The paper attempts to provide an overview of the value system in addressing practice of multilingual speakers. Scholars' interest in this area is not accidental rather deliberations in the field have turned it into interdisciplinary linguistic research. The awareness or knowledge of value (axiology) systems reflect several mechanisms from socio-cultural perspectives, consequently promoting mutual sharing and understanding of community or society. In this paper, we have drawn a philosophical discussion on multilingual cognition by addressing practices in global contexts. The paper aims to explore the worldview of multilinguals in address forms. The study objectives are based on the literature available on the topic. We highlighted the scope, definitions, perspectives, and advancements in axiological theories and approaches. We also turn our attention related to ideas with axiology from theoretical and methodological contributions and advancements in research. The paper concludes the discussion by summarizing facts that culture and linguistic identity observed in the usage of address forms. Thus, the study concludes a short overview of the axiology of multilingual speakers and their reflection on communication behaviour.


In order for wind energy to be feasible in the sounds of North Carolina, it must be economical. The price paid for electricity produced by wind must be sufficiently high to translate into a reasonable rate of return for developers and investors. Countervailing tensions on regulators, utilities and the renewable energy generators function to depress the price of wind energy. Lawmakers have passed utility regulations in order to improve the economic situation of wind energy projects by either diminishing the initial capital needed, lowering the risk or ensuring a fair price. The two primary utility statutes affecting the economics of wind energy in North Carolina, the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 and North Carolina's Renewable Portfolio Standard of 2007, have thus far been ineffectual. If the North Carolina legislature wants to develop wind energy in their state, it should amend NC REPS to add a wind energy percentage requirement to put it on equal footing with solar. Alternatively, adding externalities into the cost calculation would make wind one of the most economical of all the electricity options.


INTRODUCTION
Mushroom poisoning is a cause of major mortality and morbidity all over the world. Although Hong Kong people consume a lot of mushrooms, there are only a few clinical studies and reviews of local mushroom poisoning. This study aimed to review the clinical characteristics, source, and outcome of mushroom poisoning incidences in Hong Kong.

METHODS
This descriptive case series review was conducted by the Hong Kong Poison Information Centre and involved all cases of mushroom poisoning reported to the Centre from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2015.

RESULTS
Overall, 67 cases of mushroom poisoning were reported. Of these, 60 (90%) cases presented with gastrointestinal symptoms of vomiting, diarrhoea, and abdominal pain. Gastrointestinal symptoms were early onset (<6 hours post-ingestion) and not severe in 53 patients and all recovered after symptomatic treatment and a short duration of hospital care. Gastrointestinal symptoms, however, were of late onset (≥6 hours post-ingestion) in seven patients; these were life-threatening cases of amatoxin poisoning. In all cases, the poisonous mushroom had been picked from the wild. Three cases were imported from other countries, and four collected and consumed the amatoxin-containing mushrooms in Hong Kong. Of the seven cases of amatoxin poisoning, six were critically ill, of whom one died and two required liver transplantation. There was one confirmed case of hallucinogenic mushroom poisoning caused by Tylopilus nigerrimus after consumption of a commercial mushroom product. A number of poisoning incidences involved the consumption of wild-harvested dried porcini purchased in the market.

CONCLUSION
Most cases of mushroom poisoning in Hong Kong presented with gastrointestinal symptoms and followed a benign course. Life-threatening cases of amatoxin poisoning are occasionally seen. Doctors should consider this diagnosis in patients who present with gastrointestinal symptoms that begin 6 hours or more after mushroom consumption.


Efficient use of resources and time requires optimal planning of designed experiments and optimal recovery of information from them. Selection of an appropriate experiment design and selection of an appropriate statistical analysis are mandatory for efficient experimentation. It is known that using a random effects model is more efficient than using a fixed effects one, as in the analysis of variance, meaning that fewer experimental units (plots) will be necessary to obtain the same precison. The question of transformation of data prior to analysis, of using standard textbook analyses, or of using a form of spatial analysis arises with each experiment. To obtain these analyses, it is desirable that computer programs (code) be available to the experimenter. Computer programming to recover the information from random effects is not well or widely understood. In light of recent developments of software for performing the needed calculations, a description of SAS programs is presented. Code is described for recovering interblock, interrow, intercolumn, intergradient, and interregression information in incomplete block and lattice rectangle (rowcolumn arrangement within each complete block) designed experiments. These are illustrated with a numerical example.


Recirculation of lymphocytes through the body involves their frequent adhesion to endothelial cells but little is known of the signalling pathways between these two cell types. Lymphocytes from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia were loaded with the Ca(2+)-sensitive indicator, fura 2, and allowed to adhere to either glass or monolayers of human umbilical-vein endothelial cells. Addition of ATP or UTP (1-10 microM) to the superfusate produced a transient rise in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration in the lymphocytes adherent to endothelium (24 of 35 cells). In contrast, ATP or UTP (1-10 microM) had no effect on the cytosolic Ca2+ of lymphocytes attached to glass. As the only lymphocyte receptor for ATP (P2Z class) requires higher ATP concentrations ( > 50 microM) for Ca2+ influx and is unresponsive to UTP, the involvement of a lymphocyte P2Z purinoceptor is unlikely. Various agonists including ATP, UTP, 2-methylthioATP, ADP and histamine all stimulated increases in endothelial cytosolic Ca2+ but only ATP and UTP (both agonists for endothelial P2U purinoceptors) triggered Ca2+ transients in adherent lymphocytes. Removal of extracellular Ca2+ did not abolish the ATP-induced rise in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration in lymphocytes adherent to endothelial cells. These findings show that stimulation of endothelial P2U purinoceptors triggers an endothelial-lymphocyte signalling pathway which releases internal Ca2+ in adherent lymphocytes.


Background: More recent birth cohorts are at a higher depression risk than cohorts born in the early 20th century. We aimed to investigate to what extent changes in alcohol consumption, smoking, physical activity, and obesity contribute to these birth cohort variations. Methods: We analyzed panel data from US adults born 1916–1966 enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study (N = 163,760 person-years). We performed a counterfactual decomposition analysis by combining age-period-cohort models with g-computation. We thereby compared the predicted probability of elevated depressive symptoms (CES-D 8 score ≥3) in the natural course to a counterfactual scenario where all birth cohorts had the health behaviors of the 1945 birth cohort. We stratified analyses by sex and race-ethnicity. Results: We estimated that depression risk of the 1916–1949 and 1950–1966 birth cohort would be on average 2.0% (–2.3 to –1.7) and 0.5% (–0.9 to –0.1) higher with the alcohol consumption levels of the 1945 cohort. In the counterfactual with the 1945 BMI distribution, depression risk is on average 2.1% (1.8 to 2.4) higher for the 1916–1940 cohorts and 1.8% (–2.2 to –1.5) lower for the 1950–1966 cohorts. We find no cohort variations in depression risk for smoking and physical activity. The contribution of alcohol is more pronounced for Whites than for other race-ethnicity groups, and the contribution of BMI more pronounced for women than for men. Conclusion: Increased obesity levels were associated with exacerbated depression risk in recent birth cohorts in the United States, while drinking patterns only played a minor role.


This is a quick guide for students and faculty members who are interested in searching the HathiTrust digital library, building their own collections, as well as viewing and downloading PDFs.


The free-field strong ground motions recorded at 64 sites within 200 km from the ruptured Longmen Shan fault during the 12 May 2008 M w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake were used to examine the near-source strong ground motioncharacteristics. The magnitude of vertical and horizontal peak ground accelerations (PGAs), frequency content, and duration of acceleration histories are analyzed. The observed peak ground accelerations at distances exceeding 60 km from the ruptured fault were significantly higher than those predicted by the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) model, whereas, for periods of larger than 1 s, the spectral accelerations are much smaller than those of the NGA model. The same is also true for the observed peak ground velocities (PGVs). The duration of ground shaking is longer than for most earthquakes of comparable similar magnitude. For sites within 60 km from the ruptured fault, the accelerations observed on the hanging wall are larger than those observed on the footwall. The duration of ground shaking along the rupture direction (or the forward direction) is shorter than that opposite to the rupture direction (or the backward direction). There is also a systematic increase of PGA and PGV at sites located in the direction of the rupture propagation, whereas no such clear trend was found in the stations located along the backward direction. From the observed acceleration time histories at various locations, the rupture process of the 2008 Wenchuan appears to be more complicated than the focal mechanism interpreted from far-field seismic records. For example, the generation mechanism of the two distinct wave trains observed at Wolong and other stations need more detailed studies.


Heat flux and drag correlations are developed for high-speed flow over spherical geometries that are accurate for any Knudsen number ranging from continuum to free-molecular conditions. A stagnation point heat flux correlation is derived as a correction to the continuum (Fourier model) heat flux and also reproduces the correct heat flux in the free-molecular limit by use of a bridging function. In this manner, the correlation can be combined with existing continuum correlations based on computational fluid dynamics simulations, yet it can now be used accurately in the transitional and free-molecular regimes. The functional form of the stagnation point heat flux correlation is physics based, and was derived via the Burnett and super-Burnett equations in a recent article, Singh & Schwartzentruber (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 792, 2016, pp. 981–996). In addition, correlation parameters from the literature are used to construct simple expressions for the local heat flux around the sphere as well as the integrated drag coefficient. A large number of direct simulation Monte Carlo calculations are performed over a wide range of conditions. The computed heat flux and drag data are used to validate the correlations and also to fit the correlation parameters. Compared to existing continuum-based correlations, the new correlations will enable engineering analysis of flight conditions at higher altitudes and/or smaller geometry radii, useful for a variety of applications including blunt body planetary entry, sharp leading edges, low orbiting satellites, meteorites and space debris.


Particle filtering has been successfully used to approximate the fixed-lag or fixed-interval smoothing distributions in dig ital communication and to perform approximate maximum likelihood inference. Because the state-space is finite, it is possible at each step to consider all the offsprings (path) of any given particle. Because each particle has typically several possible offsprings, the population of offsprings is larger than the initial population; it is thus required to construct a novel particle swarm by selecting, among all these offsprings, parti cle positions and computing appropriate weights. We propose here a novel unbiased selection algorithm, which minimizes the expected loss with respect to general distance functions. In a blind deconvolution setting, the selection schemes asso ciated to the Chi-Square distance and the Kullback-Leibler divergence are compared by simulations to the deterministic scheme that keep only the best weights.


The European Union (EU) funded Horizon 2020 'Social sciences and Humanities for Advancing Policy
in European ENERGY' (SHAPE ENERGY) project organised an international summer school for Early
Stage Researchers (ESRs) working within energy-social sciences and humanities (energy-SSH). This
multidisciplinary summer school – entitled 'Advancing Energy Policy Summer School' – focused on how
energy-SSH research can contribute to tackling the many energy-related challenges in Europe. Key energy
topics were discussed with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity and on the translation of academic research
into policy and practice, including:
• Global energy dilemmas;
• Energy transition;
• Public engagement and energy citizenship;
• Consumption and social practices;
• Energy poverty.
Advanced researchers and practitioners involved in leading European energy projects were presenting their
expertise and the role of energy-SSH research for policy and practice while the summer school was also an
opportunity to meet and collaborate with other ESRs from a range of disciplines.
Analysing the outputs of the summer school allowed us to draw attention to four recommendations, which
could serve as points of reflection during the organisation of any future ESR and/or interdisciplinary SHAPE
ENERGY activities:
• Make more explicit/visible the 'implicits' of the various disciplines and, while proposing a workshop,
consider more carefully the time needed by each discipline to produce a 'rigorous' outcome/output.
• Pay attention to the fact that mainstream economic thinking innervates all disciplines. This element
should be taken into greater consideration in prospective research as it influences the way the future is
envisioned and closes alternative paths that could have been taken.
• Better consider the cultural background of the participants when asking them to work together, or at
least make more explicit not only the rules of the exercise but also the cultural implicit behind it.
• Be sensitive to the gender and age of the participants, as these obviously play a role in how individuals
express and put themselves forward. As it is crucial to devote time and resources, and to employ experts
when implementing gender perspectives in research programmes and policy-making; more attention
should be paid to this point as well as to how older researchers might influence the youngest.


Aflatoxins are mycotoxins with highly toxic and carcinogenic properties produced by some strains of Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus and Aspergillus nomius. These fungi are frequently found in foodstuffs and animal feeds. Aflatoxin contamination of crops compromises the safety of food and feed supplies and causes significant economic losses each year. Of the many research approaches being studied to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate aflatoxin contamination, biological control is one of the more promising, particularly for the near-term. Numerous organisms have been tested for biological control of aflatoxin contamination including bacteria, yeasts, and nontoxigenic strains of the causal organisms, A. flavus and A. parasiticus. Most of the field successes to date have been achieved by applying certain nontoxigenic strains of A. flavus and A. parasiticus to soil of susceptible crops, such as peanuts, cotton, and corn. The applied strains occupy the same niche as the naturally-occurring toxigenic strains and competitively exclude them when crops are susceptible to infection. Various formulations have been used to apply the nontoxigenic strains to soil, but the most effective methods have been to combine the desired strain with a carrier/substrate, such as a small grain. This was done either by minimally growing the desired strain on sterilized grain or by coating the surface of the grain with conidia of the strain. After application to the field and uptake of moisture, the fungus completely colonizes the grain, and abundant sporulation provides inoculum levels sufficient to achieve a competitive advantage for the nontoxigenic strain. In several years of field studies, particularly with peanuts and cotton, significant reductions in aflatoxin contamination in the range of 70-90% have been achieved consistently. In the present paper we propose biological control of aflatoxin crop contamination.


The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has experienced a near-total collapse of its healthcare system, resulting in an overwhelming majority of the population lacking access to lifesaving healthcare services. Since the mid-2000s, the DRC's Ministry of Public Health has engaged in extensive healthcare system reform efforts under the long-term vision of achieving Universal Health Coverage. Although the literature on institutional health reform has steadily increased over the past decade, there has yet to be an in-depth analysis of the healthcare system reform efforts using a gender perspective. Previous research suggests that across their lifespan, Congolese women have poorer health outcomes than men, linking health disparities to women's relative power, rights and access to resources. This thesis fills this gap, examining key institutional and structural interventions for their implications on health experienced by Congolese women from conception to beyond their reproductive years. This thesis suggests that healthcare reform efforts over the past eleven years have had severe deficits for Congolese women's health. As the DRC government aims to strengthen its capacities to provide quality healthcare to its population, it is more important than ever to identify how and to what extent intervening variables of the health systems reform efforts are normatively and consequentially reflective of differential gendered experiences of health.


Microbial growth curves are used to study differential effects of media, genetics, and stress on microbial population growth. Consequently, many modeling frameworks exist to capture microbial population growth measurements. However, current models are designed to quantify growth under conditions that produce a specific functional form. Extensions to these models are required to quantify the effects of perturbations, which often exhibit non-standard growth curves. Rather than fix expected functional forms of different experimental perturbations, we developed a general and robust model of microbial population growth curves using Gaussian process (GP) regression. GP regression modeling of high resolution time-series growth data enables accurate quantification of population growth, and can be extended to identify differential growth phenotypes due to genetic background or stress. Additionally, confounding effects due to experimental variation can be controlled explicitly. Our framework substantially outperforms commonly used microbial population growth models, particularly when modeling growth data from environmentally stressed populations. We apply the GP growth model to a collection of growth measurements for seven transcription factor knockout strains of a model archaeal organism, Halobacterium salinarum. Using these models fitted to growth data, two statistical tests were developed to quantify the differential effects of genetic and environmental perturbations on microbial growth. These statistical tests accurately identify known regulators and implicate novel regulators of growth under standard and stress conditions. Furthermore, the fitted GP regression models are interpretable, recapitulating biological knowledge of growth response while providing new insights into the relevant parameters affecting microbial population growth.


A detailed description is given of the techniques for preparing, handling and assaying a cell-free protein-synthesizing system from yeast, analogous to crude (S-30) Escherichia coli extracts. Its basic characteristics are described. The rate of poly(U)-directed polyphenylalanine synthesis was at least fivefold higher than in previously reported yeast cell-free systems, approaching that of crude mammalian cell-free systems. Fractionation of the S-30 extracts lowered activity. Organelles and their fragments present in the S-30 extract neither contributed to nor inhibited cytoplasmic protein synthesis. There was a component localized in the high-speed supematant that caused an inhibition of polyphenylalanine synthesis. Poly(U) programmed the synthesis of long-chain polyphenylalanine, in contrast with the only other yeast system in which this has been examined (Bretthauer & Golichowski, 1968). Preincubation techniques inactivated the system and probably a small proportion only of the ribosomes was active.


painful sensation. He had seen some very startling recoveries from nervous conditions, such as that referred to by Dr. Milligan after railway accidents. He had known a man lame before verdict walk perfectly well a few days after it had been given in his favour. Many of these functional ear conditions were associated with weak heart and alterations in blood-pressure, and there was an undoubted connexion between the cardiac and the aural conditions. He once knew a case of functional deafness which was associated with inability to stand, and which threatened rather serious consequences to the person affected. The deafness and staggering gait passed off the same day. It had followed on an unusually large dose (30 gr.) of quinine which had been taken previously.


Within secondary care hospital settings, acutely ill patients are exposed to the unnecessary risk of the adverse consequences and increased mortality that arise from suboptimal care. A causative factor of suboptimal care is the level of competence of practitioners caring for the acutely ill patient in their failure predominantly, to monitor, recognise or respond appropriately to the deteriorating patient. In partnership with local healthcare organisations, the acute illness course, on which this study was based, was conceived and implemented. The aim of the course was to provide an academic and clinical experience that focused on the development of skills and competence of post-registration practitioners within non-critical care settings. The first cohort commenced their course in 2006. This study investigated the development of this experience, focussing on students' skills and competence following their exposure to a variety of teaching, learning and assessment strategies that had been employed. Competence is one of the most commonly used words in healthcare education yet it is a nebulous concept that is defined in diverse ways by different people. The concept of competence provided the theoretical framework that was analysed and applied within the field of acute care. An educational evaluation using a case study approach was used employing interviews for data collection purposes. The case study examined the many variables of interest within the student experience while maintaining a continuous interaction and dialogue between the theoretical and conceptual dimensions that were being studied. This inquiry opened by interviewing former students of the acute illness course. The aspects that were explored included, students' characteristics, motivations and perceptions of the teaching, learning and assessment methods they had encountered. Of particular interest was the influence of these on the students' development in clinical practice. Triangulation was adopted through interview data derived from both the former students and their managers. The study critically analysed the principle dynamics that influenced students learning in academic and practice settings. The findings demonstrated the intricate synergies that comprised this exercise in professional development. Motivation, emotional responses and performance were often influenced by the experience. The eclectic mix of learning methods that were used were thought beneficial by the study participants, who found that both the theoretical and the clinically related content of the course to be entirely relevant to their clinical practice. The study established that choice, facilitation and feedback through mixed learning and assessment methods leads to confidence and empowerment that positively influence registered nurses' competence in clinical practice. It concluded that in this case, practitioners' continuing professional development was influenced by interlocking concepts that supported the acquisition and maintenance of both their confidence and competence and as a consequence, stood to improve the care of acutely ill patients.


Partial discharge (PD) detection has been regarded as one of the most effective on-line predictive maintenance test and diagnostic tool for the condition monitoring of high voltage (HV) equipment. In this study, a methodology for detecting on-line PDs produced because of falling trees on the covered-conductor (CC) overhead distribution lines is introduced and calibration of PD measuring system is carried-out. The Rogowski coil is used as a PD sensor which is non-intrusive and superior to the conventional PD detectors. The experimental set-up was arranged in the HV laboratory for real-time analysis and a pulse calibrator was used to calibrate the PD measuring system. Few real-life PD measurements have been taken and it is revealed that PD magnitudes and signals bandwidth may vary under various circumstances. The calibrated on-line PD measuring system can be used to detect and measure the amount of PDs produced because of falling trees on CC lines, thus improving the reliability and safety of the distribution networks as well as reducing visual inspection work after storms.


A new 3‐D ray tracing technique is developed to determine seismic raypaths and theoretical travel times in weak radial anisotropic media. Anisotropic schemes of the pseudo‐bending technique and Snell's law are derived and used iteratively to find the fastest ray trajectory. Many synthetic tests are performed to evaluate the accuracy of our algorithm and investigate the raypath differences between the 3‐D isotropic and anisotropic rays. The test results show that the travel time and raypath differences are smaller than 0.1 s and 10 km, respectively. Applying our technique to a model of radial anisotropy tomography of the Japan subduction zone, we find visible travel time and raypath differences due to variations of the 3‐D isotropic velocity and radial anisotropy, but the travel time difference caused by the radial anisotropy is generally <~0.1 s and the raypath difference is generally <20 km. Two models of Vp radial anisotropy tomography under Japan are obtained using the isotropic and anisotropic ray tracing codes. The two models are very similar to each other, and they have only small differences (<0.5%) in the amplitudes of isotropic velocity and radial anisotropy. Considering the limited resolution of the current anisotropic tomography models and the effects of damping and smoothing regularizations, the use of the conventional isotropic ray tracing techniques is acceptable at this stage. However, for high‐resolution models of anisotropic tomography in the near future, the 3‐D anisotropic ray tracing will be necessary.


The paper presents the results of numerical simulation of the effect of flow nonuniformities at the engine inlet on the working process of the engine fan. Flow nonuniformities is created by pushing the interceptor into the flow part of inlet device like as it is often done during field tests. The authors have created a numerical model capable of considering non-stationary pro-cesses in the fan using nonlinear harmonic analysis. As a re-sult, qualitative and quantitative estimates were obtained of the influence of overlapping of the inlet duct by the interceptor on the main parameters of the fan workflow. It is shown that the more the duct is blocked, the more its parameters are deteriorated. Moreover, the deterioration is not linear, but according to.


Lipomas are common benign soft tissue tumors, with 15 to 20% of the cases affecting the head and neck region and 1 to 4% involving the oral cavity. The literature has many reported cases of head and neck lipoma but few comprehensive studies hence, the aim of this study was to review and analyze the clinical and histopathologic features of head and neck lipomas in Nigerians. A fifteen-year retrospective study evaluated thirty-six cases of head and neck lipomas among Nigerians. Head and neck lipomas constituted about one-tenth (9.4%) of the total body lipomas seen over the study period. The peak age incidence was fifth decade of life and most (58.3%) of these patients were older than 40 years. There was male gender predilection with male to female ratio of 1.4:1. The most common site of occurrence was forehead (41.7%), followed by scalp and cheek (16.7% each). Lipomas were seen in two intraoral locations (lip and tongue) and these accounted for 13.9% of the head and neck lipomas and 1.3% of lipomas in the whole body. The average size of the lesion was 3.3 cm. Head and neck lipomas are fairly common among Nigerians who are more than 40 years of age. While the conventional and fibrolipoma were the two histologic variants recorded, complete surgical excision of the lesion offered satisfactory treatment outcome.

 Key words: Head and neck, lipoma.


We present a new method for tracking the 3D position, global orientation and full articulation of human hands. Following recent advances in model-based, hypothesize-and-test methods, the high-dimensional parameter space of hand configurations is explored with a novel evolutionary optimization technique specifically tailored to the problem. The proposed method capitalizes on the fact that samples from quasi-random sequences such as the Sobol have low discrepancy and exhibit a more uniform coverage of the sampled space compared to random samples obtained from the uniform distribution. The method has been tested for the problems of tracking the articulation of a single hand (27D parameter space) and two hands (54D space). Extensive experiments have been carried out with synthetic and real data, in comparison with state of the art methods. The quantitative evaluation shows that for cases of limited computational resources, the new approach achieves a speed-up of four (single hand tracking) and eight (two hands tracking) without compromising tracking accuracy. Interestingly, the proposed method is preferable compared to the state of the art either in the case of limited computational resources or in the case of more complex (i.e., higher dimensional) problems, thus improving the applicability of the method in a number of application domains.


Investment casting is one of the oldest manufacturing processes, dating back thousands of years, in which molten metal is poured into an expendable ceramic mold. The mold is formed by using a wax pattern a disposable piece in the shape of the desired part. The pattern is surrounded, or "invested", into ceramic slurry that hardens into the mold. Investment casting is often referred to as "lost-wax casting" because the wax pattern is melted out of the mold after it has been formed. Investment casting requires the use of a metal die, wax, ceramic slurry, furnace, molten metal, and any machines needed for sand-blasting, cutting, or grinding. In the present study, an attempt has been made to produce a wax blend which could offer minimum linear and volumetric shrinkage and better surface finish. Experiments were conducted with different types of waxes namely Paraffin wax, Bees wax, Carnabua wax and Microcrystalline wax by varying their proportions. In each case, properties of wax pattern like surface finish, percentage linear and volumetric shrinkage were determined. An attempt was made to find out the set of input parameters, which could offer a set of ideal properties ofthe wax blend, using Taguchi method. The set of input parameters suggested by Taguchi method was experimentally verified and found to offer the set of desired optimal properties of the wax blend pattern.


The objective of this work is to investigate the emergent properties of the gaits of the simulated snake-like robot, Snakebot. The gaits are automatically designed through Genetic Programming (GP) to be robust, general, adaptive, and the fastest possible sidewinding, locomotion. Considering the notion of emergent intelligence as the ability of Snakebot to achieve its goals (of moving fast) without the need to be explicitly taught how to do so, we present empirical results demonstrating the emergence of sidewinding locomotion from relatively simple motion patterns of morphological segments of Snakebot. We discuss the emergent properties of the evolved robust high velocity sidewinding locomotion gaits of Snakebot when situated in challenging environments. Then we elaborate on the ability of Snakebot to adapt to partial damage by gradually improving its velocity characteristics, and the emergent properties of obtained adaptive gaits. Verifying the practical implications of the analogy between the emergent properties of the robust and the adaptive sidewinding gaits, this work could be viewed as a step towards building real Snakebots, which are able to perform robustly in challenging environments.


This thesis addresses an area which has been neglected within the predominantly secular emphasis of post nineteenth-century Romantic scholarship: the impact of religious revivalism on literary Romanticism. It argues that the affective culture of Methodist evangelism actually anticipated literary Romanticism in its commitment to a religion and a language 'of the heart' . My study considers the stylistic and ideological affinity between some Methodist and 'Romantic' writing from the eighteenth to the early nineteenth- century, with specific reference to the culture of 'enthusiasm'. I explain how enthusiasm is identified with both religious and creative inspiration, but consider the problematic implications of this association. The problem is centred in enthusiasm's historical identification with religious fanaticism, and thus with subversive challenge and excess. My thesis discusses the acute embarrassment which this association generated for the Wesleyan Methodist leadership, and for some prominent Romantic writers. I consider how this embarrassment was manifested, within a literary context, in strenuous efforts to distinguish a respectable, genuine inspiration from its dangerous or spurious equivalent. I argue that the ambivalent feelings aroused by religious enthusiasm reflect a persistent discomfort with its plebeian and feminine associations. My study explores the various stylistic strategies employed by John and Charles Wesley, William Wordsworth and William Hazlitt, to distance themselves from vulgar and insincere religious zeal while remaining committed to the affective precepts which inspired their work and writing. This involves examining affinities in the literary theory and practice of John Wesley and Wordsworth, and Hazlitt's implicit distinction between 'gusto' and enthusiasm. I provide an analytical balance between the production and reception of key texts, including Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and The Excursion . Close stylistic analysis demonstrates how the writers' language reveals contradictory allegiances to rational precepts and the ardent impulses of a 'religious' inspiration.


This paper addresses the tracking problem in which the controller should stabilize time-varying reference trajectories of hybrid systems. Despite the fact that discrete events (or jumps) in hybrid systems can often not be controlled directly, as, e.g., is the case in impacting mechanical systems, the controller should still stabilize the desired trajectory. A major complication in the analysis of this hybrid tracking problem is that, in general, the jump times of the plant do not coincide with those of the reference trajectory. Consequently, the conventional Euclidean tracking error does not converge to zero, even if trajectories converge to the reference trajectory in between jumps, and the jump times converge to those of the reference trajectory. Hence, standard control approaches can not be applied. We propose a novel definition of the tracking error that overcomes this problem and formulate Lyapunov-based conditions for the global asymptotic stability of the hybrid reference trajectory. Using these conditions, we design hysteresis-based controllers that solve the hybrid tracking problem for two exemplary systems, including the well-known bouncing ball problem.


Using a one factor model, this paperwork estimates the impacts of the size of firms' competitors in the manufacturing material industry on the market risk level, measured by equity and asset beta, of 99 listed companies in this category. This study identified that the risk dispersion level in this sample study could be minimized in case the competitor size doubles (measured by equity beta var of 0,293). Beside, the empirical research findings show us that asset beta max value increases from 1,162 to 1,445 when the size of competitor doubles. Last but not least, most of beta values are acceptable ex-cept a few exceptional cases. Ultimately, this paper illustrates calculated results that might give prop-er recommendations to relevant governments and institutions in re-evaluating their policies during and after the financial crisis 2007-2011. Research paper Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Huy. D. T. N. (2016). "Selecting Various Indus-trial Competitors Affect The Risk Level of Viet Nam Manufacturing Material Industry During and After The Global Crisis 2007-2009", Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 108–127.


Purpose: Objective of the current paper is to determine the rank of Iran's science competitiveness among Middle Eastern countries using science complexity index approach. Methodology: In terms of purpose this study is applicable, and based on the collecting method, it is a panel data since it includes time series data from 1996 to 2014 for 128 countries. Statistical population consists two levels. One for 27 science domain which include 307 subdomain. The other was related to countries which at first step included all the countries around the world and then for the sake of analysis it limited to Middle Eastern countries. Findings: The findings revealed that Iran has 40th ranking among the world countries and 8th in between Middle Eastern countries. Between 27 science domain under study, nursing and health achieved highest complexity ranks. Furthermore, the number of citations of Iran in science complex is mostly distributed between ubiquity domain rather than complex domain. In case of diversity of science of Middle East countries, Turkey ranked 1st and Iran 6th; from ubiquity average of science, after Turkey and Israel, Iran achieved 3rd position. In addition, based on our findings, the main science competitor of Iran is Turkey then Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan respectively. Conclustion: To develop science in Iran, the country needs to increase quality and quantity of science subdomains. However, this study showed that any increase in the number of science domains can not necessarily help to develop the competition power of Iran. What we are suggesting is to focus on complex domains or subdomains. If so, the role of government is very crucial in this approach. Government needs to find complex domains and invest on them to improve globally. Finally, we need to mention, in order to achieve prosperity in a country we need to align science with economy.


International work is increasingly important to RIBA chartered practices. According to RIBA's survey, 16% of the total income for the architectural offices comes from projects outside the UK. To enhance students' knowledge and skills to design for different cultures, architectural schools have increasingly included overseas field studies and design projects in the curriculum. However, much research of the international trips and design projects focus on offering design solutions by studying the different climate and life styles in visited places as objective facts. There is relatively little research on the different ways of approaching the design and perceiving the meanings of the designed buildings in subjective narratives in different cultures. To design a building in a particular place as a participant rather than an observer can bring more insightful personal understanding of the local culture. By study a project concerning extended collaborative field studies undertaken in Southwest China by a group of architectural students from the UK and local Chinese students, this study explores their way of approaching the design with the meanings and feelings of the place rather than the abstract concepts. It argues that the overseas field study needs to take into account of the different ways of approaching design and perceiving the buildings in the visited regions. The design solutions also need to leave space for the local users to make sense of the designed space in the process of the usage.


Abortion is illegal in New Zealand except in limited circumstances. In spite of this, it has been claimed that our abortion laws are "workable". This paper confronts this claim and looks at whether it is justifiable from four different perspectives including the legal, pro- and anti- abortion, and political perspectives. This discussion sheds light on important issues that arise when it comes to law reform in the context of the contentious and polarising issue that is abortion law in New Zealand. The subjectivity that surrounds the concept "workable" has material implications on the conclusions under each perspective. Nevertheless, it is found that overall, the claim that New Zealand's abortion laws are workable is misconceived. Therefore, this paper goes on to consider whether the abortion system could be made better through law reform. Again subjectivity permeates this issue as we are confronted with the question "better for whom?"
It is acknowledged that Parliament is never going to be able to please everyone when it comes to New Zealand's abortion laws. However, this paper argues that Parliament should attempt to make the laws better for the majority of the population and ensure that they uphold fundamental legal principles such as the rule of law. Three options are proposed but based on the favoured perspectives, it is found that law reform involving the decriminalisation of abortion would be the most effective solution. This seems like a constructive conclusion, but the next question that arises is "is it going to be politically feasible?"


In the last few years, there is no other position on the soccer field that has seen so many deep-rooted changes as seen in goalkeeping. Good reflexes on the goal line and superb control of the penalty zone by the goalkeeper used to be the main characteristics of this position. Nowadays, however, additional skills are demanded because, in the new role of the goalkeeper, he must have good ball skills and he must be in a position to be able to 'read' the game and put structure into the play from the rear. This new function of the goalkeeper requires a further development of the training emphasis. In 50 training lessons, coordination exercises, fitness and preparation tips for the game for all age groups, trainers and exercise leaders as well as the goalkeeper are shown the possibilities of being able to improve the performance capabilities of the Number 1. Modern training methods ensure the best chance of success on the route to being an 'all-rounder'. It is for all age groups, trainers & exercise leaders as well as goalkeepers.


Reaching an appropriate level of economic, social and territorial convergence has been a strategic goal for European policy and decision-makers. The author's first assumption is that although in the early stages of the regional project, the Member States had similar growth and development levels, with the advancement of the integration process, the development asymmetries increased. In this paper, the authors stress the fact that the European decision-makers and researchers have become more and more interested to study if the Member States of the European Union meet the criteria for certain types of convergence: nominal, real, legal, structural and institutional. This paper brings to the fore-front the process of real convergence, trying to respond to the question if the Member States are catching-up, or are diverging. Moreover, taking into consideration the enlargement of the European Union with the countries from Central and Eastern Europe, we have studied the main trends within this group of countries. In this respect, we have calculated the σ and β convergence for three geographical clusters of countries: Central Eastern, North Western and Southern Europe. The results obtained show that the economies of the New Member States increased faster than those of the North-Western countries, experiencing a significant speed of convergence. In contrast, the North-Western countries recorded a negative pace in terms of convergence and significant discrepancies between them. In conclusion, the paper shows that the desiderate of real convergence becomes more and more difficult to achieve as while the Central and Eastern Europe states make important steps in reducing the disparities between them and also catching up with the European Union's average, the Southern Europe countries are diverging.

Keywords: European Union, real convergence, σ-convergence, β-convergence


Due to the rapid development of additive manufacturing, a growing number of components in mechanical engineering are made of functionally graded materials. Compared to conventional materials, they exhibit improved properties in terms of strength, thermal, wear or corrosion resistance. However, because of the varying material properties, especially the type of in-depth grading of Young's modulus, the solution of contact problems including the frequently encountered tangential fretting becomes significantly more difficult. The present work is intended to contribute to this context. The partial-slip contact of axisymmetric, power-law graded elastic solids under classical loading by a constant normal force and an oscillating tangential force is investigated both numerically and analytically. For this purpose, a fictitious equivalent contact model in the mathematical space of the Abel transform is used since it simplifies the solution procedure considerably without being an approximation. For different axisymmetric shaped solids and various elastic inhomogeneities (types of in-depth grading), the hysteresis loops are numerically generated and the corresponding dissipated frictional energies per cycle are determined. Moreover, a closed-form analytical solution for the dissipated energy is derived, which is applicable for a breadth class of axisymmetric shapes and elastic inhomogeneities. The famous solution of Mindlin et al. emerges as a special case.


NMR-based metabolomics investigations of human biofluids offer great potential to uncover new biomarkers. In contrast to protocols for sample collection and biobanking, procedures for sample preparation prior to NMR measurements are still heterogeneous, thus compromising the comparability of the resulting data. Herein, we present results of an investigation of the handling of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples for NMR metabolomics research. Origins of commonly observed problems when conducting NMR experiments on this type of sample are addressed, and suitable experimental conditions in terms of sample preparation and pH control are discussed. Sample stability was assessed by monitoring the degradation of CSF samples by NMR, hereby identifying metabolite candidates, which are potentially affected by sample storage. A protocol was devised yielding consistent spectroscopic data as well as achieving overall sample stability for robust analysis. We present easy to adopt standard operating procedures with the aim to establish a shared sample handling strategy that facilitates and promotes inter-laboratory comparison, and the analysis of sample degradation provides new insights into sample stability.


Competitiveness, resilience, and convergence were topics that for decades were listed among the hot issues that have animated the scientific and political debates in the area of economic growth and economic development. For the new member states (NMS) of the European Union, which have accessed the Union since 2004, competitiveness and cohesion became from the first days of their EU membership key topics on their national policy agendas, both as directives of the EU policies to be transposed and implemented nationally and as genuine domestic concerns to be addressed by each of the NMS, while resilience revealed its importance a little bit later, on the occasion of the global economic crisis of 2008–2010 and subsequent recession. Considering their importance for the current and future socioeconomic development of the new member states, the authors present and briefly analyze the topics of competitiveness, resilience, and cohesion in a joint framework, at regional level, based on their common roots within the economic growth and development theories, with the help of a minimal, but powerful, set of relevant indicators, over three significant recent periods: ante-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis. The findings point toward both different and similar competitiveness, resilience, and convergence developments within the new member states and across countries, regions, and periods, also revealing growth and adaptation patterns similar to those found in the more developed regions and countries of the EU, especially in the wake of the global economic crisis.


Purpose: As there has been increasing demand for tertiary education globally over the past decade, TNE is proliferating and has become an essential aspect of higher education (HE). There has, however, been limited discussion in the literature about the effectiveness of TNE programmes, so it is difficult to know exactly what an effective TNE programme looks like, how to contribute to the success of TNE programmes and so on. Far too little attention has, moreover, been paid to the TNE programmes providing by the UK to Vietnam. This study aims, as a consequence, to narrow these research gaps and to contribute to the general theory of TNE programmes in HE by developing the concept of "the effectiveness ofTNE programmes", as well as exploring a model consisting of factors affecting the effectiveness of TNE programmes. Methodology: Two case studies for TNE programmes delivered by UK Universities with University B and University S in Vietnam were based on documentary review and semi-structured interviews. In each case study, two people in following groups of TNE stakeholders, including academic managers, administrators, teachers, students, parents, were invited to participate. Furthermore, two Vietnamese government representatives and two employers, who have knowledge and experiences in TNE programmes were invited to join the research. Findings: The idea of "the effectiveness of TNE programmes" was identified by exploring TNE key stakeholders' perspectives. Moreover, synthesising different aspects of research findings, a conceptual model assessing the impact of four factors including TNE curricula, students learning styles, student engagement, and cultural differences on the effectiveness of TNE programmes was created. Originality: The concept of TNE's key stakeholders and the model evaluating the effectiveness of TNE programmes could be seen as several main theoretical contributions to the literature on TNE programmes in HE. Furthermore, this thesis also has a practical contribution by providing several suggestions for designing suitable TNE programmes in Vietnam within a UK context. The findings have, therefore, important implications for policymaking, curriculum design and strategies for cooperation regarding TNE in general and UK TNE in Vietnam in particular.


The endocannabinoids are now known as novel and important regulators of energy metabolism and homeostasis. The endocrine functions of white adipose are chiefly involved in the control of whole-body metabolism, insulin sensitivity and food intake. Adipocytes produce hormones, such as leptin and adiponectin, that can improve insulin resistance or peptides, such as TNF-α, that elicit insulin resistance. Adipocytes express specific receptors, such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-γ, which serve as adipocyte targets for insulin sensitizers such as thiazolidinediones. Recently, endocannabinoids and related compounds were identified in human fat cells. The endocannabinoid system consists primarily of two receptors, cannabinoid (CB)1 and CB2, their endogenous ligands termed endocannabinoids and the enzymes responsible for ligand biosynthesis and degradation. The endocannabinoids 2-arachidonylglycerol and anandamide or N-arachidonoylethanolamine increase food intake and promote weight gain in animals. Rimonabant, a selective CB1 blocker, reduces food intake and body weight in animals and humans.


The paper explores the relationship between Wilderness, inner space and the opposition to the proposed state regulation of the psychotherapies. Using the concepts of territory, deterritorialization and reterritorialization in the work of Deleuze and Guattari, it follows a path suggested by their ideas of lines of flight and desiring production leading to the transformation of the social field. The psychotherapies are considered as wilderness territories subject to the threat of deterritorialization and reterritorialization by the neo-liberal state. I follow these theoretical 'lines of flight' across the conference, exhibition and Wilderness themes to explore:

1). Dream space as a wild territory: Images produced by the artist/author for the conference exhibition are discussed and in which the client and the clinical supervisor deterritorialized the borders between the professional training of the author/artist as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and art psychotherapist. The visual imagery of wild animals provoked an outbreak of 'One or many Wolves' based on the paper by Deleuze and Guattari, complicating the borders and frontiers between dream and social space.

2). Regulating 'The Savage Horde': The image ''GRRR'' suggests a patrolling of the borders between the domestic and the wild. It evokes Freud's awareness of a contradiction in psychoanalysis between the savage aspects of the unconscious territories revealed in the consulting room, his characterization of the professional organization of psychoanalysis as a 'Savage Horde' and his awareness of the need for an ethically based clinical practice, training and professional organization for psychoanalysis. Weber's 'Iron Cage of Bureaucracy' and 'The Disenchantment of the World' are evoked to describe the proposed state regulation of the psychotherapies as a neo-liberal reterritorialization of both the unconscious and social space leading to a 'Disenchantment of the Psychotherapists.'

3). The call for by the 'Alliance for Counsellors and Psychotherapists Against State Regulation' for a position of principled non compliance with state regulation and for an accountable and ethical practice for psychotherapists. This paper argues in support of this call on the basis that state regulation is a process of reterritorialization by the state in which the desire of the therapist is subject to the domination of another desire, a desire expressed through the deadly conjugation of capitalist relations of production and consumption. The desire of some therapists for this neo-liberal conjugation and reterritorialization through state regulation is discussed as an aspect of class struggle.

The final line of flight comes to rest on desiring production leading to transformation in the social field. Guattari in his 'Three Ecologies' argues the need for a political engagement of the psychotherapies in an alternative politics to that of the 'Iron Cage' and leading to a 'Re-enchantment of the World.' The wilderness inspired images exhibited at the conference affirm the transformative potential of the desiring productions released in the relations between art, dream, therapy and politics. The 'Call of the Wild' and opposition to state regulation are lines of flight leading toward the 'Re-Enchantment of the Psychotherapists' and the broader political struggle for Guattari's 'Re-enchantment of the World'.


Unplanned pregnancy is the major cause of induced abortion one of the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity in the world (Mambolea, 2012). At Morgenster mission hospital there is an increasing number of women presenting with problems related with unplanned pregnancies. This was revealed through a growing number of women aged 15 to24 years admitted following illegal abortion. Hundred thousands of women become pregnant without intending and most of them decide to end the pregnancy in abortions. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between knowledge levels and practice of dual contraception as a prevention of unplanned pregnancy, abortions, sexual transmitted infections including HIV infection, among women aged 15 to 24 years at Morgenster mission hospital. Health Belief Model was used to provide the theoretical frame to guide the study. A quantitative, descriptive correlational design was used in this study. A sample size of 84 women was selected using convenient sampling technique. The inclusion criteria were all women aged15 to 24 years enrolled at Morgenster mission hospital. Structured interview schedule was done for 20 to 25 minutes to participant in a private room. Descriptive inferential statistics were used to analyse data. The major findings of the participant had high knowledge on dual contraception. Mean score was 10.6, standard deviation of2. 3 and on practice of dual contraception mean score was 2.6 and standard deviation 2.1 .The findings indicated a positive significant relationship between knowledge levels and practice on dual contraception r =. 260*, p<=0.017.Regression analysis was done and regression coefficient was R squared = .068 which means 6.8% variations or change in practice of dual contraception is explained by change in knowledge levels on dual contraception. Midwifery practice should emphasize on practice of dual contraception as of unplanned pregnancy, STIs including HIV during family planning sessions.


Objective: to evaluate discharge in a group of patients with cutaneous melanoma according to recently established criteria. Methods: we conducted an observational, cross-sectional study with 32 patients at theHospital Universitário Clementino Fraga Filho (HUCFF) / Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), between 1995 and 2013, in the following stages: IA (17 cases, 53.12%), IB (4 cases, 12.5%), IIA (3 cases, 9.37%), IIC (1 case, 3.12%), IIIB (1 case, 3.12%), IIIC (3 cases, 9.37%), melanomas in situ (2 cases, 6.25%), Tx (1 case, 3.12%). Results: the follow-up time varied from one to 20 years (stage IA), five to 15 years (stage IB), six to 17 years (stage IIA), 20 years (stage IIC), 23 years (stage IIIB) and 14 to 18 years (stage IIIC). One melanoma in situ (subungueal) was discharged in the fourth year of follow-up and the other was promptly discharged. The Tx melanoma was followed for 12 years. We observed no relapses or recurrences in the period. Conclusion: although a controversial issue, it was possible to endorse the discharge of the patients since our follow-up time had already exceeded the one recommended by the


Context Intimate partner abuse has a significant and detrimental impact on the mental and physical health of a woman. Physical abuse is often associated with sexual abuse. Objective To examine the prevalence and nature of physical and sexual partner abuse experienced by women who request a termination of pregnancy (TOP). Design Quantitative data collection using an anonymous, self-completed questionnaire. Setting A pregnancy counselling clinic located within a large district general hospital in the north west of England. Participants A sample of 312 women attending the clinic. Results Three hundred and twelve questionnaires were returned (96.7% response rate). The prevalence rate of intimate partner abuse at some stage in the woman's life was 35.1%; 19.5% had experienced actual physical abuse in the past year; and 3.7% had experienced forced sexual intercourse in the past year. Of the latter, in over half of the cases, this may have resulted in the current pregnancy. A total of 6.6% of women in this study are currently living in fear. Discussion The anonymity of the survey and the method of implementation encouraged an excellent response rate. The prevalence of physical abuse was higher than that reported in previous studies, however the prevalence of sexual abuse was lower. Up to 2% of requests for TOP could have been due to recent forced sexual intercourse. Conclusions Many women requesting a TOP have been, or still are, in violent relationships. Some women may attend with an unwanted conception following sexual assault by their current or previous intimate partner.


ABSTRACT The search for statistical techniques and forms of graphical representation that can explain the most relevant correlations among limnological variables can help interpret phenomena in a body of water. The objective of the article was to propose a graphical representation of the correlations among limnological variables applied in the contributing basin of the Dr. João Penido reservoir, in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Six sections were monitored monthly from May 2012 to April 2014, analysing 15 water quality parameters and their statistical correlations. The correlations were represented graphically with the program Gephi 0.8.2-beta. The influence of organic matter (of natural and anthropogenic origin resulting from pasture runoff and sewage) on water quality was verified, with an observed increase in water quality parameters especially nitrogen and phosphorous, oxygen consumed, chemical oxygen demand, turbidity and total suspended solids. It is concluded that the correlation chart assists in the understanding of the dynamics of the water quality parameters at the different sites analysed.


This study is primarily concerned with making an assessment of the social and economic policies pursued by the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) of Grenada between 1979 to 1983. It is the first sociological study of the Grenadian revolution, and is longer and more detailed than any other study that has been written on the subject. The thesis mainly examines developments inside Grenada. It therefore breaks entirely new ground since most of the existing literature views the revolution from the perspective of international relations. The principal methods of investigation used were library research in London and the Caribbean; and six months of field work in Grenada, Barbados and Jamaica, where I attended important political events and conducted interviews with politicians, businessmen, government officials and representatives' of international agencies.

The thesis is divided into ten chapters. Chapter one sets the scene for the study by providing information on the culture, geography, history, sociology and economy of Grenada, and traces the events that led to the revolutionary seizure of power in 1979. Chapter two discusses the main theoretical issues raised by the revolution, and chapter three analyses the institutions of popular power established by the PRG. Chapters four to eight examine the principal features of the economic strategy of the revolutionary government, and chapter nine seeks to explain the factors that led to the downfall of the revolution. The concluding chapter contains a very brief summary of the main findings of the study.

The central argument put forward in the thesis is that the. revolutionary ideology which guided the PRG was highly authoritarian in character, and led to the implementation of policies that were not suited to Grenadian society. The ultimate downfall of the revolution was caused by the authoritarian practices of the PRG which resulted in a vicious power struggle in which the Prime Minister and over 100 of his supporters lost their lives. This implosion of the post-revolutionary regime gave the United States' government an adequate pretext to invade Grenada and dismantle the institutions of the revolution.


We introduce a new approach for image filtering in a Bayesian framework. In this case the probability density function (pdf) of thelikelihood function is approximated using the concept of non-parametric or kernel estimation. The method is based on the generalizedGaussian Markov random fields (GGMRF), a class of Markov random fields which are used as prior information into the Bayesian rule, whichprincipal objective is to eliminate those effects caused by the excessive smoothness on the reconstruction process of images which arerich in contours or edges. Accordingly to the hypothesis made for the present work, it is assumed a limited knowledge of the noise pdf,so the idea is to use a non-parametric estimator to estimate such a pdf and then apply the entropy to construct the cost function for thelikelihood term. The previous idea leads to the construction of Maximum a posteriori (MAP) robust estimators, since the real systems arealways exposed to continuous perturbations of unknown nature. Some promising results of three new MAP entropy estimators (MAPEE) forimage filtering are presented, together with some concluding remarks.


Hadoop is a popular implementation of the MapReduce programming model for data processing. We first compare different Hadoop models and discuss their advantages and limitation. The traditional Hadoop system is scalable because a machine serves both computation and storage function. However, this principle imposes a strong constraint on system design and does not quite fit enterprise and cloud application, which require to decouple computation and storage nodes. Any naive Hadoop implementations may fail to be optimized because they are designed to preserve data locality, which does not exist in the decoupled model. In this paper, we propose a flow scheduling method: it eliminates undesired factors that can decrease processing performance. We model the cost of task assignment based on the penalty of violating flow demand and convert this problem to the network optimization problem. We have implemented Flow Scheduler for Hadoop and the experiment results show that it can maximize the processing flow rate while improving the system throughput by up to 30%. More interestingly, our flow scheduling method can provide more smooth task execution time, which suggests it can eliminate stragglers that caused by resource contention.


This paper explores the ligament-dependent behaviour of specific work of fracture of polymeric materials using a recently-developed modified EWF model. It is demonstrated that the non-linear relationship between specific work of fracture (wf) and ligament length (l) is a result of specimen boundary influence on the evolution of plastic zone. A transition ligament (l*) is defined, below which, the height of under-developed plastic zone is equal to the ligament length, and as a result, a linear wf-l relation will be observed. The plastic zone will saturate at the transition ligament, and its height will no longer increase when l > l*. This will result in a non-linear wf-l relation. Experimental wf-l data available in the literature are analysed using the modified EWF model and very good agreements are achieved.


Organic food products are produced without pesticides or genetic engineering. This study analyses the variable product characteristics, website characteristics, Instagram account characteristics, and claims characteristics. This study aimed to analyze the content of claims for organic food on websites and Instagram stores based on the Consumer Protection Law No. 8 of 1999. This study used an exploratory design with content analysis methods. The sample was selected using purposive sampling, namely 100 online shops that sell organic food with details of 50 websites and 50 Instagram accounts. The data collected was categorized and processed using Microsoft Excel, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 23.0 and Nvivo 12 Plus. The analysis results show that 56% of website and Instagram stores use subjective claims and 40% using objective claims. As much as 47% of online stores, both websites and Instagram, are categorized as not misleading, and 53% are categorized as misleading or deceptive claims such as ambiguous. 22% of online shops violate Article 8 Paragraph 1, and 20% of online stores violate Article 9 of the Consumer Protection Law.


The development of a statistical distribution of proper entrances among proper caves in a limestone karst is considered as a geomorphic process and described with stochastic geomorphic models. The models assume that entrances form and close independently at entrance sites and that the sites are randomly distributed among caves. Analysis of 820 caves in 10 regions on this basis finds that the best model is one assuming a proportional length dependence for mean site frequency on each cave. This model is used to obtain a constant which is characteristic of a karst and to predict the number and length distributions of entranceless caves and the length distribution of all caves in each region. The karst constant varies from about 0.0001 to 0.01 $$ft{-1}$$. Comparisons between the karst constants in the different regions suggest a correlation with the underlying karst processes and disclose an apparently unique karst situation in County Clare, Ireland. Predictions of complete length distributions of all caves show similarities not found in observed length distributions and support the conclusion that the proper interpretation of a cave region demands information about unobservable caves.


Climate change impact on water resources has been a global hot issue in recent years. In accordance with the latest research progress, a new meaning of water resources vulnerability (WRV) and a concept of adaptive water management have been proposed. For evaluating WRV under the changing environment in the Huai River Basin (HRB), the sixth largest river basin in China, a quantitative assessment model coupling with exposure, droughts risk, sensitivity, and adaptability of water resources system was established. In addition, the adaptive regulation of WRV under five scenarios of water demand control, water efficiency control, pollutant restriction of the water function zone, the minimum water demand control of the ecosystem and integrated control were analyzed in this study. The results indicated that the region with the greatest value of WRV was Xiaoqing River in the benchmark year (2000) and the most unfavorable scenarios in which 33% and 87% of HRB were the extreme vulnerable regions. Among all adaptive regulation scenarios, the most sensitive scenario was the integrated control, followed by the control of water function zone compliance, water use efficiency, water demand and the minimum water demand control of the ecosystem. This study will provide a scientific foundation to integrated water resources management in China.


Biology is that science which deals with the study of plants and animals. We might treat our subject from several different points of view. We might consider the various types of plant and animal life which may occur in kitchens. We might consider the products of animals and plants which go to make up the very varied foods which may be dealt with in the kitchen. It is with this latter aspect with which I shall deal in the main. Biologists divide plants and animals into classes from the very simplest to the most complex. Thus with animals we have at one end of the scale the very simple single-celled organism, the amoeba. At the other end of the scale we have man. Similarly, with plants, we have at one end of the scale the bacteria, yeasts and simple moulds, and at the other end the great trees and flowering plants. These various classes of plants and animals vary considerably in form and complexity of structure, and they differ also in chemical composition, and so in availability as sources of food for the higher animals and man. Man obtains food from many of these classes of plants and animals, but by no means froin all of them. Now what do we require in foodstuffs to make them suitable for man? We classify food constituents into five main groups : proteins, carbohydrates, fats, mineral salts and vitamins. There are also other things not so necessary, still often making a large difference in the palatability of foods, such as flavouring agents.


I. INTRODUCTION As the slogan-chanting street demonstrations that consistently disrupt the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) illustrate, there exists a contentious debate over the role of international trade organizations. The clash centers around the role of free trade regimes in the context of traditional ideas of state sovereignty in international trade relations. This debate has not only polarized the development of the WTO, but it has also controlled the development of regional trade arrangements. Specifically, the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico sparked much controversy among the domestic constituents of each country. The continued debate turns on whether NAFTA represents a pragmatic approach to maximizing trade benefits and opening markets to trade, or a step towards member countries relinquishing their sovereignty to a regional trade regime. In the more dramatic of the two interpretations, NAFTA represents a quasi-constitutional framework, both politically and legally binding, which restrains the ability of the United States, Canada and Mexico to implement public policy. As a type of regional constitution, NAFTA presents important questions about the tension between domestic constitutional traditions and the agreement's quasi-constitutional legal obligations. If NAFTA presents a significant challenge to a member country's constitutional tradition, domestic constituencies less likely to support the organization may undermine the political legitimacy of the institution. Alternatively, obligations under NAFTA that significantly depart from a country's constitutional tradition may signify an attempt to make backdoor constitutional changes in the country's domestic law. Additionally, examining the consistency between NAFTA and its member states' constitutional systems can provide important insights on how NAFTA-type regimes are influenced by their members' constitutional frameworks. In the context of NAFTA, this constitutional tension is best illustrated in the chapter 11 provisions of the agreement that protect foreign investment from expropriation. Accordingly, this Note will examine the extent to which NAFTA countries have departed from their constitutional traditions in obligating themselves to NAFTA's protection of foreign investments. Additionally, it will ask whether NAFTA's expropriation provisions are consistent with each member country's constitutional framework and domestic law protecting private property from government expropriation. Part II will present the domestic constitutional framework and jurisprudence in the United States, Canada, and Mexico protecting private property from government expropriation. Part III will introduce NAFTA's foreign investment provisions and review article 1110's protection of foreign investment from nationalization or expropriation. It will present four investor claims that have been filed under NAFTA's arbitration provisions alleging an expropriation in violation of article 1110 and examine the arbitration tribunal's legal reasoning. The Note will then proceed in Part IV to analyze the consistency between each country's takings law and its obligations under NAFTA. Finally, Part V will consider the potentially drastic implications of NAFTA's departure from the constitutional traditions of its members in the context of environmental regulations challenged under NAFTA's expropriation provisions. The prospect of NAFTA's expropriation provisions obstructing valid public regulations is at the forefront of the NAFTA debate, and Section V will examine the issue in the context of domestic environmental policies. II. NAFTA PARTIES' DOMESTIC TAKINGS LAW A. United States The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. …


ERP in higher education should respond the real requirements of education system. Enhancements or mere adaptations of existing solutions, which are taken from the experience in age old business practices, are not always successful. It is important to define ERP systems in higher education as being multiple in scopes, tracking a range of activities of including those of human resource systems, administrative student information systems and financial systems. So it is necessary to study the implications of using ERP systems in higher education and the information required to avoid the problems caused by inherited systems, in order to address the role of ERP in changing educational organizations and the implications of its use in similar organizational cultures. The current paper shows the contents of the ERP that serve the education system successfully and also shows the needs and future expectations of higher education institution.


We study the spatial distribution of the effect of oil and gas revenues on Brazilian municipalities, using variations in the international prices of oil and gas to establish causality. Oil and gas revenues increase economic activity, measured by night-time light emissions, in oil-producing municipalities but impose negative spill-overs on neighbouring municipalities. Spill-overs dominate beyond 150 km from oil activities and compensate direct effects in micro-regions. In oil municipalities, oil and gas revenues increase royalties, population, local real prices, crime, and real wages, essentially in manufacturing and services. Spillovers are negative on wages and prices and positive on royalties and crime.


Recent evidence has linked mitochondrial dysfunction and DNA damage, increased oxidative stress in skeletal muscle, and insulin resistance (IR). The purpose of this study was to determine the role of the DNA repair enzyme, human 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase/apurinic/apyrimidinic lyase (hOGG1), on palmitate-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and IR in primary cultures of skeletal muscle derived from hind limb of ogg1(-/-) knockout mice and transgenic mice, which overexpress human (hOGG1) in mitochondria (transgenic [Tg]/MTS-hOGG1). Following exposure to palmitate, we evaluated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage, mitochondrial function, production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS), mitochondrial mass, JNK activation, insulin signaling pathways, and glucose uptake. Palmitate-induced mtDNA damage, mtROS, mitochondrial dysfunction, and activation of JNK were all diminished, whereas ATP levels, mitochondrial mass, insulin-stimulated phosphorylation of Akt (Ser 473), and insulin sensitivity were increased in primary myotubes isolated from Tg/MTS-hOGG1 mice compared to myotubes isolated from either knockout or wild-type mice. In addition, both basal and maximal respiratory rates during mitochondrial oxidation on pyruvate showed a variable response, with some animals displaying an increased respiration in muscle fibers isolated from the transgenic mice. Our results support the model that DNA repair enzyme OGG1 plays a pivotal role in repairing mtDNA damage, and consequently, in mtROS production and regulating downstream events leading to IR in skeletal muscle.


We consider a service provider in a market with two segments. Members of the first request a reservation ahead of service and will not patronize the firm without one. Members of the second walk in and demand service immediately. These customers have a fixed cost of reaching the firm and may behave strategically. In equilibrium, they randomize between walking in and staying home. The service provider must decide how much of a limited capacity to make available to advance customers. When the advance demand segment offers a higher per customer margin, the firm may opt to decline some reservation requests in order to bolster walk-in demand. When walk-in customers are more valuable, classical revenue management models would dictate that at least some capacity be set aside for high-value later arrivals. Here it is possible that the optimal policy saves no capacity for walk-ins. Thus, it may be better to ignore rather than pamper walk-in customers. This outcome is robust to changes in the model.


Half a million women die annually from pregnancy related causes. In Kenya, maternal mortality ratio (MMR) remains high in spite of great efforts to improve maternal health care. We studied some factors linked to maternity in a rural community setting. A survey was conducted in the community living in Madiany division of Siaya County, Kenya. We randomly sampled 403 mothers of children under three years old. Variables of interest were antenatal care attendance (ANC), parity, distance from the health facility and women empowerment (autonomy). Nearly 94% of the mothers had at least one ANC visit and 48.6% had completed the recommended four or more ANC visits; about 65.7% initiated ANC at first trimester. Parity, distance to the health facility and autonomy were associated with ANC visits. Mothers with one child had a twice higher chance of at least four ANC visits than those with more than one child. Those living at most 60 minutes travel-time from the health facility were seven times more likely have early ANC initiation and five times more likely to have at least four ANC attendance than those living more than 60 minutes travel-time from the health facility. Autonomy was linked to early initiation of ANC visit. This may indicate that improving maternal care and achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 target, it is important to improve coverage of health facilities and implement development programs that empower rural women.


We study the end-to-end resource allocation in an OFDM based multi-hop network consisting of a one-dimensional chain of nodes including a source, a destination, and multiple relays. The problem is to maximize the end-to-end average transmission rate under a long-term total power constraint by adapting the transmission power on each subcarrier over each hop and the transmission time used by each hop in every time frame. The solution to the problem is derived by decomposing it into two subproblems: short-term time and power allocation given an arbitrary total power constraint for each channel realization, and total power distribution over all channel realizations. We show that the optimal solution has the following features: the power allocation on subcarriers over each hop has the water-filling structure and a higher water level is given to the hop with relatively poor channel condition; meanwhile, the fraction of transmission time allocated to each hop is adjusted to keep the instantaneous rates over all hops equal. To tradeoff between performance, computational complexity and signalling overhead, three suboptimal resource allocation algorithms are also proposed. Numerical results are illustrated under different network settings and channel environments.


Purpose: To evaluate clinical outcomes of patients implanted with the Clareon® monofocal intraocular lens (IOL) with AutonoMe™, an automated disposable preloaded delivery device.Design: Retrospective review.Methods: One hundred and eight eyes of 88 patients underwent uneventful phacoemulsification cataract surgery and implantation with the Clareon IOL. The primary endpoints were best-corrected distance acuity (BCDA), uncorrected distance acuity (UCDA), and proportion of patients achieving UCDA of logarithm of Minimal Angle of Resolution (logMAR) 0.18 or better at 1 month. Secondary endpoints included refractive stability and predictability, contrast sensitivity as well as wound stretch and surgically induced astigmatism (SIA).Results: The mean BCDA and UCDA at 1 month were logMAR 0.06 ± 0.08 and 0.18 ± 0.17, respectively. 93.8% of eyes had BCDA of logMAR 0.18 or better, and all eyes had BCDA of logMAR 0.3 or better. 80.9% of eyes had UCDA of 0.18 or better, and 97.8% of eyes had UCDA of 0.3 or better. All eyes were within 0.75 D of refractive target, 90.9% were within 0.5 D, and 68.7% were within 0.25 D. The mean contrast values (logMAR) were 1.73 ± 0.18 at 3 cpd, 1.91 ± 0.24 at 6 cpd, 1.62 ± 0.25 at 12 cpd, and 1.09 ± 0.28 at 18 cpd. Mean wound stretch and centroid SIA for a 2.2 mm incision was 0.04 ± 0.05 mm and 0.10 D, respectively. There was no wound stretch for a 2.4 mm incision and centroid SIA was 0.23 D.Conclusion: The Clareon IOL provided excellent visual outcomes and good refractive predictability. The AutonoMe delivery system did not cause significant corneal wound stretch or astigmatism.


Human and mouse SAMHD1 proteins block human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in noncycling human monocytic cells by reducing the intracellular deoxynucleoside triphosphate (dNTP) concentrations. Phosphorylation of human SAMHD1 at threonine 592 (T592) by cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) and cyclin A2 impairs its HIV-1 restriction activity, but not the dNTP hydrolase activity, suggesting that dNTP depletion is not the sole mechanism of SAMHD1-mediated HIV-1 restriction. Using coimmunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry, we identified and validated two additional host proteins interacting with human SAMHD1, namely, cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) and S-phase kinase-associated protein 2 (SKP2). We observed that mouse SAMHD1 specifically interacted with cyclin A2, cyclin B1, CDK1, and CDK2. Given the role of these SAMHD1-interacting proteins in cell cycle progression, we investigated the regulation of these host proteins by monocyte differentiation and activation of CD4 T cells and examined their effect on the phosphorylation of human SAMHD1 at T592. Our results indicate that primary monocyte differentiation and CD4 T-cell activation regulate the expression of these SAMHD1-interacting proteins. Furthermore, our results suggest that, in addition to CDK1 and cyclin A2, CDK2 phosphorylates T592 of human SAMHD1 and thereby regulates its HIV-1 restriction function.


As educational demands change, it is important to continually adjust the operation of educational organizations, and this must not be a haphazard adjustment. The effectiveness and fairness of the adjustment changes according to who is viewing it. It is a complex process with great potential for conflict from the vantage point of students, parents, teachers, school administrators, local school authorities, the public, government, organized educational groups, and the courts. What one group sees as fair allocations may be viewed as totally unfair by another group. The school system is a product of the government and does not stand separate. The government is legally accountable for the products in education. Government intervention is imminent during shifts in educational demands. It would be a matter of concern if there was a lack of.a sensitive assessment of the changing demands of the school system by the government. In America, state governments have moved toward more centralized control of local school districts. The government action in the United States, Canada, and Australia is called the inbetween response strategy (devolution whereby there is increase it control in conjunction with a decentralization of responsibility). Educational, economical, and socio-political variables affect this strategy. The government must listen to and respond to any interested groups. There must be an appropriate balance of educational and socio-political concerns. (SM) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************


Cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival are regulated by a number of extracellular hormones, growth factors, and cytokines in complex organisms. The transduction of the signals by these factors from the outside to the nucleus often requires the presence of small intracellular proteins (i.e. ras and other small G proteins) that are linked to the plasma membrane through a isoprenyl residue that functions as hydrophobic anchor. Isoprenylation is a complex process regulated by different enzymatic steps that could represent potential molecular targets for anti-cancer strategies. In the present paper the different transduction pathways regulated by some isoprenylated proteins such as ras and other small G proteins are described. Moreover, the molecular mechanisms of the isoprenylation process and the mode of action of the different isoprenylation inhibitors are discussed with attention to statins, farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTI) and aminobisphosphonates. The role of different candidate targets in the determination of anti-tumour effects by FTIs is also described in order to define potential molecular markers predictor of clinical response. On the basis of several preclinical data, new strategies based on multi-step enzyme inhibition or on target prioritization are proposed in order to enhance the anti-tumour activity of agents inhibiting isoprenylation. Finally, a summary of the principal data on clinical trials based on the use of FTIs and statins is given. In conclusion, the inhibition of isoprenylation is an attractive, but still not completely investigated therapeutic alternative that requires optimization for the translation in the current treatment of neoplasms.


The second South African War of 1899-1902 sparked widespread controversy in Australia, which in accounts of the war is usually represented by the jingoistic fervour by both civilians and volunteer soldiers on the departure of contingents for the front line. Reports of dissident opinion on the war were kept to a relative minimum in both the government and public domain in the years of the war, due mainly to the issue of 'loyalty' in society of the time, which prevented many from speaking out against the British Empire. Since its conclusion, and even from the late 1960s when various 'revisionist' accounts emerged, Australian literature on the war followed this 'triumphalist' approach. And, although recent studies do acknowledge elements of opposition, they have still been aligned more towards the triumphalist approach than any other. Such accounts deem the war one that enjoyed almost complete support by both the Australian public and the soldiers fighting in South Africa, during the entirety of the war. Soldiers' accounts of the war, however, contain more subtlety than has been attributed to them, thus revealing their position on the war not to be as clearcut as has been claimed. This study revisits established perceptions on 'public opinion' and soldier dissidence during the war, and shows, by the examination of first-hand soldiers' narratives and their relation to more recent theories on soldiering, the vital facets of soldier opinion neglected by these accounts.


This textbook offers a detailed and uniquely self-contained presentation of quantum and gauge field theories. Writing from a modern perspective, the author begins with a discussion of advanced dynamics and special relativity before guiding students steadily through the fundamental principles of relativistic quantum mechanics and classical field theory. This foundation is then used to develop the full theoretical framework of quantum and gauge field theories. The introductory, opening half of the book allows it to be used for a variety of courses, from advanced undergraduate to graduate level, and students lacking a formal background in more elementary topics will benefit greatly from this approach. Williams provides full derivations wherever possible and adopts a pedagogical tone without sacrificing rigour. Worked examples are included throughout the text and end-of-chapter problems help students to reinforce key concepts. A fully worked solutions manual is available online for instructors.


Interconnection networks have been deployed as the communication fabric in a wide range of parallel computer systems. With recent technological trends allowing growing quantities of chip resources and faster clock rates, there have been prevailing concerns of increasing power consumption being a major limiting factor in the design of parallel computer systems, from multiprocessor SoCs to multi-chip embedded systems and parallel servers. To tackle this, power-aware networks must become inherent components of single-chip and multi-chip system.On the hardware design side, while there has been some recent interconnection network power reduction research, especially targeted towards communication links, the techniques presented are ad hoc and are not tailored to the application running on the network. We show that with these ad hoc techniques, power savings and corresponding impact on network latency vary significantly from one application to the next -- in many cases network performance can suffer severely. On the software side, extensive research on compile-time optimization has produced parallelizing compilers that can efficiently map an application onto hardware for high performance. However, research into power-aware parallelizing compilers is in its infancy; none addressed communication power.In this paper, we take the first steps towards tailoring applications' communication needs at run-time for low power. We propose software techniques that extend the flow of a parallelizing compiler in order to direct run-time network power optimization. We target network links, the dominant power consumer in these systems, allowing DVS instructions extracted during static compilation to orchestrate link voltage and frequency transitions for power savings during application runtime. Concurrently, a hardware online mechanism measures network congestion levels and adapts these off-line DVS settings to optimize network performance. Our simulations show that link power consumption can be greatly reduced by up to 76.3%, with a minor increase in network latency in the range of 0.23 to 6.78% across a number of benchmark suites running on three existing parallel architectures, from very fine-grained single-chip to coarse-grained multi-chip architectures.


The European Union has a significant role in international trade but this is largely in the area of industrial goods. However, in the case of some agricultural commodities the EU applies tariffs, bans, or different restrictive measures; it manages foreign trade in agricultural goods with many countries all over the world. On the other hand the member states do not contribute to the total trade of the EU to the same extent. In this study, a comparative analysis was performed in relation to the member states by means of data of Eurostat and Faostat. First, a multivariable correlation analysis was carried out in order to find the interrelation between the trade features of each country. In the second part of the study, a cluster analysis was carried out with almost the same component as in the foregoing, also in terms of the EU member states. It can be ascertained that the date of EU accession of a Member State as well as getting EU agricultural subsidies do not affect the agricultural foreign trade of the member states. Countries with significant agricultural production also export food commodities in larger quantities. Countries that have significant exports extra-EU also have larger imports in the case of both basic commodities and prepared food as well. As a result of the cluster analysis, it can be stated that the member states can be divided into specific groups according to the three examined aspects (food trade features, exports of commodities, imports of commodities). The following typical country groups can be divided as follows: non-trade countries, countries with larger trade extra-EU, agri-food exporter and importer countries, non-agri-food exporter and importer countries, primary commodity exporters and importers, and last but not least processed food exporters and importers as well.
JEL Classification: F10


Youths' well-being and subjectivity are strongly related to prevailing political, economic, and social conditions. Neoliberalism has extensively permeated societies worldwide, changing the way individuals, especially youth, make sense of their surroundings and themselves. There is thus an increasing need to investigate how youth subjectivities are influenced in contemporary societies that are under the influence of neoliberalism. Through an analysis of the future orientation of youth, we can investigate discourses that shape youth subjectivities. In this study, we perform a Foucauldian discourse analysis of the future orientation of youth — high school students, from two national contexts, Turkey and Norway — who were asked to write an essay on their personal futures. We investigate what dominant discourses are revealed in the youths' writings and how they may influence their subjectivities and well-being. We detail two frameworks of discourses, one pertaining to materialism and the other pertaining to education and career, that our participants drew upon in their writings. We relate these discourses to neoliberalism and discuss the extent to which youth constitute themselves as neoliberal subjects of their respective societies. We discuss how these discourses may also be related to their well-being in diverse ways.