1. Vertebrates are important seed dispersers for many plants, particularly those inhabiting naturally fragmented habitats such as lakes and wetlands. Such dispersal often takes place through the transport of ingested seeds (endozoochory). 2. Endozoochorous passage of seeds is likely to vary among both disperser and dispersed species. We hypothesized that seed retention time and survival of gut passage varies among disperser species (here Anas ducks) and is influenced by intraspecific differences in seed size. 3. Wigeongrass (Ruppia maritima) seeds were ingested by five duck species; Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Pintail and Mallard. Defecated seeds were recovered and germinated. 4. Total retrieval and germination of seeds, patterns of retrieval over time and seed weight before and after gut passage did not differ among duck species. Hence interspecific differences among Anas ducks and intraspecific differences in seed weight do not affect seed retention time or the response of seeds to gut passage. 5. Germination of retrieved seeds was influenced by the retention time in the gut, with seeds voided earlier more likely to germinate than those voided later. 6. The probability of dispersal at different retention times by any given duck was low. However, when considering the thousands of ducks moving among wetlands, the dispersal probabilities of seeds become significant. 7. Estimation of seed dispersal distance as a function of retention time suggested higher dispersal probabilities for seeds voided earlier. Based on average flight speeds ranging from 10 to 70 km h1, most probable dispersal distances range from 40 to 280 km. Dispersal over greater distances is possible, but less likely [KEYWORDS: Dabbling ducks; endozoochory; gut passage; seed dispersal; seed weight]


The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effect of selective fighting competitions (kumite) on urinary albumin, total protein, β2microglobulin, creatinine, sodium and potassium levels in male members of the professional national karate team. A questionnaire was presented to 40 champions, with necessary explanations. They were invited to a national team selection camp, and 18 subjects, who had frequently won championships, who were in good-health, and free from using drugs or ergogenic aids, and with similar participation were selected to be tested. They were aged 19 yrs old, with an average body weight of 67 kg, and average height of 170 cm. Their urine samples were examined 24 hours before and following competition to obtain aforementioned parameter levels. Statistics were performed using the SPSS software. Urinary total protein, albumin, creatinine, β2microglobulin contents were meaningfully affected following karate competitions, whereas sodium and potassium levels were not altered to such an extent.


Image texture enhancement is an important topic in computer graphics, computer vision and pattern recognition. By applying the fractional differential principle to analyze texture characteristics, a new fractional differential mask with adaptive non-integral step is proposed in this paper to enhance texture images. A non-regular self-similar support region is constructed based on a local texture similarity measure, which can exclude low-correlated pixels and noise. Then, through applying sub-pixel division and introducing a local linear piecewise model to estimate the gray value in between the pixels, the resulting nonintegral steps can improve the characterization of self-similarity that is inherent in digital images. Finally, the non-regular fractional differential mask which incorporates adaptive nonintegral step is constructed. Experimental results show that, for rich-grained digital images, the capability of improved self-similarity and texture characterization based on our proposed approach leads to improved image enhancement results when compared with conventional approaches.


The question of "How productive is our laboratory?" is one with which we wrestle constantly. The College of American Pathologists (CAP) Workload Recording Method (WLR) is somewhat familiar to most laboratorians. It is a system that could be better used in most laboratories. The recent introduction of a new approach to productivity analysis and of code numbers for nonworkloaded activities makes the system easier to use and more meaningful in analyzing staff productivity. Laboratory managers strive constantly to answer the question, "How do I show administration my real staffing needs?" Personnel productivity analysis is a benefit of using the CAP WLR method.


"This paper proposes a new, empirically based model to measure the expected effects of successful malaria control programmes on human mortality levels and structure.... The model produces a range of estimated death rates. The range depends on uncertainty about the effective success of control measures. A numerical example, based on the data of the Garki project in northern Nigeria, is discussed. Some alternatives to the model are mentioned. Some strengths and weaknesses...are described and evaluated. And some recommendations are offered for the collection and analysis of data in the intersection of malarial epidemiology and demography."


This report summarizes the development of a calculation program estimating the profitability of converting a peak-load oil-fired boiler to pellets. To convert an oil-fired boiler to pellets a new fuel handling system must be designed. Changes also have to be made to some other components. Since there are many different techniques for transportation, storage and treatment of the fuel only the most interesting techniques from Swecos experience and interest were included in the study.The capacity of the different parts in the system was dimensioned based on the power of the boiler after conversion. To estimate prices, installed power and dimensions manufacturers and distributers were contacted. The acquired data were then used to produce curves for how the price, effect and dimension varied for different components depending on the size of the plant. For some components non-sufficient data were acquired to establish curves and other estimates had to be done.The program is restricted from the public, so the code and the program are not shown in their entirety. In the report schematic pictures of the input and output page are shown as well as some sensitivity analyses with normalized values.The program can probably give an indication on rough prices, installed effects and dimensions. Since sensitivity analyses are undertaken and economic scenarios are investigated the user also gets a sense of what influences the economic outcome the most. Unfortunately no validation data could be found during the project, so validation will have to be made during future projects.


Ultrafast lasers have gained momentum in material processing technologies in response to requirements for higher accuracy. Minimal energy diffusion and high nonlinearity of interaction indicate the possibility of confining energy on the smallest scales. The possibility of temporal beam manipulation allows adapting the incoming energy rate to the material individual reaction. Optimal energy coupling gives thus the possibility to guide the material response towards user-designed directions, offering extended flexibility for quality material processing.


Objective: The present study was aimed to study protective role of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) was assessed against arsenic (As)-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. Methods: Twenty four male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups of 6 animals each and treated as follows: Group 1: sham control, 2: arsenic control (sodium arsenite @ 10 mg/kg b. wt orally for 4 wks), 3: Pre-treatment with NAC (@ 300 mg/kg orally for 2 wks) followed by sodium arsenite along with NAC (as per above doses) and 4: Sodium arsenite + NAC (as per above doses for 4 wks). Results: The concentration of thiobarbituric acid reacting substances (TBARS) and protein carbonyls was significantly (P<0.05) increased, while the concentration of reduced glutathione (GSH), and the activity of CYP450, Na+ - K+ ATPase and Mg2+ ATPase in liver were significantly (P<0.05) reduced in group 2 as compared to control. Groups 3 and 4 revealed improvement in the parameters in study. Conclusion: The study revealed that arsenic induces hepatotoxicity by inducing oxidative stress and supplementation of NAC is beneficial in countering the adverse effects.


A novel slow-wave vacuum electron device circuit, consisting of a half-period-staggered double-vane array and a high-aspect ratio sheet electron beam, has been conceived for a high-power wideband submillimeter-wave generation. A particle-in-cell simulation, which is based on a finite-difference time-domain algorithm, has shown that this circuit has a very wide intrinsic bandwidth (in excess of 50 GHz around the operating frequency of 220 GHz) with a moderate gain of 13 dB/cm. Moreover, the saturated conversion efficiency is predicted to be 3%-5.5% over the operating band corresponding to an output power of 150-275 W, assuming a beam power of 5 kW. Of particular importance, this structure is based on the TE-fundamental mode interaction, thereby avoiding the complex over moding instabilities that usually cause spurious signal oscillation in conventional high-aspect-ratio structures. This planar circuit has simple 2-D geometry that is thermally and mechanically robust as well as being compatible with conventional microfabrication techniques. This concept is expected to open numerous opportunities in potential applications of versatile electronic devices in the low-millimeter- and submillimeter-wave regions.


Excitatory amino acid transporters clear glutamate from the synaptic cleft and play a critical role in glutamatergic neurotransmission. Their differential roles in astrocytes, microglia, and neurons are poorly understood due in part to a lack of pharmacological tools that can be targeted to specific cells and tissues. We now describe a photoswitchable inhibitor, termed ATT, that interacts with the major mammalian forebrain transporters EAAT1-3 in a manner that can be reversibly switched between trans (high-affinity) and cis (low-affinity) configurations using light of different colors. In the dark, ATT competitively inhibited the predominant glial transporter EAAT2 with ∼200-fold selectivity over the neuronal transporter EAAT3. Brief exposure to 350 nm light reduced the steady-state blocker affinity by more than an order of magnitude. Illumination of EAAT2 complexed with ATT induced a corresponding increase in the blocker off-rate monitored in the presence of glutamate. ATT can be used to reversibly manipulate glutamate transporter activity with light and may be useful to gain insights into the dynamic physiological roles of glutamate transporters in the brain, as well as to study the molecular interactions of transporters with ligands.


The Prevention Status Reports (PSRs) highlight—for all 50 states and the District of Columbia—the status of public health policies and practices designed to prevent or reduce important health problems. This report focuses on heart disease and stroke and briefly describes why they are public health problems, both for Idaho and the United States as a whole. It also provides an overview of solutions (i.e., evidence-based or expert-recommended policy and practice options) for preventing or reducing heart disease and stroke and reports the status of these solutions in Idaho.


This report presents an initial analysis of some of the qualitative data collected in four of the 20 Young Lives sites in Peru between August and December 2007. Data collection was carried out with both cohorts of Young Lives children (the Younger Cohort are aged 5/6 and the Older Cohort are aged 11/13), as well as their caregivers, teachers, community representatives and other children. The sub-sample includes 51 children. The three overriding questions that guided the qualitative research are: (1) what are the key transitions in children's lives, how are they experienced (particularly in relation to activities, relationship, identities, and well-being) and what influences these experiences? (2) How is children's well-being understood and evaluated by children, caregivers and other stakeholders? What shapes these different understandings, and what causes them to change? What do children, caregivers and other stakeholders identify as sources of and threats to well-being, and what protective processes can enable children to minimize these threats? (3) How do policies, programmes and services shape children's transitions and well-being? What are the different stakeholder perspectives on these processes? What is the interplay between public, private and not-for-profit sectors and communities within these processes? The qualitative research entailed a mix of methods to generate data on the themes of transitions, well-being and services , including individual interviews with children, caregivers and teachers, and group interviews with children (both cohorts), as well as with adults in the community. Creative methods such as drawing and neighbourhood walks with the children were used as a basis of discussion of key research themes. Semi-structured observations of homes, schools and community settings provided the context for analyzing and understanding the data.


Primary objective: To improve the cancer pain control in patients admitted to medical wards of the regions
concerned, experiencing a complex intervention programme (information to patients, personnel training, organizational support) called PACIFICO. Model: Phase II pre-post quasi-experimental study - multicentric.
Inclusion criteria: At ward level: Medicine, Oncology and Pneumology hospital departments of five Italian regions; at operators' level: physicians and nurses working in the selected departments.
Methodology: The training takes place at two levels: guides and teams. The guides, after being formed, will "contaminate" their colleagues. Their education aims at acquiring knowledge related to pain control, conducting peer training events, reproducing a specific educational content, discussing clinical cases and developing peer to peer counselling. It's a package consisting of 14 lecture hours, followed by a 8 hours distance education and a final 6 hours module. An educational kit is provided. Inside their departments, the guides will then reproduce an educational event lasting 12 hs., discuss 3 clinical cases, have at least one peer to peer interview with each health operator and predispose the final audit (team level).
Instruments: APS-POQ and PAK ScaleResults. 6 departments recruited, 12 guides completed their educational path and are now managing the field training. It's now in progress the second phase of the trial, which
includes the spread at team level. Conclusions: The study is in progress. The final results will be available in May 2012.The expected transformation can be traced back at patient: regular information about
pain treatment to all inpatients; regular use of a NRS scale and subsequent correct therapeutic prescription and administration; pain relief in hospitalized patients.At operator level: improved knowledge and skills regarding pain management. Study financed by the Italian Health Ministry.


Modular application builders (MABs), such as AVS and Iris Explorer are increasingly being used in the visualization community. Such systems can already place compute intensive modules on supercomputers in order to utilize their power. This paper details two major projects at EPCC which attempted to fully integrate the MAB concept with a distributed memory MIMD (DM-MIMD) environment. The work presented was driven by two goals, efficient use of the resource and case of use by programmer and end user. We present a model of MABs and describe the major problems faced, giving solutions to them through two case studies.<<ETX>>


For a high dynamic performance induction machine (IM) control, parameters have to be precisely known. In this paper we propose a detailed study of the extensive recursive least squares (ERLS) method to estimate these parameters in real time. We use this algorithm with its various extensions to identify the parameters of the Autoregressive Moving Average with Extra Inputs (ARMAX) model associated to the IM. This method is based on the minimization of a quadratic criterion. As advanced technique, this paper proposes Genetic Algorithms (GA) to identify model parameters with biased estimations. A comparison of these two methods confirms the effectiveness of the last one.


In context of a larger project dealing with the traits of barley that are related to organic farming (BAR-OF), we performed an association mapping in order to dertermine the genetic loci linked with the respective traits. In two subsequent years (2002 and 2003), we used field results from 96 barley lines and varieties, partially overlapping between the years. The lines/varieties were grown on three Dansih locations (Flakkebjerg, Foulum and Jyndevad). For Foulum and Flakkebjerg, we observed both fields grown under organic and conventional regime; for Jyndevad only fields cultivated under organic conditions were ecploited. Neither in the organic nor in the conventional fields; diseases were controlled chemically. In the resulting five environments per year, deseases (powdery mildew, leaf rust, scald and net blotch), morphology related traits (stem lengh, ear braking, stem breaking and lodging), development related traits (time of heading and time of ripening) and yield related traits (kernel yiedl, kernel weight, kernel density, kernel size, starch and protein content) were observed. for the marker study, we used 65 polymorphic microsatellite markers distributed over all seven barley chromosomes. In the association analysis we applied a GLM analysis in the software TASSE and accepted only association with an error probability lower than 10-5. Beside for ear breaking, we found significant associations for each of the traits observed and always on more than one chromosome. The major part of the associations differed from 2002 to 2003. For the disease resistances and the kernel weight, we observed a relative high stability of the associated marker loci over the years, even so the barley lines on the field experiments differed partially from one year to the other. Surprisingly, we fond the best stability of association comparing the two years for the trait "kernel yield". Further analysis, especially in relation to G x E interaction and the influence of organic/conventional conditions will be published in an upcoming paper.


This paper studied the correlation between corporate innovation and Chinese private enterprises' political connection based on a sample from 2008 to 2016 of all listed Chinese private companies. The empirical results showed that political connection contributed to corporate innovation and increased the corporate innovation output. The study further conducted a Difference-in-Difference approach which utilized China's 2013 anti-corruption campaign as a natural experiment and the results showed that the positive effects between political connection and corporate innovation were weaken among political connected firms after the anti-corruption campaign. At last, the paper explained the channel of above relationship from the prospect of financing constraints and institutional complements. JEL classification numbers: O31, P26, P48Keywords: Political connection, Corporate innovation, Financing constraints


OBJECTIVE
To describe and compare the relative attributes (reliability, ease of use, applicability, and relevance) of different assessment tools for economic analyses as they pertain to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) literature.

METHODS
An expert panel, comprising rheumatology researchers and clinicians, operationalized 2 economic appraisal instruments and applied them to 11 articles used for analysis. Each expert reviewed 3 articles, with each article independently reviewed by a pair of experts. A summary score for each article per appraisal instrument was calculated by dividing the number of items that received a "positive" response by the total number of items in the appraisal instrument.

RESULTS
Scores for each article were similar across reviewers and appraisal instruments.

CONCLUSION
There is a need for a more comprehensive approach for evaluating this rapidly growing body of economic literature that is not only valid and reliable, but also easy to apply and understand. Although consistency between reviewers was good on both guidelines, inter-guideline discrepancies were noted and reviewers reported some difficulty in using the operationalized format.


This paper proposes a constrained nonparametric method of estimating an input distance function. A regression function is estimated via kernel methods without functional form assumptions. To guarantee that the estimated input distance function satisfies its properties, monotonicity constraints are imposed on the regression surface via the constraint weighted bootstrapping method borrowed from statistics literature. The first, second, and cross partial analytical derivatives of the estimated input distance function are derived, and thus the elasticities measuring input substitutability can be computed from them. The method is then applied to a cross-section of 3,249 Norwegian timber producers.


This brief presents a simple artificial spiking neuron and proposes its application to an A/D converter. Depending on the initial state, which is an analog input, the neuron can generate spike trains having various spike position patterns. Based on spike position modulation, the spike train can be symbolized by a digital output. As a result, the analog input can be encoded into the digital output. Adjusting a reconfigurable parameter, the neuron can realize various encodings such as binary and Gray encodings. This brief also proposes a simple reconfigurable implementation circuit and experimentally confirms typical A/D conversion functions


Viewing and illumination geometry has a strong influence on optical measurements of natural surfaces due to their anisotropic reflectance properties. Typically, cameras on-board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are affected by this because of their relatively large field of view (FOV) and thus large range of viewing angles. In this study, we investigated the magnitude of reflectance anisotropy effects in the 500–900 nm range, captured by a frame camera mounted on a UAV during a standard mapping flight. After orthorectification and georeferencing of the images collected by the camera, we calculated the viewing geometry of all observations of each georeferenced ground pixel, forming a dataset with multi-angular observations. We performed UAV flights on two days during the summer of 2016 over an experimental potato field where different zones in the field received different nitrogen fertilization treatments. These fertilization levels caused variation in potato plant growth and thereby differences in structural properties such as leaf area index (LAI) and canopy cover. We fitted the Rahman–Pinty–Verstraete (RPV) model through the multi-angular observations of each ground pixel to quantify, interpret, and visualize the anisotropy patterns in our study area. The Θ parameter of the RPV model, which controls the proportion of forward and backward scattering, showed strong correlation with canopy cover, where in general an increase in canopy cover resulted in a reduction of backward scattering intensity, indicating that reflectance anisotropy contains information on canopy structure. In this paper, we demonstrated that anisotropy data can be extracted from measurements using a frame camera, collected during a typical UAV mapping flight. Future research will focus on how to use the anisotropy signal as a source of information for estimation of physical vegetation properties.


We consider the use of extrinsic information transfercharts for the design of Luby Transform (LT) codes over thebinary erasure channel (BEC). In particular, we formulate anoptimization problem to determine asymptotically good check-node degree distributions in terms of decoder overhead. Wefurther propose a modified encoding scheme that maximizes theminimum variable-node degree, thus optimizing the erasure-floorperformance at the expense of decoder overhead, and resultingin a regularized variable-node degree distribution. The two ap-proaches are combined to jointly improve decoder overhead anddecoder erasure floor by incorporating the proposed encodingstrategy into the convex optimization problem. The performanceof the proposed schemes is investigated for transmission over theBEC through density evolution and numerical simulations. Theoptimized codes compare favorably to conventional LT codes,and are further extended to enable improved performance forunequal erasure protection.


The majority of employees currently working in the private sector are now employed in small firms, yet little is known about their working conditions. This collection of essays addresses this gap. Based on theoretical analysis supported by contemporary empirical evidence, the book explores key areas of the employment relationship adding a new perspective to our understanding of contemporary work.


Multipass cells (MPCs) are used nowadays as nonlinear tools to perform spectral broadening and temporal manipulation of laser pulses while maintaining a good spatial quality and spatio-spectral homogeneity. However, intensive 3D nonlinear spatio-temporal simulations are required to fully capture the physics associated with pulse propagation inside these systems. In addition, the limitations of such a scheme are still under investigation. In this study, we first establish a 1D model as a useful design tool to predict the temporal and spectral properties of the output pulse for nearly Gaussian beams, in a wide range of cavity configurations and nonlinearity levels. This model allows us to drastically reduce the computation time associated with MPC design. The validity of the 1D model is first checked by comparing it to 3D simulations. The results of the 1D model are then compared with experimental data collected from a near-concentric gas-filled multipass cell presenting a high level of nonlinearity, enabling the observation of wave breaking. In a second part, we experimentally characterize the spatio-spectral profile at the output of this experimental setup, both with an imaging spectrometer and with a complete 3D characterization method known as INSIGHT. The results show that gas-filled multipass cells can be used at peak power levels close to the critical power without inducing significant spatio-spectral couplings in intensity or phase.


CONTEXT
Previously we identified RTN4IP1 to be differentially expressed in thyroid cancer by sex and the gene is located on chromosome 6q21, a chromosomal region frequently deleted or with loss of heterozygosity in a variety of human malignancies including thyroid cancer.

OBJECTIVE
Because the expression and function of this gene is unknown, we sought to characterize its expression in normal, hyperplastic, and benign and malignant thyroid tissue samples and to evaluate its function in cancer cells.

DESIGN
RTN4IP1 expression was analyzed in normal and hyperplastic thyroid tissue and benign and malignant thyroid tissue samples. In 3 thyroid cancer cell lines (TPC1 from a papillary thyroid cancer, FTC133 from a follicular thyroid cancer, XTC1 from a Hürthle cell carcinoma), small interfering RNA knockdown of RTN4IP1 was used to determine its role in regulating the hallmarks of malignant cell phenotype (cellular proliferation, migration, apoptosis, invasion, tumor spheroid formation, anchorage independent growth).

RESULTS
We found RTN4IP1 mRNA expression was significantly down-regulated in follicular and papillary thyroid cancer as compared with normal, hyperplastic, and benign thyroid neoplasms (P < .05). Moreover, RTN4IP1 mRNA expression was significantly lower in larger papillary thyroid cancers (P < .05). Small interfering RNA knockdown of RTN4IP1 expression increased cellular proliferation (2- to 4-fold) in all 3 of the cell lines tested and increased cellular invasion (1.5- to 3-fold) and migration (2- to 7.5-fold), colony formation (3- to 6-fold), and tumor spheroid formation (P < .05) in 2 of the 3 cell lines tested (FTC-133 and XTC1).

CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study to characterize the expression and function of RTN4IP1 in cancer. Our results demonstrate RTN4IP1 is down-regulated in thyroid cancer and is associated with larger papillary thyroid cancer and that it regulates malignant cell phenotype. These findings, taken together, suggest that RTN4IP1 has a tumor-suppressive function and may regulate thyroid cancer progression.


By the field investigation and laboratory analysis methods, through research the characteristics of SOC, TN in soil of mixed Pine and Quercus, Nepalensis, Bayberry bushes, Pinus Yunnanensis and Abandoned Land in central Yunnan. It resulted that different plant communities took little impact on the soil physical properties, besides the soil moisture was remarkable, the bulk density and soil porosity effect is not prominent. The content of nutrients in different plant communities shows that vegetation abundant soil is more rich than vegetation sparse soils, and in 0~10 ㎝ SOC and TN content is higher than in 10~20 ㎝. Then by the study the C: N ratio in the soil, it showed that relative to the accumulation of TN, different communities in favour of the process SOC accumulation. The C: N ratio as follows: Abandoned land > Pinus Yunnanensis > mixed Pine and Quercus > Bayberry bushes > Nepalensis, so that revealed the ratio of C and N take negative correlation with their decomposition rate.


The typical symptoms of pheochromocytoma are palpitations, sweating, headaches and hypertension. We report a 70-year-old female admitted to the hospital due to a sudden onset of precordial pain with electrocardiographic changes. After admission the patient evolved with recurrent chest pain accompanied by hypertensive paroxysms and a pheochromocytoma was suspected. Measurement of catecholamines and metanephrines confirmed the diagnosis and an abdominal magnetic resonance localized the tumor. The patient underwent surgery with successful removal of the pheochromocytoma and was discharged in good conditions.


Semarang city is one city that has a high level of economy in Central Java.
Sectors that have important role in the economy at Semarang is trade, industry,
buildings, and services sector. One of the activities in the service sector which plays
an important role in the economy is tourism service which can be seen the amount of
revenue (PAD), which comes from the entertainment tax, hotel tax, and restaurant
tax.
Wonderia is one of potential tourist attraction in the Semarang city. Potential
possessed by Wonderia among others, is a very strategic location, ticket prices are
relatively cheap, and is the only playground in the Semarang. Nevertheless,
Wonderia still sights less developed compared with other attractions in the
Semarang. Various measures have been carried out both by the manager and the
Semarang City Tourims and Culture Departement in order to increase the number of
visitors, such as advertising, eliminate entrance fees, and held a variety events in
Wonderia. However, this policy has not yet been able to increase the number of
visitors. The purpose of this study was to determine the internal and external
conditions faced by Wonderia and then find out that development strategies should be
prioritized by the manager Wonderia order to increase the number of visitors.
Techniques used in sampling, amounting to 65 respondents was purposive sampling.
The data analysis method used is the SWOT analysis and the AHP.
The results of SWOT analysis mentions that Wonderia located in quadrant I,
which means Wonderia is a tourist attraction that has considerable potential to
develop in the future. The suggested policy is a progressive strategy. The results of
the AHP analysis states that the criteria should be prioritized are the aspects of
infrastructure with a value of 0.413. For the whole alternative recommended by the
key person, should the priorities are alternative standardization because it has the
highest score with a score of 0.167


This review addresses recent literature on turbine passage aerodynamics and endwall heat transfer; articles that describe the endwall flow and cooling problems are summarized, recent activity on improving endwall aerothermal design is discussed, improved cooling schemes are proposed, and methods for managing secondary flows to allow more effective cooling are suggested. Much attention is given to aerodynamic losses associated with secondary flows developed near the endwalls. The endwall region flowfield is influenced by the stagnation zones established as the endwall approach flow boundary layer meets the airfoil leading edges, by the curvature of the passages, by the steps and gaps on the endwall surface ahead of and within the passage, by the leakage and coolant flows introduced through the endwall surface ahead of and within the passage, by the tip leakage flows between the blades and shroud in the rotor endwall region, and by many more effects. Recent combustor redesigns have flattened the turbine inlet temperature profile and have raised the turbine inlet temperatures. This, coupled with a continued need to improve engine durability and availability, has spurred strong interest in thermal control of the turbine endwall regions. Thus, much of the literature presented herein is focused on endwall cooling and, in particular, the effects of near-endwall secondary flows on endwall cooling.


Boosted therapy of immunization against SARS-CoV2 has already been certified to progress for humans all around the world After having a long breakthrough of a pandemic, the physiological response of human cells is now presenting as omnipotent characters for their autoimmune criteria against a viral antigen, types, sub-types, strains, and modified strains The molecular genesis is migrated and conducts with a different pattern of doses but specified in the same dosed to administer by injected protein derivatives The viral epitopes and their surface protein are concerned with the activation of monoclonal antibodies by the artificial secondary immune response The artificial immunogenetic is explored by analytical research of several trials of virologists from mid-August to December 2020 The ethical confirmation of molecular phenomena of antigen-antibody interaction works in the same module and different manufacturing identity against SARS-CoV2 The accuracy of antigen-antibody titer is determined on the efficacy margin of an implemented vaccine in a mass population formulating the reports and outcomes on boosted series of injections In these circumstances, the conceptual models are required to study the SARS-CoV2 prone regions framed on the statistical alignment of the affected population during the pandemic


OBJECTIVE
HIV Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) decreases risk of HIV acquisition however its efficacy is closely dependent on adherence. There is also concern that the preventive effect of PrEP may be offset by risk compensation, notably an increase in condomless anal sex.

DESIGN
Multi-site, open-label demonstration study that recruited people at current or recent risk of HIV infection in Melbourne, Australia.

METHODS
Participants were recruited from three general practice clinics and one sexual health clinic in Melbourne and consented to take daily tenofovir/emtricitabine for 30 months. Sexual practice data, HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) test results were collected at baseline and 3-monthly during follow up. PrEP adherence was evaluated by self-report at clinical visits, online surveys, refill-based assessments and dried blood spot (DBS) testing. We present a 12-month interim analysis.

RESULTS
114 people were recruited. We observed a significant decline in condom use which occurred concomitantly with a significant increase in STIs over the first 12 months of PrEP. Incidence (per 100PY) of any STI was 43.2 and 119.8 at m0-3 and M3-12, respectively (IRR 2.77 (1.52, 5.56)). Adherence to PrEP medication was high by all measures, including six month TDF-FTC levels in DBS.

CONCLUSIONS
We found significant reduction in condom use and an increase STIs over the first 12 months of follow-up. High medication adherence rates coupled with a decline in condom use and a rise in STIs, suggests that prevention, early detection and treatment of STIs is a chief research priority in the current era of HIV PrEP.


Introduction: With the increasing use of endoscopy, gastrointestinal abnormalities are encountered more often. However it has been realized that endoscopic appearances are not pathognomonic and they need histological confirmation. The objective of this study was to determine the morphological spectrum of upper gastrointestinal tract lesions on histopathology and the correlation between endoscopic and histopathological diagnosis. Materials and Methods: A histopathological study was carried out in 100 endoscopic biopsy specimens of upper gastrointestinal tract lesions. Conventional haematoxylin and eosin staining was done in all the 100 cases. Warthin-Starry stain was done in gastric biopsies, where there was suspicion of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) gastritis on histopathology. Results: In our study, out of 100 cases, stomach was the most common site, comprising of 46% of all the cases followed by esophagus (30%) and duodenum (24%).On histology, squamous cell carcinoma of esophagus was found to be the most common lesion with an incidence of 22%, followed by celiac disease (14%), H. pylori gastritis (9%) and fundic gland polyp (8%). Our data suggested that in case of visible growth on endoscopy, the biopsy correlated well with histopathology. However, histopathology significantly improved the diagnosis of inflammatory lesions. Conclusion: Endoscopic procedure in adjunction with histological interpretation remains the mainstay of diagnostic modality in cases of upper gastrointestinal tract lesions.


Corporate law expresses a profound ambiguity toward the role of shareholders. Courts announce that shareholders are "critical to the theory that legitimates the exercise of power - by directors and officers over vast aggregations of property that they do not own." At the same time shareholders have a very difficult time actually making any corporate decisions. In this Article, we strive to define a new role for shareholders by drawing on economic theories of the firm and the structure of corporate law. More particularly we examine the role of shareholders in hostile corporate takeovers, the area where the interests of shareholders and directors collide most dramatically, and highlight a necessary "sacred space" for shareholder self-help, free of director or judicial intrusion.


Natural images contain an overwhelming number of visual patterns generated by diverse stochastic processes. Defining and modeling these patterns is of fundamental importance for generic vision tasks, such as perceptual organization, segmentation, and recognition. The objective of this epistemological paper is to summarize various threads of research in the literature and to pursue a unified framework for conceptualization, modeling, learning, and computing visual patterns. This paper starts with reviewing four research streams: 1) the study of image statistics, 2) the analysis of image components, 3) the grouping of image elements, and 4) the modeling of visual patterns. The models from these research streams are then divided into four categories according to their semantic structures: 1) descriptive models, i.e., Markov random fields (MRF) or Gibbs, 2) variants of descriptive models (causal MRF and "pseudodescriptive" models), 3) generative models, and 4) discriminative models. The objectives, principles, theories, and typical models are reviewed in each category and the relationships between the four types of models are studied. Two central themes emerge from the relationship studies. 1) In representation, the integration of descriptive and generative models is the future direction for statistical modeling and should lead to richer and more advanced classes of vision models. 2) To make visual models computationally tractable, discriminative models are used as computational heuristics for inferring generative models. Thus, the roles of four types of models are clarified.


PACS are electronic medical image management systems. They consist of image display systems, archiving systems, networks, and interfaces, presenting one unified system to the user. They have been in development since 1982 and have predominantly been used in radiology, transforming manual film operations to a filmless environment. Radiology PACS has evolved from an emerging technology to a mature, billion dollar North American market.


This qualitative study examined the social representations of work values among nine Swedish students of Generation Y. As the oldest working generation retires, the labor market requires a major adjustment. To facilitate the transition of Generation Y into the labor market requires employers' knowledge of young peoples' work values and vision of working life. Strong common values between participants were explained by social representations, which mean they had collective perceptions that were based on the similar influences that affect them as a group and have affected them during childhood. This qualitative study examined nine students who study at Jonkoping University and are part of this new working generation. The result was generated by doing semi-structured interviews that was explored by a thematic analysis. The study foremost examined the social representations of the centrality of work, altruistic values, intrinsic values, extrinsic values, social values, leadership, and flexibility. Of the categories with associated factors measured, results showed for instance that development opportunities, social values and the variation of work were distinctive values among Generation Y graduates. Results also showed that balancing leisure with work was of great importance.


Robots that navigate through human crowds need to be able to plan safe, efficient, and human predictable trajectories. This is a particularly challenging problem as it requires the robot to predict future human trajectories within a crowd where everyone implicitly cooperates with each other to avoid collisions. Previous approaches to human trajectory prediction have modeled the interactions between humans as a function of proximity. However, that is not necessarily true as some people in our immediate vicinity moving in the same direction might not be as important as other people that are further away, but that might collide with us in the future. In this work, we propose Social Attention, a novel trajectory prediction model that captures the relative importance of each person when navigating in the crowd, irrespective of their proximity. We demonstrate the performance of our method against a state-of-the-art approach on two publicly available crowd datasets and analyze the trained attention model to gain a better understanding of which surrounding agents humans attend to, when navigating in a crowd.


Objective Huntington's Disease (HD) is a degenerative disease with characteristic motor and behavioural symptoms, caused by an autosomal-dominant CAG repeat expansion mutation. Behavioural symptoms are important features of HD they contribute to functional decline and affect quality of life more than motor symptoms. The factors affecting the presence or absence of behavioural symptoms are complex and it is unclear to what extent behavioural symptoms are caused by underlying pathology. This study aimed to see which factors (CAG repeat length, gender, disease burden score (DBS), and age of onset) best predict the presence of 8 different neuropsychiatric symptoms. Method Participants were taken from the European Huntington's Disease Network Registry study, which is an observational study of 1835 HD patients. 991 participants were given a clinical characteristics questionnaire, which recorded the presence and age of onset of motor symptoms and 8 common behavioural symptoms experienced by HD patients (depression, cognitive problems, irritability, apathy, obsession, aggression, psychosis and family history (FH) of psychosis). Statistics: A logistic regression model was used to analyse the predictive power of CAG length, gender, age of motor onset and DBS for the presence of each of these symptoms. Variables were chosen on the basis of preliminary comparisons of means and were entered into the model simultaneously. Results Depression, cognitive problems, irritability, and apathy are all present in more than 50% of patients. The average onset of depression, irritability, and aggression is within 3 years of motor onset. Logistic regression analysis revealed that CAG length and age of disease onset significantly predict the presence of obsessive symptoms; these factors (along with DBS) also predict the presence of cognitive problems. Gender was a predictor of the presence of depression, while age of onset and gender predicted the presence of irritability and aggression. Conclusion Psychiatric symptoms are highly prevalent in the HD population, and their presence can be predicted both by factors present in the general population (e.g. gender) and by disease specific factors (CAG length, age of disease onset). These findings could aid in the prognosis of HD and help anticipate symptoms in individual patients. Future work will involve distributing the clinical characteristics questionnaire to more participants in the EHDN database and further modelling of the time course and co-occurrence of these behavioural symptoms.


This paper provides both the results of a comprehensive research study on trichodinid parasites of several fish species and a review of current trichodinid fauna of fish species revealed during parasitological survey studies in Turkey. The present study yielded 1 Tripartiella, 1 Paratrichodina, and 8 Trichodina identified to the species level and 3 Trichodina identified to the generic level in 12 fish species belonging to several families; their host preferences and infestation indices have also been presented. As a result of fish parasite investigations, a total of 33 trichodinid species have been identified on 30 fish species in Turkey. Considering the total number of 850 marine and freshwater fish species present in the Turkish fauna, the present data on the trichodinid fauna of fishes in the Lower Kizilirmak Delta and the literature studies conducted so far clearly point out the necessity of conducting more investigations on unexamined fish species to attain a more complete picture throughout all Turkish waters. The bioindicator potential of trichodinid parasites will also provide clues for the current status of aquatic environments.


This correspondence is concerned with optimal feedback control of a class of linear stochastic systems. For a quadratic performance index the solution to this problem is known but the resulting optimal regulator does not ensure stability in every mode of operation. To improve robustness, a new mode stabilizing solution is defined. An example illustrates the advantages of the proposed controller.


Immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4)-related disease is a recently established systemic disease that commonly involves the head and neck, including the salivary glands, lacrimal glands, orbits, thyroid gland, lymph nodes, sinonasal cavities, pituitary gland, and larynx. Although the definitive diagnosis of IgG4-related disease requires histopathologic analysis, elevated serum IgG4 levels are helpful in making the diagnosis. Because of the proposed clinical diagnostic criteria for this disease, cross-sectional imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging play an important diagnostic role. CT and MR imaging findings of IgG4-related disease are usually nonspecific. At CT, involved organs may demonstrate enlargement or decreased attenuation; at T2-weighted MR imaging, they may have relatively low signal intensity owing to their increased cellularity and amount of fibrosis. Some pathologic entities involving the head and neck are now considered to be part of the IgG4-related disease spectrum, including idiopathic orbital inflammatory syndrome (inflammatory pseudotumor), orbital lymphoid hyperplasia, Mikulicz disease, Küttner tumor, Hashimoto thyroiditis, Riedel thyroiditis, and pituitary hypophysitis. Because involvement of multiple sites is common in IgG4-related disease, radiologists should be familiar with manifestations of this systemic process outside the head and neck, in organs such as the pancreas, bile ducts, gallbladder, kidneys, retroperitoneum, mesentery, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and blood vessels. Moreover, IgG4-related disease usually demonstrates a dramatic response to corticosteroid therapy, and radiologists should be familiar with its clinical and imaging manifestations to avoid a delay in diagnosis or unnecessary invasive interventions.


The article introduces the special issue of International Trends dedicated to the current tendencies in the evolution of statecraft. It sets the analytical agenda for other special issue contributions by discussing the meaning of the term "statecraft" and illustrating the concept through several dilemmas that policymakers commonly face when choosing foreign policy toolkits. The authors posit that, at base, a meaningful definition of statecraft subsumes the ends, means, and ways embraced by a government in its attempt to exert influence over another state short of the resort to brute military force, either directly or via pressures on key non-state stakeholders. The article goes on to highlight how a clear-cut formulation of a country's "national interests" may, on one hand, serve as lodestars for the national bureaucracy and draw "red lines" for the country's adversaries, but on the other hand, entail a difficult and politically costly choice between mutually exclusive priorities for the country's foreign policy goals. The authors also discuss the impact of technological innovation on the evolution of great power statecraft. They describe a variant of the security dilemma arising from the choice between immediate weaponization of new technology, on one hand, and refraining from such move with the aim of avoiding an arms race or escalation of existing conflicts, on the other. In its turn, developing a strong identity as a means of statecraft for an international player may increase that player's power of commitment, but at the same time, foreclose attractive policy options that cannot be implemented because they could compromise the chosen identity. Pioneering the use of big data in the study of statecraft, the authors find that, notwithstanding very different power positions, traditions, and interests, U.S. and Russian discourse surrounding great power competition resemble each other more than commonly acknowledged. Keywords:


classified according to Swanson's classification of hand congenital abnormalities. Results: Of the 104 cases, 12 (12%) had an isolated defect of the upper limb, while 92 (88%) showed associated abnormalities involving other organ systems. There were 42 malformations related to failure of differentiation (17 arthrogryposes, 12 clenched hands, 7 camptodactyly, 4 clinodactyly 2 radial deviation of the thumb); 31 cases of malformations due to failure of formation of parts (16 longitudinal and 15 transverse defects), the latter group including ectrodactyly, absent fingers and classic reduction defects. Duplication defects comprised 16 cases (15%) of polydactyly. Generalized skeletal malformations included 5 (5%) cases of sausage-like fingers in the setting of thanatophoric dysplasia. Fetuses with multiple malformations were found to have a very high syndromic risk (77% overall: 30% chromosomal, 47% nonchromosomal), with unfavourable outcome in almost all cases (only 4 survivors, 2 of which with moderate to severe neurodevelopmental delay). On the other hand, the prognosis was usually favourable in case of isolated defects. Noteworthy, the sonographic evidence of the upper limbs anomaly represented the key finding leading to the final diagnosis in 25% of syndromic fetuses. Conclusions: Our study suggests that a thorough prenatal ultrasound characterization of fetal upper extremity anomalies can assist in the differential diagnosis of many chromosomal and non-chromosomal conditions. When isolated, upper extremities malformation tend to have a good outcome.


The mechanism and reaction kinetics of toluene destruction in a plasma-driven catalysis (PDC) system were studied. The results show that the toluene removal efficiency (TRE) is greatly increased while the level of O3 by-product is significantly reduced in PDC as compared with that in nonthermal plasma (NTP). The rate constant of toluene destruction in the PDC is more than twice than that in NTP. Among the multiple reactive species responsible for toluene destruction in the PDC, hydroxyl radicals (•OH) had a small contribution, whereas energetic electrons and atomic oxygen (O) were the most important. The enhanced performance of toluene destruction by PDC was mainly due to greater amounts of O formed during the process. The catalysts improved toluene destruction by catalytic decomposition of O3 and generation of O. Essentially, better toluene abatement can be achieved by focusing on the increased energy density and improved performance of the catalyst for O3 decomposition.


Many complex decision making problems like scheduling in manufacturing systems, portfolio management in finance, admission control in communication networks etc., with clear and precise objectives, can be formulated as stochastic dynamic programming problems in which the objective of decision making is to maximize a single "overall" reward. In these formulations, finding an optimal decision policy involves computing a certain "value function" which assigns to each state the optimal reward one would obtain if the system was started from that state. This function then naturally prescribes the optimal policy, which is to take decisions that drive the system to states with maximum value.
For many practical problems, the computation of the exact value function is intractable, analytically and numerically, due to the enormous size of the state space. Therefore one has to resort to one of the following approximation methods to find a good sub-optimal policy: (1) Approximate the value function. (2) Restrict the search for a good policy to a smaller family of policies.
In this thesis, we propose and study actor-critic algorithms which combine the above two approaches with simulation to find the best policy among a parameterized class of policies. Actor-critic algorithms have two learning units: an actor and a critic. An actor is a decision maker with a tunable parameter. A critic is a function approximator. The critic tries to approximate the value function of the policy used by the actor, and the actor in turn tries to improve its policy based on the current approximation provided by the critic. Furthermore, the critic evolves on a faster time-scale than the actor.
We propose several variants of actor-critic algorithms. In all the variants, the critic uses Temporal Difference (TD) learning with linear function approximation. Some of the variants are inspired by a new geometric interpretation of the formula for the gradient of the overall reward with respect to the actor parameters. This interpretation suggests a natural set of basis functions for the critic, determined by the family of policies parameterized by the actor's parameters. We concentrate on the average expected reward criterion but we also show how the algorithms can be modified for other objective criteria. We prove convergence of the algorithms for problems with general (finite, countable, or continuous) state and decision spaces.
To compute the rate of convergence (ROC) of our algorithms, we develop a general theory of the ROC of two-time-scale algorithms and we apply it to study our algorithms. In the process, we study the ROC of TD learning and compare it with related methods such as Least Squares TD (LSTD). We study the effect of the basis functions used for linear function approximation on the ROC of TD. We also show that the ROC of actor-critic algorithms does not depend on the actual basis functions used in the critic but depends only on the subspace spanned by them and study this dependence.
Finally, we compare the performance of our algorithms with other algorithms that optimize over a parameterized family of policies. We show that when only the "natural" basis functions are used for the critic, the rate of convergence of the actor critic algorithms is the same as that of certain stochastic gradient descent algorithms. However, with appropriate additional basis functions for the critic, we show that our algorithms outperform the existing ones in terms of ROC. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)


None of the available minimizers for two-level hazard-free logic minimization can synthesize very large circuits. This limitation has forced researchers to resort to manual and automated circuit partitioning techniques. This paper introduces two new two-level hazard-free logic minimizers: ESPRESSO-HF, a heuristic method loosely based on ESPRESSO-II, and IMPYMIN, an exact method based on implicit data structures. Both minimizers can solve all currently available examples, which range up to 32 inputs and 33 outputs. These include examples that have never been solved before. For the more difficult examples that can be solved by other minimizers, our methods are several orders of magnitude faster. As by-products of these algorithms, we also present two additional results. First, we propose a fast new method to check if a hazard-free covering problem can feasibly be solved. Second, we introduce a novel reformulation of the two-level hazard-free logic minimization problem by capturing hazard-freedom constraints within a synchronous function through the addition of new variables.


Increasingly dense residential housing developments have spurred new concerns about electromagnetic fields. The magnetic fields generated by the underground distribution system in such a residential subdivision are assessed in this study. In particular, the magnetic flux densities above the underground cables, around the padmount transformers and junction boxes, and at the service entrance panels are measured. The largest magnetic fields of 95 mG and 148 mG are recorded on the surfaces of the transformer enclosures and junction boxes, respectively, at around 30% to 40% of full load. The magnetic fields reduce to less than 3 mG at a distance of ~1 m from the distribution system infrastructure. Software is developed to estimate the peak magnetic field generated at full load conditions by the underground cables composed of twisted conductors.


Parties play an important role in the study of direct democracy, but mainly as independent variables. To start investigating the way in which parties position themselves in referendums, a new framework is presented and tested for plausibility. As case study the complex but well observed case of Swiss Direct Democracy was chosen. First, a differentiated understanding of what a party position in a referendum process is leads to the identification of four different stages of positioning for Swiss parties. The main message of the theoretical framework is that positioning logics of different parties in one vote can be similar when there are underlying mechanisms applying to all parties. Four ideal type models of party positioning show how. To explore their plausibility, an original data set of 162 single positions of five Swiss political parties in 37 national referendums between 2015 and 2019 is compiled. Using qualitative methods, first results show that Swiss parties' positioning in referendums is not as strongly dominated by policy as one could expect,given the strong polarization of the party system. In consequence, this demands for an update of our understanding of the interplay of direct democracy and political parties as a two-way channel.


Blocking the palmitoylation of the cell adhesion protein δ-catenin or its subsequent interactions may be therapeutic in patients with chronic pain. Palmitoylation and pain Chronic pain is associated with inflammation and increased synaptic activity in sensory neurons. Zhang et al. found that induction of the inflammatory cytokine TNF-α after chemotherapy or nerve injury in rats promoted the formation of a complex between the cell adhesion protein δ-catenin, the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.6, and the kinesin motor protein KIF3A, which increased the trafficking of the sodium channel to the cell membrane. Formation of this complex was dependent on the palmitoylation of δ-catenin, and inhibiting the activity of palmitoyl acyltransferases prevented the increase in both Nav1.6 surface abundance in sensory neurons and pain sensitivity in rats. These findings reveal potential therapeutic targets for treating chronic, neuropathic pain in patients. Palmitoylation of δ-catenin is critical to synapse plasticity and memory formation. We found that δ-catenin palmitoylation is also instrumental in the development of neuropathic pain. The abundances of palmitoylated δ-catenin and the palmitoyl acyltransferase DHHC3 were increased in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) sensory neurons in rat models of neuropathic pain. Inhibiting palmitoyl acyltransferases or decreasing δ-catenin abundance in the DRG by intrathecal injection of 2-bromopalmitate or shRNA, respectively, alleviated oxaliplatin or nerve injury–induced neuropathic pain in the rats. The palmitoylation of δ-catenin, which was induced by the inflammatory cytokine TNF-α, facilitated its interaction with the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.6 and the kinesin motor protein KIF3A, which promoted the trafficking of Nav1.6 to the plasma membrane in DRG neurons and contributed to mechanical hypersensitivity and allodynia in rats. These findings suggest that a palmitoylation-mediated KIF3A/δ-catenin/Nav1.6 complex enhances the transmission of mechanical and nociceptive signals; thus, blocking this mechanism may be therapeutic in patients with neuropathic pain.


Epigenetics describes modifications that affect gene expression that are not encoded within the DNA sequence. DNA methylation is the longest appreciated epigenetic modi fication and has been accepted to play a critical role in maintaining euchromatin and silencing genes. Recently, a separate and distinct covalent modification has been recog nized; hydroxymethylation, which has been associated with increased gene expression as opposed to gene silencing. However, traditional methods to study DNA methylation also recognized hydroxymethylation and did not distinguish between these two distinct DNA covalent modifications. Furthermore, TET enzymes have been identified to play a critical role in active hydroxymethylation of previously methylated cytosine residues and may further result in conversion to cytosine. TET1 plays a critical role in intesti nal epithelial differentiation and development, and this is also correlated with increased hydroxymethylation in terminally differentiated epithelial cells. Colon cancer, which arises from the colonic epithelium, exhibits decreased hydroxymethylation and altered gene expression. associated with barrier function, and downregulatory cytokines and/or increased hydroxymethylation (and therefore increased expression) of pro-inflammatory cytokines.


: During the 1992 poliovirus type 3 outbreak in the Netherlands virological and serological investigations were conducted. No molecular epidemiological link was traced between poliovirus type 3 that caused the outbreak of poliomyelitis in the Netherlands and isolates from previous epidemics investigated. Serological neutralization assessments indicate that the inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine used in the Dutch national immunization schedule induces immunity to the causative agent.


ABSTRACT The Ediacaran–Fortunian ichnofauna from Central Brittany (NW France) is revised for the first time since the pioneering work by Lebesconte at the end of the 19th century. The study is based on fossils from the type-localities of the historical Brioverian taxa Montfortia (traces from Montfort-sur-Meu) and Neantia (wrinkle surfaces from Néant-sur-Yvel), and on two new outcrops from Saint-Gonlay. The ichnofossil assemblage includes Helminthoidichnites tenuis, Helminthopsis tenuis, Gordia marina, Palaeophycus tubularis, ?Neonereites uniserialis, and ?Spirodesmos archimedeus. Locally, the grazing traces are associated with wrinkle surfaces considered as microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS). The sedimentological characteristics of these deposits correspond to a shelf marine environment. Both U-Pb datings on detrital zircon and ichnostratigraphic criteria tend toward an Ediacaran age of the fossiliferous deposits, but we cannot exclude the possibility of a Fortunian age at the present state of knowledge.


This paper is a scientometric study focus on the publications on the title of e-resources based on Scopus database during the period of 1993-2018. A total 167 research articles were published on the title e-resources during the study period. The maximum numbers of publications 24 were published in 2013 followed by 21 in the year 2012. A fluctuation was found in annual growth rate during the period of study. The highest AGR is in the year 2009 with 800. The most prolific author was Bhardwaj, R.K. contributing 6 publications, followed by Bhat, N.A. and Tripathi, M. scored second rank in the list with 5 publications. It was found that the leading source title is Desidoc Journal of Library and Information Technology with 31 publications, leading keyword is e-resources with 52 publications and leading affiliation is University of Delhi with 12 publications. It found that the single most prevalent type of publications was journal articles, in which 115(68.86%) of the total publications was published.


: The synthesis of certain N-substituted azaspirodiones and azaspiranes is described. Fusing equimolecular amounts of 2-oxaspiro [4.4]nonane-1.3-dione with a number of amino compounds afforded the corresponding N-substituted azaspirodiones. However, with certain o-substituted anilines, no condensation took place. Reduction of the N-haloaryl azaspirodiones gave the corresponding oxygen free compounds. Other azaspiranes were isolated as the quaternary methiodides. Applying the Mannich conditions to 2-azaspiro[4.4]nonane-1.3-dione yielded the N-Mannich bases.


This paper looks at the role of religion in the socio-political decision making processes and the organization of the Ibo community - in a rational or systematic way - along this line, before the incursion of the colonial masters into their community, as well as the enforcement of these decisions through religion and its relevance to the contemporary time. Using the historical and analytical method, the paper delved into the history of the Ibos the arrangement and organization of the community from the little unit of the family setup to the complex whole of the community and how they are managed by those saddled with authority as well as the decision making processes in a democratic way right from the family unit to the complex whole of the larger community. The role of religion in this whole process and how it helps cement and enforce the rational organization and decision making processes of the community was also analyzed. Finally, the paper contrast this process with that of the present modern time in which religion has been relegated to the background and removed from the civilizational processes of the contemporary time. Thus, it concludes that religion, despite the negativity that is ascribed to it today in the modern world, could be a useful tool in any civilizational process because, when properly harnessed by the people, it serves as a stabilizing force in the society and, contrary to popular belief, it is not opposed to scientific and rational processes.


This paper examines the impact of financial accounting and ERP system with barcodes on management accounting signs. Latour's (2005) agency-network theory is used with a 1914 to 2005 longitudinal study of the management accounting signs and their referents at a single company, the Hudson's Bay Company. The findings are that financial accounting had a significant impact on the use of management accounting signs by adding abstraction and uncertainty, enabling the entire process to be managed. ERP systems with barcodes allow management accounting to be more precise and more effective. Financial accounting is being replaced by ERP systems with barcodes as the basis of management accounting. The findings contribute a solution to the sign-referent issue by identifying the realities of the referents, social or physical, for the management accounting signs, and revealing that the referents have three dimensions - aggregation, temporality, and uncertainty - that affect the relationship between referents and signs. The findings also allow for the conceptualized of signs and management accounting programs and for proposing hypotheses as to their effectiveness.


Economic decentralization has profound effects on a country's economic performance, but not all countries pursue decentralization. Why do some countries see decentralization as a better strategy for development than others? What political conditions facilitate or inhibit economic decentralization in autocracies? Studies that focus on democracies have largely reach a consensus that politically decentralized systems tend to pursue economic decentralization policies. This dissertation contends, however, that there is an opposite relationship in autocracies. Specifically, it is the politically centralized autocracies that are more likely to pursue economic decentralization policies. I argue that this difference is because in autocracies, economic decentralization policies often result from a top-down delegation process, as opposed to a bottom-up bargaining process that often prevails in democracies.

 This dissertation develops a game-theoretical model to analyze the top-down economic decentralization process in autocracies. I demonstrate that political centralization can make the subnational government more willing to follow the national economic agenda and consequently make the national government more willing to decentralize economic resources. I test the theoretical model with a comparative case study of China from 1949 to 1962 and Mexico from 1917 to 1948. The Chinese case confirms that its centralized political system in the 1950s contributed to the economic decentralization policies during the Great Leap Forward. The Mexican case corroborates that its decentralized political system in the 1920s contributed to the Mexican federal government's consistent efforts to centralize economic resources at the federal level from the 1920s to the 1940s. A further test analyzes a sample of 59 countries from 1972 to 2016. The results support that political centralization reduces economic decentralization in democracies but facilitates economic decentralization in autocracies. The dissertation contributes to our understanding of the different patterns of economic decentralization and economic governance between democracies and autocracies.


Men's physical and psychological violence against women in intimate relationships is a serious social problem and contravenes the political goal of gender equality. Over the last few decades men's violence against women has become a central issue in Swedish gender equality politics. Criminal law reforms have been carried through with the objective of enhancing criminal legal protection for women and promoting gender equality. The starting point of this thesis, however, is that the ability of criminal law to promote gender equality must be questioned. Instead criminal law is at risk of producing and reproducing hindrances to gender equality and criminal legal protection for women. It is such processes in criminal law that are explored and analysed in this thesis, inspired by feminist legal theory and social constructionist theory, and through the application of discourse analysis. The main purpose of the thesis is to explore and analyze how violence, perpetrator and victim are constructed in the criminal legal discourse of men's physical and psychological violence against women in intimate relationships and what legal or social consequences these constructions might have. A second aim of the thesis is to throw a light on and analyze two major criminal legal aspects of men's physical and psychological violence against women in intimate relationships. Firstly, how criminal law deals with issues of responsibility for the violence. Secondly, how questions about the use of criminal law are linked to possibilities and problems from a crime victim-perspective. The analysis indicates two major problem areas. In the first, the victim is treated in relation to stereotypical conceptions of women exposed to violence. A male-gendered discourse on responsibility limits the possibilities for women to behave as actors in relation to men and still being offered the subject position of victim. In addition, a focus on questions such as "Why doesn't she leave?" and "Why doesn't she cooperate with the criminal justice system?" produces an understanding of the main problem of violence as being related to the victim. The second problem area concerns a tension between how criminal legal reforms, aimed at enhancing criminal legal protection for women and promoting gender equality, have been justified by the legislator and how mainstream criminal legal scholarship argues in the issue of use of criminal law.


The Jamaican tourist industry has witnessed explosive growth since the early 1970s. The growth in tourist arrivals was especially dramatic during the 1980s. At present tourism is the single largest source of foreign exchange earnings in Jamaida. The need for foreign exchange to service debts to multilateral agencies and to pay for imports has led to a situation in which tourism has assumed a central role in the economy. The tourism industry provides a quick and relatively efficient way of earning foreign exchange. To this end, the government has invested heavily in the tourism sector. For instance, between fiscal years 1979/80 and 1992/93, the Tourist Board budget increased by more than 300 per cnet. Today, only the Bahamas attracts more visitors to its shores than Jamaica in the English speaking Caribbean region. Tourism has also become one of the main sources of employment for the country. In 1986, stop-over vistior expenditure in the island supported over 250,000 full-time jobs, and every 2.34 stopover visitors supported one job opportunity (The Contribution of Tourism 1986, 32). In 1992, jobs in the accommodation sector were distributed mainly between the major tourist areas of Montego Bay (32.0 percent, Ocho Rios (34.2 per cent ) and Negril (23.1 per cent).


College graduation rates are persistently low in the United States. At four-year institutions, 42% of students leave college before earning a degree (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). To complete college, students need to be both academically prepared and ready for the challenges of college life. "Non-cognitive" strengths (e.g., self-efficacy, academic motivation, perseverance, time management, self-regulated learning) help students to face these challenges. In line with ecological theories of development, the non-cognitive model developed by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (CCSR) suggests that these skills are developed in context (Farrington et al., 2012), but there is currently no research investigating how high school climate relates to non-cognitive strengths in college. One prevailing model of high school climate has identified "five essentials" of school climate that may work together to influence student outcomes: Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Involved Families, Supportive Environment, and Ambitious Instruction (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Easton, & Luppescu, 2010).
The investigator conducted one quantitative study and a set of follow-up qualitative analyses to explore how the five essentials of high school climate and other school-level demographic factors related to students' non-cognitive outcomes in college. The quantitative study used a multilevel structural equation modeling approach to investigate whether the Effective Leaders essential influenced students' non-cognitive skills via the other four essential supports. The quantitative study used data from three sources: CCSR's "My Voice, My School" survey, a Non-Cognitive Survey conducted at a large urban public university, and student data provided by the institution. In total, the current study used data from 2,822 college students nested within 113 high schools, with an average of 15 students per school. Exploratory analyses investigated the impact of the concentration of poverty at the school level on college outcomes. Follow-up qualitative analyses investigated the same questions through a series of small focus groups with non-transfer college sophomores at the same university (n = 8). Implications for future study, and for educational policy are discussed.


The circadian clock is driven by cell-autonomous transcription/translation feedback loops. The BMAL1 transcription factor is an indispensable component of the positive arm of this molecular oscillator in mammals. Here, we present a molecular genetic screening assay for mutant circadian clock proteins that is based on real-time circadian rhythm monitoring in cultured fibroblasts. By using this assay, we identified a domain in the extreme C terminus of BMAL1 that plays an essential role in the rhythmic control of E-box-mediated circadian transcription. Remarkably, the last 43 aa of BMAL1 are required for transcriptional activation, as well as for association with the circadian transcriptional repressor CRYPTOCHROME 1 (CRY1), depending on the coexistence of CLOCK protein. C-terminally truncated BMAL1 mutant proteins still associate with mPER2 (another protein of the negative feedback loop), suggesting that an additional repression mechanism may converge on the N terminus. Taken together, these results suggest that the C-terminal region of BMAL1 is involved in determining the balance between circadian transcriptional activation and suppression.


Most patients with cancer die because the cancer metastasizes to other organs. Bone is 1 of the 3 most common sites of tumor metastasis, and is a catastrophic complication of cancer, because it is associated not only with intractable pain, but also with other morbidity that usually hastens an uncomfortable death. Despite its importance, to date no specific therapies to prevent this complication of cancer or treat it once it occurs have been demonstrated. In this article, current understanding of the processes involved in the pathophysiology of bone metastasis will be reviewed, and approaches aimed at preventing the development of a bone metastasis and treating bone metastasis once it has occurred will be discussed.


Polytechnic has approach a proactive steps in applying workplace-based learning (WBL) which is an innovative approach in providing opportunities for students to engage directly in real-life situations. The Industrialized Building System Incubator (IBS) in Politeknik Melaka is based on the triple helix concept which involvement of government through grants, the industry, through technology sharing and Politeknik Melaka as a provider in infrastructure facilities. It measures to reduce the gap between the required differences in the work world, encouraging entrepreneurship, thereby increasing the level of marketability of graduates in polytechnics. This study is one of the solutions that can be applied in higher education to answer the questions on how to improve the students' knowledge and skills towards providing human resource needs in the field of construction especially IBS. This study is a survey of quantitative survey involving 93 respondents using questionnaire and using SPSS for descriptive analysis purposes to see the improvement of knowledge and skills of polytechnic students as a result of WBL and triple helix learning. The results showed that all the measured items show the mean values exceeding 4.5 with high score interpretation. Pearson correlation analysis shows that there is an intermediate positive shows that increased knowledge can improve the skills. It is hoped that the management of Polytechnic Education Department will continue to encourage TVET in the country.


Literacy is fundamental for learning in school. It is the ability to read and write and forms the heart of basic education for all. Literacy development is a process that spans through early childhood years and it is one of the most important abilities children acquire as they progress through their early school years. The purpose of the study was to investigate the causes of low literacy achievement among lower primary school pupils in Kisii district, Kisii County. The study was guided by Holdaway's theory of literacy development. The researcher used descriptive survey method because of the nature of the study. The independent variables included availability of literacy materials, type of school, and language of instruction. The dependent variable was pupils' achievement in literacy. The study was conducted in Kisii central District. Kisi i County. The target population was all standard three teachers and pupils in lower primary classes. Purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the sample of the study. The sample of the study consisted of 31 class three teachers from private and public schools, 125 pupils from public schools and 80 pupils from private schools. ineteen of the schools were public; while the remaining 12 were private primary schools. The researcher used questionnaire for class three teachers, reading literacy test for class three pupils and observation checklist to collect data. The instruments were piloted in two primary schools and the reliability of the instruments which was found to be 0.82 through test re-tests. The data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Descriptive statistics used were measures of central tendencies; frequency distributions and percentages. The inferential statistics used chi-square to establish whether there was any significant relationship between dependent and independent variables. Data collected was coded and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Results had revealed that pupils in private schools had a higher level of reading literacy compared to their counterparts in public primary schools. The results had also shown that language of instruction influenced pupils reading literacy levels. The availability of teaching materials had a positive correlation with the reading literacy levels in lower primary schools. It was recommended that school management should provide classroom learning environment that contain adequate literacy materials and teachers should provide adequate activities and methods to develop pupils' literacy skills.


The purpose of this study was to identify the definition of service-learning used in Philadelphia, recognize the practice as a K-12 teaching methodology in the School District of Philadelphia, examine the vision and leadership practices as a strategy for innovation, and observe implementation for sustainability in three selected middle schools.In this case study, the NUD*IST Version 4 computer software system was used in the process of qualitative data analysis for interviews with 20 middle school-based, central office, community, and state liaison leaders of service-learning.Service-learning in Philadelphia was examined by using the model of shared vision by Conrad and Martinez where school-based activity and practices were reviewed. Suggested leadership models for service-learning by Aguilera included transformational, and catalytic leadership, and cross-role leadership, of Fullan and Miles. Elements for effective service-learning implementation and outcomes with teachers, students, parents, and the community in large-scale efforts of change and reform were presented with suggestions from the voices of Philadelphia leaders.Implications and recommendations for the future in policy and practice of service-learning as a teaching methodology, innovation, and reform effort suggested dialogue reflection, and inclusion of all stakeholder groups; ongoing and frequent professional development with teachers, administrators, and the community; phase in and pilot testing to ensure buy in; connections with The No Child Left Behind legislation; considerations of time and scheduling; and cooperation in preparation and training with universities and school districts.


Characterization of all the functional components constituted in human genome relies in our ability to completely elucidate the genetic/epigenetic regulatory networks, chromatin states, nuclear architectures, and genome variations. Such endeavors demand for the development of robust and effective genomic technologies. In the past few years, the availability of disruptive next generation DNA sequencing technologies has offered new promise for whole genome interrogation. However, despite the massive parallel and ultra‐high throughput capacity, the common nature of short read lengths found within these platforms limits their applications for many types of whole genome‐based analyses. To overcome such constrain, pair end ditag (PET) based sequencing concept was conceived as an immediate solution to expand the information content and extend the linear coverage. By sequencing paired end signatures from any desired DNA fragment and mapping them to the reference genome, PET strategy allows the accurate demarcation of target DNA boundaries and defines their locations on the genomic landscape. Furthermore, the ability to delineate relationship between two ends of a DNA molecule enables the full scale discovery of unconventional gene products, genome rearrangements, and chromatin interactions. Coupling with the massively parallel and ultra‐high throughput sequencing platforms, such unique features of PET strategy have the potential to revolutionize the approaches used to decipher regulatory networks in system biology, define the genome organizations, and characterize genome variations; which ultimately leads to the development of strategies for personalized medicine. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


To optimize the observing strategy of a large survey such as the LSST, one needs an accurate model of the night sky emission spectrum across a range of atmospheric conditions and from the near-UV to the near-IR. We have used the ESO SkyCalc Sky Model Calculator1, 2 to construct a library of template spectra for the Chilean night sky. The ESO model includes emission from the upper and lower atmosphere, scattered starlight, scattered moonlight, and zodiacal light. We have then extended the ESO templates with an empirical fit to the twilight sky emission as measured by a Canon all-sky camera installed at the LSST site. With the ESO templates and our twilight model we can quickly interpolate to any arbitrary sky position and date and return the full sky spectrum or surface brightness magnitudes in the LSST filter system. Comparing our model to all-sky observations, we find typical residual RMS values of ±0.2-0.3 magnitudes per square arcsecond.


Precise forest inventory data are requested by a wide range of users such as scientists, politicians, administrators, forest owners, or the forest industry. One forest inventory parameter of great importance is the forest stem volume (or growing stock volume, GSV). On the one hand, GSV is related to the monetary value of a forest. On the other hand, the amount of bound carbon can be estimated based on GSV. For the determination of the GSV the stem diameter (usually diameter at breast height, DBH), the tree height, the number of trees per unit area, and a species and forest stand specific form factor are required. In forestry, sample based approaches are used to gather these parameters. For minimizing effort and expense, the number and dimensions of these samples are small compared to the total forest area. Also, the repeat time between two inventories is rather large (in the order of ten years). Accordingly, relative GSV errors of approximately 20% have to be accepted.
There exists a great interest to minimize both, effort and inventory errors. Precise inventory data are of particular interest in the research domain. For instance, satellite based methods aiming at GSV estimation suffer from inaccurate reference measurements, as the inventory errors propagate to the final satellite based estimates. Airborne light detection and ranging data (LiDAR) can be utilized to detect single trees and to measure the corresponding tree heights with sufficient accuracy for forestry applications. In some Scandinavian countries forest inventories are supported by LiDAR campaigns by default. Moreover, most European countries execute regular and country-wide LiDAR acquisitions, thus LiDAR based tree height measurements could be achieved. For instance, the LiDAR campaign repetition rate in Germany is five years. However, the stem diameter cannot be measured using airborne LiDAR data. Although some technical ground- and low altitude airborne solutions have been proposed, currently the most efficient approach is manual DBH measurement.
The simplicity of DBH measurements makes this task an excellent citizen science exercise. To assess the achievable DBH measurement precision, an experiment involving students of a secondary school was carried out in late 2017. The test site "Roda Forest" is located 20 km in the Southeast of Jena. The selected stand is dominated by pine with an age of 60 years. The reference data for the experiment was generated by means of a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). Based on the TLS data the precise location and the GSV of approximately 200 trees were delineated. The students were equipped with a smartphone application to localize the single trees. During the campaign the circumference of approximately 100 trees was determined using simple measuring tape. These measurements were converted to DBH after the field campaign. The measured DBH varied between 7 cm and 38 cm. In overall, TLS-based and student campaign based measurements were in great agreement (R² = 0.98). Nevertheless, the identification of the correct trees by the students during the campaign was challenging, which was related to general orientation difficulties and a weak GPS signal underneath the forest canopy. This resulted in a remarkable offset between GPS-based and real coordinates. Forthcoming campaigns have to deal with this issue. One option we will explore in the future is the absolute calibration of the GPS signal using checkpoints with precise coordinates.


This paper studies the reconstruction of unknown curved surfaces through finger tracking. A patch can be generated from tactile data points along three concurrent surface curves under the Darboux frame estimated at the curve intersection point. Surface fitting while minimizing the total (absolute) Gaussian curvature effectively prevents unnecessary folds otherwise expected to result from the use of such "1-D" data. The implementation involves a two-axis joystick sensor, a three-fingered 4-DOF BarrettHand, and a 4-DOF Adept SCARA robot. Experiments have demonstrated good accuracy of reconstruction.


Previous studies indicate that background classical music is associated with customers in retail and leisure premises being prepared to pay more for various products and services. This online experiment tests whether these effects are due to music increasing the salience of valued product attributes (attribute accessibility hypothesis) or to a demand characteristic wherein music implies a norm to purchase expensive items (normative behavior hypothesis). A 3 (type of music—classical, country, no music, between subjects) × 2 (type of product—social identity or utilitarian, within subjects) × 2 (high vs. low incentive for accuracy, between subjects) mixed design was used in which participants stated the specific amount they would be prepared to pay for 30 products using free-choice format. Results showed a Music × Type of Product interaction, such that preparedness to spend was higher in the classical music condition but only in the case of social identity products. This is more consistent with the attribute accessibility hypothesis than the normative behavior hypothesis, and various commercial and practical consequences of these findings are discussed.


We study phenomena predicted by a renormalizable, CPT invariant extension of the standard model that contains higher-dimensional operators and violates Lorentz symmetry explicitly at energies greater than some scale {Lambda}{sub L}. In particular, we consider the Cherenkov radiation in vacuo. In a rather general class of dispersion relations, there exists an energy threshold above which radiation is emitted. The threshold is enhanced in composite particles by a sort of kinematic screening mechanism. We study the energy loss and compare the predictions of our model with known experimental bounds on Lorentz violating parameters and observations of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. We argue that the scale of Lorentz violation {Lambda}{sub L} (with preserved CPT invariance) can be smaller than the Planck scale, actually as small as 10{sup 14}-10{sup 15} GeV. Our model also predicts the Cherenkov radiation of neutral particles.


This last issue of JOTSE's volume 7 focuses on the diverse teaching/learning strategies being carried out in several universities worldwide. In this sense, our current issue reflects that no matter the continent nor the subject being taught the teaching staff is always concerned with students' learning process in their classrooms and that is why they do research on a wide range of strategies that could possibly favour such learning process as well as motivate their students.


One of the restrictions of online shopping is that buyers cannot actually see, taste and try the product. This increases the importance of availability of product information in a web shop. This study investigated cultural differences and the effect of product information on online shopping. The assumption was that consumers of collectivistic (high-context) cultures prefer experiential and explicit information, whereas members of individualistic cultures (low-context) prefer factual and implicit information. Armenian and Dutch consumers were representatives of collectivistic and individualistic cultures respectively. In an online survey 444 respondents (out of which 234 were Armenians and 210 were Dutch) reported their attitude and purchase intention towards a camera in a web shop. The information provided for the camera was manipulated in six conditions (factual/experiential (information in general and reviews), implicit/explicit). The results indicated no significant differences in the effect of different types of product information on the online purchase intention between the two cultures. The implications for developing an effective (local/global) marketing strategy are discussed.


The presentation will report on an area of major concern in higher education: identifying tools to support the further development in the teaching and mapping of academic English language and study skills for international students (Turner, 2005). In recent years there has been a drift towards adopting a more specific subject-based approach to the teaching of English for academic purposes (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). Supporting this approach, Hyland (2002 p.394) argues that "effective language teaching in the universities involves taking specificity seriously". This means understanding the language used in specific academic contexts and organising the learning around subject specific, purposeful activities (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998).
The presentation focuses on learning and teaching research initially developed through the APT award in 2005-06 entitled: 'Contextualising Insessional Language and Study Skills Support for International and EU students in NBS', which identified Contextualisation, Embedding and Mapping as key elements in delivering in-sessional language and study skills. Throughout 2005-07 the resulting CEM Model was piloted, researched and received positive feedback from both staff and students resulting in pedagogic changes to content and delivery of language and study skills. Such initiatives are re-enforcing and highlighting the importance of the transferability of students' academic learning skills developed in the context of one module to others. In addition the research recognises that these developments are achieved via partnerships between the authors and informal relationships between the ASk specialist, specific Programme Directors, Programme Leaders and Module Tutors.
The authors' believe that for continued integration of student learning initiatives ASk now needs an underpinning strategic framework to support its delivery irrespective of personalities and individuals involved. The presentation will build on the positive internal and external response to the CEM Model received from conferences, presentations, staff development workshops, publications, and student feedback, through discussing the two key areas of sustainability and transferability of the CEM Model. Sustainability recognizes that in order to successfully maintain, develop and integrate the CEM Model as part of overall NBS school policy an established strategic platform would be required. Transferability responds to positive feedback supporting the need for dissemination of the work:
a) internally across the University as an exemplar for integrating insessional language and study skills support
b) to other added value services ie. information literacy
c) externally through promoting Northumbria teaching initiatives.
The presentation will therefore updates initial findings, and identify a provisional framework integrating ASk within PG programmes at the strategic level through Teaching and Learning policies and operational level through programme and module development.