The effect of postweld heat treatment (PWHT) on 2.6‐mm‐thick Ti‐6Al‐4V butt joints that were welded using a continuous‐wave 8‐kW ytterbium fibre laser was studied in terms of the microstructure, microtexture, number of welding defects, microhardness, residual stress distribution and high cycle fatigue (HCF) properties. Five types of heat treatments in the temperature range of 540–920°C are investigated. The main reasons leading to fatigue life deterioration after the laser welding process are discussed, and possible guidelines for further improvement of the HCF behaviour by a subsequent suitable type of PWHT are provided. Low‐temperature annealing (T < 600°C) tends to harden both the base material and the welding zone without any significant effect on the fatigue properties. Heat treatments at higher temperatures (T > 750°C) lead to the transformation of a strong martensitic structure in the fusion zone (FZ) into more ductile coarse lamellar, which is more beneficial for fatigue performance. A suitable type of PWHT can increase the fatigue limit of a laser‐welded Ti‐6Al‐4V butt joint by 10%; however, a slight decrease in static strength should be considered. The effect of stress relief at elevated temperatures is studied.


Urban greenspace is important for the health of cities. Up-to-date databases and information are vital to maintain and monitor growth in cities. During the last decade, advances in spaceborne hyperspectral sensors have resulted in some advantages being gained over multispectral sensors for land cover monitoring (due to increased spectral resolution). The objective of this research was to compare Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Hyperion hyperspectral data to Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Satellite Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 5 multispectral data for land cover classification in a dense urban landscape. For comparative analysis, orthorectified aerial imagery provided by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) was used as ground truth data for accuracy assessment. This study utilized conventional and segmented principal components (CPCA and SPCA) for data compression on the Hyperion imagery, and used principal components analysis (PCA) as a visual enhancement technique for multispectral imagery. Image processing including the generation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and mean texture was also performed for both Landsat and SPOT sensors. Unsupervised iterative self-organizing data analysis (ISODATA) classification procedures were performed on all images to produce land cover classification maps for a portion of the Lower Don River in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Experiments conducted in this research demonstrated that hyperspectral imagery produced a higher overall accuracy (5-6% better) than multispectral data with the same resolution for defining vegetation cover. In addition, SPOT generated greater accuracy results than Landsat or Hyperion for vegetation classes. It was found that conventional Hyperion and segmented Hyperion methods outperformed the Landsat 5 TM sensor for vegetation differences (for tree canopy and open green spaces).


Studies on the adsorption of lead ions from waste water on two raw coals viz. North Tisra and South Tisra collieries, along with their eight chemically treated coal samples, (which were used as adsorbents) were carried out. The chemical treatments adopted were (a) alkali treatment, refluxing - 72 BS mesh size coal with 25% w/v NaOH solution for 6 hrs., (b) acid treatment, refluxing - 72 BS mesh size coal with 50% v/v HCl for 6 hrs, (c) alkali-acid treatment, refluxing alkali treated coal with 50% v/v HCl for 6 hrs. and (d) acid-alkali treatment, refluxing acid treated coal with 25% w/v NaOH solution for 6 hrs. These treatments have shown changes in the moisture, ash volatile matter and fixed carbon values. FTIR & SEM spectra of treated coals were compared with the corresponding spectra of raw coals indicating structural and morphological changes in coal after the treatment. Adsorption studies reveal that acid treatment reduced the adsorption capacity of coal whereas alkali treatment improved it. Alkali-acid treatment, which gave the highest ash reduction, also did not improve the adsorption capacity substantially. The best results, as far as the improvement in adsorption capacity is concerned, were obtained from acid- alkali treated coals. This clearly indicates that it is not the reduction in the mineral matter content of coal by acid, which is important for the improvement in the adsorption capacity but it is the alkali treatment, which changes the chemical character of both; the organic and mineral matter part of coal, which ultimately results in improvement in its ion exchange capacity.


This thesis focuses on the application of matrix determinants as a means of producing number-theoretic results. Motivated by an investigation of properties of the Riemann zeta function, we examine the growth rate of certain determinants of zeta values. We begin with a generalisation of determinants based on the Hurwitz zeta function, where we describe the arithmetic properties of its denominator and establish an asymptotic bound. We later employ a determinant identity to bound the growth of positive Hankel determinants. Noting the positivity of determinants of Dirichlet series allows us to prove specific bounds on determinants of zeta values in particular, and of Dirichlet series in general. Our results are shown to be the best that can be obtained from our method of bounding, and we conjecture a slight improvement could be obtained from an adjustment to our specific approach. Within the course of this investigation we also consider possible geometric properties which are necessary for the positivity of Hankel determinants, and we examine the role of Hankel determinants in irrationality proofs via their connection with Padé approximation.


The environmental impact of using petroleum-contaminated sand (PCS) as a substitute in asphalt paving mixtures was examined. An appreciable component of PCS is oily sludge, which is found as the dregs in oil storage tanks and is also produced as a result of oil spills on clean sand. The current method for the disposal of oily sludge is land farming. However, this method has not been successful as an oil content of < 1% w/w is required, and difficulty was encountered in reaching this target. The reuse of the sludge in asphalt paving mixtures was therefore considered as an alternative. Standard tests and environmental studies were conducted to establish the integrity of the materials containing the recycled sludge. These included physical and chemical characterization of the sludge itself, and an assessment of the mechanical properties of materials containing 0%, 5%, 22% and 50% oily sludge. The blended mixtures were subjected to special tests, such as Marshall testing and the determination of stability and flow properties. The experimental results indicated that mixtures containing up to 22% oily sludge could meet the necessary criteria for a specific asphalt concrete wearing course or bituminous base course. To maximize the assay from the recycled material, the environmental assessment was restricted to the 50% oily sludge mixture. Leachates associated with this particular mixture were assayed for total organic residue and certain hazardous metal contaminants. The results revealed that the organics were negligible, and the concentrations of the metals were not significant. Thus, no adverse environmental impact should be anticipated from the use of the recycled product. Our research showed that the disposal of oily sludge in asphalt paving mixtures could possibly yield considerable savings per tonne of asphalt concrete, and concurrently minimize any direct impact on the environment.


Evolving communication technology, the increased volume of information needed by businesses and the intensified competitive environment have made internal company communication more critical to business success. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies for assessing the effectiveness of internal communication channels used by managers and leaders of three law firms in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The participating firms were recognized by their peers as being exceptionally well managed. Data from interviews and company documents were analyzed through the conceptual lens of channel expansion theory and the use of software coding to identify patterns and themes. Three important themes emerged: informal assessment strategies, indirect assessment strategies, and efficient versus timely assessments. The first theme suggested the effectiveness of an informal assessment strategy, depending on the size and complexity of the organization. The second theme reflected the effectiveness of an indirect assessment for organizations that lack the resources to support a more direct and specific assessment process. The third theme reflected the participants' perceptions of informal and indirect assessments may be more efficient, the feedback from the assessments are often less timely. Managers may consider these themes in formulating communication policies. Small professional service firms, such as legal firms, provide important services to individuals, families, and businesses in their community.


Position-jump processes are used for the mathematical modeling of spatially extended chemical and biological systems with increasing frequency. A large subset of the literature concerning such processes is concerned with modeling the effect of stochasticity on reaction-diffusion systems. Traditionally, computational domains have been divided into regular voxels. Molecules are assumed well mixed within each of these voxels and are allowed to react with other molecules within the same voxel or to jump to neighboring voxels with predefined transition rates. For a variety of reasons implementing position-jump processes on irregular grids is becoming increasingly important. However, it is not immediately clear what form an appropriate irregular partition of the domain should take if it is to allow the derivation of mean molecular concentrations that agree with a given partial differential equation for molecular concentrations. It has been demonstrated, in one dimension, that the Voronoi domain partition is the appropriate method with which to divide the computational domain. In this Brief Report, we investigate theoretically the propriety of the Voronoi domain partition as an appropriate method to partition domains for position-jump models in higher dimensions. We also provide simulations of diffusion processes in two dimensions in order to corroborate our results.


This paper investigates the effect of quantization gain factors, at the input side, and the scaling gain, at the output side, of a fuzzy controller. A fuzzy control system is designed with two main parts: a basic fuzzy controller (BFC) which produces the output control signal and supervisor fuzzy controllers (SFCs) to continuously adjust, on-line, the I/O scaling or gain factors of the (BFC) in order to improve its performance against different dynamic operating conditions. The designed self tuning controller is used to position control of a DC motor with un known parameters according to the feed back inputs, a tracking error (e) and change of error ( e), based on the proposed fuzzy rules. The system implementation and tests are carried out using LabVIEW software ( V8.2 ) with a data acquisition card type (NI PCI6251) from National Semiconductors to achieve real time measurements.


The former USSR led the way with the most children adopted from overseas into the United States from 1997-1999. This study (a) characterizes overall functioning of adoptees and (b) utilizes hierarchical regression analysis to evaluate both risks and protective influences of adoptive families and their relationships to child competence. Competence levels ranged from challenged to developmentally normal. Family cohesion and expressiveness were significantly associated with higher levels of child competence. Key Words: adoption, competence, international, protection, risk. Nearly one million U.S. families desire to grow through adoption but only an estimated 25,000 healthy infants are available annually in the U.S. (van Balen, Verdurmen, & Ketting, 1997). Since the demise of the Soviet Union, many families seeking to adopt have turned to that region in search of children. There are approximately 600,000 infants, toddlers, and young children in orphanages (Powell, 1998) and many are available for adoption. However, as demonstrated by reports in the media (Holden, 1996; Nakashima, 1996; Saul, 1997), many children have mental and physical health difficulties. A strikingly different picture has emerged as contrasted to other international adoptees such as those from Korea (Albers, Johnson, Hostetter, Iverson, & Miller, 1997). These difficulties include behavioral and emotional challenges and developmental delays. The difficulties may be, in part, related to the institutional settings experienced by these children during sensitive developmental periods (Spake, 1998). Other risk factors influencing the health of these institutionalized children include difficult economic conditions in the former Soviet bloc countries, poor sanitation, limited availability and poor quality of health care, and the different motivations (humanitarian vs. profit-oriented) of the agencies facilitating these adoptions (Albers et al., 1997). The effects of institutionalization on subsequent emotional and behavioral development have important ramifications for understanding the adaptive behavior of children adopted from the former Soviet Union. From 1997 through 1999, the countries of the former Soviet Union were the principal sources of international adoptees for American families while China followed as a close second. In 1999, approximately 4,400 children entered U.S. adoptive families (U.S. Department of State, 2000). Most of these children spent significant portions of their early months or years in orphanages and were exposed to the biologic and social risks associated with institutionalization (Frank, Klass, Earls, 8c Eisenberg, 1996). They were often voluntarily relinquished at birth to institutions but some were forcibly removed due to parental abuse and neglect and resided in orphanages until adoption. Nearly a century of research in child development points to five areas of potential biologic and social risks for infants and young children in orphanage care (Bowlby, 1951; Chapin, 1915; Goldfarb, 1945; Rutter, 1995). These biologic and social risks include (1) increased morbidity from infectious disease, (2) delays in nutrition and growth, (3) impairments in cognitive development, (4) difficulties in socioaffective development, and (5) physical and sexual abuse. Infants and young children are uniquely vulnerable to the medical and psychosocial hazards of institutional care in any country (Frank et al., 1996). Unfortunately, the negative effects of institutionalization cannot be reduced to a tolerable level even in clean facilities with adequate personnel. In the short term, orphanage placement puts young children at increased risk of serious infectious illness and delayed language development (Ames et al., 1997; Holden, 1996; Morison, Ames, & Chisholm, 1995). In the long term, institutionalization increases the likelihood that children will grow into psychiatrically impaired and economically unproductive adults (Frank et al. …


The Java programming language and technologies have been used extensively in the construction of web-based components and applications specifically in the context of electronic markets (emarkets) development. Java-based components can fulfill a variety of atomic roles in an emarket scenario from graphical user interfaces to complex database functions. However, in distributed settings, a great deal of monolithic code must be wrapped into the core functionality offered by Java components to allow for communication or message passing. Java introduces the Jini specification and associated functions to handle this distributed collaboration. Unfortunately, even Jini adds unnecessary overhead to the core functionality of these atomic components. Consequently, agents can be deployed in conjunction with these Java technologies to assist in communication as well as other nonfunctional concerns. The Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML) is a protocol that has been used in implementing agent communication. This paper suggests the use of agents to broker communication between atomic components. KOJAC (KQML over Jini for Agent Communication) is an approach to agent-based communication implemented with Jini services, specifically JavaSpace. KOJAC defines methods using Jini services that conform to the KQML protocol and incorporate an object-oriented ontology.


The integration of paddy cultivation with prawn/fish culture can become a viable alternative to effectively utilize the vast area of derelict polders (embanked coastal flood plains) in Kuttanad, India. Nearly 55 000 ha of wetlands in Kuttanad are available for paddy cultivation year-round. Around 5 000 ha of the polders are utilized for Macrobrachium rosenbergii culture as a follow-up crop. Of the total area, about 250 ha of fallow polders are utilized for monoculture of M. rosenbergii from March to October, while in 4 750 ha polyculture with Indian and exotic carps is practiced from November to June. Stocking density is 15 000 to 60 000/ha for monoculture of M. rosenbergii, while in polyculture with carps, it is 5 000 to 20 000/ha of prawn and 5 000 to 10 000/ha of fish. Production from monoculture varies from 95 to 1 297 kg/ha whereas production from polyculture systems it is 70 to 500 kg/ha of prawn and 200 - 1 200 kg/ha of fish. Profits range from Rs. 5 000 to 20 000/ha. An evaluation is made of how the present polders of Kuttanad are best utilized for culture of M. rosenbergii following different systems of integrated farming and how the integration is useful in the aquaculture sustainability of Kuttanad, a tropical wetland ecosystem.


The perceived purpose of college education keeps shifting. There was a time that its purpose was seen as teaching ethics/morality/values to students. Today, the focus is on delivering skills and competencies to succeed in life as well as a career. This paper posits that the ideal university ensures that all courses regardless of discipline work together to enhance the skills of students. This ensures that students will be resilient and productive regardless of how often the nature of their work changes. The accounting major is used as an example to demonstrate how a skills- based education together with a disciplinary major produces the ideal accountant. The outdated distinction between intellectual and vocational majors is meaningless since any major can be enhanced once there is an emphasis on delivering skills together with the content.


Paper presented at the 9th General Conference of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Paris, France, 22–25 September 1999, in a session of the EADI Information Management Working Group. Describes the objectives and activities of the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), a cooperative network which aims to improve the flow of information within and between countries, especially those with less developed systems of publication and dissemination. Activities include: Advisory and Liaison Services; Programmes such as INASP-Health, the South-South Rural Development Network, Publishing Support Initiatives and Library Support Initiatives; and Publications, including the INASP Newsletter and website . Describes the African Journals OnLine (AJOL) pilot project to promote African-published scholarly journals, and two examples of projects in Latin America: Latindex, which aims to collect information on, give access to and promote the quality of the serial scientific publications produced in Latin America and the Caribbean, Portugal and Spain; and SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library OnLine), which aims to increase the visibility and accessibility of Latin American and Caribbean scientific journals on the Internet.


Background: Injury resistance occurring in the setting of liver fibrosis is an interesting phenomenon not yet well characterized. In the present study, we investigated dynamically the injury resistance against acute challenge using animal models of hepatic fibrosis and spontaneous resolution, and focused on high-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1), an important proinflammatory mediator. Methods: The hepatic damage of control, fibrosis (CCl4, 6 weeks), and regressive mice with or without CCl4 challenge was dynamically observed and compared. The translocation and release of HMGB1 were assessed by immunohistochemical staining and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. The gene expression of proinflammatory mediators was detected by real-time PCR. Results: Our data showed that the fibrotic mice were invulnerable to acute CCl4 insult. The injury resistance diminished along with the resolution of liver fibrosis. Acute insult triggered the translocation and release of HMGB1 in control mice, which were remarkably inhibited in fibrotic mice, even under acute challenge. Nevertheless, regressive mice exhibited obvious translocation upon insult, especially for R12d mice. HMGB1-related proinflammatory immune responses were suppressed in fibrotic mice; however, they were restored in regressive mice upon insult. Conclusion: The injury resistance in the setting of liver fibrosis is accompanied by the inhibition of HMGB1 translocation and release as well as the suppression of HMGB1-related proinflammatory immune responses.


Since English lawyers started writing text books about the law of evidence, they have denied that religious confession privilege exists at common law. However, that statement of the law surprises those who recognise confessional secrecy dating back into the first millennium AD. It is also counter-intuitive in Federal Australia since the one human freedom which the Constitution has guaranteed since 1901 is the 'free exercise of any religion'.

This thesis analyses the legal conclusion that there is no religious confession privilege at common law against available historical materials. Those materials include the origin of confessional secrecy in Christian practice and the entrenchment of that practice in canon law; the recognition and even the reception of canonical practices in the custom that became the common law; and all the English common law cases that have affirmed or denied religious confession privilege whether in passing or in an arguably precedential way. The reason why clear evidence of the existence of the privilege even seventy years after the English Reformation has been ignored by the text writers is traced to an uncorrected interpretive error made by the text writer Peake in 1801. His error has been uncritically followed and affirmed by later commentators and judges. However, until Gavan Duffy J decided Cook v Carroll in Ireland in 1945 and the Supreme Court of Canada decided R v Gruenke in 1991, there was no reported decision on religious confession privilege anywhere in the British Commonwealth. All else that had been written was at best obiter dicta.

The factors that influenced those two courts to recognise not a narrow religious confession privilege but a more encompassing confidential religious communications privilege are then measured against Australian jurisprudence to suggest whether the High Court of Australia would come to a similar conclusion.


On April 9, 2001, the President requested $7.3 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for FY2002, $512.0 million (or 7%) less than the FY2001 funding level of $7.8 billion. The request would not have continued funding of about $500 million for activities earmarked for FY2001, and contained provisions shifting more enforcement responsibilities to the states. Popular wastewater infrastructure funding, state roles, and the future of Superfund were some of the predominant topics. On July 17, the House Appropriations Committee recommended $7.545 billion,$229 million more than requested (H.R. 2620, H. Rept. 107-159).


Changes in the physicochemical properties, mineral and heavy metal content and microbial flora of cacik samples were studied over a storage period of 30 d. The analysis results were in the ranges as follows: dry matter content 16.45–20.76%, fat 1.45–4.30%, protein 8.14–13.87%, total ash 0.96–4.19%, salt 0.25–3.15%. There were significant differences in dry matter, fat, salt, protein and ash content of the cacik samples (P < 0.05). There were significant differences in Ca, P, Na, Mg, Cu, Fe, Zn and Mn content of the cacik samples (P < 0.05). Total aerobic mesophilic bacteria (TAMB) and enterococci reached levels above 104 and 103 CFU g−1, respectively. Coliforms and Staphylococcus aureus were not detected in any of the cacik samples during the storage period. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) on MRS and M17 agars were the dominant bacteria. The cacik samples had LAB counts up to 104.4 CFU g−1. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry


We present studies on the low-temperature magnetization of a two-dimensional electron system (2DES) in the integer quantum Hall-effect regime. The 2DES was formed in a modulation-doped AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction. Using molecular-beam epitaxy it has been integrated into a highly sensitive micromechanical cantilever magnetometer. We observe de Haas–van Alphen oscillations at even filling factors up to ν=40 which for ν< 20 are almost perfectly sawtoothlike. Oscillations at odd filling factors ν=3,5,7, and 9 are due to the spin splitting of Landau levels. For a quantitative analysis of our data, calculations of the magnetization based on a model density of states (DOS) have been performed. We describe the DOS by narrow Gaussian broadened Landau levels with an energy-independent background. In particular we find that this background DOS increases linearly with ν. This behavior is qualitatively explained using the concept of edge channels. From our data we evaluate the level broadening and, at odd filling factors, the exchange-energy contribution to the spin splitting of Landau levels.


Abstract: Both spilitic and non-spilitic metabasaltic sills are hosted by greenschist-facies metasediments in the SW Scottish Highlands. Spilitization is mainly characterized by enrichment in Na2O, elevated modal plagioclase and epidote segregations. Mapping of the spatial distribution of spilitic metabasalts reveals an ancient sub-sea-floor fluid cell centred on the extrusive Tayvallich Volcanics. Fluid circulation was most extensive at shallow levels where most sills were spilitized. We attribute this to pervasive flow of saline fluid, which was thermally driven by the cooling suite of lava flows and sills. Spilitization below this lithostratigraphic depth was restricted to only a few sills. Their spilitization is largely unrelated to specific properties of these sills (e.g. width, chemistry or host lithology). We conclude that fluid channelling was an intrinsic property of sub-sea-floor fluid flow either at deeper levels or earlier during fluid circulation. By profiling of the size distributions of relic phenocrysts in a partly spilitized sill, we conclude that spilitization proceeds with the symmetric propagation of a spilitization front from the sill margins towards the sill interior. Based on chemical profiling across the margin of an epidote segregation, we conclude that spilitization is associated with chemical transport on scales ranging from 0.1 to 10 m.


With modern massively parallel processors consisting of hundreds of RISC (reduced instruction set computer) processors, a significant portion of program run time is being spent in passing messages between processors. The authors address the problem of reducing unnecessary copies in message passing protocols. Message passing that avoids using copies in the application program and the transport mechanism is called low copy message passing. The authors describe the low copy message passing library on the Alliant CAMPUS/800 system. First, a way to reduce the number of copies in a message passing protocol is proposed. In gross machine independent terms, the message passing protocol can be reduced from seven major steps to one. The authors then describe how application programmers can use the low copy message passing library. Finally, a brief survey of applications is presented which shows how applications use the low copy library.<<ETX>>


This thesis identifies the expression of mourning and the status of outliving, or surviving the dead, as critically significant in Iris Murdoch's novels. It analyses Murdoch's use of post-structuralist techniques in the writing of mourning and assesses the ethical problems associated with survival, the inability to mourn, and biographical responses to Murdoch's own death. Close readings of selected texts which demonstrate Murdoch's developing concern with mourning engage in dialogues with Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida's ideas about mourning, Elias Canetti's concept of survival and contemporary philosophical, theological and psychological theories of mourning. These dialogues, which identify mourning in Murdoch's work as particularly complex and ambiguous, establish Murdoch's innovative contribution to mourning studies, which has until recently been dominated by Freud's definitions.The study begins by demonstratingMurdoch's relevance to psycho-analytical and current philosophical debate on mourning with reference to The Sea, The Sea, ThePhilosopher's Pupil and Jackson's Dilemma. It classifies The Sea, The Sea as Murdoch's major mourning text, which contradicts prevailing Freudian theory about mourning and distinguishes Murdoch's method of incorporating mourning into her work as deconstructionist. It proceeds to explore how her approach to survival develops a dialogue begun with Elias Canetti in the early 1950s which conflicts with her apparent support for his work. An analysis of 'survivor guilt' in The Message to the Planet forms part of Murdoch's response to the Holocaustand relates her work to current trauma and Holocaust theory. An investigation into Murdoch's demonic characters in An Unofficial Rose, The Time of the Angels and A Fairly Honourable Defeat follows, whichidentifiesthe inability to mourn as a significant barrier to goodness. In addition an enquiry into the cultural distaste for mourning and mourners in the mid-twentieth century reveals Murdoch to be writing against a background in which the mourner is overlooked and even ostracised. Finally, the ways in which life writing about Murdoch since her death both constitutes and describes mourning for her are considered. This study concludes by contending that biographical responses to Murdoch's death both engage with and contradict accepted mourning theory in ways that were anticipated in Murdoch's own fiction.


This study examines the Alabama Department of Corrections August 2009 Monthly Statistical Report and Fiscal Year 2008 Annual Report, recent articles to explain the serious public safety issue of prison overcrowding within the state of Alabama, lack of funding and correctional staff, and increasing violence among inmates. It is imperative that the stakeholders take a restorative justice approach to offenders who commit nonviolent crimes or otherwise be prepared to release substantial numbers of violent inmates due to federal court intervention, expanding parole, and other types of early release programs. Violent offenders will pose a greater threat to the community. Correctional workers continue to be exposed daily to the risk of injury or death caused by severe prison overcrowding. The state could experience additional financial hardship to rebuild a destroyed correctional facility in an event of a riot. The excessive use of incarceration for nonviolent offenders is one of the most important issues facing the state of Alabama this decade.


As routine identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci is problematic, the performance of automated ribotyping was evaluated for identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci other than Staphylococcus epidermidis. In total, 177 isolates were tested, comprising 149 isolates from blood samples, 15 isolates that were not identified by internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-PCR in a previous study, and 13 reference strains. The identification results were compared with those obtained by the API 20 Staph system, with standard phenotypic and molecular methods as reference. Most (n = 166; 93.8%) isolates were identified correctly by automated ribotyping. For 61 isolates, API 20 Staph and ribotyping were in agreement, but for 105 isolates, ribotyping provided correct identification and API 20 Staph did not. Four isolates not identified by automated ribotyping were recognised correctly by API 20 Staph. The remaining seven isolates could not be identified by either of the two methods. Automated ribotyping was able to distinguish Staphylococcus capitis reliably from Staphylococcus caprae. The results demonstrate the value of automated ribotyping for identification of coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) isolates from human sources and may help to clarify the clinical relevance of CoNS species. In addition, automated ribotyping was able to detect polymorphisms that may be useful for epidemiological purposes within S. capitis, Staphylococcus hominis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Staphylococcus simulans, S. caprae, Staphylococcus warneri, Staphylococcus lugdunensis, Staphylococcus schleiferi, Staphylococcus sciuri, Staphylococcus pasteuri and Staphylococcus xylosus.


This article explores the impact of tax policy on economic growth in the states within the framework of an endogenous growth model. Regression analysis is used to estimate the impact of taxes on economic growth in the states from 1964 to 2004. The analysis reveals a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on economic growth. The analysis underscores the importance of controlling for regressivity, convergence, and regional influences in isolating the effect of taxes on economic growth in the states.


Objective:  This study aims were to develop a scale to measure the effects of chemotherapy induced alopecia to the patients' quality of life, to determine the factors which effects quality of life, and to identify the nurses' and patient's relatives' perceptions to the alopecia.  Methods:  Data were collected with informations forms, Chemotherapy Induced Alopecia Quality of Life Scale (KBAYKO), Alopecia Management Scale (AMS), Beck Depression Inventory, Body Image Scale, and SF-36 Quality of Life Scale. The data were entered into a computer and the statistical package program was used for evaluation. Results:  Validity and reliability studies of KBAYKO were done by using content, construct and criterion validity, Cronbach's alpha (0.88), Guttman (0.83) and Spearman Brown (0.85) reliability coefficients, item analysis (p<0.001) and test-retest methods (p<0.001). In the validity and reliability study of AMS, the methods: language equivalency/adaptation, content validation, Cronbach alpha (0.75), Gutman (0.68), and Spearman Brown (0.68) reliability coefficients, item analysis (p<0.001), and test-retest technique (p<0.001) were used. It was determined that the quality of life scores show discrepancies according to the gender, employment status, the the severity of alopecia, additional disease, and general health perception. The quality of life scores of the the patients who were decleared to be effected negatively from hair loss by their relatives, were determined as low. A relation was found between the score of nurses taken from AMS and gender, age, in-service training, and alopecia experience (family-environment) properties.  Conclusions:  KBAYKO was found to be a reliable and valid instrument for the evaluation of the quality of life of patients with chemotherapy-induced alopecia and AMS was found to be a reliable and valid tool for the determination of Turkish nurses' perceptions of alopecia. Anahtar Kelimeler :  Chemotherapy, alopecia, quality of life, perception, scale, nursing


Explores the possibilities of using coarse stone assemblages from the Northern Isles of Scotland to observe aspects of social change throughout the prehistoric period. This report draws together the available data on coarse stone artefacts, much of which is rather disparate, with a view to providing a standard work of reference for use to those excavators in the Northern Isles who, faced with a large coarse stone assemblage, require a description of the types of artefacts which occur as well as background information on their context and chronology. This is in part a synthesis as it combines proposals for standardised definitions of the various artefact types together with a record of occurrence. Of greater interest, however, is the use to which this information can then be put. By comparing the various artefacts with reference to their form, manufacture, use and deposition it is possible to perceive certain aspects of continuity and change within and between assemblages. This variability within the artefactual record is interpreted at a broader organisational level in order to assess the social implications that these patterns may represent. The period under investigation is from the Neolithic to the end of the Iron Age: from the beginning of the fourth millennium cal BC to 800 cal AD. The main part of this work is concerned with the Neolithic and Bronze Age, particularly the transition period between the two as, during this time, the use of stone for tools and other objects was at its peak.


Institutional Repositories (IRs) are established mainly to provide access to information resources which are otherwise not easily accessible in digital format. Many institutions across the world and particularly in India have successfully developed their own IRs but have not attempted to assess their importance and impact on the Users. This study conveys the findings of the survey conducted at research centric CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) laboratories of India to determine the scientists' and research scholars' preference for publishing their research materials; to measure the impact of IRs on their scholarly practices and to recommend future changes for inviting more participation in an IR. The study deduced that 'PeerReview scholarly Journals' are preferred medium for publishing research content and 'Increase in the access to grey literature' is the most significant impact of IR on respondents. The findings of this research paper provide insight to the IR managers and administrators of low-deposit and low-usage repositories about the contributors' apprehensions. The study will also help them to define and adopt policies that will eventually enhance their IRs visibility and impact.


This article addresses the problem of veracity in ancient historiography. It contests some recent views that the criteria of truth in historical writing were comparable to the standards of forensic rhetoric. Against this I contend that the historians of antiquity did follow their sources with commendable fi delity, superimposing a layer of comment but not adding independent material. To illustrate the point I examine the techniques of the Alexander historian, Q. Curtius Rufus, comparing his treatment of events with a range of other sources that reflect the same tradition. The results can be paralleled in early modern historiography, in the dispute between J. G. Droysen and K. W. Kruuger on the character of Callisthenes of Olynthus. Both operate with the same material, but give it different ""spins"" according to their political perspectives. There is error and hyperbole, but no deliberate fiction.


No accurate quantitative information currently exists on how water use of apple (Malus domestica) orchards varies from planting to full-bearing age, leading to poor irrigation and water allocation decision making. This study sought to address this knowledge gap by investigating how the water use and tree water status vary with canopy cover, cultivar, and climatic conditions in 12 orchards growing in prime apple-producing regions in South Africa. The orchards were planted to the Golden Delicious/Golden Delicious Reinders cultivars which are widely planted in South Africa and the Cripps' Pink/Cripps' Red/Rosy Glow which are high-value late-season cultivars. The performance of two transpiration reduction coefficients, one based on sap flow (Ksf) and the other based on soil water depletion (Ks) (FAO approach) were evaluated against the midday stem water potential (MSWP) in all the orchards. While canopy cover had a clear effect on the whole-tree sap flow rates, there were no significant differences in the transpiration per unit leaf area among the cultivars. The daily average sap flux density under unstressed conditions was highest (~284 cm3∙cm-2) in the medium canopy cover orchards (30–44% fractional cover), followed by the mature orchards (~226 cm3∙cm-2), and was lowest in the young orchards (~137 cm3∙cm-2). Canopy cover rather than growing season length had a greater effect on seasonal total water use. Peak daily orchard transpiration ranged from 1.7 mm for young Golden Delicious Reinders trees to 5.0 mm in mature Golden Delicious trees that were maintained with large canopies to reduce sunburn damage to the fruit. For the red cultivars, the peak daily transpiration ranged from 2.0 to 3.9 mm, and the mature trees were maintained with less dense canopies to facilitate the development of the red fruit colour. The less dense canopies on the red cultivars had water-saving benefits since the seasonal total transpiration was lower relative to the Golden Delicious cultivar. The sap flow derived stress coefficient was strongly correlated to the MSWP (R2 ~ 0.60–0.97) in all the orchards while Ks was not able to detect plant stress due to over-irrigation.


In recent years, a number of writers have suggested that contemporary strategies of crime control have called into question some of the central features of 'penal modernism'. The return of punitively orientated 'ostentatious' forms of punishment whereby state representatives try to bring penal policy more in line with public sentiment is implicated (Pratt 2000; 2002). For other writers, the apparent erosion of state power accompanied by 'new modes of governance' based upon 'risk management' rather than the normalization of individual offenders is at the centre of a shift towards a 'late modern' or 'postmodern' penality (Feeley and Simon 1992; 1994; Smandych 1999; Garland 1996). This article draws upon research conducted for the EU-funded URBANEYE project to ask how the rapid growth in the use of CCTV in the United Kingdom fits in with contemporary debates on the emergence of a 'postmodern' penality (Garland 1995; 1996; 2001; Hallsworth 2002; O'Malley, 1999; Simon 1994). We begin with a review of the theoretical literature on visual surveillance. Next, we draw upon our empirical research to provide an account of the extent and sophistication of CCTV usage in publicly accessible spaces in London. Finally, we examine the 'practice of video surveillance' in four different settings-an open-street CCTV system, a transport system (mainline railway station), West London Mall and South London Mall.


Background Nowadays, the number of obese people in the world has reached alarming proportions. During the expansion of adipose tissue, a number of functions such as activation and release of cytokines and hormones may be affected. This leads the body to a pro-inflammatory pattern, which may affect the proper functioning of many tissues. Thus, studying the mechanisms by which obesity induces physiological disorders is necessary, and may be facilitated by the use of animal models, in particular rodents. We sought to characterize the metabolic and adipose tissue changes resulting from a diet rich in fats and simple sugars in gerbils. Methods We divided 14 gerbils into two experimental groups that received a diet rich in simple carbohydrates and fats with 5,86 kcal/g (OB, n = 7) or a standard diet with 4.15 kcal/g (CT; n = 7) for 11 weeks. The animals had free access to water and food. The animal weight and food consumption were measured weekly. Blood, adipose tissue and liver of each animal were collected at the end of experiment. The following parameters were determined: cholesterol (COL), triglycerides (TGL) and glycemia (GLI) in the plasma; cytokines (IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α) and hormones (adiponectin and leptin) in adipose tissue; activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT), extraction and differentiation of fat and histology in liver. Results The consumption of a diet rich in simple carbohydrates and fats led to increased total body weight and increased relative weights of liver and adipose tissue. In addition, we observed increased fasting glucose levels and circulating triglycerides, along with high TNF-α production in adipose tissue and increased total fat, cholesterol and triglyceride contents in the liver, contributing to higher intensity of hepatic steatosis. On the other hand, the animals of this group showed depletion in the enzyme activity of SOD and CAT in the liver, as well as reduction of IL-10 and adiponectin levels in adipose tissue. Discussion High intake of saturated fat and simple carbohydrates establish the gerbil as an experimental model for the study of metabolic and hepatic abnormalities resulting from obesity.


Grandmontagne and later Vaucouleurs have observed discontinuities in the slope of the zenith-sky brightness curve during twilight at solar depressions of about 6°, 9°, 10°, and 12°, which are explained to be due to separate diffusing and luminescent layers in the upper atmosphere. No such evidence is, however, found by Koomen and co-workers in their recent photoelectric measurements in the United States.The effect of a possible discontinuity could be enhanced by observing the difference in radiance of two similar patches of the zenith sky in the sun's meridian, this being more susceptible to changes accompanying the crossing of a layer by the earth's shadow. Observations on very clear days with a photoelectric differential twilight photometer recording this difference through three narrow-band interference filters have not disclosed any evidence of the discontinuities, the recorded curves running perfectly smooth till the end of astronomical twilight. From estimates of the least radiant energy which the photometer could detect, the possibility of detecting a layer of scattering material at the heights of the reported discontinuities is discussed.


What do topics ranging from organic chemistry to Napoleon's campaigns have to do with computer programming? This collection of essays demonstrates the many varied aspects of programming, showing how programming can be both a fun and elegant science. Some of the essays cover programming techniques, like how profilers can provide insight into the dynamic behavior of programs, and methods for making data files self-describing. These techniques deal with real programs and they are realistically illustrated, using the C and Awk languages. Bentley also provides the reader with some tricks of the programmer's trade, like a collection of rules of thumb and hints for finding simple solutions to hard problems. These essays also originally appeared in the author's column in Communication of the ACM, and have been substantially revised, incorporating new sections, problems, and reader comments. 0201118890B04062001


Many clay-bearing rocks will undergo changes in material properties after immersion in water. This is often accompanied by a reduction in strength and cuttability properties associated with increased degradation. In extreme cases such as with water active shales, it can lead to complete collapse or sloughing of the material. This can have important implications for Australian coal mining operations in terms of maintaining ground stability where clay-bearing rocks are in close proximity to coal formations. Previous research has examined whether chemical solutions containing potassium chloride and copper sulphate could arrest these changes in rock properties. While they provided encouraging results, they did not fully explore the effects of altering the exposure times or concentrations of chemical solutions. The purpose of this paper is to outline the effect of changes in the concentration and exposure times of potassium chloride, magnesium chloride and copper sulphate solutions on clay-bearing rock. The Slake Durability Index Test was used to examine the degradation of a claystone after immersion in a range of chemical solutions at different concentrations. There was little quantitative change due in part to the low permeability of the rock. Qualitatively it was found however that degradation was exacerbated following immersion in a copper sulphate solution and to a lesser extent with magnesium chloride. Conversely, potassium chloride at all concentrations was found to reduce the degradation effects of water. Immersion of the test specimen in each of the solutions of potassium chloride, magnesium chloride and copper sulphate improved rock cuttability relative to dry, untreated rock.


There is a lack of scientific research into roller hockey. The aim of this thesis was to analyse the muscular demands of roller hockey match play, using four techniques. These were a) Match analysis: Two Premier League roller hockey matches were recorded using two stationary video cameras. Manual, field-by-field analysis established all the actions performed by players in a match situation, the percentage of match time spent performing each action, their frequency and the mean duration of each action. Also recorded was the direction travelled, while the intensity of each action was subjectively assessed. b) Heart rate analysis (n=5): heart rate was recorded every 5 s during training and competition. Heart rate and performance were also measured during a maximal progressive 20-m shuttle skate test and oxygen consumption (V02) was calculated. c) Kinesiology analysis (n=l): Two-dimensional video analysis was used to establish the phases, joint actions, and muscular activity of each roller hockey action. d) Telemetric surface electromyography (EMG) analysis (n=6): activity was monitored in 8 muscles during training practice and training matches. The results of the match analysis showed 71% of match play was spent rolling, and 70% was spent travelling forwards; 22% was conducted at high intensity. Minor differences were found in match play activity between forwards and defenders, and between winners and losers. Comparisons between activity in the 1st and 2nd halves showed significantly more sprinting in the 1st half (p<0.05) and significantly more rolling and low intensity activity in the 2nd half (p<0.05). Mean heart rates during competitive matches (176 beats/min) were significantly higher (p<0.05) than during training matches (166 beats/min). The maximal 20-m shuttle skate test produced a mean predicted V02max, of 54 ml/kg/min, and maximal heart rates similar to competitive matches. The kinesiology analysis established 8 muscles central in roller hockey; these muscles were monitored in the EMG analysis. Electromyography revealed that performance of roller hockey actions during training produced the greatest EMG activity in the pectoralis major, while sprinting and forehand slap shots were the most demanding actions. Combining the results of the electromyography analysis with the match analysis revealed the high physical demands of shooting and the skating actions of pushing and sprinting. This thesis constituted the first long-term study of roller hockey, and it provided evidence that may be used in developing technique and improving sport specific fitness.


This paper presents and validates a multiregional neoclassical economic- demographic growth model developed by the IIASA Social Security Reform Project. This model is intended to study linkages between population age distribution, the macroeconomy, the nature of pension arrangements, the intergenerational distribution of income and wealth, and international capital flows. In this paper, we concentrate on the model in single-region form, showing that: (i) reasonable exogenous assumptions give rise to a reasonable long-run model solution; (ii) when exogenous assumptions or model parameters are changed, the model performs sensibly on a baseline-vs.-alternative basis; and (iii) model projection results are reasonably robust to selection of demographic scenario and exogenous assumptions regarding household saving and labor supply; they are sensitive, however, to the selection of the parameters of the core production function.


This thesis describes the experimental investigations of geometric frustration in
magnetic oxides. The rare earth double perovskites Ba2HoSbO6 and Ba2ErSbO6 crystallise
into the Fm3m cubic space group with the rare earth ions forming a face centred
cubic arrangement of edge sharing tetrahedra. This arrangement is expected to result
in geometric magnetic frustration. Previous studies have revealed no long range order
or spin glass behaviour down to 1.5 K. In this work, low temperature neutron scattering
measurements were carried out to investigate the magnetic behaviour below 1.5 K.
The crystalline electric field was found to dominate the magnetic behaviour. Using experimental
results from inelastic neutron scattering the crystal field level scheme was
solved for Ba2HoSbO6 and Ba2ErSbO6. These results were used to successfully predict
the observed behaviour of both systems, showing that they can be considered to behave
as single ion systems down to the lowest temperature investigated of 0.06 K. As such
exchange interactions and any effects of frustration are not evident at the temperatures
investigated.
As a further step to investigate frustration in magnetic oxides LuCuGaO4 was considered.
This has triangular bilayers of magnetic Cu2+ and non-magnetic Ga3+ that are
expected to lead to two dimensional geometric magnetic frustration of the Cu2+ ions.
The presence of Ga3+ on the same lattice site as the Cu2+ lead to charge frustration.
Polarised neutron analysis, inelastic neutron scattering and \muSR build up a coherent
picture of the low temperature behaviour of the system which questions the previous
belief in the literature of a spin glass transition. Instead what is found is a spin liquid
state.
Finally, the problem of interpreting the subtle features and signatures of frustration
is considered with an alternative \muSR technique. \muSR allows local interactions to be
investigated, however the problem of interpreting the results can lead to ambiguity. It
is shown that it is possible to successfully implant muons outside the sample of interest
and accurately measure the sample's magnetic dipolar field. In this way \muSR can be
used as a bulk magnetometer with the same frequency response as standard \muSR and it
is shown that this can be useful in the investigation of frustrated materials with reference
to results on Tb2Sn2O7.


A facile method was developed to prepare a magnetic Ag nanocomposite. The 3-D nanofibrous structure of bacterial cellulose (BC) was homogenized with a ferric and ferrous mixture by a high speed blender. Magnetite nanoparticles were precipitated and incorporated into BC nanostructure by adjusting the homogenate to alkaline pH. The magnetic BC nanofiber soaked in dopamine solution will be coated with an adherent self-polymerized polydopamine layer. Since the polydopamine surface is very effective for reducing silver ion, Ag nanoparticles were incorporated into the dopamine treated magnetic BC by soaking in silver nitrate solution. The magnetization of the as-prepared Ag nanocomposite was well maintained. The magnetic Ag nanocomposite possesses a high antimicrobial activity against the model microbes Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. It also has potential as a mild fermentation medium sterilizing agent that a freshly prepared LB medium shows no appreciable contamination after incubating with Ag nanocomposite for 4 h and removed by an external magnet.


Vivax malaria was once familiar to doctors not only as a foe, but also as an ally. In the first half of the 20th century, it was used to treat tens of thousands of patients suffering from end-stage syphilis, who were otherwise doomed to a gruesome death. The treatment, seen as a miracle cure, did allow many to recover, and its discoverer won a Nobel Prize.


This paper builds a framework of an expert system in the area of offshore structures. Expert systems, in general, are classification systems. They embody a core of knowledge about a specific field. This knowledge encapsulates the knowledge of experts in that field and is largely experimental. This knowledge is arranged using the process of knowledge engineering to provide the required solution for each specific case. The expert system draws upon both its own knowledge and that of the user when its own is inadequate. This paper presents a framework of an expert system for the analysis and design of offshore structures. Production System was chosen as the representational 'structure' for embedding the problem solving activity and which provided sufficient basis for developing the reasoning mechanism. In construction of this system, therefore., there is now a standard way to 'structure' them, so that the job of building such programs can look much more like a knowledge-engineering problem than like a system-design problem.


BARANOVA, E. N., N. K. CHRISTOV, L. V. KURENINA, M. R. KHALILUEV, E. G. TODOROVSKA and Е. А. SMIRNOVA, 2016. Formation of atypical tubulin structures in plant cells as a nonspecifi c response to abiotic stress. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 22: 987–992 In response to abiotic and biotic stress factors the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plant cells is increased and series of cascade reactions for their neutralization are being triggered. Targets of ROS in cells can be various biochemical and physiological processes, as well as cellular organelles including the cytoskeleton. Many abiotic stress factors, by provoking increase of the level of ROS in plant cells, elicit reorganization of the microtubules leading to disruption of mitosis. The reorganization of interphase and mitotic microtubule system was proposed to be an integral part of the response of cells to external stimuli. The state of microtubule system (tubulin cytoskeleton) under various abiotic stresses, including salinity, low temperatures, Al toxicity and fl ooding, was analysed in cells of representatives of family Solanaceae (S. lycopersicum L., S. tuberosum L. and N. tabacum L.) and cereals (T. aestivum L. and H. vulgare L.) by using transmission electron microscopy. Various tubular structures that were structurally different from microtubules were observed in plant cells subjected to abiotic stress. Fibrillar bundles with different densities of their constituent components, macrotubules, orderly packed paracrystalline aggregates and strands having hexagonal packing in cross sections, were observed in potato leaf mesophyll cells under low positive temperature stress, wheat root cells subjected to fl ooding stress, barley root cells under Al toxicity stress, as well as in root cells of tomato and tobacco under salinity stress imposed by NaCl or Na2SO4. The structure of these cytoskeletal elements is identical to stable atypical tubulin polymers induced by different chemical treatments. The presented data suggests that the formation of abnormal tubulin structures in plant cells is a common and non-specifi c response to various abiotic stress factors.


This paper explores the history of New Netherland in light of the Dutch struggle for identity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Dutch originally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire as a Spanish territory, and were staunchly Catholic. However, with the coming of the Protestant Reformation, things began to change. With the Reformation came a revolution against their rulers, and also a religious diversity previously unheard of in Europe. This struggle carried over into the borders of America with the Dutch establishment of New Netherland. New Netherland was the experiment of religious freedom in practice for the Dutch. The colony became home to a wide variety of religious dissenters that found no resting place in Europe. The Dutch Reformed Church struggled for its autonomy against the increasing religious pluralism, and the latter eventually won out before the English took over New Netherland, renaming it New York and New Jersey after dividing the land. The pluralism present in New York and New Jersey helped set the tone for religious freedom in America today.


Lattice codes are applied to the two-user Gaussian multiple access channel (MAC) combined with a modified compute-and-forward transmitting scheme. It is shown that non-corner points on the boundary of the capacity region can be achieved by decoding two integer sums of the codewords, which can be viewed as a generalization of the well-known successive cancellation decoding. A similar idea is then applied to the so-called dirty MAC where two interfering signals are known non-causally to the two transmitters in a distributed fashion. Our scheme recovers previously known results and gives new achievable rate regions. The proposed scheme can be extended to the case with more than two users.


Sir: I read the interesting report by Bliddal and colleagues of three patients who developed leucopenia after both gold and sulphasalazine treatment.' HLA-DR3 as a marker for toxic reactions after treatment with gold or Dpenicillamine could not be shown. Patient 1, however, was apparently a carrier of HLAB27. It is well known that female patients with rheumatoid arthritis, who are HLA-B27 positive, have a significantly higher risk for drug induced agranulocytosis, not only after treatment with levamisole2 3 but also with other antirheumatic drugs.4 Thus under these conditions the possibility should be considered that in this patient, in the absence of HLAD3, HLA-B27 may be the risk indicator for her relapsing leucopenia.


The sixth edition of Principles of Language Learning and Teaching offers new ways of viewing and teaching second language acquisition (SLA) based on the latest research. Providing a comprehensive overview of the theoretical viewpoints that have shaped language teaching today, the text explains the pedagogical relevance of SLA research in reader-friendly prose. The new edition of this classic text, used by teacher-education programs worldwide, reflects the most recent themes in SLA research, updated references, and a summation of current issues and perspectives. The text is available in print and eText formats. Features * New opening vignettes connect chapter topics to language learners' stories. * Expanded Classroom Connections section provides more opportunities to link research findings to teaching implications. * Updated activities and discussion questions for practicing instrctuctors and teachers in training. * End-of-chapter supplementary readings, journal-writing guidelines, activities, and discussion questions. * Bibliography with quick access to important works in the field. * Concise glossary of key terminology.


As military and aerospace application move toward Gigabit and 10G networks, standard military connector technology has not kept pace. To evaluate the suitability of various connectors, we tested differential near-end crosstalk in links containing a traditional MILDTL-38999 connector and two connectors from TE Connectivity (TE) designed specifically for gigabit and 10G applications. Testing for both gigabit (Cat 5e) and 10-gigabit (Cat 6a) data rates included links with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 connectors in the path. The results showed that the 38999 connectors passed Cat 5e tests for one connector, but was unsuited to other configurations. The TE connectors passed all tests—indicating the need for controlledimpedance connectors designed for high data rates.


The paper mainly deals with importance of branding in consumer purchasing decision, with elements and importance of the brand in marketing management of an enterprise, in its corporate strategy which should be a means for obtaining and maintaining the customers. The paper also presents results of the research performed last year at the Department of economics, Faculty of operations and economics of transport and Communications, University of Žilina, in a sample of more than 800 respondents in slovakia. its main function was to determine the proportion of respondents who decided under the brand influence in their purchasing decisions and the researched factors that showed a correlation with decision-making under the influence of the brand.


We design and conduct a simple experiment to study whether neural networks can perform several steps of approximate reasoning in a fixed dimensional latent space. The set of rewrites (i.e. transformations) that can be successfully performed on a statement represents essential semantic features of the statement. We can compress this information by embedding the formula in a vector space, such that the vector associated with a statement can be used to predict whether a statement can be rewritten by other theorems. Predicting the embedding of a formula generated by some rewrite rule is naturally viewed as approximate reasoning in the latent space. In order to measure the effectiveness of this reasoning, we perform approximate deduction sequences in the latent space and use the resulting embedding to inform the semantic features of the corresponding formal statement (which is obtained by performing the corresponding rewrite sequence using real formulas). Our experiments show that graph neural networks can make non-trivial predictions about the rewrite-success of statements, even when they propagate predicted latent representations for several steps. Since our corpus of mathematical formulas includes a wide variety of mathematical disciplines, this experiment is a strong indicator for the feasibility of deduction in latent space in general.


After the detection of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences, the search for transient gravitational-wave signals with less well-defined waveforms for which matched filtering is not well-suited is one of the frontiers for gravitational-wave astronomy. Broadly classified into"short"$ \lesssim 1~$\,s and"long"$ \gtrsim 1~$\,s duration signals, these signals are expected from a variety of astrophysical processes, including non-axisymmetric deformations in magnetars or eccentric binary black hole coalescences. In this work, we present a search for long-duration gravitational-wave transients from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's third observing run from April 2019 to March 2020. For this search, we use minimal assumptions for the sky location, event time, waveform morphology, and duration of the source. The search covers the range of $2~\text{--}~ 500$~s in duration and a frequency band of $24 - 2048$ Hz. We find no significant triggers within this parameter space; we report sensitivity limits on the signal strength of gravitational waves characterized by the root-sum-square amplitude $h_{\mathrm{rss}}$ as a function of waveform morphology. These $h_{\mathrm{rss}}$ limits improve upon the results from the second observing run by an average factor of 1.8.


A holistic view of the Bengal–Nicobar Fan system requires sampling the full sedimentary section of the Nicobar Fan, which was achieved for the first time by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 362 west of North Sumatra. We identified a distinct rise in sediment accumulation rate (SAR) beginning ∼ 9.5 Ma and reaching 250–350 m/Myr in the 9.5–2 Ma interval, which equal or far exceed rates on the Bengal Fan at similar latitudes. This marked rise in SAR and a constant Himalayan-derived provenance necessitates a major restructuring of sediment routing in the Bengal–Nicobar submarine fan. This coincides with the inversion of the Eastern Himalayan Shillong Plateau and encroachment of the west-propagating Indo–Burmese wedge, which reduced continental accommodation space and increased sediment supply directly to the fan. Our results challenge a commonly held view that changes in sediment flux seen in the Bengal–Nicobar submarine fan were caused by discrete tectonic or climatic events acting on the Himalayan–Tibetan Plateau. Instead, an interplay of tectonic and climatic processes caused the fan system to develop by punctuated changes rather than gradual progradation.


The legal profession faces a potential crisis where the professional and personal lives of practicing lawyers are being compartmentalized, with little relationship to or integration with each other, and with sometimes starkly differing standards of conduct and morality. Perrin and Bost argue that a Christian lawyer's commitment to Christ calls them to a standard of conduct higher than or different from the ethical rules propounded by the bar. The article examines the "standard vision" of lawyer conduct and ethical responsibility and summarizes four models of how Christians have adopted in relating to secular culture: in harmony with the code; against the code; in tension with the code; and transforming the code. The authors then provide an overview and history of the restoration movement. The goal of the restoration movement was to bring unity to the Christian church by restoring the beliefs and practices of first century Christianity. One of the primary means of this goal was by emphasizing adherence to the Biblical text, instead of human creeds. Bost and Perrin conclude this article by recognizing the helpful counterbalance to the standard vision of lawyering the restoration movement provides.


This thesis formulates an approach towards the creation of a gesture activated and body movement controlled real time virtual 3d world in a dance performance context. It investigates immersion and navigation techniques derived from modern video games and methodologies and proposes how they can be used to further involve a performer into a virtual space as well as simultaneously offer a stimulating visual spectacle for an audience. The argument presented develops through practice-based methodology and artistic production strategies in interdisciplinary and collaborative contexts. Two choreographic performance/installations are used as cases studies to demonstrate in practice the proposed methodologies. First, the interactive dance work Suna No Onna, created in collaboration with Birringer/Danjoux and the Dap Lab, investigates the use of interactive pre-rendered animations in a real time setting and in real time by incorporating wearable sensors in the performance. Secondly, the potentials offered by the sensor technology and real time rendering engines led to the "creation scene", a key scene in the choreographic installation UKIYO (Moveable Worlds). This thesis investigates the design, creation and interaction qualities of virtual 3d spaces by exploring the potentialities offered by a shared space, between an intelligent space and a dancer in a hybrid world. The methodology applied uses as a theoretical base the phenomenological approach of Merleau-Ponty and Mark Hansen"s mixed reality paradigm proposing the concept of the "space schema", a system which replicates and embeds proprioception, perception and motility into the space fabric offering a world which "lives", functions and interacts with the performer. The outcome of the research is the generation of an interactive, non-linear, randomized 3d virtual space that collaborates with a technologically embedded performer in creating a 3d world which evolves and transforms, driven by the performer"s intention and agency. This research contributes to the field of interactive performance art by making transparent the methodology, the instruments and the code used, in a non-technical terminology, making it accessible for both team members with less technological expertise as well as artists aspiring to engage interactive 3d media promoting further experimentation and conceptual discussions.


In vivo and in vitro evidence indicates that the bioactive, 5α-reduced progesterone metabolite, 5α-dihydroprogesterone (DHP) is synthesized in the placenta, supporting equine pregnancy, but its appearance in early pregnancy argues for other sites of synthesis also. It remains unknown if DHP circulates at relevant concentrations in cyclic mares and, if so, does synthesis involve the non-pregnant uterus? Jugular blood was drawn daily from cyclic mares (n = 5). Additionally, ovariectomized mares (OVX) and geldings were administered progesterone (300 mg) intramuscularly. Blood was drawn before and after treatment. Incubations of whole equine blood and hepatic microsomes with progesterone were also investigated for evidence of DHP synthesis. Sample analysis for progesterone, DHP and other steroids employed validated liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry methods. Progesterone and DHP appeared a day (d) after ovulation in cyclic mares, was increased significantly by d3, peaking from d5 to 10 and decreased from d13 to 17. DHP was 55.5 ± 3.2% of progesterone concentrations throughout the cycle and was highly correlated with it. DHP was detected immediately after progesterone administration to OVX mares and geldings, maintaining a relatively constant ratio with progesterone (47.2 ± 2.9 and 51.2 ± 2.7%, respectively). DHP was barely detectable in whole blood and hepatic microsome incubations. We conclude that DHP is a physiologically relevant progestogen in cyclic, non-pregnant mares, likely stimulating the uterus, and that it is synthesized peripherally from luteal progesterone but not in the liver or blood. The presence of DHP in pregnant perissodactyla as well as proboscidean species suggests horses may be a valuable model for reproductive endocrinology in other exotic taxa.


A software tool capable of determining auditory roughness in real-time is presented. This application, based on Pure-Data (Pd), calculates the roughness of audio streams using a spectral method originally proposed by Vassilakis. The processing speed is adequate for many realtime applications, and results indicate limited but significant agreement with an internet application of the chosen model. Finally, the usage of this tool is illustrated by the computation of a roughness profile of a musical composition that can be compared to its perceived patterns of 'tension' and 'relaxation.'


The biorefinery concept requires the development of value-added products, such as materials from biomass, including bark. Suberin is the most abundant component in birch (Betula verrucosa) outer bark and acts as a barrier against the penetration of water and external attacks from microorganisms. The aliphatic domain of suberin is rich in hydroxy fatty acids, such as cis-9,10-epoxy-18-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid. In this study, it was isolated from the outer bark of birch and polymerized to prepare polyepoxy acid (PEA), which was used to impregnate filter papers. After complete drying, PEA-loaded filter papers were placed under UV to crosslink the epoxides through cationic polymerization with a diaryliodonium salt as the photo-initiator. The crosslinking was evaluated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The materials obtained after UV curing showed substantially increased hydrophobicity, decreased moisture absorption, increased tensile strength, and increased ductility. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) showed that the crosslinked PEA covered the surface of the cellulose fibers and filled the interstitial spaces.


This thesis explores the potential of emerging hardware architectures to increase the impact of high performance computing in fusion plasma physics research. For next generation tokamaks like ITER, realistic simulations and data-processing tasks will become significantly more demanding of computational resources than current facilities. It is therefore essential to investigate how emerging hardware such as the graphics processing unit (GPU) and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) can provide the required computing power for large data-processing tasks and large scale simulations in plasma physics specific computations.

The use of emerging technology is investigated in three areas relevant to nuclear fusion: (i) a GPU is used to process the large amount of raw data produced by the synthetic aperture microwave imaging (SAMI) plasma diagnostic, (ii) the use of a GPU to accelerate the solution of the Bateman equations which model the evolution of nuclide number densities when subjected to neutron irradiation in tokamaks, and (iii) an FPGA-based dataflow engine is applied to compute massive matrix multiplications, a feature of many computational problems in fusion and more generally in scientific computing. The GPU data processing code for SAMI provides a 60x acceleration over the previous IDL-based code, enabling inter-shot analysis in future campaigns and the data-mining (and therefore analysis) of stored raw data from previous MAST campaigns. The feasibility of porting the whole Bateman solver to a GPU system is demonstrated and verified against the industry standard FISPACT code. Finally a dataflow approach to matrix multiplication is shown to provide a substantial acceleration compared to CPU-based approaches and, whilst not performing as well as a GPU for this particular problem, is shown to be much more energy efficient.

Emerging hardware technologies will no doubt continue to provide a positive contribution in terms of performance to many areas of fusion research and several exciting new developments are on the horizon with tighter integration of GPUs and FPGAs with their host central processor units. This should not only improve performance and reduce data transfer bottlenecks, but also allow more user-friendly programming tools to be developed. All of this has implications for ITER and beyond where emerging hardware technologies will no doubt provide the key to delivering the computing power required to handle the large amounts of data and more realistic simulations demanded by these complex systems.


ABSTRACT Bacterial persisters are a small fraction of quiescent cells that survive in the presence of lethal concentrations of antibiotics. They can regrow to give rise to a new population that has the same vulnerability to the antibiotics as did the parental population. Although formation of bacterial persisters in the presence of various antibiotics has been documented, the molecular mechanisms by which these persisters tolerate the antibiotics are still controversial. We found that amplification of the fumarate reductase operon (FRD) in Escherichia coli led to a higher frequency of persister formation. The persister frequency of E. coli was increased when the cells contained elevated levels of intracellular fumarate. Genetic perturbations of the electron transport chain (ETC), a metabolite supplementation assay, and even the toxin-antitoxin-related hipA7 mutation indicated that surplus fumarate markedly elevated the E. coli persister frequency. An E. coli strain lacking succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), thereby showing a lower intracellular fumarate concentration, was killed ∼1,000-fold more effectively than the wild-type strain in the stationary phase. It appears that SDH and FRD represent a paired system that gives rise to and maintains E. coli persisters by producing and utilizing fumarate, respectively.


Like many Japanese intellectuals, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke had a deep interest in European traditions, including Christianity. Scholars have often looked at Akutagawa's representations of religion to shed light on the author's personal beliefs; in this article I focus on the writer's portrayal of the Kirishitan of the seventeenth century as a metaphor for the ideological and cultural transformations of modern Japan. Through a close reading of three short stories, I investigate the interplay of perceptions and representations of national past and foreign culture in Taisho Japan and the role that Akutagawa's "rediscovery" of early Kirishitan culture played within this context.


Concerns about aging infrastructure, pressure on water supplies, and increasingly stringent wastewater discharge regulations have led water providers to consider new and innovative approaches. One such approach involves the distribution of reclaimed water through a dual distribution system in which the piping is separated into two separate and independent networks. One network is used exclusively for potable water, the other for non-potable water. This paper summarizes the results of a recently completed study sponsored by the Water Research Foundation in which a retrospective assessment of the performance of existing dual water systems was performed. Criteria for the performance assessment were established through an extensive literature review, the development of 37 case studies, site visits, feedback from workshop participants, and the creation of a classification framework that enables comparisons among similar dual systems. The study concluded that the primary motivators in using dual systems are to extend water supplies and provide more options for wastewater management. While dual systems can provide benefits such as extending the lives of existing potable water systems and deducing risk from drought, there are many issues such as storage for non-potable supplies, rate-setting, and true costs accounting that remain to be resolved.


The N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) system closely interacts with the dopaminergic system and is strongly implicated in the pathophysiological mechanisms and therapeutic paradigms of Parkinson's disease. This study aims to systematically investigate the changes of NMDA receptors in a wide range of brain structures 3 weeks after unilateral medial forebrain bundle lesion by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA). NMDA receptor distributions and alterations in the post-mortem rat brain were detected by [3H] MK-801 binding autoradiography. In the 6-OHDA-induced Parkinsonian rat model, nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron loss significantly mediated the decreased [3H] MK-801 binding, predominantly in the hippocampus (−22.4%, p < 0.001), caudate putamen (−14.1%, p < 0.01), accumbens nucleus (−13.8%, p < 0.05), cingulate cortex (−13.4%, p < 0.001), posteromedial cortical amygdala (−14.5%, p < 0.01) and piriform cortex (−9%, p < 0.05) compared to the controls, while there was a profound reduction of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunohistochemistry in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Alterations in [3H] MK-801 in the specific brain regions related to cognitive functions may indicate that cognitive dysfunctions caused by 6-OHDA lesion were via the NMDA system. The downregulation of NMDA receptor binding in the present study provides indirect evidence for plasticity in the NMDA system in the rat brain. The present study improves our understanding of the critical roles of the NMDA receptors in treating neurodegenerative disorders, and implicates NMDA receptors as a novel therapeutic target in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.


Let $M$ be an open subset of a compact strongly pseudoconvex hypersurface $\{\rho = 0\}$ defined by $M = D \times {\mathbf C}^{n-m}\cap \{\rho = 0\}$, where $1 \le m \le n-2$, $D = \{\sigma(z_1,\ldots, z_m) < 0\} \subset {\mathbf C}^m$ is strongly pseudoconvex in ${\mathbf C}^m$. For $\bar\partial_b$ closed $(0,q)$ forms $f$ on $M$, we prove the semi-global existence theorem for $\bar {\partial}_b$ if $1 \le q \le n-m-2$, or if $q=n-m-1$ and $f$ satisfies an additional "moment condition". Most importantly, the solution operator satisfies $L^p$ estimates for $1\le p\le \infty$ with $p=1$ and $\infty$ included.


There has been progressively heightened interest in the development of targeted nanoparticles (NPs) for differential delivery and controlled release of drugs. Despite nearly three decades of research, approaches to reproducibly formulate targeted NPs with the optimal biophysicochemical properties have remained elusive. A central challenge has been defining the optimal interplay of parameters that confer molecular targeting, immune evasion, and drug release to overcome the physiological barriers in vivo. Here, we report a strategy for narrowly changing the biophysicochemical properties of NPs in a reproducible manner, thereby enabling systematic screening of optimally formulated drug-encapsulated targeted NPs. NPs were formulated by the self-assembly of an amphiphilic triblock copolymer composed of end-to-end linkage of poly(lactic-co-glycolic-acid) (PLGA), polyethyleneglycol (PEG), and the A10 aptamer (Apt), which binds to the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) on the surface of prostate cancer (PCa) cells, enabling, respectively, controlled drug release, "stealth" properties for immune evasion, and cell-specific targeting. Fine-tuning of NP size and drug release kinetics was further accomplished by controlling the copolymer composition. By using distinct ratios of PLGA-b-PEG-b-Apt triblock copolymer with PLGA-b-PEG diblock copolymer lacking the A10 Apt, we developed a series of targeted NPs with increasing Apt densities that inversely affected the amount of PEG exposure on NP surface and identified the narrow range of Apt density when the NPs were maximally targeted and maximally stealth, resulting in most efficient PCa cell uptake in vitro and in vivo. This approach may contribute to further development of targeted NPs as highly selective and effective therapeutic modalities.


Hydrodynamics of a polyethylene fluidized bed were studied at different operating pressures (191-2908 kPa) and constant temperature of 30°C. Minimum fluidization velocity (Umf) decreased with increasing of operating pressures. Measured Umf agree well with calculated Umf as derived from the standard deviation of pressure fluctuations using Puncochar's Method (1985). As expected, with the increase of superficial velocity, amplitude and standard deviation of pressure fluctuation series also increase, which is indication of more vigorous bubbling behavior inside the bed. Power spectral density of pressure fluctuation series indicates similar frequency distribution of the bubbling behavior at different superficial velocities. The dominant frequency from the power spectral was found to be around 1 Hz. Bubble diameter and bubble velocity were estimated from X-ray fluoroscopy images. Bubble diameter and bubble velocity increase with increasing bed height and superficial gas velocity due to bubble coalescence and more gas flowing upwards. At the same fluidization number, the average bubble size slightly decreases with increasing pressure at all bed heights because there is less gas flowing and the bubbles coalesce less rapidly. The bubble velocity is observed to have a small decrease from 191 kPa up to 2200 kPa, and then a substantial increase due to the fact that at higher pressure, the solid circulation increases at the bed.


This study conducted in New Zealand in 2012 investigated the attitudes, prevalence, habits and self-reported risks associated with drug-driving, along with possible countermeasures. Telephone and internet surveys were used for a general population sample. Face-to-face interviews, mainly in prisons, surveyed habitual users of four main drug types: alcohol and other drugs, cannabis, methamphetamine and benzodiazepine. Alcohol was the main substance used before driving, followed by alcohol and cannabis together and cannabis alone. Nearly half the general population respondents had driven after taking drugs or alcohol and a sizable proportion after taking drugs other than alcohol. Many respondents in the face-to-face group said they took risks when driving. Only a third had a full licence despite driving for more than 10 years. The majority had been involved in a crash, more than half being at fault. Countermeasures preferred by both the general population and the habitual drug users included randomised roadside testing, vehicle impoundment and enforcement. Social media was considered effective by the general population but not by the face-to-face group. Recommendations include research into the effects of drugs on driving and the development of programmes to reduce risky driving by drug users.


The dystrophin gene, which is mutated in patients with Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies, is the largest known human gene. Five alternative promoters have been characterized until now. Here we show that a novel dystrophin isoform with a different first exon can be produced through transcription initiation at a previously unidentified alternative promoter. The case study presented is that of a patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who had a deletion extending from the 5' end of the dystrophin gene to exon 2, including all promoters previously mapped in the 5' part of the gene. Transcripts from lymphoblastoid cells were found to contain sequences corresponding to exon 3, indicating the presence of new promoter upstream of this exon. The nucleotide sequence of amplified cDNA corresponding to the 5' end of the new transcript indicated that the 5' end of exon 3 was extended by 9 codons, only the last (most 3') of which codes for methionine. The genomic nucleotide sequence upstream from the new exon, as determined using inverse polymerase chain reaction, revealed the presence of sequences similar to a TATA box, an octamer motif and an MEF-2 element. The identified promoter/exon did not map to intron 2, as might have been expected, but to a position more than 500 kb upstream of the most 5' of the previously identified promoters, thereby adding 500 kb to the dystrophin gene. The sequence of part of the new promoter region is very similar to that of certain medium reiteration frequency repetitive sequences. These findings may help us understand the molecular evolution of the dystrophin gene.


Information and communication technologies (ICT)--cell phones, computers, Internet--hold great promise but greater access alone cannot bring about economic development. This is a major finding of the IDB`s latest edition of its flagship Development in the Americas series titled Development Connections: Unveiling the Impact of New Information Technologies. This edition of IDEA draws on this book to explore what works and doesn`t work in the regional context and to help uncover how to best tap the potential of ICTs for the advancement of Latin America and the Caribbean.


The goal of the present paper is to investigate the circumstellar material around the brightest dust-enshrouded sources in the central stellar cluster of the Milky Way. Observations have been carried out at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Paranal, Chile. We have used the long wavelength (LWS3) low resolution (LR) spectroscopic mode of the ISAAC camera at the VLT in the spectral range of the M filter from 4.4 μm to 5.1 μm. The use of a slit width of 0.″6 implied a spectral resolution of R = λ/Δλ = 800 (Δv = 375 km s−1). These observations resulted in the M-band spectra of 15 bright sources in the central stellar cluster of the Milky Way. In addition to gaseous 12CO (4.666 μm) and 13CO (4.77 μm) vibration-rotational absorptions, we detect a strong absorption due to a mixture of polar and apolar CO ice (centered at 4.675 μm). In the shorter wavelength absorption wing there is an absorption feature due to XCN at 4.62 μm. The XCN absorption is strongest toward the M2 supergiant IRS 7. We find that the extinctions due to material traced by the CO ice and the CO gas absorptions may be of comparable importance. Using the spectra of IRS 2L and IRS 16C, we perform a first order correction of the line-of-sight absorption due to CO ice and 13CO gas. In combination with published hydrogen number density estimates from sub-millimeter CO(7–6) and FIR [O i] line data, we obtain gas masses of the circumstellar shells of the order of 10−3 and 10−2 M☉. This implies that in future spectra taken at high spectral and angular resolution the bright and dust-embedded Galactic center sources should show a substantial line absorption due to source intrinsic absorption.


When the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, meets with President Barack Obama this month, they will have a lot to talk about. In the economic sphere, the paramount challenge for the two leaders is to overcome what might be called the Kindleberger Conundrum: the preservation of the open, rules-based multilateral economic system against the background of the historic shift in which the rising power (China) might be unwilling to sustain it at a time when the declining power (the United States) is increasingly unable to single-handedly shoulder the burdens of leadership. The two nations must overcome their mutual wariness and strike a Power-for-Purpose Bargain: The United States would give up power in existing multilateral institutions in return for China taking on greater global leadership to preserve the system's real purpose.


In the same style, manner, and format as The Louvre: All the Paintings (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2011), every Old Master painting on display in the Vatican, as well as hundreds of additional masterpieces and treasures in the papal collection, is included in this deluxe slipcased volume with companion DVD.The Vatican is one of the most visited sites in the world and houses many museums and palaces, as well as one of the finest art collections known to man. Works of interest include Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and his Pieta; the Raphael frescoes; the works of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Titian, and Caravaggio; and some of the world's finest statues, manuscripts, architecture, and gardens, as well as the world's most precious Christian relics.The Vatican: All the Paintings is an unprecedented celebration of this great collection. The book is organized into 22 sections representing the museums and areas of the Vatican, including the Pinacoteca, the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms, the Borgia Apartments, the Vatican Palaces, and St. Peter's Basilica.?Each one of the 976 works of art represented in the book?including 661 classical paintings on display in the permanent painting collection and 315 other masterpieces? is annotated with the name of the painting and artist, the date of the work, the birth and death dates of the artist, the medium that was used, the size of the work, and the catalog number (if applicable). In addition, 180 of the most iconic and significant paintings and other pieces of art are highlighted with 300-word essays by art historian Anja Grebe on such topics as the key attributes of the work, what to look for when viewing the work, the artist's inspirations and techniques, biographical information on the artist, and the artist's impact on art history.The design of the book enables the reader to carefully examine and enjoy the 180 full- and half-page featured paintings as well as the rest of the collection of paintings, which appear four or six to a page. Larger works of art, like ceilings and frescoes, include overall views and details of the masterpieces. Also includes three gatefolds to view the most iconic works of art at a larger size.An enclosed DVD-ROM contains every image from the book and allows readers to view many at a slightly larger size and to search and sort the paintings by type, artist, era, and date, or by location in the Vatican museums.?As with The Louvre: All the Paintings, The Vatican: All the Paintings is a complete treasure trove of one of the most exquisite and important art collections in the world. The book itself is a beautiful object.


Previous research shows that the need for relatedness is important to be able to motivate to physically activity. However, there are few studies that focuses on that particular part of self-determination theory. The purpose of this study was to see if there is any connection between social relations and motivation of people involved in Ryggrehabiliteringen i Varmland (RIV) eight-week rehabilitation program. This study aimed to examine if the social relationships between participants in the rehabilitation helped the individual during as well as after the rehabilitation. The study is qualitative with interviews and observations as data collection method. The results indicate that social relations were important during the eight weeks rehabilitation but that they were also an important factor as to why some chose to continue train within RIV afterwards.Keywords: self-determination theory, relatedness, motivation, social relations.