What are people's expectations of interracial political coalitions? This research reveals expectations of flexible interracial coalitions stemming from how policies and racial groups are viewed in terms of perceived status and foreignness. For policies seen as changing societal status (e.g., welfare), people expected Black–Hispanic political coalitions and viewed Asian Americans as more likely to align with Whites than with other minorities. For policies seen as impacting American identity (e.g., immigration), people expected Asian–Hispanic coalitions and that Black Americans would align with Whites more than other minorities. Manipulating a novel group's alleged status and cultural assimilation influenced coalitional expectations, providing evidence of causality. These expectations appear to better reflect stereotypes than groups' actual average policy attitudes and voting behavior. Yet these beliefs may have implications for a diversifying electorate as White Americans strategically amplified the political voice of a racial group expected to agree with their personal preferences on stereotyped policies.


SUMMARY Introduction: Salvia scutellarioides is a plant with antihypertensive and diuretic properties. In this study, its vasodilator effect is evaluated using the isolated organ technique. Objectives: To standardize the isolated vascular organ, and to study the effect of S. scutellarioides in vasoconstriction by α1 receptors stimulation. Methodology: Rat aortic rings were placed in an organ bath equipment (BIOPAC®), at 37 o C temperature and constant carbogen gas bubbling. Tension changes were registered with an isometric tension transducer and data acquisition equipment. During the standardization, six curves of concentration-tension with phenylephrine at 1, 3 and 5 hours were registered, in order to determine maximum tension (T M ), and the effective concentration 50 (EC 50 ). Finally, three concentration-tension curves were obtained for phenylephrine with S. scutellarioides at a concentration of 10 mg/dl and 20 mg/dl. Results: During the technique standardization, no statistically significant differences were found in T M for phenylephrine at 1, 3 and 5 hours. The administration of S. scutellarioides produced a T M dose dependent reduction with no EC 50 changes. Discussion: The implemented isolated organ technique is viable up to 5 hours, and does not produce α1 receptors desensibilization. The T M diminution by S. scutellarioides is explained by a non competitive α1 antagonism effect. Studies to isolate active principles for allowing the initiation of phase I human clinical trials are required.


Cars and electronic equipment have come to depend on materially complex designs and are drawing attention to issues around sustainable materials management. The dependence of these products and other applications on metals that can be considered scarce, has been brought into political and scientific focus. This is largely because of potential regional scarce metal supply constraints and the crucial roles the metals may play in current society and in diffusing a variety of 'green' technologies. If the societal dependence on scarce metals continues, the demand for these metals may become larger still. It is therefore increasingly relevant to manage scarce metals sustainably. Ultimately, the metals need to be recycled if such sustainable management is to be achieved. However, recycling industries are not well-adjusted to recovering all scarce metals, and concurrently policy-makers and the research community are only in early stages of finding ways to approach challenges associated with managing scarce metal resources. As a result, instead of being recycled many scarce metals risk being irreversibly lost. Thus, there is need for knowledge in multiple domains if recycling rates of scarce metals are to increase. This thesis aims to contribute with such knowledge, by studying recycling of scarce metals from end-of-life cars (ELVs) and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). First, by quantifying scarce metals entering Swedish ELV recycling, tracking the metals through recycling, and identifying where metals end up. Second, by identifying factors that impact on developing industry abilities for recycling scarce metals from ELVs and WEEE. Third, by identifying and discussing research approaches used in waste management (WM), WEE and ELV related research. Fourth, by suggesting measures that may raise recycling rates of scarce metals. Methodologically, the research is based on material flow analysis (MFA), the technological innovation system (TIS) framework and bibliometric analysis. Results indicate that 2,000-3,000 tonnes of scarce metals annually enter Swedish ELV recycling. Only 8 of 25 studied metals are estimated have any potential for being recycled such that metal properties are reutilised. Salient factors that impact on developing industry recycling abilities include: The material composition of ELVs and WEEE and the current value of contained metals; long-term metal price trends; access by industry actors to metal markets, an experienced work force, waste treatment technology and financial capital; business models and long-term goals within recycling industries; and EU and Swedish policy. These factors create socio-technical system challenges that need to be addressed by industry actors, policy-makers and researchers if recycling is to develop. Furthermore, some environmental system analysis methods and most socio-technical change approaches have only marginally been adopted in WM, WEEE and ELV related research. Hence, valuable scientific tools are left unutilised. Overall, results highlight that for individual metals to be recycled, there is need for long-term, high impact and metal specific measures that target build-up of entire values chains. The thesis contributes theoretically to TIS literature by adapting the TIS framework to a new empirical field, and to using it for studying industry developments where multiple and potentially conflicting goals are salient features. Empirically the thesis increases the resolution of knowledge about metal and material flows, and industry conditions, in Swedish ELV and WEEE recycling.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of tetrapeptide pankragen-forte in older people with prediabetic state. A total of 150 healthy people of different ages, including 39 young people (20-39 years), 42 people. middle-aged (40-59 years) and 69 older adults (60 years and older). As a result of screening, 69 seniors were selected 12 patients with impaired glucose tolerance, which, for the correction of glucose metabolism used Pankragen-forte as follows: 500 mkg 2 times a day (morning and evening) for 4 weeks. All included surveyed was defined indicator of glycosylated hemoglobin, conducted a standard oral glucose tolerance test with determination of glucose, insulin in plasma glucose and venous blood at 30, 60 and 120 min after ingestion of 75 g glucose. Pro-insulin levels were determined in plasma, venous blood glucose and 30-min OGTT. Also calculated an index of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), insulin sensitivity index (Matsuda index) and functional activity of β cells of the pancreas (HOMA- %). In 50 percent older people with impaired glucose tolerance use of pankragen forte led to a significant decrease in the concentration of plasma glucose during a standard oral glucose tolerance test, which indicates the normalizing effect of peptide drug in the violation of carbohydrate metabolism, which is consistent with the improvement of the lipid composition of serum blood, endothelial function, decreased platelet aggregation. The use of peptide drug pankragen forte is promising correction prediabetic status in the elderly.


Optical fiber sensors of refractive index play important role in analysis of biological and chemical samples. This work presents a theoretical investigation of a spectral response of fiber optic microsphere with zinc-oxide (ZnO) thin film deposited on the surface and evaluates the prospect of using such structure for refractive index sensing. Microsphere is fabricated by optical fiber tapering method on the base of a single mode fiber. A numerical model is described and simulation was conducted to assess the influence of the ZnO layer deposition on a reflected signal. The results indicate that ZnO film improves the performance in terms of a potential application in refractive index sensor. Full Text: PDF ReferencesY. Qian, Y. Zhao, Q. Wu, Y. Yang, Review of salinity measurement technology based on optical fiber sensor, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 260, 86–105 (2018). CrossRef M. Jędrzejewska-Szczerska, Response of a New Low-Coherence Fabry-Pérot Sensor to Hematocrit Levels in Human Blood, Sensors, 14, 4, 6965–6976, (2014). CrossRef F. Sequeira et al., Refractive Index Sensing with D-Shaped Plastic Optical Fibers for Chemical and Biochemical Applications, Sensors, 16, 12, 2119, (2016). CrossRef M. Jędrzejewska-Szczerska et al., ALD thin ZnO layer as an active medium in a fiber-optic Fabry–Pérot interferometer, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 221, 88–94, (2015). CrossRef M. Hirsch, D. Majchrowicz, P. Wierzba, M. Weber, M. Bechelany, M. Jędrzejewska-Szczerska, Low-Coherence Interferometric Fiber-Optic Sensors with Potential Applications as Biosensors, Sensors, 17, 2, 261, (2017). CrossRef M. Hirsch, P. Wierzba, M. Jędrzejewska-Szczerska, Application of thin dielectric films in low coherence fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot sensing interferometers: comparative study, Proc. SPIE 10161, 101610D (2016). CrossRef J. Pluciński, K. Karpienko, Fiber optic Fabry-Pérot sensors: modeling versus measurements results, Proc. SPIE 10034, 100340H (2016). CrossRef F. Goldsmith, Quasioptical systems: Gaussian beam quasioptical propagation and applications. (Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press 1998). CrossRef


The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that composite restorative materials possess an elastic-brittle nature and therefore will exhibit a size effect for flexure strength data. The experimental material consisted of 20 wt% 60:40 BISGMA:TEGDMA, 10 wt% colloidal silica, and 70 wt% Sr glass and was cured by light irradiation. Two sizes of flexure specimens were fabricated: 3.2x1.6x35 mm, and 6.25x3.1x35 mm. Half of the specimens made were soaked to equilibrium weight gain in 50:50 ethanol:water. The fracture strengths were measured in four-point bending tests. The beams under load were modelled by the finite element package ABAQUS. A statistical fracture mechanics methodology embodied in a public domain computer program called CARES/LIFE, developed by NASA, utilized the ABAQUS input and the fracture strengths of the smaller specimens to predict the fracture strengths of the larger specimens. In making the computation it used an approach that combines a Weibull distribution of flaw size with Batdorf's fracture mechanical model for failure at a material flaw. Both the soaked and unsoaked specimens exhibited Weibull behaviour, with shape parameters ranging from 4.04 to 8.15. Soaking had a clearly detrimental effect on the strengths of specimens of both sizes, and produced a comparable percentage reduction in the estimated scale parameter of the fracture strength distribution. Both the soaked and unsoaked specimens also exhibited a clear and comparable size effect, i.e. the larger specimens had a fracture strength that was lower than that of the smaller specimens by roughly the same percentage. Moreover, the magnitude of the size effect was well predicted by the CARES/LIFE methodology for both the soaked and the dry specimens. The elastic-brittle character of both soaked and unsoaked composite specimens was validated by load-deflection data, the magnitude of the Weibull shape parameters of the observed fracture strength data (<10), and the observed effect of specimen size. The accuracy of CARES/LIFE in predicting the magnitude of the observed size effect in beams of two different sizes strongly suggests that CARES/LIFE will be useful for computation of failure probabilities for clinically relevant structures.


BACKGROUND
RAS may affect quality of life and impacts oral health and daily activities; consequently, psychological factors, dental needs and patients' perceptions. Professionals should understand this relation to adequately manage oral ulcers. This study aimed at investigating the relationship between oral health impacts, oral health-related quality of life and psychological profiles in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS).

METHODS
Fifty-three patients (30 men and 23 women, mean age: 31.1 ± 10.1 years) with RAS participated in this study. During ulcer episodes, participants completed Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD), Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) and United Kingdom Oral Health-Related Quality of Life measure (OHQoL-UK) proformas. Patients completed OHIP-14 and OHQoL-UK again when they were ulcer-free. The statistically significance levels were set at P ≤ 0.05.

RESULTS
During ulcer episodes, patients reported worse oral health impacts and an inferior quality of life in comparison with ulcer-free times (P < 0.0001). Higher OHIP scores were significantly associated with higher HAD depression (P = 0.036) and anxiety (P = 0.012) scores. NEO-FFI scores had no significant relations with OHIP and OHQoL-UK scores (P > 0.05). During ulcer-free periods, no relationships were detected between OHIP, OHQoL-UK, HAD and NEO-FFI scores (P > 0.05), except between OHQoL-UK and conscientiousness scores (P = 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
RAS increased the negative oral health impacts on patients and consequently lowered their quality of life. Stressful situations and conditions (including anxiety and depression), rather than inherent personality profiles and stable psychological traits, were related to oral health impacts and quality of life in patients with RAS.


Background Insertions and deletions (indels) account for more nucleotide differences between two related DNA sequences than substitutions do, and thus it is imperative to develop a stochastic evolutionary model that enables us to reliably calculate the probability of the sequence evolution through indel processes. In a separate paper (Ezawa, Graur and Landan 2015a), we established an ab initio perturbative formulation of a continuous-time Markov model of the evolution of an entire sequence via insertions and deletions. And we showed that, under a certain set of conditions, the ab initio probability of an alignment can be factorized into the product of an overall factor and contributions from regions (or local alignments) separated by gapless columns. Moreover, in another separate paper (Ezawa, Graur and Landan 2015b), we performed concrete perturbation analyses on all types of local pairwise alignments (PWAs) and some typical types of local multiple sequence alignments (MSAs). The analyses indicated that even the fewest-indel terms alone can quite accurately approximate the probabilities of local alignments, as long as the segments and the branches in the tree are of modest lengths. Results To examine whether or not the fewest-indel terms alone can well approximate the alignment probabilities of more general types of local MSAs as well, and as a first step toward the automatic application of our ab initio perturbative formulation, we developed an algorithm that calculates the first approximation of the probability of a given MSA under a given parameter setting including a phylogenetic tree. The algorithm first chops the MSA into gapped and gapless segments, second enumerates all parsimonious indel histories potentially responsible for each gapped segment, and finally calculates their contributions to the MSA probability. We performed validation analyses using more than ten million local MSAs. The results indicated that even the first approximation can quite accurately estimate the probability of each local MSA, as long as the gaps and tree branches are at most moderately long. Conclusions The newly developed algorithm, called LOLIPOG, brought our ab initio perturbation formulation at least one step closer to a practically useful method to quite accurately calculate the probability of a MSA under a given biologically realistic parameter setting. [This paper and three other papers (Ezawa, Graur and Landan 2015a,b,c) describe a series of our efforts to develop, apply, and extend the ab initio perturbative formulation of a general continuous-time Markov model of indels.]


Background Persons with HIV have a higher prevalence of coronary artery disease compared with their HIV‐negative counterparts. Earlier identification of subclinical atherosclerosis may provide a greater opportunity for cardiovascular disease risk reduction. We investigated coronary cross‐sectional area (CorCSA) by noncontrasted computed tomography imaging as a noninvasive measure of arterial remodeling among virally suppressed persons with HIV. Methods and Results We assessed 105 persons with HIV with a spectrum of cardiometabolic health. All participants underwent computed tomography imaging to assess the mean corCSA of the proximal left anterior descending artery and 28 participants underwent additional coronary computed tomography angiography. Partial Spearman rank correlations adjusted for cardiovascular disease risk factors were used to assess relationships of corCSA with anthropometric measurements, HIV‐related factors, and plasma cytokines. Mean corCSA measured by noncontrast computed tomography and coronary computed tomography angiography were strongly correlated (ρ=0.91, P<0.0001). Higher mean corCSA was present in those with coronary artery calcium (P=0.005) and it correlated with participants' atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk score (ρ=0.35, P=0.01). After adjusting for established cardiovascular disease risk factors, we observed an inverse relationship between corCSA and CD4+ T‐cell count (ρ=−0.2, P=0.047). Removal of age from the model strengthened the relationships between corCSA and antiretroviral therapy duration (from ρ=0.19, P=0.08 to ρ=0.3, P=0.01). CorCSA was also inversely correlated with plasma IL‐10 (ρ=−0.25, P=0.03) but had no relationship with IL‐6 (ρ=0.11, P=0.4) or IL‐1β (ρ=0.08, P=0.5). Conclusions Positive coronary arterial remodeling, an imaging marker of subclinical atherosclerosis, is associated with a lower CD4 T‐cell count, lower circulating IL‐10, and possibly a longer antiretroviral therapy duration in persons with HIV. Registration Clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT04451980.


Climate change dramatically impacts Arctic and subarctic regions, inducing shifts in wetland nutrient regimes as a consequence of thawing permafrost. Altered hydrological regimes may drive changes in the dynamics of microbial mercury (Hg) methylation and bioavailability. Important knowledge gaps remain on the contribution of specific microbial groups to methylmercury (MeHg) production in wetlands of various trophic status. Here, we measured aqueous chemistry, potential methylation rates (kmeth), volatile fatty acid (VFA) dynamics in peat-soil incubations, and genetic potential for Hg methylation across a groundwater-driven nutrient gradient in an interior Alaskan fen. We tested the hypotheses that (1) nutrient inputs will result in increased methylation potentials, and (2) syntrophic interactions contribute to methylation in subarctic wetlands. We observed that concentrations of nutrients, total Hg, and MeHg, abundance of hgcA genes, and rates of methylation in peat incubations (kmeth) were highest near the groundwater input and declined downgradient. hgcA sequences near the input were closely related to those from sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), methanogens, and syntrophs. Hg methylation in peat incubations collected near the input source (FPF2) were impacted by the addition of sulfate and some metabolic inhibitors while those down-gradient (FPF5) were not. Sulfate amendment to FPF2 incubations had higher kmeth relative to unamended controls despite no effect on kmeth from addition of the sulfate reduction inhibitor molybdate. The addition of the methanogenic inhibitor BES (25 mM) led to the accumulation of VFAs, but unlike molybdate, it did not affect Hg methylation rates. Rather, the concurrent additions of BES and molybdate significantly decreased kmeth, suggesting a role for interactions between SRB and methanogens in Hg methylation. The reduction in kmeth with combined addition of BES and molybdate, and accumulation of VFA in peat incubations containing BES, and a high abundance of syntroph-related hgcA sequences in peat metagenomes provide evidence for MeHg production by microorganisms growing in syntrophy. Collectively the results suggest that wetland nutrient regimes influence the activity of Hg methylating microorganisms and, consequently, Hg methylation rates. Our results provide key information about microbial Hg methylation and methylating communities under nutrient conditions that are expected to become more common as permafrost soils thaw.


Surveillance of operating power plants is a progressing science in the hydropower sector. The efficiency improvements are closing in on the limits and reducing the costs by improvement of turbine life time seems to be a profitable approach. Continuously updated knowledge of the state of the mechanical parts of the turbine, will improve the ability to plan and execute maintenance work in a more efficient manner and in more suitable periods. It is therefore an important task to address the challenges connected to determination and quantification of relevant parameters, as well as development of reliable and applicable surveillance systems. This study does an experimental investigation of the coherence between hydraulic transients induced by governing and the relevant parameters used to describe the tendency of cavitation in Francis turbines. Theory relevant to these subjects is inquired to describe the problem sufficiently. An embedded application is built in LabVIEW to acquire and process data during experiments. The application is constructed using the Real-Time module of LabVIEW to investigate how this type of acquisition and data processing can be done in stand-alone surveillance systems. Sub-VIs for Real-Time analysis of acquired data are implemented and tested. Amongst other, a modified Gibsons Pressure-Time method is implemented to do transient flow rate measurements in Real-Time. The ability of the system to control external systems are proved by controlling the speed of an electric motor upon user interaction. The experiment results confirm that hydraulic transient from governing in turbines influence the parameters that describe the conditions for inception of cavitation. Real-Time data acquisition and processing prove its applicability to surveillance of these phenomena in operating turbines. No deduction can be made with regard to detection of cavitation with this experimental set up. The experimental set up may further be used to investigate the frequency response of governing in model turbines. The application built in this study may be developed further and more Real-Time processing methods may be implemented to yield more advanced surveillance systems.


Oddly enough and against trend – all those Scandinavian crime novels bobbing up in translation – I spent most of the year travelling Australia in crime fiction. From East (Peter Cotton's Canberra in Dead Cat Bounce) to West (Alan Carter's Perth in Getting Warmer) with many intriguing side trips in between; a trip to Thailand with Angela Savage (The Dying Beach), and a retreat to rural South East New South Wales with Stuart Littlemore (Harry Curry: Rats and Mice). Reviewing the route taken simply confirms my suspicion that Australian crime fiction has become emphatically "regional". The city is no longer the most compelling crime beat, if it ever really was.


A method of a self-checking synchronous Finite State Machine (FSM) network design with low overhead is developed. Checkers are used only for FSMs, which output lines are at the same time output lines of the network. The checkers observe output lines of these FSMs. The method is based on reducing the problem to a self-checking synchronous FSM design. The latter is provided by applying a special description of FSM namely, so-called unate Programmable Logic Array (PLA) description. Single stuck-at fault on the FSM poles and gate poles are considered. PLA realization of FSM allows a factorized or multilevel logic synthesis. They both provide a unidirectional manifestation of the above mentioned faults on the output lines of the corresponding FSMs. This realization also gives rise to a transparency of each component FSM of the network for the faults. PLA realization is derived from the State Transition Graph (STG) description of FSMs with using the m-out-of-n encoding of its states and insigni®cant expanding the products of STG. The problem of replacing an arbitrary synchronous FSM network for the self-checking one with low overhead is discussed.


We report here on the nature of the twinning associated with the tetragonal to orthorhombic I (T/OI) phase transition in YBCO, for temperatures between 500 and 600oC. In situ neutron diffraction measurements show the coexistence of the T and split OI peaks in the vicinity of the transition. However, by direct numerical simulation, we show that this is to be expected from the twinned OI structure when the separation of adjacent twinning planes and the orthorhombicity both approach zero. It is demonstrated that the observed hkl-dependent peak broadening is consistent with this interpretation. A comparison of the measured and simulated peak shapes enables us to make an approximate estimate of the actual twin widths for a given orthorhombicity.


Summary.  Participants in an international conference on the management of haemophilia patients with inhibitors developed a jointly authored summary of the findings and conclusions of the conference. Current knowledge of the genetic and immunologic mechanisms underlying inhibitor development was briefly summarized. Concerning the purported treatment‐related risk factors, conference participants commented on the limitations of the available evidence and the need for more rigorous prospective research in a fully genotyped population. Other clinical considerations discussed included the unproved utility of routine surveillance, the need for assay standardization, the management of acute bleeding and approaches to joint disease prophylaxis and immune tolerance induction (ITI). A number of issues were identified as needing further investigation in larger prospective studies, ideally through international cooperation. Such studies should enrol cohorts that have been scrupulously defined in terms of mutation status and treatment exposure. Finally, conference participants urged their colleagues to participate in the currently ongoing international trials of ITI.


While positive emotion can be conceptualized broadly as a response to the potential for reward, the environment offers different kinds of rewards, and these are best approached in somewhat different ways. A functional approach to positive emotion differentiation distinguishes among several different types of rewards with strong implications for adaptive fitness and posits the existence of "discrete" positive emotions that promote an adaptive response to each reward. A taxonomy of eight positive emotions, dubbed the "PANACEAS" taxonomy based on an acronym of the first letter of each of the eight constructs, is presented as an example of this approach. Positive emotion constructs defined through functional analyses are useful for guiding empirical research, especially for identifying prototypical eliciting stimuli, and generating hypotheses about the implications of different positive emotions for a variety of outcomes. Research findings are reviewed that support the importance of positive emotion differentiation in understanding the effects of positive emotions on cognition, physiology, and behavior. Advantages of the functional approach are discussed, as well as implications of the approach for evaluating major theories of the structure of emotion.


Article history: Received: March 2014 Received in the revised form: August 2014 Accepted: August 2014 Agricultural residues (prunings) coming from permanent plantations and orchards constitute a significant and largely unused potential for renewable energy. The EuroPruning project, respecting the impact on the environment, aims to turn prunings into a valuable fuel source by developing solutions for their harvesting, transportation and storage that will create growth in the European biofuels market. To determine the environmental consequences of the Pruning-to-Energy (PtE) logistics chain, a Life Cycle Assessment study will be conducted. In this study the PtE scenarios will be compared to three current practices: open field burning, mulching and use for domestic heating. In the paper an outline of the assessment methodology and consequent challenges are provided.


The general theory developed in Part I is used to prove three equivalence theorems about optical systems of the type under discussion. We prove that any optical system which contains only retardation plates and rotators is optically equivalent to a system containing only two plates—one a retardation plate, and the other a rotator. We then prove an exactly analogous theorem for systems containing only partial polarizers and rotators. Finally, it is proved that the most general optical system which contains any number of all three types of plates is optically equivalent to a system containing at most four plates—two retardation plates, one partial polarizer, and one rotator.


There has been a recent rise in research focused on maternal psychological conditions during the perinatal period. Although the majority of investigations have examined postpartum depression, there is a growing appreciation for the deleterious consequences of maternal anxiety in the perinatal period for both the mother and child. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), in particular, has emerged as a desirable target for intervention. This presentation will discuss the development of an indicated prevention program for postpartum obsessive compulsive symptoms (OCS), along with findings from the initial randomized controlled trial. Participants included women in their 2 nd or 3 rd trimester of their first pregnancy, who were pre-screened to determine psychological vulnerability to OCD. The treatment group (n=38) received a CBT prevention program for OCS that was incorporated into six weekly prenatal education (PE) classes. The control group (n=33) received the same PE classes along with general psychoeducation on anxiety disorders. Results revealed that at 1, 3, and 6 months postpartum, the prevention program was associated with significantly lower levels of obsessions and compulsions than was the control condition. Group differences remained significant even after controlling for baseline OCS and depression symptoms. Those in the prevention condition also reported decreasing levels of cognitive distortions, in contrast to the control condition. Significant predictors of 1-month postpartum OCS were baseline levels of OCS, thought-action fusion, and distress tolerance. Significant moderators included baseline OCS, obsessive beliefs, distress tolerance, and relationship adjustment. The interaction between these variables and condition was such that the prevention program was particularly effective for individuals who had poorer functioning at baseline. Results will be discussed with respect to implications for future intervention research on postpartum OCD.


The Spiral2 project consists of a new facility to provide high intensity rare ions beams. It is based on a primary beam driver accelerator (RFQ followed by a superconducting linac) and a rare ion production process delivering the beam either to a low energy experimental area or to the existing Ganil facility. From October this year, one ion source coupled with a first beam line section will be in test; then, the injector (ion and deuteron sources, RFQ) will be tested by the end of 2010 so the whole accelerator should be commissioned by the end of 2011; the first exotic beams being planned one year later. The accelerator control system design results from the collaboration between several institutes and Epics has been chosen as the basic framework. The paper therefore presents the main choices: MVME5500 CPUs, VME I/O boards, VxWorks, Siemens PLCs, Modbus field buses, EDM screens and Java applications, Linux PCs, use of a LabView/Epics gateway... Specific topics are the evaluation of the XAL environment, an Epics design to address the power supplies, an emittance measurement system, the development of a beam profiler interface and the investigation for a triggered acquisition system.


In recent years, a debate over kindergarten has ensued. We refer to the actors in this debate as developmentalists , on the one hand , and academic advocates , on the other. Developmentalists argue that kindergarten should be centered on child-initiated play and intentional teaching through play, art activities, and hands on activities. Academic advocates argue that young children are capable of learning academic content in kindergarten and that academic instruction is necessary to help some students "catch up" before formal schooling begins. In this paper, we identify the key policy organizations engaged in this debate and analyze the ways they construct their arguments and critique the positions of their opponents. We find that, when discussing their vision for kindergarten, developmentalists and academic advocates share similar goals and views. However, when we analyze the ways the two agendas discuss kindergarten as it is practiced today, clear divisions emerge. Specifically, the agendas use different types of causal narratives to describe the problems with kindergarten and how it got that way. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications and directions for future research.


The political economy of protection is a field within economics, but it has significant overlap with its sister discipline, political science. For a political economy of protection, one needs at a minimum two types of economic agents: political decision makers who provide protection, and economic agents who are protected or even actively seek protection. The typical political economy scenario leads to an economic outcome that is not Pareto-optimal: From a general welfare perspective, the political interaction is not desirable. An important task of political economy research is to explain why and how political interaction takes place. For the first part of the question, it appears clear that if protection is actively sought, the protection seeker intends to benefit from his activities. However, if the policymakers were truly interested in Pareto optimality and welfare maximization, they would refuse to protect. Hence a crucial assumption in the political economy literature is that the politicians' objective function differs from the general welfare function. For the second part of the question, theoretical political economy models consider either the election campaign phase when politicians are eager to win a majority of votes (preelection models) or the phase when the politicians have been elected and may benefit from the spoils associated with holding office (postelection models). Whereas in the election phase, politicians have an incentive to cater to the interests of that part of the electorate that is considered pivotal for the election outcome, in the postelection phase they may be open to, for example, special interest group (SIG) influences from which they derive utility.
 A first wave of theoretical political economy models originates from the 1980s. Building on these early advances, more elaborate models have been proposed. The most prominent one is the Grossman–Helpman protection for sale (PfS) model. It delivers a postelection general equilibrium framework of trade policy determination. In this common agency model, industry interest groups act as principals and offer the government a menu of contracts of campaign contributions in exchange for trade policy. The PfS model predicts that industries that lobby for protection will obtain trade protection in equilibrium, whereas nonlobbying industries will face import subsidies. Numerous papers have evaluated the PfS model empirically and found that the implied weight on contributions in the governmental welfare function and the implied share of the population represented by lobbies are both very high. Remedies for this surprising result exist, but it has also been argued that the found empirical regularities may be spurious.
 At the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of political economy literature is still theoretical, but better data availability increasingly offers the opportunity to empirically test theoretical results. A number of challenges remain for the political economy literature, however. In particular, more work is required to better understand policymaker interests. Moreover, an incorporation of political economy aspects into the new trade theory models that allow for intra-industry trade and firm diversity appears to be a promising avenue for future research.


Lexis Conference Ltd has successfully concluded its Probiotics and Gut Microbiome from SEP 18-19, 2020 in Newyork, USA. More than 50 distinguished scientists, researchers; academicians participated for sharing research advance, knowledge and expertise related to the Herbal worldwide. The 2 days conference held during September 18th to September 19th provides the leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars to share their experiences and research results about all aspects of Probiotics and Microbiome.


The tumor suppressor p53 has a crucial role in the DNA damage response. Here, we proposed an integrated model of the p53 network and explored how the nuclear and mitochondrial p53 pathways are coordinated to determine cell fates after -irradiation in radiosensitive tissues. Using numerical simulations, we found that depending on the extent of DNA damage, cells may survive, commit apoptosis after cell cycle arrest, or undergo apoptosis soon after irradiation. There exists a large cell-to-cell variability in outcome because of stochasticity in the generation and repair of DNA damage as well as cellular heterogeneity. At the cell population level, there occur two waves of apoptosis: a fast wave mediated by mitochondrial p53 within three hours postirradiation, and a slow wave mediated by nuclear p53 after eight hours postirradiation. Thus, we propose a two-step mechanism for cell fate decision. The first step is to decide whether DNA damage is severe enough to trigger apoptosis directly through the mitochondrial p53 pathway, while the second step is to determine whether the damage is fixed after cell cycle arrest. Such a mechanism may represent an efficient and reliable control mode, avoiding unnecessary death or greatly promoting the execution of apoptosis. It was also demonstrated that nuclear p53 can inhibit the pro-apoptotic activity of mitochondrial p53 by transactivating p21, and Mdm2 can facilitate apoptosis by promoting the mono-ubiquitination of p53. These results are either in good agreement with experimental observations or experimentally testable. Our work suggests that both the transcription-independent and -dependent p53 activities are indispensable for a reliable choice of cell fate and also provides clues to therapeutic manipulation of the p53 pathway in cancer treatment.


The background in this study is how important it is for a leader to apply motivation and work discipline to the company to improve the performance of its employees, because with motivation and work discipline, employees will feel responsible for all their duties. This study aims to determine the effect of work motivation and work discipline on employee performance partially, and to determine the effect of work motivation and work discipline on employee performance simultaneously. The data analysis technique used in this study is multiple linear regression analysis, using the F test and t test. The results of multiple linear regression show that the work motivation variable has a significant effect on employee performance. Work discipline variables have a significant effect on employee performance. And Hail F test shows that there is a significant influence between the variables of Work Motivation and Work Discipline simultaneously affect the Employee Performance of PTPN X Lestari Sugar Factory (Kertosono). The conclusion from the results of this study is that increasing employee performance cannot be separated from work motivation (needs, attitudes, abilities, payment or salary, job security, fellow workers) and work discipline (always present on time, always prioritizing attendance percentage, always obeying the hourly provisions). work, always use working hours effectively and efficiently). With high work motivation and work discipline, it will be easier to improve employee performance.


In recent years, many researchers have made tremendous efforts into using nanotechnology in biomedical applications and science, such as magnetic resonance imaging, drug delivery, and in particular, oncological therapeutic via superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs). Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and especially oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) have been a serious and ongoing concern. There are many strong emphases on the importance of toxic mechanisms due to oxidative stress and specifically, the changed cellular response. Therefore, our study was designed to evaluate the effects of SPIONs on OSCC mitochondria because of the usefulness of the application of these nanoparticles in cancer treatment and diagnosis. An increased level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is one of the substantial mechanisms found for SPIONs in this study, and initially originated from disruption of the electron transfer chain shown by a decrease in mitochondrial succinate dehydrogenase activity. Increased ROS formation subsequently followed a decline of mitochondrial membrane potential, the release of mitochondrial cytochrome complex, and mitochondrial swelling in the OSCC mitochondria compared with almost no effect in normal mitochondria. In addition, the SPIONs decreased cell viability and increased lipid peroxidation level and caspase‐3 activity in OSCC cells. The results represented that the exposure to the SPIONs induced selective toxicity only on the OSCC but not normal mitochondria. Based on our findings, we finally concluded that the SPIONs may be considered as a potential therapeutic candidate for the treatment of OSCC.


If managers are reluctant to fully adjust dividends to changes in earnings, stock returns and changes in the dividend yield will tend to be negatively correlated. When this is the case, stock returns will exhibit positive autocorrelation, or mo- mentum. This paper studies the pricing of options in such a situation, within a new model in which the dividend yield is an a¢ ne function of past stock returns. The model accommodates momentum in stock returns under complete markets, and, moreover, it renders preference-free formulas for European options. A momentum- inducing dividend yield implies that calls will be overpriced (underpriced) relative to puts after stock price increases (declines), a prediction in line with the findings of recent empirical research in finance, and that the Black-Scholes formula with constant dividend yield underprices out-of-the money options.


Like most other developing countries, China experiences huge migration outflows from rural areas. Their most striking characteristic is a high geographical and temporal mobility. Rural migrants keep going back and forth between origin villages and destination areas. In this paper, we show that this temporary feature of migration can be linked to land rights insecurity. As village land ownership remains collective and as land use rights can be periodically reallocated, individual out-migration can result in deprivation of those rights. Moreover, the intensity of this insecurity varies according to the village-level management of land and the contractual status of land plots. We use these variations to identify the effect of land rights insecurity on migration behavior. Empirical results based on representative 2002 rural data demonstrate substantial impact. Terry Sicular and participants in various seminars and conferences for helpful comments.


Purpose
This paper aims to examine a situation in which individual action requires collective approval – solar power adoption in strata properties – and offers a motivation-opportunity-ability theory-based model with which such a situation may be approached.

Design/methodology/approach
A Delphi methodology was undertaken for this study, with three iterative questionnaires administered online to a panel of strata property, renewable energy and sustainable housing experts.

Findings
The Delphi panel's insights have informed a new conceptual model, the Strata Solar Champion Roadmap (SSCR), outlining the variables affecting strata-based solar power adoption.

Research limitations/implications
Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to test and enhance the model's generalisability. Further case studies or quantitative analysis measuring the strength of the relationships identified in the SSCR model is particularly necessary. The SSCR could also be applied when examining other common strata governance disputes.

Practical implications
Policymakers and social marketers are encouraged to apply the SSCR when planning interventions to facilitate strata scheme solar power adoption. Furthermore, the SSCR offers guidance to strata property owners and strata schemes seeking to adopt solar power, thus increasing renewable energy use in a major sector of the Australian energy market.

Originality/value
Within this context, the SSCR's conceptualisation of strata-based solar PV adoption provides new insights into individual behaviour change requiring collective approval.


In this paper, we propose a novel 3D-RecGAN approach, which reconstructs the complete 3D structure of a given object from a single arbitrary depth view using generative adversarial networks. Unlike the existing work which typically requires multiple views of the same object or class labels to recover the full 3D geometry, the proposed 3D-RecGAN only takes the voxel grid representation of a depth view of the object as input, and is able to generate the complete 3D occupancy grid by filling in the occluded/missing regions. The key idea is to combine the generative capabilities of autoencoders and the conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) framework, to infer accurate and fine-grained 3D structures of objects in high-dimensional voxel space. Extensive experiments on large synthetic datasets show that the proposed 3D-RecGAN significantly outperforms the state of the art in single view 3D object reconstruction, and is able to reconstruct unseen types of objects. Our code and data are available at: https://github.com/Yang7879/3D-RecGAN.


BACKGROUND
Hospital readmissions can be detrimental to patients and may interfere with the potential benefits of the therapeutic procedure. Government agencies have begun to focus on reducing readmissions; however, the etiology of readmissions is lacking.

OBJECTIVE
To report the national rates, risk factors, and outcomes associated with 30- and 90-d readmissions following surgery for intractable epilepsy.

METHODS
We queried the Nationwide Readmissions Database from January to September 2013 using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification codes to identify all patients with intractable epilepsy, who underwent hemispherectomy (01.52), brain lobectomy (01.53), amydalohippocampectomy, or partial lobectomy (01.59). Predictor variables included epilepsy type, presurgical diagnostic testing, surgery type, medical complications, surgical complications, and discharge disposition.

RESULTS
In 1587 patients, the 30- and 90-d readmission rates were 11.5% and 16.8%, respectively. The most common reasons for readmission were persistent epilepsy, video electroencephalography monitoring, postoperative infection, and postoperative central nervous system complication. In multivariable analysis, risk factors associated with both 30- and 90-d readmission were Medicare payer status, lowest quartile of median income, depression, hemispherectomy, and postoperative complications (P < .05). The only unique predictor of 30-d readmission was small bedsize hospital (P = .001). Readmissions within 30 d were associated with longer length of stay (6.8 vs 5.8 d), greater costs ($18 660 vs $15 515), and increased adverse discharges (26.4% vs 21.8%).

CONCLUSION
Following epilepsy surgery, most readmissions that occurred within 30 d can be attributed to management of persistent epilepsy and predicted by Medicare payer status, depression, and complications. These data can assist the clinician in preventing readmissions and assist policy makers determine which admissions are potentially avoidable.


The challenge of controlling HIV infection involves an understanding of the heterogeneity of the virus, its wide cellular host range, its primary routes of transmission, and the immunologic and intrinsic cellular factors that can prevent its transmission and replication. Identification of HIV-infected individuals who have survived more than 10 years without signs of the infection and without therapy encourages studies examining the natural mechanisms for resistance to infection and disease. Within the immune system, emphasis should be given to the innate or natural response that appears within minutes of the infection and offers the optimal time for controlling HIV. All these parameters in HIV pathogenesis underline the information needed to develop optimal anti-HIV therapies and an effective AIDS vaccine.


Spot defects in memory devices are caused by imperfections in the fabrication process of these devices. In order to analyze the faulty effect of spot defects on the memory behavior, simulations have been performed on an electrical model of the memory in which the defects are injected, causing opens, shorts, or bridges. In this paper, simulation is used to analyze the faulty behavior of embedded DRAM (eDRAM) devices produced by Infineon Technologies. The paper applies the new approach of fault primitives to perform this analysis. The analysis shows the existence of most traditional memory fault models and establishes new ones. The paper also investigates the concept of dynamic faulty behavior and establishes its importance for eDRAMs. Conditions to test the newly established fault models, together with a test, are also given.


Our work aims to contribute to the literature on the prospective study of the water balance in the Oran region, a major southern Mediterranean metropolis, by considering the socioeconomic dimension of this region and the dynamic of its climate change through 2011–2030. These two dimensions are important for the analysis of future changes in water stress in the region because they affect both the demand and the supply of the water resources. Unlike other studies, our methodological approach is based on an explicit modeling of the socioeconomic evolution in the region as well as of the dynamic of climate change. For this, we used a time-series modeling framework to predict the effects of change in climate. In addition to the assessment of the effects of the socioeconomic and climate changes on the water balance of the region. Our results, based on simulations using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software, show that the current decoupling between the drinking sector from that of irrigation in the Oran region is not sustainable. Climate change will exacerbate this vulnerability. Only by integrating these two sectors, through a reuse of wastewater, can we consider the irrigation issue from a perspective of long-term sustainability in the region.


The Alto Guaporé gold province, southwestern Amazon craton, contains gold deposits that have been mined since the beginning of the 18th century and these deposits, together, have modern-day, pre-mining gold resources of at least 1.8 Moz. The ore is associated with quartz vein systems along the southeastern part of the Aguapei belt, a ~35 km wide and ~500 km long, NNW-trending shear zone formed due to reactivation of a terrane-bounding suture. The Aguapei belt evolved by ca. 1150–1100 Ma rifting and deposition of siliciclastic sediments in an aulacogen basin, followed by deformation and low-grade metamorphism of the sedimentary sequences during 1100–900 Ma terrane collision along the craton margin. The deformation was characterized by a compressional regime until ca. 950 Ma and transition to a transpressional setting during the final 50 m.y.
 The gold deposits are hosted in a variety of structures that are second-order to the main Aguapei shear zone. The Ernesto and Pau-a-Pique deposits are located ~40 km apart and at jogs along the Aguapei belt. They are marginal to pre-ore igneous rocks, with Ernesto hosted in the basal part of the metasedimentary Fortuna Formation that overlies tonalite and Pau-a-Pique at the contact between metasedimentary rocks and diorite. Three deformational phases comprise the compressional (D1 to D2) to transpressional (D3) tectonic events. In the Pau-a-Pique deposit and the deeper level of the Ernesto deposit, the ore-bearing veins are bedding parallel and follow D2 strike-slip and reverse fault zones, respectively. However, the veins formed during D3 reactivation of the older structures by an array of oblique accommodation faults. In contrast, ores at shallower levels of Ernesto, both in discordant and bedding-parallel veins, are hosted within a ~20-m-thick rigid metaconglomerate with associated dilation due to the structural complexity as sedimentary rocks of the Aguapei Group were folded around the dome-shaped roof of the pre-ore tonalite. The ores in both deposits, as well as in many other deposits of the province, are characterized by disseminated and vein-hosted pyrite. Gold occurs mainly as inclusions in the pyrite, with other hydrothermal phases comprising muscovite, Fe-Ti oxides, and minor apatite, chalcopyrite, and galena.
 Fluid inclusion data, coupled with stable isotope geochemistry and geothermometry, indicate that gold precipitated from a low-salinity, CO2-rich fluid at ~300°C and ~2.5 kbar. The source for the fluid and gold was the interbedded pelites during devolatilization of the Aguapei Group sequence. The aqueous-carbonic fluid inclusions and the narrow range of δ18O values of quartz (12 ± 1‰) from many auriferous veins from the central part of the province represent a regional ore-forming fluid. The broad range of δD for hydrous minerals (–116 to –55‰) reflects influx of small amounts of meteoric water into the steeply dipping shear zones during postgold exhumation. The 40Ar/39Ar geochronology from hydrothermal muscovite indicates a widespread hydrothermal event along the belt between 928 and 920 Ma. Collectively, the geological, geochronological, and geochemical data suggest that metamorphic fluids migrated laterally into and then upward along the Aguapei belt and deposited gold in lower-order structures where strain gradients existed between lithounits. The province has many characteristics of large orogenic gold provinces worldwide and represents a highly prospective and underexplored target region for early Neoproterozoic gold, a time period that generally is not well endowed in gold ores.


The effective management of human resources has become more important since organisations have seen fit to introduce management approaches that are based on and seek to enhance commitment and engagement. This is all aimed at improving performance, productivity and quality as well as the efficiency necessary to maintain a strategic edge in a highly competitive environment. Notably, employee engagement, which enables employees to participate and get more involved in planning, decision-making and other aspects of the organisation is perceived as important. Notably, it is believed that engaged employees feel that their opinions count and are cared about. Such an approach builds trust and a willingness to ensure that an organization's objectives are met. Furthermore, engaged employees foster a 'win-win' situations where both the organisation and the employee benefit. Employees get greater rewards, security and satisfaction while the organisation sees an increase in commitment which leads to an improvement in quality, productivity and efficiency required for competition.
Against this background, there is high employee disengagement in the UK's food and beverages retail sector. Within this sector employees' are earning minimum wages and often lower which also causes lower levels of output. As this study evidences disengagement increases for various different reasons in the food and beverages retail sector. The research demonstrates the dominant factors of disengagement from a large sample study (Compass Group UK). Faced with many different challenges, the UK's food/beverage retail sector needs to emphasise high engagement due to better performance and quality service in the organization. To that end, this study secures to understand how to improve employees' engagement levels and to create an emotional connection with management, thereby contributing to organisational efficiency.
The main purpose of this study is to explore whether employees' physiological motivation (emotional capital) can influence employees' behaviours that motivate employees to enhance their engagement levels in the UK's food/beverage retail sector. The theoretical framework for this study drew from employee engagement theory, in order to predict the relationship between emotional capital and disengagement; and to determine how these elements and their relationship to each other are influenced in terms of engagement. This study included 341 participants working in Compass Group (UK). This study's findings are important for understanding the roles of emotional capital and helping engagement in the UK's food/beverage retail sector. While the concepts of physiological motivation (emotional capital) have been applied to food/beverage retail management in recent years, these concepts still need to be well-researched from different perspectives. Further studies are needed to develop a theoretical model that can systematically investigate psychological motivation and employee engagement within the food/beverage retail industry.
Overall, this study's findings evidence the direct and indirect relation among employee disengagement and their preferred motivation process in the organization. This study also assesses that building emotional capital with the employees is an effective way to reduce disengagement and enhance engagement in the UK's food beverages and retail sector. Findings also provide management with the understanding of how emotional abilities contribute to employee engagement and inform appropriate strategies to improve engagement in the UK's food/beverage retail sector. The findings also help employees better understand their emotions and engagement in the workplace enabling them to achieve career success.
In conclusion, recommendations from the study provide the steps needed to be followed by the UK's food beverage and retail sector to become more effective. Guidance has been provided to develop employee engagement across the UK's food/beverages and retail sector. Finally, the positive employee engagement implication of this study is that Compass Group UK's managers could use the results in order to reduce disengagement and enhance engagement level within the organization and the UK's retail sector.


As environment-friendly or green cement, the geopolymer cementitious material has high early age strength, good volume stability and durability. In this paper, the mechanical properties of geopolymer hydrates at different hydrating ages were studied by changing the oxide content of raw material. The results showed that the chemical-combined water kept increasing as hydrating age prolonged, and reached the maximum at n(SiO2)/n(Al2O3)=3.9, n(H2O)/n(SiO2)=2.3 and n(Na2O)/n(Al2O3)=0.6. With the development of hydration, the pH value of geopolymer paste showed fluctuated: pH value kept increased at the age of 1d~3d, then decreased at the age of 3d~7d, at the age of 7d~14d the pH value increased again and at last it remained constant at the age of 14d~28d. 28d compressive strength of geopolymer paste reached the maximum as chemical-combined water content was 0.09g~0.10g and pH value was 10~11.


Many approaches were explored in recent years to introduce principles of metacognition and meta-learning into cognitive architectures, yet none of them resulted in a scalable humanlike learner. This work presents an approach intended to fill the gap between human self-regulated learners and artificial learners by introducing a new spin of the familiar core cognitive architecture paradigm, taking it to a meta-level. The resultant architecture enables in artifacts exclusively human higher cognitive and learning abilities: specifically, deliberative new knowledge construction. Model predictions agree with results of a pilot study with human subjects.


Summary In Afghanistan, pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is found mainly in the wild in natural forests. In this study, 17 wild Afghan pistachio accessions and three cultivated genotypes were characterised using amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs). Material was sampled mainly from the Kunduz and Takhar regions. A total of 288 AFLP fragments were generated using eight AFLP primer combinations. The number of amplified fragments varied from 18 – 48 per primer combination, and 136 bands were polymorphic, with an average of 17 polymorphic bands per primer combination. The percentages of polymorphic bands ranged from 26.2 – 79.2 per primer pair. According to UPGMA clustering of the Nei and Li distance matrix, the 17 wild accessions were grouped according to their region of origin and were distinct from the three cultivars. The AFLP technique was found to be effective for characterising wild P. vera material, which was genetically the closest to cultivated pistachio.


We theoretically investigate nonlinear optimization of periodic phase modulation for suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in single-mode optical fibers. We use nonlinear multiparameter Pareto optimization to find modulations that represent the best tradeoff between SBS and optical linewidth, as measured by its rms value. The optimization uses a temporal-amplitude-domain finite-difference Brillouin solver with noise initiation to find the best phase modulation patterns in the presence of coherent so-called cross-interactions. These can be important in short fibers, when the period is large enough to make the frequency-domain separation of the modulated signal comparable to, or smaller than, the Brillouin gain linewidth. We calculate the SBS threshold for the optimized modulation patterns and find that smaller spectral line spacing improves the SBS threshold for the same linewidth. By contrast, whereas the maximum modulation depth and modulation frequency influence the range of accessible linewidths, they do not significantly alter the threshold for a given linewidth. We investigate the dependence on fiber length and find that while shorter fibers have a higher threshold, the increase is smaller than the often-assumed inverse dependence on length. Furthermore, we find that optimized formats are superior in terms of SBS threshold as well as in terms of linewidth control, compared to random modulation.


8.1 The Numbers Game The next link in the imaging chain is the point where the camera's sensor turns an image into an array of numbers, typically between 0 and 255. The sensor divides the image into picture elements, or pixels, and assigns a number to represent the brightness of the image at each pixel. (A color camera creates three arrays of numbers, corresponding to the brightness of the red, green, and blue pixels.) Mathematicians love this, because they can now play with the numbers using various equations to alter the look of an image, or to extract information from the image data. An image can be processed using various mathematical formulas to change the numbers in an attempt to improve the way the image looks. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so people do not necessarily agree on the exact process that results in the best image, but that is the subject of the next chapter!


Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) is the causative agent of Kaposi sarcoma (KS), a vascular tumour of endothelial cells. The angiopoictin family arc a group of secreted glycoproteins whose members play important roles in tumour vascularisation. The primary aim of this work was to investigate how KSHV regulated members of the angiopoictin family through the construction of a selected KSHV lentiviral expression library. Angiopoietin-2 (Ang2) is an important angiogenic factor which binds to the receptor Tie2 and is up-regulated in KS. Using a constructed KSHV lcntiviral library, viral interleukin-6 (vIL6) and viral G-protein-coupled receptor (vGPCR) were found to up-regulate Ang2 in lymphatic endothelial cells (LEC). Both vIL6 and vGPCR up-regulated Ang2 in a paracrine manner and caused an up-regulation of Ang2 through the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. Gene expression microarray analysis identified how other factors important for Ang2 function, and other members of the angiopoietin family, were regulated by KSHV infection of LEC. Angiopoietin-like 2 (Angptl2) has been shown to be important for proper vascularisation. My aim was to investigate the regulation of Angptl2 by KSHV and to start to investigate the function of Angptl2 in KS and cancer in general. Angptl2 is up-regulated in KS and in KSHV-infected LEC and is expressed in a variety of other neoplasms however, its expression profile did not correlate with expected angiogenic factors. The KSHV encoded viral interferon regulatory factor-1 (vIRFl) up-regulated Angptll expression in LEC and vIRFl increased Angpttt promoter activity using the first 1 kb of the Angptl2 promoter. Over-expression of Angptl2 in a mouse tumorigenesis model affected tumour growth resulting in smaller and more necrotic tumours. Ang2 and Angptl2 are likely to play important roles in KS pathogenesis. These angiopoietins along with the molecular mechanisms regulating their expression might present future targets for anti-KS therapeutics.


Since the early 1990's, the idea of automated systems for the comparison of microscopic firearms evidence has received considerable attention. The main objective of such systems is to enable the analysis of large amounts of evidence, therefore, transforming the comparison of firearms evidence from an evidence verification tool into a crime-fighting tool. Two such systems have been widely used in United States forensic laboratories: namely, the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS) (1) and DRUGFIRE (2). Both IBIS and DRUGFIRE have in common the fact that their characterization of a specimen is based on a two-dimensional (2D) representation of the specimen's surface. Although these systems have provided satisfactory results in the identification of cartridge cases, their performance in the identification of bullets has not yet met firearms examiner's expectations. This project was motivated by the premise that a better characterizations of the bullet's surface should translate into better performance of automated identification systems. A three-dimensional (3D) characterization of the bullet's surface is proposed as an alternative to a 2D characterization. This paper discusses the development and preliminary results obtained with SciClops, an automated microscopic comparison system based on the use of a 3D characterization of a bullet's surface.


The authors describe a case of clinical use of transesophageal pacing to correct drug-induced bradycardia during anesthesia, surgery, and in the early postoperative period in a geriatric patient with severe cardiovascular comorbidity who has been long receiving a beta-adrenoblocker. They show it possible to employ the procedure long in the therapy of bradyarrhythmias resistant to the cholinolytic atropine.


In the present paper ordered mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has been synthesized by using the nanocasting method with SBA-15 as a hard template and titanium alkoxide as the precursor. The silver has been loaded onto the obtained ordered mesoporous TiO 2 using photoreduction method. The physicochemical properties of as-prepared and calcined silver loaded mesoporous titanium dioxide (SMTO) have been characterized by various techniques. The XRD pattern confirms the existence of tetragonal anatase-rutile mixed phases of TiO 2 with a crystallite size of the range of 12-15 nm. SEM and TEM images show that the aggregation of nanocrystalline phase results in the formation of nanometer sized mesoporous TiO 2 with a well-defined spherical morphology and retained ordered structure. The as-obtained samples exhibit good photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B, Congo red and methyl orange dyes as model water contaminant at room temperature with UV light irradiation. The samples under study also show substantial disinfection properties against E. coli & S. aureus used as a model strain. The significant enhancement of the photocatalytic and disinfection activities of the SMTO materials is mainly attributed to their absorbed more photons and reduced electron-hole pair recombination due to synergic effect of porosity of the ordered structure and Ag-impregnated nanoparticles, respectively.


Attrition is a persistent concern across online campuses. Because online programs often attract greater numbers of nontraditional, diverse students, attrition issues can especially impact learners from underrepresented groups. Modifications in language and communication, starting with the course syllabus, can create a foundation for an inclusive and supportive learning community. We describe our own process of revising the syllabus template within a counselor education program at a large, online university, via the Student Experience Project (SEP). We offer recommendations for current and future practice and concrete suggestions for higher education faculty members across disciplines.


Recently, tech-savvy start-ups and SMEs have begun to finance their business by raising funds through the issuance and sale of "branded" newly minted digital currencies. Since this alternative capital market is largely unregulated, investors need to separate the drivers of business success from those that indicate failure, or worse, fraudulent money-raising. Through standard logistic regression and extreme value logistic regression, the authors are able to shed light on the riskiest business projects. In particular, they find that the existence of a white paper, the number of advisors, the number of people on the team, and the presence of a Telegram chat are significant factors useful for discerning a successful capital raising from an unsuccessful one. Conversely, the non-existence of a company website and an inactive Twitter account are indicators of a possible scam.


IntroductionA recent independent review of the child protection system in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, highlighted the need for whole-of-government reform to improve outcomes for children at risk of, or experiencing, maltreatment. Population-level evidence on outcomes of children who enter and progress through the child protection system is currently lacking.
Objectives and ApproachWe aimed to quantify developmental vulnerability at age five among children who enter and progress through the child protection system during early childhood to demonstrate the value of cross-sectoral data linkage to inform and evaluate policy at a population-level. We used Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data linked to cross-sectoral population datasets in NSW, including birth registrations, perinatal, and child protectionnotification and out-of-home care (OOHC) placement data. Linked AEDC data, collected in 2009 and 2012, areavailable for 153,670 NSW children. Socio-demographic and perinatal characteristics available in the linked data were used to characterise the population.
Results21,179 (13.9%) children had ≥1 'screened in' notification, 4927 (3.2%) had ≥1 substantiated abuse and neglect notification, and 2177 (1.4%) had ≥1 OOHC placement before their fifth birthday. Indicators of disadvantage and adverse birth outcomes were more common among children who progressed to higher levels of the child protection system. The proportion developmentally vulnerable on ≥1 domains of the AEDC increased for children who entered and progressed through the child protection system; from 21% of children with no contact with child protection before age five, to 39% of children with ≥1 'screened in' notification, 50% with ≥1 substantiated notification, and 54% with ≥1 OOHC placement before their fifth birthday. Comparison of findings from other Australian jurisdictions with similar data will be discussed.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThis study demonstrates there is scope to improve developmental outcomes through targeted interventions among children who become known to child protection during early childhood in NSW. Moreover, it illustrates that cross-sectoral data linkage can be used to inform and evaluate policy reforms to drive better outcomes for vulnerable children.


The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), through its Evidencebased Practice Centers (EPCs), sponsors the development of evidence reports and technology assessments to assist publicand private-sector organizations in their efforts to improve the quality of health care in the United States. The reports and assessments provide organizations with comprehensive, science-based information on common, costly medical conditions and new health care technologies. The EPCs systematically review the relevant scientific literature on topics assigned to them by AHRQ and conduct additional analyses when appropriate prior to developing their reports and assessments.


Abstract. Albedo and fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR) determine the shortwave radiation balance and productivity of forests. Currently, the physical link between forest albedo and productivity is poorly understood, yet it is crucial for designing optimal forest management strategies for mitigating climate change. We investigated the relationships between boreal forest structure, albedo and FAPAR using a radiative transfer model called Forest Reflectance and Transmittance model FRT and extensive forest inventory data sets ranging from southern boreal forests to the northern tree line in Finland and Alaska (N  =  1086 plots). The forests in the study areas vary widely in structure, species composition, and human interference, from intensively managed in Finland to natural growth in Alaska. We show that FAPAR of tree canopies (FAPARCAN) and albedo are tightly linked in boreal coniferous forests, but the relationship is weaker if the forest has broadleaved admixture, or if canopies have low leaf area and the composition of forest floor varies. Furthermore, the functional shape of the relationship between albedo and FAPARCAN depends on the angular distribution of incoming solar irradiance. We also show that forest floor can contribute to over 50 % of albedo or total ecosystem FAPAR. Based on our simulations, forest albedos can vary notably across the biome. Because of larger proportions of broadleaved trees, the studied plots in Alaska had higher albedo (0.141–0.184) than those in Finland (0.136–0.171) even though the albedo of pure coniferous forests was lower in Alaska. Our results reveal that variation in solar angle will need to be accounted for when evaluating climate effects of forest management in different latitudes. Furthermore, increasing the proportion of broadleaved trees in coniferous forests is the most important means of maximizing albedo without compromising productivity: based on our findings the potential of controlling forest density (i.e., basal area) to increase albedo may be limited compared to the effect of favoring broadleaved species.


To illustrate the different kinetics of oogenesis and spawning strategies, reproduction in the Sardine (Sardina pilchardus, Walbaum 1792) was discussed. The histological samples, realized over the 3 periods of sexual cycle: oogenesis, egg and rest, were analyzed for 2217 specimens caught in the period from November 2015 to October 2016 using a microscopic scale of oocyte development with 6 stages. The histological results allowed us to determine the size of first sexual maturity is 12 cm, acquired during the third year of life of the sardine. Monthly monitoring of the evolution of macroscopic and microscopic stages of sexual maturity, allowed us to suggest that the waters of the coastal eastern Algeria, sardines spawn from December to March. Sexual rest is observed in the 2 sexes in May, during the summer and part of fall. Spawning and sperm emission ending in April. Microscopic observations show six stages of maturity in females and four males. Earlier maturation, oocytes come together in one lot, come into vitellogenesis and evolve synchronously to mature simultaneously. Separated from each other by the gap, they are issued in a fractional short laying. Ongoing recruitment of pre-vitellogenic oocytes determined new ways of oogenesis and lying, there are as many as egg laying lots placed in vitellogenesis. This type of distribution allows multimodal oocyte laying series with lots of small eggs released during a long period of time, postspawn is difficult to identify. These results illustrate the complexity of multiple clutches.


Adrian J. Boas, an archaeologist with four decades' experience in the field, takes a fresh approach to investigating the experiences of crusaders, pilgrims, and settlers in the crusader states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The book opens up the experience of medieval travel and crusading by drawing on personal reflection and comparison with contemporary events. Topics covered include wonderment at the strangeness of the East, adjusting to life in the Levant, the horrors of warfare, the drama of fortress and battlefield, and the theatrical beauty of religious architecture, together with new perceptions of a selection of characters known and less-known. The book encourages the reader to think more deeply as to the meaning of the topics involved.


It is envisioned that home networks will shift from current machine-to-human communications to the machine-to-machine paradigm with the rapid penetration of embedded devices in home surroundings. In this article, we first identify the fundamental challenges in home M2M networks. Then we present the architecture of home M2M networks decomposed into three subareas depending on the radio service ranges and potential applications. Finally, we focus on QoS management in home M2M networks, considering the increasing number of multimedia devices and growing visual requirements in a home area. Three standards for multimedia sharing and their QoS architectures are outlined. Cross-layer joint admission and rate control design is reported for QoS-aware multimedia sharing. This proposed strategy is aware of the QoS requirements and resilience of multimedia services. Illustrative results indicate that the joint design is able to intelligently allocate radio bandwidth based on QoS demands in resource-constrained home M2M networks.


We investigate how a number of physical parameters control the rate and pattern of nanoparticle assemblage onto a commercially available alumina surface. 8 nm e-Co nanoparticles supported on polycrystalline alumina are found to have areas of both good dispersion and areas of aggregation. A similar pattern of dispersion was also observed for larger (∼30 nm) polycrystalline ferromagnetic e-Co nanoparticles. Acid and base treatment of the amphoteric support material prior to the assemblage process is found to have little impact on dispersion of the particles. Using a nonpolar solvent for the assemblage process eliminates the effect of zeta potential and allows for rapid attachment of particles to the support. Performing the assemblage in a polar solvent is found to significantly decrease the rate of the particle attachment to the support. Despite the slower attachment of particles, there is no impact on the nanoparticle distribution pattern. In contrast to the mixed dispersion observed when assembling nanoparticles on an alumina support, e-Co nanoparticles are found to disperse uniformly across an ordered mesoporous MCM-41 silica support. It seems likely that a specific chemical interaction between the support surface and nanoparticle are dictating the assemblage process.


The recently developed Hierarchical Poincaré-Steklov (HPS) method is a highorder discretization technique that comes with a direct solver. Results from previous papers demonstrate the method's ability to solve Helmholtz problems to high accuracy without the so-called pollution effect. While the asymptotic scaling of the direct solver's computational cost is the same as the nested dissection method, serial implementations of the solution technique are not practical for large scale numerical simulations. This manuscript presents the first parallel implementation of the HPS method. Specifically, we introduce an approach for a shared memory implementation of the solution technique utilizing parallel linear algebra. This approach is the foundation for future large scale simulations on supercomputers and clusters with large memory nodes. Performance results on a desktop computer (resembling a large memory node) are presented.


The paper presents a novel, scenario based notation called Use Case Maps (UCMs) for describing, in a high level way, how the organizational structure of a complex system and the emergent behavior of the system are intertwined. The notation is not a behavior specification technique in the ordinary sense, but a notation for helping a person to visualize, think about, and explain the big picture. UCMs are presented as "architectural entities" that help a person stand back from the details during all phases of system development. The notation has been thoroughly exercised on systems of industrial scale and complexity and the distilled essence of what has been found to work in practice is summarized. Examples are presented that confront difficult complex system issues directly: decentralized control, concurrency, failure, diversity, elusiveness and fluidity of runtime views of software, self modification of system makeup, difficulty of seeing large scale units of emergent behavior cutting across systems as coherent entities (and of seeing how such entities arise from the collective efforts of components), and large scale.


Two hydrological climate modelling techniques, general circulation model (GCM) and hypothetical climate change scenarios, were used to analyse the hydrological response to the anticipated climate change scenarios in the Subarnarekha river basin in Eastern India. Both models verified individually for the same river basin and a comparative performance of the models was evaluated to relate the two models for the near (2014-2040) period climate. The hydrological response under the anticipated climate change in the Subarnarekha river basin is well assessed by GCM under the RCP 8.5 scenarios compared to the RCPs 4.5. Results indicate GCM best suited over the hypothetical climate change scenarios as GCM has demonstrated their potential in accurately reproducing the past observed climatic changes. The strong performance of the hypothetical climate change scenarios model, particularly for warming climate scenarios, suggests that it may have distinct advantages for the analysis of water balance components in the river basin. The monthly streamflows of Subarnarekha river basin was simulated using a total of 14 years (2000-2013) daily observed streamflow data in the ArcSWAT model integrated with model calibration and uncertainty analysis by means of SUFI-2 algorithm. The results indicate during the calibration the coefficient of determination (R2) and Nash-Sutcliff Efficiency (NSE) were reported as 0.98 and 0.97, respectively, while during the validation the R2 and NSE were obtained as 0.94 and 0.94, respectively, confirms the hydrological model performance was very good both in calibration and validation. The obtained climate change water impact index (ICCWI) values reveal the Subarnarekha river basin is more responsive to climate change. The reduction in precipitation along with the significant warming under the projected future climate is likely to reduce availability of water substantially in the study region. This work would be useful for the effective management of water resources for sustainable agriculture and in mitigating natural hazards such as droughts and floods in the study region.


Meloidogyne megatyla n. sp. is described from Pinus taeda in North Carolina. Stylet knobs are distinctively high in proportion to width, giving an especially massive appearance to the knobs of larvae and males. Mean larval length is 416 mum and stylet length is 14.6 mum. The perineal pattern is composed of smooth striae, with a high arch, and is often somewhat rectangular. The relationship of M. megatyla to other Meloidogyne species is unclear, although a comparison is made with Meloidogyne incognita and Meloidogyne mali. Galling was slight; only about 50 eggs were produced per egg mass, and under greenhouse conditions a single generation may take more than 10 weeks. Meloidogyne megatyla n. sp. did not reproduce on any of the differential hosts commonly used to distinguish among Meloidogyne species.


The diversity that exists within the history of the church's engagement with Rom 4 demonstrates the difficulty in understanding Paul's question "What shall we say about our father Abraham?" and the answer he provides. Paul's teaching on "imputing" Abraham's faith as justice and his opposition to "works of the flesh," however, were key points for the Reformers' disputes against the Catholic Church's teaching on justification as transformation and the inclusion of works in justification. In this essay, I explore the theological interpretations of John Calvin, a clear proponent of the imputational model of justification, and Thomas Aquinas, a clear articulator of the transformational model, and analyze how they address Paul's teaching on works of the flesh and justification by faith. I illustrate how philosophical and theological judgments pertaining to the relation of justification to the law, the dynamics of justification itself, and the causal relationship between divine and human willing interact with the text of Rom 4 to produce two distinct articulations of what Paul says about our father Abraham. I conclude by noting that Calvin's concerns are largely met by Aquinas's interpretation but without the strong dichotomy between justification by faith and justification by works.


A DNA fragment that is specific to Aeromonas salmonicida has been isolated from a genomic DNA library by differential hybridization. The specificity of this fragment as a DNA probe for A. salmonicida was shown by hybridization against reference strains and clinical isolates of A. salmonicida, related aeromonads, and species from several other bacterial genera. The sensitivity of detection by a polymerase chain reaction test, based on this fragment, was approximately two A. salmonicida cells.


Purpose of review This review examines the recent peer-reviewed literature of the past 18 months, with the goal of providing an overview of the pseudophakic lenses designed to provide accommodative action. Accommodative lenses take advantage of axial movement, refractive change and bag filling to provide their effect. Single and dual optic design, as well as unique technologies, were reviewed. Recent findings An overview is presented of the various accommodative lenses available for investigation and use. There is positive evidence that current accommodative intraocular lenses provide superior potential for near vision compared with standard intraocular lenses. Summary The available data suggest that accommodative amplitude and pseudoaccommodation are both important factors in the functional ability of accommodative intraocular lenses to provide a range of distance, intermediate and near vision.


Yield management has become a standard tool in several industries to increase the profits of firms facing demand uncertainty or consumers heterogeneity. But this technique also raises econometric problems in the estimation of demand models. Quantity-based management, in particular, is the source of both an endogeneity and a right-censoring problem. Disposing of macro data only and ignoring these issues leads to an aggregation bias. We develop a structural model of demand in the presence of quantity-based management. We show that the price elasticity is identified in this model provided that (i) we observe two subpopulations that face different prices but are not separated in the yield management policy, (ii) the highest prices and quantities sold at these prices are observed, (iii) the highest prices vary with time or across markets. We apply our method to the French railroad industry, using disaggregated data on trips between Paris and big cities on the period 2007-2009. Our estimates of the price-elasticity are consistent with a rather responsive demand, from 1.7 to 2 in economy class and from 1.3 to 1.5 in business class.


The antibacterial in vitro activity of carumonam, a new monobactam, and cefpirome, a new cephalosporin, was studied on 483 hospital strains resistant to gentamicin and cephalothin, in comparison with amikacin, azlocillin, aztreonam, cefmenoxim, cefoperazone, cefotaxim, cefsulodin (for Pseudomonas), ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, cefuroxim, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, enoxacin, netilmicin, norfloxacin, pefloxacin, piperacillin, rifampicin, tobramycin and trimethoprim. In general the two compounds have a very good in vito activity on Enterobacteriaceae but are less active on non-fermenting microorganisms. For the Enterobacteriaceae the minimal inhibitory concentrations 90% for carumonam was less than or equal to 1.1 mg/l excepted for Enterobacter spp. (43,6 mg/l) and M. morganii (56.8 mg/l) . All the Enterobacteriaceae are susceptible to cefpirome (minimal inhibitory concentrations 90% less than or equal to 5.3 mg/l). The activity of carumonam and cefpirome on Enterobacteriaceae is comparable with that of the third generation cephalosporins. Carumonam is more active than cefpirome and other beta-lactams, ceftazidime excepted, on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas spp. On the other hand, both compounds reveal to have only a low activity on the other non-fermenters which minimal inhibitory concentrations 90% values of 115.4 mg/l for carumonam and 32.0 mg/l for cefpirome.


Technology adoption in the Australian beef industry has been low and slow compared to that in the intensive livestock and cropping industries. Adoption needs to be higher and faster to fully capture the benefits from new beef genetic and other technologies. The principles of rapid improvement and innovation, and accelerated adoption, provide an innovative solution to this problem. In the Beef CRC, Sustainable Beef Profit Partnership (BPP) teams meet regularly to assess their current performance, set targets for future productivity increases, and use a profitability framework to assess the potential impact of new technology in their beef businesses. Their thinking, decisions and actions are based on the principles and process of Continuous Improvement and Innovation (CI&I). Capacity building and partnership outcomes are also assessed for improvements and innovations. The BPP teams are supported with appropriate tools, technologies, resources and expertise. The information generated will be used to underpin the achievement of Beef CRC commercialisation outputs and profitability outcomes.


The face is the identity of a person. The method to exploit this physical feature have seen a great change since the advent of image processing techniques. The attendance is taken in every school, colleges and library. Traditional approach for attendance is professor calls student name & record attendance. The system described in this paper aims to deviate from such traditional system and introduce a new approach for taking an attendance using image processing. This paper describes the working of An Automatic Attendance System in a classroom environment. There are several approaches to face recognition of which Principle Component Analysis (PCA) has been used extensively in literature. In this paper, Face Recognition based Automatic Attendance System using Principle Component Analysis is proposed. The system consists of a database of a set of facial patterns for individual. The characteristic features called "Eigen Faces" are extracted from the stored images using which the system is trained for subsequent recognition of new images.


All substances used in the local treatment for periarthropathies, such as local anesthetics, corticosteroids or botulinum toxin A, possess certain disadvantages. Finding alternatives to these agents in the local treatment of the disease therefore seems desirable. Comparative studies proved a local injection of the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, tropisetron (Navoban(R)), to be more effective than an injection of the local anesthetic prilocaine in treating periarthropathies of different localizations. A comparison between the local injection of 10 mg of depot dexamethasone combined with 60 mg of lidocaine and 5 mg of tropisetron showed that the two regimens had the same effect. These findings demonstrate that a local injection of 5 mg tropisetron does represent an alternative to the local treatment with corticosteriods plus local anesthetics. However, these results should be corroborated by additional studies.


Laminar combined free and forced convection through vertical regular polygonal ducts has been studied. All fluid properties are considered constant, except variation of density in the buoyancy term. Heat flux is considered uniform in the flow direction while in the transverse direction two wall conditions have been considered; Case 1—uniform circumferential wall temperature, and Case 2—uniform circumferential heat flux. A solution by point matching method in terms of a series containing Bessel functions has been obtained. Nusselt numbers, local heat flux, local shear stress, and pressure drop have been investigated. The condition of Case 1 results in higher Nusselt number values compared to the condition of Case 2. However, these differences in Nusselt number diminish as the number of sides of the polygon are increased. In each case at higher values of the Rayleigh number, the Nusselt number is less sensitive to the number of sides. When Nusselt numbers against number of sides are considered, in Case 1, the Nusselt numbers reach asymptotic value at lower number of duct sides compared to Case 2. At low values of buoyancy effect, in Case 1, the maximum circumferential heat flux results at the centre of the wall, while at higher values of the same, the local heat flux becomes uniform over a substantial portion of the wall. Under Case 1 buoyancy effect increases the heat flux ratio at the duct corners. In three-sided polygon at higher values of the buoyancy parameter the maximum shear stress is no longer incident at the wall center. As the number of sides is increased, however, the maximum shear stress again takes place at the wall center. The Case 1 produces higher shear stress values near the wall center, while the Case 2 produces higher shear stress values near the duct corner. When the buoyancy parameter is high and the number of sides is not large, Case 2 results in higher values of pressure drop parameter compared to Case 1.


This paper examines developments and dilemmas in relations between local governments and indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. It establishes a framework for analysis based on differences in local government systems, circumstances and populations. It then examines two sets of developments in relations which have occurred in contrasting circumstances. The first is ongoing poor relations in incorporated local government areas, focusing on a complex of issues surrounding land ownership, rates and services. The second is discrete predominantly Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities which have been themselves becoming local governments. Both of these sets of developments are seen as being accompanied by significant dilemmas. In relation to the first, the major dilemma identified is how superordinate levels of government should best proceed in attempts to improve relations. In relation to the second, major dilemmas are identified relating to indigenous 'ownership' of the resulting local government structures and the weakness of the financial position of these newly-emerging local governments. The paper suggests there have been some very significant and quite complex developments in relations between local governments and indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. However, these developments have only tentatively moved relations in a more positive direction, if indeed at all. Poor relations still predominate between local governments and indigenous Australians.


We perform aperture photometry and profile fitting on 419 globular cluster (GC) candidates with mV ⩽ 23 mag identified in Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys BVI imaging, and estimate the effective radii of the clusters. We identify 85 previously known spectroscopically confirmed clusters, and newly identify 136 objects as good cluster candidates within the 3σ color and size ranges defined by the spectroscopically confirmed clusters, yielding a total of 221 probable GCs. The luminosity function peak for the 221 probable GCs with estimated total dereddening applied is V ∼ (20.26 ± 0.13) mag, corresponding to a distance of ∼3.7 ± 0.3 Mpc. The blue and red GC candidates, and the metal-rich and metal-poor spectroscopically confirmed clusters, respectively, are similar in half-light radius. Red confirmed clusters are about 6% larger in median half-light radius than blue confirmed clusters, and red and blue good GC candidates are nearly identical in half-light radius. The total population of confirmed and "good" candidates shows an increase in half-light radius as a function of galactocentric distance.