A successful life like dental ceramic restoration should be able to blend harmoniously with the adjacent natural teeth. This could be achieved by mimicking and duplicating the natural teeth color, translucency, as well as the surface characterization of natural teeth. Shade matching is an important and a difficult task in mimicking natural teeth that usually leads to unreliable and inconsistent results. Still, a small percent of human teeth shade cannot be matched by available commercial shade guides. The presence of a chair side CAD/CAM system in the dental office eliminates the presence of laboratory steps and hence saving time and cost, but at the same time it deprives the dental office from gaining benefit of the laboratory technician skills and expertise. Thus the clinician has to gain more knowledge and acquire more skills about how to finish, characterize and stain ceramic restorations. Clinicians are also required to develop methodologies that remain practical and enable them to deliver to their patients a successful life like ceramic restoration that blends harmoniously with the adjacent natural teeth. The "Triple R" protocol suggested by the author consists of three steps 1) Recognize 2) Record and 3) Replicate. This protocol identifies the most common color shapes and provides the clinician with guidelines that increase his ability to customize ceramic restorations intraorally. It also highlights the importance of extending the replication of tooth shade beyond the limitations of the present commercial shade guides.


Eleven Arab countries have embarked on the process of creating broadcast regulators. This article investigates the general context for their creation, examines their internal organization to evaluate their independence from state control, and analyzes relevant media legislation to assess the extent of political interference with media contents. The article uses normative theory based on international norms as articulated in the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to determine whether Arab broadcast media regulation is congruent with international norms. The study questions whether the regulatory bodies are genuine media reforms meant to liberalize the broadcast sector or pseudoreforms meant to allow the Arab states indirect but total control over broadcasting. The study found that the broadcast reforms are part of what Heydemann calls "authoritarian upgrading." Arab regimes control media content through repressive laws outside the realm of international norms set up by the United Nations covenant and through regulatory institutions that lack independence. The study adopts a multimethod combining qualitative document analysis and in-depth interviews.


Textile is at once a language, a concept and a material thing. Philosophers such as Plato, Deleuze and Derrida have notably drawn on weaving processes to illustrate their ideas, and artists such as Ann Hamilton, Louise Bourgeois and Chiharu Shiota explore matters such as the seam, the needle and thread, and the flow of viscous materials in their work. Yet thinking about textile and making textile are often treated as separate and distinct practices, rather than parallel modes. This beautifully illustrated book brings together for the first time the language and materiality of textile to develop new models of thinking, writing and making. Through the work of thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray, and international artists like Eva Hesse and Helen Chadwick, textile practitioner, theorist and writer Catherine Dormor puts forward a new philosophy of textile. Exploring the material behaviours and philosophical language of folding, shimmering, seaming, viscosity, fraying and caressing, Dormor demonstrates how textile practice and theory are intricately woven together."


This report provides decision-making guidelines coupled with a comprehensive life cycle cost model (LCCM) to assist transit managers in evaluating, selecting, and implementing hybrid-electric technology options for transit buses. The guidelines and the accompanying LCC model resulted from the gathering of site data coupled with a comprehensive review of both capital requirements and operating costs of hybrid-electric buses in comparison with those powered by traditional diesel engines. Information grew out of a sound, engineering-based, independent technical evaluation of the costs, performance, and reliability of hybrid-electric transit bus technology in actual service. The LCC model, contained on the accompanying CD-ROM (CRP-CD-71), allows the user to compare the total life cycle costs across several cost categories for up to 6 different "purchase scenarios." These scenarios let the user decide when the purchases will be made, the types of buses to be compared, the work load of the buses, and many other cost inputs in determining benefits and costs associated with alternative purchasing strategies.


Session 1: Sustainable Innovation through New Technologies & Materials Abstract 2 | Bio Adipic Acid Prospective Life-Cycle Assessment Adipic acid is a white crystalline solid which is a versatile building block. It has many applications, such as the manufacture of synthetic fibers, plastics, synthetic lubricants, food additives, pharmaceuticals. Nylon (nylon-6/6) is the largest market holding 57% of the global AA production (IHS Markit, 2017). Therefore the expansion of this global AA production follows the net increase of the nylon textile demand. Although AA production was 1.8 million metric tons in 1995, it exceeded expectation by rising to nearly 2.7 million metric tons in 2000. In the next five years, world consumption is expected to slow to an average rate of 2.2% per year to reach a global production of 3.6 million metric tons in 2022 (Global Industry Analysts, 2016). N2O emissions from nitric and adipic acid plants account for about 5% of anthropogenic N2O emissions (IPCC, 2007). Additionally N2O is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential equivalent at 265 times the CO2 reference. These motivated the development of production of AA based on renewable resources such as lignocellulosic biomass (Vyver and Roman-Leshkov, 2013). Indeed, reducing environmental impact, such as climate change, is one of the major challenges of today's society. Development of bio-based products, such as biofuels and biochemical products, can reduce the petroleum dependence as well as greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously (Patel et al., 2005). In order to determine the potential reduction, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a recognized and a standardized methodology to quantify the environmental impacts of a product or a service, ISO 14044. LCA has the advantage of considering the entire life cycle of the product, with some bio-based materials have been assessed using the LCA methodology (Patel et al., 2005). This is why an LCA was integrated in the LA2AA project. This project aims to upscaling bio-based AA production from Levulinic Acid (LA) conversion, which is extracted from wood biomass. The presentation aims to show the assessment based on the results of the LA2AA project. It also shows the results on the potential environmental impacts of the production of AA via the LA route. Moreover, this analysis led to the generation of several scenarios in order to estimate the influence of the locations of the production sites. Global Industry Analysts, 2016. Adipic Acid Market Trends. IHS Markit, 2017. Chemical Economics Handbook. IPCC, 2007. Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4). IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland. Patel, M.K., Bastioli, C., Marini, L., Wurdinger, E., 2005. Life-cycle Assessment of Biobased Polymers and Natural Fiber Composites. Vyver, S.V. de, Roman-Leshkov, Y., 2013. Emerging catalytic processes for the production of adipic acid. Catal. Sci. Technol. 3, 1465–1479. doi:10.1039/C3CY20728E


This volume of 30 chapters authored by 107 geologists and geophysicists from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the USA provides a comprehensive and understandable account of geology and hydrocarbon resources of the entire Carpathian system from northeastern Austria to southern Romania, including the Neogene foredeep, the foreland platform both in front and beneath the thrust belt, the Carpathian thrust belt, and the late and post orogenic intermontane basins. Principal chapters on regional geology are supplemented by thematic contributions on geodynamic reconstructions, regional geophysical investigations, hydrocarbon systems, and case studies of major oil and gas fields. To date, close to 7 billion barrels of oil and more than 53 trillion cubic feet of natural gas have been produced from the entire Carpathian system. Additional new reserves may be found, especially at deeper structural levels below the Neogene foredeep and the thin-skinned Carpathian thrust belt. Seventeen chapters of Memoir 84 have been printed in full. The remaining chapters have been printed as abstracts only, with the full paper for all 30 chapters as .pdf files on the CD-ROM in the back of this publication. The publication is intended as a source of information to schools, governmental and private institutions, oil companies, and potential investors.


This study uses the 1920 Moody's Analysis of Industrial Investments to assess the extent of financial reporting by U.S. industrial companies. The reporting of an income statement and a balance sheet, as well as the amount of disclosure in both of these statements, is examined empirically to determine which economic factors influence this reporting. The results show that corporate-governance, operating, and financing factors all significantly influence the reporting of financial statements and the extent of disclosure within those statements. However, the significant factors vary across the two financial statements and the two decisions considered (reporting a particular statement and the amount of disclosure within the statement to report). All factors are shown to influence significantly the decision to report both a balance sheet and an income statement and the amount of information to report in a balance sheet. The decision regarding the amount of information to report in an income statement is only in...


ABSTRACT This study focuses on sewage pollution, which is one of the most important issues concerning Malaysians. The main location of this study is in Johor Bahru as it is one of the most populated areas in Malaysia. The distribution and sources of linear alkyl benzenes (LABs) were evaluated in surface sediments collected from Johor Bahru Coast and the Kim Kim River, Peninsular Malaysia. The samples were extracted, fractionated and analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). This study found that LABs concentrations ranged from 87.6 to 188.7 ng/g dw and 88.2 to 119.02 ng/g dw in surface sediments from Johor Bahru Coast and the Kim Kim River, respectively. Johor Bahru Coast showed an increasing trend of LABs concentrations due to rapid industrialization and population growth. The ratio of internal to external isomers (I/E ratio) of LABs in sediment samples from Johor Bahru Coast ranged from 1.76 to 2.04 while the I/E ratios in sediments from the Kim Kim River ranged from 1.72 to 1.91. All I/E ratios at Johor Bahru Coast and the Kim Kim River stations indicate that the areas were receiving primary and secondary effluents.


While a number of different shading languages have been developed, their efficient integration into an existing renderer is notoriously difficult, often boiling down to implementing an entire compiler toolchain for each language. Furthermore, no shading language is broadly supported across the variety of rendering systems.
 AnySL attacks this issue from multiple directions: We compile shaders from different languages into a common, portable representation, which uses subroutine threaded code: Every language operator is translated to a function call. Thus, the compiled shader is generic with respect to the used types and operators.
 The key component of our system is an embedded compiler that instantiates this generic code in terms of the renderer's native types and operations. It allows for flexible code transformations to match the internal structure of the renderer and eliminates all overhead due to the subroutine threaded code.
 For SIMD architectures we automatically perform vectorization of scalar shaders which speeds up rendering by a factor of 3.9 on average on SSE. The results are highly optimized, parallel shaders that operate directly on the internal data structures of a renderer. We show that both traditional shading languages such as RenderMan, but also C/C++-based shading languages, can be fully supported and deliver high performance across different CPU renderers.


This research was conducted to determine the effect of community perceptions of ecotourism on the participation of Ketambe Village community in Mount Leuser National Park, Southeast Aceh. In this study the method used was descriptive correlational method with simple regression analysis by making the Ketambe Village community as the population in this study. The results of this study show that community perceptions about ecotourism in Mount Leuser National Park are good or positive. The desire to participate also looks good, namely participation in working or doing entrepreneurship in the field of tourism, providing land, participation in maintaining environmental cleanliness and safety, and participation in explaining tourist attraction objects. The correlation between community perceptions of ecotourism towards the participation of the Ketambe Village community is 0.511 which indicates that there is a relationship between community perceptions and community participation. The influence of community perception on community participation is 26.1% and the remaining 73.9% is influenced by other variables.


What jungle tree have you slept under, Midnight dancer of the jazzy hour? What great forest has hung its perfume Like a sweet veil about your bower? What jungle tree have you slept under, Night-dark girl of the swaying hips? What star-white moon has been your mother? To what clan boy have you offered your lips? Langston Hughes1 My dream last night was that I was a bird, a hoopoe Engaged in intimate thscourse with you, my Sulayman... But civilization with its mores and conventions have blighted our growth... Afua Cooper The excerpts from both these poems capture the intense but fractious passion shared between trombonist Don Drummond and his love partner, the rumba dancer, Anita Mahfood, recognized by her stage name, "Margarita." While Drummond is very well known and highly regarded throughout the world of Jamaican music, Margarita is best remembered within that same world because of her association with him. In any thscussion of the male dominated narrative about the development of Jamaican popular music, this phallocentric thscourse must be supplemented by feminist theory to facilitate a gender-balanced narrative to emerge. In regard to ska, women singers played a vital role, though in the estimation of some observers, a secondary one. In the early days of ska, the late 1950s and early 1960s, women or "girl singers" performed in duet settings with male vocalists. Most notable among these boy-girl duets were Keith and Enid, Dotty and Bonny, Derrick and Patsy, Stranger and Patsy, Roy and Yvonne, Roy and Millie, Jackie and Doreen, and in the pop soul vein, Tony Gregory and Marcia Griffith. By the time ska was firmly established, female artists were increasingly integrated into groups. Beverley Kelso and Cherry Green shared duties in the earliest ethtion of the Wailers with Junior Brathwaite, Bob Marley, Bunny Livingstone and Peter Tosh. Rita Marley of the Soulettes would later be drafted into the group replacing the former two. Of all the females featured at the time, Hortense Ellis (Alton's sister) emerges as the best vocal talent in the estimation of most who heard her. However, it was Millicent Small, the singer known as Mille who also performed in duet settings that broke through and introduced popular Jamaican music to the international mainstream. Her 1964 cover version of the American group Barbie and Gay 1957 hit "My Boy Lollipop " peaked at number one on the British charts and number two in the United States of America thus becoming the first hit by a Jamaican on either side of the Atlantic. Businesswomen played an important role in establishing the Jamaican music industry also. The lone female producer Sonia Pottinger, whose role in the industry recently received an in-depth study (Walker 2005), was responsible for establishing the careers of many artists incluthng, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffith, two of reggae's pre-eminent female soloists. Other women contributed to the music's growth as well. For example Norma Dodd, Sheila Lee, and Pat Chin, were towers of strength that laid the foundation for the success of recorthng stuthos, thstributing and publishing companies identified with the male half at the head of these "family run" businesses. In fact, all three have continued to play crucial roles in the international recognition of Jamaican music. Chin's (Miss Pat) VP Records has become the largest thstributor of reggae and related music in North America. Mrs. Dodd continues to operate Stutho One faculties following the untimely death in 2004 of her husband Clement "Sir Coxone" Dodd, and Sheila Lee plays an integral role in the affairs of Dynamic Sounds and Sheila Music the publishing arm of the company she oversees with her husband the bandleader and businessman Byron Lee. And as some close to the industry recall, Jean Benson, the Canathan wife of the head of Record Specialists, was a very active woman who literally ran the place. …


The purpose of this study is to examine changes related to migration in the religiosity of individuals and what lies behind such changes. The study is foremost based on interviews with 23 Swedish-Chileans who have lived in Sweden for an extended period of time and who were adults when they immigrated to Sweden. The interviews are thematic life stories. Each one of the individuals narrates his or her life-story and each narration focuses upon a theme: one's own religiosity. The study also includes data collected by sending a letter to a larger, random selection of Swedish-Chileans. This letter contained relevant question on religiosity. The changes in the religiosity of these Swedish-Chileans is studied based upon a working-hypothesis that religiosity is something that is created, maintained, and changed by way of the individual being part of a social context. The analysis of the findings is accomplished primarily through an application of Peter Berger's and Thomas Luckmann's conceptions of socialization and plausibility structures. The study also discusses the conception of religiosity and, given this topic, which groups or individuals may be studied.

Both the findings from the inquiry and the interviews show that religious changes are common among Swedish-Chileans. The changes however move in different directions, are of different intensity, and touch on different aspects of the religiosity of the individuals. The findings from the interviews point at that the changes in the life situation that have occurred as a result of the physical transfer from one country to another, i.e., a situational change, as well as changes that are related to the passage of time, i.e., a process change. The underlying causes of the changes in religiosity are also that the social structures that were significant for the religiosity, i.e., the socio-religious structures of the interviewees, are not the same in Sweden as they were in Chile.


There has been much written about top teams, that is, existing teams that have the executive responsibility for leading their organisations each day, not specifically focused on one project or one change programme. However, little research has been carried out on meetings processes within ongoing top management teams and almost no research has been carried out over an extended period which has involved top management team members in their own Action Research. This research covers the period from earJy-2000 until mid-2004, and includes fieldwork with three organisations: Yorkshire Water, Loop Customer Management and A4e Work. An 'Iterative Meetings Model' has been developed that identifies what areas emerge when addressing team meetings; and within this model there has been developed a 'Dialogue Process for Top Management Team Meetings' which identifies how to communicate in meetings, if team members wish to be more effective. The dialogue process entails initially setting guidelines to be followed, which are replaced as team members gain confidence and awareness of themselves and what their own specific process and relationship principles need to be if
they are to be even more effective. Their perceived progress, or lack of it, is also measured by using the four-stage group development model which, together with a specific review model, provide material for team discussion
and a deeper understanding of the process, of relationship principles, of other team members, and of themselves. During the research, further insights were gained, amongst these were: that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) plays a
key role; the importance in having a top team purpose, as distinct from that of the organisation; the quality of conflict within the team changes as members progress through their stages of development; and there is an ongoing need for team relationship building.


The effect of protriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant, on sleep architecture, nocturnal arterial oxygen desaturation, pulmonary function, and diurnal arterial blood gases was investigated in an open study of 14 patients with stable chronic obstructive lung disease. Daytime and overnight measurements were made before and 2 and 10 weeks after they started protriptyline (20 mg daily at bedtime). Two patients had to be excluded before the second visit and one before the third visit because of changes in treatment for their chest disease. Protriptyline caused mouth dryness in all patients and dysuria in six men. With protriptyline there were no significant changes in total sleep time, sleep period time, or the percentages of total sleep time occupied by stage I-II and stage III-IV sleep. The mean (SEM) percentage of total sleep time spent in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep decreased from 11.1 (1.7) to 4.6 (0.7) at two weeks and to 4.2 (1.0) at 10 weeks. After protriptyline the time spent during sleep with an arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) below each 5% increment above 65% was less than the baseline time; the lowest SaO2 (%) reached during sleep increased from 64.5 (1.7) to 72.7 (2.1) at 2 weeks and to 77.4 (2.1) at 10 weeks. Lung volumes and expiratory flows were unchanged during the study. Daytime arterial oxygen tension (PaO2) increased from 57 (1.4) mm Hg before treatment to 62 (1.9) mm Hg at 2 weeks and to 66 (1.9) mm Hg at 10 weeks (7.6 (0.2), 8.3 (0.3), 8.8 (0.3) kPa). Carbon dioxide tension fell from 52 (2.3) mm Hg to 49 (1.4) mm Hg at 2 weeks and to 48 (2.0) mm Hg at 10 weeks (6.9 (0.3), 6.5 (0.2), 6.4 (0.3) kPa), but these changes were not significant. These results suggest that protriptyline may benefit patients with chronic obstructive lung disease by reducing the sleep induced falls in SaO2 and improving diurnal PaO2; a controlled trial is now required.


Taskafa is a feature length documentary essay about memory and the most necessary forms of belonging, both to a place and to history, through a search for the role played in the city by Istanbul's street dogs and their relationship to its human populations. Through this exploration, the film opens a window on the contested relationships between power and the public, community and categorisation (in location and identity), and the ongoing struggle / resistance against a single way of seeing and being.

Despite several major attempts by Istanbul's rulers, politicians and planners over the last 400 years to erase them, the city's street dogs have persisted thanks to an enduring alliance with widespread civilian communities, which recognize and defend their right to co-exist.

Taskafa gathers the voices of diverse Istanbul residents, shopkeepers, and street-based workers, all of whom display a striking commitment to the wellbeing and future of the city's canine population (a community of street dogs - and cats - free of formal ownership but fed and cared for by numerous individuals). From the rapidly gentrifying city centre district of Galata to the residential islands of the Sea of Marmara and beyond, Taskafa navigates a history of empathy with, and threats to this highly distinctive urban community.

Taskafa is structured around readings by John Berger, from his novel King, a story of hope, dreams, love and resistance, told from the perspective of a dog belonging to a community facing disappearance, even erasure. In Taskafa, this voice is gifted to a wider community and range of perspectives: to dogs, a city and, finally, to history.

John Berger's text and delivery take the viewer on a journey from Karakoy to Hayirsiz'ada, the island where, in the 1800s, tens of thousands of dogs were exiled to die. Offering a collage of testimonials to the inestimable value of non-human populations to the emotional and psychological health of the city, and a striking statement of witness both to advocacy and persecution across the centuries, Taskafa portrays - and embodies – the vibrant, collective spirit of protest and enduring solidarity with which it closes (mass demonstrations opposing current municipal proposals to expel the street animals).


Purpose:Recent branding failures (e.g. Kodak and Krispy Kreme) have cast considerable doubt on the widely accepted contention that to develop a strong brand, firms must continuously strive to be brand oriented or innovation oriented. This study aims to examine the curvilinear and interactive effects of brand orientation and innovation orientation on brand performance. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data were drawn from a sample of 181 firms operating in the consumer goods sector (i.e. fashion, consumer electronics and automobile) and tested through a hierarchical regression analysis. Findings: This study finds that the sole and exclusive focus on either brand orientation or innovation orientation is detrimental to the realisation of superior brand performance because increased levels of this focus lead to diminishing returns. Critically, this study finds that the key to achieving superior brand performance lies in the extent to which the firm integrates both brand orientation and innovation orientation. Originality/value: This study extends current knowledge by showing that focusing on either brand orientation or innovation orientation in isolation is actually detrimental to the firm¿s realisation of superior brand performance. The integration of brand orientation and innovation orientation is the key to achieving superior brand performance because the inherent limitations associated with each are overcome by their integration. Disciplines Business Publication Details Lee, W., O'Cass, A. & Sok, P. (2016). Why doesn't our branding pay off: optimising the effects of branding through innovation. European Journal of Marketing, 50 (3-4), 509-529. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1051


The rise of empirical population genetics and more recently the genomic revolution have given us the tools to explore completely new questions in ecology and evolution. Based on only a single temporal sample of individuals, genetics now allows us to glimpse into the demographic history of a species and gain insights into its population dynamics during the last glacial period or the impact of recent bottlenecks caused by human exploitation. Measuring genetic variation is also key to exploring the forces shaping phenotypic variation, which are well understood for some traits but are completely unknown for many others. Among the latter are chemical and bacterial phenotypes, which are so complex in themselves that it is not clear how they are determined by an animals' genotype. Nevertheless, a better knowledge of the interconnectivity between animal genetics, chemicals and microbiota has the potential to drastically change our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes. However, very few studies have bridged the gap between population genetics, chemical ecology and microbiology in wild populations. Pinnipeds are an extraordinary group of marine mammals for exploring such wide-ranging questions. From the tropical waters of the Central Pacific to the wild seas of the Southern Ocean, pinnipeds inhabit nearly every marine environment in the world. They show a remarkable variety of life-history adaptations where chemical communication and host-microbe interactions play a potentially critical role, such as the flawless mother-pup recognition in fur seals or the sex-specific feeding strategies in Northern elephant seals. Pinnipeds also differ greatly in their recent demographic histories, as large-scale commercial exploitation by 18th and 19th century sealers brought many species to the edge of extinction, while others remained largely untouched. In my dissertation, I elucidate the origins of genetic variation among pinnipeds using demographic inference, but I also explore some of the more unknown consequences of genetic variation: chemical and microbial phenotypes, and their potential functions. Lastly, inspired by the open science movement, I developed three scientific packages in R which emerged from the analyses in this dissertation. My thesis is divided into the following chapters: In chapter 1, I give an overview of the historical context and main questions of this dissertation and describe the pinnipeds as a study system. In chapter 2, I present a comparative genetic analysis of the demographic consequences of commercial exploitation. We found that around one-third of all pinnipeds underwent severe genetic bottlenecks and that these were mediated by both ecology and life-history. Moreover, genetic diversity seems to be largely determined by contemporary population size and reduced only by very severe bottlenecks. Chapter 3 presents the first genomic investigation into the demographic history of the Northern elephant seal. Using a novel genome sequence and restriction-site associated DNA sequencing, we infer both an extreme recent bottleneck and a likely post-glacial expansion of the species. In chapter 4, we characterise the chemical basis of olfactory mother-offspring recognition in Antarctic fur seals. The skin chemical profiles were surprisingly diverse, with chemical compounds differing between populations and mother-offspring pairs and correlating with heterozygosity and genetic relatedness. Chapter 5 explores the development of gut microbiota in young Northern elephant seals. Using a diet-controlled setting, we show that gut microbiota of young seals are already highly complex and change radically within only a few weeks. Furthermore, we show that gut microbiota are highly sex-specific and linked to genotype in males but not in females. In chapter 6, we describe GCalignR, an R package for aligning gas chromatography data across many individuals for field studies in animal ecology and evolution. Chapter 7 presents inbreedR, an R package for analysing inbreeding and inbreeding depression using genetic and genomic markers. The rptR package described in chapter 8 quantifies intra-class coefficients or repeatabilities for Gaussian and non-Gaussian traits in a mixed model framework. Lastly, chapter 9 puts the findings of this thesis in a broader context, discusses its limitation with respect to the neutral theory of molecular evolution and the complexities of assigning function to chemical compounds and microbes in wild organisms and outlines future directions. To summarise, my dissertation provides novel insights into how recent and historical demography shaped the genetic makeup of contemporary populations, thereby contributing to the old riddle of the determinants of genetic diversity. Moreover, I show that individual genetic variability shapes complex chemical signatures and gut microbial communities in the wild and explore the potential mechanisms by which these could be intertwined with pinniped ecology and evolution. Lastly, I hope that both the openly available and documented analytical pipelines as well as the R packages that have emerged from this dissertation will help to facilitate scientific progress and replicability.


Abstract The Cobb–Douglas function is today one of the most widely adopted assumptions in economic modeling, yet both its theoretical and empirical bases have long been under question. This paper builds an alternative function on very different (albeit also neoclassical) microfoundations aimed at both addressing those theoretical drawbacks and providing a better empirical fit than the Cobb–Douglas formula. The new model, unlike the Cobb–Douglas function, does not portray installed capacity as aggregate capital but as a sunk cost generating economic rents. An analysis of 1949–2008 annual U.S. growth data suggest this alternative model explains nearly 85 percent of GDP fluctuations and is empirically more robust than the Cobb–Douglas, whilst both contemporary and lagged aggregate capital are statistically rejected as explanatory variables. This lends support to the old "Cambridge Critique", according to which using value-weighted capital aggregates to explain production simply makes no sense. At face value, these results not only pose a question on any macroeconomic model assuming a Cobb–Douglas function but also point towards an alternative interpretation of phenomena such as the way monetary policy impacts productivity.


This thesis reports experimental work, carried out as a PhD study, investigating the possible re-use of glassy secondary materials as aggregate in concrete. A study of the relevant literature suggested that slag from the Imperial Smelting Furnace method of zinc production (ISF slag) and Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) glass from end of life computer monitors and television screens would be promising materials to test. The main issues identified as being of most concern relating to the use of these materials were the potential for alkali-silica reaction (ASR) due to the glassy nature of the aggregate materials, in-service leaching of heavy metal ions, namely lead, zinc and barium from the aggregates and the possibility of a delay in set caused by the addition of these materials to concrete or mortar mixes. A comprehensive study has been completed that has included characterisation of the secondary aggregate materials, their incorporation into concrete mixes and their effect on ASR, leaching and retardation of concrete set. Methods have been identified to minimise these potential problems where they have been shown to be an issue. These include the recommendation of various additions, depending upon the specific problem being overcome, ranging from cement replacement materials, such as pulverised fuel ash (PFA) and ground, granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS) to chemical additions such as barium and calcium chlorides. Overall, it has been shown that the ISF slag and CRT glass could prove to be useful secondary materials for use in the construction industry and it is hoped that their specification and use will be forthcoming as a result of this study.


The thermoelastic photoacoustic effect near tips of a vertical crack is investigated with linear approximation of the residual strains and stresses. The influence of external normal and shear stresses on the thermoelasticphotoacoustic signal is also analyzed. The results are applied to the analysis of thermoelastic photoacoustic signal near tips of radial cracks of Vickers indented areas in an Al 2 0 3 -SiC-TiC ceramic composite. The experimental results are shown to be in good agreement with the results predicted by the theoretical model both for normal and for shear stresses. It is shown that the thermoelastic photoacoustic method can be used for the determination of stress intensity factors of cracks both for external and for residual stress fields. The value of the nonlinear thermoelastic parameter for this composite has been estimated.


When a drop containing colloidal particles evaporates on a surface, a circular stain made of these particles is often observed due to an internal flow toward the contact line. To hinder this effect, several approaches have been proposed such as flow modification by addition of surfactants or control of the interactions between the particles. All of these strategies involve the liquid phase while maintaining the drying process. However, substitution of evaporation by absorption into the substrate of the solvent has been investigated less. Here, we show that a droplet containing colloidal particles deposited on swelling hydrogels can lead to a nearly uniform coating. We report experiments and theory to explore the relation between the gel swelling, uniformity of deposition and the adsorption dynamics of the particles at the substrate. Our findings suggest that draining the solvent by absorption provides a robust route to homogeneous coatings.


The propagation of electromagnetic radiation in birefringent layered media is considered. A general formulation of the plane-wave propagation in an arbitrarily birefringent layered medium is presented. The concepts of dynamical matrix and propagation matrix are introduced. A 4 × 4 transfer matrix method is used to relate the field amplitudes in different layers. Our general theory is then applied to the special case of periodic birefringent layered media, especially the Solc birefringent layered media [ I.
 Solc

 , Cesk. Casopis Fẏs.3, 366 ( 1953);Cesk. Casopis Fẏs.10, 16 ( 1960)]. The unit cell translation operator is derived. The band structures as well as the Bloch waves are obtained by diagonalizing the translation operator. Coupled mode theory is extended to the case of birefringent periodic perturbation to explain the exchange Bragg scattering. A general mode dispersion relation for guided waves is also obtained in terms of the transfer matrix elements.


: Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Government of National Unity embarked upon the ambitious task of trying over 100,000 detainees suspected of participating, at some level, in the genocide. By 1998, having experienced little success with formal trials, the goYernment began developing plans to amend the traditional dispute resolution mechanism, known as gacaca, in an attempt to achiew both justice and reconciliation. Serious criticism has been voiced over the gacaca jurisdictions, claiming, in part, that they fail to meet Rwanda's due process obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). While perhaps not conforming to the letter of the law, the gacaca jurisdictions do have the potential to embody its spirit by serving the need for justice and accountability in Rwanda while fostering a culture of human rights protection in a country that has long ignored them.


Aim: With regard to the anticariogenic and remineralizing properties of ACP, the aim of this study was to compare the microleakage of conventional glass ionomer and ACP containing glass ionomer cements under orthodontic bands.
Materials and Methods: Sixty extracted first maxillary premolars were randomly divided into 2 groups. In the group A, the teeth were cemented by conventional glass ionomer cement and in the group B they were cemented by ACP containing glass ionomer cement. Then samples subjected to thermocycling. A dye penetration method was used for microleakage evaluation. Microleakage was determined with a stereomicroscope for the cement-band and cement-enamel interfaces from the buccal and lingual sides at the occlusal and gingival margins.
Results: Post hoc comparisons showed amount of microleakage in the control group was significantly higher than experimental group in cement-enamel interface at bucco-gingival level (p-value=0.01). No significant difference between control and experimental groups was observed in other areas.
Conclusion: ACP containing glass ionomer causes less microleakage than conventional glass ionomer in enamel-cement interface. However there was no significant difference in microleakage between ACP containing GI and conventional GI in most of area. Therefore ACP-containing GI can be used in orthodontic banding.


In the past, real estate market data gathering was not planned in Slovenia. First official real estate market data gathering was performed in the Municipality of Maribor, on the basis of a special form. This article presents an analysis of the data gathered in this way and the method of determining the standardised adjustments in a valuation model for the needs of taxation in the area concerned.


The effectiveness of cognitive manufacturing systems in agile production environments heavily depend on the automatic assessment of various levels of interoperability between manufacturing resources. For taking informed decisions, a semantically rich representation of all resources in a workcell or production line is required. OPC UA provides means for communication and information exchange in such distributed settings.This paper proposes a semantic representation of a resource's properties, in which we use OWL ontologies to encode the information models that can be found in OPC UA NodeSet specifications. We further combine these models with an OWL-based description of the resource's geometry and – if applicable – its kinematic model. This leads to a comprehensive semantic representation of hardware and software features of a manufacturing resource, which we call semantic digital twin. Among other things, it reduces costs through virtual prototyping and enables the automatic deployment of manufacturing tasks in production lines. As a result, small-batch assemblies become financially viable.In order to minimize the effort of creating OWL-based UA NodeSet descriptions, we provide a software tool for the automatic transformation of XML-based NodeSet specifications that adhere to the OPC Foundation's NodeSet2 XML schema.


BACKGROUND
normal ageing processes impact on oropharyngeal swallowing function placing older adults at risk of developing oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD). Anecdotal clinical experience has observed that older patients recovering from hip fracture surgery commonly develop OD post-operatively.

OBJECTIVE
to document the presence of OD following hip fracture surgery, and the factors associated with OD.

METHODS
one hundred and eighty-one patients with a mean age of 83 years (range: 65-103) admitted to a specialised orthogeriatric unit were assessed for OD post-surgery for hip fracture. Pre-admission, intra-operative and post-operative factors were examined to determine their relationship with the presence of OD.

RESULTS
OD was found to be present post-operatively in 34% (n = 61) of the current population. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed the presence of pre-existing neurological and respiratory medical co-morbidities, presence of post-operative delirium, age and living in a residential aged care facility prior to hospital admission to be associated with the post-operative OD.

CONCLUSION
these results highlight that OD is present in a large number of the older hip fracture population. Early identification of OD has important implications for the provision of timely dysphagia management that may prevent secondary complications and potentially reduce the hospital length of stay.


High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs are thought to increase opportunities for all children to succeed in school, but recent findings call into question whether these programs affect children as anticipated. In this article, I examine research relating the quality of ECE to children's outcomes, finding somewhat inconsistent and modest associations with widely used measures of process and structural quality, and more consistent and stronger associations with other dimensions of ECE such as curricula and type of ECE program. I discuss why the associations between ECE quality and outcomes are so modest, including limited children's outcomes, psychometric issues with quality measures, and a need to revise and expand measures of ECE quality. The evidence indicates that we need to focus on the content of instruction and teaching practices, as well as the extent to which teachers actively scaffold learning opportunities. We also need to continue to focus on the quality of interactions between teachers and children, and on children's access to age-appropriate activities.


This paper proposes a fuzzy-based unsupervised segmentation of textured color images. L*a*b* color space is used to represent color features and statistical geometrical features (SGF) are adopted as texture descriptors. Homogeneity decision is used to make a fusion of texture features and color features with fuzzy-rule theory. Hierarchical segmentation based on the fuzzy homogeneity decision is performed in four processes: hierarchical splitting, local agglomerative merging, global agglomerative merging and pixelwise classification. Experiments on segmentation of some color texture mosaics and color natural images are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed segmentation approach.


The abundance and the distribution of trophic resources available for consumers influence the productivity and the diversity of natural communities. Nevertheless, assessment of the actual abundance of food items available for individual trophic groups has been constrained by differences in methods and metrics used by various authors. Here we develop an index of food abundance, the framework of which can be adapted for different ecosystems. The relative available food index (RAFI) is computed by considering standard resource conditions of a habitat and the influence of various generalized anthropogenic and natural factors. RAFI was developed using published literature on food abundance and validated by comparison of predictions versus observed trophic resources across various marine sites. RAFI tables here proposed can be applied to a range of marine ecosystems for predictions of the potential abundance of food available for each trophic group, hence permitting exploration of ecological theories by focusing on the deviation from the observed to the expected.


Grass and bush burning is a time-honoured custom in Africa and much has been written on the purposes underlying the practice and upon its disadvantages. At the same time scientific work by the pasture agronomist is still largely in an experimental phase, and work by other scientists has not gone far towards substantiating the arguments for or against burning. There is no attempt in this essay to meet these gaps, but perhaps some purpose may be fulfilled in assessing some of the arguments. so far put forward, to see the need for further work and to examine the relevance of work done elsewhere to Uganda. In the past much discussion has concerned the deleterious effect of burning without recognising the reality that in most circumstances some form of burning is inevitable or that for some purposes may be desirable.


This thesis describes the application of commercially available microprocessors and other VLSI devices to high-speed real-time digital correlation in spread spectrum and related communication applications. Spread spectrum communications are a wide-band secure communication system that generate a very broad spectral bandwidth signal that is therefore hard to detect in noise. They are capable of rejecting intentional or unintentional jamming, and are insensitive to the multipath and fading that affects conventional high frequency systems. The bandwidth of spread spectrum systems must be large to obtain a significant performance improvement. This means that the sequence rate must be fast and therefore very fast microprocessors will be required when they are used to perform spread spectrum correlation. Since multiplication cannot be performed efficiently by microprocessors considerable work, since 1974, has been published in the literature which is devoted to minimising the requirement of multiplications in digital correlation and other signal processing algorithms. These fast techniques are investigated and implemented using general-purpose microprocessors. The restricted-bandwidth problem in microprocessor-based digital correlator has been discussed. A new implementation is suggested which uses bit-slice devices to maintain the flexibility of microprocessor-based digital correlation without sacrificing speed. This microprocessor-based system has been found to be efficient in implementing the correlation process at the baseband in the digital domain as well as the post-correlation signal processing- demodulation, detection and tracking, especiaJIy for low rate signals. A charge coupled-device is used to obtain spectral density function. An all-digital technique which is programmable for any binary waveform and can be used for achieving initial acquisition and maintaining synchronisation in spread spectrum communications is described. Many of the practical implementation problems are discussed. The receiver performance, which is measured in terms of the acquisition time and the bit-error rate, is also presented and results are obtained which are close to those predicted in the system simulations.


The aim of this doctoral dissertation was to examine a conceptual model linking social withdrawal, maladaptive cognitions, and internalizing difficulties in childhood and emerging adulthood. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduate students (Study 1: N = 451, Mage = 19.17, SD = 1.40; Study 2: N = 540, Mage = 19.20, SD = 1.49) completed assessments of social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability, social avoidance), maladaptive cognitions (threatening and negative cognitions), and internalizing problems (social anxiety, depressive symptoms). For both samples, results from structural equation modeling suggested partial specificity in the cognitive content associated with internalizing problems. Specifically, whereas threatening cognitions were positively associated with both social anxiety and depressive symptoms, negative cognitions were only positively associated with depressive symptoms. Differences in the social, cognitive, and emotional implications of social withdrawal subtypes also emerged across studies. In Study 1, results suggested that maladaptive cognitions played a mediating role in the links between shyness (but not social avoidance) and internalizing problems. In a conceptual replication of Study 1, results from Study 2 indicated that threatening cognitions mediated the effects of both shyness and social avoidance on social anxiety and depression; however, shyness and social avoidance only displayed indirect effects on depressive symptoms via negative cognitions. The goal of Study 3 was to explore whether a similar model linking withdrawal, peer relations, social cognitions, and internalizing problems could be applied to a sample of early elementary school-aged children (N = 408 children, Mage = 7.10 years, SD = .86). During individual interviews, children completed assessments of their social cognitions (rejection sensitivity, negative social information processing), and parents provided assessments of children's socially withdrawn behaviours, socio-emotional functioning, and peer relations. Among the results, peer problems (but not social cognitions) emerged as a significant mediator in the associations between both shyness and social avoidance and internalizing problems. Results are discussed in the terms of the meaning, as well as the social, emotional, and cognitive implications of different subtypes of social withdrawal at different developmental periods. Future directions and potential implications for intervention and prevention development are also discussed.


Although communication in medical practice is reputed for exactitude and objectivity, many doctors in several countries make equivocal, concealing utterances in certain situations when relating with clients. This phenomenon, despite its importance in doctor-client interaction, has received little attention from language scholars who have discussed concealment mainly as a strategy in news delivery. The present study examines concealment items in the interaction between doctors and clients in South-western Nigerian hospitals and their pragmatic implications for medical communication in Nigeria. Fifty (50) conversations between doctors and clients on several ailments were tape-recorded in the six states of South-western Nigeria. Structured and unstructured interviews were conducted with selected doctors and clients. The corpus was examined for the linguistic and pragmatic resources deployed by doctors in concealing information, and was analysed using Jacob Mey's theory of pragmeme and insights from the literature on news delivery strategies. Concealment was found to take place between doctors and clients in a two-phase mode: Referential and pragmatic. Utterances which have descriptive forms at the referential level assume subjective and divergent shades in the context of concealment at the pragmatic level. Nine concealment strategies (jargonisation, veiling, forecasting, mitigation, stalling, normalisation, dysphemisation, euphemisation and doublespeak) were found to be employed to achieve four broad goals: Preventive, palliative, culture-compliant and confidential with respect to 25 diseases /medical procedures. Concealment in consultative encounters takes into account the socio-psychological security needs of clients and attends positively to clients' cultural expectations.


The primary aim of this study is to provide information on how effective institutes for Dutch as a foreign language organise their education. As many teachers still seem to be left to fend for themselves in their efforts to improve their teaching, examples of good practice are provided through six case study descriptions of effective institutes. These descriptions are set into the context of the theoretical approaches concerning Dutch studies and the effectiveness of the institutes. It is hoped that this thesis will give these teachers clues as to how to improve their teaching of Dutch as a foreign language. This curriculum study is based upon five sources used to a different extent during its three phases, namely: an extensive questionnaire filled in at the institutes labelled as effective in teaching Dutch as a foreign language; interviews with teachers; interviews with students; observations of classroom practice, and publications/websites concerning the institutes. Great attention has been paid to the triangulation of the data, i.e. the extent to which information originating from these sources leads to a specific perception of the given area, making the description more complete and objective. The choice of the effective institutes is based upon the results of the lowest level of the Certificate of Dutch as a Foreign Language (CNaVT; A2-level CEFR) examination as the students, typically without any existing knowledge of Dutch, reach this level within the first year of their studies. To describe the video/audio recordings of an "as-normal-as possible" teaching week, an adapted version of the taxonomy of the Dutch Inspectorate for Education is used. In the descriptions short transcriptions of these recordings are provided in order to give as accurate as possible a picture of the lessons that were delivered. In the last chapter the future trends are also described. The pillars of this study are: the didactic preconditions, organisational setting, content of the curriculum, and didactic approach of the teacher. Regardless of the history, size, sort, or specialisation of the institutes, the key to their effectiveness seems to be the combination and the complementary character of these pillars. It was concluded that there are many ways in which an institute can be effective. It can be seen e.g. that the selection of students prior to their study of Dutch plays an important role in five of the institutes and three of the institutes have stringent selection criteria during the study period as well. However, there is still one effective institute for the teaching of Dutch as a foreign language where no explicit selection procedures are applied. The general conclusion reached is, then, that what matters and should be greatly stimulated is the quality of the teachers. Even though they do have their reservations e.g. with regard to making/applying institutional policies, they make a great effort to improve the effectiveness of their teaching. At the end of the day the teachers are the ones in contact with the students and the ones who are (or should be) making sense of the teaching. That is why it is essential to have good and motivated teachers who are able to compensate for the missing or insufficiently realised elements of the teaching programme.


Purpose Small artery and arteriolar walls thicken due to elevated blood pressure. Vascular wall thickness show a correlation with hypertensive subject history and risk for stroke and cardiovascular events. Methods The inner and outer diameter of retinal arterioles from less than 10 to over 150 μm were measured using a multiply scattered light adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). These measurements were made on three populations, one with habitual blood pressures less than 100/70 mm Hg, one with normal blood pressures without medication, and one with managed essential hypertension. Results The wall to lumen ratio was largest for the smallest arterioles for all three populations. Data from the hypotensive group had a linear relationship between outer and inner diameters (r2 = 0.99) suggesting a similar wall structure in individuals prior to elevated blood pressures. Hypertensive subjects fell below the 95% confidence limits for the hypotensive relationship and had larger wall to lumen ratios and the normotensive group results fell between the other two groups. Conclusion High-resolution retinal imaging of subjects with essential hypertension showed a significant decrease in vessel inner diameter for a given outer diameter, and increases in wall to lumen ratio and wall cross-sectional areas over the entire range of vessel diameters and suggests that correcting for vessel size may improve the ability to identify significant vascular changes. Translational Relevance High-resolution imaging allows precise measurement of vasculature and by comparing results across risk populations may allow improved identification of individuals undergoing hypertensive arterial wall remodeling.


A closed-loop range-locked radar system developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has recently had great success range tracking the planet Venus. It has provided measurements to the planetary mean-tracking point with peak minute-to-minute variations less than 2.25 to 3 Km in range. Over a one-hour tracking period, a mean tracking point can be determined to 0.5 km. A scattering-law calibration of the planet is made each day, measuring the mean-tracking-point-to-planetary-surface distance to within 3 km (nominal). The subearth point-to-radar distance is thus measured to a nominal accuracy of 3.5 km. Tracking behaves as a first-order linear ``range-locked'' loop with ephemeris aid, and is practically calibration free. Data obtained during the 1964 conjunction showed that the ephemeris not only contained a range error, but also a range-rate error of 18 km per day. Deviations from this rate correspond to surface features whose height can be estimated. Such data will be invaluable in determining, to a greater degree of accuracy than ever before attainable, the orbital constants of the earth and Venus.


"Control fraud" is the leading cause of bank failures and financial crises. In "control fraud" the persons controlling a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a weapon to defraud. This essay analyzes the role of regulators in two epidemics of control fraud: the savings & loan debacle of the 1980s and the ongoing financial crises that first became acute in the nonprime mortgage sector. Effective regulation is essential to prevent and contain such epidemics. An epidemic is the natural outcome of a "pathogenic environment" which requires a reservoir of hosts for the pathogens to infect, and "vectors" to spread the pathogen. The anopheles mosquito is a vector for malaria. The financial world incurs epidemics of fraud when there is a "criminogenic environment." Factors that make an environment criminogenic include non-regulation, assets that lack verifiable values, and compensation systems that create perverse incentives. The vectors of such epidemics include rating agencies, accounting firms, and appraisers. The symptoms include financial bubbles. They aid accounting fraud by creating fictional income to hide real losses. This feature of bubbles is analogous to infectious disease. Symptoms (coughing, sneezing) both spread disease and weaken the host, making him more susceptible to other infections.Effective regulation is essential to prevent epidemics of accounting fraud. Economists who determine regulatory policy have operated like faith healers instead of public health specialists. Their policies create, rather than prevent, criminogenic environments. They did so in the S&L debacle, the Enron/WorldCom scandals, Russian privatization, and "The Washington Consensus." Economists' failures are particularly tragic because there was a brief period (1983-1987) when regulators did act like public health officials. Those actions are largely unknown, as are the regulatory and Justice Department actions in 1990-92 that produced the largest number of convictions of white-collar criminals in U.S. history and prevented a subprime lending crisis.The Clinton and Bush administrations seemed unaware of these regulatory successes. Their deregulatory policies produced a criminogenic environment. Ending effective financial regulation was a key step in producing that environment and delaying the diagnosis of the resulting epidemic of mortgage fraud and other forms of accounting control fraud.


The current popularity of civil society as "the icon of the global trend of democratization" and related discussions on civil society in Turkey are the starting points of this study. The civil society concept highly penetrated into political discourse in the last two decades. This has been largely due to the collapse of communist regimes in the Eastern and Central Europe in which civil society has been promoted and portrayed as the corner stone of the democratization process. Similar to the global trend, especially in the post-1980 period, civil society has been largely associated with the consolidation of democracy and related to this the lack of an autonomous civil society became the central issues of political discourse in Turkey. An important part of the increasing debates about the civil society in Turkey has been the human rights issue. The repressive attitudes of Turkish state dominated human rights movements in the pre-1980 period. In the post-1980 era with the impact of large number of prisoners of 1980 military coup and torture and violence against these prisoners, the issues related to human rights challenged Turkish state and its actions more often. Moreover, the failures of Turkey on human rights, and the reports published by several international and national organizations and media have increased the pressure on the national government. In the light of these discussions, the aim of this thesis is to have an understanding of two prominent human rights organizations, IHD (Human Rights Association) and Mazlum-Der (Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed People), which are mainly descendants of debates related to violations against Kurdish population and political Islam. The analysis of the developments of these organizations, their discourses and interest in contemporary human rights violations would enable a further discussion related to the development regarding both civil society and human rights organizations in Turkey in the post-1980 period. In addition, a brief evaluation of the civil society concept and its historical developments in political sphere provides significant tools to understand why human rights movements revitalized post-1980 period. This study provides a content analysis of two prominent human rights organizations in Turkey and their area of interests with a detailed focus on divergences and convergences between them. According to the analysis, Turkish state is indicated as the main obstacle in the issue of human rights in Turkey by IHD and Mazlum-Der. Secondly, the majority of human rights violations are related to Kurdish issue. Finally, IHD and Mazlum-Der have different approaches to human rights that differentiate them and limit their activities in some occasions. Furthermore, through identification of convergences and divergences, the data enables a further discussion about the contemporary debates on Turkish civil society, its position vis-a-vis the state mechanisms and the role of human rights organizations within these dimensions. This study is important because it provides a systematic understanding of the role of human rights organizations in dealing with human rights violations persecuted by the state and at the same time explicates on their contribution to the debate on the relation between state and civil society and whether human rights organizations focus on state or society level violations. This study also forms a preliminary work for further study on this relation and it brings in conceptual tools for further inquiry on this relation.


A research work on the Agly fluvial system and its drainage basin (1,045 km 2 ) is presented following a systemic approach. Various spatio-temporal scales allow to get a long-term view of evolution and dynamics of this Mediterranean coastal river, since its gradual sinking in a mid-Miocene planation surface. Selective erosion and structural features account for the angular channel network, while quaternary sediment deposits depend on morphoclimatic conditions. Flash-floods are induced by heavy storm events and are a determining factor in the fluvial dynamics. A major obstacle to social development, these flash-floods have been considered as "the scourge of the country" ever since the XVIII th century. Modelling the flood wave propagation reveals the importance of relief and channel network characteristics for the transfer processes. A quantification of the sediment transport by the Agly river underscores a very low bed load transport, whereas suspended sediment (TSS) and total dissolved solids (TDS), in about equal amounts, account by far for the major part of the transport. Total sediment yield for the entire basin can be estimated at 200·10 3 t·year -1 . The fluvial geomorphology shows a recent deepening of the inner channels, related both to human activities and to natural processes : This river metamorphosis has occurred in the second half of the XX th century and has been so short, thal it could be considered as an epiphenomenon in the river's long story. The dam and dikes built against "aiguats" (combined storm events and floods), must not lead to overlook natural events : the Mediterranean region will always remain dangerous for human activities because of its sudden, heavy downpours and its powerfull coastal streams.


The present study aims at investigating the growth effects of real exchange rate misalignments in Malaysia over the period 1991:1-2009:4. The RER misalignment is built through the estimation of the NATREX equilibrium model. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration framework, the results indicate the presence of positive and significant relationship between the RER misalignment and economic growth. This finding obtained is consistent with the notion that the RER misalignment through the distortion in relative price has systematic influence on the pattern of economic development.


When the United States and other powers declined to help fight fascist power at the onset of the Spanish Civil War, forty thousand private citizens from fifty-two countries rallied to join the International Brigade's defense of the Spanish Republic. Born out of the struggle between fascism and democracy and considered the first battle of World War II, the Spanish Civil War holds tremendous ideological significance and has inspired a remarkable range of American poetry."The Wound and the Dream" represents the sixty-year tradition of American poetic responses to the Spanish Civil War and provides an overview of progressive American poetry as a whole. Four of the featured poets - Alvah Bessie, William Lindsay Gresham, James Neugass, and Edwin Rolfe - were members of the International Brigade. Their poetry appears alongside lesser-known works by some of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, including Wallace Stevens, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Randall Jarrell, Langston Hughes, and Philip Levine. Cary Nelson's introduction discusses the collective nature of the poems, puts them in their international context, and provides a sturdy framework for interpreting the Spanish Civil War as a historical conjecture that has dramatically altered the ways we read and write poetry. The book also includes a brief biography of each poet and a glossary of related terms.


This talk describes the reasons why $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays are
an interesting topic of study for both theory and experiment. The main
part discusses the results of the recent calculation of $\eta\to3\pi$
at two-loop order in ChPT. Some puzzling aspects of the results
compared to earlier dispersive calculations are highlighted.
I also like to remind the reader of the use of $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$ decays
for studying the anomaly.


Supervised linear embedding models like WSABIE (Weston et al., 2011) and supervised semantic indexing (Bai et al., 2010) have proven successful at ranking, recommendation and annotation tasks. However, despite being scalable to large datasets they do not take full advantage of the extra data due to their linear nature, and we believe they typically underfit. We propose a new class of models which aim to provide improved performance while retaining many of the benefits of the existing class of embedding models. Our approach works by reweighting each component of the embedding of features and labels with a potentially nonlinear affinity function. We describe several variants of the family, and show its usefulness on several datasets.


The labor generation potential in value chain analysis has not been well studied in the value chain literature. This paper aims to examine labor generation potential of the Cavendish value chain. A value chain framework was used and covered the municipality of Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte, as the study area. Total jobs generated were estimated based on full-time jobs (i.e., 8 hours per day, 26 days a month or 312 days a year). With the use of case approach, key informants interviews and focus group discussions were conducted covering 30 informants coming from different types of growers, laborers, and other stakeholders. Data from a survey conducted in Sto. Tomas in 2014 was also used to supplement primary data. The chain contributes significantly in terms of job generation particularly in the production node. Corporate and multinational growers contribute about 71% of the jobs generated in Sto. Tomas while the corporate grower with leaseback arrangement, cooperatives, independent growers, and individual contract growers contribute about 7%, 7%, 4%, and 11%, respectively. Using the estimate of 2.3 workers per hectare from the jobs value chain analysis, total full-time jobs estimated for the province of Davao del Norte reached more than 77,000 and about 183,000 for the entire island of Mindanao. However, there are issues that limit opportunities for job creation along the chain. If the key issues in the chain are addressed and strategies are implemented, employment in Mindanao is estimated to increase by 28%.


Text annotation is one of the most popular methods of linguistic data collection. The quality of the resulting corpus is one of the major concerns for the researchers, especially when the annotation process is performed by participants who have not received any specific task-related training. One important factor that can help to ensure high resulting quality is a user-friendly annotation environment. In this talk we present a new annotation system ePETaLS [1] that can help researchers to collect texts annotated for various emotions. Pre-formatted texts can be uploaded onto the system and their annotation can be assigned to a participant, whose task is to mark each phrase in the text with a specific emotion or leave it neutral. For each phrase, the annotator is also asked to assign the emotional forse and mark the word on which the emotional emphasis falls. Before submission the annotation is checked and the user is informed of any missing values. This step help to ensure higher quality of the resulting texts. The time spent on each annotation is also logged which helps to detect outliers who spend extremely little or too much time on their annotation tasks. The resulting annotation is saved in the XML format and is ready for data extraction. Before an annotation procedure can begin, each text is automatically split into small annotation units. These units correspond to short phrases that people would usually pronounce without pausing when they read the text out loud. Each sentence in the text can contain one and more of such units, a typical unit length is three to seven word tokens. This component of ePETaLS is based on supervised machine learning system TiMBL [2] and uses WebLicht [3] for linguistic data extraction, e.g. lemmas, POS, dependency relation, etc. The machine learning algorithm uses a small corpus of texts that were split into phrases by näıve participants. The annotation system is at present used for collecting a corpus of fairy tales in English written down by Andrew Lang [4]. Each text is annotated for ten to thirteen emotions. The final goal of the project is to create an automatic sentiment analysis system for emotional virtual character animation.


On the basis of an integrated wheel-type tractor (traction class 3.0), there was created the new combined machine and tractor unit carried out a continuous flat cutting of the sugar beet tops with a front mounted sugar beet tops cutting machine. To carry out this field experimental studies, a program and methodology was developed based on measurements of the remains of the tops on the heads of root crops after passing through the aggregate at a given rate of translational motion, the height of the installation of its rotary cutting mechanism above the level of the soil surface and the frequency of its rotation. The results of the study were statistically processed on a personal computer using regression and correlation analysis methods. Based on the developed methodology of the full-factor experiment, empirical mathematical models were constructed in the form of regression equations for the process of cutting the tops of sugar beet. According to the results of these calculations, it was found that the speed of the forward movement of the sugar beet tops cutting aggregate exerts the greatest influence on the mass of the remains of the tops on the spherical surfaces of the root heads, after a continuous main cut. In a lesser extent, this process is influenced by the rotational speed of the rotor of the sugar beet tops cutting machine and the height of the rotor installation above the soil surface level by means of two pneumatic copying wheels. According to the results of experimental studies, it has been established that the rational design and technological parameters of the process for harvesting sugar beet tops by a front mounted sugar beet tops harvesting  machine with a rotary cutting apparatus is its rotation frequency equal to 960 rpm, the speed of the aggregate should not exceed 2.0 m.s-1, and the height of the rotor installation should be as low as possible, not less than 0.02 m.


Cloud of Cards, "a home cloud kit to re-appropriate your data self", is the final outcome of Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s), a joint design and ethnographic research project investigating personal clouds and data centers. The main results of this design research project have been informed by the preliminary findings of an ethnographic research into the cloud (Cloud of Practices) and a design sketches phase conducted in parallel. They comprise four digital and physical artefacts, forming a set of modular tools ("cards"), which are delivered in the form of an open source DIY kit, freely accessible at www.cloudofcards.org and on Github. The purpose of these tools is to enable everyone, in particular the community of designers and makers, to set up their own small-scale data center and cloud, manage their data in a decentralized way and develop their own alternative projects using this small-scale personal infrastructure.


Visible microlasers consisting of 80±20  nm thick, dye-doped polymer resonators mated to a second-order, distributed feedback grating having a period of 410 nm exhibit longitudinal mode and spectral characteristics that can be manipulated by microresonator design. Resonators in the form of a square, ring (annulus), or a ring with an intentionally introduced defect (π/2 section removed) have been examined with respect to the output spectrum, pump energy threshold, and relative slope efficiency of the corresponding microlaser. Although the emission of single rings and arrays of nonoverlapped rings is generally a single mode, the square geometry resonator exhibits a spectrum rich in mode structure, which is attributed partially to degeneracies associated with two coupled Fabry–Perot resonators. Similarly, arrays of coupled (overlapped) rings produce multimode spectra that are skewed toward the blue. For a fixed pump fluence, an array of coupled rings generates output energies at least 50% higher than those for its uncoupled counterpart.


The European Union (EU) Regular Economic Report (RER), is an annual publication of the World Bank Group and covers economic developments, prospects, and economic policies in the European Union. The report finds that while growth is back on track, the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution is lagging behind in the EU's recovery. This is likely caused by the interaction between involuntary increases in part-time work, technological change, a decline in the bargaining power of labor, an ageing population and weak overall productivity growth. However, absolute poverty (estimated using a poverty line defined specifically for this report) should continue to fall in Europe, driven by strong poverty reduction in central Europe. The special section of this Regular Economic Report assesses the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on inclusive growth - past and present. The report argues that the process of structural transformation in the EU is largely on track, with the decoupled and non-market distorting components of the CAP playing a positive role in the reduction of poverty and the creation of better jobs for farmers. The gap between agricultural incomes and incomes in other sectors is also closing, while across the EU agricultural incomes are converging with each other. The successful transformers, about half of the Member States, have turned agriculture into a key sector for shared prosperity in rural areas: agriculture is no longer associated with poverty. The other half—the incomplete transformers—still have some way to go, which includes ensuring that the basic conditions for agriculture to thrive are in place: roads, advisory services, secure property rights, and access to health and education. This will ensure a more efficient use of CAP resources.


There is no liability rule for constitutional torts. There are, rather, several different liability rules, ranging from absolute immunity at one extreme to absolute liability at the other. States and state agencies are absolutely immune from damages liability for violations of constitutional rights, no matter how egregious their conduct may be. The same is true for those who perform legislative, judicial, and certain prosecutorial actions. In contrast, local governments are strictly liable for constitutional violations committed pursuant to official policy or custom, even if the right found to have been violated was first recognized after the conduct triggering liability. Most defendants -- including federal, state, and local officers -- are neither absolutely immune nor strictly liable. Instead, they are protected by qualified immunity, a fault-based standard approximating negligence as to illegality. This article attempts a unified theory of constitutional torts. Less grandly, it offers a comprehensive normative guide to the award of damages for violation of constitutional rights. It seeks generally to align the damages remedy on one liability rule, a modified form of qualified immunity, with limited deviations justified on functional grounds and constrained by the reach of those functional justifications. The analysis begins with absolute immunity, then proceeds to absolute liability, and concludes with extended consideration of qualified immunity. The argument calls for curtailment of the first two categories and reform of the third. The overall goals are restoration of money damages as an effective means of enforcing constitutional rights; protection against the downside risks of wholly unconstrained damages liability; and rationalization of the law through simplification of existing doctrine.


Any server offering a routing service in the Internet would naturally be in competition for clients, and clients may need to utilize service from a specific server in order to achieve a desired result. We study the various properties of this competition, such as the fraction of route requests handled by a routing service provider and the fraction of total revenue obtained. As the routing service providers (i.e., servers or routers in this context) compete, they may alter behavior in order to optimize one of the above properties. For example, a service provider may lower the price charged for its service, in order to increase the number of clients served. Our models are based on servers offering a routing service to clients within representative network topologies based on actual Internet sub-graphs. These models provide a framework for evaluating competition in the Internet. We monitor key aspects of the service, as several variables are introduced into the models. The first variable is the fraction of client requests that will pay more for a better quality route. The remaining requests are normal client requests that are satisfied by the most economical route. The second variable is the fraction of servers who choose to lower service prices in order to maximize the number of client requests served. As this fraction increases, it is more likely that a server will lower the price. Finally, there are some resource constraints applied to the model, to increase the difficulty in providing a routing solution, i.e., to simulate a realistic scenario. We seek to understand the effect on the overall network, as service providers compete. In simple cases, we show that this competition could have a negative impact on the overall efficiency of a service. We show that the routing variety present in the larger models is unable to mask this tendency and the routing service performance is decreased due to competition.


An authoritative guide to extending SharePoint's power with cloud-based servicesIf you want to be part of the next major shift in the IT industry, you'll want this book. Melding two of the hottest trends in the industrythe widespread popularity of the SharePoint collaboration platform and the rapid rise of cloud computingthis practical guide shows developers how to extend their SharePoint solutions with the cloud's almost limitless capabilities. See how to get started, discover smart ways to leverage cloud data and services through Azure, start incorporating Twitter or LinkedIn into your solutions, find the best ways to secure everything, and much more.Shows developers how to use Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to create scalable, cloud-based solutionsMelds the hottest new trend in the industrydeveloping, hosting, managing, or storing code in the cloudwith what SharePoint developers need to know to weave these technologies into their solutionsProvides developer patterns, real-world examples, and invaluable walkthroughsTopics include SQL Azure for data management and BI, building an Azure-based corporate tax service, connecting Linked In and SharePoint profile data, creating a filterable Twitter dashboard, leveraging Bing Maps Geo services, maintaining security, and moreSharePoint developers, discover exciting new ways to extend SharePoint's functionality with this practical and content-rich guide.


Alzheimer beta-amyloid protein precursor (beta APP) is expressed endogenously and abundantly by human neuroglioma (H4) cells. Its secretory processing has been shown to involve discrete proteolysis within the beta A4 region, thus preventing beta-amyloid formation, by an enzyme which has been referred to as 'beta APP secretase'. This cleavage results in secretion of a soluble N-terminal 135 kDa protein and retention of an integral membrane C-terminal fragment within the cell. The membrane-associated C-terminal fragment is sorted to lysosomes where it undergoes limited degradation. We show here that most newly synthesized beta APP is degraded via a non-lysosomal pathway before maturation in H4 cells, and most mature beta APP is processed predominantly by the so-called secretase. The rapid kinetics of appearance/disappearance of a cleaved 135 kDa protein within a microsomal fraction and the slow accumulation of this form in the extracellular medium indicated that secretase cleaves beta APP in an intracellular compartment. Low-temperature block (20 degrees C) was used to demonstrate that beta APP is cleaved within a late Golgi compartment after sulphation which occurs in the trans-Golgi network (TGN). This is consistent with (1) the immunolocalization of most of the beta APP within a Golgi compartment that reacts with wheat germ agglutinin, (2) the fact that less than 1.5% of the total mature full-length beta APP is present at the plasma membrane and (3) subcellular fractionation studies which showed that the mature full-length and intracellular cleaved beta APPs co-sediment with a membrane fraction that is slightly more dense than the plasma membrane. This study provides evidence that most of the beta APP secretase in H4 cells is intracellular, and confirms that the resulting C-terminal fragment is delivered to lysosomes immediately after cleavage. These results are discussed with regard to the possibility that mature full-length beta APP escapes secretase cleavage and is delivered directly from the TGN to the lysosome without passing through the plasma membrane. Either pathway will result in the generation of amyloidogenic fragments.


There has been significant data published in peer-reviewed scientific journals about Mr. Mahendra Kumar Trivedi exercising the biofield energy to change the behaviour and characteristics of living organisms including soil, seeds, plants, trees, animals, microbes, and humans, along with non-living materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, chemicals, pharmaceutical compounds and nutraceuticals, etc. This effect of Mr. Trivedi's biofield energy on living beings and non-living materials is referred to as The Trivedi Effect ®. The changes are attributed to changes at the atomic level and the subatomic level. Changes in atomic/molecular weights are postulated to the changes in atomic mass and atomic charge through possible mediation of neutrinos. The recent discovery of neutrino oscillations seems to give credence to our postulates. This paper discusses briefly about the neutrinos and some of Mr. Trivedi's results and attempts to link these to biofield energy and associated signal transmissions.


SCR on Filter (SCRoF) is an efficient and compact NOX and PM reduction technology already used in series production for light-duty applications. The technology is now finding its way into the medium duty and heavy duty market. One of the key challenges for successful application is the robustness to real world variations. The solution to this challenge can be found by using model-based control algorithms, utilizing state estimation by physics-based catalyst models. This paper focuses on the development, validation and real time implementation of a physics-based control oriented SCRoF model. An overview of the developed model will be presented, together with a brief description of the model parameter identification and validation process using engine test bench measurement data. The model parameters are identified following a streamlined approach, focusing on decoupling the effects of deNOx and soot phenomena. Model validation results will be shown demonstrating good model performance for both steady state and transient conditions. Following the validation of the off-line SCRoF model, the model was implemented on a dSPACE platform to demonstrate its real-time capability. The implementation on the dSPACE system is verified by comparing the online model signal outputs to the offline model. Further on, the model is compiled into object code and will be integrated into the ECM. The embedded model is characterized by a low memory footprint and a fast turnaround time.


As more scholars study digital communications, there is a pressing need for new critical methodologies that both draw on older methods while taking notice of new affordances and constraints built into digital systems and network architectures. To this end, this paper engages with the engineering and legal literatures on reverse engineering to propose a methodology for studying Internet-based communication systems: "critical reverse engineering." Drawing on the reverse engineering literature, I will argue that this approach is valuable because of four orientations. First, reverse engineers are pragmatic: they consider the technology they have at hand, not an ideal technological assemblage. They do not simply throw away older technology, but modify it, hack it, and alter it. They accept the positive side of technology while working against the bad. Second, reverse engineers also consider the historical development of a technology. They take an existing technology and trace its genealogy backwards, looking at a whole host of artifacts to uncover how the technology was developed: white papers, press releases, previous versions, vanquished competitors, design specifications, and prototypes. This provides an antidote to technological hype which consistently holds that new things are radically new or radical breaks with the past. In contrast to this, reverse engineering understands technology to have a history. Third, reverse engineering is also useful in a time of proprietary software that lives on distant servers. The centralization of the Web and the skillful valorization of user labor has led to social media sites becoming incredibly economically and politically powerful. And that means they have high-octane lawyers. Reverse engineering has a tradition of legal protections in states such as the United States and the European Union. Finally, reverse engineers do their work in order to build new systems. Thus, they have a normative position: usually they want to copy something to sell it, or take a part a set of machinery to maintain themselves rather than relying on the manufacturer. We can take this further and suggest critical reverse engineering for political/economic and media justice.To illustrate critical reverse engineering, this paper will explore the case of an alternative social media system, TalkOpen (a short-lived Twitter alternative). The paper uses the four orientations of reverse engineering to catalog how TalkOpen reverse engineered Twitter. This cases illustrates how Internet scholars can critically reverse engineer current social media sites and see how the resulting knowledge might be implemented in new, alternative social media sites.


Threats of terrorism, natural disaster, identity theft, job loss, illegal immigration, and even biblical apocalypse-all are perils that trigger alarm in people today. Although there may be a factual basis for many of these fears, they do not simply represent objective conditions. Feelings of insecurity are instilled by politicians and the media, and sustained by urban fortification, technological surveillance, and economic vulnerability. Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity fuses advanced theoretical accounts of state power and neoliberalism with original research from the social settings in which insecurity dynamics play out in the new century. Torin Monahan explores the counterterrorism-themed show 24, Rapture fiction, traffic control centers, security conferences, public housing, and gated communities, and examines how each manifests complex relationships of inequality, insecurity, and surveillance. Alleviating insecurity requires that we confront its mythic dimensions, the politics inherent in new configurations of security provision, and the structural obstacles to achieving equality in societies.


Live music promoters have hitherto been academically neglected (and often publicly maligned) individuals and organisations. This thesis, then, shifts the academic focus from the recording industries towards live music and towards the figures behind-the-scenes who connect artist, audience and venue in the live music environment. To do so, this work explores the practices and experiences of promoters in the UK; it focuses on Glasgow, Sheffield, and Bristol, and is based on ethnographic research at case study venues. The thesis offers a phenomenological perspective on what promoters do and why, and their role as mediator with key figures such as artists and agents, as well as their relationships with the state. It argues that promoters are cultural investors (and exploiters), importers and innovators who both shape and are shaped by the live music ecology within which they operate. Finally, the thesis examines the three stages of the promotional process – planning, publicity, production – to argue that promoters are key figures not only in the construction of the musical lives of contemporary British citizens, but also in the rich cultural (and economic) ecology of cities, towns and villages in the UK.


Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) rival humans in object recognition. The layers (or levels of representation) in DCNNs have been successfully aligned with processing stages along the ventral stream for visual processing. Here, we propose a model of concept learning that uses visual representations from these networks to build memory representations of novel categories, which may rely on the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Our approach opens up two possibilities: a) formal investigations can involve photographic stimuli as opposed to stimuli handcrafted and coded by the experimenter; b) model comparison can determine which level of representation within a DCNN a learner is using during categorization decisions. Pursuing the latter point, DCNNs suggest that the shape bias in children relies on representations at more advanced network layers whereas a learner that relied on lower network layers would display a color bias. These results confirm the role of natural statistics in the shape bias (i.e., shape is predictive of category membership) while highlighting that the type of statistics matter, i.e., those from lower or higher levels of representation. We use the same approach to provide evidence that pigeons performing seemingly sophisticated categorization of complex imagery may in fact be relying on representations that are very low-level (i.e., retinotopic). Although complex features, such as shape, relatively predominate at more advanced network layers, even simple features, such as spatial frequency and orientation, are better represented at the more advanced layers, contrary to a standard hierarchical view.


We propose an approach for learning latent directed polytrees as long as there exists an appropriately defined discrepancy measure between the observed nodes. Specifically, we use our approach for learning directed information polytrees where samples are available from only a subset of processes. Directed information trees are a new type of probabilistic graphical models that represent the causal dynamics among a set of random processes in a stochastic system. We prove that the approach is consistent for learning minimal latent directed trees. We analyze the sample complexity of the learning task when the empirical estimator of mutual information is used as the discrepancy measure.