Renewable energy sources can help combat climate change but knowing the land, water and carbon implications of different renewable energy production mixes becomes a key. This paper systematically applies land, water and carbon footprint accounting methods to calculate resource appropriation and CO2eq GHG emissions of two energy scenarios. The '100% scenario' is meant as a thinking exercise and assumes a complete transition towards bioenergy, mostly as bioelectricity and some first-generation biofuel. The 'SDS-bio scenario' is inspired by IEA's sustainable development scenario and assumes a 9.8% share of bioenergy in the final mix, with a high share of first-generation biofuel. Energy inputs into production are calculated by differentiating inputs into fuel versus electricity and exclude fossil fuels used for non-energy purposes. Results suggest that both scenarios can lead to emission savings, but at a high cost of land and water resources. A 100% shift to bioenergy is not possible from water and land perspectives. The SDS-bio scenario, when using the most efficient feedstocks (sugar beet and sugarcane), would still require 11–14% of the global arable land and a water flow equivalent to 18–25% of the current water footprint of humanity. In comparative terms, using sugar or starchy crops to produce bioenergy results in smaller footprints than using oil-bearing crops. Regardless of the choice of crop, converting the biomass to combined heat and power results in smaller land, water and carbon footprints per unit of energy than when converting to electricity alone or liquid biofuel.


Synsedimentary ball-and-pillow beds, breccias, and faults in late Middle to Late Ordovician foreland basin rocks of Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and Virginia indicate broad zones of seismicity near the Cincinnati arch and Taconic orogenic front during deposition. Earthquake-induced liquefaction formed seismites, that include ball-and-pillow beds and rare sedimentary breccias that are correlative over large areas (hundreds to thousands of square kilometers). Comparison of these features with liquefaction structures in Holocene sediments indicates that the Ordovician ball-and-pillow beds were probably generated by large earthquakes (magnitudes >6). The Ordovician seismites also provide information about epicenter location and the recurrence interval of large earthquakes in the Ordovician foreland basin. Some were produced by faulting in the foreland and accretionary prism. However, horizons of resedimented lithoclastic breccias in the Jeptha knob cryptoexplosive structure appear to correlate with several ball-and-pillow beds on Jessamine dome, along the Cincinnati arch, suggesting that some of the seismites may be genetically related to this enigmatic structure.


Large segment of global populations, especially in developing countries is currently at risk from one or more micronutrient deficiency, so called malnutrition. This could be due to our current food systems are fail to provide enough balanced dietary nutrients to meet all the nutritional requirements of every individual, especially resource-poor women and children in the developing countries. A variety of interventions have been used to address micronutrient malnutrition so far such as pharmaceutical supplementation, industrial fortifications and dietary diversification. However, success of supplementation and fortification in developing countries remains challenges due to poor infrastructure, delivery system, more often it need sustained investment year-after-year. Of course dietary diversity is an immediate issue of diverse food affordability since a sharp increase in food prices will have a large impact on rural-poor households' who's represent the most segment of malnourished population. Researchers now focusing an food based intervention so called biofortification (developing a cultivars with elevated micronutrients in their edible parts through convetional breeding or biotechnology) is found to be sustainable intervention, even if external support fails, biofortification will continue to combat multiple micronutrient deficiency simultaneously generation after generations. Though this strategy is not an Einstein idea but it was a pessimistic view for longtime among the community, however, with the advent of modern and advanced technology we deliberately believes it can be made successful in optimistic way by transforming the dynamic results into reality. Therefore, present view and optimism are more towards the biofortification of staples for better human nutrition to acieve appropriate nutrient level in the biofortifed cultivars and further research is required to upscale at the global level to prove as an effective strategy.


A new type of 150 mm vertical 4H-SiC epitaxial reactor with high-speed wafer rotation has been developed. Multiple resistance heaters ensure uniform radial temperature distribution throughout a 150-mm-diameter wafer. Enhancement of the growth rates is realized by high-speed wafer rotation under a relatively high system pressure, and growth rates of 40–50 µm/h are achieved on 4° off 4H-SiC substrates, maintaining a low defect density and a smooth surface without macrostep bunching. Excellent thickness and doping uniformities are simultaneously obtained for a 150-mm-diameter wafer at a high growth rate of 50 µm/h.


Antonio Mira de Amescua bases his Old Testament play on the brief story (Judg. 4 and 5) of two powerful women—a Judith-like Kenite and a prophetess—who deliver premonarchic Israel from the Canaanite oppression of King Jabín and Sísara. Mira remains faithful to the sexually charged biblical sources, while he supplements the epic with the characters and intrigue to befit a comedia. Mira doubles the couples of Judges (here, Eber Fineo/Jael and the juridical military dyad of Débora/ Barac) with an enamoured gracioso (Simaneo) and maid (Tamar), and with, more importantly, the pairing of Sísara and the emblematic Sofonisa, Jabín's sister. The dramatist establishes a symmetrical schematic, including the axis of an economy of recompense among other literary mechanisms, which allows for the male characters to reflect one another. Mira juxtaposes the two warrior women with the four male characters who are "disarmed"—literally or symbolically—in one form or another, and who share a fate of shame in varying degrees. Furthermore, in the dramatist's own paradigmatic supersession of this biblical tale about love, (dis) honour, and Faith, Jael is an Israelite, thus representative of the Christian thematic lessons of the play. Her hapless husband, however, remains a Kenite. In this manner, he represents the "other," even the Jewish converso, who must suffer the consequences of failing to believe, and/or believing the dishonour that he thought his wife brought upon his name, much to an audience's delight.


Myrtle rust is an invasive fungal disease that pose a significant threat to the native Australian myrtaceae ecosystems. Original initiative to eradicate myrtle rust had been unsuccessful as the spread of the spores occur too rapidly by wind, water and physical contact. This caused the shift in biosecurity efforts to focus on management rather than eradication. Management measures begin with the identification and assessment of infected plants. This can prove difficult in environments where ground access is limited or unavailable. Remote sensing using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are increasingly adopted for such applications. Continual developments in UAS technology have allowed the platforms and sensors to be more advanced, intelligent, compact and accurate. In this work, aerial data collection of high-resolution RGB, multispectral and hyperspectral imageries over a myrtle rust infected tea tree forest ecosystem was carried out. The high-resolution RGB imagery inherits 4mm/px resolution, which shows not only the stages of infection (transitioning from small purple spots to bright yellow spores to faded dull yellow to grey) but also the severity and spread. The multispectral imagery contains several wavelength bands (red, green, blue, red edge and near-infrared) for calculating the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI). The NDVI provides estimates to vegetation properties such as biomass, leaf area, chlorophyll concentration, plant productivity, fractional vegetation cover, accumulated rainfall, etc. The hyperspectral imagery includes narrower and more numerous spectral bands than the multispectral, specifically, 274 bands as compared to the 5 bands in the multispectral. The continuous spectral features captured within the hyperspectral data provide measurements for the unique spectral signature of myrtle rust. The spectral signature can be used to populate spectral libraries for benefiting ongoing research and development into myrtle rust studies. UAS remote sensing has demonstrated its potentials for myrtle rust management, particularly in remote forested environments.


small as 0.1 micron are in demand for the research in many fields such as electronics, optics, and biomedical engineering. Because of various drawbacks with non-mechanical micromanufacturing processes, micromilling has shown itself to be an attractive alternative manufacturing method. Micromilling is a microscale manufacturing process that can be used to produce a wide range of small parts, including those that have complex 3-dimensional contours. Although the micromilling process is superficially similar to conventional-scale milling, the physical processes of micromilling are unique due to the scale effects. These scale effects occur due to unequal scaling of the parameters from the macroscale to the microscale milling. One key example of scale effects in micromilling process is a geometrical source of error known as chord error. The chord error limits the feedrate to a reduced value to produce the features within machining tolerances. In this research, it is hypothesized that the increase of chord error in micromilling can be alleviated by intelligent modification of the kinematic arrangement of the micromilling machine. Currently, all 3-axis micromilling machines are constructed with a Cartesian kinematic arrangement with three perpendicular linear axes. In this research, the cylindrical kinematic arrangement is introduced, and an analytical expression for the chord error for this arrangement is derived. The numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the chord errors for the cylindrical kinematic arrangement. It is found that cylindrical kinematic arrangement gives reduced chord error for some of the curves. Then, the kinematic redundancy is introduced to design a novel kinematic arrangement. Several desired toolpaths have been numerically simulated to evaluate the chord error for kinematically redundant arrangement. It is concluded that this kinematically redundant arrangement gives up to 5 times reduced error for all the desired toolpaths considered, and allows significant gains in allowable feedrates. Mechanical Engineering Master's Defense An Investigation of Kinematic Redundancy for Reduced Error in Micromilling


Pocket computers are beginning to emerge that provide sufficient processing capability and memory capacity to run traditional desktop applications and operating systems on them. The increasing demand placed on these systems by software is competing against the continuing trend in the design of low-power microprocessors towards increasing the amount of computation per unit of energy. Consequently, in spite of advances in low-power circuit design, the microprocessor is likely to continue to account for a significant portion of the overall power consumption of pocket computers.
 This paper investigates clock scaling algorithms on the Itsy, an experimental pocket computer that runs a complete, functional multitasking operating system (a version of Linux 2.0.30). We implemented a number of clock scaling algorithms that are used to adjust the processor speed to reduce the power used by the processor. After testing these algorithms, we conclude that currently proposed algorithms consistently fail to achieve their goal of saving power while not causing user applications to change their interactive behavior.


Pre-mRNA splicing is executed by the spliceosome, a complex of small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) and numerous proteins. One such protein, 15.5K/Snu13p, is associated with the spliceosomal U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP and box C/D small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein particles (snoRNPs), which act during preribosomal RNA (rRNA) processing. As such, it is the first splicing factor to be identified in two functionally distinct particles. 15.5K binds to an internal helix-bulge-helix (K-turn) structure in the U4 snRNA and two such structures in the U3 snoRNA. Previous work has concentrated on the structural basis of the interaction of 15.5K with the RNAs and has been carried out in vitro. Here we present a functional analysis of Snu13p in vivo, using a galactose inducible SNU13 strain to investigate the basis of three lethal mutations in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Two are point mutations that map to the RNA-binding domain, and the third is a C-terminal deletion. These mutations result in accumulation of unspliced pre-mRNA, confirming a role for Snu13p in pre-mRNA splicing. In addition, these mutants also display rRNA processing defects that are variable in nature. Analysis of one mutant in the RNA-binding domain reveals a reduction in the levels of the U4 snRNA, U6 snRNA, and box C/D snoRNAs, but not H/ACA snoRNAs, supporting a role for Snu13p in accumulation and/or maintenance of specific RNAs. The mutations in the RNA-binding domain exhibit differential binding to the U4 snRNA and U3 snoRNA in vitro, suggesting that there are differences in the mode of interaction of Snu13p with these two RNAs.


Constitutional comparativism - the notion that international and foreign material should be used to interpret the U.S. Constitution - is gaining currency. Yet proponents of this practice rarely offer a firm theoretical justification for the practice. This Article contends that constitutional comparativism should be examined from the perspective of constitutional theory. The use of comparative and international material must be deemed appropriate or inappropriate based on a particular judge's interpretive mode of constitutional analysis. The Article presents four classic constitutional theories - originalism, natural law, majoritarianism, and pragmatism - and addresses the propriety of constitutional comparativism under each theory. This theoretical approach goes far to explain why particular judges embrace comparativism, while others eschew it. In so doing, it grounds the debate in the larger framework of classic constitutional theory. It also anticipates the disquiet that constitutional comparativists will experience at the inadequacy of any existing constitutional theory to capture fully the comparative agenda. It therefore introduces the broad outlines of a comparative constitutional theory and judges such a theory based on established criteria for its saliency.


There are a lot of applications that run on modern mobile operating systems. Inevitably, some of these applications fail in the hands of users. Diagnosing a failure to identify the culprit, or merely reproducing that failure in the lab is difficult. To get insight into this problem, we interviewed developers of five mobile applications and analyzed hundreds of trouble tickets. We find that support for diagnosing unexpected application behavior is lacking across major mobile platforms. Even when developers implement heavy-weight logging during controlled trials, they do not discover many dependencies that are then stressed in the wild. They are also not well-equipped to understand how to monitor the large number of dependencies without impacting the phone's limited resources such as CPU and battery. Based on these findings, we argue for three fundamental changes to failure reporting on mobile phones. The first is spatial spreading, which exploits the large number of phones in the field by spreading the monitoring work across them. The second is statistical inference, which builds a conditional distribution model between application behavior and its dependencies in the presence of partial information. The third is adaptive sampling, which dynamically varies what each phone monitors, to adapt to both the varying population of phones and what is being learned about each failure. We propose a system called MobiBug that combines these three techniques to simplify the task of diagnosing mobile applications.


"Voices of the Great War" is the first large corpus of Italian historical texts dating back to the period of First World War. This corpus differs from other existing resources in several respects. First, from the linguistic point of view it gives account of the wide range of varieties in which Italian was articulated in that period, namely from a diastratic (educated vs. uneducated writers), diaphasic (low/informal vs. high/formal registers) and diatopic (regional varieties, dialects) points of view. From the historical perspective, through a collection of texts belonging to different genres it represents different views on the war and the various styles of narrating war events and experiences. The final corpus is balanced along various dimensions, corresponding to the textual genre, the language variety used, the author type and the typology of conveyed contents. The corpus is fully annotated with lemmas, part-of-speech, terminology, and named entities. Significant corpus samples representative of the different "voices" have also been enriched with meta-linguistic and syntactic information. The layer of syntactic annotation forms the first nucleus of an Italian historical treebank complying with the Universal Dependencies standard. The paper illustrates the final resource, the methodology and tools used to build it, and the Web Interface for navigating it.


Abstract A global database of middle–upper Permian foraminiferal genera has been compiled from the literature for 75 Guadalupian and 62 Lopingian localities, grouped into 32 and 19 operational geographical units respectively. Cluster analysis reveals that five distinct Guadalupian provinces were reduced to four in the Lopingian, following the disappearance of the Eastern Panthalassa Province. Extinction magnitudes across the Guadalupian/Lopingian (G/L) boundary reveal that, in the remaining provinces, there is a strong regional variation to the losses at low paleolatitudes. The Central and Western Tethys Province experienced a markedly lower extinction magnitude, at both provincial and global levels, than the Eastern and Northern Tethys Province. Panthalassa experienced a high extinction magnitude of endemics, but a global extinction magnitude similar to that recorded in Central and Western Tethys. This regional bias is seen in both the fusulinacean and non-fusulinacean foraminifera, although fusulinaceans suffered much higher magnitudes of extinction. The regional selectivity also persisted during the subsequent Lopingian radiations, with the Central and Western Tethys Province recording the greatest magnitudes. Thus, of 35 new genera recorded globally from the Lopingian, 27 of these are recorded in Central and Western Tethys, compared to five and 12 genera respectively in Panthalassa and in Eastern and Northern Tethys. The Emeishan large igneous province erupted within the Eastern and Northern Tethys Province and may have been a factor in the high extinction–low radiation regime of this region. Regression (and consequent shallow-marine habitat loss) also appears to have been a significant factor. A major, but brief, late Guadalupian regression is best seen in those areas that suffered the greatest extinction losses.


Animal Life and the Moving Image is the first collection of essays to offer a sustained focus on the relations between screen cultures and non-human animals. The volume brings together some of the most important and influential writers working on the non-human animal's significance for cultures and theories of the moving image. It offers innovative analyses of the representation of animals across a wide range of documentary, fiction, mainstream and avant-garde practices, from early cinema to contemporary
user-generated media. Individual chapters consider King Kong, The Birds, The Misfits, The Cove, Grizzly Man and Microcosmos, the work of Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Bresson, Malcolm Le Grice, Peter Greenaway, Carolee Schneemann and Isabella Rossellini, and YouTube stars Christian the lion and Maru the cat.


The first IUPAC Manual of Symbols and Terminology for Physicochemical Quantities and Units (the Green Book) of which this is the direct successor, was published in 1969, with the object of 'securing clarity and precision, and wider agreement in the use of symbols, by chemists in different countries, among physicists, chemists and engineers, and by editors of scientific journals'. Subsequent revisions have taken account of many developments in the field, culminating in the major extension and revision represented by the 1988 edition under the simplified title Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry. This 2007, third edition, is a further revision of the material which reflects the experience of the contributors with the previous editions. The book has been systematically brought up to date and new sections have been added. It strives to improve the exchange of scientific information among the readers in different disciplines and across different nations. In a rapidly expanding volume of scientific literature where each discipline has a tendency to retreat into its own jargon this book attempts to provide a readable compilation of widely used terms and symbols from many sources together with brief understandable definitions. This is the definitive guide for scientists and organizations working across a multitude of disciplines requiring internationally approved nomenclature.


Standby energy is actually one of the largest electrical end use with the largest potential energy savings in the residential sector. In the paper, a model of the residential customer's demand using a bottom-up approach, implemented in a load simulator, has been used in order to evaluate the impact of standby end users on Italian average households' daily load shape. Finally, some more diffuse standby power demand management options have been simulated thus allowing predict possible impacts directly on daily load shape.


The increasing importance of sustainability in town planning and architectural design is strongly questioning the actual logic of built environment dispersion. The peripheral extension of cities is indeed leading to irrational uses of ground, growing environmental impacts and important infrastructural costs. Looked at from that point of view, the goal of the Ecoparc project is the regeneration of an urban wasteland, located next to the station of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Associating notably sustainable architectural design, sociocultural revitalization and synergies promotion, the project consists in the development of a new urban area, including industrial building transformations and new multifunctional constructions (housing, training and working spaces).


Introduction: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a growing global menace, is seriously undermining the previous successes made in the elimination of TB. MDR-TB treatment takes a long time, is complex, and is frequently associated with the occurrence of adverse drug reactions, some of which could severely diminish a person's health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Research objectives were to determine the occurrence, risk factors and clinical management of adverse events (AEs) associated with MDR-TB treatment; to examine the epidemiology of serious AEs of aminoglycosides in the presence or absence of HIV infection - with or without antiretroviral therapy (ART); and to assess the link between the occurrence of AEs and patients' perception of their HRQoL at the end of MDR-TB treatment. Methods: This study mainly used observational epidemiologic methods, based on retrospective data collected from medical records of patients treated for MDR-TB in Namibia. Electronic and manual MDR-TB treatment records, audiometry and laboratory test results, were used. Data on patients' demographic variables, medication exposure, HIV status, presence or absence of AEs were extracted. This was complemented with the WHO global pharmacovigilance data in VigiBase® and patient interviews on their HRQoL perceptions at the end of MDR-TB treatment. Various descriptive and analytic methods were used to summarize the data and to assess the association between drug exposure, covariates and AE occurrence. Results: Adverse events of varying severity were predominant during the intensive phase of MDR-TB treatment. These included gastrointestinal tract AEs (64%), tinnitus (45%), joint pain (28%) and decreased hearing (25%). About 10% of patients experienced serious AEs that were potentially debilitating. HIV co-infected patients experienced more moderate-to-severe AEs compared to the HIV uninfected patients (median 3 AEs versus 1 AE, p=0.01). The cumulative hazard ratio (HR) of moderate-to-severe AEs relative to HIV uninfected patients was HR=4.0; 1.5 – 10.5. Moderate-to-severe AEs were the main determinant of a clinician's decision to reduce the dose or to stop the suspected offending medicine (RR=3.8; 1.2-11.8). Patients tended to rate moderately low their HRQoL upon completing MDR-TB treatment. The occurrence of AEs was unrelated to HRQoL scores. Amikacin had a higher risk of hearing loss compared to kanamycin (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 4.0; 1.5–10.8). Patients co-infected with HIV (OR = 3.4; 1.1–10.6), males (OR = 4.5; 1.5–13.4) and those with lower baseline body weight (40–59 kg, OR = 2.8; 1.1–6.8) were most at risk. There was an increased risk of renal insufficiency among patients who concomitantly received kanamycin plus ART as compared to those who received kanamycin alone (HR=3.5; 1.4-8.2).


Quantum measure theory can be introduced as a histories based reformulation (and generalisation) of Copenhagen quantum mechanics in the image of classical stochastic theories. These classical models lend themselves to a simple interpretation in which a single history (a single element of the sample space) is deemed to be 'real'; we require only that this real history should not be ruled out by the dynamics, the axioms of which ensure that not all histories are precluded. However, applying this interpretation naively to quantum measure theory we can find experimentally realisable systems (notably the Peres-Kochen-Specker system) in which every history is ruled out by the dynamics, challenging us to formulate a deeper realist framework.
Our first response is to hold on to our existing interpretative framework and attempt a revision of the dynamics that would reduce quantum measure theory to a classical dynamics. We explore this approach by examining the histories formulation of a stochastic-collapse model on a simple (discrete) null-lattice, concluding that the drawbacks of this approach outweigh the benefits.
Our second response is to abandon our classically inspired interpretation in favour of Sorkin's 'co-events', a more general ontology that still allows for strict realism. In this case the 'potentially real' objects of the theory (the 'beables' in Bell's language) are not individual histories but truth valuation maps, or co-events. We develop & evaluate various co-event schemes that have been suggested to date, finally adopting the multiplicative scheme; the current working model of co-event theory and a promising interpretation of quantum measure theory, though still a work in progress. We conclude by exploring the expression of the dynamics & predictions in this new framework.


CONTEXT
Adipose tissue dysregulation causing aberrant adipokine secretion contributes toward the proinflammatory state of metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, there are scant data on the role of novel adipokines in MetS.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine the levels of circulating and adipose tissue-secreted adipokines, chemerin, omentin-1, resistin, and visfatin in nascent MetS patients without diabetes or cardiovascular disease and to determine their relation with features of MetS.

DESIGN AND SETTING
Subjects with MetS and gender- and age-matched controls were recruited after informed consent. Fasting blood samples and gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) biopsies were obtained.

MAIN OUTCOME
SAT-secreted and plasma levels of chemerin, omentin-1, resistin, and visfatin were quantitated.

RESULTS
There was significantly higher circulating as well as SAT-released chemerin in nascent MetS compared to controls, which persisted after adjustment for body mass index, waist circumference, and age. Also, both SAT-released and plasma levels of omentin-1 were significantly lower in MetS compared to controls, and the significant differences persisted after adjustment for age, body mass index, or waist circumference. No significant differences were observed in the levels of circulating visfatin as well as SAT-secreted resistin and visfatin. Chemerin correlated significantly with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, homeostasis model of assessment for insulin resistance, triglycerides, and blood pressure, and inversely with omentin and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Omentin correlated significantly with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and inversely with glucose and triglycerides.

CONCLUSIONS
We make the novel observation of abnormal circulating and gluteal SAT-secreted chemerin and omentin-1 levels in nascent MetS, which could confer a higher risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.


This title is the first study to relate the history and contemporary role of the South East Asian monarchy to the politics of the region today. Comprehensive & up-to-date, Monarchy in South East Asia features an historical and political overview of *Cambodia *Thailand *Malaysia *Brunei *Indonesia *Laos *as well as the region in general. The excellent coverage of this fascinating subject should be of interest to general reader as well as to specialists focusing on region.


We show a first-time demonstration of amplification of 400 fs pulses in a fiber optical parametric amplifier. The 400 fs signal is stretched in time, amplified by 26 dB and compressed back to 500 fs. A significant broadening of the pulses is experimentally shown due to dispersion and limited gain bandwidth both in saturated and unsaturated gain regimes.


Blended learning has become an increasingly popular form of e-learning, and is particularly suitable to the process of transitioning towards e-learning from traditional forms of learning and teaching. This paper describes the use of the blended e-learning model, which is based on a mixture of collaborative learning, problem-based learning (PBL) and independent learning, in a course ldquoTeaching Methods in Information Science,rdquo given at the University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia. This model is realized as a combination of a face-to-face environment and online learning, using a proprietary learning management system (LMS) named adaptive hypermedia courseware (AHyCo). AHyCo is based on adaptive hypermedia and in addition to supporting learning and testing, introduces completely new constructivist and cognitivist elements to education. By supporting collaborative and project-oriented activities AHyCo promotes students' motivation for learning and establishes learning as an active and interactive process. This paper describes both the technology for, and the methodological approach to, course design and development which is aimed at supporting the evolution from traditional teaching to active learning, and raising interest in the topics of e-learning and Web courseware development among IT students. A survey conducted in the end of the course showed that students were satisfied with the pedagogical approach, and their academic achievements were also better than expected. Particularly important is that the dropout rate was greatly diminished, which could be related to students' satisfaction with the support they received from the instructor and the system.


The human mind has a remarkable ability to store a vast amount of information in memory, and an even more remarkable ability to retrieve these experiences when needed. Understanding the representations and algorithms that underlie human memory search could potentially be useful in other information retrieval settings, including internet search. Psychological studies have revealed clear regularities in how people search their memory, with clusters of semantically related items tending to be retrieved together. These findings have recently been taken as evidence that human memory search is similar to animals foraging for food in patchy environments, with people making a rational decision to switch away from a cluster of related information as it becomes depleted. We demonstrate that the results that were taken as evidence for this account also emerge from a random walk on a semantic network, much like the random web surfer model used in internet search engines. This offers a simpler and more unified account of how people search their memory, postulating a single process rather than one process for exploring a cluster and one process for switching between clusters.


Despite the fact that in 2006 Russia celebrated the golden jubilee of
uninterrupted research on the Antarctic continent, there has been no attempt to
eXarJ.1ine the history of Soviet interest in the Antarctic in the English language. While
Russian authors have written histories of Soviet Antarctic expeditions based on
expedition reports, this study analyses Russian and Australian archival material, most
of which has not been accessed before.
After the end of World War 11, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
providentially acquired a complete German whaling flotilla as war reparations. From
the time of the flotilla's first whaling operations in the Southern Ocean, a physical
Soviet presence in the Antarctic was assured. The later US proposal for a solution to
conflicting Antarctic territorial claims which . attempted to exclude Soviet
participation and the proposal of scientists for an International Geophysical Year
(IGY) in 1957 - 1958 not only stimulated Soviet resolve to obtain a foothold on the
icy continent, but provided the opportunity to do so.
The main. body of the study deals with Soviet political and logistical
preparations for their IGY operations in Antarctica and their thrust into the interior of
the continent to establish observatories, all situated in the Australian Antarctic
Territory. In a time of Cold War tensions and unresolved Antarctic claims, the
Anglo-Arnerican world (and the Australian government in particular) was especially
wary of Soviet intentions. In the fimll months of the IGY, the political and scientific
future of the Antarctic was being shaped, with new proposals for an international
Antarctic regime and proposals for continuation of Antarctic research being
discussed. This study explores the thinking of political and scientific decision makers
that helped mould Soviet Antarctic policy during this time and demonstrates that the
two perspectives did not necessarily coincide. Whatever the divergences of opinion,
the evidence indicates that from the day the Soviets set foot on the Antarctic
continent, they had no intention of leaving.


The classical way to manage product development processes for massive production seems to be changing: high pressure for cost reduction, higher quality standards, markets reaching for innovation lead to the necessity of new tools for development control. Into this, and learning from the automotive and aerospace industries factories from other segments are starting to understand and apply manufacturing and assembly oriented projects to ease the task of generate goods and from this obtain at least a part of the expected results. This paper is intended to demonstrate the applicability of the concepts of Concurrent Engineering and DFMA (Design For Manufacturing and Assembly) in the development of products and parts for the White Goods industry in Brazil (major appliances as refrigerators, cookers and washing machines), showing one case concerning the development and releasing of a component. Finally is demonstrated in a short term how was reached a solution that could provide cost savings and reduction on the time to delivery using those techniques.


The oxytocin and prolactin responses to suckling were measured in 10 women in early (n = 5) and established lactation (n = 5). Oxytocin was released in a pulsatile manner during suckling in all women, but the response was not related to milk volume, prolactin response, or parity of the mother. In all 10 women plasma oxytocin concentrations increased three to 10 minutes before suckling began. In five women this occurred in response to the baby crying, in three it coincided with the baby becoming restless in expectation of the feed, while in two it corresponded with the mother preparing for the feed. There was no prolactin response to stimuli other than stimulation of the nipple associated with suckling. These results clearly indicate that the milk ejection reflex, with release of oxytocin, occurs in most women before the tactile stimulus of suckling. A second release of oxytocin follows in response to the suckling stimulus itself. Thus it is important that care is taken to protect breast feeding mothers from stress not only during suckling but also immediately before nursing, when conditioned releases of oxytocin will occur.


There was a real buzz after the pharmacy symposium at the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant (ISHLT) annual conference this year in Montreal, with the audience and speakers breaking into groups to discuss aspects of the challenging real life case that had been presented as part of the Pharmacy and Pharmacology council's 'Lifecycle Journey' series. This series uses a developing case to create a panel-facilitated and audience-supported best practice-based discussion at predefined key 'journey intervals.' This year the session was titled: A Lifecycle Journey in Cystic Fibrosis and Lung Transplantation . In this session, members of the Pharmacy and Pharmacology and the Pulmonary Transplantation Councils focused on four 'journey points,' which include: (1) listing considerations and pretransplant infections, (2) perioperative and immediate postoperative management issues, (3) metabolic and interaction considerations to drug dosing and (4) immunomodulation strategies for the management of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome. The first journey point proved thought-provoking, hearing the expert panel of pharmacists and physicians discuss their practice in managing a complex patient with resistant infections in order to ensure that the patient was in optimal condition at transplant. Unfortunately, need for suppression of Burkholderia cepacia complex and Mycobacterium abscessus prior to transplant is becoming all …


Reconfigurable computing is one of the paths to explore towards low-power supercomputing. However, programming these reconfigurable devices is not an easy task and still requires significant research and development efforts to make it really productive. In addition, the use of these devices as accelerators in multicore, SMPs and ccNUMA architectures adds an additional level of programming complexity in order to specify the offloading of tasks to reconfigurable devices and the interoperability with current shared-memory programming paradigms such as OpenMP. This paper presents extensions to OpenMP 3.0 that try to address this second challenge and an implementation in a prototype runtime system. With these extensions the programmer can easily express the offloading of an already existing reconfigurable binary code (bitstream) hiding all the complexities related with device configuration, bitstream loading, data arrangement and movement to the device memory. Our current prototype implementation targets the SGI Altix systems with RASC blades (based on the Virtex 4 FPGA). We analyze the overheads introduced in this implementation and propose a hybrid host/device operational mode to hide some of these overheads, significantly improving the performance of the applications. A complete evaluation of the system is done with a matrix multiplication kernel, including an estimation considering different FPGA frequencies.


We outline a procedure for consistent estimation of marginal and joint default risk in the euro area financial system. We interpret the latter risk as the intrinsic financial system fragility and derive several systemic fragility indicators for euro area banks and sovereigns, based on CDS prices. Our analysis documents that although the fragility of the euro area banking system had started to deteriorate before Lehman Brothers' file for bankruptcy, investors did not expect the crisis to affect euro area sovereigns' solvency until September 2008. Since then, and especially after November 2009, joint sovereign default risk has outpaced the rise of systemic risk within the banking system.


The concept of relationships is one that is central to numerous subfields within communication, including interpersonal, organizational, and public relations. This conceptual paper investigates the notion of relationships and proposes a framework to understand and explicate corporate-community relationships (CCRs), a specific type of organization-public relationships (OPRs). In developing this framework, we draw upon existing literature and our experiences in Liberia related to natural resource management (NRM) as part of a multi-year collaborative peacebuilding initiative. We advance a framework of CCRs that (a) helps develop further empirical research and knowledge about these relationships and (b) contributes to the practice of more transformative relationships between Western and Asian multinational corporations (MNCs) and local communities in West Africa and beyond. This framework puts forth our conceptualization of CCRs as (a) constituted by the communicative, (b) dynamic, constantly influenced by macro and micro factors, and (c) complex. Drawing on our framework, we also advance some guiding questions for a research agenda in this area.


A group of passionate and naive young people leave their known worlds behind to spend 100 days in the jungles of Borneo. Their mission is to confront one of the great global challenges of our time, saving rainforests and giving hope to endangered orangutans. Their task is enormous and the odds are against them. Jojo, an orphaned baby orangutan, is entrusted in their care and they must find a way to return her to her forest home. To do this, they need to build an orangutan rehabilitation centre and find ways to help the local communities protect their forest. Under the guidance of their mentor Dr Willie Smits, they introduce an innovative satellite monitoring system called Earthwatchers and enlist the help of school students around the world. The system is put to the test when the bulldozers move in and threaten the future of a nearby community living in a traditional longhouse. This is a story about what it takes it be an eco-warrior, an individual willing to step up and take action to avert a global catastrophe taking place before our eyes. The eco-warriors represent a new generation, ready to face what is happening on our planet and willing to do something, no matter how small, to build a more humane and balanced world. For them, every individual matters, every action counts.
- Written by Cathy Henkel


Ground-state equilibrium geometries, energetics, and vibrational frequencies of AnO3 molecules, An = Pu through Cf, and their isomers are calculated using an accurate small-core pseudopotential model and the two-component relativistic density functional theory. The qualitative features of chemical bonding in these molecules are discussed in terms of oxidation states and bond orders. The actinide oxidation state (VI) is reached only in the plutonium trioxide molecule, whereas heavier actinide atoms in T-shaped trioxide molecules should be considered as pentavalent. At least at low temperatures, PuO3 and, to a lesser degree, AmO3 and BkO3 molecules should be stable both with respect to the isomerization into oxoperoxides or oxosuperoxides and the decay into dioxides and molecular oxygen. These trioxides can form dimers with significant (above 250 kJ mol(-1)) dissociation energies; the oxidation states of actinide atoms in the lowest-energy configurations of these dimers coincide with those in the corresponding monomers. The ability to reach high oxidation states in oxygen compounds gradually decreases from Pu onwards, with the only exception being the unexpectedly stable Bk(v)O3.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been regarded as an emerging and promis- ing field in both academia and industry. Currently, such networks are deployed due to their unique properties, such as self-organization and ease of deployment. How- ever, there are still some technical challenges needed to be addressed, such as energy and network capacity constraints. Data aggregation, as a fundamental solution, pro- cesses information at sensor level as a useful digest, and only transmits the digest to the sink. The energy and capacity consumptions are reduced due to less data packets transmission. As a key category of data aggregation, aggregation function, solving how to aggregate information at sensor level, is investigated in this thesis.
We make four main contributions: firstly, we propose two new networking-oriented metrics to evaluate the performance of aggregation function: aggregation ratio and packet size coefficient. Aggregation ratio is used to measure the energy saving by data aggregation, and packet size coefficient allows to evaluate the network capac- ity change due to data aggregation. Using these metrics, we confirm that data ag- gregation saves energy and capacity whatever the routing or MAC protocol is used. Secondly, to reduce the impact of sensitive raw data, we propose a data-independent aggregation method which benefits from similar data evolution and achieves better re- covered fidelity. Thirdly, a property-independent aggregation function is proposed to adapt the dynamic data variations. Comparing to other functions, our proposal can fit the latest raw data better and achieve real adaptability without assumption about the application and the network topology. Finally, considering a given application, a tar- get accuracy, we classify the forecasting aggregation functions by their performances. The networking-oriented metrics are used to measure the function performance, and a Markov Decision Process is used to compute them. Dataset characterization and classification framework are also presented to guide researcher and engineer to select an appropriate functions under specific requirements.


BACKGROUND
The purpose of our study was to evaluate androgen and SHBG concentration in the blood serum of late post-menopausal women.

MATERIAL/METHODS
We examined women between 65 and 75 years of age and compared their results to those of a group of women in reproductive age. All the subjects, in addition to medical and gynecologic examinations, had determinations done of bound testosterone, free testosterone, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), and estradiol.

RESULTS
The mean concentration of bound testosterone was found to be higher in postmenopausal women than in young women. The concentration of free testosterone did not vary, while the concentration of androstenedione was lower in the postmenopausal women, as were the DHEA and DHEAS concentrations. The mean SHBG concentration was higher in the postmenopausal women, and lower in obese postmenopausal women than in non-obese women. No differences were found in terms of the examined parameters between subjects with cardiovascular diseases and those without, or between smokers and non-smokers.

CONCLUSIONS
The extinction of ovary function and aging of a woman is related to secondary changes of androgen concentrations in blood serum. In late postmenopausal women, the SHBG concentration increases, which is related to the increase of total testosterone concentration in blood serum. Obesity affects the reduction of SHBG concentration in blood serum in postmenopausal women. Cardiovascular diseases and smoking have no significant effect on androgen concentration and SHBG changes in blood serum in postmenopausal women.


This paper deals with the effect of fiber aspect ratio of steel fibers on shear strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete deep beams loaded with shear span to depth ratio less than two using the artificial neural network technique. The network model predicts reasonably good results when compared with the equation proposed by previous researchers. The parametric study involves deep beams of M55 grade concrete with fiber volume fraction 0.5% to 2% of fiber aspect ratio ranging from 50 to 100 and longitudinal steel percentage varying from 0% to 2.5%. The analysis reveals that the fiber aspect ratio also affects the shear strength and needs to be combined with fiber volume fraction.


A fundamental issue for biomedical applications of graphene is the correlation between its physicochemical properties and cellular uptake mechanism. However, such studies are challenging due to the intrinsic polydispersity of graphene. In this work, a series of water soluble graphene sheets with the same polymer coverage, density of functional groups, and fluorescence intensity but three different sizes and surface charges are produced. The effect of the latter two factors and their combination on the mechanism of cellular uptake and intracellular pathways of these defined nanosheets is investigated via confocal and Raman microscopies. While positively (NH3+) and negatively (OSO3−) charged sheets show an energy dependent uptake, their neutral analogs do not show any significant uptake. The cellular uptake efficacy of positively charged graphene sheets is independent of the size and occurs both through phagocytosis and clathrin‐mediated endocytosis pathways. However, cellular uptake efficacy of graphene sheets with negative surface charge strongly depends on the size of the sheets. They cross the membrane mainly through phagocytosis and sulfate‐receptor‐mediated endocytosis. This study demonstrates that the impact of the size of graphene derivatives on their cellular uptake pathways highly depends on their surface charges and vice versa.


Introduction: Systemic and vascular inflammation are two risk factors for the development of diabetic nephropathy. In diabetic patients, serum systemic and vascular inflammatory factors have positive correlations with albuminuria. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of combined administration of lipoic acid and pyridoxine on the serum concentrations of these factors in patients with diabetic nephropathy. Materials and Methods: The study was a double-blind randomized clinical trial in which 38 patients with diabetic nephropathy (23 females and 15 males) were randomly assigned to either the supplement-taking or the placebo group. The patients in the supplement group received 800 mg lipoic acid and 80 mg pyridoxine daily for 12 weeks, while the placebo group received corresponding placebos. At baseline and the end of week 12, a urine sample and 10 ml blood was collected from each patient after a 12 to 14-hour fast and serum high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), soluble intercellular adhesion molecule type 1 (sICAM-1), soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule type 1 (sVCAM-1), sE-selectin, Interleukine-6 (IL-6), glucose, percent of blood hemoglobin A1c and urinary albumin were measured. Results: In the present study, no significant differences were observed between the two groups in mean changes of hs-CRP, IL-6, sICAM-1, sVCAM-1, sE-selectin, glucose, percent of blood hemoglobin A1c. Mean urinary albumin concentration decreased significantly in the supplement-taking group at the end of week 12, compared to the baseline (P<0.05) and the reduction was significant in comparison with the placebo group (P<0.05). Conclusion: The results of the present study indicate that combined administration of lipoic acid and pyridoxine has no effect on serum systemic and vascular inflammatory factors, but it reduces urinary albumin concentration significantly. Therefore, combined administration of lipoic acid and pyridoxine may have an effective role in retarding the progression of diabetic nephropathy with a mechanism different from the effects of these supplements on inflammation.


Mel Gibson's Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and The Passion of the Christ Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt, Editors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Afterlives of the Bible Series. Religion and Cyberspace Morten T. Hojsgaard and Margit Warburg, Editors. New York: Routledge, 2005. The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture Kelton Cobb. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Each of these books contributes significantly to the study of religion's place in the cultural matrix of the United States and beyond. Mel Gibson's Bible brings diverse disciplines and personal perspectives to a single film that now appears to be the world's most commercially successful religious blockbuster. Religion and Cyberspace targets a more diffuse cultural phenomenon-the steady, evolutionary convergences of religious life mediated by the Internet; it reflects multidisciplinary/multinational approaches that are predominantly philosophical and sociological. And finally, the single-authored Blackwell Guide offers an ambitious critical synthesis of at least sixty years of thinking about popular cultural expressions of theological viewpoints. Together this group of books suggests a maturing in the depth and versatility of religion-focused scholarship. Left far behind is the end-of-religion optimism that accompanied the demythologizing, God-is-dead movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Mel Gibson's Bible presents twenty one pieces, eighteen of them new for this volume's publication. Catholic, Jewish, and assorted Protestant viewpoints are represented in three thematic sections: (1) "The Passion as Interpretation," focused on how the Bible and other historical sources are construed in the film; (2) "Ethical and Theological Responses;" and (3) "Passion, Media, Audience," focused on how audience sensibilities or preexisting dramatic models shaped the content of the experience. The exegeses are tours de force that will surprise and delight readers by taking them so far below the surface of Gibson's torturous realism. For college students especially, the essays will succinctly and gracefully demonstrate how informed cinematic and historical interpretations can affect a viewer's experience. Jack Miles, whose linguistic training allowed him to hear the Latin and the Aramaic dialogue, observes that Jesus speaks perfect "church Latin" to the Roman Pontius Pilate, who answers him in Aramaic. John Dominic Crossan examines the contextual elasticity of the New Testament's Greek words for "crowd" and suggests a lack of textual justification for the film's portrayal of numerous and highly vocal Jewish opponents of Jesus. Susana Heschel argues that the film shows a pro-Roman, American-identified imperial agenda, in which Pilate and Claudia (pegged as George and Laura Bush) emerge as more sympathetically treated characters than any of the Jewish religious figures, who come off as repulsive swishes. Richard Rubenstein provides important biographical background on Mel Gibson and his father Hutton Gibson, a crusading, well-known ultraconservative Catholic who reportedly locked Mel in a room at a time when the young man seriously explored a personal conversion to Judaism. Jane Schaberg, a Mary Magdalene scholar, argues that the film conflates "the woman of many sins" in the Bible with the Mary presented as a female leader of great understanding among the followers of Jesus-the way in which she is presented in Jesus of Montreal (1989) and several of the noncanonical gospels. Margaret Miles is among several in observing that the film is emphatic in focusing on the Passion of Christ as sacrificial atonement-as opposed to finding salvation through Christ in adherence to his teachings about care for others. Jose Marquez shows how the conventions of the action genre film have provided the template for Jesus as master of physical suffering who finally exacts revenge rather than teacher of pacifism. Not all the treatments in this volume are negative toward the film. …


Pedagogical craft was established in the Scandinavia around 1950 under the name Sloyd. The ideology was developed by European educators from 16th and 17th century. Sloyd aimed to educate children holistically via a carefully structured system for teaching craft. The child became the centre of the educational activities and the development of the capabilities of the whole person. Sloyd had a noted impact on the early development of manual training, manual arts, industrial education and technical education in many countries. The pedagogy had a humanistic character and its principles were guidelines for the whole activity in the subject. Individual development and self-realisation were at the centre of the subject, rather than just technical knowledge and skill taught by the teacher. The system aimed to fulfil the demands of a holistic education by fostering the entire human being's capabilities. At the same time, it prepared the individual for the future working life, in accordance with the needs of an industrial society.


This thesis covers the development of a shower chair at a concept level. A shower chair, which is also sometimes called a hygiene chair, is a product which facilitates work with patient hygiene. In cooperation with the company TR Equipment AB, which develops, manufactures and sells products in patient hygiene, the students will develop this concept. The company wants to expand its assortment and its market position and therefore need to develop more products, besides distributors wish that a shower chair is available in the company's assortment. TR Equipment AB wishes that the intended shower chair can compete with the best-equipped models on the market which has high functional demands on the product. Which features the shower chair will be equipped with and which of the company's requirements the product must meet is investigated by a competitor analysis and a market research. In the market research a survey is established in which nursing staff, which in their work comes in contact with shower chairs, gives their opinions on what features are necessary for the product. After investigations, it is established that the requirements the company initially put on the shower chair features are necessary and will be included in the development of the concept. The work on the concept starts with a concept generation of the shower chair base structure, in other words how the shower chair should be structured to best meet the requirements. The basic concept is determined by meeting with the company and through an eliminating process of the generated concepts. Afterwards, an additional concept generation is executed, this time on solutions for the shower chair features. The results of the project is a comprehensive concept of a, for both nursing staff and patient, user-friendly and functional shower chair. The concept is based on TR Equipment AB's lifting base which is used in other of the company's products. This lifting base has been used to provide the shower chair with a lifting function, but also because the company saves money if they can use their existing components for the new product. Some of the shower chair's main functions beyond the lifting feature are that the seat of the chair can be tipped back to a comfortable position for the patient and the support for arm, leg and head can be adjusted to adapt to different individuals. The concept and its features are presented in detail with the help of images and explanatory texts.


In the 2008 presidential primaries, Barack Obama seemed to have a problem connecting with Asian American voters, as he lost heavily to Hillary Clinton in states such as California and New Jersey. Many speculated that race-based considerations played a significant role in Asian Americans' overwhelming support for Clinton over Obama, with conjectures built on a limited set of aggregate exit poll data from three states. Race may also have accounted for the high proportion of Asian Americans who in polls said they were undecided heading into the November election. In this article, we analyze the importance of race-based considerations in the Asian American vote, after controlling for other factors such as partisanship, issue preferences, age, and gender. We rely on the National Asian American Survey, a large-scale telephone survey of Asian American voters conducted mostly in the fall of 2008, with interviews in eight languages and with sizable numbers of respondents from the six largest national-origin groups. We find that race-based considerations do indeed help explain the Asian American vote in 2008. Respondents who failed to see political commonality between Asian Americans and Blacks were less likely to vote for Obama in the primary, although other factors, such as age and gender, played a more significant role. Finally, the role of race-based considerations paled in comparison to party identification and issue preferences in the general election, suggesting that election contexts can play an important role in shaping whether or not race is relevant to vote choice.


Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) is a framework for making inferences about changes in brain connectivity using neuroimaging data. We fitted DCMs to high-density EEG data from subjects performing a semantic picture matching task. The subjects are carriers of the PSEN1 mutation, which leads to early onset Alzheimer's disease, but at the time of EEG acquisition in 1999, these subjects were cognitively unimpaired. We asked 1) what is the optimal model architecture for explaining the event-related potentials in this population, 2) which connections are different between this Presymptomatic Carrier (PreC) group and a Non-Carrier (NonC) group performing the same task, and 3) which network connections are predictive of subsequent Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) trajectories. We found 1) a model with hierarchical rather than lateral connections between hemispheres to be optimal, 2) that a pathway from right inferotemporal cortex (IT) to left medial temporal lobe (MTL) was preferentially activated by incongruent items for subjects in the PreC group but not the NonC group, and 3) that increased effective connectivity among left MTL, right IT, and right MTL was predictive of subsequent MMSE scores.


INTRODUCTION: Epilepsy is considered a health problem. 85% of patients are satisfactorily controlled with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and 15% have refractory seizures. The combination of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids (EquazenTM) can contribute to changes in ionic currents and to stabilization of neurotransmitter's function resulting in cell membrane equilibrium. These changes lead to potential seizure control. OBJECTIVE: To compare efficacy and safety in the treatment of refractory epilepsy with a supplement combining EPA, DHA (omega 3 fatty acids) and GLA (omega 6 fatty acids). METHODS: We reviewed patients from the Neurology Department of the Children's Hospital of Mexico who have refractory epilepsy, evaluating clinical characteristics of seizures, number of seizures and AEDs. 792 mg of EPA, DHA and GLA per day (6 capsules of EquazenTM) were administrated for four weeks in order to assess the frequency of seizures as well as tolerability and probable side effects. RESULTS: The study was conducted with a total of 13 patients with follow-up four weeks after the start of supplementation. We obtained a satisfactory clinical response with ≥ 80% decrease in the daily number of seizures in more than 60% of patient. The mean of number of seizures over all patients was reduced significantly from 26.61±37.2 to 5.92 daily. In addition a significant improvement in the neurocognitive capacity was observedin all patients. CONCLUSION: The co-adjuvant supplementation with EquazenTM may result in a reduction of the number of seizures in refractory epilepsy having in addition significant impact on neurocognitive aspects. To enhance the quality of life of epileptic patient supplementation with a specific combination of EPA, DHA and GLA should be reconsidered.


Flows of grain-fluid mixtures are commonly observed in nature and in industry.
However, comprehensive understanding of the physics behind them is to date out
of reach. This thesis aims to investigate the mechanism underlying flowing grain-fluid mixtures by both analytical and numerical methods.

The work of this thesis starts with introducing standard mixture theory to describe the balance equations of mass and momentum for the fluid and the granular phases of grain-fluid mixtures. As the first step, the flowing mixtures are idealized to be saturated media, indicating that the fluid phase fills all the voids between the particles. Accordingly, the granular phase is treated as a frictional Coulomb-like media, while the fluid phase is modelled as a Newtonian fluid. The interaction forces between the two phases include buoyancy force and drag force. Taking into account the flow characteristics that the flow depth is much smaller than the flow length, the thin-layer approximation and the depth-averaged technique are employed to eliminate the dependency of the governing equations on the vertical coordinate, so that a set of depth-averaged equations are derived. The depth-averaged equations are analyzed in terms of steady flows down an inclined plane. It is found that the present model equations can interpret the classical cross-stream profiles of the downslope velocity, the blunt shape of the flowing front, and roll waves. Additionally, the depth-averaged equations are numerically resolved by using a high-resolution scheme with respect to a large-scale unsteady flow, and the numerical results are compared with the experimental data. The comparison demonstrates that this model is capable to describe dynamics of a grain-fluid mixture flow, such as the evolutions of the mixture height and volume fractions.

Moreover, unsaturated grain-fluid mixtures are considered, in which the fluid phase cannot fill all interstices of the granular medium. To investigate their dynamic process, it is assumed that the fluid percolates easily down through the interstices of the granular medium and as a result the air is extruded. To describe such a kind of unsaturated mixtures, a two-layer approach is proposed, in which the fluid-saturated granular layer is overlaid by the pure granular material. The upper granular mass is treated as a frictional Coulomb-like medium, and the lower layer is described by the standard mixture theory. The lower and upper layers interact at an interface which is a material surface for the fluid phase, but across which the mass exchange for the granular phase may take place. The proposed model equations are numerically resolved, and the numerical solutions demonstrate that the proposed two-layer model can provide reasonable predictions with respect to dynamic process of unsaturated mixture flows.

The last part of this thesis focuses on the improvement of the saturated depth-averaged model, presented in the first part of the thesis, by taking the granular dilatancy into account.
The granular dilatancy is described by the critical-state theory. By coupling critical-state theory and mixture theory, we uncover the coupling between the granular dilatancy and the
 pore fluid pressure, i.e., the granular dilatancy yields the deviation of the pore fluid pressure from the hydrostatic value that, in turn, affects the motion of the granular phase.
The formulated model equations describe the coupling of flow thickness, depth-averaged volume fractions and depth-averaged velocities, and the pore fluid pressure. Moreover, a numerical simulation is performed, and quantitative comparison with experimental data is reported. The comparison demonstrates that the proposed depth-averaged equations can provide reasonable predictions on the evolutions of dynamic quantities for a grain-fluid mixture flow.

It is noted that this thesis is based on the accepted publications (see Meng & Wang (2015a) and Meng & Wang (2015b) and manuscripts in Meng et al. (2016) and Meng & Wang (2016).


Digitalization and the Environment: Not Only Good News The development of the service industry in a world with increasing disposable income has broken the link between resource consumption and economic growth. Digitalization has played a key role in developing and expanding the service sector, and in driving efficiency. But what are the effects of digitalization on sustainability? Does an increasingly smart world mean a greener world? The answer is yes, most -but not allof the time.


Combining the strengths of both proximity communication and optical communication, a new hybrid input-output (I/O) platform delivers on-chip bandwidth off-chip and over distance. We demonstrate, for the first time, a four-channel hybrid I/O interface by integrating proximity communication and vertical-cavity surface-emitting-laser-based parallel optical interconnects on the same commercial 90-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor platform. The optical I/O can operate at 5 Gb/s per channel, and the complete hybrid I/O interface achieved 2.5 Gb/s per channel. We characterize the I/O link performance for various data rates and chip separations, and show 10-mum chip separation tolerance for proximity communication


We report on the detection of a bright, short, structured X-ray burst coming from the supernova remnant RCW 103 on 2016 June 22 caught by the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) monitor, and on the follow-up campaign made with Swift/X-ray Telescope, Swift/UV/Optical Telescope, and the optical/near-infrared (NIR) Gamma-Ray burst Optical and Near-infrared Detector. The characteristics of this flash, such as duration and spectral shape, are consistent with typical short bursts observed from soft gamma repeaters. The BAT error circle at 68 per cent confidence range encloses the point-like X-ray source at the centre of the nebula, 1E 161348−5055. Its nature has been long debated due to a periodicity of 6.67 h in X-rays, which could indicate either an extremely slow pulsating neutron star, or the orbital period of a very compact X-ray binary system. We found that 20 min before the BAT trigger, the soft X-ray emission of 1E 161348−5055 was a factor of ∼100 higher than measured 2 yr earlier, indicating that an outburst had already started. By comparing the spectral and timing characteristics of the source in the 2 yr before the outburst and after the BAT event, we find that, besides a change in luminosity and spectral shape, also the 6.67 h pulsed profile has significantly changed with a clear phase shift with respect to its low-flux profile. The UV/optical/NIR observations did not reveal any counterpart at the position of 1E 161348−5055. Based on these findings, we associate the BAT burst with 1E 161348−5055, we classify it as a magnetar, and pinpoint the 6.67 h periodicity as the magnetar spin period.


Some remarks on the modified variants of offense rape in the Polish and French criminal lawThe main purpose of this article was to compare the method of typing the crime of rape in a modified qualified variation in Polish and French legislation. The first part of the study characterizes the qualifying hallmarks contained in Article 197 of the Polish Penal Code, identifying among them rape with particular cruelty, collective rape jointly with another perpetrator, as well as against a minor under 15 years of age, or against a relative against an ascendant, descendant, brother, sister, adoptee, adoptive parent. The second part specifies which of the signs of rape — according to the French legislature — take on the qualifying character. Article 222–24 C.P. indicates among them a qualified rape due to the effect of injury or disability, a rape of a victim belonging to a particular category, e.g. a minor under 15 years of age, in addition an off ence against a person in a specific psychophysical condition a pregnant woman, an elderly or infirm person. A crime of rape is also considered as a basis for tightening up the criminal liability under the French law, if it concerns a relative a descendant or it is committed in connection with the abuse of power a superior or it becomes a collective rape, or it has been committed with the use of weapons or in the state of intoxication, or under the influence of drugs. As a final conclusion, it should be noted that the structure of the crime of rape in the qualified type, as provided in the Polish Penal Code, is much less casuistic compared with the French provision far fewer signs of eligibility. At the same time, these qualifying hallmarks that the Polish legislature has included in the structure of Article 197 § 3 and 4 of the Penal Code fully correspond to the cases provided for in the analogous provisions of Article 222–24 C.P. It seems, therefore, that the national amendment of the Penal Code, which took place on 5 November 2009, which resulted in two new cases of qualified rape rape on a minor under 15 years of age and incestuous rape in Article 197 of the Penal Code, shows some desire to align the Polish regulations to European regulations, which certainly deserves a full approval, especially given the extremely high degree of social harm of the cases of the crime of rape.


We conduct a laboratory experiment to study whether people intuitively use real-option strategies in a dynamic investment setting. The participants were asked to play as an oil manager and make production decisions in response to a simulated mean-reverting oil price. Using cluster analysis, participants can be classified into four groups, which we label 'mean-reverting', 'Brownian motion real-option', 'Brownian motion myopic real-option', and 'ambiguous'. We find two behavioral biases in the strategies of our participants: ignoring the mean-reverting process, and myopic behavior. Both lead to too frequent switches when compared with the theoretical benchmark. We also find that the last group behaved as if they have learned to incorporate the true underlying process into their decisions, and improved their decisions during the later stage.


Alan S. Blinder offers the dual perspective of a leading academic macroeconomist who served a stint as Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board—one who practiced what he had long preached and then returned to academia to write about it. He tells central bankers how they might better incorporate academic knowledge and thinking into the conduct of monetary policy, and he tells scholars how they might reorient their research to be more attuned to reality and thus more useful to central bankers. Based on the 1996 Lionel Robbins Lectures, this readable book deals succinctly, in a nontechnical manner, with a wide variety of issues in monetary policy. The book also includes the author's suggested solution to an age-old problem in monetary theory: what it means for monetary policy to be "neutral."


The purpose of this article is to explore whether context and coaching cultures influence coaches' practical experience and their unarticulated and embodied knowledge, and thus their different ways of seeing and defining talent. Using a cultural sociological perspective, we challenge the commonly held assumption that talent identification is, or can be made into, a rational and objective process. Our interpretations and analyses are based upon interviews with 15 soccer coaches in four districts within the Swedish Football Association's talent organization program. The results imply that coaches' talent identification is guided by what feels "right in the heart and stomach"; but what feels right is greatly influenced by their experience of previous identifications, interpretations of what elite soccer entails, and the coaching culture in which they find themselves.


[1] The impact of aerosols on precipitation occurrence in warm clouds is assessed using a combination of multisensor satellite cloud and precipitation data sets and aerosol information from both satellite and a global transport model. Aerosols are found to suppress the formation of precipitation in polluted regions, evidenced by a trend toward higher liquid water path prior to the onset of light rainfall. Polluted clouds are also found to be more vertically developed than those in more pristine environments. Coupled with an apparent reduction in the size of the raindrops that subsequently form in these clouds, these findings indicate that pollution inhibits precipitation processes by redistributing water among a greater number of smaller cloud droplets. Evidence is also provided that sea-salt aerosols have the opposite effect on precipitation development. Maritime clouds that form in regions of enhanced sea-salt concentrations tend to precipitate more frequently, form larger raindrops, and be less vertically developed. This suggests that the nucleation of sea-salt particles may provide a source of embryonic raindrops in maritime clouds accelerating precipitation processes and ultimately reducing cloud lifetime. The net effect of aerosols on the onset of precipitation in any given region is, therefore, defined by the relative magnitudes of the competing effects of sulfate aerosols and sea-salt particles, the strengths of which depend strongly on both cloud liquid water path and the thermodynamic properties of the local environment.


During the inspection of imported sweet corn (Zea mays), a specimen with dry rot symptoms was detected by Ministry for Primary Industries quarantine officers. A sample was sent to the MPI Plant Health and Environment Laboratory for diagnostics, and initial examination found a layer of yeast cells on the surface of the symptomatic tissue. The fungus was cultured and identified based on DNA sequences as Ustilago maydis. While the corn-smut pathogen U. maydis is well known to cause tumour like galls on corn kernels, it is a less recognised fact that this fungus can also grow as a yeast. To determine if the yeast stage could have been associated with the dry-rot symptoms observed on the specimen, healthy material was inoculated with the isolated U. maydis strain. No symptoms developed on inoculated material, indicating that the yeast cells were likely multiplying on the surface of the cut corn ear as saprobes. To our knowledge, this is the first report of U. maydis yeast stage on corn ears and indicates a previously unconsidered pathway for the organism. For the yeast stage to cause disease, mating with a compatible mating type on the surface of a living host plant would be required.


ABSTRACT In eSwatini and across sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are at significantly higher risk of HIV infection and poorer sexual and reproductive health (SRH) than their male counterparts. AGYW demonstrate low demand for SRH services, further contributing to poor outcomes. Strategic marketing approaches, including those used by multinational corporations, have potential to support demand creation for SRH services among AGYW, but there is limited empirical evidence on the direct application of private-sector strategic marketing approaches in this context. Therefore, we examined how Project Last Mile worked with eSwatini's Ministry of Heath to translate strategic marketing approaches from the Coca-Cola system to attract AGYW to SRH services. We present qualitative market research using the ZMET® methodology with 12 young Swazi women (ages 15–24), which informed development of a highly branded communication strategy consistent with other successful gain-framing approaches. Qualitative in-depth interviews with 19 stakeholders revealed receptivity to the market research findings, and highlighted local ownership over the strategic marketing process and brand. These results can inform similar efforts to translate strategic marketing to support demand generation in pursuit of public health goals to reduce HIV risk and improve SRH.


The simplest way to get to grips with the American political system American Politics For Dummies is an engaging and accessible guide to the inner workings of the U.S. government, cutting through the political jargon, to give you the facts. The book begins with the basics, including government structure and processes, and later covers current events that make the news. The world of American politics can be bewildering to anyone not born and bred in the U.S.A. This plain-English guide is perfect whether you are a student or simply fascinated by the world's most powerful democracy. From the electoral process to 'special relationships', you discover all you need to know with American Politics For Dummies. * The birth of America -- find out about the emergence of the US, from the ideas upon which America was founded to the creation of the US Constitution * Go government -- understand the powers of the President, how Congress operates, the function of the Supreme Court and how US laws are created and passed * Party on -- discover the ins and outs of elections and political parties, f rom the electoral process and the two-party system to the voting behaviour amongst Americans * One nation, many identities -- get to understand the workings of a truly multicultural society * All the world's a stage -- grasp the grand strategy of the US to understand why the nation acts as it does in international politics 2014 kicks off the latest round of U.S. Congressional election and marks the beginning the 2016 Presidential election cycle. There will be headlines, there will be debate and there will be news. If you're looking to keep up and understand it all, American Politics For Dummies is a great place to start.


An online questionnaire survey investigated (1) management and (2) treatment methods for firework fears in dogs employed by dog owners and their (perceived) effectiveness. A PCA on data from 1225 respondents revealed four management strategies (i.e. interventions during firework exposure): the principal components "Environmental modification" (e.g. providing a hiding place, keeping windows and blinds closed, and playing music), "Feed/Play" (providing the dog with chews, play and food during fireworks in general, as well as contingent on loud bangs), "Alternative" (use of calming neutraceuticals, pheromones, herbal products, homeopathic products, Bach flowers, and essential oils) and "Interaction" (allowing body contact, petting and talking to the dog when loud bangs occurred). To explore possible effects of these management methods on fear development, the components were correlated with a score for fear progression. Of the four components, only "Feed/Play" was statistically associated with an improvement in fear responses to fireworks. To evaluate the effectiveness of various treatment strategies, owners were asked to select from a range of options which interventions they had used and whether they considered them as effective. With prescription medication (N=202), improvements were noted by 70% of owners. While individual products were not evaluated, the reported success rates for the categories "pheromones" (N=316), "herbal products" (N=282), "neutraceuticals" (N=211), "essential oils" (N=183), "homeopathic remedies" (N=250) and "Bach flowers" (N=281) were all in the range of 27-35%, which is not higher than would be expected based on a placebo effect. 44% of respondents (N=300) deemed pressure vests as effective. Counterconditioning (providing desirable stimuli after the occurrence of noises) was the most successful training technique according to the owners (N=694), with a reported effectiveness of over 70%. Relaxation training (N=433) was reported to be almost as successful at 69%, while noise CDs (N=377) were effective in 55% of cases. Thus, counterconditioining, relaxation training and psychoactive medication appear to be the most effective strategies in the treatment of firework fears in dogs. On this basis it is recommended that ad-hoc counterconditioning and relaxation training should complement the standard behavioral technique of desensitization/ counterconditioning with noise recordings. Highlights An online survey on treatment options for firework fears in dogs was performed Feeding or playing with dogs during fireworks was associated with fear improvement Success was highest for ad-hoc counterconditioning, relaxation training and medication Success was similar for pheromones, neutraceuticals and other alternative products Success rates for these alternative products are consistent with a placebo effect


This working note provides a basic overview of discounting in the context of climate change policy. After defining the social discount factor and social discount rate in terms of shadow prices (section 2), and noting the limitations of cost-benefit analysis for climate change (section 3), the determination of efficient social discount rates is discussed given: the impact of uncertainty about future economic conditions (section 4.2), the effect of heterogeneous time preferences (4.3) and time inconsistency issues (4.4). Fairness between generations is then discussed (5.1) and some alternatives to using discount factors are considered (5.2). It is concluded that the shadow discount rate should be declining over time to reflect the certainty-equivalent path. It is also argued that the underlying utility discount rate is very small, possibly zero to a first approximation.


In 2000, Mexico's long invincible Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost the presidential election to Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN). The ensuing changeover-after 71 years of PRI dominance-was hailed as the beginning of a new era of hope for Mexico. Yet the promises of the PAN victory were not consolidated. In this vivid account of Mexico's recent history, a journalist with extensive reporting experience investigates the nation's young democracy, its shortcomings and achievements, and why the PRI is favored to retake the presidency in 2012. Jo Tuckman reports on the murky, terrifying world of Mexico's drug wars, the counterproductive government strategy, and the impact of U.S. policies. She describes the reluctance and inability of politicians to seriously tackle rampant corruption, environmental degradation, pervasive poverty, and acute inequality. To make matters worse, the influence of non-elected interest groups has grown and public trust in almost all institutions-including the Catholic church-is fading. The pressure valve once presented by emigration is also closing. Even so, there are positive signs: the critical media cannot be easily controlled, and small but determined citizen groups notch up significant, if partial, victories for accountability. While Mexico faces complex challenges that can often seem insurmountable, Tuckman concludes, the unflagging vitality and imagination of many in Mexico inspire hope for a better future.


Abstract Advances in remote-sensing technology have led to its increased use for posthurricane disaster response and assessment; however, the use of the technology is underutilized in the recovery phase of the disaster management cycle. This study illustrates an example of a postdisaster recovery assessment by detecting coastal land cover, elevation, and volume changes using 3 years of post-Katrina hyperspectral and light detection and ranging data collected along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana. Digital elevation models and basic land-cover classifications were generated for a 34-km2 study area for 2005, 2006, and 2007. A change detection method was used to assess postdisaster land-cover, elevation, and volume changes. Results showed that the vegetation classes had area increases, whereas bare ground/roads and structures classes had area decreases. Overall estimated volume changes included a net volume decrease of 1.6 × 106 m3 in 2005 to 2006 and a net volume decrease of 2.1 × 106 m3 in 2006 to 2007 within the study area. More specifically, low vegetation and bare ground/roads classes had net volume increases, whereas medium and tall vegetation and structures classes had net volume decreases. These changes in land cover, elevation, and volume illustrate some of the major physical impacts of the disaster and ensuing recovery. This study demonstrates an innovative image fusion approach to assess physical changes and postdisaster recovery in a residential, coastal environment.


The Ground-Based Air Defence System (GBADS) acquisition program of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) offered an opportunity to apply modelling and simulation as a support tool. The CSIR's systems modelling and simulation capability is being used to assist in concept evaluation and concurrent tactical doctrine development. The virtual GBADS demonstrator (VGD), developed for this purpose, provides a virtual environment for deploying GBADS entities in a defined scenario to observe the behaviour, as well as interactions between these various entities of a user system, comprising a products system and human operators. Using VGD as a decision-support tool, tactical doctrine is developed to improve the operational effectiveness of the future user system.


PURPOSE
The extent of venous thromboembolism (VTE) associated with central vein catheters (CVC) in cancer patients remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the low molecular weight heparin, enoxaparin, in the prevention of VTE.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In a multicenter, double-blind study, consecutive cancer patients scheduled for CVC insertion were randomly assigned to receive either subcutaneous enoxaparin 40 mg once a day or placebo. Treatment was started 2 hours before CVC insertion and continued for 6 weeks. The primary end points of the study were deep vein thrombosis (DVT), confirmed by venography of the CVC limb performed 6 weeks after randomization, or clinically overt pulmonary embolism, confirmed by objective testing during the study drug administration. Patients were assessed for bleeding complications.

RESULTS
Three hundred eighty-five patients were randomized, of which 321 (83.4%) underwent venography. A venography was adequate for adjudication in 155 patients in each treatment group. A DVT was observed in 22 patients (14.1%) treated with enoxaparin and in 28 patients (18.0%) treated with placebo, corresponding to a relative risk of 0.78 (95% CI, 0.47 to 1.31). No major bleeding occurred. Five patients (2.6%) in the enoxaparin group and two patients (1.0%) in the placebo group died during the treatment period.

CONCLUSION
In this study, no difference in the rate of CVC-related VTE was detected between patients receiving enoxaparin and patients receiving placebo. The dose of enoxaparin used in this study proved to be safe. Clinical trials evaluating higher enoxaparin doses could optimize the efficacy of this agent for this indication.


A love story that embraces the business and economic issues of the day? The Invisible Heart takes a provocative look at business, economics, and regulation through the eyes of Sam Gordon and Laura Silver, teachers at the exclusive Edwards School in Washington, D.C. Sam lives and breathes capitalism. He thinks that most government regulation is unnecessary or even harmful. He believes that success in business is a virtue. He believes that our humanity flourishes under economic freedom. Laura prefers Wordsworth to the Wall Street Journal. Where Sam sees victors, she sees victims. She wants the government to protect consumers and workers from the excesses of Sam's beloved marketplace. While Sam and Laura argue about how to make the world a better place, a parallel story unfolds across town. Erica Baldwin, the crusading head of a government watchdog agency, tries to bring Charles Krauss, a ruthless CEO, to justice. How are these two dramas connected? Why is Sam under threat of dismissal? Will Erica Baldwin find the evidence she needs? Can Laura love a man with an Adam Smith poster on his wall? The answers in The Invisible Heart give the reader a richer appreciation for how business and the marketplace transform our lives.


In this paper, I make four points. 1. The copyright act defines use rights, not access rights. That overstates slightly - especially with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the statute - but the core of copyright law addresses how works can be used assuming that legal access has been obtained. Other law addresses the circumstances under which works can be accessed. 2. Nothing in copyright itself suggests that use rights should trump access rights; indeed, our core access principles suggest just the opposite. We frequently speak of a fair use "right." I am doubtful about that on its own terms but even if we find something there, a fair use right isn't an access right. Fair use doesn't equal fair access. 3. The scope of rights given to an initial author will effect the timing and scope of investment she will make in creating a work. For many works, those investments can be made in discrete lumps. As a society, we want investments to be made incrementally rather than as one large lump as doing so allows us to get feedback from the market on the value of a work. We don't want to throw good money after bad, and if we learn that, say, the English version of a work is a failure, we don't want to bother translating it into Mandarin. Plus we will delay the time that works reach the market if we create an incentive to do large, lumpy investments rather than a sequence of investments coupled with market feedback. Authors start with one monopoly: their unique access to the work that they have created. If we do not give authors control over these follow-on works, authors will overinvest upfront in the works, since that is the only way that the can gain a return on their initial monopoly over access to the work. In that situation, we are better off to hand the author a statutory monopoly over the follow-on work rather than see the author invest real resources in creating a property right over that work. 4. Fair use is a form of rights bundling. If we decide that, say, format-shifting is fair use or is otherwise a permitted use - you sell me a music CD and I have a use right to make a personal copy on a cassette or my iPod - we are making a decision about the rights that we are bundling together. The nature of bundles is that everyone gets stuck buying the same set of rights. These bundles can be inefficiently large. Consumers would often be better off if instead we allowed rights to be unbundled, so that consumers could buy just those rights that they wanted rather than being forced to take unwanted rights. Doing that requires a narrow conception of fair use.


Sea-level variability is characterized by multiple interacting factors described in the Fourth Assessment Report (Bindoff et al., 2007) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that act over wide spectra of temporal and spatial scales. In Church et al. (2010) sea-level variability and changes are defined as manifestations of climate variability and change. The European Environmental Agency (EEA) defines sea level as one of most important indicators for monitoring climate change, as it integrates the response of different components of the Earths system and is also affected by anthropogenic contributions (EEA, 2011).

The balance between the different sea-level contributions represents an important source of uncertainty, involving stochastic processes that are very difficult to describe and understand in detail, to the point that they are defined as an enigma in Munk (2002). Sea-level rate estimates are affected by all these uncertainties, in particular if we look at possible responses to sea-level contributions to future climate.
At the regional scale, lateral fluxes also contribute to sea-level variability, adding complexity to sea-level dynamics.
The research strategy adopted in this work to approach such an interesting
and challenging topic has been to develop an objective methodology to study sea-level variability at different temporal and spatial scales, applicable in each part of the Mediterranean basin in particular, and in the global ocean in general, using all the best calibrated sources of data (for the Mediterranean): in-situ, remote-sensig and numerical models data. The global objective of this work was to achieve a deep understanding of all of the components of the sea-level signal contributing to sea-level variability,
tendency and trend and to quantify them.


This investigation focused on the use of asphalt shingles that had been removed from roofs and recycled into asphalt concrete. Upon invitation by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), three asphalt contractors produced and placed sections of asphalt concrete containing shingles. The sections were sampled and tested by the Virginia Transportation Research Council. Two base mixes and two surface mixes were produced, and one of the surface mixes was produced by both hot mix and warm mix technology. The laboratory tests used to evaluate the mixes were tests to determine conventional gyratory volumetric properties, gradation, and asphalt content; rut tests; fatigue tests; and tests to determine recovered asphalt properties. Satisfactory test results and good paving experiences with regard to the field installations indicated that mixes containing tear-off shingles can be constructed successfully. According to cost estimates, in 2009, VDOT could have saved approximately $600,000 by using 4 to 5 percent shingle waste in one-half of the hot mix produced. VDOT plans to adopt the special provision used for this study with minor modifications as a general specification for paving in 2010.


We originally investigate the comparative usefulness of patent data as a source of investor information depending on the market cycle (bull/bear market). Based on comprehensive data for firms listed on German exchanges between 1997 and 2002, we demonstrate that patent data contain complementary explanatory power to accounting data irrespective of the standard used to prepare the financial statement (German GAAP, IAS and US GAAP). Moreover, we provide original evidence that only patent data are able to provide plausible investor information in both bull-market and bear-market periods, whereas accounting information overvalues intangible assets in bull markets and undervalues them in bears.