A previous analysis and test program demonstrated that the Durable Redundant Joint (DRJ), a patented concept that features multiple adhesive load paths, exhibited superior performance compared to a conventional joint design. This paper describes follow-on investigations on design improvements to the DRJ to further understand its damage tolerance characteristics. Before embarking on this particular study, it was necessary to further investigate the failure sequence of the DRJ. One short flaw and one large flaw were intentionally manufactured between the doubler termination and the facesheet. Surprisingly, fracture analysis predicted the shorter flaw to be more critical than the larger flaw, and it was confirmed with examination of the coupons. Using the insight gained from these studies, three design attributes are investigated relative to increasing damage tolerance characteristics of the DRJ: (1) Insert stiffness, (2) Relative length between the doubler and the insert, and (3) The use of tapers at the ends of doublers. The paper will include findings from all these ongoing studies.


The objective of this research was to assess the differences and relationships between parents' marital quality and family environment of two hundred Form 4 delinquent and non-delinquent secondary school students in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A final research model for parents' marital quality and family environment of students was finally established. Parents' marital quality was measured by Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier & Lewis, 1976), Family environment of students was assessed by Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos, 1981, 2002), and behaviour of students (delinquent and non-delinquent acts) was assessed by a set of self-report instrument established by Rozumah, Rumaya, Asnarulkhadi, Amna, Mansur, and Tan (2003). Independent-samples t-tests reported significant differences in the family cohesion, family expressiveness, family conflict, and family achievement orientation of delinquent and non-delinquent students. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient concluded that there were significant positive correlations between parents' dyadic satisfaction, parents' marital quality, family cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, relationship dimensions, achievement orientation and active-recreational orientation with students' behaviour. The final regression model indicated by binary logistic regression analysis showed that the predictor variables which had contributed significantly to the model were firstly, family conflict, followed by family cohesion, family members' achievement orientation, then parents' dyadic satisfaction, and lastly family members' expressiveness. Future studies should focus on parents' and family communication, conflict resolution, personality, financial management, leisure activities, parenting styles, extended family, and family adaptability. This study reiterated the importance of maintaining positive marital quality in married couples and positive family environment for children's well-being. Parents must realize that adolescents need their parents' companionship, care and to be active listeners to their emotions, achievements and problems.


There is abundant anecdotal evidence available to suggest that the transition from a spring to summer season flow regime is often quite abrupt. This same transition renders longrange forecasting problematic as the forecast time period crosses through the spring and summer seasons. Despite these problems, the transition from spring-to-summer flow regimes is a problem that has not been examined in detail in the published literature. In this study, the transition is examined from a regional perspective over a 20-year period (1981 – 2000) and includes the development of a criterion for identifying the transition based on using routinely available synoptic observations. Within the East-central Ozarks region of Missouri, the transition from spring-to-summer season flow regimes is often abrupt, and is identified as occurring in mid-June. The transition could also be identified for the entire Northern Hemisphere using the 500 hPa wave amplitude index for some years during the 1980's. The results found here are consistent with the results of the one other study found in the literature that also addresses the spring-tosummer transition issue for the entire Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, this study found that the average date of summer onset in the region is June, and the 20-year set of summer onset dates was normally distributed with respect to this mean. It was also shown that there is an abrupt change in the average period between heavy precipitation events. Finally, it is demonstrated that late arriving summers are generally associated with a transition in the phase of the El Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO), especially the La Nina phase, while early arriving summers are generally associated with steady-state ENSO conditions.


Objective:  The objective is to develop an ensemble of machine learning algorithms to identify multilingual, online articles that are relevant to biosurveillance. Language morphology varies widely across languages and must be accounted for when designing algorithms. Here, we compare the performance of a word embedding-based approach and a topic modeling approach with machine learning algorithms to determine the best method for Chinese, Arabic, and French languages. Introduction:  Global biosurveillance is an extremely important, yet challenging task. One form of global biosurveillance comes from harvesting open source online data (e.g. news, blogs, reports, RSS feeds). The information derived from this data can be used for timely detection and identification of biological threats all over the world. However, the more inclusive the data harvesting procedure is to ensure that all potentially relevant articles are collected, the more data that is irrelevant also gets harvested. This issue can become even more complex when the online data is in a non-native language. Foreign language articles not only create language-specific issues for Natural Language Processing (NLP), but also add a significant amount of translation costs. Previous work shows success in the use of combinatory monolingual classifiers in specific applications, e.g., legal domain [1]. A critical component for a comprehensive, online harvesting biosurveillance system is the capability to identify relevant foreign language articles from irrelevant ones based on the initial article information collected, without the additional cost of full text retrieval and translation. Methods:  The analysis text dataset contains the title and brief description of 3506 online articles in Chinese, Arabic, and French languages from the date range of August, 17, 2016 to July 5, 2017. The NLP article pre-processing steps are language-specific tokenization and stop words removal. We compare two different approaches: word embeddings and topic modeling (Fig. 1). For word embeddings, we first generate word vectors for the data using a pretrained Word2Vec (W2V) model [2]. Subsequently, the word vectors within a document are averaged to produce a single feature vector for the document. Then, we fit a machine learning algorithm (random forest classifier or Support Vector Machine (SVM)) to the training vectors and get predictions for the test documents. For topic modelling, we used a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to generate five topics for all relevant documents [3]. For each new document, the output is the probability measure for the document belonging to these five topics. Here, we classify the new document by comparing the probability measure with a relevancy threshold. Results:  The Word2Vec model combined with a random forest classifier outperformed the other approaches across the three languages (Fig. 2); the Chinese model has an 89% F1-score, the Arabic model has 86%, and the French model has 94%. To decrease the chance of calling a potentially relevant article irrelevant, high recall was more important than high precision. In the Chinese model, the Word2Vec with a random forest approach had the highest recall at 98% (Table 1). Conclusions:  We present research findings on different approaches of relevance to biosurveillance identification on non-English texts and identify the best performing methods for implementation into a biosurveillance online article harvesting system. Our initial results suggest that the word embeddings model has an advantage over topic modeling, and the random forest classifier outperforms the SVM. Directions for future work will aim to further expand the list of languages and methods to be compared, e.g., n-grams and non-negative matrix factorization. In addition, we will fine-tune the Arabic and French model for better accuracy results.


Products of the mind touch almost all areas of commerce in our industrial society. They are the single most important source of innovation and progress and range from useful and break-through chemical compounds to publishable novels and poems to attentiongetting catchwords and phrases identifying commercial items. These products of the mind come into tangible form through many channels, including writing on paper or in books, blueprints, films, advertisements, labels and new products.


Structural improvements of efficient and abundant photocatalysts and the employment of less expensive co-catalysts are appealing routes to promote the development of economically viable solar fuel production. We herein report a significant enhancement of the H2 production from photocatalytic water splitting over K2Ti4O9 after pillaring with TiO2 pillars and loading of NiOx as a co-catalyst. The pillaring favored the charge carrier separation within the photocatalyst framework under illumination, whereas the NiOx co-catalyst, composed of nickel metal nanoparticles and nanostructured NiO, intensified the electron–hole separation at the surface. These are unprecedented results indicated by surface photovoltage spectroscopy, which was applied for the first time in this kind of photocatalyst composite. All modifications enhanced the H2 evolution from 14.9 μmol, for the pristine K2Ti4O9, to 982.0 μmol, for the final product, after 7 h of irradiation tests using methanol as a hole scavenger. This boost was also favored by the mesoporosity and high surface area created by the pillaring process. Moreover, NiOx as the co-catalyst proved to be as effective as platinum and more effective than Ag and Au in this particular system.


In this work, using solutions from a local gyrokinetic flux-tube code combined with higher order ballooning theory, a new analytical approach is developed to reconstruct the global linear mode structure with associated global mode frequency. In addition to the isolated mode (IM), which usually peaks on the outboard mid-plane, the higher order ballooning theory has also captured other types of less unstable global modes: (a) the weakly asymmetric ballooning theory (WABT) predicts a mixed mode (MM) that undergoes a small poloidal shift away from the outboard mid-plane, (b) a relatively more stable general mode (GM) balloons on the top (or bottom) of the tokamak plasma. In this paper, an analytic approach is developed to combine these disconnected analytical limits into a single generalised ballooning theory. This is used to investigate how an IM behaves under the effect of sheared toroidal flow. For small values of flow an IM initially converts into a MM where the results of WABT are recaptured, and eventually, as the flow increases, the mode asymptotically becomes a GM on the top (or bottom) of the plasma. This may be an ingredient in models for understanding why in some experimental scenarios, instead of large edge localised modes (ELMs), small ELMs are observed. Finally, our theory can have other important consequences, especially for calculations involving Reynolds stress driven intrinsic rotation through the radial asymmetry in the global mode structures. Understanding the intrinsic rotation is significant because external torque in a plasma the size of ITER is expected to be relatively low.


This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effectiveness of Serious Gaming and Gamification interventions for delivering preand post-registration health professional education compared with traditional learning, other types of eLearning, or other Serious Gaming and Gamification interventions. We will primarily assess the impact of these interventions on students' knowledge, skills, professional attitudes and satisfaction.


In a series of faculty-based projects on design, realization, implementation, use and evaluation of digital learning resources for higher education, many design requirements emerged and were evaluated. This paper focuses on those requirements that are related with large-scale use. It is argued that sustainable quality of design and realization of digital learning resources will only be possible when these resources are used by many students and teachers. Design requirements of digital learning resources should therefore be consistent with one or more scenarios for large-scale use. This paper discusses eight large-scale use scenarios that can be useful reference scenarios for design of digital learning resources in higher education. It is argued that different large-scale use scenarios imply different sets of design requirements. Vice versa, certain design requirements are relevant in some reference scenarios and irrelevant in other reference scenarios.


With the onset of pregnancy, the pregnant woman undergoes many physical and mental changes which in turn cause changes in her health behavior and lifestyle. The lifestyle has long-lasting effects on the mother and infant's health during pregnancy. The descriptive and cross-sectional study aimed at studying the pregnant women's lifestyle. The participants were 115 pregnant women who were randomly selected based on stratified random sampling method from health service centers in Gonabad, Iran. The data were collected through a demographic questionnaire and a self-report questionnaire of pregnancy lifestyle. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS software version 16 at p<0.05 level of significance. The pregnant women's age average was 20±0.27 and their gestation age average was 23±0.6 weeks. 83.5% of them were housekeeper, 41.7% of them had a schooling of high school diploma, and 54.8% of them were primipara. The results obtained from different aspects of the lifestyle questionnaire during pregnancy showed that the participants' means were as follows: in food habits (7.93%±0.14), in smoking (13.46±0.13), in health and physical activities (3.67±0.11), in stress control (6.71±0.17), and in safety (11.38±0.11). The results indicated that the most desirable component of lifestyle was related to lack of drug and cigarette consumption. On the other hand, the most undesirable component was related to stress control. Regarding the findings of this research, it seems warranted to provide adequate education and information for the personnel especially in using techniques against stress and self-control in health areas and practicing physical activities properly and regularly.


A series of computer programs were written for computing the conditional standard errors of measurement (CSEM) for both rights-scored and formula-scored tests based on a method suggested in Lord (1984), commonly known as Lord's Method IV or the compound binomial method. These programs estimate the conditional standard errors of measurement for both raw and scaled scores, average results for two or more forms, and compute form-to-form difference statistics for pairs of forms.

Conditional standard errors of measurement, averages, and differences have been computed for the verbal, quantitative, and analytical raw and converted scores for eight forms of the GRE General Test and for two forms each of 15 GRE Subject Tests.

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Committee of AERA, APA, & NCME to Develop Standards, 1985) recommends that test publishers provide estimates of the standard error measurement at a number of widely spaced score levels. The CSEM data produced in this study have been made available to three programs which use GRE scores, along with other criteria, for awarding fellowships. These data also have been made available for use in GRE program publications and in correspondence.


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October 20, 2017 – January 21, 2018 all-day
£10/£9 concs/ Free to all Museum Members Under 16s go FREE (Under 12s must be accompanied by an adult).
 01225 388 569
"… dazzling" The Sunday Times

This exhibition will explore one of the most exciting threads of art history of the past 150 years. Many artists from the Impressionists onwards were inspired by scientific colour theories, such as the pointillist work of Georges Seurat, where colours other than those actually painted on the canvas are generated in the eye of the viewer.

During the 20th century this interest in perception extended to creating a sense of movement and a variety of artists from the Vorticists to Josef Albers looked at using form, and often colour, to convey the sensation of movement. This interest intensified in the 1950s and 1960s in what came to be known as 'Op Art' and 'Kinetic Art', exemplified by the work of artists such as Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Jeffrey Steele and Peter Sedgley.

This art has had a bold legacy right up to the present, not only in the further development of some of these artists but also in the work of others including Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jim Lambie and Sara Moorhouse.

Exhibition organised by Compton Verney
Principal Sponsor: The University of Bath


No poet of the twentieth century has aroused more controversy than Ezra Pound, and no work by him has seemed more important or more problematic than "The Cantos. A Poem Containing History "offers nine new essays that examine Pound's major poem from a historical and contextual perspective, in which the work's textual development is brought to center stage. The result is a significant reconsideration not just of Pound's achievement, but of modernist poetics and its relations with history.The contributors, all major scholars, examine "The Cantos "from their beginnings in the late 1910s to their inconclusive ending with Pound's death in 1972. Together the essays reconstruct the many contexts in which Pound lived and wrote, and how these affected the evolution of his most important work. Several essays offer comprehensive surveys of the text's publication history, while most examine the development of particular groups of cantos that were produced in succeeding decades.Repeatedly the essays show that Pound's poem was an unstable work in process, one that readily accommodated input from a variety of agents other than Pound himself, and one that may ultimately have escaped his control altogether.This book will appeal to readers interested in modern poetry and twentieth-century history. All the essays are written in a style that is clear and free of jargon.Lawrence S. Rainey is Associate Professor of English, Yale University.


In this paper, a novel Tensor Factorization and tag Clustering (TFC) model is presented for item recommendation in social tagging systems. The TFC model consists of three distinctive steps, in each of which important innovative elements are proposed. More specifically, through its first step, the content information is exploited to propagate tags between conceptual similar items based on a relevance feedback mechanism, in order to solve sparsity and "cold start" problems. Through its second step, sparsity is further handled, by generating tag clusters and revealing topics, following an innovative tf ·idf weighting scheme. Furthermore, we experimentally prove that a few number of expert tags can improve the performance of quality recommendations, since they contribute to more coherent tag clusters. Through its third step, the latent associations among users, topics, and items are revealed by exploiting the TF technique of high order singular value decomposition. This way the proposed TFC model tackles problems of real-world applications, which produce noise and decrease the quality of recommendations. In our experiments with real-world social data, we show that the proposed TFC model outperforms other state-of-the-art methods, which also exploit the TF technique of HOSVD.


In this exploration of the idea of the masterpiece, over fifty world masterpieces, from cave paintings to Cezanne, are brought to life by internationally acclaimed writers, scholars and artists. Many of the contributors are celebrated artists in their own right (Antony Gormley, Quentin Blake and Tom Phillips); others are popular writers (Philip Pullman, Germaine Greer); and, many hold positions at well-known institutions, including the Prado, the Van Gogh Museum, the Louvre, the National Gallery and the Sapienza University. Each masterwork is illustrated in full, and key details are selected and separately illustrated, alongside illuminating comparatives.


This testimony makes three main points. First, inheritances tend to exacerbate existing economic disparities and may be the most important barrier to intergenerational economic mobility. These tendencies are most pronounced at the top of the income distribution. While inherited income is distributed fairly evenly across most of the population, it rises sharply at the very top. Second, the estate tax system is the most important mechanism by which the current fiscal system mitigates the effect of inheritances on economic disparities and intergenerational mobility. The burden of the estate and gift taxes falls largely on heirs, not donors. Moreover, on average, it rises rapidly with the amount the heir inherits and his economic income. Nevertheless, the relationship between the heir's financial circumstances and his or her estate tax burden is relatively imprecise. Third, upcoming legislative changes create an opportunity to better focus the estate tax system on the unearned income that inheritances represent. We should use that opportunity to reform, not repeal, the estate tax system so that it continues to tax inherited income but in a more equitable manner. Two reform options are discussed. The first would replace the estate tax system with a comprehensive inheritance tax, under which heirs would pay tax on extraordinary amounts of inherited income at roughly the same rate that presently applies to earned income under the income and payroll taxes. The second would retain the estate tax but better focus it on the amount transferred as a proxy for the amount received. It would do so through a package of simplification reforms that would limit the extent to which the tax burdens on heirs depend on their access to sophisticated tax advice.


In 1997, Asia witnessed the onset of one of the worst financial crises ever to hit the region. The Asian financial crisis swept the region when it was least expected and left seemingly irreparable effect on the economies. As financial intermediaries of the economy, the banking industry was significantly affected by the crisis. Non performing Loans (NPLs) began to rise as deteriorating finances of distressed borrowers and soaring interest rates impaired borrowers' ability to service loan. In addition, the collapse of financial and property asset values substantially reduced the value of the collateral for many bank loans. As a result, most financial institutions experienced erosion in profits. The financial institutions" capital base was affected by increased losses from loan defaults, requiring them to seek re-capitalization. Evaluation of bank performance is important for all parties including depositors, bank managers and regulators. This research focuses on the relationship between profitability performance including ROA, ROE and NPM against non performing loans (NPLs) and loan recovery income for four banks in Malaysia that have been selected as a sample. The purpose of this study is to identify which sector contributes to the largest portion in non performing loans (NPLs) and loan recovery income to profitability performance for each bank. There are few variables that have been used in this study. The dependent variables are non performing loans (NPLs) ratio and loan recovery income ratio whereas the independent variables are consists of return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and net profit margin (NPM). 2 local banks and 2 foreign banks in Malaysia have been chosen as a sample of data based on their equity and annual revenue. The data collections have been analyzed by using trend analysis and multiple regression analysis. The hypotheses have been developed and tested in order to decide whether there is a significant or insignificant relationship between NPLs and the profitability performance. From the analysis that has been done, it shows that financing to purchase residential property turned out as the largest contributor to non performing loans (NPLs). The test also indicates that there is a significant impact of NPLs to profitability performance for foreign banks whereas for local banks it depends on the individual bank. From the test also, it showed that there is no significant impact on loan recovery income towards profitability performance


With the ever-growing competition in telecommunications markets, operators have to increasingly rely on business intelligence to offer the right incentives to their customers. Existing approaches for telecom business intelligence have almost solely focused on the individual behavior of customers. In this paper, we use the call detail records of a mobile operator to construct call graphs, that is, graphs induced by people calling each other. We determine the structural properties of these graphs and also introduce the Treasure-Hunt model to describe the shape of mobile call graphs. Moreover, we determine how the structure of these call graphs evolve over time. Finally, since short messaging service (SMS) is becoming a preferred mode of communication among many sections of the society, we study the properties of the SMS graph. Our analysis indicates several interesting similarities and differences between the SMS graph and the corresponding call graph. We believe that our analysis techniques can allow telecom operators to better understand the social behavior of their customers and potentially provide major insights for designing effective incentives.


Complexity is integral to planning today. Everyone and everything seem to be interconnected, causality appears ambiguous, unintended consequences are ubiquitous, and information overload is a constant challenge. The nature of complexity, the consequences of it for society, and the ways in which one might confront it, understand it and deal with it in order to allow for the possibility of planning, are issues increasingly demanding analytical attention. One theoretical framework that can potentially assist planners in this regard is Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. This article uses insights from Luhmann's ideas to understand the nature of complexity and its reduction, thereby redefining issues in planning, and explores the ways in which management of these issues might be observed in actual planning practice via a reinterpreted case study of the People's Planning Campaign in Kerala, India. Overall, this reinterpretation leads to a different understanding of the scope of planning and planning practice, telling a story about complexity and systemic response. It allows the reinterpretation of otherwise familiar phenomena, both highlighting the empirical relevance of the theory and providing new and original insight into particular dynamics of the case study. This not only provides a greater understanding of the dynamics of complexity, but also produces advice to help planners implement structures and processes that can cope with complexity in practice.


The Nobel Peace Prize as a global media spectacle centered in Northern Europe is not without controversy. What we hope to accomplish in this essay is two fold: first, to advance the concept of "nourishing peace", which we define as a process that combines both negative peace and positive peace; and second, to use the theoretical framework woven from Turner's social drama, Conquergood's dialogical performance, and Appadurai's five scapes and global disjunctive flows to engage students in unpacking the Nobel Peace Prize critically, including the recent award of the prize to American President Barak Obama. Our critical analysis notes a few trends over the years of awarding Nobel Peace Prizes: awards framed traditionally from the point of negative peace often went to white men occupying positions of power in the West; and awards framed from the point of positive peace narrowly and nourishing peace broadly opened up more space for women and men of color and organizations that promoted human rights and well beings. The harbinger of this glaring elision in Nobel ideology is the missing Peace Laureate, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was nominated five times but never became a Laureate in his lifetime. Marking yet another trend, the recent award to President Obama was not for a "completed action", but rather for a future oriented nourishing peace, i.e., the publicly stated goal of nuclear disarmament and bringing about potentially a peaceful future. As teachers, we are encouraged to draw on Obama's "call to action" and use the Nobel Peace Prize as a means of inspiring obtainable local action, so that each "aha moment" in students' deep learning can become a turning point for critical consciousness and an impetus for meaningful peace activism both locally and globally.


Helen Newman had never entertained the idea of being a documentary filmmaker. But a personal encounter with a group of refugees in 2000 compelled the new mum to pick up a camera and capture those stories. Fourteen years later, the Albury Wodonga resident continues to gather heart-wrenching stories from around the globe to advocate for change. She spoke with ABC Goulburn Murray's morning program as part of Refugee Week about the stories she's shared and the policies she thinks must change.


Traditional culture of snakehead ( Channa striata (Bloch 1793) and Channa micropeltes, (Cuvier 1831), Channidae) in Vietnam have been based on capture of snakehead fingerlings from the wild and feeding them with chopped trash-fish also taken from the wild.. From August to October 2008, freshwater trash fish samples (3 kg composite samples) were collected from three fish distribution sites at Chau Doc, Thoai Son and Chau Thanh districts in An Giang province, in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The species composition was determined along with the size frequency, sources, and chemical composition of the freshwater trash-fish used for snakehead aquaculture. Thirty-three species of freshwater fish were identified in the freshwater trash-fish samples, 12 of which were juveniles of commercially important species. Marine trash-fish samples were also collected from the same distribution sites for analysis of chemical composition and product freshness. Chemical composition of freshwater trash-fish indicates their protein levels to be nutritionally adequate for snakehead aquaculture. Marine trash-fish showed high total volatile base nitrogen (TVB-N) values, compared to freshwater trash-fish, indicating that they are not fresh. The fish stocks of these freshwater trash-fish species should be assessed and the inland fishery should be managed properly, especially during the flood season.


The acute form of infectious bursal disease (IBD) is considered as an economically significant disease among the poultry diseases reported in Iran. It was first reported as being caused by very virulent IBD virus (IBDV) based on conventional methods. Infectious bursal disease outbreaks are still being reported frequently, in spite of vaccination and sanitation measures which are the routine practices for the control of IBD in the country. Since there was no report available on the molecular characteristics of IBDV based on segment A in Iran, which is necessary for the establishment of proper control measures, it was important to characterise the antigenic and virulent properties of the strains prevalent in Iran.

Infected bursa of Fabricius were collected from chicken obtained from an unvaccinated farm in Iran. The chickens showed clinical signs of depression, anorexia, ruffled feathers, trembling, whitish or watery diarrhea and mortality. Virus isolation was carried out in embryonated eggs and the isolated virus showed 96% mortality in 4 weeks-old specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens, which was typical of very virulent IBDV. The complete nucleotide sequences of segment A of the isolate, which code for the viral proteins (VPs), VP2, VP4, VP3, and VP5, was amplified by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction method, sequenced and compared with some published IBDV sequences. A total of 9 common amino acid substitutions, 3 at VP2, (222 Ala, 256 lIe and 294 lIe), 3 at VP4 (685 Asn/Ser, 715 Ser and 751 Asp), 2 at VP3 (990 Val and 1005 Ala) and 1 at VP5 (49 Arg) were found in the isolate as well as in other very virulent (vv) IBDV isolates. However, the Iranian isolate also demonstrated 8 unique amino acid substitutions of which 2 each were in VP2 and VP4, respectively, 3 in VP3 and 1 in VP5. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the Iran isolate was closely related to vvIBDV isolates from Asian countries, however, it likely shares a common origin as other vv strains isolated from other parts of the world.

The characterised IBDV isolate (designated as SDH1) was subjected to expression in prokaryotic system. The VP2 and VPX genes were expressed in Escherichia coli system as a fusion protein with six-histidine tag. Protein bands with the expected molecular weight of 48KD and 51KD were detected by direct protein staining and Western blotting. Since most of the neutralizing epitopes are located on VP2 and VPX, the expressed VPX protein was considered as a suitable candidate antigen for the development of a serological test. However, instead of using whole virion as an antigen, this study focused on the use of recombinant VPX as the antigen for the development of ELISA for the detection of IBDV specific antibody. The results showed that sera obtained from vaccinated broiler chickens reacted specifically using the developed ELISA, suggesting that the recombinant VPX protein is properly folded and expressed the neutralizing epitopes. In addition, when the developed ELISA technique was compared to a commercial ELISA kit from IDEXX, USA, which uses whole virus preparations as test antigen, it showed an excellent correlation value of R2=0.972.


An experimental study was completed to quantify heat transfer enhancement, pressure loss, and crossflow effect within a channel of inline impinging jets. The jet diameter is 5.08 mm; the jet-to-jet spacings in the streamwise and spanwise directions are fixed at x/d= 11.1 and y/d= 5.9, respectively. The effect of jet-to-target surface spacing was considered with z/d= 3 and 6. For both jet-to-target surface spacings, smooth, short pin-finned, and long pin-finned target surfaces were investigated. Both roughened surfaces have a staggered array of 120 copper pin-fins. The pin-to-jet diameter ratio is fixed at D/d= 0.94. The pin height-to-jet diameter ratio for the short and long pins are H1/d= 1.5 and H2/d= 2.75, respectively. Regionally averaged heat transfer coefficient distributions were measured on the target surface, and these distributions were coupled with pressure measurements through the array. The heat transfer augmentation and pressure penalty were investigated over a range of jet Reynolds numbers (10k - 70k). The results show high discharge coefficients for all the cases. The channels with the small jet-to-target surface spacing experience double the crossflow effect of the large spacing channels. The addition of surface roughness showed a negligible effect on the crossflow. The best heat transfer performance was observed in the narrow impingement channel with the long pins.


Quality construction of a quality design is one goal which Owners, Design Professionals, and Contractors can all agree is needed if the project is to be truly successful. The Engineering Laboratory's involvement is a key ingredient to achieving quality in construction, and should be considered an integral part of any project team. Achieving quality requires a coordinated team effort with the Design Professionals identifying and directing the effort and the Owners encouraging and supporting such a goal. The 'Independent Laboratories role is to enhance and support the Design Professionals in their task of maintaining quality on the project. The Owner must be willing to financially support a quality assurance program and place the Design Professional in charge of developing and implementing such a program. The facilities and experience of a professionally staffed laboratory makes a valuable contribution to any project on which 'quality' is the stated goal of the Owner and Engineer.


Deep Learning methods are known to suffer from calibration issues: they typically produce over-confident estimates. These problems are exacerbated in the low data regime. Although the calibration of probabilistic models is well studied, calibrating extremely over-parametrized models in the low-data regime presents unique challenges. We show that deep-ensembles do not necessarily lead to improved calibration properties. In fact, we show that standard ensembling methods, when used in conjunction with modern techniques such as mixup regularization, can lead to less calibrated models. In this text, we examine the interplay between three of the most simple and commonly used approaches to leverage deep learning when data is scarce: data-augmentation, ensembling, and post-processing calibration methods. We demonstrate that, although standard ensembling techniques certainly help to boost accuracy, the calibration of deep-ensembles relies on subtle trade-offs. Our main finding is that calibration methods such as temperature scaling need to be slightly tweaked when used with deep-ensembles and, crucially, need to be executed after the averaging process. Our simulations indicate that, in the low data regime, this simple strategy can halve the Expected Calibration Error (ECE) on a range of benchmark classification problems when compared to standard deep-ensembles.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of our study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of sonographically guided core needle biopsy for breast masses by evaluating the outcomes of benign biopsies that had at least a 2-year follow-up.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this retrospective study, we included a total of 2,420 lesions from 2,198 women who had undergone sonographically guided 14-gauge core needle biopsy. For evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of this procedure, the pathologic results were reviewed and correlated with rebiopsy or long-term imaging follow-up. Agreement rate, high-risk underestimate rate, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) underestimate rate, and false-negative rate were assessed. The false-negative diagnoses of core needle biopsy were reviewed in detail.

RESULTS
The pathologic results for the core needle biopsies were malignant in 52%, high-risk in 4%, and benign in 44%. The agreement rate was 96% (2,328 of 2,420). The underestimate rate was 29% (36 of 126) for DCIS and 27% (25 of 93) for high-risk (52% for 27 atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH), 17% for 66 non-ADH). Of 1,071 benign lesions, malignancy was found at rebiopsy in 31 lesions (25 immediate and six delayed false-negative diagnoses), and the false-negative rate was 2.4% (31 of 1,312). The frequency of malignancy in lesions that had rebiopsy because of suspicious imaging findings (19.1%, 26 of 136) was significantly higher than that because of suspicious physical findings or request by patient or physician (0.9%, five of 584).

CONCLUSION
Sonographically guided 14-gauge core needle biopsy is an accurate method for evaluating breast masses. Imaging-pathologic correlation and follow-up of benign biopsy are essential for a successful breast biopsy program.


The ability of dealginated seaweed, a waste material derived from the commercial processing of seaweed for alginate production, to remove cadmium, lead, nickel, copper, chromium, silver, aluminium and gold from solution was determined. Metal sorption was found to be rapid (90% removal within 5 minutes), achieving a residual concentration of 0.9 mg L[-1] after 1 h contact time from an initial solution concentration of 10 mg L[-1]. The binding of metal by dealginate was found to be pH dependent, optimal sorption occurring at around pH 6-8 for cadmium, lead, nickel, copper and chromium and pH 3-4 for aluminium and gold respectively, suggesting an ion exchange mechanism. Determination of a molar ratio in the displacement of calcium by cadmium on dealginate supported the presence of an ion-exchange relationship, since the displacement of approximately 1 mol of calcium by 1 mol of cadmium was observed.The sorption data was best fitted in the ion exchange approximation as opposed to the Langmuir model. The binding capacities were found to be 1.2, 0.5, 1.6, 0.8, 1.2, 0.4, 0.9 and 0.4 mmol g-1 for cadmium, lead, nickel, copper, chromium, silver, aluminium and gold respectively. The ion exchange constants were calculated to be 3.3 x 10[-6], 4.1 x 10[-6], 6.2 x 10[-6], 1.8 x 10[-6], 2.3 x 10[-6], 2.4 x 10[-7],8 x 10[-10] for cadmium, lead, nickel, copper, chromium, silver and aluminium. The values of the capacities and ion exchange constants showed affinity of the biosorbent to specific metals. The identification of the binding sites on the surface of dealginated seaweed was investigated by a number of techniques. Potentiometric titration revealed three distinct pKa values, the first having a similar value to carboxyl groups, the second being comparable with that of saturated thiols and amines and the third similar to sulphonate groups. Esterification of the dealginate resulted in the subsequent reduction in metal sorption, indicating that carboxyl groups are largely responsible for sorption except in the case of aluminium and gold, where 40-60% of the metal remained in solution after modification of the surface. Evidence of the FT-IR spectra confirmed the presence of carboxyl groups in untreated dealginate, while the number of carboxyl groups was markedly reduced in the esterified sample.The occurrence of other mechanisms apart from ion exchange was suggested by the FT-IR spectrum for aluminium and gold. ESEM images of the surface of dealginated seaweed showed the algae cell structure still present in large areas. X-ray maps revealed the presence of silver, aluminium and gold associated with sulphur atoms on the dealginate surface. EXAFS results showed that cadmium, lead, copper and silver were bound to the dealginate through oxygen atoms, possibly from carboxylate groups. Evidence of gold reduction from Au (III) to Au(l) and Au(O) was also confirmed by the bond distance calculated for this metal.Methods for the on-line preconcentration of cadmium, chromium, copper and lead and chemical speciation of Cr[3+] and CrO[4][2-] using a microcolumn packed with dealginated seaweed were developed. Effective column capacities were 4.0, 8.7, 9.4 and 8.5 mumol L[-1] for cadmium, chromium, copper and lead, respectively. The application of the method was extended to the determination of zinc, cobalt, mercury, scandium, strontium, vanadium, arsenic, selenium, manganese and antimony. The analytical procedures developed for metal preconcentration and chromium speciation were validated by analyses of two Lake Ontario reference materials, TMDA 51.2 and TMDA 54.2 and a synthetic seawater sample. The findings of this study demonstrated that the sorption of metal by dealginate is mainly due to an ion-exchange mechanism. The binding capacities of the biosorbent for the elements studied were adequate for trace analysis and the use of dealginate was shown to be a cheaper alternative to synthetic resins.


Power scaling of fiber laser systems requires the development of innovative active fibers, capable of providing high pump absorption, ultralarge effective area, high-order mode suppression, and resilience to thermal effects. Thermally induced refractive index change has been recently appointed as one major limitation to the achievable power, causing degradation of the modal properties and preventing to obtain stable diffraction-limited output beam. In this paper, the effects of thermally induced refractive index change on the guiding properties of a double-cladding distributed modal filtering rod-type photonic crystal fiber, which exploits resonant coupling with high-index elements to suppress high-order modes, are thoroughly investigated. A computationally efficient model has been developed to calculate the refractive index change due to the thermo-optical effect, and it has been integrated into a full-vector modal solver based on the finite-element method to obtain the guided modes, considering different heating conditions. Results have shown that the single-mode regime of the distributed modal filtering fiber is less sensitive to thermal effects with respect to index-guiding fibers with the same effective area. In fact, as the pump power is increased, their single-mode regime is preserved, being only blue-shifted in wavelength.


The eleventh- or twelfth-century parchment codex 170/347 is one of the rarities archived in the UCLA Young Research Library Special Collections. It has much to offer to a student of paleography: illuminations, a scribe's colophon, calligraphic minuscule script, later inscriptions and modifications, inserted paper quires, missing folia, study notes, and even a cryptographic table. One of the most fascinating aspects of this New-Testament-turned-lectionary manuscript, however, is its history as a world traveler, for the most part incognito. Although the manuscript's mysterious disappearance from St. Catherine's metochion in Cairo obscured its trajectory, the analysis of its graffiti and the comparison of catalogues' data help reestablish its provenance and narrate its journey beyond the walls of a monastic scriptorium. The resulting travelogue not only tells the story of how Sinai-born MS 170/347 landed in Los Angeles; it offers insight into the fate that befell many other rare books in the height of the nineteenth-century collecting and scholarship rush.


In the late 1980s, the concept of embedded autonomy became central to the literature of economic development in East Asia. Rapid economic growth in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan was attributed to the state role in development (Johnson 1982, Wade 1990, Evans 1985). The state embedded itself in the social networks of the entrepreneurs. This model of the developmental state credit that the success in East Asia to the state's structure and role in prioritizing the achievement of rapid economic development as a national goal, exerting control over private capital, and acquiring a strong administrative bureaucracy that was built on merit and protected from political influence (Polidano 1998, Wade 1992, Evans et al 1985, Henderson and Appelbaum 1992). In the original formulation of the concept of embedded autonomy, the state embeds itself in the surrounding social networks and directs it to facilitate industrial transformation and thus, boost its economy. On the other extreme, the Egyptian case provides a contrary example to the Evans model when in the mid-1980s as a new phenomenon emerged where businessmen attempted to embed themselves within the state administration.


At a time when events are overtaking many publications, these articles selected from International Security provide up-to-date and comprehensive analyses of American national security strategy in the post-Cold War world. Addressing future U.S. relations with its Cold War allies as well as with its former foes, contributions take up such major issues as overall strategic options, security in the new Europe, relations with the former Soviet Union, U.S.-Japan relations, and threats in the Third World, particularly proliferation. Essays in the first section examine the broad options that the United States has now that it no longer confronts a Soviet threat. They discuss such questions as what threats the United States now confronts, what values and interests it should pursue, whether it should play a diminished role in world politics, and what lessons can be drawn from the past. Essays in the second section look at important dimensions of U.S. strategy, including assuring security in Europe, relations with the former Soviet Union, and U.S. interests in the Third World. With its explicit focus on what course the United States should pursue in the post-Cold War world, America's Strategy in a Changing World serves as a companion volume to The Cold War and After, which drew on important theories in international relations to explain and predict the pattern of world politics.


ABSTRACT The genetic basis for biosynthesis of the (α1→4)-linked N-acetyl-d-glucosamine 1-phosphate capsule of Neisseria meningitidis serogroup X was defined. The biosynthesis gene cassette was a ∼4.2-kb region located between ctrA of the capsule transport operon and galE, which encodes the UDP-glucose-4-epimerase. This location was identical to the locations of the biosynthesis cassettes in other meningococcal serogroups. Three open reading frames unique to meningococcus serogroup X were identified. Deletion-insertion mutation and colony immunoblotting confirmed that these three genes were essential for serogroup X capsule expression, and the genes were designated xcbA, xcbB, and xcbC (serogroup Xcapsule biosynthesis). Reverse transcriptase PCR indicated that the xcbABC genes form an operon and are cotranscribed divergently from ctrA. XcbA exhibited 52% amino acid similarity to SacB, the putative capsule polymerase of meningococcus serogroup A, suggesting that it plays a role as the serogroup X capsule polymerase. An IS1016 element was found within the intergenic region separating ctrA and xcbA in multiple strains, and this element did not interfere with capsule expression.


This paper focuses on the effects of political-culture in shaping the lack of political-economic liberalization in Belarus since 1991. Specifically, this paper will elucidate the intricate interplay between historically rooted cultural worldviews, ways of life and historical memories, to explain how the historical roots of Orthodox Christianity had a central influence on the patterns of political-economic development chosen by Belarus, even long after these religious-cultural values had been secularized and taken for granted. In doing so, this paper will help understand why Belarus chose to pursue such an illiberal and authoritarian orientation, and help explain the longevity of President Lukashenko.


Fast neutron intensity influence on reactor materials radiation damage is a critically important question in the
problem of the correct use of the accelerated irradiation tests data for substantiation of the materials workability in
real irradiation conditions that is low neutron intensity. Investigations of the fast neutron intensity (flux) influence on
radiation damage and experimental data scattering reveal the existence of non-monotonous sections in kinetics of
the reactor pressure vessels (RPV) steel damage. Discovery of the oscillations as indicator of the self-organization
processes presence give reasons for new ways searching on reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steel radiation stability
increasing and attempt of the self-restoring metal elaboration. Revealing of the wavelike process in the form of non
monotonous parts of the kinetics of radiation embrittlement testifies that periodic transformation of the structure
take place. This fact actualizes the problem of more precise definition of the RPV materials radiation embrittlement
mechanisms and gives reasons for search of the ways to manage the radiation stability (nanostructuring and so on to
stimulate the radiation defects annihilation), development of the means for creating of more stableness self recovering
smart materials.


Analyses of long-term experimental data from the Chihuahuan desert revealed that species diversity of other rodents was higher on plots from which kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spp.) had been removed. The difference was due to consistently higher colonization and lower extinction probabilities of small granivorous rodents in the absence of competitively dominant kangaroo rats. The results of this ecosystem experiment demonstrate the importance of both competitive exclusion and metapopulation dynamics for biological diversity in a natural community.


The future of the European Union has never been more in doubt than at the very moment it has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its historical accomplishments.

When the heads of Europe's weakest institutions—the Commission, the Council and the Parliament—collected the prize in Oslo on December 10, 2012 they spotlighted the nub of the problem. Unless these institutions can garner the legitimacy of European citizens and transform into a real federal union with common fiscal and economic policies to complement the single currency, Europe will remain at the mercy of global financial markets and the fiscally authoritarian dictates of its strongest state, Germany.

Moving beyond this state of affairs was the focus of a recent "town hall" gathering in Berlin sponsored by the Berggruen Institute on Governance. The meeting brought together current power brokers—such as the contending voices of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble and French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, who rarely appear in public together—as well as Europe's top former leaders, key thinkers and young people who will govern in the future.

The peace-building project of the European Union was born out of the ashes of World War II and the anguish of the Cold War. Yet, as George Soros points out, its current inability to resolve the eurocrisis by forging greater union is dividing Europe once again, this time between creditors and debtors. Former Greek premier George Papandreou has warned that this division is fomenting a new politics of fear that is giving rise to the same kind of xenophobic movements that fueled the extreme politics of the Nazi era.

To avoid a repeat of the last calamitous century, Europe first of all needs a growth strategy both to escape the "debt trap" it is in—and which austerity alone will only deepen—and to create breathing space for the tough structural reforms that can make Europe as a whole competitive again in a globalized world. To sustain reform, it needs a clear path to legitimacy for the institutions that must govern a federal Europe.

The proof that Europe can escape its crisis through a combination of growth, fiscal discipline and structural reform comes from the one country so many want to keep out of the union: Turkey.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rightfully boasts of Turkey's accomplishments that resulted from the difficult changes carried out after its crisis in 2001—ranging from quickly cleaning up the banks to liberalizing markets to trimming social benefits to make them more affordable in the long run. As a result, Turkey today is the fastest growing economy in the world alongside China with diminished deficit and debt levels that meet the eurozone criteria that many members states themselves cannot today meet. Turkey has even offered a 5 billion euro credit through the IMF for financial aid to Europe.

Germany itself also provides some lessons for the rest of Europe. The obvious reason Germany rules today is because it is the most globally competitive country in the European Union. That is the result of a series of reforms that were implemented starting in 2003 under the leadership of then-chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

Aimed a bolstering Germany's industrial base and its collateral small and medium enterprises which are the foundation of its middle class society, those reforms introduced more labor flexibility and trimmed benefits to make them sustainably affordable while investing in training, maintaining skills and research and development.

Even if Europe's individual nation states can shrink imbalances by following Turkey and Germany in getting their act together, the only ultimate way to save the euro, and thus Europe itself, is to build the complementary governing institutions at the European level. For those institutions to become effective, they must be empowered and legitimated by European citizens themselves. To this end, Tony Blair has suggested a bold move: the direct election of a European president.

Symbolically, the Oslo ceremonies were a historical turning point for Europe. By recognizing the European Union's peace-making past, the Nobel Prize challenged Europe to escape once and for all the destructive pull of narrow national interests and passions.


This book provides a thorough examination and analysis of cutting-edge research and security solutions in wireless and mobile networks._ It begins with coverage of the basic security concepts and fundamentals which underpin and provide the knowledge necessary for understanding and evaluating security issues, challenges, and solutions. This material will be of invaluable use to all those working in the network security field, and especially to the many people entering the field._ The next area of focus is on the security issues and available solutions associated with off-the-shelf wireless and mobile technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi, WiMax, 2G, and 3G._ There is coverage of the security techniques used to protect applications downloaded by mobile terminals through mobile cellular networks, and finally the book addresses security issues and solutions in emerging wireless and mobile technologies such as ad hoc and sensor networks, cellular 4G and IMS networks


This chapter investigates the amount of variability in individual turnout decisions over time and its dependence on the changing characteristics of political parties as one feature of the political context. Electoral participation in the German federal elections from 1994 to 2013 was characterized by inertia for most eligible voters. However, one reason for dynamics in turnout behavior is changes in individual alienation with regard to the political parties. When voters develop a more favorable view of the political parties than in the previous election in terms of the parties' generalized evaluation or perceived competence, then they are motivated to switch from abstention to voting (and vice versa). But the political parties' capacity to raise turnout rates is rather narrow compared to the influence of other determinants, such as the perceived duty to vote.


Bipolar spindle assembly occurs in the absence of centrosomes in the oocytes of most organisms. In the absence of centrosomes in Drosophila oocytes, we have proposed that the kinesin 6 Subito, a MKLP-2 homolog, is required for establishing spindle bipolarity and chromosome biorientation by assembling a robust central spindle during prometaphase I. Although the functions of the conserved motor domains of kinesins is well studied, less is known about the contribution of the poorly conserved N- and C- terminal domains to motor function. In this study, we have investigated the contribution of these domains to kinesin 6 functions in meiosis and early embryonic development. We found that the N-terminal domain has antagonistic elements that regulate localization of the motor to microtubules. Other parts of the N- and C-terminal domains are not required for microtubule localization but are required for motor function. Some of these elements of Subito are more important for either mitosis or meiosis, as revealed by separation-of-function mutants. One of the functions for both the N- and C-terminals domains is to restrict the CPC to the central spindle in a ring around the chromosomes. We also provide evidence that CDK1 phosphorylation of Subito regulates its activity associated with homolog bi-orientation. These results suggest the N- and C-terminal domains of Subito, while not required for localization to the central spindle microtubules, have important roles regulating Subito, by interacting with other spindle proteins and promoting activities such as bipolar spindle formation and homologous chromosome bi-orientation during meiosis.


Objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different controlled release fertilizer technologies on nutrient leaching and plant growth parameters of two palm species, Chinese Fan (Livistona chinensis) and Queen (Syagrus romanzoffiana). We compared Nutri-Pak (12-4-12 controlled release packet) and Harrell's (12-4-12 controlled release polymer coated urea) against Atlantic (8-4-12 controlled release polymer coated urea, coated sulfate of potash), the most commonly used palm fertilizer in South Florida. Plants were grown in 25 cm (11 L) pots under 70% shade, watered weekly, with pest and weed control done as required. Plant growth parameters: number of leaves, leaf length and width, and basal diameter, were measured every two months. Leachate was collected weekly after irrigation and a two-month composite sample was analyzed for nutrient concentrations. There was no difference in the growth parameters among the three fertilizers for Chinese Fan plants. However for Queen, Atlantic and Harrell's had significantly thicker basal diameter than Nutri-Pak. Significant difference in the concentration of nutrients in the leachate was observed among the fertilizer types. Throughout the study period, Nutri-Pak had a lower concentration of nutrients in the leachate than Atlantic and Harrell's. Our research indicates that Nutri-Pak control release fertilizer is comparable to other commercial fertilizers in Chinese Fan growth, but the larger Queen palms likely require an additional packet. Nutri-Pak fertilizer resulted in less nutrient leaching and could be a better environmental choice.


BACKGROUND
There is limited information on perinatal outcomes in HIV-hepatitis B virus (HBV) coinfection.

METHODS
HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 046 was a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial of perinatal transmission that evaluated 6 months of infant nevirapine versus placebo among breast-fed infants. Women living with HIV and their infants enrolled in sub-Saharan Africa from 2007 to 2010; 78% received antiretroviral therapy (ART). Maternal samples were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). High and low HBV viral load (VL) was defined as ≥10 IU/mL and <10 IU/mL. The association between HIV-HBV coinfection and maternal and infant outcomes was assessed using multivariate (MV) logistic and Cox regression.

RESULTS
Among 2025 women, 88 (4.3%) had HBV. HIV-HBV women with high HBV VL had lower median CD4, versus HIV alone or HIV-HBV women with low HBV VL [320, 490 and 434 cells/mm, respectively (P < 0.007)]. In MV analysis, adjusted for maternal CD4, age and maternal ART, infants born to women with high HBV VL were more likely to be low birth weight (LBW), versus HIV+/HBV- and low HBV VL women: [30% (3/10) vs. 10% (194/1953) vs. 6% (5/78), respectively, P = 0.03). High HBV VL was associated with HIV perinatal transmission [(hazard ratio 6.75 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.86 - 24.50)]. There was no impact on infant mortality or maternal outcomes at 18 months.

CONCLUSIONS
In HIV-HBV women, high HBV viral loads increase the risk of LBW and potentially HIV perinatal transmission. Reduction of antepartum HBV viremia may have beneficial effects beyond the prevention of HBV perinatal transmission.


A sinister and chilling ghost story from the author of The Fetch of Mardy Watt and Calypso Dreaming. When Ossian reluctantly returns to Lychfont House - a country house with pretensions to match - with his artist father, he finds things bizarrely familiar and yet oddly different. Reacquainting himself with the Frazer family, he finds himself questioning the accuracy of certain childhood memories and wondering why the place seems to hold such power over him. One thing he IS sure of, however: the ghosts are still haunting him. While Ossian puzzles over his existence, an ancient goddess searches for her lost love. She must call in the Scryer to track him down wherever he may be, for the wedding must go ahead. After all, she and Ossian were made for each other...A timeslip ghost story that will chill readers to the bone.


Fluid navigation requires constant updating of planned movements to adapt to evolving obstacles and goals. A neural substrate for navigation demands spatial and environmental information and the ability to effect actions through efferents. Secondary motor cortex is a prime candidate for this role given its interconnectivity with association cortices that encode spatial relationships and its projection to primary motor cortex. Here we report that secondary motor cortex neurons robustly encode both planned and current left/right turning actions across multiple turn locations in a multi-route navigational task. Comparisons within a common statistical framework reveal that secondary motor cortex neurons differentiate contextual factors including environmental position, route, action sequence, orientation, and choice availability. Despite significant modulation by context, action planning and execution is the dominant output signal of secondary motor cortex neurons. These results identify secondary motor cortex as a structure integrating environmental context toward the updating of planned movements.


Soil water potential is crucial to plant transpiration and thus to carbon cycling and biosphere–atmosphere interactions, yet it is difficult to measure in the field. Volumetric and gravimetric water contents are easy and cheap to measure in the field, but can be a poor proxy of plant-available water. Soil water content can be transformed to water potential using soil moisture retention curves. We provide empirically derived soil moisture retention curves for seven soil types in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Site-specific curves produced excellent estimates of soil water potential from soil water content values. Curves from soils derived from the same geological substrate were similar, potentially allowing for the use of one curve for basalt soils and another for granite soils. It is anticipated that this dataset will help hydrologists and ecophysiologists understand water dynamics, carbon cycling and biosphere–atmosphere interactions under current and changing climatic conditions in the region.


Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 ASCA-Liman Nationwide Survey of Time-in-Cell is the fourth in a series of research projects co-authored by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) and the Arthur Liman Center at Yale Law School. These monographs provide a unique, longitudinal, nationwide database. The topic is "restrictive housing," often termed "solitary confinement," and defined as separating prisoners from the general population and holding them in cells for an average of 22 hours or more per day for 15 continuous days or more.

The 2018 monograph is based on survey responses from 43 prison systems that held 80.6% of the U.S. prison population. They reported that 49,197 individuals—4.5% of the people in their custody—were in restrictive housing. Extrapolating, we estimate that some 61,000 individuals were in isolation in U.S. prisons. This number does not include people in most jails or juvenile, military, or immigration facilities.

Two areas of special concern are the impact of mental illness and the length of time individuals spend in restrictive housing. Correctional systems use a variety of definitions for serious mental illness. Using their own descriptions, jurisdictions counted more than 4,000 prisoners identified as seriously mentally ill and in restrictive housing. Within the 36 jurisdictions that reported on the length of time people had been in segregation, most people were held for a year or less. Twenty-five jurisdictions counted more than 3,500 individuals held more than three years.

Reforming Restrictive Housing details policy changes tracking the impact of the 2016 American Correctional Association's (ACA) Restrictive Housing Performance Based Standards. The ACA Standards call for limiting the use of isolation for pregnant women, juveniles, and seriously mentally ill individuals.

This monograph also compares the responses of the 40 prison systems that answered the ASCA-Liman surveys in both 2015 and 2017. See ASCA-Liman, Aiming to Reduce Time-in-Cell (Nov. 2016), SSRN No. 2874492. The number in restrictive housing was reported to have decreased from 56,000 in 2015 to 47,000 in 2017. Looking at specific states, in more than two dozen systems, the numbers in segregation decreased. In 11 systems, the numbers went up.

A related monograph, Working to Limit Restrictive Housing: Efforts in Four Jurisdictions to Make Changes, details the work of four correctional administrations to limit—and in one state abolish—holding people in cells 22 hours a day for 15 days or more.


Accumulated evidence demonstrates the centrality of social psychology to the behavior of members of the public as immediate responders in emergencies. Such public behavior is a function of social psychological processes—in particular identities and norms. In addition, what the authorities and relevant professional groups assume about the social psychology of people in emergencies shapes policy and practice in preparedness, response, and recovery. These assumptions therefore have consequences for the public's ability to act as immediate responders. In this Policy and Practice Review, we will do three things. First, we will overview research on the behavior of survivors of emergencies and disasters, drawing out key factors known to explain the extent to which survivors cooperate in these events and contribute to safe collective outcomes. We will demonstrate the utility of the social identity approach as an overarching framework for explaining the major mechanisms of collective supportive behavior among survivors in emergencies. Second, we will critically review recent and current UK government agency guidance on emergency response, focusing particularly on what is stated about the role of survivors in emergencies and disasters. This review will suggest that the "community resilience" agenda has only been partly realized in practice, but that the social identity approach is progressing this. Third, we will derive from the research literature and from dialogue with groups involved in emergencies a set of 12 recommendations for both emergency managers and members of the public affected by emergencies and disasters. These focus on the crucial need to build shared identity and to communicate, and the connection between these two aims. Including our recommendations within emergency guidance and training will facilitate collective psychosocial resilience, which refers to the way a shared identity allows groups of survivors to express and expect solidarity and cohesion, and thereby to coordinate and draw upon collective sources of support. In sum, this evidence-base and the recommendations we derive from it will help professionals involved in emergency management to support public resilient behaviors and will help the public to develop and maintain their own capacity for such resilience.


Purpose

The post-illumination pupil response (PIPR) has been quantified in the literature by four metrics. The spectral sensitivity of only one metric is known and this study quantifies the other three. To optimize the measurement of the PIPR in humans, we also determine the stimulus protocol producing the largest PIPR, the duration of the PIPR, and the metric(s) with the lowest coefficient of variation.

Methods

The consensual pupil light reflex (PLR) was measured with a Maxwellian view pupillometer (35.6° diameter stimulus). - Experiment 1: Spectral sensitivity of four PIPR metrics [plateau, 6 s, area under curve (AUC) early and late recovery] was determined from a criterion PIPR (n = 2 participants) to a 1 s pulse at five wavelengths (409-592nm) and fitted with Vitamin A nomogram (ƛmax = 482 nm). - Experiment 2: The PLR was measured in five healthy participants [29 to 42 years (mean = 32.6 years)] as a function of three stimulus durations (1 s, 10 s, 30 s), five irradiances spanning low to high melanopsin excitation levels (retinal irradiance: 9.8 to 14.8 log quanta.cm-2.s-1), and two wavelengths, one with high (465 nm) and one with low (637 nm) melanopsin excitation. Intra and inter-individual coefficients of variation (CV) were calculated.

Results

The melanopsin (opn4) photopigment nomogram adequately described the spectral sensitivity derived from all four PIPR metrics. The largest PIPR amplitude was observed with 1 s short wavelength pulses (retinal irradiance ≥ 12.8 log quanta.cm-2.s-1). Of the 4 PIPR metrics, the plateau and 6 s PIPR showed the least intra and inter-individual CV (≤ 0.2). The maximum duration of the sustained PIPR was 83.4 ± 48.0 s (mean ± SD) for 1 s pulses and 180.1 ± 106.2 s for 30 s pulses (465 nm; 14.8 log quanta.cm-2.s-1).

Conclusions

All current PIPR metrics provide a direct measure of intrinsic melanopsin retinal ganglion cell function. To measure progressive changes in melanopsin function in disease, we recommend that the intrinsic melanopsin response should be measured using a 1 s pulse with high melanopsin excitation and the PIPR should be analyzed with the plateau and/or 6 s metrics. That the PIPR can have a sustained constriction for as long as 3 minutes, our PIPR duration data provide a baseline for the selection of inter-stimulus intervals between consecutive pupil testing sequences.


Canopy-forming seaweeds, as primary producers and foundation species, provide key ecological services. Their responses to multiple stressors associated with climate change could therefore have important knock-on effects on the functioning of coastal ecosystems. We examined interactive effects of UVB radiation and warming on juveniles of three habitat-forming subtidal seaweeds from Western Australia–Ecklonia radiata, Scytothalia dorycarpa and Sargassum sp. Fronds were incubated for 14 days at 16–30°C with or without UVB radiation and growth, health status, photosynthetic performance, and light absorbance measured. Furthermore, we used empirical models from the metabolic theory of ecology to evaluate the sensitivity of these important seaweeds to ocean warming. Results indicated that responses to UVB and warming were species specific, with Sargassum showing highest tolerance to a broad range of temperatures. Scytothalia was most sensitive to elevated temperature based on the reduced maximum quantum yields of PSII; however, Ecklonia was most sensitive, according to the comparison of activation energy calculated from Arrhenius' model. UVB radiation caused reduction in the growth, physiological responses and thallus health in all three species. Our findings indicate that Scytothalia was capable of acclimating in response to UVB and increasing its light absorption efficiency in the UV bands, probably by up-regulating synthesis of photoprotective compounds. The other two species did not acclimate over the two weeks of exposure to UVB. Overall, UVB and warming would severely inhibit the growth and photosynthesis of these canopy-forming seaweeds and decrease their coverage. Differences in the sensitivity and acclimation of major seaweed species to temperature and UVB may alter the balance between species in future seaweed communities under climate change.


Results from different tsunami forecasting and hazard assessment mod- els are compared with observed tsunami wave heights from the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Forecast models are based on initial earthquake information and are used to estimate tsunami wave heights during propagation. An empirical forecast relationship based only on seismic moment provides a close estimate to the observed mean regional and maximum local tsunami runup heights for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami but underestimates mean regional tsunami heights at azimuths in line with the tsunami beaming pattern (e.g., Sri Lanka, Thailand). Standard forecast models developed from subfault discretization of earthquake rupture, in which deep- ocean sea level observations are used to constrain slip, are also tested. Forecast models of this type use tsunami time-series measurements at points in the deep ocean. As a proxy for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a transect of deep-ocean tsunami amplitudes recorded by satellite altimetry is used to constrain slip along four subfaults of the M 9 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake. This proxy model performs well in comparison to observed tsunami wave heights, travel times, and inundation patterns at Banda Aceh. Hypothetical tsunami hazard assessments models based on end- member estimates for average slip and rupture length (M w 9.0-9.3) are compared with tsunami observations. Using average slip (low end member) and rupture length (high end member) (M w 9.14) consistent with many seismic, geodetic, and tsunami inversions adequately estimates tsunami runup in most regions, except the extreme runup in the western Aceh province. The high slip that occurred in the southern part of the rupture zone linked to runup in this location is a larger fluctuation than expected from standard stochastic slip models. In addition, excess moment release (9%) deduced from geodetic studies in comparison to seismic moment estimates may gen- erate additional tsunami energy, if the exponential time constant of slip is less than approximately 1 hr. Overall, there is significant variation in assessed runup heights caused by quantifiable uncertainty in both first-order source parameters (e.g., rupture length, slip-length scaling) and spatiotemporal complexity of earthquake rupture.


Aeration experiments were conducted in different sized baffled and unbaffled circular surface aeration tanks to study their relative performance on oxygen transfer process while aerating the same volume of water. Experiments were carried out with the objective of ascertaining the effect of baffle on oxygen transfer coefficient k. Simulation equations govern the oxygen transfer coefficient with the theoretical power per unit volume, X and actual power per unit volume, P-V. It has been found that, for any given X, circular tanks with baffle produce higher values of k than unbaffled circular tanks, but in terms of actual power consumption unbaffled tanks consume less power when compared to baffled circular tanks to achieve the same value of k. It has been found that in terms of energy consumption, epsilon, baffled tanks consume more energy than unbaffled tanks at any value of X. This suggests that the unbaffled circular tank gives a better performance as far as energy consumption is concerned and hence better economy. An example illustrating the energy conservation to aerate the same volume of water in both types of aerators is given. (c) 2007 Society of Chemical Industry.


Recent corporate governance scandals have brought to the fore the inherent contradictions of a capitalism dominated by financial markets. This challenging book by Michel Aglietta and Antoine Reberioux argues that capitalism's basic premise – that companies must be managed in the sole interest of their shareholders – is incongruent with the current environment of liquid markets, profit-hungry investors and chronic financial instability. The authors advocate rather that a company should be managed as an institution where common objectives are developed for all stakeholders, and that this democratic principle should be extended to the management of collective savings to reduce macro-financial instability. These two conditions, they contend, could make contemporary capitalism a vehicle for social progress.


The problem of 3D chromosome structure inference from Hi-C datasets is important and challenging. While bulk Hi-C datasets contain contact information derived from millions of cells, and can capture major structural features shared by the majority of cells in the sample, they do not provide information about local variability between cells. Single cell Hi-C can overcome this problem, but contact matrices are generally very sparse, making structural inference more problematic. We have developed a Bayesian multiscale approach, named SIMBA3D, to infer 3D structures of chromosomes from single cell Hi-C while including the bulk Hi-C data and some regularization terms as a prior. We study the landscape of solutions for each single-cell Hi-C dataset as a function of prior strength and demonstrate clustering of solutions using data from the same cell.


Healthcare, a vital industry that touches most of us in our lives, faces major challenges in demographics, technology, and finance. Longer life expectancy and an aging population, technological advancements that keep people younger and healthier, and financial issues are a constant strain on healthcare organizations' resources and management. Focusing on the organization's ability to improve access, quality, and value of care to the patient may present possible solutions to these challenges.""The Encyclopedia of Healthcare Information Systems"" provides an extensive and rich compilation of international research, discussing the use, adoption, design, and diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) in healthcare, including the role of ICTs in the future of healthcare delivery; access, quality, and value of healthcare; nature and evaluation of medical technologies; ethics and social implications; and medical information management.


Excerpt] The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that all aliens (i.e., persons who are not citizens or nationals of the United States) must enter pursuant to the INA. The major categories of aliens are immigrants, refugees and asylees (all admitted for or adjusted to legal permanent residence), and nonimmigrants (admitted for temporary reasons, e.g., students, tourists, or business travelers). Foreign nationals who lack proper immigration authorization are generally of three kinds: (1) those who overstay their nonimmigrant visas, (2) those who enter the country surreptitiously without inspection, and (3) those who are admitted on the basis of fraudulent documents. In all three instances, the aliens are in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and subject to removal. As a signatory to the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter, U.N. Protocol), the United States agrees to the principle of nonrefoulement, which means that it will not return an alien to a country where his life or freedom would be threatened. Nonrefoulement is embodied in several provisions of U.S. immigration law. Most notably, it is reflected in the provisions requiring the government to withhold the removal of aliens to a country in which the alien's life or freedom would be threatened on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.


Extracted from text ... EMPLOYERS' OBLIGATIONS
4 December 2006 Moneyweb's TAX BREAKS
Help for employers in the tax
and labour arenas - Part II
FOLLOWING Werksmans' article
in our last issue, which provided
employers with a wealth of information
on their tax and labour law
obligations, here is the second part
of the series by Doelie Lessing
(tax), Anastasia Vatalidis (labour)
and Bradley Workman-Davies
(labour) of Werksmans Attorneys.
Last month they covered the
obligations of employers in respect
of employees and independent contractors,
and this month the writers
focus on companies, close corporations,
trusts and labour brokers.
COMPANIES, CCs & TRUSTS
EMPLOYER'S TAX
OBLIGATIONS ..


We have studied the stability of protein factors which control the intracellular levels of human MHC class II genes in B cells. We report that human MHC class II gene transcription and mRNA stability require the synthesis of short-lived proteins which undergo rapid intracellular turnover. We found, in fact, that the amount of MHC class II mRNA produced by human B lymphoma or B lymphoblastoid cell lines abruptly decreased upon cultivation of cells in the presence of cycloheximide, a potent inhibitor of protein synthesis. Measurements of the rate of mRNA transcription in nuclei isolated from treated cells indicated that a cycloheximide-sensitive activator protein is needed to allow MHC class II mRNA transcription initiation. Likewise, comparison of mRNA turnover rate in cells treated with actinomycin D, an inhibitor of RNA synthesis, and in cycloheximide-treated cells shows that a post-transcriptional factor is required to stabilized human MHC class II mRNA by a factor of 8- to 10-fold in B cells. These results indicate that, along with the trans- and cis-acting factors required for transcriptional control, a series of signals must exist in B cells which implement a post-transcriptional level of regulation of MHC class II gene expression in B cells.


1. The relationship between volumes expired and the maximum intrathoracic pressures developed within the first second of expiration was examined in a group of healthy subjects and patients with airways obstruction who exhaled with varying degrees of effort. 2. The body plethysmographic method was used to ensure that expirations started from total lung capacity. 3. Three different types of volume-effort curves could be distinguished: Type I; in this the volume expired increased with greater effort. Type II; after a phase in which the volume expired increased with effort, a plateau was reached after which increasing effort made no difference to the volume expired. Type III; this resembles Type II except that instead of a plateau being established at maximum expired volume, increasing effort resulted in diminishing expired volume. Correction for the degree of compression of the intrathoracic gas failed to account for this phenomenon. Type III curves were found in healthy subjects as well as in patients. 4. In most cases the maximum Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 s (FEV 1 ) was not found to coincide with the maximum oesophageal pressure ( P oes), nor was there a significant difference between the mean and the maximum FEV 1 produced with an effort greater than 75% of maximum. 5. Blowing 'half as hard' is an unnatural procedure; all subjects tend to blow nearly as hard as possible or very gently. In the latter case, the resulting FEV 1 tracing is easily recognizable as technically unsatisfactory. 6. We conclude that for practical purposes, measurements of FEV 1 depend for their reliability upon ensuring that they are started from full inspiration; insistence upon maximum effort is less important because FEV 1 is independent of effort for the greater part of the effort range.


Aims. An important question about Be stars is whether they are born as such or whether they have become Be stars during their evolution. It is necessary to observe young clusters to answer this question. Methods. To this end, observations of stars in NGC 6611 and the star-formation region of Eagle Nebula were carried out with the ESO-WFI in slitless spectroscopic mode and at the VLT-GIRAFFE ( R $\simeq$ 6400–17 000). The targets for the GIRAFFE observations were pre-selected from the literature and our catalogue of emission-line stars based on the WFI study. GIRAFFE observations allowed us to study the population of the early-type stars accurately both with and without emission lines. For this study, we determined the fundamental parameters of OBA stars thanks to the GIRFIT code. We also studied the status of the objects (main sequence or pre-main sequence stars) by using IR data, membership probabilities, and location in HR diagrams. Results. The nature of the early-type stars with emission-line stars in NGC 6611 and its surrounding environment is derived. The slitless observations with the WFI clearly indicate a small number of emission-line stars in M16. We observed with GIRAFFE 101 OBA stars, among them 9 are emission-line stars with circumstellar emission in H α . We found that W080 could be a new He-strong star, like W601. W301 is a possible classical Be star, W503 is a mass-transfer eclipsing binary with an accretion disk, and the other ones are possible Herbig Ae/Be stars. We also found that the rotational velocities of main sequence B stars are 18% lower than those of pre-main sequence B stars, in good agreement with theory about the evolution of rotational velocities. Combining adaptive optics, IR data, spectroscopy, and radial velocity indications, we found that 27% of the B-type stars are binaries. We also redetermined the age of NGC 6611 found equal to 1.2–1.8 Myears, in good agreement with the most recent determinations.


Background. High-throughput mutagenesis of the mammalian genome is a powerful means to facilitate analysis of gene function. Gene trapping in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is the most widely used form of insertional mutagenesis in mammals. However, the rules governing its efficiency are not fully understood, and the effects of vector design on the likelihood of gene-trapping events have not been tested on a genome-wide scale. Methodology/Principal Findings. In this study, we used public gene-trap data to model gene-trap likelihood. Using the association of gene length and gene expression with gene-trap likelihood, we constructed spline-based regression models that characterize which genes are susceptible and which genes are resistant to gene-trapping techniques. We report results for three classes of gene-trap vectors, showing that both length and expression are significant determinants of trap likelihood for all vectors. Using our models, we also quantitatively identified hotspots of gene-trap activity, which represent loci where the high likelihood of vector insertion is controlled by factors other than length and expression. These formalized statistical models describe a high proportion of the variance in the likelihood of a gene being trapped by expression-dependent vectors and a lower, but still significant, proportion of the variance for vectors that are predicted to be independent of endogenous gene expression. Conclusions/Significance. The findings of significant expression and length effects reported here further the understanding of the determinants of vector insertion. Results from this analysis can be applied to help identify other important determinants of this important biological phenomenon and could assist planning of large-scale mutagenesis efforts.


. The objective of this work is to analyze the statistical data on the average yield of vegetables in the European Union member states for the period 1961 - 2014. The EU countries are classified and grouped through hierarchical cluster analysis based on the average yield of vegetables. A mathematical model for evaluation of the received data is composed through a single-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results show that the countries with the highest yields are Belgium (33.81 t/ha), Austria (29.39 t/ha) and the Netherlands (27.76 t/ha), while the lowest yields are in Bulgaria (4.05 t/ha) and Luxembourg (0.19 t/ha). Dependencies have been identified between the change in the average yields in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania and time. It was found that they were modeled by polynomial regression models of second degree.


Most studies of union formation behaviors have focused on women and children, with less emphasis on men. Using comparable retrospective survey data, this study looks at the ways Canadian, Italian and Swedish men begin conjugal life (distinguishing between marriage and cohabitation) and at how the effects of their good provider status qualifications have changed in the last 30 years. Results for Canadian men have shown that the simple patterns that have been assumed to shape separate and symmetrical roles for men and women are taking new shapes with the growth in cohabitation and changes in women's economic roles. Our study will extend these results to examine two countries at very different levels of cohabitation prevalence: Italy, where the growth in cohabitation has just begun, and Sweden, where it has been underway much longer than in Canada. Our results show strongly parallel changes underway in each country, indicating that it is important to continue to compare, both between countries and over time, if we are to understand the situations fostering (or not) changing gender roles for men as good providers.


The quality of life of hospitalized patients is usually affected by a lot of psychological experiences such as pain, distress, anxiety, and depression, which reduce their quality of life. Laughing therapy in the media has grown and many researchers have conducted a variety of studies on laughing. The main aim of this research is to know the effect of laughter on psychological well-being of hospitalized patients. The participants used for this research were hospitalized patients from both general and private hospital in Anambra State. 15 participants were sampled using convenient sampling method via personal permission. A 20item modified version of the ryff (1972) psychological well-being scale with Cronbach alpha of .96 and content validity.77 and four 3-minute comedy skits were used. Within-group design was adopted for this research. It was observed that the treatment effect was not statistically significant, in other words, hospitalized patients did not improve significantly on their psychological well-being after watching the four 3-minutes comedy skits. Nevertheless we recommend that laughter therapy should be adopted as part of treatment given to hospitalized patients.


This important and exciting title represents the first authoritative volume focussed on pelagic (open ocean) sharks as a group. Virtually every pelagic shark expert in the world has contributed to this landmark publication which includes the latest data and knowledge on pelagic shark biology, fisheries, management, and conservation. Pelagic sharks face unprecedented levels of exploitation in all the world's oceans through both direct fisheries and by-catch, and effective management for these species is contingent upon solid science and data, which this book brings together for the first time. All those involved in shark biology will need to have a copy of this book.


Summary Based on the knowledge gained from published studies, a new analytical method has been developed for the quantification of mercury (Hg) in the gas-vapor phase of mainstream cigarette smoke and in heated tobacco aerosol generated by a tobacco heating system (THS) using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). From a preliminary test, the mercury concentration in the particulate matter of mainstream smoke from Kentucky reference cigarettes 3R4F generated under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) smoking regimen was compared with the mercury concentration in the gasvapor phase to assure that mercury is only measurable in the gas-vapor phase, as reported in an earlier published study. The particulate matter was collected using an electrostatic precipitation trap and was analyzed by ICP-MS after a mineralization step. The gas-vapor phase was trapped in the same smoking run as for the particulate matter using two impingers containing a nitric acid-hydrochloric acid-gold solution. The impingers were connected in series behind the electrostatic precipitation trap and the combined impinger solution was analyzed by ICP-MS after sample dilution without further sample treatment. The addition of gold has shown to be efficient for maintaining mercury in an ionized form in the impinger solution and to minimize the mercury memory effect in the sample introduction system of the ICP-MS. Only mercury in the gas-vapor phase could be quantified whereas the signal for mercury in the particulate matter was found close to those of blank solutions and was not measurable, as already mentioned in an earlier study. Following this preliminary test, the electrostatic precipitation trap was replaced by a Cambridge filter pad for the separation of the gas-vapor phase from the particulate matter where only mercury in the gas-vapor phase was quantified. The method for the quantification of mercury in the gas-vapor phase of aerosols obtained under Health Canada (HC) and ISO smoking regimens was validated according to International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) and Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) guidelines. Accuracy profiles were evaluated as described in Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR). The regression curve was shown to be linear within the evaluated concentration range from 25 pg/mL to 1000 pg/mL with a weighting factor 1/x. The coefficients of variation for repeatability (r) were 3.6% for 3R4F and 4.8% for THS under HC smoking regimen and 3.6% for 3R4F and 4.6% for THS under ISO smoking regimen. The coefficients of variation for intermediate precision (IP) were 7.7% for 3R4F and 7.7% for THS under HC smoking regimen and 4.7% for 3R4F and 4.6% for THS under ISO smoking regimen. The nominal mercury concentrations for 3R4F obtained during the validation under both HC and ISO smoking regimens were found to be in line with results reported in a previously published CORESTA study.


The paper presents an integrated modelling platform that can be used to assess the dynamic performance of an offshore wind turbine mounted on a spar-buoy type floater. Sub-models of generator and converter controllers and the power network are combined with a state-of-the-art numerical simulation of the hydro-, aeroand structural dynamic behavior of the floating wind turbine, using FEDEM Windpower software. The aim is to provide a tool that allows analyzing response of floating turbines to grid faults, interactions and potential conflicts between controllers. A study case of grid disturbance was conducted to illustrate the applicability of an integrated model. A grid fault that lasted 100ms and resulted in 50% residual voltage at the grid connection point was applied, and wind turbine operation both in still water and in large sea wave conditions were analyzed. The results show that the turbine was capable of riding through voltage-dips without severe effects on the electrical or mechanical systems. A significant, but not critical, dip in the tower bending moment was observed. The most affected component of the bending moment is around the axis of the rotor, which is directly related to the loss of generator torque due to the grid disturbance event. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of SINTEF Energi AS.