An economic analysis is conducted for a summer flounder grow-out operation using a recirculating
aquaculture system (RAS) based on engineering and biological parameters from the University of North Carolina at
Wilmington's near-commercial scale RAS facility located in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The analysis determines the
profit-maximizing facility scale and harvest size, returns to management, and the sensitivity of financial performance
to key biological, engineering, and economic parameters. Monte Carlo analysis is used to assess the impacts of
uncertainty in flounder prices, electricity costs, and interest rates on financial performance. The UNCW study of
summer flounder production in a near-commercial scale RAS (Carroll et al. in press) is used as a basis for developing
simulation models of commercial scale summer flounder RAS facilities. All models assume that fish reach an average
of 1.5 lbs (marketable size) with an 80 % survival rate and a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of 1.8 (the average FCR over
all growth phases, and the lowest FCR observed during the first 7 months, of the UNCW near-commercial scale field
study). The following key characteristics are used to distinguish alternative systems: system scale (0.5-acre, 1-acre,
and 3 x 1-acre systems), length of grow-out cycle (13.4 and 20-months), tank size (15, 20, and 27 ft diameters),
outdoor (security fence) vs. indoor (building) systems, tank type (fiberglass, steel, and glass coated steel), and fish
transfer schedule (between tanks). Each model is analyzed assuming one of two alternative grow-out periods: 20 or
13.4 months. The 20-month cycle corresponds to the mean grow-out period for summer flounder raised in the UNCW
near commercial scale field study, and the 13.4-month cycle corresponds to the top 5% of the fastest growing flounder
reaching marketable size (1.5 lbs) in the UNCW study. Each commercial-scale system is defined by a set of
biological, engineering, and economic parameter values. For each system, estimates of revenues, capital costs,
variable costs, fixed costs, and total costs are developed per grow-out cycle and per year. Break-even price, returns to
management per grow-out cycle, and returns to management per year are calculated to assess the relative financial
performance of alternative systems over a 10-year planning horizon. The most cost-effective system (i.e., the system
with the lowest break-even price) is a 3 x 1-acre, 27 ft diameter, steel tank, indoor (using a building) system, with a
13.4-month grow-out cycle, utilizing a fish transfer procedure, with a break-even price of $3.53 (break-even price was
$4.43 for the 20-month grow-out cycle). Sensitivity analyses and Monte Carlo analyses revealed that growth rate is
the most critical determinant of financial performance, followed by capital costs and fingerling costs. At the 20-month
growth cycle, sensitivity analyses revealed that break-even price was most sensitive to changes in growth rates,
followed by initial investment costs, fingerling costs, feed costs, and electric costs. Present value returns (cumulative) for a 10-year planning horizon for one of the 3 x 1-acre facilities using the most cost-effective facility design range
from negative $50,000 to positive $300,000 for the 20-month growth cycle model, whereas present value cumulative
10-year returns for the 13.4-month growth cycle model are always positive and range from $675,000 to $1,175,000.
The significant impact of growth cycle length on financial returns emphasizes the financial importance of biological
research targeting improvements in summer flounder growth rates.


Since the mid-1980s, health service restructuring in New Zealand has strengthened managerialism, arguably detracting from professional considerations. Professional leaders without line-management responsibilities have replaced social work departments headed by a professional social worker. An emerging social work contribution to interdisciplinary leadership in mental health settings aims to advance quality of service and fill social work leadership gaps resulting from structural changes created by health policy initiatives. In the context of limited research into these changes, this paper presents an action learning organic approach examining how social work professional leaders implemented Kouzes and Posner's 'exemplary leadership' in a District Health Board. This examination integrates indigenous Māori approaches to leadership with Western models. Findings suggest both caution and optimism about the professional leader role. The paper suggests further research to explore the relationship of professional leadership and clinical governance in public health services.


Title of Dissertation: THE INFLUENCE OF DISCREPANCIES IN ADOLESCENT-PARENT PERCEPTIONS OF THE FAMILY ON ADOLESCENT OUTCOMES IN TRANSRACIALLY ADOPTIVE FAMILIES Katie Marie Hrapczynski, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Associate Professor Leigh Leslie Department of Family Science Transracial adoption creates a family in which the adoptive parent or parents are of a different race, culture, or ethnicity than the child, most often Caucasian adoptive parents and racial minority children (Vandivere, Malm, & Radel, 2009). Concerns about the influence of the racial differences within the family on child development and the competency of white parents to successfully raise racial minority children have led to an examination of how the family environment facilitates adoptee development. One aspect of the family environment researchers have focused on is the extent to which adolescents' views of their family differ from their parents'. Transracial adoption provides a compelling familial context to explore the role of discrepancy in adolescent-parent perceptions of the family on adolescent development because not only do the age and familial role of the child and parent differ, but so do the biology and race. Guided by developmental theories (Duvall, 1977) and the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems (Olson, Russell, & Sprenkle, 1979), this study examined the extent to which transracially adopted adolescents and their parents differ in their perceptions of family cohesion and conflict, and explored both the linear and curvilinear relationships between perceptual discrepancy and adolescent outcomes. The role of parental awareness of race was also investigated. The study utilized data collected as part of a national research study on transracial adoption. Seventy transracially adopted adolescents and one of their parents completed an online survey. Findings indicate transracially adopted adolescents and their parents tend to agree on the level of cohesion and conflict in their family. Moderate discrepancies in adolescent-parent perceptions of conflict were found to be related to higher adolescent self-esteem and less internalizing behaviors. However, adolescent development was not related to whether they and their parents had a shared perception of cohesion. The unique role of family cohesion in transracially adoptive families to counteract visible differences among members and solidify the family unit is discussed. Findings highlight the complexity of individuation in the context of transracial adoption, and present implications for adoption professionals, transracially adoptive families, and future investigation of adolescent development in transracial adoption. THE INFLUENCE OF DISCREPANCIES IN ADOLESCENT-PARENT PERCEPTIONS OF THE FAMILY ON ADOLESCENT OUTCOMES IN TRANSRACIALLY ADOPTIVE FAMILIES


Antiviral drugs targeting viral proteins often result in prompt selection for resistance. Moreover, the number of viral targets is limited. Novel antiviral targets are therefore needed. The unique characteristics of fusion between virion envelopes and cell membranes may provide such targets. Like all fusing bilayers, viral envelopes locally adopt hourglass-shaped stalks during the initial stages of fusion, a process that requires local negative membrane curvature. Unlike cellular vesicles, however, viral envelopes do not redistribute lipids between leaflets, can only use the energy released by virion proteins, and fuse to the extracellular leaflets of cell membranes. Enrichment in phospholipids with hydrophilic heads larger than their hydrophobic tails in the convex outer leaflet of vesicles favors positive curvature, therefore increasing the activation energy barrier for fusion. Such phospholipids can increase the activation barrier beyond the energy provided by virion proteins, thereby inhibiting viral fusion. However, phospholipids are not pharmacologically useful. We show here that a family of synthetic rigid amphiphiles of shape similar to such phospholipids, RAFIs (rigid amphipathic fusion inhibitors), inhibit the infectivity of several otherwise unrelated enveloped viruses, including hepatitis C and HSV-1 and -2 (lowest apparent IC50 48 nM), with no cytotoxic or cytostatic effects (selectivity index > 3,000) by inhibiting the increased negative curvature required for the initial stages of fusion.


The Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) recent reform to consolidate the banking sector through drastic increase to #25billion as minimum capital base of any bank led to a remarkable reduction in the number of banks from 89 to 24 in 2005; changed their mode of operations and their contributions to the nation's economic development. Drawing on original research on consolidation of banking sector, this study examined the impact of consolidation on performance of Nigerian banks for the period 1999 to 2011. It employed Chow test; a parameter stability test which showed that there was parameter instability after the consolidation. System GMM (generalized methods of moments) estimation was further used to ascertain the directional and magnitudinal (size) impact of consolidation on the banks' efficiency. With emphasis on earnings per share as a proxy for consolidation, it is inferred that Nigerian banking consolidation exercise did impact their efficiency positively. Keywords: consolidation; reform; Chow test; dynamic panel; endogeneity; efficiency JEL Classifications: G21; G28; G29


The trilogy of family law decisions, released by the Supreme Court of Canada on 4 June 1987, represents perhaps the most important statement of the past two decades by Canada's highest court on this rapidly changing area of law. Although decided under the repealed Divorce Act of 1968, judicial analyses of support and domestic contracts are likely to be little altered under the 1985 Act. Furthermore, that these cases reveal the Court's underlying philosophy of the new family law as a whole suggests a significance that transcends specific amendments to the Act.With respect to the outcome of each individual case, specific pronouncements of legal doctrine, and the Supreme Court's apparent understanding of the central features and purposes of the new family law, this comment is largely critical of the decisions. In particular, three arguments are made. First, while the Court's conceptualization of support conforms to the norms of the new family law, the majority demonstrates insufficient sensitivity to the real barriers to the economic independence of spouses disadvantaged by a division of functions within marriage, and/or enduring consequences of the marriage. Second, the majority's inadequate inquiry into the application of contract law principles to the family context and its related failure to distinguish clearly between the separate subjects of support and domestic contracts at issue in each case contribute to its formulation of a confused and inappropriate test to govern the exercise of judicial discretion under the Divorce Act to overlook the terms of a domestic agreement. Third, leaving aside this highly problematic test, the Court's general posture of considerable deference to the terms of such agreements is neither required under the Act nor consistent with the central principles animating the new family law. An alternative approach to this exercise of the Court's jurisdiction is then advanced. Finally, this comment considers the implications of the decisions for future cases involving domestic contracts


The I/O scheduling problem is examined in detail. The authors present a realistic model for studying this problem in the context of a system which executes real-time transactions. The model takes advantage of the fact that reading from the disk occurs before a transaction commits, while writing to the disk usually occurs after the transaction commits. New algorithms are presented that exploit this fact in order to meet the deadlines of individual requests. The algorithms are evaluated via detailed simulation and their performance is compared with traditional disk scheduling algorithms.<<ETX>>


Online social media confound many of our familiar expectations about privacy. Contrary to popular myth, users of social software like Facebook do care about privacy, deserve it, and have trouble securing it for themselves. Moreover, traditional database-focused privacy regulations on the Fair Information Practices model, while often worthwhile, fail to engage with the distinctively social aspects of these online services. Instead, online privacy law should take inspiration from a perhaps surprising quarter: product-safety law. A web site that directs users' personal information in ways they don't expect is a defectively designed product, and many concepts from products liability law could usefully be applied to the structurally similar problem of privacy in social software. After setting the scene with a discussion of how people use Facebook and why standard assumptions about privacy and privacy law fail, this essay examines the parallel between physically safe products and privacy-safe social software. It illustrates the value of the product-safety approach by considering another ripped-from-the-headlines example: Google Buzz.


Abstract: There are many higher education executives in Indonesia that still carry out fewer learning activities under the quality standars, so ultimately the credibility of higher education is still not satisfying the stakeholders. A college should be able to make internal quality standards beyond the minimum quality standards made by the National Education Standards Agency (BSNP). Currently, quality assurance in the form of systems development and the astablishment of the agency has not been done much in the college. The role of internal quality assurance for higher education is also still inadequate to boost quality improvement. This is where the need for internal quality assurance agency in college that aims to repair and improve the quality of higher education on an ongoing basis.
Keywords: Internal Quality Assurance and Higher Education.


Linder, G. 2018. Esophagealand Gastroesophageal Junctional Cancer. Aspects on Staging, Treatment and Results. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1447. 95 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0286-7. Esophagealand gastroesophageal junctional (GEJ) cancer is the sixth cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Some improvements in care are attributed to nationwide disease-specific registries, preoperative staging and increased understanding of mechanisms affecting patient selection. Surgery, however, is a cornerstone for treatment where minimally invasive surgery and increased understanding of perioperative physiology may be beneficial. The aims of this thesis were to validate the Swedish national registry for esophageal and gastric cancer (NREV) and to explore mechanisms in patient selection, perioperative physiology, treatment-related outcomes and staging. A validation study with re-abstracted data on 400 patients determined NREV comparable to other similar registries and to have a completeness of 95.5 %. Overall accuracy was 91.1 % throughout the registry and timeliness to reporting was adequate. In a cohort of 4112 patients from NREV, high education level was associated with an increased probability of being allocated to curative treatment, as was the presence of a multidisciplinary treatment conference. High education level was associated with improved survival. By measuring intramucosal pH (pHi) in 32 patients, to describe perfusion in the gastric conduit during esophagectomy, a reduction in perfusion was seen at all surgical steps altering vascular supply to the conduit but foremost after gastric tube construction by linear stapling. Patients with low pHi on the first postoperative day were more prone to anastomotic insufficiency. In 116 patients undergoing esophagectomy (65 open and 51 minimally invasive), a retrospective cohort study regarding surgical oncological results and postoperative complications was conducted. Lymph node yield was increased, peroperative blood loss and in-hospital stay were reduced with minimally invasive esophagectomy. Postoperative complications were unaffected by surgical approach. In a prospective study of nineteen patients, whole-body integrated PET/MRI was compared to PET/CT in preoperative staging. PET/MRI was safe and feasible. Accuracy and correlations between modalities were good regarding tumor characteristics and Nand M-staging. In Tstaging there were discrepancies indicating differences between modalities. The thesis presents data on the quality of NREV for future research and elaborates on patient selection, staging, perioperative physiology and treatment-related outcomes for patients with esophagealand GEJ cancer.


Purpose: To determine whether or not contrast sensitivity test and conjunctival impression cytology can be used as diagnostic tools to detect sub-clinical vitamin-A deficiency; and if there is a correlation within the two diagnostic methods.Methods: A series of diagnostic studies comprising of contrast sensitivity test, conjunctival impression examination and serum retinol concentration were performed on literate children, six to ten years old, at West Java Elementary School. All subjects underwent a basic eye examination. Sample size, receiver operator curve, negative and positive predictive values, sensitivity and specificity were calculated.Results: A total of 109 subjects out of 154 elementary school children corresponding to the inclusion criteria were included in this study. Forty-four (41.9%) children were detected to have sub-clinical vitamin-A deficiency. The contrast sensitivity test had a sensitivity value of 45.5% and a specificity value of 50.8% with a positive predictive value of 40%. The area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve was 49.5% (95% CI 38.1%- 60.9%), whereas the conjunctival impression cytology test had a sensitivity value of 90.9%, and a specificity value of 16.4% with a positive predictive value of 43.9%. The ROC area was 56.1% (95% CI 45.0% - 67.1%). Pearson's analysis showed that there is no correlation between the two diagnostic tools (p 0.538).Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that neither the contrast sensitivity test nor the conjunctival impression cytology was found to be a favorable screening tool to detect sub-clinical vitamin-A deficiency. Moreover, there is no correlation between the two methods.


Emerging transportation modes, including car-sharing, bike-sharing, and ride-hailing, are transforming urban mobility yet have been shown to reinforce socioeconomic inequity. These services rely on accurate demand prediction, but the demand data on which these models are trained reflect biases around demographics, socioeconomic conditions, and entrenched geographic patterns. To address these biases and improve fairness, we present FairST, a fairness-aware demand prediction model for spatiotemporal urban applications, with emphasis on new mobility. We use 1D (time-varying, space-constant), 2D (space-varying, time-constant) and 3D (both time- and space-varying) convolutional branches to integrate heterogeneous features, while including fairness metrics as a form of regularization to improve equity across demographic groups. We propose two spatiotemporal fairness metrics, region-based fairness gap (RFG), applicable when demographic information is provided as a constant for a region, and individual-based fairness gap (IFG), applicable when a continuous distribution of demographic information is available. Experimental results on bike share and ride share datasets show that FairST can reduce inequity in demand prediction for multiple sensitive attributes (i.e. race, age, and education level), while achieving better accuracy than even state-of-the-art fairness-oblivious methods.


The well known inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP), was investigated in the drug naive and antipsychotic medicating patients to understand the role of inflammation in the etiopathology of schizophrenia. The level of serum CRP was investigated among 64 schizophrenic patients, diagnosed with DSM IV criteria and categorized into different subgroup of schizophrenia. Latex agglutination test was performed to measure the level of CRP. The limitation of detection of serum CRP was less than 6 mg/L. CRP was treated as categorical variable: normal (6 mg/L) and elevated ( : 6mg/L). Further, patients were made to answer a questionnaire, which included self-reported age, sex, medical history, age of onset, substance abuse etc. All subjects came from an India-born Bengali population. 3 Paranoid patients showed the elevated level of CRP ( : 6mg/L) whereas rest of the patients had normal CRP ( < 6mg/L). When the findings were compared to the demographic variables, the results showed a significant value for the elevated level of CRP and drug naive status. The study suggests that some kind of inflammatory process may be one of the etiological factors for schizophrenia and the antipsychotic drug might play an important role in down regulating this inflammatory process and thereby bringing the level of CRP to the normal state.


This article was written for a Symposium, jointly hosted by the University of New Hampshire School of Law and the Vermont Law School, exploring the implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision in IMS Health v. Sorrell, 131 S. Ct. 2653 (2011). In particular, I consider here an important issue that was raised, discussed, but ultimately avoided in IMS Health: what restrictions does the First Amendment place on the government's ability to limit or prohibit the disclosure of pure data, in order to protect personal privacy. The issue could be avoided in IMS Health because the specific Vermont statute at issue in that case did not, as it happens, impose a general restriction on data disclosure for privacy reasons, it rather only restricted specific uses of regulated data, in order to advance state interests quite distinct from privacy concerns. The broader question of data regulation, however, is lurking in the wings of this and other litigation, and is likely to pose difficult challenges for courts in coming years, as the spread of the Internet drives legislatures to adopt increasingly stringent privacy laws.While the IMS Health majority did not decide the data-disclosure issue posed in the case, it did address it in ways that strongly suggest the six justices in the majority would treat such disclosures as fully protected speech. Moreover, the analysis provided in this article demonstrates that the majority's hints are fully justified by current Supreme Court doctrine. As currently interpreted by the Court, the First Amendment provides full constitutional protection to disclosures of even personal data, and so restrictions on such disclosures must survive strict scrutiny, a standard that has proven almost impossible to satisfy in the First Amendment context. As a consequence, under current law most statutes seeking to protect privacy by prohibiting data disclosure are likely to be invalidated.In the balance of the article, I suggest that this result reflects a serious weakness in current doctrine, which is the failure to recognize that factual speech is distinct from, and requires different constitutional analysis than, the sorts of political and cultural speech that have traditionally been the mainstay of First Amendment litigation. In particular, drawing on a number of areas of developed law, I argue that speech consisting purely of specific factual data regarding individuals should be considered to be fully protected under the First Amendment only if the speech meaningfully contributes to the process of democratic self-governance. Other data should remain protected, but under a lower standard of scrutiny, perhaps an intermediate standard incorporating an element of balancing. I also briefly explore how different kinds of privacy laws might fare under such an approach.


Through a process of fragmentation, functionalization, and recombination of market approved molecules for cosmetic usage, we customized an in-house virtual library comprising molecules ideally suited for virtual screening. Computational pharmacophore-based screening of this virtual library followed by a 3 month optimization phase led to the identification of an optimized lead with all its expected properties in hand to be developed as a candidate molecule for skin care in cosmetic applications. The success of this pilot project paves the way for other cosmetic targets of interest.


Wasserstein barycenters provide a geometrically meaningful way to aggregate probability distributions, built on the theory of optimal transport. They are difficult to compute in practice, however, leading previous work to restrict their supports to finite sets of points. Leveraging a new dual formulation for the regularized Wasserstein barycenter problem, we introduce a stochastic algorithm that constructs a continuous approximation of the barycenter. We establish strong duality and use the corresponding primal-dual relationship to parametrize the barycenter implicitly using the dual potentials of regularized transport problems. The resulting problem can be solved with stochastic gradient descent, which yields an efficient online algorithm to approximate the barycenter of continuous distributions given sample access. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and compare against previous work on synthetic examples and real-world applications.


ABSTRACT Governance models and future strategic visions for Spain's beach social–ecological systems are assessed using an online questionnaire. Beaches continue to represent the most valuable attraction for Spanish coastal towns, but their strategic vision regarding the beach consists more of it being a profitable attraction and of maintaining the traditional "sun and sand" model, rather than of planning strategically. There are three trends looking to 2020. First, beach resorts are becoming linked with culture and heritage, gastronomy, events and ecotourism to enhance their attraction capacity and competitiveness. Second, the coastal towns plan to reduce the strain on beaches by increasing the number of square metres of sand per user. Third, they plan to reduce the strain of the seasonal population compared to the year-round population. Two indices (Beach Quality and Governance Quality) and two factors (Beach Management Proximity and Tourist Resource Expectations) were developed to assess municipal beach governance frameworks, enabling us to construct a typology of four municipal governance models. The country follows a classical public hierarchical model of beach management. Other than at the local scale, beaches are not strategically managed. There is a lack of implementation of adaptive measures, collective actions, integrated management, or policy learning.


The euphoria about the future that followed World War II permeated the outlooks of architects, who, influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and with ready access to remarkable new construction material and building techniques spawned by the war technologies, faced the intriguing prospect of redesigning the post war world. Initially the futuristic designs were outrageous, and detractors labeled these structures the Googie School of Architecture after a particularly outlandish coffee shop in Los Angeles. Googie would seem far from outlandish today as those once controversial design elements have become commonplace in both commercial and residential architecture. Author Alan Hess traces the evolution of these early post war designs in a lively yet learned essay profusely illustrated with both color and black-and-white photography. "Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture" is a nostalgic trip back to the Fifties and a look forward at the architectural future.


In today's world, closed circuit television, cellphone photographs and videos, open-source intelligence (i.e., social media/web data mining), and other sources of photographic evidence are commonly used by police forces to identify suspects and victims of both online and offline crimes. Human characteristics, such as age, height, weight, gender, hair color, etc., are often used by police officers and witnesses in their description of unidentified suspects. In certain circumstances, the age of the victim can result in the determination of the crime's categorization, e.g., child abuse investigations. Various automated machine learning-based techniques have been implemented for the analysis of digital images to detect soft biometric traits, such as age and gender, and thus aid detectives and investigators in progressing their cases. This paper documents an evaluation of existing cognitive age prediction services. The evaluative and comparative analysis of the various services was conducted to identify trends and issues inherent to their performance. One significant contributing factor impeding the accurate development of the services investigated is the notable lack of sufficient sample images in specific age ranges, i.e., underage and elderly. To overcome this issue, a dataset generator was developed, which harnesses collections of several unbalanced datasets and forms a balanced, curated dataset of digital images annotated with their corresponding age and gender.


We address semantic video object segmentation via a novel cross-granularity hierarchical graphical model to integrate tracklet and object proposal reasoning with superpixel labeling. Tracklet characterizes varying spatial-temporal relations of video object which, however, quite often suffers from sporadic local outliers. In order to acquire high-quality tracklets, we propose a transductive inference model which is capable of calibrating short-range noisy object tracklets with respect to long-range dependencies and high-level context cues. In the center of this work lies a new paradigm of semantic video object segmentation beyond modeling appearance and motion of objects locally, where the semantic label is inferred by jointly exploiting multi-scale contextual information and spatial-temporal relations of video object. We evaluate our method on two popular semantic video object segmentation benchmarks and demonstrate that it advances the state-of-the-art by achieving superior accuracy performance than other leading methods.


Abstract This paper studies the problem of sensor data integration with grid computing. We set up the mathematical models for optimal sensor resources allocation in sensor-enabled grid-computing environment. In this paper, the iterative algorithm that achieves sensor integration with the grid is proposed. The experiments are conducted to compare our proposed algorithm for sensor integration with self-optimization-based resource management and scheduling for sensor grid. In the simulations, we use several measurement metrics: response time, profit, and energy consumption.


This study examined recent trends in the numbers of light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and vans) in the U.S. fleet. The analysis considered both the absolute numbers and the rates per person, per licensed driver, and per household. The period examined was from 1984 through 2011. The absolute number of vehicles reached a maximum in 2008. However, it is likely that this was only a temporary maximum and that the decline after 2008 was primarily driven by the current economic downturn that started in 2008. Consequently, with the improving economy and the expected increase in the U.S. population, it is highly likely that (from a long-term perspective) the absolute number of vehicles has not yet peaked. On the other hand, the rates of vehicles per person, licensed driver, and household reached their maxima prior to the onset of the current economic downturn. Consequently, it is likely that the declines in these rates prior to the current economic downturn (i.e., prior to 2008) reflect other societal changes that influence the need for vehicles (e.g., increases in telecommuting and in the use of public transportation). Therefore, the recent maxima in these rates have better chances of being long-term peaks as well. However, because the changes in the rates from 2008 on likely reflect both the relevant societal changes and the current economic downturn, whether the recent maxima in the rates will represent long-term peaks as well will be influenced by the extent to which the relevant societal changes turn out to be permanent.


PIPS charity, Belfast offers support services for people in suicidal crisis and those impacted by suicide including specialised support for young people bereaved through suicide and care services to help people engage successfully with long-term mental health care.This project, funded by the Garfield Weston Board, worked with PIPS Family Support Group in facilitated arts activities to create a permanent artwork for the charities building and design publications for wider dissemination about PIPS charity.PIPS Family Support Group was wonderful to work with. I would especially like to thank them all for their openness, kindness and their generosity in sharing their time and ideas. The textile artwork produced by the group clearly reflects their warm and welcoming spirit. The artwork depicts many variations of the tree symbol used by PIPS in its logo – a symbol of light and hope.Dissemination of PIPS activities to the wider community is of primary importance to the group, so as a group we felt it was important to develop a range of materials which could be used by PIPS. The postcards and smaller wallet-sized cards feature quotes from the Family Support Group members during the sessions with myself. The pamphlet features more focused information and key messages that the group wanted to tell. Special thanks also to Shelley Malcolmson who worked with me to get the designs ready for printing.


Domestic market size constraints in small late developing states are expected to influence the economic growth process in general and indigenous firm performance in particular. The role and contribution of policy-makers in overcoming these constraints can therefore be significant. This thesis evaluates the role and contribution of public venture capital - as a significant industrial policy initiative - to shareholder value creation in growth-oriented indigenous firms in Ireland. Three main themes are investigated. Firstly the rationale and context for micro-level industrial policy interventions in Ireland is considered. Secondly, the role and contribution of public venture capital to indigenous firm performance and thirdly the factors differentiating between performing and non-performing firms are explored. Using mixed methods research this study finds that in a small late developing state such as Ireland, 'job creation' has been elevated from an industrial policy perspective to the de facto national objective. Enterprise policy development for indigenous industry however remains largely emergent and fluid, fifty-four years on from the advent of the national export-oriented industrial policy. In the absence of a deliberately-stated enterprise policy, this emergent micro-level approach has led the states' economic development agency into areas outside its originally intended remit. This goes some way to explaining the plethora of micro-level policy instruments available in Ireland to growth-oriented indigenous firms. Further, this study also finds no conclusive evidence that an 'equity gap' existed in the analysis period. However, as a consequence of attempting to close this perceived gap, the Irish state now finds itself with an investment portfolio of over nine hundred direct share investments in indigenous firms. The Irish State, through its economic development agency, has thus become the largest venture capital company in Europe. The portfolio of state-selected firms in the analysis (n = 51) for public venture capital investment are found not to perform as anticipated by the theory of change mapped out in the study. A quantitative model developed for the study also finds that there is no statistically significant association between firm performance as measured in the study and the value of the public venture capital invested in each firm. The crosscase and contribution analysis in the study further confirm that the contribution of public venture capital to indigenous firm performance in Ireland was marginal at best. The primary barrier to profitable growth for the indigenous firms receiving public venture capital support in the analysis period was the firms 'Limited endowments of managerial resources' (Penrose, 1959) to manage the growth process and not a lack of risk capital as perceived by agents of the State. Policy implications of the findings are also considered in the study.


The Critical Race Lawyering Symposium in New York City brings me from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As I travel the day before the symposium, I reflect on the amount of time it will take. I leave Albuquerque at 8:23 a.m. and I am scheduled to arrive in New York City at 4:05 p.m., via Chicago. Given the two-hour time difference between the East Coast and the Rocky Mountain regions, I begin my day boarding the plane as the sun is rising in the morning sky and end it at my destination where the sun is setting. Even in this day and age of rapid transportation, it takes an entire day just to travel. The difference in time and place is not lost on me. As I leave Albuquerque aboard the plane, the beauty of the vast and empty brownness of the earth below awes me, as it always does. The uninhabited and open high desert around Albuquerque quickly diminishes the small city. As I draw closer to the east, first to Chicago, and then to New York City, I look down from the plane upon approach at the vastness of the cities. I cannot help but think of the accounts I recall reading of the official delegations of Native leaders sent to the east coast by railroad to meet the "Great Father," a tactic employed to convince them to lay down their arms and cease armed resistance. Upon seeing the population in the East, these leaders were deeply affected by the knowledge that the waves of settlers intruding upon their lands came from a vast sea of people. As we approach New York City at the end of the day, I glimpse from the air the natural growth of trees and brush here and there and then all the buildings, which have replaced them. I think of the Native peoples of this place upon which one of the most prominent cities in the world now stands-the Lenape, I learn later. I leave my own Native lands this morning and understand I will enter those of other Native peoples of New York State, Ancient Nations, some of whom, like the Lenape, are among "the disappeared " within their own territory-Algonquin territory. I admire their territory from the air and think of how beautiful it must have been before the buildings were here, situated near the ocean and beside the rivers.


This paper shows how periodic covariance functions in Gaussian process regression can be reformulated as state space models, which can be solved with classical Kalman ltering theory. This reduces the problematic cubic complexity of Gaussian process regression in the number of time steps into linear time complexity. The representation is based on expanding periodic covariance functions into a series of stochastic resonators. The explicit representation of the canonical periodic covariance function is written out and the expansion is shown to uniformly converge to the exact covariance function with a known convergence rate. The framework is generalized to quasi-periodic covariance functions by introducing damping terms in the system and applied to two sets of real data. The approach could be easily extended to nonstationary and spatio-temporal variants.


Abstract. Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is the dominant biogenic sulfur compound in the ambient marine atmosphere. Low-volatility acids from DMS oxidation promote the formation and growth of sulfur aerosols and ultimately alter cloud properties and Earth's climate. We studied the OH-initiated oxidation of DMS in the Aarhus University Research on Aerosol (AURA) smog chamber and the marine boundary layer (MBL) with the aerosol dynamics and gas- and particle-phase chemistry kinetic multilayer model ADCHAM. Our work involved the development of a revised and comprehensive multiphase DMS oxidation mechanism, capable of both reproducing smog chamber and atmospheric relevant conditions. The secondary aerosol mass yield in the AURA chamber was found to have a strong dependence on the reaction of methyl sulfinic acid (MSIA) and OH, causing a 82.8 % increase in the total PM at low relative humidity (RH), while the autoxidation of the intermediate radical CH3SCH2OO forming hydroperoxymethyl thioformate (HPMTF) proved important at high temperature and RH, decreasing the total PM by 55.8 %. The observations and modelling strongly support the finding that a liquid water film existed on the Teflon surface of the chamber bag, which enhanced the wall loss of water-soluble intermediates and oxidants dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), MSIA, HPMTF, SO2, methanesulfonic acid (MSA), sulfuric acid (SA) and H2O2. The effect caused a 64.8 % and 91.7 % decrease in the secondary aerosol mass yield obtained at both dry (0 % RH–12 % RH) and humid (50 % RH–80 % RH) conditions, respectively. Model runs reproducing the ambient marine atmosphere indicate that OH comprises a strong sink of DMS in the MBL (accounting for 31.1 % of the total sink flux of DMS) although less important than the combined effect of halogen species Cl and BrO (accounting for 24.3 % and 38.7 %, respectively). Cloudy conditions promote the production of SO42- particular mass (PM) from SO2 accumulated in the gas phase, while cloud-free periods facilitate MSA formation in the deliquesced particles. The exclusion of aqueous-phase chemistry lowers the DMS sink as no halogens are activated in the sea spray particles and underestimates the secondary aerosol mass yield by neglecting SO42- and MSA PM production in the particle phase. Overall, this study demonstrated that the current DMS oxidation mechanisms reported in literature are inadequate in reproducing the results obtained in the AURA chamber, whereas the revised chemistry captured the formation, growth and chemical composition of the formed aerosol particles well. Furthermore, we emphasize the importance of OH-initiated oxidation of DMS in the ambient marine atmosphere during conditions with low sea spray emissions.


Water crisis was not considered seriously at the Dublin and Rio conferences. It was put on the world agenda primarily by the Stockholm Water Symposia. Water management is likely to change more during the next twenty years compared to the past 2,000 years. The paper reviews the global water situtation based on the latest data available. In terms of water availability, it concludes that one can now be cautiously optimistic of the global water future. If there is to be a crisis, it is likely to be for two reasons: water quality and lack of investments. Neither of these two issues are receiving adquate attention at present. The roles IWRA can play in the future are briefly outlined.


This study examines participatory budgeting (PB) as an important kind of citizen participation in the Dominican Republic (DR) and the implications of this recent practice for agency, democracy, and development. PB is a process that intends to drive change with specific outcomes: through deliberative decision-making, ordinary citizens select wellbeing- and agency-enhancing projects that ideally lead to more local and authentic development. Together with the attainment of these tangible outcomes, valuable subjective states may also come about: people feel more in charge of their own lives, community groups become more collaborative and cooperative, and more and better democracy is fostered. Taking a step forward from previous studies that only focus on PB from an urban planning or public finance perspective, the overall objective of this study is to provide a deeper understanding and assessment of how PB works in the localities under analysis, its association with different measures of agency, the characteristics that drive its success or failure, and its general impact on the lives of individuals and communities. Drawing on normative and policy-based literatures and specifically following an agency-oriented capability approach, this study uses a mixed-methods approach to analyze interview, survey, and direct observations of PB public assemblies, and archival data with respect to the 2013 budget cycle in four DR municipalities. A regression analysis finds that participation in and awareness of PB are both significantly correlated with individuals reporting higher levels of individual and collective agency when compared to nonparticipants and unaware individuals. These measures of agency are contextualized to the municipal budget-planning cycle. A process tracing analysis concludes that PB is likely, under certain conditions, to increase democratic participation and deliberation. However, due to certain democratic deficits, PB in two DR municipalities does not always increase agency, group cooperative functioning, and good development. Thus, PB must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis because differences in the characteristics of each PB assembly may lead to different outcomes. It is finally argued that rather than condemning democracy because of the failures of the current PB system, we should advance PB's democracy further by improving it in various ways.


Ochre comes in shades of yellow, orange, red and brown; the core of it is the iron red of ferric oxide. Together with manganese dioxide, which is densely black, it offered Palaeolithic hominids a palette covering the spectrum of fire, from flame to charcoal. Up to about 110,000 years ago, they only dabbled occasionally. Then, in southern Africa, ochre seems to have coloured their whole lives. It is present in 'copious' quantities at every cave and rock shelter that contains relics of occupation from this period. This was a monochrome explosion, based almost entirely on red ochre, and particularly upon strong reds, rather than orange or brown shades. The collectors of pigment made little or no use of the deposits of manganese ore and magnetite, a black iron oxide, which were available in some areas. According to Ian Watts of University College, London, who has made the study of prehistoric ochre his own, 99.5 per cent of all known African Middle Stone Age pigment is iron oxide, and 94 per cent contains a red streak.


In this essay we describe the characteristics of the internet language used by senior-level school pupils. Our primary question formulation is: "Which are the significant features of the youth's internet language on a morphological, lexical, syntactical and orthographical level?" In order to answer this question we have analyzed 45 text ex-amples which is brought from two different internet forums, Bilddagboken.se and Un-gdomar.se, forums which are widely used by youths. The analysis has been made on a morphological, lexical, orthographical and syntactical level. We have also another question formulation which is: "How is emoticons used in youth's internet conversa-tions?" Thereby we also study the use of emoticons in the examples we have analyzed.Our conclusion in this essay is that the youth's internet language is a language that in many cases should be seen as an own language; it should be seen as an entirely new and unique way of communication. Therefore it should not be placed in any of the cat-egories you use to talk about when it comes to linguistic studies.


The Pulsed Field Gradient (PFG) NMR spectroscopy was uesd to determine, via the diffusion coefficient, the molecular weights and the molecular weight distributions for sampels of poly(etylene glycol) (PEG) in D2O. Additional it was investigated, whether the components of mixtures of poly(ethylene glycol) with different molecular weights could be quantitatively determined by the differences in diffusion coefficient. The results of this study are compared with the result of the Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) technique, the standard methode for the determination of molecular weights. The PFG NMR findings shows that the the molecular weights and the molecular weight distributions agreed well with values provided by the manufacturer. The mixtures could not be determined quantitativley, because of considerable overlaps in the molecular weight distributions. But it could be shown that the PFG NMR spectroscopy and the DLS technique complement one another.


Kinetic data of biochemical reactions are essential for the creation of kinetic models of biochemical networks. One of the main resources of such information is SABIO-RK, a curated database for kinetic data of biochemical reactions and their related information. Despite the importance for computational modelling there has been no simple solution to visualize the kinetic data from SABIO-RK. In this work, I present cy3sabiork, an app for querying and visualization of kinetic data from SABIO-RK in Cytoscape. The kinetic information is accessible via a combination of graph structure and annotations of nodes, with provided information consisting of: (I) reaction details, enzyme and organism; (II) kinetic law, formula, parameters; (III) experimental conditions; (IV) publication; (V) additional annotations. cy3sabiork creates an intuitive visualization of kinetic entries in form of a species-reaction-kinetics graph, which reflects the reaction-centered approach of SABIO-RK. Kinetic entries can be imported in SBML format from either the SABIO-RK web interface or via web service queries. The app allows for easy comparison of kinetic data, visual inspection of the elements involved in the kinetic record and simple access to the annotation information of the kinetic record. I applied cy3sabiork in the computational modelling of galactose metabolism in the Human liver.


The thesis work describes the functionalization of imidazolin-2-imine (1a, 1b and 1c) on the exocyclic nitrogen (the imine nitrogen) by phenyl isocyanate and chlorodiphenylphosphine. We prepared N-(1,3-di-tert-butylimidazole-2-ylidene)-N'-phenylurea 2a, N-(1,3-dimesitylimidazole-2- ylidene)-N'-phenylurea 2b, N-(1,3-bis-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazole-2-ylidene)-N'-phenylurea 2c ligands by reacting imidazoline-2-imine with phenyl isocyanate at ambient temperature. To expand imidazolin-2-imine into the novel imidazolin-2-ylidene-1,1-diphenylphosphinamine ligand family we prepared 1,3-dimesitylimidazolin-2-ylidene-1,1-diphenylphosphinamine 3b and 1,3-bis-(2,6- diisopropylphenyl)-imidazolin-2-ylidene-1,1-diphenylphosphinamine 3c ligands by reacting imidazolin-2-imine with chlorodiphenylphosphine in THF:CH2Cl2 mixture at ambient temperature. Further functionalization was done on the imidazolin-2-ylidene-1,1-diphenylphosphinamine by making its chalcogenides. Reaction of 1,3-dimesitylimidazolin-2-ylidene-1,1-diphenylphosphinamine with H2O2, elemental sulphur and selenium affords corresponding oxide, sulphide and selenide derivatives, 1,3-dimesitylimidazolin-2-ylidene-P,P-diphenylphosphinicamide 4b, 1,3- dimesitylimidazolin-2-ylidene-P,P-diphenylphosphinothioicamide 5b and 1,3-dimesitylimidazolin-2- ylidene-P,P-diphenylphosphinoselenoicamide 6b respectively in good yield. Compound 2a, 2b and 2c are introduced in the late transition metal chemistry to prepare nickel complexes (7a and 7b) and to explore its possible application in organic transformation. All the compounds are characterized by spectroscopically such as NMR, IR, UV and solid state structure established by XRD.


Reversing with a trailer is very difficult and many drivers hesitate to even try it. This thesis examines if active steering, particularly AFS (Active Front Steering), can be used to provide assistance.For analysis and controller design a simple geometric model of car and trailer is used. The model seems to be accurate enough at the low speeds relevant for trailer reversing. It is shown that the only trailer dependent model parameter can be estimated while driving. This enables use with different trailers.Different schemes to control the system are tested. The main approach is to use the steering wheel as reference for some appropriate output signal, for example the angle between car and trailer. This makes reversing with a trailer more like reversing without a trailer. To turn left, the driver simply turns the steering wheel left and drives. Test driving, as well as theoretical analysis, shows that the resulting system is stable. Of the eight drivers that have tested this type of control, five found it to be a great advantage while two considered it more confusing than helpful.A major problem with this control approach has to do with the way AFS is constructed. With AFS, the torque required to turn the front wheels results in a reaction torque in the steering wheel. Together with the reference tracking controllers, this makes the steering wheel unstable. Theoretical analysis implies that this problem has to be solved mechanically. One solution would be to combine AFS with electric power steering.This thesis also presents a trajectory tracking scheme to autonomously reverse with a trailer. Starting from the current trailer position and the desired trajectory an appropriate turning radius for the trailer is decided. Within certain limits, this will stabilize the car as well. The desired trajectory can be programmed beforehand, but it can also be saved while driving forward. Both variants have been tested with good results.


We develop two ab initio quantum approaches to thin-film x-ray cavity quantum electrodynamics with spectrally narrow x-ray resonances, such as those provided by Mossbauer nuclei. The first method is based on a few-mode description of the cavity, and promotes and extends existing phenomenological few-mode models to an ab initio theory. The second approach uses analytically-known Green's functions to model the system. The two approaches not only enable one to ab initio derive the effective few-level scheme representing the cavity and the nuclei in the low-excitation regime, but also provide a direct avenue for studies at higher excitation, involving non-linear or quantum phenomena. The ab initio character of our approaches further enables direct optimizations of the cavity structure and thus of the photonic environment of the nuclei, to tailor the effective quantum optical level scheme towards particular applications. To illustrate the power of the ab initio approaches, we extend the established quantum optical modeling to resonant cavity layers of arbitrary thickness, which is essential to achieve quantitative agreement for cavities used in recent experiments. Further, we consider multi-layer cavities featuring electromagnetically induced transparency, derive their quantum optical few-level systems ab initio, and identify the origin of discrepancies in the modeling found previously using phenomenological approaches as arising from cavity field gradients across the resonant layers.


Abstract The Cooper-Eromanga Basins of South Australia and Queensland are not at their maximum burial-depth due to Late Cretaceous–Tertiary and Late Triassic–Early Jurassic exhumation. This study reviews evidence of exhumation and palaeo-thermal history in the Cooper-Eromanga Basins based on previous apatite fission track analysis and fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures. Previous works using these techniques have tended to focus their research in the palaeo-thermal history, rather than exhumation magnitudes, indeed thermal annealing witnessed by apatite fission track analysis and associated with the recent/present high geothermal gradients precludes estimation of exhumation at the Cooper-Eromanga Basins unconformity. The relative importance of hot fluids, burial/exhumation and/or other heating processes is unclear. Nonetheless, where reported, exhumation results from apatite fission track analysis and fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures are in a broad agreement with those from compaction analysis.


Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) are composed of magnetizable particles (iron particles) and a soft rubber-like matrix. Their mechanical properties, including modulus and damping capability, can be controlled by an external magnetic field. The damping properties of MREs, which play an important role in applications, depend mainly on particle content. This paper aims to investigate MRE's damping capabilities by studying two categories of cis-polybutadiene rubber-based MREs: isotropic and structured MREs. Both isotropic and structured MRE samples with various iron particle contents (60, 70, 80 and 85wt%) were fabricated and their damping properties were measured by using a modified dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) and a universal testing machine. The results show that the loss factor in the glass transition region decreases with the increment of iron particle content. The loss factors of structured MREs are lower than those of isotropic MREs when the iron particle contents are the same. Furthermore, dynamic testing was conducted to study the effect of strain amplitude, frequency and magnetic field on the loss factor of MREs. In addition, the stress-softening experiments indicate that the ratio of remaining strain energy versus initial strain energy shows a decreasing trend with iron particle content and loading time. r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Thirty-four adult and pediatric hemophilia A and B patients and 50 nonhemophilic members belonging to 28 families were enrolled in August 1984 in a study of human T cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus (HTLV-III/LAV) antibody status and T cell subpopulation numbers. All 50 household contacts, including three spouses of LAV antibody-positive adult hemophiliacs, were immunologically normal and serologically negative with respect to HTLV-III/LAV. Based on Western blot serologic testing of blood samples collected intermittently between July 1981 and August 1984 from 33 representative St Louis hemophiliacs studied during the period from 1981 to 1984, the average time since seroconversion was estimated as 20 months. One spouse of a seropositive hemophiliac and 23 parents of 27 seropositive pediatric hemophiliacs assisted regularly with home infusions. These infusion assistants have collectively experienced 44 person-years of concentrate infusion "exposure" without seroconversion. These results suggest that the likelihood for transmission of HTLV-III/LAV from hemophiliacs to persons assisting in their therapy is extremely low.


Introduction: Research and innovation in the field of infant milk formulas aim to approximate the nutritional composition of breast milk, and mimic its benefits at the functional level. Technological advances, together with the development of knowledge about the components of breast milk, have made it possible to identify a large number of bioactive compounds, which has led to their incorporation into infant formulas. Methods: Bibliographic review of scientific publications, in the databases: SciELO, Scopus and ScienceDirect. The publications addressed the topics of probiotics, symbiotic and their addition in infant milk formulas. Results: A total of 32 scientific articles were found that met the inclusion criteria. The definitions of prebiotic, probiotic and symbiotic are presented. The physiological effects on health and its recommendations are detailed. Conclusions: Evidence about clinical efficacy through the addition of prebiotics is not enough to recommend routine use in infant formulas. In relation to the addition of probiotics, further research is needed to be able to establish with specificity the types of strains, species and doses of consumption that are beneficial for health.


Teachers are increasingly being drawn from the lower parts of the general ability distribution, but it is not clear how this affects student achievement. We track the position of entering teachers in population-wide cognitive and non-cognitive ability distributions using school grades and draft records from Swedish registers. The impact on student achievement caused by the position of teachers in these ability distributions is estimated using matched student-teacher data. On average, teachers' cognitive and non-cognitive social interactive abilities do not have a positive effect on student performance. However, social interactive ability turns out to be important for low aptitude students, whilst the reverse holds for cognitive abilities. In fact, while high performing students benefit from high cognitive teachers, being matched to such a teacher can even be detrimental to their lower performing peers. Hence, the lower abilities among teachers may hurt some students, whereas others may even benefit. High cognitive and non-cognitive abilities thus need not necessarily translate into teacher quality. Instead, these heterogeneities highlight the importance of the student-teacher matching process.


Three, Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) Part 141 four-year collegiate aviation institutions were asked to provide flight training data from the last five academic years. Each institution supplied a representative sample of 14 CFR Part 141 training records for each flight course offered. The records contained specific information including dual training received, solo flight time, simulator/flight training device (FTD) time, and total time acquired during flight training. The information provided by these institutions was tabulated by course offered and year. It was then compared to the minimum 14 CFR Part 141 Training Course Outlines (TCO) requirements for each institution. While TCO requirements did not vary greatly among universities, each school differed in their ability to meet their TCO standards. On average, the study found that actual flight times to complete training courses were eighteen percent higher than those specified in TCO minimums.


Contents Part I:Piaget in the Computer Age. S. Papert, The Conservation of Piaget: The Computer as Grist to the Constructivist Mill. P.B. Pufall, Function in Piaget's System: Some Notes for Constructors of Microworlds. Part II:Computers and the Developmental Relation Between Intuitive and Formal Knowing. A.A. Di Sessa, Knowledge in Pieces. J. Lockhead, Some Pieces of the Puzzle. G. Forman, Making Intuitive Knowledge Explicit Through Future Technology. Part III:Structural and Individual Development in Computer Worlds. G.G. Fein, E.K. Scholnick, P.F. Campbell, S.S. Schwartz, R. Frank, Computing Space: A Conceptual and Developmental Analysis of LOGO. J.F. Wohlwill, Artistic Imagination During the "Latency Period" Revealed Through Computer Graphics. H.P. Ginsburg, S, Zelman, Understanding Individual Differences in the Computer Age. Part IV:Special Applications of Computers and Video-Disc in Education. J. Bransford, R. Sherwood, T. Hasselbring, The Video Revolution and Its Effects on Development: Some Initial Thoughts. D. Wolf, The Quality of Interaction: Domain Knowledge, Social Interchange, and Computer Learning. F. Murray, The Child-Computer Dyad and Cognitive Development. Epilogue. G. Forman, P. Pufall, Constructivism in the Computer Age: A Reconstructive Epilogue.


We study the production of light elements (Z<20) in the ejecta of binary neutron star mergers by combining detailed nucleosynthesis calculations with the outcome of numerical relativity merger simulations. We explore different microphysical equations of state and binary mass ratios, and find that hydrogen and helium are the most abundant light elements. For both elements, the decay of free neutrons is the driving nuclear reaction. Hydrogen is produced in extremely fast expanding ejecta while helium is synthesized in association with heavy r-process elements. By computing synthetic spectra, we find that the possibility of detecting hydrogen and helium features in kilonova spectra is very unlikely.


Summary: A Lego© robot is being tested as a constant speed device to enable more sensitive data collection on the energy cost of pushing two different wheelchairs designed for low income countries. Introduction: For many years, treadmills of all kinds including wheel chair treadmills have been utilized to enable energy cost studies to be done at a constant speed because there is a non-linear relationship between the speed of travel and the energy cost of moving1. However, these treadmills are expensive, bulky, and simply not available in low-income countries where we have been collecting data on the function of pediatric wheelchairs. In a parallel study done in the USA with volunteers pushing wheelchairs, we are testing a Lego© NXT robotic vehicle built and programed to perform as a constant speed device. The robot is much more reasonably priced and is easily transported from one location to the next. The objective of this study is to determine if the vehicle is an adequate replacement for a wheelchair treadmill. Materials and Methods: Using a Lego© NXT Education set, engineers at LeTourneau University have designed and built a small robotic vehicle. This robot's purpose is to travel in front of a wheelchair, and give the user a reference speed while testing. The kit used to build this robot costs less than $3002. Subjects walked 1-2 meters behind the robot at a constant speed of 2.8 mph for 10 minutes while wearing a heart rate monitor in order to obtain an accurate Physiological Cost Index for pushing the wheelchair3. University students pushed two types of wheelchairs, one after the other, on a smooth surface twice, once following the constant speed robot and once selecting their own speed. Preliminary Results: T-tests comparing data from the two wheelchairs taken at a self-selected speed were far from significant, while t-tests from data taken while following the robot were much closer to being able to distinguish between the two wheelchairs though they were not quite significant (slightly higher than 0.05). Conclusion: The preliminary data shows promise in confirming that this robot will play the role of a treadmill in enabling more sensitive data on energy cost. Additional data is being collected to see if stronger statistical power enables significant results. It seems likely that this robot may provide an adequate substitute for a treadmill.


Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) deliver their duties at greater risk of occupationally acquired viral infections such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which transmit by direct exposure either with the infected sharps or the body fluids. However, most of such incidents remains unreported and hence pose a high risk to HCWs life. Aim: The timely investigation and interventions can change the fate of infection. In the present study, the knowledge, approach, awareness, and actions need to be taken post exposure were assessed among different categories of HCWs. Methods and materials: A cross sectional self-structured and responsive questionnaire was provided to HCWs and who furnished all information were included in analysis. Results and conclusions: Out of 138 questionnaires evaluated who acquired injury, 61 were resident doctors, 42 interns, 27 nursing staff, 8 were other paramedical staff. Only 19.6% HCWs have completed hepatitis B vaccination and maximum (93.5%) have post exposure prophylaxis for less than 24 h. Post exposure, only 42% HCWs reported to HIV screening center. After injury, spirit application and squeezing was done by 44.2% HCWs. 24% HCWs did not followed the universal precautions at work and 38.4% showed ignorance towards standard precautions. The results indicate ignorance and casual approach towards the universal precautions after occupational injuries which might be due to overworked or lack of resources/awareness. It necessitates the continuous education, monitoring, training, and disciplinary measures to control occupation infection hazards to HCWs.


The reproductive age of the parents has a significant influence on the kind and rate of somatic mutations in their progeny. In humans, it is well known that the parental reproductive age has a strong influence on mutations transmitted to their progeny. Meiotic nondisjunction is known to increase in older mothers, and base substitutions tend to go up with paternal reproductive age. Hence, it is clear that the germinal mutation rates are a function of both maternal and paternal ages in humans. In contrast, it is unknown whether the parental reproductive age has an effect on somatic mutation rates in the progeny, because these are rare and difficult to detect. To address this question, we took advantage of the plant model system Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), where mutation detector lines allow for an easy quantitation of somatic mutations, to test the effect of parental age on somatic mutation rates in the progeny. Although we found no significant effect of parental age on base substitutions, we found that frameshift mutations and transposition events increased in the progeny of older parents, an effect that is stronger through the maternal line. In contrast, intrachromosomal recombination events in the progeny decrease with the age of the parents in a parent-of-origin-dependent manner. Our results clearly show that parental reproductive age affects somatic mutation rates in the progeny and, thus, that some form of age-dependent information, which affects the frequency of double-strand breaks and possibly other processes involved in maintaining genome integrity, is transmitted through the gametes.


To Stall or Not to Stall Recent studies in mammals and Drosophila have shown that RNA polymerase II frequently stalls shortly after initiating messenger RNA synthesis and that this stalling is important for proper expression of genes. Although several protein factors that affect polymerase stalling are known, the role of DNA sequence in this process has remained unclear. Now Nechaev et al. (p. 335, published online 10 December) report that the initially transcribed sequences of many genes contain a signal that works like a stop sign for the elongating polymerase. Expression of genes may thus be regulated by a combination of a DNA signal that induces promoter-proximal stalling and protein factors that alter its duration. The initially transcribed sequence plays a key role in inducing polymerase stalling. Emerging evidence indicates that gene expression in higher organisms is regulated by RNA polymerase II stalling during early transcription elongation. To probe the mechanisms responsible for this regulation, we developed methods to isolate and characterize short RNAs derived from stalled RNA polymerase II in Drosophila cells. Significant levels of these short RNAs were generated from more than one-third of all genes, indicating that promoter-proximal stalling is a general feature of early polymerase elongation. Nucleotide composition of the initially transcribed sequence played an important role in promoting transcriptional stalling by rendering polymerase elongation complexes highly susceptible to backtracking and arrest. These results indicate that the intrinsic efficiency of early elongation can greatly affect gene expression.


Orientation: The aim of the study was to explore the possible moderation effects of biographical and demographical variables on a prediction model of turnover intention (TI). Research purpose: The main purpose of the study was to determine how biographical and demographical variables have an impact on predictors of turnover intentions. Motivation for the study: Twenty-first century organisations face significant challenges in the management of talent and human capital. One in particular is voluntary employee turnover and the lack of appropriate business models to track this process. Research design, approach, and method: A secondary data analysis (SDA) was performed in a quantitative research tradition on the cross-sectional survey sample ( n = 2429). Data were collected from a large South African Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector company ( N = 23 134). Main findings: The results of the study confirmed significant moderation effects regarding race, age, and marital status in the prediction equations of TIs. Practical and managerial implications: Practical implications of the study suggested increased understanding of workforce diversity effects within the human resource (HR) value chain, with resultant evidence-based, employee retention strategies and interventions. Issues concerning talent management could also be addressed. Contribution and value-add: The study described in this article took Industrial/Organisational (I/O) psychological concepts and linked them in unique combinations to establish better predictive validity of a more comprehensive turnover intentions model.


This paper provides an overview of the main features of several bibliometric indicators which were proposed in the last few decades. Their pros and cons are highlighted and compared with the features of the well-known impact factor (IF) to show how alternative metrics are specifically designed to address the flaws that the IF was shown to have, especially in the last few years. We also report the results of recent studies in the bibliometric literature showing how the scientific impact of journals as evaluated by bibliometrics is a very complicated matter and it is completely unrealistic to try to capture it by any single indicator, such as the IF or any other. As such, we conclude that the adoption of more metrics, with complementary features, to assess journal quality would be very beneficial as it would both offer a more comprehensive and balanced view of each journal in the space of scholarly publications, as well as eliminate the pressure on individuals and their incentive to do metric manipulation which is an unintended result of the current (mis)use of the IF as the gold standard for publication quality.


We here present the results of 0.1 pc scale observations in 250 and 350 GHz toward a newly-discovered hot molecular core in a nearby low-metallicity galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. A variety of C/N/O/Si/S-bearing molecules are detected toward the high-mass young stellar object, ST16. A rotating protostellar envelope is for the first time detected outside our Galaxy by SO2 and 34SO lines. An outflow cavity is traced by CCH and CN. The isotope abundance of sulfur in the source is estimated to be 32S/34S = 17 and 32S/33S = 53 based on SO, SO2, and CS isotopologues, suggesting that both 34S and 33S are overabundant in the LMC. Rotation diagram analyses show that the source is associated with hot gas (>100 K) traced by high-excitation lines of CH3OH and SO2, as well as warm gas (∼50 K) traced by CH3OH, SO2, 34SO, OCS, and CH3CN lines. A comparison of molecular abundances between LMC and Galactic hot cores suggests that organic molecules (e.g., CH3OH, a classical hot core tracer) show a large abundance variation in low metallicity, where the present source is classified into an organic-poor hot core. Our astrochemical simulations suggest that different grain temperatures during the initial ice-forming stage would contribute to the chemical differentiation. In contrast, SO2 shows similar abundances within all of the known LMC hot cores, and the typical abundance roughly scales with the LMC's metallicity. Nitrogen-bearing molecules are generally less abundant in the LMC hot cores, except for NO. The present results suggest that chemical compositions of hot cores do not always simply scale with the metallicity.


This book examines child second language acquisition within the Principles and Parameters theory of Universal Grammar (UG). Specifically, the book focuses on null-subjects in the developing grammars of children acquiring English as a second language. The book provides evidence from the longitudinal speech data of four child second language (L2) learners in order to test the predictions of a recent theory of null-subjects, namely, the Morphological Uniformity Principle (MUP). Lakshmanan argues that the child L2 acquisition data offer little or no evidence in support of the MUP's predictions regarding a developmental relation between verb inflections and null-subjects. The evidence from these child L2 data indicates that regardless of the status of null subjects in their first language, child L2 learners of English hypothesize correctly from the very beginning that English requires subjects of tensed clauses to be obligatorily overt. The failure on the part of these learners to obey this knowledge in certain structural contexts is the result of perceptual factors that are unrelated to parameter setting. The book demonstrates the value of child second language acquisition data in evaluating specific proposals within linguistic theory for a Universal principle.


CONTEXT
Magnetic resonance imaging studies have identified hippocampal volume reductions in schizophrenia and amygdala volume enlargements in bipolar disorder, suggesting different medial temporal lobe abnormalities in these conditions. These studies have been limited by small samples and the absence of patients early in the course of illness.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate hippocampal and amygdala volumes in a large sample of patients with chronic schizophrenia, patients with first-episode psychosis, and patients at ultra-high risk for psychosis compared with control subjects.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional comparison between patient groups and controls.

SETTING
Individuals with chronic schizophrenia were recruited from a mental health rehabilitation service, and individuals with first-episode psychosis and ultra-high risk were recruited from the ORYGEN Youth Health Service. Control subjects were recruited from the community.

PARTICIPANTS
The study population of 473 individuals included 89 with chronic schizophrenia, 162 with first-episode psychosis, 135 at ultra-high risk for psychosis (of whom 39 subsequently developed a psychotic illness), and 87 controls.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Hippocampal, amygdala, whole-brain, and intracranial volumes were estimated on high-resolution magnetic resonance images and compared across groups, including first-episode subgroups. We used 1- and 2-way analysis of variance designs to compare hippocampal and amygdala volumes across groups, correcting for intracranial volume and covarying for age and sex. We investigated the effects of medication and illness duration on structural volumes.

RESULTS
Patients with chronic schizophrenia displayed bilateral hippocampal volume reduction. Patients with first-episode schizophrenia but not schizophreniform psychosis displayed left hippocampal volume reduction. The remaining first-episode subgroups had normal hippocampal volumes compared with controls. Amygdala volume enlargement was identified only in first-episode patients with nonschizophrenic psychoses. Patients at ultra-high risk for psychosis had normal baseline hippocampal and amygdala volumes whether or not they subsequently developed a psychotic illness. Structural volumes did not differ between patients taking atypical vs typical antipsychotic medications, and they remained unchanged when patients treated with lithium were excluded from the analysis.

CONCLUSIONS
Medial temporal structural changes are not seen until after the onset of a psychotic illness, and the pattern of structural change differs according to the type of psychosis. These findings have important implications for future neurobiological studies of psychotic disorders and emphasize the importance of longitudinal studies examining patients before and after the onset of a psychotic illness.


Species conservation depends on robust population assessment. Data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are critical for effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. We describe a pygmy blue whale Balaen optera musculus brevicauda population in New Zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. This population was investigated using a multidisciplinary approach, including analysis of survey data, sighting records, acoustic data, identification photographs, and genetic samples. Blue whales were reported during every month of the year in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone, with reports concentrated in the South Taranaki Bight (STB) region, where foraging behavior was frequently observed. Five hydrophones in the STB recorded the New Zealand blue whale call type on 99.7% of recording days (January to December 2016). A total of 151 individuals were photo-identified between 2004 and 2017. Nine individuals were resighted across multiple years. No matches were made to individuals identified in Australian or Antarctic waters. Mitochondrial DNA haplotype frequencies differed significantly be tween New Zealand (n = 53 individuals) and all other Southern Hemisphere blue whale populations, and haplotype diversity was significantly lower than all other populations. These results suggest a high degree of isolation of this New Zealand population. Using a closed capturerecapture population model, our conservative abundance estimate of blue whales in New Zealand is 718 (SD = 433, 95% CI = 279−1926). Our results fill critical knowledge gaps to improve management of blue whale populations in New Zealand and surrounding regions.


Viruses and bacteria are the cause of a large number of different human diseases. It is believed that some of them may even contribute to the development of cancer. The present work is dedicated to the identification of mycoplasmas in patients with breast cancer. Mycoplasmas may participate in the development of several human diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, atypical pneumonia, etc. Moreover, there is a reason to believe that mycoplasma can participate in the development of cancer, leukemia and lymphoma. DNA samples from blood, saliva and tumor tissues of the Oncology Institute of Moldova patients diagnosed with breast cancer were analyzed. Mycoplasma testing was performed using nested PCR method. For Mycoplasma spp. detection, we used primers from the region of the 16S-23S RNA genes. The identification of Mycoplasma faucium, Mycoplasma salivarium and Mycoplasma orale was performed by nested PCR with primers for RNA polymerase beta subunit gene corresponding to mycoplasma. M.faucium and M.salivarius was found in saliva at about 100%, and M.orale at a frequency of about 50%. Only M.faucium was found with the frequency of about 60% in the tissue of the patients. Moreover, a fairly high rate of detection of mycoplasma is observed both in the cases when primers for RNA polymerase gene and primers for 16S-23S RNA were used. We found M.faucium in tumor tissues of patients diagnosed with breast cancer. It is known that mycoplasmas are able to stimulate the synthesis of certain cytokines, which act as mitogenes on the cell. We assume that M.faucium can stimulate the mitogenes synthesis in breast tissues (e.g., cytokines) which, in turn, stimulate cell division and thus participate in the initiation of breast cancer.


BACKGROUND— There is no evidence from randomized trials to support a strategy of lowering systolic blood pressure below 135 to 140 mm Hg in persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus. We investigated whether therapy targeting normal systolic pressure (i.e., <120 mm Hg) reduces major cardiovascular events in participants with type 2 diabetes at high risk for cardiovascular events. METHODS— A total of 4733 participants with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to intensive therapy, targeting a systolic pressure of less than 120 mm Hg, or standard therapy, targeting a systolic pressure of less than 140 mm Hg. The primary composite outcome was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or death from cardiovascular causes. The mean follow-up was 4.7 years. RESULTS— After 1 year, the mean systolic blood pressure was 119.3 mm Hg in the intensive-therapy group and 133.5 mm Hg in the standard-therapy group. The annual rate of the primary outcome was 1.87% in the intensive-therapy group and 2.09% in the standard-therapy group (hazard ratio with intensive therapy, 0.88; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73 to 1.06; P = 0.20). The annual rates of death from any cause were 1.28% and 1.19% in the two groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 1.07; 95% CI, 0.85 to 1.35; P = 0.55). The annual rates of stroke, a prespecified secondary outcome, were 0.32% and 0.53% in the two groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.89; P = 0.01). Serious adverse events attributed to antihypertensive treatment occurred in 77 of the 2362 participants in the intensive-therapy group (3.3%) and 30 of the 2371 participants in the standard-therapy group (1.3%) (P <0.001). CONCLUSIONS— In patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk for cardiovascular events, targeting a systolic blood pressure of less than 120 mm Hg, as compared


You are a four-dimensional human. Each of us exists in three-dimensional, physical space. But, as a constellation of everyday digital phenomena rewires our lives, we are increasingly coaxed from the containment of our predigital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information, and global connection. Our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. But what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? How do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? What new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows, and anxieties of a networked world? And how do we live in public with these recoded private lives? Laurence Scotthailed as a New Generation Thinker by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBCshows how this four-dimensional life is dramatically changing us by redefining our social lives and extending the limits of our presence in the world. Blending tech-philosophy with insights on everything from Seinfeld to the fall of Gaddafi, Scott stands with a rising generation of social critics hoping to understand our new reality. His virtuosic debut is a revelatory and original exploration of life in the digital age.


Long power cables and large electric machines require different application techniques from most electrical wiring. The first topic discussed is evaluation of insulation for continued use. The second area is selection of conductor size considering temperature and voltage drop. The hi-pot evaluation is primarily a maintenance function, while the voltage drop procedure is primarily a design practice. For the first topic, high potential (hi-pot) tests are often conducted on power cables and large electric machines. However, there has been no standardized method of determining if the insulation is acceptable. Various methods have tried to compare leakage current between conductors, use a fixed limit on leakage current, or comparison with previous tests. Each has its advantages and limitations. From empirical data and diverse experience, the authors have developed a numerical technique that will indicate impending failure. The procedure is mathematically rigorous but can be practically applied. It is very applicable to computer controlled hi-pot systems as well as manual systems. The second topic is the voltage drop for long conductors. The authors have applied numerous considerations to develop a simple relationship that can be readily applied. It incorporates wire diameter, length, current, number of phases and temperature correction, with permissible voltage drop.


We discuss the design and implementation of forward-imaging instruments for optical coherence tomography (OCT), which require the delivery, scanning, and collection of single-spatial-mode optical radiation. A hand-held surgical probe for use in open surgery can provide cross-sectional images of subsurface tissue before surgical incisions are made. A rigid laparoscope for minimally invasive surgical OCT imaging provides a simultaneous enface view of the area being imaged. OCT imaging is demonstrated on in vitro human specimens.


Judith Modrak's art has focused on the hidden, yet deeply experienced aspects of the human condition. Her subjects—the origin of emotions and instincts, the location of memories, and the cellular anatomy of the brain— are esoteric and often intangible concepts that she seeks to translate into three-dimensional, emotive forms. The interior landscapes that are revealed during unguarded moments or hidden deep in the recesses of the brain drive her work, their mysteries a continuous source of inquiry.


After decades of decline, first signs of a central and inner city revitalisation were noticed towards the end of the 1980s in North American metropolitan areas. The repopulation and redevelopment of the metropolitan cores – often referred to as "reurbanisation", "urban renaissance" or "back-to-the-city-movement" – has accelerated since then and is today one of the outstanding characteristics of recent urban development in the US. In Western and Central European urban regions, reurbanisation patterns were detected some years later although starting from a different level, as the inner cities have never faced a process of decay to the extent that was known in North American cities. At present, reurbanisation is intensely debated in urban and regional research. Although the evidence of reurbanisation is hardly questioned any longer, there is considerable uncertainty about how this new pattern of population change can be explained, how long it will last and how it will change the spatial urban structure of metropolitan areas in the long run. In this paper, we comparatively investigate recent trends of urban development in the US and Germany based on both survey and case study methods, with a focus on demographic patterns and housing. Our results suggest that reurbanisation is a universal trend in large metro regions in the Global North, manifesting itself as a significant repopulation and densification of core areas. At the same time, we found considerable divergence in terms of scale, dynamics and sociodemographic composition of reurbanisation patterns in the selected regions of the US and Germany. * This article belongs to a special issue on reurbanisation.


The opposition 'logic/rhetoric' represents a fundamental cultural antagonism. Surprising as it may seem, contemporary revival of the art of rhetoric has not been primarily promoted by scholars or professional users of rhetoric but developed itself through alternative, unusual paths, such as those of epistemology, logic and science. This is the case of the theory of knowledge (Polanyi) or of the improvements brought to informal logic by Perelman and Toulmin. As far as our specific interest in rhetoric is concerned, significant contributions to the history of science as well as to the Philosophy of Science have been made (by Thomas Kuhn among many others). At the core we always find the same eternal and unresolved dilemma opposing truth to persuasion, i.e. to be true or to persuade/convince someone to believe that something is true. Persuasion and conviction are intimately connected with debate.


This monograph/exhibition catalogue focuses on the idea and image of the cyborg ("a person whose physical abilities are augmented and extended by machine technology"), as it pertains to Freud's notion of the "uncanny." Historical and contemporary texts, images and objects trace the evolution of the cyborg figure in visual art, popular culture, science, literature, medicine and cultural theory. Topics discussed include: film (F. Lang's "Metropolis", Japanimation), psychological case studies (B. Bettelheim), early photography (E. Muybridge), specific artists' works (from Picabia to Mariko Mori), the automaton, Techno-Orientalism and cyberfeminism. Biographical notes on authors and contributors. Circa 100 bibl. ref.


High-elevation red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) - Fraser fir (Abies fraseri (Pursh) Poir.) forests of the south- ern Appalachians exhibit considerable spatial heterogeneity in structure, and possibly in N uptake, because of a combi - nation of natural disturbances and heavy fir mortality caused by infestations of the exotic balsam woolly adelgid (Adelges piceae Ratz). The objectives of this study are to determine spatial variability in tree N uptake in a small high- elevation catchment in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, compare outcomes among calculation methods, and assess the influence of stand and landscape properties on N uptake. Tree N uptake is estimated for fifty 20 × 20 m plots in the Noland Divide Watershed (NDW). Components considered in the calculations are stem growth, foliage in- crement, and mortality of spruce, fir, and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britt.) from 1993 and 1998 stand invento- ries; throughfall N flux measured in summers 1998 and 1999; litterfall N return for 1 year in a subset of 12 plots; tissue N analyses; and atmospheric N deposition and root turnover estimates from the literature. Overstory N uptake varies spatially within NDW, with a CV of 9-41% depending on the calculation method. Variability among methods is even higher, with an almost 15-fold difference between the smallest and largest average overstory uptake estimate (5 vs. 74 kg·ha -1 ·year -1 ). Only 5 and 3 kg·ha -1 ·year -1 of N is sequestered in wood and foliar increment, respectively, while 36 kg·ha -1 of N returns annually as aboveground litterfall. Uptake and its components are correlated with mea- sures of stand structure but not with elevation or aspect.


Water is essential for agriculture including livestock. Given increasing global concern that access to agricultural water will constrain food production and that livestock production uses and degrades too much water, there is compelling need for better understanding of the nature of livestock–water interactions. Inappropriate animal management along with poor cropping practices often contributes to widespread and severe depletion, degradation and contamination of water. In developed countries, diverse environmental organisations increasingly voice concerns that animal production is a major cause of land and water degradation. Thus, they call for reduced animal production. Such views generally fail to consider their context, applicability and implications for developing countries. Two global research programs, the CGIAR 'Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management and Agriculture' and 'Challenge Program on Water and Food' have undertaken studies of the development, management and conservation of agricultural water in developing countries. Drawing on these programs, this paper describes a framework to systematically identify key livestock–water interactions and suggests strategies for improving livestock and water management especially in the mixed crop–livestock production systems of sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to developed country experience, this research suggests that currently livestock water productivity compares favourably with crop water productivity in Africa. Yet, great opportunities remain to further reduce domestic animals' use of water in the continent. Integrating livestock and water planning, development and management has the potential to help reduce poverty, increase food production and reduce pressure on the environment including scarce water resources. Four strategies involving technology, policy and institutional interventions can help achieve this. They are choosing feeds that require relatively little water, conserving water resources through better animal and land management, applying well known tools from the animal sciences to increase animal production, and strategic temporal and spatial provisioning of drinking water. Achieving integrated livestock–water development will require new ways of thinking about, and managing, water by water- and animal-science professionals.


Introduction. Part I: Gearing Up to Coach Lacrosse. Chapter 1: Teaching Lacrosse to Children. Chapter 2: Setting the Stage for a Successful Season. Chapter 3: Covering Basic Lacrosse Rules. Chapter 4: Parental Guidance: Meeting Your Players' Parents. Part II: Fielding a Lacrosse Team. Chapter 5: Managing Your Team. Chapter 6: Conducting Fun-Filled Practices. Chapter 7: Getting with the Drills. Chapter 8: Making Game Day Memorable - For the Right Reasons. Part III: Basic Training: Teaching Lacrosse Skills. Chapter 9: Scoring with Offensive Fundamentals. Chapter 10: Setting Defensive Fundamentals. Chapter 11: Playing Lacrosse Offense. Chapter 12: Playing Lacrosse Defense. Part IV: Net Gains: Advanced Lacrosse Coaching. Chapter 13: Refining Your Coaching Strategies. Chapter 14: Taking Your Drills to the Next Level. Chapter 15: Stepping Up the Offense. Chapter 16: Tightening the Defense. Part V: The Extra Points. Chapter 17: Staying Healthy and Injury Free. Chapter 18: Challenges Every Lacrosse Coach Will Face. Chapter 19: Coaching a Lacrosse Travel Team. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 20: Ten Qualities All Good Lacrosse Players Possess. Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Prepare Players for a Lacrosse Game. Chapter 22: Twelve Tips to Help Goaltenders Excel in the Nets. Index.


Head splitting techniques have been successfully exploited to improve the asymptotic runtime of parsing algorithms for projective dependency trees, under the arc-factored model. In this article we extend these techniques to a class of non-projective dependency trees, called well-nested dependency trees with block-degree at most 2, which has been previously investigated in the literature. We define a structural property that allows head splitting for these trees, and present two algorithms that improve over the runtime of existing algorithms at no significant loss in coverage.