Retrogenes are duplicated genes generated via retroposition, which were conventionally believed to contain no introns. However, emerging data showed that a significant number of retrogenes do have introns. Thus, these genes represent an attractive system to study how new genes evolve exon–intron structure. Comparison between parental genes and retrogenes revealed that retrogenes mainly evolve chimeric structures by fusing with local host genes or recruiting pre-existing intergenic sequences. Additionally, retrogenes could gain introns by inheriting introns of parental genes or by transforming parental exonic sequences. The functional necessity on intron gain in retrogenes remains largely elusive although limited data suggest that newborn introns play regulatory roles, enable exon shuffling and alternative splicing. Accumulation of population genomic data may help to understand which evolutionary force shapes the fixation of introns in both retrogenes and de novo originated genes given the same intron birth process acts on both type of new genes.

Key Concepts:

Retrogenes evolve new exon–intron structures mainly by chimerism in both plants and animals.

Retrogenes could directly inherit introns from their parental genes.

Retrogenes could gain introns by intronization mechanism.

Intron insertion is rare in retrogenes.

Introns in retrogenes may have three functions: exon shuffling, alternative splicing and expression regulation.

Keywords:

retroposition;
chimerism;
inheritance of parental intron;
intronization;
alternative splicing


This study aimed to obtain a bifunctional fabric from the point of view of hydrophilicity/ hydrophobicity for biomedical applications. To achieve this, both sides of a fabric of polylactic acid (PLA) were subjected to a plasma treatment. While in a side the oxygen was introduced to the other side, simultaneously, was added methane. The plasma treatment was performed at 100 W, 1.8 mbar, during 30 minutes. By Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) morphological analysis, it became evident that the fabric side facing the oxygen inlet showed micropittings, while the reverse side had smooth surfaces. Analysis by X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed an increase in the amount of oxygen in the surface of the PLA on both sides of the fabric. The surface function was characterized by measurements of water absorption rate, where it was determined that one fabric side was more hydrophilic than the other side. The results indicated achievement of a bifunctional fabric through orientation of working gases during a plasma treatment.


In this report, we present a method for reducing the inter-coefficient crosstalk problem in optical tomography. The method described is an extension of a previously reported normalized difference method that evaluates relative detector values, and employs a weight matrix scaling technique together with a constrained CGD method for image reconstruction. Results from numerical and experimental studies using DC measurement data demonstrate that the approach can effectively isolate absorption and scattering heterogeneities, even for complex combinations of perturbations in optical properties. The significance of these results in light of recent theoretical findings is discussed.


A Gathering of Ways is John Matthias' first collection of poems since the publication of his warmly received Northern Summer collection in 1985. The book consists of three long poems dealing with the geography, geology, prehistory, and history of two places closely identified with Matthias' work, the East Anglian region of Britain and the American Midwest, and a third place that provides the book with a new and deeply resonant setting: those parts of southern France and northern Spain through which run the famous pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. \u201cAn East Anglian Diptych\u201d explores those parts of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk linked by three rivers and by those ancient paths and tracks known as ley lines which connect locality and locality and time with time. \u201cFacts From an Apocryphal Midwest\u201d explores another group of trails that began as prehistoric paths down which copper from Lake Superior was carried from the early days of the mound-builders. Despite the historical backdrop of these poems, both bring the reader into the present in unexpected ways, preparing him or her for the strange and visionary \u201cA Compostela Diptych,\u201d winner of the Poetry Society of America's George Bogin Memorial Award.


Background -
Burns is a complex condition requiring assessment and addressing of both the wound and the
patient in a holistic way. In spite of tremendous improvements in burn care, infection continues
to remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Human ? Defensins (HBD) are a
group of recently discovered antimicrobial peptides. The main subtypes include HBD1, 2 and 3
and are individually known to have other functions apart from being anti-microbial. Some of
these are inherently expressed while others are induced in response to microbial challenge.
Aims -
The aim of the current PhD was to understand the pattern of expression of HBDs in acute
burns, their source of expression, and factors influencing the expression, with a view to use
these peptides as therapeutic agents in future.
Methods -
The expression of HBD1, 2 & 3 was determined at mRNA and protein levels in acute burn
wounds of different burn durations, using real time rt-PCR and immunohistochemistry,
respectively. The influence of type and quantity of bacteria, contribution from blood cells and
the influence of stress on HBD expression was determined in separate clinical situations
similar to those seen in major burns.
Results -
The results show that HBD1, 2 and 3 mRNA is highly expressed in both early and late burns,
but a parallel increase is not reciprocated at protein levels. The bacteria isolated from the burn
wounds showed a trend changing from colonising organisms to more resistant forms in time,
however no significant correlation with HBD was established.
Peripheral blood cells produced HBD in response to inflammatory mediator's in-vivo, thus
suggesting to a possible contribution of HBD 1, 2 and 3 from blood cells in granulating burn
wounds.
There was no down regulation of HBD1, 2 and 3 in the presence of increased cortisol levels –
a reflection of heightened stress as seen in burns. HBD1 and 3 mRNA expressions showed an
early up-regulation, followed by elevation in HBD2 mRNA levels. There was no HBD2 mRNA
and protein expression in keloid tissue specimens from various parts of the body. The absence
of HBD2 – a unique intrinsic peptide with an ability to trigger the anti-fibrotic cytokines
suggests to the possibility that HBD's are implicated in the pathogenesis of keloids, which are
usually associated with burn scars.
Conclusion -
The studies suggest a possible role of HBD in the pathogenesis of burn wounds and the
potential to use these as therapeutic peptides to prevent infections and scarring associated
with burns.


Regeneration and multiplication of coffee (Coffea arabica L.) through somatic embryogenesis can be efficiently achieved through different methods. However, it is very important to analyze the progenies obtained by these methods in order to establish their genetic stability. The objectives of this research were (1) to determine the protein electrophoretic patterns in leaves of coffee vitroplants which were regenerated through somatic embryogenesis, and (2) to compare these patterns with those of the explant donor plants. The protein patterns of some coffee genotypes were initially determined to detect possible differences among them. Each analyzed genotype showed a characteristic set of protein bands. The protein electrophoretic separation in vitroplants did not show significant differences neither among vitroplants nor between them and the mother plants. According to the protein electrophoretic patterns, the Catimor coffee plants regenerated through somatic embryogenesis have very low levels of variation. These results support evidence of genetic stability in plants of coffee cv. Catimor regenerated by somatic embryogenesis. Additionally, it was shown that the method of onedimensional electrophoresis of proteins can be useful in the characterization of coffee genotypes.


Diffusion is considered one of the most important retardation mechanisms in fractured media. The diffusion experiments conducted involved solid tuff and groundwater from Yucca Mountain. The uptake of radionuclides by the tuff was studied utilizing containers made of tuff in the form of beakers. The solution containing the radionuclides of interest was placed in the tuff beaker cavity and the uptake of the radionuclides by the tuff was measured as a function of time. Our results indicate that the diffusion coefficient for nonsorbing radionuclides into saturated Yucca Mountain tuff is on the order of 10{sup {minus}6} cm{sup 2}/s. Large anions, such as pertechnetate are excluded from tuff pores and their diffusion coefficients are on the order of 10{sup {minus}7}cm{sup 2}/s. Comparison of the predictions for the uptake of sorbing radionuclides by the tuff with the actual data obtained indicates that conservative transport calculations will result from predicting diffusion using the batch sorption coefficient for the sorbing radionuclide and the diffusion coefficient obtained for tritiated water.


E-learning is in a rather extraordinary position. It was born as a 'tool' and now finds itself in the guise of a somewhat wobbly arrow of change. In practice, changing the way thousands of teachers teach, learners learn, innovation is promoted and sustainable change in traditional institutions is achieved across hundreds of different disciplines is a demanding endeavour that will not be achieved by learning technologies alone. It involves art, craft and science as well as technology. This paper attempts to show how it might be possible to capture and model complex strategic processes that will help move the potential of e-learning in universities to a new stage of development. It offers the example of a four-quadrant model created as a framework for an e-learning strategy. DOI: 10.1080/09687760500376439


Asymptomatic Benign Cervical Vagal Schwannoma: Is there a Role for Initial Observational Management?
Background: Benign cervical vagal schwannoma is an uncommon neoplasm ideally treated by subcapsular enucleation and neural preservation when possible. Despite this, vocal immobility and dysphonia is often reported postoperatively. The current study retrospectively reviews the existing English literature and correlates subsite location and tumor size with vocal outcomes in this selective group.
Methods: There were 20 cases of lower cervical and 14 cases of parapharyngeal space vagal schwannoma treated by subcapsular enucleation which met the inclusion criteria and were used for cumulative vocal outcome analyses. 73 patients treated by excision or enucleation at both sites were used for pretreatment symptom analyses. Logistic regression models were used to associate vocal outcomes and pretreatment symptoms, with tumor size and location, respectively.


Gypsum is one of the most soluble of common rocks; it is dissolved readily to form caves, sinkholes, disappearing streams, and other karst features that typically are found in limestones and dolomites. The four basic requirements for gypsum karst to develop are: (1) a deposit of gypsum; (2) water, unsaturated with CaS04; (3) an outlet for escape of dissolving water; and (4) energy to cause water to flow through the system. Gypsum deposits are present in 32 of the 48 conterminous United States, and they underlie about 35--40% of the land area; they are reported in rocks of every geologic system from the Precambrian through the Quaternary. Gypsum karst is known at least locally (and sometimes quite extensively) in almost all areas underlain by gypsum, and commonly extends down to depths of at least 30 m below the land surface. The most widespread and pronounced examples of gypsum karst are in the Permian basin of southwestern United States, but many other areas also are significant. Human activities may also cause, or acce-lerate, development of gypsum karst.


The past decade has witnessed significant advances in the microeconometric analysis of recreation data. In this review, we focus on two areas in which these innovations have been especially prolific: accounting for unobserved preference heterogeneity and controlling for unobserved and possibly endogenous site characteristics, such as congestion. Failure to appropriately address these issues with the nonlinear models typically used in recreation demand analysis can severely bias parameter and welfare estimates. We consider these issues of widespread importance within and beyond recreation demand applications. We also expect these estimation challenges to become more ubiquitous as the field gradually moves toward region-wide, multisite applications in reaction to large-scale environmental changes.


The culture in vitro was investigated in 7 clones of roses
representing a range of genotypes and ploidy levels. Particular
attention was paid to a sterile hybrid, R.persica x xanthina , from
which it was hoped to obtain tetraploid clones. It was anticipated
that tetraploid clones might be fertile and that this would facilitate
introgressive hybridization of R.persica genes into various classes
of cultivated roses. Propagation medium was developed based on MS
salts and vitamins supplemented with BAP and NAA. Doubling times of
2-4 weeks were obtained on optimum media.
Transplantation to soil was achieved with
R.wichuraiana had a 99% success rate _____
conditions when a misting system was used whereas transplantation with
R.ruRpsa 'Scabrosa' was only 46% successful and no success was achieved
with R.persica x xanthina . Success rates were subsequently improved
R.persica
varying degrees of success,
on transfer to in vivo
to 80% with 'Scabrosa' and
Sorbarod plugs prior to transplantation.
Whilst in culture adventitious shoots were induced
clones ( R.laevigata , R.wichuraiana and R.persica
R.persica
shoots
x xanthina by the use of
from leaves of 3
x xanthina ) but
only with
adventitious
callus.
The cell
established _____
procedure. This was
exposure to colchicine
gave
x xanthina
from
_____ did it prove possible to induce
internodal stem segments, roots, leaves and
the cycle time of
in vitro as 10.25 hours
used in discussing
diploid rose R.wichuraiana was
using an autoradiographic
the optimal duration of
solution. It was
complete spindle inhibition without a
found that
reduction
0.05% colchicine
mitotic index. in
The addition of DMSO was shown to aid the uptake of colchicine into
shoot meristems. Terminal buds of R.wichuraiana and R.persica x
xanthina were exposed
level
to colchicine solution in
plants derived from these buds was
and measuring length of stomata
vitro and the
determined by ploidy of
karyotyping of root cells (LIII layer)
(LI layer).
X-irradiation was used in vitro to obtain different morphological
forms, dose rates of 3, 4 and 5 krads producing 68, 100 and 80% mutant
forms respectively. It is suggested that the combined use of drug and
X-ray treatments, use of GA^ and protoplast fusion in vitro would be
appropriate subjects for further investigation.


In recent years, the scholarly literature, the journalistic press, and even pop culture have begun to grapple with the many ways in which prison life works to degrade and dehumanize female prisoners, particularly pregnant women and new mothers. These voices are drawn — quite understandably — to the worst abuses, to practices (such as the shackling of laboring women) that underscore the dichotomy between the brutality of prison life and the allegedly autonomous norms governing pregnancy and parenting in the outside world. This article supplements — and in crucial places challenges — the narrative implicit in those depictions by, first, placing practices such as shackling in the context of the many less dramatic ways in which prison policies and norms strip autonomy from pregnant and laboring women, and, then, by exploring the substantial overlap between the restrictions placed upon incarcerated pregnant women and those faced by nonincarcerated women. The article concludes that the constraints and indignities imposed on pregnant prisoners are an outgrowth not only of patterns of social control of prisoners but also of patterns of social control of pregnant women more generally. Like our criminal sanctions regime, these pregnancy-specific patterns of control reflect and reinforce complicated ideas about race, class, and gender, and offer important insights into our culture's values and preoccupations. Critically reading the experiences of women who are pregnant or laboring behind bars requires appreciation that their treatment stems from two distinct, though often overlapping, matrices of social control.


ABSTRACT The complex bedrock terrane of New England is the source of complexity in the texture of tills blanketing the region, and the variety in interpretations of the glacial history of the region seems to stem from this areal diversity of textures within till units. This study was conducted to determine if careful quantitative analysis of till matrix textures could provide a criterion to unequivocally distinguish the lower, compact upper, and loose upper tills from place to place, and indicate the age or mode of deposition of the tills. Some clues were garnered from the analyses to aid in interpretation and correlation of the till units, but an unequivocal criterion for identifying them was not found. Also, the data did not support exclusively either the "one-glacier" or "two-glacier" hypot eses currently under debate. Statistical treatment of the particle-size distribution of thirty-three samples of till classified in the field as lower till, compact upper till, or loose upper till indicate that the lower and undifferentiated upper till from the study area are distinctly different. (Undifferentiated upper till refers to the combined data from the loose and compact phases.) The loose and compact phases of the upper till are also different from each other, but display a considerable amount of overlap in parameters. In general, the till units (lower, compact upper, loose upper) become coarser grained, better sorted, and coarse skewed in stratigraphic-order from bottom to top, indicating a decrease in clay content and an increase in sand content from bottom to top. Textural analysis, however, fails as definitive tool when samples from wide-spread areas of New England are compared, because the variation in particle-size distribution from different bedrock terranes is sufficiently large to cause extensive overlap in the clusters defined by the till types as they are plotted on various kinds of scatter plots.


PURPOSE
To determine the histologic changes associated with gadopentetate dimeglumine enhancement on MR images in acute focal cerebral ischemia.

METHODS
In each of two baboons, a microcatheter was used to occlude partially the middle cerebral artery and reduce cerebral blood flow for approximately 3.5 hours. The catheter was then removed allowing reperfusion for approximately 3.5 hours. In two other baboons, cerebral blood flow was completely and irreversibly interrupted by injecting liquid adhesive into the middle cerebral artery. T2-weighted and serial enhanced T1-weighted MR images were obtained. Brain specimens were studied histopathologically.

RESULTS
In the animals with incomplete and reversible reduction of cerebral blood flow, postcontrast T1-weighted images obtained during the initial 3 hours of ischemia showed focal areas of hypointensity. These areas were enhanced on later images. The areas of signal abnormality were subsequently found to be necrotic and were characterized by neuronal cytolysis and vascular "plugging." In the animals with complete and irreversible interruption of cerebral blood flow, no abnormal signal intensity or enhancement was observed. Histologic abnormalities were milder in these animals.

CONCLUSIONS
Contrast enhancement on MR images in the initial hours of cerebral ischemia was associated with histologic evidence of tissue necrosis but was not associated with milder ischemic changes.


The sedentarism and wide global distribution of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis have made it a useful bioindicator to assess changes in the health status of the marine ecosystem in response to pollution and other environmental stresses. Effective biomonitoring of an ecosystem requires, however, that multiple biomarkers be used to obtain an accurate measure of the cumulative effects of different sources of environmental stress. Here, we provide a first integrated review of the biological, economical, and geographical characteristics of another species of mussels, the ribbed mussel Aulacomya ater. We discuss the use of Aulacomya ater as a complementary biomonitor to the blue mussel to assess the impact of pollutants and climate change. Recent findings have indeed shown that Mytilus edulis and Aulacomya ater have distinctive anatomy and physiology and respond differently to environmental stress. Monitoring of mixed beds containing blue and ribbed mussels may thus represent a unique opportunity to study the effect of environmental stress on the biodiversity of marine ecosystems, most notably in the Southern hemisphere, which is particularly sensitive to climate change and where both species often cohabitate in the same intertidal zones.


Current theorising of trauma continues to suffer from Post-Holocaust understandings that render trauma as indefinable, yet the myriad representations produced across different discursive domains – testimony, documentary, film and art – challenge such claims. Rather it is difficult to define, plagued by the parameters of trauma – as having no "beginning", "ending", "during" or "after" as Laub contends – and is further hampered by its clinically inadequate categorisation as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) within the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM). While the inclusion of PTSD in the DSM-III in 1980 promised to normalise the long history of trauma resulting from combat experience, its increasing and continuing expansion of categories since then has undermined this combat-specific diagnosis. Particularly, it fails to recognise the specific traumas intrinsic to soldiers who wage war as an occupation (specifically the act of killing), and the complex way in which PTSD is triggered in veterans (the political deceit and denial that accompanies the experience of the initial event). With 1 in 5 returned soldiers currently screening for PTSD, and more veterans having committed suicide than have died in combat, it is clear that there is a crisis in the way PTSD is theorised, recognised and understood. This thesis provides a discursive analysis of contemporary media texts, proposing that discourses produced within these domains challenge, undermine and potentially remedy combat trauma's current "crisis of representation." While professionally produced documentaries and current affairs programmes were found to align with the political and ideological discourses prominent within the military and psychiatric professions, soldier-produced content – through raw video, art and digital pastiche – functioned as traumatic performances that produced personal articulations of trauma. Moreover, the televisual flashback succeeds in conveying the "traumatised subjectivity" through cinematic and aesthetic conventions that allow the viewer to see beyond the confines of the body and into the flashback as it is experienced by the eyewitness. In doing so, these texts help to construct social and cultural knowledge of trauma and PTSD and facilitate acts of bearing witness. Such articulations allow veterans to understand their own disorder as normal and are influential in the processes of healing and recovery.


One of the prominent features of the fawāṣil, i.e., recurrent clauses that occupy the final position of the Qur'ānic verse, is that they begin with the particle wāw, which is usually identified as wāw l-isti'nāf. In Arabic, this starts a new sentence that is semantically and grammatically independent from the previous sentence. Thus, according to this explanation, there is no logical connection between the fawāṣil and what precedes it, a fact that may harm the meaning of specific parts of the sūra. Because the Arabic sources, such as grammar books, Qur'ānic exegeses and morpho-syntactic books analyzing the Qur'ānic text (kutub l-'i'rāb), do not much contribute to the understanding of the connection between the sentences, the approach adopted refers to different translations of the Qur'ān in five languages: Hebrew, English, German, Russian and French. These translations typically refute the lack of connectedness between the sentences because they do identify a semantic relation between the sentences, or a type of dependency between the sentences, a relation that is well-expressed in their translations. This article presents the various translations of this particular particle that indicate the different cohesive ties between the fawāṣil and what precedes them. It is noteworthy that in some cases there is a uniform translation of wāw l-isti'nāf, while in other cases various translations are to be found, which leads to different meanings of the same sentence. The article thus deals with the question of cohesive ties within the Qur'ān on one hand, and, on the other, examines the differences and variations that exist in the Qur'ānic translations.


The aim of this study was to investigate how the contextual vocabulary exploration processes of English as a Foreign Language learners can be facilitated in a mobile-supported situated learning environment. A Science and Technology Museum populated with interactive science experiments was chosen as the situated learning context. A mobile application was designed to support learners in completing the authentic tasks and facilitate learners in contextual vocabulary learning. During a 5-week period, 25 university students completed authentic tasks in the situated learning environment. An embedded mixed design, embedding a quantitative phase within a qualitative phase, was employed. The quantitative phase consisted of a pretest–posttest design and system logs, while the qualitative phase consisted of retrospective reviews and observation. The results indicated that contextual vocabulary learning can be supported and enhanced with mobile technologies by considering some factors, including contextual clues, word frequency, authenticity of the tasks, learners' domain knowledge, interest, and focus.


ChaeRan Freeze explores the impact of various forces on marriage and divorce among Jews in 19th-century Russia. Challenging romantic views of the Jewish family in the shtetl, she shows that divorce rates among Russian Jews in the first half of the century were astronomical compared to the non-Jewish population. Even more surprising is her conclusion that these divorce rates tended to drop later in the century, in contrast to the rising pattern among populations undergoing modernization. Freeze also studies the growing involvement of the Tsarist state. This occurred partly at the behest of Jewish women contesting patriarchy and parental power and partly because the government felt that Jewish families were in complete anarchy and in need of order and regulation. Extensive research in newly-declassified collections from twelve archives in Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania enables Freeze to reconstruct Jewish patterns of marriage and divorce and to analyze the often conflicting interests of Jewish husbands and wives, rabbinic authorities, and the Russian state. Balancing archival resources with memoirs and printed sources in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian, she offers a tantalizing glimpse of the desires and travails of Jewish spouses, showing how individual life histories reflect the impact of modernization on Jewish matchmaking, gender relations, the "emancipation" of Jewish women, and the incursion of the Tsarist state into the lives of ordinary Jews.


Summary

Defatted meal of hybrid hazelnuts may have potential food and value-added industrial applications. The proximate composition, mineral elements, amino acid profile and anti-nutritional factors (total phenolics, tannins, condensed tannins and phytates) of defatted meals of ten Nebraska hybrid hazelnut genotypes were investigated. Excluding the amino acid profile, the nutritional and anti-nutritional compositions of the meals differed significantly, with high protein, carbohydrate, neutral and acid detergent fibre concentrations and energy value. Mineral concentrations were higher than those previously reported. K was the most abundant mineral element, followed by P, Ca and Mg. Seven essential amino acids accounted for approximately 27.8% of the total amino acid contents. Tryptophan was not detected. All essential amino acid contents were significantly lower than the reference levels recommended for human and animal consumption. The high levels of anti-nutritional factors, such as total phenolics, tannins, condensed tannins and phytate in the meals, could reduce protein and mineral bioavailability.


Prior studies argue that information technology (IT) can play an important role toward sustainable and "greener" growth, yet few studies have empirically assessed the adoption and efficacy of green information technology initiatives at the firm level. This study investigates the factors that influence green IT implementation in organizations; and the consequences of the green IT implementation in terms of energy conservation and profit. Based on a survey of 293 organizations in India, we find that top management commitment plays an important role in influencing perceived importance of green IT in an organization. In turn, the perceived importance of green IT initiatives within an organization influences the green IT spending as a percentage of overall IT spending. Among consequences of green IT implementation, green IT implementation is positively associated with higher reductions in IT equipment energy consumption and higher profit impact. We discuss the implications of the study for further research, policy, and managerial practice to design and encourage implementation of green IT initiatives for environmental sustainability.


The growing interest in increasing the wear resistance and hardness of surfaces that are in contact with abrasives or corrosive materials has inspired the development of several processes for creating protective coatings. In-situ laser cladding is one of the most promising of these processes. It enables the formation of a uniform coating by melting powder to form the desired composition from a pure powder component.
In this research, pure Ti, graphite, and Fe are used for in-situ laser cladding on a steel substrate to form an Fe-TiC metal matrix composite (MMC). The effect of laser parameters on both the quality of the bonding and morphology of the in-situ-formed TiC iron-based composite clad are investigated. Results show that laser parameters play a crucial role in determining the clad quality and clad microstructure. Two combined parameters, effective energy and powder deposition density, are used to study the effect of laser parameters (i.e., laser power, scan speed and powder feed rate) on the clad properties. While results indicate that combined parameters help to determine the quality limit, laser process parameters need to be taken into account in order to study the clad microstructure.
To increase the clad hardness and TiC volume fraction, C:Ti atomic ratio should increase from 45:55 to 55:45, and Fe percentages in the powder composition should decrease from 70 wt% to the 10 wt%. By varying the powder composition, a change in TiC morphology, clad microstructure and clad hardness occurs. The dilution effect is also considered in the interpretation of results.
In order to estimate wear resistance, the ASTM G65-A procedure was selected to perform tests on various clad compositions. An increased wear resistance is seen when the volume fraction of TiC is increased.


In recent years, specially after the Islamic revolution, a number of memoirs and autobiographical accounts have been written by members of Iran's different ethnic groups and regions. The memoirs written by Azerbaijanis, who count perhaps one third of Iran's population, can be divided into two distinct categories: those that are not noticeably different from memoirs and autobiographical accounts written by Iranians in general; and those that are specifically about events in Azerbaijan or, if not written in Azeri, focus on the ethnic, linguistic, cultural characteristic of Azerbaijan and its political and social developments.
The author begins by discussing two autobiographical accounts of the fighting in Tabriz between the Royalists and Constitutionalists during the constitutional revolution at the turn of the century. The memoirs of Seyyed Hasan Taqi Zadeh, Ahmad Kasravi, and Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghe'i, who played a prominent role in Iran's political and literary life in the first half of the 20th century, are also surveyed in the first part of this article.
In the years following the establishment and fall of an autonomous government in Azerbaijan in 1945-46, headed by Seyyed Ja'far Pishevari, a number of its supporters published their memoirs. Most of these memoirs depicting either the events leading to the birth and demise of the Pishevari's government or the personal lives of their authors were published in the Northern Azerbaijan and, along with those published in Iran, constitute a special category within this genre.
Some of the Azari memoirs discussed in this article specifically deal with either the Mosaddeq and oil nationalization period or the political ascendence of the Shah. Part of Gohlam Hoseyn Sa'edi' interview in the Harvard University's Oral History Program as well the reminiscences of Morteza Negahi based on his recent travels to Iran, have also been surveyed by the author.


. The ANITA experiment has registered two anomalous events that can be inter-preted as ν τ or ¯ ν τ with a very high energy of O (0 . 6) EeV emerging from deep inside the Earth. At such high energies, the Earth is opaque to neutrinos so the emergence of these neutrinos at such large zenith angles is a mystery. In our paper, we present a model that explains the two anomalous events through a L e − L τ gauge interaction involving two new Weyl fermions charged under the new gauge symmetry. We find that, as a bonus of the model, the lighter Weyl fermion can be a dark matter component. We discuss how the ANITA observation can be reconciled with the IceCube and Auger upper bounds. We also demonstrate how this model can be tested in future by collider experiments.


The work of Foucault and Elias has been compared before in the social sciences and humanities, but here I argue that the main distinction between their approaches to the construction of subjectivity is the relative importance of space and time in their accounts. This is not just a matter of the "history of ideas," as providing for the temporal dimension more fully in theories of subjectivity and the habitus allows for a greater understanding of how ways of being, acting and feeling in different spaces are related but largely unintended. Here I argue that discursive practices, governmental operations and technologies of the self (explanatory claims of both Foucault and the Foucauldian tradition) take shape as processes within the continuities of the figurational flow connecting people across space and time. Continuity should not be understood as stability or sameness over time, but as the contingent relations between successive social formations. As Elias argues, there is a structure or order to long-term social change, albeit unplanned, and this ultimately provides the broader social explanation for the historicity of the subject. Though discursive practices happen in particular spaces, we must recognise these spaces, and the practices therein, as socially constructed over time in response to largely unplanned moral and cultural developments.


To investigate whether the non-alcohol content of distilled alcoholic beverages affects the carcinogenicity of the beverage, we conducted an epidemiologic study of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer. We interviewed 384 cases (or spouses, for deceased cases), and compared their responses with those of 876 controls. We classed distilled liquors as dark or light, a rough division according to content of potentially carcinogenic compounds in the beverages. The relative effect on hypopharyngeal cancer risk was much stronger for those who reported high consumption of dark liquor (relative risk = 4.4, 90% confidence interval = 2.9, 6.8) than for those reporting comparable consumption of light liquor (relative risk = 1.3, 90% CI = 0.8, 2.1). For laryngeal cancer, consumption of dark liquor had a smaller effect, and there was little distinction between the effects of dark and light liquor. The data appear consistent with the theory that the non-alcoholic content of distilled alcoholic beverages is a determinant of cancer risk, and that alcoholic beverages act topically rather than systemically in their carcinogenic action.


If you were looking for a philosopher likely to appeal to Americans, Friedrich Nietzsche would be far from your first choice. After all, in his blazing career, Nietzsche took aim at nearly all the foundations of modern American life: Christian morality, the Enlightenment faith in reason, and the idea of human equality. Despite that, for more than a century Nietzsche has been a hugely popular - and surprisingly influential - figure in American high and popular culture alike. In "American Nietzsche", Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's thought, and America's reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal. Beginning her account as far back as Emerson, whom the seventeen-year-old Nietzsche read obsessively, she shows how Nietzsche's ideas first burst on American shores at the turn of the twentieth century, and how they continued to alternately invigorate and shock Americans throughout the century to come. She also traces out the broader intellectual and cultural contexts in which a wide array of commentators - academic and armchair philosophers, theologians and atheists, romantic poets and hard-nosed empiricists, and political ideologues and apostates from the Left and the Right - drew insight and inspiration from Nietzsche's claims for the death of God, his challenge to universal truth, and his insistence on the interpretive nature of all human thought and belief. At the same time, she explores how his image as an iconoclastic immoralist was put to work in American popular culture, making Nietzsche an unlikely posthumous celebrity capable of inspiring teenagers and scholars alike. A heady examination of a powerful, but little-explored undercurrent of twentieth-century American culture, "American Nietzsche" dramatically recasts our understanding of American intellectual life - and puts Nietzsche squarely at its heart.


"The objective of this paper is to analyse the flexibility opportunities of firms to respond to increasing labour market requirements and heterogeneity. Thereby, we focus on two groups of workers and two kinds of management events. The two groups of workers are female and older workers, while continuous training and the use of flexible working contracts (i.e. fixed-term employment, temporary agency work) represent our two kinds of management events. On the basis of large individual- and firm-level data sets we find evidence in line with a gender-biased technological and organisational change in favour of female workers and an age-biased technological and organisational change at the expense of older workers. Furthermore, the use of continuous training, fixed-term contracts and temporary agency workers appears to be beneficial for both labour market participants, i.e. firms and workers. Our results enable firms to respond more effectively to labour markets shortages caused by demographic developments or labour supply changes." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))


Camelina sativa is a cold weather crop that is typically grown in semi-arid environments in the Western United States, usually as a spring crop, but sometimes during the winter. Research analyzing climate data and soil hydrology is important to better understand the environmental and terrain conditions necessary for Camelina farming wherever it is proposed for large-scale production. This study focused on various conditions and constraints pertaining to the potential for Camelina as a crop biofuel in Eastern Arkansas. Due to interest in the economic potential of crop biofuels in this area, and in particular the low input costs for Camelina, experimental farming began as early as 2013. Farmers in Eastern Arkansas grow soybeans during the summer and fall months, leaving Camelina to be grown in the winter and spring months as a potential second rotational crop. Initial experiments have been unsuccessful, with farmers attributing this result to suboptimal climate and soil conditions. Data and research compiled from literature, along with climate and soil hydrology data in the region show significant differences in environmental conditions in Eastern Arkansas when compared to areas of successful Camelina farming. Previous research has shown that Camelina requires at most 15 inches of rainfall, with successful yields in California from just 7.5 inches of rainfall. Camelina grows best in semi-arid environments, with research and field trials indicating the crop having difficulty growing in wetter regions. Results of the study indicate that climate and terrain conditions in Eastern Arkansas are far too wet, and do not seem suitable for large-scale Camelina production. However, small-scale Camelina production may be viable in select suitable fields.


Scandinavia's foreign-origin population has steadily increased over the past six decades. Migration flows into the region have been linked to societal phenomena such as growing labour demands, family reunification and the acceptance of refugees fleeing wars and political conflicts. Whereas earlier migration streams were generally expected to integrate relatively easily, concerns about the current streams are high on the political agenda. This report is a cross-country research into selected key features of population change and the integration of population groups with roots in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Turkey and Vietnam in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The research has sought to achieve three objectives. The first is to determine how and when the groups came to the three Scandinavian countries and how they have since developed. The second is to analyze two aspects of the groups' integration, namely their participation in education and their participation in the labour market. And the final objective is to provide a brief overview of the groups' situation in each of the three countries with regards to economic development, immigration history and policy development.


Abstract Equilibria between plagioclase and ferrobasaltic melt in low-pressure, dry melting experiments can be demonstrated near the liquidus. Further analyses of melting experiments using optimized beam conditions reveals that previous data for understanding the Skaergaard intrusion potentially suffered from the analytical inclusion of non-equilibrated components in the average plagioclase compositions. New reversal experiments demonstrate convergence between plagioclase rim compositions in melting and crystallization products for a ferrobasaltic melt and thus support equilibrium relations. The new data set provides tighter bounds on experimental plagioclase composition and documents composition-dependent partitioning of Na and Ca between plagioclase and melt. Application of the results to modeling the Skaergaard requires only minor adjustments to the previously proposed liquidus temperatures and liquid line of descent


Private actors channel capital to inhabitants of developing countries through a growing variety of intermediaries. Some of those intermediaries operate much like conventional charities, some operate more like for-profit financial institutions, yet others combine features of these models. The last category is growing fast. It also holds the promise of integrating foreign aid and private development finance to bring diversification opportunities for investors, new funding for development, and creative ways to improve development outcomes. Considering the potential reach of such hybrid finance, determining the appropriate regulatory framework for it is an important challenge, which joins policy debates about regulating financial innovation, consumer financial protection, and revitalizing foreign assistance after the global economic crisis. This paper takes up that challenge by canvassing the regulatory frameworks currently applied to charities, banks and investment intermediaries; identifying the problems with the regulatory discontinuities created by the status quo; and suggesting reforms.


[1] Satellites, such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), are expected to provide global measurements of column-averaged carbon dioxide (CO2) dry-air mole fraction (XCO2) with the potential of improving the scientific understanding of regional carbon cycle processes and budgets. The satellite data products, however, are expected to have large data gaps due to the satellite track and geophysical limitations (e.g., clouds and aerosols). The satellite data will also be representative of the XCO2 distribution at the spatial scale of satellite footprints, which is smaller than the resolution of typical transport or process models. Assessing the ability of the retrieved soundings to capture XCO2 variability over different regions and times, evaluating the representation error associated with using the retrieved XCO2 product to represent XCO2 at typical model resolutions, and filling data gaps while providing an estimate of the associated uncertainty all require the evaluation of the spatial variability of XCO2. In this study, the global spatial covariance structure of XCO2 is evaluated regionally using CO2 concentrations simulated using the MATCH/CASA model. Results show that regional and temporal changes in the XCO2 distribution caused by seasonal changes in surface fluxes and transport produce a spatially and temporally variable XCO2 covariance structure. The effects of model setup and the relatively low resolution of the MATCH/CASA model on the evaluated XCO2 covariance structure are assessed by comparing the MATCH/CASA results to the spatial variability inferred from the higher-resolution PCTM/GEOS-4 global model, the SiB-RAMS regional model, and aircraft campaign point observations. The comparison with the higher-resolution models and aircraft data shows good agreement with MATCH/CASA results, thus indicating that the presented results provide an adequate representation of XCO2 variability as will be measured by satellites such as OCO.


The main contribution of this thesis is the statistical analysis of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems operating over wireless channels that are both frequency selective and Rayleigh fading. We first describe the instantaneous capacity of such systems using a central limit theorem, as well as the asymptotic capacity of a power limited OFDM system as the number of subcarriers approaches infinity. We then analyse the performance of uncoded OFDM systems by first developing bounds on the block error rate. Next we show that the distribution of the number of symbol errors within each block may be tightly approximated, and derive the distribution of an upper bound on the total variation distance. Finally, the central result of this thesis proposes the use of lattices for encodingOFDM systems. For this, we detail a particular method of using lattices to encode OFDM systems, and derive the optimalmaximum likelihood decodingmetric. Generalised Minimum Distance (GMD) decoding is then introduced as a lower complexity method of decoding lattice encoded OFDM. We derive the optimal reliability metric for GMD decoding of OFDM systems operating over frequency selective channels, and develop analytical upper bounds on the error rate of lattice encoded OFDM systems employing GMD decoding.


This paper presents a pattern behavio ral analysis of 100 largest Russian commercial banks by total assets during an eight- year period: from the first quarter of 1999 to the second quarter of 2007. Bank performance indicators are analyzed. Structural similarities in the development of the banks are examined. A cluster analysis is applied to determine banks with a similar structure of operations. This analysis allows to estimate how the structure of the Russian banking system has been changing over time. In particular, it allows to identify prevailing patterns in the behavior of Russian commercial banks and to analyze the stability of their position in a particular pattern.


This article offers the first comprehensive investigation of the history of scholarship related to epigraphic forgeries. Fake inscriptions were already produced in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, but their number began to rise dramatically from the Renaissance onwards. By the mid-1500s, scholars became attentive of the risks of using fake sources for antiquarian purposes, while in the 17th and 18th centuries they started isolating forged or suspect texts within specific sections of their new epigraphic corpora. Tentative sets of criteria for isolating non-genuine inscriptions were first identified by Scipione Maffei around 1720, but an actual epistemology for epigraphic criticism was only developed by Theodor Mommsen and his collaborators in the mid-1800s. Since then, most corpora and critical editions have, often implicitly, followed their scientific principles. Current scholars should be well aware of them, because they can present both considerable rewards and serious shortcomings.


In this Letter, we study the reconstruction of digital holograms of microscopic objects using a fixed-point representation of the numercial-reconstruction process. For different bit levels in our fixed-point reconstruction algorithm, we investigate the errors introduced to both the reconstructed image intensity and the unwrapped quantitative phase information. Experimental results based on a microscopic lens array are provided.


This paper studies the econometric problems associated with estimation of a stochastic process that is endogenously sampled. Our interest is to infer the law of motion of a discrete-time stochastic process {pt} that is observed only at a subset of times {t1,..., tn} that depend on the outcome of a probabilistic sampling rule that depends on the history of the process as well as other observed covariates xt . We focus on a particular example where pt denotes the daily wholesale price of a standardized steel product. However there are no formal exchanges or centralized markets where steel is traded and pt can be observed. Instead nearly all steel transaction prices are a result of private bilateral negotiations between buyers and sellers, typically intermediated by middlemen known as steel service centers. Even though there is no central record of daily transactions prices in the steel market, we do observe transaction prices for a particular firm -- a steel service center that purchases large quantities of steel in the wholesale market for subsequent resale in the retail market. The endogenous sampling problem arises from the fact that the firm only records pt on the days that it purchases steel. We present a parametric analysis of this problem under the assumption that the timing of steel purchases is part of an optimal trading strategy that maximizes the firm's expected discounted trading profits. We derive a parametric partial information maximum likelihood (PIML) estimator that solves the endogenous sampling problem and efficiently estimates the unknown parameters of a Markov transition probability that determines the law of motion for the underlying {pt} process. The PIML estimator also yields estimates of the structural parameters that determine the optimal trading rule. We also introduce an alternative consistent, less efficient, but computationally simpler simulated minimum distance (SMD) estimator that avoids high dimensional numerical integrations required by the PIML estimator. Using the SMD estimator, we provide estimates of a truncated lognormal AR(1) model of the wholesale price processes for particular types of steel plate. We use this to infer the share of the middleman's discounted profits that are due to markups paid by its retail customers, and the share due to price speculation. The latter measures the firm's success in forecasting steel prices and in timing its purchases in order to buy low and sell high'. The more successful the firm is in speculation (i.e. in strategically timing its purchases), the more serious are the potential biases that would result from failing to account for the endogeneity of the sampling process.


Abstract. Seasonal variability in the physical characteristics of aerosol particles sampled from the King Sejong Station in the Antarctic Peninsula was investigated over the period between March 2009 and February 2015. Clear seasonal cycles for the total particle concentration (CN) were observed. The mean monthly concentration of particles larger than 2.5 nm (CN2.5) was highest during the austral summer, with an average value of 1080.39 ± 595.05 cm−3, and lowest during the austral winter, with a mean value of 197.26 ± 71.71 cm−3. The seasonal patterns in the concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and CN coincide, with both concentrations being at a minimum in winter and maximum in summer. The measured CCN spectra were approximated by fitting a power-law function relating the number of CCN for a given supersaturation (SS) to each SS value, with fitting coefficients C and kT. The values for C varied from 6.35 to 837.24 cm−3, with a mean of 171.48 ± 62.00 cm−3. The values for kT ranged from 0.07 to 2.19, with a mean of 0.41 ± 0.10. In particular, the kT values during the austral summer were higher than those during the winter, indicating that aerosol particles are more sensitive to SS changes during summer. Furthermore, the annual mean hygroscopicity parameter, κ, was estimated as 0.15 ± 0.05, for a SS of 0.4 %. The effects of the origin and pathway travelled by the air mass on the physical characteristics of the aerosol particles were also determined. The modal diameter of aerosol particles originating in the South Pacific Ocean showed a seasonal variation varying from 0.023 µm in winter to 0.034 µm in summer for the Aitken mode, and from 0.086 µm in winter to 0.109 µm in summer for the accumulation mode.


The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) maintains approximately 2,400 lane miles of concrete pavements, many of which are on the heavily traveled interstate highway network. Many of these concrete pavements have more than doubled their intended performance life. Due primarily to traffic disruption, WSDOT has long recognized the potentially costly rehabilitation and reconstruction needs of the aging concrete pavement network. In 1993, WSDOT began dowel bar retrofitting its faulted concrete pavements. Dowel bar retrofit has had varied success in the United States, primarily due to construction techniques. In Washington State overall, dowel bar retrofit has been successful and has been determined to be a cost effective rehabilitation treatment. What is still unknown are the most applicable time or condition level (i.e. faulting and cracking condition) for applying dowel bar retrofit, its long‐term performance, and its failure mechanism. The outcomes of this study include guidelines for dowel bar retrofit project selection and construction best practices, a summary of dowel bar retrofit performance in Washington State, and estimated dowel bar retrofit project costs.


We derive the degrees of freedom of the lasso fit, placing no assumptions on the predictor matrix $X$. Like the well-known result of Zou, Hastie and Tibshirani [Ann. Statist. 35 (2007) 2173-2192], which gives the degrees of freedom of the lasso fit when $X$ has full column rank, we express our result in terms of the active set of a lasso solution. We extend this result to cover the degrees of freedom of the generalized lasso fit for an arbitrary predictor matrix $X$ (and an arbitrary penalty matrix $D$). Though our focus is degrees of freedom, we establish some intermediate results on the lasso and generalized lasso that may be interesting on their own.


Multi-generational trusts lasting for decades are now colliding with new ways of creating children to result in mismatches of donor intent and beneficiaries. This article will for the first time explore the interpretation of dynasty trusts established either when courts presumed the settlor intended to exclude adoptees as beneficiaries or with express language excluding adoptees. Assisted insemination, in vitro fertilization, the use of gestational carriers, and the abolition of the Rule Against Perpetuities in many jurisdictions have combined to vastly complicate the interpretation of old trusts and the drafting of new ones. If these old presumptions or new language are applied literally to children conceived through assisted reproduction technologies (ART), the result will be to exclude many children the settlor would likely intend to be included, while including others that logically should be omitted. The main thesis of this article is that ART children must be viewed through a different lens than those conceived coitally in order to carry out the trust settlor's intent. In addition to proposing methods for courts to interpret language in trusts created decades before assisted reproductive techniques, this article will recommend language to be included in the drafting of new trusts.Part II of this article will briefly discuss the common law rationale that class terms such as "children" or "descendants" invariably meant those related by blood, and that, once American states enacted legislation allowing adoptions in the mid-nineteenth century, "adoptees" were not related to the transferor by blood. Part III explores two key changes in the twentieth century: the increase in multi-generational trusts due to alterations in the tax code and the Rule Against Perpetuities, and, more recently, scientific advances that allow embryos to be created and transferred outside the body. Part IV examines current law on whether adoptees are included in class gifts in wills and trusts, and then proposes two solutions to deal with children of assisted reproduction: how to draft language in new trusts, and how to interpret language in decades-old trusts. Part V concludes the article.


Ongoing climate change affects complex and long-lived infrastructures like electricity systems. Particularly for decarbonized electricity systems based on variable renewable energies, there is a variety of impact mechanisms working differently in size and direction. Main impacts for Europe include changes in wind and solar resources, hydro power, cooling water availability for thermoelectric generation and electricity demand. Hence, it is not only important to understand the total effects, i.e., how much welfare may be gained when accounting for climate change impacts in all dimensions, but also to disentangle various effects in terms of their marginal contribution to the potential welfare loss. This paper applies a two-stage modeling framework to assess RCP8.5 climate change impacts on the European electricity system. Thereby, the performance of two electricity system design strategies – one based on no anticipation of climate change and one anticipating impacts of climate change – is studied under a variety of climate change impacts. Impacts on wind and solar resources are found to cause the largest system effects in 2100. Combined climate change impacts increase system costs of a system designed without climate change anticipation due to increased fuel and carbon permit costs. Applying a system design strategy with climate change anticipation increases the cost-optimal share of variable renewable energy based on additional wind offshore capacity in 2100, at a reduction in nuclear, wind onshore and solar PV capacity. Compared to a no anticipation strategy, total system costs are reduced.


Problem statement: In the presence of multicollinearity, the estimation of parameters in multiple linear regression models by means of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is known to suffer severe distortion. An alternative approach was to use the modified OLS which was based on the latent roots and latent vectors of the correlation matrix of the independent and dependent variables. This procedure is called the Latent Root Regression (LRR) which serves the purpose to improve the stability of the estimates for data plagued by multicollinearity. However, there was evidence that the LRR estimators were easily affected by a few atypical observations that we call outliers. It is now evident that the robust method alone cannot rectify the combined problems of multicollinearity and outliers. Approach: In this study, we proposed a robust procedure for the estimation of the regression parameters in the presence of multicollinearity and outliers. We called this method Latent Root-M based Regression (LRMB) because here we employed the weight of the M-estimator in the weighted correlation matrix. Numerical examples and some simulation studies were presented to illustrate the performance of the newly proposed method. Results: Results of the study showed that the LRMB method is more efficient than the existing methods. Conclusion/Recommendations: In order to get a reliable estimate, we recommend using the LRMB when both multicollinearity and outliers are present in the data.


This paper considers regime choices facing relatively small, trade-oriented, financially liberalizing, rapidly growing countries such as the East Asian NICs. The classic question of fixed versus flexible exchange rates is considered first. Of the many factors that determine whether the advantages of fixed rates justify the loss of monetary independence, all depend on the openness of the country. One example is the advantage that stable exchange rates promote trade; the magnitude of this effect is estimated in this paper. Another example is the advantage that a fixed exchange rate can serve as a nominal anchor to monetary policy. The second half of the paper reviews the recent literature on monetary rules versus discretion, and then considers four alternative candidates for the nominal anchor for monetary policy: the money supply, nominal GNP, price level, and exchange rate. It is argued that nominal GNP dominates the money supply in general, and dominates the other two candidates under certain conditions.


Before Julia Child's warbling voice and towering figure burst into America's homes, a gourmet food movement was already sweeping the nation. Setting the Table for Julia Child considers how the tastes and techniques cultivated at dining clubs and in the pages of Gourmet magazine helped prepare many affluent Americans for Child's lessons in French cooking. David Strauss argues that Americans' appetite for haute cuisine had been growing ever since the repeal of Prohibition. Dazzled by visions of the good life presented in luxury lifestyle magazines and by the practices of the upper class, who adopted European taste and fashion, upper-middle-class Americans increasingly populated the gourmet movement. In the process, they came to appreciate the cuisine created by France's greatest chef, Auguste Escoffier. Strauss's impressive archival research illuminates themes-gender, class, consumerism, and national identity-that influenced the course of gourmet dining in America. He also points out how the work of painters and fine printers-reproduced here-called attention to the aesthetic of dining, a vision that heightened one's anticipation of a gratifying experience. In the midst of this burgeoning gourmet food movement Child found her niche. The movement may have introduced affluent Americans to the pleasure of French cuisine years before Julia Child, but it was Julia's lessons that expanded the audience for gourmet dining and turned lovers of French cuisine into cooks.


The Skills for Life project was a one-year project focused on supporting predominantly Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) women in Cardiff to "build long-term, lasting outcomes [beyond] moving into entry-level work and beyond 'first jobs' (whilst recognising their value as stepping stones)". Skills for Life is a sister project of Future Skills, and run as part of Oxfam's UK Programme Women United . It was delivered by Oxfam Cymru in partnership with South Riverside Community Development Centre (SRCDC). The project also built on the success of the Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales project by providing Sustainable Livelihoods Approach support to participants and was funded through the Innovation Fund of the Welsh Government's Communities for Work programme and the European Social Fund. The external evaluation report presents findings from the independent evaluation undertaken by the Social Effectiveness Research Centre, and is authored by Dr Leon Quinn. It outlines the project's key achievements, outputs and outcomes derived from quantitative and qualitative data; highlights challenges; provides a costed value analysis; and concludes with recommendations for future work.


Abstract Spiking neurons are models for the computational units in biological neural systems where information is considered to be encoded mainly in the temporal patterns of their activity. In a network of spiking neurons a new set of parameters becomes relevant which has no counterpart in traditional neural network models: the time that a pulse needs to travel through a connection between two neurons (also known as delay of a connection). It is known that these delays are tuned in biological neural systems through a variety of mechanisms. In this article we consider the arguably most simple model for a spiking neuron, which can also easily be implemented in pulsed VLSI. We investigate the Vapnik–Chervonenkis (VC) dimension of networks of spiking neurons, where the delays are viewed as programmable parameters and we prove tight bounds for this VC dimension. Thus, we get quantitative estimates for the diversity of functions that a network with fixed architecture can compute with different settings of its delays. In particular, it turns out that a network of spiking neurons with k adjustable delays is able to compute a much richer class of functions than a threshold circuit with k adjustable weights. The results also yield bounds for the number of training examples that an algorithm needs for tuning the delays of a network of spiking neurons. Results about the computational complexity of such algorithms are also given.


The Cobra-Tac (Teledyne RD Instruments) is a self-contained diver navigation system based on acoustic Doppler velocity log (DVL) technology that uses dead reckoning to compute displacements from a known starting point. The navigational accuracy of the system was evaluated using a series of field tests with known solutions. Initial test data had an obvious directional bias in the navigation measurements, with positional errors as large as 5% of the track length. An analysis of this error showed that the DVL speed measurements were extremely accurate and that most of the position error could be explained by heading-dependent compass error. Compass error versus heading curves were different depending on whether a given route was mapped in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, and further testing indicated that this was due to a combination of local magnetic field anomalies at the test site and instrument tilt. A postprocessing correction procedure, based on a one-cycle compass error model, was derived that significantly improves Cobra-Tac position estimates. After correction, position errors were well within manufacturer specifications. Further tests using new firmware that permitted in situ underwater compass calibration gave position errors of less than 1% of the track length. This level of accuracy should be sufficient for a wide range of scientific applications. Collectively, the test results and analyses indicate that Cobra-Tac can give very accurate navigation results, but the accuracy depends strongly on compass calibration and diver skill with the system.


Detecting objects becomes difficult when we need to deal with large shape deformation, occlusion and low resolution. We propose a novel approach to i) handle large deformations and partial occlusions in animals (as examples of highly deformable objects), ii) describe them in terms of body parts, and iii) detect them when their body parts are hard to detect (e.g., animals depicted at low resolution). We represent the holistic object and body parts separately and use a fully connected model to arrange templates for the holistic object and body parts. Our model automatically decouples the holistic object or body parts from the model when they are hard to detect. This enables us to represent a large number of holistic object and body part combinations to better deal with different "detectability" patterns caused by deformations, occlusion and/or low resolution. We apply our method to the six animal categories in the PASCAL VOC dataset and show that our method significantly improves state-of-the-art (by 4.1% AP) and provides a richer representation for objects. During training we use annotations for body parts (e.g., head, torso, etc.), making use of a new dataset of fully annotated object parts for PASCAL VOC 2010, which provides a mask for each part.


Using strong-disorder renormalization group, numerical exact diagonalization, and quantum Monte Carlo methods, we revisit the random antiferromagnetic XXZ spin-1/2 chain focusing on the long-length and ground-state behavior of the average time-independent spin-spin correlation function C(l)=upsilon l(-eta). In addition to the well-known universal (disorder-independent) power-law exponent eta=2, we find interesting universal features displayed by the prefactor upsilon=upsilon(o)/3, if l is odd, and upsilon=upsilon(e)/3, otherwise. Although upsilon(o) and upsilon(e) are nonuniversal (disorder dependent) and distinct in magnitude, the combination upsilon(o)+upsilon(e)=-1/4 is universal if C is computed along the symmetric (longitudinal) axis. The origin of the nonuniversalities of the prefactors is discussed in the renormalization-group framework where a solvable toy model is considered. Moreover, we relate the average correlation function with the average entanglement entropy, whose amplitude has been recently shown to be universal. The nonuniversalities of the prefactors are shown to contribute only to surface terms of the entropy. Finally, we discuss the experimental relevance of our results by computing the structure factor whose scaling properties, interestingly, depend on the correlation prefactors.


These are privileged times to be a cosmologist. Recent years have witnessed unprecedented progress in observational and computational techniques and we now are able to quantify cosmological properties with unprecedented accuracy. My work builds upon this observational accuracy by establishing a connection with viable theoretical models. I focus on two specifics eras of the universe's evolution, namely inflation and today's cosmic acceleration. In the context of single field inflationary models I illustrate the relation between the spectra of curvature and gravitational wave perturbations. I conclude that their mutual interdependence extends beyond the usual amplitude consistency relation and can be traced all the way to infinite order of accuracy. This yields an infinite hierarchy of consistency relations between these spectra and their derivatives. On a observational perspective, using WMAP's data, I explore the dependence of CMB constraints on inflation with the cosmological scale at which these are chosen to be presented. I develop a technique that allows for an appropriate choice of this scale and show that this way constraints may be improved by as much as 5 times. In the context of the particle physics motivated quintessence models I have looked at the ability of early universe probes - namely Big Bang Nucleosynthesis - for distinguishing between different dark energy proposals when combined with standard distance modulus or the Hubble rate techniques. I conclude that more yet more accurate measurements are required if observations are to successfully confirm or rule out these models as potential candidates against a cosmological constant. I also analyze possible effects that may mimic or underlie cosmic acceleration effects. I focus on a potential lack of knowledge of the precise values of particular cosmological parameters such as the curvature and matter content of the universe. I find that even a small uncertainty in any of this two quantities leads to significant bias on the reconstruction of dark energy properties, when typical probes like the distance luminosity and the Hubble rate are considered. I conclude that in order to disentangle between these effects a combination of distance and expansion history measurements is required.


We revisit the problem of building dual-model secure (DMS) hash functions that are simultaneously provably collision resistant (CR) in the standard model and provably pseudorandom oracle (PRO) in an idealized model. Designing a DMS hash function was first investigated by Ristenpart and Shrimpton (ASIACRYPT 2007); they put forth a generic approach, called Mix-Compress-Mix (MCM), and showed the feasibility of the MCM approach with a secure (but inefficient) construction. An improved construction was later presented by Lehmann and Tessaro (ASIACRYPT 2009). The proposed construction by Ristenpart and Shrimpton requires a non-invertible (pseudo-) random injection oracle (PRIO) and the Lehmann-Tessaro construction requires a non-invertible random permutation oracle (NIRP). Despite showing the feasibility of realizing PRIO and NIRP objects in theory–using ideal ciphers and (trapdoor) one-way permutations– these constructions suffer from several efficiency and implementation issues as pointed out by their designers and briefly reviewed in this paper. In contrast to the previous constructions, we show that constructing a DMS hash function does not require any PRIO or NIRP, and hence there is no need for additional (trapdoor) one-way permutations. In fact, Ristenpart and Shrimpton posed the question of whether MCM is secure under easy-to-invert mixing steps as an open problem in their paper. We resolve this question in the affirmative in the fixed-input-length (FIL) hash setting. More precisely, we show that one can sandwich a provably CR function, which is sufficiently compressing, between two random invertible permutations to build a provably DMS compression function. Any multi-property-preserving (MPP) domain extender that preserves CR and PRO can then be used to convert such a DMS compression function to a full-fledged DMS hash function. Interestingly, there are efficient off-the-shelf candidates for all the three ingredients (provably CR compression functions, random invertible permutations, and MPP domain extenders) from which one can choose to implement such a DMS hash function in practice. Further, we also explain the implementation options as well as a concrete instantiation.


Multiple contexts interact to position any school on a spectrum from cumulatively advantaged to cumulatively disadvantaged. This article discusses a study of the contextual advantages and disadvantages experienced by primary schools in the south east of England, concentrating especially on schools in the least deprived 5% of schools nationally. The research highlights the central influence of advantaged socioeconomic contexts on day‐to‐day school processes and on the related perspectives and beliefs of head teachers as well as variations on this theme related to other external and internal contextual variables. It illustrates that England's most socially advantaged primary schools are likely to have much in common including a high level of parent involvement, a strong focus on student learning and progress, considerable ability to raise funds, very good reputations and only a handful of students with serious learning or behavioural problems. They also have in common middle class forms of transience and profiles of special needs. The article concludes that while contextual variations amongst socially advantaged schools do exist and are talked up by head teachers, they usually have an impact that can be managed.


Results of national and pan-European consumer surveys and the growth in the demand for so-called "animal-friendly" food products suggest that consumers within the European Union (EU) show a high level of concern for the welfare of farm animals. This article analyses the determinants of British consumers' behaviour toward animal welfare using structural equation models (SEM) with observed and latent variables. SEM is a statistical technique for testing and estimating relationships amongst variables, using a combination of statistical data and qualitative causal assumptions. A data set collected in 2005 through face-to-face interviews of 654 consumers in England is employed. Based on a review of the existing literature on consumers' behaviour toward animal welfare, the article tests and estimates a number of a priori determinants of behaviour, i.e., factors influencing stated purchases of free-range and organic chicken meat. The models have an adequate overall fit to the data. The statistical tests for the model on free-range chicken meat purchasing behaviour show socioeconomic group, education, attitudes toward animal welfare, reasons for buying chicken meat, access to information on animal welfare issues, number of children, and price as significant determinants. With one exception (i.e., reasons for buying chicken meat) all the aforementioned determinants were also found significant in the model on organic chicken meat purchasing behaviour.


Abstract. Assessing hydrological effects of global climate change at local scales is important for evaluating future hazards to society. However, applying climate model projections to local impact models can be difficult as outcomes can vary considerably between different climate models, and including results from many models is demanding. This study combines multiple climate model outputs with hydrological impact modelling through the use of response surfaces. Response surfaces represent the sensitivity of the impact model to incremental changes in climate variables and show probabilies for reaching a priori determined thresholds. Response surfaces were calculated using the HBV hydrological model for three basins in Sweden. An ensemble of future climate projections was then superimposed onto each response surface, producing a probability estimate for exceeding the threshold being evaluated. Site specific impacts thresholds were used where applicable. Probabilistic trends for future change in hazards or potential can be shown and evaluated. It is particularly useful for visualising the range of probable outcomes from climate models and can easily be updated with new results as they are made available.


Abstract This article studies the influence of religion on political attitudes in Israel by testing two propositions: "religion-friendly" democratization and "greedy" socialization. The former implies that accommodation of religious demands stimulates democratization, the latter argues that domineering religious socialization does not motivate democratic attitudes. Analysis of data from representative surveys conducted in 2006–2013, supports "greedy" socialization over the "religion friendly" hypothesis. I show that in most instances, socialization in religion-friendly environments does not moderate the political attitudes of religiously conservative groups. The results suggest that unbounded accommodation of religious needs in non-religious institutions may strengthen undemocratic political attitudes.


This paper uses a novel instrumental variables approach to quantify the effect that GSE purchase eligibility had on equilibrium mortgage loan terms in the period from 2003 to 2007. The technique is designed to eliminate sources of bias that may have affected previous studies. GSE eligibility appears to have lowered interest rates by about 10 basis points, encouraged fixed-rate loans over ARMs, and discouraged low-documentation and brokered loans. There is no measurable effect on loan performance or on the prevalence of certain types of "exotic" mortgages. The overall picture suggests that GSE purchases had only a modest impact on loan terms during this period.


PURPOSE
To accurately convert the detector signal to absorbed dose to water in nonstandard beams, beam quality correction factors (kQ) are required. To avoid calculating such factors, we define a criterion based on the hypothesis that, for a given detector, kQ is unity within a given tolerance. This allows establishing detector-specific critical regions to limit the field sizes usable experimentally without the need for evaluating kQ.

METHODS
A theoretical relation between the relative deviation of kQ from unity and a function that depends on dose response kernels is derived. Kernels are computed using the Monte Carlo user code egs_chamber for water and for three different ionization chambers (Exradin A12, A14 and A1SL), simulating 6 MV photon pencil beams at several lateral positions. Critical regions around the centroid of the chambers that guarantee kQ to remain within +/-0.005 from unity are obtained. For field sizes equal to the critical regions, kQ factors are calculated to validate the theoretical approach.

RESULTS
To limit kQ within +/-0.005 from unity, field sizes were determined to be 2.6× 5.2 cm2 for the A12, 3.8 × 3.8 cm2 for the A14 and 2.5 × 2.9 cm2 for the A1SL chamber. The corresponding kQ were found to be 1.0019 +/- 0.0026 for the A12, 1.0001 +/- 0.0047 for the A14 and 1.0011 +/- 0.0024 for the A1SL. These results are found within the expected deviation and fully support the validity of the new criterion.

CONCLUSION
In this study, the limitation of the field size to a detector-specific critical region allows small beam measurements to be done without the need for evaluating kQ factors. While this work will be extended to other types of detectors, the methodology will serve as a basis to study IMRT beams in the scope of new dosimetry protocols.


This paper reports on our experience with providing Information Flow Control (IFC) as a library. Our aim was to support the use of an unmodified Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud infrastructure by IFC-aware web applications. We discuss how Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) overcomes the limitations of RubyTrack, our first approach. Although use of AOP has been mentioned as a possibility in past IFC literature we believe this paper to be the first illustration of how such an implementation can be attempted. We discuss how we built FlowR (Information Flow Control for Ruby), a library extending Ruby to provide IFC primitives using AOP via the Aquarium open source library. Previous attempts at providing IFC as a language extension required either modification of an interpreter or significant code rewriting. FlowR provides a strong separation between functional implementation and security constraints which supports easier development and maintenance; we illustrate with practical examples. In addition, we provide new primitives to describe IFC constraints on objects, classes and methods that, to our knowledge, are not present in related work and take full advantage of an object oriented language (OO language). The experience reported here makes us confident that the techniques we use for Ruby can be applied to provide IFC for any Object Oriented Program (OOP) whose implementation language has an AOP library.


Case Studies in Knowledge Management provide rich, case-based lessons learned from several examples of actual applications of knowledge management in a variety of organizational and global settings. A variety of KM issues are explored, including issues associated with building a KMS, organizational culture and its effect on knowledge capture, sharing, re-use, strategy, and implementation of KM initiatives and a KMS. The benefit of focusing on case and action research is that this research provides an extensive and in-depth background and analysis on the subjects, providing readers with greater insight into the issues dis


The dominant modern account of the social basis of international law has been the society of states model. In this view, to the extent that international law constructs an ordered social space (a claim which has been contested since Hobbes if not before), it is a social space in which states are the actors. This view has had a profound effect on international law. For example, the doctrine of state responsibility classically understands international harms to individuals within a framework of harm to a state's rights. Normatively, to the extent justice is considered an operational concept in international law, it is considered at the level of relations between states, as the morality of states. International human rights law is widely credited with beginning the contemporary shift away from this model. This paper argues that contemporary globalization is completing this transformation, by both requiring, and permitting, the re-casting of international law away from a society of states model and towards a global society model. By effectively eliminating both time and space as factors in social interaction, globalization is changing the nature of global social relations, intensifying the dynamic of obsolescence affecting the society of states model and requiring a fundamental change in the social theory of international law towards a global society of persons. Through these changes, globalization necessitates the re-casting of international law into a global public law, and expands the domain of justice as a normative criterion for international legal doctrine.


The letters to the Philippian and Galatian congregations illustrate well the passion and intensity of Paul's writing. Together these letters provide a compelling portrait of a complex original thinker who probably was the most significant missionary of his day, a theologian and social critic of rare power and insight whose legacy continues today to spark heated debate. Yet if we can catch even a little of Paul's vision, we are likely to be transformed. We may find ourselves called, like Paul himself, to a fresh vision of what God is doing in the world and to participation in the crucified body of Christ. Interpretation Bible Studies (IBS) offers solid biblical content in a creative study format. Forged in the tradition of the celebrated Interpretation commentary series, IBS makes the same depth of biblical insight available in a dynamic, flexible, and user-friendly resource. Designed for adults and older youth, IBS can be used in small groups, in church school classes, in large group presentations, or in personal study.


Abstract: Inspired by Frederic ("Fred") S. Lee's theoretical contribution to institutional-heterodox economics, I make the case that the neoclassical price mechanism is not only flawed, but also irrelevant for the study of actual coordination mechanisms, hence the price mechanism — as a theory as well as a way of thinking — should be discarded. While this position was addressed by early institutionalists, starting with Thorstein Veblen, later institutionalists have not completely rejected the price mechanism. The sympathy for the price mechanism has prevented institutionalists (and other heterodox economists) from fully developing an alternative theoretical framework concerning how actual economic activities are organized. I, therefore, provide an institutionalist-heterodox framework of the provisioning process focusing on business enterprise activities. This framework shows how institutional economics becomes more refined and useful when it is married to other traditions in heterodox economics, in particular, Marxian, social, and post-Keynesian economics. Such an integrative approach is what Fred Lee showed through his work toward producing a better theory and policy for the underlying population.


The paper analyses the 'Europeanization' of policies concerning the reconciliation of work and family life in Hungary between 1998 and 2005. It looks at how politicians – in government or in the opposition – framed European requirements and/or standards and how they used references to European processes in their arguments. The paper distinguished three periods of Europeanization. In the first period – in which the first comprehensive Family Support Act was adopted – basically no reference was made to the European Union. Accordingly, this Act – its goal being to protect the institution of the family to ensure demographic growth – did not prioritize reconciliation and women' employment at all and was criticized of not being in line with European principles. The second period before 2004 was the period of legal harmonization. Therefore, reconciliation-related acts (e.g. on telework) were mainly adopted as an answer to European expectations. Finally, in the third period after the 2004 accession, the reconciliation of work and family life became an explicit goal of the government, usually with references made to European processes and European principles. In this period, MPs started using the jargon of the EU. Furthermore, the availability of European funding was an important trigger of reconciliation-related reforms.


Abtract This article offers an overview of mainstream approaches to culture in language teaching and proposes an alternative approach which conceptualizes the language textbook as a key participant in classroom conversations about culture. A case study illustrates the points made, showing how young learners challenged naturalized aspects of their culture through interaction with their language textbook. Introduction That language learning and culture learning are strongly related is not a new idea. However, much is yet to be discussed regarding both the configuration of this relationship and the implications of particular approaches to language and culture in the second language (L2) classroom. This article explores these latter issues through an initial discussion of the scope of the term culture followed by an examination of the extent to which L2 pedagogy can promote learners' intercultural communicative competence by moving beyond the mainstream focus of culture learning as information about the other. The main argument of this article, to be illustrated with a case study, is that L2 textbooks can--and should--become key participants in classroom conversations about culture as they offer great potential for fostering learners' reflections about the components of their cultural identities. Culture According to Williams (1983:87), "culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language" and he goes on to argue that this complication relates to the history of the term and to its multiple meanings. Arguably, the difficulty in understanding culture is also linked with often taken-for-granted and vague uses of the word describing groups of people's behavior, norms and values. Prototypically, everyday uses of the term will equate it with background which in turn will tend to be associated with generalizations about a particular group of people such as 'Those who come from X culture do Y'. This view is endorsed by a lot of work done on intercultural communication and cross-cultural training (e.g. Hofstede, 1991), yet it does not offer a solid theoretical justification for intra-group differences or changes over time within the same group. Moreover, this perspective is reductionist in that it does not allow for a rich account of an individual's multiple cultures (as a member of a generation, a professional group, a gender, a family, and so on). In applied linguistics, critiques to this naturalized approach to culture include Hall's (2002) view that culture should be perceived as sociocultural practice and not as pre-defined descriptors about a group of people. From this standpoint, culture emerges in people's social lives and consequently particular cultural groups should not be seen as well-defined, homogenous and static entities whose members share fixed meanings. Along the same lines, Street (1993) has claimed that culture is a verb (i.e., it "is an active process of meaning making", ibid:25) and consequently research should focus not on what culture is, but on what it does as regards people's ways of making sense of the world (including their perceptions of the self and others). Holliday (1999) also rejects an essentialist orientation towards culture by showing that different approaches to culture will lead to important differences in the ways individuals conceptualize human interaction. Specifically, he argues that a mainstream large culture paradigm (which associates a culture with ethnic, national and international groups) has dominated applied linguistic research and that this tendency has generated often prescriptive ideas about how certain groups of people (such as the Japanese or the Indians) behave, what they find polite and impolite, how they use language, and so on. Alternatively, Holliday advocates a small culture paradigm which looks at cultures as dynamic, complex and ever-changing processes. As described in Holliday, Hyde, & Kullman (2004), a small-culture approach moves away from the culturist focus on pseudo-homogenous national groups often described in stereotypical terms; moreover, it allows us to question the often tacit and unarticulated ideological issues at stake in people's meaning-makings processes. …


Edited by Kenneth Lyons Jones. Published by Elsevier Saunders, 2006, £63.99 (hardback), pp 954. ISBN 0-7216-0615-6

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Smith's recognizable patterns of human malformations has been situated, for a long time, at the forefront of general paediatrics and clinical genetics textbooks. The most recent, 6th edition of this impressive text reinforces and continues this tradition, and renders the volume one of the leading resources in the field, making it a superb reference for those whose work gravitates around clinical genetics.

Similar to previous editions, the …

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This is a study that is drawn from the discipline of cultural geography.
It explores the proposition that conviviality in public spaces contributes to a civil
society, and seeks to identify the physical qualities and characteristics of a place
that contribute to convivial activity. I have chosen to study conviviality in the
spaces of Sullivans Cove on the waterfront of the capital city of Hobart,
Tasmania, a landscape that in the last decade or more has undergone a
transformation from a neglected working port to a centre of social and civic
activity.
I have adopted the character of a flineuse to take the reader through a journey of
Sullivans Cove, and in so doing uncover real life activities that support the
propositions that I have chosen to investigate. Flineuses are traditionally known
as observers and loiterers of public spaces. The idea of the flineuse is used as a
device in this study by which the urban landscape can be narrativised. Observing
the public sphere with a flineuse raises questions about the aesthetic experiences
of public spaces and the possibilities that these spaces hold for citizenship.
This research revealed that conviviality has the potential to contribute to a civil
society. For conviviality to prosper it requires a place that is both physically and
psychologically safe, this is achieved through fulfilling conditions that encourage
a diversity of people and activity into an area.rin


Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) is one of the most crucial and critical memory devices used in today's technological environment. The continuous scaling of CMOS technology significantly limits the performance of 6T SRAM cell in terms of leakage power and stability. With remote chances to further improve the MOSFET technology in future, Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors (CNTFETs) are being widely studied as the possible alternatives. In this paper, the conventional 6T SRAM cell is compared with CNTFET based SRAM cell. The conventional 6T SRAM cell is designed using Cadence Virtuoso Tool in 180nm and 45nm Technology. The Verilog-A code of CNTFET for replacing nMOS and pMOS are separately simulated in Cadence Virtuoso Tool. The CNTFET based SRAM cell is technology independent. The performances are evaluated in terms of leakage power, delay and stability to show that the CNTFET based SRAM cell can successfully replace the CMOS based SRAM cell.