Sh Faisal 14.00 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers the possibility to accurately detect, localize, and stage prostate cancer, thereby assisting in the selection of an individualized course of treatment. Conventional, anatomical MRI (T2-weighted MRI) lacks the required sensitivity and specificity, in identifying prostate cancer foci, especially in the transition zone, in areas of post-biopsy hemorrhage, and in the setting of post-treatment change. In addition, T2-weighted MRI is suboptimal in determining the presence of extracapsular extension (ECE), which can be the most important factor for selection of an individualized therapy and for predicting the risk of tumor recurrence. Advanced MRI techniques comprising of dynamic contrast enhanced -MRI (DCE-MRI) that provides vascular information, diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) that provides biophysical information, and magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) that provides metabolic information can assist in overcoming the limitations of conventional anatomical MRI. In this article, we provide a brief review of these advanced imaging techniques and how they correlate with pathologic findings in prostate cancer. Advanced MRI techniques may increase the specificity of conventional MRI by identifying functional, metabolic, and microstructural changes of the prostate that occur in areas of cancer. MRSI and DWI have added value in detecting tumor within the transitional zone of the prostate, while MRSI and DCE may assist in predicting the presence of ECE, as well as in evaluating for recurrent tumor following hormonal or radiation therapy. Using a combined multi-parametric approach can provide a thorough evaluation for the presence and extent of prostate cancer using MRI. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */
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The identification of foreign firms and South African multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the CIT-IRP5 panel has proved to be a challenge for many researchers. The CIT-IRP5 panel contains variables indicating different thresholds that determine foreign ownership. The dataset also has variables that researchers can use to identify South African MNEs. Using the approaches employed by researchers who have attempted to identify foreign firms and South African MNEs in the data, four foreign firms and MNE indicators have been added to the CIT-IRP5 panel v4.0. This technical note documents the approach followed in the creation of each indicator. This note also highlights the possible company classifications in the data and fields on the ITR14 form that can be used to identify these classifications.


Plastic debris is a widespread contaminant, prevalent in aquatic ecosystems across the globe. Zooplankton readily ingest microscopic plastic (microplastic, < 1 mm), which are later egested within their faecal pellets. These pellets are a source of food for marine organisms, and contribute to the oceanic vertical flux of particulate organic matter as part of the biological pump. The effects of microplastics on faecal pellet properties are currently unknown. Here we test the hypotheses that (1) faecal pellets are a vector for transport of microplastics, (2) polystyrene microplastics can alter the properties and sinking rates of zooplankton egests and, (3) faecal pellets can facilitate the transfer of plastics to coprophagous biota. Following exposure to 20.6 μm polystyrene microplastics (1000 microplastics mL(-1)) and natural prey (∼1650 algae mL(-1)) the copepod Calanus helgolandicus egested faecal pellets with significantly (P < 0.001) reduced densities, a 2.25-fold reduction in sinking rates, and a higher propensity for fragmentation. We further show that microplastics, encapsulated within egests of the copepod Centropages typicus, could be transferred to C. helgolandicus via coprophagy. Our results support the proposal that sinking faecal matter represents a mechanism by which floating plastics can be vertically transported away from surface waters.


Recovery of efficient, functional use of the upper limb post stroke can contribute to an increased quality of life. Early implementation of well-structured upper limb treatment after stroke may affect recovery of upper limb function and dexterity. The JSU (Jessa Sint-Ursula) diagram should be considered a guideline to work on the objectives needed to shape the rehabilitation of the upper limb at various stages of recovery. The diagram starts with upper limb rehabilitation from day one, even in the absence of sufficient trunk control and aims at offering a logical theoretical strategy for improving the recovery of function of the upper limb.


We present a search for pair production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons in the processes qqbar to H++H-- decaying through H++/-- to tau tau, muon tau, muon muon. The search is performed in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 7.0 fb-1 collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The results are used to set 95% C.L. limits on the pair production cross section of doubly-charged Higgs bosons and on their mass for different H++/-- branching fractions. Models predicting different H++/-- decays are investigated. Assuming BR(H++ -> tau+ tau+)=1 yields an observed (expected) lower limit on the mass of a left-handed H++/-- boson of 128 (116) GeV and assuming BR(H++ -> mu+ tau+)=1 the corresponding limits are 144 (149) GeV. In a model with BR(H++ -> tau+ tau+)=BR(H++ -> mu+ tau+)=BR(H++ -> mu+ mu+)=1/3, we obtain M(H++(L) > 130 (138) GeV.


Aim: To assess serum level of malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant status (TAS) as a representative of oxidative stress in patients with generalized epilepsy and to evaluate the therapeutic effect of the antioxidant (vitamin E and vitamin C) on the levels of MDA,TAS and frequency of seizures attacks after two months therapy. for a period of two months as a supplementation therapy. Subjects and Methods: The study was conducted in Iben-seena Hospital in Mosul city-Iraq. Fifty three patients with generalized epilepsy were included in this study (32 male and 21 female). The study included 40 apparently healthy subjects, age and sex matched as a control group. Initially from both the patients and controls, blood samples were taken. Another blood samples were taken from the patients 2 months after vitamin E and vitamin C treatment, blood samples were analysed for serum MDA and serum TAS. Result: Serum MDA was found to be significantly higher ( P<0.001) and serum TSA was significantly lower (P<0.001) in patients with generalized epilepsy prior vitamin E and vitamin C supplementation in comparison to controls. After vitamin E and C supplementation there was a significant reduction (P<0.001) in the serum MDA levels with a significant increase (P<0.001) in the serum TAS. Also we found a reduction in seizure frequency of greater than 70% after vitamin E and C supplementation. Conclusion: a significant reduction of TSA was reported in patients with epilepsy. Administration of vitamin E and C produced a significant reduction of serum MAD levels and a significant elevation of serum TAS, associated with a reduction of greater than 70% of seizure frequency. The study suggests the administration of vitamin E and C as adjunct to antiepileptic drugs.


Maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding is a very computational-intensive task for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless channel detection. This paper presents a new graph based algorithm to achieve near ML performance for soft MIMO detection. Instead of using the traditional tree search based structure, we represent the search space of the MIMO signals with a directed graph and a greedy algorithm is applied to compute the a posteriori probability (APP) for each transmitted bit. The proposed detector has two advantages: 1) it keeps a fixed throughput and has a regular and parallel datapath structure which makes it amenable to high speed VLSI implementation, and 2) it attempts to maximize the a posteriori probability by making the locally optimum choice at each stage with the hope of finding the global minimum Euclidean distance for every transmitted bit. Compared to the soft K-best detector, the proposed solution significantly reduces the complexity because sorting is not required, while still maintaining good bit error rate (BER) performance. The proposed greedy detection algorithm has been designed and synthesized for a 4 by 4 16-QAM MIMO system in a TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology. The detector achieves a maximum throughput of 600 Mbps with a 0.79 square mm core area.


Are resources allocated more efficiently through private ownership than through the public sector? The experiences of eleven newly privatised companies are examined to evaluate this hypothesis. With the Government's pro-privatization policies in place for over a decade, this is a prime time to evaluate theory versus reality.


This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy (VRE). The inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that VRE generators receive on the market (market value). During wind and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices. Because the drop is larger with more installed capacity, the market value of VRE falls with higher penetration rate. This study aims to develop a better understanding how the market value with penetration, and how policies and prices affect the market value. Quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies, regression analysis of market data, and the calibrated model of the European electricity market EMMA. We find the value of wind power to fall from 110 percent of the average power price to 50-80 percent as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 percent of total electricity consumption. For solar power, similarly low values levels are reached already at 15 percent penetration. Hence, competitive large-scale renewables deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than many anticipate. The variability of solar and wind power affects their market value. The market value of variable renewables falls with higher penetration rates. We quantify the reduction with market data, numerical modeling, and a lit review. At 30% penetration, wind power is worth only 50-80% of a constant power source.


Title: A novel approach with focused crawling for various anchor texts is discussed in this paper.
Background: Most of the search engines search the web with the anchor text to retrieve the relevant pages and answer the queries given by the users. The crawler usually searches the web pages and filters the unnecessary pages which can be done through focused crawling. A focused crawler generates its boundary to crawl the relevant pages based on the link and ignores the irrelevant pages on the web.
Methods and findings: In this paper, an effective focused crawling method is implemented to improve the quality of the search. Here, three learning phases are considered namely, content-based, link-based and sibling-based learning are undergone to improve the navigation of the search. In this approach, the crawler crawls through the relevant pages efficiently and more relevant pages are retrieved in an effective way.
Conclusion: It is proved experimentally that more number of relevant pages are retrieved for different anchor texts with three learning phases using focused crawling.


This Handbook brings together a collection of leading international authors to reflect on the influence of central contributions, or classics, that have shaped the development of the field of public policy and administration. The Handbook reflects on a wide range of key contributions to the field, selected on the basis of their international and wider disciplinary impact. Focusing on classics that contributed significantly to the field over the second half of the 20th century, it offers insights into works that have explored aspects of the policy process, of particular features of bureaucracy, and of administrative and policy reforms. Each classic is discussed by a leading international scholars. They offer unique insights into the ways in which individual classics have been received in scholarly debates and disciplines, how classics have shaped evolving research agendas, and how the individual classics continue to shape contemporary scholarly debates. In doing so, this volume offers a novel approach towards considering the various central contributions to the field. The Handbook offers students of public policy and administration state-of-the-art insights into the enduring impact of key contributions to the field.


Recently Claus Offe has put the question that concerns the fate of the European model of social capitalism: Can the model of social capitalism survive the European integration in the context of certain contemporary tendencies? Offe has presupposed that the mentioned model is challenged by the processes of globalization and the integration of the post socialist countries into the European Union. The working hypothesis of the article is that there is an opportunity to provide a coherent answer to this question. The article consists of two parts. In the first part the author starts with the Polanyis socio-economic theory and emphasises the importance of this approach for the analysing of the tendencies of capitalism in Western Europe and in the post socialist countries. The author argues that with the Polanyis theory we are able to explicate the forms of the embedded liberalism in Western Europe after 1945 and the orientation of non-embedded neo-liberalism and the functioning of the workfare state after the crisis of the Keynesian welfare state. Despite the tendencies of the globalisation projected by neo-liberalism, the central element of the social capitalism, namely, the welfare state, remains with the dimensions of the continuity. In the next part the author points out that there is an asymmetrical structure between the Western-Europe and non-Western part of Europe concerning the socialisation of capitalism. The neoliberalisation in accordance with the model of the transfer of ideal-type of capitalism is more strongly implemented in the countries of transition. In addition, the mentioned theoretical approach provides opportunities to explain the failures of implementing of neo-liberalism in the post socialist countries. On the basis of the endorsing of the socio-economic aspects we can adress the issue pointed out by Offe.


Correlations are crucial for pricing and hedging derivatives whose payoff depends on more than one asset. Typically, correlations computed separately for ordinary and stressful market conditions differ considerably, a pattern widely termed "correlation breakdown." As a result, risk managers worry that their hedges will be useless when they are most needed, namely during "stressful" market situations. We show that such worries may not be justified since "correlation breakdowns" can easily be generated by data whose distribution is stationary and, in particular, whose correlation coefficient is constant. We make this point analytically, by way of several numerical examples, and via an empirical illustration. But, risk managers should not necessarily relax. Although "correlation breakdown" can be an artifact of poor data analysis, other evidence suggests that correlations do in fact change over time, though not in a way that is correlated with "stressful" market conditions.


Arsenic concentrations in shallow, reducing groundwaters in Bengal, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere constitute a major hazard to the health of people using these waters for drinking, cooking, or irrigation. A comparison of occurrences in the Ganges-Brahmaputra, Mekong, and Red River basins shows that common geological characteristics include (1) river drainage from the rapidly weathering Himalayas, (2) rapidly buried organic-bearing and relatively young (ca. Holocene) sediments, and (3) very low, basin-wide hydraulic gradients. Anaerobic microbial respiration, utilizing either sedimentary or surface-derived organic carbon, is one important process contributing to the mobilization of arsenic from host minerals, notably hydrous iron oxides. In spite of the paucity of data from before the extensive development of groundwater pumping in these areas, there is sufficient evidence to make a prima facie case that human activity might exacerbate arsenic release into these groundwaters. The difficulties in implementing comprehensive groundwater remediation suggest serious attention should be given to developing treatment technologies for alternative surface-water supplies.


We investigate the impacts of subsidies for technology adoption, and how savings constraints affect subsidy impacts. In a theoretical model in which risk-averse households face liquidity constraints as well as incomplete insurance, alleviating savings constraints could promote persistence of technology adoption over time (dynamic enhancement), or could instead reduce technology investment by encouraging savings accumulation (dynamic substitution). We implemented a field experiment in rural Mozambique, randomly assigning households one-time subsidies for adopting modern agricultural technology (chiefly fertilizer). Entire localities were later randomly assigned programs facilitating formal savings. In localities with no savings program, subsidy recipients raise their fertilizer use in the subsidized season and for two subsequent unsubsidized seasons. By contrast, in savings-program localities, subsidy impacts on fertilizer use do not persist: households shift resources away from fertilizer, instead accumulating savings in formal bank accounts. The savings programs also appear to improve household ability to cope with risk. These patterns are consistent with the theoretical case of dynamic substitution of subsidies; demand for self-insurance is so high that households scale back technology adoption so as to accumulate savings buffer stocks.


this article provides an overview of our research , including studies yet unpublished, on the effects of music on cognition. Music instruction can enhance children9s spatial-temporal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and phonemic awareness. Longitudinal studies of middle-income and economically disadvantaged preschoolers reveal that children who receive music instruction prior to age 7 show improved performance on spatial-temporal and numerical reasoning tasks compared to children in control groups—effects that persist for two years after the intervention ends. Three additional studies suggest that teacher gender may influence these transfer effects in children. Our studies also show improved perceptual discrimination as a function of music training: adult string players have lower than average pitch discrimination thresholds, whereas adult percussionists have lower than average temporal discrimination thresholds. These effects are strongest for musicians who begin their training before age 7. Related to these improvements in perceptual discrimination, children provided with violin instruction perform better than controls on tasks measuring phonemic awareness, a skill that correlates strongly with pitch discrimination and is related to reading acquisition.


The revised EU Renewable Energy Directive first introduced renewable energy communities into the EU policy framework and requires Member States to implement a support framework for them. Given the broad scientific evidence showing the benefits of community energy for a just energy transition, a successful implementation across all Member States is essential. However, the preconditions for developing support frameworks differ largely between EU nations, as some countries have long-term experiences with supporting renewable energy communities (i.e., Germany and Denmark), while in other Member States, renewable energy communities are notably non-existent (i.e., Eastern European nations). With the purpose of providing scientific evidence to support the development of a policy framework for renewable energy communities in Eastern European Member States, this article compares key factors for the development of such communities in Bulgaria and Germany, combining a literature review with expert interviews to collect primary information on Bulgaria. A country analysis puts these factors into the contexts of both countries, while a cross-country comparison demonstrates that there are significant gaps in the support framework of Bulgaria, although these gaps are, to a lesser extent, also present in Germany. We discuss these shortcomings, derive policy recommendations and identify further research needs.


The purpose of this study was to conceptually replicate the model proposed by Turel, Serenko, and Giles (2011) in the new context of social networking websites. For this, the original instrument was adapted, data from 186 social networking website users were collected, and the model was analyzed by means of Partial Least Squares (PLS). The results supported the ideas advanced in the original study and show that addiction distorts user perceptions of usefulness and enjoyment attributed to the system, which in turn, influence behavioral usage intentions. In contrast to study 2 in the original paper, and in line with study 1 in the original paper, no relationship between addiction and perceived ease of use was observed. Comparing central tendencies across studies, it seems that users of social networking websites are more likely to exhibit technology addiction symptoms than users of online auction websites. The results ultimately imply that context matters in technology addiction research since it can alter some aspects of the measurement model, nomological network, and construct means.


From the Publisher:
Multimedia surveillance systems is an emerging field that includes signal and image processing, communications, and computer vision. Multimedia Video-Based Surveillance Systems: Requirements, Issues and Solutions, combines the most recent research results from these areas for use by engineers and end-users involved in the design of surveillance systems in the fields of transportation and services. The book covers emerging surveillance requirements, including new digital sensors for real-time acquisition of surveillance data, low-level image processing algorithms, and event detection methods. It also discusses problems related to knowledge representation in surveillance systems, wireless and wired multimedia networks, and a new generation of surveillance communication tools. Timely information is presented on digital watermarking, broadband multimedia transmission, legal use of surveillance systems, performance evaluation criteria, and other new and emerging topics, along with applications for transports and pedestrian monitoring. The information contained in Multimedia Video-Based Surveillance Systems: Requirements, Issues and Solutions, bridges the distance between present practice and research findings, and the book is an indispensable reference tool for professional engineers.


Seismic waves are produced whenever a large amount of
energy is released under the surface of the Earth,
for example when earthquakes occur.
Such waves are perturbed by the heterogeneities they
find in their travel through the subsurface, from
hypocenter to seismometer.
In the last decades, the increase in computational
power has made it possible to simulate the
propagation of seismic waves in fully 3D
heterogeneous media. However, the subsoil often
displays very complicated geometrical structures
which are difficult to nest by nowadays simulation
methods.
The ADER-DG (Arbitrary high-order DERivatives
Discontinuous Galerkin) method provides the means to
better represent subsoil geological structures using
tetrahedral meshes. Such meshes can be easily
deformed and adapted to very complicated geometries
such as folded layers, faults and shallow basins.
In this book the ADER-DG method is developed for
problems of elastodynamics and further extended to
accommodate anisotropic, viscoelastic and poroelastic
rheologies.
For all cases examples are provided to verify the
fast convergence properties and to show the precision
of the synthetic seismograms computed.


The current study explores the influence of soil organic matter content on abundance and biomass of earthworm communities. The observation was carried out on three type of soils: Pellic Vertisols (very fine texture), Cromi-Vertic Luvisols (fine texture) and Calcaric Fluvisols (medium texture) from the Balkan Peninsula (Bulgaria). The field experiment was provided on uncultivated plots. In the studied area earthworm fauna comprises of four species: Aporrectodea rosea, Aporrectodea caliginosa, Lumbricus terrestris and Octolasion lacteum. We found peregrine lumbricid taxa, which are widely distributed in European soils. Our study demonstrated that soil organic matter has a positive effect on lumbricid populations. It was revealed that augmentation of soil organic matter favours characteristics of earthworm communities. The soil organic matter content and earthworm abundance are in strong positive correlation (r > 0.981). The same relationship was revealed between the biomass of lumbricid fauna and amount of soil organic matter (r > 0.987). In sum, the soil organic matter could be used as an indicator for earthworm communities in uncultivated soils.


Abstract Results of studies involving numerous cores and ODP holes along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) margin and adjacent Queensland Trough and Queensland Plateau have challenged the use of a reciprocal sedimentation model to describe the sedimentary response of slope and basin settings to glacioeustatic sea-level fluctuations. Upper-slope sedimentation results from the relationships between sea-level fluctuations, antecedent topography, and regional climate that play an important role in the type and amount of sediment deposited on the upper slope during glacial, deglacial, and interglacial times. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, > 20 ka ago) upper-slope sediments generally lacked siliciclastic material and are characterized by very low accumulation rates, whereas early deglacial-time (Termination I, TI) deposits are dominated by a siliciclastic and neritic carbonate pulse. Siliciclastic sedimentation was significantly reduced in the Holocene, while carbonate sedimentation remains elevated. A new borehole, IODP Expedition 325 Hole M0058A (Hole 58A), recovered 82% of a 40.4 m hole on the upper slope east of Noggin Passage on the central GBR margin near Cairns, Australia. Hole 58A provides a detailed sedimentary record during Termination II (TII), Marine Isotope Stage 6/5e (MIS-6/5e), deglacial transition, and through most of interglacial MIS-5. This hole, along with two others (ODP Leg 133 Holes 820A and 819A from the upper slope east of Grafton Passage), show carbonate–siliciclastic cyclicity as the result of glacioeustatic change with the GBR shelf. Sedimentation at Hole 58A is consistent with that of previous studies along the GBR margin (focusing on the LGM to present), and extends the upper-slope sedimentary record back to TII and interglacial MIS-5. A siliciclastic pulse similar to the one during TI occurred during the penultimate deglaciation, TII; however, the maximum neritic aragonite export to the upper slope occurred not during peak MIS-5e highstand when sea level was a few meters above modern position, but subsequently during a time (MIS-5d to 5a) when lowered sea level fluctuated between 30 and 50 m below present sea level. Siliciclastic sediments were reworked and exported to the upper slope when the lowstand fluvial plain was re-flooded, whereas neritic carbonate export to the slope reached a maximum when sea level fell and much of the mid to outer shelf re-entered the photic zone, subsequent to a drowning interval. Thus, this analysis refines the mixed-sedimentation models of upper-slope sedimentation along the central GBR margin during the penultimate deglacial transgression and subsequent interglacial early and late highstand. This study provides further evidence that mixed carbonate–siliciclastic margins do not always behave in a predictable manner and that mixed margins both modern and ancient would benefit from detailed study of sediment transport in the context of sea-level rise and fall.


Japan-ASEAN relations have been one of ambivalence. Perceptions differ among the elites and the ordinary folk of the different ASEAN states, ranging from animosity to pragmatic tolerance to admiration of the Japanese economic success. On the other side of the coin, a public opinion survey done ten years ago by the Japanese Prime Minister's Office reflected that Japanese generally do not have very favourable views of ASEAN states. This apparently has not changed much over the years. The 2005 survey that polled the Japanese on countries that they had positive feelings towards showed that less than 50 per cent had positive or generally positive feelings towards ASEAN countries. Yet, despite the public opinion and perceptions, Japan-ASEAN relations at the official level, and also economically, have progressed steadily since the enunciation of the Fukuda Doctrine by then Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda in 1977. "The Fukuda Doctrine, the first doctrine as such in Japanese foreign policy to be proclaimed by the government formally, states three commitments to Southeast Asia: (1) Japan rejects the role of a military power; (2) Japan will do its best to consolidate the relationship of mutual confidence and trust based on "heart-to-heart" understanding; and (3) Japan will be an equal partner of ASEAN, while attempting to foster mutual understanding with the nations of Indochina (Sudo 1992). The Fukuda Doctrine was the first attempt by the Japanese to adopt a more independent policy towards the region in the wake of US withdrawal and the end of the Vietnam War in 1976. Before this doctrine, Japan's foreign policy was Western-oriented and underpinned by the strong US-Japan relationship (Maswood 2001). However, Japan's attempts to play a more active diplomatic and political role in Southeast Asia as a bridge between the non-communist ASEAN and the communist Indochina did not yield much progress. The attempts to use official development assistance (ODA) to lure Vietnam out of the Soviet orbit did not succeed. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, Japan adopted a policy of "Support ASEAN" in which its Southeast Asian policy become more synchronized with ASEAN's quest for regional stability and peace and approach towards solving the Cambodian crisis (Sudo 2002, pp. 3-4; Lam 2001, pp. 120-1). With the end of the Cold War, and the tremendous changes in the region and globally, Japan-ASEAN relations have also undergone subtle changes. The opportunities for Japan to play a regional role has increased considerably. The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 hastened the process of Japan becoming a more active foreign policy player. There were considerable expectations that Japan would play a constructive role in assisting the countries burdened by debt and help avert severe regional and global economic downturn. The Japanese government was indeed generous in providing financial assistance, but still there was a perception then that Japan had again failed to grasp the moment and establish strong leadership credentials (Maswood 2001, p. 2). After the Fukuda Doctrine, the other milestone in Japan-ASEAN relations had to be the 2003 Tokyo Declaration, which was issued during the ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit to mark 30 years of relationship. The Tokyo Declaration sets an ambitious long-term goal of creating an East Asian Community. Unfortunately, two years after this ambitious declaration, and after the much anticipated inaugural East Asia Summit (EAS) held in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, the goal of an East Asian Community may actually be a little more distant than it had been in 2003. What contributes to this rather sad reality, and how do Japan-ASEAN relations fit into the picture? What should Japan and ASEAN do or not do if there is indeed a genuine desire to create an East Asian Community? Japan's Southeast Asian Strategy? Does Japan have a Southeast Asian strategy? …


In the final decades of the twentieth century, experts in a wide variety of disciplines—such as computer science, evolutionary biology, management studies, and educational theory—introduced the concepts of modular design into their professional discourses and practices. In each of these disciplines, modular systems called for standardized, interchangeable components (or modules) that could be recombined within a predefined system architecture. This article explores the modern history of modularity as it was imagined and applied in two specific settings: the architectural theories of Albert Farwell Bemis in the 1930s and the construction of electronic computers in the 1950s and 1960s. By framing this account as a history of an ordering concept, I hope to persuade information historians to look across traditional disciplinary boundaries and examine the more general set of concepts, strategies, organizations, and technologies that humans have used in their unending efforts to order and make sense of information.


Toxicity in cattle by the shrub Nolletia gariepina was induced experimentally by intraruminal administration of 3 g/kg dried, milled plant material as a single dose. The animals had to be starved for 24 hours before dosing, as dosing on a full rumen did not induce any signs of toxicity during 5 days of observation and clinical pathology monitoring. Clinical signs were not specific and varied according to the duration (acute versus subacute) of the toxicological process. Clinical pathological parameters indicated renal and to a lesser extent hepatic damage, with raised serum concentrations of urea, creatinine, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT). Increased urinary sodium and potassium concentration and GGT activity, as well as proteinuria, were evident. Histological and electron microscopic examinations revealed acute renal tubular epithelial cell degeneration and necrosis, especially of the proximal convoluted tubules. Mild hepatocellular degeneration was also noticeable.


The three-tier web architecture is becoming the de-facto solution for delivering information and business services over the Internet. The center of this architecture is a web application, which implements the business logic, accesses the information stored at the back-end database and interacts with the users through the front-end web server. As web applications get increasingly complex to support sophisticated business functionalities, an emerging class of vulnerabilities, which are referred to as logic vulnerabilities (a.k.a, logic flaws), have attracted increasing attention in recent years. The attacks that target on these vulnerabilities, which are referred to as logic attacks or state violation attacks, have posed serious security threats. To date, very few works have been devoted to the study of the logic vulnerabilities and effective measures to mitigate logic attacks are yet to be developed. Most existing works only target on one specific type of logic vulnerability, and are limited by the availability of application source code and the applicability to specific development languages and platforms. The major challenges come from the fact that application logic flaws and attacks are specific to the functionality of a particular web application and its implementation usually comes without an explicit logic specification.
In this dissertation, we aim to address logic attacks against web applications in an automated, general and black-box way (i.e., without requiring the application source code). We present several techniques for automatically deriving the application logic specification by observing and extracting patterns from the interactions between the application and users, as well as the database. Then, we leverage the inferred logic specification for both runtime detection of logic attacks (i.e., defensive approach) and discovery of logic vulnerabilities within web applications (i.e., preventive approach). The defensive approach can be utilized to protect potentially vulnerable web applications that cannot be taken offline for vulnerability analysis, while the preventive approach can help the developers to identify and fix logic flaws within the application implementations so that they are immune to logic attacks. We implemented two prototype systems  – BLOCK and SENTINAL, based on our defensive techniques and three prototypes systems  – LogicScope, EXPELLER, BATMAN, based on our preventive techniques. These prototype systems have different features and focuses. We evaluate them over a set of real world open-source web applications. The experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of our techniques and prototype systems.


Hydraulic fracturing generally leads to highly complex hydraulic networks for tight oil reservoirs. It is significant to understand the hydraulic fracture effect on well performance. As an effective tool, semi-analytical solution for well pressure transient analysis (PTA) and rate transient analysis (RTA) is used in large amount because of higher calculation efficiency than numerical solution. In this paper, the PTA and RTA methods and result of composite formation system (CFS) are shown comprehensively. Firstly, a mathematical model of multistage fractured horizontal well (MsFHW) in CFS was proposed for tight oil reservoir with different regions and formation properties. In the model, two regions with different formation parameters were distinguished. This assumption of two regions, i.e. CFS is a composite tight reservoir formed after hydraulic fracturing. Difference of finite hydraulic fracture conductivity, inclined angle of hydraulic fracture, different shapes of multi-wing fractures in perforating point are considered to make this model powerful to analyze production performance of different MsFHW types. The inner and outer regions were assumed as dual porosity medium but single porosity medium model can also be solved by simplification. Then, the solution of MsFHW performance analysis model is obtained by source function method and the source function superposition principle which are common used in PTA and RTA. PTA for well producing at a constant production rate and RTA for well producing at a constant wellbore pressure were obtained and discussed. Different flow regimes were divided for different fracture geometry situations. The effects of different MsFHW types on PTA and RTA were analyzed. The inflow performance for different hydraulic fractures were presented. Cited as :  Yuan, J., Jiang, R., Zhang, W. The workflow to analyze hydraulic fracture effect on hydraulic fractured horizontal well production in composite formation system. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2018, 2(3): 319-342, doi: 10.26804/ager.2018.03.09.


This paper investigates the rapport management (Spencer-Oatey 2005) that collections agents at a UK-based utilities company call centre are expected to perform during debt collection telephone interactions. It examines the rapport-relevant information communicated in the textual materials, including training manuals, through which a prescribed debt collection style is implemented. The analysis reveals that there are tensions in the rapport-concerns that collectors must attend to when using the style. Collectors are instructed to perform potentially face-threatening behaviours in order to collect debt, whilst simultaneously engaging in linguistic behaviour that may be interpreted as face-enhancing and which functions to develop rapport with the debtor. It is suggested that the local deployment of this contradictory "helping you to pay us" philosophy is problematic on multiple levels and may give rise to relational tensions between collectors and debtors who have conflicting expectations about rapport management entitlements. In turn, this may contribute to a culture of sanctioned face-attacks in call centres (Archer and Jagodziński 2015). Therefore, I suggest that call centres may need to loosen the synecdochical hold they have over their employees, thereby affording them the flexibility and volition to cope with the complex face demands, unpredictability and potential volatility of debt collection encounters.


Traditional knowledge systems that are closely linked to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity should be conserved by indigenous communities through the establishment of indigenous knowledge programmes. In indigenous knowledge systems, aspects such as values and beliefs, medicine, technology, education, communication, agriculture, food, and arts and crafts should be managed to the benefit of the community. In the new knowledge economy, the knowledge of individuals is the greatest asset. The tacit and explicit components of indigenous knowledge must, therefore, be managed efficiently. The use of communities of practice serve as an example of a means of exchanging knowledge between communities, external parties with an interest in the conservation of indigenous knowledge and facilitators who can help with the creation and maintenance of indigenous knowledge.


We contribute to entrepreneurship research through a 3.5 year follow-up of young biotechnology ventures that have been established to develop and commercialize science based innovations. We want to understand why some of these promising ventures end up as the living dead as a part of an acquired or a merged entity. Previous literature on mergers and acquisitions that considers the phenomenon from the perspective of an entrepreneurial firm - for which M&A can be a lucrative exit strategy - is scarce. Since successful new business opportunities develop based on market knowledge as well as technology knowledge (Shane, 2000), we hypothesize that those new firms that have high levels of market and technological knowledge end up in M&A more often than firms with lower levels of the knowledge based resources. We also hypothesize that for surviving firms, both technological innovativeness and market orientation contribute to the firm's ability to raise capital and to license out technologies. Data came from CEO-entrepreneurs in 85 medical biotechnology firms located in the United States and in Scandinavia. Initial data collection took place through in-person interviews in 2004, and data for dependent variables were collected in the summer of 2007. Our results show that companies that exhibit higher levels of market knowledge end up merging or being acquired more often than less market oriented new firms. Among ongoing businesses, both market knowledge and technological knowledge contribute to capital investments in the firm and technology licensing deals. Performance consequences of market orientation in the existing literature are limited to financial performance outcomes, often established in a large firm context. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating market orientation's contribution to young firm M&A as well as other outcomes in the context of highly technology intensive young ventures.


Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


Objective. —To evaluate the risk of gastrointestinal and operative site bleeding associated with the use of parenteral ketorolac tromethamine. Design. —Postmarketing surveillance inception cohort study. Setting. —A total of 35 hospitals throughout the Philadelphia, Pa, region, 1991 to 1993. Patients. —Patients administered 10272 courses of parenteral ketorolac therapy were compared with patients administered 10247 courses of a parenteral opiate who were matched to the ketorolac patients by hospital, admitting service, and date of initiation of study drug. Main Outcome Measures. —Medical records were reviewed for demographics, medical history, doses and duration of study drug, various aspects of the hospital course including surgery and concomitant medications, and adverse events. Results. —The multivariate adjusted odds ratio (OR) comparing ketorolac with opiates for gastrointestinal bleeding was 1.30 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11 to 1.52); for operative site bleeding, the OR was 1.02 (95% CI, 0.95 to 1.10). The OR was elevated further in subjects 75 years of age or older for both gastrointestinal bleeding (OR=1.66; 95% CI, 1.23 to 2.25) and operative site bleeding (OR=1.12; 95% CI, 0.94 to 1.35). A dose-response relationship was evident between average daily ketorolac dose and both gastrointestinal bleeding and operative site bleeding (trend test P Conclusions. —The overall associations between ketorolac use and both gastrointestinal bleeding and operative site bleeding are small. However, the risk associated with the drug is larger and clinically important when ketorolac is used in higher doses, in older subjects, and for more than 5 days. Improving physicians' prescribing practices by limiting the dose and duration of ketorolac use, especially in the elderly, should enhance its overall risk-benefit balance. ( JAMA . 1996;275:376-382)


Novel open-framework germanates and open low-dimensional structures were synthesized and characterized. Their crystal structures were solved by single crystal X-ray diffraction or X-ray powder diffraction combined with other techniques. Although related open-framework materials, such as zeolites, are of interest for the ability to selectively accommodate guest species in their rings, pores and channels, germanates are primarily of interest for their unique structural properties. Compared to aluminosilicate-based zeolites, germanium oxides readily form frameworks with extra-large rings and low framework density. The formation of elegant germanate architectures is attributed to the unique Ge-O bond geometries compared to Si-O, and the tendency to form large clusters.This thesis is to serve as an introduction to germanate synthesis, structures and characterization. Structures are categorized in accordance to their building units; the Ge7X19 (Ge7), Ge9X25-26 (Ge9) and Ge10X28 (Ge10) (X = O, OH, or F) clusters. Structure determination techniques as well as the characterization techniques used to examine the properties of the materials are presented. While most of the discussed techniques have routinely been used to study crystalline open-frameworks, we introduce the use of infrared spectroscopy for the identification of cluster types, valuable for structure determination by X-ray powder diffraction. Structures and properties of the novel materials ASU-21, SU-62, SU-63, SU-64, SU-65, SU-66, SU-71, SU-72, SU-73, SU-74, SU-75 and SU-JU-14 are described and put into context with previously known structures. The novel structures are all built of the Ge7, Ge9 or Ge10 clusters, and vary from a framework with novel topology to the first open zero-dimensional germanate cavities built of such clusters.


The preliminary findings of an acoustic phonetic analysis of the vowels produced by speakers of English as a second language from North India are presented in this paper. Citation-form monophthong productions of a group of male NIE speakers were recorded and acoustically analysed. Results confirm a number of earlier impressionistic observations from earlier studies including the lack of a quality distinction between most tense/lax vowel pairs. North Indian English also appears to illustrate some vowel patterns that suggest it may be a separate sub-variety of IE.


The aim of the study was to update the information pertaining to mechanized tree-planting activity in Finland in 2013 and its success factors. All businesses providing a mechanized tree-planting service were interviewed and asked to describe their equipment and activities, identify critical success factors (CSFs), and suggest areas for improvement. In 2013, 31 planting machines (18 Bracke P11.a, 11 M-Planter and 2 Risutec) operated by 22 businesses planted approximately 4.7 million seedlings on 2663 hectares. CSFs included expertise of planting machine operators, high quality planting, adequate amount of work, stoniness, and removal of slash. Based on the survey, some recommendations for improving mechanized planting work can be made. Firstly, improving the cost-efficiency of mechanized planting is necessary to enhance businesses' profitability. Secondly, worksite selection is crucial as stoniness, stumps and slash debris diminish productivity. Lastly, the popularity of mechanized planting in the future will benefit from more marketing. Many businesses were unwilling to increase the area of service, invest in new equipment, or increase the volume of planting work but they believed that mechanized planting will become more popular in the near future.


The Cross-Race Effect (CRE), whereby same-race faces are recognized more accurately than cross-race faces, is a well-replicated psychological phenomenon with clear social consequences. The area in which its influence is most visible is that of eyewitness misidentification. Since the advent of DNA testing, it has been revealed that scores of people have been wrongly imprisoned for crimes that they did not commit, and cross-race eyewitness misidentifications are a determining factor in a large percentage of these convictions. This article reviews existing perspectives on the causes of the CRE, including new work on the social cognitive underpinnings of the bias. Next, we make recommendations aimed at reducing the cross-race effect in eyewitness identification, both at the point of witnessing the crime and during the witness lineup. The goal of this work is to encourage policymakers to implement suggestions based on the current understanding of the causes and moderators of the CRE.


This article addresses the extent to which information and communication technologies (ICTs) may be used to manage agricultural indigenous knowledge (IK) to alleviate extreme poverty and halve hunger in the rural areas of Tanzania. It also discusses ways that ICTs can be used to introduce exogenous knowledge into the local communities in order to reduce hunger and poverty. The advent of ICTs provides a window of opportunity for developing countries to harness and utilize IK to their advantage. Access to, and use of, ICTs provides new and faster ways of delivering and accessing information and knowledge that may improve productivity in a wide range of sectors, including agriculture. Access to information and knowledge may give Tanzania the possibility to reduce poverty and increase agricultural productivity. The rural population of Tanzania is not only deprived from accessing global knowledge on agriculture, but it also lacks opportunities to share its own IK. Research shows that the use of exogenous knowledge together with IK systems may improve farming activities. Recommendations are given on how IK may be effectively managed through ICTs in Tanzania


Summary form only given. Very low frequency (VLF) and low frequency (LF) waves remain used to transmitting toward submarines because they can be received a few meters under the sea surface, a possibility not allowed by other frequency bands. To predict the propagation of such waves, the waveguide and wavehop methods have been developed during years 1960-1980. Both are effective in terms of computational cost, but have some drawbacks. During years 1990-2000, a third method was introduced to compute VLF-LF propagation, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method (Thévenot et al, Annales des Télécommunications, 1999). The price of the full wave method is a far larger computational time, but this is a drawback increasingly small as the computers become increasingly powerful.After developing a FDTD computer code for VLF-LF, several papers appeared on FDTD schemes in the Ionosphere. Although they address other applications, an interesting idea in these papers is the use of an implicit scheme for solving the auxiliary equation that governs the current density in the medium. Introduced in non magnetized plasmas (S. A. Cummer, IEEE Trans. Ant. Propag., 1997) and later used in the magnetized Ionosphere (S. A. Cummer, IEEE Trans. Ant. Propag., 2000), the implicit scheme has some drawbacks, as larger memory requirements, but its stability condition is the same as in a vacuum, conversely to that of the explicit scheme which is more severe. For this reason, using the ideas in Cummer's papers, a new implicit scheme has been developed for VLF-LF propagation. The scheme is more compact and effective than the one in (W.H. Hu and S.A. Cummer, IEEE Trans. Ant. Propag., 2006). It permits significant reductions of the computational time, and it renders the FDTD time step independent of the Physics of the Ionosphere, which is a highly desirable feature. The paper presents the new implicit scheme and discusses its advantages and drawbacks in comparison with the explicit scheme. Numerical experiments are provided to validate the new scheme and illustrate its effectiveness in VLF-LF calculations. With the computer code based on the new scheme, the CPU time for a 8000 km radiopath at frequency 20 kHz is typically smaller than 1 min on a 3GHz PC. It is about 10 min for a 5000 km radiopath at 60 kHz. These CPU times can be reduced further to about 10 s and 1-2 min by taking advantage of the multithread possibilities of PC's.


As is true of virtually every realm of the biological sciences, our understanding of speciation is increasingly informed by the genomic revolution of the past decade. Investigators can ask detailed questions relating to both the extrinsic (e.g. inter- and intra-population and ecological interactions) and intrinsic (e.g. genome content and architecture) forces that drive speciation. Technologies ranging from restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq), to whole genome sequencing and assembly, to transcriptomics, to CRISPR are revolutionizing the means by which investigators can both frame and test hypotheses of lineage diversification. Our review aims to examine both extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of speciation. Genome-scale data have already served to fundamentally clarify the role of gene flow during (and after) speciation, although we predict that the differential propensity for speciation among phylogenetic lineages will be one of the most exciting frontiers for future genomic investigation. We propose that a unified theory of speciation will take into account the idiosyncratic features of genomic architecture examined in the light of each organism's biology and ecology drawn from across the full breadth of the Tree of Life.


The successful control of food spoilage microorganisms require the use of indigenous antimicrobials in foods including certain botanical compounds that have been historically used for flavour enhancement as well as preservation. The present study was designed to evaluate the in vitro antimicrobial activity of ethanolic extracts of Syzygium aromaticum (clove) and Allium sativum (garlic) against Gram-positive and Gram-negative food associated bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, B. megaterium, B. polymyxa, B. sphaericus, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) and molds (Penicillium oxalicum, Aspergillus flavus, A. luchuensis, Rhizopus stolonifer, Scopulariopsis sp. and Mucor sp.) assayed by agar well diffusion method and poisoned food technique, respectively. Clove extract showed better antimicrobial activity than the garlic extract. The zone of inhibition in clove ethanolic extract against all the food associated bacteria was in the range of 25mm to 32mm and in molds the percent mycelial growth inhibition ranged from 70% to 100%. The growth inhibition zone in garlic ethanolic extract against bacteria was in the range of 20mm to 31mm and in molds the percent mycelial growth inhibition ranged between 20% and 50%. The clove ethanolic extract exhibited the maximum zone of inhibition against E. coli whereas garlic ethanolic extract showed maximum activity against B. subtilis. Both the extracts exhibited maximum percent mycelial growth inhibition against R. stolonifer. However garlic extract was not effective against P. oxalicum. The MIC values of clove ethanolic extract for different bacterial isolates ranged from 5.0mg/ml to 20mg/ml and 10 mg/ml to 20mg/ml against molds. The MIC values of garlic ethanolic extract for different bacterial and fungal isolates ranged from 10 mg/ml to 20mg/ml. The value of MBC and MFC equaled the MIC. Based on this finding, it may be suggested that these extracts may be used as natural antimicrobial additives to reclaim the shelf-life of foods.


Reservoirs in areas with a high sediment yield will without mitigation sooner or later be filled up with sediments, reducing the volume available for regulation for electric generation. Flushing of sediments is a management strategy used in many reservoirs in the world, with varying degree of success. The Angostura reservoir is a shallow reservoir located on an inundated river, making it extra vulnerable to sedimentation. It is estimated a yearly inflow of 1.5 million tons of sediment. Other reservoirs are located upstream, and the flushing of these leads to large quantities of sediment inflow in a short period of time. In September every year, the water level in Angostura is partially drawn down to route this sediment through the reservoir. In November, the water level is drawn down completely, and a full sediment flushing is performed. The RESCON model is a spreadsheet program designed to find a technically feasible sediment management strategy that maximizes the economical benefits of the project. Flushing is modeled with a simple algebraic model. SSIIM is a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics program designed for hydraulic engineering. Sediment erosion, transport and sedimentation can be modeled in a complex reservoir geometry using an adaptive grid with a moveable bed. The main objective of this thesis is to test the performance of the RESCON and SSIIM models. The RESCON model was tested on the November flushing to see if it can reproduce the measured volume of flushed sediments. SSIIM was used for simulation of sediment concentration distribution in the reservoir, and to model the September flushing. The results are compared to measured values. The reservoir geometry is based on bathymetry data from September 2011. Inflow series are from logged values at the hydropower plant. Depth-averaged concentration values are used to present the longitudinal concentration distribution, and Hunter Rouse profiles to present the vertical distribution. Using known reservoir values and the recommended coefficients, the RESCON model was not able to get close to the actual volume of flushed sediments. Although the model has given promising results in other cases, the complex reservoir geometry in Angostura sets heavy restrictions on the flushing processes in the reservoir, which an algebraic model of this type cannot reproduce. The steady state simulation was successful in explaining previously unexplained variations in the concentration in the lateral and longitudinal direction of the reservoir. The simulation reproduces the longitudinal and vertical concentration distribution well. A bug in the implementation of the second-order scheme in SSIIM was discovered, which has later been fixed, giving more similar results for the first-order and second-order schemes. The time allocated for the flushing simulation was not enough to get satisfactory results. The erosion in the upstream end is modelled well, but the measured sedimentation in the downstream area is much larger than in the simulations. With more time for this simulation, it would have been possible to increase the quality of the results.


We manipulate terahertz (THz) waveforms by optical rectification in nonlinear optical crystals using a pair of temporally separated femtosecond pulses. Two single-cycle THz pulses coherently control rotational transitions in gas-phase HCl molecules. Continuously tunable narrowband THz pulses are generated in a fanned-out, periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. The shape of the multicycle THz pulses is controlled by adjusting the relative time delay and intensity between the two optical pulses.


In Reunion Island, alcohol is the most tried out psychoactive substance. To our knowledge, few indicators measuring the health burden of alcohol use exist on the island. In this context, an exploratory analysis based on syndromic surveillance data was implemented in order to describe the emergency department (ED) visits for alcohol intoxication (AI) and factors associated with their variations. An analysis of anonymized records routinely collected by the syndromic surveillance system was carried out. A daily indicator of ED visits for AI was built from a selection of ICD-10 codes between 2010 and 2012. Health impact of AI was first described comparing this indicator to all causes ED visits. Then, AI visits were analyzed with time-series methods using generalized additive Poisson regression models allowing for overdispersion. The following variables were included in the model: long-term trend, seasonality, day of the week, public and school holidays, days of festival and minimum social benefits payday. During the study period, 16 652 visits for AI were recorded in EDs of Reunion Island. AI visits were the second reason for ED visits (i.e. 4%) after traumatism. AI visits mainly concerned men (87%) and the age group of 25-54 years (69%). There was a significant increase in ED visits for AI during days of benefits payday, weekends and publics holidays. This study demonstrated the interest of syndromic surveillance to monitor non-infectious diseases. Time-series models showed a robust association between ED visits for AI and several factors.


A document discusses the replication of the functionality of the onboard space-shuttle general-purpose computers (GPCs) in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The purpose of the replication effort is to enable utilization of proven space-shuttle flight software and software-development facilities to the extent possible during development of software for flight computers for a new generation of launch vehicles derived from the space shuttles. The replication involves specifying the instruction set of the central processing unit and the input/output processor (IOP) of the space-shuttle GPC in a hardware description language (HDL). The HDL is synthesized to form a "core" processor in an FPGA or, less preferably, in an ASIC. The core processor can be used to create a flight-control card to be inserted into a new avionics computer. The IOP of the GPC as implemented in the core processor could be designed to support data-bus protocols other than that of a multiplexer interface adapter (MIA) used in the space shuttle. Hence, a computer containing the core processor could be tailored to communicate via the space-shuttle GPC bus and/or one or more other buses.


This book delineates recent Canadian constitutional events. Text includes a discussion of the transition from dualism to regionalism, three key decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Quebec Referendum, federal-provincial relations in 1980 and subsequent unilateral federal action, the patriation package, the ensuing legal maneuvers, the Supreme Court review, and the Guy Fawkes' Day compromise. Lengthy appendixes contain extracts from the four successive versions of the resolution on the constitution, extracts from the Supreme Court advisory on Senate reforms, extracts from courts of appeal documents, and from the Supreme Court's judgment. Text includes brief appendix.


This article describes an application of Natural Langnage Processing (NLP) techniques to enable fast browsing of on-line documents by automatically generating Hypertext s~lmmaries of one or more documents. Unlike previous w~k on summarization, the system described here, HyperGen, does not produce plain-text snmmaries and does not throw away parts of the document that weren't included in the summary. HyperGen is based on the view that snmmarization is essentially the task of synthesizing Hypertext structure in a document so that parts of the document "important" to the user are accessible up front while other parts are hidden in multiple layers of increasing detail. In fact, HyperGen generates short descriptions of the contents and rhetorical purposes of the hidden parts to label the Hypertext links between the s~lmmary and the different layers of detail that it generates. A prototype HyperGen system has been implemented to illustrate the techniques and demonstrate its usefulness in browsing World Wide Web documents.


In the process industries, the separation of mixtures of hydrocarbons is important both for the preparation of feedstocks and for use as end products. The constituents, hydrocarbons, are either aliphatic or aromatic, saturated or unsaturated, with a large variation in the number of carbon atoms. Using microporous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), a number of different separation strategies can be employed to achieve the desired separation performance. The strategies include selective binding with the metal atoms of the framework, exploiting differences in molecular packing efficiencies within the ordered pore structures, utilizing selectivities based on the framework flexibility and gate-opening mechanisms, and molecular sieving. Various strategies are discussed in this article, along with perspectives for future research and development for improving the separation performance.


In the last decade, there has been a revolution in the perception of businesses as entities whose sole goal is to yield returns for their shareholders to the belief that they have a responsibility to mitigate their negative impacts on communities and the environment by voluntarily taking actions to improve those entities. Though there is an increased emphasis among businesses on corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is limited research examining how companies can maximize the positive impact of their strategies and whether or not investing in doing so will make them more successful. To address this gap, my thesis will attempt to answer the question: Do internal or external CSR strategies yield higher ROIs for both companies and the causes they seek to support? By analyzing eight hundred and thirty-nine CSR strategies from ten companies, the study found that internal strategies are significantly more effective than external strategies. The researchers were unable to come to a conclusion regarding the financial ROI of strategies due to limitations in the available financial data and difficulty in comparing data between companies of different industries.


The paper analyzes tender offers and proxy contests as alternative means of resolving corporate governance conflicts between dissidents and incumbent management. We show that when a dissident shareholder is sufficiently confident about the potential benefits from changing corporate policy, he will seek majority control by making a tender offer rather than initiating a proxy contest. When the dissident is relatively uninformed, however, he may opt for a proxy contest, thereby utilizing the information of other shareholders to implement the better policy. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that announcements of tender offers will tend to be associated with larger positive stockprice reactions than announcements of proxy contests. The model is easily extended to allow for promanagement bias in proxy voting by institutional investors. Empirical observations that have been viewed as evidence of such promanagement bias are shown to be quite consistent with the absence of such bias. Policy issues are discussed as well. An interesting result is that even policies targeted at reducing the costs of conducting proxy contests may have ambiguous social consequences, given the possibility of substitution between tender offers and proxy contests. Copyright (c) 1997 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


The present study first establishes a framework for examining sociologically how ideas are formed with particular reference to the examination of Chinese intellectuals' conceptualization of democracy. The basis for this framework is K. Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, together with A. Gramsci's sociology of intellectuals and P. Bourdieu's notion of intellectual field. Deriving the insights from these scholars we hope to establish a more coherent conceptual framework for the analysis of intellectual production. With this framework in hand, the next step was to determine a reasonable approach to the examination of the ideological formation of Chinese intellectuals. The source of information for the study came from the first-hand intensive interviews with the selected intellectuals. Besides, the present study also scrutinizes the works of these intellectuals whose works have spanned the years especially from the May Fourth Movement (1919) to the June Fourth Incident (1989). Their perceptions of democracy, freedom and human rights provide vital clues for determining the complete picture of the evolution on the idea of democracy in contemporary China. No one intellectual has managed to suggest what democracy is, but using the theoretical framework and examining the interviews, writings and speeches of these intellectuals over a period of several years have allowed this researcher to develop a systematic and a more integrated view of democracy as formulated by Chinese intellectuals. In the process of analyzing the ideological production of Chinese intellectuals, this writer has also discovered the emergence of new and different relationships which have developed between Chinese intellectuals and the state. At the same time as they have become more independent, the nature of their critique has changed. In the past Chinese intellectuals criticized only the corruption of government and never the system of government itself. But post-Mao intellectuals have thrown off the fetters of their predecessors and turned their attacks on the system of their repressive Communist regime. Those who, in an earlier era, were fiercely loyal to the Communist ideals now speak only of the myth of a Communist utopia. Their criticism of the crises in China and their critique of state socialism reveal not only their scepticism of socialist praxis but also their wishes to make China more democratic. One point which deserves special attention is that the present research finds that the sixth generation of intellectuals has become more conscious about their independent role, rethinking a new relationship with the state and they have distinguished themselves from the establishment. The most significant finding of the present research is the fact that the ideological formation is greatly affected by the social location, the educational orientation and generational location of intellectuals. More importantly, a deeper understanding of how Chinese intellectuals conceive the ideas of democracy is significantly determined by the particular socio-historical and socio-cultural contexts in which the ideas are formed. The present study also observes that intellectual radicalism is greatly constrained by the socioeconomic and political opportunities that intellectuals have access. With different social locations and socio-economic-political opportunities to which intellectuals access, they may adopt different strategies in coping with the state. After the June Fourth massacre, many Chinese intellectuals with critical thinking were forced to exile overseas. The writer also finds that these exiled intellectuals have deeper reflection of democracy and also their relationship with the state especially when their socio-political circumstances have changed. Adding these observations together, it is highly indicative to us that Chinese intellectuals have struggled for a more autonomous social position and endeavored to have a new relationship with the state. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).


The Cyclops Cycle is a 1-hour, 3 projector video installation. Three of the seven sections were shown in an earlier version in 1998 but were substantially re-edited in 2001. The first presentation of the full Cyclops Cycle continuous installation in its final form was in 2004 at the Triskel Gallery, shown as a special feature installation in the 49th Cork Film Festival (Catalogue in Portfolio) together with a two programme retrospective of earlier work. The Cycle which comprises: Joseph's Newer Coat; Even the Cyclops Pays the Ferryman; Still Life and Lunch in Little Italy; Jazzy Jazzy Jazzy; Neither Here Nor There; Travelling with Mark; and Cherry; has been exhibited at a number of venues since 2004. At the Kiasma Museum it was also shown in the context of a parallel retrospective at the Finnish Film Museum. At IVAM, Valencia, it was shown as part of a four day Master Class (Taller de Artista).

The installation explores issues that have formed part of my published theoretical work, in particular, the re-positioning of the spectator in the context of multi-projection where each screen develops different versions of the source material through digital editing and image transformation. It also explores the transformation of diary sourced material into metaphor and allegory related to theoretical work published in the essay 'The Chronos Project' (Chapter 20 - page 251 in my Book 'Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age' - BFI Pubs. 2001 ISBN 0-85170-873-0).

Through 'Cyclops Cycle' I have reviewed continuities between new multi-projection video and my earlier expanded film work helped by their inclusion earlier works as installations in two historical review exhibitions:' X-Screen', December 2003 at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMOK), Vienna (catalogue , ISBN 3-88375-761-6); and 'Behind the Facts'. February 2004 at the Fondacion Juan Miro, Barcelona (catalogue ISBN 84-923925-8-4).


The landmark Supreme Court Decision of Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954 struck down the policy of separate but equal and set a legal precedent that racial discrimination in public education violates the United States constitution. Later the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited colleges and universities from discriminating based upon age, sex, race, or religion. The Civil Rights Act strengthened the enforcement capabilities of the Office of Civil Rights in ensuring desegregation. These legislative and judicial efforts have engaged higher education and state officials in often-controversial attempts to desegregate systems and institutions of higher education. Because colleges and universities predominately failed to comply with court decisions and judicial outcomes, in 1971 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed suit against the Office of Civil Rights for failing to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Adams v. Richardson, 1973). Since 1971, 19 states have been struggling to comply with legislative and judicial requirements to desegregate.

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally analyze the results of desegregation efforts at public colleges and universities in states that formerly operated dual systems of higher education. The progress, rate of change, and pattern of desegregation were quantifiably measured using a segregation index and analyzed using a repeated measure analysis of variance, pooled cross-sectional time-series model, and Split-Plot Analysis of Variance.

The results of the study indicate that Adams states made initial progress in desegregating between 1980 and 1990, but over the last 10 to 15 years, the Adams states have, overall, begun to re-segregate. The results of this study have implications for policy makers in setting state and institutional policies and allocating resources. The data provides policymakers the ability to benchmark and understand the historical implications of policies implemented during the early desegregation efforts. Policy makers, to include legislators, state executives, institutional administrators, and governing boards have the ability to influence the direction and priorities of desegregating higher education.


There is need to understand the genetic structure of wild sorghums that grow alongside cultivated traditional sorghum varieties in order to assess the potential effect of crop genes in wild populations. In this study, 175 wild sorghum samples were collected from 13 agroecological zones (AEZs) from three counties in Western Kenya and genotyped using microsattelite markers. Crop alleles were observed in wild sorghum populations. The range of allelic frequencies varied from low (˂0.4), to moderate (0.4-0.7) and to high (0.7) in the AEZs. Wild sorghum populations had moderate to high expected heterozygosity (HE) values of between 0.453 in LM1 to 0.715 in LM2. Differences in the magnitude of diversity was significant in the counties (Busia HE = 0.59 – 0.71; Homabay HE = 0.58-0.68 and Siaya HE = 0.45-0.59) but not distinct among the AEZs. Whole population FIS, FST and FIT values were low at 0.15, 0.16 and 0.29, respectively indicating low level of inbreeding, low genetic differentiation of the population and low to moderate deviation from Hardy–Weinberg (HW) equilibrium respectively. The deviation from HW equilibrium was significant in some wild populations from Siaya and Busia. Intra-population diversity (HS) was larger than inter-population diversity (DST) in 13 populations from the sampled AEZs, indicating the importance of gene flow between populations of wild sorghums. Heterozygosity values under mutation drift equilibrium (HEQ) varied under infinite allele model (IAM), two–phase model (TPM) and the step wise mutation model (SMM). However, significant population bottlenecks were absent in the wild sorghums. Presence of significant geographic county clusters and lack of significance on AEZ clusters indicate that human activities have had more influence on the distribution and diversity of wild sorghums than the prevailing climatic conditions. Efforts towards physical and genetic containment of crops genes need to be enhanced for successful ecologically sensitive confined field trials and future adoption of transgenics in cropping systems. Keywords: Diversity, Sorghum bicolor , Sorghum halepense , Sorghum sudanense , microsatellite loci. Abbreviation: AEZ, Agro-ecological zone; DST, inter-population gene diversity; FIS, fixation index; FIT, index of deviation from HW equilibrium; FST, degree of population differentiation; GST, proportion of inter-population gene diversity; HE, expected heterozygosity; HEQ, heterozygosity values under mutation drift equilibrium; HO, observed heterozygosity; HT, total gene diversity; IAM, infinite allele model; SMM, stepwise mutation model; TPM, two-phase model; LM, lower Midlands; UM, upper midlands; HB, Homabay; SY, Siaya; BU, Busia counties; SSR, simple sequence repeats.


Most consumer electronics today contain embedded software. In the early days, developing CE software presented relatively minor challenges, but in the past several years three significant problems have arisen: size and complexity of the software in individual products; the increasing diversity of products and their software; and the need for decreased development time. The question of handling diversity and complexity in embedded software at an increasing production speed becomes an urgent one. The authors present their belief that the answer lies not in hiring more software engineers. They are not readily available, and even if they were, experience shows that larger projects induce larger lead times and often result in greater complexity. Instead, they believe that the answer lies in the use and reuse of software components that work within an explicit software architecture. The Koala model, a component-oriented approach detailed in this article, is their way of handling the diversity of software in consumer electronics. Used for embedded software in TV sets, it allows late binding of reusable components with no additional overhead.


In this paper, a robust method is developed to locate the irises of both eyes. The method doesn't put any restrictions on the background. The method is based on the AdaBoost algorithm for face and eye candidate points detection. Candidate points are tuned such that two candidate points are exactly in the centers of the irises. Mean crossing function and convolution template are proposed to filter out candidate points and select the iris pair. The advantage of using this kind of hybrid method is that AdaBoost is robust to different illumination conditions and backgrounds. The tuning step improves the precision of iris localization while the convolution filter and mean crossing function reliably filter out candidate points and select the iris pair. The proposed structure is evaluated on three public databases, Bern, Yale and BioID. Extensive experimental results verified the robustness and accuracy of the proposed method. Using the Bern database, the performance of the proposed algorithm is also compared with some of the existing methods.


Throughout his writings, John Milton addressed the idea of genuine liberty or freedom over against the self-indulgence that he sometimes called license, a selfindulgence that inevitably leads to tyranny from within and from without. Indeed, Milton's understanding of license inevitably includes the idea of abusing freedom to pursue some sort of fleshly indulgence, whereas his concept of genuine liberty focuses on the freedom for the moral person to live a virtuous life and pursue virtuous goals under the strictures of his own conscience in spite of the temptations and roadblocks offered by intemperate persons, stifling custom, or an interfering state. Significantly, Milton's explicitly Christian ideal of genuine liberty emphasizes the need for virtuous self-government to characterize the truly free individual. Although Milton does not always employ the specific terms liberty or license, these concepts as well as the ideal of self-government can consistently be seen, implicitly or explicitly, with remarkable consistency throughout his four and a half decades of published writings. David V. Urban, "Liberty, License, and Virtuous Self-Government in John Milton's Writings," Journal of Markets and Morality 17, no.1 (Spring 2014):143-166. Click here to discuss this article on Journaltalk.


One hundred and fifty years ago, stories were coming from the colonial frontier of natives who believed that twins were birds, that blood bound people together, and that people's fingernails could be used to ensorcel them. The going theory was that non-Europeans were confused. They had a "primitive mentality" which could not clearly distinguish between things which were in fact distinct. Levy-Bruhl (1978) argued that mentalite primitif confused nature and culture, humans and inanimate objects, and cause and effect while Frazer (1958) formulated his famous laws of similarity and contagion. The work of both authors-despite their current political incorrectness-marked a genuine step towards the culture concept. Both men based their theories on news from the colonies, from which stories about people in the "savage slot" (Trouillot 1991) were coming in thick and fast. One of the most common and enduring-albeit spurious-of these sorts of tropes revolves around cameras. "The natives" would not allow whites to take their picture because cameras could "steal their souls." The imperial explanation was simple: these people had a "primitive mentality" and confused their soul with their image. Rational Europeans knew better: they could tell the difference between a picture and the thing it depicted. Their thoughts were clear and distinct, freed from the miasma of an earlier, less discerning age. It may come as a bit of a surprise, then, to consider the events of 8 April 2002 when Tipper Gore gave a speech at American University in Washington DC. During the course of the speech, a student protestor began video-taping Mrs. Gore and was asked to stop. When he refused, a scuffle ensued in which he was handcuffed, led away, and the tape confiscated. Amongst the charges laid against him by the disciplinary committee at AU was possession of stolen property-by which was meant the image and likeness of Tipper Gore (Argetsinger 2002). It is ironic to note that now, nearly a century after The Golden Bough, contemporary thought on intellectual property undertakes contortions eerily similar to the "native point of view" that Frazer and Levy-Bruhl considered their first world compatriots to be above. Don't get me wrong-I would never tarnish the reputation of the world's indigenous people by ascribing to them the same level of civilizational development as Tipper Gore. And while I would use many terms to describe the colossal literature on intellectual property, "primitive" and "undeveloped" are not among them. However, I do believe that the cultural underpinnings of American intellectual property law and the more traditionally anthropological literatures on taboo and Melanesian personhood are related. In this paper I will metonymically gloss both these topics under the heading "copyright" and "taboo." How, I ask, can one shed light on the other, and how can such a combination allow us to understand the cultural forces at play in the Tipper Gore example? In anthropology, particularly the anthropology of classically "savage slot" locations such as Melanesia, we have a tendency to draw a division between "us" and "them"-"they" have partible personhood (Strathern 1988, but see also her later work such as 1992) and "we" imagine ourselves as "possessive individuals" (MacPherson 1962). Anthropological critiques of American common sense such as Marshall Sahlins' critique of the "native anthropology of western cosmology" (2000) seek to undermine our assumptions by showing how culturally specific they are-we're prudish, but they (over in Samoa) are much more open about sex, and so forth. On this account, it's their difference from us that makes the critique powerful. Here, I'll argue that copyright and taboo are alike because they are both responses to the same existential predicament: the fact that our identities and senses of self are always already rooted in the inevitableness of our bodies even as they exceed our corporeality. …


The assumption that macrophytes can provide zooplankton a daytime refuge against fish predation is central to the diel horizontal migration hypothesis. However, previous observations and experiments have shown that largeߚbodied zooplankton avoid macrophytes. To directly test these contrasting roles of macrophytes, we measured the reaction of Daphnia pulex to macrophytes (Elodea canadensis or plastic) in the presence and absence of chemical cues from two commonly occurring European fishes, roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluvialitis). In the same series of laboratory experiments, we then tested the ability of different densities of E. canadensis and plastic macrophytes to reduce predation by roach or perch. In the absence of fish, only 27% of daphnids occurred in the macrophytes. However, 70–80% of daphnids occurred in the macrophytes when either roach or perch occurred. In addition, significantly more daphnids occurred in plastic versus real macrophytes, indicating that some chemically mediated avoidance of real macrophytes by Daphnia occurred. In the presence of fish chemical cues from either roach or perch, the differences between real and plastic macrophytes quickly disappeared as daphnids moved into macrophytes. However, this behavior decreased mortality only from roach predation, because perch spent significantly more time than roach foraging among macrophytes. Thus, although daphnids sought macrophyte refuge in the presence of both fishes, the effectiveness of the refuge depended on macrophyte density and predator identity. These results support the idea that macrophytes can increase survival of Daphnia populations in shallow lakes, depending on the fish species present.


Shared leadership and effective partnering were proposed by Sandra Balderrama, ALA Diversity Offices in the last issue of the EMIE Bulletin as a strategy to advance the work of diversity and libraries. In our continuing expl?ration on "Uniting Multicultural V?ices in Libraries" I want to highlight the multicultural work that EMIERT and ALA are conducting, work that is collaborative in nature. ? the Midwinter meeting, Chair-Elect J. B. Petty and I attended the Diversity Congress hosted by the ALA Council Committee on Minority Concerns and Cultural Diversity with facilitator Lou Wetherbee. It has set in motion a dial?gue among the different ALA units and affiliates which have traditionally worked independently to address diversity and libraries, facilitated an exchange of information and identification of common concerns, and created a framework for collective planning continued exchange and potential collaboration to learn more about the Diversity Congress, see http://www.ala.org/spectrum/ccmccd/congresshome.html


A key driver of Australian sweetpotato productivity improvements and consumer demand has been industry adoption of disease-free planting material systems. On a farm isolated from main Australian sweetpotato areas, virus-free germplasm is annually multiplied, with subsequent 'pathogen-tested' (PT) sweetpotato roots shipped to commercial Australian sweetpotato growers. They in turn plant their PT roots into specially designated plant beds, commencing in late winter. From these beds, they cut sprouts as the basis for their commercial fields. Along with other intense agronomic practices, this system enables Australian producers to achieve worldRSQUOs highest commercial yields (per hectare) of premium sweetpotatoes. Their industry organisation, ASPG (Australian Sweetpotato Growers Inc.), has identified productivity of mother plant beds as a key driver of crop performance. Growers and scientists are currently collaborating to investigate issues such as catastrophic plant beds losses; optimisation of irrigation and nutrient addition; rapidity and uniformity of initial plant bed harvests; optimal plant bed harvest techniques; virus re-infection of plant beds; and practical longevity of plant beds. A survey of 50 sweetpotato growers in Queensland and New South Wales identified a substantial diversity in current plant bed systems, apparently influenced by growing district, scale of operation, time of planting, and machinery/labour availability. Growers identified key areas for plant bed research as: optimising the size and grading specifications of PT roots supplied for the plant beds; change in sprout density, vigour and performance through sequential cuttings of the plant bed; optimal height above ground level to cut sprouts to maximise commercial crop and plant bed performance; and use of structures and soil amendments in plant bed systems. Our ongoing multi-disciplinary research program integrates detailed agronomic experiments, grower adaptive learning sites, product quality and consumer research, to enhance industry capacity for inspired innovation and commercial, sustainable practice change.


Coverage begins with selection of patients who are candidates for transplantation, care of the patient on the waiting list, and evaluation of donors. Subsequent chapters address preoperative care and induction and maintenance of immunosuppression. An extensive section on post-transplantation care includes chapters on rejection, recurrent disease, and disorders that frequently result from transplantation, such as bone disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Also included are discussions on long-term outcomes of renal transplantation and psychosocial and ethical issues.


Abstract Following a Middle–Late Devonian (c. 390–360 Ma) phase of crustal shortening and mountain building, continental extension and onset of high-medium-grade metamorphic terrains occurred in the SW Iberian Massif during the Visean (c. 345–326 Ma). The Évora–Aracena–Lora del Rı́o metamorphic belt extends along the Ossa–Morena Zone southern margin from south Portugal through the south of Spain, a distance of 250 km. This major structural domain is characterized by local development of high-temperature–low-pressure metamorphism (c. 345–335 Ma) that reached high amphibolite to granulite facies. These high-medium-grade metamorphic terrains consist of strongly sheared Ediacaran and Cambrian–early Ordovician (c. 600–480 Ma) protoliths. The dominant structure is a widespread steeply-dipping foliation with a gently-plunging stretching lineation generally oriented parallel to the fold axes. Despite of the wrench nature of this collisional orogen, kinematic indicators of left-lateral shearing are locally compatible with an oblique component of extension. These extensional transcurrent movements associated with pervasive mylonitic foliation (c. 345–335 Ma) explain the exhumation of scarce occurrences of eclogites (c. 370 Ma). Mafic-intermediate plutonic and hypabyssal rocks (c. 355–320 Ma), mainly I-type high-K calc-alkaline diorites, tonalites, granodiorites, gabbros and peraluminous biotite granites, are associated with these metamorphic terrains. Volcanic rocks of the same chemical composition and age are preserved in Tournaisian–Visean (c. 350–335 Ma) marine basins dominated by detrital sequences with local development of syn-sedimentary gravitational collapse structures. This study, supported by new U–Pb zircon dating, demonstrates the importance of intra-orogenic transtension in the Gondwana margin during the Early Carboniferous when the Rheic ocean between Laurussia and Gondwana closed, forming the Appalachian and Variscan mountains.


The vegetation that remains in the soil after harvest benefits the physical and chemical properties of soil. However, the straw becomes a barrier to the application of pre-emergence herbicides, preventing it from reaching the target. In these cases, the choice of spray tip and droplet size is essential for successful aplication. Thus, the objective of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of penetration of the spray applied, depending on the size of the droplets produced by several types of spray nozzles on oat straw. The study was conducted in Maringa-PR, using gerbox-type boxes as collection units, covered by different amounts of oat straw. The experimental design was completely randomized in a factorial scheme 8x7, with eight spray nozzles (fan and cone) and 7 increasing amounts of oat straw. The product retained on the collection unit surface was collected and the absorbance was measured. Data were subjected to analysis of variance and averages compared by means of the Skott-Knott grouping, at 5% probability. It could be concluded that droplet size is extremely important in the implementation of oat straw. Very fine and very coarse droplets fail to efficiently transpose the barrier formed by the straw. Spray nozzles that produce average size droplets (CV-IA 02 and ST-02) present a greater transposition volume than the others, being recommended for applications of pre-emergence herbicides in direct-sowing, up to 4 t ha-1 mulch.


This research project resulted in the first symposium held in the UK that focused on Rapid Prototyping in Contemporary Sculpture in an international context. It gave an overview of current practices, debated the impact that Rapid Prototyping has had on Contemporary Sculpture, extended and challenged the conception / reception of the object. It asked the question - Are we in a paradigm shift of the sculptural object?

My own research project, commenced by establishing an analytical framework that describes and conceptualises the visual experience of the physical. I initiated this major study by recording conversations by contemporary sculptors - Phyllida Barlow, David Cheeseman, John Issacs, Elizabeth Rosser and Johnathan Callen.

The symposium featured presentations from international artists who use advanced digital technology: Annie Cattrell, Bruce Gernand, Keith Brown. Roger Clarke, as well as Professor David Wimpenny. Keynote - Christiane Paul, the Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Director of Intelligent Agent, Digital Art (part of the World of Art Series by Thames & Hudson, UK 2003). Heidi Reitmaier from the Tate Britain, London, chaired the panel.

Arising out of the symposium I was awarded an AHRC and Arts Council (ACE) Arts and Science Research Fellowship to establish Annie Cattrell as a Research Fellow in Fine Art and Computing Sciences and Engineering. The project was a collaboration between Professor David Wimpenny from the Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering and Dr Sarah Wayte from Walsgrave Hospital NHS Trust, Coventry.

The project explored the implications (both Artistic and Scientific), of the application of Rapid Prototyping in creating representations in Contemporary Sculpture from Magnetic Resonance Imaging.