The problem to estimate transfer functions of linear systems is considered. The quality of the resulting estimate depends, among other things, on the input used during the identification experiment. We measure the quality using a quadratic norm in the frequency domain. The problem to determine optimal inputs, i.e. inputs that minimize the chosen norm, subject to constrained input variance, has long been studied. We point out that such procedures may involve a prejudice (that the system is to be found in a certain model set) that may have some surprising effects. We discuss how such a prejudice can be reduced by allowing the possibility that the true system cannot be exactly described in the chosen model set. We also calculate explicit expressions for the resulting "unprejudiced" optimal inputs. These expressions relate the signal-to-noise ratio (as a function of frequency) to the chosen weighting function in the quadratic norm. We also point out the role of the employed noise model for the design.


Abstract The short-term radiological impact of some serious reactor accidents may be governed by the release of airborne radioiodine to the environment. The impacts of parameters affecting iodine volatility, including radiation, iodine concentration, and solution pH, were investigated under a range of postaccident chemical conditions expected in a reactor containment structure. A bench-scale apparatus, installed in the irradiation chamber of a Gammacell, was used to measure the rate of iodine volatilization from dilute, 10-6 to 10-4 M, CsI solutions with pH values from 5 to 9. Iodine volatilization dramatically increased in the presence of radiation. The volatilization rates were nearly proportional to iodine concentration over the range of concentrations and pH values examined. Volatilization rate increased significantly with a decrease in pH. A kinetic-based model containing a mechanistic description of iodine chemistry was developed to simulate the radiation chemistry of iodine. The majority of the model prediction and experimental results of iodine volatilization rates were in agreement, although some divergence was evident.


This thesis presents a modular palladium(II) template-directed synthetic strategy towards mechanically interlocked polymacrocyclic architectures, such as a Borromean link and linear [n]-catenanes. Central to the synthetic strategy is the use of the Huisgen-Meldal-Sharpless Cu(I)-catalysed 1,3-cycloaddition of azides to terminal alkynes (CuAAC) as a ring-closure procedure between complementary pairs of building blocks. The amalgamation of the palladium(II) [3+1]-template and CuAAC reaction is without methodological precedent and represents both an efficient and versatile procedure for the construction of interlocked architectures. Thematically, this thesis consists of three parts arranged in chronological order. Beginning with the synthesis towards a Borromean link, where the first successful palladium(II) template-directed double CuAAC ring-closure is documented. This is followed by the application of the "double-click" strategy to form a [3]catenane the first such structure generated using metal ions other than Cu(I). Finally, the development of a modular CuAAC building block library is described, which was used to construct a [2]catenane and [3]catenane as well as later developments towards higher oligocatenanes .


Murujuga, with a cultural occupancy spanning some 50,000 years, has for the past 50 years been exposed to the destructive force of the resource industry. Back in 1964, with no legal authority, the Aboriginal custodians of this place could not prevent the development of a port to export iron ore from the inland mines of this remote part of north-western Australia. Some 50 years later, the estimated one million images that are engraved into the rock surface of this landscape are exposed to the changing conditions brought on by the industrial expansion of petroleum and allied chemical processing plants.
The footprint of industry had removed upwards of 10,000 petroglyphs; however a far greater number are at risk of obliteration. The chemical emissions from industry is altering the ph of the rock surfaces, changing the chemical and biological patterns which have protected the rock art for tens of millennia. It has fallen to a dedicated few concerned citizen, with the support of the Aboriginal custodians, to force industry and government to take seriously the adverse impacts that have been imposed.
Short of shutting down the resource sector operating on Burrup Peninsula, options for the protection of the petroglyphs require financial and physical effort by industry to eliminate harmful emissions. The Murujuga petroglyphs are a globally significant and irreplaceable cultural treasure; alternatives exist for industry, not so for the survival of the rock art.


The Mediterranean Basin is a semi-enclosed basin highly sensitive to climate changes such as evaporation-precipitation processes and glacial-interglacial transitions. It is composed by two main basins, the Western Mediterranean and the Eastern Mediterranean, which are differently sensitive to the high latitude and low latitude climate interactions. Such differences could translate in different reactionsto climate changes recorded in the bottom sediments, i.e. the enhanced effects of the freshwater inputs on the bottom oxygenation in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this paper we investigate the palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate derived from the study of Early Pleistocene (Calabrian) deep marine deposits cropping out along the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau at the Gulnar East section (southern Turkey). Using benthic and planktonic foraminifers the bottom oxygenation and the sea surface temperature (SST) were evaluated through the calculation of the benthic foraminifera oxygen index (BFOI) and palaeoclimate curve. The results show that the marine epibathyal palaeonvironment in this Eastern Mediterranean area reacted to the palaeoclimate changes with the water mass stratification (warm periods) and/or with enhanced primary productivity (cool/cold periods) leading to the deposition of sapropel layers with different degrees of bottom oxygenation.


Scandinavian imprisonment rates are among the lowest in Western democracies, despite 20–30 percent increases in recent years, and penal policies generally are among the mildest. Reasons for this include the continuing strength and credibility of the welfare state, high levels of social trust and political legitimacy, consensual and corporatist political cultures, and the central roles of career judges and other non–political practictioners. Political and penal cultures differ somewhat between countries. Crime control is more openly a contentious political issue in some than in others. Policies have become harsher concerning drugs, sex, and violence. Punitive changes, however, tend to be narrowly focused, while other changes in sanctions policies tend to be liberalizing and broad‐based. Overall, commitments to liberal values, human rights, and rational policy making remain strong.


A large number of ascomycete anamorphs including Alternaria spp. are considered asexual, but carry structurally conserved genes in a mating-type locus (MAT1) with two alternate idiomorphs, MAT1-1 and MAT1-2. Since the locus has lost its main function in many species, different directions of natural selection acting on the idiomorphs can be observed. Thus identification of mating types can be used in population biology studies. Also analysis of MAT1 locus sequences is needed for evolution and phylogeny reconstruction. Eighteen primers from previous works and this study were assessed for their ability to amplify MAT1 in 25 Alternaria and 7 Ulocladium, Embellisia and Alternariaster species. The most suitable primer pairs for 6 sections of Alternaria and several Ulocladium species were revealed.


This essay contends that Fleetwood; or the New Man of Feeling is similar to Godwin's first two major novels Caleb Williams and St. Leon inasmuch as it is a narrative of emerging self-consciousness. Fleetwood recounts a tale throughout which he struggles to understand the core of his own misanthropy. Unlike Caleb Williams and Reginald de St. Leon, however, Fleetwood does not gain self-awareness by turning to and identifying with forms of otherness. Rather, it comes on the heels of a long and tragic history of turning from the other in whose face Fleetwood persistently witnesses the distorted reflections of his own depravity and self-disgust. This essay considers Fleetwood's various turns from other to self and questions whether his final retreat into writing facilitates or forecloses a reciprocal engagement with the other, including his wife Mary who returns in the novel's conclusion to offer forgiveness for his deplorable treatment of her.


Building accurate classifiers for predicting group membership is made difficult when data is skewed or imbalanced which is typical of real world data sets. The classifier has the tendency to be biased towards the over represented group as a result. This imbalance is considered a class imbalance problem which will induce bias into the classifier particularly when the imbalance is high. Class imbalance data usually suffers from data intrinsic properties beyond that of imbalance alone. The problem is intensified with larger levels of imbalance most commonly found in observational studies. Extreme cases of class imbalance are commonly found in many domains including fraud detection, mammography of cancer and post term births. These rare events are usually the most costly or have the highest level of risk associated with them and are therefore of most interest. To combat class imbalance the machine learning community has relied upon embedded, data preprocessing and ensemble learning approaches. Exploratory research has linked several factors that perpetuate the issue of misclassification in class imbalanced data. However, there remains a lack of understanding between the relationship of the learner and imbalanced data among the competing approaches. The current landscape of data preprocessing approaches have appeal due to the ability to divide the problem space in two which allows for simpler models. However, most of these approaches have little theoretical bases although in some cases there is empirical evidence supporting the improvement. The main goals of this research is to introduce newly proposed a priori based re-sampling methods that improve concept learning within class imbalanced data. The results in this work highlight the robustness of these techniques performance within publicly available data sets from different domains containing various levels of imbalance. In this research the theoretical and empirical reasons are explored and discussed. iii


As the first systematic and in-depth study in any language on the subject, this thesis makes original contributions by unravelling the relationship between Chinese healthcare state governance, health law and medical practitioners, and casting a spotlight on the ethically problematic medical practices raised by cases of SARS and others. More specifically, this thesis examines the role of state governance and regulation in China's healthcare system and their impact on professional practices and ethics. The thesis addresses the issues from a social-legal perspective. It provides evidence from an integration of historical, empirical and theoretical approaches to explore the role of Chinese medics in their relations with healthcare state governance and law. It explores the character of power relations and the consequences of imbalance of power in these relations. Diagrammatic models are used throughout this work to illustrate the findings from the above approaches and to represent the changing nature of the author's thinking about the dynamics at work in the relationships under scrutiny. The basic principle advocated in this thesis is that the effective formation and delivery of healthcare is facilitated by ethically-based systems of policy, rules and regulation. More particularly, it is argued that the roles of medical professionalism and patient control are central to good governance of healthcare in China. Set within this context, the thesis has three main goals. First, it aims to contribute to the development of theories about the relationship between the medical profession and the Communist state of China, examining the relatively powerless position of medical professionals in China as demonstrated by both historical and original empirical evidence generated by the research undertaken for this thesis. Secondly, the thesis examines the nature and extent of de-professionalisation among Chinese medical professionals. More particularly, it considers the consequences of challenges to Chinese medics' professional autonomy which have occurred as a result of the Chinese healthcare power structure. Ultimately, it is argued that a re-structured model which places Chinese medical practitioners in a more professional and responsible role is urgently required.


This book analyzes the strategic implications of the shift in focus for the US Armed Forces from regular to irregular war. Lawrence Freedman closely examines the difficulty the US Armed Forces face in shifting their focus from preparing for regular wars, in which combat is separated from civil society, to irregular wars, in which combat is integrated with civil society. He argues that the political context of contemporary irregular wars requires that the purpose and practice of western forces be governed by liberal values, showing that this is also the case with regular wars, to the extent they occur, but it is the integration with civil society that makes the application of liberal values so challenging. The Transformation of Strategic Affairs suggests that this challenge becomes easier to meet when military operations are understood to contribute to the development of a compelling narrative about the likely course and consequence of a conflict, in which these values are shown to be respected. At the same time, however, while it is vital that the employment of armed force remains sensitive at all times to the underlying political context, and sensitive to the role of narratives in shaping this context, the book shows that a key test of success will always be the defeat of the opposing forces. The 'war on terror' has highlighted these issues, and this Adelphi Paper concludes with much-needed suggestions for a strategic response. This book will be of great interest to students of the US Armed Forces, politics, strategic studies and military history.


A scanning spectrometer may be described either by its transmission as a function of an actual spectral variable (e.g., wavelength) or by its response to a monochromatic source as a function of an instrumental scanning parameter. The distinction between these two descriptions has not always been recognized in previous developments of the theory of the parallel-plate Fabry-Perot spectrometer, and errors and ambiguities have often resulted. An outline and review of the theory is presented, including the effects of etalon surface irregularities and the finite solid angle of radiation admitted through the etalon. The order of interference is used as the argument of the functions involved, careful attention being given to the definitions and physical meanings of all functions and quantities. Optimization of the operating parameters of a spectrometer is considered very briefly.


In recent years, location-based augmented reality games such as Pokémon Go have become increasingly popular. These games not only afford a novel gaming experience, but also have the potential to alter how players view their physical realities and alter the dynamics of traditional game play from its sedentary nature towards a more physical one. In this paper we investigate what kinds of players (achievement, immersion or social interaction -oriented) are more likely to derive health benefits from playing augmented reality games. We employ online survey data gathered among players of Pokémon Go (N=1190). The results show that playing location-based augmented reality games has a positive association with perceived mental, physical and social health outcomes overall. The results also suggest that the way in which players approach the game and what kinds of aspects of the game they emphasize can have a differential dynamic on how the health benefits of the game manifest. Results show that social gaming orientation is positively associated with physical, mental and social health outcomes, whereas achievement and immersion orientations are associated with physical and mental health outcomes.


Globally, broadband and internet availability within households has made ICT an essential part of everyday life. Consequently, this has led to novel social computing practices and collaboration tools such as Web 2.0 Online Social Networks (OSNs). However, this growth of OSNs is far less prevalent amongst older internet users. Therefore, the aim of this research-in-progress paper is to develop a conceptual framework based on leading Information Systems (IS) theories to identify and explain older individuals' adoption and usage patterns and behavior toward OSNs. Future directions, limitations and conclusions are also provided within this paper. Contributions to academia are viewed to be a framework that allows an understanding of OSN adoption, use and diffusion patterns. As OSN use impacts all internet users, industry will benefit from a theoretically formed framework that can be used to assist online collaboration providers to include older internet users in the existing widespread OSN phenomenon.


This article builds on recent scholarship about the origins and creation of "our Marbury" — the contemporary understanding of the case and its significance — to argue that Marbury is in fact wholly unsuited for the role it plays in Supreme Court rhetoric and academic instruction. While Marbury is generally understood to support aggressive judicial review, or actual invalidation of a government act, it offers no guidance at all for how judicial review should be employed in particular cases — in particular, whether review should be aggressive or deferential. The actual opinion in Marbury makes no effort to justify its lack of deference to the First Congress, probably because the opinion is a bad-faith exercise in judicial creativity motivated by partisan concerns. Moreover, Marbury-as-symbol has its origins in attempts to support the now-discredited Lochner era of aggressive judicial review. Ironically, while Marbury's origins are tied to Lochner, and Marbury itself is as partisan as the Court ever gets, the two now operate as symbolic opposites. Linking a decision to Marbury is a way to legitimize aggressive judicial review while linking it to Lochner it is a way to delegitimize it. Neither of these symbols achieves more than rhetorical effect. Modern invocations of Lochner tend to be as devoid of content as invocations of Marbury: Lochner-as-symbol also tells us nothing about when judicial review should be aggressive and when it should be deferential.

But there is a decision that does: McCulloch v. Maryland. McCulloch, like Marbury, is an early opinion by Chief Justice Marshall that is included in every constitutional law casebook. Unlike Marbury, McCulloch has a discussion of the proper exercise of judicial review. While the factors it sets forth as supporting deferential or aggressive review have not all won a place in Supreme Court jurisprudence, many of them have, and in fact the McCulloch theory can do most of the work that Marbury is supposed to do. In particular, it can support the exercise of aggressive judicial review in most of the Warren Court's decisions—which, following the failed attempt to support Lochner, was Marbury's main historical role. And unlike Marbury, McCulloch is not a partisan result-oriented decision. The article concludes that McCulloch should replace Marbury as the leading case about judicial review.


Recently, we have experienced the internet confusion through the 1.25 Internet Attack in 2003 and 7.7 Internet DDoS Attack in 2009 in Korea. A denial-of-service attack(DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root name servers. The term is generally used with regards to computer networks, but is not limited to this field, for example, it is also used in reference to CPU resource management. One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately. Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB`s Internet proper use policy, and also violate the acceptable use policies of virtually all Internet Service Providers. They also commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations. This article was written about victims and legal response against the internet DDoS attack in Korea.


The book presents an overview of the main hazards affecting karst, including collapse and subsidence phenomena, hydrological hazards and human-induced geohazards. Consideration is also given to the problems of geohazard management in karst. The geological and hydrological properties of karst terrains make them among the most fragile in the world and pose serious problems for land managers. Sustainable development in these terrains requires efforts to limit geohazards of anthropogenic origin and to recognize and mitigate against those of natural origin. Aimed at providing the reader with worldwide case studies, the contributions cover a range of geological and morphological settings. Geographically, the fourteen papers discuss very different karst areas, from North America, the Caribbean and Asia to several karst areas in Europe, including the British Isles, Spain, France and Italy.


BACKGROUND
Contact with jellyfish can cause skin irritation and manifestations. We wanted to investigate the prophylactic effect of a sun cream containing an inhibitor against jellyfish stings.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
We recruited 38 persons who were randomised such that each received two of three possible treatments, one on each underarm. Prophylactic treatment with sun cream containing jellyfish sting inhibitor, ordinary sun cream, and no cream. Their underarms were exposed to wet jellyfish tentacles in a watchglass. The following were recorded: time before pain, skin changes after four minutes, and pain intensity after 10 minutes, registered on a VAS scale.

RESULTS
Thirteen of 25 subjects who had the sun cream with jellyfish sting inhibitor did not register any pain after 4 minutes' exposure, compared with two of 25 and two of 26 who had received pre-treatment with ordinary sun cream (p = 0.32) and no pre-treatment (p < 0.001), respectively. On average, subjects who had received prophylactic treatment with sun cream containing jellyfish sting inhibitor recorded a lower VAS score for pain/discomfort after 10 minutes. The difference was 10.6 mm (95 % CI 3.1-17.9) compared with ordinary sun cream and 14.2 mm (95 % CI 6.9-21.5) compared with no pre-treatment. A smaller number of subjects were found to have underarms with inflamed skin when prophylactic cream containing jellyfish sting inhibitor was used (6 of 25) than when ordinary sun cream was used (11 of 25) or no pre-treatment (12 of 26). There were no statistically significant differences between ordinary sun cream and no pre-treatment for any of the three outcomes.

INTERPRETATION
Prophylactic treatment with jellyfish sting inhibitor reduces the risk of subjects developing symptoms after exposure to jellyfish tentacles.


This study aimed to examine factors affecting occupational stress among
teachers of a secondary school in Sarawak.
The specific objectives of this study are to examine the significant difference
between occupational stress levels of different subgroups according to their (1) gender,
(2) marital status, (3) service grade, (4) length of years of teaching experience, (5) race,
(6) age group, and (7) education level. This study also examined the significant
difference between social support of different subgroup of teachers according to gender
and marital status. The research designs used by this ex post facto study are
independent two-tailed t-test and One Way ANOVA. The respondents compound of95
teachers who are selected by using the stratified random sampling. Teacher Stress
Inventory (TSI) was used to determine the factors that cause occupation stress. Teacher Stress Level Inventory (TSLI) was used to determine the level of stress among
teachers. The Social Support Behaviour (SS-B) scale was used to determine the
support from family and friends.
The results reveal that the occupational stress levels of teachers is generally
low. The factors that they perceived to be most stressful is pupil misbehavior whereas
the two least important factors are time pressure and poor working conditions. The
results indicated that there is a significant difference in stress according race. Chinese
teachers are found to be facing most stress and compared to Sarawak native teachers
and Malay teachers. It is also found that there are significant difference in friend social
support by gender and marital status. Finally, the results reveal that there are moderate
or substantial correlation between four stress factors (pupil misbehavior, poor working
conditions, time pressure and poor school ethos) with teacher stress levels.


On April 28, 2011, in Solis v. Laurelbrook Sanitarium & School, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that students who worked as part of the curriculum at a religious-based boarding school were not employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In so holding, the Sixth Circuit expressly endorsed the "primary benefit" test for determining whether trainees are employees for purposes of the FLSA. The primary benefit test effectuates the purpose of the FLSA, provides courts with the flexibility to prevent employers from exploiting workers, and ultimately benefits employees and students like those at Laurelbrook. Nevertheless, the test does little to clarify Congress's circular definitions of "employ" and "employee," leaving employers and schools like Laurelbrook without much guidance.


Given recent progress in evolutionary accounts of morality, this article asks the following question: Will the correct evolutionary explanation, if any, of the human capacities for moral and legal judgment ultimately vindicate them, by revealing perceptions of their objectivity and special practical authority to be grounded in something suitable real? Or is it more likely to debunk them, by explaining those same perceptions to be nothing more than projections of human psychology? A third possibility is that the correct evolutionary explanation will reveal the human capacities for moral and legal judgment to have two faces - one which inclines people to participate in a recognizable species of moral and cooperative life and another which coopts those psychological capacities for more competitive and antisocial purposes.To decide between these possibilities, this article identifies a set of evolutionary circumstances in which the human capacity for moral and legal judgment can be said to admit of at least a partial vindication, in a perfectly respectable sense of the word. If these circumstances were to hold true, then humans should be understood to have an evolved capacity to see (in a clear but metaphorical sense) and be appropriately motivated by certain natural facts that are worthy of moral attention. These circumstances plausibly hold for humans, but only to a degree. Hence, it is most plausible that humans can see and be appropriately moved by certain moral facts, but only imperfectly, and only through a lens that sometimes distorts moral vision in certain systematic and identifiable ways. Just as the ordinary sense of sight allows humans to apprehend various natural facts about the world but also subjects them to certain optical illusions, the human sense of morality appears to allow ordinary humans to apprehend various moral facts while subjecting them to certain "moral illusions." This article thus argues for the third possibility. In the process, it develops a distinctive form of naturalistic moral realism, which bears some affinities to the prior work of people like Richard Boyd, David Brink, Michael Moore, Peter Railton and Nicholas Sturgeon. As a corollary, it ends with a counterintuitive suggestion. It suggests that the law - at least in some modern (but growing sets of) circumstances - may have the independent authority to override some of our first order moral reasoning, even in its correct and conscientious employment. Legal authority need not be reducible to or derivable from moral authority.


In this thesis, a new type of haptic teleoperator system for remote control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been developed, where the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms are implemented for the purpose of generating the haptic feedback. Specifically, the haptic feedback is provided to the human operator through interaction with artificial potential field built around the obstacles in the virtual environment which is located at the master site of the teleoperator system. The obstacles in the virtual environment replicate essential features of the actual remote environment where the UAV executes its tasks. The state of the virtual environment is generated and updated in real time using Extended Kalman Filter SLAM algorithms based on measurements performed by the UAV in the actual remote environment. Two methods for building haptic feedback from SLAM algorithms have been developed. The basic SLAM-based haptic feedback algorithm uses fixed size potential field around the obstacles, while the robust SLAM-based haptic feedback algorithm changes the size of potential field around the obstacle depending on the amount of uncertainty in obstacle location, which is represented by the covariance estimate provided by EKF. Simulations and experimental results are presented that evaluate the performance of the proposed teleoperator system.


This paper argues that Thomas Jefferson was not the opponent of presidential power commonly assumed today. Jefferson is often thought to be a sharp critic of executive authority because he favored a national government of limited powers and because of his opposition to the Washington and Adams administrations. But as President, Jefferson expanded executive authority by resisting the courts, buying Louisiana, conducting foreign affairs, and managing legislation through Congress. Jefferson's actions as President did not contradict his positions in the opposition, as claimed most famously by Henry Adams, but were instead consistent with his earlier views on executive power. In fact, Jefferson supported perhaps the broadest conception of the Presidency in his belief in a Lockean prerogative that would allow the executive to act without constitutional authorization, so long as the people approved after the fact.


Two-phase dynamic FET logic (TDFL) gates are used in GaAs MESFET MSI circuits to implement very low power 4-b ripple carry adders and a variable modulus (2 to 31) prescaler. Operation of the adders is demonstrated at 500 MHz with an associated power dissipation of less than 1.0 mW and at 750 MHz with P/sub d/=1.7 mW. The prescaler, which contains 166 TDFL gates and 79 static gates, is shown to operate up to 850 MHz with an associated power dissipation of 9.2 mW from its 1.0-V supply. The operation of the adders and prescalers demonstrates the use of three- and four-input TDFL gates and a completely dynamic TDFL XNOR gate. The TDFL gates in these circuits dissipate only from 14 to 20 nW/MHz. >


Guiding on-chip optical beams without diffraction is very important in the future's allphotonic circuits. Herein, both theoretically and experimentally, we study an all-angle quasi-self-collimation phenomenon occurring in photonic crystals composed of silicon nanorods. When the all-angle quasi-self-collimation phenomenon occurs, the optical beams can be incident onto such photonic crystals from directions covering a wide range (extremely close to all-angle) of incident angles direction and become highly localized along even a single array of rods, which finally achieve results in the narrow-beam propagation without divergence. The propagation length is expected to be 1000 times larger than the wavelength of light. Theoretically, it is shown that such all-angle quasi-self-collimation phenomenon is owing to the symmetry change of the lattice of photonic crystals. By changing the symmetry of a photonic crystal to straighten the isofrequency contours, the photonic crystal shows the all-angle quasi-self-collimation effect. Experimentally, we show the observation of all-angle quasi-self-collimation phenomenon occurring in a rod-type silicon photonic crystal fabricated on by patterning a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The experimentally observed propagation length is more than 0.4 mm over the telecom wavelength range, even though at large angle of incidence, which is a relatively large length scale for on-chip optical interconnection.


Detecting and accurately locating snipers has been an elusive goal of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies for a long time. Most successful sniper-detecting systems are based on acoustic measurements. We develop an acoustic system that works well even in complex urban environments. Funded through the Network Embedded Systems Technology program of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Exploitation Office, the PinPtr system uses a wireless network of many low-cost sensors to determine both a shooter's location and the bullet's trajectory by measuring both the muzzle blast and the shock wave. The PinPtr sensor-fusion algorithm, which runs on a base station, performs a search on a hyper-surface defined by a consistency function. This function provides the number of sensor measurements that are consistent with hypothetical shooter positions and shot times. The algorithm automatically classifies measurements and eliminates those that result from multipath effects or are otherwise erroneous. A fast search algorithm finds the global maximum of the surface, which corresponds to the shooter position.


FANCD2 is a product of one of the genes associated with Fanconi anemia (FA), a rare recessive disease characterized by bone marrow failure, skeletal malformations, developmental defects, and cancer predisposition. FANCD2 forms a complex with FANCI (ID complex) and is monoubiquitinated, which facilitates the downstream interstrand crosslink (ICL) repair steps, such as ICL unhooking and nucleolytic end resection. In the present study, we focused on the chicken FANCD2 (cFANCD2) mutant harboring the Leu234 to Arg (L234R) substitution. cFANCD2 L234R corresponds to the human FANCD2 L231R mutation identified in an FA patient. We found that cFANCD2 L234R did not complement the defective ICL repair in FANCD2−/− DT40 cells. Purified cFANCD2 L234R did not bind to chicken FANCI, and its monoubiquitination was significantly deficient, probably due to the abnormal ID complex formation. In addition, the histone chaperone activity of cFANCD2 L234R was also defective. These findings may explain some aspects of Fanconi anemia pathogenesis by a FANCD2 missense mutation.


The current duration of a link in a mobile wireless ad hoc network (MANET) has important information to offer with respect to its stability. Unlike location or signal strength methods, life measurements implicitly includes the effects of true propagation mechanisms, mobility space geometry, power control mechanisms and other phenomena that are ignored or simplistically modeled in the methods mentioned above. Consequently, the information contained in the current duration of the links can be used to enhance the accuracy of these methods. Furthermore, under high mobility conditions and in the absence of any resources for location and signal strength measurements, this information can also be used alone to obtain new routing metrics to enhance the performance of routing algorithms in a MANET. One such metric is the probability of imminent failure, which can also be used to predict route failures with relatively high accuracy. Here we modify DSR to use this metric, improving the efficiency by reducing the routing overhead.


Drought, in conjunction with high temperature, is an important environmental constraint to cotton production. Development of cotton varieties with increased tolerance against adverse environmental conditions has been proposed as effective strategy for ensuring reliable yields. In the present study, 30 simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers were used to estimate genetic divergence among 22 cotton genotypes for drought stress tolerance. Genetic diversity is a prerequisite for developing drought resistant cotton genotypes. Eleven SSR primers out of 30 were able to discriminate among the cotton genotypes, implying that 37% of the primers were informative. In total, 41 alleles were detected, with an average of 3.72 alleles per primer. The number of alleles per locus ranged from one (JESPR-284) to six (JESSPR-302), and the allelic diversity in the experimental material was 0.40. Genetic similarity coefficients ranged from 0.87-1.00. The result of principal component analysis confirmed the clustering of 21 cotton genotypes in two groups leaving one genotype (CIM-109) ungrouped. Overall, genetic diversity among the 22 cotton genotypes was low. More polymorphic SSR markers are needed to explore the workable genetic variation among the screened cotton genotypes in future studies.


We report the interseasonal variation in bulk elemental and stable isotopic (δ13C, δ15N) composition of dissolved and particulate organic matter (DOM, POM) during a high‐resolution time series (2007–2009) on the Big Sur coast. In addition to interseasonal variations, we explore the relationships between physical size and reactivity (i.e., composition) of exportable organic matter (OM) pools, and characterize the elemental and isotopic composition of size‐fractionated POM and DOM pools within this potentially high‐nutrient, low‐chlorophyll (HNLC) California upwelling region. Average POM concentrations were low (< 5.2 µmol C L−1 and < 0.7 µmol N L−1), and all OM pools had low C : N ratios (DOM average = 15.0 and POM < 7.8)—indicating that this upwelling center may represent an important source of N‐rich material to offshore environments. Seasonal "excess" dissolved organic carbon (DOC) production was significant (~ 30–80 µmol L−1 DOC); however, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) production and cycling was largely decoupled from both DOC and physical processes. Overall, our results are consistent with this region representing an "HNLC upwelling system." The distinct bulk elemental and isotopic OM composition and seasonality vs. that of high‐productivity upwelling regions highlights the need to better understand the biogeochemical diversity of upwelling systems. Finally, we observed a quantifiable size–composition relationship across both POM and DOM size classes, perhaps representing a powerful new tool for modeling N vs. C fluxes in ocean biogeochemical cycles.


Various insulators are used as gate dielectrics and passivation layers in wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices as well as in advanced Si devices, and the understanding of their current conduction mechanism is essential to achieve their high performance and high reliability. Because these insulators are more or less charged, the conduction current is mostly caused by the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling into charged insulators, ruling out the conventional analytic FN formula. In order to facilitate the analysis of these currents, we focused on the method, named sheet-charge approximation (SCA), of approximating the charge distribution in the insulators by a charge sheet that has the same areal density and centroid as those of the original. Using, as references, the results obtained exactly calculating the tunneling current in the framework of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, we confirmed the advantage of SCA over the previous method using a tunneling-endpoint field, the error of SCA-estimated areal charge densities being at most 30% for rectangular charge distributions of which charge centroids are known as in stacked films. In a more general case where the centroid is unknown, the SCA usually provides only a charge moment with reference to the insulator/anode interface, being unable to decompose the moment into the areal charge density and centroid. However, this demerit of SCA can be overcome through a reverse-biased current-voltage measurement using a capacitor formed on a heavily doped substrate or a capacitor with a diffusion layer attached, which measurement provides a charge moment with reference to the original cathode/insulator interface. Using these two kinds of charge moments, we can separately extract the areal charge density and centroid. Hence, the SCA has practical significance as a tool for analyzing conduction currents through charged insulators, especially through stacked films, and accordingly will play an important role in improving the performance and reliability of gate dielectrics and passivation layers for various WBG semiconductor devices as well as of high-k gate stacks for advanced Si devices.


Growth management in Washington State provides a new context for regional transportation planning. A major part of this planning involves investigation of the latest information processing techniques and interjurisdictional coordination specifically with regard to transportation and land use linkages. Geographic information system (GIS) applications for transportation can assist transportation planners with data analysis concerned with these linkages. This project has identified information needs in the context of a regional transportation planning process, particularly the needs of Regional Transportation Planning Organizations (RTPOs). Urban and rural contexts are considered. Information processing tasks are elucidated and the software functions that address these tasks are presented. Data sources are identified for urban and rural traffic forecast modeling. Institutional and technical barriers inhibiting access to data for the regional transportation planning process are discussed.


From the Publisher:
The questions of how a large population of neurons in the brain functions, how synchronized firing of neurons is achieved, and what factors regulate how many and which neurons fire under different conditions form the central theme of this book. Using a combined experimental-theoretical approach unique in neuroscience, the authors present important new techniques for the physiological reconstruction of a large biological neuronal network. They begin by discussing experimental studies of the CA3 hippocampal region in vitro, focusing on single-cell and synaptic electrophysiology, particularly the effects a single neuron exerts on its neighbors. This is followed by a description of a computer model of the system, first for individual cells then for the entire detailed network, and the model is compared with experiments under a variety of conditions. The results shed significant light into the mechanisms of epilepsy, electroencephalograms, and biological oscillations and provide an excellent test case for theories of neural networks.


Abstract The defence review is occurring at a time of extreme financial pressure at home and considerable military risk in Afghanistan. Yet it would be a grave failure if it attended principally – or worse, exclusively – to the clamour of those issues. The deepest principles of national security are silent. They explain why bad things don't happen and they must be given voice. This article also argues that geopolitics prescribe a primarily maritime framework for any British SDSR, and that the core strategic challenges are naval. The Royal Navy, however, has become dangerously weak. Urgent steps must be taken to reverse this trend before it is too late.


Understand the fundamental theory and practical design aspects of green and soft wireless communications networks with this expert text. It provides comprehensive and unified coverage of fifth-generation (5G) physical layer design, as well as design of higher and radio access layers and the core network, drawing on viewpoints from both academia and industry. Get to grips with the theory through authoritative discussion of information-theoretical results, and learn about fundamental green design trade-offs, software-defined network architectures, and energy-efficient radio resource management strategies. Applications of wireless big data and artificial intelligence to wireless network design are included, providing an excellent design reference, and real-world examples of employment in software-defined 5G networks, and energysaving solutions from wireless communications companies and cellular operators help to connect theory with practice. This is an essential text for graduate students, professionals, and researchers.


Understanding which ministries represent their countries at the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conferences of the Parties (COPs) helps clarify the dynamics of these important negotiations. Data from COP1, 7, 15, 17 and 19, representing twelve different countries (the US, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, the UK, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Gabon, and Bhutan), was used to analyze which ministries comprised the delegations. Although the delegations have increased in size, the relative shares of different ministries have remained more constant, notwithstanding the larger representation of "peripheral" ministries at decisive COPs like COP15. Environment ministries constitute the largest group followed by foreign ministries. Environment ministries, however, are more predominant in developed countries than their developing counterparts. China and the US are the two outliers, as their delegations have been dominated by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission and the US State Department respectively. EARTH System governance working paper No. 35 | 3


Rationale: Fibroids are common, hormone-dependent, benign uterine tumors. It is estimated that they occur in 20% to 40% of women during their reproductive years. The prevalence of fibroids among pregnant women is 10.7%. Most fibroids do not increase in size during pregnancy. Pregnancy has a variable and unpredictable effect on fibroid growth. The influence of pregnancy on uterine fibroid size still remains unclear. Researchers evaluating fibroids have reported an inverse association between parity and fibroids, suggestive of a protective effect. Pregnancies that occur while fibroids are small would be protective; whereas pregnancies occurring before fibroid development or after the tumors reach some critical size would not be protective. Herein, the case of a woman with a large uterine fibroid that was spontaneously regressed after a second successful vaginal delivery is reported. To our knowledge, the complete regression of a large fibroid after delivery has not yet been reported. Patient concerns: A 35-year-old gravida 1 para 0 woman was referred from a private clinic with a history of pelvic mass, adnexal mass and 19 weeks of amenorrhea. Diagnosis: Ultrasonographic examination indicated a solid mass at the uterine fundus (12.1 × 8.3 cm) suggestive of a uterine fibroid and complex echogenic mass at the right adnexa (7.7 × 6.0 cm). Interventions: Usually, cesarean sections are performed after myomectomy due to the risk for rupture when attempting vaginal delivery. So, the patient decided against the myomectomy, because she did not have any myoma-related symptoms after the first vaginal delivery and wanted to have more children via vaginal birth. Outcomes: Six months postpartum she becomes pregnant again. The patient had another vaginal birth. Four years after second delivery, the large myoma completely regressed. Lessons: Fibroids can regress with postpartum involution. Even though fibroid-related pregnancy complication is 10% to 30%, prophylactic myomectomy is not recommended. In addition, given the protective effect of parity, conception and delivery are reasonable option and could allow treatment to be deferred in women planning a pregnancy.


We show that the first order theory of the lattice of open sets in some natural topological spaces is $m$-equivalent to second order arithmetic. We also show that for many natural computable metric spaces and computable domains the first order theory of the lattice of effectively open sets is undecidable. Moreover, for several important spaces (e.g., $\mathbb{R}^n$, $n\geq1$, and the domain $P\omega$) this theory is $m$-equivalent to first order arithmetic.


The Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) was adopted to investigate the sources of stress, job satisfaction, coping strategies, mental and physical health of workers. Data were collected from 101 employees of an acquired TV company in Hong Kong. Workers' perceived work pressure was negatively related to job satisfaction, and positively related to mental and physical ill-health. Among these employees, sources of stress were negatively related to job satisfaction, and positively related to mental and physical ill-health. Opposite findings were obtained for coping strategies, which were positively related to job satisfaction, and negatively related to mental and physical ill-health. Regression analyses were employed to reveal the predictors for strain effects. The results showed that a combination of stressors related statistically significantly to the strain effects, but only a few individual stressors were strong predictors. 'Relationships with other people' and 'organizational structure and climate' were strong predictors of job satisfaction, whereas 'managerial role' was a strong predictor of both mental and physical ill-health. The middle managers reported highest scores on some sources of stress and physical ill-health. Further, the results of this study provide some validation data for the OSI in a Chinese sample. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Perceptibly, various factors have an influence over the occurrence of financial restatements among companies. Based on prior studies, it is important to study the factors that are associated with the likelihood of financial restatements because the announcement of financial restatement will result in a lack of public trust towards large companies. Thus, this paper has two main objectives. The first objective is to examine whether firms that restate their financial statements have difference in levels and size in terms of client fees, provision of non-audit services (NAS), size of audit committee and types of auditors than non-restatement firms. The second objective is to test whether factors such as client fees, provision of non-audit services (NAS), size of audit committee and types of auditors will influence the occurrence of financial restatements among public listed companies in Malaysia. A sample consisting of 224 Malaysian public listed companies during the period of 2005 to 2014 is studied. A control group comprising of non-restating firms is formed using match-pair procedures where restated and non-restated firms are matched by size (total assets), industry, exchange board classification, and financial year-end. This study has found that the restatement firms are, on average, pay slightly lower level of client fees and NAS fees and have small size of audit committee compared to non-restatement companies. In addition, this study found that non-restatement companies compared to restatement companies are hiring Big 4 audit firms. The logistic regression is applied to test the hypothesis. This study found that types of auditors have a significant association with the incidence of financial restatements. Based on the result, the types of auditors have a negative relationship with the occurrence of financial restatements. This means that companies that hired Big 4 audit firms could reduce the possibility of restatements. In contrast, the other three variables are not found to be associated with future restatements. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: 1) this study was developed in order to extend previous research by using the sample from year 2005 up until 2014; 2) this study could act as the reference for the regulators and policymakers (Bursa Malaysia and Securities Commission) in policy deliberation or policy review and for the improvement of existing regulations and guidelines; and 3) the findings of this study might help the companies to reduce future restatements.


This document summarizes the proceedings of an expert panel consensus process addressing the nonemergency use of parenteral phenytoin products for management of seizures in pediatric and adult patients. The algorithm and consensus statements developed by the expert panel emphasize strategies for lowering the probability of adverse events associated with the use of parenteral phenytoin products. Specific patient characteristics are defined to guide administration and monitoring of parenteral phenytoin therapy. The algorithm provides a decision pathway for the selection of the product and the route of administration of phenytoin sodium or fosphenytoin sodium after it has been determined that a parenteral phenytoin product is appropriate. Key factors covered in the algorithm include a list of patient characteristics and considerations necessary to prevent parenteral phenytoin adverse effects during selection of administration route and recommendations for monitoring of parenteral phenytoin therapy once it has been initiated. Situations requiring rapid attainment of high phenytoin concentrations, such as in the management of acute seizures, are not addressed in these guidelines.


Hematite is a promising material for solar energy conversion via photo-electrochemical water splitting. However, the precise control of substitutional doping and nanometer feature size is important for high photon harvesting efficiency. Doped and nanostructured hematite electrodes can be prepared by a simple solution-based colloidal approach however, a high temperature (800°C) annealing is required to activate the dopant atoms. This high temperature annealing step also increases the particle size above the dimension necessary for high photon harvesting efficiencies. Here we investigate a strategy to control the two kinetic processes occurring during sintering (particle size increase and dopant diffusion/activation) by incorporating Ti dopant directly into the colloid solution and reducing the annealing time. We find that this strategy leads to porous, high-surface area hematite electrodes giving a solar photocurrent density of 1.1 mA cm-2 at 1.23 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) under standard testing conditions where only 0.56 mA cm-2 was observed at 1.23 V vs. RHE with our previous work. In addition, scanning electron micrographs examining the morphology of the electrodes suggests that our kinetic strategy is indeed effective and that further optimization may result in higher photocurrents.


The KwaZulu-Natal Law Society held its annual general meeting (AGM) on 16 October in Durban. The keynote address was delivered by nine times Comrades Marathon winner, Bruce Fordyce. Opening his addressed, Mr Fordyce said that society works because people put in hard work, long hours and dedication. He equated running a marathon with running a law firm by saying that firms compete in the same space with those that have the same genetics to work hard. 'You have to work twice as hard to beat the other law firms. Running Comrades is a tough sport that takes a lot of hours. I would not have won, if it was not for the support of my team. Sometimes I play the role of a leader, and at times I am a member of a team. Rely on your team to get you to the finish line. Being a leader is hard, people are envious of your success, the money you make, the car you drive, but they do not see what comes with it. You have to deliver and produce results. The key thing with success is to persevere, even when everyone else says it cannot be done. I never gave up even though it looked like I should. Lastly, remember you do not always have to be number one to win,' he said.


Aim:  Iodine deficiency, which has adverse effects on health has re-emerged in Australia. The present study aimed to develop and validate a novel iodine-specific food frequency questionnaire for use in older Australians.

Methods:  A 49-item food frequency questionnaire that included iodine-rich foods was constructed and administered in 84 men and women aged 60–95 years with normal cognitive function. Dietary iodine intake assessed by the food frequency questionnaire was validated against three repeated 24-hour dietary recalls. Urinary spot iodine concentrations were selected as iodine intake biomarker. Agreement between the two dietary methods was determined using a Bland–Altman plot and intra-class coefficients. Correlations between dietary and urinary iodine were assessed. Forty-three participants repeated the questionnaire after 9 months for reproducibility.

Results:  Mean iodine intake measured by the food frequency questionnaire and 24-hour dietary recalls did not differ significantly (P= 0.870). The two methods were moderately correlated (r = 0.377; P < 0.05) and the Bland–Altman plots demonstrated an acceptable level of agreement (P= 0.870). Despite an association (r = 0.230; P < 0.05) between urinary iodine concentrations and 24-hour dietary recalls, the food frequency questionnaire was not associated with urinary iodine concentration (r = 0.094; P= 0.40). The method of triads showed coefficients of 0.238 (urinary iodine), 0.953(food frequency questionnaire), 0.396 (24-hour dietary recall) with the unknown true value.

Conclusion:  A short food frequency questionnaire to assess habitual dietary iodine intake in older Australians has been shown to be valid at the group level with regard to categorising individuals according to their habitual iodine intake. Reproducibility of the food frequency questionnaire remains to be demonstrated.


Norman Sartorius, MD, MA, DPM, PhD, FRCPsych, obtained his MD in Zagreb (Croatia). He specialized in neurology and psychiatry and subsequently obtained a Masters Degree and a Doctorate in psychology (PhD). He carried out clinical work and research and taught at graduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Zagreb, at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, at the University of Geneva and elsewhere. Dr Sartorius joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1967 and soon assumed charge of the programme of epidemiology and in social psychiatry. He was the principal investigator of several major international studies on schizophrenia, on depression and on health service delivery. He was responsible for WHO s work on the classification of mental and neurological disorders. In 1977, he became the first Director of the Division of Mental Health of WHO, a position that he held until mid-1993. In June 1993, Professor Sartorius was elected President of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) and served as its President until August 1999. Subsequently, he became President of the Association of European Psychiatrists (EAP), a position held until December 2001. He is the President of the Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programmes and a member of the Geneva Prize Foundation having been its President 2004–2008. Dr Sartorius holds professorial appointments at the Universities of London, Prague Zagreb and at several other universities in the USA and China. He is a Senior Associate of the Faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Professor Sartorius has published more than 350 articles in scientific journals, authored or co-authored 15 books and edited a number of others. Professor Sartorius is a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine and an honorary member of the Medical Academies of Croatia, Mexico and Peru. He holds honorary doctorates of the Universities of Bath, Copenhagen, Prague and Umea and is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, of the American College of Psychiatry and of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is an Honorary Member of numerous professional associations and advisory boards, both national and international. He is the Co-editor of three scientific journals and a member of editorial and advisory boards of many scientific journals.


Background: The global prevalence of intracranial aneurysms is estimated at 2.3%. Limited literature is available on intracranial aneurysms in HIV-infected patients. Objectives: To describe the radiological appearance of intracranial aneurysms in HIV-positive adults. Method: In this retrospective analysis of data, 23 HIV-positive patients, of which 15 (65.2%)were female, with a total of 41 aneurysms were included. The mean age was 38 years, and their median CD4 count was 305 x 106/L. Inclusion criteria comprised subarachnoid haemorrhage and confirmed intracranial aneurysms on four-vessel angiography. Results: Fifteen (65.2%) patients had a single aneurysm, of which 12 (80.0%) had a saccular appearance. Seven (46.7%) of the single aneurysms had a neck width larger than 50% of the transverse aneurysm sac size. The mean longitudinal diameter of the aneurysm sac was 4.9 mm and the transverse diameter 4.4 mm. More than half of these aneurysms occurred at the anterior communicating artery. The median CD4 count of single-aneurysm patients was 319 x 106 /L. Eight patients (34.8%) had multiple aneurysms, with a total of 26 aneurysms (range 2–6 aneurysms per patient), of which 13 (50.0%) had a complex appearance. Twenty-four (92.3%) of the multiple aneurysms had a neck width larger than 50% of the transverse aneurysm sac size. The mean longitudinal diameter of the aneurysm sac was 4.0 mm and the transverse diameter 3.9 mm. The multiple aneurysms occurred more commonly in the internal carotid artery. These patients had a median CD4 count of 294 x 106/L. Conclusion: HIV-associated intracranial aneurysms occur at a younger age, appear to be saccular and complex in shape, with a wide neck, and might rupture at small sizes.


Throughout Western history, women preachers have been marginalized. Even though women have filled the pews as members of the congregation, acted as Sunday school teachers, cooks, and members of the choir, in addition to coordinating bake sales and other fund raising events, men have customarily held the leadership positions. In 1853, Antoinette Brown Blackwell became the first woman to be ordained in the Congregationalist Church. In the 21st century, women are still fighting to preach from the pulpit. More women than ever before are entering seminaries, but not all of those women will receive a call from a church. Some of those women who do receive a call will encounter resistance from male colleagues, bosses, church hierarchy, and even congregational members. While the struggle of women preachers to gain access to the pulpit is not the focus of this study, it is important to recognize that struggle, and it is interesting to wonder how that struggle might be reflected in the lives and work of female preachers. Therefore, this study examines the sermon language of women preachers. Specifically, it uses narrative analysis to look for patterns of meaning evident in the language employed by the women preachers as they attempt to adapt to the traditionally male-dominated occupation of preaching. Two of the sermons under consideration in this dissertation come from 19th- century women preachers, and eight of the sermons come from 21st- century women preachers. Two forms of analyses are used: a narrative analysis to determine whether each sermon utilizes the six elements of narrative structure designated by William Labov (abstract, orientation complicating action, evaluation, resolution, and coda), and a discourse analysis based on the work of James Paul Gee who suggests asking questions based around seven building tasks, using six tools of inquiry. The results of the analyses illustrate that each of these women preachers utilize Labov's narrative structure, although each preacher modifies the structure to create her sermon discourse, and that women preachers utilize their sermon language to construct significance, activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections, sign systems, and knowledge. None of these women create a sermon discourse that highlights her own struggle to become a preacher. Instead, each preacher creates a sermon discourse that focuses on the Bible text for the day and her interpretation of that text. In short, each of these women preaches like a preacher and not like a woman.


The concept of Living Labs (LLs) has evolved to support the creation of experience-based development of innovations in real-life, user-driven and open environments. Two types of consumer product tests used generally are central location tests (CLT) and home use tests (HUT) where the acceptability or liking of a product or group of products is determined together with the view of whether one product is preferred over other products. This article explores the similarities and differences between CLT and HUT test results in a LL context. In both settings, the acceptance of five flavoured chocolate bars was evaluated for appearance, odour, taste/flavour, texture and overall liking. Apart from the mean values of liking in the two tests, data were analysed to identify consumer segments. Qualitative data were also collected by asking for consumer comments on the tested samples. The results show that independent of test method the bars were evaluated equally and all accepted by the consumers. A clear difference between CLT and HUT testing was that CLT consumers significantly differed from the HUT consumers, giving the test samples lower scores. For example, the mean values of the overall acceptance scores given by HUT consumers varied between 6.0 and 6.6, while for CLT consumers the corresponding values varied from 5.4 to 5.9. Another difference was the number of comments from consumers. CLT consumers richly commented on the products in a verbose way, while HUT consumers used the opportunity to comment very sparingly. Considering the cluster analysis as yet another difference between the testing methods, clusters from the CLT were more distinct and the number was higher with five clusters in CLT and four in HUT. Clusters where consumers liked all the products in both test settings were twice as many for HUT than in CLT. Applying the LL approach, there is a need for methods and approaches that capture a rich picture of consumers during test performance without being intrusive or obstructive of activities and context. The approach offers the opportunity for companies to have consumers not only test products but also offer input that can stimulate new innovations and give consumers more power and influence.


Thoughtfully adaptive teaching has long been thought to be an important component of teacher effectiveness, as well as being a logical and intuitively appealing idea (Anders et al., 2000; Hoffman & Pearson, 2000; Gambrell, Malloy, & Mazzoni, 2007; Snow et al., 2005; Williams & Baumann, 2008). Despite the many appealing qualities suggested by theorists of thoughtfully adaptive teaching, no empirical data existed to substantiate those claims. To extend earlier TAT research (Duffy et al., 2008; Parsons et al., 2010), my study investigated two teachers in three areas: (a) teachers' on-the-fly adaptations vs. adaptations made during planning, (b) whether adaptations are influenced by visioning, and (c) whether thoughtfully adaptive teaching is associated with student understanding of reading comprehension. Findings showed that, teachers made a three-fold increase in on-the-fly adaptations compared to previous studies, most likely due to their teaching experience and the ways their instruction was less imposed by district mandates. Compared to on-the-fly adaptations, teachers adapted five times less during planning, most likely due to the lack of ambiguity present during planning time. Over half of their adaptations were designed to promote reading comprehension; despite the 50% increase of student responses from pre-to-post-interviews, no relationship could be linked to the teachers' adaptations. Minimal evidence was found linking their adaptations to their visions. Future studies are needed to investigate the link between teachers' adaptations and student outcomes relative to the lesson's objectives and standardized tests.


This study concerned with the implementation of Bloom Taxonomies at SMP N 2 Sumberpucung Malang. The purposes of this study were to investigate the components of cognitive domain covered in teaching reading used by the English teachers, to investigate the components of affective domain covered in teaching reading used by the English teachers, and to investigate the components of psychomotor domain covered in teaching reading used by the English teachers.
The design of this study was descriptive research because the writer wants to describe the practices that prevail. The practice that prevails in this study was the implementation of Bloom Taxonomy in teaching reading. In this research, the writer took two English teachers in the first year students as research subjects. The instruments were used in this study were semi structured interview and observation non participant.
The finding of this study showed that Bloom Taxonomy was not implemented maximally at SMPN 2 Sumberpucung Malang. In cognitive domain, the teachers applied knowledge, comprehension, application, and synthesis. In affective domain, the teachers applied receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterization by value. In psychomotor domain, the teachers applied perception, set, guided response, mechanical response, and origination.


With an acknowledgement to both the cultural and medical influences in the literature this thesis analyses the experiences of young people receiving in-patient treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Due to the physical complications associated with anorexia nervosa and the age of diagnosis most often being during adolescence it is one of the few medicalised mental health conditions where specific in-patient treatment centres operate. Patients are often admitted for relatively long periods of time in order for safe weight gain and a behavioural approach is the underlying philosophy for treatment.
The medicalisation of the disorder and focus on treatment and restoration of weight has been widely criticised for not acknowledging the societal and cultural factors that led to admission. Despite much research in this area treatment is often unsuccessful with clinicians referring to a revolving door phenomenon where young people are discharged and then deteriorate and are readmitted weeks or months later. This is often attributed to the resistance of the young people to treatment or their tenacity and determination to lose weight. There has been no research in to the treatment environments themselves and how access to and use of space within them may contribute to patient outcomes.
This thesis addresses this through an interpretative phenomenological account of the lived experience of young people receiving in-patient treatment for anorexia nervosa in the United Kingdom. This approach was used because it is appropriate for examining major life experiences and how people make sense of them. Participants created mixed media posters expressing their experience of the spaces within and outside the centres where they were receiving treatment. The posters were then used as prompts during
follow up, in depth, interviews. The data were then analysed both by individual case and by theme.
The overarching message from the young people's experience was that although the treatment centres provided a structure and the facilities of a therapeutic environment, the approaches to access and use of the treatment spaces were restrictive and inhibited the young people's ability to develop the resilience they required to live fulfilling lives. In particular, the lack of access to outdoor space and the rules and dominance of the treatment teams left the young people feeling deviant and removed from society. This suggests that a more culturally informed treatment environment that enabled the young people to develop resilience would be more therapeutic.
This thesis found that the treatment environments did not require structural change in order to become therapeutic in nature but the practices within them do need to change. Moving away from a philosophy of treatment and restoration of weight towards an environment that is more positive and focussed on developing the resilience required to live a fulfilling life could enhance current practice.


An important step for understanding the semantic content of text is the extraction of semantic relations between entities in natural language documents. Automatic extraction techniques have to be able to identify different versions of the same relation which usually may be expressed in a great variety of ways. Therefore these techniques benefit from taking into account many syntactic and semantic features, especially parse trees generated by automatic sentence parsers. Typed dependency parse trees are edge and node labeled parse trees whose labels and topology contains valuable semantic clues. This information can be exploited for relation extraction by the use of kernels over structured data for classification. In this paper we present new tree kernels for relation extraction over typed dependency parse trees. On a public benchmark data set we are able to demonstrate a significant improvement in terms of relation extraction quality of our new kernels over other state-of-the-art kernels.


Ubiquitin (ub) and ubiquitin-like (ubl) dependent post-translational modifications of proteins play fundamental biological regulatory roles within the cell by controlling protein stability, activity, interactions, and intracellular localization. They enable the cell to respond to signals and to adapt to changes in its environment. Alterations within these mechanisms can lead to severe pathological situations such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. The aim of the technique described here is to establish ub/ubls dependent PTMs profiles, rapidly and accurately, from cultured cell lines. The comparison of different profiles obtained from different conditions allows the identification of specific alterations, such as those induced by a treatment for example. Lentiviral mediated cell transduction is performed to create stable cell lines expressing a two-tags (6His and Flag) version of the modifier (ubiquitin or a ubl such as SUMO1 or Nedd8). These tags permit the purification of ubiquitin and therefore of ubiquitinated proteins from the cells. This is done through a two-step purification process: The first one is performed in denaturing conditions using the 6His tag, and the second one in native conditions using the Flag tag. This leads to a highly specific and pure isolation of modified proteins which are subsequently identified and semi-quantified by liquid chromatography followed by tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) technology. Easy informatics analysis of MS data using Excel software enables the establishment of PTM profiles by eliminating background signals. These profiles are compared between each condition in order to identify specific alterations which will then be studied more specifically, starting with their validation by standard biochemistry techniques.


Procedural content generation via machine learning (PCGML) has recently gained research attention due to its ability to generate new game content with minimal user input. However, thus far those without machine learning expertise have been largely unable to use PCGML to generate content to fit their needs. This paper proposes the use of images as the input for a PCGML process to generate game levels. Intuitively, a user can submit an image, with the system returning the closest valid Super Mario Bros. game level. Our results indicate that at least for domains like Super Mario Bros. we can recreate a target level with high fidelity.


1. Influx and efflux of catecholamine and adenosine triphosphatase activity were studied in storage vesicles of bovine adrenal medulla. 2. In the absence of ATP the influx of catecholamine was slow and was not influenced by various anions, whereas the efflux increased in the sequence of anions given by the lyotrophic series. 3. In the presence of ATP the efflux was enhanced compared with that in the absence of ATP; the anion-dependent sequence, however, in which the efflux increased was the same as in the absence of ATP. 4. The ATP-dependent catecholamine influx and the adenosine triphosphatase activity are correlated. The sequence in which anions affect adenosine triphosphatase activity and catecholamine influx, however, is completely different from the lyotrophic anion series. 5. No correlation was found between adenosine triphosphatase activity and the efflux of catecholamine.


Binary coding techniques, which compress originally high-dimensional data samples into short binary codes, are becoming increasingly popular due to their efficiency for information retrieval. Leveraging supervised information can dramatically enhance the coding quality, and hence improve search performance. There are few methods, however, that efficiently learn coding functions that optimize the precision at the top of the Hamming distance ranking list while approximately preserving the geometric relationships between database examples. In this paper, we propose a novel supervised binary coding approach, namely Fast Structural Binary Coding (FSBC), to optimize the precision at the top of a Hamming distance ranking list and ensure that similar images can be returned as a whole. The key idea is to train disciplined coding functions by optimizing a lower bound of the area under the ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curve (AUC) and penalize this objective so that the geometric relationships between database examples in the original Euclidean space are approximately preserved in the Hamming space. To find such a coding function, we relax the original discrete optimization objective with a continuous surrogate, and then derive a stochastic gradient descent method to optimize the surrogate objective efficiently. Empirical studies based upon two image datasets demonstrate that the proposed binary coding approaches achieve superior image search performance to the states-of-the-art.


In this paper, we asses the benefits of using partial relaying in energy-harvesting networks. We consider a system composed of a source, a relay, and a destination. Each of the source and the relay has energy-harvesting capability and generates its own traffic. The source is helped by the relay through a partial relaying network-level cooperation protocol. The relay regulates the arrivals from the source by accepting only a proportion of the successfully received packets at the relay. The relaying parameter, which determines the proportion of packets to be accepted, is selected based on the parameters of the network to ensure the stability of the source and the relay data queues. In this work, we provide an exact characterization of the stability region of the network. We derive the optimal value of the relaying parameter to maximize the stable throughput of the source for a given data arrival rate to the relay. Also, we compare the stability region of the proposed strategy with partial relaying to the stability regions of simple transmission strategies. Finally, we consider the problem of network utility optimization in which we optimize over the value of the relaying parameter for a given pair of data arrival rates for the source and the relay.


Diamond mining in Canada began in 1998, with the first production from the Ekati mine in the Northwest Territories. Since then the Diavik mine has begun production, and two other mines are slated to begin production within two years. Canada's share of the world value of diamond production was 15 per cent in 2003, the third largest worldwide. These mines are all located in the northern regions of Canada, and hence contribute substantially to the growth of these regions. Diamond production accounted for 19.9 per cent of total real output in the Northwest Territories in 2002, representing a phenomenal impact, especially given that the industry did not exist five years before. Given the very high level of output per hour in the diamond mining industry ?reflecting a high degree of economic rent ?and the strong expected growth of the industry in the coming years, the labour productivity growth of the overall mining industry will be favourably affected. Based on a rough simulation of the growth of the Canadian diamond mining industry in the 2001-2006 period, average annual labour productivity growth in the overall mining industry will be between one and two percentage points higher than if the diamond mining industry did not exist. Although the mining of rough diamonds is lucrative in itself, there is also much value added in the manufacture and retailing of diamond jewelry. Investment by Canadian firms in each stage of the diamond pipeline could promise large returns due to the very high value added associated with the overall diamond industry.


ABSTRACT Spiritual retreats are a commonly used intensive program of meditation and prayer, along with other elements, designed to provide participants with opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth. While individual elements of such retreats have been studied, there have been no reports in the literature regarding the neurophysiological effects of these retreats. This preliminary study presents the first data we are aware of on the neurophysiological effects, particularly those related to dopamine and serotonin, in a group of participants undergoing an intensive seven-day spiritual retreat. We used DaTscan single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in 14 individuals before and closely following participation in a seven-day spiritual retreat. We observed significant decreases in dopamine transporter binding in the basal ganglia and significant decreases in serotonin transporter binding in the midbrain after the retreat program. Participating in the retreat also resulted in significant changes in a variety of psychological and spiritual measures. We also report the relationship between neurophysiological and subjective measures along with a discussion of potential methodological challenges for future studies.


Business-process-management (BPM) systems are increasingly used in service-oriented architectures (SOA), coordinating activities of web services and of human actors. The openness and flexibility of SOA causes new challenges regarding security of business processes. This is because they have to deal with unexpected situations at run time. Respective solutions must be inherent to a BPM system (BPMS). Process implementers must explicitly model different security aspects of business processes, and the BPMS must combine them with run-time context to enforce security. However, existing BPMS do not address security issues in a way that is sufficiently broad. Thus, extensions are necessary, and they should integrate existing technology. The core contribution of this paper is to propose how to extend the WfMC reference architecture for BPMS to accomplish this, having identified different design alternatives. The resulting architecture is generic and integrates with existing SOA technologies like federated identity management. It is modular, making adaptations relatively easy. This has been hard to achieve because security aspects concern the entire system. Finally, our architecture can be used to implement the various business process security modelling approaches that have been presented in the literature.


There's a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care--nearly 44 percent of all deaths--and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape. Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life's most challenging and universal event. You will learn: -- Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits. -- With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely. -- Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live. Winner of the 2014 Independent Publisher Award Silver Medal in Aging/Death & Dying


OBJECTIVE
To determine the response rates to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer.

METHODS
Medical records of 161 women with breast cancer, registered at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital between July 2006 and March 2008 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were stratified into two groups based on the type of chemotherapy received; Group A (Anthracycline based regimens), Group B (Anthracycline and Taxane based regimens). Response rate was noted.

RESULTS
Clinical complete response rates by clinical examination were significantly higher in Group B as compared to Group A in both primary disease in breast and axillary nodes (39% vs. 20.3%, p = 0.01; 72.7% vs. 30.7%, p = 0.01, respectively). There was no difference in response rates by imaging between groups A and B in breast and axillary lymph nodes (12.5% vs. 17%, p = 0.4; 66.6% vs. 70.4%, p = 0.4, respectively). There was no difference in pCR rates between Group A and B (9.1% vs. 14.2%, p = 0.35). However, multivariate analysis showed significant increase in pCR rates by addition of taxanes (p = 0.028), in patients with poorly differentiated tumours (p = 0.028) and in those with axillary node negative disease by palpation (p = 0.016). There was no statistically significant difference in breast conservation rates between group A and B (25.4% vs. 36.7%, p = 0.1).

CONCLUSION
Addition of taxanes to anthracycline based regimens improved the pathological complete response in our patients with breast cancer.


Mice were thymectomized and depleted of CD4+ lymphocytes by treatment with monoclonal antibody to induce Pneumocystis carinii (PC) pneumonia (PCP). These mice were then exposed to aerosols of heat-treated Escherichia coli three times a week. Aerosol treatment for 10 d caused a slight reduction in numbers of PC nuclei in the lungs of mice, and treatment for 22 d resulted in nearly complete resolution of PCP. Large numbers of macrophages, polymorphonuclear leukocytes, and lymphocytes accumulated in lungs of aerosol-treated mice. Depletion of either CD8+ lymphocytes or asialo GM1+ cells that remained in the mice after CD4+ cell depletion had no effect on the ability of the mice to resolve PCP after E. coli aerosol treatments. However, depletion of Thy-1+ lymphocytes in these mice abrogated their ability to resolve PCP and reduced the numbers of macrophages that accumulated in the lungs. In addition, it was found that resolution of PCP induced by heat-treated E. coli aerosol treatments was also abrogated when mice were treated with polyclonal antibodies against tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF- alpha). Thus, resolution of PCP in CD4+ lymphocyte-depleted mice by heat-treated E. coli aerosols was not dependent on either CD8+ or asialo GM1+ cells but was dependent on Thy-1+CD4-CD8- lymphocytes and on the participation of TNF. These results indicate that heat-treated E. coli aerosols can act as an immune response modifier by inducing resolution of PCP in mice by a mechanism not dependent on the presence of CD4+ lymphocytes.


In this paper, we analyze the behavior of equilibrium real interest rates in an identical consumer economy in which the preferences are represented by time additive logarithmic utility functions and production technologies are Cobb-Douglas with stochastic constant returns to scale. The following main results are established.

(i)When there is no relative price uncertainty, it is shown that the equilibrium interest rate exhibits a mean reverting tendency. A nontrivial steady state distribution is found to exist for the equilibrium interest rate. The properties of the equilibrium interest rate are also derived and discussed.
(ii)In a multigood economy, even with additive preferences across goods, the equilibrium interest rates depend explicitly on relative prices. The substitution possibilities in production technologies induce this result. This is in contrast to the findings of Richard and Sundaresan [11] who show that the analytical general equilibrium term structure of interest rates formula of Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [5] is unaffected by the introduction of relative price uncertainty when the technologies are linear and hence involve no substitution.

Furthermore, we relate our results to those of Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [5], Breeden [3], and Richard and Sundaresan [11] with special emphasis on stochastic production and realtive price uncertainty.


Factor models for portfolio credit risk assume that defaults are independent conditional on a small number of systematic factors. This paper shows that the conditional independence assumption may be violated in one-factor models with constant default thresholds, as conditional defaults become independent only including a set of observable (time-lagged) risk factors. This result is confirmed both when we consider semi-annual default rates and if we focus on small firms. Maximum likelihood estimates for the sensitivity of default rates to systematic risk factors are obtained, showing how they may substantially vary across industry sectors. Finally, individual risk contributions are derived through Monte Carlo simulation.


Invasive predator control to protect native fauna usually takes place in native habitat. We investigated the effects of predator control across 6000 ha of multi-tenure, pastoral landscape in Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand. Since 2011, low-cost predator control has been conducted using a network of kill traps for mustelids (Mustela spp.), and live trapping for feral cats (Felis catus). Although not deliberately targeted, other invasive mammals (particularly hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus) were also trapped. We monitored predators and native prey in the predator-removal area and an adjacent non-treatment area. Predator populations were monitored using large tracking tunnels, which also detected native lizards. Invertebrates were monitored using artificial shelters (weta houses). Occupancy modelling showed that site use by cats and hedgehogs was significantly lower in the predator-removal area than in the non-treatment area. Site use by mustelids also appeared to be lower in the treatment area, although sample sizes were too small to allow firm conclusions. Site use by invasive rats (Rattus spp.) was higher in the treatment area, while that of house mice (Mus musculus) showed no difference between treatments. There was evidence of positive responses of some native biodiversity, with site use by native lizards increasing significantly in the treatment area, but not in the non-treatment area. Counts of native cockroaches were higher in the treatment area, but other invertebrates were detected in similar numbers in both areas. Our results show that low-cost predator control in a pastoral landscape can reduce invasive predator populations, with apparent benefits for some, but not all, native fauna.


The transcriptional coactivator and tyrosine phosphatase EYA4 also acts as a threonine phosphatase to enhance innate immune responses. In addition to responding to bacteria and viruses by detecting pathogen-associated molecular patterns, macrophages are also activated by host-derived, damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). One such DAMP is chromosomal DNA released from apoptotic cells, which is usually taken up by macrophages and degraded by DNase II. Noting that mice deficient in DNase II produce excessive amounts of interferon-β (IFN-β) and CXCL10 when exposed to undigested DNA, Okabe et al. screened a mouse embryonic fibroblast cDNA library for candidates that could enhance this response. The authors identified Eyes absent 4 (EYA4), a transcriptional coactivator with tyrosine phosphatase activity, as a factor that, when overexpressed in transfected DNase II–deficient cells, enhanced their production of IFN-β and CXCL10 in response to DNA. EYA4 also enhanced the responses of transfected wild-type cells infected with various viruses compared with those of control-transfected cells but did not enhance responses to stimulation of cell-surface Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Analysis of mutant forms of EYA4 showed that, in addition to the tyrosine phosphatase activity associated with its C-terminal half, EYA4 possessed threonine phosphatase activity associated with its N-terminal region. Furthermore, mutations that abrogated its threonine phosphatase activity, but not those that prevented its tyrosine phosphatase activity, blocked the ability of EYA4 to enhance innate immune responses in transfected cells. In addition, EYA4 physically interacted with some cytosolic factors that are involved in the detection of nucleic acids, such as IPS-1. Together, these data suggest that EYA4 plays a cytosolic role in the innate immune response by regulating the threonine phosphorylation status of signaling molecules involved in this response. Y. Okabe, T. Sano, S. Nagata, Regulation of the innate immune response by threonine-phosphatase of Eyes absent. Nature 460, 520–524 (2009).[PubMed]


In most personalized mobile services, the user model remains invisible, and users do not have control over it. Externalization of user models can allow users to get an overview the user model that is used for personalization, and adjust the profile and personalization effects to their needs and preferences. We have evaluated the interactive user model with 42 users, which were exposed to a prototype of interactive user model of personalized news service, for determining whether the proposed externalization, scrutability and privacy privileges were acceptable to the users. The purpose of the study was to find out if it is appropriate to present a user model on the mobile device and to control the sharing of the user model with the service provider. The conclusions show that the users expressed their general approval of the proposed privileges while making useful suggestions regarding improvements to the presentation and interface to the system.


Balancing a normal pencil on its tip requires rapid feedback control with latencies on the order of milliseconds. This demonstration shows how a pair of spike-based silicon retina dynamic vision sensors (DVS) is used to provide fast visual feedback for controlling an actuated table to balance an ordinary pencil. Two DVSs view the pencil from right angles. Movements of the pencil cause spike address-events (AEs) to be emitted from the DVSs. These AEs are transmitted to a PC over USB interfaces and are processed procedurally in real time. The PC updates its estimate of the pencil's location and angle in 3d space upon each incoming AE, applying a novel tracking method based on spike-driven fitting to a model of the vertical shape of the pencil. A PD-controller adjusts X-Y-position and velocity of the table to maintain the pencil balanced upright. The controller also minimizes the deviation of the pencil's base from the center of the table. The actuated table is built using ordinary high-speed hobby servos which have been modified to obtain feedback from linear position encoders via a microcontroller. Our system can balance any small, thin object such as a pencil, pen, chop-stick, or rod for many minutes. Balancing is only possible when incoming AEs are processed as they arrive from the sensors, typically at intervals below millisecond ranges. Controlling at normal image sensor sample rates (e.g. 60 Hz) results in too long latencies for a stable control loop.


This study is part of a project designed to accompany the process of internationalization of German universities. We examine interactions between advisors and advisees conducted in the lingua franca English in two engineering programs. Using recorded office-hours interactions and interviews, we explore the way the professional identity of the advisors is affected in case their linguistic competence is noticeably lower than the lower-status actors. Due to the particular features of the education of German Engineers, we integrate both interactional micro- and macro-contexts in our analysis. The findings show that while macro-contextual social factors seem to play an important role, it is interactants' use of self-help strategies to compensate for their linguistic lacunae that is crucial for preserving their identity in discourse.