This thesis contributes to the domain of awareness information. Awareness information can be viewed as a fundamental building-block of social media, visualizing people and their activities in an online setting. With life becoming more and more influenced by social media such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Linkedin and Digg, it becomes important for designers of social media to have an understanding of how users respond to awareness information. An online gallery of pictures was developed and equipped with a chat and a basic awareness information system. Usage data was collected by the system and analyzed combining qualitative as well as quantitative approaches aiming to explore the influence awareness information have on the usage of the system. The analysis reveals that awareness information is a powerful tool triggering social behaviour. It is, at the same time, challenging to implement in a way that it provides a sound environment for social interaction. This was manifested by co-present users both stayed longer in the system and also was inclined to take a different path through the gallery than the solitary user. However, the interaction that took place in the gallery was characterized by frequent conversational break-downs and irritation among users. Results indicate that this is, in part, due to the lack of built-in social norms guiding users in their activities in the system. Subsequently, it is important to facilitate the creation, recreation and reinforcement of social norms when designing social systems.


A limited liability partnership (LLP) is first a general partnership that makes a special election for LLP status, thereby achieving limited liability for the partners. Many states, including New Jersey and Kentucky, require that, in order for a law firm to elect LLP status, it must have in place malpractice insurance or similar protections for clients. The rules as to the maintenance of malpractice insurance are, however, generally silent as to the consequences when that requirement is not satisfied.


Experimental investigation was performed with a 1064-nm, 10-ns Nd:YAG laser to determine the effects of the surface hydrogen acid etching on laser damage, compared with damage of conventionally polished surface. The investigation was helpful for us to understand the negative effects of Nd-doped phosphate glass surface and subsurface damage (SSD) on laser induced damage threshold (LIDT). A set of samples was polished, and then chemically etched in a cool buffered 10%HF + 20%H2SO4 solution at different times. Another set of samples was ground and etched in the hot-buffered solution, and then polished. All the samples were irradiated with Nd: YAG laser and characterized by optical microscopy. Results of LIDT were obtained according to International standard ISO/DIS 11254-1.2. Chemical treatment can remove the contaminants in the polished re-deposition layer and the SSD for improving the laser damage resistance of Nd-doped phosphate glass surfaces. The method of using hot solution was more effective than that of using cool solution.


Climate change forced displacement and resettlement is becoming a pressing topic as the impacts of sea level rise, drought, and severe tropical storms increasingly impact communities' livelihoods. As communities and entire nations are forced to resettle, how will basic social and cultural structures be maintained? The transportation of resilient sociocultural patterns becomes essential for maintaining the health and well-being of a community. Thus, the investigation of the dialectic relationship between culture and the builtenvironment is essential in the Anthropocene. Through a multi-sited case study of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, this paper demonstrates the use of Indigenous Knowledge within the production of the built environment to negotiate the relationships between the social world, the natural world, and the colonial world. Three communities were studied spanning rural, peri-urban, and urban environments in order to demonstrate the application of Indigenous Knowledge across space and time in the production of the built-environment. Participant observation, unstructured interviews, mental mapping exercises, site documentation, and aerial mapping were among the methods used for data collection in order to triangulate evidence. A framework of six systems of Indigenous Design Knowledge were uncovered; each have aided the Marshallese in the production of culturally-supportive environments in the face of colonization, urbanization, and the imposition of U.S. imperialism. While further investigation in the cultural production of space in the Marshallese Diaspora is required, it is argued that this framework of Marshallese Design Knowledge should be employed in the planning, design, and management of any future resettlement proposal to assist communities in the maintenance of healthy socio-cultural patterns through the cultural production of the built-environment. Furthermore, the methods and approach taken in this study demonstrate a useful framework for investigating the dialectic relationship between culture and the builtenvironment for other climate diasporas.


In thermal light ghost imaging, the transparent mask, located in the object arm of the optical setup, is numerically reconstructed by correlating the speckle patterns acquired by the video camera with the output of a bucket detector placed behind the mask. We show that the visibility of images can be significantly improved by discarding every speckle pattern whose bucket output falls below a certain threshold. We also demonstrate that the efficiency of the conventional method strongly decreases when the speckle statistics deviate from the negative exponential, whereas the threshold method is more robust against changes in the statistical distribution of the speckle intensity. We also provide reasonable statistical explanations for these results.


The aim of this thesis is to price options on equity index futures with an application to standard options on S&P 500 futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Our methodology is based on stochastic dynamic programming, which can accommodate European as well as American options. The model accommodates dividends from the underlying asset. It also captures the optimal exercise strategy and the fair value of the option. This approach is an alternative to available numerical pricing methods such as binomial trees, finite differences, and ad-hoc numerical approximation techniques. Our numerical and empirical investigations demonstrate convergence, robustness, and efficiency. We use this methodology to value exchange-listed options. The European option premiums thus obtained are compared to Black's closed-form formula. They are accurate to four digits. The American option premiums also have a similar level of accuracy compared to premiums obtained using finite differences and binomial trees with a large number of time steps. The proposed model accounts for deterministic, seasonally varying dividend yield. In pricing futures options, we discover that what matters is the sum of the dividend yields over the life of the futures contract and not their distribution.


Embedding games in networks creates trust when the network is sufficiently dense and/or the players are sufficiently central. But, while much existing research examines how formal reputation signals, like ratings or reviews, enhance trust and facilitate market transactions, almost no research explores the role of networked social signals in generating trust in such marketplaces. Here, we measure the extent to which situating transactions in networks can generate trust in online marketplaces with an empirical approach that provides external validity while eliminating many potential confounds. Using micro-level data on ~1.6M sales posts in Facebook buy and sell groups, we find that both increased network density and seller degree centrality increase two-sided interest in transacting. These results suggest that network structure can produce trust in marketplace transactions and imply that network-based trust mechanisms can offer an appealing alternative to formal reputation systems in mitigating moral hazard and adverse selection in digital marketplaces.


Laser generated ultrasonic waves is numerically simulated by mass spring lattice model by considering the laser illumination as a vertical force, which is valid in the ablation regime. Few surface acoustic wave modes including surface skimming longitudinal wave, surface skimming shear wave, and Rayleigh-like wave are recorded in aluminum and copper plates. The results indicate that the excitation efficiency of ultrasound in aluminum plate is higher than that in copper plate. The normal component of the displacement at the epicenter has only the longitudinal wave mode and the shear wave mode appears wthen the detection position has a deviation from the epicenter. In addition, the amplitude increases and the arrive time delays with the deviation distance.


The objectives of the study were (a) to identify the reasons and concerns of those public administrators and marketing scholars who do not accept the usefulness of marketing in the public sector; (b) to deconstruct, comprehend, interpret, and critically appraise the current conceptualization of public sector marketing from the viewpoint of negativists identified in step (a); and (c) to reconstruct, redefine, reinterpret, and reoperationalize the current controversial conceptualization of public sector marketing into a new conceptualization in the context of park and recreation services. The critical theory approach to the study primary used non-empirical procedures data collection and analytic procedures which included investigative research, negative case analysis, and theoretical triangulation. These procedures were supplemented with empirical data collected from in-depth interviews with five scholars and with three parks and recreation managers. Results of the non-empirical procedures revealed the biased selective nature of the current conceptualization of public park and recreation marketing and the existence of alternative conceptualizations which have been ignored. The existing and alternative models were discussed with scholars and park and recreation managers. Support was found for the alternative models. From these data an alternative conceptualization of public park and recreation marketing was developed and named the concept of administered marketing. Implications for park and recreation managers are discussed. Directions for future research into the administratively managed park and recreation marketing concept are suggested.


The number of products capable of displaying stereoscopic (also known as 3D) images has been growing in recent years. The use of this technology has outgrown the silver screen and is now available in televisions, computers, tablets, and even cell phones. Due to its nature, content created for stereoscopic media requires attention in relation to some characteristics not present in the context of monoscopic media. With a focus on image creation, the objective of this research was to assess how different stereoscopic image generation methods can affect human perception. To achieve this a virtual environment was created and from it different videos were generated using various methods including converging cameras, parallel cameras, and depth image-based rendering (DIBR). These videos were shown to participants who assessed the picture quality, depth quality, and visual comfort of the media. It was found that there was very little difference between the perception of images generated by parallel and convergent cameras, while there was a substantial difference in terms of perception between these two types of image and DIBR images. Such results can significantly affect the choice of technology for stereoscopic image generation, influencing the production costs, the methods involved, and human and machine time consumption.


Multiple strategies for standing balance have been observed in humans, including using the ankles to apply torque to the ground, using the hips and/or arms to generate horizontal ground forces, and using the knees and hips to squat. This paper shows that multiple strategies can arise from the same optimization criterion. It is likely that humanoid robots will exhibit the same balance strategies as humans.


Abstract This article looks at the characteristics of contemporary sports audiences from the perspective of gender, focusing on the phenomenon of female ultras or 'professional' football fans. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in an Italian football ultras group composed of male and female fans, this paper offers an analysis of female participation in communities of organized supporters. In examining the role and position of women inside the considered group, the paper pays attention to their perception of the existing gender differences showing how female ultras explain inequalities on the basis of 'natural' and 'innate' differences and capacities between men and women. Existing patterns of male dominance are supported by female fans' own discourses and performance of their gender identity in the 'male preserve'. Rather than questioning male dominance and gender hierarchies, female supporters' efforts appear aimed at being recognized as ultras 'despite being women'.


Among the ambitious challenges to be met by the third-generation systems is to provide high-capacity flexible services. Code-division multiple access (CDMA) emerges as a promising candidate to meet these challenges. It is well known that CDMA systems are interference-limited, and interference management is needed to maximally utilize the potential gains of this access scheme. Several methods of controlling and/or suppressing the interference through power control, multiuser detection (temporal filtering), and receiver beamforming (spatial filtering) have been proposed to increase the capacity of CDMA systems up to date. We investigate the capacity increase that is possible by combining power control with intelligent temporal and spatial receiver filter design. The signal-to-interference ratio maximizing joint temporal-spatial receiver filters in unconstrained and constrained filter spaces are derived. Two-step iterative power control algorithms that converge to the optimum powers and the joint temporal and spatial receiver filters in the corresponding filter domains are given. A power control algorithm with a less complex filter update procedure is also given. We observe that significant savings in total transmit power are possible if filtering in both domains is utilized compared with conventional power control and joint optimal power control and filtering in only one domain.


Frequency mismatches between resonators significantly impact the spectral responses of coupled resonator filters, such as high-order microring filters. In this paper, techniques allowing fabrication of frequency-matched high-index-contrast resonators are proposed, demonstrated, and analyzed. The main approach consists of inducing small dimensional changes in the resonators through alteration of the electron-beam dose used to expose either the actual resonator on a wafer or its image on a lithographic mask to be later used in filter fabrication. Third-order microring filters fabricated in silicon-rich silicon nitride, with optical resonator frequencies matched to better than 1 GHz, are reported. To achieve this, the average ring-waveguide widths of the microrings are matched to within less than 26 pm of a desired relative width offset. Furthermore, optimization and calibration procedures allowing strict dimensional control and smooth sidewalls are presented. A 5-nm dimensional control is demonstrated, and the standard deviation of sidewall roughness is reduced to below 1.6 nm.


Presenting the psychology of language from diverse perspectives, Language and Its Normal Processing explains how language is defined and how it is shaped by the social, perceptual and cognitive constraints of the user, and what role biology plays in shaping language structure. Vivien Tartter not only takes readers through the basic controversies in the field, but also explores sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and second language reading and writing. The role of social processes is emphasized in constructing meaning, in language and literacy acquisition, and in language change. The book covers typical language processing in normal individuals, with thorough updates of relevant literature on the structure, processing and acquisition of semantic, syntactic and phonetic systems in language.


The link between mental stress and cancer is still a belief, not a well established scientific fact. Scientists have relied largely on opinions of cancer stricken patients to establish a link between stress and cancer. Such opinion surveys tend to produce contradictory statistical inferences. Although it is difficult to conduct scientific experiments on humans similar to those on animals, human history is replete with "experiments" that have caused enormous stress on some human populations. The objective of this exercise is to draw evidence from one such massive experiment, the Cultural Revolution in China. Cancer data from Shanghai analyzed through an age-period-cohort technique show very strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that mental stress causes cancer.


Understanding the behaviorally-mediated indirect effects of predators in ecosystems requires knowledge of predator-prey behavioral interactions, and the risk allocation hypothesis can be used to make predictions about such interactions. In predator-ungulate-plant systems, empirical research quantifying how predators affect ungulate group sizes and distribution, in the context of other influential variables, is particularly needed. We determined non-predation variables that affect elk (Cervus elaphus) group sizes and distribution on a winter range in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), using regression analyses of 1219 elk groups counted and mapped over 12 years prior to wolf (Canis lupus) recolonization. We next examined the relevance of these non-wolf-predation variables in the presence of wolves using logistic and linear regression on surveys of 513 1-km areas conducted over 2 years. Using model selection techniques, we evaluated risk allocation and other a priori hypotheses of elk group size and distributional responses to wolf predation risk while accounting for influential nonwolf-predation variables. We found little evidence that wolves affect elk group sizes, which were strongly influenced by habitat type. Following predictions from the risk allocation hypothesis, wolves likely created a more dynamic elk distribution in areas that they frequently hunted, as elk tended to move during the period of safety following wolf encounters in those areas. We predict that this distributional response to wolf predation risk should decrease the spatial heterogeneity of elk impacts on grasslands in areas that wolves frequently hunt. We also predict that this response should decrease browsing pressure on heavily-browsed woody plant stands in certain areas, which is supported by recent research in the GYE. This research highlights the importance of predator-prey behavioral interactions in large mammal systems.


E-resources are very important tool in the field of Engineering and Technology; it provides vital information for academic and research development. In mid 1990s, e- resources were not popular in India. But now it competes with the print media as it is very easy to use, easily accessible and requires very less storage space. The only limitation of e-resources is that it is costly for a self financing engineering college. In order to overcome this limitation, AICTE provides Mandatory e-resources at consortia prices for all engineering colleges. This paper deals with analysis of the impact and awareness of electronic information resources on the basis of factors such as availability of e-resources, frequency of usage of e-resources, purpose of e-resources, and roadblocks in accessing e-resources in RMDEC Library. It is observed that users access e-resources effectively, especially utilizing it in their area of research and academic curriculum in the field of science, engineering and technology.


Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become a highly popular form of corporate development. The research in the M&A field is extensive, but there is a lack of research regarding how external relations are affected when the M&As do not work out as planned, and whether competitors can win if the M&A fails. This study explores whether and how an M&A that struggles affects its external relations. The study was conducted using a case study of a well-known, struggling Norwegian M&A: SAS Braathens, and the external relations examined were the competitors, the customers, and the media. The main finding of this paper shows that an M&A that struggles can affect its external relations negatively. To what degree the external relations will be affected, depends on the change in market structure and the market share of the M&A, how differentiated the products in the industry are, existing substitutes, and if the struggling affects the public or not. Further, this paper finds that the main reasons for SAS Braathens struggle can be traced back to poor communication and the management.


We describe the development and performance analysis of two clinical near-infrared fluorescence image-guided surgery (FIGS) devices that aim to overcome some of the limitations of current FIGS systems. The devices operate in a widefield-imaging mode and can work (1) in conjunction with a laparoscope, during minimally invasive surgery, and (2) as a hand-held, open surgery imaging system. In both cases, narrow-band excitation light, delivered at multiple wavelengths, is efficiently combined with white reflectance light. Light is delivered to ~100 cm2 surgical field at 1-2 mW/cm2 for white light and 3-7 mW/cm2 (depending on wavelength) of red - near infrared excitation, at a typical working distance of 350 mm for the hand-held device and 100 mm for the laparoscope. A single, sensitive, miniaturized color camera collects both fluorescence and white reflectance light. The use of a single imager eliminates image alignment and software overlay complexity. A novel filtering and illumination arrangement allows simultaneous detection of white reflectance and fluorescence emission from multiple dyes in real-time. We will present both fluorescence detection sensitivity modeling and practical performance data. We have demonstrated the efficiency and the advantages of the devices both pre-clinically and during live surgery on humans. Both the hand-held and the laparoscopic systems have proved to be reliable and beneficial in an ongoing clinical trial involving sentinel lymph node detection in gynecological cancers. We will show preliminary results using two clinically approved dyes, Methylene blue and indocyanine green. We anticipate that this technology can be integrated and routinely used in a larger variety of surgical procedures.


In this paper, we examine how the business and interest rate cycles in developed countries affect FDI to developing countries. After aggregating flows into three big source areas (the U.S., Europe and Japan), we find FDI flows to be countercyclical with respect to both output and interest rate cycles in the first two, whereas in Japan they display either no cyclical behavior or mild procyclical behavior. This finding is consistent with the fact that FDI outflows and local investment tend to move in opposite directions during the cycles in the U.S. and Europe, reflecting investors' arbitrage among different investment opportunities. In sum, and contrary to what is usually claimed, we conclude that recessions in industrial countries are likely to increase FDI flows, particularly to those countries with close ties with the U.S. and Europe.


Аbstract. The aim of the present study was to perform a comparative evaluation of technological traits of industrial batches of Bulgarian and imported semifine wool. The study was carried out in an industrial setting in cooperation with Kolhida Ltd, Sliven. A total of 18 batches originating from Bulgaria (n=10), Serbia (n=6) and the Netherlands (n=2) among which 4 batches of greasy wool, 7 batches of clean wool and 7 batches of wool sliver were studied. The primary processing of wool batches comprising classification, washing and carding was performed by textile enterprise's standard technology. After the classification, the relative shares of wool types from the total amount of greasy wool in a batch were determined. The washing yield of classified greasy medium wool was calculated. The following laboratory analyses of clean wool were carried out: fibre diameter (μm), mean weighted length (mm), short fibre percentage (%), fatness (%), mineral matter content (dustiness %), vegetable matter content (%) and moisture (%). For slivers, sliver yield (%), fibre diameter (measured with OFDI), mean weighted length (mm), length В (mm), short fibre percentage (%) and moisture (%) were determined. In Bulgarian and Serbian batches, high-grade wool types predominated with highest share of the merino worsted wool (70.54% and 63.70%; 60.66% and 46.64%, respectively). The highest industrial washing yield was that of Dutch wool – 63.89%. Yields of Serbian and Bulgarian batches were similar (53.73%-56.39% and 53.20%-55.89%, respectively). The highest mean weighted length of fibres was determined for Dutch wool – 74.87 mm. Serbian and Bulgarian batches were comparable with respect to this trait: 63.95-65.71 mm and 62.92-65.88 mm respectively. The vegetable matter in studied wool batches was higher than requirements of the standard – from 1.29% tо 2.24% vs the reference of 1.2%. The highest vegetable matter content was found in the wool from two Bulgarian batches (1.65% and 2.24%), one Serbian (1.82%), and the Dutch batch (1.92%). Sliver yield varied from 81.31% tо 86.91% in studied wool slivers. The highest values of this trait were found out in 3 Bulgarian wool slivers (86.91%; 85.79% and 84.48%) and the Dutch sliver (84.13%).


Introduction: Comparing the results of students' evaluation and faculty members' self-evaluation can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of faculty members in teaching. The aim of this study was to compare students' evaluation of teaching and faculty members' self-evaluation in School of Health in Bandar Abbas. Methods: The population under study in this cross-sectional survey was faculty members and students of School of Health in Bandar Abbas University of Medical Sciences. Twenty faculty members selected through census sampling method evaluated themselves. In addition to self-evaluation, each faculty member was evaluated by 20 students who were selected randomly. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire consisted of 20 questions with 5 point Likert scale. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The mean of the faculty members' self evaluation scores was 89.7±6.3 and the mean of this evaluation by students was 85.1±6.5 which demonstrated a significant difference. The correlation coefficient between the scores of self-evaluation and evaluation by students was 0.26. The scores of self-evaluation for most faculty members (75 percents), was higher than the scores of evaluation by students. Conclusion: The results of faculty members' self-evaluation are exploitable for improving the quality of teaching. It is recommended that faculty members take students' evaluation of teaching into consideration more seriously.


Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) have demonstrated amazing ability to synthesize images of 3D scenes from novel views. However, they rely upon specialized volumetric rendering algorithms based on ray marching that are mismatched to the capabilities of widely deployed graphics hardware. This paper introduces a new NeRF representation based on textured polygons that can synthesize novel images efficiently with standard rendering pipelines. The NeRF is represented as a set of polygons with textures representing binary opacities and feature vectors. Traditional rendering of the polygons with a z-buffer yields an image with features at every pixel, which are interpreted by a small, view-dependent MLP running in a fragment shader to produce a final pixel color. This approach enables NeRFs to be rendered with the traditional polygon rasterization pipeline, which provides massive pixel-level parallelism, achieving interactive frame rates on a wide range of compute platforms, including mobile phones. Project page: https://mobile-nerf.github.io


This much is certain: bank-managed mutual funds are on a growth track. From 1992 through the middle of 1997, the assets of proprietary bank funds grew from $154 billion to $429 billion, as bank-managed funds increased their share of total fund assets from just under 10% to almost 12%. At the same time, the total number of proprietary bank funds climbed from 958 to 2,568, keeping pace with brisk industry trends. Encouraging as those numbers are, there is still a nagging question when it comes to bank funds: are they actually making money for banks? Put another way, are banks able to bring the impressive profits of non-bank mutual funds down to the bottom line of their own fund operations? When we looked at this issue in late 1991, evidence suggested that banks had not yet found the right formula to turn bank funds into a significant contributor to profits. Now that bank funds have almost six more years of growth and experience to show, we decided to revisit the issue. We asked Michael Lipper, president of Lipper Analytical Services and the expert who wrote about bank funds for us in 1991, to lay out how bank funds have evolved since then. We wanted to know what progress banks have made what problems remain, and what the future holds for banks as investment managers and marketers of mutual funds Q. Back in 1991, when you looked at the issue for us, you said that banks were slow to realize that the mutual fund business is "first and foremost a marketing business." How have banks changed their sales and marketing efforts to reflect this reality? LIPPER: Banks are not just selling through banks anymore. The big (bank) players see all mutual funds--not just bank mutual funds--as competitors, and they are buying non-bank fund families and brokerage firms to gain access to other distribution channels. One example is First Union's Evergreen Keystone fund family, and its recent announcement that it will buy Wheat First Securities. Others are Banker's Trust's acquisition of Alex Brown; Bank of America's purchase of Robertson Stephens; and NationsBank's acquisition of Montgomery Securities. Also, banks previously jumped into this market so they wouldn't be "left behind." There wasn't necessarily a lot of forethought as to where they were headed. Now banks are more forward looking. They are expanding their product lines by offering more equity funds and more international exposure. Major banks are also doing more national advertising, such as the Nations-Funds ad campaign in the Wall Street Journal, and ads by Mellon-owned Dreyfus and Evergreen Keystone funds in magazines like Money or Mutual Funds. Q. Are banks making good use of the Internet to sell and distribute information about their funds? LIPPER: Major banks have web sites that include information on mutual funds. Others have dedicated web sites for their funds. These include Dreyfus, Evergreen Keystone, Nations, Norwest, Galaxy, Compass and Key funds, as well as some smaller groups like Amcore, Rembrandt and Marshall funds. I'm unsure about the impact of these web sites on mutual fund sales. But if the issue is whether this is a profitable way to generate sales leads, the answer is yes. The cost to generate a lead (through the Internet) is less than it is with other methods. Q. It's apparent from these changes that banks have made a lot of progress in playing catch-up in the competitive fund business. What impact have these changes had on profits? LIPPER: The dollars have certainly gotten bigger. The real growth has been on the institutional side, through trust conversions. But profit is still in the future in any sort of meaningful way. This is an expensive business to be in. Fund introductions are costly, and there is significant competition for talent at all levels. This is a game of distribution points. You need to have a large number of distribution points. …


The Open Internet issue while not as hotly topical as a few years back continues to be a fundamental part of the policy debate here in the United States. Interestingly, in other countries, such as the Republic of Korea, this debate is very active, because of some fundamentally different implementation choices. In this paper we will explore these choices and the motivation behind them. In their Open Internet Order, the FCC adopted three basic rules in which broadband providers: must disclose network management practices; may not block lawful content/applications/services/devices; and may not unreasonably discriminate against lawful traffic. They further stated that mobile broadband providers may not block websites or applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services. Since the adoption of this Order, there has been littleIn 2011, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) developed their open Internet guidelines; however these guidelines proved insufficient to cope with the complex issues that arose when Samsung Electronics launched Smart TV and Kakao Talk launched Voice Talk (a free mobile VoIP service). One of the major mobile carriers, Korea Telecom (KT), decided to block Smart TV, and announced that it would block Voice Talk service unless subscribers or service providers pay extra. While the KCC initially took action on KT not to block Smart TV, in June 2012 it came out with a decision allowing operators to be able to restrict access to these mVoIP services for a rational traffic management, provoking an immediate backlash from subscribers and advocates.After hearing divergent opinions through several policy debates, in July 2012, KCC published a tentative document, 'The Guidelines for Reasonable Traffic Management & Use in the Internet,' which gave specification to the prior basic guideline of 2011. Of note, these guidelines focus on implementation of allowable traffic management. Here, KCC allowed the mobile carriers (KT, SKT, LGU ) to charge a premium for voice service by discriminating subscribers based on the level of subscription rate, which the FCC disallows. Interestingly, the smallest mobile carrier, LGU , stated that it would allow its subscribers to access the Kakao Talk service as part of their existing data subscription plans – with no usage limitations and no additional charges – a stance that riled the larger carriers.In this paper, we will describe the contrasting approaches and then consider what motivated these differences and the consequence they might have on the overall openness and operation of the Internet. In our initial analysis, we see that the differences between these country's approaches are driven by differing: 1) attitudes concerning Internet liberalism 2) user expectations, 3) network histories, 4) relationships between the regulator and the carriers, 4) maturity of the application industry, 6) and competitive environments in the market. We plan to expand on this analysis through a rigorous review of the legal records and scholarly work in this area. It is our hope that this work will help international efforts to harmonize of a common understanding of Internet Openness.


This review considers the history of the discovery of the rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) and its spread throughout the world in domestic and wild rabbits, which led eventually to its deliberate release into Australia and New Zealand for the control of a major pest, the introduced wild rabbit. The physical and genetic structure of RHDV is now well understood, and its pathogenic effects are also well known. The epidemiology of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) has been clearly documented in the field in European countries, Australia and New Zealand. Since its initial spread through largely naive populations of wild rabbits it has established a pattern of mainly annual epizootics in most areas. The timing of epizootics is dependent on climatic variables that determine when rabbits reproduce and the appearance of new, susceptible rabbits in the population. The activity of RHDV is also influenced by climatic extremes that presumably affect its persistence and the behaviour of insect vectors, and evidence is growing that pre-existing RHDV-like viruses in some parts of Australia may interact with RHDV, reducing its effectiveness. The timing of epizootics is further modified by the resistance to RHD shown by young rabbits below 5 weeks of age and the presence of protective maternal antibodies that also protect against fatal RHD. RHD has reduced rabbit abundance, particularly in dry regions, but rabbits in cooler, high-rainfall areas have been able to maintain their populations. In Australia and New Zealand, RHD has raised the prospects for managing rabbits in low rainfall areas and brought substantial economic and environmental benefits.


Antibacterial, antifungal activity and MIC values of the acetone, methanol and chloroform extracts of the lichen Bryoria capillaris (Ach.) and its barbatolic acid constituent have been investigated against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi using disk-diffusion method. Microplate Alamar Blue Assay was also carried out to determine the antitubercular activity. The extracts of lichen were shown considerable antimicrobial effect to tested pathogenic microorganisms. Also, the isolated compound barbatolic acid significantly affected against the infectious pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv with a MIC value of 31.25 μg/ml. Present study is the first report on antimicrobial activities of barbatolic acid constituent of lichen B. capillaris.


We summarise recent work on the quantum production of black holes in the inflationary era. We describe, in simple terms, the Euclidean approach used, and the results obtained both for the pair creation rate and for the evolution of the black holes.


Abstract
Introduction: Although Ethiopia is one of the least urbanized countries in the world, the pace at which urbanization increases is unprecedented. During the last twenty years, urbanization has expanded rapidly and is estimated to be at 38% in 2050 from the current proportion of 19%. Despite the fact that urbanization is associated with relatively, better access to social services including health, residents in urban setting are believed to suffer from health disparities in health indicators such as use of Antenatal care (ANC), institutional delivery and postpartum care (PNC). This study aims to identify reasons why urban women fail to use available maternal health services in selected urban settings in Ethiopia.
Methods: A qualitative study using focus group discussions and in-depth interview was conducted in six purposively selected urban settings such as Adama, Dire Dawa, Hawassa, Debre Berhan, Gondar, and Mekelle. A total of 11 Focus Group Discussions and 40 in-depth-interviews were completed with residents of these urban settings who were living in the section of urban setting characterized as slum. The data collected were categorized in to themes and analyzed using thematic method.
Results: Study participants anonymously argued that there are positive changes in maternal health service utilization in all study settings over the years. However, students, daily laborers, widows, divorced and separated women, commercial sex workers, house maids, and migrants were found to be reluctant in using maternal health services such ANC follow-up, institutional delivery and PNC. Reasons were found to be attributed to individual characteristics, perceived capacities of health facilities and friendliness of service providers and socio-cultural factors including socially sanctioned expectations at community level in connection with pregnancy, delivery and postpartum.
Conclusion: Although service utilization in urban setting is believed to have been relatively better over the years, still women in urban settings do not use available maternal health services. Especially women living in slum areas tend to neglect use of available health services. This study suggests that blanket programmatic approach should give way to intervention that target specific section of population. Furthermore, programs are expected to be tailored to addresses individual, institutional and socio-cultural factors in tandem to improve maternal health service utilization in urban setting. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2017;31(2):96-102]
Key words: Maternal Health Services, Urban Health, Social Determinant of Health, Ethiopia


Abstract. Turkey is a country located in the middle latitude zone, where tectonic activity is intensive. Recently, an earthquake of magnitude 6.5  Mw occurred offshore in the Aegean Sea on 24 May 2014 at 09:25 UTC, which lasted about 40 s. The earthquake was also felt in Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria in addition to Turkey. In recent years, ionospheric anomaly detection studies have been carried out because of seismicity with total electron content (TEC) computed from the global navigation satellite system's (GNSS) signal delays and several interesting findings have been published. In this study, both TEC and positional variations have been examined separately following a moderate size earthquake in the Aegean Sea. The correlation of the aforementioned ionospheric variation with the positional variation has also been investigated. For this purpose, a total of 15 stations was used, including four continuously operating reference stations in Turkey (CORS-TR) and stations in the seismic zone (AYVL, CANA, IPSA, and YENC), as well as international GNSS service (IGS) and European reference frame permanent network (EPN) stations. The ionospheric and positional variations of the AYVL, CANA, IPSA, and YENC stations were examined using Bernese v5.0 software. When the precise point positioning TEC (PPP-TEC) values were examined, it was observed that the TEC values were approximately 4 TECU (total electron content unit) above the upper-limit TEC value at four stations located in Turkey, 3 days before the earthquake at 08:00 and 10:00 UTC. At the same stations, on the day before the earthquake at 06:00, 08:00, and 10:00 UTC, the TEC values were approximately 5 TECU below the lower-limit TEC value. The global ionosphere model TEC (GIM-TEC) values published by the Centre for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) were also examined. Three days before the earthquake, at all stations, it was observed that the TEC values in the time period between 08:00 and 10:00 UTC were approximately 2 TECU above the upper-limit TEC value; 1 day before the earthquake at 06:00, 08:00, and 10:00 UTC, the TEC values were approximately 4 TECU below the lower-limit TEC value. Again, by using the same 15 stations, positional variation investigation for before and after the earthquake was undertaken for the AYVL, CANA, IPSA, and YENC stations. As a result of the conducted analysis, positional displacements were seen before and after the earthquake at the CANA station, which is the nearest station to the earthquake centre. Before and after the earthquake, positional displacements were observed as 10 and 3 cm respectively.


In this paper, we propose a technique based on genetic programming (GP) for meshfree solution of elliptic partial differential equations. We employ the least-squares collocation principle to define an appropriate objective function, which is optimized using GP. Two approaches are presented for the repair of the symbolic expression for the field variables evolved by the GP algorithm to ensure that the governing equations as well as the boundary conditions are satisfied. In the case of problems defined on geometrically simple domains, we augment the solution evolved by GP with additional terms, such that the boundary conditions are satisfied by construction. To satisfy the boundary conditions for geometrically irregular domains, we combine the GP model with a radial basis function network. We improve the computational efficiency and accuracy of both techniques with gradient boosting, a technique originally developed by the machine learning community. Numerical studies are presented for operator problems on regular and irregular boundaries to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithms.


Islam and the Destiny of Man by Charles Le Gai Eaton is a wide-ranging study of the Muslim religion from a unique point of view. The author, a former member of the British Diplomatic Service, was brought up as an agnostic and embraced Islam at an early age after writing a book (commissioned by T.S. Eliot) on Eastern religions and their influence upon Western thinkers. As a Muslim he has retained his adherence to the perennial philosophy which, he maintains, underlies the teachings of all the great religions. The aim of this book is to explore what it means to be a Muslim, a member of a community which embraces a quarter of the world's population and to describe the forces which have shaped the hearts and the minds of Islamic people. After considering the historic confrontation between Islam and Christendom and analysing the difference between the three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the author describes the two poles of Muslim belief in terms of 'Truth' and 'Mercy'—the unitarian truth which is the basis of the Muslim's faith and the mercy inherent in this truth. In the second part of the book he explains the significance of the Qur'an and tells the dramatic story of Muhammad's life and of the early Caliphate. Lastly, the author considers the Muslim view of man's destiny, the social structure of Islam, the role of art and mysticism and the inner meaning of Islamic teaching concerning the hereafter. Throughout this book the author is concerned not with the religion of Islam in isolation, but with the very nature of religious faith, its spiritual and intellectual foundations, and the light it casts upon the mysteries and paradoxes of the human condition.


The vast diversity in nucleotide composition and architecture among bacterial genomes may be partly explained by inherent biases in the rates and spectra of spontaneous mutations. Bacterial genomes with multiple chromosomes are relatively unusual but some are relevant to human health, none more so than the causative agent of cholera, Vibrio cholerae. Here, we present the genome-wide mutation spectra in wild-type and mismatch repair (MMR) defective backgrounds of two Vibrio species, the low-GC% squid symbiont V. fischeri and the pathogen V. cholerae, collected under conditions that greatly minimize the efficiency of natural selection. In apparent contrast to their high diversity in nature, both wild-type V. fischeri and V. cholerae have among the lowest rates for base-substitution mutations (bpsms) and insertion-deletion mutations (indels) that have been measured, below 10−3/genome/generation. V. fischeri and V. cholerae have distinct mutation spectra, but both are AT-biased and produce a surprising number of multi-nucleotide indels. Furthermore, the loss of a functional MMR system caused the mutation spectra of these species to converge, implying that the MMR system itself contributes to species-specific mutation patterns. Bpsm and indel rates varied among genome regions, but do not explain the more rapid evolutionary rates of genes on chromosome 2, which likely result from weaker purifying selection. More generally, the very low mutation rates of Vibrio species correlate inversely with their immense population sizes and suggest that selection may not only have maximized replication fidelity but also optimized other polygenic traits relative to the constraints of genetic drift.


The benzofuran-2-carbohydrazide based new hydrazone ligands and their transition metal complexes have been prepared. These ligands and metal complexes were characterized by different spectroscopic techniques. The preliminary results of antituberculosis study showed that the hydrazones exhibited very good antituberculosis activity. Among the tested compound 3b was found to be most active with minimum inhibitory concentration of 1.6 μg/mL against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.


Activating a receptor to excite a neuron Transmitting signals between nerve cells, occuring at structures known as synapses, is critical to processes such as learning and memory. Fast transmission occurs when glutamate is released from a presynaptic neuron and binds to ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) in the cell membrane of a postsynaptic neuron. The iGluR contains an ion channel that is transiently opened, to activate the postsynaptic neuron, but then closes rapidly. Chen et al. and Yelshanskaya et al. report crystal structures in a range of conformations that together provide insight into how glutamate binding causes the channel to open and how other molecules that bind to the receptor modulate this. The information could aid in the design of drugs to treat cognitive impairment or seizure disorders Science, this issue p. 1021 and p. 1070 X-ray structures provide insight into how an ion channel involved in activation of neurons is gated. AMPA-sensitive glutamate receptors are crucial to the structural and dynamic properties of the brain, to the development and function of the central nervous system, and to the treatment of neurological conditions from depression to cognitive impairment. However, the molecular principles underlying AMPA receptor activation have remained elusive. We determined multiple x-ray crystal structures of the GluA2 AMPA receptor in complex with a Conus striatus cone snail toxin, a positive allosteric modulator, and orthosteric agonists, at 3.8 to 4.1 angstrom resolution. We show how the toxin acts like a straightjacket on the ligand-binding domain (LBD) "gating ring," restraining the domains via both intra- and interdimer cross-links such that agonist-induced closure of the LBD "clamshells" is transduced into an irislike expansion of the gating ring. By structural analysis of activation-enhancing mutants, we show how the expansion of the LBD gating ring results in pulling forces on the M3 helices that, in turn, are coupled to ion channel gating.


Motivation and Objectives The rapid growth of the scholarly literature makes the management and curation of the available information a labor-intensive and time-consuming task for researchers, during which significant knowledge can be easily missed. To address this problem, efforts have been made to use Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques as a means to (semi-)automatically improve the exhaustive analysis of the available information. In order to make these NLP techniques more end-user friendly and integrate them with knowledge management workflows, we developed IntelliGenWiki, a novel combination of a wiki system with state-of-the-art techniques from the NLP and Semantic Computing domains. Wikis are well known as an easy-to-use, collaborative platform for creating and organizing knowledge. For example, the Gene Wiki project (Huss III et al, 2010) applies community intelligence to the annotation of gene and protein functions. However, existing approaches rely on a manual analysis of the literature. With IntelliGenWiki, we aim to leverage the collaborative nature of wikis by introducing new Human-AI collaboration patterns: Our goal is to provide text mining assistants that work together with humans on literature analysis tasks, like curation or the generation of semantic metadata, which can be used in an Linked Open Data context. IntelliGenWiki is based on an open service-oriented architecture: it can be applied to different projects by deploying custom NLP analysis pipelines suitable for the specific task and domain. Here, we demonstrate the benefits of this approach within a collaborative literature curation context. Methods We first describe the general workflow for working with NLP assistants, followed by a description of the underlying architecture. Workflow. IntelliGenWiki provides a standard wiki user interface. From any wiki page (Fig. 1, top), users can ask for "Semantic Assistants" from the menu (Fig. 1, left), which will result in a dynamically injected user interface from which assistants can be selected and executed (Fig. 1, bottom). The user can now select an appropriate assistant from the list and invoke it on one or multiple pages of the wiki, gathered in a so-called "collection". This will invoke the selected NLP pipeline on the set of wiki pages. The results (e.g., detected entities) are stored in the user's place of choice and made persistent in the wiki repository (Fig. 1, middle). Thereby, all updated pages become immediately available to all wiki users for collaborative adjustment, modification and further refinement of the results. Architecture. Technically, IntelliGenWiki combines NLP analysis pipelines developed in the General Architecture for Text Engineering (GATE) (Cunningham et al, 2011) with MediaWiki, http://www.mediawiki.org (Last accessed: 26.09.2012), a widely-used wiki engine. These pipelines are published as standard web services through the Semantic Assistants framework (Witte and Gitzinger, 2008). The Wiki-NLP integration is based on a service-oriented architecture that seamlessly introduces these NLP web services into wiki systems (Sateli and Witte, 2012). This allows wiki users to benefit from text mining techniques directly within their wiki environment, without the need for switching to an external application. Additionally, we support the generation of semantic metadata from NLP analysis results. This metadata is formally represented in the wiki through the Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) extension: http://semantic-mediawiki.org/ (Last accessed on Sept 26, 2012). This formal representation of the available wiki knowledge can be exploited by exporting it in form of RDF triples. It can also be queried directly within the wiki using SMW inline queries. For example, users could write queries to retrieve literature that contains a certain type of entities, such as enzymes or organisms. Results and Discussion To test the effectiveness of NLP assistants in a wiki environment, we deployed an IntelliGenWiki installation within the Genozymes project: http://www.fungalgenomics.ca (Last accessed on Sept 20, 2012). The task we aimed to support in the project is biomedical literature curation for lignocellulose research. For this experiment, we deployed the mycoMINE NLP pipeline (Meurs et al, 2012), which automatically extracts knowledge from the literature on fungal enzymes by using semantic text mining approaches combined with ontological resources. We manually pre-filled the wiki with a corpus of 30 documents composed of PubMed abstracts and their corresponding full-text papers, selected by two expert biocurators. These biocurators provided us with their average time needed for curation without support on the same task. They performed the corpus curation through the wiki using mycoMINE to automatically extract relevant entities, and they kept track of the time spent on each document. The time for abstract selection (triage task) decreased from 1min. (without support) to 20sec. (using IntelliGenWiki), and from 37.5min (without support) to 30.6min (using IntelliGenWiki) for full paper selection (curation task), showing a productivity enhancement of 67% and 20%, respectively. The results gathered from this experiment confirm the usability and the effectiveness of our approach. The IntelliGenWiki system, including the NLP integration back-end, is available as open source software from http://www.semanticsoftware.info/intelligenwiki. Acknowledgements Funding for this work was provided by NSERC, Genome Canada and Genome Quebec. Caitlin Murphy and Sherry Wu are acknowledged for their participation in the evaluation task. References Cunningham H, Maynard D, et al (2011) Text Processing with GATE (Version 6), University of Sheffield, Department of Computer Science Huss III J. W., et al (2010) The Gene Wiki: Community Intelligence Applied to Human Gene Annotation, Nucleic Acids Research 38, p. 633–639. doi:10.1093/nar/gkp760 Meurs MJ, Murphy C, et al (2012) Semantic Text Mining Support for Lignocellulose Research, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 12(Suppl 1):S5. doi:10.1186/1472-6947-12-S1-S5 Sateli B and Witte R (2012) Natural Language Processing for MediaWiki – The Semantic Assistants Approach, In 8th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2012). Linz, Austria. Witte R and Gitzinger T (2008) Semantic Assistants – User-Centric Natural Language Processing Services for Desktop Clients, In Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC 2008), Springer LNCS 5367, pp.360–374. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-89704-0_25 Note: Figures and tables are available in PDF version only.


This paper presents the results of the research project 'Going Eco, Going Dutch' (2015- 2017), which investigated the production, design and branding of fashion textiles made from locally produced hemp fibers in the Netherlands. For fashion labels and designers it is often difficult to scrutinize the production of textile fabrics manufactured in non-European countries due to physical distance and, often, non-transparency. At the same time, many designers and established fashion brands increasingly search for sustainable textiles that could be recycled or upcycled after being used by consumers. For the project 'Going Eco, Going Dutch', local textile manufacturers and fashion brands closely collaborated to explore how to develop fashionable textiles made from locally produced hemp – from the very first fiber to the final branding of the fashion product. In addition to the technical insights on the production of hemp, this paper will present and highlight the importance of the visual identity of the textiles, which was created by using Dutch traditional crafts – suggesting that this should be understood in terms of Kristine Harper's 'aesthetic sustainability' (2017) as an essential design strategy. In addition, this paper will reflect on the importance of storytelling by focusing on locality and transparency, and on creating an emotional bond and connection between producer, product and consumer. This paper will argue that this form of 'emotional durability' (Chapman, 2005, 2009) is essential to both design and branding strategies. Moreover, this paper will critically reflect on the performance of Dutchness – Dutch national identity – through these locally produced fibers, textiles and fashion products.


Today's computing systems typically execute task-specific software on general purpose hardware. As a consequence, the software layer must make do with whatever instructions, information, and services the underlying hardware exposes. This restriction can lead to implementing inefficient approx-imations rather than the intended functionality of software. For example, virtual memory subsystems in operating systems often approximate the desired least recently used (or least frequently used ) strategy for page replacement using a two-handed clock algorithm just because the hardware only provides a single referenced bit rather than the required timestamp (or reference counter) per page. Programmable hardware such as sufficiently large field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) has been available for quite some years and could be used to give software developers the possibility to alter or augment the hardware to better match their demands. However, there is no basic system available that can serve as a starting point for FPGA-based HW/SW research and that is both sufficiently powerful and easy enough to work with. In this report, we describe the OpenProcessor platform, a free and open source computing platform, comprising both synthesizable hardware and support software. The hardware is described in Verilog, ready for deployment on an FPGA development board, and designed with a focus on extensibil-ity and simplicity rather than utmost performance in order to attract many developers. The software stack comprises a microkernel-based operating system offering a subset of the POSIX API to execute on the FPGA plus a number of management and monitoring services to run on an attached PC.


Very few data are available on the facies characters and geometric relations at the carbonate platform-to-basin transition in the Southern Apennines thrust belt. In this paper we describe an Early Jurassic submarine scarpexposed on the southern slope of Monte Capello, in the NW Matese Mountains. The paleo-scarp is cut into a Rhaetian-Lower Jurassic lagoonal to peritidal carbonate succession and is fossilized by coarse carbonate resediments with minor background hemipelagites. The contact between the slope facies and the platform limestones is a very irregular concave-upward surface. The scalloped geometry of the platform escarpment and the textures of the breccias point to local collapses along a steep submarine slope. The composition of the breccias and their contact with inner platform facies suggest that there was a considerable erosional retreat of the platform margin. Extensional faults, probably located at the platform-to-basin transition, triggered the sediment gravity flows responsible of the erosional retreat of the platform edge either directly, by fault-induced seismic shocks, or indirectly by oversteepening. This conclusion is consistent with published data indicating that Early Jurassic tectonics is a common feature in Southern Apennines as well as in Sicily, Northern Apennines and Southern Alps.


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66 Management Today Yearbook 2007
Team building:
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Prof Drikus Kriek lectures at the Unisa
Graduate School of Business Leadership
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for more information on the team management
profile, references used or other
information on teams.
In literature on team building 'how to' lists
and advice from scholars and practitioners
seem to be an endless stream based
on personal experience. The American
scholar, Gregory Hucsczo, gives an interesting
departure from this by providing
research on what executives regard as the
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Dysfunction of Paneth and goblet cells in the intestine contributes to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC). Here, we report a role for the NAD+-dependent histone deacetylase SIRT1 in the control of anti-bacterial defense. Mice with an intestinal specific Sirt1 deficiency (Sirt1int−/−) have more Paneth and goblet cells with a consequent rearrangement of the gut microbiota. From a mechanistic point of view, the effects on mouse intestinal cell maturation are mediated by SIRT1-dependent changes in the acetylation status of SPDEF, a master regulator of Paneth and goblet cells. Our results suggest that targeting SIRT1 may be of interest in the management of IBD and CAC.


In this paper we propose a new approach to Categorial Grammars based on Combinatory Logic to solve some syntactic and semantic problems in the Korean language processing. We handle particularly the problems of cases, free word order structure and coordination by developing a formalism of the extended Categorial Grammar that was originally introduced by J.-P. Descles, and I. Biskri. We call this extended Categorial Grammar "Applicative and Combinatory Categorial Grammar (ACCG)" . T he ACCG formalism allows us to analyze syntactically and semantically the cases in Korean, in particular the linguistic phenomenon of double cases. In spite of the importance of the cases in the processing of the Korean language, this topic has not been well studied in view to its automatic processing and there are still many difficulties in parsing Korean texts. This article shows some robust solutions for the analysis of the free word order structure and of the coordination by introducing combinators, such as B, C*, Φ, of Combinatory Logic developed by H.-B. Curry and R. Feys.


Objectives: Although Sweden has legislation underlining the specific need for diabetes care in school, a nationwide study in 2008 demonstrated deficiencies in the support of self-care management in school-aged children with type 1 diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect on support of self-care management in school by a diabetes resource nurse available for school personnel.Methods: A position as a diabetes resource nurse has been tested in Jonkoping County Council for three years (2010-2013) to offer the school staff necessary knowledge about diabetes. The diabetes resource nurse visited the schools to give information in the child´s daily environment. After the first study year a questionnaire was answered by 27 parents were the diabetes resource nurse had visited their child´s school and by 58 parents where the nurse had not.Results: Before the visit 60 % of the children had no member of staff at the school with principal responsibility to support diabetes self-care, after the visit the number was 18 %. After the visit 85 % of the children with diabetes had an individually written action plan for hypoglycemia compared to 62 % before the visit (p=0.031). Parents were significantly less worried during their child´s school day after a visit of the diabetes resourse nurse (p=0.015). No differences were seen in HbA1c between the groups in this first analysis but this will be evaluated again after a longer follow up period.Conclusion: The preliminary result of the intervention shows that a diabetes resource nurse can successfully improve the support children with type 1 diabetes receive at school. A new questionnaire is currently being analyzed to evaluate the results after the three years during which the diabetes resourse nurse has performed 180 school visits. Further studies are needed to clarify which grades benefit the most from the support of a diabetes resource nurse and to inquire the school personnel´s experience of the resourse nurse´s work.


This book arose from an inaugural conference on Migration Law and Policy at the ANU College of Law. The conference brought together academics and practitioners from a diverse range of disciplines and practice. The book is based on a selection of the papers and presentations given during that conference. Each explores the unexpected, unwanted and sometimes tragic outcomes of migration law and policy, identifying ambiguities, uncertainties, and omissions affecting both temporary and permanent migrants. Together, the papers present a myriad of perspectives, providing a sense of urgency that focuses on the immediate and political consequences of an Australian migration milieu created without due consideration and exposing the daily reality under the migration program for individuals and for society as a whole.


AIM
To study the effect of fluoride on oxidative stress, DNA damage and apoptosis as well as cell cycle of rat oral mucosal cells and hepatocytes.

METHODS
Ten male SD rats weighing 80-120 g were randomly divided into control group and fluoride group, 5 animals each group. The animals in fluoride group had free access to deionized water containing 150 mg/L sodium fluoride (NaF). The animals in control group were given distilled water. Four weeks later, the animals were killed. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) in oral mucosa and liver were measured by Fenton reaction, lipid peroxidation product, malondialdehyde (MDA), was detected by thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reaction, reduced glutathione (GSH) was assayed by dithionitrobenzoic acid (DTNB) reaction. DNA damage in oral mucosal cells and hepatocytes was determined by single cell gel (SCG) electrophoresis or comet assay. Apoptosis and cell cycle in oral mucosal cells and hepatocytes were detected by flow cytometry.

RESULTS
The contents of ROS and MDA in oral mucosa and liver tissue of fluoride group were significantly higher than those of control group (P < 0.01), but the level of GSH was markedly decreased (P < 0.01). The contents of ROS, MDA and GSH were (134.73 +/- 12.63) U/mg protein, (1.48 +/- 0.13) mmol/mg protein and (76.38 +/- 6.71) mmol/mg protein in oral mucosa respectively, and (143.45 +/- 11.76) U/mg protein, (1.44 +/- 0.12) mmol/mg protein and (78.83 +/- 7.72) mmol/mg protein in liver tissue respectively. The DNA damage rate in fluoride group was 50.20% in oral mucosal cells and 44.80% in hepatocytes, higher than those in the control group (P < 0.01). The apoptosis rate in oral mucosal cells was (13.63 +/- 1.81) % in fluoride group, and (12.76 +/- 1.67)% in hepatocytes, higher than those in control group. Excess fluoride could differently lower the number of oral mucosal cells and hepatocytes at G0/G1 and S G2/M phases (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Excess fluoride can induce oxidative stress and DNA damage and lead to apoptosis and cell cycle change in rat oral mucosal cells and hepatocytes.


In this paper, a new approach for decision making problem is introduced by extending the definition of fuzzy soft set for multiple parameter sets and is called extended fuzzy soft set. Also, few operations such as "AND" and " " are defined on extended fuzzy soft sets and illustrated with examples. Further an algorithm for decision making using the concept of extended fuzzy soft set is presented. The decision making process includes construction of comparison matrix and ranking strategy is based on the row sum of comparison matrix. Finally an application of proposed algorithm for decision making is presented.

 Key words: Fuzzy soft set, decision making, comparison matrix, ranking.


This reform of the Bundeswehr, launched in 2011, is the latest of the three decisive stages in the post-war transformation of the German armed forces. The reform aims at "constructing" the armed forces anew in the political, military and social dimensions.The present paper presents the evolution of the role of the armed forces in German foreign and security policy and the ongoing process of "constructing" a new Bundeswehr. It analyses the process of redefining the objectives and principles of: the Bundeswehr's participation in international operations, its current military transformation, and changes in its image and social identity. It also presents the implications of this broader transformation for political and military.


The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines is expanding rapidly, producing a high employment rate. However, it also causes concerns about the occurrence of workrelated health problems among workers. This study was conducted to measure the prevalence of occupational health outcomes of call center workers from five companies in the Philippines and to determine the likelihood of their occurrence based on personal and work-related variables. We conducted an online survey answered by 227 call center workers. Descriptive statistics were expressed in percentages, arithmetic means, and standard deviations. Differences in symptoms in terms of sex and age-group were determined by chi-squared tests. Confounding effects of personal and occupational variables were computed through logistic and multiple regression analyses. The most prevalent forms of occupational health problems were back pain (96%), headache (96.5%), neck pain (93%), and insomnia (93%). We also found that among the personal and occupational variables, smoking and drinking predicted the occurrence of the symptoms for neck pain, headache, insomnia, and other health complaints. Our findings are crucial in strengthening policies and regulations, promoting a healthier working environment, and preventing fast-paced turn-over of workers in the BPO industry in the Philippines.


The need for additional flexibility and the search for 'tailor-made' employment relationships have given rise to new forms of employment all over Europe. Discussions on national level are held about whether and how to integrate emerging new forms of employment into national labour law. Some European Union countries where the new forms of employment have emerged in a larger extent or been evident for a longer time have inserted specific provisions in their national labour legislation. At the same time, many of the EU member states where new forms of employment are practised lack such specific regulation, and standard labour regulation is applied there when new forms of employment are used. The situation leads to a question as to whether the basic labour regulation is sufficient and clear enough to make the application of new forms of employment effective. The paper explores whether it is possible to determine, by proceeding from the example of job‑sharing (as a new form of work) and Estonian labour law, whether the absence of special job-sharing regulation on national level precludes or unreasonably restrains opportunities for parties to an employment relationship to increase the flexibility and enter into a job-sharing regime, in comparison to those countries where special job-sharing regulation exists. Comparative analysis that considers Italian, German, Slovakian, Hungarian, and Lithuanian job-sharing regulations enables covering the theme from the perspective of all existing national normative sources available in the EU. References to all of the job-sharing regulations and practices of EU countries where job-sharing is specifically stipulated help to offer solutions for the problems detected with regard to this research area. The results presented in the article enable other Member States to decide on the necessity of special job‑sharing regulation.


In this practical guide, photography pricing guru Alicia Caine takes the anxiety and drudgery out of the pricing process for portrait and wedding photographers, showing how to keep the process as simple and painless as possible. Alicia starts by breaking down such daunting topics as managing your budget and expenses and determining how much work you can take on, and then explains the importance of understanding what your client wants and researching the marketplace. She shows how to reverse-engineer your pricing, create a pricing sheet, and present your pricing to your clients. Focusing mainly on portrait pricing, she also explores how to achieve consistent pricing across your photography services, with a chapter on specialty sessions that covers the particularities of pricing weddings and mini sessions. Along the way, youll encounter nearly 20 worksheets designed to help you move from learning the necessary steps and tasks to actual implementation, a key obstacle for many photographers. As an added bonus, Alicia provides an Experts Guide on how to get paid what youre worth based on your expertise in a particular niche, which can potentially increase your value in the marketplace. In this special section, youll learn how positioning yourself as an authority on a particular topic can help you bring in more potential clients. Features the friendly, approachable voice of photography pricing expert Alicia Caine, whose mentoring and coaching have endeared her to thousands of photographers. Includes worksheets and a gross earning calculator (also available via download) to help you with key steps in the process, covering such topics as how to determine your hourly value, how to think about and set up collections and specialty products, how to figure out your costs of goods sold, and much more. Incorporates lightness, fun, and compassion to help photographers more easily approach the challenging and often mundane topic of pricing.


The collapse of communism in Central and Southeastern Europe has given rise to various myths and debates. This article undertakes to examine and debunk two myths and to summarise and assess four debates. The two myths are, first, that no one foresaw the collapse of communism or offered any clear prediction of that eventuality in the decade preceding 1989, and, second, that what occurred in the region between 1989 and 1991 could not be described as a revolution since, allegedly, it was masterminded by the communist authorities themselves; this article refutes these two myths. The four debates concern whether to describe the processes of change since 1989 as a transition or a transformation, what to count as democratic consolidation, and what to understand as the reasons for differences in paths of transition (or transformation), and as reasons for differences in the level of success with democratisation. The article includes some comparative measures of regional progress since 1989.


An ideal crowdsourcing or citizen-science system would route tasks to the most appropriate workers, but the best assignment is unclear because workers have varying skill, tasks have varying difficulty, and assigning several workers to a single task may significantly improve output quality. This paper defines a space of task routing problems, proves that even the simplest is NP-hard, and develops several approximation algorithms for parallel routing problems. We show that an intuitive class of requesters' utility functions is submodular, which lets us provide iterative methods for dynamically allocating batches of tasks that make near-optimal use of available workers in each round. Experiments with live oDesk workers show that our task routing algorithm uses only 48% of the human labor compared to the commonly used round-robin strategy. Further, we provide versions of our task routing algorithm which enable it to scale to large numbers of workers and questions and to handle workers with variable response times while still providing significant benefit over common baselines.


The aberrant generation of oxygen and nitrogen free radicals can cause severe damage to key cellular components, resulting in cell apoptosis. Similarly, excitotoxicity leads to protease activation and mitochondrial dysfunction, which subsequently causes cell death. Each of these factors play critical roles in the neuronal cell death underlying various neurodegenerative diseases. Procyanidin B2 (PB2) is a naturally occurring polyphenolic compound found in high concentrations in cocoa, apples, and grapes. Here, we examine the neuroprotective effects of PB2 in primary cultures of rat cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) exposed to various stressors. CGNs were pre-incubated with PB2 and then neuronal stress was induced as described below. Mitochondrial oxidative stress was triggered with HA14-1, an inhibitor of the pro-survival Bcl-2 protein which induces glutathione-sensitive apoptosis. Glutamate and glycine were used to induce excitotoxicity. Sodium nitroprusside, a nitric oxide generating compound, was used to induce nitrosative stress. We observed significant dose-dependent protection of CGNs with PB2 for all of the above insults, with the greatest neuroprotective effect being observed under conditions of nitrosative stress. Intriguingly, the neuroprotective effect of PB2 against nitric oxide was superoxide-dependent, as we have recently shown for other catechol antioxidants. Finally, we induced neuronal stress through the removal of depolarizing extracellular potassium and serum (5K conditions), which is a classical model of intrinsic apoptosis in CGNs. PB2 did not display any significant protection against 5K-induced apoptosis at any concentration tested. We conclude that PB2 offers neuronal protection principally as an antioxidant by scavenging reactive oxygen and nitrogen species instead of through modulation of pro-survival cell signaling pathways. These findings suggest that PB2 may be an effective neuroprotective agent for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.


Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a neoplasm with multifocal vascular lesions that is often seen in homosexual HIV-infected individuals. Infiltrates of leukocytes are characteristic components of KS lesions, and the products of leukocytes have been shown to enhance the proliferation of KS cells in vitro and most likely are crucial for the development of KS lesions in vivo. It is therefore likely that the expression of cellular adhesion molecules (CAM) is a critical determinant in the pathogenesis of KS by dictating the numbers and types of leukocytes that accumulate in areas predisposed to KS. We report that in the absence of inducers, KS cells in culture expressed low levels of ICAM-1 and undetectable VCAM-1 and E-selectin. ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and E-selectin were all induced by dsRNA (poly (I:C)), IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha, and LPS in KS cells. All of these agents increased NF-kappa B binding activity in nuclear extracts from KS cells. Neither human dermal fibroblasts nor human aortic smooth muscle cells had detectable VCAM-1 protein expression in response to conditions that led to high levels of VCAM-1 expression in KS cells. Although E-selectin expression was induced in KS cells, the peak cell surface protein levels were less than 25% the levels achieved on HUVEC or human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC). These low levels resembled the levels that were induced in HMEC immortalized with SV 40 large T Ag. These data indicate that multiple proinflammatory agents can induce NF-kappa B binding activity and can enhance ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and E-selectin expression in KS cells. The increased CAM expression enhances leukocyte binding to KS cells. Thus, the induction of CAM expression could be an early event in the development of KS by recruiting leukocytes into KS lesions, thereby providing factors that could potentiate the development of KS.


Countries often rely on sanctions to express discontent or disagreement with the actions of their peers in the international community. Many times, these sanctions have played a direct role in the lives of citizens and have led to course-correction by offending states. Sometimes, countries will issue joint sanctions, or sanctions sent by a coordinated group of countries. From a network perspective, multilateral sanctions add an additional layer of complexity to the representation of that sanction in the network, as well as to the assumptions made surrounding how sanctions are issued. For example, it is incorrect to assume a multilateral sanction issued by two countries is the same as two individual sanctions issued to a target state. In this thesis, we evaluate the evolution of the (multilateral) sanction network between 1945 and 2005 based on the Threat and Impositions of Sanctions dataset (Morgan, Bapat, & Kobayashi, 2014). In particular, we explore the role balance theory plays in sanction collaboration. Although the network tends to have more balanced structures than unbalanced ones, we find no evidence for all rules that constitute balance theory hold. Specifically, we do not find an effect of the "my enemy's enemy is my friend" mechanism on the formation of collaborations. At the same time, we do find evidence for the "my friend's friend is my friend" mechanism and find that country pairs where one country has sanctioned the other earlier, are less likely to collaborate on sanctions later.


David Thomson's "Have You Seen? - A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films" is a quirky, idiosyncratic and hugely entertaining look at a century of cinema. This is veteran film writer David Thomson's personal, irreverent, hilarious and utterly original take on the 1,000 films he has most loved - and hated - from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" to "Zabriskie Point", from esteemed classics to forgotten curiosities, guilty pleasures to noir treats, horror gems to kitsch disasters. The result is probably the most enjoyable film book you will ever read (and you'll never think about "The Sound of Music" in the same way again). "Delightful ...it's like having the most film-literate pal you can imagine sitting beside you in a multiplex". ("Independent"). "A joy ...he's incapable of writing a boring sentence". ("Evening Standard" Books of the Year). "This book sets the bar. There isn't a more intelligent, insightful and provocative guide to individual movies in the world". ("Financial Times"). "Every reader's simple instinct will be to plunge into the heart of it". ("Sunday Times"). "A dazzlingly authoritative treat ...crammed with insight and epigram". ("Observer"). "Eccentric, brilliant, scholarly, perverse, witty, egocentric and infuriating, sometimes all at once". (Philip French). "He enrages, exasperates, but never leaves one indifferent". ("The Times" Books of the Year). David Thomson is, among many other things, author of "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film", now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, "Fan Tan" (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando) and "The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood".


Radical and autonomous urban movements like the European squatters' movement tend to resist integration into the institutions of the state, although particular legal and political conditions in each country or city may significantly alter this tendency. In this article, I examine the controversial issue of 'institutionalization' among squatters, focusing on the few cases of legalized squats (social centres) in the city of Madrid. Negotiations with the state authorities and processes of legalization are the major forms of institutionalization involving squatters. However, an anomalous kind of institutionalization also emerges once squats, whether legalized or not, become consolidated and socially accepted. For squatting to have a successful impact, then, depends on both the type of autonomy achieved by squatters and the different outcomes of the processes of institutionalization. The case of Madrid provides empirical evidence that: (1) negotiations with state authorities were very frequent among squatters, but most were defensive; (2) the few cases of legalization were due to specific conditions such as the urban centrality of the squats, single-issue identities, social network solidarity, favourable media coverage, formal organizations working as facilitators and the squatters' leadership of the process. Furthermore, legalized squats in Madrid preserved a high degree of autonomy, self-management and ties to other radical social movements. In conclusion, both the legalized squats and the squatters' movement in Madrid as a whole, avoided 'terminal institutionalization' and, instead, gave shape to a 'flexible' one.


Histogram shifting (HS) is a useful technique of reversible data hiding (RDH).With HS-based RDH, high capacity and low distortion can be achieved efficiently. In this paper, were visit the HS technique and present a general framework to construct HSbased RDH. By the proposed framework, one can get a RDH algorithm by simply designing the so-called shifting and embedding functions. Moreover, by taking specific shifting and embedding functions, we show that several RDH algorithms reported in the literature are special cases of this general construction. In addition, two novel and efficient RDH algorithms are also introduced to further demonstrate the universality and applicability of our framework. It is expected that more efficient RDH algorithms can be devised according to the proposed framework by carefully designing the shifting and embedding functions.


Blast furnaces that operate with pellets and sinter normally use high basicity sinter and acid pellets to balance the slag chemistry. When external additives are used, irregular slag formation occurs due to their uneven distribution in the burden. If basic sinter is used together with a large amount of acid pellets, all additives are incorporated in the iron bearing materials with an improved burden mixture as a consequence. During a campaign in the LKAB Experimental Blast Furnace, pellets and sinter were operated at an ultra low slag volume. A high amount of pellets was balanced with high basicity sinter. An improved blast furnace operation is shown when operating at ultra low slag volume and without external slag formers. During the test period, the blast furnace operation was smooth and stable, and the reductant rate was decreased.


This empirical study addresses the question of how foreign market unfamiliarity of entrant firms develops post-entry. Three different predictions of post-entry change of foreign market unfamiliarity are derived from the literature on firms' internationalization process. The predictions are made subject to empirical examination using a set of primary data of current (i.e. at the point in time of mail interviews) foreign operation business operations reported by managers of Danish international firms. The empirical study gives insight to the incidence and character of the so-called 'shock effect' in relation to foreign market entry: the phenomenon of entrant firms' inclination to underestimate differences between the home and host country in terms of the business environment. The data support the supposition that entrant firms in general are exposed to a 'shock effect'. On average, the foreign market unfamiliarity as perceived by the entrant firms peaks seven years after entry. The company data indicate that entrant firms in general experience the shock effect in relation to entry of adjacent, rather than distant, countries. Hence, the 'psychic distance paradox' hypothesis is supported. Also, the data suggest that the shock effect befalls producers of customized products, but not producers of standardized products, and furthermore, entrant firms in general experience the shock effect in relation to acquisition of tacit rather than explicit knowledge.


The authors suggest that the recess period serves a positive purpose in the primary school curriculum, counter to the current practice of minimizing recess in many schools across North America and the United Kingdom. The authors' position is embedded in the larger debate about school accountability; they argue that school policy should be based on the best theory and empirical evidence available. They support their argument for the importance of recess with theory and with experimental and longitudinal data showing how recess breaks maximize children's cognitive performance and adjustment to school.


Building internal communications For many years, corporate communicators eager to advance their careers concentrated on the areas of most concern to management. Invariably, employee communications ranked below investor relations, corporate image building, marketing communications support and other tasks that helped sell products and incrase shareholder value. Likewise, public relations firms recognized the risk in trying to build their business by offering employee communications programs. If client budgets got tight or major problems surfaced to occupy management's attention, employee programs were more likely to be canceled than other communications projects. During the last decade, too many companies not only failed to enlist the full support of employees, but alienated them through restructurings, downsizing, acquisitions, divestitures and leveraged buyouts. Management did not properly explain the rationale behind strategies that seeemed to overlook the impact on the lives of loyal employees. They were unaccustomed to speaking candidly to employees about the company's problems, and were not inclined to solicit, welcome and act upon their ideas for improving products, services and operating efficiency. Times hav clearly changed. Company after company has come to the realization that employees who are well-informed and encouraged to suggest improvements are the key to survival in an increasingly competitive environment. The definition of employee communications has changed along with autocratic attitudes. The audience is composed of every employee: executives, managers, office workers and plant personnel. The flow of information is not just downward, but upward and between departments. The methods used are written, verbal and visual. Even the old standby, the employee publication, has become a vehicle for two-way communications. If your company or your clients haven't latched onto this revolutionary movement in internal communications, you should recognize the opportunity to improve your value by taking the initiative, CEOs need someone to take the lead, to convince them that the theory of empowering employees will work at their companies and to provide the techniques to get it done. Team up with human resources Employee involvement programs cannot begin and cannot continue without internal communications. This is your responsibility -- or is it? According to a 1989 communications survey by the Wyatt consulting firm, companies are increasingly making the human resources department responsible for these programs. Of the 2,120 companies that responded to the survey, 53 percent said the human resources department handles employee communications, up from 46 percent in 1986. Personnel issues multiplied during the '80s, and dealing with them is considered a management function. If your role in employee communications diminishes just as the function is finally gaining respect, you will miss the chance to make a significant contribution to the crusade that is predicted to redefine corporate leadership in the 1990s. Battling for power is no longer acceptable corporate behavior. Teamwork is the rallying cry, and you can set the example by forming a partnership with the human resources department. The HRD manager probably has his or her hands full, and realizes that better communications throughout the company will reduce conflicts and other personnel problems. Your offer to take on much of the responsibility will be appreciated. In return, support from the human resources department will give you credibility with top management, necessary because you will be stepping over the boundary of pure communications into management theory and practices. Get the CEO's support Communications within a company will not improve without a commitment from the president. If you are not certain how he or she will react to your proposals, begin by gathering support from the executives and department heads who communicate well with their staffs and other departments. …


Making use of mobile phones can drive the expansion of insurance coverage in low-income markets. It should increase the efficiency of transactions across the entire value chain, improving processes such as enrolment, premium collection, and claims settlement. At first glance, the incentives that drive revenues for mobile network operators (MNOs) and insurers do not seem naturally aligned. MNOs have more customers and more products than insurers and they have fewer difficulties in serving the low-income market. But it is precisely these distinctions that make MNOs such attractive partners for insurers wanting to reach scale and to access the low-income market. MNOs can provide insurers with access to a large, dispersed client base and an established network of distribution points to interact with these clients. It can enable exceptional scale and it can, although not always, improve client value. On the other hand insurance can help MNOs to raise revenues and create adjacent benefits such as reducing churn...


This paper describes a phenomenological investigation of the experience of farm tourism in the South West Tapestry Region of Western Australia from the perspective of both hosts and guests. The purpose of the study was to gain an understanding of what motivates people to operate a farm tourism business, and what motivates people to seek farm tourism holidays. In this context, phenomenology was applied as action research into the human dynamics of tourism. The study employs a combined methodological research model drawn from the work of distinguished phenomenologists to explicate the experience of hosts and guests. The phenomenological descriptions derived through the explication process encapsulate the invariant structures or essence of meaning for each group. The most significant of these structural meanings for guests was the desire to relax in the tranquility of the rural landscape and so recover from the stresses of their busy city lifestyle. Hosts were highly motivated to meeting new people, especially those with whom they shared a common interest. The motivations for the two groups were found to be highly compatible which augurs well for the future of farm tourism in the region.


This essay proclaims in essence that the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel constituted acts of terrorism and afforded to Israel every right to defend itself through military action. However, since Hamas operated from a civilian environment, it was inevitable that civilians will be injured or killed, and civilian objects will be damaged or destroyed. That placed on persons in command of the Israeli forces the obligation to consider whether or not the injuries, deaths, damage and destructions would be proportional to, and justified by, "the concrete and direct overall advantage" of an armed attack foreseeable at the time of the attack. The conclusion is inevitable that the answer to this question is in the negative, and that a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute can only be achieved through meaningful, sincere, and effective mediation between the conflicting parties. In developing this theme, it is pointed out that although Israel in 2003 officially withdrew from the Gaza Strip, it for all ends and purposes remained in occupation of that territory. Under the rules of international humanitarian law, Hamas was therefore engaged in a war of liberation. As such, the conflict in Palestine was subject to the laws and customs of international humanitarian law applicable in international armed conflicts. The author rejects the view of those who claim that militant forces engaged in a war of liberation are entitled to commit acts of terrorism. Hamas also could not justify the rocket attacks as a matter of self-defense or as legitimate acts of reprisal. Belligerent reprisals against civilian targets are in this day and age no longer lawful. Conducting military operations from within a civilian environment constitutes a violation of the laws and customs of armed conflict. However, proclaiming this to fall under the proscription of the use of a human shield is not acceptable since the law relating to human shields confines the concept to using particular persons, such as prisoners of war, children, or United Nations personnel, to protect military targets from an attack.