In June 1930, transition , an American literary magazine printed in France between 1927 and 1938 under the direction of Franco-American journalist and poet Eugene Jolas, published "The Simplicity of Disorder"— three chapters from William Carlos Williams' lesser-known work, A Novelette . Although Jacqueline Saunier-Ollier considers A Novelette "the work by Williams that was most influenced by surrealism," it has received very little critical attention; in fact, only one article has been devoted to A Novelette so far. There are two main reasons for this critical neglect. First, A Novelette has a hybrid style, in spite of its generic form. It oscillates between novelistic and short story form, and between prose and poetry. Second, this paper will show that the history of the novel's publication was problematic.

In a paper published in a special issue of the William Carlos Williams Review , which was devoted to Williams' relationships to surrealism, Dickran Tashjian shows how Williams gives his personal definition of the issues and modalities of automatic writing in his 1936 manifesto "How to Write." In this manifesto, Williams does not view automatic writing in a Freudian sense as the French surrealists do. On the contrary, he develops a Jungian philosophy inspired by his reading of Jung's "Psychology and Poetry" in the June 1930 issue of transition – i.e., the same issue in which "The Simplicity of Disorder" is published. Unlike Dickran Tashjian and Jeffrey Peterson, I argue that Williams' experiments are not "automatic writing" but "spontaneous writing." Indeed, Williams dismisses outright the psychological work that "automatic writing" entails. For example, in this passage of a letter to James Laughlin, he says: "To hell with them. I'm afraid the Freudian influence has been the trigger to all this. The Surrealists followed him. Everything must be tapped into the subconscious, the unconscious …"

This paper aims to show that six years before "How to Write" was published and even before Williams had read Jung's article in transition , "The Simplicity of Disorder" posed a critical challenge to French surrealism. Rather than "cutting a trail through the American jungle without the use of a European compass," Williams uses the compass of French surrealism to follow a different path.

Furthermore, this analysis of A Novelette approaches Williams' work as a stimulating and seminal response to French surrealism. Although Williams does not show any particular interest in the French surrealists' signature themes (the city, night time, strolling, mystery, the Woman, chance, etc), he is eager to rethink surrealist writing according to three main axes. The poet develops a "spontaneous writing" which is unlike that of the French avant-garde. Though he characterizes it as less solemn, less conceptual, and less symbolic, he insists that it is uniquely American and more concrete than French surrealist writings. For Williams, writing is not an end in itself, but a way to show urgency. He uses spontaneous writing to express physiological relief, which is often sexual or excremental. The conclusion of this paper will show that transition plays a crucial role in generating a specific American literary surrealist current years before the official American Surrealist movement was created in 1966 in Chicago, and before Breton's exile to the U.S. during World War 2.


At mitotic exit, microtubule arrays are dismantled in concert with the reformation of the nuclear envelope. We show how the inner nuclear membrane protein, LEM2, exploits liquid-liquid phase separation to direct microtubule remodeling and nuclear envelope sealing via the Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport (ESCRT) pathway. LEM2 tethers membrane to chromatin disks through direct binding between its LEM motif and the chromatin-associated barrier-to-autointegration factor (BAF). Concurrently, a low-complexity domain within LEM2 undergoes liquid-liquid phase separation to coat spindle microtubule bundles. Spatially restricted, LEM2's winged helix (WH) domain activates the ESCRT-II/ESCRT-III hybrid protein, CHMP7. Together LEM2 and CHMP7 copolymerize around microtubule bundles to form a molecular "O-ring" that promotes nuclear compartmentalization and initiates downstream ESCRT factor recruitment. These results demonstrate how multivalent interactions of a transmembrane protein, including those that mediate phase separation, coordinate localized ESCRT polymerization, mitotic spindle disassembly, and membrane fusion. Defects in this pathway compromise spindle disassembly, nuclear integrity, and genome stability.


The relationship is complex between the economic crisis, which signifies a slowing-down of economic activity (recession or depression) and affects all economic actors (households, consumers, firms, administrations, savers, banks and investors), on one side. And the financial crisis, which refers to the destabilization of the banking and financial system of one or more economies and which affects the currencies, the stock market, the households and the banks or the States in the event of over-indebtedness on the other side. This relationship depends on the scale of the crisis in the affected market and the fettering of risks involved in combination with other markets. However, the history of the crises converges on the ascertainment that over liquidity weakens the economic and financial system by accelerating credit, thus creating a gap between prices and their fundamental values. Nevertheless, no academic consensus was reached on the premises of the crisis, notwithstanding, the values of indicators such as the GDP, the economic growth, the Dow Jones index, the VIX and the interest rates or others that precede the crisis conferring a signification to the advent of the crisis. Thus, fiscal and monetary policies aimed to control aggregate demand and which interlock with the conditions and the causes of crises, for this reason can be identified by signals described as weak, medium or strong.


Abstract The lady beetle Coccinella septempunctata L. is an important predator of aphids in arable crops, but depends on noncrop landscape elements, such as hedgerows, for hibernation. We studied the effect of the shape, area, and fragmentation of noncrop landscape elements on the control of aphids by C. septempunctata using a spatially explicit simulation model. The model is based on a description of the phenology and population dynamics of aphids and C. septempunctata, as well as the predation dynamics and dispersal characteristics of C. septempunctata. The study compares biocontrol in 12 landscapes consisting of field crops and hedgerows that differ in the shape, proportion (1, 4, 9, and 16%), and fragmentation of the hedgerow elements (hedgerow area divided into 1, 4, or 16 elements) in the landscape. Linear hedgerow elements provided better control than square elements in 3 of the 12 simulated landscapes and resulted in similar levels of control in the other nine landscapes. The total area of hedgerow habitat was the key factor for the control of aphid populations. Landscapes with 9% and 16% noncrop habitat had large enough local populations of C. septempunctata to control aphid infestations, whereas landscapes with only 1% or 4% of hibernation area had no potential for improved aphid control. In landscapes with sufficient noncrop habitat, the best control was achieved when small hedgerow elements were evenly distributed over the landscape.


The IoT paradigm seeks to support practical solutions to solve problems in the real world and several domains such as education, health, and mobility. As with traditional systems, requirements engineering represents a fundamental part of the Internet of Things (IoT) based software systems' quality development. However, the IoT systems are complex when compared to traditional software systems. RETIoT (Requirements Engineering Technology for IoT software systems) is a software technology aimed at building IoT software system requirements documents. This paper aims to present a proof of concept of RETIoT regarding its models. The proof of concept was carried out in the context of two real projects, low-cost IoT solutions, to assist health professionals at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in coping with the pandemic COVID-19. The results indicate the initial feasibility of using RETIoT to build requirements documents of IoT software systems.


In this paper we will argue the existence of two distinct feelings of guilt: altruistic guilt and deontological guilt. We contrast our thesis with more traditional and earlier approaches (e.g. Interpersonal vs. intrapsychic or psychoanalytic), describing guilt as a unique kind of feeling. We will show that the two guilt feelings can be distinguishable with reference to behavioral, cognitive and neurophysiological aspects. Moreover, we will demonstrate that they are differently related to other processes and emotions. Altruistic guilt is connected with pain, empathy and ToM. Deontological guilt is strongly related to disgust. A possible relevant implication of our thesis is that the two guilt feelings could have two different evolutionary origins. Altruistic guilt could come from the motivation of caring, while deontological guilt could come from the motivation of repelling and avoiding disgusting substances.


: Concentrations of antibiotics in bronchial secretion vary widely and cannot be easily related to physico-chemical characteristics. Serum and sputum concentrations do broadly correlate in the case of penicillins, some cephalosporins and some tetracyclines. Antibiotic concentrations in bronchial secretion (although not necessarily in lung tissue) are always much lower than in serum, with a ratio of about 20% for tetracycline, 3--4% for ampicillin, 4--50% for gentamicin and tobramycin. Concentrations will often be adequate to inhibit highly sensitive pathogens but marginal or ineffective for those less sensitive, e.g. carbenicillin or gentamicin for Ps. aeruginosa.


In 1822, Francois Magendie after dividing the trigeminal nerve within the skull in dogs made the following statement: "The question of taste, formerly so obscure, no longer presents any difficulty. Physiological experiments and pathological observations have solved it. If the trunk of the fifth nerve is divided in the skull, taste is completely lost, even for sour and bitter substances. This total loss of taste has been noticed in persons in whom the fifth nerve has been compressed or altered." The problem of taste was not, however, to be settled so simply and unequivocally. As it has been impossible to expose the nerves concerned in the mediation of taste sensations throughout their courses, indirect methods of study, such as the following, have been employed: (1) clinical studies checked by pathologic observations, (2) experiments on animals and (3) postoperative observations on human beings. From the evidence which has accumulated, one theory


Title: Moralism and the Situated Character of Qualitative Research Practice

Background to the topic
Ethics has long been a topic for methodological reflection and discussion among social scientists in education and other fields, but in recent years it has come to be treated by many qualitative researchers as a central concern. This is one aspect of what can be referred to as 'moralism' or 'ethicism'. There are several reasons for the increasing salience of research ethics. One is the fact that the growth of ethical regulation in the field of health research has spread out into other areas of inquiry, including social and educational research. This is a development that has particularly sharp consequences for qualitative research, because the model of inquiry on which regulatory guidelines and arrangements are based is often at odds with it. Another reason for the increasing centrality of ethics is that the fragmentation of qualitative research into a diverse array of paradigms has exacerbated differences in attitude about what counts as ethical research practice, turning these into fundamental philosophical and political conflicts. Finally, the increased use of visual and online data has introduced some distinctive problems, or given old problems a new form.

Research questions/focus of enquiry
A first question will be: what is research ethics? The meaning of the word 'ethics' is by no means well-defined and variations in its meaning will be briefly explored. Research ethics is a form of occupational ethics, and the implications of this will also be examined, pointing out that comparison with media ethics could be more appropriate than with medical ethics. There are also issues about what counts, and what should not count, as research, particularly in the field of qualitative educational inquiry; and it will be argued that this is of ethical relevance. There has been a tendency for discussions of research ethics to be primarily concerned with the relations of researchers with the people they study, emphasizing notions like informed consent. While these are certainly important, making them central is a key aspect of what we are referring to as moralism. Another aspect of this is a tendency to emphasise procedures or principles, and to neglect the situated character of methodological decisions. It is particularly important to recognise that ethical judgements are rarely unproblematic, and can be subject to fundamental disagreement. This arises both from conflicts among different ethical principles and from differences in the interpretation of each principle in particular contexts. At the same time, most of the ethical issues that arise in qualitative research are of low importance, when compared with those relating to both medical and educational practice.

Research methods and/or mapping of the literature
In exploring the nature of research ethics and critically examining 'moralism' in research ethics we will draw systematically on the philosophical literature, and on the literatures dealing with research ethics in the social sciences as well as in education. We will build on the views to be found there, but also subject them to careful assessment, developing a distinctive account of the nature and importance of research ethics. While this is not an empirical paper, we will use examples from our own research experience and from the literature to illustrate some of the dilemmas that can face researchers. At the same time, we will caution against the use of 'atrocity stories' in bolstering estimates of the significance of ethical issues in social and educational research. Many of these stories come from the medical field and involve caricatures, as for example in the case of the Tuskegee syphilis study. In a similar way, discussions of 'ethical incidents' within social science often perpetuate significant misinterpretations of the facts involved, as well as involving ethical interpretations that are open to challenge.

Analytical and/or theoretical framework
The analytical framework will be developed during the course of the paper, though it will draw on those approaches – such as casuistic, situationist and particularist ethics – which have emphasised that judgments about ethical issues are always made case-by-case within the context of particular activities that have distinctive goals, and in circumstances where a variety of considerations have to be balanced against one another. Another important resource will be those contributions to philosophical ethics that have challenged moralism, for example some of the writings of Bernard Williams. These relate closely to an important contrast in ethical attitude to be found within social scientific discussions of research ethics in the past, between what might be referred to as moralistic and Machiavellian orientations. We will discuss these contributions to ethical theory against the background of the more usual philosophical approaches appealed to in discussions of research ethics, namely deontological and consequentialist perspectives, as well as less commonly mentioned alternatives such as virtue ethics and the ethics of care.
Research Findings/contribution to knowledge
A first element of our argument will be about the nature of research ethics. We will explore the different meanings of 'ethics', in everyday and philosophical usage. A second point will be that, as a form of occupational ethics, the primary principle that should govern research is dedication to the goal of pursuing knowledge effectively. Issues to do with how the people studied, or others (such as funders, university managers, colleagues, and students), should be treated come after this, even though they are extremely important. The main part of our argument will be that, contrary to what is implied by moralism, there is no such thing as an ethical decision: there are only decisions that involve ethical considerations. And there are many other sorts of consideration that must be taken into account: methodological, prudential, and legal. Our overall conclusion will be that it is important to think carefully about what 'research ethics' means, to be aware of the conflicting principles that come under that heading, that the distinctive and primary duty of the researcher is to pursue knowledge, and that the situated character of qualitative research in education has important implications for how we should make ethical judgments about our own work and that of others.


This dissertation consists of three papers. The first paper "Managing the Workload: an Experiment on Individual Decision Making and Performance" experimentally investigates how decision-making in workload management affects individual performance. I designed a laboratory experiment in order to exogenously manipulate the schedule of work faced by each subject and to identify its impact on final performance. Through the mouse click-tracking technique, I also collected interesting behavioral measures on organizational skills. I found that a non-negligible share of individuals performs better under externally imposed schedules than in the unconstrained case. However, such constraints are detrimental for those good in self-organizing. The second chapter, "On the allocation of effort with multiple tasks and piecewise monotonic hazard function", tests the optimality of a scheduling model, proposed in a different literature, for the decisional problem faced in the experiment. Under specific assumptions, I find that such model identifies what would be the optimal scheduling of the tasks in the Admission Test. The third paper "The Effects of Scholarships and Tuition Fees Discounts on Students' Performances: Which Monetary Incentives work Better?" explores how different levels of monetary incentives affect the achievement of students in tertiary education. I used a Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit the assignment of different monetary incentives, to study the effects of such liquidity provision on performance outcomes, ceteris paribus. The results show that a monetary increase in the scholarships generates no effect on performance since the achievements of the recipients are all centered near the requirements for non-returning the benefit. Secondly, students, who are actually paying some share of the total cost of college attendance, surprisingly, perform better than those whose cost is completely subsidized. A lower benefit, relatively to a higher aid, it motivates students to finish early and not to suffer the extra cost of a delayed graduation.


ZoonosesAt Qinghai Lake in China, where in 2005 alone, more than 6000 wild birds died, migrating birds are being tracked by satellite, part of a series of investigations that began after highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1 subtype) first swept the region in 2005. The studies aim to pinpoint the viral reservoir and the role that wild birds play in transmission. No reservoir has yet been found, but transmission routes have come into clearer focus.

* Li Jiao is a writer in Beijing.


High value-added products from hen egg are receiving increasing attention from both egg academic and industrial circles due to their potential applications in research and medicine as well as the benefits they bring to egg-breaking industries. This paper reports a simple method for the preparation of immunoglobulin Y (IgY) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL) from hen egg yolk. A water dilution method coupled with (NH4)2SO4 precipitation was employed to prepare the two target proteins. SDS-PAGE under reducing or nonreducing conditions and liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) were used to characterize the two products. Western blotting and histobiochemical staining were utilized to qualitatively analyze IgY and HDL, respectively. The purities of prepared IgY and HDL were detected by ELISA and a direct high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol assay, respectively. Results show that dilution times 15 makes IgY and HDL separate well from each other. Western blotting proves IgY has an immunocompetence similar to that of human IgG. Histobiochemical staining shows HDL is composed of sugar, lipid, and protein. The quantitative evaluation of the products indicates that approximately 3 kg of IgY and 2 kg of HDL with purities of 72.7 and 71.9%, respectively, are available from 1 ton of shell eggs via this process.


In this paper we consider estimates of the Fourier transform measures, concentrated on analytic hypersurfaces containing the of damping factor. The paper presents the solution of the problem S.D.Soggi and I.M. Stein about the optimal decay of the transformation Fourier measures with a damping factor for any analytic surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space.


We propose a model for growing fractal networks based on the mechanisms learned from the diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model in fractal geometries in the viewpoint of network. By studying the DLA network, our model introduces multiplicative growth, aging and geographical preferential attachment mechanisms, whereby featuring topological self-similar property and hierarchical modularity. According to the results of theoretical analysis and simulation, the degree distribution of the proposed model shows a mixed degree distribution (i.e., exponential and algebraic degree distribution) and the fractal dimension and clustering coefficient can be tuned by changing the values of parameters.


We present perfectly vertical grating couplers for the 220 nm silicon-on-insulator platform incorporating subwavelength metamaterials to increase the minimum feature sizes and achieve broadband low back-reflection. Our study reveals that devices with high coupling efficiencies are distributed over a wide region of the design space with varied back-reflections, while still maintaining minimum feature sizes larger than 100 nm and even 130 nm. Using 3D-finite-difference time-domain simulations, we demonstrate devices with broadband low back-reflection of less than -20dB over more than 100 nm bandwidth centered around the C-band. Coupling efficiencies of 72% and 67% are achieved for minimum feature sizes of 106 nm and 130 nm, respectively. These gratings are also more fabrication tolerant compared to similar designs not using metamaterials.


BACKGROUND
We examined the association between long work hours, assembly line work and stress-related diseases utilizing objective health and employment data from an employer's administrative databases.

METHODS
A North American automobile manufacturing company provided data for claims for sickness, accident and disability insurance (work absence of at least 4 days) for cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension and psychological disorders, employee demographics, and facility hours worked per year for 1996-2001. Age-adjusted claim rates and age-adjusted rate ratios were calculated using Poisson regression, except for comparisons between production and skilled trades workers owing to lack of age denominator data by job category. Associations between overtime hours and claim rates by facility were examined by Poisson regression and multi-level Poisson regression.

RESULTS
Claims for hypertension, coronary heart disease, CVD, and psychological disorders were associated with facility overtime hours. We estimate that a facility with 10 more overtime hours per week than another facility would have 4.36 more claims for psychological disorders, 2.33 more claims for CVD, and 3.29 more claims for hypertension per 1,000 employees per year. Assembly plants had the highest rates of claims for most conditions. Production workers tended to have higher rates of claims than skilled trades workers.

CONCLUSIONS
Data from an auto manufacturer's administrative databases suggest that autoworkers working long hours, and assembly-line workers relative to skilled trades workers or workers in non-assembly facilities, have a higher risk of hypertension, CVD, and psychological disorders. Occupational disease surveillance and disease prevention programs need to fully utilize such administrative data.


The high velocity combustion wire (HVCW) sprayed coatings have unique structures and properties which are different from the conventional wire / powder HVOF coatings. This paper studies the coatings of 0.8% C Steel formed by the HVCW system. 0.8% C Steel coatings formed by the HVCW system were studied for their wear resistance (pin on desk wear test) and phase composition. Methods like SEM with Wavelength Dispersion Spectroscopy (WDS) attachment were utilized for determining the composition of the coatings. Microhardness and tensile bond strength of the coatings were also ascertained. A set of conventional oxy-acetylene wire flame spray coatings of 0.8% C Steel were also prepared and these coatings were then compared with the HVCW coatings. Possible applications of the HVCW coatings are discussed based upon the properties of the coatings.


In this article I propose a cosmopolitan approach to animal rights based upon Kant's right of universal hospitality. Many approaches to animal rights buttress their arguments by finding similarities between humans and non-human animals; in this way they represent or resemble ethics of partiality. In this article I propose an approach to animal rights that initially rejects similarity approaches and is instead based upon the adoption of a cosmopolitan mindset acknowledging and respecting difference. Furthermore, and in agreement with Martha Nussbaum, and Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, I endorse the view that theories of animal rights need to be theories of justice and include a political component. Contra Donaldson and Kymlicka, however, I argue that the starting point for analysis of political theories of animal rights should be at the global rather than national level. Taking animals as strangers, I propose adopting a Kantian cosmopolitan mindset and ethic of universal hospitality towards them. I address how a ius cosmopoliticum that is hospitable to the interests of non-human animals can govern interactions with animals on fair terms, and I respond to concerns that cosmopolitanism cannot accommodate non-human animals because it is a democratic ideal, is grounded in logocentrism or rests upon ownership of territory by humans.


The effects of cigarette smoking on the risk of herpes zoster (HZ) infection remain unclear. This study aimed to examine the association between cigarette smoking and HZ. Participants were collected from four rounds (2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013) of the Taiwan National Health Interview Survey. Incident cases of HZ were identified from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance database. Of the 57 641 participants, 3346 developed HZ during the observation period. After controlling for confounders, current smokers had a lower risk of incident HZ than never‐smokers (adjusted hazard ratio 0.69; 95% CI 0.62–0.77). There was a trend toward a decreased risk of HZ with increasing numbers of cigarettes per day, years of smoking and cumulative pack‐years of smoking among current smokers (Ptrend < 0.001). Former smoking was not associated with risk of HZ. In conclusion, current smoking was significantly associated with a decreased risk of developing HZ.


Micro-electrode array (MEA) is widely used in bio-sensor systems. The surface degradation of MEA is a frequently reported problem by its end-users (Qinetiq Winfrith). A self-testing method is developed by comparing the impedance of each electrode and thus obtaining a distribution of all the impedance amplitude comparing with an arbitrary one in a 2D plane. Based on the fact that the surface degradation will generally increase the impedance and the assumption that the majority of the electrodes are fault-free, then the degraded electrodes can be identified. In the following parts of this paper, firstly analysis of electrode degradation based on its interfacial impedance is given with the support of both simulation and experiment data. Then the developed self-testing idea is explained in detail. A conclusion is drawn finally. This work continues from a preliminary early work published in IMSTW'6 [l].


This study investigates the potential for implementation of a solar PV-biodiesel hybrid system with battery storage in two rural villages in the Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique. These villages, Nicuita and Quirimize, have at present very limited access to electricity which greatly inhibits an increase in living standards and development of the respective communities. Based on the results of conducted surveys mapping potential electricity demand, the load profiles of the villages alongside an investigation of the availability of different resources are the input of the model of this study with which appropriate dimensions of the hybrid system are suggested for each village. The targeted biofuel of the solar PV-biodiesel hybrid parallel configuration suggested in this study is jatropha based biodiesel for both Nicuita and Quirimize. The biodiesel fueled diesel generator and battery storage meets the nighttime load of the villages, while the solar PV system meets the load during daylight hours and also charges the battery bank to supply the nighttime load not covered by the diesel generator. The electricity production of the hybrid system is distributed through a mini-grid.


The study assessed agricultural sustainability in South Asia (i.e., Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nepal) by computing multi-lateral multi-temporal Total Factor Productivity (TFP) indices and their six finer components (technical change, technical-, scale- and mix-efficiency changes, residual scale and residual mix-efficiency changes) and examined the role of capital in driving TFP growth covering a 34-year period (1980–2013). Results revealed that all countries sustained agricultural productivity growth at variable rates with Bangladesh experiencing highest rate estimated @1.05% p.a. followed by India (0.52%), Pakistan (0.38%) and Nepal (0.06% p.a.). There were little or no variation in technical and scale efficiency changes among the countries. However, residual scale efficiency increased @0.44% p.a. in Bangladesh, 0.12% p.a. in Pakistan, remained unchanged in India and declined −0.39% p.a. in Nepal. Similarly, mix efficiency increased @0.44% in Bangladesh, remained unchanged in India and declined @−0.12% p.a.in Pakistan and −0.39% p.a. in Nepal. The major drivers of agricultural TFP growth were the levels of natural, human and technology capital endowments whereas financial capital and crop diversification had opposite effects. Policy implications include land and tenurial reforms aimed at consolidating farm operation size and smooth operation of the land rental market to improve natural capital, investments in education to improve human capital and agricultural R&D to enhance technology capital in order to boost agricultural productivity growth in South Asia.


A research model of processes where CSCW is implemented and used is presented and applied in a longitudinal comparative study of four cases. The cases focus the implementation and usage processes of different types of CSCW technology at different organisational levels in the Swedish social insurance board. Aspects that influenced the course of the implementation processes are analysed, such as the initiation of the implementation, user participation, technological problems, as well as the expected and real outcomes from the usage regarding efficiency and quality. The study shows that it is possible to initiate implementation of CSCW also at the local and regional level of a centralised and hierarchical organisation. Also, the most important aspects that influence the course of the processes are the expected and real efficiency and quality effects of the implementation and usage.


ABSTRACT Current agricultural practices involve inclusion of antimicrobials in animal feed and result in manure containing antimicrobials and antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms. This work evaluated the effects of land application of swine manure on the levels of tetracycline, macrolide, and lincosamide antimicrobials and on macrolide, lincosamide, and streptogramin B (MLSB) resistance in field soil samples and laboratory soil batch tests. MLSB and tetracycline antimicrobials were quantified after solid-phase extraction using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The prevalence of the ribosomal modification responsible for MLSB resistance in the same samples was quantified using fluorescence in situ hybridization. Macrolide antimicrobials were not detected in soil samples, while tetracyclines were detected, suggesting that the latter compounds persist in soil. No significant differences in ribosomal methylation or presumed MLSB resistance were observed when amended and unamended field soils were compared, although a transient (<20-day) increase was observed in most batch tests. Clostridium cluster XIVa accounted for the largest fraction of resistant bacteria identified in amended soils. Overall, this study did not detect a persistent increase in the prevalence of MLSB resistance due to land application of treated swine manure.


A study on the potential of forest ecosystem services to the livelihood of communities around Shume-Magamba Forest Reserve in Lushoto District, Tanzania was conducted. Questionnaire survey, focus group discussion and participant's observation were used. Qualitatively and quantitatively data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science. Provisioning services were mostly recognized by local communities as the service provided by forest ecosystem followed by cultural services. Provisioning services played greater role in people's livelihood by generating subsistence income. Income generated (66%) by both men and women were highly used to cater for food, health and education. There was no significant difference between gender and income generated from provisioning services to household livelihood. Men were mainly involved in forest protection and tree planting conservation aspects while women involved in law enforcement thus attaining sustainable forest ecosystem utilization. Fire incidences, planting crops near to water sources and illegal timber harvesting were observed to be the main constraints towards sustainable use of forest ecosystem services. It is concluded that, communities were highly uncertain on the potentials of forest ecosystem services to the livelihood, but in actual fact ecosystem services provide both direct and indirect benefits for household livelihood though the income generated is low. Keywords: Forest ecosystem services, Shume-Magamba Forest Reserve, Tanzania


Balloon-borne backscattersondes have been used to study the relationship between particle scattering and ambient temperature near the vertical edge of arctic polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) as well as to delineate the cloud type occurrence probability as a function of temperature. The observed typical threshold temperatures as a function of altitude are about IoK warmer than the temperature Ts:s expected for rapid growth of supercooled ternary solution aerosols. A more descriptive analysis shows that the threshold temperatures occur over a definable range of temperatures and tend to cluster near, but somewhat warmer than, Ts:s. Considering the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, this difference may not be significant. The probability of type Ib PSC occurrence shows a dramatic increase at TST s -+- IoK, while for type Ia PSCs the probability is roughly constant at 10% for temperatures below the formation point of nitric acid trihydrate (TNAT).


Neural image-to-text radiology report generation systems offer the potential to improve radiology reporting by reducing the repetitive process of report drafting and identifying possible medical errors. These systems have achieved promising performance as measured by widely used NLG metrics such as BLEU and CIDEr. However, the current systems face important limitations. First, they present an increased complexity in architecture that offers only marginal improvements on NLG metrics. Secondly, these systems that achieve high performance on these metrics are not always factually complete or consistent due to both inadequate training and evaluation. Recent studies have shown the systems can be substantially improved by using new methods encouraging 1) the generation of domain entities consistent with the reference and 2) describing these entities in inferentially consistent ways. So far, these methods rely on weakly-supervised approaches (rule-based) and named entity recognition systems that are not specific to the chest X-ray domain. To overcome this limitation, we propose a new method, the RadGraph reward, to further improve the factual completeness and correctness of generated radiology reports. More precisely, we leverage the RadGraph dataset containing annotated chest X-ray reports with entities and relations between entities. On two open radiology report datasets, our system substantially improves the scores up to 14.2% and 25.3% on metrics evaluating the factual correctness and completeness of reports.


In a heterogeneous wireless sensor networks, there are usually a number of inexpensive energy constraint sensor nodes that collect sensing data from the sensing environment, and then these nodes will cooperatively transmit the sensing data to the improved cluster head. The joint design of balanced energy consumption among member nodes and network lifetimes prolonging can be achieved by employing clustering techniques in such networks. In classical clustering techniques, clustering and in-cluster data rate allocation are usually established as independent items. Although separate considerations of these two items can simplify the networking design, it is often the non-optimal performances for wireless sensor networks. This paper proposes an integral framework, in which these two correlated items are integrated as an interactive entirety. For that, we develop the clustering problems using mixed integer nonlinear programming. The evolutionary process of clustering is provided in simulations. Results validate that our joint-design proposal reaches a near optimal match between member nodes and cluster heads.


ABSTRACT News reporting on sustainability has been criticized for (1) having a limited coverage of solutions, (2) reporting on solutions with a negative bias, (3) being dominated by sources from government and mainstream business, and (4) promoting frames that prioritize the role of the market and techno-scientific solutions, which leave unchallenged the unsustainable behavior of consumer societies and the focus on economic growth. This study was the first to examine how sustainability is reported in a constructive media outlet and found that articles (1) consistently elaborated solutions, (2) described them in optimistic ways, (3) quoted various sources, and (4) developed a frame that challenged consumerism and critiqued society's preoccupation with growth while helping to imagine a desirable sustainable future. It is thus argued that this novel, constructive approach to journalism can help move society to a sustainable future by expanding the repertoire of culturally-resonant stories to live by.


In Java, method implementations are chosen at runtime by late-binding with respect to the runtime class of just the receiver argument. However, in order to simplify many programming designs, late-binding with respect to the dynamic type of all arguments is sometimes desirable. This behavior, usually provided by multimethods, is known as multipolymorphism. This work presents a new multimethod implementation based on the standard Java reflection mechanism. Provided as a package, it does not require any language extension or any virtual machine modification. The design issues of this reflective implementation are presented together with a new and simple multimethod dispatch algorithm that efficiently supports class loading at runtime. This implementation provides a practicable and fully portable multimethod solution.


Abstract The East African-Antarctica Orogen resulted from the continent-continent collision of East and West Gondwana, or parts thereof, during the Pan-African event at c. 650–510 Ma. The collision overprinted large areas of older, mainly Mesoproterozoic, crust up to granulite facies grade in East Antarctica. The collision history is well documented by folding and thrusting, isothermal decompression and metamorphic zircon growth at c. 580–560 Ma (Pan-African I). The convergence was succeeded by an extensional phase, probably representing orogenic collapse. This Pan-African II event at c. 530–510 Ma is characterized by large-scale extensional structures, finally resulting in the post-tectonic intrusion of voluminous A2-type granitoids. In central Dronning Maud Land the Pan-African II event started with the intrusion of syntectonic igneous rocks within an overall extensional setting. Two new SHRIMP data from gabbro zircons of the Zwiesel Gabbro give ages of 521±5.6 and 527±5.1 Ma. These ages are interpreted as crystallization ages and confirm the interpretation that the gabbro was emplaced early during the Pan-African II event. The gabbro was intruded by a network of leucogranite dykes and veins. Whereas the gabbro appears entirely undeformed, the leucogranite dykes are strongly mylonitized along extensional shear zones, indicating pronounced strain partitioning of the gabbro complex. Within the leucogranite mylonites, large tension gashes developed during mylonitization, indicating very high strain rates. Quartz c-axis orientations from quartz of the tension gashes show a distinct cross-girdle that formed during pure shear deformation. Fluid inclusion data from the leucogranite mylonites and the associated tension gashes mainly reveal recrystallization-related intracrystalline CO2-dominant inclusions with relatively low densities of < 1 g cm−3. The fluid inclusion data are interpreted to represent the last stages of a retrograde P-T path that is characterized by simultaneous cooling and decompression during extensional exhumation, probably succeeding the collapse of overthickened crust. A comparable orogenic collapse of the East African-Antarctic Orogen is reported from other parts of the orogen, such as from western Madagascar and the northern Arabian-Nubian Shield.


Medical histories of 22 patients operated for obturative intestinal obstruction due to cholelithiasis were analyzed, some specific features of this disease were defined. Surgical treatment consisted of enterotomy and cholelithoextraction with obligative decompression of higher intestinal parts. Sound stimulation of the intestine by Russian apparatus "Aropak-536" in combined treatment permitted to restore earlier motor function of gastrointestinal tract.


This report describes the development, administration, and scoring of open-ended variants of GRE® Subject Test items in biology and psychology. These questions were administered in a Web-based experiment to registered examinees of the respective Subject Tests. The questions required a short answer of 1-3 sentences, and responses were automatically scored by natural language processing methods, using the c-rater™ scoring engine, immediately after participants submitted their responses. Participants received immediate feedback on the correctness of their answers, and an opportunity to revise their answers. Subsequent human scoring of the responses allowed an evaluation of the quality of automated scoring. This report focuses on the success of the automated scoring process. A separate report describes the feedback and revision results.


Purpose: The objective of the article is to discuss the results of the study concerning the impact of start-up capital and the specific profession a person practices upon the intensity of activities undertaken in personal brand building. Design/Methodology/Approach: The review of literature was conducted in order to identify the components of the start-up capital and to establish the relationship between the personal brand building process and the start-up capital. The empirical study employed the survey method with the use of a questionnaire. The study examined a representative sample of Polish Internet users in May 2021. Findings: The authors proposed to view the start-up capital of the personal brand as a sum of the cultural, social and economic capital. The results of the study suggest that the higher the sum, the more personal branding activities are undertaken. People pursuing professions characterized by creativity, a broad scope of decision-making, and dependent on individual performance manifest a higher activity concerning personal brand building. Practical Implications: The article contributes to the discussion regarding the viability of the practical application of the personal brand concept among various social and professional groups. Originality/Value: The results of the analysis and theoretical considerations discussed in this article complement existing research concerning the intensity of activities undertaken in personal brand building.


Studies of high-order harmonic generation using single-color and two-color pumps of the long plasmas produced on various metal surfaces are presented using different sources of second-harmonic pump. We apply the barium borate (BBO) crystals of different thickness to manipulate the pump intensity ratios and the overlapping of two pumps in the plasma area. Different relations between the delays and intensities of these pumps allowed the definition of the optimal length of BBO for the efficient generation of even and odd harmonics using targets possessing various ablation properties. The 50× enhancement of odd and even harmonics was achieved in the case of the two-color pump compared with the single-color pump of silver plasma.


Maps of hydrologic classes per 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC08) were created as apart of the DOE/ORNL instream flow project and NSD Resource Assessment (http://nhaap.ornl.gov/nsd). Descriptions of data are provided in McManamay, R.A., M.S. Bevelhimer, S. Kao. 2013. A New US Hydrologic Classification: A Tool to Stratify Analyses in Ecohydrology. Ecohydrology (in revew).Hydrologic classes were created using statistics calculated from discharge information from 2,618 (unregulated) USGS streamflow gages with reference, semi-disturbance, or pre-dam regulation data (USGS National Water Information Serve: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/si). Hydrologic classes are groups of streams that share similar hydrologic properties, i.e. simliarity in streamflow characteristics, and may respond similarly to impoundment. Hydrologic classes provide a template to describe ecological patterns, generalize hydrologic responses to disturbance, and stratify research and management needs. Hydrologic classes were assigned to the 2,618 gages using clustering analysis. For the remaining gages (non-reference), predictive models using landscape and climate information were used to predict class membership. The 2,618 unregulated USGS stream gages were mapped in ARC GIS 9.3 by latitude/longitude coordinates. Theisen polygons [Analysis (Proximity) toolset] were created for each USGS, and each dominant and secondary hydrologic class was assigned to 8-digit Hydrologic units. In addition, the number of hydrologic classes represented within each 8-digit hydrologic unit was summarized. Class Names and Descriptions are provided below:Intermittent Flashy 1 = High intermittency, long high-flow duration; Mixed US distribution, mostly western (centralized to ND, SD). Late Timing Runoff = somewhat stable, later annual maximum (different reasons for late timing in various geographical areas - e.g. hurricanes (FL), rainfall (west). Coastal areas but very mixed (inland). Perennial Runoff 1 = higher variability, different timing; Southeast Piedmont and Uplands.Perennial Runoff 2 = higher baseflow, different timing than PR1; Northeast Piedmont and Uplands Super Stable Groundwater = very high baseflow, stable, probably occuring around spring-fed areas; Mixed US distribution.Stable High Baseflow = relatively high BF, stable, relatively high runoff; SE blue ridge mountainsIntermittent Flashy SW = High intermittency, long high-flow duration, short low-flow duration; SW California, AZ.Snowmelt 2 = slightly higher BF, different timing max flows and flow durations; Western Rockies, great lakes.Unpredictable Intermittent = Low predictability, somewhat flashy, later annual max than class PR2; Eastern USIntermittent Flashy 2 = High intermittency, late maximum; Mixed US distribution.Western Coastal Runoff = distinct wet/dry seasons, early maximum (altered timing); Western Coast (CA)Stable High Runoff = higher runoff, stable; Upper Western Coast (WA, OR)Harsh Intermittent = long periods of intermittency, and periods of episodic flows; SW US.Snowmelt 1 = slightly lower BF, different timing max flows and flow durations; Eastern RockiesGlacial High Runoff = predictable, minimum occurs in winter, long high-flow duration; high elevation areas (MT, WY) and artic (AK)


OBJECTIVE
To compare the risk of different treatment scenarios on selecting for anthelmintic resistance on Australian sheep farms.

DESIGN
A computer simulation model predicted populations of Trichostrongylus colubriformis, Haemonchus contortus or Teladorsagia (Ostertagia) circumcincta, and the frequency of anthelmintic resistance genes.

METHOD
Nematode populations and the progression of drug resistance for a variety of treatment options and management practices in sheep-rearing areas of Western Australia (WA), Victoria (VIC) and New South Wales (NSW) were simulated. A scoring system was devised to measure the success of each option in delaying resistance to each anthelmintic and in controlling nematode populations.

RESULTS
The best option at all sites was combining the new anthelmintic (monepantel) with a triple mixture of benzimidazole, levamisole and abamectin (COM). The next best option was: in NSW, rotation at each treatment between monepantel, moxidectin and COM; in VIC, rotation at each treatment between monepantel and COM; and in WA, rotation at each treatment between monepantel (used in winter) and COM or moxidectin (used in summer-autumn). In WA, rapid selection for resistance occurred as a consequence of summer-autumn treatments; however, if a small percentage of adult stock were left untreated then this selection could be greatly reduced. Despite purposely assuming relatively high resistance to benzimidazole and levamisole, COM was still effective in controlling worms and delaying resistance.

CONCLUSIONS
Because of cost constraints, it may not be feasible or profitable for producers to always use the combination of all drugs. However, the second- and third-best options still considerably slowed the development of anthelmintic resistance.


In their recent article, 1 Santiago and Dalen focus on the intriguing relationship between low cholesterol levels and violence. They note that Muldoon and colleagues 2 suggested that lowering the cholesterol level might trigger behavioral, affective, or nervous system changes, and they, additionally, proposed the use of serotonin as an intermediary. Supporting evidence for this neurotransmitter, however, is meager, which is not surprising as serotonin is more associated with suicide related to depression than with violence. However, the latter is suggestive of increased sympathoadrenal activity, for which there is evidence. As cholesterol is essential for steroid production, reduced availability should result in a negative feedback response involving its tropic hormone, adrenocorticotropin, for which supporting statistics exist. 2 Furthermore, in amphibians, cholesterol itself has been shown to downregulate hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal activity, 3 establishing at least a regulatory role in vertebrates. Finally, a more basic point. Survival requires that a falling level of


Objective To evaluate whether a screening strategy in pregnancy lowers the rate of preterm delivery in a general population of pregnant women. Design Multicentre, prospective, randomised controlled trial. Setting Non-hospital based antenatal clinics. Participants 4429 pregnant women presenting for their routine prenatal visits early in the second trimester were screened by Gram stain for asymptomatic vaginal infection. In the intervention group, the women's obstetricians received the test results and women received standard treatment and follow up for any detected infection. In the control group, the results of the vaginal smears were not revealed to the caregivers. Main outcome measures The primary outcome variable was preterm delivery at less than 37 weeks. Secondary outcome variables were preterm delivery at less than 37 weeks combined with different birth weight categories equal to or below 2500 g and the rate of late miscarriage. Results Outcome data were available for 2058 women in the intervention group and 2097 women in the control group. In the intervention group, the number of preterm births was significantly lower than in the control group (3.0% v 5.3%, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 3.6; P = 0.0001). Preterm births were also significantly reduced in lower weight categories at less than 37 weeks and ≤ 2500 g. Eight late miscarriages occurred in the intervention group and 15 in the control group. Conclusion Integrating a simple infection screening programme into routine antenatal care leads to a significant reduction in preterm births and reduces the rate of late miscarriage in a general population of pregnant women.


The aim of this study was to test the validity of the "sleep-dissociation" perspective. In addition, and to gain a more comprehensive overview of the trauma–sleep–dissociation complex, we aimed to test in which manner and to what degree trauma sleep disorders and nightmares are related to dissociation. A total of 100 male and 100 female university students with mean age of 24 completed and returned a 160-item questionnaire designed to detect the extent of dissociation, childhood and recent trauma history, sleep disorders, and nightmares. Correlation analyses showed that sleep disorders and nightmares correlated significantly with history of childhood and recent trauma and dissociation. Findings from bootstrapping procedures showed that nightmares and sleep disorders, separately from each other, mediated the relationship between trauma and dissociation. However, when nightmares and sleep disorders were analyzed together in one data set, the only significant mediator was nightmares, which explained a substantial proportion of the total effect of childhood trauma on dissociation. These observations support the "sleep-dissociation" perspective on the relationship between trauma and dissociation, meaning that traumatic events might engender both sleep disturbances and nightmares, which in turn might play a pivotal role in the genesis of dissociative symptoms. The results of this study imply that trauma survivors, routinely, should be assessed and monitored with regard to sleep disorders and nightmares. Treating nightmares and, consequently, securing trauma survivors a consistent sleeping pattern and quality may play an important role in preventing the potential occurrence of dissociative symptoms.


Abstract This study aims to determine and evaluate the operating parameters of three modern self-propelled forage harvesters during maize silage harvest. The machines were equipped with operator assistance systems. Field tests were conducted for three self-propelled forage harvesters: Claas Jaguar 870, Claas Jaguar 950, KroneBiG X 650. The tests were conducted in large-scale farms located in Wielkopolskie and Pomorskie voivodeships. Maize was harvested at the beginning of the full-grain maturity stage. A complete time study covering four control shifts in accordance with BN-76/9195-01 was performed to determine operating ratios and indicators. Fuel consumption was determined using the full tank method. The Claas Jaguar 950 forage harvester had the highest effective mass performance: 141.3 Mg·h-1. The same machine also achieved the lowest fuel consumption per tonne of fresh matter (FM) harvested: 0.51 kg·Mg-1. Labour expenditure for the self-propelled forage harvesters tested during the total time of change ranged from 0.38 to 0.62 labour hour per hectare. The tested machines also had very high technical and technological reliability.


According to Pine and Gilmore [1999], over the last two hundred years we have witnessed a shift from an Agrarian Economy based on extracting commodities, to an Industrial Economy based on manufacturing goods, to a Service Economy based on delivering services, and finally to an Experience Economy based on staging experiences. In the same time span, tourism has evolved from being an elitarian pursuit to being a leading world industry, contributing with over 10% to global GDP (source: WTO). In a fast growing scenario such as the tourism market, if Europe wants to keep its leading position, considering the increasing competitive pressure of emerging countries where labour and raw materials are enormously cheaper, it won't definitely be through beach, general purpose, tourism. Rather, it will have to leverage on its artistic and archaeological resources that make a visit to places like Rome, Florence or the Loire castles a unique experience. Polls and surveys, however, show that the average traveller is becoming increasingly demanding in terms of information and services: as Shoshana Zuboff points out, people are now more educated, informed, experienced, travelled and connected than earlier generations [Zuboff 2005]. This makes it necessary to invest in R&D for providing tourists with added value, user centred, highly personalized services. In short, memorable experiences. No matter what purpose is behind the project of a trip, travelling is an information intensive activity: variables are innumerable and for transforming a nice idea into a successful trip it is necessary to gather as much information as possible. This, in the age of Internet, can be a hard task: it is well known that extracting useful, meaningful information in an almost infinite repository such as the web, can be an extremely frustrating and time consuming endeavour. Furthermore, each phase of a trip requires different types of services and information. And, last but not least, as Negroponte [1995] noted already over a decade ago, in the post-information age personalization is "upon us": consumers are now accustomed to be considered as individuals, and "mass" is a synonym of "low quality" in a world where goods, services and, above all, information get everyday closer to their final target's preferences through increasingly refined customization techniques. A solid point of reference, in this respect, is provided by the Open Tourism Consortium, on the emergence of a multi-faceted uCommerce,. In the proposed model a tour is organized in three phases: pre-, on-, and post-tour. In short, in order to support and promote cultural tourism and heritage, it is necessary to provide both domain experts, and general purpose users with an environment for accessing interactive, personalized, multimedia content through any kind of network and tool, seamlessly switching from one to the other. For reaching this objective it is necessary to cover the whole cultural product life-cycle using techniques and methodologies that range from tomography, to virtual reality, to ontologies, to marketing and customer segmentation techniques with a strong multidisciplinary approach.


We perform a systematic search of remotely triggered seismicity in continental China following the 2008Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake. We visually identify earthquakes as impulsive seismic energy with clear P and S arrivals on 5 Hz high-pass filtered three-component velocity seismograms 1 hr before and after the Wenchuan earthquake. Out of the 271 stations in the updated Chinese digital seismic network (CSN), 17 stations show statistically significant seismicity increase with β-statistic values larger than 2, following the Wenchuan earthquake. These include 11 stations in the north China block, which is seismically active and is in the rupture propagation direction of the Wenchuan earthquake, three stations along the coastal lines in the relatively stable south China block, one station near the Haiyuan fault zone in northwest China, and two stations near the Tanlu fault zone and the Longgang volcano in northeast China. These observations suggest that dynamic triggering in intraplate regions tends to occur near active faults that have ruptured in historic times and in the rupture propagation directions of the mainshock. However, it is worth noting that many sites that satisfy the criteria are not triggered, suggesting that these conditions would help but are not sufficient enough to guarantee remote triggering in intraplate regions. The tectonic environments near the sites with clear triggered activity range from transpressional to tranextentional, and most regions are not associated with active geothermal or volcanic activity, indicating that dynamic triggering could occur in a wide range of tectonic environments. Online Material: Tables of station information and measured parameters and two supplementary figures showing locally triggered earthquakes.


HIV-1 coreceptors CCR5 and CXCR4 play an important role in viral entry and pathogenesis. To better understand the role of viral tropism in HIV-1 transmission, we examined the coreceptor utilization of viral isolates obtained from men enrolled in a study of heterosexual transmission in northern Thailand. Viral isolates were obtained from HIV-1-positive males who had either HIV-1-infected spouses (RM; n = 5) or HIV-1-uninfected spouses (HM; n = 10). Viral isolates from 1 of the 5 RM males and 2 of the 10 HM males were CCR5 tropic, whereas isolates from 3 RM males and 6 of the HM male isolates were CXCR4 tropic. Of the nine X4-tropic isolates, seven also used at least one of the following coreceptors: CCR8, CCR1, CCR2b, or CX3CR1, and none employed CCR5 as an additional coreceptor. More importantly, three isolates, RM-15, HM-13, and HM-16 (one from a transmitter and two from nontransmitter), did not infect GHOST4.cl.34 cells expressing any of the known coreceptors. Further analysis using MAGI-plaque assays, which allow visualization of infected cells, revealed that RM-15 had low numbers of infected cells in MAGI-R5 and MAGI-X4 cultures, whereas HM-13 and HM-16 had high levels of plaques in MAGI-X4 cultures. Replication kinetics using activated lymphocytes revealed that these three isolates replicated in CCR5(+/+) as well as CCR5(-/-) peripheral blood mononuclear cells, suggesting that these isolates did not have an absolute requirement of CCR5 for viral entry. All three isolates were sensitive to the X4-antagonistic compounds T-22 and AMD3100. Analysis of the C2V3 region did not reveal any significant structural differences between any of the Thai subtype E isolates. Thus, there was no association between the pattern of coreceptor usage and transmissibility among these subtype E HIV-1 isolates.


This guide is designed to assist you in developing and/or enhancing your information literacy skills (aka library research skills) so you can successfully complete assessment tasks for your courses.


There are many changes taking place and new directions being developed all the time in suicidology. The various changes and why they are happening are discussed. The activities of the suicide prevention centers are reviewed and some of the experiences of the Detroit Suicide Prevention and Drug Information Center are reported. There is discussion of the role of the psychiatrist in support of some aspects of law enforcement activities including crisis intervention technics. The American Association of Suicidology is discussed as is the International Association for Suicide Prevention. Language: en


abstract (introduction): the purpose of this paper is to inquire into the size-distribution of money incomes of individuals and of families (on per capita basis) in czechoslovakia's socialist economy. the existing socialist systems have frequently been examined in terms of their distributive aspects and have been largely neglected in professional literature. in the early fifties, the lack of studies of the socialist distributions of incomes by size were understandable. hardly any statistics were available on the distribution of money incomes. the "use value" of incomes in cash was very limited by widespread rationning and inadequate supply of a number of consumer goods on the market. the non-measurable income in kind loomed largely in total personal income and covered a great part of final consumption in eastern europe. all this changed in recent years. several communist countries, especially czechoslovakia, hungary and poland, have published interesting figures on the dispersion of money incomes. rationning has been abolished, except for a small number of goods and services (e.g. housing), and an effort has been made to give the consumer a much wider choice of goods. although prices still do not reflect consumer preferences, andsome shortages still occur on the market, the "use value" of money income has increased considerably. (...);


Computers are widely utilized in today's weather forecasting as a powerful tool to leverage an enormous amount of data. Yet, despite the availability of such data, current techniques often fall short of producing reliable detailed storm forecasts. Each year severe thunderstorms cause significant damage and loss of life, some of which could be avoided if better forecasts were available. We propose a computer algorithm that analyzes satellite images from historical archives to locate visual signatures of severe thunderstorms for short-term predictions. While computers are involved in weather forecasts to solve numerical models based on sensory data, they are less competent in forecasting based on visual patterns from both current and past satellite images. In our system, we extract and summarize important visual storm evidence from satellite image sequences in the way that meteorologists interpret the images. In particular, the algorithm extracts and fits local cloud motion from image sequences to model the storm-related cloud patches. Image data from the year 2008 have been adopted to train the model, and historical severe thunderstorm reports in continental U.S. from 2000 to 2013 have been used as the ground truth and priors in the modeling process. Experiments demonstrate the usefulness and potential of the algorithm for producing more accurate severe thunderstorm forecasts.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to estimate shadow prices of agricultural carbon emissions produced by agricultural inputs, rice paddy and burning crop residue, and to explore the impact of cropping pattern on marginal abatement cost (MAC).

Design/methodology/approach
The shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions is estimated by applying directional distance function and non-parametric methods.

Findings
The estimated shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions ranges from 6.78 to 557.83 yuan/ton, and the average value is 62.50 yuan/ton (or $10.18/ton). The MAC value varies in different provinces and years. The regional difference of MAC shows a decreasing trend during the investigation period. Cropping pattern shows a significant negative impact on agricultural MAC. A 1 percent decrease of rice proportion leads to a 0.31 percent increase in MAC value. This implies that the higher the proportion of rice is, the lower the economic cost to reduce agricultural carbon emissions would be.

Practical implications
It is feasible to draw up appropriate mechanisms for the allocation of emission reduction responsibilities according to conditions in various regions, with emphasis on the local cropping patterns. There is a trade-off between reducing carbon emission and increasing crop yields.

Originality/value
This study calculates agricultural MAC by using the shadow price approach, taking agricultural carbon emissions as undesired environmental output. The study also provides a reference emission right price and provides guidance to make use of cropping structure adjustment and optimization for exploring the emission reduction strategy.


Individually adjusting the training load of athletes is of undeniable importance, in optimizing adaptation and performance gains; however, this individualized approach has been a challenge for coaches especially in team sports. The countermovement jump (CMJ) height has been one of the most used measurements for monitoring neuromuscular status in high performance athletes. For this, the true score is essential when monitoring an individual's "real" performance change i.e. greater than the typical error of measurement (TEM). The purpose of the present study is to describe how the minimal individual difference (MID) can be calculated and applied by researchers and practitioners. It is important that the athlete is familiarized with the countermovement jump (CMJ) as the desired outcome is for the athlete to achieve equivalency in CMJ height scores over two days. As a result of the familiarization process the TEM associated with the CMJ is reduced. For reliability testing, the athlete performs 8 CMJs each day and with this data, the MID is calculated via an excel spreadsheet. The average of the 8 jumps of the second day of reliability testing is considered as the participant's baseline. Thus, researchers and practitioners can use the MID of CMJ to monitor neuromuscular status and regulate individual training loads.


LESSONS LEARNED
Palbociclib monotherapy demonstrated minimal clinical activity in patients with previously treated gastroesophageal cancers. Further clinical evaluation of palbociclib monotherapy is not warranted in gastroesophageal cancers, but improved understanding of resistance mechanisms may permit rational combination approaches.

BACKGROUND
Dysregulation of the cell cycle is a hallmark of cancer. Progression through the G1/S transition requires phosphorylation of retinoblastoma (RB) by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) 4 and 6, which are regulated by cyclins D and E. Amplifications of cyclin D loci and activating mutations in CDKs are frequent molecular aberrations in gastroesophageal malignancies. We conducted a phase II trial of the CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib as an initial test of efficacy.

METHODS
Patients with previously treated metastatic gastroesophageal cancers with intact RB nuclear expression by immunohistochemistry were treated with 125 mg daily of palbociclib for days 1-21 of 28-day cycles. The primary endpoint was overall response rate.

RESULTS
We screened 29 patients and enrolled 21 patients: 5 with gastric adenocarcinoma, 3 with gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, 8 with esophageal adenocarcinoma, and 5 with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. All 29 tumors screened had intact nuclear RB expression, and four treated patients tested positive for CCND1 overexpression. No objective responses were seen. Median progression-free survival was 1.8 months, and median overall survival was 3.0 months. All recurrent grade 3 or 4 toxicities were hematologic, with neutropenia in eight patients (38%), anemia in four patients (19%), and thrombocytopenia in two patients (10%).

CONCLUSION
Palbociclib has limited single-agent activity in gastroesophageal tumors.


The author's experience in visualizing waves and wave related calculations using Mathcad, as well as several other general purpose mathematical packages, will be presented. [See, for example P. H. Ceperley, Comput. Phys. 7, 274 (1993)] Mathcad is particularly good as an aid in understanding physical phenomena, as opposed to producing pretty pictures to show to other people (which other packages are generally better at). Its strength is its very interactive human interface, which allows calculations, text, and graphs of various types to be displayed on the page at will. It allows one to quickly alter numbers, equations, and graphs to speed up detective processes. Also of interest for wave and field research is Mathcad's ability to create three‐dimensional color surface plots. Examples will be shown which illustrate its interactive use in the display and fitting of experimental data, as well as in the display of theoretical results at multiple stages in a calculation. More limited results using the more powerful, but less interactive tools of Maple and Mathematica will also be shown.


ABSTRACT To improve the efficiency of gas chromatography for hydrogen isotope separation near room temperature, feasibility of new columns was examined for H-D and H-D-T mixture gases. One kind of the column was the mixture of Pd-Pt alloy and Cu powders as the previous study. But special attention was paid for preparing the separation column; Pd-Pt alloy particles below 200 mesh was mixed with copper powder of 150–200 mesh and packed into a loading tube of stainless steel as uniform as possible. The separation for H-D mixture gases could be remarkably improved by this column even at temperatures around 300 K. This column also could separate tritium as T2 from H-D-T mixture gas containing only 0.13 % T. The other column was prepared by Pd-Pt alloy supported by porous SiC powder for economical use of the expensive alloy. Although this column gave similar separation chromatograms, the separation efficiency was still insufficient and further studies are required.


The main objective of this paper is to point out limitations of a coupled finite element analysis involving saturated soils subjected to fluctuating load. For this purpose an experimental program has been carried out in which a sample of medium dense sand was subjected to a cyclic loading history under free-draining conditions. The results showed that, in spite of the high permeability of the material, the consolidation settlements were insignificant. The mechanical response of this sample was then simulated using coupled finite element analysis based on Biot's formulation. The analysis predicted high settlement amplitudes, which were inconsistent with the experimental data. This indicates that the applicability of Darcy's law, which governs the transient flow, is restricted to the case when the hydraulic heads undergo a slow monotonic change, whereas under a typical scenario involving fluctuating load (e.g. an earthquake excitation) the conditions remain essentially undrained. (A)


The cracked pipes usually need to be replaced or conservatively evaluated in the Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). There is still a lack of effective methods for a real-time crack propagation and safety evaluation based on massive monitoring transient data. From a technical standpoint, there is a need to establish inspection and monitoring technologies. This research has carried out a re-development in the general finite element analysis (FEA) software platform which is based on our research results and the requirements of the RSE-M Code. In this paper, the re-development is introduced firstly. Then, the information of the large pipe test information from France, Japan and China is summarized. Finally, the technology accuracy of the on-line fracture assessment of a cracked pipe in the NPPs is studied. The comparative research results show that the FEA analysis and modeling method of the pipe adopted by the authors in the re-development software is reliable and can meet the requirements for the on-line fracture assessment.


In the past few years it has been demonstrated that electroencephalography (EEG) can be recorded from inside the ear (in-ear EEG). To open the door to low-profile earpieces as wearable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), this work presents a practical in-ear EEG device based on multiple dry electrodes, a user-generic design, and a lightweight wireless interface for streaming data and device programming. The earpiece is designed for improved ear canal contact across a wide population of users and is fabricated in a low-cost and scalable manufacturing process based on standard techniques such as vacuum forming,plasma-treatment, and spray coating. A 2.5x2.5 cm^2 wireless recording module is designed to record and stream data wirelessly to a host computer. Performance was evaluated on three human subjects over three months and compared with clinical-grade wet scalp EEG recordings. Recordings of spontaneous and evoked physiological signals, eye-blinks, alpha rhythm, and the auditory steady-state response (ASSR), are presented. This is the first wireless in-ear EEG to our knowledge to incorporate a dry multielectrode, user-generic design. The user-generic ear EEG recorded a mean alpha modulation of 2.17, outperforming the state-of-the-art in dry electrode in-ear EEG systems.


This brief presents an all digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) design with two newly proposed hysteresis delay cells (HDCs) for wireless body area network applications. According to circuit topologies, the two HDCs are defined as on-off and cascaded HDCs that provide various propagation delay values. These HDCs form a simple oscillator structure based on a power-of-2 delay stage DCO (P2-DCO) architecture. Each delay stage provides half of the delay of the previous delay stage in descending order, enabling low-power and small-area features. The P2-DCO is verified in a 90-nm CMOS technology for wide operating frequencies with area of 80 μm X 80 μm and least significant bit resolution of 2.05 ps. With a supply voltage of 1.0 V, the measured dynamic power values are 5.4 and 166 μW at 3.4 and 163.2 MHz, respectively.


Hybrid structures assembled by van der Waals (vdW) interactions greatly expand the conventional material platforms, as there is no constraint of lattice matching in the materials design. However, a general challenge lies in the controllable assembly of 1D-2D hybrids with strong-coupled interfaces, because the interaction area is very small and is easily disturbed by exotic molecules. Here, we report the direct construction of 1D carbon nanotube-2D MoS2 monolayer hybrids with strong interfacial coupling using a sequential chemical vapour deposition growth method. The strong mechanical and electronic couplings between the nanotubes and MoS2 are unambiguously illustrated from the Raman-mode frequency shift and ultrafast interfacial charge transfer (∼100 fs). The findings in this work will boost the mass fabrication of 1D-2D vdW hybrid materials with controllable interfacial geometry and coupling strength, and pave the way for their future applications in electronics, optoelectronics and photovoltaics.


In the context of EU rural development policy, one of the proposed actions is the formation of Operational Groups (OGs). These OGs are part of the framework of the European Innovation Partnership on Agricul-tural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI). The objective of this policy is to promote sustainable and applicable solutions to agricultural problems. OGs can be thought of as innovation intermediaries. Their functions have been addressed in the literature on agricultural innovation systems. To advance the research in this area, the objective of this study is to identify the innovation intermediary functions of Spanish OGs by drawing upon the opinions of their members. An online survey was conducted to collect data from members of Spanish EIP-AGRI OGs. The questionnaire asked members about the characteris-tics and functions of their OGs. More specifically, it also collected evaluations of the performance of OGs in certain innovation activities. The results of an exploratory factor analysis reveal that Spanish OGs perform three main functions: innovation process management, demand articulation, and institutional support and innovation brokering.


Background: HIV and viral hepatitis B have the same mode of transmission in child dominated by vertical transmission. Objective: The focus of this research work was to determine the frequency of HIV and viral hepatitis B co-infections in HIV-positive infants and children in a hospital environment and to identify the factors associated with that co-infection. Materials and methods: It was a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study conducted in a pediatric hospital unit located in the North-Benin over the period from May to August 2014. Infants and children under 15 years at the time of screening attended for HIV infection care were included. Averages were compared with Student t-test or Pearson Chi-square test at 0.05 threshold limit and also by using prevalence reporter with OR as the case may be. Results: A total of 104 infants and children were tested. Mean age was 8 years ± 4.03 years. Sex ratio was 1.03. Among them, 28.85% were immunized against hepatitis B, 24.04% had history of blood transfusion and 43.27% history of scarification. Mean CD4 count in children under 5 years of age was 19.8% ± 17.8%. HIV/HBV co-infection frequency was 9.62%. It was associated with maternal age (p=0.038), histrory of circumcision (p=0.019), presence of hepatomegaly (p=0.00) and with ALT value (p=0.001). Conclusion: HIV and HBV co-infection should be investigated in followed up children. Screening for viral hepatitis should be on a regular basis during pregnancy in HIV-positive women so as to ensure better care for the infants exposed as from birt


Have investors and hedge fund managers learned anything from their recent mistakes? One can doubt it. While each financial crisis has its unique features, common traits and warning signals surface repeatedly. In this article, the authors have chosen to discuss six of them, namely (a) the belief that the current situation bears little similarity to past disasters; (b) the misalignment of interests between principals and agents; (c) the mismatch of liquidity between assets and liabilities; (d) the increased use of leverage when returns are disappointing; (e) the increased complexity of the strategies and instruments traded; and (f) the lack of reliability of external due diligence providers. They conclude that, unfortunately, many of these signs seem to be back again in the world of hedge funds.


: From a comparative analysis of the distribution of hydrophobicity in bacterial and animal (bovine) rhodopsins, the following peculiarities in the structure of these proteins have been assumed: 1) each of these proteins has 5 hydrophobic regions of equal length (20-28 residues) able to be arranged across the membrane and one region of doubled length. 2) The alpha-helix of the doubled-length regions (residues N 178-225 for bacterial rhodopsin and N 75-132 for the animal one) is characterized by pronounced amphipaticity and is capable of a retinal dependent movement in the membrane. The model of animal rhodopsin was suggested to have 13 phenylalanine residues forming a chain which "connects" 6 transmembrane segments and runs from one surface of the membrane to the opposite one.


Patient identification errors are one of the major causes of medication errors. Most medication error studies to date have focused on reporting patient misidentification statistics from case studies, on classifying types of patient identification errors, or on evaluating the impact of technology on the patient identification process, but few have proposed specific strategies or guidelines to decrease patient identification errors. Our study makes three key contributions to the patient identification literature. To better understand the verification of patient identifiers (VPI) process, we first formalize the requirements for this process based on the Joint Commission's national patient safety guidelines. Second, we show the implications of these requirements by applying them to artifacts typically used in medication administration (e.g., patient's statements about their identity, patient's identification band, medication label, and medication order). Third, we evaluate whether nurses comply with these requirements when administering medications using data from clinical simulations. We found that nurses must choose from a considerable number of alternatives to fulfill the Joint Commission guidelines. Despite the number of available alternatives, a small percentage of nurses complied with the requirements for VPI, whether doing so manually or using barcode verification technology. Our findings suggest further study is needed to determine what strategies might improve compliance.


This thesis explores how Indigenous leadership in Australia is constructed and maintained. Through an analysis of institutionalised forms of leadership, it unwraps how hunter-gatherer type leadership is interpreted from a Western perspective. Such interpretation has been problematic and recent political events in Australia have once again, challenged the authenticity and resilience of Indigenous leadership. By utilising a case study of the Port Keats region, the people and its history, the thesis investigates how Indigenous people have recast their mental constructs in order to perceive, interpret and relate to contemporary political, social and economic issues. It examines and describes the way that Indigenous people have created social realities that enable intercultural engagement and the ability to get things done. Detailed individual and group accounts of lives and events augment and enhance such analysis. The adjustments made by Indigenous people have been an ongoing process transpiring since first contact and acted out in various forms, including resistance and hostility. I describe a leadership model based on nodal and networked foundations and deference to others. I argue that the opportunity to understand, interact and engage positively with Indigenous leadership forms stands firm, and I propose a heuristic framework that may aid and assist such ongoing comprehension, understanding and mutual interdependence.


The completeness and quality of the information in natural history museum collections is essential to support its use, such as in collection management. Currently, the accuracy of the taxonomic information largely depends on expert provided metadata, such as species identification. At present an increase in the use of digitization techniques coincides with a dwindling of the number of taxonomic specialists, creating a growing backlog in specimen identifications.
 We are investigating the role of artificial intelligence for automatic species identification in supporting collection management. When identifying collection specimens, common species are predominantly present, taking up a large amount of the expert's time, who has to deal with a relatively easy, repetitive task. Therefore, one of our aims is to use human expertise where it is most needed, for complex tasks, and use properly validated computational methods for repetitive, less difficult identifications. To this end, we demonstrate the use of automatic species identification in digitization workflows, using deep learning based image recognition.
 We investigated potential gains in the identification process of a large digitization project of papered Lepidoptera (>500,000 specimens). In this ongoing project, volunteers unpack, register and photograph the unmounted butterflies and repack them sustainably, still unmounted. Using only the individual images made by volunteers, taxonomic experts identify the specimens. Considering that the speed of digitization currently exceeds that of identification, a growing backlog of yet-to-be-identified specimens has formed, limiting the speed of publication of this biodiversity information. The test case for image recognition concerns specimens of the families Papilionidae and Lycaenidae, mostly collected in Indonesia.
 By allowing the volunteers to provide an automatically generated identification with each image, we enable the taxonomic specialists to quickly validate the more easily identifiable specimens. This reduces their workload, allows them to focus on the more demanding specimens and increases the rate of specimen identification. We demonstrate how to combine computer and human decisions to ensure both high data quality standards and reduction of expert time.


Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) call for collaborative and interdisciplinary practices. The problem with this is the social and technical complexities involved, and the absence of a shared understanding of the challenge and the scope of integrated solutions. It is necessary to clarify the contributions and interactions between disciplines in order to achieve integrated planning and design of SUDS. This paper reviews the literature across disciplinary fields and outlines key messages and uncertainties within each discipline. The outcome is a framework comprising time, space and human values, as well as biophysical processes (e.g. engineering), spatial strategies (e.g. urban design) and adaptive strategies (e.g. management). It identifies the planning of SUDS as a collective learning process with continuous iterations between disciplines, while also reflecting the past, present and future of a specific site.


Separate Compilation is currently considered impossible for Modelica in practice, because several features of stateof-the-art Modelica compilers currently rely on global information. One prominent example for those features is causalization. This particular feature is very important for the generation of fast simulation code. In this work we show how a post-compilation causalization can fit into the operational semantics of a language like Modelica. We present the semantics of a causalizing language system are together with a prototype. This prototype shows that separately compiled models can form a causalized, thus fast, simulation program.


The intersection of intellectual disability and the death penalty is now clearly established. Both under the U.S. Supreme Court's constitutional decisions and under the terms of many state statutes, individual defendants who have that disability cannot be sentenced to death or executed. It now falls to trial, appellate, and post-conviction courts to determine which individual criminal defendants are entitled to the law's protection.
This Article attempts to assist judges in performing that task. After a brief discussion of the Supreme Court's decisions in Atkins v. Virginia, Hall v. Florida, and Moore v. Texas, it analyzes the component parts and terminology of the clinical definition of intellectual disability. It then offers more detailed discussion of a number of the clinical issues that arise frequently in adjudicating these cases. For each of these issues, the Article's text and the accompanying notes attempt to provide judges with a thorough survey of the relevant clinical literature, and an explanation of the terminology used by clinical professionals. Our purpose is to help those judges to become more knowledgeable consumers of the clinical reports and expert testimony presented to them in individual cases, and to help them reach decisions that are consistent with what the clinical literature reveals about the nature of intellectual disability and best professional practices in the diagnostic process.


Indirect illumination is an important part of realistic images, and accurately simulating the complex effects of indirect illumination in real-time applications has long been a challenge for the industry. One popular approach is to use offline precomputed solutions such as lightmaps (textures containing the precomputed lighting in a scene) to efficiently approximate these effects. Unfortunately, these offline solutions have historically enforced long iteration times that come at a cost to artist productivity. These solutions have additionally either supported only the low-frequency diffuse component of indirect lighting, yielding poor visual results for glossy or metallic materials, or have used overly expensive approximations.  In recent years, the state of the art lightmap precomputation pipeline has shifted to using highly vectorised path tracing, often on GPU hardware, to compute the indirect illumination effects. The use of path tracing enables progressive rendering, wherein an approximation to the full solution is found and then refined as opposed to solving for the final result in a single step. Progressive rendering through path tracing thereby helps to provide rapid iteration for artists.  This thesis describes a system that can progressively path-trace indirect illumination lightmaps on the GPU.Contributing to this system, itintroduces a new gather-based method for sample accumulation, enhances algorithms from prior work, and presents a range of encoding methods, including a novel progressive method for non-negative least-squares encoding of spherical basis functions.  In addition, it presents a novel, efficient solution for high-quality precomputed diffuse and low-frequency specular indirect illumination that extends the Ambient Dice family of spherical basis functions. This solution provides comparable or better specular reconstruction to prior work at lower runtime cost and has potential for widespread use in real-time applications.


This thesis is concerned with the development of condition monitoring for future design of high temperature superconducting (HTS) power apparatus. In particular, the use of UHF sensing for detecting PD activity within HTS has been investigated. Obtained results indicate that fast current pulses during PD in LN2 radiate electromagnetic waves which can be captured by the UHF sensor. PD during a negative streamer in LN2 appears in the form of a series of pulses less than 1 ?s apart. This sequence cannot be observed using conventional detection method due to its bandwidth limitation. Instead, a slowly damped pulse is recorded which shows the total amount of charge transferred during this period. A study into PD streamer development within LN2 has been undertaken that reveals the characteristics of pre-breakdown phenomena in LN2. For negative streamers, when the electric field exceeds a threshold value, field emission from the electrode becomes effective which leads to the formation of initial cavities. Breakdown occurs within these gaseous bubbles and results in the development of negative streamers. For positive streamers, the process is much less well-understood due to the lack of initial electrons. However, from the recorded current pulses and shadow graphs, the physical mechanism behind positive streamer development is likely to be a more direct process, such as field ionisation, compared with the step-wise expansion in the case of negative streamers. The mechanisms that cause damage to solid dielectrics immersed in LN2 have been investigated. Obtained results indicate that pre-breakdown streamers can cause significant damage to the solid insulation barrier. Damage is the result of charge bombardment and mechanical forces rather than thermal effects. Inhomogeneous materials, such as glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP), tend to introduce surface defects which can create local trapping sites. The trapped charges when combined with those from streamers can create much larger PD events. Consequently, damage observed on GRP barriers is much more severe than that on PTFE barriers under similar experimental conditions. Thus, design of future HTS power apparatus must consider this degradation phenomenon in order to improve the reliability of the insulation system.


W. has incorporated every available Hebrew commentary, from Rashi to the 16th century, mostly from Western Europe (and several obscure), in which the French and Spanish traditions of exegesis are well represented. Part 1 covers sources and literary and theological concerns; Part 2 the (European) world reflected in these exegeses-views of Persia, Jewish-Gentile relations, anti-Semitism and the royal court One appendix provides a 'Bio-Bibliographical Survey' of the exegetes; the other argues that Immanuel of Rome's commentary was influenced by Dante. A splendidly detailed contribution to our understanding of (late) mediaeval intellectual life. PRD


This paper focuses on the study of the natural characteristics of the Palestinian part of the Jordan Valley. The study of the natural factors of the region consists of an array of elements. Location was investigated since it affects the human distribution and activities. Also, the geological structure and the development of the sedimentary rocks of the region were investigated. The geological structure is considered one of the most significant factors that determine characteristics of the region which, in turn, affects patterns of land use. In addition, the geological strata may contain mineral resources that may change the pattern of agricultural land use in the region. Topography of the region was also studied as it governs the soil distribution through the process of erosion and sedimentation. Furthermore, soil characteristics change horizontally because of the differences in the degree and direction of slope. Climate characteristics were also investigated, where each climate element was studied separately, then, the sources of surface and underground water were studied. The study also discussed soil types and vegetation in the Jordan Valley.