Abstract A numerical study has been performed to investigate the soot emission from a high-speed single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine. The computational conditions were set to be the same as the test conditions in the experiments where measurements had been performed at two running speeds with two injector protrusions. It was shown that the KIVA CFD code can predict the experimental trend, where at a low-speed running condition a higher smoke reading is reached when increasing the injector protrusion into the piston chamber and, conversely, a lower smoke reading was recorded for the same change in injector protrusion at a high running speed condition. Although computational predictions yielded the same trend as the experimental results, the magnitudes of the smoke emissions were an order of magnitude over those predicted. Evidence of inappropriate air/fuel mixing of the model was seen via rates of heat release analyses, especially in the high-speed conditions. Therefore, efforts to reduce this discrepancy by way of improvements to the KIVA submodels were made. In particular, modifications to the breakup and evaporation models have been made in order better to represent the mixing of the high-speed liquid jets. A gaseous sphere per liquid droplet model was employed to improve the current KIVA model by improving the mass coupling effects, which effectively delays the addition of spray source terms to the gas phase equations. Results of the modified models showed improvements in the vapour dispersion of the atomizing liquid jet, thus affecting the mixing rates and predicted smoke emissions. Further improvements on the momentum coupling will be presented in Part 2 of this work.


Recent interest has been shown in the energy flux density inside an ensonified elastodynamic scatterer. A spherical model was chosen as the simplest and most general geometry to analyze. To properly model the energy flow in an elastodynamic medium, it is necessary to employ the elastodynamic equivalent of the Poynting vector. Plots of the vector field of the elastodynamic intensity are presented with an eye toward the classification of the type of resonance behavior displayed. Analogies with other resonance phenomena in related geometries suggest the possibility of fruitful comparison with resonance modes in shells and plates. [Work in this area supported by ONR/NRL and by ASEE/ONT Summer Fellowship Program.]


OBJECTIVES
To assess the effect of intervention, both pharmacological and non-parmacological, to reduce blood pressure in people with diabetes mellitus on all cause mortality, specific causes of death, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, ischaemic heart disease and renal disease, morbidity associated with macro- and microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus and also side effects of the interventions and their influence on quality of life and well being.

SEARCH STRATEGY
The search strategy employed was to searching electronic databases such as EMBASE and MEDLINE for all trials of anti-hypertensive treatment in diabetes mellitus. As well as searching specialist journals in the fields of cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension and renal diease.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All trials were considered independently and then discussed by 2 reviewers to determine there eligibility for inclusion in the review. Their methodological quality was also assessed from details of the randomisation methods, blinding and whether the intention-to-treat method of analysis was used. Trials included in the review were all randomised contolled trials of the treatment for anti-hypertensive therapy for the specified endpoints which included subjects with diabetes mellitus.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Data was sought on the number of patients with diabetes with each outcome measure by allocated treatment group, either from previous publications or, if this was not possible, the raw data was obtained and analysed using the intention-to-treat method. If these data were not available the results from the 'Per Protocol' analysis were used. To compare the treatment effect of the intervention with that of placebo on all cause mortality and cardiaovascular mortality and morbidity, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated for each trial and a meta analysis performed using Peto's ORs as the summary measure.

MAIN RESULTS
The initial search yielded 760 references, from which 23 appropriate trials were identified (3 for primary prevention and 20 for secondary prevention), and 15 of these trials had data available for analysis. For the primary prevention trials the summary ORs (95% CIs) for all cause mortality and CVD were 0.85 (0.62,1.17) and 0.64 (0.50,0.82) respectively. Of the seven trials for long-term secondary prevention (i.e. follow-up greater than one year), the summary OR (95% CI) for all cause mortality was 0.82 (0.69,0.99). Data on CVD mortality and morbidity was only available for 2 of these trials and the summary OR (95% CI) was 0.82 (0.60,1.13). There were five trials for short term secondary prevention trials (i.e. follow-up of less than 1 year) with data available for analysis. The summary ORs (95% CIs) for all cause mortality and CVD were 0.64 (0.50,0.83) and 0.68 (0.43,1.05) respectively.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Primary intervention trials indicated a treatment benefit for CVD, but not for total mortality in people with diabetes. For both short- and long-term secondary prevention, the present meta-analysis indicated a benefit for total mortality in diabetic subjects. However lack of information on CVD outcomes probably reduced the power of the meta-analysis to detect any corresponding benefit for this end-point. This, along with the fact that all published data of randomised control trials of anti-hypertensive therapy in diabetes for all cause mortailty and CVD outcomes are taken from the hypertension trials not specific to diabetes, underlines the need for further high quality trials examining the effects of blood pressure lowering interventions in people with diabetes.


The most recent observations of dynamical time-dependent fluctuating behaviour of mesoscopic radiation defects in body-centred cubic metals (Arakawa et al 2006 Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 125506; 2007 Science 318 956–9; Yao et al 2008 Phil. Mag. at press) have highlighted the need to develop adequate quantitative models for the structural stability of defects in the mesoscopic limit where defects are accessible to direct in situ electron microscope imaging. In pursuit of this objective, we investigate and compare several types of mesoscopic vacancy and interstitial defects in iron and tungsten by simulating them using recently developed many-body interatomic potentials. We show that the mesoscopic vacancy dislocation loops observed in ion-irradiated materials are, without exception, metastable with respect to the transformation into spherical voids, but that the rate of this transformation and even the specific type of the transformation mechanism depend on the defect size and the properties of the material.


This paper presents a novel approach to monolithically implement a planar multiport radio-frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) T-type switch. T-type switches are used as building blocks of redundancy switch matrices used in space telecommunication. The T-type switch performs signal routing in three operational states. Two of them are boundary states while the other one is a crossover state. The proposed design uses a series metal contact clamped-clamped beam SPST switches, four port psi junctions and a RF crossover. The simulated results for the entire T-type switch demonstrate an insertion loss of -0.48dB and isolation better than -22.12dB for all states for frequencies up to 25GHz. The use of eight switches instead of twelve makes T-type switch compact. This improves the reliability and compactness of the redundancy switch matrix. The switch gives excellent RF performance near X-band and Ku-band which is the most widely used frequency range for satellite communication.


Abstract Cytomegaloviral (CMV) seronegative women who acquire a primary CMV infection during pregnancy are at the greatest risk for delivering infants who may be deaf or intellectually handicapped because of congenital CMV infection. Maternal immunization before pregnancy may protect newborns from congenital disease because mothers who are naturally seropositive are protected against secondary infection and because newborns who acquire CMV either via transfusion or transplacentally are protected if their mothers had antibodies to CMV prior to pregnancy. Further evidence for the feasibility of immunization for CMV comes from studies of patients immunocompromised following solid organ transplantation protection. These patients are protected against severe cytomegaloviral disease by immunity acquired either by wild-type infection prior to transplantation or by passive or active immunization. In three randomized placebo-controlled studies, live attenuated CMV Towne vaccine has successfully protected seronegative recipients of seropositive kidneys from severe CMV disease by inducing humoral and cellular immunity. Subunit vaccines comprised of glycoprotein gB, the viral component containing the majority of viral neutralizing epitopes, are in the early phases of study, as are studies with highly immunogenic preparations of Towne vaccine. Given all of these facts, safe and effective CMV immunoprophylaxis against CMV disease is possible.


: The Indian Ocean humpback dolphin Sousa plumbea has been described as South Africa's most endangered marine mammal due to its low abundance, reliance on coastal habitats with increasing anthropogenic threats and high rates of mortality from bycatch in bather protec-tion nets (BPNs). Although the species has been well studied in South Africa, only a single study has examined its molecular ecology to date, and its population structure remains poorly under-stood. However, understanding population structure is vital for the conservation and management of a species. To address these research gaps for S . plumbea in South African waters, we analysed the mitochondrial D-loop of 157 museum skin and tooth samples collected between 1963 and 2017 from across the species' geographic range in South Africa. Our data show that the humpback dolphin has extremely low mitochondrial diversity (haplotype diversity, H D = 0.47; nucleotide diversity, π = 0.2%) with only 3 haplotypes identified, which is comparable to the Critically Endangered Māui dolphin Cephalorhynchus hectori maui and the Critically Endangered Mekong population of Irrawaddy dolphin Orcaella brevirostris . Mitochondrial genetic diversity has not changed significantly in the last 50 yr, despite the high levels of bycatch in BPNs over this time period. Fur-thermore, we found no evidence of differentiation between dolphins from the KwaZulu-Natal Coast and the Cape South Coast (Western Cape and Eastern Cape). The extremely low mitochondrial diversity we found adds to the growing body of evidence that the humpback dolphin is becoming increasingly vulnerable and that urgent conservation efforts are required for the sur-vival of the species.


The effects of melatonin hormone on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) erythrocyte carbonic anhydrase enzyme purified by using Sepharose 4B-L tyrosine-sulfanylamide affinity gel chromatography were investigated in vitro and in vivo. Carbonic anhydrase from Oncorhynchus mykiss erythrocytes was purified with a specific activity of ~400 EU/mg protein and ~200-fold in a yield of ~20. Melatonin did not inhibit carbonic anhydrase enzyme in vitro. Carbonic anhydrase activity of the control group was determined as 1597.7 - 429.0 EU/g hemoglobin in vivo. Carbonic anhydrase activities were measured at 1, 3 and 5 h by following melatonin injection. The corresponding mean activities of melatonin were 1406.4 - 372.1, 1346.3 - 477.4 and 783.8 - 494.3 EU/g hemoglobin respectively. Oncorhynchus mykiss erythrocyte carbonic anhydrase was inhibited significantly by melatonin hormone 5 h after injection in vivo (P < 0.05). Data from the present study suggest that excessive usage of this hormone should be avoided in fish reproduction.


The principles and practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR) date back more than a century, but the current wave of interest in this topic is unprecedented. This heightened attention is global and is evidenced on every conceivable measure. It is reflected in the growth of social and ethical investment funds, the dramatic increase in voluntary codes of conduct for companies and industries, and the number of companies that issue reports on their social and environmental practices and policies. Similarly, the mobilization of nongovernmental organizations to challenge a wide range of corporate environmental and human rights practices, the frequency of consumer boycotts and protests, and the number of organizations and institutions established to monitor, measure, and report on corporate social and environmental performance all demonstrate deep grassroots interest. In this book, David Vogel provides the first comprehensive, in-depth review of the contemporary CSR movement in both the United States and Europe. He presents a careful and balanced appraisal of the movements accomplishments and limitations, including a critical evaluation of the business case for CSR. While acknowledging the movements achievements, most notably in improving some labor, human rights, and environmental conditions in developing countries, he also demonstrates that CSRs potential to bring about a significant change in corporate behavior is exaggerated. The Market for Virtue explores to what extent future improvements in corporate conduct can occur without more extensive or effective government regulationin the United States, Europe, the Far East, and in the developing countries. In other words, what is thelong-term potential of business self-regulation? Vogel concludes that the amount of improvement that can be expected is far more modest than much contemporary writing on corporate responsibility has claimed. There is a market for virtue, but it is limited by the substantial costs of more responsible business behavior.


Objective: We implemented a medical emergency team (MET) in our free-standing children's hospital. The specific aim was to reduce the rate of codes (respiratory and cardiopulmonary arrests) outside the intensive care units by 50% for >6 months following MET implementation. Design: Retrospective chart review and program implementation. Setting: A children's hospital. Patients: None. Interventions: The records of patients who required cardiorespiratory resuscitation outside the critical care areas were reviewed before MET implementation to determine activation criteria for the MET. Codes were prospectively defined as respiratory arrests or cardiopulmonary arrests. MET-preventable codes were prospectively defined. The incidence of codes before and after MET implementation was recorded. Measurements and Main Results: Twenty-five codes occurred during the pre-MET baseline compared with six following MET implementation. The code rate (respiratory arrests + cardiopulmonary arrests) post-MET was 0.11 per 1,000 patient days compared with baseline of 0.27 (risk ratio, 0.42; 95% confidence interval, 0–0.89; p = .03). The code rate per 1,000 admissions decreased from 1.54 (baseline) to 0.62 (post-MET) (risk ratio, 0.41; 95% confidence interval, 0–0.86; p = .02). For MET-preventable codes, the code rate post-MET was 0.04 per 1,000 patient days compared with a baseline of 0.14 (risk ratio, 0.27; 95% confidence interval, 0–0.94; p = .04). There was no difference in the incidence of cardiopulmonary arrests before and after MET. For codes outside the intensive care unit, the pre-MET mortality rate was 0.12 per 1,000 days compared with 0.06 post-MET (risk ratio, 0.48; 95% confidence interval, 0–1.4, p = .13). The overall mortality rate for outside the intensive care unit codes was 42% (15 of 36 patients). Conclusions: Implementation of a MET is associated with a reduction in the risk of respiratory and cardiopulmonary arrest outside of critical care areas in a large tertiary children's hospital.


The divergent eukaryotic parasite Giardia intestinalis is a major cause of diarrheal disease worldwide. The Giardia life cycle consists of two major stages: the binucleate trophozoite, which is found attached to the wall of the small intestine, and the infectious cyst, which is able to persist for weeks in the environment. The two nuclei in the trophozoite are equivalent and remain independent during mitosis. Although Giardia is presumed to be asexual based on the lack of an observed sexual cycle or gametes, its genome contains low levels of heterozygosity. This identity between nuclei is surprising because an asexual organism with two nuclei would be expected to accumulate differences due to genetic drift. Interestingly, the Giardia genome also contains seven homologs of meiosis-specific genes (HMGs): Spo11, Hop1, Dmc1a, Dmc1b, Hop2, Mnd1, and Mer3. In sexual organisms, these genes are specifically required for meiotic homologous recombination. Is Giardia using these genes for a cryptic sexual or parasexual process? Or, as an early-diverging eukaryote, is it using them for a process such as DNA damage repair, which is thought to have been the predecessor of meiotic homologous recombination? Furthermore, how is Giardia able to maintain two independent nuclei with low levels of heterozygosity? In this dissertation, I describe my efforts during my graduate studies to answer these questions. To do so, I set out to examine the functions of the HMGs in Giardia and to determine whether genetic exchange occurs between nuclei at some point in the Giardia life cycle.Before I could test the functions of the HMGs, I needed molecular tools for gene knockdown in Giardia. Attempts to knock down genes in Giardia using RNAi have not been successful, and knockouts are infeasible due the parasite's tetraploid genome content. Thus, in Chapter 2, I describe my development of morpholinos as a new tool for gene knockdown in Giardia. When electroporated into trophozoites, these translation-blocking oligonucleotides are able to reduce the protein levels of their targets for up to 72 hours.Next, I examined the behavior of the nuclei and cytoskeleton throughout the Giardia life cycle, with the goal of determining whether the quadrinucleate cyst is formed by a mitotic division or cell fusion and whether the nuclear pairs remain associated throughout encystation and excystation. In Chapter 3, I describe my use of cell mixing experiments and immunofluorescence staining of cytoskeletal components to demonstrate that cysts are formed by an incomplete mitotic division, and the parental nuclear pairs remain associated throughout encystation and excystation. Thus, any genetic exchange in the cyst occurs between nuclei derived from the same parent cell, and nuclear sorting does not appear to be a method by which Giardia reduces heterozygosity between nuclei.Finally, in Chapter 4, I demonstrate that nuclear fusion and genetic exchange occur between nuclei in the cyst, a process we have termed diplomixis. Although three of the HMGs (Dmc1b, Hop2, Mnd1) are expressed in the trophozoite, suggesting that they may play roles in somatic DNA damage repair/recombination, three HMGs (Spo11, Hop1, and Dmc1a) are only expressed in the cyst. Additionally, using integrated chromosomal markers, I have demonstrated that the nuclei fuse and exchange genetic material during encystation. Homologous recombination between nuclei, presumably catalyzed by the HMGs, could be the mechanism by which Giardia maintains low levels of allelic heterozygosity. These findings are significant not only for our knowledge of the basic biology and life cycle of this important parasite, but also for our understanding of the evolution of eukaryotic DNA damage repair and meiosis.


The transactions of goods and services between enterprise service providers are often driven by contracts and purchase orders. Every month thousands of invoices are billed to customers who settle them based on the usage of services. Considering the vast number of purchase orders that are signed, it requires considerable manual effort by the service provider to process and manage them. Moreover, the invoice's billed data may not be maintained in the same cloud system as the purchase orders. This leads to complexity with data mapping between the two data sets. Sometimes the invoices may get into a dispute due to over exhaustion of allocated funds or may be billed to an expired purchase order. Hence managing the billing service is a huge undertaking along with increased cost.To address these challenges, we developed an order manage- ment system that transforms the monitoring of purchase orders to increase renewals as well as decrease disputes. The system includes an automated purchase order-invoice data mapping model along with a risk analytics model that evaluates the orders against the invoices billed. The output is the set of actionable and non actionable insights based on customer portfolio, risk level as well as market trends in usage of services. We illustrate our method with some promising results on data of one of the world's largest IT service providers.


Abstract This article presents an action research process which opened up dialogues about power, citizenship and agency among social activists and peacebuilding groups in the violent context of urban Buenaventura, Colombia. Adopting a situated, micro-level, engaged action research approach, the process reached beyond what western power theory calls 'visible' and 'hidden' power, to uncover rich accounts of how long-standing everyday violence, of direct, structural and symbolic kinds, shapes meanings and defines what is acceptable and possible. Insights on the myriad invisible ways in which violence inhibits, constrains or shapes perceptions and exercise of citizen agency – in short, violence-as-invisible-power – were matched by insights on the myriad ways in which social activists in the city respond to it. Such insights, brought to light by the locally embedded action research approach which specifically sought out local people's perspectives and experience, reveal how violence-as-invisible-power re-shapes people's subjectivity in ways that enable them collectively and individually to resist violence and build peace.


The use of electronic communication tools is a necessity for daily interpersonal communication (IC), especially among the youth. This study focused on the relationship between internet-use and communication skills of Japanese students at university A, and further endeavored to design an educational program to improve the communication skills of nursing students for patient care. A total of 1393 students in academic years 1-4 from four different faculties of the university participated in this questionnaire-based study. In addition to the internet-use related behavioral indexes (frequency, time, frequently used items), the questionnaire was complemented with communication skill indexes (ENDCOREs). The relationships between internet-use and communication skills were elucidated in three aspects: 16 items on self-expression; 17 items on relationship with others; and 11 items on balance with reality. The effective response rate was 90.0% (total: n=1033). The results revealed Clusters 1 (Excellent Communication Type), 2 (Poor Expression Type), 3 (Responsive Type), and 4 (Poor Communication Type). Based on Pass analysis, Cluster 1 showed a strong causal relationship between accommodation of others and position acquirement; Cluster 2 failed to have in-depth contemplation and trust for others; Cluster 3 portrayed a strong causal relationship existed between factors (accommodation for others and decision-making) and internet-use tendency. Cluster 4 indicated effects of interpersonal relationship extension and non-daily relationship on communication, and exhibited low accommodation ability with others. The causal relationship between communication and internet-use in modern young people confirmed that the various correlational aspects of these events in the respective clusters proved that the relationship was non-unilateral but rather mutually correlational in the outcome.


Millions of people nowadays have portable computers and they generally want to read their e-mail and access their normal file systems wherever in the world they may be. This demand for mobility has fueled the rapid progression of computer & communication technologies from networks consisting of both stationary hosts & routers, to networks consisting of mobile hosts and stationary routers, and more recently to the other extreme case of networks having both mobile hosts and mobile routers. This last case of infrastructure-less networks of mobile hosts and mobile routers are called ad hoc networks or MANETs (Mobile Ad Hoc NETworks). It has been claimed that MANETs are a fundamentally flawed architecture. This is because Mobile Ad Hoc networks are almost never used in practice and almost every wireless network nodes communicate to base-stations and access points, instead of co-operating to forward packets hopby-hop. In this paper, we take the position that MANETs cannot be declared a fundamentally flawed architecture. The reasoning behind this position is that MANETs are still an emerging technology that has received intensive attention only recently. All aspects of the MANET concept are yet to be identified and fully understood. Research on MANETs is still in its early stages and considerable research effort is still necessary.


The long-sleep (LS) and short-sleep (SS) lines of mice have been selected for a difference in duration of ethanol-induced sleep time. In our previous study, recent generations of the two lines were found to exhibit differential hypnotic and hypothermic responses to pentobarbital which appear to be explained by differences in elimination. Casual observation that the LS mice were fatter than the SS suggested that this discrepancy may influence the responses of these animals to sedative-hypnotic drugs which differ in lipid solubility. The present study was designed to determine whether the LS and SS mice differ in hypnotic and hypothermic responses to two barbiturates which differ in lipid solubility; to the highly lipid soluble tertiary alcohol, ethchlorvynol; and to the water soluble depressant, methyprylon. Mice of the SS line were more responsive to the lipid soluble depressants than were LS mice, and increasing the lipid solubility of the barbiturates resulted in a greater difference between the lines. LS mice were more responsive to the water soluble depressant, apparently due to differential central nervous system sensitivity rather than to differences in elimination. The whole-body lipid content of the LS mice is double that of the SS mice. The influence of body lipid content on drug disposition may accentuate the elimination differences that result in the lesser responsivity of LS mice to barbiturates and possibly ethchlorvynol. This study indicates that sedative-hypnotic drugs of varying lipid solubilities may not share common mechanisms of action.


There exist various methods of using ground signals collected by a satellite to determine the orbit of the satellite. These signals can be used independently as a single source, or multi-source data can be fused together to increase redundancy and reliability of the orbit solution. A new measurement technique is proposed in this study, in which the location of a satellite could be computed from the knowledge of navigation data points within the satellite's field of view (FoV). There are a growing number of ground-based sensors which broadcast their position, and which can be detected from space, providing a dense dataset for determining the position of the detecting satellite. Knowing the positions of such points, the time that they appear and remain in the FoV, it is possible to determine the satellite's orbit. In the context of this problem, it is proposed to use ship-based Automatic Identification System (AIS) data as the ground points whose positions are known (with some uncertainty) through the AIS reports from the ships. This AIS navigation data, which are broadcast by the ships and can be acquired by the satellite, can be fed into an orbit determination tool to fit a trajectory for the satellite. A number of simplifying assumptions will be made initially to formulate the approach for deriving the algorithms required to use such measurements. Thereafter, the assumptions will be able to be relaxed successively to provide an analysis technique robust enough to handle real-world data.


We perform co-analysis of a set of man-made 3D objects to allow the creation of novel instances derived from the set. We analyze the objects at the part level and treat the anisotropic part scales as a shape style. The co-analysis then allows style transfer to synthesize new objects. The key to co-analysis is part correspondence, where a major challenge is the handling of large style variations and diverse geometric content in the shape set. We propose style-content separation as a means to address this challenge. Specifically, we define a correspondence-free style signature for style clustering. We show that confining analysis to within a style cluster facilitates tasks such as co-segmentation, content classification, and deformation-driven part correspondence. With part correspondence between each pair of shapes in the set, style transfer can be easily performed. We demonstrate our analysis and synthesis results on several sets of man-made objects with style and content variations.


Academic libraries are critical contributors to knowledge generation which serves wide spectrum of the society. The fundamental role of academic library is to collect, process, and store, disseminate and utilize information to provide services to the user community. The use of digital resources has contributed to reshaping of information retrieval and access to practices in university libraries. In order to make use of the growing range of electronic resources users must acquire and practice the skills necessary to exploit the digital information. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of access and utilization of digital information services in academic libraries in Kenya with reference to University of Nairobi library. Objectives of the study were to assess access and utilization of digital information resources in the university of Nairobi library, establish the level of awareness of digital information services in the library, identify the challenges facing the library users in relation to access and utilization of digital information services in the library and suggest possible solutions to the identified problems in the library. This study used a descriptive survey design where the target population comprised of 96 postgraduate students of the University of Nairobi. The sampling technique applied to arrive at the target population was purposive sampling technique. Data were gathered and collected through the use of questionnaire for postgraduate students in the school of business. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents often used the library to access digital information resources mainly for writing class assignments. The study also showed that majority of the respondents rarely approached the librarians for assistance in the library and majority were unaware of digital information services. The study revealed major challenges faced when accessing and utilization of digital information as lack of adequate information skills, lack of awareness and training and poor information infrastructure. The following recommendations were made from the study in order to ensure successful utilization and accessibility of digital information services in academic libraries, the stakeholders should formulate strategic plan and ensure extensive training is offered to library users, policies which increase reliability of internet connectivity, use awareness of digital information services and through an effective marketing and promotion strategies enacted in libraries to enhance mobilization of more library users. Access and utilization of digital services is of vital essence to academic libraries if the research output it to be achieved and this project suggest what academic libraries could do to improve the services.


The study aims to indentify factors which affect the value and diversity of farm net income on agricultural farms. The researched farms were included in the Polish Farm Accountancy Data Network and located in the region of Mazowsze and Podlasie. The research covered the period of 2011. Among the surveyed types of farming, only owners of the agricultural farms of mixed types were obtained statistically and significantly different value of farm net income. Correlation between value of the farm net income and the level of the net working capital is positive.


Low frequency, relativistic sub‐cycle localised (soliton‐like) concentrations of the electromagnetic (em) energy are found in two‐dimensional (2D) and in three‐dimensional (3D) Particle in Cell simulations of the interaction of ultra‐short, high‐intensity laser pulses with homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasmas. These solitons consist of electron and ion density depressions and intense em field concentrations with a frequency definitely lower than that of the laser pulse. The downshift of the pulse frequency, due to the depletion of the pulse energy, causes a significant portion of the pulse em energy to become trapped as solitons, slowly propagating inside the plasma. In an earlier phase solitons are formed due to the trapping of the em radiation inside an electron cavity, while ions can be assumed to remain at rest. Later on, after (mi/me)1/2 times the laser period, ions start to move and the ion depletion occurs producing a slowly growing hole in the plasma density. In inhomogeneous plasmas the solitons are accelerated toward the plasma vacuum interface where they radiate away their energy in the form of bursts of low frequency em radiation. In the frame of a 1D cold hydrodynamic model for an electron‐ion plasma, the existence of multipeaked em solitons has been investigated both analytically and numerically. The analytical expression for a sub‐cycle relativistic soliton has been derived for circularly polarized pulses in a cold isotropic plasma, and in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. Recently, em relativistic solitons in a hot multi‐component plasma have been investigated in the frame of an hydrodynamic (adiabatic) model and of a kinetic (isothermal) model. An overview of the most recent analytical and numerical results on the soliton dynamics is given.Low frequency, relativistic sub‐cycle localised (soliton‐like) concentrations of the electromagnetic (em) energy are found in two‐dimensional (2D) and in three‐dimensional (3D) Particle in Cell simulations of the interaction of ultra‐short, high‐intensity laser pulses with homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasmas. These solitons consist of electron and ion density depressions and intense em field concentrations with a frequency definitely lower than that of the laser pulse. The downshift of the pulse frequency, due to the depletion of the pulse energy, causes a significant portion of the pulse em energy to become trapped as solitons, slowly propagating inside the plasma. In an earlier phase solitons are formed due to the trapping of the em radiation inside an electron cavity, while ions can be assumed to remain at rest. Later on, after (mi/me)1/2 times the laser period, ions start to move and the ion depletion occurs producing a slowly growing hole in the plasma density. In inhomogeneous plasmas the solitons...


Objective To evaluate the effect of different treatment strategies on enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O104:H4 induced haemolytic uraemic syndrome. Design Multicentre retrospective case-control study. Setting 23 hospitals in northern Germany. Participants 298 adults with enterohaemorrhagic E coli induced haemolytic uraemic syndrome. Main outcome measures Dialysis, seizures, mechanical ventilation, abdominal surgery owing to perforation of the bowel or bowel necrosis, and death. Results 160 of the 298 patients (54%) temporarily required dialysis, with only three needing treatment long term. 37 patients (12%) had seizures, 54 (18%) required mechanical ventilation, and 12 (4%) died. No clear benefit was found from use of plasmapheresis or plasmapheresis with glucocorticoids. 67 of the patients were treated with eculizumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against the complement cascade. No short term benefit was detected that could be attributed to this treatment. 52 patients in one centre that used a strategy of aggressive treatment with combined antibiotics had fewer seizures (2% v 15%, P=0.03), fewer deaths (0% v 5%, p=0.029), required no abdominal surgery, and excreted E coli for a shorter duration. Conclusions Enterohaemorrhagic E coli induced haemolytic uraemic syndrome is a severe self limiting acute condition. Our findings question the benefit of eculizumab and of plasmapheresis with or without glucocorticoids. Patients with established haemolytic uraemic syndrome seemed to benefit from antibiotic treatment and this should be investigated in a controlled trial.


ABSTRACT Crawling and scraping activity of three stored-product pests, Sitophilus oryzae (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), and Stegobium paniceum (L.) (Coleoptera: Anobiidae), and two urban pests, Blattella germanica (L.) (Blattodea: Blattellidae) and Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), were monitored individually by infrared sensors, microphones, and a piezoelectric sensor in a small arena to evaluate effects of insect locomotory behavior and size on the ability of an inexpensively constructed instrument to detect insects and distinguish among different species. Adults of all species could be detected when crawling or scraping. The smallest insects in the study, first-fourth-instar C. lectularius nymphs, could not be detected easily when crawling, but could be detected when scraping. Sound and vibration sensors detected brief, 3-10-ms impulses from all tested species, often grouped in distinctive trains (bursts), typical of impulses in previous acoustic detection experiments. To consider the potential for targeting or focusing detection on particular species of interest, indicators were developed to assess the likelihood of detection of C. lectularius. Statistically significant differences were found between C. lectularius and other species in distributions of three measured variables: infrared signal durations, sound impulse-burst durations, and sound pressure levels (energy) of impulses that best matched an averaged spectrum (profile) of scraping behavior. Thus, there is potential that signals collected by an inexpensive, polymodal-sensor instrument could be used in automated trapping systems to detect a targeted species, 0.1 mg or larger, in environments where servicing of traps is difficult or when timeliness of trapping information is important.


AIM
The aim of the study was to determine the community prevalence of asymptomatic malarial parasitaemia in the state of Tamil Nadu.

METHODS
Free medical camps were organised in three randomly selected districts of Tamil Nadu, namely Dindigul, Ramnad and Thanjavur districts in November, 1997. Proportionate to population size cluster survey method was followed to collect peripheral blood smear by finger prick from 30 clusters in each district. Fifteen households were randomly selected from each district with the target age group of 15-45 years. Peripheral blood smears were stained by Leishman's stain and the slides were examined end to end by two independent experts to diagnose malarial parasites.

RESULTS
The male:female ratio of the population studied was 1:1.6. Asymptomatic malaria was identified in 17 out of 569 individuals screened with a positive rate of 2.9% (CI 1.5-4.3). Out of the 17 malarial positive peripheral smears 15 were P. vivax and only two were P. falciparum with the predominance of gametocyte stage.

CONCLUSION
This study reaffirms the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in Tamil Nadu especially with P. vivax.


Southern Illinois University Edwardsville won funding from the federal interagency competition, Leadership Opportunity in Science and Humanities Education, which supported interdisciplinary courses combining the natural sciences and the humanities. The author analyses her experiences developing a very successful and popular interdisciplinary course, entitled The Atomic Era, which features a unique combination of physics, sociology and German studies taught jointly by a Physicist, a Sociologist and a Germanist. The objectives of the course, the laboratories and demonstrations, instructional goals, assignments, organization, testing, student and faculty assessment, expenses and the special challenges of coordinating three faculty members and a wide variety of topics and perspectives are addressed and analysed.


Four decades after their invention, quasi-Newton methods are still state of the art in unconstrained numerical optimization. Although not usually interpreted thus, these are learning algorithms that fit a local quadratic approximation to the objective function. We show that many, including the most popular, quasi-Newton methods can be interpreted as approximations of Bayesian linear regression under varying prior assumptions. This new notion elucidates some shortcomings of classical algorithms, and lights the way to a novel nonparametric quasi-Newton method, which is able to make more efficient use of available information at computational cost similar to its predecessors.


One of the most distinctive characters associated with 1940s Hollywood crime films, the femme fatale is usually theorised as expressing anxieties about gendered roles and identities in the period around World War II. The soundtrack plays a significant role in the construction of her criminal and sexual immorality, drawing upon stereotypes surrounding the use of popular and 'non-Western' musical styles to position the fatal woman outside Hollywood norms. Although highlighting otherness most commonly acts to fetishise and contain, the femme fatale's difference can also be celebrated as a means of resisting dominant ideologies and as a site of pleasurable audience engagement with subversive female characters.

Underpinned by developments within inter-American relations (the ongoing effects of 'Good Neighbor' policies and efforts to stress Allied collegiality during the War), Latin musical signifiers act as a particularly flexible representation of the dual nature of female difference during the 1940s. A complex musical articulation of subjectivity is crucial to the positioning of Clo-Clo, the female protagonist of 'The Leopard Man' (d. Tourneur, 1943), whose castanet performances evoke the Hollywood archetypes of both the femme fatale and the carefree musical Latina. Musical performance is used not only to demonstrate Clo-Clo's charisma and appeal, but also to justify her victimization at the hands of an emasculated, culturally imperialist murderer. The soundtrack is central in The Leopard Man's construction and containment of female agency, highlighting interconnected issues of cultural, gendered, and ethnic identity whilst challenging existing models of ownership and inaudibility in the classical score.


Rapid identification of malfunctions is of premier importance for the safe operation of nuclear power plants. In order to provide sufficient lead time, malfunctions have to be identified within 60 seconds. A feedforward neural network trained with the backpropagation algorithm was developed to model simulated nuclear power plant malfunctions for a pressurized water reactor (PWR) and this model was then successfully applied to identify malfunctions of the Hungarian Paks nuclear power plant simulator.


Though the debate surrounding the extent to which pessimism dominated in the late nine-teenth century asylum is extensive, the same debate in the twentieth century remains un-der-explored. Relatively few academics have offered a cross-century analysis that goes beyond the beginning of the First World War to analyse the twentieth century and none of these studies have explored how changes were implemented in the institutions in the West Riding of Yorkshire. This thesis attempts to redress this imbalance by offering an original analysis of a selection of developments and innovations that were carried out in the West Riding of Yorkshire between the years 1888-1938. Consideration is given to four specific innovations and an analysis is made of how successful these new develop-ments were with relation to the eradication of the stigmas of pauperism and certification. Innovations relating to how to segregate mentally deficient children and adults and ser-vice patients will be assessed, along with the establishment of outpatient departments and the local implementation of the 1930 Mental Treatment Act. By offering an analysis of these developments this thesis contributes to our understanding of how successful these social and legal changes were in the administration of mental health care throughout these years.
Primarily this thesis is concerned with an analysis of these different innovations and an observation of the impact that these attempts at change had on the patients. Wherever possible close attention is given to the voices of the patients and their families in order to assess their roles in accessing the services provided. This thesis argues that these innova-tions represent significant legal and social changes in the administration and admission of the mentally ill over the years covered. Despite this however, this thesis identifies that these changes were all beset with many inherent problems, usually linked to a lack of fi-nance and overcrowded institutions, which meant that they were all significantly limited in their capacity to change the system for all but a small minority of sufferers of mental illness and learning disability.


The main aim of this study was to clarify the current literary inconsistencies regarding the characteristics of entrepreneurial leadership and its impact on sustainability. Additionally, another aim was to establish the framework of entrepreneurial leadership and to highlight the main gaps in the entrepreneurial leadership literature. The entrepreneurial leadership literature started to develop recently as a new leadership style that is required to fulfill the current business changes in the fourth industrial revolution. The researchers conducted a narrative literature review to assess the status of entrepreneurial leadership in academia, literature gaps, and the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on the sustainability performance of organizations. Furthermore, the researchers main aim was to investigate the following research question: is entrepreneurial leadership a fixed or a multidimensional concept that differs based on industry, context, and firm size? Regarding the answer to this question, the current study found that entrepreneurial leadership is a multidimensional concept as it is reflected in different perspectives, which indicates the inconsistency of the characteristics of entrepreneurial leadership claimed in the literature. Research limitations—the current study focused on assessing the literature review status of entrepreneurial leadership. Based on that, this study's limitation is represented in not focusing on testing entrepreneurial leadership's impact on sustainability either quantitatively or qualitatively. On the contrary, it contributed by analyzing the status of the entrepreneurial leadership literature. Future studies need to further assess this relationship between both concepts and reach an agreement about the common characteristics of entrepreneurial leadership. Originality/value—the current study contributes to the entrepreneurial leadership literature as it highlighted the existing gaps and the inconsistency in the literature. Additionally, it contributed theoretically by connecting entrepreneurial leadership to the existing literature. Furthermore, empirically, it highlighted the contribution of entrepreneurial leadership by emphasizing the impact of it on organizational sustainable development performance. This study represents a call for scholars to focus more on entrepreneurial leadership given its contribution to organizational performance.


This chapter summarizes the specific challenges for leadership in academia with a focus on universities, and discusses recent approaches to facilitate the development of leadership abilities in this context. Individuals and groups in academia essentially strive for creativity and innovation through knowledge creation and transfer. Their performance is measured relative to specified targets (e.g., quality and quantity of publications, third-party funding, teaching and student supervision). We argue that in academia constant tensions between creativity and innovation on the one hand, and structures, procedures, and (legal) regulations on the other hand persist. This poses significant challenges to leadership. The chapter starts with a short characterization of the most pressing challenges and their implications for leadership. We then distinguish between leadership of universities (i.e., administrative leadership) and leadership in universities (i.e., research leadership). Next, we depict approaches that highlight leadership as a property of individuals and as a collective phenomenon in academia. Finally, we draw lessons for leaders and organizations who seek to create enabling conditions for sustained successes in the quest for creativity and innovation.


It is now well recognized that normal afferent innervation is necessary for development of the auditory pathway. This study investigated the effect of chronic electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve on the size of cochlear nucleus somata of neonatally deafened kittens. Four kittens were deafened by using kanamycin and ethacrynic acid at 10 days of age and implanted at various ages with an active intracochlear implant in the left side and a dummy implant in the right side, and chronically electrically stimulated from ages 98-142 days for approximately 1000 hours at twice the EABR threshold. After chronic stimulation or after an equivalent period in the controls, the animals were injected with 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) and stimulated electrically for 45 minutes, then processed for autoradiography. Then the sections were stained for Nissle substance, and the cross-sectional areas (CSSA) of approximately 33,000 neuron somata in the cochlear nuclei were measured with an image-analysis system. Soma sizes in regions with 2DG uptake were compared with those without the uptake. The CSSA of 2DG-labeled regions was usually significantly larger than that of the unlabeled regions, but there were no significant right-left differences. Thus, chronic electrical stimulation of a restricted sector of the cochlea is correlated with a larger soma size in the corresponding region of the cochlear nucleus.


Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning data can be used to characterize discontinuous rock masses in an unbiased, rapid, and accurate manner. With 3D laser scanning, it is now possible to measure rock faces whose access is restricted or rock slopes along highways or railway lines where working conditions are hazardous. The proposed method is less expensive than traditional manual survey and analysis methods. Laser scanning is a relatively new surveying technique that yields a so-called point cloud set of data; every single point represents a point in 3D space of the scanned rock surface. Because the density of the point cloud can be high (on the order of 5 mm to 1 cm), it allows for an accurate reconstruction of the original rock surface in the form of a 3D interpolated and meshed surface using different interpolation techniques. Through geometric analysis of this 3D mesh and plotting of the facet orientations in a polar plot, it is possible to observe clusters that represent different rock mass discontinuity sets. With fuzzy k-means clustering algorithms, individual discontinuity sets can be outlined automatically, and the mean orientations of these identified sets can be computed. Assuming a Fisher's distribution, the facet outliers can be removed subsequently. Finally, discontinuity set spacings can be calculated as well.


Plants turn on induced defenses upon insect herbivory. In the current study, we evaluated the role of European corn borer (ECB) elicitors (molecules secreted by herbivores) that either induce/suppress defenses in Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) and Zea mays (maize), two very important crop plants that are grown for food and/or fuel throughout the world. We used a combination of molecular, biochemical, confocal and scanning electron microscopy, caterpillar spinneret ablation/cauterization, and conventional insect bioassay methods to determine the role of ECB elicitors in modulating defenses in both tomato and maize crop plants. Our results clearly demonstrate that the components present in the ECB saliva induce defense-related proteinase inhibitors in both tomato (PIN2) and maize (MPI). Presence of glucose oxidase in the ECB saliva induced defenses in tomato, but not in maize. However, ECB saliva induced genes present in the jasmonic acid biosynthesis pathway in both tomato and maize. Although ECB saliva can induce defenses in both tomato and maize, our results suggest that host-specific salivary components are responsible for inducing host plant defenses. Proteomic analysis of ECB salivary elicitors and plant receptors/signaling mechanisms involved in recognizing different ECB elicitors remains to be determined.


This paper analyzes the relationship between international financial integration and economic growth. Recent literature, surveyed in this paper, emphasizes the role of financial deepening on economic growth. Less attention has been paid, however, to the role of international financial integration in promoting a deep domestic financial market and through that channel fostering economic growth. Financial integration also permits portfolio diversification, allowing higher profitability of investment and, hence, higher rate of economic growth. Those issues are examines in this paper. In particular, after reviewing the theory and evidence, this paper analyzes empirically the relationships between financial integration and financial development, and between financial development and economic growth.


Recognizing climate change associated threats to coastal environments, civic leaders and policymakers are developing and implementing local adaptation and resilience strategies. Largely absent from this conversation is, however, the cultural heritage of the coast-the places of local identity, meaning and history. To address this shortcoming, the following study assesses the role of cultural heritage in coastal adaptation planning. The integration of cultural heritage in adaptation planning leads to more holistic, place-based and effective adaptive efforts, and contributes to long-term resilience. Civic engagement is one mechanism for identifying, evaluating and promoting cultural heritage in the coastal planning process. This thesis establishes a theoretical framework relevant to adaptation planning, resilience, place, and civic engagement (Section 2) and evaluates four case studies, featuring communities that have successfully integrated adaptation, resilience, place and civic engagement (Section 3). Establishing a better understanding of how civic engagement is integrated into coastal planning practice today, Section 4 analyzes methods, adaptation planning and civic engagement in 40 coastal municipalities in New Jersey. To conclude, barriers to civic engagement in adaptation planning are identified and recommendations are proposed for developing coastal adaptation planning practices that successfully integrate community vision, local values and cultural heritage.


As the size of integrated circuit has reached the nanoscale, embedded memories are more sensitive to single event upset (SEU), because of their low threshold voltage. In particular field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which contain large amounts of configuration memories to implement customer circuits, are more likely to suffer from soft errors caused by SEU. In this research, we first develop a Hamming code based error detect and correct (EDC) circuit that can prevent the configuration memory of a reconfigurable device from SEU. We then propose a novel reconfigurable logic element, namely COGRE, which will use much less configuration memory than the conventional FPGA 4-, 5- or 6-LUTs (lookup tables). Evaluation revealed that compared to the 6-LUT FPGAs with triple modular redundancy (TMR) configuration memory blocks, the 5- and 6-input proposed architecture save about 75.44 and 74.29% memories on average, respectively. And the dependability of the proposed architectures is about 6.8 to 10 times better than the LUTs with a tile level TMR structure on average. Moreover, with the consideration of the on the fly scrubbing advantage of the EDC, SEUs cannot be accumulated, so a much higher dependability can be achieved.


Originally published in 1955, this text has been substantially revised and updated, taking account of the huge technological changes experienced in the printing industry since the 1970s The coverage includes censorship, bestsellers, popular series, the history of illustration, the invention of lithography, and the connection between printing and education, language and literature. According to Beatrice Warde, the book represents "the five hundred years of printing as a creator of changes in human lives".


South American glaciers, including those in Patagonia, presently contribute the largest amount of meltwater to sea level rise per unit glacier area in the world. Yet understanding of the mechanisms behind the associated glacier mass balance changes remains unquantified partly because models are hindered by a lack of knowledge of subglacial topography. This study applied a perfect-plasticity model along glacier centre-lines to derive a first-order estimate of ice thickness and then interpolated these thickness estimates across glacier areas. This produced the first complete coverage of distributed ice thickness, bed topography and volume for 617 glaciers between 41 o S and 55 o S and in 24 major glacier regions. Maximum modelled ice thicknesses reach 1631 m ± 179 m in the South Patagonian Icefield (SPI), 1315 m ± 145 m in the North Patagonian Icefield (NPI) and 936 m ± 103 m in Cordillera Darwin. The total modelled volume of ice is 1234.6 km 3 ± 246.8 km 3 for the NPI, 4326.6 km 3 ± 865.2 km 3 for the SPI and 151.9 km 3 ± 30.38 km 3 for Cordillera Darwin. The total volume was modelled to be 5955 km 3 ± 1191 km 3 , which equates to 5458.3 Gt ± 1091.6 Gt ice and to 15.08 mm ± 3.01 mm sea level equivalent (SLE). However, a total area of 655 km 2 contains ice below sea level and there are 282 individual overdeepenings with a mean depth of 38 m and a total volume if filled with water to the brim of 102 km 3 . Adjusting the potential SLE for the ice volume below sea level and for the maximum potential storage of meltwater in these overdeepenings produces a maximum potential sea level rise (SLR) of 14.71 mm ± 2.94 mm. We provide a calculation of the present ice volume per major river catchment and we discuss likely changes to southern South America glaciers in the future. The ice thickness and subglacial topography modelled by this study will facilitate future studies of ice dynamics and glacier isostatic adjustment, and will be important for projecting water resources and glacier hazards.


The paper contains the analysis of approaches to consideration of essence of project activity of a social orientation and its social importance. The comparative analysis is made of essence of a method of projects of national and foreign scientists. The pedagogical conditions providing efficiency of application of a project method in educational process are proved.


Background: Saudi Arabia has a high prevalence of Inherited diseases such as Sickle cell anaemia (SCA), Thalassemia and hepatitis are chronic diseases that affect the individual quality of life, which can be limited by increasing the knowledge among the community. Objectives: To assess the level of knowledge and the attitude among Saudi Tabuk University students regarding premarital screening program. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2019 to August 2019 among Saudi students of the University of Tabuk, both male and female. A self-administered questionnaire about knowledge and attitude of the Saudi community towards premarital screening program was used for data collection. It consists of 3 main sections; demographical data, student's general knowledge about the screening program and the attitude of the students towards premarital screening. Results: The study included 437 students. The age ranged between 18 and 29 years with a mean ± SD of 21.5 ± 2.2 years. More than half of them (56.8%) were females. Overall, slightly less than half of the students (48.3%) had sufficient knowledge regarding premarital screening. Female (p=0.003), married (p=0.044) and were medical students (p=0.024) were more knowledgeable than their counterparts. Overall, almost two-thirds of the students (69.8%) had a positive attitude towards premarital screening. Conclusion: Although knowledge regarding premarital screening among Tabuk university students was insufficient among almost half of them, they had an overall positive attitude towards the program.


The authors describe the adaptation and application of a multidimensional methodology based on structure-process-outcome for evaluating food security and hunger control programs. According to the proposal, study of the structure dimension analyzes the programs' material and discursive instruments; the process dimension focuses on the activities and interventions; and the outcome dimension includes coverage, targeting, and social control, and also potentially the effects of the interventions on the beneficiaries' food security and nutrition. The methodology was used to evaluate programs implemented in Brazil from 1995 to 2002. A case study was also done including 45 municipalities in the State of Bahia, involving documental research, interviews with key informants, and a household survey including 1,750 low-income families in the rural area and 760 in the capital city. The results are expected to contribute to the discussion on facilitating factors and obstacles at the local level for the implementation of such programs, and to methodological development in the field of food security, nutrition, and hunger control policies.


Due to increasing demands on water supplies and the negative effects of climate variability and change, south east Queensland frequently suffers severe water shortages. Based on recent scientific advances in cloud seeding techniques, a research project was commissioned by the Queensland Government in 2007. The aim of the project is to investigate the potential for cloud seeding technologies in the Somerset and Wivenhoe catchments of south east Queensland as part of the solution to the regions water shortages.

The ongoing project has involved over 40 dedicated personnel, research aircraft and the Bureau of Meteorology's advanced weather radar facilities located at Redbank Plains and Mt Stapylton. During the first season, which took place from December 2007 to March 2008, randomised seeding experiments were carried out to quantify the effect of hygroscopic seeding using pyrotechnic flares which release small particles of potassium chloride at the base of convective clouds (Bruintjes, 1999).

Research into the climatological characteristics of precipitation in the target area including the frequency of cumulus clouds suitable for seeding has also been undertaken. The CP2 polarimetric radar at Redbank Plains and the local Bureau of Meteorology radar network are used to evaluate the effects of seeding on precipitation flux, duration and storm dynamics including secondary cell initiation. Radar estimates of precipitation are calibrated using a ground-based video disdrometer. Cloud microphysical data was collected by the research aircraft which was equipped with over 20 microphysical recording instruments.

The program has been highly successful in providing cloud statistical data for the target area in addition to evaluating aircraft based hygroscopic seeding activities. Sub-tropical maritime warm shallow convective clouds rather than the more potentially suitable deep convective cloud systems were a feature of the first seasons weather. Although positive trends in terms of increased cell duration are apparent in the data, the number of randomised cases (27) is not sufficient to draw statistically significant conclusions regarding the efficacy of hygroscopic seeding of these clouds. This important scientific research program has continued into the 2008-2009 season. Based on results to date there is strong incentive for further research into the hygroscopic seeding of deep convective clouds throughout south east Queensland and its potential for inland catchments.


Presents a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) that uses type-2 fuzzy adaptive filters (FAFs). These FAFs are realized using an unnormalized type-2 TSK fuzzy logic system. We apply our DFE to a nonlinear time-varying channel, and demonstrate that it can implement the Bayesian equalizer for such a channel, has a simple structure, and provides fast inference. A clustering method is used to adaptively design the parameters of the FAF. Our DFE vastly reduces computational complexity as compared to a transversal equalizer. Simulation results show that our type-2 FAF-based DFE performs much better than nearest neighbor classifiers or a DFE based on type-1 FAFs.


This article addresses the problem of multichannel audio source separation. We propose a framework where deep neural networks (DNNs) are used to model the source spectra and combined with the classical multichannel Gaussian model to exploit the spatial information. The parameters are estimated in an iterative expectation-maximization (EM) fashion and used to derive a multichannel Wiener filter. We present an extensive experimental study to show the impact of different design choices on the performance of the proposed technique. We consider different cost functions for the training of DNNs, namely the probabilistically motivated Itakura-Saito divergence, and also Kullback-Leibler, Cauchy, mean squared error, and phase-sensitive cost functions. We also study the number of EM iterations and the use of multiple DNNs, where each DNN aims to improve the spectra estimated by the preceding EM iteration. Finally, we present its application to a speech enhancement problem. The experimental results show the benefit of the proposed multichannel approach over a single-channel DNN-based approach and the conventional multichannel nonnegative matrix factorization-based iterative EM algorithm.


Our review of the literature on codes of good governance highlights the rapid spread of codes of good governance around the world and how academic research has lagged behind in analyzing this topic. Despite the criticism that the codes' voluntary nature limits their ability to improve governance practices, codes of good governance appear to have generally improved the governance of countries that have adopted them, although there is need for additional reforms. Unfortunately, research on codes of good governance has been studied in silos with little cross-fertilization across the different disciplines. We propose a multi-level framework to discuss three main topics that have emerged within the codes literature: the motivations behind the diffusion of codes across countries and its implications for convergence of corporate governance practices; the content of the code and its "comply or explain" dimension; and the relationship between code compliance and firm performance. We conclude by proposing four areas of future research. Code development, adoption, and compliance are directly related to issues surrounding the governance of the firm, and in particular to all the interactions that a director has inside and outside the firm. Codes are regulations that emerge from policy-making negotiations between the different stakeholders, such as the state (via the stock market regulators) and the investors.


Helium in nanoporous media has attracted much interest as a model Bose system with disorder and confinement. Here we have examined how a change in porous structure by preplating a monolayer of krypton affects the superfluid properties of $^4$He adsorbed or confined in a nanoporous Gelsil glass, which has a three-dimensional interconnected network of nanopores of 5.8 nm in diameter. Isotherms of adsorption and desorption of nitrogen show that monolayer preplating of Kr decreases the effective pore diameter to 4.7 nm and broadens the pore size distribution by about eight times from the sharp distribution of the bare Gelsil sample. The superfluid properties were studied by a torsional oscillator for adsorbed film states and pressurized liquid states, both before and after the monolayer Kr preplating. In the film states, both the superfluid transition temperature $T_{\mathrm c}$ and the superfluid density decrease about 10 percent by Kr preplating. The suppression of film superfluidity is attributed to the quantum localization of $^4$He atoms by the randomness in the substrate potential, which is caused by the preplating--induced broadening of the pore size distribution. In the pressurized liquid states, the superfluid density $\rho_{\mathrm s}$ is found to increase by 10 percent by Kr preplating, whereas $T_{\mathrm c}$ is decreased by 2 percent at all pressures. The unexpected enhancement of $\rho_{\mathrm s}$ might indicate the existence of an unknown disorder effect for confined $^4$He.


The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether subjective judgments of clarity or intelligibility would be rated equally among conditions in which speech was equated for predicted intelligibility (using the Speech Intelligibility Index, SII) but varied in bandwidth. Twenty listeners with normal hearing rated clarity and intelligibility for sentence material (Hearing In Noise Test) in speechshaped noise at six paired low- and high-pass filtered conditions in which SII was equated for each pair. For three paired conditions, predicted intelligibility increased as SII increased monotonically (0.3, 0.4, 0.5). In the remaining paired conditions, SII continued to increase monotonically (0.6, 0.7, 0.8) but predicted intelligibility was held at a maximal level (≥95%). Predicted intelligibility was estimated from the transfer function relating SII to speech recognition scores determined in preliminary experiments. Differences in ratings between paired low- and high-pass filtered sentences did not reach statistical significance for either clarity or intelligibility, indicating that the spectral differences at equivalent SIIs did not influence the judgments for either of the two dimensions. For conditions in which predicted intelligibility increased, both clarity and intelligibility ratings increased in a similar manner. For conditions in which predicted intelligibility was maximized, intelligibility ratings remained the same statistically across conditions while clarity ratings changed modestly. Although high correlations were observed between clarity and intelligibility ratings, intelligibility ratings were consistently higher than clarity ratings for comparable conditions. The results indicated that listeners with normal hearing produced clarity and intelligibility ratings for the same speech material and experimental conditions that were highly related but differed in magnitude. Caution is required when substituting clarity for intelligibility.


The assessment of the shear stiffness of dredged soft ground and soft clay is extremely difficult due to soil disturbances caused during sampling and field access. Several in situ methods such as spectral analysis of surface waves, multichannel analysis of surface wave, cross hole, and downhole methods have been developed to measure the shear-wave velocity, but a few disadvantages hinder the adoption of existing methods to soft ground. This study presents a new apparatus, the penetration type field velocity probe FVP, which overcomes several of the limitations of commonly used shear-wave measurement methods in the field. Design concerns of the FVP include the tip shape, soil disturbance, transducers, self acoustic insulation, protectors, and the electromagnetic coupling from transducer- to-transducer and cable-to-cable. The crosstalk between cables is eliminated by grouping and extra grounding of the cables. The shear- wave velocity of the FVP is directly calculated, without any inversion process, by using the travel distance and the travel time. After calibration tests are carried out in the laboratory, application tests in the field are conducted up to 29 m in depth. Calibration results show the velocity profiles obtained by the FVP and by the rods fitted with transducers are similar to each other. The experimental results obtained in the field show that the FVP can produce reasonable and detailed shear-wave velocity profiles in soft clay. This study suggests that the FVP may be an effective technique for measuring the shear-wave velocity in soft ground.


Path analysis of nuclear family data has been widely applied to resolve genetic and environmental sources of familial resemblance. Here we report the results of a systematic evaluation of the effects of departures from five modeling assumptions often made when analyzing nuclear family data; i) the observed environmental index is unaffected by the genotype, ii) the basis of marital resemblance is correctly specified in the model, iii) there are no intergenerational differences in either the genetic or cultural heritability, iv) there is no genetic dominance, and v) there is no genotype by family environment interaction. "Deterministic simulations" identified various situations where model misspecification could lead to substantial bias in the estimation of the heritabilities. For these situations, "stochastic simulations" were performed to determine whether the "goodness‐of‐fit" test used in path analysis would correctly reject the misspecified model. In samples of 500 nuclear families, each comprising two parents and two children, the goodness‐of‐fit test was found to be sensitive to misspecifications of the source of marital resemblance and the existence of intergenerational differences in heritabilities, although reduced power would make the test less sensitive in smaller samples. The test was largely insensitive to misspecifications of possible genetic effects on the environmental index, and to the existence of multiplicative interaction between the genotype and familial environment. When genetic effects on the index are ignored, the genetic heritability (h2) is understimated, the cultural heritability (c2) is overestimated, but h2 + c2 remains unchanged. Neglecting the interaction was found to result in an overestimate of h2.


A patriot fiddler-composer of Luton Wrote a funeral march which he played with the mute on, To record, as he said, that a Jewish-Swiss-Teuton Had partially scrapped the Principia of Newton. Punch, 19 November 1919, p. 422 When the results of experiments performed during the British solar eclipse expeditions of 1919 were announced at a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, they were celebrated in the next day's Times of London with the famous headline 'Revolution in science'. This exemplified the general approbation with which A. S. Eddington and F. W. Dyson's results were received, the upshot of which was widespread approval for general relativity and worldwide fame for Albert Einstein. Perhaps because of Einstein's present reputation, there has been little historical analysis of why his theory should have been so celebrated on the basis of a single announcement of the results of one group's experiments. In this paper I argue that the remarkable public and professional success of the eclipse experiments was the direct result of a systematic and extended campaign by Eddington and Dyson and their associates to create interest in relativity theory, build an audience for the experiments, promote a favourable reception for the results and establish their work as a crucial experiment that would distinguish between the gravitation theories of Newton and Einstein. The campaign was motivated by Eddington's affection for Einstein's theory, and was successful largely because of Eddington's substantial credibility.


Background and purpose: Reducing maternal mortality by 75% between 1990 and 2015 was the fifth goal of the Millennium Development Goals Declaration in 2000 (MDG 5) and all countries were committed to achieve this goal. This study aimed to assess Iran's success in achieving this target. Materials and methods: Data was obtained from national data sources and international reports or estimations including World Report from United Nations on maternal mortality trends, the World Bank database, World Health Organization and UNICEF reports, Maternal Mortality Surveillance System, Demographic and Health Surveys 2000 and 2010, and yearbooks of National Organization for Civil Registration and Statistical Center of Iran. Data was analyzed using Excel software to produce descriptive statistics. Results: Findings showed that Islamic Republic of Iran with an average annual reduction of 6.4% between 1990 and 2015 and a total reduction of 80% in maternal mortality during the past 25 years is one of the nine countries that have fully achieved the fifth Millennium Development Goal. Conclusion: Coordinated efforts of Iran for reducing maternal mortality during the last 25 years could be an inspiration for other countries to reduce preventable maternal mortality.


BACKGROUND
Food allergies in children are often very serious and can lead to anaphylactic reactions. Observations that camel milk ameliorates allergic reactions were noted over the years. The effect of camel milk is probably related to its special composition.

OBJECTIVES
To investigate the effect of camel milk in several children with severe food (mainly milk) allergies.

METHODS
We studied eight children with food allergies who did not benefit from conventional treatment. Their parents, or their physicians, decided to try camel milk as a last resort. The parents were advised by the authors - who have considerable experience with the use of camel milk - regarding how much and when the children should drink the milk. The parents reported daily on the progress of their children.

RESULTS
All eight children in this study reacted well to the milk and recovered fully from their allergies.

CONCLUSIONS
These encouraging results should be validated by large-scale clinical trials.


Objective: This study aims to investigate the relationship between perceived visual access to nature views in nurse work and break environments and scores for subscales of Maslach Burnout Inventory among nurses. Background: Burnout is a severe problem among nurses. Literature shows a relationship between stress and burnout and between nature exposure and stress. However, the possible consequent relationship between connection to nature and nurse burnout needs further study. Methods: This cross-sectional study explored the relationship between the subscales (Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment [EE, DP, and PA]) of the Maslach Burnout Inventory as "outcome variables" and perception of view duration, frequency of exposure to views, view content and artwork content as "explanatory variables" in a subset regression model. The study model also included organizational stressors, environmental design factors, unit type, workload, and personal factors as control variables. Fifty-one nurses working in six units in a large tertiary care hospital participated in the study. Results: Percentage of perceived nature views and organizational stressors were the top two best predictors correlating with EE (37% of the EE variance; p < .05). Percentage of perceived nature views, organizational stressors, and environmental design were the top three predictors correlating with DP (43% of variance for DP; p < .05). No significant relationship was found between study variables and PA. Conclusions: The results of this study recommend perceiving nature views as an independent or integrated intervention to meditation and relaxation techniques. From a design standpoint, this study suggests that a unit and breakroom design with access to nature views could work as a consistent preventive intervention for burnout.


To determine the effect of UDP-glucuronic acid (UDPGA) depletion on bilirubin metabolism, salicylamide (SAM, which is metabolized primarily through glucuronidation, was administered to rats at a dose of 2 mmol/kg, and biliary bilirubin excretion and the proportion of bilirubin glucuronides were determined. At 15 min after administration of SAM, the UDPGA level in the liver was markedly decreased. Although the total biliary excretion of bilirubin showed no change, the bilirubin diglucuronide level in the 0- to 30-min period after SAM administration was significantly lower (36.9 +/- 4.3%) than that of the untreated control group during the same period (47.5 +/- 1.7%; P less than .01). The biliary bilirubin monoglucuronide (BMG) level in the 0- to 30-min period was significantly increased, compared with the control group. The C8-BMG/C12-BMG ratio in the 0- to 30-min period was significantly higher than that of the control group. At 150 min after SAM administration, there was an increase in the UDPGA level in the liver accompanied by an increase in bilirubin diglucuronide and a decrease in BMG. These results indicate that changes in UDPGA in the liver due to SAM administration influence the bilirubin composition of the bile.


Educational institutions are bound to take online assessments due to pandemics, which drives the need to identify the perceived satisfaction of both teachers and students about the effectiveness of this process. The current study aims to explore perceptions of Art & Design students and teachers since the issue becomes even more complex due to the practical nature of these subjects and assessments. A total of 157 students participated in this research study, whereas the data is collected through convenient sampling. The data from teachers was collected through a focus group discussion. The purposive sampling process was used for this purpose. A self-developed survey instrument was used to collect data with an alpha value of .73. The results of the survey indicate the satisfaction of students with the process and effectiveness of online assessment. Demographic analysis includes current qualifications (mean=2.69), previous qualifications (mean=.41), current working status of students (mean=.96), and students enjoying any scholarships (mean=.39) etc. The data collected through focus group discussion was studied through thematic analysis techniques. The results of the study promised to help in designing and implementing strategies when conducting online assessments particularly for Art & Design qualifications.


While much has been written about inter-jurisdictional competition for tax revenues, especially concerning the choice between harmonization and competition, the literature has largely ignored intra-jurisdiction issues. The few articles examining this issue focus on how lower level governmental entities react to the tax decisions of a national government. However, in some instances, multiple co-equal taxing authorities might share the same base. These bodies face a dilemma over whether to harmonize their policies or to compete. We present a simple model of revenue maximizing tax authorities and derive the conditions under which harmonization dominates competition.


Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were mea- sured by proton transfer reaction - mass spectrometry (PTR- MS) on a rooftop in the urban mixed residential and indus- trial area North Northeast of downtown Mexico City as part of the Megacity Initiative - Local and Global Research Ob- servations (MILAGRO) 2006 field campaign. Thirty eight individual masses were monitored during the campaign and many species were quantified including methanol, acetalde- hyde, toluene, the sum of C2 benzenes, the sum of C3 ben- zenes, acetone, isoprene, benzene, and ethyl acetate. The VOC measurements were analyzed to gain a better under- standing of the type of VOCs present in the MCMA, their di- urnal patterns, and their origins. Diurnal profiles of weekday and weekend/holiday aromatic VOC concentrations showed the influence of vehicular traffic during the morning rush hours and during the afternoon hours. Plumes including ele- vated toluene as high as 216 parts per billion (ppb) and ethyl acetate as high as 183 ppb were frequently observed during the late night and early morning hours, indicating the possi- bility of significant industrial sources of the two compounds in the region. Wind fields during those peak episodes re- vealed no specific direction for the majority of the toluene plumes but the ethyl acetate plumes arrived at the site when winds were from the Southwest or West. The PTR-MS mea- surements combined with other VOC measuring techniques at the field site as well as VOC measurements conducted in other areas of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) will help to develop a better understanding of the spatial pat- tern of VOCs and its variability in the MCMA.


OBJECTIVE
Quantitative risk assessments have been made for wheat dust and allergen exposure and wheat sensitization using classical epidemiological approaches based on simple categorizations in exposure groups. Such analyses suggest the existence of an exposure threshold level for wheat specific sensitization and were used as input in recently conducted risk assessments for wheat flour by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists and the Dutch Expert Committee on Occupational Standards. More advanced statistical analyses were applied using generalized additive modeling and smoothed plots to evaluate the shape of the exposure response relationship in greater detail and evaluate the presence of exposure thresholds.

METHODS
Data were used from a recently conducted epidemiological study in bakery workers. Information was available on wheat sensitization (IgE antibodies), inhalable dust levels and wheat allergen levels. Initial analyses were based on simple exposure categorizations for inhalable dust and allergen exposure. A more detailed analysis using non-parametric generalized additive models (GAM models) and smoothing plots allowed inspection of the presence of an exposure threshold of evaluation of 'no' or 'lowest observed effect levels' (NOELs, LOELs) using exposure data on the individual level.

RESULTS
All analyses showed an increasing sensitization risk with increasing exposure. The classical epidemiological analyses gave evidence for the existence of an exposure threshold or 'no observed effect level (NOEL)' for specific wheat sensitization between 0.5 and 1 mg/m3 of inhalable dust. The more advanced analyses did not suggest any evidence for the existence of an exposure threshold. However, estimates of a LOEL obtained by considering an arbitrary increase in sensitization risk between 1.5 and 2 as undesirable, were close to the NOEL from the classical analyses and would therefore not lead to an essentially different exposure limit. The criterion of an increase in wheat sensitization risk was based on the risk in non-wheat dust exposed populations.

CONCLUSION
Exposure response modeling using different classical epidemiological approaches and advanced statistical methods resulted in health based LOEL or NOEL estimates within a relatively close range. But when sensitization accompanied by asthma or rhinitis symptoms was considered as critical endpoint, steeper exposure-response relationships were observed which would lead to lower LOEL values.


A feedforward neural network model with a single hidden layer was used to correlate and predict biosorption equilibrium data in a binary metal system. Experimental data on the biosorption of Fe(III) and Cr(VI) by the microalga Chlorella vulgaris reported in the literature was used to assess the performance of the neural network. It was demonstrated that the neural network approach was significantly more accurate than the traditional modeling approach based on Langmuir-type models. To assess the predictive capability of the neural network model, the network was trained using a subset of available data. The suitably trained neural network was found to be capable of predicting fresh data not belonging to the training set. However, training data should be selected carefully if the best results are to be achieved. © 2003 SDU. All rights reserved.


An artificial cuprate compound belonging to the BiSrCaCuO family with eight adjacent sequetially imposed layer epitaxy. This compound undergoes a five order of magnitude resistivity drop with an onset near 280 kelvin and an offset at 250 kelvin. It exhibits a diamagnetic variation of susceptibility and magnetization below 290 kelvin. Additional observed features, such as strongly nonlinear conductivity, suggests superconductivity as a plausible explanation of the properties of this compound.


A two-year-old Jack Russell terrier was presented for evaluation of chronic cough and exercise intolerance. Previous treatment with antibiotics and glucocorticoids had only partially ameliorated the clinical signs. During investigation, hypoxaemia, peripheral eosinophilia and an eosinophilic bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were noted. Thoracic radiographs revealed two ovoid clearly delineated soft-tissue opacities, one in the caudal segment of the left cranial lung lobe (diameter 26 mm) and the other in the right cranial lung lobe (diameter 20 mm). These findings were verified by computed tomography, which identified an additional smaller lesion (diameter 16 mm) dorsally in the right caudal lobe. Ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration samples confirmed the diagnosis of eosinophilic pulmonary granulomatosis and treatment with prednisolone and azathioprine was initiated. Within 1 month, granulomas were no longer detectable radiographically. All medication was discontinued after 7 months and currently, after 2·5 years, the dog remains free of clinical signs. To the authors' knowledge this is the first case report to describe prolonged remission from idiopathic canine eosinophilic pulmonary granulomatosis.


Infrastructure cloud computing introduces a significant paradigm shift that has the potential to revolutionize how scientific computing is done. However, while it is actively adopted by a number of scientific communities, it is still lacking a well-developed and mature ecosystem that will allow the scientific community to better leverage the capabilities it offers. This paper introduces a specific addition to the infrastructure cloud ecosystem: the cloudinit.d program, a tool for launching, configuring, monitoring, and repairing a set of interdependent virtual machines in an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud or over a set of IaaS clouds. The cloudinit.d program was developed in the context of the Ocean Observatory Initiative (OOI) project to help it launch and maintain complex virtual platforms provisioned on demand on top of infrastructure clouds. Like the UNIX init.d program, cloudinit.d can launch specified groups of services and the VMs in which they run, at different run levels representing dependencies of the launched VMs. Once launched, cloudinit.d monitors the health of each running service to ensure that the overall application is operating properly. If a problem is detected in a service, cloudinit.d will restart only that service and any other service that failed that depended on it.


The building sector comprises a very important part of each country's economy, playing an important role in the consumption of resources and energy. In practice there is little knowledge on how the building stock develops. It is useful then to understand the dynamics and the metabolism of the built environment. Research on building stocks, predominantly on the residential sector, has been performed mainly for developed countries. There is little or none research on building stock for developing countries, so given that there is still a big gap regarding service levels (floor area per capita) between developed and developing countries, it is of importance to understand the dynamics of developing countries as well. Given that earthquakes occur in populated areas, it is important to assess the dynamics of such systems. The Chilean dwelling stock is subjected to earthquakes, so this focused on including earthquake activity to the dynamic MFA model of the dwelling stock. A leaching approach was used, basing the analysis on the typology distribution of different vulnerability classes. Different scenarios were defined in order to analyze the effect of policies on building codes and practices on the typology distribution of the stock, and hence on the demolition and renovation rate due to earthquakes. Policies for strengthening and renovating the building stock have a large positive impact on overall demolition rates. Patching types of policies have little effect when it comes to making the stock less vulnerable in the long term. An energy analysis was carried out for the overall stock, based on the mass balance yielded by the building stock dynamic MFA model. Effects of policies on energy and renovation standards are observed through the analysis of scenarios as well. The energy consumption of the stock has not reached saturation yet, and the timing for this will be strongly influenced by the energy intensity development of the stock. The combined effect of policies for decreasing the vulnerability of the dwelling stock and energy efficiency policies could be further explored if each vulnerability class could be described by an energy intensity factor. Further data gathering or modeling on this would be of importance to further understand the system. Even if there is data uncertainty and the model present weaknesses, the approach used for modeling the Chilean dwelling stock allows for a systematic view of the effects earthquakes on the system. The building sector is an important contributor of CO2 emissions. A detailed carbon analysis for the future development of the building stock is then relevant to this study. However, considering the time constraints, this research has focused on the modeling of the building stock including earthquake activity and an overall energy assessment of it. A simplified carbon analysis was left out due to the fact that by considering a constant emission factor the analysis of the trends of CO2 emissions would be equivalent to the analysis of the energy model.


Simple visual-reaction times (VRT) were measured for a variety of stimuli selected along red-green (L-M axis) and blue-yellow [S-(L + M) axis] directions in the isoluminant plane under different adaptation stimuli. Data were plotted in terms of the RMS cone contrast in contrast-threshold units. For each opponent system, a modified Piéron function was fitted in each experimental configuration and on all adaptation stimuli. A single function did not account for all the data, confirming the existence of separate postreceptoral adaptation mechanisms in each opponent system under suprathreshold conditions. The analysis of the VRT-hazard functions suggested that both color-opponent mechanisms present a well-defined, transient-sustained structure at marked suprathreshold conditions. The influence of signal polarity and chromatic adaptation on each color axis proves the existence of asymmetries in the integrated hazard functions, suggesting separate detection mechanisms for each pole (red, green, blue, and yellow detectors).


By means of melt blending process in a co-rotating twin screw extruder with two-step process, the low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene octene copolymer (POE)/zeolite molecular sieves (ZMS) composites were prepared. The influence of ZMS on the crystallinity, mechanical properties and permeability was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC), universal testing machine and permeability tester, respectively. The results showed that the addition of ZMS made the crystallinity of composite film decreased and the growth rate of crystal nucleus promoted. As the content of ZMS rose, the mechanical properties of composite film decreased, while the CO2, O2 permeability and the moisture permeability increased.


Taylor Tucker graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor's degree in engineering mechanics. She is now pursuing a master's degree at UIUC through the Digital Environments for Learning, Teaching, and Agency program in the department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is interested in design thinking as it applies to engineering settings and lends her technical background to her research with the Collaborative Learning Lab, exploring ways to to promote collaborative problem solving in engineering education and provide students with team design experiences that mimic authentic work in industry.