To determine how climate-induced changes in hydrology and water level may affect the trophic state (productivity) of stratified lakes, two relatively pristine dimictic temperate lakes in Wisconsin, USA, were examined. Both are closed-basin lakes that experience changes in water level and degradation in water quality during periods of high water. One, a seepage lake with no inlets or outlets, has a small drainage basin and hydrology dominated by precipitation and groundwater exchange causing small changes in water and phosphorus (P) loading, which resulted in small changes in water level, P concentrations, and productivity. The other, a terminal lake with inlets but no outlets, has a large drainage basin and hydrology dominated by runoff causing large changes in water and P loading, which resulted in large changes in water level, P concentrations, and productivity. Eutrophication models accurately predicted the effects of changes in hydrology, P loading, and water level on their trophic state. If climate changes, larger changes in hydrology and water levels than previously observed could occur. If this causes increased water and P loading, stratified (dimictic and monomictic) lakes are expected to experience higher water levels and become more eutrophic, especially those with large developed drainage basins.


Avoiding "Lochner's error" remains a primary focus of constitutional law and constitutional scholarship. Debate, however, continues regarding just what that error was. In Cass Sunstein's oft-cited 1987 Columbia Law Review article, Lochner's Legacy, Sunstein argues that the Lochner era Court's primary error was not its purported "judicial activism." Rather, the primary problem with Lochner was the Justices' belief that market ordering under the common law was part of nature rather than a legal construct, and formed a baseline from which to measure the constitutionality of state action, rendering redistributive regulations unconstitutional. Lochner's Legacy's understanding of the Lochner era has been widely accepted in legal circles, including by four current Supreme Court Justices. As conservative and liberal Justices continue to battle over the meaning of Lochner and its significance for modern constitutional jurisprudence, the liberal Justices have adopted Lochner's Legacy's historical thesis. This Article examines three major historical claims Lochner's Legacy makes about the Lochner era: (1) that the Lochner era Supreme Court understood the common law "to be part of nature rather than a legal construct"; (2) that the Lochner era Court sought to preserve what it saw as the "natural," "status quo" distribution of wealth against redistributive regulations; and (3) that the abandonment of Lochner resulted from the Supreme Court's recognition that the problem with Lochner and its progeny was that the Court in those decisions mistakenly treated government inaction as the "baseline" to determine the constitutionality of government regulations. This Article argues that all three of these propositions are demonstrably incorrect.


The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae is a popular model for studying apoptosis, raising an obvious mystery: why would a unicellular organism ever initiate programmed cell death? On page 501, Herker et al. elegantly demonstrate that under conditions simulating growth of yeast in the wild, suicide is an appropriate altruistic response.

Figure

Aging yeast die by apoptosis to provide nutrients to survivors.

After finding that cells in old yeast cultures die with the typical membranous and nuclear markers of apoptosis, the authors looked for a motive. Cells overexpressing Yap1p, which mediates the yeast stress response, enjoy prolonged survival in aging cultures, indicating that the death response is triggered by stress. Deleting the caspase YCA1 improves short-term survival, but YCA1 deletants fail to regrow when transferred from an old culture to fresh medium, and wild-type cells out-compete YCA1 deletants in cocultures. Yeast cells undergoing apoptosis release low molecular weight substances that improve the growth of old cultures.

Herker et al. argue that, in the wild, apoptosis allows a clonal population of yeast to ensure the survival of its genes through lean times, by killing off less fit individuals to conserve nutrients, and promoting the survival of only the healthiest descendants. The results also explain why yeasts die in minimal medium, but survive in distilled water. In the complete absence of any nutrients, apoptosis is presumably inhibited. ▪


Recent technical and methodological advances have led to a dramatic increase in the use of spectrometry to quantify reflectance properties of biological materials, as well as models to determine how these colours are perceived by animals, providing important insights into ecological and evolutionary aspects of animal visual communication. Despite this growing interest, a unified cross‐platform framework for analysing and visualizing spectral data has not been available. We introduce pavo, an R package that facilitates the organization, visualization and analysis of spectral data in a cohesive framework. pavo is highly flexible, allowing users to (a) organize and manipulate data from a variety of sources, (b) visualize data using R's state‐of‐the‐art graphics capabilities and (c) analyse data using spectral curve shape properties and visual system modelling for a broad range of taxa. In this paper, we present a summary of the functions implemented in pavo and how they integrate in a workflow to explore and analyse spectral data. We also present an exact solution for the calculation of colour volume overlap in colourspace, thus expanding previously published methodologies. As an example of pavo's capabilities, we compare the colour patterns of three African glossy starling species, two of which have diverged very recently. We demonstrate how both colour vision models and direct spectral measurement analysis can be used to describe colour attributes and differences between these species. Different approaches to visual models and several plotting capabilities exemplify the package's versatility and streamlined workflow. pavo provides a cohesive environment for handling spectral data and addressing complex sensory ecology questions, while integrating with R's modular core for a broader and comprehensive analytical framework, automated management of spectral data and reproducible workflows for colour analysis.


This study aims to describe Local Wisdom as a Tourism Resilience Strategy in Facing Covid-19. This research is a qualitative research with a descriptive approach. Data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with 6 informants and documentation techniques by searching various related literature and sources. The research area is South Sulawesi Province by tracing 2 (two) main ethnic groups namely Makassarese and Buginese ethnic groups. The results showed that in the community of South Sulawesi (Bugis-Makassar) there were three Sipa concepts, namely sipakatau, sipakalebbi and sipakainge, as a guideline in daily life, both in economic, social and political activities and Pappaseng / Pappasang an oral literature which is the heritage of the Bugis-Makassarese ancestors which were passed down from one generation to the next. It contains a variety of tips that are used as a handle in dealing with various problems of life. One strategy in the co-19 pandemic is to implement the wisdom value system that is owned so that tourism in South Sulawesi can survive and rise again after the pandemic. The ceremonies were carried out in order to ward off the undue influence of unwanted magical powers that would endanger human survival.
Keywords: Covid-19 Pandemic, Local Wisdom, Tourism Resilience


English consumer law is composed of a combination of common law rules of contract overlaid with statutory rules for the protection of the consumer. The legislation however is strongly influenced by EU harmonising directives which seek in this area to create a level playing field for consumers in what should be a single market of 27 different EU states. In principle these quasi-federal consumer rights should ensure that the consumer is just as happy to buy his goods and services in other EU countries because the protection should be broadly the same. However the cross-border shopper is hindered by the difficulties in enforcing his rights when he may have to do this in a foreign legal system and in a foreign language. The existing rules in the Rome Convention 1980 about the applicable law and in the Brussels Regulation 44/2001 on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments do give some advantages to the consumer. If targeted in some way by the supplier in his own country the consumer will be able to rely on his domestic consumer protection rules and take the matter to his domestic courts. However in most cases it will be too expensive and time consuming to take the matter to the courts so that inevitably pressure has begun to mount for the search for alternative ways of resolving disputes. Indeed the commission has long since promoted ADR as the best form of cross-border resolution. This paper concentrates on the English domestic forms of ADR but also keeps one eye on Europe to identify certain contrasts with ADR elsewhere.


Programmers and software engineers agree in unanimity that a useful characteristic of the programming languages they use for implementations (C++, Java, etc.) is their support for both {\em public} and {\em private} features (types, functions). The public features are often called {\em interfaces}. The private part is not visible outside the module (class, package) that declares it, but it can be used internally to define the visible part. Such distinction helps software engineers abstract their work and ignore details which are a main source of confusion and errors. We claim that the distinction between private and public features might also be a desirable characteristic of formal specifications, not only from the practical point of view but also because of at least two important theoretical reasons. One is the possibility to finitely specify theories which do not admit finite standard presentations. For example, Bergstra and Tucker showed that any recursive algebra is a restriction of an initial algebra presented by a finite number of equations over a larger signature. Another reason is that it allows the user to specify behavioral properties of systems, in the sense that every behavioral specification is equivalent to hiding some operators (i.e., making them private) in a usual specification. We introduce the notion of {\em module specification} as a generalization of the standard specification, having both public (or visible) and private features, and then explore their properties at an abstract level, categorical. To formalize the notion of ``logical system'''' we use {\em institutions} enriched with {\em inclusions}, an abstraction of the natural notion of inclusion of signatures from particular logics. The {\em visible theorems} (or the visible consequences) of a module are those theorems which contain only visible symbols, and a model of that module is a model of its visible consequences. Five basic operations on module specifications are explored: renaming, hiding, enriching, aggregation and parameterization. An internal property of modules, {\em conservativeness}, seems to have a decisive role in giving semantics for module composition.


The 1980s were hailed by many as the decade of tax reform. A number of different countries were caught by a neo-liberal tax reforming wave which saw rates of personal and corporate income taxes reduced, tax allowances restricted, tax bases broadened, the incidence between direct and indirect taxation shifted and tax structures simplified. Policy makers were driven to change tax systems for a number of reasons. There is a tendency, however, to point to economic factors as the cause, but this presents only part of the picture. Moreover, it tells us little about the process. How did tax reform come about. Where did the impulse come from. How did it emerge on political agendas. Tax reform measures were the outcome of positive political decisions to make a policy change. Therefore, it's primarily to the political context we must look for an explanation. While considering a broad range of competing models of politics, this paper will ultimately show that the complex of factors which constitute the tax reform process can best be explained by reference to problems, policies, politics and open windows in a given institutional setting. This hypothesis will be considered in light of the French and British experiences in the 1980s.


The goal of this paper is to assess, for the first time, the empirical impact of "Keynes' beauty contest", or "higher order beliefs", on asset price volatility. The paper shows that heterogeneous expectations induce higher order beliefs and that heterogeneous expectation asset pricing models theoretically generate more volatility than rational expectation models. The paper also explains how, with some assumptions on the distribution of public and private information, a model with higher order beliefs can be empirically estimated. The model is then applied to annual data of the American stock market. The results show that a model with higher order beliefs generates a level of volatility in line with the price volatility observed on the market.


Some of the most important questions in the development of sustainable transportation are identify fuels that will reduce emissions, provide diversification from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, be produced from renewable sources, and that can be produced in a sustainable manner. An alternative diesel fuel that could be used for particulate matter (PM) reductions and be produced from renewable sources could represent a key advance for the transportation sector in terms of sustainability, diversification for the marketplace for the alternative fuels, emissions reductions, and reductions in greenhouse gases. Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is a potentially new fuel that could represent an important advance in the diesel fuel area. DMC can be produced from renewable sources such as grass, manure, or trees. Preliminary tests at the University of California at Riverside have also indicated PM reductions of about 76% at only a 20% blend with diesel fuel, which is about double or triple the reductions typically found for biodiesel at a comparable blend level, and comparable to the reductions found for diesel particulate filters (DPFs). Although these preliminary results indicate the promise of DMC as a PM mass reduction strategy, it is important to more completely characterize the emissions and viability of DMC before it can be more widely used in the fuel market or for in-field demonstrations. The objective of this study was to conduct a preliminary evaluation of the viability of DMC as a transportation fuel for fleet and wider applications. This included a literature review to address questions related to air emissions, impact on vehicle system durability and parts, and any potential storage issues. This study also included some additional emissions testing to evaluate any emissions of toxic species, and to look at some optimization of blend level in terms of a full range of emissions components.


Michael Gecan, a longtime community organizer, offers in this book a disturbing conclusion: the kinds of problems that began to afflict large cities in the 1970s have now spread to the suburbs and beyond. The institutional cornerstones of American life are on an extended decline. No longer young, no longer without limitations or constraints, the country is facing a midlife crisis.Drawing on personal experiences and the stories of communities in Illinois, New York, and other areas, Gecan draws a vivid picture of civic, political, and religious institutions in trouble, from suburban budget crises to failing public schools. Gecan shows that the loss of social capital has followed closely upon institutional failure. He looks in particular at the two main support systems of social mobility and economic progress for the majority of working poor Americans in the first half of the last century--the Roman Catholic school system and the American public high school. As these institutions that generated social progress have faded, those depending on social regression--prisons, jails, and detention centers--have thrived. Can we reverse the trends? Gecan offers hope and a direction forward. He calls on national and local leadership to shed old ways of thinking and face new realities, which include not only the substantial costs of change but also its considerable benefits. Only then will we enjoy the next rich phase of our local and national life.


The present study aims to characterize the pedagogical intervention of youth volleyball coaches, in relation to the practice type, the task's nature and the moment of intervention. 24 Portuguese coaches of youth teams participated in the study. Inferential statistics and Spearman's correlation coefficient were applied to analyse the association between the type of practice and the task's didactic nature. This study has showed that: the majority of youth coaches tend to intervene through feedback, to use over all refining tasks and acquisition tasks; when using a type of practice related to the acquisition of techniques, coaches employ more frequently introduction and extension tasks; in turn, when they appeal to a type of practice related to the game action's structuring, coaches use more often information and refining tasks. Finally, the opposition game as associated to application tasks. Key Words: coaching,  pedagogical intervention, volleyball,  practice structuring.


Objective—To determine how the decisions of Dutch cardiologists on surgical treatment for aortic stenosis were influenced by the patient's age, cardiac signs and symptoms, and comorbidity; and to identify groups of cardiologists whose responses to these clinical characteristics were similar. Design—A questionnaire was produced asking cardiologists to indicate on a six point scale whether they would advise cardiac surgery for each of 32 case vignettes describing 10 clinical characteristics. Setting—Nationwide postal survey among all 530 cardiologists in the Netherlands. Results—52% of the cardiologists responded. There was wide variability in the cardiologists' advice for the individual case vignettes. Six groups of cardiologists explained 60% of the variance. The age of the patient was most important for 41% of the cardiologists; among these, 50% had a high and 50% a low inclination to advise surgery. A further 24% were influenced equally by the patient's age and by the severity of the aortic stenosis and its eVect on left ventricular function; among these, 62% had a high and 38% a low inclination to advise surgery. Finally, 23% of the cardiologists were mainly influenced by the left ventricular function and 12% by the aortic valve area. The presence of comorbidity always played a minor role. Conclusions—There were systematic diVerences among groups of cardiologists in their inclination to advise aortic valve replacement for elderly patients, as well as in the way their advice was influenced by the patients' characteristics. These results indicate the need for prospective studies to identify the best treatment for elderly patients according to their clinical profile. (Heart 2001;85:196–201)


The amount of time taken to copulate varies enormously among mammals. Because copulation likely exposes animals to an increased risk of predation, and uses time and energy that could be spent on foraging, smaller mammals (which are vulnerable to more predators and have a shorter time-to-starvation than larger mammals) should spend less time copulating than do larger mammals. Furthermore, if extended copulation reflects competition among males, then the duration of mating (after correction for body size) should be greater in mammals in which females mate with more than one male. We tested these predictions using comparative data from 113 mammalian species in 85 genera, 40 families, and 14 orders, while controlling for the effect of phylogeny. We found: (1) the relationship between duration of copulation and body size to be negative, not positive; (2) no relationship with inferred multiple mating by females (based upon relative testes mass). We suggest that small mammals may find the sustained maneuvering and body positioning of copulation easier than do large mammals. This hypothesis is supported by an apparently isometric relationship between duration of copulation and ratio of power to mass. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 87, 185–193.


In Germany, Weimar Classicism (roughly the period from Goethe's return to Germany from Italy in 1788 to the death of his friend and collaborator Schiller in 1805) is widely regarded as an apogee of literary art. But outside of Germany, Goethe is considered a Romantic, and the notion of Weimar Classicism as a distinct period is viewed with skepticism. This volume of new essays regards the question of literary period as a red herring: Weimar Classicism is best understood as a project that involved the ambitious attempt not only to imagine but also to achieve a new quality of wholeness in human life and culture at a time when fragmentation, division, and alienation appeared to be the norm.By not succumbing to the myth of Weimar and its literary giants, but being willing to explore the phenomenon as a complex cultural system with a unique signature, this book provides an account of its shaping beliefs, preoccupations, motifs, and values. Contributions from leading German, British, and North American scholars open up multiple interdisciplinary perspectives on the period.Essays on the novel, poetry, drama, and theater are joined by accounts of politics, philosophy, visual culture, women writers, and science. The reader is introduced to the full panoply of cultural life in "Weimar", its accomplishments as well as its excesses and follies. Emancipatory and doctrinaire by turns, the project of "Weimar Classicism" is best approached as a complex whole. The contributors are: Dieter Borchmeyer, Charles Grair, Gail Hart, Thomas Saine, Jane Brown, Cyrus Hamlin, Roger Stephenson, Elisabeth Krimmer, Helmut Pfotenhauer, Benjamin Bennett, Astrida Orle Tantillo, W. Daniel Wilson. Simon J. Richter is associate professor of German at the University of Pennsylvania.


Hibonite-pyroxene spherules are an extremely rare kind of refractory inclusion that show a wide range of exotic isotopic properties despite their defining similarity and simplicity in morphology and mineralogy. One such, relatively large (about 120 micron diameter), inclusion has been found in one of the most pristine meteorites, Allan Hills 77307 (a carbonaceous chondrite of the Ornans group; Petrologic type 3.03). The inclusion consists of two central hibonite laths of about 30x15 micron surrounded by Al, Ca-rich pyroxene. The hibonite laths have uniform composition. The composition of pyroxene surrounding the hibonite is radially homogenously Al,-Ca rich up to about 50-60 microns which transitions to Mg, -Ti rich at the outer boundary. Hibonite-pyroxene spherule found in ALHA 77307 shares many similarities with the other previously found hibonite-pyroxene spherules. A distinguishing feature of the inclusion in ALHA77307 is the presence of two slivers/ wedges at the opposite outer edge of the hibonite- pyroxene spherule that consist of rapidly, poorly crystalized, sub-micron minerals with pristine textures. The pristine petrography and mineralogy of this inclusion allow discernment of the expected general trend of formation and alteration amongst hibonite-pyroxene spherules.


Although science fiction literature and art portray extraordinary stories of people interacting with their images behind a mirror, we know that they are not real and belong to the realm of fantasy. However, it is well known that charges or magnets near a good electrical conductor experience real attractive or repulsive forces, respectively, originating in the interaction with their images. Here, we show strong interaction between an optical microcavity and its image under external illumination. Specifically, we use silicon nanospheres whose high refractive index makes well-defined optical resonances feasible. The strong interaction produces attractive and repulsive forces depending on incident wavelength, cavity-metal separation and resonance mode symmetry. These intense repulsive photonic forces warrant a new kind of optical levitation that allows us to accurately manipulate small particles, with important consequences for microscopy, optical sensing and control of light by light at the nanoscale.


The development objective of the Urban Development Project for Rwanda is to enhance urban management and provide access to basic infrastructure in selected urban centers. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) compensation at full replacement value not depreciated, taking into account market values for structures and materials; (2) compensation in cash will be considered if the lost land is below 20 percent of total land; (3) for lost rental income lump sum cash payment of 6 months' rent per tenant; (4) coverage of full cost for total transport expenses; and (5) crops at market cost in scarce season (the value of crops is considered at harvesting period.


Here, feminist scholars shed new light on the history of food, cooking, and eating. In recent years, scholars from a variety of disciplines have turned their attention to food to gain a better understanding of history, culture, economics, and society. The emerging field of food studies has yielded a great deal of useful research and a host of publications. "Missing", however, has been a focused effort to use gender as an analytic tool. This stimulating collection of original essays addresses that oversight, investigating the important connections between food studies and women's studies. Applying the insights of feminist scholarship to the study of food, the thirteen essays in this volume are arranged under four headings - the marketplace, histories, representations, and resistances. The editors open the book with a substantial introduction that traces the history of scholarly writing on food and maps the terrain of feminist food studies. In the essays that follow, contributors pay particular attention to the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, class, colonialism, and capitalism have both shaped and been shaped by the production and consumption of food. In the first section, four essays analyze the influence of large corporations in determining what came to be accepted as proper meals in the United States, including what mothers were expected to feed their babies. The essays in the second section explore how women have held families together by keeping them nourished, from the routines of an early nineteenth-century New Englander to the plight of women who endured the siege of Leningrad. The essays in the third section focus on the centrality of gender and race in the formation of identities as enacted through food discourse and practices. These case studies range from the Caribbean to the San Luis Valley of Colorado. The final section documents acts of female resistance within the contexts of national or ethnic oppression. From women in colonial India to Armenian American feminists, these essays show how food has served as a means to assert independence and personal identity.


OBJECTIVE
To identify systematic errors in surgeons' estimations of the importance of diagnostic variables in the decision to explore patients with suspected appendicitis.

DESIGN
Prospective case series.

SETTING
Two emergency departments, Sweden.

PATIENTS
496 patients with suspected appendicitis on admission, of whom 194 had a correct operation for appendicitis and 59 had a negative exploration.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Predictors of a negative exploration expressed as the odds ratio (OR) for negative exploration. Variables influence on the decision to operate, expressed as the OR for operation, compared with the true diagnostic importance, expressed as the OR for appendicitis.

RESULTS
Predictors of negative explorations were high ratings in variables describing pain and tenderness (patient's perceived pain, abdominal tenderness, rebound tenderness, guarding or rectal tenderness), weak or absent inflammatory response, female sex, long duration of symptoms and absence of vomiting, with OR of 1.8-3.0. Pain and tenderness had too strong an influence on the decision to operate whereas the lack of an inflammatory response, no vomiting, and long duration of symptoms were not given enough attention. There was no sex difference in the proportion of patients with non-surgical abdominal pain (NSAP) who were operated on, but NSAP was more common and appendicitis less common among women, leading to a larger proportion of negative appendicectomies among women.

CONCLUSION
Negative explorations in patients with suspected appendicitis are related to systematic errors in the clinical diagnosis with too strong an emphasis on pain and tenderness, and too little attention paid to duration of symptoms and objective signs of inflammation. Rectal tenderness is not a sign of appendicitis. The risk of diagnostic errors is similar in men and women.


Patients scheduled for elective surgery are commonly cancelled because an existing cardiac problem is felt to need review. Currently, the positive yield of pre-operative cardiac review is low, largely because communication between specialties is poor and an explicit question is not asked of the cardiac team. All practitioners need to agree upon the proper criteria for cardiac referral, and upon the proper aims of the cardiac review. In particular, the term 'fit for surgery' must be abandoned.


The microstructure of food is key to its sensorial perception, and methods to characterize the microstructure are of crucial importance in food engineering. Ice cream is a special example whose microstructure changes dramatically in response to temperature variations. Since ice cream is a multiphase material, the complex interactions among the phases and the physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of microstructure are not yet well understood. This is mostly due to the fact that observing the microstructure with traditional microscopic methods is destructive and does not allow the study of undisturbed samples. With X-ray micro-tomography, it is possible to overcome these limitations and carry out time lapse studies of the evolution of the microstructure of ice cream. Using iodine as a contrast agent, we measured the three-dimensional distribution of the three main phases (air, unfrozen sugar solution, and ice crystals) with a voxel size of 6 μm. An automated routine was developed that allows for the segmentation of the three phases. Based on the three-dimensional data we calculated the temporal evolution of air bubble sizes and ice crystal sizes during cyclic variations of temperature. Under the given temperature variations we find strong hints that for ice crystal coarsening a melt refreeze mechanism and for air microstructure coarsening coalescence are the dominating underlying mechanisms. This method—which can be applied to a plethora of soft multiphase materials—provides new insights into the coarsening mechanisms of multiphase materials and could contribute to a better understanding of complex materials.


Analysis techniques are needed to determine the quantity and structure of materials composing an organic layer that is below an ultra-thin film limit and in a liquid environment. Neither optical nor acoustical techniques can independently distinguish between thickness and porosity of ultra-thin films due to parameter correlation. A combined optical and acoustical approach yields sufficient information to determine both thickness and porosity. We describe application of the combinatorial approach to measure single or multiple organic layers when the total layer thickness is small compared to the wavelength of the probing light. The instrumental setup allows for simultaneous in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry and quartz crystal microbalance dynamic measurements, and it is combined with a multiple-inlet fluid control system for different liquid solutions to be introduced during experiments. A virtual separation approach is implemented into our analysis scheme, differentiated by whether or not the organic adsorbate and liquid ambient densities are equal. The analysis scheme requires that the film be assumed transparent and rigid (non-viscoelastic). We present and discuss applications of our approach to studies of organic surfactant adsorption, self-assembled monolayer chemisorption, and multiple-layer target DNA sensor preparation and performance testing.


An experiment was conducted during 2017 growing season in Debrecen, Hungary to investigate the effects of inoculation and N fertilization on the seed yield and protein concentration of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] cultivar (Boglár) under three irrigation regimes: severe drought (SD), moderate drought (MD) and control with no drought stress (ND). Three N fertilizer rates were applied: no N (0N), 35 kg/ha (35N) and 105 kg/ha of N fertilizer (105N). Half of the seeds in each treatment were inoculated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum inoculant. The results showed significant differences in the seed yield associated with both inoculation and irrigation, whereas there were no significant differences in the seed yield associated with fertilization. When seeds were inoculated, yield was increased when (35N) was applied compared to (0N); however, high rate (105N) reduced the yield to a level even less than (0N). When seeds were not inoculated, the highest rate of N increased the yield the most compared to the other two N fertilizer rates under drought. Under severe drought, inoculation was positively and significantly correlated with yield; however, adding N fertilizer increased the yield of non-inoculated plants compared to the inoculated ones, regardless of N-fertilizer rate. Protein concentration in the seeds was significantly affected by irrigation and by fertilization, but not by inoculation. Protein concentration increased as N fertilization rate increased, regardless of inoculation or irrigation; moreover, increasing N rate reduced the correlation coefficient of protein concentration with irrigation. It was concluded that adding N-fertilizer is not always recommended, especially when seeds are inoculated before being sown; however, it is very important under severe drought stress to sustain yield. Enhanced protein concentrations could be achieved by applying N fertilization, whether the seeds were pre-inoculated or not.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test whether individuals possess personal consumption norms and idiosyncratic reference points to which they target behaviour. These personal consumption norms are related to the amount of food consumed independent of industry influences, specifically the size of the package offered and the perceived healthiness of the food. We also examine the extent to which one's commitment to adhere to their personal consumption norm (referred to as "commitment to norm") influences food consumption volume.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experiments are presented, two involve estimates of food consumption and the third examines actual food consumption.

Findings

All studies demonstrate that participants can provide a personal consumption norm for how much food they would typically consume that is independent of manipulated industry influences and that actual consumption is significantly related to their personal consumption norms. Furthermore, commitment to norm is negatively related to the absolute difference between their personal consumption norm and the amount of food consumed; however, supporting evidence was only realized in the case of actual food consumption, suggesting that commitment to norm does not have an effect on the formation of intentions.

Research limitations/implications

The authors demonstrate that at a point in time, personal norms are fixed. However, it is possible that norms may be shaped by industry influences over time. The authors suggest further research into how these personal norms evolve over time, as well as assessing how these norms affect the likelihood of going from zero consumption to some positive amount.

Practical implications

Many studies indicate that marketers can easily influence food consumption volume. However, their ability to influence actual consumption volume is circumscribed by factors beyond their control, namely idiosyncratic personal consumption norms.

Social implications

Over time, it is likely that personal consumption norms have emanated from a variety of antecedents, almost certainly including prior industry experience and situational/social influences. Repeated exposure to external influences is likely to shift the personal norm reference point over time.

Originality/value

Personal consumption norms are carefully disentangled from industry influences and are shown to significantly relate to food consumption volume, independent (but not to the exclusion) of industry influences.


Risk aversion plays a central role in the decisions made in the face of uncertainties, and climate-change mitigation should be no exception. However, the interlinkage of risk aversion and climate-change uncertainties has hardly been investigated numerically, in part because of the computational difficulties of stochastic optimization. In this paper, we apply the numerical techniques of stochastic optimization to the economic modeling of climate change, with the aim of modeling the decision preferences of a risk-conscious agent in the face of unpredictable climate change. The model underlines the critical role played by the risk-aversion parameter in determining the effects of uncertainties on mitigation, not only in level but also in sign.


The evidence demonstrating that nations gain from trade is overwhelming. However, trade liberalization can cause disruption to firms and workers, and its gains and losses are spread unevenly. While many gain from trade, import surges have sometimes undermined the economic viability of whole communities. Existing mechanisms specifically designed to mitigate trade adjustment costs are often inadequate. They can be a source of inefficiency and inequity since trade shocks are only a part of the economic uncertainty affecting workers. Gradualism in trade liberalization combined with preemptive measures to strengthen competitiveness, can help mitigate adjustment costs. Displaced workers are best helped using generally applied safety nets, not those specific to trade. But these are not enough. Trade adjustment requires mobility of factors. International coordination is required to support an open and predictable trading system under the WTO, as the greatest future source of trade shocks could be protectionism, not trade liberalization.


With advances in energy-harvesting techniques, it is now feasible to build sustainable sensor networks to support long-term applications. Unlike battery-powered sensor networks, the objective of sustainable sensor networks is to effectively utilize a continuous stream of ambient energy. Instead of pushing the limits of energy conservation, we aim to design energy-synchronized schemes that keep energy supplies and demands in balance. Specifically, this work presents Energy-Synchronized Communication (ESC) as a transparent middleware between the network layer and MAC layer that controls the amount and timing of RF activity at receiving nodes. In this work, we first derive a delay model for cross-traffic at individual nodes, which reveals an interesting stair effect. This effect allows us to design a localized energy synchronization control with ℴ(d3) time complexity that shuffles or adjusts the working schedule of a node to optimize cross-traffic delays in the presence of changing duty cycle budgets, where d is the node degree in the network. Under different rates of energy fluctuations, shuffle-based and adjustment-based methods have different influences on logical connectivity and cross-traffic delay, due to the inconsistent views of working schedules among neighboring nodes before schedule updates. We study the trade-off between them and propose methods for updating working schedules efficiently. To evaluate our work, ESC is implemented on MicaZ nodes with two state-of-the-art routing protocols. Both testbed experiment and large-scale simulation results show significant performance improvements over randomized synchronization controls.


The efficiency is the major economic category, which measures the final result and the expenses related to the production and provides value expression. The article aims to analyze the prospects and conditions for the development of field vegetable production in Bulgaria. Field vegetable farming is a traditional and fast developing sector of the Bulgarian agriculture. Its condition and development is determined by the various natural and geographic conditions in the country and the experience in cultivating and farming vegetable crops, which are traditional for the Bulgarian population. The vegetable farming is organized in individual private agricultural farms and agricultural farming cooperatives and is performed in small areas. The crisis in the vegetable farming raised a lot of questions that need to be answered. It is necessary to overcome the decrease in vegetable production. This can happen by establishing efficiently operating organizational companies. The most important reasons for the reported decrease are the result of the improperly conducted reforms in the agriculture industry as a result of which the economic condition of the sector is declining. A serious flaw is that the farmers are selecting certain crop production without conducting any preliminary marketing and without any signed contracts for produce realization.


Portal hypertension (PHT) is a major consequence of any chronic liver disease and it is the main cause of complications in patients with cirrhosis. Measurement of hepatic vein pressure gradient is considered the gold standard for PHT assessment, together with its diagnosis and prognosis relevance. Even though hepatic vein pressure gradient measurement is a safe procedure, it is still considered an invasive technique and not widely available. There is thus a need for noninvasive methods that can predict the progression of PHT as well as the presence and the risk of complications related to esophageal varices. This review aimed to discuss the noninvasive markers used in the assessment of PHT and detection of high-risk esophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis. We focus on the main biomarkers, particularly those used in the routine assessment of chronic liver disease, and the physical methods that use tissue elastography as a diagnosis tool.


Partially coherent light is often preferable to its completely coherent counterpart in applications such as imaging, sensing, and free-space optical communications. To fully exploit its advantages, techniques able to retrieve information carried by the beam are required. Here, we develop and experimentally demonstrate a phase-space optics technique for complete spatial analysis of widely used Schell-model beams. It allows for fast information recovery and can be applied for quantitative phase imaging of objects under partially coherent illumination.


AND AFRICAN STUDIES 1946-1974 [The works included in this list have been published either entirely at the expense of the School or with substantial assistance from the School's publications fund. All prices shown are subject to alteration without notice. Orders should be placed through normal trade channels. The list does not include the many works by members of the academic staff of the School published without assistance from the publications fund.]


Grapevine development and ripening are complex processes that involve several biochemical pathways, including fatty acid and lipid metabolism. Fatty acids are essential components of lipids, which play crucial roles in fruit maturation and flavor development. However, the dynamics of fatty acid metabolism in grape flowers and berries are poorly understood. In this study, we present those dynamics and investigate the mechanisms of fatty acid homeostasis on 'Thompson Seedless' berries using metabolomic and proteomic analyses. Low-polar metabolite profiling indicated a higher abundance of fatty acids at the pre-flowering and pre-veraison stages. Proteomic analyses revealed that grape flowers and berries display unique profiles of proteins involved in fatty acid biosynthesis, triacylglycerol assembly, fatty acid β-oxidation, and lipid signaling. These findings show, for the first time, that fatty acid metabolism also plays an important role in the development of non-oil-rich tissues, opening new perspectives about lipid function and its relation to berry quality.


For many centuries, a lot of sailors have insured sight luminous waters. In 1995, a boat registered on his logbook one of these sightings in the northwest Indian Ocean. After check it, some scientists have analyzed photographs taken by a satellite about the area where the luminescence was registered. Indeed, in the photographs they could see a large area of water with light. Applying appropriate filters, they managed to get a picture where the bright is more prominent. This was the first sighting of the so called milky sea from the space. The reason why this luminescence happens has been a mystery for sailors. To try to explain it, they related it to a phenomenon produced by influence of the Moon on the sea water. In this article I pretend to give the lie to this mistaken idea and expose the causes of this luminous water.


Agriculture is a panacea for economic growth (Gunner Myrdal, 1984). The battle for long-run economic growth is either won or lost in the agricultural sector. However, how this path births economic prosperity has been the subject of debates among economist and development scholars. This study empirically examines the impact of agricultural sector on the economic growth of Nigeria, using time series data from 1981 to 2013. Findings revealed that Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP), agricultural output and oil rents have a long-run equilibrium relationship. Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) result shows that, the speed of adjustment of the variables towards their long run equilibrium path was low, though agricultural output had a positive impact on economic growth. It was recommended that, the government and policy makers should embark on diversification and enhance more allocation in terms of budgeting to the agricultural sector. Keywords : Agriculture, economic growth, time series, cointegration and vector error correction model (VECM). JEL Classifications : O13, Q32, Q33


Doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind turbines (WTs) are reported to suffer reliability problems due to the presence of slip-rings, brushes, and the gearbox. These disadvantages encouraged several research groups to investigate the viability of employing single or double-frame brushless cascade DFIGs (BCDFIGs) in grid-connected multimegawatt WTs especially offshore and in solar chimney power plants. In this regard, this paper tackles three main issues. Initially, the expected reduction in gear ratio when BCDFIGs are used instead of DFIGs is examined from a steady state perspective. A reduction would lead to less frequent maintenance and an improved return on investment. Next, a detailed comparison between DFIG-WTs and BCDFIG-WTs under unbalanced grid voltage is presented. Finally, the extent to which a multimegawatt BCDFIG-WT is grid code compliant in terms of fault ride-through capability is studied. This is illustrated by comparing and quantifying the response of a DFIG-WT and a BCDFIG-WT to a severe three-phase voltage dip. Simulation and experimental results indicate promising behavior for BCDFIGs during disturbances.


Most of today's eLearning systems provide static learning materials that are based on the one-size-fits-all philosophy and do not provide a personalized learning space. They are incapable of retrieving and displaying learning materials based upon each individual student's learning goals. In our present work we identify the core problems that are present in current eLearning systems. Accordingly, we propose possible solutions, upon which we develop a personalized learning system. We deploy a facet based modular structure for this purpose. This system is built upon "semantic learning layer cake".


We study attempts to dynamically update DNS records for private (RFC1918) addresses, by analyzing the frequency spectrum of updates observed at an authoritative nameserver for these addresses. We developed a binary autocorrelation algorithm and discovered that updates come in infinite series with periods of 60 or 75 minutes. We identify both periods as default settings of out-of-the-box Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP DNS software. Identifying this common property of end-user environments helps to understand users' behavior on the Internet. To our knowledge this is the first study of the global impact of dynamic DNS.


Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is defined as kidney damage or a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of < 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 for 3 months or more.
As many as 1 in 10 adults is affected, with diabetic nephropathy, glomerulonephritis and uncontrolled hypertension being the major causes.
The global burden of CKD is expected to increase in parallel with the increase in diabetes - the developing world bearing the brunt of this epidemic.
The major consequences of CKD are end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and premature death from cardiovascular disease (CVD).
A patient with CKD is far more likely to die of CVD than to reach ESRD.
CKD is a very strong risk factor for CVD, justifying lower targets for blood pressure and lipid control.
The management of ESRD is extremely costly; therefore the emphasis must be on the early detection and treatment of CKD, which is very effective in preventing progression to ESRD and in decreasing the morbidity and mortality from CVD.
Management involves maintaining a healthy weight, increasing physical activity, reducing salt intake, smoking cessation, and treating hypertension and hyperlipidaemia, including the use of drugs that block the renin-angiotensin system.
Effective action is required at national and international levels to combat this global public health problem, and co-operation across disciplines is essential.


Global Health Partner was founded in 2006 as a privately owned health care provider in Sweden serving both public and private paying patients. In contrast to most providers in the country, GHP organized around specific service lines where it saw the potential to provide the most value. This case details the GHP approach to both Spine Care and Obesity Care demonstrating the power of specialization for quality improvement as a basis for competitive advantage. Students will examine the organization of integrated multidisciplinary care, the impact of volume on learning and efficiency, and the importance of demonstrating quality through outcomes reporting. The case also provides a window into the Swedish Health Care System.


Summary
The Gulf Sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi, is an anadromous species of Acipenseridae and native to North America. It currently inhabits and spawns in the upper reaches of seven natal rivers along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico from the Suwannee River, Florida, to the Pearl River, Louisiana, during spring to autumn. Next to the Alligator Gar (Atractosteus spatula), the Gulf Sturgeon is currently the largest fish species occurring in U.S. Gulf Coast rivers, attaining a length of 2.35 m and weights exceeding 135 kg, but historically attained a substantially larger size. Historically, the spawning populations existed in additional rivers from which the species has been wholly or nearly extirpated, such as the Mobile and Ochlockonee rivers, and possibly the Rio Grande River. Most Gulf Sturgeon populations were decimated by unrestricted commercial fishing between 1895–1910. Subsequently most populations remained unrecovered or extirpated due to continued harvest until the 1970s–1980s, and the construction of dams blocking access to ancestral upriver spawning grounds. Late 20th Century harvest bans and net bans enacted by the several Gulf Coast states have stabilized several populations and enabled the Suwannee River population to rebound substantially and naturally. Hatchery supplementation has not been necessary in this regard to date. Sturgeon are resilient and adaptable fishes with a geological history of 150 million years. Research undertaken since the 1970s has addressed many aspects of Gulf Sturgeon life history, reproduction, migration, population biology, habitat requirements, and other aspects of species biology. However, many knowledge gaps remain, prominently including the life history of early developmental stages in the first year of life. Natural population recovery is evident for the Suwannee River population, but seems promising as well for at least four other populations. The Pascagoula and Pearl River populations face a challenging future due a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors. These two populations, and perhaps the Escambia River population, are particularly vulnerable to periodic mass mortality due to major stochastic events including hurricanes, flooding, hypoxia, and toxic spills. The present manuscript provides a comprehensive synthesis of knowledge regarding the Gulf Sturgeon at the organismal and population levels, identifying knowledge gaps as priorities for future research. Topics not treated in the present synthesis include morphology, internal biology, physiology, and endocrinology. Topics only briefly treated include parasites and diseases, contaminants, and sturgeon aquaculture.


Over the last decades, the interest in open data has increased dramatically in line with the improvements of information and communication technologies. Attention of institutions and private organizations focused on the value of the public sector information. Scholars and practitioners state that open data might have a huge impact in terms of efficiency within the public sector, social and economic wellbeing and might improve transparency and participation of people. While this is true, open data shows some issues that needs to be addressed. Among others, the most important are the technical quality of the published data and the sustainability over time of the whole ecosystem. Both issues are intertwined as actors providing services to the users need to both 1) assure that data is correct and 2) achieve economic sustainability. In such a market, an important role is growingly played by the enabler i.e. those actors that provide the technical infrastructure which allows for the sharing, linking and re-use of data. As the open data market is at its infancy, a survey of the market shows that such actors are very different in terms of nature and business models.


Links curation, that is, finding relevant information within the World-Wide-Web and its ever-growing amount of content is a crucial problem for information access. Hyperlinks recommendation has been for a long time a common way to share references between web users, be it by e-mail exchanges, instant messages or forums. We explore in this paper how Social Media extend this recommendation practice by focusing on the citation of hyperlinks on Twitter. We investigate how people deal with the strong limitation of 140 characters per message, showing that this constraint encourages people to perform a good synthesis of the content they are linking to. We take advantage of this practice to efficiently cluster the actual content of the linked pages with an algorithm based on lexical proximities between messages. Our method yields topical clusters that are consistent with the dynamics of user interests with no need to extract text from the pages themselves.


The burden of malaria in Solomon Islands, a small island state of approximately 653,500 people and lower-middle-income status, remains among the highest of all countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, significant improvements in malaria control have been made in the last 25 years. From a peak of nearly 450 new cases per 1,000 population in 1993, by 2016 annual national malaria incidence dropped to 81 cases per 1,000.
Solomon Islands also remains one of the world's most aid dependent nations, and assistance from international donors has been particularly visible in the health sector. This paper explores the role that foreign aid has played in the reduction of malaria in Solomon Islands in recent years. Within this, the paper considers the role of the Solomon Islands Ministry of Health and Medical Services with respect to its efforts to coordinate donors and improve aid effectiveness as well as its broader efforts to reform the health system.
This study uses a qualitative within-case methodology, including a review of the published and grey literature as well as a series of in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted between March and May 2017. 18 interviews were conducted with key stakeholders who have been involved in the design, funding, and implementation of malaria control and elimination activities in Solomon Islands: individuals currently or previously employed by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, advisers, researchers, and members of civil society.


As early as 1989 when it was clear that there was a possibility of unbanning liberation movements in South Africa and securing the release of political prisoners, the African National Congress (ANC)-aligned structures in the different townships began openly and radically mobilising for the organisation. The ANC-aligned demonstrations and protests became everyday scenes around the country and it was evident that the South African Police (SAP) was gradually battling to control the ANC-aligned citizens in most townships. In mid-1989, a gang known as the Three Million emerged in Maokeng Township (Kroonstad) and was accused by the community members to be operating as a vigilante group. Therefore, incidents of vigilantism by the Three Million Gang became a regular scene in this township. Using the Three Million as a case in point, I attempted to show how the ANC-aligned structures reacted to this gang which was viewed as a vigilante group in the Maokeng Township.


The primary focus of this thesis is the study of bimetallic ordered surface alloys. Cu-based bimetallic catalysts show very useful properties, particularly in respect to their industrial applications, such as metal selectivity, structural stability and catalytic activity in comparison to their single-metal counterparts. Since most microelectronic assemblies utilize Pb-Sn solders for interconnection and modern environmental regulations have targeted the elimination of Pb usage, this makes research for "Pb-free" solders an important issue for microelectronics assembly. Thus the Cu-Sn bimetallic system is a technologically important system which merits detailed investigation.
The Sn/Cu(100) surface system has five reported submonolayer surface phases. Four phases were originally reported by Argile and Rhead in the early 1980's and a fifth phase was reported by Martinez-Blanco et al. in 2006. This thesis has been motivated by this report of a new surface phase. The original four phases have already been studied using Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) by McLoughlin et al. This thesis reviews these studies and completes them by analysing LEED images and integral order beam I(V) spectra obtained for the most recently reported phase.
The surface structures of all five phases are studied using Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) and surface structure models for all the phases are proposed. Photoemission Spectroscopy (PES) and High-Resolution Core-Level Spectroscopy (HRCLS) studies were carried out using synchrotron radiation in the Institute for Storage Ring Facilities in Aarhus (ISA). PES is used to measure changes in the work functions and valence band spectra while HRCLS is used to examine differences in the Cu 3p and Sn 4d core level spectra for all five phases.


This study proposes the use of an experimental analogue of natural resource exploitation to evaluate the effects of the real-time displaying of the amount of available resources and the provision of written feedback messages on the resource extraction behavior of participants sharing a common-pool whereby participants are physically and verbally isolated from each other. The experiment involved the application of a three-member common-pool resources (CPR) game. The members of the groups sharing the CPR were changed periodically and were allowed to talk briefly to each other so that an experienced participant could give instructions to a newcomer. In this way, it was also possible to evaluate how the accuracy of instructions regarding resource preservation and sustainability affects group member resource extraction patterns and CPR maintenance in the long run. Twenty-two college students took part and were distributed into three groups: Control, Display, and Feedback. The amount of resources extracted individually and by the groups in every round of the game was analyzed, as were the verbal responses of the experienced participants when giving instructions to newcomers. Results showed that the manipulated variables were effective for the short-term decrease in the amount of resources extracted by the members of the Display and Feedback groups. The accuracy of the instructions was also important for the sustained maintenance of the pattern of consumption established by the manipulated variables, leading to the recovery and the preservation of the resources in a greater number of the game's rounds.


Objectives To date a large number of vesicle-forming cationic lipids and peptides have been synthesized and used for the delivery of DNA with varying degrees of success. To meet t herapeutic requirements, however, the DNA-delivering efficiency of those non-viral vectors needs major improvement. One possible strategy is to gain better understanding of their mechanisms of entry in relation to their eventual transfection. Endocytosis is thought to be the major internalization pathway for most non-viral gene-delivery vectors; however, the relative contribution of each distinctive endocytic pathway, including clathrin- and caveolae-mediated endocytosis and/or macropinocytosis, is not yet fully under- stood. In this study the transfection efficiency and intracellular uptake and trafficking of novel lipid ternary vectors composed of a series of C 14 glycerol- based analogues of N-(1-(2,3-dioleyloxy)prop yl)-trimethyl-ammonium chloride (DOTMA) were studied using various endocytotic pathway inhibitors. Methods The novel C 14 DOTMA analogues (Writer et al 2006), incorporating cis, trans and alkyne moieties at C-9 and C-11 positions of the alkyl chain, were synthesized, formulated into vesicles with the neutral lipid dioleoylphosphatidyl- ethanolamine (DOPE) and mixed with pGL-3 plasmid in the presence or absence of an integrin-targeting peptide, Pep6. The novel peptide contains a Lys16 domain at the N-terminus designed to bind and condense the DNA, and a cyclic integrin- targeting recognition site known to bind specifically to the cell-surface protein 51 i ntegrin. Lipid–DNA complexation efficiency was assessed using gel electrophoresis, light scattering and zeta potential. Transfection studies of the lipoplexes in the presence or absence of Pep6 were performed in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells in the presence of endocytic inhibitors to determine the route of complex internalization and the relative contributions of each endocytic pathway (Khalil et al 2006). Endocytic inhibitor toxicity studies were also carried out using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Results Zeta potentials, particle-size measurements and gel electrophoresis indicated that complete complexation of DNA occurred between lipid/DNA charge ratios of 2:1 and 4:1, offering partial protection of DNA from DNAseI enzymatic degradation. The presence of Pep6 showed highly improved transfection efficiency compared to the lipoplexes alone, showing up to 3-fold higher transfection efficiencies in some of the lipids when compared with Lipofectamine ® .The transfection efficiency of lipoplexes with and without Pep6 was totally inhibited in the presence of chlorpromazine, a clathrin-mediated endocytic inhibitor. No inhibition of transfection was observed in the presence of filipin III or nystatin, both used as inhibitors for caveolae-mediated endocytosis. Some concentration and time-dependent cytotoxicity was observed with chlorpromazine (with T 50 of 25.2 and 9.2 mg/mL for 30 and 60 minute incubation times respectively); however, any reduction in cell viability was accounted for during the transfection experiments. Conclusions The proposed ternary lipoplexes are promising candidates for gene delivery due to their high transfection efficiency, although slight structural variations in the lipids also play a major role in their eventual transfection. Clathrin-mediated endocytosis appears to be the major pathway for complex internalization in both the presence and absence of Pep6.


The neopterygian fish Enchodus was a widespread, speciose genus consisting of approximately 30 recognized species that were temporally distributed from the late Early Cretaceous through the Paleocene. Many Enchodus specimens are fragmentary cranial remains or isolated dental elements, as is the case for previously reported occurrences in Egypt. Here, we present the most complete specimen of Enchodus recovered from the Late Cretaceous of northeast Africa. The specimen was collected from the upper Campanian Duwi Formation, near the village of Tineida (Dakhla Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt). The new species, Enchodus tineidae sp. nov., consists of right and left dentaries, a partial ectopterygoid, and other cranial bones. The size of the specimen places it into the upper body-size range for the genus. The palatine tooth, an element often useful for diagnosing Enchodus to the species level, is not preserved, but a combination of other cranial characters supports the referral of this specimen to Enchodus . In particular, the dentary preserves three symphysial rostroventral prongs and two tooth rows, the lateral of which consists of small denticles, whereas the medial row comprises large, mediolaterally-compressed teeth. The rostral-most tooth exhibits the highest crown, whereas the rest of the teeth are of lower, variable crown heights. The eight robust, caudal-most medial-row teeth are distributed in a cluster pattern never before observed in Enchodus . Additionally, the dentary and preopercle are both without dermal ornamentation, and the mandibular sensory canal is closed. Phylogenetic analysis recovers this new species as the sister species to E. dirus from North America. Along with previously described materials from Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Italy, Morocco, and Libya, this specimen represents a thirteenth species from the northwestern Tethyan geographic distribution of Enchodus .


It is generally believed that physical laws, reflecting an inherent order in the universe, are ordained by nature. However, in modern physics the observer plays a central role raising questions about how an observer-centric physics can result in laws apparently worthy of a universal nature-centric physics. Over the last decade, we have found that the consistent apt quantification of algebraic and order-theoretic structures results in calculi that possess constraint equations taking the form of what are often considered to be physical laws. I review recent derivations of the formal relations among relevant variables central to special relativity, probability theory and quantum mechanics in this context by considering a problem where two observers form consistent descriptions of and make optimal inferences about a free particle that simply influences them. I show that this approach to describing such a particle based only on available information leads to the mathematics of relativistic quantum mechanics as well as a description of a free particle that reproduces many of the basic properties of a fermion. The result is an approach to foundational physics where laws derive from both consistent descriptions and optimal information-based inferences made by embedded observers.


Real-time systems often have very high reliability requirements and are therefore prime candidates for the inclusion of fault tolerance techniques. In order to provide tolerance to software faults, some form of state restoration is usually advocated as a means of recovery. State restoration can be expensive and the cost is exacerbated for systems which utilize concurrent processes. The concurrency present in most real-time systems and the further difficulties introduced by timing constraints suggest that providing tolerance for software faults may be inordinately expensive or complex. We believe that this need not be the case, and propose a straightforward pragmatic approach to software fault tolerance'which is believed to be applicable to many real-time systems. The approach takes advantage of the structure of real-time systems to simplify error recovery, and a classification scheme for errors is introduced. Responses to each type of error are proposed which allow service to be maintained.


Background: Poisoning is a significant global public health problem which leads to nearly a million deaths each year. Incidence of poisoning in India is among the highest in the world. Despite the vast number, evidence on prevalence pattern in India is yet limited. Objective: The present study aimed to characterise acute poisoning cases with respect to the demographics, effect due to time lag and treatment outcomes. Methods: The cross sectional retrospective study was conducted from January 2013 to December 2015 in government and private teaching hospitals. Results: Of all reviewed cases male over female predominance was observed. Maximum poisoning was observed in the age group 20-35 years with an increased incidence of female cases in age category 13-19 years. Household and agricultural agents (56.4%) were associated with most poisoning. Intentional poisoning was more common (53.3%) and predominant in age category 20-35 years. Maximal exposure was observed between 6 pm – 12 am. Maximum patients (77.6%) responded to the therapy given while 12.6% absconded, took discharge against medical advice or were referred to another hospital. The mortality rate was 9.6 % with male predominance. Conclusion: The study concludes that the burden of poisoning demands strategies for prevention, identification and rational management providing optimal treatment outcomes. Key words: Poisoning pattern, Acute poisoning, Time lag, Treatment outcomes, Mortality.


After the Second World War ended, Canada was no longer mainly composed of its two dominant ethnocultural groups, French and English, but rather constituted by polyethnicity; meaning, Canadian culture was made up of many different ethnic groups. Since then, Canada has actively embraced multiculturalism and on 12 July 1988, the House of Commons passed Bill C-93, 'An Act for the preservation and enhancement of multiculturalism in Canada'. The Canadian multicultural experience has been much portrayed as a celebration of ethnicity where different cultural groups share their customs and learn from each other. However, it is recently being rumoured that the multiculturalism hype is not all it is cut out to be and segregates communities rather than integrate. According to Canadian authors Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka, "in much of the world and particularly in Europe, there is a widespread perception that multiculturalism has failed" (44). In this paper, I examine some recent common issues of concern, especially, racism and discrimination, through the literary expression of Canadian playwrights and writers such as George F. Walker, Cecil Foster, and Mordecai Richler. These writers are not meant to represent any ethnic group as a whole, but rather try to project a general feeling about the nation in individual ways. I will finally explore the idea of how perhaps multiculturalism in Canada is evolving into another state since migratory patterns and the social circumstances that Canada is facing in the 21st century have changed. Today, the idea of celebrating different ethnicities and customs is no longer as important as celebrating the transcultural or "transnational" aspects of relations between individuals and groups of immigrants.


Deterioration of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) has been linked to the proliferation of glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAOs), but few organisms possessing the GAO metabolic phenotype have been identified. An unidentified GAO was highly enriched in a laboratory-scale bioreactor and attempts to identify this organism using conventional 16S rRNA gene cloning had failed. Therefore, rRNA-based stable isotope probing followed by full-cycle rRNA analysis was used to specifically identify the putative GAOs based on their characteristic metabolic phenotype. The study obtained sequences from a group of Alphaproteobacteria not previously shown to possess the GAO phenotype, but 90 % identical by 16S rRNA gene analysis to a phylogenetic clade containing cloned sequences from putative GAOs and the isolate Defluvicoccus vanus. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) probes (DF988 and DF1020) were designed to target the new group and post-FISH chemical staining demonstrated anaerobic-aerobic cycling of polyhydroxyalkanoates, as per the GAO phenotype. The successful use of probes DF988 and DF1020 required the use of unlabelled helper probes which increased probe signal intensity up to 6.6-fold, thus highlighting the utility of helper probes in FISH. The new group constituted 33 % of all Bacteria in the lab-scale bioreactor from which they were identified and were also abundant (51 and 55 % of Bacteria) in two other similar bioreactors in which phosphorus removal had deteriorated. Unlike the previously identified Defluvicoccus-related organisms, the group identified in this study were also found in two full-scale treatment plants performing EBPR, suggesting that this group may be industrially relevant.


Reward-associated features are prioritized during attentional selection. This priority is long-lasting even when task-irrelevant (Anderson et al., 2013) suggesting that reward associations are a particularly potent attentional cue that operates through selection history (Awh et al., 2012) and is separate from typical top-down and bottom-up cues (Posner, 1980). Reward-associated features have also been shown to magnify repetition priming effects (Kristjánsson et al., 2010). We investigated whether repetition priming for rewarded and non-rewarded dimensions would be modulated by top-down knowledge of current task goals. We employed a target discrimination task consisting of two phases, an initial rewarded phase (participants learned a color-reward mapping) followed by an extinction phase (learned color-reward mapping became invalid). Consistent with Kristjánsson et al., the repetition priming effect was bigger for rewarded than non-rewarded targets, but only during the rewarded phase. The novel finding was an interaction between repetition priming of the reward-associated color and target location: the priming effect was similar in size during the rewarded phase, but increased for location repetitions and decreased for reward-associated color repetitions in the extinction phase. This suggests that repetition priming is sensitive to the contextual relevance of task information. To ascertain whether the observed interaction was due to changes in reward-associated mapping or specific to changes in top-down knowledge of reward relevance, we performed a second study where the color-reward mapping reversed in alternating blocks. Priming for rewarded color and target location was comparable in all blocks, suggesting that simply changing reward mapping does not alter the magnitude of repetition priming for either information type. These results suggest that repetition priming is modulated by the contextual knowledge of task-relevant dimensions. The selection history of multiple features results in repetition priming effects, the magnitude of which is weighted according to task-relevance. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Surveys are commonly used in Extension to identify client needs or evaluate program outcomes. This article examines how available email addresses can be incorporated into mixed-mode procedures for surveys. When mail and email addresses are used to implement a sequence of email and postal invitations in a mixed-mode survey, response rates were somewhat lower than those for mail only surveys. Item nonresponse is, however, lower for questionnaires completed via the Web, and costs for postage were substantially lower for the mixed-mode groups (because 60% of the surveys were completed via the Web). The study demonstrates the benefit of using mixed-mode surveys.


Bitches with dystocia most often present with clinical signs of uterine inertia (UI). The aetiology of myometrial dysfunction in most of these cases is still not elucidated. We compared blood ionized calcium (iCa) and glucose concentrations in bitches diagnosed with primary UI (PUI, n = 14), secondary UI (SUI, n = 6) or obstructive dystocia (OD, n = 6), and we described their haematology profiles. Bitches diagnosed with UI had a patent birth canal and delivered no puppies yet (PUI) or only part of the whole litter (SUI). The OD group had no UI and showed strong abdominal contractions. Blood iCa did not differ between the PUI, SUI and OD groups and was not influenced by litter size. There was a significant positive relationship (R2  = .241, p = .013) between iCa concentrations and the dam's body weight. Glucose concentrations were also not significantly different between dystocia groups or influenced by body weight and litter size. Hypocalcaemia was detected in 11 bitches, and hypoglycaemia in two bitches. Pregnancy-associated anaemia was seen in about one-third of the bitches. Eight of 12 dogs had increased platelet counts, and ten had leukocytosis with mature neutrophilia. Although iCa did not differ between dystocia groups, low concentrations may have contributed to the development of UI in some of the small size bitches. Hypoglycaemia was uncommon, and therefore, we consider low glucose concentrations not to have played an important role in the pathogenesis of UI in our study population. Pregnancy-associated anaemia, thrombocytosis, leukocytosis and mature neutrophilia were common findings in otherwise healthy bitches diagnosed with different forms of dystocia.


Root Cause Analysis for software systems is a challenging diagnostic task due to the complexity emanating from the interactions between system components. Furthermore, the sheer size of the logged data makes it often difficult for human operators and administrators to perform problem diagnosis and root cause analysis. The diagnostic task is further complicated by the lack of models that could be used to support the diagnostic process. Traditionally, this diagnostic task is conducted by human experts who create mental models of systems, in order to generate hypotheses and conduct the analysis even in the presence of incomplete logged data. A challenge in this area is to provide the necessary concepts, tools, and techniques for the operators to focus their attention to specific parts of the logged data and ultimately to automate the diagnostic process. The work described in this thesis aims at proposing a framework that includes techniques, formalisms, and algorithms aimed at automating the process of root cause analysis. In particular, this work uses annotated requirement goal models to represent the monitored systems' requirements and runtime behavior. The goal models are used in combination with log data to generate a ranked set of diagnostics that represent the combination of tasks that failed leading to the observed failure. In addition, the framework uses a combination of word-based and topic-based information retrieval techniques to reduce the size of log data by filtering out a subset of log data to facilitate the diagnostic process. The process of log data filtering and reduction is based on goal model annotations and generates a sequence of logical literals that represent the possible systems' observations. A second level of investigation consists of looking for evidence for any malicious (i.e., intentionally caused by a third party) activity leading to task failures. This analysis uses annotated anti-goal models that denote possible actions that can be taken by an external user to threaten a given system task. The framework uses a novel probabilistic approach based on Markov Logic Networks. Our experiments show that our approach improves over existing proposals by handling uncertainty in observations, using natively generated log data, and by providing ranked diagnoses. The proposed framework has been evaluated using a test environment based on commercial off-the-shelf software components, publicly available Java Based ATM machine, and the large publicly available dataset (DARPA 2000).


Test score improvement has been the major concern in nearly all the extant studies of special preparation or "coaching" for tests. Recently, however, logical analyses of the possible outcomes and implications of special test preparation (Anastasi, 1981; Cole, 1982; Messick, 1981) have suggested that the issue of test score effects is but one aspect of the controversy surrounding coaching; the impact of special preparation on test validity is an equally germane consideration. Though the assumption is sometimes made that coaching can serve only to dilute the construct validity and impair the predictive power of a test, some kinds of special preparation may, by reducing irrelevant sources of test difficulty, actually improve both construct validity and predictive validity.

This study examined the relationships of both internal and external criteria to GRE candidates' performance on several analytical ability item types, obtained under several test-preparation conditions. The purpose was to assess the effects of these various preparations on test reliability and validity. The preparation conditions were those previously shown to be effective, in varying degrees, in improving examinee performance on two of three analytical item types (Powers & Swinton, 1982, 1984). The data for this study were those collected by Powers and Swinton (1982, 1984).

The study results suggest that GRE analytical ability scores may relate more strongly to academic performance after special test preparation than under more standard conditions and that they may relate less to measures of other cognitive abilities (verbal and quantitative scores). No consistent effects were detected on either the internal consistency or the convergent validity of the analytical measure.


In many geodetic applications a large number of observations are being measured to estimate the unknown parameters. The unbiasedness property of the estimated paramete rs is only ensured if there is no bias (e.g. systematic effect) or falsifying observations, which are also known as outliers. One of the most important steps towards obtaining a coherent analysis for the parameter estimation is the detection and elimination of outliers, which may appear to be inconsistent with the remainder of the observations or the model. Outlier detection is thus a primary step in many geodetic applications. There are various methods in handling the outlying observations among which a sequential data snooping procedure, known as Detection, Identification and Adaptation (DIA) algorithm, is employed in the present contribution. An efficient data snooping procedure is based on the Baarda's theory in which blunders are detected element-wise and the model is adopted in an iterative manner. This method may become computationally expensive when there exists a large number of blunders in the observations. An attempt is made to optimize this commonly used method for outlier detection. The optimization is performed to improve the computational time and complexity of the conventional method. An equivalent formulation is thus presented in order to simplify the elimination of outliers from an estimation set-up in a linear model. The method becomes more efficient when there is a large number of model parameters involved in the inversion. In the conventional method this leads to a large normal matrix to be inverted in a consecutive manner. Based on the recursive least squares method, the normal matrix inversion is avoided in the presented algorithm. The accuracy and performance of the proposed formulation is validated based on the results of two real data sets. The application of this formulation has no numerical impact on the final result and it is identical to the conventional outlier elimination. The method is also tested in a simulation case to investigate the accuracy of the outlier detection method in critical cases when large amount of the data is contaminated. In the application considered, it is shown that the proposed algorithm is faster than the conventional method by at least a factor of 3. The method becomes faster when the number of observations and parameters increases.


People with visual disabilities typically receive services from both rehabilitation counselors and rehabilitation teachers within the State-Federal vocational rehabilitation program. Rehabilitation counselors focus on vocational and employment issues and rehabilitation teachers provide independent living training to individuals with visual impairments. Because of the paucity of literature comparing these two groups, state rehabilitation agencies serving individuals with visual disabilities were surveyed to identify the training needs of newly hired rehabilitation counselors and rehabilitation teachers working with individuals with visual disabilities. Identification of these training needs could have implications for both pre-service and continuing education designed for these professionals. Pre-service education, defined by Scalia and Wolfe (1984) as emphasizing "basic theory and general principles of practice" and "directed toward preparation for a profession, not a specific job," is provided by university-affiliated degree programs (p. 36). The knowledge and skills that are to be obtained through pre-service educational programs are usually established by accrediting bodies or professional associations. For example, the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE), a national accrediting body, accredits rehabilitation counseling programs and sets forth the educational outcomes and courses or study units that must be contained in accredited graduate rehabilitation counseling programs. Rehabilitation teaching programs are approved by the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER). Not all rehabilitation counseling programs and rehabilitation teaching programs are accredited, nor do all rehabilitation agencies limit their hiring to individuals who have graduated from these programs. Continuing education, defined as that "set of activities which is geared to increasing skill in one's present job" (Scalia & Wolfe, 1984), is provided via Regional Rehabilitation Continuing Education Programs (RRCEPs) and agency in-service training programs (p.37). In contrast to the more formalized curricula in pre-service education programs, continuing education programs are varied and can respond quickly to a single agency unit's needs or regional-specific needs. The variables related to continuing education are reflected in the research of Szymanski, Linkowski, Leahy, Diamond, and Thoreson (1993), who found that "education, gender, job level, job setting, job title, and years of experience" were related to perceived training needs (p. 179). Because of these variables, Szymanski et al., (1993) recommended settingspecific training needs analyses, which usually represent an important first step in determining the content of continuing education programs. Training needs, which may be self-identified or identified by program administrators or by professional organizations, are typically of two types: perceived and actual. Actual training needs are based on objective data that identify performance deficiencies or suggest the need for additional competencies in particular areas that can be met through an educational program. Identifying performance deficiencies objectively is difficult, and more individuals tend to participate in training when they view the training as meeting their unique needs. Consequently, individuals' perceived training needs are more frequently used in identifying the content for continuing education programs (Renwick & Mirkopoulos, 1991). Various approaches have been used to identify perceived training needs of rehabilitation professionals. For example, the training needs of rehabilitation administrators were identified by consolidating the results of several individual studies on the training needs of rehabilitation administrators in state vocational rehabilitation agencies and community rehabilitation programs (Bordieri, Riggar, Crimando, & Matkin, 1988). …


It is now a globally acknowledged fact that there exists a human right to water for "basic needs" that allows everyone to enjoy an adequate standard of living that guarantees one the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. What is less known however is what that right means to different people in different contexts especially poor and marginalized rural women in the developing world who use water holistically for multiple purposes that are all aimed at lifting themselves out of the endemic feminized poverty that has been associated with them. In this thesis based on an empirical study conducted on four A1 small scale resettlement farms in Mazowe Catchment I locate different social groups of women on the farms at the intersection of formal and informal norms and institutions that determine whether they are included or excluded from accessing, using and controlling water for personal, domestic, food production and livelihood purposes, from the local to national levels. Situating the international human right to water in a local context; the aim is to interrogate the extent to which this right as conceptualized at international and national levels resonates with how women within these rural communities use water in its multiplicity to ensure general social well being within their households and the community at large. Set against a legal pluralist environment, the extent, to which the different social networks within which different women are embedded impact on their capability to realize the right to water, is also interrogated.
Grounded theory research methodologies that encompass the use of in-depth individual interviews with key informants, group interviews and focus group discussions as well as case studies within a catchment study were used to unravel the complex institutional and normative frameworks associated with access to water and participation in its governance. The women's law approach was used in the research to explore from the women's different lived experiences, the discrimination they encountered which was intersectional as based on political, economic, social, cultural and other prohibited grounds. The findings show deep seated tensions between customarily informed norms and institutions that entitle rural women to have open access to water for drinking, sanitation, food production and livelihood purposes from common pool resources such as rivers, streams, wetlands and riparian land on one hand and formal IWRM informed laws and policies bent on cost recovery and profit maximization implemented by ZINWA officials on the other. This situation, which happens against unclear and pluralist dispute resolution frameworks that are both formal and informal have the most dire impact on women as the traditionally acknowledged major water users for reproductive and productive purposes. As drawn from the findings made in this study, my key recommendations are that the State; (i) conducts nationwide human rights and Constitution awareness campaigns focusing specifically on rural communities for the eradication of gender based discrimination and gender stereotypes that negatively impact on rural women's realization of their human right to water and participation in its governance; (ii) adopts in its policies the broader framework of the human right to water for rural women as understood customarily; within the 2013 Zimbabwe Constitution; Article 14 of CEDAW and in accordance with the UNCESCR's General Comment 15 of 2002; (iii) effectively strengthens and enhances local traditional dispute resolution mechanisms that deal with water conflicts through judicial training and the promotion of traditional environmental conservation methods that are pro-poor.,Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs


Wind as a renewable and clean source of energy has begun to take a high position in the global dialog about energy production. Today, one of the big questions is to find the most suitable locations for wind farms, with the goal of achieving the highest rates of electricity production possible. In order to find most suitable places to build windfarms, we need to develop multifactor and multiscale dynamic models of windfarm suitability. The interest in the assessment of wind energy suitability in the Russian North regions comes from the expectation of the great potential of wind power in the northern regions in general. The Russian Arctic coastline can be considered one of the largest wind energy areas that provides an opportunity to implement wind energy technology. At the same time, northern communities face challenges of sustainable development associated with limited fuel energy resources. These challenges such as ecological sustainability and the problems of transportation of fuel in the harsh conditions of the North can be alleviated by the wind energy industry. This research implements an improved wind energy resource characterization and suitability assessment methodology using multi-resolution datasets and a spatial decision support system approach. The wind turbine suitability assessment is based on collection and interpretation of study area environmental characteristics. The developed framework is based on multi-criteria decision systems approach and advanced for the particular study area with its regional features. The framework includes along with basic environmental criteria, such as wind speed or wind power, slope, elevation, proximity to road networks, settlements, protected federal areas etc., parameters specific for the Arctic regions and cold environmental conditions, such as icing losses and permafrost. All those factors are taken into an account for more precise results of wind power assessment for the Arctic territory of Russia. One of the important results of this research is an improved framework of wind resource characterization, where wind power potential of the study area was calculated for twelve-month using an examination and use of global meteorological reanalysis data. Average annual estimates of wind power potential were adjusted for such possible production impairment factor as icing occurrence and potential losses due to it. The inclusion of this variable influenced the results which tells about an importance of such methodological improvements of using this criteria for wind energy potential estimates. Wind turbine suitability assessment was completed with the use of appropriate to cold climates multi-criteria decision making system, this system was developed and implemented in this study. Multi-criteria site assessment method included best available data for the Russian Arctic and included 11 criteria for enhanced site selection. One of the new improvements in this research is the use of permafrost as an economic criterion, where risks of wind turbine construction on unstable permafrost were considered. As a result of this study, regional wind power potential and suitability estimates were provided for all eight Russian Arctic regions and showed high potentials of wind energy development. This research included downscaling to the regional-scale process with the use of finer resolution meteorological reanalysis and elevation data for the area of Nenets-Autonomous Okrug. Results of this process showed that downscaled results positively impacted on wind power potential assessments and negatively impacted on suitability site assessment. The results of this study can be useful for an electric power industry development program in the Arctic region, where alternative energy sources can replace or reduce the use of the traditional fuel resources. A MULTISCALE ASSESSMENT OF WIND ENERGY RESOURCES AND SUITABILITY IN THE RUSSIAN ARCTIC A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts


We experimentally study on-line investment algorithms first proposed by Agarwal and Hazan and extended by Hazan et al. which achieve almost the same wealth as the best constant-rebalanced portfolio determined in hindsight. These algorithms are the first to combine optimal logarithmic regret bounds with efficient deterministic computability. They are based on the Newton method for offline optimization which, unlike previous approaches, exploits second order information. After analyzing the algorithm using the potential function introduced by Agarwal and Hazan, we present extensive experiments on actual financial data. These experiments confirm the theoretical advantage of our algorithms, which yield higher returns and run considerably faster than previous algorithms with optimal regret. Additionally, we perform financial analysis using mean-variance calculations and the Sharpe ratio.