthermore a single class of ion channel, that is responsible for a voltage-dependent calcium current, may be the target for modulation by at least two different intracellular messengers. These findings emphasize the intricacy of the regulatory pathways which contribute to fine tuning of neuronal electrical activity.


Asia continues to lead e-commerce growth worldwide, with multi-sided platforms like Alibaba.com, 360buy.com and Taobao.com leading the race. Despite their rising prominence, few studies articulate how these multi-sided platforms in Asia service and collaborate with it sides. It is important to learn how platforms encounter and adapt to changing suppliers-platform-customers interactions, to better understand the implications of e-commerce necessary to compete and lead in this digitally enabled landscape. Furthermore, scholars suggest research to discern between modernization of Asia and Westernization. To close these gaps, the authors conduct a case study of two of China's leading multisided digital platforms—A.com and M.com. The researchers cross-examine the development of the two firms since their establishing, focusing on collaborative strategies with their sides and within their business units, through interdependencies and collective action conceptual perspectives. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, we introduce a framework that identifies four types (IIV) of multi-sided platform collaborations. This framework prescribes guidelines to identify and manage different types of collaborative action for strategic planning and operations between platform partners. Secondly, we consolidate four lessons learnt from our data—teach, consolidate, co-opete and ultimately lead—a set of actionable guidelines for platform leadership in the marketplace.


French materialist feminists such as Christine Delphy and Monique Wittig maintain that the social fact of women's exploitation by men within the family pre-exists and produces gender differences as well as the perception that men and women belong to different biological sexes. They take this position to be 'materialist' because it puts social facts prior to ideas and beliefs and so puts the 'material' prior to the 'ideal'. However, I shall claim, drawing on arguments of Sebastiano Timpanaro's, that this is an incomplete form of materialism because it neglects the shaping of social facts by their interaction with biological facts, notably the biological difference between the sexes. Wittig, though, denies that there is any 'fact' of biological sexual difference. Wittig claims that we only believe in and perceive two biological sexes due to the influence of gender expectations. I will try to show that Wittig's arguments for this claim undermine themselves and actually presuppose that there are two biological sexes. I will conclude that, given that there are two biological sexes, a fully materialist form of feminism must take account of sex difference in theorising gender inequalities.


During the 1930s, as unemployment among architects and draftsmen in the United States reached 90 percent or more, these practitioners joined with other technical workers to form the Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians (FAECT). From 1933 until after World War II, the FAECT served as a trade union and activist organization for the purpose of securing higher wages, employment benefits, and labor rights. For architectural workers the organization also focused on a commitment to affordable housing and the efficiency of manufactured housing. Through its publications, the FAECT Bulletin and Technical America , the Federation debated key issues and promoted its advocacy to members nationwide. In The Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians (FAECT): The Politics and Social Practice of Labor , Mardges Bacon examines how the FAECT provides a historical model of solidarity and activism for future practitioners in the architecture profession.


Bradyrhizobium strains: ENRRI 16A, ENRRI 16C (Local) and strains TAL 169 and TAL 1371 (Introduced) were used to inoculate two guar cultivars namely, HFG-75 and Local, in split plot design with four replications in field experiment at two locations (ElAin and Abu-Habil, North Kordofan State-Sudan). The objective of the experiment was to study the effect of inoculation with Bradyrhizobium on yield attributes, proximate composition and minerals content of guar. Bradyrhizobium inoculation showed no significan t (p<0.05) effect on plant height (cm), number of fruiting branches/plant, number of pods/plant, 100-seed weight (g), grain yield and the yield kg/ha of the two guar cultivars grown at Abu-Habil. At ElAin site, inoculation with ENRRI 16C significantly (p<0.05) increased the plant height (by 25%) and fruiting branches/plant (by 97%) of the two guar cultivars. Also, all treatments (except inoculation of HFG-75 with ENRRI 16A) considerably improved the 100-seed weight (g) of the tested cultivars compared to the control. The ash and protein contents of the tested guar cultivars at the two locations showed no response to inoculation by the four Bradyrhizobium strains. Also, the crude fibre content of guar seeds in the two sites did not responded to Bradyrhizobium inoculation, excluding the local cultivar treated with ENRRI 16C and TAL 1371 grown at Abu-Habil. The oil content for HFG-75 cultivar at the two locations showed positive response to inoculation with TAL 1371. The phosphorus content of the two cultivars, at both Abu-Habil and ElAin was notably increased due to inoculation. At ElAin site, inoculation did not influenced the phosphorus content except for HFG-75 treated with ENRRI 16C and local cultivar inoculated by TAL 169. Potassium content of the guar seeds from HFG-75 at the two locations as well as that for the local cultivar at ElAin demonstrated no response to inoculation. Inoculation with ENRRI 16C and TAL 169 significantly (p<0.05) promoted the Na content of the local cultivar at Abu-Habil, whereas ENRRI 16A considerably increased Na content for HFG-75 at ElAin location. The calcium content of HGF-75 guar seeds was significantly (p<0.05) enhanced due to inoculation with ENRRI 16C at Abu-Habil as well as treatment with ENRRI 16A, TAL 169 and TAL 1371 at ElAin. Conversely, Ca content of the local guar was not affected by inoculation. Magnesium content of HGF-75 cultivar at Abu-Habil was positively responded to Bradyrhizobium inoculation.


The majority of older people wish to continue to live at home for as long as possible. As a consequence, the healthcare system, including cancer care, is located in urban areas and people living in rural areas must commute to gain access to the services offered. The aim of this study was to investigate how older people, who live on their own, experience living with incurable cancer and commuting for palliative care in rural Norway. A case study was designed and informants were recruited not because they were typical but because they were deemed to have the potential to contribute to knowledge about the phenomenon of being an older person who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer and lives alone in a rural area. Three major categories were identified: " Hovering between hope and fear , Stressful commuting to palliative care , and Being exhausted . The findings indicated that older people who have been stricken with incurable cancer and who live alone in rural areas have to walk the palliative path alone . A common feature of all the informants is that they do not speak out and they do not complain. Even though the trend in healthcare is towards centralized treatment, shorter and more effective stays in hospital, and policlinic (policlinic services are a place where healthcare services can be accessed without the need for an overnight stay in hospital, usually such clinics are located close to a hospital) treatment and care, not all older persons manage to take care of themselves. The findings suggest that nurses should pay more attention to these patients' needs for care at different levels of the healthcare service.


In 2004, a provincial cancer agency in Canada developed and implemented a provincewide Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) to enhance organizational leadership and relationships. Research using a quasi-experimental survey design determined whether LDI implementation influenced the emotional health and leadership practices of LDI participants. An ethnographic approach (18 focus groups and 13 individual interviews) explored participants' perceptions of the LDI. This article presents qualitative findings that contribute to understanding the statistically significant findings of increasing levels of cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and burnout for most LDI participants. The LDI was regarded as a critical strategy for helping leaders grow and cope with change and help in changing organizational leadership culture to be more collaborative and inclusive. However, an organizational history of short-lived, flavor-of-the-month development initiatives and growing skepticism and disengagement by leaders represented in the themes of Catch-22 and "there is no going back" contributes to understanding why these quantitative measures increased. Few studies have explored the hypothesis that real organizational development happens through a series of planned stages. In this study, leaders experienced escalating frustration because change was not seen to occur fast enough in "others" and reported that this was necessary before they would alter their own behavior. Leadership development programs in general need to reflect the reality that it takes considerable time, patience, and effort to effect fundamental change in leadership culture.


We analyzed picoeukaryote assemblages at a French coastal site of the English Channel by sequencing cloned eukaryotic 18S rRNA genes in eight genetic libraries constructed from environmental samples (seven coastal, one estuarine) collected at different periods of the year. Eight hundred clones were examined by amplified restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using the restriction enzyme HaeIII. The coverage value calculated from the relative distribution of RFLP types was low, indicating that the library diversity was not entirely recovered. A variable region of the rRNA gene was partially sequenced (550 bases) and analyzed for 397 clones. Thirty‐two clones were affiliated with metazoans. Of the remaining clones, 132 were affiliated to algal classes (especially Prasinophyceae, Cryptophyceae, Dinophyceae, and Prymnesiophyceae) and 107 to known heterotrophic groups (Cercozoa, choanoflagellates, stramenopiles, and ciliates). One hundred three sequences fell into uncultivated groups of stramenopiles (43 clones) and alveolates (60 clones). We also found two potentially novel eukaryotic lineages, represented by 9 and 14 clones, respectively, not belonging to any known eukaryotic group. The overall composition of the picoeukaryote community remained fairly stable at the class/division level except during the early summer diatom bloom, when groups such as the Cryptophyceae and the ciliates completely disappeared. However, at a finer taxonomic level (corresponding to 98% sequence identity), the majority of the operational taxonomic units (OTU) were only observed once.


The effect of substituents on carbon-hydrogen bond reactivity in free radical addition to fluoroalkenes has been investigated. Ethers, esters, amines, amides, and borates all gave free radical adducts, and an order of reactivity has been compiled. This was explained by the inductive electron withdrawing effects of substituents. The reactivity of cyclic ethers and amides has been discussed in terms of the stereo- electronic effect. The ease of hydrogen abstraction from the substrates was estimated using a method based on the thermal decomposition of di-t-butyl peroxide. A correlation between the ease of hydrogen abstraction and free- radical reactivity was demonstrated. Further reactions of the adducts has given good synthetic routes to other functionally substituted fluorocarbons. Polyfluorinated acid chlorides were obtained in good yields from the oxidative chlorination of borate and alcohol adducts. Remarkably high yields of perfluorinated ethers were produced from the high temperature cobalt trifluoride fluorination of ether adducts. The best yields were obtained with cyclic ether and ethyl and propyl dialkyl ether adducts using a reaction temperature of 440oC. Methoxy groups and, chlorine atoms in positions susceptible to elimination, were less stable under these conditions. The structure of polyfluorinated ethers isolated when using lower reaction temperatures indicate that the first steps of fluorination occur adjacent to oxygen and via unsaturated intermediates. Chlorination of a methyl ether adduct gave attack at the most nucleophilic site, while bromination gave attack at the position which gave the most stable radical. Attempts at the dehydrodimerization of adducts were unsuccessful.


In this paper, we report the synthesis, characterization and antitumor studies of Co(II), Ni(II) and Cu(II) complexes with two potentially hexadentate ligands. Antitumor activity of the prepared ligands and its complexes against human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 was determined. The level of total protein, nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) and nitric oxide (NO) in MCF-7 treated cells was estimated. Antitumor activities of the complexes are accompanied with over-production of free and superoxide radicals allowed reactive oxygen species-mediated tumor cell death. The results show significant antitumor activity comparable to cisplatin


—We present a model to compare prairie dog complexes with known black-footed ferret habitat. The model assumes: 1) black-footed ferret populations require prairie dog colonies for survival, 2) prairie dog colonies can accommodate an additional black-footed ferret for each approximate 50 hectare increase in size, 3) a higher percentage of overall area covered by prairie dogs can accommodate more black-footed ferrets. We list four biological variables. They are: 1) total hectares in prairie dog colonies, 2) percent of total complex inhabited by prairie dogs, 3) intercolony distance, 4) an estimate of burrow density per hectare. In addition, two non-biological parameters are included. They are development potential and land ownership patterns. The model can provide an initial critique of a prairie dog complex for a black-footed ferret search or as a reintroduction site.


In school, deaf and hard of hearing students (d/hh) are often exposed to American Sign Language (ASL) while also developing literacy skills in English. ASL does not have a written form, but is a fully accessible language to the d/hh through which it is possible to mediate understanding, draw on prior experiences, and engage critical thinking and reasoning (Allington & Johnston, 2002; Vygotsky, 1987; Wertsch, 1991). This study investigates the impact of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) on the development of signed expressive language (ASL) and written English. Our analysis demonstrates that a focus on ASL did not detract from students' writing growth in English. Instead, a focus on building ASL and written English proficiency simultaneously resulted in significant gains in both language and writing.


IMPORTANCE
Care partners report that they are unprepared to manage the care of their loved one during the predischarge rehabilitation process and at the time of transition from hospital to home.

OBJECTIVE
To link, classify, and describe care partner-reported problems using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to explore care partner experiences during the predischarge rehabilitation process.

DESIGN
We linked meaningful concepts collected during problem-solving training implemented with care partners of patients with sudden-onset conditions to the ICF using a standardized linking technique.

SETTING
Health care institution.

RESULTS
Care partner-reported problems were linked to 13 of the 30 ICF chapters. Activities and participation was most frequently addressed, followed by body functions. Care partners most commonly reported problems in the areas of emotional function, major life areas, self-care, domestic life, interpersonal relationships, and sleep functions.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
The ICF can be used to examine and describe care partners' health-related experiences. Care partners experience myriad problems related to activities and participation, body functions, environmental factors, and personal health before the care recipient's initial discharge from the hospital. What this Article Adds: Care partners' problems early in the rehabilitation process are complex and interrelated. The ICF can serve as a framework for a systematic approach to identifying care partner needs, as it has for patients with a variety of diagnoses.


As Indian OEMs are marching towards to meet the latest emission norms set by Government, the automotive industry is improving the performance of turbocharged internal combustion engines in terms of improved low-end torque, peak torque, peak power, fuel economy and reduced emissions. This, in turn, raises the demand for highly efficient turbocharging technology. The key strategy to improve turbocharger performance is to tailor the performance characteristics of the compressor. The type of turbocharger application governs the performance requirements of the compressor. Certain Indian commercial vehicle manufacturers in LCV segment especially tractor manufacturers apply low BMEP engines to have good durability and such applications require low-pressure ratio and wide flow compressors with peak efficiency island below the pressure ratio 1.3 to 1.4. A careful investigation is required to study the influence of compressor design features to design a low-pressure ratio compressor. However, the number of geometrical parameters influencing the compressor performance is high and investigating all the parameters may take a lot of time and computational effort. Furthermore, the trade-off between efficiency at low-end torque, peak torque, peak power and part-load efficiencies dictates the need for a multi-disciplinary optimization tool to design the compressor stage. The computational effort required to perform optimization through 3D CFD is also quite high. Hence, in this paper, we are introducing an approach to optimize the compressor design at multiple operating points through streamline calculations with the help of AxStream and validating the selected designs numerically through CFD and FEA calculations. This approach helps to design tailor-made compressors based on customer requirements and deliver the proto samples in a shorter period.


Abstract The public debt stock in some economically developed countries continues to increase because of a lack of tax revenues and the concomitant burdens of social security. Many of those countries suffer from lower birth rates and consequently, have fewer children. Child allowances might be an effective way to increase fertility, leading to higher future tax revenues through an increase in the number of younger people. In this paper, the authors examine whether or not child allowances reduce the public debt stock as a share of GDP in an economy with a pension system. As long as a non-negative debt policy is adopted in the long run, child allowances financed by bonds always increase the public debt stock as a share of GDP.


This paper examines the trend in career earnings profiles and lifetime earnings inequality using a new data set that links micro-census information from a Census Bureau survey (the Survey of Income and Program Participation, or SIPP) with the summary earnings records (SER) maintained by the Social Security Administration. It then considers the implications of these trends for the trend of Social Security replacement rates and future changes in the inequality of pension income. The data set covers men and women born in successive years between 1926 and 1965 using a combination of observed and predicted earnings. Our analysis finds that aggregate male wage and employment patterns have remained much more stable than is the case for women. Although less educated men in recent birth cohorts have fared worse than men in earlier cohorts who had the same schooling, the increase in average educational attainment has largely offset the employment and relative wage losses suffered by less educated men. Among women, while female employment rates and average earnings remain lower than those of men of the same age, the male-female gap is now much smaller than it was in earlier cohorts. The age pattern of employment and earnings among women is growing more similar to the pattern observed among men. Our tabulations of historical earnings and forecast of future earnings patterns suggest that that lifetime earnings inequality will increase significantly among men. Compared with men born between 1936-1940, we predict that men born in 1961-1965 will experience 12 percent greater inequality in career earnings. Even though women's inequality has increased if we measure inequality among full-time, year-round workers who are employed during a particular year, inequality has fallen sharply if we widen the sample to include all women who are potentially available to work. The rising employment rate of women has increased the percentage of working-age years that women spend in jobs. It has dramatically reduced the fraction of women who earn extremely low lifetime wages because they are employed in only a few years of their potential careers. The noticeable increase in lifetime earnings inequality among men has thus been offset, at least in part, by a sizable reduction in career earnings inequality among women.


This paper explores corporate charitable giving disclosures in order to question the extent to which corporations can claim that their philanthropy activities are charitable at all. Exploration of these issues is carried out by means of a tropological analysis that focuses on the different linguistic tropes within the philanthropy disclosures of 52 companies, namely metaphor and synecdoche. The results reveal a number of complex and contradictory things. Primarily, the master metaphor of 'altruism' projected by the corporate disclosures is ideologically at odds with the more business case-oriented discourse that shapes the disclosures. This contradiction is put into starker contrast by the existence of a root metaphor, whereby the recipients of corporate philanthropy are presented as the 'deserving poor'. Synecdochal devices are present within the corporate disclosures, whereby employee initiatives that are independent of corporate strategies are used to confer attributes onto the disclosures that bolster the master metaphor of 'altruism'. As such, corporate philanthropy is presented by the paper as a structurally incoherent discourse and yet one that has implications for both extracting greater value from various societal groups and in defining, on behalf of civil society, what is a worthy cause.


Nectar of cotton (Gossypium spp.) attracts many beneficial as well as harmful insects. Variations in the amount or quality of this nectar influences the number of these insect visitors. This paper deals with the amount, source on the plant, time of exudation, and sugar content of nectar produced by G. barbadense L. and G. hirsutum L. in Arizona. The nectar was collected in micropipets and the percentage of various sugars determined by gas liquid chromatography (GLC). Leaf nectar on different plants, species, and dates varied from 0.70 to 19.00 µl/plant, sub-bracteal nectar from 0.25 to 4.58 µl/flower, circumbracteal nectar from 0.22 to 2.00 µl/flower and floral nectar from 0.96 to 20.23 µl/flower. The concentration of fructose and glucose was greater than sucrose in the nectar from all sources. The volume of flower nectar in G. barbadense was five times that of G. hirsutum. The greatest amount of sugar in leaf nectar of G. barbadense was present at 0800 hours; in G. hirsutum at 1,100 hours. Fields of G. barbadense plants produced from 0.6 to 3.8 liters of nectar/ha/day. Some leaf nectar was secreted during the night.


Individual specialization occurs when individuals selectively consume a subset of their population's diet. Intraspecific diet variation can stabilize population and community dynamics, promote species coexistence, and increase ecosystem productivity. Ecological variation also provides the variability necessary for natural or sexual selection to act.

Individual threespine stickleback select different prey from a shared environment, and this variation is not simply a result of sex, size, or spatial heterogeneity. I use longitudinal observation of stickleback foraging microhabitat to support more commonly used cross-sectional metrics. Among recaptured individuals there were correlations between microhabitat use and functional morphology, and microhabitat use and long term dietary differences between individuals.

I quantify individual specialization across populations using cross-sectional sampling to understand how and why ecological variation may itself be variable. All populations showed significant individual specialization. Specialization varied between populations and this variation seems to be a long-term property of populations. Overall morphological variance was positively correlated with ecological variation.

Ecological variation, like all types of heritable variation, provides raw material for evolutionary change. For example, lacustrine populations of stickleback are commonly under disruptive selection due to intraspecific competition for prey resources. Speciation with gene flow may be driven by a combination of positive assortative mating and disruptive selection, particularly if selection and assortative mating act on the same trait. We present evidence that stickleback exhibit assortative mating by diet, using the isotopes of males and eggs within their nests. In concert with disruptive selection, this assortative mating should facilitate divergence. However, the population remains phenotypically unimodal, highlighting the fact that assortative mating and disruptive selection do not guarantee evolutionary divergence and speciation.

There are several not-mutually-exclusive mechanisms by which assortative mating by diet may occur in these populations, such as shared microhabitat preference among individuals of similar diet. Stable isotopes reveal diet differences between different nesting areas and among individuals using different nest habitat within a nesting area. Spatial segregation of diet types may generate some assortative mating, but is insufficient to explain the observed assortment strength. We therefore conclude that sticklebacks' diet-assortative mating arises primarily from behavioral preference rather than from spatial isolation.