In this study a series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed to examine the undrained dynamic resistance of silty sand reinforced with various arrangements of geotextile layers. The silt content of samples varies in percentage from 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. A total of 32 laboratory cyclic triaxial tests have been performed on silty sand samples reinforced with geotextile layers in different depths. All tests were performed with 100 kPa confining pressure, subjected to an isotropic consolidated undrained (CIU) condition. The tests were conducted at a frequency of 2 Hz. Results indicate that both the geotextile arrangement and the silt content were most essential in the liquefaction potential of reinforced sands. An increase in the number of geotextile layers enhanced the cyclic resistance of reinforced samples against the liquefaction potential. It was also found that when the geotextile layer was posited near the top of the specimen (load application part) the liquefaction resistance would increase (e.g. for clean sands, the improvement of liquefaction resistance caused by the geotextile layer had a 0.2 depth, and the sample height was 5.5 times greater than the geotextile layer inserted in mid height of sample H). Based on the obtained results, effects of geotextile on liquefaction resistance decreased as fines content increased to about 33%. Further increase in the fines content however, would lead to higher in reinforcement advantages. The liquefaction improvement is more effective with a higher number of geotextile layers. The results also revealed that the reinforcement effect in FC≈33 % is at its lowest amount.


Macquarie Island has recently assumed an importance in
the public mind far beyond that suggested by its modest
proportions. This distinction emanates from its wonderful
population of quaint Subantarctic* life. From the days of
its discovery in the year 1810, it has ever been remarked by
visitors to its shores as a wonder island of marine bird and
seal life.
The hand of man has, alas! cast a shadow over its myriad
inhabitants, and wrought irreparable havoc; but this devastation
is not yet so complete as that of the more accessible
islands to the south of New Zealand, where the destruction
of the native fauna is much further advanced.
In the consideration of its animal population, the island
is quadruply unique in the Australasian seas. Firstly, for
the abundance of the life; secondly, for the variety of species
frequenting its shores, some, like the King penguin and the
Sea-elephant, breeding nowhere else in Australasian waters;
thirdly, for the fact that it is the only speck of land in the
vast expanse of ocean to the south of Australasia and New
Zealand between latitude 52 degrees south and the Antarctic
Circle, and is consequently the only possible breeding place
for such life in those seas; finally, for the fortunate circumstance
that up to the present man has not completely wrecked
nature's handiwork, though certain species of life formerly
abundant are now extinct, and others so greatly reduced
that they are in danger of complete extermination.
In these days the nations of the world are taking
council. Realising the economic and scientific value of perpetuating,
as far as practically possible, the varied forms
of life which, in association with man, populate mother
earth, they are making more and more provisions to ensure
the continuance of species. Includes map of the island and black and white photographs by F. J. Henderson, F. Hurley, R. L. Blake and H. Hamilton.


Cardamom is a seed pod, known since antiquity for its culinary and medicinal properties. The spice is native to evergreen rain forest of southern India and now grown in only few tropical countries. Cardamom has also been found to regulate inflammatory and immune activities and may be useful for cancer prevention. Cardamom extracts are effective against oral pathogenic bacteria like Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans. Most people use cardamom as a spice and are largely unaware of its numerous health benefits. This article briefs the various health benefits of cardamom.


The fully oxidized complex of cytochrome c and cytochrome oxidase formed at low ionic strength was studied by resonance Raman spectroscopy. The spectra of the complex and of the individual components were compared over a wide frequency range using Soret band excitation. In both partners of the complex, structural changes occur in the heme groups and in their immediate protein environment. The spectra of the complex in the 1600-1700 cm-1 frequency range were dominated by bands from the cytochrome oxidase component, whereas those in the 300-500 cm-1 range were dominated by bands from the cytochrome c component, hence allowing separation of the contributions from the two individual species. For cytochrome c, spectral changes were observed which correspond to the induction of the conformational state I and the six-coordinated low-spin configuration of state II on binding to cytochrome oxidase. While in state I the structure of cytochrome c is essentially the same as in solution, state II is characterized by a structural rearrangement of the heme pocket, leading to a weakening of the axial iron-methionine bond and an opening of the heme crevice which is situated in the center of the binding domain for cytochrome oxidase. The relative contributions of the two cytochrome c states were estimated to be approximately in the ratio 1:1 in the complex.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Concerns regarding adult literacy have been a common feature in UK educational policy and in the media since at least the 1970s, with a series of initiatives aimed at improving adults' literacy skills. Previous research has explored these initiatives, identifying a range of attitudes towards and perceptions of adult literacy. For some, literacy is about social justice and the easing of poverty (Hamilton and Hillier, 2006). For others, it is linked to prosperity and economic success, both of the individual and of the nation as a whole. Notions of what actually constitutes literacy have differed over time, ranging from simply having the ability to sign one's name (Gardner, 2004) or to be able to read and write with confidence, to the decoding of icons and the manipulation of documents in electronic formats. (Smith, 2005). Other writers have acknowledged a more diverse concept of 'literacies' recognising a broader range of forms literacy might take (Mannion et. al., 2007).

My interest in what it means to be literate has grown out of this earlier work, and through analysis of policy documents and interviews with literacy teachers and learners, my doctoral research aims to investigate how literacy is currently perceived and conceptualised by teachers, learners and policy-makers within adult literacy education in England, and to identify the factors that influence these perceptions. Early analysis of the data has identified a fairly rigid discourse of employability and functionality within current literacy education policy compared to a much more diverse response from practitioners and learners. Interview data, while acknowledging the link between literacy and employment and the ability to function in everyday life, present a broad range of issues such as independence, autonomy, empowerment, social inclusion and the development of critical awareness as factors involved in literacy. Relationships between literacy and technology, along with literacy and numeracy have also been acknowledged by interview participants.


This paper reports data from a case study project aimed at examining the effect of an environmental educationbased Informatics module on the attitudes of students in grades 5 and 6 towards a series of environmental issues. Firstly, the two major innovations currently under way in Greece are briefly described and the resulting challenges for educators are discussed: (a) primary schools are being equipped with computers and (b) a new crossdisciplinary curriculum has been issued. Secondly, a module developed to meet these challenges is presented and the rationale for its design is analyzed drawing on educational technology, learning psychology, and environmental education. Environmental education served as the overall context for making computer literacy meaningful and coherent since the starting point was an authentic task to the realization of which technology was essentially instrumental. Thirdly, a module outline is presented which included three main activities: (a) writing a letter to the city mayor describing environmental problems of the neighborhood, (b) conducting a neighborhood survey to inquire the attitudes of adult residents towards the problems identified by the students, and (c) presenting both the letters and the survey results to the mayor in an one hour special event. One hundred and four students participated in the study which took place at a public elementary school in the city of Rethimno during the school year 2001-02. A pretest-treatment-posttest design was employed, students completing the CHEAKS questionnaire in October 2001 and June 2002 respectively. Results indicated that the module developed and implemented was very effective in improving student attitudes along several environmental dimensions. Nevertheless, a differential response pattern to the instructional treatment was observed. Finally, the findings of the study are further discussed in terms of whether it is possible to introduce computer literacy into elementary grades following a cross-disciplinary approach.


The removal of heavy metals from water is very difficult. For this reason different methods have been employed so far among which biosorption is the cheapest and ecofriendly way to treat and remove heavy metals from aqueous media. Present study, investigated the ability of potato peel husk (PPH), potato peel husk modified with lemon juice (LMPPH) and potato peel husk modified with lemon juice & microwave (MLMPPH) for the removal of Pb (II) from water. Organic adsorbent was activated by lemon juice & microwave and was characterized by SEM, EDX and FTIR. Adsorption mechanism (batch parameters) and isothermal studies (Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin isotherms) revealed the best fitness of Freundlich isotherm from the R 2 values indicating physisorption. Results of kinetic studies (pseudo first and second order and intraparticle diffusion) showed that reaction followed pseudo second order kinetics. In thermodynamic study reaction was exothermic (ΔH was negative). The ability of PPH, LMPPH and MLMPPH for removal of lead was also investigated in column studies (bed height, flow rate, influent concentration).Thomas Morrison adsorption model described breakthrough data. Recent study proved that activation of potato peel husk with lemon juice and microwave (MLMPPH) not only increased the sorption capacity of sorbent much more as compared to PPH and LMPPH due to the introduction of excess COOH groups with lemon juice but also their activation as COO - with microwave exposure.


This paper discusses the problem of automatic off-line programming and motion planning for industrial robots. At first, a new concept consisting of three steps is proposed. The first step, a new method for on-line motion planning is introduced. The motion planning method is based on the A*-search algorithm and works in the implicit configuration space. During searching, the collisions are detected in the explicitly represented Cartesian workspace by hierarchical distance computation. In the second step, the trajectory planner has to transform the path into a time and energy optimal robot program. The practical application of these two steps strongly depends on the method for robot calibration with high accuracy, thus, mapping the virtual world onto the real world, which is discussed in the third step.


For five months in 2015, a team of researchers drifted with polar ice, their ship tethered to an ice floe as they collected data to help them better understand how the loss of sea ice will affect the planet. The air above the Arctic Ocean has warmed on average about 5°F in the past century—more than twice the global average—and sea ice covers less and less of it. Most researchers study the ice during the summer. This team, battling bone-chilling cold, tracked it from when it formed in winter until it started melting in spring. And occasionally found time to kick a soccer ball around the floe.


Hospital systems interested in improving patient experience and physician engagement may look to physician communication skills training (CST) as a means of improving both. This study examines a 7.5-hour, multi-specialty, hospital-wide physician CST workshop in a large academic hospital system and its effects on participants' self-efficacy, attitudes, and behaviors related to communicating with patients. Data was gathered from October 2014 through June 2016 through a web-based questionnaire sent to participants 6-weeks post-workshop which focused on skills taught in the course, attitudes toward communication training, and provider behaviors when communicating with patients. Along with demographic questions, a ten question retrospective pre-post format was used with a 5-point scale for the domains measured. Retrospective pre-post methodology may provide a more accurate assessment of a learners' self-assessment of skills acquisition. A paired t-test was used to examine changes in participants' self-efficacy, attitudes, and behaviors toward communicating with patients prior to and 6-weeks post-workshop. Linear regression was used to determine if there were any covariates that explained these changes. A total of 161 responses from 490 participants (21 medical specialties) were collected for a response rate of 32.8%. In 9 out of 10 domains measured, a significant change in selfefficacy, attitudes, and behaviors related to communicating with patients occurred (p<. 05). There was no significant change in perceived time management/efficiency during visits. Our conclusion is that a 7.5 hour hospital-wide, multispecialty physician CST can be effective in improving participants' self-efficacy, attitudes, and behaviors toward communicating with patients.


The recent "Lottery Ticket Hypothesis" paper by Frankle & Carbin showed that a simple approach to creating sparse networks (keeping the large weights) results in models that are trainable from scratch, but only when starting from the same initial weights. The performance of these networks often exceeds the performance of the non-sparse base model, but for reasons that were not well understood. In this paper we study the three critical components of the Lottery Ticket (LT) algorithm, showing that each may be varied significantly without impacting the overall results. Ablating these factors leads to new insights for why LT networks perform as well as they do. We show why setting weights to zero is important, how signs are all you need to make the reinitialized network train, and why masking behaves like training. Finally, we discover the existence of Supermasks, masks that can be applied to an untrained, randomly initialized network to produce a model with performance far better than chance (86% on MNIST, 41% on CIFAR-10).


Electricity losses are one of the big anxieties for utilities. Electricity loss in Iran network according to Tavanir report is over 15% but individual researchers have different comments. Also, the lack of sufficient information is a network problem. To overcome on the problems authors used Top-Down/Bottom-Up method to estimate of losses in Iran's electricity network. To achieve the model, at a certain moment measurements of input complex power in the feeder and voltages in the farthest network node and power flow calculation has been done. Using the estimated losses, authors suggest a strategy to losses reduction in every different part of distribution networks. Due to different culture, climate and network topology, losses are different and separate solution is needed. Proposed method was carried out by performing tests on a feeder with 88+35 nodes according to the IEEE 123 node test feeder. An economical investigation showed the benefits for utilities and improved the proposed plan. The main innovation in the presented paper is to combine a forecasting approach with experimental data to define a model for networks with unknown parameters.


In this paper, the drying characteristic of Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) of oil palm is presented. The EFB, a waste of oil palm processing was used as the test sample and dried using a solar drying system that was built. The system used was comprised of six double-pass solar collectors with porous media in the second channel which were connected in a series of three collectors in two banks and a drying chamber. Two conditions of the EFB sample were considered in the drying test; treated and untreated. A simple water washing treatment was used to treat the first sample to reduce its ash content whereas the second sample was untreated in its original condition. The EFB samples were dried until equilibrium moisture content below 10 mf wt% was reached, a condition required to achieve a number of purposes in energy applications and storage of biomass material. From the results obtained, it was found that the samples were successfully dried from an initial moisture content of 170.68 mf wt% to a final moisture content of 3.85 mf wt% for the untreated sample and from 376.14 mf wt% to 4.36mf wt% for the treated sample in 66 hours of solar drying.


There is a long tradition in recommender systems research to evaluate systems using quantitative performance measures on fixed datasets. As a reaction to this narrow accuracy-based focus in research, novel qualities beyond pure accuracy are emphasized in recent research; among them are surprise and opposition. This position paper considers that the perception of surprise and/or opposition may be purposely prepared when several recommendations are provided (e.g., in terms of a music playlist) or the user is given the choice between several options. Altering users' perception and triggering according behavior is well rooted in research on priming from psychology and nudge theory from the field of economic behavior. In this position paper, we propose how priming and nudging may be integrated into the design and evaluation of recommender systems to arouse surprise and opposition.


We investigate the problem of learning category-specific 3D shape reconstruction from a variable number of RGB views of previously unobserved object instances. Most approaches for multiview shape reconstruction operate on sparse shape representations, or assume a fixed number of views. We present a method that can estimate dense 3D shape, and aggregate shape across multiple and varying number of input views. Given a single input view of an object instance, we propose a representation that encodes the dense shape of the visible object surface as well as the surface behind line of sight occluded by the visible surface. When multiple input views are available, the shape representation is designed to be aggregated into a single 3D shape using an inexpensive union operation. We train a 2D CNN to learn to predict this representation from a variable number of views (1 or more). We further aggregate multiview information by using permutation equivariant layers that promote order-agnostic view information exchange at the feature level. Experiments show that our approach is able to produce dense 3D reconstructions of objects that improve in quality as more views are added.


The mitral valve is one of the four valves in the human heart. It is located in the left heart chamber and its function is to control the blood flow from the left atrium to the left ventricle. Pathologies can lead to malfunctions of the valve so that blood can flow back to the atrium. Patients with a faulty mitral valve function may suffer from fatigue and chest pain. The functionality can be surgically restored, which is often a long and exhaustive intervention. Thorough planning is necessary to ensure a safe and effective surgery. This can be supported by creating pre-operative segmentations of the mitral valve. A post-operative analysis can determine the success of an intervention. This work will combine existing and new ideas to propose a new approach to (semi-)automatically create such valve models. The manual part can guarantee a high quality model and reliability, whereas the automatic part contributes to saving valuable labour time.
The main contributions of the automatic algorithm are an estimated semantic separation of the two leaflets of the mitral valve and an optimization process that is capable of finding a coaptation-line and -area between the leaflets. The segmentation method can perform a fully automatic segmentation of the mitral leaflets if the annulus ring is already given. The intermediate steps of this process will be integrated into a manual segmentation method so a user can guide the whole procedure. The quality of the valve models generated by the method proposed in this work will be measured by comparing them to completely manually segmented models. This will show that commonly used methods to measure the quality of a segmentation are too general and do not suffice to reflect the real quality of a model. Consequently the work at hand will introduce a set of measurements that can qualify a mitral valve segmentation in more detail and with respect to anatomical landmarks. Besides the intra-operative support for a surgeon, a segmented mitral valve provides additional benefits. The ability to patient-specifically obtain and objectively describe the valve anatomy may be the base for future medical research in this field and automation allows to process large data sets with reduced expert dependency. Further, simulation methods that use the segmented models as input may predict the outcome of a surgery.


This research work was aimed at comparison of specificity and sensitivity levels of up-to-date methods for B.anthracis rapid indication and identification, as well as estimation of their feasibility to be used in the scheme of anthrax laboratory diagnostics. A study of selective and differential diagnostic characteristics of culture media, approbation and intralaboratory validation of a test system Microgen Bacillus ID, and evaluation of immunochromatographic tests (IC-tests), an immunoglobulin erythrocyte diagnosticum and anthrax bacteriophages Fah-VNIIVViM and R/D-Ph-6 for their specificity and sensitivity levels was performed in accordance with instructions for their application using a panel of microorganisms of specially selected B.anthracis field isolates and vaccine strains, and closely related saprophytes of genus Bacillus with various degrees of similarity with respect to their phenotypic, genetic and/or antigenic specificities. The obtained results showed that the most of the presented methods for anthrax rapid indication based on using differential diagnostic selective culture media, identification of specific antigen and/or pathogen receptors of the pathogen, and the differences in biochemical activity levels had no practical significance for laboratory diagnostic practice due to their low sensitivity & reproducibility rates and informative value, as well as high labor and material costs. Among the methods tested, only the media based on phosphatase activity detection, and a new anthrax phage R/D-Ph-6 are noteworthy.


This paper examines whether the subjective well-being of migrants is responsive to fluctuations in macroeconomic conditions in their country of origin. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1984 to 2009 and macroeconomic variables for 24 countries of origin, we exploit country-year variation for identification of the effect and panel data to control for migrants' observed and unobserved characteristics. We find strong evidence that migrants' well-being responds negatively to an increase in the GDP of their home country. That is, migrants seem to regard home countries as natural comparators, which grounds the idea of relative deprivation underlying the decision to migrate. The effect declines with years-since-migration and with the degree of assimilation in Germany.


The individual, economic agent has antecedents and consequences that shape her perceptions of the world, in other words, form the individual's mental models. Furthermore, the individual is a totality of mental models, which shape perception and influence the selection of relevant models to apply to data and interpret input. The influence of mental models therefore directly influences the degree of agency the individual is able to exercise. Moreover, whatever assumptions are made regarding the degree of agency an individual possesses informs the theoretical structure from which any approach to economics is built. This paper seeks to examine and compare the role of agency in heterodox economic thought and proposes that the theme of the individual might well serve as a missing link between otherwise disparate groups of thought.


Using the momentum-dependent effective interaction (MDI) for nucleons, we have studied the transition density and pressure at the boundary between the inner crust and the liquid core of hot neutron stars. We find that their values are larger in neutrino-trapped neutron stars than in neutrino-free neutron stars. Furthermore, both are found to decrease with increasing temperature of a neutron star as well as increasing slope parameter of the nuclear symmetry energy, except that the transition pressure in neutrino-trapped neutron stars for the case of small symmetry energy slope parameter first increases and then decreases with increasing temperature. We have also studied the effect of the nuclear symmetry energy on the critical temperature above which the inner crust in a hot neutron star disappears and found that with increasing value of the symmetry energy slope parameter, the critical temperature decreases slightly in neutrino-trapped neutron stars but first decreases and then increases in neutrino-free neutron stars.


should be limited to 200 words and convey the main points of the paper-outline, results and conclusion or the significance of the results. Introduction should give the reasons for doing the work. Detailed review of the literature is not necessary. The introduction should preferably conclude with a final paragraph stating concisely and clearly the aims and objectives of your investigation. Materials and Methods should include a brief technical description of the methodology adopted while a detailed description is required if the methods are new. Results should contain observations on experiment done illustrated by tables and figures. Use well known statistical tests in preference to obscure ones. Discussion must not recapitulate results but should relate the author's experiments to other work on the subject and give their conclusions. All tables and figures must be cited sequentially in the text. Figures should be abbreviated to Fig., except in the beginning of a sentence when the word Figure should be written out in full. The figures should be drawn on a good quality tracing/ white paper with black ink with the legends provided on a separate sheet. Photographs should be black and white on a glossy sheet with sufficient contrast. References should be kept to a minimum and listed in alphabetical order. Personal communication and unpublished data should not be included in the reference list. Unpublished papers accepted for publication may be included in the list by designating the journal followed by "in press" in parentheses in the reference list. The list of reference at the end of the text should be in the following format. 1. Witkamp, M. and Olson, J. S. 1963. Breakdown of confined and non-confined Oak Litter.Oikos. 14:138147. 2. Odum, E.P. 1971. Fundamentals of Ecology. W. B. Sauder Co. Publ. Philadelphia.p.28. 3. Macfadyen, A.1963. The contribution of microfauna to total soil metabolism. In:Soil organism, J. Doeksen and J. Van Der Drift (Eds). North Holland Publ. Comp., pp 3-16. References in the text should be quoted by the author's name and year in parenthesis and presented in year order. When there are more than two authors the reference should be quoted as: first author followed by et al., throughout the text. Where more than one paper with the same senior author has appeared in on year the references should INSTRUCTION TO AUTHORS An International Quarterly Journal of Life Science Cont. ....... P. 1599 INSTRUCTION TO AUTHORS


Abstract. Stratospheric ozone affects climate directly as the
predominant heat source in the stratosphere and indirectly through chemical
reactions controlling other greenhouse gases. The U.S. Department of
Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 1 (E3SMv1) implemented a
new ozone chemistry module that improves the simulation of the sharp
tropopause gradients, replacing a version based partly on long-term average
climatologies that poorly represented heating rates in the lowermost
stratosphere. The new O3v2 module extends seamlessly into the troposphere
and preserves the naturally sharp cross-tropopause gradient, with 20 %–40 %
less ozone in this region. Additionally, O3v2 enables the diagnosis of
stratosphere–troposphere exchange flux of ozone, a key budget term lacking
in E3SMv1. Here, we evaluate key features in ozone abundance and other
closely related quantities in atmosphere-only E3SMv1 simulations driven by
observed sea surface temperatures (SSTs, years 1990–2014), comparing them with
satellite observations of ozone and also with the University of California,
Irvine chemistry transport model (UCI CTM) using the same stratospheric
chemistry scheme but driven by European Centre forecast fields for the same
period. In terms of stratospheric column ozone, O3v2 shows reduced mean bias
and improved northern midlatitude variability, but it is not quite as good as the
UCI CTM. As expected, SST-forced E3SMv1 simulations cannot synchronize with
observed quasi-biennial oscillations (QBOs), but they do show the typical
QBO pattern seen in column ozone. This new O3v2 E3SMv1 model mostly retains
the same climate state and climate sensitivity as the previous version, and
we recommend its use for other climate models that still use ozone
climatologies.


We propose a wireless resource allocation scheme considering mobility for providing quality of service (QoS) under IT micro mobility domain with differentiated services (DiffServ). In this scheme, each base station provides infinite waiting queue for both assured forwarding (AF) and best effort (BE) handoff flows and guard channels for expedited forwarding (EF) handoff flows. This scheme also allows BE flows to overflow over the region reserved for EF flows with the risk of being preempted by the newly arriving EF flows. If there is no idle channel bandwidth in a new cell after a handoff in heavily crowded area, the EF handoff request is just dropped. Hence, it is required to give a statistical guarantee on the EF handoff success in this wireless mobile environment. The remaining channel bandwidth except for the regions reserved for EF flows in a cell is dedicated to both AF and BE flows. The BE flows preempted by the newly arriving EF flows in a cell are queued, and AF handoff flows has preemptive priority over BE flows existing in dedicated region. We derive the dropping probabilities of both EF and AF flows, and the average system time of BE flows by using a transition rate matrix approach. We also obtain the forced termination probability of EF flow and bandwidth utilization.


Since the turn of the century it has become undeniably apparent that many corporations, regardless of their size, have resorted to falsifying financial records in an attempt to mask the true financial health of the company. The reasons for such actions vary from attempts to shore up investor confidence to ensuring perks for corporate executives. These scandalous acts are not a characteristic of a certain type of business. They have occurred across a wide array of businesses including, but not limited to, power and energy, insurance, and telecommunications. The most common form of record falsification comes in the form of abusive earnings management. The recent Enron debacle brought this fraudulent activity to the forefront. Enron's auditor, Arthur Andersen, was found guilty of obstruction of justice in light of document shredding during the federal investigation. It was determined that Andersen elected to disregard evidence of falsification in order to maintain their lucrative auditing/nonauditing fee agreement with Enron. This spurred the birth of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002. This thesis was developed based on the theory that there is a correlation between earnings management practices and non-auditing fees incurred by the respective companies. When audit firms receive large amounts in non-audit fees from their clients, they are likely to be less independent and more likely to allow firms to manage their earnings. I elected to perform my Kevin Costello Honor Thesis Program 4 study based on a sample group of forty companies in the insurance industry. The study was based on four main variables namely; earnings per share from operations, income before extraordinary items, auditing fees, and non-auditing fees. The variables compare the years 2000 and 2001 to see how effective management was at meeting their predetermined benchmark earnings. If the company exceeded the prior year's benchmark by a small percentage, this may be indicative of abusive earnings management. A regression analysis was performed and the results of this, backed up by corresponding graphs, indicate that there is a correlation between management's attempts to achieve their benchmark earnings and non-auditing fees. Kevin Costello Honor Thesis Program


It is clear that service learning has the potential to yield tremendous benefits to students, communities, and institutions of higher education. Increased student learning has been well documented. As communities gain new energy to meet their needs and greater capacity to capitalize on their assets, service learning enables higher education to fulfill its civic responsibility. When service learning lives up to its potential to lead colleges and universities to transform themselves into fully engaged citizens of their communities and the world, its ability to bring about positive social change is limitless. To be successful, service learning must be grounded in a wide range of solid, reciprocal, democratic partnerships. "Building Partnerships for Service Learning" assembles leading voices in the field to bring their expertise to bear on this crucial topic. Faculty, administrators, student leaders, and community and corporate leaders will find this volume filled with vital information, exemplary models, and practical tools needed to make service learning succeed. Comprehensive in scope, "Building Partnerships for Service Learning" includes: Fundamentals and frameworks for developing sustainable partnerships; Assessment as a partnership building process; The complex dynamics of collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs; Partnering with students to enhance service learning; How to create campus-wide infrastructure for service learning; Profiles and case studies of outstanding partnerships with neighborhoods, community agencies, and K-12 schools; Partnerships for collaborative action research; Exploring the challenges and benefits of corporate and international partnerships; and, The dynamic relationship of service learning and the civic renewal of higher education. "Building Partnerships for Service Learning" is the essential guide to taking service learning and partnerships to the next level.


This Article examines the extent to which the Empowerment Zones Program is properly viewed as a neutral, rational, and beneficial program for poor, inner-city communities and their residents by exploring the limits and potential of its chief mechanism, economic development, as a tool to achieve social justice for the inner cities. This Article grounds its exploration within the contested terrain of the city, not simply as a legal or juridical concept, but in terms of its reality as a lived place on the eve of the 21st century. By explicating some of the unwritten rules and processes of economic development in their proper context, this Article demonstrates that economic development is not a neutral policy that government can advance without addressing significant structural issues that externally impact inner-city communities. Probably most significant is that the program was applied within many cities that are places laden with racialized meaning and are encumbered by the unstated, yet popular, consensus that the problems of the inner cities should be contained. In particular, this Article examines: 1) the legacy of historic programs that have led to current metropolitan configurations characterized by a disparity between declining inner cities and growing edge cities; 2) the impact of globalization and technology; and 3) the present lived urban context of racialized space that manifests itself not only in a chasm between city and suburb, but also as an intra-city chasm between elite business interests and poor people. Parts II and III of this Article examines the genesis of the Empowerment Zones concept from the rise in popularity of economic development, both internationally and domestically, as a tool to attain social justice. Part IV explores the context of the lived city as both an affluent place for the global elite and marginalized ghetto neighborhoods that have been racialized and class ified as black and poor. Part V analyzes the Empowerment Zones Program's emphasis on jobs and the promise of federal funding priority for designated zones. This Article concludes that we ought to rethink inner city development as an instrument to further economic, social, and geographic justice.


A methodology is presented for salvaging velocity measurements that have been corrupted by the interference of nearby instruments. The method iteratively filters out spikes in the data that are not coherent with the median‐filtered velocity in spatial and temporal dimensions. An example is given for a data set from a benthic boundary layer, found to be corrupted by vortex shedding from nearby instruments co‐located for sampling of scalars with the velocity field. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by the reduction in energy at high frequencies and the reasonable flow velocities produced. This procedure provides realistic estimates of shear stress and other properties of the flow. Weaknesses of the method are the subjective determination of the size of the filter window, the criterion for sample deletion, and boundary conditions.


MUC1 is a transmembrane glycoprotein expressed on the apical surface of airway epithelial cells and plays an anti-inflammatory role during airway bacterial infection. In this study, we determined whether the anti-inflammatory effect of MUC1 is also operative during the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. The lung epithelial cell line A549 was treated with RSV, and the production of TNFalpha and the levels of MUC1 protein were monitored temporally during the course of infection by ELISA and Western blot analysis. Small inhibitory RNA (siRNA) transfection was utilized to assess the role of MUC1 in regulating RSV-mediated inflammatory responses by lung epithelial cells. Our results revealed that: 1) following RSV infection, an increase in MUC1 level was preceded by an increase in TNFalpha production and completely inhibited by soluble TNF receptor (TNFR); and 2) knockdown of MUC1 using MUC1 siRNA resulted in a greater increase in TNFalpha level following RSV infection compared with control siRNA treatment. We conclude that the RSV-induced increase in the TNFalpha levels upregulates MUC1 through its interaction with TNFR, which in turn suppresses further increase in TNFalpha by RSV, thus forming a negative feedback loop in the control of RSV-induced inflammation. This is the first demonstration showing that MUC1 can suppress the virus-induced inflammatory responses.


Monday morning a corporate client asks you to draft a press release announcing a recall of one of its toys that contained lead paint, alerting its customers, but cautiously avoiding any admissions of liability. The following day, a different client, who professes his innocence, asks whether he should accept a guilty plea with a reduced sentence or risk going to trial. The next day, a client asks you to review an offer to settle an allegation of copyright infringement for downloading a movie. Then, in another case, a supervisor asks you to argue a motion to dismiss a complaint, but there appears to be no legal or factual basis to support the motion. Finally, on Friday, a landlord seeks your help when one of his tenants accuses another tenant of sexual harassment. These are just some of the types of problems lawyers could face in just one week. Would law students know how to solve them? No matter what the legal issue or setting, understanding and applying a problem-solving methodology and focusing on the client in each case can help prepare students for practice. Students engaged in problem solving in law school benefit from experiencing the primary role of a lawyer: a problem-solver, enabling students to see the connection between legal knowledge, theory, and skills to help achieve a client's goals.


Mouse cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1) is a hypertrophy-inducing factor for cardiac myocytes and interacts with cell surface receptors that incorporate the signaling molecule gp130. Because other cytokines utilizing this receptor subunit stimulate acute-phase protein synthesis, we tested cardiotrophin-1 in in vitro assays of protein synthesis by primary rat hepatocytes, rat hepatoma cells (H35), and human hepatoma cells (HepG2). CT-1 showed a dose-dependent induction of protein synthesis by primary rat hepatocytes, with effective concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 100 ng/ml. Production of a number of acute-phase proteins, including alpha 1-cysteine proteinase inhibitor ( alpha 1-CPI), alpha 1-proteinase inhibitor (alpha 1-Pi), alpha 2-macroglobulin, and alpha 1-acid glycoprotein, was markedly increased at 48 and 72 h of cytokine stimulation. In rat H35 cells, CT-1 stimulated alpha 1-Pi and alpha 1-CPI protein production and upregulated alpha 1-CPI mRNA levels with similar potency. Compared with other IL-6-type human cytokines at optimal concentrations in parallel assays, CT-1 induced similar levels of acute-phase proteins as human oncostatin M (OM) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), whereas human IL-6 induced the greatest levels of alpha 1-CPI or alpha 1-Pi production by H35 cells. When tested on human HepG2 cells, murine CT-1 was far less effective, in that it stimulated alpha 1-antichymotrypsin production only at very high concentrations (100 ng/ml) but did not alter haptoglobin or alpha 1-Pi. Human OM and IL-6 were effective at lower concentrations and induced much higher levels of acute-phase protein synthesis, whereas LIF activity was similar to that to CT-1. These results show that murine CT-1 is a strong acute-phase mediator for rat hepatocytes in vitro and its activity is similar to LIF on rat hepatocytes, H35 cells, and HepG2 cells.


Water supply utilities in Africa are finding it increasingly difficult to provide adequate
services to the needy areas: their core business operations are often stagnant,
compounded by an increase in peri-urban and poor settlements. Studies have revealed
that by 2015, urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa will have progressed from about 3.2%
to about 5.2% in a year. There are 16 low-income areas in Lilongwe city in Malawi and
these low income areas are home to almost 70% of the population of Lilongwe City
which is estimated at 450,000. Drinking water in these areas is provided by Lilongwe
Water Board through communal kiosks. This study therefore aimed at determining the
quality of water services in one of the low income areas of Mtandile-Mtsiliza in
Lilongwe. The study also investigated willingness and ability of the communities in these
low-income areas to pay for current and improved water services and also to investigate
if service quality influences their decision on willingness to pay for improved water
services. Questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews with key personnel and
field observations were the main study tools used to collect data. The indicators of quality
of service considered were reliability, accessibility, sufficiency of water quantity,
customer perceptions to service quality and affordability of the water services.
The results show that compared to internationally accepted standards, the indicators of
service quality are met to varying degrees. It was found out that compared to
international standards, the service was unreliable with 88.7% of the respondents getting
water for no more than 6 hours while the internationally accepted standard is 24hrs. The
average walking distance to a water point was found to be 682m as opposed to the
generally accepted 200m. On average consumers in the area can afford paying for water
as they water costs take only 3.4% of their monthly income which is below the threshold
of 5% which is recommended by WHO and the World Bank. It was also found out that
consumers are willing to pay more for improved services than for current services. The
mean amount that the consumers were willing to pay for current service was found to be
MK232.76. On average the consumers were also willing to pay MK374.14 for improved
services and were willing to pay MK1, 864.66 for connection fees. The study also found
out that households' decision on willingness to pay for improved was influenced by their
perception to the current service.
It was concluded that compared to internationally accepted standards, the quality of
service in Mtandile-Mtsiliza is low with the consumers also perceiving the service to be
low. It was also concluded from the study that willingness to pay is influenced by the
perceived service quality with the under-served willing to pay more for improved
services compared to the current service. It is recommended that to improve the quality of
service and hence consumer perception to service, the utility company should maintain
all broken down kiosks and also reduce, subsidise or allow payment in instalments of the
connection fee to enable consumers have individual connections.
Keywords: Service Quality, willingness and affordability to pay, service reliability.,WATERnet


Dielectric Barrier Discharges (DBD) have been used for more than a century, especially for ozone production. Research conducted within the last twenty years has investigated the discharge mechanisms involved and the different discharge regimes observable (filamentary, glow, Townsned and multi-peaks). These studies highlight the fundamental role of metastable species to establish and maintain a homogeneous discharge. These recent improvements in understanding the physics of DBD's open perspectives for new applications and new interests in atmospheric pressure surface treatment. Working at atmospheric pressure for silicon oxide deposition is of great interest : the possibility of continuous process, no vacuum component costs and maintenance, no loading/unloading time. However, in comparison with a classical plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process, the high pressure and thus the high gas density may result in a gas phase chemistry and a larger formation of dust particles. Exploring a new pressure range from 10 to 1000 mbar could be an alternative for this process. In the first part of this work the effect of the pressure on a DBD in non-reactive gases (helium, argon and nitrogen), then in neutral gas/oxygen mixture has been investigated with electrical measurements (discharge current and applied voltage), with high-speed imaging and with time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy. The second part of this work is dedicated to SiOx barrier coating characterization (FTIR-ATR, XPS, AFM and SEM) as a function of pressure in oxygen/hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) gas mixture highly diluted in nitrogen. The exploration of discharge regimes as a function of pressure shows, in nitrogen, a progressive transition from Townsend to multi-peaks regime between 320 and 160 mbar. A detailed study of this regime in helium and nitrogen with high-speed imaging shows that each multi-peak corresponds to a new spatially homogeneous discharge. However, the discharge is not completely extinguished between each pulse and the remaining light emission reveals the metastable activity (excitation transfer or Penning effect). Paschen's curves obtained from electrical characterization of the discharge show an inversion (compared to standard cuves) of argon and helium cuves. This inversion shows the importance of metastable energies and capabilities to ionize almost all impurities, in the case of helium. This explains why in helium a breakdown under a lower electric field than in argon is possible. A detailed study of a glow discharge in helium as a function of pressure and impurities with time-resolved spectroscopy showed the metastables evolution within a discharge and the role of impurities in quenching or creation rate of metastables. This study also shows a 4 minutes time for thermal stabilization of the discharge (electrode heating and thermosdesorption). In helium and nitrogen, the very first microseconds of discharge are filamentary and change after 2-3 periods (∼ 200 µs) to the glow or Townsend regime respectively. Adding oxygen, an electronegative and metastable quencher gas, make the discharge change to filamentary when a proportion of more than 1500 ppm is added at atmospheric pressure. This rate is increased until 2 % in nitrogen at 350 mbar. The presence of a polymer substrate reduced this Townsend working domain due to the increase of impurities in the discharge caused by polymer etching. However, this process in pure nitrogen is very efficient for implanting nitrogen functional groups on the surface of polymer films. An incorporation of 23 % of nitrogen onto a PET surface has been reached. Regarding SiOx thin film deposition, adding HMDSO, even for ∼ 100 ppm make the discharge change to filamentary. A pressure below 40 mbar must be reached to obtain a multi-peak regime. This high pressure process is fast and deposition rate of 17 nm/s could be obtain at 500 mbar. FTIR, AFM and SEM characterisation of the coatings showed an inhomogeneous composition and structure of the layer between entrance and exit of the discharge along the gas flow. These conditions could explain that the best oxygen barrier obtained was 40.5 cm3/(m2· atm · day). Depending on the discharge parameters (frequency, residence time, power and pressure) the coatings are more or less organic. A progressive decarbonification of the layer due to progressive monomer depletion explains this behavior. A higher oxygen rate allows a better film composition homogeneity along the discharge, while a longer deposition time results in a rougher coating but has no effect on the layer composition. The particular geometry of the discharge cell (6 cm by 6 cm electrodes and 2 mm gap) with gas injection from one side, leads to a different chemistry along the gas flow. At the entrance, the coating is smooth (Ra ∼ 5 nm) and dense but organic whereas at the exit it is rough (Ra ∼ 15 nm) but has a quasi-stoechiometric composition. These differences are explained by heterogeneous reactions, comparable to PECVD process (surface chemistry) close to the gas input and a progressive transition to homogeneous reactions at the exit of the discharge (volume chemistry) which result in particle formation of nanometric size. Analysis of these particles by laser light scattering (LLS) shows a pressure threshold of 200 mbar with a constant gas mixture and flow within all the pressure range. At this pressure, the first detectable particles appear at the end of the discharge. From 200 to 1000 mbar, this threshold becomes closer and closer to the discharge entrance, but it always corresponds to a residence time of the gas in the discharge of around 30 ms. Thus this time corresponds to the characteristic formation time of detectable particles in the discharge. We also showed that this threshold varies linearly with the power injected in the discharge, the higher the power the faster the particles appear. Spatio-temporal LLS measurements show a cyclic (Τ ∼ 1-2 s) formation of particles. This behavior is linked to a rapid growth and a trapping of the particle in the discharge when they reach a 200 nm size. Then, when their size or density increases (∼ 240 nm) they are collected on the electrodes or expelled by the flow drag force which becomes preponderant in comparison with the electrostatic trapping force. Finally, they agglomerate at the exit of the discharge up to ∼ 300 nm size. Then a new cycle starts. This global approach of SiOx deposition process by DBD opens new perspectives of applications in a new pressure range and show the key parameters to be adjusted for an industrial application.


This article opens with the questions, What is on the inside of a relation? Might we imagine the inner workings of a relational form detached from the elements that it connects? Then, through an ethnographic examination of ancestral interventions among residents in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Maputo, the article challenges conventional understandings of relational forms as the connective "glue" holding together exterior and, to a certain extent, autonomous elements. In southern Mozambique, ancestral spirits intervene in the lives of their descendants as interior agentive forces that enable the latter to assimilate seemingly exterior elements that are nevertheless configured as being already "inside" the living person. Conventional distinctions between exterior and interior are consequently dissolved through a peculiar process of "interior swelling" that occurs when an inside is extended outward. The article shows how it is the fuzziness of relational forms that gives to ancestral interventions their expansive qualities.


In this touching and delightful memoir, Norman Podhoretz charts the ups and downs of his lifelong love affair with his native land, and warns that to turn against America, from the Right no less than from the Left, is to fall into the rankest ingratitude. While telling the story of how he himself grew up to be a fervent patriot, one of this country's leading conservative thinkers urges his fellow conservatives to rediscover and reclaim their faith in America. A superb storyteller, Podhoretz takes us from his childhood as a working-class kid in Brooklyn during the Great Depression -- the son of Jewish immigrants singing Catholic hymns in a public school staffed by Irish spinsters and duking it out on the streets with his black and Italian classmates -- to his later education, his shifting political alliances, and his arrival at a happy personal and intellectual resolution. "My Love Affair with America" shows us a gentler and funnier Podhoretz than readers have seen before. At the same time, it presents a picture of someone eager to proclaim, against all comers, that America represents one of the high points in the history of human civilizations. In this powerful, elegantly written, and poignant cautionary tale, Podhoretz pleads with his fellow conservatives not to fall, as some have lately done, into their own special brand of anti-Americanism, as he reminds them of the disastrous consequences that followed the assault by the New Left against the United States in decades gone by. Warm in feeling and brilliantly perceptive, "My Love Affair with America" points the way back to a thoroughly unabashed love of country -- the kind of patriotism that has rarely been encounteredin recent years and that is as invigorating as it is inspiring.


Matching tracks from a single individual across disjoint camera views is a challenging task in video surveillance. In this paper, a major color spectrum histogram representation (MCSHR) is introduced to represent a moving object by using a normalized distance between two points in the RGB space. Then, an incremental MCSHR is proposed to cope with small pose changes and segmentation errors occurring along the track. Finally, a similarity measurement algorithm is proposed based on the incremental MCSHR to measure the similarity of any two tracked moving objects. The proposed similarity measurement algorithm proved capable of measuring the similarity of the two moving objects accurately. Experimental results show that with three to five frames integration, the proposed incremental MCSHR algorithm can make matching more robust and reliable than single-frame matching, especially for small pose changes. The matching performance is not obviously improved instead when the number of integration is more than five. The similarity of a same moving object in two different tracks has been improved from 92% to 95% with the integration number increased from three to five, while two different moving objects have been easily discriminated. The proposed algorithm can be used to match tracks from single individuals in camera networks, which do not provide full coverage of the monitored space.


Abyssal hills within 20 km of the Clipperton and Pitman transforms deviate from regional trends by as much as 15°–20°. We use a thin viscous sheet model with power-law rheology to test the hypothesis that these anomalous trends result from distributed deformation of oceanic lithosphere, probably associated with periods of transpression. The variation of abyssal-hill trends with distance from the transform matches model predictions, with power-law exponents consistent with lithospheric rheology controlled by a combination of slip on faults at shallow depths and ductile creep in deeper parts. Predicted displacements are less than actual slip along the transforms, suggesting that only part of relative plate motion is taken up by distributed deformation. These results suggest that abyssal-hill rotation is sporadic, occurring perhaps when physical conditions (e.g., pore-fluid pressure, hydrothermal alteration, or transpression) are particularly favorable.


Pressing questions about the merits of market accountability in K-12 education have spawned a large scholarly literature. Unfortunately, much of that literature is of limited relevance, and some of it is misleading. The studies most widely cited in the United States used intense scrutiny of a few small-scale, restriction-laden U.S. programs -- and a handful of larger but still restriction-laden foreign school choice expansions -- to assert general conclusions about the effects of "choice," "competition," and "markets." The most intensely studied programs lack most or all of the key elements of market systems, including profit, price change, market entry, and product differentiation -- factors that are normally central to any discussion of market effects. In essence, researchers have drawn conclusions about apples by studying lemons. To address the need for credible evidence on the effects of genuine education markets, economists should look to simulation models, indirect evidence such as outcomes in similar industries, and school systems abroad that enjoy varying degrees of market accountability.


Nedelkov, K., N. Todorov, M. Simeonov, D. Girginov and G. Ganchev, 2017. In situ rumen degradability and intestinal digestibility of two different types of rapeseed meal. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 23 (3): 462–466 The rumen degradability and intestinal digestibility of rapeseed meal (RSM) produced in Bulgaria (Astra Bioplant Ltd., Slivo pole, Rousse district) and in Romania (Expur Ltd., Slobozia) was determined. Three non-lactating Jersey cows with a body weight of 436 ± 18 kg, fi tted with rumen fi stula and T-duodenal cannula were used. Three batches from each factory were taken in interval of 20 – 30 days in Bulgaria (RSMb-1, RSMb-2, RSMb-3) and in Romania (RSMr-1, RSMr-2, RSMr3). RSM were incubated in the rumen for 0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24 and 48 h in 6 replications. The effective degradability of DM was signifi cantly lower for RSMr-3 compared to other samples (P<0.05). The results for rapidly degradable fraction a of CP for all the batches of Bulgarian RSM (26 to 30%) were signifi cantly higher than those of Romanian RSM (P<0.05). The values for potentially degradable CP fraction b varied between 66% and 73% without any signifi cant differences for either factories or batches (P>0.05). The effective degradability of CP at different outfl ow rates (k=0.045; 0.06; 0.08) for all the batches of Bulgarian RSM were approximately 4% higher than those for Romanian batches (P<0.05). The intestinal digestibility of DM determined by mobile bag technique was higher for RSMb-3 compared to other batches of RSM (P<0.05). The values for intestinal digestibility of CP varied between 74% (RSMr-1) and 80% (RSMb-2) without any signifi cant differences (P>0.05). The protein digestible in intestine (PDI) at outfl ow rate 0.06/h according to Bulgarian feed evaluation system was 165 g/kg DM for RSMb and 171 g/kg DM for RSMr. The protein balance in the rumen (PBR) of RSM was 111 and 82 g/kg DM, respectively. There is room for improvements of protein nutritive values especially for Bulgarian RSM by improving the toasting process. The protein nutritional values reported in the present experiment could be used instead of the data published abroad for RSM.


This case report presents the diagnosis of superior mesenteric artery and nutcracker syndromes in a previously fit and well 14-yearold girl. Although these two entities usually occur in isolation, despite their related aetiology, our patient was a rare example of their occurrence together. In this case the duodenal compression of superior mesenteric artery syndrome caused intractable vomiting leading to weight loss, and her nutcracker syndrome caused severe left-sided abdominal pain and microscopic haematuria without renal compromise. Management of the superior mesenteric artery syndrome can be conservative by increasing the weight of the child which leads to improvement of retroperitoneal fat and hence the angle of the artery. The weight can be improved either by enteral feeds or parenteral nutrition. This conservative management initially helped but not in the long-term as the child started losing weight again. The next step in management is surgery (duodenojejunostomy – if the conservative management fails), which the child went through, remarkably improving their symptoms.


Civil (Napoleonic) Code, dated 1804, constitutes not only the core of the French Civil Law but is equally a great codification example of Roman Private Law. The Code came from the spirit the French Revolution. It radically eliminated feudal legal traditions and established the principles of Property Law, Freedom of Contract Law, Family Law, Law on Inheritance. The Code reflects the historical results of the development of law and creates the legal framework for the development of the modern Civil Law. European countries experienced the influence of the Code. The Code had an impact on almost all legal codifications of Civil Law in Europe. It was also accepted by many Latin American countries. Due to the conquests of Napoleon on 1808, the Code was introduced in southern Lithuania (the lands behind the Neman) and existed there by 1 December 1940. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.13.3.8387


The use by Brent Geese of five pairs of winter cereal and pasture fields at Pagham Harbour, West Sussex, England was measured from November 1991 through the end of March 1992. A switch from winter cereals to pasture was observed between November and December. Monthly vegetation samples were analysed for quantitative and qualitative changes which may have affected feeding by the geese. Depletion of winter cereal biomass or percentage live matter, or changes in sward height did not appear to be responsible for the shift from cereals to pasture. Nor was there evidence that geese responded to relative changes in nutrient quality. Additionally, human disturbance did not prompt the switch. One possible explanation is that Brent Geese maximize dietary protein early in the winter, perhaps to replace that lost during migration; thereafter water soluble carbohydrates are maximized. Central Science Laboratory, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Tangley Place, Worplesdon, Surrey, GU3 3LQ, United Kingdom.


Environmental data are critical to understanding environmental phenomena, yet their consistent collection and curation can be cost-prohibitive. This paper describes a recipe for the design, development, and deployment of a low-cost environmental data logging and transmission system for environmental sensors and its connection to an open source data-sharing network. The hardware is built using several low-cost, open-source, mass-produced components. The system automatically ingests data into HydroServer, a standards-based server in the open source hydrologic information system (HIS) created by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences Inc. (CUAHSI). By publishing data in this way, they are discoverable through the geographic information system (GIS)-based CUAHSI tools, HydroDesktop and HydroShare. In addition, because they follow WaterML encoding, open hardware data stored in the HIS can be included in international catalog such as the global earth observation system of system catalog. A recipe for building the system is provided. Multiple deployments used to test proof-of-concept of the system are described and their results are given. Ease of deployment and reliability of the logging and transmission system is also addressed.


The main hydrological and environmental problems in tropical catchments are reported, with particular emphasis on the complex issues of the Citarum River catchment, West Java, Indonesia. The concept of basin planning is introduced, from which decision-support systems are suggested within the water resources management strategies. The relationship between available water resources and various water demand sectors (such as domestic, municipal, industrial) is given. The effect of land use and various industrial activities within Citarum catchment on the degree of availability and quality is also included in the study. The various degrees of contamination in groundwater are presented in detail. Practical measures on how to remedy the continuous decline of groundwater level and quality in form of quantitative strategies are also given. Finally, an overview is given on the management strategies for water resources, which can be used to improve the present deterioration of water resources and to cope with the predicted increasing future demands.


This is a pioneering study of television programmes from a brand management perspective by bringing together published literature in line with industry perspectives on programme and channel branding in the UK.

The research traces the development of broadcast branding from its visual brand image era to today's strategic brand thinking and management of individual programme brands by studying the role brand management plays in broadcasting today in the UK. The study concludes that broadcast brands are being compared more often to retail brands with the TV channel being a store and a programme being a product or line. It establishes the growing prominence of programme brands, the reasons for it and how it affects the resulting changes in relationship between the producers and broadcasters, besides shedding light on how programme brand extensions will develop in the future. At the same time, it says that the channel brands are poised to grow and consolidated in this highly fragmented multi-channel digital world driven by interactive, convergent and user-friendly technologies. Finally, it underlines the growth of non-broadcast commercial brands (in terms of advertiser funded content) which will play a major role in shaping how the programme and channel brands are built.

Conducted in three months time as part of a Master's degree submission, the research uses qualitative methodology and semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled industry professionals within an interpretive research philosophy. Though it does not deduce any theory, it adds to the definitive knowledge of programme and channel brand management in broadcasting today in the UK.


• Multiple countries in sub-Saharan African experience seasonal extreme food insecurity, a phenomenon in some cases referred to as the "hungry season." In Zambia, the context of this project, recent studies suggest that between 60-80% of rural households run out of food before the annual harvest. • Seasonal food insecurity has serious impacts on health and wellbeing. Furthermore, coping strategies have been shown to have negative impacts on farm output. • This study investigates whether a simple planning exercise with farming households in the Eastern Province of Zambia can help farmers save for the hungry season and impact consumption levels, child nutrition and wellbeing, and farm output and investment. • Preliminary results show that after undertaking the exercise, households request labels to help them track their expenditures, spend less on "luxury" goods, and forecast that they will have fewer bags of maize in the future. Subsequent rounds of data collection will explore impacts on consumption, savings, and expenditures. In brief


The law of gaming and wagering contracts in New Zealand has a long and complex history which pre-dates the birth of this nation by almost two centuries. The Gaming Act 1908 (N.Z.) is a consolidating statute, but ss.69, 70 and 71, the enactments having specific application in this area, fall far short of providing a complete code of the law. English statutes enacted in the reigns of Charles II (1664), Anne (1710) and William IV (1835) have always been, and continue to be in force in this country, and indeed, their survival here has been more complete than in England where many of their provisions have been excised by the process of legislative repeal. The New Zealand law of gaming and wagering contracts is very much a product of the English experience for the English enactments in force here are in turn supplemented by New Zealand provisions which have been largely copied from English Gaming Acts of 1845 and 1892. But the New Zealand Legislature has not been completely lacking in imagination. Section 71 of the Gaming Act 1908 (N.Z.) has no counterpart in the English statutes, and sections 69 and 70 of the New Zealand Act both contain subtle, but significant differences, to their English equivalents. However, although New Zealand law in this area is modelled on that of England, there the similarity ends. English law in existence and applicable to the circumstances of the Colony of New Zealand on the 14th of January 1840 was declared to be in force in New Zealand by the English Laws Act, 1858 (N.Z.). That Act did not, however, apply subsequent English enactments, and substantial reforms to the law of gaming and wagering contracts effected by the gaming Act, 1845 (U.K.) were not adopted in New Zealand until the colonial Gaming and Lotteries Act was enacted in 1881. The English Act of 1845 replaced the gaming contract provisions of the Act of Anne (1710) and repealed all but those securities provisions of that Act that had been modified by the Gaming Act, 1835 (U.K.) Thus, within a period of five years from the inception of the colony, New Zealand was applying English gaming laws that were more than two centuries old whilst the English Courts were faced with the prospect of construing a brand new Act. Thirty six years later the colonial legislature adopted verbatim the contract provisions in the Imperial Act of 1845. But by an apparent over-sight the colonial draftsman failed to effect the substantial repeals of the Acts of 1664 and 1710 the English Act had done. But that was only the first of the colonial errors. A further English Act in 1892 was copied and enacted by the colonial legislature in 1894 but with an appendage that demonstrated that the New Zealand legislature had not fully understood the full import of the English measure. This created difficulties of interpretation which were only compounded by a further error of the draftsman of the 1881 Act when he mistakenly copied s.6 of the Betting Houses Act 1853 (U.K.) into s.34 of the former Act without realising the significance of doing so. The 1894 Act also introduced what is now s.71 of the 1908 Act, a provision the reason for the enactment of which has remained unexplained to the present day. When a consolidation of the Colonial Acts was effected by the Gaming Act 1908 the law of gaming and wagering contracts was already in a state of considerable confusion. That confusion was, of course, carried into that Act, but it did not end there and indeed can be said to have gained a new dimension when, as recently as 1970, the New Zealand legislature enacted the Illegal Contracts Act. The New Zealand law of gaming and wagering contracts is largely a product of misunderstandings and errors that occurred when legislative attempts were made to re-enact and effect modifications of the English statutes in this country. In this work the writer seeks to identify the points of departure and to find a rational basis for the law of gaming and wagering contracts and this investigation proceeds in the context of a recognised need for proposals for reform. To this end, in chapters 1 and 2 the social climate in which the Acts of 1664, 1710, 1835 and 1845 are enacted, and their purpose and scope, is identified. In chapter 3 the case for the proposition that the Acts of 1664, 1710 and 1835 are in force in New Zealand is made out and this is followed in chapter 4 by an attempt to explain the motivation behind the enactment of the colonial Acts of 1881 and 1894. Included in this chapter is an outline of the difficulties inherent in both the language of these Acts, and the construction applied to them by the Courts, Chapter 5 is devoted to ascertaining the actual scope of the law of gaming and wagering contracts in New Zealand today and in the penultimate chapter the Impact upon, and the implications for that law, of the Illegal Contracts Act 1970 is discussed. Each section is, where appropriate, accompanied by specific proposals for reform, and those proposals are brought together in summary form in chapter 7.


Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of liver disease worldwide and HCV infection represents a major health problem. HCV associates with host lipoproteins forming host/viral hybrid complexes termed lipoviral particles. Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is a lipoprotein component that interacts with heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPG) to mediate hepatic lipoprotein uptake, and may likewise mediate HCV entry. We sought to define the functional regions of apoE with an aim to identify critical apoE binding partners involved in HCV infection. Using adenoviral vectors and siRNA to modulate apoE expression we show a direct correlation of apoE expression and HCV infectivity, whereas no correlation exists with viral protein expression. Mutating the HSPG binding domain (HSPG-BD) of apoE revealed key residues that are critical for mediating HCV infection. Furthermore, a novel synthetic peptide that mimics apoE's HSPG-BD directly and competitively inhibits HCV infection. Genetic knockdown of the HSPG proteins syndecan (SDC) 1 and 4 revealed that SDC4 principally mediates HCV entry. Our data demonstrate that HCV uses apoE-SDC4 interactions to enter hepatoma cells and establish infection. Targeting apoE-SDC interactions could be an alternative strategy for blocking HCV entry, a critical step in maintaining chronic HCV infection.


Dendrimers are globular macromolecules that have a range of applications. These nonnally exploit the individual prope1ties of the functional groups that make up the overall dendrimer. The polyvalent properties of dendrimers are widely used in biomedical scaffolds and catalysis. The internal cavities with the structure can also be harnessed for encapsulation. This application has evoked interest especially within the bio-medical field, using dendrimers as host molecules to increase the solubility of drug molecules.

In this research, a set of dendrimers were prepared to test the potential of encapsulation and manipulation of the host structure. The dendrimer products contained thiophene spacer groups and a thiophene outer shell, with alkylated terminal groups. The hetcro aromatic rings were held around a phenyl core and internal generations to create the cavity space.
 After the phenyl-cored thiophene dendrimers were fully characterised, iodoform was used as a guest molecule and incorporated into the dendrimer structure to fonn an

encapsulation complex. At this point it was seen that the second dendrimer had the potential to encapsulate and hold iodoform within its internal structure. UV-visible spectroscopy was used to verify how the presence and the overall amount of encapsulated iodofonn. Following these results a microgravimetric study was carried out, and it confinned the ratio of dendrimer to iodof01m (I :2.76).

A minimised (MM3) molecular model of each of the dendrimers indicated that there was a possible van der Waals interaction between the thiophene moieties of the dendrimer and iodoform and confirmed that the second dendrimer was more likely to be efficient in encapsulating the guest molecule. Fmther molecular modelling showed that a four branched dendron was likely to increase the encapsulation potential.

The dendrimers were exposed to iodine vapour to study the effect of doping. This was followed by UV-visible spectrometry, but data were mainly collected and compared by
electrical conductivity measurements. It was shown that the dendrimer which contained a larger number of conjugated thiophene rings was much more conductive. The calculated charge carrier mobilities and conductivities were relatively low compared to those of large thiophene oligomers or polythiophene. This was expected as the charge had to hop frequently between dendrimer molecules compared to a single polymer. It was predicted that after encapsulation, the oxidised dendrimer complex would be affected by some torsion of the bond between the thiophene rings.

Cyclic voltammetry for the second dendrimer displayed peaks for both n- and p-type doping. From this, the electrochemical band gap was calculated and compared to the optical band gap obtained from the UV-visible spectrum. The values were 2.6 ±0.1 eV.


A compact fiber Bragg grating (FBG) diaphragm accelerometer based on L-shaped rigid cantilever beam is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensing system is based on the integration of a flat diaphragm and an L-shaped rigid cantilever beam. The FBG is pre-tensioned and the two side points are fixed, efficiently avoiding the unwanted chirp effect of grating. Dynamic vibration measurement shows that the proposed FBG diaphragm accelerometer provides a wide frequency response range (0–110 Hz) and an extremely high sensitivity (106.5 pm/g), indentifying it as a good candidate for embedding structural health monitoring and seismic wave measurement.


Engaging interested students in field-based research experiences is imperative for cultivating interest in field science and preparing students for a career in field-based science. Here we provide a framework for completing meaningful, authentic course-based research in a five-week field course. Student research outcomes and feedback suggest that a five-week course can provide students a significant research experience that not only develops student interest in pursuing field research, but also improvements in their science-process skills. By using this course-based model, we intend to make field-based research experiences accessible to a broader range of students, increasing the opportunities for all students to explore this dimension of scientific research.


Background : Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) represents one of the main causes of hospitalization, disability and mortality worldwide; it is predicted that by the year 2020 it will become the third leading cause of death and the fifth leading cause of disability in industrialized countries. An educational programme has been proposed to allow the COPD patient to prevent or to deal with a reacutisation. Methods : The project involved 50 patients with a diagnosis of moderate or severe COPD. The education program included information relating to disease process, proper use of medication, energy conservation methods, and the filling in of the Saint George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS) and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Sociodemographic factors, assessment of living arrangements, social and family conditions were also collected. One year later the same questionnaires and learning assessment tests were re-administered. Results : The mean age of the participants was 69.7±10.4 years with a mean low income and a limited degree of education. Following the educational program, an improvement of quality of life emerged consequent to the awareness of all of the forms of support provided for the pathology and socio-economic conditions. The ability to manage their therapy and their activities of daily living have improved. The mean total score on SGRQ was 78.07±7.2 pre-program and 73.12±7.2 post-program; 52% of the patients are now within normal parameters compared to the initial 30% suffering from depression syndrome, furthermore the mean anxiety value decreased from 59.54 ± 8.6 to 54.54±7.8. The number of hospital admissions and the number of smokers were also halved. Conclusion : The improvements obtained after conducting all of the educational sessions are significant. The high value of the mean total score on SGRQ suggests overall poor health among patients affected by moderate/ severe COPD and according to other studies this population is inclined to anxiety and depression. The role of the social worker was very important because the explanation of the appropriate laws has lead to the recognition of their disability status and therefore access to established benefits. The decrease in hospitalization has brought about an economic benefit for the educational program but further studies should be carried out on more patients over longer periods of time.


This paper examines the effect of direct experience with bribery on collective action using survey data on reactions of citizens to a hypothetical situation of corruption as the first dependent variable and participation in protests as the second. The results show that although a relatively small number of respondents prefer protests as a means to address allegations of corruption, the relative probability of preferring this type of action rises with an increase in the frequency of paying bribes. However, participation in protests and demonstrations first rises and then falls as the frequency of bribery increases. These findings bring into sharp focus conditions under which direct personal experience with corruption is likely to encourage apathy and when it is likely to trigger political engagement – a missing detail in the nascent literature on the effect of petty corruption on collective action.


This study examines the portrayal of Southern Appalachian people and their culture in American drama, discussing works from time periods that range from the 1880s to the 1990s. The plays are grouped into categories that are reflective of mainstream America's perceptions of Appalachian culture: (1) the importance of family and gender roles, including the insider/outsider romance plot, (2) issues of violence and conflict between both internal and external forces within the region in the context of wars, feuds, and environmental and labor abuses, (3) the importance of folk practice and belief, including tales of the supernatural, superstitious and astrological traditions, and the folk religious practice of snake handling in signs following churches, and (4) traditional fundamentalist mountain religion as portrayed in both sympathetic and unsympathetic ways. These are the attributes of the culture most often emphasized in the social history, literature and other media images of the region. The playwrights who figure prominently in this study include Frances Hodgson Burnett and William Gillette, Charles T. Dazey, Hatcher Hughes, Percy MacKaye, Lula Vollmer, Thomas Wolfe, Paul Green, Fred Koch, Jr., Peter Taylor, Howard Richardson and William Bemey, Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn, Romulus Linney, Elizabeth Steams, Paula Cizmar, Jane Martin, Deborah Pryor, Connie Ray and Alan Bailey, Tom Ziegler and Robert Schenkkan. The plays discussed are all either currently in print or available widely in libraries. The study is concerned with the region's image on the national stage and in the national cultural imagination. Excluded are the plays performed only within the region by grassroots theatre


Introduction and General Description. Charnwood Forest, as is well known, is a hilly district composed of a number of rather parallel ridges with a general trend from N.W. to S.E. These hills rise to a height of a few hundred feet above an undulating plain of Mesozoic rocks, which on the eastern side is interrupted by the wide valley of the Soar. They consist of rocks most of which are more or less metamorphic; but some are igneous; isolated bosses also crop up here and there from the surrounding Trias. This deposit runs, as it were, in fjords into the recesses of the older rocks, besides dividing the district by a kind of strait or sound. To the S.W. and S. the Trias stretches far away; but on the W. (not, however, much modifying the configuration of the district) lies the Leicestershire Coal-field. A boss of hornblendic granite, Mountsorrel, crops up at the western edge of the Soar Valley; and three or four masses of a somewhat similar rock occur at a greater distance to the south. These most likely are all outliers of the highland region of the forest, which is really the culminating point of an old mountain-land. This was probably to some extent defined before the Carboniferous epoch, and formed a scattered group of hilly islands in the Triassic waters. The district has been investigated by Professor Sedgwick, Professor Jukes, Professor Ansted, the Rev. W. H. Coleman, and several others. An exhaustive list of the papers upon


Affiliate marketing has seen fewer studies even being a multibillion dollar industry and one of the most expanding online advertising lead generators for direct marketers. The aim of this survey described in this paper is to evaluate the attitude of respondents towards affiliate programs or affiliate marketing, used as a source of information, advertisement and a connecting link between the online marketer and the customer. In this regard a survey was conducted among 300 Indian internet users to know their attitude towards affiliate programs and the various factors that affect the effectiveness of these programs. The findings of this survey demonstrate a positive view of affiliate marketing. This research also found that the stronger predictor of the consumer attitude of affiliate marketing is the usefulness, informativeness, incentive and perceived trust. In short the future of affiliate marketing is to a greater extent affected by the consumer's perception of affiliate program usefulness and control over it. This study recommends a need for direct marketers to develop more innovative affiliate links that will elicit a more positive response from the consumers.


Connectedness is a complex idea that seems to mean different things for each individual. For the purposes of this dissertation, connectedness can best be understood as the ways that an individual feels an affiliation with the community of the institution that he/she experiences. This dissertation seeks to uncover the discourses that various stakeholder groups have within the site of a single school concerning connectedness.

One of the precepts that this dissertation holds is that connectedness to school has benefits for the individual as learner, the school as a community and potentially the wider community in years to come. This is a theoretical position in the lineage of such theorists as Plato, Rousseau, and Dewey who have argued that education is a transformative practice that could be a tool in solving some of the issues that contemporary societies face.

To examine the issue of connectedness, focus group research was chosen as the most beneficial methodology, as it allowed the stakeholders to explore their understanding of connectedness in small groups of their peers. It was important that the students in particular were allowed to develop their discourses of connectedness, as they were at the centre of the converging and diverging discourses. For this reason there were four student focus groups. The students selected for each of the student focus groups were targeted because of particular characteristics. They were purposively sampled to examine how, if at all, these discourses changed if the student was a high achiever, a quiet student, a student committed to the co-curricular programme of the school or a student who had been in regular trouble with the school hierarchy. There were also two parent focus groups, two staff focus groups, and a focus group made up of members of the school council.

The contributions of the various focus groups were analysed in the light of the work done by the French theorist Michel Foucault concerning the institution and the way that it deploys discursive practices to govern and regulate the subject. A number of his ideas that have been particularly important in this work. Foucault's power, discourse and governmentality have informed the analysis of the data and have supported the conclusions drawn. The key finding of this dissertation is that discourses of connectedness are crucial in determining how students feel about their schools. Many of the stakeholder groups hold diverging expectations of what connectedness is. These findings, and others, have implications for the management of schools in Western Australia.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are being used for a number of applications involving infrastructure monitoring, building energy monitoring and industrial sensing. The difficulty of programming individual sensor nodes and the associated overhead have encouraged researchers to design macro-programming systems which can help program the network as a whole or as a combination of subnets. Most of the current macro-programming schemes do not support multiple users seamlessly deploying diverse applications on the same shared sensor network. As WSNs are becoming more common, it is important to provide such support, since it enables higher-level optimizations such as code reuse, energy savings, and traffic reduction. In this paper, we propose a macro-programming framework called Nano-CF, which, in addition to supporting in-network programming, allows multiple applications written by different programmers to be executed simultaneously on a sensor networking infrastructure. This framework enables the use of a common sensing infrastructure for a number of applications without the users being concerned about the applications already deployed on the network. The framework also supports timing constraints and resource reservations using the Nano-RK operating system. Nano-CF is efficient at improving WSN performance by (a) combining multiple user programs, (b) aggregating packets for data delivery, and (c) satisfying timing and energy specifications using Rate-Harmonized Scheduling. Using representative applications, we demonstrate that Nano-CF achieves 90% reduction in Source Lines-of-Code (SLoC) and 50% energy savings from aggregated data delivery.


Contrary to large areas in Amazonia of tropical moist forests with a pronounced dry season, tropical wet forests in Costa Rica do not depend on deep roots to maintain an evergreen forest canopy through the year. At our Costa Rican tropical wet forest sites, we found a large carbon stock in the subsoil of deeply weathered Oxisols, even though only 0.04–0.2% of the measured root biomass (>2 mm diameter) to 3 m depth was below 2 m. In addition, we demonstrate that 20% or more of this deep soil carbon (depending on soil type) can be mobilized after forest clearing for pasture establishment. Microbial activity between 0.3 and 3 m depth contributed about 50% to the microbial activity in these soils, confirming the importance of the subsoil in C cycling. Depending on soil type, forest clearing for pasture establishment led from no change to a slight addition of carbon in the topsoil (0–0.3 m depth). However, this effect was countered by a substantial loss of C stocks in the subsoil (1–3 m depth). Our results show that large stocks of relatively labile carbon are not limited to areas with a prolonged dry season, but can also be found in deeply weathered soils below tropical wet forests. Forest clearing in such areas may produce unexpectedly high C losses from the subsoil.


The main aim of this study was to explore and assess parental stress and sleep deprivation in parents of children with (N=228) and without autism (N=111), and to investigate if factors such as the Childs language ( verbal/non-verbal) and behaviour (challenging behaviour/no challenging behaviour) had an impact on parental stress and sleep within the population of parents of children with autism. Questionnaires were distrusted online which consisted of 3 scales, The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) measuring stress levels, the Pittsburgh Sleep quality (PSQI), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) in order to measure sleep deprivation. Demographics questions on the child's language and behaviour were asked as a parental report measure.

Results from correlation analysis and independent t-tests found that parents of children with autism reported higher levels of stress, higher levels of daytime sleepiness, and poorer levels of sleep quality than parents of children without autism. Parental Stress and Sleep deprivation were associated with one another, Parents of children with autism who display challenging behaviours reported higher levels of stress than parents of children with no challenging behaviours, Parenting a child with autism who is verbal/nonverbal had no significant difference in parental stress, and lastly Parents of children who have autism that also have reported challenging behaviour had no significant impact on daytime sleepiness in parents.


We present a performance-oriented refinement approach that refines a perfectly synchronous communication model onto network-on-chip (NoC) communication. We first identify four basic forms of NoC process interaction patterns at the process level, namely, producer-consumer, peers, client-server, and multicast. We propose a three-step top-down refinement method: channel refinement, protocol refinement and channel mapping. For the producer-consumer pattern, we describe it in detail. In channel refinement, we deal with interfacing multiple clock domains and use a stochastic process to model channel delay and jitter. In protocol refinement, we show how to refine communication towards application requirements such as reliability and throughput. In channel mapping, we discuss channel convergence and channel merge arising from channel overlapping. All the refinements have been conducted and validated as an integral design phase towards implementation in ForSyDe, a formal system-level design methodology based on a synchronous model of computation


This document describes how to adapt the Session Description Protocol (SDP) to express one or more source addresses as a source filter for one or more destination "connection" addresses. It defines the syntax and semantics for an SDP "source-filter" attribute that may reference either IPv4 or IPv6 address(es) as either an inclusive or exclusive source list for either multicast or unicast destinations. In particular, an inclusive source-filter can be used to specify a Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) session.


The trend towards neo-liberal policies which began in the 1980s has caused public finances around the world to be linked to market forces rather than state allocation. In consequence, the sharp reduction in public funding allotted to the education sector has affected both social values and educational quality. With the growing influence of globalization on higher education, many East Asian nations have enacted urgent university reforms designed to boost competitiveness of their domestic university systems. China's Projects 211 and 985; South Korea's BK21; Japan's National University Corporation Plan; and Taiwan's 'Five Year- Fifty Billion Plan have all been initiated in response to the process of globalization and the demand for global talent in academia. Elsewhere, governments in the Arab Middle East, the Americas, Europe, East and Southeast Asia have all initiated new policies to enhance the global competitiveness and international visibility of their flagship universities, and many of these focus in an unprecedented away on journal publication as the major performance criterion for faculty reward. The increasing extent to which government policies worldwide favour measurements derived from publication indexes such as SCI/SSCI has led to strengthened managerial governance over academic culture and the academic profession itself. This paper argues that a phenomenon of 'publish globally and perish locally' has emerged, especially in the humanities and social sciences which are most vulnerable to 'SSCI Syndrome', and that this trend is detrimental to academic effectiveness and diversity.


When it comes to the human side of software, nobody speaks with as much insight as Larry Constantine: developers and managers worldwide recognize his Constantine on Peopleware as the classic in the field. In The Peopleware Papers, Constantine thoroughly updates all 52 of the legendary columns in that book, and adds 25 new essays published for the first time in book form. These 77 essays offer powerful guidance on virtually every software development challenge in the no-mans land where technical and social issues blur, psychology meets cybernetics, and theory and practice intersect. Constantines range is extraordinary: project management, group development, discipline vs. chaos, tools, models, methods, processes, personalities, usability, and beyond. The Peopleware Papers includes two completely new sections: one on organizational culture, and another on making software objects more usable -including Constantines hard-to-find, breakthrough essays on usage-centered design. For every IT manager, executive, project team participant, and business consumer involved with software development.